The Gospel of the National Citizens' Union. (1926)

From the June 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

The “New Voice” is the organ of the National Citizens’ Union (late Middle Class Union). It pretends a great hatred of a mixture it calls Socialism, whilst its dislike of Marx is almost an obsession. They do not, of course, waste time dealing with his teachings, but are pained because he “sneers at the Lamb of God,” lays down the doctrine of “legalised promiscuity,” and says that the “working men have no country.” True, Marx does mention, in passing, the appropriate relation of the “Lamb of God ” to the sheep-like nature of Christians, so does he point out that what the possessing class own, the country, cannot be taken from the workers who do not own it. The less said about promiscuity from the master class point of view the better, for it is they who overcrowd the Divorce Courts, and whose liaisons bring to light matter that their own gutter press shrink from printing. Reading from page to page the “Voice” threatens, warns, pleads (for funds), and in a spasm of candour concedes the following :—

  Between religion and social reform there was a natural and close connection; between social reform and Socialism a gulf wide and deep. Yet the two are continually confused, as e.g., when Socialism is attributed to the gospels.

To the above, we specially draw the attention of Labourites and Hot Gospellers. Though such a statement is calculated to frighten the timid; its admission by no means prevents the N.C.U. doing the same thing in this same issue. A report tells us that, after one of these social reformers had outlined his case for Nationalisation (a typical reform), “ our representative ” easily disposed of the “Socialist" and the “Socialists” were asked to come again. No doubt such opponents are easy, and useful, to the N.C.U. They keep alive the illusion that Nationalisation, which must worsen the workers’ conditions, is Socialism. When we, however, wish to debate, the N.C.U., like the I.L.P. and the other reformers, are not having any. Still, they have a little sense of humour, for at one of their meetings, at Harrogate, we read that one Geo. Robey spluttered these words :— 

   The trouble of the day was disinclination to work. If the people of this country did not get down to it soon, one of the questions that would be asked in the schools would be “If it takes a bricklayer 5 days to lay 4 bricks how long will the plumber be before he puts the washer on the tap."

Work is, at any time, a delicate subject with the workers, and although the above may go down with a Harrogate audience, it might with a Canning Town crowd, despite their love of toil, result in George getting the “ Bird.” To talk of “disinclination to work” to those who have monopolised it all, the “working” class, is a joke unconsciously perpetrated. The remainder may pass for humour with those who go to “business” instead of work, give services for “salary” instead of wages, and who “resign” instead of getting the “bullet,” or being “pieced up.” Such people are about to be rudely awakened by Capitalist development. When like the rest of the workers they abandon their fawning subservience, whether they lay bricks or plans, music-hall clowns and others will waste their breath when they chant threadbare platitudes in order to win Capitalist approbation or honours.

W. E. MacHaffie

Letter: Must We Convert The Majority? (1926)

SPGB 1920 pamphlet.

Letter to the Editors from the July 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Criticism and Our Reply

To the Editor.

I have read your pamphlet “Socialism” with interest and, although I agree wholeheartedly with your analysis of capitalism, I would like to offer a criticism of your theory of the method of bringing about the new society. You state on page 43 “The first essential then, of having a vote of revolutionary quality is to have a working class that thoroughly understands its position in society.” Undoubtedly, if we could get a majority of voters at a General Election who thoroughly understood their position in society and voted solely for Socialism, all would be well. But it’s the if. May I here give you a quotation which has a bearing on my point. The first is from G. B. Shaw, who says, ” I remember , when I was busy, as an unpaid and quite sincere Socialist agitator in this country .  . . one of the things that puzzled me at first was that I met with so little opposition. I found that I was almost like a clergyman talking pious platitudes. Nobody objected. ; Nothing happened. I apparently carried my audiences enthusiastically with me. Nevertheless, capitalism went on just the same. I began to understand that the leaders of Socialism, the men with the requisite brains and political comprehension, must not wait as Kautsky would have them wait, on the plea that you must do nothing until you have converted the people and can win a bloodless victory through the ballot-box. The people seldom know what they want, and never know how to get it." The next is from “Psychoanalysis,” by André Tridon “The real enemies of progress have always been the enormous sluggish masses of the people without imagination, suffering from neophobia, the fear of new things. Such people only move when the changes in their normal environment become so great as to be intolerable, and goad them to action. Then they move, as bullocks move before the stockman’s whip. There are many indications that changes in the environment which will lead to such movement are rapidly approaching; we may expect, in consequence of the tendencies inherent in capitalism, an enormous increase in the mass of active discontent at no distant date. The. discontented man is the hope of the world.”

These two quotations sum up my objection to your method of achieving Socialism, not that I would rather a class-conscious majority voted a real Socialist Party to power, but our desires must not blind us to things as they are. The capitalist class control the sources of education, the Press, etc., the progress of real socialist education is so slow and withal we have the fact that capitalism is in a state of decline forcing large masses on to the unemployed scrap heap, lowering wages and hence, strikes and discontent everywhere. The question is, can a minority of educated men (in the event of a collapse of the ruling powers through another great war, for instance) lead the discontented and chaotic elements of the working class to institute a new authority after the Russian plan?

We know that Lenin had to compromise with the peasantry, and that State Capitalism is practically the system now in Russia, despite the C.P.G.B. assertions to the contrary. Yet I think you will agree that Lenin was justified in seizing "The Psychological moment” and instituting a dictatorship where a new and differently educated people will grow up who will set about moulding a Socialist State. I hope you will deal with this letter in the Socialist Standard.

Yours for Socialism,

W. Brough.

London N8

Reply to W. Brough.

If Mr. Brough agrees with the analysis of capitalism presented in our pamphlet, he will agree that the central fact revealed by that analysis is the existence of a class struggle. We claim that our method is the only one consistent with that fact, and our correspondent has failed to indicate a logical alternative.

A new system of society can only result from the operation of forces already existing in the present one. It can arise only from a change in the relationship between the producers and the means of production, i.e., the emancipation of the working-class by the conversion of the means of production, etc., into common property. This emancipation being opposed to the interests of the present ruling class (the capitalist proprietors) will, naturally, be resisted by them as long as they possess the means of resistance. The most important of these means is the political machinery (including the armed forces of the nation) hence the necessity for its capture by the working-class.

Mr. Brough suggests, on the analogy of what happened in Russia in 1917, that a minority of educated men can lead a discontented but chaotic mass of workers to establish a similar dictatorship. He assumes, however, as a necessary condition, "a collapse of the ruling powers through another great war, for instance.” The folly of basing the methods of a political party upon mere assumptions is strikingly illustrated by the history of Russian "Communism" since the date mentioned.

