A New Capitalist Revolution? (1952)

From the October 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

With the passing of time and the acceleration of the tempo of events over the last few decades, there seems to be growing among the supporters of Capitalism a desire to see their system as young and virile as it was a century or more ago. In Britain this desire has lately found expression in the concept of a New Elizabethan era, with all its supposed opportunities for giving rein to those doubtful virtues of individualism and enterprise.

In America, however, there is no comparable period of history upon which to found such a mythology of a golden era to return. Instead of feeling that they have something approaching senility which can somehow be rejuvenated, propagandists for American Capitalism appear to be very concerned to create the impression that they have something completely new—an American Revolution, unique, progressive, and above all superior to a "Socialist” Britain or “Communist” Russia.

Let us take a closer look at some of the evidence that is brought forward to substantiate this theory of a new capitalist revolution. One of the most consistent media used to expound it in this country is the monthly "Reader's Digest.” In its August issue there appeared an article on “Humanising Industry—A New Revolution” (from “Time” magazine), and in September “The Unsystematic American System” (from “Harper’s Magazine”). Both are fairly representative of the sort of views that Americans are encouraged to hold about their country’s economic system in historical relation to the rest of the world.

Humanizing Industry

One of the chief effects of the Industrial Revolution upon workers as a class was their reduction to the status of appendages to a vast impersonal machine, caused by the development of mass production for a market. Socialists recognise that the nature of Capitalism is such that within it no basic change can be made in this subservient status of the workers. But, according to “Time” magazine:—

“Now a second Industrial Revolution, quieter but more profound, is sweeping through U.S. industry. Its name: Human Relations in Industry. Its purpose: to give the worker a sense of usefulness and importance. Its goal: to make life more fun by making work more meaningful.”

This, one may think at first glance, sounds just what the doctor ordered. But these otherwise admirable sentiments turn out to be only a build-up for a variant of that bugbear of regimented workers, time and motion studies. Pioneered in the 1880’s by Frederick Winslow Taylor, whose system caused managements to think of workers as little more than machines that had to eat, these studies facilitated speed-up on the factory assembly lines up to the point where greater “efficiency” no longer yielded greater output. Then in 1923 a sociologist, Elton Mayo, made the startling discovery that the men were poor producers (i.e., produced less than was felt could be squeezed out of them) because they were unhappy; so he prescribed four daily rest periods and brought in a nurse to whom workers could complain. Result: production for the first time reached the established quotas of efficiency.

The industrial psychologists were called upon to counteract the ill effects on production of the over-application of time and motion studies. But have these refinements in any way altered the workers' status as sellers of labour power? Obviously, the object of introducing welfare measures is to create more efficient workers, and not “to make life more fun.” It is certainly an adroit move on the part of employers to disguise their profit motive by talking about making workers happy, though this is not to suggest that they prefer unhappy ones. The proof, however, that the workers’ feelings are the by-product of the system and not its chief concern is the obstinate reluctance of employers to spread a little happiness by granting wage increases.

While on the subject of humanising industry it is interesting to note that some American observers dispute the view that any real change has taken place. Thus, in “Hollywood—The Dream Factory,” Hortense Powdermaker writes:—

“The technique of business and many other organizations in trying to personalize their selling relationships, such as by announcing the name of employees to customers, really fools no one. The fact that the name of the post office clerk, the bank teller or the person who handles complaints in the department store, is posted, does not really influence their relationship with customers."

There is no reason to suppose that the selling relationship between worker and capitalist has in fact changed, despite the propaganda to the contrary.

New Role of the Unions

In order to gain the fullest advantage from the introduction of expensive plant and machinery, industrialists in America have been obliged to find ways of overcoming the resistance of workers to intensive exploitation. Recognising the labour unions’ right to bargain collectively, the employers have turned what might have been defeat into victory by inviting them to co-operate in the task of exploiting the workers.

“Management began to learn that the once-feared unions themselves held keys to higher production. In Pittsburg the United Steel Workers challenged one management to name its most productive department. Then the union boosted production there by 210 per cent, in a month.

“In one Detroit metal tubing company, every attempt to boost production by special incentives had failed. The company offered the union a novel proposal: set a certain standard for labour costs and let workers and management share all the savings when increased output drove costs below that figure. Not only did production beat all records, but the workers themselves began prodding slackers.”

Perhaps the author of the above, in his enthusiasm, has not noticed the irony of using the phrase “a certain standard for labour costs” in an article on humanizing industry. It effectively explodes the myth that American capitalists regard their workers as something more than costs of production. A few extra dollars “profit-shared” seems to be a pretty high price to pay for the spectacle of workers prodding each other instead of the boss and his union-leader lackey.

The working class of America (and elsewhere) has yet to see that if its “share” of the profits becomes more than an insignificant fraction of the total profit, then this enables wages to be reduced, which in turn makes it harder to get a cut out of what the boss saves on labour costs. New production records become new standards, which the worker must exceed before he qualifies for his hand-out There is nothing revolutionary about this ingenious device—the carrot is perhaps a little juicier but is still out of reach of the straining donkey.

The Unsystematic System

According to the article in the September “Reader’s Digest” the word Capitalism no longer fits the present American system because "it stands for the primitive economic system of the 19th century.” Let us grant, for the purpose of argument, that another word may be used to denote the economic system of the 20th century to date. Have there been any fundamental changes to justify the assertion that a revolution has taken place comparable to that transforming Feudalism into Capitalism?

“A combination of patchwork revisions of the system—tax laws, minimum-wage laws, subsidies, guarantees and regulations, plus union pressures and new management attitudes—had brought about a redistribution of income, from the well-to-do to the less well-to-do.

”. . . the business system as a whole seemed to run better if some of the national income was ploughed into improvements in the income and status of the lower-income groups, enabling them to buy more goods and thus to expand the market for everybody. Americans had discovered a new frontier to open up: the purchasing power of the poor.”

The claim to have redistributed income must be treated with considerable scepticism. Every capitalist power describes its reform measures in this way; in this country Lord Beveridge may be credited with having reorganised poverty along similar lines. The most significant part of the argument concerns the purchasing power of the poor. Note that no reference is made to abolishing poverty—the poor are still to remain such, but with improved income and status.

To sum up. Capitalism in America, far from having been revolutionised, is still immensely strong and resourceful. It has succeeded in gaining the acquiescence of the majority in ways that are remarkably similar to those used in Soviet Russia—allegedly new management attitudes, democracy in industry, raised purchasing power of the poor. But, even assuming that all these things have all the advantages claimed for them, the system based upon private property and exploitation has not disappeared. Neither the threat of war nor the poverty and insecurity of the majority has been removed.

To workers seeking a way out of their problems without understanding what causes them, the idea of a capitalist revolution may seem to be a kind of second best to a socialist one. To socialists, the word revolution has a precise meaning—a complete change in the structure of society. All imitations must be refused, since they bring inevitable disappointment and delay the coming of the real thing.

Stan Parker

An American Analysis of The Bi-Centennial Bust! (1976)

From the July 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

American capitalism in this year of Bi-Centennial celebration might well be summed up in a word: turmoil. Certainly, to base one’s estimates entirely upon reports by the media and to accept the superficial analysis of capitalist-dominated thinking, is to provoke the question : is American society disintegrating before our very eyes ?

For here is a nation based upon Law—we are assured —that is seemingly a Mecca for outlaws. Here exist a system of government and a political philosophy that shine as a beacon to the rest of benighted mankind, the most brilliant and the fairest system in the world of these or any previous times. Every American school-child has been made aware of this by the authors of the approved texts. And every last one of the horde of immigrant workers from Central and South America and the islands of the Caribbean (not to mention the steady stream of those from so many other lands) have heard of it, if not from their children, then certainly from other sources of “information” that abound in this “land of abundance.” Even the “wet-backs” who cross and re-cross the borders of this Promised Land, aided and abetted by employers of cheap, unskilled labour, always on the lookout for still cheaper human energy, have heard the glad tidings of America, the Land of the Free (and those who work for them).

