A Woman's Place? (1998)

TV Review from the February 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last May saw the election to Westminster of over a hundred women Members of Parliament for the first time in British parliamentary history, trebling the previous total. The benches of the Commons— particularly the Labour benches, for that is the party the vast majority of the new women members represent—are no longer bedecked by the massed ranks of grey suits. There is now more than just a smattering of colour.

In a great many respects this is, of course, a good thing. That Parliament has not represented a wide variety of groups within society previously has been one of the factors undermining trust in Britain's supposedly democratic Institutions and procedures, a trust which has, in any case, always been somewhat fragile. Now it would seem, the House of Commons (if not the House of Lords) is more representative and therefore more democratic and worthy of respect.

Two programmes on BBC2 in January sought to pursue this theme. The first, Women At Westminster was an interesting meander through how the increased numbers of women in Parliament has affected the place, how they allegedly will affect it in future, and how Parliament In turn has affected the women themselves. Much of this concerned the facilities of the Palace of Westminster, an important enough concern to those affected directly but less so for everybody else.

The more compelling part of the programme was an analysis of how the culture of the Commons chamber itself is changing, for the better. It was alleged that there has been (and certainly will be in future) a decline in the "yah-boo" politics previously encouraged by a male dominated chamber. This has - most positively - been evidenced by new women members confronting the sexism of the older male MPs. Such sexism. at its worst, has involved sustained barracking and sexual intimidation of women MPs making their speeches, and has been typically directed at the massed ranks of new Labour women (though at some female Tory MPs too at times, as for instance recounted by Teresa Gorman in her book The Bastards). Unfortunately a number of the other instances of how women are allegedly changing the nature of the House were examples of wishful thinking or were trivial and superficial - like the claim that new women MPs asserted their independence from the stuffy conventions of the Commons when they clapped Tony Blair on his first appearance at Question Time (as clapping in the House is not allowed). This was a claim that was both entirely superficial - just like New Labour itself - and wrong too (ditto). Many new MPs clapped Betty Boothroyd on her election as the first woman Speaker in 1992 but soon learned not to do it again after a few quiet words from the Whips Office. History is likely to repeat itself.

We Begg to differ

BBC2s other effort on the new women MPs focused on Anne Begg, the Labour member for Aberdeen South who is not only a woman but disabled as well. In fact, Begg is the first MP to be allowed to sit on the floor of the House in her wheelchair. The difficulties engendered by her disability in a place like Westminster was brought across excellently in what was, in effect, a video diary of her first few months in the House. It was a programme which demonstrated that Anne Begg, like many of her new colleagues, is a very able and articulate woman. The tenacity she has shown in becoming the first ever wheelchair-bound MP has been tremendous. It was a programme which illustrated what, by and large, it was meant to illustrate, that having Anne Begg and all the other new women members in the Commons is indeed an advance, just as the election of ethnic minority MPs has been.

What was never mentioned is what all this is essentially a product of. It is a product of the shift away from feudal, archaic ideas of noblesse oblige, class and rank, and towards the meritocracy of capitalism. This is a meritocracy where "positive discrimination" is favoured for people who are disadvantaged "through no fault of their own" - women, ethnic minorities, the disabled, but where huge value judgments are still made about anybody else who may be disadvantaged—like the poor There is no special treatment for them, no closed shortlists to get them into Parliament or special sections in the Labour Party. They were the people who couldn't be bothered to do their exams at school, who don't want a job, or deliberately get pregnant so they can be given more benefits or a bigger council slum.

If you are of the view that there is nothing wrong with the system and that everyone but the "naturally disadvantaged" (or those clearly disadvantaged due to the persistence of outdated pre-capitalist ideas) is only disadvantaged because of their own indolence, then you end up like Anne Begg and most of the other new Labour women MPs. You end up voting to cut benefit from single mothers as nearly every single one of them did. If you can be persuaded of their indolence sufficiently, you could even end up voting to cut benefits to the disabled as well. After all, Anne Begg herself has demonstrated that the disabled can invariably do some work with sufficient "encouragement", so why should they be paid to sit at home lounging about on benefit?

It is armed with such thinking that the new women of New Labour aim to take the House of Commons by storm. Convinced - against all the accumulated evidence - that the promotion of "equal opportunities" within capitalism ensures a level playing-field, they go about their mean-spirited tasks with all the zeal of evangelist preachers. And just like evangelist preachers these are people who, underneath the rhetoric, represent a barely diluted danger to the working class and deserve the unremitting, principled opposition of socialists.

Dave Perrin

Election Notes. (1910)

From the February 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

The meet important feature of the election of 1910 was the circulation of our Manifesto. It was the largest free distribution of literature we have yet undertaken, and Press notices from most unexpected quarters amply prove that it has found its way into many and far distant parts of the country. That we have succeeded in preventing some, at least, of the working class from being side-tracked into the sham fights of the masters is shown by the increasing number who, having gone to the poll, wrote SOCIALISM across their paper. The appearance of these intelligently "spoilt’" papers at Haggerston caused Mr. Herbert Burrows to look glum, while it told the astute politician something it would be well for Mr. Burrows and bis kind to endeavour to understand.

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Another feature, and that also a gratifying one, was the large number of meetings we were able to hold—these being attended, even in very bad weather, by large and attentive audiences. Where opponents took our platform they readily (and always favourably) contrasted our meetings with the political hooliganism of those of other parties.

Again, in heckling candidates and their supporters and in issuing challenges to debate, our comrades lost no opportunity for steady, serious educative propaganda, and have the satisfaction of winning all along the line.

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With the enemy it was different, however, and perhaps it falls to the Social-Democratic Party to provide the most illogical, as well as the most tragic, feature of the campaign. The former is found in their trying to work with the Liberals at Northampton (see front page) and in helping the Tories at Battersea while opposing both elsewhere, as at Burnley. The latter is found in their excuse for abject failure, when they say :

  It is useless to disguise the fact that we have lost. Moral victories do not count in this unequal game; unfortunately tactless blunders do: and we should have done much better in at least three of the seats contested if what we regard as distinct errors of judgment had not been committed at critical moments in the campaign. The hysterical desire of some of our comrades to correct the slightest inaccuracy on the part of a candidate or his Supporters is also a ridiculous but effective weapon in the enemy's hands. (Justice, 22.1.10. Italics ours.)

