Editorial: Big or Little Unions? (1937)

Editorial from the July 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. W. J. Brown, the Secretary of the Civil Service Clerical Association, has thrown a bombshell into the Trade Union world by telling the busmen that if they decide that they cannot rectify their unsatisfactory position in the huge Transport and General Workers' Union, as disclosed by the recent strike, he will help them form a Union of their own, under their own control (News Chronicle, June 19th, 1937). When Big Unionism was all the rage after the War it was widely believed that you only had to merge a lot of small Unions into one big one to solve all problems and remove all difficulties. It has not turned out quite like that. For one thing the huge organisations have become very slow moving and cumbersome—this, maybe, is unavoidable— and they have not by any means got rid of the sectionalism of the different groups. Consequently much of their energy is absorbed in the constant effort to prevent some sections from being too belligerent, and thus draining away funds in strikes, and preventing the same or other elements from breaking away as a result of craft disputes with other sections of the membership. The moral —pointed out by Socialists at the time—is that you cannot get rid of the reactionary ideas of small bodies of workers simply by lumping them together in a large body, though it is fairly obvious that it is better to try to settle disputes between groups of workers inside a large Union than allow the employers to exploit the rivalries of a number of small, hostile Unions.

On the whole, and Mr. Brown rightly declares his preference for this solution of the problem, it is better to set about the task of democratising the organisation of the large Unions so that they can act quickly and can avoid laying themselves open to the charge that they neglect the interests of sections of the membership. The larger part of the problem is, however, the education of the whole membership, so that they realise their common interests as members of the working class, and so that they cease to think as busmen, dockers, clerks, and so on, but as men and women with the united aim of resisting the pressure of the capitalist class, and of working for the abolition of the capitalist system.

This much can be said for Mr. Brown, though we do not like his politics, that in his own Union of many Civil Service grades he has never been accused of lack of aggression in his attitude to their employer, the Treasury and Government, or of neglecting the interests of sections of his own membership. On the other hand, he has been charged by other bodies of Civil Servants with showing little regard for the interests of grades outside the ranks of his own Association. To which he could, no doubt, reply that that is inevitable so long as the mass of workers are lacking in a sense of their common interest as members of the working class and, consequently, go on thinking wholly or mainly about what they hope they can get by concentrating on a narrower interest.

One thing is quite certain. Mere breakaway Unions solve nothing. If the formation of big Unions did not do much to alter the outlook of the members, merely splitting them up again will do less. The need both in the big and the little Unions is for more class-consciousness and more appreciation of the necessity of the members themselves keeping full control over policy.

Blogger's Notes: 

See the following article from the same issue of the Socialist Standard, 'The ’Bus Strike—and After', for more background on the 'bus workers and their union, the TGWU.

Beneath this editorial was the following notice.

Trade Union Branches 

The Socialist Party of Great Britain is prepared to consider applications from Trade Union and other organisations for a representative to state the case for Socialism. Travelling expenses only are required.

Some Thoughts on Empire (1937)

From the July 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

That sober journal, the Economist is alarmed about the future of the British Empire. Germany will seize Czechoslovakia, make herself mistress of Eastern Europe, then seize the British Colonies, and bust up the Empire. It can only be stopped by taking a firm stand immediately.

. . . the fate of the British Empire depends on the European balance of power. It is in Czechoslovakia that the destinies of the Empire are going to be decided. The Government should promptly declare that the new British armaments, as well as all our other resources, will be used to resist aggression in any part of Europe.—(Economist, March 6th, 1937.)

So the survivors of the last war, together with their sons, having once saved the slums of Britain and the Imperial connection on the fields of Flanders, are to do it again in the mountains of Bohemia. But why? Will the Balance of Power fill an empty belly or stop a hole in the roof of a working-class house? By no means! Even the Economist will agree there. But that, they will say, is only a means to an end. The Empire itself is at stake! But before we decide to meet again in Prague, let us examine this Empire business a little more closely.

What is the Use of the Empire?

