History and the battle of ideas (1988)

From the September 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

What makes an idea serious or crazy? The "realist" will tell you that the distinction is easy to make Serious ideas are about making reality work. Crazy ideas are incompatible with reality, they are dreams, utopian fantasies, unrealisable ideas.

Few people doubt that ending mass starvation under capitalism is a serious idea. The Right argues that free markets and the elimination of state-dominated economies in the countries where millions are starving would put an end to malnutrition The buying and selling system, left to its own devices, would put food where there are consumers for it. That is the magic of the market, so the economic magicians of the Ministries and universities tell us with faces straight. The Left rejects this method of ending world hunger. The left-wing of capitalism argues that what is needed is more overseas monetary aid from the "rich" nations to the "poor" ones and more state-regulated planning of food production, so that the market is forced to work for the people. Right and left compete openly to prove that they have the most serious idea to end the obscenity of widespread human starvation, with 15 million under the age of five dying yearly for lack of food in a world of plenty.

The socialist argues that both the Right and Left are wrong. Their policies will never succeed. Capitalism cannot meet the needs of those who are hungry but moneyless. The solution is to do away with the profit system which dictates that only those needs which it is profitable to satisfy will be provided for. Do away with money, which stands as a barrier between humankind and the abundant resources of our planet. Take the world, and everything in it, into common possession. This is a revolutionary proposition.

It is also, according to the ideologists of the Left and Right of capitalism, a crazy proposition. It is unrealistic to conceive of a worldwide society where production is solely for need, not profit. To abolish money is a monstrously crazy idea. Free access would never work. Evidence to back these claims is rarely offered. When it is it is usually based on distortion. "Ah, these socialists want to abolish money and replace it with barter." No we do not; we want to abolish money and replace it with free access. "Human nature is such that people could not operate in a society where everything is freely available " Not a scrap of biological evidence is provided to back up this claim that there is something inherent in the human genes which makes us incapable of sharing the world as a united species, each with our different talents and needs. The fact is that when the apologists for capitalism are pushed to deal with the socialist idea, they reject it simply because it is not in line with what exists now. However unworkable their own ideas and policies are, they are defined as "serious" if they fit in with the continuation of capitalism

Getting religion

It was the same in the past. In classical antiquity the ownership of one human being by another was the economic norm. Slave production prevailed. Until the last century in North America slave plantations flourished. The slave who objected to being owned would be labelled “a utopian". Even his or her fellow slaves would find crazy the notion of not being owned by a master or mistress. Under feudalism vast numbers of men were recruited to fight the Crusades against those who rejected the Christian faith. According to this faith still existing in society, but thankfully ignored by most people — all humans are born as sinners and must pray to a Lord in the sky who sent his only son down to earth to be murdered and born again. All very serious. Few people call Archbishop Runcie a crazy man. When Pope Urban II wanted to recruit men to fight and die in these vicious Crusades of mass human slaughter, this is what he said:

The invaders befoul the altars with the filth of their bodies They circumcise Christians and pour the blood of the circumcision upon the altars or into baptismal fonts They stable their horses in these churches, which are now withdrawn from the service of God .Yea, the churches are served, but not by holy men — for the Turks are torturing Christians, binding them, and filling then with arrows, or making them kneel bending their heads, to try if their swordsmen can cut through their necks with a single blow of the naked sword. What shall I say of the ravishing of the women? 

(H Lamb, The Crusades,  Iron Men and Saints, 1931, p 39.)

What are we to think of the ideas presented in Urban II's racist, fantastic, war mongering scare story? Do we accept that it must have been serious because most Europeans at the time believed it? Do we say that it is crazy, even though it reflected the economic needs of the feudal ruling class, who needed to protect the Church’s ownership and control of land and ideology against other rulers with other religious myths to confuse the minds of the oppressed? A few weeks ago the present writer bought a copy of The Watchtower, a magazine sold from door to door by devoted men and women who have ideas to pass on. They are Christians of the Jehovah's Witness sect and. among other things, they believe that the world is soon to end and God will "come down'’ to judge us all. It seems a worthwhile insurance policy to keep a copy of The Watchtower under the bed. Their 15 July issue has a headline JESUS CHRIST GOD. MAN OR MYTH? Had the woman been selling the magazine in the days of feudal totalitarianism, when belief in religious nonsense was compulsory, she would probably have burned at the stake for posing such a blasphemous question. Times change. Inside we are told that in the first century, thousands of people accepted Jesus for what he was the promised Messiah, or Christ, sent to earth to vindicate Jehovah’s sovereignty and to offer his life as a ransom for mankind . . . Today, millions of Christian disciples know that Jesus is no myth. They accept him as the heavenly enthroned King of God's established kingdom, who is now progressively taking control of the earth and its affairs" (p 8). In "the first century" it is not that surprising that human beings, lacking much scientific knowledge of their environment were taken in by the myth of a miracle performing magician descending to earth from heaven. The same belief had been held by countless god-worshippers in countless centuries before the first one AD. Today, we might find it harder to understand how serious people can believe that a messiah, alive only in the "spirit world beyond", can be taking control of the world's affairs. If one went to a psychiatrist with such a story, he would probably diagnose insanity, unless he knew the social conventions which make such faith respectable.

Mental phenomena

Dogmatic faith in ideas of no scientific substance is not confined to orthodox religion. On the Left there has long been a belief among some people that the tyrannical, anti-working class police states of the Russian Empire, China or Albania are socialist societies Although they exhibit all the characteristics of capitalism — wage labour, capital, buying and selling, rich and poor, leaders and oppressed — some workers will not give up the idea that these are examples of socialism in practice. Interestingly, S. M. Lipset has pointed out that

In Holland and Sweden. recent studies show that the Communists are strongest in regions which were once centres of fundamentalist religious revivalism. In Finland, Communism and revivalist Christianity often are strong in the same areas (Political Man, p. 106.)

What seems to have happened in these cases is that workers have given up one set of unscientific, crazy ideas and adopted a new set of pseudo-scientific, equally crazy ideas.

People are not born with ideas. Thinking is a social process. To think we need to think about something, and that something is our environment Our minds, which are not tangible parts of the anatomy but social phenomena, are located in the environment This is why we think most of the time about ideas which relate to our environment. When we are living in cities, surrounded by supermarkets and fast-food joints, we don't think about going out into the jungle and hunting for meat. Hunter gatherers, living in a primitive society, do not think about whether to have pickles on their Big Mac. Primitive hunters did not think about money because they lived in a society where goods were shared by the whole community, without money intervening to restrict the satisfaction of their needs. Big Mac Man thinks a lot about money. He will do more or less anything, including selling himself to a capitalist who will exploit him, in order to get more of it. In many primitive tribes, such as the Panare of South America, it is considered a supreme indignity to work for wages. Who is crazy, the moneyless, sharing primitive, or the highly civilised, highly exploited wage slave? 

In a property-dominated society most of our ideas are property related. The pronouns 'mine", "yours" and "theirs” become very important. People become neurotic about them. The smallest children are taught, "That's not yours. Don't touch Mustn’t touch. Not yours." Grown men and women work forty-hour weeks in factories. When they leave on a Friday they are checked by security guards in uniforms with buttons almost shiny enough to make them cops They are checking that these untrustworthy wage slaves have not stolen a bit of what they produced They produced the goods, the capitalist, who was probably not seen in the factory all week, possesses the wealth. If workers want what they produce they can spend some of their wages buying it. You build mansions but live in a slum.

We are taught to accept that possession is power. The child who says to her mother. “Well, that might not be mine, but I want to use it" will have a problem in understanding the ways of the world. If this carries on she will need to be taken to a child psychologist. In the past she would be belted, probably not quite as humiliating as being sent to the child psychologist. If a socialist factory worker says, "Look, we produce all the wealth and then we're robbed of the fruits of our labour. Why don't we make the means of production — not just this factory, but all of them, and the offices, farms and mines as well — into our common possession!" he will soon be branded a troublemaker. Crazy ideas. If he is lucky he will be derided as a utopian, or he might be blacklisted and persecuted as a Red wrecker.

