Bounteous Bournville. (1908)

From the October 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Among the many devices adopted for the purpose of befuddling the minds of the working-class, a strong favourite is the one of loudly advertising the actions of the “good” members of the capitalist class and emphasising what they “do” for the workers. We are told of their contributions to various charitable institutions, their subscriptions to various funds, and of the thought and care they exercise in looking after those in their employ.

A typical instance of the latter point is Messrs. Cadbury’s model village at Bournville. Gallons of good ink and yards of paper have been used in describing the superiority Bournville possesses over the ordinary village or the working-class quarters of our large cities. Let us see how these “advantages” benefit the workers living in this model village.

When one first enters “Cadburytown,” the wide streets planted with trees, the semi-detached houses, each pair of different design, with large gardens in the rear and smaller gardens in the front, certainly convey the idea that this is a far healthier and more pleasant place to live in than most villages of the same size. True, the attempt to vary every pair of cottages has resulted in some weird and wonderful specimens of domestic architecture, but we may let that pass. A spacious recreation ground with a fine pavilion and a large allotment ground are also shown with pride to the visitor. He is also carefully informed that inside the large factories everything is clean and bright, and that Mr. Cadbury is himself frequently present to deal with any trouble or complaint that may arise. Inside the factory a gymnasium is fitted up and the younger of the employees partake of exercise, for a fixed period, during working hours. Up to a certain age—18 years I believe—costumes are provided for the girls entering the “gym” ; after that age they must provide such costume themselves.

But the Socialist is still unconverted. He has one or two questions to ask. He has already noticed that every garden is in a certain stage of cultivation. There are differences, of course, but all are cultivated in some degree. Then he learns that prizes are given for the best gardens and, to prevent ignorance of horticulture being advanced as a reason for not competing, two gardeners are employed for the purpose of instructing the tenants in the arts and mysteries of cultivating a small holding. The allotments, too, are ample, and from a cursory inspection it would seem that most of the tenants take up at least one plot.

After working during the day in the factory, the cocoa worker can enjoy the fresh air and the fragrance of Nature by working on his garden or allotment land ; or he may take a turn at cricket or football practice on the recreation ground. He is expected to compete for the garden prizes, for what would be the use of providing professional gardeners to instruct him if he does not take advantage of their services ? Thus between his cottage garden, the allotment plot, and the recreation ground he finds himself under the aegis of Cadbury from the moment he awakes till he retires to his well-earned rest.

Those of the working class who have attempted to follow any regular or systematic course of study, know only too well the serious handicap that working as a wage-slave during the day imposes upon them, and how difficult it is to apportion their scanty spare time to the best advantage. At Bournville the worker is completely safeguarded against any such worries by the simple expedient of filling up his time outside the factory with work—of a different kind, perhaps, to that inside—under the eye of Cadbury. It might be inconvenient for Cadbury and the rest of the capitalist class were he to spend his spare time in studying, say, the source of surplus value, or the cause of unemployment. Therefore he must have something else to do—and he has.

Just before leaving, a question perhaps occurs to the visitor that the array of “good” things done by the capitalist had, up till then, driven into the back-ground. “What are the wages paid here?” he asks, and is surprised to find that no one seems to know. By dint of some enquiries he gradually discovers that most of the employees are paid at piece-work rates. But in addition to this they are expected to turn out a certain quantity in a given time ; in other words, it is not only piece work, but task work.

The tyro in economics may wonder why the employer should trouble about the quantity the worker turns out seeing that the latter is only paid for what he produces. Like other capitalists, however, Cadburys have long learnt that the establishment expenses are going on all the same, and that the larger the quantity of articles this can be spread over, the relatively cheaper is the production.

And now the iron hand inside the velvet glove is beginning to be discerned. If a worker does not keep up to the standard speed set by the employer, he or she is required to give an explanation. Do they not live in a healthy place with plenty of open-air occupations ? Are not the houses fairly roomy and healthy, so different to the crowded town slum ? Is not the gymnasium provided in the works, to be used during the employer’s time, on purpose to keep the worker physically fit ? And the wage-slave at Bournville would be obliged to answer “yes” to all these questions. Then why are you not able to keep up at the pace fit for the highest physical efficiency at present humanly possible? And some plausible excuse must be found, or there is a vacancy soon after.

To do him the barest justice it must be admitted that Cadbury himself admits that it is not philanthropy, but entirely business reasons that lay behind the establishment of Bournville. To obtain the maximum output from the worker he or she must be in the highest state of physical efficiency. This again can only be obtained by supplying the worker with the means of keeping in good health. Hence the detached cottages and large air space at Bournville. Hence also the gymnasium in the factory.

The gardens, allotments, and recreation ground are part of a more general scheme for binding the employees, body and mind, to their employers by keeping them completely under the employers’ control every moment of their lives. Despite their “superior” surroundings, the employees at Bournville are more completely enslaved, and certainly as much exploited, as the workers in the ordinary industrial centres. The form under which the exploitation takes place may differ, but the essence remains. Cadbury, no more than any other capitalist, can get wealth out of the air. It can only be produced by the application of human energy to the nature-given materials. Large subscriptions to various lists and the subsidising of a daily paper can only take place when some section of the working class is being robbed of the results of their applied labour-power. Attempts to “sugar” the pill by building “model” villages and fitting up gymnasiums cannot hide the fact of its being a pill, while, as shown above, the “sugar” is more than compensated for by the increased enslavement of the employees. One does not hear of a union among the workers at Bournville, for, of course, there is no need of such a thing where the worker can speak to his employer personally and place his grievance—or demands—before him first hand ; while, in his isolation, he is wondering what on earth the man working next to him is going to do. Not by misleading the workers into thinking there are “good” and “bad” capitalists, but by showing them that all capitalists and employers can only exist by robbery will the emancipation of the working class be hastened. Only by using their scanty leisure to learn the lesson of Socialism put forward by the S.P.G.B. will they get rid of the superstition that an alteration in the form or methods of exploitation can alter their position. With that lesson learnt the days of Cadbury, Bournville, and Bunkum will be over.

Jack Fitzgerald

Can a man be a Socialist and a Christian? (1908)

From the October 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Yes,” say the I.L.P., S.D.P., and the other quassi-Socialist parties who are after big mem­berships. Well, the Socialist says the only cure for poverty is in the intellectual awakening of the working class, preliminary to the ownership and control of the means of life. The Christian says the cure for poverty is in “believing prayer to our God.” One is absolutely dependent upon “God.” The other is absolutely indifferent to God. How, then, can a man be a Socialist and a Christian ?

At Random. (1908)

From the October 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Mr. Burrows ought to be in Parliament; he is much the sanest of the Party to which he belongs.” (W. T. Stead, Review of Reviews, August, 1908.

* * *

After this handsome certificate of comparative “sanity” from one of the most notorious tin gods of Nonconformist-Liberalism, the suave gentleman who plays “Socialism” on a cracked pipe in an impossible key to the tune of “Reform,” should experience no trouble in making one of those “compacts” with the master-class which the Social Democratic Party would never endorse.

* * *

What, never ? Well; hardly ever ! See Manifesto of the S.P.G.B., pp. 1, 9, and 10.

* * *

The “humanity” of individual members of the governing class often throws a lurid light on the all-essential conception of class-consciousness. We learn from the Correspondent of the Daily News that “President, Faillères and M. Clemenceau have stubborn objections to capital punishment.”

