Notes by the Way: “Financial Sacrifices from Both Sides” (1932)

The Notes by the Way Column from the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Financial Sacrifices from Both Sides”

United Dairies, Ltd., is a very prosperous concern. The Directors’ report for the year 1931-32 stated that “the business of the Company continues to expand.” Net profit rose from £518,000 in 1929-30 to £549,000 in 1930-31, and to £592,000 in 1931-32 ; which is not too bad in these hard times. The rate of dividend on ordinary shares rose from 10 per cent. in 1929-30 to 11 per cent. in 1930-31 and to 12½ per cent. in 1931-32. So much for the shareholders. What about the workers ? During the past year, after considering the matter for several years, the firm decided to extend to the milk distributing stall a six-day week, hitherto confined to the bottling stalls. Doubtless it was, as the Chairman said, of benefit to the “health and happiness” of the workers not to have to work seven days a week. He also stated (Times, October 29th, 1932) that. “the efficiency of the service has been maintained and increased,” but the change-over to a six-day week “involved certain financial sacrifices from both sides.”

Now we are able to see what is meant by “sacrifices on both sides.” The workers make financial sacrifices and get a six-day week, while the shareholders get increased efficiency, plus the “sacrifice” of seeing their dividend raised from 11 per cent. to 12½ per cent.

Death from the Air

Mr. Baldwin, in a speech on war, in the House of Commons on November 10th, reminded us of the way in which we shall be bombed to pieces in any future war. He said: —

“I think it is well, also, for the man in the street to realise that there is no power on earth that can protect him from being bombed, whatever people may tell him. The bomber will always get through. …. The only defence is in offence, which means that you have got to kill more women and children more quickly than the enemy if you want to save yourselves….. How have the nations tried to deal with this terror of the air ? I confess that the more I have studied this question the more depressed I have been at the perfectly futile attempts that have been made to deal with this problem. The amount of time that has been wasted at Geneva in discussing questions such as the reductions of the size of aeroplanes, the prohibition of bombardment of the civil population, the prohibition of bombing, has really reduced me lo despair.” (Times, November 11th, 1932.)

In the meantime, attention was drawn by the Daily Express to the fact that British armament manufacturers advertise in German and other newspapers their willingness to supply tanks, bombing ‘planes, etc., to foreign Governments. Mr. T. O. M. Sopwith, the aircraft designer and manufacturer of the Hawker “bomber,” defended this. He said (Daily Express, November 12th, 1932) that aeroplanes of recent design are not allowed to leave the country, but that he sells Hawker bombers both to the Air Ministry and to foreign Governments because “no foreign Government will buy British machines unless they are identical with those sold to the Air Ministry.”

If another war comes, and, in Mr. Baldwin’s words, “European civilisation is wiped out,” it will be cheering to know that the bombers on both sides are of identical make and the product of a home industry !

Lenin and Trade Unionism: A Correction

In the November Socialist Standard, under the heading “Tall Stories from Russia,” the statement was made that Lenin advocated “lying and subterfuge” as a means of gaining control of the trade unions.

Although the words used by Lenin in this connection make it quite clear that he recommended using all kinds of deception, he did not actually use the word “lying.” His words (reproduced in the Australian Communist, (April 22nd, 1921) were:

“It is necessary to be able to withstand all this (i.e., expulsion) and to go the whole length of sacrifice if need be, to resort to strategy and adroitness, illegal proceedings, reticence and subterfuge, to anything in order to penetrate into Trade Unions, remain in them and carry out communist work within them at any cost.”

The utter failure of the Communists to gain tangible results by this policy shows how unsound it is.

The Inequalities of Pay in Russia

Nowadays the Soviet Government and the Communists pretend that their policy of increasing inequality of pay as between one individual and. another according to output at the same work, or according to the grading of the work, is in line with Marxian teaching and is compatible with Socialism. Socialists recognise that these inequalities are features of capitalism and can have no place under Socialism, which involves the abolition of the wages system altogether. It is interesting to recall that Lenin shared our view and did not put forward the arguments now used by the Communists. In “The Soviets at Work,” an address delivered in April, 1918, Lenin admitted that the need to attract specialists at high rate’s of pay was a sign of Russia’s backwardness and was accepted only under necessity. He said:—

“Furthermore, it is clear that such a measure is not merely a halt in a certain part and to a certain degree of the offensive against Capitalism …. but also a step backward by our Socialist Soviet State, which has from the very beginning proclaimed and carried on a policy of reducing high salaries to the standard of wages of the average worker. . . . Of course there is another side to this question. The corrupting influence of high salaries is beyond dispute–both on the Soviets . . . and on the mass of the workers.”

He also said: –

“We were forced now to make use of the old bourgeois method and agreed to a very high remuneration for the services of the biggest of the bourgeois specialists. All those who are acquainted with the facts understand this, but not all give sufficient thought to the significance of such a measure on the part of the proletarian state. It is clear that such a measure is a compromise, that it is a deflection from the principles of the Paris Commune and of any proletarian rule, which demand the reduction of salaries to the standard of remuneration of the average worker—principles which demand that career-hunting; be fought by deeds not by words.”

(The quotations above are from pages 17, 18 and 19 of the edition published in 1919 by the Socialist Information and Research Bureau, Glasgow.)

Now, when the inequality is rapidly increasing, the Russian rulers pretend that it is a feature of Socialism. Lenin, however, said, “To pay unequal salaries is really a step backward; we will not cheat the people by pretending otherwise.”

Viscount Snowden on the Labour Programme

Rather late in the day, Viscount Snowden tells his former Labour Party associates something which the S.P.G.B. told them (and Snowden) many years ago. In an article in the Sunday Express (October 16th) he wrote as follows of the Labour Party:-—

“It gained its former political strength neither from its Socialist idealism nor its election programme. It was an electoral refuge for a vague discontent.

The old political parties had failed. Here was a new party which made the social condition of the people its claim to popular support.

. . . . . .

Millions of men and women who know nothing about Socialism, and who have never read the Labour programme, vote for Labour candidates because they believe that this is a party which is going to do something—they don’t know what-—to improve their condition.

. . . . . .

I have been in this programme-making business for forty years. I have always realised its futility. Every programme in which I have had a hand I have seen discarded and another put in its place, later to share the fate of its predecessor.”

He finished the article with a very cruel blow, he told the Labour Party, which has always rejected Socialism in favour of “something now,” that it ought, to drop its silly promises to establish the millennium by Acts of Parliament immediately, and find “a practical policy.”

Mr. Cole Scores 30

The following is from the Star (October 18th, 1932) and refers to Mr. G. D. H. Cole:–

“A leading Socialist who has been busily counting up the number of organisations Mr. G. D. H. Cole has had a hand in starting tells me he has checked off thirty !

‘The latest he is connected with is the Socialist League,’ he said ‘and some of us are wondering how long it will hold Mr. Cole’s affection before another body is created’.”

Mr. Cole’s past loves have included the Fabian Society, the I.L.P., the National Guilds League, and, of course, the Labour Party. Recently he shared in the formation of the Society for Socialist Inquiry and Propaganda, which, after only 18 months, has been wound up alter a conference had failed to give a sufficient majority for merging with the Socialist League.

