Notes by the Way: Shades of 1931 (1947)

The Notes by the Way Column from the September 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

Shades of 1931

 

It is interesting to note the similarities and differences of the present crisis and that of 1931, which split the Labour Government, and led to its Prime Minister, J. R. MacDonald, going over to a National Government while the present Labour Party leaders went into opposition. Both crises have been described as being largely due to the aftermath of war, for MacDonald’s manifesto to the nation for the October, 1931, elections referred to “some of the most fruitful causes of the economic misfortunes—like War Debts and Reparations—from which the whole world now suffers so grievously.” Both crises took the form of an “adverse balance of trade,” too many imports and too few exports, and then as now the Government was looking to the expansion of exports and restriction of imports as the way out.

There is a curious resemblance between the present Government’s appeal to Parliament for emergency powers, not for specific and known measures, but for measures of all kinds that may appear necessary from time to time, and MacDonald’s 1931 appeal .to the electors for a “doctor’s mandate”—”as it is impossible to foresee in the changing conditions of today what may arise, no one can set out a programme of detail . . . The Government must therefore be free to consider every proposal likely to help, such as tariffs, expansion of exports and contraction of imports, commercial treaties and mutual economic arrangements with the Dominions.”

Among the differences are the following. This time British capitalism’s troubles are attributed to the rise of food prices in U.S.A. and in the world generally. In 1931 it was the opposite, we were told that the trouble was due to the catastrophic fall of prices. Mr. G. D. H. Cole wrote in 1932: “The result of increased productive power has been … a great mass of unemployment in the manufacturing countries, and a fall in the prices of foodstuffs and raw materials which has more and more “impoverished the producers of these classes of goods. These impoverished producers cannot afford to buy as many manufactures as before, with the consequence that many businesses have gone bankrupt and many millions of industrial workers have been thrown out of work.” ( Economic Tracts for the Times,” 1932, page 12).

This time, says Mr. Douglas Jay, “the only final solution is a fall in the world price of food and raw materials.” (Daily Herald, 4/8/47). Of course, when the fall takes place we shall be back at 1931 !

Last time the trouble was said to be “over production,” this time it is “underproduction.” Last time the Government took the lead by reducing unemployment pay and the pay of civil servants, teachers, etc. This time it is an appeal to the workers to work longer hours and not press for higher wages.

Spivs and Hard-faced Men

It is an old story that what the parties of capitalism say when they are in opposition undergoes a remarkable change when they get into power. A straw which shows the way the wind is blowing is the way the Labour Party has set up an entirely new Aunt Sally in place of the old one. After World War I the Labour attack was directed against a cartoon-creature popularised by Will Dyson—the Hard-Faced business man, or war profiteer. We hear little of him now, his place having been taken by the “Spiv,” a term used for the individual who prefers to live by gambling, quick dealing or by “fiddling” in the black market, rather than by toiling in a mine or a factory.

The Labourites are not lacking in explanations for this, in the pretence that the idle rich are not with us any more. This is a droll story particularly favoured by Mr. Dalton.

Intoxicated with their own belief that capitalism would be all right if only it were “controlled” the idea is only very slowly creeping into the minds of the Labourites that black markets are the inevitable product of price controls and rationing. Where there is great wealth and poverty side by side the rich will always be able to get what they want, legally if they can, illegally if they must.

Political Secrecy

The Committee of Privileges of the House of Commons has condemned the practice of M.P.’s selling to the Press information about the proceedings at private Party meetings in the House of Commons. While not holding that Party meetings have the same privileges as sittings of the House of Commons the Committee, or a majority of them, hold that certain privileges attach to such meetings because the holding of private Party meetings is now a normal part of Parliamentary procedure.

Some M.P.’s differ from the majority of the Committee on this point but it does not appear to have occurred to anybody that the simplest, best, and only completely water-tight, remedy for the selling of information about private Party meetings is to cease to make them private.

And if anybody thinks that secrecy of Party meetings is necessary it is sufficient to point out that S.P.G.B. meetings, conferences, E.C. meetings, etc., are open to all members and to the public. But then, of course, the S.P.G.B. is a very different sort of political party, one that is really democratic.

The Communists and Censorship

The Catholic Universe criticised the Russian government on the ground that it had done everything to prevent Russians from taking an interest in Western civilisation. The Daily Worker (28/7/47) retorted by pointing out that Shakespeare and other English classics are widely read in Russian translations. Mentioning Marlowe. Smollett and Fielding the Daily Worker asked, “would, perchance, any of these works he found in the Vatican’s ‘Index’ of forbidden books?”

Quite a legitimate retort, except for the fact that in Bolshevik Russia, just as in Catholic Spain, there is suppression of organisations, news and views unpalatable to those in power. Besides, in view of the way the Communists and Catholics managed to work hand in hand to interfere with freedom, of the Press in Italy the former should keep quiet about the latter. According to the Rome Correspondent of the Manchester Guardian (14/5/47) they voted together on anti-democratic clauses of the new Constitution. When the Catholics moved “that in cases of emergency publications may be sequestrated by police officials, provided they give an account of their action within 24 hours” the Communists voted with them; as also when the Catholics moved for “the insertion in the new Constitution of the Lateran Pacts and Concordat which were signed by Mussolini and Pope Pius XI.” It was only a revolt of the Communist rank and file which prevented their M.P.’s from voting for the prohibition of divorce.

There is another aspect of the supply of information to the Russian workers. The Daily Worker thinks that its case is made good because Russian workers are permitted to read the works of long dead English novelists and playwrights. The Daily Worker mentions that “new translation of works by Dickens are to be published in the Soviet Union.” Now for an example of the use made of Dickens. Cabling from Moscow during what passes in Russia for an election, Alexander Werth told the following incident:

“Six young Communist girls wanted to know how candidates were chosen and campaigns conducted in ‘bourgeois’ countries. They wrote to the Young Communist paper . . . which promptly replied by referring them to the Eatanswill election in the ‘Pickwick Papers’.” (Manchester Guardian, 25/1/47).

Mr. Werth goes on to say that the Young Communist paper told its inquirers, “Eatanswill is an imaginary place, but what Dickens wrote correctly describes English reality.”

Of course the motive for this deception is obvious. If the Russian workers discovered that real electoral contests take place outside of that country they might the more quickly resent the continuance of their totalitarian regime which permits the existence of only one political party.

On the subject of the Russian censorship the Daily Worker (31/7/47) reported the complaint made by the Amalgamated Engineering Union delegation which visited Russia last year. The Daily Worker’s statement reads:

“In conclusion, however, the report says the delegation sometimes had a feeling ‘that we did not have real freedom of movement and action.’ ‘For example,’ it adds, ‘photography was discouraged and our letters home were censored.’ ”

Mr. Aneurin Bevan on the Export Drive

The Sunday Express (6/7/47) quotes from a speech made by Mr. Bevan in 1945:

“We are told by some people who ought to know better that we shall need to increase our exports after the war by 50 per cent. . . . Expanding exports are the will-o’-the-wisp private enterprise is compelled to pursue.”

All the countries are now (a) trying to increase their exports and (b) cutting down their imports. Now that Mr. Bevan is a member of a government engaged in trying to increase exports by 75 per cent. over the prewar level and at the same time preaching austerity and less imports perhaps he will explain what happens when all the countries export to the limit and import nothing.

Edgar Hardcastle

'It's Clichéd to Be Cynical at Christmas* . . .'

Charles Dickens has a lot to answer for. 

There, I thought I'd get the humbug out the way, and then move on. Posted below are links to a selection of Christmas-related articles that have appeared in the Socialist Standard (and elsewhere) down the years. Dive head first into a Christmas box selection of articles about the historical origin of Christmas, humorous short stories involving Santa and his non-unionised and over-worked elves, and caustic commentary about rampant consumerism, I'm sure you'll agree that, unlike a tin of Quality Street in 2024, there's something here for everyone.

It's interesting to note that Christmas related articles were scarce on the ground in the early decades of the Socialist Standard. You have to wonder why: A conscious decision on the part of the Editorial Committee, or just an acknowledgement that Christmas wasn't that big a deal back in the day? I know that my Grandparents would work a half day on Christmas Day, but that was in Glasgow and New Year's Eve was always the bigger deal back then. Alcoholic spirits trumped Scalextric sets.

