Lewis Henry Morgan. An Account and Appreciation of his Life Work. (1919)

From the October 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1.

The Discovery of the Gens.
The second part of "Ancient Society" contains the fruits of those researches of Morgan's which it is generally recognised constitute his greatest contribution to sociology. Prior to its appearance there existed little or no exact knowledge of the tribal organisations of primitive peoples.

In his "League of the Iroquois" and even later works, Morgan himself had adhered to the commonly accepted view that the Mohawks, Senecas, etc., were each nations in many ways equivalent to modern national communities. The smaller groups within these "nations," each of which was called after a certain animal which was its totem, Morgan had designated "tribes." Subsequent investigation, however, convinced him that the larger groups, the Senecas, etc., were the true tribes, and that they were different from the nation which only came into existence after the coalescence of several such tribes, and fundamentally so from the modern territorial nation, in which kinship as a social tie is eliminated.

But the most important fact was that the basic and unitary organisation of the Indians was the smaller group, that which he had earlier called the "tribe." This "clan" or "totem group" he soon recognised, as his researches expanded, to be an all but universal institution among savage and barbarian peoples. Everywhere it consisted of a group of blood relatives descended, or claiming descent, from a common ancestor. Its members were strictly bound not to intermarry, but to mate outside the group ; they elected and deposed their own chiefs, and met together in common council.

Then Morgan made a remarkable discovery. Even the most learned and acute historians up to his time had been greatly puzzled over an institution which existed among the ancient Greeks and was known to the classical Latin writers by the name of "Gens." Being unable to understand its structure or function, Grote and other historians erroneously considered the gens to be an extension and outgrowth, of the monogamous family. Morgan, however, showed convincingly in his "Ancient Society'' that the Greek and Roman gens is identical in all essentials with the Indian "totem group," the only important difference between them being that among the Indians, except where European influence had crept in, the common ancestor of the group was a woman, female descent prevailed and children always remained in the same totem group as their mother, whereas among the early Greeks and Romans the recognised ancestor was a male, paternal descent was the rule, and children belonged to the gens of their father.

Morgan considered the former an archaic or primitive, and the latter the derived and modified, form of the same organisation, which he decided out of consistency to henceforth refer to by its Latin name of "gens." He believed that the change from the maternal to the paternal gens was an outcome of the growth of private property, possession of which instilled into the fathers a desire that this wealth should be enjoyed, after the death of themselves, by their own children.

Under the law of the gens the property of a member had to remain within the group, and as the maternal system placed a man's children in their mother's gens, never in his own, they were disinherited as regards their father's property. By introducing male descent and thus keeping children in their father’s gens they were enabled to inherit his property. Morgan clinched his argument by showing this change to have actually taken place in recent years with the growth of private property among several Indian tribes as a result of foreign influences.

Having thus placed ancient history upon a sound basis Morgan endeavours to show the stages by which, in Greece and in Rome, the social organisation of the gens and the tribe passed away and was supplanted by a form of society based upon possession of property and territorial residence. In a series of brilliant chapters he shows how increasing population, intermixture of tribes, growing division of social functions, and above all, the increase in private property and its concentration into the hands of a few, all results of the "enlargement of the sources of subsistence," gradually undermined the institutions founded on kinship and prepared the way for and made necessary the rise of the political State.

Morgan's analysis still holds good, but it may be usefully supplemented by Engels' "Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State," which shows that class-oppression is the function of the State-power. Morgan did not deal with the feudal form of political society which developed from gentile society in a somewhat different fashion, but Engels outlined its beginning among the Germans and it has been adequately if briefly treated in a generalised manner by Edward Jenks in his "Short History of Politics."

One of the most instructive and important chapters in "Ancient Society" treats of the native culture of Mexico prior to the Spanish Conquest. Investigation had convinced Morgan that the records of the Spaniards, together with the historic works which, like Prescott's, were built upon them, were very unreliable wherever they dealt with the social institutions of either the Aztecs or the Incas of Peru. The Spaniards, accustomed only to the social relations of a feudal monarchy, completely misunderstood what little they did observe of Mexican and Peruvian society. They interpreted the league of tribes as an empire and the war-chief of the Aztec federation as an Emperor.

Morgan did valuable pioneer work in unravelling the mystery of "Aztec civilisation," and had already criticised the prevailing misconceptions in some of the articles we have referred to. Moreover, in this field he had the assistance of his friend, Adolph H. Bandelier (1840-1914) a Swiss who had gone to America, and the leading authority at that time on the archeology of Mexico, Arizona, and New Mexico

In "Ancient Society" Morgan's conclusions were fully stated and the evidence massed which showed that the Aztecs were, at the time of their discovery by Europeans, in the Middle Status of Barbarism, intermediate between the Iroquois and the Greeks of the Homeric period, and that they lived in village communities based upon the gens.

By revealing the inner structure of tribal society Morgan performed a signal service to sociology. Incidentally he showed and was one of the first to appreciate the fact, now generally recognised, that the barbarian is not a bloodthirsty monster of ferocity, and that his society, far from being a despotism ruled over by a brutal, tyrannical chieftain, is usually a well-organised, democratic body.

  "All the members of an Iroquois gens were personally free, and they were bound to defend each other's freedom; they were equal in privileges and in personal rights, the sachems and chiefs claiming no superiority ; and they were a brotherhood bound together by ties of kin. Liberty, equality, and fraternity, though never formulated, were cardinal principles of the gens." ("Ancient Society", p. 85.)

The Family and Property.
In the third part of "Ancient Society," which describes the evolution of the family, Morgan not only re-stated his theory (which we have already outlined) in a revised, more complete, and widely generalised form, but he devoted a special section to a refutation of the criticisms of McLennan, the author of "Primitive Marriage." He was now in a position to show that McLennan's position was, in the light of the fresh discoveries, completely untenable, his theory of tribal Endogamy and Exogamy being due to the common confusion of the gens with the tribe.

Morgan's theory of the family is generally accepted to-day in its main outlines. His most important error lay in considering the patriarchal family to be an exceptional form instead of, as has been since shown by the Russian student, Maxim Kovalevsky, and others, to be a widespread institution characteristic of the Middle and Upper stages of Barbarism, and as the intermediary almost everywhere manifest between the matriarchal family and monogamy.

In his concluding part Morgan outlines his view of the development of property. He shows how, feebly developed and largely communal during Savagery, it achieves more definite recognition and power during the pastoral stage in the period of Barbarism and reaches almost complete dominance in social life with the greatly increased productivity of the epoch of Civilisation.

He defines three successive systems of property inheritance, the first two of which correspond with the two stages of female and male descent in the gens among the members of which the property of a deceased member was divided ; the third system harmonising with the monogamous family in which the father's property is inherited exclusively by his own family.

Morgan's observations on the social significance of private property are very acute and approximate very closely to the Marxian position. He says:

  "It is impossible to overestimate the influence of property in the civilisation of mankind. It was the power that brought the Aryan and Semitic nations out of barbarism into civilisation. The growth of the idea of property in the human mind commenced in feebleness and ended in becoming its master passion. Governments and laws are institute with primary reference to its creation, protection, and enjoyment. It introduced human slavery as an instrument in its production ; and after the experience of several thousand years, it caused the abolition of slavery upon the discovery that a freeman was a better property-making machine." (Pp. 511-512.)

"The time will come, nevertheless, when human intelligence will rise to the mastery over  property . . . The interests of society are paramount to individual interests, and the two must be brought into just and harmonious relations. A mere property career is not the final destiny of mankind, if progress is to be the law of the future as it has been of the past. The time which has passed away since civilisation began is but a fragment of the past duration of man's existence ; and but a fragment of the ages yet to come. The dissolution of society bids fair to become the termination of a career of which property is the end and aim ; because such a career contains the elements of self-destruction." (P. 561.)

Final Work.
With the publication of his principal literary work, the real culmination of his long enquiry into the evolution of human culture, Morgan did not by any means rest from his scientific labours. A true scientist, he continued to investigate and to generalise from the facts so observed, ever searching for fresh truths, ever seeking further to contribute to the totality of human knowledge.

In 1876 he visited the ancient and the modern pueblos, or native villages of Colorado and New Mexico. An early result was his essay on "Communal Living Among the Village Indians."

