Marx and the State (1979)

Book Review from the November 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution. Volume 1: State and Bureaucracy by Hal Draper, Monthly Review Press, £5.60 paperback.

This is an interesting book by the man who wrote the very useful study of Marx's references to the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' which confirmed the view we had long held. In New Politics, Vol. 1, No.4, Summer 1962, he shows that the phrase was used by Marx comparatively rarely and, when it was, to mean simply the democratic exercise of political power by the working class.

In this new book, Draper is arguing a case which cannot be fully understood without some knowledge of his background. He is a Trotskyist, but of the dissident variety known to other Trotskyist sects as 'the Shachtmanites'. During the great controversy on the nature of Russian society in the American Trotskyist movement just before the last war, three views emerged: 1) that Russia was a 'degenerate Workers' State', the view of Trotsky himself and the Trotskyist orthodoxy to this day; 2) that it was state capitalist; and 3) that it was neither a 'Workers' State' nor state capitalism but a new exploiting class society which Shachtman, borrowing a term from Bruno Rizzi, called 'bureaucratic collectivism'. Draper was for years a leading figure in the Shachtmanite tendency which existed as an independent group until 1958 when its members joined the reformist SP of America.

So in showing that Marx held that a state bureaucracy could be a ruling class and that a class society could exist on the basis of the state monopoly of the means of production, Draper is demolishing one of the arguments used by orthodox Trotskyists to defend their preposterous theory about Russia, Marx not only admitted this as a theoretical possibility but used the terms 'Asiatic mode of production' and 'Oriental despotism' to describe just such a society as had existed in ancient times, and not just in Asia. The ruling class had then been a state bureaucracy, controlling the means of production and hence collectively monopolising them. The parallel with present-day Russia is obvious; though not, of course, with regard to the mode of production itself (which is capitalism).

In The Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels referred to the 'executive of the modern State' as 'but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie'. Draper warns that, if taken too literally to mean that the government is always directly controlled by the capitalist class, then this is an oversimplification; there are cases where the government, though still used in the interest of the capitalist class, is not actually controlled by them.

Marx in fact devoted quite a bit of time to studying one such case: the Second French Empire (1852-1870). Napoleon's nephew, Louis Bonaparte, had been elected President of the Republic established in 1848 after the overthrow of the bourgeois King Louis Philippe. In 1851 he staged a coup d'etat and a year later had himself proclaimed Emperor (the events are written up in Marx's inimitable journalistic style in the pamphlet The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte). Here was an example of a capitalist society where the government was not controlled by the capitalist class through a parliament, elections and so on, but by a dictator not subject to their control even if he did protect their interests. Marx called this phenomenon 'Bonapartism', and Engels argued that Bismarckian Germany exhibited similar characteristics. This phenomenon—where the capitalist class has been prepared, sometimes even compelled (sections of it, at least) to surrender political control of the government through representative institutions in exchange for the law and order imposed by a strong dictatorship — has been fairly widespread since, from fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and Franco Spain to the present-day dictatorships in Chile and Argentina.

Of course, such dictatorships are still governments of capitalism and have to run capitalism in the only way it can be; as a profit-making system and so ultimately in the interests of the capitalist class. Thus Draper's conclusion about Marx's theory of the state, not just in capitalism but in class societies generally, is fair enough (the quotes are from Engels):

The state, 'necessary and logical product of the [given] social conditions', is always in the last analysis 'the executor of the economic necessities of the national situation'. Thus it is always the organizer of society in the interests of the class (exploitative) structure taken as a whole.

One criticism. As a Trotskyist, even if an unorthodox one, Draper still believes in a 'Workers' State' (a term never used by Marx himself), and he sometimes seems too keen to play down the the anti-state element in Marx's thinking. Certainly Marx thought that the working class should use the state to abolish capitalism, but this was to be a temporary affair leading fairly rapidly to the dismantling of the state and the establishment of a stateless socialist society.

Adam Buick

A Prophet of Liberation (1973)

Book Review from the May 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier; Selected Texts on Work, Love and Passionate Attraction, Translated and edited by Jonathan Beecher and Richard Bienvenu. Cape, £3.95

Marx and Engels praised and criticized Fourier. The criticism, inevitably, was that of all the Utopian Socialists of 1800 and thereabouts. As Engels put it in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:

The solution of the social problems, which as yet lay hidden in undeveloped economic conditions, the Utopians attempted to evolve out of the human brain. Society presented nothing but wrongs; to remove these was the task of reason. It was necessary, then, to discover a new and more perfect system of social order and to impose this upon society from without by propaganda, and, wherever it was possible, by the example of model experiments. These new social systems were foredoomed as Utopian; the more completely they were worked out in detail, the more they could not avoid drifting off into pure phantasies.

Yet the praise was undeniable too: for Fourier's satire, the "power and charm" of his denunciations of commerce, his view of women's position, and his historical insight.

Of all the Utopians, Fourier most readily wins sympathy today. Saint-Simon's gospel of work may seem too severe. Owen's experiments not free from the suspicion of progressive management; with Fourier, however, the human concern which won that word "charm" is almost irresistible. His answer to the classic question of who would do dirty work under Socialism is memorable. Muck? Filth? Let children do it: they love such things.

The present collection of Fourier's writings draw strongly on material which was not available to Marx and Engels. This is the volume published for the first time in Paris in 1967 under the title Le Nouveau Monde Amoureux (The New Amorous World). It would not have altered their view, but it greatly amplifies the vision of a satisfying society as Fourier saw it. It enables us also to see how far away the Fourierists who founded 19th-century communities were from what was in his mind: straitlaced groups who, as the Introduction remarks, "for tactical as well as personal reasons" ignored his intention of a realm of sexual freedom.

After a financially comfortable upbringing, Fourier was woken to the realities of social life in the years following the French Revolution. Experiences in the Lyon insurrection of 1793 are said to have given him "a lasting horror of political revolution and social turmoil", and the rifeness of profiteering and speculation under the Directory made him a bitter critic of "anarchic" competition. From these points of departure he constructed a series of proposals for the reconstruction of society, leading to the master-plan: a scheme of "natural association" in which the gratification of personal desires and passions would be for human good. By 1819 he had completed, but was never able to publish in entirety, his Grande Traité on society and human nature.

It was essential to Fourier that his idea be put into practice. His conception was of a community called the Phalanx, made up of small "passional" groups. For years he sought a patron to provide the land and the backing; he tried bankers, philanthropists and ambassadors. Though these appeals brought nothing, a small band of disciples formed. He quickly dissociated himself from an attempt at a community in 1833; after his death in 1837 Fourierism became a political fashion for a few years. Fourierist study groups in Russia included Dostoevsky and Alexander Herzen among their members. A number of Fourier communities were set up in America, almost all under-capitalized and incapable of survival for any length of time—the only part-successful one, Brook Farm, was ruined by a fire in 1846.