Mr. Cole is an example of the so-called “intellectuals” who have invaded the working-class movement in recent years, much to their own pecuniary benefit and to the detriment of the working-class movement. Surrounded by worshipping students and trade unionists, Mr. Cole reaps the double reward of adulation and large sales for his books, a new one appearing at frequent intervals each time he changes his mind and takes up another unsound theory.

Mr. Cole is a bad judge of political parties. It is interesting to recall what he wrote about the S.P.G.B. and about his own organisation, the National Guilds League, in the “Encyclopaedia Britanmca” (Twelfth Edition, 1922, Vol. XXXI, page 324, and Vol. XXXII, page 507).

Of the S.P.G.B. he wrote: —

“The Socialist Party of Great Britain is a very small and unimportant body of rigid Marxians of the extreme left wing.” (Vol. XXXII., p. 507.)

At that time he was full of the idea of Guild Capitalism (miscalled Guild Socialism), and recorded with gusto the growth of the Guild Movement and the formation of Guilds like the Building Guild.

Within a year or so, the Building Guild was hopelessly bankrupt, and the mushroom crop of Guilds which had sprung up in many other industries had completely disappeared. The National Guilds League, like many other of Mr. Cole’s enthusiasms, is now as dead as the Dodo, and even when it was alive its organ (The Guild Socialist) had a much smaller circulation than the organ of the S.P.G.B.

The Labour Leaders and the “Intellectuals”

Just at the moment, Mr. Cole, in his foreword to the new edition of his “British Working Class Movement,” is telling the trade unions that their policy and methods of organisation should be changed. We agree; but Mr. Cole is one of the least likely persons to have any sound ideas on the subject. Although never constant for long to any idea, he shows no sign of having learned from his past mistakes.

It is popularly believed that the workers gain through having the so-called intellectuals available to advise the Labour Leaders how to lead. What actually happens is rather like this. The trade union official, who is generally far better able to form sound opinions on trade union policy than are the academic Coles and Laskis, observes a stirring among his members in the form of interest in some new or resuscitated theory. Mistrusting his own judgment, he dashes off to seek the guidance of the “intellectuals.” The “intellectuals,” who are equally hesitant about putting forward definite suggestions, lest they should clash with the prevailing sentiment among the workers (and thus spoil their popularity and book sales), promptly set about discovering which way the wind is blowing and how strong it is likely to be. Having made up their minds on this, they then offer their advice, suitably tricked out in university jargon, the advice consisting of whatever theory they believe the workers are beginning to take up. The trade union official and the “intellectual” then feel mutually reinforced and comforted in their beliefs, and jointly offer their new wisdom to their members, the members being under the two-fold illusion that they are being given a lead and that the lead is the outcome of some solid thought by a reliable guide.

A Confusion of Parties

A few years ago the final argument of the Labour Party supporter who could not make headway against the case of the S.P.G.B. was a complaint that our separate existence confused the seeker after Socialist knowledge. “Why could we not all get together inside one big party?” The answer is that it would be fatal and absurd for a Socialist Party to lose its identity inside a conglomeration of reformists like the Labour Party. And it is curious to notice how loath are even the reformist groups to give up their separate existence in the great family party. In addition to the I.L.P. (Maxton), which left the Labour Party over the matter of Standing Orders, and the Communist Party, which wanted to get in the Labour Party but was rejected, there are now the following competing bodies all under the Labour umbrella: The Social Democratic Federation, the Fabian Society, the Socialist League (formerly the affiliationist wing of the I.L.P.), the Society for Socialist Inquiry and Propaganda (now dissolved after a short life), the Scottish Socialist Party (the Scottish wing of the League), the Clarion Fellowship, and the Co-operative Party.

And in face of this medley the reformists still have the impudence to tell us that the way to unite the workers is on reform programmes !

Incidentally, how William Morris, of the old Socialist League, with its fierce opposition to reforms and to Parliamentary action, would snort if he could hear the new Leaguers claiming that they have inherited the spirit of Morris.

Edgar Hardcastle

Socialism and Industrial Unionism (1932)

From the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

I have been asked to reply to a criticism of the article, “Socialism and Industrial Organisation,” (see the May issue of the Socialist Standard, which appears in the July issue of the Revolutionary Socialist. Criticism, to be effective, must at least be accurate. My critic commences with the misstatement of the title of my article, which dealt with the general question of industrial organisation and not specially with “Industrial Unionism,” whether of the I.W. W. or the W.I.I.U. brand. The article did, it is true, refer to the failure of the S.L..P. to bring to birth in this country the body of which it was supposed to be the “political reflex”; but the main part of the article dealt with actual organisations, i.e., the factory committees. It showed, by quoting concrete detailed evidence, that attempts on the part of these bodies to supersede the Trade Unions had failed both in this and other countries.

The factory committees, elected in the main by non-Socialists, were as incapable as the Trade Unions of emancipating the workers from capitalist control. They were not based upon an understanding of the class struggle, and, like the Trade Unions, were found to be ready to assist the masters to carry on the existing system of exploitation once certain minor concessions had been granted.

Yet, in spite of this experience, the B.S.I.S.L.P. can think of nothing better to do than call upon workers to repeat the attempt to erect “shop committees . . . separate and apart from the Trade Unions” (see editorial article, p. 5). That they are merely camouflaged anarchists is made evident on p. 6, where their platform calls for “the abolition of the State” (para. 5). The present writer does not profess to be able to improve upon the masterly exposition of the scientific view of this aspect of the matter contained in Engels’ “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific” (p. 87, Whitehead Library). There he shows that so far from being abolished the State must be used by the workers in order to accomplish the supreme revolutionary act, i.e., their emancipation. After that it will die out.

Eric Boden

Railway Rationalization and Profits (1932)

From the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ten years ago the British Railway Companies were amalgamated into four large groups, with a view (so it was said at the time) to more efficient working, better services, abolition of competition, etc., and greater profits.

During that period we have seen a rationalising process take place which has been of equal intensity with that in many industrial concerns, and the effects of the grouping are now, after ten years, beginning to be only too manifest to the railman and to “the man in the street.”

This policy has been carried out with the usual plausible tales of company poverty and the necessity of working shoulder to shoulder with the employers, as witness Sir Josiah Stamp’s famous letter to the L.M.S. staff, two or three years ago, asking the men to conserve stores and to work hard in this trying time. Also it has been well boosted for some years that traffic was falling and that things were going from bad to worse. This was, of course, “owing to the depression” and to road transport. Many large works, like Newton Heath and Crewe Steel Works and others, have been permanently shut down. Men have been stood off, and reduced in grade, and trains are now made up to greater weights. Various appliances have been brought into use to make men superfluous, and many who have been discharged have given long years of service. Also, last year, a reduction of pay was forced on the wages staff “to help out in this hour of trial.” And now the Companies demand another cut, basing their claim on “the decline of dividends on the ordinary shares”: (Reynolds’, October 23rd, 1932).