He devoted his attentions especially to the architecture and domestic life of the Indians, and his final conclusions on this phase of their life were embodied in his last great book, "Houses and House-life of the American Aborigines," which appeared in 1881. This work contains abundant information on the property relations of the Indians and shows in great detail the communistic habits and modes of thought which pervaded their life. Commenting upon the brotherhood and hospitality of the Redskins Morgan, says in a striking passage :

  "If a man entered an Indian house in any of their villages, whether a villager or a stranger, it was the duty of the women therein to set food before him. . . . This characteristic of barbarous society, wherein food was the principal concern of life, is a remarkable fact. The law of hospitality, as administered by the American aborigines, tended to the final equalisation of subsistence. Hunger and destitution could not exist at one end of an Indian village or in one section of an encampment while plenty prevailed elsewhere in the same village or encampment. "

We have now completed our survey of Morgan's scientific and literary achievements. His important and original work earned for him the name of "the father of American Anthropology." In 1873 he had received the degree of Doctor of Laws from Union College, and in 1880 he was President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

At first sight it appears strange that although his vital discoveries were appropriated for their own use by the English anthropologists, to their great discredit they did their utmost to belittle Morgan, and as far as possible ignored, and were silent regarding, his meritorious achievements. No doubt this, in part, was due to the severe blow which Morgan had dealt to the prestige of the English School by causing the collapse of their pet theory—that of McLennan. But, worse still, Morgan had criticised the social power of property, and such criticism could not be tolerated by the intellectuals of the hothouse of industrial capitalism, the birth-place of Laisser-Faire "political economy." (*)

Morgan's home was a rendezvous for the leading American scholars and scientists of the day. In his own library Morgan would often gather with a number of young students for the systematic study of ethnology and also of the works of Herbert Spencer, whom he greatly admired.

Morgan took a practical interest in political activity and in 1861 was elected to the N.Y. Assembly, later, in 1868, becoming a Senator. He used all his influence in the endeavour to improve the conditions of life and the treatment meted out to his life-long friends, the Red-men—dying remnants of a splendid race, broken and bespoiled by the fateful finger that writes the story of economic evolution.

Morgan reached through his studies the very verge of the Socialist conception of society. Had his investigations carried him further into the epoch of civilisation he would probably have realised more completely than he did the vast importance of the struggle of classes arising from those property developments the early stages of which he himself so ably described.

But if his sphere was too narrow to permit of this, it was even less fitted to give Morgan an understanding of the present capitalistic stage of society. It required a man of equal intellect working, observing, analysing, generalising at the very hub-centre of the capitalist world market —London, and this role was played by Marx, in whom Capitalism as well as Socialism found its Morgan.

The works of Marx and Morgan are in a very real sense interrelated and complementary. Together they laid secure foundations for a genuine natural science of social life. This Marx clearly recognised and intended to show in a work upon the evolution of society based upon his own researches and those of Morgan. Unfortunately this, which might possibly have been Marx's master work, was never accomplished—ill health and death intervened. But Marx's great co-worker, Frederick Engels, seeing the urgent necessity of such a work, himself undertook the task and produced that classic of Marxian sociology, "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State," which first appeared in Germany in 1884.

This little book of Engels' was the first real appreciation, outside of America, of the pioneer work done by Morgan. Passing through several editions and translated into numerous languages, it has been the means of spreading a knowledge of Morgan's work amongst members of the working class the world over. To this day, in fact, "Ancient Society" is read and discussed wherever class conscious working-men gather together, while, on the other hand, the average bourgeois student is ignorant, often enough, of Morgan's very name and position in science, let alone being conversant with his writings.

In the estimation of the proletarian student Lewis H. Morgan, by the originality and vast importance of his scientific achievements, occupies a place in that imperishable trinity of nineteenth century science —Marx, Darwin, Morgan.

R. W. Housley.

(*) Of late years there has been a change of attitude, and in addition to the praise of Edward Jenks, we have Dr. Haddon in his "History of Anthropology'' referring to Morgan as the greatest sociologist of the nineteenth century.

(Concluded.)

It's your money we want. (1919)

From the October 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are planning the production of a number of publications in the near future, for which it will be necessary to find funds. We trust that friends will rise to the occasion—through the £1000 fund.

Readers who find it difficult or impossible to obtain the Socialist Standard through the usual channels should communicate with the Head Office, 17 Mount Pleasant, W. C.1., when regular delivery will be arranged.

The Communists and Palestine (1948)

Editorial from the July 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

Just as the capitalist declines to allow sentiment or humanity to interfere with the purpose for which he is in business—-the making of profit, so capitalist governments decline to be guided by sentiment in deciding their international policies. If the British Government holds that the oil of the Middle East and the need to protect Empire communications call for a policy of friendship with the Arab States, not all the past resolutions of Labour Conferences nor all the heckling by many Labour M.Ps. would move Mr. Mayhew, Under Secretary to the Foreign Office, when on 11th June of this year he refused to recognise the new State of Israel. But many workers who perceive that this is true of the British and other Governments, believe that it is not true of Russia. When, therefore, they see the Communist Party attacking Labour Government policy on Palestine they conclude that the Communist Party is more trustworthy than Mr. Bevin. A little delving into the Communists' record on this question will show, however, that there is not a ha’porth of difference, either in principle or in practice.

The cynical principle was laid down by Mr. Litvinov, who in 1933 was Russian Foreign Minister. The occasion was the relations between Russia and Germany, at a time when Hitler’s Government was busy persecuting Communists and other opponents of the regime. In a speech in Moscow on December 29th, 1933, Mr. Litvinov excused Russian friendship with Fascist Germany:

  “We, of course, have our own opinion of the German regime. We, of course, are sensitive to the sufferings of our German comrades, but we Marxists can be reproached least of all for permitting our feelings to dominate our policy. The whole world knows that we can maintain and are maintaining good relations with capitalist States under any regime, including also a Fascist regime. But that is not the point. We do not interfere in the internal affairs of Germany, just as in those of other countries, and our relations with her are determined not by her internal, but her foreign policy. We want to have the best relations with Germany, as with other States.” (Moscow News, 6/1/1934.)

As the reader will perceive this might be Mr. Bevin or his Under Secretary explaining that oil and Empire are thicker than sympathy for Jewish refugees. It might also be the present Russian Foreign Minister and Mr. Gallacher explaining that all the tears they used to shed for the Arabs were just a mistake and it is now necessary to shed tears for the Jews instead.

Up to 1941 Russia and the Communists backed the Arabs, opposed Jewish immigration into Palestine, and denounced Zionism as an instrument of British Imperialism. Now Russian foreign policy demands a change of front and Mr. Gallacher changes front likewise.

In the Daily Worker (29th May, 1948) Mr. Gallacher, M.P., and other Communists contributed articles explaining their policy of the moment and criticising the policy of the Labour Government. Mr. Gallacher accused Bevin of going directly against the declared policy of Labour Party Conferences. He wrote:

  “For the Labour leaders were all individually pledged to the support of Zionism and they were parties to the many resolutions passed at different Labour Party-Conferences.”

What Mr. Gallacher did not say was that when, before the war, Labour Party Conferences backed Zionism he and his Party condemned them for doing so, for at that time Russia and therefore the British Communists were backing the Arabs.

Mr. Gallacher now quotes from a poem written by a Zionist, Mr. Jabotinsky, in which the latter proclaims in romanic terms the aim of a Zionist State to control both banks of “Holy Jordan,” But, says Mr. Gallacher, “Jabotinsky didn’t know Mr. Bevin or the cunning, clever gentlemen in the Foreign Office.” These gentlemen have, it seems, tricked Mr. Bevin into backing the Arab States and thus double-crossing Mr. Jabotinsky. Readers of the Daily Worker would be astonished to learn what Mr. Gallacher used to say about Mr. Jabotinsky. They will find it in the Reports of Parliamentary proceedings. Back in 1936 the Arabs had staged an armed revolt against Zionism, against the attempt to set up a Jewish State and against Jewish immigration and Mr.. Gallacher was making a stirring plea on behalf of the Arabs. In the course of one of his speeches he replied to Colonel Wedgwood, a supporter of Zionism, with the following remark:

   ". . . if it is a question of ruffians, I would recommend the right hon. and gallant gentleman, the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, to give his attention to Mr. Jabotinsky and his Fascist organisation, who are deliberately' carrying on provocation.” (Hansard, 22nd February, 1937. Col. 1,732.)

Here are some other passages from Mr. Gallacher's speeches. Now he loyally backs up Russian policy of partition in Palestine, then, in his own words, "I rise as an absolute opponent of partition.” (Hansard, 21st July, 1937, Col 2,358). In his speech of that date Mr. Gallacher said that the Zionists “are not representing the interests of the Jewish people but . . . a particular political trend,” and he went on to explain that there would never be agreement between Jews and Arabs unless the Jews would give up their claim to become a majority in Palestine. He warned the Jews against partition and the setting up of a Jewish State:

  "I want to direct the attention of Members, particularly my Jewish friends, to the fact that partition is the greatest menace that can face the Jewish people at the moment. When the whole of Europe is being stirred up in the most criminal, dastardly and vicious manner against these people . . . are we to have a situation where the people with whom they have lived in amity for centuries are to be stirred up against them? It is going to encourage all the Jew-baiting and all the anti-Semitism that is being developed in Europe. Immediately they go over there, these people who for centuries have never known anti-Semitism will begin to develop it.” (Hansard, 21et July, 1937, Col. 2,358.)

