This Business of Antiques (1961)

From the January 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Antiques are a fascinating subject, but also a vast one, beyond the scope of this brief article. Here we can concern ourselves with such aspects as their collection by the élite of society, their haphazard donation or loaning to museums and, later, the production of “fake” antiques as a result of our commercial system.

Our story begins with the archeological efforts of Sir Arthur Evans at Cnossos on the Mediterranean island of Crete, who revealed an early Grecian civilisation of a high order, until then unknown.

These excavations early in the 20th century prove that, nearly four thousand years ago and at least five hundred years before the pottery of Athens achieved its ceramic supremacy, the craftsmen of Crete were producing articles for ornament and use in gold, ivory and porcelain of excellent design and execution. This Cretan civilisation, together with its contemporary cultures in other parts of the world, represents mankind’s first steps from tribal society.

Two thousand years afterwards, the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79 created a primitive museum for many fine examples of Man’s early works of art later to be unearthed by archeologists. These excavations revealed floors of mosaic, mural paintings, gold and silver ornaments and bronze busts, all of great beauty—whilst similar operations at Herculaneum were richer still in the artistic craftsmanship of the period.

During the period between the contemporary civilisation of Crete, Babylon, and Egypt, and the unearthing of the Pompeian treasures, Man’s cultural activity portrayed changes in his development as he reacted to his material environment—changing it and then changing himself. From the 7th century B.C. up to the 4th century A.D. the pottery of Athens was symbolical of the stage of ceramic achievement of this period, whilst Byzantine art, a combination of Greek, Persian and Román culture, was influenced by the rise of Christianity, with the symbol of the cross embodied in many designs. Indeed this motif is still with us, although religious items are not good sellers in the modern antique trade and probably the “cult of the cross” is on the wane.

Examples of Celtic art are provided by 8th century bronze shields of Ireland and the famous Tara brooch of Dublin from the 10th century. Craftsmen in Scandinavia also produced many beautiful designs in bronze and silver, their Viking ship incorporated a bronze dragon prow reflecting the early Icelandic sagas, recorded by William Morris in his epic poem—Sigurd the Volsung. It is also interesting to note that in the 12th century their pagan gods, Thor and Woden, overlapped in culture the rising Christian symbol, in a similar way that the Cretan culture influenced early Greek and Román art.

The 16th century witnessed the introduction into Europe of Chinese porcelain with its motif dragon patterns and the purity of the Ming dynasty productions. These early craftsmen of China, produced a hard paste porcelain which was the forerunner of what is known all over the world to-day as “china”.

Two hundred years later saw porcelain being produced in England at Bow, Bristol, Worcester, Derby and Longton Hall, while in 1775 Josiah Wedgwood introduced his famous Jasper ware at Etruria and of course this popular Wedgwood is still being produced to-day. Much could be written of the beauties of Dresden Candelabra, Meissen Figurine, Sevres vases, Chelsea groups etc. but enough has been said in this context, we hope, to explain the origin of antiques. We must now pass from the historical side of the subject to the economic for a continuation of our brief review.

Economics of Antiques

The commercial rule for determining whether an article qualifies for the description of “antique” is laid down by H.M. Customs and Excise Department in that it must be at least a hundred years of age to escape customs import duty.

Unlike new commodities, antiques have no exact price ticket range, but the post-war demand, mostly from America, has produced a pretty keen market for certain items, such as old Ruby glass ware, Staffordshire pottery figurine, early Wedgwood, pewter plates and tankards, Sheffield plate, Georgian silverware and jewellery, flint lock and percussion pistols.

There are those who patriotically lament this drain on stocks of antiques in Britain. They would do well to consider the reason, which is that, in a buying and selling world—with commodities “constantly in love with money” as Marx aptly put it—antiques represent a use-value to those American buyers wealthy enough to purchase an 18th century background for their 20th century mansions. In such a transaction antiques represent the usual be-all and end-all of commerce—a profit to the British seller, whose patriotism melts, “like snow upon the desert’s dusty face” at every chance of a profitable deal. In any event the denuding of Britain’s art stores is no more cause for shedding working-class tears, than the loss of a few colonies from the British Empire. Art treasures may certainly change their geographical position, but, like the colonies, they remain in the ownership of the capitalist class of the world. However, although antiques may vanish from the shores of Britain, it may also be relevent to enquire from where they came.

The collecting of antiques in England was largely initiated by the Earl of Arundel who in 1624 sent his agent, one William Petty, on an art-hunting expedition to Greece. Apparently Mr. Petty excelled himself in this task, sending to England, many consignments of Grecian statues, bronze busts etc., in a prodigious effort to denude Greece of its native art. Eventually, so numerous became the collection of nude statues in the Earl’s garden, that Sir Francis Bacon (so the story goes) coming upon them for the first time, stopped short and exclaimed— “The Resurrection!”.

Some 270 years later, we find a sort of sequel to this transplanting of antiques from one geographical area to another in a controversy in the British Parliament about the return to Ireland of some very valuable ancient Irish ornaments, found in Ireland by a “poor” man and purchased by trustees of the British Museum for a paltry £600. During the discussion a Mr. Leighton quite logically asked where this system of restitution was to end and if the British Museum would return the objects they had taken from Greece and Egypt? Apparently this question fell on deaf ears, but then—any reader visiting the British Museum will find the answer.

In addition to the existence of genuine antiques, there is the problem, thrown up by the cesspool of commerce, of “faked” antiques which originally graced the drawing rooms and china cabinets of bourgeois mansions of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Fakes of old Chelsea porcelain are too numerous to mention. While Staffordshire pottery “Toby jugs” made last week and buried in the earth to produce signs of age, which may not deceive a connoisseur, are foisted on to many a dealer and eventually sold to the usual credulous “man in the street”. Items of furniture, appearing on the market as “Sheraton” or “Chippendale” mysteriously increase the production (not the profits!) of those early craftsmen.

Some years ago, the writer purchased a three-piece set of china figurine that appeared to be Chelsea, complete with the well known “gold anchor” mark. Actually they were produced by a ceramics manufacturer in France who specialises in faking the valuable early Chelsea art, no doubt at times with success! This counterfeit Chelsea was being produced in Paris as early as 1850, and in Belgium there is a factory producing counterfeit Sèvres and Dresden porcelains. The difficulty of detecting these spurious wares by amateur buyers is spotlighted by the fact that experts themselves are at times deceived. For instance, J. H. Yoxall, who was a member of the Select Committee of the House of Commons which investigated in 1898 some forgeries of antiques bought by the Victoria and Albert Museum, found that a platter of Palissy ware bought for the museum at £200 was a forgery from France, originally sold by the French makers at £10 each! This same Museum also paid several hundred of pounds for a Sedan chair supposed to be a genuine antique which had genuine panels only let into a brand new chair!

To give an up-to-date example, the Manchester Evening Chronicle recently reported on Indian artisans who have resorted to faking ancient statuettes by buying new sculptures and tarnishing them.

All this merely goes to show that so long as antiques are part of a buying and selling world, it is a branch of commerce that bristles with pitfalls for the unwary, as it is only an expert who can detect real age, for instance, by the Patina which is a result of the chemical action of light and air over the years.

Apart from the waste of energy and material in the production of fake antiques, most dealers, whether handling the spurious output to which the profit motive leads or the “real McCoy” are primarily concerned with the cash value represented thereby, and appreciation of their intrinsic artistic beauty is a secondary consideration.

Private collections of antiques are a bugbear peculiar to a class-divided society, because instead of being freely available for social enjoyment and cultural education, they are confined within the mansions of the wealthy in an ostentatious and snobbish display of opulence. As an illustration—at the recent exhibition of private collections of paintings (some 250) on view in Manchester City Art Gallery, one Reynolds had not been viewed by the public since 1884! Another very large beautiful painting by Stubbs of a grey mare and foals had been exhibited only once before. Just how much of the art heritage of the past remains hidden from society is anybody’s guess!

This state of affairs is, of course, the result of our class-divided society and will only be abolished through the establishment of a class-less Socialist society ending the buying and selling of the commercial system, thus opening up new vistas of social enjoyment of the artistry of mankind.

As it is, “Mine and Thine” is the ruling ethic in the art world of to-day, and along with a host of other privileges goes “an environment of objets d’art.” To have one’s walls adorned with a Reynolds, a Rembrandt, or a Millais, tables in antique silver with Sèvres porcelain, one must belong to the non-producing class in our present social system.

Inevitably, as a result of this class division, the shoddy goods of multiple stores provide a tasteless and cheap façade for the Pre-fab, semi-detached and tenement homes of the mass of humanity.

We see, therefore, that it ¡s the commodity nature of antiques that stands in the way of their social ownership and so long as they remain such they will be used as status symbols of false values in a snobbish world. But make no mistake; appreciation of the arts is no biological peculiarity of the minority rulers of society, neither has it anything to do with the colour of one’s blood. It is simply a matter of having time to devote, and access to artistic productions, in order to appreciate them.

