Our Bromley Candidate's Message (1964)

Party News from the December 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

  The Bromley "Advertiser” invited our candidate, E. Grant, in the Parliamentary Election to state his position. We print below his statement which appeared in the issue of October 8th.

“My message in unorthodox. I am not a leader. I make no promises. I do not ask for your vote. Our election statement does not feature my photograph, neither does it say what a wonderful fellow I am.

The membership of the Socialist Party of Great Britain decided that, in line with our democratic approach to politics and desire to disseminate the Socialist idea, we would use our limited funds to make a token stand in two constituencies. Bromley and Glasgow Woodside.

Here the real alternatives are made clear: either the continuance of capitalism, with all the miseries and indignities that flow from it, or the establishment of of world-wide social equality based upon the common ownership of the means of living. We seek a mandate for Socialism. Nothing less will do.

Faced with a world in which two-thirds of mankind is starving, a class-divided world wracked with war and haunted by insecurity, the Socialist is one who realises that to solve such problems our capitalist way of life which gives rise to them must be replaced by a new social structure. It is both necessary and practical for the working nine-tenths of humanity to organise, consciously and democratically, to dispossess the owning one-tenth, and to place in the hands of the community the means of providing comfort and plenty for all.

Socialism involves far more even than the provision of abundance, of which we would take freely according to our needs. When work ceases to be employment, it will not remain the meaningless drudgery it is when we are forced to do it for a wage or salary. When the world’s resources are held in common and things are made not for profit but solely for use, work will take on a meaning it cannot have today.

Craftsmanship will flourish and the gap between the creative artist and the automata of the offices and the workshops seeking escape into mass-produced leisure pursuits and hooliganism will be closed. We ourselves shall decide where we work, how long, and at what tempo.

Technology, now so largely devoted to developing means of destruction, will be diverted towards eliminating undesirable toil. All races will live together in harmony. We shall become integrated, creative human beings.

It is a mistake to believe that the Labour Party, with its petty national mentality and its list of palliatives, contributes towards Socialism. Like the Conservatives and Liberals, they aspire to administer capitalism and, in power, do all the terrible things this task involves. The “socialism” of the Labour Party, like that of the Communists, is a myth.

A word about I.N.D.E.C. They protest against one of the greatest dangers we face and imagine it possible to isolate the nuclear problem from all the others and solve it within the capitalist framework. The truth is that war itself dictates the weapons, and capitalism is war-prone. The urgent task before us, therefore, is its abolition.

I urge the electors to consider this revolutionary proposition, and to act upon it.”

Eddie Grant

A Vision for Our Time (1996)

From the December 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

  Capitalism is in crisis, but not so much on the economic front as in the political arena. There was a time when those who opposed capitalism could put forward an alternative vision — albeit one based on state-capitalism — but now both Labourites and Leninists have given up completely and the only vision remaining is the one put forward by Socialists — real Socialism!

What George Bush, with the verbal inelegance of an aristocratic drunk addressing his deepest thoughts to his tired servants, called “the vision thing”, is distinctly missing from world politics right now. When Bush used the term, in the midst of the 1992 presidential contest against Grinning-Boy Bill, he was referring to his recognition that elections had come increasingly to be no more than extremely expensive battles to win power in order to achieve no particular political goal. Politicians more than ever are concerned with winning power, regardless of any belief that their use of it can meaningfully change very much. Hie recently televised debates—less gladiatorial battles then flea races—between Clinton and his grandfather (Dole) had about them all of the intellectual sustenance of an advertising war between McDonalds and Burger King. Both cost loads to sell, not much to buy, tasted the same and were horrible. Is it any wonder that approximately half the electorate in what prides itself as being “the biggest democracy in the world” did not even bother to go out and vote.

Not only between the American political midgets has vision disappeared. It is now almost a cliche to say that nothing divides the main parties in Britain Years ago socialists would speak of voting Labour or Tory as a choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee; we were regarded as cynics for refusing to distinguish between the two major parties of capitalism. Now we are in the majority. Voters who elect Labour to power will do so on the firm understanding that this is a party not significantly different in outlook and policy from mainstream Toryism. The Murdoch Empire can rest contented that the next British general election will be held within a virtual one-party state: whoever is elected will be Murdoch’s man. But even the Murdoch Empire is bereft of vision: its sole interest is in making more profits out of public misinformation, but has no fundamental concern whether the profit system or the structure of disinformation is governed by parties of the right or the left. Indeed, they have realised, as socialists did long ago, that the left and right wings are merely symmetrical parts of the anatomy of a single vulture: The Capitalist System.

Voodoo economics

In the 1980s the Big Vision was capitalism itself. This was capitalism’s most audacious political moment, for it involved an attempt to win not mere tolerance but popular support for the system of institutionalised class exploitation. For a while the politics of audacity appeared to succeed. Remember the news reports of elderly pensioners queuing in the cold to buy gas shares and ex-miners setting up personal computer businesses in stagnant pit villages and newly-married suckers jumping for joy at the right to buy their council slum? With a mixture of much champagne and cocaine, the Falklands slaughter and a fair bit of economic good luck, the small minority who own this country had reason to smile in the heyday of Thatcherism. That was before the recession; before they started closing down the small businesses, repossessing the mortgaged homes and discovering that neglect of the inner cities had created veritable war zones amongst the dispossessed. The vision collapsed. The Magic of the Market, as the Eighties witch doctors called it, now stinks in the nostrils of those who were its victims.

Theoretically, the 1990s should have been even better times for the capitalist vision than the Thatcher/Reagan years had been. After all, the greatest single ideological bogey-man of the Cold War popped his clogs and buried himself in the ice. Socialism was declared to be dead, dumped somewhere amidst the rubble of the Berlin Wall. That it was state capitalism which imploded and that its Leninist creed was inimical to the Marxist vision mattered little. Triumphalism was in the air. To be sure, the Old Left, wedded religiously to the Leninist project, collapsed into defeatism in exact timing with the Right’s triumphalism. But it was as hollow a defeat as it was a triumph. Leftists started writing articles conceding that the fall of the Kremlin Empire meant that visions of transcending the market had been proved wrong. But Russia had never sought to transcend the market; even within their own rhetoric of lies and distortion it was only ever pretended that they were successfully planning the market. So, the Left, without market planning as a vision, has fallen into bed with any old tart from the Stock Exchange. The Right is still cleaning its wounds after its equally spurious and nefarious exercise in running a “free market" which was far from free. In reality, there are not that many ways of running capitalism. The scope for dressing up policies for its administration is remarkably narrow. The death of vision is no more than a recognition of this truth.

Given up the ghost

So, capitalist politics has run out of ideas and stands dull and visionless. The 1996 edition of the Socialist Register (edited by Leo Panitch and published by Merlin Press for £12.95) has as its title, “Are There Alternatives?” The book contains a good chapter on Australian Labour governments and their attacks on the working class and a “Santa Claus Doesn’t Exist!” — type essay by Colin Leys who has discovered that labour “no longer think of socialism as an alternative social and economic system to capitalism” (p. 8). There is an odd debate towards the end about forming a new party and Arthur’s SLP (a cross between the disgraced CP and the exhausted ILP) is floated as a possible lifeboat for the demoralised left. But all in all, if the contributors to the volume were entirely honest, they would have added one word to the front title: “NO”. They clearly have no alternative.

Mind you, at least they have retained their sanity if not their candour. Jacques Derrida, the principal cabaret act of the new post-modernist circus, is evidently off his rocker. His new book. Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, & the New International reads as if it was composed under the influence of seriously hard drugs. Derrida’s thesis (which is rather like speaking of the philosophical theme of a Jeffrey Archer novel) is that Marx’s reference to the spectre haunting capitalism should be seen as a metaphor for a study of ghosts. Here is the first paragraph of the first chapter:

   Maintaining now the specters of Marx. (But maintaining now [maintenant] without conjuncture. A disjointed or disadjusted now, ‘out of joint', a disajointed now that always risks maintaining nothing together in the assured conjunction of some context whose border would still be determinable.) 

