Human Nature and Socialism: 6—The Socialist Future (1953)

From the October 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Continued from the previous issue.

6—The Socialist Future

The object of the socialist movement is not “political” in the sense of advocating one type of government rather than another. It is nothing short of an entirely new social set-up and, to a large extent, it means an entirely new type of human nature. This is not to say, as non-socialists are so fond of putting it, that it needs an entirely new race of human beings to make it work. It simply means that people living in the new society will be shaped by a socialist environment instead of, as today, by a capitalist one.

In what ways will people living under conditions of production solely for use be different from people today? This is a question that has appealed to the imagination and reasoning powers of men ever since the idea of Socialism first arose. The answers have been many and varied; some (in particular, the various utopian visions) have become outdated by the very developments of Capitalism itself, and others will doubtless take shape as the ideas of Socialism become fruitful and multiply.

What should be our concern is not so much to work out a detailed picture of the future—a castle in the air—but to construct from the materials at hand a solid socialist edifice. For example, we do not know enough about future material developments within Capitalism to foretell how people will travel under Socialism. On the other hand, we do know that, given conditions of common ownership, the phenomena which are exclusive to private ownership (buying, selling, stealing, etc.) will no longer exist. The people who now engage in these activities will use their energies in more socially useful and constructive ways.

Indications from the Present

Our method of discovering what the future can and will bring must be to ask ourselves what we know of

the present, its relationship to the past, and what we may call the directional lines to the future. What do most people want from their lives today? What are they seeking and yet faying to find? What do they desire to be rid of, and yet lack the knowledge of how to do it?

The answers to these questions will largely determine the sort of world which can be created when men at last start to make truly human history. Let us first consider what is basic to all societies—work, or productive activity. Marx has suggested that work will become, not merely the means to live, but itself a prime necessity of life.

Capitalism has so reduced the status of the worker, taken all the joy from his work and separated him from its fruits, that he has come to regard it as an evil necessity. Socialism will restore dignity to all human labour, remove its price tag, and make it fit the needs of human beings instead of those of machines or markets. People will work because they know it is necessary to the sustenance of themselves and society, and because they desire to work—or, in the case of those activities which in themselves are not pleasurable, because they desire the end product

We can gain some indication of the attitude to work that will prevail under Socialism from the way in which people regard certain of their activities today. A man may work far harder on his allotment to produce vegetables directly for his limited community (family) than he does on the job at which he works only for money and which he probably cordially detests. When you suggest to him that he likes work, he hotly denies it. But when you ask him whether he likes working on his allotment, he replies: “That's different. That's my hobby.”

It is significant, as Professor Nunn has pointed out in “Education: Its Data and First Principles,” that where spontaneity prevails, work and play become one and indistinguishable. When the socialist says that work in the new society will become as hobbies are today, he is not suggesting that people will adopt exactly the same attitude to all work as they do now to their hobbies. He knows that the influence of Capitalism extends beyond the hours of employment, and corrodes even the simplest pleasures and the most personal relationships.

Social Relationships

Yet a different facet of human nature is revealed in the behaviour of people under adverse conditions. Solidarity with those whom you recognise as being “in the same boat” as yourself, tireless and selfless work on behalf of a stricken community such as during the East coast floods earlier this year—all indicate the human potential, and even craving, for co-operative endeavour. This will attain fulfillment in a society in which there are no drawbacks to helping others, and no penalties for dropping the attitudes of self-defensive mistrust which a highly competitive system forces us -to adopt.

Social relationships will change from those of mutually antagonistic owner and non-owner, buyer and seller, employer and employee, to those where such antagonisms will no longer exist Instead of coming into conflict with those Capitalism makes your enemies, and even having to be "on guard” against your friends, all human relationships will be conducted in an atmosphere of social harmony, where the separate individuals who make up the social whole will be working with each other and not divided against themselves.

Under all forms of society one of the basic human desires is to seek and obtain acceptance from one’s fellows. Today this has become narrowly interpreted as seeking and obtaining acceptance from one’s boss, who is, in turn, supposed to be acceptable to someone or some institution higher up—the Monarchy, Church or God, perhaps. To question any of the “accepted” attitudes to these things is—well, it is not always easy and not always a sound policy if you seek success in the capitalist sense of the term.

With Socialism, however, social acceptance will not rest upon standards dictated from above. The absence of economic rivalries will mean the absence of social rivalries. “Keeping up with the Joneses” will give way to working and generally behaving in ways which help other people instead of seeking to get the better of them. From being atomised into millions of separate families, the world will become one vast human family. The marriage institution, based on the needs of property, will be replaced by associations based on the needs of human beings, and they will promote a wider love of humanity instead of seeking a refuge from its present vast impersonality.

Different Outlook

The absence of private property will have far-reaching effects upon all human activities and relationships. It is easy to see that many of the employments so necessary to Capitalism will have no place in a socialist society—armed forces, police, lawyers, gaolers, insurance and advertising agents, bank workers and many others. Another aspect not so often considered is the different outlook that people will have. Today, when someone whom we do not know makes a friendly advance or an unsolicited offer of help, we tend to look askance at him and ask ourselves: “Ah, what’s he up to?” Not that the caution is altogether unjustified, because in present society we are encouraged to regard those outside our own small circle as "fair game” and legitimate objects for passing on the kicks we receive from the hostile world. But with Socialism all this will be gone—the world will be a friendly place, because it will not cost anything to be indiscriminate in bestowing affection.

When goods and services are no longer commodities to be bought and sold and haggled over, it will bring different attitudes to these things or, rather, it will then enable the existing attitudes to be freed from considerations of profit-seeking. After all, even today the relationship between buyer and seller is not completely reduced to the cash nexus and dominated by satisfaction of self—there is usually a residue of concern that the other fellow is satisfied with the transaction. Socialism will enable this concern to be present in all human intercourse, and will free it from the calculations which now cramp the expression of generous feelings.

All manifestations of the insecurity that cannot be escaped in property society will become things of the past. It will no more occur to people to store up freely available goods in excess of their current needs than today to fill every available receptacle with water “because it is free.” No longer will people be worried, often to the point of mental illness, about what tomorrow will bring forth—whether they will lose their job, fail to find somewhere to live, go hungry, badly clothed or unwanted. They will be secure in the knowledge that the welfare of all, as society’s aim, will not be something talked about by politicians, but naturally acted upon by the whole people, who will have no inducement to do otherwise.

#    #    #    #

 

Since this is the concluding article in the series, it may be useful briefly to survey the ground we have covered. We started by discussing some of the misuses of the term “human nature,” explaining that it is his environment which makes man a creature of one society rather than of another. The myth that “you can’t change human nature” was exploded, and the role of the Socialist as an agent in the making of history was outlined. Then, in the fourth article, we saw some of the patterns of behaviour which Capitalism generates, and how it does so. The writings of social scientists (mostly non-socialists) were quoted to show how human nature varies under different social conditions, and how men acquire it through those conditions. Finally, we have been concerned with explaining the object of the S.P.G.B. by giving some indication of the socialist future.

Our aim, throughout all these articles, and indeed in all our propaganda, is to convince all people that Socialism is both desirable and practicable. If you still believe it is not desirable, we are ready to take some of the blame—perhaps we have not explained it sufficiently clearly, and you can help to put that right by questioning our case. If, however, you believe that Socialism is desirable but not practicable, then we can only suggest that you do yourself a favour and join with us to make it practicable.

