News in Review: Two classes (1963)

The News in Review column from the December 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

At Home

Two classes

We are still, the government anxiously assured the voters in the recent by-elections, living in the Age of Affluence. Very well. As the Conservatives promise that their new government will bring in a more vital, more prosperous Britain, as the Labour Party bid for our votes with a vision of this country as a vast test-tube, what is the latest from the poverty and riches front?

The Co-operative Permanent Building Society reported that half the people who buy homes through them earn less than twenty pounds a week and that a quarter earn less than sixteen pounds a week. Two-thirds of the houses bought through the Co-op. cost less than £3,000. Anyone who has lowered himself into the perilous pit of working class house ownership will appreciate what these figures mean in terms of size and quality of houses and of struggle to pay off the loan on them. House owners are supposed to be among the most affluent of the working class but the Co-op's report shows that none of them live in a castle and that buying a house relieves nobody of the usual working class battle to get by.

Housing of another sort cropped in one more of those conferences—this time of the National Housing and Town Planning Council. Dr. Eric M. Sigsworth, lecturer in economic history at the University of York, said that there will be three million unfit houses or slums in this country by 1973. Now this is after the promised speed up in slum clearance. Perhaps they would clear more if they slowed down?

Many workers think that the road out of poverty, bad housing and the like, is one of loyal obedience to their employer. Among other firms, the Ford Motor Company have encouraged this idea. They give silver and gold badges to the men who have done long service, and who have kept essential machinery going when there was a strike on. They also give these men certain staff and pension privileges. But Fords are now in the midst of another efficiency drive and what account does that take of loyalty? The drive has meant that four of the gold and silver badge men have been sent back to the factory floor, which means that they have been demoted and that they have lost their privileges. If they did not like the way the company was repaying their long service, the lour men could have accepted dismissal. Which must have caused some hard, rueful, thinking in the loyal heads of Dagenham.

Everything very normal, in other words, for the working class. Nothing changing, either, for their social betters. The will of Sir George Usher, an industrialist who died last October, showed that he was worth over £2 million at the end of his life. Each of his sons inherited over a million pounds which must have come from somebody's hard work, but not theirs.

The Finance Accounts for the United Kingdom 1962-3 showed that it is still a paying business to be a figurehead for British capitalism. Annuities paid to the Royal Family amounted to £166,000 during the year. Not bad for reading out speeches which somebody else has written for you, shaking hands and generally doing as you are told.

Will the household budgets of any readers of the Socialist Standard be affected by the increase in the fees of Eton? Anyway, it is instructive to hear about them and to ask whether every child really has the equal chance in education the politicians are always promising. Eton has gone up to £554 a year. If you can't run to that you can try for Harrow or Winchester (both £498) or Charterhouse (£492). Or there is always the local Council Primary, which costs a little less and has other differences besides.

Getting to know you

It is a common fallacy that a Minister who is familiar with the problems which his department has to deal with is able to solve them that much more easily. And, of course, it gives a boost to people's morale if a Minister appears in their midst, looks at their conditions and clicks his tongue in sympathy. They forget that when he gets back to Whitehall he is so often quite powerless to do anything about the conditions.

So it has come about that successive Ministers of Housing have always made an early tour of the worst of the slums as if looking at them would make the slums go away instead of increasing, as they in fact do. And so it was that Lord Hailsham (as he then was), when he was put in charge of the unemployment problem in the North East, went straight off to tour the area—cloth cap and all. But any personal experience which Hailsham might have gained about the North East was wasted, because Douglas-Home replaced him with Edward Heath.

Now Mr. Heath is supposed to be a very astute man. Did he, then, abandon the pretence about the usefulness of a personal appearance? One of his first appointments was to fly off to the North East to see for himself what unemployed men and their families, and idle shipyards and factories, look like.

Labour and the TSR2

One of the latest babies of British capitalism, proudly wheeled out by its doting parents, is the TSR-2.

This aircraft, it is claimed, can do almost anything by way of airborne destruction. In its ability to perform the most horrifying deeds, in the range of its destructive power, in its diabolical versatility, the TSR-2 is something like a precocious, delinquent child.

These horrors are going to cost something like a couple of million pounds each. Commenting on this, Mr. Denis Healey, the Labour M.P. (who put the cost at £20 million each), asked what this sum represented in terms of schools, hospitals, and so on. This is a common complaint, whenever the amount of money which capitalism spends upon weapons is discussed. Yet what do the Healeys expect? Capitalism has a list of priorities to which it allocates its resources and human comfort is not near the top of it. This was as true under the Labour government which Mr. Healey supported as under the Tory one which he attacks.

Indeed, Mr. Healey showed how small are the differences between his own party and the Tories on the issue of armaments when he went on to say that the TSR-2 is a waste of money, which could better be spent on military helicopters and other transport aircraft and on the Buccaneer, a naval strike ’plane which is already in service.

The best, then, that the Labour Party offers us on the matter of armaments policy is to look after the purse strings more carefully than the Conservatives have done. They will try to make sure that every penny the British ruling class spend on their weapons gets value for money.

And perhaps they will succeed. Perhaps, under Labour, there will be no more Blue Streak fiascos. British capitalism will still have fearfully destructive armaments, the waste of human knowledge and resources will go on, but it will all be presided over by a Labour M mister of Defence who will make sure that it is done at the market price and not a penny over. Does this encourage us to believe the hypocritical Labour claim to stand for peace and progress? It does not.

Abroad

Guiana must wait

It was by something like a slick trick that Colonial Secretary Duncan Sandys brought the recent British Guiana constitutional conference, which was supposed to discuss ways of granting the colony independence, to a close.

The British government has rejected the idea of early independence for British Guiana. Instead, another conference will take place after fresh elections next year. The significant thing about the election is that they will be run on a proportional representation scheme which will probably break up the present party groupings. At the last elections the Peoples' Progressive Party, led by Doctor Jagan, got 43 per cent. of the votes, but 60 per cent. of the seats, while the opposition Peoples' National Congress, with 41.5 per cent. of the votes, got just over 36 per cent. of the seats.

This sort of result is common in the direct electoral system which British Guiana, and this country, has worked to. The fact that Mr. Sandys thinks that proportional representation is a good idea for British Guiana does not mean that he is thinking about advocating the same thing for Great Britain. The two big British parties do too well out of the present system for that.

The latest Sandys plan was, bluntly, a tongue-in-the-cheek trick lo impose Whitehall's own wishes upon British Guyana. Dr. Jagan described it as “ dastardly and unprincipled," which is just the expression which other people might have used about the Doctor's own action last year, when he called in British troops to suppress a rising in the colony.

In spite of Jagan's fulminating, the people of British Guiana seemed to have taken the news quietly. It would be good news indeed if this meant that they have come to understand that capitalism is full of diplomatic double-crossing and that in any case the Guianese working people have no more to hope for from independence than they had under British rule.

Sadly, this is unlikely at the present.

Jews in Russia

From the Soviet Union comes more indications of the recent trend there of persecution of the Jews.

The latest example comes in the October 20 edition of Izvestia which reports, and comments, upon the alleged crimes of a number of men but most prominently upon two called Shakerman and Roifman, both of whom are Jews.

These men are accused of embezzlement and bribery, of setting up a profitable racket in the produce of State factories and farms. The full story reminds us of the vast enterprise of Milo Minderbinder in Catch-22; they are said to nave been running a knitwear factory which embezzled machinery and with wool which they had diverted from collective farms. The produce, say the prosecution, was sold on the black market.

Izvestia is furious about these allegations, and raves that the men had amassed thirty million roubles in cash and a hundredweight of gold, diamonds and platinum. The paper has also assumed that the accused are guilty before their trial is complete.

Whether these men are criminals or not, there is mounting evidence of a campaign in Russia to use the Jews as scapegoats to excuse the country’s recent economic difficulties. This is a nasty subterfuge which has often been used in the past. Ignorant workers who are suffering the brunt of capitalism's problems are usually only too ready to blame some racial or religious minority for their troubles.

There need, then, be no surprise that this is happening in Russia. In any case, how is it that economic crimes arc possible in a country which is supposed to be Socialist? How can a country where everyone stands equally offer the chance for a criminal to amass enormous wealth while the rest of the people suffer hunger and other hardships? How can a society where wealth is owned in common have any sort of a market, black or white?

It is impossible to answer these questions, and to explain anti-Semitism in Russia, unless we face the facts. The Soviet Union is not a Socialist country—even supposing that such a thing as Socialism in one country were possible. It is a capitalist country and one where precious little democracy exists at that.

When we have got that straight, every thing else about the USSR falls neatly into place.