It does not improve. One can imagine the sagaciously nodding heads of the sincere and gullible audience at the University of Califomia where Derrida first gave the lectures that were to become his great work of Marxist ghost-hunting. Did a little boy at the back whisper even slightly audibly that the Emperor is naked? Was he asked to leave lest he disturb the concentration of the post-modern disciples? Or did he go away, buy a handgun and say as the bullet went through his head “If that’s the answer, who wants to live to find out the question?” Derrida and his fellow post-men are the Rasputins of the late twentieth century. Just as the Russian fraudster offered metaphysical hope to a ruling class in the midst of Checkhovian despair, so the post-modern con-men sustain an illusion of intellectual nourishment within a system which has become bulimic about any ideas which are not accompanied by a business plan. Post-modernism is the clairvoyance of an end-of-the-pier intelligentsia; the perfect characters for an end-of-the-system drama.

For where can capitalism go from here? Sure, it can reform its constitutional arrangements, re-organise its power blocs, fight here for markets and kill a few million there over ancient territorial rivalries. It can resurrect the zeal of medieval religious madness (in the USA one-in-five people declare themselves “born again”; the naked ignorance of the mullahs’ rule spreads here and there), but these are aberrations of the lost or the backward or both. In the end Saudi businessmen will drink whisky and follow Murdoch into the secular depravities of mammon, just as Americans will jump finally with an adulterous crook like Clinton rather than a moral fascist like Buchanan. The big, bad, bulldozing old visions of capitalism will not succeed. It’s Pepsi and Oprah that rule the house of yawns now.

The only credible alternative vision to running capitalism is to not run capitalism at all and thereby not let capitalism run our lives. What is important about this enduring and exciting socialist vision is its profound credibility. Firstly, it has never been tried. Secondly, the idea of production for use rather than profit is simple and makes sense to millions of people. And thirdly, it is the only conceivable way that society will not get worse and worse to five in. The practical alternative to living under capitalism, with all of its inevitable problems, is to establish consciously and democratically a different system of society in which production is owned by all, controlled by all and making wealth and services available to all. The Old Left has never advocated this, being too busy in its tactical efforts to win reforms of capitalism, elect Labour governments and defend the indefensible regimes of state capitalism. The Right opposes the socialist alternative, but always gets a metaphorical bloody nose when it engages in debate with the case for socialism. For the truth is that the Right is intellectually uninspired and can only ever win arguments when they are fighting against opponents with radical visions for capitalism.

New Labour, whatever it might want, does not want socialism. Socialism is an alternative which Blair has rejected. That he has done so is a sign of his limited vision, but also of his honesty and socialists should have no reason to berate the man for that. When three years into the next government society is still in a mess, or is in worse mess than now, nobody with any integrity will be able to blame this as the failure of socialism. On the contrary, the socialist vision will still be there, as urgent for the twenty-first century as it was in the wasted decades of this tragic century.

Steve Coleman

What Next? (2011)

Editorial from the December 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last month we asked, just as it was getting off the ground, where would the Occupy Movement end. Would it fizzle out? Would it go lamely reformist? Would it perhaps achieve some worthwhile reform? Would it even trigger a genuine anti-capitalist movement?

It didn’t fizzle out and it didn’t achieve any reform. But it did do two things. First, it raised consciousness that capitalism does not benefit “the 99 percent”. And, second, it provided public places where political debate about this and other issues could take place – and did. Both worthwhile. There were two other pluses. It was a world-wide movement that understood that any solution had to be global. And it tried to organise itself democratically and without leaders.

All right, there wasn’t always clarity as to what exactly was the capitalism they said they were “anti”. Some saw the occupations as a protest against “corporate greed” as if the behaviour of those in charge of capitalist corporations is a personal fault or choice rather than something imposed on them by the nature of capitalism as a system of production for sale with a view to profit. Others blamed “the bankers” and all sorts of funny money theories flourished. But that was what the spaces for debate they had provided were all about. They need to continue.

In the end the police moved in to clear the occupations (though the one in London has been given a stay of execution till after Christmas). Now that the inevitable has happened the Occupy Movement will have to consider its next move. Clearly, the high-profile tactic of occupying public parks and town squares has only a limited shelf-life, since the authorities can always cite concerns over health and sanitation.

The question now is whether activists will go home satisfied that they’ve made their point, in effect consigning the issues once again to oblivion, or work out new ways to press home their anti-capitalist message. In particular they will need to find ways to counter the predictable establishment criticisms that they are nothing but a diversion from attempts by practical politicians to find solutions to the global economic crisis and that they have no viable alternative economic system to propose.  

Well, of course, the ruling class would say that, wouldn’t they?  Their opinions aren’t going to change. The criticisms Occupy have to worry about are those coming from the ninety-nine percent, who don’t at present believe that capitalism can be abolished or that any alternative would be viable.

So it’s a question of getting the message out there, and getting it right. We are doing our bit.

The "Practical" Politicians. (1910)

Editorial from the April 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

Had the Labour Party intended to show the rank and file of its members how much it is in the hands of the Liberal Party, it could scarcely have shown it better than in its action over the Veto question.

At the General Election all their candidates were desperately anxious to appear as supremely "practical" politicians, and to avoid frightening the voters by standing as representatives of the working class. To occupy the latter position would mean running as Socialists, and laying before the workers the opposition of interests that exists between employer and employed. But such an attitude is denounced by these “Labour leaders ” as “unpractical,’’ “impossible,’’ and in other terms that are found so useful when argument has failed.

Therefore they went before the electorate with such a splendid position that Mr. Snowden said in the "Daily News” (3.2.10):

   “The demand for social reform which the Labour Party's persistent propaganda work has created has expressed itself very considerably at this election by votes given to Liberal candidates even against Labour candidates, because the Liberal Government was believed to stand for all that was immediately practical in the Labour Party’s programme.”

Mr. A. Peters, National Agent of the Labour Party, also said :

  “the questions of the Lords’ Veto and the Budget were almost identical with those of the Liberal Party; or to put the point in another way, it was rather too much to expect ‘the ordinary m in in the street’ to pick out the distinction.”—“Labour Leader,” 4.2.10.

Practical politics up to date! Arrange your programme so that the ordinary voter will be persuaded, by that programme, to vote for your supposed opponents, and you will have won political distinction and a reputation for hard-headedness.

But were they opponents? Curious that opponents should occupy positions so much alike that the voters can see no difference. Like a flash however comes the answer when Parliament meets. A few days before a rumour goes round that, as is usual with the Liberals, their election cry is to be dropped and the “great Lords’ Veto” is to be indefinitely postponed. The chairman of the Labour Party makes a public statement that his party will not be satisfied with such a position. When Parliament meets Asquith confirms the rumour. “What he has said he has not said.” The Irish party kick up a row, and here, apart from the merits of the Veto, the Labour Party could have floored a tactical point by keeping their election pledges and refusing to support the Government. Instead they showed their complete subjection to the Liberal party by supporting Asquith. Not only do they lock up the Government in breaking its pledges, but every Labour Member deliberately broke his own election pledge for the purpose of assisting the Labored party !

Yet the cup is not full. Scarcely has this of the unity of Liberal and “Labour” been given than Asquith, under pressure from the Irish, withdraws, and promises, more or less, to take the Veto before the Budget, and the Labour Party are left wondering how they are to find excuses for their position. Mr. Clynes tries some word-spinning in the “Labour Leader," but even that journal has to admit that “the Labour Party has failed to make the most of one of the most magnificent opportunities history can record."

This on March 4th. On the 7th Ramsay MacDonald moved an amendment on the Army Estimates, regarding wages and conditions of employment in the Government departments. On Tuesday after a long debate Mr. Haldane promised that if anyone said they were not acting up to the spirit of the (Fair Wages) resolution they would refer it to the same tribunal as in the case of contractors. Instead of refusing to take this promise the Labour Party were prepared to withdraw the amendment and leave the Government as free as before. But the Tories forced a division—then fifteen of the “practical” politicians voted for the Government and against their own amendment! Only three voted for it, the rest (including the mover) did not vote!

What farther proof can the most hardened Labourite demand of the asinine stupidity and deliberate treachery of the “practical politicians” of the Labour Party ?

