The Survival of the Fittest. (1926)

From the February 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

“As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as consequently there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, it vary however slightly, in any manner profitable to itself under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life will have a higher chance of surviving and will thus be ‘naturally selected.'” Introduction to “The Origin of Species,” C. Darwin.

This generalization in Darwin’s epoch-making work, the result of a lifetime of study of the evolution of organic life, can with equal force be applied to the evolution of the organism known as Society. Modern capitalist society—the outcome of many thousands of years of development—depends upon the individual and collective effort of the workers. The sum total of all these efforts results in the production and distribution of all those things which provide the comforts and wants of modern civilization.

The millions of unemployed workers throughout the world are perfectly conscious of a desire to use their energies, their manifold capabilities, to this end, but they are unable to find a suitable opportunity. It is obvious that, in order to live, mankind is forced to make such efforts as will wrest from mother earth those things which will satisfy his needs. The earth is ready to hand—but !—and there’s the rub—the unemployed worker finds himself obstructed by a code of laws and regulations which says, in effect, that the land belongs to various individuals—a distinct and separate class in society. It is the nature of this legal code, this property right in the private ownership and control of the source of the means of life which the workers have to enquire into. It comes to this, therefore, that by a generalization similar to the one made by Darwin quoted above, the organism known as society can be divided, in the main, into two classes :—

1. The class who possess but do not produce—the property-owning master class, and

2. Those who produce but do not possess—the propertyless working class.

The socialist, therefore, may be said to vary from the rest of the members of his class, as a result of a consciousness of this division of society into classes. Let us now examine in what way such variation makes for ultimate survival of himself and his class.

The socialist, being class-conscious, recognises that there is a constant struggle going on between the two classes referred to. He probes into the nature of this struggle, and as a result of his study of the economic conditions and the political history of capitalism, is forced to the conclusion that it is through their control of the political machinery of the state that the master class—the owners of the means of life—are able to subject the working class to their wage-slavery position.

The long history of the struggle which has taken place between these two classes is admirably expressed in the life-long labours of Karl Marx, in whose writings is revealed the nature of the struggle and the historical mission which confronts the working class, so far as the future reorganisation of society is concerned.

Inherent in the capitalist system is an antagonism, a conflict of interests—the class struggle. Leaving aside for the moment periods of trade depression, when such conflicts of interests between the workers and the masters is glaring and needs little illustration, let us examine the conditions when so-called peace prevails. Even then the struggle still goes on; the struggle on the part of the worker to obtain as much by the sale of his labour power as he can get, and the struggle on the part of the master to buy that labour power at the lowest possible rate. Employers of labour compete for the world’s markets. To do this successfully, up-to-date machinery, the very latest equipment and industrial organisation, efficient workers, are essential for this success.

Further, the workers also compete with one another for jobs. Non-unionists, blacklegs, the introduction of women and juveniles into industry, all tend to keep the workers’ wages, in the aggregate, down to the bare cost of subsistence.

Despite all these obvious facts, we have the Rt. Hon. J. H. Thomas, the railwaymen’s leader, making the following observations in a speech on the occasion of the opening of the Congress of Chambers of Commerce of the British Empire at the Guildhall. London :—

”Cheap labour is bad, but while we demand the best, we should be in a position to give the best in return. That can only be done by sweeping away that absurd and dangerous doctrine that the Empire belongs to one class or section of the community. Nothing is more dangerous than that doctrine of class hatred” (Daily Herald, 2nd July, 1924).

If the worker will compare the above with our brief analysis of the workers’ position, he can only come to one of two conclusions, either that Mr. J. H. Thomas is a fool or a deliberate distorter of the facts of every-day working-class experience.

Utterances like these are typical of modern labour leaders. They are attempts to blind the minds of a credulous working-class following, in the hope of reward from the ruling class, when the plums of office are being distributed. By such servile conduct do labour leaders endeavour to prove their fitness to survive—at the expense of the working class.

It would be interesting, however, to know why J. H. Thomas considers the doctrine of “class hatred” so dangerous. He and his kind conveniently forget to explain their reasons. On the other hand, is it likely that a recognition by the workers of their class position tends to make them love the system which crushes all their aspirations? Of course not. The more the workers become convinced of the nature of the class struggle, so will their respect and reverence for their “betters” dwindle, and to that extent will their worship of trade union and political leaders diminish.

In conclusion, therefore, we repeat that the fundamental principle of Socialism is based on the recognition of the class struggle. The workers will prove their fitness to survive by associating themselves with the work of the Socialist Party. That work consists in resolutely organising for the dethronement of Capitalism and the establishment of Socialism. Naturally this work falls upon those who will benefit therefrom, i.e., the working class.

Help to prove the fitness of your class to survive ! “Eat or be eaten” ; that is the issue.

O. C. I.

The Great Discoveries and their economic effects. (1926)

From the February 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

When civilisation was concentrated round the Eastern end of the Mediterranean, Phoenician ships from Syria pushed further and further westward, trading; and colonising as they went, and preventing the too credulous Greeks from intruding by spreading tales of the quite mythical sea monsters they had met on the voyage. They eventually reached the Atlantic and coasted south-west round Africa, and tradition has it that their ships made call at Britain for supplies of Cornish tin. Of this we are not sure and we know still less about the Scandinavian voyager, Leif, son of Eric the Red, who it is said reached America in the year 1,000.

But in 1492 Christopher Columbus, fortified by nothing more definite than his inability to believe “that the sun shines upon nothing, and that the nightly watches of the stars are wasted on trackless seas and desert lands,” sailed westward across the Atlantic to look for a route round the world to India and the East, and hit upon the West Indian Islands. This was the era of the Great Discoveries.

Five years later, after half a century of persistent Portuguese exploration of the West African coast, Vasco de Gama succeeded in passing the Cape of Good Hope and in opening direct sea communication with India. By 1500 the Portuguese were settled in Brazil and there followed innumerable explorations from end to end of the Atlantic shores of North and South America. In 1520 Magellan had rounded the southern tip of South America and found a sea route to Eastern Asia, although the voyage of over two years cost the lives of Magellan and half his crew. We read of repeated attempts during the succeeding centuries to find sea passages to the North of America and Asia.

To understand the effects of this era of expansion, we must consider the economic condition of Europe in the preceding centuries, and its relations with the East.

Over the greater part of Europe “natural economy” as distinct from “money economy” still prevailed. That is to say, food and clothing were in the main produced for use in the immediate neighbourhood ; trade, and the use of money, were comparatively rare, and limited to luxury goods. The exceptions were the great trading and manufacturing towns which had sprung up at convenient centres for the collection and distribution of commodities, and on the most important land or sea trade routes.

The sea trade was in the hands of merchants of Genoa and Venice and other Italian towns, and of the Hanse towns in the Baltic. The Hanse traders dealt chiefly with Russia, Scandinavia, and the Baltic lands, and were interested in raw materials such as wool, which they obtained from England, corn which they supplied to many Mediterranean nations, and fish.

The Genoese had a monopoly of the South Russian trade which came overland round the Black Sea bringing silks and spices from India and China. The spices were valued highly because it was only by their liberal use that the meat of those times could be made really palatable.

The Venetians, too, dealt in spices, drugs and other Eastern products transported by caravans which entered Egypt from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. These spices were grown in the East Indian Islands and reached the termini of the caravan routes in the ships of Arab traders who held undisputed sway over the Indian Ocean.

