Prices since the 1200s (1969)

Book Review from the August 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Cost of Living in Seven Centuries (A History of the Cost of Living) by John Burnett (Pelican, 8s.)

There are two kinds of half-truth letters which will always find a place in the correspondence columns of certain newspapers. One is from readers who recall how low prices were when they were young. A Sunday newspaper in June 1969 published a letter quoting old grocery prices, and ending “we certainly did not know how well off we were in 1915". The other is from readers who draw attention to the smallness of the wages received by their fathers and grandfathers. So we have the conflicting beliefs in the ‘good old days’ and the ‘bad old days’. John Burnett, reader in economics and social history at Brunei University, brings together a large amount of detailed information to show not only what people paid in past centuries but what was the income of different social groups, how they lived, and what was their standard of living.

He deals with the big movements of prices and how these movements, along with other changes, affected the different classes. For example, the rise of prices in the 14th century, accompanied however by the labour scarcity after the Black Death of 1349 which led to a rise in wages and “placed the labourer, perhaps for the first time in English history in a strong bargaining position". On the other hand, the second half of the 17th century saw the opposite situation—rising prices and lagging wages causing a drastic fall in living standards.

Burnett stresses the difficulty of obtaining enough representative statistics about prices in earlier centuries and warns the reader against expecting a greater degree of accuracy than the information warrants. He reproduces two indices, one by Prof. Guy Routh covering the years 1906 to 1960, the other by Prof Phelps Brown 1906 to 1954, and a graph summarising price changes of consumer goods in Southern England from 1264 to 1954.

He comments on the general long-period agreement between the two indices but might well have used their non-agreement in the war years 1938 to 1945 to illustrate the way in which—in certain circumstances—indices, accurate enough for their defined purpose, can diverge if they cover some different articles and if the articles excluded from one index are rising (or falling) in price at an abnormal rate.

For the years 1938 to 1945 the Routh Index shows a rise of 47½ per cent, while the Phelps Brown index shows 79 per cent Two other indices (Ministry of Labour and London and Cambridge Economic Service) show 30 per cent and 49 per cent respectively.

One of the major reasons for war-time divergence was that it was Government policy to use subsidies to keep down the prices of articles which were heavily represented in the Ministry of Labour Index.

Burnett might also have warned the reader against the still widespread belief that the larger the number of articles covered by a price index the higher the price rise it will show. It all depends on whether all prices are rising at much the same rate or whether some are rising faster than others. If all prices rise by a uniform 5 per cent in a given period it does not matter whether an index contains 10 articles on a 100 or only one: the answer will still be 5 per cent.

Complaints were often made that the official index in past years gave greater weight to certain articles than was warranted by the relative amounts spent by certain social groups. It was sometimes forgotten that this can work both ways. When civil servants had their pay automatically regulated by the cost of living index they were the losers when food prices were falling fast because food was overweighted in the index, but equally they were the gainers when food prices were rising faster than other articles.

On a number of aspects of price and income movements Burnett has been able to extend the range of his information beyond what was known to earlier writers. One such aspect was the decline of the fortunes of the aristocracy because of rising prices between 1540 and 1640. The traditional view of this was, he writes, “derived ultimately from the economic interpretation of history of Marx and Engels, modernised and qualified by R. H. Tawney and Lawrence Stone” and he now argues that the decline was less general than has been assumed.

About the date at which money was gradually coming into general use his views do not appear to differ from earlier ones. He writes: “That money was in regular, if limited, use on 13th century Manors is certain”. Townsend Warner, writing in 1899, said that money payments on the Manor “begin to be common in England in the early years of the 13th century” (Landmarks of English Industrial History). Of course both writers agree that money was in use centuries earlier among traders and merchants and in the big towns generally.

About the causes of the price rises in recent years Burnett is not satisfactory. He offers a sort of explanation but it is difficult even to understand what it means. It starts with the statement that “one of the main influences on prices must be the pressure of demand” but later on goes on to say “The pressure of demand, it seems, has had little direct affect on prices, but it does have direct effect on earnings which then lead to price increases by the process known as ’cost-push’: price increases then lead to renewed wage-increases by a process of ’cost-of-living push’. In popular language this is the wages and prices spiral”

So we are asked to believe (in direct contradiction to the facts) that sellers of goods do not put up their prices in response to increased ’pressure of demand’ but only because and after wages have gone up. So price increases are due to the workers’ ‘demands’; but why then did prices rise twice as much in Britain as in Switzerland and the U.S.A. in the 20 years to 1968 ? And why did not Burnett offer the same kind of explanation for movements of prices and wages in earlier periods ?

What he entirely ignores here is the effect of currency depreciation as the biggest single factor of the price rise. It is strange that he overlooks this on p315 for he is aware of it on p11 and elsewhere. On p315 he offers his explanation, not directly as his own conclusion, but as what “most economists would accept”; but on p4 he puts forwards a view which nearly all the economists he refers to would completely repudiate. They reject the view of earlier economists, including Marx, that there is a direct relationship between the amount of inconvertible paper money and the price level, but on p11 Burnett appears to accept this as he states that ’’prices are determined by the ratio between the supply of and the demand for money: the supply of money is the currency in circulation . . .”

It is a pity Burnett allowed the confusion of modern monetary theory to divert him from his earlier view.

Edgar Hardcastle

What is obscenity (1971)

From the August 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Lord Longford,

On learning that you wish to investigate the pornographic and the obscene in our society, might we respectfully suggest some relevant fields of enquiry? So far you have only apparently investigated the obscene in relation to art and entertainment, such as books, films, plays and peep-shows.

This however is too superficial an approach! The Soho growth industries are merely a pimple on the very warty nose of an extremely nasty way of life.

Is it not obscene that millions of men and women have no roof over their heads and with their children have to queue in refugee camps for a bowlful of stodgy rice? This is obscenity.

Is it not also obscene that one class of men lives in poverty and misery, whilst producing all the wealth owned by that other class, the class of affluent parasites? This, too, is obscenity.

Is it not also obscene that in every country the wealth spent on armies and police, with all their inhuman paraphernalia of napalm and H-bombs, gases and coshes, that this wealth is produced by the very class of people who will find these weapons turned against them ? This surely is obscenity.

Is it not also obscene that this once beautiful world in which we live is being so polluted in pursuit of quick profits that society now has to pay the polluting class to make profits from de-polluting the places they themselves have polluted? This paradox too is obscenity.

Is it not an appalling and filthy obscenity that man throws food into the sea rather than give it to his starving and impoverished fellows? This, Lord Longford, is obscenity.

Poverty is obscene: will you investigate this?

War is obscene: will you investigate that ?

Capitalism’s sordid cheating, squalid exploitation and phony values are all obscene: will you investigate them?

Capitalist society is an obscene and filthy thing: it has been investigated. Will you join us in destroying it, Lord Longford, or will you continue to damn the effects while defending the cause ?

Charmian Skelton

Jesus Christ! (1972)

From the August 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Saturday, while standing by Queen Victoria pointing with her sceptre in the customary direction, I witnessed a disturbing spectacle. A Salvation Army band was marching round the statue playing Onward Christian Soldiers while the latter indulged in cries of “Jesus” and “Hallelujah”.

