Between the Lines: I'll take the Whitehouse (1988)

The Between the Lines Column from the October 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

I’ll take the Whitehouse

ITV opened its autumn season with a blockbuster (for which read: expensive, short-run soap opera) called I’ll Take Manhattan. It was the usual story of highly suntanned men making love to dollar signs and women who failed the audition for Dynasty or Dan Quayle's past. In between endless bouts of what the Sun calls bonking, these blokes compete over who can be the richest swine and own most of New York.

As unbelievable and tasteless tedium, such soap bubbles fade into insignificance when compared with that bigger-budgeted soap opera which has been dominating the US media in recent times. The great battle for the right to preside over American capitalism, between the Democrat with the permanent grin and the Vice President who has spent the last eight years as the chief assistant to Washington DC s village idiot.

The media dominates the US election. It dominates it in a manner that turns conventions into variety shows, speeches into prolonged smiles peppered with cliches and ideas into temporary interferences in the struggle to say least and win most support. The media campaigns of both parties in the US election are such that no socialist opposition, even if it was numerically big enough to mount a campaign against them (which at the moment the World Socialist Party of the United States is not) would be in a financial position to even begin to compete equally in an attempt to persuade the US workers of the case for the socialist alternative.

Instead of any serious attempt at presenting society as it is or offering solutions to its manifold problems, of which the wage slaves of the USA are far from free, the election advertising which is put out concentrates almost entirely on fascistic leader imagery. As in the implausible soap operas, the audience is urged to suspend disbelief and devote their minds entirely to superficial issues of personality. Thus it was that while Congress voted millions of dollars to arm the Contra terrorists, supported by both Bush and the Republican and Bentsen, Dukakis’s running-mate, the media "news" was about whether Bush's partner, Quayle. had once slept with a Playboy model when she was working as a hired "political lobbyist".

Instead of there being any debate about why one in four US children are now living below the official poverty line, the men with the media agenda were more interested in finding out how it was that Quayle. the super-patriot, managed to do the sensible thing and, like many other rich young kids of his class, dodge the Vietnam war where workers were sent to be mutilated and murdered.

Nobody elects the owners or controllers of NBC. CBS or ABC. Yet it is widely acknowledged in the USA that if they want to destroy a Presidential candidate they can. With them lies the power to tell the millions of American workers what "the real issues" are. Approximately half of the American workers will respond by not voting. It is bad enough having to watch tripe like I'll take Manhattan. without being told that you have to appear as an unpaid extra in it.

I’ll take Downing Street

While Hollywood beefcakes were pretending to take Manhattan and political half-wits were trying to take the Whitehouse. poor old Neil is still trying to storm Ten Downing Street. Panorama (BBC1. 9.30pm, 5 September) was all about the Labour Party’s current policy review exercise. Who ever said that good old tragedy was dead?

The programme exemplified much that is the pathetic tragedy of the reformist Labour Party. There was Tony Benn addressing a small rally of believers who had come to hear the rhetoric of radical change. The noises he made were good ones; some of it sounded like selected paragraphs from the Socialist Standard. It was, of course, the unselected passages which let him down and make him essentially no more than a useful frontman to be used by Kinnock and the rest in order to appropriate the hope of workers who should be using their energies destroying capitalism, not trying to run it. There was John Prescott who believes that Labour Party policy is fine and the world would be a much happier place if only the Labour Party had an extremely opportunist Deputy leader who comes from Hull and has no particular ideas about anything and is called John Prescott. Roy Hattersley. looking more than ever like a sad parody of himself, dribbled on about the importance of developing the Labour Party's ideas, by which he meant that more people should read his extremely dull book about why individuals would be more free under a "mixed economy".

There was even a two-second shot of a couple of Socialist Worker sellers standing outside a Labour Party meeting telling the Labourites how they have betrayed the workers once again. Of course. Socialist Worker urged workers to vote for these Labour betrayers in 1987, as they did in 1983, 1979, 1974 . . . The tragedy of the Panorama programme was that it showed the consequences which the Labour Party has brought on itself by 80 years of promising to reform away the inherent problems of the capitalist system without seeking to abolish the system itself. The simplicity of the socialist alternative — the need for a voice to be heard urging workers to abandon all illusions in reformism was not heard on the programme. The fact is that there are those seeking to change society and there are those seeking to change the seating arrangements in the Palace of Westminster and Kinnock's party has become so absorbed in the latter process that it no longer even occurs to them that whoever wins, the workers will lose under capitalism.