Both Genoa and Venice brought their luxury wares to depots such as Antwerp, where exchange took place with the Hanse merchants. Overland routes ran up the Rhone to Paris; over the Alps and down the Rhine ; and from Venice via Augsburg and Nurembourg to Hamburg and other Baltic centres.

Both groups of merchants made regular calls at English Ports, and the bulk of European trade was in their hands. It was this trade which gave political importance to the cities and was the cause of their rivalries. The chief source of the merchant’s wealth and the goal of every adventurer’s ambition was the East, which up to that time had not been directly and easily accessible to Europe.

During the 15th century, owing to the advance of the Turks into Europe, the whole of this trade was endangered. In 1453 Constantinople fell to them and the Genoese routes were altogether barred; while the Turkish approach to Egypt threatened also the activities of the Venetians. It was the Turkish invasion which was the immediate cause of the desire to reach India by sea, and consequently of the great expansion during the 16th century.

The marked increase of exploration had the effect, which was of great importance afterwards, of giving rise to a new tradition of more daring and skilful seamanship in Portugal and Spain and later in Holland and England. The discoveries caused the shifting of the centres of commerce from the Mediterranean to those countries with an Atlantic coast; the drying up of the overland routes to the Baltic and the consequent decline of the Mid-European cities ; the abandoning of much of the caravan communication with Asia; and the sapping of the vitality of Venice and Genoa. Spain, Portugal and England were thus encouraged to build their own mercantile fleets.

The Portuguese established an Indian Empire and gained control of the East Indian spice islands and a monopoly of the traffic in the Indian Ocean. The amount of trade increased enormously, but the distribution of the wares in Europe was conducted and financed by the Dutch, who obtained the bulk of the profits and laid the foundations of their own later financial supremacy. It was the Portuguese monopoly of the Indian Ocean and the endorsement of their claim which they obtained from the Pope, that induced the Spaniards to finance Columbus in his attempt to reach India by sailing westwards. The discovery of America was, however, not used by Spain to develop commerce. The finding of gold and silver and the extensive mining of the latter which began in 1530 enabled Spain to prosper for a while on a different basis. She attempted to make the new world merely a source of bullion monopolised by her, and to keep this bullion inside the mother country. The result of the monopoly and exclusion of foreign traders was to incite Dutch and English freebooters to attack the bullion ships, and the bullionist policy at home was equally disastrous in the long run. There was a world rise in prices as a result of the inflow of gold and silver, but instead of allowing the food and other industries to profit and grow by satisfying the big demand from the new colonies, the sheep-owning families who were the ruling class deliberately hampered them.

Then, owing to an anti-foreign agitation, due to a mistaken notion that the presence of foreigners in the country had caused the rise in prices, the Government expelled those who had been their best artisans and merchants and without whom industry declined. Spain then became largely dependent on supplies of fish, corn, and manufactured goods from Holland and England, this again stimulating the economic development of the latter.

The rise in prices had a generally quickening effect on trade outside of Spain, and not only did this affect the trading nations and their industries, but it materially speeded up the introduction of money in place of “natural economy.” This was the immediate cause of the peasant war in Germany in 1525, owing to bitter disputes about the money value of labour services. The war set Germany back economically, and the other advanced nations benefited by the removal of a rival. The working out and decline of her mining industries also affected Germany adversely. Accumulation of capital, which was rendered easier by the abundance of gold and silver, led to the opening of new commercial and industrial enterprises in the East and the New World as well as in Europe.

This growth of capital, the consequent greater power of the merchants, and the new contact with the non-Christian East were also the causes of a revival of slavery and had a depressing effect on the condition of the peasants and wage earners in Europe itself.

England rapidly changed from a wool exporting to a wool manufacturing nation and before the end of the 16th century her commerce was largely carried on in English ships; both the Venetian and Hanse fleets having ceased to call.

The high prices which ruled universally, and the particularly high price of wool due to the demand from Flanders and from home manufacturers were the chief causes of the great decrease of arable and increase of pasture farming in England, a process assisted by the suppression of the Monasteries and the dispersal of their lands in 1536. This agricultural revolution which was in progress up to 1600 had the effect of driving many thousands of tenants and labourers off the land into the towns, where for a long time there was no demand for their services. In the meantime vagrancy grew to be a serious problem and the Poor Law became a permanent national institution.

Great trading companies to East and West were formed and out of the strife of the early buccaneers an English merchant fleet was built which eventually surpassed that of the Dutch, and was to be the foundation of England’s future commercial and naval power.

The development of shipping and the demand for timber from Russia opened up communications with that country and materially hastened its internal political and economic growth.

New East coast towns like Boston and Hull grew up for the Baltic trade, while Bristol flourished on the trade across the Atlantic. England now became the centre of the Christian world, owing to her admirable position as a depot. There was a corresponding decline in the commercial monopoly previously exercised by Jews in the Eastern Mediterranean.

With the rise of her commerce and banking, Holland also carefully developed her agriculture, and her success in the use of root crops and grasses which for the first time made it possible to keep stock alive during the winter, was of great importance to England and other countries which later learned from her example.

For Europe as a whole the results were important and lasting. The need for big accumulations of capital to join in the new commercial enterprises, which were of an unprecedented size and expense, and the need for adequate protection against attack in distant waters, gave an urge towards national instead of city organisation. This was the economic basis of the new nations and Empires, Portugal, Spain, Holland and England.

The great increase in sea voyages, the new experiences and the new knowledge of navigation obtained from the Arabs gave an added importance to overseas trade and, as has been seen, destroyed the old Mediterranean and overland trade routes.

In its turn commercial activity created bigger markets and a steadier demand for raw materials and industrial products, which reacted immediately on the hitherto small and unprogressive industries. Local isolation tended to be broken down as bigger areas were drawn into the sphere of commerce either as sources of supply or as consumers of Colonial and Eastern goods. The use of money became everywhere more general with its disintegrating effect on the old Manorial relationships, and banking began to be of new importance as a support of industry.

In short, the discoveries began the era of industrial and commercial activity which continued without essential change till the Industrial Revolution.

Edgar Hardcastle

Editorial: Socialism and the Humanitarians. (1926)

Editorial from the February 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ever since the recent International Blood Carnival, the word “Humanity” has seemed to have acquired a slight sarcastic flavour. It has certainly been demonstrated that the so-called beasts have much to learn from humanity in the way of beastliness. And the curious part of the whole business was, that those whose particular role was supposed to have been the preaching of Humanity, Love, Brotherhood and the rest of it, were the first to drop it when the butchery started. Doubtless you will be wondering why we are dragging this old tale out again. Everybody knows that when the call came to take up the bayonet, very few of its students experienced any difficulty in dropping the Bible. We only refer to it again as a sort of a prologue to another study of human psychology.

Just before the great Christian festival at Christmas, the Animal Defence Society thought to improve the shining hour by inserting a seasonable advertisement in the newspapers. “Christmas is approaching,” they said, “and the Spirit of Mercy is knocking at the heart of Everyman.” And so the Animal Defence Society suggest that in answer to the knock, why not send them a nice donation towards building a beautiful new slaughterhouse. A lurid, and possibly true, picture is drawn of reeking carcases, pools of blood, pole-axes and knives, pain-poisoned meat and other horrible details, calculated to draw the money from the pockets of revolted readers. To aid in this lofty work one is informed that donors of £1,000 will have their names inscribed upon a tablet as Founders; those of £500 as Builders; those of £250 as Masons; of £100 as Carpenters, and of £50 as Bricklayers. This, you will admit, is interesting. What a reflection for the proud Mason that he is considered worth five common Bricklayers or two and a half lordly Carpenters. It should provide some interesting dinner-hour discussions for the men who erect the building. It is rather a pity that few of them will have the forethought to provide themselves with a copy of the list of potential Masons, Carpenters, and Bricklayers, the advertisement mentioned. In these days of sex-equality it is cheerful to note that over two-thirds of them are women. But we digress. What is their precise grievance?

