Material World: Nobody should own the Earth (2019)

The Material World Column from the August 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our Euroelection leaflet came to the attention of Lesley Docksey who referred to it in an article on ‘Why Do We Think We Own the World?’:

  ‘Most political parties (barring the alt-right) will claim some desire to help protect the environment, by which they mean ‘manage’. Take this example from a Socialist Party’s leaflet, with the headline ‘There is only one world’: “… the world’s natural and industrial resources must become the common heritage of all humanity so that they can be used to directly meet the needs of the world’s population…” How did ancient man arrive at this attitude, this arrogance that became the rule so precisely displayed in Genesis?’ (London Progressive Journal, 8 June ).

Is the Socialist Party as guilty as accused in that we share the same beliefs as Old Testament fundamentalists that God gave the Earth to humans to dominate?

If Docksey looked deeper into our case she would have found that we advocate common ownership, which can be defined as a situation in which no person or group has the right to exclusively control productive resources. The word ‘ownership’ can be misleading in that when we transfer to all members of the society the power to control the production of wealth, where no one is excluded from the opportunity of controlling and benefiting from the access and use of the means of production, then the very concept of property is redundant, the sense of exclusive possession has become meaningless.

This is exactly what she seeks when she later says in her article ‘…Is it too late to ditch our rigid world view, our superiority, our belief in our ‘right’ to own and control our world?’ She then asserts ‘…There is only one thing that makes humanity truly exceptional; our desire to own and control everything, partnered by our horrible ability to destroy what we try to control…’

We don’t share her pessimism. The species homo sapiens, unlike other animals, possesses the ability to change its needs, technologies and social relations. Culture allows humans to adapt to a new or changing environment much, much more rapidly than any evolutionary biological adaptation through natural selection ever could. The behavior of other animals cannot develop in the same way that humans can. This cultural change is one of the distinguishing features of our humankind.

However, there is another aspect to her article when she declares that ‘… For far too long, humanity has regarded itself as ‘outside’ Nature…’  She certainly never learned that belief from socialists. Here are the views of a couple of nineteenth-century socialists.

Marx pointed out that capitalist farming is unsustainable because it inevitably starves the soil of nutrients. It is nothing less than ‘an art, not only of robbing the labourer, but of robbing the soil’ (Capital, Vol 1, chapter 15). And he wrote bitterly that: ‘In London they can find no better use for the excretion of four and a half million human beings than to contaminate the Thames with it at heavy expense’ (Capital, Vol 3, chapter 5).

Engels issued this ecological warning: ‘Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each victory nature takes its revenge on us. Each victory, it is true, in the first place brings about the results we expected, but in the second and third places it has quite different, unforeseen effects which only too often cancel out the first.’

He added: ‘At every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside of nature.’ And went on to explain, ‘…but that we, with flesh, blood, and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other beings of being able to know and correctly apply its laws’ (Dialectics of Nature, chapter 9).

Yes, humans can manage – be stewards of – our environment’s ecosystem just as well as some of our antecedents did. We have the knowledge to do that. It is the profit system, not some trait of human nature, that prevents us doing this.

Marx recognised too that humans are part of nature: ‘Man lives from nature, ie, nature is his body, and he must maintain a continuing dialogue with it if he is not to die. To say that man’s physical and mental life is linked to nature simply means that nature is linked to itself, for man is a part of nature.’ He said that socialism would bring ‘the unity of being of man with nature’ (Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844).

So, no, socialists do not see communal property as conferring any right to rape the land and ravage natural resources. Here’s Marx again:

  ‘…Even a whole society, a nation, or even all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not the owners of the globe. They are only its possessors, its usufructuaries, and, like boni patres familias, [good heads of the household] they must hand it down to succeeding generations in an improved condition’ (Capital, Vol.3, chapter 46).

ALJO

Eye Witnesses (2019)

Book Review from the August 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

Peterloo: Witnesses to a Massacre, Polyp, Eva Schlunke and Robert Poole:  New Internationalist £11.99.

On 16 August 1819, around 60,000 workers gathered in St Peter’s Fields in Manchester to demand an extension of the franchise. They came, men, women and children, from all over Manchester and surrounding areas. Many joined up in contingents of local people who then marched together several miles to the centre of the city. Part of a much wider reform movement, they had come to hear ‘Orator’ Henry Hunt give a speech, but primarily to support a wider franchise and to have an enjoyable day out with their friends and neighbours.

The ruling class, who resisted any reforms, had of course made preparations for the meeting. The local yeomanry, a private militia of the wealthy, were there, also the 15th Hussars. Under instructions from the magistrates, the police attempted to arrest Hunt, but when they were unsuccessful, the mounted yeomanry were sent to help. Not properly trained, in many cases drunk, and with freshly-sharpened sabres, they rode into the crowd, attacking people at will. The Hussars then arrived, in some cases restraining the yeomanry but in others adding to the confusion and crushing. At least fifteen people were killed, perhaps eighteen, and over seven hundred injured. The authorities arrested many of the organisers, including Hunt, who was sentenced to sixteen months in prison.

This book, with illustrations by Polyp, was edited by Schlunke on the basis of evidence and information assembled by Poole. There are some narrative captions by the authors, but the majority of the text is taken verbatim from reports by direct witnesses, whether reformers, journalists or establishment figures. This lends the story a vividness that is added to by the graphics; not everyone likes graphic novels or histories, but here the format does provide an impression of a continuing series of events that brings home to the reader the violence and desperation of the day. A major of the Hussars is quoted as saying, ‘I was very much amused to see the way in which the volunteer cavalry knocked the people about’, while a reporter stated, ‘There were individuals in the yeomanry whose political rancour approached absolute insanity.’ Shortly before he died as a result of being beaten, one ex-soldier said, ‘At Waterloo there was man to man, but at Manchester it was downright murder.’

The authorities reacted not just by prison sentences but also by terming the events a ‘riot’ and blaming the crowd for what happened, as they had supposedly attacked the yeomanry. Yet journalists such as John Tyas of The Times, who was no supporter of reform, agreed that no stones or whatever were thrown at the yeomanry, so there was no justification or provocation for their violence. The Six Acts passed later in 1819 were intended to clamp down on further mass protest. The propaganda war continues today, such as in arguments that not enough people were killed for it to really constitute a massacre. An appalling article by Dominic Sandbrook (Mail Online 24 August 2018) played down Peterloo’s significance and claimed that, compared to the violence of the French Revolution, it ‘was not even a sideshow’. Moreover, it was ‘almost certainly an accident’. But, while it is arguable to what extent there was an advance government plan to attack the demonstrators, the events of 16 August have to be seen in the context of both previous and subsequent state repression aimed at keeping workers in their place.

The bicentenary of Peterloo is being marked by a number of events and exhibitions in Manchester (see peterloo1819.co.uk). This book provides an excellent account of what happened and why it remains important.

Paul Bennett

Same Difference? (2019)

The Wood for the Trees Column from the August 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the less used items from within the dialectical toolbox is the sameness/difference duality. Its paradoxical nature is highlighted in the much used retort: ‘but that’s like comparing apples with oranges’; a phrase often used to emphasize the inappropriateness of a particular analogy. This kind of critique always insists on difference rather than similarity, a familiar feature of contemporary ideology, but sometimes what is important about apples and oranges is that they are both fruits.