And despite the gilt-edged assurances of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the entire American system of doing things, the turmoil exists and seems to accelerate with the passage of time.

But do not be deceived. There is nothing unusual about the troubles and woes of capitalism in America, today. Concerned supporters and radical opponents to the contrary notwithstanding, the system functions normally and there are at least two obvious tests one can make to verify this assertion : (1) Compare it with its own past by checking newspapers of the past in the microfilm department of your Public Library; (2) Compare it with what goes on, today, in the rest of the world wherever capitalism—in whatever form—is the order of the day.

And yet, one cannot be too careful when undertaking such comparisons. For it is the superficial that is readily seen, especially when observing the situation, via the media, on a world basis. It would seem that there is much more “law and order” in other nations than is the case in America, especially in the dictatorship countries, much less turmoil than in these United States. But it is not safe to make such an assumption for at least one good reason, viz., there is no country where the press (and other media of propaganda) is as highly developed, as a “Fourth Estate,” as in America. The Lords of the Press in this country have been able to maintain a large degree of independence from national government and what it assumes to be national (capitalist) interests.

More so than in other nations, even in the nations of the “Free West,” is this the case. Just one example is needed: publication of “classified” government material in any other country would earn for its publishers a cell in the slammer, if not the execution block. Yet, the US Constitution guarantees that there shall be no prior restraint on the freedom of the press and this right of individual capitalists over the rights of other individuals, or even at times the interests of the total national capital, as interpreted by the government, has been upheld in the high courts. Even ordinary cases before the courts—right up to murder—can be and are “tried in the newspapers” and defendants either convicted or acquitted on the basis of stories in and attitudes created by the newspapers.

The fact is, then, that all of the sores of capitalism (and they are many) are reported and sensationalized by the media in America to perhaps a greater extent than any place else in the world. And there is another aspect about reporting that should not be overlooked. That aspect is the penchant for distortion. Newspapers and TV Newscasts are, besides a major part of the head-fixing industry, commodities themselves produced for sale on the market (to readers and viewers) with view to profit (from advertisers). Especially is this true in a country such as the United States of America where outright Government ownership is not present either in the press or the Airwaves. The message, as taken by some, of turmoil-to-the-point-of-disintegration, then, should be inclusive of a large grain of salt.

★

With the foregoing in mind, let us now look at America in this Bi-Centennial Year as it really is. It is certainly not a land in which some 220 millions enjoy a common heritage or—at least—a common interest. (Nor is this so any place else in the world). Neither is it in deeper-than-usual difficulty and ready to come apart at the seams. The first part of this estimate should be obvious to all but those unfortunates who are born blind, deaf, and speechless, and needs no elaboration. The second part can be made apparent through a brief look at class warfare and mass poverty in America over the entire period of its history; and the public libraries are well-stocked with all the documentation one would need, from old newspapers, to journals, to history books. From the rebellions immediately following the framing of the Constitution in 1787 until the continuing upheavals of these 1970s, class warfare has run rampant in this land, even when it is cloaked by racial overtones.

As for the fanciful estimates of uninformed radical activists and the fears of far-right patriots that capitalism in America is being destroyed from within, the facts indicate otherwise. This does not mean that America might not, in time, be toppled from her position of world dominance by another power or combination of powers. This is possible even if it may not seem probable in the immediate future. But the working class of America can hardly suffer economic loss from such an eventuality. For working class standards are really not tied to a nation’s position of power vis-a-vis other nations. Latest figures show per capita income (by means of which living standards are generally estimated) in America are not first, but fifth, despite her occupying the No. 1 spot in world power. Nor can the British workers, for example, look back with nostalgia to those times when Britain dominated the world and wish to return to their living standards of those “good old days”.

So let us take a hard look at the actual standards of the American working class in this year of America’s colossal 200th birthday party. And let us go to the capitalist Press for some statistical facts, rather than the fiction it so dearly loves to spew on the subject of American working-class affluence. As reported in The Western Socialist (Boston, USA) in its No. 5, 1975 issue:

In a full page spread in an issue of The New York Times, USN & WR (US News and World Report) goes after advertising. And in blowing its own horn it inadvertently blows the whistle on the Great American Myth. We are presented with the picture of a smiling family of four on a sight-seeing trip, enjoying the ‘American heritage’ by actual contact. The caption accompanying the photograph reads: “If Peter Lloyd wasn't above the Buying Point, his kids would be reading about our American heritage. Instead of seeing it.’ And the ad goes on to spell out this American message. A chart depicting the details of ‘The Buying Point’ spills the beans and it seems that one exercises his patriotic urges in proportion to one’s income — which is something we knew all along, anyway, but which is something that makes news when revealed by the capitalist press.

The Report goes on to show, citing USN & WR, that one half the households are below the buying point. Further, that the lower half gets by on but 23 per cent of the national total income. Nor should we forget that a significant percentage of that upper half enjoys its buying power through the power of instalment buying (“hire purchase,” in Britain) and are forever precariously perched on a parlous precipice, warding off a plunge.

As the WS piece concludes:

For never forget, if we are all equal under the law, in America, it is a fact that some of us are more equal than others. Those whose income is above the buying point, and especially those who actually own America, the 5 or 10% at the top.

★

The American Bi-Centennial hoop-la is accentuated, of course, by the quadrennial race for the Presidency. Adding somewhat to the confusion is the fact that the incumbent, Gerald Ford, is the first us President in history who was not elected to the office. He was selected for the Vice-Presidency, by the then President Nixon, to replace Spiro Agnew who resigned rather than face trial on graft charges. When Richard Nixon followed Agnew into disgrace and retirement from office, Gerald Ford succeeded to the accoutrements of the Presidency. Because of this new element, the Republican Convention will be “open” with the incumbent enjoying no scissors-hold on the nomination. So the bad actor from California, Ronald Reagan, is making an all-out effort to save his country from disaster!

On the Democratic Party side, the race has narrowed somewhat as far as the various state-wide Presidential Primary elections are concerned. The main ingredient for capturing the White House, in these times, is money —piles of it—and those with money to invest usually place it on a more apparent winner. But a popular syndicated humourist, Art Buchwald, has observed that one needs a beautiful mouthful of teeth to be elected President of the United States and in that respect, at least, most of the candidates qualify—right down to Hubert Humphrey and Edward Kennedy whose shadowy figures bulk in the wings, awaiting a possible bolt from the blue.

But the most important fact of life for the working class in this proud year of capitalism in America is a sad one. There is no sign on the horizon of a meaningful opposition to the system that holds them in wage servitude. Any alternative being offered to the major parties, regardless of the designation, is but a variation of the theme: Capital versus Wage Labour with a government functioning as a capitalist class. There remains the need, in America, to build a genuine Socialist organization capable of presenting the case for a wage-less, price less, moneyless, world society, Let this not take another century !

Harry Morrison

Boston Local, WSP of US

A Look Round. (1906)

From the December 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the National Anti-sweating Conference held recently at the Guildhall, and opened by the Lord Mayor, Mr. Stephen Walsh, M.P., declared that, despite their powerful organisation, the Lancashire miners are in a worse condition to-day than they were in eighteen years ago !

* * *

During the Conference Mr. D. J. Shackleton, M.P., vigorously defended child labour, and appealed to the delegates to let Socialism alone and concentrate their energies upon “something practical.”

* * *

Mr. Shackleton is vice-chairman of the Labour Party in the House of Commons, lately called the L.R.C. Under its auspices various members of the S.D.F. and I.L.P. have run as “Labour” candidates, in order to get the financial support of affiliated trade unionists.

* * *

The Workmen’s National Housing Council, judging by its Seventh Annual Report, seems to be in a jubilant mood. There are affiliated sixty trade unions, without counting branches, forty-three trades councils, with a few other bodies. During the general election it issued a simple test question to all candidates and received a very large harvest of replies, many of them being very encouraging. Still more encouraging, we are told, is the fact that after persistent attention from the Council lavished on those members who promised to get financial aid for housing from the Imperial Exchequer, and the constant stirring up of ministers, the Government are now committed to the principle, and promise for rural England, Scotland, and Wales, something similar to the Irish Labourers’ Bill— cheap money and plenty of it—4¼ millions at 3¼ per cent. for inclusive money charges. This will be of great assistance when it is fulfilled, and the Council are on the point of asking far the moral support of every affiliated body to keep the Government up to the scratch next session ! That’s progress !

