Here we go again (1987)

From the December 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

The "socialist" conference in Chesterfield attracted considerable media attention. Tony Benn called it a gathering of the widest range of socialists since the First World War. 1,800 delegates were at the conference, including members of the SWP, WRP. RCP. Militant and the Labour Party. Convened by people from the Conference of Socialist Economists and the Socialist Society, described by one newspaper as "intellectuals", its aim - that discussion would take place on papers prepared for the conference - was unfulfilled. The reason was largely the determination of Trotskyist groups to use the occasion to state their own position and to indulge in a recruitment drive. The leader column of the Guardian described the conference as "a collection of attitude takers, discredited failures and sectarian anti-Labour activists".

Ron Todd's docker is hardly likely to have been impressed by the petty squabbling and misleading drivel emanating from Chesterfield. Whilst the conference may have fed the already fevered minds of Sun and Daily Express leader writers, this circus had nothing to do with furthering socialism. Ken Livingstone delivered what passed for an intelligent analysis of the crisis in capitalism and its imminent collapse - to be replaced by state capitalism with guess who in charge of it. His stand-up comic routine may have appealed to those who still believe that a socialist revolution occurred in Russia in 1917 but not even a newt would believe in his version of a "new socialist order". 

The Guardian report stated, "Notably absent, however, were the Euro-Communists and, of course, the Labour soft left". There was a more notable absence from Chesterfield: The Socialist Party of Great Britain: the only socialist party in this country which has eschewed deluding the working class into believing that capitalism can reformed in their interest. We were absent because we have no common cause with futile reformists, gathered together in earnest discussion of how to re-arrange capitalism while telling the workers that it is socialism.

Editorial: Why politicians tell lies (1994)

Editorial from the January 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

It appears that politicians have never been so distrusted. Their reputation for integrity is zero. Sincerity was never a virtue of that occupation but now, what was once seen as a possible credibility gap has become a great gulf between what they say and the truth. According to a recent Gallup Poll 90 percent of the electorate think that politicians cannot open their mouths without telling lies.

Of course, there is nothing new about politicians making promises which they know they cannot deliver. There is nothing new about governments lying to the public. As lying goes, the present government is only an average performer yet another recent poll shows that John Major, as Prime Minister, has the lowest ratings since polls began. Why is he, and politicians generally, attracting this special contempt?

The Tory government has certainly lost contact with reality. With the social fabric crumbling around them they still think they are building a better society. After 14 years in office, having been driven by a latter-day fervour for the free market, they are now exhausted. They have run out of ideas, are in the grip of failure and have nowhere to go. They cannot see the truth let alone tell it.

Neither does the Labour Party present an alternative. Having abandoned its traditional but illusory claim to be the party of change and having openly dedicated itself to the running of capitalism, it is now speaking the same jaded language as the Tories.

These things are true but they are not an explanation for the apparent dishonesty of politicians. We need to ask further questions about more deeply-rooted causes. The answers show that the public should never have trusted politicians in the first place. The lesson is, trust a capitalist politician and you deserve all you get. Unfortunately, when naive trust turns to disillusion and contempt, by itself this is not enough.

It should always be obvious that politicians want power, which they never get by telling the truth. They function in a world of make-believe in which what they say they can do has almost no connection with real possibilities. In this world of political illusions they pretend that in power they can control events. The reality is that governments spend most of their time reacting to events which they cannot control. No government has ever been able to control the economic conditions of the market system but at the same time no politician has ever gained power by declaring the truth of that fact.

Politicians run the profit system for the benefit of a minority but they do it amidst the widespread belief that they run it in the interests of the whole community. This is the great deception which is the main source of the lies of politicians and governments. Is it not surprising them that the majority of people are alienated not just from politicians but the entire political process.

So, what must be done? As voters we must clean up our own act. We must take on our own powers of responsibility and action. We must stop electing career politicians to run a system which is against our interests. This means using our powers to establish a society which is organized solely and directly for the needs of the whole community through common ownership, democratic control and voluntary cooperation. This will provide an open democracy in which we will be free to make decisions about what must be done whilst at the same time having the powers of action to carry out those decisions. It is only on this basis that a truly democratic administration can work with integrity of purpose simply as one part of the different functions of society.

This will replace the tawdry operation of the capitalist state with its false hopes and broken promises, and its secrecy, deceptions and lies masking its real role as the enforcer of privileged class interests.

Material World: Stateless in Capitalism (2015)

The Material World Column from the July 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Having a nationality is something so natural that people rarely stop to think about what life would be like without it. Stateless people have no nationality and are not accepted as citizens by any country. With no ID, they are deprived of basic rights and vulnerable to exploitation and human traffickers. Stateless people have no rights to the basics most people take for granted such as health-care, education and employment. They cannot travel, open bank accounts, buy a house or car, or even get married. The current tragedy taking place with the Rohingya refugees has at its root cause with the Burmese government’s refusal to acknowledge the Rohingya as citizens (they even dispute the actual term, insisting they be called Bengali).

A stateless person is someone who is not considered as a national by any state. Being stateless means individuals have no legal identity, no passport, no vote, and few or no opportunities to get an education. Without documents, it is impossible to register marriage, so family life is affected. Travelling is difficult, and simple things like opening a bank account or getting a driving licence are impossible. Many find themselves stuck in a legal limbo, and can find themselves facing detention and destitution, unable to work formally, living at the margins of society. The stateless often face insoluble problems over property rights or the custody of children. They live in constant fear of being expelled from a country or sometimes resort to fleeing and split up their families in a desperate attempt to resolve their children’s statelessness. In 27 countries women are denied the right to pass on their nationality to their children on an equal basis as men.

