Notes by the Way: Parliament as a Working Machine (1934)

The Notes by the Way Column from the September 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

Parliament as a Working Machine

Much ink and lung power is being wasted at the moment by half-baked critics of things as they are, who attribute our ills to the defects of the Parliamentary machine. Parliament, they say, is too slow, it creaks and obstructs, scrap it for a really fast-moving dictatorship or sub-committee of the Socialist League.

All this criticism misses the point. Parliament moves as fast or as slow as those who control it want it to move. If the present Conservative majority does not introduce social reforms desired by the opposition, that is not because Parliament won't let them, but because they do not want to introduce these particular reforms. But let capitalist interests require some fast work and then see what happens.

On June 14th, 1934, Germany announced its intention of defaulting on some bonds held by English investors. Six days later (June 20th) Parliament took the first, or purely formal reading, of the Debts Clearing Offices and Import Restrictions Bill, enabling the Government to seize monies due to Germans for goods sold in England.

The second reading was on June 25th; the Committee hearing and third reading on June 26th; the acceptance of a House of Lords’ amendment on June 28th; and the Royal assent on,the same day.

The Lords had dealt with the Bill in one day, June 27th.

Here we see a piece of legislation vitally affecting widespread interests of capitalist traders and investors, dealt with in three or four days of Parliamentary time. From Germany's announcement to the Royal assent took only fourteen days! Holland and Switzerland, with Parliamentary government, were equally prompt.

While we are on this subject, let us look at a piece of information published in The Times on July 21st. Fascist speakers have been heard to ask whether such an incident as the year-long hold-up of Waterloo Bridge could happen in Fascist Italy, where ”talking-shops” (i.e., democratically elected councils) are supposed to have been replaced by smart, one-man, dictatorial direction from above.

Milan, according to The Times correspondent, also has its traffic problems, and tube railways have been agreed as the solution. That scheme “has been under consideration for many years,” but, says the local dictator, ”it is not likely for many reasons to take practical shape for a long time yet.” So they have decided, ”for a long time yet,” to do without the tube railways, which they are agreed is the solution, and in their place to build the tunnels and run tramcars through them. Even so, the work on this temporary and partial solution will not begin until next year, and will take up to three years What price dictatorship ?

A Question to Mr. Attlee

Mr. Attlee, M.P. , wrote an article in the Daily Herald (August 14th) in which he tried to discuss what another Labour Government would do regarding wages, and in particular the wages of Post Office workers and other Government employees. His views are of some importance in the Labour Party, because he was P.M.G. under the last Labour Government, and is now Deputy Leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party. These qualifications help him to speak with authority, but they also no doubt account for his very guarded utterances.

First, he candidly admits that the “Post Office is not an example of Socialism but of State capitalism”—something the S.P.G.B. has been trying to ram into the thick heads of the “Mr. Attlees” for thirty years. Perhaps, too, it was not so candid as it appears to be. It may very well have been introduced here just to serve as a convenient excuse for the failure of Mr. Attlee and the Labour Government to do anything material for Post Office workers when in office. It is not a case of Mr. Attlee having dropped “Post Office-ism” in order to take up Socialism. What he did was to back up Mr. Morrison's “Public Utility ism,” and the one has as little to do with Socialism as the other.

Mr. Attlee observes that Post Office employees complain of “scandalously low rates of pay and other evils.” He does not say that the complaints are justified—that would provoke questions as to why the Labour Government did not do something about it—nor does he say that the complaints are not justified—that would annoy some of his readers—who happen to know the facts. Then he goes on to lay the blame on the hard-hearted Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose department, or so says Mr. Attlee, ”is to the Post Office just what the shareholders are to a private company.”

That is as good a defence as Mr. Attlee is likely to find; that is, it is no good at all. It breaks down because the Labour Government (or any Government) is just as much responsible for the policy of the Chancellor of the Exchequer as for any other Department under its control. The fact is that many thousands of Post Office workers were and are paid at rates on which it is impossible to live in anything like decency and comfort. Mr. Attlee and his Labour predecessor at the Post Office, Mr. Lees-Smith, knew all about this but did nothing.

In spite of repeated protests they allowed Post Office and civil service pay to be reduced to the lowest level it has reached since the War. Now—in spite of a further fall in the cost of living since the Labour Government went out of office—the present Government has agreed to raise the level of pay slightly.

Will Mr. Attlee tell us why he consented to Post Office pay being reduced to this low level, seeing that the present P.M.G., Sir Kingsley Wood, has been able to get the Treasury dragons to allow some small improvement, and has, moreover, admitted publicly that hardship exists?

When They are In Office, and when They are Out

Mr. Attlee had a few words to say on the “national minimum wage” as a method a Labour Government would adopt to raise wages. The proposal (although, of course, useless as a remedy) looks so beautiful in its simplicity, can it be that nobody has thought of it before? And can there be people who, having accepted it, subsequently find reasons for not applying it? Mr. Attlee has to admit that there are these villainous people, but their “arguments against a national minimum wage must now be abandoned.”

Who were they? Why, none other than Mr. Attlee’s party, when they were last in office. For years they had preached the need for a national minimum wage. Then, in November, 1930, when in office, they were asked by Mr. Kirkwood if they would introduce a bill to make wage reductions illegal. The Labour Prime Minister replied as follows (Hansard, November 26th, 1930; col. 1338): —

Wages, either real or nominal, cannot be fixed by legislation for the wage-earners generally. The Government’s policy is to maintain standards of living and secure as equitable a distribution of wealth as is possible.

This will not prevent Mr. Attlee’s party from playing the same trick once more if they ever get into office again.

Not Interested in the Last War

On August 16th one of these lucky employees of the Post Office, a temporary postman, aged 47, was imprisoned for stealing postal orders. His wage was 34s. a week. The Chairman of the Bench, a Capt. A. Eve, when told that the prisoner had a good character, "served in the War and was discharged after being wounded and gassed,” said: “We don’t want to hear that. It is ancient history.” (Daily Herald, August 17th,)

Of course, it is ancient history to talk about the victims of the last war at a time when our rulers’ attention is fully occupied with the possibility of another.

Labour “ Socialism ”

Before leaving Mr. Attlee, it is worth while placing on record his quaint notions about Socialism. It will at least serve to prevent Labour Party readers of this journal from writing to us telling us that this time the Labour Party really does mean by Socialism what Socialists mean.

Mr. Attlee discusses what a future Labour Government would do about wages. First, in the "transition period,” it would determine in relation to the national wealth “what wages should be paid to the workers in industry.” Then civil servants and industrial workers “must stand together in their demand for a higher standard of life.” (Mr. Attlee forgets to say what the workers are to do if a future Labour Government, like the last one, hears the workers "demanding” these things, but answers "No!”)

Then, after the "transition period,” a beginning is to be made with "socialisation” (Mr. Herbert Morrison’s name for Public Utility Corporations). Then, says Mr. Attlee, the "problem of fixing remuneration will become acute,” and the remedy is that "Socialists must aim at equalitarianism, although it may not be completely attainable for a considerable time.”

Our progress, so far, may be summarised thus: First, a Labour Government, then an inquiry into how much wages the workers can be given, then "a considerable time” during which efforts will be made in the direction of equalitarianism, and of diminishing property incomes.

After this we might hope that Mr. Attlee will expect to have arrived at the desired goal, but what we find instead is that there will still be a wages system, and still, apparently, property incomes, albeit "diminished.”

Mr. Attlee’s followers, who have spent the past twenty or thirty years chasing after Post Office "Socialism” only to discover that it is "State capitalism,” will spend another considerable span of life chasing after "socialisation,” only to discover that it is Public Utility Corporations, and that the wages system and capitalism in general are still there.

It is a sure thing, if the workers allow this to happen, that when that further stage is reached, Mr. Attlee will be writing articles in the Daily Herald of that day, discovering new variations on the old theme.

