Socialist Standard November 2020 1 Introducing the Socialist Party

The Socialist Party advocates a society developing Russian capitalism under a where production is freed from the one-party dictatorship. Both failures have artificial constraints of profit and given socialism a quite different -- and organised for the benefit of all on the unattractive -- meaning: state ownership basis of material abundance. It does not and control. As the Socialist Standard have policies to ameliorate aspects of pointed out before both courses were the existing social system. It is opposed followed, the results would more properly to all war. be called state capitalism. The Socialist Standard is the combative The Socialist Party and the World monthly journal of the Socialist Party, Socialist Movement affirm that capitalism published without interruption since is incapable of meaningful change in 1904. In the 1930s the Socialist Standard the interests of the majority; that the explained why capitalism would not basis of exploitation is the wages/money collapse of its own accord, in response to system. The Socialist Standard is proud widespread claims to the contrary, and to have kept alive the original idea of continues to hold this view in face of the what socialism is -- a classless, stateless, notion’s recent popularity. Beveridge’s of the natural world can have limited wageless, moneyless society or, defined welfare measures of the 1940s were effect and run counter to the nature of positively, a democracy in which free and viewed as a reorganisation of poverty and capitalism itself. equal men and women co-operate to a necessary ‘expense’ of production, and Gradualist reformers like the Labour produce the things they need to live and Keynesian policies designed to overcome Party believed that capitalism could be enjoy life, to which they have free access slumps an illusion. Today, the journal transformed through a series of social in accordance with the principle ‘from exposes as false the view that banks measures, but have merely become each according to their abilities, to each create money out of thin air, and explains routine managers of the system. The according to their needs’ why actions to prevent the depredation Bolsheviks had to be content with

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2 Socialist Standard November 2020 Editorial Science, Politics and Profits

As has long been predicted, the second The decision to end the lockdown was mayor of Greater Manchester, who initially wave of coronavirus is upon us. All along based not on the grounds that the virus resisted the imposition of Tier 3 restrictions the government has claimed it has been was beaten but under pressure from in his area demanding more money to following the science. On the face of it, businesses that were feeling the squeeze. compensate workers and local businesses. this has appeared to be the case. In March, This and the lack of a functioning track and The government has also to be mindful in common with most countries, the trace system have, no doubt, contributed to of the costs of further restrictions. Its debt government instituted a national lockdown, the recent upsurge. Also, the government is already more than 100 percent of GDP, where all non-essential businesses were urging workers to return to their places of which is creating unease among Tory MPs closed and the state paid up to 80 percent work so as to prop up the local hospitality and Tory supporters in the press. of the wages of furloughed workers, to businesses didn’t help. Although the government couches its suppress the virus. It appeared for once This time, the government has measures in terms of saving livelihoods that workers’ welfare was being put before disregarded the scientific advice to and jobs, it is really capitalist profits they’re capitalist profits. Prior to this, however, introduce a second short-term national worried about. Science is not immune the government toyed with the idea of lockdown and instead has brought in a to this priority, so some scientists can herd immunity, which had the advantage three-tier system in England (separate always be induced to tell governments that businesses could stay open and trade arrangements have been made in Scotland, what they want to hear. Some scientists normally, where the virus would be allowed Wales and Northern Ireland) where have thus signed the Great Barrington to spread among the population. But with different regions are subjected to varying Agreement, which argues for ‘focused the prospect of millions of workers being levels of restrictions according to the protection’ and herd-immunity, an laid up in hospital, not making profits severity of infections in their area. It is not approach the World Health Organization for their employers and costing the state hard to see why the government preferred and others have described as dangerous, billions in healthcare, plus an unacceptably this option. Keep as many businesses unethical and unscientific. In socialism, we high death rate, the government open as possible and keep the number would simply follow the science to beat abandoned the idea and reluctantly went of furloughed workers to a minimum. a virus. In capitalism, nothing is ever so for a national lockdown. The fact that it was However, it has led to run-ins with some straightforward. implemented late likely led to thousands of the Northern local leaders. The most more deaths. notable one is with Andy Burnham, the

Socialist Standard November 2020 3 Taiwan Strait. But since then China has wields the big stick on Earth is whoever’s been building anti-ship ballistic missiles got a sat-nav system in space. Today there IN SEPTEMBER the UK Defence Secretary that can sink a carrier from 1200 nautical are four navigational satellite systems in was forced to issue a public denial that miles away, which makes the UK’s new orbit, America’s GPS, Russia’s GLONASS, the military was proposing to get rid of purchases look even more like shiny white China’s BeiDou and the EU’s Galileo. its stock of 227 Challenger 2 tanks, right elephants, especially as it doesn’t have Britain sank a lot of cash into Galileo after a government review suggested that the sailors to keep both of them at sea before being unceremoniously booted out very thing (BBC News, 12 September - bbc. simultaneously and only plans to buy of the partnership because of Brexit, thus in/35O4CTu). True-blue nationalists, in love enough F35 fighters for one of them (bit. scoring a massive own goal the Brexiteers with the idea of rolling over foreigners in ly/2RH4Jbc). certainly didn’t see coming. Other systems are emerging for India and Japan, and 60-ton behemoths, were understandably Galileo Launch upset at the prospect. But the truth is that more will follow. The idea of everyone the Challenger is outgunned and obsolete, sharing one single system for peaceful several times over. The larger truth is that purposes is of course silly idealistic the tank itself is an obsolete concept in an nonsense in a world of competitive age of armour-busting drones and long- markets. range missiles. Capitalism increasingly relies on Actually, most of Britain’s war satellites for all its communications and capability is obsolete, insofar as it exists financial transactions. Today there are at all. Years of budget cuts have reduced around 2,600 in orbit, but this is set to personnel and equipment to a fraction increase by at least an order of magnitude of their former strength. The air force as more countries and corporations heft has dropped to 119 fighters from 850 in their hardware aloft. SpaceX alone plans 1989 (dailym.ai/33NmVFN). The British to put around 42,000 satellites into orbit, navy has scrapped all its jets, and seen As so often with today’s political and in order to provide global internet access. its warship fleet decline from over 900 geopolitical scenarios, TV’s Yes Minister Pretty soon astronomers will barely be warships in 1944 to 115 by the time of got there first in the 1980s, on that able to see for space junk as everyone and the Falklands war and now to around occasion over the question of buying his dog scrambles to join the thousand- 24 (bit.ly/2ZTUN2F). In 2010 it was still Trident to replace Polaris missiles. ‘Trident mile-high club. patrolling Somali waters on a pirate hunt, is beautiful,’ declaims Humphrey Appleby, In light of all this it’s obvious that if now it can barely patrol UK waters, and ‘it’s the nuclear missile that Harrods would you want to take down a country, you has completely withdrawn from the sell. Of course we don’t need it, but you need to take out its satellites, thus a war South Atlantic, thus rendering the original could say that about anything at Harrods’ in space looks ever more likely. The US Falklands slaughter even more absurd. In (youtu.be/XyJh3qKjSMk). The purpose has since 2010 been experimenting with 2014 Russia parked an armed cruiser off of British defence policy, he explains for an uncrewed reusable space plane, the the coast of Scotland, causing red faces at the benefit of the naïve, is not to defend Boeing US X-37B, running highly secretive the Admiralty, as the navy’s only available Britain, because that’s impossible, but space flights of up to two years’ duration. warship was at Portsmouth. Later that only to make British people believe that India launched a prototype in 2016, and year, in the Islamic State crisis, the US and Britain is defended (youtu.be/9KId- the Chinese recently launched their own France sent aircraft carriers to the region, GgDcGk). The only thing anyone knows secret space plane from a space port in but Britain had just sold its last carrier for about weaponry is that it’s ridiculously the Gobi Desert (Nasa, 4 September - bit. scrap and just had to look on like the poor expensive, so it must be good, and that ly/2ZSS4Xe). What are these uncrewed relation. goes double for aircraft carriers. England’s space planes for? That’s anybody’s Since then Britain’s splashed out £6bn NHS budget is £133bn, after all, so £6bn guess, but military would be a good bet. on two new carriers, contracted by for a bit of nationalistic feelgood therapy Whoever has planes patrolling space Blair’s boom-time Labour government, doesn’t seem so extravagant. has their boot on the neck of potential which Cameron’s later Tory austerity But war has changed. For one thing, it enemies. When the shooting starts, the government couldn’t wriggle out of. But is increasingly asynchronous, and heavy satellites will be the shooting stars. as the BBC reported in June this year with conventional weaponry is not much use In a post-scarcity society of common unintentional comedy, ‘The National Audit against a guerrilla enemy you can’t see. ownership there won’t be any reason Office highlighted concerns over missing For another, AI is starting to replace to fight wars, but in capitalism, war is key elements such as aircraft and support people, and can now defeat top fighter the logical extension of normal business ships’ (bbc.in/32LRbS2). What is the pilots in aerial dogfights (New Scientist, operations. The technology changes, point of buying an aircraft carrier when 25 August - bit.ly/3hTQx9D). Meanwhile war doesn’t. Generations grew up in the you don’t have any aircraft to carry, you in dark fetid corners, state-backed spooks shadow of the atomic bomb, but the ask? Well quite. But carriers are a mark continue to nibble away at each other’s next war might be over even faster than of prestige and the entry price to the top cyber security systems. But neither AI it takes for an ICBM to cross a continent. diplomatic table. If you don’t have them, nor hackers can do anything without You won’t see it, you won’t hear it. It’ll goes the thinking, Johnny Foreigner can communications, which is why the key just be a power cut. It won’t seem like a bowl all sorts of low balls while you’re arena is now space. Satellites have catastrophe, nothing that spells a return stuck in the pavilion. Witness China, which become the de-facto battlefield weapon, to the middle ages. You’ll just go outside had to back down ignominiously, after not only for precision-guided munitions to ask the neighbours what the hell’s going sabre-rattling at Taiwan in 1996, when the but for most other ground-support on, and then stare in wonder at a sky full US sent two carrier battle groups to the operations, including knowing where the of burning rain. other side is and what it’s doing. Who PJS