This Socialism alone can provide and surely this is not an impossible task for modern man to achieve.

G. R. Russell

Social contrasts. (1910)

From the December 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anatole France in one of his novels says that “the life of a people is but a succession of miseries, crimes and follies.” This is largely correct. Certainly, from the manifold volumes of historical works in existence, treating of various periods and various peoples, we may gather some knowledge of the crimes and follies perpetrated by the ruling classes of these times, and the enslavement, and consequent misery, of the other, and greater, portion of the populace. It would, indeed, appear from an examination into different historical epochs, that the greater the wealth and culture of the ruling class, the more degraded and hopeless is the condition of those they rule.

If, for example, we turn back to the so-called “golden” age of Greek civilisation, we find that at the time of the greatest prosperity of the Attic state, the whole number of free Athenian, citizens, women and children included, amounted to about 90,000 ; the slaves of both sexes numbered 365,000 ; the balance of the people being made up of aliens—foreigners and freed slaves—these numbering about 45,000. History tells us little or nothing of the lives of these 365,000 human beings on whose toil practically the whole structure of the much-vaunted Greek culture rested. We have had handed down to us the philosophical systems of Plato and Aristotle, the lyrical dramas of Aeschylus and Euripides; the sculpture of Pheidias can yet be seen in the British Museum ; in the glowing pages of Pluttarch (to say nothing of William Smith) are to be found the records of all the heroic deeds performed by Pericles and Alcibiades ; but the life of a slave does not make such pretty reading as that of a philosopher or artist, and so the historians have been very careful not to disturb the sleek complacency of their readers by a recital of the doings of the mere wealth-producers. The blood and sweat of the slaves would soil the classical purity of Greek culture, so the blood and sweat must be buried beneath the traditional glory of the slaves’ taskmasters.

Coming down to later times a very similar contrast may be observed between the status of the rich and the poor, between the dominant class and the class dominated. In another “golden” age—that of the “virgin”‘ queen Elizabeth—wealth, we are told, increased to an enormous extent. Green, in his “Short History of the English People,” says,

“The lavishness of a new wealth united with a lavishness of life, a love of beauty, of colour, of display, to revolutionize English dress. The Queen’s three thousand robes were rivalled in their bravery by the slashed velvets, the ruffs, the jewelled purpoints of the courtiers around her. Men ‘wore a manor on their backs.’ The old sober notions of thrift melted before the strange revolutions of fortune wrought by the New World. Gallants gambled away a fortune at a sitting, and sailed off to make a fresh one in the Indies. Visions of galleons loaded to the brim with pearls and diamonds and ingots of silver, dreams of El Dorados where all was of gold, threw a haze of prodigality and confusion over the imagination of the meanest seaman.” English literature, following in the wake of the Italian Renascence, took on. a new lease of life through such men as Spenser, Shakespeare, [Bacon and the numerous other poets and writers who graced the Elizabethan age. A scientific knowledge of natural laws was spreading.”

“It was only in the later years of the sixteenth century that the discoveries of Copernicus were brought, home to the general intelligence of the world by Kepler and Galileo.”

Drake, Raleigh, Hawkins and Frobisher, between the intervals of “singeing the King of Spain’s beard,” were circumnavigating the globe, breaking into the charmed circle of the Indies, or discovering the North-West passage.

And yet there is very distinctly another side to the medal. During the reigns immediately preceding that of Elizabeth, a great and ever increasing number of the people had been forcibly expropriated from the soil and thrown out upon the highways to exist as best they might.

“They were turned en masse into beggars, robbers, vagabonds, partly from inclination, in most cases from stress of circumstances. Hence at the end of the 15th and during the whole of the 16th century, throughout Western Europe, a bloody legislation against vagabondage The fathers of the present working class were chastised for their enforced transformation into vagabonds and paupers. Legislation treated them as voluntary criminals, and assumed that it depended on their own goodwill to go on working under the old conditions that no longer existed.” (Marx in “Capital.”)

Marx further tells us that

“In Elizabeth’s time ‘rogues were trussed up apace, and there was not one year commonly wherein three or four hundred were not devoured and eaten up by the gallowes.’ (Strype’s ‘Annals of the Thee-formation and Establishment of Religion, and other Various Occurrences in the Church of England during Queen Elizabeth’s Happy Reign,’ Second ed., 1725, Vol. ‘2.) According to this same Strype, in Somersetshire, in one year, 40 persons were executed, 35 robbers burnt in the hand, 37 whipped, and 183 discharged as ‘incorrigible vagabonds.’ Nevertheless, he is of the opinion that this large number of prisoners does not comprise even a fifth of the actual criminals, thanks to the negligence of the justices and the foolish compassion of the people ; and the other counties of England were not better off in this respect than Somersetshire, while some were even worse. . . . Thus were the agricultural people, first forcibly expropriated from the soil, driven from their homes, turned into vagabonds, and then whipped, branded by laws grotesquely terrible, into the discipline necessary for the wage system.”

In modern capitalist society these same sardonic contrasts prevail. In the Daily Chronicle of June 6th, 1903, it was pointed out that “the whole volume of British Trade has increased from 764 millions sterling in 1898 to 877 millions in 1902,” and in the same issue appeared a report of a speech delivered by the late Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, in which he declared that about 30% of the population were underfed, were on the verge of hunger. (Vide SOCIALIST STANDARD, August this year.)

During the first nine months of 1910, official trade returns show that :

Imports rose by £37,530,000,

Exports of British goods rose by £41,239,000, and Exports of imported goods rose by £11,063,000

as compared with January to September 1909. In the same issue of the paper (Morning Leader 8th October) in which these figures are given, is a short paragraph, headed “Pea-pickers Hardships,” giving an account of a meeting held at Romford, at which “the lamentable conditions under which the pea-pickers live in Essex” was discussed, Canon Ingles remarking at this meeting that the way the pickers lived while on the farms was a disgrace to a Christian country and Canon Lord William Cecil supporting the view that employers should be compelled to provide pure water for drinking and clean straw for beds.

In spite of the great increase in trade that has taken place since the beginning of 1910, at the present time there is perhaps more dissatisfaction among the industrial workers of this country than for some years past. The boiler-makers, the miners, the cotton operatives, the chain-makers and the railwaymen. to mention only a few, are seething with discontent. And yet exports of British goods rose by £41,239,000 !

Historical research shows that, no matter at what period—ancient, medieval or modern,—no matter what may be the wealth and culture, the spread of knowledge, the goodwill even (if such there be) among the dominant class, the condition of the class dominated is, in the main, one of base and degrading servitude, of physical and mental misery. Using the words of the before-mentioned French author, we may epitomise the history of the members of the slave-class by saying that “they were born, they suffered, they died.” Suffering has been their only heritage since slavery was first instituted ; whether it he chattel slavery or wage-slavery does not make very much difference, except that perhaps the chattel-slave was, in some respects, better off than the modern wage-worker.

The Socialist Party exists for the purpose of abolishing, once and for ever, both slave-class and master-class. We of course recognise that natural inequalities between individuals do and must exist. But we know further that social inequalities and contrasts between individuals or classes are an anomaly. To help do away with these social inequalities and contrasts, to raise society to a higher plane, where equality of opportunity shall be accorded to all, irrespective of race or sex, is the reason for our existence as a party. We ask for the intelligent co-operation of our fellow wage-slaves to assist us in this work, so that the day may be hastened when such terms as slave and master, owner and owned, working class and capitalist class, will be, without meaning. When society has evolved into this stage, when the Socialist Commonwealth has at last been established, then for the first time will a period of real culture and intellectual activity be possible to all, and not to, comparatively, a mere handful of men and women, such as have monopolised all the best things of life up to the present.

F. J. Webb

History proves the soundness of our position. (1911)

From the August 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain, of all the political organisations in this country, is the only one which stands solidly and consistently for the attainment of the Socialist system of society. Others (meaning, of course, political organisations) have displayed that compromise and trading resulting either from ignorance of the worker’s status under the present system, or from the fact that certain persons preferred personal aggrandisement to the straight path of a revolutionary party.

The innumerable instances quoted in the Socialist Standard and the S.P.G.B. Manifesto are sufficient evidence of the treacherous nature of parties who parade as Socialists. But the S.P.G.B., since the day it was formed, has ever insisted upon this basis as the essential to working-class salvation—the imperative necessity of

THE CONTROL OF THE POLITICAL MACHINERY.

The constant use by the capitalist class of that power to quell any semblance of revolt on the part of the workers; the endeavour to terrorise our class with demonstrations of military force, must be an indication of the value of the armed forces to the master class.

We of the S.P.G.B. realise, then, that the primary function of a Socialist party is to capture political power. What transpires after that will depend upon the democratic decision of an enlightened proletariat.