The Hard-Faced “Daily Herald”

Labour propagandists are fond of saying that the incursion of the publishing firm of Odhams into the Labour world (was it an incursion or an annexation?) has revolutionised propaganda. It is certainly possible that the Daily Herald's rise to the position of the world's largest circulation, over two million copies a day, will help the Labour Party to round-up votes as never before, but there is a thorn to every rose, and one little thorn in the side of Labour Party propagandists is the fifteen per cent. dividend paid by Odhams. In the past the Labour Party has been able to denounce wicked bankers and hard-faced business-men for making an “unreasonable" profit. What will they say now? When the Daily Herald was from a profit-making point of view a flop it was all very well to throw stones, but fifteen per cent. is well above the average rate of profit of industrial and commercial concerns. It is more than most of the banks pay, and far higher than many of them.

Incidentally, Labour Party adherents of Major Douglas, who believe that the banks have it in their power to pay dividends of hundreds per cent., might explain how it is that most of them pay far less than Odhams.

A Penny Bun for a Good Wage-Slave.

It is when our bosses are kind to us that we see what sort of cattle they think we are. On Saturday, August 18th, some charabancs were to be seen passing along the Thames embankment draped with huge posters, from which we learned that the animals inside were the salesmen of a certain textile firm who had come out top in a "trip-to-the-mills" contest. A present for white-collared Clarence Dubb for being a good boy, to go and inspect his strong-armed brother, Henry, in the mills. Then each group will be expected to derive satisfaction from not having to do the work done by the other, and both will return more contented to the task of making profits for the shareholders.

Five, Ten, Fifteen, Twenty.

Somebody ought to make an inquiry into the methods by which the rulers in the various countries keep the workers more or less contented while giving them little else but promises of post-dated blessings. In particular, what is the merit of the five-year period that it should have found favour in so many countries? First, there are the five-year Parliaments in Great Britain, it being found that five years is about the longest period a British worker will tolerate the non-fulfilment of a promise of prosperity by any given gang of politicians—after five years he insists that it shall be unfulfilled by a different gang. Then there is little Father Stalin, whose great contribution to civilisation was the discovery that, if it is put over in a lot of pseudo-Socialist jargon, the five years can be extended to two five-years, and the patient Russian can be kept docile with the promise of carrots, not after the first, but after the second five-year plan. If Professor Laski (an admirer of the Bolsheviks who has just visited Russia) is to be believed, the trick works with large numbers of the workers there. He writes (Nation, New York,’ July 18th): —

I doubt whether an unemployed English worker on the dole has a standard of life as low as lower-paid categories of Russian workmen in full employment. On the other hand, I was assured not only by Russians themselves, but by newspapermen who had lived in Russia for many years, that conditions are definitely better than at any time since 1917. . . .

Russia is a land of hope. The masses have no doubt that the sacrifices of to-day will be justified by the achievements of to-morrow. The mental climate is one of intense exhilaration, of a buoyant and optimistic faith I have never before encountered . . .

Hitler looked across the frontier and is now going one better than Stalin. My German oxen, he says, are even more patient than your Russian ones. In the early days, before and just after the. conquest of power, he promised to introduce Socialism almost immediately, and was asking to be crucified if he did not deliver the goods in five years. A year later, having seen that quite a lot of people are already asking for tangible results and may want to crucify him, he puts forward a plea in his election speech of August 17th for fifteen years in which to justify himself. After all, as Hitler says, the Social Democrats and other parties which shared in the Government of Germany since 1919 got away with it for fifteen years between them, why shouldn't he?

Mussolini appears to have worked on a different theory of kidding the workers. Having discovered in the Italian "left-wing" Labour movements how attractive to the average violent reformist are speeches about “ACTION," he worked out a formula which, so far, has never let him down. He proclaimed the dethronement of talk about theory, and enthroned in its place talk about action. After twelve years, a decreasing but still very large number of Italian workers are contented with it.

But black as it is, the outlook might be worse. We have not yet found a politician able to win an election on a programme of "Prosperity for Posterity: The Millennium in 150 years."

Mr. Selfridge on Myths.

Every day in The Times and certain other papers there is a half-column of great thoughts inserted by Selfridge & Co., Ltd., and written by "Callisthenes." On August 16th "Callisthenes" discussed "The Great Equality Myth," and regretted that the doctrine of the equality of men is not declining as it ought to be. It would be unfair to hold "Callisthenes" responsible for all the views expressed; doubtless he has to write what he thinks will please his employers. May we, first of all, however, disabuse him of the notion that the basis of the Socialist case is a belief that “all men are equal," and that “all people should work the same number of hours per week and get the same amount of money in return, the same amount of honour, the same number of the constituents of 'happiness' ” Strange as it may seem to “Callisthenes,” if he listened to a member of the Socialist Party for a month he would hear never a word about any of these doctrines. Socialists are occupied with a very different matter, that is, the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, including, of course, the stores, vehicles, plant and stock of Messrs. Selfridge & Co. What we want and are determined to get, not one day later than need be, is the abolition of the private ownership and control of these things, and their conversion into the common property of society. We shall then be as little concerned as “Callisthenes” as to whether A and B are each 5ft. 9ins. and measure 34ins, round the waist. When “Callisthenes” puts forward his employer’s view about the nature of existing society, these ideas are as remote from reality as are his ideas of Socialism. There is, he tells us, a fundamental quality about men which gives each one “the capacity for earning money .... in different degree.” It is this, we are told, which accounts for economic inequality. This is, of course, not an original view. It is, on the contrary, very old, and it can be shown to be absurd by one simple feature of capitalism that may be observed every day. If Mr. Selfridge’s wealth is due to his superior capacity for earning money (and not to his participation in the capitalist-class ownership of the means of life which compels propertyless workers to submit to exploitation at his hands), why is it that he and every other capitalist hangs on like grim death to his property and will never on any account risk his alleged superior capacity in competition with the workers? Why, in other words, does not Mr. Selfridge come out from behind the rampart of property which protects him and gives him privilege, and pit his brains against those of the lesser men?

The answer (not for publication in The Times) is that Mr. Selfridge is not such a damned fool as all that. He knows full well that a capitalist deprived of his property, even though allowed to keep his “superior brains,” would be a shorn lamb defenceless against the cruel winds that assail the worker looking for work. Mr. Selfridge knows how much pleasanter it is to stick in the ranks of the privileged, where he never has to come into direct and brutal contact with the bread-struggle he finds so bracing for others, where he is flattered, guarded and coddled by servants and secretaries, every one of whom has to smile and jump to it because he or she will otherwise get the sack. If Mr. Selfridge should some day meet his dear fellow members of the great firm on an equal footing, he might hear one or two blistering remarks about his canting “Callisthenes” and his playboy bugler who toots his wage-slaves on and off work morning and evening.

Edgar Hardcastle

Blogger's Note:

For more background on Harry Gordon Selfridge and "Callisthenes", check out this article.

The Rise of Sir John Ellerman: The Rewards of Capitalism (1933)

From the August 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last month the richest man in England, Sir John Ellerman, died. He was reputed to be worth about £30 million at the time of his death, and a few years ago he owned properties estimated at £55 million. His income was upwards of £1 million a year, about £20,000 a week, equal to the wages of eight or nine thousand workers.

Those who profess to believe that capitalism distributes rewards, according to ability, diligence, thrift and other so-called virtues, hastened to point out what a splendid example Sir John Ellerman set to all of us. Was he not abstemious, they said, spending only a small part of his income ? That is true. He was in the habit of spending on his own personal needs a mere 4 per cent. or 5 per cent. of the sums coming to him day by day from his investments, but that 5 per cent. meant £50,000 a year—a mere trifle of £1,000 a week.

It was inevitable that the slush-writers of the daily Press would tell us of a romantic rise from poverty to fabulous wealth; of how their hero started with nothing. He did indeed—if we can describe as “nothing” a bagatelle of £20,000 or so, which he inherited from his maternal grandfather.

The frenzied lunacy of modern capitalism can be illustrated in certain of its aspects from the life of Sir John Ellerman. We may believe that a sure £1,000 a week could provide a very pleasant existence, although in this case it included such eccentricities as frequent pleasure cruises on his own liners, Sir John Ellerman being the only occupant, travelling in magnificent solitude on a boat equipped to carry 250 or 350 passengers. Perhaps the journalistic apologists for capitalism will try their hand at discovering some ethical or economic justification for this appalling wastefulness when there are thousands of over-worked and undernourished working men and women, to whom such a cruise, which they cannot afford, might mean restored health and happiness.

