Ye Who Reap Shall Also Sow (1941)

From the August 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The problem of supplying the population of this country with food has become an extremely important one, because of the exigencies of war-time industrial production. Available shipping space is limited and has to be shared between armament materials and normal imports. To-day armaments receive priority. Imports of raw materials for manufacture and re-export take second place. As reported in the Daily Herald, March 6th, 1940 : “We are not free to concentrate all our strength in making munitions, because we must devote some part of our industrial resources, an increasing part, to the making of goods which will pay for the material out of which these munitions can in turn be made.” Consequently the amount of shipping space available for imports of food is considerably restricted compared with pre-war days.

Prior to the war enormous quantities, by far the greater part in fact, of Britain’s foodstuffs were imported : meat from the Argentine and New Zealand, wheat from the U.S.A. and Canada, butter from New Zealand, bacon and eggs from Denmark, tea from India, sugar from various countries, and so on.

By what process has this country arrived at a condition wherein so much of its foodstuff has to be imported ?

From the fifteenth to the nineteenth century Britain was transformed from a predominantly feudal agricultural country to the capitalist industrial power we know to-day.

With the growth of capitalism, and its inescapable need to make profit, there came the drive to find markets abroad for its products. Hence the growth of the British Empire and the colonisation of virgin lands abroad. In these lands which capitalism colonised it established itself as the economic mode of production.

The capitalists of Britain did not export goods to the Colonies and other lands for philanthropic reasons. The goods were produced to be sold at a profit, and, in order to obtain the money to pay for these goods, the buyers in other countries themselves had to produce and export commodities.

What happened in the “new,” countries? Was not wheat produced in North America, wool, meat and butter in the Antipodes? Did not the “Roast Beef of Old England” proceed to come from South America? Of course!

In the colonial and foreign countries it proved cheaper to produce certain commodities owing to the fact that not only was cheap labour power available, but the quantity of labour required to produce a commodity was less, owing to natural conditions, e.g., the great fertility and advantageous climate of the American wheatlands and the natural rich grassland and wide ranges of Argentina. Competition followed later between the individual capitalists in each respective country, causing improvements in the technical mode of production and thereby further lowering the values of the commodities.

With the development of Britain as a manufacturing country and the rise of various other countries as producers of agricultural goods, British agriculture entered its decline. It could not compete with the imports of cheap foreign produce.

Urging British workers to “Buy British and buy the best” could not stop the decline. Members of the working class, always forced to work for wages which suffice to buy little more than the bare necessities of life, could not do other than purchase them in the cheapest market, hoping to eke out the contents of their meagre wage packets, so that a small portion might be left to enjoy what to them were luxuries.

Sufficient has been said to demonstrate that the decline of agriculture in Britain followed and a necessary complement to the rise of British capitalist industry. Now let us consider the situation, during the present war and the hopes and fears of the farming community.

In its endeavours to provide an adequate supply of food, the Government, working through the various County War Agricultural Committees, has ordered the ploughing and cultivation of millions of acres of land which has lain idle for many years because under normal peace-time conditions it was not profitable to work it. The farmers may well ask if this is the dawn of a new day for agriculture, a sign of better times ahead. Agricultural wage-labourers may wonder if their jobs are going to be more secure and more remunerative than they have ever known. These are the questions that arise in view of the feverish activity displayed in the countryside.

An answer is provided in the following extracts from a book on economics entitled “Elements of Economics,” by S. Evelyn Thomas, B.Com. (Land.), (1932): —

“During the Napoleonic wars the shortage of foreign supplies of corn and the duties on imported corn forced up prices in this country, and led cultivators to resort to inferior land.”

“The return of peace in 1815, however, was followed by a decline in prices, and, in spite of the protection of the Corn Laws, agriculture suffered from acute depression.”

“The period of depression continued until the fifties and sixties, when the Crimean War, the American Civil War, and the Franco-Prussian War caused a reduction in the world’s supply of foodstuffs, thus forcing up prices and benefiting the British farmer, in particular, as imports into this country naturally declined.”

“The period of peace which followed in the seventies was accompanied by a recurrence of depressed conditions in British agriculture. Extensive wheat supplies from the prairies of the United States and of Canada were opened up owing to the improvements in transport and the building of railways. Such imports of corn led to lower prices, and lower prices forced out of cultivation the inferior areas.”

“The depressed conditions continued until the ‘Great War, during which British agriculture enjoyed a short period of great prosperity.”

“The close of the war and the inflow of foreign produce was followed by the usual conditions of depression.” (Italics ours.)

Capitalism has a persistent habit of holding out hopes to those who suffer at its hands. A typical statement——”Every effort to restore agricultural prosperity is being made by the central and local authorities and by other interested parties”—follows on the above quotations.

This statement is intoned like the promises by “our leaders” to-day of social security after the present war. Is there not a parallel between the periodic war-time prosperity and post-war depressions of agriculture and the war-time prosperity of industry and post-war conditions ?

Consider these quotations : —

“He (Mr. R. S. Hudson, Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department, now Minister of Agriculture) was announcing a plan for the complete reorganisation of British industry, so that a tremendous drive to capture world markets can be made.”—(Daily Herald, March 6th, 1940. Italics ours.)

“With European markets closed to them and faced with shipping difficulties, colonial producers have large stocks on their hands. Good progress has been made with plans to find alternative markets and to make arrangements for large scale storage.”— (Daily Telegraph, October l0th, 1940. Italics ours.)

“Planning for a New Britain: Agriculture: — Price control, marketing and general improvement of the agricultural industry will be framed. Trade : —Systems of control will be devised for exports and imports to allow the fullest possible expansion of world trade.”—(Daily Telegraph, January 7th, 1941. Italics ours.)

Observe the obvious contradictions contained in these statements and envisage the position of the capitalist class if and when it attempts to fulfil its plans.

Socialists are not concerned with maintaining the prosperity of capitalist agriculture. We realise that if there is prosperity from the ruling class viewpoint the workers do not necessarily enjoy a higher standard of living whilst such prosperity lasts. Despite all the wishful thinking and fanciful plans oi those who are interested, British agriculture is doomed to a post-war depression.

In “The Conditions of Economic Progress,” Mr. Colin Clark (of the Bureau of Industry, Brisbane) says: “No science has passed its apprenticeship until it is able to describe with confidence and accuracy the future consequences which will follow from present causes.”

Scientific Socialism has passed its apprenticeship. Our investigation of the agricultural problem in this country prompts us to state with confidence that capitalist agriculture holds no hope for the agricultural worker.

A. V. S.

Tit-Bits from the Press (1941)

From the August 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fierce Competition after the War

At the annual meeting of Salts (Saltaire), Ltd., Sir Frank B. Sanderson, M.P., stated (Daily Telegraph, July I7th, 1941) : —

“Britain must plan now for post-war export trade. Peace would bring in its train fierce competition in the world’s markets, and it was only by planning in advance that we should be able to hold our own. A definite, carefully calculated, and well-defined trading policy would be essential. Preferential exports, priority of transport facilities, and stabilising of exchanges were but a few of the matters that would require searching thought.”

There is something rather clear-cut about this picture—something rather different from the nebulous images of the Priestleys. the Morrisons, and the Bevins. It pictures the return of capitalism as we know it from the past—not only fierce competition in the markets of the world, but fierce competition for jobs, unemployment, and poverty and insecurity for the producers.

