The Last Word: And so to bed (1997)

The Last Word column from the May 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

I am in the middle of the tormenting exercise of buying a bed. I am, to use the vernacular of Capitalese, "in the market for a bed". I need a bed, so I have to buy it.

You might think that everyone is entitled to something as simple as a decent bed. After all, as the salespeople never cease to remind punters "you spend almost half your life in bed. so it pays to get yourself a good one”. No, a bed is not an entitlement. It is a commodity. You want it; you buy it. Can’t afford it? Sleep on the floor.The economic rules are really quite simple.

Just how many people have no decent bed to sleep on has never been quantified. It is not an issue for the philanthropists who worry about how many millions of people are starving to death. Beds arc regarded as being something halfway between a necessity (enough food to survive healthily: denied to about a third of the world's population) and what capitalism regards as luxury (a telly: so that you can sec pictures of people starving to death). The problem for the profit system is that the moment that anything is conceded to be a necessary entitlement there is a huge problem about who is going to pay to provide it. So, the countless children who go to bed each night on mud floors or shop doorways arc simply forgotten.

Buying a bed is a torture not very much better than being called in for questioning by the Turkish police or visiting a garden centre. In a caring world there would be counselling therapy provided for people in the process of purchasing a bed. Then again, in a caring world beds would not be for sale, but for use. Bed salespeople have the most miserable jobs, endlessly trotting out their mantra about the need for comfort—how much of life is spent in bed—the importance of a good mattress.

Most beds in most shops are complete crap, designed solely according to the measurements of the their purchasers’ poverty. No person with any real choice would sleep on the pieces of junk sold for £150 and less in the average furniture shop. Most people are unable to afford the very well designed, comfortable beds which sell for a grand or more. It is money, nothing more or less, which determines how well most people will sleep.

There is no doubt about it that, despite the tedium of the sales pitch, we humans do spend a staggeringly large proportion of our lives looking up at the ceiling. For a species so biologically unique in our upright stance, the amount of time that we are horizontal is quite remarkable. The horizontal position is the scene of some our most pleasurable moments. The ugly addition to the tabloid lexicon "to bed" (“BISHOP BEDS STRIPPER") has now pushed aside anachronistic euphemisms, such as "to make love". It is almost as if the furniture, not the human, has become the object of lust. (What was that the man said about "commodity fetishism?)

Cartoon by Peter Rigg.

Beds are now sold as if they are sports cars (which in turn are sold as if they are penis extensions). Not long into the recently encountered experience of bed-buying I was introduced to what is a ridiculously called "The Kingsize Bed". Precisely what size of bed does a king need-bigger or smaller than a farmer or a hospital porter or a computer programmer? One assumes that Henry VIII required reinforced springs; that George III needed straps attached to the side: that the heir apparent needs a visitor’s book attached to the headboard. What about a Serfsize bed or a Prolesize one—or, why not be really honest, and have a range called "Cheapsize" beds.There are beds on sale in Harrods which cost more than a terraced house in Burnley. If you can afford one it’s called "freedom of the market". If you’re living in a terraced house in Burnley and you have three kids sharing a room and sleeping on worn-out mattresses with springs sticking through it’s called a sick way of running society.

I now know the bed market pretty well. I know that the more you pay the better you will sleep. I know that futons are for fitness freaks, masochists and extremely poor people. I know that I am so exhausted of bed-hunting that I could now sleep on a park bench if it could be fitted with an extra-large sleeping bag and an overhead light for reading.

William Morris was right—as usual. Furniture, to be worth making, should be both useful and beautiful. Beds, chairs, wardrobes, bookcases, desks . . .  all that a decent society need do is produce them for use and make sure that they are the best and most beautiful which the variety of human desires might require. But the buying and selling system thrives upon the indecency of filthy commerce, turning everything (even a good night's sleep) into the basis of a fast buck.

Steve Coleman

The choice is yours (1997)

Editorial from the April 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Now it is election time again we are being asked to give our support - critical or otherwise - to the massed ranks of competing politicians, all of whom offer a variation on the same thing - more capitalism. From the three main parties, to the Referendum Party, Militant and Scargill's SLP, the choice on the political menu is a simple one: how do you like your capitalism; raw. medium or well done . . . meaning tough?

Socialists argue that the only sensible response to such a skewed question is to reject it, putting in its place a more relevant one: do we wish to continue living in a society where the profit of the few comes before the needs of the many or do we wish to organise for the only viable alternative - a society where production is carried out solely to satisfy human needs and desires with free access to available wealth?

Those whose answer to this is to favour the latter option should cast their vote for the Socialist Party (if we have a candidate in your constituency) or simply write ‘Socialism' across your ballot paper if we don't, in protest against capitalism and the political parties who seek to maintain it. We say this because we are the only political party standing in this election which favours the genuine abolition of capitalism and the creation of a socialist society. All the other parties support the market economy in its various forms and offer leadership teams for the working class to follow. We say that the working class should organise itself independently without leaders, relying on strength of numbers and the inability of capitalism to deliver the goods for the majority.

We are not participating in this election because what passes for political democracy in capitalism is perfect - we are fully aware it isn't - but because we aim to use the election as a means of placing socialism and genuine democracy firmly on the public agenda, giving people a real political choice rather than the phoney one offered by the other parties.

As we write the election result itself would appear to be a foregone conclusion. Unless there is an unprecendented poll reversal, the Labour Party will soon form the next government. The Labour triumph will no doubt be followed by the usual post-election political honeymoon. lt will not be long, however, before the reality of the situation becomes apparent - that no government, no team of economic managers, can make capitalism run in the interests of the wage and salary-earning working class. When this happens we can only hope that the working class seeks out the socialist alternative to the madness of the market economy and the posturing of its political leaders.

Economic interests predominate (1997)

Book Review from the March 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Green Backlash by Andrew Rowell, Routledge, London, 1996.

If you have any doubts about the strength of the economic tide the world environmental movement are attempting to swim against, this book is worth looking at. Again, it is the environmental movement themselves who best illustrate the quagmire in which capitalism leaves them.

This is an intensely factual, encyclopaedic book, with all the accompanying pros and cons. Rowell sets the scene well, describing the "political influence" the environmental movement expected to enjoy as Clinton took power in the US. Of course this all seems like a bad joke four years later: "By the end of the 103rd Congress, the Clinton administration had a worse environmental record than either the Bush or Reagan administration”.

This political anti-climax is not itself what Rowell means by a "green backlash". Specifically, he is referring to the large network of anti-environmental organisations and campaigns which have sprung up to combat the environmental movement (most notably in the USA although Rowell looks at examples from around the globe). These often come in the guise of grass-roots campaigns yet are set up by the interests of big business or politicians.

From Nigeria to Newbury and from Greenpeace to Gingrich. Rowell has unearthed no end of facts. The main weakness of this comprehensive survey is the almost complete absence of any historical context. Yes, economic interests may predominate now but wasn’t this also the case one hundred years ago? Rowell very briefly mentions the fight-back of business against the gains made by workers earlier in the century but there is no meaningful comparison drawn.