Yet, in spite of his wealth, those who knew him said that he had no interest in life outside financial operations and the control of his wealth— “his work was his hobby and his hobby was his work."

We defy the capitalist economists and the capitalist Press to give a reasoned defence of a system which gives to one self-centred individual, obsessed with the single pleasure of exercising his financial skill, complete control over the means of life of tens of thousands of men and women. He controlled nearly 300 ships. He owned £3 million of house property. In Earl’s Court alone he recently sold an estate of 1,150 houses and nearly 200 blocks of flats. Yet he used only one house himself. He was ground landlord of a large part of Oxford Street. At one time he had a large interest in The Times and was proprietor of The Financial Times and several other papers. He took no interest in the journalistic side, but regarded them simply as means of piling up money. He had extensive brewing interests. At one period he had no less a sum than £10 million on deposit with London banks. In the last twelve months he made two separate loans of about £1 million to public companies.

On an occasion like this, the newspaper writers boast about the stupendous wealth of the multi-millionaires as if it belonged to them. Yet this will not prevent them in a few weeks' time from asserting that “we are all capitalists now," that “wealth is becoming more and more equally divided," that companies are owned by small shareholders only, and so on, ad nauseam. By coincidence the man who is particularly notorious for keeping these false notions in circulation by his speeches and letters to the Press (Mr. Walter Runciman) is himself interested in shipping and cannot be unaware of the great fortunes made by Sir John Ellerman and others in that industry.

The reality of the contrast between the riches of the few and the poverty of the many was brought out in an advertisement issued last year by the Confederation Life Association as part of a campaign for popularising insurance. The Association claimed that carefully compiled statistics show that out of an average group of 100 men aged 25, 58 will be alive at 65. Of these 58, one will be wealthy, two fairly well off, five able to live on their savings, and 50 without enough to support them.

That is one side of a picture, the other side of which is the £30 million fortune of Sir John Ellerman.

In passing, it is worth while pointing out once more the absurdity of the assertion by Major Douglas, that all property belongs to the bankers. Sir John Ellerman was not a banker. The richest living man in England is the Methodist, Mr. Joseph Rank, who is also not a banker but has vast interests in flour milling. Other recent big fortunes disclosed at death have been Sir David Yule, £25 million—Anglo-Indian merchant; the Earl of Iveagh, £11 million—head of Guinness brewery; Sir George Wills, £10 million—tobacco; and Sir Joseph Robinson, £10 million—diamond magnate.

Facts, however, appear to matter little to the blind defenders of capitalism, or to the one-eyed critics of certain features of capitalism who belong to the Douglas school. 

Edgar Hardcastle

Letter: Not Standard terminology? (2008)

Letter to the Editors from the October 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Not Standard terminology?

I have long been impressed by the range and quality of writing in the Socialist Standard, but in “The Irish No” (September) Declan Ganley is described as a ‘self-made millionaire’ and reference is made to ‘former Communist countries’. Unqualified use of such terms, repeated ad nauseam in the capitalist media, is surely something to be avoided in a socialist journal..

Robert Stafford,

Norway

Reply: 

You’re right of course. No millionaire is “self-made” as they get rich by exploiting workers. And the so-called “Communist” countries were not communist but state-capitalist. Apologies for the missing inverted commas.– Editors

Self-made! (1909)

From the July 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent signing himself A Listener writes :

“Having participated as a humble listener in many discussions on Socialism, I have frequently heard your speakers say that no man can make his own fortune by himself alone. Would you kindly answer through the columns of your paper, the undermentioned questions?

“Now I know a man (a friend of mine) who went abroad, took a piece of land, his object being to discover gold, and fortunately it proved a success. Now this land was worked up by himself alone. 

“Do you not consider him to be a man that has made his own fortune by himself alone ?”

No, good “Listener,” your friend did not make his fortune “by himself alone.” By a fortune we understand such an accumulation of wealth as, through the control of other men’s labour that it gives, enables its owner to live without labouring himself.

In the first place there is the outstanding fact, that apart from property-founded society, wherein wealth monopoly gives some men control and mastery over the labour of other men, there can exist no fortune. Its main characteristic, the power of dominion that it imparts, is obviously conditional upon the existence of other men (and producers at that). Without these there can be no fortune.

In the second place, your friend had to be carried to the gold-bearing land, and so required the help of the steamship and railway workers and all the craftsmen and labourers who contribute to the construction of the means of transportation. He needed tools to work the land and, not less, the knowledge of where and how to get out the gold.

Thirdly, so soon as your gold-mining fortune-hunter had won a surplus over and above the amount required to purchase his means of subsistence, he doubtless, being wise in his generation, banked or otherwise invested it. That is to say, he put it to such use as entailed the exploitation of the wage workers. In the normal course of commerce, then, his property would grow by the accumulation of rent, interest or dividends, regardless of any exertion upon his part.

And so it stands demonstrated, that even in the exceptional case of your friend, the acquiring of his fortune was assisted and alone made possible, not only by the very existence and labour of countless other men, but by the accumulations of knowledge and implements made by the numberless generations of men who have preceded us. In other words, wealth accumulates to-day as a result of social activity without which the individual is utterly impotent. This is more easily seen than ever in modern industrial society, with which the Socialist is more particularly concerned when he says that no man makes (creates) his own fortune.

John H. Halls

Jottings. (1913)

The Jottings Column from the April 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

What an ungrateful world this is ! Bearing in mind the fact that it is the workers who provide the capitalists with the wealth they batten upon, one would almost suppose that the capitalists would, in a measure, be grateful for the service rendered to them, if only to the extent of giving them a decent wage in return. And so they would, no doubt, did they not know that the workers as a class are not yet wise to the game. As it is, knowing that they hold full possession of the power (again provided by the workers) whereby they can keep the workers in subjection, they are prepared to exercise it to any extent in order to maintain it. Not only do they grind their victims down to the uttermost limit of degradation, but they seek to make it appear that they are doing them (the workers) a service in allowing them to live at all !

We, as wealth producers, are expected to be grateful to them for the privilege of producing wealth, in order to hand it over to them !

And how particular they are, too ! They will insist on having the best even in buying labour power. They are connoisseurs, too, in the art of picking and choosing. Whenever a job is to be given, members of our class are paraded and eyed up and down, just for all the world like a lot of prize cattle. Those of us who are lucky (!) enough to have a job lose our personality (if we ever had any) immediately we get it, and respond to a number or a section the same as convicts.

* * *

One of the latest devices for improving this system has just come to light. It is used for particularising applicants for employment at the Board of Trade Labour Exchanges and is in connection with the working of Part 2 of the Insurance Act. This, by the way, is only one feature of the Insurance Act.

When a man presents himself to sign the unemployed register, it is said a clerk surveys him up and down and jots down by the side of his name a capital letter in accordance with a code they possess, the key to which is herewith furnished.

A.—Greyhaired.

B.—Slightly deaf.

C.—Very deaf.

D.—Tidily dressed.

E.—Untidily dressed.

F.—Down at heel.

G.—Generally unfit.

H.—Fringe at bottom of trousers.

I.—Insolent bearing.

J.—Slouchy gait.

K.—Over garrulous.

L.—Seedy appearance.

M.—Unkempt appearance.

N.—Smart appearance.

O.—Intelligent face.

No sign of gratitude here to the wealth producers—rather one of shameless cunning and insult. No sign here of the repeated promise of the Liberal tricksters to end the misery of unemployment. No ! When it comes to the process of still further weeding out the poor devils who have once before been weeded out, it is an indication that the struggle between the producers and the non producers is reaching its most acute stage. Factors such as these sound an ominous note. There are rumblings in the air. A little longer and then—Mr. Capitalist, look out !

* * *

Another “self-made” man has gone over. According to the effulgences which have lately appeared in the Press, Sir William Arrol “was essentially a self made man, owing nothing to patronage, and conquered by his own sheer indomitable will, which raised him from the humblest ranks to the most exalted position in the profession of engineering.”

