To be unemployed means to be without work to do. But who is likely to worry much about that ? Does work give us such a grand and glorious feeling that we need lose sleep over its absence?
It may be true, it certainly is true, that labour is “an eternal nature-imposed necessity” to secure the continued existence of the human race, but it is equally true that the march of humanity from savagery to civilisation has been largely motivated by the desire to avoid “work" or to lighten its load. That in this process more and more work has been effected is another side of the story. Whichever way one cares to look at the matter the fact is that work in modern society has assumed such paramount importance that people have actually demanded the "right to work.” It was this that prompted Paul Lafargue, the able and witty son-in-law of Marx, to summon the working class to proclaim the “right to be lazy.”
The Unemployment Assistance Board has undertaken an enquiry into the "causes of prolonged unemployment in individual cases.” Lord Rushcliffe, chairman of the Board, in his report for the year 1937, says that—"It is expected that, as a result of this enquiry, information of great practical importance will be obtained. It has already become clear that there is a considerable number of men and women who have lost interest and are content to remain on unemployment allowance.” The report goes on to point out that—"There are those whose unemployment is due to wilful idleness, who avoid or refuse work when it is obtainable, or throw up jobs upon some flimsy pretext.” It is admitted in this report that the percentage of such cases is small, “but the number is sufficiently large to cause the Board much concern.” That ”much concern” is ominous! From inquiries made in December over 250,000 of the male applicants to the Board were 45 years of age or over, and of such men about 140,000 were 55 years of age or over. Nearly one-third of the men of these ages have been unemployed continuously for three years or more. But the significance of another statement contained in this report may, we are afraid, pass unnoticed. “It is obviously against good policy,” says the report, “that an able-bodied person when out of work and dependent upon public funds for support should be as well off as or, indeed, better off than he would be in work.” What a handsome reward for work there must be that it can be so bluntly stated that men are better off without it.
We are told that half the male applicants declare normal wages of less than fifty shillings per week. In about six per cent., or over 30,000 of the cases, the applicant was receiving an allowance from the Board which was within four shillings of his normal wages. And what is normal wages? The following instances are given in the report. Applicant, aged 48, wife and eight children—scale allowance, 54s., normal wages, 38s., allowance paid, 45s. Applicant, aged 31, wife and seven children—scale allowance, 48s. 7d., normal wages, 40s. 6d., allowance paid, 45s. These are figures that tell their own story, but let us leave it at that for the moment, we have some comments to make. This Britain, which is called ours, but which in reality does not belong to 90 per cent. of the population, is one of the richest parts of the world. Yet, significantly enough, this is but another way of saying that poverty is as commonplace here as anywhere on the earth's surface. For riches and poverty exist side by side under capitalism as surely as night follows day; the one lives, leech-like, on the other’s existence. The wealth of this country or of the world does not descend from heaven, nor does it grow from the earth in the manner of a tropical vegetation.
The rich or ruling class lives, as it can only live, on the proceeds of the labour of the poor, and the poor are the people who are known as workers. They work for the benefit of others because, as things are, they have no other means of obtaining a livelihood. But our highly industrialised, civilised form of society is such that not even all those who are able and willing to work have the opportunity of so doing. At the moment there are roughly about 1,750,000 men and women in this country unemployed. This means that the rich, or employing class, can find no profitable use for them. But the time is past when the ruling class can with safety to itself leave so vast a number of people to starve, they cannot be left to rot and die. Hence we have the “dole” and Poor Law Relief, besides various charity societies ministering to “the poor and needy.” Of course, the whole thing is at bottom a gigantic swindle. For take a glance at the position of those who have need of the dole or Poor Law Relief and charity. They belong to the only useful class in modern society, the only class which actually produces the wealth of the world. The wheels of industry and commerce are dependent for their motion not upon the rich but upon the poor. But what is their reward for all this under capitalism? If the average worker is fortunate enough to be in employment for the major portion of his life, he generally finishes up much as he began, without means and often in debt. Throughout their entire lifetime the workers’ experience is usually a “hand-to-mouth” existence. It has been calculated that out of a total population of 47 millions 13½ millions are seriously undernourished, are compelled to eke out a miserable existence on less than six shillings per week to spend on food.
