Thoughts on thinking (1961)

From the November 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

A few years ago a series of articles appeared in the Western Socialist dealing with the theoretical basis of Socialism. These were clearly written, and readers found them interesting and informative. It is our intention to publish extracts from time to time, as space permits, for the benefit of readers who missed them when they first appeared. 

All marine engines, from Fulton’s Clermont to the giant turbines of the Normandie, are based on a few fundamental mechanical principles of thermodynamics, energy coefficients, reciprocal motion, and the like. These principles at least must be understood by anyone who intends to run a steam ship. And the vast intellectual machinery of modern socialism is too based on a few relatively simple principles. Principles of thought, interpretation and action. And in order to become a Socialist these principles must be grasped, understood and applied. And all this to what purpose? Merely for the satisfaction of knowing in a general sort of way? We think not! Marx has said: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.” Our philosophy is more than expository and interpretative—it is dynamic; it deals with a real world, and is itself a potent force for change.

Have you ever listened to an argument between a Socialist and a non-Socialist? If so, the most remarkable thing you will have noticed is the degree of disagreement in the meanings they attach to the terms employed. The Socialist might assert, for example, that we are Materialists, not Idealists. Right away a protest of disapproval is voiced. Why? Nine times out of ten because the non-Socialist has an entirely erroneous conception of the meanings of these terms. Or the Socialist might say that we intend to abolish capital. This seems to his opponent like utter nonsense. Why? Because he looks upon capital as a thing, whereas the socialist regards capital as a condition of a thing. “Who will pay the workers his wages under Socialism?” the opponent demands to know. “We intend to abolish the wages system,” is his answer. This reply only confirms the questioner in his suspicion that all Socialists are hopeless mental cases. When he asks this he has in mind a conception of “wages” as the unconditioned reward for labour. The Socialist regards the “wage system” as an historically determined relationship between labour and capital, a transitory phase in social development.

Arguments such as these may go on interminably with relatively little change of view for either party. Both sides are, in a way, right; the substantive difference between their mental states is seldom as wide as it appears. The clashes are essentially verbal and the viewpoints irreconcilable so long as each puts a distinctly different interpretation on the terms used. Our Socialist contender must first realize that there is scarcely an important word used by him that is not tinctured in meaning by our economic theories or by its scientific or philosophical significance. The non-Socialist on the other hand almost invariably reacts to the same set of terms by their colloquial or every-day sense. Confronted with this barrier of language there can never be a meeting of the minds.

So the first step necessary towards an understanding of Marxian Socialism is a clear comprehension of the terms involved. The beginner must not only enlarge his vocabulary to accommodate new ideas but must make many of the old words with which he is familiar take on new shades of meaning, and in many instances entirely different from commonly accepted usage.

While reading this the question may be shaping in your head—”why do Socialists find it necessary to fashion a philosophy of their own, and why should proletarian logic differ from the currently accepted forms?” This is a reasonable query, and briefly, here is the answer: Socialists proceed on the incontestably established fact that society has for many thousands of years been divided into economically distinct classes. And now, on this one point, it is well to settle what we mean, and also what we don’t mean by the expression “economic classes.” The science of economics, as you are doubtless aware, deals with the social process of producing and distributing wealth. In a Capitalist society, based as it is on the private ownership of property, a fierce contest is at all times raging for each member of society to annex as much of this wealth as possible. But by the very nature of the game it calls into existence two mutually opposing classes. Both, while Capitalism lasts, necessary to each other, yet diametrically opposed in interests. Gravitated at one pole are those who, by the rules of the game, sanctioned by the Law, Church, Tradition and Custom, have acquired possession of the machinery of wealth production, and by means of this ownership exact tribute from the rest of society. These persons, although at war among themselves, are knit into a cohesive unit in a common resolve that the rules governing the private nature of property shall not be changed. But by their similarity of economic interests they form a category which we variously call the Capitalist, master, ruling or dominant class.

The opposing economic pole is composed of those who, by the very nature of the game, are excluded from participation in the ownership of the means of wealth production. Capitalism can only be Capitalism where this sharp cleavage exists. These compose that heterogeneous mass known as the proletariat (from the Latin, meaning children of the soil), wage-slaves or working class. They are the overwhelming majority in modern society and are doomed by an ineluctable law of Capitalistic development to be swamped in the mire of poverty and whipped by the scourge of necessity to offer their only possession—their power to labour—to the owners of creation. How well Marx describes this “free” transaction: “the possessor of labour-power follows as his (the Capitalist’s) labourer. The one with an air of importance, smirking, intent on business: the other timid and holding back, like one who is bringing his own hide to market and has nothing to expect but—a hiding.” This brief synopsis should give you a fair understanding of economic class distinction. Do not confuse it with social, cultural, political or educational differences. These latter may be, and often are, explicable on the basis of different economic levels; but they are effects only, reflections of the actual parts men and classes play in the scheme of the economic system. The wealth of society is represented as a vast accumulation of commodities, and an incessant struggle obtains between the two class divisions over the share each shall possess. On the economic field this conflict is known as the class struggle. But we live in a political society in which the diverse economic groups strive to achieve their ambitions through the control of the state power. This contest for political supremacy is the ground on which is fought the battle for economic mastery. Whichever group succeeds in capturing the state imposes its economic will on the rest of society. Now the strongest economic class today is the Capitalist. They dictate the policies of state and directly control the functions of the state, i.e., the police, judiciary, armed forces, primary education, etc., and indirectly, by reason of wealth and influence, the prevailing ideology (this word means, roughly, reflected ideas from a system or social order) of the people. Writers, preachers, scientists, educators, philosophers, dance to the tune called by the Caesars of commerce and industry. The ruling class permits the dissemination only of those ideas which tend to perpetuate the existing order. This viewpoint is class biased and serves to vitiate the teachings of history, science and philosophy and bend them to the support of entrenched privilege.

And this interest, as we have shown, is contrary to the true interests of the working class. Consequently the enlightened, class-conscious element among them, the Socialist, must, to achieve its economic and political emancipation, correct the distortion in the world of ideas and supplant error and prejudice with true proletarian knowledge.

From Hegel to Marx
Hegel was in advance of his times by reason of the enormous historical sense that underlay his system. The current of his thought always proceeded in line with world development. But the process of world development was regarded as a test of the unfolding of the concept, that is, the Concept was the ultimate Reality and the uncoiling of physical events over time evidence of the logicalness of his postulated concept. Hegel regarded phenomenal change, i.e., manifestations of social and natural law, as the self-development of the Absolute Concept. Not his concept or that of any man, but a universal concept that existed independently of time and space—an all-embracing world-soul. The dialectic development in nature and history struggled along after the self-developing concept, which moved itself, how or why, nobody knew.

Now, if the universal concept be self-moving, governed by laws inscrutable, or no laws at all, and the process of natural change be but a reflection of the evolution of the cosmic concept, then what purports to be an explanation, being itself explained, is no explanation. How explain the known in terms of the unknown? How can history be logical if history but images a ’causeless, self-changing -mind?

The only wisdom such a philosophy can impart is that whatever is in the world is in the world and that it changes because it does change. Four thousand years ago the chroniclers of Hebrew myths had explained as much—or as little—and in language simple and direct. The cosmology of Genesis, the gropings of primitive speculation, had said as much and left the rationale of the universe as enigmatic as before; and similarly the ponderous intellectual machinery of Hegel, milling the same metaphysical grist, could grind out no more logic than what was already in the world.

But the great value in Hegel’s system was his sense of historical continuity. The principle of evolutionary progression pervaded his entire work, its content was historical and there was a real relationship between the thought process and the world. But the true relationship between the concept and the universe was inverted. It was standing on its head. If it could be turned upright on its feet the real content which everywhere entered the philosophy would be in alignment with the true sequence of causality. Before Marx could satisfactorily apply the dialectic he had to make his ideological reversal. Marx turned Hegel’s system upside down, or rather, he turned what had heretofore been upside down right side up; and as Engels says, “We contemplated the concepts in our heads once more materialistically—as images of real things instead of regarding the real things as images of this or that stage of development of the absolute concept.”

Marx applied the dialectic primarily to history and human society and showed that all problems, all knowledge and the purposes of all knowledge are always set in a concrete historical context. Here was discovered a guiding thread running through the mazes of the social process. By its guidance not only were the apparent anomalies and inconsistencies of the past reconciled and explained, but a course of action was suggested that would rid society of its major ills.