Rowell does show how the "green backlash" arose spontaneously as a reaction to threatened business interests. So successful is he that (perhaps unwittingly) he removes the need for a theory of centrally-planned conspiracy. This again leaves us to question whether the book is not just rehearsing a familiar story, rather than exposing a new, 1990s phenomenon. 

Dan Greenwood

At the crossroads (1997)

From the February 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Of all the Arabic countries, Morocco is the nearest to Europe. It is just 16 kilometres south of the southernmost tip of Spain, across the Straight of Gibraltar. But immediately you step off the ferry from Algeciras, at Tangier you know that you are no longer in Europe, but in North Africa.

After 44 years of "protectorate”— that is colonial rule—Morocco became independent of France and Spain on 2 March 1956. The Hizb el-Istiqlal (Independence Party) and a number of other pro-nationalist groups, but excluding the Parti Communiste Marocain which was also pro-nationalist, had achieved their aim. The PCM. being good patriots, supported a constitutional monarchy and the reunification of Morocco with Mauritania; but this did not stop the Moroccan government from dissolving the PCM in September 1959. Morocco has been ruled by King Hassan II since 1961.

About the only kind thing that can be said about Morocco is that it is a "guided" bourgeois democracy, where opposition parties (but not "subversive" parties) are generally tolerated —and where Islamic fundamentalists have not, as yet, resorted to the kind of violence witnessed in adjacent Algeria. In Morocco the king rules with a Parliament, in which two-thirds of the deputies are elected by universal suffrage. and the remaining third are chosen by an electoral college of local councils, professional groups, employers' organisations and a few "tame" trade unionists. The iron fist of the state is generally covered by a velvet glove, although when I was there in 1981, I witnessed students who were demonstrating against the deposed Shah of Iran, who was in the country at the time, mown down by machine-gun fire from Moroccan troops.

French influence is still strong, although less than in the past. Nevertheless French companies have been responsible for much of Morocco's industrial development. Politically, however, Morocco has. and has had, other less transparent allies and friends.

In 1948, there were about 200,000 Jews living in Morocco: and up to Moroccan independence in 1956, 100,000 of them had left for Israel. But following independence, the new Moroccan government gave in to pressure from other Arab states, and forbade emigration to Israel. However, MOSSAD organised secret escape routes bribing Moroccan officials. In 1961, Israel asked France and the United States to intervene with the recently crowned King Hassan II. The king needed Western support, and so quietly co-operated with Israel, thus allowing more than 80,000 Jews, who wanted to go to Israel, to leave the country. Although Morocco was a member of the Arab League, and officially a supporter of the Palestinian cause, it nevertheless established close ties with Israel. MOSSAD helped Morocco organise its secret service; and in 1965, did Morocco a favour by assisting the Moroccan secret police assassinate their dissident, Mehdi Ben-Barka. Morocco and Israel, sometimes with Egypt, have quietly co-operated ever since.

In 1977 Jonas Savimbi, the Angolan UNITA nationalist leader, backed by South Africa and the United States, travelled to Morocco, where he met King Hassan. From Morocco. UNITA obtained a secure external headquarters in Rabat. Morocco offered Savimbi military training facilities, near Marrakech, for up to 500 men at a time; and Morocco provided UNITA with arms, and other military equipment, most of which came from the United States, over a period of many years. In 1981, Savimbi and other UNIT A rebels met senior State Department officials in Morocco to discuss United States plans for Angola. Morocco has, since independence, been a loyal but subordinate ally of the United States; and the CIA has always had a strong presence in the country.

Economic problems

The Moroccan economy has suffered severe drought in recent years, which has badly affected the predominant agricultural sector. Indeed, agriculture is still dominant. It is the principal source of employment, accounting for half the working population. Most of the farms are not economically viable, with only one percent of the farms having more than 125 acres. Most of the rest are under eight acres.

Since 1993, the government has been involved in a massive privatisation programme of what was largely a state-run, dirigiste, capitalist economy. Banking and foreign currency regulations have been lifted. From the capitalist viewpoint, the Moroccan government claims that it is a success story:

"International fluctuations in commodity prices have led the government to build up a more diversified economy by reducing reliance on agriculture and mining. It has been largely successful since the mining sector's share of GDP had declined steadily from 5.3 percent in the 1970s to 1.8 percent in 1994. Manufacturing has increased its share from an average 16 percent in the 1970s to almost 18 percent in 1990-94 period. The sector's share of total exports has jumped from 20 percent in 1986 to about one-third since 1992" ("Images”, Observer, 22 December 1996).

However, the economy is estimated to have contracted by five percent in 1995.

And how has this affected the majority of the people of Morocco, the workers and the peasant farmers? The Times (26 December) reports that unemployment is 20 percent, with those under 30 years of age suffering unemployment of more than 40 percent. Fifty-one percent of the population are still illiterate; and the per capita income in Morocco, North Africa's poorest country, is just £800 a year.

All this has resulted in thousands of poverty-stricken Moroccan would-be workers "illegally” going to Spain. Scores of them are detained every week, reports the Times. Last summer, 50 Moroccans were apprehended each day in Spain; and 1,300 were detained in June alone. Just how long it will take them, and many others, to realise that escaping the miseries of one country, Morocco, for the miseries of another, Spain, will not solve their problems, we cannot say. All we can say is that they will not solve them, in Morocco or elsewhere, within the framework of world capitalism.

Peter E. Newell

From 'Third World' to One World (1997)

From the January 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

For a long time, economists' expectations about what would happen to the "developing” or "third world” were shaped by an influential theory first put forward by the economist and MP David Ricardo in the last century. According to his theory of "diminishing returns”, national economies, as they grew, could be expected to slow down and eventually to come to a halt. The corollary of this was that the poorer nations could be expected to catch up because their rates of growth would be faster.

Ricardo, however, exaggerated any “diminishing returns" problem and did not take account of a number of important factors. Foremost among these was the influence which states can exert on trade patterns through protectionism, dumping and all the other long-used tactics of developed states, and the economic blocs which they form to protect their interests. Also, huge initial amounts of capital are required before a company can even begin to compete in many world markets, and the emergence of such companies is near impossible in small, poor nations.

History has forced economists to question the Ricardian theory. Average growth for 16 rich countries surveyed by the Economist (25-31 May) has slowed since the early 1970s in particular, but it is still above the average. As for the supposed faster growth among the developing world, "if there is any discernible pattern . . .  it is the opposite: poorer countries have tended to grow more slowly".

Interestingly, the UN Development Programme administrator, James Speth. believes "the world has become more economically polarised" and that “if present trends continue, economic disparities between industrial and developing nations will move from inequitable to inhuman" (Observer, 21 July). 

As a result, many of the world's poorest countries have seen average incomes decline and increased polarisation. The wealth of many nations has actually declined in recent years. Eighty-nine countries are reporting lower per-capita incomes than they were 10 years ago.

During the 1980s average real incomes were reported to have fallen by 10 percent in most of Latin America and 20 percent in sub-Saharan Africa. In many urban areas wages have fallen by as much at 50 percent.

