Funds Appeal (1988)

From the September 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard 

It is a long time since we made an appeal for funds in these columns and we do so only when the work of the Party shows signs of outstripping its finances. 

To sell the Socialist Standard at 40p and to try to keep the price-range of our literature as low as possible involves a subsidy from the General Fund which slowly erodes it. Add to this the routine things like electricity, telephone and rates, and it is not long before we have to look round to see what we can cut back on. when we should be expanding our activities for socialism and going forward. 

We are well aware that our fellow workers to whom we address this appeal have their own financial worries. If. however, you think it is worth getting rid of the system which produces them, please send as much or as little as you can. 

Cheques should be crossed, mode payable to the Socialist Party of Great Britain and sent to the Treasurer at 52 Clapham High Street, London S W4 7UN.

50 Years Ago: Immigrants and unemployment (1988)

The 50 Years Ago column from the September 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are asked if we want foreign workers to take jobs away from British workers, and on the surface it looks like a reasonable point of view. Actually it is baseless. It is true that if an Italian waiter comes to London he may get a job in preference to a British waiter, just as hundreds of thousands of British workers have in the past managed to get jobs in America and many other foreign countries. But unemployment in the mass is not caused by the size of the population and does not increase because the population is increased, whether by births or by immigration. Capitalism everywhere normally has its unemployed, no matter what the population figures may be. If unemployment disappeared, then the workers would be able to demand more wages, and this would reduce profits to the vanishing point. Unemployment is, therefore, a capitalist necessity. The capitalist himself deliberately creates it by installing labour-displacing machinery in the effort to keep costs down and profits up.

[From the editorial "Should aliens be allowed in?" Socialist Standard, September 1938.]

Socialist Party Meetings (1988)

Party News from the September 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

I actually went to the debate in Luton featuring Steve Coleman and the Labour Party's Kelvin Hopkins.  I would have been 17 at the time. I can't remember if it was this Luton meeting or another one where I missed the last bus and, as I was living in the age of no mobile phones and no phone at home, I had no other option but to duck and dive the streets of Luton overnight until I could get the first bus home the next morning.  Luton city centre even back then was not for the faint-hearted at 2 in the morning. 

It's a shame there isn't a recording of the meeting. I remember an older Labour Party supporter in the audience who mentioned that he worked in a factory alongside an SPGBer when he was a young man, and he couldn't reconcile the SPGBer's revolutionary fervour with the fact that the SPGBer used to do all the overtime on offer.  Kelvin Hopkins was on the Left of the Labour Party, and was elected to Parliament in the 1997 Labour landslide. He ended up representing a constituency in Luton for the next twenty years. Coleman was an able representative for the SPGB and, even in 1988, when Kinnock was leader of the Labour Party, he anticipated the real future of the Labour Party. I specifically remember him mentioning at that meeting in 1988 that the person to watch out for in the Labour Party was not Kinnock or Hattersley or even John Smith: it was Gordon Brown. Well, he anticipated half the future . . . 

Editorial: The Coalition Government and its Work. (1915)

Editorial from the September 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

Had some bold prophet two years ago forecast a coalition Cabinet, including Asquith and Carson, George and galloper Smith ; had he asserted that these men, then so fiercely denouncing each other, would be united to carry on the government of the country, he would have been laughed at by the politicians, the “economists.” and the reformers alike—by all, in fact, except the Socialist.

The Socialist is excepted because he knew that the “fierce fight,” the “struggle” against the Law, the frenzied battle of tongues and pens, was all so much clap-trap ; because he knew that the “great” Home Rule issue was but a political cry upon which to rally either side of place-hunters. Ireland was again the red-herring that was to draw to the theatrical conflict the paid puppets of the political pantomime.

The Socialist has all along sneered at the heroic figures struck by “King” Carson and his troupe of paste-board pirates. We have always said that the Liberal and Tory, the Home Rider and the Unionist, the Tariff Reformer and the Free Trader were all of the same gang ; were all ready to unite immediately their economic interests were really threatened. Our understanding of the class struggle gave us that knowledge. Our recognition of the vital issues underlying the political sham fight gave us that assurance. When we said that Liberal and Tory would drop their child’s play and unite as one solid party when their common interests us capitalists were at stake we were called fools and dreamers. But we spoke truth and the Coalition Government is present to bear testimony to the fact.

Then the Liberals grew angry, on public platforms, at the antics of Carson’s gun-runners ; then Carson and his crowd could find no expression strong enough to denounce such “traitors” as Lloyd George, Churchill and Asquith. But now these “traitors” are placed in charge of the most important departments of the country attacked by a vigorous enemy, and the “law breakers” are in high places at the head of English law, with the approval and consent and at the instigation of the very men who previously denounced them.

Unable to face criticism of their criminal incapacity which had plunged them into a war totally unprepared ; which had sent soldiers to fight without arms ; which had caused them to talk of victory instead of defence ; and to gas about marching to Berlin instead of taking steps to prevent the enemy marching to London ; the late unlamented Liberal Government gave up the ghost, to re-form in the company and with the assistance of those otherwise most likely to denounce their previous delinquencies.

And that is practically all it amounts to. The great things we were to expect have not yet arrived. The few attempts that have been made have developed into what is, from the workers’ point of view, not so much tragedy as farce.

Agitated at the increasing power of the organised workers in certain industries amid the abnormal conditions created by the withdrawal of the reserve army of unemployed ; recognising that the ordinary methods of strike breaking by starvation and lead are difficult of application when labour is necessary for the continuation of war, the Coalition Government introduced a “Munitions Bill” which makes striking a criminal offence. This bill, with its vague promises of restricted profits, was expected, with the assistance of the working man’s patriotism, to keep the toilers at work. How inoperative it is evidenced by the miners’ dispute, in which dispute it is only the foolish idea of saving the bosses country that prevents the men from obtaining their demands.

In the past the miners have been defeated by the lock-out : that weapon cannot now be used against them.

Compulsory arbitration, however, is of no more use to the masters now than it would have been to the miners then. In normal times it leaves the advantage with the masters who have the power to starve the workers into submission to their terms. In times of war, when it is in the interests of the capitalists of this country that production shall continue without, interruption, the workers hold the whip hand.

The Registration Act, too, is typical of a coalition government composed of both voluntarists and advocates of conscription. It promises the results of a Conscription Bill without the name. It attempts by underhand methods to force the unwilling into the trenches. The workers are to give the name and address of their employers to some local board, who will choose from among them those who are to be dragooned by a “recruiting committee” into the army by pressure brought to bear upon the individual and the employer.

A suggestion of one prominent writer is that

“In every parish or group of parishes a Recruiting Committee should be chosen . . . The names of men who should go to the front should be submitted to this body. . . He should be compelled to present himself before them. … If it should be found that there is no valid reason why the man should not go the chairman should address him in this fashion. “We have no legal power to send you to the front. We are, however, strongly of the opinion that you are not doing your duty, and we therefore give you ten days in which to settle your affairs and enlist. If at the end of that time we have not proof that you have done so we shall be compelled to print your name in the blacklist of those who have failed their country during this crisis. This list will hang outside the church and outside the public buildings of this parish.” A similar speech would be made to the employer who held back his men, and his business would certainly not be improved by the appearance of his name in such a list.”