Nowhere in Marx is the dialectic expounded as a formal philosophical system. But the method is bone and sinew of his entire work and its detailed application is to be found in all of Marx’s economic theories. It is practically applied in the materialistic conception of history and is woven warp and woof in the socialist theory of the state and the class struggle.

The essential idea in the dialectic as applied to society is-this; it seeks the. cause of social change within the social process itself and not in the realm of metaphysical abstraction.

Socialists do not claim that society is an organic mechanism which can be entirely explained by one invariable rule. They admit the existence of relatively independent factors which effect the course of history in varying degrees. The influence of the exceptional intellect on the state of general culture, the inimical or benign influences of religious movements, the accidents of technological and scientific discovery, or the caprices of fashion — all are recognized as real, active subsidiary influences on the body social and politic. It may safely be admitted that many of the minor and some of the major turns in social and economic progress are unpredictable. The multi-variety of causes, the incalculable complexity of social reactions do not admit of strict scientific prediction. But again. the point to remember is—all the causes and all the effects operative within the body of society are to be explained in terms of nature and society itself. Or in other words nature and society generate the forces under which new forms and expressions arise. This explanation of social motivation completely eliminates the idealist’s soul-concept.

Marx’s method is realistic, materialistic; but it should not be reduced to a standardized mechanical formula by which alone to account for every possible variety of social phenomena.

A philosophy of social change must admit of empirical verifications of its theories, that is it should be submissible to proof; and the conditions under which change is possible must be indicated as at any given time. Furthermore, it must recognize the consciousness of human beings; that they actively participate in shaping the course of their own histories.

Dialectics provides a nexus between one culture and another. This is revealed in the development of social institutions: an antecedent condition exists—from it arises more or less appropriate social responses. But as the conditions become unstable the form of the institution either effects a change in the conditions or perpetuates itself as a new thing, the product of the altered conditions and its antecedent form. The new combination in turn giving rise to a continuous modification of conditions, reacting reciprocally on them and itself. Marx refused to divide social experience into two mutually exclusive compartments and classify one, the external world, “cause,” and the other, consciousness, “effect.” On the contrary, he showed that social change resulted from the interactions of nature, society and human intelligence. That the conventionally accepted “effect,” consciousness, was itself as much a cause as the laws of nature and society, and that vice versa, the assigned causes were in turn effects.

Marx applied the dialectics of social change to all stages of development. For the first time in the history of human thought a law was discovered with which to explain local and universal social evolution. The gist of the dialectic—the merging and harmonizing of opposites into a new but different synthesis—may be reduced to a definitely stated law: From conditions arising outside of man’s consciousness, the social and natural environment (thesis), there come into being certain human needs and corresponding purposes which act upon the possibilities of the given situation (antithesis), and therefrom arise purposive responses which resolve the possibilities into a new situation (synthesis). The process of change from situation to situation and social system to social system exhibits certain inevitable features; there is unity between both phases in that certain features of the old are preserved and carried over into the new; e.g., the technically developed processes of production and highly specialized division of labour under capitalism will be carried over into the new society. Socialism. Secondly, there is a difference in that certain features of the old do not appear in the new; e.g., the slave status of labour and private ownership of the means of social existence along with the coercive state will fall into desuetude under Socialism. Thirdly, the quality of novelty appears. New forms, activities and purposes arise out of the new combination; and these further change the meaning of whatever is retained of the old. The novelties are something more than a simple sum of the old plus the new: there is a reorientation of moods and purposes; e.g., the monarchy in feudal society was a bulwark for the landed aristocrats against the encroachments of serf, freeman and burgher; under capitalism it becomes a figure-head for commercial expansion and international salesmanship and more too, the deathless champion of “democratic liberties.”

The process of social change, interchange and development goes on forever. The only law that never varies is the eternal, immutable law of change itself. And contrary to anti-Marxists who wilfully or ignorantly misrepresent Socialists as ignoring the factor of consciousness and human nature, Marx never wearied reiterating that the characteristic mark of social development, as opposed to biological or natural development, was the increasingly greater part played by human consciousness.

W. C. Currey

News from companion parties (1934)

From the September 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The Western Socialist”

Published by the Socialist Party of Canada is obtainable from the Socialist Party of Canada, Manitoba Hotel, 194, Market Avenue East, Winnipeg, at five cents a copy; or at 42, Great Dover Street, London, S.E.1, at 2d. per copy (2½d. post free).

“The Socialist Review.”

Published by the Socialist Party of New Zealand is obtainable from T. ]. Phillips, 16, Hawea Road, Point Chevalier, Auckland, W.3., or at 42, Great Dover Street, London, S.E.l. Price 1d. per copy (1½d. post free).

THE WORKERS' SOCIALIST PARTY (U.S.A.)

Readers in U.S.A. are invited to communicate with the Workers' Socialist Party at 132, East 23rd Street, New York City, where the Socialist Standard is obtainable.

THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF CANADA

Readers in Canada are invited to communicate with the Socialist Party of Canada at 194, Market Avenue, Winnipeg, where the Western Socialist and Socialist Standard are obtainable.

THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF NEW ZEALAND

Readers in New Zealand are invited to communicate with the Socialist Party of New Zealand. Secretary, T. J. Philips, 16, Hawea Road, Pt. Chevalier, Auckland, W.3, where the Socialist Review and Socialist Standard are obtainable.

THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF AUSTRALIA

Readers in Australia are invited to communicate with the S.P.of Australia at Box 1440 P.O., Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, where the Socialist Standard is obtainable.

Lectures every Sunday night at 8 p.m. 122 Bourke Street, City. All welcome. Questions and discussions.

NEW SOUTH WALES

Readers in N.S. Wales are invited to communicate with the Secretary, 11 Wangee Road, Lakemba, N.S.W., for Socialist Standards and information.

SYDNEY.

Sydney branch meets alternate Mondays at Room 523, Rawson Chambers. Pitt Street, 7.30 p.m., for Branch business, followed by a lecture, questions and discussion. Meetings on 27th August, 10th and 24th September, etc.

Fifty Years for Socialism in America (1966)

From the October 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

The current issue of the Western Socialist, joint journal of the Socialist Party of Canada and the World Socialist Party of the United States, marks the 50th anniversary of the founding in America of a party based on the principles of scientific socialism. In July, 1916, 19 members of the Detroit local of the so-called Socialist Party of America resigned and, with others, formed a party based on the same principles as the Socialist Party of Great Britain. This party, after various name changes, is now the WSP.

Those interested in the history of socialism and pseudo-socialism in America will find much useful material: a history of the ups and downs of the WSP; a discussion of the failure of the SP of A. the Communist Party, the trotskyists, the De Leonists and the IWW who all had "short cuts” to Socialism; the War Manifestos of both world wars. There are also articles on socialist activity in Western Canada 50 years ago and a statement of the WSP attitude to the present war in Vietnam.

The Western Socialist can be had from our Head Office for 9d. (including postage). One year’s subscription for this bi-monthly journal is 4s. 6d.

The man on the flying trapeze (1975)

From issue number 2 (1975) of The Western Socialist

A chronic(le) expounder of "simpleminded" politics tells it like it is not!

Charles McCabe is a newspaper Journalist who writes a dally column for the San Francisco Chronicle. He is widely regarded around these parts as a liquor drinking philosopher; a commentator upon man’s many foibles, his failures and his successes, but an Omar Khayyam he is not. A wiseacre yes, and when in his cups a savant of no mean regard.

Now Mr. McCabe Is one of those high-wire journalists, who is able — so it would seem — to oscillate effortlessly from problem to problem, subject to subject, without so much as even a casual glance at the danger below. Or even regard for the accuracy of his undoubted mental gymnastics. He is, to boot, a latter day Cassandra. A self-proclaimed Humanist, a Liberal-Anarchist, going along with J. S. Mill who “argues not only for political freedom but social freedom, not only against the tyranny of the majority but also against the social tyranny of prevailing conventions and opinions.” So he says.

So last Monday’s (1/27/75) sermon to the “laity” (McCabe’s term) was no less tendentious than most if not all of Mr. McCabe’s intellectual carousing.

Friendship vs. Politics

It seems that Mr. Alistair Cooke, who is well known on both sides of the Atlantic (whereas Mr. McCabe only this side) in a recent talk to the BBC made this observation : “To be close only to people who share your own political views and prejudices is not only a terrible restriction on the world of friendship, but is a denial of life itself, since life itself is a good deal larger and richer and more complicated than politics.”

