Socialism and Land Ownership. (1934)

From the October 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist indictment of modern society is as plain and logical in meaning as any postulate of a political party might well be. It is that the means that human society requires to produce and distribute its wealth are privately owned by a mere portion of the population. The number which makes up this section of society is of little importance; it is the bare fact of sectional or private ownership which stands out as the supreme factor in the indictment. The means of living to-day are the land, mines, mills, factories, means of transport, machinery, and all such agents of wealth production and distribution essential to the economic needs of human society.

By common consent, those who own these are known as the capitalist or employing class, and this class owes its social position not merely to its ownership of the world’s economic resources, but by virtue of the existence of another class in society, namely, the working class. Generally speaking, this class owns nothing but their physical and mental capabilities, their social status being a property-less one. Such small amounts of property or investments in savings banks, etc., owned by a portion of the working class are a negligible factor to seriously consider when assigning their position in relationship to that of the capitalist class, with its enormous wealth and power.

Denied access to the use of the powers of production, except upon certain terms to suit capitalist requirements, the workers are compelled, in order to live, to carry out the necessary functions in wealth production with only such a portion of the wealth allowed them as will secure their continued working efficiency. As a class the capitalists produce no wealth, but they own it when produced; the workers produce the wealth, but have to eke out a poverty existence throughout their entire lifetime. This system of society is one of slavery—wage-slavery—just as real in its effects as the economic servitude of the feudal serf or that of the chattel slave of old.

When Shakespeare made old man Shylock chant his personal plaint against Portia’s judgment—

Nay, take my life and all; pardon not that: you take my house when you do take the prop that doth sustain my house: you take my life when you take the means whereby I live.— 

he made Shylock express a fact of profound sociological significance when applied to society based upon private property in the means of living. For, given the power to privately own the means by which any section of humanity obtains its living, the enslavement of those who are without those means follows as a logical and social consequence. Not only this, but it confers upon those who thus enslave the power to say yea or nay to the mode of living that may be sought at any time by those who are enslaved. These may be repressed and even starved into submission at the least sign of revolt to obtain a better standard of living. An important point this in the Socialist case. The poverty and generally insecure position of the workers is an anomalous feature of modern society, but the mere fact of the existence of a dominant class who may determine what is produced, how it shall be produced, and even whether wealth may not be produced or distributed at any given time is one of the leading counts in the Socialist position.

The Socialist challenges that power at every step of the way, no matter what measures of so-called social amelioration may be established within the domain of capitalist society. We urge the working class to organize to abolish capitalism, by and through the control of the political machinery, and thence to convert the entire forces of production and distribution into common or social property. We insist that historical development of human society has made this step an imperative one on the part of the working class. There is no other way out, if the workers are to obtain the fruits of their labour and to determine their mode of living in accordance with the best that the associated efforts of humanity can produce.

This, in brief, is our case, and it cannot be refuted. The class division in modern society is fundamentally economic in character, and has been so throughout historic times. All the old anti- Socialist pronouncements concerning the “superior brains” and innate “directing ability” of those who rule and have ruled in the past are of no avail against the analysis which reveals that class differences are accounted for by the ownership or otherwise of the means of living.

“One thing, however, is clear," says Marx, “Nature does not produce on the one side owners of money or commodities, and on the other men possessing nothing but their own labour-power.” And the same may be said of every other division in society prior to the capitalist form.

However, there are some people who profess to accept the main outline of the above position and yet would divert the interest and attention of the workers from the task of its realisation. At the moment we deal with but one of these diverting agencies.

Recently we were asked to send a representative of the Socialist Party to state its case before a meeting of the ”English league of land tax values.” The request was complied with, and a considerable discussion took place; one result being that a representative of that organisation paid a return visit to state the case for land tax values at a meeting of the Socialist Party.

Mr. Andrew Maclaren, formerly Member of Parliament for Burslem, was the speaker in question; his entire position amounting to a declaration that in the process of the exploitation of the workers, the land owner is the “villain of the piece." Land monopoly, according to him, is the basic anomaly of present-day society, against which the exploitation by the capitalist pales into insignificance. Singularly enough, the writings of Marx were quoted as a means of bolstering up part of this position.

Students of sociology are well aware of the means by which the foundations of capitalism were laid; chief among these being the expropriation of the mass of the people from the soil. This historical process has been analysed by Marx in “Capital” (Vol. 1), where can be found numerous facts taken from historical records on the spoliation of the peasantry from the 15th on to the 19th centuries. Whilst this process went on throughout Europe, particular reference is made to England, the “classic land of capital." Marx summarised his account as follows: —

Thus were the agricultural people forcibly expropriated from the soil, driven from their homes, turned into vagabonds, and then whipped, branded, tortured by laws grotesquely terrible, into the discipline necessary to the wage system.

Well and truly does the same writer say of this history that it “is written in the annals of mankind in letters of blood and fire."

Once driven from the land, their sole source of livelihood, the mass of the peasantry were forced into the towns, there to offer their bodily powers to whomsoever had need of them. The servitude of the expropriated peasantry was the vital requirement of capitalist development.

“The starting point that gave rise to the wage-labourer," says Marx, "as well as to the capitalist, was the servitude of the labourer."

However, this historical record is seized upon by Mr. Maclaren and his fellow advocates of “land tax values" to mean something totally different from the Socialist conclusions stated by Marx. These people argue that unless people are divorced from the land capitalism cannot exist. But this is only another way of saying that if the essential conditions of capitalist society are non-existent, then capitalism cannot exist, which is pure tautology, conveying little or no intelligence whatever.

By way of emphasising the land taxers' point of view, Mr. Maclaren makes special reference to Marx's chapter on the “Modern theory of Colonisation." Here Marx quotes E. G. Wakefield, who saw clearly enough that the property-less condition of the worker was absolutely essential to the growth of capitalism in the colonies as elsewhere. Wakefield's statement, as reproduced in “Capital,” is as follows: —

Where land is very cheap and all men are free, where every one who so pleases can easily obtain a piece of land for himself, not only is labour very dear, as respects the labourer’s share of the produce, but the difficulty is to obtain combined labour at any price. ("Capital,” Vol. I, Glaisher Edition, 1912, page 794.)

This, of course, is perfectly true, as those who endeavoured to carry on the usual capitalist mode of exploitation in the colonies in the early part of the 19th century found to their cost.

But all this does not help the land taxer in the slightest way to unravel the problem of the way out of the conditions of capitalist society, as they confront the working class. Nor was the historical account of the coming of capitalism given by Marx intended to mean that in the process of the modern capitalist mode of exploiting the workers the land owner is the chief culprit.