They object to the use of the pole-axe in killing large animals. They object to the use of the knife without preliminary stunning in killing pigs, calves and sheep. They object to the way animals are roped and dragged and driven to the point of slaughter. They object to animals being slaughtered in sight of each other and their standing awaiting their doom on floors covered with blood and amid the carcases of those slain. In short, they object to all avoidable cruelty in the killing of the animals upon which mankind feeds. The Foundation Stone of this model slaughter-house was laid on Dec. 14th, when a prayer of dedication (whatever that may be) was offered that the building might serve as an example of pity and kindly treatment of animals.

Now what is wrong with all this? Surely we also are in sympathy with any movement to lessen the amount of suffering in the world ! Surely we are not going to crab any attempt, however feeble, at abolishing avoidable cruelty ! Perish the thought. Then where does our grumble come in ? Just here. We do believe in first things first. We do insist upon a sense of proportion. We also have our objections. They relate primarily to human beings. Consider recent history. We objected to human beings being torn to pieces by shrapnel and splintered steel. We objected to our boys being taught the proper way to insert a bayonet into the intestines of a fellow human being, and to so twist it as to make the most ghastly wound. We objected to fathers, brothers and sons being blinded, gassed, poisoned, blown to fragments, driven insane, butchered, or tortured by every horrible device that perverted ingenuity could evolve. We objected to women and children being starved, exploited, maddened and massacred in the sacred name of Patriotism. We were the Human Defence Society. Where were the members of the Animal Defence Society then? Were they weeping over pole-axed cows and distressed sheep, or were they taking part in the great work of disembowelling their fellow-creatures. We fear the latter. It needs little more than the list of Lords, Dukes, Earls and Admirals who figure in the list of contributors to convince us of that.

And what did we do? For the ten years of our existence before the War we denounced the conditions that made the catastrophe inevitable. During the progress of the Horror itself, we protested against it as a crime against humanity; that is we protested so far as the friends of the Animal Defence Society would ignore our efforts, as not being weighty enough to hinder their great Blood-feast. And now that that War is over, we are engaged in the work of pointing out the inevitability of another, and yet another war so long as capitalism lasts. We are not oblivious of the claims of animals to consideration, but we think the claims of mankind are greater. What of the horrors of mines, slums and factories; the degradation that follows unemployment; the disease inherent in foul conditions, malnutrition and neglect? We think these are primary things. We say further, that the horrors of both peace and war have their origin in the capitalist basis of society. Time and again we have proved it. We get remarkably few bouquets thrown to us, neither do we expect them. But when we see people who are making a handsome living out of the cruelties of capitalism, distributing thousand pound cheques to ease the lot of pigs and sheep—well, we are mildly surprised, that’s all. They have a heart, we suppose, but the cry of suffering humanity has less effect, apparently, than the bleat of a sheep.

To be quite candid, we have little hope of their hearts at all. Should that sensitive organ ever be perturbed by the patent evils in the fabric of society, we may be sure there are learned economists among them who will provide a comfortable explanation. We have more hope of the working class itself. It is to them we address our message. We ask them to consider whether the present system of society gives them anything approaching what they expect of life. We suggest to them that the existing huge engines of wealth production are capable of providing ease and plenty for all, and that the reason they do not do so is because they are the private property of a few instead of the common possession of all. We therefore recommend them to seriously study our literature, gain a knowledge of how the present state of things has come about, and how it may be altered. Cruelty to animals will go the way of all forms of cruelty, when a real civilised existence becomes a possibility to everyone. So let us have first things first. If anyone has a thousand pound cheque they would like to devote to the abolition of cruelty to human beings, our address is on the back page.

Compulsory arbitration. (1926)

From the February 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

There has been some talk recently about compulsory arbitration in the settlement of industrial disputes. Let us examine what is behind the idea.

It should be remembered that the general practice employed in the past has been the so-called “fight to a finish” method: we refer to the “strike” or “lock-out,” the armed forces being kept in readiness, as a government would say, “to maintain law and order” : this, so far as the national life is concerned.

In the international arena of world politics, it is to be noticed that the governments of most of the large States are beginning to realise that there lurk grave dangers in the use of force in the settlement of threir differences. Consequently the League of Nations made its modest bow to a war-weary world a few years ago. Behind the League of Nations is said to be the principle of “compulsory arbitration.” It is the first feeble flicker in the minds of the more astute capitalists of the need for an alternative to “blood and iron.”

Hot on the heels of the League of Nations comes the “Arbitrate First League,” the formation of which was recently reported by the “Daily Herald.”

Naturally enough J. Ramsay MacDonald, political tourist and odd-job man for the capitalist class, gives it his blessing. He hails it as the greatest discovery of the age —next to himself—and the “Red Letter.”

This development in the international relationships of the ruling class has its reflection in the domestic life of the nation. We refer to the recent coal-mining dispute in this country. It will be remembered that a stoppage was averted at the eleventh hour by the intervention of the Government by the granting of a subsidy.

While, therefore, the degree of economic development of the foremost nations of the world permitted, up to within recent years, “a fight to a finish” as between employers and employed (the former generally being the victors and necessarily so by virtue of the political power enjoyed, and ironically enough, bestowed upon them by the workers), the growing interdependence of what are known as “key industries,” raises objection to such methods to-day. Another important factor has also to be considered, i.e., competition for the world’s markets. This is now so keen (owing to the entry of the colonial dependencies, Canada, Australasia, India and again Japan, the most formidable rival in the East, to the age-long supremacy of the Western world) that time lost through “strikes” and “lock-outs” means loss or cancellation of orders and contracts.

Compulsory arbitration in consequence, therefore, may well become the new guiding star—for the ruling class—for the future safeguarding of their economic aspirations.

The sufferings endured in the past by the hungry strikers, the murder of their defenceless dependents, the horrors of infantile mortality, the wholesale butchery of countless millions, occasioned in the last great war, pale into insignificance compared with the one all-absorbing passion of the capitalists, i.e., to maintain their political supremacy and their position of affluence and idleness which this implies. For this all-important reason the workers are being called upon to forget the past, i.e., Germany’s “war guilt.” Therefore, Germany comes into the sacred circle of the League of Nations. The “horrible hun” we were called upon to hate and revile is now to be looked upon as a repentant sinner. The oscillations of world trade, influenced largely by the war, demand new undertakings and agreements between the capitalist highwaymen; or, to use the terminology of the professors, “maintain balance of power.” The League of Nations represents the machinery which they hope will achieve this desirable end.

THE WORKERS’ VIEW-POINT.

Although the majority of the States of the Western world depend upon a very wide and universal suffrage, nevertheless the freedom of any organised section of the workers to sell their services exists only in name. The workers may look forward with cold comfort, therefore, when they are informed by an all-wise and beneficent Arbitration Court, that as from such and such a date they will be permitted to suffer a reduction in their standard of living under the plea, perhaps, that the Empire’s future welfare demands such a sacrifice.

