Socialism Now! (2003)

From the June 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fifty two billion pounds is a lot of pelf in anybody’s currency. Tabloid newspapers occasionally run articles fantasising about the things their readers could spend their money on if they were rich enough. Maybe a premier division footballer or two; a re-election victory; two tickets for the sixth farewell tour of a sixties rock/pop group; a four bedroom detached house in the south-east of England; a signed Damien Hirst pickled onion; a day trip on the USS Enterprise; a decent little Middle Eastern war. Money, if you have enough of it will buy you almost anything. Many people think that if you throw enough money at a difficulty it will go away.

A Guardian journalist, Jonathan Freedland, writing in the Daily Mirror recently (9 April), identified many problems affecting a large part of the world. His intent was to contrast the high financial cost of the American and Iraq conflict with what he saw as other socially beneficial schemes deserving of similar spending. The spending of comparable amounts to £52 billion that had already been allocated toward the conflict could, he felt, be far better spent in assuaging the problems to which he alludes.

Some of his propositions are eminently sensible. For example, who does not want to make “the world a fairer, cleaner, healthier place”? Or, provide an education for the “estimated 120 million kids world-wide (who) never see a classroom”? Who would not want to solve the health problems caused by the “lack of clean water (which) causes 80 per cent of health problems in most developing countries? One in four people still can’t get a clean glass of water”. It is easy to comprehend that “a billion people go to bed hungry every night”, which is “a fact so awful you have to imagine you’re one of them to really take it in.” A straw poll on these ideas conducted almost anywhere would produce the sort of unanimity usually only found amongst ballots conducted by dictators and despots. Surely a conclusion drawn from these facts alone is that here are issues which require immediate action to resolve them? Does not this resolution require co-ordinated collective global action?

All capitalist states spend vast sums of money on ‘defence’ forces

Freedland writes of the United Nations’ targets to eliminate “extreme poverty and hunger”. As he notes, at present poorer countries are indebted to richer ones to the amount of £32 billion pounds. The United Nations Development Goals (all quotes taken from its website) notes that “the Millennium Development Goals are an ambitious agenda for reducing poverty and improving lives”. The targets include:

“Halve the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and those who suffer from hunger. More than a billion people still live on less than US$1 a day . . . Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five. Every year nearly 11 million young children die before their fifth birthday, mainly from preventable illnesses. By 2015, reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water. By 2020 achieve significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers.”

While those who need ‘defending’ starve

The problems themselves are highly visible. Many individuals and agencies are dedicated to eradicating them. Many resources are expended in pursuit of a final solution to poverty, hunger and disease. But under the present social system, capitalism, this is a labour of Sisyphus.

With which remedies proposed by Freedland, by the dis-United Nations, by various charities, by non-governmental organisations, by pontificating politicians, by genuinely concerned citizens, and by those existing on a dollar a day, does the Socialist Party disagree? Answer: The supposed solution of throwing money, or rather, trickling money at the problem.

Why? Because even if the global ruling class wanted to palliate the condition of those surviving in nineteenth century conditions it has so many other things to divert and engage its attention. Things such as safeguarding energy supplies, protecting profits, and brainwashing workers into continued acceptance of a social system which perpetuates the environment which condemn so many in the world to an unfair, dirty, unhealthy place. This is not to say that some, probably many, of the capitalist class are not as appalled and angered by the plight of other human beings as anyone else. But they are, like us all, immersed in a system predicated on profit for profit, not need. There’s not much profit to be made from those unable to spend more than a dollar a day. Freedland is right, however, to call for co-ordinated global action with the immediate priority of resolving the myriad problems which capitalism creates but cannot rectify. Only world socialism can provide the framework to do that.

So the question is, when do we adopt the only rational alternative to the existing social system? Do you really want to wait until 2015 to partly ameliorate, if at all, problems caused by, and perpetuated by, capitalism?

Dave Coggan

Letter: Socialism and War. (1907)

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

Two questions and an objection.

One cannot help wishing that more of those who have doubts and difficulties in their understanding of Socialism took the trouble to send them along.

The difficulties and objections of the working class regarding their party’s position are precisely what we are labouring to meet, and queries sent to us serve not only to indicate the nature of the difficulties to be met but also tend to show by their discussion the hollowness of objections which too many take for granted.

A subscriber in the Potteries, J. T. Tyson, sends two questions and an objection which, since they deal with matters of general interest and provide an opportunity for making plain the Socialist position, we gladly answer here.

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Converting the Capitalist.

Regarding the following quotation from this paper: “Members of the capitalist class are only Socialists to the extent that they vacate their class position and go over to the working class,” our correspondent asks :—

Does this mean that a member of the bourgeoisie must give away his wealth and allow the rest of the thieving gang to exploit the philanthropy of that individual ?

By no means. The capitalist would as suggested not do the workers or their cause the slightest good by giving his wealth away in that manner. In present-day society there is for the capitalist only the choice of exploiting or being exploited, and one who vacates his position in that sense simply steps aside to allow a wider field of exploitation to less scrupulous competitors. To expect to lessen exploitation by the withdrawal of a capitalist here and there is like believing that when a bucket of water is lifted out of the sea a hole will remain unfilled by the surrounding ocean.

The capitalist who becomes converted can only use his wealth, power and leisure on the workers’ behalf by helping to end the system of exploitation, and in doing this he “must vacate his class position,” that is to say, take his stand on the side of the class that lives by labour, making its interests his own, and giving battle to his former class which will defend to the last its ability to fatten upon the labour of others. 

