This Month's Quotation: Karl Marx (1937)

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

"Even the ruling classes are beginning to realise that contemporary society is not a solid crystal, but an organism capable of changing, and continually undergoing change."

K. Marx

This Month’s Quotation

The quotation in the panel on the front page is taken from Karl Marx’s preface to the first German edition of  "Capital.” The preface was written on July 25th, 1867.

Mr. F. Montague, M.P., Attacks the Labour Theory of Value (Second Article) (1937)

From the October 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note: 

Fred Montague was the Labour MP for Islington West and, as a young man, was an active member of Hyndman's Social Democratic Federation. He was replying to Frank Evans' two-part article on the Labour Theory of Value which appeared in the July and August 1937 issues of the Socialist Standard.

Link to the first article.

Mr. F. Montague, M.P., Attacks the Labour Theory of Value (Second Article)

It is a matter of common observation that the producer using out-of-date methods stands no chance in competition, and Marx, quite correctly adopts the “socially necessary” formula. But what is not generally seen is that no such formula is logically required in order to establish the labour time concept if it can be established. It is socially necessary labour alone that is held to count, and properly so, but the process of striking an average to arrive at the “standard” around which prices fluctuate works just as well whether socially necessary labour time or individual labour time is assumed. All that is proved by that process is that commodities are commodities and that there are just as many after a series of exchanges as before. Marxists live in a dialectical world of their own. They cannot see that there is no standard but what prices themselves put there, or that prices do not explain themselves. “Socially necessary” has no more to do with one doctrine more than another unless one rather than another is provisionally accepted. There is no objection to a provisional hypothesis in science. The objection is to using it as proof of its own case.

The same manner of limping logic occurs in respect to Utility. Mr. Evans starts off by saying that because some material objects possessing utility (air and sunshine) have no exchange value, therefore utility in other objects also can have nothing to do with exchange value, although these are exchangeable. Yet if I argued that as the product of the hand-loom weaver in an age of the power-loom has no economic relation to value, therefore labour in a modem factory or shed produces no value, Mr. Evans would properly laugh me out of court. Let Mr. Evans try his statement out syllogistically.

Utility theories (for which I hold no brief) no more attempt to explain value in terms of individual usefulness than the Marxian theory attempts to explain value in terms of individual labour. The cup-of-cold-water-to-the-parched-traveller-in-the-desert has no more to do with the case than the hand-loom weaver. If Marx may average, cancel-out, and socialise to further orders, so may the utilitarian. Use-value, after all, is part of the Marxian definition of the commodity and is common to all commodities, and when Mr. Evans says that the usefulness of a commodity “differs with individuals and differs with the same person" the believer in utility as a basis of value has a perfect right to reply, and in fact does so though Marxists do not seem to know it, to the effect that it is average social usefulness that is expressed in demand and that defines its effective are much as the gold limit is defined, or as the length of a pendulum controls its oscillation.

I think that utility is as barren as labour time for the purpose of value and for the same reason, i.e., that it is impossible to find an explanation of the factors of exchange between commodities in any theory dependent upon integrating prices. But it is a striking commentary on Marxian cocksure obtuseness to find that while Marxists are extremely scornful of the simple-minded critic who cannot understand the difference between plain and “undifferentiated" labour yet they swallow the absurd notion that utility can mean nothing more than day-by-day variations of personal tastes.

If, then, we reject the dogmatic assumption (it is nothing more) that labour, measured by time is the basis of value, do we give away the Socialist case? Value expressed in price is a capitalist phenomenon belonging to the money-wages system. In what manner is it necessary to establish its basis in time labour in order to justify the abolition of both money and wages?

The Marxist theory assumes that, qualitative differences in labour are nothing other than a question of what Mr. Evans calls “the time and cost of producing skill" as if the labour of an eminent bacteriologist or of one who succeeds in irrigating a continent were a thing of “clocking-in" and “knocking-off," that such men could be turned out of a sausage machine, and that their remuneration beyond the common undifferentiated denominator is taken out of the worker as a part of surplus value. It does not work out like that even in capitalist economy with all the price averaging and cost averaging in the world. But what if it did ?

Labour time value, even if it were true as a fact of capitalist exchange, can have no application, I contend, to Socialist ideas and principles. Wealth is not a thing of ‘‘hours, days and weeks" of time, but an evolutionary, social, and historical product. Labour time, as such, produces no more than it did in the Stone Age. Marx admits this when he speaks of “existing conditions of production." Existing conditions of production do not occur in a vacuum; they are “congealed" history, to use the approved metaphysical jargon. Yet I am told that exploitation is incapable of proof unless it can be shown that it is exploitation of time labour “in the factory." Could any conclusion be more puerile and beggarly?

Everyone is equally entitled (or contrariwise, no one) to the social heritage of economic evolution. Before the consideration of working begins! All start with a credit that makes the time and factory figment mean and ridiculous: butcher, baker, journeyman, thief, and the village idiot! “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" is the antithesis of the Marxian “hours, days and weeks." And the member of the working-class who has never done a stroke of work in his life and for whom capitalism has not been able to find a use is, nevertheless, robbed.

Exploitation is a bigger thing than one of measured labour, and would be even if the time theory could be shown to hold water. Exploitation is the cumulative robbery of the workers in time measured by history and not by the clock. If Socialism is to be defended by proof of exploitation in factory time, then Socialism is reduced to negation and contradiction. It becomes nothing more at best than the case for equality of remuneration. If it is to stand, then, not only capitalist exploitation but “reward" (wages!) under Socialism must logically be “measured by time." And not even State capitalism in Russia can make that work!

Within necessarily limited space I have endeavoured to show (1) that the Marxian labour time doctrine is not a theory of value in the sense, say, that the quantity theory of money is a theory of money, since the subject of the “theory" is not even defined until the theory itself is established; (2) that this difficulty leads to question-begging presumptions in which a form of value by definition is utilised in advance to demonstrate its own nature; (3) that the figurative standard of value is only the mean of the very prices that are said to fluctuate round it and has no other existence outside an imaginary postulate required to beg the question; (4) that the famous “dear" and “cheap" tour de force is a logical absurdity; and (5) that exploitation of labour is not merely a contingent phenomenon of either factory or market. There is no answer to this case in demanding to know what my alternative theory of value is. The subject is Marx. My ideas on value would take as much space again for what they might be worth and, in any event, I am not so terribly concerned. If one is not aware of the rottenness of capitalism and the iniquity of the wage system from practical experience one is not likely to extract the blinding truth out of algebraic transcendentalism.

Reply:

In our previous contribution, in last month's issue, we dealt with the erroneous suggestion that Marx strikes an average of prices to arrive at a standard. In his opening paragraph Mr. Montague writes that, for the purpose of a standard, individual labour would serve as well as socially necessary. Without going deeply into the question, it can be said at once that if we were only concerned with averages it would not matter, but as we are concerned with understanding and explaining prices it does matter very much.