The record of incidents in the development of society should be a means of assisting the workers to realise how powerful, how necessary, is political control. History is a formidable foe to those who harbour Anarchist and reformist ideas. Generally speaking, the history of most countries, according to the majority of historians, is a record of the likes and dislikes of kings and queens and their favourites and paramours. Interesting as all this may be, it is not, and from a scientific standpoint cannot be considered to be, the history of the race. History to is is but

A SERIES OF DEVELOPMENTS

of all mankind, in which process one nation plays but a small part.

Further, unless we realise that the records of one epoch result from the actions of a previous state, and that our actions are but the inevitable growth from a condition in society precedent to us ; unless we clearly grasp that fact, a correct view of history cannot be obtained. Moreover, the keener the investigation into history, the clearer becomes the position we, as a party, occupy in this country. For by historical reference we are more than fortified in our position. In fact, the Socialist Party are the only party who can justify their attitude by history.

To us every method of government, whether it be monarchical, autocratic, plutocratic, theocratic or “democratic,” is tyrannical, since government implies a subject class in society. Let us get to the Athenian ascendancy for proof of this contention.

Athenian society originally was tribal. Later on the citizens were divided into classes principally on a private-property basis. Each section had political power corresponding to the volume of property it possessed. In Athens there existed a large population of propertyless slaves, who had no political rights of expression.

A remedy for such conditions being necessary, the famous constitutionalist and law-giver, Solon, so organised the political State that though the democracy had a voice, the aristocracy

WERE ALWAYS THE DOMINANT FACTOR

in Athenian political life. Nor was Athens the only State where such happenings were recorded, for after the expulsion of Tarquinius Superbus—the last of the seven Kings—from Rome in 509 B.C., the Romans swore they would never have another monarch.

Admirable as that may have appeared, it was in reality a further means for the nobility to suppress the “lower orders.” The Patricians and the Plebians were really the Aristocracy and the Commoners of the time. The latter had a split, and threatened to withdraw from the State unless there was some modification of the laws.

The masters (that is the controllers) of the political machinery, thereupon permitted a tribunate to be appointed, who were invested with power to veto certain actions of the Patricians. Then came the “Licinian Rogations,” due to combined action by the tribunes Licinius and Sextiud.

From the economic standpoint those laws, passed about 367 B.C., had no great value, and were purposely introduced to give the aristocracy greater power. It caused discontent to be stifled by grants of land to the plebians in all new territory conquered by the Romans. A later result of those laws was the extension of citizenship to the occupants of conquered cities, but with no political rights in the way of voting. The idea of the rulers in Rome was, “Keep what you like but let us have the political dominance.”

With the development in Rome came, too, the intermarrying of wealthy Plebians with the Patricians, with the result that the two sections became, socially and politically, a combination, and monopolised the public offices,

ALL AGAINST THE PROLETARIAT

of the day. Further, the constant usage of the political power had caused many acts which had been passed to become dormant. An instance is the Hortensian law of 287 B.C., which finally permitted the Plebian tribes to make laws without the assistance of the Comitia Centuriata.

Another interesting matter is that though each city conquered by Rome was given local autonomy, in most cases they were subordinate to the officials appointed from Rome. That had a tendency to give loyalty to the Romans, who, as are the British with regard to Egypt and India, were simply inspired by the possession of private property in the interest of the ruling class.

After the futile endeavours of Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, still another incident transpired that proves our contention conclusively. It was the reorganisation of the army by Marius, and after his death the actions of Sulla in using that army. The latter proved master of the situation because he had control of the army.

Let it be clearly understood that Rome was in a state of anarchy at this time. She was unable to master her possessions owing to the

GROWTH OF CORRUPTION

amongst the propertied classes.

Another fact illustrating the strength of the political power is afforded us by a reference to the actions of Constantine when he was at war with Maxeratius and Licinius for control of both the Eastern and Western Empires. Maxentius was defeated at Myvern Bridge, and Licinius, who hated Christianity intensely, was anxious to become emperor. Constantine, knowing full well that Licinius had great power, made Christianity a State religion, by which means he got greater support than ever. But for that incident Licinius would have defeated him, and Constantine would have become a cypher. The political exigences caused Constantine to extend his protection to the Christian or his power would have gone. With the support given him by converts to his curious mixture of Christianity and paganism he was enabled to overwhelm his rival and retain his throne.

Coming still nearer to the present time, we find that the wisdom of Charlemagne gives a voice in the government to the people. That voice was the bi-annual conferences he presided at “to hear the opinion of his people.” His control was so great that at his coronation the pope paid homage to him.

Perhaps the history of England may be viewed profitably to show that, whatever economic power any class possessed, they were always at the mercy of those who possessed the political power. If it was economic power that was the prime factor, how was it the Roman Catholic dominance was destroyed by Henry VIII ?

Perhaps it is unlikely that any Direct Actionist or other individual displaying

ANARCHISTIC TENDENCIES

would deny that the control of Parliament by Halifax and Cromwell caused a change in the British Constitution in 1649. A fact ever illuminating in history is that a class that had acquired great wealth were never free to utilise that wealth to its fullest advantage unless it had first the control of the political machinery. The severest impediment to the capitalist in this country was the control and monopoly by the landlords prior to the Reform Bill of 1832. 

In order to give free and full development to industry ; in order to sanction and legalise the. robbery of the working class ; in order to cheapen the cost of production, the present capitalist class were compelled to get political control. But that was simply the act in the final development of capitalism. Then our capitalist went to Parliament himself, but now he is leaving his work to paid hacks, lawyers, solicitors, and professional politicians.

The increasing productivity of the working class has solved the problem of production. Prior to the capitalist system the periodic panics and financial catastrophes were unheard of. Now we have them frequently, showing that even the ingenuity of the capitalist cannot avoid the ever intensifying control capital has over the capitalist. No longer can he control the profit system—the latter completely dominates him, and that is why the working class will have to take control of the political force. That this is evident one can see from the way the capitalist uses the political machinery. Strikes and economic eruptions,

“RIOTOUS OUTBREAKS”

as they call them, are squelched (where the starvation process is not sufficient) by sending armed forces into the disaffected districts.

We desire to obtain immediately a condition of society wherein we will enjoy all the means of life to the utmost advantage, and our fellow-slaves must be made conscious of it. The naval and military section of the working class can be made to understand that; and surely, when intelligence becomes uppermost in their minds, they will see that life under democratic control is much better than the rigorous discipline under which they exist at present.

Those who hold political power dominate the country in which they live. Therefore we strongly appeal to the working class to exercise their intelligence and to examine this question from the historical standpoint. The Socialist Party of Great Britain have never deviated from the scientific position such an examination logically leads to. It remains for you to put yourself in agreement with that position and to join us, and to assist in the spreading of working-class enlightenment.

Moses Baritz

Slavery and History. The Evolution of Subjugated Labour. (1909)

From the February 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

The essential characteristics of slavery are, we find, human subjection to and labour for the profit of masters. When man’s labour produces more than is indispensable for his maintenance, slavery is born. Prisoners of war, instead of being killed and eaten, or simply killed, are kept alive in order that they may work for their captors. Thus slavery is unknown to the more primitive folk of the savage, hunting stage. As defined, however, it is found wide-spread among peoples of a higher development, and passes historically through innumerable modifications. Nevertheless, three leading forms successively mark the course of later social evolution, namely, chattel-slavery, serfdom, and wage-labour; for the latter comes well within the definition.

We are well aware that the popular notions on slavery, and, indeed, those fostered by capitalist journalism, are mostly confined to an acquaintance with “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Herbert Spencer’s view of the matter may, therefore, well be quoted as showing the far wider scope of the institutions. He says, (Vol. 3, p. 456, Prim. Soc.),

“The current assumption is that of necessity a slave is a down-trodden being, subject to unlimited labour and great hardship ; whereas in many cases he is well cared for, not overworked, and leniently treated. Assuming slaves everywhere to have ideas of liberty like our own, we suppose them to be intolerant of despotic control: whereas their subjection is sometimes so little onerous that they jeer at those of their race who have no masters. Assuming that their feelings are such as we should have under the same circumstances, we regard them as unhappy ; whereas they are often more light-hearted than their superiors. Again, when we contrast the slave with the free man, we think of the last as his own master ; whereas very generally, surrounding conditions exercise over him a mastery more severe and unpitying than that exercised over the slave by his owner : nature’s coercion is often worse than man’s coercion.”

Spencer had to make out that the subjection of the wage-workers to the capitalist class is simply “nature’s coercion,” but otherwise his view is quite acceptable.

In offering our fellow workers some information on the condition of their historical forebears, we shall, true to the materialist conception of scientific Socialism, see in the evolution of slavery, not the idealist’s progress of ideas out of ideas, independently of material conditions, from earlier cruelty to later gentleness, but simply a reflex of the movement and progress of productive methods. A remodelling of institutions not according to heaven-sent aspirations, high ideals and “moral” religions of Greek, Mahometan and Christian, but as the further expansion of economic forces required.