What Dorothy Thompson Thinks

Among the reasons being given as to why the U.S.A. should enter the war now, the following, by the well-known American writer, Dorothy Thompson, is worth placing on record : —

“The alternative to acting now is either the possible defeat of the British Isles before this year is over, and, in that case, the certainty of a terribly disadvantageous war for the United States, or a very long and exhausting war of attrition, with unforeseeable revolutionary consequences arising out of chaos and starvation.”

Who will do the Unpleasant Tasks ?

One of the most frequent objections raised to Socialist ideas is that under Socialism most people will want to do the pleasant tasks. The present war provides an irrefutable answer to this objection. Numerous instances have been recorded in the Press of how not only men, but women and youths, have, without reward, risked their lives in extinguishing incendiary bombs, putting out fires, rescuing people from falling debris, driving ambulances while bombs are falling, and so on. The motive for these acts of heroism is the belief that the war is a just one—for freedom and the stamping out of Fascism and Nazism. Just as willingly will people be ready to take part in all the tasks of the community when they have assured knowledge that all those tasks are indeed directed towards the common weal.

R. M.

Our new Head Office (1941)

Party News from the August 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The address of Head Office is 33, Gloucester Place, Portman Square, W.1. It is about five minutes from Marble Arch and is just off the end of the Oxford Street end of Baker Street.

Blogger's Note:

The SPGB previous Head Office at 42, Great Dover Street had been hit by a German bomb in April. See the May 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard for more details.

A Diverse World (2021)

From the December 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Big Butterfly Count takes place every year in the UK: volunteers record how many they see in a period of fifteen minutes. The numbers have been going down: an average of nine per count this year, compared to eleven last year and sixteen in 2019. Some species are unable to cope with a warmer climate, and other hazards include habitat loss and the use of pesticides. You may feel that this is a bit of a shame but of no great importance. It is, however, an everyday sign of the global reduction in biodiversity, which has major implications for the future of the planet and of humans.

Elizabeth Kolbert’s book The Sixth Extinction makes the point that there have been five great extinction events, starting with one 450 million years ago and including the wiping-out of dinosaurs in the Cretaceous period. Something along similar lines is already happening, resulting in a possible sixth extinction. A number of species have become extinct in relatively recent times, or rather been made extinct by human actions. For instance, the last examples of the great auk, a large flightless bird, were killed on an island off Iceland in 1844, after a mass slaughter had resulted in them being extirpated from North America by 1800. They were killed for their meat, for use as fish bait, or so that their feathers could be used for stuffing mattresses. The Chinese paddlefish was officially declared extinct at the start of last year, the result of over-fishing and dams blocking the route to its spawning grounds.

So there were five catastrophic events over several hundred million years, with seemingly another in progress right before our eyes. But the current one is very different, happening faster than previous ones and caused primarily by the actions of humans. ‘Almost half of Britain’s natural biodiversity has disappeared over the centuries, with farming and urban spread triggered by the industrial and agricultural revolutions being blamed as major factors for this loss’ (Guardian, 10 October).

Animal and plant life is of course essential to human survival and progress, and diversity is crucial, for a number of reasons. Soils need to be protected, nutrients stored, and in general ecosystems maintained. Species depend on each other: crop by-products feed cattle and cattle waste feeds the soil; bees fertilise plants; large carnivores prey on herbivores and so prevent them from grazing more and undermining the environment.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) maintains a Red List of Threatened Species, using categories such as Vulnerable, Endangered and Critically Endangered. According to their website, ‘Currently, there are more than 138,300 species on The IUCN Red List, with more than 38,500 species threatened with extinction, including 41% of amphibians, 37% of sharks and rays, 34% of conifers, 33% of reef building corals, 26% of mammals and 14% of birds.’

It is estimated that altogether around a million plant and animal species are at best insecure, around half of these being insects. The causes of all this include the loss of natural habitats, over-exploitation such as over-fishing, climate change, pollution, and the spread of invasive disease and other species. Humans rely on a relatively small number of food crops, and billions rely on just three (maize, rice and wheat); global heating may place these in a precarious position, with greater diversity one way to combat this. The loss of animal pollinators will reduce crop outputs. It is not just food, for many medicinal plants are under threat, and billions rely on them for combatting disease. Snowdrops have been used against headaches, and an alkaloid derived from them is used to treat Alzheimer’s. But over-harvesting has led to many snowdrop species, and others, being under threat. Penicillin is one of many medicines derived from natural sources.

Wasps may strike you as a bit of a nuisance, liable to sting you. But in fact they play a major role as pest controllers: they hunt caterpillars, locusts, spiders and flies. More generally, insects pollinate plants, recycle organic material, keep soil healthy, disperse seeds, and are a source of food for many larger creatures. Predators are an essential part of nature, limiting the numbers of animals lower down the food chain. Apex predators, such as wolves, can play an important role in reducing the impact of the animals they prey on, and of those that their own prey consume. Climate change can also have a major impact on biodiversity. Up to sixty percent of coral reefs are dying because of global warming, yet they support thousands of species and provide both food and medicines to humans.

Many efforts are being made to combat species loss, or at least to discuss how to approach it. In September a big biodiversity meeting was held in Marseille, organised by the IUCN and there will be a UN summit on the same topic next year in Kunming, China, following an online get-together this October.

Many countries have established national parks as one means of protecting wildlife and maintaining biodiversity, but these have not always been straightforward in their effects. In Africa, for instance, many national parks led to the eviction of local people, while in Peru the lives of indigenous people have been transformed in negative ways, such as being forced to use Spanish rather than their native languages and being cut off from their traditional sources of food and medicines. In the words of one Peruvian activist, ‘They are oppressed in the name of conservation’.

Many conservation projects have met with some modest success in enabling species to survive, albeit often encountering problems too. Whooping cranes in Canada and the US were down to just twenty-one birds by the mid-1940s, but a captive breeding programme that began in the 1960s has boosted this number to over eight hundred. The Sumatran rhino may have as few as thirty specimens in the wild, and even attempts at captive breeding have proved challenging. In Sicily the Zelkova tree has been subject to much research into how to raise new saplings, but getting them to acclimatise outdoors has so far proved difficult.

What are the implications of all this? The loss of species is not itself a bad thing, as it has been happening for hundreds of millions of years. But the current rate is, to say the least, very concerning. For the fact is that humans and other animals need a diverse planet to live and thrive on, and biodiversity loss is rendering the natural world less supportive of life, less able to feed and cure its population. It is clearly a major problem, of an order of magnitude comparable to global warming, which is itself a contributory factor. There is no simple criterion or goal such as net-zero carbon or being climate-positive, or a target of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees, but the idea of stopping or slowing biodiversity loss is clearly important. We cannot say that a socialist society would be immediately able to solve biodiversity problems, any more than that it would immediately solve climate change. But a society based on meeting human need and working in harmony with the environment is a far better place for tackling these problems than capitalism, which has been the major contributor to them and is concerned with profit rather than the wellbeing of the planet and its inhabitants.

Paul Bennett

Resources: New Internationalist January-February 2021; www.iucn.org.

Cooking the Books: 'Sustainable investment' (2021)

The Cooking the Books column from the December 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

At COP26 in Glasgow last month Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of England and of the Bank of Canada, announced that the UN-sponsored Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), set up in April, had signed up around 450 financial institutions in 45 countries. With total funds of $130 trillion, they have pledged to lend or invest only to corporations and for projects that are net carbon zero (matching any CO2 the activities release into the atmosphere by taking an equivalent amount out).

All the financial institutions involved – banks, asset management companies, pension funds, insurance companies – are profit-seekers. The logic behind the initiative is impeccable. As capitalism is a system driven by the search for profits, private enterprises will not do anything to combat climate change unless there’s a profit in it for them.

