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

Marxism, a Virile “Ghost” - Part 1 (1933)

From the August 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

According to an article in John O' London's Weekly, dated May 13th, 1933, "Marxism is Dead,” and though students of Marxian thought may feel ill disposed to mourn the loss of one departed spirit alone, we find the theories of Adam Smith coupled with those of Marx.

In passing, we should like to take the opportunity of mentioning that the number of times Marxism has been "appointed dead” during the last half century must surely surpass the number of times the world has been “coming to an end" since the going of Jesus Christ.

However, the death of Marxism having been “duly certified,” the writer of the article in question proceeds to the post mortem examination. But what does the analysis reveal? Lest Marxians should await the result of the analysis in fear and trembling, we hasten to disclose the findings of our journalistic analyst. Let us reproduce his own words. After suggesting that the two most important books ever written on political economy are “The Wealth of Nations,” by Adam Smith, and ”Das Kapital,” by Karl Marx, our critic says: — 

“The doctrines of Adam Smith and Karl Marx alike are, of course, discredited amongst modem students of economics for the simple reason that those doctrines left out the human factor."

It further appears that both Marx and Smith helped to bring their own works to disaster because of "their essentially materialistic outlook on the economic activities of mankind.”

What a revelation, indeed! We seem to remember hearing all this before, many a time. Anyhow, aside from the positively untrue and dogmatic assertion that Marx’s theories are discredited amongst students of economics (unless it is meant that they are discredited by those who oppose Marx’s theories, in which case we sympathetically agree). What, may we ask, is meant by the "human factor.” Presumably, since no details are given by our critic, we can but conclude that we have once again encountered that hoary objection to Marxism that it leaves no part to the influence of human behaviour in moulding the history of human society.

Now, were it not that this notion is so often stated in open or disguised form, even by pseudo-Socialists, we would feel impelled to act similarly to the Pharisee of old and ”pass by on the other side.” But, unlike the Pharisee, instead of thanking ”God” for not being "as other men,” we should confer the honour upon Marx himself. For even a casual study of Marx’s works is sufficient to dispel the illusion stated above. But perhaps a casual acquaintance with his writings is too much to expect from some of his critics.

Rather does it seem that the one indispensable condition for a criticism of Marxism is not to have read Marx at all. Or to have read him and ignore what he says. Significantly enough, in the same article from which we have quoted, the writer says quite bluntly: “It is safe to say that not more than a very small percentage of Marxian Communists have ever read ‘Das Kapital' or any of their master’s voluminous writings.” From which we gather at least one of the reasons for his criticism, for, if only a comparatively small number of Marx’s adherents are adequately acquainted with his writings, then it is fairly safe to make any kind of attack upon those writings. One may gain access to a “coward’s castle" at any time, where ignorance and credulity offer an easy passport.

However, what was the materialistic outlook of Marx? Did he fail to observe the operation of what is called the human factor?

These are questions which have often been replied to in the history of Socialist thought and will bear answering again in view of the continuously increasing interest in Marx’s theories.

At the moment we shall do well to let Marx speak for himself. When dealing with a series of events in French history during the nineteenth century Marx wrote as follows:—

“Man makes his own history, but he does not make it out of the whole cloth, he does not make it out of conditions chosen by himself, but out of such conditions as he finds close at hand.”

This is taken from a work in which, from first page to last, he proves how men acting upon the political and economic conditions of their time, exerted a considerable influence upon them. We refer to "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.’’ Again, when contrasting the materialistic views of some of his predecessors with his own, Marx declares in the most unmistakeable manner:—

“The materialistic doctrine that men are the products of conditions and education, different men therefore the products of other conditions and changed education, forgets that circumstances may be altered by men and that the educator has himself to be educated.” (Engels, “ Feuerbach,” appendix, page 130.)

What could be more dear and comprehensive than these two statements. Those who really want to understand will find in them the foundation stones, so to speak, of the science of sociology, the science dealing with human society, and the history of its development.

But to return to the matter of Marx’s materialistic outlook upon mankind. The materialist attitude of mind, both in science and philosophy, Which took definite form in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was the result of a lengthy process of investigation made by thinkers over many centuries. Hence, apart from certain definite modifications introduced into materialist thought by Marx, materialism as a doctrine was no more the exclusive product of Marx’s brain than the general theory of organic evolution was that of Darwin’s. Historically considered, the foundations of materialism were laid by some of the greatest thinkers of Ancient Greece. Democritus, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Aristotle and Hippocrates, were among the ancient minds who formulated the rough and ready groundwork of all modern materialist methods of thought, despite the fact that they lacked the solid backing at the disposal o£ modern scientific workers.

Democritus formulated his world-renowned theory of the atom and indicated the general truth upon which modem science rests, namely: “Nothing comes from nothing, and nothing is ever annihilated.” In this view-point he was followed by a number of thinkers who endeavoured to explain the whys and wherefores of existence, aiming all the time to find the cause or causes of things within nature’s own operations. Some idea may be gathered of the influence these men had on the world of thought and understanding immediately around them, from that powerful poem of classical antiquity, ”Of the Nature of Things,” by the Roman poet, Lucretius. He attempted to explain the many phases of existence, including man himself, biologically considered, and the rise of mankind from the savage to the civilised state, by means of purely natural causes. Amongst his most notable examples in this direction are his suggestions on the origin of speech and language. Says Lucretius: —

“ But Nature ’twas

Urged men to utter the various sounds of tongue. 

And need and use did mould the names of things. 

About in same wise as the lack-speech years,

Compel young children unto gesturings 

Making them point with finger here and there, at what’s before them.

For each creature feels by instinct to what use to put his powers.”

Of course, modern scientific thought would not put it in quite this way, but it cannot be logically disputed that here, at last, are the germs of a rational interpretation of natural phenomena.

In effect, the whole mode of reasoning here referred to marked a revolutionary departure from the primitive and age-long method of regarding all manifestations of existence as though some power or powers outside and above nature guided and controlled existence. Those of our readers who are desirous of obtaining detailed information concerning the methods of enquiry of the Greeks, and even thinkers of recent times, should consult ”The Biographical History of Philosophy,” by George Henry Lewes. This work is easily one of the best of the nineteenth century’s productions.

However, it is not without significance that these early attempts at a true understanding of nature’s workings were suppressed or kept in the background by the tyranny exercised by and through the power of “Holy Mother Church," but a discussion of this need not detain us at this juncture.

But when the revival of learning and the spirit of “free" enquiry arose after the “long winter sleep of the Christian Middle Ages," the formulas of some of the Greek thinkers were revived and re-employed in investigation, but this time with the more ripened experience and accumulated knowledge of a later social advancement. Perhaps it will appear strange to some to learn that, in the words of Engels: “The original home of all modern materialism, from the seventeenth century onwards, is England." A nasty knock this for those who attribute the origin of materialism to Germanic sources in the attempt to preserve the illusion of “English respectability."

Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Hartley, Priestley and others form a band of thinkers who, by the scientific method of observation and experiment in their various fields of research, helped to furnish the truth of modern materialist thought. Further, the growth of the various natural sciences from the fifteenth century onwards until the explanation of the origin of species by Charles Darwin, in the middle of the nineteenth century, mainly settled the question as to whether natural phenomena had a natural or supernatural origin.

Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, Geology and Biology were the sciences which, each in their turn, presented the world with a picture of nature's workings without the aid of any external power. In strict logic the “Gods" were consigned to the limbo of the dark and ignorant past.

Pierre Laplace, the eminent French astronomer and mathematician, truly summed up the position in his reply to Napoleon. Asked by the Emperor why he had not even mentioned the supernatural in his work, “Mecanique Celeste," Laplace replied: “Sire, I have managed without that hypothesis."