It is true that in the last year ordinary stock dividends fell, and that profits are rather lower, but not to the extent the Companies would have us believe. During the last five years, in spite of the depression, the profits have been well maintained until 1931. The following tables, taken from Reynolds’ (October 16th, 23rd and 30th, 1932), show the total dividends paid by three Companies on the various classes of stock in the past five years.

Southern Railway Dividends
(Figures represent thousands of pounds)

	1927	1928	1929	1930	1931
Loan & Deb.	1,754	1,754	1,754	1,753	1,753
Guar. & Pref.	2,501	2,601	2,601	2,676	2,751
Ordinary	2,009	2,009	2,167	1,773	1,103
Total	6,264	6,364	6,542	6,202	5,607

G.W.R. Dividends

	1927	1928	1929	1930	1931
Loan & Deb.	1,549	1,550	1,550	1,550	1,550
Guar. & Pref.	3,348	3,348	3,348	3,348	3,348
Ordinary	2,972	2,123	3,220	2,351	1,288
Total	7,869	7,021	8,118	7,249	6,186

L.N.E.R. Dividends

	1927	1928	1929	1930	1931
Loan & Deb.	3,910	3,985	4,033	4,083	4,255
Guar. & Pref.	7,203	7,203	7,203	7,203	5,129
Ordinary	159	106	1,271	106	0
Total	11,272	11,294	12,507	11,393	9,384

It will be seen that, up to 1929, the profits showed a tendency to increase, but since then, although the dividends on Ordinary shares have fallen, the total distribution of profits was not far short of what it was before that year, and is by no means a slump, and not a bad bill at all for a “period of depression” and “crisis.”

So much for the profits. Now what about the losses due to road competition? The “competition” shows signs of becoming more apparent than real, for all this time, quietly behind the scenes, the Companies have acquired controlling interests in many of the principal road companies, both passenger and goods, and in many cases openly run in alliance with them. Moreover, the rail companies have taken to the road themselves, under their own name and using their own stock in many places. There is obviously no danger of the Companies having to “sell up” just yet. All this propaganda of theirs is largely part of an attempt to force worse conditions on the railway workers.

Arising out of the redundancy of labour comes the cry of compensation for loss of employment and being “degraded.” An inquiry into this and other matters has recently taken place at the Law Courts, and the railway managers stated their attitude to this demand in no uncertain terms. It should be here stated that the companies have “guaranteed” that men who were “permanent” in July, 1931, would not be discharged as a result of the pooling. Sir Josiah Stamp, of the L.M.S., stated at the Law Courts inquiry that “if things improved on the railways, it could be reasonably supposed this guarantee would be enlarged” (Daily Herald, November 3rd, 1932).

But the companies’ advocate, Mr. Bruce Thomas, K.C., was frankly hostile to any further dabbling, and Sir R. Wedgwood, of the L.N.E.R., considered any such thing as “unnecessary and undesirable.” This was to the Union demand for an outside arbitrator re discharges owing to the pool, and Sir W. Jowitt, on behalf of the Unions, summed up the position by saying that the companies wished to be plaintiff and judge at the same time.

But if the Unions gain their point, what then? Have they not had enough of “independent chairmen” and “arbitrators” and “umpires” to know what to expect? Is it not a lot of useless tattle? The only thing certain seems to be 38s. per week for the railman’s basic rate. Why not set about looking for something better? Namely to organise for Socialism, and for society to run its own industries for its own benefit? It will take no more trouble than all this niggling and quibbling. And the result, not 38s. per week and still insecurity, but a system whereby all can lead a happy and care-free existence, surrounded by plenty.

C. V. R.

The Scottish Season (1932)

From the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

Amongst the publications which help to brighten the butterfly lives of the idle rich is “The Sketch.” This paper records, in bright and witty language, the activities of our noble masters. In the issue of October 5th, 1932, “Marigold” describes the doings of her society friends, who have just returned from their annual pilgrimage to the French Riviera and are now in Scotland for the Scottish season. Apparently all the notabilities are there just now, including the Duchess of Bedford, who keeps herself fit upon the Macrihanish golf course, “one of the most magnificent in Scotland,” and so inaccessible that many people cannot get there. For her ladyship, however, this is no drawback, as she is most “air-minded,” and flits to and fro in her aeroplane, which she also uses to add to her already extensive knowledge of bird life, by flying to other places of bird interest.

We also learn that the Strathconas, who are immensely rich, love the lovely island of Colonsay, where they spend a large part of every summer, and keep open house for their many friends. All the guests must come by Lady Strathcona’s yacht, which is most luxurious, and well fitted out.

The page containing all this tittle-tattle is enlivened by some illustrations of that hoary superstition, so dear to the minds of our masters, that workers, when transferred to the new bug hutches provided for them, inevitably use the bath as a receptacle for coal. This idea about the coal in the bath is a bit out of date just now, however, because the funds so generously provided by the Public Assistance Committees hardly provide for such a luxury as coal; the workers will now be able to use the bath for a cold bath at least—provided that they have sufficient cash to purchase the necessary carbohydrates to replace the warmth lost through their immersion in cold water !

It is perhaps unnecessary to point out the contrast between the comfortable lives of our masters and those of ourselves. We know that when in work we get a wage barely sufficient to house, feed, and clothe ourselves, and when we are out of work, that, our position is well-nigh hopeless. J. L. Hodson, who has been investigating the position in Lancashire for the News-Chronicle, quotes in the issue of October 18th, 1932, the statement of Mr. Luke Bates, Secretary of the Blackburn Weavers, viz. : —

“The Superintendent of the Weavers’ Convalescent Home at Poulton told me that the Medical Officer there has recently said that 90 per cent. of the weavers coming to the Home are suffering from malnutrition. Those you see knocking about may not look much different, but I think they are taking it out of their stomachs ; they must be living on a reduced diet.”

Capitalist apologists have urged that Socialism would break up the home. We workers know from our own experience that in many cases the wife has to go to work to support a husband out of work through no fault of his own. But, as a result of the administration of the Means Test, Capitalism has still further broken up the homes of hundreds of the unemployed, and sons and daughters have had to go into furnished rooms in order to ensure their getting the meagre pittance allowed them by the Government, which they have themselves voted into power.

The wealth which enables our masters to fly about to magnificent golf courses is the surplus value of which the workers are robbed in the course of their employment. This surplus value flows to the master class through their ownership of the means of production (land, mines, and factories, etc.). Therefore, in order to remedy their position, all that the workers have to do is to appropriate the means of production. They cannot do this by forming processions and getting their heads broken by the police. The road to our emancipation lies through Parliament, which controls the Army, Navy, and Police, and by voting our delegates there, we shall be in a position to control those forces and to establish Socialism. These delegates will enter Parliament as instruments of a working-class political party, whose instructions they will carry out. The Socialist Party of Great Britain is the only genuine Socialist party in this country, and we invite all those who agree with our Declaration of Principles to join with us and work for the establishment of a system of society where each shall do his share for the common good.

Ramo.