Banks are in business to generate a profitable income, by sharing, as interest, in the profits made by the businesses or projects they lend money to. They may well set aside money to make loans on net-zero conditions but will only lend if the activity to be financed will bring in a high enough profit. The trouble is that not all projects that will help reduce CO2 emissions will be profitable enough, or, in the jargon, will be ‘bankable’.

As Xavier Sol, an economist for a coalition of NGOs, has pointed out:

‘The approach of turning projects into bankable ones ignores the fact that a majority of the needs for ecological transition will simply not be bankable and offer any return on investment’ (EU Observer, 20 October).

Nor does Carney’s initiative mean that non-zero projects will no longer be able to find funding. As long as they are profitable, they will find the money – and there are plenty of profit-seeking banks and hedge funds outside GFANZ. As Carney’s fellow Canadian, Tariq Fancy, has pointed out:

‘As long as it’s legal and makes money, the market will find someone to invest in it’ 

Fancy used to work at Blackrock, the world’s largest asset management corporation, as head of their department advising on which investments were and which were not ‘ethical’ on environmental, social and governance grounds. He became disillusioned and is now a critic of the whole idea. He thinks it’s just ‘greenwash’, done for public relations reasons, and won’t work to help bring about net zero carbon.

As he put it in an interview with the Guardian (30 March):

‘Moving money to green investments doesn’t mean polluters will no longer find backers. The argument is similar to that of divestment, another strategy Fancy says doesn’t work. “If you sell your stock in a company that has a high emissions footprint, it doesn’t matter. The company still exists, the only difference is that you don’t own them. The company is going to keep on going the way they were and there are 20 hedge funds who will buy that stock overnight. The market is the market.’”

Asset management companies are even more committed to making a profit than banks because they have a fiduciary duty to their clients to maximise the returns on their money. They are, in Fancy’s words, ‘for-profit machines’. They invest other people’s and institutions’ money on the stock exchange and generate a profitable income from the fees they charge their clients. What we are talking about here is stock exchange speculation and gambling. $57 trillion of Carney’s $130 trillion is in the hands of these companies for this.

Green projects are becoming profitable, so the financial institutions concerned would be investing in them anyway, as will those which have not signed up to GFANZ. Capital always follows profit. That’s why Carney’s initiative probably won’t make much difference either way.

How To Be A Social Worker (2021)

Book Review from the December 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

Everything You Really Need To Know About Politics: My Life As An MP. By Jess Phillips. Gallery Books UK. 2021. £16.99

In some ways it’s difficult to dislike Jess Phillips. Forthright, sincere, energetic and passionate. Authentic perhaps too, if you can discount a tendency towards attention-seeking.

And this is what you get in this book. It is at times sad, at times funny and nearly always frustrating. Just like its author. How could it be otherwise when you have a politician who dedicates her life to helping other people get their lives back on track without ever seeming to question why their lives might have gone off track in the first place?

If you are homeless, unemployed or have been abused, you would do a lot worse than to have Jess Phillips on your side. Few reading this book about her day-to-day life as Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley could doubt the effort she puts into helping her constituents. Indeed, this is something she revels in as an MP who believes in ‘getting things done’ and there is a chapter dedicated to this (there’s also a chapter on ‘People Care About Potholes’, as if anyone doubted it).

She links her drive to help people back to her own upbringing and the support she had growing up locally in Birmingham and for initiatives like ‘Sure Start’ attributed to the Blair Labour government. She says: ‘We, the people, can absolutely get the government to adopt the things that we care about, whether these are big broad changes or niche, specific ones’ (p.116).

But there is little by way of recognition that this hard work and campaigning is bounded and ring-fenced by the way in which society is organised. You can, say, campaign to double the state pension and the minimum wage until you are blue in the face but the economics of the profit system tells us that these things just ain’t going to happen.

Unlike the Corbynistas she derides, Phillips is much more of a practical reformist. But the reality is that practical means small, incremental (‘niche’) and without fundamental challenge to the way the system works. And even small changes tend to be conceded by governments during periods of economic boom – Labour under Blair being a case in point until the financial crisis and all that came with it shattered their dream, revealing the harsh reality of what the market economy periodically does to purge itself. In doing so, creating unemployment, homelessness, drug addiction and all the other things that got worse when things were only meant to get better.

There are worse jobs than being a social worker, but like many local councillors, that is what Phillips effectively is. A well-paid social worker who gets on telly and social media a lot, trying her damnedest to empty the sea of social distress by the proverbial bucketful. Good luck to her perhaps, but don’t let it be confused with being a political agent for meaningful change, and you’ll find nothing about that here.

Dave Perrin

Ruff And Ready (2021)

Theatre Review from the December 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Ruff Tuff Cream Puff Estate Agency (Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, October 2021)

The squatting movement has a long history of searching for creative, practical ways to get around capitalism’s failure to satisfy needs as basic as housing. One story among many has been turned into an entertaining musical by Cardboard Citizens (a theatre group composed of people who have been homeless), playwright Sarah Woods and Boff Whalley, Chumbawamba’s guitarist. The Ruff Tuff Cream Puff Estate Agency is set in 1977, when there were an estimated 30,000 people living in squats among 100,000 empty houses in London alone. By this time, the eponymous estate agency had been running for three years, one of several services set up by and for squatters in the city, and the only one which ran as an estate agency, matching vacant buildings to people who needed housing. In an average day, it would be approached by 15 to 20 people made homeless through eviction, poverty or escaping violence who couldn’t or wouldn’t be supported by mainstream organisations. The police and social services even sent people there occasionally.

The play presents the agency as welcoming and open, and the enthusiasm of its members is warmly realised by an energetic cast. The properties they found or heard about were advertised in their bulletin with descriptions like ‘36 St Luke’s Road. Empty two years. Entry through rear. No roof. Suit astronomer’. The agency’s workers would break into the buildings, meaning that those who subsequently moved in weren’t committing an offence. The legislation in England and Wales has since changed, though, and squatting in a residential building was made illegal in 2012 (having been against the law in Scotland since 1865). This doesn’t mean that squatters in 1970s London were left alone by the authorities, though. The musical features undercover police monitoring the estate agency and officious landlords and council staff, all ridiculed by being played as deliberate caricatures.

The production could have lasted for longer, to go into more detail over what happened on Freston Road, then in Hammersmith. Supported by the estate agency, a community of 120 squatters were living there, and faced eviction when the Greater London Council planned to redevelop the area. The squatters responded by all adopting the surname of Bramley to support their application to be rehomed together as a family. Then they announced that Freston Road was now independent of the UK, and had become the ‘Free and Independent Republic of Frestonia’. The new self-declared country issued its own newspaper and stamps (accepted by the Post Office), ran its own art gallery and theatre and aimed to join both the UN and EEC. During the ’80s, Frestonia dropped its aspirations and morphed into an officially-recognised housing co-operative which still runs today.

As the musical depicts it, The Ruff Tuff Cream Puff Estate Agency lost momentum when its members had to focus on their own lives rather than their work. Trying to put free access into practice in capitalism would always be an uphill struggle, as it goes against how the economy and property laws operate. Although finding imaginative ways around the system isn’t the same as working to replace it, the determination of the agency’s staff meant that many people were helped into better situations, at least temporarily. The musical is an enjoyable celebration of them, as well as being an introduction to a lively aspect of working class history.

Clive Hendry

Snippets (2021)

From the December 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

Abolish the Rich?