During a discussion about narrative structures within literature and films I found myself more interested in the idea of the ‘meta-structure’ of the quest storyline. From The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Odyssey through The Morte D’Arthur to The Big Lebowski , Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter stories we see many similarities. Indeed the rise of ‘genre’ entertainment has led to an expectation of formulaic similarities within the modern audience. An objection to this approach to understanding narratives is that it can overwhelm the subtle aesthetic differences that make the telling of the tale meaningful to a contemporary audience. So a balance is needed to produce an insightful and relevant critique of any art form; or, for that matter, of just about any experience.

Consumer capitalism attempts to surround us with novelty; it continually proclaims to have reinvented the wheel. On the supermarket shelves we see what appears to be an endless variety when in fact beneath the bright packaging we find much the same ingredients. The ability to see hidden realities beneath superficial facades has always been celebrated as one of the highest human intellectual achievements – with the scientific adventure being the supreme example. 

A great danger of being surrounded by hyperbole is that the truly new and important can be overlooked. This is where a dialectical approach can be a powerful help. Political ideologies come and go with great rapidity: ‘monetarism’, ‘neo-liberalism’, ‘the third way’, ‘Leninism’, ‘Trotskyism’, ‘populism’ etc, all proclaim to be something new and different but for a socialist they are just a tired repackaging of capitalism.

Hence we emphasize the sameness of such ideologies and not whatever subtle differences may or may not exist. Our perspective is purely pragmatic – will these ‘new’ ideologies substantially change the lives of working people? Upon consideration, using the methods explained above, we have reached the conclusion that such minor variations of the capitalist system cannot and will not change the lives of the majority for the better – and, thus far, we have been proven correct in our conclusions.

It might be surprising to some that, given the bitter and destructive nature of the class struggle, we do not emphasize any substantial difference between the vast majority and the tiny parasitic minority in terms of their humanity. The Left love to demonize the individual capitalist as evil and greedy – which he or she might be – but what is important here is to emphasize that they are trapped in their role just as the working class are trapped into making the lives of the rich possible. Obviously the economic concerns of the rich are very different from those of us who have to sell our labour power to them in order to exist but as human beings they also share many of our anxieties albeit in a different form. Life and death, physical and psychological well-being and human relationships dominate their lives as much as they do ours.

Given the social nature of our species the rich can suffer loneliness (the continual doubt about the possible monetary motivation of friends and loved ones) and the alienation born of privileged social exclusion and the continual quest for more wealth and power that provides status within their peer group. With this in mind we focus our critique on capitalism and not on individual capitalists. We stress the difference in economic and political terms and emphasize sameness in relation to our shared humanity and its deepest needs – a dialectical insight and balance is achieved.

The decision whether or not to emphasize one or other of these elements present in all political ideas is wholly dependent on historical development; for instance given the dominant mode of production in Russia in 1917 (agrarian and feudal) the sameness of the political and economic interests of the minority bourgeoisie (immanent) and the working class (future) at that moment in history made it imperative that both these minority classes worked together to overthrow the autocracy of the Czarist regime.

Had the Mensheviks the wisdom to reject participation in the then raging First World War the Bolshevik coup d’état would most likely never have happened and Russia would probably have progressed to a more traditional form of capitalism. The Bolshevik insistence that their regime was a form of socialism, and the acceptance of this by many intellectuals, is testament to the dangers inherent in wrongly emphasizing the difference of the social origins of a new elite and their confused statist economic experiment rather than insisting on the sameness of authoritarian structures inherent in all forms of capitalism from the perspective of the overwhelming majority.

Wez

Not what it used to be (1962)

From the November 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

The rich are always sensitive about the sufferings of the poor; not, of course, to the point of being willing to get off their backs, but at least to the point of being glad to be told from time to time that the poor are not as poor as they used to be and that if any are it is their own fault. Such assurance is a great comfort to the rich. It carried them safely through the miseries of a dozen slumps and made them (and still makes them) genuinely indignant whenever the workers come out on strike, because, as the newspapers always inform them, strikes were justified in the bad old days but not now when everything is so nearly perfect. How are they to know that the newspapers were saying exactly the same in the “bad old days," twenty, forty, a hundred years ago?

About a hundred years ago Marx and others were commenting on the great inequality of income and property between the workers and the property owners. Already the defenders of capitalism were at work suggesting that it used to be even more unequal and that things were improving daily. Ever since then there has been a continuous stream of that kind of propaganda. It was flowing strongly in the depression between the wars, as the following samples show:

  It appears safe to say that the distribution of capital is less unequal than it was before the war. (Manchester Guardian, 12 March 1936). 

  . . . the great re-distribution of wealth and income that has happened in this country since the war. . . . (Times Literary Supplement, 7 March 1936. 

  The gap between rich and poor in this country shows every sign of continuing to grow smaller. (Star, 9 April 1936).

The line has changed since then; not that it has been given up, but the dates have been altered and the great improvement is now supposed to have taken place since 1936. not before. In truth, apart from the continued post-war conditions of very low unemployment (which does not look so secure now) the main features of ownership of capital and division and of national income appear to have altered very little over a long period. Which explains why the stream of propaganda about alleged growing equality gets interrupted from time to time by statistical inquiries showing how little, if any, change there actually has been.

We have just had such an inquiry in Professor Titmuss’ Income Distribution and Social Change (Allen and Unwin, 25s.). He refers to the widespread opinion among politicians and economists that this country had become more a much more equal society than it was before the war and sets out to examine again the statistical material on which this opinion has rested. He makes many criticisms of the material on national income distribution and the way it has been interpreted (and also some criticisms of statistics of ownership of wealth). He holds that the earlier studies may have reached wrong conclusions: there is, he claims, need for a re-examination because the belief in greater equality of income distribution may be seriously in error.

But no matter what Professor Titmuss writes about it, the propaganda claiming that things are better than they were will persist.

Among other reasons, it always suits the political party in power to argue that its policies have had or will have a beneficial effect in the direction of diminishing poverty and it can be taken as certain that there will be an almost universal agreement in the Press and elsewhere not to consider doing anything that matters about the fundamental social issue of the means of production and distribution, land, factories, etc., being owned by a small minority of the population. A case in point is the review of Titmuss' book by Samuel Brittan in the Observer (Sept, 30th, 1962). He recognises, as does Titmuss, that distribution of income cannot be considered apart from the ownership of wealth, and actually remarks that "the whole subject of inequality is largely discussed without hypocrisy. The basic question is the ownership of personal wealth.” Yet this promising opening leads on to the pettifogging and irrelevant proposal that there should be “a moderate and graduated annual tax on personal wealth in the upper incomes.”

Just how this is supposed to alter the basic situation is not explained.

Edgar Hardcastle

What is value? (1962)

From the November 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Private property, commodities and value are a troublesome trinity unless we understand them. There are three important aspects of value. The first is its purely social character which shows itself in buying and selling. The second is abstract human labour as the social substance of value. The third is the quantity of social labour which determines the magnitude of value. Buying and selling is the mode of exchanging wealth today. It involves careful weighing, measuring and counting against price to ensure that equal amounts of values change hands.

Exchange is a social act in which value is measured. In order to do this, a commodity must be related to some other commodity, different in kind, in which it can express its value. The value of the article, is, at all times, the chief concern of its owner. But it must be a use value to people other than its owner. In all equations, the article on the relative side expresses its value in the one on the equivalent side.