This, however, but serves to show that Mr. Hyndman was right when he described his followers as being “destitute of political aptitude." They are evidently likewise destitute of a knowledge of Socialist principles.

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The above is almost equalled by the "Independent" Labour Party in their attempt to explain away their candidate's defeat at East Bristol. Says the Labour Leader (28.1.10) : "Had the election taken place on the 15th instead of the 17th we could have won, but the intervention of Sunday permitted the Unionist gains to strengthen the electors’ adherence to their old party's traditions." As the Liberal majority over the “Labour" man was 4,549, it would seem that the 15 Unionist gains had frightened 4,549 Labour stalwarts! ! !

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In the deluge of "cold, calculated frigids" inseparable from a contest where the master class strive with each other for the votes of the working class, it is difficult to make a selection, but for sheer, unadulterated egotism and political mendacity the palm may fairly be given to Mr. Lloyd George. Angling for voles in Wales this gentleman declared : "The first thing I am going to do is this. I am going to cleanse the land of poverty and want." (Morning Leader, 18.1.10.) As a demagogue he has out-Hunnabled Hunnable, but to an intelligent audience his statement simply carried the essence of refined insult. 

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A feature of this election, showing the scarcely veiled contempt the Liberals have for their “Labour" allies, is seen in the return of Mr. Spencer L. Hughes for Stockport. This gentleman had previously entered the field to spoil the chances of Mr. P. Curran, a “Labour" man, at Jarrow bye-election (1907) and similarly at Bermondsey (1909) against Mr. Salter, another “Labour” man, and now as a reward (or as a gauge of his abilities) he is found a “safe seat" at Stockport, but — the irony of it — he had this time to run with a “Labour" man. When the result was known he declared : “My colleague and I kept 'Down with the Lords’ and 'Free Trade' to the front." Had Mr. Wardle of the Labour Party, the colleague in question, been anything more than a Liberal he would not have forgotten Jarrow and Bermondsey but would have resented association with this Liberal hack as an insult to organised Labour. Doubtless, however, four years environment "doing odd jobs in the Liberal workshop " has lowered (as Mr. Curran himself would say) the moral outlook of this Laboural M.P.

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“Motor cars lent by Lord Llangattock and Lady St. Heller conveyed five working-men voters from Raglan, Monmouthshire to Walthamstow, a distance of nearly 200 miles by road." (Evening News, 26.1.10.)

Comment it needless.

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Says Reynolds' Newspaper (16.1.10): “Seeing that statements have been made to the effect that Mr. W. Thorne is a Labour plutocrat, it is as well to give his salary as organising secretary of the Gasworkers Union, it is £3 a week. In Parliamentary allowances he has about another £3 a week. The problem is how it is done on the Money." Of course, the above sum is not all, but even at £6 a week the problem really is what the workers get for it; and there is little doubt that there are many even on the staff of Reynolds' who would willingly take the job on at a lower figure, to say nothing of many of the unemployed who would make a much better job of it at half the price.

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Our Tottenham comrades are to be congratulated on having so far cornered Mr. P. Alden, M.P. as to get him to accept a challenge to debate publicly the claims of the Liberal Party to the confidence of the workers. More particularly so as in his constituency there are two branches of the Independent Labour Party and these are severely split over the support given by their members to this gentleman — who is ready to defend the Liberal Party in debate against a Socialist.

Alex Anderson

Justice for the Miners (1935)

From the December 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard

Outstanding among the election results, admittedly disappointing in the main to the leaders of the Labour Party, are those of the mining areas, particularly those of the South Yorks, field, which embraces North Notts, and North-East Derbyshire. In spite of expressions of sympathy with the miners on the part of the Government’s nominees (some of whom went down pits and came back converted to the justice of the present demand for an extra 2s. per day), the Labour members’ majorities in these constituencies range from ten to thirty thousand. .One outstanding exception, the Bassetlaw seat was won from the Government candidate, Malcolm MacDonald, by only a small margin. He considered he would have held it but for a local strike.

For months past such strikes have expressed the ferment in this area, and the overwhelming majorities for strike action from every pit in the district supply eloquent testimony to the fact, that, if the four years of National Government has resulted in improved conditions, the miners have not noticed it. In face of this the weak-kneed attitude of the miners' leaders calls for some comment.

Before taking the ballot they openly advertised their readiness to compromise their demands and suspend the vote if the owners would negotiate on national lines. As was only to be expected, their offer was treated with lofty aloofness. Their next move was to approach the Government with a request that the provisions of the Coal Mines Act, 1930, for the setting up of selling agencies, should be applied. The Government’s reply was to request the coalowners to set them up by July 1st next.

The advantages of these agencies to the miners must remain a mystery. They (the miners) do not sell coal, but labour-power, and they would need to be childish indeed to assume that any reorganisation of the distributive side of the coal industry is to be undertaken for their special benefit. Capitalists who invest money in distributive undertakings accept the “risks" which such enterprises involve in order to gain a proportionate share of the gross profit, and if the colliery proprietors decide to invade this sphere it will be for the purpose of enriching themselves.

The miners’ only hope of gaining their immediate demands is in being better organised in their trade unions. Even existing wage-rates are difficult to maintain in the face of the ever-increasing encroachment of the machine, and the resulting intensification of the competition for jobs. Under such circumstances delay favours the masters. They can afford to wait till next summer, and beyond. If action is to benefit the miners it must be taken swiftly. The existing epidemic of local struggles is exhausting funds to very little purpose. A month will, in any case, probably decide the issue, and the most the miners can hope for is some slight check to the downward tendency in their condition.

Even complete victory in securing the present demand cannot alter the general line of development. So far from putting a stop to the introduction of machinery it will provide an added incentive.

This being the situation, nothing is more ridiculous than for the miners' leaders to declare, as several of them have done quite recently, that they “want justice, not sympathy." One can readily understand the barrenness of mere sympathy to men and women in the plight of the miners and their wives; but will "justice" prove more fertile?

Obviously it is not legal justice that is invoked. From the standpoint of the law, all contracts or bargains are just which are arrived at mutually and voluntarily, providing nothing criminal or “contrary to public policy" is involved. The law knows nothing of wage-slavery. In its eyes the worker is a free citizen voluntarily entering into a contract with his employer. He surrenders his ability to work in exchange for a wage, and the law will, if needed, enforce the payment of the wage.