A photo of the disgraced Labour MP Claudia Webbe, with the caption ‘Claudia Webbe’s plan to beat climate change is as worrying as her conviction,’ accompanied Claire Foges column in the Times (8 November). According to Foges, ‘this year she tweeted a novel idea to solve the climate crisis: ‘the rich must be abolished.’” We are prepared to believe that Webbe might have had in mind abolishing them because they consumed too much or some other such silly idea. But what’s wrong with abolishing the rich or, rather, of abolishing the division of society into the rich and the rest? As a matter of fact, as this can only be done by making productive resources the common property of all the people, it would also create the only framework within which the climate crisis can be tackled with any chance of success. It is more worrying that some people want to keep the rich, and so the society which has led to the climate crisis.

Or just tax them?

Commenting in the Guardian (15 November) on the outcome of COP26, George Monbiot wrote:

‘Our survival depends on raising the scale of civil disobedience until we build the greatest mass movement in history, mobilising the 25% who can flip the system.”

As he has previously identified capitalism, not just one particular kind of capitalism, as the cause of the climate crisis, we can assume that this is the system he wants to ‘flip’. We can agree that this requires ‘the greatest mass movement in history’ and that if 25 percent want this then we would be more than half way there as most of the rest of the population would soon follow. However, they would need to be clear on what is to replace capitalism (and they’d be better advised to aim to win political control rather than trying to confront the state head on).

Unfortunately Monbiot is very vague on this, having talked merely about a ‘wealth tax’ and the government spending more money on public amenities. But that wouldn’t be an alternative to capitalism, if only because to be taxed the rich would still have to exist and their wealth derives from their ownership and control, in one way or another, of the productive resources on which society depends, the basis of capitalism. To flip capitalism means establishing a classless society based on the common ownership and democratic control of these resources. Will Monbiot eventually come round to this view or would that be too much of a shock for Guardian readers?

Whose government?

Before going in to be sent to prison for contempt of court, the 9 Insulate Britain protestors, who had been alienating people by blocking roads, had a family photo taken with one of them holding a placard saying “Betrayed by My Government” (Guardian,17 November). How naïve can you get? Evidently they think that the government exists to protect the people and that, in failing to do this over climate change, it has betrayed them. But the government exists to protect the interests of the rich owning class, and insulating people’s homes is not one of their priorities as it would cost too much. It’s their government. To call the government ‘my government’ is to reinforce the myth that governments are there to serve the people. They are not.

A hundred more years of wars?

This year is the centenary of the Royal British Legion. Its press statement on this began:

‘For the past 100 years, and for the next, the RBL will always ensure our Veterans get the support they deserve ….’

A hundred more years of wars, no thanks.

50 Years Ago: Doing the Splits (2021)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

One notable, but not unusual, feature of the splits over the Common Market is that both the big parties are suffering at the same time. This makes it difficult for either of them to adopt the attitude of pious shock which they affect when only the other side is split. Then they can say that such disputes are evidence of their opponents’ irresponsibility. When they themselves are divided on some issue they claim that this goes to show what a lively lot they are, vibrant with debate yet tolerant and united enough to contain the argument and apply it for the benefit of all those voters outside. This is all part of the jolly game of politics.

In this country, it is the Labour Party who have become famous for their splits, very often splashing them into the public eye. This has tended to promote the idea that the Tories are more stable and united but there is some evidence that this is not true. Since the 1929 Labour government, the Labour Party have had only four leaders — Lansbury, Attlee, Gaitskell and now Wilson — and of these Lansbury was never more than a caretaker after the defection of MacDonald. During the same period the Tories have had seven leaders — Baldwin, Chamberlain, Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, Home and Heath — and in almost every case they have changed to the accompaniment of a public dispute.

At the same time, behind those gentlemanly Tory facades, there have been fierce splits over matters of policy. For example, Macmillan was much occupied with persuading his party to move out of the Edwardian (which he was said to personify) and to accept the decline of the British Commonwealth. This seemed to be no more than accepting the obvious and the inevitable, but Macmillan was bitterly fought by a strong section of the Tories headed by Lord Salisbury, who always looked and spoke and thought like an archetypal Tory backwoodsman. For Salisbury, the final blow was the surrender of independence to Cyprus and he resigned to snipe at the Tories for their policies on the old Empire and to mumble about the shocking treatment being handed out to our kith and kin in Rhodesia.

(Socialist Standard, December 1971)

Editorial: The trade talks in Glasgow (2021)

Editorial from the December 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘A COP26 deal was always going to be a messy business, if world trade talks are anything to go by’ commented Larry Elliot, the Guardian’s economics editor (15 November). It was a shrewd observation as trade was the elephant in the conference room. No one referred to it directly but it was at the back of the delegates’ minds.

Global warming has been overwhelmingly caused by the burning of fossil fuels, for transport, heating and generating electricity. The price of electricity is a key cost in manufacturing industry; its price affects all industries in a country, whether producing for the internal market or for export, and so affects its competitiveness. Being uncompetitive is not a situation any state wants to be in as this makes exports more difficult and imports cheaper.

Different countries are in a different position, due to their geography and geology, regarding the cheapest way of generating electricity. None can rely solely on renewable sources. Some have built nuclear power stations. The most used way, however, is still burning a fossil fuel, either coal or natural gas.

Countries which have an internal supply of coal that can be extracted relatively cheaply use that. Such as China and India. Their objection to ‘phasing out’ burning coal was motivated by economic considerations; they didn’t want the competitiveness of their industries to be undermined by having to switch to some more expensive method of generating electricity.

Europe and the US burn natural gas as they have easy access to it, and so have no problem with ‘phasing out’ coal, especially as this puts China and India at a competitive disadvantage. Throw in the economic interest of countries exporting coal, oil and natural gas and COP meetings are indeed indirect trade talks.

Discussions on the liberalisation of world trade have been going on under the auspices of the WTO for over twenty years now, but have not got anywhere. One reason is that it is not a question of agreeing a text, but of making a commitment under international law with sanctions if you break it. COP deals are unenforceable and India and China could have signed up to ‘phasing out’ coal and then not done it. Nobody could have compelled them to comply. The fact that COP meetings are just discussing non-binding commitments is the only reason why a unanimously agreed text called a ‘deal’ can be reached.

Since there is now a general recognition even amongst those running capitalist states that global overwarming is a problem and is due to burning fossil fuels, something will be done to try to mitigate it, otherwise it will cost states more in the longer term. However, because capitalism is divided into states, each defending the economic interest of their enterprises whether private or state, there will never be an agreement on the world plan that is required to effectively deal with the problem. That will only be possible after the end of capitalism, the aim to which the energies of climate activists would be more usefully directed than putting pressure on ‘world leaders’ to do something that capitalism doesn’t let them do.

Not Worth the Paper (1998)

From the September 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Various treaties exist concerning different types of weapons of mass destruction but all of them contain escape clauses and ambiguous formulations that facilitate routine violations

According to newspaper reports, a number of geologists have suggested that the recent nuclear explosions in India and Pakistan may have triggered an earthquake in northern Afghanistan. Whether or not this is the case, many people are likely to have suffered residual damage from the global wave of hypocritical vibrations which rapidly followed. Unquestionably the decision by the rulers of two such economically troubled countries to engage in a futile and costly nuclear rivalry should be regarded as insanely foolish. Nevertheless, such folly is hardly likely to be constrained by moralising lectures from the very governments who were content to make huge profits supplying the nuclear materials and technologies in the first place. Especially when those same governments continue to pursue their own strategic programmes with single-minded zeal, the US military alone admitting to no less than 1030 tests. Classified documents yet to be released are expected to reveal that there were more.

