Fish and Conchies (1942)

From the March 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Sunday Pictorial publishes letters from its readers under the title of "Voice of the People." On Sunday, January 25th, a hater of conchies urged that they should all be made to catch fish with pay at 1s. a day. Alternatively, they should be issued with conspicuously marked ration books which only allowed them foods which men have NOT risked their lives to get.

So conchies should catch fish for one shilling a day! Speaking of fish, we remember a time when particularly large catches of fish were thrown back into the sea. This happened, of course, in the piping days of peace and prosperity. They were discarded, because certain interested capitalists feared that so large an abundance might interfere with their rate of profit. Many workers, particularly the free unemployed, would have enjoyed some of this "surplus" fish.

May we be permitted to suggest that it would be quite a good idea to make the individuals responsible do a spot of fishing themselves. Possibly, after several months at sea, they would consider the advisability of tipping unwanted catches into the briny.

But, of course, these people are not conscientious objectors. They are busy trying to fight, or urging others to fight, for freedom—the freedom to burn food, pour milk down the drains, use wheat as fuel, and, of course, thrown fish into the sea, as their profit-making activities require.

The view that conchies should not be allowed to eat food for which other men have risked their lives affords us some cynical amusement.  Workers also risk their lives during the periods of capitalist peace. They suffer mutilation and death in the mines and factories. And the fruit of their labour is used to make easy and joyful the lives of the propertied few. Shall we issue these people with specially marked ration books? But ah, they are not conscientious objectors.

Kaye.

Editorial: What will you be doing in the '90s? (1990)

Editorial from the January 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

The final decade of the century begins. What shall we do? Two options face us. We can have more of the same: more of the profit system where needs will only be satisfied if it benefits the rich minority to sell us access to the wealth of the Earth. Or we can choose the socialist alternative. We take the resources of the world away from the privileged few who monopolise them now and establish common ownership and democratic control of the means of life.

We take the factories, the farms, the offices, the mines, the media, transport—all of the means of producing and distributing wealth—and we say that these no longer belong to the few, but are the common possession of everyone. Instead of the buying and selling system, under which everything, including our own power to work, is regulated by markets and profits, we could abolish the market, and with it the system of wage slavery which turns work into the exploitation of workers by capitalists. We can continue to have a two-class society where those who do not produce possess and the wealth producers possess little between us, or we can abolish the anachronism of classes and live co-operatively as human beings, regardless of age, race or sex. We could work together to produce according to our many different abilities; we could take on the basis of free access from the common store of social wealth, without having to consider the obscene and ridiculous inequalities between those who are "rich" and those who are "poor". We could produce solely for use: food to eat, homes to live in, trains and planes to travel on. Just for use, not so that capitalists can accumulate more and more profit.

There is no third choice. There never has been. When the Socialist Party was formed in 1904 its founders were told by certain sincere people that, whilst they did not like the profit system and its disregard to human needs, neither did they think it possible to bring about such a huge transformation in social affairs as socialism will entail. These doubters, who called us the impossibilists, went on to waste most of this century trying to achieve what is possible for the workers under capitalism. Many of them united within the newly-formed Labour Party (or Labour Representation Committee as it called itself in those early days). They offered to the working class the naive hope of a reformed and decent version of the profit system. Their moment of victory, when government power became theirs, was the moment of cruel truth. Labour governments, as all but the most naive must now see, have done nothing but act in accordance with the dictates of the economic laws of class society.

In such a society you cannot serve both classes' interests; eight Labour governments of this century served one master, the capitalist class. A future Labour government offers no third way between capitalism and the case for socialist revolution as advocated consistently by the Socialist Party. The Labour Party should be abandoned as a useless, dishonest gang of reform-schemers who cannot deliver anything different. The new reformists of the Green Party, with their attempts to evolve a pragmatic path between a clean, balanced environment and the continuation of the market, should be forced to make the crucial choice: either they stick with supporting capitalism and drop all the radical talk, or they transcend mere radical noise-making and embrace socialism. No third way.

Socialism will only come about when there is a majority of socialists ready to take democratic action. Again, there is no other way. The Leninist myth that workers can be forced to be liberated, and then ruled oppressively by so-called proletarian dictators, has been demonstrated to be both wrong and dangerous. Workers do not need to be led: we do not require the established politicians and we do not require left-wing vanguards, like the SWP, with their patronising plans to run a new "workers' state" in our interest. If there is to be change, then the workers must bring it about. If there is to be a socialist revolution, then the majority of the working class must be in on the act.

Building a socialist majority is the task of the Socialist Party. It was in 1904, it was in 1980, it remains so and, if necessary, will still be pursued in the year 2000. Ours is the only party in this country putting forward genuine socialist ideas. We have a duty to spread them as vigorously as we can. We shall continue in the 1990s to put before the workers the plain, principled case for socialism. We shall show that capitalism is not worthy of the workers' respect or support; it is a system of legalised robbery and we, the majority, are the robbed. We shall show that socialism is not just desirable, but is practical. Our job is to apply socialist principles to the problems of everyday life and to show that the alternative will work.

We, the Socialist Party, will proceed with the urgency of men and women who know that the socialist change must be brought about before the profit system kills and injures and impoverishes countless more of our fellow workers. We will be making a noise in the 1990s; the more of us there are, the louder the noise shall be. So, what will you be doing in the 1990s, fellow worker?

The Revolutionary Road to Socialism (1986)

Book Review from the December 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Revolutionary Road to Socialism by Alex Callinicos, (Socialist Workers Party, Second Edition, February 1986)

Formed in 1951 as the Socialist Review Group, changed in 1960 to the International Socialists, the to the Socialist Workers' Party in 1977, they claim to represent the revolutionary socialist tradition in Britain. Callinicos says there are two other "socialist traditions" in Britain — Labourism and Stalinism — and that these have proved to be dead ends. That the Labour Party and the Communist Party are dead ends is true enough, but where is the evidence that they were ever socialist? Come to that, on what grounds do the SWP claim to be socialist?

The SWP attempt to justify their insurrectionary politics with the assumption that the Labour Party has sought to establish "socialism" and failed. According to Callinicos:

Throughout this century working people in Britain have placed their hopes in the Labour Party as a means through which they could improve their lot and achieve a socialist society.

Callinicos concludes that, as the Labour Party have failed to establish socialism, this also proves that socialists cannot use parliament. But his assumption is false. What most working people have really done throughout this century is place their hopes in reformist political parties to improve their lot within capitalism. If some left wingers thought that a Labour government implementing reforms (such as nationalisation) would lead to socialism, then they were mistaken. The reality behind the left wing rhetoric is that if some Labour supporters felt betrayed by Labour governments being run by capitalism, then their hopes were misplaced: it is not the case that the Labour Party changed from being something it was never in the first place. In other words, the Labour Party has never had a mandate for socialism and has always been committed to capitalism.

So it is not, as Callinicos claims, that the parliamentary road to socialism has failed; it has never been tried. The sad but indisputable fact is that there has never been more than a small minority of socialists in any country. But Callinicos sees "revolutionary situations" even when the workers themselves do not want it:

So, in 1918-19 the Social Democratic Party in Germany, elected by massive workers' votes, allied themselves with the Imperial General Staff of the army to prevent the workers taking power.