A “Marxist” with a Heart Attack (1932)

From the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a series of articles appearing in the New Leader, entitled “The Danger of Orthodoxy,” Mr. J. Middleton Murry is making desperate efforts to graft on to Marxian economics a brand of emotionalism which he seems to think will make it more attractive. He finds Socialism, based on exact definitions and scientific analysis, too logical and convincing in a mathematical sense, but lacking in appeal to the heart. With him the heart should come first. He says :

“Therefore it is far more important that a man should be a complete Socialist at heart than that he should be a Marxist in his head. (It is not possible to be a complete Marxist in one’s head alone). For there is no difficulty in converting to Marxism a man who is a genuine Socialist at heart—that is, ready to give up everything for the establishment of complete economic equality among men.”

Now, a man does not think with his heart, but with his head. True, his heart has something to do with the process, as do all the organs of the body. To become a Socialist, however, a man must think, and thinking is the special function of the brain. Mr. Murry would not, of course, deny this. Even his “Socialist at heart” must first have what Mr. Murry calls the idea of “complete economic equality among men” in his head. But why he must be ready to give up so much for it is a mystery, seeing that he has nothing to give up but his slavery.

The brain is an organ that develops by use and is a better organ the more it is developed. But even the cross-word enthusiast does not rack his brains for the mere sake of development. There must always be an incentive to thought; usually it springs from material interests in some shape or other.

To use Mr. Murry’s phrase, the man who got the idea of “economic equality” must first have got the idea of economic inequality from his everyday experience. Consequently, however crude the process, it is a process of reasoning. Crude reasoning is often forcible, but seldom comprehensive, and the man who has only the two aforementioned ideas in his head is more easily confused or misled than the man who is capable of reasoning correctly from a series of connected facts or factors. The student of Marxian economics is, therefore, not only a better Socialist; he is better equipped to resist the wiles and intrigues of the political adventurer. But Mr. Murry will not have it that way. He says:—

“The fact is that Marxism, genuine dynamic Marxism, itself rests on an ethical postulate. It rests on the ethical postulate that the man who understands the historical process, and approves of what he believes must be its eventual outcome, will make himself the willing instrument of the process. Without this ethical resolve in the individual, Marxism becomes a mere armchair theory of revolutions.”

The words “historical process” are, of course, an abbreviation for the “materialist conception of history” discovered by Marx and Engels. The latter expresses it as follows:—

“That the economic structure of society at a given time furnishes the real foundations upon which the entire superstructure of political and juristic institutions, as well as the religious, philosophical and other abstract notions of a given period, are to be explained in the last instance.”

Abstract notions based on sentimental ideas of justice, duty, patriotism, brotherly love, etc., are quite common to the period in which we are living. They are the result of economic relationships. The class that owns all the means of wealth-production exacts duty and patriotism from the dispossessed. And while exploiting them do actually obtain brotherly love—or is it money-bag worship?—in place of a natural resentment. The well-paid moralists of the capitalist class have built up quite a respectable doctrine around the idea of self-sacrifice, and large numbers of workers are quite incapable of seeing realities, so strongly are they affected by these and similar sentiments.

Now, while it may be true that men often act purely from sentimental motives, Mr. Murry says that when actions are dictated by reason alone, non-action invariably follows. Reason and the will to act are common sense, while Socialism of the heart and ethical postulates are quite obviously abstract notions with no foundations on the solid earth. True, the heart has always been spoken of as the organ of good intentions ; but then, orthodoxy, that continually prates about this quality of the heart, is flatly opposed to Socialism. Consequently, Mr. Murry is responsible for a contradiction in terms, i.e., an ethical Socialist.

Moreover, according to him, the difference between the ethical Socialist and the Socialist without adjectives is the difference between action and inaction. The question of useful or useless action does not arise with him. Apparently that is irrelevant. Although the people most loudly advertising themselves as Socialists—the I.L.P.—have been nosing up a blind alley throughout their political existence. Even now, when their failure as a working-class party has forced them to take stock of their ideas, they are still befuddled with reforms that are based on capitalist ideas of justice, fairness, etc. The obvious course being to determine the cause of working-class poverty and the action necessary to end it.

The will to act in the case of the Socialist is not ethical, but an impulse to act which arises from self-interest. Convinced Socialists quite rightly assume that every worker who recognises the soundness of Socialism will act in accordance with his reasoned conclusions. Whether the new-comer does little or much in the movement depends on circumstances, temperament, opportunity, physical and mental qualities, etc. The totality of these individual efforts at a given moment constitutes the Socialist Movement, with the growth of which, individual effort becomes more and more unnecessary and only the question of counting heads remains.

The Socialist is not prompted by ethical considerations in his work for Socialism. He works according to the strength of his convictions and his desire for Socialism. There is no question of sacrifice. He puts time and effort into the movement that brings nearer the thing he wants. Mr. Murry calls this an ethical resolve in the individual. The capitalist calls it by other names. Much depends on the point of view, but Mr. Murry’s point of view does not square with either. The explanation, no doubt, lies with the party to which he belongs—a party that runs with the hare and hunts with the hounds.

F. Foan

Will Politics Do Good? (1932)

From the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

In discussing Socialism with one’s fellow workers, whilst agreeing that the present system of society is rotten and that something else will have to take its place, the statement is frequently made that “politics will do no good.” Another objection frequently raised is that the members of the working class are often such traitors to each other that it is impossible to conceive that they should work together in a co-operative spirit for the establishment of Socialism. In support of the latter statement, instances were given to the writer where, in a ‘bus and tram combine, a so-called “red-hot trade union socialist” had given away three of his fellow workers to the bosses, resulting in their dismissal; another case, where after an attempt to form a trade union, the leaders had been bought off and been given better jobs in the office, and also at the time of the shop stewards’ movement, where the shop stewards themselves had been bought off and given jobs as inspectors. Such instances as this are common throughout industry.

They are, however, merely illustrations of the principle, long ago put forward by Marx and Engels, that it is the economic conditions which determine morality or conduct. Under capitalism, whilst the interests of the workers as a class are identical, yet each individual worker is striving against the others to get into a job, to hold it, or to get a better job than his fellow worker, and some workers, in an effort to curry favour with the bosses, will betray their own fellow workers, or allow themselves to be bought off by their masters. It is the dependence of the workers upon the capitalist class for a living which causes the subservience and betrayals complained of. In a society where no man, through his ownership of the means of production, was in a position to control the lives of his fellow men, such betrayals could not occur, because there would be no boss to whom to run and tell the tale, or who could play off one worker against another by bribery.

Be it further noted that all the above instances occur in the industrial field as distinct from the political field. Is it to be inferred that, because the workers may sometimes betray one another on the industrial field, they would not do so upon the political held ? The answer depends to a certain extent upon the type of the political association. In the case of the Liberal and Tory parties, we know that very few workers are actually members of these parties, and are, hence, powerless to control the parliamentary member. The Labour members, at the elections, are financed largely by the trade unions, and they secure support from all sections of the electors by making various promises. Once a member is elected, there is no means of controlling his actions. In general, however, the member elected does act more or less in accordance with the wishes of his electors, who have voted for the continuance of the present system, and if, whilst he is a Member of Parliament, he changes some of his views or his policy, he often feels compelled to undergo another election to test the feeling of his electorate. A confusion of thought often arises because the Labour Party is supposed to represent the workers, and there have been so many instances where members of this party have gone over to the other capitalist parties. The programme of the Labour Party has often been examined in this paper and shown to be not essentially different from that of any other capitalist party. Various reforms are advocated, but none of them are likely to ameliorate in any essential degree the conditions of the workers; in fact, the general effect is to worsen their conditions and to facilitate the smoother running of the capitalist machine. Therefore, when the leaders of the Labour Party go over to some other capitalist party, they are simply carrying on their career without changing their principles.

