News in Review: South Africa out (1961)

The News in Review column from the May 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

South Africa out

The usual products of Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ conferences have been toothy photographs and solemn, empty communiques. Astonishing, then, was the campaign to expel South Africa.

Astonishing, too, was the fact that the campaign succeeded. Why should the Prime Ministers get so upset about the apartheid policy?

Racial discrimination is quite detestable, but it is only one of many types of suppression. If the Prime Ministers wanted to scotch such things, they were right to get rid of South Africa—but why did they not then also expel Australia, India, Ghana, Ceylon—the United Kingdom itself?

It was not just a matter of the Premiers making a pact with their consciences. The Commonwealth, despite the unctuous propaganda about it, is nothing more than a world-wide trading tie-up, as was appreciated by the City Editors who, in the first few days after South Africa’s withdrawal, anxiously looked into the commercial effects of it all.

The ganging-up against South Africa may have been partly inspired by political motives, but was also a reflection of the South African industrialists’ opposition to Verwoerd's policies.

Let nobody think that it was the result of charitable concern for the African underdog. To mix our metaphors. capitalist nations have other fish to fry.


Washington Whirlwind

Everybody in Washington has been fascinated by the ruthless energy of President Kennedy. No one is safe from the new chiefs eye. “This guy,” said one official, “eats up reports.”

White House correspondents are fond of telling us that Kennedy is busy because he is building a new America There are hopeful murmurings about young aspirations, new frontiers, and so on.

There is nothing new in this. Franklin Roosevelt was hailed in much the same way. Eisenhower was described as the man to bring probity and courage to American government Yet it was under Roosevelt that America suffered the Second World War. And the Eisenhower era left behind a sticky unemployment problem; during the first quarter of this year there were 5½ million people out of work in the United States.

Unemployment is only one of the new President's headaches; others are the situation in Laos and the continuing disarmament wrangle. If the Kennedy administration sorts these out, it will find that American capitalism has turned up a few other problems.

Whatever the personal characteristics of a leader, his actions and his reputation are largely governed by the conditions of capitalism which he tries to control. Perhaps it is as well for U.S. capitalism that the President is so lively.


Kicked Upstairs

Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn has fought a furious fight against his transfer to the House of Lords. Despite his struggles, the government showed that they were determined to have him kicked upstairs.

Some lobby correspondents whispered that Mr. Macmillan personally gave the thumbs-down to Mr. Benn’s efforts to renounce his peerage. The P.M., said the rumour, is at odds with Lord Hailsham, and doesn’t want to set a precedent which might bring him back to the Commons.

Mr. Benn’s predicament is not free of irony. The Labour Party, of course, once stood for the abolition of the House of Lords. And Mr. Benn’s constituency used to elect Sir Stafford Cripps, who was at one time an ardent opponent of royalty, titles and the rest.

By the time Labour achieved power in 1945, they had dropped their old pledge about the Lords. Now, in fact, they do their bit towards helping the Upper House alive by supplying their share of life peerages.

It is Mr. Benn’s bad luck to have been born the son of a peer. His membership of the Labour Party is a different matter. He may not be able to resign his title: but he can always leave the party which has supported the system of pomp and privilege.


Salisbury Too

Some of the five M.P.’s who were disgorged in the Parliamentary Labour Party’s latest spasm wasted no time in getting their feet blistered on this year's Aldermaston do. Mr. Alan Brown, the member for Tottenham who gave up the Labour whip because he thinks that the party is too soft on the unilateralists, was not bothered by such discomforts.

This was another stage in the long Labour wrangle over defence. The Labour leaders, who know that British capitalism must have the most efficient weapons and armed forces possible, object to the “eat-our-cake-and-have-it” attitude of the unilateralists in the party.

While all this was happening, an announcement from the cool dignity of Hatfield House told of Lord Salisbury’s virtual resignation from the Conservative Party. For a long time, Salisbury has been opposed to the government’s colonial policies, the last straw was the easy way in which they have gone along with the African nationalists.

Sadly for him, Salisbury’s resignation caused scarcely a ripple; Mr. Macmillan has ridden much heavier punches in his time. But it is as well to be reminded that the Tories also have their splits, on colonial policy and other issues.

Need we say that there is one cause on which all Tories unite, with all Labourites solidly beside them? Whatever incidental quarrels they may have, they all agree about wanting capitalism to stay.

New Boy Learns

Politicians in different countries make speeches in different languages and different idioms, but there is one theme beloved of them all, one speech that every Prime Minister and Finance Minister carries in his brief case: the speech about the need for the workers to shun idleness and work harder.

Tanganyika has just achieved its independence, and as the politicians there have been telling the workers that this is the most glorious event in their lives, they had visions of celebrating the great occasion with a nice long bout of fun and feasting under the African sun. But their new Prime Minister, Mr. Julius Nyerere, lost no time in warning them that, for the workers, life under capitalism is real and earnest:—

  A day’s rejoicing is enough. We will make nothing of Tanganyika and we will set no example in the world unless it be by renewed efforts of hard work.

A few days later in a broadcast “he exhorted the unemployed not to loaf on the roadsides but to open up the Rufiji basin, a fertile but unpopulated area as large as England.” (Guardian 7/4/61).

People on another planet noticing the universality of this speech may wonder if there is some agency from which all the politicians get their speeches, but the explanation is much simpler; how will the rich be assured of their riches and their abundant leisure unless the workers work hard and long and cultivate habits of diligence and frugality?

Must We Have Leaders? (1961)

From the May 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

What distinguishes the Socialist Party of Great Britain and its Companion Parties from all other organisations is its Policy and Principles. In a word, its case. It is just as logical that our way of looking at things should produce one set of consequences as it is that the outlook of the pro-capitalist organisations should produce another.

As an organisation founded upon class consciousness and Socialist understanding, what we say about wars, crises, housing, racism, crime and poverty must be fundamentally different from what those organisations founded upon patriotism and ignorance say about these things.

The question of leadership underlines the difference between Socialists and non-Socialist organisations. In the relationship of leader and follower are to be found the expression of all the prejudice, arrogance, and ignorance which make the continuation of capitalism possible.

In dealing with leadership we cite as an example the Labour Party, who are notorious for their leaders. But they are not alone in either acceptance of the leadership idea. A common cry about the Labour Party, as each set of leaders comes and goes, has always been “ traitors—they have betrayed us,” This cry is typical of the so-called “left” as personified by the Communist Party and the Trotskyites, who also love their leaders.

No leader can advance further than the concepts and limited objectives of those who follow. It is therefore this situation that controls the leader, not the other way round. When a leader finds himself in power or in a position of responsibility, it is the conditions of capitalism that dictate how he shall act. They are at all times the products of events, and their popularity rises and falls according to how they act in given circumstances.

When the rank and file do not get what they have been led to think is good for them, they turn away. This is one factor, among others, in the loss of interest in trade unions and the Labour Party. It is not a question of “betrayal” but the inevitable disillusionment that comes from ignorance.