Callinicos argues that the SWP stand for "socialism from below" and he endorses Marx's claim that socialism is "the self-emancipation of the working class"; but there is one contradictory qualification — the leading role of the party. This enables Callinicos to maintain that the Russian revolution of 1917 was a revolution for socialism which later degenerated when the revolution failed to spread into the West. But here again, his assumption is false. Whatever the Bolsheviks may have said or done, most of the workers and peasants in Russia wanted peace, bread and land—not socialism. In any case, self-emancipation and leadership contradict each other, and this has caused much Leninist ink to be spilt on the dangers of "substitutionalism" — the party substituting its own wishes for those of the masses because the party knows best. This totalitarian strategy can be avoided if the majority of workers know what they are doing before the socialist revolution takes place, in which case leadership becomes irrelevant.

Above all, the irrelevance of the SWP can be seen in their conception of socialism: "For what is socialism?" asks Callinicos, and he replies:

With the frills removed, it is people collectively running society. Instead of being prisoners of anarchic capitalist competition and the mad rush of profit at any cost, it is working together for the common good. Our tremendous co-operative power would be controlled, not by a ruling class in the search for ever greater profits, but democratically and for the fulfillment of human need.

This is about as sound a definition of socialism as you will get from the SWP but, as with other statements coming from them, extreme caution should be used. Profits will still be made, even if these go only to the state. Profits will still be made because workers will still be paid wages. Workers are exploited through the wages system and the wages system presupposes that the workers do not possess the means of production. Moreover, what would happen of the workers went on strike for higher wages in this "socialist" society, and who would they be striking against? Although the SWP recognise that Russia is state capitalist, it is clear that their conception of "socialism" means state capitalism. There can only be one conclusion. The SWP represent the state capitalist ideology of Leninism and, as such, are yet another dead end for those seeking the revolutionary road to socialism.

Lew Higgins

The Kinder Scout Trespass (1982)

From the April 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

This year sees the fiftieth anniversary of the legendary Kinder Scout Trespass. On 24 April, hundreds of ramblers are expected to converge on Hayfield, in the Peak District, to celebrate the event. It was from here that the original march began, a march that to end with six of its members being jailed. This action caused a sensation at the time and controversy still occasionally flickers, in exchanges between old members in the Rucksack, the journal of the Ramblers Association. However, the trespass has now become part of the folklore of the rambling fraternity.

Kinder Scout is a high point in the Peak District, overlooking the densely populated lowlands of industrial Lancashire. It is claimed that on a clear day the suburbs of Manchester can be seen from the summit. So it is natural that workers in these crowded area should turn to the hills for an escape from dreary surroundings and for a chance to breathe clean air. But these same hills were the cherished grouse moors, playground of the rich. Here the wealthy indulged in an annual blood sacrifice, politely called sport. Here half-tame birds were driven into a circle of guns: it may be possible to miss them, but it is very difficult. The birds had to be closely guarded and allowed to breed in comfort and safety, in case a carelessly placed proletarian should cheat an aristocratic gun of its prey.

Clashes between walkers and landowners were not confined to the North; but here it took on a more brutal form, with actual assaults by gamekeepers on walkers. Some of the contemporary reports of clashes with gamekeepers make alarming reading. Many of the guardians of the moors seem to have bordered on the insane. Thus it was against a background of great bitterness that the Kinder Scout Mass Trespass took place.

Walking in the country, usually called rambling, was a well established pastime, dating from the nineteenth century or even earlier; but in the 1930s a new name came in from the Continent—"hiking'. For a decade hiking became the in thing. The song I'm Happy When I'm Hiking became a hit, and paved the way for a host of imitations. The hiker, with his "hiker's uniform" of open-necked shirt, baggy trousers and rolled down socks, became a familiar figure, not only in reality but on posters and advertisements. They were a godsend to music hall comics and along with nudist camps, another 1930's phenomenon, contributed generously to the subject matter of seaside post cards. They were, in fact, an example of uni-sex, with men and women sporting the same casual outfit. They can still be seen on old newsreels and on nostalgic television programmes. One of the attractions of hiking was that it was cheap—particularly appealing in areas of high unemployment.

As a result of the popularity of hiking, political and religious organisations began to see possibilities in hiking clubs as a means of propagating their ideas and gaining members by back door methods. The old rambling clubs had been largely non-political, and are so today, but clubs with political or religious aims sprang up. This reflected continental practice, where such clubs were openly political.

The body which organised the trespass, the British Workers Sports Federation, or BWSF, has been accused of being a Communist Party front organisation. This is hotly denied by others, and there is no point at this distance in trying to sort out the truth or otherwise of this claim. Certainly there were political overtones. Bernard Rothman, who led the trespass, is a Communist as he himself states, but he claims that the BWSF was a very real sports body. True or false, at the subsequent trial of the six people much was made of communist links, and undoubtedly this went against the defendants and reflected the anti-communist hysteria prevailing at the time. The jury at the trial included two brigadier generals, three colonels, two mayors, three captains and eleven country gentlemen—not exactly an unbiased collection. Ten years later they would be singing the praises of the Soviet Union and the Red Army, and expressing admiration for that pillar of democracy, Joseph Stalin. That however lay well in the future; in 1932 they saw in this handful of young men a threat to society.

The details of the trespass were as follows. On the afternoon of 24 April 1932, a Sunday, four hundred people gathered in Hayfield. The ground had already been well prepared. An announcement in the Manchester Evening News was splashed in bold headlines. In the 30s, before radio and television robbed newspapers of much of their importance, evening papers were widely read. Other papers joined in, and leaflets were distributed at railway stations. There was also much chalking of pavements (Chalk was widely favoured for political slogans, before the coming of the aerosol paint spray. It had the advantage of washing away in the rain, so you did not get political slogans years out of date still visible.) Chalking squads were a common sight before an event like this. The official rambling organisations stayed away, but the police turned up in force.

The crowd began to march off in the direction of Kinder Scout, singing the Red Flag and the Internationale as well as the usual songs. On the way up a fight broke out between keepers and demonstrators, in which one keeper was injured. They walked to Kinder Scout, held a meeting, and then returned to Hayfield in a body. It was on return to Hayfield that the arrests were made. There is even disagreement as to whether they actually reached Kinder Scout or Ashop Head, which is 400 feet lower, but it seems unlikely that people with knowledge of the area would make such a mistake. However, doubtless all such disagreements will be absent from the coming re-union.

The Kinder Scout Trespass was a romantic and exciting episode in the long, dour struggle for better access to the mountains. This struggle still goes on. In the fifty years which have passed since that day much progress has been made. Better access to mountains, the creation of national parks and long distance footpaths have brought improvements; there will, in fact, be a fell race over Kinder Scout itself. But fresh problems keep arising. The grubbing up of hedges and ploughing of footpaths in pursuit of greater profits, the wrecking of green lanes by heavy farm machinery, turning them into quagmires, and the ugly concrete buildings of the modern factory farm are just a few examples of this. The whole question of access to the countryside is just one small aspect of the continuing struggle between those who own and those who do not.

