We are often told by people who do not really understand its meaning, that poverty no longer exists. Largely they mistake poverty for destitution, and think in terms of pre-war days of dole-queues, hunger marches, and the general hardship suffered from not being able to afford sufficient food, clothing and shelter.
Workers who feel secure in their jobs at the moment must bear in mind that the era of full employment was started by the last world war, when a vast amount of industry was smashed up, and the world market at the end of it had six years dearth of consumer goods to make up, and, all the while, massive preparations have gone on for World War III.
If our measure of prosperity is to be that we have all got "jobs,” it still leaves Capitalism, with a great deal to answer for. In the first place, our jobs are not really “ours ” at all, because they can be taken away from us, and today, just as before the war, how long they last depends on how long our employers can sell, at a profit, the things we produce.
Neither poverty, nor destitution, has been abolished, and these evils of Capitalism only smite the useful people of society—the working class. Poverty is not something which depends on what Government is in power, it is a permanent condition of the wage-earning class.
Poverty can be recognised in the existence of hire-purchase; it can be seen amongst the crowds of window-shoppers looking in at the things they cannot afford; it is the reason why workers “save” for holidays, Xmas, clothing or furniture; why they live in low-rent homes; take out insurance against their old age; shop more in Brixton than in Bond Street; buy one necessary thing, and forego others; and generally live from pay-day to pay-day.
There are many other instances of the condition of poverty, but the above will be sufficient to take any heads from the clouds, in order to take a closer look at the world we workers “live’ in. Destitution is always a threatening possibility to wage-earners, as their only source of income is through finding hirers, and, as we shall see, all kinds of dire consequences can follow when the hired are dispensed with. The old age pensioners, the disabled, and the sick, ca still be found destitute, on the pittance doled out by the “Welfare State.” .
One example of the prosperity we are all supposed to be enjoying, comes from a report in the Daily Express of 15th October, 1956. In Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire, the Chamber of Trade is starting a “Black Book” of customers who do not pay. “The idea is to protect traders from people who run up accounts at one shop, and then open accounts at others, when they cannot pay off the first In another town, housewives may be secretly investigated, and find it difficult to open accounts at a second shop, after exhausting credit at the first.”
Mr. Raymond Broad, President of the Chamber said:—
“ Many people who formerly paid cash now want credit. Things are getting more difficult for traders."" Some women in Axminster have been going 10 miles to Honiton, to run up new bills. But a woman who leaves her grocer, when he asks for his money, will find her new grocer more cautious,’ said Mr. Herbert Jeffery, Secretary of Axminster Chamber of Commerced."
We are sure to be told that people who cannot pay the grocer must be buying television sets or motor-cycles but, after 17 years of full employment, for workers to have to choose between paying the radio shop or the grocer, is poverty.
The Daily Express, a day later, carried an even more remarkable story. After we have been told, by Eden and others, of the terrible fate in store for "us,” if “we” lose the Suez Canal, the Express gives an account of what happened to the family of a reservist, who was called back while the Canal dispute raged. The income of Mrs. Bedford was "chopped from £14.16.0 a week, to 16/- for children’s allowances. Food ran out. Her three little daughters, Anne, aged five, Christine, three. Denise, two —began to fret, and then weep with hunger.” The mother “broke open the gas meter at her home in St. Paul’s Road, Middlesbrough. She was found out. Yesterday, she was conditionally discharged, on payment of 15/- costs. The electricity authorities have cut off the current, because she has not paid the last bill.”
It is indeed ironic that the same Capitalist State machine, which took the man away from his work, was responsible for cutting off his electricity, and imposing the Court costs on his wife. Even more remarkable, in view of the story of the Canal being vital to our survival, and the fact that we are told that the public own nationalised electricity.
The eventual allowance from the Army was £4 0s. 6d. per week, and, being a member of the working class, with no property income, Mrs. Bedford had “9d. left out of the allowance, after she had paid:—
Rent £1 8 9Clothes on credit £2 0 0Furniture, H.P. ... 11 0Total £3 19 9
This woman had a child “ recovering from polio,” and “was expecting another baby.” Before her allowance arrived, she had taken sheets and blankets off one of the beds, and gone to the pawnbroker with them. “ He allowed me 18/-. With that, I bought bread, margarine, and milk, and gave them to the kids. They were ravenous.”
The fact that workers do not own the Empire, the oil, or the Country, is often tragically brought home. As the S.P.G.B. pointed out at its formation,“ 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.” (See clause 6 of our Declaration of Principles).
The last example we will give here, is of how the “benevolent” State treats wage-slaves from whom profits cannot be made, as they are too old. It is from a letter to the Sunday Graphic for October 14th, 1956:—
“There are large groups of humans, men and women, who suddenly cease to belong economically to the everyday world that swirls around them, almost over them. They grope and scheme for a little food, a little warmth, and, above everything else, a little security.”
The writer is a pensioner, aged 71, with a semi-invalid wife.
“ We receive a weekly sum of £3 18s. 6d., for all our needs. After budgeting for rent, gas, coal, and clothes, it leaves 6s. a day between us and starvation. And the dread of the winter is on us. The little extra something an old body craves in the winter, is beyond the few shillings needed for sheer necessities to keep alive.”
After going to a rally of the Old Age Pensioners’ Association, and listening to the speeches by the High Sheriff, a padre, and others, about what must be done, "Hope surged again,” and, after the collection was taken, “I trudged back home. My twopenny bus fare was in the plate. The heart and soul shrink from the dreary, hopeless future that stares bleakly at us. For how much longer now? Who knows? Who cares?”
As Socialists, we care about the poverty suffered by workers. We also know how long it will last. It will last as long as the working class are content to work for wages; for as long as they look for solutions to their problems within Capitalism.
Whilst a minority owns the means of production, and profit remains their goal, older workers, who have slowed down, will always have to make way for younger, faster ones. Consideration of human suffering and hardship is a luxury which Capitalism must always place as a poor second to profits. It is only with Socialism that the peoples’ needs will count first
When the means of production are held by society in common, the fruits of our social labour will be available for use. Goods of all kinds will be freely distributed without the barrier of money.
If only workers, young and old, would ponder the possibilities of this sure but simple solution, instead of allowing competing reformist parties to deceive them into the continued support of Capitalism, the misery, poverty, destitution, insecurity, and war threats, with which our whole lives are cursed at present, would be banished for ever.
Harry Baldwin
No comments:
Post a Comment