Nevertheless, despite all that had been accomplished in the physical sciences, the last stronghold of supernaturalism was, as yet, to be conquered, namely, human society and its history, the science of sociology was yet to be placed upon a sound foundation.

It was inevitable that as something approaching exactitude had been established in the natural sciences, human history and its modes of being mid becoming could not for long be left outside the general trend of scientific thought and classification. Unquestionably, it was no mean task to survey the history of human society and reduce its movements to the operation of ascertainable natural laws, for the simple reason that history had mainly presented itself as a “ crude heap of irrationality and violence." The great task consisted in discovering some sort of order in the seeming disorder of historic events and their relationship and interconnection with one another. Further, was human society and its mode of being always the same as it presented itself to the general view of the nineteenth century, or had it also experienced an evolution, a process of development, such as had been ascertained in the purely physical world? In other words, could the principle of natural causation apply here as elsewhere? An affirmative answer to these questions was finally given by means of the materialistic method.

Thomas Henry Buckle, the author of the introduction to “The History of Civilisation in England," is outstanding among a few historians who made noteworthy attempts to formulate the laws of social development. Buckle saw clearly enough that such notions as chance action, the alleged free will of man theory, the doctrines of predestination and supernatural guidance could account for nothing of value to the problem of history. Moreover, he openly said so. Buckle went direct to the purely physical surroundings of mankind to find an explanation. Climate, Food, Soil and the General Aspect of Nature were the agents chosen by him to explain the rise and growth of society and its institutions. Rightly or wrongly this was a method of historical research which cannot be said to be other than materialistic throughout. It sought the material background of human existence as the propelling force behind the rise of society from its earliest beginnings.

But Buckle's theory of physical geography fell short in its application to the major question to be answered. Granted that it could account for the background, so to speak, of human endeavour in its earlier stages, but since the conditions of physical geography remain fairly stationary over immense periods of time, they could hardly be said to account for the many remarkable changes in human society that have taken place in historic times.

The real explanation to the problem was discovered and most comprehensively stated by Marx, with Engels and the American Ethnologist, Lewis Henry Morgan, making the same discovery independently of each other. This explanation is now known throughout the world as the materialist conception of history. Briefly, it is founded upon the recognition of the simple fact of organic existence, not, by the way, disputed within the domain of biology, that the primary need of mankind is the acquisition of the means of subsistence, and, therefore, the manner by which these are produced and distributed, forms the basis of all social organisation, no matter how varied the form such social organisation may take.

Further, this theory ascribes the final causes of all great social changes, namely, the changes from one form of society to another, to the changes which take place in the means and methods of producing and distributing the wherewithal to live, whatever form they may take, at particular stages of social development. We respectfully ask readers to note the phrase, “final causes of social change," and not the sole causes as is so often wrongly conceived or stated.

However, this is the essence of Marx’s crowning "crime," to use the phrase of our critic, his "materialistic outlook upon the economic activities of mankind."

From what we have so far stated, it should be perfectly plain that materialism as a system of thought amounts to our accounting for the operation of natural forces, through "laws" of nature herself. Observation and experimentation with the facts of existence, with verification through experience, is ^the kernel of the materialist doctrine. As far as human knowledge extends, the principle of causation is seen to be operative throughout nature, in all its manifestations, and whoever seeks to overthrow the materialist method must produce from nature something without a cause. We leave to other minds, however, this attempt at miracle working.

Robertus.

(To be continued.)

Patriotism and Class Interest. (1916)

From the August 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

Whoever has more than a very slight acquaintance with Socialist literature will be aware that on nearly every conceivable subject connected with the mental and social aspects of man’s life, the Socialist has a view-point and opinion which is distinct from, and usually antagonistic to, that which is usually regarded as true. This is so because the Socialist holds as correct ideas which, carried to a practical conclusion, would overthrow and wipe out the present condition of society, whereas the ideas of the mass of the population to-day are essentially those which, are favourable to the continuation of the existing system. It is, therefore, only to be expected that the Socialist conception of patriotism, is one which is unacceptable to almost any other school of thought.

Patriotism is often taken to mean “love of one’s country,” but this is misleading, as what is really intended to be the object of this “tender affection” is not actually the country or territory itself, but the social group which occupies it. It is social solidarity which is the essential nature of patriotism. This is plainly to be seen when we consider the more primitive forms of society where, as is the case with cattle-rearing nomadic tribes, the territory occupied is only an incidental factor varying almost from day to day. Here it is actual kinship which is the social “bond of union.” But this is not the case in modern societies, the members of which may be, and usually are, different in point of language and race. But, providing that they are born within the territorial confines dominated by a particular social group, that group claims their allegiance. This is probably the cause of the existing confusion between the terms “country” and “nation.”

Thus far both bourgeois and Socialist theorists may agree ; but when we come to the conception of the modern function of patriotism we find an immediate divergence and antagonism of opinion. To the brain soaked with the orthodox ideas of capitalist society (and suck brains prevail to-day) the sentiment of patriotism appears as one of the very noblest that can animate the human mind. To work staunchly for the welfare of the “nation” is regarded as highly creditable, and as one of the greatest forces of human and social progress. No greater compliment exists than to be called “a patriot.” 

But we—the Socialists—repudiate this view of patriotism. We will have none of it. This sentiment of national solidarity is to us a snare and a delusion. It is in our view one of the most pernicious of the many superstitions which today benumb the minds of the workers—for it is the workers that we stand for : their interests are our interests.

An impulse of loyalty to the social whole is obviously only valid when there is unity of interest therein, and is incompatible with the existence of class antagonisms in the community, when these conflicting interests are well understood by the classes themselves.

The working class of to-day is, because it is property less, in a condition of economic subjection, and the idea that a subject class can look after its own interests and at the same time look after the interests of the society of which it forms a part is a delusion. The reason for this is clear. The existence of a subject class implies the existence of a dominant class. In its structure and its institutions the society is always such as to perpetuate the conditions of the respective classes—the ascendancy of the one and the subjection of the other. If, therefore, the servile class desires to be emancipated from thraldom (as it must do if and when it realises its condition and therefore its interests), it must be antagonistic to the social structure and to the class who would maintain it. Consequently any allegiance to the social whole on its part would be suicidal folly.

For many thousands of years now, the division into conflicting classes has been an outstanding feature of all the most advanced societies. Under the system of chattel-slavery, upon which basis the earliest forms of civilisation were reared, patriotism took an openly class character. Although the slaves were an integral, and indeed, a basic, part of these societies, yet the conditions of their life were such as to prohibit almost entirely any sentiment of loyalty to the social group in which they worked. In the first place the manner of their exploitation and oppression was so clear and open as to admit of no misunderstanding. Secondly, they had usually no tie of blood or language with their oppressors which could serve as “blinkers” as they so often do to-day. The immense hordes of slaves in Babylon, Greece, and Rome, were gathered from all parts of the known world ; they would in many cases remember the land and society of their birth, where they were free men. All circumstances, therefore, conspired to to wipe out any trace of social solidarity among them and to keep alive a hatred of their oppressors.

Of “mighty Babylon” Romaine Paterson, in his valuable work, “The Nemesis of Nations,” says,

“The fact that every new conqueror was hailed with acclamation by her populace is a proof of their immense weariness. Both Cyrus and Alexander were received with shouts of joy by a vast multitude assembled on the walls. A great mass of human beings sunk in slavery, and living in slums where life must have been at least as degraded as it is in Shoreditch, Hoxton, and other parts of modern London, can have possessed no national interests. The peril of the State was not theirs.” (Page 127.)

