Editorial: War and the International Outlook (1943)

Editorial from the December 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

When war broke out in 1914 the S.P.G.B. issued a Manifesto which reiterated our warning of years that it is the economic rivalries of the capitalist system that contain within themselves the ever-present danger of war and which had caused that world conflagration. We affirmed that the interest of the working class of all nations is not in deciding which nation or group of nations shall have dominant control of trade routes and the world’s markets, but in ending the social system based on private ownership by the capitalist class of the means of production and distribution. Our Manifesto ended with the words :—

“Having no quarrel with the working-class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our goodwill and Socialist fraternity, and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of Socialism.”

In October, 1939, we published in these columns a statement re-affirming the Socialist attitude to war. We said : —

“With the increasing international tension of recent years we have again and again pressed home the undeniable truth that as long as the world is organised on a capitalist economic basis the never-ceasing rivalries will continue to produce conflicts ranging from mere diplomatic crises to gigantic armed struggles spreading over the oceans and continents of the world. The S.P.G.B. re-affirms that the interest of the world working-class—on whom the untold misery and suffering of war inevitably falls—lies in abolishing the capitalist economic system.”

At our 1940 Annual Conference a statement was formally adopted which briefly reviewed the arguments for supporting war, re-affirmed our Socialist opposition, and held that “the consequences of modern wars are such that we cannot envisage circumstances arising which would justify Socialist support for war.”

We are aware that this attitude, unpopular in the last war, is equally unpopular now, particularly in face of the widespread belief that war is the only means of stemming the spread of Fascism and of safeguarding democracy. There are many who would say that they entirely agree with the broad statement that capitalism is the breeding ground of war, but who put forward the argument that military defeat is the way of overthrowing the dictatorships. Briefly our answer to this is that though military defeat may have that immediate result—as indeed it did in 1918—the existence of democracy depends in the long run on the degree of enlightenment of the working-class, and that one of the consequences of modern war is that the nationalist feeling and hatreds engendered by war hinder the growth of working-class internationalism and enlightenment. On this latter point there can be no question. The growth of nationalism in the ranks of the workers and of theories based on the assumption that the whole German nation, including the German workers, are incapable of rising above the barbaric traditions of the German military and big business cliques is proof of this.

We affirm that that way lies despair and disaster for the working-class movement and the human race. The need of the hour is to re-kindle the former flame—weak and uncertain though it was—of internationalism based on the slowly growing recognition that the interests of the world working-class of all nations are one. It is easy and plausible to say that internationalism is unreal and must be abandoned in face of the past unwillingness of workers in Germany and Italy to line up behind their aggressive ruling class dictatorships. Our view is that the decision of the British and other Labour movements (in 1914 and again in 1939) to ally themselves with the Governments of capitalism inevitably weakened the hands of those in other lands who were willing to resist the capitalist-nationalist fever around them. We hold that hope for the future lies in the direction of trying to keep alive independent Socialist organisation free from the charge of having lost its belief in the working-class. We hold that it is the duty of Socialists here to continue their work of spreading Socialist knowledge confident that Socialists in every other country will be doing what they can in face of the difficulties that beset them. At a time when the international fraternity of the working-class is drowned by the roar of guns, we re-affirm our faith that only through international, Socialist action can the future peace and well-being of the working-class be attained.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, S.P.G.B.

A Critic of Marx’s Economic Theories—concluded (1943)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1.

Illustrations of the Alleged Errors of Marx

In our correspondent’s letter (see November Socialist Standard) examples were given to show that Marx was wrong. Our correspondent charged us with ignoring capital and directive ability and asked us to consider the man who builds a boat, lends it to a friend and receives half the catch. The boat builder is also an expert on fishing grounds and directs the fisherman to the best spot. This may be interesting as a hypothetical example of division of labour, but it has no relationship to the capitalist system as it actually is. Capitalists as capitalists do not build boats to lend to friends, or guide fishermen to the best fishing grounds. Directly or through their agents the capitalists control production and look after their own interests as profit receivers, but all the productive process, including the provision of technical knowledge and organising capacity is for the most part in the hands of wage or salary earners—members of the working class. If the capitalist happens to take a hand in production this is something extraneous to his position as a receiver of profits. In the undeveloped small-scale enterprise the capitalist would take a hand in production, but, as Marx pointed out, “the capitalist is relieved from actual labour so soon as his capital has reached that minimum amount with which capitalist production as such begins” (“Capital,” Kerr edition, Vol. I, p. 361); moreover, from that point he (the capitalist) “hands over the work of direct and constant supervision of the individual workmen and groups of workmen to a special kind of wage-labourer.”

Marx went on to expose the error of the capitalist economist who “treats the work of control made necessary by the co-operative character of the labour process as identical with the different work of control necessitated by the capitalist character of that process and the antagonism of interests between capitalist and labourer. It is not because he is a leader of industry that a man is a capitalist; on the contrary, he is a leader of industry because he is a capitalist.”