There is, however, little need to worry over the line of action of the genuine converted capitalist. He is a rara avis. No class has yet ruled in the interests of a class below it and our masters are not going to break the rule of history. Our propagandist efforts can only be really fruitful by being applied to the working class whose material interests are on our side; and any isolated individuals from the other side who are converted will, from the very fact of their conversion, know what course of action must be pursued.

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Socialism and War.

The next question is:—

How do you propose to abolish war ?

To know how war is to end it is necessary to know how wars begin.

Formerly wars were dynastic in origin; but to-day, owing to the expansion of capitalist production outstripping the effective demand of the home market and necessitating “fields fresh and pastures new” for the disposal of the ever-growing surplus of commodities, we find that all modern wars are commercial in origin and in aim.

Thus the foreign and colonial markets are indispensable to capitalism, and form a safety valve which is, indeed, now fast becoming choked up.

And in getting such colonies, “spheres of influence,” “open ports,” protectorates and treaties required for this external trade, each nation finds itself at the throat of other capitalist nations, and war is only averted so long as each is afraid of the other.

Russia in seeking ports open to the sea at all seasons and Japan in resisting Russia’s encroachments upon her markets; Britain in seeking markets and a “scientific frontier” in North West India against Russian advance ; the United States in securing rich fields of exploitation in Cuba and the Phillipines; all indicate the commercial basis of modern war which has literally developed from the continued fighting of the chartered trading companies of rival nations in the four quarters of the globe during earlier times.

So long as a corrupt Press and a powerful section of manufacturers of war stores and munitions have everything to gain by war ; so long as rival capitalist nations strive against each other for the plunder of the world ; so long as increasing productive powers render imperative new outlets for the growing surplus of commodities ; so long, indeed, as there exists a wage-slave class to be held in subjection—in short, so long as Capitalism endures—for just so long will war or the armed threat of war be inevitable and the desire for peace a vain aspiration. 

They who concentrate upon Socialism alone are the truest workers for peace, for the abolition of capitalist exploitation is the indispensable prelude to international peace and human solidarity. With international Socialism the struggle of exploiters for plunder is ended, since it is the many who labour who rule, and their paramount interest lies not in destructive contention for plunder but in the co-operation of all for the better utilisation of nature’s forces; and compared with this supreme interest of international labour, every petty conflicting interest must pale into utter insignificance.

In the co-operative commonwealth the necessity of forcing commodities into countries at the cannon’s mouth no more exists. The workers of the world have everything to gain when triumphant by peaceful co-operation, and everything to lose by war

Our correspondent will now gather how alone the principal causes of war can be abolished ; it is by destroying the political and economic supremacy of the exploiting class through the organisation and training of the industrio-political army of the workers to that end.

Peace is only possible when the conditions of peace are present; to-day conditions all round spell bitter strife which can only end by thy defeat of the master class in the great class struggle.

It is, therefore, no part of our duty to aid the ruling class to obtain an improved fighting force or “armed nation” which the class which now rules must perforce control and use to our greater oppression and undoing. Such a proceeding may well be left to capitalists—to Earl Roberts and to the reformers. It is our business to end capitalism, not to forge weapons for our enemies use. When the workers have something other than wage-slavery to defend they will take steps to defend it, for the present all their energy is needed in concentrating upon the conquest of the machinery of government, (which includes the armed forces), in order to convert this “from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation and the overthrow of privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic.”

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Do the workers pay for wars?

Referring to the question of taxation to pay for wars, the objection which our correspondent raises runs as follows :—

“It must be admitted that the capitalists do not pay for wars, the wealth has to be got out of the workers, and seeing that the Boer war cost about £240,000,000 it is not likely that this will come out of the capitalists, and to say that they cannot get more than all is in this case wrong. For instance, the English worker gets one-third of the value he creates while the American gets but one-fifth, so that if speeding up became the rule in order to get the equivalent of the cost of the war the worker would be worse off. If I have wrongly understood the situation I hope you will put me right.”

Let us then endeavour to put our friend right.

In the first place, all marketable wealth is created by those whose labour is manually and mentally expended in its production, therefore all the cost of war and everything else comes ultimately from those who produce. So far there is agreement. But to imply from this that the producers actually pay for all, is to say that they possess the wealth their labour has created, and that their banking accounts would have benefited by the £240,000,000 if that amount had not been spent on the war ! It is, however, notoriously not the case that the workers possess the wealth they create, for the wealth as soon as produced is already the property of the master class; the workers, indeed, only receiving the market price of their labour-power—that is, a bare sufficiency for the reproduction and maintenance of that labour-power, and which leaves no surplus with which to pay for wars.

The master class is always engaged in screwing wages down to the lowest profitable limit under the conditions prevailing, and this whether a war has occurred or not. A war in fact does not even usually act detrimentally to the modern workers—at least as far as wages are concerned—since during war and often as an after consequence of war there is actually a larger demand for labour-power, both for the supply of munitions of war and afterwards to replace the property destroyed and to produce for the extended market. The great prosperity of France and Germany after the Franco-German war is a case in point. The condition of the labour market is the immediate governing factor of the price and conditions of labour-power, and if the market is not turned by the war against the wage-worker, how is it possible for the master class to get extra out of the workers for that war ?

