Beyond trade unionism (1988)

From the October 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

The poor workers whose job is to paint the Forth Bridge: no sooner have they finished putting fresh paint on to one end than the paint is peeling at the other. It is a never-ending exercise in human frustration. Watching Norman Willis plodding and nodding and huffing and bluffing his way through the Trade Union Congress's annual conference evokes vivid images of those painters.

It is not because trade unions are wickedly corrupt that they achieve so very little. Compared with most institutions under capitalism the unions are remarkably democratic. They do their best. They win a wage increase here; they stop some new. intolerable conditions being introduced into the workplace there, they provide lawyers for the persecuted wage slave; they pick up as many crumbs as they can from the cake which the working class has baked. Without such defensive action the workers would be exploited entirely at the bosses' will. Of course, workers need trade unions.

What unions can do is dictated by capitalism. Indeed, trade unions, far from being something to do with socialism, as the ill-informed believe, are features of the capitalist system. Only where there are two classes — the buyers and sellers of labour power — are unions needed to defend the sale of the workers' sole possession: our ability to work. Wages and salaries are the price which workers are paid for being turned into human commodities, there to form the basis of the affluence which the capitalists derive from profit. Where does profit come from? It comes from the legalised robbery of the working class. It comes from the payment of workers less than the value of what we produce. Trade unions are there to negotiate the rate of exploitation; they exist to preside over the act of robbery and ensure that it is not too vicious, to see that the exploiting minority leave the unexploited wealth producers with enough crumbs to nibble on.

Trade unions cannot bring about ''fairness". Capitalism is fair, insofar as it determines what justice is to mean. What would happen to a trade union official who went to the boss and said. "Look, my members are being paid £130 each a week; by 5pm every Wednesday they have each produced goods worth well over £130 for you; they have even covered your costs of machinery and electricity; why should they work Thursdays and Fridays. Be fair and let them work for what they are paid and no more." The boss would look at the trade unionist as if he had just arrived from the kindergarten and would explain that in this world (under this system) workers are not employed to make them happy but to make profits. Profits come from the workers' unpaid labour. The trade unionist is not entitled to question the employer's right to rob the workers, only to haggle over the rate of robbery.

The Left entertain huge illusions about the power of trade unionism. A picket line to a Trotskyist is like a bone to a dog. It's where things are happening. Picketing is a necessary activity by workers who, when on strike, have a class interest in ensuring that other workers do not take over their jobs. The scab provides safety for the boss and undermines what combined strength the workers can muster. For the Left picket lines are where the class struggle takes place. It is where the horny-handed sons and daughters of toil are to be found. It is where the student-vanguards. equipped with the collected works of Trotsky and a few scraps of Gramsci and the odd Sun article by Derek Hatton, can find proletarian recruits for their Bolshevik fantasies. That is why the Left enthuse about strikes. Sadly, many strikes end in dismal failure. The workers go back defeated, or winning victories which are cancelled by the losses incurred while striking. Even when real victories are won — and trade unions do win real victories more often than is usually realised — all that it amounts to is a return to wage slavery on new terms. There is nothing glorious about strikes or pickets. These are the actions of workers driven to fight for survival. Socialism, which the Left falsely claims to stand for, is about rather more than mere survival.

The "workerism" of the Left, which sees workers only where it sees blue collars and struggle only where it sees strikes, misses the crucial point that the working class comprises not only those men and women who work in factories or offices. The working class are all those who are forced to work to live, including millions who are non-unionised and vast numbers who are self-employed. The Leftist caricature of the cloth-capped, machine-operating worker excludes from its vision workers who look after homes, rear children, are children, are retired, are disabled. are unemployed. . . In other words the working class is far more than what Ron Todd contemptuously calls "our people".

Karl Marx, whom the Daily Express no doubt thinks was an adviser to the NUM, expressed the view that workers must not overstate to themselves the importance of trade unions. At best, trade unionism is a struggle to prevent their living standards being pushed down: "They ought, therefore, not be exclusively absorbed in these unavoidable guerrilla fights incessantly springing up from the never-ceasing encroachments of capital or changes of the market. "Instead of confining themselves to the futile demand for fair wages, which Marx called a conservative demand, they should advocate the abolition of the wages system. (Marx, Value, Price and Profit) That advice is over a century old but it is as valid now as it was when it was written. What point is there in workers endlessly running breathlessly in order to stand still when, with no greater energy, we could demand not a better price for selling ourselves but the right to be free from selling ourselves?

When workers establish socialism all the means of wealth production and distribution will belong to everyone. Instead of working for a boss we will work for ourselves, for the community. Instead of the coercion of the wages system, we shall have a society in which each will work according to his or her ability and take according to his or her needs. Wages will not exist. And without wages to negotiate or bosses to fight, why would there be any need for trade unions to protect us from ourselves? As the owners and controllers of society the people of a socialist community will require no bodies to defend them against the rival interests of a ruling class. There will be no rulers or ruled. Trade unionism will have no role to play.

The Left are of the view that to speak to workers — "ordinary" workers — about such big ideas as abolishing the wages system and creating a society in which trade unionism will have no function is all too much for our little minds. Instead, run campaigns to replace Union Leader A with Union Leader B; spend endless hours manipulating committees and getting Red Ron put in the chair instead of Pink Pete. Instead of organising to remove the system which causes the workers' misery, the Leftists applaud the windy rhetoric of posers who make vague, rhetorical noises against profiteering and "bad" employers. In other words, the Left perpetuate the illusions of trade unionism. Just as at election time they throw aside their revolutionary outfits in favour of a Labour government to run British capitalism, so on the economic field they cannot see further than a bit of pushing and shoving within the wages system.

When workers' consciousness of the need for socialism grows, the form which trade unions take will change. As millions of workers begin to think beyond the limits of the profit system they will ensure that the unions are there to back up the majority will for socialism when it is expressed. Unions whose members are committed to the revolutionary objective of abolishing the system which created them will be able to make plans for how their particular industry or service will be run (or disbanded in the case of useless areas of work, such as banking or ticket collecting) once production for use is introduced; trade unions can be units of planning for socialist society.

It is up to the socialists in their trade unions to constantly urge their fellow workers to look beyond the narrow horizons of wage or salary slavery. To see that beyond the crumbs there is the whole cake and beyond that there is the bakery itself which we should take into our common possession. In the meantime painters will gloomily set about the ceaseless task of painting the Forth Bridge. Norman Willis will complete his apprenticeship for the House of Lords and many, many workers will wonder why they are struggling so much for so very, very little.

Steve Coleman

Letter: Poverty: Its Cause and Cure. (1908)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard 

A criticism criticised.

The review of our pamphlet “Poverty: Its Cause and Cure,” which appeared in your May issue, has been brought to our notice, and as your reviewer accuses us of propounding some flagrant heresies in the name of Socialism, we would like, with your permission, to defend our position in regard to certain points he has dealt with in the review.

In the pamphlet we stated that the causes of poverty were insufficient production, waste, and unequal distribution, all of which causes were in operation in England to-day. Your reviewer differs from us here on the ground that poverty does not afflict society as a whole, but only a portion of it, and he asserts that the poverty of the working class (which appears in his opinion to be the only class afflicted with poverty) is due neither to insufficient production nor waste, but wholly and solely to unequal distribution. Now we contend that poverty afflicts society as a whole, but we are quite willing to agree with your reviewer that only a portion of the members of society feel the effects of poverty ; and the reason of this is unequal distribution. We contend, however, that if an equal distribution of necessaries could be effected, there would still be poverty because of insufficient production and waste. It was therefore in our opinion necessary to show that Socialism, besides ensuring a more equal distribution of income, would increase production and diminish waste.