It must be emphasised here that the workers get what they vote for, that is all. The simple economics of the wages system clearly reveal that the workers can only hope, at the best, to receive in wages what it costs to maintain them in a condition to continue working and replace their type. Carrots and labour power are commodities ; the price at which they are sold is determined by the same economic law, i.e., the cost of production, which, of course, fluctuates with the operation of supply and demand.

CAPITALISTS ON THE DEFENSIVE.

Compulsory arbitration, then, if and when it becomes the rule for regulating national and international differences, will simply stand revealed as the great gun of the ruling class.

“But why do we give the arbitrators political power?” asks one, a little less dull-witted than the rest.

The answer is, that the working class fail, as yet, to recognise that their interests, as a class, are diametrically opposed to those who govern or arbitrate for them. That in a class-divided society, Arbitration Courts will be influenced, ultimately, by the economic necessities of the ruling class.

The Socialist seeks to abolish class-divided society. To achieve this, the revolutionary object of the workers must be Socialism.

O. C. I.

Letter: Taxation and the workers. (1926)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

Reply to a correspondent.

An article under the above heading in our issue of June last has called forth a letter from Mr. A. Mortmain, of Sydney, N.S.W.

The gist of the article was that taxation, is a part of the machinery of government, exists only to provide means for maintaining the privileges of the property-owning class; that the workers’ wages leave them no margin out of which to pay taxes and that consequently it is a matter of indifference to their interest how or what taxes are levied. As Socialists, we are concerned with Socialism and not with any scheme of taxation. Hence we oppose all other parties which endeavour to maintain in the workers’ minds the illusion that taxes are a political issue for them.

Mr. Mortmain’s contention is that while this is correct in the main “insufficient taxation . . . does prejudice labour” and concludes that “taxation alone is sufficient to socialise Great Britain.”

Our correspondent appears to consider that the “rentier class” forms the chief burden upon the backs of the workers and suggests that we should concentrate upon “the abolition of the socialised debt, the pooling of rent,” and State loans “at a low rate of interest.” It is evident from these suggestions that he does not look upon the matter from the standpoint of the wage-slave but of the small proprietor and his “Socialism” is not a system based upon common ownership and democratic control of the means of life but a petty bourgeois Utopia in which, as he puts it, “the individuals are each in pawn to society as a whole.”

In any well-developed capitalist country interest is only one of the means by which certain capitalists appropriate part of the surplus produced by the labour of the workers. Mr. Mortmain ignores the exploitation which proceeds in the factory and makes no effort to show how the workers therein would benefit from his proposals, even if they were sufficiently practicable to get adopted by any political party with a chance of success. On this last point he appears doubtful himself for he says, “the Labour party are not likely to suggest this except vaguely in the form of a capital levy.” May we point out that where, as in France, the “rentier class” is possessed of relatively great power and the small proprietors exist in considerable numbers, it is the latter rather than the former who will be hit by a capital levy.

When the working-class have become conscious of their position as disinherited slaves and have determined to end capitalism and substitute Socialism—when they have organised as a class and become politically supreme, they are hardly likely to waste their time in piecemeal measures of the nature suggested by our correspondent. Instead of indulging in financial tricks in order to enable their wages to “buy back the whole of the wealth” they produce, they will organise a system of production and distribution in which wages and interest, along with the whole financial camouflage, will find no place. They will cease to produce commodities and will commence to produce use-values only. Money therefore will cease to have any function to perform and the problems connected with money will cease to trouble them.

Eric Boden

Publications Funds Acknowledgments. (1926)

Party News from the February 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

Signs of the Times. (1926)

From the February 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

While the Capitalists control political power the Workers will receive the quantity and quality of education that it suits their Masters for their own purposes to give them. To them the Workers’ Children are no more than potential wealth-producing units and in educating them their sole consideration is “Does it Pay?” Sir Austen Chamberlain truly speaks his Masters’ voice when he says we must have more “if our commerce and our education are to hold their own against a host of active rivals” (“Daily Chronicle,” 19-12-25). and that in brief is the reason for our “education.”

Modern methods of wealth production have made a higher education necessary in all directions, and as is usual among the lower grades of workers, a supply much in excess of any demand now affects the once better educated and privileged workers in their efforts to obtain a livelihood. The parent of a University graduate writes complaining to the “Times Educational Supplement” (12-11-25) as follows:

“Boys and girls who are kept at secondary schools until they are 16 or 18 years of age find on leaving that there is no vacant job of the nature for which they have been trained and either they are compelled to undertake work which they could have done equally well—possibly better—without secondary and University education or join the army of the unemployed.”

So much for the security in life of the educated. Neither does that other very respectable section of the Working Class known as the Professional, escape the vicissitudes of a Worker’s life to-day. Writing of Architects in the “Journal of Careers” (Dec.) this magazine says : “At least as many men are entering the profession as the profession can at the present time absorb,” and of women who qualify it states further that “they are not meeting a dearth or supplying a long felt want.” Further comment says : “There are more pharmacists seeking situations than there are situations available; more students are entering pharmacy each year than ever before and it is not easy to visualise how these students will be absorbed.” It is the same story in other professions, Actors, Doctors, Journalists, etc., all struggling to live. Despite the snobbery and conceit of such people the development of Capitalism will disillusion them and compel them to realise their common servitude with the rest of the Working Class.

The Capitalists have not educated the Workers’ children from philanthropic motives, but such education will enable them to interest themselves in our propaganda in growing numbers as they reach the Working age. To extend the intelligence displayed and exercised in the production of wealth to that which will see the need for social change, requires the patient and persistent application of Socialist teachings. The growing difficulty of our Masters and their agents to prove the Capitalist system a beneficent one for the Workers enables us to be assured with no false optimism that time and truth are on our side.

W. E. MacHaffie

Marx on Free Trade. (1926)

From the February 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Continued from previous issues)

Mr. Bowring’s speech is the more remarkable because the facts quoted by him are correct, and the phrases with which he seeks to palliate them are characterized by the hypocrisy common to all Free Trade discourses. He represents the workers as means of production which must be.superseded by less expensive means of production, pretends to see in the labour of which he speaks a wholly exceptional kind of labour, and in the machine which has crushed out the weavers an equally exceptional kind of machine. He forgets that there is no kind of manual labour which may not any day share the fate of the hand-loom weavers.

“The constant aim and tendency of every improvement of mechanism is indeed to do entirely without the labour of men, or to reduce its price, by superseding the labour of the adult males by that of women and children, or the work of the skilled by that of the unskilled workman. In most of the throstle mills, spinning is now entirely done by girls of sixteen years and less. The introduction of the self-acting mule has caused the discharge of most of the (adult male) spinners, while the children and young persons have been kept on.”

The above words of the most enthusiastic of Free Traders, Dr. Ure, are calculated to complete the confessions of Dr. Bowring. Mr. Bowring speaks of certain individual evils, and, at the same time, says that these individual evils destroy whole classes; he speaks of the temporary sufferings during a transition period, and does not deny that these temporary evils have implied for the majority the transition from life to death, and for the rest a transition from a better to a worse condition. When he asserts, farther on, that the sufferings of the working class are inseparable from the progress of industry, and are necessary to the prosperity of the nation, he simply says that the prosperity of the bourgeois class presupposes as necessary the suffering of the labouring class.