A culture of deceit

There are some ideas which we arrive at our selves. We do not need to read books to discover that fire burns us or soap tastes horrible. Other ideas we discover by listening to other people. Prolonged exposure of the skin to the sun can damage it; carrots add a bit of flavour to a casserole; if you sleep with a hooker in Bangkok you stand a good chance of catching a dose of something you won't like. These are serious ideas, learned either from direct experience of the environment or from the experiences of those who have no reason to deceive us.

Some people do have an interest in deceiving us. Capitalism is based on a culture of deceit. It pretends that class inequality either does not exist or, if it does, is natural and ineradicable; it pretends that employment is a fair contract rather than a process of legalised robbery; and that profit is the just reward of the hard working entrepreneur, rather than the surplus value obtained by the capitalists, who pay their workers less than the value of what they have produced. Capitalism claims that all workers can become rich if they try hard enough, that hard work will always be rewarded with social success. These are lies. Professional liars — journalists, priests, professors, teachers, politicians are in the business of knocking these false beliefs into the minds of the workers. They are being entrusted with a very responsible job. If they fail, workers might stop accepting the capitalist myths. No wonder the Minister of Education is so eager to ensure that the right lessons are being taught in the curriculum, and Thatcher is so busy trying to censor the BBC. Ideas which we. pick up from the depositories of wisdom which capitalism provides for us are what socialists call Ideology. Or, to put it simply, distorted experience

A few months ago the case of the moving picture became a big news story Thousands of copies of prints had been sold for the £7.50 tastes of proletarian art collectors. Well, they cover the stains on the wallpaper and if you know nothing about painting they look just like the original. One of these paintings depicted a dancing girl, and on walls all over Britain reports came that she was starting to dance. Well, to be honest, what happened first was that one report came in. An old lady in Solihull had spotted this dancing girl on her wall. In stepped that journal of sustained. scientific investigation. The Sun. And would you believe it. within only a few days of reading about the sighting by this Solihull Sun reader, there were girls dancing on the walls of pretty well every city in Britain. They were dancing two to a street in Ireland, where early Catholic indoctrination has made the workers a soft touch for this sort of craziness. (In Ireland the Virgin Mary is known to appear in fields quicker than you can say "Let's build an airport" ) The myth of the dancing girl does nobody much harm. One can imagine the dull and uncreative lives of the poor workers who imagined that they saw their painting dance. Other myths, however. are more harmful. For example, most workers in Britain have never met a Russian. If they did they would probably think he was a German. But most British workers will tell you that "we" (the British) cannot trust the Russians. If necessary, "we" must be prepared to protect ourselves by annihilating several million of them. Indeed, the whole British defence policy supported by Tory. Labour and Liberal alike is based on the assumption that we must maintain a permanent threat to kill millions of Russians if British capitalist interests are endangered. British workers have been given an enemy to fear and, when the time is right, to hate and kill. In Iran and Iraq this creation of artificial human hatred has resulted in hundreds of thousands of workers, many of them only teenagers, marching with enthusiasm to their deaths. Such is the sick nature of capitalist ideology

Socialist ideas

This journal is called the Socialist Standard. You may have bought it for one of many reasons. What Is likely is that before you bought it ideas about what socialism means were fed to you. They were probably not fed by socialists. All kinds of people with a direct interest in discrediting the idea of socialism — from the Sun with its "loony lefties' and the Guardian with its Marxist states", to our class enemies in the pulpits and on party platforms — will have contributed their bit to arouse suspicion about the establishment of a socialist world society. Socialists are willing and able to counter these ideas, preferably face to lace in open debate. In debate the case for socialism is invincible. But more often than not, ideology is perpetrated by means of dishonesty and innuendo, appeals to fear and prejudice rather than self-interest and social awareness Why are socialist ideas attacked? Clearly, it is not because the case for socialism is completely crazy. After all, the capitalists do not invest millions of pounds in opposing the ideas of the Flat Earth Society or the man who advertises regularly in the Guardian to inform us that Jesus Christ is alive and living in Brick Lane, London. Ideas are attacked when they endanger an interest. The Church of England devotes much time and money to discredit crazy religious sects, like the Moonies and Scientologists, who are challenging its monopoly of religious craziness. Why do the Cigarette manufacturers spend money on convincing us that tobacco addiction is not really half as bad for you as these wicked, unscientific anti-smoking activists claim? They do so because in recent years the health dangers of smoking have become more obvious, smoking in public has become stigmatised and some very fat profits indeed are in danger of being lost. Where there is an interest to defend the battle of ideas hots up.

Socialism is the most dangerous idea conceivable for defenders of capitalism. Those who support a system of minority affluence and privilege are not going to sit back complacently while we undermine support for their social order. They will fight with all the lies, distortions, bribes and more sinister weaponry at their command. That is why there is a class war between them and us. It is not a war of bullets and bombs, which capitalists and would be capitalists feel most comfortable with, but a war of ideas. Our objective is to unshackle the minds of our fellow workers: to educate the victims of political confusion.

Socialists are serious about ideas because knowledge is the most potent weapon our class can possess. That is why we are not bothered about whether our ideas are regarded as serious or crazy in some philosophical, academic sense. Socialists could not care less if the pontificating lookers on in the struggle of history deem us to be cranks. It is better to be a class-conscious crank than a serious and respectable accomplice to human oppression. Neither are we bothered about the hangers-on to socialist ideas, often to be found flogging their worn out fallacies in the various sects of left wing capitalism. They have been around a long time, and Engels described them as 

. . . all those who have nothing to look forward to from the official world or have come to the end of their tether with it—opponents of inoculation, supporters of abstemiousness, vegetarians. anti-vivisectionists, nature healers, free-community preachers whose communities have fallen to pieces, authors of new theories on the origin of the universe, unsuccessful or unfortunate inventors, victims of real or imaginary injustice who are termed "good for nothing petty-foggers" by the bureaucracy, honest fools and dishonest swindlers —all throng to the working class parties in all countries (On the History of Early Christianity, in Marx and Engels on Religion, p. 31)

For socialist knowledge to win the day. and capitalism to be destroyed by a well organised working class, two factors are required. The first is a socialist movement which sticks to its principles and never betrays the true interests of the class which is to be emancipated by socialism, Secondly, it is only possible for ideas to change as fast as material conditions themselves change out of the contradictions of everyday life under capitalism arise new ideas. Today some workers might think they are doing well because they own a few shares in British Gas, a few tremors on the Stock Exchange should be sufficient to shatter their illusions. In 1988 you might vote for nuclear bombs in order to keep the peace, it will only take one mushroom cloud to shake that dangerous myth out of your head. As you read this you may be thinking that socialism sounds like a great idea, but you simply haven't the time or energy to do anything about it. Capitalism might create plenty of time for you; it might push you so hard, assault your dignity so much and insult your humanity to the point where you have no alternative but to devote your energy to overthrowing it. As Marx explained:

At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come info conflict with the existing relations of production, or — what is but a legal expression for the same thing - with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters Then begins an epoch of social revolution

(Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy)

Steve Coleman

Wrist watch (1988)

From the September 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

However established it may be, the Tories' reputation as the Party of Law and Order need not be taken seriously. When politicians — or police officers or judges — claim to have a remedy for crime, what they usually have in mind is a more rigorous and punitive response to it. The two are not necessarily connected

The Conservative manifesto at the 1979 election asserted that ". . . respect for the rule of law is the basis of a free and civilised life" and, as If that was an uncontentious statement of fact, plunged into a promise to ". . . spend more on fighting crime even while we economise elsewhere". The proposals in that declaration (rather hesitant by today’s standards) have by and large been implemented, for example there are now some 16,000 more police officers than in 1979 and it is usual for them to get more generous treatment in their pay rises than other government employees. Tougher ("brisker", in Willie Whitelaw's words) regimes have been introduced into Detention Centres and the laws which interfered with the courts’ powers to imprison young offenders have been abolished. But the Tories can hardly be satisfied with the results because since they came to power the incidence of reported crime has not ceased its steady upward path, increasing about six per cent a year. In 1979. just over 2½ million serious offences were recorded by the police: in 1986 there were nearly 4 million.