This is the statement of one who opens his article with, the words : “I have always been an opponent of compulsion in military service,” and these are the methods by which “our glorious voluntary system” of recruiting is to maintained. The “pink form” is a preliminary to something like the above.

The absolute incapacity of the present Government was never shown more clearly than in the discussion on the miscalled “Limitation of Prices Bill.” It was admitted on all hands that the bill was ineffective to control the price of coal to the consumer. And the limit was reached when the Government accepted an amendment to wipe out the penalty if the accused could show “that he had reasonable grounds to believe that he was not committing an offence.”

It is, of course, to be expected that the men who draw up and pass such Acts would see to it that profits were secured. They are the men to whom the profits go. They are of the class who live by profit and they are safe-guarding their interests by passing the measures.

In “the house” they belittle the real cause of high prices and show how little economic knowledge they possess. They talk of drunkenness as the cause of scarcity of supplies, and gasp at the magnitude of the workers’ weekly screw (one unconscious humourist described how working men used pound notes as pipe-lights).

The increased price of materials is the CAUSE, not the, RESULT of increased wages.

The increased money wage, amounting as it does to something less than 3s. per week more for a similar output, is in reality a reduction in real wages as the cost of living since the outbreak of war has risen by something like 35 per cent.

It is true that a slight advance in prices is rendered necessary by the increased risk in transport, but beyond that the vast upward movement in prices is due to the greed of the capitalists who are taking advantage of the unique position they find themselves in to hold supplies and take advantage of every local shortage to sell old stock at huge profits. Even where supply is restricted nothing other than enhanced profits explains the huge rise in price. Bread is dear but corn is plentiful !

We are now told that the wheat crop for this year is “estimated to exceed that of last year by 51,958,000 quarters. This, too, does not include the Canadian crop, which is estimated to be 25 per cent. greater than that of last year.” But will the price of bread fall to its normal ? Not while the financiers have the opportunity of holding up supplies and of reaping huge profits thereby. The Coalition Government, like the late Liberal Government, will mark time while their friends make profits on the sale of murder machines and inferior food and clothing.

Meantime they will use the vastly distended horror, the German bogie man, to frighten the workers into working hard and working cheaply in their masters’ factories, and to fight fiercely, and also cheaply, in the defence of the masters’ country.

By The Way. (1915)

The By The Way Column from the September 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

In turning over some newspapers that are several weeks old we have come across one which informs us that the annual meeting of John Brown & Co., Ltd., of Sheffield, was recently held, and that “a spirited defence of the position of armament firms in relation to the war” was made by Lord Aberconway. He says :

“The shareholders might think that the balance sheet was a war balance sheet, but it was not so. The so-called war profits that they read so much about in the papers formed only a very small percentage of the total. The company had taken advantage of low prices to supply themselves with what they wanted, and the result was that they were now able to show the largest absolute profit ever earned in the history of the Company. If munitions were short in this country it was not the fault of the armament firms. They had all done their duty, and none more so than John Brown’s. Like all business men and men connected with the political world, they foresaw that a great crisis in Europe was coming, and determined to make every preparation to meet it. Now all their resources were at the disposal of the Government, and the only difficulty was shortage of men.”—(“Manchester Guardian,” 30.6.5. Italics mine.)

The report omits to state whether the noble Lord thereupon rolled up his shirt sleeves and donned the overalls to help make up for the “shortage of men,” and likewise enjoined his fellow shareholders to fall in and follow him. However, he flatly contradicts Mr. Lloyd George, who stated that “we at any rate did not organise for war.”

The speaker goes on to say that, “It was wholly untrue that British firms had encouraged war propaganda. No doubt that was true of Krupps. They did live and work for the war, but what the English firms had done was to try to ‘checkmate’ the efforts of firms like Krupps, and they hoped to go on doing so.”

* * *

Those workers who have pinned their faith to the specious promises of the glib-tongued Liberal orator, Lloyd George, who prior to the war was engaged in dangling before the eyes of the working class the Liberal pill for all our ills, must recently have suffered a slight shock. The much talked of “hotels” that were to be brought into existence for those workers who had been smitten with the scourge of consumption must be deferred for awhile, for at present our masters are more concerned in the slaughter of the physically fit. The announcement with regard to these said “hotels” is as follows :

“The Treasury refused to consent to the expenditure by the Metropolitan Asylums Board on three new Sanitoria for Consumptives.”—”Reynolds’s,” 8.8.15.

* * *

In almost every direction at the present time we are hearing of the dearth of wage-slaves, and our good, patriotic bosses, who are ever on the prowl for the cheapest variety of labour-power, are more persistent than ever in their clamour for the children. A short while ago they desired boys of tender years for the coal mines—and be it remembered that they are boys of our class ! Perish the thought that Lord and Lady Never-Work’s sons should be called upon to do such ignoble work—now it is for the cotton trade. We read that a conference was recently held between the employers and workmen at Manchester to consider the “serious situation” which has arisen from the shortage of labour in the mills, and that little hope was entertained of an increase in the number of women workers.

“The suggestion was made that for the period of the war half-timers should be allowed in the mills at the age of eleven instead of twelve, and full-timers at twelve instead of thirteen.”—”Reynolds’s,” 8.8.15.

* * *

This desire for children in the factory hells at an age when they ought to be receiving their education and plenty of healthy recreation recalls to our mind the early days of capitalist development, and, perhaps, a short extract would not be amiss. Let me quote :

“In stench, in heated rooms, amid the constant whirling of a thousand wheels, little fingers and little feet were kept in ceaseless action, forced into unnatural activity by blows from the heavy hands and feet of the merciless over-looker, and the infliction of bodily pain by instruments of punishment invented by the sharpened ingenuity of insatiable selfishness.” —”Industrial History of England,” p. 180.

This in many respects is what our good, benevolent, Christian masters seek to again impose upon the children of the working class under the cloak of national emergency.

* * *

On the question of Trade Unions and Munitions of War we have lately heard a great deal. One remembers quite well how the “Labour Leaders” in the House handed over the workers to the Government when the Munitions of War Bill was being rushed through the House of Commons. Mr. Hodge was highly indignant with the tramwaymen in London for striking and said: “It was a disgrace to the tramwaymen that, in this great crisis in their country’s history, they should have made it impossible for workmen to get to Woolwich for the purpose of making shells and other munitions of war.” He was even prepared to advocate all trades coming under the special powers of the Minister of Munitions. Whilst various groups of workers have been “swanked” into putting on one side their rules and working agreements we find that the employers are not so ready to place the “needs of the nation” in front of profit. A good illustration of this is brought to light in an article by J. O’Grady, M.P., wherein he says :

“Let me, in conclusion, cite a case I have in my mind. A dispute in a controlled establishment was submitted to arbitration. The Court decided in favour of the workmen, but the employer positively refused to carry out the terms of the award and to pay the increased wages determined upon. The employees struck work, they were hauled before the Munitions Court and fined. … If many of these instances occur in the working of the Munitions Act, the confidence of the workmen in the Act, and in the safeguards their trade union leaders have had incorporated in the Act will be destroyed.”— “Reynolds’s,” 15.8.15.

