Backwaters of History - 5 (1954)

From the February 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Peasant Rebellion 1381

" . . . that the offender be dragged to the gallows; that he be hanged by the neck and then cut down alive; that his entrails be taken out and burned while he is yet alive; that his head be cut off; that his body be divided into four parts and that his head and quarters be at the King's disposal."

That, with additional provisions, was the punishment known as being hanged, drawn and quartered which Mr. E. S. Turner informs us was supposed to have originated in the reign of King Edward I of England. (Roads to Ruin, by E. S. Turner. Pages 83-84.)

That was the punishment meted out to John Ball by Lord Chief Justice, Robert Tressilian on July 15th, 1381, at St. Albans. Others who were prominent in the peasant rising of 1381 met similar fates. William Grindcobbe of St. Albans with fifteen others was subjected to the lesser penalty of being hanged and drawn without quartering. Jack Straw, John Kerby and Alan Threder were killed without trial in London; John Shirle at Cambridge and John Wright with George Dunsby at Norwich were hanged; Geoffrey Litster of East Anglia was hanged drawn and quartered  and his quarters sent to Norwich, Harwich, Lynn and Yarmouth to strike terror into other prospective rebels. John Wrawe of Sudbury turned king's evidence and escaped punishment for twelve months, being hanged in June 1382. The man who gave his name to the rebellion, Wat Tyler of Colchester, after being severely wounded at Smithfield, was dragged from a hospital bed in St. Bartholomew's by William Walworth, Lord Mayor of London, beheaded and his head paraded around London on the end of Walworth's lance. So, the Feudal nobility of the 14th century took its revenge for the fright the rebellion had given them. The gibbets all over the eastern and southern counties of England were loaded.

By the beginning of the 14th century in England, feudalism was pregnant with the embryo capitalism. Commerce was developing, a merchant class was arising, the use of money was expanding, peasants were commuting feudal services for money payments and the nobility, as anxious as the peasantry to escape its feudal obligations, was squeezing more and more wealth from the merchants and peasants to maintain the feudal state and to indulge in parasitic luxury.

Into this state of affairs, in the middle of the century, came the great pestilence known as The Black Death which, it is estimated, mortally affected between one-third and one-half of the entire population of this country. The peasants and wage workers who survived the plague were in an advantageous position. Wages rose whilst more poor peasants became wage workers. Other peasants, striving to produce for a regional market instead of for a feudal lord, became more wealthy. Although the wealthier peasants did not object to accumulating their wealth at the expense of their poorer brethren, they did object to contributing considerable sums to the nobility.

In an attempt to control the situation the ruling class introduced the Ordinance and Statues of Labourers by which they tried to fix wages at a low level, bind the worker and peasant closer to his lord and master, and to keep prices at a "reasonable level." The efforts to enforce these things gave rise to many local acts of resistance.

Throughout the country there wandered a number of poor priests who preached as much against the corruption of the feudal nobility as they did in favour of the Christian heaven. One such was John Ball. Jean Froissart, the contemporary historian, tells us in his "Chronicles," that John Ball,

" . . . was accustomed to assemble a crowd round him in the market place and preach to them. On such occasions he would say, 'My good friends, matters cannot go well in England until all things be held in common; when there shall be neither vassals nor lords; when the lords shall be no more masters than ourselves. How ill they behave to us? For what reason do they thus hold us in bondage? Are we not all descended from the same parents, Adam and Eve? And what can they show, or what reason can they give, why they should be more masters than ourselves? They are clothed in velvet and rich stuffs, ornamented with ermine and other furs, while we are forced to wear poor clothing. They have wine, spices and fine bread, while we have only rye, and the refuse of the straw, and when we drink, it must be water. They have handsome seats and manors, while we must brave the wind and rain in our labours in the field; and it is by our labours that they wherewith to support their pomp. We are called slaves and if we do not perform our service we are beaten, and we have no sovereign to whom we can complain or would be willing to hear us. Let us go to the King and remonstrate with him, he is young and from him we may obtain a favourable answer, and if not we must ourselves seek to amend our conditions."—(Quoted by Fagan and Hilton in 'The English Rising of 1381," page 99.)

A Parliament met in Northampton in 1380 and decided to levy a very heavy Poll Tax on the peasantry to help pay for the expensive war with France. The tax was made progressive by providing some relief for the very poor at the expense of the wealthier peasant. This united the whole of the peasantry in opposition, the wealthier members frequently giving the lead in evading the tax and resisting the collectors.

On May 20th, 1381, there rode into Brentwood, one Thomas Bampton, a tax Commissioner. He summoned the inhabitants of Fobbing, Corringham and Stanford-le-Hope to appear before him. They came, armed and led by Thomas Baker of Fobbing. When Bampton tried to arrest Baker the villagers attacked Bampton and his party and drove them out of the town. This was the beginning.

A similar event took place at Gravesend. Abel Ker of Erith led a party against a monastery, then crossed the Thames, joined up with another group ay Barking, recrossed the river and marched to Dartford where Ker handed over his command to Robert Cave, a master baker who was leading the Dartford rebels. After marching around nearby villages recruiting his forces, Cave marched them to Maidstone to release John Ball from jail. It was here, in Maidstone, that Wat Tyler, a man comparatively unknown until the last few days of his life, was placed at the head of the rising.

Tyler took his army to Canterbury where they searched the Palace of the Archbishop and destroyed all papers and rolls that recorded the peasants' bondage to their masters. At Canterbury Cathedral Tyler made a pronouncement from the pulpit stating that Archbishop Sudbury was condemned and would be put to death and it was intimated that John Ball should be appointed to the office.

Tyler's army returned to Maidstone, joined up with the main force, attacked and captured Rochester Castle and marched on London. On Wednesday, June 12th, the peasant army pitched camp on Blackheath. From this camp parties were dispatched to release the prisoners from the King's Bench and Marshalsea prisons most of whom were offenders against the Statute of Labourers.

Inside the walls of the City of London the ruling class was in a panic. The king with some of his nobles went by barge to Rotherhithe where the Kent and Essex rebels were camped on opposite banks of the Thames. The royal party took fright and scampered back to London. The rebels then marched to London Bridge and to Aldgate, burning the Lord Mayor's brothels and destroying all the feudal documents that they could lay hands on. 

Alderman Walter Sybyle, a fishmonger, was in charge of London Bridge, and threw it open to Tyler and his men, whilst Thomas Farrington opened the Ald Gate to the Essex men. The rebels had many such sympathisers amongst the merchants and workpeople of London who were themselves victims of the rapacious nobles. Many of them joined Tyler's forces when they entered the city and were punished for their part in the rising when it was suppressed.

The main body of rebels marched past the Gothic edifice of St. Paul's church, down the hill to Lud Gate and along the Strand to the Savoy Palace,  the residence of the most hated man in England—John of Gaunt, the leader of the corrupt gang of noble speculators who were bleeding the people. The rebels maintained a strict discipline, executing selected enemies, destroying documents and property of their especial enemies, but stealing, taking or looting nothing. They encamped by the Tower of London which they eventually occupied.

The rebel army had a childish faith in the king, Richard II, a boy of 14 years of age. John Ball encouraged this faith, according to the quotation from Froissart that we have given. The king was regarded as a person of power who stood above all class antagonisms and emnities and who could be relied upon to be fair in his judgement of peoples wrongs and powerful enough to put them right. His nobles who surrounded him were an evil influence. If he could be spoken to and told of the rebels troubles, they were sure that he would remedy them. This faith proved the undoing of the rebellion.

The Earl of Salisbury, a mature statesman, concocted a plan to destroy the rebel army. Leaving Archbishop Sudbury of Canterbury, who was also Chancellor, Robert Halles, known as Hob the Robber, who was Treasurer, John Legge and the king's confessor, Appledore, to be tried and beheaded by the rebels in the Tower, the king and his other nobles rode out through Ald Gate to the fields at Mile End. Here he made promises to the assembled rebel forces.

In the house of John Farringdon in London the rebel leaders had drawn up their demands which they now placed before the king. To the men of Hertford he promised:

"Know that of our special grace we have manumitted all our liege and singular subjects and others of the county of Hertford, freed each and all of their bondage, and made them quit by these presents; pardoned them of all felonies, treasons, transgressions, and extortions committed by any and all of them, and assure them of our 'summa pax'."—("English Rising of 1381." Fagan and Hilton. Page 130.)

Similar charters were granted to other sections of the rebels. This satisfied many of them and, as Salisbury had anticipated, large numbers drew off and returned. delighted, to their native villages.

A reduced army under Tyler remained and continued to dig out and execute the particular enemies that they had listed. Those peasants who returned home spread the news of their great success and hosts of other risings occurred all over the country. John Farringdon with Alderman John Horn and other members of various London Guilds did a bit of cleaning up in the city on their own account, executing some of their class enemies and straightening out a number of social injustices.