In his warning Mr. Gallaclier was indeed prophetic, for on the day after the State of Israel was proclaimed the British section of the World's Jewish Congress in an appeal to the British Government stated “that Jews are being persecuted in Arab and Moslem countries following the proclamation of a Jewish State.” (Evening News, 19/5/48.)

Now the Communists demand armed action against the Arab States to enforce Zionism and partition. On 19th June, 1936, (Hansard, Cols. 1,367-1,368) Mr. Gallacher declared “Palestine can never be a home for the Jews.” He demanded of the British Government that they cease using military force against the Arabs. "Have the Arabs a case? Yes, they have a case. They have had a rotten deal. I ask the Government to stop the beastly, brutal murder that is going on . . . I say stop using brutal force against the Arabs.” He declared that the Zionist leaders had fooled the Jewish refugees and that those leaders “are the agents for British Imperialism against the Arab masses"; and that the Arab revolt against Jewish immigration was “a thoroughly justifiable revolt.” (Col, 1,369). He read out a cable he had received from the Arab Women Committee congratulating him on his “noble stand” defending the Arab cause. He called on the Government to recognise “the rights of the Arabs and the justice of their claim.” (Col. 1,371.)

Then, in Mr. Gallacher’s eyes, it was some of the Zionist leaders who were ruffians and Fascists, now,

of course, it is the Arab leaders. At that time Mr. Gallacher indignantly repudiated charges brought against his Arab friends:

  "I wish to take the greatest possible exception to the general accusations which have been made and which have suggested that this fine body of people, the Arabs, are murderers and blackguards . . . It has been said that they are ruffians and murderers, and I object to that.” (Col. 1,731.) 

On 19th June, 1936. he answered the charge that the Arab movement was a capitalist movement:

  "Many Arab leaders have been arrested. It has been stated that the leaders are wealthy capitalists. I challenge the Minister to give us the name of any wealthy capitalist among the leaders. They include doctors, teachers, and various others. (Hansard, Col. 1,369.)

To an interjector who said the Arab leaders in the fight against the Jews were Communists, he said: “Yes, Communists. Wherever there is an oppressed people, or wherever there is exploitation of the working classes, there you will find Communists.”

The tragedy of all this is the fact that there are workers, British, Jewish, Arab and others, who fall for the pleas of a man like Gallacher. They have not yet realised that whenever any Government wants to gain support for some foreign policy dictated by trade or strategy there are always muddle-headed men like Gallacher and the equally muddled sentimentalists of the Labour Party who will provide the impassioned speeches, the tears and the appeals to humanitarian feelings. Mr. Gallacher may be as sincere in his present policy as when he was rousing up emotions in support of the opposite policy but in effect his weathercock antics just serve the Russian Government. They certainly do not serve the Jewish and Arab workers.

Abolish the exploiting mechanism (1948)

From the July 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

The mechanism of Capitalist production is a slave exploiting mechanism. It was not designed primarily to enable more wealth to be produced but to enable more profit to be made

The question is—can this mechanism, in its present form, be used to advantage under a system of production for use? Engels did not think so.

   “Just as far as society obtains the domination of the social means of production in order to organize them socially, it abolishes the existing servitude of man to the own means of production. Society cannot be free without every member of society being free. The old methods of production must be completely revolutionised, and the old form of the division of labour must be done away with above all. In its place an organisation of production will have to be made in which, on the one hand, no single individual will be able to shift his share in productive labour, in providing the essentials of human existence upon another, and on the other hand productive labour instead of being a means of slavery will be a means towards human freedom, in that it offers an opportunity to everyone to develop his full powers physical and intellectual in every direction, and to exercise them so that it makes a pleasure out of a burden." (P.240, “Landmarks of Scientific Socialism.")

This appears to indicate that it is not possible to form the new society or even its basis within the shell of the old as our I.W.W. friends proclaim. There is also another factor which does not seem to be generally realised and that is there will be in the new system no difference or separation between town and country. This is an essential condition for the success of a socialist form of society. I quote from Engels again.

  “Civilisation has left us a number of large cities as an inheritance, which it will take much time and trouble to abolish. But they must and will be done away with however much time and trouble it may take." (P.244, "Landmarks of Scientific Socialism.")

This clearly shows that the founders of scientific socialism did not contemplate the continuation of gigantic factories, they could never have conceived any such thing as the belt system existing under Socialism. They held the view that all machinery that dominates man in the sense that, when operated, he is an appendage to it, would be ruthlessly scrapped.

The machinery that we have today is for the express purpose of enabling surplus value to be obtained, and realised upon. For this the market is an essential factor. Under a system of production for use, will not a vast portion of the mechanism designed for a profit-making purpose be not only useless, but a hindrance to general well-being?

Judging from what one hears at public meetings and reads in the so-called "left" press, many so-called socialists appear to be under the impression that the mode of production is O.K. All that is required is an equitable distribution of the products of industry, and the problem is solved. Unfortunately Capitalism is a system of production for profit only; there has never been produced at any time under Capitalism sufficient to satisfy the needs of all. The object of Capitalist production is not the production of wealth; the mechanism was not designed for that purpose; where profit is not visualized Capital does not go; in other words, no profit—no production.

The mechanism, built expressly to exploit wage slaves, is becoming ever more efficient from that standpoint but this makes the situation ever worse for the exploited. The wage slave knows this instinctively, but cannot understand why it is so; there is a developing dissatisfaction and a desire to kick, but not understanding that the system is at fault, in the main workers act blindly.

When the proletarians perform their historic task it will be as a result of the fact that they are compelled to revolt against the exploiting mechanism, not because they desire to possess it, but partly because of the workers' disinclination to operate it under the then prevailing conditions. They, the workers, will be driven to take control of the State machine and register the fact that the means of production are from then on to be operated exclusively for use. As a means of ending chaos the tools of industry will be made common property. The dismantling process can then begin. Socialism entails the abolition of the wages system, and also the scrapping of the harness buckled on the limbs of the slave. It may be difficult for some to believe they can dispense with it; they have got so used to it they cannot conceive of life without it, and so-called socialists often go out of their way to perpetuate the false idea that man is free from exploitation when he is firmly rivetted to the mechanism of capitalism, in other words they want him to make it his own permanently in its present form.

The time is getting short, we are in for a period of incessant conflict; the workers must more clearly understand what they are called upon to do. All that is involved in the revolutionary act must be made plain. To make the machinery of production common property is not the whole of it. To establish a system of production for use through the operation of the present day machinery designed for exploitation is impossible. Many wage slaves vaguely realise this and once they comprehend that socialism means doing away with the tread mill that they now find themselves tied to, they will the better understand our message. Man will be so circumstanced that he may go from one machine to another producing things he enjoys producing because of their use to mankind and also because they are, to a considerable extent, the expression of his own personality. The desire to produce what one personally wants will be intensified.

In the earlier forms of society every member of the tribe could do practically what every other tribesman could do. We are returning to the communal life of our ancestors, but on a higher plane. A careful study of the life and institutions, of the old barbarian gens should enable us to form some idea of what is coming. Socialism means freedom. To be free man must control his means of life, and not only that, he must be at liberty to so develop himself that he is able to make the mechanism that he operates in order to live, subordinate to his will. In other words he must be a man. To be a cog in a machine is to be a slave no matter how well greased the mechanism is.

Nothing is destroyed until it is replaced. What is required is ever-increasing knowledge of constructive socialism. A study of what is inferred by the above may enable us to discern that is the root cause of the peculiar actions of Russia, and the Kremlin's will to power. From the period of the introduction of the modern machine the Russian workers found themselves cribbed, cabined and confined to an extent never previously known. When they resisted they were forced into the mould shaped by the economic conditions which the introduction of the profit machine brought into being. The rulers of Russia, once the thing started, had no option; they were determined to make their system run. They eventually succeeded in grinding slaves for profit more rapidly than their competitors, and to make good the loss they have not hesitated even to kidnap some skilled workers from other lands. Their suffering dupes must be stimulated; when they flag or show restlessness an appeal is made to “National pride”; they are deceived by cunning propaganda, soothed by lies and tricked in various ways as workers here are, and for what? To retain and extend the power of the ruling clique and increase the wealth of its members. Everything that can be utilized is ruthlessly applied towards the end the government of Russia has in view, and woe betide those workers who venture to oppose what is decreed by the group in authority.

Wage slaves in all countries are groaning under this soul-destroying power, the mechanism of Capitalism. Everything around them, together with themselves, is geared to it. Speed, speed and more speed is the slogan. It does not slow up, it cannot. Sometimes a stoppage occurs here and there, but when it restarts it goes quicker than before; faster and ever faster it must move, and so must those who attend it. Its slaves are killed and maimed in countless numbers when at work, and even when travelling to the places of exploitation. They contract diseases where they slave from which they prematurely die; periodically they are lined up to slaughter one another, and in various ways brutalized and butchered, to serve capitalism’s ends.

