From the December 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard
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| Illustration by Peter Rigg. |
Wednesday, October 10, 2018
Land monopolists (1991)
Book Review from the December 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard
Now The Synthesis: Capitalism, Socialism and the New Social Contract. Edited by Richard Noyes. Shepheard-Walwyn. £14.95.
This collection of articles by a number of British, US and Dutch writers is an application of the ideas of Henry George to today’s world. George, a contemporary of Marx and Engels, argued that the existence of exclusive private property rights over land distorted the workings of laissez-faire capitalism. Abolish private property in land by taxing away its value and capitalism would work for the mutual benefit of capitalists and workers.
Ground rent is indeed a deduction from the surplus value that capitalist firms extract from their workers, but its payment to the state as taxes rather than to land monopolists like the Duke of Westminster, Harry Hyams, Gerald Ronson and the Queen would only benefit the capitalists and not the working class.
For a short while in the 19th century Georgism was a radical doctrine that enjoyed considerable, if misplaced, working class support. Today, as one of the authors documents, Georgist infiltrators have had some influence on the thinking of the Green Party whose “Community Ground Rent" is the tax on land values that George advocated. But Georgism, in preaching that there is nothing wrong with laissez-faire capitalism as such and that “everything would be alright if ground rent were paid to the state", as Marx summed up George’s views (in a letter to Sorge, 20 June 1881), fits in very well with the free-marketeerism that enjoyed a passing revival in the 1980s. Indeed, this seems to be the general point this book seeks to make.
Adam Buick
The Road to Tiananmen (1991)
Book Review from the December 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard
China: The Search for Social Justice and Democracy. By Ranbir Vohra. (Penguin. £5.99.)
It is clear that this book was written in some haste to cash in on the demand for works dealing with the events leading up to the Tiananmen Square massacre in Peking in 1989. Vohra sets the scene by sketching in the history of China since 1850, but this means that he devotes too little attention to the 1989 events themselves. His two chapters on China under Mao Tse-Tung are obsessed with the figure of Mao and his ideas and plans.
But the sections dealing with developments since Mao's death in 1976 are rather better. Vohra traces the economic reforms which meant a slackening of state control and a growth in overseas investment in China. This was accompanied by massive inflation and a rise in the urban cost of living. Agricultural policies designed to boost production in fact saw a fall in the grain harvest. Plenty of workers faced a drop in their standards of living, while new private capitalists flourished. Like most academics, Vohra places far too much stress on factions and divisions within the Chinese ruling circles as the dynamic for political developments. But it emerges that ordinary workers did not find the post-Mao polices an unmixed blessing.
The account of the 1989 protests is vitiated because attention is focussed on the student movement, with only passing references to the degree of support and participation by other workers in Peking. The claim that the events were “a part of the ongoing conflict between the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese intelligentsia, each side representing a different view of modernization" is wildly misleading.
On the other hand, Vohra is right to point out that the protestors had no coherent political programme, and that there is no evidence of support among the overwhelming majority of the Chinese population outside the big cities. He is also correct when he notes that the Chinese government had had little compunction in the past about murdering its subjects. An estimated 80,000 were killed in the late 1950s. while, in 1976, several hundred were murdered . . . in Tiananmen Square.
This is expensive for a slim volume with no illustrations, but it is an informative account. And Vohra as least realises that Marx was opposed to commodity production.
Paul Bennett
What about Lenin? (1991)
Book Reviews from the December 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard
Stalinism in Crisis. By Robert Knight. Pluto Press. 1991. £9.95.
Stalinism and the Seeds of Soviet Reform By Moshe Lewin. Pluto Press, 1991.
Current events in Russia have left Trotskyists (not to speak of Stalinists and other Leninists) in complete confusion. These two books illustrate two contrastingTrotskyist responses to Russia's changing from bureaucratic state capitalism to private capitalism.
Knight, a writer for the RCP’s Living Marxism, sees the Russian ruling class as trying to “restore" capitalism in Russia and to convert itself from a bureaucracy ruling an inefficient statist economy into a capitalist class. Lewin won’t even concede that Russia has a ruling class or that it is heading for the sort of capitalism that exists in the West. In his introduction to this new edition of his book that first appeared in 1974, he seems to be saying that Gorbachev was engaged in converting Russia from a “degenerate workers' state" (whatever that might be) into some sort of “socialist" democracy!
And, of course, it is altogether too easy to blame, as the titles of both books seek to, the Russian dictatorship on to Stalin, when the bases for it were laid under Lenin.
Adam Buick
Between the Lines: Humbug! (1991)
The Between the Lines column from the December 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard
Humbug!
It is that time of the year again when Blue Peter shows us how to make cribs out of Big Mac boxes and Gary Glitter is resurrected to prove that there is life after death. A false mood of cheerfulness is forced. Ed the Duck, who is rumoured to be the heir apparent to Kinnock if Labour loses, will squeak Christmas messages to sick children in towns we have never heard of, and on the day itself Noel Edmonds will sit at the top of the Telecom Tower and make Australians cry by re-introducing them to their long-lost sisters from Catford.
It is the time of year when newsreaders smile just a little more. Last year they smiled incessantly because "freedom" had been delivered by Santa to the east Europeans and "communism" had collapsed under the weight of its refusal to provide the proles with sufficient threepenny bits in their Christmas pud. This year the inevitable Review of 1991 will furiously bang nails into the coffin lid of the Russian Communist Party. It is their media and they are entitled to bash their enemies; let's face it, state capitalism has been brought to its knees and there are some very happy billionaires and generals around. We, the wealth-producing majority, will have the capitalists' year reviewed for us: their defeat of the Kremlin superpower, their loss of a Prime Minister, their war for oil in the Gulf, their newspaper tycoon who drowned. This is not our life; this is the televised reality which must be slotted into our memory banks to make the memory of our class the memory of our masters' affairs.