4 Socialist Standard November 2020 Socialism or Nationalism? THE LEFT nationalists replace the Where is the link from the triumph of enforced exploitation of that area’s principle of international class struggle nationalism to the socialist understanding producers, should grant to the latter the with the doctrine of international struggle of the workers, that some left nationalists right to live there providing they accept between states. As a result ‘socialism’ say should take place? A cursory reading their wage-slave status and defend the has become associated with militant of history shows that capitalism and the right of the privileged to live on their nationalism rather than with the working- power of the capitalist have not been backs is offensive to any reasonably- class internationalism it had originally weakened. Has nationalism progressed minded worker. Those who promote such been. The political struggle they present the cause of the working class one inch nonsense are enemies of our class. as a struggle is not between the working over the decades? Or led it down many a Nationalism means merely that workers class and the capitalist class, but as tearful false trail? get new masters instead of the old ones. a struggle of ‘patriots’ – workers and For the socialist, class-consciousness Capitalism does not change by a change capitalists together – against foreign is the breaking down of all barriers to of management personnel. Political rule and domination. They call upon understanding. The concept of nationality control may well switch locations but the entire population, employer and is one of these obstacles. The idea multinationals will still maintain their employee alike, to combine in a common that a geographical area controlled by economic stranglehold on the newly struggle to achieve independence. Any a privileged elite who thrive on the independent nation. supposed socialist who tells workers that they have more in common with ‘Before our white brothers came to their own ruling class than with the civilize us we had no jails. Therefore workers of other countries is a fraud. Any we had no criminals. You can’t have supposed ‘socialist’ who argues against criminals without a jail. We had the fundamental idea for the workers of no locks or keys, and so we had no the world to unite to overthrow all their thieves. If a man was so poor that exploiters and oppressors is not a socialist. he had no horse, tipi or blanket, Nationalism has been a dangerous someone gave him these things. diversion from the class struggle and led We were too uncivilized to set to workers supporting the killing in wars much value on personal belongings. of other workers in the interest of one We wanted to have things only in particular state and its ruling class. The order to give them away. We had essence of nationalism is that when local no money, and therefore a man’s businessmen are prevented from ‘building worth couldn’t be measured by it. up their own wealth’ they may well build We had no written law, no attorneys their own independent capitalist state. or politicians, therefore we couldn’t Nationalist struggles are class struggles cheat. We really were in a bad way under an ideological smokescreen, but before the white men came, and not of the working class. They are either I don’t know how we managed to struggles by an aspiring capitalist class to get along without these basic things establish themselves as a new national which, we are told, are absolutely ruling class or struggles by an established necessary to make a civilized society.’ but weak national ruling class to garner a bigger share of world profits for themselves. John Lame Deer, Lakota Sioux There is no reason why socialists should protester and satirist (1903 - 76) support independence movements.

LETTERSReply: But, unless this is just going to be a private gesture, it Activist politics will involve much more than just a few minutes, won’t it? If you Some truth to it, but wrongly put. I’ve never adopted the really want to stop the most awful candidate you need to work curious new concept of ‘lesser evil voting’ and have argued out who amongst the other candidates has the best chance of strenuously that even raising the notion, as is done here, is a winning instead, even if there is another candidate standing sellout to the establishment. For the left, politics is activism, who is less awful. And then you need to urge others to vote daily. Every once in a while an event comes along called an for your chosen anti-most-awful candidate. Which is what you ‘election’. A genuine leftist asks whether some candidate is have been doing, urging voters, at least in the swing states, to so awful that it’s worth taking a few minutes to vote against vote for Biden and not to vote, for instance, for the Green Party them, and if it is, does so, and then goes back to work. candidate. We would have thought that this is precisely ‘lesser Noam Chomsky in reply to ‘Lesser Evil’ evil’ politics. If we are talking of gestures, a more principled one article in October Socialist Standard. would be to cast a write-in vote for socialism – Editors.

Socialist Standard November 2020 5 COOKING THE BOOKS The really big slump Why this difference? Was the government spends on them. During We know that capitalist production government-induced slump in Britain the lockout, however, although the moves in ever-repeating cycles of really twice as deep as in Germany and government spent the same amount on boom and slump and that governments the US? If so, why? It turns out that it education, because schools were closed it can do nothing to prevent this. But was mainly due to the different way that didn’t provide the same level of ‘service’; they can produce a slump, either the ONS statisticians calculated the fall similarly with normal NHS services. unintentionally through a mistaken compared with those in other countries. Taking this into account, the ONS reduced policy or deliberately. The present GDP is measured in various ways, government ‘output’, so increasing the fall slump is an example in that it has been one of which is to add up what persons in GDP from 14.5 to 19.8 percent. Other largely government-induced rather than spend, what businesses invest and what countries didn’t do this. resulting from the normal workings of the government spends. With only key We don’t want to get involved in the capitalism. The lockdown imposed by workers, as in the health service and food arguments amongst statisticians as to the government at the end of March distribution, allowed to go to work during the best way to calculate GDP except to and maintained for the next three the period and the income of some 9.4 point out that the concept of government months led, according to the Office for million reduced to 80 percent of their ‘output’ is rather dubious. Governments National Statistics (ONS) at the end of previous earnings, private consumption as such produce nothing; everything they September, to a fall in GDP during those fell by 23.1 percent, manufacturing spend derives ultimately from surplus three months of 19.8 percent, which production by 16.9 percent and business value produced in the profit-making sector they described as ‘the largest quarterly investment by 31.4 percent. Government of the economy and is obtained by them contraction in the UK economy since spending, on the other hand, went up by either through taxation or by borrowing. quarterly records began in 1955’. 14.1 percent. Calculating GDP in this way So all its spending is as much a ‘transfer This was a much higher fall than in gave a fall of 14.5 percent. payment’ as are benefits and pensions. many other countries: This way of calculating the fall didn’t In any event, whether the fall – the ‘Revised figures yesterday from satisfy the ONS as, while the government plunge, in fact – in GDP over the three Germany showed that its GDP fell by 9.7 spent more, it did not provide the same months was 19.8 or 14.5 percent it was per cent, less than half the UK’s decline, level of ‘service’. In calculating GDP, the much more than in any slump caused by while the eurozone and European Union government is regarded as providing the normal workings of capitalism. In the falls were 12.1 per cent and 11.9 per cent various services – education, health previous biggest slump since accurate respectively … The United States recorded care, ‘defence’, ‘justice’, administration, records began, the one that followed the a similar drop to Germany, just under 10 etc – which have to be priced. Normally Crash of 2008, GDP fell by only 4.6 percent per cent’ (David Smith, Times, 26 August). this is simply the amount of money the and that over a period of 16 months.

6 Socialist Standard November 2020 Class Control am dangerous, apparently. School students need protecting from me and my ilk, lest they be seduced into thinking However, the response that none of those regimes exhibited I inimical to their well-being, perhaps undermining the very realthose socialism regimes iswho perfectly find their valid hopes if they ultimately contravened disappointed. the criteria fundamentals of society. Could it be that I’m stockpiling caches of weapons for armed Party has consistently denounced all such manifestations of insurrection? Is it my intention to poison their young minds supposedby which socialism socialism is for defined the travesty from the they’ve outset. been The from Socialist their against democracy? Maybe my intention is to persuade them to inception. adopt some extreme ideology? Indeed, opposition to capitalism encompasses all examples Actually, perhaps rather boringly, no! of state capitalism and ‘free market’ capitalism no matter how It is certainly true that I espouse the replacing of capitalism barbaric or apparently liberal they may be. with socialism. That, it seems, could be enough to have my It serves capitalism well to obscure what socialism actually ideas banned from the classroom for, ironically, being anti- means. Lenin and his ilk have probably been amongst the best democratic. servants to the prolongation of capitalism. As Finkelstein’s The Department for Education has recently issued new article clearly demonstrates, the popular perception of guidelines instructing schools not to use ‘resources produced socialism is dull, poverty-inducing bureaucracy at best, by organisations that take extreme political stances on matters’. homicidal totalitarianism at worst. One such ‘extreme political stance’ is advocating the This allows the DofE and such state institutions to imply guilt abolition of capitalism. The Department for Unwitting Irony by word association. This despite the fact that socialism is not goes on to justify capitalism as protecting freedom of speech. extreme any more than capitalism was an extreme repudiation Opposition to capitalism is, it seems, an ipso facto denial of of feudalism, rather than a natural development from within it. freedom of speech. Socialism is not a denial of capitalism, socialists fully To be accurate, discussing an alternative to capitalism in the classroom is not forbidden by this guidance. However, using an recognise that no economic system exists in perpetuity, but all article from the Socialist Standard, advocating such a course of mustrecognise give waythe advances to the one and that benefits supersedes accruing it. from it. They also action would contravene the guidelines. The basic problem is that there are no criteria established as of capitalism by socialism is one such. Other issues around to what an extreme political stance means. Examples are given controversialEducation has topics to deal are withsurely difficult best addressed issues. The by transcendingexamination such as, ‘…a publicly stated desire to abolish or overthrow and critical analysis of source material. This has to be the way democracy, capitalism… to end free and fair elections, democracy progresses. opposition to… freedom speech… of association, of assembly… It is not the origin of resources, but how they are used. As of religion and conscience’. with all those elements listed as being ‘Examples of extreme The implication is that all of the above are equally culpable. political stances…’, simply excluding them, like disruptive So, the overthrow of democracy is identical to advocating students, does not actually deal with them or make them go abolishing capitalism as both are extreme. away. Whereas, defending an economic system whereby the vast Democracy cannot be about banning ideas, and ‘freedom majority must sell their labour power for less than the value they create, simply to live, to the few who accrue to themselves the surplus value produced by that majority, is, obviously, confronted,of speech’ is exposed at best mere and effectivelyrhetoric if countered.it is confined within safe reasonable and moderate. guidelines.It is frequently Difficult, argued hurtful, that even allowing dangerous what is ideas often need now to be Perhaps the Socialist Party is dedicated to overthrowing referred to as hate speech, we suppose its textual corollary democracy in order to engineer a socialist society? The must be hate script, leads to acts of violence against those who Mandarins of Unwitting Irony either don’t understand, or are the subjects. deviously obscure, the absolute necessity of democracy in The point, though, must be that all acts of violence, whatever achieving socialism. the excusing cause quoted – skin colour, gender, sexuality, sub- No democracy – no socialism. Such a society can only be group, political persuasion et al – are unequivocally wrong. brought about by the conscious action of the working class, It also raises the question as to when hate speech becomes the vast majority, acting collectively on its own behalf to bring patriotic speech, when the media and politicians demonise a socialism about. foreign nation in order to bomb it into ‘democracy’. Socialists most certainly have no desire to turn young minds Amnesty International’s Head of Policy and Government against democracy, rather they want to enhance it to the point Affairs, Allan Hogarth commented: where it actually becomes effective. ‘The only extreme view here is the one which suggests that In his column the journalistic commentator Daniel it’s somehow illegitimate to even consider the validity of socio- Finkelstein (Times, 30. September) took great exception to economic systems other than the prevailing one – a system that those who found the Department for Education guidance has of course only been in existence for a comparatively short troubling: period of time.’ ‘All that’s being suggested is that organisations which The threat to democracy is probably from those who view advocate the abolition of capitalism are not suitable providers it as serving the interests of capital, that it should be limited of teaching material for schoolchildren.’ to this end. Whereas true democracy is inimical to capital in Finkelstein begins his piece by referring to how, ‘Stalin that the world’s productive resources and means need to be attempted to starve my father to death in Siberia.’ He goes on brought under common ownership with democratic control to to list, ‘…more than two dozen attempts to build a socialist serve the interests of all. society’, from Albania to Venezuela, with all the main culprits in From the perspective of the Department for Education this between. probably does appear extreme, but prescriptive guidelines Nor will he allow the response that none of these were real cannot deny the necessity of socialism, even if they would deny socialism. He has a point if he is referring to apologists for school students the knowledge, if they could. DAVE ALTON Socialist Standard November 2020 7 Contact details website: www.worldsocialism.org/spgb email: [email protected] UK BRANCHES & CONTACTS Cornwall. Contact: Harry Sowden, Contact: Richard Botterill, 21 Pen-Y-Bryn Rd, 16 Polgine Lane, Troon, Camborne, TR14 9DY. Gabalfa, Cardiff, CF14 3LG. 02920-615826. LONDON 01209 611820. [email protected] North London branch. Meets 3rd Thurs. 8pm at East Anglia. Contact: David Porter, Eastholme, Torriano Meeting House, 99 Torriano Ave, NW5 Bush Drive, Eccleson-on-Sea, NR12 0SF. 01692 INTERNATIONAL CONTACTS 2RX. Contact: Chris Dufton 020 7609 0983 582533. Richard Headicar, 42 Woodcote, Firs [email protected] Rd, Hethersett, NR9 3JD. 01603 814343. LATIN AMERICA South London branch. Meets last Saturday in Essex. Contact: Pat Deutz, 11 The Links, Contact: J.M. Morel, Calle 7 edif 45 apto month, 2.30pm. Head Office, 52 Clapham High Billericay, CM12 0EX. [email protected]. 102, Multis nuevo La loteria, La Vega, Rep. St, SW4 7UN. Contact: 020 7622 3811. Cambridge. Contact: Andrew Westley, Dominicana. West London branch. Meets 1st Tues. 8pm. [email protected]. 07890343044. 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8 Socialist Standard November 2020 ‘Too old to work, too young to die’