Dear, dear ! Just mark what this most wonderful man accomplished. “The chief triumphs of Sir Wm. Arrol’s genius were the construction of the second Tay Bridge, the Forth Bridge, the Tower Bridge, and the Nile bridges near Cairo.”

As he “owed nothing to patronage” we must assume that he did it all himself—for sport. There is no mention made of anyone giving him a lift with the job, except in the case of the Forth Bridge, when King Edward drove home the last of 6 million rivets.

Perhaps he was a magician !

* * *

In these days of capitalist sorcery one has to be prepared for anything. If someone comes along with an invention that will do away with the necessity for eating it will not be in the least surprising. As it is we are getting on that way now. If report speaks truly it will shortly be possible for the worker to remain at his task for an indefinite period. A Doctor Morton, of the State Psychopathic Hospital, Mass., has invented a substitute for sleep which permits the brain to work 24 hours a day !

The invention consists of a scientifically constructed chair in which one can rest while following his occupation (if a seated one), and in which all mental and bodily vigour is maintained. A professor who has experimented on it over a number of years has never found it necessary to close his eyes !

Phew ! Once get this going and the jig’s up ! However, it’s an ill wind that blows good to nobody. Apply the invention to our industrial system and the eight hours question is solved right away. There won’t be any !

* * *

Following upon the agitation some time ago for better conditions in the Postal Service, a Committee of Enquiry was appointed to enquire into and report upon the existing conditions of the various services in connection with the Post Office. Prominent among those who gave evidence was Sir Alexander King, the Secretary to the Post Office and Head of the Department. Obviously his purpose was to gloss over the bad conditions, and also to rebut any evidence that might damage the Department.

Now, mark ! Quite recently the Postmen’s Federation held a social at Beckenham at which their Parliamentary Secretary and Labour candidate, Mr. G. H. Stuart, presided. The honoured guest of the evening, who was received with loud applause, was—Sir Alexander King !

* * *

In connection with the recent bye-election at Houghton, the Liberal Press a few days prior thereto pointed out the farcical position of a Liberal and a Labour candidate fighting in the same contest when both stood for the same thing. It certainly is very funny, though not surprising.

The Labour candidate (Ald. House) says : “The Labour Party agrees with every item in the programme of the Liberal Party.”

The “Manchester Guardian” (12.3.13) says : “Mr. House is taking his stand at this election on the same ground as the Liberal candidate,” and goes on to complain that the Labour candidate is altering his political dress more and more to match the Liberal pattern !

Of course it must be aggravating when a chap comes along and queers the pitch. After all, though, haven’t the Liberals the best of the game ? Have they not two representatives to the Tories’ one ?

* * *

The “Labour Leader” is now mildly protesting against the too frequent appearance of Labour M.P.s on Liberal platforms. It has been quite the fashion, lately. “Everybody’s doing it.” It’s all right once in a way, but don’t over do it, you know ! Gives the game away.

Mr. W. Johnson has been unusually busy. He supported the Liberals at Coventry on the occasion of a demonstration on January 24 and on March 1 he opened a Liberal club. On March 6 he attended the annual dinner of the Bolton Liberal Club, where he informed his pals that he had given the Government his loyal support. “I am not going to be dictated to as to where I shall go,” he said, “and I would not refrain from being amongst you to-night.” There is nothing like candour !

Both Mr. Crooks and Mr. Bowerman supported the “Progressive” candidates in various wards last month, despite the fact that candidates were running under the auspices of the B.S.P., and who had, in Bow and Bromley, the support of the Gasworkers’ Union. Thus we find them in opposition to their own kind !

I don’t know that Mr. Crooks is to be blamed altogether, for he has always displayed a cringing servility toward his “betters.” Politically he is blind. As a platform orator he has a habit of putting his foot in his mouth every time he opens it, as, for instance, when he was seeing Mr. J. Ramsay McDonald off to India he admitted that “sometimes in looking up to heaven we stumble over the log that is at our feet and come a cropper because we don’t see where we are going !”

Tom Sala

Where Did They Get Their Wealth ? (1941)

From the September 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following is an extract from a pamphlet, “The Origin of Great Private Fortunes,” by Gustavus Myers, published by Charles H. Kerr and Co., Chicago. It is summarised from the larger work, “History of the Great American Fortunes,” by the same author.

Many fanciful descriptions have been written of the origin of these great fortunes. Usually these narratives are so much alike, so consistent in their alluring and gorgeous colouring, that the suspicion naturally occurs that well-regulated press agencies are doing their effective work. Always it is skilfully explained how these great magnates amassed their immense fortunes by industry, thrift and ability. It is further glibly explained how they created wealth and were, therefore, signal benefactors of the human race. If, incidentally, some hundreds of millions of dollars adhered to their hands, that was only the just reward of their prodigious labours.

Flowery phrases, of course, explain nothing. It is facts that count, and facts alone; and somehow it is to be invariably noted that facts are lacking in these seductive eulogies. No explanation is ever offered as to how the magnate’s got their first millions. After a man gets a few millions, it is comparatively easy, as the present system goes, to get more. But—and this is the crucial point—how does he contrive to gather in his first millions ? It does not suffice, also, to say airily that on such and such a date he acquired this railroad or that plant. What we want to know is how he obtained the resources with which to do it, and what methods he used. None of the eulogies tell us this.

To indulge in glittering statements is easy, but they leave us no more informed than we were before. They simply inebriate us with words, while all the time we are hungering for the actual facts.

If we stop to reason a moment it becomes evident that the exercise of industry, thrift and ability does not produce fortunes of hundreds of millions of dollars. Tens of millions of people work very hard, save money (when they can) and lead temperate and useful lives. But they have no fortune, except bad fortune. Vast numbers literally live from hand to mouth; they begin life in poverty, and after a lifetime of toil, end it in poverty. Others manage to acquire a little competence which is always precariously threatened by being out of work, sickness or business disaster. Obviously, if industry, thrift and ability produced great wealth, America’s working people would all have multi-millionaire fortunes.

This explanation, it is clear, does not hold, and cannot, for a second, stand the test of reason and experience.

Even, however, if one does not give serious thought to the matter, a striking circumstance is of itself sufficient to make him suspicious of the usual run of explanations. If our magnates are so honest and honourable and such pure and lofty patriots and philanthropists, why should they be so sensitive to criticism ? Why should they be so eager to purchase eulogy by contributions to charities and colleges and universities, and by owning or subsidising so many newspapers, periodicals and magazines ?

Hero Worship: A Conversation With a Visitor from Mars. (Part 2) (1927)

From the December 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard 

(Continued from last month.)

“However, Marty, I think Wells hits the right nail on the head when he explains Napoleon’s amazing popularity with his troops by the fact that they never saw him save on a few theatrical and emotional occasions, and that his soldiers idolised not Napoleon, but 'a carefully fostered legend of a little pet of a man, who was devoted to France and to them all.’ Napoleon, it seems to me, was both 'the child of the Revolution’ and the embodiment of the reaction against it. Society in the 18th and 19th century was crying aloud for 'reform,’ but was not ready for a system of society based on common ownership. Napoleon represents the rejection of the theories of Anacharsis Cloots and the beginnings of the Capitalistic State; whilst the French bank, the University and the 'Code Napoleon' were the result not so much of his 'original genius,’ as of the evident social and economic need for them.”

"There must have been, I suppose, in your planet’s history,” remarked the Martian, “many 'great men’ who have attempted to change the course of social or economic development. Have any succeeded?” "Well,” I replied, "I do not know of any individual who has changed the course, but a few have stemmed it for a while. In Roman history, Sulla attempted to re-establish the lost power of the Senate and to crush the rising Equestrian order, which consisted of wealthy traders. To effect this he framed a constitution. In a few years, however, his constitution was practically disregarded, and all that remained of his labours were his administrative and judicial reforms, which, although secondary considerations with Sulla, yet satisfied the social need for better organisation, and thus endured. Strangely enough, Marty, a comic-operatic 'Sulla,’ is operating in Rome to-day, and with the puffed-up pride mediocrity fondly hopes to achieve the success denied to his more illustrious predecessor. How truly Marx interpreted history when he wrote, 'Great historicaL facts and personages appear twice—once as tragedy and again- as farce.” (From 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon.)