* * *

Whether a criminal shall take his last look through the “little window,” or be immured in prison, has little, or very remote, bearing on the interests of the gentlemen in question as members of the governing class. Quite otherwise with a strike. The sabred right of the capitalist to exercise his unfettered “freedom” in brutal exploitation is challenged. The genial Fallières and the clement Clemenceau have no hesitation then in shooting.

* * *

“Stubborn objections to capital punishment” en masse, in the interests of the employers, have as little existence with Fallières and Clemenceau. as with Asquith and Burns.

* * *

When will the worker fully grasp the fatal significance of the armed forces of the nation to himself ? “Hard times” are in store during the coming winter. Sharp reminders of the real moaning of such forces may serve to help even fatuous fools of the Blatchford type to see that preservation of “our” country is the function of the army and navy only on the clear recognition of the fact that “our” is synonymous with the class that hold and control the instruments of production.

* * *

The worker is fatherland-less. Stripped of all claim to any advantages which he may have formerly enjoyed from the use of land, the appeal to save “our” country from foreign conquest by the Editor of the Clarion, is on a par with his strenuous begging for funds to finance “our” Vans—which belong, as you please are solely controlled by—spite the feeble Clarionese kickers—the Editor of the Clarion

* * *

As thus : “MY method is soon told. I look out for good men. When I find one, I give thanks. I put him into the right place. I give him a free hand.”

“Alderman E. R. Hartley will be appointed Van Organiser.—Clarion (recent issue).

* * *

Inimitable style, Nunquam’s ! ! My very dear friends of the Clarion brand of “Reform,” DO YOU READ “YOUR” ORGAN?

* * *

Listen to the tale of woe ! The Class Teacher this time. “Pious professional protests, pious professional tears have all been in vain. In some cases we (the teachers’ unions) are actually progressing backwards.”

“One gets sick unto death of it all: we are singing and making merry while the ship is sinking.”

* * *

The “dearth” of teachers has come to a most brutal, beastly, unseemly end. The poor pedagogue is actually being brought face to face with “iron laws of supply and demand.” But—soft ! We will take heed unto ourselves, we will take counsel of the miner, we will learn wisdom from the bricklayer, and the gasworker. We “will reduce the number of possible blacklegs.”

* * *

Why, damme ! if it comes to that, “we will adopt strike principles.”

* * *

Ay ! Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the Counter-Jumpers’ Champion, noise it not abroad in the Dustmen’s Herald—we will bow our heads, and admit “uncertificated teachers” to the Union what time we declare that “with the ‘supplementary ‘ teachers we have no cause in common.”

* * *

“No cause in common.” Fools and blind ! Compelled to sell your pitiful commodity, a shoddy education, at a rate which compels you too oft to occupy your “leisure” time in petty trading, in divers pursuits which a false pride and an eye to income tax compels you to hide, you have yet to learn that you have a “cause in common” with your class, the working class.

* * *

Meanwhile, the President of your Union is discovering that there is a “great sense of unity” among teachers in the wonderful German Empire.

* * *

A comrade from Manchester, who modestly hides his individuality under the weird title of “Jaybee,” writes: —

“The futility of endeavouring to put a stop to industrial operations by such a method as the general strike, was shown during the recent strike in Paris ; Mr. Clemenceau, the Premier, said he would be able to place at the disposal of the directors, military engineers to take the place of the men in supply stations if they went on strike.”

* * *

“Further, he was prepared to supply TROOPS TO GUARD THE MAINS.”

* * *

A striking commentary on the soundness of the position taken up by the Socialist Party of Great Britain, viz: that, whilst fully recognising the necessity of organisation on the industrial plane, the seizure of the political machinery (including the armed forces of the nation) by the worker, is absolutely essential to working-class emancipation.

* * *

“Direct action,” however thickly veiled with high-seeming Socialist phrases, is Anarchy, and he who would persuade the worker to “drive out Beelzebub with Beelzebub” is working present woe, and hindering future weal in a way that is the more tragic, in so far as a genuine desire to serve his class often dominates the misguided devotee to an ancient and obsolete faith.

A. Reginald

Letter: Money: Will it be needed under socialism? (1908)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Money: Will it be needed under socialism?

To the Editor.

Sir,—Having participated, as a humble listener, in many discussions on Socialism, I have noticed, as no doubt have many others, what a stumbling block the money question presents to many earnest seekers after truth. Seeing on sale a pamphlet bearing the title quoted at the head of this letter, I purchased a copy in the hope that it would help in surmounting the obstacle in question.

Mr. A. P. Hazell, the author, is not, I understand, a member of your Party, but I feel sure you will grant him space to clear up my doubts and remove my difficulties.

“The ordinary individual is quite confused in his ideas concerning the medium of exchange,” says Mr. Hazell, with which I quite agree, as I also do with two other statements, viz., “Capitalism presupposes production of wealth which has to be distributed by means of exchange,” and “Socialism does not presuppose distribution of wealth by means of exchange. It assumes that society has evolved a stage beyond exchange, and that, consequently, there will be no need for money.” But I understand that Mr. Hazell is a prominent member of, and an accepted economic authority in, the Social Democratic Party, which has for its object “The Socialisation of the Means of Production, Distribution and Exchange.” Its members refer to this object as Socialism. Why then seek to socialise something which is necessary to capitalism but not to Socialism, which will supersede it? I have heard members of the S.D.P. criticise the I.L.P. because the latter would socialise capital, whereas Socialism means its abolition. Is this not a case of pot and kettle ?

Mr. Hazell deals with “The Guernsey Experiment” which “Shows that money even now under given conditions can be dispensed with.” But the paragraph records that the Governor of Guernsey issued paper money against the cash which was to come in as rent for stalls. As it came in the paper money was withdrawn from circulation. This, in my opinion, proves the opposite to what the author claims.

“If Municipalities” says Mr. Hazell, “could overcome the opposition of the Bankers, and obtain the consent of Parliament, they could easily raise funds and do without the capitalist financiers whose function it is to exact interest on loans.” It seems to me that municipalities will not be able to do this until the conscious effort of the Socialist working class has deprived the capitalist financiers of their political power and appointed its delegates to organise the administration of things. If I am right then it is little use and very confusing to argue upon this “if.”

But it is on pages 4 and 5 that I encounter my greatest difficulties ! Mr. Hazell says : “A socialistically-inclined Cabinet would have to go cautiously to work to realise their aim. Its best method would be to enter the field of production, and bodily attack the present system of exchange,” and again, “But let us be clear. No Socialist Government would enter into production ostensibly for the purpose of either abolishing money or the system of exchange. They would be laughed at by the ignorant, who for a long time yet will remain in the majority,” and further, “Socialists are in favour of direct employment, and will, without question, force the hands of the Government to move in this direction against its will.” We would thus appear to have arrived at a condition of affairs in which we have an ignorant majority but yet a Socialist Government. This Socialist Government would not enter into production on Socialist lines, because they would be laughed at. The hands of the Socialist Government would be forced (against their will) by the Socialists ! Now mark this is not a position arising from a division in the House suddenly placing the Socialist Party in office, because “The capitalists, defeated at the poll, etc.” The unwilling Socialist Government has beaten the capitalists at the ballot box, although “the ignorant are still in the majority.” “Let us be clear,” says Mr. Hazell. Well, let us, by all manner of means, let us

No wonder that Mr. Hazell assumes that his Government is full of trouble ! It wants to borrow money, but has trouble with the financiers ; an agitation in the country has succeeded in getting passed through the House the Right to Work Bill, which increases its difficulties; it is afraid to raise the income tax beyond a certain point because that might cause civil war; but at last the sun appears upon the horizon. The Government receives an order from the Colonies for a warship, to cost two millions. To enable it to construct this monument to the establishment of the brotherhood of man, it issues paper to the value of two millions, which it redeems when the Colonies pay over the cash for the Socialist “Dreadnought.” It extends its undertakings and its profits enable it to defy all opposition. I did not think that warships and profits would play a part when a Socialist Administration had been elected, but I suppose I was wrong.

