Prospects For Professions (1937)

From the April 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have often been at pains to teach the fairly obvious truth, that the private ownership of the means of production under capitalism divides the community into two antagonistic classes, but unfortunately there are still quite a number of people afflicted with the snobbish obsession that they belong to some superior body of beings graded somewhere above the working class, but not, of course, actually capitalists; it is probable, indeed, that they still call themselves the “middle class.” A reader of that technical journal, The Wireless World, recently enquired the steps he would have to take in order to succeed in the wireless industry, and a communication from a member of this self-styled “middle-class” in reply reads very interestingly: -

 With reference to “Enquirer’s” letter in a recent issue of The Wireless World, I would like to state briefly my experience as a radio engineer. 

  I went straight from school to an engineering college at the age of 18, and after three years’ study at great expense to my parents (who fondly imagined that the profession was worth while) I graduated with the usual diplomas, etc. Armed with these—and six months’ practical experience—I sallied forth, brimful of enthusiasm, to obtain a post. Soon, however, the wind was taken out of my sails, when I found that the best offer I could get was 11d. an hour (less than a common labourer) and no guarantee of a job beyond one hour. I do not think this needs further comment. Apparently radio firms make a practice of engaging men (many with university degrees) just when they are busy, and then, at an hour’s notice, consign them to the labour exchange! They appear to have no regard for the men, nor the profession. One would like to know what would happen in any other industry if highly-trained technical men were treated in this manner. It certainly does not conduce to attracting the best brains, and it is impossible to enter the industry full of enthusiasm for one’s work, and desirous of putting the best into it, when one does not know whether or not he will be wanted on his job to-morrow. I would like to inform “Enquirer” that I have worked side by side with university men, with B.Sc. degrees, who were being paid 1s. 3d. an hour. To any young man contemplating entering the radio branch of engineering, my advice is “Don’t!” Take up a branch where ability is appreciated, even if it does mean the sacrifice of a subject you love.— (Sgnd.) “ Sadly Disillusioned,” Hampstead.

So that we learn from our disillusioned friend that, in return for three years’ training, he received 11d. an hour, that the capitalists consign members of his profession, including B.Sc.s, to the labour exchange, and that this is an experience that would not be expected in any other industry.

In spite of our industrial steeplejack having soared to such heights beyond the “common labourer,” we notice he still has a great many things to learn, not the least important being that he would find conditions very similar to those in the wireless trade in other industries. We imagine, in fact, that even an ordinary man, not claiming the special competence implied by the award of engineering diplomas, would be able to realise that, given a present unemployed percentage of one man in eight, it must be quite unusual for the positions held by the remaining seven, whatever the trade, to be other than transitory.

Perhaps we may also remind our disillusioned victim that the free education given to “common labourers” and their debased confrères is enabling them to win scholarships, and that, in consequence, the ranks of the technicians and professions are being very considerably swollen. The capitalist class, whether purchasing technicians, accountants, or other trained men, or bricklayers and manual labourers, display no sense of such uneconomic and antiquated distinctions as “middle class,” “lower middle class," ”the working classes,” “labouring classes," and so on, and when they hire any of these gentlemen, hire them each and all on exactly the same terms. There are thousands of you there, and if you cannot live on thirty or forty bob a week to begin with, you may as well have a little practice on seventeen bob and perhaps that will whet your appetite. As for showing “regard” for you, you can just go to the devil.

G. M. A.