On Christmas morning dull Church of England choirs will offer dirges about Christ who was born on this day. Christ, if he lived, was apparently a rebel leader against the tyranny of Roman imperialism. Had he lived today he would have been a victim of the government broadcasting: "And here is the Sermon delivered by the rebel leader from the Mount, but government restrictions require us to have an actor to dub his voice". John Selwyn Gummer perhaps? He certainly has my vote if he agrees to play the part through to the crucifixion. There are few things more uncheerful than a C of E choir on the telly while you are unwrapping your unwanted gifts. Few things, but some. There is, of course, the Queen-Parasite's speech to her subjects. Forget your citizen's charter, Johnnie boy, we're all subjects as far as the BBC is concerned. At one minute past midnight on 1 January we all become sinners (as well as yawning Europeans this year), for the Archbishop of Cant — this year a new face but the same old cant — comes on after the pissed Scottish dancers to tell us our fortunes. It is always a bad start to the year, this tedious sermon from Christ's man in Lambeth. On Christmas Day the Pope does his gig — a much more jolly affair, if only because it is obvious that the guy literally does not know what he is talking about in the various speeches he delivers.
Christmas is a time for the good old comics to come out and entertain the troops. Here we see glittery rubbish, recorded last summer, with jokes that can be understood by Sun readers and "songs for all the family" — if collective torture is on the agenda after three glasses of brandy. There is usually a Christmas film and it is usually talked about by families for days before the big day, only to be watched in sulking silence when it comes because Father and Aunty Florry have fallen out over who should pull the last cracker — this leading Flo to criticise his side of the family. Psychiatrists say that more divorces start during the Christmas festivities than at any other time except the fortnight's summer holiday. Capitalism is not a system which lets workers get used to spending lime with their "loved ones." When such time is offered, under all of the pressures of money insecurity and the need to participate in the ritual jolliness, genuine relationships crack.
Christmas TV is a moment of capitalism at its most dishonest. It is the moment like the politician kissing the baby whom he will later call a rioting delinquent, and like the bank manager on Children In Need who presents his slinking cheque before evicting a few thousand mortgage defaulters from their homes. Christmas TV is your exploiter wearing a silly paper hat and laughing at you through the screen. He has a lot to laugh about and the wage slaves give him too much to laugh at. The biggest Christmas gift of all is offered by the workers in the form of a willingness to carry on laying the golden egg of rent, interest and profit for another miserable year.
No doubt Christmas will offer at least one decent black and white film on BBC2 and, who knows, maybe they will show a few hours of decent music. Anyway, we have a world to win and then it can be Christmas every day — or never at all.
Steve Coleman
50 Years Ago: Communist Support for Conservative Candidates (1991)
The 50 Years Ago column from the December 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard
The Communists have a simple faith: Whatever the Russian Government does is right, whether it be Pacts with Hitler or war with Hitler. Whatever helps the Russian Government is right, whether it be denouncing the Labour Party for associating with Conservatives or voting for Conservatives.
Viewed thus there is no inconstancy in the recent Communist support for Conservative candidates at Lancaster and Hampstead. At Lancaster, where the National Conservative candidate was opposed by an Independent Liberal and by Mr Fenner Brockway of the ILP. "a Communist deputation visited the Conservative campaign headquarters in Lancaster this afternoon and offered to work for the return of Mr Maclean, the National Government candidate” (Daily Telegraph. October 14th, 1941)
At Hampstead there were four candidates, all with the same policy, vigorous persecution of the war and aid for Russia. The Communists supported the official Conservative candidate, Flying Officer Charles Challen. who won the seat.
(From "Notes by the Way", Socialist Standard, December 1941.)
Sting in the Tail: Let's Get Swamped (1991)
The Sting in the Tail column from the December 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard
Let's Get Swamped
Peter Kellner in The Independent (1 November) wrote about what a wonderful man John Major is.
John Major is leading the Conservative Party towards a social revolution . . . neither his friends nor his critics have acknowledged the magnitude of his project.
What excited Mr Kellner was Major's appearance at the Windsor Fellowship (now there is a revolutionary name). This is an organisation that "helps black undergraduates who want professional or management careers in industry."
Along with Mr Major’s meeting with Sir Ian McKellen, where he discussed "the demands of Stonewall, the homosexual pressure group that Sir Ian helped to form", this has led Kellner into the silly notion that Mr Major is somehow different from Mrs Thatcher.
Mrs Thatcher, he reminds us, had said in 1978 on TV that there was fear that Britain could be "swamped"by "immigrants".
In the Queen’s speech written by Mr Major and his advisers there is very little to suggest that Major and Thatcher are so different.
Did Mr Major propose that Clause 28 which he supported be withdrawn? No. Did he make some momentous move to change Britain's official racialist policies on immigration? No. He had the Queen, the highest paid ventriloquist's doll in the world, mouthing about how the government intended to stop the £50 legal aid for immigrants protesting against deportation.
Hypocrisy and cant we are used to: but let's make it known that we are socialists — we want to be swamped. Welcome fellow workers, irrespective of your sexual proclivities, the colour of your skin, or anything so bloody stupid. We are workers, let us unite against the Thatchers, Majors and Kinnocks of this world!
Loyal and True
There is an oft-repeated piece of conventional wisdom that has it that the Tory Party's great strength lies in its loyalty to the leader.
Mr Kenneth Clarke on TV-am’s Frost on Sunday (3 November) when asked about his attitude towards former leader Margaret Thatcher said he held her "In fairly reverential respect . . . She was the boss."
However when pressed to answer the point that after the first ballot he had told her to her face that he would resign from the cabinet if she stood for the second ballot he replied "Well I didn't quite do that."
Ah, touching loyalty? Well, not quite. The oily Mr Clarke later revealed "I told others, whom I'm sure told her, I would resign."
Poverty of Thought
The sterility of bourgeois thinking was well illustrated by Geoffrey Wheatcroft when writing in the Sunday Telegraph (27 October).
It is easy to make fun of the way the poverty lobby continually redefines its terms, so that the poor . . . are those without colour television, washing machines or regular holidays.
For Wheatcroft everything is fixed in time and is not to be redefined despite social change. Being "poor" today is what it was 100 years ago — living in a hovel, being half starved and clothed in rags.
But poverty, like everything else, is relative. For example, during World War Two the immensely rich Aga Khan was trapped in Switzerland and had to live on "only" £40,000 a year. This was an enormous sum in those days and 200 times the income of most British workers, but the Aga Khan considered he was living in poverty.
Today society can produce much more wealth than it could 100 years ago and people's perception of what are luxuries has changed. Not to have colour TV, a washing machine, etc., when these can be provided in abundance is indeed to be "poor".
Wheatcroft may laugh at the poverty lobby but they can at least understand what is obviously beyond him.
It's a Jungle
"How the lion roared with pride" was a headline in The Guardian (4 November). Of course this swell-headed feline was the English Lion, but why should the lion represent England? It isn't native to these shores so wouldn't a Yorkshire Terrier or a Dover Sole be more appropriate?