Business

Investment, profit, wages

The big mergers in Top Industry continue. Imperial Chemical Industries, who last May put up £10 million with Courtaulds to finance the acquisition of Tootal, have now lashed out another £13 million on Viyella International Ltd. Viyella have interests in spinning, weaving, dyeing and printing.

Viyella were not planning on any big capital investment in the near future but will obviously be able to use ICI’s money. ICI are probably interested in Viyella’s use of synthetic fibres, which now account for about half of its business. Industry is always seeking for ways of safeguarding its interests, but capitalism upsets its plans. Even a giant like ICI is no exception to this.

J. Lyons & Co. Ltd., the teashop firm, is another in the merger field. Its latest venture is in frozen food, the home market for which is estimated to be worth about 72 million a year.

Lyons are tying up their frozen food branch (Frood) with that of Associated Fisheries (Eskimo) and Union International (Fropax). This merger, it is hoped, will result in a combine which will initially command 16 per cent. of the market.

The move is presumably aimed against Unilever’s Birds Eye group, which at present claims two-thirds of the British retail market.

Capitalism is described, by its defenders. as an efficient social system. Yet it would be dillicult for them to find anything efficient or beneficial in the waste of the continual war which rival companies must carry on against each other over the carve up of a market.

The object of it all is, of course, bigger and bigger profits. A company which has succeeded in this past many expectations is Marks and Spencers, which since the war has been transformed from a rather dull chain store group into a bright, hard selling, and very profitable, concern. The very epitome, with its staff welfare schemes and its split second, split penny operation, of a “progressive’’ capitalist company.

The sales of M&S rose to £95.5 millions in the six months up to September this year. This was a record and with the Christmas rush to come, sales are expected to reach £200 million for the year —for the first time in the company’s history. To mark the occasion, shareholders got an extra 1¼ per cent, on their interim dividend.

And what about the people who make these sales, and mergers, and profits, possible? What do they get out of it? The wages of the working class are a constant worry to their employers, for the simple reason that higher wages mean lower profits, and vice versa.

That is why governments are always trying to control wages. Usually this control is described by a smooth phrase which is meant to persuade the workers that their wages are not being held down, and that nobody is trying to do so. Some industrialists, although they recognise their need for wage restraint, think that it should be done more subtly than has been the case in the past. This is what Lord Robens, Chairman of the National Coal Board, said on the subject when he spoke at last month’s Annual Conference of the Institute of Directors:

Whether we like it or not, the most sensitive spot in all our industrial relations is the size of Friday’s pay packet. That is why I deplore the continual use since the war of such phrases as "wage restraint,” "wage freeze,” and "pay pause" . . . .

A national productivity drive hasn't a hope of success if it is accompanied by phrases like that.

Their very sound puts a chill down a workman’s spine and they merely create ill-feeling and bitterness between management and men . . . 

Some sort of "guiding light” is essential if we are to rationalise the present chaos of wages settlement.

Inevitably, we must ask whether Lord Robens, when he was an M.P. supporting the 1945-51 Labour government—and later a member of that government—ever expressed so freely his dislike of the term ‘‘wage freeze”. He had plenty of chances too; it was the Labour government which invented it. Presumably, in the days when the Labour government was fighting to check wages, and using every euphemism in the book to do so, Alf Robens preferred to hold his peace.

Blogger's Note:

The aforementioned novel, Catch-22, by Joseph Heller, was reviewed in the November 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard by 'Ivan' (Ralph Critchfield).

I’m alright, Alec (1963)

From the December 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

In many ways, the selection of Sir Alec Douglas-Home as the new Tory Prime Minister made political history. What Macmillan called “the usual processes of consultation” will one day be the subject of countless essays, articles and hopeful theses on the techniques of political dealing. In the end, Home’s succession was a surprise to most of the observers who are supposed to be able to forecast such things.

But in one way—a way that will not be mentioned in the histories—Home’s appointment came up as expected. It was certain that whoever got the job would do so in a smokescreen of what can only be called nonsense. There was, in fact, a different sort of nonsense for each of the candidates. Hailsham was said to be tough, colourful, impetuous—just the man to give some stick to Khruschev or, darkly hinted the Labour Party, to press the button in a disastrous moment of irascibility. Butler was smooth, remote, soft on coshboys. And so on.

The nonsense which was put out about Home was influenced by his peculiar circumstances. There was the usual stuff about the new Prime Minister’s amiable manner, about his propensity for chatting with Foreign Office chars, about the way he eats his breakfast porridge. We have grown accustomed to such stuff and have come to assume that it is all meant to prove something.

What was unique about the Home propaganda revolved around the fact that he was the latest of a long line of Scottish noblemen. The first of these was created a peer by James III, although his gratitude at this was not enough to dissuade him from later joining a rebel movement against the king. That particular peer died in 1491 later holders of the title met a grisly end or figured in a long feud with another Border family. The amiability for which the last Lord Home was famous could easily be due to the serene security in which he has always lived and to the curious reasoning by which some aristocratic families convince themselves that they hold their superior situation in life as a favour to the less fortunate masses.

This, as we might have expected, was meat and drink to the Labour propagandists. Just as they were basing their appeal on a drive to modernise and stimulate British capitalism, just as Wilson was telling us that the future lies in a disturbingly scientific Britain, the Tories make themselves appear outdated, obsessed with the old school tie, by electing the inheritor of an ancient Scottish earldom as their leader! How can such a man, demanded Mr. Wilson, know anything about the problems of kids taking the eleven-plus, or of a couple who are paying the mortgage off their house?

How indeed? But then, even if we accept that Home does not know anything about these things, would there be any advantage for us if he did know? The Labour Party have always tried to present an image of themselves as men who have come up the hard way and who are therefore, familiar with working class problems. Today they may pose as the party for young graduates who are bursting to get their hands on a computer and start driving the deadwood out of the boardrooms; not so long ago they were full of ex-miners who talked about getting the bosses off our backs. Yet what happened when the ex-miners came to power? The 1945 Labour government had many men like James Griffiths and Ernest Bevin whose early lives had been of appalling hardship. Did that government run the affairs of British capitalism any more humanely for that? Did they ever shrink from taking measures which, although essential to the interests of the British ruling class, were harmful to the very people whose votes and work had raised them to power? They did not.

The humble beginnings of some of the Labour ministers did not prevent them running British capitalism in the established manner, with all that that means. Indeed, perhaps there were times between 1945 and 1951 when miners, or dockers, or some other group of workers, may have wished that they were being governed by people who did not know so much about their problems—and about their methods of trying to alleviate them.

For all that, Wilson’s thrust at the fourteenth Earl was typically shrewd and may have set the tone for Labour's future attacks on Home. The Tories’ reply was enough to show that they are as concerned as they need be about the aristocratic lineage of their new leader. Heralded by Peregrine Worsthorne in the Sunday Telegraph, the Conservative machine set out to convince us that Home’s selection proved that a man can become Prime Minister on his own ability, and in spite of the fact that he is an Earl. This, in some peculiar way, is supposed to mean that we are developing a classless society in which all Britons are equal. Home himself made his own version of the point when he commented that the Labour leader is probably the fourteenth Mr. Wilson, which was joyously trumpeted by the Daily Telegraph as the best crack for a long time.

We can see, then, that the elevation of Home has released a flood of nonsense not just about the man himself but about the class to which he belongs and about the class division of society. Class, we know, is something of a dirty word, Every capitalist party strives to assure us that they do not stand for the interests of any one class and that their policies are designed to benefit us all. At the same time they work hard to convince us that their opponents' schemes are class-inspired. The Labour Party damns the Tories as the rich man’s party; the Conservatives sneer that the Labour Party is obsessed with class bigotry. That is not the end of the confusion. Some people think that classes do not exist, others believe that they do exist but they are not sure where the divisions between them begin and end. They talk about lower middle and upper-working class and other, equally meaningless, divisions.

Now the only way to clear up confusion is to present the facts. What, first of all, is a class? It has nothing to do with how much a person may earn, nor the sort of job he does, nor the school he went to. A class is a group of people who are united, whether they admit to it or not, by a common economic interest. This means that in modern capitalist society people are split into two classes, each of them with opposing economic interests. In this situation, it is nonsense to talk of a middle class—a class with “middle” interests somewhere between the two. The two classes which exist today are, on the one hand, those who have to work for a wage for their living and on the other those who can live without having to go out to work. The first of these—the working class have virtually no property in the means of producing wealth and for that reason are forced to rely on their wage to live. They sell their working ability to the other class —who, because they own enough stocks, shares, bonds, and so on, can live very well without having to work. The interests of capitalist and worker are opposed because one is a seller, and the other a buyer, of a commodity—the working ability of the worker.

