Points for Propagandists. (1930)

From the June 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Labour cannot improve Capitalism.

Mr. Herbert Tracey, the Labour Party’s Chief Election Agent, denies the claim made by his own party that conditions can be materially improved in this system. These are his words :—

“The workers are not getting a larger share of the national wealth. Under Capitalism the proportionate division of the national product cannot be materially altered ; the existing system secretes millionaires and paupers as the liver secretes bile.” (Daily Herald, April 16)

* * *

Who owns Great Britain?

The nonsense talked by all defenders of this system, from Tory to Labour, about the wealth of the workers, is completely smashed by the statement of Sir Leo Chiozza Money, the Labour-Liberal statistician. In the New Leader of April 11, he states :

“Twenty-five years have elapsed since first, in “Riches and Poverty,” I drew attention to the astonishing facts as to the distribution of property revealed by the collection of Death Duties. The facts are not less surprising to-day. In a quarter of a century very little progress has been made in securing a more equitable distribution of land and capital.

The nation, as a going concern, is still, for the most part, owned by a handful of people so small that, if they all left the country, the population would roundly remain unaltered. “

And he further says :

“It is equally true that, taking Great Britain as a whole, about 6 per cent. of its families possess nearly 70 per cent. of its land and capital.”

* * *

Nationalisation and unemployment.

How improved methods of transport affect post office workers in Scotland is shown by the report of the Scottish Council of the Postal Workers’ Union : —

“It is stated on the authority of official reports that during the last five years 1,700 full-time positions have been cancelled in Scotland as against an increase of 800 part-time positions. The reduction in the number of employees is attributed to the increasing use of motor vehicles in the conveyance of mails, which has made many rural postmen and auxiliary workers unnecessary. 

The union are suggesting a reduction in the working week with a view to the avoidance of unemployment in the service.”(Glasgow Evening Times, April 14.)

* * *

The cheapness of "Labour" Reforms. 

How Labour’s reforms save the property-owners money is shown in the following-from the I.L.P, paper, Forward:

“The change over of the unemployed from parish relief to unemployment benefit, as a result of the Labour Government’s new Unemployment Insurance Act, will save Glasgow Ratepayers £7400,000 a year, equal to 9d. off the Rates. Seven thousand men who have been receiving parish relief in Glasgow have been transferred to unemployment benefit through the new Act renewing their eligibility.” (Forward, April 12.)

* * *

The Revolutionary I.L.P. !

Unemployment relief should be a national charge, say both Winston Churchill and the I.L.P.

“That was the view of the I.L.P. in 1911 when Lloyd George framed his Unemployment Insurance Act. It is still the view of the I.L.P. The I.L.P. agitators of that time are the Government to-day, and it is left to Winston Churchill, the political adventurer with the adaptable mind, to express the I.L.P. point of view on unemployment relief.” (Forward, April 12.)

* * *

Humanizing Socialism !

I.L.P. object to Marx.

Mr. Fenner Brockway, the mouthpiece of the I.L.P., tells us in the Daily Herald (Jan. 22) that 20 years ago he read the American Socialist papers every week, and of them he says :

“They seemed to aim at making Socialism as difficult and forbidding as possible. The theories of the class struggle, the economic interpretation of history and surplus value were elaborated in detail, and their acceptance in entirety was made the test of Socialist conviction. 

I remember discussing this characteristic of American Socialism with Keir Hardie. He told me that before the formation of the I.L.P. British Socialism had been advocated in a similar way. The result was that the working-class was unmoved; it was left cold by the hard materialism, the dogmatic intolerance, and Continental phraseology in which Socialism was expressed.”

So Keir Hardie, who ridiculed the class war idea, and got his economics from Jesus, founded the I.L.P., with its sentimental appeal for social reform and a “humanized” capitalism, and support of capitalist parties.

Mr. Fenner Brockway reviews a book called the “Socialism of Our Times,” published by the “League of Industrial Democracy” (New York, 50 cents). This is a symposium by various writers who provide advice on “adapting” Socialism to the needs of the U.S.A.

Judging from the quotations, it is a collection of intellectual essays on everything except Socialism.

Mr. Brockway naturally commends the book, and quotes Mr. Harold Laski’s suggestions :

“The first step must be to awaken the American people to a sense of the positive character of the State. America still regards the State negatively, as we did in this country before the Labour Party entered Parliament. It does not recognise that the State has any responsibility for the unemployed, the sick, the widows, and the aged. Laski urges, therefore, that, the first need is to advocate unemployment and health insurance and old age and widows’ pensions, plus municipal ownership, taxation for social purposes, and Court and Parliamentary reform. In this way he believes a mental attitude will be created in the public for bigger Socialist reforms.”