The Bolsheviks assumed that a world upheaval on the part of the workers was impending at the time they took action. Misled by this assumption, they took up a position in advance of the class upon which they depended for support, with the result that their position rapidly became untenable and had to be abandoned. Even Mr. Brough will agree that they failed to establish a new system of society.

On the contrary, they set free the middle- class or bourgeois element in Russia from the last relics of feudalism. They cleared the way for further capitalist development.

The collapse of the Tsarist administration under the strain of a world war was the result of the exhaustion of its resources due to antiquated methods of exploiting the workers. The Bolsheviks are substituting more up-to-date ones. Hence our lack of enthusiasm for the "good intentions” with which they commenced their administrative career.

The question as to whether they can be successfully imitated is one which becomes more and more an academic point as the excitement aroused by their example dies away. This much, however, is obvious, that the ruling powers of this country having taken care to organise the workers politically in their support, by means of the franchise, are not likely to meet with a debacle on the Russian model. Their methods of dealing with would-be “leaders” of the discontented workers does not encourage us to believe that they would readily succumb even under such circumstances as those assumed by Mr. Brough. They are not afraid, for example, to allow "safe” leaders to assume nominal control of the political machinery.

Hence Labour Governments!

What Mr. Brough overlooks is that political power is only controllable by a class organised for that purpose. When the Bolsheviks, for example, discovered their fatal mistake, they had no alternative but to fall back upon the support of the very bureaucracy, intelligentsia and petit bourgeois which they had aspired to dislodge; and, in the unlikely event of an analogous occurrence in Britain a similar result would follow. Finding that the workers as a class were not prepared to assert themselves, the capitalist class would resist the upstart minority and compel it to come to terms.

In the meantime the Socialist Party acts in accordance with existing circumstances. While the "Communists” and people like Mr. Brough scan the horizon anxiously for signs of an imaginary "revolutionary situation,” we proceed with our educational work knowing that the changes taking place in our environment are with us. It is significant that neither of our correspondent’s quotations help his case. Despite Mr. Shaw’s distrust of "a bloodless victory through the ballot-box,” the Fabian Society have not, so far, attempted anything else! Tridon’s remarks, on the other hand, indicate a conviction that the "masses” will move, but do not answer the question "what shape will the movement take?”

Mr. Brough says, "our desires must not blind us to things as they are!” Yet in his desire to have something done quickly he is prepared to blind himself to the fact that experience is a relentless educative force and, strange though it may seem, a more powerful one than even the capitalist press.

Editorial Committee

Editorial: The Crushing of the Miners. (1926)

Editorial from the August 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

The miners’ lock-out has lasted three months, during which every effort—political and economic—has been made to drive them back on the masters’ terms. The employers know well the slender resources of the workers, and they are evidently waiting till hunger has scourged the miners enough to force them back. In the meantime the owners are selling their huge stock of coal and realising the profits from the coal stores so kindly prepared by the miners in the nine subsidy months. The demand for an embargo on coal is being continually made by miners, but, after the huge betrayal of the General Strike, such a step will not be taken. The Labour Leaders in Parliament have been doing the employers’ work well, talking of "back to the Report,” "the Samuel memorandum,” "reorganisation,” and such capitalist schemes with the reduced wages and "increased unemployment” that these things mean. The miners were prevailed upon to stop criticising the General Council and to "work together for victory,” and on such empty words the joint meeting of trade union executives to hear the General Council’s report was not held. But since then the great "left wing” leader—Mr. Bromley—has been very useful to the masters by publishing parts of the "apologia” of the General Council. Mr. Bromley’s words have been used all over the country by the mine-owners to aid them in their work of crushing the miner. The reasons given by the Council for calling off the General Strike are the unyielding nature of the miners demands, but these very demands were the ones the General Council called the General Strike to maintain! Such are the gods of labour—right wing and left wing.

After backing the wrong horses for the General Council, boosting Messrs. Bromley, Tillett, Hicks and Company, the Communists again show their uselessness by demanding "A General Council with Greater Power,” "A New Leadership” (Workers’ Weekly, July 23rd, 1926). This, in spite of their idols of the left wing, proving to be enemies of the working class.

Left to fight alone for the miserable status quo of miners’ wages and hours, the miners have all the powers—political, financial and economic—working against them.

The employers are not content to use their money power against the miner. They with their fellow property owners control the powers of Parliament—by means of workers’ votes. The owners, therefore, pass Emergency Power Acts, Eight-hour Laws, Reorganisation Bills, and thus they cement their hold over the working class. The lesson then is plain—not a change of leaders—but control of political power by a working class understanding its historic mission of abolishing miners—and all other workers’ slavery.

The Social Environment of the Worker. (1926)

From the September 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the industrial revolution occurred in this country, roughly between 150 to 175 years ago, its champions, the merchant manufacturing class preached the gospel of work. These commercial highwaymen and their followers, the aristocracy, the priest and the politician, were all loud in proclaiming the “virtues and glories" of work. Not being fond of it themselves, they were able to let others enjoy the “honour." In those days there was little else to engage the time of the workers— except the prisons and the stocks, if obstinacy made them prefer the open-air life to the foul fumes of the “workhouse." Because it must be remembered that the wholesale confiscation or enclosure of the common lands which had previously taken place, had driven the small peasant farming class and their motley following off the land. Those who failed or refused to find masters were treated and branded as criminals, vagrants, etc.

What little opportunity there was for indulging in the "fine arts," i.e., bear baiting, cock fighting, the chase, and the few intellectual pursuits popular and possible at the time of which we are writing, were the exclusive privilege of the nobility and their favoured followers. Therefore, the class who worked, being ignorant of everything else but work, listened patiently to the preachings of their “superiors" and “got on with it," while others “got away with it."

It is well to grasp the great changes which have taken place during the 200 years or so which have intervened. Such a study of history shatters the notion, so diligently fostered by the ruling class, “that things have always been the same."

To-day, for instance, the unemployed worker has become largely resigned to the fact that he is one of the “out-of-works." He knows there are millions in the same plight, for whom the State is compelled from mere force of numbers affected, to institute State-aided unemployment insurance funds.

Young and old equally are thus victimised side by side. The younger ones find difficulty in finding openings and the old ones still more difficulty in keeping theirs.

In short, the application of scientific methods in wealth production has developed at such a rate that every year must show a decrease in the number of workers required to engage in this production. Thus there is left behind an ever-increasing army of unemployed.

