The Apostles of Lower Wages. (1909)

From the January 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Once again we turn the searchlight upon the nefarious traffic of those who, styling themselves labour leaders, support the character by leading Labour, like a lamb, to the slaughter. The latest instance of the treachery of these odorous hirelings of the capitalist class, while of no importance as an historical event, since it indicates no new phase in the record of this unspeakable band of fratricides, is of moment as showing once again, to those who have eyes to see, the face of the old enemy beneath the mask of the new friend. Mr. D. J. Shackleton, M.P., member of the Parliamentary Labour Group, president of the Trade Unions Congress, is reported to have delivered himself of the following sentiments at the Mechanics’ Institute, Nottingham, on November 30th :—

“Supporters of the Bill recently rejected were hoping that it would have enabled them to deal with the drink traffic in such a manner as to put the country on a more equal footing with its industrial competitors in other countries. So long as they spent, as at present, far and away more than Germany and America per head of the population on intoxicating liquors, so long would they be liable to be beaten in industrial competition.”—Daily Chronicle, 1.12.08.

There is, indeed, food for reflection in this message from the chief of the purveyors of soporifics to the working class of this country. In the first place it may be noticed with what a deft turn of capitalist sophistry this hireling shepherd removes the fight from the “class” field to that of race. It is not, be it observed, the filching from the worker of the greater part of the product of his toil that claims the attention of Mr. D. J. Shackleton and his cannibal pack of vampires. No ! the enemy of labour is not capital; the despoiler of the worker is not that class which stand between him and the fulness of the earth the fruit of his painful drudgery ; the evil is not, mark you, rooted in the system of class domination, class possession of all that is necessary and good under the sun. No ! all this is mythology, the vain vapouring of well-meaning visionaries, or the calculated seduction of far-seeing panderers to the popular aspiration to better conditions. Labour has but one foe, we are told, and that is—himself.

Oh ! coals of fire upon those of us who dared to dream of the “brotherhood of man,” and those others of us who asserted nothing higher than the oneness of the material interests of the wage-workers the whole world—over the enemy of Labour in one country is himself in all other countries. The workers of Germany and of America have taken us by the throat in the strife of industrial competition, and we must clutch at their vitals in self defence.

Alas ! for our dream of emancipation without distinction of race or sex.

Oh ! sackcloth and ashes for those of us who aspired to the capture of political power for the overthrow of the capitalist system, the bill is to be filled by the abolition of the House of Lords to the end that a measure shall be passed to make the British worker become more abstemious and so put “the country on a more equal footing with its industrial competitors in other countries.”

Overwhelming shame on those of us who, in our visionary frenzy, declared for “the whole product to the producer,”—the trouble is that the workers already get too much ! They must be legislated into temperance—not for temperance sake, but to “put the country on a more equal footing with its industrial competitors in other countries.”

Repentance at leisure for those fools who sent Mr. D. J. Shackleton and his gang of shameless harpies to the House of Commons to forward the interests of Labour—the only interest of Labour they have made any attempt to forward is this abortive effort to reduce the workers’ “drink bill” so that a corresponding deduction may be made from their wages bill “to put the country on a more equal footing with its industrial competitors of other countries.”

These men stand now in the broad light of day, self confessed—by the lips of their leader—apostles of lower wages for the class who are fools enough to allow them access to their pockets in the vain hope that they will do something for them.

For how else can they pretend that the realisation of their desire to “deal with the drink traffic” can save their working-class dupes from being “beaten in industrial competition,” except on the ground that lower wages would rule, and enable the manufacturer to throw commodities into the foreign market at a lower price ? Mr. Shackleton may be quite correct in his economics so far. It is admitted that, notwithstanding the broad law ruling the world of commodities, making them exchange one with another according to the labour time necessary to their production, the manufacturer who secures the cheapest labour-power is certainly in a position to sell below value “to secure the business.” But to argue therefrom that the workers of this country, as a result of having learnt to live cheaper, and therefore to work, as these labour leeches wish them to, for smaller wages, are going to reap the benefit in the form of less unemployment, is to present a view as chimerical as it is pleasing and plausible.

