The National Health Service (1948)

From the December 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

On July 5th, 1948, an ever-benevolent Labour Government bestowed yet another of its infinite blessings on the working-class of this country— this time in the guise of the National Health Service.

Doubtless on that happy day many working class wives and mothers, whilst in the process of scraping together a few meagre rations to sustain their families through their day of wage-labour, thought with deep thankfulness that now they and their children, as well as their husbands, could have as many bottles of stomach mixture as they liked without having to pay for it!

Much controversy raged amongst the workers as to whether or not this new Act was a good thing, but as to how many penetrated to the root of the matter—that is a different story.

Did it really seem to you, Mrs. Wage-Slave, as you sat (if you were lucky) for approximately three hours in that most fertile of all bacteria-breeding laboratories —the doctor’s waiting-room, that the fact that now you could obtain your tins of health salts and your packets of cotton-wool without passing cash over the chemist’s counter was a blessing that would make life more full and abundant for you? Can this National Health Service supply you with the means of preventing your husband's stomach trouble—your own nervous condition and your children’s chest complaints? Is it going to give you an abundance of the right kinds of food— a home that isn’t damp—and a set of conditions that will make the weird disease that you euphemistically term “nerves,” things of the past? You know that this is not the case and no-one would pretend that it was, but of what real use is the attempted cure without the prevention?

One point that you might raise is that now the managing director of your firm is, even more than in the past, helping to pay for your own particular dope. You may also think that you are paying for his, should he care to take advantage of the fact. But he won’t, knowing that by a little extra payment far more interest will be taken in his aches and pains than in yours.

The consumption of allegedly therapeutic medicine in this country is still steadily increasing. Consider only the numbers of B.B.C. announcements relating to lost drugs, usually of the sedative type. These are an everyday occurrence now, and are treated with as much contempt as the weather forecast. The laws governing the supply of these drugs may be enforced more strictly, as indeed they have been recently, but nothing can alter the fact that increasing numbers of people are having to rely more and more on artificial aid to bring a few hours of rest and relief from the harassing life inflicted on them by the present system.

Neither has the sale of patent medicines diminished. With blind faith in advertisement the working class still buy their weekly supply of pills and liniment, and with scorn and disbelief born of superior knowledge through experience, vehemently support their own pet brand of bilgewater, even when told it is so much rubbish.

Many people might say that in faith lies the basis of healing. Possibly, but it will take more than faith to battle with the conditions that impel us to resort to these palliatives. Within the framework of our present society there can be no cure for the illness that besets us. A broken leg can be mended but the countless complaints that take what little enjoyment we might have from our lives are part and parcel of the present set-up and can only be abolished along with the entire system.

Only under Socialism can every individual achieve a healthily working mind and body. Under a system where production for profit is a thing of the past, when the innumerable good things are freely available to all, health bills and kindred reforms will be relegated to a museum of forgotten capitalist paraphernalia to be puzzled over by the generations that will be born under Socialism.

Think then upon the deeper implications of the National Health Service before you accept it as a necessary part of your lives. No reform can ever solve your problems. Do not blindly dismiss it as a good or a bad thing but none the less inevitable. Nothing is inevitable, unless you choose to make it so. Think of what life is, compared to what it could be—to what, indeed, it will be when you and millions like you have awakened to the understanding of what Socialism is and have united to work for its achievement. 

D. M.

Piece Work, Bonus and the Psychologist (1953)

From the May 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

The problem of how to get more out of the working class has been one which has perplexed capitalist society ever since its inception. The field over which discussion on this subject has ranged has been an unlimited one. Defenders of private property, the Church, the Press, the politician and the professor, indeed most of the stout hearted apologists for Capitalism in its various forms, have all had something to say on the matter. More recently this field has been invaded by the Trade Union leaders and at the moment of writing Mr. A. Horner (Communist) is joining together with Sir William Lawther, a labourite, and Sir Herbert Holdsworth of the National Coal Board, in an appeal to the miners to increase output.

One of the plots that is so often hatched to force us to work harder is piece work or a bonus scheme in some form or another.

The older established forms of piece work are well known. The idea of paying an employee a certain rate for a piece of work turned out has long been established in certain industries and workers have learnt from bitter experience how the system is operated by the employers. Often just when they seem to be gaining a little, the employer declares it to be “uneconomical” and alters the rate for the job. Of course, the results are often quite beneficial to the capitalist The Daily Herald of 9th November, 1950, reported that workers on piecework in the women’s shoe industry produced double the output of those on day wages, although the earnings of the piece workers were only just over £2 per week more.

Another variation of the same theme is to introduce an incentive bonus which is paid in addition to the weekly or hourly rates. During and since the war this has become a popular method of avoiding large wage increases, particularly in the building and civil engineering industries.

A report appeared in the Manchester Guardian of February 23rd, 1953, headed “ Failings of the Group Bonus Scheme” dealing with some research into this subject carried out by a Dr. Norah M. Davis of the Medical Research Councils' Group in Industrial Psychology.

The function of “psychologists” in general has always been something of a puzzle to the writer but an “industrial psychologist” is a bird somewhat easier to define. In general their object seems to be to try and iron out the mental difficulties of the workers in order to make them more contented in their work. Indeed, throughout her report Dr. Davis seems to refer to “the workers” in a similar manner to that of the biologist dealing with the life and habits of some lower specie of animals.

The report states “Over 60% felt a sense of injustice which expressed itself either in aggression or resigned helplessness. This was because the bonus they received each week varies in an unpredictable manner. Although pay was related to work done, the relationship was so complicated that no one understood it and working harder in fact seemed to make no difference to money at the end of the week.”

To the socialist this is by no means an amazing revelation and one wonders why capitalists have to call on their “industrial psychologists” to tell them this. It is a fact that most of us have this feeling at the end of a week’s work, with or without a group bonus scheme. The reason for it has nothing to do with “psychology” but arises directly from the fact that, under capitalism, the wealth we produce belongs to the ruling class. The attitudes of “resigned helplessness” or “aggression” are but the reflection of the very real grievances of the workers. Dr. Davis has a very difficult task ahead of her if she and her fellow “industrial psychologists” hope to create the illusion in the minds of the workers that their sole object should be to work harder and co-operate more together in the interests of the capitalists.

The report does well to mention the “social disunity” of the group bonus scheme, the conflict it created within the group and states that some workers thought it “evil” and that it produced “tragic results.” Those of us who have experienced this sort of scheme at work will know what it is to see one worker against another, the more “diligent” member of the group acting as a sort of unpaid foreman, chasing his fellow workers and blaming them for every fall in his earnings. This must make the employers very happy and no doubt they would be even happier if only the workers would take up the right “psychological attitude."

Dr. Davis notices some further tragic results of the system when she mentions the question of the nervous exhaustion and strain felt by the people working in the factories she visited. One departmental manager said, for example, that his men were “extraordinarily difficult to handle, touchy and liable to flare up over any trifle."

This is capitalism at its modem stage of development, the age of speed, the race for greater and greater production and the struggle for world markets. The roundabout goes faster and ever faster, the more speedy the worker and the more concentrated his work, the greater is production bringing with it ever mounting riches for a privileged minority. As for the workers, they are but the losers of the race, the tragic, fallen victims, nervous and neurotic, of an age of racing production and rocketing profits.

To these problems the “industrial psychologist” has no answer. True Dr. Davis tells us that doctors and personnel managers as well as the management and the “time-study” engineer should be called in to settle the “payment systems.” But we rest assured, that whoever is called in to settle how much wages the workers should receive they will get no more than is necessary to keep them alive and able to work.

The problems dealt with by Dr. Davis have very little to do with that which is called “psychology" but arise from the social conditions of the modern world. Harmonious relationships within industry cannot be created within the framework of capitalism. It may be possible to foster the illusion in the minds of the workers that greater productivity under this system is in their interests, but it will be an illusion that will be finally shattered by the ever-pressing problems of the capitalist world.

D. M.

Working-Class Wives (1944)

From the January 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

A recent Court of Appeal decided that housekeeping savings belong to the husband.. This decision aroused indignation amongst many women; but why? The judge was right. A worker's wife is little better than a chattel-slave, though it is perhaps true that love enters into marriage more to-day than it did in the past.. Yet the economic bondage of women remains fundamentally the same.

We live under a system of society known as Capitalism, which is made up of property relationships, one of which is marriage. In order to live, a working-class woman must either sell her labour-power to an employer, secure a husband or resort to prostitution. If she chooses marriage, as nearly all women do, she will receive in return for her services food, clothing and shelter according to her husband's means.

As the majority of men are propertyless, they are compelled to .sell their labour-power to the capitalist class, who in return provide them with the means to keep themselves in a state of efficiency and also to maintain a wife and family. Most work is regarded as unskilled, therefore the means which the majority of men receive are simply for the necessities of life.

So women who marry these men are forced to live in poverty, and the very idea of saving any of their housekeeping money is ludicrous. In view of this we can conclude that for these women to enjoy equality in this state of poverty is impossible, for they are dependent on the goodwill of their husbands. The end of the exploitation of women will only come when they unite with men to abolish capitalism, which enslaves them both, and substitute it by socialism,, under which no one will be economically dependent on another and all will enjoy complete freedom and equality.

D. M.

Workers' Control ? ? (1946)

From the May 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Trade Disputes Act is to go. Hurrah! The workers have wrenched from the Capitalists one of their vilest weapons. Just a minute, there's a catch in this. Here it is, in the words of Sir Hartley Shawcross. Opening the debate for the Government in the House of Commons on February 12th, he pointed out that:

“In any case the pre-1927 law gave ample powers for dealing with strikes."

Speaking of the proposal to allow Civil Servants to belong to Trade Unions to which outside workers belong and to be affiliated to the T.U.C., he said:—

“I take this opportunity of making it quite clear that this Government, as an employer, would feel itself completely free to take disciplinary action when any strike situation which might develop demanded it."

That’s not all—this “workers’ Government ” has a duty to perform—duty to whom? Could it be to the Employers?

“But that is not to say that it is not the duty of the Government to deal with any strike that may arise. That is a duty the present Government will loyally discharge." (Our italics.)

Now we know. Thanks for those kind words, Comrade Sir Hartley.

(All quotations from News Chronicle, 13/2/16.)

D. M.