Fourier's emphasis was on human fulfilment. He saw that capitalism and its commerce were not only degrading and starving millions of people physically, but also deprived them of necessary emotional satisfactions. He was concerned about ending work as slavery—not by inducement to make work attractive, but by letting it be attractive as he was convinced it was to everyone: civilization had perverted it. There was no reason why men should spend all their lives or even all day at one kind of work. In Harmony (Fourier's name for his Utopia) they would do many different things, in pleasant surroundings and among friends and lovers. Economic security would be provided by the "social minimum", a guaranteed income which made the framework for freedom of choice.

Like most Utopians, Fourier advocated a predominantly agricultural life. He did not deny the place of industry, but it had to be secondary; and factories and workshops must be specially luxurious if people were to want to work in them. However, he argued a great increase in agricultural production and a decrease in manufacture: goods would be so excellently made as to need replacing only occasionally, while the Harmonians would consume correspondingly more of the social wealth in food. The fullest expression of pleasure in work would be the appearance of armies of "a million industrial athletes" for huge projects like bridge-building and land reclamation.

But the real destiny of mankind in this new world was the complete liberation of the instincts. The satisfaction of material needs led to organised release from sexual and emotional bondage. As Engels pointed out, Fourier was "the first to declare that in any given society the degree of women's emancipation is the natural measure of the general emancipation". Fourier attacked Christianity's "enslaved monogamy" furiously, for brutalizing sexual relations and for the hypocrisy which turned love into a self-centred activity. He saw sexual love as a central part of community life.

Love in the Phalanstery is no longer, as it is with us, a recreation which detracts from work; on the contrary it is the soul and the vehicle, the mainspring of all works and of the whole of universal attraction.

The proposals for a free sexual life turn out to be elaborately regulated. There is a hierarchy of officials, and a mighty rule-book. The orgies sound like committee-ridden village fêtes, and there are even Courts allotting playful forfeit-type penalties. Fourier insists that the code is voluntary and to facilitate expression, but it rings uneasily of regimentation; the high priests, matrons, pontiffs etc. are plainly sexual bureaucrats in the making. Nevertheless, the vision remains a remarkable one when it is seen in contrast with all that was taken for granted about sex relationships in the bourgeois society of the period.

In one respect particularly Fourier was startlingly ahead of his time. His Utopia involved the liberation of the sexual "deviant":

In Harmony manias will be particularly bizarre and plentiful among the more complex personality types. In civilization on the contrary the complex personalities are those who try hardest to stifle and hide their manias. They do so out of an excessive respect for civilised standards and public opinion and also out of a desire to avoid criticism, of which they already have quite enough. 

Every person's proclivities would be marked on papers he carried, so as to find appropriate partners without difficulty. The "manias" would contribute to society's well-being just as much as normal sexuality. The only line Fourier drew was at activities in which a person was abused, or made an object against his will. Thus, he anticipated by a century and a half the "gay liberation" movement and its logical conclusion—that society must be reorganized first.

This was indeed the great merit which enables us to see Fourier as a forerunner of Socialism. He perceived that the material basis of life was the essential condition to be provided, and this could be done only by creating a new kind of social order. Capitalism's "disgusting civilization" was inimical to every human need:

The results of this system—poverty, oppression, deceit and carnage—are wholly contrary to man's desires and to the goal of nature.

When security, comfort and pleasure in work have been attained, man could then become truly liberated. Sexual relationships would be freed from coercion and necessity, and the gratification of instinct produce social enthusiasm and harmony.

The translation of this vision to class-consciousness and comprehension of political power as the means was, as Engels wrote, simply not possible in Fourier's time. It remained an idea, hopeful of achievement by luck or infection. There is very much, however, which resembles what Socialists today look forward to in the society of the future. The belief in small communities as islands of liberated living still persists, but—as in Fourier's day—a world away from what his mind saw. His view was of a whole society; no group of men is an island.

Robert Barltrop

Party News (1981)

From the October 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last month two debates took place between the Socialist Party and organisations standing for free market capitalism. On September 10 in Islington, with 83 people present, Ron Cook of the SPGB debated with David Steele of the Libertarian Alliance. The declared principles of the Libertarian Alliance include "The right of all persons to life, liberty and justly acquired property". For the Libertarians, "justly acquired property" includes the wealth accumulated by the owners of capital through the work carried out for them by the rest of us, with the threat of enforced hunger of we refuse. David Steele's objection to socialism was that without the mechanism of profit and prices, goods could not be efficiently distributed to those who need them. It was pointed out that millions starve at this moment, precisely because they cannot afford to pay the prices, and that a system of production for use according to needs could be based on the modern means of communication which already exist. People could declare needs directly and worldwide as the basis for production, instead of the present buying and selling mechanism. The following day, in Guildford, Steve Coleman of the Socialist Party debated with Professor Antony Flew of the Philosophy Department of Reading University. 65 people attended the debate, which was on the question of "Is Equality Just a Socialist Myth?"

Utopian Communities (1966)

Book Review from the December 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

The History of American Socialisms by John Humphrey Noyes, with new introduction by Mark Holloway, Dover, New York

"Socialism has been tried before in various communal experiments. These failed because men cannot live together, co-operating freely in production and sharing the amenities and products of their community."

So runs one of the "human nature" type of objections to Socialism.

The answer is that Socialism cannot work in isolation. It must be world-wide, taking over from the present world-wide system of society—capitalism. The conditions for its achievement are, that there must be a potential abundance for all, and that a majority of workers must be equipped with the knowledge of Socialism and be organised to get it. Socialism is the emancipation of the working class and not an escape from capitalism to some backwoods hideaway. This is Scientific Socialism as opposed to the earlier ideas of reforming mankind by setting up communities free from the influence of private property known as Utopian Socialism.

This book is a contemporary account of Utopian communities set up in America mainly between 1825 and 1850. The author founded a religious community which lasted 30 years. The greater part of his material was drawn from the researches of A. J. Macdonald, an admirer of Robert Owen. The book is largely devoted to brief histories of communal experiments, the main groups dealt with being: the efforts of Owen and his followers, communities set up by admirers of Fourier and various religious colonies.

It is interesting that theories developed to deal with the effects of the industrial revolution in Europe should have been applied in pre-industrial America. There was plenty of land available in America and people who had escaped from conditions in Europe were keen to try new and more satisfying ways of living. Their role was of pioneers opening up virgin territory rather than social revolutionaries ending oppression.

The fallacy of trying to change the social environment in isolation is evident with each experiment. Private property dogged them from the start. Land, tools and supplies had to be bought. Funds had to be raised for these, which meant that the community was in debt to the lender. They had to direct their efforts to paying this off so that they had to try and sell their products at a profit. In practice these schemes worked out as private property, held and worked in common, with all the frustrations of small property owners and the added irritants of being confined by the bounds of their land and of their social circle, both work and play, being limited to the colony. No wonder their attempts to change society failed. This book only deals with the mechanics of failure (some, say Noyes, were, incompetent; others anti-religious; some had too many lazy members; others were struck by disasters like fire or sickness) but does not question the ideas of the Utopians.