It seems almost inevitable that more people should be sent to prison, but there are many other choices open to the courts and a succession of Home Secretaries have appealed to them to view a prison sentence as a very last resort But the prison population is still climbing, with over 50.000 people in custody in England and Wales about one in every thousand of the total population. The government expect the figure to reach 56,000 by this time next year and possibly 70,000 by the year 2000. In the European states, Britain is fourth in the league table of the proportion of people sent to prison, with only Austria. Turkey and Luxembourg having a worse record. Such is the overcrowding in prisons that hundreds of unconvicted people pass their time on remand in police cells, often being shunted from one station to another. All of this is a very expensive business; it costs an average of £250 a week to keep a man in prison and a stay in police cells comes even dearer.

A fact which aggravates the anger of Tory hangers and floggers but which also provides them with some unacknowledged comfort is that about half of all known crime is committed by people under the age of 21. The age group above 30 is actually responsible for less crime than it was in 1979; the increase since then is almost entirely contributed by the under 30s. The highest incidence rate for crime is among the 15-year-olds and by the time they reach the age of 21 about a quarter of all males have come to the notice of the police. Home Secretary Douglas Hurd, attempting to discredit the Labour Party argument that crime springs from the dereliction of neglected inner cities or in chronic unemployment, has recently told of episodes of mob violence by young people in the more prosperous rural towns. For the Tories, the comfort in this is that these apparently wild people were born in the 1960s when, as all devotees of Margaret Thatcher are aware, the morals of Britain were in the flaccid grip of permissive hedonists like Roy Jenkins. with their derision for the proper ethical bases of society such as religion, the family, property, the rule of law. the royal family, the small shopkeepers of Grantham . . .  One of Tebbit’s favourite themes has always been the moral laxities of the Swinging Sixties. If it can be shown that those iniquitous times gave birth to a generation of hardened criminals, their lives of anti-social disruption mapped out for them when they were still micro-dot embryos, then the Thatcher government is not only absolved of all responsibility for the crime wave but is encouraged to get on with the job of re- imposing lost morals, through the agency of people like William Rees-Mogg.

The cure, one might think, threatens to be rather more deadly than the disease. In any case the argument might have some force were it not for the fact that young criminality did not begin with the 1960s. People who were teenagers then will remember the heyday of the 1950s Teddy Boys, whose elaborate hair style, drape jackets and thick-soled shoes were a delinquent uniform. Then there were the Mods and Rockers, whose idea of Bank Holiday fun was a running fight along some cowering sea front. The figures bear this out. Between 1938 and 1960 the number in every 100,000 of the 14-21 age group who were found guilty of indictable offences more than doubled. Between 1950 and 1960 crimes of violence committed by people aged 14-17 increased by 216 per cent and by those aged 17-21 by 153 per cent. Young crime was surging upwards a long time before the 1960s. according to Howard Jones, writing in 1967, ". . . the present increase in criminality is greatest among young people, whose share of the total seems to increase almost year by year. (Crime In A Changing Society ) Juvenile crime, a lot of it violent and senseless, was at that time also flaring up throughout Europe and North America

The fears and prejudices which young criminals stimulate, often among older workers who want to spend their last years in something like peace after a lifetime of drudgery, are easily exploitable through promises to impose fierce punishment. Control of offenders is now the vogue, rather than the “caring" approach which was enshrined in the Children and Young Persons Act of 1969. This piece of law was supposed to have the hitherto unremarked solution to young people's problems and therefore to their wayward behaviour. In fact the Act has never been fully implemented and now lies partly repealed, a discredited relic which in its day caused magistrates to fume impotently at the restrictions it imposed on then powers to imprison young offenders. Partially in response to this the 1982 Criminal Justice Act introduced the system of Youth Custody which, among other things, allowed magistrates to send youngsters to prison for however long they thought right, up to the maximum in their power. The result was an immediate increase in the numbers of young people in custody 70 per cent more for 14-16-year-olds. In 1987 over 20,000 men aged 17-21 were given a custodial sentence.

But these reforms have been no more successful than those they replaced and young law-breakers continue to be a preoccupation for the police, the courts and the penal system This has confronted the government with a problem which can be briefly outlined like this: crime committed by youngsters goes up year by year; shutting the youngsters away confirms rather than cures their delinquency; custody is not only ineffective but very costly; but the courts and the voters are in no mood to accept a more lenient way of dealing with young offenders; therefore there must be yet more reforms which will satisfy the appetite for control and punishment without involving a prison sentence. This reasoning has been around for some years now and has been responsible for a number of informal attempts to assuage punitive desires while keeping young offenders out of prison. Now the government has produced a Green Paper — Punishment, Custody and the Commentary — which has stirred up a lot of protest as well as approval.

The Green Paper introduces the concept of Punishment in the Community. Its most newsworthy proposal is the electronic tagging of offenders as a method of checking on their whereabouts and, in that way, sometimes imposing a kind of house arrest by remote control. The tags are electronic transmitters which are strapped to the wrist or ankle; this sounds awkward and offensive and that is how they look Some tags emit an unbroken signal which is transmitted by telephone to a central monitoring point, so that the wearer cannot move far from the telephone without this being known. Other tags can be programmed to give out a signal in response to a random telephone call. It is also possible to attach a breathalyser to the telephone so that the monitor calling from the other end would know, not only that the person wearing the tag is where they are supposed to be when they are supposed to be there, but also how much they have had to drink and when Big Brother would not only be watching you but checking up on your breath as well. . .

The Home Office insist that the whole project is still at the investigatory stage, one of a number of ideas they are putting up for discussion. A number of tags have been bought from abroad and are being attached for testing to the limbs of over-compliant civil servants. In America the tags are produced by companies like Bl Home Escort Systems of Colorado, Digital Products Corporation of Fort Lauderdale and Corrective Services Inc of Palm Beach. So far none of the equipment is made in this country but if the idea is implemented companies like Racal Chubb and Marconi, already close'y watching developments, would hope to be cut in on such a nice little earner

The Green Paper puts its proposal;. with an optimism which, though unfounded, is by now familiar. "Punishment in the community", it says, “would be particularly suitable for young men and women, who are likely to grow out of crime”. But there is no cause to believe, that building yet another sentence option into the system would reduce the numbers sent to prison; experience tells us otherwise. There has not been any shortage of choice open to the courts — fines, community service, suspended sentence — but in many cases these have been applied in such a way as to result in more people being sent to prison While the legal draftsmen labour at their sections and sub sections, their clauses and sub clauses, the prisons are crammed more and more, tightly What is overlooked is that the people who draw up the laws and those who pass them have no control over those who implement them. In many cases measures which were designed as an effective alternative to prison have been used as an alternative to those already in existence. In others, legal provisions have been virtually ignored, for example, despite all the publicity about the "short, sharp shock" regimes at detention centres, it turned out that many of the youths sent there actually enjoyed the tough regimes. Now so few are being given that sentence that the places are being converted into low security adult prisons.

Again, the experience of electronic tagging so far should not encourage the Home Office to go ahead with it here. Apart from the many technical snags encountered, basic problem with the tags is that they can be used only with someone who has a stable address and access to a telephone things which many of the people likely to be seen as fit subjects have little chance of having. A recent study by NACRO says that problems with the tags in Canada and the USA have been such that their use is severely limited. Most programmes apply to fewer than 20 people and in February 1987 only 826 tags were n operation throughout the USA, one-third of them on motoring offenders. 