The fact that the English worker gets on an average one-third of his product while the American, in spite of higher wages, gets only one-fifth, does not prove that the masters can at will or for any length of time get another two-fifteenths of the English worker’s product by taxation. Indeed, if the taxation could be so manipulated that it really reduced the average wages it would have the effect of causing serious loss to the masters by lowering the efficiency of their available labour supply ; thus they would tend to get even less out of the workers than before. Friend Tyson’s own illustration goes to prove this.

The American worker gets higher wages and his product is proportionally greater because his high wages are the price of a more efficient and speedy labour-power. The lower the standard of subsistence of the workers the lower is the average efficiency of their labour, therefore to reduce wages by any means (other things remaining equal) is to reduce the efficiency of that kind of labour-power.

The researches of C. Booth, Rowntree and Robert Hunter show that the working class under the most diverse conditions gets barely sufficient to maintain and reproduce the respective grades of labour-power; and while the advance of capital steadily increases the robbery of the working man, so also the fact must remain that “high” wages usually mean high profits only because a more intense and more profitable labour-power costs more to produce than a lower grade, and because low wages mean inefficient labour.

To get as much out of the worker here as in America is therefore impossible by means of taxation whether for a war or even a peace conference. To increase the proportion of surplus value to wages here to the same degree as in America can only be done by improvements in the methods of production and in increasing the efficiency of the human machines by feeding, sheltering and training them better. This again depends on economic and social causes for its practicability.

While the bigger capitalists generally recognise that starvation wages do not conduce to efficiency or to high profits in the long run, yet since the efficiency of the workers is due to historical and social rather than to individual or temporary causes, the average capitalist will endeavour to force wages down to the lowest physical limits unless he can in some degree as at Port Sunlight, Bourneville and other places segregate and improve a supply of labour-power for his sole use. If the capitalist cannot ensure that he individually will reap all the benefit of the higher efficiency that is induced, he is not going to embark in “philanthropy” to benefit his competitors. The larger capitalists, indeed, are not generally averse to legislative enactment which aims at increasing the general profit-making capacity of workers, or indeed to old style trade union “collective bargaining” for similar reasons. Such legislation and collective bargaining operates also as a means of crippling the competition of the smaller capitalist, the middle-class manufacturer, baker and the like, who, in his futile struggle against the advance of great capital, strives by sweating and by the payment of wages insufficient to reproduce efficiency to make profit parasitically by the depreciation and degradation of the normal labour-power, relying for renewals upon the necessities of fresh normal workers.

Thus the amount to be wrung out of the workers by the master class is limited by the degree of economic development and by the prevailing state of Society. It is consequently difficult to conceive how the master class in order to pay for wars is to get more from the workers than it otherwise gets, since the capitalists rob the workers to the utmost of their power under any conditions.

The conclusion, indeed, is clear that the workers do not pay for wars since they do not possess the millions required as means of payment. The toilers are skinned before they leave the factory gates, and to rob them further is very like trying to take the trousers off a highlander.

The ruling class takes all that remains over the bare average keep of the wage workers and is, therefore, already squeezing all that it can out of the working class. The payment for war comes in consequence not from wages but from profits, for the class that lives by the daily robbery of the workers is no more a magician than is the common cutpurse and like him it “cannot take more than all.”

F. C. Watts

Our shifty paymasters. (1915)

From the November 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

The debate on the Finance Bill in the House of Commons on October 13th was a typical expression of the shuffling methods of our masters. Those who call the tune were quarrelling over the payment of the piper.

The course of this debate exhibited, as usual, the truth of the Socialist’s contention that economic interests are the prime factors in all historical movements, no matter how much idealistic puff is put into the movements. The attitude of the international money-bags has shown the mercenary motives at the bottom of the present war, in spite of the “sanctity of small nations” twaddle.

Here, in this debate on the distribution of the expenses of the war, we have the clashing interests of all sections of the capitalist class.

The business was opened by a certain Mr. Lough, whose main bone of contention appeared to be the Excess Profits Tax, and he proceeded to set forth the views of our masters on business generally, which views are very enlightening ! “Profits in business,” says he, “seem to me the same thing as victories in war.” The noble gentleman was not far wide of the mark that time, and he evidently adheres to our position that the profits of the masters are made out of the blood of the workers. Further on he says : “It is a serious thing to plunge into the question of measuring too closely with a 12 inch rule the exact profits that have been made during the few months since the commencement of the war.” We should say not ! It might, perhaps, awaken some suspicion in the minds of those who are giving their blood—for what ? “Trading Companies are generally collections of poor people” ! ! Such as the Northcliffs, the Liptons, the Brunner Monds, etc., etc. !

Further on he says, tearfully: “It has been suggested that the bloated people in the trading concerns of the country are not doing their duty in the war. I repudiate the suggestion altogether. As far as I know, every one of the great trading concerns has its Roll of Honour. A large percentage of their men have gone to the front, and many of them have paid the penalty.” How truly blind the trading community really is. They have sent their men (their wage-slaves) out to die.

Here is another gem: “Profits are the wages of our class and wages are the dividends of another class.” There is one difference—wages are on an average the smallest sum that will suffice to keep together the body and soul of a worker and reproduce the necessary working-power, while dividends are anything up to millions of pounds. One is the price of a worker’s labour-power, and often of his life ; the other is the idler’s revenue.

“Do not take a weapon that will damage interests of the greatest importance,” he wailed, but not a word of regret as to the damaging of human flesh and blood.