Your chance to be critics?

Right to Reply (C4. 6pm, 3 September) came from the Edinburgh TV Festival where four ’ordinary viewers" were invited to have their say about what's wrong with TV. In a half-hour programme, which included a five-minute introduction and several minutes of media controllers patting the "ordinaries" on the head, this big chance for the workers to have their say amounted to about five minutes each.

Of course, Channel Four chose who was to be invited to come along and criticise them and — surprise surprise — the Socialist Party member from Glasgow, who was told by Right to Reply that they would probably want him to come along, was eventually dropped from the programme. In the event, the four "ordinaries raised some pretty ordinary criticisms which, even if acted on. would not change the fundamentally undemocratic, pro-capitalist. life-distorting. minority-controlled nature of British TV output.

This column will continue to expose TVs crucial role as an agency for capitalist propaganda and manipulation of news, ideas and images. We shall praise them when, as occasionally happens, they tell the truth and offer some enlightening material for the consumption of our class. (In that respect, we can only be pleased to see the repeat showing of the excellent documentary, Fourteen Days in May and the follow-up documentary shown last month.) But we shall not desist from demonstrating that between the lines of most of what is not shown on TV is a poisonous intellectual diet which workers absorb at their peril.

Steve Coleman

SPGB Meetings (1988)

Party News from the October 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

Interesting to see that the debate with the left-wing Labour MP, Ron Brown, is listed as being on the 2nd of November, and that the SPGB speaker was to be the late Pieter Lawrence. According to this piece in the September 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard,  which gives the details of a Special Branch report on the meeting, the debate took place on the 7th December, and the SPGB speaker was Steve Coleman. Maybe Ron Brown debated the SPGB twice in the space of a month? I doubt it. Obviously the debate needed to be rearranged, and a new SPGB speaker sought.

SPGB Meetings (1988)

Party News from the October 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Click on the image to enlarge.

The Class Struggle. (1908)

From the October 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Dividing Line.

It has been urged against our position that it is impossible to draw a clear line of demarcation between the classes, and, therefore, any theory that starts out with the assumption that society is composed of two classes, must necessarily be wrong in its application to the problems of society. Even if it were true, however, that it is impossible to sharply divide society into two opposing classes, that would not invalidate the theory, as I shall endeavour to show.

The biological world is divided into two kingdoms : the animal kingdom and the vegetable kingdom. That division is true and scientifically sound, nowithstanding the fact that there exist organisms which present difficuly in classification. The mere fact that they possess the characteristics, or some of the characteristics, of one, does not prevent them belonging to the other if they possess its distinguishing feature. The decisive factor biologically, is whether the organism consumes ready-made protoplasm, in which case it is unmistakably animal; or whether it lives by the consumption of those inorganic chemical elements which it changes into protoplasm, in which case it is clearly vegetable. Organisms which, like the hydra, have all the appearance of vegetables, but which, living by the absorption of matter already transformed by the true vegetables, are classed, therefore, as animals. Other creatures, again, seen under the microscope, appear, by their ceaseless movement, to be animals; yet, measured by the acknowledged test, prove to be vegetables. Nevertheless, the existence of “borderland,” where the two kingdoms mingle into what is to the outsider hopeless confusion, does not invalidate the division. So in society. The existence of a “middle” class will not invalidate the division the Socialist draws, if a test can be made that will differentiate the constituent elements of that section into one or other of the classes. If, then, we define a capitalist as one living on the labour of others through his control of the means of production (that is, the possession of capital); and a workman as one living by the sale of his labour-power to the possessor of the means of production, we shall be able to decide whether any of the individuals in the “borderland” belong to one class or the other.

The Conflict of Interests.

