John Keracher and the Michigan Marxists (1996)

From the Jul-Aug 1996 issue of the Discussion Bulletin

John Keracher was born in Scotland in 1880. In 1909, be emigrated to the United States, settled in Detroit and. some time later, became a shoe salesman. Early in 1910. he came into contact with the Socialist Party of America, founded in 1901. In April, he joined the Party.

Despite its name, the Socialist Party of America did not have as its objective—its sole objective—the establishment of socialism. It was a basically left-wing, social democratic, reformist Party with, at that time, hundreds of thousands of members and supporters. And prior to the First World War, almost every kind of radical and reformer could be found in its ranks. Of the Party, and the various publications which supported it. Keracher observed:

. . . I heard some of its members speaking about the Materialist Conception of History. 1 had never heard the term before and was curious to know just what it meant. 

Approaching those members, 1 asked for an explanation. Soon, I discovered, as it seemed to me then, that there was something mysterious about it. They told me that they believed in it and were sure that it was quite scientific . . . 

meanwhile, I had subscribed to a number of socialist papers and started to read socialist books and pamphlets. Soon I noticed that there was much contradiction existing on socialist theory. The authors and editors held different views, often quite opposite, on important questions of principle. This was explained to me as a permissible difference of opinion on the part of the writers’. I was assured that everything was all right, that in a democratic movement, such as ours, much allowance must be made for individual opinion'. (How The Gods Were Made)

Keracher was not satisfied with such answers. Directly opposite views could not both be correct Something must be wrong, he felt which permitted such a wide tinge of opinion on the principles of socialism. John Keracher decided to find out for himself.

Among the books which I had bought were some by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels . . . I turned my attention to their writings and after a time began to grasp what was meant by the Materialist Conception of History. The more I read of their writings the clearer it became to me. I began to overcome my former indefinite position on religion, and upon other questions, such as social reforms, the function of industrial organizations (i.e. the unions), the State, and other institutions. I came to the conclusion that if Marx and Engels were correct, a great many others calling themselves socialists, must be wrong. (How The Gods Were Made)

Soon after, Keracher initiated an ambitious education programme, throughout Michigan, based on the study of the writings of Marx and Engels. Out of this grew what was termed the proletarian University, in which Keracher was its most popular lecturer Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the Socialist Party of Great Britain had published, in 1910, a pamphlet titled Socialism and Religion, an analysis of religion based on the very Materialist Conception of History which had concerned John Keracher when he joined the Socialist Party of America. Copies of Socialism and Religion soon found their way to North America, and began to circulate within both the Socialist Party of Canada and sections of the SPA. such as Michigan and Detroit.

War and the Revolutionary Tea Drinkers

The First World War came is a great shock to the Socialist Party of America. At first. America was not involved, but many American workers had relatives in Europe. So, reluctantly, many took sides in what was their masters’ quarrel. Many Socialist Party members did likewise. Not so in Detroit, however.

In Britain, right from the start, the Socialist Party of Great Britain opposed the war. But, because of its opposition, and the harassment of many of its members, some went on the run or escaped abroad. This was to affect the already militant Michigan section of the SPA under the influence of Keracher and others such as Dennis Batt.

Detroit was the centre of the automobile industry, and the auto workers suffered intense exploitation which tended to make them more militant, and sympathetic towards socialist ideas, than elsewhere in the United States. Not surprisingly, therefore, the SPA in that city began to look towards anti-war Marxists in Europe in general, and Britain in particular. The Michigan section soon came under the influence of the SPGB.

In 1915, an active and charismatic member of the SPGB, Moses Baritz, arrived in Detroit, to be followed some time later by another member, Adolph Kohn. Baritz was soon holding lectures in Duffield Hall and elsewhere, and was joined by members of the Socialist Party of Canada. By 1916, Moses Baritz had moved on (and was later jailed for his anti-war activities when America became involved) but Adolph Kohn continued propagating socialist ideas. Meanwhile, a small group in Toronto, across the border to north-east in Canada, had organized themselves as the Socialist Party of North America, and had adopted the object and declaration of principles of the SPGB. A number of members of the SPA in Detroit felt that it was time that Marxist socialists in the United States should break away from the reformist Socialist Party, and form a new revolutionary Party, also basing itself on the object and principles of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

