The Capitalist Class. By Karl Kautsky (continued). (1908)

From the May 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Continued from the March 1908 issue.

Specially translated for the Socialist Party of Great Britain and approved by the Author.

3.—Profit.

Now whence does the capitalist class draw its income ? The owners of merchant’s capital and usurer’s capital derived their profit and interest originally by way of deductions from the property of persons dependent upon their assistance and mediation, and belonging to various sections of the community. The owners of industrial capital, however, obtain their profit by exploiting the propertyless wage-workers. But as the capitalist mode of production develops, so industrial capital gains the ascendancy over other kinds of capital, and subjects these to its service, as we have seen. This, however, is possible only by assigning to merchant’s and usurer’s capitals part of the surplus-value wrung from the wage-workers. Owing to this development the surplus-value produced by the proletarians became to a greater degree the only source from which the entire capitalist class derive their incomes. Just aa handicraft and peasant agriculture lose in economic significance and decreasingly influence the character of present-day Society, so do the old forms of merchant’s and usurer’s capital, which obtained their profit from the exploitation of non-capitalist sections of the community, lose their importance. To day there are already States without handicraft and peasantry—England for example. But none of the modern States is thinkable without the great industries. Anyone desirous of understanding modern forms of capitalism must start from industrial capital. It is in surplus-value, which is produced by capitalist industries, that is to be sought the most important and increasingly prominent sources of all profit.

We have in the previous chapter become acquainted with surplus-value, which is produced by the industrial proletarians and appropriated by the capitalists. We have also observed how the amount of surplus-value produced by each worker is increased by adding to the worker’s labour burden, by the introduction of labour-saving machinery and cheaper labour, etc. At the same time with the development of capitalist industry the number of the exploiters proletarians grows and the amount of surplus-value going to the capitalist class increases by leaps and bounds.

But as, unfortunately, “life’s joys are vouchsafed unmixed to no mortal,” the capitalist class have to divide their surplus-value, although this dividing is most hateful to them ; they must part with portions to the ground landlords and to the State. And the share taken by these two partners grows from year to year.

_________________

4.—Ground-Rent.

When we talk about the sections of the community who are becoming more and more the sole owners and exploiters, the monopolists of the means of production, we must distinguish between capitalists and landowners ; for the land is a means of production of a peculiar kind. It is the most indispensable of all: without it human activity is impossible. Even navigators of the sea or air need a point of departure and landing. But the soil is also a means of production incapable of increase at will. Yet until now it has not happened in a large area that every bit of soil has been cultivated by its inhabitants. Even in China there are still large plots of uncultivated laud.

Under the domination of peasant proprietorship in Europe during the middle ages the peasant owned his farm and agricultural land. Water, woodland, and pasture land were communal property, and uncultivated soil was so plentiful that everybody could be allowed to take possession of and cultivate such land as he had begun to bring into cultivation from the wilderness. Then commenced the development of commodity production with the consequences of which we have already become acquainted. The products of the soil became commodities. That reacted on the soil, which was also made a commodity possessing value. The single peasant communities and associations now endeavoured to restrict the circle of their members, and the latter began to regard the land they owned in common and partly (as in the case of forests and grazing land) also used in common, no longer as common property of the community and therefore inalienable, but as a kind of joint private property belonging only to the existing members and their heirs; property from which all members who subsequently joined the community were excluded. They were desirous of making the land a monopoly. But someone else came to covet the property of the community, namely, the feudal lord, who had been the protector of the common property. If this property in land, that had become so valuable was to be made private property, then he was anxious that it should pass into his possession. In most directions, especially where agriculture on a large scale was developed, the feudal lord succeeded in seizing the peasants’ common property. Peasant-hunting, the driving of some peasants from their homesteads, followed. Nearly all the soil, even that not under cultivation, now passed into private possession: the ownership of land became the privilege of the few. Thus owing to the economic development, particularly to the formation of large property in land, the soil had become a monopoly long before the existing area of cultivation was exhausted, and much before over-population could have been talked about. If, therefore, the land occupies an exceptional position as a means of production because it is incapable of being increased at will, that is not in consequence of all the available soil being already under cultivation, but is due to the fact—at least in civilised countries—that it has already been taken possession of by a minority. There a monopoly of quite a peculiar character arises. While the capitalist class has a monopoly of the means of production, there is within the capitalist class no monopoly of certain means of production by certain members of that class—at least, no permanent monopoly. Whenever a ring of capitalists is formed for monopolising a certain important invention—for instance, a new machine—other capitalists may always come along, who could also purchase this machine, or surpass the same by meariK of a new invention, or imitate it sooner or later. All this is impossible regarding property in land. Landowners have a monopoly not only as far as the non-possessing class is concerned, but also from the standpoint of the capitalist class.

The peculiar character of property in land is developed most acutely in England, where a small number of families bave possession o£ all the land, to which they hold on firmly and do not sell. Who ever requires land obtains the same on lease for a certain rent called ground-rent. (Strictly speaking, “rent” ard “ground-rent” are not synonymous. “Rent” generally includes a portion of interest on capital. For our purpose here, however, “rent” and “‘ground-rent” may be used as identical terms.) A capitalist desirous of having a factory or dwelling-house built, or of establishing a mine or a farm in England, cannot as a rule, purchase the land, but may only rent the same on lease.

In Germany the capitalist is mostly also the ground landlord ; the manufacturer owns the land upon which his factory stands ; the mine proprietor is also the owner of the land in which the pits are sunk ; while the owner of large tracts of agricultural land on the continent of Europe cultivates the same mostly on his own account instead of letting it to a farmer. When the capitalist carries on agriculture on his own soil, when he himself is ground landlord, he need naturally not share his surplus-value with another, But that does not materially alter the case; for he has, generally, only become ground landlord by paying to the previous owner of the farm a capital, the interest on which corresponds to the amount of ground-rent. Hence he pays the ground-rent anyhow, and in the one form as in the other it diminishes his profit.

But the monopoly character of landed property becomes more acute, the stronger the demand for land grows. As population increases, so the capitalist class become more in need of property in land. To the same extent ground-rent grows, that is to say, the total amount of ground rent paid in capitalist Society. The ground-rent of every farm need not increase. A farm yields under otherwise equal conditions the more ground rent the more fertile and the more favourably situated (lor instance, nearer to the market) it happens to be.

Into the laws of ground-rent we can, of course, not enter here. The opening up of new and fertile land can therefore cause the ground-rent of exhausted soil to go down ; the ground-rent of newly opened-up land will, however, only grow so much the more. Thus improvements in the means of transit may depress the ground-rent of a nearly situated area in favour of a more distant one. Both cases have happened during the last two decades. American ground-rents have risen, and indeed (in so far as agricultural protective tariffs have not acted in an opposite direction) at the expense of West European ground-rents. This, how ever, only applies to land used for agricultural purposes. In the towns ground-rent is everywhere rising most rapidly ; for the capitalist mode of production drives the great mass of the population more and more into the towns. Unfortunately, by this aggregation the profit of the industrial capitalists suffers nothing compared with the growing physical and mental degeneration of the toiling masses. And here we encounter the housing of the workers as a new source of their sufferings; but this is not the place to enter into that.