These slaves of Babylon had not learnt the lesson which the modern proletariat must learn—they looked to the new conquerors for their salvation instead of to themselves, only to find a change of masters and a slavery as intense as the old.

What patriotism existed in these antique societies was found solely among the freemen, who constituted what our “elite” bourgeoisie do—”society.” As the slaves vastly outnumbered the free population, armed slaves were exceedingly dangerous, and consequently we rarely find the slaves taking part in, or being trained for, war. Not until that great class conflict of the ruling classes known as the Peloponnesian War, did the slaves of the Greeks become fighting men, and only then on condition that they were freed from bondage. The ruling classes in the several Greek States were often at war with each other, but when a slave rising broke out they were united in their efforts to crush what they feared as they feared nothing else. We read that Athens on one occasion despatched to Sparta a large force of troops to aid in the suppression of a revolt of the helots.

* * *

Times have changed. Of Babylon we have but a memory and a few crumbling remains dug from the desert sands. Greece and Rome have long fallen. But the slavery remains—changed in form, yes, but the same in essence, and even more effective as a means of exploitation. Under the modern system of wage-slavery the robbery of labour still persists, but hidden under the hypocritical sham of liberty of contract. The antagonism of interests within the nation is with us to-day, just as it has existed in all societies based upon classes. Only upon a recognition of this conflict of the classes can the workers organise effectively with the aim of emancipation.

As capitalism develops it ever widens the breech between the toilers on the one hand, and the parasites of capital on the other. Ever-increasing wealth and riotous luxury among the bourgeoisie presents to the worker’s eyes a more and more glaring contrast to the pitiful condition of poverty in which he exists. This being the case it becomes ever more urgent from the capitalist point of view to devise new, and to perfect old, methods of effecting that mental stupefying process which has always been one of the chief bulwarks of class rule.

Religion, which has served the master class throughout history so well, and which was the main “opium of the people” in the old days of chattel-slavery and of serfdom, through the development of science which the present era-must needs in its own interest encourage, is becoming less and less effective as an instrument of class subjection.

Patriotism, of all creeds, has appealed most to the master class in its efforts to find a substitute for religion, and consequently it is being pushed with greater persistence year by year. It is easy to see why this has been so. A patriotic working class kills several birds with a single stone. First, it offers to the capitalists the delightful prospect of a working class innocent of all “narrow,” “selfish,” class interests, ready to sacrifice all for the “national good,” and content to exude from every pore their wealth-creating energy, under this “harmoni­ous” system, based upon a “just” division into “fair” wages and “reasonable” profits.

Secondly, by fostering a belief in national superiority it creates a mutual distrust and even hatred between the workers of the different nations. Thirdly, it makes possible a ready and willing fighting force, to wage the wars of the various national sections of the capitalist class, which are an inevitable effect of the workings of the present system.

Is not this prospect to our masters’ eyes truly a glorious one ? No wonder they spare no pains to achieve and maintain it ! Through their control of the channels of education, both in the schools and in the censorship, literary, and even (as they find it necessary) of the theatrical and the picture shows, even to the street-corner orator, they wield an enormous power of mental oppression. The perverted “histories,” nationalist “economics” and “sociology,” the glaring pomp and show of “our” national butchers the armed forces, the Empire Day pageants, boy scout and kindred movements, all bear witness to the truth of the above contention.

Those flunkeys of capital, commonly called labour leaders (because of their well-known social function of leading the lambs of labour to the clippers of capital to be shorn of their surplus wool [value] with as little display of irritation among the lambs as the circumstances will permit) are, as would be expected, useful helpers in this process of pumping patriotism into proletarians.

One of the leading lights of this fraternity of leaders, Mr. Arthur Henderson, M.P., President of the Board of Education, recently delivered himself thus :

“He was satisfied that the spirit which has prompted millions of men in all classes to volunteer (?) for service was in a large measure due to that love of country which our schools had fostered. He quoted passages from the publications of the Board to show that the Department was fully alive to the importance of inculcating a sane and healthy patriotism in the minds of the young and promised that any practical proposals for furthering this object would receive his most careful consideration.”—”Manchester Evening News,” 28.3.16). (Query ours.)

* * *

Against all this array of the mental and moral influences of capital the Socialist, brings the logic of his position by which he stands or falls. Against nationalism he preaches the class struggle and the solidarity of interest of the workers the world over. He points to the worldwide spread of capitalism, to the gradual equalising of the condition of the workers in every land, and the sameness of the problems which they have to face. To the jingo “history” which, places in the forefront the blast of the bugle and the roar of the cannon, and conceives history as the rise and fall, birth and death, conflict and alliances of nations, the Socialists confront the facts of sociology, which show that the foundations of society and the driving forces of social progress lie in its mode of acquiring its material subsistence ; that the basic factors in a society are not its politicians and its militarists, but the producers of wealth, not the sword and the cannon, but the tools, the machinery, and the land.

Ours is a hard task, but it must be faced and accomplished. The education of the proletariat as to its interests and destiny is the great work which we Socialists have set ourselves. Once get the seeds of class-consciousness implanted, the favourable soil created by capitalist conditions will cause it to root, and to spread the mighty undergrowth of the international league of the working class. Then will the mental agents of class oppression, among them patriotism, wither and die like the weeds they are.

But that time is not yet. To-day more than ever in the past is the clarion call of ’48 a vital and a stirring necessity, to awaken the giant frame of labour to shake off the leeches which suck his blood and fetter his might :

“WORKERS OF ALL LANDS UNITE ! YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT THE CHAINS WHICH BIND YOU, BUT YOU HAVE A WORLD TO WIN.”

R. W. Housley

The Scientific Basis of Socialism. (1915)

From the November 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

The aim of the Socialist movement is, as the declared Object of our party states, “The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.” We claim to be, not utopians, seeking to found a perfect social order because of its justness and moral advantages, independent of time or conditions, but rather working as a part of a social process which has made that change in society which renders our object necessary if society is to continue to develop. The scientific basis of Socialism must therefore be—an analysis of the laws in accord with which society evolves.

It was the work of the founders of modern Socialism, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, to make such an analysis, and the result of their labours, although for long ignored, suppressed, and misrepresented by the “intellectuals” of the bourgeoisie, continues to secure an ever-increasing acceptance. As students of the Hegelian philosophy, Marx and Engels were familiar with that dialectic form of reasoning which considers all things in their interrelations, in their birth, growth and decline, connected together into one universal evolutionary process. Marx and Engels were, however, materialists, and thus stood in contradistinction from the orthodox Hegelians, who were, like their master, idealists of the purest type. This evolutionary view of the Universe from the materialist standpoint is the basis of all real scientific work; and in the hands of Marx and his co-worker it became the basis of the sociological theory which subsequently became known as the Materialist Conception of History.

Historical Materialism.

“The materialist conception of history,” says Engels, “starts from the proposition that the production of the means to support human life and, next to production, the exchange of things produced, is the basis of all social structure; that in every society that has appeared in history, the manner in which, wealth is distributed and society divided into classes or orders, is depend­ent upon what is produced, how it is produced, and how the products are exchanged. From this point of view the final causes of all social changes and political revolutions are to be sought, not in men’s brains, not in man’s better insight into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the modes of production and ex­change. They are to be sought, not in the philosophy, but in the economics of each epoch.” (“Socialism, Utopian and Scientific.”).

The necessary facts for the formulation of the theory of historical materialism had gradually accumulated, and by the forties of the nineteenth century they only waited to be correlated and unified. So it came about that, as in the case of most great discoveries, this principle of social development was thought out independently by different minds. Engels himself partially developed the theory in this fashion before the work of Marx became known to him, and Lewis Henry Morgan, the American ethnologist, came to the same general conclusions in the course of his studies of primitive society. Morgan states In his work, “Ancient Society” (page 19) that “the great epochs of human progress have been identified, more or less directly, with the enlargement of the sources of subsistence,” and his greatest book, the one here quoted, consists largely of an attempt to trace the rise of the family, government and property upon this basis.