Your reviewer differs from us as to the manner in which Socialism will be established. He objects to our characterising as absurd the idea that a Socialist Government would be able to socialise all industries within its term of office ; but, having regard to the enormity of the task of socialising all industries, we must confess that we fail to see how any Government, however anxious it might be to establish Socialism, could complete the task within say five or seven years. This does not imply that a majority of opinion could be in favour of capitalism, as your reviewer seems to think, but, nevertheless, we do hold that it would be possible for a majority of the people to be in favour of certain Socialistic measures and at the same time not in favour of the whole of the means of producing and distributing wealth being owned in common and democratically controlled. As we have stated in the pamphlet, there is reason for thinking that Socialism will be realised by the socialisation of such industries as are authorised to be socialised by mandate from election to election.

We are next accused of repudiating the class struggle when we say that the method of Socialism is not to try to force the will of one class upon another class. Now it seems to us impossible to find a section or class of society to which Socialism would not be beneficial, and we think that as the tendency to Socialism becomes stronger it will also become wider, and that the spirit of Socialism—the universal brotherhood of man—will extend not only to members of the working class, but to members of all classes, and unite them on a common ground in the cause of the common good.

A. E. Peters.

A. W. Kersey.

Reply:

In this reply to my criticism of their pamphlet which appeared in the May issue, it is worth noting that no position is advanced that is not contained in that pamphlet, and, moreover, no new evidence is brought forward to uphold the position there taken up. In repeating that poverty is due to insufficient production and waste in addition to unequal distribution, the authors agree “that only a portion, of the members of society feel the effects of poverty, and the reason of this is unequal distribution.” Although this practically amounts to granting me the first point of my criticism, let me state the facts. The estimated total of the wealth produced in this country varies between 1,125 millions and 1,800 millions sterling. The population is about 43 millions. Were the distribution equal the income per head would be, on the low estimate, about £26, and on the high estimate about £42; which for the average family (5 persons) would be equal to a sum of £130 per annum in the one case, and £210 per annum in the other. So far as necessaries are concerned, therefore (and all references to poverty have been references to a lack of.necessaries), the unequal distribution is sufficient to account for poverty, quite apart from waste. Regarding their references to the increase of production, and the decrease of waste, under Socialism, I am quite prepared to agree, remembering that capitalism has been called a system for preventing production rather than a system of production. That, however, was not the point.

In the pamphlet originally under notice, the authors say “the majority of the people must first be converted to Socialist ideas” and “until then, Socialism must be to the legislator not a State, but a guiding principle, and he is prepared to co-operate with any political party which will introduce measures leading in the right direction.” The explanation of this appears in the reply to my criticism, wherein it is stated that “as the tendency to Socialism becomes stronger it will also become wider . . . and will extend . . . to members of all classes.” Here it is assumed that the capitalist class will assist in the realisation of Socialism. With us the assumption is that the capitalist class will fight in defence of its position of social and economic privilege as all previous privileged classes have done, and that the working class must work out its emancipation in the teeth of the opposition of the class which enslaves them. At present the capitalist class is prepared to use any means to safeguard its position, and even if we were to assume that, when the Socialist movement is strong enough, it will, making a virtue of necessity, bow to the inevitable, even then we should be compelled to insist that the movement is primarily that of the working class towards its emancipation, and any member of any section of society must adopt the standpoint of the working class—the socially useful class—to take part in that movement.The idea of Socialism being a guide to the legislator pending the conversion of the majority to Socialism is, therefore, extremely improbable, while the contrary seems much more likely: that the legislator, being a capitalist legislator, will do all that lies in his power to strengthen the position of his class, pending that Socialist majority which will inevitably mean the abolition of the system, the class, and the legislation he stands to support. The establishment of Socialism is dependent upon the majority, when the case will be altered and the majority, through the political machine as being most convenient, will establish Socialism, and not the Government legislating “Socialistic measures” on an unconverted people.

D. K.

Socialist Party Summer School: Whatever happened to the working class? (2003)

Party News from the July 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialist Party Summer School: Whatever happened to the working class?

Fircroft College, Birmingham 11th-13th July 2003

A weekend of talks, discussion and more on the theme of class politics, class identity and changes in the working class here and abroad.

Friday evening: "The working class in the West"

We begin the weekend by looking at the changes in the way we work.

Saturday morning: "The new working class"

Matt Vaughan-Wilson examines the growth of the 'new' working class.

Saturday afternoon: "Is socialism really a class position."

Considers whether we should increase the strength of the movement by putting forward a humanitarian case for socialism.

Saturday evening: "  . . . because you're worth it"

Mike Foster discusses the ingredients and effects of capitalist myth making, and considers what we can do to counter it.

Sunday morning: "Whatever happened to class politics?"

Until recently it was generally accepted that there was such a thing as the working class, Now, though class is rarely mentioned Vince Otter asks, has class politics gone for good?

£105 for the whole weekend, including meals and accommodation

(Concessionary rates available)

On the Building Strike. (1914)

From the July 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

Back in January last the London Master Builders’ Association, together with certain building firms outside the Association, placed before their “hands” a form with the following words inscribed thereon:

“I agree if employed by you, to peacefully work with my fellow employees (engaged either in your direct employment or in that of any sub-contractor) whether they are members of a Trade Society or not, and I agree that I will not quit your employment because any of my fellow employees is or is not a member of any Trade Society ; and I also agree that if I commit any breech of this agreement I shall be subject to a fine of Twenty Shillings, and I also agree that the amount of such fine may be deducted from any wages that may be due to me.”

The reason the masters issued this form was, on their own showing, that great disturbance is caused to their business by the “down tools” policy of their men to make non-unionists join the respective unions of their callings.

Now, as the masters say in the document: “to work peaceably with my fellow employees,” evidently peace is what the masters want—in order to get on with the business. And peace they will probably get, for that gaunt spectre, Starvation, is at work for them in the ranks of the struggling toilers.

The average trade-unionist thinks it is pos­sible to get almost every worker into a trade union either by coercion or by peaceful means. This idea is totally wrong. When the basis of the capitalist mode of production is understood this becomes apparent. The means and instru­ments of wealth production and distribution are owned by the capitalist or master class, and it necessarily follows that production is to be in their interest. Hence an army of unemployed workers is an advantage to them as exercising a powerful influence in keeping wages down. It follows that those who have a hard time of it will in many cases leave the trade unions and take any job that offers, whether it is under the T.U. standard or not.

The class-conscious worker sees no enemy in the non-unionist, but sees the capitalist whip of hunger which sets worker against worker.

The trade-unionist and the non-unionist are alike in this—they support capitalism by sending the master class into power time and time again. It is as plain as a pikestaff that the trade-unionist will presently be agitating for the amalgamation of trade unions, in order to try by “solidarity” to improve their conditions. For, sad to say, it seems so easy to try every method but the right one.

The great fault is that the toilers as a class see no other system than the wages system, and for that reason they play into the hands of the masters in their every action. After every strike they go back (if allowed) chastened, even if not beaten, and commence again with sullen energy to produce wealth for their masters, and in return got a bare subsistence.

It is a mad condition of social life.

The life of the working man, oven when he in regularly employed, is a rotten one, and his poverty is only intensified when he “downs tools.” “You must not quit work,” say the masters, “because of men not holding a ticket,” but you must quit when the masters have no further use for you, and then come the penalties of unemployment—sickness, starvation, worry. There is a far worse document than this one of the Master Builders’ Association which the workers have signed, and have signed willingly. That is the document at the polling booth—a document that gives the masters political power to keep going this hellish system of society, that spells poverty to the workers, and untold wealth to those who employ the slaves of industry.