50 Years Ago: Socialism or Palliated Capitalism? (1958)

The 50 Years Ago column from the March 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Great has been the abuse levelled against The'Socialist Party of Great Britain because of the fact that from its inception it has steadfastly set itself against the advocacy of palliatives or improvements that "strengthen the existing system of Society." No other party in this country occupies a similar position, and many who were once opposed to it on this particular point have been converted to its views. To those who still persist in such advocacy let us ask: "What are you out for?" Some will probably reply: "We are out for Socialism, but we know the working class cannot understand and struggle for Socialism until they are better fed and better housed than at present." And so they concentrate on feeding, housing, etc. If there were evidence to show that all well-fed and well-housed workers were in the forefront of the revolutionary struggle, one could understand their attitude. But there is none. Does it follow that those who throw off the shackles of religion, or who secure a "clear head" by giving up alcoholic liquors become Socialists? No, in very many cases they are pronounced anti-Socialists. And is the study of Socialism taken up and revolutionary change advocated by the well-fed domestics and flunkeys or by those whose efficiency as wage-slaves is studied by such "model" employers as the Cadburys. Levers, and the like? There is no more justification in arguing that the working class must be well fed, well clothed and decently housed before they can understand and organise for Socialism than there is for the opposite attitude that it is necessary to starve and grind them down before any real consciousness of their position and determination to alter it will possess them.

[From the Socialist Standard, March, 1908.]

Who are the Marxists? (1966)

Book Review from the June 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Socialist Review, International Socialism, 18s.

This book is a collection of articles from a now defunct journal, Socialist Review. Its former followers are now grouped around another journal, International Socialism. It is one of the many trotskyist offshoots which claim to be Marxist, yet which depart radically from Marx’s basic ideas on many points.

Marx argued that only the working class can free itself from wage-slavery. By working class he understood all those who, having no property, had to sell their working abilities for a wage in order to live. Today this class, composed of managers, clerks, factory workers, labourers and so on, run society from top to bottom. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, with Marx, holds that only they, acting as a united class, can be the agent of the social change from capitalism to socialism. IS sees the agent as only a section of this class, those who work in the factories, mines, railways and docks. In fact, it would be no exaggeration to say that they idealise this section of the working class. Seeing that most of the members of groups like IS are not themselves workers in these sorts of jobs their attitude verges on the condescending, of doing something for the poor, down-trodden workers. This attitude is a left-over from their Leninist past. Lenin, in contradiction to Marx, held that the workers were incapable of becoming socialists by themselves; they had to be introduced to socialist ideas by an enlightened vanguard. This vanguard would lead them against capitalism.

The IS group, like similar groups, has a reform programme which they call a "transitional programme." This is a programme designed to create a socialist understanding and to be realised as a transitional stage to Socialism. When these reforms are examined, for example, nationalisation of banks, national planning, State monopoly of foreign trade, it becomes clear that IS is saying that State capitalism is a necessary stage to Socialism. More than this, in fact, many of their members including some writers in this book clearly don't understand the difference between State Capitalism and Socialism; they really believe that nationalisation is Socialism and that wages, buying and selling, money, etc., will exist in Socialism. In their day-to-day propaganda the emphasis is on State capitalism rather, than Socialism as the solution to workers’ problems. The Socialist Party of Great Britain holds that capitalism has outlived its usefulness and that Socialism is possible as soon as the workers want it; there is no need for any State capitalist stage.

Finally, there is the inevitable r-r-revolutionary romanticism, the dreaming of mass strikes and street battles (read Cliff on the Belgian General Strike of 1960). This leads IS to dismiss with contempt the historically-evolved means to freedom—the vote. But at election times we witness the spectacle of people who dismiss the vote as “a scrap of paper" and Parliament as a “gas house" eagerly working for, and urging workers to vote for, one of the major capitalist parties in this country. This devotion to the Labour Party is maintained even when, as in Hampstead at the last election, they were faced with a socialist candidate. Not understanding the significance of the vote they use it and urge others to use it, to give political power to the owning class. Are they really Marxists?

Adam Buick

50 Years Ago: The Socialist Party and Social Reform (1959)

The 50 Years Ago column from the February 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party and Social Reform

In the S.P.G.B. we make but one stipulation, and that is that its members must be Socialists. The ranks of Social Reform include anybody with a pet fad who will adopt the formula: "I, too, am a Socialist, in some respects, ahem! but I think we want the Single Tax. or a paper currency, or State Ownership of the Ice Cream Carts, you know, first.” And so we find Joseph Fels, the single taxer, R. J. Campbell, the new theologian, Arthur Kitson, the currency crank, H. G. Wells, the sensational novelist, and hosts of others, representing all shades of faddism. up and down the whole gamut of puerile futility, all in the same camp and under the same many-coloured banner of “Social Reform."

— (From the Socialist Standard, February, 1909.)

• • •

The Purpose of Profit Sharing and Co-partnership

When trade is "booming" and the employer is making larger profits than usual, the “ungrateful” workman, despite the fact that he may be enjoying “plenty of work.” sometimes takes it into his head that he would like a slightly larger share of the wealth he has produced so abundantly, and taking a “mean advantage” of the employer, he threatens to strike unless his demands are granted. To have a strike to contend with means stoppage of production, and therefore, the losing of the opportunity of making those larger profits. The employer grates his teeth. Under his breath he curses the “wicked workers” who were not content . . .  to remain in the position in which capitalism has placed them. . . .

. . .  Here. then, are the two difficulties facing the capitalist—to get the “lazy" worker to speed up. and to prevent strikes taking place .at awkward moments—awkward, that is, for the capitalist’s profits. Labour Copartnership meets both these perils in a splendid way for the capitalist.

—(From the Socialist Standard, February, 1909.)

The United Front (1936)

From the April 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

Once again the question of the United Front has cropped up, and in the current issue of the Labour Monthly there is a series of articles devoted to this subject. Firstly, let us examine the article by John Lewis, late Labour candidate for Great Yarmouth. He is discussing the possible basis of unity with the Communist Party and writes: ". . .  all it (the Labour Party) can do is to lay down the minimum condition for real unity, which should be: 1, Abandonment of the revolutionary method and acceptance of Parliamentary transition to Socialism; 2, “Acceptance of the Socialist programme embodied in 'For Socialism and Peace'. " 

The first condition is too ambiguous to discuss here, but we will deal with the second. According to the official programme of the Labour Party in “For Socialism and Peace," under Socialism we are still going to have buying and selling, wages and rents, employers and employees. “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” and a more highly-organised Capitalism, run by the Labour Party, under the guise of Socialism, would certainly not abolish the problems of the working-class, but, on the contrary, would aggravate them. John Lewis continues: “We must fasten on proposals which are urgent, have a wide, humane appeal, and which, if carried out, will force us to go on and make retreat impossible. . . . This programme should be based on two fundamental principles: —

• "1. That the provision of a national minimum of food, clothing and shelter is desirable and possible.
• "2. That it cannot be impossible to set idle men to work on unused resources to make the things they need. This was the programme on which I fought the General Election at Yarmouth. We had a united front of Radicals, Lloyd Georgites, Labour, I.L.P., and C.P.” (Our italics.) There is certainly no reason why they should not have had the support of the National Government on such a brilliant “ fundamental ” programme!

Next comes an article by D. W. Flanagan, Editor of the Rotherhithe Labour News. He writes: “Our view is that the only alternative to Baldwin is Socialism.” Our view is that the only alternative to Capitalism is Socialism. Capitalism can be carried on just as well (or, rather, ill) whether Baldwin, Lloyd George, or Attlee, a National Government or a Labour Government, is at the helm. Mr. Flanagan continues: “Next we find that our arguments had not taken us far enough. We needed a programme of action. And this is roughly the Rotherhithe plan, which was first published in the Rotherhithe Labour News for January, 1936: —

  “The Labour Party local organisations throughout the country should initiate a united campaign as broad and representative as possible, to press for:
   “Repeal of all anti-working class and anti- Trade Union legislation.
   “The granting of 2s. per shift increase to the miners.
   “The end of the Means Test and the Hitler model labour camps.
   “Work or maintenance for the unemployed.
   “A peace pact with the Soviet Union and the French nation.
   “The end of the Naval Treaty with Hitler.
   “The imposition of oil sanctions against Mussolini in order to speed the downfall of Fascism.”

