Them and us (2024)

From the April 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

What the politicians say

• An economy based on production for sale and profit can be made to work for everyone. The workplaces where useful things are made and useful services provided should be owned by rich individuals and private enterprises.
• The owners of these places should alone decide what is and what is not produced. The rule for this should be ‘no profit, no production’.
• Profit should have priority over public services.
• The essential rule should be ‘can’t pay, can’t have’.

What we say

• The present system cannot be reformed to work for the benefit of all.
• Natural resources and workplaces should be owned in common by all of us, not just by a few.
• We can produce enough to provide everyone with a decent standard of living.
• The resources exist to provide decent public services and amenities.
• The aim of production should be to meet people’s needs instead of to make a profit. The operating principle should be ‘from each their best, to each their needs’.
• Access to health care, utilities, food, transport, housing, public services etc. should be free.

Halo, Halo! (2024)

The Halo Halo Column from the April 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nautilus, 28 February, reviews a book by a Professor of Psychiatry at the American University of Yale. The article is titled Evolution Is Going According to God’s Plan. The reviewer says its author believes ‘evolutionary theory is, in fact, theologically reaffirming; natural selection is purposeful and guided, and provides both evidence for a creator.’ Double quelle surprise! The Prof is a lifelong Mormon and is now a Latter Day Saints Bishop.

It seems it’s not only Christian evangelicals who have problems with reality, other religions do too. The Yetkin Report, 23 February, notes that those in charge of education in Turkey, having their country’s children’s best interests at heart, banned Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution from being taught in schools several years ago. Now ‘The Ministry of (Turkey’s) National Education, under the title of the biology curriculum, has introduced the notion of creationism into the 2024-25 schedule’.

Atlantic Council, 16 February, reports an elderly Iranian gentleman has seriously upset the Iranian authorities and has quite rightly (ahem) been taken into custody to undergo rehabilitation. George Orwell’s 1984 wasn’t just a work of fiction but a manual used by totalitarian regimes for the suppression of dissent. Totalitarian? Did someone mention Julian Assange? The heinous crime of this individual? Posting himself singing and dancing on social media. ‘The hardline Islamist world-view of the Islamic Republic, and its small but powerful constituency, subscribes to outlawing public dancing and singing as “un-Islamic” practices.’

American politician Mike Johnson again. Windytimes (14 February) notes that he flies three flags outside his office. The national flag, the State flag and ‘a white flag with a green tree in the centre and the words “An Appeal to Heaven”. This flag, which originated in the American Revolution, today is associated with a religious movement, New Apostolic Reformation, a rapidly growing force among various evangelical and charismatic groups that seeks to conform society’s seven spheres—education, religion, family, business, government, arts, and entertainment—with their interpretations of Christian scriptures and history’.

Any extraterrestrials who arrive to check out the third rock from the Sun would, if they have any sense, turn right around and avoid it like the proverbial. It is to be sincerely hoped that such visitors are not Vogons intent on demolishing the planet to provide an interplanetary space by-pass. Douglas Adams in his series of books beginning with Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy was using his imagination. There have been many who have insisted that they have indeed been abducted by aliens or who have been taken up into a UFO and had unspeakable things happen to them.

A Frenchman named Claude Maurice Marcel Vorilhon claimed to have met with ETs and, in December 1973, formed the Raëlian Movement and changed his name to Raël. Perhaps these alien visitors possess a twisted sense of humour because the number of times that various religious/cult founders have had revelations conveyed to them through hearing or meeting with ‘other worldly’ beings is quite a coincidence.

DC

Tiny Tips (2024)

The Tiny Tips column from the April 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Worldwide, 1.4 billion children aged under 16 lack any form of social protection, leaving them vulnerable to disease, poor nutrition and poverty.

(tinyurl.com/4s7uj2rz)

With church attendance falling, many Belgian churches are being given a new lease of life instead of being closed down. In one church in Mechelen, visitors now raise a glass instead of raising a prayer.

(tinyurl.com/5n6thwfp)

’It is important to understand aspects of human evolution so that you feel a part of humanity,’ Black says. ’So many people feel isolated, excluded or discarded because of the way they look or what culture they practice. By understanding human origins, people will see that we are all more united than divided in so many ways’.

(tinyurl.com/9rszmdau)

According to Mohammad Esmaeili Mahjoub, head of Tehran Municipality’s department for managing social issues, there has been a concerning rise in cases of abandoned elderly individuals. He revealed that since the start of the year, approximately 25 cases have been encountered by their organization in the capital alone. Fatemeh Abbasi, deputy responsible for rehabilitation affairs at the national welfare organization, has also voiced alarm over the surge in homelessness, particularly among the elderly and mentally ill. She stated that many of these vulnerable individuals are left on the streets by families who can no longer afford their care.

(tinyurl.com/2y2v8wnx)

Nick Hurley… said his firm had seen the number of businesses seeking advice on what to do about unexplained absences more than triple since the pandemic. Mr Hurley told The Telegraph: ’What we have noticed is in those sectors where perhaps wages and skills are a little lower, there is a definite increase in the number of employees who are just not showing up to work – and leaving the employer in the doo-doo, as it were.