The sycophantic Philip Snowden then rose and delivered a long address, taking great care not to tread on anybody’s corns; in fact, he comported himself as a “thorough gentleman.” In the course of his remarks this professional toady said: “I am very glad to be able to join in what is the universal testimony and tribute of this country to the sacrifice of life which both the middle and aristocratic classes have made, but in the matter of wealth they are not paying their fair share of the cost of the war.” Fancy thanking our masters for the paltry few who have risked anything in their war in comparison with the myriads of wage slaves ! This is the man deluded workers once called a “Socialist” !

Sir G. Younger also objected to the Excess Profits Tax on the ground that it would put English firms who are now on war work in a disadvantageous position with American firms at the end of the war.

T. M. Healy, in the course of his remarks, made the following enlightening statement with reference to the Income Tax: “You are charging those unfortunate professional men, clerks and others, with incomes of £2 and £3 per week. The Government are going to call upon them for £2, £3, and £5, out of their incomes, and all in connection with a war from which they gain no practical benefit, and these people in Ireland belong to the very classes who have given their sons and brothers to fight.” Tim had better be careful as he is sailing very close to the wind in his excitement. Healy makes use of the above to appeal for a fair share of munition work on behalf of the Irish manufacturers, who, he is afraid, are likely to lose in competition with the English. What he is really out for, of course, is cheap labour, being of opinion that increased taxation will mean higher wages.

Sir Alexander Henderson let out a wail of woe on behalf of the poor devil who, through the proposed tax, would be compelled to exist on the paltry sum of £1,800 per year ! Listen, O ye slaves, to this tale of woe ! “The man that has £4,812 a year would find it, and does find it, very difficult to reduce his expenditure down to the reduced amount of £3,600. If he is only to spend half of that and his expenditure, which was £4,812, is to be reduced to £1,800, take the figure of £5,000 as an example to us how impossible is the suggestion. All a man’s plans in life are more or less made up and fixed according to the income he has had for many years, and to suggest that an expenditure of £4,800 can be reduced to £1,800 is a practical impossibility.” Of course it is ! The idea is simply absurd. Now you starvelings of the workshop and factory who are only called upon to give your life blood in the business, surely you will have pity on the noble lord in his dilemma ! £3,000 a year to be chucked overboard ! Why, it’s preposterous.

After Sir Arthur Markham (shareholder in mines) had suggested that all working men ought to be taxed during the war (their lives are not enough !) in accordance with their ability to pay, urging that “there are many working men earning very high wages who can well afford to make a contribution towards the expenses of the war,” (think of the poor, poverty-stricken £1,800 a year merchant, and weep !) our old friend, Mr. Samuel Samuel, rose on behalf of the trading section. “We are the wealthiest country in the world,” says he, and a little further on, “I am sure the Chancellor of the Exchequer will appreciate that the wealth of the nation is in the main the wealth of the individuals who make up the nation,” (what marvellous insight and subtlety !) “those people who spend their lives in business (Lipton, Rothschild, Duke of Devonshire, Duke of Sutherland, etc.) and who by their industry give employment to the millions of working people..” Dear, kind, benevolent souls ! Further on he says: “If you take away not only the surplus profits during the period of the war, but impose large taxes besides, then, when the time comes and we have to enter the markets of the world in competition with other countries, the industrial and commercial classes will be unable to meet that competition with any prospect of success.”

It is strange what things leak out when the thieves are squabbling. Lough pointed out that the Cabinet were not taxing themselves under the excess profits tax, and Sir Alfred Mond drew attention to the “fact that a deputation of a certain number of English motor-car manufacturers waited upon the officials at the Treasury in order to press for a Protective Tariff,” and asks if the new motor tax is the result. Lough also said: “We know that motor-cars are being taxed because of a certain motor-car which is imported into this country from America, with which at the present time English motor-car manufacturers are not able to compete, and consequently British manufacturers require protection against that import until the time comes that they will once more be able to compete with it.” (What is the difference between Free Traders and Protectionists ?) He also pointed out that the “Evening News” had vigorously defended the tax on films imported into this country and pointed out that one of the Directors of the Association that owns the “Evening News”—Mr. Tod Anderson has 3,000 shares in Regal Films Ltd. This is letting the cat out of the bag with a vengeance.

(All the above quotations are taken from “Parliamentary Debates.” Vol. 74, No. 101.)

Thus the debate went on. Each interest squabbling sordidly as to who shall bear the least part of the expenses of the war—each trying to shift the burden on to other shoulders. If space would permit and the patience of the readers held out I could quote enough to fill columns showing the cold-blooded, mercenary spirit of the masters throughout this debate. While they are spending hours shifting the burden of payment, the latest returns show, according to Mr. Outhwaite (Parliamentary De­bates. Vol. 74, No. 103, p. 1571) that British casualties up to 10th Oct. in the Dardenelles alone amount to 96,899 !

Such are the men who run “our” Empire; and such are the exalted views that guide them !

Now, fellow slaves, what are you fighting for ? Think !

M. G.

Letter: The Capital Levy. (1923)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

To the Editor of the Socialist Standard.

Sir,

In your issue of August last you express your opposition to the Capital Levy and to my line of reasoning in defence of it. With your permission I propose to answer your criticism, and will be as brief as I can.

To begin with, let us see how far we are in accord. Firstly, I agree that “a small class does own the bulk of the means of producing wealth in this and other capitalist countries.” In my book on “The Capital Levy” I have demonstrated this (for Britain) by overwhelming figures.

Secondly, I agree that this small capitalist class in the main controls to-day the political machine. Thirdly, I agree that capitalists pay wages not because they are philanthropists, but because they are compelled by economic forces. Finally, I agree that the system of capitalism has many inherent evils and that there is no way out except by Socialism.