When the patriots are pressed for a plain statement about the use of the Empire to the mass of its population they become very vague and unsatisfactory. Some say that it provides work and wages. The standing army of unemployed is a sufficient answer to that. As the Empire has grown larger, decade by decade, there has never been a time—except during the Empire’s wars—when there were no unemployed. The last expansion of the Empire, in 1914-1918, left the permanent unemployed more numerous than ever before.

“The Empire provides food for Britain’s workers.” The undernourished millions know this not to be true. And the Scandinavian countries, without any Empire, can show rather less unemployment and a better fed, clothed and housed population than can Imperial Britain.

“The Empire provides security and keeps the peace of the world.” The last Great War and the pervading fear of the next great war answer that stupidity.

“The Empire provides a lucrative field for investment." Now we are getting somewhere, for this is true. But who owns those invested thousands of millions ? The workers ? Not at all; their masters own them. And under that smooth-sounding word “investment” are the harsh facts of a century-old pouring-out of the capitalist-owned products of British industry for use in Empire and foreign countries. Only in the muddled heads of the professional economists does that process benefit the British workers. Nor, indeed, does it help the workers in the countries to which this wealth goes, for it remains the property of the capitalist class, wherever it may be.

What, then, is the use of the Empire? As far as the workers are concerned it isn’t worth a war. Nor is the threatened absorption of Czecho-Slovakia into Germany. Life for the workers there will not be materially different.

Perhaps the best answer to the imperialists was recently found in the patter of two knockabout comedians of capitalism, the City Editor of the Daily Express and the High Commissioner for Australia, Mr. S. M. Bruce.

The former said (quite truly as far as it goes) that British trade policy had made enemies abroad, and we needed bigger armaments to deal with the situation thus created; while the latter said that if we had not got our great imperial and foreign export trade we would not have been able to afford the £1,500-million for the bigger armaments! (Times, February 25th, 1937.) So the armaments are good because they safeguard the trade, which is good because it pays for the armaments, which are good . . . and so on.

Another Proposition

The Economist can only see two choices before us: Readiness for war to “save” Czecho-Slovakia —how the population must hope to be saved from their saviours—or the end of the Empire. Let us offer a third. The British ruling class do not care two hoots about the Empire any more than they care about Britain. What they are concerned about is their property and their profits, something as sweet as life itself—anyway, as sweet as the lives of the millions of workers they will sacrifice to safeguard their property. But should the ruling class feel that patriotic notions have become a hindrance to their interests, then we shall see them in their true colours. Then, like the Spanish grandees, they will flood their country with foreign mercenaries, pack their armies with criminals released from jail, fling black against white, Mohammedans against Christians, Protestant against Catholic. They will order the slaughter of their own fellow-countrymen without limit, like the French ruling class in 1871.

The same ruling class which will lavish lives and money like water in order to protect its trade and investments, the source of its privilege, will, if faced by a powerful demand by the working class for restitution, rush into the arms of its erstwhile enemies, the foreign ruling class groups, seeking their help to hold down the insurgent workers. The international war will be called off. The international brigands will fix up a new and “permanent” division of the loot—permanent, that is to say, for a few years, like all capitalist peace treaties. The capitalists of all nations will have won another battle in the greater war, the war of the idlers against the wealth-producers.

How can the world be made safe against war? Only by making it safe against capitalism. And until the coming of that event shall open up a new era for the human race it is the duty and the interest of the working class in all countries to have nothing to do with Imperialisms and Jingoisms. The task before us is to add to the size and strength of the forces of Socialism, and use them to exert ever-greater pressure on the capitalist class at home.

Edgar Hardcastle

Here and There: Brailsford on the Russian Executions (1937)

The Here and There column from the July 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Brailsford on the Russian Executions

Mr. H. N. Brailsford, writing on the execution of Marshal Tukhachevsky and the seven Russian army leaders, says: —

No human society can for long live in health under a dictatorship that makes no provision for loyal opposition.

One thing or the other we must believe. Either these men turned traitors because they could not conduct an open and loyal opposition; or else Stalin destroyed them in their innocence because he feared their independence.

The truth it may be, we shall never know, because in Russia there is neither honest justice nor free discussion.—(Reynold's, June 20th, 1937.)