On the contrary, Marx's writings clearly indicate that land owning as a dominant social status declined with the final breakdown of feudal society and the imposition of capitalism on its ruins. The industrial capitalist, employing many hundreds or thousands of workers, has supplanted the feudal over-lord. To-day the workers enter the spheres of production, etc., not merely on ”the land,” but in vast factories or mills where they are exploited by the owners of giant machinery and the various appliances necessary to the output of wealth. The immediate employer or capitalist is the exploiter of the workers he engages. He has to hand back to them, in the form of money—wages only a portion of the value of their product. The remainder is his own property immediately considered; but, as is well known, he may not own the land or the factory where his production takes place, hence he is compelled to pay rent for the privilege of using these to their owners. From out of what does he pay? Answer, out of the unpaid labour of the workers. From the surplus left over after the wage bill of the workers has been met, a portion of the wealth may be handed to the landlord, and still another portion to the lender of money.

But where, however, our capitalist owns his own factory site and does not have recourse to loans of money whereby interest charges have to be met, he takes and holds the surplus himself. The all- important point to the workers is that no matter which position applies, it would not matter a brass farthing to their position as an exploited class.

Even were it possible to tax the holders of land out of existence, as the land tax advocates insist, it would solve no problem towards social ownership, such as we Socialists are seeking to establish.

To levy taxation at all, the control of the political machinery is necessary. The control of this machinery, which includes the armed forces, is insisted upon by the Socialist Party, not for purposes of taxation but to socialise the whole of the forces of wealth production and distribution in the interest of all.

We hope with time, space and inclination, to discuss other aspects of the question at a later date.

Robert Reynolds

Donations (1934)

Party News from the October 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

Letter: Mr. Hodgson throws up the sponge. (1934)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Hodgson throws up the sponge.

We have received a letter from Mr. J. L. Hodgson referring to the article and reply to him published in the September Socialist Standard. Mr. Hodgson's letter is as follows : —

Eggington, Beds.

September 3rd, 1934.

To the Editor of the Socialist Standard.

Dear Sir,

On page 6 of your issue of September 6th you say that my theory of constant nullification of rapidly increasing productivity demands evidence of rapidly increasing waste outside industry. In my book, and in the summarised list of communal wastes which I give in your August issue, I have indicated some of these rapidly increasing wastes for those who care to note them. I would add to the list previously given (1) many of the complex ways of doing quite simple things which the engineer is, under the existing system, continually compelled to devise, and (2) the increasing amount of time devoted to political controversy and its various reactions. , 

On page 7 you ask how I propose to distribute purchasing power (in goods) as a gift without taking it (goods) away from those who have it (them). Again I reply for the last time, “By reducing the leaks,” i.e., the communal wastes. When you feed fish, that would otherwise be thrown back into the sea, to starving people, you don't “take away” from those previously privileged to enjoy the fish that the present system allows to be distributed.

Yours faithfully,

John L. Hodgson

Reply.

While, in form, Mr. Hodgson’s letter is an attempt to answer the criticisms made of his arguments, its omissions indicate clearly enough that Mr. Hodgson is totally unable to provide the evidence to back up his claims.

He completely ignores the request that has now been repeated about half a dozen times for evidence of output per man increasing “ from 50 to 3,000 times,” and ignores the challenge for evidence of rapidly increasing waste. Instead, he offers us a simple list of items of waste, without the slightest attempt to evaluate them and show that they are, in fact, rapidly increasing. The list was published in the August Socialist Standard (page 185). It includes the following: mass unemployment, strikes, lack of zeal on the part of the workers, “ most advertising activities,” exports not paid for, “most ticket-collecting,” etc. Mr. Hodgson affects to believe that the mere mention of these forms of real or alleged waste is sufficient to prove his claim that waste is increasing with stupendous rapidity. (How stupendous can be gauged from Mr. Hodgson’s contentions that productivity has increased “from 50 to 3,000 times,” and that the increase of waste swallows up nine-tenths of the increase). The answer to Mr. Hodgson is that there is not the slightest reason to believe that these forms of waste, in the aggregate, are increasing at more than a very slow rate (if at all) in relation to the amount of wealth produced. Some of the most important items are known to be decreasing at the present time. The number of strikes and their duration have declined very substantially during the past 30 years. Ticket-collecting and advertising may be increasing, but any increase is trivial in relation to the alleged stupendous increase in output claimed by Mr. Hodgson. Exports not paid for may be waste from the point of view of the exporting capitalist, but that loss is offset by the gain to the foreign buyers who did not pay. Lastly, unemployment is not only less than it was a year ago, here and all over the world, but is less than it was at the peak of the crisis 12 years ago. And this is the kind of material Mr. Hodgson says is evidence of rapidly increasing waste! The only explanation is that Mr. Hodgson must have worked out his other estimates as he did his estimate of unemployment, by calmly adding in the ” temporarily stopped ” workers twice.

Mr. Hodgson now explains how he is going to distribute purchasing power without taking it away from those who have it. His explanation is that goods which would otherwise be destroyed will be given to the starving. The first point Mr. Hodgson overlooks is that goods destroyed by capitalists are their own private property. The second point is that they have a very real interest in destroying them as against giving them away.

The destruction of fish when the market is glutted prevents prices from being forced down. If the fish were given away to the unemployed, they would, of course, immediately stop spending any of the unemployment pay on buying fish, to the obvious detriment of the interests of the fish owners. The latter will therefore strenuously object to Mr. Hodgson's plan to deprive them of their property, for the reason we have previously given and which Mr. Hodgson has hitherto denied, i.e., that distributing purchasing power to those who lack it means taking it away from those who have it.

It may be useful, in conclusion, to summarise the major points of this controversy. Mr. Hodgson claims, but declines to give evidence of, a vast general increase of productivity per head. He also fails to give evidence either of a considerable increase in the total output of industry, or of a considerable decrease in the number of workers required to produce the former volume of output. Lastly, he asks us to take his word that there is a stupendous increase of waste, but here again he declines to produce evidence.

If Mr. Hodgson ever thinks he is able to produce evidence in support of any of these claims our columns are, of course, open to him.

Ed. Comm.

Letter: A reply to Mr. J. L. Hodgson (1934)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. J. L. Hodgson (Eggington, Beds.). (See also article in this issue, “Some Observations on Production and Productivity.")

You are evidently unaware that the alleged scientific researches of the Technocrats were discredited as soon as they were subjected to responsible examination. The illustration given by you on page 54 of your book (footnote) leaves out of account the power station, workshop, etc. Were these produced without human labour? Regarding your attitude to Capitalism and Socialism, nowhere in your book can we find any statement that you are aware of the necessity of dispossessing the capitalist class of their property in the means of production and distribution and making these the common property of society as a whole. That you are not in favour of this is shown by your proposals for the continuance of the banking system, a price system, and purchasing power (pages 48 and 49). A society in which goods are produced for use will obviously have no use for any of these. You yourself (page 48) describe the distribution of purchasing power and the pegging of prices as “two main things" which “seem to be necessary." Whether as an immediate or as a distant objective they are both worthless and have nothing to do with the abolition of Capitalism and its replacement by Socialism. You entirely miss the point of the remark that the question of what is wasteful is inseparable from the system of society. The production of gold by capitalist countries like South Africa and Russia is not waste, for Capitalism requires gold or some other basis for its monetary system. Under Socialism, on the other hand, when there will be no monetary system, the production of gold for this purpose will be unnecessary. You similarly misunderstand the reference to reparations. We do not accept the narrow nationalistic view that the only question to be considered is the welfare of all or some of the people living in England only. It is therefore true that “the world is not made poorer or richer by the ability of the capitalists in one country to get goods for nothing from the capitalists in another." It is also very much to the point that the goods belong to private individuals. We dispute the validity of your use of the word "community" to describe a social group in which one class owns and another class is dispossessed. You still do not explain how you are going to distribute purchasing power as a gift without taking it away from those who have it.