John Keracher and Dennis Batt were themselves very sympathetic towards the 'revolutionary tea drinkers’, as the pro-SPGB group was called; but they thought that for the time being, Marxists should remain within the SPA, and try to influence it towards socialism, rather than organize a new, separate, political party

Workers and Proletarian Parties

Nevertheless, particularly at the urging of Adolph Kohn. a small group finally decided to organize a new Socialist Party. And on July 7 I916, the Socialist Party of the United States, adopting the Object and Declaration of principles of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, was formed in Detroit. About 20 members of the SPA resigned immediately, including a young socialist named I. Rab. But due to the fact that the organization was unable to make effective contact with socialists outside Michigan, and was without funds, they only began with 42 members Bill Davenport became the first secretary, Bill Gribble the first organizer and Lawrence Beardsley wrote the Party's manifesto The writer, Jack London just before his death, resigned from the SPA. and wrote the new party "I congratulate you and wish you well in your adventure." Meanwhile, the SPA in Detroit went from strength to strength, although the new Party's influence remained strong. Indeed, in August 1918, the SPA in Michigan, under John Keracher. founded a new journal, The Proletarian, and like the new Party adopted the Object and Declaration of Principles of the SPGB. The new Socialist Party of the United States, however, was informed that the SPA had copyrighted the name “Socialist Party” and so, for legal reasons, renamed their party the Workers' Socialist Party of the United States (WSP/US). (In 1947, it was renamed a second time as the World Socialist Party.)

John Keracher and the Michigan Socialist Party, which had become among the largest of the Socialist Party's state organizations, came more and more in conflict with the national leadership. In 1917, revolution broke out in Russia, followed by the Bolshevik coup d'etat. Although John Keracher was well aware that a socialist revolution had not occurred in Russia, he and most of the SPA members in Detroit, like many, workers and radicals elsewhere, became a vehement supporter of Bolshevism. Not only did this mean the parting of the ways between Keracher and the "revolutionary tea drinkers" of the WSP and the SPGB, but also, in May 1919, the expulsion of the Michigan section of the Socialist Party of America, ostensibly for the Michigan section's anti-religious stance, in violation of the Party's statutes.

At an emergency meeting of the expelled Michigan members in June 1919, a resolution was passed calling for a new revolutionary party, to be formed in Chicago on September 1; and on that date, Keracher, Dennis Batt and others from the expelled Michigan section of the SPA, took part in the founding of a Communist Party. (At two simultaneous conventions, in Chicago, two Communist parties were formed!); fundamental disagreements, however, soon made it impossible for Keracher and the Michigan group to remain in the newly-formed Communist Party. Almost alone (except for the WSP), Keracher, Batt and their comrades were the only "communists" who did not believe that a proletarian revolution as imminent in the United States. Keracher also opposed the Communist Party's clandestine and anti-electoral orientation, its dual unionism, its "federation of federations" and its reformism. So, within a few months, in January 1920, the so-called Communists first tried unsuccessfully to take over Keracher's Proletarian University by force and, then, charged him and the other Michigan members, with Menshevism, and expelled them.

Six months later, in June 1920, the expelled members and several others, founded the Proletarian Party.

Union activists

The membership of the Proletarian Party was never more than 500 at the most; its stronghold remaining in the industrial midwest, especially in Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Flint and Rochester. It sent a delegate to the third congress of the Communist International, in Moscow, in June 1921, yet despite efforts by CI officials to get the "Proletarians" to re-enter the American Communist Party, the Proletarian Party stubbornly refused to, and pursued its own course while still supporting the Communist International globally. Indeed, not until the mid-1930s, when Keracher opposed the Popular Front, particularly during the Spanish Civil War, did the Proletarian Party actually challenge the authority of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union internationally.

Notwithstanding the Proletarian Party's support for Bolshevism internationally, the Proletarian Party remained a "Menshevik" organization, with a kind of Marxism that owed much to Engels, and little or nothing to Lenin. Its members were, like Keracher himself, deeply influenced by not only Marx and Engels, but also by Darwin, Lewis Henry Morgan and Joseph Dietzgen. And, in this very much like the WSP and SPGB, its activities consisted almost exclusively of study classes, forums, debates, lectures and outdoor "soapbox" meetings. Many of its members, however, were active Trade Unionists.