The whole of society’s paid labour is expended on goods and services. Services are charges upon production, and are met out of surplus value. The labour spent in connection with production (which would include transportation) is the only labour that produces value and is the basis of price.

Production is divided between production of gold and production of ordinary commodities. In the exchange of commodities value is expressed in prices related to gold. Thus the relation between the labour required to produce gold and the labour required to produce other articles is expressed as a certain amount of £ s. d. If an unnecessary fraction of the total social labour has been spent on a given article its price will be lower than that of another article containing the same quantity of labour. The socially-necessary idea explains this apparent discrepancy.

Opponents of the labour theory of value have urged, and still do so, that if the value of an article depends upon the amount of labour incorporated in it then the article produced by out-of-date methods is more valuable than that produced by up-to-date methods. The insistence upon socially-necessary as the labour that produces value is the answer to this argument.

Mr. Montague’s second paragraph is.puzzling. It presumably refers to the third paragraph of the article he is criticising (July issue of “ S.S.”), which was as follows: —

Let us take a few commodities. Take apples and amethysts, bread and barometers, cradles and coffins. What have they got in common which make# them all “commodities” ? They are all physical things and have a use, but so also with daisies and dewdrops. What distinguishes the things in the first group is not that they are useful, since this is common to both groups, but that they are the proceeds of human labour and are the subject of commercial transactions. At a stroke the commodity is transformed from a physical into a social phenomenon! For things produced for market bear a banner with this strange device : “I am worth —.” They have value. The things in the second group do not go to market: they have usefulness, but not value. Things produced for exchange have usefulness and value. They represent values, not usefulness, to the intending seller; they represent usefulness only to the prospective buyer, or to the last of a chain of buyers, the one who buys to enjoy the use of them.

The essence of this is: Some useful things never go to market—they have no value. Other useful things do go to market—it is only these that have value. Where do Mr. Montague’s remarks bear on this argument? Where does the logic limp?

To Mr. Montague the labour theory of value is nothing more than averaging prices and making assertions, therefore he can see no difference between it and the averaging of the utilitarians. The fundamental error is Mr. Montague’s and not Marx’s.

Perhaps Mr. Montague has forgotten that the leading utilitarian, Stanley Jevons, gave his case away and supported the labour theory of value when he said: —

It may tend to give the reader confidence in the preceding theories when he finds that they lead directly to the well-known law, as stated in the ordinary language of economists, that value is proportional to the cost of production.—(P. 186, Jevon’s “The Theory of Political Economy.” 4th edition. 1911.)

Mr. Montague is disturbed at the suggestion that qualitative differences in labour are nothing more than a question of the time and cost of producing skill. He instances an eminent bacteriologist and a man who irrigates a continent as examples of the absurdity of the idea. But why has he taken such people? Why not an eminent engine driver or builder’s labourer? Can Mr. Montague point to any professional bacteriologist or similar "eminent” man whose wages are not determined by the cost of educating him? But why worry about the ones that have gained eminence, anyway ? There are thousands of able men and women in all professions who have not gained eminence simply because they have either not been favoured or not been fortunate.

Surely there is no need to “prove” nowadays that scientists of all descriptions are turned out like sausages and that the discoveries of eminent men to-day are discredited to-morrow? And bacteriologists, in particular, have fared as badly as any. What Mr. Montague means by “and that their remuneration beyond the common undifferentiated denominator is taken out of the worker as a part of surplus value” we do not know. Marx has not suggested this nor has any writer in The Socialist Standard. Those who work for wages (or salaries) provide unpaid labour for the capitalist, otherwise they would not be employed. The scientist who does not have to work for his living lives on the unpaid labour of the workers, no matter how eminent he may be.

If we reject the labour theory of value do we give away the Socialist case? Mr. Montague asks this question, and answers, no. He then goes on to make some curious statements, among them a suggestion that, according to Marxists, exploitation only occurs in a factory. This is ridiculous. Whether the worker is employed in a factory, on the market or anywhere else by the capitalist for wages he is exploited. This was the contention of Marx (for example, his instance of the school teacher) and is the view of the Socialist. It is not affected by an analysis of wealth production.

As there is no explanation of what is meant by the assertion that “the member of the working class who has never done a stroke of work in his life and for whom capitalism has not been able to find a use is, nevertheless, robbed,” we are left in the dark. If this means that capitalism has robbed the man of actual wealth then it is nonsense. If it means that capitalism has robbed him of opportunity to engage in useful work then it is not a question of exploitation. Unless we have a common agreement about the meaning of the words we use we cannot make much progress in discussion. So far the meaning given to the term “exploitation” has been: using a person or a thing for one’s own ends. The capitalist class uses the working class for the purpose of producing profit. Hence, the working class is an exploited class and everyone born into the working class belongs to this exploited class. A man can belong to the working class and yet do no work.

Exploitation is both the cumulative robbery of workers in time measured by history and also by the clock. The palaces, ships and masses of capital goods are the historical results of exploitation. The daily output beyond what the worker gets are the daily results of exploitation. Marx has written chapters that explain both points.

The labour theory of value is essential to the accomplishment of Socialism for the following reason:—

The workers, as a class, produce the wealth and receive out of it only their cost of subsistence. The capitalists, as a class, take the rest, although they take no part in production. The labour theory of value explains how the robbery is effected. Until Marx put his theory forward in its perfected, or finished, form, the advocates of the workers were at the mercy of every currency reformer, tariff reformer, nationalist movement, and the like. Nowadays the Socialist knows how and why the workers are robbed, and on account of this he also knows that the only way to stop the robbery is to abolish capitalism and institute Socialism.

Exploitation only exists while there is an exploiting system. Explaining the mechanism of this system does not mean agreeing with it in whole or in part. Again we must say that we cannot see what connection there is between this and the remarks about equality of remuneration. Remuneration is only of importance where people have to live by remuneration, as they do under capitalism.

“From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” has always been the accepted principle of Socialists and is the antithesis of capitalism, but what this has to do with the Marxian analysis of value we cannot see. In ”The German Ideology” Marx stated quite clearly that capitalist conditions of labour will not apply under Socialism.

Under Socialism there will not be a division of labour and specialisation such as exists to-day, and the individual will no longer be enslaved to the world market.

Socialism is not “defended by proof of exploitation in factory time.” Ignoring for the moment the erroneous use of “factory time," we must point out that the labour theory of value is a criticism and an argument against capitalism. This theory shows that commodity production is built upon the exploitation of the worker and Socialism is put forward as the negation of this. Once Socialism is established, commodity production will be abolished. As the concept of value is only derived from commodities it will also disappear.

The fact that the workers are exploited to-day is the reason why they should abolish this system and establish another—Socialism—where there would be no exploitation.

