Professional Documents
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A
s we socialists never tire of companies, such as Halliburton, unable to prevail against the politi-
pointing out, the primary sell logistics and other war support cal stranglehold of Israel’s military-
function of military power in services. industrial complex.
capitalism is to protect and expand The nature of the wars that
control over resources, markets Resource wars, “strategic” wars the US and its allies are currently
and transport routes on behalf of The argument is not that all fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and
the capitalist class of the country armed conflicts are irrational in Pakistan is less clear-cut. Control
concerned. However, the costs and terms of the costs and benefits ac- of resources, markets and transport
risks that wars and armaments cruing to national capital. Some un- routes is certainly an important fac-
entail for the capitalists themselves doubtedly make good sense in these tor, especially in Iraq, but the likely
often outweigh the benefits to them. terms, as when valuable resources outcome is hardly such as to justify
For example, while the U.S. did can be acquired at moderate expense. the enormous costs involved. While
have real interests at stake in Viet- One example might be the “cod wars” the ultimate motive for war may be
nam in the 1960s and 1970s, those of the 1970s between Britain and Ice- to arrest the decline in the competi-
interests were hardly commensurate land over fishing rights in the North tive position of the US in the world
with the enormous costs of the war Atlantic. Another, perhaps, is the economy, the actual effect is to accel-
it was waging there. Growing aware- ongoing conflict over the Spratly Is- erate that decline (see May “Material
ness of this fact within the capitalist lands in the South China Sea, whose World”).
class eventually led to withdraw-
al. Capitalism and war: two
In other words, states have a models
tendency to act in ways that ap- So we end up with two con-
pear to be irrational even in terms trasting models of the relationship
of the capitalist interests that between capitalism and war. In
they are supposed to represent. the first model, war appears as
an instrument in the hands of the
War – a capitalist enterprise state, which acts as the “execu-
There are various reasons for tive committee of the (national)
this apparent irrationality. But capitalist class as a whole” (Marx).
the main reason is this. War is The second model, unlike the first,
not only a service that the state takes into account the fact that
provides to the national capital- war is evolving from an instru-
ist class as a whole. War is also ment at the service of the national
– and increasingly – a massive capitalist class as a whole into
capitalist enterprise in its own a capitalist enterprise in its own
right, a “war business” that right -- what we might call the war
wields considerable political clout business. The war business has
and has special interests of its special capitalist interests of its
own. own, so it cannot function simply
The core of the war busi- as an instrument of more general
ness, of course, is the so-called capitalist interests.
military-industrial complex. Arms Does the first model represent
manufacturers, like other capitalist oil and gas deposits are coveted by capitalism in its “normal” form, while
firms, seek to maximise their profits. China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philip- the second model represents an “ab-
It does not concern them whether pines and Malaysia. normal” ultra-militaristic mutation
the weapons they sell have a cogent At the other extreme, some wars of the capitalist system? Is the first
strategic rationale. have no discernible connection with model rational, in capitalist if not
The military-industrial complex the control of markets and resources. in human terms, while the second
has a direct interest not only in the The recent war in Georgia was in model is irrational? At first sight that
build-up of armaments but in war this category (see October “Material seems reasonable.
itself. War is the only way of testing World”). Although important oil and But is there in fact any good
weaponry under battlefield condi- gas pipelines run through the south reason to regard one model as any
tions. It uses up and destroys old of the country, Russia did not contest more irrational than the other? Each
stocks that then have to be replaced control over them. Russia’s ration- model represents a possible variant
– rearmament is now, for instance, ale for war was “strategic” – that is, of capitalism and a possible form of
the top priority of the Georgian gov- getting into a better position to fight capitalist rationality. The difference
ernment – and stimulates demand in future wars. is that the first model assumes the
general. Again, Israel’s wars are senseless existence of such a thing as “national
from the point of view of the Israeli capital as a whole,” while the sec-
But nowadays arms firms are not capitalist class as a whole, which has ond model envisions only separate
the only large-scale “merchants of a clear interest in a peace settlement capitalist enterprises. Some firms sell
death.” Companies like Blackwater that will give it full access to the mar- sausages, some sell computers – and
sell combat capability directly as the kets and cheap labour of the Middle some sell war.