I do not agree with you however either (1) that under capitalism the workers as a whole have no “surplus over their minimum needs,” or (2) that under Socialism the burden of the National Debt will be automatically lifted.

With regard to (1), you yourself in another part of your article recognise that wages must be “broadly regarded” as based for “different section of workers under different climatic conditions, and with different social standards and different lines of historical development on their standard of living.” This is surely a much more elastic view than is implied by the words “minimum needs.” But, even so, I cannot admit your case. What I will admit is that standard of living and weekly wages are intimately connected. Take two men—a skilled mechanic earning £4 and a labourer earning £2 10s. The family of the former have a standard of living at the £4 rate, while that of the latter live at the £2 10s. rate. I suggest it is much nearer the truth to say that the standard of living depends on the wages, than that the wages depend on the standard of living.

If you ask me, “On what then do wages depend?” I will answer in your own words, “on the economic forces,” and these economic forces include such complex questions as the amount of unemployment, the state of trade, foreign competition, world prices, and so on.

Of course, this distinction between us is vital, for if once it is recognised (as I hold) that wages depend on something other than an automatically-assessed standard of living, then the worker is vitally interested in the lightening of the load of taxation, and stands to gain by a Capital Levy, which will enable taxes on tea, coffee, cocoa, sugar, etc., to be taken off, and that on tobacco reduced. If, on the other hand, you are right, it would make no difference to the workers if the income tax, super tax, death duties, etc., were done away with, and all the revenue were collected from beer, tobacco, tea and the food of the workers. I would remind you that the apologists for the old French Aristocracy took this view in the middle of the eighteenth century and that the revolution followed.

Turning now to the other principal difference between us, I submit that even under Socialism there will be many important problems to be solved. I would remind you that Socialism does not imply the equal subdivision of all wealth, nor the collective ownership of all wealth. But unless Socialists are prepared to tackle the grave evil of maldistribution they will seriously disappoint their supporters. The first step in this direction is to get rid of the National Debt by placing it on the holders of the existing wealth of the country ; and I submit that this step if not already taken during the establishment of Socialism would certainly have to be taken immediately afterwards.

I should exceed the space you can afford me if I were to attempt to answer all the minor points you have raised, but as these two major differences go to the root of the whole matter they will probably suffice.

Yours, etc.,

F. W. Pethick Lawrence.

Reply.

I must first point out that I did not say that the workers have “no surplus over their minimum needs,” although, as a matter of fact, few of them indeed are able to accumulate any property worth mentioning. What I did was to take two alternatives—”the workers either receive a surplus … or they do not “—and to try to show that, whichever be correct, taxation could not affect them as a class. It was not necessary to say which is correct, and I did not do so, as without further explanation of “minimum needs” such an assertion would be misleading.

The assertion I did make was that referred to by Mr. Pethick Lawrence as “a more elastic view,” and I hoped when I wrote it that I had make it quite clear that the workers’ standard of living is not in my opinion “an automatically-assessed standard of living,” but is “elastic.” It is the resultant of a number of factors which change continuously, and moreover which include the workers’ political knowledge, assertiveness, and mental independence.

I need not labour this further or deal with Mr. Lawrence’s discussion of the relation of wages and the standard ol living, because I think he has not gone to the root of our disagreement. I will therefore restate my view.

The standard of living is not measured simply by the amount of money wages received. It consists of the amount of real wealth, food, clothing’ and shelter, etc., finally consumed by the working class. The relation this amount bears to the whole product of the labour of the workers depends at any given time on the interaction of the “economic forces.” The capitalists, who are the legal owners of the whole, give to the workers just as much as they are compelled to give. Now, unless the Capital Levy disturbs this equilibrium of forces in the workers’ favour, their standard of living will not be improved. Or, as I put it in my article, “Would the capitalists, if there were no taxation at all, give the workers a larger share of the wealth produced, and if so, why?” This basic question has not been answered.

To say that some workers or all workers receive £4 and have to return £1 as taxes, only means that at the given moment £3, and not £4, is the money value of the standard of living produced by the existing forces. If that were not so, the workers would be able to demand and to get an increase of, say, £1 per week. Their ability to make such demands is limited always by the control the capitalists have over the key position, the political machinery.

Of course, Socialist Society will have its own problems to solve, but the National Debt will not be one of them. We are some of those rare people who, in spite of calling themselves Socialists, actually desire Socialism. Under Socialism—that is, a “system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth”—there will be no room for individuals to live by their ownership of some of society’s resources. We do not aim at the “equal” (or unequal) “subdivision” of anything; nor would we be so foolish as to advocate the “collective ownership of all wealth.” Wealth, as distinct from the means of producing wealth, does not permit of being collectively owned.

In view of Mr. Pethick Lawrence’s subsequent remarks, I must dissent from his opinion that he and I are agreed that, “there is no way out except by Socialism.” To me his “way out” seems to be merely a way cut into the wilderness. The Capital Levy is not Socialism ; it does not lead to Socialism ; and it still remains to be shown how its introduction would in any way better the position of the working class within the capitalist system.

Edgar Hardcastle.

[Mr. Lawrence can, if he wishes, have space to explain further his position and to deal with the points raised in the reply.]