Capitalism, with its minority class ownership of the means of production, the profit motive, and the seething antagonisms which it generates throughout the world, prevent any fulfilment for the working-class in terms of peace and happiness. Having trusted their leaders of [all] kinds and not having yet achieved socialist understanding, they end up bewildered and frustrated. This pitiful process is already showing itself, in those parts of Africa where capitalism is just coming into its own. As capitalism develops in Africa it brings the same problems and property conflicts common to capitalism everywhere. Nationalism, the expression of the rising capitalist, class interest throws up the “leaders” who are the agents through which the conflicting factions press their property claims. Once more the question of who shall enjoy the rich proceeds of the exploitation of the workers (black and white), who shall get fat from the copper and other mineral deposits, is being fought out in the name of “freedom”. Once more the question of which group of blood-suckers, land-owners or industrialists, home-grown or foreign, shall rule is rallying the workers around the leaders who represent one gang of exploiters or another.

We are told from all sides “you must have leaders—there has to be someone at the top”. Nothing dismays our opponents more than when we tell them that we have no leaders and are opposed to the very idea of them. It is truly amazing, despite the hundreds of leaders in the world (political, religious, trade union) and their utter failure to do anything about the plight of the world, that the faithful persist in believing that we can’t do anything without them..

The more emphasis put on the leader, the more gullible and unthinking are the followers. Hitler, Stalin and the Pope are examples. Yet what good is a leader without the power to make decisions? The more a leader has to listen to the rank and file the more pointless he becomes. The ultimate logic of leadership and its ideal personification is the dictator.

Lenin, who was probably the champion verbal acrobat of all time, was able to negate democracy while posing as its supporter. He said:

  The Soviet Socialist democracy is in no way inconsistent with the role and dictatorship of one person; that the will of a class is at times best realised by a dictator, who sometimes will accomplish more by himself and is frequently more needed.—Quoted by Martov in his "The State and the Socialist Revolution," page 31.

This contempt for the ability of the working-class to understand their own interests and to act in an enlightened way, was not shared by the founders of scientific Socialism, Marx and Engels. The Marxist view is found in the Communist Manifesto, the joint work of Marx and Engels who always addressed themselves to the working-class, not to any elite. They spent their lives teaching and explaining, which, of course, is the last thing a leader can do.

  All previous historical movements were movements of minorities or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority.

What is true in the political field also holds good in the industrial side of the class-struggle. We have already mentioned trade-unions; a few points in elaboration are worth making Here again lack of class understanding sets the pace. The proper function of a trade union is to organise its members in the fight for better wages and conditions of work. To the extent that nationalism dominates the thinking of trade union members, so they will support the capitalists of a particular country against the international interest of their own class. They get involved in the capitalists' affairs of markets and production efficiency and, listening to their leaders identifying their interests nationally with the capitalists', they fall for the idea of doing what is good for their masters' country.

As a result of trusting leaders, since the war workers have lost many opportunities to increase their wages. They accepted the wage-freeze policy when their trade-union and Labour Party leaders said they should. Even now, unofficial wages in some industries are well ahead of the trade-union rate which shows that there is a discrepancy between what workers can get when labour is relatively scarce, and what the unions accept as sufficient The unofficial struggles at factory and site level tend to isolate the rank and file from their leaders who always condemn unofficial action, but. are powerless to prevent it.

Industrially and politically leadership is nothing but a curse to the class-conscious organisation of the world's workers for Socialism.

Harry Baldwin

Born Lazy (1961)

From the May 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

"What will you do with the lazy (or greedy, or selfish) people, who will want to take everything and give nothing?”

We often hear this objection to Socialism, from opponents who think that a social system in which wealth would be freely available to everybody must collapse, because it is somehow contrary to “human nature”. To these objectors, we are all, because of “human nature”, basically lazy (or greedy, or selfish).

In fact, the term “human nature”—the need for food, air, water and so on, and some biological peculiarities—can only apply to those characteristics which are unalterably human. Laziness, greediness and the like are only aspects of human behaviour. These are not unalterable—they are often fostered in us by the acquisitive and competitive nature of property society: some of them, indeed, are taught to us from our earliest days. There is a lot of evidence to show that, when the conditions are right, human beings do not behave in an anti-social manner.

For example, there has recently been published the translation of Jens Bjerre’s most interesting account of the latest Danish Kalahari Expedition, when he spent several months living with the Kung Bushmen at Samangeigei. This is what Mr. Bjerre says about the Bushmen's way of life:

   “During the time we lived with the Bushmen, we never once witnessed a quarrel among them, which is surprising considering how close they live to each other and that they have to share everything together. The very fact that they live so intimately appears to give them a feeling of mutual dependence and confidence. . . . This natural feeling of solidarity within the clan begins in their childhood. Children are a kind of common possession. Even though mothers for preference look after their own children, they are just as often to be seen looking after other children—even suckling them if the child is hungry and its own mother is not on the spot. The older children eat sometimes with one, sometimes with another family—according to where they happen to be when they are hungry and when food is ready. The whole settlement is their home. The children help to collect firewood and food for the older people who cannot travel far, and sometimes they even sleep alongside them to keep them warm at night.
   From the example of their elders they learn the code of behaviour which is the foundation of the clan's unity; to share food and to assist each other in every way.”

Mr. Bjerre concludes this paragraph by saying:

  “We white people, surely, have now reached the stage—with our hydrogen bombs and rockets—when we also must choose between living at peace with each other or obliterating ourselyes."

These Bushmen are primitive people —they are, in fact, probably the oldest surviving human race. But they know that, were they to adopt the very forms of behaviour which so many in our “civilised” society call unchangeable “ human nature ”, they would destroy themselves. Humanity, also, will not willingly commit social suicide. The people of the world will establish Socialism because they want to live cooperatively, in a free and abundant society. They will, in fact, practice the “virtues” which the Kung Bushmen have kept up for so long.

Eric Coffey

Finance and Industry: The Increase in Accidents (1961)

The Finance and Industry Column from the May 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Increase in Accidents 

Elsewhere in this issue is a quotation from the Socialist Standard May 1911 about the increase of accidents in industry in the years 1900 to 1907. The accident figures continued to increase and in 1913 reached 208,949, though the deaths had decreased to 1,091, Figures were not published during the 1914-1918 war. After the war, with some variations from year to year, the total in 1930 was 209,194, of which 842 were fatal. When a big decrease came in 1931 it was “ due to . . . the continued depression in industry". Provisional figures for 1960 show 190,000 accidents, 665 being fatal. This was a big increase on 1959. According to the Evening Standard (30/3/61), ''longer hours, harder work and the employment of more workers to help step up production are blamed by many experts for the steep rise in deaths and injuries at the factory bench or building site".

These figures relate only to factories and workshops. If the mines, railways and other industries are added, total deaths number about 1,300 or 1,400 a year, and the number injured is more than doubled. In the mines over 200,000 workers every year suffer injuries which disable them for more than three days. On the roads and railways a further 7,000 or more are killed each year and over 300,000 pedestrians, drivers and passengers injured. Over the whole field injuries have increased since 1938 by about 200,000 a year.


National Income

In the Spring of each year the Government publishes several documents dealing with the changes that have taken place in twelve months in production, trade, wages, profits and the national income and expenditure. Much of the newspaper comment consists merely of quoting impressive looking figures to support the theme that everything is getting very much better for everybody.

As many readers know very well that their own standard of living isn't changing much, if at all, doubtless the result is a growing disbelief in the accuracy of the figures themselves; which is rather hard on the civil servants concerned who take a deal of trouble to find the facts and present them accurately. Much of the difficulty arises out of that ingrained capitalist habit of expressing nearly everything in terms of money and price; which is most misleading unless due allowance is made for the fact that prices can change, and for twenty years have been changing upwards. To say that expenditure on rent and rates increased between 1956 and 1960 by about £400 million a year does not mean that people were moving into larger or better houses but that they are paying more for the same house, and in many cases paying more for something worse.