All the comfort which Mr. Bowring offers the workers who perish, and, indeed, the whole doctrine of compensation which the Free Traders propound, amounts to this—

You thousands of workers who are perishing, do not despair ! You can die with an easy conscience. Your class will not perish. It will always be numerous enough for the capitalist class to decimate it without fear of annihilating it. Besides, how could capital be usefully applied if it did not take care to keep up its exploitable material, i.e., the workingmen, to be exploited over and over again?

But, then, why propound as a problem still to be solved the question: What influence will the adoption of the Free Trade have on the condition of the working class? All the laws formulated by the political economists from Quesnay to Ricardo, have been based upon the hypothesis that the trammels which still interfere with commercial freedom have disappeared. These laws are confirmed in proportion as Free Trade is adopted. The first of these laws is that competition reduces the price of every commodity to the minimum cost of production. Thus the minimum of wages is the natural price of labour. And what is the minimum of wages? Just so much as is required for production of the articles absolutely necessary for the maintenance of the worker, for the continuation, by hook or by crook, of his own existence and that of his class.

But do not imagine that the worker receives only this minimum wage, and still less that he always receives it. No, according to this law, the working class will sometimes be more fortunate, will sometimes receive something above the minimum, but this surplus will merely make up for the deficit which they will have received below the minimum in times of industrial depression. That is to say that within a given time which recurs periodically, in other words, in the cycle which commerce and industry describe while passing through the successive phases of prosperity, overproduction, stagnation, and crisis, when reckoning all that the working class has had above and below mere necessaries, we shall see that, after all, they have received neither more nor less than the minimum; i.e., the working class will have maintained itself as a class after enduring any amount of misery and misfortune, and after leaving many corpses upon the industrial battle-field.

(To be continued)

‘You’ve Never Had it So Good’ (1960)

From the February 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr Macmillan has served the Tory party very well indeed. Along with shrewdness and other qualities he has shown himself to be a master showman in a team of showmen. But when he told the British workers that they’ve never had it so good, there must have been some of his fellow Tories who doubted its wisdom. A tag like this labels a politician and his party for a very long time and when their luck runs out—as it always does—they will never live it down. But a master showman has to take risks and so far the thing has exceeded beyond all possible expectations. He persuaded his followers that it is so, and then the Opposition, so that we now have Mr Anthony Crosland, Labour MP for Grimsby, endorsing it. He confessed this at a Labour Conference at Utrecht, and he told them that the British workers “now scarcely seem, either to themselves or to other classes, to be suffering from oppression or capitalist exploitation”. (Daily Mail 11.1.60). It helped to win the support of a majority of the electors for the Tory party. It convinced the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Fisher, though it failed to win his approval. He calls it a “dreadful phrase”. “Whenever I hear it”, he said, “I say to myself in the words of Our Lord, ‘how hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of Heaven'”. (Daily Telegraph 11.1.60). With his comfortable £7,500 a year he is worried lest the general affluence of the workers should imperil their souls.

But just how much substance is there in this propaganda, and how much of it exists only in the distorting imagination of the politicians and Press?

Half the Story

There is no lack of supposed evidence to back it up. Let us look at some of it.

The Evening Standard (1.1.60) greeted the new year with an editorial telling us about the “Age of Plenty”. The opening paragraph set the tone:-

The age of scrimping is over. The age of affluence has begun. In the past 10 years Britain has passed through a social revolution whose full impact is only likely to be felt in the new decade which has just begun. For the first time in history the greater part of this country’s people—and not just the fortunate minority—have money to spare beyond their immediate needs.

Even a light-hearted journalist would hardly make this claim without evidence, and evidence is there.

One figure sums up the progress of this revolution. As the 1960’s begin, everyone living in this country has an income higher by an average of £3 a week than at the beginning of the ‘fifties.

But before passing on we must look more closely at the average increase of £3 a week. It was clearly derived from figures that turned up in the Press about that time. In the Financial Times (31.12.59) under the heading “Standard of Living” we were told that average personal income per head of the population jumped from £220 in 1950 to £375 in 1959. Sure enough the difference, £155 a year, is £3 a week so what more need be said? But what the writer omitted to point out was that in the same period, on official figures, the price level (cost of living) rose by 47 per cent. To buy in 1959 what could be bought for £220 in 1950 would need £323. So the real increase was not £3 a week but the difference between £323 and £375, a matter of about £1 a week, and that the £1 a week would buy in 1959 only about half that a like amount would have bought in 1950.

Another figure published by the Financial Times showed “expenditure” per head of the population (after deducting from average income the amount of taxation and the amount put aside as savings). This produced an increase between 1950 and 1959, of nearly £2 a week. But again, after allowing for the increase of prices this seemingly large increase gets cut down to a mere 4 per cent-—not a lot to show for 10 years of “social revolution”.

It is particularly surprising that the Financial Times should give figures in this incomplete form because four years ago (6.9.55) when that paper looked at similar figures published then, they pointed out what a miserable showing the figures gave when compared with 1938.They made the point that the real increase per head of the population (after allowing for higher prices) was the trifling rise of 4½  per cent as compared with 1938.

It happens to be useful to the case of those who see a vast increase of the standard of living to have chosen the year 1950 because average expenditure in all the post-war years up to 1952 (after allowing for higher prices) was actually below the pre-war level.

Mr George Schwartz in the Sunday Times (10.1.60) had his own line of comment. He at least is very well aware of the fact that much of the current statistical evidence of higher incomes is merely a reflection of the steady rise in prices and a corresponding decrease in the purchasing power of money. On this occasion he wanted to make the point that booming production and exports are not a new phase in British capitalism. He reproduced columns of figures showing how “peace and prosperity” were booming in the years 1903 to 1913. Again some very imposing figures, but when we look at prices in these ten years we see that they were steadily rising, a total rise of about 12 per cent. Wages were rising more slowly so that the higher wage actually bought less.

Staggering Truth

What is really astounding about Macmillan’s boast is that, at least on average, it contains an element of truth, remembering however that the rich too are in the average figures. The state of most British workers really is a little better than it has ever been before. Of course there are large numbers of clerical workers (including most of the civil service, bank clerks and others) who are worse off than they were before the war, and some industrial workers, including London busmen, are also worse off. But with fewer unemployed and several million married women enjoying the dubious advantage of doing two jobs, home and away, working class purchasing power has gone up. But what a commentary on capitalism that this small advance can be hailed as a social revolution and set the church worrying about the corrupting influence of working class “riches”!

Just about the turn of the year agricultural workers advanced to £8 a week for 46 hours toil. Hundreds of thousands of other men in industry and transport are on much the same level. The average earnings of women of 18 and over in manufacturing industry is £6 17 0 a week—hardly a corrupting level of affluence. And there are over 2 million people who in the course of a year are poor enough to qualify for National Assistance—with wives and children the number is much larger.

Real Capitalism

In spite of the talk about a social revolution capitalism has not changed. It is still a system of minority wealth and mass poverty and insecurity—and just at present it is profits, stock exchange prices and the emergence of new crops of millionaires that truly mark the phase of “you never had it so good”. And the Church, with a rise of £50 million in the value of its investments in the past five years, hasn’t done badly.