The ideas, which seemed feasible in the 19th century, have been swept away by modern capitalism. The working class in its hundreds of millions is engaged in the social process of production on a world scale. Their position has changed from being mere beasts of burden to the people who run society from top to bottom. Yet for all these changes their social position is unchanged: they still face the problems associated with wage or salary earning; they still work for the minority who own the means of production. It is now clear that the environment of capitalism makes socialists who, when they are in a majority, will use their knowledge to make the world fit to live on.

The History of American Socialisms is an interesting historical document showing the efforts that men made to organise their affairs on what they thought was a sane and rational basis. The failure of the Utopians lay not in their intentions or courage but in the fact that the conditions of capitalism in their day made their ideas seem feasible.

JEF.

Cooking the Books: Yes, We Have No Economic Policy (2015)

The Cooking the Books Column from the December 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Or, put another way, we don’t have any policy for trying to manage the capitalist system.

This is for two reasons.

First, we don’t want to manage the capitalist economy. We want to end it.

Second, we don’t think that it can be managed.

The economic policies of all the other parties assume that it can whereas experience shows that it can’t. Rather than governments controlling capitalism, it’s been the other way round. Governments have to react to what capitalism throws at them. They are like people in a small boat on a choppy sea, powerless to control what is happening to them and only able to take puny counter-action.

A revealing recent example of how governments can’t control the way capitalism works was the claim by Gordon Brown when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, to have finally ended the boom/slump cycle (echoing, incidentally, a similar claim by Nigel Lawson twenty years earlier). Within a couple of years the biggest slump since the 1930s hit the world, including Britain.

All the Labour government and the subsequent Tory/Lib Dem coalition could do was to react to it. And react to it on capitalism’s terms – by cutting back on government spending so as to reduce the burden of taxation on profits, the lifeblood of the capitalist system, in the hope that sooner or later profitability would be restored and a profit-led recovery begin.

Ironically perhaps, this lets the Labour Party off the hook as far as one criticism is concerned – the Tories blaming the economic situation after 2008 on Labour’s economic policy. This is unfair as it was the internal workings of the capitalist system that brought about the slump. The history of capitalism shows that it goes through a repeating boom/slump/boom/slump cycle, with a big slump breaking out every 50-60 years. There’s nothing any government can do about this. So it was capitalism, not Labour, that has caused the ‘economic mess’ as the Tories called it.

But this works both ways. Just as capitalism spontaneously caused the crash of 2008 and subsequent slump it has also spontaneously caused the present modest economic recovery. The Tories are claiming this as the result of the economic policies pursued over the past five years. But they are claiming credit for something that was going to happen anyway sooner or later (in the event, far later than they expected) because in a slump the devaluation of capital and the fall in real wages, by restoring profitability, create the conditions for a profit-led recovery. That’s the way capitalism works.

So, governments can’t control the way the capitalist economy works. They can only work with it, putting profits and conditions for profit-making before meeting people’s needs adequately and before other considerations such as safety at work and protecting the environment. Capitalism is a profit system that runs on profits and can only work by giving them priority. Governments have to accept this and in the end they all do.

This is the only way capitalism can work. It can’t be reformed to work in any other way. This is why it has to go and be replaced by a system based on the common ownership and democratic control of productive resources so that we can really control what is produced and distributed. On this basis we can gear production to meeting needs instead of for the market or to make a profit, with people having free access to what they need in accordance with the principle ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs’. In a word, socialism (in its original sense).

Fantasy masquerading as reality (1997)

Theatre Review from the March 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Homecoming by Harold Pinter, Lyttleton Theatre.

Harold Pinter is perhaps the most lauded English playwright of the past thirty years. The National Theatre has premiered three of his new plays and revived five others in the last 20 years, and now revives a sixth, The Homecoming. For its part The Homecoming has been seen widely both in the United Kingdom and across the world. The programme for the current revival at the National Theatre lists forty-four major productions, across five continents, since the play was first performed in 1965. Pinter is seen as a serious and successful dramatist. His plays both command respect and can usually be counted upon to fill a theatre. Several have been successfully filmed. Performances of his new work are seen as significant events, not least by those arbiters of taste, the critics of national newspapers.

Years ago Kenneth Tynan noted that Pinter's ability to hold an audience seemed to depend upon three qualities: "his bizarre use of dramatic technique"; "his skill in evoking atmosphere" (especially feat and apprehension); and "his command of contemporary idiom" (A View of the English Stage, K. Tynan).

These three qualities are vert evident in The Homecoming, the tale of the return of a prodigal son and his wife to some anonymous tenement in North London, the son now teaching philosophy in an American university. Who are the four males in residence? What are their positions as members of the family? Pinter reveals his secrets slowly, teasingly. And as he does so he preserves an atmosphere of uncertainty, not to say menace. As the four males circle each other violence never feels far away. It is spat out in the dialogue. It is apparent in the body language. And with the arrival of the returning son and his wife it becomes manifest.

But there is a problem. Pinter's use of language may be convincing—some people do, on some occasions, speak in the intensely aggressive and idiomatic way that is commonplace in his work—but it is nevertheless often very difficult to square what the characters say to one another, with that we know about them and what they do. So if the dialogue is convincing, its use by characters on stage is not. Thus it appears that brother Lenny is a pimp. In such circumstances would Lenny continue to live at home where he is the butt of aggressive behaviour from his almost psychotic father? And when locked in a row with his returning brother, a successful philosopher, would we expect Lenny rather than his brother to win the sophisticated discussion about the nature of philosophical discourse?

If Pinter's characterisation is unconvincing his storytelling is almost perverse. Why would the successful son want to bring his wife home to the alienating hell from which he had successfully flown? And what happens between the end of the first act and the beginning of the second, to transform a group of six adults who were previously locked in a violent, physical struggle, and who now emerge like some fawning members of a college sophomore group? Pinter offers no reasons for their inexplicable behaviour. And as for the apparently demure wife who is revealed as a potentially promiscuous woman—would she really exchange life in America with her husband and her three children for the charms of being a part-time prostitute. as well as a part-time housewife and comforter to four variously unattractive males? The proposition is at once as hugely unconvincing as it is significantly misogynistic.

Many/most of the characters (sic) in The Homecoming have neither substance nor validity. The actors are superb and they demand our attention. However, although the set convincingly captures the essence of a shabby tenement in the 1960s, its realism contrasts markedly with the frequent implausibility of Pinter's characterisation and narrative. Never mind that almost without exception Pinter's characters are significantly disadvantaged and/or unfailingly unpleasant—a view of the world which is at odds with most people's experience even in the barbaric world of the market—their behaviour seems to be based almost entirely on primitive physiological and psychological needs and drives; drives which barely acknowledge the social world beyond home and hearth. Pinter's writing may have many qualities, but he ultimately presents us with a preposterously uni-dimensional view of human behaviour; a kind of unreal, invalid fascist nightmare.