The fact is that powerful nations which grabbed Empires through conquest often adopted ferocious animals as the symbol of their power. For example, Germany, Austro-Hungary and Tsarist Russia all chose the Eagle. It would have been less awe-inspiring if they or Imperial England had chosen the Duck or Badger although both are native to all these countries.
But what was that headline all about anyway? Only that a Lion had been duffed-up by a Wallaby, or, put another way, that England's Rugby team had lost the World Cup Final against Australia. Doubtless, every English patriot is as sick as a parrot.
Classroom Struggle
Settle down, class. In this current affairs period we will discuss why some European left-wing parties are gaining support while others are losing it.
Can anyone name any countries where the left-wing are doing well? Obviously Britain, Germany, Denmark. Good, but where are they doing badly? France, Spain, Austria, fine, that's enough.
Right, but how do we explain these contrasting fortunes? You at the back, yes, you with your nose buried in that paper. Let's hear from you. Hmm, so you say that the left-wing are unpopular in France, Spain and Austria because they are in government there and any party which administers capitalism must inevitably lose support. I've heard that before, somewhere.
Well, that's a debatable viewpoint, but now tell the class why the left-wing are so popular in Britain, Germany and Denmark where they are seeking government The political experts put it down to "the swing of the pendulum", what's your view? You put it down to voters having short memories . . . what IS that paper you were reading? The Socialist Standard? I should have known!
They Never Learn
After decades of boring-from-within the Labour Party, Militant has been forced to abandon "entryism" and openly come out as a separate organisation.
Dishonest to the end, they say: We are not setting up as a fully-fledged party because that would be counter-posed to Labour. (The Guardian 2 November). This despite the fact that they intend to put up parliamentary and local government candidates against Labour!
This move must be a bitter pill for Militant to swallow. They really believed that they could take over the Labour Party. And remember all those years spent lecturing other equally futile left-wing groups for being outside Labour's ranks? Now they join them and all their wordy justifications (47 pages long) for what they present as a tactical withdrawal are only camouflage for what is a headlong retreat.
Has Militant learned the folly of "entryism"? Not one bit and they have broadcast their intention of sneaking back into the Labour Party when they think the coast is clear. What a hope and what a policy!
Labour of Sisyphus
Recently we read another politician telling us that "politics is the art of the possible".
But all politicians are committed to running the affairs of capitalism, a system which by its very nature generates military and trade wars between nations, produces such massive poverty and insecurity that racial, national and religious hatreds inevitably occur, causes pollution of the earth through the drive for profit, etc., etc.
And yet the politicians are the ones who are endlessly engaged in the hopeless task of trying to reform away the problems which capitalism itself creates!
The art of the possible? A more accurate definition of their activities would be that "politics is the pursuit of the impossible".
Tuesday, October 9, 2018
William Morris and the Socialist Movement (1946)
Last month was the fiftieth anniversary of the death of William Morris. He is principally known to the world as a poet and the founder of a new movement in arts and crafts. To us he is significant as a pioneer in the Socialist movement in this country. Born into the circle of the comfortable, he was revolted by the ugliness which he saw around him; an ugliness that he gradually realised was due to the profit-making principle that guided production and brought poverty and misery to the producers. In an article he wrote. “How I Became a Socialist,” he tells of his discontent with the existing system :—
“What shall I say concerning its mastery of and its waste of mechanical power, its commonwealth so poor, its enemies of the commonwealth so rich, its stupendous organisation—for the misery of life! Its contempt of simple pleasures which everyone could enjoy but for its folly? Its eyeless vulgarity which has destroyed art, the one certain solace of labour? All this I felt then as now, but I did not know why it was so.”Then he asked himself were the past struggles of mankind which had produced this "sordid, aimless, ugly confusion” to end in “a counting house on the top of a cinder heap.” Bat it dawned on him that the seeds of a great change were beginning to germinate. "The whole face of things was changed to me by that discovery, and all I had to do then in order to become a Socialist was to hook myself on to the practical movement.”
Morris confesses that when he joined the Democratic Federation, founded by Hyndman in 1881, he was "blankly ignorant of economics”; this he immediately set out to remedy by tackling Marx's works, including "Capital.” He did not stay long in the Democratic Federation, which had become the Social Democratic Federation, as he soon became disgusted with the reformism that permeated it. In December, 1884, along with Belfort Bax, Eleanor Marx, Frederick Lessner and Edward Aveling, he left the Federation to form the Socialist League, and in February, 1885, the first issue of the "Commonweal” was published, edited by Morris and Aveling. This first number contained the Manifesto of the League and also an "introductory” by Morris, the beginning of which is worth quoting as an example of the attitude of the new body towards its official organ:—
"We beg our readers' leave for a few words in which to introduce to them this Socialist journal, The Commonweal. In the first place we ask them to understand that the Editor and Sub-Editor of The Commonweal are acting as delegates of the Socialist League, and under its direct control; any slip in principles, therefore, any mis-statement of the aims or tactics of the League, are liable to correction from the representatives of that body.
"As to the conduct of The Commonweal, it must be remembered that it has one aim—the propagation of Socialism.”
This was certainly a promising start; a few paragraphs. from the League's Manifesto will further indicate how far Morris and his associates had progressed in understanding:—
"Fellow Citizens,
"We come before you as a body advocating the principles of Revolutionary International Socialism; that is, we seek a change in the basis of Society—a change which would destroy the distinctions of classes and nationalities.
"As the civilised world is at present constituted, there are two classes of Society—the one possessing wealth and the instruments of its production, the other producing wealth by means of those instruments but only by the leave and for the use of the possessing classes.
"These two classes are necessarily in antagonism to one another. The possessing class, or non-producers, can only live as a class on the unpaid labour of the producers—the more unpaid labour they can wring out of them, the richer they will be; therefore the producing class—the workers —are driven to strive to better themselves at the expense of the possessing class, and the conflict between the two is ceaseless. Sometimes it takes the form of open rebellion, sometimes of strikes, sometimes of mere widespread mendicancy and crime; but it is always going on in one form or other, though it may not always be obvious to the thoughtless looker-on.
"We have spoken of unpaid labour; it is necessary to explain what that means. The sole possession of the producing class is the power of labour inherent in their bodies; but since, as we have already said, the rich classes possess all the instruments of labour, that is, the land, capital, and machinery, the producers or workers are forced to sell their sole possession, the power of labour, on such terms as the possessing class will grant them.