The 1980s' decline in average incomes in many developing countries has continued in the 90s: in 1990, average per capita income fell by over 2.5 percent in Latin America and by over 2 percent in Africa.

The UN Human Development Report states that the poorest 20 percent of the world's population have seen their share of world income fall from 2.3 percent to 1.4 percent over the past 30 years (Guardian, 29 July). In sub-Saharan Africa, the number of families who are unable to meet their most basic needs has doubled in a decade (Fairer World Statistics). Furthermore. according to OXFAM projections, the future looks little brighter for the rest of Africa, the Middle East, South and Central America.

A World Bank report only tells half the story when stating that "flows of private capital to poor countries have quadrupled to $170 billion a year in the past five years. Over a third of the world's foreign direct investment now goes to them”. This investment was actually targeted at eight countries who receive two-thirds of this investment, while most others have been left by the wayside.

In stark contrast to the hopes of charity organisations such as UNICEF, overseas dcvelopment aid (ODA) can be relied upon even less as a substantial source of help for poorer states. In 1993, ODA fell 8 percent from 1992 levels to US$56 billion (20-20 Plan, UNICEF pamphlet).

The significance of all this is that it dispels the illusion of there being an inevitable and ongoing sense of progress within global capitalism. And any "progress" that does occur is sure to bypass the world's poorest. Ricardo got it wrong—inequality and uneven development are fundamental features of the capitalist system. Nearly 200 years after he wrote, this is more apparent than ever.

Dan Greenwood

The value of discontent (1966)

Editorial from the June 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Private property society is a class-divided society. Because of this, it inevitably fosters hatreds and discontent. Take a look at any social system from primitive slavery onwards, and at some stage or another the signs of unrest appear as the under-privileged try to fight against the weight of oppression and misery heaped on their shoulders.

Modern capitalism is certainly no exception. It is based upon the ownership of the means of life by a small minority. The rest of the population work for them and produce the wealth on which the capitalist class can live in ease and comfort without the need themselves to work. For the majority, such a set up spells a life of drabness and insecurity, and a constant struggle to make both ends meet, so that it is little wonder that discontent is more or less a permanent feature of their existence.

In the early days of capitalism, the cruelties and excesses of the master class towards their workers was a big factor in the formation of trade unions and the agitation for reform that was so prominent a feature of 18th century history in England. The story of protest and struggle in those years makes bitter reading, and there are some who would say that we’ve come a long way since then. So we have. Yet who can honestly say even in the face of many hard won gains, that the need to fight is any the less?

The outward appearance of capitalism changes, but its basic constituents are unchanged, and just as surely because of this, it is very much a system of conflict and oppression. The hypocrisy and honeyed words of the Labour Government cannot mask this uncomfortable fact, which shows itself in so many ways, for example, the continuing struggle over wages and the horrifying threat of a nuclear war. In such a world of worry and strain, it would be surprising if the voices of discontent were never heard; indeed, it is precisely this dissatisfaction on which the politicians so cynically rely to get them to power and then try to get us to forget between elections. And after all, if workers were to sit down quietly and take all that capitalism dishes out to them, the prospect for the future would certainly be gloomy.

So the Socialist Party of Great Britain does not spurn discontent; in fact, discontent does at least show that workers are thinking about their problems and are groping for an answer. Unfortunately, however, such is the lack of Socialist understanding amongst the working class that the cries of protest take on a negative form of expression, and at times are channelled into support of ideas which are very harmful to workers’ interests—such as racialism, “national independence”, etc. Other protest movements suffer from the same failure to realise that the problems they want to solve are part of the bigger problem that is capitalism itself, and cannot be dealt with in isolation.

It is the Socialist who understands the severe limitations of the protest movements of today, and who, however much he may have sympathy with the feelings of their supporters, knows that they can never be really effective, because they ignore the cause of the ills they are trying to remove. At all times, Socialists put forward the case for a new world of common ownership and democratic control, trying to get workers to see their problems from this standpoint. Only when they do this will their discontent flow into constructive channels and the ultimate protest—that against capitalism itself—be lodged.

What the papers don't say (1): The tabloids (1999)

From the May 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

This month we begin a two-part article on the capitalist press and its relationship to capitalism and capitalist politicians.

Anyone who takes any more than a passing interest in politics will know that the various media play an important part it. In the Top 300 Most Powerful People in England, published by the Observer last year, Rupert Murdoch (a man who does not even live in England), came second after Tony Blair. Anyone who is even remotely aware of the political leanings of the newspapers in Britain will know that the tabloid press had strong Tory leanings from about 1979 to 1992 and are largely now for Labour. As regards the last general election the Sun claimed that it was "The Sun Wot Won it". It is also common wisdom that one should not "believe everything you read in the papers".

So we, the working class, know that the papers are powerful, that they are political, that they deal in distortions of the truth. And yet, the overwhelming majority of us read the tabloid press. So why do we seemingly have an appetite for the lies and distortions of the popular press? Do we realise just how "unfree" our press actually is?

Although it is not the newspapers' job to tell the truth, they are not particularly there to tell lies either (though they do when the occasion demands). They exist, as does anything else in capitalism, to make profits for their owners.

When Murdoch broke the unions in 1986 by moving his entire operation to Wapping overnight, he began to refer to the newspapers of his News International stable as his "cash cows" (Jeremy Tunstall, The New National Press in Britain, p. 26). Piers Morgan, the sometime editor of the News of the World and now the "responsible" editor of the Daily Mirror, explained the situation very clearly: "I only judge a story on what sells and what doesn't" (Guardian, 30 November 1996). It is this element of the media that makes it at one and the same time the capitalists' friend, and also their enemy. The forces that generate the kind of copy we see in Britain and in other national papers around the globe are the same forces which also undermine governments' attempts to censor or to manipulate the media. Try censorship who dares: the media is a savage animal and it can bite your hand off.  

Before the mid-1960s the British press was relatively well behaved (from the point of view of the government). One reason for this was a hangover from the Second World War when newspapers were effectively self-censoring. Another important reason why the press did not attack governments as vitriolically as is the norm today was the widely held belief that in doing so you would inevitably alienate the section of your readership which supported the party you were attacking. Although certain papers have been readily identifiable as having certain leanings for some time, they have always had a significant minority who read the paper whilst voting "the other way".

Brown-nosing

The huge change in this view came when the Murdoch/News International group made the discovery in the 1980s that you could take an extreme anti-Labour stance whilst retaining millions of Labour voters as readers. This was done in a number of ways, such as rationing overt politics to one page of the paper (where the regular reader could avoid it) and by attacking currently unpopular and unsuccessful Tory Ministers. In this respect the Sun was entirely in the pocket of Margaret Thatcher. Larry Lamb was the editor of the Sun during the early Thatcher era, and he was rewarded with a knighthood for his services to Margaret Thatcher during the 1979 election campaign, along with John Junor of the Sunday Express and David English of the Daily Mail. Together, they made sure that pictorial coverage of Margaret Thatcher was six times greater than that of the Prime Minister James Callaghan, and who focused upon her in an increasingly presidential way. In the same way today Tony Blair receives almost ten times more coverage than the Tory leader (has anything to do with Blair's new cosy relationship with Murdoch?).