(tinyurl.com/ycyjpsc5)

Prince of Wales to build homes for the homeless on his Cornish estate.

(tinyurl.com/msdepskj)

The Trump administration’s neglect and incompetence helped put half-a-million Americans in the ground, dead from COVID-19. Joe Biden was elected president in part on the promise of setting us on a science-driven course correction, but, a little more than a year later, another half-a-million Americans were killed by the virus. What happened?

(tinyurl.com/9j7az7k3)

According to Federal Reserve data, industrial production in the US defense and space sectors has surged by 17.5% since the war began, and administration officials say 64% of the $60.7 billion designated for Ukraine in a $95 billion supplemental military package will come back to the US defense industrial base.

(tinyurl.com/577azdhe)

The Houthis have recruited thousands of children since the start of the conflict in Yemen in 2014. The United Nations has verified at least 1,851 individual cases of child recruitment or use by the Houthis since 2010.

(tinyurl.com/4kpzxv6c)

…the criminal court in Dhamar in northern Yemen sentenced nine individuals to death – with seven sentenced to be executed by stoning, and two by crucifixion – while 23 others were handed prison sentences between six months and 10 years on charges including ’homosexuality’, ’spreading immorality’, and ’immoral acts’.

(tinyurl.com/yspz4k4f)

SPGB April Events (2024)

Party News from the April 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our general discussion meetings are held on Zoom. To connect to a meeting, enter https://zoom.us/wc/join/7421974305 in your browser. Then follow instructions on screen and wait to be admitted to the meeting.

Cooking the Books: What would ‘good’ capitalism be? (2024)

The Cooking The Books column from the April 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Pet care rip-off is a case of bad capitalism’ ran the headline of Emma Duncan’s column in the Times (15 March), subtitled ‘Profiteering by vet chains and children’s homes will only bolster appeal of socialism to the young’. Let’s hope so.

Earlier that week the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) had announced that it had identified ‘multiple concerns’ about what it called ‘the vets market’, including that pet owners were being overcharged and that the concentration of the firms operating in the sector put them in a position to do this.

‘In 2013, around 10% of vet practices belonged to large groups, but that share is now almost 60%, and many of the large groups have expressed an intention to continue expanding their business through acquisition of independently owned practices. To illustrate this another way, since 2013 1,500 of the 5,000 vet practices in the UK have been acquired by the 6 large corporate groups (CVS, IVC, Linnaeus, Medivet, Pets at Home and VetPartners)’ (tinyurl.com/5y4x2xf4 ).

This is a manifestation of the trend that Marx identified under capitalism towards the ‘centralisation of capitals’ — the ‘concentration of capitals already formed, destruction of their individual independence, expropriation of capitalist by capitalist, transformation of many small into few large capitals’ (Capital Vol 1, Ch 25, section 3). In the particular case of the market for pet care this has been facilitated not only by the greater amount of capital needed to invest in advanced equipment but also because of the prospect, as noted by Duncan, of making a bigger profit.

‘The rise in insurance has made pet owners largely indifferent to the prices that vets charge. Private equity firms — companies that buy up businesses they reckon could be more profitable — spotted this, and poured money into buying up individual practices.’

The same sort of situation, she notes, has arisen in the children’s home sector where ‘the CMA has calculated the average profit margin in the sector to be 19.4 per cent — “materially higher than we would expect”.’

Echoing Tory Prime Minister Ted Heath in 1973 who described some shady business practice as ‘the unacceptable face of capitalism’, Duncan sees this as ‘bad capitalism’. But is it? Is it not rather capitalism functioning as it is supposed to, with money-capital, such as that gathered by private equity firms, seeking out the most profitable investment outlet and then going for it?

It is all very well for a supporter of capitalism like Duncan to argue that the market ‘works properly only if toughly regulated’, but this is saying that it doesn’t work, in fact can’t work, properly. William Morris once pointed out that laws against adulteration wouldn’t be necessary if there wasn’t an economic incentive for firms to adulterate. Similarly, there wouldn’t need to be regulations to prevent rip-offs by capitalist firms if there wasn’t the incentive to do this.

If she wishes to win over the ‘53 per cent of 18 to 34-year old Britons’ who she cites as regarding ‘socialism as the ideal economic system’ (alright, most won’t know what socialism is but they will know that it’s not capitalism) she will have to come up with a better argument than she advances here.

‘Good capitalism’, apparently, is an economic system that requires (tough) government intervention to try to mitigate the effect of its basic economic imperative to seek and make profits. The ‘acceptable face’ of capitalism would be profit-seeking in accordance with Marquess of Queensberry type rules, rules that wouldn’t be necessary unless there was a tendency not to respect them. Socialists have a better solution. Produce directly to meet people’s needs, not for the market or profit, and there wouldn’t be any need for such rules.

Next Step for Humanity (2024)

Pamphlet Review from the April 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism for Young Folks (and everyone else). By Jamshid R. Davis. Omnia Sunt Communia Press. 2023. 57pp.

