The Games (1976)

From the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Olympic Games are upon us again, with their displays of athleticism and endurance and their political threats. The inspiration for the founding of the modern Games is said to have been the idea that the ancient ones were a reason for the Golden Age of Greece (which rested, in fact, on the exploitation of slaves). The various national representatives to whom Baron de Coubertin put his belief in 1894 might have told him he was a mistaken ass, but set that aside in favour of the prospect of a regular festival of commerce and the nation-state.

The presumptions of the Olympic Games were socially irrelevant even in 1894. Running, jumping, javelin-throwing, boxing and wrestling, equestrianism were valued as military exercises in the ancient world, as archery and quarter-staff were in the Middle Ages; at the end of the nineteenth century the modern era in warfare was beginning and national armies were being remodelled. Amateurism in sport, which the Olympic movement took for granted, was starting to be replaced by professionalism. To the extent that amateurism survived, it opposed the Olympic ideal of transcending social status, since it was plainly the province of the leisured and better-off.

It may be thought this irrelevance is the virtue of the Olympics—that they represent sport for its own sake not as a contribution to other purposes. Nothing would be less true. From the London Games of 1908, the last ones to be monopolized by Britain and the USA, they have provided a bargaining-counter for political conditions. The Germans were excluded from the 1924 Games in Paris; before the 1936 ones in Germany there was a strong movement in the USA against participation. Germany and Japan, the defeated nations in World War II, were absent in 1948, and at every Games since then there have been withdrawals and threats of them on political grounds. The present ones in Montreal were preceded by a dispute over the recognition of Taiwan as "The Republic of China" that involved a trade deal between Canada and Communist China and a threat by America to withdraw—implying an irreparable loss of commercial support—from the Games, and then the withdrawal of 21 African and Arab states in protest against New Zealand's inclusion because the latter had played games with South Africa.

For each nation the Olympic Games are a manifestation of strength; not simply the symbolic vigour of its young men and women, but the amounts of money put into colleges and facilities. The prowess of the USSR since it first won Olympic medals in 1956 has had this effect and since 1960 athletes from the African countries have begun to come to the fore. On the other hand, the scantiness of victories for British competitors is taken as a conformation that Britain is "in decline". The staging of the Games also carries prestige for the nation concerned, implying prosperity and confidence to deal with a rush of commerce.

Given this importance in the economic and political rivalry between nations, the "true spirit of sportsmanship" of the Olympic oath (pronounced on behalf of the competitors before each Games) becomes derisory. Amateurism has been demolished by the intensity of the competition, which demands full-time training; likely Olympic participants are supported by their governments or by commercial firms in return for advertizing. However, the continual pressure for higher levels of performance has inevitably led to devices for overcoming physical limitations. The spectacle now is of athletes driven on by stimulants, heavy men enlarged by steroid drugs and, in the case of girls, pills to suspend their menstrual cycle. In an interview published in the Sunday People on 11th July a champion hammer-thrower said: "One thing's certain—the influence of drugs on performances will be at its peak . . . It's the only way you can compete with the world's best, particularly from the Iron Curtain countries."

It is still claimed, in periods of respite from them, that sporting contests promote good will among nations. What can be seen clearly from the Olympic Games, as well as international football and most other contests, is they do nothing of the kind; they do not even start with that intention, and usually end with an intensification of ill-will. Of course sport in itself is not a cause of international rivalry. Its development into world competitions is an effect of nationalism—the political voices of the economic structure of capitalism. Nor is there anything wrong with games and contests as such. Indeed, one of the regrettable consequences of big-scale sport with commercial and political motives is the damage done to sports as recreation.

In the light of the tensions which now surround them. It is possible that in a few more years the Olympic Games will be abandoned and replaced by competitions among particular groups of countries. In that case, each will no doubt swear its dedication to the highest sporting ethics before trying to do down the others by every means. That is not human nature: it is the ubiquitous reflection of the capitalist system. When we talk about Socialism, it is not just "politics". It is the desire for a world where we can enjoy ourselves and exercise the co-operative faculty which distinguishes man and capitalism does its best, but never manages, to stamp out.

Robert Barltrop

World without Money . . . (1994)

From the October 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

You must be joking! It'll never work. Where's the incentive? What about greed? How could you make it work? It's a theory, it's never been tried; at least we know that capitalism, warts-and-all, works.

Not one, but a combination of the above objections to socialism is responsible for the fact that we still live under capitalism today. Socialism is a co-operative system which relies on the agreement of the majority of men and women throughout the world. For them to agree and agree to co-operate, they first have to know about it. Unfortunately the Socialist Party and its Companion Parties in other parts of the world do not have the resources of the major political parties or organised religion to spread our message, but we use our voice and whatever means are available to us to do so. We are fully aware that until we do, we cannot achieve the sane world where everything is produced in sufficient quantities to satisfy people's needs and not for profit for the minority. Now to address the objections made above.

Duncan is a gardener. He works hard but does not get paid. Neither does Lesley, who is a printer. An interesting article in Choice (July 1994) tells of the spread of LETS (Local Exchange Trading System), an arrangement where money is only used for dealing with "outsiders" and the community operates through a complicated barter system. People go on a register listing their special skills or goods and earn points which are registered centrally for work done. When they need goods, they "pay" from their accumulated credits; even "overdrafts" can be arranged in case of need. The Socialist Party does not advocate such a system, or barter of any kind. What this community (like other co-operative ventures operating without money within their communities) proves is that the contention "no money, no incentive" isn't true and that satisfaction of doing needed work, well done, is incentive enough.

Nor is it sensible to suggest that, with things freely available, people will be greedy and take more than they need. Under capitalism we are constantly brainwashed to judge people by their possessions; hence the urge by so many to prove their "worth" by what they can acquire. The argument fails when that "value" judgement us removed. For instance, people with free travel passes under capitalism do no spend their days making unnecessary journeys.

How will goods be ordered and distributed? We don't know how far technology will have developed when socialism is established, but capitalism's methods today point the way. When you go through the check-out at the supermarket (note: they are no longer referred to as "tills") the bar code on each item is read by the computer, which feeds the information direct to the warehouse for replacement. The computer at the warehouse automatically arranges for this, at the same time checking stock and reordering if necessary; and so on down the chain to the raw materials suppliers.

At the check-out the prices of all the items in your basket are added up and you either pay with notes and coins or get it charged on your plastic credit card. In a socialist society there will be no need for this last stage. The last objection should perhaps not be taken too seriously; "socialism is a theory . . . " For thousands of years to the present day, millions upon millions of people have believed in different versions of "pie in the sky when you die" and have lived their lives accordingly. No-one has ever been there; no-one has ever seen it. What we propose is more believable, sensible and achievable.

Eva Goodman

Why I Joined the SPGB (1976)

From the January 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Having found some of the previous contributions on this subject to be quite fascinating, I would like to join in. After a pretty normal childhood in a petty-bourgeois Jewish family in darkest Manchester with fairly strict religious ideas till around the age of seventeen, I entered the rebel period (to be told by father that I would soon grow out of it like all the others; at the age of 92 he still thinks I will). Then, as now, it was obvious to any teenager with the slightest pretence to thought of any kind, that society was an unpleasant mess and could surely be made a damn sight nicer. Which meant, of course, that one must latch on to one of the left-wing parties or groups (my! how times haven't changed). It happened that at that time there was a new splinter group of the Labour Party coming into fashion led by a wealthy lawyer called Stafford Cripps — a sort of Wedgbenn of his day, though even more of a hypocrite but less of a clown (well, he had to be).