At least 10 million people worldwide have no nationality. Thailand is home to more than 500,000 stateless people in its population of nearly 70 million. The Dominican Republic in 2013 applied new nationality criteria retroactively and affected the nationality status of tens of thousands of people of Haitian descent born in the Dominican Republic. While in Europe, Estonia and Latvia, ex-Soviet Union republics, have some 91,000 and 267,000 stateless people respectively.

For generations, Roma families living in mahalas (neighbourhoods) in the Balkans have passed down their houses to relatives through informal means. It is uncommon for these inheritances to be properly registered or to have official legal titles. These same families often forgo registering the birth of a child with local authorities, as the cost of obtaining a birth certificate can be prohibitive. Without official identification documents or legal claims to their property, Roma families in the region are at increased risk of statelessness. The problem only worsened with the decades of conflict that have plagued the Balkans. The Roma now living in refugee camps can neither prove their previous legal residence in Kosovo nor meet the necessary requirements to obtain citizenship in Montenegro.

The UNHCR believes a stateless baby is born every 10 minutes.

We should contrast the persecution of the poor stateless person with the luxury and liberty of the elite group of the world’s voluntary stateless super-rich. They transcend geographical boundaries to purchase properties in major cities across the globe. With few ties to specific countries, these individuals lead nomadic, season-driven lives. Their choice of where to live at any one time is based on climate, their children’s education, tax constraints or which of their friends they want to lunch with on any particular day. This global lifestyle has led to the stateless super-rich buying a larger portion of the world’s most expensive homes as they look to park their wealth in perceived havens. They own multiple properties, usually consisting of two in their country of principal residence, one in a global city such as London, Paris or New York, and a holiday home by the beach or perhaps in the mountains.

‘The more money you have, the more rootless you become because everything is possible,’ says Jeremy Davidson, a property consultant. ‘I have clients who wake up in the morning and say, ‘Let’s go to Venice for lunch.’ If you’ve got that sort of money the world becomes a very small place. They tend to have a diminished sense of place, of where their roots are,’ he told the Financial Times (28 April, 2012).

The World Socialist Movement stands opposed to the nation-state and advocates a world in which everyone will be ‘stateless’ but that has nothing in common with statelessness under capitalism as described above. While states exist all workers living in one, whether citizens, stateless or citizens of another state, are fellow workers who should treat each other and be treated as the same.

To emancipate ourselves, we, the working class must come to realise that we have no country and come together to engage in a world-wide class struggle against the capitalist class.

ALJO

Heroine and Victim (1975)

Book Review from the April 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Before and After Stalin, by Aino Kuusinen. Michael Joseph, £3.50

The days of my youth were spent mainly in Moscow, the throbbing heart of Revolutionary Russia.

In those days, a few years after the revolution, we frequently saw, though always in the background, at the huge "Comintern" building, or more often at the notorious "Lux" hotel (where we all lived) a stunningly beautiful young woman, who made most of the film stars and sex-symbols look like catsmeat; ash-blond hair, blue eyes, cream-and-roses complexion. "Who's that?" we would enquire, eagerly agog with male curiosity. "Oh! that!" was the reply. "That's Otto Kuusinen's wife." And who, you may well ask, is Otto Kuusinen?

Otto Kuusinen, dear reader, was the supreme Stalinist toady. General Secretary of the Executive of the Communist International from its inception in 1919 till Stalin killed it in 1936. The shadow behind every intrigue and plot to destroy rivals, whether Trotsky or his own native erstwhile comrade Karl Manner; who never put his own signature to a document but always had a front-man to carry the can. Indeed the ultimate intriguer, who watches his wife endure eighteen years in Stalin's labour camps, who refused to utter a word when his own son was imprisoned and shot, and whose daughter only escaped Dracula Stalin by luck; during all of which he kept dead silent. The only "foreign communist" who made it to the Vice-Presidency of the Soviet Union and the eventual membership of the holy of holies, the Polit-Bureau of the Party: after all the others had been shot.

This book Before and After Stalin by Aina Kuusinen his life unwittingly tells his story.

In 1930 she was sent by her old man (as secretary of the Comintern) to America to help the gang at the head of the American Communist Party to nobble the funds and buildings of the Finnish Immigrant Workers' Clubs. It never succeeded and she eventually refused to do it. Returning to Moscow she was amazed to be ordered to Tokyo to establish herself as a Soviet agent.

There she encountered the most notorious double agent of all time, Richard Sorge, the villain who worked for Stalin while reporting to Hitler as Tokyo correspondent of the Frankfurter Zeitung. Sorge actually telegraphed advance information of the German invasion to Stalin, who in his conceit ignored it.

Her book is all the more impressive for its forbearance and toleration. So far from denouncing, she tries to "explain" him and his actions, by references to the political environment in which he worked. She calmly records endless interrogation and indignities. She was slung in a cell in the dreaded Lubyanka prison; the top torturers of the NKVD gave up after long interrogations [failed] to make her sign phoney "confessions".

At the age of seventy, she describes how she was finally "rehabilitated" after Stalin's death, released and arrived back in Moscow without money, adequate clothing, identity cards, job, food or shelter. She wrote to the General Secretary of the Communist Party walked into the office with the letter and was told to wait outside on the pavement, in the depths of a Moscow winter.

Her book carries the ring of truth. It is an inspiration for generations to come, who will one day break the chains of the foul Russian Bolsheviks' dictatorship.

Horatio

Necessity and Freedom (1959)

From the October 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

THE ETHICS OF MARXISM (5) (See Parts 1, 2, 3 & 4)

The bourgeois prejudice sees Marxism as a philosophy of iron necessitarianism; hence as a negation of freedom. The bourgeois prejudice prizes freedom and holds it to be among the rarest blooms of civilization. Asked to define freedom it may feel that such technical matters can be taken care of by the pundits and philosophers. From its own empirical standpoint, freedom is not so much something to be abstractly defined but concretely enjoyed.