(To be continued)

Notes and Clippings. (1908)

From the May 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fred. Jowett, M.P.,—who signalised his career as a public man by bargaining with the Liberals for the exchange of support—has been giving what the Clarion is pleased to call “a Lesson in Political Tactics.” The lesson does not consist, as one conversant with his actions would suppose, in an exposition of the gentle, if somewhat dirty, art of collecting “fly-paper” votes. On the contrary, the member for West Bradford lectures the Scotch representatives on their “docility,” pointing out that Irishmen have.obtained concessions by reason of their militant attitude.

* * *

And how does this Political Bottom comport himself when confronted by the assembly which he so valiantly belabours on paper? Call a witness—Lloyd George : “There were only five or six Socialists in the House of Commons. Though some of them might make wild speeches outside, in the House of Commons they were thoroughly tame. They were there, tinkering up bills, and doing odd jobs of that kind in the Liberal workshop.” Verily, the master class, relieved and amused at the nightingale “roaring” of the bogus lions, may well say “Let ’em roar again, let ’em roar again.”

* * *

A paid organiser of the Independent Labour Party, speaking in opposition to a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, on the 12th of April, in Finsbury Park, said that he had had it on the best authority that Ramsay MacDonald had been offered a post in the government by Asquith, and his manly bosom “visibly swelled” when he informed his hearers that the man whom Quelch says is out for the making of his own career, refused.

* * *

Query: Did the organiser expect him to accept ? Had he done so, what would have been the position of the Independent Labour Party ?

* * *

We pause for a reply—which we do not expect from officials or organisers of the I.L.P. An expression of opinion from any of the rank and file of that organisation would be warmly welcomed—and recorded—by the Socialist Standard. Personal contact with members of the I.L.P. has given more than one of us high hopes of the rank and file. Not a few who had been merely lacking in information as to the methods of their organisation, when enlightened by the mouth or pen of a genuine Socialist, have expressed deep dissatisfaction, which must lead to the inevitable discovery that false methods are the inevitable outcome of a false theory.

* * *

Anything short of the recognition that the emancipation of the working-class must be the work of the working-class itself, will inevitably breed the particularly noxious species of parasite that lives upon its own kind, the sentimentalist whose attitude is an eternal compromise between broken-bottle-anarchy and we-are-all-brothers fatuousness, disappointment, disgust, and apathy.

* * *

The National Federation of Assistant Teachers—one of the six unions to which some fortunate pedagogues may belong!—is of opinion that “there is immediate necessity for an alteration in the salaries of assistant teachers.” But alack and alas! the organ of the N.F.A.T. has discovered that “the earnest devotee of the scholastic art is as much a victim of the iron law of supply and demand, as any luckless wight of a miner, joiner, or bricksetter ever was.”

* * *

The remedy proposed, of course, is the old, old Trade Union fake. Strive to create a corner in labour. Lesson the supply. In view of the fact that the “powerful” London Teachers’ Association, represented on the London County Council by the late rejected of Peckham has failed to perceptibly influence the Council with regard to its policy of flooding the market with “scholarship” lads and lasses, bearing in mind that the parents who are only just able to send their children to “secondary” schools, feeling the “economic pressure” which is steadily squeezing them down, down to ever lower levels, are eagerly availing themselves of the opportunity to “place” their children, is it likely that the mop of Unionism can stem the advancing flood ?

* * *

No hope, no light for the teacher until he recognises the fact that the “iron law” which binds him and the miner is but an expression of the fact that he and the miner, having nothing to sell but their labour-power, are wage-slaves, and that the united efforts of teacher and miner, joiner and bricksetter, are required to abolish wage-slavedom. This is only possible by an organisation which shall embrace the whole working class. In a word, the basis of the workers’ organisation must be class solidarity and class interests. Its tactics must be aggressive, and its aim revolutionary. Such an organisation (the S.P.G.B.) exists.

* * *

Mem. for “devotees of the scholastic art” :

Socialist Standard, June, ’06 : “The declared reason for the existence of the National Union of Teachers is the furtherance of the interests of the child. Is there not a danger that it may become the happy hunting-ground of the eloquent Party-man in a hurry to round his own life into a success?”

Daily Chronicle, April, ’08: “Everyone rejoices in the deserved promotion that has come to Dr. Macnamara, who has worked with unstinted devotion for the cause of Liberalism.”

* * *

Salary, £2,000.

* * *

Another mem. “N.F.A.T. Handbook,” p. 57 : “The following standard of salaries has been adopted by the National Federation of Assistant Teachers and the National Union of Teachers as a just and reasonable remuneration for Class Teachers:—

Metropolitan Men, Maximum, £220.

Women, Maximum,                  £165.”

* * *

Really, the humility of the average “class teacher,” if the above may be taken as a true reflection of his opinion, “passeth all understanding.” He deliberately rates his services at a tenth of that of his astute former colleague. How is this estimate arrived at ? Will some of the younger members of “the profession” enquire? Why are a woman’s services rated lower than those of a man ?

A. Reginald.

From the Watch-Tower. (1908)

From the May 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Like Mr. Chamberlain, he (Mr. Lloyd George) is essentially a middle-class statesman . . . Wales looks sorrowfully on. He has passed out of its narrow sphere. The Parnell of Wales has become the Chamberlain of England. The vision of the young gladiator fighting the battle of the homeland has faded. … It is proud of its brilliant son—proud of the first Welsh-speaking Minister to enter a British Cabinet, but it waits with a certain gathering gloom for its reward. Is it not thirteen years since he led a revolt against the Liberal Party on Disestablishment, and is he not now a chief in the house of Pharaoh ? Once it has been on the point of revolt; But he had only to appear and it was soothed.”—Daily News, April 11th.

* * *

The wirepullers of the capitalist parties are too astute to allow promising leaders of dissatisfied factions within their ranks to remain such. When they cannot cajole them, when they do not find it convenient to throw them a sop in the shape of a so-called reform, they find them a job and use them, whether it be the Lloyd Georges, or the Isaac Mitchells, to bully or to soothe those whom they once led.

* * *

It is very sad, but there is some hope, in view of events in the A.S.E., that the working class will shortly throw over these misleaders.

* * *

Mr. W. R. Trotter, of the Canadian Trades Congress, writing from Dragon Parade, Harrogate, sends to theYorkshire Post copies of two letters received by him from the President of the British Welcome League of Toronto (Mr. A. Chamberlain), and an excerpt from the report of the Municipal Committee of the Toronto District Labour Council bearing on the emigration controversy.

In the first letter, dated February 21, Mr. Chamberlain says labour conditions in Toronto are worse than he has seen them during the 22 years’ residence there, and he asks Mr. Trotter to “tell the workers of the old country to go slow about coming to Canada until those already here can be found something to do. Tell them from me not to listen to agents, or even the Salvation Army, for they would not be in the shipping business if it was not for the dollars they make.”

* * *

In the second letter, dated March 6, Mr. Chamberlain says the labour conditions have not changed, and thousands are still out of work. He enforces this statement by mentioning that in reply to a test advertisement inserted in a paper for one day only by the League’s secretary, 1,500 men wrote that they were prepared to go to farms in British Columbia. “My own opinion is,” added Mr. Chamberlain, “that a halt should be made for a while, and an effort made to place the people already here into work before advising others to leave their homes in England to come to Canada.”