It was, however, Karl Marx who gave to the doctrine under consideration its most complete form; the form in which it, to use his own words, “continued to serve as the leading-thread” in his studies, and the elaboration of which, especially in the elucidation of the phenomena of modern society, constituted the great work of his life. Marx’s work, unfinished as it was, has been carried on and popularised by a host of thinkers amongst the revolutionary workers of all lands; so much so that the bourgeois professors and intellectuals, no longer able to ignore, now seek to revise, modify and un-revolutionise the Marxian philosophy.

Natural environment and economic conditions.

One common misconception of the materialist view of history is that it makes social changes dependent entirely upon the technical improvements in the tools and means of production, without taking into account man’s physical conditions and natural environment. Nothing is, however, further from the truth. In “Capital,” Vol. I., p. 521, Marx points out the influence of physical conditions upon the mode of production; he says: “Apart from the degree of development, greater or less, in the form of social production, the productiveness of labour is fettered by physical conditions. These are all referable to the constitution of man himself (race, etc.), and to surrounding nature.”

A good example of the effect of different geographical situations and natural environments upon communities of originally the same type, is to be seen in the evolution undergone by the various branches of the Semitic race. In origin they were a pastoral people, living in nomadic tribes in the region of Arabia. Migrating to the north-east, one branch settled in the Euphrato-Tigris valley. They assimilated the culture of the original inhabitants the Akkado, a people of Turanian descent and originally pastoral like the Semites. The fertile alluvial soil being adapted to agriculture, this soon became their mode of existence, and chattel-slavery arose as the productivity of labour increased. The periodic inundation of the river in the lower part of the valley necessitated a system of draining, irrigation, dams and other water works, resulting in the rise of a class of expert officials and a priesthood versed in geometry and astronomy. This was the rudiments from which the great slave states of Babylonia and Assyria arose.

Another branch of the Semites settled on the narrow strip of coast land to the east of the Mediterranean. On this restricted area, hemmed in by the Lebanon mountains,

“the agricultural resources of the little country were soon outgrown, and the Phoenicaus were forced to gather a harvest from the water. They invented the fishing line and net. . . . The Lebanon mountains supplied them with timber ; in time they discovered how to make boats with keels, and to sheath them with copper which they also found in their mountains. From those heights of Lebanon the island of Cyprus could plainly be seen, and the current assisted them across. They colonised the island ; it supplied them with pitch, timber, copper, and hemp, everything that was required in the architecture of a ship . . . they discovered villages on other coasts, pillaged them and carried off their inhabitants as slaves. The Phoenicans from fishermen became pirates, and from pirates, traders ; from simple traders they became also manufacturers.”— Winwood Reade’s “Martyrdom of Man.”

Handicraft and commerce continued to rapidly develop and spread, and numerous sea-ports arose. All this resulted in the rise to prominence of a wealthy merchant plutocracy. This Semitic people the Phoenicians, in this manner became the first great sea-faring and commercial nation of the ancient world.

Still different were the methods of develop­ment among the Arabs and the Hebrews. The former living on the fringes of the great deserts, retained their nomadic habits, and plying to and fro, in time became the overland carriers and traders between the Egyptian and Mesopotamian societies, between which their caravan routes formed means of communication. On the other hand, the Jews, in the region of the Jordan valley, on a rugged tract of territory with mountains on one side and the desert on the other, were continually buffeted by and exposed to the invasions of the predatory tribes and powerful nations which surrounded them. Time and again plundered by their mighty neighbours, their country forming the battle ground in the campaigns waged by the Hittites, Egyptians and Assyrians, the rise of private property, and as a consequence classes, was a slow process, accompanied by irregularities and set-backs. At the time, therefore, when their cousins the Phoenicians had arrived at political government, the Jews still retained their tribal organisation.

We here see the great effect of natural environment and outside influence in modifying social forms, but it must be remembered that, apart from migrations, such as those we have just considered, transformations of these natural factors, is almost inconceivably slow, except in the case of such comparatively rare phenomena as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and the like; and the effect of these is, as a rule, only transitory. The influence exerted by physical conditions is best seen in primitive societies, where the natural predominates over the artificial environment, and where social change is correspondingly slow. The Marxian theory places the natural features such as race, climate, and geographical situation in their proper position as part of the determining factors among the causes of social changes. In this Marx differs from the thinkers of the type of Buckle, who made physical surroundings of primary importance. Marx and Engels saw that these factors often remain stationary in the midst of social transformations, and as it is the changes in society which constitutes history, the motive force in history must be looked for in something other than the comparatively static physical conditions, except in those cases where a definite physical change can be shown to have occurred. Natural differences must, however, always be considered when social structures in different parts of the world are to be examined.

The growth of ideas.

The same conclusions are arrived at when we consider the evolution of ideas. All ideas are but the more or less transformed reflections of real things. Our brain receives through the medium of the sensory organs impressions or sensations from the world exterior to it. Our thoughts are all of necessity based upon these impressions, which however, become combined in the most intricate manner. Nevertheless, our ideas can never go beyond the limits set by the experience thus gained.

From this basis the origin of entirely new ideas can only be explained by the fact that man is continually creating ail artificial environment, which means that fresh material from which impressions may be received are brought into being, and which also may assist in the perception of an hitherto unknown side and fresh attributes of the material in the Universe, which, up till then, he had been conscious of only in an imperfect manner or not at all. In either case it is the result of man’s powers of production, which adds to and supplements the world of nature, which is at the root of the new ideas.

Take for example the invention of the tele­scope. Not only does the newly constructed instrument of itself form the basis of new ideas, but the manner of its use also. The laws of light which may incidentally be discovered by its aid become further objects or rather subjects of contemplation, as also do the details of the Universe unfolded by its use, which previously, although obviously forming a part of man’s environment, had yet been unperceived by him because of the insufficiency for this purpose of his organs of sight. Metius, Lipperhey and Jausen, the three Dutchmen who, according to Professor Simon Newcomb, may each be credited with the invention of the telescope (this by the way, is a splendid example of the fact that, when the materials for the solution of any prob­lem, or the invention of any instrument are at hand, several minds usually make the required discovery independently of each other; a fact which completely knocks the bottom out of the “great man” theory.) gave to society a rich source of farther ideas; and when Galileo turned his “optik tube” upon the starry heavens, and first beheld the spots on the sun, the lunar mountains, and the Jovian satellites, he could little have known of the boundless matter for research and contemplation which his observa­tions, primitive though they must have been, judged by modern astronomical standards, laid the foundations of.

We have seen that the statement that the materialist conception of history ignores natural factors is contrary to fact. Nor is the charge of fatalism against the theory valid, for Marx says in his “Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bona­parte,” “Man makes his own history, but,” and mark this, “he does not make it out of the whole cloth; he does not make it out of conditions chosen by himself, but out of such as he finds close at hand.”

Historical materialism does not exclude the influence of tradition, or deny the usefulness of studying the past experience of society and turning it to good effect; for in the same work we have it stated: “The tradition of all past generations weighs like an Alp upon the brain of the living.” In considering the ideas, institutions, and history of a given period, therefore, not only have the natural and artificial conditions of the society in question to be examined, but also those of the previous societies which may have influenced it, together with the traditions, customs, and institutions which have persisted from times earlier.

Ethics and religion.

Many institutions and ideas originated out of man’s contact with external nature in very early times, and although modified by subsequent economic development, they persist throughout history. Among this class, may be mentioned the fundamental ethical principles, and also religion.

