Editorial: What the Labour Government has Done. (1930)

Editorial from the July 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

A word to those who voted Labour.

It is now a year since the Labour Party took governmental office. They came in to solve unemployment. They have failed, and have proved by their failure the emptiness of their professions. The unemployed problem is still growing greater. The peaceful professions of Labour leaders are offset by the bombings of Indian peoples, and increased attention given to preparedness for aerial warfare.

As far as can be seen, the principal achievement of the Labour Government is the provision of fat jobs for some of its supporters.

Many workers gave support to the Labour Party on the ground that it was doing “something now”! which would bring us nearer to the realisation of our aims and hopes. In fact, however, the Labour Government has shown itself as the legitimate heir to the place and policy of the dying Liberal Party. It was never Socialist, though some of its leading members toyed with the name.

There were some who hailed the triumph of Labour as the beginning of the end of Capitalism. They have suffered a delusion, and unfortunately, in many instances, with the awakening, has come a feeling of despondency and disgust with everything ; an attitude of mind that is summed up in the bitter remark, “What is the good of anything?”

The position is somewhat similar to the feeling aroused after the Russian Bolshevik movement changed its direction and commenced to build State capitalism in Russia, first reached Europe, there were many who saw in it the commencement of the imminent social revolution, shook hands with each other and joyfully hailed the dawn of the new era. But it was a false dawn, and as the darkness again gathered, their joy gave place to despair, and, in some cases, to a cynical attempt to make profit out of the situation that developed.

Among the supporters of the Labour Party are numbers of working men and women who have given all they had in energy and money to an honest and wholehearted support of that party. Misled by emotional appeals, and failing to grasp the fundamental facts of the workers’ position, they expected from the Labour Party what it could not accomplish—and what many of its leaders knew it could not accomplish. For twelve months they have been hoping against hope that something really important would be done to grapple with their oppressive conditions, but all they have been met with are photographs of Labour leaders in court dress smirking at them from the daily papers.

We ask these disillusioned supporters of the Labour Party not to give way to despair, and not to meet our attempts at explaining Socialism with hostility based on the false idea that our principles are like those of the Labour Party. We ask them instead to refrain from judgment until they have read our literature. When they have done so, they will find that we have been pointing out to the workers what to expect from Labour leaders for the last twenty-five years. And the result has proved the truth of our contentions. They will also learn why it is that we have opposed the Labour Party and, if they are prepared to give our case a little careful thought, its fundamental soundness will be borne in upon them.

Here is the basis of the case in a few words :

The worker sells to the capitalist his labour-power for a weekly or daily wage. After a few hours’ work the worker has reproduced the value of his day’s wages. But the capitalist has paid him for a day’s work, or a week’s work, as the case may be, and consequently the worker continues working until he completes the period. The value he produces during the further hours of work is “surplus value,” which does not cost the capitalist anything, yet goes into his pocket. It is this fact that splits society into two opposing” classes—a small number of wealthy on the one hand, owning the means of production; and the vast majority of society on the other hand, owning only their power to work. Until this class organisation of society is changed by a fundamental revolution abolishing the private ownership of the means of production, there cannot be a permanent improvement in the condition of the working-class. Attempts at amelioration by fiddling with secondary matters are like trying to abolish a tempest by pouring a few barrels of oil on the sea.