Stan Parker

Human Nature and Socialism: 5—We Learn from Social Scientists (1953)

From the September 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Continued from the previous issue.

5—We Learn from Social Scientists

People who criticise or object to Socialism because they think that human nature makes it impossible, assume that the characteristics they ascribe to human nature are fixed and unalterable. However, the science of anthropology (the study of human beings as creatures of society) shows that most of the characteristics are cultural acquisitions and have not been present in all societies. The importance of this to the case for Socialism lies in the fact that what is acquired culturally must change as the culture changes, and that the behaviour we are accustomed to think of as “natural” under Capitalism can and will be something entirely different under Socialism.

It is a commonplace that man is a social animal, i.e., that it is in human nature to be social. But it is not true in the sense in which it is commonly understood, namely, that our social nature is due to a social “instinct.” We were not born with our social nature; we acquired it. Likewise, we were not born with a certain sort of social nature, but developed it because of the sort of social environment into which we were born.

Each step man makes in his history alters his environment, each alteration in his environment changes that in which his fellow men and the oncoming generation live. The background of the child differs from that of the parent; in a changed social atmosphere men themselves react differently: they acquire new knowledge, new experience, new understanding. They value things anew. Human nature is itself transformed.

Nor should the inter-relationship of man and society be overlooked. Apart from his group, a man is a mere potentiality. He is developed in a milieu that fosters, modifies, or destroys his capacities. To explain the individual and discuss his psychology as something distinct from the society is a false dissection, by which structures are isolated from one another artificially and their organic connection destroyed. Society in its full sense is never an entity separable from the individuals who compose it. No individual can arrive even at the threshold of his potentialities without a culture in which he participates. Conversely, no civilisation has in it any element which in the last analysis is not the contribution of individuals.

Socialised habits

The life-history of the individual is first and foremost an accommodation to the patterns and standards traditionally handed down in his community. From the moment of his birth the customs into which he is born shape his experience and behaviour. By the time he can talk he is the little creature of his culture, and by the time he is grown and able to take part in its activities, its habits tend to be his habits, its beliefs his beliefs, its impossibilities his impossibilities.

People interpret the inevitability, under Capitalism, of economic competition as proof that this is the prime motivation that human nature can rely upon. The behaviour of small children, as it is moulded in our civilisation and recorded as child psychology, is the way in which the young human animal is “bound to behave.” It is the same with ethics or family organisation. It is the inevitability of each familiar motivation that is defended, with the attempt always to identify particular local ways of behaving with Behaviour, or certain socialised habits with Human Nature.

Let us take as an example the case of warfare. War is a phenomenon that may or may not be a feature of a certain culture. There are regions where organised resort to mutual slaughter never occurs between social groups. It may be impossible for a people to conceive of the possibility of a state of war. Rasmussen tells of the blankness with which the Eskimo met his exposition of the custom. Ruth Benedict tried to talk of dignity, uprightness, strength of character and courage warfare to the Mission Indians of California, but it was of these “barbarians" impossible. Their misunderstanding of warfare was abysmal. They did not have the basis in their own culture upon which the idea could exist, and their attempts to reason it out reduced World Wars to the level of alley brawls. We may conclude that if war is justified it is because people always try to justify their behaviour, and not because war will bear an objective examination of its merits.

Property

When we turn to the question of private property we can learn much from the reports of field workers who have lived in societies where communistic sentiments prevailed. When on the Banks Islands, W. H. R. Rivers worked out the history of a plot of land which was cleared about four generations ago. The greater part of the plot had been divided up between the children of the clearer, and had since been regarded as the individual property of their descendants, but part had been left for the common use of all the descendants of the original clearers. Rivers was told that disputes were frequent concerning the portions of the land which were owned individually, while there were never any quarrels concerning the part which had been left for the common use of all. Let this be a lesson to those who think that there will always be disputes over land and other wealth, and that if it were all commonly owned we should all grab as much as we could!

A comparison between the Melanesian and people in our own civilisation is enlightening. The Melanesian knows that were he to wander into the next tribe he must look out for himself. The next tribe are strangers and enemies. But he does not live among strangers as we do. He lives among friends. They have never sought to rob him, or cheat him, or slander him. If he is down, if he has bad luck, if he has nothing to eat, they will vie with one another in supplying him with food. They will make a point of going hungry themselves rather than he should. And they will not even make a virtue of it, and think how very noble they are and how grateful he should be.

There is little ground for the conflict of individual interests where there is little private property. Where all interests are in common, mutual assistance and goodwill are spontaneous sentiments. To assist others, to share with them and to protect them is as natural in “uncultured” societies as it is natural in individualistic communities to rob, to cheat, outwit and defraud.

Even today there are some remote parts of the world that illustrate in embryonic form the basic social relationships of Socialism. Hunza, a country of 26,000 people high up in the Himalayas, has no money, no police, no jails, no courts and no army. Without money there is no crime. It is not, let us hasten to add, an example of Socialism—there is a king, and it is a pre-property rather than a post-property society. But at least it shows that people can live without money and private ownership, and live quite happily and fully too. “ We are fond of sport, life and laughter. We work hard —then when the harvest is in, it is there for everyone,” Daily Graphic, 31/12/52. Engels’ description of the Iroquois is in the same vein, and he writes of the admiration inspired in all white people who have come into contact with unspoiled Indians, by the personal dignity, uprightness, strength of character and courage of these "barbarians."

Morality

If we study the history of human sexual relations we find that these have varied considerably with different types of culture. Sexual jealousy, a high esteem for chastity, sexual modesty, and the tendency to fall passionately in love with a single object (so-called “romantic love”) are such common and distinctive characteristics of civilised man, that not only laymen but frequently psychologists and naturalists take them to be inherent in man and inseparably united to his character. Nevertheless, these emotions are foreign to many primitive peoples. They have arisen in the course of the evolution of civilisation, and have been built up slowly and gradually as secondary characteristics under the influence of definite social conditions.

The technical use of morality—as a thing pertaining to the sex relation only or especially—is the application of our standards of sex behaviour, and our form of the sex taboo, to judge the folkways of all people. But all that can properly be said is that a great range and variety of usages, ideas, standards, and ideals can be found which differ greatly from ours. “Immoral” never means anything but contrary to the customs of the time, and place. There is no permanent or universal standard by which right and truth in regard to these matters can be established and different folkways compared and criticised.

It is now a moral principle that it is wrong to commit murder. But in early Judea to sacrifice the first born was not murder; in the 17th century “not to suffer a witch to live” was not murder; in the 20th century war is not murder. Abstract precepts are of very little significance in the ethical history of mankind; it is their concrete interpretation which has varied.

The ethical problem of selfishness v. social-mindedness (one that is so often brought into discussions about Socialism) is not in fact theoretical but practical. Its solution lies not in the construction of new ethical philosophies but in the creation of a new society. Every act which leads towards that new society is a contribution to solving the problem. When mankind has attained a state in which goods and services abound and exploitation has ceased, selfishness, having no longer anything important to do, will wither away.

Stan Parker

 

Some useful books to read:—

“Human Nature in the Making,” M. Schoen.

“Patterns of Culture,” R. Benedict.

“The Making of Man,” ed. V. F. Calverton.

“ Sin and Sex,” R. Briffault.

“ Folkways ” W. G. Sumner.

“ The Making of Humanity,” R. Briffault.