It was necessary to disperse the remainder of the rebel forces. The king again met the peasants at Smithfield and the nobles managed to separate Tyler from his men, surround him and, under cover of dusk, to strike him almost to death, without his followers realising what was happening. The rebels were told to go to St. John's Fields where a beknighted Wat Tyler would be returned to them. At the rendezvous the rebels were met by a strong military force that Mayor Walworth had raised and they were easily beaten and dispersed. Farringdon and Horn tried to raise support for the peasants within the city but most of the erstwhile supporters, having squared their own accounts were only too pleased to see the end of the rebel forces.

Needless to say, the king's promises were never kept, but a hunt for rebels was conducted throughout the main areas of disaffection and cruel punishments inflicted. The rising was probably a contributory factor in the improved conditions of the peasantry during the following century but the main factor was the change in the economic forces within feudalism.

Many workers today have the same faith in the capitalist state as the 1381 rebels had in their king. They regard the state as an independent organ, detached from class interests, acting as a mediating force in the struggles between employers and employed. Just as the feudal king was a member of the exploiting class of his day with the same interests to uphold, so the capitalist state of today is representative of capitalist class interests and uses its forces  to maintain the capitalist system and protect the property of capitalists.  Like the feudal state machinery, the capitalist counterpart will always be used to subdue rebellious workers.

Books to read:

"An Economic History of England", by Charlotte M. Waters.

"Six Centuries of Work and Wages", by James E. Thorold Rogers, M.P.

"The English Rising of 1381", by H. Fagan and R. H. Hilton.

"The Black Death", by G. G. Coulton

"The Revolutionary Tradition in England", by F. A. Ridley.

"A Peoples History of England", by A. L. Morton.

"Chronicles of France, England and Spain", by Froissart (English version in Everyman Library).

"Survey of London", by John Stow (also in Everyman Library).

"Dream of John Ball", by William Morris

W. Waters.

An unbalanced diet (1997)

Theatre Review from the November 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Chips With Everything by Arnold Wesker

Chips With Everything, currently revived by the National Theatre, is about power and social class. Based on Wesker's own experience of National service in the RAF in the early 1950s, this stunning production makes compulsive viewing. In it we follow the fate of a group of young conscripts in the first weeks of training as they are taught systematically to respond to orders without thinking; to defer to officers as though the latter were possessed of infinite wit and intelligence; and to be brutalised by constant drilling. The officers have power but this is for the most part not manifest directly in their contacts with recruits. Rather it is dispensed through the agency of their lackeys, the sergeants, corporals, lance-corporals and other non-commissioned officers. Officers kick NCOs, who in turn kick the recruits and other ranks. It must have all been very familiar to young recruits with previous experience of factory work. In most factories orders are given not by grey-suited men in remote offices, but by large-as-life foremen and chargehands who patrol the workplace. The word chargehand is apt. Chargehands are in charge. But this group of young recruits is different. One of its number, Pip, is not an apprentice or recent school leaver, but a public schoolboy, the son of a general. Why is he here? Why hasn't he taken the opportunities presented by his privileged background and school cadet experience, to transfer for officer training? Wesker hints that Pip's behaviour is fired by a desire to rebel against his father, but more than this Wesker also intriguingly suggests that Pip, too, may be interested in power. Familiar with the intentions and strategies of the officers, Pip uses his knowledge to thwart authority: frustrating an attempt by the officers to get the recruits drunk at a Christmas party; and leading them on a daring raid on a coal dump when they find themselves shivering in their barracks on a icy midwinter night. In so doing he is instrumental in changing the recruits' perception of themselves; in increasing their confidence and self-worth, and suggesting the possibilities of growth and change. Yet this apparent desire to escape from his father's influence leads him to cast the officers as pseudo-father figures and, paradoxically, to manipulate his fellow recruits in much the same way as his father seemingly manipulates him. Pip finally gets his comeuppance when the officer in charge finds a way of coercing him into applying for officer training, leaving the other recruits bereft.

Wesker is clearly intent on registering something in which social divisions are part and parcel of life in the armed forces, and giving us a glimpse into their nature and the way in which they are perpetuated. This he manages, very well, especially when—as in this production—he is well served by a skillful cast, excellent production staff and imaginative director. But whilst social class divisions are, so to speak, centre stage, Wesker does little more than describe and delimit some of their effects. He fails to talk about the origins of social class and, crucially, he makes no mention of economic class as primary.

Whilst social classifications may be useful they are hardly sufficient. If we want to understand something about the life chances of children—that is, the likelihood that they will be healthy and wealthy, even if they are not wise—then it is best to take note of the economic class of the parents. Children born to members of the capitalist class will in general live longer than those of the working class and enjoy a higher standard of living. Social classifications per se may be useful to an extent, but they have relatively little of the explanatory or predictive power of classifications based on the economic division of capitalist and worker. The predictive power of the kind of social classifications which inform Chips With Everything is limited, and it is also rooted, exclusively, in capitalist society.

In a socialist society it may well be helpful to classify people on the basis of activities such as reading, attendance at opera performances, frequency of consumption of Indian curries, and so on—not least if the intention is to try to meet the needs of readers, opera buffs and curry eaters. Even in today's capitalist society it is certainly the case that within the working class it is possible to find correlations between these activities and length and nature of formal schooling, occupation, and income, etc. But if we really want to understand such things as how the world works at a macro level, the origins of power, and how to resolve the antagonisms that lie at the heart of the kind of relationships that Wesker describes, we must look beyond mere social classifications however useful they may be at the margins to the more profound economic realities below.

At one level Chips With Everything works very well. It makes some telling points about the nature of social hierarchies and offers some encouraging (and for this viewer, inspiring) evidence of the capacity of young people to resist the brutal conditioning of life in the armed forces; and it is difficult to see how the present production could be bettered. However, because Wesker hasn't widened his focus to look beyond social classifications, at another and deeper level, his play turns out to be as inadequate as what the words of its title imply.

Michael Gill

Greasy Pole: Who You Calling A Pleb? (2015)

The Greasy Pole Column from the January 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

For more than three years the nation was gripped in paralysing uncertainty. Was that policeman, standing on guard on 19 September 2012 at the very centre of British government, being petulant and obstructive when he refused to allow a man with a bicycle to wheel it through the main gate? Was he telling the truth when he said that the cyclist abruptly responded with a word which, even without being backed up in abusive swearing, was cruelly offensive? Was it so urgent that the cyclist should not be delayed because he was going to one of London's most exclusive clubs? And during those three years why did so many participants in the incident appear to change their minds about what happened?

High Court Judgment

The matter eventually came to a head with the conclusion of a libel case at the High Court in late November 2014 when Mr Justice Mitting ruled that Andrew Mitchell MP, ex-Minister of International Development, ex-Government Chief Whip, had behaved 'childishly' when he told PC Toby Rowland at the Downing Street gates that he, and the other police officers on duty there, were 'fucking plebs'. The judge did not accept Mitchell's defence that Rowland had made that up; his opinion, in the coldest terms, was that Rowland was not capable of anything so subtle and effective: he was '...not the sort of man who would have had the wit, imagination or inclination to invent on the spur of the moment an account of what a senior politician had said to him in a temper'. So Mitchell lost his libel case, which landed him with a massive debt starting at £300,000 but which could run into millions.

Politically Toxic

Perhaps to emphasise the basis for his decision, Mitting chose to describe the word 'Plebs' as 'politically toxic'. That may not be universally agreed; for what about that adjectival word which apparently Mitchell often uses, and which he uttered before 'pleb', which may be considered to be the more toxic – more aggressive, more emphatic, more friendly to being spat at a victim (one of the facts to emerge from the libel hearings was that there had been 16 recorded incidents of Mitchell clashing with the police in Westminster, including one which involved a direct insult). In comparison 'pleb' is the less pejorative word, easier to use in exasperation rather than anger. It is a shortened version of 'plebeian' for the underdogs – the more common people – of ancient Rome, expanded to cover anyone behaving in a coarse or vulgar manner. In the case of Mitchell there is more to it than that. He was a pupil at Rugby School, where he attained the exalted rank of a prefect known, for his harshly disciplinarian manner, as 'Slasher'. Among the privileged toffs of Rugby it was common for the non-teaching staff to be known, contemptuously, as plebs. At Jesus College in Cambridge, where Mitchell went after Rugby, the word was used for workers such as cleaners, porters and 'townies'.

Tirades

After Cambridge Mitchell had been employed as a trader at the merchant bank Lazards, making a great deal of money for himself before becoming an MP. He became notorious for his short temper and his abusive tirades against his staff. 'He could be cantankerous and aggressive' said one of his Ministry staff '...a horrible person to do business with.' Although in some cases 'business' was what he was ready to 'do'. For example there was the situation when, according to the Tory journalist Simon Heffer – one of his admirers – when he was International Development Secretary Mitchell agreed to some £500 million being paid to 'consultancy' firms which resulted in some handsome payouts within the firms. All in all, it was no coincidence that when he was embroiled in the stresses of Plebgate he had so little support from the other Tories (it was said that he kept a list of those he considered to be unreliable in that respect) that it was inevitable that Cameron sacked him.