It is a common fallacy that the gap between the classes is growing daily smaller. Yet there is obviously a pretty big gap between Sir Alec Douglas-Home and the working people of Scotland—the miners, the dockers, the clerks, the farm hands and the rest. The evidence, in fact, says that the gap is as large as ever. The Ministry of Labour Family Expenditure Survey for 1962 gives some idea of what it means to be a member of an average working class family. In the year under review, the ‘families which had a weekly income of between £15 and £20 spent an average of £1 14s. 4d. a week on their housing, £5 7s. 10d. on food—and made what the Survey calls a “net loss” of 4s. 4d. on betting. We know, because these figures are pretty general for all of us, that this sort of expenditure does not allow a very opulent life. But that is all that the average member of the working class can afford.

On the other side of the gap it is a very different story. Last September a young heiress lost her life m a sailing accident off the South Coast. Although she was only 21 when she died, she left a net amount of £82,309—which is far more than any worker can ever dream of earning. A classless society? The Earl of Harrington recently put up for auction his family seat, Elvaston Castle, and the 4,500 acre estate that goes with it. This estate includes three villages. This sale, which was worth over a million pounds to the Earl, will not leave him homeless. He owns 5,000 acres and will be going to live in his other place in County Limerick. These are only two glimpses at life on the other side of the gap. We may not exactly know, but we can take a guess, at what that life is like and at the sort of expenditure the people, on that side can afford. It will not be anything like that of the average family under the Ministry of Labour's microscope.

It is obvious on which side Sir Alec is. He is a member of the capitalist class who also happens to lead a government which avowedly stands for capitalism. The Labour Party may not have many leaders to compare with Home's aristocratic background, but this does not alter the fact that they also stand for capitalism. In fact, what matters is not whether the men who run the private property system of society are blue-blooded or bear the blue scars which prove that they once sweated and suffered down a coal mine. Experience has told us that the ex-miner runs capitalism as ruthlessly as any Tory nobleman. The important thing is what each of them stands for.

Capitalism, by its class ownership of the means of living, its inequalities and its privileges, perpetuates the class system. It is hypocrisy for a party to say that they are opposed to class privileges while they stand for the social system which fosters them. And all the capitalist parties are guilty of this. All of them, in whatever accent, pay lip service to human equality. And all of them in fact support the world in which the masses are condemned to the paltry and the shoddy while a small minority own the land we walk over, the things we work with, almost our very lives themselves. This minority live, to put it mildly, very well off the masses. Perhaps, of a night, they offer up an extra prayer—I’m alright, Alec; do your best to keep it that way.

Douglas-Home has no proposals to alter this state of affairs and neither have his Labour and Liberal opponents. If class society is to be brought to an end, the first essential is that the nonsense has to stop. But capitalist parties thrive—indeed they live—on nonsense. If the working class were to see through it all—now that would really make history and Alec would no longer be alright.

Ivan

Letter From Vienna: Postscript on Skopje (1963)

From the December 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

When I learned of the earthquake in Yugoslavia and the terrible fate of the victims, it brought back to mind my own terrifying experiences in Vienna, as it must have reminded millions of others in the world, who survived the bombing of their homes and the carnage in the 1940s. The blind forces of nature could not then be blamed for it. No, these deeds were unspeakable crimes perpetrated by deliberate human design, scientifically organized and directed by the managers and other hirelings of capitalism, supported and blessed by the church!

That 20 years later this ogre of capitalist war should still have been able to stalk the earth, openly parade his armour, and boast of the ever-growing destructive power of the megation bombs and Polaris craft, will probably be one of the phenomena incomprehensible to a future society no longer afflicted with political mental inertia.

The suffering of the survivors of the earthquake in Yugoslavia has been temporarily mitigated, as usual under capitalism, by charity. Collections and other assistance have been organised by many countries, but when these helpful channels dry up, the surviving victims will, as usual, be left to their wretched fate.

Some details in connection with this disaster should be put on record, if only to nail the lie and show the hollowness of the assertion that capitalism has been abolished somewhere and replaced by a new and better social system. You may indeed ask how the mass of the people in Yugoslavia can be made to now accept a regime of despotism equal to that of Hitler—the squashing of democracy, the setting up of a Yugoslav Gestapo, forced labour camps, and prison for political opponents of the regime, supply the answer to that question. It is fear of persecution—the fate of Milovan Djilas' (seven years’ prison for free expression of opinion and publishing a book The New Class) it is government terror that makes people under ruthless dictatorship acquiesce in the horrible regime of State capitalism masquerading under the name of communism.

Among the many helpers of the earthquake victims, neighbouring Austria showed a quite remarkable zeal in assisting the great efforts to alleviate the distress. even though there is at all times great poverty, homelessness and helplessness in her own country. Poignant tales of human misery' and tragedies fill the columns of the daily Press. Who here has not read of evicted families with eight and more children seeking to spend the night in public parks or in ruined houses before being removed by the Police to some barracks? Every autumn every house in Vienna carries a big poster appealing for funds to help the needs and destitute by supporting the innumerable charitable institutions up and down the country. Our letter boxes are constantly filled with appeals for assistance to the countless local poor. But how much greater is the poverty behind the iron curtain and the helplessness in emergencies such as an earthquake!

So, in addition to all the funds the Viennese business firms and newspapers collected, and the trucks full of clothing, bedding, blankets, tents and toys sent to Skopje, a Welfare organisation under the auspices of the Arbeiler-Zeitung also invited seventy orphans to come to Vienna, where they would be taken care of as the guests of the organisation. Everything was prepared down to the minutest detail, and the children duly arrived at Marburg on the iron curtain border, where Austrian officials had previously arrived to receive the children and see them safely to Vienna. Here also the children were to have a grand reception by the Bürgermeister and a staff of welfare officials.

But—sad to relate the orphans never got beyond Marburg. Instead of proceeding to Vienna, they had to go back to the communist paradise. Not that there are no wonderful places in Yugoslavia, but these are not for the poverty-stricken wage slaves or the victims of earthquakes—they are for the new class, the new bourgeoisie.

Why had the orphaned children to be sent back?

Apparently the Yugoslav dictator and his close circle had been too busy with the preparations for a right royal reception of their Soviet visitors to he able to supervise and check up on all arrangements made by their underlings. Anyway, when the higher quarters learned of these particular welfare arrangement, the children’s exit from the communist paradise and their journey to “capitalist Austria” was stopped. The underlings in charge of the Skopje victims had received their instructions, plus lessons in communist superior “statesmanship" and diplomacy, the orphans had to remain in Yugoslavia, and Tito's preparations for his trip abroad (this time to America) on his luxury yacht, as befits a ruler, could proceed without further worries. What does the disappointment of poor children—not to speak of the zealous welfare organizers—matter to communist despots with axes to grind?

With humble expressions of regret, but undeterred by this snub, the Arbeiter-Zeitung sent all the clothing in a big truck-load to the Yugoslav children who of course were overjoyed with the gifts. According to a reporter, the coats and other garments were the first they had had in their lives. Obligingly, hardly any other newspaper commented on this episode and on the embarrassment of a so called communist government in its utter failure to cope with an emergency. With the exception of belatedly refusing the foreign help offered to the seventy Skopje orphans, this “communist ” government was not too proud to decline other western assistance and gifts to its poor people.

If, after 46 years of existence, further evidence was still needed to show the cold-blooded swindle, and demolish the impudent assertion that Yugoslavia, Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Albania and China are communist, recent developments and experiences there should provide that final evidence. Or will the working class, of Czechoslovakia, for example, for ever ignore such almost unbelievable episodes as those of the nine of the eleven prominent Czech communist politicians hanged in 1952, and now rehabilitated as not guilty of the accusations levelled against them 11 years ago? And will the fiasco of the Moscow so called Ideological Conference also be passed over in true capitalist style, like world-wars, as all in the days work?

Rudolf Frank

Finance and Industry: For the record (1963)

The Finance and Industry Column from the December 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

For the record

Britain's industrial revolution was powered by coal and forged in iron. It was the Darby's of Coalbrookdale, a family of ironmasters, who pioneered the technique of first coking the coal which in turn enabled the use of English ores; in less than half a century, coal and iron between them had transformed the face of England. Since then coal has lost ground to oil, but iron and steel continue to dominate the economy of world capitalism.

