The Extinction of Petty Enterprise. By Karl Kautsky (1906)

From the June 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

Continued from May issue

Translated from the German by H. J. Neumann and revised by the Author.

Since the beginning of the capitalist mode of production and until twenty years ago, the decline of the independent petty peasant enterprise has been most marked. The peasant was being reduced to the condition of a wage slave either through his holding becoming absorbed by a large farm or, where such did not exist in his immediate vicinity, through his holding being cut into pieces and sold to his neighbours. This development still continues to a large extent, although it has ceased in some localities owing principally to the aforesaid foreign competition, but partly also in consequence of the migration of agricultural labourers to the towns—a point we cannot deal with here. Statistics, for instance, show us the following results: —

FRANCE	1882-1892
SIZE OF FARM	Increase (+) or Decrease (-)
Under 1 hectare	+ 243,420 hectares
Over 2 and under 5 Hectares	– 108,434 hectares
Over 5 and under 10 Hectares	– 13,140 hectares
Over 10 and under 40 hectares	– 532,243 hectares
Over 40 hectares	+ 197,288
GERMANY	1882-1895
Under 2 hectares	+ 17,494 hectares
Over 2 and under 5 hectares	– 95,781 hectares
Over 5 and under 20 hectares	+ 563,477 hectares
Over 20 and under 100 hectares	– 38,333 hectares
Over 100 hectares	+ 45,533 hectares

(1 Hectare = 2.47 English acres.)

Everywhere, however, we find a decline in that agricultural enterprise which, having a separate existence, is independent of capital. The leasing system and mortgaging increase. In the German Empire, the mortgages on landed property increased in the ten years from 1886 to 1895 by about 23,000,000,000 Marks, and the number of farms held on lease rose from 2,322,899 in 1882 to 2,007,210 in 1895, viz., an increase of 281,311.

Finally, we find a decrease in the entire agricultural population. In the German Empire the number of persons employed in agriculture was 18,704,038 in 1882, while in 1895 the number was 17,815,187, or nearly a million less.

Much more telling, however, than in agriculture is the decline of petty enterprise in industry. Here it is absolute.

INDUSTRIAL ESTABLISHMENTS IN THE GERMAN EMPIRE

		1882	1895
Size according to No. of workers employed	Number of establishments	Number of establishments	Increase or Decrease
Small (1 to 5 workers each)	2,175,857	1,989,572	– 8.6 %
Medium (6 to 50 workers each)	85,001	139 459	+ 64.1 %
Large (over 50 workers each)	9,481	17,941	+ 89.3 %

Between 1882 and 1895 the population increased by 14.5%. The number of workers employed in small industrial establishments was in 1882 still over one half (59%) of the entire number of industrial workers (4,335,822 out of 7,340,789) but in 1895′ the number fell to 46.5% (4,770,669) out of 10,269,269). During the same period, however, the number of workers employed in large industrial establishments was doubled (from 1,613,247 to 3,044,267).

As German capitalism is still young, these are most surprising figures, for the decline of petty industry is generally a tedious process. An example will make this clear. Already in the forties of the eighteenth century, machine weaving, particularly the English weaving trade, produced such keen competition that the misery of the hand weavers became proverbial, and the starvation existing among them produced rebellion. Nevertheless, according to statistics, out of the 491,796 weavers in the German Empire in 1882, 285,444 were still employed in small weaving concerns (employing from 1 to 5 persons), that is to say, more than half. But nobody then maintained that there were good prospects in store for hand weaving, and that its decline was not inevitable in the course of evolution. In England the last hand weaver has been starved long ago. In Germany, too, they are fast disappearing: there the number of persons employed in small weaving concerns decreased from 285,444 in 1882 to 156,242 in 1895. If there are still some hand weavers in existence, that does not prove that petty industry is capable of competing successfully, but merely that the hand weaver is capable of enduring starvation.

The complete disappearance of petty industry is not the first but the last act of the tragedy entitled “The Extinction of Petty Enterprise.” The first effect of the competition with capitalist production is that the handicraftsman—and what may be said of him is with some modifications also applicable to the peasant—gradually sacrifices all that his own or his forefathers’ industry succeeded in accumulating. The petty industrialist grows poor ; in order to stave off his increasing poverty he resolves to be more industrious; the working hours are extended until late at night; wife and children are compelled to assist in the work; in place of expensive adult assistants cheaper apprentices are engaged, and their number disproportionately increased; and while the working hours are extended and the toil is proceeding with ever more feverish speed without rest or interval, food becomes more precarious, and the expenditure for housing and clothing is more and more cut down.

There is no more miserable, wretched existence than that of the petty industrialist or the small farmer who is struggling hard against overwhelming capital.

The assertion that the wage workers are to-day better off than the small farmer and the small manufacturer or trader, is fully justified. This statement, however, was intended to show the workers that they have no, reason to be discontented. But the arrow does not strike Society, at which it -was directed, but private property. If indeed the propertyless are better off than the property-owning small manufacturers, of what value can their property be still to the latter? It ceases to be of advantage to them, it commences to be detrimental to them. If, for instance, the home weaver persists in carrying on his unprofitable concern, although he would be able to earn more in the factory, he does so only because he still possesses something, a cottage, a piece of land for growing vegetables, which he would have to surrender were he to give up his business. To the petty industrialist his possession of the means of production has ceased to be a safeguard against misery and has become a chain binding him hopelessly to utter wretchedness. In his case private property has brought about an effect which is not usually looked for. What a hundred years ago was still a blessing to the handicraftsman and peasant, has turned out a curse to him.

But it may be argued that with this increased misery the small peasant and handicraftsman are purchasing a higher independence and liberty than are enjoyed by the propertyless wage workers. Even such argument is erroneous. Where petty industry comes into contact with capital, it becomes only too rapidly quite dependent upon it. The handicraftsman becomes a home-industrialist and is thus enslaved by the capitalist; his home is turned into a branch of the factory; or he becomes an agent of the capitalist, a salesman of manufactured goods, besides bearing the cost of wear and tear; in both cases he is entirely dependent upon the capitalist. And the peasant who is unable to keep up the competition as small farmer or succumbs to the pressure of usury or taxes, also takes to home industry in the service of the capitalist, or to wage work in the employ of the large fanner. He may become a journeyman, or go to a factory or mine, and leave the work of his little holding to be attended to by his wife and young children. Where then is his independence and freedom? His property alone distinguishes him from the proletarian, or wage slave, but it is that very property which prevents him from taking advantage of the best opportunities to obtain work; it ties him to a certain 6pot and makes him more dependent than the propertyless wage worker. The private ownership of the means of production increases not only the material misery but also the dependence of the small man. In this respect private property has also produced a contrary effect—it has changed from a bulwark of freedom to the means of enslavement.