During the 1933 Briggs Auto Body strike in Detroit, Proletarian Party members were very active; and, later, they were involved in sit-downs in Flint and elsewhere. In the early days of the United Auto Workers, their speakers spoke to large crowds, and for a small organization, the Proletarian Party provided the UAW with a large number of its best organizers, such as Frank Marquart who was initially influenced by I. Rab and Emil Mazey. Many other members of the Proletarian Party became top officials of other unions, including Carl Berreitter of the International Typographical Union, Al Renner of the Restaurant Workers, and Sam Meyers of the Retail Clerks. And many others. Yet the Party suffered a large turnover of membership. By 1940, it had lost much of its membership. And by 1971, the Proletarian Party just faded away. Nevertheless, John Keracher left his mark, not only in Michigan but even as far away as Britain.

He wrote countless leaflets, as well as articles for the Proletarian News. And some of his pamphlets, such as Producers and Parasites (1935), Crime—its Causes and Consequences (1937) and particularly How The Gods Were Made (1929), all of which were published, not by the Proletarian Party, but by Charles H. Kerr and Company of Chicago, which Keracher had taken over from an ageing Charles Kerr in 1928, found their way to Britain, and into the hands of members of the Socialist Party of Great Britain including this writer.

John Keracher left Detroit for Chicago in the late 1920s and remained there until about 1950, when he retired to Los Angeles. He died in 1958.

The World Socialist Party

Following the entry of the United States into the First World War in 1917, and the subsequent persecutions of radicals, socialists and anti-war groups, the members of the WSP were forced to go underground, curtail their activities or to move away from Detroit, to other parts of the United States. And, like Keracher some members of the WSP supported the Bolsheviks, at least for a time. During the infamous Palmer Red Raids of 1919, thousands of workers, including socialists, were arrested.

Nevertheless, despite the difficulties, members of the WSP in Detroit carried on as the Detroit Socialist Educational Society between 1919 and 1922. In 1921, I. Rab moved from Detroit to Boston where he worked tireless for socialism, for many more decades. The Detroit Local of the WSP came and went over the years; and at one period, during the 1950s, it took over the functions of the WSP National Headquarters. At the moment of writing, there is no active local of the World Socialist Party in Detroit.

Peter E. Newell, 

Colchester, England

Sources:

The Monument, Robert Barltrop.

Jack London, Robert Barltrop.

Encyclopaedia of the American Left, edited by Mari Jo Buhle and others. 

The Western Socialist, No.4,1966.

Crime—Its Causes and Consequences, John Keracher.

Producers and Parasites, John Keracher.

How The Gods Were Made, John Keracher.

Letter from Ronald Elbert, 30 March 1996.

World Communism: A Handbook, edited by Witold S. Sworakowski.

Blogger's Note:

I thought this short historical article from Frank Girard's Discussion Bulletin would be of interest to readers of the blog. The author of the article, the late Peter E. Newell, was a member of the SPGB in the '50s and '60s, and rejoined the party in the 1990s after long period in-between involved in anarchist politics. Peter had a longstanding interest in the history of radical movements in the Americas, and as well as writing a biography of Zapata in the 1970s, he also wrote a history of Canadian impossibilism in 2008.

Frank Girard's reasons for originally publishing the article are worth reposting:

"The DB isn't a socialist history magazine, but Peter Newell's article on John Keracher and Revolutionary Perspective's article on the British SLP both relate to a key period, 1918-20, when Lenin and the Bolsheviks were using worldwide enthusiasm among workers for the Russian Revolution and the unlimited cash they came into when they grabbed power in Russia to establish their hegemony over the revolutionary wing of the international socialist movement. I never met Keracher, but I knew one of his admirers, Clarence Ford, in Grand Rapids in the early fifties. Like many working class revolutionaries he was shockingly—to me in those days—uninterested in the relative doctrinal purity of socialist organizations and had been a member of both the SLP and Keracher's Proletarian Party, and from reading Newell's article I gather that the refusal of Keracher and his party to become a part of the CP was based on principle and not just personal antagonisms as I had assumed."

The Lies of Liberalism. A Record of False Pretence and Low Cunning. (1910)

From the August 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

Without a Blush.

In the course of his Budget speech. Mr. Lloyd George dwelt upon the wonderful extent of industry and trade. He indulged in the usual lies about working-class prosperity and foreshadowed “the better time coming,” in the following words :

“The commercial world everywhere is in better heart. There is more enterprise and everything makes the prospect much brighter. I am told, on authority, I cannot doubt, that we shall probably see a greater volume of trade this year and next than has ever been witnessed in the history of this country . . . All indications are that this year’s trade will be good, that next year’s trade will be better, that the people will be prosperous and that therefore the revenue will show an expansion.”