“A fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay” says the ticket workman. There cannot be any such thing as a fair day’s work until throughout society all able-bodied human beings perform their portion of the work of society. Then, and then only, will society see how it pays to have all work, and therefore all enjoy the social product of mankind’s energy used in a sane manner. Until that time comes—the day of the awakening of the working class—there will be a large number of officials to bleed the ticket men. These officials will endeavour to make it appear that the unions have won victories ; they will cry “organise ! Organise !” and will call the non-unionists scabs and blacklegs ; and all the time they will support this rotten social system, which produces scabs, blacklegs, and hirelings who will preach anything that will give them some advantage over the average wage slave.

So, then, you of the building trades who are suffering from the lockout, realise now that the masters are still masters and you are wage-slaves. With all the tickets you have handled, there still remains to be taken up, the ticket of the class-conscious worker—the ticket of the man who has discovered that the working class will not achieve their emancipation until the capitalist class are wiped out.

Good nature will not do it ; the clapping of hands will not accomplish it. The worshipping of heroes will not bring better times. You must think for yourselves.

It must be the workers as a class who must gain working-class emancipation, by their world­wide collective energy, intelligently used to capture Political power, to make it law that the means of wealth production and distribution shall belong to the people.

S. W.

Socialist Sonnet: No.193 Class Consciousness (2025)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog 

Class Consciousness

In the reign of King Coal and Queen cotton

Class seemed clear, the sons and daughters of toil,

Drawn to industrial towns from the soil,

Knew precisely where all the ill-gotten

Gains from their labours went. To the mansion

Up on the hill, wherein dwelt the owner

Of all gathered below him, the loner

Being driven by capital’s expansion.

That dual monarchy has abdicated,

The mansion’s now a care home. Workers pass,

Too many are convinced, as middle class,

Though capital’s craving must still be sated.

Commodity dealers remain takers

Of profit, from commodity makers.

 

D. A.

Letter: Industrial action (1977)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Industrial action

In your article “Obstacles to Socialist Understanding” in the January 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard you state: “Class consciousness means the recognition of the existence of class society and arising from this the knowledge that political action by the majority based on the clear understanding of Socialism will replace capitalism by a Socialist society".

The first part of this statement is correct but inadequate. The concluding remarks are additionally inadequate and does not pay full service to the introductory part of the statement. It is the knowing of the function of capital and how it does not function in the interests of the working class that is most important. And in knowing this the worker uses constantly his economic knowledge (Socialist understanding of economics) to get as much as he can by all necessary means.

This is political-economic action which is superior to just political action. It brings a showdown and breakdown of capitalism on the industrial-economic field of capitalism. It is at that stage the political action takes over by the introduction of Socialism (common ownership, production only for use, etc.).

While writing, why does the SPGB in a puritanical and snipey way condemn your anarchist correspondent when replying to a letter published in the Jan. issue when he stated of having a society “where there is nothing else but a person’s social habits". The SPGB claims this is being utopian. Yet social habits means needs. And surely under Socialism people will be able to retain or assert their own social habits as it is their needs? Under Socialism, people take according to their needs, which are part of their social habits.

W. J. Street 

London, W9.

Reply:

You give no indication of how industrial action can bring a “showdown and breakdown of capitalism”.

It is quite mistaken to suppose that workers who understand economics can get more out of the capitalist class (some of us wish it were so!). What can be obtained by trade-union action depends on several factors, including the concentration of workers in a particular industry. The biggest factor over-all is the state of production and trade. Wage increases and improvements in conditions are gained with less difficulty in boom periods, when the employers’ order-books are full and they do not want production and distribution held up by disputes. When trade and manufacture are depressed, the employers are more ready to make a fight against demands by workers’ organizations. How would the knowledge that “capital does not function in the interests of the working class” alter this situation?

As you link “political-economic action” with “the worker getting all he can by all necessary means”, presumably you mean the trade unions seeking to bring pressure to bear on governments. Trade-union organization is valuable to the workers in its own field; attempted political action has only a damaging effect on it. Since they are not a political party, the unions which attempt such action must support the policies as a whole of a party which promises legislation favourable to them. If, on the other hand, you have in mind the syndicalist idea of a confrontation between unions and the state, your worker with Socialist understanding will be aware (a) that the majority of workers are not members of trade unions, and (b) that the state has at its disposal the legal machinery, police and armed force. Those circumstances hardly make for breaking down capitalism by that means.

You have misread the reply about anarchism. It criticized a statement by Kropotkin predicting a society where ‘the liberty of the individual will be limited by no laws, no bonds”, and pointed out that this vision of unrestricted individual liberty is incompatible with democratic social organization.

Editors.

Letter: A Case for Labour (1977)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Case for Labour

Why do workers join and support the Labour Party of Britain? Do the workers expect the Labour Party to introduce socialism? Not really: they expect the Labour Party to bring them benefits under the existing political system (capitalism). Is this a worthwhile aspiration? The workers think it is—that’s why they join and support the Labour Party.

The next question is: Does the Labour Party actually bring benefits to the workers? Is it possible for the workers to improve their lot under the capitalist system? Yes, it is. They can struggle and get a greater amount and even a greater share of the values they produce—on the job through the trade-unions and in the political field through the Labour Party. This means that the capitalist class will get a smaller amount and even a smaller share of the values that the workers produce.

If this change in the sharing of the values produced by the workers puts the operation of the capitalist system in jeopardy, makes it unviable, so much the worse for the capitalists. The workers, at this time, simply will take over the government and the economy and install socialism. Socialism will give the workers 100 per cent of the values they create and. incidentally, eliminate the need for the Labour Party.

The SPGB sees only the negative aspects of the Labour Party (betrayal, sellouts, misleadership, no struggle and education for Socialism, etc.). The SPGB sees no positive aspects of the Labour Party (an organization that organizes the workers so that they can struggle for political benefits, etc.) The workers see both the negative and the positive aspects of the Labour Party. The workers see the Labour Party as the present vehicle which will bring them toward a better life. When this vehicle ceases to improve their lot, they will alter the vehicle or change to a new, better one.

J. J. Sternbach,

New York

Reply:

Your letter is based on a number of misconceptions. All references to the Labour Party could equally apply to the Conservative Party. According to current opinion polls and recent by-election results, they have amassed more working-class support than the Labour Party, for just the reasons you give in your opening remarks. We get no further on when you assert that the Labour Party is "an organization that can and sometimes does, struggle for political benefits for the workers” when you singularly fail to give instances of any “benefits.” You will be aware that the present Labour Government’s message to British workers is that living standards must fall and wage claims are to be limited to less than 10 per cent. (they are running inflation at approximately 17 per cent.), while productivity should increase so as to encourage investment and profitability. Profits, you will note, belong to the capitalist class as do the means of wealth production and distribution and this fundamental relationship has never been seriously challenged by the Labour Party or its supporters. Your charitable view of them does not measure up to reality.

Your view of the workers gradually acquiring more and more of the share of the values they produce under capitalism is not to the point. What has not altered is the basic pattern of ownership of wealth, which has remained substantially the same since the formation of the Labour Party. While the position of the worker relative to, say, his grandfather has improved, so has that of the capitalist and his grandfather.

