We are often reproached by well-meaning people for what they call our "attacks" upon the Labour Party. They argue that all political parties in the Labour movement are working for the same end — Socialism, and that their differences merely arise out of the question of the best means of attaining it. The answer to the assumption that our differences with the Labour Party are only tactical can be answered bluntly. The object of the Labour Party is not, and never has been, Socialism. Further, it has never defined what it means by Socialism; nor, apparently, is the need for definition recognised.
To the assortment of lawyers, generals, bishops, humanitarians, authors, trade unionists and capitalists that are members and supporters of the Labour Party, Socialism might mean everything or anything, or nothing. To the trade unionist it can mean no more than the regulation by the Government of wages and conditions of employment. To the capitalist supporter it can mean no more than State subsidies or assistance of industries which cannot stand up to competition in the world markets. To the parson and the humanitarian it can mean State action to remove a social evil which they imagine to be the hindrance to the perfect social arrangement. To none of these does it mean a new social order based upon the common ownership of the means of life; and consequently there is no understanding that the anomalies that exist under capitalism cannot be removed whilst private property remains.
That this is not so obvious is perhaps in some measure due to the loose way in which the word Socialism is used to describe something which it is not, i.e., Nationalisation. This can fairly be described as the Labour Party’s aim and object, though at no election has it sought unqualified support for it; rather has it been referred to vaguely as something for the remote future. But Nationalisation is not Socialism. True, State-owned industries give the appearance of having eliminated the capitalist, but the elimination is from management and not from ownership.
In an article in Forward (August 28th, 1937), Mr. A. Woodburn illustrates this point and argues the urgency “at the earliest practicable moment" of bringing “the means of production and distribution under public ownership and democratic control.” And he goes on to say: —
The easiest and quickest way to obtain a thing is to buy it.This does not require making people accept new and strange procedure. They are accustomed to regard purchase as fair. It would eliminate any resistance and minimise objections. The Labour Party, therefore, propose to purchase from existing owners the principal means of production, exchange and distribution.
Quite plausible! And this is how it will be done:—
Let us suppose that the land was valued at £1,000 and the owner drew as feu or ground rent £40 per year. If this piece of land is required it would be nationalised by the owner transferring his title deeds to the State.The State would give him in return a Land Stock Certificate valued £1,000, giving an annual interest of £40.All that has taken place is that the land has been nationalised. The owner’s income is untouched—and we may, on grounds of expediency, even be generous in our compensation and increase it.
Notice: The owner transfers his title deeds to the State, which will pay him an annual interest, which the Labour Government in its generosity might increase. Well might prominent capitalists say: “We are all Socialists now!” Who would doubt it! Mr. Woodburn heads his article with the lying caption: “The Land for the People." On his own showing the people who will own it and in whose interest and profit it will be worked will be those who own "Land Stock Certificates," which have been given in exchange for the original title deeds. Mr. Woodburn argues that the workers would be freed from “the despotism of castle and manor." Now that sounds fine; And it can be imagined that many workers might be taken in by the superficial appearance. In fact the worker would be freed from nothing. As now, he would sell for his labour-power wages, which would buy only sufficient, on the average, to keep him in his subject position as a worker. And, as now, when the goods he makes could not be sold in the capitalist markets at a profit he would be faced with all the miseries of unemployment and insecurity.
It could not be otherwise. Wages, rent, interest and profit, are parts of the economic arrangement of capitalism and rest upon the private ownership of the means of living. Abolish private ownership and wages and profits disappear as unnecessary. If wages and profits still exist, then private ownership still exists. Its outward form may appear different, but no specious description of it as “public ownership" will alter facts. No major working class problem would have been solved and quite a host of minor problems might be added.
Mr. Woodburn appears to credit the Labour Party with the miraculous power of being able to retain the basic fundamentals of capitalism, whilst, at the same time, suspending its effects upon the workers. Experience shows the contrary. In 1929/31, when unemployment trebled, wages tumbled, and profits fell, the Labour Government did not then show the capitalists how “generous" it could be and arrange matters so as to “increase" profits. It merely whimpered that it was the victim of the “economic blizzard." That confession expressed the impotence of the Labour Party to control capitalism. It was driven by it. It is the nature of capitalism to function in the interests of the capitalists, and no fancy paper-schemes, which merely aim at changing names, will alter it.