The Capital Levy. (1923)

From the August 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recent war caused an enormous increase in the National debts of most of the belligerent nations, and the burden of finding interest has helped to popularise an old bogey, trotted forward in a new disguise as the Capital Levy. It has been made one of the main planks in the Labour Party’s programme, and was presented in various lights and with varying degrees of warmth by Labour men at the General Election. In the main, it seems to have been useful to that party as a rallying cry for the more aggressive of the industrial workers; and in quarters where the votes were sought of the mentally more slavish section, which goes by the misleading name of the middle class, the local members did their best to explain that the levy really didn’t mean much. Most opponents relied chiefly upon the iniquity of robbing the capitalist of his savings, etc.

We, however, are not concerned with this purely superficial attitude towards the proposal. As Socialists, we are bent on discovering by what means the position of our class may be advanced. Our class consists of all those people who, not being owners of property, must sell their mental and physical energies to those who are owners. This proposal must stand the general test—Is it or is it not one which is useful to the workers?

In the “Forward” (Saturday, May 5th, 1923), Mr. F. W. Pethick Lawrence, a Labour candidate and prominent advocate, sets out what he calls “The Case for the Capital Levy,” with the sub-title, “Lift the Burden of Debt from Industry and Labour.”

Now, we are agreed that there is a burden ; and, further, that people who have burdens are naturally interested in having them lifted; but Mr. Lawrence makes the somewhat important omission of not troubling to prove that the debt is a burden on the workers. If it isn’t, why should the workers trouble to lift the burdens of the capitalist class? And, on the other hand, what are we to think of an organisation which asks them to do so?

Let us consider the matter in an elementary way. First, can Mr. Lawrence deny that a small class does own the bulk of the means of producing wealth in this and other capitalist countries? This is a matter of common knowledge, for which it is not necessary to quote statistics.

Owning the means, the capitalist class also own the products. If you are a boot operative, you know that all the boots, when they are finished, belong to your employer ; and so throughout the productive system in which we live. As a worker you receive wages or salary at certain intervals, the length of which is immaterial. Your wages are drawn from the store of wealth produced by you, but owned by your employer. The reason he gives you something he would willingly keep, is surely not that he loves you. It is a simple necessity that you must have the means of obtaining food, clothing, and shelter, recreation, etc., in order that you may continue alive and in a state of sufficient fitness.

Then, what is it that determines for the workers as a whole the amount given in return for services rendered? We contend that, broadly regarded, that amount is based for different sections of workers, under different climatic conditions and with different social standards and different lines of historical development, on their standard of living. This may change, and in an immediate sense it fluctuates up or down according as there is a comparatively large or small supply of labour, and according to the degree and method of organisation. Generally, however, the capitalist class must pay away so much wealth for the upkeep of the wealth producers, and the surplus is theirs.

But the matter doesn’t end there. The same class also controls the political machinery, the Government, in all these capitalist countries. It must control politically in order to safeguard its private ownership. But the great and growing State services cannot be run for nothing. The capitalists must dip into their surplus to find the necessary cash—a proceeding to which they all object very strongly.

Needless to say, sections among the owning class are always willing to hand over their share of the burden to their weaker brethren. Now, the top capitalist dogs and the weaker brethren are all alike dependent on the votes of the workers. Without your support they can do nothing.

And this is where we return to our Mr. Pethick Lawrence.

If the burden rested on the backs of the workers it might be worth while trying to throw it off. But if the workers have no surplus, then they cannot be robbed of what they don’t possess; and, in spite of apparent objections, the workers as a whole do not suffer from high, nor benefit from low taxation. They suffer because they are robbed, and they are robbed whether taxes are high or low, and the degree of the robbery has, over a period, no direct or indirect relation to taxation. As we have seen, the workers receive all the wealth they possess from the capitalist owners, and, further, these owners control at present the machinery by means of which taxes are levied.

Now, the workers either receive a surplus over their minimum needs or they do not. If they don’t, then they cannot be robbed of that non-existent surplus afterwards. If they do, then the capitalists will have given the surplus either because they are philanthropists or because they are compelled by economic forces. If they are philanthropists, then they will not take back the gift they gave; and if they were compelled to give, then the same forces will prevent them from taking it back.

The burden of taxation for the payment of interest or the National Debt is Not a burden on the workers.

But, say these levy advocates, food prices will be lowered. Possibly this is true, but are you certain you will benefit? Is a railwayman, for instance, worse off on 60s. when it costs 60s. to live, than on 30s. when it costs 30s. to live? And although all workers’ wages do not vary automatically on a sliding-scale basis, is there any grade or industry in which wages are not very closely dependent on the general level of prices?

Mr. Lawrence, with unconscious humour, writes: “The workers out of their poverty are paying for all their old-age pensions, all the soldiers’ and widows’ pensions, the State’s contribution to Health and Unemployment Insurance, etc., etc.”

The pertinent question Lawrence might answer is this : Would the capitalists, if there were no taxation at all, give the workers a larger share of the wealth produced, and, if so, why?

Mr. Lawrence says : “The main principle of the levy is simplicity itself. It is to pay off debt out of wealth. The wealth of the country as a whole is the wealth of its citizens.” This, as I have already explained, is quite untrue. The wealth of the country as a whole is the private property of the capitalist class. Only the owners of property can suffer the burden of taxation, and only the owners do suffer. Some of them want you, the propertyless workers, to pull their chestnuts out of the fire, and Mr. Lawrence and the Labour Party are making a bid for office on the strength of offering to do the necessary publicity work.

Mr. Lawrence admits our charge in full. He writes, “Payment of the levy will, in effect, be carried out by means of a reshuffling of the title-deeds of wealth among wealthy persons, and the actual cancellation of a large amount of war debt.”