It was iron that provided a material strong enough to stand up to steam and so paved the way for Watt’s engines. Industry was able to get away from the rivers and streams and its dependence on waterwheels. Hundreds of miles of canals were built in no time to cope with the increased demands of the blast furnaces for coal. Roads were built to carry away the manufactures.

In the I850's, iron gave way to steel with the developments introduced by Bessemer and Siemens of using “blowers” to raise the furnace temperature and get rid of the impurities in the iron. Since then there have been further improvements, using electric furnaces for special steels and, very recently, the use of oxygen instead of air for the blast. At the same time, as the industry has grown bigger and bigger, more use has been made of the integrated plant principle whereby all the processes of steelmaking are concentrated on the same site- hence the growth of the huge complexes which are the dominant feature today.

These installations need vast capital resources. United States Steel, the biggest producer in the world, has a share capital of over £1,000 million and its nearest rival. Bethlehem Steel, more than £500 million. The world is now scoured for iron-ore; mountains of it are literally taken away and transported thousands of miles to the furnaces. Marvels of engineering construction are built to load and unload it and bulk carriers of up to 100,000 tons ply a ferry service across the oceans. More and more, the furnaces are migrating to the coast to eliminate transport costs—the result is the huge new plants at Newport and Dunkirk, and the proposed giant complex at Rotterdam.

In the Darby’s time, a firm was big if it produced a thousand tons of iron a year; nowadays it is in economic danger if it produces less than a million, or even two million, tons. Steel is still one of the pillars of capitalism’s economy—it is still the barometer that can forecast whether the economy is set fair, or there are storms ahead, or just a period of doldrums.

As usual under capitalism, the tendency is towards bigger and bigger units. There are still absorptions and amalgamations going on, and more and more does an annual output of 2 million tons seem the minimum unit for present day efficiency and competitiveness. In the following table, showing the “top twenty” producers in the world excluding Russia and China, the minimum is actually about 2$ million tons a year.

The most striking impression from the figures is, of course, the overwhelming preponderance of the American firms, particularly U.S. steel, which on its own has a greater output of steel than the whole of the U.K. It is also interesting to note the apparently greater fragmentation of the British industry. United Steel is the only British firm to appear, in the table and there is only one other, the Steel Company of Wales, in the next ten, whereas there are three further German companies, three French, and one Japanese.

We hope to take a further look into the international steel industry in a later issue.

Rivalry v. Safety

We do not need to labour the point about the intense competition existing at present in the aviation industry. What with the excitement over Australia’s decision to buy American TFX's instead of British TSR-2's, the race between the Anglo/French Concord and the U.S. Mach 2 airliner; and the current struggle of B.A.C. to get their V.C.-10 into the air commercially before the Douglas D.C.-9; the aeroplane manufacturers must really be having a worrying time of it.

It was thus a major setback for B.A.C. when their prototype V.C.-I0 crashed recently, apparently as a result of trouble with the tail assembly.

As is well known, the V.C.-10 carries on a technique, engines set well back in the rear, that was developed originally by the French company, Sud-Aviation, with their Caravelle. And it is with Sud- Aviation that B.A.C. are developing the new supersonic Concord.

It has also been known for some time that the V.C.-10 has been running into snags with this particular tail assembly—only a few months ago B.A.C. announced publicly that they had had to modify it. Strong rumour also has it that the Caravelle went through similar troubles in its early development stages. What more natural, then, that B.A.C. should ask Sud-Aviation—after all, their collaborators in the Concord—for details of their earlier experiences of putting engines under the tail?

And what sort of an answer do you think they got? A very dusty one, according to an Insight report in the Sunday Times of October 27 -“Sud-Aviation would disclose nothing.”

A few months later, the V.C.-10 crashed, killing all its crew. There may conceivably be other crashes before the makers discover what is happening to the tail assembly.

In the meantime, the Caravelle flies on, with hardly a competitor. And the longer the V.C.-10 takes to get commercially off the ground the longer will Sud-Aviation enjoy this happy state of affairs. Co-operation may be all very well but under capitalism one must be very careful not to carry it too far.

Stan Hampson

50 Years Ago: The taxation of land values (1963)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

In dealing with the question of Taxation of Land Values it must be remembered that the advocates of this measure, from Henry George to Joseph Hyder, always assumed the retention of capitalism in all its other features.

Under such conditions there is no difference in principle between taxing land and taxing lace. Both are cases of the Governmental powers being used to take wealth from members of society for general purposes—as wise old Benjamin Franklin saw.

Taxation is, of course, necessary under capitalism, and the only question is, how shall the “burden” be apportioned among the taxpayers—the capitalist class. The land-owning section are quite sure the “burden” should not be placed on them, while the industrial capitalists are equally certain that they should not be called upon to pay. Hence the minor quarrel between them over taxes.

But under capitalism the joining together of these two sections into a land-owning industrial capitalist group is steadily increasing. For them the problem is solved. From the general capitalist standpoint the portion of wealth best able to bear the “burden” of taxation is land, as it disturbs the production and distribution of commodities— the great factor of capitalism—less than any other method of raising the sum required. Hence large landowners who happen to be still more largely interested in industry, favour taxation of land values, to the great bewilderment of “the man in the street,” who finally explains a landowner being in favour of taxing land by the theory that he is ”a good man.”

Except, then, as an indication of the development of capitalism, and the concentration of both land and industrial capital into fewer hands, taxation of land values, even up to 20s. in the £, no more leads to Socialism than would taxation of toffee. On the contrary, it would merely be one of the steps in the more efficient organisation of capitalism for the benefit of the capitalists.

['The Forum: Taxation of Land Values' by Jack Fitzgerald, December 1913 Socialist Standard.]

A Tory View of China (1963)

From the December 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

In an article in the Sunday Times on October 6th Sir Fitzroy Maclean, M.P., described the conditions he found on a recent visit and expressed the view that the peasants are better off than they were before the Communist Party got control of the government:

It is true that by one method or another they are regimented and made to toe the line. But they do not, as they used to, have the fear of actual starvation always hanging over their heads. Nor are they perpetually harassed by the rent collector and the money-lender or by the marauding war lords and bandits who caused such havoc.

He sees China developing militarily and economically and aiming to dominate Asia. He also noted that, despite the abuse the Chinese and Russian Communists hurl at each other there is one thing both countries (and all other countries) have in common:

In China, as elsewhere, how you live and what you buy depends on how much money you have. And who, it will be asked, has the money? The answer, as in the Soviet Union, is: the privileged classes, Officials, high-ranking officers, scientists, technicians, skilled workers and so on. But to those must be added a small and peculiarly Chinese category: the Communist Capitalists. These, surprisingly enough are the former owners of, for example, factories, whose enterprises have been taken over by the State and who receive annually from the State as compensation a percentage of the capital value of the enterprise. As they are also very often employed as managers of the factory, some of them are extremely well off.

Edgar Hardcastle

BEA’s hidden profits (1963)

From the December 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

In case any of our readers should misunderstand the intention behind the phrase “ . . . B.E.A. pointed out how generous a deal its shareholders have got . . in October’s News In Review, we publish the following clarification.

There are no shareholders or stockholders in B.E.A. or B.O.A.C. so there are no individual investors who have an interest in whether the corporations make a profit or loss.

Under the Air Corporations Act 1949 Sections 9 and 10 the corporations were authorized to issue stock (subject to permission having been given by the Treasury) and the stock carried Treasury guarantee for interest and capital. Both corporations had issues of stock. For example, B.O A. 3% stock 1960/70, B.O.A. 2½% stock 1977/82. However, under a later act, the Finance Act, 1956, the corporations were permitted to raise money by means of loans from the Exchequer with the result that these Exchequer advances have replaced the old arrangements of stock issues.

But, even under the old arrangements there were no investors who had any interest in whether the corporations made a loss or a profit. Though the stock bore the name of B.O.A. or B.E.A., they were fixed interest stocks and the interest and capital were guaranteed by the Treasury. In this respect the air corporations were following the arrangements which are fairly general throughout the nationalised industries.

Editorial Committee.

Unemployment in Yugoslavia (1963)

From the December 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

A number of people have asked us for the source of the figures on unemployment in Yugoslavia given in the September SS. The figures were taken from the International Labour Review's statistical supplement, June 1963. According to the supplement the figures show registered unemployed from "employment office statistics". It is interesting to note that Peking Review (27'9/63), an English language magazine from China, gives the following figures in an article on Yugoslavia. “According to official statistics,” says the article, “ in February, 1963 the number of the unemployed reached 339.000, or about 10 per cent of the number of the employed. In addition. every year many workers go abroad seeking work.”

