An Uniformed Dismissal of Marx (2004)

Book Review from the October 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism has not failed, it has never been tried – this is a standard response to anyone who claims that socialism might be a nice idea but has not worked in practice. Recently, however, George Monbiot, in his The Age of Consent (Harper Perennial 2004), has argued that this reply is not valid, on the grounds that the Communist Manifesto “contains, in theoretical form, all the oppressions which were later visited on the people of communist nations”. The politics of Mao and Stalin were, he continues, rigid applications of Karl Marx’s own prescriptions in the Manifesto. Marxism, therefore, has indeed been tried, and has been a disaster for those forced to experience it.

   

The case for Socialism does not depend on every dot and comma of what Marx wrote, but, especially since Monbiot is a writer who enjoys some reputation as a ‘radical’, we feel we should respond to his reasons for dismissing socialist ideas. His discussion in fact contains more mistakes than pages. He refers to dialectical materialism, a phrase never used by Marx, and he wrongly believes that the proletariat consists of just industrial labourers. He thinks Marx was wrong to argue that peasants, shopkeepers, etc. would disappear under capitalism, but surely developments since the Manifesto was written have shown that these social groups do indeed dwindle and individuals in them become wage-workers. According to Monbiot, Marx appointed people like himself to look after workers’ interests, but what he actually wrote was that “in the movement of the present, they [Communists] also represent and take care of the future of that movement”, which is not very clear but certainly cannot bear the interpretation he places on it. He also overlooks another statement in the Manifesto: “The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority.” The dictatorship of the proletariat (an expression not found in the Manifesto or in any of Marx’s works written for publication) would become the dictatorship of a bureaucracy, he claims. Centralising the means of production in the hands of the state would give the new government unprecedented powers – but these centralising proposals were out of date in Marx’s lifetime and are not advocated by socialists now. With the triumph of the proletariat, supposedly, Marx unrealistically envisaged all conflict coming to an end, but in fact this is in no way implied by the description of “an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all”.

   

And here is Monbiot’s conclusion:

“his [Marx’s] political programme, as formulated in the Manifesto, was a dead end. It stands at odds with everything we in the global justice movement claim to value: human freedom, accountability, diversity.”

Besides misinterpreting what the Manifesto says, he ignores the fact that it was written in 1848, before Marx and Engels had been able to learn from the political experiences of the working-class movement. Engels’s preface to the 1888 edition of the Manifesto noted that its principles were still applicable even if some of the points made were outdated. Monbiot’s denunciation of Marx is of a piece with the milk-and-water nature of the proposals in his book (democratising the UN, enforcing ‘fair trade’ and so on). He does get one thing right, though:

“The world possesses sufficient resources, if carefully managed and properly distributed, to meet the needs of all its people, possibly for as long as the species persists.”

Paul Bennett

Letter: Socialist activities in Australia (2004)

Letter to the Editors from the October 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialist activities in Australia

In the centenary year of the founding of the SPGB, it is appropriate that the Socialist Standard should publish material on the spread of socialist ideas outside the UK and on the development and role of the companion parties in that process. In this context, Peter E Newell’s article (August Socialist Standard) on the various manifestations of “socialism” in Australia is welcome.  However, there are a number of errors in his account.

   

The party he refers to as being formed in Melbourne in 1906 was not the “self-proclaimed Socialist Party of Australia”, but the Victorian Socialist Party which was the largest and most influential party of its type at the time.  Because it was based only in Victoria it is not surprising that almost all its members resided in Melbourne.  In 1907, the Victorian party, plus another six “socialist” groups of various names and persuasions, came together in a loose federal organisation calling itself the Socialist Federation of Australia. Tom Mann was a major figure of influence in the formation of both the Victorian Party and the new Federation. In 1910, the same year Mann returned to England, the Federation changed its name to the Australian Socialist Party. During the First World War, along with all other “socialist” groups and most of the Labor Party, the ASP was active in the major political struggle of the time – the anti-conscription campaigns. It is misleading to say that the ASP “faded away” by 1920. What happened was that the majority of its branches reconstituted themselves as branches of the newly formed Communist Party of Australia in 1920 (similar to the dissolution of the British Socialist Party into the CPGB in the same year).

   

As Peter Newell indicates, it was largely through the efforts of seamen who were members or sympathisers of the SPGB that the Socialist Party of Australia was founded in 1924. The history of the Party in the 1920s and 30s was directly shaped by the power struggles of the Seamen’s Union of Australia. Jacob Johnson was the union’s national secretary and he and the branch secretaries in Melbourne and Brisbane were all members of the SPA. In 1935 Johnson opposed a general stoppage led by militant rank and file members and was later replaced as national secretary and eventually expelled from membership in 1937. The strength and influence of the SPA declined thereafter.

   

Peter Newell makes only brief passing reference to the SPA in the 1940s, but says nothing about the 1950s even though this period saw a significant revival and growth of the Party’s activities in Sydney. This followed the arrival in 1955 of members of the SPGB who had left the UK for New Zealand (where they were active in the SPNZ) and later moved to Sydney. Regular and well-attended meetings were held in the Sydney Domain and eventually the Sydney Branch of the SPA was formally reconstituted in 1957. The only other Branch in Australia, in Melbourne, had been moribund for years. Amongst Sydney Branch members in the late 1950s were two of the leading figures in the Seamen’s Union and in the SPA of the 1920s and 30s, both mentioned by Peter Newell: Jacob Johnson and W J “Bill” Clarke. The SPA in Sydney held indoor and outdoor meetings, ran study classes, debated with other (mainly “left wing”) groups in various forums, and regularly sold copies of the Socialist Standard and all SPGB pamphlets. It was a very active Branch, known to many of the comrades in the SPGB Head Office in Clapham High Street at the time. By 1961 the Branch went into a decline, though individual members remained active in a variety of ways.

   

Peter Newell says that in 1962 the name “Socialist Party of Australia” was adopted by a group who left the Communist Party of Australia over the Sino-Soviet split. This is wrong. A pro-Peking group left the CPA in 1963 and a year later founded the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist). The split in the CPA which led to the formation of a pro-Moscow group calling itself the “Socialist Party of Australia” occurred in 1971 and followed from CPA opposition to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the Party’s subsequent embrace of “Eurocommunism”. It is an irony of history that one of the principal founders of this so-called Socialist Party of Australia played a central role in the events leading to the expulsion of Jacob Johnson from the Seamen’s Union in 1936-37 and later went on to become the Union’s general secretary from 1941 to 1978.

   

The Eurocommunist CPA did not survive the collapse of communism in the early 1990s and it eventually dissolved itself. This left the way open for the so-called SPA to reclaim the name of the Communist Party of Australia and to re-badge itself accordingly. This it did in 1996. In 2003, the name “Socialist Party Australia”, being at that time unattached, was picked up by a Trotskyist conventicle describing itself as the “Australian Section of the Committee for a Workers’ International”.

Peter Bryant and Jim Thorburn, 

Sydney, Australia

Reply: 

We are happy to publish this correction and complement of information. We take this opportunity to correct the last line of the article which should have read: “At the moment there are only individual socialists in the WSPA active in different parts of Australia”. The words in italics somehow got lost in between us and the printers. Readers in Australia who want to contact the WSPA should write to: 8 Graelee Ct, Kingston, Tasmania 7050. – Editors.

Letter: Lenin’s not elitist? (2004)

Letters to the Editors from the October 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Lenin’s not elitist?

Dear Editors,

The article ‘Lenin: a socialist analysis’ (January Socialist Standard) quotes from The Myth of Lenin’s Concept of the Party by Hal Draper, to support the assertion that Lenin was an elitist.

   

A reading of the full Draper essay reveals something completely different. Draper argues that Lenin did not hold to the view that only intellectuals forming a cadre of professional revolutionaries should make up a revolutionary organisation.

   

Lenin did indeed pick up the idea from Neue Zeit, dropped it into What is To be Done? and promptly neglected it unless the notion was resurrected by his political enemies when Lenin would “ . . . consistently and firmly repudiate it”.

