Published on The Socialist Party of Great Britain (http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb)
No. 878 October 1977
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Published on The Socialist Party of Great Britain (http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb)
Saturday, 1 October 1977
All in the Mind
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People travelling on the Hammersmith Line can read the slogan on this month's cover of the Socialist
Standard, painted on the side of the overhead motorway, every time their train passes between
Ladbroke Grove and Westbourne Park stations. Very few of them even notice it as they worry about
what the day at work will bring, try to relax from the tensions of that day on the way home, or try to
"get away from it all" for a few minutes by turning to the sports pages of their papers.
To-day, although great advances have been made in eliminating or controlling illnesses like TB, onethird of all National Health Service beds are filled by people with mental illnesses. In addition, over
20,000 go to hospital for the whole day each day for treatment, plus nearly a quarter of a million
who visit out-patient departments to see a psychiatrist. In fact, mental illness is the greatest single
medical problem to-day. In publishing these figures, the National Association for Mental Health
makes the point that they only represent identified (their italics) mental ill health which is being
treated in some way.
The most usual reasons for mental illness are stated to be "the stress placed on us by an urban,
competitive society. Stress is an integral part of our jobs, of growing up, of marriage, of being poor,
of bereavement". The case-histories quoted vary as widely as the man who could not cope when he
was "overpromoted", to the frustrated woman who became chronically "over houseproud"; from
whose who resort to drink and drugs (in themselves an opting out of the "real" world) to the
inadequate sexual partner.
The world of "Pop" has just mourned the death at the age of 42 of its idol, Elvis Presley. Before him,
Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland died in similar circumstances. Nearer home, Tony Hancock, whose
sad-faced comedy always had relevance to the day-to-day life of the "ordinary" man, could not bear
the pressures of his own life. Their names were famous; their untimely end mourned by many, Their
deaths have been attributed to the same basic reason as that of the man next door who could not
face his problems any longer. Although by the money standards set by to-day's society they were at
opposite ends of the scale, they had this in common—they succumbed because they could not deal,
or come to terms, with the pressures if the system under which we live—capitalism.
There is a pleasant Jewish greeting "I wish you well", but we say to you, fellow members of the
working class: while you have capitalism, it will remain a wish. When we have got rid of the worldwide system responsible—directly or indirectly—for almost all the mental illness to-day, there will no
longer be any need for "Mental Health Week" or, indeed, for the National Association for Mental
Health. Then, and only then, will that greeting have real meaning.
Eva Goodman
Saturday, 1 October 1977
Marxism or Machiavellianism?
It is a familiar principle of capitalist politics that that means justify the end and so any "tactics" can
be used in order to achieve political power. Machiavellianism is alive and well in 1977, and the old
master of deceitfulness would be quite proud of his modern disciples in the Palace of Westminster.
Scholars have disagreed as to what Machiavelli's political intentions were. Jeffrey Pulver, writing in
1937 on what constitutes Machiavelli's contribution to political thought, answers plainly: "Nothing at
all." It is true that, unlike Marx, Machiavelli did not apply himself to any revolutionary view of society
and that his historical observations were less than profound; his advice to aspiring politicians,
however, is a frank admission of the way in which leaders win and retain power.
All of Machiavelli's major works—The Prince, The Discourses, and the Florentine Histories—are
concerned with political power: the establishment of states, the maintenance of effective
governments within them and reasons for, and preventives against, their decline and fall. Unlike
Plato and Thomas More they are not concerned with describing a future utopia, but with considering
Renaissance Italian society as it was. He was not the first to deal with this subject: many of his
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contemporaries' writings dealt with
"the problems of kingship—countless treatises with such titles as 'De Regime Principium', 'De
Officio Regis', or 'The governal of princes'—copied and recopied, translated, revised, enlarged and
adapted for century after century." (S. Anglo, Machiavelli: a Dissection, p. 189.)