Mr. Montague set out to show that the “Marxian doctrine of exchange is not a true theory of value,” and also “that it is not Socialist.” He has not accomplished either end. In the course of his argument he has made some irrelevant statements, but it would take more than the space available to deal adequately with them.

Gilmac.

The writer understands that Mr. Montague is making a further contribution. If so, will he explain more clearly what he means by the statement (in the fourth paragraph) “it is impossible to find an explanation of the factors of exchange between commodities in any theory dependant upon integrating prices.” Why is “between" italicised ?   

G.

Mr. F. Montague, M.P., Attacks the Labour Theory of Value (First Article) (1937)

From the September 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Blogger's Note: 

Fred Montague was the Labour MP for Islington West and, as a young man, was an active member of Hyndman's Social Democratic Federation. He was replying to Frank Evans' two-part article on the Labour Theory of Value which appeared in the July and August 1937 issues of the Socialist Standard.

Mr. F. Montague, M.P., Attacks the Labour Theory of Value (First Article)

I thank The Socialist Standard for allowing me to deal at reasonable length with Mr. Evans's articles on “The Labour Theory of Value.” The view that I desire to uphold is (1) that the Marxian doctrine of exchange is not a true theory of value, even an erroneous one, and (2) that it is not Socialist.

Mr. Evans asks what determines value when supply and demand are equal. I take up this point at once because the question throws into sharp relief, as I think, the fallacious reasoning common to the Marxist case.

Unless value and price are independent of each other, and there is in fact a “soul of the commodity” (Mr. Evans’s own phrase), such a question is like asking what determines the weather when the mercurial level in the barometer equals the atmospheric pressure outside. It is meaningless, not merely irrelevant.

But whether there is such an independent standard is the very issue in discussion. The objective and immediate fact in exchange is that prices fluctuate between what the buyer will pay rather than go without, and what the vendor will accept rather than make no sale, the operations of the market going on readily within those limits. No theoretical standard makes any difference to the facts. It is for the Marxist to show, over and beyond, that the alleged "soul of the commodity” is more than a metaphysical Pepper’s Ghost.

What Marx actually does is to average prices and call the result “value.” The independent standard turns out to be just the mean of price fluctuations, nothing more, except by way of dogmatic assertion. In other words, prices fluctuate “around” a standard set up by the fluctuations. An argument in a circle if ever there was one, and characteristic of the Marxian logical method throughout.

Commodities “embody” labour since they take labour to produce, and, obviously, labour takes time. There is no dispute so far. But the “embodiment” of labour does not, of itself, prove the labour-time theory. Marx relies upon the arithmetical process of addition-plus-division called “striking an average” and the platitude, which no one quarrels with, that exchange does not change things either in quantity or worth. In other words, he postulates labour time value for a start, performs the arithmetical exercise mentioned, and produces the inevitable result as proof of his postulate.

I could do exactly the same with molecular content, weight, or cubic volume. I could add up the eyes in a bushel of potatoes or the cheese-mites in a quantity of ripe “Stiltons," showing that nothing is added in the process of exchange, and, by division into the units in each case, that in average exchange averages are exchanged. There is no intended gibe in this. I contend that Marx does no more than what I have described and that averaging out an admitted content of the commodity no more proves the Marxian doctrine of exchange than it disproves any other.

When Marx tells me that if corn of the value of £2 10s. exchanges with wine of the value of £2 the com and wine together still total in value £4 10s. and that someone has merely been robbed, I agree. If the prices are as stated there is nothing else to be said. Not even the Marxian Aunt Sally, the “vulgar economist," ever claimed that profit was “created" outside the price ultimately fixed. Marx is right. Two-and-two, if it is two-and-two, make four. Two-pounds-ten- shillings and two-pounds make four-pounds-ten- shillings. Indubitably! Value has already set its seal upon even an inequitable transaction. But its inequity does not prove the Marxian Theory of Value.

The question of what is value still remains open. How is it that Marx begins, in this as in every other illustration of the kind, with money’s-worth ? Corn, wine, coats, chairs, all are priced for a start. Is it that the “money form of value" is invoked in order to give verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and illegitimate argument? Value is the thing actually under discussion. Its nature is being probed. Yet Marx calmly calls upon the competitor to hold the stop-watch, the prisoner to occupy the bench, tells us that pounds sterling are pounds sterling as if it were divine truth, and then proceeds to superimpose labour time upon his small change without a shred of logical excuse!

Once detecting this type of fallacy it is easy to understand why any other definition of value, any conception fantastic or otherwise, may be substituted for labour time without it making the slightest difference to the logical structure of any of the supposed cast-iron instances of the boot-and-butter-equation order. They begin with value (by sheer presumption labour time) in a chain of deduction that should only end in that desired, if elusive, quarry.

If this is disputed I challenge anyone to put pounds avoirdupois in the place of pounds sterling wherever the latter occurs by way of illustration, and see for himself whether a scrap of logical difference is made by the substitution. And if this is true where is the validity of the reasoning, whatever value might be in actual fact?

No assertion in the Marxian theory is held to be of greater importance in the alleged unique proof of exploitation than that profit is made, not in the market, but in the factory. It is imagined that the origin of value itself is involved in the dogma. How is it supported?

We are told that if a capitalist were to make profit on the market he would be compelled to surrender it when he in turn became, not a seller, but a buyer. Capitalists would have to do this upon the average all round anyhow if profit in general were made on the market. If someone sells dear, someone else buys dear; if anyone buys cheap, somebody sells cheap. Profit cannot be created in the mere exchange of commodities. No one ever said that it could, as a matter of fact, for that it has been said is a Marxian fiction.

But, this aside, what is meant by an adventitious profit “made on the market" being “surrendered" ? Surrendered to whom? Not to the consumer, for the “surrendering" is supposed to take place in the subsequent buying. To other capitalists then! Capitalists surrender profit to themselves! Surely an amazing outcome of a Marxian postulate that is inscribed on the very corner-stone of the theory. One might suggest that when the capitalist sells goods at large he takes it out of the public at large, whereas when capitalists “surrender" profit to each other they actually share the swag.

But I make no such statement. I regard the distinction between the factory and the market in the process of profit as entirely false. The act of making and realising profit is not two but one. There is no real distinction between paying wages and exchanging food and clothes for the same wages. If the process were to be completed without a market and the sustenance of the worker paid in kind direct the result would be the same. The worker is robbed of the difference between what he socially produces and what he consumes. That is the reality. Wages are only command of consumable goods. The market is only an extended factory.

Nothing is “made" in the factory but commodities. Nothing is realised in the market but the value of those same commodities. The operation begins in the factory to be completed in the market and Marx draws an entirely false distinction between two parts of the same process in order to bolster a time concept that would otherwise show itself as demonstrably false.