   

What Lenin meant by professional revolutionary is described by Draper as “a party activist who devoted most (preferably all) of his spare time to revolutionary work . . . He must work to earn a living, of course, but this is not his life”. Any member of the working class could fit into this description. It is not elitist at all.

   

It should even, dare I say it, describe the average member of the Socialist Party!

Armitage Bulstrode, 

Birmingham

Reply: 

The purpose of quoting from Draper’s The Myth of Lenin’s "Concept of the Party" was to show that Lenin’s concept of the party was essentially the same as Kautsky’s and the Second International generally.

   

According to Lenin’s more famous interpretation, the working class was incapable of self-emancipation. Some workers may join the ranks of the professional revolutionaries in the vanguard party, in Lenin’s view, but this does not affect his belief that emancipation had to be brought to the working class by a political organisation. Although Lenin went on to change some aspects of his concept of the party, this elitist position never changed and had catastrophic consequences when implemented in the Bolshevik revolution.

   

When the Socialist Party was formed in 1904 it repudiated leadership in any form. The Socialist Party’s history is a practical refutation of the role of leadership. Leninists often deceive themselves that they believe it, but the Socialist Party really does insist that the emancipation of the working class has to be the work of the working class itself.–Editors.

How anti-capitalist? (2004)

Book Review from the October 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anti-Capitalist Britain edited by John Carter and Dave Morland (New Clarion Press £12.95)

This is a collection of articles on the anti-capitalist/anti-globalisation movement as it exists in Britain. The quality and relevance vary, and one paper in particular (on the consequences of 9/11 for British Muslims) belongs in a different book.

   

Two main themes can be picked out. One is that the anti-capitalist movement (ACM) did not grow out of thin air but represents a continuation of earlier activities, such as 1970s free festivals, road protest camps and various environmental groups. All these movements supposedly share a propensity for direct action and a general hostility to leadership. Linked with this is the second theme, that of the predominant role of anarchism within the ACM. There are definitely positive aspects to this, including opposition to the tactics of vanguard groups like the SWP and rejection of leadership. The particular variant of anarchism that is singled out in a chapter by the editors is saddled with the name ‘post-structuralist anarchism’, a viewpoint which they do not explain at all clearly (but see, for instance, http://perspectives.anarchist-studies.org/8may.htm ). This claims that power and oppression are not confined to just the state and the workings of capitalism but can be found elsewhere too (as in misogyny or anti-gay prejudice). But it downplays the crucial role of capitalism as the underlying cause of oppression.

   

The anarchist influence is seen as partly a reflection of the decline of the traditional Bolshevik left. As Carter and Moreland say, “The death of the old authoritarian Soviet anti-capitalism has cleared the way for more radical and vibrant ways of fighting money and all of its works.” This perspective is partly balanced by Derek Wall’s chapter, which refers to the Social Democratic Federation and William Morris, and notes that at the end of the 19th century, “Marxism looked pretty green”.

   

But along with the anarchism are some ‘fair trade’ and ‘deep green’ ideas which are hardly radical at all. For instance, one chapter advocates, as the opposite of globalisation, localisation, which means a country should produce as much as possible of what it needs within its own borders. Now, it is quite likely that in socialism there will be far less transport of goods from their place of production to place of consumption, as there will be no need to seek out the cheapest and most profitable place to make things. But national borders, which won’t exist in socialism, are an irrelevance here, and the argument assumes the continuance of trade (and hence of money, wages, etc.).

   

A chapter by Green Party member Molly Scott Cato argues that greens are anti-capitalist, even if many deny this. Rather than a revolution, she advocates a gradual green undermining of capitalism, by means of Local Exchange Trading Schemes (LETS) and co-operatives. Her ways to challenge capitalism include such gems as ‘Switch all your bank accounts to the Nationwide or another mutual building society.’

   

Actually it would be unfair to let trivia like this condemn the volume as a whole. It certainly offers a different perspective on aspects of the ACM. And if the book lacks a clear single view of the movement or of what should replace capitalism, then it merely reflects the anti-capitalist movement, after all.

Paul Bennett

Ninepence for Fourpence. (1912)

From the October 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Everyone does not appreciate deep economic arguments, but every workman can appreciate between getting 9d. and 4d.”

Thus spake Mr. Lloyd George—beg pardon, Lord Limehouse, the (rare and refreshing) fruit merchant, addressing a “Labour” deputation on June 20, 1911.

Mr. McKenna, not to be outdone by the load-line raiser, said : “The fundamental fact is that the workman contributes 4d. and gets 9d.”

* * *

 

You are to get 9d. But turn from the official report of the aforementioned deputation (Cd. 5869.) to leaflet 2393 of the National Liberal Federation, which says :—

“Of course, this does not mean that for every 4d. paid the insured person always gets 9d. Back.”

I hope every workman “can appreciate” that. You get 9d.—but not always. A kind of three card trick. Find, the 9d. among Lloyd George’s knaves.

* * *

 

It isn’t an employers’ Bill, oh, no ! Look, however, at Lloyd George’s speech to the deputation from the Chambers of Commerce (30.6.11), introduced by Lord Brassey :—

“Under the Compensation Act the workmen malinger at the expense of the employer, but under this Bill they will malinger at their own expense. If a man malingers he cannot draw more money from the State, he cannot draw more from the employer. He will have to find the deficiency out of his own pocket.” (Same report.)

* * *

 

“That is a very important point for the protection of the employer which I am surprised you have overlooked. … I quite agree with Mr. Parkes [Tory M.P. for Birmingham] that the doctor is perhaps the most important and essential person in this connection, and it is also very important that he should be put in an independent position, and that is why, as far as I am concerned, I should be very glad if the House of Commons took the responsibility of placing the doctors under the local Health Committees, because, after all, the local Health Committees will be independent bodies. I have no doubt there will be employers there because there are far more employers than workmen on the county councils of the country ; the proportion of workmen is not very high.”

The workmen cannot malinger—Lloyd George has seen to that. But what about the employers ? Ever heard of masters malingering, David ? Announce that grouse shooting commences on August 12th and see how they run ! The Liberals won’t stop them malingering. A lot depends upon the doctor, says David. Workingmen with experience of the London County Council doctor in compensation cases, for instance, will agree with him. Therefore Lloyd George urged employers to get upon the Councils “because membership of the Council means lower rates.” And he went on, “he would, if he gave the benefit of his business administration to the local authority, cut down the rates and lighten enormously the charges which fell upon himself.”

To a “Labour” deputation the Chancellor preaches one tale, but to this deputation from the employers and merchants he preaches another. Listen to this :—

“I would invite the attention of employers to the way in which, we have framed this Bill, because it is framed in a way to completely protect them.” (Cd. 5869.)

This appeal to Property is equal to the one in the National Liberal Federation’s leaflet (No. 2422), which says of the employer :—

“He will be repaid partly in the increased efficiency of his workers. In good health and with a mind freed from financial worry, a man will do better work though working no harder than now. Then, again, men will be saved from the workhouse and the relieving officer, and so tho employer will have less to pay in Poor Rates.”

The “Manchester Evening News” (Liberal) of 7.8.12 reported the Clerk to the South Manchester Guardians thus :—

“The National Insurance Act will do more to prevent and eventually to eradicate pauperism than all the Poor Law Acts on the Statute Book.”

Being notified of this Mr. Lloyd George wrote:—

“I have always felt confident that its operation must have the effect of relieving the rates. . . . I was informed the other day by the Local Government Board that consumption alone costs the rates about a million and a half per annum. . . . Mr. Bloomfield is therefore perfectly right in assuming that the operation of this Act must necessarily have the direct effect of relieving taxpayers of a large proportion of the burdens which sickness now casts on their shoulders. . . . The maintenance provided in days of sickness by the Insurance Act and the institutions set up and subsidised out of its funds will be offered to the workingman as substitutes for the workhouse and workhouse infirmary—substitutes which will be consistent with ‘the honour and dignity of Labour.'”