Actually, however, this clear line of demarcation is not necessary, as for all ordinary purposes the division is plain enough, and the exactness will only be needed by those who have developed what might be called the outlook of the microscopist; for he, intent upon the tiny details of minute organisms, does not so readily take the more general view. So the individual, himself probably belonging to the “middle” class, is more intent upon the exact classification of doubtful cases than in the broader outlook which would make the division palpable.

And when we have satisfied ourselves that society is composed of two classes, we have to look further into the differences between them. The capitalist lives by the purchase of labour-power, which he employs in the production of certain commodities. The wealth then produced is divided into two parts : wages, and surplus-value. Contained in that, surplus-value is the profit on which the capitalist lives. Any increase, therefore, in the quantity of profit means inevitably a like decrease in the quantity remaining for wages, and vice-versa. The object of the worker is to get the highest price possible for his labour-power ; the object of the capitalist is to realise as much profit as possible. In this fundamental economic relationship lies the main-spring of the class struggle. That struggle is being waged unremittingly irrespective of whether the combatants are fully conscious of it or not. That struggle is, to the Socialist, the moving force in history. It arises, as we have seen, from the fact that the means of production, which are the means of life, are in the possession of those who do not use them, except as a means for the exploitation of those who do not possess them.

Class Consciousness.

“The emancipation of the working class from the domination of the capitalist class” can be effected only by the “conversion into common property of society of the means of production and distribution, and their democratic control by the whole people.” So reads the “Declaration of Principles.” The conversion will not conceivably be made by the capitalist class, because their interest lies in the direction of retaining their privileges, which they may safely be relied upon to uphold to the last ditch. The interest of the workers lies in the direction of stripping privilege from the capitalist class: therefore in a direction opposed to that of the capitalist class. From this antagonism of interests arises the class struggle. The efforts of the workers to gain an improvement in their conditions, whether it be in the direction of higher wages or shorter hours, or in opposition to any of the disabilities imposed by the capitalist system, and the resistence of the masters to any such demand, manifest the struggle between the classes. When the workers’ efforts are directed towards the ending, rather than the mending, of capitalist conditions of industry, we see manifested a consciousness by the workers of their position, and the struggle takes on a new phase—a phase altered by the introduction of “class-consciousness.”

The Conditions of Successful Conflict.

For generations the working-class have battled class-unconsciously for improvements, but despite the heroism occasionally shown, despite the effort that have been devoted to the endeavour times without number, the working-class position has not improved, but has steadily worsened with the development of capitalism, for it cannot he denied that employment is more precarious than it has ever been ; unemployment is more prevalent and more lasting than formerly. Money wages may have increased in some cases over those paid at some former period, but measured by the increase in the productivity of labour, the greater frequency of unemployment, the increased expenditure necessitated by living at a distance from the factory, and the increasing cost of house-rent, it may safely be stated that the worker lives no fuller life than formerly, and enjoys life no more. Hours may, too, in some cases have been reduced, but measured again by the intensity of daily labour, and the rail journey between factory and home, the reduction in hours has by no means kept pace with capitalist development. The struggles of our forebears, then, have not solved our problems, however much they may have prevented us from sinking to a lower level, and mitigated the evil effects of capitalism. For the workers to fight on the old lines is impossible. They are no longer opposed to a competing mass of small capitalists, but to a highly organised and powerful class. The endeavours of the workers to meet that class in the old way on the economic field by means of the strike and the boycott meet with defeat, and must do so because, when the capitalist class is not sufficiently powerful to meet it successfully by its power as employers, it is always ready to call in the assistance of the political arm which it has long since controlled. In the political control by the capitalist class lies the centre of its power; yet the fact remains that political power is derived from the votes of the working class. With the working class rests ultimately the character of the government, because the workers control a majority of the votes cast at any General Election. For all these reasons, therefore, the struggle of the workers must take on a political character.

The Work of the Socialist Party.