In my next and final article I shall seek to show that this time concept obscures the fundamental basis of Socialism and that its logical conclusion is, not Socialism, but a wage system. I conclude now by pointing out that “buying cheap and selling dear” is not alleged to be the origin of profit by anyone and is no part of any theory of value whatever. It is pure invention and pure fiddle-sticks. There is no meaning in the terms until value has been determined. The most capitalist of economists asserts that commodities exchange at actual values according to their conceptions of value. Marx juggles with “dear” and "cheap” without authority or relevance, and in advance of the very judgment that alone can settle what is dear and what is cheap. He begs the question.

(A second article will follow.)

Reply.

As the writer of the article criticised is away at present, the criticism has been passed on to me.

There have been, and still are (for we get the question at our lectures), people who argue that price, and therefore value, is determined by the operations of supply and demand. In order to show that this cannot be so, we point out that at times demand and supply are equal, and therefore neutralise each other. At one time supply is greater than demand, at another time it is less. There must be a time when, like the see-saw, the two sides are level. In order to dispose of this argument, therefore, we put a question that is quite relevant, in spite of Mr. Montague’s barometrical illustration.

The ends of a see-saw rise a certain height and fall a certain depth, but they do so about a certain point. Why? Because the fulcrum keeps the seesaw moving about that point. Whether the whole contraption overturns or is wrecked does not alter the matter. Mr. Montague may de-materialise the fulcrum but it will still be there.

Prices rise and fall about a certain level—the point is higher in a pound of butter than in a pound of potatoes. What is it determines this level? Is it the higgling of the market that determines a higher point in one than in the other, or is it something else? There must be something, and it cannot be the relations between supply and demand as, in general, they only have effect within a limited range—supply and demand of butter, supply and demand of potatoes. It should be obvious that relative usefulness is also ruled out.

Marx does not average prices and call the result value. He shows that the fluctuations are around a given point and that it is the value of the article which, in the ultimate, determines the position of this point. Prices, therefore, do not “ fluctuate ‘around' a standard set up by fluctuations,” a curious reading of Marx, if ever there was one!

The level of the sea rises and falls, but there is still a mean level which is not the result of averaging the fluctuations but of the quantity of water in the sea, though averaging the fluctuations will give the same point. That disposes of Mr. Montague’s barometer.

Marx does not rely upon an arithmetical process of addition plus division, etc., to prove the labour-time theory of value, nor does he “postulate labour-time value for a start.” He examines the exchange relation at length and finds that the proportions in which articles exchange for each other is not accidental but is an expression of something that they all possess in common. He uses a geometrical illustration to make the point clear; the calculation of the areas of rectilinear figures by decomposing them into triangles.

He then sets out to find, by the process of exclusion, what it is that all commodities have in common. In the end he shows that the only measurable thing they all possess in common is human labour. This is the end of a process of analysis, which occupies the first five pages of "Capital,” and not the beginning, as Mr. Montague asserts.

Marx’s case is not, as Mr. Montague suggests, that someone is robbed because corn of the value of £2 10s. 0d. has been exchanged for wine of the value of £2. Such an entire misrepresentation makes us wonder. It seems incredible that anyone could have read Marx’s own version of his theory of value and hold such a view of it. Anyhow, we defy Mr. Montague to produce such a statement of the value theory from Marx’s writings.

Marx, in opposition to capitalist economists, . states most emphatically that equal values are exchanged—i.e., £2 of corn for £2 of wine—and yet someone is robbed. This disposes of Mr. Montague’s ironical remarks, which are quite irrelevant.

Marx does not begin all his Illustrations with money’s worth. In fact he does not mention money’s worth until he has reached page 41 of ‘‘Capital.” His previous illustrations are of the 20 yards of linen equals 1 coat variety. Having analysed the simplest forms of exchange and shown quite clearly that labour is the substance of value, Marx proceeds to examine the price form in the light of what has gone before. When he comes to this point he is dealing with the world of commodities around him, where "corn, wine, coats, chairs, all are priced for a start,” whatever Mr. Montague may think about it. As Marx does not say anything about pounds sterling being pounds sterling, or even arguing to that effect, we simply don’t understand Mr. Montague's attempt at humour in this connection.

According to Mr. Montague, it is a Marxian fiction that anyone-has said that profit is made in the mere exchange of commodities. This is another amazing statement. The view in question has been, and still is, held by numerous people. It was at the basis of one of the leading schools of political economy — the Mercantilists. Put in another form, it meant buying cheap and selling dear.

When the capitalist sells goods at large he does not take it out of the public at large. What he does is to get back in money form what he has taken out of his workers, and he can do this whether he sells to workers or capitalists.

As Mr. Montague does not accept the labour theory of value he naturally can see no reason to distinguish between the factory, where goods are produced, and the market, where their values are realised. Yet he agrees that the worker is robbed of the difference between what he socially produces and what he consumes. How is he robbed ? Mr. Montague does not say, and yet this is the very heart of the matter. It is failure to understand this that has put the worker at the mercy of every kind of tax reformer and money crank who professed to be able to give the worker a greater command over consumable goods.

No, Mr. Montague has made fun of Marx, but so far he has not shown any flaw in the view that the worker is robbed of the difference between the value of what he produces and what he gets. What he gets depends upon how much the employer pays him for the work he does and not upon how much his products realise in the market.

Gilmac.

Anti-Fa Farce France (2026)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

The Anti-Fa Farce France: what was it all about?

It’s a little too early to make any definitive appreciations of the recent demonstrations and riots which have have spread across metropolitan France during the last five or weeks. during the last five or so weeks. Doubtless, readers of the Socialist Standard blog will have seen the images of massive gangs of young people looting and setting fire to shops and attacking police dressed in riot gear. As is only to be expected, it’s the most violent scenes which have found their way onto the mainstream news; the fire which destroyed the Town Hall of Limoges being a case in point. On the other hand, the media also showed images of the enormous and well-ordered demonstrations by students who were more often than not accompanied by teachers and parents. There were demonstrations in small towns right across France which recalled in many ways the monster manifestations in defence of retirement pension of a few years ago.

Mysterious wreckers

Demonstrations are, of course, part and parcel of everyday life in France there being something of a deeply rooted culture of defiance common to the left and right. What was notable in this case was the massive presence of hooded and masked casseurs – vandals – uniformly dressed in black who were clearly operating in organised and one suspects disciplined mobs. These agents provocateurs incited the more disorganised groups of casual looters who are now found in all mass disorders breaking out across the globe.

Strangely enough these violent groups, sometimes known as the black bloc are rarely picked up by the police and arrested. Nobody knows who they are. They are used to maintain ordinary citizens at a cautious distance from their rights to free expression. Amazingly those conventional politicians who managed to find their way across the Parisian battlefield into the safe havens of the TV studios seem to be convinced that their membership consists of highly organised members of the ‘ultra-gauche’. (Earlier references to the black bloc seem to have been edited out of the official narrative).The designated culprit it would seem are what they call the ‘anti-fa’ (anti-fascist); heretofore a fantastical organisation which has miraculously put down solid roots in the USA. Here There they have – according to the official narrative – violently interrupted the work of Trump’s anti-immigrant agency and rendered the (strictly anti-constitutional) operations of the ICE goons problematic. One may ask, aren’t we supposed to be anti-fascist in a democracy?