*And what's with the title of this post? Just another Half Man Half Biscuit modern classic.

Dec 1922: Christmas Shops by Alex Anderson

Dec 1948: Just Once A Year by Bill Waters

Dec 1954: A Slight Christmas Carol by Robert Barltrop (Short Story)

Dec 1965: Christmas, past and present by Bill Waters

Dec 1965: Christmas —the great delusion by Ivan

Dec 1969: Socialists and Christmas

Dec 1979: Festival of fools by Steve Coleman

Dec 1980: How to survive Christmas by Ivan

Dec 1981: Ghost of Christmas past by Ivan (Short Story)

Dec 1983: Having a rotten Christmas by Ivan (Short Story)

Dec 1986: Toys Galore: A Story for Girls and Boys by Ron Cook (Short Story)

Dec 1986: Xmas eve at the grotto by Tone (Short Story)

Dec 1987: Season of Goodwill

Dec 1988: Editorial: The Alternative Queen’s Speech

Jan 1991: Had a happy christmas? by Dave Coggan

Dec 1991: Editorial: Festival of Commerce

Dec 1991: Between the Lines: Humbug! by Steve Coleman (TV Review)

Dec 1995: The ghost of Christmas yet to come by Steve Coleman (Short Story)

Dec 1997: The Last Word: Why Santa should get stuffed by Steve Coleman

Dec 2010: Santa’s New Clauses (Short Story)

Dec 2020: Merry Christmas? by Dave Coggan

Dec 2021: Proper Gander: Capturing The Christmas Spirit by Mike Foster (TV Review)

Dec 2021: Stamping Out Capitalism by Dave Coggan

Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Dec 2006: Christmas Musings by John Bissett

More news from Uxbridge (2023)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

The last 800 leaflets were distributed yesterday for the by-election a week on Thursday. Discarded leaflets from some of the candidates were found but nothing from the LibDems — seems they are giving Labour here a free run to garner anti-Tory votes. There is no socialist candidate. 

We talked to the owner of a house decked out with UKIP posters who turned out to be  a former Tory councillor who had defected to UKIP because they were replacing “white” local council candidates by Indians. True, as the three councillors for the ward are now all Indians, but so what? The Tories have in fact been cultivating the Hindu vote in north-west London, with some success.  

We met the Tory candidate himself, local councillor Steve Tuckwell. We had read in a Tory leaflet that the local Hindu temple handed out free fruit and vegetables at 2 o’clock on Tuesdays. Intrigued by this Tory support for free distribution we went along to see. It turned out to be just an ordinary food bank. 

But what we witnessed was a scene that bore some similarity to Dickens’s account of an election in his day. The Tory candidate and the Tory MP for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) forced the 20 or so destitute workers queuing for their bag of food to wait ten minutes to listen to their speeches which the workers dutifully applauded. What followed was even more obscene. The two suitably garlanded politicians were filmed, for an Asian TV channel, handing out food bags to the poor. This must come near to “treating” (giving gifts to voters to get them to vote for you) which since Dickens’s day has become illegal under electoral law. But professional politicians are known to have no shame when it comes to vote-catching. One reason why they are held in contempt, and rightly so.

One big issue in the election is ULEZ, the extension as from the end of August of the Ultra Low  Emission Zone from central London to the whole of Greater London. This will require owners of pre-2006 petrol vehicles and pre-2016 diesel vehicles to pay £12.50 a day to use their vehicles. As all vans are diesel, “white van man” is up in arms. One self-employed tradesman we met told us he had had to spend £10,000 of his own money to buy a new van and that all people like him who owned a pre-2016 van would have to do the same. Workers owning an old banger because they couldn’t afford anything better or a not that old diesel car will also be clobbered. There are two independent anti-ULEZ candidates and the Tories are playing it for all it’s worth (they can’t really play the anti-immigrant card here) saying “No to Labour’s £4,550 ULEZ expansion tax”.

No leaflets have been distributed in the Ruislip part of the constituency, so the workers there are going to have to work out for themselves that the problem is not  the Tories or Labour but Capitalism.

The best of times, the worst of times (2023)

From the February 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Perhaps it is the nature of ‘the news’ and its love of drama but most commentators seem to concur that we are living in the worst of times. The ‘obvious’ decline of this country parallels the disasters endured by many others of past and present. The anarchic reality of capitalism lies behind most of our contemporary problems but remains hidden beneath moral outrage and politically sectarian invective. There has never been a time when the NHS has not been in crisis and where a war has not raged somewhere on the planet; there has never been a time when a child is not dying for lack of clean water and an unpolluted environment; there has never been a time when the rich suffered and the poor did not – this is normal for all class-divided cultures. As the memories of an imaginary ‘golden age’ fade and are replaced by a shared sense of doom and despair for the future we might ask if our species has a predilection for self-destruction and somehow relishes the thought of disaster.

The Armageddon zeitgeist of popular culture has spawned numerous variations on how the world might end; from zombies and plagues to meteorite impacts and nuclear holocausts it’s hard to find an optimistic narrative when it comes to imagining humanity’s future. To some degree this reflects the failure of capitalism to deliver its promise of economic progress and security for all – the culture just seems to have run its course with nowhere else to go. After the Second World War there was an optimism that things would change and the baby-boomers of the 1960s were in the forefront of political activism that focused on reforming the economic system to bring some measure of equality and justice, at least in the West. Working-class culture blossomed with innovative forms of music, fashion, film and TV. This was all predicated on the belief that things would change for the better; when this proved to be an illusion and the forces of reaction were brought back to power as the result of reformist failure the road to disaster seemed almost inevitable. Thatcher and Reagan were symbols of this failure – theirs was the politics of atavistic hatred. The neo-con ideology took on the Orwellian role of turning facts into fiction and vice-versa. We still live with this legacy today only it has accelerated and evolved into the monster of ‘fake news’ fuelled by the global internet.

Propaganda has always taken advantage of whatever media are available. The Nazis were one of the first groups to see the potential of the mass media of radio and film – we still look back on Goebbels as the paradigm of propagandists. He would have adored the opportunities afforded by the internet. Unfortunately the online producers of ‘news’ are as in love with dramatic headlines as are the pulp mainstream media – of course many of them are sponsored and produced by the very same people. However if you have the patience you can find authentic voices of dissent who can provide a very different perspective. The world has become a smaller place where the suffering and conflicts everywhere are accessible in your home which only adds to the sense of unease and foreboding created by the tension of events in our everyday lives. Some embrace the cynicism of not believing in anything whilst others are caught up in the shifting sands of the impotent and meaningless debates between Left and Right. All too often these online arguments end up being merely egotistical slanging matches that produce much heat without any light. Is the internet just the latest example of a medium being used as a vehicle for ideological propaganda or has its very quantity of information changed its quality? Instead of relying on your favourite newspaper columnist or TV news show you have to make an effort to research alternative voices if your opinion is to have any value. The cultural zeitgeist has become irrevocably international.

The voice of doom has become universal and resonates in every corner of the globe. Betrayed hopes fuel the never-ending discovery of new reasons and causes of a seemingly inevitable end for our species. Will the children of today look back on their childhood fondly as a ‘golden age’ as many of the older generation do? Socialists have optimism built into their DNA but even we struggle to find an upbeat answer to Rosa Luxemburg’s question: ‘Is it to be socialism or barbarism?’ Of course it hasn’t come to that yet but we fear that time is running out. Many people in the past also felt an impending sense that ‘the end is nigh’ but this was based on the assumption that the battle between good and evil would be resolved one way or another. But instead of the dramatic human finale of Armageddon predicted by so many our species might just fade into oblivion within a sea of political cynicism and apathy leaving the rich to count their ever increasing wealth until one day they find they have nothing to buy with it.

The Dickens quote, part of which heads this article, seems to describe my life and times (born in the mid 1950s) as I suspect it would for many of my generation and is worth repeating in full:

‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair’ (A Tale of Two Cities).

Wez.

Candidates are reminded . . . (1988)

From the June 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

It's Summer, Ian McCaskill has once again, for a brief interval, been recast from a harbinger of gloom to a relatively welcome informant. Six hundred and fifty MPs are preparing to go on holiday for a couple of months and leave the profit system to run itself while slow-paced, deep-voiced cricket commentaries, emanating from every media outlet, provide the season's soundtrack.