One wonders where the “safeguards” for the workmen are to be found in this particular Act which these trade union “leaders” helped to foist upon their dupes. We read of plenty of fines for the workers, ranging according to their wages, and in the case referred to, while the Court decided in favour of the men, here we have a trade union official and an M.P. to boot, stating that “the employer positively refused to carry out the terms of the award” ; and he further suggests that the Government should compel employers to abide by the award of Arbitration Courts by imposing penalties. One is led to hope that “the confidence of the workmen” both in their mis-leaders and the Act will continue to be undermined.

* * *

Yet another instance is to hand of large wages offered in the columns of the Press for certain work, but which, as usual, is falsified afterwards. A clerk to a Board of Guardians stated that several women inmates of the workhouse had obtained employment as strawberry pickers and certain information as to their treatment had come to his knowledge.

“He instanced the case of a girl who had answered an advertisement which stated that pickers were able to earn from 15s. to 25s. per week, everything to be provided for them. Where that girl, with others, was employed there was nothing but a stable and some straw for them to sleep in. This particular girl only-had three half-day’s work in one week and she earned 3s. 10d.”—”Reynolds’s,” 15.8.15.

Even the chairman of the Board was constrained to admit that “such a state of affairs, was too bad for a ‘Christian’ country.” What hypocrisy ! Doubtless our unfortunate sisters, are now sadder and wiser women and have profited much by their bitter experience of patriotism and Christian charity.

The Scout.

The Circulation of Capital. Its Effect upon Society. (1915)

From the September 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

In present-day society production is capitalised ; that is to say, wealth functions as capital. It is the nature of this capital to take on peculiar characteristics. All capital is such that it seeks to fructify, become ever larger and larger.

The process is carried on like this. The capitalist, i.e., owner of capital, starts out with a certain amount of money for the purpose of making this amount into a larger one. This is how he sets about it. With his money he buys means of production, e.g., a workshop and machinery, and then raw materials ; he next buys labour-power for the purpose of setting his works going ; in other words, for producing wealth. At the end of a certain time the capitalist has goods produced of a greater value than he formerly laid out in money for procuring means of production, raw material, and labour-power, or which is the same, the money he laid out as constant capital, i.e., that portion of his capital whose value does not vary, and the money he laid out as variable capital for labour-power, i.e., that portion of his capital which brings him in extra, or added value. But yet he has not received that larger amount of money that he sets out to obtain. How then is it procured ? He must deliver his goods to a certain market for sale. For instance, if it is boots he has produced then he must seek a market where boots are in demand. If he be fortunate enough to sell all, or nearly all, his boots he will then have realised his extra value, his profit, i.e., reckoning on the assumption that his boots were sold at, or about, the average market price.

It will be seen then, that capital must of necessity circulate. There must be an ever whirling round of commodities, i.e., articles of exchange. For this markets must be found ; hence the keen competition that we see between the leading capitalist countries to gain colonies. This is the prime cause of wars in capitalist society. A successful war to a country is, generally speaking, a starting point for industrial development and supremacy. As De Gibbins, speaking on England’s industrial greatness, said:

“The high place the nation (England) thus came to occupy was due to various causes, among which the state of European politics in the latter part of the eighteenth century may be reckoned. If we consider the condition of the great European powers after the peace which terminated the Seven Years War in 1763, we perceive that England was in a favourable position. In the first place she had seriously injured her great commercial and colonial rival, France, in her possessions both in India and North America. By the Seven Years War England had gained Canada, Florida, and all the French possessions (except New Orleans) on the Mississippi River, while in India the victories of Clive had established English influence as supreme and laid the foundation for a further extension of trade and sovreignty.”

There can be no doubt about it that, with England’s acquirement of colonies, her trade developed by leaps and bounds; so that it is only quite natural that the countries which have come later in the field as capitalistically developed countries should seek to gain markets. Hence the present European war which is at bottom competition for the Balkan States’ and other markets.

There are, however, people of the Norman Angell type of mind (whatever that may mean), who claim that war is of no benefit at all to a country ; it is caused, they say, through ignorance plus military vanity. It must be said here, that we are speaking in the capitalist sense. We agree that war does not and cannot benefit the great mass of the people of a country i.e., the workers. But it does benefit the capitalists of a victorious country as Norman Angell himself attests when quoting Sir J. R. Seeley in the appendix to his book, “The Great Illusion.” Says Seeley:

“It is admitted that a particular order of men—namely, the merchants who trade with the Colonies—may have benefited from the monopoly, but their gain has been at the expense of the bulk of the nation.”

Since wars are proclaimed by the ruling capitalist class, this class will see to it that there is a good chance of gain before they embark on so costly a speculation as war. So we may dismiss this Norman Angell idea by pointing out that the richest capitalist country (England) has not lost but benefited by her possessions ; and that the other capitalist countries know this only too well, hence their endeavour to do likewise. The capitalist countries do not, as a rule, seek to conquer territory that has been already capitalised, as the Angellists seem to imagine, but to gain territory where capitalist conditions are very little or not at all in vogue, e.g., China.

Many times do we hear the Angell economists (?) trotting out the claim that markets are free to all ; it is the one that can sell the cheapest that corners it, they say. Yes, that is all very well, but who has the monopoly of a market at the average price ? Obviously the occupiers of the country or colony. For that reason a country without colonies and depending on home markets is forced to institute a system of protective tariffs to stop the influx of cheap goods.

What is the effect of the situation then ? It is this : A leading capitalist country with little or no colonies must, if she wishes to capture a foreign market, undersell her competitors. She can do this by either of two methods, or by both methods together. By cutting down expenses as much as possible in the works, or by relinquishing a certain portion of the profits. The former can be done by speeding up the worker to the highest pitch, and the latter by employing commercial travellers and agents who, by various devices, such as advertising extensively, seek to get a sale for certain products ; all of which expenses must come out of the profits of the capitalist. Thus it will readily be seen how handicapped the capitalists of a country without colonies are.

Further, it will be seen that the capitalists of a country so handicapped will be forced to develop their industries to the highest possible extent. In such countries like America will the anomalies that capital imposes upon society, e.g., sweating and unemployment, riches and poverty, be most marked.

* * *

With a view to helping the business man out of the difficulties of competition for markets and the antagonism of the workers, an American writer, Norris A. Brisco, A.M., Ph. D., has written a book, entitled “Economics of Efficiency.” I quote you the following rather lengthy passages without any apology.

At bottom of page 3 he says :

“The nineteenth century has been frequently called the century of the machine. Successful industrial management was concerned largely with obtaining greater efficiency through two sources : firstly, the acquiring of a more efficient plant through more efficient buildings and arrangement, and secondly, the the acquiring of more improved and specialised equipment for the different processes. Production was greatly increased, which necessitated more extensive markets. Manufacturers realised that industrial development was dependent upon markets. The question of markets has always been a fundamental one in industrial progress. Improved machinery and production on a larger scale drove the manufacturer to extend his field from the locality to the nation, and further improvements made more extended markets an absolute necessity. With the entrance of our commodities into the world’s markets competition became more intense, and the question of costs became more important ; but during the nineteenth century, the average employer, in his efforts to lower costs, centralised his attention upon buildings, equipment, machinery, and methods. Near the close of the century a few more enterprising employers had their attention attracted to the human element, the most important in production, and this attraction is the beginning of a new science of business, the science of efficiency, which is a secure and sound foundation for further growth and greater industrial progress.”