“ Man against Myth,” Barrows Dunham.

(Concluding Article: “The Socialist Future.”)

"If we all 'ad 'alos rahnd our 'eads" (1953)

From the October 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

From time to time the traditional meeting spots in London are enlivened by the appearance of a character answering to the name of Bulbrook. He is the Conservative Party candidate for a Kensington constituency, calling himself a Conservative Trade Unionist. In the summer he is a frequent visitor to the historic Whitestone Pond, on the heights of Hampstead Heath.

Thus it came to pass, on a wet and windy Sunday evening in June, that Mr. B., with a crony, was to be observed making rather strenuous efforts to get somebody to listen to him there. After some time local members of the Socialist Party arrived and proceeded, perhaps unwisely, to attempt to succeed where Mr. B. had failed.

The S.P.G.B. member who opened this meeting, studiously avoiding any mention of his opponent's platform, or even existence, launched straight off, rather austerely, into a description of the difference between the interests and the wishes of the working class,

The effect on “Old Bob” can best be described as catastrophic. With reckless abandon he poured forth everything he could think of (which, admittedly, isn't much) at the S.P.G.B. The only just way to reproduce this tirade would be by tape recorder. As it boils down, shorn of the abuse, trivial personalities, and shallow street-corner gossip, to about two real points, there is no need to. Master Robert’s objections to Socialism amount to these

(1) Nobody would work.

(2) Everybody would take what they want. 

The members of the Socialist Party of Great Britain are a lot of “silly boys,” he thinks. For which one member, at least, thanks him; it being so long since he was mistaken for a boy. “They are alright, of course, and they mean well” and “Socialism would be alright if we all 'ad 'alos rahnd our 'eads, but we ain’t!”

These “silly little boys” don’t know that nobody does “anythink for nothink.” “Where,” asked our critic, “would we get coal?” “Who would go down the mines ?” “Who would work at the docks?” if they got no money for doing it ?” “Who would work at all if they could just go and take what they want ?”

Now we must admit that Mr. B. has a point when he says people would not work for money if they could get their needs without it. But of that, more anon!

When Mr. Bullbrook, the Conservatives' nominee for Parliament, says that the only reason that anybody does anything is to get money he is starting something.

Incidentally, we could help him in his choice of examples. We should have thought the last places to get money were the mines and the docks. So do the miners and the dockers. In both cases, in recent years, the powers-that-be have complained that men were not going there because they could get more money elsewhere.

Just by way of a change, we will accept Old Bob’s case and see where it leads us. Not because Bob says it. Quite the contrary, what Mr. B. said on that Sunday is essentially what every opponent of Socialism, from Churchill to Pollitt and Sir Herbert Read would say. Even to the emphatic insistence when challenged afterwards personally “that he does understand Socialism.” “Yes! I do.” He is typical, not exceptional.

A number of cases occur to us immediately we start thinking about Mr. B.'s contention. These are but a few. Among the institutions Mr. Bullbrook's Party maintains are those of the Monarchy and the Clergy. Do we rightly understand Mir. Robert to mean that the only reason that Queen Elizabeth II went through all that ackamarackus with the Archbishops and the Peers at Westminster Abbey was to get money ?. We thought she had enough already, before starting.

Wealthy members of Mr. Bullbrook's Party published a statement by the Queen that she wished to “dedicate herself to the service of her people.” Does Mr. B. really mean that she omitted to add “for money”?

The prize-winning ditty in the News of the World competition declared that the Queen has a “heart of gold,” but we suggest that Mr. B. goes a little too far if he accepts this literally.

But what about the Clergy ? Can it really be true that Dr. Fisher and all those other thousands of men only minister to their flocks for money? Well! according to Mr. B., “Yes!” because “nobody does anythink for nothink.”

Some time ago this contributor was the somewhat surprised recipient of a communication from the Conservative Mayor of Hampstead, inviting him to become a voluntary member of the Civil Defence Service. In this letter, the Mayor said that volunteers would receive no money, but would derive great satisfaction from the thought that they were helping their neighbours, and maintaining the spirit of comradeship which grew up during the war. Whatever is the good of a Conservative asking people to join something they will not be paid for—when another one, Mr. Bullbrook, knows quite well they will not do so. It’s a waste of the Council's money, and the postman’s time. Why the Conservative candidate for N. Kensington has not told the Tory Mayor of Hampstead, we cannot say.

But then, we must also ask whether Mr. Bullbrook’s rule applies to Mr. Bullbrook himself. It may well be that he is a Conservative candidate, as he says himself, “to get money.” For this unique honesty we thank him. We’ve never heard any other Tory say it. What the electors will think is their business, since the basis of democracy can only be the willingness of candidates to carry out the mandate of constituents.

Socialists completely deny Mr. B.’s assertion, which stems from ignorance of the function of money. Money is not the power-plant of Society—it is the pipe-line. It is not an end—but a means of acquiring other things.

The amount of money which things cost is not in the things themselves—but the amount of Labour they contain. Labour is the driving force of Society.

It is evident that even in that form of society where money is the keystone. Capitalism, society would not hang together without the basic social characteristics of the human animal, which has to co-operate to live. Thus, for example, poor people continue to rear children even under the threat of war or poverty. Why, if Bullbrook is right, Churchill was wrong! He only offered ’em blood and sweat, toil and tears,” but no money, for winning the war. Incidentally, is Churchill also Prime Minister only to get money ?

How can we explain the people who have so much money that it nearly drives them barmy ? Do they want more money ?

Poor old Bob! Under Socialism men will go to the docks and the mines not to do the least they can for the money, but the most they can for their fellow-men, which, socially speaking, means themselves. The better they work the more social approval they will get. In Socialist society men (and women) will be appreciated for what they ARE, not what their fathers were. These people will not " ’ave ’alos rahnd their ’eads,” but knowledge inside them. This knowledge will show them that the best way for the individual to prosper is to co-operate generously with others. They will produce goods by their labour, and consume them in the leisure they find most agreeable.

Therefore, our opponent is right in one thing at least. When he says that people will not work for money—when they can get the things which money buys to-day, without it.

They will make Mr. Bullbrook Curator of the Mint. He can go round collecting up all the odd coins which careless people may have left lying about.

Horatio.

Scientists, Satellites and Socialism (1953)

From the October 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

There have been several letters to the press recently complaining about the lack of enthusiasm shown by scientists in finding an effective means of fog-prevention. It has been suggested that those scientists who are at present investigating ways and means of exploring the moon should turn their attention to preventing fog.

This is a little unfair to the scientists. The majority of those engaged upon astronautical research are better suited to the exploration of outer-space than to the more mundane problem of clearing the smoke-laden atmosphere of London.

Quite apart from this the problem is not so complicated as it may seem. Cities such as New York have dealt with it quite simply by forbidding the burning of smoke-producing fuels. The boffin is not required to produce an involved formula for this. In any case, the decision as to whether preference should be given to fog-prevention or inter-planetary travel depends not upon consideration for the welfare of the community, but rather upon which is likely to be die more valuable from the military or commercial point of view.

If a scientist is fortunate he pursues a line of research which is of interest to him, but usually he is directed to follow a line dictated by the interests of capitalism.

We have readied a stage in the evolution of human society where we are on the threshold of journeys into outer-space. It is not a new idea. As long ago as the seventeenth century Cyrano de Bergerac was dreaming of journeys to the moon with rockets. Now that space travel seems to be almost within our grasp and the idea gaining greater public appreciation, other considerations are troubling the more thoughtful scientists.

