Fifty Years Progress: Capitalism's failure to produce (1955)

From the February 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

A delusion that dies hard is the belief that plenty of everything is actually produced in the world, only needing to be properly distributed. This idea was being put forward over a century ago. It was encouraged by the increases of output due to machine production; by the obvious contrast between rich and poor; and by the periodical trade depressions in which the inability to sell what had been produced seemed to indicate that production had been greater than peoples needs.

The appearances, however, were very misleading and many people were, and still are, misled.

The seemingly very great increase of output when a machine replaces a number of men, can, and usually does, look very different when account is taken of the number of men required for the manufacture, operation and maintenance, of the machine, showing itself in the enormous increase that has taken place in the number of workers in the engineering and allied trades. When account is taken of all the factors the overall increase of productivity is found to be very small An industry able to show a continuous increase, year after year, of say 2 per cent. or 3 per cent. in output per man would be doing well. In some industries productivity falls not rises.

The surpluses of goods during a crisis do not mean that more has been produced than mankind needs but only that there is more on sale than the buyers will take; what they will take being limited for the great majority by their lack of money,

Marx, who was not taken in by the delusion we are discussing, quite rightly pointed out that capitalism does not produce enough for human needs.

Some eighty years ago Marx wrote:—

“It is not a fact that too many necessities of life are produced in proportion to the existing population. The reverse is true. Not enough is produced to satisfy the wants of the great mass decently and humanly.”

(Capital, Vol. III, p. 302.)

That was true then and it is true now.

If we take British capitalism as an example we can sum up the developments of the 50 years since the formation of the S.P.G.B. in a few simple propositions. Writing about the year 1904, in his book “Riches and Poverty,” the late Chiozza Money showed in detail the outstanding features of British life. They were that production was at a miserably inadequate level in relation to the needs of the population; that much of the product was trashy; and that out of what was produced the rich minority drew an amount quite out of proportion to their numbers.

There are people who will acknowledge the truth of Chiozza Money’s indictment of the capitalism of 1904, but who imagine that there has been some vast change since then. Of course, if they commit the elementary error of dealing with monetary amounts without allowing for the fall in what money will buy, they can get all sorts of fanciful pictures. On that basis they can say that the national income and national production, and also wages, are some six or seven times greater than in 1904.

But if they come down to earth and look at real values they will find that the national income and national product have increased since 1904 only by something in the region of 70 per cent. or 80 per cent.

(Estimates of growth of national income are reproduced in “Economic Development in U.K. 1850-1950,” published by American Mutual Security Agency to U.K. See also Colin Clark’s estimates in Review of Economic Progress Queensland, July-August, 1951).

But this increase has first to be adjusted to the larger number of people it covers, the population of the United Kingdom having increased from 40 million to 50 million. This cuts down the increase of the national income to an increase per head of the population of about 40 per cent. since 1904.

This increase of production has taken place partly through a small continuing increase of output per worker, partly through the absorption of most of the unemployed, and, finally, through the fact that a larger proportion of the population are now normally out at work in offices and industry instead of being at home (notably more married women).

We are then left with an increase in the national income per head of the population of about 40 per cent. in the half century since 1904. But let it not be imagined that this means there is available 40 per cent, more articles of everyday consumption. By no means. The national income, national production, and the Index of Production published regularly by the Government, all include, not only such items as additional factories, school buildings. Government offices, etc., but also armaments; this last item being particularly worth looking at. In 1904, expenditure on the army and navy was about £66 million, equivalent to less than 4 per cent. of the total national income. In recent years it has exceeded 10 per cent. of the national income, amounting in 1953-4 to nearly £1,400 millions. This is peace-time expenditure. During the two world wars it has been four or five times as great and for the whole half century has averaged over 15 per cent. of the national income, totalling upwards of £40,000 million and leaving that much less in the form of articles of consumption. If, to this, we add the destruction resulting from the big and little wars of the half century, it is beyond doubt that the great bulk of the not very large increase of production and productivity per man that has taken place since 1904 has been swallowed up in British capitalism’s armaments and wars.

If, in the meantime, the workers’ average earnings have, through their struggles on the industrial field increased more than the increase of their cost of living, and their hours of work are less than in 1904, these changes, too, must have set against them the more intensified work that is expected in the shorter working day, together with the fact that for many millions of workers the shorter time spent in the factory has been offset by the longer time spent uncomfortably travelling to and from work, because houses have been built further away from places of employment.

And though real wages are for many groups of workers higher than in 1904, only the very superficial observer can be deceived into thinking that poverty has been abolished. With a present cost of living about 2⅓ times what it was in 1938 what kind of life is given by the adult average earnings (before deduction of tax and insurance) of 197/8 a week on which to bring up a family? or by the woman’s average of 105/3? The railwaymen are just celebrating the raising of their wages, but the new rate for 60,000 porters and others will be, in London, 134/-, rising to 136/- after one year and to 138/- after two years. Provincial rates are 3/ less. Is this the abolition of poverty?

The Chancellor of the Exchequer disclosed in answer to a question (Hansard 16/11/54) that in 1953, out of 23 million male and female workers, only one in five has more than about £9 a week after deducting tax and insurance; and that there are 8,600,000 whose net income is under 96/- a week. Millions of pensioners are worse off still. Apart from the present low level of unemployment British capitalism of 1955 is much like that of 1904 for the workers. It is very like it too in respect of housing, for in 1904 the Government and the reformist parties were telling each other that they really must do something to solve the housing problem. They still are. The recent record rate of building is probably within reach of catching up the additional needs created by the war. But now, says Mr. Duncan Sandys, Minister of Housing and Local Government, “ they must waste no time getting down to the job of slum clearance.” (Speech at Birmingham, Manchester Guardian, 12/1/55.)

“We think there may be about a million slum houses. If this figure proves correct, I suggest that we should aim at breaking the back of the problem in most areas within ten years.”

But still another housing problem is looming up, "the modernisation of older houses.”

“Over one-third of the houses all over the country were built in the nineteenth century or earlier, and in the interests of all concerned they should be brought up to date.”

For many workers it is only by living in cramped accommodation in these slums and old, sub-standard houses, at low rents, that money can be found for modest expenditure on entertainment, holidays, drink and tobacco.

Which brings us back to where we came in, for Chiozza Money 50 years ago was writing about overcrowding, back-to-back houses, ill-effects on health, etc., etc., and of the need to do something about the housing problem. We have all these housing evils with us still, .The more capitalism changes the more it remains the same.

Edgar Hardcastle

Blogger's Note:  

Despite it not being February, this article got a bump 'cos it's mentioned in the Editorial Committee's reply to this letter which appeared in the October 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Housing, Planning and Modern Life (1955)

From the October 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

“I was struck with the magnificence of the building . . . ‘One should think,' said I, ‘that the proprietor of all this must be happy.'  ‘Nay, Sir,' said Johnson, ‘all this excludes but one evil — poverty.' "

Boswell's Life of Johnson

People marrying in 1955 have no better prospect of somewhere to live than they had in 1945. That is not an uninformed guess by this writer: it is a statement made on the third of July this year in the Sunday Pictorial. How much attention it gained, among the nymphs and the strip cartoons, is uncertain. It should have had a great deal—most of all from those who believe that capitalism can solve its problems.

Between the wars, four million houses were built in Great Britain, and by 1939 there were twelve millions altogether. With the slum clearance programmes two-thirds completed, about a quarter of a million remained condemned as unfit for habitation, and nearly half a million were “overcrowded." Another half-million were destroyed or severely damaged during the war—most in docklands and crowded industrial areas, and so anticipating further “slum clearance." In 1945, authorities agreed that four million new houses were needed in the next ten years; in fact, at the end of that period two millions have been built

Even allowing that it is only half the estimate, two millions is an impressive number. Indeed, nobody wants figures to know that a great deal of building has been done. Small, semi-rural towns have dilated to populous urban areas; on the outskirts of cities, the council estates (and latterly “private" ones, too) have mushroomed; in the cities themselves, clumps of prefabs and great chest-of-drawers blocks of flats have risen on bomb-sites, waste patches, football fields— every place, in, fact, where there was land to spare for the housing of working people.

The solution of the housing problem has been the great promise of the postwar years; getting a council house, once slightly shameful (“corned beef islands," the estates were called), has become heart's desire to millions. Local authorities, faced with endless lists of applicants, made dire need almost their sole criterion. Most have used the “points" system to ensure that the houses went to the largest families with the worst accommodation: a temporary relief which ensures more overcrowding in a few years on the council estates. Outside of what is provided by the councils, the letting of houses has entirely disappeared. Virtually all that is available to childless or one-child couples is furnished accommodation at extortionate prices, or house-purchase.

For most people, buying a house is out of the question. Usually a tenth of the price must be paid as deposit; add on legal charges and other expenses, and an initial outlay of £300 is needed for a very modest house. Recently, it has become possible to obtain 95 per cent. and even 100 per cent, mortgages: that sends up the weekly repayments to something like £4—again, out of the question for most people. More are buying houses, because it is the only solution to their housing problem; over 90 per cent. of them—according to figures recently published by the Association of Building Societies—houses costing £2,000 or less. In short, some working people can buy houses, but only cheap ones.

