Who benefits from mass production? (1926)

From the December 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

Prominent employers' ideas examined.

Sir Edward Anson, Director of the Birmingham Guild, writing a Trade Survey in the Daily News (17/9/26), says, among other things, of mass production, that it has two obvious advantages : The owner of the business gains if he can keep up his sales, and the consumer benefits because of the resulting reduction in price.

Mr. Frank G. Wollard, Director and General Manager of Morris Motors, Ltd., challenged Sir Edward’s views in a contribution on October 1st, where he claimed that the employees also benefit. As there are not consumers apart from capitalists and workers, according to these two gentlemen, mass production would seem to be an inestimable boon to mankind. We shall see on examination, however, that although differing, both are right in one respect, i.e., the owner of the business gains.

Sir Edward’s attitude towards mass production is mainly critical. His chief objections are the monotonous character of machine tending and the loss of skilled craftsmanship. He says:

“It is the boast of the majority of mass production owners that there is no machine in their shops that an unskilled man cannot work if he has a day to practise on it. This is very useful when it comes to combating unemployment, such as has been so prevalent since the war, when men have been unable to find work at their legitimate trade, but what will be the outcome in the future. . . .

It has been said that half the misery of life is caused by monotony, and what could be more monotonous than spending day after day pulling the same handle or filling the same hopper? It is incredible to me that the human brain can stand such a test of idleness and not become completely atrophied.”

The reference to unemployment in the above is typical of the capitalist viewpoint; they are combating unemployment when one hundred men find work, no matter if they displace one hundred and fifty. The object of mass production, as with every improvement in machinery and methods, is to reduce the amount of labour time required for the production of a given commodity. If it accomplishes this reduction, unemployment will be increased, instead of diminished. Because, as we shall see later, any increase of sales that might follow as a result of lower prices cannot be permanent.

“What could be more monotonous than spending day after day pulling the same handle or filling the same hopper?” questions Sir Edward. Yet that is the lot of millions of men, women and children under capitalism. Their labour intensified and rendered monotonous, with no respite, except for the congenial atmosphere of the labour exchange and the streets, when the factory owners are unable to keep up their sales.

So far as the loss of craftsmanship is concerned, the people who seem most concerned about such a disaster appear to be those who dodge work of any kind. The average worker, whether engaged in making cabinets or filling hoppers, is always eager to quit at the end of his enforced period of labour. It is not craftsmanship or the opportunity to dally with favourite tools that draws men into the factories. It is sheer necessity, their only means of escape from starvation. Moreover, under modern conditions dallying is not permitted. There is no time for pride in workmanship. The slogan is, “Get on or get out.”

Under capitalism the conditions of labour are dictated by supervisors who are driven to maintain or increase profits by the fear of losing their jobs. Under Socialism, where the whole people owned the land and means of wealth production, they would arrange their own conditions of labour. They would naturally adopt the shortest, easiest and safest methods to achieve their object, because such a course would give them the maximum amount of leisure. In any case, freedom to exercise craft pride would be possible under Socialism, under capitalism it is not. The worker’s business is to work. He must work in such a way as to satisfy the capitalist greed for profits; there is no time for him to find pleasure in it.

Returning to Sir Edward’s original claim that those who gain by mass production are the owner and the consumer, and Mr. Frank Woollard’s objection because the employee has not been included, the latter says:

“In the first place, Sir Edward can see only two benefits from mass production—a financial benefit to the owner of the plant and a lower price to the public. He has forgotten the worker, who has his share in the general prosperity, both as an employee and as a consumer.

Even supposing certain owners are so foolish as to forget the employees’ share of their prosperity, there is at any rate something to be shared; whereas if we put the clock back 200 years there would be little or nothing over bare subsistence to divide.”

The cat is out of the bag ! There is something to be shared. There is prosperity; but it is theirs—the owners, or capitalists who are under no obligation to share and can, if they choose, forget. But what is meant by sharing? and why are some owners foolish in not sharing? Every sharing, bonus, or co-partnership scheme that has been introduced up to the present is based on the principle that the workers must first increase production by greater speed and efficiency before they can share. They then obtain as their share a small percentage of what is produced by their increased efforts. In these circumstances the owners who do not share are, as Mr. Wollard states, indeed foolish.

Sir Edward agrees that the owner gains, but adds a proviso, if he can keep up his sales. But every concern is subject to that obligation. That is the capitalist method of converting surplus value into profits. As a capitalist he is supposed to understand that side of the business. That is where the much-boasted directive ability of the owner is supposed to come in. He controls his own factory and directs the workers he employs. If he misjudges the market, or produces goods that do not sell, according to capitalist standards he is a failure. But his disappearance from the arena makes no difference. There is still an abundance of capital functioning on the industrial field. The world’s markets are not starved, though thousands of concerns fail every year. The failures are like water that overflows the banks of a river in flood. The main stream flows on.

So much for the owner, or capitalist, the fact is established that he gains. What of the consumer? Who is he to start with? Mr. Woollard answers the second question :

“And all the time, and every time, it must be remembered that the makers, i.e., the workmen, are the same folk as the purchasers. In the bulk the buyers are not different people living on inherited wealth—that is only for the few.”

This simplifies matters enormously. Mr. Woollard is evidently not deceived by the confusing use of these terms by politicians and would-be economists, who divide society into capitalists, workers and consumers. For him, as for us, there are, in the main, two classes, capitalists and workers. We have already seen that the workers, as workers, do not gain by mass production. We shall see that they do not gain as consumers.

It is no coincidence that, in the years that have elapsed since the war, mass production and improved means and methods generally, have made enormous strides. While the same period has been characterised by a continuous and steady reduction of wages all round, the masters are organised for this purpose more strongly than they have ever been before. Their chief reason when forcing a reduction is that the cost of living has fallen. With one and a half million workers unemployed and trade unions with little or no fighting funds, resistance is almost useless.