Marx dealt with the capitalist who claims that he himself creates value. “Have I myself not worked? Have I not performed the labour of superintendence and of overlooking the spinner? And does not this labour, too, create value?” (P. 215.)

Marx pointedly adds : “His overlooker and his manager try to hide their smiles.”

Our critic’s example does not belong to the world of to-day. First, as Mr. J. Wedgewood has shown from the available information, the typical wealthy man or woman of to-day has inherited his or her wealth or the bulk of it: “… in the great majority of cases, the large fortunes of one generation belong to the children of those who possessed the large fortunes of the preceding generation” (“Economics of Inheritance,” Routledge, 1929, p. 104). In short the existing capital is largely the accumulation of surplus value taken from past generations of workers.

Next, the predominant type of capitalist concern is one in which the capital is owned by shareholders who have no hand in the operations of the concern. In ten large, well-known concerns, including Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd., Unilever, Ltd., and Coats, Ltd., there were in 1936 no fewer than 442,720 shareholders, of whom 193 held between them 36,778,624 shares or units of stock. (“Economist,” 5th December, 1930). Nobody suggests that these 442,720 shareholders have any hand in the running of the concerns they own, except the remote one of looking after their financial interest through the boards of directors. They do not operate chemical plant, manufacture thread, work on plantations scattered over the globe or build and man the fishing trawlers that are owned by Unilever. The chairman of Unilever, who is also director of an insurance company, a candle company, plantation companies in Africa, and fishing companies in this country, does not have to build boats and guide fishermen to fishing grounds.

How remote the capitalist can be from production was illustrated a few years ago by one of the wealthiest women in Australia, Mrs. Scarfe. Having explained that her money was made “by hard work and hardware,” she was asked by a reporter if she “managed ” her own money. Her candid reply was: “Oh, no! I don’t ‘manage’ my money—I just take my share of the dividends” (Daily News, London, 20th August, 1925). Or we may quote G.B. Shaw in reply to Mallock many years ago (not because Shaw is an “authority,” but because he well put a demonstrable, truth) :—

“The notion that the people who are now spending in week-end hotels, in motor-cars, in Switzerland, the Riviera, and Algeria the remarkable increase in unearned incomes noted by Mr. Keir Hardie have ever invented anything, ever directed anything, ever selected their own investments without the aid of a stockbroker or solicitor, ever as much as seen the industries from which their incomes are derived, betrays not only the most rustic ignorance of economic theory, but a practical ignorance of society . . . .”

Our critic’s second example about two publishers calls for several comments.

It is not quite clear what is meant by the remark that the labour embodied in the production of 100,000 copies of one book is the same as that embodied in “several times that number” of the second book. If only 100,000 copies of one book were printed and, say, 500,000 copies of the second book, then much more labour was embodied in making the paper, and printing and binding the second book. If, however, both firms printed 500,000 copies, but one firm had 400,000 left on their hands, we can only say that the salaried worker who was responsible for so misjudging the market that he had 500,000 copies printed in advance when only 100,000 were needed, would get the sack.

Our critic obviously misunderstands the Marxian labour theory of value. Marx did not say that unnecessary or wasted labour is value-creating, but only socially necessary labour.

The labour-time that counts, according to Marx, is “no more time than is needed on an average, no more than is socially necessary” (“Capital,” p. 46). And again, “If a thing is useless, so is the labour contained in it ; the labour does not count as labour, and therefore creates no value” (p. 48).

Our correspondent has something to say about the authors of the two books—”One was more successful than the other.” He will, however, be aware that some firms, Messrs. Dent, for example, can publish at a uniform price (their “Everyman Library”) the works of authors so much at variance with one another as St. Augustine, Boeaccio, Darwin and Karl Marx; while on the other hand anyone who has the cash can pay all kinds of prices for, say, Shakespeare’s Works according to the different bindings, type, and quality of paper, i.e., according to the different amounts of labour embodied in them. In conclusion it may be repeated that the validity of the Marxian explanation of the working of capitalism cannot be denied merely on the ground that a number of individuals with less than Marx’s knowledge think the explanation inadequate, especially as for the most part they have not understood what Marx says; nor can Marx be shown to be wrong by examples which bear little or no relation to the world of capitalism as if actually exists.

Edgar Hardcastle

Correction.—Owing to misreading a passage in our correspondent’s letter we inadvertently attributed to G. B. Shaw a statement actually made by our correspondent,

What our correspondent intended was:—

“I have said that Socialists and anti-Socialists alike have riddled the Marxian doctrine through and through.”

The first two words were linked together and we read them as “Shaw said, etc;’ and replied on that understanding, the more readily since Shaw is a critic of the Marxian theory. Our printer, however, got the words correctly, and thus the references to Shaw in the November issue, were not called for by our correspondent’s letter.—Ed. Comm.

