Socialist Economics: 3. Money and Prices (1974)

From the March 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialist Economics Series

The whole financial edifice of capitalism at first sight appears incomprehensible to the average person. Ignorance concerning the financial and monetary system has given rise to many unsound theories, and consequently has prevented a proper understanding of what it is, how it came into being, and the circumstances which will make the monetary system unnecessary. This is not an intellectual exercise but a vital element in exposing the nature of capitalism.

The monetary system has evolved gradually and has been in existence as a system for about 250 years in England and for a much shorter period abroad. We make a distinction between the ancient coinage of Greece, Carthage and Rome, which although used to effect the exchange of commodities was at that period incidental to the main stream of an exchange system which was based on surpluses and barter. As a general social form, money developed alongside the development of commodity production, and at the point in history when all wealth was produced in the form of commodities money became the universal medium or equivalent through which all exchange transactions were carried out.

The  first condition for the introduction of a monetary system is when social products become commodities, i.e. articles produced for sale and exchange. It is quite obvious that commodities cannot go to the market on their own. As they are owned by someone or other, he is the person who will take or send them there. Likewise, there are other owners of commodities carrying out a similar function. Each will recognize the other as a private proprietor — that is, they respect each other’s rights to dispose of the social product to their own immediate advantage. Eventually they embellish their right through a set of legal relations:

This juridical relation, which thus expresses itself in a contract, whether such contract be part of a developed legal system or not, is a relation between two wills, and is but the reflex of the real economical relation between the two. It is this economical relation that determines the subject matter in each such juridical act. (Marx, Capital Vol. I, p. 96. Kerr edn.)

The capitalists who are the owners of commodities have to appropriate the wealth of society before they can sell it. Once having done so, they create a juridical system backed up by the State machine which politically safeguards their position and consequently the whole institution of private property.

When exchange becomes a normal social practice, and the volume of transactions is being constantly repeated, inevitably one commodity emerges — either through custom or the stamp of legality — in which all the others can represent their value or express their price, which is the money-name for Value. This one commodity, which is historically acceptable, becomes the recognized universal equivalent: it becomes money — it becomes the measure of Value.

All commodities will therefore express their price through the agency of this single commodity, whatever it happens to be at any given point historically. Gold became the universal equivalent and still is for international transactions. Gold evolved as such because of the facts that it had a certain amount of social labour in it; that it was relatively durable; easily divisible; and kept its value for a long period.

The fact that currency notes without gold backing have replaced gold as the means of circulation within individual political states, does not materially alter the function of the universal equivalent. Symbolic money, introduced by state compulsion, can only circulate within the political sphere which created it. We are not concerned here with the interminable international squabbles between capitalist powers who refuse to take each other’s bad money. The fact that symbolic money is now used does not remove gold as the measure of Value, as eventually all symbolic currencies will require to be related to one another at some point, and are finally adjusted through the medium of gold.

Let us assume that 1 oz. of gold contains 100 hours of social labour, and that 40 gallons of wine also contain 100 hours. In that case 1 oz. of gold would be equal to 40 gallons of wine, or ½ oz. equal to 20 gallons of wine, or ¼ to 10 gallons — and so on. The same thing would apply to every other commodity. For example, if 4 washing machines also contained 100 hours of social labour, then 4 washing machines would be equal to 40 gallons of wine, or 1 washing machine to 10 gallons of wine or ¼ oz. of gold. The change from one universal equivalent to another does not, nor cannot, alter the exchange value, or the proportion in which one commodity exchanges with another. Gold, as the money commodity, or currency, as the recognized legal form, are really external factors. Different products of labour are being equated with one another, and the function of money is to facilitate this equation for practical commercial purposes. The law of Value, like the law of gravity, is not subject to amendment by Acts of Parliament. Currency is not Value.

The amount of currency notes needed to carry out exchange transactions depends on the number of transactions, the speed with which they are conducted, and the volume of commodities to be exchanged. If for example £5 million (currency) was required to circulate £50 million worth of commodities, and the Government decided to print £10 million, then the purchasing power of the £ would have fallen and it would take £2 to purchase what would previously be purchased for £1: prices would rise accordingly. The value of the commodities has not changed, but merely that their standard of measurement has altered. You do not alter temperature by changing the numbers on a thermometer. Prices will rise because the measure of price has fallen. Prices will rise higher, and in direct ratio to the depreciation of the symbolic standard of measure. This is the main factor in rising prices. The exchange of commodities is not based on legal promises to pay or arbitrary standards which alter according to political expediency. Therefore they will express their value, as they have always done, on the amount of socially-necessary labour contained within them.

Supply and demand do not determine prices, although they influence them. A shortage will create higher prices, a surplus low prices. But invariably, throughout most fields of production and distribution, through repetition the supply of commodities becomes equal to the demand for them and the two therefore cancel each other out. These are accidental factors and do not determine value, any more than a train driver can determine the route between London and Glasgow.

Other factors which influence price are monopoly and subsidy. Monopoly action by certain groups of capitalists with-holding supplies of a given commodity can cause prices to rise. The Arab oil sheikhs demonstrated this recently. Monopoly does not add to the surplus wealth but merely redistributes it. Capitalism cannot run on the basis of permanent monopoly anymore than it can run on the basis of permanent subsidy. Subsidy is the action which is carried on by certain governments to keep prices below the current market level, from time to time. For many years the prices of food and housing were kept artificially low deliberately in order to keep wages down.

The introduction of an excess of currency notes over and above those required to circulate will undoubtedly cause dislocation not only in the marketing process but also in the productive process. This we are now witnessing. You cannot print Value. If governments could only follow the example of King Midas how happy they would be. Like the old Canadian bum, they have the button of inflation if only someone would sew a shirt on to it.

Jim D'Arcy

Socialist Economics: 2. Value (1974)

From the February 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialist Economics Series

Articles are exchanged because they are different. This means that they possess a different kind of useful labour. It is the quality of the labour which makes them different. The labour of the bricklayer is different to that of the fitter, as is the labour of the pattern-maker to the coal miner’s. Consequently, the products are different. Identical goods or services are not exchanged for each other as there would be no useful purpose in doing this. Coal is not exchanged for coal. In a world of commodity production, this qualitative difference between definite types of useful labour develops into a complex system. A social division of labour. These useful forms of labour are carried on independently by individual producers working on their own account.

Human labour, in addition to producing Use-Values also produces value — It has a double function. The commodity is the depository of Value. Whilst everyone can see, eat or feel the Use-Value of a commodity, i.e. its material side, it seems impossible to grasp its Value. It is the very opposite of its Use -Value. Use -Value is something which can be experienced but Value is an abstract quality. However, we know that all commodities have one thing in common; they are products of human labour, and it is this which gives them their Value, and consequently their social reality. It is only during the social process of exchange that Value will declare its origin, that is, when commodities containing different forms of human labour confront each other on the market. This is nothing other than the social relation of commodity to commodity.

It follows then that value is a social relation not between persons but between their products. It is a relation between objects which contain an identical social substance, human labour. The multifarious sub-divisions of labour are directed entirely to the exchange of commodities, and there is no direct relation of social production to social producer.

The capitalist system does not produce for consumption. Its function is to produce surplus value, out of which the capitalists — industrialists, banks, landlords — take their profits. The sole agency through which Value comes into existence is the international working class (including Russian and Chinese who work within State capitalism). They allow the capitalist not only to take the fruit of this labour, but also to dictate the conditions under which they produce, no matter how soul-destroying and tedious. “Allow” is the operative word, because the capitalist system could not survive against the wishes of workers collectively opposed to it.