Now no one but a myopic wombat would deny that life without friendship would indeed be a very sad mess of pottage. But for Alistair Cooke to claim that life as we now experience it is larger than politics and more complicated to boot, is a proposition of another vintage.

However, as I have said before, Mr. McCabe is no slouch, and if the wind is in the right direction, he will dribble niftily along any old intellectual tightrope, not only not caring whether it sags in the middle — and this one certainly does — but proclaiming his unqualified support with Alistair Cooke’s statement with the following unctuous observation: “A well-put statement as nearly all of Mr. Cooke's are, and one very near to my heart, as nearly all of Mr. Cooke’s sentiments are.”

Mr. McCabe then goes on to compound Mr. Cooke's naivete with the sure-fire prerogative of the ignorant by proclaiming “My politics are, in fact, rather simpleminded. I’m against all well-intentioned kindnesses to others, apart from the essential kindness of letting them do their own thing within the framework of laws against hurting, killing and stealing.’’ (Wanna bet!)

In support for this muddled-thinking, Mr. McCabe (who is also a name-dropper) drags in poor old Mrs. Patrick Campbell’s trite remark about homosexuals “It doesn’t matter what you do in the bedroom as long as you don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses.’’ The irrelevance of this quote by Mr. McCabe, in relation to the substance of his article, would make Mrs. Campbell and the horses whinny in their graves.

The milk and water approach to human affairs as evinced by Mr. McCabe is touching, and no doubt would get a lot of votes from most sections of a befuddled populace! it is therefore pertinent to ask of Mr. McCabe whether his sentimental approach to violence, killing and stealing would motivate an advocacy against the laws in favour of the appropriation by the capitalist class of the surplus wealth produced by the working class, because it is this particular situation that at base causes the hurting, killing and stealing which Mr. McCabe tells us he finds so objectionable. And also if Mr. McCabe felt so disposed to crusade against capitalism would the columns of the San Francisco Chronicle still be available to him?

Politics Bigger Than He Thinks

Mr. McCabe expresses the view in his column that “politics is but a part of the full life and not so damned big part at that.” Is that so? Let him read the San Francisco Chronicle, for which he writes, and see how much space is allocated to that which is supposed to constitute the full life! Unless he is referring, of course, to the Society Columns.

The blood and guts of the situation is that our whole existence today is dominated by economics, and politics is the stock in trade, the tools we use to deal with the problems spawned from a particular economic predicament—that of poverty amidst plenty.

Capitalism is the society that has long since overcome all of the main problems of production to the extent that all human life could adequately be sustained: its failure, however, lies in its inability to distribute these goods and services which it so obviously hasn’t the power to do. Distribution in capitalist society demands the repository of the market place and the possession of money. The latter presupposes the former.

With the exception of the capitalist class most of us are quarantined to live out our lives on a wage packet. Capitalism’s problem is to dispose of the surplus wealth produced by the working class, for which they do not get paid. If society were able to have free access to this surplus wealth, not only would we then be able to live the full life, but It would mean the end of politics as well.

Politics, political activity, is that function that lays claims to the various opposing interests between (1) rival sections of the capitalist class, primarily over the vexing question of taxation — who shall pay what to whom and how much, and (2) between rival national capitalists the world over. Over the question of markets; cheap or cheaper sources of raw materials; trade routes and spheres for investment; warfare, internecine warfare, is the scenario which politics has to deal with and in the process whole countries are decimated, and many, many more live in constant deprivation. If after this “ball game” there is anything left over to live the “full life” perhaps Mr. Alistair Cooke would care to comment on it, and Mr. Charles McCabe would care to drool about it.

Harry Hamme

The assassination of art (1975)

From issue number 1 (1975) of The Western Socialist

In a democratic society, art is politics in the widest sense, a celebration of common values which sweep away the old and clears the way for the new needs of man.

Victor Jara, Chilean play producer, singer guitarist, was a supporter of the Allende regime. In the military coup that followed he was assassinated on 15th September 1973. They broke his guitar fingers before breaking his spine. Bullets were then shot into his body.

He is one more addition to the many creative people in history who have become too dangerous to live. For the arts are not amusements, ornamental skills, diversions, comforts for tired businessmen or social polish for the pretentious. At least, not to the men who wield political power. The arts communicate and communication is the most potent force for progress and change.

History is full of the power of the arts, not the overt expression of dissatisfaction nor the blatant clarion call to rise and fight but the uniquely potent expression of ideas which show that man is ready for change. Art is a barometer and a celebration, a mirror to the emotional and intellectual development of man. The artist says, “This is man, how he feels, how we feel,” and once said, it can never be repealed. The ideas catch fire in the minds of men, not because they are new and logical but because they express clearly what people feel but cannot quite themselves make known.

George Bernard Shaw provocatively said that art is propaganda. It is this but far more. In a democratic society, art is politics in the widest sense, a celebration of common values which sweeps away the old and clears the way for the new needs of man.

This does not mean that artists are consciously political in the modern use of the term. In fact, the moment an art becomes consciously political, it usually ceases to be art. The pamphleteer is not an artist because he knows rationally exactly what he wants to say before saying it. He may express new values but they are communicated on a mechanically logical level. There is no bridge of feeling between the old and the new for the mass of the people, still struggling to understand their own feelings, to make the crossing. Art does not lead the needs of man; it expresses them and man, whose evolution is on a social and economic level rather than a physical one, can develop further because he then knows clearly where he is. He recognizes as his the values expressed by the artist.

But some artists do not communicate in their own time. They may lead the way for other artists to follow but they themselves may be a little too far ahead of their time. These artists are sometimes called “important” as distinct from “great”, the universally recognized artists who signify a whole epoch or “celebrate” a common feeling.

Both kinds of artists can be dangerous to the established powers but the “important” artists are more easily destroyed than the “great” ones. They are less supported, less recognized and their deaths provoke less reaction.

The Un-American Activities Committee could not destroy Charles Chaplin or Arthur Miller nor could the Soviets destroy Yevtushenko but artists with less recognition, ahead of their time and people, are frequently destroyed in the power struggles of the world.

President Allende did not have the control of the Chilean parliament or of the army and his own political programme did not have the understanding of the peasants. He was supported as a leader and all this suggests that he was not really the spokesman for the people. The intellectuals and artists who supported him were therefore not truly representative of the people; they were a little before their time. Victor Jara died because his death meant a delay in his ideas developing among the people. Had he been expressing true national feelings, his martyrdom would have been too dangerous because of the possible reaction. More importantly, his martyrdom would have been irrelevant because his values would already be held by the majority of people anyway.

Throughout the world, the fate of the Allende administration has been hailed by the left and the right wings as an illustration that a majority of people cannot change society by democratic and constitutional methods. In actual fact it merely illustrates the futility of a vanguard group trying to lead an ignorant mass of followers into a change which the majority do not understand. When you can destroy a leader and destroy a cause, destroying a leader is obviously the best solution.

A second moral can be drawn. We must learn to respect and protect our artists whatever their political opinions. A society which neglects them is destroying its capacity to change.

Mark Fury, 

S. P. of New Zealand

Wage-Labor and Capital (1979)

From the Spring/Summer 1979 issue of The Western Socialist

It has been said that Marx was a writer who spent the greater part of his life writing one important book under a number of different titles. The book referred to is, of course, Capital — a book the knowledge of which is virtually indispensable to an educated person in our time. Not alone is Capital a significant and influential chapter in economic thought but it is also a major book about MAN. Within its covers one will find a miscellany of topics of general interest, such as education, the family and its future, the implications of modern technological development, and so on.

Among the various analytical writings of Marx and Engels, and the best simple introduction to Marxism in Marx’s own words, is Wage-Labor and Capital. This work was first published in 1849, incorporating the text of lectures Marx delivered before members of the German Workingmen’s Club of Brussels, Belgium. In editing it for publication Engels made several changes, the most significant being the substitution of “labor power” [1] for the term “labor” in contexts in which Marx originally spoke of the worker’s sale of his labor to the capitalist.