So this is the "revolutionary” programme of action that is going to rally the workers for the purpose of expropriating the most experienced and the most cunning ruling class the world has ever seen!

Is the S.P.G.B. opposed to working-class unity? On the contrary, the basis of our position is that Socialism will only be established when a majority of the working class unite for that purpose. But that unity must have a sound foundation, based on Socialist principles. Our main objection to a union of non-Socialist organisations is expressed by Mr. H. Bennett, late Labour candidate for Dover. He first of all stresses the non-Socialist character of the Labour Party. “I am assuming that we are considering this particular election as Socialists (his italics), as distinct from members (and/or candidates of the Labour Party, a very different thing) (our italics). . . . Suppose we decide to 'trim our sails' and go out for votes and, further, let us assume we get them, where are we then ? Would anyone suggest any party could proceed on such a basis to introduce Socialist measures?”

Precisely; if you fight an election on a programme of reforms, you will get votes, not from workers who desire the abolition of capitalism, but from those who still think that their economic problems can be solved within capitalism. If these reforms are put into operation, capitalism will still continue and the workers will still be wage-slaves. If, on the other hand, the reforms are not effected, then these people will turn in disappointment from the United Front and become excellent material for the mob oratory and the even more specious promises of the Hitlers and Mussolinis.

Once again we repeat the classic slogan, “Workers of the world, unite!” But with the understanding that they must unite, not for “work or maintenance,” or the “imposition of sanctions,” not for “London Transport Boards” or “Central Electricity Boards,” but for the purpose of stripping the capitalist class of its ownership of the means of production and distribution, making these common property, and thus establishing a classless society.

G. H. A.

Letter: The Policy of the Half-Loaf is Unworkable (1936)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

A reader of The Socialist Standard puts the following criticism of our propaganda : —

I am afraid that while admiring the principles of the S.P.G.B., I do not approve of the split in the Left Movement, which the S.P.G.B.’s denunciations of every other Left-wing group would undoubtedly open if ever they attained the position of putting up candidates for Parliament. I cannot really believe that the S.P.G.B. is the only party in step. If my opinion is wrong, then it can only be because I am not truly a Socialist; anyway, I stand for the half-a-loaf the Labour Party may give us soon, rather than the no bread which a series of antagonistic factions on the Left will give us. Solid achievements in Social Reform will, I think, bring us nearer to Socialism than theoretical propaganda, if carried out by a Labour Government pledged to revolutionary Socialism.

Reply.

The three points in our correspondent’s letter are (1) the desire for unity, (2) the value of “solid achievements in Social Reform,” and (3) the Labour Party as an instrument for gaining Socialism.

The desire for unity is one which arises naturally among workers who have begun to appreciate that the working class have interests in common. “One interest, why not one organisation?” But this vague conception of the identity of interests of the workers is not a sufficient basis for unity. Organisations with, broadly, the same aim of improving the conditions of the workers may be, and often are, seriously divided about objects and methods. In these circumstances real unity is impossible, and where two such organisations amalgamate or associate the friction is only transferred from the outside to the inside, without any advantage to the workers. The S.P.G.B. holds that democratic methods are the only methods by which Socialism can be achieved. How could we suspend pur condemnation of organisations which advocate other methods which we know will cause nothing but loss and suffering to the workers? During war-time, various so-called workers’ organisations are found actively supporting war. How can the S.P.G.B. refrain from denouncing them? The fact that. some organisations have working class members and claim to be aiming at improving the condition of the workers does not rule out the possibility that their programmes may be useless, their methods dangerous and their activities harmful to the workers.

The phrase, “solid achievements in social reform,” is a mistaken one. It does not fit the facts. The idea of the Labour Party is that on the firm basis of the workers’ existing standard of living a “solid achievement” of reforms can be built up, so that the workers will get better and better off, and be freed from one after another of the evils resulting from capitalism. This conception is wholly wrong. There is, under capitalism, no solid basis on which to build, and there is no means by which the workers under capitalism can be saved from the evils of capitalism. The workers cannot be protected from permanent unemployment, or from the catastrophic effects of capitalist crises, except by abolishing capitalism. In this year 1936, over thirty years since the Labour Party began its work, there is not one major problem solved or on the way to solution. The workers are still poor and miserably housed, while the number unemployed or directly threatened with unemployment is larger than ever. Neither the slum problem nor the “low-wage” problem has been solved. The danger of war has not been removed or lessened. Where, then, are the solid achievements which our correspondent fancies are preferable to Socialism? No such choice exists. For the workers now, as in 1900, the only chance is between the capitalism that is and the Socialism that might be.

The next point we are asked to consider is the likelihood of Socialism being advanced by “a Labour Government pledged to revolutionary Socialism.” We cannot admit our correspondent’s case, because there is not and cannot be such a thing as a Labour Government "pledged to revolutionary Socialism.” The whole essence of Labourism (as indeed is emphasised by our correspondent earlier in his letter) is that it works not for “revolutionary Socialism” but by seeking social reforms. Before it will be possible to have the political machinery controlled by an organised majority "pledged to revolutionary Socialism,” the theoretical propaganda which our correspondent rejects will have had to be carried to the mass of the workers. How else can they come to understand and want Socialism?

The S.P.G.B. holds that there is only one problem and only one solution. The means of production and distribution must be made the common property of society. Articles must be produced simply for use, freely, by the members of society. The Labour Party does not seek this solution. On the contrary, in theory as well as in practice, it rejects it. The Labour Party does not contemplate even the possibility of the destruction of the whole mechanism of buying and selling, of profit making, of incomes from property. While the Socialist works only for a social system in which the necessities of life will be provided freely for all and the work of production will be organised on a co-operative basis without employers and employed, the Labour Party dismisses all that as visionary and Utopian, and builds its schemes on the continuance of the wages system, buying and selling, banking and credit operations, etc. The S.P.G.B. says that there is no solution except common ownership, with all its implications mentioned above. All the rest are indeed out of step with us. Our correspondent wants unity, but wants it by bringing us into step with the Labour Parties. The only unity worth having is unity for Socialism. It can only come about when the workers who now march with the Labour army break step with them and fall into line with us.

Ed. Comm.

#    #    #    #

RAMBLE O’ER SURREY HILLS

Leatherhead, Mickleham, Ranmore Common, etc., on Monday, April 13th. Meet at London Bridge (Findlaters Corner), 10 a.m. (or at Epsom Stn. at 11 a.m.). Fare and tea, approximately 3/6.

Titbits From The I.L.P. Stewpot (1943)

From the May 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

The I.L.P. of 1943 is bang in trouble, although present-day defenders of the I.L.P. take no responsibility for the trickery and treachery imposed on the working class by the I.L.P. in its "march to power"; they must realise that if the I.L.P. is made up of the same stuff as in previous years, then their dope just won't go down as easy. 1943 has a working class much different, politically, from that of 1929. Scotland has had a generous helping of I.L.P. leadership; in 1929, of the 37 labour representatives elected in Scotland, 36 were members of the I.L.P. The following telegram was sent to Ramsay Mac’: 

  "Scottish I.L.P. congratulate you on your leadership in the magnificent success for Labour and Socialism at the polls" (Glasgow Herald, June 3rd, 1929). 

36 members of the I.L.P. in Parliament, representing thousands of Scottish workers, naturally gave the I.L.P. ideas, so they made this historic statement:

  "We stand as the ruling class in Scotland, and if we have not got complete control of Great Britain, we are going to have the opportunity of ruling Great Britain. It is not fitting that the ruling, class should go in rags." (Glasgow Herald, June 3rd, 1929.) 

Despite the fact that the I.L.P. stood as the ruling class in Scotland, no difference was noticed in the hellish conditions of the working-class in Scotland.

Glasgow, a hotbed of I.L.P.ism, to this day retains its rat-infested slums, and has the highest infantile death rate of any town in Great Britain. Yes! many of the workers that voted for the I.L.P. still live and remember.