* * *

The excerpt from the Municipal Committee’s report calls attention to the unemployed problem in Toronto, and says : “Your Committee would further recommend that this Council places itself on record as holding the Manufacturers’ Association and the Salvation Army jointly responsible for much of the unnecessary suffering among the unemployed of the city, many of whom are victims of the misrepresentation of these two organisations.”

* * *

We also learn that the “Army” are appealing to the charitably disposed in Canada, to relieve the distress there, meanwhile they are advertising to take emigrants to Canada because of the employment to be there obtained. The same old game. And the “unspeakable Stead” says the head of the Salvation Army, General Booth, is a Socialist! What, has Mr. Stead’s friend, the Czar, done that he should be left out in the cold?

* * *

“May I draw the attention of I.L.P. branches to the fact that after 14 years the (Licensing) Bill provides for Local Veto, which has so long been advocated by the I.L.P. ? And may I also urge branches to at once take the matter in hand and follow the example of the Selby I.L.P. in support of this strongly democratic measure.” -W. Farley, Selby I.L.P. in Daily News.

* * *

According to the program of the I.L.P. that body “demands” the Municipalisation and public control of the drink traffic, neither of which will be secured by the Government’s Licensing Bill, either now or in fourteen years time. But probably the I.L.P. wire-pullers fear that if they oppose this “strongly democratic measure” they will lose some of the fat jobs they now secure talking twaddle in Nonconformist pulpits.

* * *

“Modern industry reckons on a reserve of the partially employed.” Daily News leader, 14/4/08. Winnow a full column of the chaff of capitalist-nonconformity and a two line grain of truth is saved. But this grain of itself damns for evermore the Liberalism the Daily News is concerned to maintain as a dominant factor in the political arena. “The partially employed,” is an endeavour to soften the harshness of the term, “unemployed.” A reserve of unemployed is necessary to modern industry. Liberalism is the political expression of modern industry. Lloyd George, the bright particular star and the fiercest democrat of the present administration, has emphasized this sufficiently. Therefore it follows as the night the day that Liberalism, by standing for modern industry, must stand for the maintenance of the reserve of unemployed upon which modern industry depends. Thus we arrive at the unalterable position of Liberalism upon the question of the unemployed, with which, among other things, the present Government proposes to deal at some time or the other. The value of its proposals in this connection may therefore be very adequately appraised beforehand. They represent the exact equivalent of nothing.

What did Welford Say? (1908)

Pamphlet Review from the May 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Poverty : its cause and cure. A Reply to Dr. G. F. Welford’s “Socialism.” By. A. E. Peters and A. W. Kersey. The Palmerston Press, Tiverton. 1d.

The opening sentence, of this pamphlet says : “the writers are both young men in their early twenties,” so the Editor decided to hand it to a young man also in his early twenties to handle in the Socialist Standard. We are unfortunate, however, in not having seen the statements to which it is a reply; for however good it may be as a reply to Dr. Welford, it is most certainly not a good exposition of the principles of Socialism, nor is it by any means an adequate statement of the cause and cure of poverty.

We are left to imagine the circumstances that called it forth, but we glean something like this. Dr. Welford, of Tiverton, fulminated against Socialism, although whether in the Press or on the platform we are not told. Two young men in the district with socialistic tendencies take up the cudgels in defence. Hence the pamphlet under consideration which bristles with points we should be inclined to challenge, and which propounds some flagrant heresies in the name of Socialism.

In discussing the causes of poverty, these are placed under the heads of Insufficient Production, Waste, and Unequal Distribution, and the poverty at present prevailing is attributed to all three. To us the last is alone sufficient to explain our poverty problem, for poverty does not afflict Society as a whole but only a portion of it. And this class nature of modern capitalist society is entirely overlooked by our authors, with the result that the class-struggle, the central guiding factor of the Socialist movement, is ignored. The poverty of the working class is not due to insufficient production, nor to waste, but simply and solely to robbery. The workers produce too much and glut the markets and never get the chance to waste anything to set the market free again. Neither of these factors then can be the cause of their poverty.

The most important portion of the pamphlet, however, is that which explains how Socialism will be established, and here the situation is very imperfectly grasped. The idea of a Socialist government being able to socialise all industries is characterised as absurd, and the counter-idea is put forward that each industry will be socialised by the government getting a fresh mandate from time to time. To us the return of a Socialist government would mean the expression of a majority of opinion in favour of the abolition of capitalism, i.e., the abolition of private property in the means of living; and the work of a Socialist majority would be to carry out that mandate. That a majority of opinion would be in favour of Socialism and at the same time in favour of Capitalism is incomprehensible. The difficulty of our authors, I suspect, is the same as that of the so-called “Socialists” in the Labour Party, who do not represent a majority of opinion in favour of Socialism in their constituencies.

The class-struggle is openly repudiated when they say “the method of Socialism is not to try to force the will of one class upon another class.” The method of Socialism must be, and can only be, the working class expressing its determination not to be exploited any longer, and it is extremely doubtful that the exploiting class will agree with them. The working class is in opposition to the capitalist class and cannot be successful until it has educated itself and organised its forces to be powerful enough to overthrow the political representatives of capitalism and force its will upon them.

The final portion discusses the outlook for Socialism, and we observe the Labour Party is included among the list of parliamentary groups of various nationalities as representing Socialism. Again we should not agree. The Labour Party is most emphatically in no way representative of Socialism, and it is quite untrue to say that each of the workers they represent is a worker for Socialism. We should be more inclined to agree with the actual conclusion if it were correctly quoted, as follows: “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite!”

D.K.

Profit versus Wages. (1908)

From the May 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many railway stocks have (1) been deliberately watered, and (2) risen in price on the market, so that while railway men are badly paid, the present holders of the stocks are apparently making small profits. Many railway companies have enlarged their ordinary capital by the delightfully simple process of multiplication by two. £100 of original stock has been changed into £100 of “preferred” and £100 of “deferred.” This has not been done behind the scenes, but boldly and with the permission of our rich men’s parliament. As a consequence it is made to appear that the net receipts of railways are only about 3½ per cent. of their “paid up” capitals. But the nominal capitals have not been “paid up” ; and even in so far as the original capital is concerned much of it is unreal. Thus the magnitude of the injustice which they suffer is hidden from railway servants. They risk their lives for the public every day and what do they get for it? In 1904, the 27 leading railway companies paid in wages only £29,000,000 or only 25/- per employee per week ! These 27 companies own nearly all the railway lines, employ nearly all the railway servants and make nearly all the profits assessed by the Inland Revenue Commissioners. And what do these profits amount to ? As I have shown, they amount to nearly £40,000,000 per annum, or far more than is paid in wages in one of the most dangerous and most useful of all occupations. 

– Chiozza Money, M.P., in “Riches and Poverty.”

Answers to Correspondents. (1908)

From the May 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

T. Swan (Manchester) — Later.

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For May. (1908)

Party News from the May 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

American Parties and the Unity Question. (1908)

From the May 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

For the information of readers whose knowledge of the "Socialist movement" is limited, a few explanations may be helpful before dealing with the subject under discussion.