* * *

 

When this glorious Bill was introduced, Liberals pointed jubilantly to Clause 51. “There is the worker’s clause,” they declared. “Under it no landlord can levy distress for the whole period any person receives sickness benefit.” But—”there’s many a dip twixt the cup and the lip.” The Employers’ Parliamentary Council waited upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer and a spokesman of the Farmers’ Federation said :—

“The great bulk of our workmen are housed in cottages belonging to us, and if those cottages are not at our disposal when the workman leaves off work the whole work of the farm is stopped at once.”

To this Mr. Lloyd George replied :

“If the clause were confined to cases where life would be imperilled by the process would that satisfy you ?”

Farmers’ Representative: “Yes, I should say so.”

Mr. Lloyd George : “Then I propose doing it. I am with you entirely. I think the clause as it stands is far too wide and malingerers might take advantage of it.”

So at the behest of landlords he altered the clause, which now states that if in the opinion of a doctor the person receiving sick benefit is likely to die if distress is levied, it shall not be done. The doctor’s certificate is to be issued for a week only, but may be renewed each week up to a month by the doctor, unless the landlord has applied to the Registrar of a County Court, whose decision must be accepted without appeal.

On this point we had an item in “Reynolds’s Newspaper” (2.7.11) headed “Master of Elibank Reassures Landlords re Clause 51.” It ran as follows :—

“The Master of Elibank has written to Sir Robert Aske at Hull with reference to the Insurance Bill. In the course of his remarks he says : ‘it should not be overlooked that the provision of sick pay is likely to make the payment of rent by the working classes during sickness very much more regular than it has hitherto been, and Mr. Lloyd George has no doubt that this will far more than compensate the owners of small houses for any loss that may be suffered in the rare cases where Clause 51 becomes operative.'”

This is “rare and refreshing fruit,” indeed— for the landlords. In fact, the striking unanimity of Liberal and Tory, landlord and factory-lord, over this Bill, should convince the toiler of its fraud, The “wicked House of Lords” passed it without a murmur. The Tory party largely supported its Second Reading, and refused to vote against the Third Reading. Mr. Lloyd George eulogised prominent Tories for their support of the Bill—Mr, Charles Bathurst, Lord Henry Bentinck, and Mr. William Waldorf Astor ! The latter, a large property owner, objected to postponing the operation of the Act, and explained the large saving of rates that would result, remarking, “We must make the ratepayer realise it.”

“We are going,” said Mr. Lloyd George at Queen’s Hall, on December 31,1909, “to provide adequate insurance against unemployment to prevent the starvation of the wife and children of the man who is out of work perforce.” Under the Insurance Act the “adequate” insurance becomes seven whole bob a week. But should he be unemployed “perforce” because his Liberal or Tory employer has locked him out, then the starvation will take place through the deliberate provisions of the Insurance Act, which say that in case of a lock-out no money shall be paid to the men. if the toilers should be goaded into striking by a Liberal Devonport or a Tory Penrhyn, then, also, they get—nothing. They may have paid in pounds, but they can starve. If, also, a toiler fails to make application for benefit “in the proper form,” if he fails to come at the “required time” to the “required place” to sign on, he draws—nothing. Should he, in the eyes of the Jacks-in-office, leave work “without sufficient cause,” or lose his job through what his boss calls “misconduct,” then he gets the figure which multiplied by itself is the same. Again, should he be in arrears in his contributions through lack of work, he may look in vain for the Welsh rarebit’s “rare and refreshing fruit.”

* * *

 

This idea of what is “adequate” provision seems to vary with the recipient. Baron Robson, late Sir William Robson, applied in July to the Ministry for “adequate” assistance as he waa retiring. He had been Solicitor-General at £6,000 per annum, and after a year or two became Attorney-General at £7.000 a year. Both these jobs carried with them “fees” which would be a good deal more than the salary itself. The next job Robby got was Judge of the High Court at £10,000 per annum. He stuck that for a year or two, without “malingering” more than half the time, and then retired—of course, with “just cause.” So David’s Government presented him with a pension “for the term of his natural life,” of a dollar a week—no, beg pardon, three thousand, seven hundred arid fifty pounds a year. £72 a week is “adequate” for this lawyer to malinger upon, but the sick working man is adequately provided for with seven bob.

* * *

 

Every Insurance Commissioner draws twenty pounds a week, while the Chairman of Commissions gets twice that sum. Where do these huge salaries come from ?

Mr. Lloyd George won’t say. But talking to the Merchants and Bankers of the City of London just after the Bill was brought in (July, 1911; he said :

“It would be a great satisfaction to them to know that in his judgment the Insurance Bill would not add a single farthing to the taxation which had already been imposed in this country.”

They don’t come out of taxes, so where are they coming from ? The employers say they won’t come from them in any other way.

Listen to Sir Adolph Tuck, presiding at a meeting of Raphael Tuck & Sons (23.7.12) :

“I am of the firm opinion that this expenditure (on Insurance contributions) will, in the long run, prove one of the best investments which the company has been called upon to make.”

A few days previous to this Lord Ashton, the employer of 6,000 men at his Lancaster carpet and other works, said : “It is one of the grandest Acts ever passed.” On July 7th Mr. F. D. Acland (a member of the Government) told the people of St. Albans that “in Germany they could not find a big employer who would go back to the days before the Insurance Act there.” 

* * *

 

As a last quotation let me give Mr. Lloyd George’s speech to the deputation from the National Farmers’ Union of England on July 4 1911 (Cd. 5869) : —

“I want the farmers to remember this, that this is going to be a tremendous relief to the Poor Law, and the casual labourer is the man who gets on the rates. It would be an enormous relief to the poor rates. Our real economic trouble is the casual labourer. We want, somehow or other, to make provision for him, and I think it is worth our while, and it is certainly worth the farmers’ while, to do so ; because the poor rate is their heavy burden, and to get the casual labourer off the rates would be a benefit to you, if you could get him off. I am very loth to keep the casual out if I can possibly help it. That is the most helpless class in the country and they become a burden on the community. IT IS FAR BETTER TO GET FOURPENCE OUT OF HIM, BECAUSE NOW YOU ARE BEARING THE WHOLE OF THE EXPENSE.”

Does this, set alongside his emphatic statement that the workers are to get “9d. for 4d.,” sufficiently prove how much of the liar and the cheat lies hidden in the unblushing hide of this little Welsh lawyer ?

Adolph Kohn

Bill in the Chair. (1912)

From the October 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Trade Union Congress has met, passed resolutions on things that do not matter, listened to innumerable speeches, attended many functions, “seen the sights” of Newport, assisted in prayer at .the Labour sermon, and having run its respectable course, over much the same ground that other congresses have before it, has respectably passed away.

Labour is none the wiser for their deliberations ; none the more free for all their wordy resolutions ; none the fatter or happier for all the merry feasting and expensive junketting of their “Parliament.”

As usual, the Congress was larger than ever before, and its president, blushing Bill, showed an “example of straight speaking and clear thinking which might well be copied by some of our brilliant speakers and debaters at Westminster.” (“Daily Herald.”)

After a few preliminary remarks anent “the largest and most important congress yet held” (omitting to state that the increased membership was due in the main to a blind rush to join “approved societies” in conformity with the National Insurance Act) Bill proceeds to show his ignorance.

He tells us that “the outcome of the coal strike would take them one step nearer to the nationalisation of the mines . . . which, will be of a lasting benefit to the nation.” (“Daily Herald.”)

This is distinctly good for Bill, who time and time again has stated that the Government workers are worse off than those employed outside. Further on in this illuminating address he tells us that “9,000 employees of the late National Telephone Co. now enjoy the same conditions as the Post Office workers, which, brought them under the eight hours system.”

The result of the eight hours system and Government control has been “an increase of £175,000 per year in wages, increased holidays, a larger staff, and pensions amounting to an expenditure of £201,000 per annum,” according to our worthy president.

Which is all bosh, as has been shown by many of Bill’s pals who have the misfortune to” enjoy” the jobs he refers to. Among others, one “in the engineering branch of the service” who states in the “Daily Herald” (6.9.12) that “a 50½ hour week” is worked, goes on : “I shall be pleased for Mr. Thorne to understand that the increase in wages is only in theory, as no employee is receiving any increase ; also that a large number of the men have not had an increase of pay for the last two or three years and in consequence of the transfer will not receive any now, Where the late Company’s employees’ hours have been reduced they have suffered a corresponding reduction in wages, but where working hours have been extended no recompence has been given.”

