A Socialist Principle Re-examined (1957)

From the September 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

At each general election the Tory Party tells the electors that it intends to make changes in the law or in the administration of the law. Among the changes promised in 1955 were lower taxes, smaller classes in schools, legislation to safeguard the employment of children, changes in the rating system, more Scotsmen for Scottish affairs, reform of the House of Lords, and encouragement of the Welsh language in Welsh schools. In addition to definite promises, there were expressions of “anxiety," "sympathy." and so on, about other problems. The Labour Party had a similar list; it included action against monopolies (the Tories' only undertook to be anxious about this); smaller classes (like the Tories, but using the phrase “more teachers"); respect for the national culture of Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland, and "full employment" in the first two, but only the promise of “new industries" for the third. The main purpose of these promised "reforms" is transparently clear—they are to attract the votes of interested people, the Welsh and the Scots, parents of young children, small traders afraid of monopolies, and so on. The politicians and business men who control the Tory Party are not trying to persuade the electors to make great changes in present social arrangements; their purpose is just the opposite. They like the arrangement that makes 10 per cent. of the population the owners of 90 per cent. of the accumulated wealth of the country, and they want to be elected and control the government so that they can keep it that way. They promise to make small changes in order to have power to prevent big ones. At the 1955 election they were the most successful of the “reformers." They and their associates got 49.8 per cent of the votes cast while the Labour Party got only 46.3 per cent The Liberals and the Communists and the I.LP. were also there before the electors, trying, though with much less success, to get votes on a list of promised reforms.

Socialists fight the Reformist Parties

The Socialist Party of Great Britain on principle has no list of reforms, either between elections or at elections. We do not seek the votes of people who want reforms of the present social system. The only votes we seek and receive are for the purpose of getting rid of the present social system and replacing it by Socialism. We do not support campaigns for reforms or associate with reformist organisations. The S.P.G.B. was formed in revolt against the uselessness of reformism, and to fight the reformist organisations, including such bodies as the Labour Party. The Socialists who founded the S.P.G.B. had had long experience of that sort of thing in the Social Democratic Federation, from which they broke away. The reformist organisations are the enemies of Socialism. 

The Socialists who, back in the times of the S.D.F., thought they could be reformists as well as Socialists, had a neat theory to justify themselves. They were, at first, comparatively clear about what Socialism is and what its attainment involves. They knew, for example, that it meant dispossessing the capitalist class and transferring the means of production and distribution to society. They knew that h involved ending property incomes and the production of articles for sale and profit. But it was. they said, impossible to make headway with the clear-cut object of Socialism because the workers were too stupid to understand and accept it: they dubbed the S.P.G.B. the “Impossibilists. ” They said they knew a better way. They would keep Socialism as their ultimate aim, but in the meantime they would unite the workers on programmes of reform and lead them on to Socialism, they refused to believe our contention that fighting for reforms leads to confusion, builds up a purely reformist organisation, and ends by burying and forgetting the Socialist aim that was supposed to be the only justification for Socialist activity. Now the S.D.F. is dead, but the evil that it and the I.L.P. did lives on in the Labour Party, and everything that the S.P.G.B. foretold has come to pass.

Immediate demands

The S.D.F. had a long list of “palliatives” or “immediate demands”; items to rally the workers and be brought at once into operation while we were waiting for Socialism. In the list exactly 50 years ago were such trifles as abolition of the House of Lords, abolition of the monarchy, and repudiation of the national debt. Of course, none of these demands has been carried, and hardly anyone in Labour Party circles now even wants them.

If someone had the temerity to propose them today at the T.U.C. or Labour Party, the delegates would be dazed with astonishment. What, abolish the dear old Lords, where superannuated Labour M.P.s can now go and draw their three guineas a day? No more medals and honours from the Queen, and no more garden parties at Buckingham Palace? Repudiate the national debt, where millions of pounds of trade union funds are invested? The only monarch abolished in these 50 years was Edward VIII, forced to abdicate by a Tory government, and the monarchy now has no more fervent supporters than the Labour Party. Of course, there were many other immediate demands in the list that have been carried, but without the slightest effect in alleviating or palliating the condition of the workers. One of these was the. demand that M.P.s should be paid. Free, gratis and for nothing we offer to any enterprising vote-catcher the idea of fighting an election on a demand that M.P.s should be deprived of the increase of pay they recently voted themselves while the Prime Minister was chiding the workers for their ill-advised wage claims: he would be certain of quite a lot of votes from the envious citizenry.