The Weekly People is the organ of the Socialist Labour Party of America—an organisation claiming to be "a bona fide strictly revolutionary party of Socialism." Until its unfortunate "endorsement" of the "Industrial Workers of the World," such a claim could be well sustained.

The latter organisation (I.W.W.) declares as its object "the propagation of the principles of Industrial Unionism with a view to the establishment of an organisation based on the 'class struggle' and aiming at the overthrow of the Capitalist system and the establishment of a Socialist Republic."

The "Socialist Party" of America is a curiously motley conglomeration of "Socialists" of all shades and hues. Like the Social Democratic Party and the Independent Labour Party of Great Britain, it is dominated by "leaders," whose main concern is to gain seats—anyhow, on any kind of vote—in the Parliamentary body which they affect to believe will be induced eventually to "legislate" away the privileges of the class which maintain army, navy, and police to conserve such privileges; the S.L.P. of America had hitherto consistently opposed the S.P. of America in that vigourously picturesque style which their British comrades (the S.L.P.) seek vainly to imitate.

But the S.L.P. of America has recently clamoured for "Unity." Its National Executive Committee resolved, among other things, "That if conference succeeds in agreeing on conditions for uniting the two parties, steps be immediately taken that one joint National Convention be held to adopt a platform, constitution and resolutions, to nominate candidates, etc."

The S.P. of America has unceremoniously— through their Executive, without consulting the rank and file on such a momentous issue, quite in the style of the secret junta which "guides" the S.D.P. of England, rejected the overtures.

The Weekly People of March 28th contains an article entitled "Unity" from the pen of its editor, the veteran fighter, De Leon.

It is significant of much that the editor of the ofiicial organ of a party which—rightly enough —urges the necessity of "discipline" should in that organ, through seven good fat columns, assert that his contribution is "independent." "I speak from this independent platform as one of the many people active in the Socialist movement. I do not here represent the S.L.P."

It is unnecessary to do more than quote from the report of a meeting held "under the auspices of the S.L.P." on the 11th March in New York, to show the utter confusion that reigns since the birth of the S.L.P's unfortunate offspring— the parentage of which it now vainly endeavours to repudiate. The lecturer stated "De Leon showed an absolute lack of knowledge of Industrial Unionism." De Leon—unwittingly endorsing our declaration in the Manifesto with regard to "Industrial Unionism,"—charged the lecturer with using the language of "veiled dynamitism," that is, of enunciating the principles of Anarchy.

Now what bearing have these things on the "Unity" question? They constitute the very germ and essence of the question as it affects the S.L.P. De Leon bases his argument for "unity" on the ground, mainly, that the Stutgart International Congress has "thrown a bridge across the chasm" which separated the warring American factions (the trophe, an you please, is De Leon's). The declaration was "seriously defective," nevertheless, in a new-found fervour of loyalty to a Congress which includes "Socialistic" freaks of all descriptions—including the "Rudimentary Zionist-Socialists," he sees the hope of uniting for common action, "Militant Socialism to-day sees in Unionism a fact of greater moment to the Revolution than the conquest of a few seats in the political parliaments." "Therefore, walk into my I.W.W. parlour (it isn't really my parlour, you know) and we can compose all our little differences. "Nay, my pretty little flies, I will e'en merge my personality into your political reflex, which you shall project when in the web." The succulent lamb is merged into the commanding personality of the lion, but subsequent investigation fails to discover traces of lamb.

The plea put forward in the article on "Unity" that before the day of revolution, simultaneously with the action of straight, revolutionary bodies, "just so necessary may be the looser methods" of parties — which the S.L.P. is still prepared to "clear the decks" for — the suggestion that it may be found to be but "a matter of the practical distribution of functions" marks perhaps the lowest point to which the S.L.P. has fallen through its dallying with Anarchy, and its impatience to gain adherents to "Socialism" by the offering of palliatives in the shape of bettered conditions for the worker. "See if you do not believe that the life of the lumber worker may be improved, shorter hours established, etc." (Weekly People, 21/3/08.) "If a union could step into the field that could weld the whole of the workers of the building industry into a solid mass it would soon attract members, and by winning strikes, organise far more men than are organised to-day." (Industrial Unionist, March '08.)

The fundamental error underlying Industrial Unionism as understood by its advocates has been well exposed by Comrade Fitzgerald (Socialist Standard, Oct. '06), who, debating the question of Industrial Unionism with a representative of the British S.L.P. said, "The mere adoption of a Socialist preamble does not constitute a union a Socialist union." The declaration on paper of a Revolutionary object, it should hardly be necessary to remind the S.L.P., is no guarantee of its aiming at genuine performance. Fitzgerald clinched that matter once and for all by quoting the words of a delegate to the first Convention of the I.W.W. at Chicago. "We are here as working men, and as such we do not recognise the Socialist or any other 'ist."

Further, it will usually be found that a "common purpose " is almost certain to be followed by common action. The "Fabian" and "Clarion" school of "Socialist" for instance is sometimes thoughtlessly credited with the "purpose" of establishing a Socialist Republic. An acquaintance with "A Modern Utopia" "The Sorcery Shop" and other Utopian twaddle of that description will reveal the gulf that separates the "purpose" of Utopists from that of genuine Socialists.

Unity is only possible on the lines laid down by the S.P.G.B. in the January number of the Socialist Standard, 1906, in a communication addressed to the International Socialist Bureau. "That admission to future International Socialist Congresses shall be open only to all avowed Socialist bodies that accept the essential principles of Socialism, i.e., Socialisation of the means of production and distribution, union and international action of workers, Socialist conquest of the public powers by the proletariat organised as a class party recognising and proclaiming the class war. adopting an attitude of hostility under all circumstances to all sections of the capitalist party."

No one recognises the signal services that De Leon has rendered to the proletariat more than the S.P.G.B., no one so ready to recognise the sterling worth of the rank and file of both English and American S.L.P. The more urgent becomes our duty to seek the destruction of organisations which will inevitably commit their members to a sojourn in the dreary wilderness of Reform, or land them in the slimy bog of Anarchy.

A. Reginald

The Law of Value and the Dearness of Commodities. by Paul Lafargue (1908)

From the May 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Economic materialism, or to be more exact, economic determinism, which allows us to explain human evolution and which provides a scientific basis for history, and the law of value, the key to the secrets of commodity production, dominate the theoretic work of Marx.

The law of value demonstrates that the value of a commodity is constituted by the quantity of human labour therein incorporated. Allow that, says the Belgian economist, Laveleye, and Marx will prove to you, with his iron logic, that capital is unpaid labour, stolen labour.

The law of value, which culminates in such a frightful conclusion, has been the nightmare of the economists; those amongst them who have any scientific pretensions have take the field to overthrow it. All those who have attacked it have proclaimed, with as much exultation as the “socialistic” intellectuals, who for this ten years past announce from time to time “the decomposition of Marxism”, that they have demolished the law of value, although this does not prevent new combatants, judging incomplete and in vain the wrecking work of their forerunners, from going on the warpath to make mincemeat of it.

The law of value, which has victoriously withstood all the assaults of the economists, alone can explain the general rise in the prices of commodities, the cause of  which has been vainly sought. I will try to demonstrate this.