But, it will be urged, private property ensures to the handicraftsman and peasant at any rate the ownership of the product of their labour. Now, this is poor consolation, seeing that the value of these products has declined to such an extent that it does not suffice for the sustenance of the producer and his family. But even this poor consolation is a delusion. In the first instance, it does not apply to the large army of persons who are compelled to take to homework or wage slavery in order to support themselves. Neither does it apply to the majority of the small handicraftsmen and peasants whom overwhelming capital has not yet brought into its direct service, so that until now they have apparently been fortunate enough to preserve their entire independence. It does not apply to all those who are in debt—the usurer holding a mortgage on a peasant farm has a claim, superior to that of the peasant himself, to the product of the peasant’s labour. First of all the usurer has to be paid, and only what remains belongs to the peasant; whether this balance sufficed to maintain the peasant and his family is no concern of the usurer’s. The peasant and the handicraftsman both work as labour for the capitalist as the wage worker does. The difference which private property causes in this respect between propertyless and property-owning workers, is only that the wages of the former is generally regulated according to customary requirements, while as far as the property owning workers are concerned, no such limit exists. In the case of the latter it may happen that after paying the usurer’s interest nothing remains of the product of their labour—that they work for nothing, owing to private property.

If in remote places there are still peasants and handicraftsmen to be found who are not in debt, even they are compelled to pay their tribute to capital by means of the National Debt.

By interest on mortgages and goods on credit, peasants and handicraftsmen pay interest on capital they themselves have employed. By taxes raised for paying interest on the National Debt, they pay interest on capital which the State has borrowed in order to enrich at their expense their very competitors and exploiters—contractors, builders, large manufacturers, great landowners, and others. Militarism and the-National Debt, these are the two means by which the State of to-day succeeds in forcing even the remotest village into the domain of capitalist exploitation, thereby hastening the abolition of peasantry and handicraft. What is the final result of this painful struggle against the overwhelming competition of industry on a large scale? What reward is there for the handicraftsman or peasant for his “thrift” and his “industry,” that is to say for the enslavement of himself, his wife and children, for their physical and mental ruin? The reward for that is bankruptcy, entire disinheritance (expropriation is the artistic term for-it), divorce from the means of production, descent into the proletariat.

That is the inevitable final result of the economic development in Society to-day, a result as inevitable as death itself, and just as death comes as a relief to the person suffering from a painful disease, so under present conditions is bankruptcy hailed with equal satisfaction by the small man as a relief from property which has become a heavy-burden to him. The continued existence of petty industry leads indeed to such demoralisation and misery that we must ask ourselves the question whether we would be justified in delaying its extinction, if that were at all possible. Would it be more desirable that handicraftsmen and peasants should all sink to the position of the hand weavers of the Ore Mountains or that they should become wage workers in great industrial concerns?

This alone is to be considered when efforts are made to maintain petty enterprise, for it is impossible in this age of steam and electricity to place handicraft and small farming in a flourishing condition so that they may bring to the petty proprietor a share in modern culture. The self-supporting small concern, independent of capital, having perfect. control of its means of production and of its products—this system of property holding and wealth producing, upon which in the middle ages and even so late as the seventeenth century all economic existence was based, disappears inevitably before expanding capitalism, which seizes one trade after another. What still survives in the shape of petty industry and at times even newly developed, is nothing but a hidden form of wage slavery, and by no means one of its highest forms. It becomes the last refuge of those unfortunate propertyless persons who cannot find employment in large industrial concerns, and who are too proud to beg, too honest to steal.

(Concluded)

The Housing Problem: The Socialist View. (1933)

From the January 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

The problem of housing has been brought into prominence again by the Government's decision to discontinue subsidies except for the purpose of slum clearance. What is the so-called housing problem? And what have Socialists to say about it ?

The first thing to be noticed is that, properly speaking, it is not a housing problem at all. There is not a universal shortage of housing, but only a shortage among part of the population. Those who have enough money experience no difficulty in renting, buying or building new and spacious accommodation. It is only the workers who need help, and that is simply because they are poor. The housing problem is only another aspect of, or another name for, the general problem of working class poverty.

Does capitalism produce houses (or any other articles) for the use of the population? By no means. It produces houses only when it is profitable to the capitalist to do so, and to the extent that those who need accommodation can afford to pay for it. Mr. Harry Barnes, formerly Vice-President of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and Liberal M.P. for Newcastle East, in his book, “Housing" (Pub. by Ernest Benn, Ltd., 1923), points out that the rate at which new houses were being built during the 110 years from 1801 to 1911, was not constant, or increasing with the increase in population, but rose and fell in accordance with the amount of profit to be obtained in house building as compared with the rate of profit to be obtained by investing money in other directions. (See pages 17 and 43, and all chapter V.) He says: —

In times of great trading, commercial and industrial activity, building will slacken owing to the engrossing and profitable character of other occupations. (P. 43.)

Thus, instead of building houses to meet the growing needs of a growing population, 19th century capitalism showed “a period of considerable activity in house-building from 1801 to 1841, then half a century in which the pace of building fell away, from 1841 to 1891. Last of all, a period from 1891 to 1911, during which the greatest effort in absolute numbers by private enterprise to supply this fundamental human need was made." (P. 17.)

At no time, however, could it be said that all the working class were decently and adequately provided for. Mr. Barnes states that, in 1801, the estimated number of “surplus families" (i.e., “the family for which no structurally separate dwelling exists, which can only find its shelter by inhabiting the home of another family, a result producing, in innumerable cases, the deadly social evil of overcrowding") was 320,000. By 1911 it had risen to nearly 900,000. (See p. 18.)

He wrote (p. 18):—

Year by year during the century it is seen that there has been a steady falling short of the number of houses required to be provided.

And again (p. 37): —

The housing shortage of to-day is not something that comes like a bolt from the blue . . . . but is rather the slow accumulation of a century, suddenly and terribly increased by the conditions arising out of the war.

As early as 1835, when elected local councils were set up, these new municipal authorities "began to obtain private acts empowering them to demolish insanitary dwellings and to impose stringent regulations upon the builders." (See Houses for All, by E. D. Simon, now Sir E. D. Simon, Pub. Daily News, Ltd. 1923. P.3.) But it was the Shaftesbury Act of 1851 which brought local authorities into house building in an endeavour to make good the declining supply of working class houses. It will be noticed that 1851 was ten years after the year in which house building began to decline. The number of houses built in 1851 was only about three-fifths of the number built in 1841. (Barnes, P. 37.) The position was, of course, that the workers could not afford to pay a rent which would make the building of new houses as profitable to the capitalist as it was to invest his money in industrial and commercial buildings, or in mining, iron and steel, railways, etc., at home or abroad. Between 1851 and 1914 many other Acts were passed with the object of promoting the building of working class houses, and in 1884 the whole subject was inquired into by a Royal Commission.

The period 1891 to 1911 was a period of great activity in house building. The reason was the trade depression: Capitalists found their investments in industry yielding only small profits, and the consequent glut of money forced down the yield on Government stocks, so they turned their attention to houses until such time as trade revived again.

Yet, in spite of this burst of building, and in spite of numerous Housing Acts and the activities of local authorities, we have Mr. Barnes' admission referred to above, that in 1911 the number of families without a home of their own (rented or owned) was nearly three times as great as in 1801.

The Effects of the War.

Then came the War, during which every other activity had to give way to the needs of the fighting forces. House Building practically ceased for five years or more, and in 1919 the position was far worse than in 1911. Mr. J. G. Martin, Secretary of the National Housing and Town Planning Council, in a letter to the Morning Post (January 14th, 1927) quoted an official estimate that there was a deficiency of 800,000 houses, that being the number required to restore the pre-war position. It was also estimated that at least 100,000 new houses are needed each year to replace wastage due to the demolition of old houses and the demand caused by growing population. (See Houses for All, E. D. Simon. P. 4.)