The worker’s access to his own product is through the wage packet. He obtains his means of subsistence in the form of commodities — articles produced for sale or exchange with a view to profit. This peculiar way of getting his livelihood, where there is no direct relation between production and consumption, leads to a situation where workers tend to avoid thinking about the overall purpose of production, and lend their thinking and activity to engaging in the wages struggle, which from their point of view is at least simple and uncomplicated. The capitalist is the enemy to be attacked but, as we know only too well, only on the wages front. It is the Socialist who tries to show the real significance of the class struggle by refusing to be dominated by the narrow Trade-Union issue, and demands that the capitalist be stripped of the means of production and that these become social property.

Because capitalism produces wealth in the form of commodities, the relations between the various producers are not direct. That is to say that there is no conscious co-ordination or specific purpose between the various branches of production and distribution. Everything appears to happen spontaneously or accidentally; everything has to be done for an anonymous market. Nobody has any direct control over what will be produced, when, or in what quantity. In earlier forms of society there was social co-ordination and planning of production, even though this was on a simple scale due to the undeveloped nature of the productive forces. The food supply was obtained through hunting, fishing, fruit-gathering, etc. Some members of the community made cloth, others pottery, weapons, etc. This simple division of labour produced simple methods of distribution, and both were integrated with the needs of the community and under its direct control.

Today we have a fantastic situation where the only laws governing production are the laws of exchange. Not having any direct interest in production as such, but only in the production of Value and the exchange of their own commodity — labour-power — the working class are unable to comprehend the social powers of production. The real world for them is the world of exchange. They wish to live in a situation where the hazards of capitalism can be tolerated, and where they can sell their lives in instalments of their labour-power, which will be exchanged ultimately with instalments of fellow-workers’ labour- power. However, capitalism will not let the worker live quietly or stabilize his slavery. It steps up the pressure, and eventually forces him into a situation where he has to learn something new in order to escape from the pressure-cooker.

The capitalist class, including their governments, do not control capitalism, do not control production, nor can they anticipate demand. Each capitalist carries on independently. His knowledge of the market is restricted because he cannot know how much will be produced and sold from time to time. Competition between capitalists creates conflicting interests, and these are a barrier to balanced social production. Most capitalists will back their experience, or engage in market research, in the hope of foreseeing demand. However, there is always some unforeseen factor. For example, few capitalists in Europe could foresee the action by Arab capitalists which was taken strictly in line with economic interests, and in opposition to the interests of other world capitalists. This was inevitable: in a capitalist society you cannot expect the Arabs to behave in a non-capitalist way. Our Alice-in-Wonderland economists are now desperately trying to explain away the advice they gave to their masters on the imminent boom which turned out to be a slump. The whole picture of capitalist production is one of social anarchy. This anarchy is the direct result of social production being appropriated by the capitalist class, resulting in the antagonism between producers and possessors — the class struggle.

We have the absurd situation produced by the relation of Value where the products, in effect, govern the producer. The Socialist proposes that the social means of production, including distribution, should be directly controlled by a society whose overriding concern is to provide all men and women with the best existence society is capable of, without the Value relation, or any other economic relation based on Value. The physical production of wealth is well within the technical capability of a world-wide community with the will to do it. We are forced to stand by when ignorant experts hold the field lecturing on the economics of scarcity and belt-tightening. Despite the scare stories about falling world resources, there is sufficient wealth-potential — used in a responsible way, not squandered or vandalized as is the case today — to maintain a Socialist society for a very long time. As for the figure of 3.5 annual growth rate, Socialist society would disdain such a small increase and take the fetters off the productive forces. Capitalism has nearly succeeded in creating a race without real ambition.

The social relation of Value represents a condition where the exchange of the product represents the exchange of the various types of labour embodied in the product, and consequently provides the only social link between the producers. It is a relationship of things rather than persons. The Value relation can only exist in a society concerned with exchange, where things are more important than people. If the social powers of production are brought under the democratic control of society, a new and progressive era will have been founded; exchange will become obsolete, and the higher social relations based on planned production for need will have been established.

Jim D'Arcy

Socialist Economics: 1. Commodities (1974)

From the January 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialist Economics Series

It is impossible to understand the way in which the Capitalist system works without some knowledge of basic Marxian economics. Such knowledge is invaluable to the Socialist because he can use it to expose the myth that the capitalist is the lynch-pin of society and without him, civilization would perish.

The Marxist theory of value is based upon the analysis of the commodity. Marx describes the commodity as being the “cell form” of capitalist society, and that wealth within capitalism presents itself as a vast accumulation of commodities.

First and foremost, a commodity is a product of human labour under definite social conditions of production which can only apply to capitalist society. It is an article produced for sale or exchange with a view to profit. It contains two diametrical opposites—Use-Value and Exchange-Value.

Use-Value is the utility of an article and is something concrete. Food can be eaten. Homes can be lived in. Clothes can be worn. This is self-apparent. But as we Socialists are well aware, the production of use-values is not the prime function of capitalist society. That function is the production of Exchange-Value.

Exchange-Value or price is the proportion in which commodities exchange with each other. A thing possesses exchange-value only to the person who has no use for it and loses its exchange value when its use-value asserts itself or is eventually lost in consumption.

Commodity production is peculiar to capitalist society. When we talk about commodity production we mean a condition where the dominant means and almost the entire means of social production are devoted to the production of articles for sale and exchange. Commodities have been produced in past societies before capitalism, but their production was confined to the handicraftsmen or to incidental surpluses. Their production was never a mass social process as it is today. It is only in capitalist society that commodity production becomes the prevailing mode of production.

Use-value has nothing to do with whether or not an object or service is useful to humanity. The whole economy of capitalism has a multitude of products and services which are incontestably useless, and indeed harmful. Nuclear weapons; military bases; equipment for armies; banking, insurance and the whole apparatus of wholesale and retail. The institutions and services, however, are useful to capitalism and use-value in this context is related to the needs of capitalism and whatever these needs may be from time to time.

The most practical way to find out whether an article or service is useful or not is when it is offered for sale. If no-one wants it, then it is socially useless whatever its virtues in other respects. Production of that particular commodity or service would then cease as its reproduction would be unnecessary. To put it another way, the production of any commodity or group of commodities which cannot be marketed or sold is useless by capitalist standards. The fact that a social need may exist for unwanted commodities has nothing to do with the case. There is no morality in capitalist economics.

Some things which are bought and sold are not commodities. Bearing in mind that (a) a commodity must contain a certain amount of human labour and (b) that it must be capable of being reproduced we find that there are a number of instances where this does not apply.

Land (excluding buildings) for example contains no value; there is no labour involved in its production. It cannot be reproduced. Nevertheless, land is bought and sold; it has a price, and that price is determined by competition between buyers. A woman’s virtue is not a commodity but we know that virtue may be sold by prostitution. Likewise with a man’s character. You can buy a man’s character by bribing him. What happens in effect is that these non-commodities assume the commodity form. They take on an abstract exchange-value, and successfully masquerade as the real thing. Likewise with works of art.

The value and consequently the price of a commodity is determined by the amount of social labour spent on its production. Social labour includes the materials used in the productive process and is measured in time.

There is one important qualification and that is that the labour must be socially necessary. If this were not the case, the more inefficient and time-wasting processes would produce the most value, which is nonsense. Socially necessary labour means the average time that is spent in any field of production or distribution in the manufacture of articles or services. For example, if crude oil was shipped from Europe to the Middle East, the cost of society’s time, including the element of wear and tear on the ship etc., could not be added to the product because this would have been unnecessary labour (as crude oil is found in abundance in the Middle East). Again, if a group of capitalists decided to erect a factory on the Island of Tristan de Cunha or some other remote spot, say for the manufacture of textiles, the cost of the textiles would not have a greater value on account of the cost of shipment, transport and other charges, for the obvious reason that the areas for producing textiles are mainly concentrated in industrial areas with all the attendant services of railways, roads etc. Again (although the example may be open to question due to the capitalist energy crisis), if a firm decided to build Hansom cabs to be drawn by horses to replace taxi-cabs, the social time spent on these would be quite valueless, as this commodity (transport) by horse-drawn carriage is obsolete and is not used by society outside of its novelty value which is minute.