This truth has been imperfectly recognised already as is shown by the development of what is called “Independent” Labour Representation. That this movement has been and is being manipulated by a set of job-hunters must not blind us to its real significance, which lies in the fact that a political movement is growing which is becoming independent of the two historic parties under capitalism. Therein lies what may be taken as the first glimmering of class-consciousness. The shortcomings of that movement have been frequently dilated upon in THE SOCIALIST STANDARD, so that it less necessary for me to go into it now. As the constituent elements of that movement, and of the working class generally, become really class-conscious, and therefore Socialist, they will realise that the political independence of labour must rest upon the hostility of labour to all the forces of capitalism, and will either leave the present movement or bring it into line with their convictions by bringing themselves or it into The Socialist Party.

During the remainder of the life of capitalism the work of the Socialists is particularly to develop class-consciousness by explaining the class position of the workers in its relation to capitalism, by prosecuting, without intermission, the class-struggle ; while the nearer the Party keeps to the line of the class-struggle the greater will he its efficiency as a Socialist propagandist organisation, and the more effective will it be in generating class-consciousness. Because the Labour Party is in effect merely a wing of the Liberal Party, notwithstanding its protestations of independence, it does not answer the purpose of a working-class party either in encouraging the understanding of the working-class position, or in politically prosecuting the class-struggle. The Socialist Party must at all times, therefore, be opposed to it, and must spare no effort in pointing out to the workers that Socialism must be the goal of their organisation, and the class-struggle the guiding principle in its immediate work.

R. H. Kent

Hyndman as confusionist. (1908)

A Short Story from the October 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

He of this sketch was a fine specimen of the men from Erin’s Isle. He had the physique of a Fitzsimmons and the latent brain capacity of a Mirabeau. As you looked at the great eye-orbits, big forehead, and strong chin, you found yourself speculating as to the big things a man like this will do in a community that lays itself out to grow men, instead of mere labour-commodities for capitalist profit.

“Oi’ve listened to Hyndman,” he said in his fine Irish brogue, “from that No. 3 platform yonder, and I’m jiggered if oi aint quite flabbergasted. Hyndman, look you, on the platform with that strange mixture. Bless me if ’tisn’t enough to confuse a St. Patrick.”

“Indeed,” I said.

“You see,” he proceeded, “according to Hyndman’s point of view (if I understand him aright, and I think I do), it’s no more use to go on talking against drink and gambling and sweating, and low wages and high prices, and pauperism and lunacy, and physical deterioration and starving children, than it is to go on picking maggots off a piece of rotten meat or killing-cockroaches in a damp cellar. As soon as you’ve done for one lot of maggots you’ve got another, and as soon as you’ve settled one lot of cockroaches there’s another arrived. It’s the meat that’s wrong. It’s the damp cellar that’s wrong. And so Hyndman says it’s capitalism that’s wrong, and so long as you have capitalism you must have drink and gambling and sweating, and lunatics and starving children, and slums and unimployed- and more on ’em every day ! ‘

“Well, I’ll leave it to you,” I said, “as to how nearly that describes Hyndman’s position. But, anyhow, I think it’s the truth, don’t you ? ”

“Yes. And Hyndman thinks that too. For instance, he says he spoke in this town twenty-five years ago, and they were then demanding the same little pottering political reforms that they are demanding still, and they are further off from getting them than ever. And the capitalists are taking more of the wealth every year. And the conditions of the workers are going worse every year. And the unemployed are increasing every year. And long spells of bad trade follow short spells of good trade quicker and quicker, so that for sure you may correctly say ’tis bad trade all the time. That’s what Hyndman says ! ”

“Well?” “So that it means that things for the workers go from bad to worse, and that so long as there’s these capitalists on your back, and they sucking like leeches by what they call their capital, there can’t be no improvement for the worker—no progress—no reform.”

“It looks like it, doesn’t it ?”

“Sure, it does. Because, as these capitalists get more capital, they must suck Labour more, and there’s no preventing them, so long’s there’s the system. They can laugh at all your reforms. And so long as they’ve their system they’ll have their full pound of flesh. And that’s what oi’ve heard Hyndman say.” .

“Well, what’s your difficulty ?”