The earlier written histories describe the Mediterranean and North European peoples as being, many of them, advanced to the threshold of civilisation, and still organised by kinship in contradistinction to organisation according to the territory inhabited; some living largely by agriculture, and others, like the Semitic tribes of Western Asia and Northern Africa, a pastoral, nomadic life. Private property was accumulating amongst them, even to the land itself in some cases, while domestic animals, cattle, goats, and so forth, were such everywhere. It is above all upon this new factor that depends the subsequent history of civilised peoples, including the evolution of slavery. Military raids were frequent, and provided conquerors with plunder, more fertile lands, and, above all, with prisoners, who were made to tend the cattle, or to do the more laborious work of the fields. At a later stage the ranks of slavery were swelled by poor citizens or tribesmen selling their children, and even themselves, into bondage in payment of debt. The book of Leviticus hands down to us the rules for the treatment of both the “stranger” and Hebrew bondsmen.

Greece.

Some of the Grecian tribes when they conquered a neighbouring people simply bound these to the soil and compelled them to bring to their conquerors a certain fixed part of their produce, leaving their family institutions untouched, and even allowing them to accumulate property. Thus, amongst others, the Spartans held their helots ; and indeed, much of the military organisation of the former was required to keep the helots in subjection, for they long retained the memory of their free condition.

In Attica and Corinth, the distinctly commercial states, however, great numbers of chattel-slaves, largely barbarians, were held and exchanged. “At the time of the greatest prosperity the whole number of free Athenian citizens, women and children included, amounted to about 90,000 ; the slaves of both sexes numbered 305,000 and the aliens foreigners and freed slaves—45,000.” (“Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State,” by F. Engels.) Slaves furnished all kinds of useful labour. Many were in domestic service, others were cooks, bakers, tailors, miners, labourers on agricultural estates, seamen, oarsmen, etc., while the State had slaves for soldiers, and even policemen. “The free Athenian regarded this police duty as so degrading that he preferred being arrested by an armed slave rather than lending himself to such an ignominous service.” (Engels.) In Greece, although their condition underwent important changes, the slaves were mildly treated, and enjoyed considerable legal protection. Slaves came increasingly to acquire property rights and then, as Spencer has it, “the slave’s condition was much that of a freeman paying heavy taxes.” As to the outcome, Engels says that

“The great number of slaves is explained by the fact that many of them worked together in large factories under supervision. The development of commerce and industry brought about an accumulation and concentration of wealth in a few hands. The mass of the free citizens were impoverished and had to face the choice of either competing with their own labour against slave labour, which was considered ignoble and vile, besides promising little success, or to be ruined. Under the prevailing circumstances they necessarily chose the latter course, and being in the majority, they ruined the whole Attic State. Not democracy caused the downfall of Athens, as the European glorifiers of princes and lickspittle schoolmasters would have us believe, but slavery ostracizing the labour of the free citizen.”

Rome.

In the earlier period of Roman history the head of the family (paterfamilias) had full power of life and death over all the members of his household—wife, child, and chattel-slave—and all were treated in general with great rigour. Slaves when old or otherwise useless were often “exposed” to starve upon an island in the Tiber. Many servile revolts are recorded—some of them of formidable proportions. That under the gladiator Sparticus in 73 B.C. lasted over the course of three years, and was only suppressed by a mighty effort by the Roman State—and this in spite of the fatal lack of cohesion and discipline among the men, who in seeking their freedom could not escape the temptation to linger in Italy for the plunder of the cities.

Later, under the Emperors, multitudes of slaves were employed in the various mechanical arts, while the cruelty of the masters was restrained by law, and property might be acquired. Further, the continual warfare with its consequent strain of military service upon the citizens resulted in the impoverishment of the poorer of these, and their lands passing into the hands of a few great landholders. Agriculture became entirely a slave occupation, carried on upon great estates called latifundae ; a system that led to the depopulation of Italy and the extinction of any class capable of resisting the Imperial tyrants or the barbarian invaders who followed.

The attitude of Christianity towards slavery was, and is, well exhibited in the notion of St. John Chryostom, that the apostle did not insist on the suppression of slavery because it was desirable that men should see how truly the slave could enjoy liberty of soul—the slavery of sin being the only real slavery. Indeed, Christianity is quite innocent of the milder treatment of slaves during the later Roman period, or of the decline of chattel-slavery, for, as Spencer puts it, by the partial failure of the supply of slaves through conquest, “the Romans were obliged to have recourse to the milder but more tedious method of propagation ; and this improved the condition of the slave by rendering his existence and physical health an object of greater value to his master.” Negro slavery in America is fairly well known, and considerations of space prevent us from giving it special treatment here. However, it is well to mention that it arose in consequence of the great demand for agricultural labour there, of a kind suited to hot and damp climates. It received its great impetus from the invention of the cotton gin at the end of the eighteenth century, when cotton became definitely available for clothing in competition with wool and flax. The “peculiar” Southern institution was abolished only when it threatened to prevent the full expansion of normal capitalism based upon wage-labour ; and the clash of material interests there involved an expenditure of blood and treasure rarely matched in history.

Collapse of chattel-slavery.

Now while the Teutonic eruption all over the European portions of the Roman Empire brought with it its own, as yet but little developed, servile institutions, yet it is true that this famous period roughly marks the transition (amongst Western peoples) from personal to territorial slavery—from chattel-slavery to serfdom. The steady degradation of the free population and consequent contraction of markets, resulted in the decay of the large-scale slave-worked agricultural estates ; and since the great numbers of slaves now became a burden upon their owners, these were now largely freed, and small-scale agriculture by “colonists” replaced the older system. These small cultivators paid a fixed sum, or a proportion of the product to landowners, and in other respects were indeed the prototypes of the mediaeval serfs. With regard to the Germanic overrunning of Gaul, Seebohm is quoted by Spencer as inferring that the mediaeval serf was the “compound product of survivals from three separate ancient conditions, gradually, during Roman provincial rule, and under the influence of barbarian conquest, confused and blended into one, viz., those of the slave on the Roman Villa, of the colonus or other semi-servile and mostly barbarian tenants on the Roman Villa or public lands, and of the slave of the German tribesman, who to the eyes of Tacitus was so very much like a Roman colonus”

Feudal Europe.

The wide-spread prevalence of the type of subject labour known as serfdom characterises above all the Middle Ages with its baronial sway and feudal organisation of society. The barbarian conquest of the ancient world, in spite of an intellectual setback, did, after all, but continue social evolution—reinvigorated, however, by the new blood from the northern forests. During and after the migrations the conquerors settled amongst the older cultivators, taking the major portion of the land and working this themselves, aided by the bondsmen they held. The long period of war and conquest had, however, left its mark upon their social organisation. The chieftains’ families had acquired the privileges of hereditary and military aristocracy and remained at the head of a new social class (itself a result of the new division of labour : cultivators—warriors), the professional soldiers. Continual warfare between the various military chieftains (e.g., the Heptarchy in England) induced most of the agriculturists, organised as these were in village communities, to place themselves under the care of a lordly “protector,” in return for which protection they surrendered the titles to their lands. Monasteries and churches in this way became, during the ninth and tenth centuries, amongst the largest landowners, and their bishops and abbeys powerful nobles. The protecting lord, baron, seigneur and his retainers had to be fed, clothed and sheltered in their massive castles and were able to exact this by commanding the services of the protected vassals for definite periods— corvée. This servile condition existed, however, in different forms : the services to be rendered and the civil rights vary with time and place. The monarch sometimes, especially in later times, sustained by the burgher class seeking its particular interests, ruled in favour of the lighter forms of serfdom.

Decline of serfdom.

In England typical serfdom gradually disappeared toward the close of the Middle Ages, and in most other European countries considerably later. It was abolished in Russia by Imperial edict as late as 1861. Serfdom had its frictions, as witness some robust rebellions- e.g., the villeins’ revolt under Jack Cade and Wat Tyler, likewise the Jacquerie in France and the Peasants’ War in Germany.

But the determining influence in its decline, in the last analysis (as in the case of all other social phenomena with the exception of the earliest experiences of the race, when society was more under the influence of sexual relations) was essentially economic, although a superficial reading of history may provide an idealist and purely political explanation. The progressive division of labour and its application in newer and more efficient methods, together with the resulting growth of cities, has everything to do with the rendering of serfdom obsolete and incompatible with progress. In England the change from the old, large, open field, yet scattered, small-plot system of agriculture, to the enclosed field system, together with the displacing of husbandry in favour of pastures, for sheep raising, in response to the demand for wool, had much to do with decreasing the need for numerous workers fixed to the land. “Owing to the spread of new agricultural methods, their services ceased to be valuable,” says Spencer, quoting Cunningham.

The development of the bourgeoisie in the cities and their need of defenders resulted in many serfs finding refuge and livelihood with them. In Italy the serfs were largely feed in this way, while the wide-spread demand for money on the part of the nobles during the Crusades, and in emulation of the now prosperous city merchants, led the manorial lords to look rather to rent payments than to services ; and finally it was being discovered that “free-labour” was more efficient and profitable than “servile-labour.” Spencer has it that “German observers in Russia, as quoted by Prof. Jones, say that a Middlesex mower will mow as much in a day as three Russian serfs. The Prussian Councillor of State, Jacobi, is considered to have proved that in Russia where everything is cheap, the labour of a serf was double as expensive as that of a labourer in England. In Austria the work of a serf is stated to have been equal to one-third that of a hired man.”