In his early days Brailsford was a Liberal journalist of the Manchester Guardian school. Since then he has been prominent in the Labour Party and I.L.P. in this country. From the time of the overthrow of Czarism he has been sympathetic to the Russian Government. He still regards it as “the greatest thing in history in Russia.” His critical attitude towards the Russian trials is typical of the attitude of many responsible journalists and prominent people in the Labour movement. The points made by Brailsford on Russia merit serious examination. To label him “traitor” or “Trotskyist" is abuse and not ananswer to his case.

* * *

Homes for Workers

An exhibition of model rooms with furniture designed for working-class homes was opened by Sir Kingsley Wood at the Building Centre, New Bond Street. The exhibition was an attempt to provide for small families with incomes between £3 and £5 per week. It aimed at artistry and “gaiety" in the design of furniture for a family consisting of father, mother and two children, with an outlay of £50. The News Chronicle (June 3rd, 1937) approved of the idea and pointed out that “three-quarters of the families in this country do not earn more than £5 a week.” That statement obscures more than it reveals. The News Chronicle could have mentioned that only a minority of the workers receive between three and five pounds a week. Or, better still, they could have pointed out that many thousands of workers in the Post Office receive less than fifty shillings a week, and that Sir Kingsley Wood (who opened the exhibition) took great pains when he was Postmaster-General to convince postal workers that the Government

could really afford no more.

* * *

The Labour Party and MacDonaldism

Labour Party leaders and propagandists would have workers believe that the ignominious failure of. two Labour Governments was due to the treacherous betrayal of Labour Party principles by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald and that “MacDonaldism” left the Labour Party along with MacDonald; Mr. Hamilton Fyfe, ex-editor of the Daily Herald, does not think so. He says: —

Unfortunately “MacDonaldism ” is a disease by no means extirpated. Among its symptoms are—greater respect for the good opinion of opponents than for that of supporters, fear of doing anything to suggest that Socialism means more than slight, harmless changes, desire to take over industry and show capitalists how to run it—on capitalist lines ! —(Reynold's, June 6th, 1937.)

Mr. Fyfe is confused. The disease symptoms he refers to are not the result of “MacDonaldism." They have been the essence of Labour Party policy for thirty years. Mr. Fyfe informed Reynold's readers: “I believed in him [MacDonald] intensely, felt a personal devotion to him, would have done anything for him. I was quickly disillusioned." It is gratifying to know that Mr. Fyfe is disillusioned. He could now usefully spend some effort in disabusing the minds of hundreds of thousands of workers who have as pathetic a faith in the present leaders of the Labour Party. 

* * *

Germany and Colonies

Sir Arnold Wilson, M.P., writing in the Evening Standard (March 15th, 1937) an article called “German Colonies—the Case for Return," makes some telling points.

Answering the hypocritical arguments put forward by Mr. Churchill, that Germany would not benefit from colonies and that colonies could not be handed over to Germany without consulting the natives, he says: —

We did not ask leave of the Somalis of Jubaland when we handed them to Italy in 1925, or the people of Togoland when we transferred them to France, or of Ruanda and Urundi when they were taken over by Belgium.

Further, he adds:—

I would not ask the youth of this country to fight to exclude Germany from her former colonies, and in this, I believe, I speak for a great body of opinion in this country which is scarcely represented in Parliament or heard in the Press. If we are told that we must be ready to fight Germany in order to keep South Africa within the Empire. I would reply that I would not ask men to offer their lives for an ideal so shadowy and so unreal.

Time will see whether Sir Arnold changes his mind.

* * *

Hoodwinking the Workers

Speaking at a Co-operative Party Conference on a proposal to establish a flat-rate pension of £l a week to all persons at the age of 60, Mr. W. H. Green, Labour M.P. for Deptford, said: — 

The cost would be somewhere in the neighbourhood of £250,000,000.

“ One of our failures as a Labour movement,” he said, “is that we are far too ready to promise all sorts of things which, when we get near to power, we find we cannot carry out.

“We ought not to hoodwink the electorate by promising things we cannot carry out.”—(News Chronicle,  March 30th, 1937.)