Socially necessary labour must take into consideration the things which society now requires, and the average methods through which they can be obtained. This average working raises another question, and that is whether by using the latest machinery the value of the product is less than that of similar products produced by relatively old machinery, because the time spent on the former is naturally less. The answer is that we have to take an average throughout the whole field of this production in particular. In the coal-mining industry throughout the world, methods of extracting coal vary from working narrow seams to exploiting huge faces by coal-cutting machinery. The hand-cut coal is not more valuable, and in any case the entire production of coal cannot be carried out by hand. Neither can it be entirely carried out by machinery; therefore the average time is proportioned between the two methods. Again, if we take ten firms with varying degrees of efficiency say from 1-10, the average would be 5 and this would represent the social necessary labour time. Socially necessary labour is the substance of value, or conversely value has for its substance embodied or congealed labour.

We shall have a look at another aspect of Marxian economics in a further article.

Jim D'Arcy

Obituary: Georges Valentino (1996)

Obituary from the May 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

We regret to report the death in Paris of Georges Valentino, one of our long-time supporters in France. He was born in Guadeloupe in the French West Indies which his father for a time represented in the French National Assembly (for the reformist SFlO and then for the Gaullists). He used to recount how he and others in his unit, sent as conscripts to fight in Algeria, used to fire on their officers’ command posts rather than at "the enemy", with whom they recognised they had no quarrel (a practice later also employed by some GIs in Vietnam).

Georges came across us in the 1960s and immediately realised that this was the political group he had been looking for. He had previously been a member of the French Communist Party and then of the short-lived Parti Socialiste Autonome. He was a regular contributor to Socialisme Mondial, the French-language journal brought out by comrades in Canada and France between 1973 and 1988, and contributed the occasional article to the Socialist Standard. He also helped with the translation of our declaration of principles into correct political French.

He earned a precarious living selling newspapers and working in bars and cafes. It was no doubt, unfortunately, this precarious existence which led to his premature death before the age of 60.

Adam Buick

Editorial: Middle-Class “Socialism.” (1907)

Editorial from the October 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a communication to the Magazine of Commerce, Mr. H. G. Wells, whom the Clarion hails as a "prominent Socialist," gives his views as to whether a capable business man stands to gain or lose by the coming of a Socialist Government.

"I submit," says Mr. H. G. Wells, "that, on the whole, he stands to gain. Let me put down the essential points in his outlook as I conceive them.
" Under a Socialist legislation:—
" He will be restricted from methods of production and sale that are socially mischievous.
" He will pay higher wages.
" He will pay a higher proportion of his rate-rent out-goings to the State and municipality and less to the landlord.
" These items in his outlook the business man may contemplate with doubt, but, on the other hand,
" He will get better educated, better fed, and better trained workers.
" He will get a regular, safe, cheap supply of power and material. He will get cheaper and more efficient internal and external transit.
" He will be under an organised scientific State, which will naturally pursue a vigorous scientific policy in support of the national trade.
" He will be less of an adventurer and more of a citizen."

As with other so-called Socialists of the middle class, Mr. Wells makes it plain that his conception of Socialism is a middle-class heaven wherein, although higher wages may be paid, yet only so because it is the price of a more efficient and more profitable labour-power. Wherein, in fact, the capitalist will get cheap labour, cheap material, cheap power and cheap transit and where he will sell at an advantage because "the State will pursue a vigorous scientific policy in support of the national trade."

We commend the utterances of Mr. Wells to the careful attention of our readers for it illustrates yet again that the "Socialism" professed by middle-class would-be leaders of the workers is directly opposed to the interests of the working class and is as much the enemy as Liberalism or Toryism. It is, indeed, but capitalism with a thin disguise of bunkum. It is a state of society specially designed to provide greater profit and power to the decaying middle class, where the Trust shall cease from troubling and the Receiver be at rest, and where also the wage-slaves shall be more efficient and profitable to the end that the "intellect" and "ability" of the middle class, rescued from bankruptcy by the "Labour" movement, may scoop in all the profit.

Inequality in Russia (1943)

From the January 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sir Rowland Evans, a Liberal politician, in a letter to the Times, stated that 

Whereas statistics indicate that in Britain before the war the upper 10 per cent, of the population received 45 per cent, of the national income, an authoritative analysis of statistics published in the Soviet Press in 1939 showed that the upper 11 per cent, or 12 per cent, of the Soviet population then received approximately 50 per cent, of the national income.—(Times, December 15, 1942.)

One correspondent challenged the figures on the ground that the rural population ought to be excluded as it is impossible in rural areas to find members of an upper category. He claimed therefore that what the figures would really show would be that in the towns

every third worker or employee or member of their families . . . belongs to an upper category, similar to the upper 10 per cent, of the population in Great Britain.—(Times, December 16, 1942.)

The figures were then challenged by Andrew Rothstein, Chief Correspondent of the Russian Official Tass News Agency (Times, December 21, 1942). His principal ground of objection was that the estimate came from "an article by a counter-revolutionary terrorist, anti-Soviet propagandist and agent of Hitler." This is relevant, but it does not settle the real question, which is "was the estimate accurate?" Rothstein had the opportunity of answering Sir Rowland Evans's demand for his own figures. Rothstein is in a position to give the Russian Government’s own figures about inequality of income, but though he gave various other pieces of information he did not answer the question. Instead, he dwelt on the point that “in the Soviet Union the share of the national income which comes to the individual depends exclusively (unless he is a criminal) on the work which he does."

He did not question that artists, scientists, engineers, factory managers and State officials, etc., receive larger incomes than the mass of the population, but maintained that this group is certainly not large enough to account for 50 per cent, of the national income or anything like it.

One significant feature of Rothstein's letter was that it nowhere even mentioned the fact that millions of Russian citizens draw income from their investment in Government bonds. Rothstein may, of course, argue that income derived from interest on such investments is indirectly the result of the work orginally performed, but why did he not mention it? At January 1, 1934. the amount of Government loans outstanding was about 14,000 million roubles (about £560 million at 25 roubles to the £—Whitaker's Almanack, 1942, page 944). This figure will have been greatly increased since 1934 as thousands of millions of roubles are raised each year. In April, 1942, a new War Loan of 10,000 million roubles (£400 million) was raised (Soviet War News, April 16. 1942, and Evening Standard, April 15, 1942). The interest is 2 per cent, but in addition each holder of a 100-rouble certificate has a chance of winning a prize of 50,000 roubles (£2,000), or smaller amounts.

It was also announced (People, December 7, 1941) that the Russian Government were to run a lottery to help the war effort, tickets being issued to the amount of £40 million.

With regard to inequality of income, it was stated in the Sunday Dispatch (August 17, 1941) that the “average minimum wage is 250 roubles monthly, though specialists may receive an average as high as 2,000 roubles a month." (This article was shown to the Soviet Ambassador before publication.)

Other ways of obtaining large sums of money are indicated by the announcement that Ilya Ehrenburg, the Russian journalist, received the Stalin prize of 100,000 roubles for his book, “ The Fall of France" (Evening Standard, May 19, 1912).