But let's forget the past; these men were villains. Live for the future; let's have a Socialist Britain now! so say the present defenders of I.L.P.ism. Is the 1943 I.L.P. any different?—To the Socialist, the present-day programme of the I.L.P. in no way differs from the Keir Hardie days. It is the same reformism that was embraced by Ramsay MacDonald, Philip Snowden, Sir Oswald Mosley, and others. To-day it suits the Catholic M.P, for Shettleston, Mr. McGovern, and his opposite number, Mr. Maxton.

Should one find it inconvenient to be an I.L.P. M.P., then one can change over to the Labour Party, as did George Buchanan, M.P. for Gorbals.

The present policy of the I.L.P. is, as before, vote-catching; it parades its anti-war policy as socialistic; the P.P.U. or the N.C.L. might as well make a similar claim—they have as much justification as the l.L.P. to do so. The S.P.G.B. warned the I.L.P. and other organisations that they would have to face, sooner or later, a politically intelligent working class, a working class that by bitter experience have reached a measure of political understanding that will not tolerate the impudent nostrums and insults previously thrust on their fellow men by unscrupulous leaders using such labels as I.L.P., L.P., and C.P. There is a growing tendency amongst the modern working class to examine the political and economic structure of capitalist society, when enough of these workers get the fundamentals of political economy, then the reformists will surely become the doomed battalion.

The rank and file of the I.L.P. are not concerned with the Socialist case from a scientific point of view; they indulge in hero-worship and a lazy mental outlook, both political and religious. This can be proven by the present trouble inside the ''Socialism in Britain now” movement, on the .religious question and also their policy.

Page 4 of the New Leader, January 16th, 1943, is devoted to an article by John McGovern, M.P., headed "This is the Year of Our Opportunity.” He says: "Let us purge our minds of doubts, our bodies of laziness, and our hearts of cowardice, and let us face the tasks of 1943.”

Before McGovern asks anyone to do anything, he should clear up some of the mess that at present is prevalent inside the I.L.P. A controversy, "Catholics and Socialism,” has been going on in the pages of the New Leader. F. A. Ridley has upset the apple cart again by his slashing attacks on the Catholic Church; this is resented by the Catholic element inside the I.L.P. and endorsed by the non-Catholic element. Let us examine three contributions from the New Leader, January 16th, 1943, on this question.

Harry Carr, Manchester, writes attacking Ridley. He says: "Amongst the mildest of Ridley's recent assertions from his fortnightly pulpit was that 'Christianity to-day had little enough to do with Christ.' He now says categorically that no Catholic can be a loyal Socialist.

"If the l.L.P. as a body supports him in this, then these of us who value freedom of conscience will know what to do. I hope I have made myself clear.”

Mr. Carr has certainly made himself clear.

R. Gray, Motherwell, also makes himself clear. He defends Ridley. He says : "May I quote a passage from the Encyclical letter 'Quadragesimo Anno' on the Pope's opinion on Socialism? Whether Socialism be considered as a doctrine, or a historical, fact, or as a movement, if it really remains Socialism, it cannot be brought into harmony with the dogmas of the Catholic Church, even if it has yielded to truth and justice in the points we have mentioned, the reason being that it conceives human society in a way utterly alien to Christian truth.' Pope Pius XI. then states: 'No one can be at the same time a sincere Catholic and a true Socialist.' ”

Mr. Fenner Brockway, Editor of the New Leader, gives the l.L.P. position on this question. He says: "So far as the l.L.P. is concerned, it must, of course, retain the liberty to criticise any institution whose policy is detrimental to the achievement of Socialism, but it applies no religious test to membership to the party, believing this to be a matter for the individual.” (New Leader, January 16th, 1943).

To the writer, Brockway means that you can be a Catholic and a Socialist at the same time. Ridley will agree with B. Gray of Motherwell that you cannot.

McGovern will agree with Brockway and the Pope at the same time.

Harry Carr of Manchester is in a helluva mess, but so is the I.L.P.

We of the S.P.G.B. have no religious axe to grind with any Church or the I.L.P.; a plague on both their houses.

Scientific Socialists have no room for religious or political nonsense. Our position is if you are a true Christian you are not a Socialist; further, if you support the 1943 policy of the I.L.P., you are a defender of capitalism.

Ridley creates further trouble for the I.L.P.—he states in Left, January, 1943:

  "What is the future role of the I.L.P.? At present, it is the only party in this country with even an ostensibly revolutionary character and policy; As such it has the entire field to itself. It has, literally, no competitors.
   "If the I.L.P. can become a revolutionary party in fact as in name, if it can forget the reformist past and concentrate on the revolutionary future, it has an unique opportunity both to lead the British masses forward to their inevitable show-down with the imperialists who rule them . . . "

Ridley knows the reformist character of the I.L.P. Whether or not 1943 produces a revolutionary I.L.P. remains to be seen. The present constitution of the I.L.P. convicts it as a reformist party, still advocating leadership, believing in great men, etc. Therefore, there is more trouble ahead for the I.L.P. and other reformist organisations.

The political intelligence of the working class is rising, hence the difficulty of the Independent Labour Party to survive. The Socialist Party of Great Britain is to-day reaping the benefit for its clear cut policy and strict adherence to Socialist principles along the lines laid down by Marx and Engels.

Gadfly.

Poverty and the minimum wage (1984)

From the January 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is, and always has been, a feature of capitalism that there are big differences in wealth and income between rich property-owners and propertyless workers, but also big differences in wages within the working class. The solution is to get rid of capitalism and establish socialism, in which there will be no incomes from property ownership and no wages system: all the members of society will have free access to the products of industry. At one time leading members of the Labour Party, including Sidney Webb and Bernard Shaw, endorsed that idea. The first chairman and leader of the Labour Party, Keir Hardie, declared that the Labour Party existed to achieve it. The Labour Party then abandoned the aim its leaders had once proclaimed (or, as they said, “postponed” it). They did so on the ground that it was essential to be “practical" and to deal at once with the pressing evils of capitalism.

One of the immediate problems that they were going to deal with at once was the existence of large numbers of workers on very low pay. All sorts of remedies have been tried but have been a total failure. Not only is the problem still with us but, according to an independent body — the Low Pay Unit — the lowest paid workers were relatively worse off in 1980 than they had been 95 years earlier when figures were first collected. The Labour Party's programme at the last General Election brought the failure story up to date:

 The next Labour Government will launch an offensive against low pay as part of our strategy for equality. The problem of low pay remains acute both in relative and absolute terms. If low pay at present is defined as less than two-thirds of average male manual workers’ earnings, there were 3 million full-time low-paid workers in 1982, of whom 2 million were women workers. Adding to these figures young workers, part-time workers and home workers, produces a total in the region of about 6 million — a great majority of whom are women.

One supposed remedy was more nationalisation and the expansion of local government services; but many of the “low-paid” are to be found in central and local government and the nationalised industries.

Another alleged cure for poverty was the Beveridge social security scheme after World War II and its accompanying pledge of “full employment” and no more depressions. It has failed in both respects. Along with 3½ million unemployed the depression has increased the number of “low-paid" workers. And this is the SDP-Liberal Alliance's verdict on the social security aspect:

  William Beveridge has been mutilated over the years. Instead of a basic benefit, which was to secure for the old, the sick and the unemployed a tolerable minimum standard of living as of right, we have a complex network of benefits dependent on 44 different means tests. Many people are dependent on benefits which are woefully inadequate.

So the Alliance sees the need for a new Beveridge scheme to remove the accumulated deficiencies of the old one, and to include a new feature, the payment of benefit to low-paid workers in addition to their wages.

Another remedy was to be the election of a Labour government. Their 1918 programme, Labour and the new Social Order, committed a future Labour government to introduce a “national minimum” wage to be applied by law in all fields — employment, unemployment, the sick and the pensioners. In 1935 the leader of the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, in his book The Will and the Way to Socialism, said that the next Labour government would create “an equalitarian society" — the rich and the poor would both disappear. "It would", he wrote, "work to reduce the purchasing power of the wealthier classes, while by wage increases and by the provision of social services it will expand the purchasing power of the masses". When he became Prime Minister in 1945 it was his government which introduced the first of the "incomes policies" designed, among other things, to prevent wages from rising.