Just before Christmas, the People (20.12.59) gave unintentionally a close-up of the capitalism we still have with us. Mr Gilbert Harding ran a charity fund and invited readers to subscribe. He was proud to report that 40,000 readers had sent in £15,000 (it later reached £30,000). In particular he recorded that 89 workers in Reading had voted to his fund the £630 held by their defunct Social Club. They had been employed by a biscuit firm but a week before Christmas the firm closed down, unable to meet the competition of larger firms. In all, 290 workers got the sack, “with not a penny in compensation from the firm”, although many were likely to get other jobs, “for most of them the Christmas prospect looked bleak”. Mr Harding was entitled to single out the charitable mindedness of the workers who gave the money to his fund, the money “they had scrimped and saved to put the social club on its feet”.

But there was another item of interest. The People disclosed that when the chairman of the firm died “he left a quarter of a million pounds—all made out of biscuits”.

How much more useful it would have been to point out that the quarter of a million was just part of the tribute levied by the capitalist class from the workers, not “made out of biscuits” but out of them.

The socialist struggle has not ended, it has hardly begun, and it will achieve in due time a social system which really will be a social revolution. One in which, incidentally, it will not be necessary for workers to scrimp and save to help the discarded members of their class.

Edgar Hardcastle

February (1960)

From the February 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

We know a brawny young man who, because he was born on February 14th, was nearly named Valentine. And that, you might say, is taking the anniversary business too far. Of course, it’s the young ones who keep up Valentine’s Day—especially the girls. Why? However off-hand about it they pretend to be, somewhere they are nurturing the dream of marriage. That way, they think, they’ll get security. If the fellow's got looks as well as money—well, that’s just as Woman’s Own says it should be. The reality is the monotonous typing job from nine to five-thirty and then two bobs-worth of dark with Sid Osgood. Life can be better than this. Socialism is ours for the taking: which means that peace, security and freedom can be had right away.

THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN NEEDS MONEY BADLY. PLEASE SEND ALL YOU CAN TO THE TREASURER AT OUR HEAD OFFICE.

The Problem of Race (1960)

From the February 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

As Socialists, we recognise race as a field of genuine scientific investigation. What we emphatically repudiate are the doctrines of racialism, which deliberately ignore or misuse the findings of science, and seek to convince by clothing themselves in a mantle of scientific jargon and primitive emotionalism.

What is Race?

In attempting to divide the human species into races the scientist bases his investigations, as has already been stressed, upon physical characteristics. The more important of these are skin, hair, and eye colour; shape of head; hair formation (straight, wavy or woolly); shape of nose (broad or narrow nostrils, high or low bridge, etc); and stature. There are also numerous other features like lip-formation, shape of face, bone-formation, etc, which are of comparatively minor importance. Using these various physical traits, either singly, or, as is more often the case, in groups, scientists have, according to their own particular interpretations, divided mankind into races. 

And it is here that we encounter our first stumbling-block. For when these scientists, logically and scientifically, and with the available evidence before them, try to distinguish between the various races of mankind, they find themselves in difficulties. Their investigations are quite dispassionate; for the most part they have not the slightest desire to bolster up any pre-conceived theories; yet, whenever they have ventured to put forward estimates even of the number of races of human beings in the world, they have been quite unable to come to anything like general agreement on the question. The great majority of them wisely make no attempts at estimating; they realise the uselessness and absurdity of doing so. Despite the fact that they, more than any others, are in possession of the fullest evidence obtainable, despite the fact that they have often made a life-time study of the subject, and despite the fact that, like all human beings, they are anxious to see some definite result emerge, if possible, from their labours, we find the conclusions of the scientists are tentative, their observations cautious and non-committal, and their whole attitude guarded and reserved.

One thing is obvious; physical differences between people do exist. This cannot be denied. We may go further and say that certain groups of people do possess physical traits in common, which serve to distinguish one group from another. We may be even more explicit and distinguish three main groups, the White, the Black, and the Yellow. We may also forestall a probable objection and extend the list to include a further group, the people with Brown skins. But how much further than this can we go? To be quite honest with ourselves, we cannot even afford to be dogmatic about the few statements we have already made, because, when all is said and done, we have only divided our groups on the basis of skin colour alone, and there are many other physical differences between people besides this. To classify mankind rigidly on the basis of skin-colour alone is manifestly absurd. One has only to note the different physical characteristics of the inhabitants of one’s own street to realise this. They may all be possessed of white skins, but what differences exist between them in other respects! Even their skins vary, from chalky-white to swarthy, with numerous shades in between. As Whites, we notice all the differing traits of people whose skins are the same colour as our own, but fail to notice all the many variations that occur in other groups. To us, most Negroes look alike; we notice only their black skins. Yet we are surprised to learn that the great majority of Africans are not pure Negroes at all, but are, in fact, a varying mixture of Negro and Arab stocks. 

Race mixture

Why is it so difficult to divide the human species into races? 

Unlike the other creatures of the earth, man is no longer the plaything of natural forces. Through the countless years of his evolution from the first primitive state, he has gradually made himself the master and controller of nature. He is no longer its slave; through generations he has made himself capable of withstanding and overcoming many of the hostile forces with which he has to contend. By virtue of his superior brain development, he has learned to make and control fire; he has learned to temper the rigours of harsh and bitter climates by means of artificial clothing and shelter; he has learned to fashion tools; and through this increasing control over his environment, he has been able to spread his species over almost the whole of the earth’s surface. He has migrated everywhere; into the cold, barren, inhospitable wastes of the sub-Arctic regions; into the hot, arid deserts of the five continents; into the humid forests of the Equatorial lands. 

Wherever he has gone, he has, in course of time, adapted himself to the most varied of environments. And, moreover, most important of all from our point of view, wherever he has wandered he has interbred. The process of interbreeding has gone on as long as man himself has existed on the earth. With the possible exception of the Pygmies of Central Africa, a small isolated group that has bred within itself for generations, there is no “pure race” in existence in the world to-day.

Race and Nationality

Probably the most common of all errors is the assumption that race is identical with nationality. Reference is frequently made to the “British race”, the “German race”, the “Japanese race”, and so on, in the belief, we must presume, that the existence of certain frontier lines and political boundaries determines the racial make-up of the people living within them. This belief is utterly false. To talk, for example, of the “British race”, is to render the term devoid of all meaning. The inhabitants of Great Britain possess all manner of varying physical characteristics. They vary through the widest extremes of colouring from very fair to very dark; in stature they range from very tall to very short; they are straight-haired and wavy-haired; thin and thickset; long-headed, medium-headed, and broad-headed; they eyes may be brown, blue, yellow or green; in short, they constitute a great mixture, a “hotch-potch” of different racial types.

“Thus from a mixture of all things began

That heterogeneous thing, an Englishman”

                (Daniel Defoe, The True-born Englishman.)

It is only necessary to take a very cursory glance at British history to see the truth behind the gibe of Defoe. During its history, Britain has received all kinds of peoples, and all of these, whether they arrived as invaders, immigrants, or refugees, have left their mark upon the present population. Most of these peoples have been thoroughly absorbed into the general population

Race and Language

Race is often also confused with language. For example, people often talk of the “Latin Races”, the “Celtic Races”, the “Slav Races”, and in doing so use terms which are, strictly speaking, self-contradictory. To take an instance, the use of the phrase “Latin Race” can only be taken to refer to those peoples who speak a language originally derived from Latin. Countries whose inhabitants speak such languages are France, Italy, Spain and Roumania, and their various offshoots and colonies, if they have any. No person in his senses would attempt to link up all these people on a racial basis, but the use of the term can imply this. Most of us use these phrases more in ignorance than by design, but it is as well to remember that they have, on more than one occasion, been used by various governments as cloaks for nationalistic ambitions. Such was the so-called “Anglo-Saxon” movement in England during the nineteenth century, and as though to offset this there also developed in France the cult of “Celtism” in which certain people professed to find the true source of the so-called “French spirit”. Similarly, the idea of an empire which would comprise the whole of the “Slav races” has long been a catch-cry of Russian governments whether the character of the ruling class be Tsarist or “Communist”. 