Charles Lestor

The Great Radio Drive (1948)

From the July 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

When an employer buys labour power the right to direct it goes with the sale. He has the last word in fixing the price, and he, or his overseers, supervise delivery of the commodity. Why, then, are the workers being subjected to a never-ending spate of propaganda for more production?

In normal times the supply of labour exceeds the demand; and the worker is always being squeezed by the overseers for that last ounce of energy. But since the war, times have not been normal. The nation’s factory gates have not been besieged by a million or two unemployed. Hence the drive for increased production along different lines.

The drive has consisted largely of appeals and straight talks over the air for individual effort. Leaflets, posters and pamphlets have been printed and distributed in millions. Few countries in the world have ever seen such a colossal effort to persuade people to work, and work harder.

The radio was used to its limit to the point of utter boredom. Economists—of the make capitalism work type—were brought to the microphone several times a week. Ministers’ appeals were reported in the news, and several hours of radio time were monopolised daily to put over the dreary propaganda of a government that had obtained power by making promises they were unable to implement.

It was obvious from the start that the main purpose was to exert pressure on the workers to increase production per man-hour. Some of the speakers emphasised the need for improved machinery and methods. In one series of broadcasts, “Management and Men,” stress was laid on the need for closer contact between managers and the lower grades. Production committees were advocated, and meetings arranged of all grades, where the firm’s plans could be explained, and their difficulties freely discussed, presumably, among other things, the need to keep costs, especially wages, low.

Sir George Schuster, who wound up the series, wanted managers, foremen and men to work as a team, as they did during the war. He entirely deprecated the notion that there were two sides in industry.

The idea of taking the workers into their confidence and seeking their co-operation is sure to meet with some response. Many would regard the move with suspicion. Others might look on it as an opportunity to ingratiate themselves with the boss. Such motives are quite common under the system. On that point read what Dr. John Murphy was reported as saying in the Sunday Express (6/6/48). His full title, by the way, is Dr. John Murphy, Emeritus Professor of Comparative Religion, Manchester University. He writes on gambling, but what he says explains the reason for much that seems incomprehensible in the relations of wage-workers. He says:

  “Gambling is the natural blossoming, true to type, of a competitive and acquisitive system of society, in which the poorer classes are struggling with each other for the means of life, and the richer are competing with each other for security and greater and greater wealth.”

Sir George may deprecate, but he cannot deny that there are two sides in industry. Otherwise to speak of capitalists and workers, as we all do, would be nonsense. Consciously, or unconsciously, he leaves out the capitalist and calls for team work between managers, foremen and men. Managers and foremen are just as much wage-workers as men. To call them salaried is no more than an appeal to vanity. What they sell to the capitalist is their ability to direct and stimulate the actual producers. Their place in the team is one of authority. They represent the owner. Their responsibility is over the production of surplus value; the reservoir of profits.

Sir George’s advice to managers, foremen and men to team up is, therefore, given on behalf of the capitalists. Managers, foremen and men are all subject to pressure from someone above them. All are liable to the sack for circumstances over which they often have no control. The capitalist has the last word in fixing their wages or salaries, and he dictates the terms.

The capitalist is no respecter of persons when buying labour-power. He naturally expects the brain worker to be more costly than the manual worker, but he takes advantage of either when the market is in his favour. The Daily Graphic (1/10/47) said: “The scientific mind, trained largely at private expense, through years at university, is today worth little more than the muscle of a stoker or the tongue of a shop- steward.” They instanced dock labourers, trawler men, garment cutters, miners, factory hands and truck drivers earning up to £15 per week; and compared them with doctors, dentists, physicists, metallurgists, chemists, designers and other technicians who, they say, "enter the labour market at five or six pounds per week after an education costing between £1,500 and £3,000.”

For those who aspire to these good jobs, so-called, the low salary is not the only snag. A paragraph in the Sunday Pictorial (6/6/48) throws some light on other business methods.

  "High premiums demanded from prospective employees are worrying the Ministry of Labour. Guarantees up to £500 are being asked from ex-officers directed to promising jobs through the Labour Exchange."

It does not follow that employers who ask for such guarantees are indulging in sharp practice. It may only be a form of barrier to protect themselves from an influx of ex-officers the government is unable to place. Ministers have been lavish in their promises, or prophecies, of the good jobs waiting for capable men of all ranks.

One speaker on the Third Programme (7/6/48) describing himself as a social statistician, argued that the pay of the black-coated workers had remained almost stationary since 1938. Taxation had hit them harder than either capitalists or manual workers, and they were almost helpless in voicing their resentment. It was they, he said, who constituted the floating vote for which Tory and Labour competed at elections. If that is true it is added proof of John Murphy's indictment of the capitalist system, and, what is perhaps still worse for the workers the readiness to vote sectionally for alleged sectional benefits as against working-class interests as a whole.

In one radio discussion (3/6/48) on the relative efficiency of British and American business methods the American speaker wound up by saying: “You point the finger at the worker all the time, but it is the management that is at fault." He charged British industry with an excessive number of directors with high salaries. Of their reluctance to instal up-to-date machinery, and their emphasis on increased production per man hour, instead of increasing the number of men on the job, with greater inducement in the shape of higher wages,

This question of increased number of workers as against increased production per man-hour is, to say the least, distasteful to big business. They object to paying four men to do the work of three, or even twenty to do the work of nineteen. If it were only a question of man-power to satisfy the needs of the people, and not one of profits, there are enough workers available in the field of commerce and finance, together with the armed forces, munition workers and a host of others engaged in tasks that add nothing to production, without mentioning the idlers who take the lion's share. There is enough man-power serving the capitalists which, if utilised in actual production would reduce by half the working time necessary for each.

Production comes first. Before men could trade, someone had to produce. All the vast machinery of exchange has been built up on production. Yet the object of production, the satisfaction of human need, takes second place in modern society. Today, the emphasis is on production per man-hour because, with the payment of less wages per unit of production, greater profits are available to each national group of capitalists to utilise in the international scramble for power.

In the past, trade has encouraged production, and the producers have responded to new demands. The two things have given us the enormous possibilities of the fuller life, that for the workers, is always just round the comer. The obstacle to that fuller life is big business—capitalism. Trade and commerce no longer contribute towards the well-being of the producers. It hampers and stops production directly profits are threatened. It has become a hard shell of class interests and privilege that constrict the social organism and prevent its emergence into that fuller life that its past struggles have made possible.

The Labour Party, pledged to make capitalism work and pave the way for socialism at the same time, have forgotten the second in face of the obstacles that have frustrated their efforts in pursuit of the first. Without a huge unemployed army they cannot drive, they can only stimulate by persuasion and utter warnings of either increased austerity or widespread unemployment. Two Labour governments have failed to make capitalism work. In 1930 because of the depression; in 1948 because there is no depression, and, therefore, no unemployed millions exercising pressure on those at work.

The Economist in May, 1947, had stated bluntly that the system could not be made to work efficiently unless there was five or six per cent, of unemployment. The Labour Party had promised full employment. The demand for labour, under the exceptional circumstances created by the war, favoured the workers if they chose to push their claims for higher wages and better conditions. They had to be side-tracked. Hence their appeals for loyalty to the Labour movement, their attempt to freeze wages, and their promise of profits-limitations they were afraid to enforce.

The government in its efforts to ginger up the workers was supported by all the big leaders in the Labour and trade union camps. They issued a monthly news sheet called "Target" which the Daily Herald (2/6/48) described as follows:

  “ 'Target,' which is backed by the T.U.C. and the F.B.I., as well as by the government, expounds in concentrated form today's supreme truth—that everything depends on production; that production depends on individual effort; and that individual effort can be greatly stimulated if every worker is given full and regular information about his task." 

Even before this the T.U.C. had already been busy in the drive. The Daily Herald (31/5/48) reported on a leaflet they had issued, in which they asked the question, “ How far do you walk after you get to work?” They discovered that quite a lot of time was wasted in fetching and carrying, which might have been to their credit if the savings had gone to wages instead of profits.

Labour M.Ps. and trade union leaders have vied with each other to get press notices about their participation in the F.B.I. and T.U.C. drive. One of the most naive was reported in the Daily Herald (10/6/48), Mr. Jack Jones:

  “Asking workers not to think of extra production as benefiting the profits of the ‘boss,' Sir . Stafford Cripps will look after that."

To the average worker the propaganda of the Labour Party has, no doubt, been confusing in the past. Today we see the Labour Party in power, and in combination with the Federation of British Industries and the Trade Union Congress engaged in the biggest drive that has ever been organised against the industrial workers of this country. Surely this is sufficient to give every serious-minded worker cause to reflect on the possibility of dispensing with all kinds of leaders and studying the cause of his incessant toil and poverty in the light of Socialist knowledge.

