Chrysler and the Cabinet: How the Deal was Done (1976)

Pamphlet Review from the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Chrysler and the Cabinet: How the Deal was Done. Granada Television, 35p.

This is the transcript of a TV programme shown on 9th February 1976, in which the Cabinet discussions of the Chrysler UK motor company were simulated. The parts of Wilson, Healey, other Ministers and the Chrysler officials were played by political and financial journalists, and the programme was generally thought to have come close to the reality.

The Chrysler Corporation of USA proposed closing down its British subsidiary which had made losses in six of the last nine years, amounting to £60 millions, and was expected to lose another £40 millions in the next year. The Government’s concern was with the unemployment — 25,000 jobs or more — which would be created by the close-down. However, the Government’s newly agreed “industrial strategy” prohibited financing obviously unprofitable companies; at the outset of these discussions the only voice in favour of giving help is that of the Secretary of State for Scotland, where Chrysler is a major employer.

A report from the Central Policy Review Staff (the “Think Tank”) had said the British car industry had already 25 per cent, over-capacity. From the viewpoint of the British Leyland company, which the Government had recently bought for £1,300 millions, Chrysler was an undesired rival; nor, for the same commercial reasons, was there any case for merging Chrysler with Leyland. The loss of jobs was agreed to be a regrettable necessity, summed up thus by Healey’s impersonator: “There’s nothing socialist about preserving existing jobs for their own sake.”

The conclusion was foregone — and yet the Government did undertake to support Chrysler, to the extent of about £145 millions. Why, with everything apparently against it? First, political fear of losing votes, in Scotland particularly. Second, the existence of a Chrysler contract to export to Iran (Healey: “Persia is becoming an increasingly important trading partner with us and the Shah is a touchy fellow.”).

The third reason was not stated explicitly in the TV programme but emerges implicitly from it. This is the inability of governments to manage capitalism even on its own terms. The sapient Ministers talked of “the long term” and “the future”, meaning “if we can keep out of trouble this afternoon perhaps tomorrow’s mail will bring an unforeseen lucky break”. While the discussions with Chrysler went on, attempts were made (fruitlessly) to attract Japanese car manufacturers to Scotland. If unemployment was prevented by the Chrysler deal, how will its transfer to other companies be prevented? What sort of “strategy” is firmly agreed, then has to be abandoned at the first engagement?

This is an interesting booklet, more relevant to what goes on in capitalism than some expensive volumes of retired Ministers’ memoirs.

That Party and its Promises! (1976)

From the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

By “that party” we mean of course the Labour Party, sometimes called the Socialist Party, but which does not stand for Socialism.

In the opinion of Ron Hayward — and he should know — the Labour Party stands for “equality in education”. At least that’s what he told the writer on an LBC phone-in. Whether “equality in education” is feasible or not, desirable or not, is hardly worth investigating. The dole queues are full of graduates, and millions of well-educated women find themselves reluctantly at the kitchen sink. Let us, however, take a good look at what the Labour Party in office has done about education and compare its record with its promises.

The Labour Government has been proposing cuts in local authority spending, and as the biggest share of local authority spending goes on education, the schools are going to take the brunt. Surrey County Council is reported (Guardian, 5th July) as planning to cease all nursery education, to increase class sizes in the schools and to raise the fees for higher education courses. This is a pattern which we can expect to see followed by most other education authorities.

Let us compare this situation with the picture presented in Labour’s 1959 manifesto — The Future Labour Offers You. Under the heading “Our Children”. Gaitskell, Wilson, Callaghan and Co. told us:

The worst handicap a child can face at school is the oversize class. Overcrowding in the schools is a nightmare to teachers and to parents. That is why our first task must be to cut classes in primary as well as secondary schools to a maximum of thirty.” (our emphasis.)

Contrast this “first task” brainwave with the actual reality. Many children going through what the state calls “education” have done so, even in the good years and “good” areas, in classes of 35, some rising to 40 or more. Now the size of classes is likely to rise again, not from a real shortage of qualified teachers, but because there is not enough money forthcoming from the Treasury to pay the teachers.

In 1959, Labour also told us: “Most important of all, our plans will require many more teachers. We shall launch a big drive to recruit and train them as swiftly as possible.” Well, at least one of our recent governments has done that. And the result is that with the present Labour Government saying “less money for education”, a large proportion of these expensively-trained teachers are experiencing the frustration of joblessness. While the classes get bigger and bigger. Talk about waste!

Returning to 1959 we find the Labour Party declaring : “The main fault with our present State education is that there is not enough of it. In order to give every child a fair chance to choose a career and to train for it, we must be prepared to spend more.”

Exactly the opposite of what they are doing now. The fact is that the political parties’ manifestoes are like the apples the greengrocer puts in his front window. They look mouthwatering! So you go inside on the promise of all that lovely, glossy, sound-looking fruit, only to get sold wrinkled, bruised, unsound fruit that the greengrocer dredges up from under the counter or some dark corner that you can’t quite see.

The professional reformist politician is like the most unscrupulous greengrocer you could ever have the misfortune to meet! You even become so carried away in your enthusiasm that you don’t stop to ask the vital question “Can he produce the goods?”

If you did ask, you’d get no meaningful answers out of him, but only specious assurances. Here’s a sample from that 1959 Labour manifesto: “A programme for one Parliament is not a blueprint for Utopia. What we have summarised here can be done in that limited time. We can make such great social advances as bringing real security into old age through our National Superannuation scheme. We can cut down the size of school classes. We can turn shabby old houses into modern homes. So this is a practical assessment of the jobs to be done, and a realistic account of the way we propose to do it.”

Which means that they want to do these things and hope we’ll take their word for it that they can. To which we reply: if it could be done, why wasn’t it? And conversely, if it was not possible except when the economic climate was right, why claim so confidently that it could be done? This charge of making promises that cannot be carried out is one that can equally be levelled at the Tories, the Liberals, and other assorted reformists, including the Nationalists among those who have swindled the electorate.

The moral of the story is this. A political party without principles is merely a vote-catching machine, governed by expediency. Its soup-kitchen philosophy of being kind to the kiddies is easily ditched whenever it should appear to be in conflict with the short-term economic interests of capitalism.

Capitalism just does not work for our benefit: it’s the bosses’ benefit show, not ours. There is only one way we can use our votes in line with our economic and social interests as workers. And that is by voting and working for Socialism and the end of this wages, waste and want system.

Charmian Skelton

The Class Struggle in Poland (1976)

From the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the end of June, following the announcement of huge increases in food prices, strikes and riots broke out in many Polish towns. The government subsequently altered its proposals. At the end of 1970 strikes and riots were started by the dockers and shipyard workers of Gdansk (Danzig), in which the police shot down and killed at least six workers. The 1970 strikes led to a change in the leadership of the “Communist” Party with Gierek, the present Party leader, replacing Gomulka (who had himself come to power following strikes and riots in Poznan in 1956 in which 38 workers were murdered by the police).

The Polish working class like workers the world over, has had to resist attempts by their capitalist rulers to reduce their living standards. If the protest has taken the form of rioting and looting, as well as going on strike, it is partly because there are no independent trade unions in Poland: though no doubt there are political axe-grinders urging workers that this is what they should do. The organizations calling themselves “trade unions” are merely government agencies for disciplining workers and getting them to work harder.