In short, they were writing text books for rulers on how to rule successfully, in the same way as
modern advertisements offer free booklets on "How to Influence People and Become Rich". It was
Machiavelli's frankness in his advice to princes which has since been seen as shocking by liberal
theorists. Alberico Gentile and Garret Mattingly saw The Prince as an outrageous satire; Spinoza and
Rousseau saw it as a warning against tyranny; Prezzoloni and Haydn regarded it as a shocking
treatise because it attacked Christianity and defended paganism; numerous other philosophers,
politicians and social theorists have demonstrated outrage against the views of Machiavelli. And all
of them have one thing in common: they do not challenge Machiavelli's fundamental statement that
it is virtuous to trick the majority in order to retain power, but have continued to support the
capitalist system which depends on obscuring the interests of the majority to safeguard the security
of the minority. Perhaps Bertrand Russell is right when he says:
"Much of the conventional obloquy that attaches to [Machiavelli's] name is due to the indignation
of hypocrites who hate the frank avowal of evil-doing." (History of Western Philosophy, Bk. 3, p. 491.)
The outcry over Machiavelli is, therefore, because he paints a portrait of his ideal ruler (based in fact
on Cesare Borgia) which is too accurately descriptive of the way political leaders behave. How well
does Laurence Arthur Burd's description of Machiavelli's ideal prince remind one of residents at
Number 10, Downing Street:
"He must in the first place be entirely free from emotional disturbance; he must be ready to take
advantage of the existing state of things; he must be strong enough to sin boldly, if his country's
welfare depends upon it; he must be shrewd enough to understand human nature in whatever form
he finds it, and, overcoming evil by evil, play with the passions and impulses of men, use them as he
pleases, force them to his purpose, manage them. And above all he must be thorough: a single
hesitation, a single half-measure might compromise the whole result. He must depend upon himself
and his own soldiers; he must abolish all mercenaries and establish a national army of his own
subjects. If such a man could be found, of unflinching purpose, dead to every sentiment but the love
of his country, willing to save his fatherland rather than his own soul, careless of justice or injustice,
of mercy or cruelty, of honour or disgrace, he might perhaps . . . begin the regeneration of his
people."
Machiavelli was not the first to argue against the established belief that the State should be run in
accordance with fixed (Christian) moral principles and to propose that rulers should be guided by
political and economic expediency. Pontano believed that for the good of the State (i.e. the ruling
class interest) a ruler should tell lies (it will be of some comfort to modern political leaders to know
that they have Pontano's permission); Patrizzi believed the same, so that people would not know if
the nation was in ruin; and Platina claimed that even private citizens could forget about morality if it
was for the benefit of the State. Machiavelli realized that:
"If morals relate to human conduct, and men are by nature social, Christian morality cannot be a
guide for normal social existence." (I. Berlin, "The Originality of Machiavelli," in Studies on
Machiavelli, ed. Myron P. Gilmore)
In this respect Machiavelli held a similar position to Marx in realizing that morality is socially
determined by the needs of the ruling class, and that as society is constantly changing so is morality.
The difference between Marx and Machiavelli is that whereas Marx told workers to forget moral
values and view society materially, Machiavelli, as an adviser to the rising bourgeoisie of late
medieval Italy, sought ways to manipulate existing moral values.
Today workers are still swallowing the morality of the capitalist class—a morality which condemns
robbing banks, but encourages mass murder during war time, which censors books but shows every
night news of disgusting crimes against humanity in the name of profit, which shows contempt for
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the workers who produce the wealth of society, and idolizes useless parasites who reap the profits of
production. The Machiavellian advice that deluding the masses is the way to retain power is still
cherished by political leaders throughout the world. Stalin, Nixon, Mao, Churchill, Thatcher,
Powell—all successful masters of the art.
But the delusion of the working class relies upon one factor: the workers' capacity to be deluded.
When the working class of all countries unite in class consciousness no attempts, either by force or
political cunning, will stop the revolution for Socialism. For the establishment of Socialism lies and
deceit will not be necessary. The only words which the Socialist Party of Great Britain have for the
working class are simple: toss aside the morals of your masters and organize for a rational society.