* * *

It will take something more than “moral pressure” to induce the capitalist class to do the only thing that will benefit the working class, viz., get off the workers’ backs.

* * *

The “test questions for candidates” is a favorite game of the reform politicians. Obviously if any body of men submit certain questions to candidates they must support the candidates who reply favorably and oppose those who do not. Thus we have the S.D.F. and I.L.P., through their affiliation to the National Workmen’s Housing Council, supporting capitalist candidates, whilst “in another place” declaring those candidates to be working class enemies.

* * *

The S.P.G.B. is out for the abolition of the capitalist system, not its patching up. It therefore wastes no time on so-called reforms, but aims straight for revolution.

* * *

In dealing with a complaint that tramway men often found their day of ten hours was spread over fifteen, Captain Hemphill at the L.C.C. said the facts were not as stated, but that the question was receiving the very careful attention of the Committee, who hoped to bring up a report at an early date. This really means, reading between the lines, that the “ten hours’ day” for tramway employees is another Progressive lie.

* * *

Captain Hemphill also said that the Council had recently spent a sum of £1,500 a year more than had been spent by the old companies, with a view of reducing inconvenience to the men.

* * *

Improvements in the means of transit tend to increase the ratio of exploitation of the workers, whether employed by the private trust, or the public monopoly form of capitalism. Drivers and conductors of modern electric tramcars are subject to a very much greater menial and physical strain than were those of the old horse cars, but their wages are practically the same, and even when higher, the increase is in no sense proportionate to their extra wear and tear. The same applies to motor bus and railway workers.

* * *

Mr. R. Bell, M.P., emphasised this in his Annual Report to the recently held Congress at Cardiff. During 1905, he said, the goods train mileage decreased by 400,000 miles in spite of an increase of 11,300,000 tons in goods carried. To have carried the goods traffic of 1905 under the conditions of 1900 would have required over 2,500 more engines and sets of men. Calculating four men to each engine—driver, fireman, cleaner, and guard—this would have meant an increased staff of at least 10,000 men in the running department alone. Instead of this he calculates that this increase in the volume of traffic has been conveyed with some 1,200 less engines and sets of men, for, as different railway chairmen have stated at half-yearly meetings, they have been enabled to take many of their older locomotives out of traffic, and the full number shown to be owned by the companies were not actually working. Thus the mental and physical responsibilities of the men generally have been vastly increased, and the firemen particularly, who have to shovel nearly double the quantity of coal on the large engines without any extra pay at all.

* * *

There was another paragraph in the Report which should be interesting to readers of the Socialist Standard. It relates to the men employed on the North Eastern Railway, and reads as follows:

“This movement on behalf of all grades was sanctioned by the Executive Committee in September, 1903, and the programme adopted by the men at a conference held at Darlington was duly forwarded to the company. Not much progress was made, however, until 1905, when as a result of interviews in March and July a few concessions were obtained for men working large engines and with heavy trains, together with an increased bonus for the East Coast men.

“The programme was still pressed, but further delay arose in consequence of changes in the chairmanship and managership. In April and May, however, the committee of the movement and myself had a ten days’ conference with the general manager and chief officials, and .also another day’s discussion with the general superintendent. The programme was fully discussed, in addition to a large number of grievances, resulting in substantial concessions being obtained for the men. The men’s delegate meeting, however, would not take the responsibility of accepting the terms offered, and decided to refer the matter to the branches concerned. The Executive Committee, therefore, requested the branches to arrange special meetings at which the North Eastern members should vote for or against accepting the terms. The result showed a majority of 802 against the terms, but as only a very small proportion of the men had voted the Executive Committee decided to accept the terms for the men, and to suggest to the company that, a conciliation board be formed. The company have this proposal under consideration at the present time.”

* * *

The italics are ours.

* * *

In the November issue of the “Journeymen Bakers’ Magazine” Mr. L. A. Hill returns to the subject of the Union’s 48 Hours Bill, which was dealt with in our October number. He said it was most essential that this Bill should be passed into law. Machinery had displaced and would continue to displace large numbers of men. Whereas there would be before the introduction of machinery work for five men, there was now only work for three. If the Bill was passed he estimated that it would find employment for some 5,000 men, and that it would be in a measure, a way of solving the unemployed question in the baking trade.

* * *

As we pointed out in October, the effect of a compulsory 8 hours’ day for bakers, however secured, would be to kill the small bakers and drive the trade into the machine bakeries, where the 8 hours’ day already obtains. It would thus tend to displace 2 men out of every 5, to use Mr. Hill’s figures, and would intensify instead of solving the unemployed question in the baking trade.

* * *

The “Daily Express” continues to expose the Fraud of Capitalism. In connection with Mr. Lever’s Soap Trust (I beg pardon—”economic amalgamation”) it said,

“The grocer of to-day is almost as much ‘tied’ as the publican who is managing a ‘tied’ house for a firm of brewers.

“He has practically ceased to be a free agent, and is becoming more and more of an automaton who is forced to hand out over the counter the ready weighed articles supplied by great trusts and powerful owners of proprietary articles.

“He has little or no share in the selection of the articles he is to sell, and can control neither the price he pays for them nor the price to the customer. He does not even have a chance to see the quality of the goods he sells or to weigh them. Certain sealed packets come to him and automatically he hands them over the counter.

“Acting on the instructions of one or other of the great firms who have selected him to sell their goods, he has occasionally to say that a certain article is ‘just as good’ as a different one desired by a customer, and to see that a customer does not buy the goods he first wanted.

“Twenty years ago a grocer was able to give his customers all they required, but now certain goods are pushed on him, and he in his turn has to force them on the public.”

* * *

Coming back to the “Daily Express,” this organ of Tariff Reform, which recently declared that the American workers, owing to protection, were exceedingly prosperous, made the following admissions in its issue of November 12, last:

“In spite of the wonderful surface prosperity, America is seething with discontent, and the party of the ‘have nots’ is a very real danger.

“The power of the trusts and the great business combinations has been growing rapidly. The small business man has been driven into the Bankruptcy Court in ever increasing numbers, and has considered himself lucky if he could secure a place as a salaried employee of the trust which absorbed his business. A generation ago most of the dwellers in American cities owned their own homes or looked forward to owning them. Now, they would laugh at the suggestion, and they bitterly resent the prospect of a lifetime as a rent-payer to some millionaire or real estate corporation.

“The working men, in spite of their nominally high wages, are bitterly discontented. Wages are not so high as they seem. The bricklayer who earns 24s. a day cannot depend on more than six months work in the year, as there are periods of two or three months in New York when no building can be done on account of the severe weather. The same rule applies to all the building trades, and to the lake and river transportation trades, and to those employed on the railways fed by the lakes and rivers. 

“In spite of all the nominal prosperity, New York has its unemployed problem every winter—not so acute as London’s problem, perhaps, but still a very serious problem.”

* * *

As we have so often pointed out, the working class is poor and the master class is rich all over the world, no matter what fiscal or other conditions obtain.

J. Kay

Life and Times: Trump v the Binman (2024)

The Life and Times column from the May 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Recently, at enormous risk to himself, a binman rescued a family and their dog from a burning house in the West Midlands. He had a cup of tea in Greggs and then carried on with his job.

How does this tie in with Donald Trump? Well, a recent Guardian article by George Monbiot pointed to the theory among psychologists that human beings can be broadly divided into two groups -‘extrinsics’ and ‘intrinsics’. What they mean by ‘extrinsics’ are Trump types – people attached to ‘prestige, status, image, fame, power and wealth’. They are a group that tends to ‘objectify and exploit other people’, to be rude and aggressive, to ‘have little interest in cooperation or community’, to dismiss social needs and care of the environment, and at the same time to be likely to exhibit ‘frustration, dissatisfaction, stress, anxiety, anger and compulsive behaviour’.‘Intrinsics’ on the other hand are ‘inclined towards empathy, intimacy and self-acceptance’, open to change and reasoned argument and ‘protective of other people and the living world’.