The most notorious example, however, of the deliberate misuse of a linguistic term to cover the propagation of false racial theories is the word Aryan, which was seized upon by the Nazis in Germany, and was so distorted by them that in time it came to be synonymous with non-Jewish. The word Aryan is a linguistic term. Used in the sciences which deal with the study of the development of languages, it describes a huge group of languages which are thought to have originated from a common stem. This group, to which is also applied the description “Indo-European”, includes languages as far apart as English, Latin, Greek, German, the Slav grant and Sanskrit. It has absolutely nothing to do with race.

As far as race and language are concerned, then, there is no argument but that they are both distinct and independent of each other. The factors which go to form the physical make-up of an individual are passed on from parents to offspring; they are hereditary traits. Language, on the other hand, is learned and acquired after birth and the capacity to learn it is in no way affected by the racial composition of the individual.

The Nazis

The use to which the Nazi regime put their race theories stands as a warning to the working-class of the dangers they fall victim to when they lend a willing ear to them. The Nazis, coldly and deliberately, step by step, adapted their theories according to the needs of the occasion. They so defined "Aryan", a distortion in itself as we have already shown, to include every German who was not also a Jew. After the signing of the treaty of alliance with Italy and the subsequent formation of the “Rome-Berlin Axis”, they carefully amended their doctrines to include their new allies, though according to their former ideas the Italians belonged to an inferior racial group. The most amazing example of their contempt for fact was when they “squared the circle” to provide the necessary racial basis for their alliance with Japan. To do this, they had to specifically exempt the Japanese from the ranks of the non-Aryans and by other devious, doubtful, and unconvincing means, they attempted to wriggle round the glaring contradictions between their theory and their practice.

With the Nazis the doctrines of racialism reached their logical and inevitable conclusion: the complete and utter prostitution of the true facts to the false theory. The absurdities of previous racialists appear sensible when compared with the efforts of their counterparts in Nazi Germany. As for the results of these doctrines in terms of human suffering and misery, they defy description. Millions of human beings finally fell victims to the Nazi’s policy of racial extermination.

Extracts from The Racial Problem. Published by the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

50 Years Ago: The Freethinkers (1960)

The 50 Years Ago column from the February 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mankind is prone to many errors. When, for instance, one mistake has been discovered and the error removed, many men fancy they have rid themselves of all wrong notions. Those people who, because they have abandoned certain religious superstitions are fond of calling themselves Freethinkers, often imagine they have banished superstition from their minds altogether. Vain delusion. The bulk of the so called Freethinkers, including their leading propagandists (such as C. Bradlaugh, G. W. Foote, and J. M. Robertson) still accept and repeat the wholly unsupported assertion of the parson Malthus, that the cause of poverty is over-population. In spite of the example of Ireland, which, under their very eyes, has had its population steadily decreasing during the last 50 years, yet the misery of its working-class continuing, they reiterate the same old superstition like the parsons they so often condemn.

From the Socialist Standard, February, 1910.

Race Prejudice (1960)

From the February 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

The root cause of modern race-prejudice is the capitalist system of society, a society of competition and struggle; struggle between capitalist and worker; struggle between capitalist and capitalist; struggle between worker and worker.

For the working-class, who constitute the overwhelming majority of its population, it is a society of poverty and insecurity; to most of them it offers not the slightest chance of escape from a lifetime of constant, heart-breaking effort to earn a living. For the working-class, it is a society which breeds war and strife, in which their masters, on whose behalf they fight, use every device to stimulate antagonism and haired between them. From the cradle to the grave, they are subjected to a mass of propaganda which deadens their minds, works on their prejudices, and endeavours by every means possible to turn their thoughts away from the real cause of their troubles. They are the tools of political leaders and demagogues who make them promises which they do not keep. Disappointed, they exchange one set of political leaders for another, whose promises are no more fulfilled than the promises of those before them.

They become disillusioned, bitter, and cynical; fair game for dictators and “strong men” who promise to lead them to a “promised land,’’ but instead lead them into greater disasters and misfortunes. All the time they are experiencing unemployment, poverty, insecurity, competition for jobs, struggles to “rise up the ladder." They seek to escape from the harsh world of reality in dreams and games of make-believe, in football pools and cinemas, but only for brief moments, for capitalism soon brings them back to things as they are, and not as they would wish them to be. They still have to contend with poverty, unemployment, insecurity, and war. For the working-class, capitalism is a society of mental, social, and economic frustration; as such it breeds race-prejudice as a swamp breeds pestilence.

Life and Times: The Charity Shop Manager (2022)

The Life and Times column from the February 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

I have a friend who volunteers in a local charity shop. Its purpose is to support the district hospice and my friend tells me that the volunteers she works with are ‘to a tee’ dedicated individuals happy to give their time and energy to help an institution they see as a social asset. The fly in the ointment for a long time, however, was that the paid employee appointed to manage the shop was what could only be called a tyrant.

She spent a lot of the time barking orders to the volunteers, criticising them for supposed mistakes and being unpleasant to customers coming in to look around and buy things. Not infrequently customers walked out when they were spoken to sharply by the manager or made to feel uncomfortable and one might imagine that, under such conditions, the volunteers too would vote with their feet. But that is not what happened. The volunteers, though doing unpaid work and finding themselves harassed for their trouble, didn’t walk out but stuck at it because they considered the contribution they were making to what they considered a worthy cause overrode their own comfort and convenience.

What Was To Be Done?

But clearly this could not go on indefinitely and, eventually, my friend told me, when the hospice organisers invited all staff to attend a meeting to discuss potential changes and improvements to the shop, the volunteers saw an opportunity to bring things into the open. They wrote a letter outlining what had been happening and at the meeting put it to the organisers that the shop was not working as well as it could since everyone was having to bear the brunt of what seemed to be the manager’s own unhappiness with her existence. The manager herself was at the meeting and remained silent, even though the hospice organisers seemed keen to defend and excuse her. The volunteers were discouraged, but then suddenly the manager was gone. She had left apparently and everyone agreed that the new manager who then came in was a breath of fresh air. She treated all, volunteers and customers alike, in a friendly, polite way and everyone said how much they enjoyed coming to work in the shop.

Human Nature

When I told this story to another friend, her first response was the ‘human nature’ one. She said that many people behave badly when they are ‘in charge’ and that’s the way things are naturally. But when I replied that the new manager was not behaving like that and that, given half a chance, most people, whether in charge or not, will actually behave in decent cooperative fashion towards those they come into contact with, she relented somewhat and said that the very fact that so many people volunteer to do things to help others without payment of any kind shows that human nature is actually a ‘mixed bag’. And she was right. People’s behaviour towards others is largely dependent on the situation they find themselves in and the state of mind that arises from that. In fact given the damaged lives of so many people in the society we live in and the pressures caused by work, want or insecurity, we might reasonably expect less decent, less cordial, less empathetic behaviour than we actually find. Yet the reality is that, given even half the chance, most people most of the time will behave decently towards others in most circumstances.