"These terms are, that after they have produced enough to keep them in working order, and enable them to beget children to take their places when they are worn out, the surplus of their products shall belong to the possessors of property, which bargain is based on the fact that every man working in a civilised community can produce more than he needs for his own sustenance.
"This relation of the possessing class to the working class is the essential basis of the system of producing for profit, on which our modern Society is founded.”
"Nationalisation of the land alone, which many earnest and sincere persons are now preaching, would be useless so long as labour was subject to the fleecing of surplus value inevitable under the Capitalist system.
"No better solution would be that State Socialism by whatever name it may be called, whose aim it would be to make concessions to the working class while leaving the present system of capital and wages still in operation; no number of merely administrative changes, until the workers are in possession of all political power, would make any real approach to Socialism.
"The Socialist League therefore aims at the realisation of complete Revolutionary Socialism, and well knows that this can never happen in any one country without the help of the workers of all civilisation.”
There is little wanting in clearness in the above and the last paragraphs quoted are certainly not out of date. Unfortunately the adherents were few and it was largely on money supplied by Morris that the organisation was able to carry on until an influx of anarchists swamped those who stood with Morris, modified the policy of the League and compelled Morris and his group to resign in 1890. The Anarchists had found an opening in the fact that the League eschewed political action for the time, concentrating upon educating the workers.
Morris did a vast amount of lecturing, street-corner speaking and writing. He constantly harped upon a theme that was of abiding interest to him—the introduction of conditions that would enable the producer to find joy in his labour and would thus enable him to make articles that were both useful and beautiful. Morris has been charged with looking back to the hand labour of mediaeval times and building an utopia out of touch with the realities of his time. This is not so. An essay he wrote on “A Factory as it Might be” dispels this view. The essay opens up as follows : —
"We Socialists are often reproached with giving no details of the state of things which would follow on the destruction of that system of waste and war which is sometimes dignified by the lying title of the harmonious combination of capital and labour. Many worthy people say: 'We admit that the present system has produced unsatisfactory results, but at least it is a system; you ought to he able to give some definite idea of the results of that reconstruction which you call Socialism.’
"To this Socialists answer, and rightly, that we have not set ourselves to build up a system to please our tastes, nor are we seeking to impose it on the world in a mechanical manner, but rather that we are assisting in bringing about a development of history which would take place without our help, but which, nevertheless, compels us to help it; and that, under these circumstances, it would be futile to map out the details of life in a condition of things so different from that in which, we have been born and bred.”
From the quotations we have given it will be seen that Morris had got a grip of the fundamentals of the working class position and was not just an artistic expression of revolt against ugliness. Many of those who eulogise him to-day, and gloss over his sturdy championship of the real working class position, he would have scorned as associates in his day. He was a worthy pioneer even though he had not yet worked out the full implications of an independent working class policy. The Socialist Party had sufficient regard for his views to publish, as one of their first pamphlets, his “Art, Labour and Socialism,” now unfortunately out of print.
We would have liked to have given a full and critical estimate of Morris’s relation to the Socialist movement, but, with our restricted space, the above fragment will have to suffice for the present.
Gilmac.
The Phoney Revolution - Part 2 (1957)
From the December 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard
The Managerial Society is now part of popular mythology. Even in Marx’s time it seems to have been a commonplace, for he quotes Dr. Ure as saying in 1840, that not the industrial capitalists but the industrial managers “are the soul of our industrial system.” (Capital, vol. 3, pp. 454/5).
It is of course true as the managerial theorists say that the unity between owners of capital and the actual direction of production has been ruptured. In fact Marx himself acutely analysed in the third volume of Capital the reasons for this and showed it to be intimately bound up with the concentration of capital (the continuous enlargement of the productive units) and the centralisation of capital (the amalgamation of a number of smaller capitals into a single capital). The centralisation of capital was considerably helped by the tremendous growth of the credit system and with it the emergence of the joint stock company.
When Marx speaks of the credit system he includes the whole financial machinery of capitalism, i.e., banks, finance houses, security markets, etc. It is via the credit system that scattered capitals can be deposited in vast amounts and made available for large scale capital investment. In this way said Marx it “transforms itself into an immense social mechanism for the centralisation of capital.”
The Absentee Capitalist
Joint stock companies (corporations) operate not merely with their own capital but other peoples. Of them Marx says, “Capital … is here directly endowed with the form of social capital … as distinguished from private capital and assumes the form of social enterprise as distinguished from private enterprise. It is the abolition of capital as private property within the boundaries of capitalist production itself.” Marx adds, that it leads to the “transformation of the actually functioning capitalist into a mere manager, and administrator of other peoples capital and the owners of capital . . . into mere money capitalists.” (Capital, vol. 3, pp. 516/17.)
Marx, unlike our modern theorists, did not believe the development of the corporation to be a step towards Socialism. Collective capital, he said, although it gave impetus to the social character of wealth production could never overcome, but only intensify the antagonism of socially produced wealth and private appropriation. He also added that the development of the corporation and “the credit system, brings a new set of parasites . . . promoters, speculators … a whole system of swindling by means of corporation juggling, stock jobbing and stock speculation. It is private production without the control of private property.” (Capital, vol. 3,, p. 519.)
The hired managers
Marx also dealt with the replacement of the capitalists as industrial entrepreneurs by managers. The early capitalists, while not producing surplus value, supervised the activities of those who did. This appropriation of unpaid labour was called the profits of enterprise. The economic apologists of the day also called it the wages of superintendance. With the vast growth of capitalism the function of the capitalist as a representative of capital became delegated to managers, whose wages of superintendence was fixed at the market price and was but a mere fraction of what the capitalist had appropriated for such work. Managers are then agents for the capitalists and hence agents for capital.
The so-called Middle Class
Managers constitute the elite of the amorphous mass called by some people the new “middle class.” It includes civil servants, professional workers, office staff, salesmen, etc. They are also known as the salariat. The requirement of large scale capitalism has brought about a considerable increase of these types of employees. Labourites and Tories have claimed that the growth of this group of the working population has falsified Marx’s prediction of the decline of the middle class. When Marx spoke of the decline of the “petty bourgeoisie” he was referring to independent handicraftsmen, small traders and those living on small fixed incomes. This prediction holds good. Such people constitute small property owners. The salariat are not an expanded form of these lower sections of the historic bourgeoisie. This “new middle class” is in substance not a property section but a propertyless section of the community, forced to work for a livelihood. The term middle class is not based upon an objective evaluation of the position of individuals in the economic structure of society but on a subjective assessment of one’s occupation, residence, and general cultural qualifications.