We, the Socialist Party of Great Britain, claim to be the only political party genuinely representing the interests of workers. We are an association of workers democratically organised with the object of gaining political power from the capitalist class. No member is in a position to control any other and, therefore, none can betray any other. If a member of the Party were elected to Parliament, he would go as a delegate of the socialists who had elected him, and they would see that he carried out their instructions.

It is only through politics, by the capture of political power from the capitalist class, who, at present, are in a position to control the army, navy, and police force, that Socialism can be achieved. It is therefore the duty of all those who agree with us to join with us and work for the overthrow of the capitalist system.

R. M.

Editorial: Shorter Hours No Cure for Unemployment (1932)

Editorial from the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

Large numbers of people have been impressed with the suggestion that unemployment can be abolished or much reduced by shortening the hours of work while retaining capitalism. The argument takes the form that the overproduction of goods in relation to the demands of the market (with consequent falling prices and profits, and growing unemployment) can be met by reducing the hours of work. Now it is obvious that if wages were reduced along with hours (and assuming no intensification of work) the total volume of goods being produced would be smaller, but so would the total amount of wages. The problem would remain essentially the same as before, because the workers would have less money to spend, and this would off-set the smaller output.

Alternatively, the employers might pay the reduced wages to a larger number of workers, giving work to some unemployed. But in that case the total amount of wages would be the same as before (but spread over more workers) and the total output of goods would be the same as before (i.e., the shortening of hours would be off-set by the larger number of workers).

So that if wages are reduced along with hours the problem, of “overproduction” is not solved and unemployment is only reduced by reducing the wages of the workers generally.

Various labour leaders, having therefore rejected the idea of shorter hours with reduced wages, have stood firmly by the notion that the problem can be solved if hours are reduced and wages left unchanged. The Transport and General Workers’ Union have made much of an agreement fixed up with Mander Brothers, paint manufacturers, of Wolverhampton, under which hours are reduced from 47 to 40 without reduction of the minimum rates of pay. The agreement may or may not be a satisfactory one in other respects, but it certainly does not show a way of remedying unemployment, for the change is accompanied by a reorganisation of the works and the introduction of a new system of piece-rates winch will increase the output per head of the workers and will result in eventual dismissal of redundant staff. The only guarantee is that no dismissals shall take place for six months and that the dismissed men will then receive some “compensation.” (See Record, published by Transport Workers’ Union, October.)

In the meantime, the increased output at smaller costs will enable Manders to undersell their competitors and throw their workers into the ranks of the unemployed.

While the means of production and distribution remain in the ownership and control of a class instead of being the property of society, there is no solution of the poverty problem.

Editorial: Mussolini: The Reality behind the Shadow (1932)

Editorial from the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

The industrial city of Turin has hitherto been known as an area where a large number of workers have maintained unbroken hostility to Mussolini and the programmes of the Fascist Party. Recently, under the heading, “Mussolini Conquers Turin,” the Italian Correspondent of the Daily Express (October 22nd and 24th) described how Mussolini had ventured into this stronghold of his working-class opponents and had won them over by his display of courage. The enthusiasm, according to the correspondent, was immense, stupendous ! The Duce was greeted by thousands of cheering, yelling admirers. Turin lay willingly at his feet.

But the gilt on the gingerbread of Mussolini’s popularity is somewhat spoiled by the same correspondent’s account of the precautions taken by the hero to dissuade his opponents from giving expression to their opposition. Mussolini took no chances. First, there was an army of plain clothes detectives, 5,000 strong, rushed to Turin from all over Italy. Italian Air Force machines circled over Turin with orders to open fire on sight of any foreign aeroplanes heading for the city. (This was because, on a former occasion, Italian exiles showered anti-Fascist leaflets over some Italian towns.) Six hundred “suspects” (i.e., people suspected of not admiring Mussolini) were arrested prior to the visit. The route of the triumphal procession was kept a secret until the last moment. All doors facing on to the streets on the route were locked by police order, and on the night of Mussolini’s arrival all the windows in the streets which he traversed had to be illuminated. Lastly, every Fascist in Turin was fetched out to mount guard.

After all this, it is not surprising that the applause was not broken by one jarring note.

SPGB Meetings (1932)

Party News from the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

Roosevelt and the American Workers (1932)

From the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

The faith which the American workers have in the new President, Mr. Roosevelt, shows that, like the workers of England, they cherish the belief that somebody, someday, will rescue them from their poverty.

They have been told that the Roosevelt Government will be a business Government. In other words, the Cabinet will not consist of politicians, but of business men—men who will have the trade of the country at heart—men who will understand what is needed to put the U.S.A. on a good business footing.

And, blinding their eyes to the fact that business Governments have held sway in the past without bettering their lot at all, the workers of America are congratulating themselves and expecting Roosevelt and his Cabinet to give them better conditions. The possible passing of Prohibition has played a great part in winning votes in this well-boosted Presidential Election. Superficialities have, as usual, drawn the attentions of the working class away from the things that matter. What should prohibition or its abolition matter to them, when, in many cases they find it difficult to secure the bare necessities of life?

What should it matter to them which set of individuals composes their Government? The means of production, and the wealth the workers produce with these means, will still be in the hands of the capitalist class, and the workers will consequently remain poor.

There will still be a Secretary of Finance to keep an eye on the property interests of the American master class, whilst a Secretary of the Navy will perform his function of maintaining a fleet to protect American territory against other sections of capitalists.

Moreover, there will still be a Secretary of War who will not hesitate to send the youth of America on a mission of killing and mutilating if this is necessary in securing new markets and territorial advantages. And both Army and Navy will be used against the workers when capitalist interests require this.

In short, working class conditions will not be altered in the least. Unemployment and poverty will still exist, and there will still be present the dread of a future war. There is only one remedy. The overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a new social system—a system with the common ownership of the means of production and distribution as its basis. That, and that alone, will bring about the emancipation of the working class, not only of America, but of all countries.

F. Hawkins

Letter: Machinery and Socialism (1932)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent asks us what is our attitude towards those who condemn machine production and want to go back to handicraft methods.

“Some time ago, within the past year, I read an issue of the Saturday Evening Post, one of the most widely circulated weekly magazines in America, and a correspondent, Marcossan it was, gave an account of the character, aims and objects of the Nazi, or National Socialists in Germany in that issue of the Post.

Among the points he listed and described as features of that movement, was one that struck me as having a lot in common with the Socialist philosophy, and it was this : —

The Nazi’s organisation deplore the predominant role that the machine occupies, in this day and age, in the lives of the masses living within those countries that are for the most part industrialised.