The strikes in Poland show clearly that, even in state-capitalist countries ruled by a dictatorial “Communist” party, the class struggle of the working class against their exploiters cannot be suppressed. It is a myth that the exploitation of the working class has been abolished and Socialism established in Poland, as claimed by the government. The workers of Poland are exploited by the privileged minority who, through their dictatorial control of the State machine, monopolize the use of the means of production just as much as the private capitalists of the West.

An increase in food prices without a compensating increase in wages means of course a cut in living standards; it was to object to the size of the cut that the Polish workers went on strike. For the present the government has postponed its plans, but it has no choice in this matter because the world crisis has led to Poland developing a serious trade deficit. Exports have fallen and import prices risen, so squeezing the profits of the country’s state-capitalist enterprises, the source of income both for capital accumulation and the privileged consumption of the Polish ruling class. As The Times (26th June) put it:

The increases had become an economic necessity. Since 1970, real wages have risen by about 7 per cent a year while food prices have been artificially frozen. At the same time, world inflation has been pressing in on Poland. Government subsidies for protecting the consumer have reached enormous proportions and became a particularly heavy burden because Poland needs desperately to pay off its heavy foreign debts.

So working-class living standards are to be reduced in order to pay off the debts of the Polish state capitalist ruling class! A familiar story and a proof that the establishment of state capitalism with a State monopoly of foreign trade, in place of private capitalism does nothing to free a country from the pressures of capitalism on the working class. A further proof that there is no national solution to working-class problems.

Our message to the workers of Poland is to urge them to recognize this and, while doing what they can and must to maintain their living standards, to join with their fellow workers in other countries with a view to replacing world capitalism, in both its private and State forms, by world socialism. 

Adam Buick

Letter: Immigration: one view . . . (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Immigration: one view  . . .

The front over of the Socialist Standard (July) is emblazoned with a definition by Ambrose Bierce: “Immigrant: an unenlightened person who thinks one country better than another.”

Presumably, this means the Socialist Standard regards Karl Marx as an “unenlightened person”. He left Germany and spent most of his life living in Britain. Actually, the development of socialist theory was fostered as a result. Con Lehane (an unenlightened Irish immigrant) became the SPGB’s first general secretary. Hans Neumann (an unenlightened German immigrant) arranged the first meeting of the SPGB’s executive committee. Charlie Lestor (an unenlightened Canadian immigrant) was for many years one of the finest orators the SPGB possessed. Does the SPGB condemn Lehane for being an immigrant? Hapless Lehane could not secure employment anywhere. Is the Socialist Standard suggesting that he should have continued looking for work in Ireland rather than coming over to Britain and helping to form the SPGB?

Doubtless the fascists of the National Front go a long way to agreeing with Bierce’s definition: in the opinion of Tyndall and his thugs “immigrants are unenlightened people”. Socialists should have an entirely different approach. Hunger and poverty in the underdeveloped countries is directly as a result of imperialism. Dire necessity forces thousands of people to leave these regions and look for a better life elsewhere. Like British workers, they are victims of exploitation, but of an exploitation of a much more intense kind.

It is vital that socialists strive to build links of solidarity between British and coloured workers. Essentially we have the same class enemy: only through unity can the enemy be overcome. For this reason, the demand must be made for the repeal of the immigration laws, racist legislation which excludes people from this country merely because of the colour of their skins. If, as the Communist Manifesto says, workers have no fatherland, then the barriers created by immigration laws must be swept aside. Workers must be free to leave and enter Britain as they choose.

To be in accord with these sentiments, the definition of Ambrose Bierce requires modification: “An opponent of immigration is an unenlightened person who thinks one country better than another.”

Dr. Raymond Challinor 

Whitley Bay

Reply:

The quotation to which you object was used because it disparages nationalism and comments, aptly in our opinion, on the situation of very many migrants. Its tone is ironical, and we ran the risk of someone’s not perceiving that. To spell it out, the word “unenlightened” relates to the remainder of the sentence: a person who thinks one country better than another requires enlightenment in that respect, but not necessarily in others. Marx and the other people you mention were not under that impression. As for racists finding that issue of the Socialist Standard agreeable — see the letter from John Binder below.

However, you appear not to have read the article on immigration inside the cover. Doing so would have dispelled the misunderstanding in the later part of your letter as well as the above one. The article pointed out that “legislation which excludes people from this country merely because of the colour of their skins” is swept aside when that suits capitalism in Britain and elsewhere. This is, precisely, the trap into which reformism leads. Liberal-minded reformers urge, as you do, that a legislative change will benefit the working class; and then find it does the ruling class a good turn instead.

To say Socialists must “strive to build links of solidarity” between white and black workers is a grandiose way of ignoring the important questions. The majority of black workers, like the majority of white, uphold the capitalist system. They include nationalists, Tories, and people who themselves hold strong race-prejudices. If it were suggested that we aim at "links of solidarity” with white people holding such views, that would cause indignation; but you ask us to do so on the grounds, apparently, that colour transcends everything else. We do not accept such a position. The task for Socialists is to spread among all workers and understanding of their class standing and interests, which come first and foremost. This means the rejection of all ideas of race and national superiority. If you are intent on re-wiring the quotation, here is another version: Opponents and advocates of immigration alike are hidebound by the idea of national frontiers which Socialism will abolish.

Editors.

Letter: . . . And another view (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

. . .  And another view 

Socialists have always attributed slums to capitalism, yet I have yet to hear them protest against the influx of immigrants into the slums. Have you? This shows how much they care about them, but of course they all have to toe the line like a regiment of soldiers. If all socialists were compelled to put up with immigrants in their houses they would call it downright dictatorship and that is what compulsory integration is nothing less. The landlords and property tycoons want the so-called socialists to tell the workers immigrants do no harm over here and while these money-grabbers are getting fatter the slum-dweller is stuck on a waiting list for a house because the capitalist classes with the co-operation of so-called socialists won’t let them have the houses that they can afford to rent because they are occupied by immigrants.

These immigrants have no sense of social responsibility, they come here knowing we are overcrowded, they drive up the rents of millions of workers, they occupy houses badly needed by our own people, they plant themselves in the slums where they are not wanted, they don’t know where they are wanted, and they are too lazy to fight for better conditions in their own country, and most people know what is meant by their country, but they have been taught that they have a right to stay here. I believe the slum-dweller should enjoy the same privilege as the rest of the community enjoy that is to keep immigrants out of their abodes, but that would be too democratic for integrationists.

Our “Moral Uplifters” tell us we should treat coloured immigrants with respect and decency. Should we really! Indeed! Do these black and white immigrants treat our own people with respect and decency? Do they not plant themselves in the very houses that are already overcrowded with previous immigrants and where they have no state protection from immigrants? It is true they are not wanted anywhere else but that is a sound reason for repatriation not to foist them onto the slum-dweller he has quite enough to put up with, without immigrants.

I have done my best to give a clear and logical answer to your article in the S.S. However if you hear of a more logical explanation for slums I do hope you will let me know.

John Binder

London W.4.

Reply:

Your letter in full would take up four pages of the Socialist Standard. Since it is largely repetitive, we have published a representative extract. We must add that, though you speak of “a clear and logical answer’’ to our article on immigration, most of your letter attacks Aunt Sallies in the form of views not stated by us at all. It also contains a fiction, repeated several times, that people are being forced to have immigrants living in their homes with them. This is not possible under existing legislation.