When we apply this corrective to the figures showing that the national income jumped from about £5,000 million in 1938 to £20,000 million in 1960 we find that the real increase after discounting higher prices is somewhere in the region of fifty per cent. But because a larger proportion goes to the armed forces and armaments and to capital investment the real increase in the amount available for "consumers” goods and services, (food, clothing, housing, entertainment, travel, etc., etc.,) has increased by a smaller amount, probably between 35 per cent and 40 per cent.

Then a further adjustment has to be made because this is spread over more people, the population having increased by over 5,000,000 since 1938. After allowing for this, the real increase per head of the population is about 25 per cent or 30 per cent, not at all a striking achievement for a period of twenty years, though quite a normal one for British capitalism. The way in which this modest advance has been made is also interesting. The increase is due as much to increased numbers of workers as to increased output through improved machinery and processes. Because unemployment is about one and a quarter million less than in 1938, and many more married women go out to work, and workers stay on to a later age, there are probably about four million more workers in civil employment than there were before the war.

And a final warning about averages. While many workers are rather better off than before the war (average industrial weekly wage rates having gained about 16 per cent on the price level for a somewhat shorter week) there are many workers, especially clerical workers, who have actually lost ground.


Those High Wages

In a press interview about the start of the graduated pension scheme the Minister of Pensions, Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter, gave figures that should be noted by those who believe that the £14 10s. 0d. a week average earnings of adult male workers in manufacturing and some other industries, are typical of the working class as a whole. He revealed that out of a total of about 21 million working men and women "there are approximately 6 million earning less than £9 a week . . ." (Daily Herald 29/3/61).


Willing to pay

The following is from the Evening Standard (4/4/61):

  Seven months ago I reported that the ground and first floor maisonette at Castlemaine House, the seven-storey block of flats which Mrs. Vera Lilley built at 21 and 22 St. James's Place, was in the market at £128,750, making it just about the most expensive home of its type in the world.
   I now reveal who is to be the occupier of this home with its own garden backing on Green Park.
   It is City banker, Mr. Walter H. Salomon, 54, who will move in with his wife, Kate, and two children in July.
  He is not buying the maisonette. He is renting it. Mrs. Lilley spent at least £30,000 on it. The study, drawing-room and library opening on to a terrace, are in antique pine panelling.
  Each of the four bedrooms has a bathroom; there is a wrought-iron staircase, luxurious staff quarters and a huge kitchen.

The same issue of the Evening Standard reported that the Hampstead Council is cutting its housing list from 1,799 families to 1,328 families. The Chairman of the Committee is quoted as saying that he is agreeably surprised by the number they were able to eliminate because they have moved away or for other reasons.

  Quite a few have left Hampstead. Others have either decided they have no hope of getting Council accommodation or have found decent accommodation and are quite happy.

Nearly half of those still on the list “are in Category A—those in urgent need".

Slums for 100 years

The housing problem, like the poor, is always with us under capitalism (which of course includes state-capitalist Russia). And always there are politicians “hastening” to do something about it. The Evening Standard (3/4/61) reports that "the LC.C. wants to speed up the work of modernising their pre-1914-18 war blocks of flats", six thousand of which lack baths and have other defects. But there are obstacles, one of which is the “three-year wait" between approval of modernisation schemes and the actual start on the work.

Another problem is that they can't modernise the old flats unless they can re-house the people in them, and the Council can't speed up this work because their “commitments in slum-clearing and in trying to house families on the ordinary County Hall waiting lists.”

So it is always a question of either the slum-clearing, or the modernisation, or the new houses, and this is in a year when the government can find it necessary to spend £1,500 million on armed forces and armaments as it has been doing certainly since the Labour Government's re-armament programme in 1951.

It is ironical to go back to the optimism of the reformers who started the movement to solve the housing and slum-clearance problem over a century ago. The late Harry Barnes, himself a well- known housing reformer, in his book Housing, published in 1923, tells of the first two pieces of legislation:

  The first of these great personal measures was the Shaftesbury Act of 1851, which aimed at providing lodging houses for the working class in towns and populous districts, . . . the next great step was taken in 1868, when the Terrens Act was passed. This dealt with improvement or demolition of unfit houses and brought into prominence the second part of the Housing task, namely, in addition to the provision of new houses, the maintenance of the old.

The Minister of Housing, Mr. Brooke, has been having a go, and his enthusiasm induced the Evening Standard (28/3/61) to pen an editorial under the title “An Urgent Reform":

  Slums are not always to be found in mean little streets. Sometimes they exist behind the decaying red brick walls of gaunt Victorian houses. And these, because they are frequently shielded from the public gaze, are the most difficult for authority to deal with.
  Mr. Brooke, the Housing Minister, has been describing a visit to such a Victorian slum. He found three floors of utter squalor, cut up into flats without proper kitchens or lavatories, and with a basement used by two women of, to say the least, rather doubtful probity.
  Said Mr. Brooke: “I made up my mind then that when the chance came to strike against such conditions in the twentieth century I would strike hard."

We are told that this is an ” urgent reform", one brought to light by Mr. Brooke's personal injunction. Of course the evil has been known to all who wanted to know it throughout Mr. Brooke's lifetime, and in the lifetime of his father and grandfather and great=grandfather. 

As a postscript may we quote the dedication in Mr. Harry Barnes' book:

TO THE HOMELESS
One dwelling, one family
Every family, a dwelling.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Struggle for Power in Laos (1961)

From the May 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Laos is at the present time the bone of contention between the United States and the Russians. President Kennedy has been shown on British T.V. threatening to use the might of the American armed forces to protect the democratic rights of Laos. He appears so young, forthright and sincere, but perhaps, after all, it would be just as well if we were to critically examine his claims that the U.S. stands for democracy in Laos whilst the Russian Government is attempting to undermine and destroy its work by Communism.

Civil war has been going on in the country since the middle nineteen fifties but has only become world news since Kennedy threatened to enter the affray openly with U.S. troops. Until now the U.S. has encouraged the Royalist faction but they have recently been opposed by another faction—Pathet Lao.

What sort of people are these Laotians, who do not appear unanimous in appreciating the benefits of democracy?

Laos is part of an ancient civilisation overrun by the French at the time of the general European scramble for colonies and incorporated into their former colony of Indo-China. The people are simple and courteous—and deeply religious. But as so often happens when a whole community of people are caught in its grip, religion's ministers and precepts develop great influence. The population becomes more pious as their material poverty increases and they seek the excuse of dogma, creed or belief to explain their intellectual poverty. All totalitarian regimes are destructive of the things of the spirit of man, but of all totalitarianisms the clerical is probably the most harmful.

The factions never seem to have been compressed into any sort of seclusion. Relations between the sexes are free and easy and divorce is simple. Large numbers of half-castes have resulted from the occupation of the country by the French military. At the time of the Japanese defeat, the French asked H. M. Sasavang Voog to raise some levies to fight against the invader. He replied, very judiciously, “My people do not know how to flight, they know only how to sing and make love."