The Socialist Standard recently reviewed a booklet about anarchism aimed specifically at young people. The review was largely favourable and ended by suggesting that the Socialist Party might itself consider producing a similar publication about socialism ‘presenting in simple terms what is actually a very simple idea – organising the earth’s resources collectively and democratically on the basis of needs not profit’. We now discover that Jamshid Davishas actually got there first with a publication (Socialism for Young Folks) that comes extremely close to our own critique of current society and our proposals for changing it.

At the very start, he defines socialism as ‘an economic system where the means of production (how goods are made) and distribution (how goods get into the hands of those who need them) are socially owned in common’, and where ‘distribution is not through markets but by free access’. Having established what socialism is, he then proceeds to explain (and denounce) what it is not. It is not nationalisation or state ownership or control, since that is simply state capitalism, where ‘government managers take the place of the regular capitalist bosses’ and ‘wage labour, markets, and money still exist and there is no free access to needed goods or services’. An adamant ‘no’, therefore, to, the dictatorships in places like China, Cuba, Vietnam and North Korea. Nor do so-called ‘national liberation struggles’ have anything to do with socialism, since they ‘never were anti-capitalist in the first place’ and ‘socialism is by its very nature a world system’.

The class nature of the capitalist society we live in and that dominates the world is then analysed succinctly and effectively (‘a class is a group of people united by their common interests within the economic order’; ‘those who own property or manage it have all the power within a society, while those who do not own property suffer, powerlessness, economic exploitation, and poverty’; ‘the working class is composed of folks who must sell their labour power to capitalists or to the state to be able to support themselves and their families’). The solution to such inequality, we are told, is the abolition of class society and ‘the construction of a classless society’. The historical perspective that then follows about the rise of capitalism as a social and economic order and in particular how it overcame feudalism is also interesting for the added dimension it gives to the situation the world’s workers find themselves in today and what they need to do to do to bring about change and create a new system of society. It points to how past systems of society have changed, even though, while they existed, they may have seemed permanent and everlasting. Attention is also paid to the variety of noxious effects of the capitalist system on all who live under it. This includes a short but penetrating analysis of the various kinds of alienation it visits on its subjects and the way it stymies creative potential, the inevitability of crises of overproduction known as recessions or slumps, and the system’s tendency to cause military conflict through the struggle for markets’ (‘the First and Second World Wars can best be seen as a struggle between the various capitalist blocs over the division of the world market’).

What we have here, therefore, is an analysis and prescriptions found relatively rarely among who label themselves socialist but who are in fact using the word to mean variations, proposed or otherwise, on how to run capitalism. Having said that, there are, nevertheless, certain aspects of this booklet’s thesis that we would find it difficult to agree with. These occur largely in the section entitled ‘The Road Yet Travelled’, where a fairly detailed recipe for bringing about socialism and then organising it is put forward. It would be established, it argues, by acts of workplace protest, local democratic self-organisation and, above all, by direct action, which is likely to involve violence, since, the author insists, the capitalist class will never willingly give up their wealth and their protectors, the state, will never allow the system to be overturned and a new one established democratically via elections. So the strategy advocated here rejects the kind of democratic political action via the ballot box that the Socialist Party sees as the most fertile route to the establishment of a democratic, moneyless, marketless society once the necessary spreading of consciousness of the need for this has been achieved. Without this particular form of direct action (ie, the ballot box), it is difficult to see how a socially conscious working class can take the power necessary to abolish capitalism and set about organising a genuine socialist society. Nor is it a given, as suggested here, that, once the overwhelming majority of class-conscious workers have indicated their desire to establish socialism, there will be armed resistance from the capitalist class and their governments. So there is a clear difference in ‘strategy’ here between the author’s view and that of the Socialist Party on the establishment of socialism, even if the desired result seems very much the same.

In addition to this, the author goes in for a fairly detailed blueprint for how the new non-market, free access society will be organised, stating firmly, in the tradition of ‘Council Communism’, that it will be based on ‘workers’ councils’. Again we would see this as no more than one hypothesis out of many other possible ones and would argue that, once a majority of workers opt for a society without money, buying and selling, and wage and salary work, they will formulate their own way of organising it. All we can say is that they will do this democratically, via voluntary cooperation and using the knowledge, resources and technologies available at the time.

Despite these differences of view, however, there can be no doubt about the value of this publication both for the ideas it puts forward and for the clarity with which they are stated. It is helpful, above all, in putting centre-stage the idea the Socialist Party itself has been propagating for 120 years – that of dispensing with capitalism and establishing a new society based on collective production for direct use. As the author himself puts it – and we could not agree more –, ‘a world community is now possible and is necessary for the further development of humanity’.

Howard Moss

50 Years Ago: Labour Government: The Worst of Illusions (2024)

The 50 Years Ago column from the April 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

In The Observer on 3rd March, under the heading “Myths of the Election”, a Professor King proposed and praised the syllogism “I am working class, Labour is for the working class, therefore I am Labour”. The logic is fine; the premise is false. Certainly the Labour Party was built on the blind hope of working men and women that something better than the capitalist system offers could be obtained from the capitalist system. But for those who are not blind, it has done untold harm to the working class. First, by simply administering capitalism (whenever it gets the chance) determinedly to show it can do the same as the Tories. Second and more important, by its debasement of the word Socialism to a hucksters’ slogan — turning the true answer to working-class problems into a synonym for worthless reform and compromise.