* * *

Paralysing Socialism.

So Prof. Laski’s suggestion for “Americanizing” Socialism is to demand bigger reforms. What a Socialist Reform is, he doesn’t say. Seeing that all reforms are to be passed by the Capitalist Government—obviously they can’t be Socialist.

No suggestion is made that the workers should be taught Socialism, so that reforms will not be needed, but Socialism can be established.

The State is to be used by the worker to improve conditions under Capitalism ! The State, however, is a machine used under Capitalism to maintain private ownership and to repress the workers. The only use the State will be to a Socialist working-class is to capture it for the purpose of ending this system.

The workers of U.S.A. are advised by Mr. Laski to fight for the social reform legislation Mr. Lloyd George passed under Liberal Party rule.

This late professor of Harvard University understands the problem so little that he advises the workers in the most advanced industrial country to press for the paltry reforms that Germany had under Bismarck, and that England has suffered for many years.

Miss Jessie Wallace Hughan, another contributor to the book, says :

“American Socialism was imported by foreign-born doctrinaires. ’Gene Debs did much to humanise it, but it has still to be Americanised ‘from the pain economy to the pleasure economy, from the phraseology of the European labourer with nothing to lose but his chains to that of the American worker with his demands for a Ford and a radio.’”

American conditions are so different, she would have you believe, that the worker there has something to lose—and demands a radio and a Ford car. But how is it that both this writer and Mr. Laski advocate that the American workers demand all kinds of pensions, “doles,” and many other reforms similar to those we have in Europe, where “the labourer has nothing to lose but his chains”? The very reform agitation they favour gives the lie to the alleged differences in the condition of labour between U.S.A. and Europe.

Humanizing Socialism—Mr. Brockway calls his article. It should have been entitled—”Socialism” without Socialists— an I.L.P, beef stew !

* * *

Canadian Communists.

The Communist Party is as Reformist abroad as it is here. In Toronto Municipal Elections they are running candidates on a programme which covers everything except Communism. Their immediate demands according to their official organ, The Worker (Toronto, Dec. 21) include :

• “Unemployed relief of £5 per week to married men and £3 to single men.
• An Unemployed Insurance Act.
• Seven-hour day and 5-day week and 2 weeks’ holiday with pay.
• No night work for women and all those under 18 years of age.
• 2s. l1d. per hour for municipal employees.
• Abolition of property qualification for voters.
• Town Planning Scheme to pay union rates.
• Revision of taxation to benefit the workers.
• Free speech assemblage and Press.”

That’s how they build up Communist support in Canada.

* * *

More “Direct Action”?

“American Socialism or Labor Unions contra Company Unions,” by Robert Clausen, 409, East Fifth Street, Los Angeles. Price 35 cents.

This pamphlet, sent to us for review, is evidently the work of an ex S.L.P. member.

The writer claims that the S.L.P. have given up De Leon’s main idea, viz., reliance upon the economic organization, “taking and holding” the means of life without affiliation to any political party. Mr. Clausen does not deal with the weakness of De Leon’s position. In several articles in the Socialist Standard, our Comrade Jacomb showed that the S.L.P. had committed suicide politically by advocating that the workers give their undivided attention to economic organization.

The author of this pamphlet criticises both the “direct action” I.W.W. and also the industrial unions formed by employers for the harmless organization of their workers. These latter are called Company Unions in U.S.A., and their counterpart has grown up here since the General Strike.

Mr. Clausen’s pamphlet is a poor presentation of his views, but his chief idea is economic organization of labour, to take the means of production out of the hands of Capital.

He does not show how this can be done. Neither could De Leon or the S.L.P. Mr. Clausen supports Marx’s economics, but nowhere did Marx rely upon economic organization. Marx said that the first step was to capture political power (Communist Manifesto). The S.L.P. have not been able to deal with our case against their “direct action” policy, and so they remain silent on this, their special nostrum.

Perhaps Mr. Clausen would like to explain how economic organizations can “come into possession.”

* * *

“The Making of Socialists.”

“Why I doubt that the I.L.P. is a Socialist organization” was the title of a lecture given to the I.L.P. in North St. Pancras on March 6th by E. C. Fairchild. 