The single point you make that is relevant to our article is your contention about slums, and over this you present a series of striking self-contradictions. You complain of slums and say (1) that the slums are “lumbered with” immigrants, (2) that “without these immigrants the houses they are occupying would be available to our own people”. As far as we can see, this means that you want “our own people” to have the slums to themselves. You acknowledge that pre-war slums were not caused by immigration, but say “this does not invalidate the argument that immigrants are the cause of crowded slums”. That is not an argument: it is an assertion knowingly made against the facts.

However, what you miss altogether is consideration of the nature of slums. Slums are cheap housing. They are places unfit for habitation that are inhabited nevertheless. Why? Because the inhabitants cannot afford to live anywhere else. Our statement that capitalism causes slums refers to this and nothing else; their existence as dwellings is a direct consequence of working-class poverty. You do not explain how this would be changed by repatriating immigrants, which you advocate. Your assertion that “landlords and property tycoons” are getting “fatter than ever” through immigration is also mistaken. In recent years the number of dwellings let out by private individuals and companies has steadily declined because of the low return from it. This has nothing to do with immigration in any case, but is the result of housing legislation.

We therefore find your letter to be ill-informed, lacking argument, and founded on beliefs similar to those of the Hindu caste system.

Editors.

Letter: Forging ahead (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Forging ahead

Could you answer the following question: If there was a huge circulation of counterfeit money about, which could not be detected, what effect would it have on the economy?

J. W. Eastwood

London W.2.

Reply:

For the earlier part of your letter (not reproduced here) see the reply to D. J. Underwood, whose letter it closely resembles.

An excess of currency in circulation, made by private enterprise, has the same effect as an officially produced excess: it causes inflation. What you suggest as a hypothesis has happened several times. The outstanding example was “the great Portuguese note trick” of some years ago, when swindlers posing as representatives of the Portuguese government persuaded a British banknote-printing firm to produce an issue of notes for use in a Portuguese colony. In the subsequent action by the government of Portugal it was pointed out that the circulation of the notes had caused economic damage by pushing up prices in the colony.

During wartime, governments have introduced counterfeit notes into opponent countries with the object of causing disruption. The difficulty, as for the private forger, is finding means for the currency to get in circulation in sufficient quantities; the Portuguese swindlers had an accomplice in a bank. However, once notes are printed and accepted there are not separate sets of results for legal and illegal origins. An excess issue of an inconvertible paper currency causes prices to rise, regardless of who did the printing.

Editors.

Letter: Power, dictatorship & democracy (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Power, dictatorship & democracy

It has come to my notice that you fundamentally accept Marx’s economic interpretation of capitalism and the materialist conception of history. It would therefore logically follow that you accept Marx’s theory of revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, but this is not so and instead you claim that society can be changed through Parliament. This is because you do not understand the true nature of the class struggle and the capitalist state. Even you must realize that the power of society does not lie in Parliament but in the economic wealth of the ruling class. There is no parliamentary road to socialism (as the Labour Party showed), and the way to achieve socialism is by violent revolution and the smashing of the capitalist state.

In no. 8 of your declaration of principles you say the SPGB is “determined to wage war against all other political parties’. Why? History is littered with instances of working-class parties linking up temporarily with other parties, which have been beneficial to the working-class movement. You are reducing Marxism to a dogma.

Lastly, I notice the SPGB refuse to participate in workers’ struggles for higher pay, against unemployment and public spending cuts etc. I accept that such action by itself will never achieve socialism but it will help to strengthen, organize and educate the workers’ party.

I therefore advise everyone to study Marx by all means, but also study Lenin.

Andrew Mounsey

Sunderland

Reply:

You say that Marx’s economic analysis of capitalism and the materialist conception of history ought logically to lead to the acceptance of the view that “the power of society” lies in “the economic wealth of the ruling class”, and that the way to Socialism “is by violent revolution and the smashing of the capitalist state”.

To which the complete answer is that both views were explicitly repudiated by Marx (and Engels). They never ceased to insist that power is political, “the power of the state, the concentrated and organized force of society” (Marx, Capital Vol. 1, page 823, Kerr edn.). As our Declaration of Principles puts it, gaining control of “the machinery of government, including the armed forces”. It was control of the state machine that enabled the Tudor monarchy to plunder the great wealth of the Church and, as Marx showed in the section of Capital referred to above, it was political power which enabled the capitalists “to hasten, hothouse fashion, the process of transformation of the feudal mode of production into the capitalist mode . . . " .'

The suicidal tactic of “violent revolution” to smash the state instead of gaining control of it is not Marxist. As Engels wrote in the 1895 Introduction to Marx’s Class Struggles in France: “The rebellion of old style, the street fight behind barricades, which up to 1848 gave the final decision has become antiquated.” It had become antiquated militarily but in addition, without the great majority of the working class having become convinced socialists, such a victory would be meaningless for the achievement of Socialism.

What the 19th century taught Engels (and the SPGB) is that where it is “a matter of the complete emancipation of society” no such violent “short cut” is of any use because “the masses themselves must participate, must understand what is at stake and why they must act”, and for this to be achieved "long and persistent work is required”. (Introduction to Class Struggles in France.) This means using the vote. It was Marx who wrote that “the carrying of universal franchise in England” would have as its “inevitable result” the “political supremacy of the working class” (article in New York Tribune, 25th August 1852).

You refer to “the dictatorship of the proletariat” without explaining what you have in mind. Is it the total misrepresentation to be seen in state-capitalist Russia where it is Communist Party military dictatorship over the working class; or Engels’s example of the Paris Commune where majority control was based on democratic elections, no suppression of newspapers or the propaganda of the majority, no denial of their right to vote?

Though you claim to be aiming to achieve Socialism, it is obvious that what you understand by Socialism is not what Marx (and the SPGB) were led to accept by Marx’s economic analysis of capitalism and the materialist conception of history. For Marx and us it means “the abolition of buying and selling, of the bourgeois conditions of production, and of the bourgeoisie itself” (Communist Manifesto) and includes “the abolition of the wages system” (Marx, Value, Price and Profit). The fact that you are not aiming at this at all is shown by your astonishing statement that what “the Labour Party showed” has something to do with Socialism. The Labour Party does not aim and has never aimed at Socialism. Its declared aim is “the mixed economy” — a mixture of state and private capitalism. The Labour Government’s current policy includes reaffirmation of its desire to see capitalism profitable. Its aim is not to abolish capitalism but to show the electors that it can run capitalism more successfully (or less disastrously) than the Tories.

You state that history is “littered” with instances of working-class parties linking up temporarily with capitalist parties and that this has been “beneficial” to the working-class movement. It is true that organizations claiming to represent the workers have supported Tories and Liberals and the Labour Party, and their leaders from Disraeli and Gladstone to Churchill, MacDonald, Wilson and Callaghan — but where are the benefits that are supposed to have accrued? (“Littered” is the appropriate word to describe the non-results.)

Also we are told that the Socialist Party of Great Britain ought to divert effort from achieving Socialism in order to participate in the day-to-day struggles about the effects of capitalism, and that this would help to “educate”’ the workers. For a century and more organizations have pursued that policy, among them the Social Democratic Federation and the ILP. But where are the educational gains? Both of those organizations, after temporary flourishing, are now defunct, with as the only end product the Labour Party devoted to trying to reform capitalism.

One last comment: we note that you coyly abstain from naming the political party which has your support.