The posture currently adopted by the senior members of the nuclear club as concerned guardians of the environment, although unconvincing, is perfectly consistent given the demented system of logic they embrace. Not one of them signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty until their own experiments were satisfactorily concluded and greater technical expertise, together with improved computer simulation, rendered further testing unnecessary. At the same time they have all promised under the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty to strive in “good faith” to halt the nuclear arms race and work towards nuclear and general disarmament. It is a promise that is being cynically betrayed.

One of the few remaining jobs for life in capitalist society is that of disarmament negotiator—an occupation demanding the analytical brain of chess grandmaster combined with the duplicity of a card-sharp. Since the signing of the Antarctic Treaty in 1959 (making the world safer for penguins) a further nineteen have been drafted dealing specifically with nuclear weapons, as well as others concerning chemical, biological, conventional, environmental and—er—“inhumane” weapons. Some are still to be signed or ratified but all of them incorporate escape clauses and sentences sufficiently ambiguous to admit interpretations facilitating routine violations. In any event, should even the most binding agreement become inconvenient, it would simply be ignored. As Richard Perle US Defense Secretary at the time of the Star Wars (SDI) hysteria wrote on 8 October 1982 with reference to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty ” . . . we would not hesitate to renegotiate and failing Soviet acquiescence . . . I hope we would abrogate the treaty”. The examples that follow typify the sort of trickery employed.

Outer space treaty 1967

Article IV decrees: “States Parties to the Treaty undertake not to place in Orbit around the earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, install such weapons on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space in any other manner.”

At first sight this seems quite unequivocal but if it were it would never have been sanctioned. During the lengthy discussions prior to signing, a memo to the American Secretary of Defense from the Joint Chiefs of Staff (23 November 1965) stipulated: ” . . . the provisions of this treaty should not preclude the conduct of intelligence activities deemed essential to security.” Nor does it! Significantly the agreement fails to prohibit the launching of nuclear reactor powered satellites and, consequently, there are dozens of nuclear reactors orbiting the globe. Should their deep space disposal boosters malfunction then highly radioactive debris would fall to earth, adding to that already deposited from earlier mishaps in space.

To a disarmament negotiator words seldom mean what they appear to say and Article IV of the OST is no exception. One contention is that it only excludes nuclear weapons if they are intended for mass destruction and would not apply to any positioned in space to intercept missile attacks. This kind of sophistry merely fuels the suspicion that the reality was accurately encapsulated in the famous declaration by Senator Barry Goldwater: “Space is just another place where wars will be fought.” A view that is widely echoed (though not publicly endorsed) by policy makers in the Pentagon. In 1976 a convention was established that required any object being fired into space to be registered by the United Nations. Curiously, it does not demand an independent examination to verify the nature and objective of satellites-an omission that could be construed as ominous.

Non-proliferation treaty 1968

Since coming into force in 1970 (extended indefinitely in 1995) this treaty has been signed by all but five states-India, Pakistan, Israel, Brazil and Cuba-and is widely regarded as the most successful of modern times. But the promise of the nuclear signatories to work for disarmament and not to supply, or assist others to obtain, nuclear weapons has manifestly been broken. The arms race continues and the capacity for other powers to make nuclear weapons has markedly increased. Indeed, after the Gulf War ended in 1991 it was discovered that they were about to be built in Iraq despite the pledge of that government not to do so under the terms of the NPT.

Because of the comparative ease in evading the existing monitoring mechanisms of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a provision was added to the NPT in 1997 granting wider powers of inspection and control. Unfortunately it is only obligatory for the members who voluntarily accept it which, so far, is only a small minority. Yet 60 countries now have nuclear reactors and if the rulers of any one of them decided they needed a nuclear bomb, the NPT could not stop them getting it. Most conveniently, under Article X each party has the right to withdraw at three months notice “. . . if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this treaty have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country”. In certain circumstances, of course, the notice given might be a little less!

Sea bed treaty 1971

This treaty bans nuclear weapons from being fixed to the seabed beyond a twelve mile coastal limit. Its inadequacy becomes immediately obvious if you imagine a similar restriction being applied to aircraft on runways. Unhindered by the treaty an unceasing high-tech war is being waged at sea. In the attempt to counteract the threat of nuclear submarines the oceans has been transformed into a gigantic listening station, with underwater sensors fixed to the seabed, others suspended at different levels up to the surface and still more towed by ships. Smart mines with in-built computers are able to distinguish between the different sounds made by various vessels, while hunter-killer submarines-with their own delicate sensors-patrol in silence, armed with nuclear rockets (SUBROCS) and torpedoes. But whatever expensive or extravagant countermeasures are devised (including the deployment of specially trained dolphins) they can do little to diminish the awesome threat posed by submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). The Trident carrying boats, for instance, are almost 200 metres long and can remain submerged deep below the surface for several months. Each one can deliver nearly 200 warheads with a range of thousands of kilometres and costs in excess of a 100 billion dollars. Trident missiles, already capable of devastation on an unprecedented scale, are currently being updated to make them more efficient. At any given time there are almost two thousand warheads at sea, the majority of them under US command.

Not surprisingly there is a chilling legacy from all this activity. Over three thousand naval accidents have occurred during the nuclear age, leaving eleven nuclear reactors and at least fifty nuclear warheads on the ocean floor. Since they are not “fixed” however, they do not contravene the SBT.

Chemical weapons convention 1993

This Convention which came into force in 1997, requires the destruction of all chemical weapons stockpiles within 10 to 15 years. Although the failure to dispose of old stocks is highly dangerous, the programme is already well behind schedule and despite the considerable powers granted to inspectors under the CWC cheating about production is still possible. One obvious reason is that so many of the chemicals produced for quite different purposes can be used in combination to make weapons. The stockpiles of chemical weapons held in America and Russia are at least 30 thousand tonnes each and both of these governments have authorised the use of chemicals in war and in experiments on civilians.

When a stockpile of nerve-bombs was destroyed by the US in the 1970s they kept the “remnants” in case the “Russians had some” (they did). These “remnants” were theoretically capable of killing 140 billion people. Johnston Island in the South Pacific, previously the target for nuclear test explosions, houses a vast incinerator complex for the disposal of enough chemical waste to kill most of the inhabitants of Earth.

Biological and toxins weapons convention 1972

Signatories agree not to develop, stockpile or acquire “microbial or other biological agents or toxins . . that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes” or “weapons . . . designed to use such agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in armed conflict”.

Once again the wordsmiths have displayed their special skill. Here the key phrases are “other peaceful purposes” and “hostile purposes”, leading to repeated claims by Western and Russian governments that they are only producing “antidotes” in their laboratories which is permitted by the Convention. The legitimate use of toxic microbes in the production of vaccines only compounds the difficulties of the highly complex mechanisms for verification, making deception even easier than it is with chemicals. Many governments, including those of Britain, America and Russia are known to have authorised the use of biological agents in war and in experiments upon civilians.

The important thing to remember about treaties is that no government is forced to sign them and, if they do, they cannot be made to keep them. One thing is for sure: for as long as we live in a system in which the protection of minority economic interests is paramount the arms race will continue. Even if the nuclear powers had a genuine desire for disarmament, which they don’t, the cost of disposing of the massive, highly toxic arsenal (100s of billions of dollars) remains. The very size of these arsenals creates another problem-the decommissioning of nuclear reactors will take hundreds of years. The automatic response has been to attempt to solve the problem as cheaply as possible, with scant regard for the environment or the safety of those who inhabit it. Even the penguins are not really safe since the Antarctic treaty does not forbid the presence of “peaceful” nuclear reactors.