What is obvious is that all to-day’s housing schemes rest entirely on the assumption of full employment. Buying a house takes 15 or 20 years, and if you do it for less than £3 a week you’re lucky. Council tenancies cost approximately double those of the older houses with controlled rents. In the last few years there has been a great deal of talk about “improved standards of living” that has been based largely on working people buying their own houses and being fixed up in smart little boxes with all-electric kitchens. The truth is that most people, with jobs and plenty of overtime, struggle for financial survival after having their housing problem solved. The Daily Herald, on the 16th of last month, gave some sobering facts about die lucky ones who are supposed to exemplify the better standard of living:

"In a London court last week an eviction order was granted against a £15-a-week factory worker for non-payment of rent. He has been living in a 32s.-a-week council house, with three young children, a host of debts, and a TV set.

The man who sought and won the eviction order against him on behalf of the local council had no sense of elation about the success, of his mission.

He, too, is living above his means. . .  He can't afford to smoke or drink. He hasn't a suit to his name—and wears sports clothes for economy reasons. He has already borrowed £245 against his life insurance—and he now faces a summons for non-payment of £5 rates."

The housing problem, in fact, is not post-war at all: it is the continuation of one of capitalism’s oldest problems. The working class never has been adequately housed. Before the war it was the slum problem—rehousing people who lived in such squalor that their children were malformed and tuberculous. Plenty still live in those conditions, by the way, and are not rehoused because they can’t afford to be. However, the dominant factor in the housing problem since the war has been that most people are in work and so are asking for houses to themselves. In this writer’s town there is a row of houses, built just before the war, which still bears a signboard announcing in faded letters that £20 down will buy one. Passers-by lament the change without realizing what it was. Now, they haven’t houses; then, they hadn’t the money. As soon as there is legislation which allows rents to be raised (and that seems a near-future inevitability) the post-war housing problem will fall back into its century-old perspective of people needing houses but unable to seek them.

For—and this is the great fact about the housing problem—houses are not produced to satisfy needs. Nor is anything else in this world. Food is not produced to be eaten, clothes to be worn, or anything else for its utilitarian purpose. All things, under capitalism, are produced with one motive only: sale and profit. Thus, at times when millions have needed it, food has been destroyed; thus, at any time (including today) anybody can have what he can pay for and nothing else. Note, please, that rich people have no housing problem. The Observer and the Sunday Times advertize houses to satisfy anyone; at £4,000 and upward.

How is it, though, that two million new houses in ten years leave the demand still unappeased? There are all sorts of contributory immediate answers—people keep on marrying, millions have shared houses for years, and so on. They all boil down to the fact that working-class families are in unsuitable accommodation and want to get out of it: the more important fact is that it always was unsuitable. Houses built for working people are small, cheap houses—soon overcrowded and soon dilapidated. The labourers’ dwellings and tenements and. industrial estates of the last century are the slums of this. Many thousands of people, incidentally, will still live in houses which were flung up over a 100 years ago to cram workers into the industrial towns. Go through the Lancashire mill-towns, and you see rows of grimy little dwellings with dates—1833, 1834, and so on—on their fronts and earth-closets at their backs. Go through London’s suburbs, and you see the unlovely prefabs of 1945; many of them now are having their lives formally extended for several years because their inhabitants cannot be rehoused elsewhere. So there is a perpetual process like that of the Augean stables, where the troublesome matter flows in at exactly the same rate as it it cleared out.

The biggest post-war housing project of all has been the building of “new towns.” Really vast estates attached to smallish country towns, they are the planners’' pride. It is worth examining them to see how much they really contribute to better living standards and human happiness. Essentially, they represent the way of life provided for the modern industrial worker; the north-country towns do the same for older, heavier industries, and the outer suburbs of southern cities the different amenities of the petrol-engine and electric-motor era. In them is incorporated, actually and potentially, the culture of the mid-twentieth century.

A new town has no music-halls, no street traders or little gold-mines. It is laid out in careful uniformity, and all the inhabitants keep their front gardens tidy because they are told they must. The buildings are grouped neatly according to function or income; shops together, civic buildings together, rows of houses with garages for the higher-income groups. Much has been made of this last point; in new towns, they say, the officials and professional people and managers live close to the rest. The fact may be true, but its implication is nonsense. There is as much snobbery in the new towns as anywhere else, and placing people close together makes no difference to it. In every big city in the world, wealth and poverty are contiguous with a world between them. The writer knows plenty of places where one side or one end of a street regards the other as “a different class."

The workers in the new towns are dependent on local industries, which are mostly of the newer sorts—plastics, electronics and so on. With largish families (the chief condition for getting the houses) and high rents, they can hardly lead lavish lives. Consequently, there are not many pubs or cinemas, and the new towns—like the estates— form “community associations” which really are means of recreation for people who have not much money and must look after young children in the evenings. Local transport generally is poor and the distances to former neighbourhoods considerable: the new towns impose fixed ways of living as firmly as the old.

Are those better, more satisfying ways? Consider the man living in Harlow or Stevenage or one of the others. He is fairly young and fairly skilled and has a family. He works in a radio or plastics factory; he works as many hours as he can to make ends meet, and if the factory closes half the town will be unemployed. He has a television set and complains of the programmes. His house has a refrigerator in which his wife keeps a pint of milk overnight during three weeks of the year. His wife uses Omo and Daz so that her family’s clothes are white, and they all use green toothpaste to keep their breath sweet. They haven’t a book in the house, but they take in Reveille, Tit-bits, Woman and the Daily Mirror. They are scared of having more children, getting diseases, and Henry’s firm becoming slack, and they do the football pools in the hope of buying themselves out of it all.

The condition of the working class, in new towns and old towns remains a deplorable one of insecurity and want. If material improvements can be discerned (which is debatable) they are outweighed by frustrations and fears of which our grandfathers knew nothing. Indeed, the degree scarcely matters: if things became much better they would still be bad. Housing is one of the innumerable problems which capitalism has created and cannot solve, simply because capitalism has no care for human needs. Many people refuse to believe that such problems cannot be solved within the capitalist system: the astonishing thing is that they are refusing to believe their own eyes.

Can Socialism house people, as people should be housed? The short and simple answer is that there will be no money barrier to the satisfaction of any need when all the means of production are owned by every person. The cheap and shoddy in houses, as in everything else, will vanish when there is no profit motive. As for the question of space—well, think of all the buildings which nobody will want. Shops, banks, exchanges, offices of every description ... and, in addition, a lot (an awful lot) of buildings which only a perverse society could think suitable for human beings.

Robert Barltrop

NOTE: The figures about rents and house prices apply to southern England. In the north and in Scotland they are rather lower. So are wages.

Notes by the Way: The Contradictions of Nationalism (1955)

The Notes by the Way Column from the October 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Contradictions of Nationalism

While Capitalism lasts so will its class and international economic struggles, many of them taking on a racial, religious or nationalist appearance whenever this suits the needs of some interested group. Socialists do not support these manifestations of prejudice. But the supporters of Nationalist Movements make use of two plausible arguments. One is that it is a good thing to have a National Capitalist Group in power in preference to Capitalist rule by foreigners because the former are more progressive, and the other is that by winning national independence you get rid of preoccupation with Nationalism and thus make it easier to get down to Socialism.

There is nothing in either argument. In comparatively recent times Egypt, India, Burma, the Middle East Arab States, Hungary, Poland and South Africa, have emerged from greater or less degree of foreign rule and their absence of progress in any sense that matters, is matched by their extreme preoccupation with nonsensical Nationalism.

It has been noticed by many newspaper correspondents in India that there has been in recent years, not a decline, but a growth of Nationalism and now Indians are complaining of growing intolerance towards themselves shown in the countries of South East Asia. Mr. S. K. Patil, one of the chiefs of the Indian Congress Party, has returned from a tour of Burma, Siam, Malaya, and Singapore, “where, he said, dangerous and poisonous Nationalism, if allowed to develop, would result in intolerance for Indians and other foreigners.”—(Times, 17/9/55.)

Nationalism inevitably has its ridiculous side because in the world as it is today the dreams and pretensions of the Nationalists (all of them, including the British, Russian and American) so frequently will not fit into the facts of Capitalism.

The Irish Nationalists may dream as much as they like about ancient myths and glories but the Irish Government is now inviting German Capitalism to come into Ireland to develop the textile industry (Financial Times 13/9/55) so that it can sell more in the British market; though at the same time it is “banning the import of cheap shirts from the Far East in order to protect the jobs of Irish textile workers" (Daily Express 20/9/55.) Doubtless some of the Irish Nationalists would like to live in a really Irish Ireland but in the real world they can’t get the Irish to speak their own language and they need foreign markets and foreign capital, and by a curious arrangement the British Post Office publication “Post Offices in the United Kingdom” contains not only the Post Offices in Britain, but also those in the Irish Republic. With so many Irish workers working in this country the Irish Government doubtless finds it convenient to have easy means provided for Irish emigrants in Britain to send correspondence and remittances to their relatives.