Many more examples, however, could be given, Marty, of men whose desire and aims have been thwarted by economic conditions, but time prevents me from doing anything save naming a few, such as Cromwell, Charles XII of Sweden, and (possibly) Lenin of Russia. Spencer has ably summarised the conclusions just arrived at in his essay, "The Social Organism,” portions of which, with your permission, I will “inflict” upon you:—

  “It is not by the 'hero as king’ any more than by collective wisdom that men have been segregated into producers, wholesale distributors, and retail distributors. The whole of our industrial organisation, from its main outlines down to its minutest details has become what it is not simply without legislative guidance but, to a considerable extent in spite of legislative hindrances. . . .  By steps so small that year after year the industrial arrangements have seemed to men just what they were before—by changes as insensible as those through which a seed passes into a tree; society has become the complex body of mutually-dependent workers we now see.  . . . The failure of Cromwell permanently to establish a new social condition and the rapid revival of suppressed institutions and practices after his death show how powerless is a monarch to change the type of a society he governs. He may disturb, he may retard, or he may aid the natural process of organisation; but the general course of this process is beyond his control. . . . Thus, that which is obviously true of the industrial structure of society, is true of its whole structure. The fact that constitutions are not made but grow is simply a fragment of the much larger fact that under all its aspects and through all its ramifications, society is a growth, and not a manufacture.”

“Well,” said the Martian, I have learned a great deal from your discourse; in the first place my conviction that human societies are not jig-saw puzzles, the parts of which have been contributed by 'great men,' but are living and ever-changing organisms in which both 'great' and 'little' men play their respective parts, has been doubly strengthened, whilst it seems evident that 'hero worship’ varies in its form and function according to the state of the community in which it exists. Thus, I gather that, early man was too self-occupied and practical to be carried away by sentimental personal idolatry, and individual control was sanctioned simply because it was the only positive control known. Later, with the evolution of abstract ideas and ideals, moral civilization came into being with the resultant glamour that attached itself to the governing members of society. In the past, my friend, ‘hero worship' seemed to have fulfilled at least one useful purpose—it provided a control over what would be, I assume (compared with your present machines for mass production), crude and strangely miscellaneous instruments of production; that is to say, society, fearing anarchy, submitted to the subordination of efficient individuals. But what of the utility of 'hero worship' at the present time?”

W. J.

(To be continued.)

Hero Worship: A Conversation With a Visitor from Mars. (Part 1) (1927)

From the November 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard 

The first Friday in every month, I receive in my small suburban house a distinguished and eminently intellectual visitor from Mars. Where I met this worthy gentleman, in what contrivance he effects his journey to Earth, and how he mastered the English tongue, I must not divulge for I am bound to secrecy on all these points. Yet I cannot forbear from recording the conversations which have taken place between us. My friend’s remarkable criticisms of worldly institutions concerning which his mind is free from prejudices and accepted opinions, his sage interpellations and remarks, and, above all, his insatiable curiosity which has prompted me to explore and examine many aspects and phases of human life, have changed me from a meek peruser of a daily paper (the name of which rhymes with “Wail") to an eager and regular reader of a certain Socialist monthly journal.

However, on Friday, August —, the Martian entered my study, and after inquiring as to the state of my feet (in the usual Martian way), proceeded to make himself comfortable in my best arm-chair, and fixed me with his relentless inquisitive gaze. I groaned inwardly for I realised that I was doomed to the usual merciless inquisition; nevertheless, batting him playfully over the bean, I exclaimed, “Marty, old son, your little top-knot must be full of vague wonderings and misgivings again; pray unload them to your kind uncle.” He did so to the following effect—

"Esteemed and respected friend, in the course of my peregrinations and observations here below, I have noticed with astonishment that there are always various and differing individuals exalted above their fellows, and that these individuals either through accident of birth, ridiculous actions, criminal deeds or (occasionally) illustrious achievements, are regarded with almost divine reverence by their fellow-men. Now I plainly see that the conditions on this wretched planet foster and nourish this primitive "hero-worship"; ignorance, of course, induces men to believe in the superhuman powers of others higher up in the social scale, and the ignorant, aware of their own pitiful mental condition and limitations, behold with awe and amazement the petty achievements of a slightly more developed brain, moreover, 'hero-worship' is certainly aroused and nourished by your noxious newspapers. Sir, in a solitary issue of one of your vile dope-sheets I read glowing eulogies of individuals dubbed ‘princes,’ ‘duchesses,’ and 'ladies,’ sticky journalese accounts of ‘the world’s greatest cricketer,’ ‘the greatest soldier of to-day,’ ‘Hollywood’s daintiest actress,’ and even longer accounts of poor miserable wretches, who, warped by environment and damned by heredity, have committed atrocious crimes.

“But —” here the Martian jumped to his feet in his excitement and indignation, “I hear not a word except of detraction or abuse about the great masses of manual and brain workers by whose labour alone the social machinery is kept going, and I laugh aloud when I hear the results of economic conditions attributed to the ‘energy’ or the ‘wisdom' of great men. Now, sir," continued the Martian, looking at me dubiously. "I assume you know something concerning the origin, development, and effects of this hero-worship cult—pray enlighten me.”

Gracefully placing a lozenge in my mouth and coughing importantly, I spoke as follows :—

“Mankind, Marty, until quite recently, was in the main unaware of the quantitative or qualitative laws of physical causation, and natural phenomena were invariably attributed to supernatural agencies: and, sad to relate, even in the year A.D. 1927, very few mortals can interpret sociological phenomena scientifically. Thus it is not strange that the course of civilisation is considered as little else than a mere story of remarkable individuals and their actions. Last century, a rhetorical wind-bag by the name of Thomas Carlyle, expressed this opinion in the following words:—

  “ ‘As I take it, universal history, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the history of the^great men who have lived here.'

“Marty, old boy, pass me Spencer’s 'Study of Sociology’.”

The Martian did so, and I read aloud the following:—

"Round the camp-fires assembled savages tell the events of the day’s chase; and he among them who has done some feat of skill or agility is duly lauded. On a return from the war-path the sagacity of the chief and the strength or courage of this or that warrior, are the all-absorbing themes. When the day or the immediate past affords no remarkable deed, the topic is the achievement of some noted leader recently dead . . .”

"That is a rather vague idea of the origin of ‘hero-worship,' ” remarked the Martian ; "would you favour me with a more detailed account?”

  

“In primitive human societies of the ‘totemistic ’ or ‘savage' type,” I began, “private property, except for small personal belongings, was, in the main, unknown, and land, boats, fishing-nets,, tents, etc., were generally the property of the tribe in common. Such societies provided little scope for 'heroes’; nevertheless, the germ of ‘hero-worship' was in being, as is shown by the fact that among the aborigines of Australia at certain times, ceremonial dances and songs are indulged in (under the direction of the 'Biraark' or witch-doctor), in which great events in the 'Alcheringa’ or distant past are commemorated, and ancient heroes are extolled. Moreover, the witchdoctor in these savage organisations often encourages hero-worship and plays upon the supernatural dreads of the tribesmen.”

At this juncture, I noticed that Marty seemed to be dozing.

“Are you asleep?” I exclaimed peevishly. “Not at all,” rejoined the Martian, blandly. “I can always think better with my eyes closed.”