F. Foan

The Escape To Freedom (1948)

From the July 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

The brave new world so glibly promised by politicians when workers were being urged to slaughter each other to maintain the material interests of their respective masters, is one of the many promises that has not materialised. No one with an ounce of realism, can deny that conditions in the world today are bristling with the possibilities of a war, an atomic, germ war, in the none too distant future. So much for the brave new world.

Instead of facing up to this situation in an attempt to find a solution, it is tragic that workers are seeking a temporary escape in the “entertainment” that Capitalism offers as a safety valve. Football, the “dogs” and “pictures,” all provide a temporary escape from, but no solution to, the many problems with which we are beset. Yet the solution is a simple one, and only requires a little serious thought.

The most formidable class in numbers is the working class. Its power lies not alone in numbers but in the knowledge of its members of their class position in society. If a majority of workers accepted this simple fact alone—that Capitalism runs in the interest of those who own and control industry—they would be better able to look after their class interests. Yet most workers think they have an identity of interest with their masters. “You must have Capital and Labour ” say they, while the world is seething with conflict and unrest.

When we talk and write about Socialism, we mean a classless society in which the means of producing food, clothing, houses, and all the amenities of life, shall be owned in common and democratically controlled by the community. There will be an identity of interests, for no one will covet what his neighbour has if there is an abundance to satisfy his needs. This is the foundation which we claim will solve war and the major evils of the world. Socialism is the only sane way. All other methods have been tried and failed. It does not follow that Socialism will succeed because it has never been tried. It requires thought and inquisitiveness on the part of workers, to understand why Socialism will succeed.

With the basis of Socialist society firmly established, it is not difficult to see that mankind will be free to enjoy life to the full. Man will give of his best to society, for he will know that society's resources will be there for the taking. He will produce the best and receive the best. He will be free to develop his natural desires and aptitudes. Production will be a task which men will enjoy, for they will be working in the knowledge that goods are actually being produced for the benefit of the community. Man will be free to enjoy the arts of the world.

No longer will man be assessed by his bank balance or his property, for money would serve no function under Socialism. Today, money in the form of wages keeps workers in subjection, and poverty, for they can only buy back a proportion of the wealth they produce. As all means of production would be owned in common for the benefit of mankind, war will be an impossibility, for a socialist society would not fight for something it already possessed.

Workers, do not attempt to escape from the problems thrown up by Capitalism by ignoring the cold facts of reality. Face up to the situation that Capitalism is now decadent, and that mankind can build a new world in which life will be a beautiful experience. The nightmares of yesterday will then gradually recede in the distance. When Socialism is obtained the Escape to Freedom will be complete.

S.W.C.

About socialism (1988)

From the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

1. What is the Socialist Party of Great Britain?

It is a political party, separate from all others, Left, Right or Centre. It stands for the sole aim of establishing a world social system based upon human need instead of private or state profit. The Object and Declaration of Principles printed in this introductory leaflet were adopted by the Socialist Party in 1904 and have been maintained without compromise since then. In other countries there are companion parties sharing the same object and principles, and they too remain independent from all other political parties.


2. What is capitalism?

Capitalism is the social system which now exists in all countries of the world. Under this system, the means of production and distribution (land, factories, offices, transport, media, etc.) are monopolised by a minority, the capitalist class. All wealth is produced by us, the majority working class, who sell our mental and physical energies to the capitalists in return for a price called a wage or salary. The object of wealth production is to create goods and services which can be sold on the market at a profit. Not only do the capitalists live off the profits they obtain from exploiting the working class, but, as a class, they go on accumulating wealth extracted from each generation of workers.


3. Can capitalism be reformed in our interests?

No: as long as capitalism exists, profits will come before needs. Some reforms are welcomed by some workers, but no reform can abolish the fundamental contradiction between profit and need which is built into the present system. No matter whether promises to make capitalism run in the interests of the workers are made sincerely or by opportunist politicians they are bound to fail, for such a promise is like offering to run the slaughter house in the interests of the cattle.


4. Is nationalisation an alternative to capitalism?

No: nationalised industries simply mean that workers are exploited by the state, acting on behalf of the capitalists of one country, rather than by an individual capitalist or company. The workers in nationalised British Leyland are no less the servants of profit than workers in privately-owned Ford. The mines no more belong to "the public" or the miners now than they did before 1947 when they were nationalised. Nationalisation is state capitalism.


5. Are there any “socialist countries”?

No: the so-called socialist countries are systems of state capitalism. In Russia and its empire, in China, Cuba, Albania, Yugoslavia and the other countries which call themselves socialist, social power is monopolised by privileged Party bureaucrats. The features of capitalism, as outlined above, are all present. An examination of international commerce shows that the bogus socialist states are part of the world capitalist market and cannot detach themselves from the requirements of profit.


6. What Is the meaning of socialism?

Socialism does not yet exist. When it is established it must be on a worldwide basis, as an alternative to the outdated system of world capitalism. In a socialist society there will be common ownership and democratic control of the earth by its inhabitants. No minority class will be in a position to dictate to the majority that production must be geared to profit. There will be no owners: everything will belong to everyone. Production will be solely for use, not for sale. The only questions society will need to ask about wealth production will be: what do people require, and can the needs be met? These questions will be answered on the basis of the resources available to meet such needs. Then, unlike now, modern technology and communications will be able to be used to their fullest extent. The basic socialist principle will be that people give according to their abilities and take according to their self- defined needs. Work will be on the basis of voluntary co-operation: the coercion of wage and salary work will be abolished. There will be no buying or selling and money will not be necessary, in a society of common ownership and free access. For the first time ever the people of the world will have common possession of the planet earth.


7. How will socialism solve the problems of society?

Capitalism, with its constant drive to serve profit before need, throws up an endless stream of problems. Most workers in Britain feel insecure about their future; almost one in four families with children living below the official government poverty line; many old people live in dangerously cold conditions each winter and thousands die; millions of our fellow men and women are dying of starvation — tens of thousands of them each day. A society based on production for use will end those problems because the priority of socialist society will be the fullest possible satisfaction of needs. At the moment food is destroyed and farmers are subsidised not to produce more: yet many millions are malnourished. At the moment hospital queues are growing longer and people are dying of curable illnesses; yet it is not "economically viable" to provide decent health treatment for all. In a socialist society nothing short of the best will be good enough for any human being.


8. What about human nature?

Human behaviour is not fixed, but determined by the kind of society people are conditioned to live in. The capitalist jungle produces vicious, competitive ways of thinking and acting. But we humans are able to adapt our behaviour and there is no reason why our rational desire for comfort and human welfare should not allow us to co-operate. Even under capitalism people often obtain pleasure from doing a good turn for others; few people enjoy participating in the "civilised" warfare of the daily rat-race. Think how much better it would be if society was based on co-operation.


9. Are socialists democrats?

Yes: the Socialist Party has no leaders. It is a democratic organisation controlled by its members. It understands that Socialism can only be established by a conscious majority of workers — that workers must liberate themselves and will not be liberated by leaders or parties. Socialism will not be brought about by a dedicated minority "smashing the state", as some left-wingers would have it. Nor do the activities of paid, professional politicians have anything to do with Socialism — the experience of seven Labour governments has shown this. Once a majority of the working class understand and want Socialism, they will take the necessary step to organise consciously for the democratic conquest of political power. There will be no Socialism without a socialist majority.


10. What is the next step?

Many workers know that there is something wrong and want to change society. Some join reform groups in the hope that capitalism can be patched up, but such efforts are futile because you cannot run a system of class exploitation in the interests of the exploited majority. People who fear a nuclear war may join CND, but as long as nation states exist, economic rivalry means that the world will never be safe from the threat of war. There are countless dedicated campaigns and good causes which many sincere people are caught up in, but there is only one solution to the problems of capitalism and that is to get rid of it, and establish Socialism. Before we can do that we need socialists; winning workers to that cause requires knowledge, principles and an enthusiasm for change. These qualities can be developed by anyone — and are essential for anyone who is serious about changing society. Capitalism in the 1980s is still a system of waste, deprivation and frightening insecurity. You owe it to yourself to find out about the one movement which stands for the alternative.


If you have read this set of principles and agree with some or all of the points in it, contact the Socialist Party with your questions and ideas about what you can do to help speed the progress towards Socialism.

Message from somewhere (1988)

A Short Story from the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Memo from Captain Krik of the Starship "Entrepreneur"

Prior to our most recent case, of which details are given below, this voyage has been extremely successful. No fewer than five habitable but practically unoccupied planets which offer useful supplies of raw materials have been discovered. In addition, we encountered two planets where the life-forms have attained a moderately high level of social organisation. Both offer abundant labour power, and one may well become a leading holiday attraction in view of its varied scenery. In neither case do we anticipate any difficulty in persuading the inhabitants to accept our guidance and control: not only is their technological level far inferior to ours, but there is significant discontent on both worlds. An offer of a higher standard of living plus a harmonious social order in exchange for minimal amounts of labour and raw materials would, if appropriately presented, be bound to be attractive.