Poverty

So far Mitchell has not expanded on his concept of what he calls 'plebs'. We know that they are the lower, in the sense of the exploited, class in society to the extent that it is permissible for ex-public school pupils to regard them with contempt. But he overlooks the fact that other members of the government prefer to adopt a more subtle and patronising – if equally contemptuous – attitude, describing them as 'hard-working people', when a more appropriate term would be 'long suffering'. For example in 2011/12 according to the Joseph Rowntree Trust – who are heavily experienced in this field – there were 13 million of those 'hard working' ones in poverty, with a million of them being paid below the official living wage.

Oceania       

In this matter there is an instructive irony in George Orwell's novel 1984, first published in 1949. In his bleak probe into the future, Orwell suggests a world divided into three super powers, constantly at war with each other while ruthlessly imposing a class society of meticulously unrelenting exploitation. In the state of Oceania the lower class is known not as 'plebs' but 'proles' – the different root of which does not relieve the misery of their lives. Even the music they are allowed is prepared for them at the Ministry of Truth on a kind of kaleidoscope known as a versificator. The central character of the book, Winston Smith, feels he is almost alone in being aware of the situation. It is his belief that If There Is Hope It Lies With The Proles – until he is taken in by the Thought Police to learn to love Big Brother.

Purged of his expletives, Mitchell began his tirade against Rowland with the advice that 'Best you learn your...place. You don't run this...government'. It would indeed be progressive if the lower class in society, exploited and ridiculed as plebs or proles or hard working, took heed of this advice in the sense of understanding their position and the reasons for it and the universal problems which ensue from it. That would be the beginning of the end of all the negatives associated with capitalist society. And it would not need a Minister of the crown or a high court judge or a police officer.

Ivan

Backwaters of History - 4 (1954)

From the January 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Civil War in Austria

Behind the closed doors of the Hotel Schiff in Linz a group of workers stood holding rifles and light machine guns. Earlier that day they had listened to the measured tread of the armed levies of the fascist Heimwehr marching through the town on their way to the offices of the Landeshauptmann (Prefect) of the Province to demand that all members of the Austrian Social Democratic Party be removed from political office. At the same time the federal police were going from house to house in the working class districts, confiscating any arms they found in the workers' possession.

In the turmoil of the struggle between Republicans and Monarchists at the end of the 1914-1918 war many workers and peasants who had joined in that struggle, had kept the arms issued to them during the war. In the country districts of Carinthia and Styria the peasants had organised in the Heimwehr for defence against Yugo-Slavs and the possible spread of Bolshevism. In the towns the workers joined the Republikanische Schutzbund to defend and maintain the new republic.

During the years following the 1914-1918 war there were a number of minor armed clashes between the Heimwehr and the Schutzbund with killings in both sides. When legal action was taken after these clashes it was invariably to the detriment of the workers.

The governments of Italy and Germany were striving against one another for a dominating influence over Austrian politics and Austria became the battleground on which these two powers fought out their commercial antagonisms. The Austrian Social Democratic Party had for years favoured association with Germany, while a small Austrian Nazi party stood for a complete union between the two countries. The Heimwehr was supported by Italy.

In 1934 the government of Austria was a coalition between the Catholic Christian Social Party and the Heimwehr with a few smaller parties attached. During the previous few years the Christian Social Party had been getting steadily weaker, losing many members to the Heimwehr, so that, by the beginning of 1934 the Christian Social chancellor, Dr. Dollfuss, was desperately seeking support from other parties. He could have the support of the militarised fascist Heimwehr or of the largest single political party in Austria, the Social Democratic Party. He chose the former, knowing that that party aimed at the complete suppression of the Social Democrats and the trade unions.

Otto Bauer, leader of the Social Democratic Party, Julius Deutsch, leader of the Schutzbund, Karl Seitz, Mayor of Vienna, and other Social Democrat leaders were prepared to make all manner of sacrifices, short of their own suppression, to stave off the clash that was ahead. They also prepared for the clash by arranging for a general strike to take place in the event of any of the following four contingencies.

1. If the Government, in defiance of the law and Constitution, introduced a Fascist Constitution.
2. If the Government illegally and unconstitutionally deposed the municipal and Provincial authorities of Red Vienna and handed over the administration of Vienna to a Government Commissioner.
3. If the Government dissolved the Party.
4. If the Trade Unions were dissolved or "brought into line." (Resolution of the October 1933 Conference of the Austrian Social Democratic Party. quoted by Otto Bauer in "Austrian Democracy Under Fire.")

The Heimwehr, lead by the vice-chancellor, Major Fey and by Prince Starhemberg, urged on by Mussolini in Italy, was demanding that the municipal councils controlled by the Social Democrats should be "cleaned up," that Italian should be taught in schools instead of French and that the trade unions should be curbed. The Social Democrats asked Dollfuss to reject these demands and they would be willing to accept "his policy, however bad this might seem to them." (Quoted by Alexander Schonau in "Civil War in Austria.")

The Social Democratic leaders were still vacillating when the blow struck.

When the police forced their way into the Hotel Schiff, which was the headquarters of the labour organisations in Linz, the workers inside opened fire with their rifles. They felt that the decisive moment had come. Whilst the armed Heimwehr fascists were free to force their will at the point of a gun, the government authorities were disarming the workers to prevent them from offering resistance. It was a spontaneous decision to die fighting rather than surrender without striking a blow.

The news of the fighting at the Hotel Schiff spread like wildfire through Linz. Troops were called in. Street fighting began. The members of the Schutzbund brought out the weapons that they had managed to conceal from the police and the battle spread all over the town.

The news spread to other industrial towns and fighting started in Steyr, Bruck-on-Mur, Eggenburg, Graz, Kapfenburg, Judenburg, Wilhelmsburg, Worgl, Haring, the Traisental and in the capital, Vienna. The incident in Linz happened on the morning of Monday, February 12th, 1934, the first shots were fired in Vienna at 5 p.m. the same day.

"The fighting began. On the one side members of the working class, many of them unemployed, armed with an old war-time rifle and a few clips of cartridges. On the other side troops and police, with full modern equipment—armoured cars, artillery and howitzers, minethrowers."—("Austrian Democracy Under Fire," Otto Bauer.)

The general strike did not materialise. Electricity, gas, newspaper, tram and some factory workers came out spontaneously, but the strong railway union, which had been brought to heel some time previously, did not respond. The indecisive policy of the Social Democrats had lost them the confidence of large sections of the working class.

In Vienna the troops isolated different groups of workers and drove them into the residential districts. The government maintained control of the broadcasting stations, the telephones and other means of communication so that each group of workers had no means of knowing what was happening outside its own immediate district. The Schutzbund leaders were arrested at the outset and lying propaganda was broadcast.

Despite all the disadvantages the workers fought on for four days. But,

"The artillery, the heavy howitzers, won the day . . . Hundreds of workers, women and children have been slaughtered. Thousands of wounded people are writhing in pain. Thousands of lying herded together in the prisons. In blood and slaughter has the new Austria, 'Christian, German and corporative,' been founded." —("Austrian Democracy Under Fire.")

Otto Bauer and Julius Deutsch, despite radio reports that they had fled the country, remained in Vienna till all hope was lost, then, with a group of workers, they fought a rearguard action all the way to the Czechoslovak frontier and crossed over fully armed.

Bauer states,

"The Hungarian Social-Democrats in 1919, and the Italians down to 1922, pursued a 'Left' revolutionary policy, closely akin to Communism—and in both countries their policy ended disastrously. Conversely, the German Social-Democrats adopted a very 'statesmanlike' nationalist, 'right' line of policy—and they, too, have been laid low. We in Austria tried to tread a path midway between the Italo-Hungarian and German extremes—and we, too, have been defeated. The causes of defeat of the working class clearly lie deeper than in the tactics of its parties or than in this or that tactical mistake."—("Austrian Democracy Under Fire.")

How right he is. The Austrian Social Democrats, like similar "labour" parties all over the world, aimed to reform capitalism and tried to make it operate to the benefit of the working class. An impossibility. The discontent bred of the capitalist system drives the workers to support one reformist party after another, hoping to find relief from their oppression.

Housing and welfare schemes seem attractive but they do not remove the workers' poverty and insecurity. When the workers find that a party that they have put into power does not produce "the goods," they turn from it to another reform-promising party, then to another and another and, maybe, when their memories dim, back to the first one again.

Any political party, without control of the armed forces of the state, is at the mercy of those who do control the state forces, unless these forces rebel and pass over to the support of the party. Only a socialist understanding—a clear recognition of their class status—by a majority of the workers can be a guarantee of their continued, unwavering support for their political party. With such a majority, the control of the state forces can be achieved and then capitalism will not be reformed, but abolished.

Books to read:

"Austrian Democracy Under Fire," by Otto Bauer.