To propagate communism, to organise the workers in a class party and to struggle for the conquest of the public powers — to study the theoretic work of Marx and to use the two powerful intellectual tools, economic determinism and the law of value, that he has put at our disposal for interpreting historical events and economic phenomena, are yet some of the best ways to honour the memory of the militant agitator and communist thinker.

#    #    #    #

The rise in the prices of commodities is general in the commodity producing countries of Europe and America; it is felt as far as China, which is scarcely beginning to enter capitalist civilisation. This rise is the more extraordinary as a general fall in prices would rather be expected, since, one after the other, industries are using more and more perfect machinery, which, in multiplying tenfold and a hundredfold human productivity, lower the prices of their products.

The dearness of necessaries weighs heavily upon the workers, who, if they do not buy iron girders, electric machines, silken stuffs and other industrial products, live upon bread which should be cheaper, since the production of wheat, which forty years ago, was in France from 14 to 15 hectolitres to the hectare, is to-day, thanks to agricultural progress, from 19 to 20 hectolitres.

Newspapers and magazines inquire into the causes of this disconcerting economic phenomenon. The recognised defenders of capital, without bothering their heads very much, have unearthed the true cause; they declare unanimously that the workers’ higher wages and expenditure for luxuries and holidays let loose the tide of rising prices in the capitalist world. This cream tart has not quite satisfied the economists, who attribute its loosing to gold.

Some say that the quantity of gold serving commercial transactions is insufficient, although it increases every year by half-a-million of francs. Gold being relatively rare, its price, according to the law of competition, should rise, that is to say that the same quantity of gold should buy more merchandise; and it is precisely the contrary; one must give more gold for the same quantity of merchandise.

Others pretend that gold abounds, that the mines of Africa and America have thrown so much of it upon the market, that its price, still according to the law of competition, is depreciated every day and that it is to stop this decline that the Transvaal mining companies are trying to form a trust.

However, during these last sixty years, whatever has been the quantity of gold produced, it has always been immediately and completely absorbed by the needs of commercial transactions, of which the volume increases yet more rapidly than the amount of gold thrown upon the market. The American crisis precisely began by an insufficiency in the quantity of gold that the banks of New York and other cities had at their disposal; and in order to curb this financial crisis, which, as always, preceded the crisis of over-production, it was necessary to import from Europe all the gold available.

Nevertheless, it is in the variations of the value of gold that we must seek for the cause of the general rise in the prices of commodities.

#    #    #    #

Gold and silver, because of their special qualities, have been chosen from all the metals to be monetised and to serve for national and international means of exchange. The capitalist nations thought that once for all their values could be established in the proportion of 1 to 15, that is to say that 1gramme of gold was worth 15 grammes of silver; and it is according to this proportion that they have struck their gold and silver money. For example, a 20 franc gold piece weighs 6.6 grammes, while 20 silver franc pieces weigh 100 grammes. But this legal proportion, guaranteed by the governments of the bourgeois nations, is a lying fiction, as are the institutions and the principles of capitalist society.

Melt down 3 one franc pieces and you will get a little mass of silver weighing 15 grammes; take it to a dealer in precious metals and ask him to exchange it for 1 gramme of gold; he will refuse – he will ask of you 36 grammes of silver for 1 gramme of gold; for at the current rate the kilogram of gold is worth 3,427 francs and the kilogram of silver 95 francs, that is, only one-thirty-sixth as much. And if he knows a little of the history of monetised metals, he will tell you that since 1838 the legal proportion between gold and silver has been real but once: in 1861; and he will add that from 1833 to 1864 the variations of the legal proportion were maintained within narrow limits; but that in 1872 began the fall in the value of silver, and that in 1876 an English commission was appointed to inquire into the depreciation of this metal.

Variations in the Value of Gold and Silver from 1833 to 1908

Years      Gold                           Silver

1833        1 gramme is worth    15gr. 41

1840        1                               15gr. 12  

1852        1                               15gr. 09

1859        1                               14gr. 70

1861        1                               15gr. 00

1872        1                               16gr. 13

1876        1                               18gr. 56

1908        1                               36gr. 07

The values of gold and of silver then, are not fixed quantities, since they have continually varied in the course of three-quarters of a century. Why have they varied?

From 1833 to 1852 the value of silver falls, since one must give 15 grammes and a fraction of silver for one gramme of gold. During the period 1852 to 1859 the mines of Australia and of California had thrown their gold upon the market. An economist said that gold was depreciated by its abundance; however, in 1857 there broke out in the United States a financial crisis, because, as in 1907, there was not enough gold, because there was disproportion between the volume of business and the quantity of money capital necessary for the transactions.

But two years later gold goes up again and one must give 15 grammes of silver for 1 gramme of gold. And from 1872 down to our day the value of silver decreases constantly. During the period from 1872 to 1908, gold and silver have been produced in great quantity: it is then not their scarcity in the market that can have caused their variations in value.

The reasons given by the economists, therefore, cannot explain these variations in value of gold and of silver, which are explainable only by the Marxian law of value.

From 1833 to 1852 only the old gold and silver mines are worked and the methods of extraction remain the same, that is why the values of gold and of silver are about constant. But from 1852 begins the working of the Australian and Californian gold mines, which being very rich, exact less human labour for the extraction of the metal; gold consequently loses value, while silver, which continues to be extracted with the same quantity of human labour, keeps its value. When the Australian and Californian mines become worked out, the extraction of the metal exacts more human labour, the value of gold goes up again and in 1861 gold and silver are at par, that is to say, their values correspond with the legal proportion.

From 1864 on, silver mines of extraordinary richness are worked in the United States and in Mexico and for the same reasons the value of silver falls, while gold keeps its value.

During the course of the last 75 years gold and silver have alternatively lost value, because the metal extracted contained less human labour, as according to Marx’s law, the value of all commodities of capitalist society (wheat, precious metals, boots, cotton stuffs, etc.), is measured by the quantity of human labour that it was necessary to expend in order to produce them.

When in an industry the introduction of a machine reduces the required labour, not only the commodities produced with this machine lose value, but also, the commodities of the same industry that are produced without its aid: for the same reason the quantities of gold extracted in California and in Australia from 1852 to 1859 and the quantities of silver extracted in the United States and in Mexico from 1872 to 1908 have, not alone fallen in value, but have lowered the value of all gold and of all silver circulating in the capitalist world.

The exhaustion of the Australian and Californian gold mines, in rendering mining as costly in human labour as before, caused the value of gold to rise again; the working of the rich gold mines of the Transvaal with the aid of new mechanical and chemical processes, which reduce the necessary labour, together with the employment of Negroes, of Chinese and Hindoos, but very poorly paid, lowers once again the value of gold.

Silver money, which has lost 52.5 per cent. of  its value, since a 1 franc piece is worth but fr 0.475, is no longer employed in international exchange; it is current but in its own country because, like the bank note, it is legal tender and can be exchanged for the gold money, which alone can be employed in international exchange, because gold is the monetary standard of capitalist nations.