labour of hired mercenaries. Other East. This interest, however, seems STEFAN
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Commenting on the current From Capitalism to Socialism: how we live and how we could live....£1.00 x____
Cooking world financial crisis former 1968
Africa: A Marxian Analysis...................................................................£1.50 x____
the student leader and now a Green
MEP, Daniel Cohn Bendit, said
Books 1 that “the belief that the market is
Socialism as a Practical Alternative....................................................£1.00 x____
god is over” (Guardian, 17 Sep- Some aspects of Marxian Economics............................................... £2.00 x____
tember). Someone who should
now more about God, the Archbishop of Canterbury, How the Gods were Made................................................................. £1.50 x____
hopes this is so as he thinks that the Market has become
a rival to his god. Marxism and Darwinism by Anton Pannekoek...................................£1.50 x____
In an article in the Spectator (26 September) Dr
Rowan Williams in effect accused ��������������������
“�������������������
market fundamental- How we Live and How we Might Live by William Morris.....................£1.50 x____
ists” of breaking the First Commandment – “Thou shalt
The Right to be Lazy and other articles by Paul Lafargue..................£2.00 x____
have no other gods before me”. He even called in Marx
to back up this charge of idol worship:
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“Marx long ago observed the way in which unbridled
capitalism became a kind of mythology, ascribing reality, Socialist Principles Explained.............................................................£2.00 x____
power and agency to things that had no life in them-
selves; he was right about that, if about little else. And The Market System must Go! Why Reformism doesn’t work.............£2.75 x____
ascribing independent reality to what you have in fact
made yourself is a perfect definition of what the Jewish
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and Christian Scriptures call idolatry.”
Dr Williams is said to be a learned man and he is
right: Marx did see capital as the product of human Books
labour which had come to dominate those who produced
it (except that he saw this as applying to capitalism in A Socialist Life by Heather Ball...........................................................£3.75 x____
general not just to “unbridled capitalism”).
This was in fact his whole “critique of political Are We Prisoners of our Genes?........................................................£4.75 x____
economy” (the subtitle of Capital), that the economic
Socialism or your Money Back..........................................................£11.95 x____
laws of capitalism were not the natural laws that Adam
Smith, David Ricardo, the Rev Thomas Malthus, John
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Stuart Mill and the others thought but forces that came
into operation only because society was organised in a
particular way. Market forces were the result of human
activity which had escaped from human control and
DVD
which had come to dominate them as if they were a
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natural force.
Dr Williams may also be aware that here Marx was
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applying to economics the theory that Ludwig Feuerbach
had applied to religion in his 1841 The Essence of Chris-
tianity. Feuerbach argued that, far from God making man All prices include postage and packing. For six or more
in his own image, it was the other way round. Humans of any publication, reduce the price by one third.
made God in their image and attributed to him the pow-
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If humans were to realise this and take their own destiny London, SW4 7BR, United Kingdom.
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according to Feuerbach, the Archbishop’s god was also
an idol. NAME....................................................................................................
The Archbishop was getting a dig at Marx in when he ADDRESS............................................................................................
said he said he was right about this “if about little else”.
But Marx once made a harsh comment about the Church ..............................................................................................................
of England, writing in the Preface to the first edition of ..............................................................................................................
Capital, that it would “more readily pardon an attack on
38 of its 39 articles than on 1/39 of its income”. ..............................................................................................................
It is interesting to speculate what the one article it
City........................................................................................................
would keep might be. At one time it would have been
obvious – Article 38 that “the riches and goods of ............................................ Postcode.................................................
Christians are not common, as touching the right, title,
and possession of the same, as certain Anabaptists do
falsely boast . . .” If he keeps on reading Marx maybe the
Archbishop might be prepared to abandon this one too.
I
t is one of the ironies of our times wage restraint means that the unions economic crisis breaks out is that poli-
that the election of ‘New Labour’ in are (understandably) grumbling. ticians, central bankers and pundits all
1997 was meant to have left ‘Old One of the interesting things about realise that perhaps the magic formula
Labour’ and everything connected capitalism is the way in which when didn’t work after all. The realisation in
with it behind. The popular perception the economy is booming an economic the 1970s that Keynesian economics
(first outside the Labour Party and consensus of sorts has a tendency to didn’t really work was a psychological
then inside it) was that Old Labour break out. The general support for and philosophical blow that some never
meant nationalisation, inflation, labour Keynesian economics that developed recovered from, and its replacement
unrest, and a host of other negative during the long boom of the 1950s and by something loosely called ‘��������
���������
monetar-
experiences that were associated 60s was famously labelled ‘Butskellism’ ism’ was never entirely accepted even
with life in the 1970s. Gordon Brown by the Economist after Tory Chancel- by those on the political right who had
was the New Labour ‘iron chancellor’ lor Rab Butler and his Labour shadow, been most well-disposed towards it.