This is of vital concern to those who hope to get some good cards out of the re-shuffle, but does it matter the least little bit to us whether Mr. Capitalist A. or Mr. Capitalist B. gets the aces? Perhaps Mr. Lawrence and a few others may be suitably rewarded; and perhaps not, for the master class are notoriously ungrateful where there are so many willing servants.

The fact of the matter is that the capital levy, like any other mere juggling with figures, will not alter the amount of real wealth, land, factories, railways, etc. ; it will not alter the worker’s position in relation to the owners, and, finally, it will not affect the capitalist class except to the extent that it leads to some redistribution of wealth among themselves.

While the capitalists will on the one hand be relieved from the burden of paying the debt interest, they will also, on the other hand, be deprived of the present means of paying that interest. Some will gain by reduced taxation what others lose by the paying off by the State of their quota of the debt and their consequent loss of interest on their bonds. The money paid out will, in its turn, be reinvested in industry, and we shall be as we were.

Funnily enough, while the Labour Party wants the Capital Levy in order to stop paying “a vast tribute to the nation’s bond¬holders” (Mr. Lawrence), this same Labour Party wants to create more bondholders to “draw vast tribute” by nationalising the land and compensating the present owners with 5 per cent. bonds redeemable in 30 years (Mr. Snowden’s Land Nationalisation Bill now before the House).

The National Debt, too, was produced by wars, chiefly the last war. The Labour Party opposed that one up to the 30th July, 1914, and then vigorously supported it until such time as the capitalists thought it wise to call a halt in 1918. The apologists assure us that next time the Labour Party will act differently, and in conference they carried unanimously a resolution “calling upon the Government to summon an International Conference, and propose thereat immediate and universal disarmament” (Daily Herald, 29th June). It was then moved that “The Labour Party in Parliament should vote against all military and naval estimates,” and surely a No-More-War Party could do no less. But, as Mr. Henderson pointed out, “It was absurd . . . we could not do without a Navy. If France continued in her present frame of mind, were we to neglect the possibilities of defence?” Mr. Brownlie (A.E.U.) thought it might “embarrass candidates at a future election,” and it would throw out of work his members engaged on building battleships !

So it seems that all Mr. Lawrence’s work trying to wipe out the last war’s debts is going to be rendered vain by Mr. Henderson’s next war. Incidentally, how could Mr. Henderson advocate the use of the armed forces against strikers if there were no armed forces?

After wiping out this war debt Mr. Lawrence says “there will probably be a balance of over £100,000,000 a year on the right side,” and then he adds, “Great things can be done with this sum.” Glorious ! But who is going to decide what “great things” are to be done? Surely the owners ; and the capitalists don’t voluntarily do great things for the workers. On the other hand, if the workers are of a mind to do so, great things, even greater things, might be done now.

And the workers would stand a better chance of making up their minds if shoddy economists like Mr. Lawrence ceased propagating among them quack nostrums conceived for the salvation of the small fry of the capitalist class. The levy is not to affect owners of £5,000 or less.

Lawrence is aware that “some Socialists contend that it (the Capital Levy) is not Socialism, but only a palliative to buttress up the capitalist system,” and he agrees that “it will leave heaps of evils untouched, and it will not take the place of the Socialist remedy for the reconstruction of society.” He carefully omits to answer the charge that it will bolster up capitalism, and makes the lame excuse that in meeting “the one purpose for which it is designed, viz., that of cancelling a great part of the debt,” it will also remove “some of the worst evils of the present maldistribution of wealth.” He does not say it will remedy the maldistribution, and war could equally be commended, on the same ground as the policy of battleship building, i.e., that it removes unemployment. Lawrence doesn’t even say what those evils are which the Levy will remove.

In short, as cannot be too often repeated, the workers are poor because they arc robbed. They are robbed just the same, high taxes or low taxes or no taxes ; big National Debt or no National Debt; great foreign trade or no foreign trade. At present the workers are often worse off when unemployment is widespread than when trade is booming, but is this not simply because they accept the position? However bad trade depressions may be, do the capitalists go without, and, if not, why not?

While there is wealth in existence not being used to maintain the workers who produced it, those people are deliberately or unwittingly playing the capitalist game, who talk about measures to revive “our trade,” whether they be Labour, Liberal, or Communists.

We are Socialists, and do not ask you to seek salvation by reviving capitalist trade. We tell you there is only one solution to your problems.

Lawrence says there are four alternatives before you :—

1. Repudiation.
2. Inflation.
3. A Sinking Fund.
4. Capital Levy.

We say that each and every one of these is a question of no interest or use whatever to the workers. We add a fifth alternative—SOCIALISM. This is the only remedy for present or future working-class ills, and one that can be applied as soon as the workers choose to apply it.

Edgar Hardcastle

Capitalism's Dilemma. (1921)

Book Review from the January 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

England and the New Era, by Brougham Villiers. T. Fisher Unwin. 12s. 6d.

Mr. Villiers' work, "England and the New Era," is so well written and arranged that the subject—with most writers dry and tedious— is made quite interesting and in places even instructive. He assumes that there must inevitably be a new era, because the forces operating within the present order unless consciously controlled will bring disaster and chaos on human society.

According to him, every nation in the old world, with the exception of England, is so weighed down with debt that they are virtually bankrupt, and will be compelled to repudiate their debts. "England," he says, "may readily find herself alone in the new era, the only nation in the whole world bearing a crushing burden of debt, competing with nations which have virtually gone through the bankruptcy court and come out with free hands." From this we discover quite early that his conception of a "new era" is not different from the old order in its fundamentals.