But gold also has lost some of its value. The metallurgy of gold has been revolutionised in the Transvaal; it there combines in such a superior manner the resources of mechanics and chemistry that it is profitable even when quartz is treated which contains but a few grammes of gold to the ton. Le Génie Civil (December 28, 1907), describes the great establishment for the working of auriferous quartz in New Kleinfontein which treats 280 tons of quartz per hour, of any grade, with a very reduced staff of “hands”. Steam engines work three dynamos of 500 horse-power, two air-compressors for 75 perforating machines and the extracting machine. The quartz is brought upon an endless transporting band into the “mill-hoppers” of the crushing mill, where 200 stamps weighing each from 620 to 650 kilos crush it at the rate of 5 tons in 24 hours. The mud obtained goes through sieves which contain 400 meshes to the square centimetre; then it is conducted – still mechanically – on to the amalgamating tables. The residue of these tables – again crushed – and the auriferous mercury, are refined. The muddy water in which these mechanical and chemical operations have been conducted, are treated with lime and sodio-potassium cyanide, then filtered upon zinc filings which precipitate the gold. Water plays a preponderating rôle in the new cryosurgical (gold working) industry, which extracts even the largest particles of gold from the quartz that it treats with an extremely reduced staff of hands.

One must, in consequence, give a greater quantity of gold than formerly for the same quantity of other commodities. It is, therefore, not goods that have increased in value, but gold that has fallen in value, because its extraction exacts a less expenditure of human labour.

Translated from Le Socialiste by John H. Halls

Our Fourth Annual Conference. (1908)

Party News from the May 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

The fourth Annual Conference of the S.P.G.B. was held at the Communist Club on Friday and Saturday, 17th and 18th April, 1908. Comrade Fitzgerald presided, supported by Snellgrove. Comrades Neumann and Anderson acted as Stewards, and Pearson, Hopley and Bigby as as Credentials Committee.

The Report of the 4th Executive Committee to the Conference contained the following: “We are pleased to report a steady increase in the membership and influence of the Party. Over 170 new members have been enrolled during the year, and propaganda has been well maintained; a special feature being the large number of debates held with representatives of all sections of the enemy. . . The Manchester Branch formed during the year is especially active, and promises to prove a splendid base for provincial work. . . . The Socialist Standard has appeared regularly. . . . The first 36 numbers bound in one volume has sold well. The 2nd Edition of the Manifesto has been sold out and the 3rd Edition is selling equally well. The issue of ‘Art, Labour and Socialism’ in pamphlet form has also proved very successful. A 2nd Edition of ‘From Handicraft to Capitalism’ has been issued and the second of the series is in course of production. . . . Leaflets replying to the attacks of the anti Socialists and advertising The Socialist Standard have been extensively circulated.’’

The report was very fully discussed by the delegates, and finally adopted. Fitzgerald raised the question of the reorganisation of the Peckham Branch, questioning the wisdom of the E.C. in not excluding certain elements which had in the past made for disorganisation. During this discussion, Moses Baritz, the delegate from Manchester, presided, the vice-chairman being a member of the Peckham Branch.

The financial Statement was adopted after being fully discussed. Snellgrove and Rose (Tooting) moved a resolution suggesting that branches guarantee to take quantities of the Party Organ proportionately to their membership. This was carried.

The Manchester delegate raised the question, on a motion of urgency, of sending speakers to take part in the campaign at Manchester. It was agreed to send representatives, and a collection to assist in defraying their expenses was taken up which realised £1 5s. 6d.

The two amendments to the Rules from the Tottenham Branch were carried. The resolution from Wood Green urging the appointment of an Organiser was carried, the amendment from Manchester calling for a provincial organiser, being defeated. Two other resolutions, one calling for the appointment of a paid organiser, and the other suggesting the insertion of a summary of the minutes of the E.C. meetings in the Party Organ, were defeated.

The Socialist Standard will, in future, appear on the last Saturday of every month, instead of on the first of the month as heretofore, the resolution to that effect from Tooting being carried by a large majority. All pamphlets issued by the Party are to be, in future, of a uniform size, the Conference agreeing to the resolution from Tooting to that effect.

The Conference then adjourned for tea and to make way for the Social to be held.

The Social proved to be an unqualified success. Comrade Anderson presided and from 8 o'clock until 1 o’clock next morning the revolutionary representatives of the working class danced and sang to their hearts' content. The quantity of talent in the ranks of the Party surprised everyone. Financially, also, the concert should be a great success.

The Conference reassembled at two o’clock on Saturday and proceeded to tackle the remainder of the Agenda. It was first decided to take the item second on the agenda, standing in the name of the Battersea Branch: “That no Candidate of the Party, if elected, shall take the Oath of Allegiance to the Constitution.” The discussion was opened on behalf of the Battersea Branch in a brief speech. Hopley (Paddington) opposed on the ground of triviality. Hutchings (Tooting), Neumann, Snellgrove (Peckham), Denford, Wren supported the proposition, while R. H. Kent, A. Barker and Fitzgerald opposed. The Conference agreed to proceed to the next item which was to the effect that all Party business on which a vote is taken, voting shall be for and against. This was agreed to. 'The discussion placed on the Agenda by the Edmonton Branch, on the question of “Socialism And Religion” served to again bring into strong contrast the position of our Party as against that of any other party professing to be Socialist. In the discussion it was made plain that while it was unnecessary and undesirable to impose a test of membership on the subject, it must be clearly recognised that active Christianity was incompatible with the active participation in the Socialist movement. Pearson (Edmonton), Anderson, Neumann, Snellgrove, Jackson, Watts and Fitzgerald contributed, and the Conference agreed to request the E.C. to make the Relation between Religion and Socialism the subject of an early pamphlet.

The important subject remaining, viz, “The attitude of candidates of the Party if elected to any public body,” was deemed too large to be adequately dealt with in the time then remaining and it was agreed to call a Party Meeting to discuss it.

The Conference was the most successful yet held by the Party and bodes well for the future.

The Proletarian Revolution. by Karl Marx. (1908)

From the May 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Wholly absorbed in the production of wealth and in the peaceful fight of competition, French capitalist society could no longer understand that the ghosts of the days of Rome had watched over its cradle. And yet, lacking in heroism as bourgeois society is, it nevertheless had stood in need of heroism, of self-sacrifice, of terror, of civil war, and of bloody battlefields to bring it into the world. Its gladiators found in the stern classic traditions of the Roman republic the ideals and the form, the self-deceptions, that they needed in order to conceal from themselves the narrow bourgeois substance of their own struggles, and to keep their passion up to the height of a great historic tragedy. Thus, at another stage of development, a century before, did Cromwell and the English people draw from the Old Testament the language, passions and illusions for their own bourgeois revolution. When the real goal was reached, when the remodelling of English society was accomplished, Locke supplanted Habakuk.

Accordingly, the reviving of the dead in those revolutions served the purpose of glorifying the new struggles, not of parodying the old; it served the purpose of exaggerating to the imagination the given task, not to recoil before its practical solution; it served the purpose of rekindling the revolutionary spirit, not to trot out its ghost. . . .

The social revolution of the nineteenth century, however, can not draw its poetry from the past, it can draw that only from the future. It cannot start upon its work before it has stricken off all superstition concerning the past. Former revolutions required historic reminiscences in order to intoxicate themselves with their own issues. The revolution of the nineteenth century must let the dead bury their dead in order to reach its issue. With the former, the phrase surpasses the substance; with this one, the substance surpasses the phrase. . . .

