News in Review
Verwoerd—hypocrites at work
Anyone who had been able to forecast the assassination of Dr. Verwoerd would also have had no difficulty in imagining the comments of world statesmen.
These comments, in their many tones, were all determined by the international interests of the countries whose leaders were making them.
It was also predictable that there would be widespread condemnation of the use of violence, and that many world leaders would say the use of force can solve no problems.
President Johnson, for example, said the assassination was “a stroke of violence that shakes the sensibilities of men who believe in law and order”. It was clear that the President was grimly forgetting some inconvenient facts.
During the last war the Allied leaders did not condemn the violence of the attempts on Hitler’s life; they did not say then that assassination is a primitive and savage act.
The United States is now keeping hundreds of thousands of troops in Vietnam—much to the outrage of the sensibilities of many Americans who also believe in law and order—in an attempt to prove that their kind of violence works.
This is typical. Cyprus and Algeria are only two recent examples of the results of politicians stubbornly believing that violence can be useful.
Capitalism, in fact, is a social system which uses force constantly and which can never attempt to solve its disputes in any other way.
Hypocrisy is an art which politicians must learn to master. There is no more apt occasion to employ what they have learned than when one of their number dies.
Perhaps, when Verwoerd died, they were all secretly agreeing with Malta’s Borg Olivier. “Let us hope,” he said, “That it does not happen to us”.
U Thant exposes UNO
Few things have more cruelly exposed the futility of that international white elephant, the United Nations Organisation, than the possible standing down of its Secretary-General U Thant.
UNO was once supposed to be the answer to war, because the major world powers would all be members, because every country would bring its disputes to be settled at the Assembly and because the Organisation would have at its disposal an international armed force which would police any trouble spots.
It did not take long to break down this image.
U Thant complained that UNO has not yet “. . . achieved universality of membership”—meaning that the United States, as part of its struggle with China, vetoes that country’s attempts to join.
He condemned the fact that the Vietnam war is an example of “. . . relying on force and military means. . .” as if there has ever been any sign of a capitalist power carrying on a struggle in any other way.
Over Vietnam, the United States pretends that UNO does not exist. This is not the first time this has happened. In many cases when a country’s interests have been threatened, and it has not been sure of the formality of UNO support, is has simply ignored the so-called peace-keeping Organisation.
Russia has done this several times. Britain did it over Suez and the Americans went into Korea before UNO had had a chance to consider the matter. (There was never any pretence that, if UNO had voted against America over Korea, the troops would have been withdrawn.)
UNO was founded on the idea that capitalism’s problems can be settled around a table and that the trouble in the past was that the big powers had not tried hard enough to do this.
A fatuous notion, which has been exposed again and again. Now UNO’s secretary has himself spoken up, and revealed that he too realises the Organisation is trying to do the impossible.
Confusion on the left
It is obvious that those trade union leaders who back the wages freeze are not acting in the interests of their members. But even those who oppose the freeze are hopelessly confused when it comes to politics. This was well shown at a meeting on September 1 organised by five of the unions opposing the freeze.
Not seeing Socialism as a practical alternative, the five general secretaries who spoke offered their own solution to the present financial problems of the British capitalist class: cut military spending overseas; impose import controls; launch a productivity campaign and end the status of sterling as a reserve currency. On this last point, loud applause followed a statement of the general secretary of the Association of Scientific Workers in which he said that they did not want “our” currency being a commodity traded in by foreign bankers! Again, Clive Jenkins of ASSET commended De Gaulle’s policy of erecting a fence round France to prevent Americans buying up French industries. “I’d like to see the same here”, he said amidst applause.
This petty patriotism expressing itself as a dislike of international bankers (and America) is a characteristic of the Left, one which clearly distinguishes them from Socialists. Socialists know that patriotism is a delusion as workers have no country.