Michael Gill

Labour's bad memory (1981)

From the October 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

But this is terrible. They have elected a Labour government and the country will never stand for that. (Woman dining at Claridge's, 26 July 1945.)

Thirty years ago—on October 5 1951 to be exact—the British people voted to set themselves free, to expunge austerity from their lives, to replace snoek and dried eggs with good red meat. At least that was what Tory politicians (like Churchill, Eden, Butler, Woolton—how evocative the very names are now) had told them would happen if they got rid of the Labour government.

The government—Labour's first ever with its own majority—was elected, in the final stages of the 1939/45 war, on the promise to build a fair, abundant, secure Britain. What happened, between 1945 and 1951. to swing the voters the other way?

The Labour Party was all but wiped out by the 1929 crash and the MacDonald defection. When the war started in 1939 they were inching their way back to a position where they could challenge the Conservatives' apparently eternal majority. There is little doubt that the war condensed and hastened the changes Labour need to carry that challenge to victory.

The popular mood in 1945 was very different from that after the First World War, when recovery meant getting back to the Good Old Days when the British monarchy, the Empire, the  pound sterling and the Royal Navy were to last for ever and ever amen. In 1945 the rampant desire was for progress; pre-war Britain was remembered as a place where incompetent and complacent politicians turned a blond eye to chronic unemployment and the rise of the European dictators, only worried that nothing should upset important events like Royal Ascot and the Eton and Harrow match at Lord's.

The post-war urge for social change had, ironically, been stimulated by the official war propaganda, which was based on the theory that the workers would more readily sacrifice themselves in their masters' interests if they could be persuaded that this would result in a better Britain than before the war. Churchill, in a speech to the boys at Harrow School (what more appropriate place?) declared:

When this war is won . . . it must be one of our aims to establish a state of society where the advantages and privileges which have hitherto been enjoyed only by the few shall be far more widely shared by the many . . .

This type of assurance was given by the Beveridge Report, published in 1942, with its proposals for a comprehensive welfare state and which millions of workers were silly enough to believe was a plan for a society free from poverty.

That this restlessness benefited the Labour Party rather than the Conservatives was partly due to another profound working class misconception. The success of the Russian forces against the German invaders was regarded as evidence of the efficiency and desirability of a system of state control. As a result Labour, as the party of natonalisation, picked up a lot of votes. Tory candidate Aubrey Jones (later a minister) said that during his 1945 election campaign he was persistently told by people in his audiences: "Look what nationalisation has done for Russia, and how great and strong she has become." There was also the idea—quickly dispersed by experience—that a Labour government would be able to deal more amicably with the Russians—"that left could talk to left."

So the Labour Party could enter their election campaign in 1945 in rollicking style. "The Labour Party," proclaimed their manifesto Let Us Face the Future "Is a Socialist Party and proud of it. Its ultimate purpose at home is the establishment of the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain . . . " They proposed to nationalise key industries and to set up the National Health Service. It was to be the dawn of a new era of equality and plenty: "Homes for the people must come before mansions, necessities for all before luxuries for the few" their programme said.

This heady stuff helped Labour to a crushing victory, laying low five Tory Cabinet ministers in the process. Clement Attlee, spurning a chauffeur driven limousine, climbed into the family Austin Ten for his wife to drive him to Buckingham Palace where the king, seemingly unafraid in the presence of so dangerous a revolutionary, asked him to form a government to keep capitalism running. Attlee went off to do as the king asked; seven ex-miners were in his first Cabinet but the king didn't seem to mind. Excited Labour MPs sang the Red Flag in the House; at least it was probably the Red Flag but quite a few of them were such shakily recent converts that they knew neither the words nor the tune of the Socialist Commonwealth's funereal anthem. There was excitement of a sort outside Parliament too; "Those who are well off are trembling with fear" confided Marie Belloc Lowndes to her diary.

Well of course they need not have worried. At the election, Attlee had made quite clear what he thought of all that nonsense about socialism: " . . . it is time that the Labour Party ceased to mouth Marxist shibboleths about the proletariat having nothing to lose but their chains. It is just not true." On this cue his government, ex-miners and all, quickly got down to an attack on the living standards of the working class. The country (by which they meant the British capitalist class) was in trouble; therefore everyone (by which they meant the British working class) must work harder and pull in their belts. Food rations were sometimes cut below those endured in wartime and some—for example bread and potatoes—were rationed for the first time. Up and down the country posters were slapped on hoardings bellowing "We're Up Against It! We Work Or Want." In February 1948 the government published a White Paper on Wages and Personal Incomes, which was the first of numerous post-war attempts at a wages "policy", more accurately called wage restraint. The White Paper touched off a long war between the government and trade unions in which the government could claim some success; over the next 2½ years prices increased by 8 per cent while wages went up by only 5 per cent.

On the whole the unions were sympathetic to the government, which caused their frustrated members to stage "unofficial" strikes—strikes without union backing—in which they sometimes had to fight their union almost as hard as their employer. The "unofficial striker" became as black a folk devil as the "flying picket" was to Callaghan's government in the seventies. The government reacted sharply, sending in servicemen to break strikes and in 1949 considering in Cabinet a plan to deport trade unionists who were organising strikes in the docks and in 1950 actually prosecuting some gas workers who went on strike outside the agreed procedure.

This attack on the working class was largely the work of Stafford Cripps, once a turbulent rebel who was expelled from the Labour Party but had become an austere devotee to the economic progress of the British capitalist class. Through a long painful illness Cripps stoically urged the working class, in the name of honour, duty and honesty, to work harder and longer for less. One of his notable methods of cutting wages was the massive devaluation of sterling in 1949 from an exchange rate of $4.03 to $2.80. Cripps did this after emphatically denying that he had any such intention, which did not seem to disturb his sense of honour or honesty.

A similar zeal was evident in the Attlee government's participation in the military conflicts of world capitalism. One of its earliest decisions was to develop an independent British nuclear arsenal—an historic fact which has never lessened the fervour of those thousands of Labour supporters who have subsequently demonstrated against those weapons. When the Americans—calling themselves the United Nations—went to war against North Korea in 1950 the Labour government gave immediate and unqualified support. British workers were sent off to fight there—nearby 700 of them were killed—and the period of national service (Labour had already made history by keeping conscription going for the first time ever in "Peace") was increased from 1½ to 2 years. They spent what were then record peacetime amounts on armaments; Gaitskell's first proposals, when took over as Chancellor from Cripps, were for an annual expenditure on something he called "defence" of £1,500 million. At the same time he imposed charges for prescriptions, dental treatment and spectacles—a bitter blow for those who had struggled for so long to realise the article of faith of a "free" National Health Service.

Perhaps they were consoled by the fact that, apart from some last minute havering over steel, the Attlee government kept their pledge to nationalise basic industries. In the case of coal it was common for the oldest ex-miner in the district capable of tugging on a rope to be taken to the pithead to run up the National Coal Board flag and declare that the people had at last taken over the mines.