Mr. Priestley does not understand (1943)

From the December 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr Priestley of Postscript fame, has discovered a conspiracy. Not in the Argentine to prevent certain British capital to exploit the production of Argentine workers, or in one of the Balkan States where Kings and Presidents add the prefix ex- quite often, but here in England.

“When the war situation was bad a great many gentlemen and their newspapers suddenly developed an acute social conscience. ‘Yes, yes,’ they cried, to our astonishment and delight. ‘a new Britain after the war … no more unemployment, low wages, bad housing . . . Beveridge …. Equal opportunities. Couldn’t agree with you more.'” (Reynolds, 20th October, 1943.)

Surely, if Mr. Priestley has any memory, he shouldn’t have been astonished and delighted by such an old and well-tried chicanery as this. Does he not know that at all crises developed by Capitalist production, when its continued existence was threatened and could only be saved by the efforts of the working class, that lavish promises of a better life were made? To be forgotten directly the immediate danger was past and when the workers might have been expected to claim the rewards due to them. When they did so they could be assured of plausible reasons for the non-fulfilment of the promises. Sometimes it has been deemed better to frighten the workers and terrible bogeys like inflation are used to encourage them to adjust themselves to the new conditions.

The success of these methods is possible because a proper understanding of the social system, of which the workers are victims, is lacking.

Mr. Priestley continues :

“But since we have begun to win battles and complete victory in Europe is almost within sight, these gentlemen and their newspapers have changed their tune. We hear very little from them now about that new Britain. Their reforming zeal appears to have vanished.”

The tune is the same, Mr. Priestley, it is just a variation. It is occasioned by the new conditions that loom up from the darkness and havoc of the war. Industry will no longer have to curb its activities for the purpose of war. There are world markets to gain and the domestic requirements of the people to supply. These peace-time projects are at present hedged around with controls and orders that disturb some capitalists.

But the workers have plenty of experience of the discomforts of short supply. In fact they are quite used to it. Even when there was an abundance of these things many workers went without, and as long as Capitalism, and its motive of production for profit remain they will continue to do so.

Certain sections of Big Business have to capture the ears of the workers. They have to gain their support in order to legislate for the purpose of giving full reign to their profit-seeking activities. The workers may be told that labour restrictions are the cause of their bad conditions, that the Essential Work order is not democratic, and that they are entitled to the freedom that has been fought for. Thus exploiting the lack of political knowledge of many sections of workers.

When industry seeks its profits once more in peacetime production there will no longer be need for Essential Work orders. Once more the threat of unemployment will take the place of the fine and imprisonment. If anyone doubts the possibility of unemployment then the controversy on demobilisation should dispel any illusions on that matter. Many times has that fear been expressed in leader columns and letters to the Press, that those who have fought and served the longest will return to find all the jobs have been snapped up.

In the same article Mr. Priestley relates the inconveniences of form filling and their like to those other rather permanent features of working-class life, unemployment and undernourishment. He sums it up with—

“Too much red tape is bad, but better red tape than chains.”

Socialists know that the wage system is the basis of Capitalism and the wage-packet the link in the chains of the worker. All our well-meaning reformers see as their greatest achievement the provision of a wage-packet for all, and so the chains are complete. We who understand the nature of Capitalism know why this is impossible, and makes the provision of the dole necessary to fill in the gaps and to keep the workers from utter destitution.

The controls that have been introduced in war time, and which many of our well-known politicians of the Left find so attractive, have been introduced by the representatives of the owning class, and when they have served their purpose they will go and other methods adopted to secure the functioning of capital. Workers will strain in vain to cage or curb it. Capitalism has its own way of working, and never to the advantage of the workers. The workers’ task is to abolish it and the evils and poverty it entails.

The socialist message is the same to workers of all lands.

The abolition of Capitalism and its wages system, and its replacement by the common ownership of the means of life with the distribution of goods solely for use according to our needs.

S. K.

This Interesting World (1943)

From the December 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

Turkey in the War?

Newspapers these days make interesting reading. An example is an article by the “diplomatic correspondent” of the News Chronicle (5/11 13), who presumably gets his cue from the Foreign Office. Many moons ago it was stated that Turkey is “Britain’s formal military ally,” but despite this the Turkish Government have taken no active part in the war. It is to be presumed that the Turkish Government would prefer to keep clear of either side in the conflict, but small nations, in a world of big capitalist powers, are not the masters of their fate which they would like to be. After the Moscow Conference, Mr. Eden, on his way home, had an interview in Cairo with the Turkish foreign minister, and the News Chronicle purports to show what might have been discussed. The article states that “Russia thinks that Turkey should abandon her neutrality,” while the “diplomatic correspondent” states that in view of the victories now being achieved by the allies “Turkish statesmen must naturally be reviewing present Turkish policy in the light of future probabilities” and “the weight of any influence she could exert in the settlement of problems in which she has an interest will be in direct ratio to the contribution she has made towards bringing peace about.” What this curious diplomatic verbiage really means is : “Join in with us now, and you shall have a slice of the cake.” It also seems to indicate the suggestion of a threat. If Turkey does join in—on the right side—it will be just one more dictatorship fighting for “democracy.” Turkey has a one-party system of government similar to that of Russia.