While defence expenditure by the major military powers is declining-dramatically in Russia and by over 5 percent annually in the US-weapons research, refinement and development continues to expand. For some projects in the US funds have actually been increased and the current defence budget of the US is still a staggering $242.6 billion. The projection of the present administration is that it will begin to rise again after 2001.

One of the justifications for this is GPALS (Gee, Pals, we can still make a buck or two)-Global Protection Against Limited Strikes. Even if the Start II reduction program is completed on schedule (2003) which is highly improbable, each side would still be entitled to keep 3500 deployed nuclear warheads and the only ones likely to be discarded are those it is no longer considered necessary to keep.

Meanwhile, secret military budgets continue to finance research into a new generation of weapons. Already a huge and fast expanding military-cybernetic complex has been established and experiments of electromagnetic radiation (EMR) as a weapon continue unabated. EMR signals which cause neurological alteration and can induce sickness or death are known to have been beamed upon civilians in both Russia and America. Some scientists believe that transmitting these highly powerful waves may not only cause earthquakes but “airquakes” as well . . .

Richard Headicar

World View: Seychelles: the strategic stakes (1998)

From the September 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Seychelles comprise 115 islands and atolls scattered over the western Indian Ocean, with Malé the largest island, 1,000 miles east of the Kenyan port of Mombassa. More than 90 percent of the population of 75,000 live on Malé.

The Seychelles were seized as a French colony in 1768, but were captured by Britain in 1794 and were incorporated as a dependency of Mauritius in 1814. They became a separate colony in 1903, achieved internal self-government in 1975, and gained independence as a republic within the British Commonwealth the following year.

Unlike many other British colonies, the Seychelles never had a strong nationalist movement before independence. The first political party, the Seychelles Democratic Party (SDP), was formed by a flamboyant lawyer, James Mancham, in 1963; two years later, another lawyer, Albert René, formed the People’s United Party (PUP). Mancham campaigned for integration with Britain, whilst Rene argued for independence.The SDP was considered to be left-wing, the PUP right-wing. Both were thoroughly reformist.

By the early 1970s, Mancham was persuaded, on advice from Britain, that integration with Britain was not acceptable, as it would not be tolerated by the former British colonies in East Africa, and would cause friction within the Seychelles. Mancham therefore opted for independence, but demanded that Britain help with the formation of the Seychelles’ security forces.The United States was allowed to construct a nuclear detonation monitoring satellite station on Malé island.

In 1976 James Mancham (who was to be knighted) became President and Albert René became Prime Minister of the newly independent Republic of the Seychelles. Meanwhile Mancham had forged strong links with South Africa and René with Tanzania. Within months of Marcham’s election as president, René began plotting his overthrow.

When, at the beginning of June 1977, Mancham departed for the British Commonwealth Leaders’ Conference in London, René’s supporters, armed with AK-47 rifles and accompanied by 500 Tanzanian soldiers who had secretly entered the country, seized control of the principal government buildings, including the barracks and the police station in the capital,Victoria, on Malé. It was a walkover. By the following morning Albert René had complete control of the Seychelles.

René became president in place of Mancham. News was strictly controlled by the Ministry of Information; all residents were obliged to register their personal details with the government. President René took extreme precautions to ensure that he was not ousted from power. He initially recruited a small force of Tanzanian troops to protect the principal buildings and then later, acting on advice from his new Defence Minister, he replaced the Tanzanians with an elite detachment of North Korean guards. The Russian embassy increased its staff, of whom some were KGB and GRU officers, to about 50 “diplomats”. In 1979 René introduced a new constitution under which a People’s Progressive Front declared itself to the 23-member People’s Assembly of the Seychelles to be the sole legal party.

There have been numerous attempts to overthrow René and his government. Two plots involving French mercenaries were uncovered, in 1978 and 1979. In 1981 the infamous Mike Hoare, with a group of South African mercenaries posing as a rugby team, planned an attack on the Seychelles, but were pre-empted by the Seychelles security forces. Hoare and some of his men arrived at the airport of Malé but, after a fierce gun-battle, managed to escape back to South Africa.

In 1992, after the collapse of state capitalism in Russia, René recycled himself as a “democrat” and Sir James Mancham was allowed to return, protected by military bodyguards and, it has been alleged, members of the British SAS.

The strategic position of the Seychelles is the main reason why so many governments interfere and try to control the islands. Their value lies in their proximity to numerous trade routes in the Indian Ocean. Moreover, there are more than 80 islands with coves, harbours and mountains that have great military and naval uses. The islanders are mainly concerned with small-scale agriculture and fishing. Many of them, over the last 30 years or so, have been employed in hotels and the ever-increasing tourist industry but, at the moment, due to the recent economic problems across the Indian Ocean to the east, there has been something of a downturn in tourism in the Seychelles as elsewhere.The future is uncertain.

Peter E. Newell

World view: Courting trouble (1998)

From the September 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

On numerous occasions in recent years, this journal has highlighted the shortcomings of world summits and conferences, revealing just what impotent set-ups they are when it comes to addressing issues of global importance. The Rome Conference, which concluded after five weeks of negotiations, giving preliminary approval to set up an international criminal court pursuing “the worst crimes in the world”, proved to be no exception.

After more than a month of intense debate, representatives of 160 states and 200 NGOs agreed, on 18 July, to a permanent global court charged with investigating and prosecuting crimes of genocide and aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity. On the face of it, however, the newly-formed International Criminal Court (ICC) looks to have a precarious and somewhat dubious future.

While 120 votes for the implementation of the treaty carried the day, there were seven votes against the ICC. Although the vote went unrecorded, those that admitted to an objection were China, the USA and Israel (the latter two, interestingly, have sided alone on countless occasions against majority decisions at the UN). Those strongly suspected of opposition, while keeping schtum about the fact, include Libya, Algeria, and Yemen—the type of company you’d hardly expect the US and Israel to keep!

Many have argued that the ICC is flawed from the start. US Senator Jesse Helms announced it would come into effect over his dead body and US Ambassador, and delegate to the Rome Conference, David Scheffler announced that the US would “actively oppose” the court from its inception (Guardian, 15 July). The US had hoped its military forces would get immunity for their actions overseas, but the conference was having none of it. The US was of course all too aware that past instances of US aggression—the invasion of Panama and Grenada, the bombings of Libya, the mass bombing of Laos and Cambodia etc.—could mean officials all the way up the chain of command being called to account. And it doesn’t take much reasoning to work out why so much hope was pinned on US acceptance of the court—they after all have a bigger say in global affairs than any other country.

Further restraints and loopholes make one wonder why the court was set up at all. The use of nuclear weapons, for instance, is not to be judged a “war crime”—something India’s delegates vehemently argued against—and Gulf states reserve the “right” to use chemical and biological weapons. Suddenly, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s words that “the victims of past crimes and potential victims are watching us; they will not forgive us if we fail” sound hollow.

Whether or not the ICC will ever become operational is anyone’s guess. For one thing, it can only come into existence once the treaty has been ratified by 60 countries and some delegates have suggested this may take up to five years. Undoubtedly, those countries known for their human rights abuses will be reluctant to sign up. Moreover, a further ICC clause means that the court is powerless to act if a crime is committed in the same country as the perpetrator.