Jenkins’ main charge against the Labour government was that it was incompetent. Wilson was wrong, he said, in claiming to have been blown off course; he had steered right into the eye of a hurricane. “Had the government not heard of Keynes?” he asked, suggesting that since Keynes any government that allowed unemployment to grow must be incompetent
This is another myth of the Left. Governments fail to solve our troubles not because they are incompetent or insincere or irresolute but because they are trying to do the impossible. Our problems just cannot be solved within capitalism. The Left, with their so-called solutions, merely serve to keep alive the myth that capitalism can be made to work in our interests. That is why Socialists oppose them.
Retreat to the Thirties
In some mysterious way, the Labour Party have been able to establish themselves as the party which can control capitalism’s economy.
Perhaps this idea can be traced to the pre-war years, when Labour embraced the Keynesian doctrine which was supposed to have the solution to the sort of slumps which persisted during the Twenties and Thirties.
It was all supposed to be very simple. A slump meant low purchasing power, investment in the doldrums, reduced demand for workers.
The solution was to increase purchasing power by cutting taxation, step up investment with tax incentives and promote a demand for labour by launching out on public works schemes: roads, hospitals and so on.
These so-called remedies are, in fact, quite useless. And perhaps the Labour government have realised it.
At last month’s TUC, Harold Wilson threw out the warning which is an especial favourite with him lately: “. . . one false, careless, regardless step . . . could push the world into conditions not unlike those of the early Thirties”.
If this were true, and the Labour Party were keeping faith in the Keynesian economics they have propounded for so long, the government would now be stimulating investment, cutting taxes, building hospitals and schools as fast as they can.
But, in fact, as we all know, they are doing exactly the opposite.
Does Wilson now think that Keynes’ theories are bunk? Has he forgotten all his party ever said about slumps? Does he realise that capitalism is out of control and always has been?
Or does he ponder on another event of the early Thirties? Some people would say there is no need for Wilson actually to leave the Labour Party to imitate Ramsay MacDonald. Others would reserve their judgment.
History repeats itself
The oft repeated phrase “History repeats itself’ is a half truth. It derives from the desire.to put into fewer words the idea that like situations produce like results.
In the latter half of the 18th century the proposal was made that, as wages were so miserably low, they should be supplemented by poor relief.
Eighteen Berkshire justices, including seven clergymen, met at the Pelican Inn in Speenhamland near Newbury and set down a minimum scale for workers and their families. This scale was adopted throughout the country and where wages did not provide the minimum it. was built up by payments from the rates.
Historians have not failed to point out that this could only, and did, resultin employers paying the lowest wage possible in the knowledge that their workers would get by on the combined wage and poor relief.
Compare this with the following from the Teddington and Hampton and The Richmond and Twickenham Times of Saturday, August 13, 1966.
This paper quotes from the parish newsletter of the Reverend Emrys Evans, vicar of All Saints’ Church. The Rev. Evans urges
“the elderly to take advantage of a part-time employment scheme organised by the Richmond upon Thames Council for Social Service, in which they may work either on a casual basis or a 24-hour week at an hourly rate of l/3d.”
He adds that those who have already applied for work have a wide variety of skills, ranging from former book-keepers to shop assistants and that they may still be of real service to the community,
“and at the same time augment your pension”.
Words and deeds
On April 29 the Hampstead Labour Party passed the following resolution by 26 votes to 6:
“This Hampstead Labour Party views with alarm the Government’s increasing and continuing support of the American war in Vietnam. It is aware also of the pressure on the Government to make a token military commitment in this war, perhaps in the form of British ‘observers’ or ‘advisers’.
We therefore wish to state in advance that should the Government yield to such pressure, the Hampstead Labour Party will re-examine its relationship with the national Labour Party and invite other constituency parties to do the same.”
On July 25 a Foreign Office spokesman stated that there were four hundred British military engineers in Thailand helping to build a military airport at Loeng Nok Tha (see Financial Times, 26 July). Loeng Nok Tha is in north-east Thailand and it is from this area that three-quarters of the air raids against North Vietnam are launched (see Economist, 3 September). So troops, under the control of the Labour Party government are helping the war effort in Vietnam. They are in fact helping to build an airfield which American planes can use for bombing raids on North Vietnam. If this is not “a token military commitment in this war” what is?
Yet, to date, there has been no news of any breakaway move by the Hampstead Labour Party.