The big sleep

With regard to the US primaries, most Socialists would prefer to watch paint dry. The result of this public relations exercise is, you see, already known: they won, you lost. But for anyone out there who is still paying attention, this writer was amused by the reaction of arch-conservative types to Barak Obama's lack of a US flag lapel badge! Clearly they regard this a shocking lack of decorum. No doubt neo-Victorian McCain and equally reactionary bedfellow Margaret Thatcher would not be amused. Ignoring the throwaway remark of McCain that he hopes Castro will "meet Marx soon" or even that of his grandfather Admiral John on the surrender of Japan "I feel lost. I don't know what to do" (after which he promptly died), let us shift through the ideological muck heap in which such minds as McCain and Thatcher dwell in order to see what kind of values our rulers (would-be and otherwise) would like us to live by.

Thatcher's views on the 'good old days' were reprinted and examined in the Socialist Standard of June 1983.

"..We were taught to work jolly hard. We were taught to prove yourself (sic). We were taught self-reliance. We were taught to live within our income. You were taught that cleanliness is next to godliness. You were taught always to give a hand to your neighbour. You were taught tremendous pride in your country.. All of these things are Victorian values. They are also perennial values. (Interview with Peter Allen, LBC, 15 April, 1983)

Thatcher's tutor evidently has much to answer for. In what ways do these values help perpetuate the capitalist system?

"WORK JOLLY HARD"

Plenty of jolly hard work for the propertyless nine-tenths of the population means plenty of jolly big profits for the jolly old parasites who monopolise the means of producing and distributing wealth. The work ethic is inculcated into the majority of people because labour power is the only commodity of any value that they have to exchange. But the rich and powerful minority who control the means of life are not in their positions because they worked hard. The richest one per cent of the British population, who own between them more of the accumulated wealth than the poorest 80 per cent, live in luxury because the propertyless majority "work jolly hard to keep them".

"PROVE YOURSELF"

How are children born into poverty, brought up in slums, educated in comprehensive schools and often destined to years on the dole queue, supposed to "prove" themselves? Capitalism is unable to provide the majority with any genuine incentive to rise above the mediocrity of daily existence. Those young workers who are persuaded by the advertised illusions of the system and try "to go for the top" are usually forced in the end to submit to the norms of traditional poverty. Capitalism is packed with junkies, alcoholics, broken gamblers, prisoners and cynics who tried to "prove themselves" and failed. For many unemployed kids, "proving yourself" means beating up blacks in empty streets - or doing it the legal way, and pulling triggers in the service of someone else's interests.

"LIVE WITHIN OUR INCOME"

For millions of people it is simply not possible to live within the pittance they receive. Ten thousand pensioners died of hypothermia last December alone: could The First Lady of the Treasury teach those careless spenders how to keep alive within their incomes? Let Thatcher and the capitalists try "living" on the basic supplementary benefit, a disability allowance or £70 a week with three children to feed and clothe. For the majority of British workers, whose annual incomes would not buy a decent new car for a member of the parasite class, existence is some way short of living.

"CLEANLINESS AND GODLINESS"

It's easy to be clean when there are servants to do it for you. But what hypocrisy it is for a class which pollutes the air we breathe with its industrial waste, because it is presently cheaper to have a dirty urban environment than a clean one, to deliver lectures about cleanliness. What is "clean" about war, which throws grown men into the filth of bloody combat so that the perfumed gentlemen of leisure can expand their economic power? Thatcher may have clean fingernails, but she has blood on her hands.

"SELF RESPECT"

Capitalism teaches its wage slaves to respect others: teachers, experts, leaders, generals, priests, politicians - even invisible gods. The self-respecting slave is a rebel; he or she will be branded by Thatcher and her cronies as subversive, wreckers and revolutionaries. Capitalism demands deference, because only those willing to remain on their knees can be deceived into believing that the ruling class is mighty.

"GIVE A HAND TO YOUR NEIGHBOUR"

Is that why armies and weapons of mass destruction are pointed at our global neighbours? The politics of international militarism has nothing to do with loving thy neighbour and everything to do with the competitive jungle of the profit system where all who are not seen as part of "the group" must be seen as economic rivals.

"TREMENDOUS PRIDE IN YOUR COUNTRY"

All very well for those who have a country; but having means possession, and most workers in Britain own about as much of "our country" as they do any other: none at all. Why be proud of mansions you have built, but cannot afford to live in; cars you have made but cannot afford to drive; newspapers you have printed but have no control over; food you have manufactured but cannot afford to buy? As Marx and Engels wrote, when accused of desiring to abolish countries and nationality: "The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got" (The Communist Manifesto). Workers are taught to have "tremendous pride in your country" because, without a massive campaign of patriotic indoctrination, men and women would recognise their common interests..."