There is nothing new about Jew-baiting. As a pastime and a political subterfuge it has been practised since the Jews became distributed over the world's surface. Likewise, the arguments advanced in defence of this time-honoured practice are far from original. They have been trotted out with monotonous repetition for centuries. The Jews are represented as money-grabbers, sweaters of labour, price-cutters, and unscrupulous exploiters, and their suppression is advocated in order to prevent these practices. There is no lack of evidence to prove that Jews indulge in these undesirable practices. The tailoring sweat-shops in the East End of London, and the many cut-price shops with Jewish proprietors, are the illustrations usually given. What the “Down with Jews" advocates overlook is that these practices are not confined to Jews. There is no monopoly of. exploitation by any particular Jewish confraternity. It is the prerogative, of any native or alien, if he owns sufficient wealth, to use that wealth in the exploitation of others, and the degree of such exploitation is in no way determined by the race, nationality or religion of the exploiter.
Unfortunately, many workers are prepared to give a willing and attentive ear to the passion-inflaming hocus of the anti-Semitics. The natural resentment of the worker towards exploitation, being himself a victim, makes it a comparatively simple matter to enlist his sympathy in an attack upon any particularly vicious aspect of his greatest grievance. Knowing this, there are politicians and political parties prepared to pander to working-class sentiments in this direction in order to further their own ends. In this way the vilifying and. howling out against Jews has become the chief means employed by the Fascist parties to attract attention and support to themselves.
Most workers realise that they are exploited, but what they do not realise is the process of that exploitation and in what way it is possible to. remove it. The worker, owning nothing more than his ability to work, must, perforce, sell that ability in order to acquire the needs of life. When he is fortunate enough to find a buyer for his energies he receives, as the price of those energies, a wage. The wages of the working class must be less than the total of the values added in the process of creating wealth. Workers, by applying their energies to raw materials, create wealth which has value. If the wages received were equal to the values produced, then, quite obviously, there would be nothing for the purchaser of working-class energies. It is the amount of values created, over and above the amount received by the creators in the form of wages, which constitutes the surplus that is taken by the non-producing class, the class that owns the raw materials and the machinery which is used in the process of production. Here we have the process by which the worker is exploited.
The capitalist class, having taken the surplus value, then proceed to divide it amongst themselves according to the particular form of the wealth which they have invested. The landlord, the industrialist and the financier, each struggles for a larger share of the spoils of working-class exploitation. In their attempts to score over one another they strive for control of the political machine, because that control means power to the section which wields it. To obtain control of the political machine the support of the working class is needed, particularly at election time, and to get the support of the working class it is necessary to promise to ease the degree of exploitation.
One group of capitalist interests will represent other groups as being the villains of the piece. At one time the industrialists will claim that the high rent taken by the landowners is crippling their industry, and that, in consequence, wages must be low in order that their trade may not suffer. They advocate the subduing of the landowner and the royalty-taker as a means of improving working-class conditions. At another time the financier is the villain who, by the extortion of a high rate of interest on the money he has advanced, is slowing up the wheels of industry and causing unemployment and increased poverty.
The Jews, because they have become dispersed throughout the world, and because in the past they have been, to a great extent, kept on the move, have had to convert any property that they have acquired into some portable form. Money is the most portable form of wealth, and, as many Jews have accumulated money, they have become moneylenders. Financier is the modern name for a moneylender on a large scale.
In most capitalist countries a number of Jews will be found among the finance section of the capitalist class. Also, in most capitalist countries, a far larger number of Jews will be found among the working class. The Jews, just like the English, or the Americans, or the Hindoos, are divided into classes, exploited and exploiting. They differ, in that respect, not a bit from any other nationality or race (it is difficult to define them as either). The fact that a few of their number are to be found amongst the most wealthy and powerful groups of capitalists means little to the workers.
The other instances of excesses, such as price-cutting and labour sweating, are likewise not confined to Jews. All cut-price shops are not owned by Jews, and all Jewish-owned shops are not cut-price shops. Price cutting is an inevitable consequence of the competition of capital. That the tailoring trade is a sweated one is not due to the fact there are many Jews engaged in it but to the competition and other factors which prevail. Many of the sweated ones are themselves Jews.
All political parties are but the expression of class interests. All political parties that have not as their object the overthrow of the capitalist system must represent, to a greater or less degree, the interests of capital, even though the members do not realise it. For the workers to take sides in the struggles of different groups of capitalists for the spoils that have been wrung from themselves will help them not a bit. It is very much like a man taking sides in a struggle between a group of pickpockets, who have robbed him, to decide which of die thieves should have the lion's share of his property. Of course, if the thieves can enlist him on one side or another he can become a great help. His real concern should be to regain his property. An attempt to do that would unite the thieves against him.
The dividing line between capitalist sectional interests may not be so dear as in days that are past, but they still remain. Hiding these interests behind promises of reforms which are supposed to benefit the workers is an old game. So is the trick of cloaking the struggle behind religious or racial differences. That is what is being done by those who attempt to inflame workers against Jews. The discontent of the working class, instead of being marshalled into channels where the workers would become Socialists, where they would be converted from rebels into revolutionaries, is turned to serve the purpose of one or the other conflicting interests of the capitalist trinity, rent, interest or profit.
The claim of the Fascists that the Jews in this country constitute a state within a state is nonsense. Such an idea can only arise from a misconception of the nature and function of a state and an exaggerated notion of the purpose of Jewish organisations. Any group of nationals in a foreign land, if they are persecuted, will seek to protect themselves and attempt to organise for the purpose. Such organisation does not constitute a state, neither does it necessarily imply a hostility to the state of the country in which they reside.
If the proposals of the rabid nationalists of the world were carried to their logical conclusion, and all aliens were deported, there would be a terrible crush when all the Britons from abroad were returned to their native shore.
From whatever angle the arguments of the anti-Semitics are examined, they will reveal nothing which will materially benefit the working class. The political activities of workers are side-tracked. Instead of organising consciously for the overthrow of capitalism, they fight one another within the framework of that system. Their masters sit tight and enjoy the privileges which accrue from the system. Racial, national or religious differences count for nought. The fact that men and women are members of a dispossessed class gives them a common cause. The converting of the means of wealth production and distribution to the common ownership of society as a whole is the cause, and the Socialist Party of Great Britain works to achieve that end.
W. Waters
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