Side by side with the development of the means of wealth production, changes have taken place in what we may term the social side of the workers’ lives. To compare the stage-coach—wherein each traveller suspected the other as being “the wanted highwayman”—with the “comfort ” of the modern motor car, coach and ubiquitous bus, the bonnets, bustles and crinolines of Victorian wenches with the “Eton cropped” and dress-shortened athletic girl of to-day; the hobby-horse and bone-shaker, with the easily-propelled bicycle; the news sheets and exclusive calf-bound volumes, with the modern newspaper and public and private circulating and reference libraries, where the modern student can readily obtain literature, classical, scientific, historical, covering a wide range of subjects. Consider again the educational facilities of to-day compared with say 50 years ago! Secondary schools, polytechnics, University extension courses open for day or evening students; the theatre, concert halls, picture shows, wireless, the playing fields; museums, picture galleries, etc.

Such are the assets of social life in the towns of to-day, which constitute, within prescribed limits, the liberating influences which tend to separate the worker from work, as “the aim all and end all,” as he was taught to look at it, of a short generation ago!

Let us pause here, however, to reflect upon the fact that there is a value in endeavouring “to know something about everything and everything about something.” The “something” which we have in mind is political economy, that branch of science which explains the laws which regulate the social system known as Capitalism.

The reader may think this is rather a sudden retreat from the chatty style we had previously adopted. But if an understanding of the principles of a science which reveal the whys and wherefores of the claims of individuals to a foothold on this, our mother earth, is not of primary interest, then we should like to know what is interesting. Because we have come to the conclusion, which we dare not try to prove in the space of one short article like this, that the most the workers can ever attain to is “ the world for the workers.” It is enough for us, and in order to attain to this desirable end we will endeavour in a few more lines to broadly point the way.

There is nothing for it but to speak the truth, and unblushingly we refer the reader to the Declaration of Principles on the back page. There it is laid down that the emancipation of the workers must be the work of the working class itself. You see, we have returned to “work” again. But such work!

The working class to-day is a slave class. They can only live by selling their labour power—working abilities—to a master class, who, by their ownership of the means of life, keep the workers in their enslaved condition. The effects resulting therefrom flow from a cause. The cause is obviously due to an environment represented by a social system divided into two classes—the workers and the non-workers—whose interests are opposed. This social system—Capitalism—is based upon the private ownership of the means of life, and the task confronting the workers is to gain an understanding of this environment.

"How can this be achieved?” the reader will say. We reply, directly the worker begins to take an intelligent interest in the economic system known as Capitalism, a system which spells for the great majority of the peoples of the earth, long, monotonous, uninteresting days of toil. The Socialist, realising the need to react to his environment, advocates Socialism as the only alternative to Capitalism, wherein the means for producing and distributing the things necessary and desirable in life, will be the common property of society. The details of such a system it would be futile and useless to go into. Suffice it to say that man would control and regulate those gigantic forces of production with which we are to-day so familiar instead of being their slave. Such handicrafts considered desirable and to common good and well-being of society would perhaps be revived thus affording an opportunity once again for mankind to display his creative genius in the arts and crafts which machine industry and manufacturing have so ruthlessly swept aside. Further, the intellectual and physical pursuits, now the privilege of a few, would be possible to all who were capable of enjoying them.

Such vast possibilities for human enterprise and endeavour come before the mind’s eye that we dare only suggest them.

Remember that to-day, however, the workers vote Capitalism, and in return! — what a ghastly picture! Wars and the infernos which the war gods discharge — death, disease, pestilence, social insurance schemes, adulterated foods, shoddy clothing, asylums, hospitals and sanatoriums galore !

True, mankind is the product of his environment, but thousands of years of progress and change have wrought wonderful results. To-day, mankind is on the threshold of still more wonderful awakenings. The centuries that have passed have been periods of long and ponderous yawnings on the part of mankind at the majestic grandeur and awe-inspiring spectacle of the wonders of Nature. The day, however, is slowly but surely approaching when mankind, recovering from his age-long sleep, confronts Nature and all her myriad wonders with the ripened understanding of the part he can play in the great scheme of things. What does this step mark? It is but the consciousness of the mighty fact, that man is capable of adaptation to his environment.

The Socialist has attempted to organise the experiences of mankind down through the ages, and the outcome of this attempt is the Socialist philosophy of life, which in economics is the common ownership of the means of life.

What flows from this we must leave to posterity. We are not prophets. The Socialist, therefore, stresses the need for the workers to become class-conscious. Consciousness of the abilities of their class to do all the work—as they do to-day—for the benefit of an idle, useless class, means the growth of the desire to so organise this consciousness of class interests, so that it may insure “to those who labour the fruits of labour. ”

That such a state of things is very desirable, few will deny. Do the many, then, deny the necessity of co-operating with us in bringing about a new order—the Socialist Commonwealth?—or do they think the existing ruling class will “ hand the prize over?”

The master-class are never tired of appealing to the worker to :—

“Do as much work as you can.”

We of the Socialist Party also make the same appeal to members of our class, with a very important addition : "For the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of Socialism.”

The environment, i.e., the stage which economic development has reached, shatters the argument that we Socialists are mere idle dreamers, and calls insistently upon the workers to react to the possibility which this environment provides.

That possibility is the establishment of Socialism, when the workers realise and desire it.

Billy Iles

The Wages Question at the Trades Union Congress. (1926)

From the October 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Pugh, in his presidential address to the Trades Union Congress, was no more practical in his ideas than presidents of former years have been. Ideals, platitudes and “philosophy” are poor stuff for those workers whose time is mainly taken up in the struggle to obtain a living. Such men and women need a message that is easily understood; one that explains the nature of their struggle; why they are poor; how they can free themselves from their poverty.

Sentimental ideals are useless when the business is to explain to the workers why it is that, although they produce the wealth, they remain poor. If Mr. Pugh once admits that the possession of wealth by a class that does not work can only be the result of robbery or exploitation of the class that does; the next obvious thing is to explain how the exploitation is effected. This may, or may not, be beyond Mr. Pugh, but it is part of the knowledge required by the workers before it is possible for them to take any steps to shake off their poverty.

Mr. Pugh, in his remarks, associated himself with the campaign of the Independent Labour Party for a living wage. Marx, Engels, Kautsky, and others, have repeatedly shown that the wages system is the basis of capitalism. The capitalist buys labour power and pockets the difference between the value of the workers' product and the wage he pays them. It is obvious, therefore, that while the wages system remains, exploitation must continue. Notwithstanding this fact, which shows the necessity for the abolition of the wages system, Mr. Pugh can only suggest to the Congress that they should “examine in the light of new theories the whole basis and application of the traditional wages policy and methods of determining wages which the trade unions have followed."