Winners and losers

If this theory is valid – and it does seem to correspond very much to the reality we see around us – how is it that different groups of human beings can be so different? How is it that Donald Trump can seem so manifestly uncaring about anyone other than himself while a binman can risk his life to save the lives of others who are complete strangers? Monbiot points out that, according to the theory, we are not born with either of these tendencies but rather pick them up from the environment – personal, social and political – in which we are nurtured. So ‘if people live under a cruel and grasping political system, they tend to normalise and internalise it, absorbing its dominant claims and translating them into extrinsic values’. In the same way, if they live in an environment ‘in which social norms are characterised by kindness, empathy, community and freedom from want and fear, their values are likely to shift towards the intrinsic end’.

This would seem to account for the widespread support enjoyed by an openly ‘bully’ politician like Trump, who divides humans into ‘winners and losers’, among not just some of the wealthy in the US but also among some of the poorest, most insecure and disadvantaged members of that society. Such people will blame their plight and vent their anger and frustration either on those they see as slightly better off than themselves or on those even worse off than themselves who they see as somehow spongeing off society by claiming ‘welfare’. And they will be particularly hostile towards the ‘intrinsics’, those behaving in a kind, cooperative way, labelling them as ‘woke’ or ‘snowflakes’ or the like. Monbiot suggests that, in the US in particular, this mentality has been engendered by ‘toxic myths about failure and success’ and the importance given to the idea that wealth needs to be acquired at any cost, solely by individual endeavour and without concern for other people or for social or environmental consequences (the so-called ‘American Dream’).

The same kind of mentality is of course widely found, if perhaps in a less overt and brutal way, in other countries too, subject as they are to the competitive ethic and the ‘sink or swim’ imperative of capitalism. In fact, everywhere we look, the system we live under pressures workers (ie, those who form the vast majority of all populations) to ‘get on’, to make money, to compete against others and, if necessary, to blame others if they fail to do that satisfactorily.

In trouble

Yet, as this column has often pointed out and is demonstrated by such acts as the rescue by the binman, people are on the whole powerfully inclined not to behave in selfish, self-seeking ways but to assist, support and be cooperative with their fellow humans where and when necessary. Such interactions are absolutely intrinsic to everyday life, be it in such everyday acts as giving others right of way in traffic, making contributions to and organising food banks, doing simple favours for others, but also in helping others who suddenly and unexpectedly find themselves ‘in trouble’. The fact is that we, as humans, will usually choose to help others in a worse situation than ourselves, if only because it makes us feel better about ourselves and, as has been shown by scientific research, gives us higher levels of well-being. Such examples of help and cooperation without the prospect of material gain or advantage abound but are taken for granted and are rarely reported or commented on precisely because they are so numerous, so common and such a perpetual feature of everyday life. Of course, human beings are also capable of the most horrendous antisocial acts, which may involve selfishness and brutality, but these are not the norm. This is so much the case that, when they happen, they stand out, leading to the ‘if it bleeds, it leads’ scenario whereby we seem to be constantly bombarded by ‘bad news’.

Ultra-social

This says something about how human beings, though their behaviour is extremely flexible, are fundamentally ‘ultra-social’ creatures, who, given the opportunity, are only too ready to make common cause with their fellow creatures unless influenced into doing otherwise by circumstances or deeply embedded conditioning. This is the default, that, despite contrary ideas common in the past, is now widely accepted by those qualified in the subject of human behaviour. Of course, as exemplified by the Trump cult in the US, where the conditions of society push many people into behaving in unkind, uncooperative ways and in seeking to maximise their own self-interest, there is still a long way to go. Yet in a society organised in an entirely different way from the current capitalist one, it is clear that people will not have the slightest problem in behaving as ‘intrinsics’, ie, in operating in a harmonious and cooperative way most if not all of the time. In such a society, a socialist one of common ownership, free access to all goods and services and democratic organisation, the natural human tendency to share and cooperate will surely be its guiding principle.

Howard Moss

The Home Owners (1956)

From the September 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Reproduced from the “Western Socialist," Boston Massachusetts, May-June, 1956).

This is the saga of American home-ownership and American home-owners—of that not inconsiderable percentage of theoretical homeowners in the United States who are a part of the working-class. Let us begin with a scientific generalization.

The working-class, we Socialists maintain, is a propertyless class which owns nothing but its labour-power, its ability to produce. In exchange for this labour-power which the workers sell to the Capitalist class they receive back on the average enough of the necessities and the luxuries to keep them producing and reproducing themselves as a class. Home-ownership is certainly not to be figured as a part of the cost of producing and reproducing labour-power.

In the face of appearances, however, this would seem to be rather a bumptious statement insofar as the American working-class is concerned. There is, without doubt, a mountain of paper in the form of deeds and titles of ownership to homes of all types which might be found in the possession of American working -people and the ledgers in the nation's registries of deeds will bear this out. On the other hand, however, there is another mountain of paper in the form of first and second mortgages. liens and attachments and so forth reposing in the nation's banks and finance companies which fairly well serves to uphold the validity of the Socialist claim and which exposes working-class home-ownership for what it is—an illusion.

The “Propertied” Working Class

Since the introduction of the G.I. Bill of Rights which arose out of World War II, nominal home-ownership among the American workers soared. Despite die astronomical heights to which the price of property rose since that conflict, it became possible for a G.I. to purchase a home with a down-payment which varied from nothing at all to a mere 5 per cent. of the selling price. The banks would put up a portion of the money and the Government through its Veterans' Administration would guarantee the rest of it.[1] Nor does the fact that the G.I Bill does not extend its benefits to non-G.I.'s excepting in the case of the numerous instances of artful transfer of such privileges by G.I.'s to others, exclude another large portion of the working-class from the ranks of home-owners. For in many cases at least a large part of a down-payment can be raised by the “buyer” by means of a second mortgage—in most cases a short term loan with a long rate of interest

And so we find that a large percentage of the American working class has become and is becoming “owners” of real estate, even landlords. Just how little average equity the worker has in his home is another matter, however, which does not need too much research to unearth. First of all, we have the first mortgage. An article in the Boston Sunday Globe for June 10, '56 tells us that there is an “unprecedented debt of nearly $90 billions on home mortgages . . ." This mortgage debt, we are informed, “is being repaid by American families with remarkably low rates of fore-closures." Be this as it may, the picture looks something like this:

Let us say our worker buys a home for $10,000 (a pretty shabby sort of deal at today's market) and that he gets his loan at 4½% interest. If he pays $60.00 per month for principle and interest it will take him 21 years and 11 months to pay off the loan.[2] But this is not the whole story by any means, for the city or town gets its cut and in most cases these taxes are added to the monthly payments making the total in this case more like $80.00 per, rather than $60.00, and which also means that the $10,000 home has within the span of a typical 20-year mortgage, just about doubled itself in cost. 

It never rains but it pours

“The course of true love never runs smooth,” they tell us, nor for that matter is the course of a 20-year mortgage any smoother. A home, like its owners, does not get any younger as time goes on. In fact, figures show that almost 50% of them are at least as old if not older than the workers who buy them and in the years to follow there is much to be done in the way of repair. This section is not required reading for those workers who are able, after a hard day's labour at the shop or where have you, to repair or replace the roof, paint the sides, instal or repair the plumbing, heating equipment or electric wiring, build a fence, grow and trim a hedge, etc. This applies rather to the overwhelming majority of our fellow-worker home-owners who are too exhausted, or too inexperienced to do the work of a dozen craftsmen in their spare time. These make the grist for the Home Improvement milk with their "easy payment” plans backed by the Government's Federal Housing Authority or by various Home Improvement Plans sponsored by individual banks. These can tie them up for periods up to five years in amounts ranging up to $2,500 plus interest. Providing, of course, one's credit still warrants such a loan. For those who have slipped and have fallen by the way-side, credit-wise, there are the second mortgage and other types of friendly finance companies which ask no more than an arm and a leg in return for the loan.

