The First Age of Speed (1960)

From the February 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Short as was the hey-day of canal transport the supremacy of the “flying coaches” was even shorter, From about 1810 to the late 1830’s. The Golden Age of coaching lasted a mere generation but it has held the popular imagination for over a century.

Unlike their floating counterparts—the canal packet-boats that have been forgotten—the stage coaches are a familiar feature to people who were born long after their disappearance. They have a romantic appeal that was fostered by Victorian writers who looked back to them with nostalgia once the noisy, smoky locomotive had taken their place.

But there was nothing romantic about coach travel. It developed in an age of ruthless competition, in fact the first age of speed, when speed became important for its own sake. Men and horses were driven ruthlessly to keep to strict schedules and constant efforts were made to clip minutes off travelling times. The Comet on the London to Exeter run aimed to change horses at Hounslow near London in 30 seconds.

It was understandable, that after centuries of painfully slow travel, a smooth and swift transport system should appeal to people, but fantastic risks were taken that often resulted in accidents. Wealthy idiots would drive private carriages at break-neck speeds and would even bribe coach drivers to let them take the reins of the public coaches. But in spite of this it was still an efficient transport system that would have seemed impossible only a few years before. This system was made possible by the far reaching improvements in road construction and bridge building that had taken place at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries.

Medieval Roads
The hopeless state of the roads during the first half of the 18th century that had led to canal construction, led also to constant agitation for road improvement. One 18th century cartoon portrays a sailor with a wooden leg refusing an offer of a lift in a coach saying “No thanks I’m in a hurry.” But the problem was a complex one. Since the departure of the Romans 1300 years before no properly constructed roads had been built on any large scale. The Romans had built with great thoroughness, their roads often being five feet in depth and carried across swampy land on piles driven down to firm soil. After over a thousand years of neglect they were still the best roads in England in spite of having been robbed for stone.

The roads of Medieval Britain were, in short, little better than the farm tracks of today. Medieval man regarded a road as a right of way rather than a permanent highway. A person or vehicle had a right of passage “without let or hindrance” but no more. If the road was impassable a traveller had the right to pass along the edge of the road even through standing crops. Pack-horse trains on finding a track in a bad condition would tread out a new one alongside. In this way a number of parallel tracks would be formed, sometimes covering a hundred yards or more. This situation survives today in the public “rights of way” through the countryside where there is the right of passage from point to point but no obligation to provide, a surface to the path. Medieval man could manage with such an arrangement but a growing industrial country could not.

Turnpike Roads
By the 18th century, responsibility for the upkeep of the roads had been thrust on to the unwilling parishes. The parishes were responsible for all roads that passed through them and the work had to be done without payment. A surveyor had to be appointed for a year, to organise the work. This official was forced to accept the job and was unpaid. The inhabitants were forced to work without pay for a number of days a year and the parish had to supply all tools, materials and horses free of charge. Under these circumstances very little real work was done. At the same time the parishes were fiercely independent and resisted any attempt at a central control.

To meet this problem the Turnpike System came into being. Barriers were set up on the road and anyone passing through had to pay tolls which went to pay for the road’s upkeep. Turnpike trusts were set up to administer the system, the first Turnpike Act being passed in 1663. From the beginning there was bitter and violent opposition. The canals and the later railways were privately owned and after the necessary Act of Parliament had been obtained work could go on with little or no regard for anybody affected. But the roads were public and the idea of charging tolls for their use aroused tremendous resentment. Tollgates were destroyed, gate-keepers were attacked and sometimes murdered and their houses burned down. The Government retaliated by extending the death penalty for offences against the turnpikes. Although with the passage of time opposition died down, the system was never popular and riots would break out from time to time. This attitude was strengthened by the Turnpike trusts themselves. In the main they were corrupt and regarded the income from tolls as something to be milked, consequently road improvement was very slow. Not until late in the 18th century did the need for well-constructed and therefore expensive roads become generally accepted.

The canals had been constructed to carry heavy goods. It was to carry coal, not people that the first one had been constructed. After they were built their obvious advantages led to the development of passenger traffic. But the reasons for constructing good roads were many and various. Firstly military. The first good roads since the Roman occupation were built in the highlands of Scotland by the British army under General Wade when about 400 miles of roads were built. This was after the Jacobite rebellion of 1715 and the purpose was to subdue the highlands by making troop movements easy.

It was many years after this before good roads were constructed in other parts of the country. Other reasons were the growth of the postal system, the development of the Inland Spas and later the new seaside resorts where the wealthy landowner and the rising Capitalist class went to spend the wealth that they had wrung from the "dark Satanic mills.” There was also travel for commercial reasons, which grew as industry grew.

After the roads had been built their advantages for general transport became obvious. During the later part of the century first Metcalf, then Telford and McAdam, began a great construction programme that included not only roads but bridges, docks and harbours as well as improvements to canals. The political need for easy access to Ireland gave rise to one of the most important of schemes, the London to Holyhead road which included the famous suspension bridge over the dangerous Menai Straits.

The first mail coach ran from London to Bath in 1784 and the system rapidly spread. The mail coaches were the “aristocrats” of the road and travelled free of charge. Toll gates had to be opened immediately and there were heavy fines for delaying them. Their first duty was to deliver the mail but they also carried passengers. Their fierce rivals were the stage coaches, which were privately owned public transport coaches. First class passengers travelled inside, an second class on the roof, and to meet the competition of the Mail coaches constant efforts were made to improve speeds and general conditions. In addition, there were the faster and even more expensive Post coaches that carried inside passengers only. These were for people who objected to the rowdy second class passengers on the roof. The really wealthy travelled in private carriages. All of these coaches were expensive and the lumbering broad-wheeled stage-wagons carrying both passengers and freight catered for poorer people, but even these were beyond the reach of a vast number of people. Another feature of the roads were the flocks of animals and birds being driven into the towns for food.

Steam Carriages

In the early 19th century a new and revolutionary form of travel appeared—the steam carriage. These in the early stages were noisy and cumbersome and were regarded with suspicion but they were soon showing signs of being a serious rival to the horse-drawn coaches. Services both long-distance and within cities, began and unheard of speeds were reached. But the Turnpike trusts feared the damage that they would do to the roads and imposed crippling tolls on them—as much as £3 a time. This, together with legislation restricting them to a speed of 4 miles an hour, drove the steam carriages from the roads. By their action the Turnpike trust helped, to seal their own fate for the steam locomotive, transferred to rails, was to destroy them. During their lifetime the coaches built up a vast supporting industry. In addition to over 30,000 people employed by the coach companies themselves, there were the numerous inns to cater for the needs of the traveller, the tollgate keepers and a vast army of ostlers, and road-menders needed to keep the coaches on the road. There were also such supporting industries as coach-builders and harness makers, and all the lesser fry such as shoe blacks who managed to scrape a living serving the coaches. When the crash came it was complete for unlike the canals the coaches relied mainly on passenger transport and could not survive the competition from the very much faster trains. The distress and poverty that was caused to the unfortunate workers in the industry is vividly described by Dickens.

Some of the labour force was absorbed into the new railways but many sank into increased poverty as capitalism ruthlessly advanced, creating new industries as it destroyed the old.

By 1850 the roads were deserted and becoming grass grown and the once bustling inns which had milked passengers by outrageous charges struggled on as country pubs. Toll-gate keepers who had joined with the Turnpike Trusts in taking their cut from the tolls now sold sweets and repaired boots in their crumbling and neglected lodges. It was to be half a century before the roads once again became an important feature of transport.

Les Dale

See also:

January 1960 Socialist Standard, 'Canals and the Growth of Industry' .

From The Branches (1960)

Party News from the February 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

A glance at the meetings column at the front of the Socialist Standard will give a good idea of the propaganda activity of the Party. The Clerkenwell Road (Central Club) meetings are held on Sundays and have been arranged by the Propaganda Committee. As this is a new venue, the Committee especially welcome comrades to give the meetings their regular support. If successful, this hall could be a regular one for the Party to hold meetings, and these become a feature as did the old Trade Union Club meetings which ended with the closing down of the Club.

For members and friends who have easier access to South London, the Film lectures at Head Office, held every Sunday, are another aspect of the Party’s propaganda. It will be seen also that several London branches hold discussions and lectures after branch business.

Woolwich

Woolwich Branch report that they have concluded another year of useful activity. Apart from many discussions on aspects of capitalism and the Party case, branch members have been busy canvassing the Socialist Standard and other Party literature. Visitors are welcome to the Branch meetings, held the second and fourth Friday in each month. (See page 18.) Many good meetings have been held at the local outdoor station, Beresford Square, and with greater support from Branch and other comrades these meetings could play a very successful part in the propaganda work of the Party.

Down Under

A copy of an Air Line magazine has been sent to us and the centre page comprises a drawing depicting the typical Sunday afternoon scene in “The Domain" — Sydney. It states that the “listener may expect to hear almost any cause expounded with passionate conviction.” The reason this is mentioned here is that a large part of the drawing depicts a speaker on a platform, the latter bearing the word “Socialist.” Without doubt the speaker shown in the drawing is none other than Comrade Thorburn, for many years a speaker for the SPGB. He is now a member of the Socialist Party of Australia, carrying on the work for Socialism there that he did when in Britain.

Paddington

Paddington Branch have been running since the Autumn a very successful series of discussions at their regular meeting place, “The Olive Branch.” Russia, living standards, Catholicism, human needs. D. H. Lawrence, the problems of communicating ideas—these among many other topics have stimulated lively debate.The'r branch room is cosy, their members friendly, and the Bar (downstairs!) near enough to provide necessary refreshment. Paddington members’ only real vice is their unpunctuality (note, 8.30 is the starting time), they make up for this by lateness in finishing, and after being turned out by the irate landlord at past 11, they adjourn to a nearby coffee bar and discuss on to midnight. Paddington meets every Wednesday and non-members are especially welcome.

From The West

From Ireland and America too we have had reports of good work and propaganda. It is hoped to have fuller details of the activities in these countries in the March issue, but meanwhile it is heartening to know that the case for Socialism is being so well and widely propagated.

T. S. Hoffman

Comrade T. S. Hoffman died on 13th November, 1959, at the age of 78. joining Bloomsbury Branch in March. 1940, and since then he regularly attended his branch, often walking miles—no matter what the weather—to get there. He was modest in manner and dress and although never publicly prominent, he gladly helped the Party with financial contributions at great sacrifice to himself. A good comrade and a sound Socialist, who served the party well.

Phyllis Howard

Macmillan on Safari (1960)

From the February 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Strangely for him, Mr. Macmillan left for his African tour with hardly a bang or a whimper. No funny hat at the airport. No enduring fatuity for the newspapermen. He must have been in serious mood, meant business. He seems to begin every year with a bit of travel, but it would be ungracious to suspect him only of wanting to escape the English winter.

Certainly, Mr. Macmillan had a case for going to have a look at Africa, for the continent keeps breaking into the news. (The March Socialist Standard will be extensively devoted to it) For the public there may be the empty phrases, such as his statement to the Nigerian Parliament on January 13th that “Britain’s primary purpose is the preservation of peace and justice and rising prosperity throughout the world.” But beneath these words is the concern of the British capitalist class for the continent where they were once so powerful and which is now slipping from their control. Over the past few years the pace of African events has increased tremendously. This year, the French Cameroons, Senegal, Soudan, Mauretania and Nigeria, among others, will become independent of the powers which have ruled them for so long. Their own ruling class will control the country. The past colonial powers must establish new relations with them, seeking to maintain the advantages of the old empire. Africa, lying between Western Europe and the Far East, is strategically important. It has great mineral resources and is a valuable future market for Europe’s industries. Little wonder, then, that Whitehall is so anxious to come to terms with the new African nationalisms.

Africa Year

Are the Labour Party put out by all this? Would they prefer the Tories to show their traditional hard face on colonial affairs? They did their best to make Africa an issue in the last general election and have named 1960 as Africa Year. This means that they will launch a heavy propaganda drive, starting with a month-long boycott of South African imports during March. But isn't this rather odd? The Nationalist Party came to power in South Africa in 1948, when there was a Labour government over here. They had three years to impose economic sanctions against South African goods, yet took no such action. Again, why boycott only South African imports? What about those from Spain? And Portugal? And Russia? Indeed, far from wanting to exclude Russian imports, many prominent members of the Labour Party advocate an increase in trade between Russia and Great Britain. Curiouser still. Labour is trying to prove that its South African boycott will hurt hardly anybody. On January 13th The Guardian reported that Mr. Morgan Phillips stated at a press conference that “Even if the Labour Party’s boycott of South African goods in March is 100 per cent effective it is likely to affect little more than £2 million worth of trade.” Why organise the boycott at all, if it is so limited?

Labour will say that it is a matter of principle but the Tories may fairly object that the Labour Party are playing up Africa as an Opposition’s vote catcher. Certainly, the Labour government’s was not a good record on colonial affairs. They banished Seretse Khama from Bechuanaland. They put Nkrumah in jail, whence he was taken to become Ghana’s Prime Minister. Now that they are in opposition, this may be forgotten, if the exigencies of British capitalism force the Tories to suppress a colonial nationalist movement, that is fair game for a bit of vote catching. Yet at a guess, it is doubtful that Labour will win much support over Africa. The car and the telly will still determine how Jack votes.

Alternatives

However hard Jack may try to ignore it, Africa will continue to obtrude itself upon his attention. Since the opening of India and the Far East revived European interest, the continent has been dominated by the colonial powers. Inevitably, the colonies have grown their own capitalist class, who have wanted to run their affairs free from outside interference. Thus the colonising country has been faced with two policies. They could try to suppress the nationalist movement, as they have in Cyprus and Algeria. This entails the keeping of armies in the colonies and the expenditure of vast amounts of money—a problem familiar to the French government. The other course is to grant self government, as has happened in Ghana and Nigeria, whilst trying to maintain the old trading connections. This latter is not always possible. British traders have suffered many inconveniences in Ceylon since the island became independent and India and Pakistan have imposed severe restrictions on imports from this country.

Nevertheless, a colonial power will often prefer to agree to self government. But this preference can be overruled by strategic considerations, as in the case of Cyprus, or by economic needs as in Algeria, where the French are anxious to exploit the mineral wealth under the Sahara. Capitalism thrives on cheap and plentiful raw materials, on populous markets and commercial routes. Sometimes it needs wars and suppression to keep these things, and governments are there to see that this happens. Labour and Tory have been the same, their eye on the same ball. That is the message which will be between the lines of the report, nonchalant and civilised, which Mr. Macmillan will give us when he returns from his African journey.

Ivan.

The Passing Show: Fifth Column (1960)

The Passing Show column from the February 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a letter to The Times Maurice Macmillan, the Conservative M.P. and Chairman of the Wider Share Ownership Committee, wrote as follows (18/12/59):

Your leading article on wider shareholding on December 14th draws attention to the Acton Society Trust’s conclusion that this is a socially desirable goal, and that among employees there is very little opposition on political grounds to the idea of owning shares.

Mr. Macmillan’s Committee is, he says, examining “the problems involved,” including the “means of overcoming the feeling that share buying is for the rich.” Many workers will hope that the Committee will also study another of the “problems involved”: where the money is going to come from. Mr. Macmillan only describes as a “feeling” the belief that share buying is for the rich. His committee—which includes “joint stock and merchant bankers, stockbrokers, unit trust and investment directors, well known industrialists.” and so on, could soon overcome this feeling by distributing enough money to the workers for them to buy shares with. Judging from the description of the committee-members, they could well afford a few thousands for this praiseworthy cause. They would find workers ready enough to keep some of the surplus value for themselves, instead of seeing it taken away for distribution among the non-workers. But supposing, Mr. Macmillan, that the workers got too enthusiastic about keeping surplus value for themselves Supposing they decided that since they produce all this surplus value, they would keep it all for themselves, and not let any of it be stolen from them for the support of idlers. Supposing, in a word, that they introduced Socialism. What then? How soon your committee-members would disband, about face, and form a “Narrower Share Holding Committee”! Perhaps you had better think again before encouraging workers to keep some of the surplus value for themselves.

Fifth Column

But let us examine the deeper implications of Mr. Macmillian's proposals. Of course, the stockbrokers and unit trust directors on the committee would like more people to buy shares, since that would mean more business for them. And. of course, all the committee members would like some workers to own a handful of shares, since then they would be tempted to oppose strikes and other forms of workers’ self-defence, to safeguard the extra pound or two they would get as dividends. It would be planting a ruling class fifth column among the workers. One doesn’t have to say who would gain most from this, the worker with his ten shares or the employer with his thousand.

But, however much the committee would like this to happen, on any significant scale it just isn’t practicable. Capitalism can only exist on the backs of a propertyless working class. Wherever capitalism, either private or state, has appeared, one of the essential pre-requisites has been the divorce of the mass of people from any ownership of the means of production—the peasant has been robbed of his land, the handworker forced from his tools. If the individual was left as a small producer, he could not be compelled to take on the stultifying, monotonous, deadening jobs which he must do to keep capitalism going, and the ruling class rich.

The same applies now. If any significant numbers of workers were to own shares sufficient to support them without working, there wouldn’t be enough people left to do the work which must be done to keep capitalism alive. Mr. Macmillan needn’t worry about this happening, however. For all employers are continually trying to keep down their workers’ wages. As soon as numbers of workers began to own shares, this would weaken their will to resist the lowering of wages (either by direct cuts or by inflation); and as wages fell, so even those workers owning shares would have to sell them to make ends meet.

To sum up, one might say that Mr. Macmillan and his committee are pursuing by impracticable means an impossible end, and one which would horrify them if they ever did attain it.

Cobwebs

In the public wrangle among Labour Party leaders, which has followed their third successive defeat at the polls, Douglas Jay, Labour M.P. for Battersea North, came out with the following (Daily Herald, 27/11/59):—

The other frankly Marxist cobweb is the belief that Socialism consists in turning the whole of industry and trade into a State monopoly.

This belief is certainly a cobweb. We have had more than enough demonstrations of the fact that state ownership of industry is merely state capitalism: the workers in state industry are still just as much exploited as those in private industry, the only difference being that the interests of the capitalist class as a whole are allowed rather more influence in its running, as against the interests of the private shareholders in that particular industry. It is an alteration made by the capitalist class for their own benefit, and has no more to do with Socialism than the manoeuvrings on the Stock Exchange.

So far we agree with Douglas Jay. But what on earth made Mr. Jay describe this operation as “Marxist”? Marx and Engels believed in a new society, where each would contribute according to his ability, and would receive according to his needs: this involving, of course, the end of our present wage-slavery, which is an integral feature of state as of private capitalism. If Mr. Jay has come across any evidence to the contrary, he should really let the rest of us into the secret.

Alwyn Edgar

The Shadow of Anti-Semitism (1960)

Editorial from the February 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

This “Brave New Year” of 1960 has opened sinisterly. Outbreaks of slogan daubing and swastika painting have occurred in many parts of Germany and there have been similar incidents in a number of other countries, including Britain. People have been reminded, rudely and violently, of something they had almost forgotten—those terrible days of the thirties when the shadow of Nazism first fell upon the world. The photograph on our front page is a vivid reminder of those times and of the way in which the German working-class took its first steps along the road that was to end in conflagration and ruin.

For some strange reason these outbreaks appear to have come as a surprise to many people. They have been shocked to see again something they thought was finished for ever. It is hard to understand why, unless it was from a deeply hidden fear of having their thoughts again disturbed by the horrors of the past.

Did they really think that the people of Germany could change their thinking overnight? That after twelve years of being conditioned to hating Jews, to being the only true “Aryan Supermen,” to belonging to the “Master Race,” they could each and every one turn into an apostle of brotherly love and racial tolerance? Or did they really believe the notion trotted out to them in wartime that the ideology of Nazism would disappear with the defeat of Germany? If so, they must be incredibly naive.

And if they really thought this, how explain the similar outbreaks that have occurred in something like twenty other countries, at almost the same time? What about the incidents in this country itself? The real facts are that the virus of anti-Semitism is to be found wherever there are Jews. Given the right conditions, this virus will come into life, grow, and flourish—unless the working-class decide otherwise.

As to the incidents themselves, what importance are we to attach to them? Are they the work of some lunatic tinge, or of a few die-hard Nazis and fascists still lingering on from the past, or are they evidence of more serious forces at work in Germany and elsewhere? Can they perhaps be dismissed as a petty example of imitative hysteria brought on by the widespread coverage they have received from the newspapers, radio, and T.V.? Concentrated publicity, especially on a subject that lends itself to sensationalism, can often set up a chain-reaction, the effects of which can be particularly strong upon the young and the mentally ill. The Guardian of 14th January, for example, mentioned the case of the individual who went round Woolwich at night inviting people to “join the English Reich party.” Even more absurd was the further instance they quoted of the schoolboy in Western Germany who confessed he had painted his swastikas because “my village hasn’t been in the news at all.”

On the other hand, serious and apparently reliable sources have spoken of new Nazi organisations with memberships running into tens of thousands, and of periodicals and pamphlets with circulations of the same order.

Which of these is the truer reflection of the actual state of affairs? Should we, in short, be heartened or should we be alarmed?

We suggest that there is no reason for the moment to be one or the other. First, because we have not yet enough sound evidence to form a judgment. It is still difficult to establish, through the haze of newspaper and other publicity. just what the real facts are. Second, because not enough time has gone by as yet for the incidents to be seen in their proper perspective. The whole thing may die down as quickly as it arose. On the other hand, it may only be a prelude to more serious events.

For the moment, therefore, we prefer to reserve judgment on the incidents themselves and their significance. What we do want to state, or rather re-state, because it is not something that we suddenly think up for occasions such as these, is the fundamental Socialist position on anti-Semitism and on all other forms of “race" prejudice.

This position is that “race” prejudice today is bound up with the capitalist system. That like a virus it dies away or flourishes according to the state of health of that system. That if capitalism is passing through one of its more “prosperous” periods the virus will tend to lie dormant. But that if capitalism is in crisis, as it was in Germany in the early thirties with its terrible unemployment and all the misery and other evils that stemmed from it, then the virus is capable of coming into swift and virulent life.

The only means whereby the working-class can be sure of immunity from racial intolerance is through an understanding of the forces at work in capitalism. This means Socialist understanding. It means the realisation that the conflicts, the crises, the frustrations, the miseries, the threats of war, and all the other evils of capitalism, are fertile ground for the workers to find a convenient scapegoat in the Jews, West Indians, Irish, or any other minority that happens to be at hand. It means the realisation that such race prejudice can be part and parcel of nationalism, dictatorship, and the drift to war. It means, finally, the realisation that race prejudice is useful in taking their minds off the real cause of their troubles—the capitalist system itself.

It cannot be said too often. The working-class fall for the myth of “race” at their peril. 

What is Morality? (1960)

From the February 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Morality is not, as High Court Judges and Humanists would have us believe, a firm base of fixed, immutable rules of behaviour, by which all decent men should lead their lives. Rather it is a quicksand of changing shape, colour and size. Yesterday's moral precept becomes today's flouted rule, and yesterday's music-hall joke can become today's unwritten law. To look upon moral and ethical rules as constants is to ignore social change, which itself changes the content, and sometimes the form, of these rules.

The doctrine " Thou shalt not kill," for instance, is not an eternal ideal thought up by some good holy man. It is the application of a common sense rule of behaviour made necessary by man's very social existence. Even then it is a rule which is subject to numerous qualifications, and in time of war it is almost wholly ignored. Even so, it is an ethic which arises from man's collaboration for social production, and in the absence of this and similar rules, social organisation would be impossible.

To understand why morality and ethics change, we must look at the social organisation which forms their background. For instance, in primitive societies where simple agriculture forms the basis of production and where there is no competition with other tribes for the means of subsistence, one is likely to find that murder and the slaughter of war are almost unknown. On the other hand, in hunting communities where there was population pressure on the hunting grounds available, it was usual to find warlike tendencies in evidence, and also to find that the ability to kill members of rival tribes was a highly respected attribute.

Morality then, is no more than a set of rules, established during the course of time and designed to protect and preserve the productive relationships in operation at any one period. Under capitalism, with its class ownership of the productive forces, one finds a corresponding class morality, with its sacred Ark, private property.

Christians will object that the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount provide ethics that are timeless, and which existed long before capitalism. The fact is, however, that these Christian principles do not represent the current moral standards, and as Bernard Shaw pointed out, the literal following of such principles would lead to the collapse of capitalism. What use does a competitive society have for the injunction "Love thy neighbour"? The practical ethics of capitalism are" get on," "keep up with the Joneses" or "may the best man win." Where would capitalism be if people followed Jesus's injunction to share their worldly goods? In actual fact, of course, such ethics have no practical application in modem society at all, and have no chance of becoming generally held in a property society.

Modern society, with its morality, prevents human nature from fulfillment, in the sense that it chains the mind and body with economic and mental fetters. The practical ethics of the modem world are the real fetters, and not the professed morality of the Christian or the traditional " good man."

Take a look at the way in which these practical ethics depart from the so-called fixed moral codes. The prohibition against taking life, as already mentioned, is important in the prevention of civil disobedience and the maintenance of capitalist law and order, but does not extend far enough to prevent the execution of certain classes of murderers, or the slaughter of the troops and civilians of an enemy state. "Thou shalt not steal " is perhaps the most important of the ideal ethics and the one with which the powers of the law are most concerned. The meaning of this one is distorted so as to prevent people taking property from the ruling class (who have the only property worth stealing), but on the other hand, allows the exploitation in the factory and office by which the ruling class acquires its property. It also sanctioned the annexation of land and property from the Colonial native populations. by which the great Christian British Empire was created.

If, then, the form and content of morality is twisted and distorted to fit the social pattern of a particular society, why should its form remain at all? To answer this, one has to look into the basis and origin of morality itself.

Co-operation 

Morality is as old as human social organisation. Its origin is in co-operation. The members of a tribe who depended upon each other for their survival, obeyed the social injunction to defend the tribe and to perform their social tasks. The imperative "protect your kin" arose out of the necessity of the situation, and certainly not from idealism or abstract thought. In a situation such as this. members of a tribe recognised their dependence on each other. Thus to perform one's social tasks promptly and efficiently had merit, and to fail to perform them was bad, because it threatened the tribe. In time, injunctions such as these formed the basis of an organised morality.

So society passed from primitive tribal culture with its primitive ethics, through the Judaic tribes and the elaborate rules and doctrines of the Talmud, down to Christianity with its slave ethics of humility and love of one's neighbour. Then, after 1500 years of Christianity, industrial society appeared, and made nonsense of Christian doctrine. Society became a jungle, where the fiercest survived and the weaker perished. Thus terms like " blessed are the meek" were mocked by the reality of the situation. Efforts of well-meaning people to stem the tide were akin to the traveller who tries to placate a tiger by reading biblical texts to it. However, the Churches themselves didn't try too hard to alter the pattern of capitalism, for they were practical people, and they knew that to compromise was the only way to survive.

The Catholic Church, for example, which was the original Christian church, has a mass of impressive dogma which urges the holy to be good, kind, peaceable and so on. Nevertheless, the Church itself was not so foolish as to take these injunctions too literally, and followed the same practical morality as the world outside. This is the explanation of the apparent contradictions between Christian teaching and the Inquisition, and between the ten commandments and the "holy" wars.

Basically, it is the division of mankind in to classes which today creates the split between the kind of morality which most people would consider desirable, and the day-to-day activities of a competitive world. After all, morality is only the form of expected behaviour within the framework of a particular social system. Therefore, morality has relevance only to the practical possibilities of a social situation, and not to ideals. Where the possibilities are, as today, limited by economic circumstances, it is inevitable that morality also becomes limited and one-sided.

In other words, because there is a ruling class, today's morality is of a kind dictated by, and in favour of, that ruling class. This does not mean that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. It merely means that today's morality favours the privileged, and is designed to preserve that privilege. Some examples of this one-sided morality have been given. Another example is that of the tax-dodgers, bilkers, people who avoid paying their fare and so on. This is something that government spokesmen say is undesirable, and yet is, to a considerable extent, regarded as fair game. The man who pays five pence for a sevenpenny fare feels be is gaining a victory at the expense of a vast impersonal organisation, but his gain is hardly worth the trouble involved. On the other hand, practically all business-men conduct a ceaseless war with the Inspector of Taxes, in order to avoid payment of tax, and a vast complicated machinery of Inspectors, Collectors, Commissioners, Accountants, clerks and so on, exists because of this. As everyone else does this, the business-man does not feel that he is doing anything immoral, although it is impossible to reconcile his behaviour with those moral principles that be probably believes in.

Thus, although mankind is neither "naturally" good or evil, the prevailing social circumstances determine to a large extent the way in which they will conduct their lives. It is because man is organised in a social way and because his survival depends on co-operation with others, that most people recognise perfectly well what is the right course in a particular situation and what is the wrong course. The trouble is that the practical circumstances of modem society make it almost impossible for people to behave in away that is to the common good.

In other words, a truly human morality cannot exist in a world where people's bodies and minds are imprisoned by the amoral "morality" of a sick society. Neither can the social circumstances be made more favourable by trying to convert people to a selfless and more human morality, for this is like trying to uproot a tree while resting in the top branches. 

First, man must free himself from economic domination. Then, and only then, will he be able to take the tremendous strides in morality necessary for him to achieve full stature as truly human man.

Albert Ivimey

Coroner's Court (1960)

From the February 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Court Room was small and unimpressive, rather like the old type of school class room, with varnished pine wood and green paint. One hears continually about officialdom being impersonal and flinty in its dealings. That was not apparent here, however. The atmosphere was kindly and unruffled, but the business was conducted with an air of efficient deliberation.

This day was one of the many normal routine sessions. No ghastly murder to attract the press, nor mysterious death of a famous personality to pack the small room with prominent names. In that room the unknown personal tragedies of our society for a brief while became picked out of the mass and enlarged as on a screen. It soon became clear that this kind of thing went on session after session, year upon year. The accidents, the suicides, the medical evidence, the autopsy reports couched in precise medical terms. made the mind reel at the variety and immensity of the social problems they revealed.

On leaving the Court Room and coming into the bustle of everyday life, one's thoughts dwelt over and over again on what had been heard. There was the down-and-out misfit, practically unknown in life, who at death had acquired a dossier that would be the envy of a pop singer's publicity manager. The tramp was one of those unhappy few who have somehow locked themselves away from society, defying all the meagre efforts of the welfare workers to become "rehabilitated." Yes, meagre. After all, why should our Capitalist society spend large sums on reclaiming odd members of the working class? There are always plenty of active, healthy ones available for exploitation.

Then there was the teen-age boy and his pillion passenger girl friend out for a trial run on a new motor-bike. It took days to get the list of injuries and causes of death out of the mind. One of the lad's friends gave evidence (he was following behind on another bike). His statements were delivered in a seemingly disinterested fashion, as though everyone expected youth to sacrifice themselves for speed because life had nothing else to offer except to "knock up a ton (100 m.p.h.) on the by-pass."

Other cases followed. There was the small child who unthinkingly dashed into the road and was killed by a passing car. A common enough accident, so common in fact that we now almost accept it as a necessary evil. The elderly woman subject to falls, but who had nobody to watch over her in her lonely back room.

On reflection one realised that all of these personal problems were bound up with our social pattern of living. What is wrong with our society that has its children condemned to play alongside lethal metal juggernauts? That cannot look after its old ones, or find a place for its misfits? Just think about these problems that continually confront us, and observe that—no matter how varied—they are all linked to our basic social system. A society based on property, with profits, wars, poverty and privilege, will always throw up its human wrecks. The coroner's court is only one of the many places where they are inspected.

Jack Law