What socialism means (1982)

From the November 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a world rotten to the core with human suffering it is easy to forget the richness and beauty of the natural environment. The artificiality of a society over which the mass of humanity has virtually no control obscures the foundations upon which social existence is built.

Urban industrial life, under a system which puts profits before needs, deforms the relationship between nature and human beings. Alienated from ownership or control of our material base — the world in which we live — living often seems to run contrary to nature; our lives appear as a struggle against material forces, as though there were a conspiracy of the universe against the overwhelmed individual. You want to eat, to live in a decent home, to be fully mobile, to enjoy the pleasures of the world — but the world refuses to let you. “It's a crazy world", people often say. But it is not the natural environment which is crazy. Natural forces do not condemn the hungry to starvation or the homeless to permanent insecurity. Nature can potentially satisfy most of our material wants.

Is it, then, the people of the world who are bad? Badness and goodness are human concepts which- reflect moral perceptions: we are no more inherently bad than we are inherently good. The evils of capitalism are not a consequence of the will of bad people. The old shiver and die in the winter cold, too poor to pay for heat; their suffering is no more the consequence of “badness” than "goodness”. There is nothing in the human make-up which makes us behave as we do.

Nature is not greed, aggression, selfishness, laziness and competition. We have a capacity to act in such ways, just as every baby has a capacity not to. Nature is sunlight, rain, birth, death, earthquakes, eating and excreting. When we pour cold water down our mouths on a hot day or sense the coldness of ice or rolling in the grass, we then exhibit human nature. When soldiers shoot with guns they are behaving, but not naturally. Human nature comprises those characteristics by which the human species is defined and constrained. Human behaviour is social; it is limited only by the forces of matter and the workings of the human brain.

The earliest human society, which lasted for tens of thousands of years, was communistic in its organisation. Primitive humans were at one with nature, in that they respected the natural environment, utilising it for their own natural objectives. Modern humans have learnt to control nature in ways that our ancestors would have thought unnatural. We virtually dominate the universe, but our system of society denies us the power to utilise nature for our own ends. We are capable, for example, of doing the necessary productive work to feed, clothe and shelter every human being on the face of the earth, but the capitalist system denies us the chance to use the productive forces to their fullest capacity. We live in fear of our knowledge, for instead of using it to produce all that we want there is the imminent threat of science being employed for the purpose of social destruction.

Perhaps we should turn to the simple life, unbothered by scientific knowledge and control — could that be the path to unity with nature? To stamp out centuries of human evolution — to hope pathetically for a dose of collective amnesia so that we may forget the recipes for bombs and the indignities of poverty — is no answer. It is impossible to fight against history and win even the presently complacent conservatives wilt discover that lesson one day.

Cynical resignation to the reality of the present is no answer either. To sacrifice potential social happiness for the sake of a non-existent omnipotent "Nature" is a waste of our short lives. Why conform to a system which tramples on your human potential when there is not a scrap of evidence to show that it must go on existing and plenty to show that it will not?

To live with the belief that your condition is predetermined is unhistorical and a colossal waste. Consider the Athenian slave or the feudal serf, refusing to envisage life beyond their respective chains of servitude. Think of the factory workers of the late eighteenth century who accepted the bosses’ stick as a "fact of life” or the South African black worker for whom it is “natural” not to enter places where white people go. Now the slave and the serf have made way for the wage slave. The label of oppression has changed, as has the process of exploitation, but a class of propertyless. socially inferior beings remains. The non-possession of the earth is still the lot of the majority; the parasitic power of the ruling class differs in form only.

Trapped in a time-lock of social evolution, the majority of workers think that nothing except capitalism has ever existed, and even if it has, nothing else will ever come. Nature is seen to determine the system and to challenge these false dogmas is to be accused of being at best a crank and at worst a wrecker.

In a sense, socialists are cranks and wreckers. Our refusal to accept the beliefs which keep the system standing makes us cranks in the eyes of those who define sanity. To those who wish to conserve class monopoly, exploitation, poverty and war, we revolutionaries are wreckers; and without doubt we do want to destroy such a society. Those who possess but do not produce will use any method they can to defend their privilege. Once the myth of god sufficed: “God says you must obey us, so you had better or you will face everlasting damnation". The modern capitalist line is that to envisage a world without wage labour and capital is to entertain visions of the “unnatural”. We are told time and time again that we have "forgotten human nature".

Think of the arguments against socialism. "It can't work”; “What about the greedy, lazy, war-like, unco-operative person"; “you’re forgetting that society is made up of human beings"; “freedom is impossible because of human nature". Socialists have heard these responses almost as many times as we have been told to "go back to Russia". Thousands of times the same old cliched objections to socialism are trotted out, all of them based on the myth of human nature. But repetition of an argument — or its widespread popularity — does not prove its validity. For many years it was often repeated and widely believed that the earth was flat. The denial of the possibility of socialism on the grounds that the new system would conflict with human nature is not made by coincidence: such a belief is historical and political, it arises out of particular social relationships and it exists to serve a specific class interest.

Human nature is an ideological concept designed to shield those who benefit from the status quo against change. The first response of someone who sees something happening which he or she fears is to say that "it can't happen"; likewise, an historically redundant class can only meet the political challenge of socialism by assuming that "it can't happen”. The capitalists, and their defenders, will give as proof the fact that socialism has never "happened" before. And that which has not existed cannot exist. Such a method of analysis conflicts directly with the most fundamental principle of history and science: that all things change, and all reality is preceded by the conception of that reality, in one form or another, in the human brain.

To maintain their mythical contentions, the Human Nature Brigade must abandon history and science. Had they been told a century and a half ago that society would include an intricate network of motorised road transport, all regulated by a generally self-administered highway code, the believers in human nature would have claimed that "it can't happen. Drivers won't stop at traffic lights. Pedestrians will walk in front of fast cars. There will be multiple pile-ups in every street every other day. Road co-operation is an impossible dream". But, by and large, the transition from the horse and cart to motor transport has worked — and would work even better if the stress and inefficiency of capitalism was taken away. Co-operation does happen now in certain social contexts; people "feel good" when they are able to behave co-operatively. In a socialist society conscious human co-operation will be a natural form of social behaviour — killing, plundering, exploiting and oppressing will seem as unnatural to a socialist community as the idea of having a society without those features seems to most people today.

The need for a socialist society, based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production and distribution, is an urgent one. Our daily experiences of life under capitalism tell us that this competitive, jungle society does not and cannot work in the material interest of the majority of the population, who produce the wealth but do not possess it. Socialism becomes a meaningful idea to workers when it is realised that instead of trying to survive in conflict with everyone else, as if this were the only possible way, the answer is to survive by co-operating with the rest of humanity.

Steve Coleman

From No Platform to Safe Spaces (2016)

From the February 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

We refute two arguments for not allowing the free expression of ideas

Last year the militant atheist and ex-Muslim Maryam Namazie was initially banned by the officials of the student union at Warwick University from giving a talk to the atheist, secularist and humanist society there on “Apostasy, Blasphemy and Free Expression in the Age of ISIS”. The justification offered was that the views to be expressed would be offensive to some students, namely, those who still adhered to the Muslim religion. After protests, the student union officials backed down and she was allowed to speak.

Similarly, a petition was launched, which attracted 2500 signatures, calling for the veteran feminist Germaine Greer to be prevented from speaking at Cardiff University. This was because she had expressed the view that men who changed their sex to a woman weren’t really women, a view considered offensive to the LGBT community. This case was worse than Namazie’s as Greer was not going to speak on this but was to be banned merely because of an opinion she had expressed on another matter. In the end she too was allowed to speak.