If there is any truth in Mr. Shackleton’s argument that the lower wages due to the lessened consumption of intoxicating liquors will enable British commodities to find a larger sale in foreign markets, it equally true that the rise in British wages which would follow upon the more general demand for labour-power in the home labour market will have a counterbalancing effect. For the rest, as has been recently shown in these columns, any rise of the price of labour-power at once handicaps it against its incessant competitor, machinery, the extended adoption of which throws men out of employment until the relative proportion of out-o’-works to in-works stands at that particular level that best suits the production of profit.

So, the object of these instruments of working-class betrayal resolves itself merely into a reduction of the working-class standard of living, lessening of the portion of wealth produced which falls to the lot of the producer, ostensibly “to put the country on a more equal footing with its industrial competitors in other countries,” but in reality in order that a larger share of the wealth produced may be left for those who do not produce it.

A high aim, friends and fellow workers of the S.D.P. and I.L.P., who bruised your shoulders against the wheel to trundle these men into the “House.” A lofty and noble aspiration, brother workers of the trade unions, of whose Congress this particular individual is the presis, to direct your anxious efforts toward. Lower wages is the only message he has for you, for all the hundreds of golden pieces you pour into his capacious maw, year in and year out. A lower standard of living, a cheaper existence, is the only hope he can see for you, who produce all the wealth of the community and enjoy so little of it. A labour leader, and the only enemy he can find to lead you against is your fellow workers of Germany and America. The paid declarant of your poverty and suffering, he insults and mocks you with the suggestion that you have yourselves to blame for wasting your substance in riotous living—as your abstemious masters have told you for so many years without charging you anything for the information.

Fellow members of the working class, how long will you continue to put your faith in these damnable, sneering rascals who, imbuing you with the fallacious idea that they are nearer to you than your masters are, become the valued instruments of those masters by leading you around the industrial Desert of Gobi ? The present remedy for your deplorable condition is to reduce your standard of living to that of your German co-workers ; but how when international capital opens up the great Chinese labour market, and you are face to face with the products of 500,000,000 people who can each, we are told, live on a handful of rice ? It is logical to presume that your salvation will then lie in reducing your standard of living to meet the new conditions.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain do not offer you economic salvation at so low a cost as temperance or even total abstinence, do not promise you safety in citizen armies, or surcease of sorrow in pensions for the old and meals for the young, do not urge you to take arms against the militarism of the German Emperor or to tighten the belt and forego pipe and pewter in the endeavour to outstarve the “industrial competitors in other countries.” All we can offer you are the irresistible weapons of the class struggle and a place in the forefront of the battle; continued and increasing poverty and suffering until the day of victory,—but victory at last. They lie who promise you more; they betray who would have you burn your brains out in the search for palliatives. There is no balm in capitalist Gilead, therefore—the World for the Workers. Only possession of whole means of production can give you any amelioration of your lot. Unemployment and starvation, ay, and even drunkenness too, and other degradation, are, the necessary concomitants, or, it is better said, necessary results of your status as wage-slaves. That status must be altered ; and it is because these men who claim to represent Labour in Parliament, with their fostering of race hatred, their advocacy of cheaper existence, their thousand and one acts and “words that weary and perplex and pander and conceal,” are one of the chief bulwarks of capitalist domination that we denounce them for what they are—tools of the master class, betrayers of their own.

A. E. Jacomb

Where Labor is Robbed. (1909)

From the January 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Labor is robbed where labor is employed, and, directly, nowhere else. Labor is robbed in the pay envelope, and the hand that reaches the pay envelope to him and no other, directly, is in his pocket.

Labor cannot be robbed in the prices it is compelled to pay for the commodities which it consumes. For the good and sufficient reason that the cost of living determines wages. Wages always hover about the cost of subsistence. If provisions and clothing are dear, wages must go up to meet the increased cost of living, since the laborer must live before he can work. If the employer gets his profits, he must see to it somehow that his wage-slave is in working condition, just as the farmer must see to it that his horses must have hay and stabling if he is to have the benefit of their labor. The cost of hay is of no particular concern to the horses.

In an accommodated sense, labor can be “robbed” in the quality of the goods consumed, by means of fraud and adulteration but not in price.