PEOPLE ARE living a lot longer which years. In Vietnam ‘population ageing’ is maintained out of this surplus. Pensions should be good news but not so under set to rise even faster with the proportion are a transfer payment from the profits capitalism. Ageing populations are viewed of elderly projected to double over a mere of the capitalists, even if ultimately these as a threat to prosperity, rather than a sign 17-year period. profits come from what workers produce. of human achievement and progress. Centenarians represent a small fraction It is the increasing productivity that With a lower fertility rate (see last of the world’s current population of 7.3 will determine how well society will be month’s article), the ageing of the billion, about one centenarian out of every able to support the expected increased population is inevitable. For the first time 16,000 people. Over the coming decades, proportion of retired people in the in history, the number of people aged 65 however, this rate is expected to increase population. years and over will exceed the number rapidly and by the close of century is The data make the case that a general of children under 5. With the ‘greying’ projected to reach one centenarian out increase in immigration is needed. of the world’s population, governments of every 425 people. Other studies have Migration can offset many of the adverse are struggling to support the elderly. been more optimistic about the chances effects of an ageing population on the As long as women are not labour market, with the willing to return to being average age of migrants baby-breeders to counter- being lower than the host act the trend, by 2030 there population. Immigration is a will be one billion more sensitive issue in numerous older people, accounting countries. Paradoxically, those for 13 percent of the total countries facing dropping population. While some of birth rates and increased the developed nations are ageing, are opposed to raising the age of retirement, immigration. In addition making their old people work to rising public opinion for longer, the increased opposing immigration, many longevity and the growing governments are tightening proportion of elderly are border controls, erecting raising serious economic fences and walls, adopting concerns. In particular, policies to significantly restrict population ageing is resulting immigration. And it’s not just in growing financial stresses about the numbers – migrants on retirement pensions, bring new ideas and a new health systems and social dynamism to a society’s care programmes. Reluctant culture. to raise taxes on the capitalists, the state of becoming a centenarian, estimating The Socialist Standard could fill its attempts to address the mounting costs that more half of the babies in advanced pages with articles about the appalling by largely adjusting benefits, contribution industrialised nations can expect to live care given to the aged and infirm under rates, savings plans and raising the age of 100 years. Bringing more women into the capitalism today. Many charities strive retirement. But socialists possess a greater workforce and lengthening the working to improve conditions for the elderly but vision: that we shouldn’t be aiming to years of older workers may well not ultimately they will fail because they try extend the domain of work into old age, be sufficient to solve the demographic to reform capitalism instead of changing but to extend the domain of non-work problem. The other alternatives will be to it. When workers decide to abolish the into young age. increase productivity either by automation wages system and produce for human The current pension problems in the or with more immigration. needs instead of profit, then hardship advanced capitalist countries will pale Many believe robotics can help a and insecurity in old age could become into insignificance compared with what country overcome the handicap of a a memory of capitalism’s barbaric past. is coming for the rest of the world that fast-ageing population and a declining Join us and help to build a new system has no welfare system, where the ratio of workforce. The source of all unearned of society where young and old can live elderly people will rise faster than in the income is what Marx called the surplus out their lives with respect and dignity industrialised world, casting vastly more value produced by workers over and in a world where the true meaning of numbers of their old folk into poverty. An above what they are paid. It is out of this community prevails. Socialism will abolish indication of the rate of this ‘population unpaid labour that not only the rich but the concept of retirement and fulfil the ageing’ is the time it takes for the the whole non-productive superstructure promise of a world providing all the proportion of people over a retirement of capitalist society (the armed forces, prerequisites of a good life, regardless of age of 65 to double from 7 percent of the civil service, legal system, banking) has to age or physical ability. overall population to 14 percent. In France be maintained. What allows capitalism ALJO this process took more than a century. to maintain an enormous non-productive In China, it is projected to take less than sector is its high level of productivity in a quarter of that time, perhaps just 25 the productive sector. Pensioners too are

Socialist Standard November 2020 9 ngels became a socialist some time to regulate production in 1842 after coming into contact according to needs’ (his emphasis). Ewith supporters of Robert Owen Hessis a trifling spoke matter the following ‘ week and, in Manchester. He contributed to their besides dealing with the objection paper The New Moral World and was that communism was against human interested in their scheme to establish nature and the question of who would a network of communistic colonies. do the dirty work, made it clear that as He was also aware of other groups in in communist society ‘the aim of the France with similar ideas. He was what individual to enrich himself on his own’ he himself would later call a ‘utopian would disappear so would money: socialist’, which was not meant as a ‘We all have to peddle our life-activity criticism of their aim but of why and in order to buy in exchange the life- how they saw socialism coming about. activity of other men – and what is In February 1845 he took part in a the sum total of all our faculties and campaign organised by Moses Hess of all our forces, which we throw on to popularise the idea of communism the market and which we must turn in their native part of Germany, now into money, but our own whole life? It the city of Wuppertal. As part of this is not our body, which we only touch campaign a series of three meetings from the outside, but its real force was held in Elberfeld. Engels spoke at that constitutes our life. When we sell this force of ours we ourselves sell he set out the case against ‘present- our very life. Money is the mark of daytwo society’of them. and In the for first, replacing on 8 February,it by slavery; is it not therefore but human communism. His criticism of the existing system, Moses Hess who can be paid, men who buy and which he called ‘free competition’, was sellvalue each expressed other, are in they figures? anything But menbut that it was based on ‘individualism’ in the sense that each individual was left to fend for themselves to obtain the money as long as we live in isolation and as long as each person has to buy what they needed to live; this led to a war of all against toslaves? work How for himself can we on begin his ownto escape account from in thisorder traffic to gain in men the all in which everyone competed against everyone else. The means of existence? Who gives us the means of life, the means alternative to this ‘individualism’ was communism (or what of our physical and social activity if we don’t gain them by Robert Owen and the Owenites he had met in England called buying and selling our own life?’ (www.marxists.org/archive/ ‘socialism’) where, instead of people competing against each hess/1845/elberfeld-speech.htm) other to get a living they would co-operate to produce and At the time Engels saw a communist society as coming into share out what they needed. As he put it: being gradually and peacefully as a result of social reforms ‘In communist society, where the interests of individuals such as education for all workers and communist colonies for are not opposed to one another but, on the unemployed paid for by a progressive the contrary, are united, competition is tax on incomes. Later that year, as he and eliminated. As is self-evident, there can no longer be any question of the ruin of conclusion that ‘present-day society’ was particular classes, nor of the very existence notMarx based clarified on everyone their ideas, trying they to came exploit to the of classes such as the rich and the poor everyone else but on the exploitation of nowadays. As soon as private gain, the the ‘proletariat’ (the working class) by the aim of the individual to enrich himself on ‘bourgeoisie’ (the capitalist class) and that his own, disappears from the production a communist society would come about as and distribution of the goods necessary the result of a political revolution in which to life, trade crises will also disappear of the ‘proletariat’ would overthrow the rule themselves. In communist society it will be of the ‘bourgeoisie’. easy to be informed about both production However, Engels never changed his view and consumption. Since we know how that communism was a society based on much, on the average, a person needs, it the common ownership of the means of is easy to calculate how much is needed life with production carried on directly to by a given number of individuals, and satisfy people’s needs and which by the since production is no longer in the hands 1880s he had come to call ‘socialism’. of private producers but in those of the The full speech can be found here: tinyurl. community and its administrative bodies, it com/y44gjssd