Although the Home Office are unlikely to be unaware of these facts, the signs are that tagging offenders will go ahead in this country There will then be yet another degrading and gruesome ritual in the processing of people who have offended against capitalism's laws (the Green Paper states that 95 per cent of crime is against property). There will be another bureaucratic structure with its hierarchy and its forms in triplicate and different colours. Some vengeful appetites will be gratified. There is an alternative to this persistent mess but it will not be found in any Green Paper.

Ivan

Heart-stopping (1988)

From the September 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The biggest cause of rheumatic heart disease was lack of sufficient food and, by his estimate 400 million people throughout the world were malnourished. He said enough food was produced to give every person a satisfactory diet of 2,500 calories, but food was grown to earn money and distribution was thus unequal". 

Professor Christiaan Barnard, reported in The Johannesburg Star, 22 March 1988.

Observations: Dealing in death (1988)

The Observations Column from the September 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dealing in death

In the week that 290 men. women and children aboard an Iranian civil airliner were blasted out of the sky, and the rest of the world was condemning the American military. British capitalism was congratulating itself on the sale of billions of pounds of armaments to the Saudi Arabian ruling class.

The British media failed to inform its readership and audience of the connection between the two events. They echoed the response of the British capitalists, who were overjoyed at having superseded their American cousins as the foremost dealers of death in the Gulf states. Coverage ranged from extolling the sales as a personal triumph for Thatcher and hooraying the safeguarding of 24,000 jobs in the arms industry, to sticking two fingers up in the air at the Americans The jingoism accompanying this triumph omitted, of course, to remind those on the end of the brainwashing that the purpose of the commodities is to kill human beings.

The majority do not yet understand that the interests being defended in military actions in the Gulf and elsewhere are of no concern to them whatsoever. While the killing of Iranian workers was undertaken by members of the American working class, it is the determination of capitalism to protect its trade routes, markets and strategic supplies that is ultimately responsible for such murderous incidents and the profitable sale of sophisticated means to these ends.

Class of 88

The conferring of degrees took place in a suitably grand place The great hall of the university, built in the later part of the nineteenth century, reflected the munificent philanthropy and aspirations of the capitalists responsible for its erection In that age of certainty they saw no irony in depicting on the exterior of the building a frieze showing the working class labouring at the production of wealth, wealth that enabled the capitalist to endow this centre of learning

Prior to the presentation of degrees the professorial staff of the Faculty walked in procession through the great hall. (1 note, for male readers interested in pursuing a career in higher academia, that beards are de rigeur.) The pomp and ritual of the ceremony seemed to underline the hierarchical structure of society, an impression reinforced by the Vice-chancellor in his winding up address. The graduates, it was implied, were merely small cogs in a large machine.

References to working for the common good failed to disguise the assumption that an alternative system of society to capitalism is impossible. One was left with the feeling that to present these dignitaries with the news that they too are members of the working class — the propertyless majority who sell their labour-power, whether physical or intellectual, in order to live — would cause them to throw up their hands in horror and deny the fact vehemently, albeit in beautiful prose.

At the end of the ceremony, as the new graduates wind their way slowly out of the great hall, some serious, some smiling, some smug, some shy, it is difficult not to be cynical. For most of these youngsters believe that the piece of paper just conferred on them, the result of years of hard work, is their passport to success. Capitalism, of course, does nothing to discourage this attitude. Indeed, before returning the hired gown and mortar the new graduate will find waiting for them a copy of Graduate Post, the newspaper for student and graduate jobhunters. Here, another piece of the capitalist indoctrination jig-saw falls into place. Shock, horror’ “Teaching shortage poses threat to economy" screams the front page. "See inside for immediate and forward vacancies" it cries. What do these people think? Do they believe that the years spent at university were designed to encourage their personal development as human beings? Don’t they know that this is a capitalist world they're living in? They may have a degree but they are about to become wage-slaves like the rest of us.

Dave Coggan

Compensation announced for farmers (1988)

From the September 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Agriculture

Annual compensation payments of up to £200 a hectare will be offered to farmers who “set-aside" at least one-fifth of their arable land by taking it out of production for five years. Mr John MacGregor, Minister of Agriculture, announced in the Commons.

Mr MacGregor said that the new EEC scheme to reduce surplus agricultural production by set-aside of agricultural land was agreed in principle at the European Council in February, It was compulsory for member states to introduce the scheme for the I988-89 crop production year, but participation was voluntary for farmers.

Land set aside would have to be kept in good agricultural condition as fallow, put to woodland or used for non-agricultural purposes, it could not be grazed.

Land developed for residential, industrial, retail or similar purposes would not be eligible; but the scheme would not include other limitations on non-agricultural use, though planning controls would continue to apply.

Rates of payment would vary. For fallow land and woodland, the payment would be £200 a hectare a year, except in the Less Favoured Areas, where it would be £180 a year. There would be a reduction of £20 in either ease if the fallow area was rotated round the farm.

For non-agricultural use the set-aside payment would be reduced by £50 a hectare.

There were Conservative cheers when he said he had decided not to take up an option under the Community rules to permit land set aside from arable crops to be grazed by livestock, subject to limits on the numbers, because of the difficulties of ensuring proper controls and the adverse effects which such an option could have on existing livestock producers, especially in the upland areas.

Payments would be based on farmers' arable crop pattern in 1987-88 and the first payments would be made for the 1988-89 cropping year.

The Times (15 June 1988) giving details of payments for not growing food.

A class warrior (1988)

Book Review from the September 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Churchill's War, Vol I: The Struggle for Power by David Irving (Veritas. 1987)

Despite the detailed research which goes into many historical works, they often tell us more about their authors than the subject matter in question. This offering by provocative right wing historian David Irving is a case in point

Churchill's War is a companion study to Irving s earlier work Hitler's War, remembered by many for its claim that the Nazi dictator knew nothing about the Holocaust. The main thrust of this volume is that Churchill, conspiring with Jewish leaders and Russian diplomats, helped provoke a war that Hitler did not want and ultimately led to the dissolution of the British Empire. In turn this resulted in the post war ascendency of the United Slates and, worst of all, Russia

The author s basic premise — that during the 1930s the British Empire had reached its most "magnificent extent" — is to say the least, superficial. After the 1914-18 war Britain ceased to be the major commercial and financial centre of the world and the Second World War merely served to confirm America's ascendency, along with state capitalist Russia.

It is a pity that Irving's erroneous interpretation of history tends to overshadow much of the detail he has uncovered about Churchill himself, for some of it is well worth reading and sheds a good deal of light on a man who was an implacable opponent of the working class until the end. For instance, he reveals that Churchill's fascination with war and his indifference to public suffering were documented again and again

In 1944 crowds jeered him when he appeared in dazzling RAF uniform in a newly blitzed suburb of London and declared "This the thing! It is just like being back in the best days of the blitz again".

For those who choose to remember him as a bulwark against fascism, the book records his praise for the "discipline, order, goodwill and smiling faces" of Italy's corporate state. The future ally of Joseph Stalin also commented to Roman Journalists in 1927.

If I had been an Italian I would have been entirely with you from the beginning to the end of your victorious struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism . . . your movement has rendered a service to the whole world

When First Lord of the Admiralty in 1939 Churchill recommended selling enplanes to Italy in return for motor boats, as a way of developing fruitful Anglo-Italian trade. Rather better known is his reference to Hitler in the Evening Standard of 17 September 1937:

If our country were defeated I hope we should find a champion as indomitable to restore our courage and lead us back to out rightful place among the nations

Of course, statements and actions such as these make a nonsense of the claim that Britain fought a war against the Axis Powers for ideological reasons, or to protect freedom and democracy. Churchill acted in the interests of his class and was a protagonist for war when circumstances dictated it. While il is not for socialists to comment on the strategic conduct of wars, it is worth remembering that Churchill was responsible for a number of disastrous battle campaigns in both World Wars, which resulted in the loss of thousands of working class lives.