No Platform

This argument for not allowing particular views to be expressed (or particular people to speak on any subject) differs from that invoked by the likes of the SWP for not allowing racists and fascists such as the National Front and the BNP to speak. ‘No Platform for Fascists’ was justified on the grounds that the views themselves were dangerous and so should not be allowed to be heard in case people came to accept them.

This was an elitist position in that it assumes that some people – the leftwing ‘no-platformers’ – could hear and read fascist views without being affected by them while others – the rest of us – were liable to be infected if they heard them. This was the same argument put forward by those who wanted to ban Lady’s Chatterley’s Lover as obscene and actually expressed at the trial in 1960: that educated men could read it without being corrupted but not their wife or servants.

That censorship is undemocratic and elitist as it involves a minority deciding what the majority can hear or read is the main case against it in general and why we in the Socialist Party never supported, and in fact actively opposed, the ‘No Platform’ policy,  practising what we preached and debating against the National Front and other racists (despite the no-platformers trying to break up the meetings).We took, and still take, the view that people are quite capable of deciding for themselves what to think, and so the way to deal with racists and fascists is not to prevent them expressing their views but to allow them a platform and then publicly confront and refute their arguments . We are pleased to note that this approach is now more widely accepted.

That the majority class of wage and salary workers and their dependants are capable of understanding what is in their class interest is central to the whole case that socialism can only be established if and when a majority have come to want it and to understand what it is and what it involves. To claim that people need protecting from certain views lest they be led astray is saying that the working class is not capable of coming to a socialist understanding on its own but needs to be led. Which of course is precisely what the SWP and other Leninists think.

Identity Politics

What about the argument from offence for censorship? It starts from the plausible position that people who are subject to prejudice and discrimination should have a ‘safe space’ where they can be free from this. This does tend to happen anyway as such people meet together in their own clubs, cafes or pubs. But the student union officials want to extend this to a whole university campus and to this end to ban the expression there of views considered offensive to particular such groups.

This change of argument reflects a wider change away from class politics to ‘identity politics’, a change welcomed by the authorities who prefer divide and rule to class unity (though some of them are beginning to have second thoughts as it also undermines the national unity they want). Minority groups are urged to identify themselves politically as such and to campaign to get gains and concessions only for themselves. Previously both revolutionaries and reformists had talked in terms of getting benefit for the whole wage and salary working class, irrespective of their ethnic origin, gender, language, religion, sexual orientation or whatever.

This class approach has now been abandoned (though not by us) and reformists and do-good liberals have turned to protecting ‘identity’ groups that are subject to prejudice and discrimination, seeing the setting up of ‘safe spaces’ from which the expression of views offensive to them are banned as one way to do this.

But the question remains: which is the best way to deal with people who hold racist or other prejudiced views? Is it to ban them from expressing them? Or is it to confront them in open debate and refute their views and expose them as dangerous? We see no reason to change our position of favouring the second approach.

Religion and Politics

In one respect the ‘safe spaces’ argument for censorship is proving more insidious than ‘no platform’. It has led to bans being sought on the expression not just of admittedly obnoxious views but also of views that don’t fall into this category but which, on the contrary, are helpful and necessary, namely, the criticism of religion. Ironically it has also led to the SWP being banned because of a rape scandal a few years ago, but we are magnanimous and defend them being allowed to express their views.

Nor is it clear why the ‘safe-spacers’ want to exclude Islam from such criticism when the expression of its views on women and gays could be considered offensive to such groups. In any event, suppressing a view does not change the mind of those holding it, which surely is the point as in the end changing minds is the only way to overcome prejudice and discrimination.

No doubt religious people – and not just practising Muslims – find criticism of their religion offensive but to ban the expression of such criticism because of this is to re-introduce the old blasphemy laws and extend them to all religions. Quite apart from us being against censoring views in general, this is something socialists cannot accept. Religion is a social issue, even a social problem, that needs to be discussed and debated and, like other mistaken ‘solutions’ to humanity’s situation, confronted and refuted. We cannot accept any policy which leads to the expression of anti-religious views being banned.

Fortunately, the attempts by student union officials to suppress free expression in universities have met resistance which has forced them to back down, but this has not stopped them from keeping on trying. This is why they must be opposed and exposed just as much as the Leninist ‘no-platformers’.

Adam Buick

From America: "Making it" v World Socialism (1977)

A Letter from America from the September 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the entertainment business, good lines that catch the attention of the viewer are not easy to come by and many a Show Biz personality—whatever the field —must sweat blood to hold interest. Happily, though, there is one tried-and-true exception to this rule and any number of movie, radio and TV stars have used it to good advantage. It is the reminiscing by a successful one of his and his family’s earlier bout with poverty. If there is one tale that never goes stale with most audiences it is the saga of pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps, as the saying goes, or making it against the world on one’s merit. Having been the butt of capitalist propaganda from nursery school times, it is little wonder that the average worker continues to get a vicarious thrill from the rags-to- riches story.

Not that we would challenge the argument that it is still possible to work one’s way up the “ladder.” It is being done and we are more apt to hear of it now because of the growth of the media, particularly TV. But unlike news broadcasting, which features disasters, plain-and-simple entertainment does not generally deal with those who fall off the “ladder” or get stuck on the bottom rungs. It is the exceptional success that gets the play. For the entire philosophy and rationale of modern capitalism rests on the possibility of rising from rags to riches or, at the very least, the opportunity to combat and overcome economic adversity.

True, there is widespread admiration, even veneration—in America as in the “old countries"—for those who have inherited their wealth and status and who have never been compelled to do a day’s “honest” work in their entire lives. We have our “royalty,” too — the Rockefellers, Fords, Du Ponts, Kennedys, etc., almost any of whom have been or could be represented in the elective bodies of the land. But this is somewhat of an aberration in the general scheme of American capitalism. Lurking behind all of the professional representation of “black and city poor” in the USA by organizations—such as National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Urban League is the philosophy of an individual’s right to “make it” if he has “what it takes” and is not being deliberately shut out by those in political control.

Item: The writer, James Baldwin, appearing recently on an educational Network broadcast, defended the looters in the recent NY City blackout, most of whom were black (as were their small-business victims). The looters had been conditioned, he contended, by the advertizing of a “consumer oriented” society to acquire status items so, when the opportunity presented itself, they took advantage of it. The problem, according to Baldwin, is that black workers are being deliberately deprived of the opportunity to live a good life by being denied good jobs with “decent” wages. The fault does not lie with the organization of society on the basis of wage-labor and capital, it would seem, but with those who are in a position to shut out blacks, especially, from opportunities to “make it.” An interesting aspect of that affair was the fact that those who committed arson as well as theft, did their victims a favour—at least those who were covered by fire insurance. On the other hand, and also of academic interest, was the response of horror from the authorities at the magnitude of the crime of looting. Hundreds of the culprits were incarcerated in cells with no facilities, and with no communication with lawyers or family permitted, during a record heat-wave while awaiting for days for arraignment. “Let the punishment fit the crime!” One example of “Human Rights” in the USA.

Now, Socialists maintain a “hands off” stance in regard to activity such as helping the city poor to “make it.” It is not that we object, in any way, to individual workers beating this jungle system. We all must live until we die and certainly it is easier to live under capitalism when one enjoys comparative affluence. Nor are we concerned, as an organization, with the manner in which one “makes it”—whether through inheritance or by one’s wits, legally or otherwise. Our goal is to spread a different gospel. It no longer makes sense to maintain a society wherein individuals have the need to acquire economic or political power in any degree whatsoever. Capitalist mass production techniques have long since made possible a world in which every man, woman and child can be secure by having the right to access to the goods and services that provide security. Modern capitalism must concern itself more and more with damning this potential by slamming production floodgates to accommodate a market. It is possible, given a sane system of society, to change the meaning of “making it.” When brain power no longer must be wasted on “beating the system” the frontier of the future will be unlimited.

