The wage-slave is showing signs of bewilderment towards present day events. A beneficient Labour Government promised him full employment and he wonders why he is on the dole. He cannot make head nor tail of the explanations they give him: fuel shortage, famine in man power, have a false ring because he knows that there was apparently no shortage of fuel during the war and the Labour Exchanges prove that there is a superfluity of fellows like himself who cannot find a master. He listens to arguments when in the queue: ‘‘It’s the Capitalist class that’s doing it, they want to force the Labour Government to quit and the Capitalists have the money: they did the same thing last time we had a Labour Government.” He is interested in the reply: ‘‘We own the Bank of England now, don‘t we? All the money is ours, so that can’t be it.” The wage slave feels in his empty pocket and vaguely wonders why he is broke— a shareholder in the National Bank should not be in his precarious position. Another argument starts heatedly: “I know for a fact that when work opens up again everybody will be kept busy for years; I saw it in the paper, many firms will be running night and day; there is a demand for houses, clothing, shoes, everything, this is not going to last long.” This cheers the queue up a little, but a doleful old man butts in with “I've seen this sort of thing before, I believe there are a lot out of work now who will never work again.” The wage slave is shocked when some one yells out: ‘‘Well, that’s one comfort anyway, it’s work that wears you out, the less we work the longer we shall live.”
The queue shuffles forward a few paces and then one fellow obviously suffering from the cold says : ‘‘My feet are frozen stiff; why is it they can’t put more men on, there are a hundred men in the queue who can do the job the clerks are doing just as well as those who are working there now.” Another move forward and some of the grumblers are swept inside; a policeman tries to keep order but finds it extremely difficult.
One by one they receive the form to sign and make their way with it to the queue in front of the pay window. After they receive their miserable pittance they fight their way through the queue outside and wend their way to their respective homes., flats, prefabs or tenements.
Those that are married, and our fellow-slave is one of them, are awaited by an impatient wife, a war bride on the war path. “Where have you been all this time? Is that all you’ve got? What can I buy with it? I’ve got to go now and stand in queue after queue to get what we want. I don’t know what we are going to do; it’s worse than during the war; look after the baby: when she wakes up give her the milk that is in the saucepan: see that it's not too hot. Where’s my ration book? 1 suppose there will be nothing left when I get there."
The wife and mother hurries out and the wage slave sits down and bemoans his fate. “What did 1 get married for?" The baby awakens and he attends to its wants as best he can, hut the mother’s touch is lacking and the child is fretful. It will not take the milk he prepares for it and eventually starts crying loudly. After trying various devices to lull it into a quiet frame of mind he eventually turns on the radio and a melancholy voice tells him to “think on these things." “Oh hell,” he says, and changes the station quickly to something less inclined to remind a proletarian of his sins.
Although he tries his utmost he fails in his attempts to comfort his offspring and when his wife comes home, tired and disappointed, the child is bawling loudly. "What have you been doing to her? You are about the most useless man I know.” He is filled with indignation and retorts in a manner that leads to a row: the neighbours are entertained for an hour or more with vivid descriptions of the immoral acts and shortcoming of both the husband and wife. The affair ends with the man going out and the woman and the child left crying together.
“ Oh what a happy land is England "—if you are poor.
The puzzled wage slave knows that things have gone wrong somewhere but he does not hit upon the cause, and feels inclined to blame himself. His wife also endures agonies of mind but she is helpless: they are both tortured by economic conditions over which they have no control.
Such is the life of the worker.
The present situation has certain peculiar features that need elucidating.
The means of production need renewing as a result of the strain of the war; in most industries new equipment and materials are lacking. Capitalism has nothing ahead; the new mechanism has to be brought into being by the producers putting their backs into it. The ruling class must force the workers to ”forge the gilded chains that enslave them.”
Capitalism is run by the capitalist class for one purpose only, the obtaining of a profit. Profits cannot be realised until goods are sold. The market of the world consists of the purchasing power of the people of the earth. In proportion to what is placed on the market the purchasing power of the producers is becoming relatively less. The trouble is further complicated by constant capital in the shape of machinery having always to be sold to Capitalists; working men and women do not buy machinery. As the Capitalist class have only claims on wealth yet to he produced they are finding things extremely difficult at the present time. .
It is the above facts that are driving the Labour Government to indulge in all kinds of tricks and experiments to induce the worker to produce more per man hour. The wage slaves are re-acting well, they don’t like the idea of speeding up, their class instinct warns them that there is something wrong with what the leaders advocate; they smell treachery but can’t detect exactly where it is. Neither do they like the irksome restrictions that are everywhere in evidence. Identity cards, ration cards, the worker must sign on the dotted line, at every move. The country is fast becoming one huge slave camp and feelings of frustration are everywhere being revealed in the expression on the faces of those of our fellows we meet on the street and on the job.
The emancipation of the working class cannot he brought about by developing the mechanism of Capitalist production ; the present machinery was not designed for the wage slave’s benefit, but to exploit him.
To achieve a state of society in which goods are produced solely for use, a complete transformation of the mechanism of production will he essential. Socialism means as great a change in the mode of production as in the mode of distribution.
The society of the future is one of associated humanity; man is the main consideration. The welfare of mankind is the sole aim of Socialism.
In order to live a life worth living man must be free, there will he no ration cards., and no identity cards either; no speeding up for wealth will be brought into being for the use of the people. The aim and object will be quality, pure food, the best of clothing. homes that are homes—for everybody. “We will eat as much as our tummy will hold, and if we feel that way drink as much as our heads will stand," and this will be ours without money and without price. Labour applied to the natural resources of the earth will give us everything necessary to our existence and well being.
When the workers have the intelligence to abolish the wage system and establish their own social order we emerge into what may he described as a new world. SPEED THE DAY!
Charles Lestor
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