The reference to the period before 1844 has nothing whatever to do with whether or not you want to re-create the private banks. We simply asked what you meant by the statement that, prior to 1844, there existed a condition—“ credit power  . . . widely diffused throughout the community"—which you want to re-create now. If you mean that poverty did not exist before 1844 we deny it.

You ask if we want “detailed proof that bricks can be made with a less total expenditure of man-hours when the brickmaker is aided by power-driven machinery." As you are very well aware, this has never been denied. What we do want (and this you persistently decline to give) is proof of your fantastic statement that “We have devised machines which speed up the output per man of such things and processes as shoes, flour, pig-iron, bricks, ploughing and reaping, from 50 to 3,000 times." If you can produce evidence, why not do so?

The Socialist view concerning “specialists" and “experts" is that they will play their part like other individuals. Russia’s difficulties connected with her development as an industrial capitalist power have little or no bearing on the problem of development from Capitalism to Socialism.

The cause of poverty is at base, the private ownership of the means of life, land, factories, railways, etc. We cannot find any indication in your book that you have grasped this. Since prices and banks (whether planned or otherwise, controlled or uncontrolled, pegged or loose) are of use only to Capitalism, they are rightly described as useless measures for the abolition of poverty.

Ed. Comm.

Some Observations on Production and Productivity (1934)

From the September 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the August issue reference was made to the comparative slowness with which industrial productivity increases. (See “This Age of Plenty.”) As that statement runs counter to a widespread belief, it will be worth while setting out some of the relevant factors in order to justify the conclusion arrived at.

First of all, let us look at the claims made by those who believe that we have entered into an age of astounding productivity, an “age of plenty.”

The American group who call themselves “Technocrats” claim that the output per head of the workers in industry has increased thousands of times within a comparatively short period. Then Mr. J. L. Hodgson, author of “The Great God Waste” (see review in July Socialist Standard), claimed in a broadcast talk delivered on April 17th, 1934 (obtainable from Mr. Hodgson at Eggington, Beds., at 2d. a copy), that “we have devised machines which speed up output per man of such things and processes as shoes, flour, pig-iron, bricks, ploughing and reaping, from fifty to three thousand times.”

In “The Great God Waste,” Mr. Hodgson tells us that the tractor and combined harvester and thresher “have during the last fifteen years increased the daily output of the wheatfield worker by some seventyfold; (page 10); and that his experience has revealed to him “a vast and continuous increase in both industrial efficiency and in actual productive capacity” (page 9). These two statements appear in a section headed “Our Immense Potential Productivity.”

Mr. H. Norman Smith, prospective Labour Candidate for Faversham, writing in Forward (August 11th), claims, in complete seriousness, that mechanical progress has gone so far in the direction of increasing output per head that we are within measurable distance of “one immense robot factory, employing no workmen at all,” which “can deliver an unending stream of all the goods mankind needs.”

Black-shirted Sir Oswald Mosley, ever greedy to appropriate the more spectacular theories of his former Labour Party associates, now shares this “age of plenty” notion with his green-shirted Douglasite opponents. In his “Greater Britain” (1934 edition, page 61) he says that “Science, Invention, Technique, have recently increased the power to produce out of the range of all previous experience.”

There is no need to multiply instances, they abound in the journals published by the Technocrats, the Douglasites, the Mosleyites, the I.L.P. and the Labour Party. (The Communists, at least in Great Britain, have taken a sounder line on this question, due perhaps to Russian industrial experience.)

Now let us indicate what would be some of the results if these astounding increases of productivity had occurred.

First, it is obvious that if the output of each worker increased enormously, then a given number of workers would produce an enormously greater total output. On the other hand, if the total output were not increased, then the number of workers needed to produce the former total output would be enormously decreased.

By applying that test to industry we can at once dispose of one group of believers in an “age of plenty,” viz., the group that believes this enormous increase of productivity has actually been utilised in industry, in the direction, not of decreasing the number of workers, but of enormously increasing the total product. They can be shown to be wrong, because no such enormous increase has taken place. In Great Britain several reliable inquiries agree that only a very moderate increase in total output occurs year by year.

For example, in 1928 The Economist published “A British Index of National Prosperity,” by Mr. G. D. Rokeling, with a commendatory preface by Sir Josiah Stamp. Mr. Rokeling estimated the annual changes in the amount of “real national income” per head of the population. It is a little difficult to explain briefly what “real national income” meant in this connection, but roughly it represented the amount (not the value) of production of all kinds during each year. Although the final index included also income from abroad, and income from abroad had increased very rapidly, Mr Rokeling showed that the “real national income” per head of the population in 1927 was only four per cent. greater than it was in 1920, while in the intervening “crisis” years, 1921 to 1923, it was actually very much less than in 1920. Mr. Rokeling later extended the index to the year 1929, by which year there had been an increase to eight per cent. above the level of 1920, giving a total increase of only eight per cent. in nine years.

A second set of figures to support the view here put forward, is provided by the London and Cambridge Economic Service, which compiles an index of the “physical volume of production,” covering all the chief groups of manufacture, mining, food production, etc. This index at its peak (end of 1929) reached to only fifteen per cent. above the level of 1924. It then declined in 1932 to a point nearly twenty-five per cent. below the level of 1924, and did not reach the 1924 level again until 1934. (See Royal Economic Society September Reports on Economic Conditions. Memorandum No. 46, April, 1934.)

Estimates compiled by the Board of Trade, and others, give a similar picture. Our first conclusion is, therefore, that even during a period of more or less continuous expansion of production and sales, such as that from 1924 to 1929, the total output of industry increased by only a small percentage; in the above instance an average of two per cent. or three per cent. a year. (At certain periods, and in other countries, a somewhat larger increase has been estimated, but still of a quite moderate size. Some American figures suggest an increase of factory productivity of about five per cent. a year.)

Is Labour Still Needed in Production?

We now come to the second line of defence of the believers in an “Age of Plenty.” The Technocrats, and others, say that productivity per head increases, but not the total volume of production, because fewer and fewer workers are being employed in production. Thus one of the Technocrats, Mr. W. W. Parrish (New Outlook, New York, November and December, 1932), claimed that “man-hours per unit of product and the labour cost per unit have dropped in recent years to levels approaching zero.”

Mr. Norman Smith says (Forward, August 4th, 1934) that “mechanical invention steadily reduces the number of man-hours in production,” so much so in fact that, as we have already seen, Mr. Smith is contemplating the idea of wealth production by machines without workers. He wants the Labour Party to consider dropping its name because there isn’t any “labour” any more, while the Douglasites try to make our flesh creep with threats that ‘soon’ (how soon, nobody knows; Major Douglas has been playing fat-boy for at least twenty years and his “theories” are a century or more old), all the workers, except a mere handful, will be unemployed.