Few workers know better than the miners, however, that collective agreements, signed, sealed and delivered by parties representing both sides are more honoured in the breach than in the observance, precisely because of the ever-present fear of the sack.

Perhaps, then, it is to moral justice that the Miners' Federation officials refer. If so, we invite them to tell us where they draw the line. Is an extra 2s. per day their conception of a "just" wage? On what is this notion of a just wage founded? Between the minimum limit, below which the miners cannot exist and work, and the total wealth produced by their efforts there is a very considerable difference. Out of this the colliery proprietors draw their profits, landowners their royalties, and coal-dealers and merchants get a living. These people enjoy comfort, while the miners endure misery. We can, however, rest assured that every one of these sections will resist an attack upon its income, and they will attempt to explain their resistance by saying that the attack is “ unjust.” This, quite irrespective of whether the miners demand an extra 2s. per day, 2s. 3d., or half-a-crown. The cry for justice is, therefore, as futile as the appeal for sympathy.

The miners, in common with the rest of the working class, need to rid their minds of self-deluding cant. Let them not imagine that they can delude their masters. In common with the rest of the workers, they have a commodity to sell, to wit, their power to produce wealth. So long as capitalism exists they are under the necessity of struggling for the best possible price they can get. This applies whether they are inside or outside of trade unions. In this struggle mutual sympathy and support are imperative. The struggle, however, cannot end here.

Labour leaders, political and industrial, are busy trying to persuade us that the essence of capitalism is competition, and that if only industries can be controlled by national boards, paying interest on bonds to the owners, all will be well. Apart, however, from the difficulty of establishing national control of industries depending upon international conditions for their existence, this leaves the antagonism between the classes untouched. If royalties and profits are “unjust" when appropriated privately, by what miracle do they become “just" when the Government guarantees them, which is what the Labour Party proposes should be done?

The capitalist class cannot be got rid of by any scheme of nationalisation. Their existence is based upon their ownership of the national resources and the instruments fashioned by the working class for their utilisation. These means and instruments must be made the common property of the whole people, irrespective of race or sex.

The effort to establish such a system will involve the conscious co-operation of the workers of the world. Only when they are successful will they free themselves from the need to sell their energy to masters, and become able to produce freely for the common good.

In the meantime every effort at compromise on the part of the workers' leaders weakens the workers' resistance, and delivers them still more into the hands of their enemies—the master class. Unremitting hostility to those enemies on political and industrial field alike is the only policy consistent with a clear understanding of the situation. Justice as a watchword must be replaced by emancipation.

Eric Boden

50 Years Ago: Lloyd George on his "War to End War" (1987)

The 50 Years Ago column from the January 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

  “The whole surface of the ground consisted of nothing but a series of overlapping shell craters, half full of yellow, slimy water. Through falling into these ponds hundreds upon hundreds of unwounded men lost their lives by drowning. 

"Hundreds of thousands of British troops fought through the slough . . .  slept in mud-holes. When they squelched along, they were shot down into the slush; if wounded they were drowned in the slime; but the survivors still crept and dragged onward for 4 months, with their rifles choked with Flemish ooze . . . A tragedy of heroic endurance enacted in mud, and the British Press rang with praises of . . . the Commander-in-Chief!" 

A "highly placed officer from H.Q." on his first visit to the battle front burst into tears and cried; "Good God. did we really send men to fight in that?" — Lloyd George, War Memoirs, pp. 2208-11.

[From an article "What newspapers did not tell", Socialist Standard. January 1937.]

Promises (1987)

From the January 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Anyone's better than that bloody woman", is a phrase that is often heard. It will be used a lot more in the coming months with the prospect of a general election, where Thatcher's Conservative party will be seeking another five-year term to run British capitalism. The argument behind the disgust is that the Tories are largely responsible for the many problems people in this country are facing, and that, despite the many inadequacies of Labour and the Alliance, anything has to be an improvement on Thatcher.

All shades of political opinion will be asking people to cast negative' votes. Most of the so-called left-wing parties will be urging you to vote Labour — supposedly the mass party of the working-class' — despite the fact that they spend much of their time criticising the Labour Party. Some people in the Communist Party will call for a broad anti-Thatcher alliance, seeing Thatcherism as a new, worse form of Tory rule. The tactical voters, people who vote for someone they disagree with to keep out someone they dislike even more, will be out in force.

The argument works the other way as well. Thatcher and Tebbit will be issuing stern warnings about how the opposition will ruin the economy and leave the nation defenceless. Disillusioned Tory voters will be warned not to vote for the Alliance and let Labour in by the back door. The scare stories the government put out will be designed to focus attention away from their own numerous shortcomings.

Life for most people in the last seven-and-a-half years of Conservative rule has certainly been no bed of roses. Before she was elected in 1979. Thatcher made a big deal about the doubling of unemployment under the last Labour government. Pictures were distributed of a long queue outside a dole office with the caption. "Labour Isn't Working". The bitter irony is that unemployment hasn't doubled under the Tories — it's trebled. The frustration and anger people feel at the humiliation of the dole queue can only intensify when the government apparently shows no concern for their plight. The poverty of existing on a giro can only feel worse when ministers show righteous indignation at the supposed large number of social security scroungers.

More recently the Tories have been worried that their uncaring image may be losing them votes. Lord Young, the (un)employment secretary, has been told to make the right kind of noises about caring, and to present the various cheap labour schemes, like YTS. as being indicative of the government's concern. This real social security scrounger is obviously in a position and of the right social background to sympathise with someone getting £30 a week supplementary benefit.

The Thatcher government has made cuts in health and education and the number of new houses being built has been drastically reduced, despite the fact that thousands of people are homeless and thousands of building workers are unemployed. In view of the poverty workers endure, these cuts seem callous, although welfare can never eliminate the basic impoverishment of working-class life in capitalism

The Tories have passed several laws designed to weaken the trade unions. They have made it harder for workers to go on strike, and made the unions open to court action if they don't follow certain procedures for striking. They have also 'toughened up' the law and eroded many of the civil liberties that people 'enjoyed'.