One place that soundtrack does not intrude upon, though, is the silence of the large, wooden-floored hall in every school and college where thousands of young people every year sit exams. Every summer tens of thousands of students from High schools and colleges step off a convey belt and into a quality control unit — the examination. Like cassette players or cars which carry a 'Tested—Okay' label, some candidates will leave the process certified as competent to perform certain roles in the commercial system or pass on to the next stage of training. Others will be sent back to the drawing board or invited to quit the process.

In Victorian times the education system prepared young people for wage-slavery in a blunt and blatant fashion. In Hard Times, Charles Dickens describes this operation with vivid detail in a chapter called 'Murdering the Innocents'. Here children are being knocked into uniformity and docility by one of a new regiment of indoctrinators. The teachers were made by much the same method as they were now using on their victims.

. . . Mr. M'Choakumchild began in his best manner. He and some one hundred and forty other schoolmasters, had been lately turned at the same time, in the same factory, on the same principles, like so many pianoforte legs.

Some of today's educationalists would say that things are drastically different now. But are they? The same class-divided social system operates today as operated in Dickens' day and it has the same demands for a workforce which is disciplined, respectful of authority and implanted with the same fundamentally fallacious assumptions about society, class, competition and "Human nature" as its Victorian predecessor.

Examination Halls are once again filling up every morning and afternoon with hundreds of worried people. Once inside the Halls, the candidates, whose only identification for these purposes is a number, will be ushered to their respective desks the regulation three feet from their neighbour. They will be briefly addressed in a detached, impersonal tone and then will follow two or three hours of occasional coughing, sporadic fidgeting and the trail of invigilator's footsteps. College lectures have been described as the process by which lecturers' notes are passed to the notepads of students without really passing through the minds of either. Spilling out the same stuff on an exam script in a similar fashion is often the next stage in the game. I have been a participant in this rigmarole for 17 years: eleven as a student at various schools and colleges and now six as a teacher and examiner. The more familiar you become with the whole process, the clearer its main purpose becomes. Vainly describing itself as 'Education', the training programme delivered to people between the ages of 11 and 18 is little more than preparing people for the job market. Students are encouraged that the later they leave the process. the more attractive will be the job application form available to them.

Training Workers

The burden of cost for education, so-called, lies with the ruling class — the small minority of men and women who own and control the world's wealth. Education is. with most governments around the globe, the second largest budgeted expenditure after "Defence" (War), such is its importance in moulding a working class generally compliant to the hardships and insecurities of the profit system and tailored to the requirements of its work.

It is true that widespread literacy and numeracy are a pre-condition for the democratic operation of world society but we have already reached that stage. Since the early nineteenth century, the commercial system developed the need for a better educated workforce and then, later on,, for increased technical skills. Syllabuses and examinations have developed broadly in accordance with what the profit system needs. One recent development has been the move to experiential learning techniques and corresponding methods of testing those skills. The Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) and General Certificate of Education (GCE) O’ level have now been abolished and replaced by the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) syllabuses which purport to provide a better "education" for those leaving full-time education at 16. One important factor in the design of these new courses was the way they would help to improve the organisational skills of prospective workers. According to a recent publication from the Department of Education and Science. GCSEa Guide for Employers,

Many employers have long been in favour of GCSE. It was, after all, developed in consultation with employers and other interests. (HMSO Educ. Jo. 243.1988)

In Britain about 4,000,000 people work in offices and there is a growing concern amongst employers, as commercial competition becomes more intensified, that their workers may not be up to date with the latest technology. The main purpose of the "A" level exams is to provide an entry ticket for the arena of "Higher Education", or entry into wage (salary) slavery at a "higher" level. Although some people climbing these rungs of the ladder can give the impression that the altitudes are enough to cause giddiness, their clamberings are not even visible from the heights of wealth and power occupied by the ruling class. Back at street level, even several of the "A" level syllabuses are being revamped to include more "practical" components. The Business Studies "A" level, for example, now incorporates a period of "work experience" where the student contributes a few weeks work to a local firm for nothing or next to nothing. Clearly a nice little perk for the owners of the local firm but less clearly a useful experience from the student"s point of view. Arguably the best result that can come from this episode is for the student to work his or her guts out during the "experience". not make any inquiries about a union and act with the right sort of servility to the right people — then they just might be hired by the firm on a "permanent" basis.

Learning the Rules of the Game

Recently, the courses run by the Business and Technician Education Council have become more prevalent in colleges around the country. The BTEC courses at "First" and "National” levels roughly parallel the more theoretical GCSE and A" level courses. They are based, almost exclusively, on a learning-by-doing principle and students' progress is monitored by continuous assessment of "assignments'". The BTEC National course (the "higher" of the two), though, has an examination at the end but because the ethos of academic exams runs against the ethos of the BTEC, their exams are not called exams but "Time Constrained Assignments".

Students on these courses are frequently asked, as part of their assignments, to assume the role of a particular type of employee and then, presented with a "scenario", are invited to complete a number of "tasks". You can see why the owners of industry and commerce must find this sort of thing a real boon. For one thing, it must cut the cost of their own training schemes, either in-house or the type they pay their workers to attend. Education in the commercial system, capitalism, has always been geared to shaping people for the role that their class demands from them. The children of the wealthy owners of society are sent to expensive, exclusive, elitist schools where they are trained in the ways of being patronising members of the ruling class. Conversely, ninety per cent of us attend schools where they teach you (or try to) how to work and to be on the receiving end of orders from the boss. The element of these BTEC courses which is a new departure is the open starkness with which the "students" are being apprenticed to types of work in the setting of a college; not just the skills and procedures required in different types of work but also the way in which they are encouraged to adopt The Right Attitude.

Consider one example of an assignment for students on a BTEC National course designed to prepare them for low levels of management. Details are given about an imaginary company, Fuelsave Ltd. based in Cricklewood with a workforce of eight, three of whom are part-time. The company produces a petrol saving device. A full report on the company is also given, " . . produces between 225 -275 Fuelsavers a week . . . gadgets retail mainly through garages in the South East for £80. . . Fred Smith the founder and majority shareholder wishes to increase production but expansion at the current site is impossible. . . Fred calls a Board Meeting to discuss expansion ". Students are then asked to put themselves through a succession of different roles in furnishing the firm with advice about relocating in two sites, raising new sums of financial capital, suing other firms if they try to use the technology of the fuelsave device (which has been patented), and the "best" way to make workers redundant. Other assignments in this course entail the students casting themselves as clerical workers, estate agents, insurance officers and local government workers.

The remodelling of education on more commercially related lines has also begun to percolate into higher education not only by the innovation of degrees in subjects like "Business Administration" but also in attempts to trim out of existence those research projects which do not appear to be useful to the actual workings of capitalist society and its constant quest for profit for the few. Higher educational institutions are also being seen as places which could be more concertedly used by the owners of industry to cultivate greater numbers of their highly skilled workers. Speaking recently to a conference in London, Lord Prior, former Employment Secretary (before he disagreed with Thatcher) and now collecting a little spending money as Chairman of G.E.C. (£200,000+) said that Britain is too snooty about its universities and this is "depriving industry and commerce of highly-trained brains". He suggested that universities and degrees should not be seen as ivory towers offering glittering prizes. “They should be seen as places which produce a highly-trained workforce for the market place".

(London Evening Standard, 30 April 1988).

If you are taking exams this month, or have children who are, or are teaching towards them or marking them, then you may well be familiar with the little blurb at the top of exam papers which proclaims that "Candidates are reminded of the necessity for good English and orderly presentation in their work . . ." A fully honest preamble would also tell you that "this exam is a necessary part of a competitive and uncivilised social system. It has virtually nothing to do with genuine study and knowledge . . ." One final point, in fact an alternative exam question: Imagine you are living in a society which has abolished class division and operates on the principle "from each according to ability to each according to need". Explain how your life is different from that of one of history's wage slaves!