The Census of Production Figures (Board of Trade Journal, February 16th, 1933) are a complete answer to this superficial view of industry. Those figures show that between 1924 and 1930 the total number of persons employed in factory trades, building and contracting, and mines and quarries, did decline, but not by the vast numbers assumed by the Technocrats and others. The decline was from 6,411,000 to 6,013,600, a total decline of only 397,400, or six per cent.— an average of less than one per cent. a year.

The same Board of Trade inquiry shows that in the six years the total volume of manufactured goods decreased by two per cent., while the number of workers in manufacturing industries alone declined by about five-and-a-half per cent.

Again, the Ministry of Labour Gazette, in December, 1933, published figures showing the number of insured workers actually in employment, divided into separate groups according to industry. For the whole group of manufacturing industries the number employed in June, 1933 (in spite of the depression and consequent low output), was within one per cent. of the number at June, 1923. (The number of workers in transport, distribution, building, etc., and also the number of workers in all insured trades increased between 1923 and 1933.)

Perhaps the most convincing disproof of the theory of rapid displacement of workers can be gained by examining an industry – the boot industry – in which, according to these theorists, some of the most striking mechanical developments have occurred. Attack, organ of the green-shirt Douglasites (June, 1934), for example, gave figures purporting to show a vast increase in productivity in the manufacture of boots and shoes. Yet when we look at the number of workers employed in this industry we find that between 1923 and 1933 the decline was actually less than two per cent. (Ministry of Labour Gazette, December, 1933.)

It will take more than two per cent. in ten years to set the Douglasite Thames on fire.

Or take agriculture, the industry in which, so Mr. Hodgson believes, the productivity of wheat-field workers has increased seventyfold. Between 1923 and 1933 the number of persons employed in agriculture decreased from 772,387 to 715,100—a decrease of seven-and-a-half per cent. in ten years, less than one per cent. a year. (Statistical Abstract, 1934, page 259.)

Before leaving this question of the development of labour, it is interesting to notice how easily the careless use of figures can mislead. At the Conference of the Boot and Shoe Operatives’ Union, on May 21st, 1934, the census of production figures were given quite accurately and legitimate conclusions drawn from them. Several newspapers and propaganda journals, however, seized upon the figures and presented them as proof of the great increase in productivity. Actually the figures pointed to an increase of productivity per worker of less than three per cent. a year, from twenty-two pairs a week in 1924 to twenty-six pairs in 1930.

Incidentally, as the Technocrats have been responsible for much of the nonsense written about productivity, it is as well to remember that their figures have been discredited. When The Economist (London, March 18th, 1933) reviewed Raymond’s “What is Technocracy?” they agreed with his conclusion that the Technocrats’ figures were “wildly inaccurate,” and their researches “worthless.”

Does Waste Increase?

Some of the “Age of Plenty” warriors have still a third line of defence. Productivity does increase very rapidly, they say, but this is offset by a colossal wastage. Mr. J. L. Hodgson claims that “wealth and amenities do not increase one-tenth as fast as they would do if the hidden leaks could be discovered and stopped.” (”Great God Waste,” page 14.)

He went on to say that the effect of these “leaks” more than doubled during a period of a few months last year.

Now before looking for the fallacy in this argument, let us be clear about two distinct ways in which it could operate: (a) in industry itself, and (b) outside industry.

The first assumption (increased waste in industry itself) would work out as follows: Great increases in output per head assumed in each industry, but instead of sacking the redundant workers, or increasing the total output of industry, the employer allows (or is deceived into allowing) the redundant workers to be carried as “passengers” Thus the increased output per head of some of the workers would be offset by the fact that the rest of the workers idled away their time doing nothing. Now that would be one way of explaining how an increase in productivity per head could be offset by a growing “wastage” inside industry, and to some slight and temporary extent it may actually happen. In general, however, nothing of the kind is permitted to occur. Employers do not allow their workers to spend the day amusing themselves.

To be quite fair to Mr. Hodgson, he at least does not offer this as an explanation of the way in which the total output of industry fails to reflect a supposed increase in output per head. He would no doubt agree with us that if a boot manufacturer found that he could turn out as many boots with only one-tenth of the men (and assuming that he could not multiply his sales by ten) he would promptly sack the other nine-tenths.

We all know that the employers and their managers and foremen, and the scientific “sweaters" who form so-called industrial-psychology organisations, never cease to seek out ways of economising and increasing efficiency, and reducing staff.

Mr. Hodgson says that he has had much first-hand experience of one aspect of this economising process, and he readily admits that, so far from there being an increase in waste inside industry there is a constant decrease.

In order then to support the theory that an enormous increase in output per head is offset by an enormous increase of wastage, we must seek this wastage outside industry, not inside.

Mr. Hodgson tries to do this. He mentions many obvious instances of “wastage” (known to Socialists for generations), such as unemployment, destruction of goods, war, advertising, etc., and out of this he constructs his theory of “leaks” which result in wealth increasing only one-tenth as fast as it otherwise would do.

Unfortunately, Mr. Hodgson does not show in full how he arrives at his estimate of the total amount of “wastage,” and when he does give details he exhibits a carelessness which does not encourage us to accept the rest of his estimate with any confidence.

On page 20, for example, he says that unemployment is three millions, plus another million temporarily stopped; being unaware apparently that the first figure already includes those temporarily stopped.

However, that is by the way. The main point is that even if Mr. Hodgson’s estimates of the volume of wastage were accurate they are not what is required to prove his case. His theory of a constant nullification of rapidly increasing productivity in industry, demands not merely evidence of large waste outside industry, but of rapidly increasing waste. He does not supply this and does not even attempt to do so in spite of being challenged several times on the point.

He has not done so for the very good reason that he cannot. No such enormous increase in wastage occurs. Both that and the alleged enormous increase in industrial productivity are myths.

It is probable that during a period of capitalist expansion following a crisis, “wastage” both inside and outside industry decreases as a whole, owing to the decrease of unemployment which is one of the largest components of the latter kind of “waste.”

We may sum up our analysis by saying that productivity per head of the workers in any established industry, and the total output of industry as a whole, are increased by inventions, machinery and new processes, but only at a comparatively slow rate.

In conclusion, it may be noticed that these “high-productivity,” “age of plenty,” “production without labour” theories, are typical by-products of each capitalist depression, born of crisis out of ignorance; just as the contrary nonsense of the Malthusians has its heyday during each period of capitalist expansion, when we are asked to gaze on the horrid prospect of famine through population increasing faster than our means of subsistence.

Edgar Hardcastle

Letters: Anonymous letters (1934)

Letters to the Editors from the September 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

“COMMUNIST."—We have your letter in which you argue that the Communists “are going the right way, but cannot explain themselves very well." If you give your name and address (not necessarily for publication) we will reply to your letter. We do not answer anonymous letters.