10 Socialist Standard November 2020 ngels died in ‘The time of August 1895. surprise attacks, EOne of his last of revolutions published writings carried through was an introduction by small conscious to Marx’s The Class minorities at Struggles in France the head of 1848 to 1850, a masses lacking collection of articles consciousness written by Marx at is past. Where the time. Its content it is a question is such that it can of a complete be regarded as his transformation political testament. of the social Reviewing the organisation, the political position masses themselves that he and Marx must also be in on had then taken up, it, must themselves Engels wrote that already have ‘history has shown grasped what is at us to have been stake, what they wrong, has revealed our point of view body and soul. at that time to have Theare fighting history for,of the been an illusion.’ Past revolutions, taught us that. he wrote, had last fifty years has been minority the masses may revolutions in the understandBut in order what that interest of some is to be done, long, minority; after the persistent work is initial victory the required…’ revolutionaries split He added ‘and into two sections it is just this work – those who were that we are now pursuing, and with a success which drives the enemy to to go further, but whatever happened the end-result was despair.’ This was a reference to the use made of universal minoritysatisfied withrule. what had been achieved and those who wanted suffrage by the German Social Democratic Party, but that The illusion, Engels explained, was thinking that, because turned out to be another illusion as the party’s support was during the revolutionary wave of 1848 there was already a being built up for democratic and social reforms within minority, albeit a small one, which understood what was in capitalism rather than for socialism. the interest of the working class, there was a chance that this However, Engels was proved right when a revolutionary minority could draw the majority into carrying out a workers’ minority attempted to apply the tactics of 1848-50 in revolution: Germany after the overthrow of the Kaiser in 1918 and to ‘[W]hat was involved here were not false representations, push the revolution forward to socialism. They failed as the but the implementation of the most vital interests of the rest of the working class didn’t come to want socialism in the great majority itself, interests which, it is true, were at that time by no means clear to this great majority, but which were been achieved (political democracy). bound to become clear to it as their practical implementation courseAs Engels of the correctly revolution concluded, but remained for there satisfied to be witha successful what had proceeded, by their convincing obviousness. (…) [T]he socialist revolution the majority ‘must themselves already proletariat grown wise from experience had to become have grasped what is at stake’ and that, when they had, they the decisive factor — was there not every prospect then of could turn universal suffrage ‘from a means of deception into turning the revolution of the minority into a revolution of the an instrument of emancipation’, but that to reach this point majority?’ required ‘long, persistent work’. Engels’s reply was unequivocal: ‘History has proved us The full introduction can be found here: tinyurl.com/ wrong, and all who thought like us.’ And, later: y6a6qaac

Socialist Standard November 2020 11 riedrich Engels was born two hundred years ago in knowledge, as it is usually November 1820 in what is now called Wuppertal in understood in philosophy. FGermany. He was the eldest son of a textile capitalist. It is in the practical sense Engels was trained for a career as a merchant, but in 1841 he of the word (not in its acquisitive sense) that Hegelians, a group of left-wing philosophers with whom Marx socialists are said to be went to Berlin and became closely involved with the Young materialists in outlook. This service in an artillery regiment, and for the rest of his life may look uncontroversial hehad took also a been keen involved. interest inWhile military in Berlin matters. he did Later his on, military in the now, but at the time it Marx household he was known as ‘The General’ and in the was a revolutionary way socialist movement as ‘Marx’s General’. In 1842 Engels became of thinking. The widely a socialist – before and independently of Marx – and went to Salford to work in his father’s business. philosopher Hegel, for In England he became interested in the struggles of the instance,influential conceived German human English working class. His research resulted in The Condition history as the unfolding of of the Working Class in England, an idea. in 1845 and in English in 1887. It recorded the absolute In 1848 the Manifesto of poverty of the families in Manchesterfirst published and their indegrading German the Communist Party (now working conditions. usually known as the Communist Manifesto) was published. sources it is still an important primary source for historians. Engels was not involved in writing the Manifesto but in the This book greatly impressed Based on Marx first-hand and contributed observation to and what local 1888 revised English edition he claimed joint authorship with was to be their life-long friendship. In a preface for the 1892 edition, Engels wrote that ‘the most crying abuses described sometimes improves on the original as, for example, this in this book have either disappeared or have been made less classicMarx, who statement had died of thefive socialistyears earlier. revolution: The revised edition conspicuous.’ This is why ‘in 1844’ was then added to the ‘All previous historical movements were movements of book’s title. Engels went on to say: minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian It will be hardly necessary to point out that the general movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the theoretical standpoint of this book – philosophical, immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority’. economical, political – does not exactly coincide with my Engels had a better grasp of the English language than Marx, standpoint of to-day. Modern international Socialism, since and he put it to good use in the many newspaper articles he wrote, some of which were published with Marx’s name as through the efforts of Marx, did not as yet exist in 1844’. author. In the short book The Peasant War in Germany (1850) fully developed as a science, chiefly and almost exclusively Engels drew comparisons between an early sixteenth-century ‘Historical materialism’ uprising and the recent revolutions in Europe. It could also

The Holy Family revolution in Russia in 1917: (1845).Engels first Engels met and Marx Marx in Paris then andbegan agreed writing to produceThe German a bear‘The comparison worst thing between that can those befall revolutions a leader of andan extreme the Bolshevik party Ideologypolitical satirein November aimed at 1845 the Youngand continued Hegelians: to work on it for is to be compelled to take over a government in an epoch when the movement is not yet ripe for the domination of put it, to ‘the gnawing criticism of the mice’ (teeth marks the class which he represents and for the realisation of the ofnearly mice a were year subsequentlybefore it was abandonedfound on the unfinished, manuscript). as Marx This measures which that domination would imply’.

ideology in question) and in so doing they set out the basic ‘Scientific socialism’ principleswork contains of their an attack materialist on the conception Young Hegelians of history: (the German ‘The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises from which abstraction can EngelsIn 1850 also Engels developed re-joined his the own family lines firm of interest, in Salford, especially where he only be made in the imagination. They are the real individuals, instayed the natural until 1870, sciences, helping and Marx one resultfinancially of his and studies journalistically. was his their activity and the material conditions under which they notes published in 1925 as Dialectics of Nature. According to Tristram Hunt, a few years previously the manuscript produced by their activity’. live,These both key those concepts which wouldthey find provide already the existing guiding and thread those for literary executor, who sent it to Albert Einstein for comment. their researches of the past and present. Engels would later Einsteinwas in the thought possession the science of Eduard was Bernstein, confused (actingThe Frock-Coated as Engels’ label this materialism ‘historical materialism’, but it should Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels, 2009). be noted that the materialism here is not a philosophy of In 1878 he was able to retire and move to London. As Marx

12 Socialist Standard November 2020 became less politically philosophy of nature. In his criticism of the German active due to ill health, philosopher Feuerbach he wrote that a limitation of his Engels took on more ‘materialism lay in its inability to comprehend the universe responsibility for setting as a process, as matter undergoing uninterrupted historical out what was becoming development’. Despite his claim to reject idealism, the universe known as ‘Marxism’. In as an unfolding of the idea is a return by Engels to the 1878 Herr Eugen Dühring’s Hegelian philosophy of his youth in Germany, Revolution in Science After Marx’s death in 1883, Engels spent most of his time (subsequently abbreviated editing Marx’s notes for volumes two and three of Capital, to Anti-Dühring) appeared. published in 1885 and 1894, respectively. He devoted his In an 1885 preface, two last few years as an adviser to the parties of the Second years after Marx’s death, International before dying of cancer in 1895. During their Engels claimed that the working life together, Engels always regarded himself as the arguments used against junior partner. However, after Marx’s death and at a time of the German philosopher massively increased interest in Marxism, it fell to Engels to Dühring were mainly do the explaining. Most of it was done superbly, but he also Marx’s ‘and only to an produced a tendency towards ‘scientism’ – the belief that myself’. Engels then said: ‘I read the whole manuscript to him socialism’ is really just a philosophical viewpoint, and no less insignificant degree by validscience for also all that. explains human political life. The term ‘scientific comment as odd (Engels: A Very Short Introduction, 2003). From the twentieth century onwards, Engels’s political Thebefore implication it was printed’. of Engels’ However, comment Terrell is that Carver Marx has agreed flagged with this like this it seems implausible. ofstatus the politicalhas been and raised social to themonstrosities equal of Marx. erected But therein the isnames everythingIn Anti-D üinhring the book. Engels But wrote with that a large, the dialecticclosely argued is ‘the book ofnothing Marx andin the Engels. writings of Engels which justifies the existence science of the universal laws of motion and evolution LEW in nature, human society and thought’. Marx’s scattered comments on science and the dialectic could never be construed as making such a bold claim. That there are universal laws of motion in physics and of evolution in biology may be conceded, but it is more contentious to say that there are entirely equivalent laws of motion or evolution in human society. Like some other thinkers of the time, Engels had difficultyPopulariser in disentangling of socialist philosophy theory from science. Three chapters from Anti-Dühring were published as Socialism: Utopian and Scientific in 1880. This latter work proved to be immensely popular within the growing socialist movement as a general exposition of Marxism. In 1884 The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State was written and published. This was based on a synopsis Marx had written on Ancient Society, a book by Lewis Henry Morgan that was published in 1877. The Origin takes an historical view of the family in relation to issues of class, female subjugation and private property. It also contains Engels’ classic socialist position on the state: ‘The ancient state was, above all, the state of the slave owners for holding down the slaves, just as the feudal state was the organ of the nobility for holding down the peasant serfs and bondsmen, and the modern representative state is an instrument for exploiting wage labour by capital’. In Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy (1888), Engels explained and defended his