As an imaginary example of the elementary form of relative value we can equate a coat to a pair of shoes. In this case, the coat, occupying the relative side, is expressing its value in the material form of shoes. If we invert the equation we then express the value of the shoes. However, provided that each person sees, in the other’s useful article, a value content equal to that of his own, exchange takes place. Equal amounts of value are realised in the useful form of each other’s goods. As property owners both are satisfied.

In such equations it appears, on the surface, that value is an inherent, an intrinsic or material part of the commodities. This is an illusion. All value equations are social relations between men in society in which the legal transfer of ownership of property is determined on the basis of equal amounts of value being exchanged. It should be obvious that such acts can only take place in private property based societies.

The question now is—how is the ratio of exchange accurately determined? All useful articles differ greatly. Take coats and shoes, for example; they differ in material, form and purpose. The concrete (or producers’) labour in them is also very different. We have spinning, weaving, tailoring, tanning and shoemaking. It is productive labour which creates use values; both the labour and the articles are material in character and are different in quantity and quality. They cannot be measured in these forms.

If we disregard the specific type of the work (engineers, bakers, etc.) we reduce it all to the expenditure of human skill and energy in wealth production. The common denominator is therefore, abstract human labour. This is common to all commodities and is our measuring rod. Concrete labour produces use value whereas abstract labour creates values. It is important to note that value-creating labour must be useful, socially necessary, and of average skill and intensity. Irrespective of all differences in their material form or usefulness, all commodities are embodiments of the social substance abstract human labour. Social labour measures, in time, from the smallest fractions upwards simple or complex labour.

The magnitude of the value of any commodity is easily determined. In making this abstraction we are merely following the general practice in science. For example, we have steam, petrol, gas and diesel engines, etc.; all different forms of energy. In abstraction we reduce all of them to power and express it in units of horse power. If we now look at our equation (one coat equals one pair of shoes) we see that as embodiments of human labour the coat and the shoes are similar in quality and, as units containing x hours of social labour, they are equal in quantity. Equal amounts of labour time will always produce equal amounts of value.

Commodity production and exchange extended and developed from the elementary form of value, through expanded relative forms and general forms, to the present money form. This latter is its fully developed form and it works efficiently in expressing value. As Marx said, gold is not by nature money, though money is by nature gold. Gold functions socially, as a universal equivalent, as a measure of value, a standard of price, means of payment and al medium of exchange and circulation. In this capacity it functions as money and becomes the social form of value.

In this, its social function, it assumes an independent form of value because it measures value in its own bodily form and is socially accepted as the material form of value. It stands on one side of the relationship, the equivalent side, as value, opposed to all other commodities on the relative side. In this dazzling role gold appears as a sort of king amongst commodities. However, as a humble commodity, gold is no different from salt, oil or coal. Its value is determined in precisely the same way as all other merchandise. One coat equals one pair of shoes, or one ton of coal, or ten pounds sterling—all of these are different forms of the products of social labour and contain equal amounts of it, are in quality and quantity equal as values.

The exalted position which gold in its money capacity occupies is due primarily to its being a commodity and secondly to its nature as a metal, which renders it eminently suitable for its job. It contains great value in small bulk, is readily coinable and measures value from the smallest fraction upwards. In addition, it enables large quantities of accumulated wealth to be easily stored. As money it is the universally accepted social form of value. It represents the incarnation of abstract human labour and is the materialised form of value. It crosses all international frontiers and encounters no barriers. As a consequence of all this it also serves as universal social use value. The owners of money have immediate access to anything in the world of commodities, in proportion to the amount they have. The owners of all other articles for sale are constantly striving to attract money from the pockets of its owners.

While value is not a physical or material property of any article it is nevertheless a social reality of great importance. It finds its fully developed form in capitalism, in general commodity production. Men, women and children are converted into buyers and sellers whose major social relationships are value relationships. We socialists have abolished the spiritual trinity and impatiently await the workers organising to abolish the social trinities of private property commodities and value, and, with them rent, profit and interest.

John Higgins

The Passing Show: Details (1962)

The Passing Show Column from the November 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Details

The system which exists today in Russia is clearly capitalism. All the classic features of capitalism are there — commodity production, wage-labour, employment (which couldn't exist without employers and employed), currency, the coercive forces of the state, and so on. Naturally, the historical background of the development of capitalism in Russia, and the immediate circumstances in which capitalism came into being there, meant that some minor details of capitalism in Russia differ from details in those countries where capitalism had a longer and slower development. In particular, the very speed with which the old system collapsed, and the new one was introduced, demanded that the state itself, the central committee of the capitalist class, should play a much larger part in the establishment of the new order than it had done in western Europe and North America. Of course, since that time state capitalism has been more and more introduced into the older-established capitalist states; but it has not yet, and one does not know if it ever will, come to play such a part in Western capitalism as it does in the capitalist systems established in Russia, China, India, the African states, and so on.

Proposals

However, even in these comparatively minor details, there is coming to be less and less difference between Russian and Western capitalism. Not only are state planning and control playing a larger part in western capitalism; other changes are being mooted in Russia itself. As The Times said on October 3rd, “Proposals are at present under discussion in Russia to link the remuneration of workers to the profits made by their enterprises in relation to the investments made in them.” Since these and other proposals have aroused controversy, Pravda has recently printed what it calls "a previously unpublished version of a document dictated by Lenin in 1918.”

Raising labour productivity

“Lenin argued that political victory over the capitalists had been won and the struggle was passing to the economic sphere. Those who had formerly sought to sabotage the Bolshevik cause were now (in 1918) offering their services to the new state. It was of the utmost importance to take advantage of these offers and harness to the communist cause the best methods and systems of capitalism. “He proposed that highly paid experts be hired from the United States and elsewhere as consultants and managers. Bourgeois staff and also their methods of labour organization could be used if they helped to raise production. The old world had created systems of labour organization which were diabolical methods for exploiting the worker. At the same time these systems are ‘the last word in the scientific organization of production' and should be copied in the Soviet Union where they would lose their noxious character.

“An example was the system of Mr. Mr. F. W. Taylor, the American engineer who perfected “scientific management”—on which present day time-and-motion studies and “work study” are to a large extent based. “We must apply Taylor’s system and American scientific methods of raising labour productivity throughout Russia,” Lenin wrote, for under Soviet conditions it would lead to a shortening of working hours and an improvement in conditions of work.” The Times 3/10/62

Latest methods

All Lenin was calling for was what could have been expected from any leader of a new capitalist revolution: the application of the latest and best methods (best, that is, from the capitalists’ point of view) which had been evolved in the older capitalist states. As might have been foreseen, when Lenin attempted to square all this with his own statements that the Bolsheviks were really introducing Socialism in Russia, common sense was thrown overboard. Pravda even quotes him as saying that “Socialism has to be learnt to a great extent from the leaders of the trusts, Socialism has to be learnt from the major organizers of capitalism.”

As to that, one can only say that all you can learn from the major organizers of capitalism is how to organize capitalism; and all you can learn from the leaders of trusts is how to lead trusts.

These statements, quoted by Pravda from the greatest figure of the Russian revolution, must surely go far to convince anyone who is still open to reason that Russia is capitalist.

Contrast

On the back of The Times recently there were some photographs of scenes in Peru, and the text beside them read “Peru is a land of contrast and anomaly. It is a rich country where there are also austerity and poverty.”