Harmo, WSP, Boston.

Elephants' graveyard (1983)

From the June 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

Between 1970 and 1982, according to the magazine Onyx (Vol. 16, p. 225), the number of African elephants declined sharply. Reliable counts in a large number of different regions showed a fall of between 80 and 95 per cent. The conclusion from this is that unless action is taken — for example to prevent the poaching of elephants — this attractive animal will soon be extinct. The African elephant’s plight is not, of course, unique; many forms of wild life are under threat and there are numerous organisations which campaign on behalf of the various endangered species.

There are similarities between the situation of the modern elephant and that of the pleistocene megafauna which were prominent in most parts of the world about two million years ago. Their disappearance came about largely as a result of their conflict with human beings, who were fairly efficient hunters. Consequently the megafauna became extinct in Eurasia over 10,000 years ago; in Australasia this happened within the last thousand years and in North America within the last 500 years (P. S. Martin, Prehistoric Overkill, Yale, 1967). The reason for this is fairly simply; the very size of the large mammals, which had once been an advantage for their self-defence, became a liability when hunting had advanced sufficiently to make size of no value against a well armed hunter. Furthermore, the vast amounts of food which an elephant needs to keep going (in Frankfurt Zoo elephants are fed nearly 185lb. of fodder each day) put the megafauna in competition with human beings for what were then scarce resources. The effects of hunting large mammals is accentuated by the fact that they take a comparatively long time to reproduce themselves.

The decline of the megafauna's modern counterpart, the African elephant, coincided with the rise of capitalism. It was competition among the rising capitalist nations for the raw materials and the markets of the continent which first brought the unfortunate elephant into contact with “civilisation” — which in the elephant’s case meant a group of well armed hunters. The first example of this was in South Africa, where hunters could make vast profits (between 1500 and 2000 per cent) on the sale of ivory to the Dutch East India Company. By the 1830s the huntsmen — mainly Boers — had virtually wiped out all the Cape Colony elephants and then they moved north with devastating effect, massacring great hordes of elephants. Had enforceable Game Laws not been passed in the 1890s, the African elephant would probably have become extinct by the first world war.

It was the system of production for profit which both nearly wiped out the African elephant and saved it. Tusks were produced — that is, elephants were shot — for the profits from the ivory but the elephant was relieved from the murderous pressure when it became useful not just as a source of ivory. In the Belgian Congo the elephant was domesticated and used in agriculture and forestry. The opening of the many game parks allowed elephants to become a tourist attraction; the liquidation of the elephant no longer made good economic sense. There were other ways of making a profit from the animal, than shooting it.

This process, in which capitalism has driven a species into near-extinction and then preserved it, has not been confined to the elephant. The white rhinoceros was nearly hunted out of existence for its horn (which was believed to be marketable as an aphrodisiac) but again has been saved through its popularity with the paying tourists. The ostrich was almost obliterated because of a demand for its skin but has been saved by the fact that it is more profitable to turn out ostrich products in ostrich farms. Consequently wild ostriches have no further attraction for the hunter and are largely left alone by them. There are many similar examples.

But this stay of extinction may only be temporary, conditional on the species remaining valuable when it is alive. And this has been the fate of the African elephant, which is now again under threat and whose numbers have declined sharply. There are two main reasons for this.

The first is the ivory trade; ivory is still in demand as a valuable commodity. One dealer estimates that it is usually worth over £40 a kilogramme. The exact number of elephants slaughtered for their ivory is uncertain; Dr. Douglas Hamilton has said that between 100,000 and 400,000 were killed for their ivory in 1976, an estimate disputed by Ian Parker who believes that fewer than 55,000 elephants in fact died for their tusks (Onyx. Vol 16, pp 235-8). Of these deaths Parker estimates that only 20 per cent were killed “legally” (by government-licensed hunters or in management culling programmes). The remainder were illegally poached and exported to their market quite openly as, according to Parker, export licenses for poached ivory are quite easy to obtain by bribery and other means. Illegal ivory is of course quite indistinguishable from that which is allowed to be shot. The world’s major ivory importers are Hong Kong, India and Japan, where the ivory is carved, polished and sold, bringing in huge profits to the hunters, dealers and the sellers of the finished products.

The second major reason for the recent decline of the African elephants is their size. Because of the need for large amounts of food, the creatures are constantly on the move. Each family group will range over a set area to feed itself and the size of these ranges varies between 25 and 1,200 square miles (I. Hamilton, Among the Elephants, 1975, pp 231-3 ). But these ranges have been put under great pressure through agricultural development; consequently the elephants have been virtually confined to the National Parks and any outside these boundaries are liable to be shot as a danger to the crops.

The shooting of elephants to protect crops must not be seen, however, as a conflict between the elephants and human beings for scarce resources; it is the result of a clash between the elephants’ need for food and the interests of the crop growers. The crops are not produced to satisfy human needs but to realise a profit for the people who have invested in their growth. It was the demands of the crop owners which led to more effective boundaries of the National Parks (which are themselves drawn in an attempt to maximise profitability) and the drastic reduction in the elephant ranges. This reduction has meant that there is insufficient spare land for the elephant population which, according to Ian Parker, is a more important factor in the recent decline of the elephant than the ivory trade (Onyx, Vol 16, p 238).

So the numbers of the African elephant have declined rapidly because a live elephant is generally regarded as less valuable than a dead one. In face of this over-riding consideration in a capitalist society, the various wildlife protection societies are impotent. The African elephant can only survive, in a social system in which a minority of people own the means of life, if that minority believe that its survival is in their interests. In the 3rd century BC, Ptolemy II tried to prevent elephant hunting tribes from pursuing their prey because their killings were detrimental to his military strategy, which involved the use of elephants. Since then, there have been several attempts by the ruling class to boost the elephant population, the latest of which is the National Parks.

Should we bother about the fate of any one species of wildlife? How vital is the demise of a million or so elephants compared to that of the 30 million people who die each year of starvation or the threat of an all-destructive nuclear war which will make the human race an extremely rare species? Well the decline of the African elephant illustrates important points about the nature of capitalism and of socialism.

The first of these is the essential callousness of a social system in which production is for profit. In this all things, including the elephant, exist through a calculation which puts a price on their life and on their death — an equation which currently operates against the elephant and so hastens its demise, in much the same way as human beings may be written off or maintained on very low levels of “benefit” when they are no longer productive.

Secondly, what of future society? Will socialism allow free development of all forms of wildlife, whatever the consequences for the human race? Would it encourage the locust and the tsetse fly to thrive? When the means of production are communally owned there will be a totally different mode of wealth production, with different motives; commodities will be replaced by free access to use values. Free of the distortions of property society, the people of socialism will be able to assess comprehensively the totality, and the true balance, of the relationship between wildlife and the human race. If there should be a situation — a natural disaster, perhaps — which forces one into competition with the other for scarce resources then socialist society may well take the decision, democratically, that there is no alternative to an humane cull. It may even decide to obliterate some species.

That would be a regrettable, but unavoidable, step to take but it would be taken in the interests of humanity, unlike the motivation under capitalism for the slaughter which clubs the seal pup bloodily on the ice, which has the elephant die in slow agony from gunshot wounds and all in the name of profit.