Editors.

Letter: Trade Unions (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Trade Unions

Articles appear in the Socialist Standard which decry the work of the trade union movement and, whilst accepting certain of these criticisms, I feel that you dismiss their activity too glibly.

If working-class emancipation from capitalism is to be achieved, then the working-class movement must, as you say, become conscious of its socialist aim. However, this consciousness does not spontaneously arise of itself, it requires the scientific working out of socialist theory, the introduction of the theory into the working-class movement and the fight for it inside that movement. Few trade unionists have had any contact with the SPGB. Surely if more propaganda could be aimed at them, other groups, such as IS, would be shown up for what they are — merely another arm of state capitalism with limited, short-term political objectives.

As a newcomer to the Socialist Standard I have probably interpreted your methods wrongly but these observations are made in the belief that the publication and the Party has so much to offer that it seems a waste that more working people do not receive its message. After all, how many Ford’s workers or dockers stroll through Hyde Park on a Sunday?

E. H. Clark

Chingford

Reply:

We have always recognized that workers are in a better position to bargain over wages and conditions when organized in Trade Unions. However we have to point out the limitations of trade union action. It is of necessity defensive and will not change the position of the working class in society. This does not make us “anti-union”, the position is rather that trade unionists, like most other workers, are anti-Socialist. Being so immersed in the perpetual struggle to defend their living standards they do not yet appreciate that it is in their own best interests to abolish the wages system itself.

We have members in Trade Unions some of whom act as Union officials. But workers in Unions are prepared to give their support to members of this, or any other, party as officials only on the basis of what may be achieved on their behalf in the way of improved pay etc. NOT because of any agreement with, or interest in, their political aims. Bear in mind also that there are those who advocate the use of industrial action as an instrument of revolution. We have always to emphasise the need for the working class to gain control of the political machinery.

We too are anxious that Socialist knowledge should reach all sections of the working class as quickly as possible. Though we are as yet a small party our activities are by no means restricted to Hyde Park and the occasional election campaign. Where it is practicable members discuss the Party case, and sell Standards, at their places of work. Literature is also sold outside colleges, Stations, shopping centres and — yes — outside Ford’s Dagenham works, etc.

Editors.

Letter: Justification — No ! (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Justification — No !

I heard one of your speakers answer the question of “who would do the more important tasks if within a socialist society there were no wage systems to provide an incentive” by stating that the wage difference between a road sweeper and a skilled technician is justifiable within the present system, etc.

I have got news for that speaker. No socialist will ever take that point of view, simply because if the inequality of wealth and privilege that capitalism produces can be to any extent justifiable then so can the system. Socialism is out to abolish capitalism not compliment it on certain aspects of the wages system — or make such a miserable compromise in order to win a pair of attentive ears.

J. W. Pitt

Worthing

Reply:

The speaker may not have made himself clear, or the listener may have misunderstood what he heard. Either way, the explanation of the point you raise is as follows.

Wage differences exist in capitalism because everything is a commodity — that is, an article produced for sale — including labour-power. There are cheap and dear commodity-versions of all articles: cars, houses, clothes, furniture, whatever you care to name. The price of each is basically the monetary expression of its value; that is, it reflects the amount of labour that went into the commodity. Expensive houses and cars have more in them and are more carefully made than cheap ones. The same applies to labour-power, and this is why a skilled technician’s wages (the price of his labour-power) are higher than a road-sweeper’s.

We may add that the wage represents not only what it took to produce a particular kind of labour- power, but what it takes to reproduce it. The road-sweeper is not expected to be well housed, dress smartly, be equipped for up-to-date technical discourse, and raise his children ambitiously. The technician or manager is: like the road-sweeper he has to go to the limits of his income because that is what his income is for. That is what puts all workers, regardless of their particular wages, in the same boat. Justification does not come into the matter. It is the way capitalism works.

The idea of “important tasks”, as against others winch presumably don’t matter much, belongs to class- divided society and is capitalism’s justification for inequality. All useful jobs matter as much as one another. Socialism, the creation of a world of plenty, will be an incentive in itself.

Editors.

Letter: " . . . considerable worry” (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

D. J. Underwood (London W.9). We note your calculations, and that you desire the members of the SPGB to put in still more time in propagandist efforts to relieve you of “considerable worry” about the Party. We'll tell them.

Where to buy the Socialist Standard (1976)

From the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

It's only occasionally that I post this particular notice on the blog, but I do think it carries some interest to the casual reader. It's a fascinating snapshot of that period in history where there were a whole swathe of radical bookshops up and down the country. I caught the tail end of the phenomena in the late 1980s when I first got politicised but, even then, you were aware that the best days were long gone.

SPGB Meetings (1976)

Party News from the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialist Sonnet No. 201: Wage Deduction (2025)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog  

Wage Deduction

 

“The wages of sin…” was cited by Romans

Back when. But, presently, it is wages

That are the sin, for they are the gauges

Of exploitation. Until there are plans

For radical change, the true creators,

No matter what their work or workplace,

Their nationality or supposed race,

Will receive a salary that ignores

The full value of what they may produce.

It’s there a difference must always arise,

For in unpaid labour the profit lies,

As creation is for profit, not use.

The one alternative to this schism,

Is moneyless, unwaged socialism.

D. A.

“The Force of Passing Events.” Reform in the Baking Trade. (1908)

From the September 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

In Fear of the Awakening.

From time to time there have appeared in the Socialist Standard articles descriptive of the horribly inhuman conditions imposed upon bread bakers by our rascally commercial system, and showing how the victims, after floundering about in the Slough of Reform for years, are now turning to the remedy—Socialism. One of these articles has been quoted in full by the official organ of the London master bakers, which now is voicing the fear that unless something is done by way of reform the result will be cataclysmal for the exploiters. In an article headed “White slavery” an appeal is made to the sweater to be a little more merciful than heretofore, and he is reminded of the “laws of reason,” “our common humanity,” “the principle of live and let live,” and such like meaningless twaddle so dear to the heart of the mealy-mouthed and fire-eating reformer alike. Instances known to the Editor are given of men who work 110 hours a week for the “quite inadequate wage of 26s. a week.” That is less than threepence an hour for working in the hot, fetid, smoke, sulphur and steam-laden atmosphere of a bakehouse. The Bakers’ Record, however, recognises that there are two sides to every question, especially now the labourer begins to show his teeth, and it sapiently observes, “Every toiler in a bakehouse, however subordinate his position for the time being may be, always has the prospect before him of being able one day, through the exercise of industry, intelligence, and enterprise, of opening out into life on his own account ; these counteracting considerations notwithstanding, there can be no blinking the transparent fact that much cruelty is exercised here and there, which to a degree throws opprobrium on the whole trade.” It is, no doubt, a regrettable fact that the Socialist at the street corner has for ever made the further blinking of these disagreeable things impossible. It is also a pity that opprobrium should fall on a whole trade. Disgusting and sickening to see the operative turning his face to the rising sun of Socialism as a way out, instead of indulging in the beatific vision of one day becoming a bloodsucker himself as compensation for the loss of his own red corpuscles, and industriously applying himself, with a wet towel around his pate, to the study of the intricacies of high finance that he may be able to successfully float his future Bonanza bakery (the days of the little drum up a side street being over); but the melancholy fact must be recognised, nevertheless, and the operative side-tracked at all costs.

Murder will out.