Adam Buick

SPGB Meetings (1963)

Party News from the December 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

World Socialist Radio - Abolish the Wages System (2025)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Abolish The Wages System: Why We Need To Get Rid Of Capitalism by The Socialist Party of Great Britain

This episode is a recording of a talk given by Johnny Mercer at The Socialist Party’s Head Office on 30th November 2025.

The speaker outlines the Socialist Party of Great Britain’s case for abolishing the wage system, arguing that capitalism is rooted in minority ownership of the means of production and in production for profit rather than human need. They reject the idea that capitalism emerged naturally, instead tracing its origins to violent dispossession – from the Enclosures and Highland Clearances in Britain to slavery and colonialism globally – which created a propertyless working class forced to sell its labour. Drawing on Marx, the talk emphasises the exploitative and alienating nature of wage labour, detailing how workers are separated from the products of their work, the labour process, each other, nature, and ultimately their own human potential. Capitalism’s pursuit of endless growth is linked to ecological destruction, and global conflict is framed as competition between capitalist interests fought at the expense of the working class.

The second half outlines the principles of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, founded in 1904 as a breakaway from reformist movements and committed to a leaderless, democratic, revolutionary transformation. The speaker defines socialism as a stateless, moneyless society based on common ownership and production for need, stressing that emancipation must be won consciously by the working class itself. They argue that all other political parties – including those considered left-wing – ultimately support capitalism, offering only reforms rather than systemic change. The talk concludes by urging workers to unite under the SPGB’s banner to replace capitalism’s inequalities with a society grounded in freedom, equality, and genuine human solidarity.

World Socialist Radio is the official podcast of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. We have one single aim: the establishment of a society in which all productive resources – land, water, factories, transport, etc. – are taken into common ownership, and in which the sole motive for production is the fulfilment of human needs and wants.

RSS Feed for Abolish The Wages System: Why We Need To Get Rid Of Capitalism.

To read more news, views, and analysis please visit: worldsocialism.org/spgb

Syndicalism, its cause and cure. (1912)

Book Review from the December 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Syndicalism and the General Strike – by Arthur D. Lewis. (London; T. Fisher Unwin. Price 7s 6d)

As the only party in Great Britain that has taken up a definite and consistent attitude towards Anarchism in all its forms, it is meet that we should have something to say on the latest work on Syndicalism that has been published.

We have adopted a frankly hostile policy to this latest importation for the simple reason that we are a Socialist party. The sorry plight of those so-called Socialist bodies like the B. S. P. and the I. L. P. is a natural result of their lack of principles based on a correct knowledge of the position of our class. Inside the former body there is a heated controversy, both among the “leaders” and the rank and file, as to whether Syndicalism is the road for the workers to travel. The curious position of the I. L. P. is shown by their advocacy of the General Strike at the International Labour Congress as a weapon against war!

The cause of Syndicalism lies in the history of these and similar parties. In the Blatchford section they have literally bred Syndicalism by their disgusting election tricks, so often exposed in these pages. Their former members, now Syndicalists, point to the vote-hunting, compromising campaigns of Bethnal Green and Northampton, along with others, as showing the failure and danger of political action. The Independent Labour Party, too, has so treacherously played the part of advance agents of the Liberal party that from political opportunism their supporters right-about-turn to denounce political action altogether  — not that they understand Syndicalism any more than its leading votaries, but believing it to be anti-political, they seek shelter beneath its slogans and formulas.

Our statement of the cause of Syndicalism is supporter by the Syndicalist author of the book under review, who states (p. 187) that: –

“There are practically only one or two Syndicalists in England, but discontent with the degree of success obtained through the Parliamentary Labour Party has led to a general return to trade unionism and strikes as a means of fighting the employers . . . The belief that at least one member of the party bargains with the Liberal Government with a view to his personal advantage; the moderation of its words in Parliament compared with its words on the platform; the incapacity of many members of it, who are only dolls in the hands of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald; the acceptance by certain of its members of paid posts given by the Liberals; and its love of Puritanism, have all helped to cause a feeling of disappointment and disillusionment in many who once trusted and believed in it.”

That, then, is the cause of the spread of Syndicalism. It is clearly shown by this that Syndicalism thrives on ignorance. Only mis-educated, non Socialist workers would ever trust the Labour Party, would ever expect them to look after the toilers’ interests; and when the failure of their political inaction is realised, it is not the political method itself that has been found wanting, but it is the lack of sound knowledge on the workers’ part that is demonstrated. Because the political machine has been used in a capitalist direction the Syndicalist and his dupes proclaim the failure of politics!

The present book consists chiefly of quotations from the works of the Syndicalist leaders of to-day throughout Europe, and the author ventures his opinions very little. When he does so, he shows not only that he does not understand Syndicalism, but that he understands Socialism still less. In the preface he declares Socialism to mean that “huge State monopolies are to be formed in all industries, and that these will be controlled by a few very powerful officials at Westminster”.

This is typical of the misrepresentation that the Syndicalists feed their followers on. If Mr. Lewis would consult what he calls an “orthodox” Socialist, say Frederick Engels, he would find that Socialism rises upon the ashes of the State, for when Socialism comes the day of the State has closed for ever.

Though the title of the work is Syndicalism and the General Strike, only one chapter is devoted wholly to the latter question. The chief part deals with the theory of Syndicalism and Syndicalists.

Our author tells us that “the Syndicalist likes poor unions best — riches bring caution: he likes low weekly dues and small benefits”. Rather we would say, the average Syndicalist likes no dues and many benefits. We are promised much melodrama and but little organisation and education by his statement that: “The great weapon of the workers against their masters is disorder”. And one phase is described as “sabôtage or the destruction of property, intimidation of masters, sitting in factories with folded arms so no blacklegs can take your places, leaving work at an hour earlier than the masters want, telling the truth to customers: all these are means by which the masters can be made to yield”.

What they are to be made to yield by these means we are not told. But anyone can realise that while these things may prove aggravating to the isolated employer, and make him more bitter against the music-hall revolutionists, yet if this kind of thing was general, all the employers being on the same footing, they would feel its effects very little.

But to keep this conduct up the workers would need the power, not merely to personate George Washington, but to take control of the entire means of life; not to leave at an earlier hour than the masters desire, but to leave masters altogether. The crude notions of these folk are brought forward in the idea of “sitting with folded arms” while the masters want food, clothing, etc. for their daily needs. Sabotage, like all Syndicalist methods, is born of the want of sound knowledge and strong organisation.

Despite the fact that the author declares that the General Confederation of Labour in France “contains both a reformist and a revolutionary section”, and that the latter is “the minority of a minority of a minority — only some of the members of the C. G. T. being revolutionists and the C. G. T. itself only representing a minority of the unions” — despite that, however, the Anarchists miscalled revolutionists have a governing influence in the organisation, and have made its actions both comedies and tragedies.

They don’t believe in democracy. As the leading French Syndicalist, Émile Pouget, says in the work quoted — “The Syndicalist” — “Syndicalism and democracy are the two opposite poles which exclude and neutralise each other . . . This is because democracy is a social superfluity, a parasitic and external excrescence, while Syndicalism is a logical manifestation of the growth of life”, etc. Another French leader, M. Pierrot, is quoted as saying in “Syndicalism and Revolution” : “It is better to have an active group who know how to carry the masses and turn them in the right direction by their words and actions” . “The Syndicalist”, says our author “has contempt for the vulgar idea of democracy: the inert, unconscious mass is not to be taken into account when the minority wishes to act so as to benefit it”.

That is the key note. The ‘intellectual’ few are to dominate the many. Not democracy but autocracy and dictatorship. The day of  a revolution carried out on these lines would also be the day of counter-revolution, the day of disaster, of drilled, unthinking masses being driven to the New Jerusalem. The day of revolution would but be the prelude to the long, black night of apathy and despair.

 

The Socialist Party, however, clings fast to democracy in organisation and in action. It knows that the real, reliable movement can only be built up with an alert, awakened, interested working class. That alone can bring about emancipation — not a few leaders hypnotising an ignorant rank and file.

Syndicalism means but a change of leaders. As Gaylord Wilshire’s (the wealthy Syndicalist) magazine declares (November 1912): “The new movement calls for new leaders”. And again: “The new conditions must bring forth a new type of leader, powerful, inspiring, and heroic”. Leadership, not a live membership doing their own work in their own way, that is the ideal. Mr. Lewis points out that unions with small funds are wanted, for, says he, “where funds are large the workers are made to vote for or against a strike”, thus showing that the Syndicalist objects to the will of the worker being expressed and acted upon.