#

This mob had a branch of sorts in the town so there I went to see how we we were going to change the nasty world of the 'thirties into a place fit for humans to live in. I didn't last very long (true, it didn't either; but I went first). Although I was young and keen and no doubt starry-eyed, I simply couldn't follow what they were on about. There was talk about nationalizing the Lancashire cotton mills and I seem to remember discussing a pamphlet on the subject by Zev Hutchinson (don't ask me who he was; I haven't the faintest idea — it is just that his name caught my fancy). But it was all terribly boring and seemed to have no relevance to anything as far as I could see. Also, young and foolish as I was, I soon got the feeling that the few people who were doing the talking were ambitious types on the make. Concerned with making a world fit for them to live in, and not really all that worried about the rest of the heap. One of them was a quite nice-looking, red-headed bird a couple of years older than myself and I remember thinking that here was someone who was going to make something out of all this political claptrap. Her name was Barbara Betts and in later years I sometimes thought how wrong I was in my prediction because after all she disappeared without trace. It was only quite recently that I got the message that a Barbara Betts who was then working as a trainee buyer in Lewis's store in town was rather better known and in a better-paid job by her name of Castle.

After pottering around for a year or so, I had a lucky break. In the local library I came across, quite by accident, a journal I had never heard of, called (yes, you've got it; if only lots of others would get it. A few million circulation would be rather useful) the Socialist Standard. I know it sounds awfully corny to say this, but the very first reading was really a blinding light. I could understand it! I had really felt quite miserable with the pamphlets of the Socialist League (or with the Daily Worker or Daily Herald); apparently the others were quite happy reading and discussing them while I was out of step and found them boring and almost meaningless. So here was a party, whose existence I had never even heard of, talking the kind of language I could almost drink like nectar. (I remember immediately buying a bound volume of old Standards for fourteen bob and having an awful row with my father for wasting my money like that.)

So the next thing was to visit the branch which was listed in the paper. It met in the parlour of two great Socialist stalwarts, Bert and Edie Atkins and I think there were two—or it could have been three—other members in sight. And, remarkably enough, one of them was Uncle Joe, my mother's brother. I used to see him quite often and when I asked him why he had never mentioned the SPGB to me he replied that he thought it would upset my family if their little lad was to get mixed up with revolutionary Socialists so he kept quiet about it. (As, with failing eyesight, he reads this article, I hope he realises that this mention is intended as a salute.) And I well remember, when expressing the wish to join the little throng, Bert giving me a long lecture to the effect that it was no use my joining if I was a young man in a hurry. The party was miniscule (looking round the room I did not find that hard to believe) and I must realise if I joined that the road to Socialism was going to be a long and stony one. So, in all my long years of membership, I never became disillusioned; Atkins had made sure I had no illusions in the first place. And sadly one must confess that the real Socialists in the great working-class city of Manchester, with some quite proud traditions from Peterloo onwards, could still meet in the Atkins's parlour. And this despite the fact that one of the young comrades was the daughter of Tom King — a proud honour as he was a founder-member of the SPGB. A place in history.

#

I will not waste more space as there is nothing special about my story. But perhaps I did create some sort of record. The very first time I took the platform at an outdoor meeting (I was giving the party view on the Stalin Terror which was then at its height) the soap-box was literally smashed from under my feet by a rush of Communist Party thugs. It was their only answer to my criticism. It still is the only answer that they can think of, although they are more circumspect nowadays.

L. E. Weidberg

America’s Wars – On Drugs (2012)

From the August 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

The United States military are stuffing their hired killers with drugs. According to the Toronto Star (28 April), after two long-running wars – in Afghanistan and Iraq – more than 100,000 active duty US Army troops last year were taking prescribed anti-depressants, narcotics, sedatives, anti-psychotics and anti-anxiety drugs, caused mainly by escalating combat stress. 

Almost 8 percent of active-duty personnel are currently on sedatives; and 6 percent are on anti-depressants, an eightfold increase since 2005. US lawyers are blaming the military’s heavy use of psychotropic drugs for their army clients’ aberrant behaviour. Troops are sent out on deployment with up to 180 days’ supplies of so-called medication, much of which they can swallow at the end of just one “anxious day”. And solders with injuries easily become dependent on narcotic painkillers.

James Culp, a former army paratrooper, and now a high-profile military defence lawyer, who recently defended an army private accused of non-state murder, rhetorically asked:

“What do you do when 30 to 80 percent of the people that you have in the military have gone on three or more deployments, and they are mentally worn out? What do you do when they can’t sleep?”

And he answers himself: “You make a calculated risk in prescribing these medications.” Indeed, the modern army psychiatrist’s kit is likely to include nine kinds of anti-depressants; benzodiazepines for anxiety, four anti-psychotics, two kinds of sleep aids and drugs for attention-deficit hyperactivity, according to a 2007 review in the Military Medicine journal.

But it wasn’t always like that.

There was some early ad hoc use of psychotropic drugs during the Vietnam War. Prior to the war in Iraq, however, American soldiers were not permitted to go into combat on psychiatric drugs. Now, some troops in Afghanistan are prescribed drugs that have been associated with paranoia, rage and violent anger spells, and urges to suicide. And all this following training to kill! And show aggression…

Not surprisingly, an increasing number of soldiers and marines behave similarly when not in combat. James Culp relates just one example among many. Last year, Private David Lawrence murdered a Taliban commander in Afghanistan. He pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to 12½ years, but this was later reduced to 10 when it was revealed he was suffering from schizophrenic episodes. He said he was hearing female voices. He was prescribed Zoloft for depression and Trazodone. The voices got worse and he began seeing hallucinations of the chaplain, minus his head. He then walked into the Taliban’s cell, in the jail, and shot him dead. His father said: “They give him a gun and he does that!” Presumably, like most people, Private Lawrence was not normally aggressive or violent. But fighting in one of capitalism’s wars made him so.

Peter E. Newell

Carrying the platform ten thousand miles (1977)

From the March 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

When two members made known that they were visiting the USA as speakers as well as fraternal delegates to the conference of our Companion party of the WSP, the Socialist Party of Canada wanted them too. The result was that by the time our pair arrived in Boston on 9th October an itinerary right from Canada, down the West Coast to California and back to Montreal, had taken shape.

Things started moving in Boston, Pennsylvania, New York City, New Jersey, and New York State. A flood of striking publicity material went out to radio stations and universities; lectures, seminars and interviews were lined up.

The tour started with a one-hour talk on the history of the SPGB at the Boston Conference. Monday being Labour Day made an ideal occasion for an outdoor meeting—out we went, quickly gathering a crowd before whom we had a running debate with a divinity student on Socialism versus religion, Next morning we were up and away for our first college date a Stroudsberg University, Pennsylvania. 50 students of the political science faculty were the audience; "Marx or Lenin" was the subject. Then to New York for the Barrie Faber radio show (biggest commercial station in New York) with seven speakers, who started arguing about Carter and Ford but ended discussing Socialism.

And so it went on day after day. College lectures, radio programmes, newspaper interviews across the continent, finishing with a great meeting of students at Bishops College, Lennoxville, Quebec, on 15th November. In 44 days we gave talks at some of the biggest colleges in North America including Winnipeg, Vancouver, Los Angeles and San Francisco. We had to refuse others because of the itinerary. We had invitations to Columbia, New York, and New York Polytechnic (whose dean of political science interviewed our man on WBAI radio). Berkeley, California, and Edmonton, Alberta, wanted notice which we could not give to organize lectures for the whole faculty.