Nevertheless, the next General Election will see the Labour Party making promises as specious as ever. In order to get votes the “hoodwinking” business will become a riot. Promises that are not fulfilled will bring their own reward to those that perpetrate the fraud. The influence of the Labour Party on the workers will wane, if it is not already doing so. Workers who are without understanding of what is happening can only judge by immediate results. The failures of Labour Governments in other countries are pregnant with lessons for members of the British Labour Party who are intelligent enough to see them. A few of them do, and occasionally show by their writings and speeches that they are uneasy. Many look upon the Labour vote as their right, and upon the loyalty of the voter as something unchangeable. We foresee rocks ahead. Unescapable crises will bring down any government which claims to administer capitalism in such a way as to be able to solve working-class problems. The failure of Labour Governments is inevitable and it unfortunately casts discredit on the working-class movement as a whole. The task of the Socialist is made more difficult in consequence. 

* * *

Russian Statistics

In Russia To-day (June, 1937) Mrs. Margaret Cole reviews a book compiled by the State Planning Commission of the U.S.S.R. called “The Second Five-Year Plan. 1933-37."

She refers to the fact that statistics on English conditions “mean figures of fact and achievement, figures of things which have actually happened, and which can be checked from records in actual existence," but, she says,

Soviet statistics, on the other hand, are a mixture of fact, hope, and exhortation. The statistics in this book are of true Soviet type.

The majority of the tables, whether of wages, production, education, or whatever you choose, end with figures for 1937, which can only be a matter for conjecture, and compare them with figures for capitalist countries based upon the peak year of 1929—which is to compare one conjecture with another.

The foreword, by V. I. Mezhlauk, for example, says (p. xlvi) that the number of children in pre-school institutions in 1935 was approximately 6 millions.

The official table on page 652 gives 7½ millions for 1934 and 9 millions for 1935. The official figures make it seem credible that by the end of 1937 there will be 16 million children in kindergartens. But which of them is right ?

Briefly, Russian statistics have to be taken with a pinch of salt.

* * *

Land of Hope and Glory

From a speech in the House of Commons by Mr. J. Griffiths, Labour M.P. for Llanelly (Times report, June 20th, 1937):—

The report on maternal mortality in Wales showed that of 665 women about to become mothers who were sent to 17 infant welfare centres in South Wales, 30 per cent. were anaemic, emaciated, and were running very grave risks. This problem must be tackled and solved, but the local authorities in South Wales were too impoverished to do so.

As a commentary on capitalist values that report coincided with another announcing the gift of £250,000 to Earl Baldwin from an anonymous donor to be spent on any project fostering the Empire spirit.

* * *

Confessions of a Captain of Industry

Speaking at a tea and entertainment provided for retired works employees of the London Transport Board, Lord Ashfield said:—

He would always recall with pleasure and satisfaction the opportunities he had to walk through the Chiswick works, marvelling at the interesting and intricate work they were doing, appearing at the time to be very wise, but at the same time not understanding it.—(Brentford & Chiswick Times, May 28th, 1937.)

The statement was greeted with laughter.

It would now be interesting to hear an apologist’s explanation for Lord Ashfield’s £15,000 a year salary for doing a job perhaps little or no more “interesting and intricate” than the works engineers and mechanics and draughtsmen who receive only £3 to £4 a week.

Perhaps the father of the London Passenger Transport Board, Mr. Herbert Morrison, would oblige?

Harry Waite

Highland Fling (1937)

From the July 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Brown beach and shaggy woods, romantic dells, Eigg on the starboard, Mull astern! and yet, and yet —

Current issues of the People's Journal (proudly claiming largest circulation north of the Forth) contain material sufficient to prevent a too hasty trek of the working class of Peckham and Hoxton to Dingwall, Inverness, or to the fast-dwindling collection of picturesque hovels dignified by the name of “villages.” Social inequality breeds similar social disease everywhere—aristocratic insolence, capitalist greed, working-class poverty.

The local authority for Corpach approached the Crown representative with a view to joint action in abolishing “abominable smells” in Crown “houses.” The Crown Minister, “all ’aughty-like,” promptly put the 'umble Councillors in their right place. “The Crown, and the Crown alone, was responsible for the sanitary condition of the houses in question” (June 12th). (“Sanitary" is not a misprint for “insanitary,” if you please. Mister Editor.) The People's Journal heads the article “Need for New Laws.” The Socialist Party of Great Britain avers the necessity for a New System of Society—Socialism.