One is left wondering why thunderous applause greeted conference chairman Canadian Phillippe’s remarks that “we cannot let ourselves destroy the essentials of an international criminal court that gives hope to the entire world” (Observer, 19 July).

For a century now, the world has tried to codify war—to attempt to bring in etiquette in the art of murder—The Hague (1899 and 1907), Nuremberg and Tokyo (1945-6), Geneva (1949) and up to the tribunals that followed conflicts in Bosnia and Rwanda. Yet for all these attempts at curbing bellicosity, the 20th Century will end with 220 millions having lost their lives through war in the previous 100 years and we will enter the 21st Century with more weapons of mass destruction stockpiled than at any other time in our history.

And would an ICC trial bring the dead back? No. No more than Nuremberg did; no more than Tokyo prevented further atrocities.

Surely those five hot weeks spent in Rome could have been better used finding out what causes war, indeed the cause of other crimes against humanity, looking for the real villain of the peace?

For is the capitalist system not guilty? Does its profit-driven market-oriented logic not cause war? Does it not allow millions to die of starvation while food is destroyed? Does 13 million children dying from curable diseases each year not amount to a genocide? Is global poverty in the face of the means for abundance not a crime against humanity? Yes! A thousand times yes.

And it is we, the world’s working class, all of us victims in some way, who are the jury that must try the present order. For humanity’s sake, we must find capitalism guilty, with no recommendation of mercy.

John Bissett

Goodbye Goldwater s.o.b. (1998)

From the September 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

I wish to acknowledge my debt to former senator Barry Goldwater, who died recently aged 89. When socialists write about other socialists it is hardly surprising to discover a general tenor of agreement. The rather more difficult trick is to find something in common with someone who appears completely antithetical. For me, Goldwater was just such a person.

Unlike the more usual mealy-mouthed politicians whose opinions are for sale to any multi-millionaire prepared to part with his loose change, the senator staunchly advocated an ideology to which he remained faithful, even though it denied him his ultimate goal, the presidency.

Of course, the libertarian conservatism Goldwater espoused is anathema to socialists. Yet, I maintain that even here there is a recognition of human worth and potential, even if this is seen as being achieved within the restraints of capitalism that deny it. These are basic human aspirations, however perversely expressed, that accord with the socialist case. Those aspirations are important for they are a step to human understanding. How many come to socialism because they perceive humanitarian need and then go on to develop the rational understanding that allows them to analyse the present and advocate the future?

As an enlightened (for the 1930s) employer he introduced a 5-day week, established medical and life insurance for his employees and a profit-sharing scheme. Of course, these are all devices paid for by the labour of those workers and I do not wish to suggest otherwise. However, it does indicate a trend of thought he confirmed on becoming a politician. He vigorously opposed welfare spending, detesting the concept of people becoming dependent upon the state. This is a line of thought socialists can appreciate. Consider the ideological damage done by the false identification of socialism with state charity. What he didn’t do, and this was true of all his politics and business practice, was think things through to their conclusion.

The vendors of various publications from the many stalls in the Leninist stable have very similar aspirations. It’s why so many, particularly young, idealists (and I use the word advisedly) join these misguided groups. They have accepted a basic Marxist analysis of capitalism, but failed to pursue what needs to be done to bring about change. Instead they opt for an advocacy of state capitalism.

Barry Goldwater simply wanted to drop the state from the formulation. It is true he did not profess any Marxist underpinning, but he was avowedly Libertarian. An ambition for freedom is a testimony to human potential. In truth, his ambition was as bound to be frustrated in this respect as was his tilt at the White House. Capitalist economics will have its own way and the radical Conservatism of Reagan (or Thatcher) had little or nothing to do with freedom, not even with free enterprise, no matter how much this was hailed as the official ideology. Trans-national corporations devour individual entrepreneurs as readily as whales swallow plankton.

So even in Barry Goldwater there were latent tendencies towards the betterment of humanity. At a Republican Convention he declared, “Extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” A socialist would have to say that there can be no liberty to defend until humanity is liberated from capitalism, but for that to be achieved there can indeed be no “moderation in the pursuit of justice”. To really be libertarian you have to want freedom from exploitation for all and that is not achievable under an economic system that actually depends for its very existence on exploitation. Free capitalism is an oxymoron.

Bombing Russia

My personal debt to senator Goldwater dates back to the early 60s when I was but a wee nipper. He is the first politician who scared the blue blazes out of me. I don’t recall his words, but I do remember that during the 1964 presidential campaign he seemed intent on A-bombing Russia if he won. In the context of the then recent Cuban missile crisis and the pervading feeling that utter destruction was just four minutes away, that sort of thing can bother a little head in the darkest hours of the night. And there, perhaps, the first ill-formed thoughts began develop what would lead to a socialist conclusion. I was relieved when Johnson won: but there again, I did not live in Hanoi. It takes a while to learn it matters not a jot who wins elections, until, of course, everyone wins.

An editorial in the Daily Telegraph (30 May) marking Goldwater’s passing also offered inadvertent succour to those who advocate the socialist cause at a time when so few seem to be listening: “above all, Goldwater proved that electoral defeat need not entail ideological oblivion”. It went on: “what Goldwater did was tell an alternative narrative to the orthodoxies of mid-century America”. What the Telegraph was referring to was the senator’s pursuit of his anti-liberal establishment line throughout the 60s and early 70s.

A real alternative narrative is indeed required, one telling the true story of the twentieth century. The false dichotomy between East and West as if there had been some profound ideological or economic difference between them. Two large-scale wars and countless small ones and the unnumbered workers who’ve been sacrificed in their execution. The development of technology and productive potential that means no-one should be poor or hungry, for satisfaction of need could be the raison d’etre for industry, not profit. Then there would be true “free enterprise”, with everyone able to offer all they can according to their abilities. That is an alternative narrative worth relating.

Commenting on the campaign run against him by the Democrats, the senator is reported as saying, “In fact, if I hadn’t known Goldwater, I’d have voted against the s.o.b. myself.” Politicians misrepresenting other politicians, surely not? Anyway, you son-of-a-bitch farewell and thanks, thank you for all you inadvertently did in helping to create one more socialist and showing in yourself that the merest flicker of a flame of humanity continued to burn-even if you might have used it to set fire to the world, given the chance.

Dave Alton

Letters: Blaming Technology (1998)

Letters to the Editors from the September 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blaming Technology

Dear Editors,

I read with interest the article on technology in May’s Socialist Standard. The consequences of the industrial revolution have been a terrible disaster for the human race, in fact had it not been for this revolution the need for socialism perhaps would not have arisen. Technology has only provided more and better exploitation. It has destabilised society, making life unfulfilling and subjecting us to the indignities of wage slavery, psychological suffering and starvation in the “third world” and untold damage to the environment by its need for natural resources. For socialists to champion technology seems to me to be a contradiction. One only has to read William Morris’s News From Nowhere to see the need for people to be near to nature. Socialism is not just the redirection of yet more goods towards the working class by yet another set of bureaucrats, but people working hand in hand with nature and the earth, to produce goods for need not a greed which has been fostered by capitalism.

Albert Knox, 

Norwich

Reply: 

You seem to have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. We weren’t criticising technology as such but the abuse of technology under capitalism. Today, under capitalism where the means of wealth production are owned and controlled by a minority, technology is developed and applied in their interest with the aim of maximising profit. To blame technology, rather than capitalism, for our problems is a mistake which leads to wrong, indeed absurd, conclusions.