Bourgeois revolutions, like those of the eighteenth century, rush onward rapidly from success to success, their stage effects outbid one another, men and things seem to be set in flaming brilliants, ecstacy is the prevailing spirit; but they are short-lived, they reach their climax speedily, then society relapses into a long fit of nervous reaction before it learns how to appropriate the fruitB of its period of feverish excitement.

Proletarian revolutions, on the contrary, such as those of the nineteenth century, criticise themselves constantly; constantly interrupt themselves in their own course; come back to what seems to have been accomplished in order to start over anew; scorn with cruel thoroughness the half measures, weaknesses and meannesses of their first attempts; seem to throw down their adversary only in order to enable him to draw fresh strength from the earth and again to rise up against them in more gigantic stature; constantly recoil in fear before the undefined monster magnitude of their own objects—until finally that situation is created which renders all retreat impossible, and the conditions themselves cry out: —

“Hic Rhodus, hic salta!”                       Karl Marx.

Blogger's Notes:

Though it isn't noted in the Standard, this passage is an excerpt from Karl Marx's 'The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon'. The wording in the passage suggests that it's an earlier translation of Marx's text, probably Daniel De Leon's 1897 translation, which was reprinted by Charles H. Kerr and Company in 1907. 

An explanation of how it came about that the SPGB had access to De Leon's translation of Marx is possibly touched upon in Robert Barltrop's 'The Monument: the Story of the Socialist Party of Great Britain':

  "Kohn became a socialist in his teens and was still very young when he set up as a bookseller. A minor flood of socialist works was under way in America, and Kohn became agent for their sale in London. Hence the regular journeys across the Atlantic, and the appearance on socialists’ shelves of books printed and published by Charles H. Kerr and Company, Chicago. Kerr’s was a small co-operative before the first world war it provided an entire library of theoretical and polemical works. Some of them were first-time translations of European social-democratic writings and of Marx and Engels: the great third volume of Das Kapital had its first — and for almost fifty years, its only — English publication from Kerr’s in 1909. There were Marx’s historical works; Engels’s Landmarks of Scientific Socialism, Socialism Utopian and Scientific, and Origin of the Family; Joseph Dietzgen’s Positive Outcome of Philosophy; Lewis Henry Morgan’s Ancient Society; Paul Lafargue’s Social and Philosophical Studies and The Right to be Lazy; and many more."

Editorial: A Word in Season. (1908)

Editorial from the May 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

May-day.

To all whose hearts beat true to the cause of oppressed humanity—English, German, Dutchman or Jew; black, white, yellow or red; without distinction of race or sex—fraternal greeting!

To all who suffer the torments of capitalist oppression, who hunger and thirst amidst mocking plethora, who are weary of to-day and apprehensive of to-morrow—English, German, Dutchman or Jew; black, white, yellow or red; without distinction of race or sex—fraternal sympathy and, this May-day message: Hope!

Hope, the eternal, the very spirit of May-day. It presided at the village festival in days when romance still dressed life in other hues than drab; it quickened the nimble feet of youth footing it on the green; it disputed with Time the unexpended years to the credit of robust middle age; it passed magic fingers over the seamed and shrunken visage of ripe maturity, blotting out the battle scars of three score years and ten. It was resurrected in every rising blade of green, and in every bursting bud.

And now, when the maypole is a tradition, kept alive only by novelists, and publicans’ signboards, when promise of good crops gladdens so little those whose bugbear is a glutted market, when the brightness of Spring only accentuates the dinginess of modem existence, each recurring May-day still bids us—Hope!

Hope for the workers of the world;—but not, mind you, in indolent inactivity or feeble effort —there is no hope in that. Nor in gay procession or flaunting banner, or the passing of empty resolution. Nor in blind following after the loud, or unenquiring acceptance of the outpourings of passionate hearts. Nor in numbers, nor in barricades, nor in the heroic devotion of those who dare to “seal their faith with their blood.” Nor in charity, or love, or justice, or the “inalienable rights of man.” There is no hope here.

The hope of the workers lies in their Socialist knowledge. This only can strike the shackles off their limbs and take them up out of the capitalist house of bondage. This only can remove the barriers of national conceit and race enmity so strong for the upholding of this capitalist house of bondage. This only can save them from the blandishment of the all-promising misleader and the sophistry of the self-seeking demagogue.

For the study of social science teaches that if it is not exact truth that all men are brothers, at least it is certain that the workers of all countries are bound together by the bond of common interest, and that the struggle of the future is not between English or German, Dutchman or Jew, but between the workers of all countries on the one hand and the capitalists of the world on the other.

The study of social science also marks out the road to be followed with such distinctness that the wiles of the Jack-with-a-lantern are without avail. Everywhere the harrassed workers are falling victims to place-hunting traitors trading on the name of Socialism. Such are particularly prominent on May-day, with procession and banner, shallow as they are blatant, and promising everything — if you will only follow them.

Socialism can never be betrayed by such men : it is only Ignorance that falls a victim. A thorough grounding in economics, industrial history, and so forth is the sure eradicator of party “bosses” and political pimps. Only when the workers understand their own politics can they exact faithful service from those they elect to high places, or confer power upon them against the enemy. Therefore our appeal to you this May-day is, not for faith, for faith may be betrayed, not for following, for followers breed usurpers, but for your companionship in the study of working-class history, working-class economics, and working-class politics. For in this way alone can we realise the hopeful promise of May-day—the overthrow of the capitalist system of society, and the consequent emancipation of all mankind, without distinction of race or sex.

Publications Received. (1908)

From the May 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The Basis of Trades Unionism." by Émile Pouget. (Freedom Office). “The Unemployed Problem,” by (G. N. Barnes. (I.L.P.) “The Weekly People" (New York). “The Socialist Weekly" (Japan). "Labor" (St. Louis). "Industrial Union Bulletin” (Chicago). “The Russian Worker.” “Gaelic American." “The Keel" (Tyneside). “Freedom."

A Simple Statement. (1908)

From the May 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism is a system of human society, based on the common ownership of the means of production and the carrying on of the work of production by all for the benefit of all. In other words, Socialism means that the railways, the shipping, the mines, the factories and all such things as are necessary for the production of the necessaries and comforts of life should be social property, so that all these things should be used by the whole people to produce the goods that the whole of the people require.

That is no Utopian dream, but the necessary outcome of the development of society. It used to be supposed that anything like the collective carrying on of an enterprise was impossible because the personal supervision and control of the owner was necessary to the success of any such enterprise. But we see to-day that the greatest undertakings are those which are owned by joint-stock companies, in which the personal supervision of the proprietors is quite impossible, and in which the business is managed and carried on by paid officials, who might just as well be paid by the community to carry on the enterprise in the interest of the general body of the people as be paid by a few wealthy men to carry it on for their profit.