Les Dale 

Would you believe it? (2015)

Book Review from the June 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

'Towards A Science of Belief Systems', by Edmund Griffiths. Palgrave Macmillan. 2014

Edmund Griffiths has recently been a Research Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford and this philosophical work was written as a product of his research there. His aim is a laudable one:

‘How other people think and feel, both generally and individually, seems to me to be one of the things in life that are most urgent and most compellingly worth knowing’ (p.154).

As such, this is a study about sets of ideas, their component elements and how these elements interlock and lead on from one another. Griffiths contends that the most effective way to understand belief systems – irrespective of their content or nature – is through a method he calls ‘descriptive logic’.  This is an objective method that can be used regardless of whether one agrees with the belief systems being analysed or not.

He uses it to discuss belief systems as varied as Fabianism, Gnosticism, and flying saucers. Here, below, is an illustration of it with regard to alternative historiography, where the proposition A could range, for instance, from the view that Giza is really modelled on Orion’s Belt, to ‘9/11 Truth theories’, to the view that the moon is really an artificial construction:

‘1. Official knowledge is drab, conformist, monolithic, and an obstacle to the free exercise of the imagination and of the sense of wonder.

2. Therefore, official knowledge should be refuted.

3. Official knowledge is incompatible with the proposition that A,

4. and yet some evidence can be assembled which does tend to show thatA.

5. Therefore, A.

6. Therefore, official knowledge is wrong.

7. Therefore, we are once again free to imagine for ourselves and to feel wonder’ (pp.123-4).

Griffiths has developed his descriptive logical method in a way that is underpinned by the Marxist materialist conception of history though he argues that his method is in its early stages and much more work has now to be done (including logical annotations of key representative texts to illustrate how the ideas presented develop, interlock, and link with similar types of argument presented elsewhere).

In style, the book verges from the wry and whimsical at times to the difficult – it is, after all, a theoretical work and one which is academically rigorous. Griffiths is also exceptionally well read and the text is illustrated by references that range from the pronouncements of the North Korean state to quotations from ancient poetry.

The general method and standpoint of Griffiths is not incompatible with our own. In terms of its objective (if not method) it also has some similarity with the theory of systematic ideology developed by Harold Walsby, George Walford and others. This was a group who left the SPGB in the 1940s and who became motivated by a need to understand the ideologies of the modern world – their defining features, how they interlock and particularly the limitations on their spread and development.

We have sparred with the advocates of this theory many times in the past, though ironically this is one book that might have benefited from a consideration of their ideas. This is because – whatever the flaws in their arguments – theirs was one of the very few other attempts to traverse this type of terrain. In essence, they attempted to use a dialectical method to account for why people think as they do, why types of ideas recur persistently in society, and why some seem to attract more adherents than others.

Nevertheless, it is clear Edmund Griffiths has produced a very useful and informative book that represents a significant contribution to the study of belief systems, both ancient and modern.

DAP

Business as usual (1963)

Editorial from the November 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the last few months, the Tory Party has been rent by internal squabbles and has staggered from one crisis to another, culminating in the Profumo affair. No longer the arrogantly confident party who won the 1959 election, it was perhaps inevitable that they (or at least some of them) would thrown some pretty hefty brickbats at Mr. Macmillan, and make strong demands for his resignation. Nevertheless, it did seem that he had weathered the immediate storm and would survive long enough at least to lead the Conservatives at the next general election.

His sudden illness on the eve of the Tory conference changed all that. Within a matter of hours it was know that his resignation was imminent, and almost as quickly the flimsy facade of unity was whipped away and the undignified scramble between the contenders for his position was there for all to see. According to most pressmen present, the conference was gripped with near-hysteria when it was known that the leadership was vacant. Four candidates were in the lists straight away—Butler, Hailsham, Home and Maudling—and touting for support began. Undignified indeed: as bad in that respect as the Labour Party ever was.

Now that the fight is over and Douglas Home has emerged as the Tories' new leader, we may expect frantic efforts to paper over the cracks and present a single face to the electorate, in much the same way that their Labour rivals have done since Wilson took over. When the next election comes it will at least be interesting to see which of them is the more successful in keeping the cracks covered.

And while comparing the two parties, it has been said that the Tory method of choosing a leader is less democratic than Labour's. Be that as it may the thing which matters to both organisations is that the new man will be a sure vote catcher at the next poll, one who can convince working class voters that his party can solve their problems for them. He is the one who will get the rank-and-file support, never mind for the time being the method of appointing him. Here it is that the new Tory leader will not differ very much from his predecessor. Like Macmillan he will tell us that his party will cure our social ills. And just like Macmillan they will fail to do so.

Does it really matter, then , who gas got the Conservative leadership laurel now? There was certainly plenty of furore and speculation both in and out of the Tory Party at the time, and we were constantly reminded of this man's qualities as against that man's faults. But we seem to remember that "bright boys" have held the reins in the past, and the ills of capitalism have still been there when they were gone. So we will answer our own question. No, it doesn't really matter very much. For the Capitalist Class it will be business as usual. For the Working class exploitation as usual.

Why Study Economics? (1951)

From the September 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are sometimes asked why we should spend our time studying economics, and told that there are enough problems and evils in Capitalism for us to attack without wasting our time on such a dry-as-dust subject as economics. We reply, in the first place, by saying that we do not find economics dry-as-dust, but, on the contrary, we find it fascinating, as it is the only way by which the world we live in can be explained. Secondly, it is only be a knowledge of economics that we can explain the poverty and exploitation of the working class, and, what is far more important, how that poverty and exploitation can be ended.

The economics we study is that first of all laid down by one of the founders of scientific Socialism, Karl Marx. The first sentence of the first chapter of the first volume of his monumental work "Capital" says:—

"The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails presents itself as "am immense accumulation of commodities," its unit being a single commodity. Our investigation must therefore begin with the analysis of a commodity."

Marx then proceeds to examine the commodity. He strips it of all incidental factors—shape, size, quality, use and so on, and finds that all commodities have one thing in common. They are the product of human labour. This characteristic is common to all commodities, and Marx proceeds to examine the exchange relationship between them. As commodities have only one thing that is measurable in common, it must be this that governs the exchange of commodities. Marx lays down that the value of a commodity in exchange must be determined by the amount of socially necessary labour involved in its production. "Socially necessary," mark you, that is, labour under the prevailing conditions and with average skill and produced at an average rate,

Then, one commodity emerges that is different to all others—the commodity labour power—the physical and mental energies of the worker. This, too, is exchanged like any other commodity, and its exchange is governed by the amount of socially necessary labour involved in its production. Here we have the secret of the poverty of the working class. On the whole they can never receive in wages more than enough to keep them going week by week as members of the working class. Surely this should be obvious to you from your own experience. You know that you can never save enough to be able to say that when you wish it you can leave the arena of wagedom and start to enjoy a full and free life. Wages are, in fact, the badge of slavery and slavery will last as long as the wages system remains.