Socialist Standard November 2020 13 he reign of President Trump in the United States com/rmeyu88). Professional-managerial classes who value has been characterised by open deceit. Many of his procedure over substance, the upshot of which is worth Topponents berated the media for not calling his lies quoting at length: outright lies, but even when they have, it has not scratched ‘All this also helps explain the otherwise mysterious the levels of support he possesses among his millions of popular appeal of the disorganized, impulsive, shambolic followers. A recent example was following the revelations, (but nonetheless cut-to-the-chase, get-things-done) personas tried to downplay the seriousness of Covid 19, while knowing fullin the well Bob the Woodward danger it posedrecorded (as interviews,he later found that to Trump his cost). had cultivated by men like Trump and Johnson. Yes, they are His team’s response was to announce that Trump had never children of privilege in every possible sense of the term. Yes, played down the seriousness of Covid, despite him – on tape thethey precise are pathological opposite of liars. the Yes,infuriating they don’t administrator seem to care whose about – saying he would and the plethora of public statements that endlessanyone butappeal themselves. to rules andBut demandthey also for present additional themselves meetings, as can demonstrate that he did. That does not matter, they are paperwork, and motivational seminars makes it impossible for sticking by the lie. you to do your job’. As Gary Kasparov, former Soviet chess grandmaster, has The anger against the infuriatingly anodyne procedures had occasion to point out, the purpose of such lies is not just to deceive, but to prove loyalty by seeing who is willing to behind much of the willingness to submit to the enthusiastic swallow their pride and utter deliberate untruths that they liesdesigned of Trump. to smother Added conflictto this is in the the conviction workplace that and Trump’s society lies know not just to be untruths but unconvincing ones at that. Democrat rivals are themselves pathologically dishonest (albeit they prefer more plausible lies). and under Putin. It is an exercise in raw power. It promotes Some of this stretches back to Trump’s role in ‘birtherism’, theKasparov cult-like had following experienced President this first Trump hand has in whippedthe Soviet up. Union Of course this is nothing new. As Marx and Engels wrote in American enough to be president (despite production of his The German Ideology: the unshakable belief that Barack Obama wasn’t really ‘The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, birth certificate). But it also goes back further to things like is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which 9/11QAnon Truth, and the refusal to believe the ‘official story’. has the means of material production at its disposal, has His most fervent acolytes have been found through incidents control at the same time over the means of mental production, like the Pizzagate furore (the belief that high ranking so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it’. Those ideas, necessarily, are going to serve that class (and paedophilicDemocrat officials abuse). were It was meeting totally at false, a Washington but one man DC decided pizza they are by no means homogeneous and uncontested within torestaurant take action, that and was attack a front the for restaurant. human trafficking There has and also been the ruling class and between contending classes). To the an arson attempt. The man claimed to believe he was freeing extent that they present the interests of the ruling class as the the children (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzagate_conspiracy_ interests of the whole of society, they are inherently deceitful theory). (but not necessarily consciously so). This accounts for so much of the noise around Trump: as a billionaire capitalist who surrounds himself with millionaires, took the reins of power from the career politicians, he refuses tocentimillionaires think and act like and a thecareer billionaire politician Betsy with DeVos, the sensibility and who theand technocrats decorum usually Noam demanded Chomsky warnedof a candidate about inor his office essay Theholder. Responsibility The Democrats of Intellectuals, who find Trump who believe uncouth that are ‘the precisely age of ideology is ended, supplanted, at least in the West, by a general agreement that each issue must be settled in its own terms, within the framework of a Welfare State in which, presumably, experts in the conduct of public affairs will have a prominent role’. (chomsky.info/19670223/). governments. As the late David Graeber pointed out, they representedThose ‘experts’ the ‘peculiar dominated fusion the ofClinton, public Blair and private, and Obama market forces and administrative oversight, the world of hallmarks, benchmarks, and stakeholders that characterizes what I’ve been calling centrism is a direct expression of the sensibilities of the professional-managerial classes’ (tinyurl.

14 Socialist Standard November 2020 This story has since merged with QAnon. Q is a putative are taking something precious away from them, and children member of the Whitehouse staff, leaking the ‘real’ agenda are the most precious thing most people possess (as well as to the Trump administration. It is best summarised by the being metonymically linked with vitality and the future). Wikipedia entry: In search of flat Earth ‘QAnon is a far-right conspiracy theory alleging that a cabal ( ), puts forward of Satan-worshiping pedophiles running a global child sex- theDan analysis Olson, that in his the YouTube QAnon believers video are actually engaged in awww.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfhYyTuT44 form of violence. Their whacky ideas are not about debate who is battling them, leading to a “day of reckoning” involving thetrafficking mass arrest ring isof plotting journalists against and Presidentpoliticians. Donald No part Trump, of the out adherents who don’t buy the theory wholesale, then by theory is based on fact’ (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAnon). closingbut about down forcing debate people with to anyone choose who sides tries (firstly to argue by weeding with Q posts gnomic comments on various right-wing them factually). QAnon is a refusal to see a structural problem, communities boards, and his followers seek to decode instead believing the system itself is being subverted by them, believing that Trump is playing a long game against entrenched powerful interests, until the day they will all be including outright conscious lying. They want to shut up the arrested and tried. His lies are part of that game against the criticsinfiltration, of the which system. must be fought by any means necessary, Trump turned himself into a danger to the world by Q followers post on Twitter under the hashtag #WWG1WGA clamping down on US state-sponsored climate science. Lies (‘Wherecorrupt officialswe go one, who we infest go all’) Washington. as a sort of rallying cry. They are a weapon against humanity. They cannot simply be also post a lot under #SaveTheChildren. The centrality of debunked, the antidote is the building of conscious analysis of the paedophilia claims is curious. Certainly, it is common to impute absolute immorality to opponents. In this instance, to listen to that truth that is bigger and better organised than the QAnonway the cultists. world really is, and finding a constituency willing will be upset by the horror of child abuse. It is also likely that PK SMEET thispartly, is anit is imaginary a method sublimation to gain support of the by idea finding that people their enemies who

Socialist Standard November 2020 15 or renounce such weaponry[...] Instead of juridical equality, nuclear weapons policy is geopolitically hierarchical’. Another contributor, Daisaku Ikeda of Japan, founder of several international institutions promoting peace, culture and education, wrote in 2011 that we should abolish and dismantle not just nuclear weapons but ‘the war system itself’. He follows this with suggestions of how to measure military spending comparing this with what other, better, things could be done with that money for the good of populations around the world. Two examples: three hours’ equivalent worth of global military spending was what it cost the World Health Organization to eliminate smallpox; and three days’ worth of global military spending in 2011 could have taught the 275 million illiterate children of the world to read and write. Later he talks of the cold war and the fact that more than half of the world’s physicists were engaged in military research in order to manufacture more than enough nuclear weapons capable of annihilating the human race many o mark the retirement earlier this year of David Krieger, times over. And then he declares ‘What absurdity! What an founder and director for 38 years of the Nuclear Age incredible waste of human resources!’ Well, absolutely, but the TPeace Foundation (NAPF), The Spokesman published a special issue, Waging Peace. The Spokesman itself is a system would have a much more solid assurance of improving, bysocialist abolishing, answer the to various this would negatives be that listed dismantling in his article. the profit which was founded in 1963. The general aim of both these Instead of a cry to dismantle the war system we say dismantle foundationspublication of is thethat Bertrand of maintaining Russell peace Peace in Foundation a nuclear era world and to work to bring about the reduction, if not total abolition, inequalities and inadequacies facing us. of nuclear weapons. the whole profit system because this is what prolongs the This particular edition offers much good evidence of the Navy between 1967 and 1982 and was well acquainted with need to stop war (of all kinds) but socialists have a number of nuclearCommander weapons. Robert After Green retirement served he in talks the British of how, Royal as a former points of issue to address that can demonstrate the clear need for recognising the imperative of superseding the capitalist rejection of pro-nuclear deterrence indoctrination. He is system in order to achieve this goal. However, the publication authoroperator of ofSecurity British Without nuclear Nuclearweapons, Deterrence he came topublished a gradual in refers to capitalism per se only occasionally as one of the stumbling blocks but never puts it directly in the spotlight. deterrence or reduction of nuclear weapons is that of a ‘new world2018 by role Spokesman for the UK’. Books. He sets One out of a the case points for the he UK, raises as theabout Elephant in the room Waging Peace contains twelve articles which have a common view of a world of states accepted as the norm, not states)smallest to member claim a newof the world P5 (the role five by permanentunilaterally membersdeclaring a questioned. The crying need to explore the reasons of how rejectionof the UN ofsecurity nuclear council deterrence. which If were they thewere first to fivedo so nuclear he writes and why separate states develop animosity towards others is that ‘an overwhelming majority of world opinion would erupt the elephant in the room waiting to present the socialist case. in support’ and ‘the UK would gain a global role in which it For instance Richard Falk, Senior Vice President at the Nuclear would be welcomed as truly a “force for good.”’ This may be a Age Peace Foundation and who has acted as counsel before great rallying call but hardly seems realistic with the current the International Court of Justice states that geopolitical global hegemonic order as it is. factors are not generally considered. He states that geopolitics Possible nuclear Armageddon is hardly something to subverts ‘the major premise of state-centric world order; view lightly but a writer of one of the articles certainly has namely, the equality of sovereign states’ (Article 2.1 of the UN an optimistic viewpoint offering two lights on the horizon. Charter). ‘The Organization is based on the principle of the First, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the sovereign equality of all its members.’ However, Falk reveals achievement of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) ‘ ‘A primary ingredient of sovereignty is the unconditional the total elimination of nuclear weapons.’ This treaty is seen authorityserious flaws of states in a policy to determine of so-called their juridical own security equality: policy, as a complement tois anthe essential Nuclear Non-Proliferationand long overdue firstTreaty step and to especially in response to threats. The irony of the managerial supposedly reinforces the commitment of its parties to non- approach is that the two states with the most plausible proliferation. The second light on the horizon is Global Zero which, among and North Korea, are the only states under pressure to forgo security justifications for recourse to nuclear deterrence, Iran other things, has ‘developed a plan for the phased and verified 16 Socialist Standard November 2020 removal of all nuclear weapons from military arsenals of the pertaining to the numbers of specialists engaged in Reagan’s and transparency requirements for the entire process of in the military industrial complex included 30+ percent of dismantlementnuclear-armed countriesto total elimination.’ by 2030 with Again, continuing no mention verification of the thefive-year country’s plan mathematicians, of expansion of ‘defence’ 25 percent spending. of the country’s Workers absolute imperative of capitalism and capitalist companies to physicists, 47 percent of the aero/astronautic engineers and 11 percent of computer programmers. Nearly 40 years later weapons and all that goes with them. no doubt the numbers in these areas will have changed as continueAn article making titled profit ‘If weapons from sales had ofbeen these the to-be-eliminated answer’ by technology has changed considerably but it certainly holds Fredrick S. Heffermehl addresses the manipulation and true that a huge percentage of the workforce will still be distortion over the years of Alfred Nobel’s statement on the working in this area of research, development and production. establishment of the ‘Peace Prize’. It appears that Nobel’s And, as in all areas of employment globally, individuals rely on words were about such things as disarmament, creating the this work to support their lives. brotherhood of nations and promoting the ideas of the peace Leight wrote about the various treaties, especially relating to nuclear weapons that have been signed by different mention of disarmament in his will. Heffermehl discusses the countries at different times only to be broken by one or other distortioncongresses of of Nobel’s the 1890s wishes and, as in the fact, prize Nobel is givenmade regularlyspecific for of the signatories at some future date, just as the contributors reasons having nothing to do with his original intentions but to Waging Peace also do. Some of his references were to is subject to ‘political and diplomatic pressure and a decay older treaties such as one from 1925 on chemical and toxic of justice’. Two examples of individual prize winners who weapons which have been broken by one or more signatories can hardly be listed as peace activists – Henry Kissinger and over the years as they discover even better (more lethal) options, leading him to point out the fact that ‘not only can governments not be trusted but the measures they support TheBarack Inseparables Obama. are not reliable or practical for their intended purposes.’ Three quarters of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s With regard to the various nuclear deterrence treaties existence has been post-cold war and in those years there signed (and reneged on) over the years, there has been a has been, globally, an enormous proliferation of all manner of common factor which is that nuclear weapons only make weapons of war and especially the most dangerous of them sense as a means of deterring nuclear aggression by a – nuclear weapons. Treaties have been made and treaties potential enemy (whilst decades go by with increased yields continue to be broken, assuring us of negative progress. Why of these weapons – greater deterrence?). Leight pointed out is that? Could it be linked to one of the biggest bugbears of what should be abundantly clear to any thinking person – a socialists – reformism? So much of ‘Waging Peace’ is about nuclear war cannot be planned with the aim of winning it. reforming the system we have into one supposedly more A brief look at active wars at the time this book was favourable to the whole world’s population. written – Iran and Iraq, Lebanon’s civil war, Afghanistan and In 1984, during the cold war and just a handful of years before NAPF was established, a book was published Ireland’s ‘troubles’, just to mention some, and all of these ‘Even addressing just that – The Futility of Reformism. The author, inUSSR, Peacetime’. Libya v. Chad, the Basque separatist conflict, Northern Samuel Leight, a member of the World Socialist Party of the As always, capitalism US, headed Chapter 13 ‘The Inseparables (Capitalism and and war go hand in hand. “The inseparables” can never be War)’ which ably and convincingly addresses all the problems separated.The final To words get rid from of one Samuel is to Leight:get rid of‘ the other.’ raised above. JANET SURMAN The book had an appendix of 36 pages, solely pertinent to this chapter, concerning the statistics of war from 1945 to the end of 1983. Leight gathered together information from encyclopaedias and various other sources including newspapers and listed them in chronological order, some of the events lasting for years, some for days and others going on intermittently. In addition to well-known international wars these include coups, invasions and general hostilities, most of them resulting in loss of civilian lives and wrecked somewhere in the world. communitiesLeight drew with attention hardly early a day in going the chapter by without to the conflict month of July in 1983 when an article was published, ‘Even in ‘Peacetime’, 40 Wars Are Going On’ and that these hostilities worldwide claim to want peace and abhor war whilst building upclaimed their as‘capabilities’ many as five for million defence lives., never Certainly for attack, politicians and they are always ready to blame the other party for provocation. Worldwide budgets for defence have risen year on year and international sales of war materiel continue to increase annually assisted by armies of lobbyists – layer upon layer continuing procedure. of Alsoprofit in to 1983 be made referencing throughout a Los the Angeles whole Times continuous 16-page and supplement ‘Servants or Masters? Revisiting the Military Industrial Complex’ Leight drew attention to statistics