There were twelve radio interviews, in most cases phone-ins—sometimes two hours answering questions about the SPGB and Socialism, the Labour Party, Marxism, the Communist Party, etc. In Winnipeg an irate lady shouted "Get the old goat off the air and out of Canada at once"; whereupon another rang in to apologise profusely. The response to the interviews was terrific, and the interviewers were delighted. Jack Webster, whose programme is heard by millions on the West Coast, said: "You are listening to a real Socialist now—not a British Labour Party phoney." He added: "I'm going to announce your meeting at the Langara College"—which he did, with the result that the hall was packed.

On television in Vancouver City we had five minutes to answer questions like "What is your opinion of Russia today?" The studio audience applauded the answers spontaneously, and the producer said "We could have done with half an hour of you!" At Bucknell University they gave out a leaflet describing our speaker as "a modern Robin Hood who stands up for the poor against the rich, every Sunday in Hyde Park, London".

Then three days' trek in the Greyhound bus across Ontario. Anyone who thinks the world overpopulated should make the trip: in two days we saw one man and two moose. Arrived in Winnipeg, radio all the morning, university in the afternoon, having broken our journey to speak at Sullivan County College, Monticello, NY State. A debate with a City Councillor on aspects of Marx. In Edmonton listeners rang in and offered to drive us to the university. Whole afternoon discussing with political science tutors. Another 1500 miles through the Rockies, arriving in Vancouver at 12.45 a.m. They greeted us with bad news: we had to be up again at 5 to catch the ferry to the Island, to be on TV at 10. More colleges, more radio shows. In Vancouver we met Chris Luff (94) and Harry Brownrigg (91) and photographed Lestor's Corner (could not speak there—it's a car park now).

5th November, the long drive to 'Frisco. In Los Angeles we gate-crashed a meeting of the "Marxist Group" at the university; after speaking, we were pressed to stay for more—sorry, we have to go! All aboard the New York bus! Change at St. Louis and Chicago! (How we groaned that, of all the cities of the USA, in this one—home of the IWW and the Kerr Publishing Co., famous for its Socialist lectures in the 'twenties, we had no meetings.)   

3,500 miles later we were greeted in Montreal and spent the day discussing plans and books, arranging articles for Socialisme Mondiale. From there a hundred-mile for another smashing meeting! and next day, straight through to Boston to report to the NAC of the WSP on Sunday morning. After that, we boarded the London place to arrive back at Heathrow on 22nd November.

The hospitality of the American and Canadian comrades is fabulous. Our grateful thanks to Larry, George, Jim and Doré in Victoria, Carrie in Boston, Jean in New York, Jack in Stroudsberg, John and Anne in Winnipeg, Phil and Ben in Monticello, Bill in Vancouver, Brian and Bill in LA, Harry and Renée in San Francisco, Serge and Michelle in Montreal—their hospitality made it all possible. Sam Leight gave tremendous help, and George Gloss generously underwrote the trip.

Some college lecturers, like Dr. Bill Coope, gave great help and went out of their way to arrange things for us. Why colleges in Britain are so slow in taking opportunities is perplexing. When Jack Webster asked "Why do you do it?" we replied: "There is no greater satisfaction in this life than spreading knowledge to the benefit of humanity."

We don't even know if we made one member. We do know we revelled in every second of it!

Horatio and Steve

Another wall in the brick (1982)

Film Review from the October 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Pink Floyd's The Wall touches on nearly as many of capitalism's social evils as any issue of the Socialist Standard; except, of course, for an analysis of the cause of the problems. The film depicts with powerful imagery some of the contradictions of capitalist society. Capitalism is represented as the Wall — bureaucratic, alienating and destructive and made up of homogeneous bricks (we workers, no less) plastered together in hideous uniformity. From childhood it moulds workers into blind, submissive bricks in a structure which then exploits their ignorance and apathy for its own purposes.

The film portrays schoolchildren unquestioningly falling into sausage-machines, where they are turned into uniform shapes for the easy digestion of society. The purpose of education in our Buying and Selling Of People System (in suitable sausage form after the authoritarian schooling) couldn't have been more basically, and starkly, portrayed.

The eternally-flying white dove of peace soon explodes into the monstrous eagle of war, revealing both war and peace as products of the Wall society. Soldiers are shown as people at home see them (and as they most commonly are) —as prey of their murderous devices. The war brings them, however, only suffering and destruction. When it ended the soldiers waving from trains are received to the song of Bring The Boys Back Home, while a little boy helplessly searching for his missing father is testimony that not all the boys are brought home. The next theme of continuing war in the minds of the living is embodied in the fatherless boy, who is haunted in his sausage-forming years by war images so overwhelming and incomprehensible. The child becomes a rock-star (played by Bob Geldof, lead singer of the Boomtown Rats), and yet another controlled brick of the establishment.

This rock-star is but a puppet commodity, not unlike the school headmaster whom we witness in one scene being controlled by strings from above. His mind and life have been drained by his success, and he finds himself alienated from the luxurious commodities that are his walls. This estrangement is further sharpened by his excessive viewing of television, particularly its extolling of the virtues of war and hierarchy, which so blatantly contradict his youth experiences of both war and school. But so absorbed is he by his lifestyle that his personal relationship and career are destroyed. He eventually has a nervous breakdown, culminating in a nihilistic act against his many possessions.

The politics of the film are very shallow and naive. Romantic visions of young people breaking through gates (there are many scenes of chained doors being broken into) only lead to opposition by the brute force of the state. The film also suggests a neo-Nazi  regime as the possible, almost logical outcome of the political exploitation of the present disillusionment.

One line of a song in the film, sung by children in the chorus goes: "We don't need no education. We don't need no thought control. No dark sarcasms in the classroom. Teacher leave them kids alone. All in all you're just another brick in the wall". So what's wrong with a demolition job and the building of a free, democratic society in its place?

LEVAR

Soapbox to Soundbite (1997)

Book Review from the July 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Stilled Tongues—from Soapbox to Soundbite. by Stephen Coleman, Porcupine Press £8.95

First impression leave us with the idea that this book is about street oratory in the major cities of this and other countries during the past two centuries and nothing more. But there is a great deal more. To be sure, there is a very good account of that astonishing phenomenon, the outdoor political meeting, which developed in Britain between the end of the nineteenth century and the years immediately following World War II. There is also an account of the development of these street parliaments in the teeth of ruling class opposition from the end of the eighteenth century.

Today the theatre of outdoor meetings, where the person on the platform had to defend his thesis in a free-exchange with the crowd or lose the audience, has been replaced by the spectacle of politicians and entertainers (frequently the same persons) who cannot be questioned—Kilroy and Matthew Parris, Brian Walden, David Mellor and Alan Clark.

The world of working-class auto-didacts who flocked to the public meetings places—"Speakers' Corner at Marble Arch (frequently confused with Hyde Park Corner), Tower Hill, Finsbury Pavement, etc. in London and in all of the other cities of the country also attracted many who had benefited from a more formal education. Around the turn of the century dramatists and literary figures, Bernard Shaw, William Morris and many others did not shrink from sharing the platform with the great unwashed. And at election times even politicians emerged with the object of manufacturing another five years of consent.

Coleman's selection of Methodist figurehead Lord Soper and raconteur Bonar Thompson as representative is arbitrary but he could not do otherwise. The scene he describes was so crowded with larger-than-life figures that his theme could easily have got lost in the welter. This outdoor university with its hundreds of academias-complete-with-dialectics in cities of this and other countries echoed the Greece of the Ancients. The students went away determined to read the recommended texts: Mutual Aid, Socialism Utopian and Scientific, Das Kapital, and mouthing the cabalistic names of the authors, Prince Kropotkin, Friederick Engels, Joseph Dietzgen, Karl Marx.