With regard to the Russian Income Tax, Mr. J. C. Jagger, Honorary Secretary of the British Association of Officers of Taxes, who visited Russia in 1936, made the following statement:—

Earnings up to 250 roubles per month are exempt but sums in excess of that figure are charged at progressively increasing rates, commencing at 80 kopecs per 100 roubles (100 kopecs—1 rouble) to a maximum of 260 kopecs per 100 roubles at 800 roubles a month. Tax is not charged on earnings in excess of 800 roubles and, in these days of output or sales in excess of the “plan" many of the citizens escape taxation at a point for which we have no legal parallel."—Taxes, October, 1936.)

In conclusion here ore two statements which throw further light on inequality in Russia. One is from the American journalist. Negley Farson, cabling from Moscow in Feb., 1942 (Daily Mail, February 28). He remarked on the “ beggars, the halt, the blind, mewling their woes and thanks " in gratitude for gifts obtained from a queue of people waiting to go into the Cathedral.

The second is from the Daily Worker (September 25, 1942) from the pen of John Gibbons, writing from Moscow. He explains that in addition to the ordinary vegetable ration at fixed pre-war prices, workers in factories and offices buy extra vegetables from their place of work. There are, however. other markets of tin rationed goods “ for those who have money and inclination "—

For those who have money and inclination, collective farm markets, of which there are dozens in Moscow, contain a rich and varied assortment of un-rationed farm products. Here prices are higher, varying according to the season. Potatoes, for instance, now cost less than half what they did six weeks ago.

It certainly seems that Mr. Rothstein might usefully have added many things to his statement made in answer to Sir Rowland Evans.

Edgar Hardcastle

Revolution (1966)

Book Review from the December 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Peaceful Revolution versus Violence by Frederick Engels (Socialist Labour Party, Is. 10d.)

The SLP have republished the introduction that Engels wrote in 1895 to Marx’s Class Struggles in France. They have changed their title from The Revolutionary Act.

Engels argues that the armed uprising as a means of winning political power has become outdated. The power of the military has so increased that they have the upper hand every time in street battles. The most practical means to political power has become the vote, as the Social Democrats in Germany were showing. There the working class were beginning to use the vote as “an instrument of emancipation.”

One passage is particularly worth quoting:

"The time is past for revolutions carried through by small minorities at the head of unconscious masses. When it gets to be a matter of the complete transformation of the social organisation, the masses themselves must participate, must understand what is at stake and why they are to act.”

This the Socialist Party of Gt. Britain has argued all along, against anarchists and those who back the theories of Lenin and Trotsky. Before Socialism can be established the immense majority of the working class must understand and want it and democratically set about getting it.

Adam Buick

Making Nationalists (2016)

From the May 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

The world is divided into almost 200 different countries and most of them celebrate some type of annual ‘national’ day.

The most widely known examples are the 4th July Independence Day of the United States and Bastille Day on 14 July in France. Mexico has its ‘El Grito’ in September which celebrates the beginning of its struggle to end Spanish rule and Cuba has its Liberation Day to mark the advent of the Castro regime. Britain is unusual in not having any widely recognised national day although the Queen’s Official Birthday and St. George’s Day (at least in England) partly fulfil the role. In Ireland, St. Patrick’s Day on the 17 March is generally accepted as the national day (especially in the Republic) although Easter Monday (the date of the Rising in 1916) is also a calendar date of importance. National days usually commemorate the formation of the country in the sense of gaining ‘freedom’ from a governing colonial power, as in the case of the USA, or else mark some major change (erroneously called a revolution) in the social structure of a country as with France. Sometimes they have their roots in and take their context from cultural, religious or historical events. For countries that have experienced much social and political upheaval over the last 100 years, such as Germany or Russia, the day considered as the national day, has changed many times over the years.

In Ireland, this year being the centenary of the Easter Rising, the day was given a more pronounced significance. For the previous year, the government planned a whole series of ceremonies with the major commemorations held on Easter Sunday and Easter Monday; 27 and 28 March. What’s a socialist perspective on this? As the articles in the March Standard suggested, in spite of all the rhetoric of the state and media, there really is very little tangible to see in the day-to-day lives of the citizens of the Republic of Ireland that is connected to the Rising apart from the fact that most major railway stations in Irish cities are named after some of the leading participants.

It’s interesting to compare this centenary celebration with the commemoration that occurred in 1966 on the half centenary. The centrepiece on that occasion was a traditional old style military parade of the Irish Army down O’Connell Street in Dublin whilst being reviewed by Eamon De Valera and other elderly survivors of the Rising. Watching old film of it is very reminiscent of observing the May Day parades that the leadership of the Soviet Union indulged in with the massed ranks of marching troops, the armoured columns and the flypasts of combat aircraft. Of course for  Ireland, the military hardware on show was on a much smaller scale.

For this year’s anniversary, the aim was to be much more ‘inclusive’ with family events, educational lectures, historical re-enactments, street festivals, etc. Of course the underlying nationalist message was still present though in a more muted form; an example being that in the weeks prior to Easter, the Proclamation was read out in all school playgrounds under the Tricolour.

The correct attitude to adopt to the Rising has always been somewhat problematical for Irish Governments. While Irish Independence is nominally taken to have begun with the rebellion, in fact the origins of the state really date from the unplanned and erratic series of events that occurred from the Conscription crisis of 1918 to the end of the Civil War in 1923.

The undemocratic and vanguardist nature of the military operation of Easter 1916 has unpalatable parallels with the more recent campaign of the Provisional IRA. In fact during these more recent troubles, apologists for the Provisional movement liked to justify their struggle against claims that it had little popular support by reference to the minority action of 1916. The authorities in Dublin were keenly aware of this and certainly during the 1970s and 1980s there was little official observance of the date on any grand scale.

The participation of James Connolly in the planning and execution of the Rising has always given it left-wing appeal even though he was in a clear minority in terms of his political outlook compared to the other leaders. Connolly had an admirable record prior to the Rising as a social agitator and resolute campaigner against capitalism and militarism. The other leaders, while some of them had vaguely progressive ideas, were more straightforward cultural nationalists who envisaged the new state that would be formed as replicating other nascent European nation-states. For many of them, the aim of the Rising was to give Ireland its own lag, anthem, currency and  language; the usual trappings of a sovereign capitalist nation. A well-known phrase from the Proclamation ‘cherishing all the children of the nation equally’ has since been used to vindicate the claim that it was a progressive event even though that wording was placed there more for grandiose political purposes than a call to any specific programme of social action.

What’s the view from today? It can be debated over and back whether the 26 counties that eventually went on to form the Republic of Ireland would have been better or worse off if they had remained as part of the UK. It’s a calculation that has been and continues to be put forward to the Scottish people by the governing SNP in Edinburgh. To an extent it’s similar to the current debate in the UK about its own membership of the larger European political union.

While we constantly hear that we live in a globalised world, national sovereignty still resonates with many people. As socialists we reject the concept absolutely. The delineation of national boundaries within a system of world capitalism is just a reflection of the nationalist consciousness that currently prevails amongst the people of this planet. The celebration of national days, the supporting of the national team at international football tournaments, the organised remembrance of common history etc. are all manifestations of the constant encouragement to us to make identification with our fellow countrymen as the primary determinant of our political consciousness. This is a false proposition. The problems of the Irish people were not solved by independence; the hundreds of thousands of emigrants who left Ireland since 1922 are proof of that. The same will hold for the Scottish people. In the long term, the maintenance or relinquishment of membership of the EU will not improve or worsen the overall position of the majority of the people of the island of Britain. As socialists we say the only political allegiance we should give is to our fellow workers and our objective should be to finish with countries and their bogus ‘national’ days.

Kevin Cronin

Socialism "Exposed". (1908)

Book Review from the January 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

An Exposure of Socialism, by Max Hirsch. 48 pp., 2d.