The Labour Party is anti-working-class, but let the position be clearly understood. Intentions good or bad do not come into it: indeed, they are determined by capitalism. Some Labour politicians know what they are doing, others do not. Some begin with ideals, others with the desire for a parliamentary career. The forming factor, however, is that Labour sets out to be a governing party — that is, to take on running the capitalist system. Given that, all the failures and “regrettable necessities” follow. Because there is no way capitalism will run except its own way, and whoever tries to direct it is directed by it instead.

Nevertheless, it is impossible not to be appalled by the sheer charlatanism of the Labour Party, the mixture of cunning and stupidity which all its life has characterized it. (…)

There is a literary phrase: “the willing suspension of disbelief”. That seems to be the condition for supporting Labour. Granted, they could do no better if the utmost probity were their rule — the capitalist system is intractable. But, on the evidence, there must be a willing suspension of disgust too. This is the party no Socialist would join or vote for.

[From the article, Labour Government: the Worst of Illusions! by Robert Barltrop,  Socialist Standard, April 1974]

Action Replay: Kitted Out (2024)

The Action Replay column from the April 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Who will today’s game be between? Nike vs Adidas? Puma vs Umbro? Or maybe Castore will be potential giantkillers? All professional football teams have shirts and so on belonging to a particular brand, with the logo (the Nike swoosh, the three Adidas stripes, whatever) prominently displayed. Even official referees’ outfits in England are from Nike (farefereestore.thefa.com), but in Scotland they’re from Adidas.

And it’s all big business. Nike is the biggest sports company, with revenue of over $50m last year and over eighty thousand employees. It has been criticised for using sweatshops and child labour to make its products, and similar complaints have been made about Adidas, which has a minority share in Bayern Munich football club, and has revenue less than half that of Nike. Nike can count more Premier League teams as wearing their gear than Adidas, but in fact they have the same number as Umbro.

Both Nike and Adidas are long-established, but Castore, a British company, was only founded in 2015, and has just 500 workers. Yet it has been making progress, with three Premier League teams wearing its kit, together with Rangers in Glasgow, the England cricket team and the US national rugby team. They were involved in controversy towards the end of last year, with some of their shirts clinging to the wearers’ bodies when they became sweaty, which was particularly embarrassing for women players.

The kit manufacturers have contracts with the teams so as to ensure sales to supporters. Puma supply just one club, but that’s the champions, Manchester City, so their sales are pretty high. And, of course, it costs more to have a shirt with a particular player’s name and number on the back. Clubs also have at least one alternative kit in case of clashes, and change the details of their shirts every two or three years.

Nike and so on don’t just make sports gear, but also trainers, jackets, backpacks, etc. More specialist equipment, such as tennis and badminton rackets, is made by companies like Yonex, rather than Adidas et al: maybe there’s not enough profit in them, or perhaps it’s just that there’s free publicity for the company if you appear in public wearing and so advertising a flashy pair of trainers or a football shirt, but you won’t usually be carrying a badminton racket around with you.

Paul Bennett

Editorial: Tinkering will not fix things (2024)

Editorial from the April 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Change is needed, urgently. But we need to remember what we are dealing with. The profit system is worldwide. This means that the actions of all national governments are limited by the need for the system to yield profit. No matter what politicians promise, in or out of office, in the end they always have first to look to the needs of the capitalists, the privileged elite who own the means of living.

This doesn’t mean that funding cannot be found for cleaner air, education or subsidised childcare – provided this meets the needs of ‘the economy’. And that it is kept as cheap as possible to avoid scaring ‘the markets’. And any improvements that are achieved will always be threatened when the next slump or recession occurs, as it inevitably will.

Capitalism has solved the technical problem of producing enough to ensure a comfortable standard of living for everyone on the planet. It has brought the world’s population together to cooperate in a massive network of socialised production, by and large organised and operated by the excluded majority, us the workers. The disjoint between this and capitalism’s class basis and profit motive prevents the needs of the world population being properly met and leads to want, waste and war.

The revolutionary change that socialists propose is nothing more than a re-purposing of the global production system. In other words, stop cooperating on behalf of the capitalists and cooperate instead to meet human needs. This presupposes that the means of living are no longer monopolised by a few.

Of course, we’ll still have to mine, grow food, make machinery, and the like. After all, that is the human condition. But working just to meet needs means that we will be able to plan and produce rationally – making everything to the best of our technical ability, with as much regard for the rest of the natural world as is reasonably possible.

It means an end to any form of exchange – what we produce will be available for anyone to use/consume as they wish. This will mean that everything to do with buying and selling will be scrapped. And with no bosses, we’ll all be able to take as big a part as we wish in decision-making. The material conditions for socialist production already exist. Just one thing is missing – class consciousness. Class consciousness is the understanding that capitalism will always work against the economic interests of us as workers. It is the understanding that our class position ensures that we will, inevitably, never get much more than enough to keep ourselves in working order.