There are, of course, some, a few, not more than 10 per cent of the population, whose position is very different from that of the workers. For them, and in their interests the workers work. For them, the workers produce what we know as surplus value, that is, the amount of wealth produced by the workers over and above what they take in the form of wages. Surplus value produces for the capitalist, rent, interest and profit and the aim of the capitalist is to always increase the amount of surplus value produced. Thus we have speeding up and intensification of the labour process. But the surplus value produced has to be sold as no capitalist wishes to hold on to stocks of commodities produced in his factories. This leads to rivalries on the international field, a struggle for markets, for sources of raw materials, and, at times, for sources of cheap labour power. This is the root of war in the modern world.

You will see now the value of a study of economics—the most valuable and interesting study there can be. In this article we have only touched on the fringe of the subject. There is plenty more for you to learn and we earnestly ask you to get down to the job of learning. We want Socialism established quickly and you are the people who have to establish it. We know that, in Marx's words, "Every beginning is difficult," but in the case of the study of economics the beginning is much worth while.

Clifford Groves

A Common Objection Answered. (1914)

From the July 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

Opposition at Socialist meetings often takes the form of asking for a detailed plan of Socialism, and on receiving the reply that none can be given, the opposer declares triumphantly that Socialism is impracticable.

Now, as a matter of fact, any forecast of the details of a future system of society will be vitiated by its being coloured by conceptions engendered by our present environment. As all our ideas are suggested by our material surroundings, past and present, we cannot mentally project ourselves into a form of society that has never yet been in existence.

Further, no detailed plan is necessary for the attainment of Socialism. We know that Capitalism was brought about by the revolution that destroyed the old society, Feudalism. Were the pioneers of that revolution, the men who fought the battle of the rising bourgeoisie against the feudal nobility, prepared with a plan of capitalist society? Had they in mind such details as wheat corners, massacres, and Liberator swindles? No, it was sufficient for the purpose to wrest the political machinery out of the hands of the feudal nobility. The details of Capitalism have been settled by the capitalists themselves as they have arisen. Similarly, it is sufficient for the working class to capture the political machinery and to seize the mean of production and distribution. The details of Socialist society will then be settled by the people as they arise. The broad basis of Socialism, viz., the common ownership of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, and their democratic control by the people, is sufficient for the present.

Moreover, the opposer is not usually very consistent, for he is probably either a Liberal or a Conservative. If the former he would at the last general election have voted for Home Rule for Ireland, without having any knowledge of the details of the present Home Rule Bill. If a Conservative he would have voted for Tariff Reform, of which Mr. Balfour has declared no details can be given thus: "I may say incidentally that I am not going to be bullied by our opponents into doing what they never think of doing, which is to give an account of the precise details of their procedure some years hence".

H. T. Edwards.

Ownership and Political Power. (1926)

From the June 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have received an Edinburgh journal called "The Proletariat," the organ of the British Section of the Socialist Labour Party. This is a body which has "existed" since 1912 and broke away from the now defunct Socialist Labour Party. Why they call themselves the British Section it is hard to judge, because the other Socialist Labour Party (in America) repudiate them.

"The State of the S.P.G.B." is the title of an article purporting to deal with us. The state of this British Section of the S.L.P. may be judged from their criticism which we quote:—

"To show far misconception dominates the S.P.G.B., Engels, in the closing chapters of Origin of the Family points out that the State derives all its substance via taxation from the economic factors. These dominate the State which includes the Army and Navy. In a word, condition them in the fullest meaning of the term. And, further, the capitalist class to-day, who are the economic masters of all wealth, mark you, the civil power, subject that military thing to their requirements, increase or decrease it as the case demands. The owners of the economic wealth factors are masters of the situation.
"The S.P.G.B. position that 'dispossession necessitates disarmament,' suggest that it is the armed force that dominates the situation, and consequently, from the Marxian position, must be ruled out."

Can criticism be more idiotic?

Ownership depends upon power to maintain possession, therefore the capitalists depend upon their control of political power, which gives control of the armed forces. As Marx says in the Communist Manifesto, the first step in the emancipation of the working class is the winning of political supremacy.

Engels, in his "Retrospect," points out the all-importance of political action for the purpose of wresting control from the hands of the employing class.

The recent general strike completely justifies our position that those who control the armed forces dominate the situation. Hence a capitalist victory.

Our critics quote from the January, 1925, issue of the "Socialist Standard" on disarmament. Let us give the full statement from that issue:

"Ownership to-day consists not in occupation but in mere legal title, meaningless, unless recognised and upheld by the forces of State. The overthrow of the capitalist ownership, therefore, and the establishment of common ownership, involves the capture of the State by the working-class. Dispossession necessitates disarmament. The organisation of the working-class must, therefore be a political organisation i.e., a Socialist Party."

Like all other species of Anarchists the so-called S.L.P. of Edinburgh offer no alternative to political action.

Adolph Kohn

Ends and Means (1959)

From the July 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

THE ETHICS OF MARXISM (2) (See Part 1 here.)

One of the difficulties of Mr. Taylor's pamphlet, Is Marxism a Humanism?* is that he never seems quite sure of what he means to say and consequently we are not quite sure that he is saying what he means. His indulgence—one might say over-indulgence—in dialectical and philosophical jargon adds to the difficulty.

A conclusion he reaches, if one can say he does anything so definite as that, is that Stalinism is a distortion of Marxism but nevertheless there are elements in Marxism which lend itself to this distortion. The class morality of Marxism, he contends, is defective. Negatively it assumes a mechanistic and amoral approach for the sake of the struggle. Positively, and this is the more truly Marxist view, he further adds, its goal, which is socialised humanity, is in conflict with its own attitudes of hatred to those who oppose or refuse to associate themselves with Marxist doctrine.

It is true that the debased political morality of communists include hard lying and physical and moral liquidation, and that "the end justifies the means" is integral to the Communist ethic. But this cannot be inferred from any elements in Marxist political doctrine. Marx never suggested the personal liquidation of capitalists. Neither did he adumbrate in any way, hatred of capitalists, as a political tactic. Hate, to be effective, must to a very large extent be personified. That, and the attributing of motives to individuals, has been an important part of communist propaganda technique. Against this, Marxism as a social theory has, perhaps that any other social theory, made motives an integral part of its doctrine. Indeed it was no other than Marx himself who stated in the preface to the first edition of Capital:

To prevent possible misunderstanding, a word. I paint the capitalist and landlord in no sense, couleur de rose. But here individuals are dealt with only in so far as they are the personification of economic categories, embodiments of particular class relations and class interests. My standpoint, from which the economic formation of society is viewed as a process of natural history, can less than any other make the individual responsible for relations whose creature he socially remains, however much he may subjectively raise himself above them.

For Marx it was not the negative emotion of hate but the positive value of moral indignation which constitutes the dynamic of the Marxist ethic. 

Love and Hate
As Marxists we do not hate those who are opposed to us. We do not even make bad intent or insincerity the basis of our evaluation of their ideas. It is the logic and claims of their views which we rigorously and consistently oppose. Not to do so would be a highly unethical practice.