Mass production may reduce prices for the consumer, but the consumer who belongs to the working-class lives by the sale of his energy. The cost of reproducing that energy from day to day having fallen, its price on the labour market falls. He is forced to realise that the commodity character of his labour power cheats him of any share in the rich rewards of mass production.

F. Foan

SPGB Meetings and Lectures. (1926)

Party News from the December 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

Editorial: The ‘Revolutionary’ (!) Communists. (1926)

Editorial from the December 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

The capitalist character of the Communist Party programme is again shown by the policy drawn up by the C.P. for the Labour Party Conference at Margate.

In their pamphlet, “The Reds and the Labour Party,” the following is a list of “constitutional demands” of the Communist Party.

1. The abolition of the Monarchy and the establishment of a Democratic Republic.

2. The abolition of the House of Lords.

3. The establishment of a single franchise for all purposes, whether Parliamentary or local government, applicable equally to all men and women from 21 years of age.

4. The adoption of a national system of proportional representation.

5. The abolition of all restrictions whatsoever on qualifications for membership of public bodies, and the adoption of the adult franchise as the sole basis.

6. Full political rights for soldiers, sailors and airmen.

7. To secure that all vehicles used for conveyance of voters to the poll shall be registered with the Returning Officer not later than 12 hours before the opening of the polling, and to enact that it shall be the duty of Returning Officers to apportion such registered vehicles equally amongst the candidates, irrespective of Party.

8. The provision of greater facilities for polling places in the outlying and rural areas, and the imposition of penalties for irregularities by Returning Officers in the conduct of elections.

One minute the C.P. ridicules the value of Parliament, and the next minute they demand the usual Liberal reforms of the orthodox Parliamentarian.

Vote-catching and job-hunting are evidently the stock in trade of the C.P.

The Monistic Conception of History by G. V. Plechanoff (part I) (1926)

From the December 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

[Plechanoff’s Famous Work now translated.]

Materialism is the direct opposite of idealism. Idealism strives to explain all phenomena of nature, all the properties of matter, through one or the other of the properties of the spirit. Materialism does just the opposite. It tries to explain all psychical phenomena through some properties of matter, through the organisation of the human, or living, organism. All those philosophers for whom matter is the prime factor belong to the materialist group, all those that hold spirit as the prime factor are idealists. This is all that can be said about materialism in general, for on its foundations various structures have been erected, materialism of one epoch has an entirely different aspect from that of another epoch. 

Materialism and idealism are the two most important tendencies in philosophy. It is true, together with these two, there have always been some kind of dualistic systems that recognised spirit and matter as separate and independent substances. But dualism could never satisfactorily reply to the inevitable question,—how could two substances, separate and independent as they are, influence each other? This is why all the foremost and the deepest thinkers have been inclined to monism, i.e., to explain all phenomena through the help of some one fundamental principle. Every profound idealist as well as every profound materialist is a monist. In this there is no difference, for instance, between Berkeley and Holbach. The first was a confirmed idealist, the second was a no less confirmed materialist, but both were monists; both understood the impossibility of dualism.

In the first half of our century [1] idealistic monism reigned; in the second half—in science, with which materialism has since united—materialistic monism, gained the upper hand, though a materialism not always open and frank.

Here we do not need to give a whole history of materialism. [2] It will be enough for us to observe its development beginning from the second half of the last century (18th) and even in this period, its principal tendencies will suffice for us. We will take up the materialistic views of Holbach, Helvetius and their co-workers.

The materialists of this school conducted a heated polemic against the official thinkers of the time, who, professing to follow Descartes, whom they scarcely understood, argued that man has certain innate ideas,—ideas that are independent of experience. Combating this view, the French materialists, only defended the views of J. Locke, who, as early as the end of the 17th century, taught that there are no innate principles. But in explaining Locke’s philosophy the materialists have given it a more momentous character, touching on problems which the well-bred English liberal ignored. The French materialists were undaunted sensualists ; they looked on all psychic activities of man as transformation of sensations. It would be useless here to inquire how far their arguments are good in the light of contemporary science. It is obvious that the French Materialists of that time did not know what every high schoolboy knows to-day. It is enough to remember only the views of Holbach on physics and chemistry —though he was supreme in the science of his day. The great merit of the French materialists was that they thought deeply, and in correspondence with the science of their time. This is all that we can demand from any thinker. There is, of course, nothing strange in the fact that science has advanced far beyond the views of the French materialist. It is more important to remember that those who fought against the materialists were even then behind the science of the time. It is true the historians, of philosophy usually put the views of Kant as antithetical to the views of the materialists. It would certainly be strange to reproach Kant with ignorance. It would, nevertheless, not be hard to show, that both Kant and the materialists stood on the same fundamental principles, but used them in different ways, and, therefore, came to different conclusions. This was in accordance with the different social environment that influenced their respective lives and thoughts. We know that people who believe the historians on their bare words, will find this opinion paradoxical. We have no opportunity of proving the truth of this statement here; but we do not refuse proof if our opponents demand it. [3]

It is well known, however, that the French materialists viewed all psychic activity of men, as transformation of sensation (sensations transformées). To view psychic activity from this standpoint means to recognise that all conceptions and feelings of man are results of the influence of his environment. This the French materialists recognised. They continually, hotly and categorically, declared that man with his views and feelings is what his environment makes turn, his environment being in the first place, nature, and the second place, society. “L’homme est tout educationé,” declares Helvetius. By education he understands the sum total of social environment. This view of man as a product of his environment was the chief theoretical basis of the new demands of the French materialists. If man is dependent on his environment, if the environment is responsible for every trait in his character, it is also responsible for his defects. If you would fight against his defects, you must change his environment accordingly, and primarily his social environment, because nature creates man as neither good nor bad. Place him in a reasonable social position under such conditions that his self-preservation instincts do not necessarily drive him to fight every other man, among conditions in which the interests of the individual correspond with interests of the whole society—and virtue will triumph. (Vertu) virtue is not something to be made possible through a reasonable reconstruction of social relations. Thanks to the conservatives and reactionaries of the last century (18th), the morality of the French materialists is still thought of as the morality of egoism, while they themselves defined it more correctly when they declared that their morality entirely merges in politics.