“Just this : If Hyndman believes that before we can have any betterment we must organise ourselves, and go for the overthrow of the system, what does he want to be on the platform with these Labour fellows, who are simply helping the capitalists to mend the system., They don’t mean abolishing capitalism; they simply mean making it a little better. They’ve never examined the system—devil a bit have they. There was one fellow there who talked a lot about temperance, and he seemed to think all you’ve got to do is to make the people teetotal, as if that’s any good so long as there’s capitalism. Then he was followed by a woman who seemed possessed with the holy desire to get the half-time kiddies out of the factory, though how that would advantage the kiddies if they had to come home to an empty table, and how the capitalist was to be made to keep the table full, were matters she was not very clear about. Then another suggested that the capitalist might feed the children through the capitalist State. But if the capitalist does anything for us through his State, I reckon he’ll secure his pound of flesh by buying our labour-power cheaper in return. Then there were other pills for earthquakes. One man seemed to think that an eight-hour day would absorb the unemployed. Another was big on municipal and state capitalism, and he seemed to think that if you could only get the capitalist to rob the worker in a collective way, through the municipality and the capitalist state, instead of in the old way, through his private, factory, that this was going to advantage the worker. The fool ! The post-office here, and the state railways elsewhere, ought to teach him that these things can make no difference to the wage-worker. In fact, so long as the worker is a wage-worker, and the capitalist buys him as he buys anything else, and so long as there’s plenty of unemployed making his price his mere living, whether the state buys him or the master buys him it’ll be all the same.”

“Yes,” I replied, “if you get anything in the way of reform for the worker, so long as there’s capitalism, you simply make him a cheaper commodity for the capitalist, and the capitalist sucks it back again.”

“That’s so,” said my Irishman, “and Hyndman sees that. And I want to know what he wants on the platform with these reforming Johnnies. If Hyndman believes that the system is wrong, then why doesn’t he help you chaps to draw the working class away from all this political reform-mongering which, mind your he himself admits has brought us nothing during the last twenty-five years ? Why doesn’t he educate and organise the working class, to prepare for the overthrow of capitalism, and leave the capitalists and these reform fools to mend their system—if they can ?”

“Looks like a new form of the great game of how not to do it, don’t you think so ?” I said.

“How ? Which way ?” he demanded.

“Well, hearing Hyndman keeps them from understanding what the other chaps mean ; and then hearing the other chaps keeps them from understanding what Hyndman means, and so at the end it keeps them much where they were, Hyndman’s presence and talk makes the great British Public believe that this trade union and Labour gang are a very revolutionary lot, and the presence of the good, solid, practical, level-headed gentlemen on the same platform with Hyndman, makes the same B. P. believe that Hyndman and the S.D.P. are quite judicious politicians, after all.”

“Well, but all this is confusing the workers!” roared my friend.

“Or educating them,” I suggested.

“Educating, be d——d (his language got very strong). I say it’s confusing them !”

“Well, well,” I said, “both words mean much. the same thing applied to the wage-slaves. The educated of the other class don’t lecture the working class to stimulate and enlighten them, but to chloroform and confuse them.”

“Be gorra, and it seems so,” he said. Then after a short silence, still meditating on the issue, he exclaimed—

“Can a man be both a reformer and a revolutionist ? ”

“No.” I said, “But he can pose as both until the people find him out and force him into one camp or the other.”

“And is Hyndman posing as both ?”

“Well, there are the facts. What do they say ? ”

“They say he is. He’s preaching revolution, and he’s on a reform platform. But what is he at heart ? Is he a revolutionist ? ”

“No, I don’t think so. Hyndman’s desire has always been to be the big man, with the big following, who could show the capitalists how to run their system in a proper, up-to-date, scientific way, don’t you know.”

“It looks like it.”

“Well, take the facts. Lately, Hyndman has been pointing out to the British capitalists, their danger of having a war with the German capitalists. Now what revolutionist cares a tinker’s anathema about who the British capitalist goes to war with. Certainly, if the German capitalists invaded England tomorrow they might lay rough hands on the property of the English capitalists, but they could take nothing from the English wage-slaves, seeing that the English capitalists have cleaned them out too well already. So that no evil can happen to the workers from any invasion, and no capitalist war is worth their thought. And yet here is Hyndman writing yards of this stuff in conjunction with that other fool, Blatchford, in working-class papers, and trying to get the workers interested in it. Then again, Hyndman has written a lot in Justice lately about “Capitalist Secret Diplomacy.” Now why should the worker waste one thought upon “Capitalist Secret Diplomacy” ? Surely our business ought to he to cultivate opportunities to oust the capitalist.”