No, it wasn’t the Black and White Minstrels. It was the so-called Hull and East Riding Festival of Light aiming to promote love, purity and family life. About 250 people attended which must have disappointed the organisers who expected a growing movement following the London version. Most of the crowd were young and somewhat hairy in contrast to a later meeting in which the middle aged and self-styled middle class sang hymns and loved each other with cold, aloof, even frigid passion.

The well rehearsed vocal responses of the younger section suggested that they might have been imported by coach from various communes of Jesus People to make up the numbers. The citizens of Hull were no doubt engaged in such selfish pursuits as scouring the market to spread out their dole and Social Security money or cleaning up the fallen ceilings of their slums. They might even have been making love!

The reader will probably have noticed many parallels between the Salvation Army and their political counterparts, the Socialist Labour League. But some other interesting comparisons suggest themselves. The Jesus Freaks who demand the Jesus revolution now are surely none other than the elusive third wing of the Situationists.

From a distance the ritual spelling out of “Jesus” (Give us a J! etc.) and “Who’s alive?. . Jesus!” gave one the impression that the childishly intended and executed swastikas on the festival’s posters were not so inappropriate after all. In contrast, something analagous to political vanguardism also seemed to be present in the march behind the band and the great crusade for liberty fearlessly waged by Mrs. Whitehouse and her small but dedicated élite of television addicts who know what’s best for us better than we know ourselves.

A petition was available aimed at forcing the government to put through the transitional demands of television censorship and book burning. At the evening meeting the well known right wing Tory Patrick Wall M.P. spoke in support. A socialist asked if questions were permitted, to put other points of view. On being told that the people had only come to hear the speakers, several opponents left the meeting pursued by an embarrassed and apologetic methodist.

But the Festival’s supporters had the last word from the top of the City Hall steps. Our friends who did not have their questions answered have the consolation of knowing that they will be prayed for. Meanwhile Mrs. Whitehouse spoke of the enemy within and forces working for the overthrow of our society; and some Labour M.P.s sent their support for the Festival.

Consider love, purity and family life. “Love” is simple enough, being a feeling of general benevolence for everybody but especially one’s enemies. Any physical relationship must remain in strict bureaucratic limits. The Jesus Communes hold everything in common except each other.

“Purity” means that certain biological facts can be mentioned while others cannot, especially when children are waiting around to be corrupted or frightened out of their wits. When Christians advocate family life they are at their most naive. Can they say that the family structure of western civilisation, or that of 2,000 years ago from which their dogmatic rules which control it derive, are in all or even most cases satisfactory?

Of course a “perfect” family life with unbounded happiness would be great as would "perfect” feudalism or “perfect” slavery. They say that failures and stresses in family life are due to the faults of people; their ungodliness; their lustful desires and their failure to appreciate the fact that family life must be the best possible system because that is what it says in the bible.

The usual reasoning prevails of accepting the dogma and twisting the facts to fit it, just as much now in this mini-revival as in the ancient Catholic church which fiddled a second marriage for Joseph to explain away Jesus’s brothers while preserving Mary’s virginity for her crowning in heaven.

And it is this attitude that makes nonsense of the Jesus People’s claim to be a revolutionary force. True, they claim to be for democratic action. Two of their banners showed ballot papers with the choice: Jesus—Satan and Porno—Purity. The communes are just self multiplying bisexual monasteries with regular biblical readings and rhythmical incantations.

An organisation which bases itself on divine revelation can hardly be expected to be able to analyse the modern system and thereby find serious ways to change it. However, the movement is not catching on; if it did, it would be one more force against the free thought and free discussion and the build up of revolutionary consciousness.

ALF.

So They Say: For Ever England (1973)

The So They Say Column from the August 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

For Ever England

The petrol companies have agreed to stop competing with “free gifts" to customers: no more soup-bowls, Famous Paintings, one-size tights, or the sets of imitation medallions which looked like becoming the successors to cigarette cards.

Texaco’s series of reproduction Army badges is therefore the last of its kind, and it is almost worth the 25p for the album to find a cat let out of the bag in an unexpected place. “Great British Regiments” has an introduction by Lieut.-General Sir Brian Horrocks, and he says:

  In my opinion, however, their greatest contribution to the British Empire which is rarely mentioned has been the protection they have given to our indomitable British merchants who, in search of fresh markets, spread our influence all over the world. For some this has involved spending many years in distant garrisons where their casualties from disease were often far greater than those suffered in active service.

Young collectors may find that enlightening. They should remember it when they are being told the Army is there to defend freedom and combat oppression, and dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.


If Things Don't Alter . . .

Sir Geoffrey Howe, Minister for Consumer Affairs, has been trying to impress with a muscular posture. On the front of the Observer on 24th June, under the headline “Minister’s Warning on Profits”, it was reported that he had

  yesterday warned businessmen that they would be wise to remember that if they were making good profits the Price Commission could compel them to reduce their prices.

The same issue of the Observer shows, elsewhere, plenty of scope for Sir Geoffrey. On page II Weston Pharmaceuticals, who have 197 retail branches, reported that their profits rose from £459,070 in 1972 to £1,872,586 this year. The dividend was 27.3 per cent., and the “earnings” per share went up from 5.6p to to 8.1p. On page 13 Lead Industries Group Ltd. state an increase in profit before tax from £6,585,000 in 1971 to £7,040,000 in 1972, and in gross dividends from 11.5 per cent, to 12.075 per cent.

Both these companies appear to be making “good profits”. Are they alarmed by Sir Geoffrey’s warning? The annual report of Lead Industries Group says:

   There must inevitably be uncertainties as to the effects on profitability of the Governments’ anti-inflation policy and fluctuating currencies, nevertheless the present picture is a cheerful one overall and prospects for the current year look good.

In other words, they are “being wise” — and expect to go on doing well.


. . . they'll Stay as They are.

The strongest uncertainties, in fact, appear to be Sir Geoffrey Howe’s — as to what is going to happen anyway. The report of his speech ends:

  He quoted the view of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research that commodity prices would fall back from their recent high levels . . .  if the national institute was right, he said, ‘we can certainly expect a significant reduction, in the months ahead, in the pace of inflation that has beset us all’.

This recalls the classic headline-question: Did She Fall Or Was She Pushed? What the Minister says, summarized, is that he could try to make prices come down, but if they do it will be of their own accord.

The inability of governments to control the economic working of capitalism could hardly be demonstrated more clearly. While Sir Geoffrey waits for the answer, anyone with £25,000 can try phoning Bevington Lowndes Ltd. (20 lines, 24-hour service) — who, in the Sunday Times the same day, were advertising “the lifelong investment that beats inflation”. That sum will bring you £2,500 a year tax-free, and to heck with the Price Commission.


Into Europe

We recently reproduced an item from The London Property Letter, which tells its subscribers how to play the regulations and exploit the housing situation. Its publishers, Stonehart Publications Ltd., are now launching The European Property Letter, again with Robert Troop of the Sunday Times as editor. The annual subscription is £25.

The introductory leaflet is headed 1975: The Year of the Property Gold-Rush, and begins:

  Over these past months British property companies have taken a quickening interest in Europe. Samuel Properties spent £8,000,000 on an office block in Frankfurt. Abbey Life £7,500,000 on one in Brussels. This is clearly the right moment for UK investors, large and small, to begin exploring the EEC — not simply because Britain has now joined, but because there is bound to be a huge rush of funds into European property and a consequent rise in prices when exchange controls are lifted, somewhere about 1975.