"Civil War in Austria. A Reply to Otto Bauer," by Alexander Schonau.

"The Tragedy of Austria," by Julius Braunthal.

"Austrian Workers' Tragic Heroism." SOCIALIST STANDARD, March, 1934.

W. Waters.

Backwaters of History - 3 (1953)

From the December 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

The German Spartacists

She was born on March 5th, 1871, of comparatively well-to-do parents in the poverty-stricken little Polish town of Zamosc in the Lublin district, not far from the Russian frontier. Her Jewish parents were in the timber trade and afforded her and their other four children an education above the average, despite the hostility to Jews in the Warsaw schools which they attended.

He was born on August 13th in the same year in Germany. His father, a close associate of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels and a prominent member of the German Social Democratic Party, was for many years a member of the Reichstag. He spent his early life as a law student before he, too, became a prominent member of the German Social Democratic Party.

These two, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, were driven closer together during the 1914-18 war. Both had a hectic political career, she in Poland, Russia and Germany, and he mainly in Germany. Their opposition to the war caused them both to serve frequent and lengthy periods of imprisonment.

In 1914, that organisation of national so-called Socialist parties, known as The Second International, fell to pieces. Each of the parties that comprised it threw aside its talk of international fraternity of the working class and lined up with its own capitalist class in the prosecution of the war, urging its members to take up arms against their fellow workers in other lands. The German Social Democratic Party was no exception. Karl Liebknecht, under pressure of party discipline, together with other Social Democratic members of the Reichstag, voted for war credits. But, only once. Thereafter he consistently opposed the prosecution of the war, often being the only one in the Reichstag to do so. The English and French capitalist press applauded him, the German capitalists imprisoned him.

As the war continued and the pressure on the German workers became heavier, Liebknecht received more and more support. The German Social Democratic Party split. On January 1st, 1916, at a meeting in Liebknecht's house, a programme drawn up by Rosa Luxemburg, was accepted and published under the nom-de-plume of Junius. It was further decided to publish a clandestine journal entitled "Spartacus" and the group became known as the "Spartacus League," until January 1st, 1919, when it became the Communist Party of Germany.

Another group, led by Kautsky and Haase, broke away from the Social Democratic Party after a conference at Gotha in early 1917. This group, unwilling to line up with the Spartacists, formed itself into the German Independent Social Democratic Party. It was approximately parallel to the British Independent Labour Party and, like the Spartacists, opposed the continuation of the war.

By September 1918 it became apparent to the German military high command that the war was lost. General Ludendorff resigned and President Hindenburg wrote to the chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, demanding that the government should accept the responsibility of asking the allied powers for an armistice. A new cabinet was appointed, but the German workers were too war weary to be impressed.

The sailors at the Kiel naval base mutinied, took over the fleet and set up committees with the dockyard workers on November 4th. By November 7th the rising had spread to Hamburg and Munich, army reservists joining with the factory workers. On November 9th a general strike occurred in Berlin and the soldiers of the garrison elected representatives to attend the committees set up by the workers. On the same day, Ebert, a Social Democrat, was made chancellor and the Berlin workers and soldiers, at a giant meeting, elected a government called the Council of the Representatives of the People. It consisted of three members of the main Social Democratic Party and three of the Independents.

The Council of the Representatives of the People introduced legislation for an eight hour day, extension of the franchise, re-instatement of demobilised soldiers, participation of trade unions in wage agreements and the constitution of new legislative bodies. But capitalism remained unchallenged and the army facing the Russian border was left under the command of the old General Staff.

The Spartacists tried to carry the rising to further limits. They organised large demonstrations and armed conflict broke out all over Germany between workers and the state and municipal authorities. The Independents withdrew from the Council of People's Representatives and the majority group of Social Democrats had the government to themselves.

The soldiers who were being disbanded from the war areas were re-enlisted into detachments for "frontier defence" and picked and trusted men and officers were organised into "Free Corps" and trained for street fighting. They were still under the orders of the war-time officers and were still paid from the army funds.

The Spartacus League was a small organisation consisting of tiny autonomous groups scattered all over Germany. On November 18th it published a newspaper called Rote Fahne (Red Flag) with Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg as editors and with Paul Levi, August Thalheimer, Paul Lange, Hermann Dunker, Wilhelm Pieck and Leo Jogiches in support. In this paper the aims of the Spartacists were published. Rosa Luxemburg wrote: -

"The abolition of capitalist rule and the creation of a socialist order—this and nothing else is the historical theme of the German Revolution. It is a tremendous task and it cannot be performed overnight with a few decrees from above, but only be the conscious action of the toiling masses in town and country, and by the highest degree of intellectual maturity and idealism on the part of those masses pursuing their aim through all vicissitudes until final victory." - "Rosa Luxemburg," by Paul Frolich. Gollancz.

The Spartacists further demanded:

1. The disarming of the police force.
2. The seizure of all arms and ammunition by the workers commitees.
3. The arming of the entire male population as a workers militia.
4. Election of all officers from the rank and file.
5. A revolutionary tribunal to try those responsible for the war.
6. A united German Socialist Republic, abolishing the separate states.
7. Election of workers' councils all over Germany with the right of recall of the representatives at any time.
8. Abolition of all class distinctions and legal equality of the sexes.
9. A six hour working day.
10. Confiscation of all crown estates and revenue for the benefit of the people.
11. Annulment of state debts.
12. Confiscation of all land and other property exceeding an amount to be fixed by the people's councils.
13. Establishment of administrative councils in all industries and of a General Strike Committee to work in conjunction with the workers' political party.
14. Connection with workers' organisations abroad to establish an international brotherhood.

(Condensed from "The Aims and Objects of the German Spartacists," published in English by the British Socialist Party, 1919.)

Huge demonstrations organised by both sides, the Democratic Party and the Spartacists, took place during December, 1918. The Democratic authorities issued posters calling:

"Workers! Citizens!
Our Fatherland is threatened with destruction. Save it. It is no longer threatened from without, but from within. Spartacus threatens to kill it. Kill their leaders. Kill Liebknecht. When they are dead you will have peace, land and bread. Soldiers from the front."—("Rosa Luxemburg," by Paul Frolich. Gollancz.)

In January 1919 the government ordered the dismissal of all Independent Social Democrats from posts of authority, including Eichhorn, Berlin chief of police. Eichhorn refused to resign and, although his own Independent party did not support him, the Spartacists did. They occupied police headquarters and the offices of a number of capitalists' newspapers on Sunday, January 5th. Armed workers, supporting the Sparctacists, marched into railway stations, food warehouses, the Royal stables, the Chancellory, and other large buildings. The Spartacists issued a call for the overthrow of the government and the setting up of a workers' republic.

The government set to work and appointed Noske as Governor-General of Berlin with extraordinary powers. He called in the "Free Corps" and the Spartacists and their followers were soon dislodged from their buildings, and driven into their homes where they were relentlessly pursued. Most of the leaders were caught and imprisoned and many workers were killed. Liebknecht and Luxemburg escaped but on January 15th they were taken at their hiding place in 53, Mannheimer Strasse in Wilmersdorf by a group of soldiers.

They were taken to the Eden Hotel for questioning. When being taken from this building Liebknecht was struck on the head with a rifle butt, bundled into a car by a Captain Horst von Pflugk-Hartung, driven away and shot in the back by this officer. His body was taken to a mortuary and delivered as an unknown man found dead in the Tiergarten.

When Rosa Luxemburg came out of the Eden Hotel she was also struck on the head with a rifle butt by a soldier named Runge, who smashed her skull with two blows. A Lieutenant Vogel put her body in a car and later threw it into the Landwehr Canal, from which it was not recovered until the following May.

Thus ended the attempt by the Spartacist League to emulate the Bolshevik seizure of power of October, 1917.

Frederick Engels in his preface to Karl Marx's "Class Struggles in France" wrote these words 25 years before the Spartacist rising: -

"Even in the classic time of street fighting, therefore, the barricade produced more of a moral than a material effect. It was a means of shaking the steadfastness of the military. If it held out until this was attained, then victory was won; if not, there was defeat."
"But since then there have been very many more changes, and all in favour of the military. If the big towns have become considerably bigger, the armies have become bigger still."
"On the other hand, all the conditions on the insurgents' side have grown worse. An insurrection with which all sections of the people sympathise will hardly recur . . . "
"And, finally, since 1848 the newly built quarters of the big towns have been laid out in long, straight, broad streets, as though made to give full effect to the new cannons and rifles. The revolutionary would have to be mad, who himself chose the working class districts in the North and East of Berlin for a barricade fight."

It is a pity the Spartacists did not give heed to Engels words. Many lives could have been saved to continue the struggle in more useful fields. Even had the insurrection been successful it could only have resulted in the Spartacists governing a capitalist Germany. The majority of German workers had no understanding of socialism and as little inclination for social revolutionary change. The Spartacists would have been in the same position as the Russian Bolsheviks—governing by force and terror—forced into administering capitalism.