“No, it’s no use our watching the capitalists, how they play the game to filch the wealth they first steal from us, from each other; we must organise ourselves to stop the robbery at the root.”

“I say, old man, when are you going to join the Socialist Party of Great Britain ?”

“Oi’m watching you,” he replied, “but oi must be careful. Life is short, and oi can’t afford to waste any more of mine with reformers.”

“Well,” I said, “if you think there’s danger, come in and help to keep us straight.”

“That’s a thought oi have,” he replied, “oi attend your meetings, buy your STANDARD, and drop my penny in the hat.”

John Tamlyn

The Capitalist Class. By Karl Kautsky (continued) (1908)

From the October 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Specially translated for the Socialist Party of Great Britain and approved by the Author.

7.—Increasing number of large concerns, combines.

Besides the competitive struggle between handicraft and capitalist industry there is the struggle between large and small capitalist concerns. Each day brings a new invention, a new discovery, the application of which enhances considerably the productivity of labour.

Each step in such progress causes a smaller or greater depreciation of existing industrial machinery or plant, necessitating replacement of them and often extension of the particular industrial concern ; and anyone lacking the capital necessary for that purpose becomes sooner or later incapable of competing and goes under, or is compelled to turn with his capital to some trade in which the smaller concern is still in a position to compete against the larger ones. Thus competition in industry on a large scale causes overcrowding in petty industry, with the result that ultimately, handicraft is ruined even in the few trades in which petty enterprise was hitherto able to meet competition to some extent.

The large industrial undertakings become ever more extensive and enormous. From moderately large concerns, employing hundreds of workers, they develop into gigantic establishments employing thousands (spinning-mills, breweries, sugar factories, iron works, etc.) The smaller undertakings tend to disappear: industrial development leads, from a certain point, not to an increase but to a continual decrease in the number of undertakings on a large scale.

But that is not all. The economic development leads also to the concentration of an ever greater number of undertakings into the hands of a few—either as the property of one capitalist or that of a capitalist association, which economically is only one person (a juridical person).

Several ways lead to that concentration.

One way is the endeavour of the capitalists to exclude competition. In the previous pages we have learnt that competition is the moving force of the present system of production; it is in fact the moving force of the production and exchange of commodities. But although competition is necessary for the entire society of commodity production, each single owner of commodities would like to see his commodities in the market without competition. If he happens to be a possessor of commodities in great demand or of a monopoly, then he is able to raise the prices above the value of his goods ; then those requiring his commodities are entirely dependent upon him for a supply of the same. Where several sellers appear in the same market with commodities of a similar kind, they can artificially create a monopoly by amalgamating and practically forming one single seller. Such an amalgamation—a combine, ring, trust, syndicate, etc., is naturally the sooner possible the smaller is the number of competitors whose opposing interests have to be reconciled.

In so far as the capitalist mode of production causes the extension of the market and the number of the competitors on the same, it makes the creation of monopolies in commerce and industry more difficult. But in every capitalist branch of industry there arrives, as already mentioned, sooner or later the moment, from which its further development leads to the diminution of the number of undertakings in that branch. From that moment the branch of industry developes more and more towards trustification. The time of maturity can be hastened in any given country through safeguarding its internal market against foreign competition by protective tariffs. The number of competitors for this market is thereby diminished and the amalgamation of home producers takes place, thus enabling them to create a monopoly and to obtain a greater share of the wealth produced in consequence of “protection.”

Within the last twenty years the number of combines, by which the production and prices of certain commodities are “regulated,” has, as we know, increased, particularly in the countries of protective tariffs—United States, Germany and France. Wherever it comes to combination the various concerns, which are amalgamated, form practically a concern under one management, they being very often in reality brought under one unified management.

It is indeed, the most important, and from the standpoint of carrying on industries, the most indispensable commodities, namely, coal and iron, whose production, sooner than that of other commodities, falls under the control of combines. Most combines extend their influence far beyond the branches of industry monopolised ; they make, in fact, all the conditions of production dependent upon a few monopolists.