No wonder there is a saying that the onlooker sees most of the game. The writer of the text saw clearly the social position in Peru. Perhaps if he lived in Peru, he would see just as clearly the “contrast and anomaly,” the riches and poverty side by side, which exist in Britain.

Hard work

Not long ago there was an advert in the daily press from a man who claimed he had amassed £300,000 “through hard work.” As it stands, no one could take exception to the statement. It would be impossible for anyone to amass three hundred thousand pounds without a great deal of hard work.

In fact, only one question remains unanswered.

Whose hard work was it?

Alwyn Edgar

Who are the Socialists? (1923)

From the April 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

By their deeds ye shall know them.
“A Socialist is one who has yearnings for an equal division of unequal earnings.” Thus! our old-fashioned type of antagonist. Finding such puerile nonsense no longer serviceable, more cunning and artful methods are employed to-day. Every sentimental reformer and noisy aspirant to working class "leadership” is hailed by our opponents as a “Socialist.” When we question the justification for the use of the word in relation to these individuals, members of the working class who accept such definitions without thought or reason, offer the inane reply in simple sincerity: “Well, he calls himself a Socialist.” It is not without reason that the capitalist class in an underhand way assist in the deception that these individuals propagate Socialism. It is comforting to them that the workers accept teachings that imply their trust and faith in such people, because the unquestioning acceptance of these teachings signifies that the workers have not reached that stage of mental alertness which would enable them to analyse and draw their own conclusions. Such understanding would render the efforts of both the well-meaning reformer and the self-seeking “leader” futile. One has but to recall the war to remind the reader how these so-called “Socialists” proved conclusively, by their out and out support of Capitalism, the fraudulent nature of their claim to such a title. Unfortunately, working class memory is a fleeting thing, and permits these agents of Capitalism to continue their campaign of confusion. In a good many cases it is from these people that men and women sincerely seeking to understand the why and wherefore of their lives imbibe their unsound economics and confused conceptions. A visit to a few of their meetings supplies the evidence, and where discussion is permitted it is reduced to a mere farce. Not without reason: Does it matter if these false doctrines are the outcome of sincerity or deliberate design? the effect is equally pernicious to the worker, and of service to the masters: What then is the difference between the Socialist Party and other political organisations seeking the support of the workers? It is the difference between Reform and Revolution: We have but one object, the establishment of Socialism, to achieve which we work for the revolutionary political organisation of our class. Reforms are necessary to a rapidly developing Society, but granted the carrying through of the whole of the programmes of the Reform parties, the fundamental condition of the workers would not be improved. Generations of reforms have been accompanied with a relative worsening of their conditions. Likewise, to make ridiculous and extravagant “demands” on behalf of the workers while they remain without understanding, merely shows the ignorance or treachery of their would-be “leaders.” Without power to enforce these demands they may save their breath, for when the workers have the power they need no longer formulate demands or claim "rights,” much less beg their oppressors to hear their woeful tale of want. Powerless in ignorance to-day, they will become mighty and formidable in intelligence tomorrow. While the majority are in the former condition they retain the belief inculcated by their rulers’ so-called education, that Capitalism is the best and only system possible—hence, at election times they vote for that system and in war time fight for it. There can only be one correct conception of Socialism, the scientific one. Likewise, those accepting by understanding, the principles arising from this conception are the Socialists, and all others consciously or otherwise enemies of that cause. What then is this scientific conception? It is briefly summarised in our principles. The present system of Society is the result of the development of a previous system, a development in which was generated the conditions for the new Society. Are similar conditions present within the system of today? All the means for prolific wealth production are present to-day, but privately owned by the capitalist class, and socially operated by the working class alone; yet capable of being socially owned and democratically controlled for an output of wealth in whatever quantities required to satisfy the needs of the whole people. There is one obstacle; lack of understanding by a majority of the workers of Socialism, the knowledge we seek to impart. To talk of reforms, united fronts, demands and rights, is to knowingly or unknowingly play the masters’ game and divert the toilers from correct knowledge. Disillusioned of their frothy “leaders,” and with only contempt for the snivelling reformer, they will march on without need for "trust” or "belief” in anyone, but knowing through understanding that the power of their organised policy will realise their long-delayed emancipation through the establishment of the Socialist Commonwealth.

W. E. MacHaffie

Hypocritical Clynes. (1923)

From the April 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. J. R. Clynes, as the result of his long association with the “Working-class” Movement, has thoroughly learned to trade upon the traditional short memories of the workers, and so can with safety to his position indulge in vagaries according to the situation at any given time. As witness to this, we would draw our readers' attention to some of the remarks to which he gave utterance in his presidential address to the National Federation of General Workers’ Conference at Leamington recently. Speaking as a trade-union leader he declared that:—

  “The outlook for mutual agreement is not bright, and the sacrifices which the workers have had to endure have not "hastened the trade revival which cheaper labour was said to guarantee.” (Daily News, 18/8/22.)

Further:—

  “The service and sacrifice of the millions of workers during the war, who served their country in the Army and Navy, have been scantily rewarded in the days of so-called peace.” (ibid.)

With regard to the important admission that “the outlook for mutual agreement is not bright,” and others to the effect that a matter of six million workers have lost wages to the extent of £10,000,000 per week, and that where resistance was offered the end was often defeat, one would imagine that Mr. Clynes would seek alternative methods to retard this downward tendency. There is no sign of any suggestion, however, but only a vague threat of retaliation in the future, when the conditions of the labour market may permit. It is just here where he reveals his inconsistency, for it is but a short time back, viz., 1919,  when he was loudest amongst those crying for increased production by the workers —for who cannot remember his signature appearing on the well-known Government Poster of that time? It is obvious that increased production, with a decreased consumption, could not possibly redound to the advantage of the workers.
Dealing with the second quotation above, the rewards to those who served in the war are only what were to be expected, if only from our experience of previous campaigns; yet we know that Mr. Clynes ably played his part in helping to prosecute the war—at a safe distance from the mud and blood of Flanders.


These are but jottings, merely intended to show in some slight way the nature of the man whose influence over men is considerable. That these remarks may lead to some diminution of that influence, with a corresponding increase in self-reliance on the part of the workers, is the hope of WILEB.

Any More For The Sieve? (1923)

From the April 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

You will remember the immortal lines of Edward Lear :

“They went to sea in a sieve they did ;
In a sieve they went to sea.”

And then, after extravagant and variegated adventures, in the last verse he informed us :

‘‘In forty years they all came back,
“In forty years or more.”

I mention this to introduce you to the great thought that has struck Professor Arthur Thomson! He thinks we should all go into the sieve again; and, unlike kindly Edward Lear, he doesn’t want us all to come back.

We welcome the appearance in popular journalism of the man of science. It is good and fitting that those who have been enabled to withdraw from the cut and thrust of commercial life and pursue the search for knowledge exclusively should repay their debt to society in this way. It is to be feared, however, that with the standard of popular journalism fairly low, the scientific contributor is apt to follow suit. But to return to the sieve. The readers of “John O’ London’s Weekly’’ for March 17th were informed, under the large heading, “Mankind Must Be Sifted,’’ of the pickle we are in.

  “There is too little sifting. If ten biologists were asked what feature in modern civilisation gave them most anxiety . . . we are inclined to think all would agree in placing first the relative slackness of selective processes working in the direction of progressive evolution.”