Books to read: -
"The Growth of Modern Germany" by Roy Pascal.
"A People's History of Germany" by A. Ramos Oliveira.
"Rosa Luxemburg" by Paul Frolich.
"Hammer or Anvil" by Evelyn Anderson.
"The Birth of the German Republic" by Arthur Rosenberg
"The German Spartacists, Their Aims and ObjectsT" published by the B.S.P.

W. Waters

Pathfinders: Doing Something for Nothing (2015)

The Pathfinders Column from the January 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

A new year ought to start with a good news story, so here’s one you may have seen recently – global malaria deaths are down by 50 percent in the last ten years, according to the World Health Organisation (BBC Online, 9 December).

In Africa, home to 90 percent of malaria fatalities, cases have declined by 25 percent even though the population has increased by 43 percent. 50 percent of those at risk now have mosquito nets, compared to just 3 percent ten years ago. There is more diagnostic testing, more people are getting treatment, and a number of tropical countries have for the first time been able to report and maintain zero cases.

Obviously there is much more to be done. For one thing, many people in rural areas are still out of reach of treatment. Many children still die unnecessarily. 43 percent of pregnant women receive no preventative medicine. 3.2 billion people remain at risk, and with global warming, disease zones are spreading north to higher latitudes. There were still around 207 million cases in 2012, with a WHO estimate of between 473,000 and 789,000 deaths, mostly among the under-fives. At the low end of the estimate, that’s still close to one child a minute, all year. While Bob Geldof and his band of conceited and condescending millionaire celebs invite us to care as much as they do about the Ebola epidemic (suggested lyric: ‘Let’s all cure it in the New Year, or else we’ll get it over here…’), malaria has been quietly going about its business of causing around 100 times more fatalities with zero media coverage.

Even so there’s no doubt that this is a success story in healthcare among the world’s poor countries, and especially so in the context of a global social and economic system which is not famous for giving a monkey’s about poor people and their problems. How come we see this rare buck in the general trend of doom and gloom? Is it just an anomaly, the exception that proves the rule?

Socialists often describe capitalism as a nasty, brutish and uncaring system, but this is perhaps somewhat loose and idiomatic talk. What we are doing is reifying and even carelessly anthropomorphising what is, after all, nothing more than a set of abstract and inherited rules. It doesn’t mean that the people who live in capitalism are necessarily nasty, brutish and uncaring. Of course, some of them are, for example the sort of money-grubbing scumbags who are responsible for the estimated 40 percent of counterfeit malaria drugs now circulating in China and South-East Asia. But often people are quite the opposite. It says something very positive about humans that so many are able to cope under a divisive economic system where they have every reason to be in conflict with each other, but somehow fail to turn into Hobbesian stereotypes. People care, even though capitalism says they shouldn’t because there’s no money in caring. They try to help, even when there’s no profit incentive. They pull together, even when there’s no bottom line, no cash return, no angle. It’s not that humans are angels, but living in capitalist economic hell you might expect to see a lot more devils.

Scientifically speaking, capitalism could have wiped out malaria worldwide back in the mid-20th century, just as it did in the southern states of the USA and southern Europe, where it had been endemic for centuries. This new success is therefore not a victory for the capitalist system as such, but a victory for concerned people and groups within and despite the capitalist system. Some of those groups are NGOs, some government-backed, some private philanthropists, like the Gates Foundation. Above all, it’s a victory for the unsung volunteers who don’t make the papers, don’t walk the red carpets and don’t release bleeding-heart pop songs, but who do ninety percent of the work behind the scenes.

People don’t realise how much work volunteers do, in a society that laughs at the idea of working for free. In September last year Andy Haldane, the chief economist of the Bank of England, stated that volunteers in Britain do the work of an equivalent 1.2m employees, a figure only slightly smaller than the total workforce of the NHS (Economist, 12 September). The Office of National Statistics estimates that frequent, formal volunteering in the UK generates around £24 billion of economic output, roughly twice that of the agricultural sector. Add in infrequent, informal types of volunteering and the total amounts to £50 billion, equal to the UK energy sector (Wall Street Journal blog, 12 September). Globally, voluntary work is done by almost a billion people, close to the population of China, and much of that in war-zones, disaster sites and disease belts. A 2011 report by the International Red Cross commented on the largely volunteer-driven 2000 Global Polio Initiative which the United Nations described as ‘far beyond the reach of governments or international and national organizations’ (ifrc.org).

One way to think of socialism is as a global volunteering effort, systematised as the norm rather than the exception. Opponents of socialist ideas are very quick to argue that in a free society where there is no property or money, people would be too lazy or selfish to work for free, although typically they never include themselves in this assessment. What’s ironic about this mean-spirited myopia is that, with a present-day volunteer force approximately the size of China, we could easily run the essential global productive services of socialism, right now, without a single extra person stepping forward. To take agriculture as an example of how technology has made this possible, ‘From 90% of the US workforce in 1790, the percentage in the field dropped to roughly 50% in 1890 and is now less than 2%. Yet, the US farm production breaks records every year’ (ARK investment at seekingalpha.com, 26 September).

Similar productivity trends are expected in India and China, and the same applies to manufacturing, where the US tops the global manufacturing tables with just 9 percent of its workforce. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics gives 2012 figures of 3.9 percent for construction and just 0.6 percent for mining, with a whopping 80 percent being employed in government or service industries, a very large proportion of which would be unnecessary in socialism (bls.gov). And there is also the matter of work inside the home. According to UN statistics, ‘In all regions, women spend at least twice as much time as men on unpaid domestic work’ (unstats.un.org). Taking these factors together, it’s obvious that in capitalism a huge amount of useful and necessary work is unpaid while only a fraction of the paid work is what could be described as useful or necessary in socialist terms. As a rough calculation, if the global workforce is something like 3 billion today, and if only 20 percent do useful work by this definition, then not only could today’s global volunteer force run socialism, they could do it in a 24 hour week even if every former tax inspector, sales ‘executive’, benefit advisor and check-out assistant sat back and made no effort to help.

Far more likely of course, given their sudden liberty from bosses and wage-bondage as well as a free democratic voice and free access to what was available, such people would be falling over themselves to lend a hand, especially given the opportunity for once to do something actually important and worthwhile. Capitalism has never been able to conquer human beings’ basic sense of decency despite every effort and incentive. What will happen when it is unleashed in all its force can only be guessed at, and with socialism we’ll get a chance to see it in action.

PJS

Relative values (1991)

From the April 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

The family is under pressure. The 1990 edition of Social Trends details how over a quarter of marriages end in divorce before their fifth year, and how a quarter of all divorces involved at least one partner divorcing for a second time. In 1987 14 percent of dependent children lived in lone parent families.

Trends like these perplex the apologists for capitalism. Politicians and church leaders perceive "family values" to be, like the various other institutions of capitalism, eternally right and natural. They blame a lack of such values for a host of social ills—homelessness, drug abuse, vandalism, crime—instead of adding the broken family to their list as just another victim of capitalism's destructiveness.

Change, however, does not surprised Marxists. Once present-day society is recognised as historical, then the delusion of regarding it as natural vanishes. It was with just such a belief that Engels set out to rock accepted prejudices about the family in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State in 1884.

He showed that the monogamous family values of today were determined, in the final analysis, by economic developments and not by factors concerned with individual love, eternal morality and religious values. What Marx did for our understanding of the state, Engels did for the family. Early in his revolutionary career, Marx discovered that "the state is determined by civil society . . . and not civil society by the state". The political constitution is "the constitution of private property" (Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law). Engels showed that the present form of the family also is determined by civil society, property-owning society.

"Capitalist production", Engels wrote, "by transforming everything into commodities",

dissolved feudal relations and historical rights, replacing them with purchase and sale, 'free' contract . . . But the closing of contracts presupposes people who can freely dispose of their persons, actions and possessions, and who meet each other on equal terms. To create such a 'free' and 'equal' people was precisely one of the chief tasks of capitalist production.

Which is a continuing process, most recently demonstrated in eastern Europe and South Africa.

Free contract
Marriage, "a contract, a legal affair", feels the same economic effects. The arranged marriage gave way to "freedom of choice"—a freedom often still conflicting with the traditional values of Asian migrants to the developed West. "And on paper, in moral theory as in poetic description, nothing was more unshakably established than that every marriage not based on mutual sex love and on the really free agreement of man and wife was immoral."

Of course, Engels was not  naive enough to think that the old relative freedom of sexual intercourse disappeared with monogamy. Prostitution and adultery provide the safety valves to maintain the monogamous relation intact. "Prostitution", he wrote, "is as much a social institution as any other."

Nevertheless, it is the institution of marriage that is sanctioned by the Christian churches, with the additional civil moral sanction that love marriage is an "inalienable human right". Such hypocrisy demonstrates how morality, taken for granted by many as something quite natural, has, in reality, an economic foundation.