The teaching that the spiritual world of man, is the result of his environment often brought the French materialists to results entirely unexpected by them. Thus, for instance, they often declared that the opinions of man have no influence whatever on his conduct, and, therefore, no matter what ideas society holds it cannot change its fate in the least. We shall later show where they were mistaken. At present let us examine the other side of French materialism.

If the ideas of every man are determined by his environment, then the ideas of the human race must be determined by the evolution of the social environment, by the history of social relations. If we desire to paint a picture of the progress of human reason, and if we do not limit ourselves to the question “how,” but also ask “why,” we must begin from the history of the environment; from the history of the evolution of social relations. The main point, at least at the beginning, would then be to discover the laws of social evolution. The French materialists approached this problem, but could not solve it, or even put the question correctly.

Whenever they began to speak about historical development of society, they forgot their sensualistic view on man in general, and together with “Enlighteners” of their time, declared that the world (i.e., social relations of men) was ruled by opinions (c’est l’opinion qui gouverne le monde). This is the basic contradiction of the 18th century materialism.

1 This was written in 1894. Translator’s Note.

2 A few years later Plechanoff published “A Contribution to the History of Materialism.” Translator’s Note.

3 Plechanoff has proved this in a series of brilliant polemical essays, against Bernstein, Conrad Schmidt, and other neo-Kantians, “Neue Zeit,” 1898-1899.

(To be continued.)

Translated by H. Kantorovitch for "Modern Quarterly".

Has British trade a future? (1926)

From the December 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Continued from last month).

“Mr. Suma is to study the business conditions in East Africa, whose ports have never been visited by Japanese mercantile ships. The N.Y.K. and the O.S.K. have opened the new East Africa service in April with a view to promoting the business between Japan and East Africa. The Navy has advised the Foreign Office to send an official to East Africa in order to study customs, local circumstances, and economic conditions there aboard one of the warships, which the Navy Office has scheduled for the cruise along East Africa. The Foreign Office has been selecting the official since. The squadron is to leave Japan early next month, and will come back in January next year.” (“Osaka Mainichi,” 30/5/26.)

The “Bombay Chronicle” of July 23rd, 1926, quotes the “Japan Chronicle” of April 8th, 1926, to the following effect :—

“The “Asaki” reports that the scheme of the Foreign Office to further Japan’s economic development in Persia and the South Seas is making fair progress. The Supplementary Budget for the fiscal year 1926-27 includes an item relating to investigations into trade development in the South Seas involving Yen 24.299, and another item bearing on similar investigations in Persia and neighbouring countries to Yen 56.204. With regard to the investigation into economic conditions in Persia and neighbouring countries, it was started soon after Mr. Obata, Ambassador to Turkey, arrived at his post some time ago, and, judging from the results of the sample exhibition of Japanese exports which was held at Constantinople, it is hoped that it is not altogether impossible for Japanese goods to be exported to the Balkans, Asia Minor, Persia and Afghanistan, to the amount of Yen 100.000.000 a year. At a conference on investigations with trade development, which is to be held at Constantinople for ten days from the 20th inst., it is expected that recommendations to be submitted to the Foreign Office will be considered and adopted. These recommendations will furnish valuable materials for reference for those Japanese traders who wish to export their goods to those countries. In the meantime the Government is contemplating establishing Consulates where they are required for trade purposes.

As regards trade development in the South Seas, the Foreign Office is to call in Tokyo a conference of Consuls appointed to Calcutta, Batavia, Singapore, Bombay, Sydney, Manila, Hongkong, Haifong, Saigon, Rangoon and Bankok, at which will also be present the officials of the Departments concerned and business men chiefly interested in the South Seas’ trade. At this conference matters relating to Japan’s economic development in those districts will be thoroughly studied.”

At the moment, India is feeling very seriously the effect of Japanese competition, and the Bombay Millowners’ Association has submitted a statement to the Muf Board showing how they are hit by the competition of Japan. Extracts from this report are published in the “Bombay Chronicle” for July 20th and 23rd, 1926. The following excerpts are taken from the extract:—

“Japanese competition was severe, and in certain instances Japanese goods were offered at prices lower than the cost price of similar goods manufactured in India. . . .

…. The mill industry is suffering from the unfavourable rate of exchange with Japan and highly organised Japanese competition.

Japan, owing to her larger production of yarn and piece-goods for export has a much better balanced trade than India.

In piece-goods the position is much more unfavourable to India, the value of India’s piece-goods export trade to China being only about one-tenth of what it was ; Japan’s trade has increased forty or fifty-fold.

What strikes one most in considering the growth of Japanese competition is the amazing rapidity with which her imports into this country have gone up. It may be broadly stated that in 1914-15 the total imports of Japanese yarn into India were less than a million pounds, while in 1924-25, i.e., about ten years later, the quantity imported was more than 32 times the figure of 1914-15. Again, in piece-goods, the quantity imported in 1914-15 was about 16 million yards, and in 1925-26 it had risen to nearly 220 million yards.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

It is this extraordinary rise every year in Japanese imports which fills with dismay the minds of everybody who has a stake in the cotton mill industry of the country. If the Japanese imports go on increasing at the present rate one hesitates to contemplate the plight in which the cotton mill industry of the country will find itself in about five or six vears’ time.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

It is forgotten that not only is Japan dealing severe blows to Indian manufacturers in Indian markets, but she is making rapid inroads in the export markets. In the words of the Administration Report of the Bombay Presidency for 1923-24, “Since 1917 China has been practically a closed market for Indian piece-goods, owing mainly to the expansion of the indigenous textile industry and to the rigour of Japanese competition.”