They promise to present:

  Street-by-street profiles of cities and towns where property is still underpriced.
  How to exploit the many investment anomalies that still exist in European backwaters.
  Advice on land: where to buy, what to pay, whether you’re permitted to hold.
  Planning: where it’s easiest to get it and why.

And other good things — for capitalists. Thrilling to be in Europe, is it not?


Meanwhile, back at Mon Repos —

Still in property, The Guardian had something cryptic in its house-market page on 6th July. Stating that mortgage repayments have gone up on average from £19.75 a month at the end of 1970 to £32.74 at the end of 1972, Nicholas Heman wondered how people were finding the money “when wages and salaries have not risen by anything like the same amount". His view was that

   the greater number of first-time purchasers may be explained by the fact that they are now regarded much more favourably by building societies who previously would have been more demanding in their requirements.

Which sounds like saying that building societies lend money to people who cannot afford to repay it with interest. And on 11th July The Guardian reported “the whole chilling picture" given by Shelter Housing Aid Centre, headlined “Shelter Finds Better-Off Have Housing Problems". It said:

   In this situation, people are more willing to commit themselves to higher mortgage payments than they can really afford. SHAC encountered one example of a 37½ per cent rate of interest. One man was paying a £140 a month mortgage on a £200 a month salary . . . “In 1973, a family needs an income of at least £2,500 and savings of £1,000 minimum before house purchase in London becomes a possibility."

There is something wrong with The Guardian’s headline. These people are not “better-off”: they are living in crippling poverty.

Give the Fellow a Break

“What you've got to remember about Prince Philip is that he is in a dead-end job.” — A Pressman in “The World at One”, 11th July.

Robert Barltrop

Why Socialism? (1974)

From the August 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Confusion is undoubtedly the strongest weapon in the capitalist armoury. The fraudulent Labour Party, without a single measure on their programme that can benefit or interest the working class, lends itself to Tory and Liberal politicians as a socialist chopping block.” So said the Socialist Standard in July 1913 and to this day the smokescreen of gibberish constantly perpetrated by the capitalist parties obscures the class nature of society, and the antagonisms that therefore exist. Every proposition is debated ad nauseam except the most important one: necessity for a new society (Socialism) — now. The interest of the working class lies in the immediate establishment of Socialism, and this is the one and only object of the SPGB. We are not to be fobbed off by the “Immediate Demands” or “Something Now” Brigades. We have seen them march in confusion backwards and forwards across the social reform parade ground only to remain where they were. The “realists” have had their chance to find solutions to social problems and have failed miserably. Now is the time, not to be disillusioned, but for members of the working class to study our case and realize its validity.

Capitalism is the predominant form of society in all countries throughout the world. In this country it is estimated that 72 per cent of the wealth is owned about 10 per cent, of the population [1]  — the capitalist class. They also own the means of producing and reproducing wealth. Those who own nothing of the means of production, the working class, must sell their labour-power, skilled or unskilled, to an employer for a wage or salary. The working class forms the majority of society and is composed of all wage-earners, not just industrial workers but also those who would like to think of themselves as "middle class”. It is through the labour of the working class alone that all the wealth of society is produced and yet this is legally appropriated by the capitalists who produce nothing and are socially a useless class. As Engels so clearly put it:

   The capitalist has no further social function than that of pocketing dividends, tearing off coupons and gambling on the stock exchange.

(Socialism, Utopian & Scientific)

Apologists for capitalism often argue how necessary (and no doubt kind-hearted) the capitalist class is to society by providing, at great pains to themselves, the capital for investment in new factories, works etc., and thus providing work for the workers. If the capitalist class think of themselves as doing society a good turn it does not concern us, although we rather suspect that their motives are not sublime. What can we be sure of is that capitalism inevitably creates unemployment and that an individual capitalist will invest not to provide work for others but only for profit or good “return” on his capital.

Capital constantly seeks to expand and stretch its grasping tentacles into every conceivable avenue, and of course engulf capitals smaller than itself. The real needs of human beings are not taken into account where production of wealth is only carried on with the motive of producing more and more capital. As long as the profit motive is the driving force behind production the needs of people cannot be met. Since the way in which wealth is produced and distributed in a given society will be the basic factor in determining the character of that society, it is not surprising that the anarchy of capitalist production and distribution gives rise to myriad social problems: housing, poverty, unemployment, etc. Such problems are indivisible from capitalism and insoluble under it. Historically capitalism has been a useful form of society in that it has enabled the means of production to be developed on a vast and world-wide social scale. Commodities are exchanged on a world-wide basis; e.g. many British workers have New Zealand lamb for their Sunday lunch, those that can afford it that is. There is however no world-wide social control over production and distribution, only an anarchy of competing capitals chasing the surplus-value produced solely by the working class.

The only alternative to capitalism is the establishment of Socialism where society as a whole will own and control in common the wealth and means of transporting it. Common Ownership means that individual members of society will have free access to what they want and require without regard to any form of exchange system. As Socialism can only be brought into being by the political act of the majority of people wanting and working for it, we assume that the majority of people would want to co-operate with each other in running and maintaining a Socialist society. Democratic control means that decisions affecting society would be taken by the majority and based upon the best available information. Society will make decisions in its own best interests. This is not the case today. We do not claim that Socialism will be trouble-free but compared with the madhouse of capitalism it will be a sane society indeed. Socialism will be the beginning of civilized history before which all societies will be classified as barbaric.

Tony D'Arcy

[1] See Hansard, 5th July 73.

Ideas and Understanding (1975)

From the August 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

For some unexplained reason we are constantly being told that capitalism is so different from previous societies that it is not subject to the law of social growth which governed the development and decay of these previous societies. The point is, can capitalism make history stand still and do its bidding? Can it, in effect, ensure that it will continue to exist simply by the power of property which most men worship but very few enjoy? Presumably, if capitalism can make its own historical rules there could be no prospect of its abolition.

Looking at the evidence around us, the working class show no signs of challenging capitalism’s rule. There is plenty of social discontent, but this is largely concerned with social reforms or Trade Union issues, and cannot be regarded as revolutionary activity. What are we left with? First, a solidly entrenched social system, second, an apparently disinterested working class, and third, a relatively small revolutionary party. Little wonder we are dubbed as dreamers, Utopian preachers and sectarian cranks by our opponents. Yet we persist. An organization which takes on the task of making workers Socialists in face of tremendous difficulties is considered to be either unrealistic or motivated by spiritual rather than material influences. We are neither.

We do not accept the permanence of capitalism any more than we accept the fact that the workers’ ideas of society cannot be changed. History shows that social systems change, and that these changes are accomplished by thinking men, and that mens’ ideas change with them. This includes ideas on all subjects — religion, politics, morality, science, law and art. Ideas have changed considerably over the centuries and dramatically in the last 100 years. The spread of opinion, or social consciousness, as with man’s social life generally, develops in accordance with the development of his productive forces. Today, the artificial organs of man, his greater control over nature, play a decisive role in his social existence. These artificial organs are not individual but social in character.