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The Trade Battle across the Iron Curtain

A year or two ago there were two propaganda drives going on, one to expand British exports to U.S.A. and Canada and the other to popularise the idea that Russia could offer an attractive market for British exports.

The first has received a jolt lately since some big contracts in U.S.A. have been awarded, not to the lowest tender, coming from British firms, but to American firms quoting higher. And, according to the Daily Express (1/9/55) British exports to Canada are not looking too good;

Trade men in America say that Western Germany is making an all out drive to rob Britain of her place as the world’s second largest exporter of engineering goods—next to the U.S.

Main “ battleground" is likely to be in Canada—where already British sales of engineering goods are losing ground to the Germans.

And it appears that Russian competition is a factor in certain lines. The Daily Express of the same date reported the following:—

Dumping of matches in Britain by Russia and other Iron Curtain countries has forced the giant Bryant and May match combine to close one of its plants.

The “Brymay” boss, Sir Anthony Elkins, says this morning that the Red competition is “severe."

That is a masterly under-statement. For imports of Russian matches have leaped from 72,000 gross boxes in 1953 to a current rate of 774,000 gross boxes.

For the statistically minded that is 111,456,000 boxes of matches a year.

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Religion and Morals

A favourite side argument of religionists has always been that if there were no religion moral standards would decline. While they readily admit, and indeed make a point of asserting, that the real basis of religion is “faith” not behaviour they nevertheless find it convenient to buttress the case for religion by maintaining that the two are linked and that one falls with the other.

Now some American churchmen have had to allow that events in U.S.A. do not support the argument. They say that while religion is booming “ morality seems to be on the decline.”

The following appeared in the Observer (London, September 18, 1955):—

A record increase in Church membership in the United States is reported in figures to be released this week by the National Council of Churches of the United States. It shows a total of more than 97 million, an increase of over 2,500,000 during 1954.

There are 57 million Protestants, 32 million Roman Catholics, 5,500,000 Jews and two million Eastern Orthodox Church members. Among Protestant Churches the Baptists, with 18,500,000, have the greatest number of adherents. The Methodists are second with nearly 12 million.

Whether the present “religious boom" in the United States is deeply seated in religious conviction is doubted by Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, this year's president of the National Council of Churches. In a comment on the figures Dr. Blake says: “ Morality seems to be on the decline at the moment when there appears to be a religious boom. Preachers in this industrial age are finding modern man's anxiety for his job is just as acute as primitive man’s for a good harvest"

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Dividends and Wages; and those who get them

As a propaganda move against wage claims, Sir John Braithwaite, Chairman of the Stock Exchange, recently issued a statement on the relative increase of dividends and wages since 1947. His statement, published in the Manchester Guardian (29 August, 1955) contained the following:—

The total of wages and salaries for the year ending December 31, 1954, was £9,265 millions, as against a total of £1,122 millions for interest and dividends on securities quoted on the Stock Exchange, or over eight times as great.

Wages and salaries have advanced since 1947 by 69.2 per cent. (£3,790 millions) against an increase of 32.1 per cent. (£273 millions) in interest and dividends (of winch ordinary dividends constitute 39.6 per cent). That is to say that the rise in wages and salaries is more than double the rise in interest and dividends by percentage, and nearly 14 times as much by volume.

Socialists of course are not believers in the Labour Party notion that Capitalism would be all right provided the Capitalists received rather less and the workers rather more. And one or two of the more objective defenders of Capitalism have pointed out that on the basis of the Tory argument for the free play of economic forces there is no sanctity about the division that existed in 1947 or any other year—each side gets what it can when it can.

There is, however, a useful corrective to apply to the figures. It is simply this: While “wages and salaries” cover something over 20 million workers, not to mention their still larger number of dependents, the number of shareholders is relatively a very small body. Mr. Harold Wincott, writing in the Unilever Journal “Progress” (Spring 1955, page 161) had this to say:—

“In this country, it has been estimated that out of a population of 50,000,000, only some 1,250,000 to 1,500,000 people are shareholders. Even in the more capitalistic United States, a recent inquiry by the Brookings Institution produced an estimate that shareholders numbered only some 6,500,000 out of a population of 160,000,000.

Of course, included in these apparently exclusive bands of investors are a relative handful of institutions—insurance companies, pension funds, investment trusts, and so on—investing vast sums of money on behalf of a great multitude of indirect investors. But the policy holder and the contributor to a pension fund do not generally speaking regard themselves as being identified with the course of stock market prices. Theirs is a very remote and indirect link. With only three persons in every 100 in this country and four in each 100 in the United States holding shares in their own right, it is not surprising if the events in the world’s stock exchanges are normally things apart from the man in the street."

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Muddle about Socialism

The Manchester Guardian (17/9/55) had a leading article deploring the confusion and ill-feeling that arise because not many of us “recognise the kind of society in which we are living.”

“American Conservatives are angry if told that their economy, far from being based on the free play of market forces, is almost as Socialist as the British system. The Russian Communists are infuriated if told that their Stakhonovite arrangements, with high wages for exceptional workers and coercion for the ordinary men, are less Socialist than much of the "British system."

The reader will have read enough of the article to see that the Manchester Guardian is doing nothing to remove the confusion. Its conclusion, a masterpiece of muddle, is that “in short our system is neither Capitalist nor Socialist, but a mixture.”

In another Journal (Tribune, 16 September, 1955), a Labour M.P., Mr. Ian Mikardo, adds his contribution. Writing under the heading “Don’t Tell Me this is Socialism,” he makes the discovery that the French system of having the nationalised gas industry and the nationalised electricity industry using jointly the same non-competitive showroom is Socialism, but the English system of having them in competition and using rival showrooms is not. 

Whoever it was that told Mr. Mikardo that either of them has anything whatever to do with Socialism, it cannot have been a Socialist And one wonders what Mr. Mikardo was telling his readers in the past when he supported the Electricity and Gas Nationalisation Acts.

According to his odd test a nationalised industry is “Socialism” if it has a monopoly. Well the Post Office has a monopoly in most of its services but Mr. Attlee long ago described it as “the outstanding example of collective Capitalism” (New Statesman, 7/11/31).

This is the first piece of light so far, and with its help we can put Mr. Mikardo, the Guardian the Americans and the Russians on the right road—that is if they want to be on the right road.

It all boils down to private Capitalism and State Capitalism and indeed on this basis and this alone America, Britain, Russia and all other countries are a mixture— but without any Socialism.

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When will the Boom End ?

The economist, Mr. Roy Harrod, set out to answer this question in the Financial Times (10 September, 55). He thinks that “recession” will come in the autumn of 1956 or somewhat earlier. His reasons are that the wave of expansion of factories and equipment that began about October, 1954, will be more or less completed in two years that it was excessive in amount; and that it may be found that it cannot be fully operated. He writes:—

“In 1956, we shall be faced with the problems of recession. This might merely take the form of a welcome decline of orders to engineering industry. But it might also be found—which would be more serious—that during this period of expansion we had created, in some lines at least, excessive capacity in relation to markets or to manpower available to operate it Matters would be still worse if some recession in our export markets began to manifest itself at about the same time."

It will be noticed that though he starts off very firmly about the demonstrable feet that the 1954 spate of new orders for factories, etc., will be running out in 1956, and less firmly anticipates a recession then, he becomes quite non committal about the other factors and indeed is not sure that he knows whether there will be factories without factory workers or factories with workers, but without markets.

He remembers no doubt the many other attempts by economists, including the advisers of the Labour Governments and the present Government, to forecast from one year to another what is going to happen.

The Editorial of the Financial Times, commenting on Mr. Harrod’s article, is rather more definite than he is. The Editorial says:—

“He makes what is no doubt a sound case for the view that the investment boom is the major cause of current balance of payment difficulties, and then goes on to suggest that this may lead in turn to an excess of supply in the autumn of next year. The risk is a real one, but not perhaps a very serious one. In the past it has proved the characteristic of long-term periods of rising prices, such as the 1850's and 1860’s, to have major booms and minor recessions. In fact, the United States has absorbed three minor recessions since the war, and we have already absorbed one."

One other point made by Mr. Harrod is of interest in yiew of the current argument by employers and politicians that economic difficulties are due to wage increases and “buying sprees.” Mr. Harrod maintains that the excessive expansion of factories (encouraged by the Government when they ought, according to him to have been discouraging it) is the predominant disturbing factor.

“Other factors making towards inflation—wage increases of 7½ per cent.; consumption increase of five per cent—are trivial by comparison."