At one time it was thought that the remedy for low pay was trade union organisation, but it came up against the problem of industries in which unions did not exist or were quite ineffective. In 1909 the Liberal government created “trade boards" (later renamed Wages Councils) for the industries with "sweated" wages. The councils, made up of representatives of employers and workers, along with “independent" members, were empowered to fix minimum rates which were enforced by law. Wages Councils still exist and it is among the workers in these industries that many of the Labour Party’s "low paid” are to be found. An extension of the Wages Council minimum rates for separate industries, is the proposal for a national minimum to apply generally. The 1983 Labour Party election programme included the statement "we will also discuss with the TUC the possibility of introducing a statutory minimum wage", and this has been taken up by Neil Kinnock.

The minimum wage schemes come up against the facts of life of capitalism. The capitalists are in business to make profit; from the capitalist standpoint the only productive worker is one who brings profit to his employer. If the capitalists cannot make profit by employing workers, they do not employ them. While many companies can adjust themselves to paying wages negotiated with the unions and still make a profit, there are others who can stay in business only if they can get workers at very low pay. If compelled to pay more, they fold up..

This situation was dealt with in 1973 in a report by the Prices and Incomes Board, who said that the enforcement of higher rates in certain low pay fields "results in unemployment among low paid workers whom employers no longer consider worth employing at the higher rates". Some advocates of minimum rates show a remarkable blindness to the realities of capitalism. Where it is a question of the criminal law they know, from the millions of crimes every year, that the enactment of laws against bank robberies, burglaries and so on, does not mean that those crimes do not happen. Where it concerns statutory minimum wages they think it is different, but it is not. The Low Pay Unit reported in 1976 about the Wages Council industries: "In 1974, the last year for which figures are available, 13.4 per cent of employers checked as a matter of routine, were paying below the legal minimum compared with 7.9 per cent four years before". In 1983 the Unit reported: "Last year 35.1 per cent of employers inspected were paying below the minimum compared with 31.5 per cent the year before".

What happens, particularly at times of heavy unemployment, is that workers receiving less than the legal minimum prefer to keep their jobs rather than report the underpayment. In the depression years of the Thirties the National Congress of the Agricultural Workers Union said that more than half the farm workers were being paid less than the legal minimum wage and cases were known of agricultural workers who, having received illegally withheld pay after an inspector had intervened, gave the money back to the farmer in order to keep their jobs.

Realising that the levels of minimum wages they wanted to enforce would result in workers losing their jobs, some advocates of statutory minimum wages have proposed to get over the difficulty by the government subsidising the industries concerned. This was in fact done under the Corn Production Act 1917. The Act guaranteed prices to farmers for their produce and introduced minimum rates for farm workers in order to meet the shortage of food caused by the German submarine attacks on shipping. The farmers did very well out of it, but farm workers' wages failed even to keep up with the increased cost of living. When the war-time emergency was over the Act was scrapped. Farming is heavily subsidised now and farm workers have statutory minimum wages, but it has not prevented farm workers being among the Labour Party's 6 million low paid.

All the schemes in three quarters of a century to solve the problem of “low pay” have failed, and further schemes promise no greater success. The Socialist Party of Great Britain was right in the first place in holding that this and the other problems of capitalism will not be solved while capitalism continues.

Edgar Hardcastle

Morrison's Child (1936)

From the April 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

We Socialists are out for the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life, by, and in the interest of, the whole people. This is to be brought about by the education of the workers in Socialist principles, to the end that the workers will organise with us to capture the political machinery, and so be in a position to control the armed forces, and thus be able to dictate terms to the capitalist class. When we tell people this we are by many called dreamers, or told that such a proposal is too far-fetched, or too far off.

We are told that a more “reasonable” way, and one getting “better” results, is to lay such an object aside and go in for “something now,” and so gradually "build up” Socialism. This is a favourite method of the Labour Party, the I.L.P. and many ex-Liberals. They say that industry is to be gradually taken over and the owners compensated or given a guaranteed dividend, and their previously competing concerns amalgamated and run as a public utility corporation, responsible to nobody but themselves. This, we are told, is achieving “Socialism in our time.” Let us see how this pans out from the people’s point of view.

Some little time ago the various transport undertakings within 25 miles of London were absorbed into what is now known as London Passenger Transport Board, and a certain Mr. Morrison, Chairman of the L.C.C., played quite a part in “welding up” this concern, so much so that it is often referred to as "Morrison’s Child.” The scheme was initiated by the last Labour Government. Since it has been in actual operation, time and again the workers! conditions have been tightened up. Frequent stoppages have taken place on Green Line, trams, ’buses and trolley-’buses, so it may be taken for granted that the labour conditions are not all they might be. But for the owners, “the Board,” what a difference: No competition, no fare cuts, no “redundant” services now. Let the public wait and travel when and how we like; all fares now come in to us, and our income is more secure than before. That is how two out of the three parties stand.

Now for how the ”customers,” the public, are served.

There is no need to labour this point to Londoners. They all well know the morning and evening scrambles, and queueing up, and the delays in the centre through volume of traffic, and delays in the suburbs through depletion of services. A writer in Reynolds's (February 6th, 1936) gives details as to where the services have been cut down and "re-organised” since the amalgamations. He went to Broadway House for some explanations. He got them. This is what “the Board’s spokesman” told him: —

  “Our first duty, imposed by Parliament, is to our shareholders.”
  “To achieve the necessary financial results, we want to make sure that every train, tram and ’bus is filled as nearly as possible. Our idea is that there should be no empty seats. We want paying loads only.”

So that accounts for the delays and scrambles. Wait till they get a “paying” (profitable) load. As for your “getting there,” well, when we are ready, and don’t forget “our first duty is to our shareholders,” the capitalists, the owners.

That is a bit of Herbert Morrison’s “Socialism in the making,” and ’twere best left alone. The position is much the same with the Electricity Board and the Grid.

It is quite futile to waste time on such reforms and the parties which sponsor them. Organising for straight revolutionary Socialism alone is worth while for the working class, and to this end we ask you to join us.

C. V. R.

"Red" Vienna and "Red" London (1929)

From the October 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

In recent years we have heard much talk of the wonders of Vienna under its Labour Council. It has been held up as a model of “Socialist” administration, although there is nothing in its record of municipal houses and baths, etc., which has anything whatever to do with Socialism. Vienna, to many members of the I.L.P. and the Labour Party, has been the equivalent of Moscow to the Communists: a sort of Mecca. Now Mr. Herbert Morrison, M.P., Minister of Transport and former Secretary of the London Labour Party, has been to Vienna, and comes back to tell us that capitalism in Vienna is just like our own brand. He says (Daily Herald, 10th September) “it would be misleading to say that Vienna is, in general ahead of English towns.” There is one other little thing we learn from his visit to Vienna. That is that the Viennese Labourites are just as credulous and willing to believe tall stories as their British counterpart. To the I.L.P. Capitalist Vienna is “Red Vienna,” and to the Viennese, London, it appears, is “Red London.” In the Arbeiter-Zeitung (Vienna, 4th September), an article on the electoral successes of the London Labour Parties describes Mr. Morrison as “The man who has made London red.”

We who, unfortunately, live in London and carry on the uphill work of trying to make Socialists did not know that Mr. Morrison had already done this for us. We did not even know that Mr. Morrison and his party were trying to. So also our Socialist friends in Vienna were completely unaware that Vienna is "Socialist Vienna," and although Mr. Morrison now informs them of this fact they still refuse to be persuaded. It requires distance to lend enchantment to the view of capitalism when seen from the angle of the factory bench, the office desk, the working class home, or the Labour Exchange.