I continued:—

"The second stage of social development is called the Patriarchal society, and in this social organisation ‘hero-worship' was much practised and encouraged. In the Patriarchal stage, paternity is the leading fact, and men are counted relatives because they are descended from the same male ancestor. This fact led to the adoration of, and the glamour of, romance, which gradually enveloped the ancestors of the different tribes; in fact, Marty, even now, in the East, ancestor-worship is the basis of religion. In the Patriarchal stage, hero-worship is essentially the common root of music, of drama, of poetry, and other miscellaneous types of literature. This is evident whether you scan the Bible, the Iliad, or the old Keltic legends. The Old Testament, Marty, is a wonderful galaxy of personalities—many of whom, incidentally, are not the patterns of virtue so regularly assumed. We are told how Abraham (after the necessary precaution of girding up his loins) journeyed to such and such a place according to the Master’s orders, and how Daniel (without the aid of a saucer of milk) showed his prowess as a lion-tamer. Jewish institutions and customs on the whole merely creep in to add colour to the biographies of the 'great men.' The old heroes were certainly revered and scoffers at the 'great men' were summarily dealt with. In Homer’s ‘Iliad,’ one Thersites, addicted to the dangerous habit of thinking for himself, foolishly questions the orders and opinions of the chiefs — his answer comes in the form of a lusty swipe from the sceptre of Ulysses.”

“But,” asked the Martian, "were there no writers or thinkers who saw that the 'worship’ of the heroes was due to the accumulation of false and supernatural tales?”

I pondered for a moment, and then answered—

"Yes, much later in the early 2nd century A.D., Lucian held up to ridicule the gods and the old heroes in witty little burlesques, in which Jupiter, Hercules and the like, become little more than buffoons. But the voice of Lucian was 'drowned in the hubbub of the book market,’ where the hero, boosting works of Pausanias, Ovid, Pindar and Euhemerus held undisputed sway encouraged by the ruling class and their literary sycophants.”

"By the way, my friend,” said the Martian, "here’s a little thought about these 'great men’ of your world. The origin of a 'great man’ is, I suppose, natural, and thus I submit he should be placed with the other phenomena which brought him forth, as the product of environment and heredity, that is the product of conditions. The offspring of two Chinese is never a Red Indian, and the son of a black reared in darkest Africa is hardly likely; to become a great philosopher or dramatist. I mean, my friend, that the 'great man’ only arrives under conditions favourable to his appearance. But please continue about the development of hero-worship after the Patriarchal stage.”

I did so.

"Sad to say, Marty, the origin of the State or Political Society coincides with the development of the art of warfare. Centuries before the decline of the Roman Empire, the drying-up of the lakes and rivers in Central Asia compelled the inhabitants of N.W. Mongolia and E. Turkestan to press westward into the broad valleys and push forward the original inhabitants of the plains; thus stems upon stems were thrown into Europe. Later, the increase of population and the desire to plunder the riches of the husbandman and the craftsman led these numerous Germanic tribes to wage war upon the more civilised societies. Thus a society dependent on great war-lords arose, and the fighting units of the society became bound by bonds of loyalty and obedience to their chief. This form of society gave a great impetus to 'Hero-worship,’ because the examples of former warriors were cited in order to stir the spirits of the youths, the adventurous life itself gave abundant opportunities for mighty deeds of valour, and, moreover, after a time, the causes of the wars seemed in the eyes of the wagers to be romantic and noble rather than economic. Then, when the host-leaders obtained permanent control of a definite territory, states evolved, while the life of the community remained essentially one of military allegiance. This is the age of Chivalric Romance. The alleged deeds of the great warlords in the earlier period were made into songs which were sung at the courts of great nobles by wandering minstrels.”

Then, taking "Romance and Legend of Chivalry,” by Hope Moncrieff, from my book-case, I read aloud the following:—

  

"Chivalry which found an organisation in the feudal system and a consecration in the wars of the Crusade, had its origin in the robust Teuton stock that mainly overspread the downfall of the Roman Empire. Tales of chivalry abounded everywhere,” I continued, "and in particular the legends connected with Arthur and Charlemagne increased and spread all over Europe. It was Cervantes in 'Don Quixote’ who gave the death-blow to the last lingering regard for romances of heroes which had become truly pitiful in their total disregard for worldly possibilities.”

"Surely they were never so ridiculously idealistic and false to worldly life as are the ‘best-sellers ’ of to-day?” interposed the Martian.

"More so, Marty, my lad. Our Ethel M. Dell’s could learn much from these later romances! However, the 'hero cult’ thus fostered by literature and encouraged at the courts became enveloped in innumerable conventions, and not a few hypocrisies, and thus the Middle Ages became the epoch of chivalry. The 'ennobling’ hero-worship and theoretical condescending regard for women ('high-born’) which were the two leading features of chivalry, did not prevent the scions of 'noble’ families from dealing with insubordinate peasants in the way Ullyses dealt with Thersites, and in France particularly, the 'chivalrous'  nobles maintained this attitude towards their providers till the Revolution of 1789. In the 'epoch of Chivalry,' also, Marty, occurred what is popularly assumed to be an essentially romantic and 'heroic’ war—the Hundred Years’ War. But this war was fought primarily not because of the heroic qualities of Edward III, the Black Prince, Henry V or Joan of Arc, but owed its origin to economic reasons. In short, the Hundred Years’ War was the struggle of England to prevent Flanders from falling under French domination, and thus ruining England’s wool trade with the Flemish manufacturing towns; as Thorold Rogers says, "From the 13th to the 16th century, wool was King." (From 'Economic Interpretation of History.)

"Now in modern times, Marty, a very curious conception of a 'hero’ has arisen. In the chivalric period, the 'hero’ was necessarily a man of 'renowned’ and 'noble’ stock, with 100 per cent. blue blood in his veins, and a son of the soil, who took it into his head to perform deeds of valour, would never be regarded as more than a 'good common soldier.’ Traces of the adoration of the 'high-born hero’ can still be seen in the enthusiasm awakened in childish minds by the movements of ’aristocratic’ nonentities, whilst in rubbishy literature, the story of the brave penniless youth who turns out to be the heir of a piffling kingdom, of which the geographical locality is not specified, still has a considerable though declining popularity; But, Marty, the rise of the bourgeois state gave birth to a 'hero’ of a different type. He is the man who is 'master of his fate'; he is the man who sweeps aside all obstacles that stand in his way to success; he scoffs at prejudices and customs; often he performs his 'wonders’ by proxy, but in that case his is the 'organising brain’; always he emerges victorious from the fight with circumstances: in short, Marty, the 'hero’ of our time is the 'self-made man.’ By far the greatest of this modern type of 'hero’ is Napoleon Bonaparte. H. G. Wells, with his typical bourgeios self-satisfaction, pours wholesale contempt upon the mental and social qualities of Bonaparte. He points out that his notebooks, crammed full with miscellaneous and unconnected observations, show little of a great brain; he states that Napoleon is not known to have had a single genuine friend, and he asserts (with considerable justification) that historical evidence points to the fact that all his actions primarily sprung from egotistical impulses. The very success of Napoleon’s career, however, gives the answer to Wells' unwritten insinuation that Bonaparte compared with the talented writer of 'The Outline of History' would cut a very insignificant intellectual figure. Also we must distrust Wells’ valuations of the abilities of others, when we consider his condescending attitude towards Lenin in an interview generously granted by the Russian in the busy time of the winter of 1920-21. (See Trotsky's "Lenin," chapter 8.) 

W. J.

To be continued.

Link to Part 2.

The Art of Getting On. (1919)

From the July 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are two comments on the present economic system, by H. de Vere Stacpoole in his book "The Children of the Sea" which deserve consideration and criticism from a Socialist's point of view. Let us see what he says.

On page 106 we read that he "has noticed that the men who get on in life are not the men who work, but the men who make others work for them."

Exactly ! Under the present system of production—which is simply production for profit —the one idea of the profit-mongers is to amass wealth by using the workers as their wealth producers, at the same time abstaining from labour themselves. The lot of the workers is to toil for the class that own the essential means of life. The working class, being landless and propertyless, are dispossessed of the basic means of wealth production, therefore they are completely at the mercy of the master class, and are compelled to accept the conditions imposed on them by their exploiters.

All the wealth in the world has been, and is, made by the workers, and all the marvellous wealth-producing machinery also. Yet the capitalist class appropriate all that is produced by their wage slaves, paying them back in wages only sufficient in the long run to maintain themselves and their families as efficient wealth-producers, and to reproduce their own class as potential wage slaves for the future benefit of the capitalist class.