A Battle Creek contributor to last week’s “Wage Slave,” for example, says that ”the hand of the rich man is externally in the poor man’s pocket for taxes or for the price of meat.” This is not correct. The hand of the rich man, i.e., the employer, is in the employee’s pocket in one manner only, and that is in withholding from him, in the pay envelope, four-fifths of the value he has created. They can’t make the wage-earner pay one penny of the taxes, Municipal, State, or National; and if meat sold at a dollar a pound, that wouldn’t affect him in the slightest degree, either, so long as other commodities advanced correspondingly. If the price of meat advances out of proportion to the cost of other food-stuffs containing the same dynamic energy, the result will be simply to change the form of his diet, but it can’t possibly affect his income or make it easier or harder for him to save anything.

The only workingmen in whose pockets the Beef Trust has its hands are its own employees, whom it robs, as other employers do, in their pay envelopes, and the farmer who is robbed in his pay envelope too, in an arbitrary depression of prices.

That the wage-earners do not pay the taxes is directly evident with the great majority of them who have nothing to tax. But it is none the less certainly true of those, also, who possess a small property and are rated as taxpayers. In their case, such taxes as are levied upon them enter into the cost of living, and, again, the necessary cost of living determines the wages.

Tax reform, “trust-bustin’,” cheapened transit—or if they made it free, it would be all the same—municipal lighting, lowering of rents—all these and similar measures are seen to be purely Middle-Class measures, designed either to make the big robbers divide up a little more evenly with the little robbers, or to enable the employing class to house and feed their wage-slaves more cheaply and, consequently, get them for less wages.

The one thing needful for the working-class, without which all efforts to better their condition are vanity and vexation of spirit, is the capture for collective ownership of the land and the machinery of production. When we have this, we have it all. Without we are nothing. All efforts or attempts to benefit the working-man by lowering the cost of his living will only play into the hands of the employing class.

From The Wage-Slave.

Jottings. (1909)

The Jottings Column from the January 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The Liverpool Education Committee have completed arrangements for establishing technical evening classes for the female employes of the Ogden Branch of the Imperial Tobacco Company. The classes have been arranged at the request of the Company, who are providing rooms, lighting, heating, and cleaning free of charge to the Education Committee.” Manchester Guardian, 24.11.08.

The public spirit of the Imperial Tobacco Company is, of course, quite disinterested.

* * *

A conference was recently held at Bradford with regard to the system of employing children half-time in mills. Mr. Jonathan Peate reported on the conference to the Council of the Leeds Chamber of Commerce. In the course of his report are the following items. “Some firms employed a large number of half-timers, and if the abolition of this class of labour took place, or if the age limit was increased, it would be a great hardship to those firms.” Again: “In many cases, also, half-timers were earning an income which, if the system was abolished, would make a serious difference to, and cause great hardship to, the families to which they belonged.” And further : “These children were receiving training in the practical work of a mill which must be of the utmost value to them in later years, when they had to earn their own livelihood.”

* * *

Funny, isn’t it ? Thus are the interests of capital and labour identical. The half-timers are charitably employed because of the hardship to their families if deprived of their small wages ; the employer will also suffer hardship if he cannot employ them, and has to employ some adult (perhaps the half-timer’s father) to do the same work at higher wages.

* * *

And when the little beggars cease to eat in idleness the bread of charity, and are compelled to take life seriously and begin “to earn their own livelihood,” such training really might be of “the utmost value to them,” if they are not unemployed owing to a new generation of half-timers having supplanted them. In this case it would seem that their only hope lies in the direction of begetting baby breadwinners (did anyone say “Socialism” ?) as soon as possible.

* * *

The cry of the parents driven by economic pressure to send their children to work in order that subsistence level may be reached by the aid of their wages, is on a par with the cry of the “We cannot see them starve” sufferer from sentimental diarrhoea, who wants to do something for the unemployed under capitalism. He does something for them by blinding them to the only solution, in urging them to look for help to the class whose existence depends on a continuance of a reserve of unemployed labour.