At the Annual Meeting of the Government Workers’ Federation at Enfield on June 4, 1912, Bill’s benevolent boss was described as “the greatest enemy we have got,” and a delegate said : “They [the Government] are the worst set of employers I have come into contact with in my life. They are wicked ; they rob the maimed, the blind, the widow and the labourer. In fact, they take everything we let them take.” (“Daily News,” 4.6.12.)

At the same meeting a resolution was passed condemning the Government for refusing to put the “fair wages” agreement, in operation, and calling upon them to grant a miniinutn wage of 25s. 6d. to workers engaged in War Office and Admiralty departments.

Mr. W. Cheeseman, secretary of the Fawcett Association, said that the Government were forcing them to strike, and delegates from the Royal Parks stated that “for a wage of 23s. many of the man put in a seven day weak.”

This eulogy of the Government on the part of our “honest” chairman, who has “graduated with high honours in the school of Labour,” denoted a sudden change of front. In the House of Commons, March 4, 1912, Mr. William Thorne (South West Ham) :

“moved as an amendment to leave out from the word “That” to the end of the Question in order to add instead thereof the words :

‘in the opinion of this House the conditions of service of Government employees should be in every respect at least equal to those observed by the best private employer or by local public authorities doing similar work.’ (‘Parliamentary Debates’ Vol. 35, No. 14, p. 83.)

This amendment was defeated by the Labour men who abstained from voting for their own amendment in order to save the Government from possible defeat.

In support of his amendment Thorne and others give some very interesting facts. Bill said: —

“There are a number of leading storehouse men at Pimlico receiving 20s. per week, while in the factories adjacent to Pimlico it is found that the average for a similar class of employment worked out at 25s. 6d. Crane men start at 27s. per week and go up to 32s., while a similar class of men working outside for ordinary contractors can command 35s. and 40s. per week.” Barge loaders and van men working for the Government “get 24s. per week without any chance of promotion, These men are doing a similar class of work to that for which in the docks and on the wharves of the river 8d. per hour is paid, with 1s. per hour for overtime.”

“At the Army Ordnance Department at Woolwich,” said Mr. Tyson Wilson, “the men presented a petition asking for a minimum of 28s. per week. Some of these men are ‘promoted’ to foremen without having their wages increased. At Waltham Abbey things have improved, and the minimum is now 24s. per week. But the work is very injurious. The materials get into the system, affecting the heart, particularly the nitro-glycerine, and that is not work at which men live long. At Weedon,” went on Mr. Wilson, “the skilled labourers get 19s. per week and 2d. per day extra duty pay. At Enfield . . the minimum is 23s. 6d. The local employers of labour pay 6½d. and 7d. per hour.

Some very glaring cases of sweating were given with regard to firms contracting for the Government. At Stepney at Clark’s biscuit factory men are working 60 hours per week for 19s. 6d., while at MacNeill’s Patent Felt works 14s. is paid for 56½ hours work.

According to Mr. Wilson there are “cases of hosiery firms who are supplying the War Department for the wear of soldiers and other servants, and some of these firms have said themselves that they do not intend to pay the standard wages.”

So much for the pet scheme of nationalisation. Bill should know (and probably does know) that nationalisation means greater poverty and insecurity for the worker, and that the Government as an employer is better only in so much that it can grind the hardest and sweat the most.

Bill also seemed to believe that the miners during the year had won a victory, for he is reported by the “Daily Herald” as saying :—

“The main reason for the miners leaving work was to establish a minimum wage. . . . The Government made every effort to bring about a settlement without legislation but failed, and the Minimum Wage Bill was passed. In many districts a substantial increase has been brought about.”

Anent this we print the following from the “South Wales Daily News” (9.9.12) : —

“Mr. Hubert Jenkins, miners’ agent, has just issued a circular to the workmen at the Llanbradach Collieries stating that the relations between the men and the management have become very strained, and that it requires some courage under the circumstances for men to dare to assert their right to the minimum wage under the Minimum Wage award. He alleges that when the man fail to get clearance and claim to be paid, they are being stopped and kept idle or sent to work by night, which means the revival of the system of sponging.

“This treatment (he proceeds) is being meted out to a few at a time with the result that no man is safe ; this must cone to an end. The committee are blamed, the miners’ agent also, because of the delay in getting grievances dealt with. The time has come when the whole of the men employed at the Llanbradach collieries must voice their protest in a determined manner, or be prepared to to sacrifice their freedom and liberty completely.

“Men, he further alleges, have been going home with starvation wages since the resumption of work at the end of the national strike.”

Our brilliant Gas-worker next shone upon the question of the eight hours day. After pointing out that the Congress had been passing the resolution since 1890 without effect, he asked them to pass it again. “If time had permitted” he “could speak at length on the benefits an eight hours day would bring to the wage-earners in increasing leisure and decreasing unemployment.” Which again shows how little knowledge this paragon of presidents possesses.

A reprint from the “Daily News” (27.8.09), reporting the speech of Professor Chapman in his address to the Economic Science and Statistical Section, of the British Association, Winnipeg, may interest and instruct.

“The character of much of the world’s work, said Professor Chapman, has changed, and with that change has come a difference in the demands made upon leisure. These changes all tended to specialisation and concentration, both in working and in leisure, and to constant demands for the curtailment of the working hours of the day. In the course of long investigations he had found no instance in which an abbreviation of hours had resulted in a proportionate curtailment of output. There was, indeed, every reason to suppose that the production in the shorter seldom fell short of the longer hours, and in some cases the output or its value had been augmented.”

As the miners and others have discovered, an eight hours day means greater speeding up rendered possible by the greater amount of leisure, and, as has beea shown, in many cases a greater output with the same or a smaller number of employees. The introduction of the eight hours day, like the adoption of nationalisation, means more unemployment and more poverty for the workers, and no amount of claptrap from the President of the Trade Union Congress will prove the contrary.

After a sly lift to the Home Rule Bill and other Liberal measures the President passed to the Insurance Act and endeavoured to draw attention from the fraudulent nature of that measure by attacking the Prudential. The “Pru,” it seems, have been business-like, and have captured all the ninepences, at which the Unions are wrath. In their desire to get members the latter care little whether or not such members are trade unionists, and clearly show that what we have said all along is true, namely, that the sick and benefit side of the unions has long since absorbed all trace of the fighting organisations they may once have been.

A curious exception to this touting may be noted in a union which shouts about the “tactics” of the Prudential and at the same time have refused to accept into their “approved society” members of their own union. Thus the London Society of Compositors are forcing their own members into the insurance societies, while their delegates condemn the Prudential for taking them !

The Congress settled down to business and passed a resolution “that the question of secular education be eliminated from the questions for discussion at any future Congress.”

They have been discussing and passing resolutions about secular education for some forty years and made no progress, and so have decided not to waste time in passing any more. How much better would it have been if they had done the same with the rest of the motions ! None of them are of importance and nobody takes any notice of them.

There was much to do on the question of compulsory arbitration, and Mr. Ben Tillett, its champion, exchanged some complimentary remarks with Messrs. Brace and Havelock Wilson, but nothing important was said. The anti-political gentleman rightly said that the other side wore “political Mathuselahs who are capable of passing resolutions and nothing else,” while those in support of the motion favouring political action truly said that “the opponents of the motion were ex-members of Parliament; those who had tried to get into Parliament, and those who had abandoned all hope of getting there.” (“Daily Herald.”)

It is interesting to note that the Executive of the B.S.P., of which Tillett is a member, unanimously passed a resolution at its meeting on July 8th. condemning compulsory arbitration “as destructive of the independence (!) of the workers,” and recorded its “strong and convinced protest against the principle of compulsory arbitration in industrial disputes.” (“Socialist Record,” July, 1912.)