Socialist Standard November 2020 17 COOKING THE BOOKS The National Debt: whose debt? billion (with a comma). of middlemen between the government ‘The UK’s national debt hit a record Governments (unless they are directly and the nation, and the tax-farmers, £2.024 trillion at the end of August, involved in capitalist production themselves) merchants and private manufacturers, for £249.5 billion more than the same time generate no income of their own. The whom a good part of every national loan last year’, reported the Evening Standard money they spend comes from two main renders the service of a capital fallen from (25 September). Presumably seeking sources, mostly taxes. If a government wants heaven, apart from all these people, the to be helpful but actually confusing the to spend more than what this brings in it national debt has given rise to joint-stock picture, the report went on: has to resort to borrowing. This is normally companies, to dealings in negotiable effects ‘To put the figures in some perspective, done by selling short-term (Treasury) bills of all kinds, and to speculation, in a word to the debt level works out at roughly or longer-term bonds (gilts). The interest on stock-exchange gambling and the modern £30,000 per person living in the UK’. these has to be paid from tax revenue. bankocracy.’ (Capital, Penguin edition, So we are all on average £30,000 in Another statistic we are urged to get Volume I, Chapter 31). debt, are we? No, it’s the government’s worked up about (but needn’t) is the This is a fair description which still debt not ours. What is popularly called ‘General Government Deficit’. This is the applies today but, unfortunately, is a the ‘national debt’ is the outstanding difference between what the government source of many currency crank theories. debt, accumulated over the years, of the spends and what it raises through taxes and Marx was aware of this and warned: capitalist state and so is no concern of which has to be made up by borrowing. At ‘The great part that the public debt and ours. To be fair to the statisticians at the the end of June it was £128.8 billion. If, on the fiscal system corresponding with it Office for National Statistics (ONS) who the other hand, a government’s income have played in the capitalization of wealth compile the figures, their official name from taxes is greater than what it borrows, and the expropriation of the masses, has for it is the ‘General Government Gross then there is a surplus which can be used led many writers, like Cobbett, Doubleday Debt’. The total debt owed by persons to pay off a part of its debt. and others, to seek here, incorrectly, the is called ‘Household Debt’. At the end of Marx had something to say on the origin fundamental cause of the misery of the March 2018 this totalled £1.28 trillion, and consequences of the ‘National Debt’: people in modern times.’ most of which was mortgages. The two ‘The state’s creditors actually give The fundamental cause of this misery statistics are quite different. nothing away, for the sum lent is is not the financial system but the class Note that since 1974 a ‘trillion’ means transformed into public bonds, easily ownership of the means of life and only a thousand billion (not the billion negotiable, which go on functioning in their production for profit. What is required billion it used to be). But it makes a hands just as so much hard cash would. But to remove it is not monetary reform more sensational headline to say that furthermore, and quite apart from the class but common ownership and production the government’s debt is £2.024 (with of idle rentiers thus created, the improvised directly to satisfy people’s need. a full stop) trillion rather than £2,024 wealth of the financiers who play the role

18 Socialist Standard November 2020 LONGSTANDINGRubber RIVALS ITV and the Will Spitting Image’s rebootReboot be as though. One of the better running gags BBC have realised they share a common popular? Probably not, as its audience is has Donald Trump trying to make a deal enemy in the online video channels and limited to Britbox subscribers. Its makers with the Coronavirus, or ‘Corony’, as he streaming services poaching their viewers. are hoping for an international reach, calls the floating spiked blob which talks So they’ve uncharacteristically teamed though, and have brought in staff from with him. ‘You’re everything I like. You’re up to try and compete against young American TV shows to widen its appeal tough, you’re sneaky, you’re an affront to upstarts like Netflix and Amazon Prime stateside. As the new series is only a humanity. I want you in my organisation’, Video. Their ‘joint vision’ (as they put it) few episodes in, it’s too early for the coos Trump. In another skit, Boris Johnson is Britbox, a video on demand channel production team to have hit their stride. wants to buy off the virus by getting it launched in November 2019 in the UK, To keep the sketches topical, they have to a seat in the House of Lords and then having previously been available in North be written, blocked out and performed ends up having a fling with it. Other America. Take out a subscription and you’ll only a few days before transmission, sketches fall flat: recently re-elected New have access to TV series from the archives which must be a challenge even without Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is which you’d have hoped would otherwise the impact of the pandemic on the TV presented as Mary Poppins running the be on the BBC iPlayer or ITV Hub for free. industry. A lack of material definitely isn’t perfect country, but where’s the satire Many of the two channels’ well-known an issue, though, with the government’s in that? Boris Johnson is depicted as an dramas, sitcoms and documentaries are (inevitable) inability to manage the virus oblivious mop-topped buffoon, so it’s on Britbox (along with a little content from situation, and the US Presidential election hardly a caricature at all. And the slanging Channels 4 and 5), but there’s nothing too being obvious targets, along with celebs match between puppets of Donald Trump obscure, unfortunately. The range would like Meghan Markle and ‘the husband and Joe Biden wasn’t much different to be improved if they dug out some Play For formerly known as Prince’ Harry. their real televised ‘debate’. Sometimes Todays and World In Actions. Around a hundred puppets have been it’s hard to tell whether the show isn’t Britbox is aimed at fans of familiar made for the series, in the same rubbery, being imaginative enough or if our rulers old telly, but has recently branched out irreverent style as before. To work, the are too far removed from the rest of us to into premiering its own new material. caricatures need to be exaggerated, need satirising. So it’s pitching to its target audience by while still being close enough to how As its focus is on the puppets, Spitting starting with something nostalgic, a revival their real counterparts would talk and Image ridicules society’s figureheads of puppet-based satirical sketch show act. Memorable grotesques include smug rather than criticises the system itself. Spitting Image. Last seen on ITV in 1996, Home Secretary Priti Patel as a dominatrix And many of the lampooned luminaries the series is best remembered for its and later as a vampire (not far off from haven’t minded this, and probably like 1980s heyday, with its increasingly-insane how ex-Tory MP Edwina Currie had been the publicity. Old episodes uploaded to Margaret Thatcher, its tipsy Queen Mother portrayed), and chief adviser Dominic Britbox are introduced by some of the and even chart-topping The Chicken Song. Cummings as a creepy, googly-eyed alien politicians immortalised in latex, including It probably got more people interested who eats babies. Neil Kinnock on the one hand and Ken in current affairs and party politics than Just as important as the puppets are the Livingstone on the other. They reminisce more serious-minded fare did, being one scripts, which need to raise both a chuckle about enjoying the show at the time, and of those programmes regularly talked and a serious point. The sixteen writers add that having a puppet made of you was about in offices and playgrounds the working on the show haven’t yet been seen as a badge of honour. So, ‘80s Spitting morning after each episode. able to come up with much that shines, Image wasn’t as anti-establishment as it might appear, and the new series doesn’t even push the boundaries as much as its predecessor. The puppets haven’t got out of hand. So far, the revival has only attracted any controversy with its mean- spirited caricature of environmental activist Greta Thunberg, rather than by saying anything which challenges the status quo. Satire risks just being a safety valve, where our frustrations about the system can be voiced in a contained, witty way. At its best, and Spitting Image sadly seldom gets there, satire highlights the absurdities of capitalist society, and thereby helps undermine it. MIKE FOSTER CREDIT: Avalon/BritBox/Mark Harrison Avalon/BritBox/Mark CREDIT:

Socialist Standard November 2020 19 Not so alternative democratically allocated by the workers Of course, this would only exacerbate the of the firm based on perceived merit. inequality between capitals, since some This shares similarities with Michael individuals would be able to harvest Albert’s idea of Parecon. It is open to the interest profits from other firms. So much same criticism as Parecon, based on the for ending capitalism. Yugoslav experience. Consciously, he depicts the continued Self-management of Yugoslavian existence of financial crises in this firms fell victim to the inequality of the society: albeit that he adds that swift technological differences inequalities government action of creating money between firms: some were more quickly resolves the matter. Again, this productive and profitable than others, means that so long as there are markets, without any difference in skill or effort he accepts there is a situational logic for between the partner-workers and speculation/fraud and financial instability. those of a different firm. The workers In the Other Now, all land titles have there would defend their relatively high been transferred to regional authorities wages by excluding other workers, and which operate as trusts (quite how ultimately using the features Varoufakis this could happen through the sort Another Now: Dispatches from describes for workers hired for a specific of minority targeting of companies an Alternative Present.By Ynis role (as opposed to employees/partners) described in the book is mysterious, such Varoufakis. Bodley Head. to exploit the labour of other workers expropriation would require a determined £16.99 (he calls this the disjointedness criterion and organised conscious movement, that – where it is possible to measure an would surely meet serious resistance) individual’s contribution, rather than which operate as trusts. The properties At the inaugural summit of the value created by teamwork). This would would be let commercially, with the ‘Progressive International’ (a new attempt create a situational logic and incentive community collecting the rent. A to link up various vehicles for left-leaning for the restoration of exploitation. That permanent auction system would be politicians) Yanis Varoufakis, the former said, his depiction of a firm without rigid used to ensure people pay the right rent Greek finance minister and the driving division of labour is itself enticing and without excess bureaucracy (essentially, force behind the Diem25 portion of this interesting to think through. He is savvy each occupier would assess the value of new international, gave a keynote speech: enough to note that unofficial hierarchies the property, with the threat that anyone ‘Why we need a Progressive International and prejudices may still linger in the else could ‘bid’ a higher value/rent to that must plan for today and for beyond Other Now, which is worth consideration. take it off them). capitalism’ (tinyurl.com/y5vvrtmn). More than a good deal of the book The central thread is that this saves The plan he proposes is actually is given over to talking about banking. markets from capitalism: and avoids the banal, including targeted boycotting Given the massive expropriation implied worse alternative of centralised allocation of companies such as Amazon and in converting all firms to co-ops and and rationing in a soviet style, which he companies that engage in abusive abolishing the labour market, this seems rightly deplores. The framing device is of practices in a ‘Day of Inaction’. There is redundant (and wouldn’t the banks two radicals: Eva, a radical capitalist (who no vision of co-ordinated democratic themselves now be worker co-ops?). This is won over by the workability of this political action. He does say ‘while this is is particularly the case, given he assumes market system) and Iris, a woman who neither the moment nor the place to plan an express ban on buying and selling could ‘ever conceive of a good market, a for postcapitalism, it is useful to imagine shares. The workers own the firms, but noble war or an unjust strike’. what a postcapitalist world might be like.’ cannot sell them. But, in great detail, he In a strange detour via discussing As it just so happens, he has a new discusses creating public utility banking ‘politically correct transactional love’, book out which addresses this very that would wipe out the commercial Varoufakis does discuss the idea of a activity. Its conceit is that a group of high-street banks, and form a means for society where people freely give, where radicals get access to their versions in handing out the universal basic dividend. commodities are ended. He refers to it an alternate reality, one in which the He prefers a dividend to a fixed income, as Star Trek Communism, but maintains crisis of 2008 spurred radical action that since this is then a share in the collective that until Star Trek style replicators are dismantled the world financial system product of society, rather than being available, money will remain essential. and abolished both the labour market perceived as some sort of handout. That does seem a limited outlook as, and massive financial institutions. He still envisages a banking function, even where resources are scarce, there In his Other Now (as his alternate but one, given the ban on investment are alternatives to both money and world is referred to), the labour market banking, where banks return to being centralised allocation that can be used. is abolished. There are still firms, and simple financial intermediaries rather The character of Iris is manoeuvred jobs, but once someone joins a firm than ‘creating money.’ (In a slightly into opposing the Other Now, because its they can do whatever work they want more sophisticated version of the usual market system might hinder her preferred within the firm, all pay above a basic currency crank narrative, he avers that no-commodity society (opposing share of the firm’s profits and a universal now banks can create money based on a everything else which is something of basic dividend (collected by taxing the claim of expected profits, and related to a caricature position that some people revenue of firms, rather than profits) is their interventions in the share markets). falsely impute to us, and which, as far as

20 Socialist Standard November 2020 we know, no-one actually holds or ever officer in the Transport and General End when she meets and allies herself held). Further, disgracefully, the text Workers Union, he has dedicated much with Sylvia Pankhurst, who has split from also pathologises her position by stating of his life to exploring and recording the Christabel and Emmeline who betray ‘raging against the system was [her] only history of this element of trade unionism, themselves by becoming purveyors of way of being, her loneliness vaccine’. with specific reference to London. Perhaps white feathers activists as they aid the What comes across, is that Varoufakis he is too close to his subject. war’s recruiting drive. is wrestling with a notion of moneyless A basic tenet of writing good fiction is Dorothy ends up in Holloway after socialism, and finding the ideas attractive, ‘show, don’t tell’, engage the reader, invite indulging in the suffragette habit of he struggles to dismiss and contain them the reader to construct mental scenes, smashing windows; a hammer being through an ad hominem dismissal of its challenge those constructs through the more effective than a rock, Sylvia opines. proponents. story taking unexpected turns. Reading This leads her to conclude that breaking The book is intelligently written, and should be an active process. windows changes nothing. none of the characters are mere cyphers. Unfortunately, this novel does an awful The First World War does energise the That it opens the conversation to post- lot of telling. There is page after page of novel, especially the accounts of those capitalism, and because it (unsuccessfully) what reads like verbatim minutes of union trying to stop workers killing each other on wrestles with views like ours, it is a meetings. Anyone who has been active in behalf of capital. The danger this invites welcome addition to debate. a union will recognise how drawn out and, in a jingoistic atmosphere is explored and PIK SMEET frankly, tedious, even though important, does point up that the war effort was not Laboured love such meetings can be. Especially so for universally popular. someone on the outside glancing in. Fuller explores how circumstance, Fuller does not seem clear as to his especially extreme circumstance, can intention. As a chronicler of London bus affect an individual. When Dorothy workers’ history he has undoubtedly a is killed by a German bomb, Mickey creditable depth of knowledge. He is also seriously considers enlisting. He is keenly aware of the wider contexts in eventually talked out of it by Dorothy’s which that history flowed its course. ‘ghost’ as his own conscience and However, to make sure no research political consciousness manifest through goes to waste, characters find their his memories of her voice. mouths being over over-stuffed with The politics of the novel focus on historical details. They don’t so much the role of the British Socialist Party, have conversations so much as swap the Labour Party and the ILP. There is lectures. For example, George Sanders, a Leninist thread represented by the a union official, delivers an impromptu character Rothstein, but the main focus potted history of London Transport is on the union and competing factions companies, along with American influence within it. A familiar story of the left-right Love and Labour. (Red Button and dividend returns while standing, dichotomy, still playing out over a hundred Years – Volume 1). By Ken Fuller. supposedly chatting, at Hyde Park Corner. years later. The pro-versus anti- war ISBN: 978-1-6990-9278-1. 2019. The novel opens in 1913 and works elements give expression to this, and there its way through to 1917. Its two main is some understanding of how capitalism is characters are Mickey Rice, erstwhile tram the root cause of war. There is no mention driver in Reading who becomes a bus that in the ten years leading up to the As there is no publisher accredited, we conductor, then driver, in London, and war’s outbreak the Socialist Party of Great presume this is a self-published book. Dorothy Bridgeman. Britain had consistently voiced this point. The author lists seven other books, six Dorothy has fled a privileged, but stifling Indeed socialism, as dealt with in this being non-fiction. One of them, ‘Radical upbringing, to become a radical socialist book, is to be achieved via reformism or in what would become the Leninist sense. Aristocrats: London Busworkers from some Bolshevik-style revolution. That the Dorothy and Mickey become lovers as well the 1880s to the 1980s’, published by working class will have to look beyond as union comrades and we are treated to a Lawrence and Wishart in 1985, provided trade unions and political parties vying for number of their explicitly erotic scenes. the basis for this story. power and achieve socialism through its The first of these is revealing (sorry) Self-publishing has become widely own conscious action is not addressed. in that mid-coitus Mickey and Emily, the available due to technological advances Any undertaking on the scale of this name Dorothy was using at the time, making it much more affordable. It is an novel is admirable, . It appears to me, engage in a discussion on the radical, or avenue for authors of books, fiction and though, there is a much better novel in otherwise, nature of impromptu sex. Emily non-fiction, with such limited appeal as to be here begging to be revealed. This review unlikely to generate profit enough, or even at (Dorothy) concludes, it is ‘…no threat began by invoking the role of the editor. If all, to interest commercial publishers. whatsoever to the bourgeois order – the book was 200 pages shorter it would This must not be taken to imply such unless, that is, they also embrace the class be 200 pages better. books are badly written, but rather their struggle.’ (Page 52). ‘Love and Labour’ is a labour of love on appeal is to a limited audience due to Both are fictional characters, but many the author’s part, and also the reader’s. the subject matter. The weakness of the others are historical personages. As such Dispense with the potted histories, the process can be the absence of the critical they serve to give voice to the competing detailed accounts of union machinations eye of an experienced editor. Such is the elements within the burgeoning Red and let the story emerge. Dorothy overall impression of this novel. Button, a reference to the badge worn by and Mickey are strong characters, but There can be no doubting Ken Fuller’s bus workers’ union members. even they are too often recruited as immersion in the subject on which he Dorothy takes the story off into mouthpieces for the author. writes. A former bus driver and full-time London’s seriously impoverished East