What’s Going On? Political ineptitude

For the point, of course, is that we are talking about a movement initiated and organised by kids ; high-school students to be precise. Consequently the maintaining of public order and the protection of protestors should run together. However, parents would do well to realize that the government at times seems to be applying the selfsame tactics cynically deployed against the gilets jaunes of a few years ago. This was a movement which was quite violently repressed in every sense of the term.

In the case of the students, however, a certain circumspection was in evidence in the days preceding the events of last Saturday even though some youngsters were roughed up, injured and arrested. It’s quite possible that something changed in the clumsy official response on Saturday 17 October. TV coverage insisted heavily upon the destruction of shops and public buildings, to the exclusion of the peaceful marches undertaken by school students and sympathisers. Up to a point, the authorities seem to have attempted to calm down the situation, although if anything Macron’s typically leaden televised address to the nation on Sunday made clear his crass insensitivity to the demands of the students – mentioned in passing – and to his incredible political ineptitude.

For the point is that once the tear-gas has wafted away, it will become evident that the students had drawn up an extremely intelligent and reasonable list of demands, demands which would give some substance to the egalitarianism established by the republican constitution and proclaimed above the façade of every single school lycée in France.

Neglected issues

To give effect to these aspirations, the students were asking for the urgent building of schools and for the renovation of ill-adapted and run-down premises. The recent and stifling heat waves which hit France over the summer saw school pupils attempting to tackle the baccalaureate exams in building lacking window blinds and adequate ventilation, as teachers and administrators ran around with water bottles to quench the thirst of distressed youngsters. In the winter many classrooms are freezing, ceilings are leaky and sanitary facilities are filthy. Many schools lack facilities to deal with students experiencing psychological problems often resulting from learning disabilities.

Other demands include a demand for a massive recruitment drive to deal with the shortage of trained teachers. The typically French drama of classes without teachers at the beginning of the school term is high on the list of preoccupations. But teacher recruitment is difficult given stagnant wages and disaffection. Note that the hapless Minister of Education hurriedly pulled hundreds of trained teachers out of a standby status when the demonstrations started to tilt public opinion onto the side of the youngsters.

Other demands made by the students were nothing if not legitimate. Better student grants, subsidies to help with student accommodation, more places to be made available in the (increasingly run-down) universities, more student representation in schools and at long last, measures to reform the ludicrous and exhaustingly over-loaded school curriculum. More time to eat in the midday pause and so on and on. In short, these are measures which aim at the re-establishment of an equilibrium centred on student well-being; welfare measures and so on. In short, the kind of bread and butter issues neglected during the long and uncaring duration of Macron’s atrocious term in office.

Malcolm Mansfield, 

Paris

Political Pantoum No.1: Nationalist Vision (2026)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Nationalist Vision

 

Nationalists are generally myopic

From looking through unfocused spectacles,

Speech incoherent and vitriolic.

Denying reason and raising hackles.

 

From looking through unfocused spectacles

The cause of common woes remain unseen,

Denying reason and raising hackles;

All foreigners are cast as being unclean.

 

The cause of common woes remain unseen,

Such is nationalism’s inanity,

All foreigners are cast as being unclean,

Though they’re of our common humanity.

 

Such is nationalism’s inanity,

Speech incoherent and vitriolic,

Though they’re of our common humanity,

Nationalists are generally myopic.

 

D. A.

Blogger's Note:

What is a 'Pantoum' I hear you say . . . I hear myself say. 

 

According to the Poetry Foundation website it's "A Malaysian verse form adapted by French poets and occasionally imitated in English. It comprises a series of quatrains, with the second and fourth lines of each quatrain repeated as the first and third lines of the next. The second and fourth lines of the final stanza repeat the first and third lines of the first stanza."

Well, everyday's a school day.

Editorial: The Labour Party's Pension Plan (1937)

Editorial from the October 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

After the collapse of the Labour Government in the crisis of 1931 the Labour leaders lost their heads and their control of many of their followers and for a time the traditional social reform policy of the Labour Party gave place to a variety of wildcat ideas and schemes. Among them was the idea that capitalism had collapsed finally and could never again afford reforms. At the same time many workers who had not until then questioned the theory of gradually improving capitalism until it was improved out of existence, began to see that perhaps Socialists are right, and there is no way of escaping the evils of capitalism except by its complete abolition. Six years in the political wilderness and the spectacle of capitalism making its inevitable temporary recovery from the depression has restored the nerve of the Labour leaders, and they are back now to where they started, seeking power on what they consider to be a sound plan for improving the State pension scheme. In brief, the plan (“Labour’s Pension Plan,” price 2d.) proposes that the pension at age 65 should be increased from 10s. to £1 a week per person (35s. for married couples) on condition of retirement from wage-earning employment, except such subsidiary employment as is permitted under the Unemployment Insurance Acts (i.e., up to about £1 a week). A number of other proposals are included in the scheme, including the increase of orphans' allowances to 10s. a week.

It is claimed that the plan would remove 300,000 persons from industry, and thus make way for young people now unemployed.

The estimated cost is £85 million a year, and this is to be met by contributions from workers, employers and the State. The workers' contribution will be not more than 1s. a week, probably only 9d. This contribution will be in addition to existing contributions.

Is it a good plan? No doubt many workers will be glad of an opportunity of getting some additional security in old age, moderate though the amount is, and even though they have to pay heavily for it—9d. or 1s. a week out of wages already insufficient to raise millions above the level of undernourishment. Ought the workers to support the Labour Party on the strength of this plan? Here the Socialist case and the reformist case come to grips.

The Labour Party asks the workers to resign themselves to capitalism for a further period—“we shall not be living under Socialism during the period of office of the next Labour Government" (page 29)—sacrifice some of their present consumption in order to pay extra pension contributions; and then in old age enjoy a modest improvement on the existing miserable pensions.

Obviously—and the pamphlet confesses as much—nobody who has begun to see through capitalism would look at such a pettifogging scheme except for the claim that it is merely the first step in a series which will lead to Socialism. The pamphlet promises that the Labour Party’s ”immediate programme will lay the foundations of a planned economy, on the basis of sound and ordered finance.” Capitalism makes nonsense of this.

If the Labour Party succeeds after a few years' propaganda in making the scheme popular the Tories will appropriate it in some form or other and claim any credit there may be attached to it. On the other hand, it will always be unpopular with large sections of the workers on account of the heavy contribution.