Professor Thomson apparently does not agree with Viscount Grey, who in a recent lecture said that the great question which transcended all others in importance at the present time was the relationship between Capital and Labour. But that is merely by the way. Each to his taste, as it were. He summarises in an able and popular way the successive conquests of poor, puny man over rugged, titanic, barbaric Nature.

  ‘‘These were ages of stern sifting; they lasted long, and they had good results. Man was lifted to good purpose.”

But Professor Thomson almost deplores the fact that in the contest, microbe versus man, it is the microbe which is increasingly taking the count. There are some diseases, he tells us, that weed out the weaker and leave the stronger surviving.

  “But this is a rapidly dwindling process, for the progress of hygiene and preventive medicine tends to eliminate the eliminators; and if we devise methods for saving useful lives, . . .  we have to use them for saving weakly lives as well.”

How sad! How Professor Thomson must have cursed his article of the previous week, wherein he praised the work of Jenner and his conquest of smallpox. That’s the worst of this journalism business; your stuff’s in print before you have time to think. However, at the time of going to press, pending the publication of a further article on a new dilemma of civilisation, there seems to be a case for the scrapping of our sewage system and the return of the cesspool. Let Nature do the sifting. The weakest to the wall, that’s Nature’s way. There are sections of mankind who, so other professors have told us, do give Nature a chance with the sieve. Babies not up to market size are exposed to the vultures, or thrown to the crocodiles. Elderly people who feel the strain of living getting too much for them have their brains beaten out with clubs by their sons. The natives of India treat as sacred the poisonous reptiles which wipe out a few thousand of them every year. They decline to resist the claim of the bubonic plague germ to a place in the sun.

I fear I am doing Professor Thomson an injustice. He sees the other horn of the dilemma. Space precludes quoting in full, but he says :

  "Now, the throwing off of the yoke of Natural Selection without substituting for it any processes of sifting that can pretend to be adequately testing or consistent or well thought out means for man a difficult dilemma and a great danger . . .  the growing solidarity or integration of society makes it easier for the inferior, or defective, or undesirable slacker, to continue to live and multiply. ”

Now to his remedies, his sieves :

  "(1) The multiplication of the radically undesirable must be checked. (2) . . . re-education of public opinion in the lines of the old-fashioned eugenic ideals of pride of race and pride in having a vigorous family. (3) . . . selection which takes the form of insisting on efficiency requirements. The more of this the better when the requirements are reasonable, and when they tend to make life more difficult for unreliable types whose multiplication is not in the interests of the race. (4) . . . To put an end—so gradually that the process is not cruel—to the less desirable occupations. (5) Perhaps the sifting may come sooner than we think, and in an undesirable form.”

He does not mean warfare, for, as he says, war thins rather than sifts, and works in the wrong direction by removing the bravest and best. He concludes rather nebulously by saying :

  “Perhaps it is safer to say that man must more resolutely seek to discover rational and social modes of selection to take the place of Natural Selection, whose rule Is almost over—What is needed is a progressive evolution of sieves."

Nebulous certainly seems the aptest adjective. Notice how the changes are rung on desirable and undesirable. By whom and for whom? Why is the question never once raised as to who and what are the defectives; whence they come or how they arise. I have seen it stated by another of the professorial fraternity that in spite of all hereditary taint 99 per cent. are born perfect. When one thinks of the lives led by millions of workers, this figure is surprisingly low. What happens after birth the war recruiting strikingly revealed, for to get an army of any size, the deaf, the half-blind, the half-witted, and the epileptic were roped in by the hundred. Reflect upon the thousands of dentists, tearing out the teeth of the nation; upon the thousands of oculists attending to our eyes; the battalions of doctors waxing fat on our unhealthiness; our huge and overcrowded hospitals, asylums, yes, and prisons; and then ask, is it sieves we want? Many “enlightened" employers have found that garden cities, well ventilated factories, fatigue reducing methods, staff athletic clubs, canteens, etc., result in higher efficiency, reduced sickness and greater contentment. They have found that the manufacture of defectives does not pay in their particular business. In scores of other businesses it does not matter. Any lapse through the non-operation of these factors is speedily remedied through the Labour Exchange. The employing class as a whole never says, “Low wages mean stunted men, starved women and defective children." It never says, “Long hours and intense toil mean premature age, empty lives and high accident rates for the toilers.” But they do mean so. For every defective born there is a hundred made by capitalism. For the defective born there is a hope of cure; for the defective made there is none—except Socialism. Professor Thomson would chuck him in the sieve. The Socialist would render the sieve unnecessary by ceasing the manufacture of defectives. The scientific professor is concerned with effects, the Socialist with causes. Judge you between us.

W. T. Hopley

How To Snare Labour Leaders. (1923)

From the April 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

The ruling class have recently been very busy winning over Labour Leaders by the old game of patronage of flattery. They have been invited to dine with Peers and Royalty, so that they may learn how the master class love the workers. Needless to say, the Labour Leaders, anxious to get the votes of the reactionary, so-called middle class, have rushed willingly into the trap. The “Daily Herald” avoids a definite expression of opinion by saving (12th March, 19 2.1):

  "Our own view is that Labour M.P.'s are the best judges of their own section in social matters. Certainly no one could impute to those in question any weakness of character or any failure to consider what effect their action would be likely to produce."

A few years ago, when the “Herald” was not quite so subservient, it published some verses by W. N. Ewer, which summed up the position more vigorously and more correctly.

  "Whom the King delighteth to Honour.”
  “May we go now, Hodge ?”—Lord Derby.
  “I hope to see Mr. Hodge in the House of Lords.’’—Lord Burnham.
  "Of course, I know Mr. John Hodge very well." —George V. 

When Derby dropped the prefix from your name.
  And hailed you “Hodge,” acclaiming you an equal,
We thought you’d reached the topmost heights of fame,
  That Fate could give you nothing in the sequel  

Better than this admitted full equality
With gentry of the highest rank and quality.
We deemed it then as certain you would get
   The Peerage Burnham now has prophesied you,  

That, clad in ermine and a coronet,
  You’d sit, Lord Hodge, with Curzon, say, beside you,
Perhaps a bishop as your other neighbour
Incarnating the dignity of Labour. 

But now—you’ve passed beyond such petty things
  As baronies and social recognition,
You have become the intimate of Kings,
  You have o'erleaped the loftiest ambition;
Dukedoms and Garters wait you—what’s the bettin ’ ?
You the close friend of royal George of—Windsor.  

But does it never enter in your head
  That here in England honours must be paid for
Either in coin or services instead?
  In fact, that is precisely what they’re made for.
All of them, from the B.E. to the Garter, 

Are merchandise displayed for sale or barter.
It’s not for love of your sweet self alone
  Our lords and masters trouble to amuse you
With honours and with flattery from the throne;
  Dear Hodge, it’s only that they want to use you.
You take their gift—well, thank them as you may for it,
You’ll find they still expect that you will pay for it.  

You cannot pay, as others do, with gold.
 You must sell something—they’ll insist on payment.
What—who is it that’s going to be sold?
  God! Don’t you see beneath the sheep-skin raiment.
Don’t you see “gifts” from royal Faith Defenders
Are just like “easy terms” from money-lenders.  