This fact is abundantly proved by the fact that the workers as a class live and die in poverty.

"The men who work," as a general rule, do not "get on in life." They are so occupied with their enforced task of getting on with the work that produces their masters' profits that they do not live, in the real sense, at all: they only exist as profit-making machines. They sell their labour-power, their very vitality, daily; men and women and children, under the present system, have to sell themselves as commodities in the labour market in the same way as other commodities, like matches or margarine, are sold in the commercial market.

And the capitalists live only by their robbery of the working class. Vampire-like, they are sustained only by sapping the energy and life of their wage slaves.

In consequence dire misfortune is the toilers' lot, e.g., unemployment, care and anxiety, want, overwork, disease, and premature death—all arising from the wages system.

The functions of the master class—"the men who get on in life"—are to rob the workers of the greater part of the wealth alone produced by the latter, to devise all kinds of cunning schemes to increase the exploitation of the workers, and at the same time to delude them as to their real interests, and make them docile, contented, and industrious.

The political machine being completely controlled by the capitalist class, all legislation is, naturally, for their interests alone, and directed toward their continued dominance. As a class they thus get stronger and stronger, possessing the twin powers of political supremacy and the fundamental means of life.

The rich thus grow richer and the poor ever poorer in relation.

Yes, the art of "getting on" is that of making others work for one, and to use wealth for the purpose of further robbing the only class producing it: the working class.

Now for a consideration of Mr. Stacpoole's other comment. On page 198 we read—

  "In this little, tiny industry you might have observed the fact, ignored by trade unions and labour leaders the world over, that success in business is not born of men, but of a man, that the outcome of the fight between business and business, like the fight between battleship and battleship, rests on the tactics developed by a single mind."

What is success in business but a victory in "the fight between business and business"—the driving of competitors from the market; buying labour-power as cheaply as possible with the one idea of extracting from its activities as much surplus-value, or profit, as one can ?

"Success in business" is often the result of utter unscrupulousness, cunning, and astute "twisting." Fraud, misrepresentation, and the quintessence of greed and exploitation are frequently the allies of "sound business methods." Underselling, "rigging" the markets, raising false mercantile reports, and "cornering"— these are some of the "tactics developed by a single mind" as phrased by Mr. Stacpoole.

But surely he does not consider that the successful business man is so perfectly self-sufficing and "brainy" that he is independent of the contributory help of others ?

Let us deal with actuality. As a class the capitalists do nothing at all toward actual production. The great capitalists generally employ men to be organisers and overseers, exploiting their initiativs, push, directive ability, and hustle in order to obtain the utmost amount of productivity from the labour-power embodied in the bodies and minds of the exploited wage slaves.

The capitalist and "big business man" is not the great god Mr. Stacpoole supposes him to be. If predatory instincts and a fully-developed avaricious and scheming nature are prime virtues, then the capitalists, as a class, are the embodiment of sterling worth.

The truth is that no man stands alone ; no man is absolutely independent of society, or not indebted to the accumulated advantages and knowledge long since derived— the result of the historical development of society. Heredity and environment, experience and the utilisation of ideas and suggestions from all kinds of sources, all these things go to secure a superior position in the fight for business supremacy. The gifts and their development are the outcome of social environment.

The invention of a labour-saving device often results in the actual inventor having to sell his invention because he cannot afford to patent it. Or it may be infringed upon, or perhaps his idea may be brazenly stolen. The workers (usually considered by their exploiters as mere mechanical "hands"), being practical men, do the inventing, and generally speaking, the capitalist class reap the fruits of the former's creative ability and industry.

Instances innumerable can be cited to prove the parasitic and thievish nature of our exploiters. These "merchant princes," these 'captains of industry," of what social use are they ? What is their function but to exploit ? Generally they have not brains enough to do that efficiently, but depend on their hirelings to superintend and organise, while they themselves are immune from the necessity of working even for a single day's bread. Their thieves' opulence enables them to waste untold wealth, in every way.

Shameless vampires ! they have yet the effrontery to claim that "success in business" is the outcome of their own "directive ability."

If Mr. Stacpoole harbours any hazy economic opinions and pro-capitalist ideas, let him rid himself of them by studying the facts of capitalist production and its results, and understanding the fundamental truths of Marxian economics. Part truth and part falsity, like oil and water, will not mix. When half-truths go the truth arrives.

In conclusion, let me ask Mr. Stacpoole one question. He is a successful author. Let him think deeply. Does he understand the debt he owes to the writers of the past and present, and what he owes to favourable circumstances that have made him what he is, and also the advantages that are his through his position in contemporary society ?

Let Mr. Stacpoole think over this, and he will begin to understand that, in a very real sense, the term "a self-made man" is a misnomer. As regards Commerce and Industry, he will also understand that, under a ruthless, sordid system like the present, one man's gain is often achieved at the price of many men's loss ! and that the "tactics developed by a single mind" are often sought, bought, and paid for by the very worst enemies of society as we know it to day—the unscrupulous, plundering capitalist class—who do not hesitate to plunge the world into a colossal war when their interests demand it.

To them, in "peace" or in war, no sacrifice (of the workers' lives) is too great when capitalist interests are at stake.

Graham May

Political Notebook: Jack Cohen is dead — Long live Jack Cohen (1979)

The Political Notebook Column from the May 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

The apologists for capitalism are not known for their high principles. Profits come first under their system. This month’s Notebook takes a look at what a few of the twisting hypocrites have been up to lately and comes to the not surprising conclusion that the sooner the working class stops supporting the lot of them the better it will be for us all.

Jack Cohen is dead — Long live Jack Cohen

Sir John Cohen—described in one obituary as ‘the golden barrowboy who became the supermarket king'—died last month at the age of 80. According to the press reports, Cohen's was a 'rags to riches’ story of a man who pushed his way up the capitalist ladder until, at the time of his death, his Tesco stores' annual turnover is breaking the £1,000,000,000 barrier. The reason for this success was, according to The Jewish Chronicle, that

 Sir John was a redoubtable entrepreneur renowned for his aggressive salesmanship . . .

In fact, Sir John, just like any capitalist businessman made his profits by exploiting the working class. His own level of education or intelligence was, fortunately for him. another matter. But there is one thing that might puzzle the readers of Cohen’s sycophantic obituaries. If you go into any Tesco store you will observe that, despite the death of the owner, things are carrying on just as usual. It’s almost as if the dull, witless workers are able to organise things without the capitalists to tell them how to do it.

People's Democratic Prisons

It is a well known fact that China is a People's Democracy. And just like the other People’s Democracies, if workers have the audacity to complain that rich leaders are living it up at the expense of the poor toilers, they're locked away in a democratic people’s prison to punish them for their cheek. Increasingly in recent times, wall posters in Peking have criticised the undemocratic character of the Chinese State. The first reaction of the Communist Party was to lock up these bolshie proletarians for having the nerve to try and dictate to them, but more recently, according to The Guardian (14 March)

  China’s wall-poster protestors have won a major victory with the release from prison of a group of students who were the first to call for the establishment of ‘socialist democracy’ and a proper legal system. The leader of the group, Li Zhengtia, spent nearly four years doing forced labour in the mines or in prison or in the southern province of Guangdong. Posters on 'Democracy Wall’ in Peking have claimed that as many as seven hundred people were punished for their connection with the group.

Chinese workers are correct to doubt the value of their ‘People’s Democracy’. But under Chinese capitalism the liberty of the commodity comes before that of the people.

Exploitation without discrimination 

When apartheid is overturned it will not be because of the whining of trendy liberals like Peter Hain, but because the capitalist class who have interests in South Africa will see the profitability of the equal exploitation of all colours. An item in Boxing News (9 February) shows that South African fight promoters have discovered that mixed fights pull in larger audiences and so make them more money. So, these principled gentlemen who sincerely believe in the good sense of racial separation drop their high principles before the temple of Profitability. The situation now is that

   Blacks can manage and train whites. Whites are permitted to manage and train blacks. Blacks can promote major tournaments and whites have gone out of their way to assist blacks with better training facilities and financial support. Several major South African companies have come to the aid of boxing and Alan Proctor, a director of Sanyo, is looked upon by many as a godfather. Sanyo have poured thousands upon thousand of Rand into boxing and have just completed a Sanyo Boxing Academy in Soweto.