The reference to a "change in the sharing” of values does not take into account the capitalists’ economic considerations. While the owners have a trade and manufacturing boom they are more likely to concede wage demands; it is precisely when individual concerns are less ‘‘viable” because trade is in a depression that the capitalist will resist workers’ demands more keenly. Even before he is pushed to the limit, he will begin to lay-off men. Beyond this he may shut down altogether and wait for an improvement. Note the contrast between your view that workers will simply take over the economy and the real situation where trade-union leaders are agreeing to hold down wage demands while the Labour Government attempts to feel its way through the depression and reduce the massive unemployment figures.

It is simply not a question of the honourable (or otherwise) intentions of the Labour Party and its individual members. It is a political party committed to running a capitalist system of society. While workers can be persuaded that this is a worthwhile exercise they will be rewarded with the crumbs which fall from the capitalist’s table and told to be grateful for them. The workers are not stupid as you say; that is one good reason for continued work in putting the Socialist case.

Editors.

The Blight of Snobbery. (1907)

From the May 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

An Organisation of “Respectable” Workers.

Notwithstanding our past efforts to point the more excellent way to the Railway Clerks’ Association, that organisation of the more “respectable” railway employees, like the ploughman of the famous Elegy, still continues to pursue its dull and melancholy way. Its latest lucubration makes it clear that although as their watch-word in large capitals informs us “Association is the law of Progress,” it does not follow that progress must accompany association. Intellectual progress (the analogy is intended to be void of offence) would not, for example, result from wooden heads be they never so closely associated. A silk purse is not the outcome of the association of sows’ ears. Two years ago we gently argued with the R.C.A. in an endeavour to show that its position was unhappy and untenable, yet to-day it comes along with pretty much the same sort of fallacious pronouncement. It has had two years of association but that has not connoted progress—of intellect anyhow.

This is its statement of some reasons why railway clerks should combine–preferably in the R.C.A. :—

“On nearly every railway there are evidences of reactionary tendencies which will become very detrimental to the welfare of the clerical Staff unless steps are taken to counteract them. Salaries are being kept down, staff reduced, holidays made more difficult to obtain, returns are multiplied, and office work made heavier and more complicated every year. Sunday business increases without any extra remuneration being allowed to clerks who are called upon to sacrifice their Sabbath. Girl clerks are introduced to keep down the standard of the men, and the word “Economy” is abused wherever opportunity allows. 

Instead of Railway Clerks participating in the general improvement of trade and the increase of National wealth, their condition is either stationary or declining while Railway revenues are steadily advancing. Prospects of promotion diminish every year through the introduction of young men from universities who have undue preference over experienced capable men amongst the general staff.”

Excepting that it seems to be assumed that if railway clerks would but join the R.C.A. they would participate in the increase of National wealth—an absurd assumption of course—this statement, doubtless, fairly represents some of the conditions of railway clerical labour. It is what we should expect to find seeing that railway clerks are in the same position as any other section of the working class—the position of an exploited or robbed class. In common with the rest of the workers they have to sell their labour-power for wages, and any hardening of their conditions simply means that the capitalist class, who buy their labour-power, are endeavouring to squeeze a little extra surplus value out of the deal—whether the exigencies of industrial conflict necessitate such squeezing in order that dividends may be maintained, doesn’t matter for present purposes.

The Roots of Capitalist Philanthropy.

The operation may be ill-advised from a capitalist point of view. It might be better business for them to make, for example, the surroundings of their employees more congenial; but they, naturally, would only consider that matter favourably if they could see that it was possible to get greater profits out of the improvement. It is their concern for profits which is the actuating motive, not the increased comfort and happiness of their wage-slaves, and they may be relied upon to make any such alterations in their own interests without any assistance from an organisation of employees.

The R.C.A. or any other such body presumably does not exist for the purpose of informing the master class of the best means of getting larger profits. Seeing that all profit is obtained from the exploitation of the workers, they (the workers) are not concerned with being party to the increase of that robbery—not unless they are very stupid. It is no advantage to them if they are translated into conditions which enable them to speed up their energies to permit of three days’ work being done in two, when, as is inevitable, the speeding-up process results in the production of an earlier state of decrepitude. They are concerned, or should be, in securing, if possible, some real advantage—a benefit which has no counterbalancing loss.

If we are agreed so far, it will at once be seen that such benefit cannot be obtained except at the expense of capitalists’ profits. And the capitalist is not going to relinguish any portion of the profits, upon which his existence depends, without a struggle. Into this struggle the worker, out for increased benefits, must fling himself willy-nilly. There is no other way for him. He cannot achieve his purpose by “blarney,” by pleading the misery of his lot, by appealing to the “higher nature” of his employer. Capitalism knows no higher nature. It only knows higher profits. The worker has got to go into the struggle. And his measure of success will be the measure of his appreciation of the conditions of the conflict.

The Class Struggle.

The conditions of the conflict are simple. He is fighting as a worker against the capitalist whose interests are absolutely and entirely opposed to his own. It is not a fight of individuals either. It is not him versus his employer. If it were he would go under at once because his employer has always the unemployed reserve to fall back upon and all he has to do is to sack his “hand” and get a new one from the hungry crowd clamourously appealing for work outside. It is not even a section of workers against a section of capitalists. Threaten a section of the institution of profit-mongering seriously, and immediately the capitalist section becomes a capitalist class with all the forces that Capital can command hurrying up to the defence of one of its citadels. The sectional struggles of the workers since the rise of capitalism are in evidence as proof of this. A Tory mine-owner (Masham) calls upon a capitalist Liberal Government for help against his striking workers, and in a twinkling we have the soldiery shooting down the workers in revolt. Scores of cases could be cited if space allowed.

The struggle then is between class and class. When the workers recognise that, they will have appreciated the conditions of their battle and will organise their forces on a class basis accordingly. As it is they organise sectionally, enter the fight sectionally, and are beaten in detail by the opposing forces acting in concert, with their economic power buttressed by political power controlling the armaments of the country. The working class in such circumstances are in a condition of pitiable impotence. Under the direction of leaders either fraudulent or ignorant they waste their substance and their strength with a recklessness at once prodigal and imbecile. And if as a result of repeated efforts repeatedly smashed, they fall back hopeless, dispirited, apathetic, what wonder is it ?

But even if any ground existed for the supposition that sectional fights might be productive of good, it would be at once conceded that the larger the section, the better the chances of success. If the railway workers could take sectional action for sectional benefit to themselves as railway workers, it would surely be allowed at once that such action ought to be taken by the whole of the railway workers. The larger the association, the more effective the action— that is always argued by the trade union leaders. And yet we have the Railway Clerks’ Association coming along to railway workers, mouthing “union is strength” and the rest of the inconsequentialities of trade union stock-in-trade, to urge that a section of a section should organise themselves separately—without connection with any other firm in the same street !

How Not to Organise.

Here is the acme even of trade union absurdity. Railway clerks must combine separately. In the name of the ten-a-penny gods, why? Because their interests are separate and distinct from the interests of the rest of railway workers ! Really, I hardly know whether this is rant or cant or fustian. The interests of clerks are as distinct from those of engine drivers as the interests of platelayers are distinct from those of porters—neither more nor less. Therefore—a platelayers’ union, and a carriage washers’ union, and a porters’ union, and two or three score other unions in the same industrial section ! Why not ?

The fact is, of course, that the R.C.A. is endeavouring to play up or down to the “respectability” of the clerk. He doesn’t wear corduroys—therefore his interests are different. He wears a black coat —which, perhaps, poor devil, he hasn’t paid for—and therefore his ways are not the ways of the carman who, probably, wouldn’t have a coat at all if the Company in its large-hearted charity didn’t supply him with one. He is a superior person our railway clerk, and must be treated “as sich.”