Well as we all know, people who are under emotional stress tend to overlook important but inconvenient facts. The truth was that nationalisation was very far from ownership by the people; why else did Tories like Churchill and Quintin Hogg (now Lord Hailsham) say that in most cases they had no objection to the state takeover? In his book The Road to 1945 Paul Addison says:

In each case the argument for state control was as much accepted by businessmen as by Labour politicians . . .

When the Bank of England was nationalised there was not even an outward sign of change; the Governor, his Deputy and the Court were left in office, to carry on as before. Nobody suggested bringing some ancient retired clerk, grown dim-eyed from years of poring over ledgers, to raise the Red Flag over Threadneedle Street.

Many members of that government paid a high personal cost in their efforts to hold British capitalism together in crisis. Two of them—Cripps and Bevin—died. And when, thirty years ago, they lost the election, they were written down—inaccurately—as a party of rigid political theory, of experiment, the party which bungled its way into crises, shortages and finally into its own defeat.

They were a long time recovering. But among the Labour ranks as they went down that October day was one whose canny grasp of political reality looked forward to the day when the workers would be dissatisfied with the Tories too. Harold Wilson's great contribution to the politics of capitalism was to win recognition for Labour as a "pragmatic" party. He practised deceit in a new dimension. Theory and experiment, a desire for a different social order however misinformed, were for those who watched white haired, wheezing ex-miners raise flags. Wilson might stand watching too but at the same time he knew that it was his role to bring the Labour Party to its destiny as the alternative administration for British capitalism.

Ivan

The Palace-Builders (1975)

From the March 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

We cut sandstone pyramids out of desert strata,
They said it would preserve them for our God;
And piled on pile for the Tower of Babylon,
For they promised us good in a score of tongues;
We gave them tribute at the gates of the Labyrinth,
To pacify the Bull which was shaking the earth;
Upon the Rock of Athens, we built to perfection,
Were not all now equal under rule of the many?
We vaulted a dome for the Pantheon, needing no centre,
Had not Caesar promised to restore the Republic?
At Santa Sophia we gave the heavens a new roof,
Blessed by one Pope, cursed by another, and used in the name of Allah.
We watered their moats, raised up castle keeps,
Ploughed the land which owned us, safe in its fief;
Pointed their arches, filled them with painted glass,
Reaching for heaven with our tallest spire.
We gave them our tools, beggared our serfdom,
They put a price on our hands and some were unsold;
Then cut off our ears and in our foreheads branded
The mark of a slave and none paid us wages;
The fields were trenched and with fences enclosed,
Our cottage homes sank under palace improvements,
Our infants were gathered — the care of the Poor was Law —
Cotton, wool and linen their small hands wove them all.
We build no more now that art needs no muscle,
The hammer wears out its shaft, the stone eats the chisel;
Because we held the levers we thought we were in control,
Pharaoh, King Caesar, Pope, Baron, Merchant — Capital!
Their machines have sucked upon our labour,
Our skills and their products quarter the globe;
But coming is the time when the world will favour
We! — And masons will carve their own abode.

B. K. McNeeney

Marx of a Philosopher (1979)

Book Review from the August 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Karl Marx’s Theory of History by G. A. Cohen. Oxford University Press, 1978, £10.50

The basis of life under capitalism is the workers' sale of labour power to the employers, although this is not generally accepted as a true description of the world we live in. This is so for a number of reasons. On that basis there arise other relations and institutions which serve it and are subordinate to it, and may be very different in kind. Someone may work in a large organisation which obscures class relations, and their own conception of the nature of society and their place in it may leave no room for a recognition of the basic and unpalatable truth. No doubt this plays an important role in the present acceptance of capitalism.

One kind of institution which masks the basic relation and may seem a long way from it is the department of philosophy, a place where young men and women (nearly all workers, as in the population at large) go to gain degrees and diplomas. They may appear to go there to pursue knowledge for its own sake. In fact they are receiving a mental training which equips them for their subsequent tasks as computer workers, managers, civil servants, teachers and so on, in the service of the capitalist class. We can be sure that governments would not spend large sums of money on such places were it otherwise. Nor would provision have been made for an increasing number of students to study the subject. (At Oxford University, one in four take it as some part of their course.)

But what goes on in these places? Don't people just sit around uttering vague, pompous waffle about the Meaning of Life? The answer is that, to some extent, it depends where you are. In the English-speaking world nothing could be further from the truth. Arguments are subjected to the most rigorous and detailed scrutiny, all terms must be defined, all claims supported. It would be truer, indeed to say that here people sit around talking about the meaning of words. (This is a reflection of a line of approach which has been present in philosophy since Socrates. He argued, for example, that he could not decide whether virtue could be taught until it had been stated what virtue meant.)

In itself an insistence on clarity and definition of terms should be welcomed. But in philosophy it has often come to predominate at the expense of the substance of arguments; it has become sterile nit-picking about words. That is one reason why linguistic philosophy in the English-speaking world has hitherto found no place for the study of Karl Marx, who on the whole is not a nitpicker but makes large claims about the nature of society.

In contrast, there is another tradition of thought on some parts of the continent, notably France, where grand thoughts prevail, precision is not highly regarded and Marx gets a look in. Unfortunately, his thought is often so distorted that you could be forgiven for thinking it was a different Marx altogether who was being talked about. Take these choice examples of garbage from the French Stalinist philosopher Louis Althusser:

"... a philosophical reading of Capital is quite the opposite of an innocent reading. It is a guilty reading, but not one that absolves its crime on confessing it. On the contrary, it takes the responsibility for its crime as a 'justified crime' and defends it by providing its necessity. It is therefore a special reading which exculpates itself as a reading by posing every guilty reading the very question that unmasks its innocence, the mere question of its innocence: what is it to read?
However, Marx's Dialectics would have been very relevant to us today, since it would have been the Theory of Marx's theoretical practice, that is, exactly a determinant theoretical form of the solution (that exists in the practical state) to the problem we are dealing with: the problem of the specificity of the Marxist dialectic."

Small wonder that Marx exclaimed, concerning French Marxists of his own day, that he himself was no Marxist. Impenetrable rubbish like this contributes nothing to a clear understanding of the nature of capitalism and gives people a perfect excuse for ignoring Marx's theories.

In the context of such murk G A Cohen's Karl Marx's Theory of History comes like a hard beam of light on a foggy night. He rejects Althusser's approach and states his twin aim of respecting what Marx wrote and also the standards of rigour in the first philosophical tradition mentioned above. On the whole he is highly successful in both respects, and if that tradition goes on ignoring Marx it is no longer for want of a first-rate philosophical text.