This brings us, however, to the case mentioned earlier. I refer here to object 7UN/4WS. a nondescript but ore-rich planet and one of nine circling a nondescript star. After orbiting around it and performing initial linguistic and anthropological study, we as usual sent agent Itocs down to the surface to live among its inhabitants for a short period. His adventures there were so singular that I feel it is worth quoting some extracts from his report. Itocs first made acquaintance with a person who gave him a lift to the nearest city; he naturally used the opportunity to enquire about the local social set-up.

"There was an awkward period," writes Itocs. "during which I discovered that my companion had no conception of government and was moreover curious as to how I could have developed the expectation that such would exist”. I muttered something about having been in an isolated part of the globe for some time, which seemed to convince him. Surely, though, there was some means for making collective decisions about matters of common interest, I asked him.

' "Oh yes," he replied, "there are local meetings where everyone discusses issues and decides on them. We also elect representatives to the regional bodies which debate questions like building new roads or something. And there's an organisation above regional level, too, for even wider issues."

"That sounds like a government", I suggested.

' "Well," came the reply, "we call it the EC. though I don't think anyone knows what the initials stand for, or if they stand for anything. To tell the truth, it doesn't need to meet very often — people just run things for themselves."

'Once we reached the city, my companion, seeing how much of a stranger I must be, offered to show me round. I had realised by this time that it would be wise to say as little as possible and to show no surprise at whatever might transpire. So over our excellent lunch I mostly just listened to my companion's chatter. I had determined to act as much like him as possible, so at the end of the meal I simply followed him out of the restaurant without making any attempt to pay for the food. I was more than half expecting to be accosted by an irate manager, but nobody chased after us. It was the same when we collected some food and various household items — no payment and no objections.

' "I must leave you now." said my companion. "I am going to work."

'I managed to ask, in as roundabout way as possible, in order not to show myself up, why he was going to work when goods were freely available.

'He looked perplexed. “I don't see the connection. If people didn't produce them, there obviously wouldn't be any goods. But how could their being freely available be a reason for not working?"

"Couldn't someone who didn't work take the same amount of goods as you?"

'This had plainly never occurred to him. "I suppose so, but why would anyone not work? I don't see what you're getting at."

' "Then answer me one last question. What name do you give to this social system?"

'Again he looked mystified. "We don't call it anything, it's just the way we live, and the way we have lived for generations. If we wanted a name. I supposed we'd call it life." '

Wherever he travelled on the planet. Itocs found the same situation. All goods were freely available, so nobody starved and there were no rich and poor. The farms and factories belonged to no one, and there was nothing that could be called government. Not that everyone was happy the whole time. There were still arguments and individual antagonisms, but no socially-caused dissatisfaction.

This of course raises a problem for our strategy towards this planet and its inhabitants. While our civilisation outstrips theirs technologically, it is hard to see how we could convince them that we were offering an improved way of life. The alternative of a military conquest seems to me out of the question. We have only ever used this against a recalcitrant minority, to use it against the entire population of a planet, even one without armed forces, is surely unacceptable.

I suggest, therefore, that this planet not be colonised in any way. Instead, its unique form of social organisation should be kept under constant observation, albeit from a distance. It is hardly surprising that this eccentric type of society should not have developed elsewhere in the known universe, but we should at least keep a close eye on it.

Paul Bennett

The Four Tigers (1988)

From the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

  A weary Asia out of sight  

Is tugging gently at the night  

Uncovering a restless race; 

Clocks shoo the childhood from its face.

W.H. Auden

A trade union demonstration in Singapore is a rare sight; one protesting a decision of the United States Congress is unheard of. That it was permitted is a measure of the government's concern at Singapore's inclusion with South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong as one of the Four Tigers allegedly threatening the economic life of the US. and therefore scheduled to have its GSP privileges withdrawn on 1 January, 1989. The Generalised System of Preferences allows free or low-tariff imports of certain goods into the US; Japan and the EEC have similar schemes. Its purpose is. ostensibly, to encourage the trade and economic development of Low-Developing Countries. But trade is at least a two-way business, and developed countries are involved as much for the purpose of their economic health.

Growing up in capitalism is a painful affair, as any worker knows. Having successfully responded to the urging of their US mentors to modernise and achieve newly industrialised country status, these LDCs are reaching out for some of Uncle Sam's bourbon and cigars and have been told that they will be "graduated" from their trade privileges as a consequence.

The present trade deficit of the US. and its changed role from creditor to the world's heaviest debtor nation, is something that capitalism's supporters would have found difficulty envisaging ten years ago. Some blame Reaganomics, but this cannot explain how the exceptional economic superiority of the US after the Second World War appears to be progressively deferring to the rapid growth of Europe and Japan. Although persistent trade imbalances can be reversed and do not indicate the permanent demise of a country's economic strength, it does seem that the automatic assumption of US economic hegemony is being challenged by the development of capitalism itself in the shape, in this instance, of the Newly Industrialised Countries.

Asian NICs
These countries have all experienced colonial status and their development in the last decade has been outstanding. The UN Economic and Social Commissioner for Asia and the Pacific states that the Four Tigers achieved a remarkable 11.7 per cent growth in real GDP in 1987. Even the growth at 5.7 per cent of another Asian ex-colonial LDC, the Philippines, exceeded that of the most developed countries. And despite the continued general slowdown in world economic growth projected by the IMF at 2.9 per cent this year, the Tigers' expansion rate, in keeping with ESCAP's regional projection of 5.6 per cent, is expected to continue well above those of developed countries.

The scheduled withdrawal of GSP privileges is an example of increasing US protectionism which highlights the international nature both of markets and investment capital. The Singapore American Business Council's call on its government in Washington to reconsider withdrawal, argued that cheap imports of Singapore products into the US — in particular from their own factories in Singapore — help lower costs in US-finished products, increasing US competitiveness. In a demonstration of their capitalist maturity, the NICs took immediate steps after the announcement to support their separate economies. Trade delegations between the Tigers followed, as well as between them and areas such as India, Pakistan and East and West Europe. And Taiwan and South Korea, with a competitive eye on China's cheap and abundant raw materials, agreed to reverse their previous trade policy with her and to open their markets.

The role of the Tigers' exports in the US trade deficit is an indication that capitalism can still develop increasing productivity and output, and that industrialisation still results from investment in low-wage areas. US, Japanese and EEC capital have played the major part in this.

But the Four Tigers represent only part of the picture of Third World development in East Asia. Thailand, better known for export of rice and rubber, now exports Japanese cars, its manufactured products swelling from two per cent to 60 per cent of exports in 25 years. With the highest growth rate in the ASEAN group of six countries, and an IMF forecast of a seven per cent annual growth until 1991, she is expected to become the next NIC. Like the Tigers two decades earlier, Thailand has a flourishing labour-intensive textile industry with low wages — about US$3 daily. The increasing use of machine-intensive industry, staffed round the clock by an adaptable, young labour force, could well follow their pattern by keeping labour costs low and the economy competitive. At one-third of the cost, industrial productivity almost equals that of South Korea. Already a magnet for US and Japanese capital, investments now flood in from the economies of the Tigers and the EEC. to share in the fruits of exploitation.

Malaysia, another ex-colony attracting foreign investment, has urged Singapore and Taiwan, already the second and third largest investors in the country behind Japan, to avoid GSP restrictions by relocating their industries there, stating its aim as wanting to form an "economic power to replace the weakening US and EC markets". Its manufacturing sector's growth of 12 per cent, and its 69 per cent growth in trade surplus in 1987, reflect the surprising fact that Malaysia is now a significant producer of electronic and electrical goods, and that machinery and transport equipment head both its import and export lists.

Keeping a watchful and wary eye on these developments — and on her trade surplus with the NICs — Japan is in the forefront of OECD moves to include them in a new Pacific OECD. However, they already account for 25 per cent of the US deficit, and as they turn to the EEC to avoid US protectionism, the European trade situation could worsen. Expected by OECD to surge past Japan's surplus, and to double that of the EC and EFTA combined in 1989, it is not surprising that their inclusion in economic dialogue is seen by Japan and the other major powers as essential.

When Auden wrote the lines at the head of this article, much of Asia and the Pacific rim were colonies. Fifty years and decolonisation have passed, and many countries seem ready to move into what is referred to in Singapore as the "chopsticks century", as fully-fledged capitalist powers experiencing the same competitive pressures. As exploitation in South Korea intensified. leading to a series of strikes and a 20 per cent pay increase last year, suicides among housewives increased sharply. And in a rare demonstration of strength and solidarity, Thai workers in reorganised unions are demanding a social security system from birth to death.

Increasing US protectionism, and the anticipated strengthening of EC external tariffs with the community's impending economic unification, have led to calls for an Asian Common Market. We are not in the business of making predictions, and treat economists" forecasts with a caution derived from our knowledge of capitalisms' economic anarchy. Whichever scenario obtains — free trade or protectionism — Asian workers will indeed have lost their childhood.