In contrast with most so-called exposures of Socialism this one is readable and even interesting. It consists, nevertheless, for the most part of rhetorical pyrotechnics and of perfervid appeals in the sacred names of Liberty, Purity, Justice and the like, illustrating both the astuteness of Max Hirsch and the power that such ambiguous abstractions still wield over the sheep-like multitude.

The pamphlet (which has not been sent to us for review) consists of three addresses originally delivered by Max Hirsch in Australia. The “exposure,” indeed, amounts principally to assertions by Hirsch that the ultimate outcome of Socialism:

is deplorable in every direction. Industrially it means retrogression, enormous loss of productive power, and poverty for the whole of the people. Politically, it means absolute despotism on the one hand, and absolute slavery for the great majority on the other. Socially it means the loss of the monogynic family, sexual license as bad as in the declining days of Rome, and the loss of all the highest and purest joys men and women are capable of. Ethically, it means the loss of all the virtues that a thousand years of the struggle for freedom have developed among the nations of the world, and a return to the vices which distinguish slavery everywhere.

How familiar it all sounds. With the word and content of capitalism inserted in place of Socialism, the above might be the conclusions of a Socialist pamphleteer in scathing condemnation of the present social disorder. Let us apply it to the facts of to-day.

“Industrially, owing to the wasted labour force of the unemployed, the waste of competition and the competitive barriers to the complete and efficient organisation of production, the continuance of the present order means retrogression, enormous loss of productive power, and poverty for the overwhelming mass of the people. Politically it means the absolute despotism of the propertied exploiters and the absolute slavery of the whole of the wage workers. Socially it means the loss of family life by compelling husband, wife and children to sell themselves as wage slaves to provide subsistence, while low and insecure wages, which are insufficient to enable a man to keep a family and compel women to sell themselves upon the streets, engender inevitably sexual licence; while accumulated wealth joined with idleness and degeneracy at the other end of the social scale lead, as is known, to the practice of vices as bad as during the declining days of Rome. Ethically, capitalism means class antagonism, chaos and crime through the poverty and slavery of the mass compelling many to robbery and violence, and degrading them mentally and physically, while among the class that lives by exploitation there is inevitably inculcated all forms of swindling, poisonous adultery, robbery and murderous repression, leading in very truth to vices worse than any which distinguish other forms of slavery.”

As applied to to-day Mr. Hirsch’s description may undoubtedly be said to fill the bill. As applied to Socialism, however, not a single point is proven. Indeed, Max Hirsch has the audacity to offer as proofs of red tape and repression under Socialism, examples of class repression by capitalists in Colorado and the ridiculous red tape of some royal household!

It would appear from Mr. Hirsch’s statements that Tom Mann declined to debate with him, but while we have at present no means of ascertaining the full facts of this, yet we cannot refrain from quoting and commending to the careful consideration of the British Constitution Association and the rest of our not over brave opponents the following observations of our author on the uses of debate:—

A mere lecture may appeal, not to reason, but merely to prejudice or sentiment. All the difficulties may be slurred over, all the opposing arguments put out of sight without the majority of the audience detecting the trick. But in a public debate, if both debaters are competent men, this is not possible. More or less of the true value of the arguments used, more or less of the weakness of the proposals made if they are weak, must come home to the audience. A man who believes in the truth of his teaching therefore, has no reason to avoid debate; the man who knows or suspects that there are flaws in his teaching has every reason to avoid debate.

It is even now, not too late for our opponents of the B.C.A. to "come on," but it is to be feared that they still let "'I dare not want upon I would,'" like the poor cat in the adage.

It is not necessary - nor indeed is there space - to deal with more than the essential position of Mr. Hirsch. His standpoint, is entirely that of the free competition, free trade and anti State enterprise capitalist, and he endeavours to confuse Socialism with State capitalism and tilts against the latter. Even here, however, his arguments are palpably weak, as when be speaks of the enormous increase of officials and decrease of efficiency in State capitalism. In point of fact State enterprise in practically every case has been found to be more efficient and labour saving than private capitalism (and this is the reason for its adoption by the capitalist class) while the proportion of officials in the branch of industry taken over suffers in general no increase. Thus the nationalisation of the railways would decrease not only the number of wage-workers employed but also, through centralised management, the number of officials required. There would therefore result from State ownership an increase in the number of State officials but in reality a great decrease in the total officials; for the officials of private concerns are not less capitalist officials than the State bureaucracy. This, however, is no concern of ours, for it is not Socialism, nor is it our objective. Bureaucratic tyranny is the enemy and is but the reflex of class rule; our object requires the destruction of this tyranny which clips the political wings of Post Office employees, civil servants, and State railway workers, and the substitution of working-class control as the necessary prelude to the abolition of class domination through all becoming workers in the lighter and happier labour of the common weal.

Max Hirsch’s statement that productivity would decrease under Socialism is at utter variance with the facts. If in the most efficient methods of modern production uniform wage labour is the basis of that efficiency—in spite of the fact that the incentives, so far from being favourable to productivity, are such as to make the worker feel that the more he produces the sooner will the market be glutted and he be thrown out of work to starve - does it not therefore become obvious that through Socialism productivity will increase enormously, not only by the absorption of the unemployed, the idle, the lackeys and the like and the use of the most efficient machinery, but also through the direct incentive given the producers, not as to-day to restrict output, but to increase it in every way so that more wealth and leisure shall accrue to those who produce, instead of more unemployment and poverty? So far, indeed, from the natural incentives to productivity being present to-day and to be abolished by Socialism, the contrary is true, and these incentives are non-existent to-day for the working class, and can only again become operative through Socialism. 

Most of Mr. Hirsch's so-called arguments are belated Manchesterisms, which are given the lie direct by capitalist practice. It is too late in the day to dish up 18th century arguments that were directed against the possibility of joint stock companies, and to endeavour to apply them to State industry, when the question that is pressing ever more threateningly for solution is not the destruction of social production and a return to the middle ages, but whether the workers shall, to their increasing misery, continue as wage-slaves in production that is already social, carrying on production in company, trust, and State for useless idlers, or whether the social powers of production shall be wrested from the capitalists, to be controlled and used by and for all who produce. And the solution of that question in industrial democracy will end bureaucracy and enslavement and poverty, at the same time that the productive forces, released from the forms which impede their useful development, reach a height of efficiency and usefulness hitherto unattainable.

The blessed words of liberty, justice, and other fraudulent aliases of capitalist interests, constantly recur with our author as with the usual bourgeois politician. In the absence of argument such "wind-jamming" has the aching void and is the occasion of perverted and soul-stirring rhetoric which effectively prevents sound analysis in the mind that falls under its spell, As Lafargue has shown, how the content of liberty, justice, and the like varies with the class, group, or even individual using the words! How liberty of the capitalist to exploit is in contradiction with the liberty of the worker, unless it be to sell himself as a wage-slave, or starve! The facts of modern industrial life are to the capitalists, necessary, rose coloured, but to the workers they become unnecessary, harmful, degrading, impoverishing and dreary.

So the facts of modern life for the working class are the basis of Socialism, and Socialist logic is the logic of proletarian history. And thus it is that, as a London newspaper recently discovered, arguments which appear conclusive to a bourgeois mind, leave the worker who realises his position utterly unconvinced, nay, wondering even that such inane and childish statements could anywhere be accepted as argument. This is illustrated not alone by the above-mentioned “eternal” self-contradictory ideas but also by theories of economies. Thus in common with the usual “ up-to-date” apologist of exploitation, Max Hirsch has a feeble tilt at the labour basis of value, and on this the capitalist attitude is easily understood.