* * *

A delegate to a deputation of teachers who visited Mr. McKenna on November 5th, 1907, showed how reforms may be made of no avail towards combatting the evils they are, ostensibly, directed against. Mr. Sykes (N.U.T.), speaking of half-timers, said that in 24 years experience he ”had never known a child rejected as physically unfit, although some of them were not robust enough to be allowed in the playground.”

* * *

The Manchester Guardian (6.11.07), dealing with this matter, said in effect, the half-timer keeps down the wages of adults by the competition of his cheaper labour, and is in turn forced, by entering unskilled employment, to a lifetime of low wages, and is flung into the industrial system whilst he should be playing.

* * *

“There has never been a Socialist speech delivered in the House; no Conference (of the Labour Party) has ever accepted Socialism except as a pious opinion. In some form the House of Commons would accept a Socialist resolution, provided there were no committal, but even that step has never been ventured.”

Ben Tillett in Justice, 5.12.08.

* * *

This is hard on our S.D.P. M.P., Will Thorne; but so far as one can see, if Ben Tillett is elected for the Eccles Division he will be on the same basis as Thorne. He will be elected as the “labour” candidate for Eccles, and not as an avowed Social-Democrat, vide S.D.P. rule 41, and rule 42 cannot be enforced by the E.C. of the S.D.P. any more than in the case of Mr. Thorne. We are not likely to hear a Socialist speech from Mr. Tillett, however, because on July 20th, 1907, he “was adopted by the Eccles Division Labour Party as Labour candidate, with the distinct understanding from the Dockers’ Union that his title should be ‘Labour Candidate.'” So wrote the General Secretary of the Eccles Division Labour Party, on October 8th, 1908, to the Manchester Evening News, correcting a statement that Mr. Tillett was “the adopted Social-Democratic candidate for Eccles.” I have seen no repudiation of this statement so far. Mr. J. R. MacDonald, also, in a published letter to Mr. Tillett, tells him he is “one of our candidates.”

* * *

“Referring to the unemployed, Mr. Grayson said that Mr. Blatchford was at present organising a scheme for feeding the hungry. If they ran short of funds they would appeal to Rothschild, the Duke of Portland, and the like, to put down a bit of their surplus cash, and if that appeal failed, all they could then say to the unemployed was ‘use your own savage discretion.’ If they could not get work and could not get food, then, without inciting, they would gently indicate that it was their indefeasible right to have bread.”—Manchester Guardian, 9.11.08. Report of speech at Greenfield, 7.11.08.

* * *

Poverty is rife under capitalist society to-day, so we will beg of the capitalist class to relieve our needs, not by disbursing all their surplus wealth, but just a bit of it. If we were to ask too much “that appeal” might fail. And when it comes to standing the hungry up “all in a row” before the rifles of the military, you won’t catch us inciting. Oh, no ! That’s risky. They might not accept our humble apologies so readily as they did Bill Thorne’s. And the “stone jug !”—they say you have to be quiet there !

* * *

If the workers cannot afford enough to keep the unemployed fed, we will ask the Rothschilds and others to be charitable. We will leave it to their generosity—we want no semblance of compelling them to disgorge by the strength of our class-conscious organisation. Not at all ! We’ll ask them “to put down a bit of their surplus cash,” and only when that appeal fails will we tell the workers that theirs is the indefeasible right to have, not only bread, but all else they require.

* * *

Even as a vote-catching dodge, this is pitiable, for the other axe-grinders can out-bribe them every time. If the Blatchford brigade give soup, the Liberal party will offer soup and pudding, and the Tory party will come along with soup, pudding, blanket, a suit of clothes and an overcoat to wrap them up in, and will scoop the lot. The race is to the rich, votes to the highest bidder, until the workers are taught what Socialism is; then they will no longer be bought and sold for a mess of pottage or a drink at the bar, will no longer be exploited in “charity,” either for the benefit of Liberal or Tory politician, noisy mumper on the “labour” movement, or the circulation of the “smart” journal of a “smart” set—much too smart for anything deeper than flirtation with Socialism.

Blogger's Note:

This was an unsigned Jottings column, but during this period of the Standard the regular writer of the column was Jim Brough of Manchester Branch, and as the unsigned author quotes from the Manchester Evening News in relation to Ben Tillett being selected as the Labour Party candidate in Eccles, I can't help but think that Brough penned this month's Jottings column.