Morality, as Darwin has shown, originally consists of certain social instincts necessary for the preservation of society. He traces them back to our pre-human progenitors, and indeed they must assert themselves to some degree in all organised communities whether animal or human. Man being by nature a gregarious animal, the instinct of sociability is part of his physical make-up. Darwin says in his “Descent of Man” (page 149): “any animal endowed with well-marked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well or nearly as well developed as in Man.”

The social instincts, however, become modified by the social transformations which occur as a result of economic development. In a hunting community, for instance, the killing of newly-born infants at a time of food scarcity is considered no crime. Infanticide is, indeed, one of the most universal customs among savage peoples, who find the struggle for existence very keen, it being in the interests of the tribe to keep clown the number of consumers as much as possible ; and, where children are to be saved, preference is given to males as forming potential hunters, thus increasing the productive capacity of the tribe. In an agricultural community, however, where food is more plentiful and more regularly obtained, infanticide is no longer practiced, and it comes to be looked upon as horrid and immoral in the extreme.

In class societies the prevailing ethical code is always that best suited to the interests of the ruling class. Old ideas are cast aside or are modified to justify their position. This, of course, is necessary, for no ruling class ever maintains its supremacy for long by physical force alone. Chattel slavery was moral in America until it was discovered in the North that wage-labour was cheaper, and it is interesting to note that both North and South obtained the support of the Bible for their respective positions.

Religion arises out of the relations between savage man and the unknown and, to him, mysterious forces and phenomena around him. The partial or total lack of consciousness caused by sleep and by death, and also dreams, were explained by assuming the living body to be the temporary abode of a soul or spirit (the Egyptian Ka) which leaves the body for longer or shorter periods. The wind, fire, smoke, thunder, etc., were regarded as manifestations of these ghosts which became objects of fear and veneration.

The spirit of a dead chieftain in course of time is elevated to the dignity of a god with power over various natural forces, he is conceived of by the living of his tribe or people, in the shape of a glorified personification of themselves. Thus Thor, the Scandinavian god of thunder, was a mighty warrior, the sparks and noise from the crash of whose battle-axe constituted the lightning and the thunder. The beliefs of the Norsemen, indeed, form an excellent illustration of the intimate connection between material condition and theology. The discovery of the smelting of iron-ore had raised them to the upper stage of barbarism—the “Heroic Age” of history. Now, the iron sword and scale armour supplanted the cruder and less effective weapons of the earlier period. The warrior class became predominant, and when one of the mighty ones passed away, his corpse, together with his paraphernalia of battle, were burned in his Viking vessel, that his spirit, clad in ghostly armour and armed with ethereal weapons might ascend to the “Hall of Valhalla,” there to live with his ancestors.

The rise and further development by modification of religion is excellently dealt with in the pamphlet on the subject issued by the Socialist Party, and need not be longer dwelt upon here. Nevertheless, an interesting illustration given by Marx, of the effect of changed conditions upon religious opinions, and also showing how the ideas of the ruling class are accepted in the main by the mass of the community, may not be out of place. Writing upon the Crimean War, Marx says:

“We see England, professedly Protestant, allied with France, professedly Catholic (damnably heretical as they are in each other’s eyes, according to the orthodox phraseology of both), for the purpose of defending Turkey, a Mohammedan power, whose destruction they ought most religiously to desire, against the aggressions of “holy” Russia, a power Christian like themselves. … To perfectly appreciate this state of things we must call to mind the period of the Crusades, when Western Europe, so late as the thirteenth century, undertook a “holy” war against the “infidel” Turks for the possession of the Holy Sepulchre. Western Europe now not only acquiesces in the Mussulman jurisdiction over the Sepulchre, but goes so far as to laugh at the contests and rivalries of the Greek and Latin monks to obtain undivided possession of a shrine once so much coveted by all Christendom ; and when Christian Russia steps forward to “protect” the Christian subjects of the Porte, Western Europe of to-day arrays itself in arms against the Czar to thwart a design which it would once have deemed highly laudable and righ­teous. To drive the Moslems out of Europe would once have roused the zeal of England and France ; to prevent the Turks from being driven out of Europe is now the most cherished resolve of those nations. So broad a gulf stands between the Europe of the nineteenth and the Europe of the thirteenth century ! So fallen away since the latter epoch is the political influence of religious dogma.

We have carefully watched for any expression of of the purely ecclesiastical view of the European crisis, and have only found one pamphlet by a Cam­bridge D.D., and one North Irish Reviewer for England, and the Paris Univers for France, which have dogmatically represented the defence of a Mohammedan power by Christendom as absolutely sinful ; and these pronunciamentos have remained without an echo in either country.” “Eastern Question,” pp. 482-3.

Classes and the state.

Religion and ethics we characterised as deriving their origin in man’s natural environment. A further set of institutions arise only at a certain stage of economic development. Occupying a prominent place among this division of institutions are, the State with its political and juridical sub-divisions, and social classes. The distinguishing feature between classes is the mode by which the members thereof obtain the wealth which is necessary for their subsistence; except in those cases where the class in question is a remnant of a decaying order of society, in which case it sometimes happens that it will retain its distinction, by reason of its political power, and the force of tradition, after all economic distinction has passed away. This state of things can, however, but be of temporary duration, as instanced by the Roman patricians who in time lost the political privileges which were their only distinction from the upper or wealthy land-owning plebians.

Although there have been classes, such as handicraftsmen, who worked with their own tools and material, and owned the product of their labour and were, therefore, to a large degree economically independent, the most typical form of class division is that between producers and non-producers, exploiting and exploited. The division of society into producers and non-producers only arises when the productive forces have progressed to a certain point ; for, when man’s whole time was occupied in providing the necessities for his own continued existence, there could be no idle class. When it became possible to produce a surplus of wealth over and above that essential for the maintenance of the producer, the war captives previously slaughtered or eaten, were set to work for their captors whose sole property they became. Thus arose chattel slavery, the first form of exploitation. Three historical varieties of exploitation may be distinguished : chattel-slavery, where the slave was bodily owned by somebody and was bought and sold, typical of ancient civilisation; serfdom, where the serf produces part time for himself, and part time for his lord to whom he owes allegiance, and who gives in return protection, prevalent in the Middle Ages, and wherever feudalism exists ; wage-slavery, where the worker is “free” to-work for anyone who will employ him, but being propertyless is compelled on pain of starvation to sell his labouring power to one who owns tools and material for production, thereby losing all claim to the product of his labour, the value of which must be greater than that which is paid to him as wages, this form characterises. the modern capitalist epoch.

It is out of the growth of classes that the State arises. Wherever ruling and oppressed exist, the ruling class must control a coercive force, the function of which is to keep in subjection, the exploited class and maintain the existing order of property conditions. “The antique state was, therefore,” says Engels, “the state of the slave owners for the purpose of holding the slaves in check. The feudal state was the organ of the nobility for the oppression of the serfs and dependent farmers. The modern representative state is the tool of the capitalist exploiters of wage labour.” “Origin of the Family,.-etc.,” page 208). The political State marks the-dawn of the era of civilisation.

The class struggle.

The nature of and the relations between the classes of any epoch, are determined primarily by the mode of production operative, which gives rise to certain forms of property. When new productive methods arrive, new classes are born into society. The struggle for supremacy between the old methods and the new reflects itself in the struggle between the classes whose material interests are bound up with the respective modes of production. The struggle between classes having divergent and clashing interests, has been behind all the political contests, upheavals, and revolutions which have characterised the history of society since the epoch of civilisation was entered upon. The control of the State, the stronghold of every ruling class, has been the objective in every struggle for emancipation.