Evidently the rejection of his pet proposal annoyed Tillett, for, writing in the “Daily Herald” (9.9.12) he tells us that “there is little chance for most of the men attending Congress to even debate new theories, however common-sense they may appear to be. … the real powers and potentialities of Congress are stultified by the atrophy of customary narrowness in. thinking.”

The above sentiment is endorsed by Mr. Price, a member of the West Australian Parliament, who, to a representative of the “South Wales Argus” said : “I was struck with the lack of knowledge displayed, not only by the delegates, but by the Members of Parliament (did he mean Bill ?) . . . The difference between the Labour Party in the Antipodes and in Great Britain is that the former has a definite policy dealing with every phase of political economy, while in Great Britain the Labour Party has no definite policy or platform so far as I have been able to discover.”

The Congress got excited because of a certain circular issued by the Government re the transfer of members of an “approved society,” decided to call a special meeting, and generally spat forth fire at the action of the Government. But the Government need have no fear. The bribe given to the unions has caught them effectually, and though they may threaten to withdraw they will remain safely within the net in consideration of extra membership and extra dues, coupled with the influence brought to bear by one-time trade unionists who have been bought by Government jobs. To quote Ben Tillett: .

“All the expressions of opinion asking for action to be taken, either for amalgamation or joint trade union action, were sat upon, and the fighters of twenty years ago are the ruling politicians of to-day.”

Ah, yes ! the trade union movement has been sold time after time, and will remain as clay in the hands of those who are moulding it to suit their own purposes, just so long as the membership of those trade unions fail to understand their class position and the politics dictated by that position. Any action taken by any section of the trade unions will be side-tracked and outvoted by the bosses who are pulling the strings, and they in turn are led by those who have already been bought by the Government.

Twel.

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For October. (1912)

Party News from the October 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

Once again, I don't have enough room in the label section to include all the listed speakers, so some brief information on some of the speakers missing from the sidebar. Some of these names (and details) you have seen before:

• A. Barker. See this previous post.
• A. Bays is possibly the member listed as 'W. Bays' in the early Party membership records, who was a member of the Stoke Newington Branch of the SPGB. He joined the SPGB in May 1910. No date is given for when - or why - he left.
• D.B. Campbell. David Bruce Campbell joined the Tooting Branch of the SPGB in May 1911. He then went on to leave and rejoin the Tooting Branch on at least three separate occasions in the 1910s and 1920s, finally resigning from the Party in May 1929.
• H. Cooper was H.J. Cooper. He joined Earlsfield Branch of the SPGB in September 1908, and his membership was lapsed in December 1915.
• R. Fox was R. M. Fox. He joined the SPGB in Tottenham in September 1906. Better known after he left the SPGB, his 1937 autobiography, Smoky Crusade, sticks the boot into his old SPGB comrades. He should the offending excerpts from his book on the blog some time.
• C. Ginger: Another member of Tottenham Branch. Charles Ginger was one of those SPGB members who joined the Party more than once. There's a suggestion that C. Ginger could also be Frank Grainger, who had originally left the SPGB to join the Herald League. (See Ken Weller's book). Frank Grainger eventually rejoined the SPGB in the 1930s, and was actually selected as the Party's parliamentary candidate for the East Ham North constituency, which the Party was planning to contest at the probable 1940 General Election. (WW2 intervened.) According to Ken Weller, after he resigned from the SPGB, he later worked for the Economic League.
• A. Hoskyns was Ambrose Hoskyns. He joined the Islington Branch of the SPGB in August 1910. He was an occasional writer for the Socialist Standard in the Pre-War 1914 period. There are no details of when he left the SPGB. A flavour of his writing (and the early history of the SPGB) is contained within his April 1911 article, 'The Attempted Suppression of Free Speech in Islington'.
• A. Jacobs was Alf Jacobs. There is more detailed background on him in this feature which appeared in the September 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard.
• H. Joy was a member of the Tooting Branch of the SPGB. They joined the SPGB in October 1907.
• E. Lake. Ted Lake joined the Battersea Branch of the SPGB in February 1911. He remained a member of the SPGB for nigh on 66 years. His obituary appears in the February 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard.
• F. Leigh was Fred Leigh. See this previous post.
• W. Lewington was a member of the Tottenham Branch, originally joining the SPGB in March 1907. He resigned from the SPGB but no date is given for his resignation.
• J. E. Roe. Jonathan Roe's obituary appeared in the August 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard.
• F. J. Rourke was a member of the Tottenham Branch, originally joining the SPGB in June 1909. Their membership was lapsed in February 1914. ("Moved away".)
• F. W. Stearn was a member of the Tottenham Branch. There were actually two 'F. Stearn's in the branch at the time - possibly father and son - so I don't know which one was a listed speaker for this month.
• F. Vickers. Frank Vickers joined the SPGB in August 1911. There is no mention of when he left the Party. However, he is mentioned in this article from the February 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard. Harry Young encountered him in the Communist Party in the 1920s: ". . . At the Communists' 5th Congress there was an almost unique specimen—an SPGB-er who had joined the Communist Party, Frank Vickers from Tooting."
• B. Young was Byron Young. A member of the Walthamstow Branch, he was from a family of SPGBers. His father had been a member of the SDF, and his brother, Percy, was also a longstanding SPGBer. (His parents must have loved their poetry.) A prolific outdoor speaker for the Party, he emigrated to Australia after WW1. He is mentioned briefly in the Socialist Standard in his brother's obituary and in his nephew's obituary.

Editorial: Lloyd George’s permit to murder. (1912)

Editorial from the October 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

The “Titanic” horror turned attention for a moment to the ocean passenger trade. It threw up in bold relief the profit-hunger of the shipping companies and the small chance the workers had of being rescued when danger came. After the “Titanic” white-washing job—known to lawyers as the “Titanic” Commission’—was over, some meagre alterations in rescue apparatus were foreshadowed, and the world nodded—and slept.

A month before the “Titanic” disaster, however, occurred another of which the world has scarcely heard. Nevertheless it is full of frightful significance, just as terrible, and with even a greater lesson for the working class than that the “Titanic” disaster bore. It showed the fiendish greed of the modern shipowners, and illustrated the murderous methods of the masters of the world. It proved the treachery of all the political parties of our masters, who used the power entrusted to them to drive brave and hardy toilers to their death.

On February 29th last the Cardiff steamship “North Briton” left Sunderland bound for Sulina with a cargo of coal. When the vessel was within twenty-five miles of Ushant she foundered, and every one of her crew except the boatswain was drowned. The black story of the cause of this tragedy of the sea. we will leave to the Ministerial organ, “The Daily News and Leader,” which printed the following in its issue of September 24th :—

“PLIMSOLL LINE AND SAFETY AT SEA.”

“LESSON OF WRECK WITH LOSS OF TWENTY LIVES.”

“The foundering of the steamship ‘North Briton’ off Ushant last March with the loss of all hands but the boatswain should be the means of compelling the Board of Trade—if sufficient public interest can be aroused—to reconsider the question of the Plimsoll mark.

“Under new rules for assigning a ship’s freeboard—the distance between the main deck and the water line—the Plimsoll line was heightened in March 1906 for ships under the red ensign. . . . Almost unanimously captains, officers, engineers and seamen have declared that the new load line converted a ‘dry’ ship into a ‘wet’ ship, because it destroyed a ship’s reserve buoyancy, and so endangered life and property ; and at last a Court of Enquiry has found in the case of one steamer that the primary cause of her loss and the deaths of 20 of her men was excessive deadweight and an insufficient freeboard.”

The “Daily News” man was informed by the National Union of Masters and Mates that the replacing of the Plimsoll Mark was one of their chief objects.

“When the new rules came into force a large steamer belonging to one of the greatest of our British lines, loaded railway iron and coal for Bombay down to her new mark. On her arrival it was found that she was structurally strained—her beams and bulkheads had given. Within six months she and her two sister ships had to be stiffened to allow for the extra loads. But do you think that the owners of all the tramp steamers did the same when their vessels sagged through too much cargo ?”