If social man’s intellect, his opinions and culture, are dominated by the circumstances of his economic conditions, at what point can we expect a change in men’s ideas which will result in a political decision to establish Socialism? The body of opinion today, or the prevailing ideology, is overwhelmingly capitalist, because capitalist ideas are socially sponsored, propagated and broadcast at all levels. Socialist ideas, which arise from the same economic conditions, are ignored or misrepresented as State capitalist, or distorted in other ways. Yet the battle of ideas can be fought against such overwhelming odds. In the first instance, we are not merely dealing with men’s opinions but the social factors which give rise to those opinions. The old French materialists were nearly right when they said opinion governs the world. We know that throughout the ages men’s ideas of politics in particular have changed. For example, the political domination by the Catholic Church as in Feudal society is no longer feasible or tolerated, yet the Catholic Church was the political centre of Feudalism for over a thousand years. Further back in early society it was moral to have incestuous sexual relationships, group marriages, infanticide and cannibalism. These were the product of well defined social conditions. The absence of these today has nothing to do with moral enlightenment or higher idealistic standards, but to the changed social conditions. Capitalism produces its own sophisticated form of barbaric cruelty and inhumanity on a far greater scale than these seemingly outrageous practices of yesteryear.

Idealists, and this includes religionists, moralists, humanists, etc., constantly refer to the innate goodness of man, and what the world ought to be — the world of the true and just. This conception of the world as it ought to be bears no relation or connection with the world as it is, but also with the historical development which has occurred. The idealists’ conception of history, which claims men’s development to be purely intellectual, based on some timeless ethical cause, is the happy hunting ground for the ostensibly reasonable apologists of capitalism — reason will solve everything, they claim. Pure reason, like abstract truth, does not exist. Every thought process must be related to social man’s material needs. This is what society is all about, the organization of a system of production to meet men’s material needs. The question which obviously arises is does capitalism satisfy or can it be made to satisfy men’s needs? The answer is obviously — no. The contradictions within the system of poverty in the midst of plenty, its dependance on the market economy, its unpredictability and general anarchy, disqualify it as a social system rendering social service in the real sense of the term.

The capitalists’ monopoly of propaganda undoubtedly influences the millions of workers who give their support to it generally. But the performance never matches the promise. You cannot indefinitely persuade people that the temperature at the North Pole is 80° Fah. The greatest ally of the Socialist is the temperature of the economic conditions. We apply our materialism, our factual analysis, continually to the economic background. Socialist propaganda is not aimed at man’s ‘innate goodness’ or higher nature, but at man’s practical material needs. It will be this factor alone which seen as an alternative will create revolutionary consciousness, and the subsequent political action based on that consciousness.

Opponents of Socialism can be divided into two main groups. One, the out-and-out supporters of capitalism, and the other the false friends of Socialism; Labour, Communist, I.S. etc. — supporters of State capitalism. Of the two groups, the latter, these knights of confusion, are the most pernicious, rendering lip-service to Socialism they attack our case on the ground that workers want something now — not Socialism, which according to them the workers will never understand anyhow. Incidentally, the workers have got neither. Mr. Clive Jenkins, Mr. Jack Jones, Mr. Hugh Scanlon, Mr. Len Murray, and all the other “Lairds of Cockpen” are steeped in capitalist mythology. They really believe it can be made to work. To listen to the nauseating ignorance coming from these people on the subject of Socialism makes us wonder what has happened to elementary working class education, even at Socialist Sunday school level. Then we have the ‘instant men’, the featherbrains of IS, IMG, Trotskyists, who want to grow an oak tree in a plant pot in seven days. These groups always want something for themselves, and want it now, and to Hell with the future. These phoney militants are not equipped to carry on the class struggle for Socialism. For a start, they have no staying power, little knowledge of political economy, and no principles whatever. They can only be described as the Fifth column of the Labour Party.

Most of the people who tell the SPGB the workers cannot understand Socialism do not understand it themselves. Socialism cannot be established without working class's understanding, and this we accept. There is no alternative other than to work for that mass understanding. Workers are not fools. If a proposition is presented to them in a reasonable way they will consider it. At the moment information about Socialism is rare in most working class circles because of the present size and influence of the Socialist Party. There is a vast difference in having a splendid case to propagate and the opportunity to get yourself heard. This is the real reason why the workers do not understand Socialism. It is purely a technical problem of communication and not, as our critics would claim, a flaw in our case. The responsibility for the extension of Socialist propaganda is the workers at large. The speed in acceptance of Socialist ideas by the working class depends on that. There are no innate principles in men’s existence. Man, with all his views and feelings, is what nature and society has made him. The establishment of Socialism is a task well within the capacity of the modern working class. The alternative is to watch civilization degenerate and deteriorate under an obsolete social system.

Jim D'Arcy

The Truth About Freedom (1976)

Book Review from the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Political Police in Britain by Tony Bunyan. (Julian Friedmann Publishers Ltd., £4.95.)

We recommend this book to all those starry-eyed people who blissfully go round believing in the myth of “British freedom”. Tony Bunyan has done his homework very well, his book is crammed with detailed and relevant information. Most of the sinister and ugly features usually associated with tyranny and dictatorship, have their counterpart in what to the popular mind is a free country. Just as in dictatorships, a servile press helps to fashion a climate of opinion. To be accused is to be deemed guilty. Particularly in matters concerning “security”, the attitude is we cannot be squeamish about condemning a few conspirators; the national interest must come first. If, after many months in prison, charges are dropped or the case fails for want of evidence, then the “free” press can be relied upon to make capital out of those cases resulting in convictions and ignore the rest.

The sheer number of distinct police agencies carrying out a vast range of surveillance, infiltration, spying and oppressive activities, is bewildering. Apart from the “ordinary” uniformed police force (which is itself supplemented by Special Constables through Acts of Parliament going back to 1831) there are D15 and D16, the former dealing with foreign espionage and “subversion” inside Britain, the latter with external spying. Then there are the Special Patrol Groups. These are specialist riot police who go round in unmarked cars and carry arms as a matter of course and are trained in the use of CS gas. They were set up in 1965 and are not to be confused with the Special Branch, which goes back to 1883 and played its part in combatting an outbreak of Irish bomb attacks during that period.

From the beginning the Home Office had a direct concern in the “political intelligence” activities of Special Branch. Spies were planted in groups of minority activists such as the Legitimation League. In the early years, superintendents appointed under the Factory Act of 1833 were used to spy and report on workers’ activities.

The Official Secrets Act of 1889 dealt with spying and breaches of official trust by state employees. The 1911 amendment extended powers to act against journalists and newspapers for receiving and publishing information. Further strengthening Acts were passed in 1920 and 1939. Brendan Mulholland of the Daily Mail and Reginald Foster of the Daily Sketch were sent to prison in 1962 for failing to reveal sources of information. The phrasing of this legislation is very loose, lending itself to wide interpretation. The ruling class, through the government of the day, has a formidable array of oppressive powers at its disposal.

Books can be barred from publication or “doctored” to suit the Ministry of Defence, to which all ex-military personnel are required to submit their manuscripts. Examples are Sir Compton Mackenzie’s book Gallipoli Memories (1929) and a book by Anthony Nutting (a former Privy Councillor) on the Suez Crisis of 1956.

The Franks Committee, set up in 1971 by the Tory Government to look into Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act, produced a report running to four volumes. Neither the Tories or the following Labour government took any action. The issue arose out of the use of D-notices against the Daily Express and the Sunday Telegraph. Three people were sent for trial at the Old Bailey over an article dealing with Biafra. The Public Records Act enables governments to suppress information for up to one hundred years.