* * *

The Sergeant Wants His

The same issue of the News Chronicle contains a report of a discussion in the House of Commons regarding a Sergeant, serving in India, who was told by his former employers that they could not guarantee to take him back after the war. Mr. Bevin, Minister of Labour, admitted that the firm had not committed any legal offence, and stated that he had communicated with them, but that they had shown no desire to change their attitude. Mr. Bevin’s comment was—”I must express my astonishment at their stupidity in not realising the effect such a letter must have on its recipient and my condemnation of their apparent disregard of any considerations other than those directly affecting their own interests.” It will be observed that Mr. Bevin was concerned that a letter should have been written which might disturb the man’s “morale.” It is to be presumed that other employers, at any rate, will make a note of this. Even if they are unable to take back workers after the war, at least do not tell them so !

* * *

Food, Work and Home

Mr, Churchill, however, does realise the necessity of keeping up the fighting man’s “morale,” and in his recent speech in the Mansion House, he said (News Chronicle, 10/11/43):—

“I regard it as a definite part of the duty and responsibility of this National Government to have it set about a vast and practical scheme to make sure that in the years immediately following the war there will be food, work and home for all. 

“No airy visions, no party doctrines or party prejudices or vested interests shall stand in the way of the simple duty of providing before the end of the war for food, work and home. Each plan must be prepared now during the war, and must come into action—just like when war breaks out general mobilisation is declared—as soon as victory is won.”

Either Mr. Churchill is or is not aware of how capitalism works, but despite any guarantees, however sincere they may be, of security after the war, capitalism just won’t provide it—not even if Mr. Churchill still heads the British Government. Capitalism is based upon the ownership of the factories, mines, railways, etc., by the capitalist class, and upon the production of goods and services for profit. No profit, no work, is a constant factor in capitalism, and when goods have been produced so that markets are glutted, and no further outlets can be found, the necessary consequence is that the factories, etc., will be closed or put on short time until the markets revive again. Factory owners will not employ workers to produce goods when those goods cannot be sold at a profit.

* * *

£1,250 Millions in Six Minutes

Another paragraph in the News Chronicle of November 5 reports the voting in the House of Commons of another £1,250.000,000 for carrying on the war. This huge sum, it is stated, was voted in six minutes. Most of this money will be raised either by taxation of the British capitalist class or by loans from that class. When the war is over we wonder whether unemployment relief will be voted for with the same alacrity and on the same generous scale.

R. Milborne

Whose Idea was the Magnetic Mine ? (1943)

From the December 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists proclaim and prove that wars are the outcome of conflicting economic interests, and are not due merely to the machinations of Governments, whether these Governments are Labour, Nationalist or Communist, or a combination like “Popular Front.”

Likewise they are not due to the intrigues and villainy of individuals, irrespective of whether these individuals are eulogised and lauded as the paragons of virtue, or are condemned as the prototypes of an imaginary Mephistopheles.

Given the economic urge, each section of the capitalist class endeavours to thwart other sections, and secure the raw materials, etc., to beat its rivals.

Failing other means of settling the dispute, recourse is had to war.

Anticipating the possibility of war, all governments devote some of their time to the type of weapons likely to be most effective, and if possible to give research workers support in the search for any “new” or “secret” weapon which, on being used, would cause consternation and havoc (at least temporarily) to the enemy.

When Hitler announced that a “secret” weapon was about to be used against his opponents, everyone else was wondering and fearing the form it would take if it really existed.

It is now disclosed that the “secret weapon” was the magnetic mine.

“The Germans perfected the magnetic mine eight years before the war.”—(Daily Express, May 4, 1943.)

Now, if the start of the war be reckoned from the date when Britain and Germany broke off relationship (excluding the Czecho-Slovakian “episode”) then eight years brings us to 1931, and the government in power in Germany then was a democratic Catholic-cum-Social Democratic one, and therefore the preparations were perfected at that time as far as the magnetic mine was concerned.

Again, fellow worker, we of the Socialist Party of Great Britain wish to impress upon you the fact that wars are fought and prepared for as a result of economic need, and the conscious or unconscious representatives of capitalism will make these preparations, whether the form of government be democratic or dictatorship. Wars are not fought for the settlement of ideological differences. These differences themselves arise from the different economic needs.

Take special note, fellow-worker. The economic need of the working class is the historic need of emancipation from wage-slavery, and this can only be brought about by abolishing Capitalism and establishing Socialism.

The ideological difference in the mind of the worker who is a Socialist springs from the economic need of social emancipation

When sufficient members of the working class (a majority) recognise this need and take the necessary steps to get the political power to bring it about, then it shall be an accomplished fact and not before.

