Hew to the Line (1941)

From the November 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The wage slaves of Britain are still packing their weary burden, and it is becoming increasingly plain that their exploiters have no intention of reducing the load the producers are called upon to carry. Indeed, all kinds of schemes are being devised to induce them to move at a more rapid pace; they are told they can do more than they are doing if they only try; the fate of the world depends upon the workers of this country making a supreme effort to increase output. This is what our masters would have us all believe, and they reiterate at every opportunity the necessity of working as we never worked before. The politicians on the platform and the parson in the pulpit harp incessantly on the same theme. Capitalism has at last got a market for all the goods that can be produced; the war has opened the flood-gates; production and more production is demanded. All wage slaves are graciously given the loan of a job and called upon by all those who live off surplus value to make work their ruling passion.

The ideas prevailing in capitalist society are the ideas of the ruling class; the moral code is that which preserves the master’s right to compel obedience, especially in war time.

The press nowadays makes interesting reading for those workers who understand their class position. Lord Halifax told some New York Republicans on the night of the 6th of October:

“We must put our aims higher. Don’t let either of us have to write across our records these tragic words, ‘Too late.’

For us both there is one dominant aim—production, more production, still more production.

We have got to put out every ounce of energy and power we have. Nothing else will do.”

Lord Halifax is even endeavouring to put all the wage slaves in the United States to work. It is interesting to speculate if he will be inspired by a like zeal should working men gather around the labour exchanges when the war is over. We did not notice any great effort being made to find employment for men and women who were out of work in the years preceding the war. The working men and their families were condescendingly allowed to exist on the miserable pittance known as the dole. Shipbuilders, mechanics, artisans and labourers of every description and of both sexes were then not wanted, and our masters apparently were unaware of their existence. Now these same individuals are told that their services are urgently needed; they must exert themselves and give of their best; the Empire is in danger, and those who were but recently despised and uncared for are called upon to slave unceasingly and even to risk making the supreme sacrifice for a system which heretofore has proved itself incapable of assuring a decent existence for large numbers of them.

Sometimes we see in the papers the report of a boy of seventeen or eighteen earning £4 or £5 a week; this is featured as something that should not be. He is not of those who live by exploitation.

We shall not hear anything mentioned about the way in which those who live by surplus value are safeguarding themselves and making plans which they hope will enable them to continue the system of exploitation after the war is over. Whilst the working class have their attention attracted to the struggle that is now raging, their masters are not neglecting future interests, but until the dove of peace again takes up its abode amongst us we may not be allowed to know what goes on in this connection behind the scenes.

Those who live by selling their labour power must judge the future their exploiters have mapped out for them by the past. The master class will not undergo a change of heart, and even if they did, such a change would not result in any great modification of the evils of the system. Capitalism has its own laws, and these work themselves out irrespective of the feelings of individuals. The war bids fair to last a long time, and will continue to affect every creature on the planet. All talk about the brave new world which is to come after the conflict is over is so much soothing syrup. There will be no improvement worth talking about unless the working class move in their own behalf.

This will come about when they grasp the nature of the job history has bequeathed to them. It is up to us to make them fully acquainted with the facts of their class position. The war is not the all-absorbing affair to us which the propagandists of our masters would make it out to be. Truly we have no use for the Swashbuckler of Berlin or the swollen bullfrog of the Pontine Marshes. We are opposed to dictatorship in any form, but the enemy of Labour is Capital, and we should be unfaithful to our class and our class interests if we allowed the war to cause us to forget this historic fact. Amidst the rationing system and the black-out, the clamour of work and the blitz, we take our stand for Socialism. Our cause is ours, the cause of those who live by selling their labour power, and no matter how chaotic the conditions or how eloquent the appeal of those who would divert us from our goal, we call upon the working class to make the means of life common property and establish a system of production solely for use. We are wholeheartedly in the fight for freedom—freedom from Capitalist bondage.

This is the only way in which a world worth living in can be brought into being: Socialism and Socialism alone guarantees permanent peace.

Socialism gives economic security and safety to all; Capitalism offers poverty, insecurity, war, and death. Choose ye!

Charles Lestor