But how ? Not with jeremiads and the gospel according to Samuel Smiles, but with reforms. This much the capitalist has learned. But what reform? Here the difficulty is met. In the baking trade we have had a surfeit of arbitration and conciliation boards, and see them for the frauds they are, although boomed by shaky-knee’d labour leaders in other industries. That we are not taking any more is obvious to the hack writer referred to. He says : “The past history of the Protection Society (masters) reveals the fact that all such efforts have been in vain, that Arbitration Boards on which masters and men have been represented in equal strength have proved utterly futile, and that the intervention and good services of that useful public body, the London Chamber of Commerce, were utterly useless.” O tempora, O mores ! Alas and alack ! the times are indeed out of joint. The working baker scornfully rejecting a proved fraud— Arbitration. He will no longer beg the robber class to rob him a little less, but is audaciously talking of preventing the robbery altogether. The scribe goes on “the masters selfishly look after what they consider their own individual rights and interests.” Of course they do. That is what they are in business for—nothing else. And they buy all their commodities—flour, salt, coal, yeast, and labour-power—at rock bottom prices, and will continue to do so despite the reformers’ pathetic appeals to them to consider the broader interests of capitalism as against individual selfishness as a means of putting off the evil day of the workers’ emancipation; and despite the fact that that narrow selfishness coupled with the economic development is forcing the pace, as the writer points out in the following terms :

“Therein we can clearly see lies the danger of legislative interference, at no distant date, and we are not sure that it would be to the interests of either party when it became necessary by the force of passing events. We do not hesitate to say that it would be distinctly to the disadvantage of the masters.”

The Capitalist “in the Cart.”

“The force of passing events” is good, very excellent good. It comprises the driving factors which no individual master or joint-stock company can stay or control. The reformer, then, might just as well throw up the sponge and “cease his damnable faces.” The diabolical system cannot be permanently patched up. The “force of passing events” renders the methods of production in vogue to-day antiquated to-morrow, and the rules of the game obsolete and inoperative. The capitalist cannot observe them if he would. He that would save his trade alive must adapt himself to the new conditions, must toe the commercial line drawn by the most unscrupulous, by the man who has the predatory instinct and a species of low cunning abnormally developed. The inexorable decree of Capital is :—

” ‘Mid the clash of gentler souls and rougher,

Wrong must thou do or wrong must suffer.”

and the survivor is he who has elected to do wrong.

The Futility of “Fakes.”

Faced with this position the reformer, who, generally speaking, can skilfully and accurately diagnose the disease, is hard put to it find another quack remedy. “The force of passing events” has rended all the old, fly-blown fakes into things of shreds and patches which cannot be refurbished any more. The position is desperate. The worker must be side-tracked by some means—but alas ! the reformer must either speak truly or fall back on age-worn appeals. He therefore calls for “harmonious action,” “a frank and manly understanding between employer and employed,” and such like “tosh.” But it leads nowhither. “He circling goes who navigates a pond.” It’s no go. The only understanding that will serve is the understanding of our position in the social organism—that we are mere commodities on the labour market; that the sole function of the capitalist is to make profit, which he can only do by robbing the worker; that there can be no “harmonious action” between the exploiter and the exploited, however ignorant capitalist institutions have succeeded in keeping the workers, and that all “understandings” promoted with that end in view can be summed up in the rhyme of our younger days:—

There was a young lady of Niger,

Who went for a ride on a tiger;

They came back from their ride

With the lady inside,

And a smile on the face of the tiger.

That’s the position.

Emancipation via Revolution.

There is no getting to the windward of the capitalist while production for profit lasts. Fully aware of this, we are going for no more rides. We are out for the emancipation of the workers by the workers—for emancipation via the social revolution.

W. Watts

The Harrying of Haggerston. The Burial of Burrows. (1908)

From the September 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Poor Haggerston ! It had burrows and warrens enough in its half square mile of mean and congested streets, surely. To have another of each added to the already intolerable burden was too much. That it fired both Warren and Burrows out was therefore hardly surprising. Nor was it more surprising that such a land of unutterable poverty preferred guineas (pardon — Guinness) in the hand to a couple of empty rabbit holes in the bush. Haggerston will none the less find that its Guinness is not current coin in days of want. For the working class ignorance never works out in bliss.

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Guinness had a “long pull” over both his competitors from the very start. He knew that the constituency that elected a Randal Cremer must be fairly full of political sinners. The association of publicans and sinners has the authority of the scriptures. The association of bible and beer is equally notorious, if of a somewhat later creation. Moreover, all things work together for good to they who love the lord. And who has more reason to love the lord than Guinness ? Is he not the son of the lord ?

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In addition to this, however, he knew his Haggerston. He has even risked the dangers of living in it. He is a “Haggerston man”— for a day or two a year, anyhow. This is real courage. Men have been raised to the beer age for less. But then Guinness is a capitalist. And the capitalists will do anything for the workers, anything—except get off their backs. Mr. Warren, the Liberal, didn’t know Haggerston. According to a certain stout enthusiast who orated from the Guinness dray, Mr. Warren arrived in a cab making plaintive enquiries for his constituency ; while Mr. Herbert Burrows, the soi-disant Socialist candidate, seems to have been in such a condition as act to know which constituency he was contesting ! His election literature bore the strange device “Vote for Burrows and no poverty in Hoxton” ! Mr. Claude Hay the Conservative member for that division was doubtless mightily impressed by Burrows’ solicitude.

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The Burrovians very early assimilated their leader’s spirit—bumptiousness. They dismissed Warren from their calculations. They then absorbed sufficient of the Burrovian brand of consistency to make themselves ridiculous. Having asserted that Warren did not count, they commenced to bewail the inconsiderate action of the Liberals in running him. After Mr. Burrows so long sacrificed his opposition to Liberalism on the altar of his friendship for Randal Cremer ; after he had done his best to “pull together the whole of the progressive forces in the division in the fight against reaction.” (Burrows’ letter to the Daily News, 1.8.08.) Warren and the Liberals who were running him, ought to have been ashamed of themselves, splitting the “progressive” vote in that way. The Warren who didn’t count polled several hundred more votes than the Burrows who did.

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According to Mr. Burrows and his organisation (the S.D.P.), Liberals and Tories are alike the enemies of the workers, and must be fought. “The principles of other political parties are those upon which the present social order is founded . . . As a Socialist I hold that those principles are against the interests of the nation, especially the workers.” (Burrows election address.) “Away with Lords and Liberals — Burrows fights both.” (Election leaflet.)

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But as a friend of Randal Cremer, Burrows prefers to let the principles that are opposed to the interests of the working class remain in operation rather than disturb the friendship. ” . . He persistently refused to contest the seat while it was held by the late Sir Randal Cremer.” (Manifesto of the Hackney Working Mens’ Club, issued in support of Burrows.) Burrows doesn’t fight both when he is pally with one of them !

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“All my political and social work has that end (the overthrow of the present social order and the parties that maintain it) in view.” (Election address.) He probably means his political and social work—when he does any, which is not very often. And even that is not true. Anyhow, it all depends upon whether he happens to be friends with the enemy. If he is, he suspends the work—and working class interests may go hang. This is a typical Burrows-cremer !

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“Myself and the Liberal Candidate will have to fight beer, blankets, coals, doles, and possibly creeds.” (Herbert Borrows, Daily Chronicle, 23.7.08.) No wonder the Burrovians were upset about the introduction of the official Liberal. With the Burrows’ fight identical with Warren’s; with Burrows such a good Liberal, it was surely wrong to oppose him.