Freedom and Society

The bourgeois prejudice, while it may talk of the need of social organisation, sees it nevertheless as a restraint upon the freedom of the individual, i.e., the bourgeois individual. Not being a Marxist the bourgeois individual fails to comprehend that the very social organisation which he regards as a restriction of free activity is the sole source of the freedom he possesses.

"Man is not born free" even though Rousseau has told him so. Freedom is something which men acquire and they only acquire it in and through there human organisation—society. Such freedom may not be absolute freedom—whatever philosophers mean by that—but within the context of human organisation it has inexhaustible possibilities for further development. For man there is no other freedom but through society—but it is enough.

If freedom means—and this is the only valid meaning once can give to freedom—the ability to bring about the ends man desires, what as distinct from the animal world enables them to effect this? The answer lies in their economic production. An economic production, quantitatively and qualitatively different from any animal economy. It is not the case that man is merely a productive animal among other productive animals, but that his production is social production, i.e., his labour has always involved cooperation with others of his kind.

Human labour is the fundamental condition for human existence. As Marx has it, it is: —

A process going on between man and nature, a process in which man through his own activities, initiates, regulates and controls the material reaction between himself and nature. He confronts nature as one of her own forces, setting in motion arms and legs, heads and hands, the natural forces of the body, in order to appropriate nature's production in a form adapted to his own wants. By thus acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops the powers that slumber within him, and subjects them to his own control.

It is not merely that man's labour is collective labour, but a special co-ordinated labour carried out in cooperation with others of his kind. It is an activity both premeditated and planned. Thus man is able to produce his own conditions of life, and so produce his own history. Man, then, is different from other animals because he produces differently.

It was through this collective and coordinated labour process that speech—the practical form of human consciousness—developed as a means of communication in answer to the growing complexities of economic production. It was through this process of social labour that there came into being the rules of social organisation—ethics. Just as it was the need of greater manipulation of the material environment, in order to achieve greater advances in social organsation and production that science became an essential department of human activity. It is then through his economic production that man has been able to extend his inherited social knowledge, widen his social horizon, and produce the facilities for so doing. Herein lies man's freedom. The price of freedom has not been "unceasing vigilance" but unceasing economic production.

It is through his economic production that man has come to understand the nature of causality, i.e., in order to bring about certain consequences, he must know the conditions necessary for their successful fulfilment. Hence it is only by his greater understanding of the interconnection of processes and the laws which regulate them that he is able to more freely bring about the ends he desires. Causality is the consciousness of necessity, and the greater his grasp of the nature of necessity the greater is man's freedom to act in a planned and purposeful way. Had man been a creature passively reacting to his external environment he could never have grasped the nature of causality—necessity—nor freedom. Freedom is not as the bourgeois prejudice see it, the progressive realisation of an abstract idea but the progressive development of the means of life and socialisation of production.

The Bourgeois Prejudice and Freedom

But how does the bourgeois prejudice understand freedom? Through a knowledge of necessity? The answer is no. While the bourgeois prejudice may admit that the operation of the forces of production is subject to law and organisation, it confines it to the mere technological level. The bourgeois prejudice fails to see that the bourgeois economy is subject to laws and a determinative organisation. And that right across its version of freedom, necessity is writ large. Its philosophers and pundits may discuss the nature of freedom till the cows come home, but they never seriously attempt to locate the source from which bourgeois freedom, in fact all freedom stems—society. They may talk about the need of human values, but never see that bourgeois freedom is a class-conditioned freedom which falls far short of a truly human freedom. This is because its own social organisation is rooted in the class ownership of the productive forces and it is this which determines the level of existence both quantitatively and qualitatively for the vast mass of non-owners.

The crux of bourgeois freedom is its power to exploit and secure the unpaid labour by its ownership of the agencies of production. From this freedom all other freedom flow.

Bourgeois freedom exists in a system subject to laws and compulsions. Its own class conditioned character makes it necessary to produce not for the purpose of satisfying human needs but for securing the production and reproduction of surplus value on an over-expanding scale. This is the basic law of present production, the overriding necessity which must be obeyed if bourgeois freedom and privilege is to continue. Thus the class character of freedom means the freedom of the few and the unfreedom of the many.

The Limits of Bourgeois Freedom
But is the bourgeois himself really free? The answer is that he cannot be, because he himself lives in an unfree world. He cannot escape the consequences of the social set up which gives him his freedom. What is more, as the present order moves on, his own freedom becomes more restricted. More and more he is controlled by the world market, more and more does the need of ever-greater capital accumulation become more urgent. And across his world ever lies the shadow of future slumps, future war, and universal slaughter. Thus in a world of class antagonism, national and racial hatreds, "freedom" is forced to seek strange bed fellows. No doubt the bourgeois individual would like freedom from these things. But because he is unaware of the nature of the necessity from which his freedom stems he does not know where such freedom may be found. He thus, remains imprisoned in his narrow cell of class liberty.

The very necessity of the social system which produces the class freedom for the few produces at the same time the class unfreedom of the many. But the iron compulsion of capitalism which give freedom of a sort to the bourgeois deny access to a fuller life for the proletariat. Men, because they are men and not automatons, will chafe against the restrictions which prevent a fuller and freer life. And it is in their struggle and desire for a free and fuller life that the vast majority discover bourgeois freedom and a truly human freedom to be irreconcilable. But this will mean the abolition of private property institutions and free access by all to the productive forces. A social state of affairs in which man is no longer a mere unit carrying out the orders of others, but where each one has an equal role in furthering the common aim which he himself takes part in forming. But it is not enough for the many to desire freedom. They will have to grasp the nature of necessity wherein their unfreedom lies. Not to know this means that their desire for freedom will remain unfulfilled.