In the face of the continuing debt which confronts the worker “home-owner” in the years his mortgage has to run, fortunate indeed is the fellow who does not lose his status and revert to that of tenant in name as well as tenant in fact. In recent years there have been a fairly insignificant number of foreclosures—insignificant when compared with the vast increase in nominal home-ownership. According to the Statistical Abstract of the U.S. for 1955, pg. 457, estimated non-farm real estate foreclosures for continental U.S. ranged from 68,100 in 1926 to a high of 252,000 in 1933 and a low of 10,453 in 1946. The figure for 1954 was 26,211.

This data was taken from approximately 1,400 counties, cities, townships, or other governmental divisions. It represents the number of properties acquired through foreclosure proceedings but excludes voluntary deeds of sale in lieu of foreclosures or defaults on real estate contracts. And this last item is by no means inconsiderable. Anyone who has engaged in the so-called art of salesmanship in the home improvement field has become cognizant of the fact that a not insignificant percentage of "home-owners” become delinquent in their mortgage payments or their payments on the roof, side wall or combination storm and screen windows, with the result that they are either foreclosed or jump clear with a few dollars fa lieu of foreclosure.

That so-called Common Stake

The nominal home-ownership by American workers will no doubt continue and even to expand as time goes on. To a considerable extent and especially in the case of that large number of workers who "own” city tenements, they in effect act as rent-collectors and maintenance-men for the banks that hold the mortgage. It certainly works fine for the Capitalist class to have a working population, a large part of which has such a tangible stake in the nation as a real-estate deed even if the balance on the mortgages, the outstanding F.H.A’s, attachments and liens just about obviate the tide. Anything that adds to the feeling of a common bond between the workers and their masters is a wonderful thing—for the masters; especially when it costs them nothing. To the extent that such "ownership” exists the illusion helps to hold back worker class-consciousness. The working-class home-owner is less likely to favour strong action against his employers in a strike for example. His 20-year mortgage and his F.H.A. notes loom darkly before him and help influence his actions.

This sort of thing, however, can but help to hold back the tide. It can not prevent it from ultimately sweeping in to engulf the Capitalist system, to finally relegate it to the history of past societies. The vast majority of workers, even in America, may aspire to but will not be able to attain even the spurious type of home ownership we have been discussing. Capitalism is a system which provides real property ownership only for the Capitalist class.

Harry Morrison

[1] Last year 30% of all houses were bought with V. A. guaranteed private loans, although out of a total of 14.5 million G.I.'s of World War II more than 10 millions have taken advantage of this feature. (National Real Estate and Building Journal, May, 1956.)

[2] From a table published by “Changing Times" for February, 1956.

Editorial: Affluence in the U.S.A. (1929)

Editorial from the November 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Comfort ! that’s what we want. And prosperity also, peace and prosperity. And what, about affluence? Ah! affluence; that is the stuff. Give us affluence, and all else follows. And to think that the problem has been solved. Yes, solved. The Daily Telegraph—a respectable and reputable organ, surely—has said so. As recently as September 18th, too. The dull business of reporting has its compensations after all, for what nominally could be duller than the reporting of luncheon and dinner speeches? There was the luncheon the other day, for instance, of the American Chamber of Commerce, at which a Mr. Thomas J. Watson let himself go. The Daily Telegraph thought it worth half a column, and headed it, attractively enough :

“MACHINE AS THE KEY TO PROSPERITY.”

“AMERICAN WORKERS’AFFLUENCE.”

“THE COMFORT AGE.”

Then followed the tale told by Mr. Thomas Watson :—

“Our experience of the application of machinery in industry,” he said, “is that it makes men dear and their products cheap.” From this he developed the usual bilge of the introduction of machinery ultimately reducing prices, resulting in wider distribution, and so on. Following which he gave a few figures. Now figures are not attractive things, and most people simply hear them or see them and rapidly glance at something more arresting. But these, in view of the headlines, are really interesting. In 1914, he said, the average annual wage was $590, roughly, we will say, £2 8s. per week.

” Adjusting the average wage for changes in the buying power of money, the worker in 1925 received at least 35 per cent. more than in 1914.”

And that is affluence. That is the Comfort Age. The equivalent of a 16s. rise on a weekly wage of £2 8s. is affluence. Save the mark !

True, Mr. Thompson did not permit himself the words comfort, prosperity and affluence. But one course we can recommend him. He should get into touch with Mr. G. De Vere, who has recently returned from a tour of U.S.A. He was telling us all about it over the radio about a fortnight ago, and just as the spectator sees most of the game, so the visitor apparently often sees more than the native. One of his first ports of call was a camp of the Y.W.C.A. in the Hudson Valley, where a delegate meeting of industrial women was in progress. Here he gathered that normal unemployment was very serious, although no reliable figures existed, and that the previous winter’s unemployment had been more serious than usual. Groups of women workers were beginning to push for better social conditions.

At a big factory near Boston he saw the conveyor-belt system in operation, and later he found few factories where the system was not in use. The workers stand or sit on either side of a moving belt, and each contributes some small operation to the article on the belt, until the finished product is delivered at the end. One can imagine joy-in-work reaching its apex in the belt system. Experiments were being conducted in changing the speed of the belt at different times of the day, and in what is called psychological study. Several foremen he interviewed regretted the early scrapping of men in the prime of life by the introduction of machinery, and also the rapid wearing out of those who were retained. In Mr. De Vere’s own words, “from twenty to twenty-five years was the average period of efficiency at fast work, after that it was generally a question of lighter or slower work, or the scrap-heap. In fast Detroit shops the period would be shorter.” Craftsmen do not earn so much as fast repetitive workers. Some Britishers he asked for a comparison of the conditions in the two countries, said the U.S.A. was a better country to earn money in, but not so good to live in. Social life as we understand it, does not exist in the U.S.A. factory towns.

In Hartford, Connecticut, he heard of some amazing increases in workers’ production by means of motion study with micro-motion pictures taken on the job. Trade-unionism generally is at a discount, the company-union being almost universal. Of course, in a land of comfort, prosperity and workers’ affluence, such social safety-valves as unemployment insurance and sickness provision would be anomalies. One worker he asked what men did when out-of-a-job, replied, “it is a case root hog or die.” Doubtless they would die rather than falsify the Telegraph’s headlines.

In a summing-up at the end of his address, De Vere said, “for the mass of the workers, I doubt whether the standard of life is much, if at all, higher than in England. Life is expensive, especially with regard to such things as rent and clothing.”

So there you have it. Either the Daily Telegraph uses its own private dictionary for everyday words, or else comfort, prosperity and affluence have aspects with which we are not acquainted. We cannot fit any of the three words to a life spent alongside a conveyor-belt, with every physical movement so studied as to eliminate every jerk of the muscles that does not spell profit. Big wages may mean anything, but it is of the nature of wages inevitably to be a reflex of social standards. Where big wages equal big rent, food and clothing bills, and little wages equal little dittoes, the words big and little cease to distinguish anything real. And when, in addition, the journey to the scrap-heap has become abbreviated to a twenty or twenty-five year period, one again wonders whether the editor of the Daily Telegraph contemplates changing his occupation for one of comfort, prosperity and affluence. Doubtless his fatal weakness for self-sacrifice will assert itself, and we shall find him denying himself the temptations of American affluence for many years yet.

Letter: Old Age Pensions in U.S.A. (Letter from a reader in America.) (1929)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Comrades,

In recent years it has become a quite common occurrence for the various Capitalist newspapers in England and elsewhere to point to the U.S.A. as an example of unparalleled prosperity. A land in which the workers are enjoying a “Golden Age of Labour.” Where automobiles are owned by each and every worker who cares to own one. (Until he omits to pay the next instalment.) And where, in short, the problems that afflict the workers and the rest of the Capitalist world do not exist.