who had left all this behind, created Hugh Gaitskell. In recent years there After a series of crises in the 1970s
a low inflation environment and has been a similar consensus of opin- was followed by the big recession of the
abolished boom and bust. ion even if the Labour and Tory parties early 1980s, and then the recession of
The current economic crisis has don’t like to admit it explicitly – it is the early 1990s, another long boom oc-
demonstrated that normal service has almost as if when the economy goes curred and with it the latest economic
been resumed. Unemployment is on the well they are afraid to do anything too consensus. There was little if any new
up (no Labour government has ever left different, lest they upset the magic thinking to underpin it – it was merely
office with unemployment lower than formula in the process. a pragmatic amalgam of vague aspects
when it was elected), the financial sec- of ‘monetarist’ practice with some
tor is in turmoil, price rises are at their Psychological blow left-over bits of Keynesian theory. For
highest level in years, and state sector What happens when an unexpected the politicians and economists, these
L
et us”, President Sarkozy of France told the UN on – to an employer for a wage or a salary. Labour-power has
23 September, “rebuild together a regulated capi- the unique property of being able to produce a greater
talism in which whole swathes of financial activity value than its own, but the employers have to pay only the
are not left to the sole judgment of market operators, in value of the labour-power not the total value it produces.
which banks do their job, which is to finance economic Marx called the value which workers produced over and
development rather than engage in speculation.” above their wages, and which went to the employer, “sur-
This would normally be regarded as a position taken up plus value”.
by leftwing critics of what they call “neoliberalism”. Thus Capitalism is this economic mechanism of the extrac-
Green Party MEP Caroline Lucas, when asked for her views tion of surplus value from the wage-labour of the produc-
on the global financial crisis by the Guardian (17 Septem- ing class and of the accumulation of most of it as new capi-
ber), answered that tal. Marx called it
“we are going to have “the self-expansion
to return finance to of value”. Capital-
its role as servant ism is an economic
rather than master of mechanism rather
the global economy”. than a form of
Neoliberalism property ownership,
is not a word that a mechanism which
Sarkozy would use. is in fact compat-
In fact, when he was ible with various
elected President different forms of
in May last year he ownership. Wher-
was widely seen as ever there is the
France’s equivalent exploitation of wage-
of Mrs Thatcher. But labour for surplus
then “regulated capi- value, there there is
talism” is not how capitalism. Which
Greens and the other is why the ex-USSR
critics of free-market Sarkozy, Marx where there was
capitalism would state property and
describe what they stand for either. a strongly regulated
Neoliberalism is a term coined by opponents of the market was still (state) capitalist.
policies pursued by many governments since the 1980s of In any event free market capitalism without any state
privatisation and deregulation, of allowing market forces to regulation has only ever existed on paper. Capitalism and
operate with less state interference. “Neo” because it was the state are not opposites or incompatibles. They have al-
seen as a revival of the anti-state, laissez-faire philosophy ways co-existed and in fact capitalism could not have come
of 19th century liberalism. As supporters of these policies into existence or survived without the support of the state.
often call them simply “capitalism”, some opponents also It was the state that helped dispossess peasants of their
presented themselves as “anti-capitalist”. land so that they became factory fodder for the capitalist
But this is a false distinction. Capitalism is not just pri- factory owners. It is the state that creates and enforces
vate enterprise, free market capitalism. That is just one of private property rights, without which the capitalist class
the forms it has taken historically. To see this as the only would not be able to monopolise the means of production
form of capitalism, and therefore to use the term “capital- and extract surplus value from the wage-labour of their
ism” to refer to it only, is to ignore two important experi- employees. The predominant form of capitalist enterprise
ences of the last century: the nationalisation measures – the limited liability company – is in fact entirely the
carried out by Labour and Social Democrat (and other) creation of the state. The state has to issue the currency
governments, and of course what existed in the ex-USSR and set up bodies to interpret and enforce commercial con-
and its satellites. Capitalism, in other words, can also take tracts. It has to maintain armed forces, both to keep law
the form of state capitalism. and order internally and to protect and further the inter-
The essence of capitalism is not any form of owner- ests of the capitalist class abroad. It has to set up bodies to
ship – whether legal property rights vested in individuals or make laws and regulations at national and local level and
companies, or state property from which bondholders draw other bodies to apply, police and enforce them. All these
a legalised income, or state property where a bureaucratic activities essential to the functioning of capitalism have to
elite exercises a de facto control of it. Capitalism is indeed be paid for. So the state has to levy taxes.