They go in for rites and ceremonial functions that are reminiscent of Mediaevalism, as a reaction to the machine age, and they would revive the colourful picturesqueness of the people lived back in the period of the Holy Roman Empire.

However fallacious all this may seem to us, is there not something wholesome and worthy in a resentment against the necessity for being dominated by the machine, both in economic and social phases of life ? Many authorities agree in this; that the machine age has all but done away with a desire in the present generation for the acquisition of culture, i.e., literature, music and art, and the tendency on the part of the younger generation, so far as the development of their mental capabilities go, are all too one-sided, in the direction of motor mechanics and the repair of engines, etc. The types of people who can carve wonderful designs in wood-work, plaster or clay are only to be found in remote districts like the Bavarian Alps, the Black Forest, Sicily, and other places where the spirit of the Middle Ages still lingers on.”

Reply.

It may be as well to start off by explaining that the name used by the Hitler Party in Germany—”National Socialists”—does not justify the assumption that they have something in common with Socialists. Hitler, in the attempt to build up a large working class following, has found it useful to talk in the phrases of his opponents, the Social Democrats. But neither in his mouth nor in their mouths do these phrases betoken knowledge or acceptance of socialist principles.

Nor do we share Hitler’s alleged longing for medievalism and hatred of machine production. That such a hatred should exist is natural enough among workers who knew or have heard from their parents of the easier conditions under which handicraft production was carried on before the craftman’s products were swept off the market by the cheaper products of the capitalist factory. But it is not correct to describe the workers’ subjection to the capitalist as being simply a condition of “being dominated by the machine,” and it is also fallacious to assume that the course of industrial development can be reversed. If it were possible to reproduce the greatly overpraised conditions of the Middle Ages the same developments which undermined feudalism and led to its replacement by capitalism and machine production would be at work, leading on to the same results.

The chief objection, however, to our correspondent’s argument is the belief that the disabilities under which the workers now suffer are due to their subjection to machines. It is true that machine production, like every other form of production, imposes certain restrictions on the producers. It is true, for example, that it is necessary for all the crew of a boat or a train to be ready for work at a stated time, although this may involve considerable discomfort for those who would prefer to stay in bed for another hour. But what of the discomfort of having to get up early to milk the cows ? What of the inconvenience of having to make hay while the sun was shining, instead of at some other time more pleasing to the mediaeval peasant ? Some machine work is monotonous under capitalist conditions (perhaps some monotony is unavoidable under any conditions), but what of the deadly monotony and brutal exhaustion of primitive agriculture, and of housework ?

Machinery possesses two associated possibilities. It will, when socially owned, act as a saver of much unpleasant and exhausting labour, and it will make it possible so to increase the production of articles needed by the population as a whole that the necessary hours of labour will be greatly reduced. When this happens the majority will have opportunities of recreation and self-development now denied to them. It is not the machine which prevents the workers from living full lives, but the private ownership of the machines, along with the remainder of the means of production and distribution.

Editorial Committee.

Death Takes Away Another Old Comrade (1932)

Obituary from the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

We regret to say that Comrade G. Seach died in a hospital on November 21st, after an illness of several months. So little did he think that death was near, that the day before he died he was regretting that bad health had kept him from participating in the work of the organisation, but he expected to carry on again when he came out of hospital.

Comrade Seach was, perhaps, better known to older members of the Party. Before and immediately after the War he did a considerable amount of speaking, which finally brought on throat trouble. After speaking for twenty minutes, he suffered from bleeding of the throat. On this account he had to give up platform work at last.

He was a sturdy comrade and a valuable worker for the Party, and it is with deep sorrow we place him among the growing band of those who are only our memories. To his family we extend our sympathy.

A Mad World (1932)

From the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

(From the Star, October 13th, 1932.)

Over 20,000 British out-of-work settlers stranded in Australia are begging to be brought home. Forty children yesterday left British homes and orphanages for “down under.” It’s a mad world, my masters.

Newcastle-on-Tyne and Gateshead (1932)

Party News from the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

With a view to extending its activities to Gateshead, the Newcastle-on-Tyne branch has transferred its business meetings to the Gateshead district. The branch will henceforth be known as the Gateshead Branch.

A Class for the study of Marxian Economics is being formed, and non-members are specially invited. Full particulars may be obtained from the Secretary, Edmund Howarth, 95, Bewick Road, Gateshead.

Producing and paying (1932)

From the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent asks if it is correct that “Labour is the source of all wealth.”

The answer to this question is “No.” To say that “Labour is the source of all wealth” would mean that Labour of itself is some kind of inexhaustible reservoir from which wealth (articles of use—or use-values) can be extracted, and would leave out of account the part played by Nature. It is the sort of loose phrase that might be justified in casual conversation if the part played by Nature is left to be understood, but as a definition to be used in studying economic laws it is useless and likely to lead to unsound conclusions.

Nature provides the materials to which labour is applied, and Nature and Labour play an inseparable part in the process of wealth production. Marx criticised the phrase “Labour is the source of all wealth.” He wrote: —

“The phrase quoted is found in all primers for children, and is accurate insofar as it is left to he understood that the work is effected with the aid of the appropriate object and means. But a Socialist programme ought not to permit itself the use of such bourgeois locutions; it ought not to ignore the existence of the conditions upon which the meaning of the phrase solely depends.” (“Criticism of the Gotha Programme.”)

The correct statement of the source of wealth is that wealth is produced by the application of human labour to Nature-given material.

Another correspondent, while agreeing with the above definition, thinks that it contradicts our contention that rates and taxes are not a burden on the working class or, as he puts it, that the workers “do not pay for armaments.”

Here, again, is need for precision. The idea behind our correspondent’s difficulty is that if the workers produce all wealth, then they must pay for everything. The ability to pay is associated in his mind with the ability to produce. But this is a mistaken notion. The workers do not produce for themselves but for their employers. The whole of the articles produced belong to the employers, who sell them and receive the proceeds of the sale. Out of the proceeds they pay away various amounts, including the wages of the workers and rates and taxes. If the armament burden could be reduced the capitalists would benefit by paying away less of their profits in the form of taxes for armaments. Not so the workers. The workers have no means of paying for anything other than the wages they receive (supplemented by charity, social services, etc). If taxes are reduced, and if, as a consequence, prices fall, the workers’ cost of living also falls, and with it their wages. The workers produce the wealth but do not own it.

The tax burden which the various groups of property owners are constantly trying to pass off on to each other, cannot be passed off on to the propertyless class.

DON.

Demands which Have Not Effective Backing (1932)

From the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

During the final stages of the debate on the Means Test Bill in the House of Commons, Mr. Seymour Cocks, M.P. (Labour, Broxtowe), was reported as saying; “Men are unemployed, not through their own fault, but as a result of the economic system under which they live. That being so, the fault lies with society.”

In saying that much, Mr. Cocks stated a fact so well-known that it has become almost a platitude. Prominent men of other parties have said the same thing years ago. It is not necessary to belong to the Labour Party to become acquainted with a fact that is so obvious.