But although hate is not and has never ben part of our ethic, we do not share Mr. Taylor's view which enjoins everybody to love everybody. Love and hate are not, as Mr. Taylor seems to think, abstract categories. It is only in a given historical context that it becomes possible to give them an ethical evaluation. Love, like any other sentiment, is a question of human relations whether it arises from sex, friendship, or mutual service and co-operation. In the vast impersonal organisation of capitalist production, where the ruling motive is ruling class profit, the impulse for genuine co-operative effort and mutual service finds no adequate human outlet. One cannot even talk about love as a positive social value between men and men in a world of buyers and sellers and where the buying and selling of men's productive capacities is the major social transaction out of which accrues private gain and advantage. Man it is true does not live by bread alone but he cannot live as truly man in a world of commodity production where the relations between men take on the aspect of relations between things.

Impoverishment
Perhaps history's greatest indictment of capitalism will not be what it has done to men economically but what it has done to them emotionally. No other social organisation has so impoverished man of his rich many-sided endowments. In the historic development of its private property relations and institutions, it has progressively stolen from human nature its powers and thoughts, tenderness and affections.

Little wonder that such deprivation made men emotionally susceptible to the fierce hates of nationalism, anti-semitism and race prejudice. That is why when Mr. Taylor talks of dealing with race-prejudice on its own terms, he fails to see that the division of labour which which alienates man from his full productive and intellectual capacities and from others of his kind, makes him a means instead of an end to the productive process with all the anti-social consequences which follow. Race prejudice, like other social prejudices, is not an isolated thing which can be treated on its own terms. Capitalism produces a vast range of prejudices which feed into each other. Given a system which offers no full development of men's productive powers and their mental, aesthetic and emotional corollaries, little wonder that unfulfilled personal development, finds compensatory outlets which often take on an anti-social character.

To call upon men to practice tolerance, goodwill and love as Mr. Taylor suggests is to utter hollow abstractions, in a world of class conflicts, national rivalries and hatred where subterfuge, chicanery and power politics are the normal way of conducting world affairs. Like the Christian's "God is Love" it is inhuman because in existing society it has no human roots.

That is why the sugary piety of abstract ethics which claim to transcend all social conflicts, serves to veil the objective nature of social reality. For that reason it is delusory, deceptive and dangerous.

Even when dealing with hatred and violence it is impossible to say, when considered in the abstract, whether they are good or bad. For one cannot say what hate or violence is in the abstract. These things, like love, can only be evaluated in a social context. Thus if people were being oppressed by a rapacious minority, hate for the oppressors would be a normal and human emotion. To love their oppressors would be an abnormal and inhuman feeling. If anyone suggested that love, non-violence and humility were the only answer to the social situation, it would be a servile and bad viewpoint. Such a viewpoint, however has always enjoyed considerable favour in the Christian ethics. If, on the other hand, hatred born of oppression produced violence, of a degree that led to a relaxation of oppression, then the means would have been consistent with the end, i.e. a lessening of the yoke of servitude.

The Marxist does not advocate violence or hatred because they are inconsistent with the end in view—a classless society of free labour and production for use. The end itself, however, determines the means.

Ends and Means
The function of the means is to overcome the obstacles which separate us from the end. Thus the real significance of any goal can only be understood in relation to the means necessary to attain it. An intelligent choice of ends can only be made when the consequence of the use of our means has been taken into consideration. If the end is a classless society consciously brought into being by the vast majority, then the means can only be helping to bring this consciousness to the required majority. Hate and violence are in this context inconsistent with these ends. To substitute then as means would mean to change the ends. That there can be no basic separation of ends and means is integral to Marx's doctrines.

Mr. Taylor's second point is what about those social elements who would have no share in a socialist society and against whom recriminatory methods would be adopted? This, he argues, is consistent with Marx's doctrine. One can only say, and this was also the view of Marx, that no one would be excluded from freely participating in socialist production. Neither did Marx say that certain social elements would be proceeded against in the event of the social revolution forthwith. He did say, and at that time there were pretty good reasons for so saying, that counter-revolutionary action would, in the interest of the vast majority, have to be vigorously dealt with, and that is quite compatible with democratic procedure.

But this is where we came in. Mr. Taylor never discusses Socialism at the Marxist level or indeed at any level. For him Russia remains the archetype of the social revolution. He appears to think that Socialism à la Communist and Trotskyist will be directed by an elite—social engineers who will blue print and shape the raw human potential into the manufactured Socialist article. On such premises, Mr. Taylor goes in for a lot of soul-searching as to what might happen to this raw material in the manufacturing process, and he discovers that it falls short of a true humanism. But his dilemma has no basis in Marx or Marxism, it is rooted in his own assumptions.

Socialism
Socialist society cannot begin until the vast majority of the dispossessed realise that capitalist property relations and the division of labour which arises from it are the real barriers which hamper and frustrate the development of the individual in the widest sense, out of the energising of their knowledge and experience they will act accordingly. Mr. Taylor is wrong when he thinks that Marxists, along with Marx, hold that the basic thing is the overthrow of capitalist relations and the devil take the hindmost. In a fundamental sense, the abolition of capitalist property relations is merely the necessary condition which makes possible the releasing of men's energies, capacities and will to re-integrate themselves in the new society.

But there will be no enlightened few, politically and economically directing the uninitiated many, because the many will have gained the social experience to direct society along the path it wishes to go. There may be in the building of socialist society much to learn, and some things to unlearn. One thing history will have taught, however, is that love, goodwill, the rights of the individual, can only have real meaning in an equalitarian and humanist society.

The Rights of Man
Mr. Taylor's concern for the individual seems to spring from the idealisation of the rights of man, as put forward by Kant and others. But the rights of man, no matter how idealistically they are framed, can never in a truly human sense be realised in capitalist society: only a socialist society can make the individual free, and this becomes possible because, in the self-conscious act of abolishing itself as a class, it abolishes all other classes. Thus, it makes possible a reversal of the historic process. In all previous epochs the individual can only assert himself through a social class. But the working class has no interests itself as a class. Their only interest is to abolish classes and become classless individuals whose free association constitutes socialistic humanity. Only in and through socialism will the individual truly come into his own. Freedom of the individual constitutes the social, one might say the moral basis of socialist society; as such it will be an enduring element in all further social development.

In spite of Mr. Taylor's wanting to fight for colonial freedom, his main position, in ambivalent contrast to these vague phrases, seems to be the advocacy of the classless ethics of Kant and Christ. We shall in another issue examine the social validity of such ethics and the place of ethics in the Marxist scheme of things and his assertion that there are more fundamental cleavages in society than class division.

Ted Wilmott

The Discomfiture of Lawler Wilson. (1908)

Party News from the June 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fine debate at Battersea.

On the 3rd ulto, the debate arranged between J. Fitzgerald of the S.P.G.B., and Lawler Wilson, probably the ablest platform opponent of Socialism, duly came off. The proposition discussed was—

Does the Capitalist Class live upon the robbery of the Working Class?

The Battersea Town Hall, capable of holding 1,700 people, was packed, and the arguments of the disputants were followed with the closest interest.