The industrial revolution, carried out as it was within the context of capitalism, certainly worsened conditions of many people at the time but it also created the material basis for a socialist society of common ownership and free access to wealth.

It is neither possible nor desirable to abolish industrial technology. Without it we would have to go back to a much harsher form of living. What is required is to change the basis of society so that technology can be developed and applied in the interests of the majority and not for profit.

We are all in favour of humans living in a balanced, sustainable relationship with the rest of nature but, even in the field of ecology and the environment, industrial technology is useful, indeed essential. Renewable energy sources such as solar power, wind power, tidal power and so on all involve the necessary use of quite sophisticated machinery and equipment which we would not be able to make and operate without the technological knowledge acquired since the industrial revolution.

William Morris, incidentally, wasn’t an advocate of abolishing technology. If it has no place in News From Nowhere this was because he wanted to bring out the changed social relationships that would obtain in a socialist society, and it is as an exploration of these relationships as compared with those that obtained under capitalism that his “utopian romance” is to be read. Even so, technology wasn’t entirely absent: there are the “force barges” and “banded workshops”, both powered by a non-identified source of energy (which was, in Morris’s mind, probably electricity which at the time was just beginning to be applied to production, so making it possible to move beyond the steam-from-burning-coal technology he certainly did hate).-Editors.

Reading Marx

Dear Editors,

In your reply to Prof Sakiranjan (Socialist Standard, July), I don’t think that your particular quotation from the Communist Manifesto supports the view that socialism must be brought about democratically.

“The first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, which is the struggle of democracy”, is simply saying that the achievement of democracy (in the Greek sense that the people rule) is dependent on the working class first establishing control over the state, in the place of the capitalist class. This quotation says nothing about how this control is to be achieved.

Your reply implied that the Manifesto uses the word democracy to describe a particular organisational procedure or method, where in fact the word is properly used to describe the possession and exercise of state power. If you are the class holding power, you do see it as democracy in that you can exercise power to further your interests. If you are not the class holding power, you see it as dictatorship, in the sense another class has power and is using it to act against your interests.

If you fail to be clear that “the struggle of democracy” (“the battle of democracy”, depending on the particular version read), has a fundamental class basis which is to establish the power of the working class, “the struggle of democracy” can start to sound abstract, suggesting socialists should be fighting for democratic rights under capitalism as well as for socialism.

In my view, the struggle for rights under capitalism is a reformist diversion from the political task of winning a majority of workers for socialism. Another quotation you use, that the struggle for socialism “is the independent movement of the immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority” describes much better the principle that socialism can only be established democratically and by workers ourselves.

Andrew Northall, 

Kettering, Northants

Reply: 

We are far from sure that the passage in question from the Communist Manifesto bears either the interpretation you say we implied in our reply or your interpretation that it means that the achievement of democracy is dependent on the working class first establishing control over the state.

Of course full, social democracy, in which everyone has an equal say not just on administrative matters but also with regard to the use of the means of production, can only be established by the working class consciously using their control of political power to bring this about. But the context shows that Marx was not talking here about such social democracy (i.e. socialism) but only about political democracy as a form of state with universal suffrage and a sovereign elected assembly. So, what he was saying was that the first step in the workers’ revolution was the establishment of political democracy.

This is confirmed by Engels’s draft of the Manifesto where he answers the question “what will be the course of this revolution?”:

“Above all, it will establish a democratic constitution and through this the direct or indirect dominance of the proletariat. Direct in England where the proletarians are already a majority of the people” (Principles of Communism, Engels’s emphasis).

This was the point of view of the Chartists which Marx and Engels shared. As Marx wrote a few years later, when in exile in England, in an article on the Chartists:

” . . . Universal Suffrage is the equivalent for political power for the working class of England . . . Its inevitable result, here, is the political supremacy of the working class” (New York Daily Tribune, 25 August 1852, Marx’s emphasis).

Marx’s assumption that political democracy would be the equivalent of working class power was clearly based on an overestimation of the degree of class consciousness amongst workers, but at least it showed that he thought that socialism would have to come about democratically-though, as you point out, this was already more than implied in his statement that “the proletarian movement is the independent movement of the immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority”.

You are right on another point too. Marx did not believe that political democracy could be achieved peacefully, not even in England (Marx and Engels identified themselves with the “physical force” wing of Chartism). In fact, the translation as “battle of democracy” or “struggle of democracy” of the original German “die Erkämpfung der Demokratie” is a bit weak. The German means literally something along the lines of “the winning, by battling, struggling, fighting, of democracy”, which would be better conveyed by some such phrase as “the conquest of democracy”. If the English translation had said this (as most other language translations do) then the ambiguity would have been removed, both as to what kind of democracy Marx was talking about and as to how he envisaged it being achieved.

When, later, political democracy of a sorts had been established in some countries, whether by violence or other means, and Marx had had a chance to see how it worked in practice, he was obliged to abandon his earlier naïve assumption that it amounted to placing political power into the hands of the working class. He still held that this was the case, but only potentially, and that it opened up the possibility of the working class winning control of state power peacefully. But he now realised that winning control of political power required a higher degree of class consciousness than he had originally assumed. Political democracy could be used to dupe workers as well as being a means they could use to win power for socialism. Hence his call in 1881—which we wholeheartedly endorse—to transform universal suffrage (i.e. political democracy) from “the instrument of fraud that it has been up to now” into “an instrument of emancipation”.-Editors.

Teaching history

Dear Editors,

As a “time serving” History teacher (I must be serving time as I seem to have so little of it for myself) I have to admit to a certain measure of pique over Paddy Shannon’s assertions (“History as Mystery”, July Socialist Standard). He may well be describing his own unfortunate experiences, but he does not reflect mine.

When I studied History for GCE in the 1960s I was certainly taught about the Chartists. I also knew of the Luddites, extensively studied the nature of late 18th and 19th Century capitalism and the workers’ response, and briefly considered the ideas of Marx along with Adam Smith and Malthus. I was also informed about the 1848 European revolutions as the context for the later Chartist actions.

Thirty years later as a teacher I have recently covered the economics of the feudal system and the early glimmerings of capitalism in medieval towns with Year 7. The second year became quite heated recently when I explained the motivation of Richard Arkwright in terms of profit and how profit is generated through labour. The imperialist manoeuvrings and blatant competition that led to the First World War and the subsequent economic problems leading to the Second have been an important part of Year 9’s work on the 20th Century.

These are a few examples of how the teaching of History, whilst not Marxist, is nothing like the process of mystification the article suggested.

David Alton, 

Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Reply: 

We are sorry that you got the impression that we think history teachers are time-servers. That was not our intention and in fact was not what the author actually wrote (he was only describing his own particular experience at school). Nevertheless, we take this opportunity to make it absolutely clear that this is not what we think.

We can also accept your point that a history teacher who is a socialist does have some leeway, in some schools at least, to introduce a class rather than a nationalist element into their teaching and that this does happen and it’s a good thing. However, given that we are at present living in a non-revolutionary situation where most people see no alternative to capitalism and think in nationalist terms, this is going to be the exception for the great majority of school students.

In a non-revolutionary period, the ruling ideas, as Marx put it, are going to be the ideas of the ruling class and the school system will inevitably reflect this. Also, given the division of labour within the workforce under capitalism, there are two types of schools for the working class: those turning out workers for routine factory and office work, and those turning out workers for jobs that require a certain amount of critical thinking (engineers, managers, doctors, teachers, etc). The minority who are admitted to the latter type of school will be able to get somewhat less crude history lessons than the majority.-Editors.