Whatever Mr. Pugh’s “new theories" may be, he will discover when he comes to apply them that trade unions can only “determine” wages in their favour when they have the power to inflict loss on the employers by withholding their labour power. The strike is the most effective weapon possessed by the organised workers. The anarchists and industrial unionists advocate other methods, though they have never proved their efficacy, and Mr. Pugh would doubtless hesitate to learn from such sources. True the strike is seldom successful to-day, because circumstances are rarely favourable to the workers. Even when they are, the treachery of their own leaders often baulks them of victory.

The struggle between capitalists and workers over wages is a one-sided business; the capitalists are easily the stronger. They do not feel the pinch of hunger while their mines or factories are closed down. They have always the armed forces of the State on their side to compel the workers to starve in an orderly manner. With the miners lock-out and a farcical general strike hanging over the Congress like a wet blanket, emphasising the impotence of the workers when pitted against the capitalists, Mr. Pugh romances about laying down “scientific principles for the division of the product of industry."

Such talk is childish while the capitalist method of division holds the field, and the capitalist class controls the educational and physical forces necessary for its maintenance. Such principles could only be applied with the consent of the ruling class, which is inconceivable, unless it were along the lines of Mr. Pugh’s last suggestion, which is as follows: “The equitable distribution of spending power in relation to family needs."

If the idea is to take from the Rothschilds, Fords, Leverhulmes, etc., in order to level up the cotton operatives and miners, how is it proposed to squeeze the former? If the idea is merely to pool wages, salaries, etc., without an increase of the total amount, there is nothing to prevent trade union leaders and Labour M.P.’s starting right away.

It is only because these leaders are separated so widely from the rank and file, and the circumstances of their everyday life, that they can talk such nonsense without fear of exposure. The unreality of the whole business in its relation to the workers is emphasised by the New Leader (10/9/26), which comments on the address as follows : “He gave in short an enlightened lead to the industrial movement, which we have every hope that it will follow by setting up a commission of inquiry.”

Needless to say, neither the commission — the orthodox capitalist method of shelving awkward questions — the General Council, nor the T.U.C., will follow up the subject by analysing the capitalist system and laying bare the facts of their exploitation before the workers. Working-class leaders are after positions with high wages; they will never tell the workers that they must abolish the wages system.

F. Foan

Hull Branch: Invitation to Readers (1926)

Party News from the November 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

The members of the newly-formed branch in Hull are anxious to get into touch with party sympathisers and all readers of the “Socialist Standard” in that city, with a view to making the party’s position better known. They therefore extend a cordial invitation lo all who are interested in Socialism to attend at the branch meeting-place, advertised on the back page. Friends with a desire for information and opponents with objections to raise are equally assured of an opportunity to ask questions and express their views. The branch holds its meetings every Sunday at 3 p.m., and discussion follows the ordinary business of the branch. Both the ordinary meeting and the discussion are freely open to all who wish to attend.

*  *  *

Information about Hull Branch on the back page of the November 1926 Socialist Standard.

HULL—Branch meetings, Sunday, at 3 p.m., at the Trade and Labour Club (Jarratt Street entrance). Discussion after meeting. All readers in Hull requested to attend. Communications to Sec., G. Vinecrad. 40, Brook Street, Hull.

An I.L.P. Evangelist (1926)

Book Review from the December 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

An Evangel of Unrest: The Life Story of Bonar Thompson. 1/-. From the author. (Marble Arch, W.l.)

Bonar Thompson tells his life story in his usual style, from the days of unemployment processions in Manchester to his C.O. days during the so-called Great War. He pays tribute to our Party’s unswerving attitude during the war, but makes the curious statement that the I.L.P. was as firm as a rock against the war. He avoids the gymnastics of Ramsay MacDonald on the question and the association of the I.L.P. as an integral part of the Labour Party which joined the War Government.

Bonar Thompson does not tell us of his joining and leaving the Communist Party, and his reasons for that. He simply says he belongs to the I.L.P. now. What connection the I.L.P. has with Socialism he does not say. The prominent "pacifist” users of force in the Labour Government belonging to his I.L.P. he avoids to mention.

He denounces those who harp on “the position” and “economics," to the exclusion of the more emotional life, but he does not argue his case. He leaves it to denunciation. He is very bitter about those who object to paid speakers and paid literature sellers, etc. Here again he does not argue, but becomes vitriolic in denouncing his critics. So there is nothing to answer.

In a letter accompanying the book Bonar Thompson tells us that he has been a consistent reader of the Socialist Standard since 1907, but he accounts for his “political ignorance” by his “temperament and intellectual constitution.” Parties, however, are the expression of economic interests, not temperaments, and Thompson’s excuse for his outlook simply avoids the question of the soundness of the Party’s position.

For those who are interested in Bonar Thompson’s life the book will be of interest for what it contains, as well as its omissions.

C. R. B.

Confusion about Money and Inflation (1975)

From the January 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under the influence of Professor Milton Friedman and other “monetarists” it has become fashionable for politicians and economists to discuss the rise of prices in relation to what they call “the money supply”.

Thus the City Editor of the Daily Mail, 18th November 1974:

Some experts say the money supply tells us how bad inflation is going to be in the months ahead. The increase of just 1¾ per cent in the past three months looks hopeful.

And in July last Mr. Healey said:

We have the rate of increase of the money supply under control. I propose to keep it so. It is running at roughly half the rate at which it was running under the previous government.

But the rate of the rise of prices did not halve or even slacken. In spite of whatever effect subsidies and price controls may have had, the rise of prices in the eight months after Healey became Chancellor was not smaller but greater than in the previous eight months under Tory government.

It is important to recognize that the theories of the monetarists are not at all the same as the theory of Marx. Marx showed that an excess issue of inconvertible paper currency depreciates the currency and causes prices to rise, though it is not the only factor affecting prices. Essentially, what the monetarists attempt to show is that the price level is mainly determined by the size of deposits in the banks.

What the monetarists use as their guide are the official figures for “money supply”, made up of currency (notes and coin) plus bank deposits; but the currency element in the figures is so small a proportion of the whole that the changes in the amount of “money supply” from month to month are dominated not by the increase of the note issue but by the changes in bank deposits.

Actually there are two official indexes of money supply, known as M1 and M3. The first includes current account bank deposits, while the second includes also money on deposit account. (Currency constitutes only about one-third of M1 and about 14 per cent, of M3.)

One of the absurdities of monetarist theory is that M1 and M3 rarely give the same guidance, yet both are used. They hardly ever move at the same rate, and often M1 is going down while M3 is stationary or going up. One factor in this is that if depositors transfer large amounts from current to deposit accounts it reduces M1 but does not affect M3 because M3 already includes all deposits whether on current or deposit account.