The census of classification of occupations (1951) ignored these finer nuances by classifying sections of the working population as industrial and non-industrial. The census also tells us that in this country there are approximately 750,000 managers. Of these 185,000 are termed general managers and directors. Some of these directors will have been appointed to boards of concerns as top ranking technicians, administrators or because they have big names and influence. Some of these directors will be big stock holders who have got themselves appointed with the additional advantages of expense accounts. The general managers for the most part are not substantial shareholders—what ever they hope to become. It is these with the overwhelming bulk of managers the 700,000 or so who are under orders for the concerns for which they work. As such they are representatives of the capitalists, operating in a capitalist environment and working for capitalist objectives. As such they do not form a separate class with aims and economic interests different and in opposition to those who employ them. It is these, along with the highly placed technicians, who constitute the hard core of Burnham’s and the new look Fabian’s alleged managerial class, who they claim have replaced, or are in process of so doing, the capitalist class.
What is a Class?
Having used the term “class” in the context it is perhaps necessary to define it more precisely. In the first place a class is not merely a question of social origins. An individual born in the working class may enter the capitalist class and vice versa. Nevertheless a class tends to perpetuate itself along the lines of its social origins. It is also true that individuals are influenced by the ideas and attitudes of the class to which they belong. But ideas and attitudes do not determine a class structure.
Nor as is popularly supposed is a class made up of people getting near enough the same income. Some highly paid workers may get as much or more than some small capitalists. It does not mean therefore that they have an identity of interests. A civil servant and an aircraft mechanic may both earn £1,000 per year but it does not give them a class affiliation as against those who earn double or half of that amount. Although differences of income are a feature of classes, it is not the size of the income but the source of income, common to a number of individuals which is more important for the purpose of analysis. But to say no more than this would leave the question up in the air.
To discover the real nature of class structure one must go to the roots of a social system and that must be sought in the social relations of production i.e. the way one set of individuals stand to another set of individuals in the process of producing wealth. Using this criterion we can say that social classes are characterised by those who own the means of production and those who work for them and who provide above the general cost of their maintenance, surplus labour for the former. The appropriation of surplus labour has always exemplified class society of which capitalism is historically the last form. In capitalism the social groups consist of the ruling section who own the wealth producing agencies and the subordinate class—non-owners—who work for them and the surplus labour takes the form of surplus value. The essence of class privilege being the appropriation of unpaid labour, the individuals who make up the ruling section will have a common interest in perpetuating a social order upon which the survival of its privileges depends. An antagonism of interests is then a feature of class society.
It is true that people can be classified in innumerable ways, dependent upon the purpose in view. But if we wish to know from whence profits are derived, what determines wage levels and the impetus of capital accumulation, in short what makes the system tick, then only the Marxist classification is relevant for such purposes.
Production of surplus value is the life blood of capitalism. It provides capitalists with their personal incomes and is the source of extended capital accumulation. In a society in which two classes face each other as owners of the means of production and wage workers owning only their working capacities the way control is exercised over the agencies of production is evident. That is why capital is not just another name for means of production, as some woolly minded Fabians think. For the capitalist the means of production represent a sum of values which take the form of investment. The capitalist is not concerned with means of production as such, but as capital and the only function capital has for him is to expand.
Expand or go under
In a world where monopolistic, quasi monopolistic, or free market competition is the order of the day (plus capital depreciation due to technical changes which tend to depreciate capital values) the self-expansion of capital becomes the essential condition for successful survival of the capitalist or combination of capitalists. Capitalism is a social organisation where production and distribution of wealth has to follow certain rules. Capitalists, and the management, must conform to these rules on pain of elimination. Because capitalism was bound up with, (and the outcome of), a past economic evolution, it constitutes a definite stage of historic development. For that reason the aims and motives of capitalists are proscribed within the social framework. Not for nothing did Marx state that his view “can less than any other make the individual responsible for relations whose creature he socially remains, however much he may subjectively raise himself above them.”
If production of surplus value and the self-expansion of capital are the dominant drives of the system, then whether capitalists run their own concerns or have them run by managers they must both act as functionaries of capital. And whatever other motives, capitalists or managers may or may not bring to the direction of enterprises they are all subordinate to the over-riding compulsion of the self-expansion of capital in a profit motivated economy. If they are not successful in capital accumulation they cannot be successful in anything.
Having defined a class as the position individuals occupy in the economic structure of society in relation to other individuals, i.e., as owners and non-owners of the means of production it may be asked in what way do managers constitute a class. In what way do they stand to the relations of production in contrast to the owning class and the non-owning class. What economic function —not occupational or technical—have they separate from employers and employees? What objectives do they pursue which are not capitalist objectives and what is the system they are supposed to be operating which is neither capitalist or socialist? It is precisely on such issues, crucial to the claims of the managerial theorists that they become vague, and even obscurantist.
The Place of the Technician
There is a variation of the managerial theme which holds that the complex character of automation will produce a race of technicians upon whom the capitalists will be so utterly dependent that they and the managers will be able to hold the big capital owners to ransom and impose their own terms upon the system. In substance these arguments were put forward by technocrats thirty years ago. They argued that the ever-growing complex technical evolution of the system would result in the power of control passing to technicians and administrators, who would be small and compact enough to hold the capitalists to ransom. Experience shows, however, that the technical requirements of capitalism have never failed in the long run to bring about a generous, sometimes over-generous supply of necessary technicians, and there is no reason to suppose that automation technicians either now or in the future will not be as liberally forthcoming as they have been in the past.
The Bureaucracy
To the structure of this alleged new ruling class there has been added another component, the bureaucrats. Although what role they are supposed to play in the economy and in what manner they fuse with the managers, is never made concretely clear. Hitler’s Germany is often used as the classic example of managers, bureaucrats and political adventurers usurping the capitalist ruling class. But as was pointed out in a previous article on the “managerial revolution” there was never the slightest evidence to show that an economy other than capitalism had emerged or was emerging under the Fascist regime. It is true that the development of what is known as Monopoly Capitalism has been linked with the expansion of the economic functions of the state which in turn has engendered close contacts between the organisations of big business, chambers of commerce, etc., and the various state departments. Again large scale State investment for the provision of cheap raw material and essential services for the economy as a whole, has brought about an interlocking between parts of the state apparatus and industry. All of which reflects itself in capitalist parliaments and governmental policies. But this has not led to the elimination of the capitalist economy, nor has it led to its undermining but rather to its underpinning.