Of course, this cult of the bob-tailed coat is a live thing with railway clerks or the R.C.A. would be unable to exploit it. But it is none the less a manifestation of clerkly ignorance, not less but more pitiably ludicrous because it is crowned with the stove-pipe hat of caste. Clerks, railway or other, will have to recognise the essential unity of their interests with those of the more horny-handed sons of labour if they are to effect any material change in their condition. As members of the working class themselves there is no progress for them apart from the general advance of their class. Any organisation they may be associated with not based upon this conception of class solidarity coupled with the recognition of the conditions of the conflict they are consciously or unconsciously participating in to-day—conditions briefly set out in the foregoing—is not an organisation at all for their purposes. It is simply a delusion and a snare from which, when wisdom comes, they will flee—after giving it a parting kick as a mark of their esteem.

R.C.A. Fatuity.

Does the Railway Clerks’ Association give even a fleeting intimation, of its recognition of the essentials of working-class organisation? To that question we have to answer to-day as we have answered before—not one. On the contrary it seems to lay itself out to shew that more appalling stupidity, more abysmal ignorance can find lodgement in the clerical breast—or that part of their anatomy clerks usually think with—than in the mental fit-up of any other species of proletarian. The public pronouncement previously referred to after detailing some of the reasons for organisation on the part of railway clerks, goes on with sublime fatuity (or stupendous cheek) to say—

“The Association advocates nothing of a character likely to be detrimental to proper discipline or the best interests of the Railway Companies, and one of its aims is to promote a better understanding between Directors, Officers and Staff.”

Is there any “Labour” organisation maintaining itself leech-like upon working-ignorance anywhere, that can beat that for folly ? Here are workmen acquiescing in the announcement made by their leaders with an air of authoritative wisdom to the effect that on the one hand out of their own pence the men are voluntarily creating an organisation for the purpose of looking after the best interests of their employers, while on the other they assert they have entered into association to protect themselves against their employers ! Apparently the R.C.A. is of opinion that the best way to fight the employer is to kill him with kindness—a method for which, perhaps, something might be said if the employer under such treatment did not take so unconscionable a time in dying.

And this is the organisation which railway clerks are strongly pressed to join ; an organisation without a glimmer of understanding of the working class position ; an organisation whose idea of association is to sub-divide the working class into as many sections and sub-sections as the numerical strength will allow ; an organisation that conducts its campaign against capitalism by studying the best interests of capitalism and modifying its own action to conform to the requirements of those best interests ! How the board-rooms must ring with the laughter of the great-hearted Directors when the news comes in of the steps their clerical workers are taking to secure some amelioration in their hard condition. Small wonder that Directors of Companies sat at one time—whether they do or not, now, does not appear in the document under notice—in the presidential and vice-presidential chairs of the R.C.A.—it was most excellent good business for them.

And small wonder also that such an organisation should have as its most prominent fugleman, the nominee of a person of so malodorous a reputation as the President of the Local Government Board. Alderman W. J. West, J.P., the nominee referred to, is the President of the R.C.A. and under the aegis of Burns stood as L.C.C. candidate for Battersea, vice Burns himself, (who had been called to higher things by his too satisfied capitalist paymasters). We had the satisfaction of doing something toward the defeat of Mr. West’s pseudo-Progressive and confusionist candidature, just as we hope to have the satisfaction of doing something toward defeating the work of Mr. West’s pseudo-labour confusionist organisation.

The Duty o£ the S.P.G.B.

That is our business in life as a Socialist Party. We are out to combat working-class error, and invincible though the error seems when manifested in such appalling pronouncements as the one quoted from above, we are by no means dismayed. To some number we who form the S.P.G.B. are clerks ourselves and have some intimate knowledge of the forces which operate to produce in the clerk that sense of snobbish superiority which is so pitiable because based upon such slender ground—as the clerks themselves make patent every time they “spread” themselves to achieve dialectical effects in political or economic discussion. As the Emerald Islander would put it, “they can never open their mouth without putting their foot in it.” Break down the fancy line of caste, however, let in upon him the light of the Socialist philosophy that raises (or reduces) the man with the hoe to the level of the man with the pen, and the clerk takes his place with the rest of the working class and may be relied upon to do his share in the work of breaking down the society forms behind which the forces of capitalism lie entrenched, and setting to utter rout those forms thus unmasked.

The Only Hope.

We despair neither of the clerk nor the navvy. Pressure of economic forces will compel him to cast about for the, means of economic salvation, as in fact it is doing to-day, and although his untutored efforts may be temporarily arrested by charlatan or fool and his energies switched off and wasted in absurd organisations of the type of the R.C.A., it must occur that, in the result, for the very simple reason that the Socialist Party alone holds the solution of the industrial problem, he must turn to the Socialist Party for the way of escape. The Socialist Party alone can explain the phenomena of economic cataclysm. The Socialist Party alone can unravel the tangled skein of working-class hardship and poverty and insecurity. And in the Socialism they advocate can adequate and final remedy be found. “There is no other name given under Heaven whereby we may he saved” except Socialism.

Our appeal to the clerks of the R.C.A. and to every other memher of the exploited working class is that they should concentrate their mental energies upon a fair and full consideration of the Socialist position. The result will be sure. It will he death to the Railway Clerks’ Association and all other such causes of working-class confusion, but it will mean life to the railway clerk and to the rest of the proletariat.

A. James

More Fabian Notes. With Some Fabian Notions. (1907)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following letter from a gentleman who suggests that our regard for common honesty will move us to the desired point of publication has been passed to me. If he had appealed to our regard for an uncommon honesty it would have been more to the point. However, here is the communication : —

Dear Comrade,

I am a regular reader of the “Standard” (the monthly, not the daily), and in the current issue I see that one of the features of the March issue is to be an interesting letter on “Why Every Other Political Party is Hostile to the S.P.G.B.”

In part the answer is supplied by some of the writings in the Party’s official organ—your own paper. I admire unfettered thinking, and clear, incisive writing, but I wish to lodge a respectful protest against the column-and-a-half entitled “Fabian Notes” in the February issue. It embodies either a ridiculous misapprehension of a sentence used by Mr. H. Snell (and quoted), or a wilful distortion of his obvious meaning—for the purpose of discrediting the Fabians in general. Even if an individual member did entertain the ideas attributed to Snell, it is grossly unfair to brand the whole society on such evidence.

The quotation from Snell’s speech was as follows : “The government of the future will be by experts and we, naturally, want to be the experts.” In this sentence, “we” most certainly means Socialists generally, and not members of the Fabian Society in particular. Under the Socialist State (unless people should revert to a very simple life—which is unlikely), it is certain that experts will be needed—in manufacture, in the arts, and even in distribution. There will be no government in any sense approximating to the present class government. And during the transitional stage, which has now commenced (with the growth of trusts on the one hand, and of municipal enterprises on the other), it is equally certain that experts are needed ; and it was to this aspect that Snell’s remark had special reference, for if one thing seems specially obvious in this matter, it is that the workers—the real producers—will receive a nearer approximation to justice under a Socialist than under an individualist; but, just as obviously, the Socialist expert is likely to be passed over, if his principles are known and put into practice. The implication is, that the experts must be converted to Socialism, just as the workers must be : and in this direction the Fabian Society is doing sound work (although its work covers much ground in other directions also).

Whether, under Socialism, the expert would be paid at a higher rate than the “ordinary” worker, is a question which is really not raised by Mr. Snell. I would give my own answer to the question by asking another: Why should he be ? That his abilities are of a less common kind than those of the men who work under his direction, supplies no ethical claim for special treatment. Generally speaking, the work of the expert (as of the artist) is agreeable : he is impelled to do it: and he will give his best howsoever he be rewarded. I, and many who think like me, would have a high reward accorded to the scavenger rather than to the expert.