Hodge! Surely you’re not going to be caught
  By dangled coronets and royal cooing.
Tell them that Labour isn’t to be bought;
  Tell them right out that there is nothing doing.
Quick ! or you’ll find too late that you are netted.
Disgraced and damned and chained and coroneted.

Edgar Hardcastle

Socialism and Christianity. (1923)

From the April 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

The famous Doctor Samuel Johnson once said, “Two contradictory ideas may inhere in the same mind; they cannot both be correct.” And one is reminded of this obvious truth when reading the correspondence recently published in the "Daily Herald” on the subject of "Christianity and Labour.” Of the letters published the majority convey the view that there is a similarity between what the various writers call Socialism and Christianity. To the Socialist, however, those who hold this view betray an ignorance of both sets of ideas. For not only are Socialism and Christianity not identical; they are irreconcilably opposed. The antagonism between Socialism and Christianity is fundamental, as will be seen in the different methods employed to explain social conditions, and also in the totally different concepts of life. To find an explanation of present social conditions the Socialist analyses society and discovers therein two distinct social classes, separated from each other by clearly marked political and economic characteristics. One class, the capitalist class, own and control the means of wealth production, but take no part in the process of producing the wealth. The analysis of the Socialist shows that the capitalists, who own an enormous mass of wealth, are able to obtain this wealth by the robbery of the other class in society—the working class.

Having no property in the means of wealth production the members of the working class are compelled to sell their energy to those who own the various tools of production, in order to obtain the wherewithal to live. It is by means of the workers applying this energy to nature given material that the wealth necessary to human existence is produced. But the great bulk of this wealth is appropriated by the capitalists who have control of political power and consequently use that power to legalise their robbery of the working class.

There is little need to stress the fact that, contrary to the wealthy position of the capitalists, the position of the workers is one of poverty and insecurity of existence. In an earlier stage of social development man endured privation through his lack of knowledge of the forces of nature, but in modern society, with man having gained a greater control over natural forces, wealth can be produced in abundance. Starvation or a lack of the means of subsistence, although unavoidable in earlier times, is now quite avoidable. There are ample means at the disposal of modern society for all to live in economic security, free from the yoke of servitude and the exploitation and poverty it entails for the working class. The poverty and the general degradation within society we trace directly to the class ownership of the means of life.

Thus it is in the roots of society itself that the Socialist discovers the core of the "social problem”.

The Christian, however, if he is consistent with his creed, alleges that the explanation of all things, including social conditions, is to be found in that metaphysical abstraction "God”—an abstraction aptly described by Spinoza as the "asylum of ignorance.” To the Christian this world is ”God’s world." He created it, and everything in it, including man. The affairs of the world are supposed to be controlled by this supernatural power, whose activities it is blasphemy to question.

In contrast with the scientific determinism of the Socialist philosophy, which points out the overwhelming influence of material conditions in shaping human conduct, the Christian asserts that man is endowed with a free will, and he expects human conduct to take on any particular form regardless of whatever conditions are prevailing. Hence, while the Socialist relies upon a change of political and economic conditions for human improvement, the Christian calls for "a change of heart.’’ In contrast with the policy of the Socialist, who urges the workers to resist the tyranny of their exploiters, and to organise themselves for the overthrow of class domination, the Christian urges the policy of class conciliation. The poverty stricken worker is to shake the hand of his wealthy exploiter, and “Capital and Labour” are to live in harmony. Instead of the end of classes we are to have their continuance under the cloak of “Christian brotherhood.”

The method of the Socialist—i.e., the method of explanation through natural causes is therefore in striking contrast with the method of the Christian, who seeks the explanation through the mistiness of super-naturalism. It is claimed by many who attach little or no importance to the supernaturalism of Christianity that the ethics now associated with that religion are of the essence of Socialism, but only ignorance or deliberate misrepresentation can give rise to the claim.

Throughout the history of societies composed of classes the various ethical codes have been those best suited to the interest of the particular ruling class, and imposed upon the lower orders as a means of government. The ethics of Christianity form no exception to this rule; they are slavish ethics, and as such have been an assistance to government in the hands of rulers throughout Christendom.

It is fairly obvious that for any religion or ethical code to be adopted by the ruling class it must conform to its interest, and the fact that Christianity, with its slavish ethical code, has been a State religion for centuries, is in itself sufficient to merit the serious attention of the student of sociology. Christianity first became a State religion in the slave conditions of the decaying Roman Empire, in an age that is described by Professor Seeley as a religious age, "because it was an age of servitude.” Many historians concur in the view that it was the cardinal ethic of submission which influenced Constantine, the Roman Emperor, to embrace Christianity.

After its recognition by the head of the Roman Empire, the progress of Christianity proceeded apace throughout Western Europe, and its progress can be explained largely by its utility as an aid to government.

The student of history will find that Christianity, like all other religions, has been utilised against the lower orders whenever they have rebelled against the tyranny of their rulers The scriptural 'injunction of “Servants obey your masters,” has always been ready to hand to encourage submissiveness, and the “great” Martin Luther, who is held up by the Protestants as a light of liberty, demonstrated how this injunction serves against the subject class. When the peasants of Germany rose in revolt against their exploiters in 1525, Luther addressed the nobles and princes as follows :

  “Inasmuch as they are evil minded and brazenly refuse to obey, and furthermore, resist their masters, they have forfeited life and soul as do all faithless, perjured, mendacious, disobedient knaves and villains. Therefore it becomes the duty of all here to strangle and stab, secretly or publicly, all such, and remember that there is nothing so poisonous, injurious and fiendish as a rebellious person. Just as you would kill a mad dog; if you do not strike him he will strike you, and with you the whole country.” (Quoted, by Gustav Bang in his ‘‘Crises in European History.”)

It is useless for our Christian apologists to claim that Luther and his like acted in contravention of "true Christianity.” For in every case of the votaries of Christianity using their influence to crush rebellion they stood upon the "authority of the Holy Bible.” The doctrine of non-resistance to evil is one of the chief tenets of the Christian religion, and was taught by its titular founder and his chief apostle Paul. The latter, in his various epistles to the Romans, Corinthians, Ephesians, etc., at all times enjoined the slaves to be obedient to their masters "in fear and trembling,” and to give them the same submission as they gave to Christ. Thus it is clear that the ethics of Christianity with their slavish characteristics are utterly out of harmony with the revolutionary principles of Socialism. Even the much lauded "Golden rule," although no monopoly of Christianity, since it was preached centuries prior to the advent of that religion, and is to be found in most ancient religions and philosophies, is useless to the workers as a means of their social advancement. Those who dominate society cannot be removed from their social position by the preaching of ethics; they can only be removed as all other ruling classes have been removed, i.e., by the reins of government being taken from their control by another class gaining power.