There are other points in the pamphlet I should like to deal with did space permit, but only one will I touch upon now. If Mr. Hazell endeavours to assist me will he please state whether there will be a “reserve army of labour” under Socialism—an army of unemployed seeking work ? I ask this because on page 15, after the “Reformers” have won, when “the organisation of labour is now so perfect that there is a superabundance of wealth,” he refers to the drafting of “surplus” labour into particular departments, and I do so wish to be “clear.”

—Yours etc., 

Kendrick Johns.

September 9th, 1908.

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For October. (1908)

Party News from the October 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

World Socialist Radio - Withdrawal Symptoms (2025)

Adapted from the October 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Withdrawal Symptoms by The Socialist Party of Great Britain

Even in a socialist society the legacy of capitalism would pose deep challenges—particularly in areas tied to personal behaviour, health and consumption. The episode points to obesity, processed foods, addictions, pollution, synthetic drugs and industrial toxins as examples of harms created under capitalism, and raises the question of how a socialist world would responsibly manage them without exacerbating individual dependency or imposing authoritarian controls. While acknowledging that some “withdrawal symptoms” might result from removing harmful, profit-driven products, a democratic socialist society would not perpetuate illnesses for profit, and would need to find ethical, collective ways to address lifestyle and health issues.

Adapted from the October 2025 issue of The Socialist Standard.

World Socialist Radio is the official podcast of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. We have one single aim: the establishment of a society in which all productive resources – land, water, factories, transport, etc. – are taken into common ownership, and in which the sole motive for production is the fulfilment of human needs and wants.

World Socialist Radio is the official podcast of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. We have one single aim: the establishment of a society in which all productive resources – land, water, factories, transport, etc. – are taken into common ownership, and in which the sole motive for production is the fulfilment of human needs and wants.

RSS Feed for Withdrawal Symptons.

To read more news, views, and analysis please visit: worldsocialism.org/spgb

Private lives (1977)

From the October 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent in Greater Manchester asks a series of questions beginning: ‘‘What is the socialist view of the regulation and control (if any) of sexual activity within a Socialist society? Please deal individually with the questions of marriage, divorce and its family consequences, the age of consent, homosexuality (male and female), rape.” Further questions are who would have the say in the bringing-up of children, and would children be ‘‘disciplined” as now to make them conform; on individual rights to privacy, quietness, etc.; and finally, whether Socialism would not need some enforcement machinery for these matters.

They all represent aspects of the individual’s relationship to the community—but putting it that way distorts things at the outset. The basic social relationships are created by the structure of society itself. A complex of subsidiary relationships grows within them, with ideas attached. Yet these ideas in turn react on society; they produce endless changes of detail, and also the desire for new relationships which can only be obtained by developing society further. Thus, the socialist view is not that we shall have common ownership and then try to improve existing relationships. It is that with the end of class society, the relationships and attitudes which are parts of it also end, and entirely new ones grow up on the basis of common ownership.

The social pattern of sexual activity has changed from one society to another: for an account of it, read Engels’s The Origin of the Family. Within the “pairing” marriage changes have taken place. The “extended” family which included all close relatives has given way to the “nuclear” family of one couple and its children, and the social importance of this in turn has declined. The reasons are simply economic: division of labour makes the experience and life-style of one generation alien to the next. Along with this goes the separation of sexual pleasure from reproduction, which is by no means a modern idea but has been scientifically perfected in the 20th century.

What will happen in Socialism is that people will live together without having to seek a licence and part if and when they want to. A good many attempt this today, within the limits of convenience and approval allowed by capitalism. Those limits are removed when property society is abolished: social relations of equality and freedom make personal ones possible.

It is the question of parting that causes concern, of course — the “family consequences”. The paramount factor among them is one which will be absent from Socialist society: money, unending worries over it, the need for it to keep a family housed, clothed and fed. In capitalist society the break-up of a marriage almost invariably causes hardship in those terms, and divorce and separation proceedings are chiefly about financial provisions to support the individuals who are “dependent” under the existing family system. But this takes us back to the foundation of the relationship. When it involves material dependence it clearly is not an equal partnership, and it isn’t surprising that resentment is common.

Other consequences cannot be separated from material ones. Children (like adults) want stability and affection, and in present-day society those things are associated with a conventional home-life. There is no reason why they should not be had, fully, in different arrangements. This is not a case of one regime replacing another, but of being able to make choices which capitalism does not allow. Socialism will be a responsible society precisely because it means freedom to choose. Class-based, authoritarian society gives no such freedom; the choices are imposed, and the individual has to be exhorted into responsibility towards them. When they are made personally or communally, with knowledge and without coercion, true responsibility is felt and exercised.

Not much joy

Sex is both a natural impulse and a supreme pleasure. What sort of world is it whose “regulation of sexual activity” denies satisfaction to large numbers of people, and persuades many more that it is intrinsically shameful? In recent years emphasis has been laid on frankness about sex. Whatever the merits of this, it has produced —inevitably, in capitalism—the commercial exploitation of desires which society does not let be fulfilled. It is impossible to have the best from this area of life without decent material conditions. Privacy, hot water, warmth and some degree of comfort, and not being worried or tired, are the minimum requirements; simple as they sound, they add up to a standard of housing and general well-being which the majority of working people cannot get.

Change this, and there is no need to argue for a right to privacy. Our correspondent links it with “a place of one’s own”, and asks if that does not presuppose private property; but owner-occupiers generally are no better off than council-house tenants in this respect. Of course sexual satisfaction (and the enjoyment of life in many other respects) is heavily obstructed by living between cardboard-thin walls through which the neighbours or the children can hear every word and creak. The privacy problem is a matter of bricks-and-mortar environment, the result of a class-divided society and production for profit. Houses built for use instead of money will embody different assumptions.

There is another aspect of this. Privacy, like its opposite, is not supposed to be a permanent situation; lonely people would say they get too much of it. It is a field for the choice which capitalism refuses, except to the privileged minority. There are times when any of us needs to be alone and undisturbed, other times when company and noise are desired. It is a striking indictment of our society that relatively few can choose like that, and a great many lead thoroughly miserable lives because they are condemned to one position or the other.

The age of consent, homosexuality and rape are run together inappropriately by our correspondent, presumably because they all appear as “problems” to do with sex. The first is a matter of social custom which varies from country to country, and its legal force is bound up with the definition of persons below their majority as “minors” or “infants”. Would such a rule be necessary in Socialism, with the same ostensible purpose of protecting the immature? It does not “protect” them now from sexual experience if they have it in mind. But maturity has cultural as well as physical components: sexual pressure on little girls of nine comes not from hormones but from big business (watch the TV advertisements). The sex drive makes itself known sharply at puberty, but the situation in society as a whole determines the direction it takes. It will be the absence of exploitation that shapes conduct in Socialism, not the absence of laws.

Homosexuality is an offence against social custom (its legalization “in private between consenting adults” has not stopped day-after-day prosecutions of homosexuals who cannot arrange the needed privacy). There is no space here for such questions as whether it is a genetic or an environmental phenomenon; but if we accept that it is constitutional in some people and will therefore exist in Socialism, the only remark to make is that it will be regarded as nobody’s concern except those involved. It is worth recalling the scheme of the early socialist Fourier to cater for sexual variations, which he thought Socialism would accommodate cheerfully: each person with a “mania” would carry a card naming it, to facilitate finding partners.