There are, unfortunately, too many workers who are overawed by the views of the professors. They are thought to be men whose mental powers are far greater than those of the rest of us. A conception which many scientists take pains to foster.

As a justification for the amount of time and money devoted to astronautics the scientists, many of whom are quite sincere, suggest that artificial satellites revolving around the earth at regular intervals could be used as observation platforms from which it would be possible to see whether any nation were preparing for an atomic attack and, if so, to prevent it.

To a Socialist, no utterance could be more naive than this, nor less scientific. It takes us back to the old argument that every nation should sink its differences and, in order to ensure that no one violated the treaty, an international police force be organised.

If the working class is waiting for someone to hand them security on a plate they should discount the backroom boys.

An astronaut, Oscar Schachter, writing in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society for January, 1952, introduced some opinions which were both pathetic and laughable. He was concerned about the violation of sovereign rights by artificial asteroids. In other words, he projected the problems of capitalism with its nautical three-mile limit into outer-space, where he could foresee legal difficulties arising from the passage every few hours of a satellite over someone else’s territory.

If workers incline to the same views as this scientist let them remember the League of Nations and its modern counterpart, the United Nations. Every day the United Nations become more disunited and doomed, like their predecessors, to end in complete impotence.

One of the greatest mathematicians of the age, Albert Einstein, revealed his complete lack of political understanding a few years ago in a book entitled “The World As I See it ”(Watts). In this he put forward the view that wars originate from ideological conflicts and that all nations should come to an understanding and agree not to fight. International control is the solution, according to Einstein.

Such schemes as this are foredoomed to failure and show as little fundamental knowledge as the child who thinks that the earth is fiat.

Those who support these Utopian schemes are ignorant of the fact that war is a logical outcome of the capitalist system. So long as wealth is produced to be sold in the world market, wars will ensue, regardless of pacts and declarations of friendship.

If travel to the moon and elsewhere becomes an established fact before the end of capitalism, the workers of the world will only be killed in greater quantities in the scramble for new sources of raw materials.

If we conquer space after the establishment of Socialism we will not be troubled by frontiers and boundaries and extra-territorial rights. Furthermore, life on earth will be so much more enjoyable that the people in America who have already reserved their seats in the first space-ship to the moon will probably cancel their reservations.

It is the workers of the world, the scientists included, who must solve the problems of production and distribution, but they must have the necessary knowledge.

To help them achieve their ends there exists the Socialist Party of Great Britain and its companion parties abroad.

Study our case and join with us in order that we may create a world in which all effort is for the common good.

Chester.

 

Blogger's Note: 

I don't believe Oscar Schachter was an astronaut. Try "American international law and diplomacy professor, and United Nations aide." [Wiki]

Fog prevention was a real issue in London - and other industrial centres in Britain - in the early 1950s. It was estimated that the Great Smog of London in December 1952 had resulted in 4,000 deaths.

Party News Briefs (1953)

Party News from the October 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Provincial Propaganda Tour. Full details of this summer’s tour will be given in next month’s issue. Some of the details are available, but it will be more comprehensive to give all the information together.

Croydon Branch. Details of meetings throughout the next two months are shown elsewhere in this issue. In case readers do not obtain next month's copy in time, it is a good idea to note all the meetings for reference.

St Pancras Tows Hall. Please make a note of the meeting being held on Sunday, 4th October, and bring along as many friends as possible. The subject is interesting, the hall large and comfortable—so make every effort to support the Party.

Conway Hall. Bloomsbury Branch are holding a public meeting on Friday, 16th October—details elsewhere in this issue. 

                                                                                                                                 Phyllis Howard

SPGB Meetings (1953)

Party News from the October 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

During his first spell in the SPGB, Robert Barlrop's pen-name/party name was 'R. Coster'. 

'R. Coster' was speaking on the Kinsey Report at Head Office on the 25th October, 1953. The front page article in this month's Standard was by 'Coster'/Barltrop on the Kinsey Report.

What is Democracy? A Socialist View. (1913)

From the October 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

What is democracy?

Many people, when faced with this question, conjure up pictures of the American eagle, and think that democracy is all that that amiable bird symbolises. They imagine that a State run on the lines of the American republic is a democratic State, that the institutions of such a State are democratic institutions, that the spirit of such a State is the democratic spirit, and that the philosophy of such a State — the “Rights of Man” (printed, of course, on the reverse side of a “green-back”) — is the democratic philosophy.

All of which ideas are wrong.

The common meaning of the term “democracy”, — a form of society in which supreme power is lodged in the hands of the people — is correct enough as far as it goes, and is sufficient in all that it implies. But it implies something very different from the American republic, and American institutions, and the “Rights of Man”.

For supreme power to be lodged in the hands of the people does not mean merely that they are to have the widest possible franchise and equal voting power. It implies that the people are to have complete control of all social institutions, the ordering of all social activities, the domination of the whole social life. Such a condition of affairs presupposes at the very outset the ownership by the people of all the means of life, all the social products, even all the social intelligence and skill and energy.

There can be no other foundation for democracy than this common ownership of all the means of life, for where these fall into private possession social distinctions at once spring up, the owners become dominators, and it becomes impossible for the people to control the social activities — because, forsooth, they have not control of the means and instruments through which the most important of those activities — those directed to the production of the social wealth — are applied.

Notwithstanding, then, the popular conviction to the contrary, existing republics no more enfold democracy than do monarchies. Nor are they nearer to it since they are no nearer to the property condition upon which democracy must be founded.

That was democracy which existed among all races prior to the advent of private property. There the people of the community really controlled the affairs of the community, deputing functions to certain officials, but jealously keeping power in their own hands. The “little brief authority” in which they dressed their elected persons was never allowed to pass beyond the popular control. Even in the case of the war-chiefs — the direction, perhaps, in which usurpation was most likely — it was in many cases usual to elect two, to act alternately, in order that the influence of one should form a counter-balance to the other.

If we cannot have democracy under the present social system, at least we may have men and women imbued with the democratic spirit. Indeed, every Socialist must be so imbued. In the light of this spirit he has faith in the capacity of the whole people to control the social system as a democracy, just as he has faith, primarily, in the capacity of the working class to institute the social system based upon the common ownership of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth.

It is obvious that the natural corollary of the claim that the working class must make these means and instruments the property of the whole people is the implication that the people, as such, and not as a few directing the many, will be able to organise for the efficient use of those instruments of labour. Therefore the class idea — the idea that the working class possess every qualification for the establishment of a democratic social system — and the democratic idea — the idea that the whole people are capable of democratically controlling the affairs of society — are intimately connected, are, as a matter of fact, inseparable.

Democracy has a philosophy of its own. This philosophy is grounded upon the exactly opposite conception to that upon which all individualist systems of thought, from the capitalist to the Anarchistic, rest. In the democratic conception the organic nature of society is the very corner-stone. Naturally this awards to the individual a subordinate place. He finds his true position as an organic atom, the product of the organic whole, and subordinate, therefore, to the social body. In the democratic philosophy it is realised how supremely important a factor in social development the mass of the people — the “rank and file” — are. There is no intellectual class. The highest intellect is a social product, the result of the food, shelter, and clothing produced by society, and of the accumulated experiences for which society has paid with pain. And further, the opportunity even for such intellects to perform their useful part depends entirely upon the general level of intelligence. Just as the female blossom on the gourd vine, open before there is a mate to round her career, must die unfruitful, so the intellect advanced beyond its day must prove sterile and useless to society.