Gary Jay

Words and Men. — Part 5 (1934)

From the February 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 4

The romantic revulsion against industrial and commercial society had also a political aspect. Wordsworth expressed sympathy for the Jacobins and wrote in favour of the theories of the French Revolution, at least for a while; Byron was always ready to defend the underdog and in fact died fighting for the independence of Greece; Shelley never tired of attacking despotic and repressive politicians like Castlereagh. In France Lamartine was a prominent Reformist speaker and delivered fervently humanitarian orations; Victor Hugo attacked oppressive measures and red-tape officialdom, and was ultimately exiled for his denunciations of Napoleon III. These men were none the less Romantics; they were imbued with lofty and generous feelings, but those feelings were, on the whole, an avoidance of thought, not a means to it.

The Victorian age of English literature (about 1840-1880) marked the era of definite bourgeois ascendency. Industrial capitalism had found its feet and was at last firmly enthroned. The horrors of the Industrial Revolution were fading, and the god of Things as They Are could settle complacently on his throne, conscious that after all everything was for the best in the best of worlds.

This facile optimism pervades all Dickens' work, notwithstanding his exposure of bad conditions and appeals for reform. Though his characters are diverting and his novels full of entertaining scenes, he remains, from a social point of view, a charity-monger. Ruskin, who couched his hatred of ugliness and of unbridled competition in finely resonant prose, also trusted to charity or to philanthropic legal enactment for “the betterment of mankind." In poetry the great exponent of Victorian complacency was Tennyson, “the Lullaby Laureate"; although at times he could write melodious verse, he was also responsible for some of the most jingoistic ballads in the language. Browning also was in the main satisfied with the existing order, but he has far more scope and virility than Tennyson. The Jeremiah of the new order was Carlyle, an old-fashioned Tory soured by the changes of the Industrial Revolution. Thackeray, fascinated by social success but disillusioned with regard to human beings, produced vivid descriptions of town society tinged with satire.

In France, as capitalism developed, the pendulum swung from romanticism to the most fervent realism. Balzac, in the many volumes of his "Human Comedy" (1829-1850), attempted a vast canvas portraying every nook and cranny of contemporary bourgeois life. Flaubert sprang into instant fame in 1857 with his “Madame Bovary," one of the finest reproductions of small-town inanities, petty-bourgeois aspirations, and feminine neuroses ever written in novel form. In poetry Leconte de Lisle led the impersonal school which carried anti-romanticism to its highest peak with flawless descriptions of animals or scenery, sedulously avoiding any personal or individual reference. This was to a large extent an automatic reaction from the exuberances of Hugo and Lamartine; it had its roots in the increasing pace of production and sub-division of labour which were rapidly sapping the individuality of the mass of mankind.

Personal poetry, however, soon reappeared in the morbidly introspective, quiveringly sensitive, neurotically complex works of Baudelaire. “Flowers of Evil" appeared in the same year as “Madame Bovary," and caused an even greater scandal. The book is a perfect illustration of the emotional chaos and intellectual agony that ensue when an acutely sensitive and highly intelligent man finds himself unable either to conform to, escape from, or even comprehend a society which thwarts and dazzles him by turns.

Victorian smugness was followed by a colourful attempt to counteract the “filth of civilisation" by the pre-Raphaelite movement; there was one poet among them—Swinburne. He is chiefly noteworthy for his unrestrained abuse of the Church and his glorification of Garibaldi. Thus once more the irony of history turns things upside down: the hatred of developed capitalism takes the form of supporting those nationalist movements which are prerequisites to capitalist development.

Apart from attacks on capitalism in general, a swing away from conservatism made itself felt in Meredith—writer of novels, many of which pay little heed to social problems but yet do not take even high society circles over-seriously—and in Hardy, whose grimly realistic description pairs oddly with his mystical, brooding fatalism. Hardy attacked conservatism on the field of morals, and fled from the problems and squalor of industrialism to those of a well-nigh extinct peasantry.

One of the greatest enemies of capitalism in English literature was William Morris; although, perhaps, it is not his literary work that chiefly commands respect, it is important in that it bears throughout the imprint of his passionate detestation of all things capitalist and his unshakable conviction that the mass of men had in the past known happiness and would know it again, but to immeasurably fuller extent, under Socialism. Morris's influence in literature has been considerable, but not always fortunate. His Arts and Crafts movement, virile in his own hands, was emasculated when dissociated from an understanding of history and society.

Towards the end of the century the short story became popular in France with de Maupassant’s vital cameos of petty bourgeois society. Many of them are spicy, yet almost insipid. There is a hollowness about them as there is about the drawing-room life with which they deal. de Maupassant’s technique has never been bettered: he is a byword for economy of style—“everything that is necessary and nothing that is not.” At the same period Zola thrust the working-class into literature. Although he is often called a realist, for careful accuracy of description and vivid characterisation Zola ranks far below Flaubert and Balzac; he surpasses them, however, in his social vision, seeing society as a whole rather than in a series of pigeon-holes. He knew there was a class-war, and ranged himself with the exploited. “Germinal” and “Earth,” his best novels, deal with the aspirations and struggles of the miners and farm labourers respectively. Emotional about them he may be, even sentimental, but here is no charity-monger, nor a romantic flying to a Utopian past.

One of the greatest literary figures of this age, whether in France or England, was that delightful satirist, Anatole France. Scholarly, but never pedantic; restrained, but always pregnant with meaning; passionate without heat or violence, his polished sentences flow irresistibly over the whole field of human endeavour and submerge it in unquenchable irony. Ultimately his outlook is defeatist: he conceives man's stupidity to be ineradicable; but his delicate analysis of social movements, of historical incidents and of individual psychology, makes him rich and delightful reading for all critics of modern society. He has the venom of a Swift, the malice of a Voltaire, the delicacy of a Jane Austen, tempered by the experience of history and given enormous range by the complexity of modern life. “Penguin Island,” his masterpiece, was undertaken in order to “debunk” the Dreyfus case, but developed into a complete parody of French history. Its sly allusions, illuminating anecdotes and subtly ironical comments crowd too thickly upon the pages to be fully savoured at a first or even second reading. 

We have now considered English and French literature from the tenth century to the close of the nineteenth. Later and contemporary works will not be dealt with here. This is not a detailed history but a survey of tendencies exemplified by typical authors. Many figures of great interest must be excluded, for reasons of space. Moreover, in order to make known authors who are often passed over in spite of their significance, relative prominence has been given to men of earlier periods, as compared with recent writers with whom most readers are familiar.

Literature is essentially an outcome of human personalities. Personality itself is the action and reaction between a human physiology and its social environment—complexity reacting on complexity. Hence literature has room for an infinity of gradations and modifications. When we state that literature reflects the movements in society to which its economic basis, the mode of production, gives rise, we do not mean that they are reflected with the precision of a mirror, but rather as in the ruffled surface of a pond: the reflections may be shimmering and irregular in outline, but their main substance is unmistakable.

Stella Stewart

Concluded

Merry Christmas? (2020)

From the December 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is your stocking hung upon the wall? Are you all pepped up waiting for your fraction of a family (depending on the apparatchiks latest government edict) to arrive and share the festive fun with you? Or will they be deterred from coming by the incessant government propaganda pouring out of the telescreens – Obey! Disarray! Dismay! Rule of Two Four Six Eight! Or will they be dissuaded by the militarised police cruising up the street on the lookout for unessential food purchases such as Christmas pud? ‘Police will enter homes and break up Christmas dinners if families break lockdown rules – and there will be riots, predicts police commissioner’ (Mail Online, 28 October). Or will they decide to celebrate the event now known as Super Spreader on their own?

Santa’s reindeers exceed the rule of six so some two at least are going to lose their jobs, seasonal as they are. They’re going to be in company with many many workers whose jobs and industries have been destroyed in less than twelve months. It’s still a capitalist society. Until the majority decide to choose socialism, a moneyless society where goods are made for use, not for profit, workers have no choice but to continue to sell their labour power, physical and mental. If you give your heart to capitalism it will break it over and over. With Santa in the sleigh they’re pulling they would still be over the limit , so it looks like the Gang of Four will be pulling the sleigh this year. It’s not bad news for everyone though: ‘Billionaires’ wealth rises to 10.2 trillion amid Covid crises’ (Guardian headline, MSN.com, 7 October).