The capitalist system is undoubtedly responsible for unemployment, which is only a part of the general evil of poverty for which the system is to blame. When the workers are considering Mr. Cocks’s suggested remedy they should keep that fact in mind. His remedy is as follows: —

“We say they have a right to demand from society everything required to keep them in strength, health, and self-respect. This should not be looked on as State relief, but as compensation paid by society in default of providing work.”

There is, of course, no obstacle preventing the unemployed from making any demands they choose. The workers have been demanding this, that and the other thing, ever since they have had leaders, with varying degrees of non-success. Successive governments have permitted them to go on demanding. Most of the demands put forward by labour leaders, in the name of the workers, have been made on the Government in office at the time. But Mr. Cocks makes his demand on society.

In blaming society for unemployment Mr. Cocks is right; in suggesting a remedy that can only be sponsored by the capitalist class, he is wrong. If the social system is to blame, then society, as a whole, is responsible. The capitalist class because they are interested in preserving unemployment; and the working class because they fail to understand its cause and cure. While the working class submit to capitalist exploitation—the cause of poverty and unemployment—and by their votes give the capitalist class control, the latter, quite naturally, deal with the question along lines that suit their interests as a class.

To put the case in a nut-shell, unemployment is only a part of the greater and more general evil from which the workers suffer. But as a class, the latter outnumber the capitalists many times. Organised in the Socialist Party on the basis of their class they could easily swamp all capitalist parties, and gaining political control, establish Socialism, when all forms of poverty due to exploitation would be ended.

The responsibility is on the working class to bring this about. They are the class that suffers unemployment and the fear of unemployment. Only the class that suffers can bring about its own emancipation. Demands are useless unless backed by an effective force, and unnecessary when this force is on the workers’ side.

Mr. Cocks’s last statement, that, unemployment pay “should not be looked on as State relief, but as compensation paid by society in default of providing work,” shows that he is not opposed to the capitalist system in itself. He is quite prepared to leave the system intact in return for the right of the unemployed to demand the necessaries of life.

Right without might is an illusion of the sentimentalist. Might lies behind the guns of the armed forces, and it allows what “rights” it deems fit.

F. Foan

The Coming New Prosperity in America (1932)

From the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

Shorter Hours: More Work: Lower Pay
Uncouth indeed is the hurricane that blows nobody good! Out of the great depression, at last it looks as if a little breeze might cool the brows of our poor capitalists here in the U.S.A. Profits have been nowhere near what they ought to be, dividends falling off, taxes going up, prices going down; and you wouldn’t believe the amount of political grafting that has been going on at their expense! The tariff hasn’t been acting right, crops have been exasperatingly abundant, so that agricultural prices are, as Mr. Hoover says, “hideously low.” Even the Boll-Weevil proved disloyal by failing to destroy enough cotton, thus increasing unemployment among the brokers on the cotton exchange. Of course, wages did slip down a bit, here and there, pretty much all over; but still, you couldn't exactly say things were like they used to be in “normal” times. No, indeed!

But, maybe, happy days will come again. If our masters had to shell out to keep a lot of charities going, they also learned through these same charities just what a small amount the workers can be made to exist on, without in the least losing their love for the wage-system. The knowledge is to be applied in a manner to profit the owners of wealth and the means of production thereof.

We are to have the shorter working week, whose virtues have been sung so long by trade unions and reform bodies, amongst which may be mentioned the so-called Socialist Party of America, the Communist Party, and the Industrial Union groups. The chorus was that the five-day week and the six-hour day is the cure for unemployment. Much noise was made, and vast statistics gathered, to show the benefits to workers and to capitalists as well. At St. Louis, in May, 1927, the Order of Railroad Telegraphers put it to the bosses neatly in a resolution which started thus: —

  “Whereas, It is a demonstrable fact that a shorter work week is conducive to a more intensive production without an undue strain on the worker . . .” (Italics mine).

You see, after all, the capitalists have political power and own the industries. So it was very necessary to sell the idea to them. A thoughtful worker could see the point at once. The capitalists, having great minds, capable of pondering all these things, thought more slowly.

Now, the capitalists long ago resigned themselves to having a considerable number of jobless workers around, even in the busiest times. It helped them keep wages down somewhere near the food, clothing and shelter level. But when the number of out-of-works gets up around a dozen millions, as it is now, you can't blame even a capitalist for losing his patience. So much idle labour-power costs a lot of money, it is a nuisance, and a menace to private property. As Mr. Gibson says (Wall Street Journal, October 17th, 1932): —

   "Corporations and business firms which support unemployment relief funds may be insuring themselves against a semi-permanent government system of relief with resultant taxes over a long period of years, and also may be averting social unrest spelling business disaster . . "(italics mine).

The Interstate Commerce Commission refuses to allow the New York Telephone Co. to charge to operating expense $75,000 which they gave to the City's 1931 fund for the jobless, even though the Company pointed out that “in the absence of unemployment relief the general effect of the business depression might have been worse and riots or other disturbances might have injured the company's property " (Business Week, NY., October 12th).

Anyway, we are now in the midst of the "national share-the-work campaign," which is the new name of the shorter work-week movement. Directing the campaign are such sterling toilers for humanity as Walter C. Teagle, President, Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey, who hopes to report, “before winter, if possible," "that several million unemployed have been put back to work." Mr. Teagle's company adopted the five-day week some time back, and now the Socony-Vacuum Corporation states that, as from November 1st, “operations of the company will be placed on a five-day week, with a corresponding reduction in pay " (italics mine). (See Wall Street Journal, October 10th.)

Other work spreaders who are urging the idea on their fellow-capitalists are Alfred P. Sloan, President of General Motors; Fred. H. Ecker, President of the Metropolitan Life Insurance .Co.; Paul W. Litchfield, of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.; L. C. Walker, President of the Shaw-Walker Co.; J. H. Rand, Chairman of Remington-Rand; and the whole manoeuvre is sponsored officially by our great engineering President, Herbert Hoover.

Of course, somebody would bring up some difficulties in the way of the plan. The National Industrial Conference Board made public a survey of 1,500 employers, with the discouraging remark:

  “While, of course, the figures here given are averages that do not exclude individual cases with longer hours, it is none the less a striking fact that only four of the industries named provide an average of more than forty hours per week. By contrast, as many as eight industries have reached so low an ebb of activity that they cannot provide so much as thirty hours a week." (Times, N.Y., October 14th, 1932.)

They gave further figures, which are here arranged for convenience of the reader (same source): —

Foundries and machine shops were working only 27.4 hours, and—

“Other principal industries ranged between 30 and 40 hours."