Your leading article, “The Quintessence of Socialism,” gets to the root of the matter. Until all industries are socialised, and their control won by the workers, the nationalisation (or municipalisation) of isolated industries will be of little service. The best to be hoped of the latter is that conditions shall be somewhat superior to those in the corresponding privately-owned industries—and even that is too seldom attained. The moral is : Unite, for Socialism and Democracy; accept all palliatives offered, but be sparing of thanks, for the most that will be conceded falls far short of the just claims of the workers.

Nevertheless, to preach hatred of the bourgeoisie or the so-called “upper” classes or to foster misunderstandings or “bad feeling” between class and class is both impolitic and immoral. All classes include Socialists—genuine Socialists. So far as the well-to-do are concerned—the people who stand to gain nothing tangible from the victory of Socialism—I ask, why decry those who adhere to the cause “for righteousness sake,” and for no other reason ?

Yet another, and a practical reason for preaching class-consciousness rather than class-hatred, is the immense numbers of “hangers-on” of the wealthy—those who produce useless luxuries for the “upper” classes or who minister directly to their comfort. These, too, are underpaid and oppressed : and the serious part of it is that they are rapidly increasing (in consequence of the growing aggregation of wealth in capitalistic hands). Yet their apparent interest, in the immediate future at any rate, lies in perpetuating existing conditions. These also need to be converted—must be converted, if Socialism is to be won ; for they are too numerous to be disregarded. At present they appear to be about the most impermeable classes of the whole community : they are unlikely to be moved by mere rancorous abuse of their “masters,” but in the long run they must be amenable to reason. (As my letter has dealt largely with an attack on the Fabian Society, I may say—to anticipate a possible gibe—that I do not think the Society either tries or expects to make much impression on the classes in question—though ultimately, perhaps, the impression may be made through their masters).

Whilst preaching the Class War, then, it is imperative that the constructive and idealistic side of Socialism should also be emphasised. In the Socialist State, none (save the shirkers) will be worse off than at present—in all that really makes the happiness of existence : but it will uplift the toilers almost beyond their most daring visions.

I plead, therefore, for union and co-operation within the movement—with free but not ill-natured criticism of each other when differences arise.

Yours fraternally,

Fabian Free.

Reply:

As the blushing author of the article referred to I beg to thank “Fabian Free” for his “free but not ill-natured criticism,” the more so because with almost overwhelming magnanimity he gives me the choice of two labels, I am, it seems, either a liar or a fool—whichever I please. (As a lover of “clear, incisive writing” “Fabian Free” will appreciate the merit these easily understood terms possess over “ridiculous misapprehension” and “wilful distortion.”) And that is very sweet and comradely in my good-natured critic. There have been gentle Fabians who have given me no such freedom of selection.

But notwithstanding this much appreciated concession for the sake of “union and co-operation within the movement,” (which the gods forbid that I should attempt to disturb), I will venture a free and not ill-natured rejoinder in the hope that I may be successful in making my “grossly unfair” conduct appear a little less reprehensible. I hope “Fabian Free” will bear with me.

Now it seems that when Mr. Snell said “we naturally want to be the experts” who will govern in the future, he most certainly meant Socialists generally and not Fabians in particular. Did he ? And how does “Fabian Free” know that ? Will he be greatly surprised to learn that Mr. Snell “most certainly” meant nothing of the sort ?

When Mr. Snell made the statement he was describing the special function of the Fabian Society as distinguished from all other Socialist and pseudo-Socialist parties whose origin and work he was at the moment outlining. If his words had any meaning at all they made it emphatically clear that Mr. Snell was of the opinion that the particular duty laid upon the Fabian Society on whose behalf he was speaking, was that of the training of the expert who was, he thought, to govern in the future.

This may, of course, be a wilful distortion or a ridiculous misapprehension of the function of, and grossly unfair to, the Fabian Society, but that is not my affair. “Fabian Free” had better take the matter up with his Executive Committee, who will then probably restrain their unhappy fugleman. But I think it more likely that “Fabian Free” will receive the shocking intimation that the Executive of his Party share Mr. Snell’s view. In which case “Fabian Free” will perhaps apologise to Mr. Snell and withdraw from the Fabian Society—and perhaps not. However that may be, I trust he will not trouble to apologise to me. I don’t matter. Besides, I’m used to being called names—especially by good-natured comrades of other parties. It’s their little way of ensuring union and cooperation in the movement.

For the rest, “Fabian Free” does not appear to have profited by his regular reading of this paper, and therefore fails to realise that “clear and incisive” style which is his admiration and our normal method. His meaning is often, if he will allow me to say so, obscure, and is not made more apparent by repeated use of the word “obviously” or its equivalent. It is a little—may I say—ludicrous, to keep on making the strenuous assertion that obviously it is so-and-so when obviously it isn’t. It is like crying peace when there is no peace. But I will try my ‘prentice hand at digging his argument out.

Let us assume Mr. Snell meant what “Fabian Free” says he meant. So. “The government of the future” applies only to the transition stage. It is for this stage that the Socialist expert is required. Yet in this stage “Fabian Free” agrees the working class can be little if anything better off. Why ? Because while capitalism holds the causes of poverty and working-class unhappiness remain. Therefore your Socialist expert under capitalist conditions, because he can do no more than administer capitalist laws, is of no more use than a non-Socialist expert. And as under Socialism “there will be no government in any sense approximating to the present,” the Socialist governmental expert of the transition period will then find himself without visible means of subsistence !

It seems to a plain person like myself a dreadful waste of effort to labour in the conversion and training of Socialist governmental experts who are useless to day and for ever. They had far better take my advice and apply themselves to the acquisition of some useful trade.

And I cannot allow “Fabian Free” for one purpose to limit Mr. Snell’s statement to a certain machinery in a certain stage and for another to apply it in a broader sense to a different stage. I am quite ready to have at him with a free and not ill-natured criticism on any question of working-class interest he likes to raise, but he must keep to his premise or definitely relinquish it. If Mr. Snell’s statement referred, as I believe it did, to government under Socialism,—that at any rate was the impression left not with myself alone, by Mr. Snell’s clear and incisive oratory,—”Fabian Free” may deal with my article from that standpoint, and I will deal with him—very happy for the chance, I’m sure. (And then perhaps I shall be able to get him to explain what the Dickens he means by his Socialist expert under Socialism being overlooked because his principles were known.) If the statement referred to the ante-Socialist period, as “Fabian Free” asserts, then the question of the remuneration of the governmental bureaucrat does not arise. The industrial expert under Socialism is a different person from the governmental expert. The first, adequately defined, may be allowed. The second is the person we are talking about. If “Fabian Free” desires to drub me on him, let him wade in. I’ve still got an old pencil stump and a piece of paper left to me by the friendly broker’s man.

“Fabian Free’s sixth par is, I admit, a fair contribution to incisive writing and displays at once the unfortunate misapprehensions existing in the writer’s mind. To talk of hatred of the bourgeoisie being impolitic and immoral is piffle. The hatred is simply an expression, a natural and inevitable expression, of detestation of what “Fabian Free” admits is a wrong, viz., the subjugation and robbery of one class by another. To point this out and emphasize its purport is not immoral—if there be any meaning left in that ill-used word. Nor is it impolitic—unless “Fabian Free” desires to suggest that it is unwise to tell the truth. True all (read both) classes may prima facie, include Socialists, but members of the capitalist class are only Socialists to the extent that they vacate their class position and go over to the working class.