As for the ideas of planned economy and sound finance, the next crisis—as certain as the rising of the sun so long as capitalism remains—will blow plans and financial estimates sky high, and if the Labour Government is in office at that time it will go up in the general explosion. That would matter little to the workers or to Socialism but for the fact that the Labour Party claims that this plan and the rest of its immediate programme is part of the advance towards Socialism.

Against this  uninspiring and unprogressive policy masquerading as practical politics the Socialist asks some simple questions, the self-evident answers to which expose the emptiness of Labourism. Are poverty, unemployment, insecurity, the danger of war and the certainty of crises inseparable from capitalism? Are the powers of production great enough if socially controlled to provide comfort and security for all? Is there anything holding back Socialism except the dearth of Socialists among the working class? Is it not obvious that the preaching of social reforms befogs the workers’ minds to the urgent necessity of Socialism ?

The human race needs Socialism now. The Labour Party, lacking faith in the intelligence and capacity of the working class, thinks to lead them slowly on the road by dangling the carrot of £1 a week at 65, largely paid for in advance by weekly sacrifice of necessities. In the meantime, capitalism goes on its callous way, mocking the puny efforts of the social reformers.

Should the Capitalist be Compensated? (1937)

From the October 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are often reproached by well-meaning people for what they call our "attacks" upon the Labour Party. They argue that all political parties in the Labour movement are working for the same end — Socialism, and that their differences merely arise out of the question of the best means of attaining it. The answer to the assumption that our differences with the Labour Party are only tactical can be answered bluntly. The object of the Labour Party is not, and never has been, Socialism. Further, it has never defined what it means by Socialism; nor, apparently, is the need for definition recognised.

To the assortment of lawyers, generals, bishops, humanitarians, authors, trade unionists and capitalists that are members and supporters of the Labour Party, Socialism might mean everything or anything, or nothing. To the trade unionist it can mean no more than the regulation by the Government of wages and conditions of employment. To the capitalist supporter it can mean no more than State subsidies or assistance of industries which cannot stand up to competition in the world markets. To the parson and the humanitarian it can mean State action to remove a social evil which they imagine to be the hindrance to the perfect social arrangement. To none of these does it mean a new social order based upon the common ownership of the means of life; and consequently there is no understanding that the anomalies that exist under capitalism cannot be removed whilst private property remains.

That this is not so obvious is perhaps in some measure due to the loose way in which the word Socialism is used to describe something which it is not, i.e., Nationalisation. This can fairly be described as the Labour Party’s aim and object, though at no election has it sought unqualified support for it; rather has it been referred to vaguely as something for the remote future. But Nationalisation is not Socialism. True, State-owned industries give the appearance of having eliminated the capitalist, but the elimination is from management and not from ownership.

In an article in Forward (August 28th, 1937), Mr. A. Woodburn illustrates this point and argues the urgency “at the earliest practicable moment" of bringing “the means of production and distribution under public ownership and democratic control.” And he goes on to say: —

The easiest and quickest way to obtain a thing is to buy it.

This does not require making people accept new and strange procedure. They are accustomed to regard purchase as fair. It would eliminate any resistance and minimise objections. The Labour Party, therefore, propose to purchase from existing owners the principal means of production, exchange and distribution.

Quite plausible! And this is how it will be done:—

Let us suppose that the land was valued at £1,000 and the owner drew as feu or ground rent £40 per year. If this piece of land is required it would be nationalised by the owner transferring his title deeds to the State.

The State would give him in return a Land Stock Certificate valued £1,000, giving an annual interest of £40.

All that has taken place is that the land has been nationalised. The owner’s income is untouched—and we may, on grounds of expediency, even be generous in our compensation and increase it.

Notice: The owner transfers his title deeds to the State, which will pay him an annual interest, which the Labour Government in its generosity might increase. Well might prominent capitalists say: “We are all Socialists now!” Who would doubt it! Mr. Woodburn heads his article with the lying caption: “The Land for the People." On his own showing the people who will own it and in whose interest and profit it will be worked will be those who own "Land Stock Certificates," which have been given in exchange for the original title deeds. Mr. Woodburn argues that the workers would be freed from “the despotism of castle and manor." Now that sounds fine; And it can be imagined that many workers might be taken in by the superficial appearance. In fact the worker would be freed from nothing. As now, he would sell for his labour-power wages, which would buy only sufficient, on the average, to keep him in his subject position as a worker. And, as now, when the goods he makes could not be sold in the capitalist markets at a profit he would be faced with all the miseries of unemployment and insecurity.

It could not be otherwise. Wages, rent, interest and profit, are parts of the economic arrangement of capitalism and rest upon the private ownership of the means of living. Abolish private ownership and wages and profits disappear as unnecessary. If wages and profits still exist, then private ownership still exists. Its outward form may appear different, but no specious description of it as “public ownership" will alter facts. No major working class problem would have been solved and quite a host of minor problems might be added.

Mr. Woodburn appears to credit the Labour Party with the miraculous power of being able to retain the basic fundamentals of capitalism, whilst, at the same time, suspending its effects upon the workers. Experience shows the contrary. In 1929/31, when unemployment trebled, wages tumbled, and profits fell, the Labour Government did not then show the capitalists how “generous" it could be and arrange matters so as to “increase" profits. It merely whimpered that it was the victim of the “economic blizzard." That confession expressed the impotence of the Labour Party to control capitalism. It was driven by it. It is the nature of capitalism to function in the interests of the capitalists, and no fancy paper-schemes, which merely aim at changing names, will alter it.

Socialism involves the dispossession of the capitalist class. Dispossession means taking away, its property, thus removing the source of its income and its power of dominance over the workers. Society would become classless. The capitalist class cannot be dispossessed and at the same time retain its income and privileges. It derives its income and is able to live upon the wealth produced by the workers because it owns the land, factories and railways. Dispossess the capitalists and their ability to live on the wealth produced by others ceases. They no longer continue to exist as a capitalist class. But if, under an arrangement such as the Labour Party’s nationalisation proposals, the capitalists continued to receive the incomes and retain the privileges which result from ownership then they would not have been dispossessed. There are no two ways about it—no half measures. Compensation and Socialism are incompatible. Dispossession rules out compensation and is a necessary condition for Socialism. Compensation rules out dispossession—and can only mean capitalism.

It would be misrepresenting the Labour Party to pretend that they have ever believed in the dispossession of the capitalist class. They have not. What they have done is to describe any tinkering experiment proposed by a Labour Government as Socialism. They have encouraged the stupid belief that the evil effects of capitalism can be removed by the return to power of a Labour Government without removing the cause of those evils: the private ownership of the means of living. Such a policy can only mean eventual despair and disillusionment for the millions of workers who vote for the Labour Party, and the harm done to the task of making the workers Socialist cannot be exaggerated.