It is of some interest to note that vestiges of serfdom survived in England until quite recent times. Thus colliers and salters were bound for life to the mines in which they worked, and their sons with them, until the end of the eighteenth century, while well into tho nineteenth century a “free” labourer could not choose, so were conditions arranged, to leave his employer without incurring risk of punishment. Finally, as regards the real relations of servile and free labour, and the determining causes thereof, the views of these two, certainly not Socialist, and eminently respectable, thinkers, may not be out of place. Thus, John Adams in the American Congress of 1776, “That as to this matter, it was of no consequence by what name you called your people, whether by that of freemen or slaves. That in some countries the labouring poor men are called freemen ; in others they were called slaves ; but the difference was imaginary only. What matters it whether a landlord employing ten labourers on his farm gives them annually as much as will buy the necessaries of life, or gives them those necessaries at short hand ?” (From “Lost Principles of Sectional Equilibrium,” by “Bararossa,” 1860.) Herbert Spencer concludes in this way. “When slave labour and free labour come into competition, slave labour, other things equal, decreases as being less economical. The relative lack of energy, the entire lack of interest, the unintelligent performance of work, and the greater cost of supervision, make the slave an unprofitable productive agent. Hence with an adequate multiplication of labourers it tends gradually to disappear.”

Reviewing, then, slavery in the only fruitful manner, that is, historically ; considering its origin, manifestations and developments, we find that so-called free-labour—wage-labour—falls into its proper place as a later development, of servile production. Free-labour is seen then, to have its roots in chattel-slavery and serfdom, and its future—but to that, shortly. For while labour has been gradually freed from the shackles of chattel and villein conditions, it yet undeniably partakes of the essential characteristics of slavery, viz., human subjection to and labour for the profit of masters. Its distinction from the older forms is sufficiently indicated in the well established Socialist term—WAGE-SLAVERY.

However, the existing order, capitalism, based upon wage-labour, contains and develops within itself its own negation, as did the earlier social systems. The ancient order, based upon chattel-slavery, could not survive the degradation consequent upon the fullest development of that basis, and gave way to the agricultural and military barbarism, which soon developed the feudal system, leaning mainly upon serf-labour. This in turn prepared within itself its own destroyers,—the merchant and artizan class of the towns, the bourgeoisie, who, overthrowing the nobles, and also the King where he could not be made to serve their turn, have become the dominant class, and have moulded society much in their own sanctimonious image. The historically indicated negation of capitalism is Socialism: and the revolutionary instrument of its achievement is the modern class of wage-workers who, stripped of property, are compelled to seek a livelihood by selling to the bourgeoisie their labour-power, but who, in so doing, at the same time acquire an understanding of the conditions of their own development, become class-conscious, and organise for their emancipation. Thereby “emancipating society at large from all its exploitation, oppression, class distinctions and class struggles.”

History dictates the final overthrow of slave-founded society, and the establishment of fraternal society—SOCIALISM.

John H. Halls

Was capitalism historically inevitable? (2024)

From the December 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

As with any ‘origin’ story it is notoriously difficult to know where to begin. We might start with the demise of the dinosaurs due to the ‘lucky’ asteroid that struck the Earth some 66 million years ago allowing mammals to flourish in their stead; or we might start with the transition of hunter gatherer communities into private property slave city states; or we might avoid all of these hypotheses and go straight to the Battle of Plataea in Greece in 479 BC.

Why? Because arguably the global capitalism we see today is mainly of a European origin and, in particular, many of its curses and blessings can be assigned to the little island of Britain. We will try to seek out all of the whys and wherefores of this theory and ask if the described economic developments could or would have happened anywhere else on the planet. Inevitability is the totem of any theory of determinism but can we ever be certain that any area of human activity could aspire to this fatalistic description? So let’s return to the Greece of 479 BC where the story begins and see if it will prove to be a robust theory or even elevate it to a tale of historical inevitability.

The Battle of Plataea saw the Persian attempt to conquer Greece finally come to an end. The outcome of any battle can be unpredictable both in terms of who will win and the long-term implications of an outright victory but on this occasion we see that the colonisation of Greece and all of the cultural implications that this implied did not occur. The subsequent intellectual and political flowering of Classical Athens could not have taken place under Persian hegemony. Thus, the adoption of Greek culture by Imperial Rome would not have happened and its rediscovery during the Renaissance could not have occurred in Europe.

It might be argued that, like Vietnam and Afghanistan in our time, the Greek states could never have been completely defeated by the superpower of its time but it was not close to being inevitable that Greece would become the dominant cultural force in European history. And again if Rome had not finally defeated the Carthaginians at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC the conquest of Europe and the subsequent spread of the death cult of Christianity – albeit in constant tension with the rationalism of the Classical inheritance – would not have evolved into the European Reformation where the protestant cause became the ideology of the revolutionary bourgeoisie.

In its Puritan incarnation in England this ideology would be the foundation of the revolutionary victory of the capitalist class and the release of finance to invest in inventions and their application during the industrial revolution. This was all made possible by the victory of the parliamentary (bourgeois) army at the Battle of Naseby in 1645. In ideological terms it would seem that too much was dependent on the outcome of battles and the adoption of a historically arbitrary religion to maintain that capitalism was inevitable. But if we look at the underlying material economic trajectory and the class struggle it created what do we find?

We can see that all of the ancient civilisations of note were based on a slave economy. The majority of these slaves were captives of war but as the major empires consolidated the wars became fewer and so the number of slaves decreased. This together with the obvious economic advantage of letting the slaves (now called serfs) have a small holding of land for their self-sufficiency (thus saving the lord their upkeep) made the transition to feudalism ubiquitous in Europe.

There had always been trade between cities and principalities (mercantile capitalism) and many of these merchants became rich and yearned for commensurate political power. Eventually this conflict became violent and these merchants (proto-capitalists) displaced the kings and lords in revolutions that enabled capital to invest in wage labour and amass their fortunes from the subsequent accumulation of surplus value.

The particular nature of the ideologies that were used to get the majority to fight and die for their cause seems secondary to the class struggle and productive innovations that provoked them. In this Marxian scenario the classical inheritance and the ideology of Christianity would not be of primary importance – the human capacity for technical innovation would initiate different modes of production which in turn would create antagonistic social groups (classes) which alone could drive progress and be independent of the contemporary ideologies that were used to understand and justify this phenomenon. It would not be until the emergence of socialist thinking that these dialectical economic and social forces could be fully understood.

It is challenging trying to imagine alternative histories – Europe without the inspiration of classical Greece and Rome; the world without the combination of an early bourgeois revolution and a preponderance of surface coal to power the industrial might that allowed the small island of Britain to rule much of the globe; the world without the capricious act of Constantine the Great making the obscure cult of Christianity the official religion of the Roman empire etc.

Yet these phenomena were all dependent on the uncertainties of war and could have gone either way depending on various elements including blind luck. Europe’s state religion might have been one of the forgotten cults of Carthage and the lingua franca of the world might be Phoenician-based instead of English. But the Marxian contention is that we would still have ended up with global capitalism even if it would have taken longer (the French had to wait a full 150 years after the English for their revolution and Germany didn’t have one at all). Speaking of warfare, some soldiers came to believe that if a bullet had their name on it there was nothing to be done other than accept one’s fate – let’s hope that the world can enjoy many years of the equality and peace delivered by socialism before a meteorite crashes into Earth with our species’ name written on it.

Wez.

The Roots of Politics (1951)

From the August 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

As the Labour Party have failed to deliver the goods they promised there is a tendency to turn away from politics by many who previously supported the Labour Party. Some are turning to the trade union movement to seek the solution to their troubles, others are giving up the struggle in despair. A lack of understanding of the basis of their troubles led them to support the Labour Party in the first place. Had they realised that the policy of the Labour Party would not, and could not, lead to a fundamental change in the basis of society they would not have been disappointed with the fruits of Labour policy.

Wherever any class or individual throughout history has reached a dominating position it has been accomplished by participation in politics. Even the so-called dictators, like Alexander, Caesar, Cromwell, Napoleon, Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin, have all gained a dominating position in this way. When firmly entrenched they have sought for means to keep up the illusion that their power is based upon the interests of the majority, and have even been compelled to make certain concessions to popular dissatisfaction. They have continued in power by promising a return to older procedure when the external and internal enemies of the State have been finally crushed. Hence their power has been prolonged by their capacity to continue to foster the illusion that the external and internal enemy is hindering the people from entering into the prosperity that the policy of the dictators aimed at securing.

It is sometimes argued that we are living in the present and that a study of past history is a waste of time. That we should concern ourselves exclusively with the practical questions of to-day. Practical questions of two thousand years ago are still practical questions of to-day, although some of them may come up in a somewhat different form. This is so because a fundamental social condition of to-day, the existence of class ownership of the means of production, was also present then.