Alpha.

SPGB Meetings (1943)

Party News from the December 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Black Hole of Calcutta (1943)

From the December 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

What might be termed the sequel to the historical incident we know by the above term has been, and is being written in the blood of thousands of starving, pestilence-stricken Indian workers and peasants of Bengal. Daily references in the newspapers to the famine in India have provided grim evidence of the ghastly scenes enacted on the streets of Calcutta by actors unable to choose the part they wish to play. Stories have been related of children being sold for a handful of rice, and of skeletons of men and women feeding on jungle roots and leaves. Figures of the death rate show it to have increased to nearly four times the normal average. The whole tragedy is graphically epitomised by the Calcutta Statesman which said:-

  “Thousands of emaciated destitutes still roam the streets in the ceaseless quest for food, scouring dustbins and devouring rotten remains of castaway food and fruit. Rickety children clutching imploringly the tattered garments barely covering the bones of their mothers are seen in all quarters of the city.” (Quoted in Manchester Guardian Weekly, October 15, 1943.)

Famine has always been a factor to reckon with in the economy of India, and has usually meant suffering for large sections of the population. It is commonly understood that a famine means a shortage of food owing to the natural failure of crops, but what is not generally recognised is that the character of the famine, and the way in which it affects the people, varies with the type of society in which it occurs. To the middle of the nineteenth century famines in India were localized in the area in which there was a shortage of crop, and meant an appalling lack of food in that area and of employment. Even if one had money there was no food to be brought, and the general solution was to migrate to areas where food was available. From about 1850, however, capitalism, under the tutelage of the British, became superimposed on the old Indian feudal economy at an ever quickening rate, with an ever greater intensity. With the spreading of capitalism the growth of industrialisation, the development of the plantation and factory system, the production of goods for sale came more and more into evidence. Concurrently with this development the means of transport and communication were vastly increased and extended. Hence, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, it became relatively easy to shift quantities of foodstuffs into famine-stricken areas, and a change in the general character of Indian famines took place. They now meant, not so much an appalling lack of food as high scarcity prices and lack of employment, and whilst the growth of the means of communication lessened the danger of local famines, it tended to widen the area where high prices would prevail.

Thus the famine, from being a calamity of the natural order, turned into a calamity of the social order, aggravating the sufferings inflicted on the poorer sections of the population, notably the peasants, the landless day-labourer, and the growing urban working class.

It is true that in the area most affected by the recent famine, Bengal, Bombay, and Madras, there has been some destruction of crops due to natural causes, but at the same time there have been good crops in other provinces. In the reports that have arrived in this country there is a general insistence that the catastrophe has not come about because of any basic natural shortage, but because such deficits in supply as did exist have been taken advantage of by hoarders and speculators. The loss of the Burma rice crop, excessive inflation, and general economic dislocation (all factors arising out of the war), and natural shortages in certain districts, all tended to encourage the farmers and merchants to hold on to their stocks in order to get still higher prices and greater profits when they did at last decide to sell.

This was the position as early as January 15, 1943, when in the Manchester Guardian Weekly it was reported that “price control has never been rigorously enforced, except against small retailers. The impression is widespread that there are considerable stocks which would be brought out if price control was removed and this would relieve the shortage until next harvest.” The same issue of the paper also stated that black markets flourished everywhere.

After seven months had elapsed the same paper wrote as follows (August 13, 1943):-

  “The Government of India’s Food Member did not deny last week the allegation that men in authority have obstructed the Government’s measures to bring relief to the masses. The Food Secretary on Sunday admitted that Sind had made enormous profits through the sale of surplus wheat and rice. Lack of foresight, the toleration of profiteers, and the fear of alienating certain favoured sections like the landlords, have created the food crisis.”

Whilst we learn on the one hand of the fear of alienating certain favoured sections of the property owning class, we learn that there was no such fear during the period of alienating those sections of the population with little or no property. Side by side with the blackest of black markets, dealing in the very life-blood of the poverty-stricken masses, there were “long queues of hungry workers waiting all night outside Government controlled grain shops in places like Bombay.” (Manchester Guardian Weekly, January 15, 1943)

Investigations conducted by Calcutta University have revealed that 50 per cent of the families of destitutes have been broken up, and that 47 per cent are landless labourers, 25 per cent small cultivators, 6 per cent town beggars, and the remainder unclassified.

Such evidence as this throws into bold relief the fact that it is the propertyless who suffer and die, whilst the propertied reap excess profits and get all they want in the black markets.