The class war, more enduring and pitiless in its form than any other war, contains innumerable instances of the savage extremes to which a ruling class will go when its material interests are menaced. Brutal suppression, followed by wholesale crucifixions, was the price paid by the revolting slaves of Roman days; and this finds its counterpart in the crushing of the peasant, risings in mediaeval Europe, and in modern times by the massacres of proletarians, after the Paris Commune in France, on the Rand, in Colorado, and in Dublin, Featherstone, and elsewhere in these British islands. “The civilisation and justice of bourgeois order comes out in its lurid light whenever the slaves and drudges of that order rise against their masters. Then this civilisation and justice stand forth as undisguised savagery and lawless revenge. Each new crisis in the class struggle between the appropriators and the producers brings out this fact more glaringly.” (Marx’s “Civil War in France.” Page 68.)

However necessary were classes at the period in social evolution at which they arose, it can no longer be claimed that such is the case now. In support of this first proposition, Engels says (“Anti Duehring,” page 209) :

“Slavery first made the division of labour between agriculture and industry completely possible and brought into existence the flower of the old world, Greece. Without slavery there would have been no Grecian State, no Grecian art and science, and no Roman Empire. There would have been no modern Europe without the foundation of Greece and Rome. We must not forget that our entire economic, political and intellectual development has its foundation in a state of society in which slavery was regarded universally as necessary. In this sense we may say that without the ancient slavery there would have been no modern Socialism.”

But he also says in the same work (page 211) ;

“As long as the actual working people claim that they have no time left at the close of their necessary labours to attend to the common business of society—the organisation of labour, the business of the government, the administration of justice, art, science, etc.—just so long will distinct classes exist which are free from actual labour to carry on these functions . . . The development of the great industry with its enormous increase in the forces of production for the first time permitted the subdivision of labour in all the social grades and this allowed the reduction of the time necessary for labour so that enough leisure remains for all to take part in the actual public business—theoretical as well as practical. So that now for the first time the dominant and exploiting classes have become superfluous and even an obstacle to social progress.”

The bourgeois era has fulfilled its “historic mission”—the organisation and development of the machine process of industry—but it has now become a fetter upon the full utilisation of the great powers it has created. Just as the feudal forms and restrictions hindered the expansion of the capitalist method of production, so now, socialised production cries out for the social ownership and control of the productive forces, which the revolutionary proletariat alone can establish. As the bourgeoisie rising to power swept aside the remnants of feudalism which obstructed its progress, and reared a social edifice adapted to its own mode of production, so the proletarians realising the interests of their class, must seize upon the governmental power, and establish that form of society which economic evolution demands.

With the rise to political predominance of the working class and the subsequent institution of Socialism, the period of classes and class struggles with its concomitant social forms, including the State, will be at an end, and a new era will be entered upon.

To this end let all our energies concentrate. With the lamp of science held up to the record of history, let us read its lesson aright. Guided by the class-struggle, with faith in the sound­ness of their position, let us spread this know­ledge of Marxian teaching among the wage-slaves of the world. To them as to us, the work of Marx and Engels stands, a beacon light, shed­ding rays around it; shining down the path of man’s social history it illuminates the gloomy passages of his past. Ahead, its beams piercing the haze, light upon a glorious future, which through the triumph of the workers will become the heritage of all mankind.

R. W. Housley

Classic Reprint: What is patriotism? (1963)

A Classic Reprint from the July 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

We reprint this article from the Socialist Standard of December, 1915, written in the middle of the first World War, its message still rings true, and we know it will be of great interest to our readers.

The answer depends largely upon the point of view. From one standpoint patriotism appears as the actual religion of the modern State. From another it is the decadence and perversion of a noble and deep-rooted impulse of loyalty to the social unit, acquired by mankind during the earliest stages of social life. From yet another viewpoint, that of capitalist interests, patriotism is nothing more or less than a convenient and potent instrument of domination.

The word itself, both etymologically and historically, has its root in paternity. In tribal days the feeling of social solidarity, which has now become debased into patriotism, was completely bound up with the religion of ancestor worship. In tribal religion, as in the tribe itself, all were united by ties of blood. The gods and their rights and ceremonies were exclusive to the tribesmen. All strangers were rigidly debarred from worship. The gods themselves were usually dead warriors. Every war was a holy war. Among the ancient Israelites, for instance, the holy Ark of Jehovah of Hosts accompanied the tribes to battle. It was this abode or movable tomb of the ancestral deity that went with the Jews in their march through the desert, and even to Jericho, playing an important part in the fall of that remarkable city. All the traditions of the Jewish religion, in fact, were identified with great national triumphs.

Thus tribal religion was completely interwoven with tribal aspirations and integrity. Tribal “patriotism” and religion were identical. Indeed, without the strongest possible social bond, without a kind of “patriotism” that implied the unhesitating self-sacrifice of the individual for the communal existence, it would have been utterly impossible for tribal man to have won through to civilisation. Natural selection insured that only those social groups which developed this supreme instinct of mutual aid could survive; the rest were crushed out in the struggle for existence. Is it a matter for wonder if it be found that such a magnificent social impulse, so vital to the struggling groups of tribal man, received periodical consecration in the willing human sacrifices so common in primitive religious ceremonial ? Bound up with the deliberate manufacture of gods for the protection of the tribe and its works, there is indicated a social recognition of the need for, and value of, the sacrifice of the individual for the common weal.

This noble impulse of social solidarity is the common inheritance of all mankind. But being a powerful social force it has lent itself to exploitation. Therefore, with the development of class rule this great impulse is made subordinate to the class interests of the rulers. It becomes debased and perverted to definite anti-social ends. As soon as the people become a slave class “the land of their fathers” is theirs no more. Patriotism to them becomes a fraudulent thing. The “country” is that of their masters alone. Nevertheless, the instinct of loyalty to the community is too deep-seated to be eradicated so easily, and it becomes a deadly weapon in the hands of the rulers against the people themselves.

With the decay of society based on kinship, religion changed also, and from being tribal and exclusive it became universal and propagandist. “Patriotism” at the same time began to distinguish itself from religion. The instinctive tribal loyalty became transformed, by the aid of religion and the fiction of kinship, into political loyalty. In a number of instances in political society, as in Tudor England, the struggle for priority between religion and patriotism became so acute as to help in the introduction of a more subservient form of religion. Thus patriotism became emancipated from religion, and the latter became a mere accessory to patriotism as handmaiden of class rule.

Though universal religion did not split up at the same time as the great empire that gave it birth, patriotism did so. The latter has, in fact, always adapted, enlarged, or contracted itself to fit the existing political unit, whether feudal estate, village, township, county, kingdom, republic or empire. No political form has been too absurd for it to fill with its loyalty. No discordance of race, colour or language has been universally effective against it.

What, then, is patriotism in essence to-day? It is usually defined as being devotion to the land of our fathers. But which is the land of our fathers? Our fathers came from many different parts of the world. The political division of the world in which we live is an artificial entity. The land has been wrested from other races. The nation they call “ours” is the result of a conquest over original inhabitants, and over ourselves, by successive ruling classes. Unlike the free tribesmen we are hirelings; we possess no country.

Nationality, of which patriotism is the superstition, covers no real entity other than that of a common oppression, a unified government. It does not comprise any unity of race, for in no nation is there one pure race, or anything like it. It does not cover a unity of language, for scarcely a nation exists in which several distinct languages are not indigenous. Nor is it any fixity of territory, for this changes from decade to decade, while the inhabitants of the transferred territory have to transfer their allegiance, their patriotism, to the new nation.