Although Mr. Wilson came with something of a reputation for sustaining his case against representatives of various bodies claiming to be Socialist, Fitzgerald had no difficulty in tearing that case to tatters. As the S.P.G.B., according to the most generous allowance of Mr. Quelch, and others who are concerned to belittle the Party upon the score of its numerical weakness, consists of no more than a dozen or two members; and as 1,700 doesn't go many times into a dozen or two; and as a large proportion of the audience frequently gave expression to its endorsement of the Socialist position as set out by Fitzgerald, it follows that our view of the result of the debate is not shared among ourselves alone. After the comparatively easy task that, according to report and to his own statement, Lawler Wilson had in previous bouts with alleged Socialist champions, it is probable that he is himself a little surprised at his failure to convince his audience in Battersea.

The reason for our easy victory consists, of course, in the fact that our representative stood upon the impregnable rock of Marxian economics, understood the exact position of the working class, as a class, in the economy of capitalist production, and was not to be shifted a hair's breadth from the direct issue of the inevitability of the exploitation of labour — given private ownership of the means of life — by any manipulation of figures, however dexterous, that his opponent thought proper to indulge in. To our man, the question of immediate moment was not as to the extent of the robbery of the workers, but the establishment of the fact of the robbery. Once that was fixed, Lawler Wilson's case went to the winds, and Lawler Wilson knew it none better. Therefore we had most entertaining feats of high-class jugglery, of intellectual gymnastics of a quite amazing order, and all the other artifices by which a clever debater may sometimes cover his discomfiture and divert attention from the material point in dispute, which, to face directly and frankly, would mean his inevitable defeat.

To do Mr. Wilson bare justice, it has to be confessed that he is a red-herring trailer of the very first class. Which is the reason for the measure of success he has achieved in his discussions with those other champions of Socialism whose equipment, unfortunately, consisted, as to nine parts, of good intentions, and as to one part only of Socialist science. Even in the case of champions of wider knowledge attached to one or other of the parties misnamed Socialist, Mr. Wilson, being an exceedingly 'cute and ready-witted person, is able to easily score debating points based upon the vacillating policy and general political ineptitude of their organisations. So he is able to require of them that they shall defend the multitudinous inconsistencies of their parties' actions to the confusion of the pivot issue.

Up against the S.P.G.B., however, he found himself robbed of his thunder. The obscurantisms and political thimble rigging of the other parties are the subject of our consistent denunciation. We had to be dealt with, therefore, on our own record, which was unfortunate seeing that our record does not lend itself either to odious comparison or gibing criticism. Clearly it was a case with us of facing the issue, or—verbal pyrotechnics in conjunction with expert figure-fuddling. Mr. Wilson did his best in the latter department, but his pyrotechnics were very damp and sorry squibs, while in the end he as unhappily for himself, obliged to swallow his own political hotch-potch.

Fitzgerald gave no rope. He nailed his opponent down upon the fact of working-class robbery first, and then proceeded to an examination of the celebrated figures. It is notable that Mr. Wilson, grown hold by the inability of other opponents to deal with them, had written to Justice daring the S.D.P. to prove these figures false. It is not less notable that the S.D.P. through Justice made no endeavour to do so, Fitzgerald flatly refused to accept the figures and denied their authenticity. Time and time again he challenged Mr. Wilson to name his authorities. But the wily Wilson evaded the challenge, as he had endeavoured to evade the central issue. In the last speech of the debate, however, relying upon the fact that his opponent would have no opportunity of further reply, or goaded by the stinging irony of Fitzgerald's last speech, he proceeded with sublime effrontery, to quote his authorities. The result was an effect of quite dramatic intensity.

Mr. Fitzgerald, he said, has asserted that I will not give you my authorities. I will do so. They are the "Statistical Abstract of the Board of Trade," the Fabian "Facts for Socialists," Chiozza Money's "Riches and Poverty" — Here Fitzgerald leaped to his feet. Mr. Chairman, he shouted, here (producing the books) is the "Statistical Abstract," here are the "Facts for Socialists," here is Money's "Riches and Poverty." With these in my hand I again challenge Mr. Wilson to justify his figures. He got no further. The audience rose at him with a great roar of cheering, and the famous figures went the way of the anti-Socialist case. Notwithstanding cries from all parts of the hall, Mr. Wilson preferred to accept the discomfiture of the denouement rather than touch the books flung on the table before him.

Altogether the debate was most successful from the Party point of view and will doubtless be productive of much good. The Battersea boys are to be congratulated upon their organisation of the meeting, and have the satisfaction of knowing that their work, by making the meeting possible, contributed largely to the result.

Agra.

Marx on Alienation (1973)

From the September 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

The fact that Marx devoted a great deal of his energy in his younger days to the theme of alienation is a relatively recent discovery, dating from the publication in English in the 1950's of certain of his early texts, in particular the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, and later of the Grundrisse of 1857. There has followed something of a re-examination of Marx, with a shift in emphasis from his well-established economic works to the philosophical and humanist outlook of his earlier works.

Alienation can be defined as a state in which man fails to realize himself either as an individual or as a species—in which man is not himself. This necessarily involves a definition of what man's nature consists of and of what man's life ought to be. For Marx, what distinguishes man from other species is that man has the ability of self-creation. While an animal can never see beyond its immediate physical needs, and is governed entirely by instinct, man has the ability to produce in excess of these needs and to do so consciously, thereby creating his own environment:

The animal is immediately one with its vital activity. It is not distinct from it. Man makes his vital activity into an object of his will and consciousness. He has a conscious vital activity . . . It is this and this alone that makes man a species-being. (Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts).

Man's essence therefore lies in his conscious and creative activity in creating a world of objects:

Men themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence . . . In producing their means of subsistence, men indirectly produce their actual material life. (The German Ideology).

It can be seen, therefore, that Marx's ideas on the nature of man were in total contrast and opposition to the mechanical materialism whereby man is seen as an object of nature whose behaviour is determined in a one-sided way by sense-impressions received from the environment and is given no active rôle in creating the society in which he lives. Such a mechanical behaviourist doctrine was expounded by Feuerbach, in common with the ideas of the French Enlightenment. Here the real need was seen to be an Educator who was over and above society and who would change men's behaviour by creating the right environment to bring about a society based on harmony. Marx attacked this view: man, by consciously acting upon and transforming nature, also transforms himself. There is a two-way relationship between man and his environment, and between his consciousness and his activity. Therefore "circumstances are changed by men and the educator must himself be educated" (Theses on Feuerbach). Man makes his own history and makes himself in the process.

It is man's ability to labour, to objectify his creative capacities in the world of things, which makes him human. Under the capitalist system, the labour of the worker becomes a means to an end instead of an end in itself, an activity carried on not for the satisfaction and fulfillment it gives, but as a means of maintaining physical existence. Marx's critique of capitalism is not simply that the wage-worker is economically exploited, but that he ceases to be a human being.

Alienation, however, was a concept which had previously been used with regard to religion by Feuerbach, and Marx recognized this. For Feuerbach (in The Essence of Christianity), the powers and qualities which religion attributes to God are in fact those of man himself, objectified, and contemplated and revered as a distinct being. Man alienates himself from himself by making God the creator of the world, thereby destroying his own self-fulfillment as a species-being. In other words, man creates God in his own image. Feuerbach, however, only conceived of alienation in the religious sphere, failing to see that religious self-alienation is only part of a much wider social alienation. 