Ed. Comm.

* * * * *

 

Answers held over.

Several Answers to Correspondents are held over owing to lack of space. Ed. Comm.

Letter: Has Russia "Production for Use?" (1934)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

Has Russia "Production for Use?"

A correspondent (S.N.), writing from Waihi, asks how the S.P.G.B. justifies its attitude towards Russia in face of the following statement made by an observer of Russian conditions: —

After all, there is nothing wonderful about these (Russia’s) achievements. The simple and sufficient explanation is that in a mad world, one country is acting rationally—and is planning her industry and producing for use not for profit. . . .

The name of this observer is not given, but whoever he is, his observation is very much at fault. Nobody denies that the output of Russian industry has increased, but that can be said of many countries which make no claim to being anything but capitalistic. Whether or not those in charge of Russia can be said to be acting “rationally” depends on the point of view. From one angle it has been said that since Socialism in Russia is at present, and for many years to come, an impossibility, it is wise to come to terms with the capitalist world and enter into the mad scramble for markets which is a feature of world capitalism. At any rate, that is what Russia is doing. One outstanding instance of this is the enormous efforts Russia is making to develop the production of gold. The July issue of the Monthly Review of the Moscow Narodny Bank (an official | Soviet institution), publishes an article on gold production, from which we learn that the output of gold has been advancing rapidly. In December, 1933, it was nearly twice as great as in December, 1932, and a further great increase is planned. Russian gold output in 1933 was second largest in the world, being beaten only by Transvaal. The writer of the article in the Bank Review (A. Serebrovsky—chairman of the Central Administration of the Russian Government Gold Trust), holds out the hope that "in the near future the U.S.S.R. will assume first place in the world as a gold-producing country."

Is this rational, except on a purely capitalist basis? Of course it is not, and the Bolsheviks knew this well enough not so long ago. Did not Lenin tell us that under Socialism gold would no doubt be used for the construction of street lavatories ?

Again, this observer is quite wrong about Russia producing for use. Production for use (and this, too, the Bolsheviks once knew quite well) involves the abandonment of buying and selling, and profit-making. In Russia, however, goods are not produced for use but for sale, at a profit. The first charge on Russian industry is to meet the enormous cost (upwards of £100 millions a year) of the interest payments to the bondholders (mainly Russian citizens) who have invested money in the loans continually being raised by the Russian Government.

Quite unintentionally a pro-Bolshevik observer, Mr. Louis Fischer, who for years represented American newspapers in Moscow, showed the capitalist character of Russia in a recent article called " In Russia, Life grows Easier." He wrote: "The food situation, too, is much better than it was last winter. There is scarcely anything one cannot buy—if one has the money." (Nation, New York, June 13th, 1934. Italics ours.)

That is not production for use but production for sale, as in other capitalist countries, " to those who have the money." Ed. Comm.

Letter: Socialism and motor cars. (1934)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism and motor cars.

A correspondent (W. E. B. Acton) puts the following question: 

Under Socialism, as we understand it, equal distribution of the world’s wealth will be put into operation. What will happen if everyone desires a motor-car ?

The correspondent tells us that this is one of many questions put to him by work-mates of his, this particular question being put by a follower of Lord Beaverbrook. To students of capitalism the question is interesting as an example of the way private ownership and profit-seeking muddle and distort every issue. Lord Beaverbrook is an intelligent and experienced man, yet he will trot out infantile conundrums like this under the impression he is dealing with one of the important problems which will face Socialist society.

Socialism does not mean "equal distribution." It does not mean "dividing up." It means a system of society based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution. It means that society as a whole will tackle the job of producing what society as a whole wants, limited, of course, by the then existing powers of production and by the number of hours it is considered desirable to spend at production.

"What will happen under Socialism if everyone desires a motor-car?" is a question which we could only answer if we knew the power of production prevailing at that time.

If the powers of production will not permit of one car per head except at considerable sacrifice of production in other fields, then people will democratically decide whether or not they are prepared to make this sacrifice. In this case, as in all other cases, .they will choose between alternatives in the light of their most pressing desires unless and until the powers of production have developed to the point where such a choice of alternatives is no longer necessary.

In any case, we must beware of foisting our own needs and aspirations under capitalism upon people living under the very different social conditions of Socialism. It is highly improbable that everybody under Socialism would want a car. In fact, it is certain that many will not. The utility of a car lies in its convenience for business and pleasure; but undoubtedly, too, part of the joy of possessing a car to-day lies in the social prestige it gives a man among his neighbours. As under Socialism this will be lacking, people are far more likely to make use, for travelling, of a clean, pleasant, rapid and conveniently-run traffic system, which is not beyond the wit of man to devise. Alternatively, to the extent that cars might be preferred, they could (though we do not claim that they will) be taken from a depot when wanted and returned when finished with—a method far superior to the wasteful and cumbrous system whereby each and every individual kept and maintained his own individual car. Ed. Comm.

SPGB Educational Courses and Meetings (1934)

Party News from the October 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Notes:

The blog has fallen victim to an embarrassment of riches . . . for which I will not complain. There are too many meetings, branches and speakers in the Party advert for me to include them all in the label section of the blog.

Special shout out to the anonymous SPGB speaker at the Wood Green Branch Friday night lecture who decided to be listed under the party name of 'A. C. Omrade', Very inventive.

SPGB Meetings (1934)

Party News from the October 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

The Socialist Party – Its Principles and Policy pamphlet is available at the following link.

'Robertus' was the party name of Robert Reynolds.

Open Air Meetings (1934)

Party News from the October 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

Editorial: What difference is there? (1963)

Editorial from the October 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

Labour governments aren’t what they used to be. They no-longer send chills of horror down the spines of the rich, the near-rich, and workers with a few pounds in the savings bank. It was not always so.

Forty years ago when, for the first time a Labour government took over in Britain, there was quite a lot of fear and panic in the air, even though Ramsay MacDonald went to great pains to give his cabinet an image of respectability by appointing a number of peers. In particular by making one of them, Lord Chelmsford, who had no Labour Party associations, First Lord of the Admiralty so that those who feared the worst could at least feel that the Navy was not in dangerous hands. That Government lasted for about nine months.

The Norwegian Labour Government which came into office in 1928 was less circumspect about its power to inspire fear. Instead of putting the Navy into the hands of a conservative it announced its intention to disarm altogether and threatened other things horrifying to the propertied class. There was a sharp financial crisis and out they went after a fortnight. After a few years mellowing they were back again, with no panic, and continued in government with hardly a break for twenty eight years; only to resign now after narrowly escaping defeat on a Parliamentary vote of ‘no confidence’.

What is significant about the changeover from a Labour to a Conservative government in Norway is the general comment of political observers that it will make little or no difference. The Guardian’s comment was typical.

“Political observers,” it said, predict that the new government “will make few changes in domestic or foreign policy”. When the Norwegian Labour Party took over in 1928 it promised to put the interests of the workers first and to introduce what it called Socialism. Now the voters in Norway know that capitalism will carry on in much the same way whichever party is in power.