There was no such tedium for the second of Coleman's orators. Bonar Thompson, with his soft Irish accent, spoke with the hope of collecting a few coins outside the Park after his stint, and relied on wit and paradox to entertain his listeners. The Rev. Donald Soper was, on the other hand, like most speakers, in earnest. He was a militant pacifist as part of his Christian belief and held the Socialist Party in great esteem for its anti-war stance, even to borrowing some of the socialist rationale to reinforce his moral repugnance for militarism.

The second half of Coleman's book, titled: Oratory to Oprah, The Twilight of Public Discussion, deals with the subject as it was affected by developments from the late 1950s on. Sophistication of the media grew—the BBC of Lord Reith's era had dropped the announcers with the cut-glass accents during the War. They could be too easily imitated by foreign propagandists who had been educated in English public schools. Reproducing the accents of Lancashire Wilfred Pickles or Hampshire John Arlott was another matter. But populism did not mean losing control. And television reemerged from its primitive and privileged pre-war form ready-shielded from popular intervention. The coming of commercial TV should have duplicated the situation in the press where millionaires had long indulged their prejudices. But the drive to get viewers and raise advertising rates tempered this tendency. Nevertheless "Britain has seen an appropriation of mass discussion by remote and unaccountable media agencies, and co-extensive with this has been an etiolation of autonomous discussion which has been unmistakably disempowering."

From the radio programme The Brains Trust of the 1940s to the end-to-end quizzing of experts in politics and economics on today's TV programmes, there have always been no end of people offering to do our thinking for us. This book was published just before the election. The result will not call for any re-consideration of the conclusions drawn here—they are too profound. But the devastating scale of the rejection of contemporary politics without any compensating endorsement of anything else on offer cannot be of comfort to our minders.

Ken Smith

The Wings of the I.L.P. (1929)

From the January 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

The possession of wings is a mixed blessing to an organisation, though it may be the means of keeping afloat those that possess little else. However, it is certainly a very popular complaint nowadays and afflicts alike Tory, Liberal. Labour, I.L.P. and Communist Parties. Its growth was slow at first, like all malignant diseases, but the example of Russia has given it a tremendous boost in post-war days.

At present the disease has reached an acute stage in the I.L.P., and the inevitable disintegrating process has set in. One by one the "intellectuals" who held sway in the past are leaving the ship, and intellectuals of the present are taking control of the ship.

The difference in essentials between the latter-day misleaders and their forerunners would require the liberal use of a microscope to discern.

The basic difference in policy may be summed up as follows: In the early days the policy was "Good old Keir Hardie"; in the middle period it was "Good old Ramsay MacDonald"; in the latest period it is "Good old Jimmy Maxton," the pirate who is stealing the laurels of the older warriors. The reason for these various policies is simple. The I.L.P., in the main, is concerned with men and not principles.

The official organ of the I.L.P. is a good illustration of this fact. Week after week it publishes pictures of "prominent" people in the "Labour Movement," and gushes over the doings of one or another. In its issue for November 23rd its front page contained photos of twenty of its contributors as an inducement to the workers to buy it. And this supposed to be the inauguration of a new policy.

But, as mentioned above, the wing trouble is becoming acute. Maxton, like his predecessors, is finding it difficult to keep his feet in two camps at the same time. However, the fight for popularity between Maxton and the older gang is bringing forth some rather useful information of the uselessness, from the working-class point of view, of the reactionary policy of the I.L.P. Here are two informing items:-

I made a statement at the Conference that at the present time there is not a single constituency in the country where there is a majority of convinced Socialist electors. We have plenty of districts, such as Bermondsey, where there is an overwhelming Labour majority, but it is a sheer delusion to think that the greater number of these people understand what we mean by Socialism. They neither understand it nor want it. (Dr. Alfred Salter, in a letter to the "New Leader," 12th October 1928.)

Now it must be admitted that that is a very frank statement from a man who, on his own confession, has been elected to Parliament by the  votes of non-Socialists. If the voters for Dr. Salter neither understand nor want Socialism, then obviously any action in the direction of accomplishing this end would be contrary to the wishes of his supporters and would jeopardise his seat. Dr. Salter, then, on his own admission, did not get elected through professing any Socialistic ideas.

He wrote another letter (or article) to the "New Leader," which appeared on December 7th. In this he said:- 

Many of us who are long-standing members of the I.L.P. have been distressed during the past two or three years at what we regard as the disastrous leadership of the N.A.C. We know first-hand that the membership of the Party is decreasing seriously, that old stalwarts and supporters are resigning, that branches are disintegrating, and that finances are declining. We know that the Special Effort Fund this year is practically a failure owing to numbers of the usual subscribers refusing to contribute. We see the I.L.P., to which some of us have given the best years of our lives, going down to utter wreck and destruction.

A pleasant state of affairs, this, after half a century of "gradualness" and the "little by little and bit by bit" policy! When we have urged the necessity of advocating Socialism, we have been told by I.L.P. protagonists that we were in too much of a hurry and that their policy of Socialism "in bits" was the way to build up a strong organisation. It looks like it!

Gilmac 

The Fetishism of Money (2002)

From the April 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

According to the Oxford English Dictionary the word “fetish” came to be used by anthropologists to mean “an inanimate object worshipped by savages on account of its supposed magical powers.” Often such objects took the form of amulets and in some cultures this practice still continues. In our more developed society this is dismissed as superstition. But whilst the wearing of amulets may not be that common, despite our technical culture “fetishism” is a deeply entrenched part of political thought. 

In Marxian theory the “fetishism of commodities” is the illusion that in buying and selling the values being exchanged are part of the physical make-up of the commodities themselves. If this were true it would mean that buying and selling, and the tyrannies of the profit system, could never be removed. But in fact, the values of commodities result from wage labour as part of the economic relationships of the capitalist system. In socialism, with people co-operating to produce directly for needs, the commodity form of goods will disappear leaving the community with free access to simple articles of use.

In religion, gods are products of the human imagination given powers to dominate the lives of those who create them. The destructive effects of religion are evident in the many conflicts that divide people throughout the world but this does not end with subservience to imagined gods. There is also the fetishism of money. This also attributes powers to an alien force that dominates our social affairs. Part of the fetishism of money is the illusion that money has its own productive powers. Particularly in politics, money is fetishised as having the power to solve problems because without it nothing can be done.

How often do we hear it said, “we do not have the resources”? What is meant by resources is always money. Every day politicians give lack of money as a reason why we cannot provide better health care or safe reliable trains or the many other public services that are in urgent need of improvement. Not just in Whitehall and Westminster but in Borough, District and Parish Councils throughout the country the same mantra is chanted week in and week out, year after year, “if only we had more money, something could be done”. This ignores the fact that productive resources are materials, means of production, transport, energy, communications and networks of infrastructure through which goods and services are produced. And all these depend on one single resource which is labour. These are the real resources on which the lives of communities depend and there is an abundance of labour to provide for needs.

At times there may be millions of unemployed people, factories standing idle and unused materials being stockpiled but capitalist politicians still repeat, “We do not have the resources.” They are unable to see the availability of real resources because their minds are pre-occupied by the illusion that only money resources count. They imagine that real resources can only be brought into use by money, whereas the opposite is the truth. The powers of the community to solve problems can on be fully released with socialism and the abolition of money.