And on page 5 we read :

“Manufacturers were amazed at the extent of the wastes which were found in their plants. Wastes of material, time and energy were found everywhere. A prominent manufacturer declared that they were getting only about 50 per cent. of the ability of workmen in their factory. Another stated that few shops produced more than 60 per cent. of the work that it would be possible for them to produce with the same working force and the same physical equipment. The chief problem which arose was how to eliminate these wastes. How can an industrial country hampered with the presence of wastes compete with one with wastes partially or wholly eliminated ? It is impossible ; it is a dollar and cents proposition, and when manufacturers realise this they will pay heed to the conditions existing in their plants, and make endeavours to eliminate as much waste as possible.”

Mr. Brisco recognises that markets are necessary, but since all countries cannot acquire them he thinks that the next best thing to do is to cheapen cost of production and undersell competitors. He thinks he scores with “labour” efficiency, apparently forgetting that other competitors can adopt the same methods.

In quoting him again Socialists will readily see the piquancy of the following passage. On page 8 he writes :

“Labour should be conserved, directed, and given just and fair remuneration. Efficiency demands this, and as soon as business men realise that exploitation does not pay, and that efficiency does, the relations between employers and employees will be less antagonistic, and both will find it to their advantage to work for their common interests.”

Yes, don’t exploit your workmen, Mister business man, but fairly rob him !

* * *

What is then the lesson the we can derive from the foregoing ? We see that the masters who control out lives and existences are merely forced, by the conditions that obtain in society, to act in certain directions whether it be the proclaiming and organising of war or shooting down defenceless strikers struggling for an existence.

The only way out for the workers is to understand the nature of present-day society and its effects upon themselves. They will then realise the necessity of a change of society where wealth functions as capital, i.e., where wealth functions for the profit of the few at the expense of the rest of society, for a society which shall have as its basis the production and distribution of wealth for the needs and requirements of society. In a word, the workers will realise that Socialism alone can save themselves and civilisation.

They will further realise that to attain Socialism they must organise as a political body, with the conscious aim of being at all times and occasions hostile to the capitalist class and their representatives.

They will not then betray working-class principles as the skunks of the B.S.P. and freaks of the I.L.P. do, but will unflinchingly uphold those principles, as the Socialist Party of Great Britain does, until working-class political supremacy and the emancipation of the proletariat shall have been attained.

L. M.

Efficiency or “Ca Canny.” Which is the Policy for the Workers? (1915)

From the September 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The system of the past has led to certain developments on the part of labour which are definitely anti-social. The deliberate restriction of output, the system known as “ca canny,” has its roots in the incessant struggle of capital and labour.”

The above appeared in a recent article by A. G. G. in the “Daily News & Leader” (9.8.15). As will be immediately noticed, the writer assumes that we live under a different system to-day from that before the war. Like most writers that assume this much—and there are many—he neglects to show wherein the difference exists. True, the Government have “nationalised” the railways and are exercising some control over other concerns. But the status of those who operate these concerns, as well as the rest of the working class, has not changed : they are as much wage-slaves to-day as they were before the war.

For the sake of clearness it will be as well to describe, as briefly as possible, what the system was that we lived under previous to August 4th, 1914. The land, mines, railways, factories, machinery, and all those things required by human beings to satisfy their material needs, were owned by the capitalist class. The working class owned nothing but their labour-power, which, if they did not wish to starve, they had to sell to some member or members of the capitalist class. Labour-power was a commodity, the only commodity that the workers had to dispose of in a world in which the bulk of the wealth took the form of commodities.

The price of labour power, called wages, which represented the standard of living for the workers, was not fixed by them : it found its level as a result of the same law that governed the price of other commodities—the labour-time necessary to its production. An ever-increasing army of unemployed intensified the competition between the workers and supplied the capitalists with the necessary lever to keep wages down to the level of a mere subsistence. When the workers endeavoured to force up wages, by withholding their commodity, the armed forces —controlled by the executive of the capitalist class were used to frustrate their efforts.

Previous to August, 1914 the workers were compelled to labour unceasingly to enrich an idle master class, they themselves living and dying in poverty. That was the system; wherein has it changed since that date ?

The buying and selling of labour-power is still the fundamental principle that governs social conditions and is responsible for class antagonism. The basic principle of the system remaining, the system itself is unimpaired, and those who write of the system of the past, unless they refer to Feudalism and craft guilds, chattel slavery or early communism, merely expose their ignorance as to the meaning of the word “system” when applied to society.

The purpose of this article was not to expose the ignorant or malicious misrepresentations of capitalist writers. Being, however, obliged to quote the phrase it was necessary to deal with it. What every worker must be more directly concerned with is the accusation that immediately follows it. It is difficult to imagine a more impudent slander than is contained in the assertion that the workers by restricting output are “definitely anti-social.” The dullest intellect knows that the less he does, the more there is left for other workers to do. If a worker laboured effectively only two days a week he would yet contribute that amount of labour-time to the satisfaction of human needs, while his accusers contribute nothing. The working class produce all wealth and own none. The master class produce nothing yet own all. A parasitic class that consumes without producing is itself anti-social in every bone and fibre, in every action, in its very existence ; because it exists by plunder, and what can be more “definitely anti-social” than plunder ?

When the Roman plebians struck against the Roman patricians, the patrician Agrippa told them that the patrician belly fed the plebian members of the body politic. Agrippa failed to show that you feed the members of one man by filling the belly of another. And A. G. G. must utterly fail to show how the workers are acting anti-socially by restricting output, when they actually produce all the wealth in existence. The impudence of Henenius Agrippa—designed to cover up a system of plunder that could not hold a candle to capitalism—finds its parallel in the modern State with its boasted democracy, freedom, and civilisation.

Of course it is quite true that this parasitic class claims to perform a function which is just as necessary as the actual work of production performed by the working class. But none of their defenders—though trained to the business—have ever succeeded in making their claim good. The ruling class of to-day is essentially an idle class, a class that knows only three objects : the accumulation of wealth, the pursuit of pleasure, and the stability of their system. The accumulation of wealth, they fondly imagine, will ensure the other two, Who is not acquainted with the saying, “wealth is power”? Money will buy troops and police to dragoon the workers when rebellious ; it will buy politicians, priests and labour hacks to persuade, gull and chloroform them when that way promises the best results. The “educational” process operates almost from the cradle. How many axioms could we not quote that are regularly instilled into the minds of the young, calculated to bear fruit in after years, by swelling the vast wealth owned by the ruling-class? “Industry brings its own reward” is only one of these capitalist proverbs proved to be a lie by the vast majority of workers long before they reach the age of thirty—unless “reward” is to be understood satirically, and a shattered constitution and hopeless poverty are not penalties but “blessings in disguise.”