Thatcher's 'Iron Lady' image, her projection as a strong leader, also worries many people, who fear her enthusiasm for nuclear weapons. Her support for the American bombing of Libya last year plus the Falklands War makes her seem a dangerous warmonger. She and her government are certainly maintaining the long tradition of conservatism by endorsing the slaughter of millions of workers in the interests of British capitalism.

The Conservatives have shown once again that they stand for the dominance of the privileged few, the small number of people who effectively own and control this country. It may seem tempting to vote for some other party just to get them out — until you consider the alternatives.

The main alternative is the Labour Party. Many people still see them as the party of the working people, a party out for a fairer society which will tackle the problems mentioned above. A brief look at what the Labour Party does when it is in power shows that they are no different to the Tories.

The Labour Party makes a great noise about the evils of unemployment and how it is going to get people back to work. At the 1983 election they claimed that they would cut the dole queues to under a million in five years. However, this was seen to be too wild and extravagant, so they now claim they will reduce unemployment by one million in two years. However, every previous Labour government has left office with a higher level of unemployment than it faced when it entered office. The claim that Labour is the party to tackle unemployment is a lie. The level may rise or fall but it is beyond the power of any government to affect it significantly.

Despite its current opposition to the cuts in services the last Labour government also introduced drastic cuts in the health and social services and in education. It was also willing to impose wage restraint and break strikes, hardly the actions of a party anxious to redistribute wealth and create a fairer society. Its current concern with tackling poverty can also be seen for the lie that it is.

It is important to contrast what Labour (or any other party) say when they are in opposition, hunting for votes, and when they are in power, having to act in the only way they can. in the interests of capital. The most obnoxious and deadly contradiction between what Labour says and does is in the sphere of war and peace.

The Labour Party claims that it is the party of peace, and has promised to get rid of nuclear weapons and rely on conventional forces. These so-called conventional weapons have been used in wars where millions have been killed, wars which the Labour Party supported. They are prepared, just like the Tories, to use armed might to protect the interests of capitalism, the usual reason why wars are fought.

Apart from the rhetoric there is no real difference between Labour and the Tories. The argument that you should vote for one rather than the other is untenable. The Liberal/SDP alliance claim to be a real alternative, or at least they try to present themselves as a nice bunch of people, much more decent than the rotten old parties. The leaders of the SDP were senior ministers in the last Labour government. a regime they only now find convenient to criticise. Their objection to the other parties cannot be very deeply felt as they are continually going on about the conditions necessary for entering into a coalition with them in a 'hung' parliament (where there is no overall majority, not the more attractive meaning).

The Liberals can present themselves as political virgins, uncorrupted by power. They have not been in office since the days when Lloyd George was Prime Minister and thousands of troops were being sent to their deaths in the trenches of World War One. From 1977-79 they kept the last Labour government in power. David Steel said they were doing it to prevent the worst excesses of Labour. These excesses obviously did not include the wage cuts imposed and the strikes broken by troops in this period.

Whether the politicians seeking your votes are really committed to changing things for the better, or whether they are just power-hungry careerists is really irrelevant. Once they get into power they have to administer the system in the only way it can be run — against the interests of the vast majority, the working-class. Capitalism is a system of society where the means of life are owned by a small minority, and the majority of people have to work for them in return for a wage or a salary. This basic class division means that workers have only a limited access to society's wealth, that their needs must constantly be denied in the interests of profit.

Attempts to work within the system to make things fairer, to reform away the problems people have, ignore this harsh reality. A society based on the exploitation of the majority can never work in the interests of that majority, no matter how caring or well-meaning the reformers might be. Unemployment, poverty, bad housing and all these other problems are inevitable in this system.

The fact that the main parties work within these limitations results in the narrow, limited political debate that currently prevails. So we are confronted with arguments about the level of unemployment, but not why — in a world of potential abundance — people are poor as a result of class division; and arguments about how best to defend a country, not why workers should be prepared to lay down their lives defending their masters' interests.

The only real alternative is the Socialist alternative, a world of common ownership and democratic control, where everything on and in the earth is used solely to satisfy human needs, where people take control of their own lives. Arguments about 'doing something now', about choosing the lesser of the evils on offer, serve only to delay the achievement of Socialism, to prolong the life of this miserable society.

To achieve Socialism, workers must understand and desire it. and reject the insulting nonsense put out by these other parties. We must decide to work and vote for something really worth having, and not get lost in the muddy waters of capitalist politics, sifting through the shit for something worth voting for. At the next election, you will, as always, be faced with two alternatives: voting for Capitalism or Socialism. Make your choice!

Ian Ratcliffe

Out of the mouths of . . . (1987)

From the January 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

  Doesn't it all begin to seem a little silly One moment these two great nations are deadly enemies, then they are all pally . . . and all the time the media pour out endless pictures of two tired old men in heavy overcoats. How many of these summits have there been now? Has there been any change in the insane level of armaments . . .  is the world a safer place to live in because of these summits?
   It is to the mutual benefit of both America and Russia to make sure that nothing changes. No one asked me if I wanted to be represented by dear old Ron. . . .  leaders of the free world' and 'socialist world'. As if they were really in any kind of conflict. Basically they need each other. So after a few days of Ronnie and Mikhail shaking hands and kissing each other on the cheeks they send home a few of the spies that they both know exist in order to stop the ice melting completely. They have to keep the game going. There are too many forces on both sides with powerful vested interests in ensuring that everything remains the same. . . .
  powerful Californian scientists and industrialists who are going to make sure that nothing really changes and no real agreement is reached. That is where real power is.
   History will see the two great power blocks coming closer and closer together to squeeze the rest of the world over dwindling economic resources. That is the true logic of the situation and the rest is just a game.

You could be excused for thinking that these are extracts from a letter to the Socialist Standard. In fact they are taken from "Summit for Nothing ", the editorial of About Town (10 November 1986), one of the weeklies distributed free at bus stops and tube stations. Their content consists of approximately 90 per cent job advertisements, with the remaining pages filled with fashion and film reviews, job features and What's On.

Usually I don't even bother to open the paper, so you can imagine my surprise on reading this evidence for our contention that socialist ideas will evolve out of the capitalist environment. Mind you, "evolve" is the relevant word because, after such a promising start, the end of the article shows an incomplete understanding of the workings of the system. The final sentence "Next time they play at having a summit, I just hope they do it in private" shows that Robert Elms objection is to the play-acting of the figureheads rather than a wish to do away with the system of whose economic basis he is aware.