Rape falls into a different category, because it is an act of delinquency with a sexual content. As delinquency, its roots are similar to those of other forms; it is a deliberately injurious reaction against society in general. The particular expression of the reaction shows what has been learned from society, and in that connection the novelist Jacky Gillott wrote recently in a women’s magazine that rape was “just a surface marker indicating a vast and tangled undergrowth of mythologies, resentments and ignorance that still persisted beneath the unspoken—and often unconscious—views men and women have of one another” (Cosmopolitan, September 1977).

Because Socialism will not have the resentment-breeding divisions which cause delinquency, or an “undergrowth of mythologies” obscuring relationships, we believe it will be free of ugly marks like rape. However, it must be made clear that socialists do not imagine everybody will be automatically made “good” once common ownership is established; or, alternatively, that any individual may do his own thing to the detriment of others. Socialism means a democratic organization of society in which the wishes of the majority prevail. Of course there will be problems; but in that sort of society we shall be able to deal with them as capitalism cannot.

Growing up

Last, about the upbringing of children. Our correspondent asks what is “the socialist psychology” in this matter. We haven’t one; possibly, when we are nearer to establishing Socialism, it will appear. The important thing, however, is not just possessing the insights but being able to put them into practice. A chronic frustration for teachers of all age-groups today is to be clearly aware of what needs to be done and to know also that it is impossible in the present system. As regards obtaining conformity by force, the dominant ideas of an age are, as Marx said, those of its ruling class; force is the method of class rule, reflected in (and so re-created through) its everyday conduct. Socialists do not need that.

Who will make the decisions about children—well, who makes them now? The working class have to accept the dominance of the state education system (the wealthy in general get rid of handling their children, first to nannies and then to schools away from home). Certainly, in any social system children have to learn basic skills required by society and for themselves; under capitalism, because its education is geared to the value of labour-power, the outcome for a high proportion is abysmal and recalls Mr. Weller’s question “vether it’s worth goin’ through so much to learn so little”. We do not envisage a sane society trying to impose a single mode of upbringing and learning for all children—that is the capitalist sausage-machine. The “decisions” are choices, which children and parents and their associates will make in different ways at different times.

Robert Barltrop

Old Fallacies — A Look at the International Communist Current

From the October 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

The organization called International Communist Current is a mixture of perceptiveness towards some aspects of capitalism, blindness to others, and a belief in long-exposed fallacies. It recognizes that nationalization is state capitalism, that the so-called national liberation movements are anti-socialist and that Russia, China, Cuba, etc. are “just so many capitalist bastions” — “There are no socialist countries on this planet”.

ICC claims to be Marxist but shows no appreciation of Marx’s analysis of capitalism’s economic laws. Politically it belongs to the early 19th-century world of Louis Blanqui (originator of ICC’s slogan “Dictatorship of the Proletariat”) and the young and inexperienced Marx and Engels. It rejects the mature Marx’s view of the necessity to gain control of “the machinery of government, including the armed forces”, and offers instead confrontation with the state power and “world civil war” to be waged by “armed workers’ councils” (see ICC pamphlet Nation or Class).

A basic difficulty about establishing Socialism is that such a social system, involving as it does the disappearance of buying and selling, wages and prices, and the coercive state, could only be operated if the mass of the population understood and wanted it and were ready to accept all the new responsibilities of voluntary co-operation that would rest on them. If the working class as they are at present, most of them attached to capitalism, preoccupied with wages and prices, wage differentials and trade-union demarcation lines, and dependent on management direction and trade-union leadership, were suddenly faced with Socialism there would be chaos and no alternative but to return to capitalism.

Two solutions were offered. One was the Blanquist and early Marxist view—a transition period during which the mass of the population would be “educated to Socialism”. This is the ICC policy. The other, the mature Marxist, view was stated by Engels in his 1895 Introduction to Marx’s Class Struggles in France:

“The time is past for revolutions carried through by small minorities at the head of unconscious masses. When it gets to be a matter of the complete transformation of the social organisation, the masses themselves must participate, must understand what is at stake and why they are to act. That much the history of the last fifty years has taught us.”

And again, referring to France:

“Socialists realize more and more that no durable success is possible unless they win over in advance the great mass of the people, which, in this case, means the peasants. The slow work of propaganda and parliamentary activity are here also recognised as the next task of the party.”

ICC rejects the Marxist idea of socialists gaining control of Parliament on the ground that Parliament is nothing but “mystification of the working class”. Of course defenders of capitalism use Parliament to mislead the working class, just as they use religion, sport and the bogus economic theories of J. M. Keynes. They can do this only because the workers lack socialist understanding—which fact ICC fails to see. It thinks that if non-socialist workers spontaneously throw up workers’ councils these can’t be “mystified”. Experience has shown how wrong ICC is. Lenin, in State and Revolution, complained that his political opponents had

“managed to pollute even the Soviets, after the model of the most despicable middle-class parliamentarians, by turning them into hollow talking shops.”

ICC greatly admire the Workers’ Councils set up in Germany after the first world war. At the Workers’ Councils National Congress in 1918, and again in 1919, they were bamboozled by Social Democratic politicians into voting their support for the Social Democrat Government, which government then sidetracked the Councils and used state forces to crush resistance.

The argument that because the franchise has been used to trick the workers they should not use it was sensibly answered by Marx in the preamble he wrote for the French Workers’ Party. In it, he commended transforming the vote “from a means of duping, which it has been hitherto, into an instrument of emancipation”.

As ICC are not going to wait until there is a socialist majority, they have to find some other spur to working-class action. Like the young Marx and Engels, and like the British Communist Party in the 1930s, they find it in capitalism’s periodic crises and depressions which stir up discontent about unemployment and falling living standards. But, as Engels pointed out in a letter to Bernstein (25th January 1882), when the depression passes and production and employment expand again “returning prosperity also breaks the revolution and lays the basis for the victory of reaction”.

Are depressions permanent?

ICC think they have an answer to this. They say that the present depression is permanent, that it throws up problems the capitalists are impotent to deal with, and that capitalism cannot afford any more concessions to the workers. The great changeover is supposed to have happened in 1914, after which capitalism became “decadent”, ICC evidently does not know that all these themes are almost as old as capitalism itself.

In every one of capitalism’s depressions there have been people, capitalists as well as workers, who have been convinced that it would be permanent. In the “Great Depression” of the last quarter of the 19th century, which lasted for twenty years, it was widely believed. Lord Randolph Churchill, shortly before he became Chancellor of the Exchequer, declared in 1884: “We are suffering from a depression of trade extending as far back as 1874, ten years of trade depression, and the most hopeful either among our capitalists or our artisans can discover no signs of a revival . . . Turn your eyes where you will, survey any branch of British industry you like, you will find signs of mortal disease.”

Even Engels in 1886 temporarily abandoned Marx’s view of crises and announced a theory of “permanent and chronic depression”. Marx’s own view was tersely summed up in his statement: “There are no permanent crises.”

ICC’s example of the supposed impotence of the capitalists to deal with a problem relates to inflation. In International Review No. 10 (page 10) ICC says that “the bourgeoisie” is equally terrified of more inflation and of ending inflation by “restriction of credit”. From which it is evident that ICC does not understand the cause and purpose of inflation, rejects Marx’s demonstration that inflation is the result of excess issue of inconvertible paper currency, and has—like the Labour Party—fallen for the Keynesian nonsense about the supposed consequence of expanding or contracting credit. Inflation, like free trade, is just a way of operating capitalism. It suits some capitalists and not others. Inflation serves the interests of borrowers, including industrial capitalists, who take up loans and repay them later in depreciated currency.