Our “heritage of freedom” or rather the privileged position of the capitalist class, is further safeguarded by laws like the Statute of Treasons, dating back to 1351, and the Riot Act of 1381 (year of the Wat Tyler rebellion). The Tolpuddle Martyrs were condemned under the Unlawful Oaths Act of 1797.

The Incitement to Disaffection Act of 1934 is aimed against the circulation of “seditious” literature to members of the armed forces. They must be trained to kill, not taught to think. Under this Act a man was sent to prison for two years in 1972 for possessing literature likely to cause disaffection, namely a pamphlet concerning the war in Northern Ireland.

Bunyan produces an illuminating résumé of the Angry Brigade trials. Of the twelve people arrested and charged, two had charges against them withdrawn, five were acquitted on all counts, and five were convicted on conspiracy charges. Prescott was sentenced to fifteen years in prison; Purdie was found not guilty after having spent nine months in jail. The press in general and the Evening Standard in particular applauded the sentence and ignored the acquittal. The conduct of the police in gathering evidence and making arrests, was somewhat devious. Purdie was arrested “for questioning, which is illegal. He was not cautioned nor was any warrant made out for his arrest”.

The police have powers to seriously restrict press coverage of trials. The Metropolitan and City Police Press Card is the means by which the number of reporters has been reduced from eight thousand to a trusted two thousand whose names and credentials are registered. Sir Robert Mark, promoted to power by Roy Jenkins and Reginald Maudling, is behind this censorship by the backdoor. According to Bunyan, Commissioner Mark is contemptuous of the legal processes he is supposed to uphold: trial by jury in particular. No doubt for him the ideal situation would be one where the police also acted as judge, jury and jailer.

Further specialized units are the National Drugs Intelligence Unit and the National Immigration Unit. All streams meet at and have common access to the Police National Computer Unit at Hendon. It is estimated that by 1979 more than 36,000,000 names and a variety of other details will be almost instantly available.

The staggering edifice of repressive legislation has been steadily built up over more than a hundred and fifty years. Particular emergencies, such as two world wars and outbreaks of social disturbance, have prompted a reactionary and obsolete ruling class to try to strengthen their hand to preserve a little longer their parasitic position as a privileged owning class. Organizations like the Angry Brigade and the IRA help to create an atmosphere of fear, which provides the ruling class with their excuse to act in the name of security. The backlash of increased repression effects everybody.

In recommending Tony Bunyan’s book as a useful source of information on an important subject, we do not share his conclusion. He denies that the elected government controls the institutions of the state and is vague about how capitalism can be ended.

However ugly and menacing the coercive machinery may be, it will not avail against the rising tide of working-class understanding of and desire to establish Socialism. In fact, the whole set-up can only operate against a background of working-class acquiescence. The most useful lesson to be learned, is, that the vote is all-powerful. The state cannot be smashed. It can and must be captured by a conscious working class, in their quest for freedom.

Harry Baldwin

50 Years Ago: TU Amalgamation (1977)

The 50 Years Ago column from the August 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

While we support any move which will eliminate the existing craft outlook and other barriers which separate trade unionists, we do not make the mistake of supposing that the problems of the working class will be solved by the mere substitution of the great union for many smaller unions. What is of much greater importance is to get the workers to see that capitalism itself is the enemy.

#    #    #    #

A useful corrective to attaching too much importance to a mere change of the form of organisation is contained in a remark made by Mr. Bevin in a speech advocating trade union amalgamation at the conference of the Transport and General Workers’ Union.

   Nobody welcomed this amalgamation more than the employers, who now met one body instead of dozens, with their internecine frictions. (Daily Herald, 20 July)

(From an unsigned article Trade Unions and the Employers in the Socialist Standard, August 1927.)

These Foolish Things: Work Till You Drop (1996)

The Scavenger column from the January 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Work till you drop

Britain is facing a new industrial epidemic. Office staff are working longer hours, but productivity is falling. Family life is also under threat from increased stress at work, with women coming off worse. Nearly three times as many women as men in white collar work are divorced or separated . . . Far from sitting back and driving their employees ever harder, those in management worked the longest hours of all. Among senior staff, 45 per cent of men worked 50 hours or more [per week].

(Jojo Moyes, Independent, 26 October.)

Encouraging effort

Staff at the electrical giant Comet were threatened with a hangman’s noose if they failed to reach sales targets. Three managers are facing a disciplinary hearing after the sick joke but they are not expected to be sacked. The incident happened at Comet’s store in Llansamlet, Swansea.

A group of sales staff were shown a noose dangling from the ceiling and a step ladder. Those who failed to meet that week’s quota for selling warranties were ordered to take a step up and told the ritual would continue in future weeks.

(East Anglian Daily Times, 19 October.)

This “shoot- ’em-up ” culture

[Phil Denne] designed Europe’s largest electronic warfare unit in Stanmore, Middlesex, where state-of-the-art computers simulate the anti-aircraft missiles and radar jamming devices RAF fighters face when screaming 50ft above enemy territory at Mach 1.

But now he is at the leading edge of the virtual reality, thrills-and-spills rides that, in the face of defence cuts, the military industrial establishment hopes will bolster dwindling income.

Denne says: “When the poker-faced top brass saw the simulated view they started ooh-ing and aah-ing, and I thought if people like this are getting excited then the general public will just love it.’’

(Financial Mail on Sunday, 22 October.)

Basic

The basic State pension in Britain is £58.85 a week or £3,060.20 a year against the national average wage of £17,488; just over one-sixth.

Maintaining the old values

Suicide victim Harold Graham could not face the winter after electricity was cut off at his Wear Valley home, a friend told a Bishop Auckland inquest yesterday.

Mr Graham had confided in his neighbour Christopher Hume a few days before he hanged himself last week at his home in Front Street, Sunniside near Tow Law. 

(Northern Echo, 15 November.)

What democracy?

However, the government’s definition does not include the new wave of unelected quangos established in recent years, now responsible for over £50 billion of taxpayers’ money. New quangos, sometimes referred to as a “new magistracy”, include the district health authorities and education funding agencies run by government appointees, many of them overtly political. A Guardian investigation in 1993 established that, in a broad definition of quangos, by next year more than 7,700 public bodies would have been created, controlled partly or wholly by government appointees.

(Guardian, 30 November.)

The Scavenger

Socialismo au naciismo (1969)

From World Socialism '69

Kutime oni supozas ke la interesej de homare dividighas lau nacieco. Ekzemple, britaj laboristoj decidis labori duonhoron potage seapage, por subteni ‘Britujon’ en internacia komerca konkurado. Sed tia patrioteco ne profitos ilin, sed nur la bilancon de la brita dungantaro. Kiom ajn da eksportoj ili produktas, ili ankorau estos salajrsklavoj: ili devos vendi sian laborkapablan, jaron post jaro, por akiri la vivnecessajhojn.

Internacia komerca konkurade, politika luktado kaj milito estas la afero de grupoj de nacioj kapitalistoj, reprezentataj de shtatoj, pri la defendo kaj akiro de influsferoj merkatoj, devenoj de krudmaterioloj kai komercvojoj. Naciisme estas ilo uzata por fortigi la disciplinon, unuecon, kaj subtenon de la laboristaro en tiaj kuktoj, kiu ne kamprenas ke la lukte ne temas pri iliaj interesoj. Tio aplikas egale al la shtatkapitalistaj landoj kia Rusujo, kie klaso de shtatkapitalistoj posedas kaj controlas la ekonomion, kune dungantaj la laboristaron.