Describing wages and the wage system of capitalism, and the worker’s selling of his labor power, or ability to work, to the capitalist, Marx wrote:

“. . . labor power is a commodity which its possessor, the wage-worker, sells to the capitalist. Why does he sell it? In order to live. But the putting of labor into action, Le., the work, is the active expression of the laborer’s own life. And this life activity he sells to another person in order to secure the necessary means of life. His life activity, therefore, is but a means of securing his own existence. He works that he may keep alive. He does not count the labor itself as part of his life; it is rather a sacrifice of his life. It is a commodity that he has auctioned off to another. The product of his activity, therefore, is not the aim of his activity. What he produces for himself is not the silk that he weaves, not the gold he draws up the mining shaft, not the palace he builds. What he produces for himself is the wages, and silk, gold and palace are resolved for him into a certain quantity of necessaries of life.”

The striking exactness with which Marx portrayed the role of the wageworker in capitalist society bears its own conclusion. The commodity labor power is unlike any other commodity. It creates more value than its own market value, that is, it produces an amount of value over and above its own value. In brief, the worker labors for the equivalent of but a part of what he produces, and what he produces for himself is no more than enough to live on and to father and bring up more wage workers to replace him. Under capitalism the workers, as a class, are condemned to relative material impoverishment.

The laborer, unlike the chattel slave of the past, does not belong to the capitalist, the owner of the means of production, but a good part of the laborer’s life does belong to the buyer of his labor power. Writes Marx:

“The worker leaves the capitalist to whom he has sold himself, as often as he chooses, and the capitalist discharges him as often as he sees fit, as long as he no longer gets any use, or not the required use, out of him. But the worker, whose only source of income is the sale of his labor, cannot leave the whole class of buyers, i.e., the capitalist class, unless he gives up his own existence. He does not belong to this or that capitalist, but to the capitalist class; and it is for him to find his man, i.e., to find a buyer in this capitalist class.’’

Hence it comes about that socialists refer to workers, unflatteringly perhaps but nonetheless actually, as wage slaves. Capitalism dictates this abominable state of affairs, for capitalism is a system of society in which the instruments of production are operated not in the interest of society as a whole but rather for the private profit of those who own them by means of the socialized labor of the workers; and though the workers are not chattel slaves they are its modern equivalent — wage slaves, bound to a numerically small owning class if they would live and care for their loved ones.

Just what is it that takes place in the exchange between capitalist and wage laborer? Let Marx speak:

“The laborer receives means of subsistence in exchange for his labor power; but the capitalist received, in exchange for his means of subsistence, the productive activity of the laborer, the creative force by which the worker not only replaces what he consumes, but also gives to accumulated labor (of the raw materials) a greater value than it previously possessed. The laborer gets from the capitalist a portion of the existing means of subsistence. For what purpose do these means of subsistence serve him? For immediate consumption. But as soon as I consume means of subsistence, they are irrevocably lost to me, unless I employ the time during which these means sustain my life in producing new means of subsistence, in creating by my labor new values lost in consumption.”

This, then, is the gloomy picture of the workers. The worker when he receives his wage must spend it to live so that he produces more for the capitalist, and so that he can reproduce the equivalent of his wage again so that he can produce still more for the capitalist, and the equivalent of his wage again, and so on through his working life. The worker is chained to the treadmill of reproducing his bare subsistence, of laboring to live and living to labor for the non-worker, the capitalist.

We live in a society where instead of slavery or serfdom we have the wage system. While formerly the slave owners and serf lords appropriated the results of labor frankly, capitalists now do it deceitfully. The wage worker, if he will live, must agree to relinquish most of what he produces to the owner of the means of production.

Within the confines of the capitalist system there is no escape from this degrading oppression for the vast majority of workers. True, one can point to examples of working men raising themselves out of their class, but not of raising their class. If you would start to weaken the chains that bind you, of understanding what capitalism really is, how it operates, and why per force there are victims, it is recommended that you read Wage-Labor and Capital. If in your reading one point or another is not clear to you the World Socialist Party fraternally invites inquiries and welcomes the opportunity to clarify the point(s) in question.

REN.

[1] Labor power includes all the productive attributes of individuals, from the most elementary manual capacity to the most highly valued personality characteristics and managerial and technical skills.

Labor: Dignity of Man (1979)

From the Spring/Summer 1979 issue of The Western Socialist

In the ITU Review, June 8, 1978, under the heading: “Labor: Dignity of Man” appears this quote: . . . it is part of the dignity of man to create for himself and his family a basis for living through work” (My emphasis.) Unfortunately, the implication of the quote is that there is a harmony of interests between capital and labor. Can it be ignored that the primary objective of unions is as a weapon in the interests of the workers that arise because of the conflicts between capital and labor?

Capital's primary concern is PROFITS, and profits alone. Labor’s primary interests are wages and shop conditions. By the very nature of the economic relationships it cannot be otherwise, despite the claims of capital to the contrary. And the lessons of experience have proven this.

The notion that working for wages “creates for himself and his family a basis for living through work” is an illusion! The products produced by the workers on the job do NOT belong to them but to capital. Wages are determined by the costs of living! This can be seen by the many escalator clauses in union contracts.

Need I emphasize that today has seen a tremendous stride in science and technology? It has been established by research that nobody starves today because of shortages despite the propaganda to the contrary. The times are now ripe for a world fit for human beings instead of today’s dog-eat-dog jungle. Today, food is produced primarily FOR SALE, not only to be eaten. That is why potatoes, corn, wheat, cattle, etc., etc., are destroyed. We all are aware of this.

What is needed today is a world where everyone gives according to their abilities and receives according to their needs based on a real system of the DIGNITY OF MAN, freed from exploitation. This is no utopia but a present NECESSITY!!!

Rab.

In Boston Typographical Bulletin

A statement on trade unions (1979)

From the Fall 1979 issue of The Western Socialist

Under Capitalism the worker must organise into unions to improve or defend his wages and conditions of labour. But that is something quite apart from the political struggle for Socialism.

The modern class struggle first showed itself as the action and reaction between capitalist and worker on the industrial field. But the worker does not see it as a class struggle. In many ways the worker believes that the capitalist and worker have a common interest. The attitude of the worker when he votes, during wars, and his support of capitalist governments on many questions makes this clear. Although the worker has shown a growing consciousness during recent years of his position as a wage worker, yet he has been drawn into national and international questions which do not concern him and which we are bound to oppose.

When the worker becomes class conscious he realises not only that it is a class conflict he is engaged in but that it can only be fought out on the political field, because all class struggles are political struggles and must be so — struggles for control of the state.

Our sole job is to prosecute the class struggle on the political field and not be led into false positions by supporting trade union actions just because workers take part in them.

The fact that workers in trade unions indiscriminately support Tory, Liberal and Labour parties is incontrovertible evidence that their membership in trade unions is something apart from their political affiliations. The mass of those who support the Labour Party do so because they think that the Labour Party will help them to get better wages and conditions of labour.

Workers join trade unions in the main for the sole purpose of getting better wages and conditions in their particular industry, often regardless of the interests of workers in other industries employed by other employers. Further than that, they fight against each other on questions of status — and sometimes one union fights against another. This has become more frequent in recent years.

These are questions we should not be involved in and questions upon which we cannot always get proper information.

Again, leaders of trade unions, for their own aggrandisement, sometimes project the weight of their unions into questions that are outside the trade union struggle and contrary to the interests of the international working class.

Unions make their own blacklegs by setting limits to the number that can be employed in an industry and by barring certain categories of workers.

It should be borne in mind that we are not organised to improve the wages and conditions of workers under capitalism but to abolish the conditions that have given rise to capitalist and worker and replace them by Socialism.

Gilbert McClatchie, 

Socialist Party of Great Britain

Blogger's Note:

This was obviously an old piece, as Gilbert McClatchie actually died in April 1976. His obituary appeared in the June 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Materialist Conception of History (1979)

From the Fall 1979 issue of The Western Socialist

Down through the ages there have been various interpretations of history. For example, there are the theories which see in history the working out and realization of some sort of divine plan — like Hegel’s philosophy of history, which sees the whole historical development of society as the realization stage by stage of the so-called Absolute Idea. Again, there are the various theories which see history as moving through “cycles,” every civilization passing by some inescapable necessity through the cycle of rise, plentitude of power and decline — as in Spengler’s Decline of the West or Toynbee’s Studies in History. These are idealist theories and socialists are opposed to them. The idealism of such theories lies in the fact that they see the laws of development of society as a “fate” imposed upon society from outside, so that men and women are mere instruments of fate, the tools of external necessity. If such theories are accepted, then we are driven to fatalism. If what takes place is in the hands of God, or is decreed by fate, or follows by some iron necessity — it makes little difference in practice which you say — then it follows there is little we can do to determine our own destinies for ourselves.