India has practically lost her export trade in yarn, and since this yarn has necessarily to be utilised in manufacturing cloth, it is of the utmost importance to develop the export trade, but here again Japan with the unfair advantages she is enjoying over India is proving a very formidable rival, for not only has she ousted India from the Chinese market, but is rapidly capturing her foreign markets, e.g., Egypt, East Africa, etc.”

There is a pretty kettle of fish for Chiozza Money to stew ! The above quotations only deal with one branch of Japan’s activities, but it must be remembered that she produces the bulk of the world’s silk; that she is conscious of her shortcomings in the coal, iron and steel industries; and is making strenuous efforts to remedy them; that she has a cheap and almost unlimited supply of labour to call upon; and that in the matter of factory legislation, particularly with regard to hours of labour and female and child labour, she lags far behind the other advanced countries.

Japan’s neighbour China is in the industrial melting-pot. China is making strides in the way of producing to meet her own needs, and when she too commences to make a serious attack on the world’s markets— well, there will need to be some “reductions in the cost of production” to meet the twin eastern commercial menace !

To come down to the position from the worker’s point of view, we can see in the struggle for markets a terrific development in machine-production and elimination of human assistance in the production of goods. This would be very acceptable if the workers owned the machines, but as the employers own them, it means the elimination of jobs. Without jobs, no wages; and without wages, no bread—or the workers must decide that it is time they reaped the multitude of advantages accruing to those who own and control the means of production.

Gilmac.

Letter: Materialism v. Spiritism: A Criticism and Our Reply. (1926)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

9, Maybury Mansions, 

Weymouth Street, W.1.

 

Dear Comrade,

Someone kindly sent me a copy of the Socialist Standard yesterday containing your review of my pamphlet. As you have honoured me with a front page notice, I think you might have got the title of the pamphlet correct. It is, “Is Materialism Basis of Communism?” Not ” communion,” as you print it. And, by the way, if, as you say, the pamphlet contains its refutation, why didn’t the Standard accept an advertisement of it?

Before criticising my facts you ought to have studied the subject with which I deal. But Socialists are too busy fighting one another to find time to inform themselves on new discoveries. They are still under the delusion the limits of the Knowable were fixed by Victorian science.

I believe a great revival of religion on a scientific basis to be imminent, and it is possible that spiritualism and theosophy, perhaps in alliance with a reformed Roman Catholicism, will sweep Socialism aside. As I think this would be a disaster, I am trying to get Socialists to recognise the importance of the great spiritualist movement, which is wholly proletarian in its origin. 

Yours fraternally,

Isabel Kingsley.

Reply to Isabel Kingsley.

The misprint of the title of Isabel Kingsley’s pamphlet was so clearly a printer’s error that it was not thought that anyone would be misled by it. The proof-reader has been suitably admonished. The Socialist Standard did not accept an advertisement of the pamphlet because the only advertisements we insert in the Socialist Standard are those of our own publications and announcements. As the review was placed on the front page it is rather difficult to see any reason for the authoress’s complaint on this point.

It is interesting to note that Isabel Kingsley makes no attempt to meet the criticism of her pamphlet beyond the statement that I ought to have studied the subject with which she deals. This statement is entirely gratuitous. As a total stranger to myself Isabel Kingsley has no knowledge whatever of my studies in any direction. But this “retort” is the usual one of the Spiritist, who finds his or her case demolished by a critical examination. Those who were present at the debate between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Joseph McCabe will remember that when Conan Doyle’s bubble of bluster had been coolly pricked, when his statements of supposed facts were shown to be wrong in every essential particular, his only reply was, “My opponent has not read the books, or if he has he doesn’t understand them.”

This was too much for even the respectable audience of the Queen’s Hall, and the protests from them led to one of Conan Doyle’s usual shuffles. He gave another illustration of this habit when faced with the confession of the gentleman who arranged the “Masked Medium” illusion, that Conan Doyle claimed as an instance of an actual materialisation.

Equally gratuitous is the statement that Socialists “are still under the delusion the limits of the Knowable were fixed by Victorian Science.” Not a tittle of evidence is offered in support of this assertion, though it may be said in passing, that Victorian Science, with its names like Darwin, Tyndall, Huxley, Hemholtz, Spencer, etc., is certainly in advance of the archaic ideas of the ethnological period of savagery held by Isabel Kingsley.

The last paragraph of her letter supplies a key to Isabel Kingsley’s attitude. A person who talks of religion having a “scientific basis” is evidently mentally incapable of understanding either science or religion.

The basis of all religion is the fear of the unknown; and all religions attempt to explain what the unknown is, and what occurs there. Here is the happy hunting ground of the wildest and most degrading superstitions, often accompanied by filthy rites and barbarous mutilations. A large section of the Spiritist movement openly claims that their views are those of a new religion.

Science is based upon knowledge and knowledge only. Observation, experiment, classification, generalisation, are its methods.

Such errors as occur are the usual human ones of faulty observation, incomplete experiments, or too hasty generalisations. But these errors are corrected as further knowledge is acquired and applied to the various departments of science. No scientist places any definite limit upon the Knowable. All the scientist asks is that any claim to the extension of the Knowable must be based upon knowledge, not superstition.

And even if “the great spiritualist movement … is wholly proletarian in its origin “—a debatable point—it has not only wandered far from its “origin,” but such “origin” does not excuse its superstitions any more than those of the other mental deficients around us.

Nor does Isabel Kingsley give us any information to show how a movement, based upon the ideas of primitive man plus the puerile conjuring tricks of “mediums,” can be of any “importance” to Socialism—except as a stumbling block to be cleared out of the way.

The various attempts to foist crude superstitions, by those of limited or perverted mentalities, upon the Socialist movement, are evidences of the progress of Socialism, but such attempts must be fought and exposed.    

Jack Fitzgerald

Letter: The Currency Question. (1926)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

A READER’S QUESTIONS AND OUR REPLY.

Please find enclosed cuttings from the Daily Herald. You will notice they deal with the question of Currency.