The individual, then, is a social product; he owes not only his being, but his opportunities, to society. Instead of being the “great man”, to whom society owes everything, he is the creature of the social entity, without which he is nothing.

In the conclusions of such a philosophy the capabilities, the strength, and the energies of the individual are just as much the product of the social activities as are the means and instruments of production and distribution; also they are just as necessary to the social organism, and therefore just as properly fall under the social control.

The philosophy of the “Rights of Man” of the bourgeoisie — which mocked humanity so cynically at the Paris Commune, and does so every day, in fact, the wide world over — with the “Rights of Society”.

In the course of time democracy must also have an ethic of its own. What form this will take can at present only be roughly prognosticated. Just as, with all our knowledge of primitive democracy, we are unable to adequately conceive the outlook on life of the social units of those early days, so we cannot hope to understand the mental outlook of the democrats of the future.

As the Materialist Concept of History, however, teaches us that all ethics take their form from the method in which the people gain their livelihood, when the people gain their livelihood democratically, the ethic will be in keeping. Public opinion will then be, as public opinion always is, favourably disposed to the public welfare as it is conceived in the public mind. To-day this conception of the public welfare is distorted to the capitalist view of the meaning of the term; but the popular conception shapes the ethic of the day. The revolutionist requires a new ethic, and, cynical as he may pretend to be in this connection, he has got it. It is based on the needs of humanity as he understands them. When the Revolution has been accomplished, and warring interests have for ever been unified, when the individual interest, having been made one throughout the community, has by that achievement been absorbed by the community, when all the machinery of wealth production and distribution, and the human labour-power by which this wealth is produced and distributed, and the wealth so produced, is owned by society; when by the harmonising of social activities, and the clearing away of confusing social anomalies and contradictions, men and women come to realise through every fibre of their being that they owe everything to the commonwealth, that without society they are nothing, that they are but cells in the social organism, on which every act of theirs has a far-reaching effect for good or evil: then the ethic prescribed by public opinion will be such as will make for the clearly known good of society.

Then once again democracy will exist in the world, and men and women, nurtured into finer feeling by that standard of conduct which holds the common good to be the highest good, will unconsciously sink their individuality in the community, and strive always for that common good, as the highest morality of which the human mind is capable of conceiving.

A. E. Jacomb

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For October. (1913)

Party News from the October 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

Once again, I don't have enough room in the label section to include all the listed speakers, so some brief information on some of the speakers missing from the sidebar. Some of these names (and details) you have seen before:

• H. Cooper was H. J. Cooper. He joined Earlsfield Branch of the SPGB in September 1908, and his membership was lapsed in December 1915.
• C. Gatter was probably Alfred G. Gatter, who was a member of the Stoke Newington Branch of the SPGB from February 1910 until lapsing membership in April 1919.
• A. Hoskyns was Ambrose Hoskyns. He joined the Islington Branch of the SPGB in August 1910. He was an occasional writer for the Socialist Standard in the Pre-War 1914 period. There are no details of when he left the SPGB. A flavour of his writing (and the early history of the SPGB) is contained within his April 1911 article, 'The Attempted Suppression of Free Speech in Islington'.
• A. Jacobs was Alf Jacobs. There is more detailed background on him in this feature which appeared in the September 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard.
• H. Joy was a member of the Tooting Branch of the SPGB. He joined the SPGB in October 1907.
• H. King was possibly H.H. King, who originally joined the SPGB in August 1905 and was, at various times, a member of both the East Ham and the West Ham branches of the SPGB in the period before 1914. He joined and rejoined the SPGB on a number of occasions, eventually lapsing from membership in October 1914.
• W. Lewington was a member of the Tottenham Branch, originally joining the SPGB in March 1907. He resigned from the SPGB but no date is given for his resignation.
• G. Plummer was a member of the Tottenham Branch of the SPGB. 
• F. W. Stearn was a member of the Tottenham Branch. There were actually two 'F. Stearn's in the branch at the time - possibly father and son - so I don't know which one was a listed speaker for this month.
• B. Young was Byron Young. A member of the Walthamstow Branch, he was from a family of SPGBers. His father had been a member of the SDF, and his brother, Percy, was also a longstanding SPGBer. (His parents must have loved their poetry.) A prolific outdoor speaker for the Party, he emigrated to Australia after WW1. He is mentioned briefly in the Socialist Standard in his brother's obituary and in his nephew's obituary.

By the Way. (1913)

The By The Way Column from the October 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

The “Daily News” (28.8.13) once again tells us how old people taking their 5s. portion of “rare and refreshing fruit,” reduce the wages of those with whom they live. It says :

“A family of seven . . . five of whom are in receipt of old age pensions, are living near Redhill. . . . With the 25s. a week received from the State, supplemented by the earnings of the younger men, the family are able to lead a happy and comfortable life.”

So the cunningly schemed old age pensions relieve the rates at the expense of the “earnings of the younger men.”

* * *

Whilst the anti-Socialist is fond of mouthing the old drivel that Socialism will break up the family life, the following is worthy of notice. Perhaps it is because of the frequency of the smashing of homes and breaking up of families under capitalism that the anti-Socialist prophesies it for the future :

“John Littlewood, 59, was charged with begging. He was standing in the gutter playing a whistle. Addressing the magistrate he declared that wherever he applied for employment he was always met with the reply : “You are too old.”

“I have a very good certificate here from Chatham Dockyard. I was 18 years there. . . I had a good little home, but I had to part with it bit by bit.” (“Reynolds’s,” 31.8.13.)

Too old at 58, says the employer ; too young by eleven years, says Mr. Lloyd George. This was evidently a case for the magistrate—or the undertaker.

The one, you see, can restore his “family life” for a month in the stone jug, while the other can put him into the way of having a nice little wooden hut all to himself, which he would be allowed to hold in peaceful possession until landlords are no more and bum-bailiffs cease from troubling.

* * *

The Right Hon. David Lloyd George made a speech a short time since dealing with the arma­ment question. Of course he had to refer to “social reform,” and then he informed the capitalists how they would benefit by it.

“When they came to social reform and improved the conditions of the people they improved their health and their efficiency, purely as means for the production of wealth. . . It was no good saying they were spending 20 millions on insurance and old age pensions. They had got to look at the other side of the ledger, and that was worth a good deal more than 20 millions a year.”

It is interesting to note the utterances of this oily-tongued hypocrite, for when he is addressing his paymasters he specially emphasises the benefit that will accrue to the capitalist class as a result of Liberal “social reform”—”purely as means for the production of wealth.” Yet this is the man who, a few years ago, told us that “No one can really honestly defend the present system.”

* * *

In a leading article in “Reynolds’s” (24.8.13) devoted to the increase in the prices of food and and other commodities, the writer showed the hopelessness and futility of the workers clinging to the gospel of Liberalism as a medium for their salvation. Let me quote two passages.

“In no other country has there been the same press of social reform measures ; in no other country has there been the same effort made to grapple with poverty.”

And again :

“In spite of all our social reform agitation, in spite of Compensation Acts, Wages Boards, Old-Age Pensions, and National Insurance, powerful forces have been at work to keep a vast mass of our people from getting away from the edge of the precipice of starvation.”