There are certain officials of the Labour Party who would deny this interpretation of Labour Party policy. They would say that nationalisation is a step towards Socialism and is a phase in the transitional process. Logically, if this were true, then the Labour Party would come before the working-class electorate seeking a mandate for the dispossession of the capitalist class, proposing nationalisation as a means to that end. It does not do so. As the would-be-Marxist Woodburn shows, it is opposed to dispossession. And, moreover, when Mr. Woodburn suggests buying out the capitalists on the grounds that it “would eliminate" the voters' “resistance" because they “regard purchase as fair," he is saying in effect that Labour Party policy is anti-Socialist and is indirectly dictated by those opposed to Socialism. Pandering to the prejudices of non-Socialist working-class voters is not a step towards Socialism, it is a gross betrayal of it. When Mr. Woodburn goes further and uses his knowledge of Marxist writings to give Labour Party policy the approval of Marx he tempts a reply which the printer of this journal would not print. He quotes Marx and contrives to show that Marx was in favour of buying out the capitalists, and that the alternative to it would mean social catastrophe. Mr. Woodburn does not quote Marx directly, but reproduces quotations from Lenin and Kautsky. Despite the fact that he claims to be a Marxist, perhaps he has not read Marx. In a party where knowledge of Marxism is conspicuous by its absence such a reputation is easily acquired.

Slither as he will, Mr. Woodburn cannot show from the essence of Marxism and its principles, not from garbled, secondhand quotations, that Labour Party policy conforms to the scientific revolutionary doctrines formulated by Marx. And the sooner he faces up to the fact that the party of which he is a member is the twentieth-century expression of nineteenth-century Liberalism the better it will be for the workers in this country, and the sooner they will be in a position to consider Socialism upon its merits unconfused by the false claims of Mr. Woodburn and his like.

Members and supporters of the Labour Party who want to see the end of working-class poverty must face facts.

The chief function of the Labour Party when it is not in office is that of “His Majesty’s opposition" to the Government of the day on questions arising out of the administration and the making of laws for the running of capitalism. That it is opposed to the Government is the clearest aspect of its policy. It is willing, when political circumstances dictate, to become the government of the day, undertaking the dirty work of running capitalism for the capitalists, including setting the armed forces in motion against strikers, and in defence of capitalist property when it is attacked by foreign competitive robbers. We oppose the Labour Party because it stands for capitalism. We oppose it—bitterly—because, deliberately or in ignorance, it masks its naked capitalist policy with Socialist phrases and dogma.

Any policy other than the dispossession of the capitalist class of their ownership of the means of living is a capitalist policy.

Its efforts to interpret Socialism in a manner inoffensive to non-Socialists commits it to a capitalist policy. Its use of Socialist phrases is a danger to working-class interests, which can only result in hindrance to the progress of Socialism. Only a sufficient number of workers wanting Socialism can establish it. Until that time, capitalism and all that it means, poverty, insecurity and war, will continue, no matter what government administers it. Until that time, too, workers who despair of one political party after another will be prey to any political mountebank that comes along. Only one thing can prevent it, and that is the spreading of Socialist knowledge.

There is only one party committed to this, and that is the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Harry Waite

Letter: A Communist Leader and the Right to Strike (1937)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Communist Leader and the Right to Strike

To the Editorial Board,                                                                                                                                                          

The Socialist Standard.

 

Woolwich, S.E.18.

Dear Comrade,

I have been invited as a member of the Communist Party to express my opinion on your article, “ A Communist Leader and the Right to Strike.” (See July The Socialist Standard.)

Your article, in the first place, does not examine the economic history and the relation of the class forces leading up to the agreement, but takes part of the agreement, without regard to the situation, and then condemns Arthur Homer and the Communist Party. You are content merely to repeat what a capitalist paper says, instead of as Marxists examining the whole question in the light of its relationship, taking into account as many facts as possible. Had this been done you would have been in a position to express an opinion.

Although not in any way connected with the mining industry, I submit the following facts:—

In 1933 the Bedwas Lodge was driven off the colliery it had controlled for many years. Under police protection the pit was filled with blacklegs and two thousand men were out. From 1933 to 1936 things were relatively quiet, but in 1934 Emlyn, Parc and Dare had been won back to the S.W.M.F. and Taff Merthyr had been weakened, but Bedwas was still 100 per cent. Miners’ Industrial Union. This had cost the Union money and funds were low. It was obvious that the strength of the Industrial Union was at Bedwas. In 1936 the attack on Bedwas started, and eventually 900 men signed revocation cards. Provisional strike notices were handed in. Ninety per cent. of the coalfield supported them. The Bedwas owners left the Coalowners' Association in order to fight. The huts were ready at the pithead to house the blacklegs.

On the last day of the expiry of the notices the owners said they would be willing to meet the Union if they withdrew the notices. There were stay-in strikes.

The owners met the Union. It now became clear that there would not be a strike. If a strike took place the Company would be smashed, the Company was carrying a million pounds of debt and not another penny was available. If the output did not provide the wages, the wages could not be paid. It was easy to close the colliery and destroy the men’s employment as the price for wiping out the Company Union. Therefore the Bedwas agreement was entered into.

In most instances the agreement is the same as that covering the coalfield agreement, and in some instances there are advantages in the Bedwas agreement. Double shift and new machinery are dealt with in the same manner as the coalfield agreement. Wages differ very little from that in the coalfield agreement.

It is Clause 13—machinery for settling disputes —which has caused uneasiness, but after consultation with the men and the old Bedwas Committee, it was agreed to. Either the agreement or close the fit.

The Independent Arbitrator takes the place of the Finality Committee now functioning in the coalfield, but whereas in the cases of dispute 99 per cent. of the cases of “failure to agree" implied defeat for the appellants, every dispute must now reach a conclusion.

If there is a coalfield fight, Bedwas can do as every other colliery, each individual can terminate his contract and secure release from the agreement. In the event of the Company failing to carry out the agreement there can, and probably will be, strikes.

The Bedwas agreement has not endangered coalfield agreement, although it contains formulations agreed to under duress.

Finally, the agreement has paved the way in a period of relative weakness for die final elimination of Company Unionism in the coalfield. Then is your article justified—you must make the choice—is this an advance from the 100 per cent. Company Unionism and the isolation of the Federation from Bedwas or not? You say that “at best it could be described as compromising and dangerous." Do you understand that the class struggle is full of compromises and dangers for the working class? It is a question whether you will face up to them or not. 

Yours fraternally, 

S. Rodgers.

Reply.

Our correspondent’s letter criticising the article, “A Communist Leader and the Right to Strike," is not very convincing. He says that the alternative to the Bedwas Agreement, signed by Arthur Horner, was closing the pit and throwing the miners out of employment. Such situations can indeed arise, but when faced with a demand by the employers that the Union shall sign a degrading agreement, the workers at least have the alternative of refusing to give their officials authority to sign— in other words, of giving up official recognition of the Union for the time being. The employers would enforce the terms, whether the Union signed or not, but there would be a certain value in the workers refraining from giving collective endorsement to them.