This does not mean, of course, that only 100,000 houses would be needed to satisfy the requirements of the population, but that 100,000 new houses are needed each year to satisfy that part of their requirements which the workers can afford to pay for—a very different matter.

When the census was taken in 1921, 9.6 per cent, of the population in England and Wales was living in a condition which corresponds with the official definition of overcrowding. (See How to Abolish the Slums, by E. D. Simon. Longmans. 1929. P. 13.) In Manchester the percentage was 7.9,% in the County of London 16.1, in Bermondsey 23.2, and in Shoreditch 32.

E. D. Simon, in the above-mentioned book, questions the value of the official definition of overcrowding. According to that definition, a house is only overcrowded if there are more than two adults to a room (two children under ten count as one adult). Simon suggests a standard of two-and- a-half persons per bedroom, or a standard which holds a house to be overcrowded unless it enables the parents to have one bedroom and enables boys and girls over ten to be separated. (P. 7.)

On either of these standards the percentage of overcrowding would be shown to be far higher. They would, for example, show the overcrowding in Manchester to be at least 25 per cent. instead of only 7.9 per cent.

The Great Post-war Housing Schemes.

All three of the big political parties have had a hand in “solving" the housing problem. The Tories began with the 1851 Act, and the Times (March 25th, 1927) boasted that the Tories had a record of achievement in this direction extending over seventy years. The Liberals and the Labour Party both claim credit for several Acts under which house building has been helped by the Government, through subsidies or otherwise.

The late Mr. Wheatley, prominent member of the I.L.P., was responsible as Minister of Health for the Labour Government’s Housing Act in 1924. Imposing figures have been presented showing what has been done. Up to November, 1932, over 1,800,000 houses had been built since January, 1919, 1,096,387 with State aid and 797,249 without aid., (See Manchester Guardian, November 2nd, 1932.) The cost to the Government in respect of subsidies is now over £13 million a year, with another £3 million paid out of local rates. (Manchester Guardian, November 12th, 1932.)

As long ago as 1928 the Conservative Party, in a leaflet called “Conservative Social Reform," claimed that their Government had been able "to wipe out the housing Shortage by building nearly 650,000 houses in less than four years."

And yet, after the problem has been “solved" many times during the past century, and after all the chief reformist parties have had a hand in it, supplemented by innumerable philanthropic and semi-philanthropic efforts, the evil is with us still, as huge and as devastating as ever.

Let us see what some acknowledged authorities have to say about the position now or within the past year or two.

The Problem Still Unsolved.

It is true that between 1919 and January, 1927, 768,000 new houses had been built, but most of these were needed to meet the ordinary wastage and the demands of the growing population. Mr. J. G. Martin, Secretary of the National Housing and Town Planning Council (Morning Post, January 14th, 1927), said that less than 100,000 of these 768.000 could be counted towards wiping out the abnormal shortage caused during the War. In January, 1927, therefore, there were still 700,000 houses needed to restore the pre-war position (as compared with 800,000 needed in 1919).

The utmost that can be claimed for the new houses built between 1927 and 1932 is that they have been sufficient to catchup the war-time arrears and restore the pre-war position.

The Eighth Annual Report of the Scottish Board of Health for 1926 said of Glasgow slums: —

The majority of the houses were dark, many of the tenants having to burn gas all day, winter and summer . . . Everywhere we noticed an almost total lack of sanitation. Ceilings are falling down, woodwork is rotting away, there are holes in the walls of houses through which the street can be seen. The houses are a hunting ground for vermin of every description. The tenants complained that they could get no peace from these pests. . . . .

In addition to the insects which I have mentioned we found evidence of a perfect menagerie of animal life, including rats in great numbers, mice, snails and even toads. Can it be wondered that such places breed an unhealthy and discontented people?

(See Morning Post, June 21st, 1927.)

Lieut.-Colonel Freemantle, Medical Officer of Health, in The Housing of the Nation (see Times, March 25th, 1927) said: —

For a large section of the working-class there is really no such thing as home. Home life has no meaning for them. They have no part or lot in such things.

. . .Herded together, family upon family, in the same tenement, in the same room, what chance have they of life worth having in houses, meanly built, crowded round courts, dark, dingy, and out of repair, too often dirty and verminous from generations of tenants past, destitute of life and air, devoid of the necessary equipment for domestic needs, packed tight to help pay the rent that even such accommodation can command.

Mr. F. N. Kay, Medical Officer of Health for the L.C.C., in his report for 1929, said (Daily Herald, October 16th, 1930): —

There are about 30,000 basement dwellings in London which are considered unfit for human occupation.

. . . No worse housing conditions exist anywhere than in the underground rooms of the Metropolis.

The Times editorial (March 25th, 1927), which acclaimed the Tories' seventy years' work for housing, had to admit that the problem was still unsolved, and that even after the war-time shortage had been removed “there will still remain the problem of the slums, and the housing of the people in our great towns."

The Bishop of Southwark (in an article in the Evening Standard, November 9th, 1929), wrote:

On a moderate estimate, that of the last census there are 3½ million persons living in overcrowded conditions; but the standard adopted by the Registrar-General is a very low one . . . If a rather higher standard is adopted, one and a half persons per room, no less than 9,000,000 would be living in overcrowded conditions.

He said that on a very moderate estimate there are over 100,000 persons in London living in insanitary houses or areas.

He said that the subsidised building of houses since the War has—

not drained the slums of their occupants. . . . They have had no appreciable effect on the worst and most overcrowded districts. . . . Usually the new houses are too far away, the slum dweller cannot afford the long journey to and from his daily work. More serious still is the fact that he cannot afford the higher rent required for these houses.

Mr. E. D. Simon (now Sir E. D. Simon, formerly Lord Mayor of Manchester, / Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health in the National Government, and Chairman of the Manchester City Council Housing Committee), writing in the Manchester Guardian (August 10th, 1927), pointed out that as regards workers' houses rented at 6s. to 8s. a week:—

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that nothing has yet been done to help these people--just those whose need is greatest.

And further:—

The overcrowding in the low-rented houses is no less than it was in 1919, while the larger houses are under-tenanted.

The same authority on housing conditions (in a letter to the Times, February 12th, 1931) wrote: —

According to all the available evidence there has on the average been no reduction whatever in the terrible overcrowding in the slum areas: the houses are steadily deteriorating; the position of the slum- dwellers is worse than it was ten years ago.

Sir Raymond Unwin, President Royal Institute of British Architects, and formerly a housing official at the Ministry of Health, admits that the houses built since the War have not done more than make up the deficiency of the War years, and that:—

In some ways the housing position is worse than it was in 1921. (M. Guardian, 2 Nov., 1932.)

Mr. Norman McKellen, Secretary of National Federation of House Builders, in a letter to Manchester Guardian (November 12th, 1932), wrote: —

Notwithstanding the annual cost of subsidies, little or nothing has been done to house the poorer working classes; and the National Housing and Town Planning Council, a body largely composed of representatives of local authorities themselves, are reported as saying: “It is lamentable that 14 years after the conclusion of the war medical officers of health should find it necessary to report that there is still a large amount of gross overcrowding, that indecent occupation of sleeping-rooms is not infrequently met with, and that many unhealthy basements are being used as dwellings by the poorer families. Moreover, only the fringe of the slum problem has so far been touched.

