ALB
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I don’t see why you are struggling, Paula. We do not say that socialism has to be established through the ballot box and that therefore if there is no ballot box socialism cannot be established. That is a caricature of our position concocted by our opponents.
We say that socialism can only be established when a majority want and understand it. The vote is a means of measuring this and also a way to win political control.
If a majority wanted socialism but didn’t have the vote, then they would have to find some other way to win political control. It is difficult to see how this could avoid violence occurring — one reason why we say workers in this situation should struggle to get the vote.
The situation when the party was formed was that some workers had the vote and some didn’t (the majority in fact). But this would not have stopped a majority coming to want socialism or socialism being established.
Why did we say in 1904 that the way to win political control to establish socialism was through the ballot box? Because the majority of electors were workers (they had been since 1867), so if a majority of workers wanted socialism then those workers with the vote could use it to win political control.
(The hypothetical situation of a majority of workers with the vote wanting socialism but a majority of those without the vote not wanting it has already been discussed and dismissed as highly unlikely).
If the party had been formed 40 years earlier, before most electors were workers, they would no doubt have joined the campaign to extend the franchise, as Marx did in participating in the campaign that eventually led to the passing of the 1867 Reform Act (which enfranchised male urban voters who were heads of household, extended in 1884 to such workers in the countryside).
This thread is providing an opportunity to try to nail once and for all the lies and fabrications in circulation about the Party’s attitude to the pre-WW1 campaign for votes for women.
Before 1918 the franchise system in force for parliamentary elections in Britain was Male Household Suffrage, or One Household, One Vote (plus a vote for those who owned property of a certain minimum value even if they weren’t a head of household).
This excluded all women but also many men.This article from 1912 quotes the Home Secretary as saying that of the 12,032,000 men over 21 in Britain only 7,409,034 had the vote, which is 62%. In other words 4,622,034, or 38% did not.
The Suffragettes were not campaigning for universal suffrage but for women to be eligible to vote on the same conditions as men. In other words, Household Suffrage for both women and men. This would have given the vote only to women who were heads of household, i.e., either single women or widows. Since this would have excluded all married women (except those who owned property in their own right, who could already vote in local elections).
This other article calculated how many existing electors were property-owners and how many were workers. It is clear from these figures that extending the franchise to women on the same terms as men would have given the vote to more property-owners than to workers, so increasing the overall percentage of property-owners in the electorate. Not an outcome that would be in the interest of working class.
Note that both articles state that the Party had no objection in principle to universal suffrage. One says it would be a “useful measure for the working class” and the other that “we are necessarily and without any qualification democrats”. The reason the Party, while not opposing its introduction, didn’t advocate it was we did not regard is as an absolute necessity nor the immediate priority (socialism was).
I am not sure about that. Or if it is was, it was at a huge price — taking part in the first world slaughter. At least that was the reasoning of the Pankhursts who clanged the name of the Suffragette paper to “Britannia”, expecting the vote in return for supporting the war (except Sylvia who opposed the war but by then had come to the conclusion that the vote was useless even for men). Also, the ruling class couldn’t defend denying the vote to all men when, in supposed defence if “democracy”, British troops many without the vote faced German troops all of whom did have it.
It would be up to the membership to decide but I can’t see us advocating that workers shouldn’t vote for it or objecting to workers, including party members, voting for it. I suppose our attitude as a party would be: vote for it if you want to.
“What if the majority of voters wanted socialism, but the majority of the women and the third of men didn’t?”
The short answer would be that, in that situation, socialism would not be possible as not enough workers would be in favour. But extending the franchise wouldn’t solve the problem. Only convincing workers without the vote of the need for socialism would.
However, I don’t think the early Party members would have regarded the situation you posit as being likely as, if a majority of workers who had the vote wanted socialism, this was likely to mean that a majority of those without the vote would too.
They were concerned with a majority of the working class coming to want and understand socialism whether or not they had the vote. In fact, not even all Party members would have had the vote.
The vote was (and still is) seen as a tool that could be used to gain political control. If most workers, electors and non-electors, wanted socialism then those with the vote could use it to win control of political power on behalf of the whole class. Universal suffrage could be quickly brought in after that.
Anyway, that was their assessment of the position at the time. But by 1918 this had ceased be an issue as the franchise was extended then to a majority of the working class.
Also of course they regarded making socialists as more important than extending the franchise.
It wasn’t universal suffrage that would have increased the percentage of the propertied class in the electorate but the demand to extend the suffrage to women on the same basis as men which is what the Suffragettes we’re campaigning for (before 1918 about one third of men didn’t have the vote as they didn’t own or rent property above a minimum level). As women were even less likely to meet this condition, the proportion of women left without the vote would have been even higher. Most of the women that would have got the vote on these conditions would have come from the 10% who owned 90% of the wealth.