In the 1980s the tabloids made sure that the uncommitted voter received no informed election coverage. And it was they who generated the much-talked about "Maggie factor".

What happened to Margaret Thatcher was entirely new. Whilst the press had in the past focused upon Lloyd George, Ramsay MacDonald, and especially Winston Churchill during the Second World War, the presidential style of Thatcher's campaign was something entirely new in British politics. Her personal approval rating was always well above that of her party throughout her time in office (excluding the Poll Tax years). Throughout the 1980s the tabloid press went in for constant and consistently noisome brown-nosing which cemented Thatcher in the public mind.

This is not to argue for a kind of press-in-the-pocket-of-the-government conspiracy theory. This is not the case. The press is not necessarily in the pocket of the government; though the way they all climbed into Mrs. Thatcher's handbag in the 80s, and Tony Blair's trousers in the 90s might lead you to suspect otherwise. Recently we have seen how the press can bite the hand that feeds it.

When Thatcher was ousted, her replacement (John Major) was attacked vitriolically by the thenSun political columnist Richard Littlejohn (he is now a dreadful broadcaster). He was ferociously critical of John Major, indeed with the Tory government as a whole. He accused Major of being a political sleepwalker. "When you open your eyes you will find you are Prime Minister", he wrote in December 1992. As keenly as the Tory press brown-nosed to Margaret Thatcher, they attacked John Major.

Here a pattern emerges. We have already identified how the Sun vilified Tory ministers, and glorified Thatcher. Problems with policy, or, as in 1981 deep unpopularity of the government coupled with massive inner-city riots, could be ascribed to incompetent ministers. The glorious leaderine was, of course, untouchable. As a political tactic this is not new; the horrible 20th century of the Cult of the Personality, generally manifests itself in an absolution of the leader regardless of what their administration is doing.

This emphasis upon the individual has been an increasing symptom of the emptiness of capitalist politics. The emptier the politics, the bigger the personalities. It is usually explained by the simple fact that the political grandees are now more often in the limelight, and so need to be more attractive to win votes (the Kennedy factor). It is, of course, true that when the public is faced with a choice of politicians who will make little or no difference to their lives, they will chose the better-looking politician.

If, however, the politician that they were voting for was saying something which was going to make a difference to their lives, then it would not matter whether or not that politician had an ugly mug. We are not saying that Nelson Mandela has an ugly mug, but his face was for many years an almost invisible one. Did it matter what he looked like? Of course not. Opposition to a system which took away basic human rights was such a potent idea, that even as an almost invisible presence he commanded the support of the overwhelming majority of black South-Africans. However, in the absence of real politics people will vote for smooth--Tony Blair is; Michael Foot wasn't.

Political realignment

Although we saw a swing back towards Labour in the tabloids before the last election, the Financial Times had advised the voters to vote Labour the election before that. Senior figures in the world of business were expressing a deep liking for the new Labour Party well before the last election. As has happened in the past, the capitalist class was preparing itself to do business with Labour. They have normally done reasonably well out of Labour governments, and it would appear that the current one is equally "on message" as far as the capitalists are concerned.

The media moguls are, of course, part of this circuit of capitalists who see the way that the wind is blowing and consequently take a new tack. In the newspapers this can manifest itself in a political realignment of a paper. Since the press is not really selling opinions, or thinking through political questions, but selling a product; and that in reality there is no real difference to the capitalist class between Labour and the Conservatives, then such a "realignment" becomes very easy to imagine.

In this respect the broadsheets are different from the tabloids. They rely upon advertising income and not circulation for their revenue; consequently they are more at liberty to put forward their political opinions. However, for the tabloids the picture is much more confused.

When Rupert Murdoch bought the Sun in 1969, the paper (which had previously been the Daily Herald) "voted" Labour. Now it is no secret that Rupert Murdoch and Margaret Thatcher enjoyed a great rapport during the 1980s, especially over the way that Murdoch completely destroyed the unions in his move to Wapping in 1986. However, Murdoch had to be persuaded to have his paper "vote" Tory. It was not his liking or otherwise for the Tory party that swung the day (this is neither here nor there for a capitalist like Murdoch). No, what swung the allegiance of the Sun was the fact that of the three competing downmarket tabloids, the Daily Mirror already staked out a firm, partisan pro-Labour line. This left the other two players in the market being - the Daily Star, and the Sun.

Murdoch's rightward swing was simply a matter of market segmentation. In 1979, the Sun "voted" Tory for the very first time, subsequently the Sun executives only had to worry about the Daily Star. (They don't any more). They dealt with the Daily Star, not in the field of political ideas (if the Sun can be credited with any actual ideas), but in the field of bingo, and they trumped all the other tabloids with the most horrifically jingoistic coverage of the Falklands War. (Who can forget: "GOTCHA"?). Politics, war, bingo: it's all the same when you're a capitalist media mogul.

Rupert Murdoch served his apprenticeship in an Australian paper, and he knew that apart from wars and general elections, few political or foreign stories sell extra copies of newspapers. The big exception to this was the Kennedy assassination. So his first task as the owner of the Sun was to get rid of the foreign desk. Now none of the tabloids has any kind of foreign desk, and the mid-market papers have decreased the size of their foreign press contingent significantly.

For the down-market tabloids, the capitalists have decided upon xenophobia as the main structuring element of their foreign coverage. The mid-market papers such as the Daily Mail are less xenophobic but also carry very little non-British news. Please note that at no time has it been suggested that the reading public have no appetite for foreign or political stories: that's untested. The reason why these sections have been removed from the tabloids is that their inclusion does not increase the circulation of the paper. Why pay for expensive foreign correspondents, when you can have an equal number of readers with a staff of gossip columnists and horoscope writers?

Next month we conclude with an examination of the broadsheets.

Jacek Krause

Richard III (1956)

Film Review from the April 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

An introduction to Shakespeare through the film is a direct contrast to the poverty-stricken method taught in the Secondary Modern Schools. There we were told to like him because his works are classics. Instead we learned to hate him because of the laborious memorising of long passages of meaningless verse. Consequently the majority of working-men and women are indifferent to him.

With the advent of the film, that mallet of knowledge smashes the inverted bowl of ignorance.

Richard III, showing at Leicester Square, breaks down the barrier of the artificiality of the stage where the actors shout at the top of their voices in a most unnatural manner. This technique makes it possible for Sir Laurence Olivier to discourse as if he stood at one’s side. Briefly, the plot deals with the diabolical schemes of the then Richard, Duke of Gloucester, to become king. He expounded his attitude in the opening verse:

" . . . I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,
To set my brother Clarence and the King
In deadly hate the one against the other. . . .”

Written with class consciousness one might say:

“ ... We are determined to preserve the capitalist system,
And to hate the idle pleasures of the workers.
Plots have we laid, inductions dangerous,
By calculated religious, national and racial prejudice.
Brain-washing and vice anon,
In deadly hate set the workers physically and mentally
Within and without nations until the world itself;
At each others throats. . . .”