Edgar Hardcastle

Unemployment and the S.D.P. (1909)

From the January 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Quelch recently went to Burnley to lecture for the S.D.P. on “How to deal with Unemployment.” He advocated the abolition of child labour, an eight-hour day, and production for use in co-operative colonies. If this is really Mr. Quelch’s way of dealing with unemployment, it is certainly not our conception of the Socialist way, and as our conception has at least a sporting chance of being the correct one, we offered, through our Burnley members, to debate the matter with him. Although he had been deploring the absence of Mr. F. Maddison, with whom he professed a desire to have a bout, he declined our challenge. We repeat it now.

He stated in answer to a question, that now the workers are getting a better share relatively and actually than ever they were. If he is of the opinion that the worker's position is improving, and that the abolition of child labour, the establishment of an eight-hour day and co-operative colonies, are all that are required to deal with the unemployed problem, we most heartily invite him to discuss the matter with us, who do not believe either that the condition of the working class improves with the development of capitalism, or that any of his propositions will touch the social problem of unemployment with any degree of adequacy, but assert, on the contrary, that the position of the working class is more insecure, more precarious, than ever it was, that the only way to deal with the unemployed problem is to abolish the economic system to which it belongs (capitalism) by organising the workers into a political party for that purpose, such party being the Socialist Party of Great Britain. We shall be glad to hear from Mr. Quelch, or any of his satellites on this matter.

Mr. W. Thorne, M.P., apparently holds views similar to those of Mr. Quelch. At the Conference at the Guildhall held to discuss this matter he said, vide Daily News report, 7.12.08, “He was convinced that if a regular eight-hours day were adopted there would very soon be little or no unemployment." This indicates an utterly fallacious notion of the origin of unemployment. Unless and until wages represent the whole of the workers’ produce (and they never will so long as they are wages) the difference between the quantity produced and the quantity the workers are able to buy back with their wages, plus the quantity actually consumed by the capitalists, will by its very accumulation inevitably bring about the periodical stoppage or partial stoppage of production, with its resulting starvation problem for the workers.

Mr. Hyndman, writing in our revered contemporary, the alleged organ of the Social Democracy, just prior to the Conference at the Guildhall, passes over the eight-hour proposition for treatment at the Conference. We see no reference in the reports to any contribution from him to the discussion, beyond the startling information that Mr. Fels is a capitalist. Mr. Hyndman, however, put his faith in the organisation of the unemployed in co-operative colonies, where the workers will be enabled to maintain themselves without competing or interfering with capitalism. How even this could be done, supposing it to be possible, while the capitalist class remain in power, is not clear, while its adoption by a capitalist Government would establish its ineffectiveness as a solution of the problem, which, in the words of Mr. Hyndman himself, “is a necessity for the capitalist system."

Again we assert the only remedy for unemployment to be the abolition of the capitalist system which causes it, and the establishment of Socialism.

Dick Kent

The Common Wealth Party and State Capitalism (1947)

From the October 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

In our August issue, in the article “Why Can’t we all get Together?”, the statement was made that the Common Wealth Party supports State Capitalism. On August 17th we received from Mr. W. J. Taylor, Political Secretary of Common Wealth, a letter of protest which contained the following:—

   “I was amazed to read in the August issue of the Socialist Standard the following sentence: 'We are utterly opposed to the support of State Capitalism given by Common Wealth.' I am not, of course, amazed that the S.P.G.B. is opposed to support for State Capitalism; but I am at the suggestion that Common Wealth gives such support. 'Nationalisation is not Socialism' is the title of one of our pamphlets, issued shortly before the S.P.G.B. pamphlet of a similar name, 'Nationalisation or Socialism?’ In this pamphlet it is clearly shown that mere nationalisation is not, in itself, Socialism. In fact, this is one of our major points of difference with the present miscalled 'Socialist Government’.”

We replied to Mr. Taylor in a letter dated August 28th:

  "We would first point out that disagreement with the Labour Government’s method of operating Nationalisation and a desire to have nationalised industries operated differently does not in any way meet our criticism. It merely means that you and they both favour State Capitalism but disagree on more or less important details.
    "May we refer to 'Common Wealth Manifesto’ (Second Edition, August, 1943) in which you make it perfectly clear that Common Wealth intends to retain all the essential features of capitalism, in the State Capitalist form. You are going to Nationalise 'all credit and investment institutions’—what function can they perform under Socialism? You are specifically retaining the wages system, which again is quite incompatible with Socialism. To clinch the matter you state (p.8) that what you describe (wrongly) as common ownership is State Capitalism as it exists in Russia.”

We received from Mr. Taylor a further letter dated August 30th which contained the following:

  The 'Manifesto’ to which you refer has not been re-printed since the split in the party in September, 1945, when this issue of State Capitalism was the fundamental underlying the division of opinion in the party. That ‘Manifesto’ will not be re-issued—a new one has been in course of preparation for some time.
  'The pamphlet to which I referred in my previous letter 'Nationalisation is not Socialism' states categorically ‘ The wages system . . . must be abolished.'
   "Recent publications by this party—and notably articles in our monthly Review have shown our changed viewpoint regarding the U.S.S.R. and its State Capitalism.
   "The purpose of 'nationalisation of credit and investment institutions4 is an obvious one—one nationalises (or brings them under common ownership to put it more accurately) for the express purpose of destroying their capitalist function. One cannot create socialism over-night, and though I do not here intend to be drawn into a discussion on the transition period, which would be short and as abrupt as it could be made, it is quite apparent to anyone not completely blinded by wishful thinking that remnants of capitalism will continue to exist for a long time (though diminishing steadily) after the major battle has been fought and won. The remnants of feudalism are still with us.
   "If the issue is one of ultimate aims, then it is doubtful if there is much between us—if it is one of attainment of those aims, then there is—and I most certainly would not object to criticism of that nature, based on facts. I do, however, consider that you are neither advancing the cause of Socialism, nor even the cause of your own party (two not necessarily identical objectives) by ill-informed and misrepresenting comments of the kind to which my earlier letter referred." 

It will be noticed that Mr. Taylor does not claim that Common Wealth always opposed State Capitalism but only that in September, 1945, it ceased giving support and went over to opposition. This in itself deserves some comment. Socialism and State Capitalism are opposites; nobody can support both at the same time. Nobody who understands Socialism could imagine that State Capitalism is the same as Socialism or could support it. It is, of course, possible for an individual who once supported State Capitalism and opposed Socialism, to learn the error of his ways and come to support Socialism and oppose State Capitalism, but this does not explain the antics of Common Wealth. Mr. Taylor says that they supported State Capitalism before September, 1945; what he does not point out is that before 1945, as afterwards, they claimed that their aim was Socialism based on Common Ownership of the means of production and distribution.

The only possible explanation is that before 1945 they had not a glimmering of understanding of what is meant by Socialism and Common Ownership.

It remains to consider whether they are in any better state now. Mr. Taylor would say that they are. He claims that they are now in favour of the abolition of the wages system and recognise that Socialists must be opposed to State Capitalism. He quotes the following passage from a Common Wealth pamphlet as proof of his assertion: “The wages system . . . must be abolished.” The interesting part of this quotation is not what it says but what it leaves out, for the whole passage from page 2 of the pamphlet “ Nationalisation is not Socialism” actually reads:

   “The wages system as we now know it must be abolished . . . ” (Our italics).

And if there is any doubt that Common Wealth is still in favour of the wages system it is only necessary to go to the September issue of Common Wealth Review where we read in an article on the incentives of a Socialist society ‘‘We must accept the need for a planned system of wages and prices and reject the old bargaining methods by sectional interests.” (P.ll).

In short, Common Wealth’s idea of Socialism and common ownership still is, as it always was, State Capitalism.

Mr. Taylor’s letter of August 30th contains two other points that require comment. Asked what function credit and investment institutions could serve under Socialism (when production will be solely for use and the wages system will have been abolished) Mr. Taylor replies that when Common Wealth declares for the "Nationalisation of credit and investment institutions ” the purpose is to bring them "under common ownership,” and destroy ‘‘their capitalist function.” Could anything be more muddled? May we ask Mr. Taylor just how credit and investment institutions can be commonly owned, and how institutions that exist only for the purpose of carrying on Capitalism can be shorn of their capitalist function and retained. What are their functions other than capitalist ones?