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“From this condition (of slavery) there is no escape while the whole of the people do not either individually or collectively own the means of production.” “Nothing but . . . ownership by the whole people will abolish this form of slavery.” “Wage slaves you and your children will ever be, unless you use every shred of your political power to advance your social position as a class.” (From Burrows’ celebrated “No Poverty in Hoxton” leaflets.)

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Nothing matters—that is except Socialism. Apart from Socialism there is no escape. Yet nine-tenths of Burrows’ election address consisted of “reforms” that do not matter ! Apart from Socialism there is no escape, therefore as a “practical politician and a social reformer” (Election address) I will not go for Socialism, but for “Adult Suffrage,” “Second Ballot,” “Reform of Registration Laws,” etc., etc., none of which will advance the workers’ position as a class, and despite the fact that (vide Burrows’ election leaflet) the political reforms desired have already been largely secured in other countries “yet at this very moment, there as here, the workers are being half-starved in the midst of plenty.”

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The great claim of Mr. Burrows’ organisation (the S.D.P.) is that it never has made, and never will make, arrangements with capitalist parties to secure electoral or other victories. “Last week you stated that I had spurned all attempts to come to an arrangement with the Liberals. That is an entirely mistaken statement.” (Letter of Herbert Burrows to Daily News, 1.8.08.) Herbert Burrows “is one of the oldest, best known and most popular members of the S.D.P.” (From “A brief sketch of the life of Herbert Burrows,” issued to the electors of Haggerston.) A prominent member of the Party that fights capitalist Liberalism all the time assevers that it is an entirely mistaken idea that he had spurned all attempts to come to an arrangement with the Liberals.

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Well may the Labour Leader wax sarcastic. In its notes of the 7.8.08 it said : —

“We confess surprise that Mr. Burrows should hasten to deny that he had spurned “all attempts to come to an arrangement with the Liberals.” We have always understood that to engage in negotiations direct or indirect with the view to coming to “an arrangement with the Liberals “in order “to pull together the whole of the really progressive forces in the fight against reaction” is precisely what is meant by compromising with the capitalist enemy.

At any rate, had a letter containing an admission of that kind been sent to a Liberal journal by any member of the Labour Party, we can surmise how scathing would have been the comments of the organ of the Social Democrats.”

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A shrewd hit and well merited. The Labour Leader can afford to gibe. Not even at Leicester was there a more shameless, a more contemptible effort made to get in at any cost of principle. The Labour Leader knows that Haggerston has shut the mouth of S.D.P. criticism of I.L.P. “tactics” for ever. Burrows and MacDonald — a pretty pair. What has the honest, earnest, S.D.P. man got to say about it all, I wonder.

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What has he to say, for example, to the attitude of his Party and his Party’s champion upon the question of Free Trade ? This is an extract from Leaflet No. 2 of the S.D.P. (London Committee) issued as election literature in Haggerston : “Those who cry, ‘Free Trade’ and those who cry, ‘Protection,’ are alike after your flesh and blood, and by listening to them you are only being drawn away from the true and only road which leads to your emancipation. That road is Socialism.” Against that set this, from Burrows’ election address: “I am, as every true Socialist is, a Free Trader.” And then say what conclusion the working class can draw. What effect must such flatly contradictory statements have upon the working-class mind ?

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The London Committee leaflet is correct, curiously enough. The cry of Free Trade diverts the working class from “the true and only road to emancipation.” Those who divert the working class from that road are working-class enemies. And all the vainglory, the inflated pretension, the rant and cant and fustian of a Burrows, will hardly prevail against the evidence of his own documents. Burrows is a working-class enemy.

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Consider two further points briefly—unemployment and the alien question. Both are referred to in Burrows’ election address. “The gravest question the nation has at present to face is undoubtedly that of unemployment” says the address. But the gravest question is dealt with in that document only after a long list of pettifogging political “palliatives” have been touched upon. That by the way. The unemployed problem will not be touched, dare not be touched, in any appreciable degree, by capitalist legislators or administrators. Capitalism absolutely relies upon that “industrial reserve.” Yet Burrows talks of setting the unemployed (after thorough classification) to work at “decent and reasonable wages” at agriculture, afforestation, and in the production of the necessaries of life, as if that were possible before a Socialist working class captures control of Parliament and local bodies. And then “decent and reasonable wages” will cease to perplex the bureaucratic Burrows and his kidney. The working class will be in power and will conduct their own affairs. There is no cure for unemployment apart from Socialism. Those who, for the purpose of vote-snatching, endeavour to convey the impression that there is, divert the working class from “the true and only road” that leads to emancipation. They are not seeking working-class enlightenment—whatever else they are after.

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The same argument and the same conclusion holds in regard to Burrows’ references to sweating and its prevention. “Its worst forms, however, can be dealt with by Wages Boards and the Minimum Wage.” “Dealt with,” yes, as unemployment can be “dealt with,” but “sweating is a part of our present social system and can NEVER be entirely abolished till that system is changed.” (Election address.) In short, you may patch here, and trim there, so that the appalling, disgusting, degrading effects of this pillar of the Empire’s greatness may not be so patent to the eye of delicacy ; but the problem will remain, the same grim conditions will environ the lives of the unpaid workers. They will still be robbed, crushed, sweated, because “sweating is a part of our present social system, and can never be abolished until that system is changed.” The “entirely” is just dirty, vote-catching dodgery. “Wages Boards and the Minimum Wage” are piffle, sheer, unlovely, unwholesome piffle, and Burrows either knows it or is a fool.

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And “both of these (Wages Boards and Minimum Wage) if properly applied, would go far to solve the alien question.” (Election address.) More dodgery, more low cunning. The Haggerston workers have had it pumped into them that the alien problem is the cause of their unemployment and poverty. Burrows therefore drags in the alien question, not to put the truth of it, but to pose as the man having the solution of it, and to scoop in votes on the strength of that. What is this alien question and why does it require solution? The untutored elector of Haggerston is not informed. He is left with the same prejudices, the same false ideas—he is encouraged in them by the cowardice of Burrows. But what matters that so long as Burrows can appear as his saviour from this evil of the alien and collect his vote?

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There is plenty more, equally illuminating, equally nauseating, equally helpful to the cause of working-class enlightenment in which we are informed Burrows has spent his whole life. Poor Haggerston, to have to choose between a Burrows and a Guinness and a Warren. If the voters had been obliged to vote (as they were not) and had gone to the booth blindfold (as they largely did), the result would have been the same as now, even if Burrows’ hole received the greatest number of crosses. Between the three of them there was not the equivalent of a tinker’s cuss in difference from the point of view of working-class interests.

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And Burrows is typical of the organisation he represents. “I would accept the help of Satan himself,” he said (Shoreditch Town Hall meeting). And he would, even though he knew that Satan’s help would only be given for further Satanic purposes, as the capitalist help Burrows endeavoured to secure and did secure in Haggerston (“Liberals and Radicals are throwing themselves into the fight for me.”—Letter of Burrows to Justice, 1.8.08) was given to further capitalist interests. The S.D.P. knows that the education of the working class depends upon its recognition, and acceptance, of the fact of the class struggle. The S.D.P. knows that the recognition of the class struggle by the working class is hindered, thwarted, often rendered impossible, by compromise, by arrangement with capitalist political parties, by action at complete variance with profession, by confusionist tactics such as were the outstanding feature—the only feature indeed—of the Haggerston election. Yet in face of Haggerston the S.D.P. denies that it is party to any arrangement with capitalism, or is the cause of any working-class confusion !