Edgar Hardcastle

Editorial: 4½ Per Cent. (1955)

Editorial from the October 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

No, this is not an article about the 4½ per cent. Bank Rate but about another item of 4½ per cent. that received almost no attention in the newspapers. It had to do with the Government’s annual Blue Book on National Income and Expenditure, the latest issue, covering the years 1938-1954, being published the first week in September.

For readers who are unfamiliar with the subject matter the Blue Book is not easy to understand; and when not understood its tables of figures can be very misleading as is shown from time to time by Press comments on it. But some of the tables tell us in precise terms and on official authority things that otherwise can only be conjectured on the basis of part information.

Our present comment is concerned only with the extent to which the “National Income” has increased and the way in which that increase has shown itself in every-day articles of consumption, the food, clothing, entertainment, etc., that concern us from day to day.

The total National Income (“ Gross National Product”) is shown to have increased from £5,175 millions in 1938 to £15,718 millions in 1954, but these figures do not mean that the national income has really trebled. Almost all of the difference is due merely to higher prices. No estimate is given in the Blue Book which makes allowances for price changes, but if we apply to these figures the same price allowance as is used elsewhere in the Book (Tables 21 and 22) we may assume that perhaps the real increase of the National Income since 1938 is about 25 per cent.

It is small enough for a period of 16 years, averaging about 1½ per cent. a year, but apologists will say that things would have been different if there had not been a war. In 1938 of course they were blaming the small increase of production on the slump and before that, on the previous war.

This increase of the national income has been obtained largely through the increase of the working population, notably through the reduction of the number of unemployed by 1½ million and through more married women being out at work.

The next thing is to find out what has happened to this increase, which as indicated above, may be about 25 per cent. Does it mean that in 1954 there were 25 per cent. more goods for everybody than in 1938? It does not mean this because in the first place much of the 25 per cent. increase does not take the form of everyday articles of consumption. Some of it goes into the increase of the Armed Forces and armaments, and the building of more factories and production of more factory machines. When we come down to articles of everyday expenditure the Blue Book provides us with an answer to the question.

It shows that, after allowing for price increase, the purchase of consumption goods (food, clothing, tobacco, rent, entertainment, travel, etc.), was in 1954 only 11 per cent. higher than in 1938. But as the Financial Times (6 September) pointed out the population had grown by 6½ per cent, so that “real expenditure per head was 4½ per cent up.” This, then, is the measure of what capitalism actually performs. When, therefore, the Tory Government as an election manoeuvre, held out the promise of doubling the standard of living in the next 25 years they are counting on something happening in the future for which there is no support in the past.

What have Socialists to say about this situation?

The problem is a purely Capitalist one and does not hit the Socialist case. On the contrary, it gives weighty support to what has always been the essence of that case. Socialists have never followed the reformist will o' the wisp of supposing that redistributing national income within the framework of capitalism is a solution. The Socialist case is that until capitalism is abolished and replaced by Socialism it is impossible to liberate the productive forces so that they can function for the benefit of mankind. With Socialism the immediate prospect opens up of greatly expanding the production of useful articles and services for mankind, above all by ceasing the waste of human effort on .capitalism’s wars, armaments and armed forces, and on the manifold financial and bureaucratic activities essential to capitalism but needless in a Socialist society.

Letter: The Class Struggle and Socialism (1955)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

(We have received a further letter from the critic to whose letter we replied in the August issue.—Ed. Comm.)

Golders Green, N.W.11.

22 August, 1955.

The reply to my letter on the subject of Class Struggle and Socialism (August issue) makes no serious attempt to meet my criticisms. The class struggle, in any meaningful sense, is a struggle between class and class. The struggle for Socialism (I would not dhoqse the word struggle here, but accept it for the purpose of the present discussion) is not of one class against another but is against the whole theory and practice of classes in society. It may be deplorable that benevolent old gentlemen say, in ostrich fashion, “Let us ignore classes . . ." but when they add “. . . let us regard each other as human beings" they are stating no less than the essential truth about how people will regard each other in Socialist society. And if the achievement of such a society is our conscious aim, then we cannot start too soon to put into practice the theory we value so highly.

The Ed. Comm frequently uses the phrase “the Socialist working class.” This is not a very helpful classification, because it confuses two quite different functions. In so far as people are members of a class they think and act in class terms. In so far as people are Socialists they work for a Socialist, i.e., a classless society. This is not to say that workers cannot be Socialists. It is a criticism of the statement “I want Socialism because I’m a worker.” This statement is misleading. You want Socialism because you want to change society from a class-divided one in which you are a worker to a classless one in which you are simply and more fully a human being.

“The interests of the human race are bound up with the aspirations of the oppressed working-class in its struggle with Capitalist domination.” There is some truth is this. to the extent that workers are struggling against the Capitalist system and to introduce a system more worthy of human beings. But the separate interests of either of two antagonistic classes cannot be identical with the interests of the whole. The very term “ class ” is by definition descriptive of less than the whole of society, and that is why Socialism is not a class issue but a human one,

An individual Capitalist can be a Socialist and can join in the work of achieving Socialism on the same terms as any other person. Obviously he doesn’t have working-class aspirations—except in the sense that he seeks the welfare of workers. He, in common with the worker, can have no greater aspiration than the welfare of the whole of humanity. Whatever makes one aspire to Socialism, one certainly does not do so from the standpoint of a class that is to disappear with the realisation of Socialism.

It is quite true that I reject the conception of a Socialist working class taking political action to end class society. The Ed. Comm calls this “the Socialist conception.” Let us see to what extent this is true. The statement by the Executive Committee in the August issue on the interpretation of Cause 6 of the Declaration of Principles explains that “when the workers understand the source of their subject position and the action they must take to abolish it, they can do so by sending representatives to Parliament to take control of the State power for this purpose.” Coming into what the Executive Committee calls the region of conjecture, allowance has then to be made for “a theoretically possible attempt in some form of violent sabotage during the revolutionary reorganisation. The control of the armed forces during this period will be an effective deterrent to any such violent attempt without these forces having necessarily to be used. Should a violent minority attempt to destroy Socialism they would have to be forcibly dealt with.”

There are good grounds for the doubts that those both inside and outside the Socialist Party have about the validity of this approach. Note the curious view that Socialists would be justified in threatening or using violence to deter the violence of others. Remember that Socialism is a society in which, to quote from the Party pamphlet on War, “no coercion will be needed because each will gain from co-operating harmoniously with his fellows.” Many Socialists feel that it spoils the whole thing if the rider is added “but we are prepared to bash those who won’t co-operate.” And they have some reason for feeling this. “A violent minority attempting to destroy Socialism” does not present a picture of any kind of possible social situation that I could imagine. If it was an attempt to destroy London or the Red Army, for example, it would be meaningful to me. However, a majority at least of the E.C. must be able to visualise circumstances in which Socialism could be physically battled for. We must then proceed to ask what further social arrangements will accompany the Socialist armed forces. Are we to have Socialist prison camps, judges, and spies? Fortunately, as a “critic” I do not expect to be called upon to take up arms to defend the revolution.

Another objection to the view expressed by the E.C. is more serious, and will be treated accordingly. We are asked to imagine a stage in the future development of society when the mass of people will be Socialists, i.e. will have abandoned support of Capitalist institutions, and will have in general the attitudes to social issues that Socialists have today. What will have happened to institutions while these tremendous changes in attitudes will have taken place ? The E.C. writes of such entities as Parliament, the State, the powers of government, the armed forces, as though they will remain substantially unchanged and function as they do today, but in an environment in which the barometer of social attitudes will be registering Socialism. For such a colossal disparity to exist between prevailing attitudes and institutions in any human society would be as major a denial of all that has been learned in terms of every social science as the denial of the law of gravity would be in physical terms.

I have so far largely only criticised the case put forward by the Socialist Party. For a statement of positive views which are consistent with the above criticisms, readers are referred to the article “The Socialist Movement,” in the April, 1955 issue of Forum (published by the S.P.G.B.) and to the publications of the Movement for Social Integration.

Yours sincerely,

S. R. Parker.

Reply:

This correspondence started with our critic objecting to a statement published in these columns which declared that the interests of the human race are bound up with the triumph of a Socialist working class in the struggle to establish Socialism. (See August issue.) Our critic’s first line of attack was to state that victory in the class struggle could only be a class victory because the class struggle is the struggle between those who buy and those who sell labour power.

In reply we pointed out that this is a complete misconception of the term class struggle. In his second letter no reference is made to this; from which we conclude that that line of attack based on misconception of the class struggle has been abandoned.

The second line of attack is on the idea of a “Socialist working class ” striving for Socialism. Our critic writes:— “In so far as people are members of a class they think and act in class terms. In so far as people are Socialists they work for a Socialist, i.e. a classless society.”

This is a statement that may have the appearance of containing some meaning but which in fact says nothing. As all the people are members of a class it asks us to accept that all people “think and act in class terms.” If this meant anything it could only imply that they therefore cannot act and think in terms of a classless society. But our critic hastens to explain that it does not mean this, for he writes:—“This is not to say that workers cannot be Socialists.” (To which we would add that some individual Capitalists become Socialists, for example Marx’s collaborator F. Engels.)