When the rising bourgeoisie were directly concerned in the processes of production, when their personal directing activities were also involved, their political economy, from Sir William Petty to Ricardo, came to recognise labour to the full as the creator of value. As, however, with economic development the capitalists became less and less personally connected with the labour process, as they become increasingly mere absentees, coupon clippers, and ignorant of production, which came to be carried on entirely by hirelings, and as moreover by the culmination of classic economy by Marx the kernel of capitalist exploitation was laid bare, so it became necessary to find a theory of economics that did not lead with inevitable logic to Socialism. At the same time, by the capitalist becoming a consumer solely, so the consumer grew in importance in his eyes and the attributes of consumption in the form of “demand,” “ utility,” etc. — the reflex of the value process — became its foundation from the inverted viewpoint of the parasite. Thus a school grew into prominence which no longer recognised value as a result of the application of labour to useful ends, but held in effect that under the guise of “demand,” “esteem,” and “utility,” the value of a commodity was the creation, not of the producer, but of the consumer!

To the workers, however, in daily contact with the material basis of life, such a theory must ever remain unreal and fantastic, and with them the fact of the worker as source of value must retain its fundamental importance until and unless a time comes when wealth is produced without labour, and when palaces, banquets and motor cars descend ready made from heaven.

Socialism, indeed, apart from its accidental manifestations, is irrefutable from the standpoint of the wage-worker, for the Socialist is in essence only the conscious expression of the economic and social necessities of the wealth producers, adding definite aim, organisation, effect and intensity to the demand born of modern oppression and contradictions. Hence arises both the confidence of the Socialist in the future and the world-wide and inevitable advance of the Socialist movement.

F. C. Watts

Capitalism or Socialism (1973)

From the August 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism is based upon the private ownership of the means of life with all production geared to profit. Socialism is the common ownership also of the means of life but with production solely for use. They are two distinctive social systems, one a class system and the other classless. The aim of one is to maintain in a position of privilege a small minority and of the other to satisfy all according to need. Let us consider further.

Under capitalism there are two classes. The capitalist class owns all the resources of the world: land, raw materials, factories, mines, machinery of distribution, communications, and so on. The working class, the overwhelming majority, do not own any of these things. The division of the population of the world is therefore between owners and non-owners. There are no other classes. The so-called “middle class, upper middle class, lower middle class,” come into one class or the other. The test is simple. If you work for wages (or so-called salaries, the same thing), and are dependent upon them to live, then you are a member of the working class. Do not be under any illusions about this. Anyone enjoying a life derived from ownership of the tools of production, without the necessity of working at all, is in the capitalist class.

The working class must sell their mental and physical energies for wages. But, as always with buying and selling, there is a conflict of interest. The workers endeavour to get the best price possible, i.e. the highest wages for their labour-power, or working abilities. They learnt that in unity there was strength and in the early stages of capitalism, against great opposition, they combined to form trade unions. There has been since, a never-ending struggle with their employers over wages, conditions and hours of work. But the workers do not hold the right cards, whilst they accept the terms of reference of capitalism. After years of class struggle they are still only paid wages to prevailing standards based on age, experience, sex, skills, education and training. They are confined, harnessed and shackled by capitalism. They are in a humiliating position and as individuals they cannot opt out of the system.

Under capitalism all must bend their knee to the great god of Profit: their energies too. It is the be-all and end-all of production under capitalism. The surplus that makes it possible is created at the point of production by the working class. Profit is realized when this surplus is sold. Members of the working class have no share of it whatsoever. Their wages are part of the costs involved in the process of production and distribution. They create vast quantities of every imaginable commodity and these are greater in value, much greater, than the sum total of wages paid to them. This is the whole object of the operation. Working men and women, cannot you see that the capitalists only employ you to bring into existence this surplus? They do not do it to find work for idle hands to do or because they are sorry for workers. They want commodities, articles made to be sold to realize profit. The capitalist class want to lay their greedy hands on as much as they can and so far, thanks to the working class and their submission to the wages system, the employing class have got away with it.

In periods of slump, when the markets of the world are glutted, workers quickly learn what the form is. They are made redundant. In plain language they “get the sack”. They are told to go, and where they go is of no concern to their late employers. From office- and shop-boys up to so-called managers and “Company Men” they are all treated alike. There is neither work nor wages until “things buck up”.

But capitalism is an up-and-down system. It has its booms as well as its slumps. Now the capitalist rubs his hands with glee, for is not the whole of the modern world his market place? What he now wants is full order books. Out go his hired agents with instructions to sell, sell, sell. At his behest, the workers make, sell, transport and ship, load and unload the wealth of the world. A crowning insult is that thousands of workers are employed in the useless occupation of reckoning profit and keeping track of overseas investments of the capitalist class in such time-wasting occupations as banking, accountancy, Stock-Exchanges, insurance and so on. The Socialist says to his fellow-workers: This is your life, but what are you going to do about it?

Profit will not evolve into production for use. Private ownership will not evolve into common ownership. Buying and selling will not evolve into free access. Socialism means Social Revolution, a complete change in the basis of society which must be ushered in with full understanding and determination by the workers of the world. When a majority have Socialist knowledge, they will do just this. To vote for a change in government is useless, as repeated experience has shown. As long as capitalism lasts, the fundamental position of the wage-earning class remains the same. The workers of the world must become class-conscious, they must become as one and recognize their universal common interest. They must organize consciously and politically for Socialism. The weapon is already in their hands. It is the vote and, backed with understanding, it is the mightiest weapon of all when it comes to world-changing.

A politically mature working class of the world will establish Socialism which is a world-wide system. They will see to it that the whole earth and all its resources will become the common possession and under the democratic control of all mankind. This is the foundation stone, the rock, on which it will arise. It will transform all human relationships and change our ways of thinking. It will be a society of free association and genuine democratic processes. The views of the majority will prevail and the voice of any minorities always heard and considered. Wealth will be produced only to satisfy human wants and needs as quickly as possible and fulfil all aspirations. Socialism means the end of buying and selling, the end of money, the end of profit and the disappearance of the parasitical capitalist class. No-one will work for wages and the slavery of the working class will give way to freedom and human dignity.

J.C. Gormley

Calculating Capitalism (1981)

Book Review from the December 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Demystifying Social Statistics, edited by Irvine. Miles and Evans, Pluto Press, 1979.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the census forms that we completed this year contained questions like: are you a member of the capitalist or working class; give an account of all the property you posses and state the income derived from it; if an employer, state the rate of exploitation operating in your firm? So that we could refer directly to one set of official facts to support our contention that social problems arise because ownership of the means of living is private and profit-dominated, while production is public and necessarily co-operative. But official statistics are commodities tailored to meet the demands of capitalist society. One effect of this is that they mask the existence of the capitalist class and are silent on the source of all wealth; all of which is well-described in that piece of this book called The Poverty of Wealth Statistics.

If you pick and choose you should find something of interest in these twenty-two chapters. For instance, the piece on how official statistics are produced is fascinating and informative It leaves an impression of a bunch of moles boring from within the government statistical service in a way designed to make a Daily Telegraph leader writer see red and sensitive people weep over the stultifying boredom imposed upon statistical producers by rambling bureaucratic procedures.

It’s pleasant to record that though most of the authors are academics they do not shrink from drawing socialist conclusions:

We would replace accountancy in terms of money and profit by accountancy in terms of social needs. We would replace the definition of social goals by those at the top of the bureaucratic pyramids, by democratic self-control over all collective activities. We would then require new ways of measuring our needs and goals, which expressed their great variety rather than reduce them to money values or standards imposed from above. (ibid p.36.)

