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Fifty Years Ago
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For
what is the Labour
Party
fighting?
Having
had six years in power running capitalism the Labour Party is on the
outside looking around for a way to get back again. Now as it is not
generally thought that the Labour Government merely ran capitalism
let us explain what we mean by capitalism, in order to see if we are
correct when we claim that the Labour Party is just another
capitalist party.
Capitalism
is the social system which exists today throughout the world, wherein
the means of production and distribution are owned by a fraction of
the people (the capitalist class, state or private) and the mass of
people being without means of production MUST work for WAGES in order
to live. Further the wealth of capitalist society (produced by the
workers but not owned by them) is produced for SALE and PROFIT, that
profit being the capitalists’ loot from the exploitation of the
class of employees. To sum up, the basic features of capitalism are –
class ownership – wage labour, buying and selling and profit.
You
will note we say class ownership not private enterprise, we say
“state or private” because it is the basis we are concerned with
not merely the form of administration. From the very start the Labour
Party never sought to change the basis, to abolish capitalism, they
merely proposed another form of administration. After six years in
Government the whole ugly structure of capitalism remained intact,
and still no proposal to abolish wages, buying and selling and class
ownership is forthcoming. The Labour Party has no horizons beyond
those of capitalism and when all the schemes have been put into
operation the position of the working class will be exactly the same.
The past record of the Labour Party in supporting wars, freezing
wages, breaking strikes, and forming coalitions, with Tories and
Liberals, should be enough to finish them with the working class for
keeps; the tragedy is that it won’t. (…)
Throughout
its existence the Labour Party has done everything but what need
doing most and said everything but what most needed saying. Although
from time to time they paid lip-service by using Socialist sounding
phrases when it met their purpose of deluding the workers, nothing
they have ever said or done has advanced the workers one inch. While
certain of their reforms might have helped in keeping workers
contented and in staving off unrest, they have had the desired effect
of giving the boss class a new lease of life. What would the
capitalist class do without a Labour Party to patch up their vile
system for them?
(From an
article by ‘H.B.’, Socialist Standard, April 1955)
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JOHN BALL
John was someone I first came across in
the early 90s in Norwich along with
Heather prior to us all being properly
acquainted with the Socialist Party. Our
enthusiasm for responsible antiauthoritarian
values and the politics of a
world so different from this one, along with
the reasonably close proximity of our
houses helped to create a lasting bond and
friendship.
John was born in Plumstead, in
London, is 1932 and worked for most of
his working life as an electrician. He was a
warm and generous person, very down to
earth who would call a spade a spade; at
the same time he could be very
understanding with people he got close to
whose conclusions may have been different
from his own, seeing the basis of those
conclusions as a possible connection to
build on. He was well-read and enjoyed
connecting with people of all ages and
backgrounds and had a penchant for
helping the underdog sometimes to the
detriment of his health. He was a vegan,
painted in oils, and loved upbeat music and
dancing.
Towards the end of his life John
would say that he felt ever more convinced
that the Party's sole pursuit of socialism
and not reformism was the correct and only
practical solution to the ongoing problems
that a capitalist world is always throwing
up. He recognised the importance of
humour, connected to a constructive
politics and philosophy in contrast to the
sober authoritarian politics of the Left he
was always falling foul of in the earlier
period of his life (he had been in the
Communist Party, which he left in 1957,
and then in the Trotskyist SLL, from which
he was expelled in 1960).
John died in February. I'm sure his
way of being would and did affect
positively many people he had come across
throughout his life.
STAIR
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socialist
(est
1904)