Ekzemple konsideru la militon en Vjetnamio, lukton inter la usona kapitalista klaso, kiu volas teni Sudvjetnamion en sia infusfero, kaj oponi la entendigho de la potence de ghia shtatkapitalistaj rivaloj en Sudorientan Azion, kaj la vjetnamaj ‘komunistoj', kiuj volas disvolvigi kapitalismon en Vjetnamion si mem, sen usenaj korporaciegoj.

Socialistoj celas je demokrata monda komunumo, sen nacioj, kie chio sub kaj sur la tero estos la kemuna posedo de la tuta homaro. Homoj kunlaboros sendevige por produkti abundajn richajhojn, kaj chiu prenos kien ajn li bezonas por ghue vivi. Tia socio estos ebla nur kiam la plimulto de homoj deziros ghin, kaj do eni povas establi ghin nur per demokrataj metodoj. Socialisme estas praktikebla, kaj necesa venonta, stadio en socia evoluade. Ghi estas la sola celo de la frataj socialistaj partioj.

To readers from overseas (1978)

Party News from the August 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Standard is the journal of the Socialist Party of Great Britain but this does not mean that it is concerned exclusively with what goes on in Britain. Just the opposite in fact. It is our view that the social problems that affect wage and salary earners in a particular country cannot be solved within that countries borders.

Capitalism is the cause of these problems and capitalism is world-wide, existing not only in obviously capitalist countries like Britain or France or Germany but also, in the form of state capitalism, in countries like Russia, China, Cuba or Yugoslavia. Because capitalism is world-wide so too must be Socialism, the system which will replace it and whose common ownership, democratic control and production solely for use will provide the framework within which today’s social problems can finally be solved.

This is why we sometimes refer to our object as “world socialism”, making it absolutely clear that we reject all nationalism and all national approaches to working-class problems. It is also why we are linked with Companion Parties in other parts of the world, with the same objective and the same principles as us and which exist in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Austria, Ireland and Australia.

We have also published leaflets in various other languages — French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Swedish and Esperanto so far — while our Companion Parties and sympathising groups produce regular journals in German, French and Swedish. If you are from Europe and would like to contact socialists there in any of these languages you can write to the following addresses:

• GERMANY and AUSTRIA: Bund Demokratischer Sozialisten, Gussriegelstrasse 50, 100 WIEN, Austria.
• FRANCE and BENELUX: Socialisme Mondiale, B.P. 1578, 1000 BRUXELLES, Belgium.
• SCANDINAVIA: Varldssocialism, c/o Ake Spross, Bergsbrunna Villavag 58, 75256 UPPSALA, Sweden.

Her majesty’s justice—lies in action (1979)

From the August 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Her Royal Majesty the Queen of England is to all British workers the fons justiciae or fountain of justice. The word ‘workers’ is used because members of the capitalist class and politicians do not seem to be disposed to become involved with these courts of law. Lord Kagan and Sir Eric Miller have recently demonstrated this. In order to discover to what extent justice is actually splashed over British workers by our Royal Fountain, some days of observation were spent in one of her courts.

The magistrates court at Bow Street is one of the most busy and famous of its type in England. Here, dispensing (with?) justice, are not the lay magistrates (unpaid factotums) of local courts but stipendiary magistrates: qualified lawyers of at least five years’ standing, but usually with a bit more ‘standing’ than that.

The three courtrooms are craftily designed to elevate the importance of the presiding magistrate in a high throne-chair, humiliate the defendant in a small caged stand, and deter the inquisitive public visitor with either no public seating or very small wooden benches.

On Monday morning some charges of prostitution were first up for trial. The policeman confidently read the charge to a frowning magistrate; there was no defence, and after a procedural conviction a fine was levied for the Crown. This is not very harsh, for although a prostitute sells her skills like any wage-slave, her pimp-employer will pay the fine for this occupational hazard. An atmosphere of moral censure was provided by various lawyers in the court who, it is said, sometimes exit from the courts with the prostitute only by coincidence.

Next up were a series of workers charged with ‘obstruction of the highway’. Hamburger vendors and photographers were ordered to pay comparatively lenient fines. They had been acting within the ethos of capitalism, if not within some of its minor rules. However another defendant charged with exactly the same offence was punished with a heavier sentence because she was a ‘moonie’ distributing free records.

The next offender was a young visitor from New Zealand charged with assaulting a police officer and with multifarious offences concerning a dilapidated caravanette. In a fracas the defendant had struck the policeman in the ribs, which accounted for the first charge, and the other charges were made by the policeman with technical legitimacy but with not over-subtle retribution. The policeman, no doubt remembering his injured ribs, gabbled out the copious petty charges concerning the motor vehicle — “failure to install workable windscreen washers; displaced registration plates . . .” The New Zealander submissively re-affirmed his intentions made in his visitor oath, to be a law-abiding subject, and was punished with what the magistrate called a ‘fair fine’.

Who could be dissatisfied with our decent, honest police force? Witnessing some of the jackbooted, uniformed haircuts blustering through notebooks of ‘written evidence’ does leave room for cynicism. Should we be grateful for ‘our’ police force? The police are agents of whom? Of the members of the working class whom they daily caution, bludgeon, arrest and incarcerate? In whose interest is the protection of private property; the workers who own about ten per cent of the accumulated wealth, or the capitalists who own about ninety per cent?

In another courtroom, a penniless, parentless fifteen year old lad was convicted of wilfully damaging the window of a restaurant. He was sentenced to pay a heavy fine from his ‘living wage’, and to psychiatric care. Do we really need psychiatrists to explain to us why an underfed, overworked, maltreated child would be likely to batter against the tinted window of a restaurant? A uniformed Martian in the courtroom might have wondered who was on trial for the damage; the child in the dock — the perpetrator of the act — or the magistrate as representative of the brutal social system which was responsible for the damage to the child.

In the next case an alleged car-thief with substantial evidence against him was given a heavy fine, escaping a prison sentence because the defence lawyer was able to persuade the magistrate that the defendant had just been offered full time employment in the building industry. The defendant avoided incarceration on the condition of prolonged honest work. By relentless use of this ploy, the courts have been able to socially impregnate the notion that employment — the whoring of mental and physical labour-power for money — is socially inevitable, necessary and desirable. It is all very simple. Wage slavery is the order of the day; if you opt out of this system you either go hungry or are imprisoned, and if you sell yourself to someone you are taken to have automatically signed the social contract of the allegiance to the profit system with the countless millions of others who are only living for the work they have to do for someone else tomorrow.

On following days at Bow Street, the methodical fraudulence became tiresome to observe. Policemen marching up to the witness box to perjure themselves after swearing to be honest on a book none of them had ever read, let alone believed; magistrates deciding cases with overt sympathies and prejudices (and even ignorance of the law), and childish excuses from frightened defendants: “I did not mean to assault the bartender, I was having a fit of hiccoughs”.

Cases varied in length from a few minutes to about an hour, depending on the amount of evidence and the need for cross-examination, but by some miraculous chance, no matter what the nature of the last case to be heard each day, justice always seemed to be arrived at within a few minutes of 4.30pm, when the court closed. Adjournments are extremely rare.

At the end of the day, the ‘judges' and some of the more fortunate of the judged exit from the court at the same time. To look at, they are of the same size, shape and species, but when servile chauffeurs open large car doors for some of the departing characters, it is not altogether impossible to guess which of them has been of service to capitalism that day.