Marxism a Denial of Fatalism
Contrary to the bourgeois notion of freedom which sees it as personal liberty inhibited by social structures, the Marxist sees freedom as a choice based upon an objective appraisal of the data of a given situation. Only when events and processes are not known are we subject to iron determinism. Where knowledge of these matters is available then and only then are we free to follow a course of action dependent on the relevant information. To successfully carry out what one can do one must also know what one cannot do. It is when we know what is necessary that our purpose becomes effective and that is freedom. Not to know what is necessary in a given situation is unfreedom. When we think correctly we act correctly and only to that extent is man free. Thus in a scientific experiment or a surgical operation one cannot choose willy-nilly what to do. There are things that must be done and must not be done. In fact, if both are to be successful they must be governed by the objective facts of the situation. It is only by strictly conforming to what is necessary to be done can the aim and purpose in either case become effective. The more ignorant one is of the nature of causality, i.e., the necessity, the more important and determined one is. Effective action means then that we must have knowledge of the laws which operate in a given plane of reference. This does not mean we are independent of the determining circumstances out of which ideas and action arise, but it does mean that unless we understand the objective pattern of what is determined our thought and action will be non-effective.

The bourgeois prejudice does at times liken freedom to the jungle. Everybody does what is best for himself, although the bourgeois economy has government, bureaucracy and the armed forces to see that the jungle does not get out of hand. But the inhabitants of the jungle are not free. They know nothing of causality—necessity—and hence nothing of freedom. They cannot mutually cooperate and reap the advantages of a division of labour. They can only instinctively conform to the law of the jungle if they are to survive.

Only men can be free, And only the class which is now unfree can establish a freedom which is truly human — even though bourgeois individuals may come to associate themselves with the aims of the working class. But this unfree class must free itself from the ideology of bourgeois freedom and see the necessity of establishing a classless society and with it a classless freedom.

Man the measure of all things
Marxism does not believe in absolute free will or absolute determinism. Free will versus determinism is a bourgeois metaphysic it can dispense with. Neither does it hold to some simple, cause-effect relation. It sees nature—men's needs—society as a process of causal interaction. Along with Marx and Engels they hold the view that man is the responsible agent in all social change. It is man that wills even though he is born into a situation which is unwilled by him. But he must be informed of the objective milieu in which he finds himself. Only then can he act effectively on events and by changing them, change himself.

Men are not mere creatures of determinism, economic or otherwise. Because the only permanent thing about morality is man's demand for the better which itself is redetermined according to time and place. Man—and here we refer to unfree "class man" in the given social context—will always make fresh demands in the world and upon himself and thus produce the conditions necessary for his human needs. Men and ideas as we have said are the sole instrument for initiating social change. For any change to be effective, however, relevant knowledge of events is indispensable. The "must" and the "ought"—necessity and freedom—do not exist in a polarised anatagonism, but are indissoluble aspects of social reality. The charge against Marxism, posed by its critics, of fatalism and termed by them the "inevitability dilemma" thus falls to the ground.

Both in belief and action Marxism is a humanism. And it is the Marxist who seeks a world where truly human values prevail. Marxism sees man as a product of a social complex and at the same time as the producer of a more conscious society. This is the heart and essence of the Marxist ethic. In religious fantasy God made man the centre of the universe. In material fact capitalism has alienated him from it. Marxism shows how in a truly human sense man can yet become that.

We would remind Mr. Taylor, the author of the pamphlet Is Marxism a Humanism? that Marxism is not merely a method of expounding humanism. but a way of achieving it. As such it challenges more than favourable comparison with any other set of contemporary values.

Ted Wilmott

Big Brother (2011)

Book Review from the December 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

The No-Nonsense Guide to Global Surveillance. By Robin Tudge. New Internationalist.

My first thoughts on finishing this book were: not for the paranoid.  Although this journal has covered the issue of global surveillance in the past, Trudge takes us deeper, and into a world in which our every movement is monitored, if not via CCTVs, then via our online activity, whether it be on Facebook or Google (where every word searched is stored and matched to the searcher’s ISP address), or our shopping, banking and travelling preferences and our activity in the workplace. Moreover, this information, whether in private hands, gleaned by the state, by social networks or by social welfare, is shared and converged between corporations and other states on a  scale that beggars belief, and all ostensibly rationalised on the grounds that it is in all our interests.

Our governments, corporations and even social network sites such as Facebook are unremittingly urging us to pass on to them ever more information about us. They simply can’t get enough on us. Tudge informs us that data about the average Briton, for example, is on about 700 databases – and asks “who can name even ten of those databases?”.

For some time, just to take one example of the problem,  there has existed ECHELON, a global communications network, spying on us from land, sea, air and space, “intercepting every phone call, email, fax, telex or message sent…and fed through computers for keywords, and supercomputers for converting speech into text…sifting text for keywords that are flagged up.”  

ECHELON, however, is not just about monitoring us, the potentially revolutionary masses. It is “also used for commercial interest, to earn its way in the world and to profit its backers.” Tudge reports how one Euro MP has claimed: “European businesses have lost over 20 billion Euros due to ECHELON’s interceptions being used to pip the competition – as when McDonnell-Douglas scooped a $6 billion deal with the Saudis over the French and Airbus, while Raytheon muscled in with a share of a £1.3 billion radar deal between Brazil and a French radar company.”