As it is somewhat bewildering to me, I would like your opinion on the following questions. Being a reader of the Socialist Standard, I understand you hold the opinion that the Currency is not inflated or deflated. The Daily Herald states it is “Inflated.” The Financial News states it is “Deflated.” My questions are therefore :—

1) In what way are the above ”Papers” wrong?

2) Do the working class have to pay the interest on War Loans, or National Debts?

3) Do the movements of Currency affect the workers’ wages?

4) Is it a question of affecting prices of commodities in such a way as to lower the standard of living of the workers, or does it mean the exploitation of the working class is intensified.

If you could unravel the above what seems to me a most complexing problem, I feel sure it will help a good many people like myself out of the confusion.

A. W. S.

Answer to A.W.S.

The cuttings referred to in A.W.S.’s letter deal with a controversy between the financial expert of the Daily Herald and Mr. G. Bernard Shaw on the question of “Inflation” and “Depreciation” of the currency. The discussion is too long and too confused on both sides for summarising here. Moreover, A.W.S. did not send any cutting from the Financial News, so we are unaware of their particular argument. In one of the Daily Herald cuttings (undated) Mr. J. Lea, from Lancashire, puts some posers to both Bernard Shaw and the Daily Herald that, apparently, they were unable to answer.

The point actually in dispute was “What is the cause of the rise in prices during and since the war?” Mr. Shaw says the currency has been “depreciated” in value by the Government. The Daily Herald says the currency has been “inflated” by the Government. In itself the dispute between these two controversialists is largely a war of words and is of small concern to the workers. But it is interesting to note that both make the same claim—namely, that the chief cause of high prices is the tampering with the currency. This tale, invented by the agents of the master class to hide the truth about the huge profits made during the period mentioned, has been swallowed by the Labour Party, the Daily Herald, Bernard Shaw, etc., without the slightest examination as to its truth.

This question of the supposed “inflation of the currency” was dealt with in the Socialist Standard for [December, 1922], and [May, 1923], in a controversy with the Plebs Magazine ; while the question of paper money and credit was worked out in answer to a correspondent in the June, 1922, issue. A.W.S. is referred to these issues for a fuller explanation, but, in the meantime, a brief answer to his questions may be useful.

(1) Both papers are wrong because they ignore, or deliberately attempt to hide, the facts. When the rise in prices began to cause unrest and suspicion among the workers they were told it was due to “high” wages. This was so obvious a lie that another excuse had to be invented, and so “inflation” was brought forward. A few facts will show the falsity of this excuse.

The amount of currency required for any given period under normal conditions is determined by :—

(1) The total of the prices of the commodities sold.

(2) The rapidity with which each piece of currency (coin or note) circulates in the given period.

(3) The difference between the debts falling due and the payments deferred in the period

War was declared on Germany by Great Britain on Sunday night in the fateful August of 1914. On Monday morning people rushed to buy up supplies and prices began to rise at once, before any inflation could take place. As a matter of fact the new currency notes were not issued till some little time after. Prices continued to rise and more currency was, therefore, required to circulate the goods. All through the war the rises in prices preceded the increases in currency. In fact, as shown by the Cunliffe Committee, the total increase in prices was greater than the total increase in currency. These facts prove beyond dispute that no “inflation” of the currency had taken place.

(2) No. The working class, applying their labour-power to the materials provided by Nature, produce the wealth of modern society. But they do not own or control this wealth. Out of what they have produced there is handed back to them sufficient, on the average, to keep them in the state of efficiency desired by the master class. It is thus easily seen that the working class cannot pay interest on war loans or National Debt, nor can they pay taxes in general. These expenses are paid out of the share of the wealth retained by the capitalist class, technically termed “surplus value.”

(3) It depends upon the character of the movements. To take an illustration. When in Germany the fall of credit was followed by a huge inflation of the paper currency, the rises in prices, due to this movement, were far more rapid than the rate at which the workers were able to force up wages. The result was that the workers suffered a continual reduction in real wages —that is wages measured by their purchasing power. This is an extreme case, but the principle applies generally. In “Value, Price and Profit,” Marx refers to this point in the middle of the nineteenth century.

In the early years of the present century the new processes applied to the production of gold reduced the amount of labour power required to produce each ounce, and so lowered the value of gold. This was shown, in the general rise in prices—how trivial these seem compared with our war and post-war experiences—followed by various efforts to raise wages. In other words, when a movement of currency affects prices it then affects wages, but, in general, this is the only way in which it does so.

Editorial Committee.

The Principles of The Socialist Party. - Part 2 (1926)

From the December 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1

Part II.

Is Socialism necessary? This question can only be answered by considering the nature of the forces at work in present-day society. In a previous article it was shown that history has been the record of class-struggles based upon the development of the means of production and of various forms of property.

The present-day means of production are capital, the modern form of property; that is to say, they are used by their owners, a small class in society, for the purpose of obtaining profit.

The capitalist, owning a certain sum of money, uses it to purchase machinery and raw material with a' view to selling the product at a profit. For this purpose he needs to buy a special commodity, labour-power, which, applied to the raw material and machinery, produces useful articles of a value greater than that of the combined, value of the original factors. The value of the labour-power used is determined by the time socially necessary to reproduce it. This applies to all commodities. Labour-power, however, plays the active part in the creation of value, and consequently of surplus value, which is that part of the value created which is kept by the employers. Surplus value is that part of the product left over after paying for labour-power and the cost of raw materials, wear and tear, etc.

Now, how comes it that the capitalist finds this extremely useful commodity, labour-power, to hand? The labourers have no means of living except by the wages they can earn. The land, factories, railways, etc., are owned by the capitalist class. The majority of members of society to-day are propertyless. In order to live, therefore, they must sell the only commodity they possess, their own energy.

The separation of the labouring class from their means of life was a prolonged process in history. The enclosure of common lands, the forcible ejection of the peasantry, the introduction of large-scale workshops, and later on of machine-factories, all played their part in making the workers dependent upon their present-day masters. At the same time, all other classes but these two have vanished from social life. Of the aristocracy and middle-classes of the mediaeval world, nothing is left but their titles and prejudices. The capitalist class preserve both as a means of displaying their power and duping the workers.