Since the blighting influence of capitalism, poisoning or destroying everything that was healthy in human society, first developed, efficiency has been the constant cry of the capitalist. It has always meant less wages for the working class and more wealth for the master class. Under capitalism it is intensified exploitation of the working class. The workers are driven by competition, fair promises or slander, to increase their powers of wealth production, but lack the knowledge that would enable them to retain and enjoy the fruits of their labour.

Efficiency, or the ability of the individual to perform a necessary task adequately and with the smallest possible expenditure of energy and time, would, given a genuine co-operative organisation of society, result in a maximum of time for leisure, recreation, etc. for all. A. G. G., accepting efficiency as an abstract principle that must be good under all circumstances, pretends not to see that under capitalism its development only increases the poverty and wretchedness of the working class. In a vague way he seems to realise that it is absurd to preach efficiency to the workers. He not only says “that restriction of output has its roots in the incessant struggle of capital and labour,” meaning, of course, the two classes that respectively own capital and labour-power-which is an unqualified acknowledgment of the class war, and the conflict of interests that arises through the buying and selling of labour-power. But he also recognises and says “that the way to true organisation is through the development of the co-operative principle in society.”

To sum up, he admits the existence of the class war; declares that true organisation can only come through co-operation, and accuses the workers of being anti-social. He entirely neglects to charge the master class with the same crime ; either on the grounds that they live by exploitation, or even by exposing such details of the system as the formation of rings and trusts, the cornering of wheat, or the deliberate destruction of wealth in many forms, in order to force up prices.

Under capitalism the invention and introduction of labour-saving machinery and the higher skill and efficiency of the workers can have but one result, a decreasing demand for labour-power. What that means should be patent to every worker; ; an ever-increasing army of unemployed whose existence, combined with the desire of the capitalist for cheap labour-power, causes a steady reduction in the standard of living of the working class. It is because many workers have recognised this that ca canny has flourished. When “co-operative principle” has been established; when the people own and control the means of wealth production, efficiency will be cultivated by them because it will enable them to perform their share of the necessary social labour in the shortest possible time, leaving them a maximum time for recreation and enjoyment.

Meanwhile, those who play at ca canny (conserving their only commodity, labour-power) are wise in their day ; but that is all. Such practices cannot hold up the march of capitalism. All the petty tricks resorted to by the workers to resist exploitation are being discovered and rendered inoperative by one device or another. Their schemes to combat speeding up, and their organisations to prevent reductions in their standard of living become more futile almost daily. Their chains are being riveted more rigidly about their limbs. The master class is uppermost in the class struggle, and emancipation—like the “willo’ the wisp”—seems to play us strange pranks ; but it always beckons onwards those who recognise their slavery, to combat the forces of capitalism. The class struggle is worthy of recruits in the working-class cause, and “every recruit means earlier peace” ; a peace that must endure because society will no longer be split into classes with conflicting interests.

F. Foan

The “Weekly People” Fights. Industrial Unionists on their Defence. (1915)

From the September 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

The official organ of the Socialist Labor Party of America, the “Weekly People,” continues to defend the S.L.P. of A. against the attack of the SOCIALIST STANDARD. In their issue of August 7 the “Weekly People” people state, in reference to our challenge to them to prove that we had misquoted, misinterpreted and misrepresented, the S.L.P.’s Address to the European movement:

“I. Misquotation. As to this we see we were in error in making it. We were clearly in the wrong there, and see no other way of correcting it than by a straightforward confession that we were at fault. We are sorry for the injustice that we did the Socialist Standard there, and we offer this avowal of our fault as an expression of regret.”

The only comment we wish to pass upon this is that it is very handsomely done and reflects credit upon our opponent.

Our contemporary then proceeds to give an instance of our “misrepresentation,” first quoting from our March issue as follows :

“The GENERAL PURPOSE of the letter [Address] we are criticising is to seize the opportunity provided by the wide-spread discredit thrown upon Socialism by the pseudo-Socialists of Europe for the purpose of attaching the confused and bewildered workers to the pseudo-Socialism of America. In other words, IT IS A DELIBERATE ATTEMPT TO PREVENT THE WORKERS FROM SEEING AND UNDERSTANDING THE REAL CAUSE OF THE FAILURE OF WORKING-CLASS POLITICAL ORGANISATION IN THE PRESENT CRISIS, and the breakdown of the International, in order that the workers shall turn their wearied eyes, not to class-conscious political action, but to that snare and delusion, Industrial Unionism, with its kibosh of ‘taking and holding’ and ‘locking out the masters.'”

“That statement,” says the “Weekly People,” “was a misrepresentation of the general purpose of the S.L.P.’s Address.”

Was it, indeed ? The Address opens thus :

“Greetings :—In this hour of supreme grief the Socialist Labor Party of America feels it its duty to communicate with the brother-parties of the various countries for the purpose of aiding in the clarification of the situation such as it presents itself to-day, and to endeavour to arrive at a solution of the problems confronting us.”

The purpose of the Address is plainly stated to be to aid in the clarification of the situation and to endeavour to find a solution. But the only contribution which the Address brings to the “clarification” of the situation is the argument that the International broke down because it was a “pure and simple political party of Socialism” (“The events in Europe are likewise a demonstration of the principle that a pure and simple political party of Socialism . . cannot be of real service to the proletariat.”—The Address). We maintain that that is a deliberate attempt to prevent the workers seeing that the real cause of the failure of working-class political organisation in the present crisis was that it was not Socialist organisation. There is no misrepresentation about this. The S.L.P.’s Address implies that it was Socialist organisation—otherwise how could its breakdown (chief of the “events in Europe”) DEMONSTRATE that “a pure and simple political party of Socialism . . cannot be of real service to the proletariat” ? We, on the other hand, claim that the International or “European movement” was non-Socialist. By a strange freak of fortune we are upheld in this judgment by no less an authority than the S.L.P. Address, when it puts itself to the expense of an absurd contradiction of its above-quoted statement in order to tell us that the “European comrades”

“have become so enmeshed in bourgeois politics that they have apparently lost sight, for the moment at least, of the ultimate goal of the Socialist movement.”

Socialists enmeshed in bourgeois politics ! Socialists who have lost sight of the goal, of the Socialist Movement ! ! What is the goal of the Socialist Movement ? Socialism, surely. Fiat lux—Socialists who have lost sight of Socialism ! ! !

And as if this were not enough, the “Weekly People,” in dragging this into its August 7th columns by the scruff of the neck, as though it were a profundity too rare to be lost under the dust of ages, says :

“It calls attention to the estimate the S.L.P. Address placed upon European Socialist POLITICAL ACTION, and it shows that the Address recognised the fact that that action was not revolutionary Socialist political action.”

Socialist POLITICAL action which is not revolutionary ! In other words the political action of “Socialists” who have lost sight of Socialism and become enmeshed in bourgeois politics !

Well, we call such “Socialists” pseudo-Socialists. And those who, themselves claiming to be Socialists, recognise any Socialist element in such political action (as do the S.L.P. of A., on the showing of the “Weekly People,”) we also call pseudo-Socialists.

Our contemporary, in endeavouring to support the charge of misrepresentation against us, says :

“There was NO attempt to keep the workers from turning their eyes to class conscious political action.”