Roosevelt apparently labelled Churchill a "drunken bum". David Irving provides him with perhaps a more fitting epitaph still: "He was rarely a creator, always a destroyer".

DAP

Funds Appeal (1988)

From the September 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard 

It is a long time since we made an appeal for funds in these columns and we do so only when the work of the Party shows signs of outstripping its finances. 

To sell the Socialist Standard at 40p and to try to keep the price-range of our literature as low as possible involves a subsidy from the General Fund which slowly erodes it. Add to this the routine things like electricity, telephone and rates, and it is not long before we have to look round to see what we can cut back on. when we should be expanding our activities for socialism and going forward. 

We are well aware that our fellow workers to whom we address this appeal have their own financial worries. If. however, you think it is worth getting rid of the system which produces them, please send as much or as little as you can. 

Cheques should be crossed, mode payable to the Socialist Party of Great Britain and sent to the Treasurer at 52 Clapham High Street, London S W4 7UN.

50 Years Ago: Immigrants and unemployment (1988)

The 50 Years Ago column from the September 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are asked if we want foreign workers to take jobs away from British workers, and on the surface it looks like a reasonable point of view. Actually it is baseless. It is true that if an Italian waiter comes to London he may get a job in preference to a British waiter, just as hundreds of thousands of British workers have in the past managed to get jobs in America and many other foreign countries. But unemployment in the mass is not caused by the size of the population and does not increase because the population is increased, whether by births or by immigration. Capitalism everywhere normally has its unemployed, no matter what the population figures may be. If unemployment disappeared, then the workers would be able to demand more wages, and this would reduce profits to the vanishing point. Unemployment is, therefore, a capitalist necessity. The capitalist himself deliberately creates it by installing labour-displacing machinery in the effort to keep costs down and profits up.

[From the editorial "Should aliens be allowed in?" Socialist Standard, September 1938.]

Socialist Party Meetings (1988)

Party News from the September 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

I actually went to the debate in Luton featuring Steve Coleman and the Labour Party's Kelvin Hopkins.  I would have been 17 at the time. I can't remember if it was this Luton meeting or another one where I missed the last bus and, as I was living in the age of no mobile phones and no phone at home, I had no other option but to duck and dive the streets of Luton overnight until I could get the first bus home the next morning.  Luton city centre even back then was not for the faint-hearted at 2 in the morning. 

It's a shame there isn't a recording of the meeting. I remember an older Labour Party supporter in the audience who mentioned that he worked in a factory alongside an SPGBer when he was a young man, and he couldn't reconcile the SPGBer's revolutionary fervour with the fact that the SPGBer used to do all the overtime on offer.  Kelvin Hopkins was on the Left of the Labour Party, and was elected to Parliament in the 1997 Labour landslide. He ended up representing a constituency in Luton for the next twenty years. Coleman was an able representative for the SPGB and, even in 1988, when Kinnock was leader of the Labour Party, he anticipated the real future of the Labour Party. I specifically remember him mentioning at that meeting in 1988 that the person to watch out for in the Labour Party was not Kinnock or Hattersley or even John Smith: it was Gordon Brown. Well, he anticipated half the future . . . 

Editorial: The Coalition Government and its Work. (1915)

Editorial from the September 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

Had some bold prophet two years ago forecast a coalition Cabinet, including Asquith and Carson, George and galloper Smith ; had he asserted that these men, then so fiercely denouncing each other, would be united to carry on the government of the country, he would have been laughed at by the politicians, the “economists.” and the reformers alike—by all, in fact, except the Socialist.

The Socialist is excepted because he knew that the “fierce fight,” the “struggle” against the Law, the frenzied battle of tongues and pens, was all so much clap-trap ; because he knew that the “great” Home Rule issue was but a political cry upon which to rally either side of place-hunters. Ireland was again the red-herring that was to draw to the theatrical conflict the paid puppets of the political pantomime.

The Socialist has all along sneered at the heroic figures struck by “King” Carson and his troupe of paste-board pirates. We have always said that the Liberal and Tory, the Home Rider and the Unionist, the Tariff Reformer and the Free Trader were all of the same gang ; were all ready to unite immediately their economic interests were really threatened. Our understanding of the class struggle gave us that knowledge. Our recognition of the vital issues underlying the political sham fight gave us that assurance. When we said that Liberal and Tory would drop their child’s play and unite as one solid party when their common interests us capitalists were at stake we were called fools and dreamers. But we spoke truth and the Coalition Government is present to bear testimony to the fact.

Then the Liberals grew angry, on public platforms, at the antics of Carson’s gun-runners ; then Carson and his crowd could find no expression strong enough to denounce such “traitors” as Lloyd George, Churchill and Asquith. But now these “traitors” are placed in charge of the most important departments of the country attacked by a vigorous enemy, and the “law breakers” are in high places at the head of English law, with the approval and consent and at the instigation of the very men who previously denounced them.

Unable to face criticism of their criminal incapacity which had plunged them into a war totally unprepared ; which had sent soldiers to fight without arms ; which had caused them to talk of victory instead of defence ; and to gas about marching to Berlin instead of taking steps to prevent the enemy marching to London ; the late unlamented Liberal Government gave up the ghost, to re-form in the company and with the assistance of those otherwise most likely to denounce their previous delinquencies.

And that is practically all it amounts to. The great things we were to expect have not yet arrived. The few attempts that have been made have developed into what is, from the workers’ point of view, not so much tragedy as farce.

Agitated at the increasing power of the organised workers in certain industries amid the abnormal conditions created by the withdrawal of the reserve army of unemployed ; recognising that the ordinary methods of strike breaking by starvation and lead are difficult of application when labour is necessary for the continuation of war, the Coalition Government introduced a “Munitions Bill” which makes striking a criminal offence. This bill, with its vague promises of restricted profits, was expected, with the assistance of the working man’s patriotism, to keep the toilers at work. How inoperative it is evidenced by the miners’ dispute, in which dispute it is only the foolish idea of saving the bosses country that prevents the men from obtaining their demands.

In the past the miners have been defeated by the lock-out : that weapon cannot now be used against them.

Compulsory arbitration, however, is of no more use to the masters now than it would have been to the miners then. In normal times it leaves the advantage with the masters who have the power to starve the workers into submission to their terms. In times of war, when it is in the interests of the capitalists of this country that production shall continue without, interruption, the workers hold the whip hand.

The Registration Act, too, is typical of a coalition government composed of both voluntarists and advocates of conscription. It promises the results of a Conscription Bill without the name. It attempts by underhand methods to force the unwilling into the trenches. The workers are to give the name and address of their employers to some local board, who will choose from among them those who are to be dragooned by a “recruiting committee” into the army by pressure brought to bear upon the individual and the employer.

A suggestion of one prominent writer is that

“In every parish or group of parishes a Recruiting Committee should be chosen . . . The names of men who should go to the front should be submitted to this body. . . He should be compelled to present himself before them. … If it should be found that there is no valid reason why the man should not go the chairman should address him in this fashion. “We have no legal power to send you to the front. We are, however, strongly of the opinion that you are not doing your duty, and we therefore give you ten days in which to settle your affairs and enlist. If at the end of that time we have not proof that you have done so we shall be compelled to print your name in the blacklist of those who have failed their country during this crisis. This list will hang outside the church and outside the public buildings of this parish.” A similar speech would be made to the employer who held back his men, and his business would certainly not be improved by the appearance of his name in such a list.”

This is the statement of one who opens his article with, the words : “I have always been an opponent of compulsion in military service,” and these are the methods by which “our glorious voluntary system” of recruiting is to maintained. The “pink form” is a preliminary to something like the above.

The absolute incapacity of the present Government was never shown more clearly than in the discussion on the miscalled “Limitation of Prices Bill.” It was admitted on all hands that the bill was ineffective to control the price of coal to the consumer. And the limit was reached when the Government accepted an amendment to wipe out the penalty if the accused could show “that he had reasonable grounds to believe that he was not committing an offence.”