It is, however, in the post-9/11 era that we have seen a huge growth in surveillance. In a  world in which governments are wont to tell us they are fighting for our freedoms, the most effective means of winning consent for repressive laws, the suspension of human rights (eg, habeas corpus) and increased surveillance, is to scare us into acceptance, to create a global society in which we are all under suspicion from boyfriends, men in beards and absolutely anyone boarding an aeroplane.

Indeed, former MI5 chief, Stella Rimington, accused MPs of  “frightening people” so as to pass laws to interfere with their privacy and civil liberties, achieving “precisely one of the objects of terrorism: that we live in fear and under a  police state.”  An example of this was when the British government used its presidency of the EU to produce a report entitled Liberty and Security: Striking The Right Balance, effectively a manifesto demanding a range of new EU-wide surveillance measures.

There is a lot of ground covering the technology of control in this short book, from the first use of fingerprints in ancient Babylon and by Chinese bureaucrats to authenticate clay tablets and seals on documents, right up to the present and ongoing debate about the need for biometric ID cards. The author is not hesitant in pointing out just whose interests are really at stake. As he observes: “Progress in this field [biometrics] as in many others is not defined by proficiency, but by profit. Despite the economic downturn, the global biometric market is expected to grow at an annual rate of  18% between 2010 and 2012”. So, not only do our masters get to monitor us, but the very practice brings them profit.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has patented wireless sensors which, when linked to computers, monitor workers’ heart rate, respiration rate, temperature, facial movements and brain signals. “When conjoined with workers’ psychological profiles and data on their weight, age and health, managers could be remotely informed of levels of frustration or stress and help or dismiss accordingly.”

The desire of an elite to make a profit at the expense of the majority and the need to make sure the workers do not get in the way of those profits, is really at the heart of the global surveillance society,  and this the author continually draws our attention to. Our governments, and the corporations they serve as the executive for, are indeed very much concerned about security – but it’s theirs not ours, the continuing security of a elite whose power is derived from their class position. They do not see advances in technology as a means to benefit humanity, but as a means to tighten their control over us.

John Bissett

Production for use (1983)

From the February 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

What determines the nature of work is its social context. With the change from capitalism to socialism, the social form of labour will change. Under capitalism labour functions within an exchange relationship of economic values — labour time for wages. With socialism, labour will simply be carried on as an expression of cooperation within a direct relationship between productive activity and needs.

Work itself is an important human need, and by reducing it to a mechanical function and an economic category within an exchange economy, capitalism destroys this vital aspect of work. It makes it a time serving activity, drained of human meaning. As a result, people wish to avoid it.

Capitalist production is enclosed within an exchange economy. It does expand, but only as the self-expansion of capital takes place through the exploitation of the working class—through the use of wage labour. The capitalist's use of labour power results from an exchange of wages with the worker's labour time. This is the investment of portions of capital as variable capital. It is this portion of total capital which is "self-expanding". Labour power is variable capital because, when it is put to use by an employer, it creates values over and above its own value (surplus value). These surplus products of labour power, commodities, then enter into a general relationship of value on the markets, where, as a result of sales, these values have realised in money form. Thus we have an enclosed system of exchange, the key element of which is the self-expansion of variable capital, which is the worker put to work through the exchange of wages for labour time.

With socialism, on the basis of common ownership, the producers are elevated to a social existence which is formed by direct relationships of co-operative activity about mutual needs. In breaking out of the capitalist relationships of value, labour will express a direct productive relationship between people, and will be released for human need. Socialism will abolish all economic relationships of exchange. With production for human need no significant economic relationship will exist between items of wealth, and there will therefore be no need to compare or measure their methods of production in terms of any common factor such as labour time.

The capitalist exchange relationships between commodities themselves, including the human commodity, labour power, will be replaced by a direct relationship in the line of productive activity; items of wealth, and human need. This direct relationship of wealth to need replaces the capitalist relationship between things. The price mechanism which transmits an economic message throughout capitalist production, to do with cheapness and competitive, profit-making success, will be replaced in socialism with a direct relationship of production to human needs.

Production of use will be the organisation of necessary production in line with consciously chosen levels of consumption with no intervening economic factors between the two activities. The organisation of production therefore will resolve itself as a problem of quantity analysis. These will be absolute quantities of things in relation to need, not relative quantities of labour time in the things themselves. Socialism will quantify its needs and then organise production in direct response.

The choice of production methods would not resolve itself simply as the selection of the most efficient method of production, that is, the method which embodies the least amount of labour time. The capitalist market pressure to embody the least amount of labour time. The capitalist market pressure to embody the least amount of labour time in production will be replaced in socialism by all the requirements of need. These will include material necessity, work itself as a human need, social safety, care of the environment, conservation, animal welfare, and so on.

For example, the massive release of pollutants into the atmosphere may be part of the cheapest and most efficient way of converting fossil fuels into electricity, but socialism would not do it. The confinement of animals for long periods in cramped spaces may be part of the cheapest and most efficient method of converting cereals into animal protein, but socialism would not do it.

Paradoxically, socialism will make more economical use of resources and labour, because it will strip away all functions which are irrelevant to the direct relationship of activity to need. This fact was recognised by Marx. "The capitalist mode of production, while on the one hand, enforcing economy in each individual business, on the other hand, begets. by its anarchical system of competition, the most outrageous squandering of labour power and of the social means of production, not to mention the creation of a vast number of employments, at present indispensable, but in themselves superfluous." (Capital, Vol. 1, p.540, Allen & Unwin.)

Socialism will enjoy the latitude to combine different methods of production where this might be considered necessary by the community. It will deploy all its resources more freely according to practicality and desirability regardless of possibly different rates of working efficiency.

Socialism will enjoy more people available for the production of useful wealth; without the limits of market capacity it will enjoy greater use of production methods; without price competition it will enjoy wider selection of production methods; with the ending of national barriers it will enjoy a more rational deployment of world resources; and without capital investment it will enjoy greater adaptability of social production.