The Indian scene, in normal times, is a picture of a vast mass of humanity living in the grip of abysmal poverty. Utter destitution resulting in a prolonged death through starvation, or a quicker death through mal-nutritional diseases such as tuberculosis, cholera and typhoid, is the lot of Indian workers and peasants. What then must be their lot when the price of the food they require for a bare existence soars far and away above their means? What can they do but wait for death to claim them, their bony hands held out imploringly for food, on the pavements of the second largest and one of the “most prosperous” cities in the British Empire! In other parts of the same empire the granaries of Australia and Canada are full to overflowing with the wheat that would bring succour to those in need. The problem, however, according to Mr. Amery (Secretary for India), speaking in the House of Commons, October 12, 1943, was “entirely one of shipping, and has to be judged in the light of all the other urgent needs of the Allied Nations.” Yet the Allied Nations are producing ships faster than they have ever been produced before in the history of mankind, and the USA is able to boast of a production of 15,000 naval ships of all dimensions in the past three years.

Well might the reader at this point exclaim, “This is madness!”

No, reader, this is not madness—simply another example of the ever present anarchy in CAPITALISM, the economic system of society that holds the world enslaved.

An economic system that is based on the ownership of the means of life by the few, and the exclusion of the means of life from the many. Only under capitalism is it possible for conditions to arise where hoarders, speculators, and black marketeers of every nationality can flourish on the one hand, and be the social complement of starvation, unemployment, squalor, disease and poverty on the other.

Only with the abolition of this private property basis of society and its replacement by the ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution by the whole of humanity, can humanity solve the evils with which it is confronted.

This is the job, the only worth-while job, of the working class. Not only the working class of this country, but of the working class of the world acting in unison. No longer must they acquiesce in the retention of a system which condemns great numbers of men and women to exist like a seething mass of gentils beneath a rotten, stinking piece of meat. Just as the meat is a condition of existence of the gentils, so is capitalism a condition of existence of the working class. It must be removed, and with it will go all class divisions.

This can only be done by a working class conscious of the cause of its troubles, desirous of solving them, and with knowledge of the solution. Even in the case of the Indian working class the solution to their problems is the same as ours. It does not lie in the substitution of one kind of capitalism for another. It does not lie in the substitution of a native Indian master class in place of the British Raj; their fellow countrymen are among their most ruthless exploiters. In common with the rest of the workers of the world, their solution lies in the establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life – the establishment of SOCIALISM. Along this road alone, however tiresome may be the journey and however many pitfalls may be on the way, lies the emancipation of all mankind without distinction of race or sex.

N. S.

The Rank and File (1943)

From the December 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

[The article below is reprinted from "Socialist Comment," May, 1943, published by the Sydney Branch of the Socialist Party of Australia.]

We remember the time when the "militants” used to claim that the rank and file could do no wrong. The rank and file were exhorted to make their voices heard, and not to be the dumb, driven cattle which they had been. They should assert themselves. We were told that trade union officials should be the servants and not the masters of the members.

Many officials were denounced as "social fascists," "defeatists,” "class collaborators,” and "bureaucrats.” To advise the use of the Arbitration Court was treachery and a betrayal of "the masses.” The workers were badly in need of a new "leadership.” (This latter, of course, the "militants” could supply.) The strike was the means whereby our demands were to be made known and enforced. Such were the arguments advanced.

Aspirants to Trade Union official positions waxed eloquent over the virtues of rank-and-file control, their fervour equalling the fanaticism of the founders of a new religion: their creed became Rank-and-File worship.

Time marches on; many of the apostles of rank-and-file control have been suitably rewarded and now the Grand Organ plays a different tune. "Trade Union Bureaucracy” has given place to "Leadership of the Masses”; what was previously condemned as ”Class Collaboration” is now hailed as "National Unity.” Actions once denounced as a "betrayal of the masses” are now proclaimed essential to “Proletarian Discipline.” Any worker who suggests strike action is likely to be denounced by the former "militants” as a "fifth columnist," a "wrecker,” a “saboteur,” or even a "Trotskyist .”

Erstwhile advocates of direct action and rank-and-file control now fawn before politicians and Arbitration Judges; the Arbitration Court has become the "holy of holies” of a new found industrial faith. A fashionable practice among "militants” and some Trade Union officials was the denunciation of the low wages which were held to be inadequate to ensure a decent living standard. The fashion among those people to-day seems to be to regard the workers as a newly rich class squandering their substance on riotous living instead of investing in War Loans. Further, the same "militants,” including the General Secretary of the Communist Party and certain Trade Union officials, unite with other supporters of capitalism in urging working people to support a "Labour” Government which attacks the wages of the workers; the attack upon the pay envelope is disguised as “taxation.”

Don't you think, fellow workers of the rank and file, that it is high time you ended this state of affairs? A study of SOCIALIST literature will help you recognise the folly of placing your trust in "leaders.” Replace blind faith in “leadership” by Working Class Understanding.

Socialism—or Barbarism (1943)

From the December 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

Recent issues of the New Leader (August 28th and September 25th) have carried rather sweeping onslaughts on the Socialist Party by Mr. F. A. Ridley.