Your disobedient servants (1981)

From the August 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since the beginning of March, Britain’s civil servants have been engaged in a campaign of selective strikes in order to win an increase in the government’s seven per cent wage offer. A group of “white-collar” workers, not normally regarded as militant, find themselves embroiled in the longest national industrial dispute since the General Strike of 1926.

There may have been a time when civil servants, like others who work behind a desk rather than a lathe, considered themselves “middle class” and so above such nasty proletarian vices as trade unions, work-to-rules and strikes. Redundancy, unemployment and wage-cuts might affect the working class, but would never penetrate the cosy inflation-proofed-pension world of the Whitehall bureaucrat. This was never true, of course: in 1931, for instance, a reduction in civil servants’ wages figured prominently in the government’s spending cuts.

Nor is it any truer nowadays. Government ministers have in the same hypocritical breath spoken of civil servants’ supposed job security and of the need for civil service redundancies.

The current dispute is a fight against a wage reduction (any pay “increase” less than the rate of inflation represents a cut in real wages). Like university lecturers, civil servants are finding that they are in no way immune from the ups and downs of capitalism. Like all workers, they are forced to sell their energies (mental or physical) to an employer in return for a wage; if the time comes when the employer has no more use for their labour, they will be dismissed. Working with a pen rather than a spanner makes no difference to a worker’s class position.

But there are ways in which working for the government does make a difference to the course of any dispute. For one thing, state employees, in 1981 as in 1931, must bear the brunt of any government policy on wage “restraint". Working for the state is no guarantee of favouritism in pay offers. Importantly, too, the resources of the government are so vast as to put them in a far stronger position in any dispute than all but the largest private capitalist concerns. A larger employer has greater resources to fall back on, and is more able to alleviate the losses caused by a strike.

This is not to say, however, that the civil servants’ dispute is having no impact. The unions have, rightly, decided to hit the government where it hurts, in its wallet, by stopping the flow of tax revenue to the Exchequer. It is claimed that over five billion pounds has so far been blocked from getting to the government’s coffers. Selective strike action by air traffic controllers has meant that British Airways has lost forty million pounds. It is financial pressure of this kind that is most likely to force the government to give in.

Unfortunately, financial pressure on the workers may cause them to give in too. The Council of Civil Service Unions consists of nine separate unions, whose tactics so far have been to hold selective strikes, among different branches of the civil service and at different times. Anyone on strike in these circumstances is receiving strike pay from their union. The unions however have inadequate strike funds, and are having to appeal for voluntary strike levies from their members. Even with these, they are paying out more in strike pay than they are getting in. Some union officials believe the government is deliberately suspending some civil servants, thus increasing still further the financial strain on the unions. The alternative would be an all-out strike—without strike pay at all.

The government has appealed to civil servants to call off their action pending the report of the recently announced “independent” inquiry into civil service pay. Like arbitration—another much-favoured solution intended to settle disputes—such inquiries cannot be independent. The members of the inquiry (this one is to be chaired by a retired appeal judge) cannot but take account of government policies and indeed of the entire economic context when they draw up their recommendations. Only the naive would contemplate a “fair and unbiased” outcome in the context of a society where a minority class monopolises the means of production and forces the overwhelming majority to work for a wage in order to live.

The workers involved in any specific industrial dispute must decide for themselves how to conduct it. However, we strongly urge that all action be decided on democratically, by the workers and not by their leaders. In particular, decisions whether or not to strike and whether or not to accept an offer ought to be taken by ballot (we should say that the civil service unions generally are balloting their members on what course of action to follow next). And it should be realised that, during a depression, the odds must be on a victory for the government in any war of attrition. Recognition of this fact is not acceptance of working-class impotence but acknowledgement of one of the basic facts of capitalist life.

Paul Bennett

Observations: Turning the screw (1982)

The Observations Column from the August 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Turning the screw

Among the more eager practitioners of the Falklands-style militancy in industrial relations are the management of British Rail. The determination with which they stood their ground in the battle with the NUR and then with ASLEF was an inspiration to all employers who are seeking, in slumping capitalism, to degrade workers’ wages and conditions.

Even more notable has been the policy of the associated sea ferry service Sealink. Faced with declining traffic and mounting competition, they have simply imposed wage cuts and threatened to close their services down if the unions resist.

This worked for Sealink in the case of the ships running from Newhaven, where the seamen accepted the cuts. But in other ports there has been resistance. Sealink assert that their aim is to reduce wages by some £28 a week in Harwich (which is bad enough, when prices are still climbing week by week) but, according to the Guardian of 9 July, the cuts are more like £40, or even £80. a week. A Sealink spokesman has spelled out the situation: ". . . this is the only way we can make the service pay. If the NUS do not accept it, there will be no service”.

It is doubtful that there will be cries of anguish in the media about the suffering caused to passengers by the closing of the service by the management — the kind of protests they make when a service is disrupted by a strike. Cuts made in the interests of defending profitability are regarded as common sense while those stemming from workers’ defence of their standards are put down to bloody- mindedness.

There is an equally enduring lesson for workers to learn in this episode. This militancy is being displayed by the management of a nationalised industry; and all in the interests of economic operation — of working in such a way as to make profit, or at least not to make a loss.

This is exactly the kind of situation which the advocates of nationalisation assumed would be eliminated by a state take-over. Real experience has exposed the fallacy of those hopes. State owned industries have to be run in basically the same way as their private predecessors. The profit priorities of capitalism continue; the interests of the wealth-producing workers are low in the order of concern; the privileges of the non-producing owning minority are paramount.

For the ruling class, nationalisation can be a good deal. For the workers it is a fraud.


Pats and kicks

After all their hard work preparing the ships for the Falklands Task Force, the dockyard workers at Chatham and Portsmouth thought they deserved a pat on the back from the government. They were very upset when in fact they got a kick in the teeth.

Before the war in the Falklands. the government had decided to reduce Portsmouth drastically and close Chatham. As the first ships left Portsmouth for the South Atlantic, they were waved away by 180 workers who had already had their redundancy notices. In all, about 13,000 were to be sacked. But during the war, the yards were working night and day to prepare and convert other ships for the fighting. Some people did literally work night and day; perhaps it was overtiredness which led them to think that the government would be so impressed with the speed and quality of their work that they would be rewarded for a job well done by changing the planned cut-backs.

Now the Falklands war is supposed to have proved that this is a government of inflexible resolve, that Margaret Thatcher is always right, always eye to eye with reality. The post-Falklands “Defence” Estimates revealed that there was to be no change of plan, although John Nott subsequently promised some slight adjustments in the case of the yards at Portsmouth. Chatham will close, as planned. So the dockyard workers were very angry, sick, rejected — and jealous of the workers at the Devonport yards where, they grumbled, they don’t make the killing machines half as efficiently.

Any workers who think they arc employed as a favour, or as a reward, are gravely misunderstanding the facts of capitalist life. Labour power is a commodity — something to be sold — wherever and however it is expended. If it is not economical to buy it, workers will be laid off; factories, mines, dockyards will close.

The armaments industry has an economy with some distinctive, even peculiar, features but these do not allow it to evade the basic laws of capitalism. The very fact that they expected a pat on the back means that the dockyard workers deserved the kick in the teeth.