It follows from this we should not seek to reform, mend or tinker with capitalism to try to make it work in our interest. Rather should we organise to ditch the profit system once and for all and bring in socialism, the common ownership and democratic control of the means of living as the only basis on which things can be fixed.

March's "Done & Dusted"

Another quiet month. Only 9 Socialist Standards 'done and dusted' in March. Life can't help but get in the way sometimes. I did, however, also add three new pages to the blog so that's a bonus, and it's a pointer to future features on the blog. Added below the links to the finished Standards is the details of those new pages.

The finished Standards are broken up into separate decades for the hard of hearing.

March's "Done & Dusted"

November 1906

March 1931

March 1945

March 1956

March 1966

March 1978

March 1989

March 1992

March 2024

New Pages on the Blog:

Cooking the Books columns

Material World columns

Pathfinders columns

Debate on Industrial Unionism. (continued) (1906)

From the November 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Continued from the October issue.)

Geis in his second speech said that up to a certain point he agreed with Fitzgerald—indeed, Fitzgerald with his wider and more intimate knowledge of Trade Unionism, would make a better Advocate of Industrial Unionism than he (Geis) himself. The adoption of the Preamble was not sufficient of itself; if the material to support it were not present in the working class it was useless. The passing of pious resolutions, of course, did not signify ; but they had to recognise what was vital in the principle laid down.

The effort being made was honest ; and though the organisiation he was representing might fail the principle would live—the principle that would establish Socialism. The working class had evolved to a certain stage, and different degrees of class-consciousness were observable everywhere in its members. The theory of the Industrial Unionist was that Socialism had so penetrated the working-class mind that the elements were now ready to organise on the lines he proposed. Fitzgerald had urged that the I.W.W. should call itself Socialist if it were Socialist; but the I.W.W. had to be considered not for what it called itself but for what it actually was—a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. It had to be judged not by its name, but by its principles and action. With regard to the statements of Klemensic at the Chicago Convention, it was not at all unlikely that he was only in the position of a man who was for the time being rather puzzled by the clause under discussion. The I.W.W. included members of the Socialist Party, the Socialist Labour Party and others of no political affiliation whatsoever. Affiliation with either of the parties mentioned would only result in the promotion of discord. They were doing their best under the circumstances to unite the working-class politically by first uniting them industrially, in the firm belief that political disunity was the outcome of economic disorganisation. The existing political divisions in the working-class were clearly the shadow of their conflicting economic organisations. [This argument Geis illustrated thus : If in the sunlight, he held out his hand and extended his fingers, the shadow would show divisions ; but by closing up his fingers the shadow would be an undivided one.] That was why the I.W.W. refrained from affiliation with any existing political organisation. There were those who had not yet emancipated their minds from the metaphysical method of reasoning. [Here Geis read a very long extract from Engels’ “Socialism : Utopian and Scientific,” with the object of proving that Fitzgerald was a metaphysical reasoner.] The working-class was always in fluid motion its activities could not be frozen ; so sure as organic bodies grow, the working class would attain its emancipation through Industrial Unionism.

Fitzgerald emphatically denied that, he in any sense, or up to any point, had advocated mere Industrial Unionism, in which he had no faith. He had advocated Socialist Unionism, and no other. And in doing so he had dealt with facts ; his arguments were entirely along dialectical lines : not a single example had been adduced to show that his reasoning was dialectically incorrect. He also would refer to Engels’ “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific,” at p. 75 especially, where Engels indicates that the proletariat, will emancipate itself by seizing political power from the exploiting class and abolishing the class State. Although the I.W.W. was represented to be a single union it already showed a strong tendency to simulate the craft unions in its devolution into thirteen sub-divisions, quite regardless of the original seven-division “wheel” described by Hagerty. Thus the I.W.W. had obviously not themselves realised the class form of industrial organisation. He (Fitzgerald) was in favour of industrial organisation on a class basis, as opposed to the sectional basis, of the I.W.W. How was it possible to overthrow the Capitalist system, and “take and hold” the means of existence, merely by industrial organisation ? The seizure of land by the unemployed at West Ham afforded a miniature illustration of what would happen on a vast scale if the absurd attempt were made. In the one case the police and fire-hose sufficed to compel the unemployed to relinquish their hold on an acre of land : in the event of a greater attempt by Industrial Unionists they would be confronted by all the armed forces at the command of the dominant, class. The key to the position, as Engels had shown, was to obtain control of the fighting forces through the wresting of political authority from the possessing class. This was not a question of honesty, but of right and wrong; and the I.W.W., by its proposal to “take and hold” by economic action alone was simply misleading the working class. Political parties, moreover, were not a reflection of economic organisations, but the recognition and expression of economic interests. It was all very well to say in the Preamble that the I.W.W. did not countenance political affiliation ; it left political action out altogether. Why, if economic unity promoted political unity were such prominent advocates of Industrial Unionism as E. V. Debs and Daniel DeLeon still in political opposition ? why generally were its members at each other’s throats in the political field ? Only a clear understanding of their class position could bring about the political unity of the working class ; and so rapid was the development of economic conditions at the present time that all confusing and misleading proposals should be strenuously opposed, and the only way pointed out to the workers along the lines of Socialism and Socialism alone.