Reliance on the imagined powers of money runs through every social problem. For example, in the last two elections Labour made a commitment to reduce child poverty. For this, they hope to use money. “The chosen means is also clear: a new form of child support which starts in 2003. But it will be costly, as the budget will reveal for the first time.” (Economist, 23 February)

“Poor children are defined as those living in households whose income, after housing costs, is below 60 percent of the median – the income in the exact middle of the income distribution.” Poverty is of course relative and this degree of poverty in Britain is not as severe as the poverty of children in undeveloped countries where 40,000 children under five die in poverty every day. In Britain, child poverty generally means substandard housing, poor conditions in the home, exclusion from benefits enjoyed by better off contemporaries, and poor diets (fats, sugar and carbohydrates).

Any kind of child poverty is a total disgrace and would be easily removed in socialism within a very short time. Under the Labour governments there has been a marginal improvement. According to the Economist,

“Progress has so far been slow. In 1996/7, the year before Labour took office, the number of children living in poverty was 4.4 million. By 1999/2000, this had declined only to 4.1 million. A more substantial decline to 3.5 million is expected for 2001/02 as reforms such as the working families' tax credit (WFTC), introduced in October 1999, take full effect. But this will still mean that the government has failed to meet its earlier pledge to remove more than a million children out of poverty in Labour's first term. To cut the number of poor children by around a million would cost as much as £6.1billion. The pledge to reduce child poverty is proving to be an expensive one.”

Socialists would say not just expensive. Because it relies on the uncertainties of the market system and the use of money, the hope of any Labour government ending child poverty is impossible. Labour and Tory governments having been making the same promise for many years and they have all failed.

Appeals for money

But the magical powers of money to solve problems dominates not just the world of reformist politics, it also dominates the many charities that constantly ask for money. A recent example is an appeal run by Oxfam on TV:

  “What do we dream for our children? Health, happiness, success? A safe place to sleep at night? A drink of water that won't kill them? Never to be hungry again? We all want the best for our children. For some people that starts with such simple things. All they want is a better world for them to grow up in. It's not much to ask and all we are asking of you is £2 a month. 

In over 70 countries Oxfam is helping people work themselves out of poverty. They never give up and neither do we. Will you stand alongside us too? With your £2 a month we can help them with seeds, tools – help them build wells with clean, safe water give children an education so that they can have a chance of a real future free from hunger and pain. All people want is a better life for their children. Please do something remarkable today and help make a dream a reality. Telephone Oxfam today and give £2 a month.”

It is not the purpose here to criticise those who want to do something to help others in desperate need. In a way, their willingness to help provides a hope for the future. But the brutal facts have to be faced, that during the past 25 years during which time OXFAM and similar organisations have been appealing for money to solve problems, the number of seriously undernourished people has, according to the FAO, almost doubled from 435 million in 1974/5 to over 800 million in 2000. In view of this we are bound to point out that when OXFAM claim to be in over 70 countries “helping people to work themselves out of poverty,” so far as the general problem is concerned this statement is misleading. If OXFAM and its supporters were to also join the work of organising for socialism, that would be a significant step forward. What could be their objections to a world organised solely for the needs of people? Surely this is what they claim to want. By working for socialism they could see an end to the need to make appeals for money.

Following the volcanic eruption of Mt. Nyiragongo in Congo the Disasters Emergency Committee broadcast its Goma Crisis Appeal (25 January). This included what given amounts of money could do. For example, “£30 will treat 18 people for severe malaria – £100 will provide clean water to 4,000 people for a week.”

We may not go as far as Oscar Wilde when he wrote, “It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property.” But it does remain true that appeals for money to alleviate suffering tend to perpetuate the system that causes the suffering. Moreover, the idea that such suffering results from natural causes is not always the case. Most natural dangers known and socialism would not need to leave communities exposed to them. This would avoid many disasters. Also, contingency plans would exist throughout the regions and at a world level for the relief of any catastrophe. Emergency supplies of food, clean water, medical supplies would be maintained at strategic points whilst machinery, equipment and helpers would be moved quickly to the area of crisis. The present appeals for money are a pathetic substitute for the availability of real resources and the freedom that communities in socialism would have to immediately use them.

The fetishism of money is part of the ideology of the profit system that claims uncountable victims across the world. In the Pre-Colombian societies of South America, in homage to their gods, human sacrifice was widely practised. For example, this was a gruesome ritual amongst the Aztec people in what is now Mexico. “In the heart of Tenochtitlan the pyramid rose as an architectural fetish, charged with the powers of all the offerings, and the blood from thousands of sacrificed human beings. The structure was the terrifying centre of the Aztec world” (The Aztecs, Richard F. Townsend).

Many of the sacrificial victims were children and we think of this as barbaric. Perhaps for this reason we now prefer to keep out of our minds the fact that every day we sacrifice many more children's lives than the Aztecs could ever manage. We sacrifice them in homage to the god of money, on the altar of the capitalist system. 

Pieter Lawrence

Action Replay: Missing the Green (2014)

The Action Replay column from the June 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

A good walk spoiled is the standard cliché about golf, but it seems that it is far more than a country stroll that can be ruined. According to a recent report (Observer, 27 April), in Surrey more land is used for golf courses than for homes. Green belt land for golf courses is fairly cheap, as the planning system means that it cannot be used for housing (and the price of land for housing has been growing rapidly in the last couple of years, especially in the south of England). Living near to a golf course can raise house prices, though.

And golf uses up more than just land. Maintaining a golf course can require enormous amounts of water, especially in drier areas such as the Mediterranean. Golf tourism, in Spain for instance, means massive demands on water, increased by the visitors who swarm to hotels near the courses. Use of pesticides can affect groundwater and the building of a course can reduce the number of local animal species. There is a Global Anti-Golf Movement (www.antigolf.org) which advocates, inter alia, ‘an immediate moratorium on all golf course development’.

There are many municipal courses, especially in Scotland, but for the most part courses are private property, with keep-off signs, and clubs may be exclusive and very expensive to join. It is often claimed that golfers are mostly comfortably off and in older age groups. So many will have a fair amount of disposable income, with the chance to spend freely on equipment and the socialising that is part of the game.

As a result golf is very big business, involving massive expenditures, on building courses and buying equipment. According to a 2013 report, golf contributes €15bn to the European economy (compared to €56bn in the US) and is responsible for 180,000 full-time-equivalent jobs. It did badly in the recent recession, as many people cut down on club membership, but apparently not so badly as other ‘hobbies’. Golf is also seen as important for some business people, a means of building relationships with others or seeing how someone behaves under stress, how ‘sporting’ or fair-minded they really are. Hence its description as ‘Corporate America’s No. 1 pastime’. A course can even be a place to confirm business deals, so combining exercise with a chance to make a profit.

Paul Bennett

Another war for oil (1990)

Editorial from the September 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

The press have denounced Saddam Hussein of Iraq as a "mad dictator". A dictator he certainly is, and a ruthless and bloody one at that, but he is no more mad than Thatcher or Bush or Mitterand. Or, put another way, since their foreign policies are based on the same principles as his, they are as mad as him.

Iraq is capitalist and its foreign policy is based on the principle that the national capitalist interest must be pursued at all costs. To do this Saddam Hussein has built up the most powerful armed forces his country can afford and has not hesitated to use them. One of Iraqi capitalism's particular problems has been lack of an outlet under full national control to the sea by which to transit its main export, oil. To try to secure this, in 1980 Iraq attacked Iran, then temporarily weakened by the chaos that followed the overthrow of the Shah, so provoking a war which lasted eight years and in which up to a million innocent workers were slaughtered. Now Iraq has attacked and annexed Kuwait.