In the opening paragraph of one of Marx’s essays he wrote, "The tradition of all past generations weighs like an alp on the brain of the living." Since the outgrowth of private property, thousands of years ago, traditions associated with it have troubled the brain of man across the ages and still muddle his outlook upon even the simplest problems of to-day, distorting bis views upon politics.

Politics has to do with the State. The State came into existence along with property and the division of society into classes that struggled against each other for power and domination. All class struggles are political struggles; struggles for control of the State for the purpose of using it or removing it The basis of politics is the production and distribution of wealth: the form political struggles assume is determined by the economic organisation of society at any given time. Political parties represent, or claim to represent economic interests. They are organised for the purpose of getting control of the State power to serve these economic interests.

Many of the institutions and the procedures bound up with government to-day are thousands of years old, and so are the arguments put forward in defence of these institutions and procedures. Elections, the secret ballot, short terms of office, rotation in office, majority rule, the whip, filibustering, the magistracy, representative government, leagues of nations—all these were present in societies, based upon property, that flourished over two thousand years ago. Every new class that economic development threw up sought, in its turn, to get control of the State machinery in order to put social relations into a mould that suited it.

Running through history like a thread are the constant disputations about how a well-organised State should be controlled, and property is the constant factor in which these disputations are rooted.

In ancient Greece class rule was philosophised into "the question as to whether the one ablest individual, or the most capable and virtuous minority, or the general body of citizens should, or does, rule"— and the same questions are debated to-day on the same basis, class rule.

An old Greek writer, Xenophon, put the idea in a general form when he wrote: “ 1 am always of opinion that of whatever character governments are. of a similar character also are the governments which they conduct.” It is interesting, in passing, to notice that Xenophon, in an essay “ On the means of Improving the Revenues of the State of Athens," put forward a strong plea in favour of nationalising such enterprises as the silver mines, shipping, market buildings, shops, lodging houses and places of entertainment. He argued that State investment was "the safest and most durable of human things."

Aristotle, the most influential of ancient writers, in his “Politics" proclaimed that “the State is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal." Farther on he writes :

“ 'And so, in one point of view, the art of war is a natural art of acquisition, for it includes hunting, an art which ought to practise against wild beasts, and against men who, though intended by nature to be governed, will not submit; for war of such a kind is naturally just."

In the Middle Ages Machiavelli (whom a humorist pointed out bears “ the domestic name for the devil") warns the Prince to take account of classes in governing, and balance one against the other for his own benefit.

In the early years of Capitalism, John Locke, in his essay on civil government, gave the following definition of political power:

“Political power, then, I take to be a right of making laws with penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties, for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community in the executing of such laws, and in the defence of the commonwealth from foreign injury, and all this only for the public good."

Harrington, in his "Oceana," argued that power naturally and necessarily followed property, and Cromwell opposed universal suffrage on the ground that: "The consequences of this rule tend to anarchy. For where is there any bound or limit set if men that have but the interest of breathing shall have voices in elections.”

lu America, Madison, one of those responsible for the Declaration of Independence, wrote: “From the influence of different degrees and kinds of property on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors ensues a diffusion of society into different interests and parties." How sentiments can vary from practice was shown by the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the Constitution of the United States, 1787-1789. The Declaration contained the following paragraph:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life. Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

- Section 9 of the Constitution runs as follows:

"The Migration or Importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress ... but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person."

This section was put in to serve the property interests of the importers and users of black slaves. “ All men are created equal "—well, not all men!

These are a few illustrations of the fact that since property came into existence it has produced the classes that contend for control of the State, and determined the attitude of a ruling to a ruled class. Further that as long as a class controls State power it seeks to mould society to suit its interests. To-day the capitalist class rules and rules in their own interest, though under the guise of "labour." In order to bring about a fundamental social change, a change from Capitalism to Socialism, it is necessary to take control of the State out of the hands of the capitalists. This can only be done by political action. But something more than this is required. This political action must be taken by a majority who understand and want Socialism, otherwise it will only have the appearance of the removal of power while in fact power will still remain where it is. This is what happened when the Labour Party became the Government.

Gilmac.

The Labors of Sisyphos (1974)

From the Special 300th issue of The Western Socialist

Link to In the meantime

The Ancient Greeks had a legend about a king of Corinth who answered to the name Sisyphos. This character became one of the notorious sinners of his age because he insulted Pluto, the god of Hades, and because he spread a story about a certain amour of the chief god, himself, Zeus. Sisyphos was condemned to spend eternity trying to roll a boulder up a hill. Whenever he came near the top, the boulder got away from him, rolled down the hill, and he would have to begin all over. The word, sisyphean, is now preserved in the language to denote a type of labor that is endless and fruitless.

Socialists, in observing the strategy and tactics of reformers and self-styled revolutionaries, today, are reminded of the legend of Sisyphos. Take the case of the college radicals. All over the country and throughout much of the world, the kids are seizing campus buildings, marching, striking, distributing flaming handbills, holding mass meetings, keeping things in a continual uproar. They provide grist for the press, TV, and radio and many sleepless nights, no doubt, for the college administrators. Just what else they really hope to accomplish is difficult to imagine.

They have discovered the deep involvement of the universities with the Government in the bloody business of war — especially in the Vietnam War, which they did not approve. They seem determined to force the universities to turn over a new leaf, to get down to the business of education for which they are supposedly designed. What they have not discovered is the obvious fact that universities must reflect the attitudes and purposes of the capitalist class; that the great institutions of learning are but extensions or subsidiaries of the huge industries that finance them. And they have not discovered another important fact. Recognition of the direct connection between capitalism and war, and between capitalism and mass poverty is not enough to eliminate such ills prior to the outright abolition of capitalism, itself.

But the angry and impatient students do not have time for such a philosophy. You socialists, they tell us, are talking about a world of the distant future. There is an immediate problem or two. There are people being killed in Vietnam and there are many millions, even in America, suffering every day from poverty, from high rents, from high food prices, from high streetcar fares and from high cost of living, generally. Who has time to listen to socialist utopianism? They give us a disgusted sneer or shrug of the shoulders and are off to their sisyphean labors.

Like all analogies, however, this one is not entirely fitting. Old Sisyphos couldn’t help himself, nor could anyone else inform him of a theory that could save him from his bleak future. In the mythology of Ancient Greece, all was foreordained and one’s fate could not be circumvented. It was mapped out by the gods of the Pantheon. But what is it that prevents the college radicals and radicals, generally, from ceasing their useless labor? Are they, too, condemned by some supernatural power to endless and fruitless struggle against the effects of capitalism? We doubt that many, if any of them could be influenced that way by any of the current crop of religions. One would think that kids who are clever enough to get into and through college should have the understanding that capitalism is but operating normally. That warfare, poverty, slums — and the rats, bedbugs and cockroaches that go with slums as a grim bonus — are all intrinsic to capitalism.

Why, then, do they continue to try to make capitalism operate uncapitalistically? Why do they reject the idea of organizing now to abolish capitalism, to introduce a social system wherein such evils as they decry could not exist? Were it possible to improve conditions for all rather than for a minority through reform rather than revolution It would all be understandable. Have the student radicals been brainwashed by the propaganda of the very institutions they rebel against? Do they see themselves as future leaders and saviors of society? It's high time they tried socialism and forgot their radical reformist tactics.

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Socialism and ultimate origins. (1913)

From the April 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

How science is prostituted to capitalist interests. 

Every scientific discovery that helps us to understand Nature is of interest to the Socialist. Socialism is grounded in science, and being a comparatively new philosophy is forced to be complete because, when, by means of the Materialist Conception of History, the Socialist has explained the growth and development of Society, he is called upon to explain every physical and natural phenomenon, even to the existence of life itself. Biology has its materialist conception in the “struggle for existence” ; life and the resulting struggle being engendered by the conditions existing previously, that can also be explained from a materialist basis. In one sense the Socialist is only concerned with the “class struggle,” but the scientist, as well as the priest and politician, is in the pay of the capitalist, and is expected to perform his share of the general work of mystifying the working class.

For centuries the only explanation of life and nature has been provided by religion, but religion has lost its hold on the majority of the workers. Nevertheless, nature’s methods and laws still remain unexplained to them. The discoveries of scientists and the generalisations that follow them are filtered through the capitalist Press and cheap magazines with criticism and comment calculated to discredit them if they conflict with orthodox dogma.

To keep the workers ignorant on all questions is obviously to the interest of the capitalist class and those who serve them. For that reason the worker who seeks information should go to the actual authorities themselves. Darwin can only be understood from his own works ; those who have tried to improve on them, either through design or through incompetency, have invariably failed. Marx and Engels, the founders of scientific Socialism, have never been improved upon, because the working-class position as laid down by them was, and still is, complete. The S.P.G.B. is organised on that position, and up to the present has discovered no reason for the slightest deviation.