Socialism will combine all these practical advantages with all the criteria for the selection of production methods according to need, such as material necessity, the enjoyment of work, safety, care of the environment, conservation.

In this context work is no longer a mechanical function but the satisfaction of vital human need.

Pieter Lawrence

The Socialist Workers Party and Trotwatch (1994)

Book Review from the February 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why You Should Join the Socialists. By Paul Foot. Bookmarks. £1.00

Carry on Recruiting! Why the SWP dumped the "downturn" in a "dash for growth". by Trotwatch, AK Distribution, 22 Lutton Place, Edinburgh £2.95.

Whatever else can be said about Paul Foot, he's a good writer. The trouble is that he employs his talent in a bad cause: writing books to recruit people for the SWP, an undemocratic Leninist outfit which goes in for manipulative politics.

The SWP sees the mass of workers as just that - as a mass, capable only of being passive followers. On this analysis, politics becomes a struggle for "the leadership of the working class", between their present leaders - Labour MPs and councillors and trade union bureaucrats - and their would-be leaders, the SWP.

The strategy of the SWP is to discredit the Labour and trade union leaders so that the workers will desert them and follow instead the leaders of the SWP. The tactic is to call on the Labour leaders to "fight" on some issues of concern to workers and, when they don't, to denounce them as weak or bad leaders or as traitors and sell-outs.

All this presupposes that workers do follow the Labour leaders; if they don't, the SWP strategy doesn't make sense. So, at the same time as it denounces the Labour leaders as weaklings and traitors, the SWP calls on workers to follow the, and in fact actively carry out pro-Labour propaganda by blaming the problems of capitalism not on capitalism but on the Tories. In effect, the SWP's position is "follow the Labour leaders until you're ready to follow us".

Paul Foot's book reflects this approach though, to be fair, genuine socialists will find little to quarrel with in the first two chapters: "A World in Chaos" and "The Robbers and the Robbed". In fact, the first in particular is a powerful criticism of capitalism. The tragedy is that, to the extent that Foot's book does attract people who want to get rid of capitalism, it will divert them into the dead-end of Leninist politics.

Foot calls on people to join the SWP but he doesn't tell them what they will find if they do. For this, anyone impressed by his prose should get hold of the Trotwatch pamphlet. This is mainly devoted to describing the SWP's manipulative politics in relation to the anti-Poll Tax campaign and the protest against the recent (now largely achieved) pit closure programme.

However the final chapter "What's Wrong with the SWP" documents the undemocratic internal structure of the organization, where a self-perpetuating leadership dominates with the ordinary members playing the passive role of followers:

The party's line is handed down through the pages of the party's press from the Central Committee via the editors of the different journals. The branch cadre organise and deploy the new troops and orchestrate their activity. The bulk of the work involves simply selling the party's journals . . . A Leninist party simply reproduces and institutionalises existing capitalist power relations inside a supposedly 'revolutionary' organisation: between leaders and led, order givers and order takers; between specialists and acquiescent and largely powerless party workers.

Adam Buick

Party News (1969)

From the March 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

PROPAGANDA IN LONDON

May we draw your attention to three important meetings being held in London over the next few weeks.

The Government White Paper on Trade Unions, "In Place of Strife", has caused a stir in T.U. circles. But only a logical sequence to the running of Capitalism by the Labour Government. These T.U. restrictions and the Socialist alternative will be discussed on Monday 10th March, 8 p.m. at Head Office. Advertise this at your T.U. Branch.

Student unrest, bound up with the educational system, is the theme of our meeting at Friends House, Euston Road, on Thursday, 20th March, 7.30. Leaflets are in the course of printing and will be available to members for distribution. This is an interesting and important topic and Friends House is a new venue for Party meetings. Try and attend yourself and bring some friends. A number of our speakers have attended various colleges and universities over the past months, to put the Socialist case. If your college would like a speaker, drop us a line.

Our Conference rally this year, Friday, 4th April, Conway Hall, 6 p.m. will be a little different. Instead of the usual lecture, we shall have four or five speakers, dealing with the organisation and policies of the various 'Left' Parties. The S.L.L., Radical Students Alliance, International Socialism etc. We hope it will take the form of a 'speak-in' and go on for a couple of hours.

NEW ZEALAND

The voice of Socialism continues to be heard in New Zealand. Wheels, the journal of the Drivers' Federation, is the second union paper there to republish our article on devaluation. Meanwhile the New Zealand Building Worker has our article "Get Rid of Wages" and a couple of others.

The December 1968 issue of the left-wing New Zealand Monthly Review inadvertently introduces its readers to the view that in North Vietnam there is state capitalism and not Socialism. In a report from London on the October 27 demonstration, Freda Cook makes the following fatuous remark:

"Apart from such political freaks as the Socialist Party of Great Britain, which advertises Vietcong, No! Mao, No! Che, No! Socialism, Yes! and bleats that North Vietnam is 'State Capitalism' . . ."

Our thanks for the free advertisment.

UNDERGROUND

No. 17 of the "underground" paper Oz carried an article "Smash Cash" by a Socialist explaining that money could only go after a world-wide social revolution converting the means of life into common property and not before or apart from as suggested by some Hippies.

Letter: Are Our Views On Russia Correct? (1928)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

Below is a letter from an American reader, with our reply.

San Francisco Labor College,

San Francisco.

Editor of SOCIALIST STANDARD,

I have been requested by some of the members of the Labor College to say a few words to you in regard to the last issue of the STANDARD.