P.S. Tillett did contest Eccles as the Labour Representative Committee candidate at the 1906 General Election but, by the time that the January 1910 election came around, he'd been replaced by G. H. Stuart-Bunning as the Labour Party candidate.

Prosperity under “Protection”. (1909)

From the January 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Unemployment in New York State

	Idle Continuously for 3 months, Jan., Feb. & March.		Idle last day of March.
	Number	Per cent.	Number	Per cent.
1906	24,746	6.5	37,239	9.9
1907	65,642	13.8	77,270	19.1

1908  101,466                      26.3                    138,131                     35.7

Fortnightly Review, Dec., ’08.

“Unity” as a Habit in England. (1909)

From the January 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

St. Vincent, Minn., Oct. 11, 1908.

Editor “Trades Unionist” :

Keir Hardie, following the fashion set by sundry British labor politicians, globe-trotting at the expense of capitalist newspapers, has again delivered himself of an athanema against the Canadian Socialist movement.

It is in the control, he says, of “the impossibilist element which

HAS TO BE ‘DOWNED’ EVERYWHERE.”

If there is any place on earth where the impossibilism so deprecated by Hardie is “downed” it is in the “‘Appy land of Hengland,” in the labor movement of which nation Hardie is one of the foremost leaders, and inasmuch as “a tree is known by its fruits,” we would reasonably expect to see a forward, harmonious movement as a result of this “downing” ; that is, if we were fools enough to be misled by the labor, even trade union, Christian, even free trade, even any old thing but impossibilist type of Socialist like Hardie and his ilk.

I am weekly in receipt of two old country Socialist papers, “Forward,” and the London “Clarion,” and there is never an issue but what is half full of “scraps” between these harmonious “compromisers” who are, unlike the Canadian Socialists, completely free from “this dogmatic and blighting creed of withering materialism.” In the last issue of the London “Clarion,” keeping faith with capitalist Liberals there is the Labor party executive in refusing to endorse Edward Hartley in Newcastle, who, mark you, is as immune from the suspicion of being an “impossibilist” as Hardie himself. The reason for which action, as alleged by the “Clarion” writer, is that in double constituencies the Liberals and Socialist, even Labor, etc., candidates have

ARRANGED TO SAW OFF

Hartley, by running at the request of the local I.L.P., S.D.F., Clarion Scouts and the numerous other organisations that go to make up the highly harmonious labor movement that Hardie thinks Canada needs so bad, has seriously imperilled this holy alliance of alleged Socialist leaders and Liberal capitalists ; hence Hartley must be “downed” too. And this is the working out of “modern Socialism,” which, Hardie says, Canadians know nothing of ! Here’s hoping they may long remain in ignorance of this Newcastle brand at any rate.

What is this term “impossibilism,” anyway, that falls so glibly from the lips of Hardie and his type ?

Will any of those “active Socialists ” Hardie refers to, who are repelled by this dreadful thing, kindly explain ? As one who has had this epithet fired at him times without number, and without—as is customary—any illuminating definition, I am naturally curious to know. Reasoning it out by comparing a known “irnpossibilist” with a gentleman known not to be such, I have reached this conclusion. An “impossibilist” is a Socialist who, knowing that in Socialism alone lies

THE ONLY HOPE

of the workers, refuses to preach anything else, and refuses to stultify himself by saying so in one speech and saying something very different in another, and as a consequence is disliked by “practical” labor men.

A non-impossibilist can do both of these things and becomes very popular, a great labor leader, etc., etc.

An impossibilist, knowing that reforms where they do tempt one section of the workers, invariably do so at the expense of the others, says so; and as a consequence gets further castigation from the “practical” politician, whose stock-in-trade is reform.

The impossibilist is, however, reminded that there are reforms which, if enforced, would make matters more tolerable for the workers, but knowing the nature of the class in control, he

WON’T WORK FOR THESE REFORMS

nor recommend them, because if they were put upon the statute book there would be nothing to them ; but the non-impossibilist, being of a practical turn of mind, spends a quarter of a century and untold energy in getting an old-age pension at an age when most working people are dead, and an Unemployed Bill on the statute book that might as well be off for all the unemployed would know about it.