Will the people be prosperous ? If by the “people” is meant the workers we deny it and submit she following lesson from the past (provided by the Liberals themselves) as evidence in support of our point of view.

In the leading article of the Daily Chronicle (amongst other papers) for June 6th, 1903, we were told :

“Opportunely there are published this morning two official returns of great interest and importance with regard to British Trade. . . The figures tell a tale both absolutely and relatively of great prosperity. . . . They show that the whole volume of British Trade has increased from 764 millions sterling in 1898 to 877 in 1902 . . . we have such evidence before us that we are doing very well as we are.”

In the very same issue appears a report of the now famous speech delivered on the previous day in the City Hall, Perth, by Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman, who said :

“We know that there is about 30% of our population underfed, on the verge of hunger. . . The condition of the people is serious enough under Free Trade ; it is a question which haunts us, and surely the fact that about 30% of the population in living with the grip of perpetual poverty upon it, is and ought to be a sufficient answer to the Prime Minister.”

Our Splendid Civilisation.

It was also in that “boom” year that Mr. Winston Churchill made his speech at Edinburgh, during which he said :

“I have often asked myself whether our splendid civilisation really conferred blessings on all classes. Is it true to say that the poorest man in Scotland is not any happier than poorest Hottentot or the poorest Eskimo? I am inclined to think that he is not any happier but perhaps more miserable. He is homeless in the heart of great cities ; such as never was never seen on earth before and he suffers the privations of the savage with the nerves of civilised man.

“To compare the life and lot of the African aboriginal—secure in his abyss of contented degradation, rich in that he lacks everything and wants nothing—with the long nightmare of worry and privation, of dirt and gloom and squalor, lit only by gleams of torturing knowledge and tantalizing hope, which constitutes the lives of so many poor people in England and Scotland, is to feel the ground tremble underfoot.”

Despite the widespread poverty, the Liberal Party are very active just now, in claiming that unemployment is rapidly declining and that the conditions of life for all are improving because of the advance of commerce. But let the reader reflect on the facts given above showing the existence of terrible poverty at the same time as an unequalled increase in the amount of wealth produced and it will then be clearly seen that the claims of Liberalism are fraudulent.

A Fraudulent Claim Exposed.

We are continually told that the recent legislation of the Liberals is beneficial to the workers. An examination of the chief items will show how groundless is this statement.

The Board of Trade Labour Exchanges (opened February 1st, 1910) have been hailed with delight in many quarters. Below we give the returns published in the April, May and June issues of the “Board of Trade Labour Gazette.” It should be understood that the number of applicants practically represents different persons, because renewals are not again counted.

During	No. of applications for work	No. of vacancies filled
February	216,813	12,628
March	126,119	20,395
April	116,523	23,858
May	100,392	24,025
	559,847	80,906

These figures show how the Liberals have lied about unemployment and the influence of Labour Bureaux. What a fraud ! 80,906 jobs and 559,847 applications for them ! No wonder the number of applicants fell after the first month, seeing how few jobs could be had through them.

How greatly these Exchanges are opposed to the interests of the working class was indicated by recent instances in which they provided strike-breakers. One or two of these cases only are dealt with here, owing to this being an article and not a pamphlet.

Strike-smashing Up to Date.

A London firm of cabinetmakers recently refused to pay the union rate to their workmen. The men were called out by their union but the masters applied to the Labour Exchange for “hands.” (It is true that the regulations require all applicants to be told if a strike is on at the firm applying. But the regulations only exist on paper.) The Exchange wrote the firm asking whether a strike was proceeding as they had been informed so by the union. But the very morning that the letter arrived, and before a reply was sent, men arrived from the Labour Exchange and were taken on.

In June a strike arose at Newport Docks, and Messrs. Houlder Bros, had the good fortune to be supplied with strike smashers by both the Labour Exchange and Mr. Collinson’s Free Labour Association ! Down at Napsbury Pauper Lunatic Asylum, another wing is being built to accommodate the increasing number of workers whom the present system mentally cripples. The contractors for the work sought, in true capitalist spirit, to wring more unpaid labour out of the labourers, paying them 5½d. per hour. . The toilers, directly provoked by this starvation rate, remonstrated on June 15th, and were thereupon paid off. Before many hours had passed strikebreakers arrived from a London Labour Exchange, and supplanted the men on strike.