based on the exercise of a monopoly over the means of There is, then, no such thing as capitalism without the
production by a minority, but so have other class societ- state. That said, there are still degrees of state regulation
ies such as ancient slave society, feudalism and oriental at different times and in different countries. The state is
despotism. supposed to represent the general capitalist interest, but
What distinguishes capitalism from them is the way in practice is subject to all sorts of lobbying and pressures
in which the producing class is exploited – via the wages from special interest groups who want it to make laws and
system. Denied free access to the means of production, regulations in their interest, to which it often gives in.
the vast majority of the population are forced to sell their From time to time, however, the state does genu-
working abilities – what Marx called their “labour power” continued on page 22
I
nvestment bankers have gone in the past few months sary to explain how this false ideology has a basis in reality
from being the “masters of the universe” to the ob- that makes it seem plausible to many. That basis, as just
ject of universal scorn. Across the political spectrum touched on, is the antagonism that actually exists between
in the United States, particularly at the fraying ends different types of capitalists with regard to how surplus-
of its two main political parties, criticism of Wall Street value is divided between them. This fosters the notion that
can be heard. Even McCain and Obama – whose presi- fundamental differences exist between capitalists and that
dential campaigns have been generously funded by Wall some are more deserving of their revenue – an impression
Street – have had to make half-hearted statements that is further deepened by the fact that revenue takes
about how “greed is, um, bad.” different forms that appear to be
This criticism is richly deserved, independent of each other.
of course, but many of the harsh- This means that we can better
est critics of speculators are fond of understand why money capitalists
capitalism itself and take a rather and industrial capitalists tend to
benevolent view towards other types be viewed differently by examining
of capitalists. Greedy bankers and the division of surplus-value be-
stockbrokers are lambasted, but tween them and the specific forms
in the next breath the capitalists of their revenue. Marx does this
involved in the actual production and in Volume 3 of Capital, where he
sale of commodities are portrayed as examines “interest” and “profit of
unfortunate victims of the credit cri- “enterprise” – the former being the
sis. This one-sided criticism suits the revenue that the money capital-
capitalist class as a whole just fine. ist is entitled for loaning capital to
Now that capitalists themselves the industrial capitalist, while the
are at least exposing some of the high latter is the profit the industrial
crimes and low comedy connected to capitalist receives after paying that
their own financial system, and so interest to the money-capitalist.
much popular attention is focused on Marx’s discussion of “interest”
the role of money capitalists, it seems and “profit of enterprise” is not
particularly necessary for us to attack directly related to the economic
the false notion that there are “good” and “bad” capitalists; activities of the now-disgraced stockbrokers, as they have
and that crisis could be avoided and capitalism perfected if made money in more imaginative ways than simply earn-
the bad ones could be kept under control or swept away. ing interest, yet his observations reveal why it is so easy
for bankers to be cast in the role of villains, while those
Den of thieves capitalists owning actual means of production appear in a
This idea that bankers – particularly investment bank- more favourable light.
ers – are any worse than other types of capitalists is not
convincing to anyone aware that the revenue of all capital- Magical money
ists flows from same source: the exploitation of labour. The We can begin by looking at interest – or “interest-
dirty little secret of capitalism is that the capitalist class bearing capital,” to be more exact. The loaning of money
as a whole, and all of the individual capitalists, enrich to function as capital is the first step in the overall circuit
themselves thanks to workers adding more new value to of capital, M–C– M´; and that money (M) is then used to
the commodities they produce than the value of the wages purchase the labour-power and materials of production
received as payment for their labour-power. needed to produce commodities (C), which embody more
Any party to this exploitation of labour – whether the value than the value of those inputs, making it possible
capitalist who advances the investment funds, the capital- to sell them for a greater sum of money (M´) than initially
ist who supervises the commodity production process, or invested. Part of this surplus in value generated through
the capitalist who is tasked with selling the commodities production is paid to the money capitalist in the form of
– is entitled to a piece of the action and merits an equal interest.