A drive for a Highland “New Deal” is afoot. A cry is going up for more harbours, more power-stations. A pretty quarrel between industrial capital and landed gentrydom is a big factor against compounding of this particular pill to cure an economic earthquake . . .  an old tale, the Highlands must be “preserved” (not, of course, for people who live in smelly houses).

An historical reminder, culled from chapter 27 of Marx’s “Capital,” Vol. 1—read this chapter and previous two; there is nothing “difficult” here, the grim facts, absolutely unchallenged, gleaned from sober Blue Books and similar documents. . . . The Duchess of Sutherland evicted, from 1814 to 1820, practically all her tenancy (15,000) to make money on sheep. British soldiers assisted in eviction. One old woman was burnt to death refusing to leave her hut. The evicted tenants tried fish-catching in the fishing fiords and glittering lochs of the coast. But, alack!

The smell of the fish rose to the noses of the great men. They scented some profit in it, and let the seashore to Billingsgate. For the second time the Gaels were hunted out.—(p.754, Kerr’s Edition; Everyman, vol. 2, p. 809.)

Fish comes into the picture to-day. Big combines are steadily crushing out smaller enterprise; a frantic cry is going up to keep out Norwegian labour on trawlers; plans are afoot to settle fisherfolk in Vancouver, and a strike is yet unsettled in Campbeltown.

It should be noted that clan land was in primitive times actually “clan” land, common property in the widest sense of the word. The gradual usurpation of common rights of ownership of land by “chiefs” is a world-wide social phenomenon known to all students of works such as Lewis Morgan’s “Ancient Society,” or the more accessible “Origin of the Family,” by Engels, not to mention numerous books by definitely non-Socialist writers. The fact is established. Dog-like devotion—older people who have read Scott in their youth will recall instances— was repaid by expropriation. Roderick Dhu’s contemptuous reference to “fellow-clansmen” as “wretched kerns” was blunter in form, but truer in intent than the sickening patronage and fluffy blah which masks modem approach to the position.

The Macleods had a big gathering in Dunvegan Castle—said castle being anything but common property. “Old-age pensioners and all the crofters of the clan marched up to the castle headed by the clan piper.” The sweet lady, “Flora Macleod of Macleod,” was “overcome with the warmth of the clan spirit.” Burns’

“ There’s some are fou' of love divine. 

There’s some are fou' of brandy” 

seems vaguely apposite here. At any rate, the dwellers in smelly crofts and dear old tartan-clad recipients of outdoor relief were “keenly interested” in seeing the ancient relics of their clan— Cockneys do at least get some opportunity of seeing their relics every day at the London Museum. One of the “relics” deserves “special mention ”: Flora MacDonald’s corset!!

Dingwall Town Council, according to the North Star, gave a “typically Highland welcome” recently to Stewart Mackenzie of Seaforth on his return from honeymoon. Replying to an address, the young man recalled negotiations between the Council and the “estate” in connection with a new water-supply. He said he was “glad to think that now Dingwall had a first-class water-supply and that the estate had not suffered through granting this concession ” (March 13th). Is comment necessary? “Concession”!—and a splash heading of the Journal reads “Highlands need help for water supplies.” The situation is described “as little short of alarming.”

“Alarums and Excursions. Enter the Working Class.” Always “ alarums,” whether north or south of Forth for the working class—“excursions,” in the modern sense, sadly lacking, or of the cheap and nasty type.

Socialists (not reform-mongers, whether “charming” Maxtons, “fiery” McGoverns, or tin-pot Gallachers) still stand by “The World for the Workers.” This will include the humble, but highly-necessary water (without “concessions” from anyone).

MacReginald.

The ’Bus Strike—and After by a 'Busman (1937)

From the July 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

On May 28th the London 'busmen returned to work. After four weeks of determined effort they resumed without having achieved their object—a 7½-hour working day.