To-day, therefore, the social stage is set for the struggle between the last two classes to emerge in.the course of social evolution. The patricians and the plebs (of Rome) alike went down before the barbarians of the North of Europe. The feudal nobility were vanquished by the upstart burghers of the towns. Beneath them lay the slaves and serfs, occasionally rebellious but doomed to defeat by the undeveloped state of the economic conditions of their life. The isolation of the peasant groups based upon the backward character of their mode of life prevented them rising to the level of a ruling class.

To-day, however, the means of production unite the workers-in vast world-wide organisations. In the effort to cope with the effects of the capitalist system the workers develop a measure of solidarity undreamt of under the systems of former ages. Railways, post, printing press and platform enable ideas to spread with greater rapidity than ever.

The struggle between the capitalists and their wage-slaves over the wealth produced by the latter results in ever-worsening conditions for them. Every improvement in machinery or methods strengthens the owning class by increasing the number of unemployed and the competition for jobs. This competition enables the capitalists to push wages down ever nearer to the physical limit, the bare subsistence level.

Investigators such as Charles Booth and Seebohm Rowntree long ago showed that the wages of roughly one-third of the workers left them with insufficient to maintain normal health and vigour.

Since their works were published the standard of life of the workers generally has been reduced still further. The acceleration in the pace of machine development during the war resulted in an unheard-of level of unemployment, and wholesale cuts in wages which had already failed to rise to the same extent as the cost of living.

After a century of Trade Union effort the workers find themselves grappling with the same problems in an aggravated and chronic form with less success than ever before. All the victories of the past are rapidly losing their value in face of the modern organisation of capital, and the share of the workers in the product of their labour grows constantly less. The very process by which the workers create a mass of wealth much greater than they are allowed to consume heaps up in the hands of their masters one of the means by which the workers are beaten.

For the workers, therefore, there can be but one hope—a complete change in the ownership of the means of production and in the motive for which industry is carried on. The interests of the capitalist class lead that class to fortify their position by every means in their power. The interests of the workers demand that they shall attack that position.

The very nature of the means of production at the present time renders any form of individual ownership by the producers out of the question. In order to produce wealth to-day each worker must co-operate with his fellows; he cannot act alone. Social effort is the very essence of modern industry. Private ownership is, therefore, out of harmony with the means and methods of production in their present stage of development. Common ownership must take its place. The antiquated legal form must yield to economic progress.

The mature social character of modern industry has rendered poverty unnecessary and a drag upon further development. The capitalist class own and control forces which they cannot fully utilise, forces which flood the markets with goods that the workers cannot buy.

In order to solve their problems the master class can think of two alternatives : either to lower wages still further and thus render still more goods unsaleable, or to I introduce more machinery and by intensifying production increase still further the amount of commodities seeking purchasers.

These solutions ran only help individual capitalists against their competitors. They cannot help the capitalist class as a whole. They cannot prevent the thinning of the ranks of that class. They can only hasten the concentration in the hands of the few of the total capital and the reduction of the many to bankruptcy. The scramble for profit can have no other result than to prepare industry for its transfer to the workers. Concentration paves the way for socialisation.

With the abolition of private ownership the profit-seeking motive will cease to operate. This is what our capitalist opponents mean when they say that there will be no incentive under Socialism. They can conceive of no other incentive. The workers, however, will still need food, clothing and shelter, and, having in their hands the necessary means, will go on producing these things in greater abundance than ever. The productive forces, freed from control by competing interests, will be utilised by society as a whole in accordance with a common plan, democratically determined in the interest of all.

If this brief summary has carried with it the reader’s conviction, he will agree with the first three clauses of our Declaration. Consideration of the others will form the subject of further articles.

Eric Boden

Link to Part 3

Conditions of Membership. (1926)

From the December 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

A sympathiser, who is unable to become a member, writes to point out that there may be others like himself who, while prevented from joining the Party, would nevertheless like to make regular contribution of an amount equal to that paid by members. We would, of course, welcome such financial assistance. In stating that the contribution is 3d. per week, we must, however, particularly emphasise that there is no financial barrier whatever attaching to membership of the Socialist Party. Every member who is unable to make this payment is entitled by rule to have it waived.

Should We Join The Labour Party? (1926)

From the December 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our Position Vindicated. 

We have always maintained that the only place for Socialists is inside a Socialist organisation, completely independent 'of all other political parties. This, we say, is the only way of carrying on Socialist propaganda free from compromise and from distracting side issues. Those who differed from us on this point have urged that it was worth while to make a sacrifice of some amount' of independence in order to keep inside the Labour Party and carry on progaganda there. But what has been the result of their policy? Never have events shown so plainly as now, how unsound that policy and how poor its fruits.

As a political machine the Labour Party is a success, but its successes are not for Socialism. It has just won some 200 seats in the local council elections, but as is pointed out by a correspondent in the New Leader (November 12th), the Labour programme in Cardiff contained "little that could not be supported by any well-meaning Tory. . . . Only one candidate mentioned Socialism in his election address.” And as he rightly adds, "these shortcomings are by no means peculiar to Cardiff.” The winning of elections on non-Socialist programmes may give power for certain things to those who come into control of the political machinery, but it will give no power for the furtherance of Socialism. So also the enrollment of non-Socialist members will make the Labour Party larger, but it will not make it more favourable to Socialism. One of the recent notable recruits—Commander Kenworthy— has confessed (Daily Herald, November 15th) that just before his decision to leave the Liberals he was invited to join and receive the support of the Conservative Party. A man who was in the Liberal Party and is considered fit to receive Conservative support is not a Socialist, whatever he may be. The ex-Liberals who flock in with Kenworthy are no more Socialist than he.