Put the Third Man in the Moscow Mule and the Streetcar in the fridge. Tis the season to be merry, stuff it, Ma let’s hit the sherry! All our troubles we can bury. Let’s stay drunk till February! A reliable source provides information that in New Zealand the seasons partying begins on December first and continues happily for eight weeks after that. The Antipodeans may well be harking back to early Germanic peoples whose midwinter festival, Yule, took place around a similar period. For the sensible many not of a religious bent there are many party alternatives to help lift the Winter mood. There’s Saturnalia, a Roman festival; Koliada, a Slav winter festival or the Iranian Shab-e Yalda.

Some where in the world, whether they know it’s Christmas time or not, someone is getting slayed. Even Madame Arcati’s crystal ball couldn’t reasonably predict this future. At the time of writing the outcome of events which assume significance for many are unknown. The USA presidential election, Brexit, Covid84, what further level of incompetence the global governments can sink to, the result of Strictly Come Dancing (shudder). Given the negative state of the world it’s not surprising if many decide to emulate the supposed behaviour of the ostrich and ‘bury their heads in the sand’. When Rip Van Winkle awoke the American Revolution had occurred. As with most revolutions the net result was a change in the folks telling you what is good for you and a more intrusive state interference in people’s lives. Being woke in 2020 means feeling the warm glow that Christmas always used to claim for itself. Now, it’s the virtuous satisfaction that comes from unthinkingly subscribing to the latest ‘progressive’ shibboleth which dissuades independent thinking.

Charles Dickens ‘A Christmas Carol, In Prose, Being A Ghost Story Of Christmas,’ 1843 (and a progenitor of awful ‘feel good’ television films that play on a loop once October arrives) set many of the traditions for a post-Victorian Christmas. Despite Scrooge’s apparent change of demeanour from a mean, grasping, exploitative loan shark he still remained a member of the capitalist class underpaying Bob Cratchit (a wage slave selling his labour power to Scrooge) even after the wage rise he was given. Upon reading this insight into the plight of the poor (all deserving) did the Victorian middle classes cry, thank god it’s them not me? Worth noting still is the warning of ‘Christmas Present’ when showing off two of Man’s children named Want and Ignorance. ‘Christmas Present’ admonishes his audience to beware of Ignorance the most. Ignorance needs to be converted to education so that chaotic capitalism can be replaced by a sane socialist society as soon as possible for everyone’s sake.

‘Eat, drink’ depends on whether the supply chains are still intact and irrational locust behaviour hasn’t swept the shelves cleaner than vultures on a wildebeest carcass in the Serengeti. Be merry? The human spirit is always able to find something positive in the most dire of circumstances. Acceptance of a bad situation while saying, gosh it’s terrible but there’s nothing we can do about it, is not acceptable however. After one of the most dramatic years which continuing on may have profound negative societal changes in global society it is no longer good enough to complainingly accept what is being implemented. Contrary to what a Tory leader once said, there is an alternative.

A 1961 British film, ‘The Day the Earth Caught Fire’, has the planet heading toward the Sun following some drastic efforts caused by USA and Soviet nuclear testing. Awaiting the result of alleviative action, the newspaper, around which the film revolves, has to prepare its headlines for two possibilities: ‘World Saved’ and ‘World Doomed’. Spoiler alert. World saved. Probably. Merry Christmas?

DC

The Blindness of the Workers. (1920)

From the June 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

In one of the world’s great novels, Dickens’s “David Copperfield,” occurs the following passage, the poignant significance of which appears to have been overlooked by the majority of even the most assiduous Dickensian students: “There was a beggar in the street, when I went down: and as I turned my head towards the window, thinking of her calm seraphic eyes, he made me start by muttering, as if he were an echo of the morning : ‘ Blind ! Blind ! Blind !”

Whether Dickens realised the almost universal application of what he had written is a matter of conjecture. Probably all he had in mind was its application to the particular set of characters with which he happened at the moment to be dealing. But to the Socialist, looking around at the world as it is to-day, seeing the foolishness, the illusions, the ignorance, which go to make up the mentality of so many men and women, it would seem as though a film had fallen across the eyes of his fellow-workers, causing either what amounts to total mental blindness or to so distorted a vision as to preclude any possibility of the realities of life being seen in their true perspective.

We could adduce many facts to show how mentally blind the working-class people of the world are. At the outbreak of the late war, for example, the people of this country (and of all other belligerent countries) who up to that date had, and desired, no quarrel with their reputed enemies, were so blinded by the wave of patriotism that swept over them, originated as it had been by the training and teaching they had received in childhood and youth, encouraged as it was by the insidious propaganda instigated from press, platform, and pulpit, that thousands, hundreds of thousands, of them clamoured for permission to kill and be killed in what they thought was the interest of their country, by which they meant, one presumes, their own interest.

Needless to say, permission to so kill and be killed was graciously conceded by their masters and accepted by the poor, deluded fools who, not understanding their class position as wage-slaves, not knowing what was at the bottom of of the whole bloody business, thought in their blind folly that they were doing something noble and heroic, thought that they were fighting and dying to save for themselves and their descendants what they considered their freedom, to save their “national heritage,” their “share in the Empire,” their womenfolk and children from the bestiality and oppression which they were quite convinced would be their fate were the forces against which they were fighting to prove successful.

They could not see that the war was simply a struggle generated by rival groups of capitalists for the possession of certain favourable (from the commercial point of view) portions of the earth’s surface. They could not all see that the only freedom they, as members of the working class, possessed was the freedom either to starve or allow themselves to be exploited for profit by their employers. They could not see that their only heritage, national or otherwise, was the lifelong heritage of hard and sordid work (when they were not unemployed) nor that their “share in the Empire” had no substance in fact, but was only a magniloquent phrase very useful to politicians at election times for purposes of vote-catching. They could not see that their womenfolk and children were, and always had been, the drudges, the toys, the slaves of a system whose bestiality and oppression had never been equalled since the dawn of the world’s history. They fought, and died, and were maimed, for —what? For an illusion which had been given a semblance of reality by the vicious teaching and smart word-spinning of innumerable capitalist agents. The people fought and died in their millions and the nett result is that, from a materialist standpoint, they are still struggling to rise to the very poor level at which they stood prior to the war.

Again, when we come to examine the attitude of the workers in regard to their political representation, we find how in a similar way the blindness of the people operates. At the last General Election they were, in the main, carried away by what they considered was the need for stabilising the “fruits of victory”—one of the pet phrases of the war rhetoricians—and voted practically solid for the Coalitionists. They have since tasted some of the “fruits of victory,” and found the taste not altogether to their liking; so at the subsequent bye-elections they have largely voted in even a worse and more foolish way; that is, they have voted for the “Labour” candidates.

Doubtless exception will be taken, in some cases, to the statement that it is more foolish to vote for a Labour man than for a Coalitionist. But when one considers the confusion caused by these Labour misleaders, these advocates of reforms which they must know are useless and worse than useless to the workers, these mouthers of phrases full of the most fatuous cant and sentimentality, the writer is justified, he thinks, in his antagonism towards them and his statement as to the enormous harm they do.

All these men seem to consider is how best to get into Parliament so that by virtue of the magic letters “M.P.” after their names they may be able to draw their salaries of £400 a year, to serve (for a monetary consideration) on Committees and Commissions ; to obtain well-paid jobs on capitalist newspapers and magazines. How these activities benefit their working-class constituents it is impossible to fathom.

As a matter of fact, neither they nor anyone else can benefit the working class. The working class, as we continually reiterate, must work out its own emancipation. The veil of illusion must be torn away from before the eyes of the workers, and this will only come about as the facts of life bite deeper and still deeper into their mentality, and as the unwearied propagandist work of the Socialist Party comes more and more to fruition.

We do not blame the workers for their blindness to their own interests. Indeed, the question of blaming or praising anyone or anything does not enter into the Socialist philosophy. What we endeavour to do is to open their eyes to the facts appertaining to capitalism and the logical deductions to be drawn from such facts.

The Socialist may claim to be the oculist of the working class. His aim is to give sight to those of his fellow-workers who are wandering in the darkness of capitalist orthodoxy. So the work the Socialist Party has in hand—the work of making Socialists—must go on until a majority of the people see eye to eye with us and organise themselves with us in one united political party. Then, and not till then, we shall know that the dawn of the Socialist day is near, wherein the potentialities of life will, at last, have an opportunity of developing on sane and healthy lines instead of being forced into a groove of insane and unhealthy activities which are all the present system of capitalism can afford to its wage-slaves.