share of the blame. It is nonsense to argue that one type of With the form of “interest-bearing capital,” however,
capitalist is more or less culpable than the others. we only the two extremes of the circuit above, or: M–M´. In
The relations between capitalists are very much like other words, nothing more than the money capitalist loan-
those between a group of thieves, who cooperate to pull off ing out money that returns eventually in a greater amount.
a heist and then divide the loot among themselves. Con- Money seems to have the magical power to breed more
flicts easily arise from such an arrangement: as a bigger money. Overlooked is the intervening process of produc-
share for one means a smaller share for the others. Such tion, which is the actual source of the interest earned.
squabbles, however, are of little concern to the person who As long as interest successfully flows back to the money
has been robbed. Likewise, for workers, divisions within capitalist, whatever happens between M and M´ is a mat-
the capitalist class should be of secondary interest to the ter of indifference. It thus appears at first glance – to this
more fundamental conflict between the exploiters and the capitalist and others – that profits can emerge regardless of
exploited. production.
Yet we need to do more than simply prove that the idea This illusion is reinforced by the fact that individual
of “good” and “bad” capitalists is wrong: it is also neces- money owners can indeed loan money for non-productive
A representation of
the seizure of the
Winter Palace
T
he historian George Haupt has wherein their masters may dispose of M. Fox (an early member of the Party)
written that in July 1914 the the wealth they have stolen from them recalls the almost mesmeric effect of
workers movement did not con- (the workers), but in the struggle to one Socialist Party member, a man
sider war a possibility. Speaking six end the system under which they are called Anderson, who could project his
years later the German Social Demo- robbed....The Socialist Party of Great voice above the noise of a brass band
crat Karl Kautsky admitted that: Britain...declaring that no interests hired by local shopkeepers to drown
“It is surprising that none of those are at stake justifying the shedding of him out. (R. M. Fox: Smoky Crusade.
present at the meeting thought of a single drop of working class blood, London. 1938.)
raising the question of what to do if enters its emphatic protest against But even the most redoubtable
war broke out...or which attitude the the brutal and bloody butchery of our speaker could not withstand the
socialist parties should adopt in this brothers in this and other lands... onslaught of a crowd whipped into
war” (cited in Georges Haupt: Social- fever pitch by jingoistic propaganda.
ism and the Great War: the Collapse There survives in the Party archive a
of the Second International. Oxford, bound minute book recording out-
1972. p. 220.]) door meetings held in North London.
Haupt comments that it is impos- It records in a neat italic hand each
sible to say whether the leaders of the meeting held by the branch giving
International were “captives of their details of date, time and speaker and
own myths or whether their reaction chairman. Also recorded are the size
was the classical manifestation of of audience and occasional comments
that characteristic trait of the Sec- as to the kind of questions asked and
ond International: Reformist practice Labour leaders: Keir Hardie... the temper of the audience. Audience
screened behind verbal radicalism.” size seems to have fluctuated between
(ibid. p. 221.) Ramsay Macdonald... 100 and 250. The meetings in August
The parties of the Social Democrat 1914 increased in size and the entry
Second International shared our view “Many questions mainly about the
that capitalism causes war and, like war. Good meeting” occurs a number
us, called for the international solidar- of times. On Sunday August 30th a
ity of the working class but when war member named Wray addressed an
broke out in August 1914 this proved audience this time of around 800:
to be mere talk. “Many questions mainly about the
To their disgust, but not to their war...Hostility shown by the audience
surprise, the members of the Socialist so soon as the speaker began to reply
Party saw workers and their lead- to the opposition and the police closed
ers line up behind their respective the meeting leaving Party members to
governments ready to take part in get away with the platform amongst
... and George Lansbury
the slaughter. Labour leaders such as the hostile audience that had closed
Keir Hardie, Ramsay Macdonald and around it and damaged it one side of
George Lansbury assured the gov- the steps torn away and lost thus ren-
ernment that “the head office of the dering the platform useless for further
Party, its entire machinery, are to be propaganda meetings.”