With regard to the different concepts of life between the Socialist and the Christian. The latter can only regard the world as a “vale of tears,” and this life as a painful preparation for a life we are supposed to live hereafter. It is an essential part of Christian teaching that the affairs of this life are as nought compared with the promised life beyond the clouds, and consequently we are enjoined to despise earthly things, to reap our reward in heaven. Of course, the Christian in practice treats earthly things much in the same manner as do non-Christians, but we are concerned here not with his actions but with his teaching. To the Socialist, the affairs of this life, the only life we know of, are of the utmost importance, and our concern is to make it as pleasurable as possible. As indicated above, there are ample means at the disposal of mankind to-day for all to live, in economic security and in healthy social surroundings. But such a condition of affairs will not be accomplished by preaching ethics, whether religious or secular, it will only materialise by the waging of the class struggle in which the workers must be backed up by a sound knowledge of the forces that lead to their emancipation from wage slavery. The workers must realise the fact that, in the words of Marx, "Religion is the opium of the people”; it has been the chloroform in the hands of parasites, throughout the history of class domination, and inasmuch as it has any influence in modern society, it acts as it is its nature to act, as a conservative force, aiming to preserve the traditional illusions of the dead past, as obstacles to the needs of the living present, and the future. Christianity, like all religions, has been driven from every field of science, and since Socialism in philosophy is science applied to society, Christianity can find no logical place in the Socialist philosophy. We Socialists take our stand upon the firm basis of positive science explaining social conditions, and, in fact, all things within the scope of our knowledge, by purely natural causation. Thus, the materialistic movement of Socialism is seen to be utterly opposed to the false idealism and supernaturalism of Christianity. Socialism alone, with its recognition of the supreme importance of material things, can accomplish for the workers what Christianity and its slavish morality assists to retard. We know that economic evolution and the self- interest of the working class are inevitably preparing the path for that great social change, when the workers of the world will enjoy the fruits of their labour in a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production and distribution by and in the interest of the whole community; a system of society known as Socialism.

Robert Reynolds.

Material World: Coal Mining Insanity (2012)

The Material World Column from the November 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

According to a report released in July by National Public Radio and the Center for Public Integrity, black lung disease in coal miners has quadrupled since the 1980s and doubled since 2002. The doubling coincided with an increase of 600 hours in the work year of the average miner. Over 10,000 miners died of the disease in 1985-94 in the Appalachians alone.

There is no treatment for black lung disease. At its final stage – ‘massive fibrosis’ – even mild exertion causes disabling oxygen deprivation. Victims say they can either eat or breathe, but not both at the same time.

The coal seams in old mines have thinned, and the companies extract seams down to one inch thick. These thin seams are often embedded in quartz rock with a high silica content, which generates dust even more deadly than coal dust.

Hiding the dust

In 1960 Congress passed a law to regulate dust levels in mines. But Big Coal and its bought politicians – such as the late Senator Robert Byrd, who cynically called himself “the coal miner’s friend” – weakened its safety provisions to keep down costs for the companies. They seek to protect corporate profits, not workers’ health. Miners are expendable and can readily be replaced, perhaps at even lower wages, from the ‘reserve army of the unemployed’.

The main weakness of the law as passed is that it lets the companies police themselves. A government inspector cannot enter a mine while production is underway – and that is 24 hours a day! – without the company’s prior consent. When the dust level readings taken by the company disagree with those taken by the inspector, the company is allowed to take definitive new readings at five locations chosen by itself.

Weak as the law is, it is often broken. During the last decade mining companies were cited with over 53,000 violations. Fewer than 1,000 resulted in court action.

Waste stream

In February 2011 the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences published a report by scientists from several US universities, entitled ‘Full Cost Accounting for the Life Cycle of Coal’. The authors found that each stage in the life cycle of coal – extraction, transport, processing, combustion – generates a waste stream that poses multiple hazards to health and the environment.

Thus, the release of Coal Combustion Waste (CCW), also known as fly ash, by burning coal exposes people to toxic chemicals and heavy metals known to cause cancer, birth defects, reproductive disorders, neurological damage, learning disabilities, kidney disease and diabetes.

The coal companies do not pay these ‘external’ costs and therefore ignore them. The scientists estimate the annual cost to the US public as at least a third of a trillion dollars, possibly over half a trillion. Accounting for the damage caused by coal gives a ‘full social cost’ double or triple the ‘economic cost’ of generating electricity from coal. Measured against this benchmark, wind, solar and other non-hydrocarbon energy sources are far cheaper than coal.

Greenhouse gas emissions

The authors found that burning coal produces 50 percent more emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2 — the main greenhouse gas) than combustion of an equivalent amount of oil and double the CO2 emissions from burning an equivalent amount of natural gas.

Coal also contains mercury, lead, cadmium, arsenic, manganese, beryllium, chromium, and other toxic and carcinogenic substances that are released into the environment during combustion. Finally, the crushing and processing of coal release tons of tiny particles every year that contaminate the water, air and soil, with consequent harm to health and the biosphere.

Methane is also released in the process of coal mining. It is a greenhouse gas 25 times more powerful than CO2. Even when methane decays it yields CO2 — a lose-lose situation.

Mountaintop Removal

The coal companies make wide use of Mountaintop Removal (MTR) in the Appalachians. To get at the coal inside a mountain, they use explosives to blast away the summit, together with the forest covering it. The resulting rubble or “spoil” is dumped into the valleys below.

MTR has been used at about 500 sites in four states (Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, and Tennessee), burying 2,000 miles of streams and despoiling 1.4 million acres of scenic natural terrain. In Kentucky alone there are 293 MTR sites, with over 1,400 miles of streams damaged or destroyed and 2,500 more miles polluted.

This reckless vandalism is directed against a region whose rich biodiversity is second only to that of the tropics. The Southern Appalachian Mountains are home to the greatest variety of salamanders in the world, with 18 percent of all known species.

Just say no!

In view of the massive social costs associated with coal mining and the availability of less destructive energy sources, this industry would be a thing of the past if the government, with its monopoly on violence, were not in collusion with Big Business — in this case, the coal companies.

There is not and never was any such thing as a ‘free market’. Government, with its law-making, courts, and self-sustaining monopoly on violence, is necessary to camouflage the tremendous imbalance between the classes and create the illusion of a society of normal human relations.

If we all, every working class person, just said no, we don’t want this anymore, it would be a first step towards the means of life passing into our hands so we could stop the insane forms of capitalist production that have been destroying our world for over centuries.

Joe Hopkins (WSPUS)

50 Years Ago: A Plea for Human Survival (2012)

The 50 Years Ago column from the November 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Catch-22, by Joseph Heller. Jonathan Cape, 18s.

This is a brilliant, powerful, bitter book.

The military machine is one of capitalism’s ugliest children. Ugly not only because it is a killer machine, but also because of the discipline, stupidity and wastefulness which its killer motive compels it to have. Some workers glory in these things. They never forget their days in the Forces; they join ex-service men’s associations, parade in their earner; medals, perpetuate the slang they learned in the Nissen huts.

Catch-22 looks at all this with the searing eye of remorseless satire. (…) Joseph Heller is another of the people who, without being Socialists, can compose impressive indictments of capitalism. He is a writer of enormous impact, who constructs and times his sentences to perfection. He can make us laugh and he can grip us horrified with sensitive, compulsive prose. His description of Yossarian brooding through Rome, watching human behaviour decay all around him, will haunt us for a long time. All in all he makes the post-war wave of British novelists, with their startling discovery that a lot of people under capitalism have to work for their living and that in their spare time they sometimes get drunk and have illicit sexual relations, look pretty sick. (…)

At the moment, Catch 22 is sweeping the United States, where cars carry window-stickers which say “Better Yossarian Than Rotarian.” Nobody need think, because of that, that if capitalism throws up another world war the people who have laughed at, been moved by, and agreed with Heller’s book will not turn the required mental somersault and join up with a will. We know now that working class ignorance runs that deep.