Those of us who are compelled to sell our labour power in the U.S.A., and who are interested in working-class conditions, can only smile and wish that the conditions of the working-class as set forth in the foreign press were real, instead of existing as the “suppressed desires” of so many journalists with whom the wish is “father to the thought.”

This kind of Capitalist propaganda is not limited to envious foreigners, for here in the U.S.A. the gospel of prosperity is preached far and wide.

The question of importance is : Do the American workers enjoy prosperity? In order to answer this question, I will quote from an article appearing in the “New York World” (Sunday, June 2nd, 1929). The article deals with the growing need for old-age pensions in the U.S.A. The author is Mr. Herbert H. Lehman, Lieut.-Governor of the State of New York. He is a leading member of the Democratic Party, and we are informed by his interviewer that Mr. Lehman has close contacts with industry and banking.

To begin with, the gentleman informs us that:—

“The prosperity of every country depends on the well-being of its workers. Although the United States is enjoying a period of great prosperity there are two major labour problems, already the cause of wide discontent, that will become more acute as production speed increases : the dearth of employment for able-bodied men between 45 and 65, who cannot meet the speed demands of industry ; and the condition of the dependent aged who have nothing to look forward to but the poorhouse.”

As further proof that this is not a future tendency, but an existing fact, our writer continues with :—

“As production speed increases and labour-saving devices multiply, fewer and fewer jobs will survive that do not require the speed of youth. In addition to the decreasing value of the middle-aged man in speed work, the spread of group insurance increases the discrimination against him because he is a more expensive risk than the young man. The age employment limit, now set between 45 and 50 by many industries, seems likely to be pushed even lower. In the meantime medical science is steadily increasing the span of life. Between the machine that takes his job and the achievements of science that make him live longer, the worker is caught between two millstones.”

The writer is not in favour of the poor-house, partly because he dislikes the stigma of charity, but mainly because he is one of the few members of the Capitalist class who realises the costliness of building and supporting poorhouses. In fact we are told that :—

“I am convinced that even if the poorhouse system of New York State could be enlarged adequately to meet the needs of our aged dependants, the cost would be considerably larger than that of an assistance system which would allow the old people to live in their own homes.”

As an alternative to poorhouses he suggests pensions for the aged.

This suggestion so far does not meet with the approval of the rest of the Capitalist class. Their arguments in opposing this measure range from its being “Socialistic” to the danger of its being responsible for the “loss of incentive” on the part of the workers when given such aid. But our writer is not at a loss for answers to all of these criticisms. To the first criticism his reply is :—

“Some of the opponents of old age pensions have been shouting about “Socialistic policies.” The pensioning of the aged is no more Socialistic than the care of the sick and the insane.”

Thus the demands of the English Labour Party find favour in the ranks of the American Capitalist Class. And as for the menace to working-class incentive we are informed by the writer that:—

“Certain critics of old age assistance, argue that such a policy would withdraw all incentive to save and would tend to pauperise the labouring classes. This contention scarcely carries conviction when we remember that the maximum pension thus far considered is $1 a day in case the worker had no other income. This would be sufficient to supply only the barest necessities of Life. No one would deliberately choose such a state of poverty.”

No ! No one would. The amount of choice the American worker has in staving off the inevitable of poverty and destitution can easily be imagined when we are informed by the same gentleman that :—

“I cannot see how the average worker can be expected to support his family and save enough money to take care of unemployed old age, regardless o£ apparently high current wages. The margin of earnings over the minimum cost of respectable living is too small.”

Just what he means by “respectable living” he does not inform us. Although our author is a business man, he is not altogether “hard-boiled.” In fact, it is because he is a business man and knows something regarding the workings of the Capitalist system that he lets slip his journalistic crocodile’s tear.

“All of us know personally cases of industrious small shop owners who raised large families and were useful citizens ; but when they became too old to work found themselves without resources and faced what seemed to them the disgrace of ending their days in the poorhouse.”

And between sniffs of sympathy we are left to wonder if their usefulness is to be found in their raising “large families.” The worst is yet to come, for—

“Shoemakers, butchers, grocery storekeepers and bakers—they eke out a living but not enough to insure the future. In the next decade their plight will be worse than ever because many of them are exhausting the savings of a lifetime in a vain fight against the encroachments of chain stores.“

So this is an example “of prosperity in America.”

The obvious and only conclusion one can draw is that the workers of the U.S.A., like the workers the whole world over, are faced with the self-same problems; the problems of poverty and destitution. These problems have a solution, and the solution lies in the abolition of the present social system that produces such conditions, and in its place the establishment of a system of society wherein the wealth of society shall be enjoyed by all in common.

I am,

Yours fraternally,

Sidney Felperin

Blogger's Note:

Sid Felperin was a longstanding member of the SPGB's companion organisation in the USA.

Why Unemployment Abounds in the U.S.A. (1928)

From the March 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

How long is it since the Press and politicians, Labour leaders and economists, were all pointing to America as the land of work and prosperity? Special Commissioners spent a whole week in that vast country and filled newspapers with articles on the “Secrets of High Wages.”

Now, however, the papers are “trying” to discover the Secret of No Wages in America for millions of willing workers. The representative of the American Federation of Labour told the American House of Commons that 4 millions were out of work. The correspondent of the Conservative Daily Telegraph (February 9th) reports as follows :—

“No official statistics regarding the number of unemployed in the United States are available, but the figure is roughly estimated at between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000, some estimates placing the total at between 9 and 10 per cent. of the total number of workers.”

Most of the newspapers have called attention to the reopening of “bread lines” and the rapid increase of begging on the streets of “God’s country.”

We are told that conditions are rapidly approaching the situation of 1920-1921 when over 6 millions were out of work.

The myth of high wages and large savings is quickly being exposed by the widespread appeals of charities and welfare centres for help, and the fears that the “property” bought on instalments by workers will not be paid for. Such property, usually bought on instalments of one dollar down and the rest later on, includes clothes, furniture, books, gramophones, and, in fact, all the “vast” and peculiar property of the workers. The motors and houses that loom large in reports of American labour prosperity are now exposed as the property of the capitalists used by the workers as long as they can pay instalments.

Unemployment is obviously a world evil and not a national one. It is not merely European, but International. It exists in the so-called prosperous countries like America as well as “backward” countries like Russia. The calm assumption that America had disproved Karl Marx’s ideas is again exposed by the large extent of poverty and unemployment in the much-vaunted richest country.

America prided herself on being beyond the dangers affecting countries depending on a foreign market. The United States claimed that only ten per cent. of her wealth was exported—the rest being for the great “home market.” But what is the home market? It is composed of workers and capitalists as consumers.

The capitalists are few compared with the rest and they therefore can’t consume most of the wealth. The workers can only buy as much as their wages amount to, and in America wages are a small proportion of the total output of industry, which is very efficient in production. That mass production and highly-developed machine system of America (so much advocated as our remedy here) has produced the problem of problems for the giant trusts and companies there. How can the products be disposed of? The products must be sold if the owners can realise their profits. The modern U.S.A. factory can produce more wealth with less hands than formerly and so the home market is made up of millions on a barely existing wage and the rest without wages at all. More and more, therefore, the owning class have turned to the export trade to South America and the East, but the other countries are also seeking trade there, and some of the countries once America’s customers, like Japan, are now America’s rivals.

The Home Market in America can be supplied very rapidly because of that increasing output of the modern machine plant, and consequently the unemployment of millions is a regular thing in the United States, as it is in Europe. The uncertainty of the “workers” job is greater there because of the larger output per man in the centralised and trustified organisation of industry.

So in the world’s most productive country, where millionaires and luxury abound amongst the owning class—there is want, bitter want for millions. Charities are appealed to and the out-of-work has to “panhandle” or beg for a cup of coffee on the street in competition with crowds of his fellows.

So even though problems of production are easily solved—the worker is left to want. Unemployment is due to a condition common to every capitalist country—that is private ownership of the means of living.