Now we have the Government, as an economy measure, stopping the payment of subsidies except for slum clearance, although, in common with the Liberals and the Labour Party, it has hitherto proclaimed subsidies as the only way of tackling the problem. In addition, the Government is negotiating with the building societies for them to take on house building, on condition that in future there shall be twenty instead of twelve houses to the acre—a definite worsening of the standard.

As in the period 1891-1911, the world depression is making the capitalists turn once more to house building owing to the decline of profits in other fields of investment.

Socialism the only Remedy.

There is no remedy except Socialism. There will always be a working class housing problem so long as there is a working class, that is a class producing wealth not for themselves but for the capitalists. None of the schemes of the reformers will touch the problem. The late John Wheatley himself had to confess that his Housing Act was only “patching up the capitalist system," yet his I.L.P. worshippers claimed his Act as the outstanding achievement of his life! What a confession for alleged Socialists to have to make. Municipal and State owned housing estates are no solution at all. The recent eviction case at Dagenham illustrates this. A widow was thrown out of her house by her landlords, the London County Council, in spite of resistance organised by local “direct actionists." In the struggle several were injured on both sides and several workers were imprisoned. Yet it is this municipal capitalism on the Dagenham and other L.C.C. housing estates of which the I.L.P. in its Socialist Annual, 1925, boasted as being instances of “Socialism."

As an actual fact, Judges in the East End of London have several times declared in court that the municipal authorities are more harsh than private landlords in their treatment of tenants who cannot afford to pay their rent.

Cases have come to light of the London County Council refusing to let their houses to workers employed in the Post Office (the institution which the I.L.P. describes as “Socialism in practice"), on the ground that their pay is too low to enable them to afford the rent.

The most damning indictment of capitalism and of reformism is the recent discovery that some houses condemned by Engels as unfit for human habitation in 1844 (see Condition of the Working Classes in England in 1844) are still inhabited and overcrowded to-day. (See Some Housing Conditions in Chorlton on Medlock, May, 1931.)

Part of the post-war shortage of new houses is due to the Rent Restriction Acts, which, by keeping rents low, reduced the margin of profit to be made by house building. Thus—as is usually the case— the attempt to reform one evil effect of capitalism creates or aggravates another evil.

The working class should decide to waste no more time and energy on the Liberal-Tory-Labour reformists, and to organise for Socialism. Not till then will the housing and other aspects of the working class poverty problem be solved.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Christian Church & Feudalism. (1933)

From the January 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Lesson in Historical Materialism. 

Christian churches are monuments built out of the miseries of slaves—chattel-slaves, bond-slaves and wage-slaves. They are monuments of plunder and despair.

In certain respects the conditions that existed at the time Christianity was established as the state religion of the Roman Empire, sixteen hundred years ago, were typical of the conditions that have favoured its existence ever since.

The early Roman Republic was of a type common at the time. It was a city state based upon small scale agricultural production with minor trading activities connecting it with similar states outside. Its inhabitants consisted in the main of freemen farmers and slaves. The freemen possessed varying quantities of wealth but all took part equally in the voting and administration of affairs. The early wars of defence grew into tribute-imposing wars and a commercial class developed which brought about internal conflict.

The foreign wars of the republic ruined a large section of the peasants and concentrated landed property in the hands of a small section which formed the. aristocracy or patrician class; fostered the growth of a class living partly on commerce and partly on usury; developed a military force giving allegiance to leaders which eventually grew into a powerful military state; and further increased the impoverishment of the poor by the huge increase in chattel slave labour.

The civil wars that broke out during many centuries, and the direction taken by imperial policy in ruining the agricultural and commercial competitors were the expression in one form or another of the conflicting interests of these classes. It was these movements that threw up names— Gracchi, Cicero, Caesar, Augustus,—that have survived when the tendencies they represented have been almost forgotten.

By the first century B.C. the old city state had grown into an empire made up of a huge collection of municipalities subject to tributes imposed by the parent city, and the privileged section of its citizens acquired enormous wealth which they spent in the building of. beautiful villas with marble columns, costly gladiatorial combats and luxurious living and lavish displays of one kind or another. A multitude of Italian, Slavic and Germanic tribes had been incorporated into the Empire. The mode of production had changed from the small production of the peasant farmer to production by slave labour on large estates in different parts of the Empire. The Roman trader had accompanied the Roman army in its pioneering work and a considerable commercial development had been reached which spread a network covering North Africa, Spain, Britain and a portion of the East, but having as its centre Rome—all roads led to Rome.

The old senatorial city-state constitution of Rome was unsuited to this expanding empire with its conflicting' classes and complicated policies. The struggle that took place and was spread over a long period of time modified the power of the Roman Senate and placed considerable power in the hands of the military leaders. The intrigues in the Roman Senate by bribed tools of Caesar as a prelude to his crossing of the Rubicon read strangely modern. The general ruin and misery caused by the civil wars eventually produced a universal desire for peace. A correct appreciation and interpretation of this desire helped Augustus into the position of the first of the Roman Emperors, though both he and succeeding Emperors wielded power under the constitutional cloak of the First Consul of the Empire.

In the early municipalities tribute was exacted through the medium of the elected freemen of the localities, but the growth of Rome as a huge tax-gathering machine brought changes in the instruments of tax-gathering to secure a greater flow of wealth to the centre. Tax-gatherers and municipal officials were appointed from the centre and a huge bureaucratic machine developed, which tightened the hold of the centre upon the Empire, and also brought bribery, corruption and the legal arts to a high pitch of perfection. Usury became a considerable source of wealth and flourished like mushrooms on a dunghill.

Under the Empire chattel slave labour entered every sphere of production, and this form was exploited to its utmost limits, until it became a barrier that limited the further achievements of Roman civilisation. Slave labour is notoriously wasteful, both of soil and of implements, as the slave has no personal interest in the work he is doing nor in the animals and tools he is using. Its cheapness kills the incentive to improvement in means of production. Hence agricultural science made little progress and no means were used to replace the nourishment drained from the earth. The result was a progressive exhaustion of the soil.

The growth of the bureaucratic machine and the increasing rapacity of its personnel, together with, a progressive reduction in the returns from slave labour, tended to make the Empire top-heavy—it was carrying too many and too rapacious drones and unproductive labourers compared with its productive capacity. The increasing burden of taxation reduced the capacity of the municipalities to put armed men in the field to defend the frontiers, and drove the small farmers more and more to sell themselves into slavery, or put themselves in dependence upon powerful landowners, in order to live or to escape military service.

By the fourth century A.D. the whole tendency under the Empire was downwards. Even the rich had misgivings and a feeling of the impending end of their affluence, and were ruthless in their exploitation of the earth and everything on it in the attempt to accumulate and squander as much as possible, with the motto, “make the most of to-day for to-morrow we die.” Hopelessness in the future was the ultimate view that pervaded all sections under the Roman Empire at the time.

The above is a rough picture of the position when Constantine became Emperor of the Roman dominions.

In the meantime, Christianity, a hotch-potch of earlier philosophical ideas, was born and spread through the decaying Empire. The soil was fruitful and it flourished and acquired property which it struggled to retain and increase for hundreds of years after.

It had a message for rich and poor, for freeman and slave. It proclaimed to all who suffered that this life was but a brief span in a vale of tears, a necessary suffering to open the gates of Paradise in a mythical world after death. Those who saw nothing but misery in their life on earth gladly clutched at the hope that this life was only a temporary evil.