According to their own account, no mention of there being a strike down at Napsbury was made to the strikebreakers.

Another motive our Liberal capitalists had in establishing these Labour Exchanges. A quotation from Leaflet No. 16 (“Rough on Rates”) issued by their Budget League, illustrates this :

“These Labour Exchanges will contain accurate lists of unemployed men and women. By means of telephone a man will be able to find out if there is a job for him in a distant town without going on tramp to the town itself. This means that casual wards maintained by the ratepayers’ money will fall into disuse and large sums of public money will be saved.”

Bearing in mind that it is the property owners and not the workers who pay the rates, we can see whose interests this measure protects.

The same reason causes them to favour unemployment insurance, as the following from the pamphlet quoted above tells us :

“The principle of insurance is that you pay money when times are good and receive it back when times are bad (!) This scheme means therefore that during periods of depression, money will be put into circulation, thousands of families kept off the rates,” etc., etc.

A Hair of the Dog that Bit Him.

The Road Development Bill has been produced to lessen unemployment, we are informed. The real position is that commercial progress accompanied by the revolution in modes of transit from the horse-drawn vehicle to the motor, makes necessary to the capitalists the laying of roads more suitable for the heavier traffic of commerce and the pleasure cars of the idle rich.

The method is to have roads that will not need the constant repairing that the present ones do, and the alterations are brought under the control of the national executive of the capitalist class to ensure more economic maintenance, and results in less work being needed to keep the roads in good condition. To quote again from that Liberal bill:

“Improvements will then be effected at the charge of the Treasury, which would otherwise necessarily add to the rates of certain districts, and special attention will be devoted to laying down a more durable and less dusty surface to our highway. This again will relieve local rates.”

Here the old lesson is recalled, that economies effected under capitalism increase unemployment.

After the report of the Royal Commission on Home Work, the Trade Boards Act was passed, setting up minimum wages boards. Hence the cry of the Liberals : “Look what we have done for Labour !” They point out quite jubilantly, that this Act has been welcomed by many of the largest employers !

What actually results from this measure is the alteration of the methods under which exploitation is carried on. Large employers find it less profitable to employ home workers than before. They bring young and more energetic workers into their factories, where the latest wages saving machinery and “speeding up” methods are introduced under carefully adjusted systems of division of labour. The small manufacturer is forced out because of the advantage of the large factory with the big purse behind it. The older workers, who did manage to scrape along by taking work and slaving in their “homes” instead of in the factory, now find it impossible to get work. Thus on every hand these measures prove detrimental to our class owing to wealth being produced under the new methods with fewer workers than before. The larger output for less wages means accentuation of poverty all along the line. The Singer Sewing Machine Co. issued to clothing manufacturers in the North of England, a circular on “The Wholesale Clothing Trade and Labour-Saving Machinery,” drawing attention to an exhibition at Leeds of many wonderful new machines. An extract from it runs :

“The display has already been visited by large numbers of the clothing manufacturers of Yorkshire and Lancashire and more distant parts, and readers interested in the manufacture of clothing may be recommended to learn by a personal visit and inspection, what the new methods and these improved machines may mean to them, especially in view of the now Trade Boards Act which is now coming into operation.”

The Housing and Town Planning Act is also instanced by the Liberals as beneficial legislation and it therefore calls for a few words to show its essentially capitalistic character.

The trend of commercial development is to need wider streets and more luxurious surroundings for the emporiums of the capitalist class. Consequently under the above, as under other housing acts, the workers are driven further away from the main thoroughfares, slums are abolished in one place merely to arise elsewhere. 

The rents of the buildings erected on the sites of the slums (to yield greater profit to the property owners) are generally higher, and the workers, unable to pay more rent, are forced to turn to other quarters, and thus slumdom becomes intensified. In the model dwellings erected by “ten per cent, philanthropy” associations and municipalities, severe strictures are often made as to the number of persons and children per room. This leads the evicted of the slums to resort to worse tenements on account of their lack of resources and therefore the workers are made more uncomfortable than ever. This is the logical result of housing reform under capitalism. Most of the reforms touched upon in this article exist in Germany. Labour Bureaux, Unemployment and Invalidity Insurance, Housing Reforms—all have flourished for some time past over there, yet the Liberal Press and politicians are telling us that the condition of the workers is worse than here. So much for their “blessed” reforms.