In the main part of the book Cohen explains and defends the idea that growth in productive power is the basis of human history, so that different forms of society, different sets of relations between human beings, different class conflicts, come and go depending on how appropriate they are for the continuation of such growth. There is elaborate and painstaking discussion of all the terms implicit in this idea – productive forces, productive relations, the difference between raw materials and instruments of production, what it means to say that other features of society are explained by the development of its productive power, what counts as an example of each of these things, and so on. There are many interesting and enlightening discussions along the way (for instance on the fetishism of commodities), and later in the book Cohen shows that the thirst for profits under capitalism works to prevent an easing of the burden of toil for the worker. Attributions of any view to Marx are supported by detailed reference to his works.

But the question arises whether Cohen does not succeed too well in his stated aims. He is prepared to spend several pages teasing out the meaning of two (admittedly important) sentences from Marx's Preface; he pauses and considers too politely the quibble that workers can own means of production because a garment cutter may own a pair of scissors; he deliberates whether empty space is a productive force. Precision, indeed, but it leaves the book with a certain imbalance. For such attention to marginal questions of detail inevitably leaves fewer pages for the very wide and substantial questions which Cohen also expresses views on. It reinforces the impression that this is philosophy book first and a book about Marx second, and suggests that Cohen's view of the wood is impaired by his love for the trees, and indeed the twigs.

For example, he says little or nothing to back up his claims that there are industrial societies which are not capitalist (he seems to think Russia is one such), that there are doubts about the adequacy of the earth's resources, that there exist "the broad middle classes" and that "Marxist tradition expects revolution only in crisis". All of these views we should reject, and we should certainly challenge anyone who expresses them merely in passing.

Yet there is much in the book which is correct and ought to have saved Cohen from these errors. He recognises that socialism will be a moneyless, democratically planned system of common ownership, that it requires a superabundance to be feasible as well as working class unity, and also that class is a matter of one's relation to the means of production.

Why then does he not get it right? Perhaps only because his main concern with a meticulous statement and defence of the material preconditions of socialism. It is almost as if he thought the human precondition – a united and politically conscious working class – will take care of itself. But it will not. The very idea of taking hold of the means of wealth and creating a moneyless world hardly present at all in the minds of workers and is easily dismissed as cranky. That is why it is so vital to establish it as a serious political possibility. It would be sad indeed to think that Cohen is prepared to advance this idea between the covers of a philosophy book but not in his own political activity.

Again, his statement that "All classes are receptive to whatever ideas are likely benefit them" will bring a wry smile to the face of any socialist who has endured abuse from fellow workers. This will not be true until a class sees itself as a class, and the so-called Marxists of the left wing have created as much confusion here as any defender of capitalism, with their talk of "workers and intellectuals" (as though someone paid to think was not a worker) and the perennial "middle class". Cohen had all the materials to hand to dispel this pernicious confusion and make plain that all those who are dependent on the sale of their labour power are workers. He does not do so, and in that respect (though not in others) his book is a missed opportunity.

The conclusion is therefore irresistible that it is as important for Cohen to read the Socialist Standard as it is for readers of the Socialist Standard to read this unusual and impressive book.

Bill Valinas

Related Reading

George Orwell: “Politics and the English Language” in Collected Essays.

Keith Graham: J. L. Austin. A Critique of Ordinary Language Philosophy.

SPGB: Why Capitalism Will Not Collapse (1932).

Socialist Party of Canada: A World of Abundance.

Susan George: How the Other Half Dies.

E. P. Thompson: The Poverty of Theory.

Bias on the Bench (1979)

Book Review from the February 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Politics of the Judiciary by J. A. G. Griffith (Fontana 1977) £1.25

"In the traditional view" John Griffith writes, "the function of the judiciary is to decide disputes in accordance with the law and with impartiality. The law is thought of as an established body of principles which describes rights and duties . . . " Essentially, this view rests on an assumption of judicial "neutrality". Griffith's book is an attempt to explode this erroneous view.

It is not difficult to show that the judiciary are a collection of reactionary, narrow minded servants of the existing elite. Indeed some have wondered why Griffith has bothered to write a book just to demonstrate this obvious fact. However, it is worth demonstrating and although proof is not hard to find the book is useful in that it pulls together in a readable lucid style several areas of judicial action which supports Griffith's contention of the bias of the judiciary.

One of the most illuminating and instructive examples is a well known speech by one of England's best known judges, Lord Denning. In a case dealing with the London Borough of Southwark's claim for possession of slum houses against some squatters, Denning made the following remarkable statement:

If homelessness were once admitted as a defence to trespass, no one's house could be safe. Necessity would open a door which no man could shut . . . So the courts, for the sake of law and order, take a firm stand. They must refuse to admit the plea of necessity to the hungry and the homeless; and trust that their distress will be relieved by the charitable and the good" (our emphasis).

In showing the judiciary's bias in favour of property in general and against such groups as trade unions, students and squatters, Griffith has demonstrated the purpose of his book, which he claimed was to look at the ways in which judges have, in recent years, dealt with political cases which have come before them. What is unfortunate (although inevitable) about the book is that Griffith gets no further than pointing out the lack of judicial neutrality. He writes:"to expect a judge to advocate radical change, albeit legally, is as absurd as it would be to expect an anarchist to speak up in favour of an authoritarian society".

This of course is the wrong question. It is not a matter of whether the judges are concerned to preserve and protect the existing order of society, but what the working class are prepared to do about capitalism. Griffith shows little understanding that what is at stake is not the obvious bias of the judiciary, but the bias of the working class in favour of the society that the judiciary defend.

Ronnie Warrington

Lee Harvey Oswald, ‘Hunter of Fascists’? (2015)

Oswald

From the December 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

In October the media reported a claim that a notorious photo of Oswald clutching a couple of ‘Marxist’ papers was not a fake. We will let the experts settle that one, but in what sense is Oswald being regarded as a ‘Marxist’?

Many claim that the assassination of President Kennedy on 22 November 1963 by Oswald was part of a conspiracy rather than the act of a lone gunman. In some way we can be reminded of the Reichstag Fire of 1934, readily blamed by the Nazis on a ‘Communist conspiracy’ but, in fact, a lone arson attack by the Council Communist, Marinus van der Lubbe.

Lee Harvey Oswald was a leftist who at one point in his life, defected to Russia, a self-professed Marxist who became opposed to Russian-style ‘communism’, declaring at one point’ I never had a card to the Communist party. . . . I am a Marxist, but not a Leninist-Marxist. . .’.  In addition to defecting to Russia, he later also distributed leaflets for the pro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba Committee. The photograph in question shows him clutching his Carcano rifle, holding up two newspapers, The Militant, of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party and The Worker, of the CPUSA. He inscribes on the back of one of those photos ‘hunter of fascists.’ Oswald had already made an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the far right-wing General Edwin Walker. His wife Marina said that he considered Walker to be the leader of a ‘fascist organization.’