Or perhaps as Shakespeare himself would have applied his analysis to the self-preservation policies of Russian dictators and others.

That is the point about Shakespeare; he deals with human relationships within the private property system and clothes them with beautiful words and profound phrases. They are shrewd observations and will remain eternal. In a Socialist society they will prove a vivid insight into the minds of men and women governed by the private property complex.

The rest of the story deals with the carrying out of the power-seeking schemes, the killing of the king’s brother, the princes of the Tower and others. The planting of fifth columnists in the London crowd, hailing him king. A ruse not forgotten by the politicians of the present day nor by their verbal supporters, the journalists and the “camera-never-lies ” friends.

Eventually he meets his downfall at the battle of Bosworth, calling out with great effect, “My kingdom for a horse!"

The film is swift-moving and excellently coloured in conjunction with the wide screen process.

There are some exquisite scenes particularly the snow-covered landscape when the princes were being brought to London.

One cannot help mentioning Olivier because his fine acting dominates the film. The nearest to him, John Gielgud, was unfortunately given a minor role. The other actors, although good, still had that faint air of staginess, that is, a slight wooden demeanour whilst awaiting their cue.

Clare Bloom played wonderfully the difficult part of being consumed with grief as Lady Anne. The diction as a whole is clear. Later when one reads the play the hitherto dead words spring into life, voices of this actors within the mind speak their parts. Having reached that state one becomes an addict

This film is an exhilarating change from the usual trough of films dealing with blood and thunder and sordid glory.

William Falconer

Lord Amwell and the Labour Party: Pointed Criticism by Early Member of the S.D.F. (1956)

From the February 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

With the permission of the Daily Mail and Lord Amwell we reproduce below the article “Why I Quit the Labour Party,” published in the Mail on 16 December, 1955. It is of more than passing interest because Frederick Montague, besides having been Labour M.P. and having held office in Labour Government, was a member of the Social Democratic Federation at the time members broke away to form the S.P.G.B. in 1904. He had joined the S.D.F. in 1894 and the I.L.P. in 1895 (dual membership being quite an accepted thing at that time) and later became a member of the Labour Party. The S.D.F. which, after some changes of name, had reverted to its earlier name, lost membership and influence and disappeared early in the second world war. In 1939. the last year in which it appeared' among the organizations affiliated to the Labour Party (with a membership reduced to 500) Fred Montague was their delegate at the Labour Party Conference.

All this gives interest to Lord Amwell’s reason for leaving the party that he has supported for so long. Many of the points he makes are in line with S.P.G.B. arguments

ED. COMM. 

Why I Quit the Labour Party

One-time newsboy and shop assistant), Lord Amwell, Frederick Montague as he then was, sat as Labour MP. for West Islington from 1923 to 1931 and from 1935 to 1947. He was Under-Secretary of State for Air, 1929-31; Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport. 1940-41; and Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aircraft Production, 1941-42. He was created Baron in 1947.

I quit, but not to cross any floor, only to be free. I want freedom to say without embarrassment that which I feel ought to be said about today’s labour politics and industrial tactics.

Clement Attlee’s departure provides the occasion by loosening certain ties of personal loyalty.

Labour was never very clear in its Socialist theory but I, for one, hoped for the best. Today’s attempt at “refashioning Socialism as a philosophy and finding practical programmes to meet the needs of the times” has resulted in grounding the principles by which the movement was originally inspired. Such is my view and here are some of my reasons for holding it.

“Welfare” has nothing whatever to do with Socialism, and constitutes no “silent revolution.” It did not originate with the Labour Party and was not opposed by any party. It is not a party issue. That “rascally” Tories voted against the Welfare State is not true. Naturally Tories wanted their own way on details, but they no more voted against the principle than Labour voted against having an Army, Navy, and Air Force.

Mislead

It is a little disgusting to mislead electors by taking advantage of popular ignorance of Parliamentary procedure in the interest of vote-catching.

I have no objection to “Welfare.” We live in a keen Capitalist world that must be allowed to work or we starve. But I do object to the substitution of it for what we are supposed to stand for and the consequent neglect of more fundamental things. Especially do I object to calling the Beveridge system Socialist and claiming fundamental change for it, silent or not.

It is not true that “ poverty has been wiped out in Britain for ever,” as Attlee told the Russians. The authoritative figure of persons in receipt of public assistance is 1,600,000. These are not all old persons.

Substitute

The fact is that “Welfare” implies the continued existence of the inherited and the disinherited—Disraeli’s “Two Nations.” It is made a substitute for Socialism on the ground that it involves a redistribution of national income—the alleged silent revolution. But Socialism is not the redistribution of money income. It is production for use and the distribution of that.

There is now full employment upon the basis of inflation, which is quite another matter. For how long? Three-and-a-half-million married women go out to work. They will not go out to work when inflation has run its course and lower prices set in. The production line at any old wage will last as long as markets are kept and no longer.

The American motor-car balloon is already sagging. Automation and “ atomation” may soon start its own silent revolution. For leisure? Oh, certainly for leisure if we don’t look out! How are you going to sell superabundance to countries also superabundant?

The Illusion

In my view it is a complete illusion that high-powered industry on a vast scale can be “taken over” as a going concern, or “planned” from the outside, without taking over and planning human beings. Stateism which under trades union rule means syndicalism was never the dream of old. Mechanism and freedom won’t mix.

Labour in face of tremendous problems seems to me to be playing the old unclean party game, peddling for votes on the “Ninepence for fourpence” and “Big loaf instead of little loaf ” pattern. I have no use for it. I think the propaganda of Transport House shocking in its mendacity and its appeal to cupidity. Not thus was a loveable movement made. '

Labour’s new generation even experts like Gaitskell himself, brilliant player of the “game” as he no doubt will be, no more understand the economics of Capitalism than they do the economics of Socialism.

We are not informed as to what has happened to the untold millions made overnight on the floor of the London Stock Exchange. Silence reigns on this matter, because the untold millions are no longer told. In this notion that ledger-entries and real wealth are one and the same thing and that “there’s plenty where that came from” to go on being distributed there is the elementary fallacy that Socialists laughed out of court years ago. The fallacy of “sharing out.”

Can’t be done

I want to say these things and much more. I want to show how it is that Socialism cannot be properly dressed in Capitalist togs, that “welfare" is precariously poised, as Beveridge admits, and that a free economy is possible.

I want also to show that social reform in history has always been a process of “tidying up” when the cruder forms of exploitation have ceased to pay. There is no exception to this, and it makes a big difference once understood, to what we think about fundamentals and expediencies.

So, I quit!

Lord Amwell

Enter the Dragon: The impact of China (2005)

From the August 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 1978 the Chinese Communist Party under Deng Xiaping embarked on reforms that would steer China’s economy toward transition from state-run to free market capitalism.

Since then China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has grown by an average of 9.5 percent per year, faster than any other country. China joined the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in December 2001 and now accounts for 13 percent of world output with a GDP likely to overtake Japan by 2016 and America by 2020, making China the world’s largest economy.