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The case of Haggerston is only another count in the indictment against such organisations as S.D.P., I.L.P., and the rest of the pseudo-Socialist, reformist groups.

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The difference between us and them is that we are after the education and organisation of the working class on class-conscious lines ; they, on their own confessions, are after office and the plums thereof , and they are not at all particular how they get them. The candidature of Herbert Burrows was not endorsed by a single Socialist—although the list of organisations backing him necessitated a special bill. The S.P.G.B. repudiated him in the public Press and Haggerston placed him at the bottom of the poll. If our action contributed to that result we take full responsibility. Our hands at any rate shall be kept clean.

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The resolution passed by the Executive read as follows : —

“In response to many enquiries as to the attitude of The Socialist Party in the bye-election pending in Haggerston, the Executive of the Socialist Party of Great Britain desire to make clear that they are in no way responsible for the canditure of the alleged Socialist—Mr. Herbert Burrows, Mr. Burrows, who is not a member of the Socialist Party, is standing as a free trade, social reform candidate, accepting the support of the capitalist party in the shape of sections of the Liberal Party in Haggerston. His candidature could not be endorsed by the Socialist Party, he being in no sense of the word a Socialist, or representative of Socialist principles. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, therefore, repudiates him and the organisations responsible for his appearance in the field, and warns the working class of the Haggerston Division against being deceived into voting for Mr. Burrows under the impression that his return to Parliament would in any way benefit them. Finally, the Socialist Party desires to point out that between the three candidates there is no difference from a working-class standpoint. The working class of Haggerston, therefore, are urged to abstain from voting on this occasion altogether.”

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Well, isn’t it nearly time the serious student of politico-economic problems, the earnest champions of working-class interests, considered themselves and their position ? Are they content to let their work go for nothing, for worse than nothing, for ever ? Or are they prepared to cut themselves free from the trammels and responsibilities of parties whose work either leaves the working class unaffected entirely, or contributes to its continued enslavement by keeping it in ignorance, strengthening the power of the capitalist class to that effect—are they prepared to cut themselves adrift and come over to the only Party in Great Britain that has an impregnable position in the political field, that acts consistently and logically, and that refuses to be turned from its purpose by any side-wind of reform whatsoever? It is “up to” them to decide. “Choose ye this day whom you will serve”—the working class through the S.P.G.B. or the enemies of the working class through “reform” organisations.

James Alexander

The Pillory. (1908)

From the September 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

The speakers at the Burnley labour demonstration of August 2nd included Dan Irving and H. M. Hyndman of the S.D.P., and S. Walsh, M.P., of the “Labour” Party. The resolution unanimously passed commenced “This meeting heartily supports the Labour Party in Parliament and urges them to press forward in demanding from the Government such reforms as the provision of work for the unemployed, a general eight hours day, adult suffrage,” etc., etc. (the usual list).

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The Labour Party in Parliament which these prominent members of the S.D.P. “heartily support,” is the same Labour Party that the S.D.P. has been heartily denouncing (when it has suited its purpose) for months. The reforms which Hyndman urged the Labour Party to push forward are the reforms that Hyndman has said are useless. “As long” said Hyndman at this very meeting “as they had wages paid by one class to another, there would be poverty, degradation, and slavery, and the only remedy was Socialism.” The wage system will last while capitalism lasts and with all the palliatives pressed for realised, there will still be, given capitalism, poverty, degradation, and slavery.

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And we who take action consistent with this knowledge, preaching Socialism only and exposing the fraud of attempted palliation, are the “impossibilists.” “How long, O Lord, how long ?”

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“Being in the House of Commons did not tend toward a man’s moral or intellectual improvement.” (Pete Curran, Tottenham, 19.7.08). This is sad. Apparently Pete is called upon to choose between moral and intellectual stagnation and £200 a year. Up to now he has not evinced an overpowering determination to relinquish the pieces.

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“I question whether I am equal intellectually to what I was years ago.” (Curran again. Same speech). Why question ?

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Challenged by a S.P.G.B. representative in Manchester to take the platform and defend his Party’s position, John Lackland, S.D.P., replied “What is the use? Your position is unanswerable.” The next move is obviously with John Lackland.

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Lord Weardale, Liberal, the one time Philip Stanhope, Liberal candidate for Burnley, in whose favour Mr. Hyndman, S.D.P., withdrew his own candidature, was in the chair at the Barnard Castle Labour and Progressive Association’s Annual Demonstration (20.6.08). He was supported by Messrs. Arthur Henderson and Ramsay MacDonald, Chairman and Secretary respectively of the Labour Party. Mr. MacDonald dealt with the work of the Labour Party and spoke of the great advance in the honesty of British politics to-day.

Manchester Guardian, 22.6.08.

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Honesty in politics according to Ramsay MacDonald, seems to require further definition.

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Will Thorne, M.P. (Finsbury Park, 19.7.08), appealed for larger labour representation in the House of Commons, where, at present, not more than 200 members were sincere. The test is, then, sincerity. It doesn’t matter so much whether they are capitalists or not, so long as they are sincere. William is usually rich !

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It was of the highest importance, not only to the workers, but also to the great commercial classes, that the objects of the Association (The British Association for Labour Legislation) should be forwarded. . . . If a feeling of discontent was allowed to grow in the minds of the workers, if their demands were left unsatisfied to go on steadily increasing, the commercial classes must be exposed to danger.—Arthur Henderson, M.P., reported Manchester Guardian, 1.6.08.

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Such solicitude for the commercial classes from the Chairman of the Labour Party is very touching. It is also significant. The feeling of discontent in the minds of the working class must not be allowed to grow lest injury comes to the commercial classes. Does the position of Arthur Henderson require further elucidation ?

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The majority of the people were ready to accept any excuse that the upper classes put before them for doing nothing. One of the greatest pieces of humbug that was put before them was the Licensing Bill. What he disliked about it was the utter humbug which Mr. Harcourt, for instance, talked at Rawtenstall. He said that if the money spent on drink were put into industry the condition of the people would be improved. That Mr. Harcourt knew to be a lie.—H. M. Hyndman, Burnley, 2.8.08.

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The candidature of J. F. Green, S.D.P. Executive, was withdrawn from the Rossendale Valley (Mr. L. Harcourt’s constituency) without consultation with the Rossendale branches of the S.D.P. The reply of the S.D.P. Executive to the protests of the local men was that Mr. L. Harcourt was the only member of the Government who had improved his position (from the S.D.P. point of view). He was a good chap and the S.D.P. had plenty of worse men to oppose. Mr. Hyndman appears to be of opinion that in addition to being a good chap, Mr. Harcourt is a good liar and a good humbug. Consistency is a jewel indeed !

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The advance guard of Liberalism and Radicalism were moving forward on every road to social progress.—Winston Churchill, Dundee, 26.6.08.

Cast your bread upon the waters and it will return to you after many days. That was the Government policy.—Winston Churchill. (Same speech.)