Even though the capitalist ideology of free choice has undermined the churches' teaching that marriage is for life, the monogamous relationship, whether marriage or cohabitation, still dominates the family group. Just over 77 per cent of people living in private households in Great Britain in 1987 lived in families headed by a married couple, a proportion which has fallen only slightly since 1961.

In many ways, it seems that the monogamous family becomes more entrenched as the dual income becomes the only way to service the family debt. Increasingly it takes two breadwinners to provide a home and an acceptable standard of living in which to raise a family. This is emphasised by the way divorcees rush back into marriage, accounting for thirty-six per cent of all marriages in 1988, adding to a shifting state of serial monogamy that is reflected in the growth of the dating agency industry.

At the same time, capitalism's growing demand for more and more women to join the workforce, made more urgent by the need to combat the demographic time-bomb, has made women less dependent on a male breadwinner. In fact, of all the petitions for divorce in 1988, over seventy-three per cent were filed by the wife. Engels predicted something like this, arguing that "the first premise for the emancipation of women is the re-introduction of the female sex into public (as opposed to private domestic) industry".

This is not to say that the freedom to choose a partner or the freedom to divorce under capitalism are wrong. Far from it, but these are limited freedoms. "Full freedom in marriage", Engels stressed, "can only become generally operative when the abolition of capitalist production and of the property relations created by it, has removed all those secondary economic considerations which exert so powerful an influence on the choice of a partner. Then no other motive remains than mutual affection."

Here, in microcosm, we have the goal of socialism in its widest sense, a society in which all our choices will be freed from "secondary economic considerations", where we have achieved, as Engels said elsewhere, an "ascent from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom".

John Dunn

Marx and Keynes (1955)

From the November-December 1955 issue of the Western Socialist

Classical economy, whose beginning is usually traced to Adam Smith, found its best expression and also its end in David Ricardo. Ricardo, as Marx wrote, “made the antagonism of class-interest, of wages and profits, of profits and rent, the starting-point of his investigation, naively taking this antagonism for a social law of nature. But by this start the science of bourgeois economy had reached the limits beyond which it could not pass,” for a further critical development could lead only to the recognition of the contradictions and limitations of the capitalist system of production. By doing what could no longer be done by bourgeois economists, Marx felt himself to be the true heir, and the destroyer as well, of bourgeois economy.

The further development of economic theory supported Marx’s opinion. Though bourgeois economy was indeed unable to advance, it was able to change its appearance. Classical economics had emphasized production and the system as a whole. Their followers emphasized exchange and individual enterprise. Although there arose no serious doubt that the capitalist system is natural, reasonable, and inalterable, yet the early confidence of bourgeois economy was slowly destroyed by a growing discrepancy between liberal theory and social reality. The increasing economic difficulties which accompanied the accumulation of capital developed an interest in the business cycle, in the factors that make for prosperity, crisis and depression. The neo-classical school, whose best-known proponent was Alfred Marshall, attempted to transform economy into a practical science, that is, to find ways and means to influence market movements and to increase both the profitability of capital and the general social welfare. But the increasing length and violence of depressions soon changed a new optimism into even deeper despair, and the sterility of bourgeois economics led economists once more to embrace the less-embarrassing security of “pure theory” and the silence of the academies.

In the midst of the Great Depression, bourgeois economic theory was suddenly raised from the dead by the “daring” theories of John Maynard Keynes. His main work, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, was hailed as a “revolution” in economic thought and led to the formation of a school of “Keynesian economics.” While persistent “orthodox” economists opposed this new school as “socialistic” or “illusionary,” so-called socialists attempted to blend Marx with Keynes, or rather, to accept Keynes’ theories as the “Marxism” of our time. Marx’s scepticism with regard to the future of bourgeois economy was now said to indicate only his inability or unwillingness to criticize the classicists constructively. Of Keynes it was said that he made real Alfred Marshall’s aspirations for a reformed and improved capitalism. These endeavors, as well as the great popularity of the “Keynesians,” both generally and in academic circles, and also their insistence upon the practical applicability of their economic reasoning and their apparent political influence, make it both advisable and interesting to investigate their claims and to review the work of their deceased master in the light of the actual development and the recognizable trend of present-day society. This invites a comparison of the Keynesian with the Marxian point of view.

II

Until the publication of the General Theory, Keynes was regarded as an economist of the neo-classical school whose marginal language was also his own. Economic categories were decked out in psychological terms, presumably derived from “human nature.” Individual anticipations and disappointments determine economic life and Keynes even spoke of the money-making and money-loving instincts of individuals as the main motive force of the economic machine. He believed that it is a “psychological law” that individuals tend to consume progressively smaller portions of their income as their incomes increase. When aggregate real income increases, consumption increases, too, of course, but not by so much as income. Assuming that all investment ultimately serves consumption needs and that an increase of income increases consumption by less than income, savings will increase faster than investments. With this, aggregate demand declines and the level of employment falls short of the available labor supply. This happens in a “mature” society because of the already existing large stock of capital, which depresses the marginal efficiency or profitability of capital and therewith expectations with respect to future capital yields. And this, in turn, creates a psychological attitude on the part of the wealth-owners to hold their savings in money-form rather than to invest in enterprise promising little or no reward.

Economic stagnation and large-scale unemployment was at the center of Keynes’ interest. Traditional economic theory was bound to the imaginary conditions of full employment and to Say’s “law of the market” — to the belief, that is, that “supply creates its own demand.” Like Say, Keynes saw in present and future consumption the goal of all economic activity, but, in distinction to the French economist, he no longer held that supply brings forth sufficient demand to maintain full employment. The refutation of “Say’s law” is hailed as the most important aspect of the Keynesian theory, particularly because it defeats this “law” on its own ground by showing that just because of the “fact” that production serves consumption, supply does not create its own demand.

Almost seventy-five years earlier, Marx had already pointed out that only an accelerated capital expansion allows for an increase of employment, that consumption and “consumption” under conditions of capital production are two different things, and that total production can rise only if it provides a greater share of the total for the owners and controllers of capital. The “dull and comical ‘prince de la science’, J.B. Say,” Marx did not find worth overthrowing, even though “his continental admirers have trumpeted him as the man who had unearthed the treasure of the metaphysical balance of purchase and sales” [1]. For Marx, Say’s law of the market was sheer nonsense in view of the growing disequilibrium between the profit needs of capital expansion and the rationally considered productive requirements of men, between the “social demand” in capitalism and the actual social needs; and he pointed out that capital accumulation implies an industrial reserve army.

III

When Keynes at such late hour, approached Marx’s position, it was not in order to point to an inherent contradiction of capital production but to hail the disparity between employment and investment as a great accomplishment. In his view only “a wealthy community will have to discover much ampler opportunities for investment if the saving propensities of its wealthier members are to be compatible with the employment of its poorer members” [2]. However, short of closing the gap between income and consumption it follows from Keynes’ theory that “each time we assure today’s equilibrium by increasing investments we are aggravating the difficulties of securing equilibrium tomorrow” [3]. For the next future, however, he thought these difficulties surmountable through government policies which diminished “liquidity-preference” and increased “effective demand” by controlled inflation, reduced interest-rates and lowered real wages, thus promoting inducements to invest. If these are not sufficient, the government can increase economic activity by public works and deficit-financing. With full employment the criterion, the effectiveness of various interventions into the market-economy can be tested experimentally. Anything that does not lead to full employment is not enough. Because increased employment by way of “pump-priming” may lead to “secondary employment” in additional branches of production, it was assumed that it will lead to such employment. And if all should fail, there is still the possibility of a direct control of investments by government.

It is not necessary to agree with Keynes as to the cause of unemployment to recognize that the policies he suggested to combat it have been the policies of all governments in recent history whether they were aware of his theories or not. They had made their historical debut long before their theoretical expression. All the monetary and fiscal innovations had already been tried: public works, inflation and deficit-financing are as old as government rule and have been employed in many a crisis situation. In modern times, however, they have been regarded as exceptions to the rule, excusable in times of social stress but disastrous as a permanent policy.

IV

For Marx, the inherent contradictions of capital production are not of an “economic” character in the bourgeois sense of the term. He is not concerned with the supply and demand relations of the market but with the effect of the social forces of production upon the capitalist social relations of production, that is, with the results of the increasing productivity of labor upon the production of value and surplus-value. Celebrated as the product of capital itself, bourgeois theory separates growing productivity from its social implications. For Marx, it is the independent variable that determines all the other variables in the system of economic relationships.

The special importance of labor and its increasing productivity in Marx’s scheme of reasoning led to his discovery of a definite developmental trend in capital accumulation, which revealed qualitative changes in the wake of quantitative ones. He could show that the capitalist “equilibrium mechanism” must itself change in the course of capital expansion and that it is the latter which determines and modifies the market forces of supply and demand, since market laws have to assert themselves within a larger frame of a developing “disequilibrium” between the social forces of production and the capitalist relations of production.