The scientist—for a consideration—endeavours to reconcile opposites : science with religion, The B.S.P., I.L.P , and Fabian Society attempt the same reconciliation with regard to Socialism and religion, and with the same object in view—a place in the sun, a seat in the House, or a soft job in some Government department. But in spite of their attempts at reconciliation, the original works still remain irreconcilable.

Scientific discoveries invariably go to strengthen materialist conceptions ; they sometimes bring the whole question of ultimate origins under discussion. At first the scientists range themselves on either side, some favouring while others oppose the materialist concept ; but what the worker is finally asked to believe (chiefly on trust) is that the discovery does not clash with original superstitions, but in reality strengthens and makes them more clear.

The supposed discovery by Sir W. Ramsey is an instance. He claims to have created matter out of “immaterial ether.” The “London Budget” published an account of the supposed discovery under the heading: “Turning Energies into Matter,” and summed up the whole question in the following paragraph.

“Rather the greater effect of results of researches in this direction would be from a pschycical and ethical standpoint, confirming what has been urged by small bands of advanced thinkers. That the materialist conception of not only science, but of the whole world is a fallacy. Mrs. Eddy’s contention that the material world about us is merely apparent and non-existent seems to be a long way vindicated.”

In other words, scientists have succeeded in creating matter; the existence of matter is a fallacy.

The pseudo, newspaper scientist, with an apparent and non-existent tongue in an unreal cheek, propounds theories on the origin of matter while discrediting its actual existence. No doubt his salary is just as unreal. His employer would certainly be justified in ignoring his existence when it was due, if he did not know that such piffle is written in his class interest.

The scientist accepts matter as he finds it; he never thinks of questioning its reality in the laboratory. To him matter is an aggregation of atoms. He knows the relative weights of the atoms that make up the different elements. Dalton was the first to observe that elements combine with each other only in certain fixed proportions by weight, and he concluded that their ultimate atoms must bear to one another the same relationship of weight. The atom of hydrogen gas is the lightest known, and is taken as the unit by which to measure the rest. The scientist utilises that standard of measurement and the results always justify its adoption.

Although disagreeing as to the nature of the atom, no scientist denies its existence. Professor Thomson affirms the existence of atoms when he says : “Within the last few years improvement in methods/giving more direct information of the atom was almost entirely due to the fact that we had electrified it.”

The students of Nature in the Grecian period came to the conclusion that all matter was the same matter, the difference in the elements being due to the difference in size, weight, and formation of the atoms that composed them. They arrived at this conclusion merely by common observation, without the methods and appliances of modern science. They saw that a garment soaked with water parted with it gradually when exposed to wind and sun, that a ring worn on the finger was reduced in weight, by friction, the particles lost being so small that they were unable to detect them. They found this process common to all substances and concluded that matter was composed of atoms. More than 2,000 years afterwards Dalton verified their conclusions by discovering a method of weighing atoms. To-day scientists are electrifying them. Both these performances have confirmed the truth of what was postulated by the Greeks—a glowing testimony to their powers of observation and deduction.

It does not in the least detract from their intelligence that the modern scientist claims to split up the atom itself into still smaller particles and suggests that they are merely centres of energy. For he only rings the changes and tries to prove that matter is a manifestation of force instead of force being a manifestation or property of matter. The existence of both matter and force is never called in question, on the contrary, it is affirmed, even by those who deny its reality.

The capitalist class, owning an apparent world, real or not, do not value it the less because pseudo-scientists and faith healers say its material existence is a fallacy. They know it is better to be capitalists than wage slaves. There is no fallacy about possessing a share in the means of wealth production and living by exploitation. It matters nothing to the capitalist whether the universe was created by a supreme being or whether Gustave Le Bon says that “the ether of the universe is apparent to us as matter when it is whirled and pulsated into vortex rings.” The essential point is always admitted—that matter is apparent and not “merely apparent,” whatever difference or distinction there may be.

Mrs. Eddy’s contention that matter is nonexistent is destructive of her particular religion, for there is nothing miraculous about “the faith that moves mountains” if the mountains are not real. The everyday actions of faith healers and pseudo-scientists are a direct contradiction to the doctrines they profess to believe and teach. They continue to act exactly as other human beings do, in adapting themselves to their material surroundings—material interests dominate all their actions.

From another quarter comes the assertion that mind is the only thing of which we are certain, of which we know anything at all; and with it also comes the admission that all we do know about mind are the impressions received by it of a material world. Thus is confirmed what Frederick Engels so ably recorded : we know a thing by its properties. The mind manifests itself by its peculiar property, conception. That conception is a materialist conception, and answers the test by results everywhere within our experience.

We are seriously told that “the scientist of to-day knows a million times more than the ordinary “human.” The same old tale ; the same priestly gag on the common sense of the workers. We know ; put your trust in us ; have faith, was their cry and is still their cry. Yet with all their knowledge, with all their ability and intellect, they cannot make out an intelligible case to the “ordinary human.” Whatever they know of ultimate origins, they trip and splutter like babies over their mother tongue. Their columns of trash are as worthless as polar expeditions. They assert and re-assert with provisos that are flat contradictions of their premises. Their own statements contain their own refutation. The “ordinary human,” gifted merely with common sense, would never contradict himself in one breath so obviously as did Dr. Alfred Wallace when he said that “he and Sir William Crooks knew of the existence of phenomena which proved the existence of life without matter, as it were, certainly without ordinary matter.” As if matter could be more or less matter because it was not ordinary matter !

The scientist’s concern may be with molecules, atoms, or electrons. Ours is with the necessaries of life. Theirs with the elements, the ultimate origins ; ours with substance and social arrangements and relationships. Their wants are supplied, their position secure. The working class are merely receptacles more or less filled with energy, to be emptied into the mills of the capitalists, piling up wealth to be used by them in luxury, vice, charity, suppression, what they will; in a word, for everything that is degrading to humanity—the senile decay of an idle class and the perpetuation of the most abject form of slavery the world has ever known.

Genuine scientific discoveries clear up the mysteries of nature. Those who understand nature know best how to conform to her laws and make the most of life. The working class are kept in ignorance of the significance of scientific discoveries ; numbed and bewildered by social forces they do not understand, they submit tamely to the yoke of capitalism. Though they are in the majority, and can snap their chains more easily and with less suffering than they experience by continuing their submission, they prefer the latter course.

Once the working class understand the real mature of capitalist society, they will realise how their lives are being wasted. Their united strength would become manifest to them, and the class that has to hire all its champions, from the policeman to the scientist, would shake with fear as revolution became, not “merely apparent,” but inevitable.

F. Foan

You can't believe that! (1995)

Theatre Review from the July 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Broken Heart (RSC Barbican)

The idea of class art is well established. One has only to visit a public art gallery to recognise that throughout history painters have been employed to produce art that is valued by those who can afford it: that is, typically, by members of the landed aristocracy and their acolytes, merchants. capitalist entrepreneurs and so on. Even the value system by which paintings are valued has traditionally discriminated in favour of religious paintings and portraits of the great and the good, whilst genre paintings and scenes from peasant and working class life have been seen as relatively valueless.

But class art is also apparent in the theatre, and a good example is John Ford’s play The Broken Heart which is at present in repertoire at the Barbican (Pit Theatre).

Ford was born at the end of the sixteenth century, the son of a wealthy landowner. He trained for the law but soon began a literary career as a poet and playwright. He is believed to have written seven plays of which the most well known are probably Love’s Sacrifice and ‘Tis a Pity she's a Whore. Productions of The Broken Heart have been comparatively rare. The play seems to have been performed only once in the sixteenth century, and there are no records of revivals until 1898, 1904 and 1962. This year, however. there have already been four productions, including the one on view at the Barbican.

It is difficult to understand current interest in the play. The Broken Heart is about enforced marriages, and the use of marriage as a way of furthering the interests of families. social groups and even whole nations. Set in Sparta its characters are easily recognised as surrogates for the Earl of Essex and his sister, and Queen Elizabeth, and the events depicted chime with the recent histories of England. Ireland and Scotland. As the programme note says "The Broken Heart presents a kind of mythologised history of England's recent past and celebrates in the Spartan ideal a set of public virtues at once ancient and modern”.

But if Ford was intent on celebrating these virtues (sic), most of the audience could only have marvelled at the absurdity of the beliefs to which the characters were attached and. by extension, the aristocratic and emergent bourgeoise sixteenth century audience to whom the play was addressed. One can admire the way in which Ford has plotted his story — with its many twists and turns — and the wonderful skill of the actors and production team in bringing the play to life. But what a play! What amazing, bizarre and foolish sentiments are expressed: what extraordinary. craven and mean-spirited beliefs are paraded for our inspection. There were moments when I found it hard not to challenge the inanities being voiced on stage. "You can’t believe that!", I wanted to shout. "No one could possibly believe that.”