To-day goods are not produced to satisfy human needs; they are simply produced to provide profit for the class which owns the means of production. It is only for the sake of this profit that the property owning class owns these means of production. As a consequence, we have shoddy and adulterated goods produced. Also, as this profit is simply the difference between the value of the work which the working people do and the amount they receive in wages, the actual producers never receive the equivalent of what they produce, and therefore are never able to buy it back again. It happens, therefore, that, as the machinery of production increases and workmen are able to turn out more goods, they are thrown out of work, and they, with their wives and children, are in want and misery, not because there is any scarcity of things they need, but because there is more of them than those who produced them can buy.

Under the present system, therefore, the very increase of wealth is too often a curse to the wealth producers, simply because those who produce have no ownership in the means of production, and no control over the wealth produced.

Under Socialism, as the means of production would belong to the whole people, the whole people would have control of the things produced. Every increase of wealth then would benefit the whole community. Under the present system increased wealth means increased penury and suffering for the many. Under Socialism increased production would mean more leisure, more wealth, more means of enjoying life, more opportunities for recreation for everybody.

By the discoveries of science, the inventions of genius, the application of industry, man has acquired such power over nature that he can now produce wealth of all kinds as plentifully as water. There is no sound reason why poverty and want should exist anywhere on this earth. All that is needed is to establish a more equitable method of distributing the wealth already produced in such profusion. That is what Socialists propose to do. The work of production is organised, socialised; it is necessary to socialise distribution as well.

What is to be done to supplant the present system by Socialism; to substitute fraternal co-operation for the cut-throat competition of to-day ? The first thing necessary is to organise the workers into a class conscious party; that is, a party recognising that as a class the workers are enslaved through the possession of the means of production by another class; recognising, too, that between these two classes there is an antagonism of interest, a perpetual struggle, a constant class war, which must go on until the workers become possessed of political power, and use that power to become masters of the whole material means of production. When that has been achieved, the war of classes will be at an end, because the division of mankind into classes will have disappeared, the emancipation of the working class will have been accomplished and Socialism will be here.

Correspondence. (1908)

Letter to the Editors from the May 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Comrade,

As an instance of I.L.P. valour, the following facts may be interesting.

Mr. A. Woolerton (I.L.P.) having informed me that he was willing to debate his position against that of the S.P.G.B “with the best man” we had, “in any hall, at any time,” I introduced the matter at our branch meeting.

I, as secretary, wrote accepting his challenge, and asking him to lay the matter before the branch of the I.L.P. to which he belonged. The E.C. of our party gave permission to Comrade Baritz to debate with Woolerton.

I saw Mr. Woolerton at the Coal Exchange on Jan. 5th, when he wished to inform me verbally of his decision. I asked him, however, to communicate by letter as it was branch business. Having enclosed a stamped envelope in my letter, I wrote a post-card on Jan. 27, asking when I could expect an answer.

Comrade Baritz, having been informed by Mr. Woolerton that he had replied to my letter, I sent the following letter to Mr. Woolerton : — 

 Our Comrade Baritz informs me that you told him you had replied to my letters asking you to debate with our organisation.
  As no such letter has reached me, I enclose a missing letter form which, when completed, can be forwarded free of postage to The Secretary, G.P.O., London. You only can fill in the particulars required as to time and place of posting. On receipt of this form at the G.P.O. they will forward an acknowledgement to you of receipt on a form used for this purpose
  If you will kindly show or send me the form of acknowledgement I will consider the letter has been posted. Failing this, of a copy of your letter, I can only conclude you have not posted same and act accordingly.

Yours sincerely,

Jim Brough.

I can only conclude that Mr. Woolerton has not sent any letter to me, or that the letter (if sent has miscarried). If the latter be the ease he is either not sufficiently interested his missive to make enquiries concerning it, or not man enough to send a copy of the original.

Thanking you in anticipation of insertion. 

Yours fraternally,

Jim Brough.

Party Notes. (1908)

Party News from the May 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

The formation of a branch in the neighbourhood of Wimbledon will soon be possible. Will any readers in that district, who have hitherto refrained from joining in the absence of a branch, communicate with the Head Office?

#    #    #    #

Propaganda is to be restarted in Surbiton on Saturday evenings. Will all cycling comrades and others available, make a note ?

#    #    #    #

John Smith was expelled the Tottenham Branch on April 6th for supporting the candidate of another political party at a local election.

Socialism? (1908)

Book Review from the May 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism and  Agriculture by  Richard Higgs. I.L.P., 1d.

The title of this pamphlet is a mere catchpenny. The only heading it merits is that of "Capitalism and Agriculture," for the author's idea of Socialism is purely that of capitalist collective enterprise. The first word in the title might therefore with advantage be obliterated, for the discussion of wages, of present municipal farms, and of other aspects of capitalism is not the discussion of the relation of Socialism to agriculture, which, indeed, the author does not deal with at all. This is typical of the I.L.P. and of its publications; and its writers and speakers would be better employed in studying Socialism rather than giving that title to a certain phase of capitalism.

The author says "The Farming land is the key to the problem of poverty," and that when a considerable portion of farming land comes under the control of the people" a living wage will be paid ; a regular supply of skilled labour will be available at all seasons and a six days week and the eight hour day will become possible." This is the author's idea of Socialism. It is nothing but the old middle-class cry of "back to the land." At present it is the first duty of a Socialist to make Socialists, and that requires a knowledge that is lacking in the author of the present pamphlet and by the organisation that has published it.

B.

H. G. Wells on the Home. (1908)

Book Review from the May 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Will Socialism Destroy The Home? by H. G. Wells (I.L.P. 1d.)

Two points are introduced in this pamphlet, with both of which we disagree. The first is the idea of remuneration under Socialism being relative to the size of the family. The second is the suggestion of municipal baby-farm for children of unworthy parents.

With regard to remuneration, all Socialists will object to the proposal “to make a payment to the parents for their children.”

Prognostics in the name of Socialism as to how the family after the revolution will be constituted, need a sound recognition of the basic principle's of Socialism and of science generally, for even approximate accuracy. We have no evidence that Mr. Wells possesses any such recognition. Although he soundly criticises the existing system for the difference between the family as it is commonly supposed to be, and the family as it is, yet he fails to indicate the causes which have produced the difference. Those causes are economic and have been traced in the second part of Das Erfurter Program published under the title of “The Working Class,” shortly to appear as the fourth of our pamphlets, nor has the economic base of the impending change been made of sufficient clearness. Yet only by this means can an insight be had. The main factor would seem to be the complete freeing of women from economic dependence on men. This means the freeing of love from the influence of social position and the cash nexus, and a corresponding increase in the importance of the mutual consent of both parties to a marriage, whatever form that marriage takes.

The ability or worthiness of the parents need never be questioned, as the factors which to-day promote unworthiness will have gone, while the wilful neglect of children by parents able to attend to them would, under Socialism, probably indicate the necessity for the services of a mental physician! Just as the other bugbear to the non-Socialist—the won’t work will probably be a subject for similar treatment.

The brief historical sketch of the family with which Mr. Wells concludes, might easily have been made fuller, and for the purposes of the pamphlet carried a little ahead with more definiteness. For the rest it is an interesting speculation, admirably written, but it does not get far enough away from the idea of State baby farms and State boarding schools to satisfy those to whom “uniformity” and “regeneration ” are as objectionable as ever thcv were.

R. H. Kent