A single quotation from the S.L.P. Address will utterly dispose of this claim. The Address said :

“Besides, we believe that after the war is over the political conditions will be so adjusted as to compel the European comrades to give their UNDIVIDED attention to the question of industrial unionism.”

Finally the “Weekly People” claims that the S.L.P. of A. insists upon the necessity of class-conscious industrial action. This, as we have before, is false, for that child of the American S.L.P.—the I.W.W.—is not an organisation of class-conscious workers, nor has its political parent ever endeavoured to make it such.

On the subject of misinterpretation our opponent says :

“2. As to misinterpretation. The Socialist Standard in its March issue stated : 

We are told that : ‘The events in Europe are likewise a demonstration of the principle that a pure and simple political party of Socialism, however revolutionary it may be in its utterances, cannot be of real service to the proletariat, let alone accomplishing [sic] its emancipation.’ In a mass of vague statements and ambiguities this assertion and its implications are made clear. If it means anything at all it means that a SOCIALIST political party has been called upon to stand the test of the present crisis and has failed.”

The reader is invited to note the terms of the statement from which we drew the inference. The events in Europe were a DEMONSTRATION of something concerning a PURE AND SIMPLE POLITICAL PARTY OF SOCIALISM. Now it is quite clear that the only way in which any fact concerning a pure and simple political party of Socialism can be demonstrated is through the example of a “pure and simple political party of Socialism,” i.e., a Socialist political party. No juggling with any other sort of political party can demonstrate anything concerning a Socialist political party. Our interpretation of the statement, therefore, is the only possible correct one. That the Address says in another place :

“the European comrades . . . have become so enmeshed in bourgeois politics that they have apparently lost sight of … the ultimate goal of the Socialist movement.”

does not help our opponents at all. It does not justify the sense of their claim that “it shows that the Address recognised the fact that that action [“European Socialist political action”] was not revolutionary Socialist political action.” It does not merely show that that action was not revolutionary Socialism. We challenge the “Weekly People” to state that the action of those who “have become so enmeshed in bourgeois politics that they have lost sight of the ultimate goal of the Socialist Movement” can be Socialist action. Of course it cannot do so. So true is this that our opponent was constrained to declare in its issue of June 5th.: “The Socialist Movement is nothing if it is not a revolutionary movement.” Hence the “estimate which the S.L.P. Address placed upon European Socialist Political action” does not qualify the statement we are accused of misinterpreting—it contradicts it. The statement of the Address that events in Europe had DEMONSTRATED that a pure and simple Socialist political party cannot be of real service to the proletariat stands untouched, as implying that such a party has been tried and has failed, because in no other way could the result be demonstrated. How profound (the “Weekly People” is fond of applying this term to us) would the S.L.P. Address have appeared had it said :

“The Socialist Movement is nothing if it is not a revolutionary movement” [“Weekly People,” June 5]. 

“The European Socialist political action was not revolutionary Socialist political action” [same paper, August 7]. “Therefore the political action which was not revolutionary Socialist political action, of the European Socialist movement which not a revolutionary movement (because it was so enmeshed in bourgeois politics that it had lost sight of Socialism and its actions had become non-revolutionary) demonstrates that a political party which is altogether different in every respect, a party which is a revolutionary political party of Socialism, can be of no real service to the proletariat.”

Yet that is all that our contemporary’s “substantiation” of their charge that we have misinterpreted the S.L.P. Address amounts to.

Before closing on this phase of the discussion we wish to point, out how shallow our opponent’s argument really is. They say :

“True, the S.L.P. Address did imply that a purely Socialist political movement would meet with the same fate that the European movement met with. . . . The Address did NOT say that the European Movement was an up-to-date handle Socialist political movement.”

So they confess that they take the failure of a movement that is not a “purely Socialist political movement” and use it to demonstrate would be the fate of a movement that was a purely Socialist political movement.

Our contemporary gives several other instances of our alleged misrepresentation and misinterpretation, but as it does not argue them, and as we can only reply monthly to what the “Weekly People” can say weekly, we let them stand.

We now take up the article in the “Weekly People” of August 14. It is mainly concerned with an attempt to repudiate our charge that that journal misrepresented us. We complained about the persistent attempt to create the impression that the S.P.G.B. does not advocate the economic organisation of the working class as a necessary part of the struggle for working-class emancipation. If our opponents had been satisfied to place their kind of economic organisation against ours that would have been doing the square thing, but when, in a discussion with us, they, entirely ignoring our claim that the working class must be organised on the economic plane as well as on the political, say that they

“hold that, no matter how class-conscious, POLITICALLY, a movement may be, it is, if organised politically only, in no position to put through the demands of Socialism . . .”

that, whether it is calculated to do so or not, is extremely likely to create an impression that we stand for political organisation alone. Therefore it is misrepresentation. As for our “conception of the function of such economic organization,” that has nothing to do with the point, and it is a clumsy wheeze to try to escape by such a backstair method.

Our contemporary (Aug. 14), quoting us as saying that

“Economic organisation of the working class . . . is necessary for the maintenance of industrial order in the new-born Socialist Commonwealth.”

remarks that

“that statement is not so profound that it shows the vital functions of revolutionary industrial organisation : the functions, namely, of furnishing the physical force wherewith to hack up the fiat of the ballot, political action, and of organising the working class to assume control of production under Socialism.”

But if the “maintenance of industrial order in the new-born Socialist Commonwealth” is not the same thing as to “assume control of production under Socialism” what is the difference ?

The S.L.P. organ claims to have “come to grips,” but where has it done so. The bald reiteration of the disputed points of its position is not coming to grips. The “Weekly People” has studiously left our arguments alone, under the plea that to demolish our main point is to demolish our minor points. Thus we attacked and showed the absurdity of the assertion in the Address that industrial unionism is the embryo of future society. In view of the fact that this same Address states:

“We hold with Marx that capitalist society must have reached a certain point in evolution before Socialism is possible. But we also hold, and in keeping with the true essence of Marxism, that this evolution does not stop at the means of production, etc., but that it continues with equal force on the labour unions ; that these must take such shape that they will form the structure of future society.”

it is seen that this theory is the very keystone of the Industrial Unionist position. Yet our opponents prefer to regard it as a “minor point” rather than undertake the hopeless task of defending it. Similarly with the claim that the economic organisation is “the only conceivable force with which to back up the ballot.” We have taken up that point, but the only result is that the organ of the S.L.P. reiterates the fallacy as though it was a truth too obvious for discussion. Our S.L.P. antagonists must not think that they can always burke discussion, however. Sooner or later they have got to face the music—they can harden themselves to that reflection.

Editorial Committee

[Comments] (1915)

From the September 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our masters could not afford more than five shillings a week as pension for their old and worn-out workers. But they can spend over three million pounds a day to defend their national privileges of exploitation against their fellow capitalists abroad.

——————————-

Apologists of the present order professed to be horrified when Socialists admitted that they were prepared, if necessary, to face bloodshed for the liberation of humanity from the horrors of wage slavery. Yet the master class is now shedding the blood of the workers in floods and for what ?

——————————-

“Are you doing your bit”. ” Join the Socialist Party and do it !