We are therefore left to wonder what the statement does mean. And whatever it does mean it would have to apply equally to our critic's conception of Socialism coming through the struggle between two “groups”, Socialist and non-Socialist. It would then read:—“In so far as people are members of a group they think and act in group terms.”

Our critic carries this point about class a stage further when he says that “the separate interests of either of the two antagonistic classes cannot be identical with the interests of the whole. The very term 'class ’ is by definition descriptive of less than the whole of society, and that is why Socialism is not a class issue but a human one.”

Certainly on a long-term view Socialism is in the interest of the human race as a whole. A current illustration of this is the fact that war, inseparable from Capitalism, threatens the existence of civilization. The fact remains, however, that it is in the immediate interest of the working class, the exploited class, to abolish Capitalism and establish Socialism; the same cannot be said of the exploiting class.

Again we must point out that the above passage also necessarily applies to our critic’s conception of a group struggle, for, “ by definition ” a group is “descriptive of less than the whole of society.”

A further point made by our critic needs to be dealt with, that is the curious passage in the first paragraph of the present letter in which he tells us, in reference to the struggle for Socialism, “I would not choose the word struggle here, but accept it for the purpose of the present discussion.”

What precisely does our critic mean by this? Anyone coming to the correspondence now for the first time might imagine that, since our critic says he would not choose the word struggle, someone else must have foisted it on him. The fact is that the word was chosen by our critic and by nobody else. In his first letter (see August issue) he wrote of his own conception of Socialism coming by way of struggle between two groups, Socialists in one group and “those who are not Socialists, and who either support or acquiesce in the continuation of Capitalist institutions” in the other group. He repeatedly referred to it as a “ struggle.’

In our reply to our critics first letter we pointed out that he omitted to tell us how this group struggle is to lead to Socialism. This of course is a crucial question. He rejects the conception of a Socialist Working Class taking control of the machinery of government to establish Socialism and offers instead the conception of Socialism coming through the struggle between the two groups. But instead of answering our question as to how this struggle will lead to Socialism he offers the disingenuous plea that he “ would not choose ” the word that he did choose, the word struggle.

We can, of course, understand his difficulty. In our August issue a statement was published setting out the view of the S.P.G.B. on the unlikely but “theoretically possible” attempt by a minority of opponents to Socialism to sabotage the establishment of Socialism after a Socialist majority had gained control of the machinery of government.

Our critic wishes to attack this, but apparently does not wish to explain how that same hypothetical possibility would be dealt with on his own proposition of a struggle between a Socialist group on the one hand and on the other those “ who . . . support... the continuation of Capitalist institutions ” (his description in his first letter).

On the question of institutions of political power changing because of changing “attitudes” it would surely be to the point if our critic had produced evidence from history of a new class not needing to gain full or shared control of the machinery of government because of changing “attitudes or if he produced current evidence of such attitudes having changed and having already brought about essential changes in the Capitalist institutions of political power.

Ed. Comm.

Letter: Capitalism and Labour-Saving Machinery (1955)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

(We have received the following letter from a critic. Our reply follows—Ed. Comm.)

The Editor Socialist Standard

The article, “The Automatic Factory” in current issue of the Standard is merely demonstrating that the advantage of labour-saving machinery is offset by the fact that considerable labour is required in making and installing the machine and subsequently maintaining it and the overall saving of labour is not so great as at first appears. Yet there must be some saving of labour or the Capitalist class would not introduce it.

Will the writer tell us what is the percentage of working-class labour-power devoted to producing the essentials people really need and will still need under Socialism, contrasted with the percentage of this labour-power devoted to maintaining and defending Capitalism which percentage, from a Socialist viewpoint, is sheer waste. Will he also tell us how the first percentage is falling and the second increasing with the passing years. Perhaps that overall picture, whale not so big as it first appears, is not so small is the article suggests.

However, as Capitalism’s powers of production are in the main Capitalism's powers of destruction, it may be instructive to compare the violence of war now with the violence of war 50 years ago when the Socialist Party began telling us that with an intelligent use of such powers of production which only then existed there would be leisure and abundance for everyone.

A Socialist's best argument against Capitalism is that Capitalism is uneconomic, an argument which seems to be forgotten by Socialists nowadays. When are you going to start fighting Capitalism and cease apologising for it?

Yours fraternally, 

E. Carnell.

Reply:

As our critic says, the article showed that the saving of labour through labour-saving machinery is much smaller than is supposed by those who take a superficial view. The evidence shows that the overall increase of productivity for Britain is of the order of 1 per cent—2 per cent. a year over a period of years. If this surprises our critic it may be that he has not appreciated the point (referred to in the article) that the periodical jump for a particular industry will be much larger but it does not happen every year. The point is that firms do not scrap all their old machinery and instal new machinery each year. To do so would be a waste of labour on an enormous scale and they could not afford to do it. They must, in order to realise capital invested in the machine, wait until at least a considerable part of the machine's working life has been exhausted.

If each firm were to instal improved machinery each 20 years, with a 20 per cent. real increase of productivity, the average increase for each firm and for all firms would be 1 per cent. a year over the 20 years, or longer period.

If our critic thinks he knows of evidence that the rate of increase of productivity is larger than the figures given he should produce it. Two men well qualified to handle this problem are Colin Clark and C. F. Carter. In a recent article in the Financial Times (7/2/55) Colin Clark quoted C. F. Carter's estimate of a rise of productivity per man hour worked of 15 pet cent between 1937 and 1953, which, as Clark said, is "well below 1 per cent. per year as a long period of improvement," but he added that his own estimate “ would be nearer zero.”

We are asked for figures showing how many workers are engaged on producing the essentials people will need under Socialism and how many are working at activities essential only to Capitalism. We know of no official figures published in that form or in a form from which a direct answer can be obtained. A rough estimate made in the pamphlet "Socialism,” published by the S.P.G.B. (to which our critic is referred), reached the conclusion that “the whole of the nation's wealth can be produced by the male population between 16 and 60 years of age working half the time they do now.” This was based on the 1921 census figures and later figures might strengthen the case, but the change is not likely to be considerable. The population, the number of workers actually at work, and total output, have all increased since then and while there are larger numbers in the Armed Forces and armaments industries the numbers in many other industries have also increased. The peace-time expenditure on armaments and armed forces has grown from about 4 per cent. of national income in 1904 to about 10 per cent. now. (See article “Fifty Years Progress, S.S. February 1955).

The Socialist case that the only way to abolish poverty is to abolish Capitalism and establish Socialism is still as true as it was when the S.P.G.B. first put it forward. It is still true that waiting on real or imaginary marvels of technical development of industry will get the workers nowhere. And it is still true that an intelligent use of the powers of production that exist would bring about the very great increase in the production of wealth indicated in the pamphlet “Socialism” referred to above.

Who are the Socialists who are supposed to have forgotten this our critic does not say. Certainly it is not the S.P.G.B., which has been putting this case for over half a century.

Ed. Comm

What the T.U.C. overlooked (1955)

From the October 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since the war, and for that matter for long years before it, the British workers have been told to look forward to an era of "plenty and prosperity."

Prosperity would be ours—but for the “dollar gap,” just increase output by 8 per cent (1948) and prosperity would be ours—but for adverse balance of imports and exports—but for German-Japanese competition—we would all be prosperous if only we would work hard and harder and harder.

So it goes on with ever new threats to be met, ever new targets to be reached, ever new crises and problems while the sought-after “prosperity” somehow always manages to elude the workers.

Working overtime, wives out to work, to make ends meet, but NOW is not the time to ask for more. The “country” could not stand it.

When could the country ever stand it? NOW is NEVER the time to demand more. One of Capitalism’s many paradoxes is that the workers of the various countries line-up and identify themselves with the very people who rob them. Another is that while they talk of “unfair” competition causing unemployment here they are not adverse to seeing what can be done in order to cut someone else's throat and let them be unemployed.

It seems that some British workers are so lacking in international solidarity that they are not opposed to unemployment so long as THEY are not unemployed. Of course, the same holds good for workers in the rest of the word—Capitalism has them all at it

Insecurity of existence dogs every wage-slave's footsteps, insecurity which makes him obedient, and as word goes round of “crises” and “market troubles,” insecurity it is that plays a large part in shaping resolutions and arguments at Trade Union Congresses. The fear of increased want and hardship drives workers to work harder and longer to stave off the evil day instead of finding out why they are insecure to begin with.

When one considers the effects of PROFIT production it is as a prime piece of impudence when Mr. Tiffin said “I sometimes wonder if wage claims with the lid off are in future going to be the answer to the search for a life of comfort and security.” (Daily Mirror 5/9/55).

The Socialist Party of Great Britain's attitude to trade unionism is a clear one. While society is class-divided into Capitalists and wage workers, employers and employees, whose interests are directly opposed to each other the “collective bargaining power” of workers is vital to resist the downward pressure of the employers on wages and conditions also, whenever possible to push up wages and improve hours and conditions of work. .