But ‘yes’ the audience for which the play was written did believe these nonsenses. They believed them with tenacity and passion.and these ideas informed the substance of social behaviour throughout the sixteenth century. Socialists will find comfort in this discovery as they imagine a time when folk will look back on the commonplace beliefs of the late twentieth century and similarly wonder how it was possible for most people to believe that poverty, war. pollution and all the other self-inflicted wounds of a class-riven world were inevitable features of life.

Michael Gill

A Vile Game (1942)

From the January 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

J. M. Robertson, in his useful “History of Free Thought” remarks (p. 191): “Plato proposes that his ideal rulers frame new myths which shall edify the young: in his Utopia it is part of the business of the legislator to choose the right fictions.” The famous City State, with its big commercial fleet, its slave-worked mines, its pro-Persian Quislings, its mouthing “democrats,” was a striking forecast of the fully developed Capitalist State to-day. No wonder Plato is so dear to the heart of the baleful crowd of the Dean Inges and their kind.

Augustus Snellgrove

War: Methods of Offence and Defence (Continued) (1940)

From the November 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1

In Homeric times the principal warriors were protected by helmets and bronze shields lined with hide—that is to say those who could afford it were so protected, the rest of the fighters had little more than dogskin caps to protect them. Fighting at that time was by individual warriors supported by followers.

By the sixth century B.C. the work of the smith in producing iron weapons and armour had completely altered the method of fighting, and the growth of a landed and commercial aristocracy had produced the military phalanx formation. All armour and weapons were provided by the individual soldier, and the more prosperous citizens of each state armed themselves with long spears and protected themselves with breastplates, greaves and stout shields. In the phalanx the fighters were trained to move together as a body and stand together firmly against the most vigorous attacks. As the soldiers advanced the first lines would have their spears lowered ready to attack while those behind would hold their spears upright ready to be lowered when required. The whole solid body behind the attack would give impetus to the shock when the actual moment of impact occurred.

This formation required strength and fitness in the soldier to obtain the maximum result. It was the excellent Greek athletic training at the time that made of them such formidable soldiers when fighting in the phalanx, and the Spartans the most formidable opponents of all on account of their mode of living and all-round physical culture.

When the Athenians met the Persians at Marathon (B.C., 490) they used the Greek phalanx formation, but they varied the usual tactics. As a rule the whole line advanced equally, but the Persian superiority in numbers was so overwhelming that this method would have weakened the attack as the line would have been too thin.

The vast Persian Army disembarked near the plain of Marathon, but their equipment was far inferior to that of the Greeks, of whom they had previously had little experience. Their weapons consisted of bows and arrows and a short sword for close fighting. Their defensive armour was very poor, consisting principally of wicker shields— a poor defence against the powerfully propelled Greek spears.

The Greeks drew up in formation on the hills above Marathon and, when they realised that the help expected from Sparta would not reach them in time, they prepared to attack the Persians who had already formed into battle line.

The Athenian General Callimachus had already decided upon the new plan of attack. The hoplites (heavily armed soldiers) were placed on each wing and the less well armed and lighter forces were put in the centre of the line. As the line advanced it increased its pace so as to lose as few men as possible, to the Persian archers, and charged each wing with terrific force, putting them to flight. As had been expected, the Greek centre could not stand up against the Persians, but while the latter were disorganised from their victory they were surprised by the attack of the heavy Greek wings which, instead of following up the defeated Persians, had turned inwards upon the centre and annihilated it. The result was a complete and sweeping victory for the Greeks, but it was their heavy armour as much as their tactics that was responsible. The highly civilised Greeks then pursued their semi-barbarous opponents and slaughtered thousands of them before they could reach their ships.

The solid phalanx remained the deciding factor in warfare throughout antiquity. It was improved by an innovation of a Theban General Epaminondas. Before this, however, light armed troops and horsemen were added in increasing numbers. The lightly armed troops first became important during the Peloponnesian War and were the basis of the professional soldier—the mercenary who sold his fighting power for pay to the highest bidder. These troops needed far more training than the hoplite. To be successful they had to become accustomed to rapid movement without losing formation. When the Peloponnesian War ended the men who had formed these companies for years found, themselves useless for peace-time occupations, and the only vocation left them was permanent soldiering, so, like Xenophon’s “Ten Thousand” (who hired themselves out to a Persian pretender), they sold their fighting power to any Greek state that was prepared to pay for their use.

It is interesting to notice that the Greek horsemen who operated along with the heavy armed foot soldier at the time of Pericles were composed of a limited number of wealthy young men who could afford horses. So that the army was a faithful representative of the social division in Athenian society—the wealthy, the middle class, and the poor.

We will have to depart a little from strict chronology in order to make understandable the progress in the methods of warfare. Hence, before dealing with the rise and fall of Athenian power, we will explain the next and vital development, the Greek phalanx—the innovation of Epaminondas. Until his time Sparta had remained the supreme land power in the Mediterranean area.

Epaminondas was the leading general of a Greek state, Thebes, that hitherto had not played an important part in warfare. Under his direction, however, it became for ten years the principal power, with an invincible army. This invincibility was entirely due to the new manner of employing the phalanx. The principle of the method was to throw the whole weight of the attack upon one point in the enemy’s line while at the same time keeping the rest of the enemy’s forces occupied.

It is a principle that was borrowed by Alexander the Great, and has been successfully employed by victorious generals right up to the present day, as witness the operations of the German army in France and elsewhere.

Before this it had been the custom, as already mentioned, for the whole line of foemen, ten or twelve ranks deep, to advance at an even pace I against the opposing line. Epaminondas, however, massed his best troops on one wing in a column fifty ranks deep, which charged the opposing wing with tremendous weight. In the meantime the rest of the line advanced slowly to keep the enemy’s attention occupied, but did not make contact until the enemy’s lines were already destroyed. The principle was tried out successfully at the battle of Leuctra when the Spartan army was completely defeated and the king and his best troops killed.

This new device of launching an overwhelming force at one selected spot in an enemy’s lines was adopted by Philip of Macedon and his son, Alexander, and was eventually part of the tactics of the Romans.

Philip of Macedon increased the efficiency of the Theban phalanx by some improvements of his own which made the Macedonian phalanx the most formidable of the times. He had the spears of his warriors lengthened so that the first few ranks could come into action before the enemy could make contact. He also made far more use of cavalry than had been the practice previously. The subjection of Greece to Macedon and conquering swoop of Alexander into Asia is a matter of history well known to most people.

Reverting back to the rise of Athens to imperial power and its defeat in the Peloponnesian War, it is worth noting that the improved warship, which was the basis of Athenian naval power, was actually invented by the Corinthians, but their geographical position prevented them from reaping the full benefit from the invention.

The early Greek warship had ten to twenty oars on each side and was provided with a mast and square sail. The new warship had three banks of oars on each side, and, in addition, at the prow, a beak shod with iron just beneath the water line with which to ram an enemy ship.

As pointed out, Sparta was for centuries the invincible land power of Greece, but Athens, owing to its favourable situation in the Mediterranean, grew rich in commerce and built up a maritime empire. Its commerce made of its sailors first-rate seamen, and the addition of the new trireme (warship) gave it undisputed supremacy on the seas. When, therefore, Athens came to blows with Sparta the problem was to find a way of circumventing the invincible Spartan army as Athens was vulnerable by land. There was only one way open—an old one—and that was for the people to leave their farms to be devastated by the enemy and retire with their flocks and herds inside the city walls with the object of tiring out the besiegers.

In preparation for this eventuality Athens had already, under the guidance of Themistocles, built walls round the city and extended them to the Athenian port of Piraeus, about five miles away. Thus Athenian commerce was able to continue, and the citizens could draw food from abroad while remaining safely inside their walls. But one unlocked for eventuality defeated the plan that had been so carefully and confidently made, and that was the plague, the terrible scourge of the East.

The public places of Athens, the temple enclosures, and the spaces between the long walls were put at the disposal of the refugees to erect temporary shelters until such time as the Spartans, tired of waiting fruitlessly, would retire. Unfortunately for the Athenians, in the second year of the siege, the plague was introduced by some sailor from a foreign port. In the insanitary conditions of the crowded city it wrought havoc.

Before it declined, more than one-third of the population had fallen victims to it, and the rest were so badly shaken in morale that they were in poor condition to carry on the war. The plague, in fact, against which the highest and strongest walls were no protection, dealt the first hard blow in the series that eventually toppled the Athenian Empire; at the same time it showed a vulnerable spot in the defensive armour of city walls.

Before leaving the discussion of Greek warfare one amusing incident snows the relatively small scale of naval warfare in those days. In B.C.405, Lysander, a Spartan Admiral, had sailed to the Hellespont with the object of blockading Athens by stopping her supplies of corn. Athens sent a fleet of 180 ships after him. This fleet anchored at a place called Aegosopotaine. It was an open beach and one day, while most of the crew were on shore having their dinner, Lysander and his men rowed rapidly across and captured most of the Athenian fleet with hardly any resistance !

The next important development in warfare occurred in Roman times. We will discuss that in the next article.

Gilmac.