Eva Goodman

Running Commentary: Beating the wife (1987)

The Running Commentary column from the January 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Beating the wife

It seems that domestic violence or wife beating is to become a priority concern for the Metropolitan Police. Hitherto they have not been noted for their sympathy towards the plight of women who approach them because they are being abused by their husbands. Generally they prefer "not to get involved" in disputes involving domestic violence — tacit endorsement, in fact, of the sanctity of the family and a husband's "right" to do what he likes with "his property" especially when the wife has, in the judgement of the police, contributed to the incident by causing aggravation to her husband through nagging.

Now there are demands for a change in the law to enable the police to bring prosecutions against husbands who beat up their wives. Up till now the woman herself had to prosecute the husband and, understandably, many women were reluctant or even scared to press charges. So is the new attitude on the part of the Met. an indication of a new, more enlightened attitude towards women?

Not if these remarks by Walter Easey, police advisor to the Association of London Labour Authorities, are anything to go by. He said: “It has been a puzzle why there has not been more movement in the past. Wife battering is often an indicator of serious problems with drinking or drugs". In other words it fits into an overall pattern of deviant behaviour which might be of more interest to the police than wife beating. But wife beating is also an indication of serious social and sexual problems that are not confined to a small minority of deviants but are typical of a sick society. And neither changes in the law and policing policy, nor more prosecutions against men who beat up their wives will cure it.

Look at it this way, Sid

As is well known to everyone who cooks on a gas stove, privatisation is now the name of the game. Another might be How to Win The Next Election. For the Tories are obviously hoping that every applicant for shares in concerns like British Gas will believe the publicity which tells them that they can be a capitalist for £150. The Tories hope that this will be enough to so change their ideas about class society that they will stop voting for capitalism to be run by the Labour Party and start voting for it to be run by the Tories.

Of course if the shares' price goes up anyone who has bought them will be able to make some profit by selling them quickly; whatever they make will probably come in handy to pay the next gas bill or to clear up some other debt. That is how the working class live. On the other hand investment — the sinking of capital into an industry, buying land, materials, machinery, buildings, labour power in order to make profit — is the exclusive function of the capitalist class. They monopolise the means of wealth production and distribution and their position allows them to exploit the workers whose labour power they buy.

The workers live by the sale of their labour power and their position is unchanged by temporary and insignificant variations in their income. Having money in the bank, winning a few pounds in the betting shop, selling some shares for more than they cost, all help to stretch the pay packet for a few workers but do not lessen their reliance on it. None of this changes how we get our living, our class position under capitalism, where our economic interests lie. It does not. in other words, remove the need to get up in the morning and go to work, to submit ourselves to the exploitation process.

Meanwhile, it is worth asking one important, but neglected, question. British Gas was a nationalised concern and we have always been told that nationalisation was public ownership — ownership by us. How then can we buy something which we already own? The answer is simple and also neglected. We didn't own it in the first place. Nationalisation. with its claim to give us all a stake in industry, was as much a confidence trick as privatisation is now.

Surely even Sid is not so daft that he can't see that?

Crime going up

Although its practitioners never produce any figures of profit or loss, crime is still, amid the recession, a growth industry. For England and Wales, 1985 was a boom year for crime: more offences were committed than ever before. The figure recorded by the police — 3.6 million offences — was a three per cent rise on 1984.

Some of the biggest increase was in sexual offences, statistics for which are notoriously prey to subjective influences. Rape, for example, went up by 29 per cent but this did not mean that nearly a third more women were being raped in 1985, rather that some changes in police practice resulted in more of the cases which were reported to them being recorded as rape. (What did these "changes" amount to? Presumably some women once came to the police station after being raped only to find the incident regarded as something less horrible).

The same might be said for some of the figures for violence against the person, some people, in some circumstances, would not dream of going to the police after being assaulted whereas other people would; all manner of factors can influence the decision either way.

But whatever allowance we make, however the statistics are weighted, it seems clear that the social disfigurement which is crime continues to flourish. This is happening after more than seven years of a Tory government who assured us. when they came back to power in 1979, that they had the answer to the problem. It was, apparently, a matter of more police — higher pay for them — and tougher punishment for the criminals — short, sharp shocks for the youngsters, longer stretches behind bars for the adults. Well there are more police but they are clearing up proportionately less crime now than when the Tories came to power — 35 per cent in 1985 as against 42 per cent in 1978.

Is there, then, no answer to crime? (we are referring, of course, to the illegal sort, not the offences which the capitalist system constantly commits on the majority of the human race and which are legally sanctioned as essential to this society's stability). Reformers, including those who want hanging and flogging, treat the problem in isolation from the social situation which gives rise to it. This is a society of private property and property is not just possession: it is also the denial of possession to others who, in some circumstances, will try to penetrate that denial through force or subterfuge. Poverty and all it means — stress, hunger, slums, a sub-standard existence — breeds frustration, and relief is often seen in terms of "get-rich-quick". The worker on the factory production line dreams of winning the pools; the criminal of the big, once-for-all, haul.

Whatever the Tories, or any government, may do will not affect the cause of crime. For that we must look a long way beyond the promises, if we are to have a society of harmony, a world safe to be alive in.

The Only Way. (1921)

From the January 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

A deputation of a few London mayors headed a procession of unemployed to Downing Street, with the object of interviewing the Welsh wizard, to whom they look to solve the unemployed problem.

Somehow, the futility of it did not penetrate the skulls of even the mayors! If Lloyd George or the Cabinet were to solve the question, there would ho no further need for either him or his fellow agents.

Workers, you must realise that unemployment is a necessary prop to the capitalist system; therefore to abolish the evil of “out of work” it is necessary to overthrow the cause of its existence—it cannot be done otherwise.

The members of the Socialist Party know the futility of processions, demonstrations, and other such means the Workers employ. They also know that the political power which the working class give the master class by their votes, enables the latter to confront the former with armed force, and until the control of that armed force is wrested from the capitalists the unemployed and the working class as a whole might as well try punching a brick wall.

The only way in which the emancipation of the working class can be achieved is by studying the Socialist position, organising class-consciously inside the Socialist Party with the object of overthrowing the capitalist system. There is NO other way, and it cannot too often be re-iterated.