The only universal bond of nationality or patriotism that exists for us to-day is, then, that of subjection to a single government. Patriotism in the worker is pride in the common yoke imposed by a politically unified ruling class. Yet it is this artificial entity that we are called upon to honour before life itself. This badge of political servitude is called an object worthy of supreme sacrifice. The workers are expected to abandon all vital interests and sacrifice all they hold dear for the preservation of an artificial nationality that is little more than a manufactured unit of discord: a mere focus of economic and political strife.

Thus one of the noblest fruits of man’s social evolution—the impulse of sacrifice for the social existence—is being prostituted by the capitalist class to maintain a system of exploitation, to obtain a commercial supremacy, and preserve or extend the boundaries of a superfluous political entity. The workers are duped by the ruling class into sacrificing themselves for the preservation of a politico-economic yoke of a particular form and colour. Many so-called Socialists have fallen headlong into this trap.

Had social solidarity developed in equal measure with the broadening of men’s real interests, it would now be universal in character instead of national. The wholesale mixture of races, and the economic interdependence of the whole world, show that nationalism is now a barrier, and patriotism, as we know it, a curse. Only the whole world can now be rightly called the land of our fathers. Only in the service of the people of the whole world, and not against those of any part of it, can the instinct of social service find its highest and complete expression. The great Socialist has pointed the way. He did not call upon the workers of Germany alone to unite. He appealed to the toilers of the whole world to join hands; to a whole world of labour whose only loss could be its parti-coloured chains. And in this alone lies the consummation of that tribal instinct of social solidarity of which patriotism is the perverted descendant.

Capitalism, therefore, stands as the barrier the destruction of which will not only set free the productive forces of society for the good of all, but will also liberate human solidarity and brotherhood from the narrow confines of nationality and patriotism. Only victorious labour can make true the simple but pregnant statement: “Mankind are my brethren, the world is my country.” Patriotism and nationalism as we know them will then be remembered only as artificial restrictions of men’s sympathy and mutual help; as obstacles to the expansion of the human mind; as impediments to the needful and helpful development of human unity and co-operation; as bonds that bound men to slavery; as incentives that set brothers at each other’s throats.

Despite its shameless perversion by a robber class the great impulse to human solidarity is by no means dead. Economic factors give it an ever firmer basis, and in the Socialist movement it develops apace. Even the hellish system of individualism, with its doctrine of every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost, has been unable to kill it. And in the great class struggle of the workers against the drones, of the socially useful against the socially pernicious, in this last great struggle for the liberation of humanity from; wage-slavery, the great principle of human solidarity, based upon the necessities of to-day and impelled by the deep-seated instincts of the race, will come to full fruition and win its supreme historical battle.

That is our hope and aspiration. For the present, however, we are surrounded by the horrors of war added to the horrors of exploitation, and subjected to the operation of open repression as well as to the arts of hypocrisy and fraud. With the weakening power of religion to keep the workers obedient, the false cult of nationality and patriotism is being exploited to the full. Like religion, patriotism has its vestments, its ceremonies, its sacred emblems, its sacred hymns and inspired music; all of which are called in aid of the class interests of our masters, and utilised desperately to lure millions to the shambles for their benefit. Thus is an heroic and glorious social impulse perverted and debased to the support of a régime of wage-slavery, and to the furtherance of the damnable policy of the slave-holding class: to divide and rule.

F. C. Watts

The Genesis of the “Great Man”. (1917)

From the June 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the most commonly held of the many erroneous, and therefore misleading, theories regarding history and the movements of human society is that which frequently goes by the name of the “Great Man Theory.” From its point of view those individuals who achieve prominence in any event or movement are the prime factors and forces behind it, and the real social forces which underlie them are entirely unappreciated. Thus the personality of Napoleon is looked upon as the cause of the wars associated with his name, Wat Tyler is regarded as the author of the Peasants’ Revolt, the evolution theory is thought to be due to the genius of men like Spencer and Darwin, Karl Marx is credited with being the generator of modern Socialism, and to Cecil Rhodes is attributed the Cape to Cairo Railway.

The influence of this theory upon the working class is baneful because under it many are deluded into looking to “leaders” and “intellectuals,” instead of to themselves, for their salvation, while some are led to embrace the vagaries and absurdities of Anarchism. It is quite easy to see that political assasination must appear a really sound and sensible procedure to those who, holding this point of view, wish to abolish social evils. Experience, however, shows that such action rarely, if ever, has the desired effect. And why ? Because the social conditions obtaining at any time are not dependent upon the existence of any individual, however prominent, but are decreed by the material conditions under which men live. So long as these remain unchanged, so long will the resultant social forms remain, and they will not be appreciably affected by the removal of any individual whatever.

To say this is not, of course, to deny the existence of great men, for to do so would be just as foolish as going to the other extreme. Every “great man” is the outcome of two main factors. One is biological and internal. No one will deny that the mental or physical capacity of an Alexander or an Aristotle, a Marx, a Darwin or a Napoleon, is vastly superior to that of the majority of men. The case is one of variations like unto those which occur in all living creatures. But this capacity alone is not sufficient to make a “great man.” Charles Peace would never be included among such, yet his genius was probably as pronounced as that of many who would be so designated.

This brings us to the second factor: the historical and external one. Every person is born into surroundings or environment conditions which have grown out of different preceding conditions, this movement itself being part of a continuous process of change and growth.

We may broadly classify the changing forms of environment into three mutually pervading and interdependent divisions or phases, material, social, and intellectual. That these are interlinked is easily shown when it is remembered that societies are forms of group relationships between material things, e.g., human beings ; that all ideas are based upon the perception of material phenomena and the relations between them, through the medium of the sense organs and the nervous system, themselves material in structure ; that the mind perceives among other things social conditions, and that ideas can aid in bringing about both social changes and fresh material things into existence.

But that the above classification is justifiable and useful enough can be shown by contrasting two different environments in their several phases. In England about the twelfth century the face of the country presented an aspect very different in many respects to its present one. Great belts of virgin forest and open fen remained of the great primaeval wild. There existed nothing of the network of hedges which to-day cuts up the country like a monster chess board. Wild animals were much more varied and plentiful. The towns were small and few and far between. There were no railways, few roads, and few brick buildings.

Social relations were just as different. There were practically no wage-workers. A large serf population existed—men unable to leave the village of their birth ; conditionally holding land and rendering compulsory service to a lord. The prices of merchandise were regulated largely by Guild associations and not by competition as to-day. In the intellectual field the contrast is just as marked. The majority of the population were then unable to read or write. Everyone, aristocrat or peasant, was deeply superstitious, believing in personal gods, devils, saints, and witches. Little or nothing was known of natural laws. There was no geology, no biology, nothing of the modern conception of universal evolution, and no social science. Religion dominated men’s theories, science was embryonic.

Returning now, after this digression, to “great men,” it is evident that everyone’s activities are moulded by the conditions of the age. No one, however clever, can transcend the possibilities of his time. Even the most profound thinkers and men of action must use the material to hand and must build upon the past labours of others. It is this inheritance of the accumulated experience of mankind’s past, in each generation, which makes all cultural and social progress possible. Were it possible for a child of highly civilised parents to develop in isolation amid natural surroundings, it would grow up not only illiterate but almost speechless, and with intelligence woefully stunted from lack of opportunity to develop it.

Real greatness consists of making the most of the material available, in reaching to the very outposts of the possible, in seeing things only just perceptible and hidden from the commonality of men.

The conditions for Darwin’s “Origin of Species” were laid before a line of it was penned. Darwin was obviously dependent upon the developed arts of writing and printing, on tho orderly classification of living things such as had been performed by Linnaeus. In his dedication to the “Voyage of the Beagle” Darwin pays a tribute to Lyell’s “Principles of Geology” as forming an essential preliminary to all his works. The point is clinched when it is remembered how many minds independently approached the theory of natural selection about the same time (see the historical note to the “Origin”), and it is well known how tho eminent naturalist, A. Russel Wallace, came to identical conclusions on his own accord.