Geis observed that the members of The Socialist Party of Great Britain were obsessed with the idea of an armed Revolution ; they could not conceive the possibility of a peaceful revolution, and therefore they insisted on the necessity of the control by the workers of the armed forces of the nation. Their eyes were full of the blood of the French Revolution. Unless the workers were Industrially organised a bloody revolution would undoubtedly occur. He would point out that the soldiers engaged in the Featherstone shooting travelled by the aid of the craft unionists, who also supplied them with hats, boots, and clothes. If the workers were class-conscious the military would not be so supplied, nor with bayonets, bullets and “grub.” The armed force argument therefore fell to the ground. The whole working class would have to be industrially organised however, before it could complete its mission: but when that organisation was accomplished, the armed forces would not be able to move a hair’s breadth. The ballot-box method was a proved failure. The Russian revolutionaries were shot down notwithstanding the election of the Duma. With regard to the thirteen sub-divisions of the I.W.W., criticised by Fitzgerald, these did not constitute craft unions ; they were geographical divisions having local autonomy, but were subject to a central board. In this matter the I.W.W. submitted to circumstances they could not overcome, and Fitzgerald had elaborated no alternative scheme. Only by such industrial organisation as that he advocated would the workers accomplish the Social Revolution.

Fitzgerald replied that the emancipation of the working class was an impossibility until they were organised politically and economically. He had pointed out that although according to the Preamble of the I.W.W. the workers must come together on the political as on the economic field, two delegates at the Chicago convention of the I.W.W. had revealed the hopeless political confusion and class-unconsciousness of the members of that body, and the statements of those delegates were not repudiated. Neither had Geis made the least attempt to meet the question raised, which was essential. He (Fitzgerald) had every reason to desire a peaceful revolution, but the history of class-antagonisms and the circumstances of modern times provided him with but little hope in that direction. By repudiating the ballot-box method Geis had simply taken the Anarchist position ; and assuredly if the efforts of the I.W.W. were non-political they were also non-Socialist. Apparently Geis had never heard of soldiers being employed on railways, of the storage of seven years’ munitions of war and other such provisions. Finally he reasserted that a Socialist Preamble did not make a Socialist organisation, either in the case of a “pure and simple” craft union or the I.W.W. And his denial that that body was a Socialist Union implied also his opinion that it was not worthy the confidence and support, of the working class.

Mr Bryan and the Trusts. (1906)

From the November 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

When, at. the end of August, Mr. Bryan, the Democratic candidate for the Presidency of the United States, returned from his tour of the world, he made a remarkable speech that should have been commented on in these columns before. He stated that “Landlordism was the curse of Europe, but it was an innocent institution compared with the trust system carried to its logical conclusion. . . . He hoped the trusts would be exterminated root and branch. . . He declared that the time was ripe for the overthrow of plutocracy, which, he asserted, was already sapping the strength of the nation, vulgarising social life, and making a mockery of morals.” But the most remarkable aspect of the matter is what is described by the Tribune as a “remarkably effective method of dealing with the monopolist trust.” The method as explained in the same organ is “that where a trust has achieved an internal monopoly in production the tariff wall should be broken down so as to admit of foreign competition. Free trade in trust articles is an adroit, a politic, and a just proposal. A capitalistic society is tolerable only when free competition protects the public interests. . . . When once the trust system has been formed, State ownership is indeed the only tolerable alternative to competition. Mr. Bryan’s scheme is ingenious and economically sound. Its failure would mean, we imagine, the growth of some third party, with a definitely socialistic aim.”

The third party has already grown in anticipation of the failure of any scheme of the nature of Mr. Bryan’s. I wonder if the writer of the above quoted article has forgotten the Tobacco War, or whether he learned the lesson that had to teach ? The entry into British markets of the products of the American Tobacco Trust had its first effect in bringing British tobacco manufacturers together into the Imperial Tobacco Company. The two trusts did not compete long—they combined; and today the Imperial Tobacco Company and the American Tobacco Trust are a united body. May we not expect the same thing to happen in America. The only foreign competition the trust could feel would be that of an organisation sufficiently strong to bear the disadvantages of the extra cost of transit involved. It would have to be a case of the American trust v. a Foreign trust. Such a battle of the giants would not last long and would most certainly result in the achievement of the next step in economic progress after the National trust, viz. the International trust. The “only tolerable alternative” to which will be State ownership—when the State has been democratised. We seem indeed to be approaching the beginning of the end.

Dick Kent

The S.P.G.B. and the S.L.P. (1906)

From the November 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

G. Geis writes at considerable length challenging the statement made by J. Fitzgerald in our last issue that he (Fitzgerald) asked Geis to stay away from the Cock & Hoop meeting. The matter is extraneous to the article we published in the August number, and in no way affects the position of the S.P.G.B. It was introduced by a correspondent whose letter appeared last month, and is at most a question of personal recollection with which we have nothing to do.