Socialism involves the dispossession of the capitalist class. Dispossession means taking away, its property, thus removing the source of its income and its power of dominance over the workers. Society would become classless. The capitalist class cannot be dispossessed and at the same time retain its income and privileges. It derives its income and is able to live upon the wealth produced by the workers because it owns the land, factories and railways. Dispossess the capitalists and their ability to live on the wealth produced by others ceases. They no longer continue to exist as a capitalist class. But if, under an arrangement such as the Labour Party’s nationalisation proposals, the capitalists continued to receive the incomes and retain the privileges which result from ownership then they would not have been dispossessed. There are no two ways about it—no half measures. Compensation and Socialism are incompatible. Dispossession rules out compensation and is a necessary condition for Socialism. Compensation rules out dispossession—and can only mean capitalism.
It would be misrepresenting the Labour Party to pretend that they have ever believed in the dispossession of the capitalist class. They have not. What they have done is to describe any tinkering experiment proposed by a Labour Government as Socialism. They have encouraged the stupid belief that the evil effects of capitalism can be removed by the return to power of a Labour Government without removing the cause of those evils: the private ownership of the means of living. Such a policy can only mean eventual despair and disillusionment for the millions of workers who vote for the Labour Party, and the harm done to the task of making the workers Socialist cannot be exaggerated.
There are certain officials of the Labour Party who would deny this interpretation of Labour Party policy. They would say that nationalisation is a step towards Socialism and is a phase in the transitional process. Logically, if this were true, then the Labour Party would come before the working-class electorate seeking a mandate for the dispossession of the capitalist class, proposing nationalisation as a means to that end. It does not do so. As the would-be-Marxist Woodburn shows, it is opposed to dispossession. And, moreover, when Mr. Woodburn suggests buying out the capitalists on the grounds that it “would eliminate" the voters' “resistance" because they “regard purchase as fair," he is saying in effect that Labour Party policy is anti-Socialist and is indirectly dictated by those opposed to Socialism. Pandering to the prejudices of non-Socialist working-class voters is not a step towards Socialism, it is a gross betrayal of it. When Mr. Woodburn goes further and uses his knowledge of Marxist writings to give Labour Party policy the approval of Marx he tempts a reply which the printer of this journal would not print. He quotes Marx and contrives to show that Marx was in favour of buying out the capitalists, and that the alternative to it would mean social catastrophe. Mr. Woodburn does not quote Marx directly, but reproduces quotations from Lenin and Kautsky. Despite the fact that he claims to be a Marxist, perhaps he has not read Marx. In a party where knowledge of Marxism is conspicuous by its absence such a reputation is easily acquired.
Slither as he will, Mr. Woodburn cannot show from the essence of Marxism and its principles, not from garbled, secondhand quotations, that Labour Party policy conforms to the scientific revolutionary doctrines formulated by Marx. And the sooner he faces up to the fact that the party of which he is a member is the twentieth-century expression of nineteenth-century Liberalism the better it will be for the workers in this country, and the sooner they will be in a position to consider Socialism upon its merits unconfused by the false claims of Mr. Woodburn and his like.
Members and supporters of the Labour Party who want to see the end of working-class poverty must face facts.
The chief function of the Labour Party when it is not in office is that of “His Majesty’s opposition" to the Government of the day on questions arising out of the administration and the making of laws for the running of capitalism. That it is opposed to the Government is the clearest aspect of its policy. It is willing, when political circumstances dictate, to become the government of the day, undertaking the dirty work of running capitalism for the capitalists, including setting the armed forces in motion against strikers, and in defence of capitalist property when it is attacked by foreign competitive robbers. We oppose the Labour Party because it stands for capitalism. We oppose it—bitterly—because, deliberately or in ignorance, it masks its naked capitalist policy with Socialist phrases and dogma.
Any policy other than the dispossession of the capitalist class of their ownership of the means of living is a capitalist policy.
Its efforts to interpret Socialism in a manner inoffensive to non-Socialists commits it to a capitalist policy. Its use of Socialist phrases is a danger to working-class interests, which can only result in hindrance to the progress of Socialism. Only a sufficient number of workers wanting Socialism can establish it. Until that time, capitalism and all that it means, poverty, insecurity and war, will continue, no matter what government administers it. Until that time, too, workers who despair of one political party after another will be prey to any political mountebank that comes along. Only one thing can prevent it, and that is the spreading of Socialist knowledge.
There is only one party committed to this, and that is the Socialist Party of Great Britain.
Harry Waite
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