The increase of productivity, of surplus-value and the accumulation of capital are all one and the same process. It implies a more rapid growth of capital invested in means of production than that invested in labor power. It involves what Marx called a “rising organic composition of capital.” As profits are calculated on the total invested capital, they must show a tendency to decline as that part of the total which alone yields surplus value becomes relatively smaller. Of course, the process also implies an increasing ability to extract more surplus-value, thus nullifying the “tendency” of profits to decline, and constituting the reason for the process itself. Leaving aside all the intricacies of Marx’s exposition, his abstract scheme of capital expansion shows that apart from competition as the driving force of capital expansion in the market reality, the production and accumulation of surplus-value already finds in the two-fold character of capital production — such as exchange and use value — a limiting element, to be overcome only by the continuous expansion and extension of the capitalist mode of production. In order to forestall a falling rate of profit, accumulation must never rest. More and more surplus-value must be extracted and this involves the steady revolutionizing of production and the continuous extension of its markets. As long as accumulation is possible, the capitalist system prospers. If accumulation comes to a halt crisis and depression set in.

Both Marx and Keynes, then, though for different reason, recognize the capitalist dilemma in a declining rate of capital accumulation. Keynes diagnoses its cause as a lack of incentive to invest. Marx, looking behind the lack of incentive, finds the reason for it in the social character of production as a production of capital. Keynes does not regard crisis and depression as necessary aspects of capital formation; they are such only under laissez-faire conditions, and then only in the sense that the economic equilibrium does not include full employment. For Marx, however, a continuous capital accumulation presupposes periods of crises and depression, for the crisis is the only “equilibrium mechanism” which operates in capitalism with regard to its development. It is in the depression period that the capital structure undergoes those necessary changes which restore lost profitability and enable further capital expansion.

V

Marx’s theory of accumulation anticipated Keynes’ criticism of the neo-classical theory through its criticism of classical theory. In its essentials, then, Keynes’ “revolution” consists in a partial re-statement of some of Marx’s arguments against the capitalist economy and its theory. Keynes did not study Marx, and he did not feel the need for doing so because he identified Marx’s theories with those of the classicists. By opposing the classical theory Keynes thought he was opposing Marx as well. In reality, however, he dealt with neither of these theories but with the neo-classical market theory which had no longer any significant connection with the ideas of Smith and Ricardo. Marx’s critique of classical economy, however, resembles Keynes’ criticism of the neo-classicists, although it cuts deeper than Keynes’ because the classicists had been profounder thinkers than their apologetic emulators, and because Marx was not a bourgeois reformer.

Although Keynes wished to “knock away the Ricardian foundations of Marxism,” in order to do so, he had first of all to post himself on these very foundations. He accepted the theory of value in the Ricardian sense, in which labor as the sole factor of production includes “the personal services of the enterpreneur and his assistants.” Like Marx he dealt in economic aggregates, but while in Marx’s system the analysis in terms of economic aggregates was to lead to the discovery of the basic trend of capital accumulation and to no more, in the Keynesian system it was to serve the formulation of a policy able to support the trend without doing damage to the capitalist relations of production. Expressed in simplest terms, Keynes’ model represents a closed system divided into two departments of production; one producing consumption goods and the other producing capital goods. The total money expenditure in terms of wage-units (based on the working hour) for both consumption and capital goods constitutes total income. When the aggregate demand, that is, the demand for consumption and capital goods, equals total income and implies that total savings equal investments, the system is supposed to be in equilibrium. A decline of aggregate demand, implying a discrepancy between savings and investments, reduces total income and produces unemployment. In order to alter this situation the aggregate demand must be increased to a point where total income implies full employment.

In Marx’s system of economic aggregates constant capital is the property of the capitalist class, variable capital the social equivalent of labor-power, and surplus-value the accumulation and income source of the ruling class. It is here not a question of “social income” and “social output” and their relation to each other, but a question of the capitalist exploitation of labor power.

VI

Until the second world war, Keynes’ theories enjoyed only small verification. He had a perfect alibi, however — either his suggestions were not carried out or they were too meagerly applied. But with the beginning of war production, Keyness was confident that his theory would be fully confirmed. Now it would be seen “what level of total output accompanied by what level of consumption is needed to bring a free, modern community . . . within the sight of the optimum employment of its resources” [4]. War-time policies, however, were quite independent of Keynesian ideology, being neither different from those employed in the First World War, nor different between various governments, some of which did not adhere to the Keynesian “revolution.” All the innovations associated with the commandeered economy of the second world war, such as a money and credit inflation, price controls, labor controls, priorities, forced savings, rationing and so forth had been current in the first debacle despite the then prevailing “orthodox” approach to economics.

If the war economy “proved” the validity of Keynes’ theory, it did so to such a degree that the theory itself had to be put in reverse. Although unsuccessful in increasing the “propensity to consume” during the depression, it was a “brilliant success” in cutting it down during the war. Unable to increase investments up to the point of full employment, it led to labor shortages through the destruction of capital. Although suspended during the war, Keynes’ theories would hold good again with the return to “normalcy.” The war itself only proved to him that technically any economic system could have full employment if it so wished; it fid not occur to him that under present conditions war and preparation for war may be the only way to full employment. It did occur to others; generally, however, the Keynesian spirit is best represented by such adherents of the welfare-state as William Beveridge, who, near the end of the second world war, proposed a full employment program based on the “socialization of demand without the socialization of production” [5]. Built on Keynesian principles and choosing budgetary means for its realization, it was to carry the full employment of war into the conditions of peace.

Fears that large-scale unemployment would return in the wake of the second world war proved to be exaggerated. A clear distinction between war-production and peace-time production no longer existed and no need arose to adopt the Beveridge or any other plan for a fuller utilization of productive resources. Since the inception of the “Keynesian revolution,” then, no real opportunity has arisen to test its practical validity. Yet, government intervention during the depression increased employment to some extent. It may then be said that the theory proved itself in a very general way wherever it was employed, and to the degree in which it was applied. In this sense, however, Keynesianism would be just another name for governmental depression policies, and would exhaust itself in the suggestion that the government should take care of the anticipatory aspects of capital formation wherever private initiative begins to slacken. While production is still production for private gain, its expansion is the government’s responsibility — a logical extension of the credit-system by a shift from private to governmental financial control.

Not only from the Keynesian, but from any realistic point of view, government intervention is now regarded as an inescapable necessity. An increasing amount of “welfare-economics” is advocated by the proponents both of the “welfare-state” and of private enterprise. But even though nobody seems to doubt that government control is here to stay, the question of its character remains controversial. The Keynesians are generally for more government intervention, but as the consistent increase of government regulation and deficit-financing is synonymous with the transformation of the private into a state-capitalism system, it is often opposed as a form of “creeping socialism.” Because Keynesianism may also be regarded as a transitory state towards a completely government-regulated capitalist economy, it has become the theory of social reform within the capitalist system. It stands thus in strictest opposition to Marxism which concerns itself not with social reform but with the abolition of the capitalist system.

1. A Contribution to the Critique of Political economy, Chicago, 1904, p. 123.

2. The General Theory, p. 31.

3. The General Theory, p. 105.

4. J. M. Keynes in The New Republic, July 29, 1940.

5. Full Employment in a Free Society, 1945, p. 29.

Paul Mattick

Orange peel and peppered bread (1987)

From the August 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

When reaching the age of 70 you tend to look back and reflect on your life. I experienced twice going hungry. First as a boy in 1926 during the General Strike when I would pick up orange peel from the gutter to eat on the way to Stratford Market where I went to look for food. Dustbin raking was futile, turning up mainly fishbones. Also difficult, as others also used this method to exist.

The second time was in 1942 when I had to visit the Relieving Office weekly to pick up a bright blue form which said "Rent 12/6d, Food 10/-, Coal 5/-" - a total of £1.38 to keep a family of four.

The pawnshop had our eiderdown, overcoat, marriage rings and much else besides: this avenue of revenue was now exhausted. What else could I do? We were fed up with pouring hot water on dry beard, peppered for flavour. I would be caught stealing, and this would make matters worse. No fines in those, days, only prison.

In desperation I did some work as a film extra; untraceable, as on the wall of the Relieving Office was 'Mr So and So went to work between . . . and . . . He did not declare his earnings and was sentenced to six months' imprisonment". Therefore you could say I owe the capitalist system between four and five years in prison!

Such experiences make you think hard and give you a deep sense of the real values of life. Your dignity and confidence are, alas, gone for ever. To quote Charles Chaplin "Once you have been very poor no amount of money can retrieve the position". I am still waiting to confirm the latter part!

Food was in shops, not for the hungry but to be sold for a profit to those who could pay. Now, on reflection, I can only smile bitterly and try to help organise the overthrowing of this vile system of capitalism. Relating this story of mine while canvassing for The Socialist Party, somebody said "surely the capitalist system has done something for you. There must be something." The door had nearly closed when I said "Yes, there is something; it made me a socialist -  the only hope in this world of chaos".