Despite the fact that on May 25th a full delegate conference of the 'Bus Section of the Transport and General Workers’ Union had resolved by 40 votes to 9 to continue the strike for the 7½-hour day, the following day the Union Executive withdrew the powers granted to the Section and ordered a resumption of work. The ’busmen, somewhat taken unawares, and with no time to give detailed consideration to the position, returned unanimously. Dissatisfaction with the step taken by the Executive was expressed in most branches, and the E.C., fearful of a loss of membership, posted to the members of the ’Bus Section a comprehensive document explaining the reasons for its action. The reasons were that the strike could not be allowed to drift on to disaster, with the loss of the substance already obtained.

A few days later the Executive took the further step of suspending all Central ’Bus Committeemen, Garage Representatives, District Committeemen, Disciplinary Board Representatives and Schedule Sub-committee Officers pending an enquiry into the actions of certain members during the dispute.

Following this, the London ’busmen received by post a copy of a new agreement, which has been signed and accepted on their behalf by the Union President and General Secretary without reference to their wishes on the matter.

Next, members of the Central ’Bus Committee were summoned before a Union enquiry tribunal, charged with conduct which was not compatible with membership of the Union. Some branch officials were unable to obtain leave to attend to Union business, thus to a great extent suspending the local representative machinery and embarrassing the members who are on trial.

Although there may have been justification for the action taken by Union E.C., yet that E.C. cannot escape some of the responsibility for having brought about the conditions which made its action advisable. If, as was claimed on May 14th by the General Secretary, Mr. Bevin, the Transport Board had given its final reply and there was no possibility of gaining more than was offered then, even though the strike should be extended t« other sections of the Union, there appears to be no reason why the order to resume work should have been delayed for another fortnight. Unless, of course, the E.C. did not consider it possible to take such a step just then. On May 25th, when the number of garages which were prepared to consider a settlement on a basis which did not include the 7½-day, had grown from three to nine, then it was possible to order the resumption of work.

In the meantime, certain members of the Central ’Bus Committee, and some others, mostly members of the Rank and File Movement, had played into the hands of the E.C. by acting very indiscreetly in dealing with the dispute. So, fully armed, the Executive is in a position to purge the ’Bus Section of the so-called “ Red element ” within its ranks.

The cry has gone up, “Bevin must go!” We, of the Socialist Party, hold no brief for Mr. Bevin, but we must point out that merely to replace one General Secretary by another will not solve the difficulties. No matter who holds such a post, if he must negotiate agreements with employers the result may be less than is possible in the limits placed by capitalism, but it certainly cannot be more. The only remedy for getting less than is possible is an alert and understanding membership which keeps continuous control over Union policy.

Mr. Bevin has lost the confidence of many of the ’busmen, and in consequence his relations with the Transport Board are made awkward. Now he has made a desperate bid to consolidate his position, both by discrediting his critics and by withdrawing from the 'busmen their democratic control over their own Section.

This position is arrived at in Trade Unions, as has been pointed out, because the majority of Trade Union members do not understand the functions and limitations of Trade Unionism.

The struggle between employer and worker is inherent in the capitalist system. So is the discontent of the workers. Their discontent goads them on in the struggle, but until they are fully conscious of their class status they conduct the struggle blindly. Individuals in the Trade Unions who make extravagant promises frequently get elected to prominent positions, only to find that capitalism sets a limit beyond which they cannot go. Their promises unfulfilled, these individuals fall into disfavour, and they have to seek ways and means of maintaining their positions or alternatively they make way for new men.

If the workers fully realised that Trade Union activity can at the most serve only to defend the workers' wages and working conditions against the ceaseless pressure of capitalism, these promises would fall on deaf ears. It would then be understood that there are definite limits to what can be achieved and that loud-mouthed orators do not make any difference to the facts. It would be understood why, in one long procession, men have passed from the ranks to official positions, only to lose their “Red" ideas and to become either tame “yes ''-men or ardent reactionaries.

From such an understanding it is but a step to the recognition of our claim that the only way to solve the evils and problems of capitalism, and to end the class struggle, is to abolish class society altogether.

Whilst class society remains, the working class cannot help but struggle, and the degree of their success will be influenced by their understanding of their class position and the control which they maintain over their organisations.