The Laotians believe in Little Vehicle Buddhism. They have no God. For them the Buddha is but the most eminent of men. They hold to the literal interpretation of the Master's dying words:—“Be your own refuge. Man has no saviour but himself. The reward for right doing is not eternal life, but extinction and freedom from successive reincarnations." They are averse to taking life. Laotian soldiers who deliberately fired over one another's heads for fear of taking human life are gradually being taught by their "betters" to aim straight and kill.

U.S. v. U.S.S.R.
The country is torn with civil strife carried on with arms and ammunition provided by the Russian and American Governments. The U.S. bears the entire cost, $40 million a year, of the Royalist army. The Russian back the other side, the Nationalist Pathet Lao.

The whole of Laos, both Pathet Lao and Royalist territories, are ruled by one ruling-class feudal family and this alone makes nonsense of Kennedy's claim that Pathet Lao must be opposed because they are communists.

The charge is absurd because the ruling-class of the Pathet Lao territory have never shown themselves to have particularly different ideas from their relatives who rule the Royalist territory Pathet Lao are no more communist than the Royalist are democratic. Both sides of the family run the usual pattern of Asiatic feudalistic governments normal for undeveloped areas in that part of the world.

Prince Souphannavong, the Pathet Lao Leader, is half-brother to the Prime Minister of the Royalists. A third brother who lives in Siam acts as elder statesman to both sides. They are more concerned with exploiting their subjects, which they do with the inefficiency usual with that type of administration, than in theoretical and alien theories of communism and democracy Pathet Lao and the Royalists are puppets of Russia and America, respectively.

Laos looms large in power politics because of her strategic importance—long wedge one-third the size of France, separating Vietnam from Siam in the American bloc.

In 1956 Laos and China signed a Treaty of “peace and neutrality" in Peking. In it the Kingdom of Laos declared that no foreign military' bases or installations are to be allowed on its territory. This was regarded as another failure for American policy in Asia and even a retrogression from the position already established at the time in Laos. For if Laos gets out of the clutches of America and really becomes independent, then it will drive a wedge between the two American bastions of South Vietnam and Thailand.

If, on the other hand, the Chinese controlled Pathet Lao takes over the whole of the country, then Laos becomes a hostile wedge and S.E.A.T.O. (the American controlled South East Asian Treaty Organisation) becomes nullified for then the Chinese bloc will extend to the borders of Thailand which has a large resident Chinese fifth column.

But, apart from her strategic value, Laos is a so far almost untapped vast reservoir of wealth in coal, copper and tin. There are 204,000 sq. kilometres of valuable hardwood forests just waiting to be cut and exported. This must alone be worth fighting for, remembering that the British ruling-class squandered the health and lives of so many soldiers in fighting the Chinese nationalist insurgents for the tin and cash crops of Malaya a few years ago.

The struggle for Laos will bring greater power and wealth to one or other of the two great powers concerned. To the internal ruling-class it. is already bringing wealth in the form of assistance amounting to millions each year. Whichever side wins, because each is the puppet of a capitalist overlord greedy for power and profits, capitalism will come to Laos in the form of mines, plantations of cash crops, and the development of industry. To enable capitalism to thrive there the Laotians will have to be shaken out of their lethargic happy state. This is an essential preliminary to present- day “development and prosperity.” Happy workers contented with their existing standard of living are not satisfactory subjects for capitalism. How can they be induced to speed up and work overtime if they are already content with what they get? No! The wind of change is about to blow hard there.

In place of laughter, song, and making love, must come the tax collector, conscription, wage-slavery, the charge-hand, the foreman and the boss, hard work in the tropical heat, threats of the sack, piece work, bonus systems, overtime and ulcers. But for the budding Laotian ruling-class, there will be stocks and shares, rent, interest and profits.

Frank Offord

50 Years Ago: Perils of Modern Industry (1961)

The 50 Years Ago column from the May 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Committee [Departmental Committee on Accidents in Places under the Factory and Workshops Acts] was appointed in 1908 by the then Home Secretary, who was compelled to take this step owing to the enormous yearly increase in the number of reported accidents in factories and workshops that had taken place. The total rose from 79,020 in 1900 to 100,609 in 1905, while between 1905 and 1907 there was a further striking increase, the figures being

              Total. Fatal
1905 100,609 1,063
1906 111,904 1,116
1907 124,325 1,179

The conclusions arrived at by the Committee as to the causes of the increase appear to have been made as vague as possible. But we read in Section IV, “Causes Tending to Increase or Decrease Accident Risk.”

“A considerable amount of evidence was given to show that work was now done at a greater speed and higher pressure than formerly." And further that “Much of the increase was attributed to the general raising of the standard of effort in all spheres of life." Evidence was given that in the textile trades machines run faster than formerly; in wool weaving, for example, looms working at 80 picks a minute were thought fast ten years ago, but now the new ones run at 100 picks a minute.

As regards engineering, the increased speed of cutting tools was referred to, and evidence was given showing that the speed of punching, shearing, bending, and squeezing machines had increased. In iron and steel works, and in tinplate works, the Committee were told that improved machinery had led to increased speed.

There was something of a diversity of opinion as regards Piece Work, but generally the evidence was that piece work, task work, and bonus systems of payment tended to cause undue hurry.

[From the Socialist Standard, May, 1911.]

The Passing Show: To guard the country (1961)

The Passing Show Column from the May 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

To guard the country

Those people who fought so long to bring about the establishment of the new capitalist state of Nigeria must have been reading of the latest developments there with great pride. For on March 29th Dr. Azikiwe, the Governor-General of Nigeria, put on the uniform of a field-marshal and addressed the two houses of the Nigerian Parliament. His remarks were as martial as his clothing. He announced "defence measures including a chain of police posts to guard the country’s eastern frontier’’ (The Times, 30/3/61).

   In the first speech from the throne by a Nigerian Governor-General, he said the Government intended to seek expert advice on how to establish an air force. The Government would continue to build a defence system which would not only ensure internal security but “will also serve as a deterrent to any would-be aggressor.”

The new Nigerian ruling class are clearly losing no time in building up armed forces to protect or . extend their interests both at home and abroad. Thanks to their own efforts and to their allies in the reformist parties in this country, they have established their rule over the people of Nigeria. Now they are creating a carbon copy of the older capitalist states.


Paris in the springtime

The idea of gay, fashionable Paris, the city of elegance and spacious boulevards, took a hard knock recently. The French Government (like a lot of other governments) wanted to persuade the electorate that living conditions would be a lot better in a few years' time: so they put on an exhibition about it. Unfortunately from their own point of view, this showed just what living conditions in Paris are now. Of some 2,700,000 dwellings in the Parisian area, 800,000 have been condemned as unhealthy. Of the homes in the city itself, only 17 per cent have a bathroom, while in the suburbs the figure sinks to just over ten per cent. Parisians have only one square metre of green space per head.

Needless to say, there is already a “housing drive” in progress to “solve” the slum problem. One new dwelling is completed every six minutes. Unhappily, a new Parisian is born every three minutes. And besides those born in Paris, thousands more stream in every year from the provinces—600,000 in the last five years.

There is more to Paris than the tourists at the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Élysées ever see.


Fiction

The death of Belinda Lee in a car- crash in California was followed by an article in the Vatican news paper, L'Osservatore Romano, attacking the people of the “world of the cinema screen”. “It is a generation ”, said the editorial, “without a fixed address, a generation for whom fiction becomes a reality.”

Well, well. One would have thought that clerics were the last people to be able to accuse anyone else of taking fiction for reality.