F. J. Webb

Christmas, past and present (1965)

From the December 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

The festival we know as Christmas is far older than Christianity. It is one of the institutions that the early Christians adopted from, their pagan rivals.

During its teething years it was touch and go whether Christianity survived or succumbed to its foremost rival, Mithraism. The Mithraists were sun worshippers and they combined a solemn fertility ritual with aspirations after moral purity and a hope of immortality. The main Mithraic festival was held at the winter solstice, that time from which, each year, the days began to lengthen and the sun to arouse from its winter rest with the promise of a fertile springtime. The focal point of the ritual was a portrayal of a virgin giving birth to a new sun.

The Christian gospels give no hint of the date of the birth of their Christ and, accordingly, the early Christian Church did not celebrate it. The Christian priests were severe men and woman who urged their followers to live equally severe lives of work, abstinence and charity. But they found that many of their adherents took part in the solemnities and festivities of the Mithraists and, if they wished to win and retain converts, they would have to pander to peoples’ hearty liking for festivity and pageantry. Accordingly, the Christians of Egypt came to regard January 6th (by the Julian calendar) as the date of the nativity of their Christ and the custom of commemorating his birth on that date spread until, by the beginning of the fourth century, it was widely adopted in the east.

The western Christian church, probably influenced by the Roman festival of Saturnalia and the northern Yule, was the first to adopt December 25th, the day of the winter solstice, for their Christmas celebrations. The idea spread until, at an assembly held at Antioch in the year 375 A.D., the eastern church accepted the same date and officially changed from January 6th to December 25th.

As well as taking over the date of the pagan festival the Christians absorbed many of the heathen rites and symbols, such as the virgin birth, the burning of candles and the use of seasonable greenery for decoration.

By the middle ages Christmas was firmly established as the foremost annual Christian festival. The period of ritual and celebration extended over the whole twelve days from December 25th to Epiphany. It was a time of feasting, music, dancing, mumming, boisterous fun, and horseplay with the religious significance prominent in, but not dominating, the festivities. The twelve days ended with a ceremonial return to work on what was then known as Plough Monday.

A number of religious symbols from different parts of the world had become grafted on to the Christmas ritual. The mistletoe, considered a sign of fertility in some areas, became part of the Christmas festivity. The yule log, originally cut from the oak tree on which mistletoe was supposed to grow prolifically, became the traditional fuel for the occasion. Saint Nicholas of Russia, who died in 350 A.D., was eventually adopted by the Greek church and legends illustrating his benevolence and good nature were handed down to create the image of the Santa Claus of later generations.

The sixteenth century saw a growth in early capitalist industry and the first pressures being applied to abridge the period of Christmas festivity. Early restrictions had little effect in agricultural areas but it was easier to keep the poverty-stricken wage workers of the towns with their noses to the grindstone. For them a long holiday meant unbearable privations.

In England, effective political action to subdue Christmas festivities came with the Puritan revolution of the seventeenth century. During the period of the so-called Commonwealth fun and frivolity was severely frowned upon and even the churches were closed on Christmas day.

The next two hundred years witnessed the complete commercialisation of the festival. Capitalism drew each aspect of the institution into its maw. The spontaneous games and recreations were gradually replaced by organised entertainment; the amateur religious players and mummers made way for paid entertainers; communal self-help dried up and a smug, dignity-destroying charity took its place.

Nineteenth century sentimental writers, like Dickens and Kingsley, focussed attention, on the pitiable plight of the working class after the Industrial Revolution. They were of the “change-of-heart” school of reformers, urging employers to be a little more charitable to their employees. Dickens best depicted the attitude in his A Christinas Carol wherein he portrays a mean and grasping employer,' scared by a bad dream into becoming a charitable man on Christmas day and a little less mean one in the days following, to the benefit of his happiness and at the expense of his bank account.

Practically all of the Holy days of the middle ages have been eliminated. May day, as a workers' holiday, has been moved to a Sunday in May where it does not interfere with the working week, but the tradition of Christmas, shorn of most of its religious significance, dies hard. It lives on because it offers an attractive expansion of the market for innumerable goods. Workers save up for much of the year to have a spending spree and some festivity over the Christmas period. New symbols are introduced from time to time to attract these hard earned savings into different pockets. Christmas trees were an innovation, developed in this country from a German custom, during the reign of Queen Victoria following her marriage to Albert of Saxe Coburg. Christmas cards are also a comparatively recent profit making introduction.

The attitude of capitalist politicians to the festive season is often amusingly contradictory. In 1939, with a war getting under way, the Chancellor of the Exchequer broadcast a plea to save money to keep prices down, a minister at the Board of Trade called for a little spending to keep trade on the move, a state Forestry official announced that plenty of Christmas trees would be available as usual, firms with gift goods to market advertised them up to the hilt, and writers in the press urged people not to bankrupt patriotic business men who were doing their best to pay the costs of the war.

Social institutions are measured by their adaptability to a commodity producing society and are fostered or discouraged according to their usefulness to a profit making system.

Noble sentiments are prostituted and even the charity advocated by Christians is harnessed to the capitalist cart and whipped up with the gift-giving pleas and advertisements at Christmas.

W. Waters

The Nature of Work Under Socialism (1994)

From the May 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

To some Mrs Thatcher was the anti-Christ, and there is some justice in this reprobation. But above all she was the arch anti-philosopher, the ultimate philistine, the unthinker, the stagnant pool of accumulated prejudice, a museum of reactionary forces. Yet the chord was struck, and the nation chimed to the note, as indeed the world even now still resonates from the impact of the seismic disturbance that swept through its economy, forcing all before it, and of which Thatcherism was a parochial part, neither particularly significant nor powerful in itself. But of true significance was the historical trend towards the fundamentalism of market theology, and the concomitant trend away from the values of human interaction and rational assessment and evaluation.

Socialist Thought
The re-evaluation of the present system of relations between people we may call socialist thought. Socialism asserts that the world changes in the sense that the currently-prevailing concept of human nature is not after all the absolute truth, but merely an historically contingent consequence of the equally contingent political and economic systems for the production and distribution of "goods".

Perhaps the most crucial component in all the socialist credo of alternatives is the radically utopian concept of work. All work in socialism will be voluntary. Voluntarism is to be extended not only to the choice of occupation but the the duration, intensity and all aspects of the organization of work. It is a curious fact that the greatest advocates of "freedom of choice" consider it the greatest affront to suggest that the producers of goods should have any choice in the matter of their own occupation.

Despite the oft-deployed transparent sophistry' calculated to show that Venezuelan gold miners and production-line workers in Eccles have freely entered into an open partnership with their employer, it is plain enough that starvation in the one case and insidious coercion in the other (e.g. the cheerful "back to work programme", the scheme for officially persecuting the unemployed) have been the most persuasive clauses in the arguments of employers.

No defence
For the most part capitalists do not even attempt this defence: the worker must do what is necessary for the market and for profits, and the individual choice must subserve this higher need. In this world, the luxury of choosing a life of fulfilling vocational work is the reserve of the lucky few; it is not the normal condition.

How has it come about that the most essential part of existence, that of what a human person is to do with their life by means of work, has been refused admission to those things that are left to choice? In a nutshell the received wisdom states:

1. work must be done to furnish need.
2. work is hated by all, therefore,
3. work must be obtained by compulsion.

Concerning premise (2), the history of work has indeed been a succession of misery, drudgery and oppression.

Hell of toil

It may indeed be historically true that in certain stages of human development, it was absolutely necessary that the great majority of humans had to be cast into a hell of unremitting toil. But for socialists, work is not inherently unpleasant. On the contrary, the "hardship" of labour, or the production of goods, is no longer even to be sharply separated from their consumption, or the "reward" of labour, since both are necessary for the harmony of the human being. The mastication of food, the exertion of muscle and brain, are not only equally important for life, but equally desirable for any balanced person.

Work may have hitherto been extracted by a species of social contract whose terms are ones of coerced servility, where "the elevation of the few is founded on the degradation of the many" (T.H. Green 1881). But these terms are not characteristics of work itself, only of the contemporary capitalist arrangement and are insisted upon in order to ensure the pliancy of the workforce. Consequently, the socialist rejects the punitive attitude towards work, for in socialism work is to be made pleasant. And if work is pleasant, then the main objection to it being made voluntary is removed.