The above was the state of affairs in August. Ordinary persons, like workers, might wonder how the five-day week and the six-hour day can be introduced in industries which aren't working even that long, and how this can put the unemployed back to work. But, shucks! this will simply make the job-spreading more interesting. It will be no puzzle at all for the great men. Maybe, we will get a three-day week out of it—"with corresponding reductions in pay"! The masters are not going to forget the lessons learned from their charity organisations. What they hope to achieve by this proposal is as follows: —

1. They would save millions in charity donations. The amount they had to tear themselves loose from last winter was agonizing, and already the (N.Y.) State Temporary Relief Administration estimates that $10,000,000 monthly will be needed for relief of unemployed the coming winter (in New York alone) and— “The estimate did not include funds to be raised privately . . ." (New York Times, October 18th, 1932).
2. The dole system would be staved off. (Voluntary giving has staved off permanent government relief, which would raise taxes. See above quote from Wall Street Journal.)
3. The workers will be more rested, therefore able to carry on “more intensive production" while working. This conclusion is amply supported by data compiled by the National Industrial Conference Board. Rival crews, or shifts, could be made up, and the friendly (!) rivalry between them will surely bring out some new high points in productivity.
4. We are assured that workers do not have to eat such large amounts as was formerly thought necessary; if they will only adopt the "scientific" menus being compiled for them by our dieticians, they can yield more energy with much less food. In Fayette County, Pennsylvania, it has been shown that a family of five can survive on one dollar per week! A working-class family, of course; a capitalist family needs a bit more. Another thing: the doctors have for years pooh-poohed the advocates of fasting and dieting as a disease cure, but in the present emergency even the medicine men are going to face their duty and lay bare the facts. It seems they have been fooling us all the time about fasting. Dr. W. A. Evans, who conducts a daily column in the Daily Nexus (U.S.A.), assures us (October 20th) that: —"A normal man should be able to go without food for nearly two months.”

This is not the first or only statement of the kind from orthodox sources, and more can be expected in the struggle to keep hungry workers from worrying about pork chops. Very useful when wages are about to be reduced.

To be sure, the sharpened competition which will be the life of trade with the coming of shorter weeks and days, will make necessary the introduction of more improved methods and machinery. The Wall Street Journal (October 14th) quotes "Iron Age"; —

   "The substitution of more efficient machine tools will eventually take place on a large scale.” 

The same issue quotes Walter P. Chrysler: —

  "Our Plymouth plant has been completely reorganised to take full advantage of the tremendous advances that have been made in machine tool design and manufacturing methods during the past few years.”

If the process is going on already, just wait till it gets going in earnest! The outcome, of course, will be the more rapid glutting of markets, with even worse unemployment than before; meanwhile, terrific increase of exploitation of those in work.

This will be the "New Prosperity.” The next depression will surely be a humdinger! Would it be out of place, fellow-workers, to remind you that this is the wages-system, capitalism; and that Socialism is a practicable alternative ?

Scott Frampton,

Workers' Socialist Party of U.S.A. 

“Common Ownership”: Ourselves v. The Labour Party (1932)

From the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

At a meeting in the provinces addressed recently by a member of the S.P.G.B. someone in the audience protested against the statement that the S.P.G.B. was the only party that stood for Socialism; and produced a membership card of the Labour Party, wherein occurred the statement that the party stood for “common ownership.” The above difficulty is typical of the state of mind of many workers who support the Labour Party under the impression that they are thereby helping to emancipate the members of their class.

In the first place it is necessary to bear in mind that the membership of the local Labour Parties is small compared with that of the total membership of the Labour Party. The bulk of the membership consists of affiliated Trade Unionists (who may be anything, politically, from Tories to Anarchists). They form the basis for the power of the leaders of the party, who adjust their electoral programmes to the varied ideas of those who pay the piper.) Thus we find in Labour Party programmes a mishmash in which the views of Liberal industrial capitalists and the Trade Union bosses predominate. In these programmes the idea of common ownership finds no place, although the words are used in their object. Common ownership would deprive the capitalists of their property rights, i.e., of their power to exact rent, interest, and profit from the labour of the workers. Common ownership involves a social revolution, the abolition of the mode of living of the ruling class in present-day society. It will be resisted by this class by every means in its power, being directly opposed to its interests.

Let us see how much resistance is offered to the programme of the Labour Party. Details of this were dealt with in last month’s issue of the Socialist Standard (” The Labour Party Conference ”).—Even when the Labour Party uses the phrase “common ownership” it is used as if it were synonymous with “public ownership.” “Labour and the Nation,” calls for the "public ownership of the coal, transport and power industries” (p. 47). No intelligent capitalist opposes such measures, in principle.

As the Liberal Industrial Report published in 1928 has it: —

Public concerns of one kind or another . . .  already cover so vast a field that the supposed choice between Individualism and Socialism is largely an obsolete issue. An examination of the existing types of Public Concerns shows that the Socialist would gain nothing by assimilating to a single theoretical model a diversity developed by experience to meet actual situations. On the other hand, it would be quite impossible to scrap the elaborate legislation enacted by Governments of every political complexion and hand over our public utilities and railways system to the operation of uncontrolled Individualism. There is, therefore, no question of principle at stake, but only one of degree of expediency. and of method.

(“ Britain's Industrial Future,” page 456.)

 The Socialist is not concerned, as is suggested above, with any "theoretical model.” We have no cut-and-dried straight-jacket into which we wish to thrust industries. We know that the precise; form assumed by the organisation of industry after the revolution will depend as always upon experience and changing conditions. Hence we offer no ready-made plans.

People who are prepared to tolerate and support capitalist ownership (whether private or “public”) are full of plans. They have to be. The problems created by capitalism are so numerous that those engaged in its administration spend their time necessarily in endeavouring to solve them and in finding ways and means of reconciling the antagonistic interests involved. Socialists, on the other hand, recognise that the most fundamental antagonism of all, that between the workers and the capitalists as classes, can find no solution within any form of capitalist ownership. What can it matter to the workers whether they are exploited by a joint-stock company, a public utility corporation set up by a Labour Government, or by a Government Department? During the strike of 1926 drivers and conductors of the London General Omnibus Co. came out along with similar grades in the employ of the London County Council Tramways.

They were members of the same union, members of the same class, with the same interest, hostile to that of the employing class no matter by what the organisation might be, through which the interests of the Capitalists were represented. Only common ownership of the means of living as proposed by the Socialist Party of Great Britain can abolish this conflict of interests, and it is the business of Socialists to make this plain to the workers.

The Labour Party, however, found no difficulty in accepting office with Liberal support, just as it found it easy to win seats in Parliament by means of Liberal programmes. The most advanced proposals of the Labour Party only involve the buying out of groups of capitalists. How can the workers, who have nothing, buy out those who have everything ?

The Labour Party propose to convert shareholders into Government bondholders, enjoying interest guaranteed by the Government. This will leave the working class non-owners in the same position as they are now. .The capitalist class as a whole, being politically organised, would continue to use the State as its executive power; and would also use the Labour Party, as it has already done, to confuse the workers by accepting official responsibility for the administration of capitalism.

Lacking definite Socialist principles the Labour Party can only repeat the disappointments and failures to which it has hitherto led those workers who have placed their trust in it, breaking up into fragments whenever faced by a crisis that demands definite action in the interest of the workers. Having been built up on the "principle" that it was necessary to gain the support of the Liberal section of the capitalists for "reforms," it can act only as the tool or catspaw of that section.

There is no substitute for the conscious political organisation of the working-class aiming at the common ownership of the means of life. That involves constant opposition to all sections of the master-class, which is represented in this country only by the S.P.G.B.

Eric Boden