It is the same here. No one with any knowledge of the present political situation thinks that a Labour Party victory at the next election would be followed by drastic social changes. If such a thing were possible it would mean that the differences between the Labour Party and the Conservatives are deep and vital, whereas in fact the publicity men in both organisations have a hard time finding differences that look big enough to fight an election.

As fears of Labour government have receded, there is more scope for conservatives and others to air their views on problems of taxation and government, without being obsessed with their old apprehensions of ruin and revolution. So Mr. Harold Wincott, writing in the Financial Times last July, was urging his readers to consider what to them must have seemed a novel proposition. The great problem of the ‘nation’ (meaning of course, British capitalism) is, he argued that of halting and reversing the enormous increase of government expenditure that has taken place during this century. This, for him, is so much the greatest problem that he could write: —”I am …. sure that until a solution to it is found no government of whatever party, or under whatever leadership, will achieve more than temporary success.”

From that point Mr. Wincott’s reasoning goes thus:— A Labour government is likely to go on increasing the size of government expenditure; the Tories are better suited—in the long run—to tackle the twin jobs of getting economy and efficiency, but at present the Tory government is quite unable to think about it let alone do it; so the best solution would be a Labour government in office and the Tories in opposition where they could think about the great task of reducing the amount of the capitalist’s income sucked away to run the Administration. And he adds: —

“It seems that the real, long-term interests of Britain would best be served in part if the Tories lost the next election and. going into opposition, gave themselves the time to solve the outstanding problems of our age.”

That was Mr. Wincott in the Financial Times in July. Two months later the Editor of the Sunday Times (1st. September) started another hare. He would have agreed with Mr. Wincott that a Labour electorial victory was not particularly alarming, nor even a successful Labour government. What he fears is a Labour government which proves a failure:

“This would indeed be an alarming situation, since it would mean that both parties had failed in the same way at once. … If the Labour Party first wins and then fails, that would produce a crises of confidence not in the Government, but in ‘government itself.”

It could be summed up by saying that the Sunday Times is not afraid of a Labour Government because it would hardly be distinguishable from a Tory one. A year, or perhaps two years, after a Labour victory the electors may discover “that nothing really new has happened, that the Labour Party has no answers which the Conservatives did not have, that it has only some other and less energetic Ministers and a younger and perhaps more energetic leader”.

The Sunday Times and Mr. Wincott see the problem rather differently. While the latter appears to put the major emphasis on cutting down expenditure, the Sunday Times editor takes the line that administrative methods are hopelessly out-of-date and that top priority should be given to that problem. “Reform of the system of government is the essential preliminary to all other reforms”.

Of course the fears and hopes of those two gentlemen do not exhaust the possibilities, nor do the policies or lack of policies of the major political parties. If a realisation that there is little to choose between Labour and Tory Government turns workers’ thoughts to a realisation that there is a deeper problem, concerned with social structure and class relationship, they may be the readier to come our way and work for Socialism.

News in Review: Crime (1963)

The News in Review column from the October 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

AT HOME

Crime

The continued search for the Cheddington mail robbers, enlivened by some startlingly intimate newspaper reports of the details of the crime (one paper said that the master mind is a miser who lives in Brighton) once again highlighted the fact that the working class are always on the lookout for an easy way out of the joys of their social situation.

The discovery of some of the money in hiking country around Dorking set off a Sunday afternoon equivalent of the Pools, as crowds of people combed woods and fields for what they hoped was going to be a lucky find. There was no lack of discussion about what they would all do if they came across some of the loot. Stick to it? Turn it in and claim the reward? On one thing, everyone seemed agreed. If such a piece of luck came their way, they would use it for all they were worth to help themselves get out of the working class.

Now this puts something of a perspective upon the remarks of Dr. John Mays, Lecturer in Social Science at Liverpool University, who said this about the cause of crime to a Howard League conference at Nottingham: “When they see people enjoying a better standard of living they ask why they should not have it. That leads to some of them to snatch and grab for themselves.”

Anyone who expects a Lecturer in Social Science to come up with conclusive answers to the problems which his researches uncover, may have dreamed of Dr. Mays pointing out that most crime exists only because capitalism exists. If capitalism were abolished, this crime would simply fade away into history. But the Doctor came as near to this as anyone could reasonably expect: “The nation’s business is to make a good life available for a greater number of people.”

And that is just what capitalism is failing to do. The crime figures are only one aspect of this monstrous, vital fact.

Lord Nuffield

While we are on the subject of rich men, we should comment on the death of one who became famous not just for what he owned but also for what he had given away. Capitalism, which is based upon the exploitation of the masses by the few, hypocritically teaches us to respect the man who gives away his money. Provided, that is, it is all done in a way of which capitalism can approve. Such a man was Lord Nuffield, whose bequests to charities and the like were variously estimated at his death at between sixteen and forty million pounds.

The press flew into action when their hero died, with long obituaries telling us how generous he was, how grateful we should be for his open-handedness, how sad it was that he should go the way of all flesh. None of them, in the thousands of words they spewed out, asked, the obvious question.

Where did the millions which Nuffiekl gave away come from, in the first place?

And, equally, none of them gave the only tenable answer:

From the exploitation of the workers in his factories.

Diet on the dole

Evidence of what the good life means to many people has come from County Durham, where the West Hartlepools Council has devised a diet to feed a family of four or five pounds a week. West Hartlepools has three thousand people out of work at the moment and, if the economic portents are being read correctly, can expect a lot more as the winter draws on. It is also the place, as we recorded last month, where Cerebos Ltd. panned to dump a hundred tons of meat and fish paste into the sea because they are changing the shapes of their jars.

There were no reports of the West Hartlepoals unemployed, nor of their long suffering wives, protesting at the insult which has been added to their injury. There were only photographs of patient, if bemused, housewives at the demonstration of the diet. It has not, apparently, occurred to anyone that there is something insulting in supporting a social system which cannot secure even a meagre livelihood for its productive members, and then lecturing them, when times are hard, on the techniques of living on short rations.

Are the working class too buffeted, too loaded with the degradations and the insults of capitalism to care? Perhaps they are. On the very same week as the diet was being demonstrated in West Hartlepools the Sunday Telegraph reported that Minister of Labour Mr. John Hare would soon be able to wrestle with the problem of the unemployed in a new home in Holland Park. He, poor fellow, has been driven from his former home in Sussex Place, Regents Park, by an expiring lease. Never mind. The new Hare home, after one or two alterations, will be worth over £100,000. Mr. Hare is married to a sister of “immensely rich” Lord Cowdray.

Perhaps the unemployed in the Hartlepools do not read the Sunday Telegraph. Nor, perhaps, its sister paper the Daily Telegraph, which told us a few days later about some of the people who will never have to worry about their food budget because to all intents and purposes, they own, among other things, Scotland (which after all is not very far from County Durham). Here are just a few of the owners:

The Duke of Buccleuch, 500,000 acres.

The Duke of Sutherland. 250,000 acres.