Economic “openness”

This prodigious growth is attributable to foreign investment that has utilised the country’s remarkably ‘liberal’ business climate to exploit low wage labour as a platform for the manufacture of goods and then their export to world at cheap prices.   Put simply, manufacturing has been relocated to China to undercut competition and raise profits – attracted by the almost ‘inexhaustible’ supply of cheap labour, well-developed infrastructure, tax concessions and brutally repressive state.

China’s economic ‘openness’ makes it the world’s largest recipient of foreign investment, which increased 35 percent in the year to September 2004 alone. It is further exemplified by the country’s import tariffs, which “have, on average, fallen from 41 percent in 1992 to 6 percent after it joined the WTO in December 2001, giving it the lowest tariff protection of any developing country.” (The Economist, 2 October 2004, p.6)

Joint ventures between Chinese companies and foreign multinational corporations produce 27 percent of manufacturing output (there are 4,000 involving UK companies alone) and a flourishing private sector accounts for 50 percent of Chinese GDP.

Rich v poor

Although most of the population still exists at basic subsistence levels, the purchasing power of a minority of better paid workers (but still measured in tens of millions) and the development of an indigenous capitalist class have nurtured a sizeable domestic market.  China in fact has the world’s fastest growing consumer market and sales are soaring. If income distribution remains unaltered, “by 2020 the top 100 million households will have an average income equivalent to the current average in Western Europe. This will open up a vast market for consumer goods.” (The Economist, 2 October 2004, p.11) An increasing number of American and European corporations are now investing to sell directly to this growing market.

China’s market has also encouraged the emergence of a Chinese capitalist class, comprising many who already have close ties with foreign capital and political patronage from Beijing. Within this class a small number have amassed staggering levels of wealth. 

This picture looks set to continue. Though productivity is still low compared with the developed world, running at approximately one-eighth of that in America, economic ‘openness’ is encouraging the rapid transfer of manufacturing technology that will enable China to use the industrialised countries as a springboard to raise productivity. Production will also rapidly climb the “value added” chain, utilising the 10 million graduates who join the Chinese working class each year.

But more important is the abundant supply of the resource essential to profits – human labour power. China has a population of 1.3 billion or 20 percent of the world’s population and the political elite has worked hard to mobilise this labour power to create the conditions to fuel capitalism. 

State industry has rapidly shrunk and thousands of enterprises have been sold or bankrupted and their workers sacked. An estimated 40 million have been made jobless to join the countless millions made redundant from native private industry by relentless foreign competition.

Town v country

In rural regions, where over 60 percent of the population still live, the free market deregulation of agricultural prices has driven millions from the land. Here, over 150 million destitute people are waiting to migrate and seek work at any wage, while farmers are often compelled to take unskilled temporary work between harvests to supplement meagre earnings.

It will take 15-20 years to absorb this labour power, which means that, unlike some parts of South-East Asia, where labour scarcity could raise wages, Chinese based capitalism can probably hold down unskilled wages for many years. 

To most the transition from state-run capitalism to the free market variety means low wages, poor living conditions and repression. While a minority of higher paid workers has access to consumable goods, the free market has devastated the lower paid who do not have money to buy those goods. Services including education and medical care, formerly provided by the state, are now ‘fee based’, while housing is controlled by private landlords.    

The main manufacturing belt lies in the region of Guangdong and along the Pearl River Delta, where workers slave 15 hours a day, seven days a week with mandatory overtime enforced by coercive factory regulations. Migrant labour is estimated at over 100 million, more than half women from impoverished inland regions. Industrial disputes are not uncommon. 

Contradictions

Sometimes disputes erupt into riots as happened at the Taiwanese Stella International factory at Dongguan in the spring of 2004. The factory, employing 70,000 workers, makes shoes for Nike, Reebok, Clarks, Sears and Timberland. Factory property was allegedly damaged and ten workers were subsequently jailed for 3½  years but later freed when the company, fearful of repercussions, secured their release.

Long-term disregard for poverty and the impoverished plight of working people and peasantry may well pose a significant threat to government authority. The government has been compelled to ameliorate worker conditions and in some places unemployment insurance has improved and minimum wages increased, while cities have endeavoured to increase employment – generally by offering assistance to new enterprises to employ redundant workers. But funding is still minimal and official corruption widespread.

Nowhere is the contrast between rich and poor more stark than in Shanghai, a city of 17 million and the centre of Chinese capitalism. Here poor living conditions, overcrowding and poverty are “…a far cry from the empty streets of the gated communities in the east end of Pudong, where high walls and a plethora of guards provide a safe, insular heaven for those living within.” (China Daily, 28 April 2005)

One of China’s main weaknesses is electricity generation and the rapid increase in demand, exacerbated by household appliances and air-conditioning, has caused shortages, blackouts and power rationing.  China’s electricity generation is 70 percent dependent on coal and miners were forced to increase output by 54 percent in the four years to 2003. Rudimentary safety is ignored and a twelve-hour day, 28 days a month is the industry standard. “There were more than 6,000 deaths last year from explosions, floods, cave-ins and other accidents in China’s mining industry, accounting for 80 percent of the world’s total fatalities. Independent estimates, however, say up to 20,000 workers are killed every year as they toil underground in poor conditions for little money.” (http://www.chinalaborwatch.org)

The ‘All China Federation of Trade Unions,’ is the only legal trade union and controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Independent trade unions are banned and workers agitating for better conditions are routinely jailed. But despite the lack of organisation, skill shortages have enabled some to make gains after strikes, as in Shenzen in October 2004 and Panyu in November 2004. 

Knock-on effect

The ‘Chinese miracle’ has had a detrimental effect on many workers outside China. While the international class who live by profits has benefited immeasurably by transferring operations to China, many workers in other countries have paid the price with the loss of their jobs. Worst hit have been workers who barely survive in undeveloped countries where imports and exports mirror those of China.  The abolition of import quotas on textiles in January 2005, for example, is set to decimate jobs in Bangladesh and Cambodia where companies will be unable to compete. Another casualty has been the Mexican working class where an estimated 225,000 jobs, originally transferred from America after the introduction of the North America Free Trade Association have moved to China since 2001. Likewise, production transferred to South Korean and Taiwanese based corporations is ‘out-sourced’ to China for labour intensive assembly and then re-export.

But China’s capitalism is also influencing the world’s working class in other ways. Worker conditions in developed countries are under attack. As The Economist euphemistically puts it: “Individual countries can maximise their gains from Chinese integration and minimise their losses by making their own economies more flexible, increasing mobility between sectors and improving education.” (2 October 2004, p.12).