But even if the assumption was granted—and there is not any evidence for so doing—that managers, top ranking technicians, and boards of directors have displaced or will displace the big capital owners, does it follow that they constitute a new ruling class? Having defined class within the context of the subject, we have seen that a class is not merely a set of people organised around certain interests but a group of individuals who occupy a certain position in the economic structure of society, and so stand in certain relationship to another group in a specific mode of production. And the ruling group are those who via ownership are able to exercise control of the means of production. In what way then would managers who ousted the former owners constitute a new ruling class. The answer is that they would not. The social productive relations would remain unaltered. The essential features of the capitalist economy would remain and the production of surplus value and extended accumulation of capital would still be the dominant motives of those who now occupied the leading positions in the economy. In short they would still function as representatives of capital. It would still be the ruling class as we have defined it. All that it would mean is that the dominant section would be made up of different persons, and no more significant in fundamental change than the replacement of Jewish capitalists by Aryan capitalists. On such slender threads rests the grandiose assumptions of the managerial theorists. The claims put forward by Labourites and Tories on behalf of managerial society are rooted in political and propaganda purposes rather than in genuine investigation. But this and other matters must remain the subject of another article.
The Phoney Revolution (1957)
From the October 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard
Part One: The Burnham Thesis
The roots of James Burnham’s Managerial Revolution go back to the early 19th century Utopian Socialist, St. Simon, who first systematised the notion of the managerial society. Burnham’s second edition of this concept was neither analytical nor in the strict sense statistical, only crudely and melodramatically descriptive. Nevertheless, it met a need in that it gave food for thought to a theory hungry intelligentsia and presented them with a plausible view of what was supposedly happening in contemporary society.
Burnham and the Reformists
Not that the motley crowd of reformists who acclaimed the managerial revolution were prepared to swallow Burnham whole. They eschewed his cynicism as to the effectiveness of any kind of political action; his blatant totalitarianism and bizarre fatalism based on “iron historic laws.” Nor did they share his brutal frankness that this managerial revolution would only be for the working class a change of masters—managers instead of capitalists, and, vide Burnham, a change in some respects for the worse. Rather they diluted the doctrine with democratic and quasi idealistic assumptions. They agreed that a hierarchic social structure was inevitable, even desirable, with an administrative and technical elite at the apex. Political expediency, however, compelled them to a tender regard for the broad based “masses,” who would be comfortably supported in that station of life to which it pleased “management” to call them. Indeed, leftists in their quest for novelty renamed the managerial revolution 20th century Socialism, and in their incorrigible fashion turned Burnham’s nightmare into a Fabian day dream.
Burnham’s proposition
Burnham’s book was tricked out in the pseudo Marxist terminology favoured by Trotskyists and Communists alike. Perhaps many mistook his heavy style for weight of argument, and his metaphysical determinism for scientific exposition. Again, the fact that Burnham as an ex-Trotskyist had been subject to the political paranoia peculiar to the creed, made it easy for him to pass over to the grandiose assumptions of the managerial revolution.
These assumptions can be briefly summarised. It is a fallacy, said Burnham, to believe that Socialism is the only alternative to capitalism. In fact, he contended that the abolition of capitalist property relations holds no implications for the realisation of Socialism. Nevertheless, the present system was doomed. It had lost its power due to the impact of economic crises, modern wars and changing industrial techniques on an already enfeebled system. The New Deal in U.S.A., large scale State organisation carried out by the Soviet and Nazi dictatorships, even the effects of the war economy on Britain, had compelled the major Powers along a path which so far as the old methods of capitalist production were concerned there could be no return. So argued Burnham.
Burnham’s Managerial Class
According to Burnham, capitalism in any significant sense was virtually finished, and the phase we are entering, contrary to Marxist predictions, is not Socialism, but the managerial society, a social set up where control is vested in the administration of business and government by an elite of highly trained and educated men. In short, a society dominated by the manager and technician. Economic evolution, he argued, compels the State to exercise ever greater control and even direction over the means of production. But he concluded, whether managers are representatives of private or public concerns, their power will grow with the growth of economic and technical development. Thus, the managers will emerge as a distinct class, with their own class consciousness, class interests and privileges.
Managerial Society Universal but not Indivisible
Paralleled with this internal development of managerial society, there will externally be a struggle between the three major states or super-states for world supremacy. These super-states will consist of Europe, pivoted on Germany; Asia, whose focal point will be Japan; and America, based on the U.S.A. Each of these states will be autonomous managerial societies based on state ownership of the means of production and political control by the managerial class. We may mention that Burnham wrote his book in 1940 and at the time deemed a Nazi victory possible.
The Three Phases of the Revolution
The managerial revolution, vide Burnham, will be divided into three phases, although the phases may overlap. First, the managers will seize political power from the capitalist class and reduce them, to impotence. Secondly, the curbing of the masses and their indoctrination with managerial ideologies. Thirdly, the struggle between the world Powers for economic supremacy. In Burnham’s view the process took the classic course in Russia. In Germany the working class was curbed first and the capitalists later. Leaving aside the fact that all of Burnham’s major prophecies regarding the outcome of the war were false, what he had to prove was that Russia, via the Bolsheviks, and Germany, via the Nazis, had eliminated capitalism. Further, that the New Deal had been a mortal blow to U.S.A. capitalism and that in the major capitalist countries control of the means of production were passing under the control of the managers. It can be said that Burnham’s premises have no more foundation now than when he first put them forward.
Burnham’s Fallacies
When Burnham argued that the managerial revolution occurred first in Russia, this would seem inconsistent with his own logic. According to him the managerial revolution can only take place as the result of an economic and technical development which renders the capitalist organisation of production superfluous along with the capitalist class. No such process, however, had taken place in Russia. The task of the Bolsheviks was not to supersede capitalism in Russia, but to develop it. Burnham strove to show that Soviet Russia was neither capitalist nor Socialist, but he evaded the basic proposition that the relations between wage workers and a state employer enchain the working class in Russia to the laws of wage labour as elsewhere in capitalism.