Curse of work?

Yet nearly everybody seems to agree that work is a curse rather than a gift, but they confuse the nature of work with the nature of capitalism. The capitalist conception of work is founded on a philosophy of human nature, according to which a human is a "rational" creature whose greed and idleness direct them respectively to consume as much, and do as little, as possible. The absurdity of this position is obvious (try to consume without doing, or try doing without consuming), but despite its falsity it is a powerful image, sustained from above by sinecured intellectuals, and from below by a credulous proletariat. The first are sustained in their belief by a mixture of fear and vested interest, the second by inarticulation and institutionalized stupidity. However in fairness, intellectuals have never been merely the paid propagandists of mill owners, rather along with the owners of the means of production they shared an interest in perpetuating the financial institutions that supported them, and a trepidation concerning the permanent threat of revolt. The comfortable bourgeoisie seems to have long felt disturbed by the possibility of herdish multitudes rising up and wresting their comforts from them, a fear no doubt exacerbated by the feeling that the "working classes" were essentially alien, devoid of refinement or the potential for moderation.

Grovelling animals
These Morlocks, the "other" species, were just a kind of animal "with sensual desire and grovelling thought; foul of body and course of soul" (Ruskin, Ad Valorem 79).

Among nineteenth-century thinkers who were human enough to be moved by the condition of the working people, yet not so moved to overcome their prejudices towards them, were Charles Dickens and John Stuart Mill. Dickens, the author of Hard Times, effectively quarrels with the characters Bounderby and Gradgrind for reducing workers to economic and material factors of production, but would he allow those workers the helm of society? The unrestrained multitudes that run amok in A Tale of Two Cities reveal the beast Dickens believed to lurk in the common man. Animals deserve an understanding protector rather than emancipation. J.S. Mill had a similar attitude. Mill’s own life of arduous creative work did not soften him to the view that a fulfilling active life was for the lower orders:

"It is a common error of socialists to overlook the natural indolence of mankind; their tendency to be passive, to be the slaves of habit, to persist indefinitely in a course once chosen . . . they . . . will not exert themselves to improve, and letting their faculties rust, will lose even the energy required to preserve them from deterioration." (Principles of Political Economy, 1848)

Mill was not stupid, but intelligence is a weaker force than prejudice.

Brilliant stupidity

The history of thought is littered with examples of brilliant men thinking stupid things. Another great philosopher who was twisted by bigotry was David Hume:

". . . the poor labour more, and really live better, than in years of great plenty, when they indulge themselves in idleness and riot". (Political Discourses, 1752)

A lesser figure, Arthur Young, preached the orthodoxy as follows:

"Everyone but an idiot knows, that the lower classes must be kept poor, or they will never be industrious." (A Farmer's Tour Through the East of England, 1771)

The most remarkable thing about these insights into the forces governing the behaviour of the toiling classes is how easily the authors exempt themselves from their operation.

Selfless devotion

"Human nature" is for others, not for the sons of the aristocracy who toil at art or criticism or at philosophical tracts on human nature, not for the aspiring middle-classes who devote themselves selflessly to public service or career. No, only the incontinent masses seem to be subject to the universal laws of the human species.

Yet the socialist, perhaps surprisingly also has allies amongst these comfortable intellectual classes. Strangest of them is John Ruskin (1819-1900), ("I am a Socialist of the most stem sort — but 1 am also a Tory of the sternest sort"). Ruskin, cloistered academic and critic, nevertheless had the intellect to challenge the received concept of human nature and labour.

That concept of the guzzler, the idler is the target of Ruskin's biting satire:

"It is proposed to better the condition of the labourer by giving him higher wages. He will either drag people down to the same point of misery at which you found him, or drink his wages away. He will, I know it. Who gave him this will? Suppose it were your own son of whom you spoke, declaring to me that you dared not take him into your firm, nor even give him his just labourer’s wages, because if you did he would die of drunkenness, and leave half a score of children to the parish. ’Who gave your son these dispositions — I should enquire. Has he had them by inheritance or by education?’ By one or the other they must come; anti as in him; so also in the poor. Either these poor are of a race essentially different from ours . . .  or else. . . we make them as continent and sober as ourselves — wise and dispassionate as we are " (Ad Valorem 79)

The notion of the shirking, propagating, drinking, working classes survives down to the present.

The Child Support Agency is clearly a descendant of the fear of feckless scroungers leaving "half a score of children to the parish". For "parish" read "income support" and nothing has changed.

The idea that better wages for workers will not ensue in a riot of drunkenness and fornication receives most surprising support from that guru of laissez-faire economics, Adam Smith (1723-90):

"A plentiful subsistence increases the bodily strength of the labourer, and the comfortable hope of bettering his condition, and of ending his days in ease and plenty, animates him to exert his strength to the utmost. Where wages are high, accordingly we shall find the workmen more active, diligent and expeditious, than where they are low. " (Wealth of Nations, 1776)

This is not a description of an inherently lethargic creature. The tendency of humans to remain endlessly motionless has been greatly exaggerated. A life-time of meaningless slavery and overwork indeed gives an appealing aspect to the possibility of its permanent remission. But we look at life from a distorted position, one of battered submission and a routine of pointless drudgery.

The point of socialism is to remove the malignant influence of capitalism which poisons our attitude to production and alienates us from its purposes.

Satisfaction

The essential purpose of work is not to make profits, and consequently the act of labour is not essentially vile. Labour may indeed be a devil while encased in Mammonism, but freed from that prison, the purpose of work is revealed in a truer light, and is two-fold: firstly to provide the goods of life, whether food, tables, transport, health, books, music or knowledge; and secondly to provide satisfaction in the process of producing these goods.

No work which does not satisfy both these requirements will be considered necessary in socialism. The act of producing goods (as opposed to profits or "bads") is precisely what ensures this satisfaction. This being so, coercion, punishment or persuasion is not necessary for the securing of those human activities essential for the products of civilization. It is not beyond human wit to devise a system to combine our need to work, our need to be valued, our need for regard and for self-regard, with those things which need to be done. It is not beyond our wit to combine our freedom, i.e. our voluntarism, with our needs.

The paradigm shift required to understand the transition from capitalist work to socialist work may however be beyond many a great philosopher. Unfortunately many elderly philosophers suffer from a severe ease of hardening of the categories, and would rather stick to fox hunting than consider a novel idea. In many ways children are better philosophers than their long-robed superiors, since they have not yet become set in their ways.

Higher understanding

One small boy in particular, albeit a fictional one, demonstrates a higher understanding of people’s relation to work than a flock of Oxford dons:

"Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it, namely, that, in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers, or performing on a tread-mill, is work, whilst rolling nine pins or climbing Mont-Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive four-horse passenger coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line, in the summer, because the privilege costs them considerable money; but if they were offered wages for the service that would turn it into work, then they would resign." (Mark Twain: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer).

Norman Armstrong

Oliver: a Fagin Nuisance (2014)

A Short Story from the July 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

It has come to our notice that whilst researching through the effects of an unknown derelict in a London workhouse a completely unreliable socialist has come across the following two part dialogue purporting to be the work of an unsuccessful legal clerk.

F: WELL, young gentleman an’ ‘ow are we this mornin’?

O: Very well, sir. Thank you sir.

F: Ooh! We are quite the gentleman. Ain’t we, Oliver. Not rough and ready like my other young gentlemen. No not at all. Quite the gentleman.

O: When will I be going to work, Sir? Like Dodger and the others.

F: Ah work, Oliver. Perhaps you is too great the gentleman to be working with the likes of us, my boy.

O: Oh no, sir. I’ll work, sir. They taught me at the workhouse that work is an honourable thing, sir.

F: I don’t doubt it , my boy. They are the great ones the workhouse for feeding you on platitudes. And very little else by the looks of you. Taught you ‘the meek shall inherit the earth’, did they, Oliver?

O: Oh yes, sir.

F: Hee ... Hee... ‘Blessed be the poor’.

O: Oh yes, sir.

F: Taught you the parable about the rich man and the camel entering the eye of a needle, did they, Oliver?