So, really, that advance guard is only moving forward to cast its bread upon the waters in the hope that it will return to them after many days as social reform. The advance guard had much better eat its bread if it has any. It will be more satisfactory in the long run. And it is a long run to the end of those many days. But what an inspiriting policy !

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At a public farewell to a local publicist, Mr. Rentle of the Social-Democratic Party, said (Reading Standard, 1.8.08) “Mr. Jones (the publicist) was going with his family to a land that was not under the merciless heel of the capitalist (New Zealand). They hoped he would carry into that land the red flag of Socialism, and plant it firmly and deeply, and drive into the minds of the workers there that Socialism was their only hope.” The usual S.D.P. confusion. The Socialist movement is the revolt of the workers under the merciless heel of capitalism. No merciless heel, no Socialism, and no red flag necessary. A thinking cap is not a bad fitment for one who would be a working-class representative. Mr. Rentle should secure one as soon as may be.

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The Post Office is a working example of Socialism without democracy. It is better than capitalism because neither the Postmaster General or the officials whose mouthpiece he is work for personal gain—but it is not what we want it to be by any means.—F. Jowett, M.P., Clarion, 24.7.08.

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Socialism without democracy ! P.O. Officials who do not work for gain !! Lord ! Lord ! Why persecutest thou me with baffle-headed labour “leaders.”

DEVILSHOOF.

Dynamite. (1908)

From the September 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Every day produces fresh proofs that it (unrestricted competition) results in combination, whereby all economic freedom is at an end, and both the small competitor and the consumer are helpless in face of a trust. Under these circumstances Free Traders must revise their arguments.—Daily News, 6.8.08.

They certainly must if they wish to keep their end up in the genial game of “coddem.”

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Mr. W. Johnson, Liberal-Labour M.P. and Secretary of the Warwickshire Miners’ Association, who stated in the King’s Bench Division recently that, with the exception of his salary and expenses, he had not put a penny of the Association’s money in his pocket, received as salary £3 10/- a week, from the Permanent Relief Society, £1 10/- a week, and from the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain, £350 a year. Total, £11 15/- per week and expenses. Verily a starvation wage.

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Mr. Jenkins, K.C., in the Chancery Division (20.7.08) quoted from the reports of the Labour Party, showing that out of £1,000 received in fees, all but £257 was paid by trade unions. Of the Parliamentary fund of £8,594, all but £189 was paid by trade unions, the A.S.R.S. paying £583. The I.L.P. paid fifteen guineas in fees and £175 in levy, and the Fabian Society paid £10 11/-. Yet they had one-third of the representation on the Labour Party, and controlled the policy.

You may fool some of the trade unionists all the time. You may fool all the trade unionists some of the time. But neither I.L.P. nor Fabian Society, past masters though they be in subterranean methods, can fool all the trade unionists all the time.

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Is it not possible to shew that the real interests of employers lie in the fact that if children could be taught for a longer time they would be more useful in their employment ?—Sir Norman Lockyer.

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There is a vast army of men and women, wretchedly poor, living under abject and squalid conditions, and existing on a pittance eked out by the poor rate and private charity. . . . Factory and sanitary legislation have failed to remedy the condition of these people and a decision of the High Court has deprived them of the benefits of the Truck Acts.—The Home Secretary, House of Commons.

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We have now entered, it would seem, upon an era of comparative depression. Free Trade countries no more than Protectionist countries can escape from these periodical slacknesses in the wealth-making power of the world.—H. H. Asquith, Cobden Club Dinner, 4.8.08.

Then what’s the good of Free Trade ?

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The boys of the bull-dog breed !

Mr. Haldane informed Mr. Thorne (House of Commons, 13.7.08) that of 34,808 men who offered themselves during the year ending 30.9.07 for enlistment in several important centres, 16,297, or 46 per cent., were rejected as medically unfit. Of these the rejections in Manchester represented 72 per cent, of the applicants in that town, Dundee, 71 per cent., Newcastle, 70 per cent., Birmingham, 58 per cent., and London, 41 per cent.

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“An enquiry was then held on the second child, which died on Saturday, 1.8.08, Ada Florence White, aged seven months. Dr. Chas. Stanham said the child was very emaciated, but it was only normal for such a poor neighbourhood as Hackney Wick.” Rule Britannia !

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In the preface to Blue Book on Criminal Statistics, Mr. W. J. Farrant, Superintendent of the Statistical Branch of the Home Office, says that the decrease of crime in 1906 coincides and may be attributed to some extent to increased prosperity.

Sans ceremony. (1908)

From the September 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

The effect of the recent decision of Mr. Justice Neville in the case where action was taken against the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants by one of its own members, on the ground that contributions by the Society to the funds of the Labour Party were illegal, is that any association of the working class has a right to do what it likes with its own. According to Lord Wolverhampton (Daily Chronicle, 21/7/08) “the whole complicated machinery of civilisation is carried on by the working class,” “upon whom society depends.”

***

The whole of society depends upon the work of the working class. The working class is entitled to do what it likes with its own—the wealth it produces as a result of its work. Therefore it is established that the working class may legally proceed to expropriate Lord Wolverhampton and the rest of the dependent capitalists who, without legal title, annex anything between two-thirds and four-fifths of the wealth produced by the workers.

***

As law-abiding and right-respecting citizens, Lord Wolverhampton and his fellow capitalists will, of course, cheerfully resign themselves to the process—I don’t think !

***

Much outcry has recently been raised by “humanitarians” against the method of feeding pythons in the Zoological Gardens with live kids. The Socialist outcry is against the capitalist python feeding upon live children. “Humanitariamsm,” when distinguished from Socialism, is cant or ignorance.

***

Mr. Vanderlyn, F.Z.S., claims against the “Humanitarians” that the feeding of the Zoological pythons is a satisfaction of Nature’s demands which has for its result “the survival of the fittest.” The anti-Socialist “Humanitarians” in the field of human effort make the same claim.

***

The survival of the fittest is an expression of a natural law operating under all conditions. The conditions prevailing at any given time determine the character of the product of the law. Under conditions of exploitation the biggest robber survives. Under conditions conducive to the production of muddle-headedness, the “Humanitarian,” the “Ethicist,” and the rest of them survive. Under Socialism the workers survive. Natural law justifies nothing. It explains many things.

***

Mr. Th. Rothstein, S.D.P. Executive, quotes (Justice, 11/7/08) from the organ of Bronterre O’Brien, this passage: “Oh, Baring, Baring! (Baring was the Chancellor of the Exchequer of those days) many a better man than you was hanged at the lamp-post; and our sincere prayer is that no Englishman may ever again suffer for burglary or sheep stealing so long as enormous culprits like you cheat the gallows of its due.”

***

We have a weakness in the Socialist Standard for downright language. Our delight is to call spades, spades, but when we do, we are, according to Mr. Rothstein’s fellow members of the S.D.P., merely abusive. Nevertheless, Mr. Rothstein properly applauds the “robust fashion” of Bronterre O’Brien’s criticism, and thinks it a “sickly generation” that is too respectable to emulate it. I hope now, that Mr. Rothstein will lead the S.D.P. to see that we are doing them a power of good by shewing them in “robust fashion” the error of their ways. Because they are still miles out of the proper track, and not being a “sickly generation” we shall not be too respectable to tell them a lot more unpleasant truths before we are through. I should be glad to know they are in a mind to appreciate the force of our criticism. Perhaps Mr. Rothstein will drop me a line when the conversion is complete.

Alegra.