This state, this society produces religion's inverted attitude to the world because they are an inverted world themselves . . . Thus, the struggle against religion is indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion (Towards a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, Introduction)

For Marx, then, man's alienation was a result of the totality of social relations which exist under the capitalist mode of production. This alienation takes on four forms:

1. The alienation of the worker from the product of labour.
2. The alienation of the worker from the act of production.
3. The alienation of man from his species-being.
4. The alienation of man from man.

With regard to the first of these, the object which labour produces confronts it as an alien and hostile being exercising power over the worker who created it. Furthermore, just as in religion the more power man attributes to God the less he retains of himself, so in work the more the worker externalizes himself, the more powerful becomes the alien, hostile world he creates opposite himself. The greater the product of the worker, the less he is himself:

Labour establishes itself objectively, but it establishes this objectivity as its own non-being or as the being of its non-being—of capital. (Grundrisse)

Capital is accumulated dead labour, the objective manifestation of the fact that man is lost to himself. The very physical existence of the worker is a commodity, just like any other; "he has no existence as a human being, only as a worker" (Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts).

Alienation shows itself not only in the result, but also in the process of production. Because labour is external to the worker, he does not confirm himself in his work, but denies himself. "The worker only feels at home outside his work and in his work he feels a stranger". Labour is not the satisfaction of a need but only a means to satisfy needs external to the self. And the labour of the worker is not his own, but is somebody else's — the worker therefore belongs to somebody else in his labour.

The result of this is that man feels himself freely active in his animal functions — eating, drinking, procreating — while in his human function — labour — he feels himself to be an animal. It is in the working-over of inorganic nature and the practical creation of an objective world that man confirms himself as a species-being. Man duplicates himself in reality and contemplates the world he has created:

Therefore when alienated labour tears from man the object of this production, it also tears from him his species-life, the real objectivity of his species (Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts).

Man's productive activity represents his species-life; it is this which distinguishes man from animals. But the wage-worker works out of necessity, not choice; his species-life is turned into a means of maintaining his physical existence. Capitalism "alienates species-life and individual life and . . . it makes the latter into the aim of the former".

The alienation of man from himself, man from nature and man from the product of his labour is expressed in the relation between man and man. If the product of labour does not belong to the worker, but stands opposed to him as a hostile power, this can only mean that it belongs to another man. The alien power above man can only be man himself. Therefore "the relationship of the worker to his labour creates the relationship to it of the  capitalist . . . Private property is thus the product, result and necessary consequence of alienated labour" (Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts).

The supreme form of alienation under capitalism was for Marx the existence of money. Money is the universal commodity, alongside all other commodities. The mediating activity between man's products, and human activity, becomes the characteristic of a material thing, money, which is outside and above man.

Whereas man himself should be the intermediary between men, man sees his will, his activity and his relation to others as a power which is independent of him and of them. (Economic Studies from Marx's Notebooks, 1844-5)

Marx therefore saw Socialism as a society in which men could relate to each other as human beings. Under capitalism they only exist as workers or capitalists — political economy does not recognize any relationship outside this one. Man's alienation can only be ended with the abolition of private property, exchange and money — but Socialism (or Communism) was for Marx more than simply an economic abstraction, it was the creation of a genuinely human society, the beginning of real, human history. It involves "the complete development of human domination of natural forces, both those of so-called 'nature' as well as those of his own nature", "the absolute elaboration of his creative dispositions", "the development of all human powers as such . . . into an end in itself", "a situation in which man . . . produces his totality" (Grundrisse).

Socialism, while preserving the gains of previous historical development, is above all a society in which man realizes his full potential as a human being.

Brendan Mee

Further articles on Marx and his ideas from the same special issue of the Socialist Standard:

• Marxian Economics in the Modern World
• Men, Ideas and Society
• Marx In His Time

Brutal and violent means (1996)

Book Review from the March 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Ambiguities of Power: British Foreign Policy Since 1945. by Mark Curtis (Zed Books, London & New Jersey, 250pp. Paperback 14.95.)

This is an important book. It is a well-documented and researched critique of post-World War II British foreign policy, based mainly on formerly secret  government documents and independent sources, showing how all British governments, Conservative and Labour, have been concerned not with promoting democracy and human rights but with defending capitalist profits and spheres of future investments, often using the most brutal and violent means, mainly in what has been termed the Third World. Moreover, Britain has also largely acted as the willing partner of United States imperialism.

Following the War, the Labour government fought a long and vicious war, in an attempt to retain control of Malaya and, of course, the country's rubber plantations. Later, this time a Conservative government, fought to defend white minority rule in Kenya. When a democratically-elected government of British Guyana came to power, it was first suspended and, later, with assistance from the American CIA, was overthrown. And, during the 1950s, Britain, again in co-operation with the CIA, overthrew the Iranian government of Dr Mussadiq, this time on behalf of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, in which the British government was a part-time owner.

In 1956, Britain, in an alliance with France and Israel, invaded Egypt because that country had nationalised the Suez Canal; and in 1957, British forces came to the support of the barbaric regime of the Sultan of Oman. In this instance, Shell owned 85 percent in Omani Oil. Much the same occurred in Kuwait in 1961, in which British Petroleum owned 50 percent of the Kuwaiti Oil Company, again in co-operation with Shell. As later, in 1990, the villain of the piece was Iraq.

In 1966, Britain signed a defence deal with the United States, leasing the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia to the US for 50 years, on the condition that the people living on the island be removed. They were then forcibly sent to Mauritius where they were left to exist in extreme poverty.

And so it continued.

Curtis shows how Britain has supported such terrorist movements as RENAMO and UNITA, in co-operation with South Africa, in Mozambique and Angola; and has often given active or passive support to the United States in Chile, Guatemala, Grenada and Nicaragua. He also gives detailed evidence regarding both the suppression of news, and propaganda on behalf of British intervention by such as the Times, the Independent and the Daily Telegraph. The Guardian generally escapes such criticism.

Peter E, Newell  

From Whence Came Capital? (1951)

From the December 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

Once we were often told at our propaganda meetings that the capitalists obtained their wealth by hard work and saving. We are pleased to say that this is not told us so often now, which is an indication of the increase in the knowledge of politics and economics on the part of the working-class. It is the workers and not the capitalists who work hard and the only thing it will bring them is to an early grave. The workers are also the savers. They save for a holiday, or against sickness, or unemployment and some other unexpected expenditure. But however much they save it can never be enough to enable them to start out as capitalists. Capitalists don't work hard. They needn't. They have others to work hard for them. They may, and probably do save, but many of them have such large incomes that spend as they will they cannot use them all, and there is a balance left over for reinvestment.