Until the advent of Marx the various interpretations of history might be listed under five headings — religious, political, hero, ideas, and war. The elaborations found under these headings make interesting reading but they all contain serious shortcomings. The war or military interpretation of history, for instance, fails to recognize that war, a phenomenon that has been present in all phases of human development, is a result rather than a cause of events. With the coming of Marx and his theory of the materialist conception of history, history took on new meaning — it became rooted in the material conditions of life.

This interpretation of history holds that in any given epoch the economic relations of society, the means whereby men and women provide for their sustenance, produce, exchange, and distribute the things they regard as necessary for the satisfaction of their needs, exert a preponderating influence in shaping the progress of society and in molding political, social, intellectual and ethical relationships. In his Charles Darwin and Karl Marx, Edward Aveling, Marx’s son-in-law defines this theory :

“The materialist conception of history is that the chief, the fundamental factor in the development of any nation or any society, is the economic factor — that is, the way In which the nation, or the society, produces and exchanges its commodities . . .

"Now, whilst it (the economic factor) appears to be the fundamental one, there are others developed from it and reflexes of it, that also play their parts, acting and reacting upon their parent, the economic factor, and one another. The art, the science, the literature, the religion, the legal and juridical formulae of a country, although they all spring directly from the economic conditions of the country, have to be reckoned with.”

The most complete and most significant statement of the main elements of the materialist conception of history are formulated in Marx’s Preface to the Critique of Political Economy. There one learns that the subject matter of history is man himself, his economic and social conditions and not his ideas. The relations between men’s material conditions of life and their ideas are described in this general fashion by Marx: It is not the consciousness of men which determines their existence, but, on the contrary, it is their social existence which determines their consciousness. William Ebenstein in his Today’s Isms illustrates this concept:

“In a nomadic society . . . horses might be considered the principal means of acquiring and accumulating wealth. From Marx’s viewpoint, this foundation of nomadic life is the clue to its superstructure of law, government and dominant ideas. Thus, Marx would say that those who are the owners of the greatest number of horses in such a nomadic society would also be the political chieftains who make and interpret the law; they are also likely to receive the highest response and deference from the tribe’s members who own no horses. In the realm of ideas, the predominant social and cultural concepts would reflect the dominant economic position of the owners and horses. Even in religion the impact would not be missing. God might, for instance, be represented in the image of a swift and powerful rider, and the concept of divine justice and rule would be, in a sense, an extension and magnification of human justice as determined by the horse-owning chiefs.’’

Even as the above horse-owning class determined the political, social, legal, and cultural institutions in its society, so, too, do we find, on looking back, that the landowners in a settled agricultural society set its society’s values. Today in our industrial society the owners of the means of production are in the saddle and have been for the last two hundred years. No matter the formal and legal facades, this owning class, the capitalist class, rules contemporary society. This class conceives that “the ultimate purpose of the law, education, the press, and artistic and literary creation is to maintain an ideology that is imbued with the sanctity and justice of capitalist property ownership.”

The misrepresentations and distortions of Marx’s writings are legion. They perhaps are paralleled only by the slanders and vilifications on Marx’s person. For instance, critics love to reproach Marx that the materialist conception of history disregards the influence of non-economic factors. This is not so. There is nothing in Marx’s theory to indicate such an assertion, though it is true that he failed sufficiently to safeguard himself against this charge. Engels repeatedly acknowledged that many interacting forces give rise to an historic event. Again, some critics would have one believe that Marx’s “materialism” is but a depiction of man’s wish for monetary gain and comfort, of his desire for material goods, and this charge is sometimes coupled with the distortion that Marx was an advocate of the barracks, that is, the giving up of one’s individuality and entrusting oneself to an all-powerful state bureaucracy. Again not so. Relative to this Erich Fromm writes in Marx’s Concept of Man:

This “description . . . fits almost exactly the reality of present-day Western capitalist society. The majority of people are motivated by a wish for greater material gain, for comfort and gadgets, and this wish is restricted only by the desire for security and the avoidance of risks. They are increasingly satisfied with a life regulated and manipulated, both in the sphere of production and of consumption, by the state and the big corporations and their respective bureaucracies; they have reached a degree of conformity which has wiped out individuality to a remarkable extent They are, to use Marx’s term, impotent ‘commodity men’ serving virile machines. The very picture of mid-twentieth century capitalism is hardly distinguishable from the caricature of Marxist socialism as drawn by its opponents.”

The materialist conception of history is not only a theory about how to interpret history, but also a theory about how to make history. This theory was arrived at by Marx by applying the materialist world outlook to the solution of social problems. And in making this application materialism was no longer just a theory aimed at interpreting the world, of building a society free of the expoitation of man by man.

REN.

America . . . Land of the Free (1979)

From the Fall 1979 issue of The Western Socialist

America is the land of the free. Or is it? They certainly taught you at school that you were a free citizen living in a free country. The media screams out the glorious message to you every day: “You are free — now go to work.” Read the American Declaration of Independence; you can’t be freer than that . . . can you?

The definition of freedom adopted by a society determines the degree to which it imagine itself to be free. The Greeks called their society a free one, but it was based upon slavery. Since the Sixteenth Century in Europe individualism has reigned supreme. Liberty, in accordance with this definition, means the liberty of the individual: if you’re a worker you demand the liberty to work; if you’re a landlord you demand the liberty to take rent; if you’re a manufacturer you demand the liberty to make profits. Such is the freedom of individualism.

But what if your freedom is my slavery, if your profit is my unpaid labour, if your luxury is my poverty? Is that freedom Yes, it is the freedom of the individual.

The individualist conception of freedom is a class based one. It works well as long as there are workers willing to pay the price for the liberty of the minority. The working class need a new conception of freedom, a social expression of freedom. This will be in the interest of not just the lucky few, but the entire population of society. The social expression of freedom is socialism. Socialists argue that freedom is not just an abstract notion providing a defence for oppression, but a political necessity arising out of class antagonisms which are caused by property society. The socialist view of freedom is not moral — for morality tends to be simply the defence of established social relations — but practical. We do not say that freedom is desirable, but that it will be inevitable if workers are to bring to an end the oppression which is the product of class society.

Capitalist ideology faces a profound dilemma. Its liberal philosophical origins incline it towards conceptions of liberty and democracy, but its structure causes the system to act against the freedom of the vast majority, the working class. The liberal capitalist’s utopia is the liberal State described by Mill and proposed by the Declaration of Independence, but in practice the State serves as the oppressor of the working class. This must be so for property to be defended and profits to be made. In America and Western Europe the workers have won the right to participate in their own oppression by their possession of the vote. This is a valuable weapon which could be used to win control of the State machine and abolish capitalism. But workers Should be under no liberal illusions: this limited freedom is ever-precarious while the owning class have the upper hand. Legal expressions of freedom are useful, as those who lack them know, but they are no substitute for social freedom itself.

Socialists do not stand for individual freedom. The “right” of the capitalist to exploit the workers is not in our interest and so we oppose it. We will not support campaigns for the “right” of parasites to send their children to better schools than the rest or the “right” of the indolent class to kill animals for entertainment. We want social freedom where there will be no classes, no government, no laws, no social discrimination on grounds of age, race or sex, and free access to all wealth.

Such social freedom implies democratic decision-making. That will not mean simply the act of mindlessly voting for a leader once every few years. It will mean the informed, intelligent, uncoerced organisation of social affairs in which the minority viewpoint will be given the same freedom of expression as that of the majority.

Under capitalism they tell people that they are free and it is because the majority are unfree that they believe it. Let there be no confusion in the minds of the working class about the extent of their freedom.

Ask yourself this simple question: if you refused to sell your mental or physical energies on the labour market for one month how much food would your free society give you to eat? The answer is that under capitalism you can starve to death for all your mythical freedom.