Political control

The development of capitalism in China looks set to remain firmly under the political dictatorship of the Communist Party. Although in practical operation for years, free market capitalism was officially reconciled with ‘communism’ at the 16th National Congress of the CCP in November 2002 when the Party’s constitution was amended to open membership to China’s ‘business elite’ to protect the “legitimate rights and interests” of business and property owners.  The CCP has become the instrument of multinational corporations and of this ‘business elite’ and seeks to perpetuate its rule with the support of those who benefit from the system of exploitation in the world’s largest sweatshop. The Party has warned it will make no concession to ‘democratic aspirations.’ At the Central Committee meeting in September 2004, Hu Jintao, China’s President and Party leader asserted that “China would never have its own Gorbachev,” or countenance erosion of the CCP’s ruling position. Denouncing those who “fly the banner of democracy and political reform,” he warned the Party would be “pre-emptive” and “strike when they rear their heads.” (Time 31 January 2005, p.45).

In practical terms the political elite is seeking to tighten control over local government to block independent legislatures and plans to “improve the political thinking of university students to elevate the Party’s ruling power” (People’s Daily, 19 January 2005). Websites exposing corruption have been shut without explanation. Newspapers are banned from publishing anything negative about the police, government or judiciary and journalists have been ordered to stop criticism.

In this way capitalism in China is an investors’ paradise and a workers’ prison camp. Enormous profits are attained at staggering human cost, and with the growing gap between rich and poor the class struggle is set to intensify.  The integration of China into world capitalism has also had profound effects. It has drained away jobs from other parts of the world, lowered global unskilled wage rates and eased pressure on wages in other countries by reducing prices of consumable goods. These world-wide reverberations will continue.

Steve Trott

Cooking the Books: Marxism and Panda Bonds (2006)

The Cooking the Books column from the February 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

To mark the 112th anniversary on 26 December of the birth of Chairman Mao a new, expanded “Marxism-Leninism Academy” was opened in Beijing (Times, 3 January). According to Zhang Tongxin, of Beijing University’s Marxism Institute, “since reform, a considerable number of people have forgotten that China is a socialist country”.

By coincidence, the same day the Times reported on a number of financial reforms that came into force in the first week of January. One of them concerned the modernisation of financial markets “to steer more money to profitable projects, not white elephants, and keep the banks on their toes”. Already in 2005, the Times reminded its readers, China had seen “the launch of a highly successful commercial paper market; China’s first asset-backed and mortgage-backed securities; approval for banks to trade currency swaps and forwards; the establishment of the country’s first money broker; the first ‘panda bonds’ - denominated in yuan and sold in China by international borrowers”.

No wonder “a considerable number of people” had come to the conclusion that China is not socialist. And they are right. China is not a “socialist country” but a capitalist one. And it never was socialist. What the Chinese “Communist” Party established when they came to power in 1949 was a state-capitalist regime under their political dictatorship. The workers and peasants continued to be exploited but, from then on, by a “vanguard” which collectively exercised a monopoly, through its political control, over the state-owned means of production.

Although this state-capitalist regime was relatively successful in developing China’s heavy industry and military might, like the similar regime in Russia it proved unable to compete economically against the established capitalist powers such as the US, Europe and Japan. So, again as in Russia, a policy of “reform” was instituted involving the encouragement of private capitalist enterprise and the more rigorous subjection of state enterprises to market forces. From the point of view of the established political elite, so far this reform has been executed far more successfully than in Russia in that they are still in control of political power and on this basis can still proclaim the lie that China is a “socialist country”. Not that anybody believes them any more.

Marx wrote Capital to analyse how capitalist society worked with a view to showing how it could never be made to work in the interest of the class of wage workers on whose exploitation for surplus value it was based. He was not writing to advise political parties and governments how to run capitalism. So it is difficult to see what the Chinese government thinks it can get out of studying his writings.

Marx did write, in Volume III of Capital, about stock exchanges, financial markets and the like. Basically, he saw these as places where capitalists tried to swindle each other and small investors out of the surplus value that had already been extracted from the workers. Conceivably, Chinese government officials and the millionaires that have come into existence under the “reform” could pick up a few hints from here on how to swindle each other more efficiently.

Letter from Denmark (1966)

From the May 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

As a teacher with socialist ideas I hold that the only sensible thing in a sane society is to teach children when they want to be taught and what they want to be taught. I feel sure that most of children want to explore the world in which they live. We all know of children who don't come home in time because they are engaged in play or in the act of investigating things. And who does not know children who keep on asking questions of all kinds? I find such behaviour characteristic of most children and I think all questions must be answered in a way satisfactory to the children at the time. If their request for information is not satisfied by us, we cannot hope that the abilities and talents which each child possesses will he developed fully!

Yet to develop these is precisely one of the stated aims of education in Denmark! The law says that the purpose of education is: “to further and develop the children's abilities and talents to strengthen their characters and give them useful knowledge.’’ The wording of this paragraph gives the teacher quite a wide scope on the theoretical level, for it is not defined in detail how to strengthen their characters and what useful knowledge is. Every teacher will interpret it his own way, and this makes if appear very democratic. But such a law should also give a socialist teacher a chance to try out his ideas in this field.

However, theory is one thing, practice another. What is actually happening at school?

A child starts at seven and leaves again at fourteen at the earliest. For each year of school a syllabus has been worked out—that is to say, by the end of the school year the pupil is supposed to know a certain number of things. At the later stages of school life examinations take place. If you pass these well, your chances in adult life arc good. If you happen not to be bright at the right things it's just your hard luck. The result is that teachers, parents and often the children themselves become very ambitious with regard to examinations. This means that the teacher asks questions to which he already knows the answers, and the children answer them as best they can. A teacher may ask : “How did the Norwegian and Danish people react to the German occupation?” The teacher knows the answer, and for some reason which is not apparent to the child it is desirable to know this fact. Motivation for knowing the two peoples' reactions is completely lacking. By the time you have lived your school life in this way for 7 years at least it has become quite natural to think in terms of “What am I expected to answer now?” In a class of 15 year olds a teacher had once asked everybody to watch a TV programme about 3 religious altitudes with the purpose of using the programme as basis for discussion. Nearly everybody had managed to see the programme, but when it came to the discussion nobody had anything to say except the teacher. She could provoke no one to speak. How good her techniques in this direction were I cannot say, but after the lesson a girl told her that of course all pupils had an opinion but did not like to put it in front of the class. In this case the children had to make up their own minds about a question and by now being so used to have a set answer to learn, the pupils found the idea of speaking freely awkward. This phenomenon cannot in many cases stimulate and develop the interest of learning.

But with the stated aims of education being as they are, a teacher should be able to change this situation. A number of things have to be considered in this connection It is impossible for a teacher to avoid examinations and tests. He, or she, will be judged on the basis of examination results, for the future employers must know your qualifications when you apply for a job. It is clear, therefore, that a good teacher is still one who can give knowledge which will give the best chance for a job to as many children as possible; and those will have the best chances who can enter into frictionless co-operation at their future factories, offices or other places of work. In today’s society technical skill is of utmost importance, and so the emphasis in the syllabus has been shifted from classical subjects to technical skills.

Some people hold that the fact that children are no longer expected to have so much exact knowledge and that demands in this direction have been eased considerably, is a sign of progress. It is true that there is a tendency towards teaching children how to find out things themselves, but at long as examinations and tests do not examine this quality in children it is pretty irrelevant to base your everyday teaching on this alone.