“He did not think the policy of social reform adopted by the Labour Party had any real connection with Socialism, and thought that the I.L.P. was making the fatal mistake of trying to outbid the Labour Party in reform measures, instead of concentrating on the making of Socialists.” (New Leader.)

The title of Mr. Fairchild’s lecture implies that he isn’t sure about the I.L.P. His doubts would not exist if he examined the I.L.P’s. position. It is inside the Labour Party, because that is where the jobs and popularity are. Its members run as Labour Party candidates because that is the way to get elected—and it’s election they want, not Socialism. The programme of rationalisation and reform gets millions of votes—advocating Socialism wouldn’t. The real crime of the I.L.P. and Labour Party is not merely their reform programme, but the assistance they give to keep power in the hands of the Capitalist Class.

Mr. Fairchild belonged to the Social Democratic Federation before the War, and in defence of their reform policy, wrote a pamphlet explaining that reforms and palliatives were the weapons of working class struggle.

In a series of articles in the Socialist Standard, our Comrade Jacomb analysed the reform nostrums of Mr. Fairchild. Since then the latter left the S.D.F. and joined the I.L.P., who had more reforms in their programme than the S.D.F. And now he is at Ruskin College as a teacher.

Before Mr. Fairchild started his wanderings in the reform wilderness, there was the Socialist Party of Great Britain in existence, and it still exists for the object of making Socialists and establishing Socialism.

* * *

Shaw v. Marx.

“And do not forget that the Marxian dream of a world-wide proletarian revolution, though it is not now practical politics, may yet upset all our conceptions of international relations. The Reformation did not seem practical in the Middle Ages; but it happened for all that.”

Thus spoke Bernard Shaw in an interview in the Sunday Observer (March 23}. It may suit Shaw to portray Marx’s idea as a dream, but the Capitalist Class don’t spend their time and money fighting dreams. They are busy with every weapon, from miseducation to repression, to try and prevent an end coming to their system. No wonder they are so full of praise for Labour Leaders like Thomas and Labour Politicians like MacDonald, who turn working class discontent into support of Capitalism. Lord Balfour, who has just “gone to heaven,” said that Social Reform was the antidote to Socialism. Shaw and the Labour Party support the antidote, while the very development of Capitalism makes Socialism inevitable.

* * *

The worker in America. 

“If the depression continues for another three months the situation will become seriously acute. The American working man has not been accustomed to saving. He has no reserves, and all his luxuries and household goods have been purchased out of income. If he is out of employment, then he will not be able to meet his instalments, and the companies that are keyed up to mass production will find that the percentage of production necessary to make large profits will be reduced to such an extent that there will not even be small profits—there will be considerable losses.”

Thus writes the City Editor of the Sunday Express (March 23), on his return from America. This Capitalist paper explodes the myth about the prosperity of the American worker with his “home” and motor car—”bought” on the hire system. The effects of mass production in America should teach the worker here that “greater output” in the most advanced country makes the workers’ position more insecure than ever.

* * *

Labour bombs.

Mr. Fred. Montague (Under Minister for Air) is opposed to materialism—in philosophy. As a Labour Minister under the Capitalist system, however, he is a staunch materialist, and strongly defended spending nearly 18 millions on the Air Force, an increase of nearly a million on last year. The modern weapons of war are taking the form of more air forces, so this spiritual Air Minister brings in larger air estimates.

So the Labour Government is keeping up the pace for bombing planes and all the other deadly weapons of this Capitalist world.

* * *

Lloyd George “Behind” the I.L.P.

“Mr. Lloyd George’s article in the Daily Express this week strongly reinforces the I.L.P. policy, so closely associated with F. W. Jowett’s name.” These are the words of the New Leader—the I.L.P. paper. What better evidence of the I.L. P. ‘s Socialism can you have?—Mr. Lloyd George “reinforces I.L.P. policy.” Perhaps that is Lloyd George’s thanks to the I.L.P. for so long supporting his Budget and other Reform campaigns !

* * *

A Communist Programme.

(1) Feeding all school children.

(2) Unemployed men on slack time to be relieved from paying rates.

(3) A school holiday on May 1st.

(4) Joint action by unemployed and employed to force these demands.

This is the Communist Party programme in Fifeshire (Daily Worker, March 14).

That is what they call uniting the workers for Revolution. The workers are to join together—not fighting for Socialism, but fighting for a school holiday on May 1st, etc.

Did the Third International spend large sums to develop such powerful Revolutionaries ?

C.