John Critichfield

Grass Roots (1968)

Book Review from the September 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Constituency Labour Parties in Britain by Edward G. Janosik (Pall Mall Press, 45s.)

Edward Janosik has produced here a study of the organisational and political nature of constituency Labour Parties. The blurb on the dust jacket claims that the book contains “a body of reliable data from which sound generalisations could be made". Unfortunately, the author, an American who spent a year in Britain, has little or no experience of his subject and his data has been acquired by interviewing what he calls  “key leaders" of thirty six CLPs.

Before joining the Socialist Party of Great Britain 1 was a CLP secretary—a “key leader”—for some years and my own impressions of the Labour Patty are very different from those gained second hand by Janosik. He must realty be naive if he thinks that the party machine (Transport House) isn't all that powerful in the selection of parliamentary candidates. True, there is a procedure laid down which appears to give the “grass roots" a great deal of independence in the matter, but the machine, through its local paid officials, can and often does see that the dice is loaded in favour of nominees acceptable to it by turning a blind eye to blatant irregularities in the delegations to selection conferences.

Also, Janosik's claim that there is little evidence of organised factionalism in the CLP's is. to anyone who has ever been active in the Labour Party, sheer nonsense. Before such events as the election of office-bearers, the choosing and instruction of delegates to national and local conferences, the selection of parliamentary and municipal candidates, each faction will normally meet in conclave to decide a course of action against the others.

Janosik does admit that his studies were carried out at a time when a general election was pending. Such an event is always a great unifier as CLP's are basically an electoral machine whose function is to secure the return of candidates representing a very broad viewpoint of how British capitalism should be run. Not that the "unity" ever lasts very long. After the votes have been counted the various factions, left and right, will cheer their heads off together if Labour wins but it is only a short while before the back-stabbing begins again. If Labour loses then, of course, it commences right away.

The book does reveal, in passing, some of the skeletons in the Labour cupboard. For instance, the fact that candidates are sometimes chosen with an eye to the religious prejudices of the electorate. Also dealt with is the degrading "pulling out” of the Labour vote on election day. This consists of the party activists plaguing everyone suspected of Labour sympathies to come out and vote. Fleets of cars are provided for this spectacle and no wonder, for if the average Labour voter were left to vote of his or her own accord then there would be a lot less Labour MPs in Parliament.

The myth that the CLP’s are bastions of militancy against the reactionary leadership also takes a knock. Actually, the vast majority of Labour Party are simply apolitical and are only concerned with humdrum fund-raising and social activities.

Janosik's book cannot fail to impress whoever is obsessed with discovering the facts relating to the average age and occupational, religious, educational background of CLP leaders and there are abundant tables dealing with all this and more. Doubtless, the Robert McKenzie, Abrams and Rose crowd will be fascinated, but really, the author has failed to get under the skin of his subject and to see it for the corrupt, undemocratic and anti-socialist organisation that it is.

Perhaps we shouldn't blame him too much for that After all, thousands who have spent a lifetime in its ranks still haven’t seen through it either

Vic Vanni

Tin pot madness (1985)

From the December 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Defenders of the market system claim that the cost/price factors, through which it operates. enable modern production to be organised in a rational manner, that without the market modern production would break down and could not carry on in a practical way. Experience shows that it is precisely the operation of the market which constrains and dislocates modern production. It is only by first abolishing the market system that the useful structure of modern production could become free to be run in a practical way, directly for human needs.

This fact has been demonstrated yet again by chaos in the world tin market leading to a suspension of trading on the London Metal Exchange on October 24 and dislocation in the world distribution of tin. This was certainly not because the social need for tin was over-supplied. Obviously this metal is an important component of equipment and a wide range of finished goods which are needed throughout the world. But needs are not a "rational" concern which determines the operation of the tin market. In fact, the trading crisis centred on a very different question. Far from the market being a practical mechanism allowing for the distribution of tin, trading on the London Metal Exchange broke down because profit-making was thrown into chaos.

Central to the crisis was the work of the International Tin Council, which is fraudulently described as a “producers' and consumers' group". None of the actual producers of tin the miners of Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Brazil, Bolivia, Australia and, among others, 2,000 tin miners in Cornwall - have got anything to do with the Council. Nor have the consumers of tin the wider community, for whose consumer needs tin should be directly produced.

The International Tin Council represents a very different set of interests. These are the owners and traders of tin who buy and sell this commodity with the sole object of profiting from it. It is a world price pact agency whose aim has been to maintain the price of tin on the world market. It has been financed by various governments and from loans, with a view to intervening in world trading with the object of regulating the world price above the recent floor price of £8,500 a tonne.

In trading conditions of over-supply in relation to market capacity, with a corresponding tendency of the price to fall below the floor price, the International Tin Council intervenes as a buyer with a view to increasing the price. It then controls reserve stocks which, theoretically, it is able to market when the price is restored. In addition to this, and by agreement, the Council is able to set export quotas aimed at cutting back on production as an added means of relieving downward pressure on the world price. For example, against the needs of people, production from Indonesia declined from 33,322 tonnes in 1981 to 22.500 tonnes in 1984.

During the early period of the 29 years of the price pact, regulation of the world price was never easy, even when four national capitalist groups - Malaysia, Indonesia. Thailand and Bolivia between them controlled 80 per cent of the world's supply. Also during this early period, sales at a profit were buoyant. But since that time world capitalism has entered the current depression and together with this other large scale sellers of tin, such as Brazil, have entered the world market outside the price pact. As a result, control of world marketing by the International Tin Council has fallen to 60 per cent of current production. This has brought pressure on the members of the price pact to cheat. So there has been a growth of smuggled tin and the movement of illegal tin. Far from the operation of this market being "rational'' - or. as its defenders believe. “the most practical system" the convolutions of its insanities have now resulted in something known as "illegal tin".

Substantially, the dealings on the London Metal Exchange involve the buying and selling of exchange contracts which do not necessarily result in the transfer of the ownership of the metal itself. The absurdities of this marketing saga were highlighted early this year when the stock manager of the International Tin Council insisted that, instead of the mere buying and selling of exchange contracts, which involved selling forward one day and then buying back cheaper the next, the actual tin involved should be physically delivered in line with the sales. This caused even more chaos in the market and so had to be abandoned.

The temptations for the capitalist controlling the supply to go on marketing tin, with the International Tin Council buying to keep the world price above £8,500 a tonne, have proved impossible to resist. In October the stock manager of the Council controlled reserves of 62,000 tonnes, enough to supply current world capitalist use for 5 months. Against an accumulation of 62,000 tonnes which the Council did not know what to do with, bankruptcy of their own funds, debts estimated at £340 million on outside loans with bankers in panic, trading was suspended.

It is important to note that behind this marketing chaos there is in fact a useful structure of world tin production which could be operated directly for human needs. The raw material is mined in various world locations by workers who have all the necessary skills. This raw material is transported to regional centres of industry where it is processed and refined into tin. It might then be processed with other metals as various alloys. These materials are then transported to centres of manufacture where they are prepared as the component parts of machinery, equipment or finished items of consumption goods. With further assembly the finished goods are distributed to the various localities.

This connected network of productive activities through which tin ore becomes finished goods depends on the skills and energies of the workers involved. The network operates as a result of required quantities of the worked-on materials and component parts being communicated throughout the various stages of production and distribution. As this useful structure of production already exists, the future society of socialism would not require an entirely new or different one. What is required is the removal of the present capitalist features which are now imposed on this useful structure. so that its useful features would be free to operate through co-operation directly for human needs.