It will be observed that Mr. Taylor still claims that common ownership is a more accurate way of describing nationalisation, when in fact the two terms mean something entirely different.

The other point is Mr. Taylor’s statement that remnants of capitalism will continue to exist for a long time under Socialism, a statement that he backs up with a reference to the remnants of feudalism which continued under capitalism. What he overlooks, and it is a fundamental point, is that feudalism and capitalism are both of them systems based on private ownership and the exploitation of one class by another. Socialism means the end of class ownership and exploitation. That is why there is no analogy with the retention of feudal remnants under capitalism. Under Socialism there cannot be, either for a long period or a short one, a continuation of class ownership and class exploitation. Common Wealth still confuses the issue by describing as Socialism, to which it is opposed, State Capitalism, to which it gives support.

Editorial Committee

Day-to-Day Runners of Capitalism - Part 1 (1956)

From the December 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Before we get down to the matter in hand, it would be as well to make quite clear our own position on the question of political power. We shall be concerned with the plight of those who form governments under Capitalism and who try to persuade us that, with the proper policy and leadership, this system can run in the interests of everybody and even gradually disappear and become something other than just plain Capitalism.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain is often accused, when we argue with Labourites and so-called Communists, of “splitting the workers.” They claim it would better serve the interests of Socialism if we stopped being “puritans" and joined them in the “day-to-day struggle.”

Our answer to these assertions is, and always has been, that we will join with any organisation provided it devotes its activities entirely to Socialism, and we have always pointed out that there can never be more than one Party in any country standing for Socialism, for the instant (supposing it so happened) two identical parties arose both firmly based on the principle of the class-struggle and clearly advocating political action for Socialism and Socialism alone, they would already be AS ONE and could but merge to form one body.

While they claim to stand for Socialism, such organisations as the Labour Party, Independent Labour Party, and the so-called Communist Party all have reform programmes of “immediate demands” on which they seek votes and, because their “something now” policies attract the support of non-Socialist voters, when elected they INEVITABLY find they have no mandate to do anything other than run CAPITALISM.

Clearly their behaviour brands them, one and all, as mere parties of capitalism, and denies them any real claim to being part of the “working-class movement for Socialism.” We in the S.P.G.B. have always clearly explained Socialism, and when contesting elections have asked for votes on that ALONE; therefore, we could never become the guardians of the system we detest.

For us Socialism can have only one Party and only one meaning; i.e., a system of living under which the means of production-land, factories and machinery, etc., are in the COMMON holding of the WHOLE community. The wages system will cease to exist, there will be no classes, and instead of buying and selling for the profit of the few, goods and services will be freely available for USE by all. We further hold that this can only arise as the result of the conscious political triumph of the world working-class in their struggle against their only real enemy, the world capitalist class.

While the left wingers clamour for a change of government, we concern ourselves with what really matters, not a change of office boys, but a change of system.

We maintain that the wages system the world over is proof of workers being exploited, either for the benefit of private shareholders or government bondholders. Those who pretend that the State can be identified with the workers would ask us to accept the absurd notion that in Iron Curtain Capitalism workers really pay themselves wages and get the profits they create back, after due deductions for the H-bomb war machine, etc. Capitalism means wage labour for the majority precisely because they are PROPERTYLESS and have no “means of living” other than hiring themselves out to an employer. Need we add the claptrap about "raising living standards” (if only workers work harder) was in common use in the capitalist world long before the present Russian rulers appeared. It is obvious to us, as it was to Marx, that it is for the wealth workers produce OVER and ABOVE the value of their wages that they are employed, and from which alone all interest, rent and profit can be explained.

It is a fundamental difference between ourselves and all other parties that they embrace LEADERSHIP while we reject it. Workers only need leaders while they do not, know either the objective or the method; no “spearhead” or “thinking minority” can ever lead the working-class to Socialism, because leadership implies the ignorance of the followers. Like Marx and Engels, we have always maintained that the movement for Socialism is the “conscious movement of the immense majority in the interest of the immense majority.” (Communist Manifesto).

We find our work of propagating Socialism made very much harder by the confusion spread amongst workers by these “left wingers.”

An example of their confusion emerged from the reports of Mr. Tom Driberg, on a recent interview in Moscow with Mr. Krushchev, which appeared in Reynolds News for the 9th and 16th of September, 1956. At this interview, before the word spinning about the British Labour Party began, comment was made on the activities of the so-called French Socialist Party (S.F.I.O.). Mr. Krushchev did not deny this party’s claim to the title “Socialist,” but merely bemoaned the fact that they had “formed a government which was waging a colonial war in Algeria, and its leaders were obliged, in order to retain power, to take account of right wing views.” The fact that S.F.I.O. sought no mandate from its electors for Socialism and is therefore engaged in the business of running capitalism goes unnoticed by both Krushchev and Driberg; since the latter are themselves concerned in the same system, it is necessary for them to ignore fundamentals.

Labour Government
Referring to the Labour Party, Krushchev said: “God knows what it presents, it is not Socialist in aim,” and further on: “I think some Conservatives are to the left of Gaitskell.” He did not say why the Daily Worker and the British Communist Party support (at the moment) the Labour Party under Gaitskell against the more “left wing” Conservative elements. He also failed miserably to understand that left and right wings are inseparable parts of the same capitalist vulture.

Driberg in explanation said: “Our PROGRAMME for the next election could not yet be discussed, since it had not yet been worked out; that we are at present issuing statements on many aspects of POLICY which would be discussed at our Annual Party Conferences; and that a basic PRINCIPLE of the Labour Party was the basic Socialist principle of common ownership of the means of production” (his emphasis). The error contained in the end of this statement went unchallenged by Krushchev because to him, as to Driberg, common ownership means nationalisation. The Labour Party has no “basic” principles except the desire for power; if it had it would not be looking for a “programme.” From time to time the phrase “common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange,” has cropped up, but the inclusion of “exchange” nullifies the rest. Common ownership can only mean free access, “exchange” is a relationship between owning groups or classes.

Krushchev, still blaming “wrong” leadership, said: “Take your existing leaders—they are more afraid of Socialism than the Conservatives are. They talk about Socialism because the word is popular with the intellectuals now as well as with the masses. It is the same elsewhere: even Mr. Nehru, who is neither a Communist nor a Socialist, talks about a Socialist Plan for India. It’s the same in Burma and Indonesia . . Interesting to note that when the interview ended Mr. Krushchev dashed away to a “luncheon” that Bulganin was giving in honour of the President of Indonesia!

Russia, of course, claims to have no “imperialist motives,” but her “peaceful co-existence” in her quest for world markets is capitalist co-existence, for exactly the same COMMERCIAL relationships confront the whole capitalist world.

Mr. Driberg wrote that people “ often use the same words—words like ‘freedom' and ‘democracy' and ‘socialism' to mean different things,” but he “would remind Mr. Krushchev, with respect, that Soviet leaders themselves have repeatedly told us that they agree that there can be more roads than one to Socialism.” It is sadly true that the words freedom, democracy and, above all, Socialism mean different things to different people, and two great contributors to this lack of clarity are the Labour and so-called Communist Parties. As for '“Soviet leaders” who agree there are “different roads to Socialism ” this only shows that Mr. Nehru is not the only one who has found Socialism a word “popular ” with the masses.

Shifting to the Conservative Party, Mr. Driberg said: “Now I do hope that, just because Mr. Krushchev happened to meet a few individual Conservatives who talked in a progressive way, he is not misled about the essential character of the Conservative Party itself. It exists to promote the interest of capitalist big business. It is the Tory Party, and nobody else, that is the ‘enemy of the working-class.' ” Too bad the Labourites and Muskovites did not know this when, during the war, they lined up and formed a coalition with these “real” enemies to fight the Germans. A shame also that Mr. Driberg’s memory of rising profits and frozen wages under the Labour Government which left “capitalist big business” as they found it, having secured government guarantees for State bondholders in the industries they nationalised, should have failed him.

Their insistence on not seeing the wood for the trees and their avoidance of obvious conclusions from their own position, inevitably made an utter farce of the whole interview.

Harry Baldwin

(To be continued).