“Syndicalism has an immediate programme. It would have the unions look to it that there are meeting places for working men, where there will be lectures, baths, and all that helps them to learn how to take control of production and consumption; also the officials, with professional help, should get for the workers their legal rights and place medical and legal advice at their disposal.”

So anxious are they about reforms that they even worry about legal rights. Fancy hungering after the rights conferred by lawyers and by Parliament! But it is not surprising, for above all else the Syndicalists are reformers. Without economic knowledge or political insight, what else could they be? The English Syndicalist, Mr. Tom Mann declares (“A Twofold Warning”) that poverty can be abolished under capitalism, and he also says: “I contend that reducing the working hours provides a solution for the problem of unemployment, and it matters not what system obtains”. With this rot they make converts among the ignorant, yet any tyro in economics could prove to him that the reserve army of labour is the corner-stone of capitalism, and that the shortening of hours doesn’t mean the lessening of the product of the same number of men. The Chief Inspector of Mines just reports that in spite of the Eight Hours Day Bill, and the strikes last year, over seven million tons more coal were produced than in 1912, and on the average every miner’s output increased three tons. This is typical of the whole industrial world.

Syndicalists claim great things for their strikes and sabotage. Something now! “The use of trade union labels is regarded as an instance of direct action”. The free advertisement of particular employers! Further we are told that by sabotage “bread has been made inedible but not injurious” — a kind of general “hunger strike” forced upon the working class.

But the sad story of Spanish, French and Italian strikes and sabotage has somewhat dimmed the picture. Yvetot, the chief of the C. G. T., in his ABC of Syndicalism, confesses that “the principle obstacle to a revolution is the army . . . When the Government does not use the army to replace strikers, it makes soldiers into massacrers of workmen”. What, then, is the use of the General Strike? What can it do against the army? As Yvetot says, the army massacres the strikers. In Italy, we are told (p. 104): “A general strike of railway workers was attempted in 1905 as a protest against a new attempt to introduce the (strike smashing) law; it failed and the law was passed. Men were shot down by the soldiers in 1907 and there was a renewal of a wide-spread strike. The strikers were defeated, and it was said that 20,000 men, or one third of all the men on the railways, were punished, either by imprisonment, discharge from the service, fines, or degradation of rank.”

Arturo Labriola, the leading Italian Syndicalist, shows the similarity between Syndicalism and capitalism. He says: “You can imagine that a Syndicat for a certain trade could contain all the workers in a single branch of industry, could contract on uniform conditions with all the capitalists on behalf of these workers, and would form a kind of common treasury of all the profits, to be distributed according to a rule of exalted justice to all its members  . . . This process could go further. It can be imagined that at a certain point of its development the workers’ union might hire the capital of the capitalists for a fixed return and then use it co-operatively, either working in one mass or constructing so many separate co-operative bodies each having separate and distinct accounts.”

And he goes on: “Syndicates, as organisms opposed to monopoly, and therefore open to all, would enthusiastically receive the capitalists of yesterday become the companions of to-day, and would make use of their indisputable directive and administrative ability.”

Before leaving the General Strike theory it is useful to note the words of Mr. Ben Tillett, quoted in the book. Speaking after the 1911 Transport strike was over he said (Glasgow, 11.2.12): “A  week before the strike a Cabinet Minister pleaded with me in a tearful voice to stop the strike. Of course, this pleading was unheeded until the men got what they wanted”.

Yet within six months of that speech the transport workers were fighting fir the very demands they had “won” the year before! And what a cruel comment was the suffering of that historic defeat on the “efficacy of the strike” idea!

The general strike of miners and other strikes in England bring home the lessons of the Socialist. Whilst the strike, local or industrial, may effect improvement for the time, slavery remains. Whilst the threat of a general strike may induce concessions, it cannot bring a solution. The best results of economic unity can only be effected by class-conscious toilers who recognise the need for class action, class union, for working class ends; who realise that, as the road to emancipation lies in control of political power, political action is a vital necessity.

The cure for Syndicalism is education in the Socialist principles and policy. There is no substitute for a Socialist working class seeking its salvation through the political struggle. When the toilers understand Socialism they will have no room in their minds for the sophisms and fallacies of Syndicalism.

Adolph Kohn

Aphorisms of Socialism: [VIII.] (1912)

From the December 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Aphorism VII.

Being an explanation of the Declaration of Principles of the S.P.G.B.

Aphorism VIII.

It now remains but to consider the general conclusions which logic demands shall be drawn from the seven aphorisms which have occupied our attention. For this purpose a brief recapitulation will be useful.

The implication of our first clause is that

1. The basis of the present social system is the private, sectional ownership of the means of living.
2. This property condition divides society into two classes—possessors and non-possessors.
3. The class of non-possessors must exist where there is a set of social conditions which, involving at the outset the sale of their labour-power in the competitive market, makes them the sole producers of the wealth of society, without giving them any share in the control of that wealth. This condition is expressed by the phrase “the enslavement of the working class.”

Our second aphorism follows as the logical deduction from the first. It asserts that as society is divided into two classes, one of which lives upon the labour of the other, there is an antagonism of interests between the two classes, and that this antagonism of interests induces a class struggle.

The implication of the third is that the antagonism of interests, and therefore the class struggle, can only be abolished by the abolition of the cause—the condition which the first aphorism states is the base of the whole social fabric; that is, the ownership of the means of living, and the substitution therefor of common ownership of these things.

The next aphorism pronounces that the workers, in emancipating themselves, will emancipate the whole of humanity “without distinction of race or sex” and it is next declared that only the working class itself can be the instrument of this emancipation.

The sixth aphorism states that the machinery of government, including the armed forces, is merely the instrument for maintaining the present social basis and the oppression of the workers which necessarily proceeds from this basis, and it deduces therefrom the conclusion that the workers must organise, consciously and politically, first, for the capture of this machinery of government, and secondly, having done this, to convert it into the agent of emancipation.

The implication of the last aphorism is that, as there are only two classes, and therefore only two class interests, which are diametrically opposed, the political party of the workers must be opposed to all other political parties.

That is a brief summary of the implications of the seven aphorisms which have been set out in these pages.

Now what attitude do logic and common-sense impose upon those who believe these implications to be fundamental truths?

First of all they must elevate them into the position of principles, of guides for their every step and activity in the direction of the economic betterment of their class. Their course of action will then be clear.

If it is true that the basis of present society is the class ownership of the land, factories, and other means of living, then every feature characteristic of, and peculiar to, the working class as such—the weary toil, the insecurity of livelihood, the grinding poverty, the enforced idleness, the cruel cheating of childhood’s pleasures, the hopeless outlook of old age, the thousand and one brutal, humiliating and painful details that make up the miserable total of the workers’ cankered existence—can be referred to that class ownership of property.

The very central point of the workers’ attack, then, beyond all dispute, is this social base. the class ownership of the means of life. The possessors must be dispossessed.

If it is true that the machinery of Government, including the armed forces, exists only to preserve that social base, then, clearly, the barrier of the machinery of government must be surmounted before the social base can be interfered with. The method, therefore, must be political while and where that method is possible. The political power must be captured through the ballot, in order that the control of the machinery of government, including the armed forces, shall pass into the hands of the working class.

We must enter the field of political action in order to capture political power, with the object of using it as the means of dispossessing the propertied class.

If it is true that all political parties are but the expression of class interests, then political parties must be exactly as antagonistic and irreconcilable as the interests they express. The logic of this is inexorable. And if it is true that there are but two classes in society, and that their interests are diametrically opposed and irreconcilable, then the political party of the working class must be at all times and in all places, utterly opposed to every other political party.

Hence the policy of the party seeking working-class emancipation must, under conditions identical with those obtaining in this country, be identical with that expressed in the final clause of the Declaration of Principles of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, which declares that: —

“The Socialist party of Great Britain, therefore, enters the field of political action determined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist.”

This is the only policy for a party holding the principles set forth and explained in these articles, the only policy of a party (under the given conditions) seeking working-class emancipation, the only policy for a party aspiring to establish “a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, by and in the interest of the whole community,” the only policy of a Socialist party.

Let every man and woman of the working class, therefore, who is interested in the welfare of that class, who is weary and sick at heart with the miserable tragedy of the workers’ position, take up the premises of the Socialist principles and examine them, Let him (or her) take them up as a challenge to his intellect, and either convince himself of their truth or prove their falsity. Let him then bring his actions into line with his convictions, rejecting the Socialist principles if he finds them unsound, but adopting them and cleaving to them if he finds them true and unassailable.

True, these principles and the policy they dictate offer nothing but battle and victory—nothing but the last arduous campaign of the class struggle—and the fruits thereof. But it is sufficient. It must not be exchanged for the power and pelf of office and a place near the fleshpots of Egypt for a few who dub themselves Labour leaders.