The “treachery” of Karl Marx. (1915)

From the September 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

Of the many mental vacillations of the pseudo-Socialists the latest gem is a work (reviewed in the “New Witness”): “The Treachery of Marx,” (“Il Tradimento of Marx,”) by Arturo Salucci.

We are told in the review that the author nearly seven years ago wrote that: “the only hope of creating the United States of Europe, to be followed by a world-republic, lay in the acceptance of anti-military, anti-patriotic, internationalist sentiments by all the proletariats of the world ; but that while French Socialists accepted them, German Socialists held very different views.”

If the “creation of the United States of Europe, to be followed by a world-republic” is a desirable objective—which we Socialists deny—something more than the recognition of the aforesaid sentiments will be required ; for no revolution has yet been successful until those desiring it had conquered the political machine. But Socialists deny the necessity to the welfare of the workers of the proposed objective, because it negates democracy ; for government of any kind spells slavery for those who are governed ; and States—”United” or otherwise—presuppose government, which, whether it be “Republican” or any other variety, will be an instrument of oppression for the subjection of the proletariats of the world. There are the “United States” of America, but is the position there any better than anywhere else ?

Salucci accuses Marx of ridiculing a manifesto issued by some Parisian Internationalists, on the proclamation of the French Republic.

Marx may have ridiculed the Republic as a Republic, but his position can best be seen by a perusal of his addresses to the International and “The Civil War in France,”—which relates to the Commune. But the author knows so much of his subject that apparently he has never heard of these splendid works.

Our scribe devotes considerable space to showing that German “Socialists” supported the action of the German Government in entering into war. The fact that they did so is sufficient to show that they either do not understand the principles which they profess to be out for (in which case they are fools), or, if they do understand these principles, then they stand convicted as rogues ; in either case they are no use to the working class.

We are told that “Mazzini summed Marx up well as a man . . . without strong philosophic or religious beliefs.” An acquaintance with the epoch-making work of Marx will knock the stuffing out of this statement as far as it applies to philosophic belief.

“It (Marx’s system) has only now been demolished (!) by criticism : his theory of values having been exploded by modern ‘economists,’ and his anticipation of the ‘increasing misery,’ which was to prepare the supreme class conflict, having been belied by facts.”

All this is a pretty array of words, but what are the facts ?

The Marxian examination of the economics of Capitalist Production holds the field to-day, and his Theory of Value is becoming every day more widely recognised by the working class, and ever more surely the basis of working-class economic and political action.

Why does the price of labour-power vary in different countries, aye, even in different localities of a single country ? To prove that it does so it is only necessary to compare wages in London with those in the Provinces or any other part of the world. Why are women’s wages less than those of men ? or a child’s less than those of a woman ?

Obviously, the only answer that will bear the test of analysis is, that in the cases quoted the cost of production governs the price of the commodity, labour-power, as of all other commodities, demolished ! Don’t they wish it was ; but apparently, with some people, the continual repetition of a statement is sufficient to prove its truth.

Many alleged critics and would-be experts have attempted to smash (read criticise, analyse, revise, etc.) Marx, but the work of Marx and his collaborator, Frederick Engels, will live long in the memory of man, while the puny efforts of their traducers will speedily sink into the limbo of oblivion.

All sorts of terrible things have been said of Marx, but it has been left to a “Socialist” (Mr. Cecil Chesterton) to publish—apparently with approval—an accusation of “treachery” against him, by an obscure Italian penny-a-liner, reviewed by a well known Co-operator and Profit-Sharist, Herbert Vivian, in a journal published at the “democratic” price of 6d. Weekly.

Hutch.

The Cadbury flavour. (1915)

From the September 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

In last month’s issue of the Socialist Standard was published, side by side, two extracts front leading articles by the “Daily News and Leader” ; the one declaring that the cause of the extensive strikes among the workers was the enormous increase in the cost of living, the other stating that the “working classes were receiving money in a measure without parallel.” Attention was drawn to these contradictory statements and it was suggested that the “Daily News” could only reconcile these statements by proving: either in the intervening three months between the publication of them wages had risen enormously, or prices in the same period had been correspondingly reduced.

Since the appearance of the second statement—on the supposed affluence of working class—the same journal, quoting from the Board of Trade “Labour Gazette,” has voluntarily furnished us with the actual figures, both as to the increased cost of living and the rise in wages.

But the figures do not help them, for we learn that the cost of living, for the year ending July 1915, has risen by 34 per cent., while wages, have risen for some 2½ million workers by about, three shillings per week, £400,000 being paid weekly as war bonus to that number of workers.

Next, as though they were serenely unconscious of their statement of June 14th, that the “working classes are receiving money in a measure without parallel;” on August 17th they say:

“Unhappily it is on the poor that the rise falls, heaviest, and that both absolutely and relatively. It is the commodities that for them form the staples of life that have advanced most rapidly. Bread, for example, is up by 40 per cent., fish by 60, tea by 30, sugar by nearly 70, and the cheaper cuts of imported beef by 60. In few families would it be true to say that the sovereign has dropped in value to thirteen shillings, for obviously only a proportion, and in the case of the well-to-do a very small proportion, of the family income is spent on food. But for the very poor, whose particular staples have advanced by the proportions indicated above, and who of necessity spend a high proportion of their wages on food, the statement almost holds good. The comparative absence of actual poverty in the poor law sense cannot obscure the existence of much hardship and penury, for the most part cheerfully borne as part of the-inevitable cost of war."

The “Daily News” apparently quotes these figures for the purpose of comparison with German and Austrian food prices, which are said to have risen by 65 and over 100 per cent. respectively. We are expected to derive satisfaction from the comparison, and to remember with gratitude “the ceaseless debt of the nation to the royal navy.” This is the lesson from the capitalist point of view. But the lesson we Socialists urge is that in every case it is the worker that suffers as a result of rising prices. That in the “piping times of peace,” according to the late Sir H. Campbell Bannerman, thirteen millions of people in this country live on or below the poverty line ; that according to capitalist authorities the average wage of the working class is less than twenty-four shillings per week.

If it could be said that this poverty were due to the failure of the working class to produce sufficient wealth to satisfy their needs there could only be one remedy : to increase efficiency and discover new and easier methods of producing wealth. But there is not one defender of the capitalist system who would dare to impute the poverty of the working class either to the lack of wealth or to their inability to satisfy all their needs by means of the existing instruments and methods of production. Neither is there a capitalist statesman or defender who dares to tell us why the working class is poor in the midst of plenty. Nor yet can they tell us how the poverty “problem” may be solved.

The conditions the capitalists and their hacks champion are grounded in anarchy. Such conditions cannot be honestly defended. If we are honest we must expose and condemn the capitalist system, which permits an idle class to dominate society in its own interest, imposing slavery on the mass of the people while they, the dominators, live in security and the wildest luxury. An intelligent working class cannot accept their ideas nor their view-point. The workers’ philosophy must take shape around the material facts of their existence. Antagonism will naturally develop, but the working class cannot expect to reach their emancipation unless they first challenge the class that enslaves them.