Cameron of Lochiel, 150,000 acres.

Col. David Greig, 90,000 acres.

The Scientists

Answers were hard to find, too, at this year’s meeting of the British Association. All sorts of problems are aired at this annual orgy of scientific speechifying but, apart from technical matters, it is virtually impossible to find, among the thousands of words, a hint of the solution to society’s ailments. The scientists can pose the question very nicely, usually with a mass of supporting evidence. But the answer? That is a different matter.

Here, for example, is Professor C. F. Carter, Vice Chancellor of Lancaster University, worrying about the problem of economic growth:

“Britain is showing increasing signs of tiredness not only in government but in the Civil Service and in some parts of industry, and it badly needs the energy of a fresh generation . . . Britain could have a five per cent growth rate if people worked harder and longer but people would not work hard to create material wealth unless it was considered desirable and respectable to enjoy the fruits of their labour.”

And here is the Professor’s solution to the problem he has stated:

“The economic system must be organised with reasonable efficiency and honesty. The vigour of new ideas must not be suffocated by a dead weight of orthodoxy and the energy of the young must not be frustrated by the power of the old.”

It is difficult to believe that Professor Carter—and perhaps some of his audience—are unaware of the fact that there is nothing new about his suggestion. They must surely have noticed that, whether young people or old are in charge of capitalism, the anomalies, the frustrations and the inhumanities of the system remain untouched. There is, further, nothing especially unorthodox in suggesting that the younger element be given their chance. Nor anything especially hopeful or inspiring. Is this the best that the scientists can offer us? Apparently so.

The tragedy about scientists, in fact, is that they never seem able to hit on the real solution to capitalism’s problems. With all their training—some of it training in how to think straight, how to assess evidence and to reach a defensible conclusion—they never seem to grasp one of the most obvious facts of present day society. Very, very few of them ever consider the idea that there may be something in the basic nature of capitalism which is always going to prevent it from settling its own difficulties.

Scientists, in other words, are just as ready as any of the great unscientific mass outside their conference hall to support capitalism, with all its anomalies and illogicalities. They turn not a hair at helping to make the devilish devices with which rival nations fight their wars. They are always on hand to look into, and to try to control, any of capitalism’s problems. This year’s British Association learned that Professor R. V. Jones, professor of natural philosophy at Aberdeen University, will soon be joining the Ministry of Defence to advise on scientific matters. To advise, in other words, on the scientific aspects of the war effort of British capitalism. Professor Jones himself said that it was “a little unfortunate ” that the news of his appointment had leaked out at a meeting of the Association. It is even more unfortunate for the human race that long training and extensive knowledge should be diverted into the modern war machines instead of being applied to the benefit of society.

ABROAD

Civil Rights March

The Civil Rights demonstration in Washington was, in terms of its numbers alone, massively successful. But it was no more than that.

The Negroes in the United States, just like all other oppressed racial groups everywhere else, are discriminated against because of the false ideas of those who do the discriminating. In some ways, capitalism needs an ignorant working class—and these are the very people who will try to explain away the system’s shortcomings by venting their spleen on the Jew, or the Negro or some other Minority group. At times, a government will actually foster such ideas—in wartime, for example, it helps to have a working class who think that the other side is inherently bestial and possesses inferior fighting abilities.

This kind of ignorance cannot be cleared out by demonstrations, however massive they may be. Capitalism thrives on ignorance of one sort or another; the only people who are immune to racial theories are those who have realised that the private property system is not in their interests and who work for its abolition.

South Africa & Nyasaland

Not only race theories, but race lunacy, in South Africa, where the dour censorship of the Nationalist government often makes them look foolish. The latest victim of the Pretoria blue pencil is the Peter Sellers film Heavens Above, which is in trouble in the Republic because it shows, among other scenes, the white vicar taking tea with his Negro churchwarden, the same churchwarden at the font at the christening of a white baby, helping the vicar off with his coat, and so on.

It is tempting to say: “How stupid can you get?” and to leave it at that. But, of course, the vicious race oppression in South Africa deserves more comment. For that is the country where racial theories are actually holding back the very advance of capitalist society, where the economically powerful industrialists find that their hopes are so often frustrated by the Nationalist government’s primitive ideas and fears of black revolution. In some ways, it is a deeply frightening spectacle. The immediate outlook for South Africa is not happy. It is dark with the promise of savage conflict, with little hope for humanity and reason in it.

It is small relief to turn from lunatic South Africa to some of the countries where the Negro nationalists have come to power. Ghana, as we all know, is a classic example of an intolerant government. Everybody can remember the self destructive anarchy of the early days of independence in the Belgian Congo. In other parts of Africa, too, the erstwhile fighters for independence have shown that, when they are in power, their followers would be wise to forget the more purple passages in the speeches they made in the old days of struggle.

Dr. Banda, who suffered imprisonment for his advocacy of independence for Nyasaland, is a man who must be trying to do a lot of forgetting. In his case, the usual strictures upon the people of the country to work harder, to serve diligently the cause of Nyasaland’s aspirant capitalist class and to become, in other words, meek, respectable citizens, has been accompanied by an attempt to impose a degree of public adulation which is as ridiculous as any of the antics of the censors in Pretoria.

When he is out and about, Dr. Banda likes to have the road to himself. That is why the Nyasaland Legislative Assembly has recently been debating a Bill which will compel motorists and cyclists to pull up at the side of the road when Banda’s convoy approaches. Is this not ludicrously reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin with his globe and his microphones in The Great Dictator? There is only one comment which fills the bill. We shall give way to the temptation which earlier we resisted. How stupid can you get?

BUSINESS

Whistling in the dark

One of the lively minds who, the ads. tell us, write The Guardian, has found something in the world of business to be cheerful about. “Optimism,” said the papers City column on August 27th, “Is in the air . . . most people appear to take the view that the way lies reasonably clear ahead for the next six months at least.”

In some sections of industry and commerce, this is at least partly true. The shipbuilders report a brighter outlook, estimating that by the end of this year their orders will be over the million ton mark, compared to 610,000 tons for last year. The Guardian’s conclusion, as we might have expected, was that this is all due to the measures in last April’s Budget and to the other financial juggling which the government has since tried, such as the £60 million loan scheme for the shipbuilding industry.

But there is another side to the picture. Other industries are not doing so well. On the same day—indeed, on the same page—-as The Guardian was carolling its optimism abroad, it reported that The Metal Box Company is worried about the lack of orders and finds that the tax “incentives” have had little effect upon its markets, Still on the same page, Rael Brook, the shirt company which rose so dramatically a few years ago, was also said to be on harder times; its current dividend has taken a cut by half, mainly as a result of an unsuccessful venture into the production of trousers. Among the other firms which are suffering from a pronounced lack of optimism are Metal Industries (predicting lower profits for this year) and John Brown, the shipbuilders (profits expected to be “clearly not … as great for the next two years”).