The rich it consoled with the following admonitions to the poor:—

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that he are ordained of God.

Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.

For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil.

Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.

For this cause pay ye tribute also; for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing.

Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due: custom to whom custom: fear to whom fear: honour to whom honour.

(Epistle to the Romans, Chap. 13.)

Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ."

(Epistle to the Ephesians, Chap. 6.)

Ih the Sermon on the Mount passive obedience is preached and the followers of the Church are urged not to resist evil nor oppression but to turn the right cheek to the smiter. It is further impressed upon them by the assurance, "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth," and similar precepts.

The above teachings were an expression of the conditions of the time and were, on the one hand, the hopeless wail of the poor, and, on the other, an instrument to keep the poor submissive. With the spread of Christianity the wealth and property of the Church grew, and with it the ecclesiastical bureaucracy. The Church gathered under its wings for the administration of its affairs officials of various grades, from workers amongst the poor up to the wealthy bishops at its head.

While the Church was growing an economic revolution had been slowly spreading throughout the Empire and was eating at its chattel-slave basis. The dwindling returns from slave labour and the burdens borne by the freeman led more and more to a new form of dependence in industry and on the land. The migrations of industrial freemen were being limited by new industrial arrangements and industrial slaves were acquiring a new form of dependence. Agricultural freemen were being subjected to systems of leasing lands and customary tenancies. Agricultural slaves were granted their freedom on condition that they gave certain free service to their lords, as well as working the lands allotted to them.

Constantine was the largest private landowner in the Empire and by the time he was firmly seated as Emperor the various methods of production were intermingled on all estates, and he found them an almost inextricable tangle on his own. The method of customary tenancy, however, was rapidly growing in favour.

The change the Empire had undergone through the centuries had been fundamental. The old local city state with its ruling aristocracy had passed away and the later aristocracy of Rome were men who owned vast estates in Africa, Spain, and the large territory that at that time went under the name of Gaul. Local ideas had also given place to ideas that were the fruit of a huge agglomeration of people of different races and religions who were grouped under the same Empire. But while the development of a people may halt for a while it does not remain permanently at the same level. When the forces within have developed to their limit new forces are born which require a re-alignment of classes. A fresh surge of development commences in a new direction. Such was the position under the Roman Empire. Slave culture had reached its limit and threatened to involve all in a common ruin. But a new form had been silently superseding it. One that later became known as feudalism.

In these circumstances a church that knew no local boundaries, whose god existed everywhere, whose organisation was supported by a hierarchy of officials, and which proclaimed the divine origin of law and rulers found favour, and fitted with increasing exactitude into the needs of the Empire that was becoming feudalised.

With the growth in the feudal form of production the old governmental machinery became unsuitable and new machinery had to be devised. The passing away of municipal freedom had weakened the capacity of the central executive to appreciate the needs of the vast Empire. Rule by the Senate had not been sufficient to control adequately the huge Empire, and succeeding attempts to make the administration more efficient had degenerated into a struggle between the Senate and' the military chiefs. The effort to bring efficiency and unity into the administration was responsible for the development under one of the Emperors (Diocletian) of an advisory council, at first temporary, and finally growing under Constantine into departments covering the various divisions of treasury, war, judicial functions and so forth. The essence of the new form was its capacity to deal better with the administration of the Empire and yet remain under the personal control of a head.

A number of measures were introduced to bring uniformity into the economic relationships. The result ultimately tied the cultivator to the soil and to his lord, and made succession to these fixed tenures hereditary. But something else had still to be accomplished. A means had to be found for ascertaining the needs and wishes of the people and for sanctifying the decrees of the rulers. It was here the Church stepped in. Burrowing into every cranny of the Empire and the home, amongst the poorest as well as the richest, it possessed an administration with unequalled social knowledge, and an accumulation of property that placed it on the side off the new type of property owners. At his hand Constantine found a suitable and willing tool in burning the feudalised state, and at the Council of Nicaea in the year 325 Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire. From that time onwards the Church has thrown its resources on the side of the oppressor. In the course of centuries it became itself the largest feudal proprietor in the world, at one time owning a third of the land of Europe. In England in the 16th century it is computed that the Church owned one-third of the land and half the wealth of the country. In fact, it is almost a truism to say that during the Middle Ages the Church and feudalism were the same thing.

Thus feudalism commenced a career that lasted, over 1,200 years, and with it, the Christian Church spread like a blight over the most distant parts of the known world.

Such, briefly, was the material origin of the idealised Christian Church.

Gilmac.

Editorial: The Dependence of Government on Parliament. (1933)

Editorial from the January 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are often told by opponents that it is useless to organise for the capture of the political machinery because the capitalists who control it can at any time suitable to them stop holding elections and refuse to hand over control to a Socialist majority. What these critics fail to appreciate is that modern highly developed capitalism cannot function with any degree o£ efficiency without the machinery of representative government, which the capitalists have had to build up.

This has been illustrated by the events in Germany. Hindenburg was elected President by a huge majority over Hitler. In the Reichstag, however (the German Parliament), Hitler’s party is the largest single party, although it has not a clear majority. In these circumstances, and as the parties could not agree to form a coalition which would provide a majority as basis for a government, Hindenburg used his powers under Article 48 of the Constitution—an article for which the Social Democrats are responsible—to appoint his nominee, Von Papen, as head of the Government. Faced with a hostile Reichstag, Von Papen decided to seek the support of the electors at a General Election. It was held but failed to give him the support he needed. In consequence of that failure, Von Papen had to go, and his place has been taken by Von Schleicher. Von Schleicher, in order to stabilise his position, promptly had to withdraw his predecessor’s unpopular measures in an endeavour to secure the support of a parliamentary majority. To do this, Von Schleicher has had to placate not only several of the political groups, but also the trade unions, whose leaders he consulted. He has even made concessions sufficiently far-reaching to attract a section of the principal opposition party— Hitler’s party—so that there is now a distinct likelihood that Hitler’s forces will be divided.

And the immediate reason for this change of front? It was given in reports from Berlin correspondents to several London newspapers. A continuance of Von Papen’s Government, lacking a parliamentary majority, and imposing an unpopular policy, would lead the supporters of the opposition parties to express their discontent outside parliament. There would be disorder which would at once endanger property and disturb the functioning of the capitalist system. The Berlin correspondent of the Daily Express wrote (December 3rd): —

A revival of the Von Papen Chancellorship would mean riots and strikes ana bloodshed all over the country.

The Berlin correspondent of the Daily Herald (November 30th and December 3rd) wrote:—

                                                    Rumbles of Revolt 

                                                    Scare Berlin 'Change.

FEAR OF RETURN OF VON PAPEN. 

Shares tumbled headlong on the Berlin Bourse today in fear of an upheaval, when it was reported that Von Papen would be appointed Chancellor to form a “Fighting Cabinet" against Parliament.

(Daily Herald, November 30th.) 

"Up to the very end the old President fought for his favourite. Von Papen. 

But at the last moment, three of the most important Ministers of the last Papen Cabinet refused to support him.

(Daily Herald, December 3rd.)

The Times and other papers printed similar accounts.