We still hear the Liberals repeating the old lie—Free Trade means security for the worker. We have shown from the returns of their own Labour Exchanges how prevalent unemployment is under capitalism. Yet this unemployment exists in spite of the fact that more people emigrated from and fewer immigrated into Great Britain last year than for many years past. The figures in the June issue of the “Board of Trade Labour Gazette” relating to emigration from Great Britain and immigration into Great Britain to and from countries beyond Europe are :

	1909	1908
Emigration	474,374	386,411
Immigration	261,325	342,922

The brutal conditions imposed upon the workers by the employing class, Liberal and Tory alike, force them to leave the land of their birth, to scour the world in search of a job. They leave Great Britain, where unemployment, insecurity of life, and poverty press upon them, to face the same old “problem” thousands of miles away. It’s the old vain hops of expecting to do better in a strange land. More than half the emigrants went to America. The poverty of the workers there was depicted in the May issue of the Socialist Standard.

The Liberal papers have been filling pages with glowing accounts of the fine opportunities supposed to be awaiting the workers in the colonies, with special reference to Canada, where the workers (they say) are welcomed with open arms. Earl Grey, on his recent visit to this country, has been telling the same tale. How fraudulent this emigration campaign is may be appreciated by noticing the fact that on March 10th, 1910 the Canadian Government issued a new notice making entry into the country more difficult than ever. The new rules, while making more strict the medical and civil examination, demand that emigrants should be possessed of from 25 to 50 dollars per head (“their absolute property”) according to the time of the year. Surely if they were really pining for more wags-slaves in Canada they would not impose these onerous conditions. Since the new regulations were made scores of British workers have been sent back to this country. The great miners’ strike at Glace Bay and Spring Hill should show how real the class struggle is in Canada.

Concerning Australia, we have the testimony of social reformers (Mr. Ben Tillett and Mr. Tom Mann, for example) who on returning from there, told of the fierce struggle to live out there in spite Labour Ministries, wages boards, compulsory arbitration, and many other reforms that misled workers are advocating here. The strike of miners at Newcastle and Broken Hill, of the State employed Sydney trainwaymen (to mention only a few) serve to illustrate the fact that the worker who emigrates merely exchanges misery in one place for misery elsewhere. The May No. of the “Board of Trade Gazette” states that unemployment is rife in many leading industries “down under.” “United South Africa” offers little prospect for the worker. There the black slave has supplanted the yellow one, and the white slave is not required because the colored is cheaper.

The policy of the Liberal Party is made up of measures all quite as fraudulent as those we have criticised. Throughout their history they have been the consistent enemies of the working class, just as much as the Tory party. To-day both parties are crying “reform.” This eagerness of the capitalist class to pass reforms sheds light upon the real nature of reform under capitalism. Reforms are favoured by the ruling class for two reasons: firstly, because their immediate material interests are thereby served, and secondly, because they can be used to deceive workingmen and induce them to support capitalist parties. “The Repeal of the Corn Laws” was passed for capitalist ends, yet it was used to rally to the side of the Liberal Party, millions of workingmen. Richard Cobden said:

“The great capitalist class formed an excellent basis for the Free Trade Movement, for they had inexhaustible purses which they opened freely in a contest where not only their pecuniary interests, but their pride as an order was at stake.” (Morley’s “Life of Cobden.”)

The evolution of the present system proceeds faster than the enacting of reform, and even any slight benefit going to the workers is soon more than cancelled by the operations of capitalist development. The working class must learn the simple lesson that while one class own the means of producing the necessaries of life, the rest of society is enslaved to that class. The Liberal and Tory parties alike stand for the maintenance of capitalism, and must therefore be opposed by us. The members of the working class must join the proletariat army fighting for political control: the power required in order that those things necessary for producing wealth may become the common heritage of all —be owned in common and administered in the interest of ALL. They must come into the fireing line and usher in a bright and joyful future for themselves and the race that is to be.

Adolph Kohn

The Revolutionary Proposition. (1910)

From the August 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.

That is the Revolutionary Proposition.

It is revolutionary by virtue of what it proposes.