Thus in socialism, with a system of production solely for use, needs would arise expressed as definite quantities of required goods among the whole community. These would be registered and communicated to regional centres of manufacture. As a result, regional manufacturing units would know the amounts of required production. This would be passed on throughout the entire network of production eventually to the mining and processing of such raw materials as tin. This would be a direct and practical response of social productive activity based on co-operation in line with social needs. But it can only be free to take place once the market system is abolished, which requires that the entire means of production and distribution must be converted into common ownership by the whole community.

Under capitalism the structure of tin production, based on the world mining of the raw material, regional processing and manufacture and assembly of finished products then local distribution, is inevitably loaded with waste. Competing enterprises repeat means of production and the constraints of the market result in these not being used to full capacity. At present the Tin Council alone retains a stockpile of 62,000 tonnes which has no immediate profitable use. Goods manufactured in Japan are sent to America and Europe and vice versa. This anarchic system of distribution results in the same articles criss-crossing each other on the world's trade routes. Moreover, tin production has been reduced as a result of the present depression. Tin miners have become unemployed.

Without the market, this useful structure of production could be operated more productively in direct line with human needs. This could avoid all the present wasteful features. Whereas "oversupply" of the material in relation to the capacity of the market for sales at a profit involves a denial of human needs, in socialism the position of oversupply would not be reached until human needs had been met.

It might well be asked - could the work of the present International Tin Council be adapted for use in socialism? Obviously its present function in the world market would be immediately redundant. Nevertheless, some of its useful features could be taken up. For example, it provides useful information on world tin production, its many uses and the world distribution and availability of the raw material reserves. Perhaps such an organisation could have a useful monitoring role in socialism, providing information which might help with decisions about the use of this material against others for different purposes.

What is certain is that behind the madness of the market, there is a useful structure of production and administrative machinery, which could provide ready-made organisation for the operation of production solely for use.

Pieter Lawrence 

International Socialists . . . the Tripe Factory (1974)

From the April 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The crisis which we have been predicting for the last 20 years is now upon us . . . Every single area of the organisation needs to be strengthened if we are to reply to Heath, Wilson and the union leaders with real Socialist answers” (Socialist Worker 5 January 1974).

Not at all a bad idea! If by “real” Socialist answers is meant sound, correct Socialist answers.

Unfortunately the International Socialists are not giving “real” Socialist answers; but very unreal mistaken ones.

Socialist Worker for 12 January includes a whole page of “replies to readers’ queries”, headlined by the statement that "the only answer” is not “Socialism” but “Workers' Control”.

Now the first point about so-called “Workers’ Control” is that there ain’t (and can’t be) any such animal. Workers’ control is a simple contradiction in terms. Those “in control” can never be the workers. Control of society comes from ownership backed by a Parliamentary majority. Even Chris Harman is forced to admit this. Lower down answering somebody else he writes: “What is needed is a mass movement of workers prepared to fight for control of every pit, dock, factory and office, replacing the present system by one run democratically by elected workers’ delegates.” But he adds (ruefully) “such a really massive movement does not yet exist. Most workers continue to take the existing system for granted and only want small gradual changes in it.” (Socialist Worker 12 January 1974).

Too true — only too true, Chris. But even supposing that friend Harman’s idea actually worked and a "massive movement” of workers fought for control of every factory — AND WON IT — WHAT THEN? Would it be Socialism? NO! On the same page we are told that the "problem of shortages” would be transformed by "dividing up the immense wealth in very few hands; enough to give the six million lower paid workers an extra ten pounds a week.”

Is this Socialism? NO! It’s the same old wages system. All it could do would be to perpetuate the same old class struggle. Even if every worker got ten pounds extra next Friday, nothing would be fundamentally changed. Capitalism would go its own sweet way and whittle away the "increases” by inflation, speed-up and all its other devices. As Tony Cliff rightly says (misquoting Lenin) "Capitalism always has a way out of the crisis if the workers are ready to pay the price” (Socialist Worker 5 January 1974).

The Socialist Worker actually writes that this "dividing up” would "pay the miners a decent wage so that they saw no reason to strike”. (What is a "decent” wage?)

This is definitely comical, seeing that the International Socialists spend most of their time fomenting strikes for political ends. Of course we are not quite so naive as not to know that the object of all the International Socialists’ hysteria about the present crisis is simply "the mixture as before”. It is a reprint of the old outmoded and discredited Communist Party tactics — calls for a Labour Government, new versions of the election of Soviets by the Trades Councils and establishment of "dual power” on the Petrograd model.

Its support of any and every strike, or potential riot, its absurd idea that any crowd breaking a few windows is preparation for the "revolutionary situation” and slavish idolatory of the Leninist “tactics” is the real reason for the formation of Rank and File (T.U.) movements, organization of fractions in the Trade Unions and factory branches. It’s all been tried before, ending with the virtual non-existence of the CPGB.

Behind the organization of strikes to overthrow Governments is the idea of seizure of power by “Workers’ Committees” backed by mutiny in favour of the workers by the armed forces! What a hope!

By their rejection of Parliamentary methods International Socialists show that they are confused on the method of establishing Socialism because they do not understand Socialism itself. Socialism is NOT control by the workers. Socialist society concerns every citizen in his capacity as a human being, not as a miner, bank clerk or whatever.

Cannot International Socialists see that if the massive movement they envisage was Socialist it would inevitably express itself politically at elections, capturing political power in the only way possible (which is not street fights or riots) by a majority vote?

By their hysterical and unthinking fomenting of disorder they discredit and besmirch Socialism, reducing it to the level of hooliganism and street brawling.

Will they never learn? It’s all been tried before and is foredoomed to disaster.

Horatio

The Illusions of Anti-Militarists (1925)

From the September 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the workers outside the Army, Navy, etc., are opposed to Socialist ideas, is it likely that those inside the armed forces will be more sympathetic to revolutionary influences? The answer is emphatically, no. The powerful influence of capitalist tuition on the civil population is plain. And the more powerful effect of capitalist tuition on those in the “forces" is plainer still.

In spite of this, Pacifists and “Communists,” who have never adopted a policy of educating the workers in Socialism, think it will be possible to permeate the armed forces with their ideas. Communists who talk about general strikes to seize power and direct action as the only way, suddenly decide that these policies are not sufficient. They now declare that the Army must be with the workers. If economic action to tie up industry and “starve the bosses" is the policy they believe in, why bother about the Army. They sometimes think that the armed forces will be starved by a general strike and that no Army can be moved because of a railway strike. But they drop all this moonshine suddenly and get the notion that the Army and Navy can be converted. The very same persons who loudly proclaim that the mass of the workers cannot be educated into Socialism tell us that the Army, being composed of workers, can be won for our ideas.

The dictatorship diehards who affirm that only a minority of the workers under capitalism can escape from mental slavery to the capitalist, these are the very same people who believe that those in armed camps can have their capitalistic education dispelled.

This “short cut" to Revolution is full of illusions. Take the position of a soldier. He is isolated in barracks and camps and there mentally drilled to obey orders. He is carefully segregated from the influences which might weaken the mental hold of capitalist tuition. He is given a security of food, clothing and shelter, which is denied in industrial life, and where unemployment is frequent. All the carefully arranged plans and codes of training mould the member of the armed forces so well, that of all the working class he is the least likely recruit to revolutionary ideas, especially in the leading capitalist countries.

Socialists, therefore, direct their attention chiefly to the civil population, regarding them as the most likely recruits to Socialism. Without the bulk of the working class being won for Socialism, its establishment is impossible.