Another aspect of the influence of political instability on capitalist finance was the refusal of foreign financiers to ratify an agreement to provide a loan of 60 million marks for development of the German Post Office. The German Government wished to take advantage of the lower interest rates obtainable abroad and had made practically all arrangements for borrowing the money when the political situation was rendered uncertain by the fear that Von Papen’s Government might try to dispense with Parliament. Immediately the foreign lenders withdrew from the almost completed negotiations, leaving the Post Office no alternative but to borrow a much smaller sum in Germany at higher interest rates.

The new Government, led by Von Schleicher, assured of trade union support or at least their tolerance, is now offering a programme of social reforms (increased unemployed pay, etc.), the release of political prisoners, and the abandonment of proposals to alter the constitution—all in order to secure a parliamentary majority and, with it security for capitalist industry, trade and finance to continue functioning.

So far, there never has been in any country an organised Socialist Majority face to face with the defenders of capitalism. When that situation arrives, that organised majority will be able to deal with every eventuality. The idea that a clique of capitalist politicians, shorn of support among the electorate, could bar the road to Socialism is ludicrous.

Debate. The S.P.G.B. versus The Tory Party. (1933)

Party News from the January 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Debate organised by West Ham Branch was held at Stratford Town Hall on Sunday, November 27th, 1932, between the Socialist Party of Great Britain and the Conservative Party. 

Comrade E. Hardy—for Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Mrs. E. Tennant—for the Conservative Party.

Comrade E. Hardy commenced his case for Socialism by stating two points on which the two parties would probably be in agreement—firstly, the imperative need for a solution to the problems of poverty, unemployment, preventive illness and death, war, and industrial strife; and secondly, that individual action was inadequate, the needs of the present situation requiring that the working class shall take organised political action by means of the vote to secure their emancipation from these evils.

He pointed out that the Socialist case is based on the principle that human beings are dependent on the material conditions which surround them, and that the programmes of other political parties proved that they also recognised that favourable economic conditions are necessary to a happy and satisfactory life.

He then defined the two classes which make up capitalist society: —

The working class, which comprises all those who, not having property incomes, have to sell their services—their mental and physical energies—their labour power, in order to live, the alternative being charity, robbery or dependence on the State; emphasising at the same "time that these are the wealth producers; and

The capitalist class, made up of those who live on property incomes—rent, interest and profit—who own the means of production and to whom the wealth produced by the workers belongs.

He showed that, arising out of these conditions, the capitalist is able to get a return over and above the sum of money he invests for the simple reason that out of the wealth that the working class produce but do not own they only receive in the shape of salaries or wages a fraction. And further, that this fraction, speaking generally, is based on the cost of living of the worker according to the particular trade, industry and country, and under the conditions prevailing at any given time.

The speaker then proceeded to lay stress on the need for the establishment of Socialism. He said that a Socialist understood the evolution of society and the necessary place that capitalism occupies in that evolution. In its early days it had enabled society to develop to an enormous extent its productive powers. It had broken down national barriers and exclusiveness, it had modernised the backward nations, it had destroyed the isolation of rural life and freed the subject class from being tied to land and locality. It had developed the money system of exchange, and facilitated the division of labour. Now, however, capitalism prevents the workers from gaining the benefit of the development of the productive forces.

The Socialist’s solution to present-day problems was not therefore utopian, nor based on class hatred, but on the need to solve the social problem by instituting common ownership of the means of production and distribution. It was on these grounds alone that the Socialist Party of Great Britain invited the support of the working class.

Mrs. Tennant (a Conservative Parliamentary candidate), speaking on behalf of the Conservative Party, made it clear during her first remarks that she was under the impression that she was opposing a party which supports the Labour Party, and therefore made little serious attempt to state a case against Socialism and the S.P.G.B.

After saying that it was always easy to legislate and make a perfect plan on paper, Mrs. Tennant stated that the Conservative Party were the first people to become alive to the industrial horrors of the 18th and 19th Centuries, and went on to mention in detail the various reforms for which the Conservative Party were responsible, for example:—

The placing of the first Factory Act on the Statute Book in 1802; the Combination Law in 1824, giving rise to the Trade Union Movement; the Ten Hours Act, 1847; the first Act for Compulsory Education, 1876.; Workmen’s Compensation Acts; Pensions Acts, etc.

She also gave the Conservative Party credit for having reduced unemployment during the years 1924-1929, for improving this country’s trade balance by £63,000,000, and for having built a record number of new houses.

And just when “things were looking a little brighter" the country returned a Labour Government, because, she stated, they promised a new heaven and a new earth. They promised to clear the slums and cure unemployment (then about one million) in three weeks. But they did none of these things. The “Socialist" M.P.s agreed to nine-tenths of the cuts adopted by the National Government, and unemployment increased. She was now afraid that the “Socialists'" new programme of nationalisation for the banks, industry, agriculture and transit would be dangerous to the workers because it would stampede capital and order. It would cause increased unemployment, higher food prices and greater taxation.

She said that Karl Marx had inaugurated the Class Struggle, and cited Russia as an example of the low standard of life to which this country would sink if the “Socialists” had their way.

Comrade Hardy, replying, regretted in the first place that his opponent had mistaken the Socialist Party of Great Britain for a party supporting the Labour Party. He pointed out the consistent opposition of the Socialist Party to the Labour Party ever since that party’s formation in 1906 (two years later than the formation of the Socialist Party of Great Britain), and denied emphatically that the Socialist Party gave the slightest support to nationalisation.

He pointed out that it is absurd to say that the Conservative Party were the first people to realise the horrors of industrial capitalism. The working class had, of course, been well aware of them for years, and the Conservative Party's factory legislation, for what it was worth, was generations late. He pointed out that some of the reforms claimed by the Tories were also claimed by the Liberal Party. He was prepared, however, for the sake of argument to give the Tories credit for them all. The very need for reforms was the condemnation of capitalism. The Tories have to “protect the workers”—against capitalism. The only remedy was the abolition of the wages system.

It is not true that Karl Marx had “initiated the 'Class Struggle.” He had merely pointed out that it existed, and that it arose out of the basic contradictions of capitalist society.

Speaking of housing, Comrade Hardy said this problem, after having been “solved” in turn by Tories, Liberals and the Labour Party, was still with us. According to Sir E. Simon, in a letter to The Times, February 12th, 1931, “ the position of the slum dwellers is worse than it was ten years ago.” There was, properly speaking, no housing problem for the working class. What did exist was a poverty problem which could not be solved within capitalism. The Tories said they gave the workers the vote in 1867. Why 1867? Fifty years earlier, in 1819, the workers demonstrated peacefully at Peterloo to ask for the vote. A Tory Government killed and wounded numbers of them.

Proceeding to deal with the historical case against capitalism, he pointed out in some detail that capitalism after first developing the power of production was now making frantic efforts to restrict it again, and having brought the rural population to the towns, capitalist reformers talked of solving unemployment by sending them back again to the country. There was even an attempt to return to barter in a large number of countries at the present time.

Capitalism was unable to use its resources to the full, and had outlived its usefulness to mankind.

Mrs. Tennant’s final remarks were to the effect that it was easy for the Socialist Party of Great Britain to sneer at 95 years of Government experience, and she submitted that when the Socialist Party of Great Britain was in power there would be many disillusionments. Karl Marx had never governed so much as a puppy-dog, “so it was all paper legislation.” She again referred to Russia as an example of Socialism. Russia had failed to feed her people, which was a very serious accusation to bring against a country. She was afraid this beautiful system of Socialism would not materialise until human beings were perfect.