Would Thatcher or Bush or Mitterand have acted differently in the same circumstances? Have they never used force to defend the vital interests of their capitalists? They criticise Iraq for developing and using chemical weapons, but their countries have armed themselves with the more deadly nuclear weapons, and each of them has personally declared that they would be prepared to push the button that could destroy the world. Who is the madder? Saddam Hussein or them?

The fact is that under capitalism "Might is Right" and all countries have to base their foreign policy on this principle. The battle of competition on the world market is not just a peaceful economic struggle. The threat of armed force is always present as the competing firms have the backing of their governments. States, with their armed might, exist to promote capitalist interests. At home they do this by trying to create the best environment for profit-making. Abroad their role is to secure access for their firms to raw materials, investment outlets, markets and trade routes.

Normally this jockeying for position takes place by diplomatic means, but all governments are aware that what influences the outcome of negotiations is not the "justice" of any side's case but the amount of force each can potentially deploy to back up its demands. It is always a question of the balance of forces between the sides.

This is why all states strive to acquire the most destructive weapons they can afford. It was why Neil Kinnock's hero, the failed Labour politician Aneurin Bevan, wanted Britain to have nuclear weapons. Without them, he said, a British Foreign Secretary would be going into the Conference Chamber naked. Which he said he was not prepared to do. So Saddam Hussein isn't either, nor is any other leader of any other state.

The reason the Western powers are kicking up a fuss—and planning military action themselves—over Iraq's invasion of Kuwait has nothing to do with this being some brutal "violation of international law" (They have all done this too, when it has suited their interests). It has to do with the threat this represents to their oil supplies. In other words, they are motivated by the same naked capitalist economic interest as Iraq. Iraq wants a secure trade route for its oil exports; they want a secure source of the vital raw material oil is for them.

Capitalism is a war-prone society. The armed truce that is all "peace" can amount to under capitalism will always be broken from time to time, as on this occasion, by the destruction and slaughter of real war. To end war capitalism must be ended.

The thin red line (1988)

Book Review from the January 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Faced with a social system which creates problems faster than its politicians can make promises, responses range from the stupidly complacent, to those whose self-righteous radicalism leaves no time for actually solving the problems they shout about. Would-be "leaders" the world over, rush to defend the indefensible. Political parties compete to run a system of organised poverty and obscene contradictions, which has built weapons to destroy humanity while millions starve. Most political debate is as irrational as the system of class division and profit which, in one form or another, it seeks to defend. It is therefore very refreshing indeed when a glimmer of social sanity shows itself through this dense fog of doublethink.

Just such an encouraging and exciting event took place late last year, with the publication of a book which is of significance. Until now, those historians who claimed to deal with the "labour movement" or the opposition to capitalism have focused, almost entirely, on the opportunists who have come to power by riding on the back of social discontent and perverting the idea of social freedom, through the Labour Party, the Communist Party or the Trotskyist fringe. Those who have upheld a clear and principled socialist alternative in the face of fierce hostility have all too often been relegated to a contemptuous footnote  in small print, if they were mentioned at all.

Now the record has been set straight. Non-Market Socialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries is a fascinating and compelling account which deals exclusively with those who have seen through the nonsense of the profit system and who have stood clearly for the abolition of capitalism in any of its forms, whether private or state controlled and its replacement by a system of production for use, with human needs being met through free access to all goods and services. Socialist ideas are explained in a historical context which makes them all the more powerful and urgent. Moreover, it is demonstrated that capitalism really does "produce its own gravediggers", as various groups at different times and places have independently reached (and continue independently to reach) the same conclusion - that since the problems of the working-class majority cannot possibly be solved through the reform of the capitalist system, therefore it must be replaced.

Following the pattern used in each of the chapters of the book, let us first set out the background and central idea put forward in this work, before summarising the content and moving on to weigh up its strengths and weaknesses as a book. Non-Market Socialism, edited by Maximillien Rubel and John Crump, published by Macmillan and available in paperback at £8.95, arose out of a conference of discussion and debate which took place in York in September 1984. The revolutionary basis on which the book develops is made clear from the formal dedication on the very first page, which states

This book is dedicated to the men and women of the thin red line of non-market socialism who have kept alive the vision of socialism as a society of personal freedom, communal solidarity, production for use and free access to goods.

Socialism defined

In Chapter Two, written by John Crump (who for some time was a member of The Socialist Party), four key features are outlined, as a definition of socialism which is to be used throughout the book. These are that:

• Production will be for use and not for sale on the market.
• Distribution will be according to need and not by means of buying and selling.
• Labour will be voluntary and not imposed on workers by means of a coercive wages system.
• A human community will exist and social divisions based on class, nationality, sex or race will have disappeared.

Crump them goes on to elaborate excellently on all the implications of such a revolution in social relationships, dealing very clearly with all the common myths of "human nature" which have sometimes been used to obstruct such discussion. He also explains the historical emergence of the "Social Democratic" and Leninist movements which distorted and confused this fundamental concept of the socialist alternative. The way in which the Russian Revolution of 1917 established a regime of state capitalism is also clearly stated, with quotations from the Socialist Standard from that period to demonstrate how socialists were able to make such an analysis even then. Also in Crump's chapter, the whole notion of a "transitional society" between capitalism and socialism is explored and rejected.

At this stage, the central thesis and claim of the book is explained. This is that there have been various movements which have stood openly for the socialist alternative as defined above, the five most significant such "tendencies" to be dealt with in detail in subsequent chapters. While agreeing on their object or aim, these movements have been in conflict over how to achieve that goal and over various other points of detail. Crump argues that such differences constitute a "periphery" which, at the present time, is less important than the "core" idea of defining socialism, introducing workers to this and encouraging them to adopt it as the only practical alternative to the exploitation of the capitalist system. We will consider this general thesis in more detail below but let us first take a look at the contents of the other chapters.

A background survey which explores the nineteenth century origins of socialist idea is provided by Maximilien Rubel, a recognised authority and scholar of Marx, based in Paris, who has been in close contact with The Socialist Party. Rubel takes as his starting point the 1848 Communist Manifesto's list of categories of "Socialism" and finds there some early progenitors of both the modern idea of "market socialism" (of course, a contradiction in terms) and of the non-market alternative. He seeks to rescue from relative obscurity and rehabilitate into their deserved place of recognition such early socialist thinkers as Wilhelm Weitling or Flora Tristan and many others. In contrast to "vulgar materialism", Rubel presents the need for socialism as an "ethical imperative": a term whose use has been debated in the columns of the Socialist Standard when Rubel has corresponded with us on that issue. Finally, and with great eloquence, he demolishes the very damaging claims of the Bolsheviks to have established "socialism" in Russia, with their perversion of "Marxism" into a distorted religious ideology.

In a chapter on "Anarcho-Communism", Alain Pengam develops further the rich heritage and background of ideas from which the modern socialist movement has developed, by focussing on those early anarchists who embraced most clearly the idea of abolishing property relationships. Déjacque, for example, wrote in 1858 that social revolution means that "Commerce . . . this scourge of the 19th century, has disappeared amongst humanity. There are no longer either sellers or sold" (p.64). Kropotkin is also extensively quoted on the need for the abolition of the wages system. Beyond this, however, Pengam struggles in vain to find any substantial threads of such a tradition extending into the twentieth century, referring for example to the military defeat during the Mexican Revolution of those anarchists who sought in vain to establish agricultural co-operative communes there.