On account of the front page article on "The Class Struggle in Russia," it became impossible for us to sell this issue at our regular meetings. The position taken in this article comes very dangerously close to the position taken by the anarchists in Russia to-day. You do not seem to grasp the difference between Democracy and Dictatorship. If the Bolsheviki did not act in a strong dictatorial manner, and had not acted in this way in the past, then the chances are about 999 out of a thousand that the capitalists would be in control of Russia to-day. 

Trotsky is right in some of the criticisms that he makes. But on other things he is wrong, that is, if he is quoted correctly on democracy.

Also it has been called to my attention that, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Soviet Russia last November, the STANDARD did not have very much to say.

We value the SOCIALIST STANDARD on account of its lucid position on World Capitalism, but we would like to see it take a different attitude in regard to Soviet Russia. Yours for Socialism,

JOHN LOHEIT

(Secretary).

OUR REPLY.

Our critic makes a number of sweeping statements, but does not attempt to give particular instances of our alleged wrong policy, nor does he support his assertions with evidence. Our attitude on Russia is precisely the same as it was when the Bolsheviks seized power. We said then, and say now, that Socialism could not be established in that backward country, dominated as it is by an overwhelming majority of peasants and lacking a highly-developed industrial organisation. Neither the Bolsheviks nor any other dictators can revolutionise the economic basis of society by issuing decrees, nor by exiling or imprisoning all who are guilty of pointing out these obvious facts. Our critic tells us that, if the Bolsheviks had not been dictatorial, the capitalists would almost certainly be in control of Russia to-day. If by this he means to make the astounding assertion that Socialism has replaced Capitalism in Russia, we challenge him to produce one single scrap of evidence. Apart from this, it is interesting to notice that one specific charge made by Trotsky is that Russian industry has become so utterly dependent on credits granted by German and other banks and traders, that in fact Russian policy is again dictated, as it was before the war, by German and other foreign financial groups.

Our critic has apparently overlooked the explicit statement in the article referred to that we could not guarantee the accuracy of Trotsky's estimates of conditions, and that we did not accept all his views on policy. We published the quotations for the information of our readers. Would our critics have us suppress all news and views which we find disagreeable, as is, it seems, the suicidal policy advocated by some of the communists?

If those who consider our Russian policy not in accordance with the facts and with the interests of the working class will point out wherein it is wrong, we shall be pleased to answer their objections.

Edgar Hardcastle

"Too Much Wealth In The World" (1931)

From the February 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Lloyd George, at Barmouth, North Wales, yesterday, said that unemployment was creeping over the whole world, but it was difficult to explain why. There was a famine, not because there was not enough corn, but because there was too much corn. There too much wealth in the world, too much iron, steel, coal, etc. We were suffering because we had too much wealth. The big question confronting the nation at the present time was how were they to deal with the problem of unemployment.

Mr. Lloyd George says it is difficult to explain why. On the contrary, it is one of the easiest things in the world to explain—and to understand—why unemployment is "creeping" over the whole world. The wealth of the world, produced by the working class, belongs to the capitalist class. This wealth has to be sold in the world's markets in order to realise for its owners the difference between the wages and other costs paid for its production and its value on the market. A difference known to the Socialist as surplus value. As the wants of the capitalists and the wages of workers are limited, the world market is more or less choked with goods for which there are no buyers. The competition for markets compels ever cheaper methods of production, only to be attained by reducing the number of workers engaged in production.

This is the explanation in a nut-shell. It has been elaborated more fully many times in the columns of THE SOCIALIST STANDARD. Mr. Lloyd George knows this to be the only explanation. His difficulty is not so much in explaining, as in appearing to be wise on the subject without giving the game away for the class he represents.

His next statement, that there is too much wealth in the world, should be read the other way round: There are not enough markets to absorb the wealth owned by the capitalist class. We can then understand both the "creeping" unemployment and the over-production of wealth.

The big question, How to deal with the problem of unemployment? has also been answered in THE SOCIALIST STANDARD many times. Mr. Lloyd George's way is the capitalist way: enough dole to keep them quiet, and enough armed force in case of trouble. The only working class way is to understand and organise for Socialism. While the capitalist class own the means of life, the workers are compelled to work for wages, a condition which enables the capitalist class to appropriate the major portion of the wealth as surplus value, and scrap workers wholesale in order to increase the amount.

F. Foan

Not Leaders — Delegates! (1976)

From the June 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

"But somebody will have to lead," say our opponents when told there will be no leaders in Socialism. What in fact they usually mean is that there will have to be administrators. Of course there will have to be administrators—who will obviously be people with a flair for organizing, and their job will be to help a Socialist world to run smoothly, ensuring that production and free distribution of the good things of life take place to the benefit of all. But they will not have power to dictate to, "manage", or give promises to the rest of the population as leaders do at present. They will be the agents—not the masters—of the people.

How can this be guaranteed? Simply through the knowledge and understanding of the majority of the world's inhabitants.

Under the present capitalist system different groups of owners and their hirelings with vested interests, select from their numbers their representatives (whom they consider will appear through the media the most sincere, altruistic and to have the interests of those they intend to exploit at heart) to go before the electorate. The latter returns some of them to power as leaders from where they perpetuate the capitalist system in a way which most effectively serves the financial interest of the group or groups they represent.

But they can only get away with this for as long as the working class—who make up the vast majority of the voters—do not understand what their game is and the social system which could replace it.

Even if such leaders wanted to introduce a socialist system after being elected—they couldn't; they haven't the mandate and the electorate would think they had gone mad if they tried to.

In Socialism there will be not leaders but delegates—the difference being that delegates carry out the instructions of—not give orders to—the people who voted for them. The moment a delegate fails to voice the wishes of a knowledgeable electorate but starts talking about something else—he's out!

And so, despite the frustrated cravings of those wanting the "quick way" to Socialism by the "right leaders", there is still no safeguard except the working class knowledge and understanding which makes them superfluous.