The hope of the worker in the U.S.A. is the hope of the worker in Europe and Asia —that is common ownership of the means of production and distribution—Socialism.

Adolph Kohn

Between the Lines: Fear on the Dole (1992)

The Between the Lines column from the June 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fear on the Dole

Hysteria is ever-present on The Oprah Winfrey Show. They scream about child abuse and rock stars and women who had babies without realising they were pregnant. They scream, they clap, they weep, they bawl, they sigh. Oprah Winfrey is America's therapist; her show is a condensed session of yelled collective introspection. If anyone wants to know what America is like they would do well to watch The Oprah Winfrey Show.

On 6 May (Channel Four, 5 pm) the topic was unemployment. The format was the usual mix of victims and experts—the victims weepy and public about their intimate miseries: the experts victims of their own political ignorance. The victims gave eloquent testimony to the anger and sadness of being a human statistic, cast upon the alter of profit as sacrifices of the recession. One spoke of how she would sit at home crying uncontrollably. Another spoke of his anger at feeling impotent in the face of the "The Economy". An audience member, displaying the statutory Winfreyesque flood of tears, spoke of his rage at being told that he was not wanted as a skilled worker and how unemployment had strained his marriage and forced him to seek the aid of a psychiatrist.

Oprah's experts were worse than useless. They were witch doctors, offering remedies for a disease which they did not begin to understand. A loud financial columnist spoke how the unemployed must accept in their own minds that the worst that will happen to them is a cut in their standard of living. Her message was to "be realistic" and plan for poverty. What insulting crap! Poverty of the worst kind can mean your kids dying because you can’t afford medical attention for them; it means having to eat bad junk food; it means having your home taken away; it means depression and humiliation and, sometimes, suicide. The other expert, an editor of a magazine called Psychology Today, rambled on about the need not to feel like a failure if you lose your job. But as a wage or salary slave you are a failure if you cannot sell your labour power for a wage or salary. He is right to tell the system's victims not to blame themselves. but self-respect doesn't pay the rent.

Oprah herself—who is a millionairess owner of a TV company—urged the unemployed to see the problem of losing their livelihoods as an opportunity. Her pompously stated "spiritual" philosophy is that every new problem creates a chance to move on to new life chances. The American wet dream is alive and well, as is the nightmare of despair which keeps awake millions of American workers who do not know where the money will come from to pay the bills which are the weights around our necks under capitalism. The show treated unemployment as if it was a natural catastrophe, like an earthquake or a plague. Nobody said that it was an inevitable effect of a removable cause: The Profit System. Nobody said that the way out of the rut is for workers to organise consciously and democratically to create a world where all may work and none may work for an employer. Neither the cause of the malady nor its cure were even touched upon. And they wept and they trembled and they raged and they bore witness. All to no effect.

Christ's College, USA

Staying in The Land of the Unfree (USA Ltd). Everyman ( BBC1, 3 May. 10.25 pm) had a worthwhile documentary about religious fundamentalism in America. Featured was the bizarre Bob Jones University where male and female students are forbidden to touch each other, students from different "races" are segregated, women are given classes in how to submit to their husbands and every lecturer has a Bible in his hand.

The so-called university is a theological nut-house created for people who want to acquire faith in place of knowledge. The extremities of the Bob Jones style of indoctrination is but a magnified version of what has gone on in Sunday schools and compulsory Religious Education lessons in schools for generations. The fundamentalists are simply taking to its illogical conclusion what is inherent in all religious dogma.

There was a frightening degree of organisation amongst these dangerous cranks: they run holiday camps at which kids are driven mad by preachers and they force handicapped people, many of whom are unable to walk away from them, to endure their relentless nonsense. A girl who received awful burns in an accident was told that this was god's will and that if he had meant her to have hands (which were burnt away in the accident) he would have let her keep them. The girl's father, an evangelist ranter, screamed at his congregants that they were all sinners: it is as natural for humans to sin as for dogs to bark— our only course is to repent. The audience screamed out to god, repenting for crimes that they probably lacked the imagination to commit.

With Bob Jones running a university and Oprah Winfrey as their therapist it is little wonder that the frustration which ignites murderous street riots is the order of the day in capitalism's showpiece nation.

Steve Coleman

American “prosperity” (1999)

From the March 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Are most Americans prosperous? Are they “middle class”? Is the United States “a nation of shareholders”? Do most Americans actually have a stake in the country?

Despite popular belief, most Americans—members of the working class—are not rich; and, over the last ten years, their living standards have deteriorated quite dramatically. John Schmitt, economist with the Economic Policy Institute in Washington DC, writing in the Guardian (18 January) exposes the myth of American prosperity. For example, he mentions that despite the hype, most Americans do not own any shares:

“According to most recent available data from the Federal Reserve, 60 percent of households in 1995 did not own shares, directly or indirectly, including the US equivalent of unit trusts and pension funds. Many of those who do own shares own very few.”

About 72 percent of American households had direct or indirect ownership, or holdings, worth less than 5,000 dollars. During the 1980s, shareholdings rose quite dramatically, but from very low levels. Professor Edward Wolff has suggested that between 1989 and 1997, shareholdings more than doubled; but “the typical US household held only $7,800 in all forms of investment. And in 1997, the top one percent owned shares worth $2.5 million, while the next nine percent held shares valued at $275,000”. However, a typical household’s assets (such as the house in which they lived, and its contents) were worth about $90,000.

Against this Schmitt notes that:

“Debt levels have rocketed. Between 1989 and 1997 the typical household’s debts rose $8,200, after adjusting for inflation. The increase in debt exceeded the total value of the same household’s shares at the end of the period.”

Furthermore, against the apparent assets of many American workers, their liabilities in the form of mortgages on houses and apartments, car loans and numerous credit card debts, demonstrate that they are not only largely propertyless in the means of living, but are permanently in debt. With the recent crisis in world capitalism, and its increasing effect in North America, the situation for most American workers may well get worse in the near future.

Prosperous they ain’t!

Peter E. Newell

Shall we emigrate? (1926)

From the July 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

A World Migration Congress met in London on June 22nd, having been convened by the International Federation of Trades Unions, and the Labour and Socialist International, in order to discuss the problem of migration from the standpoint of the workers. As the problem is full of pitfalls, is the cause of much racial hostility between workers of different nationalities, and can easily lead to a dangerous waste of working-class energies, it is worth while considering the arguments of those who organised the Congress.

The lengthy report submitted to the Congress (“World Migration of Labour”) is a useful collection of interesting information concerning movements of population in every part of the world, but it fails completely to grasp the essentials of the problem, its attitude is throughout anti-Socialist, and despite the no doubt good intentions of those responsible, the effects of the policies advocated would be almost wholly pernicious from the workers’ standpoint.

The initial error—common enough with rash enthusiasts too hasty to digest their material—is the innocent acceptance without preliminary definition of terms which bristle with obscurities. We need only consider one of these because on its meaning depends the greater part of the arguments used. What, for instance, does “overpopulation” mean? It is not a simple question of arithmetic. It would be absurd to suggest that the uninhabitable arctic regions are under-populated as compared with, say, the U.S.A.; obviously natural factors must be taken into account. It is equally obvious that the same natural resources in succeeding ages with improved means of wealth production can support larger populations. Again, it is true that, as industry is organised to-day, it will be found generally that dense populations can more conveniently be maintained in manufacturing and mining areas than in agricultural areas. These simple qualifications are seen by the author of the report, but what he fails to see are the additional and even more important reservations necessary to justify the definition he finally accepts, without examination, from the economists. Over-population exists, he says, when the number of people in a given area exceeds a so-called optimum density. The optimum, in the sense used by the economists, is that number which gives a maximum productivity of wealth per head of the population. Any addition to or subtraction from that number will lead to a decrease in productivity. Now we can admit that the idea, although abstract and incapable of wide application, has its uses within certain well-defined limits; it does help to introduce some kind of order into chaos. But the writer of the report has forgotten to observe those well-defined limits and has never realised that the conception is useless for the solution here and now of the economic problems of the workers.