As we are writing these notes there comes to hand a Press report of a woman charged with stealing goods valued £8 10s. She stated in defence that she stole the goods to sell them to buy food for her children. Two years ago her husband had to go into hospital through eye trouble, the eye was finally removed. Meanwhile, she fell into arrears with the rent and her home was taken from her. When the husband left the hospital he was confronted with the double problem of finding work and a home.
On being asked by the magistrate what she had for dinner the previous day the woman replied—” The children had an egg, I had a corned beef sandwich, and my husband had nothing.”
The woman was placed on probation for twelve months!
The Grand Contrast
But the above state of affairs does not apply to all. The ten per cent. of the population who practically own “this England of ours” experience no such sensations. They live without fear of economic insecurity, in luxury, are never “out of work”—and never in. The same editions of the capitalist Press reporting the case mentioned above and the “concerns” of the Public Assistance Board display picture after picture of the grand scenes at Ascot, that historical annual parade ground of every conceivable kind of social parasite.
“Ascot,” says a leader writer in the Daily Telegraph, “is like the King’s Birthday, the Tower Bridge, the cliffs of Dover, It has a purpose and a meaning. Do not run away with the idea that it is merely a race meeting. It is part of the English scene, as integral as a pack of hounds, a coster in his pearlies or a field of buttercups.” May we say that we haven't the slightest doubt about the integrity of it all. Ascot is as much an integral part of our great British tradition as the poverty of the woman who was placed on twelve months’ probation or that of the workers in general.
The King and Queen lead the way in the Ascot procession, not the stable lads who were recently on strike for a wage barely above the subsistence level. As a prelude a large dinner party was held in the Waterloo chamber of Windsor Castle. At this function the Press announced that the famous Windsor gold plate was in view on a specially-constructed stand and illuminated with tubular lighting. On the racecourse itself, “Beautifully-tailored coats and skirts of pastel-tinted silks were a dress feature.” The Duchess of Kent “wore a triple row of large pearls round her throat, after the style of a choker necklace, and had diamond clips in her hair.” And so on is one celebrity after another described in these Ascot scenes, which might conjure up to the mind the Arabian Nights or a horde of painted savages, whichever way one cares to look at it.
Shortly the King and Queen will visit Paris and their visit is to be marked by a banquet to be held in the Hall of Mirrors.
“M. Carton, President of the Association of the Chefs of France, has called for ten of the best-known chefs to collaborate with him in the preparation of the meal,” There is no mention in this forthcoming event about corned beef sandwiches. Perhaps those are reserved for the French waiters, to remind them of the great slogan of the French Revolution: "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.”
Now the Public Assistance Board have nothing to do with the class of people who dominate the Ascot parades. It is not they who are referred to as malingerers. Yet they are the people who “toil not, neither do they spin.” The wealth they enjoy is obtained from the blood and sweat of the working class. Among the men who are described by the Public Assistance Board as having been continuously unemployed for three years are those who have helped to make possible the wonderful clothes and ornamentation of these Ascot and other “society” gatherings. Malingering is a disease arising from the anarchy generated in human relationships through class exploitation. To live without working, to live above the standard of those who have to work, that is the hall-mark of “success” in capitalist society. Parasitism is an essential part of social life to-day, therefore, the fact that here and there a few who belong to the working class may sometimes attempt to “get by” without work is but mere child's-play when it is compared with the gigantic exploitation by ten per cent. of the population of the other ninety per cent. Socialism will end social parasitism in every form. Experience proves that when people are given decent and reasonably healthy conditions in which to work they do not shrink from the task. Even the report of the Public Assistance Board is compelled to admit that “of the 451,700 homes covered by the inquiry, 415,060, or 91.9 per cent., were described as well-kept, and only 36,640, or 8.1 per cent., ill-kept.” Further, the percentage of “ill-kept homes is, as might be expected, lowest where the dwelling is of good type."
When the workers awaken to an understanding of the causes of their social conditions they will realise the mockery and insults heaped upon them by the real malingerers, those who live upon the proceeds of their exploitation. The Socialist Party urges the working class to study their position to-day and to end it through Socialism.
Robert Reynolds
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