Failure to recognise and act on this makes the task of spreading Socialist ideas more difficult. The workers become apathetic, and useful avenues for propaganda are closed.

W. Waters.

The Labour Theory of Value (1937)

From the July 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Everybody knows, by practical experience, what “matter" is, though few might care to offer a precise definition. Everybody knows, too, by experience, what “commodities" are without necessarily troubling to explain the term. Does a theoretical explanation matter, anyway? Does the long research of Marx upon the subject of the commodity help to solve any problem worth solving?

Take “matter" again. Our practical knowledge of matter, the physicist would say, is meagre, superficial, distorted, inaccurate. His truer concept of matter, his profounder knowledge of electrons, protons and neutrons has put a harness on nature and the bit in her mouth. We have machines, devices, productive forces that would have frightened our forbears into fits. And what the atom is to the physicist so the “commodity" is to the Socialist.

Let us take a few commodities. Take apples and amethysts, bread and barometers, cradles and coffins. What have they got in common which makes them all “commodities" ? They are all physical things and have a use, but so also with daisies and dewdrops. What distinguishes the things in the first group is not that they are useful, since this is common to both groups, but that they are the proceeds of human labour and are the subject of commercial transactions. At a stroke the commodity is transformed from a physical into a social phenomenon! For things produced for market bear a banner with this strange device: “ I am worth  — ." They have value. The things in the second group do not go to market: they have usefulness, but not value. Things produced for exchange have usefulness and value. They represent values, not usefulness, to the intending seller; they represent usefulness only to the prospective buyer, or to the last of a chain of buyers, the one who buys to enjoy the use of them.

The commodity is thus a social phenomenon, because the evolution of exchange, from barter to “bulls" and “bears" on the Stock Exchange, progressively modifies the methods of production and the social institutions arising therefrom; because exchange and mart is bound up with important institutions—private ownership, class, government, law, even religion; because in the market material relations between tinker and tailor express themselves as social (exchange) relations between kettles and clothes; because, lastly and firstly, value, the soul of the commodity, is a social quality, socially determined.

Supply and demand theories explain why prices may rise above or fall below value. They explain fluctuations away from value, not the thing, value, round which the fluctuations occur. What determines value when supply and demand are equal?

Utility theories attempt to explain value in terms of usefulness, which we have seen is not the distinguishing feature of things produced for exchange. Some of the most useful things, air, water, sunlight, do not, in their natural state, enter into exchange and have no value. Moreover, the usefulness of a commodity differs with individuals and differs with the same person in varying circumstances, whilst the value may remain unchanged and the same for all. Clearly, our explanation of value must have the same general, social validity as value itself.

One variant of orthodox economic theory, which regards “scarcity as the basic factor in economics,” approaches the truth. For scarcity is one way of avoiding saying “human effort," which is necessary to the production of commodities. Those which are more “scarce” are those which cost more effort to produce, which have to be dug for, dived for, forced from nature by ingenuity, wrung from her by sweat and blood, slowly coaxed by patience. Labour is the substance of value.

It is no objection to the labour theory of value that men work with tools as well as with hand and thought. The instruments of production were likewise produced by labour, are past labour presently used in further production, and transfer this stored labour bit by bit, as they wear out, to the products. A complex machine is a number of tools combined and set in motion together and, accordingly, a multiple sewing machine will transfer to its products proportionately greater values in a given time than a simple needle.

It is no objection, either, that the work of the tinker is different from the work of the tailor. This objection confuses precisely the two things which the labour theory keeps distinct: usefulness and value. The work of the tinker differs from that of the tailor in its particular usefulness, just as do their respective products. But although kettles and clothes are unlike in physical properties, have different uses, a number of kettles will exchange for a suit of clothes. They are equal values. Copper-bottoming and tailoring are different kinds of work, but they are both labour. Highly-skilled labour is but a multiple of less skilled, takes proportionately longer to learn, and will produce proportionately more value in a given time, just as with the needle and the sewing machine.