Some say that his self-proclaimed Marxism was all a ruse but every person on record who knew him -- family members, co-workers, associates -- say he held his political views sincerely. Oswald flaunted his ‘communism’ in the Marine Corps, to the point that other marines called him ‘Oswaldskyvitch.’ Norman Mailer in his book on Oswald, Oswald's Tale, shows with ample evidence that he was a Marxist of sorts, as have Gerald Posner and Priscilla Johnson McMillan who document his leftist beliefs from the time he was 15 and was given a pamphlet defending the Rosenbergs, executed for spying for Russia. Oswald said that this pamphlet got him interested in reading socialist literature and that he later borrowed Marxist books from the New Orleans public library and that it was confirmed by classmates that he was reading these library books. Oswald became and stayed -- however simplistically he understood it -- a ‘communist’. We have Oswald's public and private writings professing to be a Marxist and an admirer of Castro as well as his public and private behaviour supporting this.

During his defection to Russia he became disillusioned with life there. He wrote:

‘No man, having known, having lived, under the Russian Communist and American capitalist system, could possibly make a choice between them. There is no choice, one offers oppression the other poverty.  Both offer imperialistic injustice, tinted with two brands of slavery.’

His diary entry for the period August-September 1960 reads:

‘As my Russian improves I become increasing conscious of just what sort of society I live in. Mass gymnastics, compulsory after work meeting, usually political information meeting. Compulsory attendance at lectures and the sending of the entire shop collective (except me) to pick potatoes on a Sunday, at a State collective farm. A 'patriotic duty' to bring in the harvest. The opinions of the workers (unvoiced) are that it's a great pain in the neck. They don't seem to be especially enthusiastic about any of the 'collective' duties, a natural feeling. I am increasingly aware of the presence, in all things, of Libezin, shop party secretary, fat, fortyish, and jovial on the outside. He is a no-nonsense party regular.’

And in January 1961:

‘I am starting to reconsider my desire about staying. The work is drab, the money I get has nowhere to be spent. No nightclubs or bowling alleys, no places of recreation except the trade union dances. I have had enough.’

Back in Dallas, he told an acquaintance that the people in Russia ‘were poor. They worked and made just enough to buy their clothes and their food.… The only ones who had enough money to buy anything else … the luxuries of life, were those who were Communist Party officials … high ranking members of the party.’

Another acquaintance said that Oswald ‘seemed to classify all members of the Communist Party as opportunists who were in it just to get something for themselves out of it.… and [he] thought they were ruining the principles which the country should be based on. In other words, they were not true Communists. They were ruining the heaven on earth which it should be.’

Oswald's belief in ‘communism’, as he understood it, was no doubt genuine. On more than one occasion he differentiated between ‘Marxists’ and ‘Leninists/Communists’.  Of course he was no Marxist in any sense that we understand but he did get one thing right, ironically about the futility of assassinating leaders. A police interrogator records him as saying:

‘Since the President was killed, someone else would take his place, perhaps Vice-President Johnson. His views about Cuba would probably be largely the same as those of President Kennedy… When the head of any government dies, or is killed, there is always a second in command who would take over.’

ALJO

John Lennon (1981)

From the January 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Newspapers have described the tragic death of John Lennon as the end of an era. We wish they were right. We wish it was the end of a period of human society in which rock singers could accumulate millions of pounds from the sale of records while millions starve for want of a bowl of rice; we wish we could write an obituary to the violent social system of capitalism in which men like Lennon's alleged murderer can easily obtain and use a gun; we wish we could report the end of the wars and malnutrition and the inequality which Lennon sang about so well. But the era of capitalism is still with us and there will be others to grow rich singing about the miseries it causes.

Lennon was a talented musician and lyricist who understood the world he lived in more than most of his musical colleagues. Some of his songs showed definite political perception and what is generally considered to be his greatest post-Beatles record, 'Imagine', showed an understanding of the meaning of socialism which is almost unmatched in the history of rock music. The song urges people to imagine a world without possessions, countries, wars, hunger or religion. When a meeting of our companion party, the Socialist Party of Canada, was shown on Canadian TV, 'Imagine' was selected by the producer as the most appropriate theme song to sum up our views.

Rock critics regarded Lennon's message with predictable hypocrisy. While claiming that Lennon was a great musician and that they were in tune with what he was trying to say, they have disparaged such songs as 'Imagine' as an "idealistic vision". (Robin Denselow, the Guardian, 12.12.80.) They prefer to stress Lennon's more easily categorised leftist lyrics, such as those on 'Some Time In New York City' in which he expressed his support for the divisive nationalism of the IRA. Like many people, John Lennon vaguely perceived important socialist ideas, but these became confused with the pragmatic radicalism for which he will be remembered by the trendy sloganisers of the Left. For genuine world socialists the vision of a society of which Lennon sings in 'Imagine' is worth more than any of the sterile aggression of modern punk rock. The man may be dead, but the vision of a world of peace, equality and freedom lives on within the socialist movement which neither Lennon nor his supporters have had the wisdom to join. At the risk of being labelled a Marxist-Lennonist, this writer echoes the words of 'Imagine'

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope one day you'll join me
And the world will live as one.

C.

Vital Changes (2015)

Book Review from the December 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

'The Killing Fields of Inequality', by Göran Therborn. Polity £14.99.

Yet another book on inequality and its consequences? Yes, and one that contains a lot of statistics but that also has some new points to make about the types of inequality and their impacts on people’s lives.

Therborn distinguishes three kinds of inequality. The first is vital inequality, dealing with people’s life chances (life expectancy, likelihood of years without serious illness, etc). The second is existential inequality, referring to people’s autonomy, dignity and freedom (thus covering any discrimination on the grounds of gender, sexuality, ethnicity and so on). Lastly is resource inequality, primarily a person’s wealth and income but also including the support they receive from their parents.

As this suggests, one of the book’s strengths is its emphasis on inequalities other than those of income and wealth. Therborn argues that what should be aimed at is ‘equality of capability to function fully as a human being’ (taken from the writings of Amartya Sen) and ‘the rights of all children to a good enabling childhood’. As the book’s title suggests, vital inequality is an important aspect of this, and in Ukraine, for instance, life expectancy is three years less for men than it was in 1990. In London among many other places, your lifespan depends to a large extent on how well-off you are. In general, lack of control over your life is bad for your health: the poorer you are, you are not just likely to die younger but to suffer more years of ill health.

As for existential inequality, discrimination on the grounds of gender is decreasing but still exists and is sometimes quite extreme (in South Asia, for instance). Therborn argues that existential equalisation is a non-zero-sum game: if women or gay people are in general subject to less prejudice or oppression, it does not by itself affect the lifestyles of the privileged. In contrast, resource equalisation is zero-sum: if the share of the poorest in the world’s wealth increases, that of the elite will decrease. Hence the rise in resource inequality in recent years, with countries such as Brazil and South Africa being the most unequal. And it was recently reported that there are more billionaires in China than in the US.

But, as so often in books along these lines, it is in the last couple of chapters that the author disappoints. Therborn accepts that capitalism will be around ‘for the foreseeable future’, and he appeals to the middle class (vaguely characterised as the non-rich and non-poor) to align with the poor. This way they can combat both the suffering of the poorest and the exclusivism of the oligarchs, leading to ‘an egalitarian enlightened society’. But he gives no reason to believe that egalitarian capitalism is possible. 