What an admission of failure ! Could any indictment of mine be stronger ? After seven years of Liberal rule and unparalleled trade boom, a large mass are on the verge of starvation ! Were we not told by a leading light of the Liberal party 1908 that they were going to “strike starvation for ever from the dark category of evils with which honest men and women are beset” ? Liberalism has been tried and found wanting. Socialism alone contains the remedy.

* * *

The ”Christian Commonwealth” for August 27th contains an article from the pen of Philip Snowden, M.P., dealing with the Chesterfield election, and once more is the attitude taken up by the Socialist Party justified. Under a subheading “A Myth Exploded,” he tells us that :

“The result of the election has shown that the late member was in no sense an independent Labour member. It has shown that the claim that the Labour Party in the House of Commons represents electors who have been alienated from Liberalism and Toryism, and who believe in a Labour Party independent of both, is a myth. To try to keep that myth alive is neither possible nor honest. It is perfectly true that there is in the constituencies a very great volume of opinion which is in favour of independent Labour representation. In the industrial constituencies it probably represents 25 per cent of the voters. But the Labour Party in the House of Commons has not been returned solely by that section of the electorate. Its members sit in Parliament because in four-fifths of the cases some understanding or arrangement has been made with the Liberals. Under such circumstances it is ridiculous to expect that Labour members will quarrel seriously with the party by whose goodwill they hold their seats.”

Mr. Snowden goes on :

“Over anxiety to get its nominees into Parliament has led to compromise and bargaining in the constituencies, and anxiety to keep in Parliament has prevented the carrying out of a fighting policy.”

Such is the confession of this leading light of the “Independent” Labour Party. It shows once more that these fakirs are nothing more than office seekers, trading on the ignorance and mal-education of the workers,

* * *

It would be interesting to know the object of the visit paid by the Rev. C. F. Blyth to the flat kept by a young woman. Was he desirous of seeing her about her “spiritual welfare” ?

* * *

“Birds of a feather flock together.” Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald, now that he is temporarily released from his arduous labours in Parliament and India, has been enjoying a game of golf with Mr. Asquith, of Featherstone fame.

* * *

In view of the recent railway disaster at Ais Gill, all new readers of this journal should procure the issues from June and read the articles “Public Safety v. Railway Profits.” It will be seen from these that such accidents are bound to result from the cheeseparing policy of the companies, and that the only object of the Board of Trade enquiries is to blind the public to the fact that their lives are placed in the keeping of overworked and underpaid men, operating rotten engines, and supplied with bad coal.

The Scout

“The Naked Savage”. (1913)

From the October 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

Hard and monotonous toil, sordid and dirty surroundings, poor and adulterated food, shoddy, slop-made clothing, jerry-built houses or tenement slum-dwellings, dull and colourless environment, close association with penury and hard-fisted “thrift,” miserliness unmannerliness, uncouth companionship, endless worry and turmoil about petty things—such is the lot of the bulk of the workers within the capitalist system of society.

And what should be their lot ? Do they not deserve more ? To the workers in the past society owes all that it has. All the comforts and joys of modern civilisation are the result of the energy and toil of the worker past and present. It is the worker who makes possible the comforts of the idler, the pleasures of the rich. It is the worker who, with brain-directed hand, fashions the tool, the machine, and the finished food product. He it is who erects the palace for the king and the slum-hovel for himself ; who toils in the drab factory, sinks the mine shaft and cajoles mother earth to part with her treasures. The worker it is who in laboratory and office wrestles with the problems of how and why. It is, in short, the wage-slave of today who directs and controls all the operations of the actual work of producing and distributing wealth.

The most gigantic task is not too great for organised Labour. Labour spans rivers and crosses seas ; captures the wind and the light­ning for her puposes, and has harnessed the torrent and the stream.

For long ages man has struggled with nature for mastery—at first ignorantly superstitious, stumbling along with but a blind understanding. But one by one the secrets of nature have been learnt and mastered.

In the infancy of the human race primitive man dwelt in forests or caves, depending for subsistence upon wild roots, nuts, and berries. Naked and shivering ; without either the means for, or the knowledge of the art of, producing fire; without the means of communication with his fellows, surrounded by unknown dangers, he began to think and invent.

Discovery followed discovery until to-day it is seen that man in his struggle with nature for a livelihood has triumphed and his subsistence is secure.

Frightened by the fire from the heavens, primitive man worships it, and then controls it, using his god to cook his dinner. The enemy of man—the larger beast of prey—has been conquered and exterminated. Other animals have been tamed and domesticated. Beginning with the stick and the unpolished stone, man has gradually added to his store of implements and tools. He sharpened the stone to an axe-head, and fixed it to a shaft. The discovery of the bow and arrow, and the working of soft metals, followed by the knowledge of smelting, gave the rising race enormous power. Iron tools gave man the ship ; the iron ploughshare pushed forward agriculture, and gave rise to architecture and art.

The invention of writing, permitting ideas to be passed down, discoveries to be recorded, and a wider communication between man and man, was responsible for enormous progress, and finally the discovery of a mechanical motive power capable of turning the wheel and wielding the hammer gave the means of producing wealth in abundance with very little exertion on the part of the descendent of the naked savage.

The descendent of the naked savage—who is he ? With all our advancement, all our marvellous powers and possibilities, we have still the naked savage with us. We have worse. The powers of wealth production are lying idle and in the midst of plenty the people are starving and naked. The modern worker not only hungers, but he hungers with succulent dainties all around him, and sees his children wither amid a plethora of good things—good food, good clothing, and good houses of his making, but denied to him and his though they perish of want and exposure.

Like Tantalus of the fable, the modern worker stands up to his chin in good things which elude his lips the moment he attempts to enjoy them, and all around him grows the fruit of his labour that he is not allowed to touch.

How foolish and absurd it is ! How would our savage ancestor stare. Starvation he understood ; he knew, also, what it was to be cold. But to lie down hungry beside a good dinner would be a proceeding entirely beyond his comprehension, and only to be ascribed to witchcraft and devils.

And perhaps he would not be far wrong. The working class are certainly bewitched. With the brain and muscle to produce wealth they stand idly by and allow the masters to take what they have produced. Not only so—they cringingly beg for a share and wait meekly upon the idler’s pleasure. They give him their daughters to enjoy, and take up arms to defend him against his enemy—themselves.

Astonished indeed would the savage be, for he would see winged chariots manufactured by the workers and driven by them, yet used solely for the pleasure of the drones. He would see those who work the hardest rewarded with the worst accommodation, and the laziest loafer with crowds of busy men and women waiting upon him. And he would wonder, as the Socialist wonders, and wait for the toiler to end the farce—or shall we say tragedy ?—by awaking from his trance.

The awakening seems long deferred, but awaken he must. Entranced as he is by the conception of private property, events will eventually force him to see how utterly foolish he is, and how easily imposed upon.

When the awakening comes there will be nothing in the way of the toiler’s enjoyment. Relieved of the vast amount of unnecessary labour that the idlers compel him to perform, freed from the restrictions that capitalism places in the way, no longer compelled to ask : “Will it profit my master ?” the worker will go on doing that which will add to the comfort and pleasure of the community and sweep away poverty, misery, vice, crime, and all the evils that arise, directly and indirectly, from the private ownership by a class of the means by which the people obtain their livelihood.

Twel.