Bill Robertson

Far Eastern Notebook (1988)

From the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Year of the rabbit

Whilst the Japanese government tried to remedy its labour shortage by a January feasibility study on opening its labour market to foreign skilled and semi-skilled workers (except of course for the construction industry), Singapore has similar problems. Since the mid-sixties the government family planning campaign on hoardings, TV and in newspapers, to "Stop at Two" has borne fruit in a lowering fertility rate. One would have thought that this would have been cause for government self-congratulation as well as a good omen for the world which, we are continually told, is overpopulating itself to the point of self-starvation. But as socialists have always held, population laws are social not “natural", and in capitalism, are geared to the requirements of capital accumulation and profitability. As the Singapore Straits Times (8.1.88) put it, "Public officials, business executives and others were previously reported to be alarmed that continued low births would eventually damage the economy, retard progress in living standards and even threaten the nation's security". Hence the recent reversal of government policy replacing financial penalties for third births and more, with population incentives, although the sudden surge in births last year was attributed to its being the Chinese Year of the Rabbit.

The reversal of the policy and of the arguments used, does not seem to have damaged the government’s credibility. Of course, by the time a generation of home-grown workers reaches an exploitable age the labour market situation could well be reversed many times, and with it the arguments. But that is the capitalists' problem. That of the workers world-wide is to realise that in every country they are conjured into, and out of. existence like an obedient genie, to satisfy capitalism's need for factory and cannon fodder, and to totally reject this obscenity.


Our friend the robot

Robots in manufacturing are no longer news. But a new generation in the building construction industry is setting fresh standards of innovation in Japan. Modularised to handle the variety of tasks and situations found on site, these are commercially marketed as viable replacements for labour used in concrete pouring, plastering and the erection of the steel skeleton of buildings. Much is made of their safety function in a country with nearly a thousand deaths a year in the building industry, but the main motive, as with much machinery introduction, is replacement of skilled labour in short supply, which translates into higher labour costs and lost contracts.

In construction, the average age of the skilled worker is now over 40, an indication of one of the biggest headaches for the Japanese capitalist — its ageing workforce. With present labour demand high, the unions see retraining as an acceptable alternative for workers replaced by the robots. As Makoto Saito, assistant manager in Kajima, a large construction company said. "[Our workers] think that the robots are developed for their benefit”.

The higher demands of flexibility, adaptability, and robustness placed upon construction robots as opposed to those used in manufacturing, have prompted the Japanese Construction Ministry in association with research institutes, to develop new design and planning systems for construction to suit the limitations of robots and not of people. When this is done in ten years or so, and the robots' role becomes more general than a mere labour shortage stopgap, Japanese construction workers may be in a better position to see who are the beneficiaries.


ASEAN’s rising sun

This region’s non-event of 1987 was the December meeting of ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) heads of government in Manila. The first for ten years, its official business took only eighteen minutes, and was mainly a demonstration of support for the Aquino government.

The role of Japan, a non-member, in the region, was highlighted by a report by the member states' Foreign Ministers. This expressed the fear that the reduction of USA involvement in the region was allowing a more prominent role for Japan militarily. In particular it points out that Japan's announcement that it is prepared to protect the sea-lanes of communication as far as one thousand miles from Tokyo, and the increase of its defence budget to beyond one per cent of its GNP has raised some concern among the ASEAN member states. Another committee stated that Japan would strive to achieve a military back-up for its dominant economic might. This mood was not dissipated even after the summit, when Japan's Prime Minister Takeshita presented ASEAN with a US$2 billion aid offer (later tied to joint Japanese participation) and, almost contritely, referred to Japan's "deplorable history of the last war” and its present rejection of the path to military power. Japan's recent warning shots at a Russian Badger bomber in its airspace, the first such incident despite many similar incursions since the war, and the knowledge that its self-defence force contains 270,000 people, 1100 tanks, 50 modern destroyers and fourteen submarines, as well as hundreds of combat aircraft could have been to blame. Perhaps ASEAN is beginning to realise that its Manila Declaration aim to produce a nuclear weapon-free zone of peace, freedom, and neutrality in its region will founder on the hard realities of its own world of national and commercial rivalries.


Profit or loss of liberty

Little has been heard of Laos since the 1975 takeover by the Lao Peoples Revolutionary Party. But what we did learn from those admirers of this particular brand of state capitalism, was that it was busy building "socialism" with the aid and advice of its comrades in Vietnam. The Far Eastern Economic Review (31 December 1987) quotes Suthin, manager of a plastics factory: "Under the new policies the government won't tie our hands and our feet. We're free to run our own business, but we're expected to make a profit". If the factory loses money "and the manager doesn’t have a good reason, he'll be thrown in jail".

The economics of slavery in the West Indies (1988)

From the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Slavery has existed from the earliest records of human history. The ancient Egyptians used slave labour to build the pyramids from 4,750-3,000 BC; the Romans and ancient Greeks owned slaves and the geographical areas from which slaves were obtained had a history of owning slaves themselves. The West Africans had slaves and the Carib Indians of the West Indies raided Puerto Rica. Hispaniola and Jamaica for slaves. Slavery was such a basic feature of ancient societies that Plato, Plutarch and Aristophanes all retained slavery as part of their utopias, and even Thomas More, in his Utopia, as late as 1516, retained slavery as a punishment for crimes and adultery.

The slave trade of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries differed from earlier periods of slavery in that the number of people enslaved was much greater; the contradiction between the alleged Christian beliefs of the white slavers and the evils of the trade led to pseudo-scientific theories that their black captives were not really human, which, in turn, produced entrenched racist ideas which have persisted into the twentieth century.

The trade in African slaves to provide labour in the Southern states of the USA and the West Indies lasted for approximately 250 years and led to the transportation of an estimated forty million slaves. The Portuguese began trading in slaves at Lagos between 1440 and 1450 and by 1540 ten thousand slaves were being shipped to the West Indies from West Africa each year and. in addition, slaves were sold in South America and Mexico. Although slaves may have been brought to England as a result of the Iberian trade, the first group of African slaves to be brought to England by an English trader came from the Guinea Coast in 1555.

Britain's participation in the slave trade dates from 1564, when Sir John Hawkins made his second expedition to Africa in the flagship Jesus, with Queen Elizabeth's blessing, his first trip, two years before, having been highly successful. Manufactured goods such as textiles, iron, guns and spirits were shipped from Britain to the Guinea Coast and exchanged for other goods and slaves. These were exchanged for raw materials such as sugar and cotton in the New World which, in turn, were transported to England, completing the triangular trade. Jack Grates (The Great White Lie) states:

 Profits derived from the system found their way through reinvestment into other industries and agriculture, and it is not an exaggeration to say that they contributed substantially to the development of the Industrial Revolution on which Britain's nineteenth-century prosperity was based.

Liverpool was the main British port from which the slave ships sailed. In 1730, the port had 15 ships; in 1751, 53; 74 in 1760; in 1770, 96. and 132 by 1792 (Karl Marx. Capital).

The slave trade corrupted the African chiefs who bartered with the white slave traders. The insatiable demand for slaves led to an increase in tribal wars for captives who could be sold to the slavers. And by the middle of the eighteenth century the kidnapping of men and women of working age and in their most active reproductive years, the terrible loss of life resulting from the tribal wars and the spread of disease which accompanies foreign invaders, caused some areas of Africa to become underpopulated.

As the slavers pushed further into the interior of Africa the forced marches to the coast became more of an ordeal. Thirty per cent of the slaves died before they reached the coast to board the slave ships. And sometimes slaves who were rejected as unfit were killed by the black traders (Alexander Falconbridge, An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa, 1788). Conditions on the slave ships were barbaric in the extreme: a captain in the Royal Navy made a famous drawing of the slave ship Brookes in Liverpool docks in 1787, which showed how 450 slaves were packed into the ship, allowing six feet by sixteen inches for every man and five feet by sixteen inches for every woman. This "tight-packing", as it was called. led to considerable loss of life during transportation and in 1788 to the British Parliament regulating the conditions under which slaves could be shipped. Although this made the transportation of slaves more humane, by regulating the trade Parliament had officially sanctioned it. Greed had led to the "tight-packing" of slaves but the higher survival rate of transported slaves after regulation may have been commercially just as successful and, by its claim to be humane, may have set back the campaign to abolish the trade.

William Wilberforce campaigned for the abolition of the slave trade from the formation of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, in London in May 1787 to the passing of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act on 16 March. 1807. A number of myths surround Wilberforce. He was an MP and a wealthy factory owner who exploited child labour in his Hull factories. Contrary to popular belief he was opposed to the emancipation of the slaves, claiming that they were not fit for freedom.