John Beckett, of the I.L.P., a Labour M.P., laments that those who control the Labour Party are rapidly turning the "Labour movement . . . into a carefully controlled pawn in the political game.” (New Leader, November 12th.) He wants the I.L.P. to carry on the fight against reaction in the Labour Party, but is then compelled to admit that, "The Left must fight in the I.L.P. almost as hard as in the wider movement.”

The present situation, then, is this. The I.L.P. tries to permeate the Labour Party, but in the process has itself reached such a state that the permeators must "fight in the I.L.P. almost as hard” as in the Labour Party. The Labour Party wins elections on non-Socialist programmes, and the permeators are compelled to assist at these elections and suppress their own opinions for the sake of their loyalty.

George Lansbury makes a humiliating confession of his own position inside the Labour Party in explaining why he recalled a promise to support the candidature of Dr. Dunstan in West Birmingham. Dr. Dunstan was a Labour candidate and a Communist, and was replaced by an "official” Labour man in accordance with the Labour Party decision to refuse to endorse or accept to membership all members of the Communist Party. Lansbury writes to Dr. Dunstan (Lansbury’s Labour Weekly, November 13th): "I still think your position in West Birmingham entitled you to the support of every working-class elector . . . and I am only sorry that circumstances connected with my membership of the Labour Party and the loyalty which such membership involves prevents me carrying out my promise.”

Dr. Dunstan is in Lansbury’s view "entitled to the support of every working-class elector,” but is not going to receive Lansbury’s support because of the latter’s loyalty to the Labour Party, and while Labour Party discipline prevents the permeators from propagating Socialism, the Labour Party goes on absorbing Liberals at a rate which makes it possible for its leaders to continue to change its programme in an anti-Socialist direction, and make it a "pawn in the political game.” All the time the permeators find that their efforts to keep their own organisation straight are hampered by association with non-Socialists. How can a Socialist hope to convince electors that they should support non-Socialist labour men and programmes, if at the same time he is trying to preach Socialism? One or the other must suffer. In fact the Labour Party grows in size with the help of the I.L.P., but both the Labour Party and its would-be permeators become too much bound up with seeking for votes to have time for Socialist propaganda.

There is, of course, another group believing in permeation—the Communist Party. Their present undignified position is a further justification for our attitude. The Labour Party, not unnaturally, only wants assistance from those who will help it to get into power. It does not want to be hindered by affiliated bodies which propagate policies which have no electoral value, and since the mass of electors are not Socialist, Socialism is thus ruled out. Thus it accepts the I.L.P., which, as Mr. Beckett says, differs little from itself. But if the I.L.P. tried to justify its argument by concentrating on Socialist propaganda, it would be summarily ejected. The Communists have so far not been accommodating enough, and therefore are refused admission.

To preach Socialism inside the Labour Party just as much as to preach it outside means condemning its programme and its methods. If, therefore, the Socialist Party desired entry into the Labour Party, it must consent to give up its work for Socialism and devote at least part of its energies to promoting non-Socialist candidatures which it honestly knows are of no value to the working class. We cannot accept such conditions.

We are Socialists because we believe literally that Socialism is the sole hope of the working class. We are independent because that is the only safeguard against confusion and compromise and the growth of non-Socialist tendencies in our own ranks.

Edgar Hardcastle

Capitalism victorious in China. (1926)

From the December 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

In our issue of August, 1925, we set out our view of the situation in China and explained why Socialists cannot share the extravagant hopes raised in certain quarters by the progress of the Kuomintang Party. As in the pioneer capitalist countries, so also in those which have been subject to foreign imperialists, the capitalists are always anxious to obtain the help of the workers in the fight against their own enemies, whether those enemies be feudal proprietors or foreign capitalists. No doubt there was a gain in the grant to Ireland of “self-government." That gain is a gain in clarity. It is no longer possible for the Irish defenders of capitalism to pretend that the poverty and unemployment suffered by the Irish workers are due to “foreign” government. So also in China. It is better that the Chinese workers should be able to realise that they suffer from exploitation just as much whether at the hands of Chinese exploiters or European and Japanese exploiters. The rise of a strong independent capitalist Chinese Republic will enormously hasten the economic and political development of the Eastern workers. But we must at the same time point out that nothing is gained and much is lost by misinterpreting the outcome of these national struggles.

If the Chinese workers are encouraged to see in national independence a solution of their economic problems they will—like the Irish, the Poles and many others—suffer a grievous disappointment. It is the duty of the Socialist to work to destroy the present illusion and thus avoid the future disillusion. Let the Chinese workers organise not as Chinamen alongside their home capitalists, but as workers. They should reject the fallacious argument of foreign political parties which urge them to do otherwise. In England this fallacy is based on an old saying that “The enemies of my enemies are my friends.” In truth the capitalist enemies of the British capitalists are not, and cannot, be the friends of the workers, British or non-British. If the Chinese capitalists happen to be at loggerheads with the British capitalists, that is no reason why British or Chinese workers should imagine they have a friend in the Chinese employing class.

In the Sunday Worker (November 14th) the position in China with all its pitfalls to the workers is shown in a nutshell :

  The native merchant class saw the trade of the country growing under the domination of the foreign financial groups while their own share of the booty grew smaller. The foreign imperialists had to be fought.
  Unable to fight the battle alone the native capitalists sought salvation in the Kuomintang. They planned to use the revolt of the Workers and Peasants to drive out the foreign imperialists and to establish a new imperialism of their own.
  The right wing of the party has therefore grown to an alarming extent, and unless the Left Wing can retain control the Workers of China and Europe will find that when European imperialism has been smashed a Chinese imperialism will have risen in its stead. This is the real “Yellow Peril.”

And not only does the approaching victory of the Kuomintang lead the Chinese capitalists to prepare for the inevitable future clash with their own exploited classes, but it seems likely also that they will follow the path already trodden by their fellow capitalist-nationalists in Ireland and India. In the long run they will find that as capitalists they have lasting and important interests in common with some or other of their late capitalist enemies. The Sunday Worker correspondent reports that the British Foreign Office is now in favour of supporting the Kuominatung capitalists, who in turn will no doubt be glad of this outside help in time of trouble at home with the Chinese workers. The real task of the Chinese workers is that of the workers everywhere—to fight against capitalism whatever the national flag under which it hides. The duty of Socialists is to keep this issue always to the fore, not to rouse deadly national hatreds which obscure the class divisions in society and retard the growth of Socialism.