A Christian celebration

Seen recently in a stationer’s shop window in Woolwich was a card bearing the notice:

Easter is a Christian celebration Get your Easter greetings cards here.

How solicitous shopkeepers are to remind the religious of their duties and obligations! After making Christmas the excuse for an intensive two months' sales campaign, they appear to be starting on Easter. All that remains now is for the supermarkets to put up large notices reminding shoppers of their duty to fast during Lent. Then we will have seen everything.

Alwyn Edgar

From an Austrian Comrade (1961)

Party News from the May 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Friends,

During my work as professor of scholastic philosophy in Innsbruck I could not but dwell when occasion arose on my findings in Das Kapital in the course of my lectures. Certain students raised objections to my views and reported me to the authorities and I was eventually called to account for it. It should be remembered that no more than about 5 per cent of the students come from the working class; the bulk come from the propertied class with a more pronounced orthodox, bourgeois outlook than the sons and daughters of workers.

The former could not stomach my explanation of social phenomena and problems. I was asked to send in the manuscript of a brochure The Social Question—Its Being, Origin and Solution, which I had prepared. Soon afterwards, without warning or getting a chance of answering the charges, I was ordered forthwith to stop lecturing and publishing my writings, and suspended from service. It meant that 1 had to give up my living at Innsbruck and move to Vienna, where I was “graciously” given a small job and a pension many times less than would have been my due. As these gentlemen had it in their power to dismiss me uncermoniously, without any pension at all; I had to submit to these strictures and even be grateful for such "generosity and forbearance.” 1 am now atoning for my sins.

All this happened in this boasted democratic welfare state Austria, while the “great socialist leader” Dr. Karl Renner was president of the country. (By the way, under his parliamentary presidency, there occurred in February 1934 the greatest defeat and disaster the Socialist Party of Austria ever suffered in the whole of its 60 year existence! The unsoundness of that party's policy is also glaringly demonstrated by Dr. Renner having voted for Hitler, as did also the catholic cardinal Dr. Innitzer!).

As a result of Press reports of a conference of “socialist catholics” in November 1959, at which I gave a lecture on Marxism, I received a letter from comrade Frank, expressing a desire to meet me. We subsequently had some talks, and I also had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of his son on a visit to Vienna, when we had a most interesting and heartening discussion. 

Through comrade Frank I learned of the existence of the Socialist Party of Great Britain and its companion parties in the U.S.A., Canada, Australia, Ireland, and the great work they are doing to spread the glorious message of socialism throughout the world against terrific odds. Not the smallest obstacle is the dull apathy of the masses of the working class, who seem to use their undoubted talents for nothing but making profit for, and increasing the wealth of, their masters.

Comrade Frank has also made available to me copies of your publications and those of the companion parties, which I am assiduously studying and tremendously enjoying. Let me express my deep admiration for the fine work of so many devoted comrades. A group of workers in the English-speaking world saw through the monstrous nature of capitalism and saw the way out of its quagmire years before the first world-war, and started, in the S.P.G.B., a revolutionary movement. It does not speak well for the political intelligence of the workers of this Continent that even after two world-wars, a number of smaller wars, civil wars, and other appalling human tragedies brought about by the mercenary commercial rivalry between the workers' exploiters, only so few have so far realized that nothing but the overthrow of the imbecile system of capitalism, and its replacement by a system of production for USE (instead of for profit) can save mankind from further and even greater disasters.

And now a word on the false friends and the betrayal of the Marxian teaching.

If the bankruptcy of the big self- styled “socialist" parties and their betrayal of scientific socialism were already clear when Dr. Karl Renner declared that two of the largest world-empires, namely the Russian and the British Empire, were under the leadership of the working-class and that socialism was close at hand, the leaders of these pseudo-socialist/communist parties have now sunk the last vestige of the revolutionary content of Marxist theory by finally and completely identifying themselves everywhere with the avowed capitalist parties. These parties have been absorbed by the State, and their leaders are only vying with one another for the well-paid jobs in the government and administration. I remember that the well known English labour leader Attlee, when his party held power in 1947, declared that there was no coherent alternative policy to that of the Labour Party and that the opposition was bankrupt in ideas. Just as Attlee and the Labour Party, after suffering three successive defeats and seeing power being taken over by the Conservatives, must eat their words, so Dr. Renner lived to see his ridiculous assertion belied, for it must be evident to even the politically little informed that the Russian workers are today unfortunately as far away from socialism as their English brothers.

Anybody looking at the Socialist Party of Austria today will discover hardly a remnant of revolutionary spirit. What it really does can at best be described as a kind of leftist bourgeois reform politics—no more. Anybody observing the attitude of their leaders must come to this conclusion. At three successive presidential elections the “socialist” candidate was elected President of Austria, and he is at the same time Commander-in-Chief of the Army!

There is also its position to the various Church organisations. The early Party always laid it down that “religion is a private matter". Now it has made peace with the churches. It now even recognizes the Dollfus Concordat (concluded on May 1st 1934 between Austria and the Vatican), although it had previously refused to do so. Even the financial claims of the Church are being recognised (church property and estate confiscated under Josef II returned to the Catholic church, plus hundred million schillings annually). It does this in the hope of getting votes. Whether this hope will materialise is more than doubtful, as despite its readiness to make these concessions, the Socialist Party of Austria is now as in the past turned down by the church.

On the occasion of the annual Conference of your party I send fraternal greetings to all delegates and other participants, and hearty wishes that your great efforts for the spreading of revolutionary socialism may bear further good fruit. We here shall continue to add our bit to the furtherance of the great cause.

Yours for Socialism,

J. K.

Vienna

Motor Workers' troubles diagnosed nearly a century ago! (1961)

From the May 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

  “The enormous power inherent in the factory system, of expanding by jumps, and the dependence of that system on the markets of the world, necessarily beget feverish production, followed by over-filling of the markets, whereupon contraction of the markets brings on crippling of production. The life of modern industry becomes a series of periods of moderate activity, prosperity, over-production, crisis and stagnation. The uncertainty and instability to which machinery subjects the employment, and consequently the conditions of existence, of the operations become normal, owing to these periodic changes of the industrial cycle. Except in the periods of prosperity, there rages between the capitalists the most furious combat for the share of each in the markets. This share is directly proportional to the cheapness of the product. Besides the rivalry that this struggle begets in the application of improved machinery for replacing labour-power, and of new methods of production, there also comes a time in every industrial cycle, when a forcible reduction of wages beneath the value of labour-power, is attempted for the purpose of cheapening commodities."

Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I. Allen and Unwin, page 455, Chapter 15.

The Influence of Television (1961)

Book Review from the May 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Television and the Political Image by Joseph Trenaman and Denis McQuail, Methuen, 30s.

During the last few years, a new word has crept into the English language. Psephology is the name given to the business of putting voters under the microscope and probing their innermost electoral reflexes. Where once people simply voted at election time, now every cross must be checked and analysed.

We might have expected that television would come into this. No self-respecting psephologist can ignore a communication medium which four-fifths of the population have access to. 1955 was the first television election, although at that time sound broadcasting was still dominant. 1959 was different; apart from the enormous increase in the number of T.V. sets, both channels broke with past practice by putting out such programmes as the B.B.C.s “Hustings" and Granada's “Election Marathon".