Nor was he on any stronger ground when he argued that the Nazi Germany had begun a new social order. He offered as a proof of this the fact that mass unemployment had been wiped out in Germany. Remembering the vast armament programme of the Nazis and the placing of the economy on a virtual war footing, it would have been strange if the Nazis had not done so.
Burnham tried to clinch his point by saying that capitalist countries like England could not even in total war abolish mass unemployment. Once, however, the war effort was under way mass unemployment was abolished here. He also contrasted what he believed to be the overall efficiency of the alleged managerial set up in Germany with what he termed backward nations like England. Yet, according to official English sources, war production efficiency was superior to that which obtained in Nazi Germany.
Nor did his picture of a virtually non-capitalist economy correspond with the facts. German capitalism all through the Nazi regime and right up to now exhibits the monopolistic and interlocking character which it had in pre-Nazi times. One has only to think of the iron and steel industry dominated by men like Wolf and Flick, Transport, the building, chemical and electrical trades, largely controlled by the Quandt family, or the monopolistic concentration of potash, oil, textiles, glass and cement. While names like Krupp and Klockner were still in Nazi Germany household words. Not only were these monopolists powerful capitalists, but also active participants in their businesses. As such they do not fall into the category of mere coupon clippers or managers in Burnham’s sense of the term. Moreover, these powerful capitalists or groups of capitalists were able, by the familiar devices of inter-connected directorships, plural and proxy voting, share exchanges, profit pooling, etc., to exercise a closer control over the German economy than their counterparts here.
State Regulation and Capitalism
But, argued Burnham, was there not a great deal of regulation and direction of the state, including curtailment of investment, carried out in Nazi Germany. But if this is the characteristic mark of the managerial set up, then English capitalism was equally qualified to be accounted a managerial society. A qualification which in England’s case Burnham would not grant. Burnham contrived to show that market laws and the profit motive were no longer crucial to the German economy. While it was true that the outcome of imperialist rivalries and the needs of German rearmament had blocked certain economic avenues, this had only led to a more intense search for new outlets by means of an aggressive policy of expansion. Thus, extension of markets, export of capital and expansion of capital accumulation were the dominant features of Nazi Germany, just as they were the dominant features of pre-Nazi Germany, and just as they are dominant features today. (Here, of course, we specify West Germany.)
Again, vide Burnham, the index to the advance of managerial society lies in the extent to which state capital replaces private capital. But here once again the evidence which Burnham offered is unconvincing and even paradoxical. In Germany in 1937 the capital invested in state enterprise was only about 7 per cent, of the nominal capital of joint stock undertakings. But if, according to Burnham’s logic, the maturity of the managerial society is an ever-increasing ratio in favour of public financing of industry as against the private industrial sector, then Germany was, under Hitler, still overwhelmingly a capitalist nation.
We might also remember that in 1938 and, taking account of the different price levels, profits distributed in Germany were 1,200 million marks, and undistributed profits were over 2,000 million marks. According to the Oxford Institute of Statistics (The Economics of Full Employment), “Profit margins were extraordinarily high in Germany in 1938 as compared with other countries or with conditions prevailing in Germany in the ’20s.” Also the same source states that between 1933-1938 there was a decline in Germany in real wages. Nor did German capitalism remain a static economy. Some concerns expanded, others declined. Some made huge profits, others made small profits. Some even went out of existence. In short, under the Nazis the economic set up had all the basic features associated with the economic behaviour of capitalism. As such it hardly corresponded with Burnham’s picture of a non-capitalist, non-profit economy.
State Intervention and Capitalism
Burnham also advanced as a crucial proposition in support of his managerial thesis that state intervention, he instanced the New Deal, undermines the basis of capitalist society. In principle Burnham had to argue that state intervention is a move away from capitalism to the managerial society. But state intervention is a typical feature of capitalism, and its purpose is to, and does in fact, strengthen the structure of the capitalist economy. While groups of capitalists in America opposed state intervention via the New Deal, the undoubted intention of Roosevelt was to strengthen and stabilise capitalist property relations, and in this he succeeded. The fact that state intervention of some sort has been a consistent and permanent feature of capitalism, including the state regulation and interference of its mercantilist period, exposes the poverty of Burnham’s argument.
Burnham and U.S.A. Capitalism
It was American capitalism which Burnham made the touchstone of his contentions. For this he leaned heavily on Berle and Means study, The Modern Corporation and Private Property. They stated that “The dominant institutional feature extant in America is the large corporation. Typically they said this is controlled by its management, who have no substantial ownership interest in it and consequently receive no benefit from it apart from their salaries.” They add that in 1929 65 per cent. of the 200 largest corporations, totalling 80 per cent. of their assets, were management controlled. Burnham, however, went far beyond the findings of Berle and Mean. Indeed, only a total misreading of their work could lead one to conclude that they were advancing a theory of the managerial revolution. Apart from what they termed pure management; i.e., Burnham’s definition of the managerial class, they included in management those whose interest was financial and profit making.
Since the publication of Berle and Mean’s book, The Securities and Exchange Commission of the Temporary Economic Committee (T.N.E.C.) carried out an exhaustive analysis on the same lines, which emphasised an aspect of corporation control ignored by Burnham. The report stated that “In about 140 of the 200 largest corporations the blocks of shares in the hands of one interest group were large enough to justify with other indications, such as representation on management, the classification of these concerns as more or less ownership controlled.” This, of course, is even truer for the vast number of smaller companies. The same report stated that the 2,500 officers and directors of the 200 companies own more than two billion dollars’ worth of stock, which amount is heavily concentrated in the hands of about 250 men. Again, it can be noted that the dominant group need hold as little as 20 per cent. of the total stock providing sufficient proxy votes can be arranged, and the rest of the stock can be sufficiently dispersed. It is true that the salaried employers of big corporations—managers in Burnham’s sense—may by investing their savings or even judiciously speculating with the funds of the corporation in which they are employed, strengthen their financial position and reach the status of capitalists. But it was no part of Burnham’s case to prove that there can be and are changes in the personnel of the capitalist class.
What Burnham failed to prove
But even apart from the decisive controlling interests of the powerful capitalist groups who are outside Burn-ham’s managerial classification, he failed to answer the crucial question, and that was in what way do the most important managers employed by capitalists have interests and aims different from their employers? Further, if the mode of production of the managerial society is to be neither capitalist or Socialist, in what way will it be different from both? Burnham himself was aware of the basic weakness of this part of his case, and although he strove to get round it, he left the whole matter up in the air. Thus we find in the end that Burnham’s managerial society, with its integration of state with capitalist industry, is merely a new name for an old process, the development of monopoly capitalism.