Cyril Watkinson

A Propaganda Tour In America (1958)

From the November 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

The writer was appointed by the E.C. as fraternal delegate of the Socialist Party of Great Britain to the World Socialist Party Conference, held in Boston on 30th and 31st August, 1958.

A propaganda tour of North America was arranged in conjunction with the World Socialist Party, the Socialist Party of Canada, and a number of sympathisers in Vancouver.

On arrival at Boston, on Friday, 29th August, a warm welcome was given, Comrades Rab and Gloss having stayed up all night to meet the plane. Saturday and Sunday was spent at the World Socialist Party Conference, and at one stage it did not seem likely that the writer would ever leave Boston, such was the hospitality shown. A meeting was held on Boston Common on Labour Day, Monday, 1st September, at which Comrade Gloss (Boston local), Comrade Miller (Detroit local), and the writer spoke. The meeting last three hours, and gave me my first experience of speaking to American audiences. This was the first meeting held on the Common for some years, and was attended by approximately 200 people. Over £2 of literature was sold.

On Tuesday, 2nd September, I left for Los Angeles, California, a distance of about 3,000 miles, and was met on arrival by Comrade Evans and his wife. Again, the same warm hospitality was shown me. The Los Angeles and district programme was a very full one. September 4th, Long Beach University by the sea, 192 present; September 5th, Monteray Park, discussion with Socialist Party of America (Reformist), 28 present; September 6th, return visit to Long Beach University by the sea, open-air Debate 190 present. Saturday evening, 6th September, guest on Tom Duggan's T.V. programme, Channel 13, 10.30 p.m. This was a 20-minute interview, which covered a wide range of subjects relating to Socialism. This was the first time a Socialist speaker appeared on television there. This television station caters for some two million viewers. Some of the questions referred to "Money under Socialism," "Is the American worker better off?", "Is Russia Socialist?", 'Has the S. P. G. B. any connection with the Communist Party?", "The object of the Socialist Party," "The international character of Socialism," and numerous other questions. Unsuccessful attempts were made to get a tape recording of the interview from the T.V. studio. Sunday, 7th September, 10 a.m., Santa Monica Forum, Lincoln Park, a meeting dealing with the failure of the British Labour Party. Sixty people attended this meeting, which terminated at 12.30 p.m. On the same day in the afternoon there was an an outdoor meeting in McArthur Park, Los Angeles; 200 present and approximately 30s. literature sold. This gave the writer his first baptism of American Communists, who interrupted in the beginning, but finally listened. The meeting lasted two hours, Comrade Fred Evans being the chairman. The stay in Los Angeles came to an end with a dinner, which was attended by a number of Comrades and their wives. After the dinner, tape recordings were played, conveying greeting from Comrades in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Scotland, England, and Canada.

On to Vancouver from Los Angeles, a distance of something like 1,200 miles, flying up the American Western seaboard. An hour's halt at San Francisco gave me the opportunity to telephone Comrade J. McDonald, for years one of the stalwarts of the Pacific Coast. Arriving at Vancouver via Seattle, seven Comrades provided a reception committee at the airport. Tuesday, 9th September, a radio broadcast was arranged at 5.30 p.m. on C.B.C Radio. This was an interview with Mr. Ian Errol in a programme entitled "On the Scene." The main points covered in the interview were the difference between the Socialist Party and Reformist organisations, like the C.C.F. of Canada, Social Democrats, Germany, British Labour Party, etc., and "Was Russia Socialist?" We were given a tape recording of this interview, and it was played to the recent Autumn Delegate Meeting. Wednesday 10th September, a meeting was held at the C.C.F. Hall, North Vancouver, on "The British Labour Party." About 40 people were present. The next day I was able to take a six-hour boat trip for a change and landed at Victoria, Vancouver Island. Comrades Luff, Broomfield, and other Comrades, real old-timers of the movement, met me at the pier. The same hospitable reception, and concern for my personal comfort was shown. Later in the evening a meeting was held in a local C.C.F. hall, 45 being present. A very good collection was taken up, and four members of the audience, including a Dutch seaman on a visit to Victoria, became yearly subscribers to the SOCIALIST STANDARD. I returned by boat to Vancouver on the Friday evening. Saturday, 13th September, an informal discussion was held at the home of two young Comrades. This was most interesting and some tape recordings were played. Three further subscriptions were received for the SOCIALIST STANDARD for two years. In the evening a meeting was held at the Moose Hall, Vancouver, at which 150 people attended. This was an outstanding meeting, and the energy and resource employed by those Comrades who organised it is well worthy of mention. Practically every parked car and cafe in Vancouver was adorned with the handbill advertising the meeting, usually without the consent of the owner. The title of the meeting, chosen by the Canadian Comrades, was "World Unrest—Why?" The meeting never flagged; it started prompt at 7.30 p.m. and finished at 10.50 p.m. It could have gone on until midnight. Comrade Ray McLeod was chairman. The S.P.G.B. Propaganda Committee are repeating this meeting at Denison House, Victoria, S.W., on Sunday 30th, at 7.30 p.m. The writer met many members of the old Socialist Party of Canada, one of whom had travelled 80 miles to attend the meeting, and reckoned it was worth it. Sunday, 14th September, concluding meeting in Vancouver, Stanley Park Forum; again, an outstanding meeting, subject "Socialist Theory and Practice." The hall was overcrowded, over  100 being there. The bulk of the meeting was taken up with discussion, and no less than eight opponents took the platform in opposition. After the meeting the writer had to catch a plane for Winnipeg, leaving Vancouver 11.30 p.m. A rush to the Airport, and a night flight over the Rockies, and the World's Breadbasket, arriving early morning at Winnipeg about 1,200 miles away.

Comrade Shepherd was there, and took me as a guest to his house. A little social was arranged that evening, and I was introduced to pretty well every Winnipeg member of the Socialist Party of Canada. Tuesday evening, September 16th, an address was given to the Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council, 62 delegates were present, and we received quite a good write-up in the Winnipeg Free Press under the heading "Socialist Raps Labour." Next evening we held a meeting in the Market Square, and an average audience of 40 people listened. This was the first meeting held there for eight years. On Sunday afternoon, 21st September, a meeting was held at the Labour Temple, Winnipeg, on the subject "Problems of British Workers." Approximately 45 attended, Comrade J. Milne was chairman. A number of social gatherings were arranged for my benefit, and a tape recording of greetings was made at one of these socials. Comrade Love, who is over 80, starting the proceedings. The Socialist Party of Canada still discuss the impact which Comrade Gilmac's visit made last year, and how he redoubled their enthusiasm. The late Charlie Lestor, who spent many years in Canada, Moses Baritz, and Adolph Kohn, were all held in high regard. The tales and tribulations of these early pioneers were amusing and refreshing to listen to, as told by their contemporaries.

I left on Monday, the 22nd, early in the morning, for New York, via Toronto. Flew over the Great Lakes and Niagara Falls, arriving New York 4.30 p.m. Another dinner and social was provided by members: again, great hospitality.

Two meetings were arranged, one at Union Square, 14th Street (nicknamed Red Square during depression), and 85th Street. The latter meeting was not proceeded with, although police permission had been received. Instead, we held both meetings at Union Square, at which we distributed about 200 copies of the Western Socialist. Attendance was very good, ranging from 250 to 350. Outdoor speaking in America is pretty well the same as in England, except that the weather is more reliable. There is no special police difficulty unless you cause obstruction. After a tour of New York, including Harlem, Stock Exchange, I left for Boston on the 25th September, renewed old acquaintances, and a meeting was arranged for Friday, September 26th, at the W.S.P. headquarters, Nathaniel Hall, subject "Socialism and Atomic Extinction." About 40 people attended this meeting. A meeting arranged for Saturday afternoon, Boston Common, had to be abandoned because of rain. On Sunday afternoon, September 28th, a meeting was held on Boston Common, the last meeting of the tour, at which Comrade Gloss and myself were the speakers. There was an average audience of 200. Sunday night I said farewell to the American Comrades, and caught a plane back to Britain at 10.20 p.m.

In all, the tour covered 15,200 miles. Apart from the radio broadcast and television appearance, a total of 18 meetings and lectures were held.

It is not our normal practice in the Socialist movement to mention individual names, but the writer feels it would be less than human if we did not appreciate the efforts of Comrades Rab, Gloss, Morrison, and numerous others in Boston; Comrade Fred Evans in Los Angeles, Comrades Roddy McLeod, Eve Smith, Ahrens and Holtby in Vancouver, Comrades Luff, George Jenkins and others in Victoria, Comrades Milne, Shepherd, Jenkins and many others in Winnipeg; and Comrades Davies, Coombs, Kilgour, in New York, Without the organisation on this inter-Continental scale, the tour as such would not have been possible. It is gratifying to note that the Socialist movement is the only movement which has a common message between the Continents, and contains people who are actively organising and have the ability to organise such an ambitious project. That it was done once means it will be done again and again.

The writer hopes that he may be privileged again in future to renew his acquaintance with his Comrades on the American Continent. They are a grand bunch.

J. D'Arcy.