The “impossibilist,” being a very unpractical fellow, foolishly reasons thus: As the workers get their eyes open to the working of the present system and the source of the strength of the capitalist—the political power they proceed to arouse their fellows to wrest the control of public power out of their masters’ hands. The more revolutionary the attitude of the workers the more sops are thrown to them, just, for instance, as a man in a desert, pursued by wolves, often delays pursuit by throwing his clothes to save his skin. If the wolves are wise they don’t waste time chewing indigestible rubbers—they

PRESS ON FOR THE GOOD MEAT.

The non-possibilist dallies by the wayside.

But the non-impossibilist says, “these arguments are all right, but you fellows don’t get elected, and by the goddess of place-hunting you spoil oar chances too !” Aye, there’s the rub ! Get elected ! Make Socialists if you can, but get elected ! Never mind if you prolong the period ; the fool workers must stew and sweat and suffer, chasing up the blind alleys of reform into which you lead them. Never mind if thereby you play into the hands of the astute capitalists. You will reach the dizzy eminence of a great labor leader ; the masses will demonstrate about you and enthuse over you even if they go straight from your meeting after listening to your speech on reforms to vote the master class the right to rule and rob for another season. Also if you can write interesting “copy” wherein you denounce the “impossibilist” Socialist who is foolish enough to be a Socialist and nothing else, the “Daily Lyre” may also finance a trip around the world for you, so you can help to make as big a mess of the labor movement abroad as you have succeeded in doing at home, to the great delight of its middle-class readers. Of course, this sizing up of the “impossibilist” and the wiseacre who is not so is, no doubt, one of the “cruditites that

MARX AND ENGELS SO SOUNDLY TROUNCED.”

‘Tis passing strange that Hardie should refer to Marx and Engels as authorities at all, seeing he he has repudiated on more than one occasion their main propositions in which are embodied the doctrine of the class struggle and the materialist interpretation of history ; but in a sense the reason is not far to seek. This class struggle, when it reaches a certain stage, plays the very devil with the political ambitions of reformers, because it unites those wage workers whose position in human society is such that no reform in capitalism can benefit them and who have intelligence enough to see that the object for which these workers unite is not to dicker about the price for which they will sell themselves for given periods when their masters need them to work. They know that this price is fixed by conditions outside of themselves and circumstances over which they have no control. If the C.P.R. machinists had listened more to the Socialist “impossibilist” and less to the “get something now trade union reformer,” they would not have made such asses of themselves during the last nine weeks. They would have spent some of the money they lost in wages to dispute with the masters this fall, their title of ownership to that railway property that the working class created and alone give value to. Methinks if they had done that and spent the same energy they squanderd in bucking an overstocked labour market, in matching an empty stomach against a bank vault, they would have caused such a flutter amongst the dove-cotes of capitalism that the capitalists themselves would have set about

REFORMING THEIR SYSTEM

to the very limit, and that whether they elected their man or not. Incidentally they would have inspired other workers to follow suit, and, by the way, it is not yet too late. Never mine your compromising, place-hunting trade union leaders. If you knew as much as an owl you would refuse to vote for a man who was only a Socialist when not seeking office, and was afraid to label himself so when he was up for election. Wherever you see a Socialist candidate this fall who is “impossibilist” enough to make his campaign on this issue alone, viz., the

DISPOSSESSION OF THE CAPITALIST

owners of our national industries and the vesting of the title of ownership in the community, with the elected representatives of the workers who operate those industries in control, vote and work for his election. Leave the compromisers at home. If he will compromise to get elected, he will sell you out to stay elected.

In conclusion, I would ask those who read Hardie’s anathema to re-read it and note where his sympathies really lie. Note the severity and contempt with which he handles his brother Socialists, who, at the worst, are merely using unwise methods of propaganda. And in contrast note his references to the “delightful experience” he had interviewing “the wealthy man who had worked his way up from poverty to affluence,” and who was so “sincere,” although the “unconscious humor” of his “poetic” declarations made Hardie smile, etc., etc. Go to, Hardie. Get back to ancient St. Stephens and have a cup of tea with King Ed and the rest of the “me, too” Socialists. Canadian Socialism is much too modern for you or any other British labor leader to catch up with.