And now let us talk about capital. What is it? It is wealth used for the production of more wealth by the exploitation of human labour power, or in a short way, money invested for the purpose of profit. This is the one thing that all capitalists must possess, and the thing that workers must possess if they aim at becoming capitalists. Need more be said? Is it not obvious that born members of the working-class, we shall remain members of the working-class until we die. We are sometimes asked how a worker can become a capitalist. The answer is ridiculously simple. Choose the right parents! With parents members of the capitalist class, you can be a capitalist before you can gurgle "Da-Da." But we committed the cardinal error of choosing working-class parents, and so we shall live and die members of the working-class.

We think it might be of interest now to examine the foundations of the wealth of the capitalist class of this country. It is a story of horror, blood and slaughter. For example, large amounts of wealth were obtained by piracy. Raleigh, Drake and other noted sea-captains of their day were nothing but pirates who preyed on Spanish ships coming from South America laden with gold and treasure. It is true that this treasure had been stolen by the Spaniards from the Incas of Peru and the aristocracy of Mexico, and that the mass of the population of Peru and Mexico have lived in direst poverty while their masters were in luxury. But where is the legal genius who can justify theft on the grounds that the things stolen had already been the subject of theft?

Another source of early capital was the Lombards. These were Italians who settled in London from the 12th to the 17th centuries. Hence Lombard Street in the heart of the financial centre of the world. These Lombards were, of course, strict Roman Catholics, and lending money at interest was anathema to Catholicism. But the Lombards did not allow religious scruples to interfere with business, so they lent large sums of money to English merchants and traders. The Dutch, too, when their commercial supremacy was ended, lent large sums to the English.

India, too, played its part in providing capital for early English capitalism. The main channel for this was the East India company, and its higher employees. The Indian peasants suffered severely from the activities of these people. They cornered essential foodstuffs and sent the price sky-rocketing. They cornered rice, an essential part of the Indian peasants' diet and those peasants who could not pay the very high prices were permitted to starve.

Bu the blackest page in English mercantile history is undoubtedly the slave trade. For three hundred years English merchants carried on this foul trade. It is computed that in all 5,000,000 Africans who went into slavery in America and millions more either died on the voyage or in the slave raids. But it was a source of considerable wealth to those operating it. It is said that large numbers of churches and chapels in Bristol, Southampton and Liverpool were built with money made in the slave trade.

And then after 300 years it was abolished. But those loudest in their denunciation of it were stalwart defenders of child slavery in England, when children of eight years of age were working in mill and mine.

And so we have given you a short history of where capital came from in the first instance. It is a story of blood and horror.

True these sort of things don't happen now. But now in order to defend their system the capitalists are prepared to sacrifice the lives of millions of workers in their wars. Do you not think it is time you ended it?

Clifford Groves 

Editorial: "The Fraud of Socialism." (1906)

Editorial from the October 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

The journalistic dead season having lived up to its name and left the unfortunate "Yellow" Press Editor with a plentiful lack of that sensational mixture upon which the success of his paper and the realisation of his wages depend; there being no "ripper" murders to write up and no Peking massacres to record (and the journalistic imagination being apparently unequal to the manufacture of a few): the sea serpent and the giant gooseberry having lost their charm and the lamp-black and lightning having run rather low (misfortunes rarely, if ever, come singly) — all these stand-bys having failed, it is not surprising to find the news sheets casting about somewhat frantically for the wherewithal to fill the aching void. And so it comes about that the Express—pushful Pearson's periodical—is kindly devoting some of its space to an entirely disinterested consideration of what it is pleased to call Socialism and the fraud thereof.

From a perusal of some of the articles we regretfully conclude that the writer's knowledge of Socialism is considerably less extensive than his knowledge of the manner in which matter should be padded so as to fill the largest possible space. His main fear seems to be that under Socialism initiative will be crushed by a horrible tyranny and the people enslaved (initiative, of course, receiving every encouragement to-day and slavery being unknown!), and he regards with loathing and horror the possible advent of a system of free love which is, it seems, to be one of the main features of the Socialist Society. By which we are led to believe that our "yellow" editor and his contributors have been dipping deep into the rubbish heap of controversy. Their objections were raised in the childhood of the Socialist movement and doubtless did effective service in their day and generation as bogies. But that is possible to light up fresh candles inside these battered turnip heads and use them again as scares, we doubt if even a "yellow" editor is stupid enough to believe.

An Explanation and Nemesis!

Two points which have arisen in connection with the "Fraud of Socialism" series call for comment. The first is as to the interview the Express representative is supposed to have had with an official of the S.P.G.B. who gave him the Party view of the burning question of Trade Unionism. It is true that an Express representative called at the Head Office of the Party. It is not true that our official gave the Express's man the information printed as the view of the Party on Trade Unionism. The Express writer has taken a paragraph from the discussion on Trade Unionism printed in this journal and represented it as the Party's attitude. It happens that it is not the Party attitude at all. The impression is therefore forced upon us that as there is no immediate opportunity of "faking" a massacre, the "yellow" Press is keeping its hand in by "faking" an interview, —a rather novel application of the arts of war to the requirements of peace!

The other point the Express makes with some very good ground indeed. It argues that a deliberate endeavour has been made by men who at times profess Socialism, to capture the funds of the Trade Unions with the object of entering, and maintaining themselves in, Parliament. It alleges that in order to effect their purpose these men have disguised their Socialism under the ambiguous guise of "Labour" knowing quite well they could not obtain support otherwise.

While we are not concerned to impute motives there is unfortunately very good evidence which can be adduced in support of this charge. The S.P.G.B. came into existence as a protest against the methods of Parties which, while claiming to be Socialist, obscured their Socialism by relegating it to a position of greater or lesser obscurity, and confused important issues by compromise; in order to ensure working-class support for their candidates. From our point of view the man who lowers his flag in deference to ignorant popular clamour so that he may secure for himself place and power, has sold himself and his ideal for a mess of pottage and ceased to stand as champion of the movement from which he "ratted." This is bad enough. But if he "rats" with the deliberate intention of deceiving those whose support he has secured by so doing, and having obtained his position uses it to further the object he ostensibly rejected when appealing for support, he is guilty of a deplorably indecent act which will undoubtedly redound to his own discredit as well as to the injury of the movement with which he is associated.

The case of the I.L.P. is in point. Members of that Party have obscured the Socialism they sometimes profess and have obtained the support of L.R.C. funds while masquerading as "Labour"men. In defence of this position Keir Hardie has himself argued that in the L.R.C. they were neither Liberal nor Tory nor Socialist, reducing Socialism to the same category as capitalist Liberalism or Toryism. Keir Hardie and his friends, now that they seem disposed to become Socialists again (howbeit Socialists of the New Testament type - whatever weird species that may be) must not be surprised, therefore, if the appellation "fraud" is attached to them and if they are forcefully reminded of their own argument. If inside the L.R.C. they are neither Liberal nor Tory nor Socialist, Hardie can only now press his Socialism as an L.R.C. member, by throwing over the platform upon which he stood when he secured L.R.C. support. We cannot defend the I.L.P. members and those who act with them from the charge brought against them. The charge is true. We protest, however, against it being shifted to apply to Socialism. We deplore and repudiate the actions of these professing Socialists against whom it can be quite fairly brought, but the failure of its professors notwithstanding, Socialism still remains as the only hope of the workers.