The Malthusian League. Have they a Remedy for Poverty?. (1913)

From the October 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Non quantitas sed qiialitas” is the motto of the Malthusian League.

“It is questionable whether we shall be able to retain our position among the nations if the decrease in the population continues,” said the Bishop of London.

“It ought to be considered immoral for a wo­man to have less than four children,” said the Bishop of Ripon.

Here we have two sides of a popular question, and we may well ask where any consideration for the working class comes in. As we might expect from a parasite class that only legislates in its own interests, and upholds its supremacy by brute force, the only question considered is the buttressing of the State or the stocking of the labour market.

Say the priests to the ruling class, “it is numbers you want,” while the Malthusian claims that more attention should be paid to the quality of the slaves. Both sides agree that the working class should remain a slave class ; both sides are therefore the enemies of the working class.

The means of life are owned by the master class, but are useless to them without workers to operate them. So long as their profits remain unaffected it matters little to them whether their country is thickly or thinly populated. It is no doubt a question worthy of discussion by the capitalist whether his class interest is best served by a working class sufficiently prolific to overstock every section of the labour market, or a working class that consciously and obligingly regulates its numbers to suit his requirements.

The individual worker may debate within his mind as to the prospects of inflicting his progeny on future generations—whether is is better to give one or two children the best possible equipment under the circumstances, or to breed a round dozen or so and let them take their chance. It may seem best to him to limit his family, and thereby reduce his responsibilities, retain a slight degree of comfort, and escape some of the anxiety incidental to bringing up a family. He may even weigh the chances of a large family being better able to support him in his old age. But all these questions are merely for the individual who, through ignorance, regards the present social system as fixed and unalterable, and who accepts the anarchy and poverty imposed upon the working class as inevitable. They are questions on a par with the questions of drink and gambling, purely individual in character, and having no political bearing whatever.

The limitation of the family has little or no effect on the general conditions of the working class, even when extensively practised. A limited population—other things being equal—involves a limited production, with fewer employed and a capitalist class with less surplus-value to spend in various ways. Capitalism adapts itself to large or small populations. The poverty of the worker was just as deep in the days of Malthus, when the population was only nine millions, as it is to day, when it exceeds forty-five.

Neither by logic nor yet by example can the Malthusians prove that theirs is any remedy for poverty. They quote the black death of 1348, which killed off a large number of workers. “How food was plentiful and wages went up, despite the efforts of Parliament to stop them.” This, however, is a case that has no bearing on modern conditions, because the people had not at that time been driven off the land. The majority of those in the towns were not wage slaves, but members of the guilds, and as such, either owned or expected to own, the tools with which they worked and the product of their labour.

France and Ireland are classic instances of the failure of Malthusian principles, yet with characteristic audacity the Malthusian League claims them as successful examples. The population of Ireland has been reduced by nearly one half in fifty years, but still the tide of emigration goes on at the rate of thirty thousand per annum, because working-class conditions there, as everywhere else, are growing worse.

The claim that “agricultural labourers’ wages seem recently to have fully kept up with prices” falls flat when we read that many of them receive in actual cash from five to eight shillings per week, the average, including allowances, being between twelve and thirteen shillings per week. The towns of Ireland, we know by repute, rival in slums and sweating dens anything in England or on the Continent. The linen industry for example, is notorious for its low wages.

For France it is claimed that real wages have gone up six per cent. in the last ten years. Whether this be true or not—and the league give no authority for their statement—French wages may still compare unfavourably with English or German in actual purchasing power.

Wages in England have risen during the last ten years, according to Government figures, but the rise has not kept pace with the rise in prices, we are told. The same applies to France. If it were not so, how are we to account for the discontent of the French workers, for the numerous strikes and demonstrations against rising prices, and for, what is even more conclusive, the consumption of horse and dog flesh by the poor ?

We are informed by the alarmists of the Malthusian League that “our excess of births over deaths is one thousand per day ; that the population of the United States has increased so that it is now consuming all its own wheat, and that Russia is having a famine of its own. That supply is getting more difficult and our demand and that of other countries, becoming greater, is it any wonder that prices rise?”

The Malthusians are not the only ones that sound alarm in this direction. Malthus himself wrote of the time when every available acre of land would be under cultivation and human beings would scarcely have standing room on the earth. Professor H. N. Dickson, president of the geographical section at the recent science association, says : “We are already making serious inroads upon the resources of the whole earth.” Such an admission, however, only reveals the inability of the ruling class to regulate their exploitation. The earth is being denuded of its wealth-giving properties for the sake of profits—to build up wealth for a parasite class—to protect and pamper that class.

The only useful class in society—the working class—even if its modest requirements were doubled, would not tax the world’s resources in ten years to the extent that capitalist anarchy does in one.

To say, as the Malthusians do, that supply is getting more difficult, is the reverse of the truth. The production, and consequently the supply, of wheat—or in fact of any commodity—is easier to-day than ever it was. Machine invention and new methods have, during the last century, multiplied man’s productiveness by hundreds. With bonanza farms miles in extent, requiring but few workers, and machines that traverse the “fields of waving corn,” performing all the operations short of actual grinding, how can anyone possibly claim that supply is getting more difficult ? Would the Malthusians claim that there are not sufficient able-bodied men to cultivate the soil ? Would they have the courage to assert that all the available land is under cultivation ?

All these alarmist theories are absurd and unscientific. There are no physical difficulties that prevent mankind from satisfying all their needs. What difficulties exist to-day are entirely social in character. They are due to the fact that the land together with all the other means of life are owned by a small class in society, who only allow production to go on for profit.

The Malthusian League support this system. The ruling class, in their eyes, can do no wrong. If there is poverty, according to them it is because of the improvidence of the workers. They ignore the anti-social actions of the capitalists—how they have burned wheat, cotton, and coffee, and allowed other commodities to rot, in order to maintain a maximum price—how manufacturers have closed their mills by common agreement for weeks on end, in order to create an artificial famine.

Trusts and combines, financiers and company promotors, are anti-social in character ; sabotage and ca-canny are practised by market riggers to an extent that would make trade unionists turn green with envy if they were but class-conscious and could realise it.

Capitalists invest their capital where they will obtain the highest dividends. They do not study the needs of the people either of this or future generations. Capital is wealth that is used for exploitation ; and every capitalist being actuated by greed, is utterly regardless of the havoc wrought in his interest, either on the earth itself or on the working class, or, for that matter, in the fortunes of his competitors. The means of life under such a system are not used to the advantage of those who operate them, but in the interest of those who own them. The one fact that emerges, clear and unchallenged, out of the chaos of competing interests that constitutes the mechanism of capitalist exploitation is that man, to-day, can satisfy all his needs, live up to a high standard of comfort, and enjoy more leisure than ever before in history—if it were not for capitalism.

The Malthusian League offer the capitalist restriction of the family as a panacea for labour “unrest,” and show their contempt for the working class in the suggestion that they should be taught to practise it—at least that larger section of the working class whose wages are twenty-five shillings a week and under.

“In Holland,” they say, “the poor have been taught to limit their families by a large, State-recognised society ; the death rate has fallen more rapidly than in any other country in the world, and there seems to be practically no labour unrest.” Holland must be a paradise for the capitalist—the wonder is that they do not flock there with their capital from all parts of the world.