Steve Coleman
Saturday, 1 October 1977
Old Fallacies: A Look at the International Communist
Current
The organization called International Communist Current is a mixture of perceptiveness towards
some aspects of capitalism, blindness to others, and a belief in long-exposed fallacies. It recognizes
that nationalization is state capitalism, that the so-called national liberation movements are antisocialist and that Russia, China, Cuba, etc. are "just so many capitalist bastions" — "There are no
socialist countries on this planet".
ICC claims to be Marxist but shows no appreciation of Marx's analysis of capitalism's economic laws.
Politically it belongs to the early 19th-century world of Louis Blanqui (originator of ICC's slogan
"Dictatorship of the Proletariat") and the young and inexperienced Marx and Engels. It rejects the
mature Marx's view of the necessity to gain control of "the machinery of government, including the
armed forces", and offers instead confrontation with the state power and "world civil war" to be
waged by "armed workers' councils" (see ICC pamphlet Nation or Class).
A basic difficulty about establishing Socialism is that such a social system, involving as it does the
disappearance of buying and selling, wages and prices, and the coercive state, could only be
operated if the mass of the population understood and wanted it and were ready to accept all the
new responsibilities of voluntary co-operation that would rest on them. If the working class as they
are at present, most of them attached to capitalism, preoccupied with wages and prices, wage
differentials and trade-union demarcation lines, and dependent on management direction and tradeunion leadership, were suddenly faced with Socialism there would be chaos and no alternative but to
return to capitalism.
Two solutions were offered. One was the Blanquist and early Marxist view—a transition period during
which the mass of the population would be "educated to Socialism". This is the ICC policy. The other,
the mature Marxist, view was stated by Engels in his 1895 Introduction to Marx's Class Struggles in
France:
“The time is past for revolutions carried through by small minorities at the head of unconscious
masses. When it gets to be a matter of the complete transformation of the social organisation, the
masses themselves must participate, must understand what is at stake and why they are to act. That
much the history of the last fifty years has taught us.”
And again, referring to France:
“Socialists realize more and more that no durable success is possible unless they win over in
advance the great mass of the people, which, in this case, means the peasants. The slow work of
propaganda and parliamentary activity are here also recognised as the next task of the party.”
ICC rejects the Marxist idea of socialists gaining control of Parliament on the ground that Parliament
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is nothing but "mystification of the working class". Of course defenders of capitalism use Parliament
to mislead the working class, just as they use religion, sport and
the bogus economic theories of J. M. Keynes. They can do this only because the workers lack socialist
understanding—which fact ICC fails to see. It thinks that if non-socialist workers spontaneously throw
up workers' councils these can't be "mystified". Experience has shown how wrong ICC is. Lenin, in
State and Revolution, complained that his political opponents had
“managed to pollute even the Soviets, after the model of the most despicable middle-class
parliamentarians, by turning them into hollow talking shops.”
ICC greatly admire the Workers' Councils set up in Germany after the first world war. At the Workers'
Councils National Congress in 1918, and again in 1919, they were bamboozled by Social Democratic
politicians into voting their support for the Social Democrat Government, which government then
sidetracked the Councils and used state forces to crush resistance.
The argument that because the franchise has been used to trick the workers they should not use it
was sensibly answered by Marx in the preamble he wrote for the French Workers' Party. In it, he
commended transforming the vote "from a means of duping, which it has been hitherto, into an
instrument of emancipation".
As ICC are not going to wait until there is a socialist majority, they have to find some other spur to
working-class action. Like the young Marx and Engels, and like the British Communist Party in the
1930s, they find it in capitalism's periodic crises and depressions which stir up discontent about
unemployment and falling living standards. But, as Engels pointed out in a letter to Bernstein (25th
January 1882), when the depression passes and production and employment expand again
"returning prosperity also breaks the revolution and lays the basis for the victory of reaction".