It is, of course, to be expected that the men who draw up and pass such Acts would see to it that profits were secured. They are the men to whom the profits go. They are of the class who live by profit and they are safe-guarding their interests by passing the measures.

In “the house” they belittle the real cause of high prices and show how little economic knowledge they possess. They talk of drunkenness as the cause of scarcity of supplies, and gasp at the magnitude of the workers’ weekly screw (one unconscious humourist described how working men used pound notes as pipe-lights).

The increased price of materials is the CAUSE, not the, RESULT of increased wages.

The increased money wage, amounting as it does to something less than 3s. per week more for a similar output, is in reality a reduction in real wages as the cost of living since the outbreak of war has risen by something like 35 per cent.

It is true that a slight advance in prices is rendered necessary by the increased risk in transport, but beyond that the vast upward movement in prices is due to the greed of the capitalists who are taking advantage of the unique position they find themselves in to hold supplies and take advantage of every local shortage to sell old stock at huge profits. Even where supply is restricted nothing other than enhanced profits explains the huge rise in price. Bread is dear but corn is plentiful !

We are now told that the wheat crop for this year is “estimated to exceed that of last year by 51,958,000 quarters. This, too, does not include the Canadian crop, which is estimated to be 25 per cent. greater than that of last year.” But will the price of bread fall to its normal ? Not while the financiers have the opportunity of holding up supplies and of reaping huge profits thereby. The Coalition Government, like the late Liberal Government, will mark time while their friends make profits on the sale of murder machines and inferior food and clothing.

Meantime they will use the vastly distended horror, the German bogie man, to frighten the workers into working hard and working cheaply in their masters’ factories, and to fight fiercely, and also cheaply, in the defence of the masters’ country.

By The Way. (1915)

The By The Way Column from the September 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

In turning over some newspapers that are several weeks old we have come across one which informs us that the annual meeting of John Brown & Co., Ltd., of Sheffield, was recently held, and that “a spirited defence of the position of armament firms in relation to the war” was made by Lord Aberconway. He says :

“The shareholders might think that the balance sheet was a war balance sheet, but it was not so. The so-called war profits that they read so much about in the papers formed only a very small percentage of the total. The company had taken advantage of low prices to supply themselves with what they wanted, and the result was that they were now able to show the largest absolute profit ever earned in the history of the Company. If munitions were short in this country it was not the fault of the armament firms. They had all done their duty, and none more so than John Brown’s. Like all business men and men connected with the political world, they foresaw that a great crisis in Europe was coming, and determined to make every preparation to meet it. Now all their resources were at the disposal of the Government, and the only difficulty was shortage of men.”—(“Manchester Guardian,” 30.6.5. Italics mine.)

The report omits to state whether the noble Lord thereupon rolled up his shirt sleeves and donned the overalls to help make up for the “shortage of men,” and likewise enjoined his fellow shareholders to fall in and follow him. However, he flatly contradicts Mr. Lloyd George, who stated that “we at any rate did not organise for war.”

The speaker goes on to say that, “It was wholly untrue that British firms had encouraged war propaganda. No doubt that was true of Krupps. They did live and work for the war, but what the English firms had done was to try to ‘checkmate’ the efforts of firms like Krupps, and they hoped to go on doing so.”

* * *

Those workers who have pinned their faith to the specious promises of the glib-tongued Liberal orator, Lloyd George, who prior to the war was engaged in dangling before the eyes of the working class the Liberal pill for all our ills, must recently have suffered a slight shock. The much talked of “hotels” that were to be brought into existence for those workers who had been smitten with the scourge of consumption must be deferred for awhile, for at present our masters are more concerned in the slaughter of the physically fit. The announcement with regard to these said “hotels” is as follows :

“The Treasury refused to consent to the expenditure by the Metropolitan Asylums Board on three new Sanitoria for Consumptives.”—”Reynolds’s,” 8.8.15.

* * *

In almost every direction at the present time we are hearing of the dearth of wage-slaves, and our good, patriotic bosses, who are ever on the prowl for the cheapest variety of labour-power, are more persistent than ever in their clamour for the children. A short while ago they desired boys of tender years for the coal mines—and be it remembered that they are boys of our class ! Perish the thought that Lord and Lady Never-Work’s sons should be called upon to do such ignoble work—now it is for the cotton trade. We read that a conference was recently held between the employers and workmen at Manchester to consider the “serious situation” which has arisen from the shortage of labour in the mills, and that little hope was entertained of an increase in the number of women workers.

“The suggestion was made that for the period of the war half-timers should be allowed in the mills at the age of eleven instead of twelve, and full-timers at twelve instead of thirteen.”—”Reynolds’s,” 8.8.15.

* * *

This desire for children in the factory hells at an age when they ought to be receiving their education and plenty of healthy recreation recalls to our mind the early days of capitalist development, and, perhaps, a short extract would not be amiss. Let me quote :

“In stench, in heated rooms, amid the constant whirling of a thousand wheels, little fingers and little feet were kept in ceaseless action, forced into unnatural activity by blows from the heavy hands and feet of the merciless over-looker, and the infliction of bodily pain by instruments of punishment invented by the sharpened ingenuity of insatiable selfishness.” —”Industrial History of England,” p. 180.

This in many respects is what our good, benevolent, Christian masters seek to again impose upon the children of the working class under the cloak of national emergency.

* * *

On the question of Trade Unions and Munitions of War we have lately heard a great deal. One remembers quite well how the “Labour Leaders” in the House handed over the workers to the Government when the Munitions of War Bill was being rushed through the House of Commons. Mr. Hodge was highly indignant with the tramwaymen in London for striking and said: “It was a disgrace to the tramwaymen that, in this great crisis in their country’s history, they should have made it impossible for workmen to get to Woolwich for the purpose of making shells and other munitions of war.” He was even prepared to advocate all trades coming under the special powers of the Minister of Munitions. Whilst various groups of workers have been “swanked” into putting on one side their rules and working agreements we find that the employers are not so ready to place the “needs of the nation” in front of profit. A good illustration of this is brought to light in an article by J. O’Grady, M.P., wherein he says :

“Let me, in conclusion, cite a case I have in my mind. A dispute in a controlled establishment was submitted to arbitration. The Court decided in favour of the workmen, but the employer positively refused to carry out the terms of the award and to pay the increased wages determined upon. The employees struck work, they were hauled before the Munitions Court and fined. … If many of these instances occur in the working of the Munitions Act, the confidence of the workmen in the Act, and in the safeguards their trade union leaders have had incorporated in the Act will be destroyed.”— “Reynolds’s,” 15.8.15.

One wonders where the “safeguards” for the workmen are to be found in this particular Act which these trade union “leaders” helped to foist upon their dupes. We read of plenty of fines for the workers, ranging according to their wages, and in the case referred to, while the Court decided in favour of the men, here we have a trade union official and an M.P. to boot, stating that “the employer positively refused to carry out the terms of the award” ; and he further suggests that the Government should compel employers to abide by the award of Arbitration Courts by imposing penalties. One is led to hope that “the confidence of the workmen” both in their mis-leaders and the Act will continue to be undermined.

* * *

Yet another instance is to hand of large wages offered in the columns of the Press for certain work, but which, as usual, is falsified afterwards. A clerk to a Board of Guardians stated that several women inmates of the workhouse had obtained employment as strawberry pickers and certain information as to their treatment had come to his knowledge.

“He instanced the case of a girl who had answered an advertisement which stated that pickers were able to earn from 15s. to 25s. per week, everything to be provided for them. Where that girl, with others, was employed there was nothing but a stable and some straw for them to sleep in. This particular girl only-had three half-day’s work in one week and she earned 3s. 10d.”—”Reynolds’s,” 15.8.15.