World Socialist Movement

This brings us to Chapter Four, on "Impossibilism", which is written by Stephen Coleman and focuses on The Socialist Party itself. In a postscript to the book it is pointed out that the Socialist Party of Great Britain, "with a record of over eighty years' unbroken commitment to non-market socialism" is an exception to the general rule, whereby other groups proclaiming allegiance to the ideas of non-market socialism have tended to be rather more fleeting in their organisational existence. Coleman makes it quite clear in his chapter how and why that consistency of both organisation and principle has been achieved by The Socialist Party.

The formation of The Socialist Party in 1904 is described, as is the formation of its similar predecessor, the Socialist League in 1884, both as breakaway groups from the Social Democratic Federation. From the League, William Morris is quoted on the need to "put an end for ever to the wage-system" so that everyone could have "free access to the means of production of wealth" (p. 85). There is also a brief description of the ideas of Daniel De Leon and of the Socialist Labour Party, with their notion of the need for "labour vouchers" in a socialist society clearly dealt with.

Coleman then goes on to produce an excellent, sweeping survey of the history and ideas of The Socialist Party and its companion parties in other countries, referred to as the World Socialist Movement. This is of great historical significance in itself, since until now we have been faced with an overwhelming silence from labour historians in relation to the unique and inspiring record of The Socialist Party, in putting forward a consistent case for socialism in a way which is now properly documented and described in this chapter. In fact, the only other book previously published dealing with The Socialist Party was produced in 1975 under the title of The Monument, and consisted of a series of (often inaccurate) anecdotes, failing to deal at all seriously with the development of socialist ideas.

The work in question, on the other hand, sets this record straight. Using a wide assortment of examples, ranging from India to Canada, Britain and elsewhere we see how socialism was positively put and reformist compromise consistently opposed throughout the upheavals of these years. We read how both world wars were actively opposed, and how the Socialist Standard has been published every month without fail, despite the difficulties that have been involved.

A careful reading of Coleman's chapter also shows that there are two false assumptions which emerge elsewhere in the book. First, in his introductory chapter Crump claims that The Socialist Party is separate from the other traditions referred to because it has a "parliamentary strategy" which is "anathema to the other currents of non-market socialists". In fact, it would be more accurate to state the emphasis of Socialist Party material has been democratic, concerning on the need for socialism to be established by a conscious majority, since means must harmonise with ends. Coleman contrasts the "parliamentarianism" of the reformists, which involves sending representatives to Parliament to run capitalism, with the socialist policy in which a socialist majority mandates recallable delegates in order to dismantle the state machine, from a position of control. Coleman tells the story of the socialist speaker who referred to socialism coming not just through the ballot box, but through the "brain box" and points out that

it is clearly those who insist that ballot boxes and parliaments can play no part in the establishment of socialism and assert that socialism can only be established via industrial organisation alone, who are being dogmatic and historically fetishised in their thinking about the revolution. (p.94)

Second, one might think from reading the introductory sections of the book that the various tendencies considered differ fro one another only in their ideas about how socialism is to be achieved. It is clear however, from looking at the closing section of Chapter Four in comparison with other chapters, that there is another important difference which distinguishes The Socialist Party in particular from those other tendencies. This is that The Socialist Party is alone in remaining organised on a significant scale and politically active in Britain today.

Possible exceptions to this, it might be argued, would be found under the heading of "Council Communism", which is dealt with in Chapter Five by Mark Shipway. It is, however, stated in the Postscript that "it is doubtful whether any 'orthodox' council communist groups exist today". Of the organisations which are then listed, the International Communist Current has been found in debate with The Socialist Party to adhere to a fundamentally Leninist position and the group Wildcat, of which Shipway is a member and which is reviewed critically in the December 1987 Socialist Standard, state that "we struggle in favour of strikes, riots and all other acts of rebellion against capitalism", which hardly suggests credibility in terms of democratic organisation.

Council Communism
Shipway presents an historical account of the emergence of the Council Communist movement in the wake of the First World War, quoting extensively from Anton Pannekoek. Unlike other tendencies dealt with, the Council Communists were generally more preoccupied with a detailed discussion of how the revolution would take place -  as far as they were concerned, through the setting up of workers' councils to rival the capitalist state - rather than focusing, in any detail, on what end result was to be achieved through this process. In the course of his analysis, Shipway accepts the somewhat suicidal notion of workers forming their own militias to rival the capitalist armed forces (p.117), refers somewhat confusingly to "periods of revolutionary turmoil" (p.108) and quotes approvingly the need for a party to "win the trust of the masses" (p.124). He states, rather hopefully, that Council Communist intervention in working class struggles "should" be based on nothing less that the final goal of communism, while recognising that this has not generally been the case. (p.124). Further, support is given to Pannekoek's emphasis on theories of economic breakdown (p.120) and to his rather obscure and vanguardist references to building up the "spiritual power" of workers (p. 122).

Bordiga
In Chapter Six, Adam Buick presents a detailed view of "Bordigism", the movement named after the Italian marxist Amadeo Bordiga, who died in 1970 after a great literary and political output. After an historical explanation of the succession of parties influenced by Bordiga's thinking, culminating in the International Communist Party, among others, Buick goes on to show how Bordiga's concept of socialism was explicitly based on the abolition of the market system and of all property relationships, including those of state capitalism.

By quoting extensively from Bordiga himself, Buick methodically and clearly demonstrates just how emphatically capitalism in all its manifestations was understood and rejected by Bordiga. Many good examples of this are given, perhaps one of the simplest being that "where there is money, there is neither socialism nor communism, as there isn't, and by a long way, in Russia" (Bordiga, 1959, quoted on p.139).

Buick also explains the paradox, that alongside this very clear revolutionary concept of the socialist alternative, the Bordigists have remained élitist in terms of political strategy, believing that socialist understanding on the part of the working class majority could be developed after, rather than before, socialism is brought about.This, again, relates to the underlying thesis of the book, because whereas Bordigist means of obtaining their goal can be seen in this chapter to stand at odds in many ways with their goal, it is argued by Crump in Chapter Two that this is "peripheral", since workers who are educated by Bordigism into revolutionary ends can themselves prove the Bordigists wrong in practice about the means required to bring this about. It is perhaps worth noting, however, that means often determine ends rather than the other way round and that of course ultimately the two cannot be separated. Buick implicitly recognises this fact by showing how the Bordigist conception of socialism itself is "non-democratic" and "technocratic", involving not full participation in the control of production but the appointment of experts to make decisions in the best interests of others - an angle which would perhaps be regarded with more cynicism by many workers in the 1980s than in former decades. Also, despite these reservations, there is clearly validity in Crump's point that Bordigism, together with the other movements considered, has definitely played a positive part in introducing workers to the idea of the abolition of the wages system and its replacement with a system of production for use.