Inflation and Credit

Inflation, at least for a considerable period, also enables many employers to get away with paying reduced real wages. Deflation, on the other hand, suits financial interests and lenders. If and when inflation reaches dangerous levels, or when those who favour deflation get their way, inflation will be curbed or ended as it has been on scores of occasions in the past, in this and other countries.

Marx showed what he thought of the people who held ICC’s superficial view about credit.

“They looked upon the expansion and contraction of credit, which is a mere symptom of the periodic changes in the industrial cycle, as their cause.” 

(Capital Vol. 1, p. 695, Kerr edn.)

To show that capitalism is not what it used to be before 1914, ICC points to recent falling production and living standards, and rising unemployment, but this is what has taken place at the beginning of every depression for nearly two hundred years.

Capitalism did indeed change in 1914. As Professor E. H. Carr puts it, up to 1914: “Britain was the pre-eminent Great Power, and the directing centre of the worldwide capitalist economy.” Now the industrial and military centres of power have shifted to New York, Moscow and Brussels; but this has not altered capitalism’s economic laws or introduced a new “decadence”.

ICC’s belief that since 1914 capitalism cannot afford to make concessions to the workers is belied by the facts, and betrays a failure to understand the economics of capitalism. The capitalists (supported by ignorant or servile academics) have always “proved” that they could not afford to concede anything, as for example giving up the twelve-hour working day and the employment of small children: but the concessions have continued since 1914 as before, and particularly since the second world war.

As output per head of the workers increases (a process speeded-up during the present depression) of course the capitalists can afford to let the workers have some of the increase—as ICC will discover when the depression lifts and in the programmes at the next General Election.

Regarding “the Dictatorship of the Proletariat”, ICC admit that during their prolonged “transition period” the dictatorship will be operating capitalism all over the world (see Nation or Class). They have, however, not seen its implications. How will the dictatorship deal with the next normal capitalist crisis and the strikes that will accompany it? Will they have an “incomes policy”? or suppress the unions?

The peasants are not to be allowed to share in governmental power. What if they seize the land? And what will the ICC dictatorship do when workers, discontented with the effects of capitalism, carry on ICC policy and set up “armed workers’ councils” to fight the dictatorship?

All of ICC’s assumptions about capitalism are wrong; but let us suppose that they are right. Suppose that a minority of workers sets up armed councils all over the world, and suppose (absurd as it is) that they could win against the massive combined armed forces of all the world’s governments, and suppose they succeeded in setting up their world dictatorship—what would have been gained? The problem of winning over the mass of the population before Socialism could be established would still be there, its completion put back a few more years by ICC’s unnecessary and useless war.

Edgar Hardcastle

Blogger's Note:

In the original issue of the October 1977 Socialist Standard, this article had a notice attached below it advertising a cassette tape recording of a recent debate between the ICC and the SPGB. Though the SPGB and the ICC debated each other twice in 1977 - once in Leeds and once at the SPGB's Head Office - my guess is that the advertised recording is of the debate in London between Alan Ward of the ICC and Edgar Hardcastle ('E. Hardy') of the SPGB. That recording of the London debate is available on the SPGB's website at the following link:

Debate with the I.C.C.  – Which way Socialism? 

Debate at Head Office with the International Communist Current; Hardy (SPGB) v. A. Ward (I.C.C.)

Date: 20th August 1977

Property Society — Russian Style (1977)

From the October 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

When Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917 they were not making a revolution. The revolution had taken place some months earlier when the Tsarist regime was finally toppled together with the abandonment of feudalism, the build-up of capitalist production relations, and the recognition that this was to be the new form of society. All this had started before the Bolsheviks disbanded what democratic rights then existed in Russia and took control of the state machine. The Lenin coup speeded up this development.

However, Lenin and his conspiratorial clique claimed that they were about to do the impossible—establish Socialism without first having gone through the phase of capitalism. To this day, the Russian dictators claim that the present form of society is something to do with Socialism; is somehow the opposite of what happens in the West. The old joke is absolutely correct—“capitalist society is the exploitation of man by man, but in Russia it is the other way round”.

Almost as soon as Lenin had gained control of the state, the SPGB was able to point out that whatever else might be going on in Russia, it could not be the establishment of Socialism. Information about Russia was scarcer than it is today, but the SPGB had a sound understanding of the way society developed. We were able to point out that the two fundamental requirements for the establishment of the common ownership and control of, and free access to, all wealth and the means of producing it were missing. First, the potential of production in abundance, something which is only possible after capitalism has built up the productive forces; and second, mass Socialist consciousness, that is people ready to take over all wealth in society owned privately or by the state, with the knowledge of how to set up and run Socialist society. In 1977, sixty years later, it is clear to all that capitalism exists in Russia.

Capitalist constitution 

The hall-marks of capitalist society exist there; large amounts of property owned by certain sections of the community with the corollary that other sections do not own property in any meaningful sense, money, and buying and selling, a wages system, production for sale at a profit, a state machine backed up by armed force, and a system of law. This is capitalist society. The Russian Constitution (adopted by the 8th Congress of the Soviet of the USSR on December 5th, 1936, though slightly amended since) proudly and unashamedly boasts of all the major features of capitalism.

A few examples will make the point. To begin with, take the Russian legal system (of which the constitution is a part). Laws first developed when private property first appeared; they exist to maintain private property in the hands of the minority. All laws have this fundamental purpose. The more advanced the society, the more complicated and “mature” its legal system, and the Russian legal system is as complex and thorough as any. The need for a constitution and all that goes with it (judges, police, courts etc.) is only necessary for advanced property society. Their legal system is so similar to that which exists in Britain that W. Wilson MP, after a recent visit to Russia, could write:

The hard wooden seats and the long straight corridors of Leningrad City Court were no different from the wooden seats and long corridors often found in English Courts. The citizens of Leningrad who sat on those benches had the look of fearful expectancy that appears to be the never-changing mien of those who sit and wait outside English Courts. Inside the Leningrad City Court the occupants of the Bench could have been English provincial magistrates. The defendants — two waitresses charged with defalcation of the restaurant takings — appeared little different from two English waitresses in similar circumstances. (Law Society's Gazette, 10th Nov, 1976.)

The same misery and indignity that is imposed on the working class by the capitalist class the world over! Wilson concludes: “There are many aspects of Soviet criminal law that are on all fours with English criminal procedure.”

“Fundamental rights”

This conclusion is detailed in the Russian Constitution: capitalist relations are to exist, by law! The Constitution is divided into thirteen Chapters dealing with aspects of Russian property society. For example. Chapter 1 deals with “The Social Structure”, Chapter 2 “The State Structure”, Chapter 3 “The Highest Agencies of State Power”, Chapter 9 “The Court Structure” and the very revealing Chapter 10 is headed “Fundamental Rights and Duties of Citizens.” Each Chapter is divided into numbered subheadings (articles) covering the detailed matter of state power and administration. The Russian Constitution boldly protects individual liberties but this is meaningless. The Russian ruling clique has shown such scant regard for the “fundamental rights” enshrined in the Russian Constitution that it is right to say these “liberties” do not exist. Nevertheless, it is instructive to see what the Constitution says they are. In Article 125 of Chapter 10 It is provided as follows:

In conformity with the interests of the working people and in order to strengthen the socialist system, citizens of the USSR shall be guaranteed by law (a) freedom of speech; (b) freedom of the press; (c) freedom of assembly and meetings; (d) freedom of street processions and demonstrations.