We who know the class to which we belong, and build up all our hopes on our faith in the capacity of its intellect, know that it will not be so exchanged. We know that the working class, as a class, is capable of judging all things for itself, and of marching on to its emancipation under the guidance of its own avowed principles, without leaders or use for leaders, to its emancipation.

A. E. Jacomb

THE END

Aphorisms of Socialism: [VII.] (1912)

From the November 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Aphorism VI.

Being an explanation of the Declaration of Principles of the S.P.G.B.

Aphorism VII.

As all political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class, the party seeking working class emancipation must be hostile to every other party.

The political machine, as we have endeavoured to show, is essentially an instrument of class government. It does not anywhere come into existence until society has assumed a class form — until there has developed within society a class who govern and a class who are governed.

The political machine exists to preserve order in society according to the existing basis of that society; but just as there can exist sections with opposing sectional interests within the ruling class of a given society, so that political machinery can be wielded in different directions to further the several interests of those warring sections of the ruling class – and that without in any way threatening the social base.

Political parties consist of those who organise to gain control of or at least to exert their influence upon, the political machine, in order to advance their interests as they understand them.

But if it appears from this that capitalist political parties rather indicate sectional than class interests, it must not be forgotten that this is merely because these parties, comprising sections of the ruling class, are at one with the basis upon which their position as a ruling class is founded.

Though it is true that each of these sections will use the political machinery in a slightly different way, this difference can only apply to matters of superficial detail. In anything deeper than this every political party among the ruling class stands for the interest of that ruling class.

This is inevitable. Before these sections can exist as such those comprised in them must be a ruling class. Before the landed interest can clash with the manufacturing interest both the landowner and the factory-owner must be established in privilege on a private property basis. Before Tariff Reform or Protection can become burning questions of the day, those whose sectional interest is wrapped up in either detail of capitalism must first have their deeper interests identified with one and founded upon the capitalist system.

The class interest, therefore, is paramount; in the last resort it overshadows all sectional interests. Indeed, the fact that sectional interests loom so large in capitalist party politics at the present day is no proof of the importance of those interests but is evidence only of the weakness of the pressure exerted politically by the opposing class.

The truth of this is seen in the tendency of capitalists to “close the ranks” against any political party which, in fact or in their idea, threatens their class interest, and the increasing pressure of the organised political party of the workers is destined to reveal with the utmost clearness the fact that capitalist parties stand primarily for capitalism and for the capitalist class — is destined to reveal it by exhibiting them a united party at bay with revolution.

There are certain so-called political parties such as the I.L.P., the B.S.P., and Labour Party, and in Scotland, the S.L.P. who, it might be argued, are not covered by the above remarks, but in reality these have no separate political existence. Two of them are nothing but appendages of the Liberal Party, one is trying which wing of the capitalist bird of prey it can find most comfort (if any) under. As for the remaining group, they have postponed political action until it will not be required — until the workers have gained in the teeth of the political machine all that they could gain with it. They have cut their political throats with the anarchist razor, and by this contribution to anarchy, to say nothing of other matters, have added their service to the preservation of capitalism.

As a matter of fact all political parties must express the interest of one or other of the only two classes in society. In this connection, Frederic Engels finely says (“Origin of the Family,” Kerr & Co. p. 211): “For as long as the oppressed class, in this case the proletariat, is not ripe for its economic emancipation, just so long will its majority regard the existing order of society as the only one possible, and form the tail, the extreme left wing, of the capitalist class.”

This is strictly true, and therefore, not only was it inevitable that these pseudo-Socialist and Labour parties, composed as they are, of a working class element which is “not ripe for its economic emancipation,” should express capitalist interests, but it was inevitable that they should express the sectional brand of capitalist class interest appertaining to the particular phase of capitalism by which they are immediately environed – namely, the manufacturing interest, as expressed in the Liberal Party.

Hence, despite their pretended hostility at the moment, the eventual destiny of the B.S.P. is the Liberal fold – just as soon as its leaders can get their price.

The political activities of all who are not ripe for their economic emancipation must necessarily express capitalist interest, for the simple reason that they are helping to maintain the existing order of society. This is so even if they managed to gain admission to a sound, revolutionary organisation. There they work out the ruling-class interest by weakening the revolutionary attack – probably the worst form opposition to working-class emancipation can take.

The interests expressed or reflected, and striven for, by political parties, therefore, fall into two main groups – capitalist and working-class. These are diametrically opposed, since they involve wage-slavery on the one hand and emancipation on the other. The position of the party seeking working-class emancipation, then, must clearly be one of uncompromising hostility to all other political parties. It does not materially matter whether these parties are organisations of working men with capitalist ideas or avowedly capitalist organisations with a working-class tail.

The object of the last is to secure working-class votes, because, as Engels puts it: “The possessing class rules directly through universal suffrage” – and the vast bulk of that suffrage is working-class. In this object they find, increasingly as the workers get a dim idea that their masters’ politics are not their own, great assistance in the pseudo-Socialist parties. These parties, led by men on the look-out for billets and personal aggrandisement, spread confusion by teaching the workers that the difference between themselves and the capitalists is merely one of personality, and not of class, principle and system; that the difference between their interests and their masters’ is so slight that for the “immediate end” of getting a Labour leader into Parliament, that difference can be composed, the battle stopped, and the two rival classes work together politically.

This is, where it is conscious, the worst form of treachery, in as much as it prevents the working class realising the fundamental antagonism of interests between themselves and their exploiters. It prevents them, therefore, becoming “ripe for their economic emancipation,” and from organising politically as a class, apart from and hostile to those who hold them in bondage, ever seeking, working, fighting for deliverance from their chains.

Again, as Engels says: “Universal suffrage is the gauge of the maturity of the working class.” The ballot is indeed the means of gauging the working-class strength and maturity, and for that reason it must be kept free from compromise and the entanglement of alliances. It must stand as the clear index of the progress made by working class consciousness, the clock ticking off the last moments of our long slavery. To this purpose it is scared. If, however, it is to have any significance of this character, it must indicate a working-class mind free from the obsession of capitalist illusions. This is a final reason why the party seeking working-class emancipation must be hostile to every other political party.

The political struggle of the workers must of necessity be waged along class lines, for it is one form of the highest phase of the class struggle. It is on the political field that the sternest battle of all is to be fought. That fight is not for mere votes as such, but for the enthroning of the REVOLUTIONARY IDEA in the seat of power. The enemy, then, is no less the political ignorance of our own class than the educated master class, therefore we must attack that ignorance, even when it is organised in so-called working class political parties, just as relentlessly as we attack the orthodox parties of our masters.

A.E. Jacomb

Aphorisms of Socialism: [VI.] (1912)

From the October 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Aphorisms IV & V.

Being an explanation of the Declaration of Principles of the S.P.G.B.

Aphorism VI.

As the machinery of government, including the armed forces of the nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers, the working class must organise consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government, national and local, in order that this machinery, including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation and the overthrow of privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic.

The machinery of government is composed of the governing bodies, from Parliament down to the Parish Councillor the Board of Guardians; the instruments of the law, from the Lord Chief Justice down to the “Labour” J. P. and the armed forces, from the army and navy, down to the policeman, the jailor, and the common hangman.

To say that all these exist merely to conserve to the master class the plunder they wrest from the workers, looks, to the man who views things through the glasses the masters provide for him, very much like “drawing the long bow,” but it is nothing of the kind.

It is often argued that the hangman is necessary to square accounts with the murderer of the working-man’s daughter, that the policeman is the sweet little cherub who sits up aloft and keeps watch and ward over the teapot the prosperous proletarian banks his surplus money in.

Well, what if he does? What if the hangman is the only protection of sweet and innocent seventeen? It does not follow, by any means, that this is anything more than an incidental — that is why these appendages of the present social system exist.

As a matter of fact it is in the very nature of the “State” to wear a mask — to assume a physiognomy that is not, in reality, its own. It exists to maintain “order.” That is the fundamental hypocrisy of its existence. It exists in a false atmosphere of impartiality, as something above the division of class interests, and therefore as competent to deal impartially with petty class squabbles.

But first of all it postulates a social condition which is entirely in favour of the class whose instrument it is, and the basis of that social condition in the present day is the private ownership of wealth.

The “order” which the State maintains must be in harmony with that property condition. Anything which is out of harmony with that basis is disorder, and must be suppressed. Therefore, of course, “order” must include the robbery of the working class.