O: Oh yes, sir. I remember that one.

F: Hee ... Hee ... That’s a good ‘un. That’s one of their finest. How does it go, young Oliver? The parable. Tell me that one. That’s a good un. No mistake. First class that one.

O: Well, sir if I recall correctly.

F: Recall? Yes that’s the fine talking. Well recall, recall, my boy.

O: Well, sir. It will be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of an needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

F: Capital. That’s capital. Really, Oliver. And what do you make of that parable?

O: Well sir. I’m not sure. What is a parable?

F: Oh, it’s all parables in the workhouse, my boy. The widders mite, bread on the waters, the good samaritan, the prodigal son. Oh, yes very strong on parables .... and corporal punishment and hard labour...... very, very  strong.

O: Excuse me, sir. What is a parable?

F: Well let me see, Oliver. Parable is a story. Usually a very far fetched one. Usually the opposite of the real world. Cast your bread on the waters and they return tenfold. That’s a good un .... Hee ...Hee ... Cast your bread on the waters and all you get is soggy bread. But, no. Not in parables. Everything is the opposite in parables. Parables are stories. Religious stories. I suppose parables are religious fairy tales. But the camel and the needle. What does yir make of that un?  Eh, Oliver, my boy.

O: I think, sir. It means rich men would find it difficult to get into heaven because a camel would be too large to get through the eye of an needle.

F: Sharp, Oliver. Very sharp indeed, my boy. You’re a clever un, and no mistake. But, Oliver what would a camel be doing wanting through the eye of an needle? Having no acquaintance with that creature I would not know its desires ... but all parables strike me as strange. A thread through the eye of an needle. Yes that is useful. But a camel. What would you sew with that?

O: A camel-haired coat.

F: A camel-haired coat?

O: I meant it as a joke, Mr Fagin.

F: A joke? Of course a joke. And a very good un too, Oliver my boy. My aren’t you the sharp one. You should be making your fortunes on the halls. A camel-haired coat. First class.

Unfortunately the unreliable socialist informs us that the unknown law clerk’s belongings have produced no more literary gems as yet.

Richard Donnelly

What Makes a Thug? (1962)

From the May 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

They are still worrying over the young, violent criminal. It is easy to sneer at them, in their conferences bending anxious eyes over statistics. But a young thug is, apart from anything else, a socially ugly person so perhaps it is as well that there is somebody to worry over him and to try to find out why he moves around in his own little nightmare of violence. But the worriers—and this is no sneer never come up with the answer. They hammer away at parents, at schools, newspapers, television. They experiment in methods of treatment and punishment. Yet after this the young thug is still with us, coshing and slashing, and sometimes killing.

Last month, we remember, there was something of an uproar about the television portrayal of Bill Sikes murdering Nancy in the serialised Oliver Twist. Even the Postmaster General criticised the episode in the strongest language. There is some evidence that young people like to try and imitate death scenes which they have seen on T.V. Many adults were uneasy that some youngsters might try to do a Bill Sikes on their girl friends. Perhaps this was being rather unfair to the poor old BBC. At least, the Bill Sikes episode showed passionate murder as it is a messy and obscene business, with human beings behaving like dull beasts. That might put potential thugs off. But it is a different matter with the westerns and some of the crime serials. These make violence seem so much sweeter, less damaging, less violent, in fact. At least, when Bill Sikes throttled Nancy she went out spluttering and struggling. The cowboy or detective hero, on the other hand, can take a thunderbolt on his head, shake himself, blink and smile and recover in time for the next episode.

If this teaches anything, it is that violence is sent to test our manliness. Any influence which television might have upon the criminal figure should surely be credited (if that is the word) to the cops and robbers type of programme.

Yet even when we have said that, we are still a long way from the bottom of the matter. Some months ago a reader of The Guardian wrote to that newspaper criticising the BBC's choice of plays as laying too great an emphasis upon sex, gangsterism and crimes of violence. This letter brought forth a sharp reply from a Reverend Jones, who wrote from The Vicarage at Appleby. There was, said Mr. Jones, another sort of programme in which these things were given prominence: “I refer to the general news." The reverend thought that the broadcasting companies should do their best to play down these aspects or to broadcast them only when adults were likely to be tuned in.

The interesting thing about this letter is that its writer realised that the real world is in parts just as violent and intimidating as any script writer's nightmare scenario. It is not surprising that Mr. Jones missed the point that in real world capitalism violence is unavoidable. To say the least of it, anyone who sets out to teach a child that violence is socially useless has an uphill battle ahead. There is a constant pressure upon all of us to believe that the violence used by capitalism's heroes is glorious and commendable. A battle of Britain fighter pilot can be as violent as he likes. So can a Lovat Commando or a detective roping in a bunch of bank robbers.

Capitalism, in fact, is a violent society, in which war is as much a part of our life as milk is of cheese. And what does war mean? Admiral Jackie Fisher, who it better known as an austere, belligerent sailor, once spoke his mind on the matter. “It's perfect rot," he said, “to talk about Civilised Warfare. You might as well talk about Heavenly Hell! " (Fisher also said, at another time, " . . .  we can only have community of interests in the masses of people always being on the side of peace, because it is the masses who are massacred, not the kings and generals and politicians." which was a strange comment from a man whose job was to send some of the masses to be massacred).

We all grow up now under a cloud of socially organised violence. Our newspapers scream black headlines about fall out and missiles and anti-missiles and anti-anti-missiles. Nobody can feel secure when the world itself staggers from one crisis to another, always with the horrible feeling that the next might be the one to push the fingers down upon the buttons marked FIRE. This is a potent cause for despair and cynicism. Here is one of the roots of criminal violence. Do the worriers, then, speak out on this at their conferences? They are stuck with capitalism, and their hopeless efforts to reform it. They do not, therefore, speak out.

We should not forget that the ground in which capitalism's criminals take root is always well tilled and fertile. Why do people turn to crime? Most of us get our living by going out to work for a wage, which is often a precarious business. Even in boom time we need never be far off a recession which means short time or redundancy. Going out to work can be a boring business. Men can stand all day on the same spot, going through the same simple action time and again. Or they may sit at a desk shuffling the same dull paperwork, with their only prospect of excitement the chance of finding a miscast invoice. Young girls type endless letters and forms or fill up endless boxes of sweets. Yes, going to work for a living is often a precarious, boring, unpleasant business.

Small wonder that so many dream of the big pools win to take them away from it all. And no wonder either that a few decide that the chances against climbing out of the rut by keeping within capitalism’s laws are stacked high enough to justify them trying some other way. Such people are criminal material. Indeed, some criminals have coldly worked it out that they would spend a large part of their life in gaol, rather than give it all up to the nine to five-thirty routine with only a shiny trouser seat to show for it. The criminal, like any law abiding worker, dreams of the easy touch, the job that clicks. Usually it doesn't come off; that is why so many ol them lose their gamble and end up as shambling old lags.

Property rights stand between the criminal and his objective. To get what he wants he is prepared not only to break capitalism's laws. To clinch a Job he will beat up a watchman or cosh a messenger or even kill a cashier. Then if they catch him there is the macabre process of trial and sentence and execution. There is no lack of newspapers, fighting for sales, to give us all the juicy details. And what effect is this supposed to have upon potentially violent criminals? Victor Terry shot down the bank guard at Worthing on the very day that a friend of his was executed for murder. A member of the last Royal Commission on Capital Punishment put it on record that he was finally convinced of the need to abolish hanging when he read the letters, which regularly arrive at the Home Office. applying for the job of public hangman.

We can see that the matter of violence in society is more complex than simply trying to assess the effects upon a young child of watching Bill Sikes do Nancy in. Like so many of the other unpleasant aspects of capitalist society, it is all something of a shambles. But it is a shambles which can be sorted out. The first need is to have a world so organised that human welfare is at the top of the list of social priorities instead of being, as it is now, somewhere near the bottom A world like that would get rid of most violence by simply not having wars and poverty and criminal farms like the slums of the big cities.

When we have done that we can get down to finding out why some (if any) people may be violent. We can look at it for what it is — or should be — a human problem. That will be better than beating or hanging or punishing. It will be better than fussing the kids away from the television set. It will even be better than worrying over statistics in muddled, if well meaning, conferences.

Ivan