In reply, Comrade Hardy stated that Russia was not a Socialist country, but one in which industry was run through the medium of private and State Capitalism. It was still a backward country, suffering from the legacy of inefficient Czarism. Why not look at the spectacle of poverty in rich U.S.A. The Daily Telegraph had recently quoted the American Federation of Labor that 60 millions, one-half the population, will be on the verge of starvation this coming winter. America, he pointed out, was not a backward country, but one of the most highly developed capitalist countries in the world.

He said his opponent had put the only case possible for the Conservative Party, that of social reforms. These had been tried and found wanting. He reiterated that there was only one solution to the problems confronting the working class, and that was to establish the common ownership of the means of production and distribution by the method advocated by the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

The debate was well attended. There were about 800 present and many were turned away owing to lack of room. A collection was taken of £5 10s. and about 27s. worth of literature was sold.

Blogger's Note:

In all probability the Conservative Party representative, Mrs E. Tennant, was Eleonora Tennant. 

Eleonora Tennant was a Tory parliamentary candidate in the East End of London (Silvertown) at the 1931 and 1935 General Elections and, let's be honest, women being so under-represented in politics in the 1930s, what are the chances of there being two Mrs E. Tennants' in the Tory Party active in the East End of London at this time? If you click on her wiki page you'll go down a rabbit hole of far right and anti-semitic politics which covers both Britain and Australia.

Donations Received. (1933)

From the January 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1933)

Party News from the January 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Voice From The Back: The Futility Of Reformism (2009)

The Voice From The Back Column from the January 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Futility Of Reformism

“One result of Ethiopia’s dreadful famine in 1984, when at least 1m starved to death, was the invention of celebrity activism on behalf of the world’s most miserable. Band Aid, then Live Aid, then even more sophisticated networking and the airing of starving children on television helped persuade rich countries’ governments to double aid to Africa as part of a wider set of promises to meet the UN’s eight Millennium Development Goals laid out in 2000, the first of which is to ‘eradicate extreme poverty and hunger’ by 2018. Despite progress in setting up early-warning systems, better procurement methods and the rapid delivery of nutrition in the form of foil packets of plumpy nuts, the Horn of Africa has remained a hunger zone. The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) says the present drought is the worst there since 1984. The International Committee of the Red Cross, which is usually slow to press the panic button, says it may be the tragedy of the decade. At least 17.5m people, the agencies reckon, may face starvation.” (Economist, 30 October) This is typical of the futility of a policy of reformism, many well-intentioned people spend an enormous amount of energy and time in trying to patch up capitalism only to find that instead of a million starving to death they now have over 17 million threatened with the same fate. The only way to solve this awful problem is to abolish the system that produces it and bring about world socialism.

The Cost Of War (1)

Many workers in the USA believe that with the election of a new president all their troubles are over, but the realities of capitalism will soon shatter that illusion. The US must compete in the world-wide struggle for markets and raw materials and to do so they need an immense military budget. How immense was recently revealed. “As President-elect Obama plans for his first budget early next year, the Pentagon is asking for a record amount, according to a senior Pentagon official. The official said the Pentagon’s baseline request being sent to the White House will be $524 billion for fiscal 2010, $9 billion more than last year’s $515 billion baseline request.” (CNN.com, 19 November)

The Cost Of War (2)

When governments count the cost of war they use dollars and pounds and figure what strategic gains or losses have been made, but workers have a much more brutal and realistic way of accounting. Here it is. “As of Monday, Nov. 17, 2008, at least 4,200 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes eight military civilians killed in action. At least 3,392 military personnel died as a result of hostile action, according to the military’s numbers. The AP count is the same as the Defense Department’s tally, last updated Monday at 10 a.m. EDT. The British military has reported 176 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 21; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, seven; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia and Georgia, three each; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand and Romania, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan and South Korea, one death each.” (Associated Press, 17 November)

Dole Queue Dictionary

Everyday you can read about the mounting figures of unemployment. This used to be called “getting the sack”, “getting the bullet” or in Scotland getting “your jotters”, but we live in more sophisticated times so they sugarcoat it with terms like “being surplus to requirements” or some such business-speak. We think that Nokia must take the prize though. “Is your firm experiencing a ‘synergy-related headcount restructuring‘? This, probably the most ghastly euphemism yet encountered for mass sacking, has been invented by Nokia. Indeed, so proud of it are they that they repeat it, or different versions of it, nine times in a comparatively short announcement.” (Times, 22 November) As a worker I have been sacked, screwed and sent down the road but “headcount restructuring” sounds even more painful.

A Dog’s Life

Two recent news items illustrate how distorted human values have become inside capitalism. “A wealthy female surgeon has commissioned a £1.4 million kennel for her two Great Danes, next to her second home on the exclusive Lower Mill Estate, near Cirencester. The kennel has a Jacuzzi, a plasma screen TV, thermostatically controlled beds, a £150,000 music system and a security gate with retinal scanner.” (Times, 26 November) “Fears are being raised there could be a jump in the winter death toll. An Age Concern poll of 2,300 people found many over 60s were worried about being able to heat their homes because of soaring energy prices. And with a one of the coldest winters for some years predicted, the charity said the death toll could rise. It comes after figures for England and Wales suggested there was a 7% jump in extra deaths last year despite a relatively mild winter.” (BBC News, 27 November) A pampered life for dogs but no thermostatically controlled beds for shivering old workers, that is how capitalism operates.

Letter: Taxing Problem (2009)

Letter to the Editors from the January 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

Taxing Problem

Dear Editors

In “My Cupboard is Bare” (Letters, Socialist Standard, November) the letter writer states many inaccuracies – “he doubled the income-tax burden on the poorest earners in society.” – “The working-poor, whose income-tax he doubled, do not bother to vote, (as he knows) for we, the low-paid, realise that there is no-one worth voting for.” – “Middle-England, on middle incomes, voted Labour into power, and for that voting-base income-tax was reduced in an attempt to retain support for the Labour.” – “If the British government makes yet another “mistake” of having ordinary hard-working British citizens bail-out British banks and the greedy millionaires who helped cause the problem…”. This might be worthy of comment.

Glasgow Branch

Reply:

We published the letter as an expression of opinion by a discontented worker. We agree that it is inaccurate to imply that income tax is a burden on the working class and that it is workers who are bailing out the banks.

Workers are exploited at the point of production but are paid more or less the value of the working skills they sell, i.e., enough to buy what they need to reproduce and replace them. If the government imposes a tax on wages, this will eventually, after a struggle, be passed on to employers as the cost of reproducing the workers’ skills will have gone up.

In any event, in Britain, most workers don’t even personally pay income tax as they do other taxes by going to the post office or writing a cheque as this is deducted at source by the employer and paid by them to the government. In this case what is important is take-home pay. This said, when the government does change income tax the take-home pay of some individual workers can go up or down for a time, and did go down in the case the letter writer mentioned.

Although the money to bail out the banks will have ultimately come out of the surplus value extracted from the working class, it has not done so directly – the capitalist employer extracts the surplus value, part of which is paid to the government as taxes, some of which was used to bail out the banks.

Editors.