He is annoyed at the "incurable colour-blindness” of the S.P.G.B., which is a "still surviving relic of the meliorist Victorian age" (shades of Keir Hardie!) “They seem to think that the world is a glorified Hyde Park," he snorts contemptuously. Whereas Mr. Ridley, according to the New Leader, sees through “ Socialist eyes."

These "relics" "have accused the present writer [Ridley] of exaggeration, because I have always maintained that the concrete alternative to the Social Revolution was not even the continuation of Capitalism, but, ultimately, the Barbarism of a new dark age." (New Leader, August 28th.—our italics.)

But on Saturday, September 25th, the Editor of the New Leader heads the article with the words " F. A. Ridley says the choice before humanity is Socialist Revolution or violent and bloody collapse" (our italics).

In the first few lines of this particular outburst he says, “a few weeks back I raised in this column the fundamental question of our time: Socialism or Barbarism," then follows a lengthy diatribe anent the “superannuated drivel" of those “fundamentalists" the S.P.G.B. who imagine "there are no set-backs in history."

Incidentally. he did not announce all this till after the reported destruction of Hamburg—when he says "it is time to speak out " (August 28th). Why he kept it bock till then is a mystery.

He also states, “we are in a state of war. In my opinion this state of war will end with the end of Capitalism and not before " (August 28th), i.e.. not permanent revolution, like Trotsky—but permanent world war.

The present war, "it is not fanciful to predict," will lead, he says, to an underground society like that predicted by Bulwer Lytton in his novel, "The Coming Race," and lastly, as though all this were not enough, "a grimmer .age of permanent war, of revolution and counter-revolution has arrived“ (August 28th).

Four weeks later, "apart from the victory of the Social Revolution, everything indicates the collapse of this era as the bloodiest and most violent of all." (Italics ours.)

We have cited all this wearisome rigmarole because we cannot start to sort it out until we have got the whole mass of self-contradictory notions in one heap.

We may now draw up a little table as follows:—

In the opinion of Mr. Ridley the present war shows that alternatives before humanity are:—
Socialism—OR

1. Barbarism.2. A new Dark Age.3. Violent or bloody collapse.4. An underground society,5. Permanent War.6. A grimmer age of War, Revolution and Counter Revolution.

It is obvious, of course, that to Mr. Ridley and the New Leader all these are synonymous terms.

It must be admitted that if one's only concern is to put the wind up readers of the New Leader, i.e., publish sensational "horrific" articles about what will happen to you, presumably, if you don't vote for Commonwealth candidates (who support "Victory"), and eat up all your nasty I.L.P. porridge, it is probably quite effective.

Unfortunately, it has nothing whatever to do with Socialism—or its attainment.

Mr. Ridley says "I propose to apply this dialectical method, the method of Marxism, to the historical philosophy which denies the present retrogression and approaching collapse of capitalist civilisation."

"Propose" is the operative word.

Shorn of all his irrelevant allusions to various classical writers, militarists, poets, historians, etc. (his articles are liberally sprinkled with frequent references to Tacitus, von Clausewitz, Leonardo da Vinci, Marx, Lord Tennyson, dear Lytton, Darwin, Aristotle, Flinders Petrie, Spartacus and old Socrates and Cicero, of course; Sir Geo. Paish, Lord John Ball), and his alleged "quotations," page references for which he never gives, what does all this ridiculous taradiddle about “bloody and violent collapse " amount to? It amounts to this—that Mr. Ridley and the New Leader have swallowed whole the moth-eaten Communist Party nonsense of twenty years ago (and even the Communists lifted it from the Labour Party), that Capitalism will collapse; and the S.P.G.B. have not. F. A. Ridley, therefore, says they [the S.P.G.B.] think that “evolution is uninterrupted," and are like "Lot's wife frozen into a permanent pillar of salt.” (September 25th).

The plain fact is that Mr. Ridley has lost the faintest glimmer of a notion of economics—and consequently, of the part they play in history; and all his flashy citations of scores of “great names" are merely an ineffectual attempt to conceal his ignorance.

Mr. Ridley does not know what Barbarism is—or Capitalism—either. He has no notion of how it is defined, or was determined. To a scientific Socialist, these terms are not fancy trimmings for political ghost stories; they connote a certain definite stage in social development; and Marx's great merit was in discovering that a certain stage of development of the productive forces produced that scheme of social organisation, e.g.. Barbarism. In other words, he gave us a clue to the law of social development.

Ridley talks glibly of Barbarism OR a new Dark Age. The period called the Dark Age by historians was not Barbarism—it was feudalism, something totally different, and to announce blithely in print that we may revert, to one or the other, just accidentally, is sheer idle nonsense.

If Mr. Ridley could forget Socrates and von Clausewitz for a minute, and turn to the man who actually studied Barbarism—Lewis H. Morgan, or the man who popularised him, Frederick Engels, he might learn something. There, we find Barbarism defined as—

"The time of acquiring the knowledge of cattle raising, of agriculture and of new methods for increasing the productivity of nature by human agency." (Origin of the Family, Kerr ed., p. 39.)