Even the chairman of the Board was constrained to admit that “such a state of affairs, was too bad for a ‘Christian’ country.” What hypocrisy ! Doubtless our unfortunate sisters, are now sadder and wiser women and have profited much by their bitter experience of patriotism and Christian charity.

The Scout.

The Circulation of Capital. Its Effect upon Society. (1915)

From the September 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

In present-day society production is capitalised ; that is to say, wealth functions as capital. It is the nature of this capital to take on peculiar characteristics. All capital is such that it seeks to fructify, become ever larger and larger.

The process is carried on like this. The capitalist, i.e., owner of capital, starts out with a certain amount of money for the purpose of making this amount into a larger one. This is how he sets about it. With his money he buys means of production, e.g., a workshop and machinery, and then raw materials ; he next buys labour-power for the purpose of setting his works going ; in other words, for producing wealth. At the end of a certain time the capitalist has goods produced of a greater value than he formerly laid out in money for procuring means of production, raw material, and labour-power, or which is the same, the money he laid out as constant capital, i.e., that portion of his capital whose value does not vary, and the money he laid out as variable capital for labour-power, i.e., that portion of his capital which brings him in extra, or added value. But yet he has not received that larger amount of money that he sets out to obtain. How then is it procured ? He must deliver his goods to a certain market for sale. For instance, if it is boots he has produced then he must seek a market where boots are in demand. If he be fortunate enough to sell all, or nearly all, his boots he will then have realised his extra value, his profit, i.e., reckoning on the assumption that his boots were sold at, or about, the average market price.

It will be seen then, that capital must of necessity circulate. There must be an ever whirling round of commodities, i.e., articles of exchange. For this markets must be found ; hence the keen competition that we see between the leading capitalist countries to gain colonies. This is the prime cause of wars in capitalist society. A successful war to a country is, generally speaking, a starting point for industrial development and supremacy. As De Gibbins, speaking on England’s industrial greatness, said:

“The high place the nation (England) thus came to occupy was due to various causes, among which the state of European politics in the latter part of the eighteenth century may be reckoned. If we consider the condition of the great European powers after the peace which terminated the Seven Years War in 1763, we perceive that England was in a favourable position. In the first place she had seriously injured her great commercial and colonial rival, France, in her possessions both in India and North America. By the Seven Years War England had gained Canada, Florida, and all the French possessions (except New Orleans) on the Mississippi River, while in India the victories of Clive had established English influence as supreme and laid the foundation for a further extension of trade and sovreignty.”

There can be no doubt about it that, with England’s acquirement of colonies, her trade developed by leaps and bounds; so that it is only quite natural that the countries which have come later in the field as capitalistically developed countries should seek to gain markets. Hence the present European war which is at bottom competition for the Balkan States’ and other markets.

There are, however, people of the Norman Angell type of mind (whatever that may mean), who claim that war is of no benefit at all to a country ; it is caused, they say, through ignorance plus military vanity. It must be said here, that we are speaking in the capitalist sense. We agree that war does not and cannot benefit the great mass of the people of a country i.e., the workers. But it does benefit the capitalists of a victorious country as Norman Angell himself attests when quoting Sir J. R. Seeley in the appendix to his book, “The Great Illusion.” Says Seeley:

“It is admitted that a particular order of men—namely, the merchants who trade with the Colonies—may have benefited from the monopoly, but their gain has been at the expense of the bulk of the nation.”

Since wars are proclaimed by the ruling capitalist class, this class will see to it that there is a good chance of gain before they embark on so costly a speculation as war. So we may dismiss this Norman Angell idea by pointing out that the richest capitalist country (England) has not lost but benefited by her possessions ; and that the other capitalist countries know this only too well, hence their endeavour to do likewise. The capitalist countries do not, as a rule, seek to conquer territory that has been already capitalised, as the Angellists seem to imagine, but to gain territory where capitalist conditions are very little or not at all in vogue, e.g., China.

Many times do we hear the Angell economists (?) trotting out the claim that markets are free to all ; it is the one that can sell the cheapest that corners it, they say. Yes, that is all very well, but who has the monopoly of a market at the average price ? Obviously the occupiers of the country or colony. For that reason a country without colonies and depending on home markets is forced to institute a system of protective tariffs to stop the influx of cheap goods.

What is the effect of the situation then ? It is this : A leading capitalist country with little or no colonies must, if she wishes to capture a foreign market, undersell her competitors. She can do this by either of two methods, or by both methods together. By cutting down expenses as much as possible in the works, or by relinquishing a certain portion of the profits. The former can be done by speeding up the worker to the highest pitch, and the latter by employing commercial travellers and agents who, by various devices, such as advertising extensively, seek to get a sale for certain products ; all of which expenses must come out of the profits of the capitalist. Thus it will readily be seen how handicapped the capitalists of a country without colonies are.

Further, it will be seen that the capitalists of a country so handicapped will be forced to develop their industries to the highest possible extent. In such countries like America will the anomalies that capital imposes upon society, e.g., sweating and unemployment, riches and poverty, be most marked.

* * *

With a view to helping the business man out of the difficulties of competition for markets and the antagonism of the workers, an American writer, Norris A. Brisco, A.M., Ph. D., has written a book, entitled “Economics of Efficiency.” I quote you the following rather lengthy passages without any apology.

At bottom of page 3 he says :

“The nineteenth century has been frequently called the century of the machine. Successful industrial management was concerned largely with obtaining greater efficiency through two sources : firstly, the acquiring of a more efficient plant through more efficient buildings and arrangement, and secondly, the the acquiring of more improved and specialised equipment for the different processes. Production was greatly increased, which necessitated more extensive markets. Manufacturers realised that industrial development was dependent upon markets. The question of markets has always been a fundamental one in industrial progress. Improved machinery and production on a larger scale drove the manufacturer to extend his field from the locality to the nation, and further improvements made more extended markets an absolute necessity. With the entrance of our commodities into the world’s markets competition became more intense, and the question of costs became more important ; but during the nineteenth century, the average employer, in his efforts to lower costs, centralised his attention upon buildings, equipment, machinery, and methods. Near the close of the century a few more enterprising employers had their attention attracted to the human element, the most important in production, and this attraction is the beginning of a new science of business, the science of efficiency, which is a secure and sound foundation for further growth and greater industrial progress.”

And on page 5 we read :

“Manufacturers were amazed at the extent of the wastes which were found in their plants. Wastes of material, time and energy were found everywhere. A prominent manufacturer declared that they were getting only about 50 per cent. of the ability of workmen in their factory. Another stated that few shops produced more than 60 per cent. of the work that it would be possible for them to produce with the same working force and the same physical equipment. The chief problem which arose was how to eliminate these wastes. How can an industrial country hampered with the presence of wastes compete with one with wastes partially or wholly eliminated ? It is impossible ; it is a dollar and cents proposition, and when manufacturers realise this they will pay heed to the conditions existing in their plants, and make endeavours to eliminate as much waste as possible.”

Mr. Brisco recognises that markets are necessary, but since all countries cannot acquire them he thinks that the next best thing to do is to cheapen cost of production and undersell competitors. He thinks he scores with “labour” efficiency, apparently forgetting that other competitors can adopt the same methods.

In quoting him again Socialists will readily see the piquancy of the following passage. On page 8 he writes :

“Labour should be conserved, directed, and given just and fair remuneration. Efficiency demands this, and as soon as business men realise that exploitation does not pay, and that efficiency does, the relations between employers and employees will be less antagonistic, and both will find it to their advantage to work for their common interests.”

Yes, don’t exploit your workmen, Mister business man, but fairly rob him !

* * *

What is then the lesson the we can derive from the foregoing ? We see that the masters who control out lives and existences are merely forced, by the conditions that obtain in society, to act in certain directions whether it be the proclaiming and organising of war or shooting down defenceless strikers struggling for an existence.