The question is - how do we get a society like that? By political action allied to knowledge and understanding say the authors. Statistics can play a part here, for they are not just commodities produced in government departments, but aids to knowledge (and to damned lies of course). Just what you can construct with statistics does not depend solely upon your politics, for a major theme of this book is that statistics bear the mark of the social conditions of their production. The Registrar-General’s definition of class is tied to dimensions of social stratification by income, but does not provide any explanation, nor much data, on how class inequality is maintained. While the official lumping together of shareholding wealth by capitalists with workers’ possessions, like cars, mortgages and household effects, ignores the obvious difference that workers in general cannot use their meagre possessions to generate more wealth, while capitalists use their wealth to employ workers who create profits.

These then are some of the marks that statistics bear. A good deal of this book is concerned with re-writing statistical information for radical re-use, so that it may bear interpretations other than those dear to the hearts of government departments. The problems involved in doing so are somewhat overblown by the authors and this takes us to the heart of the matter. Can there be a socialist statistical science? Only to a limited extent until society has been revolutionised, as there is a conflict over reforming the statistical practice of government departments and trying to bring about a socialist revolution. The most effective way of ensuring that socialism never comes about would be for socialists to strive to reform the civil service and fall into the bottomless pit of fabianism. So, as far as socialists are concerned, over facts and figures we “simply have to make do with what is available” (ibid, p. 371). Not a startlingly new conclusion for a book of four hundred pages.

Though much of the argument in this volume goes with the grain of the socialist ease, yet a flaw runs throughout, coming out most clearly in the contributions by John Krige, where he says, in effect, that socialism can never become a science:

In contrast to the natural world, social reality is constructed in and by people’s more or less conscious beliefs and practices. Criticism of a natural scientific theory in the light of facts or a rival theory, while directed at the beliefs of those who hold it. leaves the object of the theory (the natural world) as it is. On the other hand, the object of the social sciences is the same as that which is being criticised, namely, people's beliefs and practices. Thus in criticising those beliefs and practices one aims to change both them and the social order which they reflect and reproduce, (ibid. P-60.)

A feature of twentieth century capitalism has been the amount of criticism it can absorb and the amount of reforming zeal it can incorporate, while remaining unchanged in its essentials. Contrary to the last part of the above quotation it is only criticism of workers’ beliefs that aims to stimulate the practice of democratic revolution, which aims to change the social order. Movements like women’s liberation, societies for social responsibility in science and radical statistics groups could well get much of what they want, yet see the current social relations corrupt female and male equality in sordid legislation and contracts; bewilder responsible science with Windscale farces; and obfuscate the best wealth and poverty statistics imaginable.

The only movement that would be proof against this corruption is a world majority of workers determined to get socialism. Once such a body comes into being, then the world changes, capitalism will be viewed as socialists have viewed it all along. But if the socialist majority never is achieved, then what capitalism is remains an open question, to be fought over by Milton Friedman, the Archbishop of Canterbury and all the rest.

The search for finality, for the perfect case about the physical or social world, using only completely demystified statistical data is a vain quest. Consider - would any such truth ever stop scientists from devising questioning experiments? Consider too the possibility that, when socialism is established, historian of capitalism will still wrangle among themselves over things like - 'was the post-war inflation caused by an excess issue of incontrovertible paper currency and could the various governments have ended inflation whenever they liked, or were they prisoners of their own spending policies? The details of what capitalism was are not all to be decided by a socialist revolution. So what? For years now socialists have possessed the information, the arguments and the strategy for bringing capitalism down. All we lack are numbers. This book suggests reasons why we haven’t got the numbers but they aren’t the right ones.’

B. K. McNeeney

"Gone are the days" - TU Leader in Distress (1973)

From the July 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

Joe Gormley, the President of the Mineworkers' Union, has now had a dose of second thoughts. From being a dangerous and inflammatory militant intent on “wrecking the country” by a General Strike he has now become, according to the same News of the World, regarded “as a moderate”.

Gone are the days (only a few weeks ago) when nothing but “an immediate General Strike” to oust the Tory Government would suit him; and the Editor of the News of the World was calling on the General Council of the TUC to “drag him back from the brink”. So far from calling on trade unions to mount a General Strike, he is now calling on Ted Heath to “get back to free bargaining”. Which only goes to show how empty and meaningless all this fierce-sounding talk about General Strikes really is.

The point of his current piece in the News of the World (12th May) is to plead with Heath in the forthcoming round of talks with the TUC to “stop the rent increases and scrap the Industrial Relations Act”. If the Government will do this AND deal with inflation and “rising prices of basic foods like meat, bread, milk, butter and potatoes”, he is sure the unions “will deliver the goods”.

What a change of heart! No more “kick out the Tories”, “General Strikes to elect a new Government”, and so on, etc. He claims that the reason his own miner members voted against strike action this year is “because they were a wee bit tired from last year’s little effort”. The miners were not made tired by striking. Every worker engaged in heavy laborious manual work welcomes a strike as a short break or relief from physical exhaustion. The reason the miners voted against strike action this Spring was because they had not yet settled the debts the last strike landed them in.

In other words, the employers will always beat the workers at the strike game, if the situation is such that they are determined to. The miners showed that they are powerful enough industrially to paralyze industry and force the employers to concede. The employers will do so if they think it cheaper than a fight to a finish.

“All workers want”, Gormley writes, “is more money to meet the rise in the cost of living, plus a little extra on top to raise their living standards.” “Give us,” he whines, “the right to negotiate our pay increases. That way, we’ll have far less industrial trouble than with the Government ramming its pay policy dowN our throats.”

Five weeks previously he was shouting for the General Strike; now, less “industrial trouble”. As a cute and canny, experienced trade-unoin leader, he realizes, from the vote of his own members and the futility of the May 1st demonstration, that the practical possibility of political strikes is, at the moment, nil. He has backed away from “the brink”.

Regarding his presumption to speak for "all workers want”, we have only this to say. Probably he is right that the great majority of workers “only” want more money plus a little increase. Actually they would all prefer a big increase, but don’t dare to think of it.

Those trade unionists who are Socialists do not want merely wage increase, large or small, welcome though these may well be; but the abolition of the wages system. But here, unfortunately, Poor Old Joe, as a practical union leader, is a bit out of his depth. 

Horatio.

The Films (1955)

Film Reviews from the May 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the Curzon Cinema recently there was an excellent programme, both from the point of view of the film-lover and of the Socialist. The films are De Sica’s Umberto D and a Spanish family comedy called Meet Mr. Marshall.

Umberto D has been described by the filmic “blurbs" as “De Sica’s masterpiece,” and this seems to be one of the few occasions when they are right The film seems to be much nearer perfection than De Sica’s two most famous earlier films—Bicycle Thieves and Miracle in Milan. It is the story of an Italian old-age pensioner and his mongrel dog, and lays bare the misery and unbearable loneliness that workers suffer in their old age.

The film opens with a demonstration by old-age pensioners for an increase in their pensions. The demonstrators have no permit and, inevitably, they are dispersed by steel-helmeted police in jeeps. The film goes on to show in agonising detail the neglect of the old; the indifference of the majority of the young; the distrust even of other old people; and their attempt to cling to their last vestiges of human dignity.

The principal character in the film, a retired government employee, is in arrears with his rent His landlady, a brassy blonde singer, is anxious to throw him out in order to convert his pitiful single room into a parlour. Umberto (that is his name) who has lived in the room for years, is determined not to leave, and sells first his watch and then his books in a despairing effort to rake the money for the rent. In order to save money, he gets himself admitted into a hospital for a week. When he returns home he finds his room in a shambles, his landlady having taken advantage of his absence to start work on the flat. Despairing and tired of life, the only thing left to the old man is his dog, and it is his love for the dog alone that gives him the will to go on living.