Situationists
Finally, the movement of "Situationism" is dealt with in Chapter Seven, again by Mark Shipway. The Situationist International was a small group based in France which produced a substantial amount of literature between 1957 and 1973 and which became widely known, out of all proportion to its numbers, as a result of the May 1968 "Events" in Paris. They were explicit in their opposition to modern capitalism, which they called the society of the "Spectacle", because of the passivity and alienation it produced and in their support for socialist revolution. Shipway clearly explains their theories of consumerism, with key texts by Guy Debord and Raoul Vaneigem, finding roots in Marx's theory of alienation and weaknesses in that Situationist was based rather narrowly on conditions in the post-war boom in France. What also emerges, however, is that they developed some very important cultural and psychological insights into capitalism which complement much of the more traditionally political and economic analysis focused on in the rest of the book. Finally, Shipway ends the book with a comment on reformism which appears rather at odds with the rest of the book:

Of course it would be ideal if every time workers went on strike it was for the abolition of the wages system. But while this is not the situation in which revolutionaries presently find themselves, neither is it a reason for ignoring or abstaining from any struggle which starts out on the basis of ostensibly reformist demands. (p.169)

It is worth pointing out in relation to this that each author was separately responsible for his own chapter and clearly some have been more clear on such issues than others. A good reason, for example, why revolutionaries must abstain from struggles which start out "on the basis of ostensibly reformist demands" is suggested in a very clear passage by Crump in Chapter Two, in which he explains that there can be no halfway house between the two "all-or-nothing" options of world capitalism and world socialism:

the means of production must either function as capital throughout the world (in which case wage labour and capitalism persist internationally) or they must be commonly owned and democratically controlled at a global level (in which case they would be used to produce wealth fro free, worldwide distribution) . . . the changeover from world capitalism to world socialism will have to take the form of a short, sharp rupture (a revolution), rather than an extended process of cumulative transformation. (pp.54,55)

In conclusion then, the detailed chapters on the five main tendencies which have supported the idea of "non-market socialism" suggest that the original thesis was to some extent a victory of hope over reason. In terms of practical and active organisation in 1988, and particularly in Britain, the organised movement for socialism is somewhat more unitary than this volume might suggest. Also in terms of developing a practical strategy for establishing socialism which takes due account of the importance of both majority consciousness and democracy and which recognises the need to relate means to ends, then again the "thin red line" is perhaps thinner than we might wish it.

Despite such reservations, those who have collaborated in the production of this book have effectively broken a silence of decades. We hope this will also generate further discussion and debate among that growing number of individuals and groups who have come to reject capitalism, in all its forms, and seek to develop a non-market alternative. It is a strong vindication of Marx's Materialist Conception of History that from a variety of times, places and backgrounds within capitalism workers have reached similar conclusions about the need to establish a new social system capable of meeting the needs of all. The fact that workers now continue to seek such answers shows that non-market socialism is both practical and urgent. Those who wish, then, to further their understanding of the movement for socialism are recommended to get hold of this book. In continuing such discussions, we are helping to ensure that the "thin red line" does not remain so thin in the immediate future.

Clifford Slapper 

Pathfinders: Back from the brink (2014)

The Pathfinders Column from the June 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

A fact about infectious diseases which deserves to be better known is that the closer you come to eradicating them, the more potentially dangerous they become. A case in point is polio, which the world came to within an ace of wiping out only to see it resurge to the point where last month the World Health Organisation declared a public health emergency (New Scientist, 10 May). The approach of spring rains in the northern hemisphere prompted the WHO to call for immediate vaccination drives after outbreaks in Syria, where such programmes have been interrupted by war and poor sanitation conditions in rebel-held areas, but also in Cameroon and Pakistan, where Muslim imams have notoriously claimed that vaccination was a western plot to sterilise their children. Vaccination is also strongly opposed in Nigeria by the guerrilla group Boko Haram, whose other recent contributions to civilisation have included abducting 200 schoolgirls to sell as sex-slaves and blowing up a hospital. Boko Haram (No to Western Education) is by the way a fine example of militant ignorance gone mad and a sobering reminder to socialists that if liberal capitalism were ever to collapse as some on the left delight in prophesying, there are groups out there who would love nothing better than to push the world back into the Stone Age.

To get an idea how pervasive polio was only a generation or so ago, consider what connects the following famous people: Alan Alda, Neil Young, Arthur C Clarke, Jack Nicklaus, Francis Ford Coppola, Lord Snowdon, Mia Farrow, Ida Lupino, Donald Sutherland, David Starkey and Johnny Weissmuller. No prizes given, and we didn’t even mention more famous polio victims like Franklin D Roosevelt, Frida Kahlo or Ian Dury.

The 1952 polio epidemic was the worst outbreak in US history, with 58,000 cases. In 2013 there were just 417 cases worldwide. This year so far there have been 68 confirmed cases. This may not sound like a lot, and it isn’t, so one might wonder why the WHO is ringing alarm bells so quickly. It’s because vaccination programmes don’t aim to vaccinate everyone, owing to the practical difficulties and expense, they generally aim for ‘herd immunity’. If a sufficient percentage of individuals are vaccinated in a group, those at risk of infection do not come into contact with each other and the virus is blocked by natural buffers. But if the percentage drops below the threshold level herd immunity breaks down, at which point an epidemic becomes sustainable. Consider this on a global scale, with modern air transport, and you begin to see why the WHO is worried. Syria, Cameroon and Pakistan are all known to be exporting the disease.

One doctor working in Dier ez-Zor, the province of Syriawhich first saw the outbreak, was quoted in December as saying “This is a disease. This is not politics” (npr.org/health, 2 December 2013). If only that were true. There would not have been an outbreak in the first place had it not been for the political situation. But diseases can be instruments of war as well as symptoms. In May 2010 this column discussed the eradication of smallpox, one of the towering achievements of modern science. Yet stockpiles of the virus continue to be held at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, USA and at the State Research Centre for Virology and Biotechnology in Koltsovo, Russia. Why? As Gareth Williams, professor of medicine at Bristol University, points out, these stockpiles have not been instrumental in any significant research into virology which might justify their continued existence. Meanwhile, because no virus exists in the wild there is effectively zero immunity among populations, and only derisory stocks of vaccine available in the case of accidental or deliberate release. The consequences would be truly biblical, which is why Professor Williams insists the stockpiles should be destroyed immediately (New Scientist, 17 May). Politically speaking, though, the stockpiles can be seen as an Ace of Spades in a pack of potential war cards, which may be why the WHO has been unable to enforce destruction despite five previous attempts, and why the US and Russia both oppose destruction.

Priorities turned upside down

The verdict is partially in concerning the sinking of the Korean ferry Sewol in April with the confirmed loss of 276 people – mostly high school students – and 23 still unaccounted for (BBC News Online, 16 May). It is still not clear why the ferry made a sudden sharp turn off the coast of Jindo island, but the cause of the resulting list and eventual capsize has become clear – it was overloaded and top-heavy. The ferry owners had redesigned the upper decks to create additional passenger space, and it had passed a Korean safety inspection only under the proviso that it would need to carry more ballast and cut down its cargo capacity in order to offset this extra weight. It seems that the owners chose to ignore this proviso and that the ferry was routinely overloaded despite a warning by an off-duty captain that this was making the ferry unstable. The cargo allowance was set at 987 tonnes while ballast load was set at 1,568 tonnes. When the ship sank it was carrying 3,608 tonnes of cargo, three and a half times the permitted amount, with ballast of just 580 tonnes, around a third of the requirement. Since ballast is held at the bottom of the hull while cargo and passengers are both above the water-line, it’s clear that the ferry was not only overloaded but top-heavy. The sudden turn, for whatever reason, resulted in a Mary Rose-type disaster. Very likely, vehicles and cargo broke their ties and slid across the decks, tipping the listing ship completely over.

All the media fuss, the Prime Minister’s resignation and the President’s apology, has been to do with how the disaster was handled, including the captain’s supposedly bad advice to stay put and not risk the water until rescue boats were on hand, and the slowness of the recovery of bodies, even though one diver died in the treacherous conditions. Socialists won’t be astonished that the surviving crew were the first to get the blame for the disaster itself, although one crewmember died trying to save passengers. This is the usual scenario, with corporate bosses and shareholders doing everything they can to distance themselves from blame. Ultimately you don’t need to be a socialist to see what was going on here – profits from carriage, shortcuts on safety, and blame the workers when the enterprise keels over and sinks like a stone.

PJS