Those people with any knowledge of western constitutions might think all this is suspiciously familiar. It is. Why is it necessary for the constitution to “declare” these “interests” of the “working people”? Does it mean that these so-called rights could be withdrawn, cut down, or totally ignored? In a Socialist society such meaningless declarations of good intent will be as unnecessary as they are absurd. In a free society there will be no possibility of forcing anyone to do anything, or taking away anything from anyone. If I want to speak, write, assemble with my friends, or march and demonstrate there will be no possibility of anyone preventing it. Socialism will be a voluntary society: the opposite of the coercive form of society that exists in Russia and the so- called “liberal” or “democratic” forms of society that exist in the west. There will be no need for constitutional claptrap.

The system of wage-labour is an essential feature of capitalist society. It is one of the fundamental characteristics that separate capitalism and its form of private property exploitation from every previous form. Right in the centre of the Russian Constitution (Chapter 10, article 118) the wages system is solemnly set forth in these words: “Citizens of the USSR shall have the right to labour, that is, the right to a guaranteed job with payment for their labour in accordance with its quantity and quality.” Article 12 of Chapter 1 makes sure the Russian worker does not miss the point: “Labour in the USSR shall be an obligation and a matter of honour for every able-bodied citizen in accordance with the principle ‘He who does not work, neither shall he eat.’ ” Thus the Russian proletariat is told that it is an honour to produce wealth for the rulers!

Wages and profits

The Council of Ministers of the USSR publishes each year a booklet called USSR in Figures. Their tables for 1975 give average wage and salary levels (“the average wages and salary plus allowances and benefits per worker”) and states that a minimum monthly wage of 70 roubles has now been agreed. Income tax has been abolished for those earning less than 70 roubles (so much for the minimum wage?); also taxes have been reduced for those workers earning less than 90 roubles per month (p. 182/3). The converse of wages is profits. Profits are produced for the capitalist class throughout capitalism by paying the worker less in wages than the value he has produced. The balance left over is appropriated by the capitalist class, and spent as revenue, or accumulated in order to reinvest to produce more profits and so on. The booklet actually prints tables of profits (p. 45) and proclaims that these have increased by 9.6 per cent, against 1974 figures! The Russian workers have made it possible for their exploitation to continue and increase. What capitalist government would not be proud of such efforts?

For a country that claims to have established Socialism many years ago, it is notable that the Russian rulers constantly have to remind their wage slaves that Socialism has been established. The first page of the rules of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (adopted in 1961 and amended in 1966) states: “Under the direction of the Communist Party exploiting classes in the Soviet Union have been liquidated, and the moral and political unity of Soviet society has been formed and strengthened. Socialism has triumphed fully and finally.” Chapter 1 of the Constitution, concludes that in the USSR “the principle of socialism shall be carried out; from each according to his ability, to each according to his labour.”

Socialism has not been established in Russia—it could not have been. When it is established, the world over, the principle will be from each according to his ability right enough, but to each according to his need. Need will be determined by each individual according to his own requirements, not according to his pay-packet. The wages system, money, buying and selling, constitutions, law courts, police and jailers will be unnecessary. The conditions for establishing socialism are now the same in Russia as the rest of the world. It needs a working class politically educated to take the necessary steps for their own emancipation.

Ronnie Warrington

Free for all? (1977)

From the October 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many people considering the SPGB’s case for the first time are staggered by the implication that when Socialist society is established there will no longer be private property or its manifestations. “Surely that’s absurd, everything free, no money, invoices, tax returns, banks. People would go mad taking things which they couldn’t afford—why would anyone work if not for wages? Everyone would rely on someone else to do things for them.” So goes the argument, and yet very often the same people who raise this objection also throw up the obstacle of “human nature” stopping the establishment of Socialism. We are all apparently too selfish, greedy, warlike and generally steeped in original sin to be capable of establishing Socialism (desirable though it sounds).

It comes as a shock, therefore, to people who react in this way to learn that for the most part in the development of human society the concept and consequences of private property did not exist. Capitalism itself (about 200 years old) conditions workers to regard it as permanent, unchanging and the only possible form of society, so that people are indeed jolted to hear about what anthropologists call “primitive communism”.

However, if we are to accept that nature, stars, planets, rocks, the atmosphere, life and man are all the products of evolution, then it is unreasonable to regard human society as being something immutable. L. H. Morgan was one anthropologist who discovered and described the workings of early society including the “communism in living” he observed among Iroquois Indians. One of the reasons for the violent academic backlash against Morgan’s theories was that they upset the notion of the permanence of private property. But Morgan was not the only one to note the lack of property relations among “primitive” peoples. A few illustrations are worth mentioning. G. Taplin talking of Australian tribes wrote: “In the clan there can be no personal property—all implements, weapons, etc., belong to members collectively, every individual regards them as possessions of his clan and to be employed for its welfare and defence as occasion may require. If he has a weapon, or a net, or canoe which is in some sense his own, he knows that his property in it is subject to the superior rights of the clan. Every man is interested in his neighbour’s property and cares for it because it is part of the wealth of the family collectively.”

Also writing of the Australian aborigines the Rev. W. Ridley said: “Real and personal property in individuals is rendered impossible by their systematic communism.” Darwin wrote of Fuegian tribes: “Even a piece of cloth given to one is torn in shreds and distributed, no one individual becomes richer than another.” Of the Eskimos H. W. Klutshak wrote: “In small things and in great, whatever is to be found in an Eskimo village in the way of provisions and tools is the common property of all. As long as there is a piece of meat in the camp it belongs to all.” L. A. de Bougainville wrote: “ . . . it seems that as regards the necessaries of life there is no private property, and everything belongs to everybody” (of Tahiti). Even Lowie, who was a vehement opponent of Morgan’s evolutionary view, had to grudgingly admit: “With respect to certain forms of property there is often what virtually comes to communism notably in connection with the procuring of food.”

The general Socialist argument about private property is that it gradually developed as man became more proficient at regularly producing surpluses which could then only be exchanged with other tribes for other produce. Concepts such as money, insurance, accounts, etc., could only arise from private property, which in turn depended on production surplus to the tribe’s needs. Property is a social phenomenon and not a biological one. It was Engels who pointed out that we must thank the ancient Greeks for that wonderful invention called the mortgage.

Those who object to Socialism on the grounds of “human nature” being incompatible with common ownership must explain why human nature changed. Or if it did not change then, what did change to give us the current situation?

Whilst human nature has not changed, man’s social organization and his behaviour have changed. These changes have occurred because man has continually improved his means of subsistence, i.e. of staying alive, and this has resulted in the development of property and wealth. The time is long due when man should use his means of production as a common instrument for all rather than for the benefit of a minority, the capitalist class.

Tony D'Arcy

The Socialist Party and reforms (1977)

From the October 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have been asked to clarify two recent statements in the Socialist Standard. An article in the May issue (page 94) said: “A revolutionary party is committed exclusively to revolution and cannot support reforms— which are anti-revolutionary.” An article in August (page 156) began: “The case of the SPGB against reforms is based on the fact that reforms of all kinds involve the working class in political action which is detrimental to the cause of Socialism.”

These statements are correct, but some expansion of them is required. The SPGB has a single policy, laid down in our Object and Declaration of Principles: the political organization of the working class for the establishment of Socialism. We oppose other political parties because they are committed either to maintaining capitalism and seeking to clear up problems by reform, or to the mistaken idea that reforms can radically alter it. This is reformism; belief in it keeps the workers from recognizing that they can only be emancipated by Socialism, and the SPGB does everything it can to dispel that belief.