A master mariner told a “Daily News and Leader” representative that he himself had nearly lost a steamer from the same cause that sunk the “North Briton.” He said : —

“My ship was usually a ‘dry’ ship in bad weather, but after her load line was altered she had to carry 200 tons more, and she became lifeless in heavy seas and her deck was always full up. Only on a recent voyage the continual breaking inboard of heavy seas because of her want of life and buoyancy got her hatches adrift before we were clear of the Channel. Something of that sort happened in the case of the ‘North Briton.’ We were two hours getting her watertight again, and but for sheer good luck—for this business happened at night—we should have become a missing ship.”

On Saturday, September 21st, the Board of Trade enquiry into the loss of the “North Briton” was held at Cardiff. The magistrate who presided over it summed up thus :

“For some time before the vessel foundered, and when her condition was hopeless, the crew—those 20 brave men of that brave class, the British Mercantile Marine—stood together on the deck with their pipes in their mouths, silently, calmly, dauntlessly facing death. Without a murmur or a cry they perished in the sea. THEIR LIVES WERE SACRIFICED TO THE 130 TONS OF ADDITIONAL FREIGHT.”

He pointed out that “according to law she was not overladen, but the Court is satisfied that consistent with safety the loading was excessive,” and “the primary cause of her loss.”

The Court put the Board of Trade the following question for urgent consideration :

“Do the disasters of vessels that have occurred since March 1906, when the rules for assigning a ship’s freeboard were revised, and whereby numerous vessels had their freeboard reduced, call for further immediate revision of such rules ?”

Those who expect real action to be taken will soon have their hopes quenched if they read the record of the Liberal Party in this matter.

The name of Plimsoll is known wherever the tale of the sea is told. Samuel Plimsoll was struck by the cold-blooded murder of seamen on the high seas, and the records of their butchery by Liberal and Tory shipowners made him take up the battle on their behalf. He carried on an active mission in the seaport towns of England, where he told the terrible story of the dangers of the men sent to sea in “coffin ships,” in ships overloaded but insured up to the hilt, so that if they went down the owners were at no loss.

In 1871 he entered the House of Commons, and in his fight to lessen the death-roll among seamen he was jeered at and mocked by the Liberals and Tories gathered there. He brought in Bills but found no backers. In “Gladstone’s greatest administration,” 1868-74, he was ejected from the House for daring to describe the shipowners as “cold-blooded murderers.” After his four years of bitter struggle the Tory Party were returned, and they seized upon the popular outcry Plimsoll had aroused, and passed the Load Line Bill of 1875, lowering the load line and increasing the freeboard. They did this to dish the Liberals.

Samuel Plimsoll hated Toryism, but the depth of his hatred of Liberal Governments was shown when he said in the House of Commons on May 14 1873 :

“I am a Liberal of the Liberals. I have supported Liberal measures ever since I came into this House, but it has been borne into my mind that the interest of the working classes, when at issue between themselves and capitalists, are safer with the Conservatives than with the Liberals.”

Thirty one years after the load line was lowered ; thirty-one years after the Plimsoll Mark was established, David Lloyd George became President of the Board of Trade, and he wiped out the labours of Plimsoll by issuing new regulations raising the load line. The Plimsoll line—the charter of the seamen—was dead. In its place was substituted the Lloyd George load line. And ever since the sorry story has been told of human life destroyed to increase the profits of the shipowners.

The case of the “North Briton” was no isolated one. In January this year the “Wistow Hall” foundered off the Aberdeenshire coast from the same cause. Fifty-three of our fellow workers went down in her, paying with their lives for their masters’ greed. Last year 1254 of our seamen lost their lives. Already this year this number has been left far behind—an army “sacrificed to additional freight.”

Nor is the murder of the seamen the only evil result of the raising of the line of lading. Mr. Havelock Wilson, the Liberal Secretary of the Seamen’s Union, told the South Shields seamen on Oct. 20, 1910, that thousands of them were out of work because of that very alteration of the load line, for “at one stroke of the pen, by the alteration of the freeboard of ships, we have added to the tonnage of our vessels nearly one million tons of shipping.”

The Board of Trade have issued (L.L. 11) a reprint of the revised load line rules altered in March 1906, and they have been eulogised by the Shipowners’ Parliamentary Council. The reason for the alteration was briefly to save the shipowners building extra vessels. On the same day as they published the matter before quoted the “Daily News” published the shipping returns with the bold headline : “Our Shipping Supremacy.” They told us that in the past year our tonnage had increased by 2½ million. England carried 37 million tons of cargo against 22 millions carried by the combined other nations of the world. Therein is the secret. When in 1906 the Liberal Government was returned, you found in its ranks and among its leading supporters, most of the great shipowners of the world. Lord Pirrie, director of Harland and Wolff’s, the White Star and other shipping companies ; Lord Furness, director of six shipping concerns ; men like Sir Owen Phillips,. Mark Palmer, Lord Joicey, Lord Rendel, Sir Walter Runciman, Sir Willian Bowring, R. D. Holt, Lord Munburnholme and other members of the Wilson family, Russell Ben, Hon. J. A.. Pease, etc., etc. They were amongst the greatest backers of the 1906 campaign, and hence they dictated Liberal policy.

David Lloyd George very kindly looked after their welfare then as he looked after the railway magnates’ interests later on. Hence these tragedies, these murders on the high seas, this sacrafice of brave, useful men to the greed of Capital.

The villainies of Liberalism stand out as a criminal record as black and bloody as ever Tory policy was or could be. The Labour Party, too, have silently watched these atrocities, and organised its members to save the Government from destruction !

Down with capitalism ! Down with Labourism ! Up with Socialism !

Blog Note:

22,000 posts now on the blog.

Party Notes. (1912)

Party News from the October 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

A branch of the Party has been formed at Bedford. Socialists in the district should communicate with the Secretary, for particulars see Branch Directory on back page.

* * *

 

A branch is also being formed in the High Wycombe (Bucks.) district, and Socialists willing to assist should communicate with R. W. Gardner, 73 Abercrombie Avenue, High Wycombe.

* * *

 

Another branch is being formed in Nottingham. Any person desiring particulars or wishing to join is referred to L. Shearstone, 4 Balfour Road, Nottingham.

* * *

 

Leaflets dealing with the Rates and Taxes question, and others bearing the Declaration of Principles of the Party, have been issued for free distribution. Still another leaflet, dealing with the Anti-Socialist Union and debates, has been prepared. This last was necessary the further to expose the lying and cowardice of the gang masquerading as the “official A.S.U.” The leaflet embodies correspondence that passed between the A.S.U. and S.P.G.B. officials, and should be widely distributed wherever the former is heard of.

* * *

 

After the Lord Mayor’s show comes the dung cart, we are told, and so the B.S.P. follows the A.S.U. with only this difference: the A.S.U. only declines to debate with us after having tried to put up a case and been badly smashed—the B.S.P. knows it has no case and therefore keeps in hiding.

The following facts are illuminating. On June 23rd last the Moss Side, Manchester B.S.P. branch was challenged to debate the question “Is the British Socialist Party Deserving of Working-Class Support?” The challenger was referred to the Executive of the B.S.P. as the authority for arranging debates. He consequently, under date June 27th, sent the challenge in writing to the General Secretary of the B.S.P.

Failing to get an acknowledgement, although a stamped envelope was enclosed, our comrade on July 29th send a letter, and obtained an advice showing that the letter had been delivered to, and signed for personally by, Mr, H. W. Lee.

On July 31st Mr. H. W. Lee wrote :—

Mr. J. Brough,

Manchester Branch S.P.G.B.

Dear Sir,

Your communication shall be laid before the meeting of the British Socialist Party on Saturday, August 10th.

Yours faithfully, 

(Signed) H. W. Lee.

It is now October and nothing further has been heard from them on the matter. Verb. sap.

* * *

 

The B.S.P. we are informed, publish a paper called the “Socialist Record.” Desiring to sample it we wrote asking what are the subscription rates. Here is the reply from their Central Office, dated August 29th, 1912 :—

Mr. A. L. Cox,

S.P.G.B., 

193 Gray’s Inn Road, W.C.

Dear Sir,

Replying to your letter of the 23rd instant I have to say that the “Socialist Record” is a journal for members of the British Socialist Party, and is not for public circulation.