Edgar Hardcastle

Ford v. Marx (1926)

From the December 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

Two or three months ago, one of our contributors had occasion to criticise the illusions of the Editor of the “Observer” concerning the respective intellectual merits of the notorious exploiter of motor-car producers and the author of “Capital” and other works of economic criticism. Now it appears that the Editor of the “New Leader” shares some, at least, of his Conservative colleague’s fantasies.

In a recent article under the above heading, Mr. Brailsford emulates Mr. Garvin in seeking to delude his readers with the belief that Marx’s analysis has (once more) been exploded, and his predictions falsified, because, forsooth, American capitalists have discovered how to make huge profits while paying high wages. We are told that the fundamental principle of capitalism according to Marx has been discarded. The new Capitalism has got rid of poverty, and Mr. Brailsford’s sole remaining objection to it is that it is autocratic! He even refers to “the source of exploitation being closed,” but fails to reveal his meaning. Apparently, his mental outlook is so foggy that he imagines that the increased consumption of the workers keeps pace with their increased production. Yet it is obvious that if this were the case of the increased profits of the bosses would not exist.

Now the object of capitalist production is profit. Marx dealt fairly exhaustively with this fact, and no one yet has demonstrated the alleged error in his reasoning. He also showed that wages, like the prices of other commodities, were an extremely variable factor. Nowhere did he suggest that they could never rise; while he indicated, with exceptional clarity, the part played by machinery in intensifying the exploitation of higher-paid labour-power and reducing the proportion of the workers’ share in the fruits of their labour.

In Ford’s book (quoted by Mr. Brailsford) the secret of the higher profits obtained with higher wages is shown to lie in the application of machinery, while elsewhere in his article, the “New Leader’s” editor refers to the fact that one-third of the American workers are below the poverty line! Marx, therefore, would appear to have been exploded only in the imagination of Mr. Brailsford, and those who think like him.

In our pamphlet on “Socialism,” the point is dealt with at some length, in Chapter III., but one example will serve here to illustrate it. Between 1899-1923, the number of cars per worker produced in the automobile industry had increased from 1.66 to 16.11. The output had multiplied by ten! Surely Mr. Brailsford does not imagine that the wages of the producers have been multiplied in anything like that proportion, either in actual money or in purchasing power! Yet, unless he does believe this, how can we explain his failure to see that the exploitation of the workers has been increased, and the gulf between them and their masters widened? Only by his utter ignorance of Marxian economics ! 

Eric Boden

Yankee Prosperity (1926)

From the December 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

The New York correspondent of the Daily News quotes from a report issued by the National Catholic Welfare Conference of America to show the falsity of many of the extravagant tales of high wages said to be paid to workers in the U.S.A. We give below an extract from the Report (Daily News, November 17th) :

  The chorus of voices proclaiming that because of high wages we can now look forward to the indefinite continuation of prosperity misses several plain facts.
   High wages are not nearly so common as is assumed. Great numbers of men are making as low as three and four dollars a day. Great numbers of women are making as low as 12, 13. and 14 dollars a week. Great numbers of both men and women are out of work and are making no money at all.
   The level of wages is higher now than at any time in the past, but even now close upon half of the men working for wages are not making a family living wage, and close upon half of the women working for wages are not making enough to support themselves in reasonable comfort.
  Great numbers of men and women working for a weekly or monthly salary are below the line of reasonable existence, and still greater numbers have not shared proportionately in the increased productiveness of American industry and agriculture.
   Farmers are a third of the consuming public, and their buying power has actually decreased in the last seven years. Along with low-paid wage and salaried workers in cities they stand as a handicap to city prosperity, and a sure cause of inevitable industrial depression in this country.
  Much of the phenomenal selling of goods at home is based on instalment buying by wage and salaried workers, who are mortgaging an essentially insecure future to buy goods now.

Those who saw in America an example of the way in which a more efficient capitalism abolishes working class poverty will need to continue their search for a “prosperous" working class.

Edgar Hardcastle

An I.L.P. Evangelist (1926)

Book Review from the December 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

An Evangel of Unrest: The Life Story of Bonar Thompson. 1/-. From the author. (Marble Arch, W.l.)

Bonar Thompson tells his life story in his usual style, from the days of unemployment processions in Manchester to his C.O. days during the so-called Great War. He pays tribute to our Party’s unswerving attitude during the war, but makes the curious statement that the I.L.P. was as firm as a rock against the war. He avoids the gymnastics of Ramsay MacDonald on the question and the association of the I.L.P. as an integral part of the Labour Party which joined the War Government.

Bonar Thompson does not tell us of his joining and leaving the Communist Party, and his reasons for that. He simply says he belongs to the I.L.P. now. What connection the I.L.P. has with Socialism he does not say. The prominent "pacifist” users of force in the Labour Government belonging to his I.L.P. he avoids to mention.

He denounces those who harp on “the position” and “economics," to the exclusion of the more emotional life, but he does not argue his case. He leaves it to denunciation. He is very bitter about those who object to paid speakers and paid literature sellers, etc. Here again he does not argue, but becomes vitriolic in denouncing his critics. So there is nothing to answer.

In a letter accompanying the book Bonar Thompson tells us that he has been a consistent reader of the Socialist Standard since 1907, but he accounts for his “political ignorance” by his “temperament and intellectual constitution.” Parties, however, are the expression of economic interests, not temperaments, and Thompson’s excuse for his outlook simply avoids the question of the soundness of the Party’s position.

For those who are interested in Bonar Thompson’s life the book will be of interest for what it contains, as well as its omissions.

C. R. B.