We might conclude by saying that Burnham typifies the arrogant, peevish intellectual. He qualified to become a leading Trotskyist by making all the political errors it is possible to make. Some might have been dangerous— if anybody had taken any notice of him. Thus, in 1936, he was not only still asserting that the Soviet set up had a Socialist basis but further, that in the event of a war between Russia and other capitalist powers, the workers should turn their arms against their nationals in support of Russia. Now he has stopped being a Trotskyist, he has not, however, stopped being foolishly dangerous. He is now advocating American world domination—and at this point we leave him.
Monday, October 8, 2018
Mr. Long says our heroes died for German Colonies. (1918)
From the November 1918 issue of the Socialist Standard
We have been frequently told by those in authority over us that this war is not a war of conquest, but a war of right against might in order to make the world safe for democracy. This being so one is at a loss to understand why Mr. Walter Long, when addressing the Colonial Pressmen on the subject of the German Colonies, should have delivered himself of these words:
I am here to-night to say that if these territories are returned to Germany the sacrifice of our heroes will have been made in vain. The spirits of those men will come from their graves and rebuke you if the Pen is so cowardly as to give back what the Sword has won.— “Daily News,” Sept. 27th, 1918.
After all is said and done it would appear to be a case of ‘‘Let him take who has the power and let him keep who can.” In other words, the endorsement of the gospel of might.
S. T.
Military Preparations for the Great War (1922)
Book Review from the December 1922 issue of the Socialist Standard
"Military Preparations for the Great War," by E. D. Morel. Price 6d. Labour Publishing Co., Ltd.
This is a useful restatement of the facts and figures relating to amounts of money spent by the Great Powers on preparation for war from 1905 onwards.
Most of these figures and criticisms were published in a previous pamphlet entitled Truth and the War, but it is well to put those facts forward again on account of the bearing they will have on the formation of opinion on the Reparations question. One quotation will be sufficient to show the kind of material Mr. Morel handles. On page 21 he states :—
But the most astounding fact which French publications reveal is that when the war broke out the French Army alone was numerically as strong as the German ! (Italics in original.)
It is a pity that so useful a collection of facts and figures, not easily accessible to the workers, could not be published at a cheaper price. Sixpence for a 30 page pamphlet looks a lot to the wage worker.
Will the Bolsheviks Maintain Power? (1922)
Book Review from the December 1922 issue of the Socialist Standard
‘Will the Bolsheviks Maintain Power?’. By N. Lenin. Price 1s 6d. Labour Publishing Co., Ltd.
The above is an article written by Lenin in October, 1917, in answer to the claim of the opponents of Bolshevism that the Bolsheviks “would not attempt to take complete power on their own initiative.”
Though written so long ago, this appears to be its first publication in English. Lenin’s reply rebuts the claims of his opponents, in his usual vigorous fashion, and the fact that five years later the Bolsheviks are still ruling in Russia justifies the position he then took up.
In this article, Lenin makes the claim, often repeated afterwards, but now definitely refuted by the publication of the Russian Soviet Constitution, that the Soviet system is superior to the political system in the Western world:–
“In comparison with bourgeois parliamentarism it is a step forward in the development of democracy which has a historical world significance” – P. 43 (Italics ours.)
The absurdity of this claim has been fully exposed in the Socialist Standard, July, 1920; while deference to democracy is now treated by the Bolsheviks and their supporters as “an out-of-date shibboleth”, “a bourgeois notion”, etc.
Another piece of evidence supplied by the article is on the view held by Lenin and his party at the time of the Revolution, that the workers of the Western world were practically ready for the social Revolution. On page 101 he says:–
“It [the Russian Revolution] will conquer the whole world, for in all countries the Socialist transformation is ripening.”
It is our great regret that even now, let alone then, the mass of the workers are so far from the mental development necessary for the Socialist Revolution.
Letter: Have We Socialisation? (1922)
Letter to the Editors from the December 1922 issue of the Socialist Standard
To the Editorial Committee of the
Socialist Standard.
Comrades,
An article appearing in this month’s Socialist Standard over the initials J. D., entitled “Remedies,” needs your careful attention; an otherwise admirable article is marred in its conclusion by the astounding statement that the remedy for unemployment, poverty and overwork suffered by the working class is the socialisation of the means of production and distribution. Since how long has the socialisation of those means been the one remedy for the above mentioned social evils, poverty, etc. ? Seeing that capitalism and its mode of production has long since achieved the aforesaid socialisation of the means of production and distribution, what is there to trouble about; and why, like other journals still working for this end, such as Justice, Labour Leader, Socialist, continue to agitate and advocate and waste time over bringing about what is already accomplished? It is better to be exact than misleading in our teaching, and if J. D. and yourselves will show in our next or some succeeding number of the Socialist Standard that the only remedy for poverty, unemployment and overwork lays in the direction of social ownership and democratic control of the means of producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community, you will have done what is necessary so far as the article needs correction; and in the interest of truth, and of the hitherto good name of the Socialist Standard, I trust you will see the necessity of giving the correction as prominent a place as the statement that caused me to write you.
Yours fraternally,
Hy. Martin.
P.S.—The exactness I mean is not in the metaphysical sense.
Reply.
Mr. Martin has discovered a mare’s nest. The means of production are socially operated because the laws, methods of management, and the interaction of the various members of society who take part in wealth production, are all adapted to serve the present economic system.
But both the means of production and the products are privately owned. Hence there does not exist the Socialisation—or the making into a social system—of the means of production and distribution. This can only exist when social operations are combined with social ownership of both means and results of production. In other words, when Socialism is established.
Editorial Committee.
A "Royal" Solution of Unemployment. (1922)
From the December 1922 issue of the Socialist Standard
The Prince, like many other people, is seriously concerned at the unemployment question and the distinctly gloomy outlook for the winter, and has studied recent official statistics on this closely during the past few weeks.—Daily News, 15/9/22.
Economies are being made at the Royal Mews. The team of black horses which draws the King’s coach on State occasions, and was substituted for the famous but expensive cream horses, is to be dispensed with. A number of men will go at the same time.—Daily News, same page, same date.
We wonder if this “number” was included in the “recent statistics” studied by the Prince, or will they be the subject of future study—say about two years after the discharged men have starved to death?
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