For all that, Catch-22 deserves to be read and to find its place among the books which stand out against the lie that war is romantic and glorious and necessary but which say unmistakably that the people have nothing to gain from war and that war is sordid and obscene and futile.

(From review by Ivan, Socialist Standard, November 1962)

Greasy Pole: Contrickery in Conference (2012)

The Greasy Pole Column from the November 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Locked, bolted and barred with every spoken syllable and gesture weighed and scrutinised, the annual conferences of the big political parties are not what they used to be. There was a time when the attending members, taking pride in themselves as delegates, could have hoped that their agenda items, after being amended, composited and generally sanitised, might have borne some relation to the professed policy of their party, or when events scheduled as debates might have aroused some passion or indignation about world famine or dictatorships or devastating war. It is not like that now: “Borderline tedium” was how one observer put it.

This year Conservative Party members might have travelled home from their conference in a glow of satisfaction, under the impression that their doubts about the government had been noticed. As when Cameron defiantly laid it down that no one should feel bad about having been to Eton: “I say yes I went to a great school and I want every child to have a great education. I’m not here to defend privilege. I’m here to spread it”. Except that privilege is nothing if not exclusive – as comprehensive pupils will realise if they ever have to play in their school’s version of the Eton Wall Game. As when the new Justice Minister, Christopher Grayling, thumped his tub to announce the replacement of Ken Clarke’s Rehabilitation Revolution by Rougher Retribution. As when Eric Pickles paraded his plans to obstruct the union activities of local authority workers on the grounds that this will make the unions stronger.

Clumsy Clegg

The LibDems no longer alert us about global warming or the dangers of eating non-organic food, which, to anyone interested in political matters, was only mildly irritating. Now they are preoccupied with their agonised wrestling to keep their place on the same side of the Commons as Cameron’s Tories while plugging the gaps left by those infamously dishonoured election pledges. Their method has been to placate the outraged voters while avoiding the question of why any of their future promises should be believed. This wretched come-down dominated their conference, not alleviated by Nick Clegg and his fumbling efforts to divert attention from their exposure: “There is a better, more meaningful future waiting for us. Not as a third party, but as one of the parties of government… Stop looking in the rear-view mirror as we journey from the party of opposition that we were, to the party of government we are becoming”.

False Images

But those images in Clegg’s rear-view mirror could not have inspired the LibDems as examples for the future. Such as: “I see generations of Liberals marching towards the sound of gunfire” – a phrase first offered by the charmingly mannered Old Etonian, Jo Grimond, their leader from November 1956 to January 1967. Under Grimond the Liberals were on the rise, for example, winning the safe Tory seat of Orpington in 1958 but then declined. In July 1976 David Steel took over, offering the party some hope with his livelier style, and for a while this seemed to bear fruit, but in March 1977 Steel stuffed them into an uncomfortable alliance with Callaghan’s Labour government, and when this failed to keep Labour in power in 1988 he managed the merger with the discredited Gang of Four’s SDP. However, there was persistent enmity between Steel and the SDP’s leader David Owen, a symptom of which was Steel agreeing to a joint policy document without having read it. This year a triumphant Clegg told the conference that Paddy Ashdown will head the party’s general election team – the same Paddy Ashdown whose failure to improve the party’s prospects came to an end with his resignation in 1999. None of these men in the rear-view mirror succeeded in raising the Liberals to the point when they could be seen as an alternative government for British capitalism. When Clegg proclaimed to the conference that the LibDems stand for “a fair, free and open society,” he was offering just another pledge, to be judged by the party’s dismal history of failure.

Vote for Disraeli?

When it was time for Ed Miliband to stand at the rostrum he knew – because almost the entire British media had blanketed him with the advice – that this was his make or break time. He slaved at learning his lines off by heart so that as he boarded the train to Birmingham he was as word perfect as any Old Vic veteran. Although an eavesdropping fellow passenger heard him spurting in frustration “What am I doing? Who knows what I’m doing? Where’s my fucking diary?” he came through to make a speech arousing the massive satisfaction of party members and the media – which can be explained only by reference to their impoverished standards of expectation. Plunging into typical politicians’ gobbledygook, Miliband referred (no less than 44 times) to the concept of One-Nation, with an implied salute to Benjamin Disraeli whose name is forever linked to the phrase – which was also used by Tony Blair in Labour’s election winning 1997 manifesto: “I want a Britain that is one nation, with shared values and purpose…”  At a time of recession, with the promise of even fiercer pressure on our living standards, the best Miliband and his party can do is urge us to have regard to the words of a Victorian politician (whose concern for the effects of the class divide and its resultant problems did not endure into what might be called history) and of a recent leader with the reputation of a blatant liar. Meanwhile in the real world, the British Medical Journal, supported by the Samaritans, reports that as unemployment increases so does the rate of suicide.

Vacant Posturing

The Tories went to their conference this year desperate to hear that George Osborne and his magicians at the Treasury will soon have dissolved the recession into history. In a characteristically empty speech David Cameron was able to feed their appetite. For the LibDems Nick Clegg could do little more than console them for the angry likelihood of approaching doom and his own banishment to bitter memory. Ed Miliband showed that he has finally grasped the need for any aspirant political leader to compose a speech consisting of headlines and vacant posturing. None of them could suggest that for human society there should be something other, better or more hopeful. The case for us doing it for ourselves, for changing the way we order the world so that it is to the betterment of humans, remained intact and unchallenged.

Ivan

Proper Gander: The Magic and History Tour (2012)

The Proper Gander Column from the November 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Five creationists must have thought their prayers had been answered when they were offered a free holiday – a road trip across the west coast of America, from Los Angeles to San Francisco. The catch was that on the way they would meet with heathen scientists to dispute their wacky views, and that they would risk humiliation by a BBC3 camera crew. Creationism: Conspiracy Road Trip began with the five fundamentalists being taken ‘on a wing and a prayer’ in a plane above the Grand Canyon. There, they met with a geologist who explained how the canyon was carved out over millions of years, and not a mere 4,000 years ago when ‘the Great Flood’ receded. Next, their coach took them to Lake Powell in Utah, where another scientist described how it would be impossible to squeeze 16,000 animals (presumably including dinosaurs) on Noah’s Ark and still make it float. Driving on to the University of California in Berkeley, the prickly question of incest in Adam and Eve’s immediate family was met with blank looks and feeble responses.

Unfortunately, the debate between creationism and science isn’t about objectively weighing-up the evidence for opposing beliefs. As some of the less blinkered creationists recognised, having faith is usually like holding up a ‘no entry’ sign to scientific evidence, however persuasive. One of the programme’s own ‘experts’ – a Christian palaeontologist – realised that you can’t reconcile the view that humans co-existed with dinosaurs with the fact that their fossilised remains have never been found together. Believing in creationism is like believing that The Flintstones was a fly-on-the-wall documentary. So, many creationists hang on to their views by just refusing to accept the evidence.

Being confronted by this caused one or two of those on the road trip to be driven up the wall. This made for an increasingly bumpy ride, with TV-friendly tears and awkward accusations of bullying. Suspecting a set-up, steely-faced participant Phil challenged the director, engineered a split among the others and became paranoid about the motives of even the Christians they met on the journey. As a reasonable discussion of differing views, this road trip stalled and then spluttered to a halt.

Mike Foster