Yours faithfully, 

(Signed) Albert Inkpin, 

Assistant Secretary.

More verb. sap.

* * *

 

The Socialist Party, however, has nothing to apologise for, nothing fear and nothing hide. All our publications are therefore for the public, as all our meetings are open to the public. The result is seen in that the enemy fear us, while the more intelligent of the working class respect our courageous attitude and show a growing appreciation of our consistent propaganda for Socialism. To further assist in this direction Educational Classes will be held during the winter months. Already arrangements are made to open the Central class at Head Office on Oct. 11th. At West Ham and Battersea classes are also starting.

* * *

 

The Party has received several invitations to send representatives to explain Socialism to other organisations and branches thereof. This is a very useful form of propaganda, and should be encouraged. Needless to say, speakers will readily be sent when requested.

O.

SPGB Snippets: Poverty deepens (2026)

From the Socialist Party of Great Britain website 

October 21, 2026

According to a report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, more than 1 person in 5 in the UK was living in poverty in 2023/4, which is just over 14 million people. London may be seen as a comparatively well-off city, but it had the highest level of poverty, at just over a quarter.

Of the 14 million, nearly half were in ‘very deep poverty’, with income far below the standard poverty line. Since 2017, the numbers experiencing destitution have more than doubled, and nearly three million struggle to access enough nutritious food.

This is the extent of poverty in a supposedly ‘developed’ country, and it shows that capitalism cannot meet the needs of all.

The Bogey of the Taxes. (1950)

From the November 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the first issue* of the Socialist Standard (September, 1904) an article was published under the above title. It explained a view on taxes and rates that has been consistently held by the S.P.G.B. It showed that taxation is not a question with which the working class should concern themselves. Owing to the greater degree to which prices are now government-controlled, and owing to the general rise in the amount of taxation, it may seem on a superficial view that it is absurd in these days to say that rates and taxes are not a burden on the working class; but the S.P.G.B. view, though it shocked the reformist parties nearly half a century ago, is still the only sound one.

The Appearance of Things

At first glance it seems so obvious to workers that they suffer from high taxation and would benefit if it were to be reduced, that they do not believe that there can seriously be a contrary view. They see that they pay a high price for cigarettes because of the succeeding increases of the duty levied on them; that they pay more for articles on which there is purchase tax; and that some of them pay income tax.

What is more they know how large the amount of tax or duty is on some articles. Cigarettes in 1914 were sold at 4d. or 5d. for a packet of 20. In 1939 the price had gone up to 1/2 and is now 3/6, of which duty accounts for 2/9½, and as the cost of tobacco imported from America has increased as a result of the devaluation of the pound in September, 1949, the price may rise still more—though it should be noticed here that that will not be due to an increase of tobacco duty but to an increase of import prices.

As regards income tax, official figures show that in 1947-48 the total wages of 20 million workers amounted to £5,907 millions, and £455,400,000 of this was deducted as Income Tax (91st Report of Inland Revenue. Page 33). This means that on an average about 1/6 out of every 20/- of wages and salaries is deducted as Income Tax. Many workers pay no income tax; either because their wages are below the limit where income tax begins, or because they are exempt from tax through the reliefs allowed for wife and children. An unmarried worker earning £6 a week pays about 11/- a week tax. On the same pay a married man without children pays about 4/6d. a week, and if he has one child he pays about 6d. a week. With two children he pays no tax and he also receives 5/- a week as State allowance for the second child.

With these facts in mind it seems to be undeniable to most workers that if income tax and purchase tax and the duties on beer and cigarettes were to be reduced they would be better off.

But again we say that that is only the appearance of things. The reason for this will be explained later, but before coming to the explanation there are some further factors to be examined.

Some Additions and Subtractions

Any member of the Labour Government, asked about taxation, will reply by pointing to what he will call the other side of the picture. He will show that the government spends over £400 million a year of the money raised by taxation in subsidising various foodstuffs so that they can be sold at prices lower than if there were no subsidies. The Government also spends about £60 million a year on childrens’ allowances, and contributes £450 million to the health service, old age pensions, insurance benefits, etc., including £47 millions on public assistance. The defender of the Labour Government will argue that this is all of benefit to the workers.

The Labour Party has no comprehensive theory to explain what determines the amount of wages the workers receive though at present the view propagated by the Labour leaders is that higher wages can only come through harder work and increased production. Their argument about subsidies and taxes goes on the following lines. They say that if we assume wages to remain at about the present level then subsidies are good because they permit the workers to get more for the money they spend; and if income tax were to be reduced the workers would also have more of their wages to take home and could spend more. We do not accept the Labour Party view about wages but let us assume merely for the sake of argument that their view is correct. As soon as we do so we notice that there is a snag in it even from their standpoint.

If we are asked to believe that the workers are better off because the government spends £400 millions a year on subsidies to keep food prices down then we must set against it the fact that the government is now collecting through the increase of duties on beef £200 million a year more than was raised in that way before the war; while the increased duties on tobacco and cigarettes produce for the government £520 millions a year more than before the war. A large part of this is collected on the beer and cigarettes bought by the workers.

If the workers receive as childrens’ allowances £60 million a year and the government contributes £450 million to the social services there has to be set against this the £455 million income tax deducted from wages and salaries. (The workers also pay national insurance contributions, but taking one year with another these are returned as benefits).

On the face of it we see that the payments to the workers and the deductions from wages as income tax, and the duties paid on beer and cigarettes, etc., more or less cancel each other out.

It might be thought from this that the government is going to a lot of trouble just for no purpose at all but there is more in it than meets the eye.

The deductions in the form of income tax and the duties on beer and tobacco mainly hit the unmarried workers who pay more income tax than do married men and are likely to be able to afford more beer and cigarettes. On the other hand it is only the married men with families who are affected by childrens’ allowances and it is they who are mostly affected by the food subsidies. What, therefore, the whole so-called “Welfare State ” achieves is a certain redistribution of wages among the workers themselves. Or to put it another way the discontent of the married men that would otherwise add weight to the demand for higher wages is to some extent lessened, thus making it easier for the government and the employers to gain acceptance for the policy of no wage increases.

We now come to the general question of wages and prices and to the socialist contention that taxation is not a working class question.

Wages and the Cost of living

The Marxist explanation of wages is that they are the price the workers receive for something they sell, that something being their power to labour, their physical and mental energies. It is sold by the hour, day, week or month and like other commodities sold under capitalism its value is determined by the amount of labour required to produce it; which means the cost of the food, clothing, shelter, etc., required to maintain the workers and their families.

Wage levels differ from one occupation to another largely because the cost of acquiring different kinds of knowledge training and skill differs. Wage levels are not necessarily at some bare physical minimum of subsistence. This is because custom plays a part. If, over a period of time, backed by trade union struggle, the workers become accustomed to additions to their standard of living (e.g. when workers become accustomed to spending on beer, cigarettes, cinemas; wireless sets and so on) they will make great efforts to resist being reduced again to a lower standard.

At times when unemployment is widespread the ability of the workers to struggle for higher wages or to resist a reduction of wages is much. lessened. At times when unemployment is small the ability of the workers to enforce wage demands is greater but, as recent experience has shown, government propaganda against wage increases has some effect in dissuading workers from using the opportunity.

Wages and the wage struggle are much influenced by changes of the prices of the articles that enter into the workers' cost of living. If the cost of living rises the workers must struggle for a corresponding rise of wages or else suffer a lowering of their standard of living.

Owing to this struggle, although wages and prices do not necessarily keep in line, experience shows that they do not usually get much out of line. The Labour Government supporters who say that workers are much better off because wages are higher than before the war, and the Tories who say the workers are much worse off because prices before the war were much lower, are both wrong. An estimate made by the Oxford Institute of Statistics (“Bulletin” July-August, 1950. Pages 244 and 245) showed that in the 10 years to May, 1949. wage rates had risen since before the war by 80 per cent. and working class cost of living by 79 per cent. Although it would not be claimed that precise estimates are possible it may be taken that these figures are at least approximately correct. During the past three years wages have risen less than the cost of living. The Ministry of Labour figures show wages as having risen since June, 1947, by 10 per cent. and the cost of living by 13 per cent.