What were the effects of this? Did, for example, any votes change sides because of the parties' broadcasts on T.V? Did television affect attendance at political meetings, the number of party workers and so on? A Research Unit at Leeds University (working on a Granada grant) tried to find answers to these, and other, questions. They closely studied the campaign on television and at the same time sampled political opinion among the voters in the two Yorkshire constituencies of Pudsey and West Leeds. Television and the Political Image reports their findings.

The authors conclude that television had little effect on the outcome of the 1959 election. Partisan programmes were not as well received as those which hid their propaganda under an informative camouflage. The professional slickness of the Labour Party programmes, which so irked the newspaper reviewers, was not generally resented. Whatever knowledge the viewers had on the issues of the campaign tended to increase as a result of their watching television.

The specific validity of such conclusions may be open to argument. But the overall picture of the voter which emerges from them seems fairly accurate: somebody who is mostly bored with politics and who, when an election stirs him to vote, does so in accordance with his hitherto sleeping prejudices.

Television and the Political Image is not light reading, and it is loaded with statistical tables and graphs which demand close study. Doubtless, we shall see many more such works, for if the power-conscious parties can find out why the working class vote as they do, they are a long way towards winning an election. If Trenaman and McQuail are any guide, Labour's problem in 1959 was to convince everybody that their promises were not rash bribery. The Tories, it seems, must still work hard to persuade us that they really care about the aged and the needy.

This is a dirty game. And the psephologist, busily adding up his figures to discover the reasons for the working class preferring one type of capitalist subjection to another, does not make it any cleaner.

Ivan

Labour and the health charges (1961)

From the May 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is evident that the Labour Party see in the new health service charges a much needed political "shot in the arm" for themselves. Amid much hullabaloo and many late night sittings, the advocates of a "controlled economy" have let it be known that at last they have found something in the Conservative Party's running of capitalism with which they disagree. The trouble the Labour Party now seem to be faced with is to get the different factions within the Party to recognise that a united Labour Party, “championing the cause of the poor and needy", is likely to pay far better political dividends than anything in the nuclear armament or disarmament range. Hence the recent almost frantic attempts to patch up the differences that exist within the party on these issues.

More and more it becomes obvious that far from being the vehicle of socialist ideas, either now or ultimately, the Labour Party has no ideas on the running of capitalism that differ fundamentally from those of the more generally recognised parties of the system. Thus, instead of being able to make a concentrated attack on the government-imposed charges on the health service, Mr. Gaitskell and Co. have been forced to defend the last Labour Government who set the example by themselves imposing such charges.

The capitalist press, who regard a lively opposition party (so long as it does not oppose capitalism) as a necessity of “democracy", rejoiced when for the first time since Suez the Labour Party found something in government policy about which to wax indignant.

Not satisfied with the impact of the “health" charges, the Daily Herald and later Mr. George Brown, Labour' deputy leader, in a party political broadcast, have attempted to blow the affair up as the beginning of a major attack on what they call the social services. This view is given some support by the demand of a group of Conservatives for a charge to be put on State education. The debates which have followed the introduction of the "health" bills have been given wide coverage in the press and read like the script of a farce—though a farce with grim undertones for the working class. Once again Labour Party spokesmen exposed their pathetic lack of understanding of the economics of capitalism and the basic hypocrisy of a party which, while claiming working class sympathies, seeks to administer the system which enslaves them.

Using the Korean War as the excuse for the Labour government's own health service charges, Mr. Brown merely demonstrated how the stresses and strains of capitalism’s economic and military rivalries always seem to thwart the upholders of the “planned economy" from easing the burden of wage slavery.

While the call for a curb on the profits of drug manufacturers may bring support to the Labour Party from any capitalists who see benefit to themselves from such a move, workers should remember that these profits have been made ever since the health service started. It was not noticeably Labour policy when in office to relate profit to the plight of workers in the way they now seek to do. Unfortunately for the Labour Party, workers are liable to remember Sir Stafford Cripps' wage freezing policies, and the Labour government’s support of a “ reasonable " rate of profit as necessary to the interests of the “controlled economy".

Socialists have never supported these so-called social services, seeing in them nothing but an endeavour on the part of capitalism's administrators to give the master class the cheapest and most efficient labour force possible, under the conditions prevailing at the time.

Eric Coffey

'Revolutionary Christianity.' (1921)

From the August 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

The "Crusader" is a journal published by a number of people having in common a belief in the power of the ethics of Christ to overcome all the difficulties and to combat all the evils which trouble mankind. In the main they appear to have arrived at their present standpoint as a result of the recent war. During it they took up a pacifist attitude, and none could deny the courage and sincerity with which this was maintained. Further, they have shown a genuine desire to face new problems with the same independence, and to apply to them their universal remedy. As a case in point their condemnation of war for its disregard for human life, which in their opinion is sacred, has compelled a broadening of outlook to include industrial strife; for they soon realised that peace-time pursuits are just as disregardful of the lives and individuality of the workers as is war.

Arising out of this an endeavour was made to get shareholders in railways, mines, and industry generally, voluntarily to give up part or the whole of their incomes in order to ensure the payment of an adequate wage to the workers. Of their sympathy for the latter there can be no question, but this invitation to shareholders is typical of their general utterly futile well-meaningness. Practical help may be an advance on passive sympathy, but neither is of permanent use unless accompanied by knowledge, and the one obvious fact about our "New Crusaders" is that they simply do not understand the problem for which they think they have found the solution.

That there is a conflict in society few people now trouble to deny, although some of our opponents would explain it as the outcome of the workers' ignorance and consequent failure to recognise that Capital and Labour are Siamese twins. The "Crusader" group does also realise that this conflict is sufficiently real to make Christian ethics impossible of application under present conditions, and describe themselves therefore as revolutionary; but although they look hopefully on signs of movement among the workers, they do not correctly interpret what they see. Viewing society through ethical spectacles, they fail entirely to understand its structure, the lines of its development, and the nature and magnitude of the forces at work within it.

Dimly perceiving that the future is with the workers, they nevertheless will not recognise that the class division in society is fundamental, and look to sympathetic interest of all people of goodwill to rid the human race of the material and moral evils of the present system. Necessarily somewhat detached from the workers, they sympathise with but do not trust them; they cannot rid themselves of the idea that Labour needs benevolent shepherding into the green pastures of the new world. They preach fearlessness and confidence in the innate goodness and loyalty of mankind, but nevertheless allow W. J. Chamberlain to insult his trade unionist readers with the remark that, although himself aware before the event of the impending Triple Alliance collapse, and knowing "that the position of the workers' army looks pretty nigh hopeless, . . I hadn't the courage to say so," and again, "had I written all that was in my mind last week ... I should probably have been denounced as a reactionary." After which he has the amusing impudence to condemn R. Williams and J. H. Thomas for not leading their "hopeless army" to the slaughter. Mr. Chamberlain, who thinks the workers unable to endure the truth, really ought to think twice before calling Bob Williams a "hot air merchant."

Confident in the power of love and believing that right is might, they nevertheless place considerable trust in trade union organisation and have a healthy regard for mere numbers.