But even this leaves the workers who are the producers of the wealth, in a position of arguing with the non-producers as to how much they may have of it.

Our aim, while thoroughly realising the workers’ need to struggle, is to get the wealth producers alert to the urgency of looking beyond profit production to a system where the wealth society produces will be freely available to everyone.

When the means of production are no longer., owned by the Capitalist class and workers no longer bargain for bones; when the wages system has been abolished and the whole community will own in common the means of production. When we contrast this with what transpires every year at the Trade Union Congress, we can almost understand what our critics mean when they naively tell us we can’t have Socialism because of “the backward countries”!

The conference this year had been softened up in advance by talk of “automation,” “economic crises,” and so for the “leaders” to pilot through resolutions on “wage restraint” was quite easy.

It is also easy for the big boys and the Press to scream “Communist” in order to discredit delegates from the A.E.U. or the E.T.U., but this implies that workers are really satisfied and quite happy until the “agitators” get at them. Look at this as the “motive” for a so- called Communist According to the Daily Express (8/9/55) Arthur Horner was opposed to wage restraint not because workers need more wages:—“He declared that the miners could not produce the coal the country needs because there are not enough of them.” More wages—more miners—more work—more coal—more profits.

Overtime is to stay—that is as long as the employers have a use for us. The 40 hour week has been defeated and a glimpse of the future shows us “joint production” councils, “pit by pit” output probes by employers and union. And the “big brother” who may be watching you might be a union “leader” acting “in the national interest.”

Ironically enough after years of Capitalist propaganda to the contrary the Daily Mirror (6/9/55) tells us “wages have chased the rising prices,” not the contrary.

Does the addled-headedness end here? No! “Cut the call-up” is on again. Why? Are they opposed to armed Forces? No! Now it is just that “the country” needs the manpower. The employers are finding the scramble for overseas markets hard going, and just for now the cry is for more workers.

What will become of the hired hands when the dreaded crash comes is left to our memories and imaginations but meanwhile the employer has a use for us all so let’s work hard, then, at least, when we are unemployed the Capitalists will have their nest egg of years of increased profit. And we on the dole-queues will be consoled by the fact that we tried. We did not ask for more wages because NOW was not the time; we worked harder and although we have nothing to show for it, we tried.

Of course the Capitalist might go to war (or rather send you to war); no unemployment then., We will all be employed in the glorious pastime of butchering one another in order that the Capitalist class of each country can hang on to or expand the wealth of which they have robbed us, the world’s workers, in the first place.

So let us discuss the “German Army” auction. Let us “increase output” to capture more markets and profits. Let us bury ourselves in Capitalism’s problems so that this wonderful system of war-machines, crises, poverty, hunger, exploitation, and war, can continue. What is the implication of this kind of attitude: Let us not bother our heads about Socialism, its “futuristic.” Why “cure” what we can “endure.” This in effect is what they say.

Under Socialism when we are no longer wage-slaves and everything the world over is produced solely for use, there will be no “incentive’’—and so it goes on, and if the employers’ outlook on life is not that of the workers what does it matter so long as the worker's outlook is that of employers? The curse of leadership is the blindness of those who follow and the inevitable rising of new leaders to repeat the follies of past generations of leaders.

The trust and confidence workers put in leaders is no substitute for class-consciousness and action to bring the end of this vile system.

Leaders, political or industrial, will never do this for the workers, it is their responsibility, their only urgent problem.

Harry Baldwin

The Confusion of a Confusionist (1955)

From the October 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

W. Faulkner, writer of a letter (3rd September, 1955) in the “Socialist Leader," under the heading of “Static Socialists,” says: “I get the feeling that there is some confusion over the meaning and purpose of Socialism.”

The heading “Static Socialists” is an absurdity to start with. When a non-Socialist becomes a Socialist he cannot be anything else but a live wire doing his utmost to change society from private to common ownership. Says Faulkner:—”It has always been difficult to define Socialism.” If he had taken the trouble to read the Socialist Standard and analysed the Object and Declaration of Principles he would see the difficulty exists in his imagination only. It would puzzle Faulkner to find a better definition Socialism than the following:—

“The establishment of a system of Society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community."

Then we are told:—"This looking backwards and asking what Marx did or some other leader, say, many years ago, is like asking, 'What did Gladstone say in 1868’ ” Faulkner has got the absurd idea that looking backward is wrong. Yet every schoolboy knows by his study of history, by looking backward, many useful lessons are learned. He ought to have learnt by now that the past, present and future are linked together. If he had no grandfather or mother he would not be alive today to write nonsense. The thing that matters is not that Gladstone or Marx lived years ago, but are the statements still true today. If Faulkner will take the trouble to read Marx, he will see the evidence that shows how the workers are robbed of the fruits of their toil.

The changes that have taken place during the past 50 years owing to wireless, television, the motor-car, jet planes, etc., could not have taken place if our forefathers had not prepared the way, but these changes have not altered the fundamental basis of Capitalism. Faulkner shows how confused he is when he says:—“The S.P.G.B. for example boasts that it has not changed in any way since it was formed in 1904.” It needs no argument to realise that the S.P.G.B. has changed over the years, some have died, new members take their places and their activities change from time to time. What Faulkner does not understand is that principles do not change. It is by analysing these principles, which act as a guide or compass to change the basis of Society; then they will no longer be needed. Says Faulkner, “It is science and improved technique that have transformed society and made possible a much higher standard of living for the workers.”

To be sure there is a large measure of truth in this, but the real benefits which science has made possible can only be fully realised when common ownership of wealth takes the place of private ownership.

In his concluding remarks, Faulkner writes:—"Remember that there is nothing constant but change.” Of course this is in flat contradiction with 'Static Socialists.' He cannot understand that there are things that do not change. Under Socialism, water will still be wet, fire will still bum and if he is still alive, he will have to breathe. Again, according to medical science, every living human being in one sense completely changes every seven years. That does not alter the fact, whether Faulkner used a typewriter or a pen for his letters, his fingers are anatomically the same fingers. Then there is the change that takes place after a hen has laid an egg, if left long enough the matter inside the shell changes, that splits up and divides, and for this to happen, the shell , is absolutely necessary. But later the shell becomes a fetter and has to be broken to bring forth the new life in the shape of a chick.

The changes that are taking place in Capitalism today are like the changes that take place in the egg-shell, with this difference, in the one is blind matter, in the other, the Capitalist frame-work, are men and women who are becoming more and more class-conscious and realise the Capitalist shell, so to speak, must be smashed in order to bring about the change for a new basis of society. We all want to live healthy, happy, human lives. This will only be done when we have decided to abolish Capitalism and establish a class-less system of society.

J. E. Roe

Atoms and food (1955)

From the October 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the Atomic Energy Conference at Geneva, a lecture was delivered by Sir Ernest Rock Carling, Medical Research Council Advisor to the Home Office. In this lecture, he said, that “all atomic radiation had been found to be potentially injurious to living organisms, and that the vast majority of permanent genetic changes caused by such rays were harmful ” (Daily Telegraph, 15/8/55). He suggested, however, that “the diminished fertility and shortening of the life span may not be altogether to be deplored, because world population may outrun food supplies."

There was an immediate protest by the Swedish geneticist, Prof. A. Gustavsson, who pointed out that the radiation damage did not lead simply to a diminution of the birth-rate or simple sterility; children might still be conceived, but what kind of children would they be. “. . . they might die in miscarriage, or soon after birth, or develop serious abnormalities such as big-headed dwarfism, digestive derangements, diabetes type diseases, or mental deficiency.”

This is something to look forward to in the future. It is, to say the least, a most unappetising prospect.

The destructive power of one bomb, such as was exploded at Bikini, is such that it could make an area the size of Wales uninhabitable.

It was pointed out by Dr. Richard Doll at an earlier meeting in London in June, of the Medical Association for die Prevention of War, that of 11 pregnant mothers in Hiroshima, seven bore mentally defective children. At Nagasaki, of 98 pregnant mothers, 30 received major radiation effects. Of these 30, there were three abortions and four still-births, a loss of 23%. He is, be it noted, a research worker in the Statistical branch of the Medical Research Council in London. “Peace News,” 10/7/55).

There; is, of course, no evidence at all for the suggestion of Sir E. R. Carling, that the mutations or genetic changes would, in fact; produce men such as Aristotle, Leonardo, Newton, Pasteur or Einstein. The power of these radiation bombs is destructive and not constructive.

Here is a case of a man who knows his own subject but is ignorant of what is going on in other spheres of study. For example, an authority on land use. Dr. D. L. Dudley Stamp, in his book “Our Undeveloped World,” points out that large parts of Canada, the United States, Argentine and Australia, do not yield nearly as much per acre as they are capable of doing. He sees the best farming in North Western Europe, whose soil is being improved, not wasted by erosion. Leaving aside the “great problem lands of the tropics” and the vast irrigation projects, he concerns himself with food production in the temperate zones. If the best methods were applied here, he considers that, without any extension of the present cultivated area, the world could feed 3,000 million mouths. If one includes the farming lands at present unused or only partly used he estimates that the food could be produced for 10,000 million people, that is four times the present world population of 2,400 millions. (Review Daily Telegraph, 2/4/53).