Frank Evans

(To be continued) 

People in Glasshouses (1937)

From the July 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Manchester Guardian (April 7th, 1937) published a letter appealing for its help and influence in securing the release from a German concentration camp of Anton Hausladen, a German social-democrat, who had been interned for four years without a charge being brought against him. If the Manchester Guardian can help Anton Hausladen it will be doing something useful. It could do something else just as useful. In its issue for the same day the Guardian reported a speech by Mr. Carl Heath at Friends' House, in which it was stated that between 1,500 and 2,000 people were detained in Bengal prisons without charge or trial. They are chiefly trade union and political leaders.

Another Press report, Daily Telegraph (March 10th, 1937), shows how embarrassing criticism of the policies of foreign governments can be to the British Government. The Telegraph quotes from the Italian Giornale d'Italia about:—

Atrocities committed by the British quite recently on the Afghan frontier. There the tribes were bombed by British air squadrons well supplied with poison gas.

The Italian statements were in answer to the British Government’s concern about the massacre of Abyssinians in Addis Ababa by the Italians. The Italian allegation that the British used poison gas on the Afghan frontier was denied by Mr. Eden in the House of Commons. A minor point really. The Italians can teach the British very little in the business of Empire building.

How Now, Mr. Pritt ? (1937)

From the July 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

During the various Russian trials, in which the prisoners all confessed many astounding things, including some which were shown to have been untrue, a whole host of simpletons took their stand on the proposition that as the prisoners themselves said these things they must be true, and no other evidence was required to prove them. Mr. Pritt, K.C., according to a Manchester Guardian report of a speech delivered by him at Conway Hall, on September 30th, 1936. said: “The corroboration that the confessions gave each other was such that they could not have been invented stories" (Manchester Guardian, October 1st, 1936). Mr. A. J. Cummings, reviewing a pamphlet by Mr. Pritt, was satisfied with the confessions—“Now all was discovered, and they confessed all” (News Chronicle, October 6th, 1936).

Mr. P. A. Sloan, staunch defender of anything Stalin’s Government says, ridiculed the notion that the confessions could have been “play-acting” (Manchester Guardian, February 3rd, 1937). The Daily Herald correspondent, who attended the trials in January, was quite satisfied that the prisoners were telling the truth.

Now read the following report in the Daily Herald (June 21st, 1937): —

From Our Own Correspondent.

Moscow, Sunday.

Radek, Pyatakov, Zinoviev and other accused men in Moscow’s sensational trials deliberately lied in their confessions in face of death.

Vyshinsky, all-Union Prosecutor, who appeared at the trials, makes this declaration in an official report —“How Enemies Work”—published to-day.

“There was not 50 per cent. of truth in their evidence,” says Vyshinsky.

He pictures experienced Bolshevik revolutionary plotters glibly unfolding fictitious stories before a court consisting of former comrades.

Their intention, says Vyshinsky, was to conceal the extent of their activities and divert suspicion from their confederates by giving an appearance of complete frankness.

“We have become convinced of this after each trial,” asserts Vyshinsky.

So it seems that the Public Prosecutor in Russia does not believe the confessions were true; more than 50 per cent. were false. It remained for his silly English dupes to believe the whole 100 per cent., and to suppose that such things constitute proof in the absence of independent evidence.

P. S.

Four pamphlets you should read (1937)

Party News from the July 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

All four pamphlets are available on the SPGB website.

• Socialism (1933)
• Why Capitalism Will Not Collapse (1932)
• War and the Working Class (1936)
• The Socialist Party – Its Principles and Policy (1934)

Parliamentary Fund (1937)

Party News from the July 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1937)

Party News from the July 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Open Air Propaganda (July) (1937)

Party News from the July 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

A bit of a mystery here. A Party speaker with the surname of 'Otto' is listed four times in the Speakers' List for July. There is no record of an 'Otto' in the Party membership list. This member was obviously well regarded as a speaker 'cos they secured one of the marquee spots speaking at Hyde Park on a Sunday alongside the likes of Sammy Cash and Tony Turner. So, it's either a case of another example of the incomplete membership records or, more likely, that 'Otto' was a pseudonym for a Party member whose name couldn't appear in the Party press.

Also interesting to note that both Adolph Kohn and Eric Boden are listed as speaking. I didn't know they were still doing outdoor speaking this late in their Party lives.