When the masses are converted to Socialist ideas and organised, and in control of the political machine, the armed forces will be under their control. While Socialists welcome the acceptance of Socialism by any and every member of the working class, we do not delude ourselves with the notion that any rapid or widespread conversion of the Army and Navy is possible. Soldiers may tire of prolonged war or be driven to stop fighting by lack of food, But that is not a conversion to the revolutionary policy of Socialism.

Anti-militarism does not denote an acceptance of Socialism. Pacifists and Liberals, Anarchists and Quakers, may all be antimilitarists, opposed to all wars, sighing for perfect peace, yearning for brotherly love, but they are dreamers and ignore the nature of the system under which we live. Armed forces are required by ruling classes to keep the subject class in slavery and wars are inseparable from a system of private property.

Socialists, therefore, go to the roots of the matter. The system depends upon the ignorance of the masses of workers and therefore until the workers obtain real knowledge of the causes of their conditions and organise in agreement with that knowledge—there is no possibility of abolishing the effects of the system.

The lurid appeal of the Communist, Workers' Weekly, asking the Labour Party to stop the soldiers being used against workers is another sign of Communist Party stupidity. With all the experience of the Labour Party as a Government and their willingness to use armed forces and pass Coercion Acts and support wars, no Socialist would ever expect them to assist the workers.

Adolph Kohn

The Materialist Conception of History (1955)

From the November 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

When Karl Marx formulated the Materialist Conception of History he gave us a key to unlock the door to a chamber of horrors—the sordid basis of high-flown sentiments. He showed that, since the passing of tribal society, history had been a record of the struggles of different classes to control the social wealth; that the grouping into classes originated out of the way wealth was produced and distributed in each period; that the shape of the main ideas of a period can only be explained by the economic conditions of the time. Further, that class struggles will only disappear when clashing interests have been reduced to one interest; that is when all forms of private ownership in the means of production have been replaced by the common ownership of the means of production. Thus society was shown to be subject to the general law of evolution, though the artificial environment with which man has surrounded himself makes differences in the particular way the law operates in human society as compared with the animal world.

Before Marx’s time history appeared in a fortuitous light; as the operations of Gods or devils, heroes or scoundrels, clever men or fools or knaves. The Materialist Conception of History made clear that history was a natural development in accordance with certain definite laws; that it consisted of a chain of fundamental changes in which each new epoch sprang out of the previous one but with a different economic base, a different grouping of classes, and a corresponding difference in the general outlook of the time.

This does not mean that each epoch produces a completely new set of ideas. Old ideas are modified by the new mould and some fresh ideas are developed. For example sporting contests of all kinds have existed for as long as there are any records, but sham-amateurism is a product of modern commercialised sport.

Likewise similar economic circumstances produce similar ideas and similar solutions, even though thousands of years may intervene. This accounts for the fact that many things that appear to be the special product of modem times have, in fact, been thrown up at different times in the past; like the grain dealers of Athens who were prosecuted for black-marketeering or the nationalization schemes of Xenophon two thousand years ago for the purpose of increasing Athenian revenues, or the Government of Ferrara in the 15th century which bought and distributed com as well as monopolising fish, salt, fruit, meat and vegetables. Of course none of these operations were described at the time as Socialistic. That could only occur in a Capitalistic society where supporters of Capitalism wished to throw up a barrier against revolution, or bankrupt reformers needed to delude their followers into believing that they had found the road to comfort and security. 

In spite of “full employment,” gambling on the pools, and T.V. sets on the hire system, sooner or later the mass of the population, those who are compelled to work for a living, will be driven by their material interests to set about abolishing the private ownership of the means of production and replacing it by the common ownership of the means of production. In other words, converting all that is in and on the earth into the common possession of all mankind. And this will be in accordance with the Materialist Conception of History’s own decree and in spite of the delusionists’ conceptions.

Gilmac.

Party News: Election Activity (2016)

Party News from the February 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

On 5 May there will be elections to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Greater London Assembly. The Socialist Party will be contesting 3 of the 14 super-constituencies in London and one constituency in Wales (Swansea West, which we contested at last year’s general election).

In London we will be standing in Lambeth & Southwark once again and also in North East (made up of the London boroughs of Islington, Hackney and Waltham Forest) and South West (Hounslow, Kingston and Richmond). In all, over a million electors will have the chance to vote for a socialist society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production with distribution on the basis of ‘from each according to ability, to each according to need’, and against the present-day, capitalist society of minority class ownership and production for profit which all the other candidates will be standing for in one form or another.

More details next month.

Obituaries: Mark Miller and Sammy Cash (1976)

Obituaries from the February 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

M. Miller

Just before Christmas members in London heard that Mark Miller had died suddenly. It was hardly believable that this lively, lovable man would no longer be among us.

“Dusty” joined the Party in 1935, after being in the Labour Party. Throughout his membership he was in the Lewisham Branch. He never ceased working for Socialism, and was very knowledgeable. After retiring from work he attended a social centre for elderly people in south-east London, where he made the Socialist Standard well known and chatted to everyone about Socialism. What he will be specially remembered for by members is running the canteen at Head Office for several years after our move to Clapham in 1951.

He was a barber by trade. Though his life was an uphill struggle against poverty, he was always cheerful and full of jokes—the usual greeting was “Here, have you heard this one?” In the last few years his chief pleasure besides Party meetings was going to the BBC theatre to listen to concerts of light music.

The like of Mark Miller are the true backbone of the Socialist movement, and his death makes us all sad. Our sympathies go to his brother, with whom he lived.

Sammy Cash

We have learned also of the death of Sammy Cash. He resigned from the Party in disagreement in 1955, but continued to turn up at Conferences, and his amiable, eccentric personality kept him a place in the affections of many older members. He first joined the Party in the mid-twenties, and spoke at countless meetings for us over the years.

Choosing which evil? (1996)

From the December 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some people never learn. They cherish the most absurd hopes, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Some Labour supporters imagine that things will get much better for them under a Labour government. Maybe they will get a little better. For many groups—the unemployed, the low paid, the retired, the sick relying on a crumbling health service—they can hardly get worse. But don’t count on it.

At every election, including the one coming up, the Socialist Party has had to contend with those “socialists” who are convinced that, though Labour isn’t perfect, it represents the best way forward for the working man and woman. Confronted with the socialist case against all administrations of capitalism, such people argue that you should choose the lesser of two evils. Which is the lesser evil today? Because of the relentless move of both major parties to the centre, in a desperate bid to get votes, giving an answer to that question is more difficult today than at any previous election.

Labour’s status quo

Something might be said for choosing the lesser of two evils if one is markedly less evil than the other, and if you feel that by so choosing you can help to bring nearer the kind of world you really want. I remember feeling that way in the late 1940s when labour had introduced “socialist” measures such as the National Health Service. These, I and many others thought at the time, were steps in the right direction. If there were enough of them, we would eventually have socialism.

We were wrong, of course. Despite the short-term attractions of reforms, Labour had to run the system in the only way it can be run: in the interests of capital. Without majority socialist understanding, the profit system is the real world. 

Because of New labour’s persistent drive away from being the party of labour and towards claiming to be the best party to administer the status quo, it is now very hard for Labour supporters to maintain the “lesser of two evils” argument. The discovery of more-than-trivial differences between Labour and Tory policies requires increasing powers of detection.

