The Socialist Forum: Socialists and Charity. (1933)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism and Charity.

A correspondent writes as follows: —

The opening paragraph in the article on Charity, in the May Socialist Standard, conveys sentiments with which I heartily concur, and emphasises a state of affairs that unfortunately does universally prevail. The argument advanced throughout the succeeding paragraphs sketches the tragedy of the working-class in lurid colours, but I think it is a reasonable statement to make that the condition which obtains is largely contributed to by the workers themselves. I am convinced that, although hardships under any social system are inevitable, a great many, owing primarily to careless and irresponsible spending, are avoidable. There are thousands of disciplined-minded workers with limited wages throughout the country who manage quite well to maintain a self-respecting and healthy existence by their economy, avoiding habits of excess and intemperance, which really are the dominant causes for most of the misery and destitution which exists. It is a shameful cry on the part of the advocates of Socialism to taunt charity workers, and to associate with these ideal efforts such terms as “Lies, Cant and Humbug." Charitable efforts are actuated almost entirely by human kindliness. The voluntary system of maintaining hospitals in this country is a shining example to the rest of the world of the sense of responsibility which actuates the minds of those in the community who are able and willing to help their neighbours. Hospitals succour thousands of grateful patients throughout the year, and I fail to find in the vague programme styled “Socialism” with all its empty platitudes any better system to take the place of that grand voluntary scheme of charitable effort upon which the community is able to rely.

Reply.

Had our correspondent contented himself with saying that some workers are thriftless and intemperate he would have been on safe ground, but even then he should ask himself what are the causes of these characteristics. He would find, if he pursued his inquiries, that the conditions of capitalist employment and the devices adopted by capitalist Governments to patch up the evils produced by their system are direct causes of thriftlessness and intemperance. It should be obvious to any observer that excessive hours of work and excessively laborious work, the worry of unemployment, undernourishment due to insufficient wages, bad housing conditions and the adulteration of food, are factors which drive the workers to seek relief in stimulants, including alcohol, and are factors over which the individual worker has little or no control. Even then it is his poverty which often compels him to buy the cheaper and more harmful stimulants.

To charge any number of the workers with careless and irresponsible spending is ludicrous. How can workers go in for careless and irresponsible spending when the average wage of industrial workers is in the neighbourhood of £2 10s. 0d. a week?

To say that hardship is inevitable under any social system may be true (although, obviously, the hardships due to scarcity of the necessaries of life could now be abolished), but what is not inevitable is that such hardships should fall on only part of the population. There is nothing inevitable about the kind of hardship we see every day under capitalism, of workers dismissed in order to cheapen production by means of labour-saving devices, which serve to enhance the profits of shareholders.

With regard to charity, our correspondent is living in a world which is largely one of make-believe. Behind charitable donations there is some spontaneous sympathy for the victims of capitalism; often, however, from people who will not raise a finger to prevent the need for such charity. They would be doing something of greater practical utility if they helped to abolish the cause of the hardship—the capitalist system.

On the other hand, a vast amount of so-called charity is simply a highly organised capitalist business. Under cover of permits granted by the Government and the police, but only to certain influential and favoured organisations, men and women whose living depends on it, conduct gigantic campaigns of mass advertising and mass intimidation in the form of “flag days" to extract money from the public. The collecting organisations themselves, and the distributing organisations (charities, hospitals, etc.), are often conducted on lines which are as far removed from human kindness and sympathy as anything could be.

It is a common practice nowadays for the victim of a street accident, who lands in a “voluntary" hospital, to be questioned almost immediately by a businesslike official as to whether he or she holds an insurance as a registered reader of a newspaper. The whole or part of the proceeds are, of course, appropriated by the hospital. Next, the hospital authorities press the victim to bring an action if there is the slightest chance of getting damages—in which also the “voluntary” hospital, dips its rapacious hand.

At the Conference of the National Association of Trade Union Approved Societies in Edinburgh, on June 15th, 1933, a resolution was passed protesting against the growing practice on the part of hospitals of making non-paying patients wait for beds, and giving preference to paying patients. The General Secretary, Mr. Ernest Corbey, said (Daily Herald, June 16th) that there is a general move all over the country to reserve more beds for paying patients. So little does Mr. Corbey regard the “voluntary” hospitals as charitable institutions that he expressly concentrated his complaint mainly on the rate-supported hospitals. He said: “We may not be able to grouse very much about voluntary hospitals, on which our claim is less legitimate . . . ."

Our correspondent concludes with some extravagant and misplaced praise for that grand voluntary scheme of charitable effort upon which the community is able to rely. It is misplaced because the community, as capitalist Governments have everywhere been forced to recognise, has not been able to rely on charity.

One country after another has had to institute unemployment insurance and work-houses and poor law relief, because the thin trickle of charity was not enough. One country after another has had to institute state and municipal hospitals, because charity would not provide sufficient voluntary ones. Taking the industrial capitalist countries as a whole, dependence on voluntary hospitals is becoming the exception rather than the rule.

Charity is sometimes the spontaneous expression of fellow feeling by people who do not understand why the need exists. It is more often a salve to the conscience of the exploiter; a cheap insurance against the discontent of the dispossessed; and the insult which the exploiting class adds to the injury wrought by it on the workers. 

Ed. Comm.