Professor James Morrell of Bradford University attacked the “money supply” concept in an article in the Sunday Telegraph on 10th November 1974:

Since one measure of Britain’s stock of money showed a 1.5 per cent rise during the past 12 months (third quarter 1973 to third quarter 1974) and another showed a rise of 13.5 per cent we may well wonder if the experts know what they are talking about.

But what of the theory that bank deposits determine prices? It is a very old theory, but one that will not stand examination. Figures are available which show that deposits in the Joint Stock banks rose from £159 million in 1877 to £890 million in 1910, but the price level was rather lower in 1910 than in 1877. And between 1921 and 1931, when prices fell by 35 per cent., London Clearing Bank deposits fell by about 9 per cent, in the first five years then, rose again to the original level.

As Professor Cannan pointed out:

Prices continued to wax and wane with currencies, and to exhibit towards the variations of bank deposits . . . complete indifference.

(Modern Currency and the Regulation of its Value, 1931, p. 95)

It is a reflection on the modern economists, including Professor Morrell, that with few exceptions they are not even prepared to look at the possibility that Marx’s theory would provide the explanation for inflation that they are unable to find elsewhere.

Edgar Hardcastle

A German Tragedy (1975)

Book Review from the February 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Leviné by Rosa Leviné-Mayer. (Saxon House, £2.50)

This is yet another biography by the wife of a well-known revolutionary. Mrs. Kusinen has written Before and After Stalin; Heinz Neumann’s wife has recounted by her harrowing experiences in Soviet labour camps; and now Mrs. Leviné has delved into the details of her comrade’s revolutionary career.

Eugen Leviné, a prominent member of the Spartacus Group of Liebknecht and Luxembourg, was sent to Munich to organize the Bavarian Soviet Republic. An extraordinary situation prevailed in Germany at the end of the first World War. On 9th November 1918 the Kaiser abdicated. Power was assumed by the leader of the Social Democratic Party, Friedrich Ebert.

The army transferred its loyalty to the new régime and General Gruber, speaking for the army, telephoned Ebert to say the armed forces were at his disposal “if he would fight Bolshevism and maintain army discipline”.

Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils had sprung up all over Germany and elected a Central Council dominated by the Social Democratic Party. Included as an Appendix to the book is Leviné’s own report on the first All-German Soviet Congress. His lengthy speech can be summarized in one extract. Recounting the failure of the “left” to get any motion passed, he said of the first point:

to declare Germany a United Socialist Republic is one to which the SPD is particularly opposed. They do not want a Socialist Republic.

(p. 194)

The Spartacus Revolt in Berlin and Hamburg was crushed but a group of intellectuals, poets, artists and anarchists managed to proclaim a Soviet Republic in Munich, which hung on for two months, headed by Ernst Toller the dramatist. Sensing collapse and defeat Toller’s group packed it in and Leviné, instructed by the Spartacus Group and assisted by the Russians, took over.

His régime was soon crushed by the army under Social Democratic orders. In its proclamation the SPD asserted:

The troops of Hoffman’s [the SPD Prime Minister] come not as enemies of the working class, not as White Guards, but as protectors of public safety and order. Comrade Hoffman is no reactionary but a radical champion of the socialist movement.

(P-194)

The Bavarian Soviet was ruthlessly suppressed by working men, Social Democrats. Leviné was sentenced to death and faced the firing squad on the first day of May. His last speech to his murderers in the court showed him to be a man of considerable perception and boundless party loyalty: he was aware that the policy of the Spartacists was wrong, but was unable to betray it.

Horatio.

Tsar Brezhnev and the Jews (1975)

From the March 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

About a year ago when the furore about emigration of Jews from the USSR to Israel was at its height there appeared in the letter columns of The Guardian (that gallant defender of the weak and the oppressed), a long, well-argued, and excellently written letter from a reader who wrote “as a Manchester Jew”. This gave him two positions of strength to start with. Manchester was of course the birthplace of the paper and its home when it had some right to call itself a liberal organ (perhaps I am being a little naive, but I prefer to cherish the notion that it was rather more genuine than it is today. Well, it must have been). And a Jew, seemingly, had the right to argue that Russia was not being beastly to its Jews as all these jackals and hyenas of the west were alleging.

The writer failed to add (no doubt through modesty) more about himself which would have helped readers to evaluate his contribution. He could have added that, as well as being a Manchester Jew, he was a lifelong Communist (whether card-carrying or fellow-travelling I know not). It would have enabled readers to appreciate that what they were really reading was a professional Communist propaganda effort fronted by a babe-in-the-wood from the Manchester ghetto. And they would have been on their guard accordingly. (How do I know this top-secret information? Well, it happens that I too am a “Manchester Jew” and used to attend the same Hebrew classes as this chap. I wasn’t born in the SPGB: very few of us are.)

What was he saying in this erudite epistle? The message came through loud and clear. Any talk of anti-semitism in the Soviet Union, that glorious fatherland of the Socialist Revolution, that fearless champion of anti-fascism, that gallant defender of minorities, not to speak of the widows and the orphans, was and by definition must be sheer scurrilous slander. Russia is not against the Jews. Perish the thought. It is only the Zionists, the dupes of the State of Israel, who are being put in their place in the USSR. And he went on to say, as they always do, that had it not been for the gallant Stalinist Red Army, Hitler would have solved the Jewish Problem once for all. (He forgot to mention, again they always do, that at the beginning of the war, Stalin had a pact with Hitler and was assisting his war effort until Adolf turned on poor old Uncle Joe. “Have we deserved to be treated like this?” as the Russian diplomat in Berlin whined as Hitler was kicking him out.)

I would have like exposing this stuff for the hypocritical Communist guff it undoubtedly was. But the great organ of freedom won’t print letters from the likes of me. But within a couple of days there appeared a far better demolition job than I could have done. The writer was a London Jew. Mr. E. Litvinoff (I don’t think he is any relation of the Stalinist foreign minister of that ilk, though he might be) wrote a devastating reply along the lines: So the Russians are not anti-semites eh? Only anti- Zionists? Well, get a load of this.

There then followed the story of a pamphlet recently issued in Paris under the imprimatur of the Embassy of the USSR. This official Communist document was not only a slander of Jews qua Jews. It was not, and could not be, against Israeli Imperialists. And why not? Because, as Litvinoff made clear, it was taken word for word from a pamphlet issued in the days of Tsar Nicholas, the last of the Romanovs, by an organization known as the Black Hundreds, whose sole raison d'ê·tre was anti-semitism of the most virulent kind. They were not merely propagandists. They organized pogroms of the most brutal kind. Before Israel was even heard of — nearly fifty years before, in fact. The men, women and children who were slaughtered in the pogroms had not been Israeli imperialist stooges — they were massacred and reviled because they were Jews.