The Lesson?

What lesson to draw from the charity shop story? Here was a band of people prepared to give up their time and energy without any kind of payment to help less fortunate fellow human beings but being stymied in this by one individual whose own troubled life drove her in an uncooperative direction. The hierarchically organised nature of work in the society we live is a fertile breeding ground for such situations. But it is clearly not the way of organising things that the vast majority of people, given freedom of choice, would want. Of course, such freedom of choice is rarely available in the current society of production for profit with its imperative of ‘making a living’. But, in a different kind of society, it could be. That different kind of society is one based on cooperation instead of competition, on free access to all goods and services instead of buying and selling. As many studies have shown, the human race has survived not because humans wish to compete with one another or to do one another down, but because they cooperate, as the title of one book on the subject, The Survival of the Friendliest, has it. So, as socialists maintain, in a future society of production for use not profit human beings will be eminently capable of cooperating as free and equal men and women to run a social system in which mutual help and support for the satisfaction of social needs is their guiding principle. Just, in fact, as those charity shop volunteers, assisted by an empathetic manager, are doing now in their own small way – though, it must be said that charity, while an inevitable feature of today’s society, will disappear in all its forms in the society of voluntary cooperation and free access on which socialism will be based. It will simply not be necessary.

Howard Moss

Pathfinders: Is capitalism making us lose our marbles? (2022)

The Pathfinders Column from the February 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

The ongoing pandemic is more than a global health emergency, it’s a global mental health emergency, with evidence-based reasoning looking especially battered and bloody. Social media and preference algorithms have in the past decade escalated what were mostly marginal beliefs about pseudo-science, conspiracy theories and vaccine scepticism into what looks like a proliferating mass-psychosis.

Even some Marxists are not immune. A recent email from a French class war group begins ‘Behind the endless statist lie of the Coronavirus, a spectre haunts Europe: the spectre of communism.’ The spectre of Covid paranoia is more like it.

One doesn’t have to dig deep to find the shoddy capitalist motives behind all this. It’s not just would-be demagogues like Trump promoting barking-mad QAnon fantasies to get votes. Online ‘influencers’ have found they can monetise attention by making increasingly outrageous claims that attract shocked followings, thereby earning money from advertisers. Some, like the YouTuber who claims the Roman Empire never existed, will probably remain lone and batty outliers. Others including anti-vaxxers are literally making millions by exploiting people’s fear and suggestibility. Twelve of the richest and most shameless grifters are responsible for 65 percent of vaccine misinformation on all social media and 73 percent on Facebook (bit.ly/33pusOJ). Plenty of others are queuing up to plough this lucrative field.

At least half of the population at any one time believes in one or more conspiracy theories (bit.ly/3I9a2II). Why are humans so vulnerable? Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, currently touting his new book on rationality, thinks we have a natural tendency to tribalism and magical thinking, reined in by civilised society’s apparatus of science, fact checking and peer review (bbc.in/3I6WM7m). This is of a piece with his Hobbesian view that we are basically murderous brutes who need to be kept in line by coercive state regimes. But it’s a bit rich to be lectured on how to think rationally by someone rather obviously operating from his own set of a priori assumptions. As an example, in a recent BBC series on violence, Pinker commits an egregious sleight-of-hand in extrapolating evidence of Neolithic warfare (ie, from property societies of the last 10,000 years) backwards into the vast 300,000-year period of the non-propertied Palaeolithic, where no good evidence for it exists (bbc.in/3rt9K8E). As for science, that didn’t fall on us like a gift from the gods either. We created it ourselves precisely because we don’t need magical thinking, any more than we need police states.

Nonetheless he’s right that rationality is not a natural skill but an artificial one, like literacy and numeracy, and one which needs to be cultivated for the good of our ‘epistemic environment’. But we’re not cultivating it very well, a fact which the monetisers are able to exploit.

They know, for instance, that more than 90 percent of people hold some form of non-rational or delusional belief, from touching wood to wishing people luck. We’re all prone to well-known cognitive foibles such as confirmation, desirability and clustering biases, as well as the common intuitive short-cut of leaping to conclusions to save the slow analytical effort of slogging through evidence (bit.ly/3nsXrIl).

Poverty and low education are obviously fertile soil for an angry distrust of authority, leading to ‘establishment or world-order types of conspiracy’, but conversely, smart people can often be the easiest to fool, because of vanity and ‘a mistaken belief in their own abilities to filter truth from bullshit’ (bit.ly/33hlHGx).

People have a tendency to associate minor events with minor causes, and major events with major causes, a kind of symmetry bias. In one study, a group shown a fictitious story where a presidential assassination attempt failed were willing to believe a lone actor was responsible, but a second group, told the attempt succeeded, were more likely to believe there was a conspiracy behind it (bit.ly/3fpOTh0). If a princess has a car accident, it’s just an accident, but if it’s upsettingly fatal, that explanation feels too small to fill the yawning emotional hunger for cause to fit effect, so non-random explanations are hunted for, the more convoluted the better. Such an emotional need can be weaponised. Thus a global pandemic becomes no longer just an unforeseen catastrophe but an intentional plot to abolish liberty and turn us into zombies.

Biases creep in when we’re not looking. One recent study showed that ‘People share fake news online even when they can tell it’s not true’, but only if the fake news resonates with their own political views. Conversely, they are far less likely to share it if they think it’s true, but not in line with their own beliefs. The study found however that if people are first asked to evaluate a news story, they are much less likely to pass it on if they think it’s false, regardless of their own views, suggesting that we can be more analytical if prompted (bit.ly/3ttRDCm).

Then there is the remarkable fact that if you are simply told a thing, you are less likely to believe it than if you have to solve a puzzle to discover it, so that a cleverly written narrative using fake evidence is more effective if it makes the reader work to unravel the implications (bit.ly/3nrdvdQ).

Fortunately these tricks don’t work on everyone because there are also other mechanisms at work, notably ‘plausibility checking’, which relies on comparing new information to known and reliable sources. This may explain why, for instance, studies show that political campaigns don’t really work in changing the minds of voters, and why Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda had little effect in areas with no history of prejudice (bit.ly/31Y9yFM). Nevertheless, it’s questionable how many people routinely employ plausibility checking given that it runs against the grain of intuitive thinking, in short, it’s more effort.

So the internet is confronting us with a rationality crisis, because there’s money in them thar shills. In one town, fake news is the main industry (cnn.it/3Ab6Vx5). Capitalism could do more to fight this trend, of course, but it has no great interest in us being rational because rational people would get rid of it. It spews myths the way a factory spews smoke, hiding itself inside a cloud of bogus values, bogus facts and bogus scapegoats.

How should socialists answer those who believe in global hoaxes and conspiracies? Patient refutation doesn’t work because their views are built on self-fulfilling logic. Expecting attack, they become adept at defensive attrition, demanding evidence and then ignoring it, changing the subject constantly to keep you off-balance and playing catch-up, knowing it’s all more exhausting for you than it is for them. But despite everything, people often do recover from such cognitive traps, just like they recover from religious delusions. Some deeper reason reasserts itself. All we can do is show empathy for whatever emotional need has driven them into the trap in the first place, and nudge them supportively towards the larger truth, which is that their real enemy is not a thing you can touch or a group of people you can hate, but a simple set of social relationships, ones we have the power to change together.

Paddy Shannon