In practice it often happens that children ask you questions which do not lie within the subject you happen to be teaching. Many of these questions are very important to the children and would be interesting to discuss, but mostly pressure from above stops a teacher from taking up such questions. If you are a teacher who wants to satisfy these very relevant demands made by the children, you are in a dilemma. You want to do a thing which you are prevented from doing because you are at the same time subjected to quite contrary and different demands from the authorities.

So my conclusion must be that you cannot change one part of society successfully without changing all other parts. When some changes have taken place in education, I see their cause lying in changes in the methods of production. New techniques for producing goods developed all the time, and the worker is then required to learn new things all along. It means that more emphasis must be put on his ability to readjust himself to newly adopted techniques. Therefore children now in school must learn different things from what their parents had to learn. There is also a move away from direct authoritarianism. The latter change is, I think, due to the realisation by those in control that contented people are better producers, and these are important for capitalists to make bigger profits. Capitalism will run smoother in this way. So to me, the whole aim of society will have to be changed if any radical change is to be expected in our schools.

A. Peterson,

Copenhagen.

Another stretch of Labour rule (1966)

From the April 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

He has it all now; even the place in history which he is said to pine for. Mr. Harold Wilson will be remembered as the first Labour Prime Minister to lead his party back to Westminster with an increased majority.

It has never happened before; but then never before has there been a government like this one, and never before has there been a Labour Premier like Mr. Wilson. Never before has the so-called left wing, with its nostalgia for the days when Labour dabbled in theories of what it called Socialism, been so thoroughly tamed. The Labour government has made a public pride of the fact that it would have none of theories or principles; its first concern has been to run British capitalism as its day to day affairs demanded.

This is what is meant by a word which was often used to describe the Wilson government during the election: pragmatic. The Economist said on February 26th: "Mr. Wilson has been a socialist in small things and a pragmatist in big ones.” William Davis, the Financial Editor of The Guardian, wrote on 28th February: ‘‘I do not believe . . . that . . . Wilson the pragmatist would go easy with the trade unions and aim nasty blows at business men.” And Mr. Wilson himself claimed, when he was being interviewed in television's Election Forum on March 10th, “We have been a pragmatic government.”

It is also what was meant by the slogan on which the Labour Party fought the election: You Know Labour Government Works. Not, we should notice, You Know Labour Government Is Socialism, nor even You Know Labour Government Is Good For You. Only the claim that Labour government works. And now that they are back again stronger than before it is time for those who voted for a return of Labour government to ask themselves what is meant by the word “works”.

What was the record of the last Labour government? To begin with, they did take off the prescription charges and they did increase pensions, as they said they would in their 1964 manifesto to The New Britain. These are the usual sort of sops which new governments dish out, giving them the chance to pose as benefactors of the working class. The sops are also an excuse for a government to claim that they stick to their principles—that, in other words, they are not pragmatists. It is, of course, convenient for governments to make such claims occasionally, at other times it is convenient for them to make the opposite claim.

The Wilson government did not bring in any measure concerned with what was once thought to be a basic principle of the Labour Party. They did not introduce any nationalisation measures. They talked about steel; indeed the nationalisation of this industry has been the cause of so well-publicised an argument that it would have been difficult for a Labour government to drop the idea entirely. It was a typical piece of Wilson manipulating that his government kept saying that steel was about to be taken over but never actually got around to it.

Nationalisation is not, and never has been, anything to do with Socialism. The point is that the Labour Party always claimed that it was Socialism in itself; it is no coincidence that they have changed their mind, as they have come out openly as an alternative administration of British capitalism which the voters can try when they get tired for a while with the Conservatives.

Nationalisation was not the only matter on which Labour government “worked”. The days when Hugh Gaitskell raged against the barely concealed colour bar in the Commonwealth Immigration Act were quietly put out of mind and the Labour government were seen in practice to impose harsher restrictions on coloured immigrants than the Tories had done. This was all part of a sordid, dangerous auction in which both sides were bidding for the racialist vote, in an effort to win certain constituencies where racial feeling runs high. On this issue alone the Labour Party were revealed as a vote-grabbing, expedient conscious, unprincipled political rabble. Did Labour government “work” for the coloured immigrant, as it made his life even harder than it need be under capitalism by pandering to the racist prejudices of the frustrated workers around him?

It seems a long time ago, now, that the Labour Party were deceiving supporters of nuclear disarmament that they would get rid of the independent British Bomb. In the 1964 election they made great play of what they called the “myth of the independent British nuclear deterrent,” and claimed that anyone who supported this myth did so only because of a nostalgia for the days when Britannia very nearly ruled the entire world.

But myth or no, the fact is that there has been no change in the British nuclear weaponry. True, the Labour government said that they were opposed to the Multilateral Force and would prefer something which was for all practical purposes the same—something called the Atlantic Nuclear Force. That was about the only change they went out for. Certainly they never wanted to abolish the British Bomb, let alone all Bombs, let alone war itself. The greatest contribution the Labour government made to the field of so-called Defence was that they introduced, under the guidance of Denis Healey (a man who was once regarded as an extreme Communist)—the policy of what they called cost-effectiveness. This was another way of saying that they were determined the British capitalist class should get full value for the immense amounts of money they spend on weapons.

On many other matters the Labour government, in proving that they worked, upset many of their supporters. These supporters thought that their government would judge an issue like the war in Vietnam on humane grounds. Had they known anything about the workings of capitalist parties they would not have been so disappointed when Mr. Wilson so wholeheartedly supported the Americans in their actions there. While Mr. Wilson did so, of course, the bombings went on and the Vietnamese villagers and their children perished wholesale beneath the napalm.

On wages there was less excuse for disappointment; the Labour Party have always made plain their intention to try to control them. But even solid Labour trade unionists were upset when their government actually introduced the Prices and Incomes Bill, which was the sort of measure no Conservative government had dared to bring in. In their battles in this field, the Labour government were openly standing for the interests of the British capitalist class against the wage claims of the workers—many of whom worked so hard for Labour’s return.

There is no reason to suppose that this next Labour government will be any different. They have made it clear that their first pre-occupation will be with the problems of the British capitalist class; the very first specific object stated in their manifesto in the last election was: “It is our aim to achieve balance in our international payments by the end of this year.” Plainly, more disappointments are in store for the friends of Labour rule.

This, then, is what is meant by a Labour government which works. It means a few minor reforms, most of which are of no benefit to the working class. It means the abandonment of principle and its replacement by mealy-mouthed expediency. It means a disregard for human problems and welfare, and a pandering to the bleakest of prejudices. It means a continuation of the social system which terrorises and degrades human beings all over the world. 

There need be no surprise that little interest was shown in the alternative to capitalism at the election. The biggest change of opinion is called a landslide; it would need a veritable earthquake in social awareness to change society from one of despair into one of hope. The earthquake did not, of course, happen and the foundations of capitalism—the self deception, the prejudice, the apathy and the plain ignorance with which the working class blight their own lives—are unshaken.

Ivan