When Earl Percy wanted to bring in a Bill for the gradual abolition of slavery in the West Indies in 1807, Wilberforce stated: "I and those who think with me not only abstain from proposing such a Bill, are ready to reject such a proposition when made by others". Wilberforce had a patronising attitude towards the slaves and was intolerant of Mohammedanism and Hinduism, which he wished to replace with Christianity.

The Prime Minister, William Pitt, also claimed to be an abolitionist but trading actually increased during his administration. It is thought that his opposition arose as a result of the sale of slaves by British merchants to foreign colonies, especially France, which although profitable in the short term was damaging to Britain's long-term interests.

After the abolition of the slave trade a million slaves remained in bondage in the West Indies and as slavery continued until 1833 slaves, therefore, had to be replaced. But the illegality of trading pushed up the price of slaves. To prevent illegal trading the British government provided bounty money for the capture of slave ships. As a full ship could command a bounty of £2,500 the naval squadron patrolling the African coast preferred to catch slave vessels at sea because it was more profitable than prevention. To evade the risk of capture the slave captains would put the slaves into specially prepared hiding places, so small that the slaves often died of suffocation or else they would be thrown overboard to drown or be eaten by sharks. The illegal trade was so profitable that if only one in three of the slave ships delivered its human cargo, a profit could be made. The European slave owning countries co-operated with each other to stop the slave trade but the USA refused to take part for a time and it was possible for a ship to avoid capture by running up the American flag.

The abolition of the slave trade provides a classic example of the futility of a reform that leaves the system intact and can sometimes lead to a worsening of conditions rather than an improvement. By the nineteenth century the industrial revolution had superseded chattel-slavery and feudalism in Britain. A new class of labouring poor with nothing to sell except their labour power had emerged in the industrial towns and cities. Slavery was becoming an anachronism. Slave labour was not free: slaves had to be maintained and, unlike the wage-slaves of Britain, they were expensive to buy. In Jamaica, in 1817, male slaves aged 20-40 years were valued at £139 and female slaves at £124 (B.W. Higman, Slave Population and Economy in Jamaica 1807-1834, Cambridge University Press. 1976).

As the work performed by slaves was usually of poor quality incentives were provided within the slavery system. In the French West Indies slaves had some legal protection against arbitrary punishments being meted out by their owners and. it is claimed, those islands were more profitable. In Jamaica slaves who had learned trades were able to amass fairly large sums of money. The ending of the slave trade led to a higher proportion of unproductive slaves as the owners were forced to breed slaves for themselves.

Further pressure was put on the slave system by a fall in the price of sugar which, by emancipation, was worth only about half of its value at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The Reform Bill of 1832 halved the planters' representation in the British Parliament which weakened them politically and the increasing number of slave rebellions culminated in the Jamaican rebellion on 27 December 1831 in which 20,000 slaves took part, killing 14 whites and destroying over £1 million worth of property.

In the face of growing economic and political problems the plantation owners opted for the compensation offered by the British government of 1833 which, in fact recognised the legal right of one person to own another. For the former slaves, emancipation changed their material lives very little; their former owners kept control of the courts and owned the land. As Tolstoy observed fifty years later:

 . . . the essence of all slavery consists in drawing the benefit of another's labour-force by compulsion, and it is quite immaterial whether the drawing of this benefit is founded upon property in the slave or upon property in money which is indispensable to the other man (What Shall We Do Then, 1885).

Chattel-slavery was a particularly vicious form of exploitation, although the condition of the working class under laissez-faire capitalism was also inhumane and squandered workers' lives. For workers all over the world the fight for emancipation against wage-slavery and its replacement with socialism still has to be won.

Carl Pinel

No business like . . . (1988)

From the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

How do you persuade millions of people that commerce and conscience are compatible after all? The ITV television companies certainly had a good try at this over the bank holiday at the end of May. For 27 hours, a procession of media has-beens such as Tony Blackburn, Lionel Blair, Rolf Harris and Frank Carson were given a new lease of life. Tipped out of their Rolls Royces on to our TV screens, these "entertainers" then proceeded to trot out their Bob Geldof impersonations, ordering the British public to redistribute their poverty.

The event was helped along by various other budding cheerleaders, such as that opportunist and careerist starlet of the "alternative" media establishment, Emma Freud, together with racist comedian Jim Davidson, and Derek Hatton who, having tired of making Liverpudlian workers' lives miserable in the name of "socialism", was now seen judging a beauty contest at a London nightclub while swigging bottles of champagne (for charity, of course). We were even treated to a performance from David Steel and Alan Beith, who showed that their musical ability was as flimsy as the political lies out of which they have built careers.

This charity bonanza had creaked into action on the Sunday evening, when Prince Charles gave us a message from his home at Highgrove in Gloucestershire, urging everyone to "keep up the good work", just like the local headmaster or vicar at the village fete. By the time it was all over, and Cilia Black sang "Tomorrow is a Lovely Day", many viewers must have been saying that it had better be. for the day that had passed was a tawdry shambles of crass commercialism dressed up as a caring conscience. As the picture faded, the audience could be heard chanting "Here we go. here we go. here we go . . ." and again, there was a feeling that this was yet another case of the journey being more important than the arrival.

Unlike previous such events, this was an openly commercial television charity show. With a sickening narrow-minded nationalism, the advance publicity had stressed that this time the money would go to "our own", British charities (not to mere Ethiopians, or others who might be starving). What an admission this is, that Britain also is plagued with poverty and suffering, despite the pretence of civilisation and prosperity. In fact, in Britain today there are over 100,000 registered charities, all seeking to mop up after the devastation caused by the priorities of the profit system.

The chief presenter, Michael Aspel, entered into the competitive spirit of the day by boasting at the end that "we" had beaten "the Americans" in their recent efforts to raise money along similar lines. In fact, the total raised was a pittance compared with the needs it was seeking to meet: a mere £22 million. At the time, the audience gasped and screamed with excitement that such a lot had been raised. This is only because it is more than working-class families will see in their lives. But it was only about 40p per person in this country. When divided between the several thousand charities involved in the share-out, it will hardly solve the problems they are trying to deal with. In capitalist terms, the amount collected represents the money received by General Motors last year from their car sales every 3-4 hours on average. (Their total sales last year were over 100 billion dollars.) The total spent by British companies on advertising themselves in 1987 was £5.8 billion: nearly 30 times the telethon total.

Looked at from another point of view, the total of £22 million could have been easily provided by just one man, if Robert Maxwell had donated one-third of his personal unearned income for 1987. Or if Sir John Sainsbury had added just one-fiftieth (or two per cent) of his own private accumulated wealth to the ITV begging bowl, it would have more than doubled the total collected immediately. It was certainly, then, a case of the poor throwing a few pennies at the poor and becoming hysterical in the process.

Undoubtedly the most hypocritical aspect of the May Telethon, however, was the nature of some of the donations themselves. Nicholas Scott, the government Social Security minister, came on to present a cheque for £ 1 million, made up from pensions which had been underpaid as a result of a computer error. One wondered whether this error would have been announced very loudly by the government if it had not been parading its generosity on TV. by handing back to the poor and needy those benefits which were originally supposed to have been paid to. . . the poor and needy. Then, to add insult to injury, it was revealed some weeks later that this government "cheque" had in fact been a blank piece of paper held up for effect, as the government would be donating this money only indirectly, through concessions.

The main feature of the programme, though, was a series of smiling businessmen, lining up to present cheques to the good cause, and stressing visually, verbally and in any other way they could think of. the identify of the company involved. It was not very long before the adverts shown every 20 minutes throughout the 27 hours were becoming indistinguishable from these cheque presentations. For example, there was what amounted to a full-blown Martini ad, complete with the familiar tune and a woman on roller skates with tray and drinks, who rolled on to present a cheque for a mere £ 10,000. The equivalent length of time for an ordinary paid TV ad would have cost several times as much as this, about £50.000. It seems that on this occasion both commercial advantage and conscience money came dirt cheap. Barclays Bank presented a cheque for £100,000, and had their name and image glorified across our screens. Were these charitable donations tax deductible? If they were, Michael Aspel certainly wasn't saying anything about it. In any case, as a fraction of Barclays' world profits, this amount would only represent about one afternoon of their earnings.

To criticise the pop-charity of recent years may be unpopular, but it does not take much investigation to see what is happening here. It is no coincidence that the present government, with its talk of Victorian values, and the cutting down of social benefits for the "undeserving" paupers, is quite keen on the indignities of good, old-fashioned private-enterprise charity, for the more "deserving" clients (if indeed the government believes that there are any left). The problems have remained or multiplied since efforts such as Band-Aid. and this has even been admitted by the charity guru, Bob Geldof himself. But "conscience money" allows people to retreat from real political action, safe in the false security of feeling that "something is being done". In the case of Telethon, it would be more accurate to say that "someone was being done", namely the viewers, as we were dished up hours of adverts and publicity-seeking, disguised as entertainment and compassion. . . and all for a pittance.

Clifford Slapper