Socialist Standard November 2020 21 DAVE ALTON becoming free. Yet there would still be of Karl Marx, with both positive and Not So Radical money, markets, profits and banks, so negative comments. Marx suggested it was hard to see how what he was that humans can set themselves free by proposing was really ‘postcapitalist’. changing their social circumstances, which In his latest book Mason advocates a would involve abolishing private property. similar system, but he goes by a rather But he did not give an adequate account roundabout route to get to this proposal of women’s oppression or of reproductive and then makes a detour at the end that labour as a specific form of exploitation. promises very little. He looks at why people There is something in this critique, but support Trump, a man who thinks facts are no merit at all in the claim that Marx saw irrelevant. Racism and misogyny, he says, the revolution as ‘the blind actions of a are the key factors driving white voters to single class’, as it would in reality be the Trump. We then get a discussion of many achievement of class-conscious workers topics – including neoliberalism, the alt- (it is not clear, but it may be that Mason right, post-humanism, trans-humanism, sees the working class as manual workers postmodernism – and various writers, such only). His vision is of the networked as Nietzsche, Arendt and Foucault. individual taking part in collective action, Mason supports radical humanism, but this differs only in that it would now Paul Mason: which means achieving freedom by be far easier than just half a century Clear Bright Future: a Radical transforming technology and society. ago for a revolutionary working class to Defence of the Human Being. Artificial intelligence should be placed communicate with each other and co- Penguin £9.99. under human control and made subject ordinate their activities. to an appropriate ethical code, and Later comes a totally pointless chapter information technology (as argued in which argues that what passes for Marxism in China is nothing like the real In Postcapitalism (reviewed in the Postcapitalism) can be part of what makes economic abundance viable, thing. The book ends with a chapter on September 2015 -Socialist Standard) as it creates goods that can be copied how to ‘live the anti-fascist life’ that is Paul Mason argued for what he called at minuscule cost. IT ‘makes Utopian pretty vague and makes little connection revolutionary reformism, a gradual Socialism possible: the appearance of to what has been said previously. More transition to a supposedly new kind of islands of cooperative production for on the supposed ‘Utopian Socialism’ and social system. There would be a basic sharing, the massive reduction of hours how it could be a global system rather income for everyone, while essential worked and the expansion of human than just ‘islands’ would have been a more appropriate conclusion. goods and services would be made freedom and self-knowledge’. PB cheaper, with more and more of these Two chapters are devoted to the views

then, there have been countless promises and schemes to deal with the problem. Statistics have been computed, 50 Years Ago weighted, published. Speeches galore have been made and applauded. And last month the latest figures came out, Cathy – no home to go to in the annual report of the grandly titled Department of Cathy – shall we ever forget – was the fair, slim, lovely Health and Social Security. (…) The report said that in 1969 young girl whose family and life were wrecked simply 20,820 people lived in emergency accommodation. In 1967 because they could not find a home. They went from one the figure was 16,176. which means that during the past hopeless situation to another, from verminous slum to wet two years the numbers of homeless people have risen by tent to reception centre. She was parted from her husband one third. (…) and then from the last of her children. In the end she The same month these figures were announced, saw stood by the roadside with the passing lamps of the lorries the launch of Shelter, heralded with a procession of grim playing across her face. She was going home, back the way statistics: three million families in Britain in slums, near she had come. slums or in grossly overcrowded conditions; in Glasgow The play was an instant success, 100,000 unfit houses, in Liverpool owing nothing to the fact that it was 73,733; a waiting list in London of the work of an ex-Etonian. There 150,000 families, in Birmingham were one or two rather half-hearted 38,000. (…) attempts to debunk it but the author Poverty is ineradicable under had got in first; all the incidents in capitalism but the system’s leaders the play, it was announced at the can never admit their impotence to beginning, had happened, in London, deal with it. They must go on. with during the previous year. This was their promises and their assertions reality. Shocked, everyone agreed; and their programmes. Meanwhile, something must be done about the the harsh reality remains. homeless. (Socialist Standard, November 1970) That was several years ago. Since Cathy Come Home by Ken Loach (BBC) Ken Come Home by Cathy

22 Socialist Standard November 2020 Meetings All Socialist Party meetings/talks/discussions are currently online on Discord, including the Autumn Delegate Meeting on Saturday 21 November. Please contact the Forum Administrator on [email protected] for how to join. NOVEMBER 2020 Wednesday 18 November, 19.30 GMT OTHER ONLINE TALK General current affairs discussion Thursday 12 November 19.30 GMT DISCORD EVENTS “Did you see the news?” Oxford Communist Corresponding Society is hosting a series of Wednesday 4 November, 19.30 GMT Friday 20 November 19.30 GMT weekly online talks. They will be General current affairs discussion Friday night talk posted at 7:30pm each Thursday “Did you see the news?” The new atheism and will remain up for 24 hours. What was it, where did it go, and Friday 6 November, 19.30 GMT To listen to them go to: http:// what did we learn? FRIDAY NIGHT TALK communistcorrespondingsociety.org/ audio.html Covid and Civil Liberties AUTUMN DELEGATE MEETING Speaker: Dave Coggan Saturday 21 November Socialist Party member Bill Martin is 10.00 GMT (for 10.30) to 17.30 GMT doing the 12 November one on: Wednesday 11 November, 19.30 GMT Belling the cat: Marx and Engels FAQ Workshop Wednesday 25 November 19.30 GMT on the practical organization of Bread and Circuses Open Mic Night socialism. Do films and TV have anything useful We offer a guest slot to a Discord to tell us about capitalism or are they Friend to riff on their perspective, just part of the capitalist bread and with audience discussion. circus act? Friday 27 November 19.30 GMT Friday 13 November, 19.30 GMT Friday night talk Friday night talk Bitcoin and the Dark Web. Attachment Theory Speaker: Paul Edwards. Speaker: Tim Kilgallon. An environmental explanation of the development of human personality.

Declaration of Principles

This declaration is the basis of our organisation and, because it is working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind, without also an important historical document dating from the formation of distinction of race or sex. the party in 1904, its original language has been retained. 5. That this emancipation must be the work of the working class Object itself. The establishment of a system of society based upon the common 6. That as the machinery of government, including the armed forces ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments of the nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the class of the wealth taken from the workers, the working class must whole community. organize consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government, national and local, in order that this machinery, Declaration of Principles including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of The Socialist Party of Great Britain holds oppression into the agent of emancipation and the overthrow of 1. That society as at present constituted is based upon the privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic. ownership of the means of living (i.e. land, factories, railways, etc.) 7. That as all political parties are but the expression of class by the capitalist or master class, and the consequent enslavement interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically of the working class, by whose labour alone wealth is produced. opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class, the 2. That in society, therefore, there is an antagonism of interests, party seeking working class emancipation must be hostile to every manifesting itself as a class struggle between those who possess but other party. do not produce and those who produce but do not possess. 8. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, therefore, enters the field of 3. That this antagonism can be abolished only by the emancipation political action determined to wage war against all other political of the working class from the domination of the master class, by parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist, and calls upon the conversion into the common property of society of the means the members of the working class of this country to muster under of production and distribution, and their democratic control by its banner to the end that a speedy termination may be wrought to the whole people. the system which deprives them of the fruits of their labour, and that 4. That as in the order of social evolution the working class is poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery the last class to achieve its freedom, the emancipation of the to freedom. Cathy Come Home by Ken Loach (BBC) Ken Come Home by Cathy

Socialist Standard November 2020 23 Everything’s for sale Reuters reports. According to state media, ‘The super-rich are already living the best the 34-year-old woman who owned the lives. Now they’re trying to make those factory said it had received a “monthly lives last forever with a wide array of weird input of used condoms from an unknown and wonderful ideas from the fringes of person.” Health officials said the recycled science... Ambrosia is one of three outfits rubbers posed an “extreme health risk” looking at experimental “vampire” blood to users, reports the AP. The factory was transfusions that put the blood of young raided after a tip from a local resident. people into the veins of oldies. According Police said the factory owner told them to commercial finance experts ABC she was paid 17 cents per kilogram of Finance, the cost of the trials currently recycled condoms. She has been detained ranges from £6,000 to about £215,000. and authorities are seeking other people The technique has worked well in mice, This is the title of a ‘...shocking film on the involved in the operation’ (newser.com, 25 although as yet there are no positive privatisation of American public lands. September). results from human trials’ (dailystar.co.uk, “We’ve arrived at a moment,” Herring says Escape from Covid-19? 19 September). Such developments come as no surprise to socialists who have long in the film, “where we are going to decide (i) for the gullible 99 percent. According understood capitalism’s voracious nature whether we’re going to keep the birthright to Dr. Vikas Mishra, ‘People are happily and how it seeks ever new ways to drain and the legacy of our public lands [system] wearing these cards and moving around in what it can out of the working class. Marx or whether we simply want to unleash crowded places which exposes them to the noted: ‘Capital is dead labour which, the forces of industry and live in a world infection. Believing that any unverified and vampire like, lives by sucking living labour, where everything is for sale.” In other untested product would save one from the and lives the more, the more labour it words, the November elections could virus is foolishness and also exposes people sucks’ (Capital, Volume 1, Chapter 10). determine the fate of many of the most to the danger of catching the infection...’ Capitalism causes pollution, war and want, iconic and cherished ecosystems in the US, (news18.com, 21 September). Apparently, but for the system to continue it must from national forests to wildlife refuges’ medical ‘..stores are earning a handsome avoid eradicating its source of unpaid (theguardian.com, 25 September). amount and owners say these cards are surplus value. Indeed, the introduction of This month’s election in the US has not selling like hot cakes.’ basic healthcare, welfare payments and changed anything: capitalism continues (ii) for the 1 percent. ‘Starting an even parks is primarily in the interest of and everything remains for sale. The overseas holiday with two weeks the parasite, not the host. National Trust’s 2,480 km2 of land - with quarantine may not sound deeply its 1,300 kilometres of coast, 500+ historic appealing, but a tour operator says Moneyless moonshine? houses, castles, ancient and industrial well-heeled clients are prepared to do monuments, gardens, parks and nature it. Both National and Act party border reserves -- might be seen as inalienable, control policies would allow foreign yet Parliament can override this. If tourists to stay in privately managed capitalism really wants something then isolation facilities that met strict rules... wildlife, natural beauty, peace and quiet, The package, including two weeks in an or anything else, will take second place. isolation facility, would cost $15,000 to 50s-era landfill? $20,000 per person, and she said if up to 700 people were allowed in over the There is one for sale in Wilmington, North coming summer, they would generate Carolina.’ The Town paid $25 for the land, $10m to $15m in tourism income...’ (stuff. and used it to house hurricane debris co.nz, 22 September). and trash. The only thing that now stands between the Beach and a $1.05 million Eternal life? sale is a snafu involving an N.C. contractor ‘Work with us. Do not believe those and state regulators, who disagreed on who tell you any political party, or any how much it should cost to clean the “reformers” or any special legislation, former landfill’ (portcitydaily.com, 25 can do away with crimes that are only September). In fact, capitalism does put the result of our whole system of society a value on a summer’s day. And on a to-day. If you would do away with these work of art. On a mosque. A social system crimes, you must do away with their which works by profit, whose wheels are cause. Help us. Help us to save not only lubricated by money, must put a price on yourselves, men and women; not only everything. It bruises many sensitivities your little children. Help us also to save the in the process, but capitalism can work in very criminals, who now “drain your sweat only one way. and drink your blood.” Come to us. Join Recycled condoms? hands with us; and hand in hand, heart to ‘Police in Vietnam have busted a factory heart with us, labour in this great cause. that took recycling one step too far. Some Never forget that when once the people 345,000 used condoms were seized from will there is no gainsaying them. Once you the factory near Ho Chi Minh city, where rise “in unvanquishable number,” you are they had been boiled, reshaped with a many, they — your enemies — “are few” wooden phallus, and packaged for resale, ‘ (Eleanor Marx-Aveling, The Pall Mall Gazette, August 1885).

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