Lots of good folk condemned these murderous monsters, including Lenin. So now we have the minions of the heir of Lenin indulging in the same filth as the Tsarists themselves. So much for the Stalin Constitution which guaranteed (so we were told) freedom for minorities — which never prevented Stalin from murdering “rootless cosmopolitans” right up to his death and the monstrous “Jewish Doctors’ Plot”. But Brezhnev is the heir not of Stalin, we are told, but of Lenin. He is clearly also the heir of the Tsars — of whom at least one thing can be said. The Jews were allowed to emigrate pretty freely; and enormous numbers of them did (including, I doubt not, the father or grandfather of our “Manchester Jew”).

Well, what did the latter reply to Litvinoff? You must be joking. He disappeared without trace into the Manchester fog from which he had emerged. That is the way with these people. They write a diatribe or speak a speech — and hope to get away with it. They often do. But when they are answered they show their lack of sincerity by keeping their heads down and their mouths shut. Hoping that everyone will forget.

Now, Litvinoff has made a book out of the episode and it was reviewed in the same Guardian as ever was by their Soviet “expert” Jonathan Steele (9th November 1974). The Guardian these days is a highly successful paper and its ever-growing circulation figures are enabling it to laugh all the way to the bank. It has a square creep in a square hole whichever way you look — Steele for Moscow, Gott for South America, Gittings for China et al. These people are not reporters, so much as artful dodgers and slippery eels on behalf of the red regimes. It must be some ten years since the paper had the temerity to print a letter praying to Gott to say something about the 20,000 political prisoners in Castro’s Cuba which he had described in glowing terms (having spent his time in the Havana Hilton instead of in a prison). For nine years I looked eagerly every day for His reply. I now realise that Gott (like our Manchester Jew) never replies.

Steele writes that he found Litvinoff’s book “very disappointing”. Well, having just come back from a three months’ trip to Russia where he seems to have visited everywhere apart from your actual salt-mines, he clearly felt hurt that anyone could be so cruel to his red-fascist friends. And what was wrong with the book? Mainly that Litvinoff pointed out (as he had done in the letter) that the Russians had indulged in the same scurrility as their Tsarist predecessors. He had failed to “define the line which should be drawn between anti-semitism and anti-zionism”. Why the devil should he waste his time in such rubbish? The import of the book (which was based on a trial in Paris when the editor of the pamphlet, a French Communist frontman who said in court that he had never even seen the thing till it was printed, was found guilty of stirring up racial hatred. Such communists) was to the effect that the Russians were not interested in any such line whether it could be drawn or not. 

They reprinted pogromist literature so slavishly that they reprinted the mistakes of the illiterate Tsarists. So that Parisians in 1970, like Muscovites in 1900, can read that it is better to cast meat to the dogs than to a goy; or that a Jew can be happy when he hears an "akum” is dying. (I am quite sure there is no such word in Hebrew or Yiddish or any other language as “akum”. But Brezhnev’s men are determined to copy their mentors, boobs and all.)

Oh yes, and while Litvinoff is right to criticise the Russians for equating Zionism with Nazism, he actually compares Nazism with Soviet anti-semitism. Litvinoff really has a cheek. On the other hand, I suggest that next time Steele is a guest in Russia he visit a prison or asylum where some Jew is incarcerated and tries to show the poor devil how much difference there is between Nazism and Red Fascism.

Just in case anybody gets wrong ideas, we Socialists are not only concerned with Jews. We are concerned with all the victims of the capitalist jungle. East and West.

L. E. Weidberg

Taking The Rostrum (1975)

From the April 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

These steps I’ve taken this afternoon
Like any other afternoon 

Are for SOCIALISM, nothing less
For no other cause will I digress 

My comrades and I will never falter
Though mocked and jeered we’ll never alter 

We know our case in and out
So take us to task, have a bout 

Prove us wrong and I’ll get down
Maybe join a circus, become a clown
If that is all you want to see 

Or do you possess the dignity
To stand up against inequality, 

Destruction, degradation, poverty, starvation even!
What do you do Mary, Bob, Alice, Stephen? 

You acquiesce to a system
Where profit be the only reason
To struggle, to suffer through every season 

Summer, Winter, Autumn, Spring
Don’t time fly by with a zing? 

You know! 

This madhouse does not have to be
A better system we can see 

So open your minds
Give SOCIALISM some thought
If you agree, throw in your support 

We’ll not have to look to optimism
When the world is rid of capitalism

David Wright

Houses and Profits (1975)

From the May 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

The assumption that that the solution to the housing problem is simply to build more houses is an erroneous one. Access to housing, like everything else, depends on money. Houses are built to be sold at a profit. For example, even though there were in March 1974 28,866 homeless persons in Britain (Hansard 17th December 1974 col. 436) at least 35,000 newly completed houses remained unsold (Management Today, October 1974).

In the same month Management Today carried a survey of the building industry. The facts revealed (brick production down 16 per cent and deliveries down 23 per cent over the previous year, a decline in private house building of 50 per cent over the same period) led them to observe that

. . . the industry’s future over the next 18 months looks gloomy indeed. Since it depends to such a large extent on the health of the economy at large, it is not surprising that the industry is in a state of depression.

Came December and the Labour Government were confirming (again!) that the housing programme had “top priority” (Evening Standard 4th December 1974). By the end of January unused brick stocks had risen to 933 million and Tony Cadman, Director General of the Brick Development Association, could only gloomily say after two Labour budgets “I still resent the fact that the Government has not given major priority to housing”. (Building Trades Journal, 7 March, 1975.)

The anarchy of conflicting interests prevents rational planning to meet people’s needs. Problems for some are looked upon by others as an opportunity for profit making. Pushing their own sectional interest the British Woodwork Manufacturing Association urged Environment Minister Anthony Crosland to use timber-framed buildings in order to speed up the house-building programme. They claimed that such housing would also be less costly than conventional buildings. But perhaps they were being too optimistic — nothing in capitalism is ever that simple. In the very same week the Home Timber Merchant’s Association forecast grave difficulties ahead for the timber trade. The tax situation on forestry is chaotic and they claimed that

. . . this winter, largely owing to the Government’s tax confusion, some 28,000 acres will remain unplanted. Millions of young trees will have to be destroyed. (Building Trades Journal 7th March 1975).

Whatever the outcome of the representations made by these industries one thing is certain — capitalism cannot solve the housing problem. Its priorities are profit: “the health of the economy”.