The story is all on this simple and unheroic level but, needless to say, has far greater impact than any Hollywood “epic.” I will not spoil the film-goers pleasure by further description of the plot but will be content with some observations on the social implications of the film.

Perhaps the most pitiful and most crying problem that capitalism has thrown up is its treatment of its workers in old age. Condemned to inactivity and loneliness by the “Great God Profit” for which they have sweated away the greater part of their life, they are generously granted an old-age pension which has rightly been described as the final insult to the worker. There is no doubt that it is among the old, both of this country and of the other “civilised” countries, that the problem of poverty is at its most acute. They are condemned to exist on what is no more than a pittance, often in complete loneliness.

Owing to the nature of the Society in which we live, their children are often unable or unwilling to care for them, or even to help support them. The majority have the further indignity of having to apply to the National Assistance Board for money, who enquire closely into their means and capital and also whether they have any relatives capable of supporting them. This film does a very worth-while job in spotlighting this problem, and De Sica (whose Bicycle Thieves flowed that he was alive to the social problems of our day) is to be complimented for doing so and and for making a great film.

The other film in the programme provides the necessary light relief. It is an extremely amusing satire from Spain which turns on the fact that the world in general, and America in particular, looks upon Spain as being a land of gypsy dancers, bullfights, and peculiar hats. The little town portrayed in the film is in the province of Castile, and is as unlike the outsider’s concept of Spain as Devon or Cornwall.

The mayor, who is in co-operation with the rest of the population in "fiddling” their taxes, is informed that the American “Marshall Aid” officials will be visiting the town and showering their dollars wherever they go, and that a suitable welcome and demonstration must be prepared for them. The satire, not only aimed at America, but at almost everything and everybody, is carried out to great effect The sequences in which the principal personages of the town dream about America are particularly good. The town priest, for instance, dreams that he is cross-examined by typical Hollywood gangsters and subsequently, dragged before an inquisition of Ku Klux Klan members who sentence him to the gallows. This seems to be aimed, not only at the "K.K.K.” but also at the Catholic Church and the inquisition.

It is perhaps surprising that a satire of this kind should have come out of Spain, considering that unhappy country's political institutions and economic circumstances, but one frequently finds that films and books of high quality spring from the most unexpected quartos. A good example is Los Olvidados, an excellent film about poverty and juvenile delinquency in Mexico City which showed living conditions at their most debased, and which was sponsored by the Mexican government.

We find sometimes that people who are not Socialists have facilities for vividly illustrating things that we say. I would look at Umberto D in that light. Perhaps I can reiterate that this programme is well worth a visit. Both Socialists and those who do not accept our point of view will come away feeling mentally stimulated.

Albert Ivimey

Rubel on Marx (1981)

Book Review from the December 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx: Life and Works, by Maximilien Rubel. Macmillan Chronology Series.

This is a sort of shortened paperback version (130 pages) of Rubel and Manale’s Marx without Myth, and a very good and fair year-by-year summary of Marx’s life and literary activities. Rubel, whose writings are only just beginning to be known in the English-speaking world, is a regular, if critical, attender at the meetings of our Paris discussion group and fully accepts that by socialism Marx meant a classless. moneyless, wageless society. Here, for instance, he points out that in Marx’s first published writing as a socialist (The Jewish Question, 1843) Marx made it clear that human emancipation “will only be obtained by doing away with the state and with money", a view he held for the rest of his life. 

Adam Buick

About Books (1953)

Book Reviews from the June 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

It has been said that, “He who cannot reason is a fool; he who will not is a bigot; he who dare not is a slave.” Everyone reasons about something, but the majority of workers form their political attachments out of prejudice, not from a reasoned understanding.

On a sunny, summer, Sunday morning in 1933 a speaker of the Socialist Party stepped on to a platform opposite the Checquers public house at Dagenham, in Essex, and took this as the theme of his address. One thing, he claimed, that marked the Socialist off from the adherents of other political creeds, was that the Socialist arrived at his point of view from a process of clear reasoning, whilst the reasoning of the others, if they did any, was a confused jumbling of ideas. The speaker drew a picture for his audience of many men entering a building, some of them throwing their hats, coats, scarves, gloves and other impedimenta into a dark comer all in one big heap. Other men placed their hats, coats, etc., in an orderly arrangement on pegs on a wall and took stock of the number of the peg as well as its particular location. When all these men left the building, those who had cast their clothing on the heap were in hopeless confusion in trying to sort them out. The others, of course, were able to collect their belongings easily and in orderly fashion.

Millions of workers get bogged down with their political reasoning, because they have never learned to think systematically. The carpenter, the architect, the motor mechanic, the doctor, the electrician and practically all other workers will think clearly and concisely about their familiar day to day tasks. Outside of that, when they probe into less familiar fields of thought, they get miserably confused and frequently makes fools of themselves. When they argue about religion or politics they bring out a series of unfounded assertions and, as often as not, end up by losing their tempers.

Clear reasoning is not a difficult process once one has learned to avoid certain pitfalls and to follow certain rules. There are two little books, a handy size for the pocket and easy on the purse, which will help to put one on the right track.

“Thinking to Some Purpose” by L. Susan Stebbing is a Pelican book published at 2s. It is referred to as “A manual of first-aid to clear thinking,” and so it is. It will help any striving thinker to avoid the booby-traps, save him from arriving at hasty and illogical conclusions, and show him the faults in other people’s reasoning.

Another book, at the same price is, “Clearer Thinking (Logic for Everyman)” by A. E. Mander and published by Watts and Co. In the foreword to this book it is pointed out that thinking is skilled work and no one can expect to be efficient at it unless they learn and practice, any more than they can expect to be efficient at playing tennis, golf, bridge or some musical instrument unless they learn the rules and technique and practice them.

A Socialist, having learned to think clearly, finds it necessary to express himself equally clearly. It is unsatisfactory to arrive at a sound and logical political understanding and be unable to propagate it in a manner that can be easily understood and assimilated by others.

Practically everyone in Great Britain these days has learned enough English grammar to be able to make his ideas up into sentences and paragraphs. If the ideas are jumbled and confused, the words and sentences used to express them will betray the confusion. That does not mean that clear thinking and sound, logical ideas will result in equally dear and logical expression. A sparkling jewel of thought can easily be lost to sight in a maze of ungrammatical verbiage. Worse still, it can be lost to sight in a maze of grammatical verbiage. Particularly is this so when writing is the medium of expression.

The ability to set down one’s thoughts on paper in plain, straightforward, simply understood phrases, with no superfluous words, must be cultivated. There was a book that was a great help in this matter; “On the Art of Writing” by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, published by Guild Books (paper cover) for 1s. One does not see it around much these days but the best chapters from it are to be found in the various books of selected material from the writings and lectures of Quiller-Couch. The famous lecture on jargon is to be found in “Q Anthology” compiled and edited by F. Britain and published by Dent.

A more recent useful book on this subject is “Plain Words” by Sir Ernest Gowers and published by the Stationery Office (paper cover) for 2s. This book, having dealt with the need to be correct in all statements, goes on to instruct in the choice of words; how to avoid the superfluous word, choosing the familiar word, choosing the concrete word, then tells how to handle the words that have been chosen. It concludes with a chapter on punctuation. It is not a grammar. It is a book of advice based upon a study of other people’s mistakes and confused writings. It does a very good job.

"A.B.C. of Plain Words” by the same author and also published by the Stationery office (paper 3s., cloth 4s. 6d.) is a supplement to “Plain Words.” It takes the material contained in “Plain Words,” plus a little extra, and arranges it in a handy alphabetical form useful for quick reference.

There are probably other and bigger books on these subjects, but those we have mentioned are at a price that will not distress a proletarian pocket and, for that price, are remarkably good books.

W. Waters