Steve Coleman

Abuse of a revolutionary by the bourgeois press (1979)

From the Fall 1979 issue of The Western Socialist

If one thing is certain it is this: that no writer in history has been more misrepresented by his friends or vilified and abused by his foes than Karl Marx. For example, his “friends” the Russians misrepresent him to help them continue the massive fraud that Russia has something to do with socialism or communism. On the other hand, his avowed enemies don’t consider at what he said, merely at what his supposed friends said he said. And as that is usually so awful, the press find it useful to present Marx to the working class as a sort of bogey man, in a way mothers used to frighten children. What concerns socialists is not some defence of Marx as though his works were holy writ. But we are interested here for two main reasons: first, because we think truth is important; second, because although the case of the WSP is our own unique point of view, we are the first to acknowledge our debt to Marx. It was his towering achievements that enabled the founders of this party to place socialism on a sound basis.

So let me take two prime examples of abuse of Marx from the British bourgeois press to illustrate the point. The first from The Times in an article by Philip Howard called “Keeping cool in these muddy Marxist waters” (12/29/76). This article explains that the word “Marxism” has been used indiscriminately and suggests that the term ought to be used to describe followers of the political and economic theory of Marx. Howard then gives the reader the “three principles” of Marx. It is fair to say that the first principle is approximately correct but trite, and that the second and third principle given by Howard are wrong. The first principle says Howard is that Marx held that “labour is basic to wealth,” Now this is not a doctrine of Marx, but a truism that was obvious long before Marx was born. What Marx did, however, was to point out that capitalism functions on the basis of the work of the working class being paid for (in wages) by the capitalist class, at less than the worth of the things (commodities) the workers produced for the capitalists. This difference between what the worker produces for the capitalist and what the capitalist pays the worker is what Marx called “surplus value,” (I come back to that below) and is the source of profit.

The second principle of Marx according to Howard is “that economic determinism governs human activities in every sphere.” Rubbish! Marx said no such thing! Economic determinism means that every human action, in particular the human actions involved in the development of human society, i.e., history, are purely the result of the economic relations in society. Put simply the doctrine means men have no say in their destiny. This is not what Marx said at all. On the contrary, Marx said that men make history, though they do not necessarily do so as “free agents.” They can only make history out of the circumstances at hand. To take a simple example: it is impossible to build a machine that will fly, until scientific development has reached a certain level. Economic determinism is a doctrine designed to demonstrate that human action is irrelevant to social change. The horrors that have been practiced in its name by the Soviet block owe nothing to Marx.

The third principle of Marx according to Howard is “that historical development . . . must lead to the violent overthrow of the capitalist class and the taking over of the means of production by the proletariat. the real problem here is the word “violent.” Marx (and Engels) made it clear that in those countries where political democracy prevails (for example in the USA today) the revolution to establish socialism must be democratic and peaceful. Indeed, the socialist revolution cannot occur in any other way. The “violence” notion is an invention of others, usually used to justify the purported establishment of socialism in the face of the opposition of the majority. But socialism can only be established by the majority of the world’s working class, in the full knowledge of all that the establishment of socialism entails. This means that the socialist revolution must be a peaceful one. Violence is only necessary where understanding is absent. This is the WSP’s point of view, and there is nothing in Marx’s mature works that dissents from it.

So Howard, having started out to present the alleged principles of Marxism, ends by spreading as much confusion as possible. But then slandering Marx is no new thing for the bourgeois press. The right-wing Daily Telegraph naturally is not above such things. They published an article on Marx by Robert Conquest called ‘“A Little Bit of Poison”. (4/30/77) If for that title you read “A Huge Host of Invention” you will have an idea of the article’s purpose.

Conquest’s article says that Marx was wrong from the word go (though in the same article Conquest says Marx is refuted by 1900!). The article begins with a classic piece of villainy — identifying people who CLAIM that what they stand for has something to do with Marx, as representative of Marx’s ideas. Conquest starts with Wedgwood Benn (the British Labour Party politician) and ends, predictably, with Lenin and the Russian monstrosity. Conquest first says that Wedgwood Benn and the faction of the Labour Party that he represents has something to do with Marxism. How incredible it is that this myth still persists. The Labour Party (Wedgwood Benn and the others) is a party committed to one system of society only, capitalism. It was formed to obtain political power for the purpose of trying to do the impossible — improve capitalism in the interests of the working class. Seventy-three years after its inception, here is the Labour Party today still feebly trying to do the undoable, make capitalism work for all. Mr. Conquest has nothing to do with Marx’s main aim; i.e., the analysing of capitalism in monumental detail for the purpose of showing the working class that capitalism is not in their interests.

To get to the end of Conquest’s article, he deals with Russia and the Leninist distortion. The World Socialist Party has pointed out time after time the ludicrous nature of the suggestion that what took place in Russia in 1917 and has been taking place since has anything to do with socialism or by implication with Marx. There is no need to set out at length again the reasons the WSP and its companion parties has given for pointing out that the Russian revolution was not socialist. Anyone who wants further information on this subject is welcome to write to the party, and references to extensive party literature dealing with the subject can be supplied. Suffice it to say here that the Russian working class in 1917 was in no way ready to establish a world of common ownership.

Between these two extremes of ignorance and prejudice Conquest turns his mighty attention to Marx’s analysis of the class struggle and the importance of surplus value. Conquest claims that Marx analysed society in terms of class struggle, and then in his later research discovered that in modern times the class struggle “is rooted in the fact that all profit is extracted — as ‘surplus value’ — from the workers”. This argument says Conquest “is purest metaphysics. No evidence was presented”! This last libel borders on the fantastic. To claim that Marx’s economic analysis is wrong is one thing. If such an argument were supported by reasoned discussion it could be examined on its merits. But lack of evidence! Has Conquest ever tried to lift the 3 volumes of “Capital” and the 3 volumes of “Theories of Surplus Value,” let alone read them? The painstaking way Marx evidences his arguments is so formidable that it has a lot to do with Marx’s work being so lengthy. (Incidentally, Marx himself was not above a joke at his own expense on this score. While working on “Capital” he wrote to Engels. “I am stretching out this volume since those German dogs estimate the value of books by their cubic contents”!) He “stretched out” all 3 volumes of “Capital” by including a large amount of data, mostly from government sources, all justifying his theoretical contentions. To claim that Marx had no evidence for his arguments on surplus value is the despair of the ignorant abuser.

Marx’s writings still merit close study and critical attention. They explain to the working class why it is that capitalism cannot and does not work in their interests. The WSP argues that the only conclusion to be drawn from Marx’s work is that as capitalism can’t solve the problems it raises, a different sort of society must be established. To that end, Marx’s writings are as relevant as when first written. The writings of the Conquests and the Howards on the other hand have no relevance today, and are forgotten tomorrow.

R. A. Warrington

Obituary: Len Fenton (1917-2006)

Len Fenton and Ann Rab

Obituary from issue number 21 of the World Socialist Review

Last October 26th, the World Socialist Party lost one of its most energetic and committed spokesmen—a "stalwart" in the old sense—Comrade Len Fenton. Surviving the death of his wife Ann Rab by four years, he retired gradually from party functions till his last remaining activity was keeping a monthly log of postal mail received.

Fenton's first contact with the organization was in 1936, during a lunch break on Boston Common, where the party speakers frequently and forcefully argued the case for socialism. He was soon deeply impressed; he joined the party in December 1936 and became an official speaker himself in 1938, joining Comrades Rab and Gloss on the stand at outdoor meetings.

Developing his talent for public speaking of all kinds, Fenton was Boston Local's most effective speaker over a long span of years. From 1947 through the 1970s, he frequently represented the WSP at debates with other organizations and at various colleges and universities in the Boston/Cambridge area.

He recruited several other members of his family into the movement. He served on the Editorial Committee of The Western Socialist (the predecessor of the World Socialist Review) from 1939 until its last issue in 1980. [1]

Although Fenton's forte was as a speaker and debater rather than as a writer, he was very active on the Circulation Committee of the WS, and in 1955 he initiated a campaign to get the journal into libraries, which succeeded in boosting its circulation significantly over the next few years (a period in which many radical journals were losing readership). He was also active on the National Administrative Committee, occasionally serving as National Secretary or Treasurer.

Len combined a lucky gene with financial acumen to rise to the status of "cockroach capitalist," a term applied to members who went into business and did well. This phenomenon has sometimes caused critics to wonder how a party of the working class, committed to abolishing capital and wages, can harbor members of the capitalist class in its ranks. But just a little reflection will show that a socialist revolution aims to abolish the function of capital and the necessity of working for a living; the capitalists themselves only personify their capital.