Other companies to invest in South African boxing since mixed fights started have been Old Buck Gin, Nashua. King Korn and Datsun. The spread of anti-racist liberalism? No bloody fear! All that’s happened is that the capitalists have seen the value of exploiting without discriminating against colour. Which must make liberals like Peter Hain terribly, terribly happy.

The Moronic Martyr

Robert Relf is a racist clown who has been on a hunger strike in gaol after being convicted under the Race Relations Act for posting up stickers saying that black people spread diseases and should live in the trees. Relf’s opinions can only be treated seriously in a psychiatric sense, but it is worthy of note that when he appeared at the Court of Appeal on 12 March to threaten the Court with his imminent martyrdom Lord Justice Lawton declared that

  if Relf wants to commit suicide that’s up to him. We are not going to be blackmailed . . . the sooner that is appreciated by him and others like him the better it will be for law and order in this country.

Readers may like to consider the fact that this great believer in law and order was himself a member of, and candidate for, Mosley’s British Union of Fascists in the 1930s. The main difference between Relf and Lawton is that the former is a moronic lout who is willing to act as a stooge for the sinister ambitions of his National Front leaders, while the latter is a professional hypocrite who is willing to act as a stooge to a rather wider section of the ruling class.

Steve Coleman

The "Wisdom" of a "Captain of Industry." (1921)

From the September 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

Happening to glance through an old copy (1.6.21) of the "Daily News," the writer came across an article by H. Gordon Selfridge entitled "The Fixed Price Fiction." As one or two of the points raised in the article are an interesting example of the lack of knowledge, or the deliberate perversion of the truth, of a leading capitalist, a column will be usefully occupied with a few comments on them.

Mr. Selfridge sets out with the following statement:

  "The present condition of things exists because the buying abilities of the peoples of the world has been diminished. . . It is a phase, and a phase which can be overcome by time and hard work."

How fond is the capitalist of preaching "hard work" ! Mr. Selfridge's alleged solution to the problem will not be very satisfying to those hundreds of thousands who are tramping, far and wide over this country, looking for the hard work that eludes them like a will-o'-the-wisp. A week or two ago hundreds of unemployed waited all night outside a London timber yard to answer an advertisement for a few porters; some of them had walked many miles (one was reported to have walked from Portsmouth, and others from a still greater distance !), on the chance of getting work. Only the other day about four thousand workless lined up, and waited for hours, in Holborn, on the same errand. All over the country "short time" and the discharging of workmen is the order of the day. The fact is there are many slowly dying at the present moment on account of the lack of the hard work that Mr. Selfridge advocates. 

The tragic side of the situation is that, from one point of view, hard work has had much to do with the bringing about of the present state of affairs. Hard work on the part of the working class in the past has been the means of devising and building the stupendous machinery and methods of production which render so many workless today. Wealth is turned out so rapidly, and so prolifically, that all effective demands are met almost immediately they are known, and factories and shops are overflowing with the goods for which there is no customer with the wherewithal to buy. At the same time would-be workers are walking about starving, ill-clad, and badly sheltered for want of the very goods for which the owners can find no buyer; and (the irony of it !) these unemployed workers have been thrown out of employment because too much wealth has been produced! Instead of hard work solving the problem it has brought about the problem itself.

A little farther on in his article Mr. Selfridge makes a statement that is often heard by the Socialist; a statement that is becoming hoary with age. It is usually put forward as a clinching argument to prove that the existing method of producing wealth has always been in operation, and must go on to the end of time. The statement referred to is as follows :—

  "Production for one's own individual use is both made possible and limited by one's own individual requirements. But production for the use of other people can be based on nothing else than the profits of the one who goes out of his way to so produce. We should very soon find that no profit meant no production, for there must be an incentive to work of that kind."

With minor exceptions the whole of the work involved in the production and distribution of wealth under capitalism is performed by the working class. The working class performs this work in return for wages that, on the average, barely allow the members of that class to live, and to reproduce their kind. Consequently "the one who goes out of his way to so produce" does not do so for a profit; he works in order to live. The profit incentive only concerns the capitalist; the individual who does not take part in wealth production.

A sufficient refutation of Mr. Selfridge's contention is contained in the record of the numberless inventors, artists, and scientists of all types, who underwent years of drudgery in following the path that attracted them, with no other hope or reward than life-long poverty and a pauper's grave. Here and there we have the illustration of more fortunate individuals, placed outside the necessity of working for a livelihood (for example, Darwin, and Robert Owen for the greater part of his life), who have occupied almost the whole of their lives with arduous labour that not only brought no return in the shape of profit, but actually used up a considerable portion of the wealth they already possessed.

Finally, let it be borne in mind that, in the past, wealth was produced and distributed for thousands of years under different forms of communism before the conditions that developed the idea of profit existed.

Gilmac.

Jottings. (1921)

The Jottings Column from the July 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

Reading the Press from day to day we are kept fally informed of the plots that are hourly discovered and which are intended—so we are usually told—to undermine the edifice of the British Constitution and to bring to ruin and decay the civilisation upon which rests our "glorious Empire." Full details have been collected of Sinn Fein plots in England, Irish plots in Russia, German plots in Palestine, Jewish plots in Germany, Communist plots in Timbuctoo, and so on without end.

Lord Birkenhead (famous for his connection with the Ulster plot) was telling the Cotton Conference at Manchester the other day what he knew about the plot of the Bolsheviks to extend the coal strike in England to a general stoppage. After referring to the source of information as "detected intercepted documents," he went on to pay a tribute to the "traditional commonsense of the British people," and to say that owing to the "sanity and sobriety of the British working man" the sinister plot had been shattered, and, he hoped, shattered beyond recall. "However misguided the miners may have been, their loyalty to their leaders and endurance typified the spirit of loyalty and determination which enabled Great Britain to make such a special contribution to the winning of the war." ("Manchester Guardian," June 23, 1921.)

The reader will at once conclude that this sounds fishy, and that there must be something behind it all. Of course there is. Turning to another part of the same paper we find in the political correspondent's report that a conspiracy had been revealed which was led by Lord Birkenhead and included Churchill, Lord Beaverbrook, and others, the purpose of which was the overthrow of the Prime Minister in order to alter the basis of the Coalition. In this case also the plot was shattered—not because of the "traditional common sense of the British people," but because Churchill did not see his way clear to success.

The connection between the two instances is obvious. Everything depends upon being able to secure the support of the working-class population of the country by means of their votes, hence the talk at Manchester and the Press reports.

Which is bluff, purely and simply. For their own purposes they have other methods, also, which are not supposed to be the concern of those outside. The British workers may possess those qualities attributed to them by Lord Birkenhead, but they will certainly have to be applied in a different direction if they are ever going to come into their own.

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The dishing of the Communists by the Labour Party over the question of affiliation to that body will certainly rile them. In seeking affiliation they not only prove that, stripped of all their pseudo-revolutionary trappings, they are nothing but a party of opportunist reformers, but also that they haven't a platform strong enough to stand on. Their understanding of Socialism is certainly in need of a tonic when they claim that by joining forces with the anti-Socialist left wing of Liberalism they can better serve the interests of the workers. That exhortation to the trade unionists to "watch your leaders" is really funny.

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Lever Brothers, Ltd. report a profit of £3,270,091 in 1920, after providing for depreciation, insurance, etc. This compares with £2,439,067 in 1919. The fixed dividends on the preference and the prefered ordinary shares are to be paid, and the ordinary, held by the Lever family, will have 20 per cent. paid on them, absorbing £456,000. This is 2¼ more than in 1919. Not very bad considering these rotten times.

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Some little time ago the Editor of "John o' London" invited well-known people to state in his journal what particular book they would place in the hands of a young man of 21 in the belief that it would tend to form both his mind and character to his life-long advantage. Lord Leverhulme was one of those who was invited to have a shot. He replied—you've guessed it—Smiles's "Self Help"!

Tom Sala