Many people, hearing us speak of the revolution, conjure up a picture of armed conflict and carnage. These things, however, can only be a means to an end, not an end in themselves. Our proposition says nothing as to the means. It answers the question “what?” not “how?” It is revolutionary because of the end it proposes, and whether that end be achieved by peaceful means or violent makes no difference to its revolutionary character.

The proposal is to establish a system of society. What then is a system of society ?

A modern lexicographer tells us that a system is “an assemblage of things adjusted into a regular whole ; a regular method or order ; an arranged scheme,” and defines society as “a number of persons living in community.”

Accordingly a system of society is an arranged scheme or regular method in accordance with which a number of people live in community.

But people live in community at the present time, and it is not to be supposed without some method or order ; therefore the essential characteristic of the proposition must lie in its final terms—that the social system is to be based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth.

Common experience teaches us that these means and instruments (the land, factories, railways, mines, machinery, etc.) are private property, therefore present society cannot be based on the common ownership of these things.

It follows from this that the Revolutionary Proposition is destructive as well as constructive, that its proposal to establish is by implication a proposal to disestablish. One system of society is to be overthrown in order that another may be set up in its place.

The thoughtful man, before assenting to so momentous a proceeding as the overthrow of the social system, will demand the weightiest reasons for its condemnation and the fullest assurance that there is a better system to take its place.

The first question then is, why do social systems exist ?

Since that which is essential to social systems will appear as surely in the simplest system as in the most complex, and in the former may be most easily discerned, let us turn to one of the earliest social systems we have knowledge of.

In the form of savage society known as the hunting pack, it is obvious that people come together in social relationship to co-operate in the chase and in battle—to get their living together, in short. In all forms of society the primary object which holds people together in community is the need for joint effort in procuring food, clothing and shelter.

The first and most important function of a social system, then, is to facilitate the satisfying of the material needs of its component units, for it is for this reason that, consciously or unconsciously, those units enter into social relations.

Does the present social system fulfil this function ? If not, can it be made to do so ? If again the answer is in the negative, is there any other system which would fulfil the purpose for which people unite in community ?

Material needs are satisfied by material wealth. Statisticians give the amount of wealth annually produced in this country as approximating eighteen hundred million pounds sterling (£1,800,000,000) in value. On the indisputable authority of the census returns the population of the Kingdom is roughly forty millions.

So the ratio of wealth produced per head of the population is about £45 per annum, or, taking the average of families as 4½ persons, over £200 per family per annum.

There are very few working men indeed whose wages, even were they always fully employed, amount to half this sum, whilst millions of families have to subsist on an income of one-quarter (or less) of this amount per family.

It must be admitted, then, that material wealth sufficient to adequately (from a working-class view-point) satisfy the material needs of the whole of the people is produced under the present social system.

The production of the material wealth, however, is only the first step toward satisfying the material needs of the people. However much wealth exists, it must be accessible to the people before they can satisfy their wants. Is the wealth of capitalist society accessible to those who constitute capitalist society?

Responsible politicians and writers amongst the upholders of the present system, admit that nearly one-third of the population of this country are always on the verge of starvation,

A system which enables the people to produce ample wealth to satisfy, even with a degree of luxury, their material needs, yet leaves a third of them lacking bare necessaries, certainly appears not to fulfill its function. The wealth is produced, but the system fails in distribution.

The next question is, can this defect of the social system be rectified ? Before we can find the answer to this we must understand why the system of society does not fulfil its function.

All economic wealth is produced by labour. Labour-power applied to nature-prodded material, changes the form or position of that material and makes it available and useful to man—turns it into wealth. There is no other source of wealth, therefore all who produce wealth are workers.

When workers have produced wealth what becomes of it ? We know that generally the producer has no title to it. He is compelled to leave it in the possession of another, to accept a money payment called wages as the fruits of his toil. Why this is so does not matter at present. The result, then, of the efforts of those who come together to facilitate the winning of their livelihood is that the wealth produced passes from the possession of those who produce it into the hands of those who do not.

At the end of this process those who produced the wealth are not themselves without wealth, but theirs takes the form of money, which they can neither eat nor drink. This money, their wages, however, becomes their sole means of obtaining necessaries. It will exchange for them on a basis of value, so that the wealth of society becomes accessible to those who produce it in proportion to the amount of their wages. Obviously, then, the reason the social system breaks down at the point of distribution is because wages are insufficient to secure the necessaries of life.