Editorial: Ten Millions Starving. (1906)

Editorial from the November 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ten Millions Starving.

Mr. Lloyd-George spoke strongly at Penrhyndendraeth, Merioneth, last night.

“He said there were ten millions in this country enduring year after year the torture of living on, lacking a sufficiency of the bare necessaries of life ; and all this existed amid a splendid plenty which poured into a land so wealthy that it could afford to lend out of its spare riches thousands of millions to less well endowed lands in other parts of the world.

“There is plenty of wealth in this country to provide for all and to spare,” he continued. “What is wanted is a fairer distribution. There is a good deal of temporary depression in the slate industry in this part of the world, which I trust will soon pass away. But before it goes I am afraid there will be much distress from want of employment. Yet there are two men in the county of Carnarvon whose combined incomes are equal to the aggregated earnings of half the quarrymen of the country.

“The latter, working at a skilled trade, requiring years of apprenticeship to master it, risking life in its pursuit—thousands of them together can only earn just as much as two men who do not contribute a single slate to the common stock.

“I do not suggest that there should be a compulsory equal distribution of the wealth of this country between its inhabitants, but I do say that the law which protects these men in the enjoyment of their great possessions should first of all see that those whose labour alone produces their wealth are amply protected from actual need where they are unable owing to circumstances over which they have no control to earn enough to purchase the necessaries of life.”

—Daily Express, 26/9/06.

A dangerous game.

So truth will out even from a Capitalist Cabinet minister. Ten millions starving—it is a greatly underestimated figure, but it will serve—ten millions of those whose labour alone produces the country’s wealth ! Yet George, like Burns and the rest of the kidney, offers no remedy. Why? Because they dare not. They know the remedy well enough—the only remedy that can be applied, but they fear to speak it. They will talk sympathetically enough to secure working-class support for the party to which they belong ; but they know as they talk that the Party on whose behalf they stand can do nothing to touch the fringe of the evil. Because their party is a Capitalist party, call it by what else they will, and unemployment and its consequent starvation are directly due to the fact that the working class whose labour alone—on the word of a Cabinet minister—produces wealth, depend for their bread to-day upon whether the capitalist class can make a profit out of the purchase of their labour power. The Capitalist class live upon profits nothing else. Without profits they must die. Because of profits the workers must live precarious lives and starve by the tens of millions. Very well. The cure rests solely in the extinction of the profit-monger, the abolition of the capitalist class; the expropriation of the expropriators, and the death of the political expression of capitalism, of which Lloyd George and Co. constitute themselves the fuglemen. Let Mr. Lloyd George tell the whole truth if he dare. As it is he is a sort of political Pied Piper—-a lure : a decoy. But he must be careful. The game he is playing is a dangerous one. If the workers produce all the wealth it may occur that a reminder of it from a cabinet minister will have the effect of inspiring in the minds of the wealth producers a dissatisfaction with anything less than the entire product of their labour. And what Lloyd George of all the hosts of capitalist apologists—highly paid or lowly—would venture to dispute the justice of the demand after such a ministerial pronouncement as was made in that Merioneth town of the unpronounceable name.

Karl Kautsky on Socialism and Trade Unionism. (1906)

From the November 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the Annual Congress of the German Socialists held during the last week of September, the most important questions discussed were the “Relations of the Socialist Party to the Trade Unions,” and “The Political General Strike.” The Executive and General Councils of the Party submitted a resolution (introduced by Bebel) which was drawn up so as to fully satisfy those elements in the Trade Unions and the Socialist Party that believed in the Trade Unions having a free hand in their actions, while being expected to co-operate with each other when mutually deemed practicable and advantageous.

Kantsky and 32 other comrades moved as an amendment the, following addition : —

“In order, however, to insure on the part of the Trade Unions together with the Party uniformity of thought and action, which is an indispensable condition for the victorious progress of the class-struggle of the Proletariat, it is absolutely necessary that the Trade-Unions be dominated by the spirit of Socialism. It is therefore the duty of every member of the Party to act in this sense within the Trade Unions, and to consider himself bound by the resolutions of the Party Congresses in his actions in Trade Unions as well as in all others of a public character. This is demanded in the interest of the Trade Union movement itself, as the Socialist movement is the highest and most far-reaching form of the class-struggle of the proletariat, and no working-class organisation, no working-class movement can completely accomplish its aims unless it is permeated by the spirit of Socialism.”