F. Foan

‘Paper, Sir. (1915)

From the September 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is difficult to imagine what could be more despicable than the attitude of the capitalist Press during the past year. The persistent and ever more complete suppression of truth, the distortion of facts, the hypocrisy, the false and maudlin sentiment, the stupid advice to the workers, the idiotic praise of everything British and the belittling of the same thing when done by the alien, all make it increasingly obvious that the “glorious institution,” the capitalist Press, is one gross insult to the intelligence of the people. It is surely the height of fatuity for the home Press to pretend that it is, above all, the German people that is being duped by a servile journalism, as is suggested by the “Daily Chronicle” in the following extract:

“The German nation, deprived, as it is, of any news from abroad, is entirely under the influence of Government publications and of the information which the Press is allowed to publish. No people can possibly escape psychological pressure of this kind, brought to bear upon them day after day without cessation or variety. A long period of time must elapse before the light of truth can break through the veil of prejudice and misconception which has been so carefully spread by the rulers of the country.”

No intelligent being can rise from the perusal of such a statement without reflecting bitterly that our own case must be worse, since the home Press take it for granted that their own readers are such asses as not even to know they have the blinkers on, or such idiots as not even to feel that they are being further blinded by having copious supplies of All-British dust thrown into their weary eyes.

W.

Our war volume. (1915)

From the September 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

The attention of readers is drawn to the probability that, on account of the number of Party manifestoes on the war it contains, there will be an exceptional demand for the volume of our Party Organ which closed with the last number. Those who desire to obtain the volume should place their orders early.

This Month's Quotation: William Shakespeare (1937)

The Front Page quote from the September 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The fault dear Brutus is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings." 

Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar"

Are the Workers Getting Worse Off? (1937)

From the September 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent from U.S,.A. writes: “In discussion, many workers maintain that the condition of the working class is getting worse all the time. They say the ratio which the workers receive in values contrasted with what the capitalists receive in values becomes less and less as capitalism develops, i.e., the workers’ share of new value always grows less. This contention meets with a difficulty. Let us assume that 75 years ago the workers received half of what they produced, and that to-day they receive one-fifth. It is obvious that they are more intensely exploited. On the other hand, it is undeniable that to-day the workers receive more actual goods than they did 75 years ago, i.e., their real wages have gone up. In short, as capitalism develops, the workers are more intensely exploited at the same time that their real wages are increasing. In view of this fact, how can we say that the condition of the working class is getting worse all the time? By saying this, we imply that the workers are getting less and less material benefits, whereas in actuality the reverse is true."

The first point which emerges is that it is not good enough simply to say that the workers are “worse off" or “better off." It depends what you are comparing. As our comrade points out, the workers might be better off in the sense that they have a higher standard of living than formerly, but worse off in the sense that they get a smaller proportion of the wealth produced. We get a smaller fraction of the loaf, but a bigger piece of bread, because the loaf is much bigger.

There is no contradiction in this. The worker must have a rather larger slice of bread if he is to go on producing a much bigger loaf. Intensified exploitation not only takes more energy out of the worker but also requires more skill and knowledge. It is true that mechanisation, rationalisation, and so on, often tend to reduce the skilled craftsman to a machine minder or repetition worker. But machines which abolish skill require skill to produce; rationalisation requires brains to think the schemes out and operate them; large-scale production, keener competition, urbanisation, trustification and trade unionism, government and local government legislation—acting and reacting upon one another—progressively increase the complexity of the whole social organisation of which this large-scale production is the heart. Education Acts, Public Health Acts, Insurance Acts, are required to prevent deterioration and to produce a cleverer and fitter worker to run a mightier and more intricate system.

There is no doubt that at least the lower grades of the workers are fitter than they were 75 years ago. The incidence of the more outrageous diseases of gross malnutrition, such as infantile rickets, has been halved and halved again. Dairy products, fresh fruit and vegetables, the rare week-end “extravagances" of the harassed housewife, become more commonplace on the kitchen table. Maternal mortality has been greatly reduced. The death rate of young children in Great Britain during the summer months is one-eighth of the corresponding rate 40 years ago. The working class are taller, heavier, and live longer. The continued outcry from medical officers of health that much preventive sickness damages industry and robs children of the benefits of the education available, is well justified, but it does not follow that the worker's health is worse or no better. It means, rather, that the authorities' conception of physical well-being improves along with the needs of the capitalists for a fitter worker to do the work required of him. Similarly, the prevailing notion of what constitutes destitution, or the bare level of subsistence, has changed. As an example, comparison may be made between the diet scales in 1826 and to-day for inmates of Chelsea Institution: —

1826.

Breakfast: Gruel or broth, 1 pint.

Dinner: Meat (three days weekly), 8 ozs.; potatoes, 12 ozs.; bread, 3£ ozs.; beer,

1 pint.

Supper: Bread, 3½ ozs.; cheese, l½ ozs.; beer, 1 pint.

1937.

Breakfast: Tea, coffee or cocoa, 1 pint; Bread, 7 ozs., or porridge, ½ pint; jam or marmalade or syrup, 1½ ozs., or corned beef or sausage or brawn, 2 ozs.

Dinner: Bread, 2 ozs.; meat (various), 4 ozs., of fish, 8 ozs.; potatoes, 6 ozs.; other vegetables (including pickles), 3 ozs.; pudding (various), 8 ozs., or raw fruit; tea, ½ pint.

Tea: Tea, 1 pint; bread, 7 ozs.; margarine, ½ oz.; jam or cheese or cake.

Supper: Tea, coffee or cocoa, ½ pint; bread and margarine, 2 ozs.; cheese or buns or biscuits.

The destitute to-day “enjoy” a standard of dining higher than that of a considerable section of regularly employed workers 75 years ago. And the workers are better off, not only in regard to basic food, clothing and shelter, but also in respect of sanitation, recreation, social amenities, “humanisation" of State relief, public manners and private decency.

There is equally no doubt that the worker is better educated. Public education, popular Press, cinema and radio, though inevitably propagandist, at least provide the bricks and mortar of critical thinking. Churches get emptier. News theatres flash world news across the screen. Even the electoral appeals of our capitalist masters have now become more refined, more factual and more sophisticated. The cynic, the soppy, the shyster, the high-waisted “tough-guy,” are insignificant elements in a working class who are mentally equal to the task of operating efficiently a social system far more complex than Socialism need be.

This rise in the standard of living, physical and mental, is necessitated by the technical requirements of capitalism itself, and in turn it helps those mental changes which will make Socialists of the workers. Capitalism gives the workers a higher standard of living—and a higher standard of indignation. They get a sniff of the good things that might be, in the same breath that the gulf between riches and poverty gets wider, industrial depressions more long-drawn out, war more fantastically ferocious, speeding up more hysterical, insecurity more widespread. The very violence of these contrasts brings them to the attention of the workers: they begin to recognise them as problems. And the same ingenuity which the capitalist requires to solve his problems of profit-making can solve the worker's own problem in the midst of plenty, and economic insecurity in the face of colossal power over nature. Whether the workers are better or worse off is a matter of definition: it is a source of inspiration for the Socialist movement that the workers are better equipped to grasp the Socialist solution to their poverty—common ownership of the means of life.

Frank Evans