The same phenomenon is apparent right through the history of science. Marius, Jansen, and Lippershey simultaneously invented the telescope. Both Adams and Leverrier discovered Neptune. Marx, Engels, and Morgan, by different routes, reached “Historical Materialism.” After decades of failures, Peary, Amundsen, and Scott reached the earth’s poles within a very brief period of each other. The recent development of aviation is equally instructive.

In political or social movements generally, conditions are somewhat different, for the action once taken, it cannot as a rule be repeated, and verification such as that possible in intellectual evolution is here impossible. But a little examination will always reveal the conditions prepared before any movement is realised. Alexander’s empire was made possible by the weakened and disorganised state of the older Greek powers, due to internal corruption and the ravages of the Peloponnesian War, together with the rotten organisation of the Persian empire already revealed by the notorious retreat of “the ten thousand.” The Macedonian spear and the efficient phalanx military formation were the deciding forces and Alexander the pinnacle of a whole system of favourable conditions. In like manner Napoleon as Emperor without the French Revolution as a preparation is quite unthinkable.

In conclusion it may be mentioned that there are always sufficient men of genius to satisfy all requirements. A “great man” never fails to sprout when the environment is favourable. Scores of men with the internal potentialities of greatness must be “wasted” by their labours being suffocated in unfruitful channels. In a sentence, we find that the greatest of men are the creatures and not the creators of their age.

H.

Faith, hope and superstition (1992)

From the March 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

It can’t be much fun being God these days. The trouble with being a figment of someone's imagination, is that you have to take on all the oddities and personality problems that they dream up for you. You get no say in the matter, even if you are omnipotent.

When humans first made the gods in their own image it was different. There were deities for every occasion and the task of running the universe was shared out. When disease or famine came and threatened the whole community, the merciful god could point an accusing finger at the god responsible for sickness, or for the harvest, and everyone was satisfied, if not entirely happy, with the situation. Times have changed, however, and gods who find themselves surplus to requirement face redundancy just like the rest of us. Today it’s a one-man job (and God is male, of course) and he has to accept the fact that he himself sent the AIDS virus, floods, famine, earthquakes and so on—for the benefit of humanity. Still, to help out and clear up any confusion, he has dozens of different sects of believers and worshippers to spread “the truth"—dozens of different truths in fact, each one being the real truth.

The further back into the history of god-worshippers you look, the better the logic seems to have been in their approach.The early believers decided that if suitably bribed, the gods could be useful in all sorts of ways. Today, when acts of God don’t work out in everyone's best interest, all kinds of excuses are made for him. He gets away with murder. Presumably because of this reverse progress in humanity’s long quest for God. many of the ancient ideas have survived through to today’s rituals. Saturnalia, for example, in honour of Saturn, a Roman agricultural god, was celebrated on 17 December. This was followed by several days of feasting and jollification with candles being lit, slaves allowed certain liberties, and a good time being had by all.

Ancient beliefs

Anthesteria (or caster as it is now known) was originally a Greek 3-day festival held when the first signs of new life in nature appeared. Lots of wine was consumed. and on the third day pots of vegetables were boiled for the spirits of the dead who were believed to be roaming at large. The day ended with the spirits being chased out and sent back to their spiritual home. On the third day they “rose again", you might say.

As far back as we know in the history of religion, grain or fruit had been offered to the gods to make sure they understood exactly what was required of them. Modern Christians do the same in their harvest festival. Many of the born-again variety, especially in America, have a similar approach except that it is considered preferable for the offering to be made in hard cash.

The very idea of being born again, which is only a modern recruiting version of the more conventional Christian baptizing, has a history which goes back, at the very least, as far as ancient Greece. Anyone who had been mistakenly supposed to be dead and had turned up, perhaps after a battle, and after the ritual handing them over to the god of the underworld had been performed, had to go through a play-acting form of re-birth before being re-accepted into society in order to convince the gods of their revived mortal status. In an equivalent ancient Indian ritual, performed for the same reason, the person being born again had to spend a night crouched in a tub of fat and water. Over this, the rituals normally performed for pregnant women were carried out. John the Baptist, who went in for ducking people in the river in order to cleanse them of their sins and give them new life, was only reviving an already old custom.

Another early idea was that of making human sacrifices, often with the victim being given the name of the deity to whom they were to be sent. The eagerly awaiting audience would swallow the flesh and drink the blood of the victim in an attempt to be at one with the god. Catholics today do the same or. at least, they claim to.

Childish absurdities

Every advance in humanity’s knowledge of their surroundings leads to a change in the ideas of "God”. This change, however, is obviously not one of greater understanding, but less. As "God" becomes more distant and obscure, the efforts to reach him are ever more bizarre. The “development” of religious ideas is backwards. They made more sense in the day when everyone knew that the Earth was the centre of the universe, was supported on pillars, and was flat. These were the kind of ideas held by the writers of the books of "God’s holy word”, and the absurdities contained in these are clear today to anyone who can read and is capable of doing so without a totally closed mind.

Believers however, whose hope of doing well in life (this one and the next), rest on the acceptance of these as "gospel", or. at least, on an ability to find a self-deluding interpretation of the nonsense, are put in an ever-increasingly ridiculous position. With faith, however, they rise to the challenge. For example: What is sin?. Answer (from a leaflet handed to the present writer by a Hyde Park evangelist, in response to the observation that the small baby she was carrying was not a sinner): "All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell for ever”.

What is God? The nearest we ever get to an answer is that he is the creator of all things. This task took six days followed by one of rest—what did God do on the 8th day?, the 9th and 10th and so on until today? In what sense did he exist in a state of complete nothingness? How long was he in this state? When did he start the project? We do have an exact answer for the last question thanks to a certain Bishop Usher and a Dr Lightfoot. Usher computed the date to 4004 BC and Lightfoot, not to be outdone, worked it out to 23rd October, at 9 o’clock in the morning. What day of the week did God start on? Not a matter of great importance unless you happen to be a Seventh-Day Adventist and you, therefore, know that it was a Sunday, which makes the sabbath fall on Saturday and the rest of the Christian world one day out.

Some believers, who think that the idea of God creating the universe in just six days, and out of nothing, might sound a little far-fetched, concede that there may have been an error in translation and that a “day”, in fact, could mean a period of perhaps 1000 years. This, no doubt, would have made the task much easier, but presumably we cannot apply this multiplication of time (by 365,000) to the story of the exodus of the Jews from Egypt. This trip, which ought not to have taken more than a few days (24-hour days, that is), took— with God's guidance—40 years. Even more miraculously, the clothes and the shoes they were wearing never wore out—‘And I have led you 40 years in the wilderness your clothes are not waxen old upon you. and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy feet". The robes and the sandals worn by a 10-year-old at the outset must still have been in good condition and supposedly still a reasonable fit, when the wearer at the age of 50 finished the trip.

Why bother with such absurdities, you may ask? Why not treat them with the same amusement that you would treat a 6-year-old who believes in fairies and Father Christmas? The answer is that if civilisation is to reach the stage where poverty is not tolerated, where the best that can be produced is produced—to satisfy human need, not the profit motive, and where all humans have equal access to the best possible standard of living and human dignity, the childish and primitive ideas that we are all inherently sinners, and therefore incapable of acting humanely, and that an invisible tyrant in the sky has a paradise where “only a few will be chosen”, must pass into obsolescence first. Such ideas have no place in the 20th century.

Nick White