Only a few days later The Guardian sobered its cheerfulness with the news that the long forecast upsurge in consumer spending has not come to pass and that the retail sale figures for July were well short of the hopes which had been held out for them. And July, let us not forget, was the month when the tax adjustments of the last Budget were supposed to be flooding the working class with excessive spending power. The Guardian hesitated not at turning the necessary somersault:

“This is sad news for the optimists— including Mr. Maudling—who have been scanning the figures eagerly each month for signs of the genuine recovery that they felt was on the way.”

Now if this makes it seem as if The Guardian does not know its own mind on the subject of the business of British capitalism, we do not have to look very far for the reason : “Just why consumers generally are still holding off from spending more freely is anyone’s guess.”‘ (Sept. 3rd) and: “But no one can say for sure what sort of time lag we must expect before the next investment boom gets under way.” (August 27th).

The point is that the men in the Treasury—and those who write clever articles about them in the newspaper—claim that they can do better than guess about the economy. They should be sure about investment booms. It is illogical, to put it mildly, to support capitalism in one breath and in the next to admit that it is an uncontrollable system of guesses and uncertainties. And, in these circumstances, it is even worse to take up talk about “optimism” when we know that capitalism’s anarchies can abruptly and ruthlessly make a mockery of the most confident of whistling in the dark.

BEA's hidden profits

British European Airways has announced that it has cut its previous year’s loss from £1.5 million to £265,000. At the same time, BEA pointed out how generous a deal its shareholders have got from the nationalised industry. The loss was reached after—and not before, as is the case with private industry—BEA had paid out £3,081,521 in interest on capital. In other words, BEA’s actual profit last year was £2,816,220. Which shows up for the nonsense it is the talk about a nationalised industry being an automatic money loser.

BEA’s profit came, just like any other, from the work of the people whom it employs. Pilots and air hostesses, and the ground crews with their baseball caps, may seem glamorous beings to their earthbound fellows. Yet they are all exploited because that is what capitalism sees is done to all its workers, on land, sea and in the air.

It is, incidentally, worth noting the order in which BEA, in sound, traditional capitalist manner, put human welfare and its own commercial interests. At the Press Conference to introduce the Corporation’s report, chairman Lord Douglas of Kirtleside was asked for his views on the Noise Abatement Society’s proposal to reduce the offensiveness of London Airport by moving it to Foulness Island in the Thames Estuary.

Lord Douglas is famous for not mincing his words.

“Bloody crazy,” he replied.

Finance and Industry: Flurry in the chicken coop (1963)

The Finance and Industry Column from the October 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

Flurry in the chicken coop

 “I had three conversations with Mr. Kennedy, and each time he brought up “the subject of poultry. Is he a President or is he a chicken farmer?”

Thus Dr. Adenauer, the German chancellor, rather scathingly, about the American preoccupation with chickens. So preoccupied, in fact, that the U.S. Government announced a few days afterwards that they were prepared, if necessary, to do economic battle with the whole of the Common Market to establish their right to continue exporting broilers to Germany.

Second thoughts have taken over since then and U.S. official remarks have become much less belligerent. Some unkind critics have remarked that the thaw set in immediately members of the Six began to point out that they imported three times as much from the U.S. as the U.S. imported from them and that if there was going to be a trade war it wouldn’t be the Six who would come out worst.

But why such a fuss in the first place over a cut in, of all things, chicken imports? A cut which in any case only amounted to about $46 million, 4 per cent. of total American broiler production, and a fleabite in total exports? As usual, a small upset is only the first symptom of much more serious trouble.

What the U.S. Government is really afraid of is that the restriction on broiler imports is but a prelude to bigger cuts later on. The Common Market countries in fact import about $1,200 million of agricultural products a year from the U.S., including S370 millions of cereals. “Where will the next cuts fall?” is the American worry.

The whole disturbance, of course, is yet a further reflection of the present crisis in agriculture affecting many parts of the world, the Common Market in particular. Among the Six, France is determined to make herself the chief food provider —at the expense of the United States. At the same time, Germany must come to terms sooner or later with its high cost farmers; it can’t go on protecting them with high tariff walls unless it is prepared to see retaliation against its industrial products. And the German capitalists see the red light and are already beginning to squeal.

Only a couple of months have passed since we said that we were going to hear a lot about agriculture in the months to come. It may be the poor relation of present-day capitalism, but it is going to cause lots of trouble to the better-off members of the family before they decide what to do with it. They may end up by palming it off with a regular allowance, small, of course; or marry it off into a richer circle and make it one of themselves, big and efficient. Many of them, of course, would probably like to have it put quietly away—quite an impossibility, however, since capitalists appreciate their food even more than most.

But, by the way things are going, they will need to make a decision one way or the other before very long.

Together again

When the Allies got to work on German industry after the war, they made a brave show of doing something about the Krupps, the Thyssens, and the other steel barons. Their huge empires were broken up as “politically dangerous concentrations of political power” : never again were they to come together to threaten the peace of Europe.

The table published elsewhere on this page shows how successful all these wonderful aspirations were.

At the same time in Japan the Americans were busy dismantling the huge Mitsubishi trust. Never again was this powerful economic empire to overshadow Japanese policy and help push the country into aggressive war.

Now the three units into which the original group was broken up have just been put together again into Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. The new company will become Japan’s biggest shipbuilder and one of the biggest producers of railway rolling stock, cars, industrial machinery, and aircraft. Only Hitachi, again mentioned in our “top twenty” table, will have a larger turnover. With 77,000 workers Mitsubishi will have the biggest labour force in Japan.

Yet another example of the intrinsic drive for capitalism’s units to get bigger and bigger in spite even of difficulties deliberately put in the way.

The top twenty

Earlier this year (in our February issue) we published details of the top twenty British firms. Now Fortune, the American finance magazine, has compiled a list in its August issue of the top two hundred firms in the whole of the world, excluding the U.S. itself.

It is obviously too much for us to reproduce the full list, but readers may be interested to see the names of the top twenty. The list relates order of precedence to sales; there would be some changes in the order if net assets or net profits had been taken as the criterion. But the main pattern is here, nevertheless.

             Company Nationality Total Sales $ million

1 Royal Dutch/Shell Neth’ds/Britain 6,022

2 Unilever Britain/Neth’ds 4,136

3 National Coal Board Britain 2.490

4 B.P. Britain 2,011

5 Nestlé Switzerland 1,829

6 I.C.I. Britain 1,621

7 Volkswagen Germany 1,596

8 Philips Netherlands 1,529

9 Siemens Germany 1,350

10 Fiat Italy 1,262

11 Daimler-Benz Germany 1,176

12 Krupp Germany 1,040

13 Thyssen-Hutte Germany 1,029

14 Bayer Germany 1,004

15 Rhone-Poulenc France 992

16 Hitachi Japan 955

17 Hawker-Siddley Britain 915

18 Mannesmann Germany 915

19 British American Tobacco Britain 882

20 British Motor Corp Britain 871

An analysis of all the two hundred firms shows that 54 of them were British or had British connections; 36 were German; 31 were Japanese; and 27 were French. More than anything else, perhaps, it shows how Japan has risen to the top rank of the modern capitalist powers.

Stan Hampson