We do not advocate reforms of any kind, or support proposals for them. Reforms can only be enacted by those who control the machinery of government. If we pursued the line that a particular reform would be beneficial, we should have to give electoral support to one of the parties of capitalism in the hope that they would enact it—thereby helping into power the enemies of the working class and Socialism. This is underlined by the fact that some “useful” legislation has been the work of Tory governments, including the Reform Act of 1867, the trade union Acts of 1875 and 1876 and the first Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1897; while the social security Acts were produced jointly by Tories, Liberal and Labour.

The SPGB condemns many reforms on specific grounds. In other cases we do not dispute that legislation which serves capitalist needs also benefits the working class, and that some measures have provided weapons in the class struggle for the workers and the Socialist movement. This does not modify our attitude to policies of reform. Such measures have frequently been brought forward by the capitalists themselves to meet economic developments. When support is canvassed for a proposal by a reformist party, its basis is a statement of intentions. A realistic judgement can only be formed on the complete measure—and perhaps by seeing to what extent the capitalists can get round it.

If there were a Socialist minority in Parliament or a local council, it would be able to view finished legislative proposals and assess their advantages or otherwise. But the criterion for an advantage has always been clearly stated by us: it would be the measure’s relationship to the achieving of Socialism.

From America: The Panama Canal and the right of free access (1977)

From the October 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the hottest pieces for conversation in America these days is the Carter Administration’s treaty with Panama, scheduled for a pomp-and-ceremonial signing on Wednesday, Sept. 7, in Washington, with a glittering crowd of little Latin-American dictators and other dignitaries in attendance. Ownership of the Panama Canal is to be transferred to the Panamanian Government, effective as of 1999, albeit with continuing US rights in the area of military defense. As of this writing, opinion polls indicate that a sizeable majority of the US population opposes the deal and that, in the end, the US Senate will refuse to ratify. The Government is mounting an all-out propaganda blitz to win over popular sentiment and save the Treaty.

In a nutshell, the positions are: Pro: in the final analysis, it is free access and not ownership that is important. Panamanians in particular, and Latin Americans, in general, are said to feel that 75 years of US ownership of a waterway in their area is enough. Good public relations between US and the latinos demand the transfer. Con: “We” (the us Government) built the Canal and paid for it. It makes no sense to give it away to a tinhorn dictatorship. Surely American military muscle can easily handle the hostile guerrilla action by anti-Yanqui latinos, but to surrender it to Panama would be to invite trouble from the Communist world — particularly Soviet Russia — which might seize control.

There is much meat here for socialists to chew on. But first it may be helpful to have a look at some bare facts concerning the history of the Canal, facts which are easily verified in the history books. To begin with, the “sovereign” nation of Panama came into being just 75 years ago as the fruit of a conspiracy involving a French capitalist consortium, the Government of President Theodore Roosevelt, and Panamanian revolutionists who sought independence from Columbia of which the Isthmus of Panama was a part.

The French capitalist group had recently abandoned its attempt at building a canal across the Isthmus after sinking some $260 million. A major, insurmountable, obstacle for them was malaria-bearing mosquitoes that devastated the work force. Roosevelt's government now commenced negotiations with the Columbian Government to pick up the rights from the French after agreeing to pay some $40 million for their franchise and unfinished work. But the Columbian Parliament stalled, attempting to raise their ante, and the US Congress hemmed and hawed. Then, enter the conspirators, and a Gilbert & Sullivan-type production ensued.

The group of Panamanian rebel-nationalists was set in motion on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus and the flag of independence was raised. At the same time, three US warships showed up at Colon and Marines were landed to “restore order”. The entire Columbian military force on the Pacific side was bought off, privates receiving $50 a head and officers more, and the revolution was over — bloodless save for the accidental killing of a Chinaman. The news reached Washington at 11.30 in the morning of Nov. 6, 1903, and the Republic of Panama was recognised before one o’ clock of the same day.

There is much more, of course, to this fascinating tale of intrigue in high circles but the foregoing are, at least, among the more salient facts. American capitalism licked the malaria problem by draining the swamps that provided the breeding ground for the mosquitoes. In other words, rather than waste time swatting the critters or spraying them with the 1903 equivalent of Flit, the US got down to bed-rock — the source — and corrected it, a tactic we can hardly expect capitalism to pursue in its perpetual confrontation with problems such as poverty-in-the-midst-of-porential- abundance; war; discrimination, etc.

Now, what should we make of all this noise about the Canal, today? Does it really matter either to Panamanian or American workers which nation possesses the deed of ownership? President Carter tells us, soberly, that it is not ownership but free access that is really important. Aside from our feeling that this move is an attempt by US capitalism to get further out of the more overt type of colonialism, we can only wish that the majority would apply such reasoning to all of wealth-producing property. The reason that the Treaty is of no import either to American or Panamanian workers is that ownership and free access, under capitalism, is generally confined to the capitalist class, even in cases of government-owned and government-operated industry.

But in the face of this truth there is something strange, even weird, about capitalism. Whether or not the Panama Canal will actually become the property of the Panamanian capitalist class depends on how successful the political leaders are in selling a bill of goods to American and Panamanian workers in order to provide the necessary pressures on the politicians to pass and to ratify the legislation.

Socialists maintain, then, that there are three rather than two positions on the Panama Canal Treaty: (1) Agreement; (2) opposition; (3) a simple working-class declaration: It is not our property so don’t bother us. But think carefully about that point made by President Carter on ownership vs. free access. And apply it to the world situation. The answer is inescapable: World Socialism will mean the end of ownership in the sense of class ownership. And common ownership can only spell free access to all that is in and on the earth, even the Panama Canal, by all mankind.

Harry Morrison, 

WSP, Boston. 

Rise of American Civilisation, Beard 

A New American History, Woodward

Letter: "Mother-right" (1980)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Mother-right"

Dear Editors,

The article “Battered Wives” in the July Socialist Standard follows Engels’ view in “The Origins of the Family” that mother-right was the general position before male-dominated, property, class institutions became established. Agreed: the position of women relative to men drastically deteriorated with the advent of private property, but it is open to question whether primitive societies were essentially matrilinear. Some were, others were definitely not. Why? is the subject of much controversy in anthropology. While the 19th century founding fathers of anthropology had precise, straightforward answers on how primitive humanity’s life was structured and functioned, present day anthropologists seem less certain of the meaning of the mass of data that has accumulated. I will quote just one of them—Leslie A. White a cultural evolutionist in the grand, system-building tradition of L. H. Morgan. His is by no means the last word, but at least he puts order into the question, and writes clearly.

As a general proposition we may say that prominence or predominance of men in the mode of life of the (primitive) society will tend to produce patrilinear lineages; prominence or predominance of women will tend to form matrilinear lineages. Thus a culture in which warfare, hunting or herding is an activity of paramount importance will tend toward patrilineal lineages because these occupations tend to be masculine pursuits. In systems where woman’s role in subsistence, house building and ownership, or in some handicraft, puts her in a position of considerable importance as compared with men in the mode of life, there will be a tendency toward matrilineal lineages. (The Evolution of Culture)

White adds that although this statement is sound enough, it could easily mislead because of the complexity of numerous, diverse factors at work in specific situations making for small to great variations.

S Lion

London, SE24

Letter: "Writing as an ex-member . . . " (1987)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Writing as an ex-member . . . "

Dear Sirs.