Taboo at Blackpool

The always-provocative John Pilger wrote a challenging piece under the discursive title The taboo subject at Blackpool was that a Blair government is quite likely to be nastier and a greater threat to democracy than the Tories (New Statesman, 11 October). The piece was worth reading, not because it puts the case for socialism (it doesn’t) but because it implicitly puts the case against the policies of the party most often traditionally thought of by working people as the lesser of two evils. Here are some extracts:

   “In Bolton I met Janice, aged 20, who lives alone with her baby in a damp dangerous place. The few jobs that come up pay less than the cost of childcare; she has tried them all. She shares teabags with girlfriends. Last week she ate nothing but baked beans. From Blackpool, Gordon Brown offered her prudence and discipline. . .
   When Doreen MacNally, a docker’s wife, went to Blackpool last week, hoping to explain to the conference the importance of the dockers’ struggle in opposing the spread of casual, cheap labour all over the country, she was prevented from speaking . . .
   Instead of regulating rampant markets, Blair leaves no doubt that he will regulate people. He will reform welfare . . .  Too many people go on benefit to stay there, said Blair in Singapore, having just expressed his admiration for Lee Kuan Yew. The likes of Janice will not stand a chance."
   “Under Labour there is no suggestion that MI5 and the police will be deterred from continuing their shoot-to-kill policy. There is no question that the war industry and arms trade developed by Thatcher will continue to be subsidised from taxes.”

It’s a pity Pilger didn’t go on to draw conclusions from this sorry saga. He could have said that changing one set of leaders for another to run capitalism is just wasted effort. He could have said that it’s the basic nature of the profit system that causes the problems and the human miseries, not the individuals elected to run it. He could have said that the sensible thing to do is to get rid of the present system and replace it by socialism. He could have said that the only way to do this is to organise democratically for such a change, in a party that has the establishment of socialism as its sole object.

He didn’t say those things. So we say them.

Stan Parker

6. What will Socialism be like? (1952)

The Common Questions Answered series from the December 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

Q: Granted that Capitalism is an undesirable system, what guarantee is there that Socialism would work out the way you suggest, or even that it would work at all.

A: Socialism does not consist of a set of ideas that have been worked out by a few people independently the rest of society. Its establishment is predicted as the solution to the problems of Capitalism and this is the basis upon which all our attempts to describe the future must rest. Before we go into the question of how Socialism will work we have first to show that, given certain conditions, it is possible to achieve. Our guarantee, as you put it, that it will work is that people having the requisite knowledge and desire will make it work. There is no question of Socialism being given a trial, perhaps found wanting, and then going back to Capitalism. The change we advocate is not to be compared with the changes of government of the present —it is a step in the evolution of society as irreversible as that from Feudalism to Capitalism.

Q: Your aim is to abolish Capitalism, but won't this mean removing a lot of what is good dong with the bad ? Where do you propose to draw the line in your revolutionary changes?

A: It is not a case of having to sacrifice some of the “good” points of Capitalism in order to get rid of the “bad." A system of society is an integrated whole, every part of which influences, and is influenced by, the other parts. You may, for example, hold that competition is good and monopoly bad, but since both are features of Capitalism and the latter in fact results from the former, then any judgment on the system must take into account every such “good" cause and “bad” effect. As we see it, there is no line to be drawn beyond which no change will take place. The changing of the economic basis will have its effect upon every aspect of society, but this does not mean that the means and results of capitalist production will necessarily be replaced—what is useful to the new society will be preserved or modified to suit the new conditions.

Q: According to you, Socialism means that people will be able to have what they need just for the asking. Don't you think they will all ask for the best?

A: Human needs are closely connected with what is capable of being produced; thus the need of a radio set is not felt unless society is able to produce radio sets. The desire, under conditions of production for profit, to have certain things will not necessarily be present under Socialism. For example, when people to-day say they need money it is not for its own sake, but for the access it would afford to goods or services which Socialism will provide freely. Similarly, the present demand for anything less than the best (though this often depends on individual preference) is due to the need to buy cheaply. With Socialism, the sole criterion for producing goods and services will be whether they will be used—inferior ones, being unwanted, will therefore not be produced.

Q : There is bound to be a minority who will resist the coming of Socialism. Won't there have to be some sort of organisation to prevent anti-social behaviour of capitalists and their lackeys?

A: It always seems to be taken for granted that the coming of Socialism will be met with fierce resistance by a minority. There is no basis for this supposition which, like most objections to our case, arises from a projection of present circumstances into the future. We cannot deal here with all the implications of this question, except to point out that Socialism has nothing to do with punishing capitalists or anyone else. If you say that there must be an organisation to repress minorities then you are saying there must be policemen, gaolers, judges lawyers—in short, you think Socialism will be like Capitalism is now, which of course it won't be. Anti-social behaviour is not prevented by the existence of the machinery for the detection and punishment of crime, since this machinery does not touch the cause of the problem. When that cause—the property basis of society—is removed the effects will disappear also.

Q: It seems to me that Socialism would only work if society were split up into small self-sufficing units. Do you really think that people in, say, China would be willing to grow rice and freely transport it to the people in Britain?

A: Again, you are imagining what Socialism would be like if it could somehow be grafted on to the present system instead of replacing it. The tendency within Capitalism is towards universality or oneness of the world and not back to smaller communities. Production is for a world market with consequent transport of goods over huge distances. It is not likely that people living in the geographical area (no longer nation) of Britain will be willing to go without everything that is not obtainable within its shores and there will be no need for them to do so. The distribution of food will be according to a world plan, which exists now in embryo but is held back by capitalist considerations of international trade. Since Socialism will operate throughout the world people in one part will no more discriminate against distant populations than they will against their neighbours.

Q: How can you possibly tell what people will think and do in the future? Surely all attempts to do so must be pure speculation?

A: We must make it clear that our forecast of the future is not made with the object of laying down what it should be. But we recognise that it is not enough just to agree to abolish Capitalism without having some idea of the system that is to replace it. There would, in fact, be no point to our criticisms of the present if we were not able to show how they can be followed up by suitable action. There is nothing speculative, for example, about the universal desire to live in a world without war, so why suppose that man will become reconciled to its ever-increasing horrors rather than abolish it? The case for Socialism is that man can solve his own social problems by taking action as planned and scientific as he has taken in controlling the forces of nature. If you agree that the idea is sound then your only concern is to get others to accept it, so that the future may be what you and we collectively want it to be.

Stan Parker

5. Tactics for Socialists (1952)

The Common Questions Answered series from the November 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

Q: Assuming that all you say about other parties is true, do you think you are going the right way about getting Socialism? At present all you seem to do is to talk at street corners and sell a few bits of literature.

A: Having reached the point where you see that our case against other parties is correct, you appear to think that our methods of advocating Socialism are not so correct. We are tempted to re-direct the question to you by asking what is the right way to go about getting Socialism if our’s is not? If there are ways open to us that we are not using then we should like to hear about them. The position is that the amount of our propaganda, which seems so puny in comparison to that of our opponents, is limited by the number of socialists there are. It is not our intention to speak only at street corners or to print our literature in thousands of copies instead of in millions. We try to make the best of every opportunity for propagating our ideas, although we stress that it can only do harm to the socialist cause to compromise them merely for the sake of getting a wider hearing.

Q: It seems to me that the S.P.G.B. must become a larger party before it will attract wide support. Why not do something that will make people sit up and take notice of you?

A: Behind your question is the assumption that the correctness of an idea is to be judged by the numbers who hold it. True, the pressing need is for more people to understand Socialism, but experience has taught us to be very suspicious of any suggestion that this may be achieved by any form of stunt or vote-catching. Our objections to this sort of campaigning is not a moral one, but consists in the fact that it hinders rather than helps the spread of socialist understanding. No useful purpose would be served by merely seeking to attract attention, unless it is for a purpose connected with socialist propaganda, and that is our policy at all times.