Taxation and the Workers

Now we may ask what part taxes play in this struggle. First let us view it from the standpoint of wages. The short answer is that workers think in terms of the money they actually take home and can spend. Workers who resent having considerable amounts deducted as income tax are to that extent spurred on to demand higher wages as compensation, and under conditions that are favourable (e.g., comparatively little unemployment) past experience shows that a struggle on those lines may be more or less successful. An estimate covering the period 1939 to October, 1947 ("British Labour under Labour Government." published by the United States Department of Labour) showed that wage rates had increased just about enough to compensate for the increased cost of living, after allowing for the deduction of income tax from wages.

If we now look at the problem from the standpoint of prices we see that if prices rise because of purchase tax or duties on beer, cigarettes, etc., that is just like any other factor causing a rise of prices. The chief reason why the cost of living is about three times what it was 50 years ago is not because of purchase tax or duties. It is because the pound has been fixed at a relationship to gold which is about one-third what it was in 1900. The latest change in that direction was the devaluation of the pound in September, 1949. It has already had considerable effect in raising wholesale prices and we can expect that before long it will increase retail prices in the shops unless the Government decides to increase the amount of subsidies paid and thus manages to keep prices down.

By comparison with the enormous devaluation of the pound since 1900 the effect of purchase tax and the duties on beer and cigarettes are minor factors in causing the cost of living as a whole to rise.

But whatever may be the cause of a rise of the workers' cost of living they must struggle to secure at least compensating wage increases if they are to save themselves from becoming worse off.

We may now put the question would a reduction of taxes make the working class better off ? The answer is that the working class always have to struggle if they want to improve or even to maintain their standard of living.

If a reduction of purchase tax and duties was followed by a fall of the cost of living workers would be faced with intensified efforts from the employers to force down wages. The cost of living did fall heavily in the early nineteen-twenties and workers in most industries suffered wage reductions as great or nearly as great as the fall of the cost of living. A comparison with the years 1900—1914 really answers the question. At that time prices and taxes were very much lower than now but nobody seriously claims that the working class were better off because of that. Prices were lower and so were wages.

Rents and Rates

Just as some people isolate income tax or purchase tax or the beer and tobacco duties and argue that if only these were reduced the workers would be better off, so others isolate rent and rates and argue that if only these items were reduced it would raise the workers standard of living. As has already been pointed out all of the workers’ items of expenditure are part of his cost of living and no matter whether one item or all items are reduced in price the workers still have to struggle to prevent wages from falling with the fall of the cost of living. Two examples will illustrate the truth of this.

Rent restriction was introduced because, owing to the shortage of houses during the first world war, landlords were able to demand greatly increased rents. Rents were therefore controlled because otherwise there would have been what a government committee of inquiry called “grave unrest,” meaning that the workers would have come out on strike for higher wages. It will be noticed here that the rents did not go up mainly because of any increase of rates but simply because the demand for houses exceeded the supply. The advocates of rent control argued that control of rents improves the position of the workers because with low rents they have more money to spend on other things. Rent control has continued and the average proportion of wages spent on rent has fallen. Are the workers better off? Do they as a result of rent control feel that they have more money to spend on other things and need no longer worry about the cost of living? On the contrary the cost of living issue in relation to wages is as acute now as it always was. When the gas maintenance men came out on strike in September one of their representatives declared:—“Strikes are about to break out all over the country—quite rightly—because of the cost of living.” (Daily Mail, 4/10/50). The feelings of the gas workers on the cost of living are shared by workers generally.

Authenticated and more precise examples were reported on by the International Labour Office in a report published in 1925. (“The Workers Standard of Life in Countries with Depreciated Currencies.”) The report showed that in Vienna the proportion of wages spent on rent had been reduced through rent control from 20 per cent, in 1914 to barely 1 per cent, in 1923. But were they better off? The conclusion of the I.L.O. was as follows:—“Most of the workers were in the same position as in Germany; they had practically no liabilities under the heading of rent, but the corresponding amount was not included in their wages. The actual gain was thus nil.”

The people who gained were the employers (through wages being kept low) and the people who lost were the landlords. The Report continues: —“ Industry on the other hand, benefited, as in Germany, by the reduction in the cost of most labour by the full amount which rent represented in wages before the war.”

Taxes and Prices

The case has been argued on the assumption that purchase tax and duties may cause a corresponding increase of prices. Under post-war conditions, with government controls and price fixing and shortages of supply of many articles, this has usually happened. Under pre-war conditions when supplies were plentiful and competition between sellers was keen it sometimes did not happen. Sometimes when duties were increased the sellers, in their anxiety to capture a larger share of a restricted demand, either did not increase their prices or increased them by less than the increase of duties. Even now, as supplies of some articles have increased and stocks have piled up, sellers of some articles have sold at less than the maximum controlled price either as a continuous policy or periodically through sales at cut prices.

But again it is emphasised that whichever way it goes the workers are forced to struggle to keep wages in line with the cost of living and cannot hope automatically to improve their standard of living by any device for reducing prices, rates, taxes or duties.

On Whom do Taxes Fall?

The S.P.G.B. holds then that the question of high or low prices or taxes is not a working class question because what the working class live by is wages and they have to struggle to maintain wage levels whether prices and taxes are high or low and the principal factors in the struggle are, on the one side, the workers' cost of living, and on the other side the factors such as good or bad trade, much or little unemployment which help or hinder the trade unions in pressing wage claims.

If then taxation (and this includes rates as well) is not a working class problem whose problem is it? Taxation is the problem of the capitalist class. All of the wealth that the workers produce is the property of the employing class. When the employers have succeeded in selling the goods produced by the workers they employ, and after they have paid wages and met all other expenses of production, they still have to meet the demands of the local and central government for rates and taxes of various kinds. All of the employing class have an interest—as they continually show—in trying to reduce the cost of government. As far as is politically practicable and militarily safe they try to reduce the amount the government raises as taxation and spends on civil service, military service, prisons, police, etc., etc. If they succeed in getting taxation reduced it is in the hope of benefiting themselves; certainly not with the intention of passing on the benefit to the workers.

But beyond this the capitalists are much concerned with trying to place some of the burden of taxation on the shoulders of other sections of their own class. When the brewing interests try to get beer duties reduced (because they hope thereby to increase sales and profits) they do not at all mind if the government meets the situation by putting a corresponding increase of taxation on the capitalists in some other industry— the cinemas for example. But however the struggle between sections of the capitalists over taxation may turn out that is their problem and it involves no interest affecting the working class.

It is emphasised that the whole of the problem discussed here is viewed from the standpoint of the working class as a whole. It is not questioned that changes in taxation and price levels, etc., may affect individuals or groups in different ways. When prices fall some strongly placed groups of workers may, at least for a time, succeed in holding on to their former wage rates; and when prices rise some groups may be quite unable to secure corresponding wage increases. But these cases do not affect the general argument as it relates to the position of the working class under capitalism.

Conclusion

The purpose of this article Is to show that under capitalism the working class have got to persist in their endless struggle to maintain and improve their standard of living. There are no ways of escape inside capitalism from the position the working class occupy as an exploited class. Does this mean that there is no way out at all? By no means. There is a way out and the only way. As a wage-earning class under capitalism there is no future for the working class except a repetition of the struggles they have carried on throughout capitalism. The only way out is for the working class to cease to be a wage-earning class. They must abolish the wages system, abolish capitalism and establish Socialism.

Edgar Hardcastle

Blogger's Note:

Despite it not being November, this article got a bump 'cos it's mentioned in the Editorial Committee's reply to this letter which appeared in the October 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard.

One point of correction, though. Jack Fitzgerald' article, 'The Bogey of the Taxes', which Edgar Hardcastle mentions in the opening paragraph of this article, actually appeared in the second issue of the Socialist Standard, not the first issue.