Again we are told by the worshippers of Malthus that there are 960,000 adult men workers who get wages less than twenty shillings per week, and 1,600,000 who get between twenty and twenty-five shillings ; and further, that the only effective remedy for their quite natural discontent, is that they should only have one child. These self-appointed tutors of docility and submission should join hand with housing reformers and advocate more spacious homes for the working class. If the only remedy is limitation of the family, then it is not the capitalists who need separate bedrooms, but the workers. They might, at the same time, advocate the free supply by the State of certain rubber goods, as, by their own showing, those who need them most cannot afford to buy them.

Neither can they afford to have children, Malthus might have replied. Neither can they struggle against the desires of the flesh : they have not the stamina. As Mr. Lloyd George said of them : “Their wages do not suffice to replace the energy they use up in their daily toil.” In his “White Slaves of England” Robert Sherard says the workers in the “sweated industries”—men and women alike—have but one pleasure, and many of them swear it is the only thing worth living for. This, however, does not apply to the so-called sweated industries alone ; the vast majority of the workers are in the same position.

Imprisoned in a factory hell by day ; relegated to a slum for the night—a life of such days and nights with a dollar pension or the workhouse at the end—such is the worker’s prospect. All his senses fed on filth, on what is ugly incon­gruous, is it any wonder that the worker turns to the merely animal functions within his reach and makes them his pleasures ?

In sheer desperation the lower animals, when deprived of food, try to stave off extinction by excessive breeding. Man, after all, is but animal, and has not lived on a pinnacle of intelligence long enough to shed any of the fundamental instincts common to animal life ; and when social conditions rob him of his means of life and thrust him deep into the morass of poverty and wretchedness, the instinct of the brute comes to the top.

Science supports this explanation. Scientists in support of capitalism may deny it. Not all of them do so, however. The late Professor Huxley, greater in the world of science than a whole regiment of modern time-servers, said of the environment of the working class :

“It is a condition in which the food, warmth, and clothing necessary for the maintenance of the body cannot be maintained, in which the pleasures within reach are reduced to brutality and drunkenness; in which the pains of starvation, stunted development, and moral degradation accumulate ; in which the prospect of even steady and honest industry is a life of unsuccessful battling with hunger rounded by a pauper’s grave.”

“The pleasures within reach are reduced to brutality and drunkenness.” Is it necessary to say more ? Man desires recreation and enjoyment. When he has learned to appreciate intellectual pleasures he will turn less frequently to the merely animal. Under capitalism the workers are denied the time and the means for intellectual recreation, hence their debasement.

Socialism alone, because it will give to the workers the fruits of their labour, can give them the leisure, means, and opportunities for genuine happiness and enjoyment. And even if it could be proved that under Socialism the human race would breed in swarms, still the robbery of the working class by the capitalist class would not be justified.

F. Foan

The Return of God. (1913)

From the October 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

The materialism of a former generation of scientists is in the melting pot, and a reversion to the metaphysical idealism is becoming very popular and common. Philosophically we can understand and sympathise, though we may not agree with, the distinction, between the idea and the thing, and the logical processes between them. Scientifically, however, we can neither understand nor sympathise with the confusion between the matter of the thing and the force or energy it manifests.

Yet it seems to be the purpose of prominent scientists to restate the scientific proposition in terms of a very much qualified materialism. The outcome of the materialistic hypothesis is too revolutionary for our masters, and its disquietening effects have to be scotched at the fountain head.

The immortality of the soul having been shown to be incompatible with a materialistic and evolutionary explanation of life, the power of the Church as a soporific for the under dogs of this world has waned. That power can be revived only by a scientific sanction of the ideas on which the Church rests, even though the whole gamut of the Church’s creed is not included. So at the British Association, the President, Sir Oliver Lodge, promulgated the opinion that the individual consciousness survived death, and was able to communicate with the living.

The phenomena of spiritualism is thus homologated, and the materialist who has insisted that the mind was of the brain, which was a purely physical organ whose functions, however complicated and obscure, were no more incapable of being understood and explained than is the process of digestion, the circulation of the blood, or any other functions performed by the various organs or collections of organs, of the body.

We do not know whether the discarnate spirit still experiences, over yonder, the inconveniences of, say, a faulty stomach or a gouty toe ; neither does Sir Oliver say that the spirit persists for ever, and is therefore immortal in the theological sense.

But of even more importance than the question of survival after death is the reference to the transcendental god as the ruler of the universe. Thus the teleology of the early Victorian era is restated with all the authority of twentieth century science. We had thought God and the ghosts were laid long since, and our spirit that was ordained either to everlastingly burn, or to perpetually twang the celestial harp in the clouds, had passed into the limbo of forgotten puerilities along with our belief in these mythical places.

For science had laid bare the majestic sweep of evolution from the star-dust of the nebula, through the material earth stage, with its atmosphere and water complete, to the burnt out cinder stage, like the moon ; had traced animal life from the amoeba to man ; and generally unravelled the whole cosmic scheme. Evolution is accepted as a fact by all the scientists and most laymen, to such an extent that even the Church has adopted it and interpreted it to fit its own theories, while active opposition to the principles of evolution is practically extinct.

If evolution means anything ; if the data of paleontology and of embryology teach anything ; it is surely the unbroken succession of changes from the lower to the higher, culminating in man. There was a great dispute as to whether man was not a special edition by himself, equipped with something different—not in degree but in kind—from any other living being. That dispute was settled by Huxley by his brilliant and conclusive contribution, “Man’s Place in Nature,” in which the reasons for placing man in a group with the “Primates,” and not in a class alone, are given.

At what stage, then, does the immortal soul appear ? Does the personality of the gorilla survive death, or does the Tasmanian aborigine start the immortals ? Or is it something between these ? In any case, what a fearful—almost hellish—confusion must reign “over there” if the souls of the millions of men and women, for the hundreds of thousands of years men have been on this planet keep on accumulating !

The Ruler of the Universe who made all that therein is, who “shaped the suns and marked their ways upon the ancient deep,” and who finally “created man in His own image,” has hitherto found no justification in science. Rather on the contrary has it been found that man in his different stages of knowledge, has created for himself a god or gods in the image of his knowledge—or want of it. And so to-day, when Sir Oliver Lodge creates for himself a god, He will be in a somewhat different image naturally from that of the Hebrew wise men emerging from the later stage of barbarism, but will have all the indications of being the embodiment of what we do not yet know. For that is what “God” has invariably represented. Backward as far as we may push the limits of our knowledge, as much as we may discover, if the workings of nature, there ever remain the doubts and questionings of the enquiring mind, and that ignorance is covered by attributing the unknown to “God.” At, best it is a begging of the question.

The fact remains that we who are of the earth earthy, are satisfied that sufficient is known to make a vast difference to our life here—the life of which we are certain and which we know most about the life of which we have tried to picture, and make practicable the realisation of, the possibilities.

It is an attempt of our masters to divert our attention to an imaginary life elsewhere in order to cover up and minimise the shortcomings of our life here. We doubt whether at this time of day the eyes of the working class can again be directed heavenward. For centuries they looked that way, and nothing came of it. “No Saviour from on high delivers” us from our slavery here ; it is to ourselves and our fellow mortals we have to look for deliverance. Science has provided us with sufficient material to afford a solution, and it now requires but the co-operation of the workers in making use of that information to solve once and for ever the social problem, through the overthrow of capitalism, and the construction of a Socialist co­-operative commonwealth out of the materials collected by capitalism in its ruthless course.

D. K.