The only way out for the workers is to understand the nature of present-day society and its effects upon themselves. They will then realise the necessity of a change of society where wealth functions as capital, i.e., where wealth functions for the profit of the few at the expense of the rest of society, for a society which shall have as its basis the production and distribution of wealth for the needs and requirements of society. In a word, the workers will realise that Socialism alone can save themselves and civilisation.

They will further realise that to attain Socialism they must organise as a political body, with the conscious aim of being at all times and occasions hostile to the capitalist class and their representatives.

They will not then betray working-class principles as the skunks of the B.S.P. and freaks of the I.L.P. do, but will unflinchingly uphold those principles, as the Socialist Party of Great Britain does, until working-class political supremacy and the emancipation of the proletariat shall have been attained.

L. M.

Efficiency or “Ca Canny.” Which is the Policy for the Workers? (1915)

From the September 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The system of the past has led to certain developments on the part of labour which are definitely anti-social. The deliberate restriction of output, the system known as “ca canny,” has its roots in the incessant struggle of capital and labour.”

The above appeared in a recent article by A. G. G. in the “Daily News & Leader” (9.8.15). As will be immediately noticed, the writer assumes that we live under a different system to-day from that before the war. Like most writers that assume this much—and there are many—he neglects to show wherein the difference exists. True, the Government have “nationalised” the railways and are exercising some control over other concerns. But the status of those who operate these concerns, as well as the rest of the working class, has not changed : they are as much wage-slaves to-day as they were before the war.

For the sake of clearness it will be as well to describe, as briefly as possible, what the system was that we lived under previous to August 4th, 1914. The land, mines, railways, factories, machinery, and all those things required by human beings to satisfy their material needs, were owned by the capitalist class. The working class owned nothing but their labour-power, which, if they did not wish to starve, they had to sell to some member or members of the capitalist class. Labour-power was a commodity, the only commodity that the workers had to dispose of in a world in which the bulk of the wealth took the form of commodities.

The price of labour power, called wages, which represented the standard of living for the workers, was not fixed by them : it found its level as a result of the same law that governed the price of other commodities—the labour-time necessary to its production. An ever-increasing army of unemployed intensified the competition between the workers and supplied the capitalists with the necessary lever to keep wages down to the level of a mere subsistence. When the workers endeavoured to force up wages, by withholding their commodity, the armed forces —controlled by the executive of the capitalist class were used to frustrate their efforts.

Previous to August, 1914 the workers were compelled to labour unceasingly to enrich an idle master class, they themselves living and dying in poverty. That was the system; wherein has it changed since that date ?

The buying and selling of labour-power is still the fundamental principle that governs social conditions and is responsible for class antagonism. The basic principle of the system remaining, the system itself is unimpaired, and those who write of the system of the past, unless they refer to Feudalism and craft guilds, chattel slavery or early communism, merely expose their ignorance as to the meaning of the word “system” when applied to society.

The purpose of this article was not to expose the ignorant or malicious misrepresentations of capitalist writers. Being, however, obliged to quote the phrase it was necessary to deal with it. What every worker must be more directly concerned with is the accusation that immediately follows it. It is difficult to imagine a more impudent slander than is contained in the assertion that the workers by restricting output are “definitely anti-social.” The dullest intellect knows that the less he does, the more there is left for other workers to do. If a worker laboured effectively only two days a week he would yet contribute that amount of labour-time to the satisfaction of human needs, while his accusers contribute nothing. The working class produce all wealth and own none. The master class produce nothing yet own all. A parasitic class that consumes without producing is itself anti-social in every bone and fibre, in every action, in its very existence ; because it exists by plunder, and what can be more “definitely anti-social” than plunder ?

When the Roman plebians struck against the Roman patricians, the patrician Agrippa told them that the patrician belly fed the plebian members of the body politic. Agrippa failed to show that you feed the members of one man by filling the belly of another. And A. G. G. must utterly fail to show how the workers are acting anti-socially by restricting output, when they actually produce all the wealth in existence. The impudence of Henenius Agrippa—designed to cover up a system of plunder that could not hold a candle to capitalism—finds its parallel in the modern State with its boasted democracy, freedom, and civilisation.

Of course it is quite true that this parasitic class claims to perform a function which is just as necessary as the actual work of production performed by the working class. But none of their defenders—though trained to the business—have ever succeeded in making their claim good. The ruling class of to-day is essentially an idle class, a class that knows only three objects : the accumulation of wealth, the pursuit of pleasure, and the stability of their system. The accumulation of wealth, they fondly imagine, will ensure the other two, Who is not acquainted with the saying, “wealth is power”? Money will buy troops and police to dragoon the workers when rebellious ; it will buy politicians, priests and labour hacks to persuade, gull and chloroform them when that way promises the best results. The “educational” process operates almost from the cradle. How many axioms could we not quote that are regularly instilled into the minds of the young, calculated to bear fruit in after years, by swelling the vast wealth owned by the ruling-class? “Industry brings its own reward” is only one of these capitalist proverbs proved to be a lie by the vast majority of workers long before they reach the age of thirty—unless “reward” is to be understood satirically, and a shattered constitution and hopeless poverty are not penalties but “blessings in disguise.”

Since the blighting influence of capitalism, poisoning or destroying everything that was healthy in human society, first developed, efficiency has been the constant cry of the capitalist. It has always meant less wages for the working class and more wealth for the master class. Under capitalism it is intensified exploitation of the working class. The workers are driven by competition, fair promises or slander, to increase their powers of wealth production, but lack the knowledge that would enable them to retain and enjoy the fruits of their labour.

Efficiency, or the ability of the individual to perform a necessary task adequately and with the smallest possible expenditure of energy and time, would, given a genuine co-operative organisation of society, result in a maximum of time for leisure, recreation, etc. for all. A. G. G., accepting efficiency as an abstract principle that must be good under all circumstances, pretends not to see that under capitalism its development only increases the poverty and wretchedness of the working class. In a vague way he seems to realise that it is absurd to preach efficiency to the workers. He not only says “that restriction of output has its roots in the incessant struggle of capital and labour,” meaning, of course, the two classes that respectively own capital and labour-power-which is an unqualified acknowledgment of the class war, and the conflict of interests that arises through the buying and selling of labour-power. But he also recognises and says “that the way to true organisation is through the development of the co-operative principle in society.”

To sum up, he admits the existence of the class war; declares that true organisation can only come through co-operation, and accuses the workers of being anti-social. He entirely neglects to charge the master class with the same crime ; either on the grounds that they live by exploitation, or even by exposing such details of the system as the formation of rings and trusts, the cornering of wheat, or the deliberate destruction of wealth in many forms, in order to force up prices.

Under capitalism the invention and introduction of labour-saving machinery and the higher skill and efficiency of the workers can have but one result, a decreasing demand for labour-power. What that means should be patent to every worker; ; an ever-increasing army of unemployed whose existence, combined with the desire of the capitalist for cheap labour-power, causes a steady reduction in the standard of living of the working class. It is because many workers have recognised this that ca canny has flourished. When “co-operative principle” has been established; when the people own and control the means of wealth production, efficiency will be cultivated by them because it will enable them to perform their share of the necessary social labour in the shortest possible time, leaving them a maximum time for recreation and enjoyment.

Meanwhile, those who play at ca canny (conserving their only commodity, labour-power) are wise in their day ; but that is all. Such practices cannot hold up the march of capitalism. All the petty tricks resorted to by the workers to resist exploitation are being discovered and rendered inoperative by one device or another. Their schemes to combat speeding up, and their organisations to prevent reductions in their standard of living become more futile almost daily. Their chains are being riveted more rigidly about their limbs. The master class is uppermost in the class struggle, and emancipation—like the “willo’ the wisp”—seems to play us strange pranks ; but it always beckons onwards those who recognise their slavery, to combat the forces of capitalism. The class struggle is worthy of recruits in the working-class cause, and “every recruit means earlier peace” ; a peace that must endure because society will no longer be split into classes with conflicting interests.

F. Foan