I will argue this point at greater length if “Fabian Free” wishes it, later, and will only say here that the number of people who are Socialists “for righteousness sake,” large though it appears to “Fabian Free,” will dwindle almost to a vanishing point under scrutiny, and come out from the ordeal mainly as a congregation of individuals who have decided that anyhow, to use “Fabian Free’s” own words, they will not be worse off under Socialism, but might be considerably better. Holding as we do that material interests are, in the final analysis, at the root of all human actions, we can quite understand the existence of men in the ranks of the bourgeoisie who can see the advantages of Socialism, and are prepared to fight their own class in order to realise it. Their help is not rejected, but it is not necessarily of more consequence than the help of a similar number of the working class. On the other hand, however, it must not be forgotten that men of the capitalist class have come out ostensibly to help but actually to wreck, if possible, the working-class movement. Therefore, recruits from that quarter should be dealt with circumspectly.

The important point to be remembered in this connection is, that the Socialist movement is absolutely and entirely a working-class movement. It expresses the struggle of the working class against the exploiting capitalist class, and must finally result in the triumph of the workers and the extermination of the capitalists.

Nor can we gild the Socialistic pill for the benefit of the flunkey class. Their material interests will probably keep them bound to their masters until pressure of economic forces, already perceptibly operating, compels them to see that their sole hope, also lies in Socialism. They will have to swallow the pill willy-nilly. And if they then discover, as they will, that there is nothing nauseating in the operation, so much the better.

For our part we will tell them the truth (when we can get at ’em) as straight and clear as we tell it to any other section of the people. That is our business—the only reason for our existence. And not even for “Fabian Free,” much though we should value his union and co-operation, will we depart from our habit of calling a spade a spade, or a labour misleader a fraud, or a Fabian a bureaucrat, or an I.L.P.-cum-L.R.C’er a man on the bounce, or an S.D.F. palliative-monger a confusionist.

And that, gentle “Fabian Free,” if you particularly want to know, is in brief the reason why every other party is opposed to the S.P.G.B. and the S.P.G.B. is opposed to every other party.

A. James

Party News: The Socialist Party's Summer School (2024)

Party News from the July 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our understanding of the kind of society we’re living in is shaped by our circumstances: our home, our work, our finances, our communities. Recognising our own place in the economy, politics and history is part of developing a wider awareness of how capitalist society functions. Alongside an understanding of the mechanics of capitalism, political consciousness also involves our attitude towards it. Seeing through the ideologies which promote accepting our current social system requires us to question and judge what we experience. Realising that capitalism doesn’t benefit the vast majority of people naturally leads on to considering what alternative society could run for the benefit of everyone.

The Socialist Party’s weekend of talks and discussion explores what political consciousness is, how it arises and what we, as a class and as individuals, can do with it.

• Keith Graham on Political Consciousness: What Can We Learn From Marx?
• Brian Gardner on ‘They Are Many, We Are Few’: The Political Consciousness Of The Capitalist Class?
• Paddy Shannon on Political Consciousness - Could GenZ Be Onto Something? 
• Darren Poynton on Socialist Consciousness, Solidarity And Democratic Virtues

Our venue is the University of Worcester, St John's Campus, Henwick Grove, St John's, Worcester, WR2 6AJ.

Full residential cost (including accommodation and meals Friday evening to Sunday afternoon) is £150; the concessionary rate is £80.

Book online at worldsocialism.org/spgb/summer-school-2024/ or send a cheque (payable to the Socialist Party of Great Britain) with your contact details to Summer School, The Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High Street, London, SW4 7UN. Day visitors are welcome, but please e-mail for details in advance. 

Email enquiries to spgbschool@yahoo.co.uk.

Party News: The Socialist Party's Summer School (2024)

Party News from the March 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our understanding of the kind of society we’re living in is shaped by our circumstances: our home, our work, our finances, our communities. Recognising our own place in the economy, politics and history is part of developing a wider awareness of how capitalist society functions. Alongside an understanding of the mechanics of capitalism, political consciousness also involves our attitude towards it. Seeing through the ideologies which promote accepting our current social system requires us to question 

and judge what we experience. Realising that capitalism doesn’t benefit the vast majority of people naturally leads on to considering what alternative society could run for the benefit of everyone.

The Socialist Party’s weekend of talks and discussion explores what political consciousness is, how it arises and what we, as a class and as individuals, can do with it.

Our venue is the University of Worcester, St John's Campus, Henwick Grove, St John's, Worcester, WR2 6AJ.

Full residential cost (including accommodation and meals Friday evening to Sunday afternoon) is £150; the concessionary rate is £80.

Book online at worldsocialism.org/spgb/summer-school-2024/ or send a cheque (payable to the Socialist Party of Great Britain) with your contact details to Summer School, The Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High Street, London, SW4 7UN. Day visitors are welcome, but please e-mail for details in advance. 

Email enquiries to spgbschool@yahoo.co.uk.

50 Years Ago: Bax on Class (1954)

The 50 Years Ago column from the October 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Classes exist; you may ignore them, but they will exist still with the respective characters they engender. Though you ignore them, they will not ignore you. . . .  In the Socialist workmen the class-instinct has become transformed into the conviction that, in the words of Lassalle, ‘he is called to raise the principle of his class into the principle of the age.' He knows that in the moment of victory—of the realisation of the dominion of his class—the ugly head of class itself must fall, and society emerge. Militant, his cause is identified with class; triumphant with Humanity." (Quoted from “Socialism and Ethics,” by E. Belfort Bax.)

(From the Socialist Standard, October, 1904.)

Class-Consciousness. (1905)

From the December 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

Class-consciousness is a term widely quoted and almost equally widely misunderstood. A thorough knowledge of all that it implies is essential if we want to understand why our Declaration of Principles lays it down that we are absolutely opposed to all other political parties. We are in. opposition because they are not class-conscious. They do not recognise the existence of the class struggle, the social war in which we all, willy-nilly, are engaged. Many of their actions, professedly designed to benefit the working-class, have, as a matter of fact, a directly opposite effect. We have so-called Socialist parties in existence, whose programme no Radical would hesitate to endorse. The palliatives which they put. forward as necessary steps in the evolution of the Socialism that is “coming as a thief in the night,” have in a number of cases, already a place on the statute books of capitalist governments. Where is it found that they have been of appreciable benefit to the working-class ? An instance has yet to be found. And yet these parties continue to chase their immaterial Will-o’-the-Wisps, leaving the question of the emancipation of their class untouched, which, after all, is but natural. They are not class-conscious, and until they are the chances are all in favour of them being on the wrong road rather than the right.

This is seen more clearly when specific instances are taken, instances which afford much food for reflection. If it were not so indicative of pitiable ignorance, what could be more amusing than the exhibition of class-unconsciousness presented by the engineers, when they voted for the political return of their employer whilst they were at the same time engaged in an industrial battle with him. Tired of him as a sergeant, they made him a field-marshal, putting him in charge of the police, the military, and all other clubs that are used to batter in the heads of the recalcitrant workers.

The I.L.P. openly deny the class struggle. Of course, they are willing to modify this view—when they wish for representation at the Amsterdam Congress. But ordinarily they designate the man who preaches the class-war as visionary, firebrand, disrupter, etc. Their conduct is a fairly plain guide as to how far they are class-conscious. In Willesden at the present time they are pointing out the advantages of extended municipal control. Curiously enough the municipal employees do not appear to be enthusiastic over the advantages. They turn out in a miserable drizzle to demonstrate with band and banner for a living wage. The S.D.F. is a body admitting the class-struggle in word but repudiating it in act. How the party with such a record of intrigue and compromise can reconcile their action with the class-war doctrine at first sight appears, incomprehensible. It can only be explained on the ground that they have no clear conception of what the class-struggle is, or that they are prepared to deliberately sell working-class interests.