Under that condition the State and its machinery pretends to be the servant of the whole of the people, but it is ridiculous, on the face of it. The fact that some working men have a little money in a teapot, or that the system breeds a certain number of maniacs or desperate beings against whom society at large needs protection, only serves to obscure the real reason for the maintenance of armed forces.

It is not the private property of the workers that the armed forces of the nation exist to protect. It is not even the private property of the master class that it is primarily maintained to conserved. It is the central point, the pivot, of the present social system — the private property institution which is to be protected.

It is this private property institution that is the vital spark of the capitalist organism, hence its preservation unruptured is of incomparably greater importance than the protection of present property from petty pilferers.

As a matter of fact the State is itself an instrument for the violation of private property, as witness the “Death Duties.” One section of the ruling class may use the machinery of the State to plunder another section, and that without straining a joint of it. But every atom of its composition is formed to resist any attack upon the private property institution.

It was shown in an earlier chapter that the basis of society as at present constituted is the ownership by the master class of the means of living. At the time society was placed upon this basis the machinery of production was in a very different stage of development from that to which it has attained to-day. The steam engine was not invented, and machinery was practically unknown.

The vast strides made by the development of the means and instruments of production have brought about a veritable industrial revolution, but the basis of the social system has not shifted one jot. It was ownership by a section of society of the land, material, factories, and implements of production in the beginning of the capitalist system — it is the same to-day.

How could it be otherwise? The very working of the system itself precludes the broadening of the private ownership so as to include all the people, for the steady tendency of competition has been and is to narrow that base by crushing successive circles out.

The only way in which the base can alter is in the direction of common ownership, and in this direction there is no halfway house. Bits of common ownership cannot exist in a world of private ownership by a class. The case is not the same where, even though private ownership is the rule, it takes the form of ownership of the means of production by those who use them instead of by those who do not. In such a system certain portions of the woods and pastures, for instance, might be commonly owned, as indeed they were under feudalism, and people owning their own products would derive benefit from them.

But where the workers have to sell their labour-power in a competitive market in order to live, the benefit of all property, whatever the legal form of property may be, will accrue to the master class. However it may be called, they have control through their system, which determines that the wealth produced by the working class shall surrender the whole of their labour-power to them at the cost of its production.

If there were any possible way in which the social base could be gradually changed from private ownership to common, it is doubtful if all the armed force could prevent that gradual change taking place — but we should have seen a commencement made long ere this. As a matter of fact not one shred of commonly-owned wealth can be pointed to. Our Post Office is under the control of the master class, who use it to sweat profit out of the workers for the relief of the taxpayer, and to provide fat sinecures for their own sons. Even the “nation’s pictures,” and the public parks, are under the control of the capitalist class, who decide how they shall be conducted, and when they shall be opened or closed. The people have nothing at all to say on these matters.

It is quite impossible, therefore, for the base of present-day society to undergo any process of evolution. Society itself does, but the present base of society cannot. It started in the same form that it now possesses, and it must retain that form until it finishes its career. It came in as private ownership by a class, and as private ownership by a class it must go out.

While it is true that in the long run the social system is determined by the stage of development of the means of producing wealth, the social system and this stage of development may, nevertheless, at a given period be totally out of harmony. Indeed, at recurring periods it must be, at least so long as society is divided into classes. The reason is that while the development of the means of production is not under men’s control, the social system, within certain limits, is. The industrial development, which men cannot arrest, is ever shifting the social centre of gravity, changing dominating values. Thus, at one time, whoever controlled the land controlled society. As industry developed, however, the implements and machinery became of greater importance. This change of values brought another class to the surface – the owners of the factories, machinery, and raw materials. But the industrial development which brought to light this new class did not arrange a social system under which they could reach their highest pinnacle of power; it gave them strength by altering the values of the sources of wealth it gave them education by making the stage of development of industry incongruous with the social base. It prepared the way for a social change but the actual work of bringing the social basis into line with the method of production was left to the initiative of the class whose interests demanded it.

And at the same time the old ruling class, whose interest lay in maintaining the system under which they were paramount, opposed the attack upon that system to the utmost,

The social system, then, is within certain limits under the control of men, Each system that permits of class distinctions favours a given class, and that class naturally employs every means to prevent the system from falling.

It is for this purpose that the present ruling class maintain their army, navy, and police. By means of these they hold back social change until the social basis of sectional private ownership has got to be quite out of harmony with the means of producing wealth by social effort. It follows, therefore, that the revolutionary class must dispossess the capitalists of these armed forces before they can change the social basis.

The machinery of government is controlled through Parliament. Parliament provides the money without which no army or navy can be equipped or maintained. Parliament, which pays the piper, calls the tune to which Jack Tar and Bill Adams must dance. The moral is plain : the working class must organise for the capture of Parliament.

When they have possession of this instrument they will have control of the armed forces, and will be in a position to proceed to the abolition of private property in the means of living and the organisation of industry on the basis of common ownership of the machinery of production and of the product.

The organisation must be consciously for this purpose. That is to say, the organised workers must understand thoroughly the object for which they are organising. The strength of the revolutionary party does not depend, in the time of crisis, upon the number who have been voting for fragments “they believe in,” but upon the number who understand what the Revolution means, and whose adherence is founded upon this understanding.

What is the position of the man who has voted with the Socialist party because he thought they stood for, say, nationalisation of the land, which he believes in, when he finds that they do not stand merely for that by itself, but for the abolition of private property in every social necessary ? He withdraws, and discouragement is bred of his defection. But suppose large numbers have been induced to give support to an object that they do not understand, and therefore cannot believe in, what is the position of a party attempting to take revolutionary action on such a miscalculation of strength? The result might very well be disaster.

Even if it were no worse than a fluctuation of strength at the polls, that would be sufficiently disastrous to condemn such pandering to ignorance, for Socialism must have no backwash, but must clearly indicate, in every trial of strength, the steady advance which is inevitable to it.

But there is another and vastly more momentous reason why the Socialist organisation must be free from political ignorance.

One of the most fruitful causes of working-class apathy in political matters in the past few years has been the way in which so-called Labour leaders have neen bought over by the master class.

A sort of wholesale instance of this is the present Labour (!) Party in the House of Commons. In order to attach to themselves the vote of “organised Labour,” which was raising a cry for a party representing working class interests as the “organised workers” understood them, the Liberals assisted certain “Labour” candidates to scrape into Parliament in divisions where a split vote between “Labourites” and Liberals would let in the Tory.

The result is that “organised Labour” is treated to the spectacle of a “Labour” party putting down amendments that they dare not move for fear the Tories should side with them and defeat the Liberal Government.

There is only one safeguard against this sort of treachery. The working-class party must build-up its strength only on the votes of those who understand the working-class position and working class politics. If this is done the master class will realise that they are up against democracy: that the representative is only the representative; that the “rank and file” crule the roost, and that as the elected person cannot switch votes to one side or another he has nothing to sell. In such case they will realise that all there is left for them to do is to fight him.

All the reasons here set forth demand the utmost clarity of issue. Only the revolutionary is a fit instrument to work for Revolution. It would be placing the Socialist Party in a false position to have them occupying seats to which they had been elected by the votes of those who were not revolutionists , for in the first place they would have to pander to these un-class-conscious voters in order to retain their seats; secondly they would be unable to obey the commandments of their revolutionary coadjutors, for if they did it would involve the alienation of those who did not stand for revolution.

The revolutionary and the reformer are as far as the poles are asunder. The one stands for the abolition of what the other clings to. It is folly, then, to attempt to unite the two in one political organisation. Each must fight for his interest as he understands it – therefore they must fight each other. The place for the reformer is in the master’s camp, for however they may differ as to matters of detail, they do agree to the fundamental point – the necessity for the maintenance of the present system.

It is the duty, then, of Socialists to see that the workers organise consciously for the revolution. To this end they must keep the issue clear. They must do all they can to discourage those who do not understand the meaning of revolutionary politics from attaching themselves to them, either through the political party or through the ballot. They must at all times clearly put forward the principles of Socialism, asking only for the acceptance of those principles. Anyone who intelligently accepts those principles will need no inducement in the way of vaporous promises of reform and palliation. He becomes part of the revolutionary movement, an atom of vital force helping to push it along, instead of an addition to the dead-weight of ignorance and apathy which retards the progress of any forward movement.

Let us stand for Socialism alone, then, without obscuring our teaching and our object with other issues, and therefore without lumbering our backs with paralytics who cannot walk and who won’t be carried. Thus only can we build up a political organisation composed of the sound, healthy material necessary for our purpose. Thus only can we base our actions upon exact knowledge of our strength.

A.E. Jacomb