Are depressions permanent?
ICC think they have an answer to this. They say that the present depression is permanent, that it
throws up problems the capitalists are impotent to deal with, and that capitalism cannot afford any
more concessions to the workers. The great changeover is supposed to have happened in 1914,
after which capitalism became "decadent", ICC evidently does not know that all these themes are
almost as old as capitalism itself.
In every one of capitalism's depressions there have been people, capitalists as well as workers, who
have been convinced that it would be permanent. In the "Great Depression" of the last quarter of the
19th century, which lasted for twenty years, it was widely believed. Lord Randolph Churchill, shortly
before he became Chancellor of the Exchequer, declared in 1884: "We are suffering from a
depression of trade extending as far back as 1874, ten years of trade depression, and the most
hopeful either among our capitalists or our artisans can discover no signs of a revival . . . Turn your
eyes where you will, survey any branch of British industry you like, you will find signs of mortal
disease."
Even Engels in 1886 temporarily abandoned Marx's view of crises and announced a theory of
"permanent and chronic depression". Marx's own view was tersely summed up in his statement:
"There are no permanent crises."
ICC's example of the supposed impotence of the capitalists to deal with a problem relates to
inflation. In International Review No. 10 (page 10) ICC says that “the bourgeoisie" is equally terrified
of more inflation and of ending inflation by "restriction of credit". From which it is evident that ICC
does not understand the cause and purpose of inflation, rejects Marx's demonstration that inflation is
the result of excess issue of inconvertible paper currency, and has—like the Labour Party—fallen for
the Keynesian nonsense about the supposed consequence of expanding or contracting credit.
Inflation, like free trade, is just a way of operating capitalism. It suits some capitalists and not others.
Inflation serves the interests of borrowers, including industrial capitalists, who take up loans and
repay them later in depreciated currency.
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Inflation and Credit
Inflation, at least for a considerable period, also enables many employers to get away with paying
reduced real wages. Deflation, on the other hand, suits financial interests and lenders. If and when
inflation reaches dangerous levels, or when those who favour deflation get their way, inflation will be
curbed or ended as it has been on scores of occasions in the past, in this and other countries.
Marx showed what he thought of the people who held ICC's superficial view about credit.
“They looked upon the expansion and contraction of credit, which is a mere symptom of the periodic
changes in the industrial cycle, as their cause.” (Capita! Vol. 1, p. 695, Kerr edn.)
To show that capitalism is not what it used to be before 1914, ICC points to recent falling production
and living standards, and rising unemployment, but this is what has taken place at the beginning of
every depression for nearly two hundred years.
Capitalism did indeed change in 1914. As Professor E. H. Carr puts it, up to 1914: "Britain was the
pre-eminent Great Power, and the directing centre of the worldwide capitalist economy." Now the
industrial and military centres of power have shifted to New York, Moscow and Brussels; but this has
not altered capitalism's economic laws or introduced a new "decadence".
ICC's belief that since 1914 capitalism cannot afford to make concessions to the workers is belied by
the facts, and betrays a failure to understand the economics of capitalism. The capitalists (supported
by ignorant or servile academics) have always "proved" that they could not afford to concede
anything, as for example giving up the twelve-hour working day and the employment of small
children: but the concessions have continued since 1914 as before, and particularly since the second
world war.
As output per head of the workers increases (a process speeded-up during the present depression)
of course the capitalists can afford to let the workers have some of the increase—as ICC will discover
when the depression lifts and in the programmes at the next General Election.
Regarding "the Dictatorship of the Proletariat", ICC admit that during their prolonged "transition
period" the dictatorship will be operating capitalism all over the world (see Nation or Class). They
have, however, not seen its implications. How will the dictatorship deal with the next normal
capitalist crisis and the strikes that will accompany it? Will they have an "incomes policy"? or
suppress the unions?
The peasants are not to be allowed to share in governmental power. What if they seize the land? And
what will the ICC dictatorship do when workers, discontented with the effects of capitalism, carry on
ICC policy and set up "armed workers' councils" to fight the dictatorship?