Gwynn Thomas

The Myth of the Middle Class (1975)

From the May 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

A letter sent to Woking News and Mail as a contribution to a running battle between anti-union and pro-union debate.

Miners and Headmasters, “middle class” and “working class”? Surely it is high time both recognized that miners and headmasters are in the same class economically, namely the working class.

Of course, coal-miners can claim to work in tough conditions and to produce an end-product of obvious utility, while teachers on the other hand can claim long training and heavy responsibility. Every job has its peculiarities but these — responsibility, danger, dirt, boredom or whatever — do not divide workers into separate economic classes. (If they did, there would have to be as many economic classes as there are occupations: which would be nonsense.)

Many white-collar workers who sell their labour-power for “a salary”, not a wage, describe themselves as “middle class”. This term is impossible to define. But the essential fact is that these people have to sell their labour-power in order to live and are therefore part of the working class. Yet their education, tastes and sometimes their position at work (as managers, for instance) result in their identifying with the interests of the class which owns and controls the means of producing wealth. Thus they identify with their exploiters: like those ducklings who mistakenly regard Konrad Lorenz as Mummy.

Nowadays more and more of these “middle-class” workers have been forced to take industrial action and to recognize that they have the same problems as dustmen, miners or dockers. They even organize themselves into "greedy and irresponsible” trade unions in their attempts to maintain their living standards. Even Civil Servants go on strike!

Since there is so little difference in their economic position, all workers must eventually recognize their common class interest. The employers recognized their common interest as a class, years ago, hence the media’s and the Government’s bitter hostility against almost any group of workers who are “greedy and irresponsible" enough to demand wage or salary irresponsible enough to demand wage or salary increases. There’s never been a right time for pay rises.

To sum up: since an economic class is defined by its relationship to the means of producing and distributing wealth, and since our society is divided into a minority class who own and control the means of production and distribution, and a majority class who cannot live except by hiring out their physical and mental abilities, there is no place for this illusory “middle class”. This illusion only serves to divide the working class on snobbish grounds (staff against shop-floor, white-collar against blue-collar, manual against clerical, and so on). But it is only an illusion: in politics it is important to distinguish between myths and reality.

There’s no such thing as fairness in fixing the price of labour-power, any more than in the fixing of the market price of any other commodity. Another very good argument for abolishing the pay-packet- and-poverty racket in favour of Socialism, where class conflict will be a thing of the uncivilized past and where each will contribute according to his ability and obtain — according to his needs. Which simply doesn’t happen under capitalism, nohow.

Charmian Skelton

Pollution State-Capitalist Style (1975)

From the June 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Despite the large amount of work being done throughout the country to protect the atmosphere against pollutants, the pollution level in a number of cities and industrial centres still exceeds permissible norms, due to the constant growth of industry and motor transport, and to the inadequacy or low effectiveness of the measures taken”. 

Sounds a very familiar line doesn’t it? It could have been taken from almost any of the flood of books, reports and articles that have, over the past ten years or so, turned pollution from a concern of cranks into a major world problem.

In fact the quotation comes from an official Russian publication Nature Protection in the Soviet Union (Novosti Press Agency, Moscow, 1974). The fact that Russia and the so-called socialist economies suffer from pollution and environmental degradation just as much as the capitalist west may cause some puzzlement to those who believe implicitly that state capitalist economies are somehow different from the avowedly capitalist nations. This is certainly one line of Russian propaganda. For example B. Gorizontov writing in Soviet Weekly says

  In the socialist countries, where economic advance is based on public ownership of the means of production and natural resources and on planned management, it is much easier to protect the environment and natural resources — but they, too, have their problems.

(Soviet Weekly 14 December 1974.)

And what problems! In Poland only 20 per cent of the rivers have water fit for communal use. The Oder is unusable throughout its entire length. In 1967 8,400 of the countries 14,000 industrial plants discharged refuse directly into rivers and more than a third of the largest plants (accounting for 80 per cent, of all effluent) had no effluent treatment equipment. (New Scientist 6 July 1972). Air pollution is also a problem for the Poles. Anthony Sylvester, a frequent visitor to Poland, reported last year on a visit to Katowice the centre of Poland’s coal and steel industry.

  Contamination here is about twice the level normally tolerated in Poland or for that matter in the West. Again, 100 miles East of Warsaw I saw trees destroyed or badly damaged for twenty miles by nitrogenous fumes from a huge fertilizer plant.

(Daily Telegraph 11 July 1974).

To combat this the Polish Government has bought £2.5 million worth of Western-made equipment for monitoring and measuring so as “to establish the most economical ways of reducing the evil”.

Other East European countries have fared no better. The Bulgarian Black Sea resort of Varna was closed down in 1971 because of contaminated water. The Hungarian Ministry of Health have been battling with an increasing air pollution problem since 1952. In the German Democratic Republic the chemical industry centred on Bitterfeld releases 180 tons of ash into the air each day. Bitterfeld has been described as having a dust fallout twenty times higher than the permitted 15 grammes per square meter per month. “Bronchitis and breathing difficulties are 5 times as frequent in Bitterfeld as in towns with relatively pure air.” The reason given was that the district produced two per cent, of the national income of the GDR and the question which had to be faced was: What comes first? In Bitterfeld the answer had to be, for a very long period: production. (Democratic German Report 31 July 1974).

Doctor Jan Cerousky, a Czech biologist has also exposed the profit motive as the cause of “socialist” pollution. After describing “Environments so badly destroyed by coal mining, industry and many-sided pollution that they are almost impossible for people to inhabit”, he (possibly unwittingly) pointed out that a state capitalist economy works under exactly the same constraints as do the free enterprise ones.

  Even the most socialist country will certainly find it impossible and dangerous to go far beyond its economic capabilities. To solve existing environmental problems and prevent new, even worse ones, from emerging is clearly a long-term matter, while economics, instant needs, building capacities and technological equipment create pressure for short-term solutions.
 The state as law maker imposes on itself limits to the capacity of industrial undertakings. As decision-maker the state can also permit exceptions from its own anti-pollution laws to state owned enterprises because it needs their products without the cost being increased by expensive anti-pollution measures.

(New Scientist 16 April 1970).

As in the West improvements that are carried out are done so for hard-headed economic reasons. The question “does it pay” enters into any capitalist equation. Two East German dailies investigated the problem of noise at work and found that production costs for noise-reduced machines were between five and ten per cent, higher than “non-silenced” machines.

   . . . but the larger investment is soon made up: there is no need to pay a “noisy-work” supplement, or even a disablement pension. Equipping a noisy work-place with anti-noise devices costs an average 800 marks, but every case of sickness or disability caused by excessive noise costs at least twice as much every year.