In support of the foregoing amendment Kautsky said :

“As to our proposed addendum, which the Executive decline to support, I must confess that their action has disappointed me very much. I thought that in that addition we said nothing that should not be self-understood by every comrade, and that one cannot reject what is self-understood. I believe that this resolution is necessarily as a consequence of the resolution justified by Bebel. I consider that resolution to be incomplete. If our addendum is not accepted what does Bebel’s resolution say ? It recognises that it is necessary to take, from time to time, action together with the Trade Unions. I am fully convinced that the joint action of the Party and the Trade Unions must he the future form of action. Bebel recognises that the form of future action must be that the functionaries of the Trade Unions in every case arrive at an understanding. But here the resolution ends. Yet here only begins the difficulty. Then the question arises, what happens if such understanding is not come to? The reply is very simple. If it does not come to an understanding, it does not come to action. How can we come to action ? Our own Party has, the larger it has grown, become in a certain sense an awkward apparatus. It is not easy to bring new ideas into that apparatus. And should the case arise that the Trade Unions are wanting a rest, what prospects would there open up before us by the Trade Unions hanging on as a brake to the already so awkward party organisation. And just because we recognise that we have in each case to co-operate with the ‘Trade Unions it becomes necessary for us to see to it that the Trade Unions should he composed of such elements as to ever make it impossible for these Unions to act as brakes upon the Party. And therefore it is the duty of the Party to deal with the Trade Unions in such a way as to prevent them from hampering the Party. That that should he done in the interest of the Party requires no explanation. The question, however, may be raised—and I believe that is the reason for opposing our addendum whether the Trade Unions would not suffer by this joint action : whether the Socialist propaganda would do harm to the Trade-Unions? I am of the opinion that, the Trade Unions would lose nothing but on the contrary that they would profit by such action, because they would thereby be enabled to accomplish their great task. And now only I come to the point I was really anxious to make clear. It is the question whether it would be detrimental to the Trade Unions if they acted in the spirit of Socialism, I deny its being detrimental. Upon what are based the powers of the Trade Unions to attract members ? Firstly, upon their system of mutual benefits and, secondly upon the character of a fighting organisation. Now the system of mutual benefits is such as to limit the power of the Trade Unions to attract members very considerably. By the offer of mutual benefits the Trade Unions reach but a small circle of the workers. That is proved by the position of Trade Unions in England. The benefits granted, the amount fixed for the same, and those for contributions, depend upon the wages of the contributors. The greater the amounts of benefit granted the more the Trade Unions get confined to such of the workers as may receive high wages. That is proved by the Trade Unions in England, which for the last ten years have been in a state of stagnation while the membership of the German Trade Unions has increased by leaps and bounds.

And why is that? The English workers themselves have recognised that. They have themselves said that the English Trade Unions are decaying because they have not the Socialists which should imbue them with the Socialist spirit. What is the difference between the English working-class movement and the German ? The English working-class movement has the benefit system much better organised than the German workers have, because there is no State Insurance in England, and in spite of the superior benefit system the English Trade Unions are in a state of stagnation. In England we have the neutrality of the Trade Unions, they are lacking Socialist principles and that proves that, it is Socialism which has caused the progress of the German Trade Unions. Socialists have founded the German Trade Unions, Socialists are its administrators, and it is the Socialists who have imparted to these Unions the vigour they possess. No party in Germany commands such respect as the Socialist Party. The German Socialist Party is the representative of all the exploited—of all men and women who are up in arms against the present system of exploitation. And the free Trade Unions may show themselves ever so free and neutral, yet they are regarded by the mass of the people to he Socialist. That is fortunate for the Free Trade Unions, for the entire confidence which the mass of the people bestow upon the Socialist Party they also place in the Trade Unions and that constitutes the main strength of the Trade Unions. If we push that more in the future we shall only increase the power of attraction of the Trade Unions. With the power of attraction is closely related the Party discipline. If we create a class of comrades for whom that discipline does not exist: we only weaken what is the strongest lever of the class-struggle of the proletariat, which is the greatest help to the Trade Unions themselves. We must under all conditions insist upon Party discipline. The Trade Unions will not fare badly upon observing it. The Socialist Party has never passed a Resolution which has injured the Trade Unions or hampered their agitation. After all only such affairs come here into question which enter the sphere of the Trade Unions as well as that of the Party ; but if once the case should arise that the Trade Unions should feel themselves injured in their own sphere by a Resolution of the Party, that could only be if the Trade Unions place the particular interests of their members higher than the common interest, and then we should so much more insist upon the common interest being placed higher and that it should prevail. I point to France where for a time a number of comrades were permitted to stand outside Party discipline. When Millerand became Cabinet Minister it was declared :— A Cabinet Minister acts under such peculiar conditions that he stands outside Party discipline. That created the category of a comrade on leave for whom the Party discipline does not exist. And soon, also, the members of Parliament took a fancy to that position. They, too, were averse to standing under Party discipline. Finally, also, their constituents declared that there was no need for themselves being obedient to discipline with the result that the solidarity of the Party was with the greatest difficulty sustained by various amputations and by the expulsion of 18 members of Parliament from the Party. This example should be a warning to us. We must under no circumstances permit that a special class of comrades be created who are given a discipline of their own. I admit that a comrade who is at the same time a Trade Unionist may experience a serious conflict of conscience ; but we want to make that impossible by seeing to it that Party and Trade Unions, Party Congress and Trade Union Congress may equally be possessed of the Socialist spirit. What my addendum demands is already being practised in Germany in a number of towns where the members of the Party are zealously active in the Trade Unions as for instance in Hamburg and just there the relations are most harmonious. There the Party as well as the Trade Unions thrive. The addendum contains by no means a declaration of war against the Trade Unions, on the contrary it aims at creating a basis upon which alone successful and uniform action of the Party and Trade Unions together could be made possible.”