No class-unconscious party can be representative of the interests of the working-class. The capitalist-class is essentially class-conscious. They recognise that their position as rulers is purely relative to and dependent upon the existence of a class subservient to them. Just so soon as the workers realise that they are the subservient class ; that they are the producers of the sustenance which is greedily grabbed by the parasitical shirkers who rule them: just so soon shall we begin to see things. “The great are great to us because we are on our knees. Let us therefore rise.” We call upon every man who is conscious that the working-class and the capitalist-class have interests mutually antagonistic, to join The Socialist Party of Great Britain, to drop his shackles and stand erect. Mr. Balfour has just shown how to be class-conscious. “We can do nothing for you,” he says, and he is quite right. The only surprising thing about the utterance is that the meaning is so clear. It makes the alternative equally clear. Workers of England, don’t plaintively appeal to the enemy for assistance. Don’t ask them if they would be so good as to stop plundering you for a time. You have their answer: ”we can do nothing for you.” Organise in a class-conscious party, The Socialist Party of Great Britain, and do something for ourselves.

W. T. Hopley

A Travesty of Trade Unionism. (1905)

From the May 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent sends a packet of literature explanatory of the objects and methods of the Railway Clerks’ Association. It is claimed that this association will serve to secure some betterment of the conditions of clerical workers on railways. It is a Trade Union for railway clerks.

Now a Trade Union is an organisation rendered necessary by the pressure of the capitalist or exploiting class upon the class they employ and exploit—the working-class. This pressure is the result of the constant endeavour of the capitalist-class to squeeze ever greater profits from the labour of the working-class, and expresses itself in the prolongation of working hours, in the reduction of wages, or if an increase of hours or a reduction of wages are not possible, in the maintenance of both in, so far as is possible, a stationary condition, irrespective of the increase in the productivity of labour.

In exercising this pressure the capitalist-class are but functioning as a class of exploiters whose wealth is derived solely from the labour of those they exploit. In combining in a Trade Union to prevent, if possible, any reduction of their standard of comfort, any hardening of their conditions of life, or to obtain where practicable some larger share of the wealth they create, the working-class are but taking the precautionary defensive or aggressive measures natural to an exploited class.

The capitalist-class are fighting to increase or maintain their powers and privileges ; and as these can only be maintained or increased at the expense of the working-class, their greatest concern is to keep the latter in subjection ; to prevent them improving their position, except in-so-far as that improvement is necessary to to capitalists. On the other hand, the working-class are fighting for the best conditions they can get; to improve those conditions if possible, and to prevent them being adversely affected in any event. And as they cannot improve their position, or for that matter maintain it, except in opposition to and at the expense of, the class above them, they are in necessary conflict with that class.

Obviously then, the antagonism of interest existing between these two classes must prevent any intermingling except in conflict. It would be absurd for the officers of one army to be in the innermost councils of the other. Hitherto, although the working-class combined in English Trade Unions have been very far from conscious of their class interests, a sense of hostility has kept them from fraternising with their natural enemies to the point of admitting them to an intimate acquaintanceship with the internal affairs of their fighting organisations.

The idea of employers being admitted to membership of workers’ Unions has ever appealed to the most hard-headed, hide-bound and mentally atrophied trade unionist as absurd,—and the clearer the comprehension of class-interests, the greater the growth of class-consciousness among the working-class, the more grotesque must the idea appear.

How then may we designate the working-class organisation that, coming into existence at a time when the antagonism of interests between the classes was too sharply defined to escape the notice of any man with an eye to see, yet admitted to the domination of its affairs, the representatives of the very class it came into existence, ostensibly, to fight. The Trade Union of the clerical workers of the railways of the United Kingdom (the Railway Clerks’ Association) has done this. Its President and Vice-Presidents are of the capitalist-class, several of them company directors, with at least one railway company director.

As might be expected, the literature of this Association provides curious reading. Whereas on the one hand a number of grievances that require redress are set out and clerks admonished to combine in order to secure certain reforms in working conditions which “individualism has lamentably failed to secure for 60 years and which combination alone can obtain,” on the other hand emphasis is laid upon the fact that the Association exists (among other things) to further the railway industry and provide facilities for the technical training of railway servants, which, being interpreted, seems to mean that facilities will be provided the railway clerk to become a more efficient-wage-slave what time every endeavour is being made to further the railway industry and make it a more profitable concern.

In the statement of grievances would seem to be embodied the dissatisfaction of the clerk with the existing conditions. In the statement of method and objects the still small voice of the company director is heard.

Says the leaflet before us :—

“It is said that the clerks will not join a Trade Union as they object to the extreme measures adopted by most Trade Unions . . . There in no strike and no coercion contemplated or allowed in the R.C.A.”

Also:—

“Membership is not derogatory to advancement in the service, neither is it detrimental to the best interests of the Railway Companies.”

And again, as might be expected :—

“All railway officials (and proprietors ?) approve our policy.”

This is the R.C.A., and a more pitiable and ludicrous attempt at working-class organisation the annals of Labour cannot show. Surely it should be obvious to the most oblique of mental visions that combination in order to secure some amelioration that individual effort has failed to secure in 60 years, implies a struggle. If some benefit is obtained as a result of combined effort, it means that force has been exercised. Those who previously refused to effect a reform have been coerced by a display of force into moving.

And yet in the R.C.A. coercion is taboo !

And opposition is offered to the use of the weapon of the strike, not on the ground that the strike is an obsolete weapon in economic warfare, but on the ground apparently that the warfare itself is bad !

What then is the use of the organisation at all except as a means of bolstering up present railway administration and providing railway companies with servants more efficient at producing profit for the capitalist-class who own the railways ? Why should they voluntarily assist in their own exploitation ? Why should they organise themselves and pay for the privilege of organising themselves in the interests of the class that lives upon their labour ?

What the workers on railways and in every other branch of industry have to recognise is that the utility of combination, economic and political, lies in the strength it gives to fight. What they have to understand is that they can only fight to the betterment of their own position at the expense and to the disadvantage of the class that exploits them. What they have to appreciate if they object to being robbed of any part of the wealth they produce, is that they will not only have to place the capitalist-class in the category of irreconcilable enemies, not only will they have to fight them as such always, but that they will have to beat them out of existence absolutely, before they can enter into the enjoyment of the full result of their labour.

And they will never do that until they understand whence the capitalist derives his power to-day—how it comes about that a handful of people are able to dictate conditions to the great mass of the people.

The workers on railways and elsewhere will have to understand that it is the possession of the land and tools of production and distribution that gives the capitalist his power. They will have to understand that the only way to break that power is to force him to relinquish his hold upon the means by which all the people live. And then they will be class-conscious (conscious of their class interests as distinguished from and opposed to the interests of the capitalist-class), and will appreciate the position which we of The Socialist Party of Great Britain occupy, and will be prepared to work with us for the capture of the political machinery of the country as the necessary preliminary to the capture of all the machinery of wealth production. Then they will utilise their strength not to treat with the representatives of the capitalist-class for the concession of small reforms, but will utilise it with the object of removing the cause of the conditions that give rise to the demand for reforms. Then they will work through their economic organisations and their political organisations for the complete overthrow ef the present capitalist system based upon profit and the realisation of the Socialist Republic based upon justice and equity.

C. LAS-SWAR