Whenever the employers or the Government, sure of their dominating position, take the offensive against the workers, the "Crusader" always sees in the protest into which the latter are provoked, the early coming of the Social Revolution. They invariably accept the indignation of the rank and file and the wild utterances of their leaders as tokens of strength instead of what they often are merely the signs of a realisation of helplessness. When each strike or lock-out ends in compromise or failure for the workers, and the Revolution fails to materialise, they are again unable to recognise it for what it really is, the overcoming of a less force by a greater. It is ascribed to the treachery, cowardice, or incompetence of this or that leader, the apathy and lack of spirituality of the workers, the wickedness of Lloyd George to anything, in fact, but the harsh reality. The duplicity of Mr. Lloyd George on the one hand and the brilliance of Mr. F. Hodges on the other would matter but little to class-conscious workers, and are likely to prove equally dangerous while political knowledge is lacking.

The "Crusader" does not supply that knowledge.

At the commencement of the last coal struggle, when it was obvious to most people that, for the miners, conditions were exceptionally unfavourable for an industrial dispute, the "Crusader," true to its belief, advocated the tactics of humiliation and despair of appealing to the humanity of the employers instead of offering what resistance was possible

"Pity may be evoked where threats would have provoked only counter-threats. Labour, if it were wise, would realise that 'the broken sword' is the most powerful of all weapons." (4th March. 1921.)

Aware of the immense power of the Press and seeing this power invariably used against the workers, they counsel introspection and contemplation of the soul as the road to independence of the written word, instead of teaching the real lesson that this if just one more weapon controlled by the capitalist class and used by them to further their class interests.

What the "Crusader" lacks is the recognition of the first importance of the fact that one class—the capitalists—lives by robbing another class—the workers. That robbery is cloaked under legal forms, softened by protective measures—the Factory and Compensation Acts, etc., —obscured by the activities of well-meaning reformers, and cleverly and persistently denied by the Churches and other institutions which supply apologetics for the dominant class, but the robbery exists and will become ever more intensive. Where such material is provided there must be conflict. Its appearance may change, and under special circumstances, such as the war, it may seem to have been obliterated, but it cannot remain hidden.

In that conflict force rules.

This is the kernel of the whole matter, let our "Crusaders" disprove it if they can. During the war they preached negotiation and conciliation. In peace they have so far recognised realities as to condone the use of the strike; the power of the folded arms. They were wrong in their attitude to war, and in so far as they approve of strikes only on the false assumption that they are merely the abstention from labour, and therefore passive and morally justifiable, they are wrong now. A strike does inflict additional hardship and suffering on people not directly interested, and on that ground alone should logically be condemned by the "Crusader."

War between nations is occasioned by the struggle for markets and for the possession of regions rich in mineral wealth, and while the present competitive system remains is inevitable. It cannot be attributed to human weakness, and cannot, therefore, be removed by appeals, however eloquent, to the "better nature" of the peoples of the world.

Our attitude to war, the Socialist attitude, is one of uncompromising opposition, because we contend that the workers have a common interest against the world capitalist class, and have nothing to gain by partaking of the quarrels of the latter, which are only possible with the continuance of exploitation.

The labour leaders who served their masters by opposing any cessation of the war until the "enemy" had been "crushed," and who serve them now by preaching industrial peace, were right in one thing. Quarrels are not settled by negotiation. While the forces at the disposal of the contending parties are more or less equally matched, and while the cause of the quarrel remains, it cannot be disposed of by the round table conference. It is true that eventually enemies have to meet to arrange peace terms, but only when one or the other is prepared to yield, or when the object of each has become unattainable.

The same is applicable to industrial disputes, the class struggle.

The class which now hold the reins of government will not willingly let them go, nor will they, except under compulsion, put in the workers' hands the weapons they may use for their emancipation.

Fortunately, however, the capitalists are compelled by other forces beyond their control to grant such education as enables the workers to learn, and having learned, to act. The development of the system itself provides the force in question.

The need of the hour for us is to put before the workers the knowledge which will enable them to recognise the class nature of society and its government as the true explanation of social chaos.

There is nothing in this beyond the comprehension of the average worker, and an appreciation of it will lead surely to organisation for the capture of political control which must precede any social transformation. However much the "Crusader" may desire this end, in so far as their propaganda makes more difficult the perception of the facts of present social organisation in all their simplicity, it can only be regarded as a hindrance to the early coming of "the day."

Edgar Hardcastle

Our Thousand Pound Fund. (1921)

Party News from the August 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Facing the Facts." (1921)

From the June 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

"An Appeal To Experience."

Nearly every exponent of new and old political and economic teachings now-a-days invariably commences his address with phrases similar to the above title and sub-title. But few of them really face facts, while for most of them experience is merely a superficial representation of accepted paradoxes.

"Truth and Freedom" !

An organisation calling itself "The League of Truth and Freedom" has recently issued a pamphlet entitled : "The Teaching of experience applied to Labour and Capital," in which it is claimed that the truth is arrived at by facing facts and learning from experience. A bold display is made of this claim. On the cover we read in italics :

  "Now it is evident that, if this country is going to become a better and happier country in the future, when dealing with great social problems, we must face facts and give up advocating what disagrees with them. We cannot afford to adopt any teaching that does not agree with experience."

After this bold declaration one would expect to find every statement, after careful elimination of non essentials, simple, direct, and in accordance with facts; the actual truth and nothing but the truth. But what do we find ?

On page 3 we read : "Nature makes classes, but does not make individual units alike, much less her greatest handiwork, MAN."

Facts to Face.

But Nature does not make classes in the sense implied here. She does not even make a parasitic class in the sense that she makes parasites in general, because a parasitic class in human society assumes and maintains its dominant position consciously. Classes are the result of social relationships that appear in the historical development of society. Before there can be a dominant class there must be a general recognition of similar interests, and a conscious movement by those concerned to obtain power. The class thus coming to the top use their newly acquired power to complete their victory over their predecessors and take over complete control of the enslaved lower orders.

A Natural Corollary.

But if we accept the dictum that Nature makes classes it is necessary that we should at the same time recognise that Nature makes also revolutions to break down classes—a fact that the league would do well to face. It explains the so-called unrest and discontent among the workers. That discontent, with the growing knowledge and organisation of the working class, is a revolution in the making. History is a record of revolutions and will continue to be so while society is divided into classes.

"We are none of us alike" is a marvellous discovery, repeated again on pages 15 and 16 and amplified as follows :

"People have been blaming Capitalists and Employers for this Fact, and for the Inequalities in Life that result from it. They have not understood that Nature has created these inequalities; that they are even necessary for Existence. If an Idle Man is to have the same award as an Industrious Man, then the whole World would soon be Idle."

God's Emancipation.

In other words, it is Nature who makes some men rich and others poor, consequently the poor must not blame the rich for their poverty, even though they can prove that the rich obtain their riches by robbery. This is quite a simple way of dodging facts, while at the same time conveying the impression that one is going right down to the roots of the subject. Instead of blaming God—as the parson has always been afraid to do—they blame Nature for the inequalities and thank their lucky stars that they are on the right side of the hedge. The league makes a fetish of Nature, not because it comprises all things, but because, at the moment it favours their class. There would be just as much—and as little—sense in saying that luck makes rich and poor. Just as the parson and his followers have always attributed what they could not understand to God, so the league attribute to Nature what they dare not explain and leave the workers to imagine that in some vague way Nature makes men rich or poor in much the same way as it makes them tall or short, thin or fat. In this way the league, while admitting the existence of classes, make no attempt to explain, to excuse, or to justly them. They merely evade in the most transparent and cowardly manner one of the facts they make so much pretence of facing.