Paul Bennett

Pathfinders: Fracking – A Bridge Too Far? (2013)

The Pathfinders Column from the January 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

Earthquakes in Blackpool, flaming faucets in New York State. The hot new single issue of this year is surely fracking. Barely anyone even understands what it is yet but already the Greens are against it, and after the Chancellor gave the provisional thumbs-up including tax breaks to the new ‘unconventional gas’ industry in his December budget speech, right-thinking citizens everywhere will know in their hearts that fracking is definitely a ‘very bad thing’.

Fracking, or methane gas extraction through shale rock fracturing, is a text-book example of how capitalism periodically gets itself out of a fix by finding new commodities or techniques to replace old or unprofitable ones. The technique of fracturing rock with explosives and high-pressure water is being billed as new, but it isn’t. Nor is horizontal drilling, which is necessary because shale deposits are spread wide but thinly. The thing that is new is that getting gas this way is now economically and politically viable. Economical because ‘conventional’ gas is unevenly distributed and getting harder to extract, while it looks like everyone apart from Poland has got oodles of this unconventional shale stuff. And politically? Well, we all remember what happened when Russia spitefully turned off Ukraine’s taps in the middle of winter, and we don’t want to go down that unlit alleyway.

Fracking seems almost to have come out of nowhere. As is common in capitalism, and especially the USA, the smart money was straight down the well-heads before anybody thought to ask any awkward questions about regulation. And of course, first thing you know, cows are dropping dead after drinking poisoned water, flames are coming out of kitchen taps, and earthquakes are spilling cups of tea in northern England. Panic duly set in. The UK imposed a moratorium. Sarkozy banned fracking in France. Quebec and Poland followed suit. The main performance may yet turn out to be a success but the overture was certainly a disaster.

There can’t be many people who don’t know that the world is hitting an energy crisis. Oil is peaking, and tar sand oil extraction is a filthy, polluting alternative. Gas reserves are limited, and coal though plentiful is the dirtiest carbon culprit of the lot. Now after Fukushima nobody wants nuclear. Along comes shale gas, like a rabbit out of a hat, and hey presto, the opposition lobby is immediately in business. Protesters in Balcombe, one UK fracking site, insist that it is ‘a very, very short term choice. We really should be putting money into renewables’. Caroline Lucas of the Greens complains of the government’s ‘irrational obsession with hard-to-reach shale and with keeping the UK addicted to fossil fuels’ (BBC Online, 6 December).

These people don’t know what they’re talking about. If the Greens think that this or any government is going to be able to turn renewables, currently just 3.8 percent of the national grid, into a major energy source right in the middle of a depression, they are up a tree. What’s needed is a practical solution to an existing energy problem, and fracking looks like being it.

It’s not clean, but it’s 50 percent less carbon-belching than coal. It’s not easy to get but it’s getting easier. The much publicised fire faucets and poisoned water were almost certainly preventable accidents and cowboy carelessness at the well-head, rather than leaks from the kilometres-deep seams.

Although it’s still early days and nobody’s really sure how big the deposits are, the current global estimate is of around 250 years worth of shale gas at current usage, with the likelihood of revision upward not downward. This changes the whole energy debate at a stroke. Now the talk is of a bridging fuel to a low-carbon future, ie renewables, that could be a more realistic century away. The Greens are aghast. Their whole strategy relied on states having no get-out clause, and this doable solution is the last thing they want. They believe, not without justification, that ‘realistic’ is politician-code for ‘never’, and that fracking will allow governments to ignore any investment in renewables for the foreseeable future. They are no doubt entirely correct in this appraisal, but that’s an argument against capitalist politicians, not an argument against fracking.

This being capitalism, one would hardly expect the development of fracking to be straightforward and problem-free. One must remember that it is not a matter of answering the call of global need, which is fairly steady and predictable, but rather the call of profit, which certainly is not. Thus the US fracking bonanza has already depressed local gas prices, causing a minor energy slump and shareholder panic, but worse, investment has also slumped in conventional drilling and liquefied natural gas (LNG) technology. Since there is a decade-long lead time in the energy business between investment and return, we get the ludicrous situation, which only capitalism could create, that 10 years from now there could be a global shortage of gas due to its very abundance deterring current investors. If you want an example of capitalist absurdity you could do worse than this one.

Beyond this, it’s not really for socialists to take a position on fracking, either pro or con. It’s not a class issue, after all. If regulated properly, which is a big ‘if’ in some countries, there doesn’t at present seem to be much of a case against it. It’s true that methane produces 25 times more global heating than carbon, and there is some early and tentative evidence that it might leak up through the soil (New Scientist, 24 November), but it’s not a long-stay gas so its effect is not likely to be as severe. If every new technology was abandoned directly there was a small accident, we would not have cars, planes, electricity or even steam power. Fracking is new, and the idea of blowing up the ground under our feet may seem intuitively alarming, but geologically speaking it’s fairly insignificant unless some fool drills into an existing fault, and besides, what other immediate alternative is there? If the world miraculously mined its invaluable seam of common sense and abolished the real disaster  of private capital accumulation through the market system, we’d still have an energy problem and fracking would still look like a good bridging solution. Only in that case the world’s people might take the question of renewables with rather more seriousness than short-term capitalist politicians will. If the Greens ever want their arguments to carry any force, they should get real and support workers to abolish capitalism first.

PJS

Obituary: Charles Kincaid (1988)

Obituary from the December 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Charles Kincaid died last month at the age of 85. Despite suffering and considerable pain in his last few weeks, the one subject which he continued to be able to speak about with enthusiasm and lucidity was socialism.

Discovering a copy of the Socialist Standard in the West Ham library in the mid-twenties, he read it through and became a socialist, soon joining the West Ham branch of The Socialist Party. The family suffered extreme poverty during three years of unemployment in the early 1930s, and this situation was hardly improved when he obtained employment at Enfield Rolling Mills in 1934. Much of the journey to [and from] West Ham he often walked, not being able to afford the full fares throughout the week. For all but 2 years of his 34 years in the Rolling Mills he was a shop steward.

In retirement at Milton Keynes he formed a discussion group and followed up a number of promising leads. People showing an interest in the case for socialism were written to and visited, despite difficulties caused by his lack of personal transport in the urban sprawl of the area. He made significant contributions to the local newspapers through their letters columns, developing the case for socialism in lengthy contests with opponents.

One of his most unlikely encounters took place during the Blitz while on nightshift. The Rolling Mills Chairman and Tory MP, John Grimston, turned up and was treated to a discourse on socialism to the accompaniment of bombs and anti-aircraft fire. On subsequent visits, he was challenged by Chas to try his hand at chess.

Those fortunate enough to have known Charles Kincaid will sadly miss his good humour and determination in the struggle for socialism. His example can only inspire us to redouble our efforts to bring about the change he was committed to. We extend our condolences to his son Bill and the rest of the family.

CS