Why is it, then, that half the population of the world is undernourished? The answer is pretty obvious. Most people live from hand to mouth and have not the means to buy what they need. We live in a Capitalist world, Where the cream of production goes to the class that owns, whilst the vast bulk of the population have to struggle as best they can; and above all. Capitalism is not concerned with producing as much as is required for human needs but only that smaller amount that can be sold profitably.

I. F.

Two quotations: 1856 and 1955 (1955)

From the October 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the paradoxes of this century is that while a range of pleasures and diversions, unimagined by the wealthiest aristocrat a few generations ago, is now available to the ordinary man,, it gets more and more difficult to use them in the way pleasures should be used—impulsively. More and more of us possess beautiful new motor cats whose every line expresses the modern poetry of godlike, singing motion, of the marvellous escape from here, of the joyful ability to pierce the horizon-barrier and know the great earth. On some dreamlike Sunday afternoon, suddenly the whispering garden leaves and the bright innocent clouds invite us to rush, with the effortlessness of angels, out into the vast green landscape. And soon we are stuck behind an enormous thing with 84 wheels carrying a section of the Forth Bridge; we are hedged about by motor-cycle combinations containing identical families of one black-leather-coated man, one woman and one pale child; our dream dies among diesel fumes and brick suburbs.”—(Paul Jennings, Observer, 28/8/55).

“In our day, everything seems pregnant with its contrary; machinery, gifted with the wonderful-power of shortening and fructifying human labour, we behold starving and overworking it. The new-fangled sources of wealth, by some strange weird spell, are turned into sources of want. The victories of art seem bought by the loss of character. At the same pace that mankind masters nature, man seems to become enslaved to other men or to his own infamy. Even the pure light of science seems unable to shine but on the dark background of ignorance. All our invention and progress seem to result in endowing material forces with intellectual life and stultifying life into a material force. The antagonism between the productive powers and the social relations of our epoch is a fact, palpable, overwhelming, and not to be controverted.”— (“ Karl Marx, April 1856.)

Your help is urgently needed (1955)

From the October 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

We need your help at once. For some time the cost of carrying on the Party’s propaganda and other activities has been running ahead of income. One reason for this is the heavy loss we incur each month through selling the Socialist Standard below cost We are reluctant to increase the price and we hope in time that with your help we may increase the sales which will reduce the loss. In the meantime we want your donations to enable us to meet necessary expenditure on the Party’s general activities. Send what you can afford.

Answers to correspondents: Taxation and the Workers (1955)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

The reason why Socialists hold that taxation is not a burden on the workers were explained in the Socialist Standard, November 1950, to which C. J. Byrne and others are referred.—Ed. Comm.

SPGB Meetings (1955)

Party News from the October 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

Science and the “Social Problem”. The Logic of the Socialist Solution. (1910)

From the October 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Common Error.

Emile Zola, in his realistic novel, “Work,” pictures science as the peaceful means by which the “evils” of modern society will be removed. He tells us that the continued application of science to industry will solve “the social problem,” the political action of the working class being unnecessary. Zola’s attitude has been adopted by others, and the popularity of contemporary science has led many intelligent workers to hold aloof from social and political movements and to occupy themselves with natural science. It is opportune, therefore, to consider the relation of science to the interests of the workers.

The greatest living biologist. Prof. Haeckel, opens his work “The Riddle of the Universe,” with these words :

“The close of the 19th century offers one of the most remarkable spectacles to thoughtful observers. All educated people are agreed that it has in many respects outstripped its predecessors, and has achieved tasks that were deemed impracticable at its commencement. An entirely new character has been given to the whole of our modern civilisation, not only by our astounding theoretical progress in sound knowledge of nature, but also by the remarkable fertile application of that knowledge in technical science, industry, commerce and so forth.

“On the other hand we have made little or no progress in moral and social life in comparison with the earlier centuries; at times there has been serious reaction and from this obvious conflict there has arisen not only an uneasy sense of dismemberment and falseness, but even the grave danger of catastrophes in the political and social world.”

In his later essays, “The Wonders of Life,” the same writer describes the conditions of life around him thus :

“Misery and want are increasing among the poor as the division of labour and over-population increase ; thousands of strong and active men come to grief every year without any fault of theirs, often precisely because they were quiet and honest; thousands are hungry because with the best will in the world they cannot find work; thousands are sacrificed to the heartless demands of our iron age with its exacting technical and industrial requirements. On the other hand, we see thousands of contemptible characters prospering because they have been able to deceive their fellows by unscrupulous speculation or because they have flattered and served the higher authority.”

The Capitalist Squint.

After having shown the great contrast between the advance of science and the terrible state of the mass of the people one might have expected this leading thinker to inquire into the cause of this phenomenon. But the bourgeois professor looks at things from the capitalist standpoint, and all we get from him is, a tilt at the Catholic Church—as though poverty was absent from Protestant England, heathen Japan or France with Secularists at the helm !

Sometimes, also, over-population is hinted at as the cause of the trouble, but the facts provide a crushing refutation of this claim. Misery is widespread in France, where a falling birth-rate gives rise to the cry “race suicide,” and has prompted the suggestion that parents of more than three children be given a bonus by the Government. The population of Ireland, 8½ millions in 1850, is now only 4½ millions, yet distress abounds in the land. Many examples could be given, but these suffice; the fact remains that poverty exists to-day in the very midst of plenty “such as was never seen on earth before.”

Why then has social life lagged behind while signal progress has been made in other fields ? Simply because science has not been applied in dealing with the “social problem.” Science is systemised knowledge, and it teaches us that all effects have an adequate cause. This teaching is acted upon when treating most subjects, but the men of science do not adopt scientific methods when dealing wilh social questions—perhaps because they know that it would menace the interests of the ruling class.

Reform is Fatuous.

View the “social problem” scientifically and we see that it is useless to continually attempt to end the evils that exist by merely palliating the effects ceaselessly produced by the system of society itself. The revolutionary policy of the Socialist is, then, in strict accord with the message of science because, seeing that the awful condition of the working class is caused by the robbery of the workers by the class that owns the means of producing wealth, the Socialist seeks to overthrow that class and abolish this system, and so remove the cause from which the social evils spring.

Consider some of the methods pursued toward many phases of industrial and social life, despite the volume of scientific knowledge acquired in in this “wonderful century” (as Alfred Russell Wallace calls it). Consumption and kindred diseases find their victims chiefly among the working class, owing to the conditions under which they work and live. This is admitted by the National Association for the Prevention of Consumption, and was clearly indicated at their Edinburgh Conference in July. They state that “the prevention of consumption raises the whole question of poverty,” but (like all reformers) they shrink from considering the question further.

The awful sufferings of those stricken by “the white scourge” is beyond description here. Seventy thousand persons die annually from it in the United Kingdom, but myriads linger on, bravely struggling to win sustenance for their dependants. A few may be “fortunate” enough to be sent to a sanatorium, and after a few months treatment are returned to the factory hells and slums, flung once more into the relentless grip of their foul foe. Many of the best of the race devote years to tending the afflicted, but these votaries of medical science are blind to the necessity of acting in line with the logic of science ;that is, to abolish the miserable conditions of the worker‘s lives, which are such a fertile source of disease.

Prostitution of Science.

That science is prostituted to the service of the capitalist class was made plain at the recent Food and Drugs Exhibition at Caxton Hall. The display showed how the ingenuity of the chemist was used to adulterate the food of the workers in order to increase the profit of the manufacturers. Bread, coffee, milk, jam etc., are so faked as to be detrimental to health. In the large factories (Packingtown is a flagrant instance) chemists are employed to give a false appearance to rubbish in order to make it saleable, regardless of the injury it inflicts upon the, toilers. A recent case of poisoning demonstrated that the cheap boots which the workers are only able to afford, are dangerous owing to the chromic acid used in preparing the “leather.” All along the line the same thing occurs. Reflect upon the fact that medical science is called upon to treat those people who suffer from the use of science in industry by the capitalist class. Science used by the possessing class is uniform in its effects upon the working class. Inventions and discoveries are pressed into the service of the profit-hunters and are used to increase their profits by saving wages, with the consequence that able-bodied men are flung into the streets to starve. The undeveloped bodies of the children—the potential parents of the race—are brought into the factory and workshop to operate the machines. When, as an inevitable outcome, physical deterioration sets in, the “healing art” once again comes on the scene to patch up the effects of the ever-potent cause !

The application of science to industry to-day enables the masters to speed up the toilers with the result that last year, for instance, the casualties in the British factories numbered over 328,000. Here again surgical science is ever busy tending the maimed and wounded, who, upon recovery, are compelled to go back to the death-traps of capitalism.