Don’t waste time running your heads against police batons: the cost of repairing a cracked skull would be sufficient to purchase all the literature necessary for your enlightenment.

W. A. G.

The Waste of War (1918)

From the February 1918 issue of the Socialist Standard

A point often overlooked by the man-in-the-street is the connection of war with waste. A list of figures covering the cost of the war day by day conveys little to the layman's mind. Parliamentarians give you these statistics freely, that you may be beguiled into sacrificing your mite on the altar of War. Not that the combined savings of all the working class would maintain the war for a single day, but it tends to instil into their minds the illusion that they are doing something for "their country.”

War is absolute waste of men, material, and brain power. The question is not concerned with any supposed “rights.” The fact is—just allow this point to sink into your mind—war is absolute waste.

Since August 1914 practically all advances in science have been in connection with war. Eminent men have devoted their faculties to the solving of the problem of defeating the submarine menace. Others have given their time and energies to the production of new chemical compounds for the greater slaughter of the “enemy.” Inventors concentrate upon means of destruction. A huge man-of-war, involving the labour of thousands of men and women for many months, is sunk in a few minutes. A gun of large calibre, again the product of months of toil, reaches the slaughter-ground, and a shell from the “enemy” reduces it to scrap-iron. And so with all the material produced for war.

And then the men. Men covering every branch of science have been sacrificed. Torn from their laboratories and studies, they have been thrown into the Army like so much meat a sausage machine. And in addition the finest men of half the world, the very flower of every advanced race under the sun, are flung like so much garbage into the pit, from which few indeed will come out as sound in mind and body as they were when their masters claimed them to be wasted in the war for commercial supremacy.

Only by one method can you eliminate this tragic waste. That method is by realising your position as wage-slaves and emancipating yourselves therefrom. The science of Socialism will teach you how to do this. Read our literature. Ask us questions on any point you do not agree with or do not understand. We are ever willing, nay, eager, to assist our fellow workers--men and women—along the road to liberty.

Harry Grattan

Strikes Better than Arbitration (1968)

Party News from the December 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

A member of the Socialist Party of New Zealand, our comrade Ron Everson, sends us the following report on recent industrial unrest in that country:

On 17 June for the first time in twenty-seven years the Arbitration Court refused a general wage order application. The unions had sought increases of up to 7.6 per cent to compensate for cost-of-living increases following devaluation and the imposition of restrictive economic measures by the government.

The decision amazed even some employers who were prepared to give their workers a five per cent increase and some had already adjusted their prices in anticipation. The decision of course roused the ire of the workers. Widespread interest was taken in trade union activities; erstwhile apathetic union members attended work stop meetings and demonstrations. On the day of the State opening of parliament on 26 June trade unionists staged a demonstration. They were supported by students with placards pledging support for the workers and demanding bigger bursaries, by the Campaign Against Rising Prices, the Maori organisation for Human Rights and the CND. The demonstrators forced an unprecedented change in the State opening of parliament by Governor General Sir Arthur Porritt. Never before had a Governor General entered parliament for the State opening other than by the main entrance. On this occasion poor Sir Arthur had to sneak in by a side door.

Demands were made for the abolition of the Arbitration Court. Delegates to the Federation of Labour conference were in favour of ignoring the Court. It seems this, the strikes and industrial unrest that followed frightened the employers into agreeing to go back to the Court for a rehearing. As a result the Court made a wage order of a five per cent increase restricted to the first $40 earned by men, the first $30 by women and the first $25 by junior workers. Whether the nil order was the outcome of the inexperience of the new Judge of the Court, Blair, or the employers’ contempt for the workers’ will to fight is anyone’s guess.

However, the outcome was an illustration of the passage in the Socialist Party of Great Britain’s pamphlet Questions of the Day:

   “In practice arbitration bodies exist for the purpose of preventing industrial disputes from taking the form of stoppages of work, and their awards on wage claims are bound to be influenced by the attitude of the workers. If workers were to abandon all idea of strikes the employers and the arbitration bodies alike would reduce still further the amounts they were prepared to offer. The strike remains the workers' indispensable weapon".

Need we say that on the day of the march on parliament among the forest of banners there was not one advocating the “abolition of the wages system”. When workers in sufficient numbers reach that degree of understanding an effort to fob them off with a few miserable cents of a wage increase will only raise a laugh. It is a sad fact that now a few cents flung in their direction can take the fight out of workers.

While they lack knowledge of the nature of wages, and the wages system, they will be forced to engage in these never-ending struggles which merely maintain their subject position as wage-slaves.

Meanwhile the July issue of the New Zealand Building Worker,' official journal of the Carpenters and Related Trades’ Industrial Union of Workers, reprints our leaflet on devaluation (also an issue in New Zealand as the government there followed Britain), an article from this journal on the IWW and one from The Western Socialist on the materialist conception of history.

Ron Everson

Brewers & Preachers (1968)

From the December 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

The pro-and anti-Sunday drinking referendum that has recently taken place in Wales has been fought, on the one hand, under the guise of democracy and the freedom of the individual and. on the other, as a struggle to maintain a tradition in the face of a decline in standards and morals. One was an attempt by the brewers and those who, consciously or otherwise, supported them to change existing social habits, and the other an attempt by religious organisations (mainly Nonconformist) to maintain a way of life that has been peculiar to Wales for generations.

The sponsors of Sunday opening were without doubt headed by the brewery interests and other allied organisations. One found strange members in their camp — even religious people who claim to be supporters not only because of the 'freedom’ involved but because they could not find any scriptural command in the list of “Thou Shalt Nots" which was anti-drink. The Rev. Cannon R. Williams of Haverford West (the Brewers’ Chaplain) was a case in point. The public hoarding adverts and nation-wide door-to-door distribution of pamphlets must have cost the brewers a fortune — a fortune they hope to recoup in the years ahead.

Another reverend spokesman stated in the Western Mail that “the nation that loses its Sunday loses its soul”. But it is only fair to say that other, non-religious organisation have added their weight against the Sunday extension, for instance. National Life-Line (a movement similar to the Good Samaritans though primarily confined to industry) stated:

  Alcoholism is costing industry £75 millions annually . . . 250,000 men failed to turn up for work because of that ‘Monday morning feeling’.