Who gets the Toffee-Apple ?

The last part of the above quotation, "If an idle man is to have the same award as an industrious man, the whole world would soon be idle," is intended as a sneer of contempt at the average worker. In reality it vividly reveals the true nature of capitalist society by denying a fact that is obvious to everyone—that it is the idle shareholder who gets the award, the industrious worker providing it and getting nothing. Under capitalism those who live on rent, interest, and profits can, if they choose, remain idle all their lives. If they work at all they usually choose an occupation more or less in the nature of a hobby. They are not compelled to work for a living. The working class, however, as the name implies, must work, and as the capitalists among them own the raw materials and the tools, the workers must sell their labour-power to them.

Machine production tends to reduce the bulk of the workers to one dead level of skill and wages; nevertheless they are graded and priced according to their skill, or the service they can render. The most significant fact about this grading is that those who are lowest in the scale work the hardest, often mentally as well as physically, while receiving the lowest wages.

The Real Idlers.

Generally speaking, the capitalist class is an idle class. Here and there a big capitalist makes a brave show of directing and supervising—drawing a fat salary in addition to his dividend for it. His speciality is, of course, making a brave show rather than directing. The office boy could often do it equally well, as it largely consists of giving reports—prepared by managers and clerks—to shareholders' meetings and to Press reporters. Where he has to exercise judgment his managers see that their reports convey directions that influence him without offending his dignity by anything that looks like advice.

Then there are the small capitalists who can not afford to pay managers. They look after their businesses themselves, until they are broken in competition with the big concerns. Then, rather than work as wage-slaves, they shoot themselves, so much do they love work. Outside the fancy reasoning of the league, in real life, facing the facts and learning from experience we find that those who work the hardest get the poorest award, while those who do nothing but chase pleasure find their wealth increasing faster than they can spend it.

And if they do—

Knowing the workers' award, we can appreciate fully the league's next statement: "some save money and become capitalists." Before a man can save money, however, he must have it to save, and as the bulk of the workers only get sufficient in wages, per week, to replace the energy they use up and provide for their dependents, very few indeed can save enough to become capitalists, even in a small way. Usually, even these few, after a severe struggle against the competition of the big capitalists, lose what they have saved and are flung back into the ranks of the working class.

Next the league's pamphlet says: "Mankind in general has always specialised and divided the work, because by doing so it can be done much quicker and better." This is easily seen to be a perversion of historical truth. Division of labour has only appeared and developed in the history of mankind with the recognition and development of new and more complicated methods of production, caused by the progressive discovery and application of fresh tools and materials.

A Sight for Sore Eyes.

Then follow a number of things done by capital, according to the league. "It takes capital to erect the work and supply the furnaces. . . . To build houses, the bricklayer has to get a capitalist to make and bring him bricks, and cement, and timber and slates." To say that a bricklayer would be astonished if he saw a capitalist doing anything of the kind, is to put it mildly. Every worker knows perfectly well that it is other workers who fetch him materials and tools, make and prepare these things ready for the operation he performs, and erect buildings and machinery for the purpose. With the exception of the few instances already quoted the capitalist does nothing beyond drawing and enjoying the dividends that result from the sale of the workers' product.

When all these workers understand that capital is an unnecessary factor in production, that capitalists are parasites living on the results of their industry, they will abolish the system and establish in its place one in which everyone participates in the labour necessary to satisfy social requirements, without the existence of a class who rule solely in their own interests. In this way they will be facing facts.

Brains a Working-Class Possession.

Another fact that trips the league is ''Brains." The bricklayer, they say, is dependent on the architect, the man of brains, who has to design the houses. Of course, that is his job. Bricklaying is the bricklayer's job, and if he did not build the houses would remain on paper. Designing is the form of labour-power the architect brings to the labour market. The difference between him and the bricklayer is not an essential one: the latter gets wages; the former commission. In both cases it is payment for service, unlike profit, which is the proceeds of robbery.

Next the league try to make us believe that labour saving methods and machinery create more employment. They speak of the "enormous benefit that a creator of industry like Ford of America has been to Labour. At the present time Ford claims to be producing and selling three thousand motor cars per day— Think of the labour given employment by such a huge industry."

But this is only a part of the story, which is continued in the "Daily News," April 25th, as follows:

"Conditions in America."

"The verdict of employers is unanimous that output per person has increased. One illustration of this is furnished by Henry Ford. . . When manufacturing 100,000 cars a month last year, "Ford employed 52,000 persons. He now employs 32,000 to make 87,000 cars a month."!

In the face of facts like this the league should either change its title or withdraw the statement quoted above. The figures from the "Daily News" speak for themselves, but the league's figures, to put it politely, amount to suppression by selection. The figures that support their argument are taken, and those that smash their case are left.

Capitalism Creates Unemployment.

In its normal development, therefore, capitalism increases unemployment, because production is only carried on for markets. The workers can only satisfy their needs by wages earned in the production of commodities for these markets. It is apparent, therefore, that markets must be limited, consequently that the number of jobs is limited, and that, with the adoption of new machinery and methods, the number of workers unable to satisfy their needs must increase. These latter are not prevented from doing so by the lack of materials and machinery, but solely by virtue of the fact that the capitalist refuses to produce for anything but markets.

The Surest Thing.

The league see in all this not competition between capitalists for world markets, but competition between the working class of different countries for their capture. What they do see, however, is that the working class of any country, if they are not to be starved out of existence by unemployment, must be prepared to accept a standard of living as low as, or lower than, the present lowest. There is no denying this. The hunger of the capitalist for cheap labour is about the surest thing under capitalism. First women and then children were dragged into industry because they were cheaper than men. Wherever the capitalist has been able to do so he has dragged in cheap native labour to compete with his own countrymen, while at the same time mouthing patriotism. The hypocrisy of the capitalist is well expressed in the following paragraphs, which are typical of the general attitude:

  "It is perhaps fortunate for the labour of this country, that capital and brains are so hindered by officialism in China, that they cannot at present give effective help to Chinese manufacturing, agriculture, and mining industries. For the Chinaman lives almost entirely on rice, and if he had the capital and the brains to help him, which we possess, his low standard of life and consequent low prices would under sell us in every market in the world."

It is quite evident from the above that the average capitalist has no objection to developing Chinese trade so long as his capital is in the business. It is not love of his country that hinders him, but Chinese officialdom.

The League's "Truth."

Perhaps the worst lie uttered by the League of Truth and Freedom is the statement that "although the cost of food and other necessaries has increased so greatly, the wages paid, except perhaps in isolated cases, have more than covered it." Every worker knows that his standard of living is lower than it was in 1914. Many articles of food, such as butter, eggs, bacon, beef, and most kinds of fruit, that entered largely into his diet before the war, are looked upon as luxuries to-day by the average worker, while for many they we absolutely unobtainable.

Then we are told that "the best men among the capitalists and the employers are anxious to help labour to improve its position" (apparently by reducing wages all round and speeding up). "They recognise that this country has in the past been run far too much for the benefit of the indolent and the idle."

And that is as much as we can expect from the league. Out for "truth and freedom," they stand only for the freedom of the capitalist class to continue their exploitation of the workers. They admit the workers' poverty, but their only remedy is, when translated, deeper poverty and more intensified labour. If the workers allow themselves to be led by such transparent hypocrisy and lies they deserve nothing better.

F. Foan