The Independent Labour Party also had a list of  reforms, described as “means” to Socialism. It was a less ambitious list than the one used by the S.D.F. and, therefore, more of its valueless demands have been achieved, but widows, orphans and the sick and disabled are still whistling for the “adequate provision” and “state pensions for every person over 50 ” that the I.L.P. had in its programme at the beginning of the century.

Restricted Rents and Restricted Wages

The S.D.F. fifty years ago had an "immediate demand” on housing. It was for the "compulsory construction of healthy dwellings for the people, and such dwellings to be let at rents to cover the cost of maintenance and construction only.” It will be noticed that it had two aims, low rents and the abolition of slums. The Tory Party and the Labour Party have both introduced much legislation on these questions, though the Tories have the distinction of first having introduced rent restriction and now being well on the way to abolishing it entirely.

The reformist demand for restricted rents is part of the myth that the workers’ problems would be solved by low prices. In the 19th century it was the Liberal Party, representing the manufacturers, who wanted low prices and low rents, and it was they who secured the abolition of the Corn Laws so that cheap food imports would lower the cost of living—and wages. The Tory landlords lost, and the Liberal manufacturers gained, but not the workers. The same thing happened in 1915 when rent restriction hit the landlords and kept wages low, to help the manufacturers. Now, by a curious reversal of roles, it is the Labour Party that speaks for the export manufacturers and points out that higher rents will mean higher wages and hamper exports. The manufacturing capitalist’s interest in low rents and low wages is understandable, but from the workers’ standpoint it forgets that we live under capitalism in which the workers’ living depends on what wages they can get. The Tories did not introduce rent control in 1915 in order to give the workers the benefit of low rents with high wages, but as part of a campaign to prevent wages from rising. And the Labour Government carried it on with precisely the same aim. While they were in office from 1945 to 1951 they used every effort to keep wages down, in spite of a rising cost of living. Official information on wage rates and the cost of living proves this, and it was admitted again by Mr. Harold Wilson, M.P., in the House of Commons on 25th July, 1957. Speaking officially for the Labour Party, he said:—

"I believe that the Unions have shown great restraint since the war. In a seller’s market they could have made and exacted much bigger claims for their members than they have done." (Hansard, 25th July, Col. 637.)

To put the matter in perspective, we may take the figure given by the Labour Party spokesmen in the Rent Control debate on 21st November, 1956. They said that the new Rent Act would add about £100 million a year to the workers’ rent bill. This may be compared with the Labour Government’s policies which added thirty per cent. to the workers’ cost of living between 1945 and 1951. That thirty per cent. rise added, not £100 million a year to the workers’ cost of living, but at least £1,000 million a year, and probably very much more. Against the opposition of the Labour Government, with its “wage restraint” policy, the workers had to fight continuously for higher wages, and fell far short of catching up, though by a more aggressive policy since the Tories came in they have now succeeded.

No Care for Slums

The second part of the old reform demand was “healthy dwellings’’—the abolition of slums. Every government has promised to deal with slums, but the problem is greater now than at any time in half a century, and the number of slums is growing fast. This fact is the Tories’ excuse for abolishing rent control on the ground that with restricted rents old houses are not kept in repair and are falling into slumdom by the hundred thousand. The Labour Party does not deny this; that is why they are not prepared to re-introduce the old restrictions if they get back into power. In the Labour Party pamphlet, “Homes of the Future” (1956, page 49), appears the statement:—

"Rent control has been quoted as the main reason for the deterioration in the condition of rented property since 1920. That it is one of the reasons cannot be denied, but it is by no means the only one.”

In the same pamphlet is the admission that the Labour Party policy of having rented houses taken over by the local authority and put in good repair will also mean higher rents, described as “a moderate increase in rent." (p. 13). In short, the reformers cut their own throats. They wanted capitalism to give them low rents and also the abolition of slums, and the one destroyed the other. They thought they were being “practical,” not impossible, like the S.P.G.B. They thought of everything except the one thing that matters, that we are living under capitalism.

According to the original band of “socialists” who wanted to work through reforms, it was all supposed to be a quick way of achieving the objective of Socialism. And after fifty years of it capitalism is as firmly entrenched as ever, and if a Labour Government comes in again its position will actually be reinforced, for the latest nostrum of these “socialists” who have no time for Socialism, is that the Labour Government will buy shares in big companies! Muddle-headed as the S.D.F. and I.L.P forerunners of the Labour Party were, this would make Hyndman and Keir Hardie turn in their graves. 

Edgar Hardcastle