Well, what is to the advantage of the brewing industy can be to the disadvantage of other industrialists—that’s capitalism.

It is indeed a comment on democracy in Britain that it grants ten minutes broadcasting time to the “Communist” Party, five minutes to the Welsh Nationalists and none whatsoever to the Socialist Party of Great Britain in Wales, but can spend a huge sum of money to build up a national campaign, including television and sound broadcasts, on the benefits of a Sunday pint of beer.

W. Brain

Science and Race (1968)

Book Review from the December 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Science and the Concept of Race, Margaret Mead, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Ethel Tohach, Robert E. Light. Editors. (Columbia University Press, $6.50)

About one third of this book is for the specialist; the remainder an absorbing discussion of one of society’s big problems. Not a one-sided discussion, either; Dwight J. Ingle writes

    . . . both types of racists seek to place individuals in schools, jobs, and housing on the basis of racial identity rather than of abilities, interests, drives, and behavioral standard.

Both types of racists! But even this determined bending over backwards does no more than suggest that there might be the very tiniest mouse of evidence in favour of racism—and that after all the mountains of prejudice which have been probed to find it.

Gloria Marshall makes the crucial point, that racial classification is usually taken as the starting point for an investigation of that very classification. In other words, assume that a Negro is different and then look into his differences. In other words, a case of heads I win and tails you lose.


The pity of it is that such knowledge, such discussion, does not penetrate into the council estates and the suburbs, where racism flourishes in so many forms. This can be fought only with knowledge; Science and the Concept of Race, with its up-to- date review of scientific thinking on the subject, is a sound introduction for anyone wanting to understand and attack this most pernicious of theories. It also has a comprehensive list of references for further study.

Ivan

Marxism and Communism (1968)

Book Review from the December 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marxism and Communism by Katharine Savage (Bodley Head 25s.)

Katharine Savage specialises in books for young people. Her latest is a skilfil mixture of ignorance and confusion and will probably sell very well.

John Crump

Catholics and Protestants in Ireland (1968)

From the December 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

July 1, 1690, (Old Calendar) was a major turning point in Irish history. The defeat of the catholic King James confirmed William of Orange as the new King of England and Ireland and consequently as head of the Protestant Church. The centuries which followed witnessed the suppression of catholics by the imposition of penal laws. The old aristocrats had their lands confiscated and were replaced by a new Loyalist aristocracy. The new privileged class re-let their lands to the peasants and. as the years passed, raised the rents to enormous heights. The landlords lived then in ostentatious luxury spending most of their time gambling, drinking and entertaining their fellow aristocrats in England, all from the proceeds of rack-rents.

These circumstances imposed a hard and unstable existence on the catholic peasant majority evoking their hatred of the parasitical protestant landlords. After the Catholic Emancipation of 1829 the Irish went through the greatest horror in their history—the so-called Famine of the 1840’s. The population was devastated and today is still little more than half of what it then was. The catholics strongly felt that famine had been imposed and exacerbated by a foreign, protestant government.

Then in 1916 the Easter Rising took place. The executions which followed sparked off the Anglo-Irish war, bringing Ireland to the attention of the world. Again the Irish felt they were victims of a crime against humanity—the introduction into Ireland of the Black and Tans, gangs of trigger-happy layabouts in British uniform. In the end the British government agreed to grant a mild form of nationhood to twenty-six countries, but a parliament subordinate to Westminster to the portion of Ireland where protestants were a majority. The actions of a handful of protestant politicians, who pressurised the British government into splitting Ireland in two, once again brought the religious issue into Irish politics. Giving a portion of Ulster a political divorce from the rest of Ireland was one of the causes of the cold blooded and bitter civil war.

This very brief outline of Irish history is essential to an understanding of how religious belligerence arose. The protestant minority have not been the victims of terror by “the papists" in the Irish Republic despite their fears in 1921. On the other hand, this ridiculous religious belligerence still exists in Northern Ireland where the catholic minority are subjected to various forms of discrimination.

Both religions, catholic and protestant, claim to be Christian. Today we hear their leaders crying out for peace throughout the world; they beg the rich to be charitable to the poor; their tongues are blistered denouncing socialists. Yet they stand firmly rooted in the society which causes and perpetuates war and poverty.

Religion, to the Irish catholic, is man's first and most important duty. They feel that the road to god is the road to happiness. They are thus led to accept present conditions and to look forward to happiness after death. They fail to see that they, like men in other religions, have a common bond—they are members of the working class. Religion to them is like heroin injected into their veins. It mixes with the blood and sinks their minds into a state in which they can no longer think for themselves. It is this which leads them willingly to submit to their energies being used for the benefit of a few parasites. They are unable to see that this oppression helps perpetuate their exploitation, the sale of their labour-power for a minimum of its produce. The consequent degradation, and the insecure existence, always with the fear of what may happen should their ability to work be maimed, encourages a belief in a better existence after death, just as primitive man’s struggle with nature gave rise to beliefs in gods, devils, demons, food-laden paradises and all sorts of unrealistic fantasies.

Only by a close examination of society can the worker learn the reason for his poverty and only after casting aside all forms of addiction—nationalist and religious—can society be examined in a clear manner. Only by learning where his true interest lies can the worker go out, organise consciously and take the proper steps to end his subservience; Religion is of no use here. It is in fact a hindrance, a serious and a malicious hindrance.

All the workers of Ireland should end their addictions. They suffer the same conditions as the workers in England. Russia and everywhere. Their split into different factions of a similar dream will have to go. It is sad to see our fellow workers fighting amongst themselves over opposed beliefs in some form of nothingness, with the catholics shouting about partition and the protestants about 1690 and the Inquisition. They mistakenly believe their degradation to be inflicted upon them because of their different beliefs, one faction agitating the other. The catholic workers are unable to see through the nebulousness of their religion while the protestant workers allow themselves to be used as instruments of hypocritical Unionist parasites who want the link with Britain in order to make more money. The catholics swoon over their history while the Orangemen denounce the tyranny of the papacy at the height of its power.

The solution to the problems of workers in all Ireland will not come by conversion of one faction to the other, but by uniting with each other and with their fellow workers of the world. Then, when the workers are united their energies can be turned to the real conflict—that between capitalists and workers, not between workers with different national and religious tags. However the workers must, in the first instance, reject all the drugs, nationalist and religious, which lead them into willing submission to the capitalist class.