In place of capitalism (2009)

From the January 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

Recently the word ‘capitalism’ seems to be on everyone’s lips. The main reason for this is probably that capitalism – also known as ‘the economy’ or ‘the market system’ is going through a bad patch. The Labour government’s claim to have ended the cycle of boom and bust has been proved disastrously wrong. The last boom, during which food, energy, house and stock market prices rose at unsustainably high rates, has given way to bust.

As usual, workers are the main victims. Many of us have lost our jobs, can’t get new ones or can’t enter the labour force for the first time. We have seen our outgoings soar, our incomes squeezed, even our homes repossessed. Even if we have so far personally avoided the worst of these fates, the worry that we may not continue to do so can be very stressful.

Who or what is to blame for this sorry state of affairs? More constructively, how can it be put right? Only the pitifully small socialist media insist that we need to replace capitalism with socialism. All the other media, which shout so much louder than we can, say things like “We’ve got the wrong kind of capitalism” or “Some people (bankers) have been too greedy.”

There is a widespread and heavily promoted belief that ‘capitalism is the only game in town.’ Anyone who disputes this, for example by advocating that all goods and services should be available on the basis of need, not ability to pay, is dismissed as idealistic or utopian. It is a classic case of self-fulfilling prophecy: support (or at least acquiesce in) the way things are organised today and tomorrow will be more or less the same. But it doesn’t have to be.

Socialists urge that it is futile to try to reform capitalism – the whole system needs to be scraped and replaced by something better. As we explain in our pamphlet Socialism as a Practical Alternative, this means being as constructive as possible, not destructive. For example, such bodies as the World Health Organisation and the Universal Postal Union can be adapted for socialist purposes.

We have as our object the establishment of socialism. In a sense this is true, but we also talk about a socialist movement in the here and now. Every month we say in this journal ‘we are solely concerned with building a movement of socialists for socialism.’  We distribute paper and electronic publications, give talks, take part in debates, run educational events, make films, and much more.

With more members – and particularly active members – we could do things and on a scale we are prevented from doing for lack of human and other resources. For example, we could set up socialist publishing houses producing, promoting and distributing paper and electronic literature. We could organise socialist educational networks at different levels: schools, colleges, universities, distance learning – for potential socialist citizenship, not capitalist employment. Other activities will no doubt be suggested, tried out and perhaps become widespread – who knows?

The point is that more of us will come to realise that we all live in the real world, not with submission to endure it but with imagination to revolutionise it.

Stan Parker

Education, politics and language (2009)

From the January 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

Today’s education system is presented as preparation for a ‘career’ ignoring the political conditioning it also involves.

Our species is unique in terms of the length of our childhood. Most believe this to be so because of the advantages of learning which can be passed on culturally. In the natural environment as opposed to the cultural human one, we would not progress very far if we had to learn through personal experience how to create the technological world in which we live.

Vital in this process is an efficient way in which to communicate the lessons of the past – language. As a child grows it exhibits a skill for language that still amazes those who study and analyse the process. Capitalism depends on an authoritarian social structure that seeks to justify and protect the minority who currently have social power. It is not surprising to socialists, then, that these values are also communicated within the process of the ‘education’ of the young. Together with the more obvious forms of coercion: continual testing to destroy communal feelings by presenting others as competition; enforcement of uniformity in appearance to suppress individuality; living by the clock to impose the illusion of the normality of life as a wage slave; the presentation of ‘careers’ such as in the military or banking as being acceptable rather than lives celebrating murder or the exploitation of their fellow man – there is also a far more powerful and subversive use of language that this article will seek to illustrate.

Before continuing this analysis we must mention the other type of education that exists within capitalist societies – what, in this country are called public schools. They possess, unsurprisingly, a very different ethos than that described above. For the children of the elite who are not taught at home, these institutions exist to prepare their pupils for university where they learn the techniques needed for the City, Westminster, Inns of Court or any of the other institutions dedicated to the suppression and exploitation of the majority class. That this is self-evident to socialists but is seen as an expression of envy and class ‘hatred’ by the Establishment and even by many members of the working class itself is testament to the power of education and its social values (on both sides).

To the powerful, of course, a socialist education is political manipulation based on propaganda. That to many the education system is seen as preparation for a ‘career’ rather than political conditioning is evidence of the subversion of the very language used to describe the world. In an effort to present the current social structure the language used presents it as the only possible world and any alternative as either naïve or dangerous fantasy. Why else would it be considered reasonable to debate the existence of a supernatural entity that created the universe (God) but ridiculous to explore the possibility of a stateless and moneyless rational society?

Speaking of money – a great way to start an analysis of the subversion of language in this society. How many times have we heard that money can give us ‘independence’ and ‘choice’? For instance it is said that it gives us the ability to travel. Apparently we don’t need the labour and talent that produces cars, boats, trains and planes. What need do we have of shoes, food, clothes and maps to get to our destination? The idea that money can create these things is one of the great illusions implicit within our language.

All the coloured paper and shiny coins in the world will not get you across water unless someone builds you a boat – and not just someone but hundreds and even thousands are involved in producing the possibility of travel. Money represents an involuntary contract that involves an interdependence of, sometimes, global labour – the complete opposite of ‘independence’. And how many times have you heard it said that King Henry built this castle and Lord Muck built that stately home? No designers, masons, architects or carpenters were apparently involved. For many it is money that creates our world and not the interdependent labour of us all. What is this if not a political subversion of language?

Perhaps the ultimate triumph of this kind of linguistic perversion is the contemporary view of what constitutes ‘politics’ itself. We are told that we live in a ‘democracy’ in which we are free to choose what kind of society we live in. But the most important of all political decisions – what the community produces – is never subjected to any kind of democratic process. Instead the city brokers merely decide which commodities will deliver the greatest or most reliable profits. In other words these decisions are made by a tiny elite minority in the interests of an even smaller minority. In capitalist society the only ‘choice’ voters have is who will decide how taxes are distributed to create and maintain the state infrastructure – armies, police, road, rail, law, health and social security system and, of course, the education system.

Even this choice is only ‘given’ to the people once every five years between two political parties with no important differences in ideology. And this is political democracy? Apart from its obvious farcical and unjust nature it makes politics so boring. It’s not just cynicism that turns people off from this ‘media politics’ it is that it’s been sucked dry of meaning and now only represents platitudes and repetitious clichés. But this is the way our rulers like it. Their media continues to produce meaningless garbage about political celebrities (leaders) and evil foreigners or unions, knowing that while their readers are obsessed with such trivia nothing will ever change. This is the primary aim of our education system – the inculcation of language without political meaning.

 

For over one hundred years the task of the socialist party has been to counter the propaganda of the status quo. Not just in ideological terms but in trying to restore meaning to political language. Even our opponents have to admit that the meaning they give to words like socialism, democracy, human nature, economics, history and politics itself is very different from ours.

Although socialists grow weary of redefining the very language of politics for every individual new to our perspective it is quite possible that when we find we do not have to do so, then change is close. For although the ruling class seek to own the language as they own everything else, the needs of a highly technical means of production necessitate a higher and more flexible education system. Their wealth may give them power but it cannot give them intelligence or talent – for that they need us.

It may be that the days of a narrow education to fit the needs of a narrow division of labour are past. More of us are not able to tolerate the public school, university ‘experts’ pontificating on politics any more. They must take responsibility for the dire state of the world. The majority are taking possession of knowledge and do not need politicians, priests, doctors, scientists, prime ministers or any other type of ‘leader’ to make political decisions on our behalf.

Wez.