At present—nearly everyone prays for "good" leaders, but there is no such animal. Leaders just do what they are put there for by those business interests which nominated them.

There are no leaders in the Socialist Party of Great Britain and its companion parties in various parts of the world—there couldn't be and doesn't need to be, because all the members understand what they want and how to go about getting it. Any member could therefore serve as a delegate. And what we want is clearly published (see "Object and Principles") on every copy of our party literature.

R. B. Gill

Obituary: Edward Littler (1963)

Obituary from the April 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are sorry to record the death of Edward Littler who some older members will remember. "Ted", a Lancashire collier, emigrated to New Zealand where he first had contact with the Party during the first world war. (Party members working in the Merchant Navy frequently held meetings in New Zealand and it was at these meetings that he first heard the case for Socialism.) Whilst there he met Moses Baritz and helped him at his propaganda meetings. Later Ted Littler returned to England and for some years worked in the pits around Doncaster. Ill health, due to the atmosphere in the mines caused him to become a chronic invalid for some years. But always he put the Party case in his discussions with people with whom he came in contact. Also, he wrote lengthy letters to comrades, arguing and clarifying various aspects of the Socialist attitude to capitalism.

Comrade Littler died in hospital at Wigan on March 1st.

Blacklisted (2015)

Book Review from the July 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

'Blacklisted: The Secret War Between Big Business and Union Activists'. By Dave Smith and Phil Chamberlain. New Internationalist Publications Ltd, 2015, £9.99.

This is about the industrial, mostly building construction, struggles between workers and the bosses, and their use of spies to inform on union representatives, thus resulting in their victimisation and unemployment.

It is a story of bitter class conflicts in which the employers were, and are, supported by the police special branches and MI5. Hundreds of building workers, and others, have been blacklisted just for highlighting dangerous conditions on building sites.

Some of the worst companies, listed by the authors, victimising union members, all in the interest of maximising profits, include the Kier Group, Balfour Beatty, Tarmac, Taylor Woodrow and probably the most notorious of them all, Sir Robert McAlpine, largely responsible for using, and encouraging, such spy outfits as the former Economic League and The Consulting Association (TCA).

The strength of this book lies in exposing the largely secret war of the bosses; the weakness, however, is the demand by the authors for a public enquiry. And all the TUC demands is that the employers compensate the blacklisted and victimised workers under the rubric: ‘Own Up! Clean Up! Pay Up!’.

Nowhere is it suggested that the workers should abolish the system of wage slavery, and the profit motive altogether, which gave rise and gives rise to the blacklisting and victimising in the first place. More’s the pity.

Peter E. Newell

An Apostle of Public Ownership. (1932)

From the January 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Right Hon. Herbert Morrison, the late Minister of Transport in the Labour Government, has been invited by the Soviet Government of Russia to go there and reorganise the passenger transport system. The Daily Herald, in reporting the matter, did not mention whether he accepted the offer. It is a curious commentary, however, on the fact that the Moscow International has for years denounced Ramsay MacDonald and his supporters, while the Russian Government seeks the assistance of one of the most notorious worshippers of MacDonald in Labour Party history.

Herbert Morrison has been very useful here in the Labour Party work of repairing capitalism for the capitalists. Transport is one of the most essential things in the life of great cities. The investing class leave no stone unturned to make it efficient as a profit-making business, whether it is owned privately by shareholders in a company or by stockholders in a municipal or public utility corporation. Political action is one of the methods used by the investors to aid their schemes.

The transport strike under the Labour Government of 1924 was "settled" by the Labour Government passing a Bill asked for by the London Traffic Combine. This London Traffic Act of 1924 enabled the Combine to drive competition out of the field. Even Herbert Morrison (not Right Honourable then) described it as one of the worst Acts ever introduced. In the next Labour Government the critic (Mr. Morrison) was silenced. Mr. Morrison had then become the Minister of Transport.

He took charge of the "nefarious" Act of 1924 and worked it so that capitalist organs praised him for his business capacity in smoothing the path of the traffic companies. Before the Labour Government resigned, he brought forward a London Passenger Transport Bill to combine all concerns working London traffic under a so-called public utility Board. Lord Ashfield, of the Combine, told his shareholders that their stock and interest would be more secure under the Labour Bill than their present shares and dividends. The Bill was a part of the usual work of "Labour" in making the present system more efficient and strengthening it—not abolishing it, as Socialists desire.

The Right Honourable ex-Labour Minister gave a lecture at the Workers' Circle, Aldgate, on December 18th, to explain the wonderful scheme of traffic unification. It was a typical company chairman's speech to shareholders. He deplored the number of empty seats in 'buses, and wished to save the waste of perfectly good empty seats and arrange just enough 'buses for the riders. He also explained that the companies could not spend money on improvements while there any possibility of competition. The solution was not Socialism or even Nationalisation. Modern Socialists, he claimed, did not favour State operation of services, but business control through public utility boards. The shareholders of the companies were to be given stock, the directors compensated, and interest would be paid.

The idea was similar to the Port of London Authority, so prominent in opposing dock workers and using machinery to supplant them.

The writer asked Mr. Morrison if he did not describe the "publicly owned" Port of London Authority as a Capitalist Soviet. He was further asked to justify his statement that the workers are to be considered, seeing that out of 34 members of the Advisory Board under his Bill, only three would represent the organised workers.  The capitalist character of the scheme was exposed, but the Right Honourable "Labourer," in reply, "justified" himself by talking about Russia's need for development and capitalist assistance.

The writer never mentioned Russia or the Communists, but this leading light of capitalist reform thought it sufficient to call him a Communist and ignore the subject of his own address.

Adolph Kohn