—John T. Mortimer, in The British Columbian Trade Unionist, Vancouver, Nov. ’08.

Blogger's Note:

The editorial from the November 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard covers Hartley and the 1908 Newcastle-upon-Tyne by-election.

The Capitalist Class. By Karl Kautsky (continued) (1909)

From the January 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

[Continued from the October issue]

Specially translated for the Socialist Party of Great Britain and approved by the Author.

8.— Increasing number of large concerns, combines.

If the extension of a concern forces its owner, the capitalist, to engage officials in order to lighten his task, the increase in the surplus-value due to the extension recompenses him for that expenditure. The larger the surplus-value, the more of his functions is the capitalist able to transfer to officials, until he has at last rid himself entirely of his managersLap, so that he has left only the “anxiety” of advantageously investing that part of his profit which he does not consume.

The number of concerns that have arrived at such a condition increases from year to year. That is proved most clearly by the growing number of Joint Stock Companies, where, as even the most superficial observer must recognise, the person of the capitalist has already ceased to be of any importance, only his capital being significant. In England 57 Joint Stock Companies were formed in 1845, 344 in 1861, 2,550 in 1888, and 4,735 in 1896. There were 11,000 companies, with a share capital of over £600,000,000 actively engaged in 1888, and 21,223 companies with a share capital of £1,150,000,000 in 1896.

It was considered that by the introduction of the system of share capital, a means had been found to make the advantages of larger concerns accessible to the small capitalists. But, like the system of credit, the system of share capital, which is only a particular form of credit, is, on the contrary, a means of placing the capital of the “smaller fry” at the disposal of the large capitalists.

Since the person of the capitalist can be dispensed with as far as his undertaking is concerned, anybody possessing the necessary capital can embark in industry, whether he understands anything about the particular trade or not. Hence it is possible for a capitalist to own and control concerns of the most varied kind, having perhaps no connection one with the other. It is very easy for the large capitalist to obtain control over Joint Stock Companies. He only needs to own a large proportion of their shares—which can easily he purchased—in order to make the undertakings dependent upon him and subservient to his interests.

Finally, it must be stated that generally, large capital increases more rapidly than small capital, because the larger the capital the greater (under otherwise equal conditions) the total amount of profit, and hence also tli,o income (revenue) which it yields ; again, the smaller the proportion of the profit consumed by the capitalist for his own use, the larger is the portion he is able to add as new capital to that already accumulated. A capitalist whose undertaking yields him £500 a year, will, according to capitalist ideas, be able to live only modestly on such income;. He will be fortunate if he succeeds in putting by £100—one-fifth of his profit—a year. The capitalist whose capital is large enough to yield him an income of £5,000 is in a position, even if he consumes for himself and his family five times as much as the first mentioned capitalist, to turn at least three-fifths of his profit into capital. And if the capital of a capitalist happens to be so considerable that it yields him £50,000 a year, it will be difficult for him, if he is a normal being, to use for his living one-tenth of his income, so that, though indulging in luxuries, he will easily be able to save nine-tenths of his profits. While the small capitalists have to struggle ever harder for their existence, the larger fortunes increase by leaps and bounds, and in a short time reach enormous proportions.