Q: Don't you think it would pay you to find out what most people really want, and to talk more about the things they are really interested in?

A: The implication here is that at present we are out of touch with these things. This is untrue. It may look to you as though other parties are concerned with giving you what you want, but this is only their tactics and window-dressing to gain your support for policies that fail to deliver the goods. Most people are interested in getting more money, and almost every reform of Capitalism is based upon some form of this desire—yet it remains unsatisfied for the vast majority. The fact is that what appears to be the “practical” solution to our problems is in reality no solution at all, and the seemingly out-of-touch programme of Socialism is nearest to the satisfaction of present human needs. Unfortunately, many workers are interested (consciously or unconsciously) in making Capitalism work a little better, but in doing so they are acting against their own interests.

Q: Your arguments always seem to be so negative. Why can't you put forward a positive programme that will convince people that you are really going somewhere?

A: If you think our arguments are negative then you can have listened to only a part of our case. It is necessary first to analyse Capitalism, and in the process to clear away the false ideas that are held about it. Then, arising out of this, comes the explanation of what is to take its place—Socialism. If you disagree with us about the “destructive” (but very necessary) first part of the argument then you will not appreciate the constructive second part, nor be able to work out with us the form that the new society will take. You want us to appear to be “going somewhere,” but this can only be in the direction of Socialism if our positive programme is for this object alone.

Q: The ideas you put forward are too futuristic. Can't you make them easier to understand by relating them more to the world as it is to-day?

A: You seem to intend “futuristic” to be a term of reproach, but there is no good reason why it should be—to plan for to-morrow is an integral part of human activity. However, what you probably believe is that too many to-morrows will have to be like to-day before we can hope to get Socialism. The problem of getting people who are living under Capitalism to see the practicability of another system is by no means an easy task, but it is not impossible—if it were there could be no socialists within capitalist society. Certain features and tendencies in the world at present can be used to show what Socialism will probably be like, but analogies such as "all goods will be produced and distributed as freely as water is now” have their limitations. It is important never to lose sight of the basic principles of majority understanding and action upon which Socialism must be built, otherwise the descriptions of the future, though easy to make, may be merely Utopian and a bar to progress.

Q: People are put off by your sectarian attitude. Why not encourage them to join, and be less strict in admitting members?

A: Let us make it quite clear that nobody is put off being a socialist because our Party contains only socialists. What you really mean is that we don’t try to enrol people who can be whipped up to do almost anything in a suitably emotional atmosphere. Even if such people were to join the S.P.G.B. they would only leave when they found out what it is all about. The idea of joining with non-socialists in order to achieve “immediate aims” has dogged the Party since its inception, but it has steadfastly refused to sink its socialist identity for the sake of what appear to be immediate advantages. We are as sincerely sorry as you that our organisation is not larger, but (if you will forgive the phrase) it is the quality, not the quantity, that counts. There is only one sort of tactics for socialists living in a capitalist world, and that is to help make more socialists.

Stan Parker

4. Leadership (1952)

The Common Questions Answered series from the October 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

Q: You say there is no place for leaders in the socialist movement, but why do you attack the whole idea of leadership just because some leaders are enemies of the working class?

A:We don’t object to leadership because we want to be cussed, but because we see it as one of the biggest obstacles to the spread of socialist ideas. Capitalism has developed to the point where workers (all whose livelihood depends on selling their energies) run society from top to bottom. Owners of capital need not play the smallest part in the undertaking which produces their rent, interest or profit; they can even have their wealth added to while in a lunatic asylum. Yet still most workers haven't seen the possibility of a world without masters, a world which would be run in the interests of all mankind instead of those of a capitalist or “leading” class. There are no leaders in the socialist movement because there will be no leaders under Socialism—there can be none in a society based on equality of status and the willing co-operation of all in production solely for use.

Q: But surely there have always been leaders in all forms of society? What makes you think that under Socialism it will be any different?

A: Leadership only makes sense when there is a ruling class and a ruled class, and it implies that most people are incapable of organising affairs in their own interest and so must accept the dictates of a few. Ours differs from all previous revolutionary movements in that it doesn’t aim to replace one ruling class by another but to abolish classes altogether. You say there have always been leaders, but you must realise that their existence has been and is bound up with the institution of private property. All leaders are placed in a privileged position by their followers, who either agree with the policies laid down or think they can do nothing about them. By contrast, Socialism means that nobody will be placed in a position of governing others.

Q: Don't you think that those who have qualities of leadership can help to build up a following for the socialist movement? What’s wrong in doing that?

A: Leadership does not work out that way. But the fact is only those can help to establish Socialism who understand their class position in society and are determined to end it. If there are leaders then there must be the led, but there cannot be much difference between their ideas, since a leader can only offer to lead where he is likely to be followed. He is not really in advance of his followers, as you seem to think, because if he stops leading them in the direction they think is the best open to them they will soon desert him for another who will. People who are easily persuaded to think one way by a powerful personality can usually be persuaded by a more powerful one to change their minds. Socialist ideas do not depend on such barren methods for their propagation.

Q: It’s obvious that most people prefer to leave political thinking to others. How else than by leading people, in the sense of showing them the way, do you expect to get them interested in Socialism?

A: One of the main reasons for people acquiescing in the continuation of Capitalism, is that they are led to believe it is the only possible system. It is just because they are so used to being told what is good for them that they are often puzzled when we say “We can’t lead you to Socialism—you must understand and build it yourselves.” The blunt truth is that if people want leaders they want class society, and if they want class society they cannot want Socialism. But more and more of them will become interested in Socialism because they are faced with the same problems as we are, and failure to solve them within Capitalism will eventually lead them to see the necessity of abolishing it. We do our best to point out the road to Socialism and to encourage others along it, but there can be no substitute for their knowledge of what is needed to achieve the goal.

Q : Don’t you think it would be a good thing if you could work out a definite plan for Socialism that people could easily understand? That way you would give a lead to others without giving power to individual leaders.

A: We are always eager to help people to understand our case and to discuss with them the difficulties and objections they have concerning it. From our understanding of the past and the needs of the present we try to show what the future classless society will look like. But what you propose is that we should work out all the details in advance, and present them to the as yet non-socialist majority as a sort of pill to be taken for their sufferings under Capitalism. If we did that, however, we should be acting no differently from the reformers who offer to lead the working class to better conditions and consistently fail to do so. The lesson is that no matter how well-meaning you may be, once you are given political power you must follow where events lead and, without a majority of socialists, that cannot be to Socialism.

Q: You admit you’ve got to send delegates to Parliament before you can overthrow Capitalism, so why baulk at having democratic leaders now?

A: You have only to look at the Labour Party to see why. In its early days quite a few of its leaders were no doubt sincerely in favour of abolishing Capitalism. But they thought that the working class would have to be led to it, and the means they adopted were those of getting into Parliament on the votes of reformists in order to advocate Socialism. So they stood for Parliament, but when they were elected the means (political power) became the end in itself. Thus we see that as such leaders push themselves forward their “Socialism” recedes farther into the future and is eventually lost altogether. You must not confuse such leaders of the working class with the delegates the socialist movement chooses to carry out its will. The former have no mandate to abolish Capitalism even if they wished to do so—the latter are the instruments the majority in society will use to institute Socialism. To think in terms of political power without political knowledge on the part of those who make up that power is to oppose all that Socialism means.

Stan Parker