His business allowed him the opportunity to travel abroad, and from 1965 on he and Ann made several trips to England, where they were hosted by comrades in the SPGB. Often they reciprocated the hospitality when some of these comrades would cross the Atlantic and stop in Boston. They formed lifelong friendships with SPGBers like Gilbert McClatchie (Gilmac), Cyril May, Jim D'Arcy and many others. In that bigger, less connected world, mutual contacts among socialists scattered widely across the globe had an intensity borne of a common sense of purpose.

Len Fenton never lost sight of the big picture. All through his long involvement in the world socialist movement, he maintained a contagious upbeat philosophy. Any success the party has in organizing for socialism will rest partly on the foundations he laid. In that sense, he is with us still. 

[1] In 1939 the Socialist Party of Canada, dodging the wartime censors, asked the WSP to take over its publication for the time being as a joint venture — a relationship that ended after 1968, when the SPC launched an independent journal.

Obituary: Len Feinzig (2006)

Obituary from the December 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Len Feinzig (also known in the party as Lenny Fenton) died in October. Born in 1917, he joined the World Socialist Party of the US in 1936 and was an active member of Boston Local until there was no more local to be active in. He was part of the core group who continued monthly meetings to mail out the Socialist Standards and keep the bare bones of a socialist movement alive during the 1980s. After the renaissance that the WSP began to experience in 1987, he continued to take part in every activity except those requiring computer skills. Lenny’s greatest contribution to the organization was as a speaker, both on the soapbox and indoors. He was arguably the best debater in the WSP, frequently impressing large audiences in debates with groups from Harvard, MIT and Brandies. He also spoke on Local Boston’s radio program during the late 1960s and early 70s. He visited Britain on a number of occasions, the last time being 2003. Comrade Feinting served for many years on both the NAC and the Editorial Committee of the Western Socialist, the journal of the American and Canadian parties. He also made it his personal project to increase the circulation of the Western Socialist dramatically during the 1950s (not at all an easy task in that period of history!) by instituting a successful nation-wide Library Campaign. His life was long and productive. He will be long remembered.

Letter: Taxes and Labour (1978)

Letter to the Editors from the January 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Taxes and Labour

Firstly, i refer to your correspondence columns in the Oct. 1976 and Dec. 1976 issues of the Socialist Standard. It was said in one of your replies that wages are what workers actually receive (net pay) and that taxes are paid by the employing class.

Notwithstanding the incontrovertibility of this assertion, I suggest that the rate of the impost on income is, caeteris paribus, of more interest to the worker than to the capitalist in the short term. If, for example, gross wages remain the same, while the rate of tax falls, then the total outlay of the capitalist remains the same (net pay plus taxation equalling the same gross pay as before the alteration of the impost rate) whilst the net pay of the workers increases at the expense of the tax paid; the reverse being the case if the rate of tax rises.

In the long term, however, an accretion to or a deduction from net wages as a result of a variation in the tax levels has repercussions on the employer. For instance, should net wages diminish as a result of an increase in the rate of tax, workers may then press, successfully, for higher gross pay which would entail an additional payment by the capitalist. Conversely, if net wages rise as a result of a fall in the tax on income, workers would be less likely to seek wage increases and so the capitalist avoids having to make additional payments to workers.

Secondly, the Spring-Summer 1977 Western Socialist contained a reply to a letter. The reply stated that the division of labour will be the basis of world Socialism. However, in The German Ideology Marx wrote ". . . while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow.”

Do you agree with the Western Socialist or with Marx?

P. S. Maloney

London N13

Reply:

Your proposition about tax is fallacious because, while you say that you are accepting that “other things are equal”, in fact ycur proposition is based on the assumption that two other vital factors have also been varied.

Our case is that in reality the burden of taxation (cost of the administrative machine of capitalism) falls on the capitalist class and comes out of surplus-value. Nominally, however, the cost is met partly out of PAYE, deducted from workers’ wages.

Your proposition assumes that the government revenue from PAYE is reduced, but unless you also assume (while giving no reason) that the total cost of administration has been correspondingly reduced, the government has to make an equal increase in the amount of tax collected directly from the capitalists. Your assumption that the total outlay of the capitalist remains the same is therefore untrue.

Your argument further requires (though without saying so) that simultaneously with the reduction of PAYE, the bargaining position of the workers against the capitalists has improved. (What Marx called "the respective powers of the combatants”.) If, before the reduction of PAYE, the bargaining power of the workers enables them to maintain net pay of £x, it cannot be assumed that when PAYE is reduced by £y the workers’ bargaining power is so increased that they can now achieve net pay of £x + £y.

In view of these errors in your proposition, it is not necessary to go into any difference there may be between short- and long-term.

The statement in the Western Socialist is in reply to a critic who argues that "division of labour and private property are equally” the cause of the evils of capitalism. The reply says that in Socialism there will be free access, and "without division of labour this would hardly be possible”.

Marx distinguished between social division of labour, i.e. the existence of separate industries, and the workshop division of labour, i.e. workers being forced to get their living by doing detailed processes. (See Capital Vol. 1, “Division of Labour and Manufacture”, particularly the last paragraph in Section 4.) The latter, but not the former, is peculiar to capitalism.

The Western Socialist’s critic does not make clear whether he is referring to the latter, or both. We do not imagine that the reply meant anything other than the social division of labour. Various industries under capitalism (particularly the motor industry) have already abandoned detail work and gone over to teams producing a whole car, because it gives greater output and better quality.

Anyway, how, in Socialist society, could any worker be compelled to do deadly repetitive work against his will? Marx made that point in The German Ideology. He said it is only under capitalism that a worker has to do it "if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood”. In the well-known passage where Marx spoke of man being “a hunter in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening”, etc., he was talking about "whole” jobs not detailed division of labour (though his examples are not much related to modern conditions). Marx also recognized that to do this the individual has to take advantage of the facilities “to become accomplished in any branch he wishes”, i.e. he has to get knowledge and training—no self-appointed surgeons or airline pilots, as anarchists have sometimes claimed there will be.

Editors.

Special issue of the Western Socialist (1966)

From the March 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

A special number of the Western Socialist will be published in August. The issue will be partly devoted to the 50th Anniversary of the World Socialist Party of the USA and the period 1915-1921. Information is urgently needed from members and sympathisers on the following: events leading to the organisation of the Party in, Detroit in 1916; information on British and Canadian members in the USA during the 1914-18 War; associations with the Socialist Party of America and information on the Duffield Hall Classes. On the organisation of the Party information is required on events causing the changing of the Party name; copies of the First Manifesto and the War Manifesto and the Jack London letter (which will be returned if offered on loan).

On the activities of the WSP of US details are required of the “Tea Drinkers"; Adelaide Street; halls hired for meetings; recollections of meetings, classes, debates, etc.; Western Clarion connection; Socialist Party of North America (Toronto); the Socialist Educational Classes in New York; the activities of such members as Baritz and Kohn and personal anecdotes, correspondence, records, etc

Material should be either sent direct to Editorial Committee, World Socialist Party of the USA, 11 Faneuil Hall Square, Boston 9, Mass, USA, or to the General Secretary SPGB, 52 Clapham High Street, SW4.

Should the workers fight for reforms? (1939)

From the December 1939 issue of The Western Socialist

A debate on the above subject was held at Local Boston headquarters on Sunday, Nov. 26th., between the Workers’ Socialist Party and the Independent Labor League of America (Lovestoneites).

Chester Bixby of the I.L.L.A., upholding the affirmative, maintained that socialism cannot be achieved by workers steeped in the worst depths of poverty, and therefore reforms are beneficial to the workers. Fighting for reforms gets workers into organizations where they can be spoken to; teaches them the need for political action; and creates the militant working class necessary to achieve socialism. He alleged that by ignoring reforms and merely talking socialism the W. S. P. fails to hasten the revolution.

Comrade Muse, of the Workers Socialist Party, in his main address, showed that agitation on the part of the workers for reforms, arises from the mistaken notion that their problems can be solved within capitalism. Advocating reforms gives support to this false idea. Using as an example the social legislation of the New Deal, he demonstrated that reforms cannot halt the worsening of working class conditions. Inasmuch as reforms are political measures designed to patch up the present system (quoting numerous capitalist sources in confirmation) our object, the overthrow of the system, is not furthered by fighting for them. However, on the economic field. Socialists must band together with other workers for the common object of fighting for better wages and working conditions. He concluded by showing that the only solution to the problems of the workers is the seizure of political power for the sole purpose of establishing socialism.