Simultaneously with the endeavour to combine the various undertakings in a certain branch of industry into one, the endeavour grows to amalgamate into one also, various undertakings in different branches of industry, because in some of these concerns tools or raw materials are produced which are required for the carrying on of production in one or other of these various undertakings. Many railway companies possess their own coal mines and engineering works ; sugar factories endeavour to grow a portion of the beet-roots used by them ; potato growers establish their own distilleries, and so on. And there is a third way : that of combining several undertakings into one, the simplest of them all.

We have seen that the capitalist has had to fulfil very important functions under the present system of production. However superfluous these may be under a different organisation of production, yet under the domination of commodity production and private property in the means of living, producing on a large scale is now possible only on capitalist lines. And for that purpose it is necessary, if production is to proceed and the products are to reach the consumers, that the capitalist step in with his capital and apply it advantageously. Although the capitalist does not produce, does not create any value, he plays an mportant part in the present economic relations.

But the larger a capitalist undertaking grows, the more necessarv it becomes for the capitalist to transfer part of his increasing business functions either to the other capitalist undertakings or to his own paid officials whom he employs to carry out some of his duties. It matters nothing from the economic standpoint whether these functions are fulfilled by a wage-worker or a capitalist: they do not become of a value-creating character by the fact that the capitalist has them attended to by someone else, that is to say, that as far as they do not create value, the capitalist has to pay for them from surplus-value. We here get to know a new way of drawing upon surplus-value tending to the diminution of profit.

[To be continued]

The Trade Union Congress. (1908)

 

From the October 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Trade Union Congress opened at Nottingham with a notable address from the chairman. Let the Daily News speak :—

”Mr. Shackleton’s address was largely occupied with the great social problems of the country at large—the drink question, the education question, the care of old age, and even dangers in foreign policy. On all of these joints he took a strong and definitely Liberal position.”

And that’s all that requires to be said for it. Mr. Shackleton made it quite clear that he had not a glimmer of an idea of the working-class position in relation to any of the questions touched upon. Either that, or he was concerned to obscure his knowledge. Mr. Shackleton, we are constantly informed, is the “strong man” of the Labour movement. He is. His strength lies in the definitely Liberal, and therefore pro-capitalist, and therefore anti-working-class, position he may be relied upon to occupy.

For example :

Mr. Shackleton thought the fact that Trade Unions’ returns shewed 8.2 per cent. of skilled workers unemployed in July of this year as compared with 3.7 last year, was one—calling “for the serious consideration of the Government” ! He affirmed that “the great political and social measure of the Session was undoubtedly the Licensing Bill” ; that the great question which is on everybody’s lips is what will the House of Lords do “when the Bill came before it” ; and that “Labour was prepared to fight the Lords on the Drink evil.”

But—

“The outstanding feature of a notable speech was the appeal to the Government to convene in London an international conference on labour.

He cited the precedent set by the German Emperor eighteen years ago. Since then the spread of the international character of the labour movement had been the most striking feature in the Trade Union world, and the time had come for another conference.”—Daily News.

Verily a strong man. A man head and shoulders above all the hosts of Israel. He would refer the unemployed problem to a government of capitalists who depend upon the maintenance of the unemployed problem. His most important Bill of the Session is the Licensing Bill which doesn’t matter a brass farthing to the working class. And the scintillating darling of his genius for statesmanship is an 18 years old proposal of that earnest and far-sighted labour leader, the German Emperor of that day, for an international conference on labour, to “include representatives of the European and United States (capitalist) Governments” who are opposed by the nature of their interests to the interests of the working class !

Evidently the fraternal delegates from America were impressed. “When Mr. Shackleton was in America,” said Mr. Creamer, “he described Mr. Gompers as a, ‘grand old man.’ I cannot do better than describe Mr. Shackleton as a ‘grand young man.'” Mr. Creamer doubtless meant that Mr. Shackleton was following in Mr. Gompers’ footsteps. Those who know Mr. Gompers as the chief labour lieutenant of the capitalist class in America, and know the work of Mr. Shackleton in England, will doubtless agree that Mr. Creamer “could do no better” in the way of accurate description. Mr. Gompers is at present actively engaged in assisting Mr. Bryan, capitalist candidate for the Presidency.