Let us summarise all this : the increase in the size of the undertakings : the rapid growth of the larger fortunes ; the diminution in the number of undertakings ; the concentration of a number of undertakings into one hand, and it then becomes clear that it is the tendency of the capitalist mode of production to concentrate the means of production, which have become the monopoly of the capitalist class, into ever fewer hands. This development is ultimately tending towards a state of things where all the means of production of a nation, nay, even of the civilised world, are becoming the private property of a single company, which is able to dispose of it at its discretion; a state of things where the entire economic structure is welded into one gigantic concern, in which all have to serve one single master and everything belongs to one single owner. Private property in the means of production in capitalist society leads to a condition where all are propertyless with the exception of one single person. It leads, indeed, to its own abolition, to the dispossession of all, to the enslavement of all. But the development of capitalist commodity-production leads also to the abolition of its own basis. Capitalist exploitation becomes contradictory, if the exploiter can find no other purchasers of his commodities than those exploited by him. If the wage-workers are the only consumers, then the products embodying the sxirplus-value become unsaleable—valueless. Such a condition would be as terrible as it would be impossible. It can never come to that, because the mere approach to such a condition must so intensify the sufferings, antagonisms and contradictions in society that they become unbearable, that society collapses if the development has not previously been steered into a different channel. Bui if this condition will never be reached, we are rapidly drifting that way, indeed, more rapidly than most imagine. For while on the one hand the concentration of the separate capitalist concerns into fewer hands is proceeding, on the other hand with the development in the division of labour the mutual dependence of the seemingly independent undertakings is growing, as we have already seen. This mutual dependence, however, becomes more a one-sided dependence of the small capitalists upon the larger ones. Just as most of the seemingly independent workers carrying on home industries in reaity are only wage-workera of the capitalist, so there are already many capitalists having the appearance of independence, yet subservient to others, and many capitalist concerns that appear to be independent are in reality merely branches of one huge capitalist undertaking. And this dependence of the smaller capitalists upon the larger increases perhaps more rapidly than the concentration of the various concerns in the hands of the few. The economic fabrics of capitalist nations are already to-day, in the last resort, dominated and exploited by a few giant capitalists, and the concentration in the hands of a lew firms is little else than a mere change of form.

While the economic dependence of the great mass of the population upon the capitalist class is growing, within the capitalist class itself the dependence of the majority upon a minority (decreasing in number but ever increasing in power and wealth) becomes always greater. But this greater dependence brings no more security to the capitalists than to the proletarians, handicraftsmen, petty traders, and peasants. On the contrary, with them as with all the others, the insecurity of their position keeps pace with their growing dependence. Of course, the smaller capitalists suffer most in that respect, but the largest capital, nowadays, does not enjoy complete security.

We have already referred to a few causes of the growing insecurity of capitalist undertakings, for instance, that the sensitiveness of the entire fabric as far as it is affected by external disturbances, increases ; but as the capitalist method of production intensifies the antagonisms between the different classes and nations, and causes the masses facing each other to swell and their means of combat to become ever more formidable, it creates more opportunities for disturbance, which give rise to greater devastations. The growing productivity of labour not only increases the surplus-value usurped by the capitalist, but it also increases the amount of commodities which are placed on the market, and which the capitalist is compelled to dispose of. With the growing exploitation competition becomes more intensified, as does also the bitter struggle of investor against investor. And hand in hand with this development there proceeds a continual technical evolution ; new inventions and discoveries are unceasingly going forward, and in so doing destroy the value of existing things, thus making not only individual workers and single machines, but entire plants of machinery and even whole industries superfluous.

No capitalist can rely upon the future ; none knows with certainty whether he will be in a position to retain what he has acquired and leave it to his children.

The capitalist class increasingly splits up into two sections: one section, growing in number, has become quite superfluous economically, and has nothing to do but squander and waste the increasing mass of usurped surplus-value that is not used as fresh capital. If one calls to mind what we have mentioned in the previous chapter regarding the position of the educated in present society, one will not be astonished to find that by far the greater number of the rich idlers are throwing their money away on mere coarse pleasures. The other section of the capitalists, those who have not yet become superfluous in their own undertakings, is decreasing in number, but their anxieties and responsibilities increase. While one section of the capitalists is decaying more and more owing to idle profligacy, the other section is perishing by never-ceasing competition. But the insecurity of existence of both sections grows. Thus the present method of production does not permit even the exploiters, even those who monopolise and usurp all the tremendous advantages, a complete enjoyment of them.

The great modern crises, which now rule the world market, arise from over-production, and are the consequence of the anarchy necessarily connected with the production of commodities.

Over-production in the sense that more is produced than is required can take place under any system of production. But, of course, it can do no harm if the producers produce for their own use. If, for instance, a primitive peasant-family harvest more corn than they require, they store up the surplus for times of bad harvest, or in the case of their barns being full, they feed their cattle with it, or at the worst leave it on the field.

It is different in the case of the production of commodities. This production (in its developed form) presupposes that nobody produces for himself.

[To be continued]