The reason the SPGB didn’t advocate universal suffrage (while not opposing it) was because they considered socialism as the immediate aim and enough voters had the vote to win political control once there was a socialist majority.
In places where this wasn’t the case, the SPGB was in favour of workers there demanding the vote. For the reasons you give. See for instance the conclusion of this article on India from the June 1932 Socialist Standard (quoted here):
“Workers in India should unite on a basis of Socialist principles and organise for the establishment of Socialism. They should take what steps are necessary to secure a franchise for this purpose, but they should not unite with any other parties or give adherence to any other bodies, even those masquerading as pure, and simple franchise organisations, as by so doing they would lose independence.”
Imposs1904 has just published this article from the June 1945 Socialist Standard about the cynical use the ruling class make of atrocities. It’s what the Western government are doing now with regard to China.
Actually the US ruling class knew very well that what existed in the old USSR wasn’t socialist.
In 1959 one of the members of the Russian ruling elite, Mikoyan, visited the USA. On his departure he gave a farewell message in which he described Russia as socialist. The US Secretary of State, the notorious John Foster Dulles, replied on behalf of President Eisenhower:
“The President is aware that you operate under a system of State capitalism . . .”
See here.
Yes he is. I read that article and was disappointed by it as in other articles he had dismissed the idea that the riot on the Capitol was an attempted fascist coup. The Republican Party certainly is going in for practices that in other countries would be regarded as corrupt but then American politics has always been corrupt.
Rubio is right that identity politics is divisive but wrong in thinking that Marxism supports it. Marxism is opposed to id(iot)pol precisely because it divides the working class against itself, setting one section against another for the crumbs capitalism has to offer. We are for working class unity against the capitalist class.
I don’t know how the myth originated that we opposed votes for women arose. Probably from some malicious opponent. As Alan has pointed out, what we were opposed to was the Suffragette demand for votes for women on the same terms as it then was for men. This, on the grounds that it would have meant more votes for members of the propertied class than for workers.
As to universal suffrage, we weren’t against this but argued that it wasn’t necessary as enough workers already had the vote that could be used to win control of political power to bring in socialism. I think there’s another quote from an early Socialist Standard saying that universal suffrage would be introduced as soon as the socialist-minded workers won political control.
Ok, we didn’t campaign for Universal Suffrage but that’s not the same as being opposed to it. There are lots of things we don’t advocate but are not opposed to. And if the implication is that we should advocate whatever we are not opposed to, then that really would be the thin end of the slippery slope to reformism.
Incidentally, in the referendum I think it was in 2011 on whether to change electoral system to introduce the Alternative Vote the Party didn’t take up a position either for or against, effectively giving the working class including party members a free hand. I don’t know about you, Paula, but I voted for it.
Yes I remember there was a bit of a cult of Dylan in the Party in the late 60s. According to the November 1968 Socialist Standard, on Sunday 3 November there was a talk in Glasgow on “Changing Times of Bob Dylan”. I don’t know if you were there, Matt. I think the same talk was also given in London.
I see this scheme isn’t actually being billed as a UBI experiment like many others are. The U in UBI is supposed to stand for Universal, so the proposal is that everyone is to be paid a Basic Income unconditionally (I suppose the U could mean that too).
Schemes like this are experiments to see if it would be better (and cheaper) to pay certain categories of the poor a regular income, unconditional in the sense that if you meet the condition to be in the category you will be paid the money without any other conditions like family allowances are. If adopted it would just be a tweak to the Poor Law. And will never be more than this.
Left wingers and others who plug UBI as a solution are deluding themselves and misleading others. It won’t happen and would never work. By comparison socialism is a much more realistic proposition. But these left wingers shy away from proposing that as they don’t want to be labelled utopian for envisaging the disappearance of money.
Hardly surprising. He might have been a counter-cultural icon in the 1960s but went off the rails when he became a born again Christian in 1979. I don’t think he produced anything worthwhile after that, certainly nothing counter cultural, did he? But he must have pleased someone as they gave him a Prize named after a Master of War.
This result of this election in May for the position of “Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough” shows what could happen if tactical voting against the Tories caught on. The voting system for mayors (where voters have a second preference vote) allowed Labour and Liberal voters to gang up against the Tories with their second preference votes.
It looks as if electoral reform to extend this voting system to parliamentary elections might be the only way for Labour professional politicians to ever get a crack at trying to run capitalism again. But will they offer the Liberals that?