Writing as an ex-member of your party who has recently taken out a subscription to the Standard I think I will derive very little pleasure at what I have to say, nevertheless, having lived for 62 years I am now coming to terms with "the facts of life" and endeavouring to learn to live with them.

Like "the old days" you have some very forthright and amusing writers. Steve Coleman seeming to be a leading light; and his June 1987 article about "Post Election Blues" was in the usual format, excepting for the last sentence. Predicting that June 12th would be "a bloody miserable day" (and it was!) Comrade Coleman concludes by writing — "and for none will it be more miserable than for those who know how easy it would be to change the whole rotten set-up and establish a society fit to live in".

Apart from the serious error of grammar, whether one is of the chosen few (i.e. members of the SPGB) or the abysmally ignorant majority it is a gross exaggeration to state that any change from the capitalist system to a socialist society would be easy!

May I quote the General Election figures for Islington South and Finsbury? Tory 8,482, Labour 16,511, SDP 15,706, Greens 382, Humanists 56, SPGB 81. It is a reflection of the idiocy of human beings that only 56 people voted for a party which has more sense in one of its little leaflets than in the whole Conservative and Labour manifestos, but the fact that out of a total of 41.218 Islington and Finsbury electors only 81 voted for the SPGB merely proves that what the renowned Robert Tressell wrote over 70 years ago. is as true today as it was then. I have formed the opinion that the working class are more dumb than Dumbo ever was. There is far more insanity outside than inside "mental institutions" and on the whole human beings are much more obsessed with erotica and religious myths than their well-being and happiness. "Look at them". Robert Tressell's character said, with a contemptuous laugh. "Look at them! The people you are trying to make idealists! Look at them! Some of them howling and roaring like wild beasts, or laughing like idiots, others standing with dull and stupid faces devoid of any trace of intelligence or expression, listening to the speakers whose words convey no meaning to their stultified minds, and others with their eyes gleaming with savage hatred of their fellow men, watching eagerly for an opportunity to provoke a quarrel that they may gratify their brutal natures. Can't you see that these people, whom you are trying to make understand your plan for the regeneration of the world, your doctrine of universal brotherhood and love are for the most part — intellectually — on a level with Hottentots? The only things they feel any interest in are beer, football, betting, and. of course — one other subject. Their highest ambition is to be allowed to Work. And they desire nothing better for their children. They have never had an independent thought in their lives . . .!" And so the brilliant monologue goes on. and. like a surgeon's scalpel cutting into a cancerous growth it reveals the monumental task that the changing of society involves.

I work in a small post office-cum-general stores and apart from the usual vast majority of customers who can see nothing beyond their daily dose of Murdoch's law (i.e. the Sun). 20J.P. (i.e.. coffin, or is it coughing, nails) and a bar of Cadbury's for the weekend. I was appalled at the time of the General Election by the amount of people "on the Social" who voted Tory!

When I informed one elderly gentleman that I was a Socialist and would not be voting in my constituency, he told me to "get back to Russia" On June 12th he came up to my counter to draw his pittance of a pension triumphantly wearing a cheap blue rosette and sneered. "Well. I suppose you're laughing the other side of your face now that we've beaten you!”

I conclude with Robert Tressell's immortal words which sum up my feelings towards The Socialist Party of Great Britain. Although you are light years behind the razzamatazz of the Labour and the Tory parties and you are probably right in your analysis of society (based, of course, upon Karl Marx's) "your party persists in regarding people as rational beings, and that is where you make your mistake. Labour are just learning, the Tories knew long ago the sort of people they have to deal with; they know that although their bodies are the bodies of grown men. their minds are the minds of little children. That is why it has been possible to deceive and bluff and rob them for so long." (The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, 1905)

And please do not accuse me of arrogance. Anger, contempt, scorn — I plead guilty to these, but I make no claims to be proud of the fact that I belong to a species that will burn, blind and torture innocent animals for the sake of making a profit and kill and maim fellow humans in times of war.

Reg Otter 

Shepperton, Middlesex.

Reply

Before turning to the very real and understandable reasons for our correspondent's lack of hope, let us spell out what defeatism means. It means that you come to terms with a social system which you know to be exploiting you, restricting you, impoverishing your lifestyle and, with increasing ferocity, threatening you with destruction. Not only is capitalism doing that to you, but to your friends and family — people who you care for and want to help. And to millions you have never met. capitalism is doing even worse things. As a defeatist you accept that this is the way life must be. You give up on the struggle to transform society.

Reg Otter is clearly not a complete defeatist. He still tells fellow workers that he is a socialist. He no doubt argues with workers and may well be underestimating his ability to change the way some of them think. Our fellow workers do not always tell us directly when they have found socialist ideas convincing but we would not be surprised if there are a few workers scattered about who would say, "You've got to hand it to old Reg Otter, he talks a lot of sense about the problems of society".

What our correspondent most certainly does underestimate is the intelligence of the working class. After all, these creatures who are "more dumb than Dumbo ever was" make a pretty good job of running the trains, producing all the wealth in the factories, operating on bodies in hospitals, teaching children to read, delivering letters — and the thousands of other important and intelligent tasks which we, the workers, perform. Yes. plenty of workers are laughing like idiots and seem to have dull and stupid faces and appear to have eyes gleaming with savage hatred for their fellow men. Socialists do not romanticise the working class: we are of that class and know just how degraded the system can make wage slaves. But — and Reg Otter will know this very well — the human animal is highly adaptable. In a jungle s/he will behave like a beast. Given an incentive to leave the jungle society of capitalism workers could co-operate. Just as they are doing every day when it comes to producing and distributing wealth, just as workers are always doing when it comes to voluntary efforts to help make other people's lives better. Workers are not naturally programmed for capitalism; nor are we naturally programmed to forever reject the cooperative option of socialism.

Our correspondent is right if he is saying that now, in 1987, the political minds of the workers of the world are in a frightful mess. He is right if he says that this is dispiriting. He was right to feel miserable on 12 June. He is entitled to be angry, although it will do him little good. But should he dismiss the efforts of The Socialist Party as a waste of time? We perform an enormously important task in putting to workers the only alternative to the dangerous chaos of capitalism. We succeeded in persuading Reg Otter to join us and even though he later decided to leave, because he is not arrogant he will accept that there was nothing special about him which made him able to work for socialism while other workers could not understand. Every time we win one new worker to our cause it is proof that we could win a thousand more. And. in practical terms, each new member provides us with access to several workers who know him or her.

The 81 votes for socialism in Islington South and Finsbury was disappointing. We would like to have recorded all 41.218. We ran a great campaign in the area, as many workers living in Islington (even if they do not support The Socialist Party) will testify. Unlike any other party in the election, we consistently asked voters not to vote for us unless they agreed in full with our ideas. That 81 did vote for us — in a constituency which was a key Labour marginal, and in which the Green Party were there to take away the mere protest votes — is something to get working on. If we could persuade those 81 socialist voters to join our Islington Branch we would be very happy. Similarly in Swansea, where we recently recorded 50 votes in just one ward.

Of course, we could regard 81 and 50 votes as good reasons to give up and learn to live with capitalism. Well firstly, capitalism may not allow us to live with it for that much longer, because it is set to put an end to the live-in arrangement, and secondly society will one day change from production for profit to production for need and we are not going to waste a moment's time or withhold any energy to hasten that revolution. We are not defeatists and neither, perhaps, is Reg Otter: maybe he has made the comments which he has so that we can give him the answer he is waiting for. Get into the movement for socialism and do your bit to make history

Editors.