Why is it inapplicable? The definition in question relates to productivity per head of the population in a given area; but it does not concern itself with asking whose productivity, or how the product is distributed among the population. Adam Smith, 170 years ago, made a very true and simple statement, so true and so simple that it is beneath the notice of our instructors to-day. He pointed out that the amount of wealth produced over a given population depended on two factors—the productivity of the producers and the proportion which the producers bore to the whole population. Again, while it is true, of what use is it to be told merely that the wealth produced in this country or that, is so many pounds or dollars per head, unless we know who consumes that wealth ? The average wealth of any millionaire and any pauper is £500,000, but this, while statistically correct, does not help us to understand the real relations of the two individuals. In fact, in every capitalist nation we have a property-owning, non-producing class which nevertheless enjoys a very large share of the wealth which it has not helped to produce. The report goes into stupid raptures about American prosperity “unexampled in the history of the world” (279), and informs us that “skilled workers can demand—and obtain—wages that sound fabulous in the ears of the European” (p. 17). It does not mention the various factors which make a simple comparison of money wages in U.S.A. with money wages elsewhere invalid, and what is of more importance, it does not point out, as does the recent U.S.A. Federal Trade Commission Report, “that 13 per cent. of the population own 90 per cent. of the wealth.” It overlooks the fact that the proportion of the wealth they produce actually consumed by the American workers is probably lower than in any European country and that the proportion is not increasing. The 1925 United States census of manufacturers discloses the fact that in the motor industry, one of the most prosperous of all industries, in 1925, “only 32.4 per cent. of the value created in the industry went to wages, compared with 40 per cent. in 1923 and 38.6 per cent. in 1919” (American Appeal, June 5th).

The above shows the objection to applying this definition of over-population to working-class problems inside capitalist society, because it assumes that high productivity benefits the workers by increasing their income, whereas, in fact, no such result need follow. Another fatal objection is that it entirely ignores the cost of production in terms of human labour. From the point of view of the slave-owner, the horse-owner or the exploiter of wage-workers, the production of wealth by others than himself is an end in itself—the more produced the more for him without any cost. But what of the slave, the horse, or the worker? If they get no more, their interest is plainly to have increased leisure and ignore increasing the production of wealth. But it is also against the workers’ real interests to increase wealth production, even when they do get an increased income, if—as in America—that increased income largely represents a mere increase in the supply of fuel to maintain a human machine which is being worked at a greater speed. In this connection it may, too, be as well to point out that opinions are not quite unanimous on the question of American prosperity.

Sir Leo Chiozza Money (Daily Chronicle, March 24th, 1926) raises some pertinent objections. He points out that, among American miners, although mining is technically much easier owing to natural advantages, the death rate is much higher—which may not matter to those who live on mining profits, and which does not appear in statistics of wealth production, but is surely a point of interest to the miners. He says, “It is clear that, at least in some cases, they enjoy less than the standard of life which obtains in Britain,” and quotes the report of the U.S.A. Coal Commission, 1925, to the effect that “Too many of the American mining camps and towns are dreary and depressing places in which to live . . . heaps of manure within a few feet of the dwelling, garbage and other refuse awaiting collection for days, showers of flies and clouds of dust.” It is also curious, in view of the worker’s “fabulous prosperity” that, in the words of this official report, “sullen hostility prevails to an astonishing extent among the American mine workers.”

To return to our general criticism of the method of approach to the problem, we can say that every generalisation applied to such abstractions as “the industry,” and “the nation,” etc., has the defect that it ignores the separate and usually conflicting interests of employers and employed. To accept such generalisations leads to the unconscious advocacy of capitalist as opposed to working-class interests.

When we examine some of the detailed suggestions we see the danger and the absurd contradictions such loose thinking produces.

Stress is laid on the alleged danger of the worker’s standard of life being undermined by immigrant workers. The writer just glimpses for one moment and immediately forgets the fact that it is not the immigrant worker who actually does or can cause this undermining. The only person who can and does is the home employer, to whom the immigrant merely serves as an additional weapon. It ought also to be obvious by now that if the low-standard Chinaman is a danger to the white man in, say, British Columbia, because he can produce more cheaply, he is just as much a danger whether he comes to British Columbia or whether he stays at home— hence the futility of trying to keep him out. Cheap labour is cheap labour everywhere, and if capital is looking for cheap labour and cannot get it at home it will simply go where the cheap labour is to be found, and the goods produced in China will compete just as strongly in the Canadian market as they would if made there.

Many of the Labour apologists for capitalism, having now discovered this, are busy advocating protectionist capitalism instead of free trade capitalism, which, again, does not solve the worker’s problems.

The report contradicts its own argument when it informs us (p. 9) that foreign competition is caused by the emigration of skilled workers to other countries, where they get a higher standard of living. By the time it is recognised that low-wage and high-wage production under capitalism have precisely the same effect, it is time surely to realise that capitalism is the enemy. But advocating the abolition of capitalism is just the one thing these Labourites will not do. We are told (279) that universal free trade will not solve the present economic evils because “the present economic evils of Europe are more deep-seated. Moreover, they are chiefly confined to Europe; the United States has no reason to complain ; it has entered upon a cycle of economic prosperity unexampled in the history of the world.”

The facts are distorted, but especially we must notice the extraordinary assertion that the evils of Europe are “chiefly confined (italics theirs) to Europe.” If America, the land of the most brutal capitalism, with the most violent contrasts of wealth and poverty, is exempt from these evils, plainly, in view of those who think on these lines, capitalism cannot be the cause of the evils. Logically, therefore, they do not advocate its abolition.

They see three alternative solutions (p. 986) for the less industrialised countries of Europe : (a) industrialisation, (b) emigration, (c) restriction of population—not a word about Socialism.

Throughout the report there is much insistence on the so-called principle that migration policy should be based on “solely economic” factors. What on earth is an economic factor? If a government with tropical possessions uses taxation as a means of driving natives off their land, they are then driven by “economic” pressure to seek other means of livelihood elsewhere. In short, they are compelled to “migrate.”

But the attempt to limit consideration to the so-called economic aspect is absurd. Political control enables the ruling class to achieve their purpose by imposing this taxation, and the removal of that ruling class is a political problem. This is the essence of the whole migration question as it affects the workers, and it is the essence of all the workers’ “economic” problems.

The statement is made, quite truly for what it is worth, that “the natural result of over-population is the lowering of the standard of living” (289). It is true simply because over-population has already been defined as that condition in which wealth production declines. Our muddled migrationists then convert this useless truism into the utterly unwarranted assertion that the existence of poverty and unemployment proves that over-population exists. If it were true that England has millions of poor people and of unemployed because of overpopulation, we should expect to find all the people of England poor, and particularly all the unemployed poor. Actually, only workers are poor, and only some of the unemployed. Those of the unemployed who are property owners and have never had to work, are not poor. In face of the fact that in every part of the capitalist world there are property owners, non-producers living at the expense of the workers, and in face of the admitted colossal waste of existing powers of production, to urge the workers to neglect the one essential problem in order to go cap-in-hand begging concessions for emigrants from the capitalist ruling class is disgusting, and, from the worker’s point of view, a suicidal policy.

The workers are not poor because of over-population, or low-wage immigrants, or foreign competition from high or low wage countries, or because America bars further immigrants, or because of protection or free trade, or because they don’t work hard enough, or because they work too hard, or because raw materials are monopolised by certain capitalist groups, the workers are poor because they are workers. They live in a capitalist world, where property in the means of life means wealth, and propertylessness means the necessity of working and its accompaniment economic subjection and poverty. There are no purely economic problems. The conditions of production and of the worker’s standard of living are set by the capitalist system. Ending exploitation, utilising existing powers of production to the full, eliminating waste, are all dependent on the solution of the political problem of the conquest of political power. Through Parliament, the workers, when they wish, can eliminate all obstacles which now prevent the solution of any of these problems except on lines approved by and in the interests of the capitalist class. The work our Labour migrationists are doing is the work of the capitalist class, whether they realise this or not.

Edgar Hardcastle