Our correspondent’s letter is, however, hardly consistent with itself. Having stated that the Bedwas workers had to accept the agreement or lose their employment through the closing down of the colliery, our correspondent goes on to say that, in the event of a coalfield fight, the Bedwas workers can individually terminate the agreement and come out on strike. Surely in that case they will be again faced with the closing down of the colliery and the loss of their employment: if it applies in one case so, it will in the other. This “right" of individually terminating his agreement is possessed by every worker, organised or not, but what a right ! It is an admission that real trade union organisation is for the time being impossible.

Ed. Comm.

Parliamentary Fund (1937)

From the October 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Answer to Correspondent: Equal Rewards to Unequal Persons (1937)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Equal Rewards to Unequal Persons

H. W. Henderson (Glasgow).—The assumption on which your questions rest is not correct. Socialists do not claim that “the worker is entitled to the full product of his labour." With cooperation in production and the sub-division of labour it is seldom that we can know what is the full product of a worker's labour. Even if it were possible to know, the worker could not have the full product of his labour if the means of production are to be replaced and extended. It is quite true that the capacities of individuals vary, but if it is “unjust" for the man with big output to have no greater reward than the man with small output this may be due to physique and health. Would you call it "just’’ that the small and weak should be penalised because they cannot keep up with their more fortunate fellows? You say that some superior capacities are the result of self-development through years of effort. Leaving aside for the present the knotty question of the claim of such individuals to be rewarded, how are you going to get over the practical difficulty of distinguishing between the man whose large output comes without effort and the man whose large output comes only with great effort. Surely it would be "unjust" on your argument to reward them equally?

It is for these and other reasons that Socialists stand by the principle "From each according to his abilities: to each according to his needs," but we have never supposed that it could be applied in Russia or anywhere else where the productive forces were insufficiently developed and where the population was still saturated with capitalist prejudices.

We will return to this subject in the near future and deal with your points more fully.

Ed. Comm.

Answer to Correspondent: Distribution Under Socialism, Why Money Will Not Be Needed (1937)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Distribution Under Socialism, Why Money Will Not Be Needed

P. P. M. (W.1).—See article “This Money Business," " S.S.," February, 1934, and reply to question "Socialism and Motor Cars," October, 1934. In the near future we will have something more on this question. Ed. Comm.

SPGB Meetings (1937)

Party News from the October 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

It's interesting to note that a C. Umpleby was listed as a SPGB contact in Leeds during this period. I'm sure there was a Dave Umpleby who was active in the SPGB in South Yorkshire during the 1990s and 2000s. I wonder if they were related? Umpleby can't be that common a name.

East Ham Outdoor Propaganda (1937)

Party News from the October 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

'Edkins' was George Edkins, who joined the West Ham Branch of the SPGB in January 1928 and was a member of the SPGB for over fifty years. According to his obituary from the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard, he was known to be active at indoor and outdoor meetings during this period.

General Open Air Propaganda (1937)

Party News from the October 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

Unlike the SPGB Lecture Lists from the pre-WW1 era, this speaking list unfortunately doesn't carry the speakers' forename initials, so it is too difficult to work out who the more obscure speakers are. 

For example, down the decades there's been quite a few Walkers in the SPGB, so I can't be sure who this Walker is who is listed. 'Otto' was most likely a pseudonym and I don't have any info on 'Nesbit', but they must have been viewed as an able Party speaker if they were speaking on the party platform in Hyde Park on a Sunday. That platform always drew the mass crowds. 'Reginald' was the party name of Augustus Snellgrove.

'Banks' was probably Jimmy Banks, who was an SPGBer active in South London, and Rushcroft Road was a speaking pitch in Brixton. He originally joined the Battersea Branch of the SPGB during World War One, and passed away in late 1966. His obituary appeared in the February 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Voice From The Back: A young worker speaks (2004)

The Voice From The Back Column from the October 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

A young worker speaks

“To Prime Minister Tony Blair, My name is Maxine Gentle and I am 14 years old. I am the sister of Fusilier Gordon Gentle who died in the war in Iraq on the 28th June 2004. I want my thoughts and feelings to be heard and known. My feelings are that I think you are rubbish at your job. You don’t care about the British public, armed forces or anybody in fact. My big brother died at the age of 19 and what for? A war over oil and money, that’s what I think the war is all about . . . It is okay for you sitting there with all your money and power, ruining people’s lives by the decisions YOU make . . . All you and your new best friend care about is Iraq’s oil . . .” (Independent, 20 August). Maxine is a young worker who has seen through a lot of capitalism’s propaganda, but she is wrong about Tony Blair. He is not rubbish at his job, he is very good at it. His job is to support capitalism and to convince wage slaves that it is in their interests to support it too. Gordon and his family are victims of this deception.

The dignity of labour (1)

The recent British Airways industrial dispute about sick leave highlighted how some firms interviewed staff who had been on sick leave to discover if they were genuine or not. The worst example of this degrading practice we have come across was reported in the City Diary column in the Times (25 August). “A reader tells me that Sainsbury’s has put his 60 year old mother-in-law through a return-to-work interview three times in the past year, after her absence for a hip replacement, cancer tests and the removal of part of a breast. The lady in question is understandably perturbed, especially as she has worked at the checkout for 20 years with an unblemished record.”  This could be your mother, are you happy with this set up?

The dignity of labour (2)

The journalist Sarah Ryle reports on another charming practice that our master’s have dreamed up for us. “Lidl, the German discount retailer with UK stores, ordered its Czech female workers to wear arm bands during menstruation (there’s no nice way of putting that). According to an August edition of German trade retail magazine Lebensmittelzeitung, local managers decided it was the only way to be sure that women were not taking unnecessary loo breaks. Women with arm bands could go as often as they liked, instead of waiting for the official breaks . . .” (Observer, 5 September).  The capitalist class, who rule our lives, now want to regulate our bladders. Wake up, fellow workers. 

Back in the USA

There is no doubt that the USA is the most developed capitalist country in the world today, but that doesn’t stop many of its citizens living miserable, poverty stricken lives, as the following figures from official US government sources show. “The Census Bureau announced that the number of people living in poverty – individuals earning $9,573 or families of four living on $18,660 or less – had risen to 35.8 million, or 12.5 percent, up from 34.5 million or 12.1 percent in 2002” (Times, 27 August).

Water scandal

It says much for the insanity of capitalism that at the same time as a bottle of water in a St. Tropez club can sell for £16 a bottle (see August Socialist Standard) a charity called WaterAID can launch a TV ad appealing for £2 a month to deal with the problem of children dying from lack of clean water According to them: “Every 15 seconds a child dies from lack of clean water . . . by the time this ad is over another 6 children will have died” (ITV Advertisement, 3 September). Inside world socialism such obscenities will be impossible.