Patrick Garvey

The International Oil Scramble (1968)

From the December 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

The modern oil industry has seen many changes since the first successful well was drilled in Pennsylvania in 1859. At first the main application of oil was as a fuel for lamps. Now it has many more uses. Its distillates provide the fuels and lubricants for various types of internal combustion engines powering the means of transport on land, sea and air. It can be used as a substitute for coal as boiler fuel and as a raw material for the chemical industry. For all the changes the oil industry is still beset by the contradictions resulting from the capitalist mode of production. The leading producers operate on a world wide scale but are hampered by the nationalism of the countries they operate in. The extraction, refining and distribution of oil needs a vast social effort; yet a motley host of parasites make a fine living from it, through private property rights. As in all capitalist industry costs are cut to the bone; yet the waste that characterises the system is not eliminated.

America is still the leading national producer, but its market has expanded so much that it is also the leading importer. The early years were characterised by cut throat competition among the many producers. As the landowner has the mineral rights, an oil field can have as many producers as there owners over it. This is one aspect of waste that goes beyond duplication of effort, in that an excessive number of wells in an oil field reduces the amount recoverable from that source. In spite of the many different producers the American industry was soon dominated by Standard Oil. founded by Rockefeller in 1870, who within a few years controlled approximately 80 per cent of refinery capacity, 90 per cent of the pipelines and had large interests in railway tankcars. Hence the producers had to dance to the tune called by this firm. Standard became the dominating oil interest in the world. In 1911 it was broken into 30 companies under American anti-trust law. One of them, Standard of New Jersey (ESSO), is still the world’s largest oil company.

A number of oil fields outside America were developed before 1918. The most important was in the Baku region of Russia, which was controlled by the Nobel brothers of Sweden (of dynamite and peace prize fame). German interests had important investments in the Rumanian oil fields. They also had a share in the Turkish Petroleum Co. (now Iraq Petroleum Co.), in partnership with British interests and Gulbenkian (Mr. 5 per cent). In 1908 important deposits were found in Persia by the Anglo-Persian Co. (later Anglo-Iranian, now B.P.) and the Abadan refinery set up in 1913. The British Admiralty in 1914 switched their warships from coal to oil fuel, and also obtained a controlling interest in the firm. The main challenge to Standard Oil during this period came from the Royal Dutch Company. Operating from Sumatra, they were well placed to undercut the Americans in the important Chinese market for lamp oil. Shell was another competitor. They distributed Russian oil and cut transport costs by introducing tanker ships. In 1907 these two firms merged and five years later had carried their challenge into Standard's home territory by setting up subsidiaries in America.

The first world-war showed the importance of oil as a strategic material. The defeat of Germany resulted in the confiscation of its oil interests, France taking over its share in Turkey. In Russia the oil fields were taken over by the state. With increasing demand competition intensified in the scramble to gain control of new sources. The main contestants were Britain and America who clashed wherever there was oil to be found. American interests were excluded from the Middle-East till 1928 when they gained a share in IPC. They were later to gain concessions in Saudi Arabia and other parts of the region. The interwar period saw Venezuela. Iran and Iraq became important producers.

The development of such synthetic materials as nylon, plastics and artificial rubber during the second world war gave rise to the petro-chemical industry and important new markets for oil. The growth of air transport, the replacing of steam by diesel traction on the railways and the increasing number of motor can, have also been factors in the continuing growth of the oil market in recent years. The main outlets are still in the industrialised areas while relatively underdeveloped regions have become increasingly important producers. This has led to conflicts over royalties, taxes and concession agreements between oil companies and governments in whose territories they are operating. One showdown came between the Anglo-Iranian Co. and the Iranian government which resulted in nationalisation of the firm’s assets. The British government replied by successfully placing an embargo on oil from Iran. Output was increased elsewhere, including areas operated by Anglo-Iranian, while the Iranian government had assets yielding less income in two years than a single day’s royalty had done before. In 1954 a new agreement was signed in which the eight leading oil companies formed a consortium to run production for a half share of the profits. Those who controlled the marketing end of the industry still called the tune.

The struggle between the various capitalist sectional interests over the division of the spoils continues. It mainly consists of haggling over royalties and concessions. At times of stress such as the Suez war or the more recent Arab-Israel war, pipelines have been blown up, supplies cut, or the Suez canal blocked. As a result some other sources have expanded output to take up the slack. Having found that individual action unsatisfactory, governments of the producing countries have set up the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to take joint action. In fact they are only doing what the international companies have long been accused of. Vast fortunes have been made in recent years by the rulers of the oil producing lands. More than enough for luxurious living so that they still have large funds to invest. Places such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela are pressing ahead with industrialisation projects. Large sums have also been invested in armaments. Iraq and Saudi Arabia are examples; each nation has territorial claims on neighbouring Sheikhdoms.

In recent years Italy, Japan, Spain and France have been trying to get or increase their stakes in the oil producing areas, thus adding to the chaos that already exists. State-capitalist Russia has recently produced more oil than it needs and has captured some important export markets. It is estimated that demand for oil in Russia will expand so much that they too are on the look-out for outside sources of supply. At present about 60 per cent of the proven oil reserves are in the Middle-East, yet efforts to discover other reserves arc being made throughout the world. In a situation where there is a problem of oversupply, this may seem crazy. Yet under capitalism with its conflict of interests, it makes sense to be crazy. In the case of oil. consuming, marketing, and producing interests vie against one another in an orgy of waste.

The oil industry presents a fine example of the confusion that can arise from the conflicts of capitalism. Workers get caught in the mythologies of imperialism. Hence the idea that the international oil companies have simply to be ousted from the Middle East, to hasten the end of capitalism. Its opposite is that they must stay there to defend our standard of living. Russia is a case where foreign interests have been replaced by local ones, yet the differences are only superficial. A minority still dominate society and conflicts over the terms of trade remain. Neighbouring satellite countries pay more for oil from Russia, than the same product will fetch on the open market. As for living standards, the majority have to put up with working class standards, which are well below those of the capitalists—the Gulbenkians. the Rockefellers, the oil sheiks.

Joe Carter