placed at the disposal of the Govern- A later entry for September 20th
ment in their recruiting campaign.” records:
(Labour Leader 3 September 1914) “Opposition by Grainger of Daily
The British Socialist Party (succes- Herald League [sympathetic to the
sor to the SDF) war manifesto de- Labour Party] supported by several
clared that it recognised: members of B.S.P. [British Socialist
“…that the national freedom and Having no quarrel with the work- Party] in the audience with design of
independence of this country are ing class of any country, we extend raising prejudice against the SPGB
threatened by Prussian militarism and to our fellow workers of all lands the and so of breaking up the meeting.”
that the Party naturally desires to see expression of our good will and Social- On a Sunday in mid September
the prosecution of the war to a speedy ist fraternity, and pledge ourselves to one Hyde Park meeting was the sub-
and successful issue.” (Justice 17 Sep- work for the overthrow of capitalism ject of a concerted attack. The organ-
tember 1914 cited in H. W. Lee and E. and the triumph of Socialism.” (‘The iser of the meeting reported
Archbold Social-Democracy in Britain: war and the Socialist position.’ Social- “...There was a determined attack
Fifty Years of the Socialist Movement. ist Standard , September 1914) made to smash up the meeting. Just
London, 1935. p.225.) In common with most political as Elliot was closing the meeting the
The Socialist Party on the other parties the Socialist Party carried on police intervened and told him to close
hand denounced the war as none of a vigorous programme of in-door and down. As he did not close down as
the workers business. It was a war of out-door meetings. From street cor- quick as they wished they arrested
capitalist interests, ners and open spaces Party speakers him. Elliott was however, charged
“ ...the workers’ interests are not on platforms propounded the socialist with insulting the British armies and
bound up in the struggle for markets case against war. In his memoirs R. fined 30/-. The crowd numbered over
Declaration of Principles
This declaration is the basis of by the capitalist or master class, the emancipation of the working 7.That as all political parties
our organisation and, because and the consequent enslavement class wil involve the emancipation are but the expression of class
it is also an important historical of the working class, by whose of all mankind, without distinction interests, and as the interest of
document dating from the labour alone wealth is produced. of race or sex. the working class is diametrically
formation of the party in 1904, opposed to the interests of all
its original language has been 2.That in society, therefore, there 5. That this emancipation must sections of the master class,
retained. is an antagonism of interests, be the work of the working class the party seeking working class
manifesting itself as a class itself. emancipation must be hostile to
Object struggle between those who every other party.
The establishment of a system possess but do not produce and 6.That as the machinery of
of society based upon the those who produce but do not government, including the armed 8.The Socialist Party of Great
common ownership and possess. forces of the nation, exists only Britain, therefore, enters the field
democratic control of the to conserve the monopoly by the of political action determined
means and instruments for 3.That this antagonism can capitalist class of the wealth taken to wage war against all other
producing and distributing be abolished only by the from the workers, the working political parties, whether alleged
wealth by and in the interest of emancipation of the working class class must organize consciously labour or avowedly capitalist,
the whole community. from the domination of the master and politically for the conquest and calls upon the members of
class, by the conversion into the of the powers of government, the working class of this country
Declaration of Principles common property of society of national and local, in order that to muster under its banner to the
The Socialist Party of Great the means of production and this machinery, including these end that a speedy termination
Britain holds distribution, and their democratic forces, may be converted from an may be wrought to the system
control by the whole people. instrument of oppression into the which deprives them of the fruits
1.That society as at present agent of emancipation and the of their labour, and that poverty
constituted is based upon the 4.That as in the order of social overthrow of privilege, aristocratic may give place to comfort,
ownership of the means of living evolution the working class is the and plutocratic. privilege to equality, and slavery
(i.e., land, factories, railways, etc.) last class to achieve its freedom, to freedom.