The same Mr. J. J. Creamer in the course of his address said: “In the Southern States the movement against child labour was growing and he hoped ultimately that all children and married women would be excluded from the mills.” He continued: “I want to congratulate this Congress . . . particularly on its president” (Mr. Shackleton). It is not recorded that Mr. Shackleton, the champion of child labour in mills, blushed noticeably. This is a real test of greatness !

With such a brilliant lead from such a brilliant leader the Congress settled down to its work, and notwithstanding the difficulties of the position, managed to follow the line marked out for it, with wonderful restraint, if not lamb-like docility. There was a full week of dull and stodgy talking, only lightened here and there by the contributions of such advanced thinkers as Mr. Harvey, M.P. Speaking on the motion that the Congress do all in its power to restrict Sunday labour, in the future, to the narrowest possible limits, this worthy person said : “Working men are not wholly free from blame. They are too much inclined to ask for Sunday excursions. I believe that the strength of our family and national life lies in the keeping of the Divine commandments.”

These selfish, luxury-loving working men, spending their substance in riotous living, and rushing about the four corners of the globe on a Sunday, instead of remembering the Sabbath day and keeping it holy ! But who is this cheerful Harvey and who let him out of the museum of Mediaevialities ?

Once or twice proceedings threatened to grow stormy, as when somebody wanted a public enquiry into the methods of the Salvation Army’s “elevator” work, but as the Salvation Army is the one institution we cannot do without (according to Mr. MacDonald); the organisation upon which the “Labour” Party in the House relies for its information on working-class affairs, “the tumult and the shouting” died down into an agreement to leave the matter in the hands of the Parliamentary Committee.

Against this one organisation that the “Labour” Party cannot do without, shameless and unblushing sweating, undercutting and black-legging, have been alleged and proven to the satisfaction of most men outside the Salvation Army’s own ranks. (In the ranks, probably, lying to the glory of God, is pardonable and permissible). The Parliamentary Committee will “deal” with this ; but the supply of blacklegs through other agencies, to fill the places of Continental workers on strike, is a matter reflecting upon the international credit of an imperial race—and so forth.

With these occasional breaks in the monotony everything went through “swimmingly,” and everybody appears to have been satisfied. Sheaves of resolutions were disposed of in a “business-like” way by talking on them for an hour or so and finally referring them to the Government who won’t do anything, or to the Parliamentary Committee who can’t. This, of course, is of no great consequence, as nine-tenths of the resolutions didn’t matter, and those that did the delegates seemed quite incapable of handling.

Such, incapacity is quite understandable when it is remembered that the delegates are, unfortunately, representatives of constituencies of ignorance. While that ignorance persists, we shall have the mortification of witnessing our own class annually wasting its money and its strength in Congress meetings, that do nothing quite as well as they demonstrate to the world of capitalism that the day when the profit-monger shall fear for his hoard is not yet.

For ourselves, there is nothing we can do except that which we have consistently done from our inception until now,—point out the futility of anything less than Socialism and urge the necessity for working-class organisation in industry as in politics, for the establishment of Socialism. That is the message our men have to carry to they who sit in darkness inside and outside Trade Unions—anywhere in fact where the workers do most congregate. In order to do it we must expose fraud or foolery, even though it is expressed through the workers’ most revered leaders.

That is a thankless task for which we shall probably continue to reap for some time more kicks than ha’pence. But as there is no other party in the country to do it, and as it must be done, we are not deterred by present contumely or indifference. Sooner or later the policy of the Socialist Party of Great Britain must win. We are in the Party that cannot lose ; working for the cause that cannot fail. If the workers or their leaders don’t like the truth we cannot help it. Children don’t like medicine, but when their case gets parlous they have to take it. The truth about the present Trade Union Congress is that it is a ghastly farce, a waste of time and money, and only of advantage to the delegates who, through it, get an annual junket at the workers’ expense.

Alegra.