The question now arises, if science is applied to the “social problem,” what system of society does it point to, as the solution ? Let us turn to social science for the answer.

Where Spencer Failed.

Herbert Spencer showed that this system of society, like every other manifestation of life, has evolved to its present stage. That great thinker refused, however, to follow the logic of his own teaching, and the sorry spectacle was witnessed of the talented author of “Synthetic Philosophy” stooping to write such poor stuff as “Man versus the State” and “Facts and Comments,” in which he defended private property in the means of producing wealth, and sought to show that this institution must remain in the future. Though Spencer proved that society has developed to its present position from lower forms, he did not inquire into the laws of social change. That was done by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.

Already in 1847 Marx and Engels, in studying and criticising the philosophy of Hegel, had come to the conclusion that the method of producing and distributing wealth, and the social organisation arising from it, formed the basis upon which the political, legal and religious institutions are built up. They prove that throughout history the development of economic forces had rendered inevitable changes in the forms of social life. Since civilisation began the property conditions have led to the division of society into classes, with opposing interests, and the class straggles that ensued resulted in political revolutions with the rise of a new class to power each time. An analysis of the capitalist system of society showed that the capitalist class obtained their wealth by employing workers to use the instruments of production which they (the capitalists) owned, returning to the workers just sufficient to keep them fit to go on producing, and appropriating the difference between the wages paid and the value created.

The economic forces in society have developed to such an extent that thousands of workers co­operate in a factory, where the use of the most modern appliances and methods result in a vast mass of wealth being produced by a tithe of the men previously required. The private ownership of these great productive powers causes each individual owner to try and sell to an ever larger number of buyers, with the outcome that at frequent periods a large number of toilers are thrown out of work, the goods they have made being unsold. The machinery of industry is brought to a standstill during these “economic crises” ; those capitalists unable to tide over the period of stagnation “go under,” and thus the field is left to the larger concerns. These periods of industrial anarchy are becoming longer and more frequent, and if the development of society is to proceed, the ownership of these productive forces must pass from the few individuals to the whole of society; the method of ownership must be brought into line with the co-operative character of industry—Socialism must be established.

Many leading anti-Socialists have borne testimony to the truth of Marx’s teaching. Mr. W. H. Mallock says (“Nineteenth Century Review,” March, 1909) : “His survey of economic history broadly corresponds so far as it goes with facts, and must be accepted as forming one of the most important contributions to economic thought in the course of the 19th century.” Professor Flint, of Edinburgh University, whose work “Socialism” the anti-Socialists describe as the “best book written against Socialism,” says : “Where alone he (Marx) did memorable service was in his analysis and interpretation of the capitalist era, and there he must be admitted to have rendered eminent service.”

Many opponents of Socialism pose as being scientific, and urge that Socialism is contrary to Darwinian teaching. They say that the struggle for existence between individuals and the survival of the fittest—through natural selection—is a permanent feature of human existence. These people falsely interprete Darwin’s famous theory in order to combat Socialism.

That the Socialist position is based upon the facts of life is, however, clear. When man lived almost in a “state of nature” and the power of obtaining food, etc., was consequently limited, the struggle for existence was fierce. Frequently man fought against man for sustenance. But experience taught men that by co-operation they could better protect themselves against hostile forces and increase their power of getting the means of life. That co-operation has played a large part in social progress is admitted by leading biologists. Haeckel in “The Wonders of Life” (page 139) states that “the association of individuals is a great advantage in the struggle for existence.” Huxley (Evolution and Ethics, p. 33) points out that “every forward step of social progress brings men into closer relation with their fellows and increases the importance of the pleasures and pains derived from sympathy.” Professor J. Arthur Thompson, a prominent scientist of to-day, says (“The Science of Life,” p. 196) : “But even when the phrase (struggle for existence) is literally appropriate, we must remember the altruistic colouring of many facts of life, attraction between mates, reproduction, sacrifice, parental and filial affection, the kindliness of kindred, gregarious sociality and mutual aid.”

The control of humanity over nature now enables us to produce wealth sufficient to assume comfort, and even luxury, for all. Therefore the real necessity of a struggle for existence between man and man has long since passed ; but the fruits of industry are to-day monopolised by a few, with the consequence that men, women and children of the working class are forced to fight like animals for the opportunity to earn the necessaries of life. The spectacle of a father competing with his children for a job. brother against sister, husband against wife, is not by Nature ordained, but is the result of the economic condition imposed upon the workers by those who see in cheap and numerous wage-slaves, a chance of ever-increasing profit for themselves.

It is important, too, to realise what the phrase “Survival of the fittest” implies, because many of our unscrupulous opponents twist its meaning. Mr. Mallock, for instance, in his “Aristocracy and Evolution,” endeavours to show that because the great capitalists survive and flourish, they are, therefore, the “flower” of the race. A definition from one of the leading biologists of the nineteenth century will be useful here. “In the living world one of the most characteristic features of this cosmic process is the struggle for existence in the competition of each with all, the result of which is the selection, that is to say the survival, of those forms which are best adapted to the conditions which at any period obtain and which are in that respect and only in that respect the fittest.” (Huxley, “Evolution and Ethics” p. 4.)

Under capitalism those who rule are not the best intellects, the “men of ability,” or those possessing qualities fraught with the greatest happiness for the many, but it is the favoured few who, by inheritance, spoliation and fraud, come into possession of the means essential for producing the necessaries of life. Herbert Spencer himself was often financially embarrassed when desiring to issue the products of his facile pen. Compare him with a linen draper, Mr. Ch. Morgan, who last year left a fortune of over 13 millions ! Grant Allen, whose remarkable works drew praise from Herbert Spencer, embodied over twenty years patient study and investigation in “Plant Life,” “Physiological Aesthetics,” “Evolution of the Idea of God,” “The Hand of God,” and other works, yet this cultured author had a bitter struggle to provide for himself and wife. The pitiful story of how he had to turn to and write novels such as “The Typewriter Girl,” in order to “keep the wolf from the door” in after years is an illuminating example of the “reward” of ability under capitalism. As Allen himself well said (in a review article upon “Socialism and Natural Inequality”), “Look at the lives of our truly great men—our thinkers, our organisers, our men of science, our discoverers, our poets, our men of letters, our artists. Is it not a commonplace that the majority of these have had to pass through a period of early struggle, that crippled some of them, soured not a few, drove mad or disheartened or permanently weakened many ? Is it not a well-known fact that numbers of them died poor or starving or gave up the struggle in disgust, or lived on, mere wrecks, or took to suicide ?

“The worker who invents some valuable surgical appliance, some new anaesthetic, some scientific instrument, some optical improvement, usually makes next to nothing, sometimes looses even his all in the attempt to perfect or bring out his discovery.”

Socialism, a system in which the means of producing the requirements of life would be possessed in common and worked in the interest of all, offers us the prospect of extending our control over natural forces and assuring the comforts and pleasures of life to all in return for a minimum of labour. It presents us with the great incentive of ourselves being able to enjoy the wealth that we create, instead of seeing idlers consume the fruits of our toil. Under Socialism the struggle for existence will have ceased because, as Huxley says in the work referred to (p. 35), “When the ethical process has advanced so far as to secure every member of the society in the possession of the means of existence, the struggle for existence between man and man in that society is at an end.”

Instead of “a mere squabble round the platter,” the spirit of rivalry in the intellectual arena, the possibilities of self development then afforded, will result in an intelligent and informed population able to appreciate the beauties of literature, science and the arts, thus giving to the best minds in society the knowledge that their work can be understood and valued at its worth. How different to the present, when the majority of the people are so sunk in ignorance, with intelligence blunted and minds cramped, the every-day question of getting bread and butter filling their whole horizon and engaging all their time. Taking an interest in the study of the sciences, they can then help to extend the boundaries of human knowledge and increase the harvest in fields where the labourers have been all too few. Science is to-day cultivated by but a minority, but Socialism provides the means of leisure for all to take part in the work of wresting from nature secrets of infinite significance for human welfare.

Many sciences to-day are in their infancy and provinces such as psychology and “the problem of heredity” are really virgin fields awaiting cultivation still. Even one of the leading opponents, Dr. Schäffle, says of Socialism : “The very fabulous quantity of leisure would favour the rise of the more industrious as well as the more highly endowed individuals both in science and art, even if they were all obliged to spend 3 hours daily in manual labour. . . . Taste, natural gifts and love of art would still remain unalterably various.” (“Impossibility of Social Democracy,” p. 161-2.)

It is hoped that the necessity has been made plain for organising to speedily end this system and to institute Socialism. That Socialism is possible was admitted by the arch-individualist Herbert Spencer, who, writing to his old French colleague, M. G. Davenay, in Oct. 1905 said: “Socialism will inevitably triumph in spite of all opposition.”

Yes, Socialism is inevitable—if the workers organise and fight for it—as they will.

Adolph Kohn