If, then, the social system is to be made to perform its functions, it is necessary, at least, that it shall in the first place afford wages to all who are able and willing to work, and in the second place assure that those wages shall represent the fullest sustenance possible with the means and materials of production to hand.

It is our common experience that a person goes to the factory, mine, or other place of industry, labours, and is paid wages. Between the payer and the receiver of wages there is a transaction which must be actuated by motives. Undoubtedly the worker produces for wages, and by the same token, the non-worker pays wages because the worker produces.

The wages paid have the form of money, and the product of the worker’s toil is soon “turned into money” also.

The wages which the non-worker pays out and that to obtain which he pays them, are thus reduced to one and the same thing—he pays money to get money.

It is possible to argue, of course, that though, the payment of wages finally results in a return of money to the wage-payer, the reason which actuated him was the “altruistic” motive of producing for use. This, however, is disproved by the practice of adulteration. The ingenuity displayed in making soap carry the greatest possible amount of “standing water” adds nothing to the usefulness of the commodity, though it counts in the scales.

As there must be a motive there must be a difference of quantity between the two values—the worker’s wages and his product. From the wage-payer’s view-point the cycle must be Money— Commodities—Money plus more money, and that final term, the added money, must be the incentive of the wage-payer in paying wages.

Let us call that added money “profit” and see how we stand with the every-day facts o£ life. We know that every industrial concern of any standing keeps a profit and loss account, and that if such account does not show a profit there is an how-to-do about it, the outlook is considered “very serious,” the directors (if it is a company) have to “face the music,” and there is a deplorable slump in shares. Let such a state of things continue and we shall be “sacked” and the concern “closed down.”

This “profit” and the “added money” which we termed profit are alike in one respect—they are both value added to that invested in the concern, as the result of the operations of that concern. That added value cannot come from nothing. If the concern is a bakery and the value of 50 loaves is expended in hour and other material and a like value in wages, added value can only be shown by the production totalling more than 100 loaves. Human labour alone turns the flour into loaves, hence human labour alone produces the added value called profit.

That which appears as profit in the “profit and loss” account and without which the concern cannot be run, is the same thing which induced the wage-payer to pay wages.

So production is carried on for profit under the present system, and cannot continue when profit ceases to result from it.

We saw that both wages and profit are represented in the product of the worker’s labour.

Let us suppose the product to be 150 loaves, of which 50 represent material, and the remainder wages and profit, it is clear that the profit must depend upon the amount of wages, and the more goes to the worker as wages the less is left as profit. Thus if wages equal 75 loaves profit can be only 25 loaves, while if but 25 loaves go to the worker the profit rises to 75.

Since the product of the worker is the object of both the receiver of wages and the taker of profit, they will naturally each endeavour take as much of that product as they can. How, then, is the relative share of each determined ?

If we credit each with being thoroughly greedy—a pretty safe assumption—then each will endeavour to seize the whole of the product. The limitations of each must be, on the one hand, the worker must leave some profit or the other will not allow the machinery of production to be put into operation, while on the other hand the worker must be given something or he will not produce. Between these points how is the decision arrived at ?

The power to labour can only be created by the consumption of material wealth, therefore a new limitation is set up. Obviously not only must wages be given the worker or he will not work, but they must be sufficient to reproduce his efficiency or he cannot work.

The downward limit of wages, then, is clearly marked, but what prevents them from rising until all profit ceases and production collapses?

In any other market than the labour market the price of commodities or goods is regulated by the relation of supply to demand. If the demand outbalances the supply prices will be high, while if the supply is in excess of the demand prices will run low. Can we apply the argument to labour-power, of which wages are the price ?

We know that there exists at all times a redundancy of labour-power in the shape of a vast army of unemployed. These unemployed, in their endeavours to secure work, necessarily depress the price of that which they have to sell—their labour-power.

This unemployed army supplies us with the conditions of the competitive market, wherein prices are regulated by supply and demand.

We see then that production, under the present social system, can only be carried on while profit results, and profit can only result while an unemployed army exists to depress wages.

The defective distribution of wealth cannot be rectified under the present system therefore because in the first place unemployed are necessary to enable production to be carried on at all, and secondly because the competition of the unemployed reduces wages, not to the point of satisfying the needs of the working class, but only of producing and reproducing so many of them as the labour market requires. Hence the present system cannot be made to fulfil its function.

A. E. Jacomb

[To be Continued.]