Barbarism started with, the discovery of pottery and ended with the invention of writing.

Is Mr. Ridley seriously suggesting in an article in which he describes the tremendous advances made by aviation, that humanity is discarding the knowledge it has accumulated and returning to primitive pasturage and agriculture as occupations?

And because he is hopelessly ignorant of the economics of Capitalism, he actually says in his article that "capitalist society does not differ in its social framework of exploitation and inequality from earlier vanished civilisations, such as those of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans . . .

   

"Wage-slavery is slavery, even if technically different from chattel-slavery." (September 25th.)

So it turns out that it is no different anyway—so why Ridley is so worried about going back to it nobody knows.

Even the New Leader has hardly ever printed a more stupid statement.

Modern machinery, etc. (constant capital) presupposes "free" wage-slaves (variable capital) to operate it, and cannot be run in any other way. Chattel slaves couldn’t be trusted with a mattock—let alone a tractor.

But now we come to the guts of the question — will Capitalism collapse ?

The Socialist Party said No, when almost everybody else, including James Maxton, was saying Yes.

   "I am perfectly satisfied that the great Capitalist system that has endured for 150 years in its modern form, is now at the stage of final collapse, and not all the devices of the statesmen, not all the three-party conferences, not all the collaboration between the leaders, can prevent the system from coming down in one unholy crash. They may postpone the collapse for a month, two months, three months, six months, he cries, but collapse is sure and certain." (August 22nd, 1931: "Why Capitalism will not Collapse," S.P.G.B., February, 1932. p. 9.)

So that all Ridley has done, after twelve years, is to stick a few "bloodys" in. Maxton even knew the date then, which Ridley doesn't claim to—now.

The whole thing originates in the absurd 1920-30 propaganda of the Communists—the idea of automatic collapse followed by blind revolt of the workers—which, for the Communist Party bosses, was the "psychological moment" to "seize power." 

Everything has shown since that "BLIND” revolts of the workers don't end in Socialism—but much more likely in Fascism.

   "Our work has been made more difficult by the idea that Capitalism may collapse of its own accord. It is clear that if Capitalism were going to collapse under the weight of its own problems then it would be a waste of time and energy to carry on Socialist propaganda and to build up a real Socialist party aiming at political power. If it were true, as is claimed, that Capitalism will have broken down long before it will be possible for us to win over a majority for the capture of political power, then, indeed, it would be necessary to seek Socialism by some other means. Workers who have accepted this wrong and lazy idea of collapse have neglected many activities that are absolutely essential. They have taken up the fatalistic attitude of waiting for the system to end itself. But the system is not so obliging."
(Why Capitalism will not Collapse, S.P.G.B., p. 1.)
   "The problem of over-production that is behind every crisis is always relieved in due course for a time. Employers close down production. . . .  Capitalists destroy stocks. . . . Stocks deteriorate. . . .  As a last resort there is the colossal destruction of wars to relieve the pressure. Sooner or later, these crises of over-production have always given place to a resumption of fairly brisk trade and employment." (Ibid, p. 14—our italics.)

That's just what Ridley can't grasp. When ho avers that the crises will become permanent wars, he doesn't understand that the WAR is the temporary solution of the crisis.

   "How does the bourgeoisie overcome these crises? asked Marx. On the one hand by the compulsory annihilation of a quantity of the productive forces." (Communist Manifesto, Rejayonoff edition, p. 33.)

This war is that annihilation. Even Lenin was well aware that "no situation for Capitalism is without a way out—we know that the overthrow of Capitalism . . .  requires the most titanic and long-drawn struggle, action, organisation and victory of the working class, and that until that is attained, Capitalism will still drag on from crisis to crisis, from hell to greater hell. (Why Capitalism will not Collapse, p. 15.)

To which we added : 

"The workers will never be able to take sound action until they possess the knowledge of Socialism that it is our aim to provide, so long as the workers lack a knowledge of Socialist principles and determination to bring Socialism about—each crisis will pass off in this fashion. . . . Until a sufficient number of workers are prepared to organise politically for the conscious purpose of ending Capitalism, that system will stagger on indefinitely from one crisis to another." (Why Capitalism will not Collapse, p. 15.)

   "There have been  . . .  political parties such as the Labour Party, the I.L.P., and the Communist Party seeking support on programmes of reforms. Some of these bodies have obtained a large membership and have appeared to gain small concessions. Some have even taken over the government and tried to apply their reform programmes. But such organisations do not, and cannot, bring Socialism. Their members are attracted by the promise of immediate results. . . . They may reform Capitalism, but they cannot abolish it." (Ibid, p. 16.)

Mr. Ridley should not be entirely unaware of all this. For he has rushed in where Brockway and other I.L.P.ers fear to tread; and debated with the S.P.G.B. The result has always been the now-evident and bloodless collapse not of the Capitalist system—but of Mr. F. A. Ridley.

Horatio.