(Democratic German Report 10 April 1974).

This is an argument which would sway any capitalist boardroom!

The existence of these problems has been excused as a hangover from the days of capitalism. In the Soviet Union itself which (it is falsely claimed) has had socialism for over sixty years these problems should have been well and truly licked. The facts show this to be untrue. Even though Lenin set up the first nature reserve in 1919 the rape of earth continues. In the USSR some 400 million acres of arable land plus 350 million acres of pasture land are affected by soil erosion. The average yearly loss of fertile soil is a staggering 500 million tons. Forests are felled with little or no regard to the future and in many places replanting is only sporadic or even non-existent.

The Times correspondent David Bonavia reported that the Caspian sea level had fallen by more than six feet in the past two decades and that the White Sea was being used as a dumping ground for oil and industrial waste products.

  Some Russian scientists are already preoccupied with environmental problems which, they complain, the industrialists and city planners do not take seriously enough.

(The Times 4 February 1970).

One such scientist is the “dissident” nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov. Among the world problems threatening the existence of humanity (e.g. nuclear war and weapons testing, by Russia and others, has caused fallout damage which is as yet incompletely assessed) he includes environmental pollution. He is convinced, as are many others, that “The salvation of our environment requires that we overcome our divisions and the pressure of temporary, local interests. Otherwise, the Soviet Union will poison the United States with its wastes and vice versa”. After a brief, if all too familiar catalogue of environmental ills he refers to the tragedy of Lake Baikal. This mile-deep 400 mile long lake (the largest single body of fresh water in the world) of remarkable purity has become yet another dumping ground for waste from wood-milling and paper making plants which pour their poisonous sulphurous wastes into this biologically unique stretch of water. Sakharov puts the blame for this “senseless despoilation” on "local, temporary, bureaucratic, and egotistical interest and sometimes simply by questions of bureaucratic prestige.” (Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom (1969) p.44)

But the problem has now been recognized as a serious one by the state capitalist bosses themselves. Vice-Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Deputy V. A. Kirillin addressed the USSR Supreme Soviet in September 1972.

   The shortage of clean fresh water, air pollution and the erosion of the soil have unfortunately become a reality today . . .  for the socialist countries, too, these problems are today of extremely great importance.

(Nature Protection in the Soviet Union p.4)

So after years of supposedly rational planning for the benefit of all, people in Russia suffer exactly the same environmental problems as the rest of us. By 1980 the level of air pollution will be double that of 1970. Yet it is recognised that

    Desulphurization of . . . fuel burned is a radical means of reducing the discharge of sulphur dioxide. However, economically acceptable methods of such fuel purification have not yet been sufficiently developed.

(ibid p.25)

State ownership of the means of production does not remove the basic drive of capitalism — the need to make a profit in order to accumulate capital. Only with the removal of this by the conversion of the means of life from class ownership into common ownership will the problem of pollution be resolved.

Gwynn Thomas

Benn's Road for Capitalism (1975)

From the July 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the run-up to last month’s referendum the man who excited most attention was Anthony Benn. The comments on his prophecies of doom and gloom ranged from stabs in the back from his own colleagues such as Roy Jenkins who said he couldn’t take Benn seriously as an economic minister (Guardian 28th May) to near-hysteria. For example the Daily Mirror (29th May) gave him the Draculean headline of “Minister of Fear”. An “X” certificate will no doubt follow.

The Guardian took the trouble to interview Dracula himself (21st May). The article was headed “Benn’s road to Socialism”. Benn did not define what he meant by Socialism (no Labour politician will do that), he only mentioned the word once. That was almost by accident when he referred to his package of reforms as “British Socialism”.

What concerns Benn is the running of Capitalism. And for those who care to look, it is perfectly obvious that he is determined to run it as efficiently as possible. This means that he is trying to ensure that the workers are exploited as hard as possible — because that is what efficient Capitalism means.

The source of the wealth of the owning class is the amount of unpaid labour that the working class concede to the capitalist class. This may be called robbery. Benn says “I am for more profits . . .” That is more wealth to the capitalist class.

He thinks that industry runs without workers doing the work. John Palmer the interviewer asks him about “shop floor power” and should workers have a right to veto management decisions. Benn’s reply is a beauty: —

   That kind of workers’ power already exists. But it is only being used negatively at present. Workers are accused of throwing spanners in the works BUT THAT IS THE ONLY TIME THEY ARE ALLOWED NEAR THE WORKS, (our emphasis)

Clearly Mr. Benn believes in perpetual motion and thinks industry runs itself. Workers may wish they were not allowed near the works, but capitalism is run only by the workers inside and out. It is Mr. Benn who won’t get to grips with the meaning of capitalism.

The inevitable question about loss of jobs was put to Benn, and he said — prophetically — “I can’t guarantee anyone’s job, including my own”. He then continued with this howler:

   You cannot give people power without responsibility too. They understand this.

I wonder if he thinks the steel workers being laid off in their thousands take things so phlegmatically? They certainly didn’t when his fellow phoney, Michael Foot, went to Ebbw Vale earlier this year. When Mr. Foot asked them “to understand” that it was in their interests that they should be laid off, they gave him a roasting. Foot scurried back to the warmth and comfort of Westminster pretty sharp.

The rationale behind Benn’s approach is that he can control capitalism by putting into effect his policies. But he plainly admits that it is capitalism that controls the government, and not the other way round. Asked about the best way to use the taxpayers’ money he says:

   The government does not dictate the pace of industrial change. It is forced by events to inter-act with reality.

Wilson once said the last labour government was “blown off course”. Benn is saying that there is no course to be blown off in the first place. Capitalism acts, and the government reacts.

For those members of the capitalist class who sit in fear and trepidation awaiting Benn’s next move, let him reassure them. Palmer talks about the “radical changes” that are taking place in industry. Benn modestly says “My  rôle in all of this has been very minimal”.

To the workers who vote for the likes of Benn, let him deliver his own epitaph. Palmer asks him about his views in 1966 when Benn was last in power. Benn disarmingly says:

   The policies I followed between 1964 and 1970 had much to recommend them and were taken up by the succeeding government. BUT THEY DID NOT WORK, (our emphasis)

If the policies had much to recommend them, why didn’t they work? And how nice it is for Capitalist politicians to be able to dismiss their records of failure with such glib phrases. We can tell the working class now that Mr. Benn’s policies won’t “work” this time either. But we are not stating this so that later (when Benn too will no doubt again say he was wrong) we can say “we told you so”. We are asking the working class to ditch their allegiance to Capitalism and apologists like Benn and urging them to get on with the tasks of finding out about Socialism.

Ronnie Warrington