Charity is cold — official

In case anyone ever had doubts on the matter, it has now been officially announced that charities are completely helpless to ease the problems of capitalist society.

Amnesty International recently took the Charity Commissioners to the High Court after they had refused to register AI as a charity. Amnesty International, of course, busy themselves with battles against what they call injustice; they sponsor prisoners of conscience, they struggle for “prisoners' rights’, whatever they may be. But Justice Slade was not impressed. “The elimination of injustice", he droned, “has not ever been held to be a purpose which qualifies for the privileges accorded to charities by English law.”

Following their victory, the Commissioners issued some “guidelines", presumably hoping to deter any well-meaning bunch who think they are doing something about some of the world’s ailments and that this deserves to make them a charity. But the Commissioners are quite clear on the point. They will not register any organisation which:

  tries to influence any causes of poverty which are lying in the social, economic and political structures of a state;
brings pressure to bear on governments to change their policies on issues like land reform, trade union rights;
tries to abolish social, political or economic injustices.

What this means is that charities have to exist in a society in which there is is poverty and "injustice" of all kinds and which imposes repression on organisations like trade unions.

Now the fact is that there is only one way in which to rid the world of problems like these and that is to organise for a democratic revolution to abolish the social system which causes them. That aim is far beyond the scope of any charity. The tragedy is that its achievement is hampered by many obstacles, one of them being the delusion that capitalism can be transformed by charitable acts. Well, now we know. Let alone abolishing the problems, charities can not even claim to protest about them. There has always been a hollow note to the rattle of the collecting box; it is the note of futility.

Tightening union law (1983)

Illustration by George Meddemmen.

From the August 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

Reform of trade union law continues to follow the pattern established early in the nineteenth century. Alternately the law is tightened by Act of Parliament (or by a new interpretation in the Courts) and the unions then do an electoral deal with one or other of the political parties to get it relaxed again. In this century the unions did a deal with the Liberals to obtain the 1906 and 1913 Acts, and then saw the law tightened against them by the Tory 1927 Act. This Act was repealed by the 1945 Labour Government, but the law was tightened again under the Heath Government's Acts, which were duly repealed by the 1974 Labour Government. Since 1979 new restrictions have been imposed and more are on the way under the new government.

It is not that the unions want no trade union legislation. They want a law which recognises them as legal organisations (before 1824 they managed to exist illegally) and protects their funds against employers' actions for damages and embezzlement by dishonest officials.

During the last Tory government (1979-83) certain forms of picketing were made illegal, and the law was altered so that after November 1984 ballots will have to be held to approve closed shop agreements. Also a new regulation was introduced into payment of supplementary benefit to the family of a worker on strike, which assumes that £13 a week strike pay is being received by strikers from their union whether or not they actually receive it, and deducts £13 from the benefit. (The strikers themselves cannot claim supplementary benefit.)

The new legislation to which the present government is pledged will require the governing bodies of unions to be elected by secret ballot, ballots every ten years to permit a union to have political funds, and ballots before strikes take place. It is not the declared intention of the government to make strikes illegal if a ballot is not taken, but if a strike takes place without a ballot the union will render itself liable to employers' actions for damages. The election manifesto also proposed special “procedure agreements” for the essential services (nursing, water, gas, electricity supply) to minimise the likelihood of strikes.

It appears that the main purpose of the new legislation is to threaten union funds and weaken the link between the unions and the Labour Party, thus hitting at Labour Party funds, eighty-five per cent of which comes from the unions. Counting on the fact that at the recent general election a clear majority of trade union members voted for the Liberal-SDP Alliance or for the Tories, Norman Tebbit, Minister for Employment, looks to ballots on union political funds to reduce trade union affiliation to the Labour Party. In addition, there is the threat that if the TUC refuses to discuss the issue with the government, legislation may be introduced requiring trade union members wishing to contribute to a political fund to “contract in" instead of the present arrangement under which objectors have to “contract out". This was one of the features of the Tory Trade Disputes Act 1927 and its effect, along with the prohibition of Civil Service unions affiliating to the Labour Party, at once cut Labour Party income by a third.

While the law plays a certain part in the effectiveness of trade union organisation and strikes in struggles with the employers the emphasis given to it by union spokesmen is out of all proportion. More important is the extent to which workers are organised, and more important still, the “state of trade": whether capitalism is in a phase of expansion, with profits running at a high level, or whether it is in depression, with heavy unemployment. Restrictive trade union laws have generally not prevented the growth of trade union membership, from about one in eight of the workers in 1900 to over half in 1977. Trade union membership continued to grow under Tory governments 1951 to 1964, and under the Heath government 1970-1974. It has been the depression which has reduced membership by over a million since 1979.

When capitalism is booming employers do not want the flow of profits to be interrupted by strikes and will be disposed to make concessions, with or without an actual strike. In a depression it is different. What impact can the union’s threat to close down a factory have when the employers themselves are about to close it down, temporarily or permanently, because the products cannot be sold at a profit?

The intended ballot before a strike takes place recalls the proposals made by the Labour Government in 1969 in the document “In Place of Strife" issued by the Minister for Employment, Barbara Castle. While rejecting compulsory ballots in all cases, it proposed that the Minister should have power to order a ballot at his or her discretion and that 28 days should elapse before a strike could take place. In the event of the Minister’s order being defied, financial penalties could have been imposed on employers or strikers. In face of trade union opposition the clauses strongly objected to were dropped and a much modified Bill was never enacted owing to the defeat of the Labour Party at the 1970 general election.

The proposals in “In Place of Strife” and the present Tory proposals are both one-sided. They call for a ballot before the strike but say nothing about a ballot on ending a strike. When the Socialist Party of Great Britain, early in its history, urged unions always to have a ballot before a strike and another before the union officials could accept offered terms of settlement, it was in the interest of democratic control of union policy by the membership. At the same time we urged trade unionists to recognise the realities of the working class position in capitalist society. Power is in the hands of those who have effective control of the machinery of government, including the armed forces. If employers, with the backing of the government, consider an issue of vital importance and are therefore prepared to fight it to a finish, unions cannot hope to win. If a strike does not bring quick results the union should accept the reality of the situation, call it off and await a better opportunity. When the coal miners in 1926 continued on strike for five months they were doomed to defeat, and at the end they were bankrupt and witnessed the setting up of rival breakaway unions.

The reality of the political situation was pin-pointed in a curious way by Lloyd George when he was Prime Minister in 1919. Threatened with a general strike by the triple alliance of miners, railwaymen and transport workers he met their leaders and informed them that if they struck they would win, because “the Army was disaffected and could not be relied upon" (Times, 16 November 1979). He asked the union leaders if they were ready to take over the government of the country; which of course they were not, and the strike was called off.

For trade unions to contemplate strikes to overthrow the newly elected government is suicidal and a policy of despair. But it does not mean that there is no way out. They should recognise that while capitalism lasts, whatever government administers it, they are only fighting over and over again the defensive battles of the past two hundred years — and getting nowhere. We endorse what Marx wrote over a hundred years ago:

  They ought to understand that, with all the miseries it imposes upon them, the present system simultaneously engenders the material conditions and the social forms necessary for an economical reconstruction of society. Instead of the conservative motto "a fair day’s wages for a fair day's work”, they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword, “Abolition of the Wages System".

In other words the only solution is worldwide socialism.

Edgar Hardcastle