D
avid Cameron is in the habit of sprinkling his of his passengers, on seeing Lamont crossing the road,
speeches, like throwing stale currants into a offered five hundred pounds to run him down. (He was
stodgy spotted dick, with unfunny jokes intended not to know, of course, that it could be left to Lamont’s
to persuade us that a ruthlessly ambitious, manipulative political friends to bloodlessly get rid of him later). He
politician can have a was associated with a recession rated
harmless sense of humour. in some quarters as the worst since
Remember the crack in the end of the war and his blithe
what was called his keynote assurance that it would be “short-
speech at this year’s lived and relatively shallow” did not
Tory Conference, that he inspire any more confidence than his
respects entrepreneurs later claim to descry “the green shoots
and he knows what he is of recovery” all around – although
talking about because he they were not apparent to his
goes to bed with one every struggling colleagues. This fixation
night and – in time to get with mouthing statements so unwise
the laughter rocking again that they could only haunt him
– wakes up with the same throughout his career was typified
person every morning. The by his telling the Commons, in May
eagerly tamed audience Norman Lamont, former Chancellor of the Exchequer. 1991, that “Rising unemployment
were enthralled as well and the recession have been the price
as amused and Cameron that have had to pay to get inflation
was able to forget that his bedtime entrepreneur – who, down. That price is well worth paying”. (He did not view
for those who have not been paying attention is his his own projection into unemployment, when it came, in
wife Samantha – is a very rich one; her father is an quite so positive a light).
Old Etonian stockbroker and 6th Baronet, her parents
are divorced and her mother is now Viscountess Astor. Panic
Lucky Samantha showed she has the common touch The big crisis in Lamont’s time so near to the top
when she said, in reply to a reporter’s question, that she of the greasy pole was “Black Wednesday”, that day in
lived “near Scunthorpe”; it would have gone some way to September 1992 when he oversaw Britain’s withdrawal
expunge the image of a blackened steel town summoned from the ERM. This was especially embarrassing for him
up by that misinformation if she had mentioned that the because only weeks before he had given a categorical
family’s home is Normansby Hall, a lush 300 acre estate assurance that nothing of the kind would happen:
which they have owned since the late 16th. Century. “There are going to be no devaluations, no leaving the
Clearly, the Cameron family’s bit of what the Tory leader ERM. We are absolutely committed to the ERM. It is at
calls “this broken society” is comfortingly intact. the centre of our policy” (26 August 1962). Little wonder
that Lamont was looking so unkempt when, on 17
Lamont September 1992, he emerged into Downing Street to face
In that same speech Cameron raised some the voraciously waiting hacks. Amid the panic that day
embarrassed titters among the laughs when he shyly interest rates were dizzyingly raised from 10 per cent to
admitted to having been an adviser to Norman Lamont 12 per cent and 15 per cent, then brought back to 12 per
when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Labour cent. The Treasury was not alone in its panic; workers
Party, he said, never let him forget this episode in his who were buying their homes through a mortgage were
climb up the greasy pole. Quite right too – all Tories desperately worried about how they were to afford the
would like to forget Lamont, the memory of whose time in higher payments and whether there were more, similarly
charge of the Treasury tends to undermine any theories chaotic, days to come. They were probably too anxious to
about a Conservative government being inherently more notice on their TV screens, as Lamont came through the
able to tame capitalism’s crises than a Labour one. door of Number 11, that he was followed by a shadowy
Lamont was at Cambridge with some rising stars of figure, caught briefly and fuzzily by the cameras. It was
the Tory governments of the 1980s – Michael Howard, his “political adviser” – David Cameron, future Leader of
Kenneth Clarke, Leon Brittan John Gummer. How many the Opposition, who would one day bellow his scorn at
fantasy careers, climaxing in occupancy of Number Ten, Prime Minister Brown for floundering among the multi-
were sketched out on the backs of cafe menus in those crises of capitalism and who would then be anxious to
impatient days? Lamont held a succession of jobs until conceal his association with the ludicrous failure who
the Men in Grey Suits did for Thatcher; as Major’s Chief was once his boss.
Secretary to the Treasury he acquiesced in, and so had Habitual optimists may rejoice that a new age of
some responsibility for, the policy of Britain being part of transparency and candour has dawned with Cameron’s
the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). When confessed embarrassment at the memory of his time with
Major put himself up in the contest to succeed Thatcher Lamont. But forgetting a fretful past has been developed
Lamont managed his campaign and he was then to a very fine art by suitably ambitious politicians. There
rewarded by Major with the Chancellorship. would be, after all, an awful lot of embarrassment for
Lament’s time as Chancellor was not noteworthy them to misremember. Judge for yourself if this is likely
for its controlled tranquillity and optimism; indeed to happen or whether they will continue to see their
his public standing was so abysmally low that years future as survival through concealment and deceit.
later he recalled a London cabby telling him that one IVAN
ISSN
24 0037 8259 Socialist Standard November 2008
Produced and published by the Socialist Party of Great Britain, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN