The Nature of Work Under Socialism (1994)

From the May 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

To some Mrs Thatcher was the anti-Christ, and there is some justice in this reprobation. But above all she was the arch anti-philosopher, the ultimate philistine, the unthinker, the stagnant pool of accumulated prejudice, a museum of reactionary forces. Yet the chord was struck, and the nation chimed to the note, as indeed the world even now still resonates from the impact of the seismic disturbance that swept through its economy, forcing all before it, and of which Thatcherism was a parochial part, neither particularly significant nor powerful in itself. But of true significance was the historical trend towards the fundamentalism of market theology, and the concomitant trend away from the values of human interaction and rational assessment and evaluation.

Socialist Thought
The re-evaluation of the present system of relations between people we may call socialist thought. Socialism asserts that the world changes in the sense that the currently-prevailing concept of human nature is not after all the absolute truth, but merely an historically contingent consequence of the equally contingent political and economic systems for the production and distribution of "goods".

Perhaps the most crucial component in all the socialist credo of alternatives is the radically utopian concept of work. All work in socialism will be voluntary. Voluntarism is to be extended not only to the choice of occupation but the the duration, intensity and all aspects of the organization of work. It is a curious fact that the greatest advocates of "freedom of choice" consider it the greatest affront to suggest that the producers of goods should have any choice in the matter of their own occupation.

Despite the oft-deployed transparent sophistry' calculated to show that Venezuelan gold miners and production-line workers in Eccles have freely entered into an open partnership with their employer, it is plain enough that starvation in the one case and insidious coercion in the other (e.g. the cheerful "back to work programme", the scheme for officially persecuting the unemployed) have been the most persuasive clauses in the arguments of employers.

No defence
For the most part capitalists do not even attempt this defence: the worker must do what is necessary for the market and for profits, and the individual choice must subserve this higher need. In this world, the luxury of choosing a life of fulfilling vocational work is the reserve of the lucky few; it is not the normal condition.

How has it come about that the most essential part of existence, that of what a human person is to do with their life by means of work, has been refused admission to those things that are left to choice? In a nutshell the received wisdom states:

1. work must be done to furnish need.
2. work is hated by all, therefore,
3. work must be obtained by compulsion.

Concerning premise (2), the history of work has indeed been a succession of misery, drudgery and oppression.

Hell of toil

It may indeed be historically true that in certain stages of human development, it was absolutely necessary that the great majority of humans had to be cast into a hell of unremitting toil. But for socialists, work is not inherently unpleasant. On the contrary, the "hardship" of labour, or the production of goods, is no longer even to be sharply separated from their consumption, or the "reward" of labour, since both are necessary for the harmony of the human being. The mastication of food, the exertion of muscle and brain, are not only equally important for life, but equally desirable for any balanced person.

Work may have hitherto been extracted by a species of social contract whose terms are ones of coerced servility, where "the elevation of the few is founded on the degradation of the many" (T.H. Green 1881). But these terms are not characteristics of work itself, only of the contemporary capitalist arrangement and are insisted upon in order to ensure the pliancy of the workforce. Consequently, the socialist rejects the punitive attitude towards work, for in socialism work is to be made pleasant. And if work is pleasant, then the main objection to it being made voluntary is removed.

Curse of work?

Yet nearly everybody seems to agree that work is a curse rather than a gift, but they confuse the nature of work with the nature of capitalism. The capitalist conception of work is founded on a philosophy of human nature, according to which a human is a "rational" creature whose greed and idleness direct them respectively to consume as much, and do as little, as possible. The absurdity of this position is obvious (try to consume without doing, or try doing without consuming), but despite its falsity it is a powerful image, sustained from above by sinecured intellectuals, and from below by a credulous proletariat. The first are sustained in their belief by a mixture of fear and vested interest, the second by inarticulation and institutionalized stupidity. However in fairness, intellectuals have never been merely the paid propagandists of mill owners, rather along with the owners of the means of production they shared an interest in perpetuating the financial institutions that supported them, and a trepidation concerning the permanent threat of revolt. The comfortable bourgeoisie seems to have long felt disturbed by the possibility of herdish multitudes rising up and wresting their comforts from them, a fear no doubt exacerbated by the feeling that the "working classes" were essentially alien, devoid of refinement or the potential for moderation.

Grovelling animals
These Morlocks, the "other" species, were just a kind of animal "with sensual desire and grovelling thought; foul of body and course of soul" (Ruskin, Ad Valorem 79).

Among nineteenth-century thinkers who were human enough to be moved by the condition of the working people, yet not so moved to overcome their prejudices towards them, were Charles Dickens and John Stuart Mill. Dickens, the author of Hard Times, effectively quarrels with the characters Bounderby and Gradgrind for reducing workers to economic and material factors of production, but would he allow those workers the helm of society? The unrestrained multitudes that run amok in A Tale of Two Cities reveal the beast Dickens believed to lurk in the common man. Animals deserve an understanding protector rather than emancipation. J.S. Mill had a similar attitude. Mill’s own life of arduous creative work did not soften him to the view that a fulfilling active life was for the lower orders:

"It is a common error of socialists to overlook the natural indolence of mankind; their tendency to be passive, to be the slaves of habit, to persist indefinitely in a course once chosen . . . they . . . will not exert themselves to improve, and letting their faculties rust, will lose even the energy required to preserve them from deterioration." (Principles of Political Economy, 1848)

Mill was not stupid, but intelligence is a weaker force than prejudice.

Brilliant stupidity

The history of thought is littered with examples of brilliant men thinking stupid things. Another great philosopher who was twisted by bigotry was David Hume:

". . . the poor labour more, and really live better, than in years of great plenty, when they indulge themselves in idleness and riot". (Political Discourses, 1752)

A lesser figure, Arthur Young, preached the orthodoxy as follows:

"Everyone but an idiot knows, that the lower classes must be kept poor, or they will never be industrious." (A Farmer's Tour Through the East of England, 1771)

The most remarkable thing about these insights into the forces governing the behaviour of the toiling classes is how easily the authors exempt themselves from their operation.

Selfless devotion

"Human nature" is for others, not for the sons of the aristocracy who toil at art or criticism or at philosophical tracts on human nature, not for the aspiring middle-classes who devote themselves selflessly to public service or career. No, only the incontinent masses seem to be subject to the universal laws of the human species.

Yet the socialist, perhaps surprisingly also has allies amongst these comfortable intellectual classes. Strangest of them is John Ruskin (1819-1900), ("I am a Socialist of the most stem sort — but 1 am also a Tory of the sternest sort"). Ruskin, cloistered academic and critic, nevertheless had the intellect to challenge the received concept of human nature and labour.

That concept of the guzzler, the idler is the target of Ruskin's biting satire:

"It is proposed to better the condition of the labourer by giving him higher wages. He will either drag people down to the same point of misery at which you found him, or drink his wages away. He will, I know it. Who gave him this will? Suppose it were your own son of whom you spoke, declaring to me that you dared not take him into your firm, nor even give him his just labourer’s wages, because if you did he would die of drunkenness, and leave half a score of children to the parish. ’Who gave your son these dispositions — I should enquire. Has he had them by inheritance or by education?’ By one or the other they must come; anti as in him; so also in the poor. Either these poor are of a race essentially different from ours . . .  or else. . . we make them as continent and sober as ourselves — wise and dispassionate as we are " (Ad Valorem 79)

The notion of the shirking, propagating, drinking, working classes survives down to the present.

The Child Support Agency is clearly a descendant of the fear of feckless scroungers leaving "half a score of children to the parish". For "parish" read "income support" and nothing has changed.

The idea that better wages for workers will not ensue in a riot of drunkenness and fornication receives most surprising support from that guru of laissez-faire economics, Adam Smith (1723-90):

"A plentiful subsistence increases the bodily strength of the labourer, and the comfortable hope of bettering his condition, and of ending his days in ease and plenty, animates him to exert his strength to the utmost. Where wages are high, accordingly we shall find the workmen more active, diligent and expeditious, than where they are low. " (Wealth of Nations, 1776)

This is not a description of an inherently lethargic creature. The tendency of humans to remain endlessly motionless has been greatly exaggerated. A life-time of meaningless slavery and overwork indeed gives an appealing aspect to the possibility of its permanent remission. But we look at life from a distorted position, one of battered submission and a routine of pointless drudgery.

The point of socialism is to remove the malignant influence of capitalism which poisons our attitude to production and alienates us from its purposes.

Satisfaction

The essential purpose of work is not to make profits, and consequently the act of labour is not essentially vile. Labour may indeed be a devil while encased in Mammonism, but freed from that prison, the purpose of work is revealed in a truer light, and is two-fold: firstly to provide the goods of life, whether food, tables, transport, health, books, music or knowledge; and secondly to provide satisfaction in the process of producing these goods.

No work which does not satisfy both these requirements will be considered necessary in socialism. The act of producing goods (as opposed to profits or "bads") is precisely what ensures this satisfaction. This being so, coercion, punishment or persuasion is not necessary for the securing of those human activities essential for the products of civilization. It is not beyond human wit to devise a system to combine our need to work, our need to be valued, our need for regard and for self-regard, with those things which need to be done. It is not beyond our wit to combine our freedom, i.e. our voluntarism, with our needs.

The paradigm shift required to understand the transition from capitalist work to socialist work may however be beyond many a great philosopher. Unfortunately many elderly philosophers suffer from a severe ease of hardening of the categories, and would rather stick to fox hunting than consider a novel idea. In many ways children are better philosophers than their long-robed superiors, since they have not yet become set in their ways.

Higher understanding

One small boy in particular, albeit a fictional one, demonstrates a higher understanding of people’s relation to work than a flock of Oxford dons:

"Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it, namely, that, in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers, or performing on a tread-mill, is work, whilst rolling nine pins or climbing Mont-Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive four-horse passenger coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line, in the summer, because the privilege costs them considerable money; but if they were offered wages for the service that would turn it into work, then they would resign." (Mark Twain: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer).

Norman Armstrong

Put This In Your Collection of Golden Deeds. (1924)

From the December 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

You will of course have the Boudel Massacre, the Amritsar Horror, the Congo Rubber Atrocities, etc., duly docketed. The following extract from Mark Twain’s recently published Autobiography, quoted in the "Daily News,” October 25th, is a useful addition to Capitalism’s Book of Golden Deeds.

Mark Twain was roused to a white heat of anger by the killing of six hundred Moros by American soldiers in the Philippine Islands in 1906.

   "With six hundred engaged on each side, we lost fifteen men killed outright and we had thirty-two wounded.  . . . The enemy numbered six hundred—including women and children—and we abolished them utterly leaving not even a baby alive to cry for its dead mother.
   "This is incomparably the greatest victory that was ever achieved by the Christian soldiers of the United States.”

President Roosevelt sent a formal message of congratulation to the commanding officer. "His whole utterance is merely a convention,” comments Mark Twain. "Not a word of what he said came out of his heart. He knew perfectly well that to pen six hundred helpless and weaponless savages in a hole like rats in a trap and massacre them in detail during a stretch of a day and a half from a safe position on the heights above was no brilliant feat of arms, and would not have been a brilliant feat of arms even if Christian America, represented by its salaried soldiers had shot them down with Bibles and Golden Rules instead of bullets.”—From Mark Twain Autobiography extract in "Daily News,” 25/10/24.

Nationalism and culture (2008)

From the March 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nationalism is a perversion of a shared identity in the interest of some local elite.

Home – where the heart is; the place with overtones of permanence, belonging, security, comfort, childhood memories, bonds between people, familiarity with how things are done, habits and customs taken for granted. People go home, go back to family, village, mountains woods, familiar streets, smells, sounds, to the things that framed them and in doing so strengthen the impressions of who they are and what they stand for. Different worldwide communities share a culture of ‘going home’ for high days and holidays, religious festivals or annual visits. Airports, seaports, train and bus stations are crowded at certain times with passengers loaded with their symbols of how good it will be to be together again. Home is where differences and similarities are known; not automatically accepted, respected or approved but understood without explanation; the background culture, the very fabric of the culture being so second nature that words aren’t necessary to express fundamental emotions.

For millions living in exile with only memories of home, painful memories of seeing family members taken away, tortured, killed, for children born in refugee camps and now old enough to be parents themselves in the same camps, never having seen anything of their homeland, home conjures up images of lost and stolen lives, physical pain and deep emotional scars. Traditions and places only heard of now and little expectation of ever being able to reclaim them. In these situations home for the child is not the home of the parent. However hard the parent tries, however passionate their ties to their original life, the child’s impressions can only be second hand, severely lacking in emotional sustenance, expectations manufactured out of hope. For migrants, both forced and voluntary, ‘home’ may be different for parents and children. Having emigrated or relocated internally the parents’ notions of home are ‘there’ but for the children born in a new place it is ‘here’. Which team shall they support? Where shall their allegiance lie?

In a broader context home may be perceived as a wider geographical area, a country, a homeland standing for something more than a family’s local community. The ‘one-world’ home, in common to all of the human species, has 200 or so artificially created entities called ‘nations’, almost all armed and ready to arrest or attack anyone who crosses a boundary without permission, the same boundary showing little or no obstacle to trade or capital or wealth. What is it a nation offers its individual inhabitants and what is their offering to it? What do they require from their country and it from them? The country is a geographical, physical place; large, small, populous or sparse, barren or lush, mountainous, coastal, frozen, earthquake-prone, temperate, fertile or harsh, requiring nurture, husbandry, protection. Physically it can offer minerals and crops depending on its situation and in proportion to the care given it. The shared identity of the inhabitants of the nation will be as has developed over generations – history, customs, religion, community relations, occupations, way of thinking – something impossible to enforce as empire builders and nation creators have been reluctant to accept. A shared identity with universal, mutual respect and acceptance cannot be enforced. It is surely the shared identity, that elusive quality, love of one’s birthplace, hopes, dreams, aspirations, that people feel when they talk of ‘their country’, the tangible and intangible connections.

Mark Twain said that the country is the real thing to be watched over, cared for, that the institutions, the government are extraneous. Confusion of the country with its institutions brings the problems of nationalism and patriotism, “my country, right or wrong”. One of the (ill)-effects of nationalist thinking is a loss of sense of proportion as in the justification of the invasions responsible for the killing of tens of thousands in Afghanistan and Iraq because around 3,000 people died in U.S. on 9/11/2001. Fighting for a country, dying for what? – the pursuit of happiness? – brings grief and despair to both sides. One nation’s moral purpose, promoting democracy, saving lives, eliminating threats, is recognised by another nation merely as expansionism, access to vital resources, a way of diverting attention from domestic issues. One side’s vision of globalisation for humanity’s sake is felt as rape, plunder and aggressive war by the other. Nationalism, whilst a powerful tool of oppression, was created in part as a defence against imperialism and colonialism, against dominance from outside and in fear of being denied the rights of self-determination. It manifests itself like a sophisticated tribalism, with pride, tradition, attitudes of superiority, patriotism, national security, enemies real and imagined, flag-draped buildings, glorification of all things military and biased history tying populations into misconceptions of themselves and others.

Xenophobia becomes a useful ally in promoting nationalism. In the early 1700s Jonathan Swift recommended it in “The Examiner” thus – “the first principle of patriotism is to resent foreigners.” This method, of setting one section of population against another, has been used ultra-successfully all around the world – so successfully that great swathes of people can now rouse themselves, with no apparent external cue, against the newest threat, the most recent immigrant group, asylum seekers, anyone who looks or sounds like they may be from a group that’s not their own. In one part of the world Arab look-alikes are held to be suspicious – in another an American accent is not welcome. Groups engineered to see themselves in opposition to others, in manufactured fear. Or fear of fear. And those who dare question the status quo become unpatriotic internal defectors. Enemies are required by the state elites. Enemies within and without, social, cultural, economic enemies to keep the population vigilant against all possible threats, to keep them fully occupied, suspicious of each other, divided, protecting the national interest against any wayward individual or group – including themselves.

Under constant construction are barriers of one sort or another, the US/Mexico wall mostly through desert where hundreds die every year seeking a better life but where the wealthy aren’t hunted by vigilantes; the Israeli/Palestinian wall and multiple check-points favouring one group and harassing and humiliating the other; the entry to countries at airports, ports and road crossings. Stand in line, don’t step over this line. For some apply weeks in advance for a visa – or just for an interview to seek permission to apply for a visa – the rich may pass, for the poor it’s a lottery.

Within our communities are guarded apartment blocks, electronically monitored residential enclaves, embassies on distant, secure sites, schools with guards and alarms, tourist sites with armed guard protection, 5 star hotels with walled-in grounds denying visitors the view to the local residents in their shanty towns on the other side of the wall, living in the seeping filth from the hotel sewage system.

Chop up society into more and more pieces, more separate entities, create more divisions, more fears and suspicions and when the globe is totally criss-crossed with walls, fences, barricades and border posts shall we allow ourselves to become so paranoid, afraid and suspicious of each other that we finally close the door to our minds? What hope for humanity when imaginations are so closed to the others’ humanity that they can’t even see, aren’t even aware of, the physical barriers all around them? Ill-considered rhetoric needs to be confronted, contested at any and every opportunity. Self-replicating, regurgitated mantras built on lies, fears and hatred need overturning without hesitation.

The frontierless world begins with frontierless minds. The challenge is to dismantle the barriers which deafen, blindfold, shackle and dehumanise us. A mind without barriers can step over any line, has endless possibilities, unlimited potential, can acknowledge and appreciate the diversity and congruent value of humankind. The frontierless mind can value the vision in which all have their own, inalienable home.

Janet Surman

Mark Twain's 'The War Prayer' (1904/05)

Found via the website of the North East Branch of the Socialist Party

Mark Twain submitted this piece to Harper's Bazaar. It was rejected as being unsuitable. It was first published after his death in 1923.

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclone of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked God of Battles, beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpouring of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came - next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams - visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, and surrender! - then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation

- "God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest,
Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!"

Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory.

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness, With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there, waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside - which the startled minister did - and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

"I come from the Throne-bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import - that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of - except he pause and think.

"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two - one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this - keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! Lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray from the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

"You have heard your servants prayer - the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it - that part which the pastor - and also you in your hearts - fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ' Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory - must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle - be Thou near them! With them - in spirit - we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hears of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it - for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen."

(After a pause) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits."

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

Mark Twain

From the wikipedia entry on Mark Twain:

"During the Philippine-American War, Twain wrote an anti-war article entitled The War Prayer. Through this internal struggle, Twain expresses his opinions of the absurdity of slavery and the importance of following one's personal conscience before the laws of society. It was submitted to Harper's Bazaar for publication, but on March 22, 1905, the magazine rejected the story as "not quite suited to a woman's magazine." Eight days later, Twain wrote to his friend Dan Beard, to whom he had read the story, "I don't think the prayer will be published in my time. None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth." Because he had an exclusive contract with Harper & Brothers, Mark Twain could not publish The War Prayer elsewhere; it remained unpublished until 1923."