All of ICC's assumptions about capitalism are wrong; but let us suppose that they are right. Suppose
that a minority of workers sets up armed councils all over the world, and suppose (absurd as it is)
that they could win against the massive combined armed forces of all the world's governments, and
suppose they succeeded in setting up their world dictatorship—what would have been gained? The
problem of winning over the mass of the population before Socialism could be established would still
be there, its completion put back a few more years by ICC's unnecessary and useless war.
H.
Saturday, 1 October 1977
Onward, Christian Soldiers
"The armed forces must be prepared to play a new rôle in enforcing democracy in Britain should the
present system of government break down." Thus, the Very Reverend John Field Lister, the Provost
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of Wakefield Cathedral, as reported in the Yorkshire Post of 15th July.
This gem of current religious philosophy was delivered on the occasion of the laying-up of the
regimental colours of the First Battalion of the Coldstream Guards at Wakefield Cathedral. He went
on to say: "More and more nations are finding that government is almost impossible to carry out.
This may be because democracy is a Christian concept and that without it, it cannot succeed.
"When governments break down, then we have seen in one country after another that the military
have to be brought in. It might well be that in the years which lie before us the armed forces will
have a new and different rô1e to play, and how important that role will be." There followed some alltoo-familiar references to the power of the unions, the possibility of a general strike, etc., etc.
It is to be hoped that the guardsmen on the receiving end of this will have learned something about
their function in the eyes of supporters of the capitalist class. They are themselves members of that
same working class they may be ordered to suppress.
RICHARD COOPER
Saturday, 1 October 1977
What is Revolution?
The word revolution is almost as misused as the word Socialism. If a government is changed, a
political leader is replaced, a coup takes place, and the media shout "revolution!" Indeed, if this
usage of the word were correct, then revolutions occur every year and sometimes every month
What is meant by "revolution" and why is this concept so important to the future of the working
class? Revolution means a transformation in the object to which the term is being applied. If it is
being used about society, then it means a total change in economic relations. The easiest example
to understand is the revolution that took place to transform feudalism to capitalism. In feudal society
the majority were tied to their superiors. Over and above what they produced for themselves and
their families in order to live, the serfs were compelled to produce for their feudal masters and the
Church. That form of society was transformed by a revolution into a society – capitalism – where
there is no direct ownership of the lives of people by other people in the same way.
Capitalist society is organized on the basis that the worker sells his labour-power voluntarily to an
employer for a wage or salary. In theory, no one is compelled to work for another. In practice, the
majority must do so. They have no other means of living, since legally they do not own sufficient of
the means of wealth production to enable them to live without this form of selling known as wagelabour.
In all forms of society, minorities have owned the means of living, with the result that the other
classes have had to submit to the dictates of the minority whilst that particular form of society
existed. Feudalism depended on agricultural production and personal subservience by the majority
to clearly defined groups. Privilege in capitalism depends not on accidents of birth (though these can
be of importance to the individual) but on the ownership of capital. Whilst in feudal society by and
large it was birth that determined into which class one fell, in capitalist society it is purely a question
of ownership of wealth however obtained.
The revolution that will change capitalism into socialism will involve the replacement of all the
relationships of capitalism. Instead of the primary characteristics of, capitalism – production for
profit, the buying and selling of all things including labour-power, and private (or state) ownership of
wealth, society will be characterised by common ownership and of free access to that wealth.
Production will be for human satisfaction only, hence neither money nor all the paraphernalia that
goes with it, and will be based upon voluntary co-operation by all in the interests of all. To get to that
form of society involves a transformation – a revolution. It is only in Socialism that man will solve the
major problems he now faces. That is why the SPGB is a revolutionary party.
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Because the next revolution must be the work of the majority consciously co-operating in the work
that it will entail, a transformation in men's ideas is the pre-requisite to its successful
implementation.
Saturday, 1 October 1977
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