Mr. Bixby. in his rebuttal, claimed that his organization wanted socialism just as much as the W. S. P. He admitted that reforms are necessary to bolster up capitalism. He maintained, however, that at the same time the workers do benefit from these sops. Citing the Wagner Labor Relations Act as a method of getting workers organized, he claimed that a measure such as this can be used by the workers in obtaining still further reforms. He said that the I.L.L.A. seeks elective office only as a means of allowing successful candidates to challenge capitalism and “get thrown out on their ears”; otherwise the ballot is futile. He praised the W.S.P. for its valuable socialist educational work and regretted that organizations to which he had belonged did not carry on this work. In conclusion he stated that because socialism is not inevitable and requires organization, reforms are necessary to give us that essential toe hold.

Comrade Muse in rebuttal questioned the opposition’s continued support of reforms in spite of their proven futility. Rather than fostering a militant working class, they lead to apathy and disillusionment. He pointed out that one of the first applications of the Wagner Act (the only specific reform mentioned by Mr. Bixby. despite repeated challenges) was the jailing of workers for alleged violation of it. Although workers must accept reforms, fighting for them is wasted energy for they must still choose between capitalism and socialism. He referred to the ballot as the only available weapon in the hands of the workers at the present time. Although these “visionaries” ridiculed the ballot as a scrap of paper, they fail to present any other practical means of achieving power. They involved themselves in contradictions by claiming that the working class, through the franchise, can force the capitalist class to make concessions, yet will be unable, to achieve socialism by the same means, when a determined majority. The fault is not with the ballot but with the fact that the working class, at present insists upon using it in an attempt to reform capitalism.

In the final five minutes allotted to him, Mr. Bixby repeated his assumption that socialism can only be achieved by a working class with a relatively high standard of living; therefore the necessity of fighting for reforms to get this standard.

The Home Owners (1956)

From the September 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Reproduced from the “Western Socialist," Boston Massachusetts, May-June, 1956).

This is the saga of American home-ownership and American home-owners—of that not inconsiderable percentage of theoretical homeowners in the United States who are a part of the working-class. Let us begin with a scientific generalization.

The working-class, we Socialists maintain, is a propertyless class which owns nothing but its labour-power, its ability to produce. In exchange for this labour-power which the workers sell to the Capitalist class they receive back on the average enough of the necessities and the luxuries to keep them producing and reproducing themselves as a class. Home-ownership is certainly not to be figured as a part of the cost of producing and reproducing labour-power.

In the face of appearances, however, this would seem to be rather a bumptious statement insofar as the American working-class is concerned. There is, without doubt, a mountain of paper in the form of deeds and titles of ownership to homes of all types which might be found in the possession of American working -people and the ledgers in the nation's registries of deeds will bear this out. On the other hand, however, there is another mountain of paper in the form of first and second mortgages. liens and attachments and so forth reposing in the nation's banks and finance companies which fairly well serves to uphold the validity of the Socialist claim and which exposes working-class home-ownership for what it is—an illusion.

The “Propertied” Working Class

Since the introduction of the G.I. Bill of Rights which arose out of World War II, nominal home-ownership among the American workers soared. Despite die astronomical heights to which the price of property rose since that conflict, it became possible for a G.I. to purchase a home with a down-payment which varied from nothing at all to a mere 5 per cent. of the selling price. The banks would put up a portion of the money and the Government through its Veterans' Administration would guarantee the rest of it.[1] Nor does the fact that the G.I Bill does not extend its benefits to non-G.I.'s excepting in the case of the numerous instances of artful transfer of such privileges by G.I.'s to others, exclude another large portion of the working-class from the ranks of home-owners. For in many cases at least a large part of a down-payment can be raised by the “buyer” by means of a second mortgage—in most cases a short term loan with a long rate of interest

And so we find that a large percentage of the American working class has become and is becoming “owners” of real estate, even landlords. Just how little average equity the worker has in his home is another matter, however, which does not need too much research to unearth. First of all, we have the first mortgage. An article in the Boston Sunday Globe for June 10, '56 tells us that there is an “unprecedented debt of nearly $90 billions on home mortgages . . ." This mortgage debt, we are informed, “is being repaid by American families with remarkably low rates of fore-closures." Be this as it may, the picture looks something like this:

Let us say our worker buys a home for $10,000 (a pretty shabby sort of deal at today's market) and that he gets his loan at 4½% interest. If he pays $60.00 per month for principle and interest it will take him 21 years and 11 months to pay off the loan.[2] But this is not the whole story by any means, for the city or town gets its cut and in most cases these taxes are added to the monthly payments making the total in this case more like $80.00 per, rather than $60.00, and which also means that the $10,000 home has within the span of a typical 20-year mortgage, just about doubled itself in cost. 

It never rains but it pours

“The course of true love never runs smooth,” they tell us, nor for that matter is the course of a 20-year mortgage any smoother. A home, like its owners, does not get any younger as time goes on. In fact, figures show that almost 50% of them are at least as old if not older than the workers who buy them and in the years to follow there is much to be done in the way of repair. This section is not required reading for those workers who are able, after a hard day's labour at the shop or where have you, to repair or replace the roof, paint the sides, instal or repair the plumbing, heating equipment or electric wiring, build a fence, grow and trim a hedge, etc. This applies rather to the overwhelming majority of our fellow-worker home-owners who are too exhausted, or too inexperienced to do the work of a dozen craftsmen in their spare time. These make the grist for the Home Improvement milk with their "easy payment” plans backed by the Government's Federal Housing Authority or by various Home Improvement Plans sponsored by individual banks. These can tie them up for periods up to five years in amounts ranging up to $2,500 plus interest. Providing, of course, one's credit still warrants such a loan. For those who have slipped and have fallen by the way-side, credit-wise, there are the second mortgage and other types of friendly finance companies which ask no more than an arm and a leg in return for the loan.

In the face of the continuing debt which confronts the worker “home-owner” in the years his mortgage has to run, fortunate indeed is the fellow who does not lose his status and revert to that of tenant in name as well as tenant in fact. In recent years there have been a fairly insignificant number of foreclosures—insignificant when compared with the vast increase in nominal home-ownership. According to the Statistical Abstract of the U.S. for 1955, pg. 457, estimated non-farm real estate foreclosures for continental U.S. ranged from 68,100 in 1926 to a high of 252,000 in 1933 and a low of 10,453 in 1946. The figure for 1954 was 26,211.

This data was taken from approximately 1,400 counties, cities, townships, or other governmental divisions. It represents the number of properties acquired through foreclosure proceedings but excludes voluntary deeds of sale in lieu of foreclosures or defaults on real estate contracts. And this last item is by no means inconsiderable. Anyone who has engaged in the so-called art of salesmanship in the home improvement field has become cognizant of the fact that a not insignificant percentage of "home-owners” become delinquent in their mortgage payments or their payments on the roof, side wall or combination storm and screen windows, with the result that they are either foreclosed or jump clear with a few dollars fa lieu of foreclosure.

That so-called Common Stake

The nominal home-ownership by American workers will no doubt continue and even to expand as time goes on. To a considerable extent and especially in the case of that large number of workers who "own” city tenements, they in effect act as rent-collectors and maintenance-men for the banks that hold the mortgage. It certainly works fine for the Capitalist class to have a working population, a large part of which has such a tangible stake in the nation as a real-estate deed even if the balance on the mortgages, the outstanding F.H.A’s, attachments and liens just about obviate the tide. Anything that adds to the feeling of a common bond between the workers and their masters is a wonderful thing—for the masters; especially when it costs them nothing. To the extent that such "ownership” exists the illusion helps to hold back worker class-consciousness. The working-class home-owner is less likely to favour strong action against his employers in a strike for example. His 20-year mortgage and his F.H.A. notes loom darkly before him and help influence his actions.

This sort of thing, however, can but help to hold back the tide. It can not prevent it from ultimately sweeping in to engulf the Capitalist system, to finally relegate it to the history of past societies. The vast majority of workers, even in America, may aspire to but will not be able to attain even the spurious type of home ownership we have been discussing. Capitalism is a system which provides real property ownership only for the Capitalist class.

Harry Morrison

[1] Last year 30% of all houses were bought with V. A. guaranteed private loans, although out of a total of 14.5 million G.I.'s of World War II more than 10 millions have taken advantage of this feature. (National Real Estate and Building Journal, May, 1956.)

[2] From a table published by “Changing Times" for February, 1956.