In his introductory remarks Mr. Villiers lays much stress on the aspirations of small nations to establish their independence. He says: "Sinn Fein is no isolated phenomenon: It is only the Irish manifestation of a universal spirit." He fails to show, however, that the realisation of their ambitions will modify in any way the general character of the capitalist system. The capitalists of each country, large and small, will still compete for the world's markets, and amalgamate into opposing groups in the same way that they did in 1914. While the workers can be blinded with the ashes of Imperialism or the dust of Nationalism, it is plain that they have yet to learn that they are both built on their slavery.

Mr. Villiers' second disruptive force is the Labour movement throughout the world. He says: "There are, of course, vast differences in form between its manifestations in various countries and in the same country at various times, but in Germany and France, in Great Britain and in Russia, among the most moderate 'collectivists' and the most extreme revolutionaries, there is an essential unity of idea, a common conception of a new order utterly different from that which is falling to pieces around us. It is here, as will be seen later on, that the hope of the world will be found ; here, if anywhere, is the foundation from which a new order can arise." (Page 52.)

In none of the countries mentioned by Mr. Villiers, nor in those he has not mentioned, is the Labour movement revolutionary. While there may be revolutionaries in every land, the Labour movement everywhere is. merely reformist. The reforms advocated may be different in the different countries; that they are reforms is their "essential unity of idea," and their "vast differences in form" amount to little or nothing because none of the forms are based on Socialism, but only seek to modify the existing order of society.

Mr. Villiers is, of course, unable to show from the manifestoes or programmes of the Labour Party in this country that it is revolutionary, so he gives a brief sketch of the movement in which he says "The terms 'masters and men' had given way to 'employers and employees' even before 1911, an indication in itself of the coming spirit. Just as villeinage could no longer be maintained once the villeins felt it to be an indignity ; if the working classes no longer wish to be employees producing goods for anyone's profit, such a change in the point of view must in the long run be equally fundamental." (Page 59)

All of which is extremely consoling to those capitalists who fear that Bolshevism is the beginning of the end. While capitalists generally will be quite willing that the workers should call themselves by any name they choose so long as they leave them surplus value. But the mere wishing for a better system by the workers, or a rooted objection to produce for the profit of others, will not get them a better system, even "in the long run."

A still more hopeful sign for Mr. Villiers is the revolt of the rank and file of the trade unions against their leaders. If this action were the result of their growing knowledge it would indeed be a hopeful sign; but as Mr. Villiers himself points out, many of the strikes are of a "frivolous nature." As the workers understand their position more clearly it is safe to say that their actions on the industrial field will be based on common sense, instead of becoming wild or frivolous.

The Trade Union and Co-operative movements and their growth in recent years are also indications to Mr. Villiers of the approaching revolution, although the rank and file of these movements are still engrossed with the idea of obtaining paltry advances of wages, or a few coppers in the pound discount on the wages they, spend at the stores—facts that in themselves reflect the ever-growing poverty of the workers.

But the greatest advance of all, according to our author, is the propaganda of "Guild Socialism." He claims, that "this has greatly enriched, if not the philosophy of Socialism, at least the stock of ideas current among British Socialists." One of these enriching ideas is quoted by him from a Fabian pamphlet on  Guild Socialism" by Mr. G. D. H. Cole as follows :

   "There is no hope in Bureaucratic society. Nor any hope or chance of capitalism lasting much longer. . . . That puts it up to you either to accept what I am saying or else find some means by which you can induce men to go on producing, other than the fear of hunger. . . . Hunger has made men work in the past, but it is everywhere breaking down to-day. Either men won't go on working at all or else they will go on working for some quite different reason." (Page 61-2.)

All of which is just as vague and indefinite as Mr. Villiers' indications of a coming revolution. Though he thinks it is all true, and that "capitalism will work no longer for labour is refusing to work it." Of course wild statements of this kind cannot be substantiated by facts. Everywhere the unemployed are demanding that they shall be put to work, and already there are signs that competition for jobs is resulting in speeding up and reductions in wages. Many industries are working short time, but it is against the wishes of the operatives, who would much prefer to work overtime. In their eyes a week's wages is the essential thing, and they must make capitalism work to get it.

In his concluding chapter called "Creative Revolution" Mr. Villiers tries to show that the Labour Movement is revolutionary and that its adherents are increasing enormously. He does not tell us, however, that these numbers are made up by including the members of affiliated trade unions, co-operative societies, etc., the bulk of whom have never even tried to understand what the Labour Movement stands for. True they are nearly all more or less discontented and would listen and understand Socialism if it were intelligently presented to them. But the Labour Party and I.L.P. merely advocate reforms that lead nowhere, except that they serve capitalist interests by concentrating the workers' minds on the patching up of the present system, instead of making clear to them the necessity of ending it.

The greater portion of Mr. Villiers' book is taken up with the indebtedness of capitalist governments and the means by which the debt can be reduced or cancelled. On page 84 he presents three main ways of dealing with it.

" 1—To shirk it as much as possible, merely manipulating the taxes from time to time, so as to' provide as long as possible for the payment of interest and perhaps for reducing the principle.
" 2—To repudiate it altogether or in part.
" 3—To devise some great scheme for its repayment either immediately or over a term of years."

With regard to repudiation Mr. Villiers has examined all the arguments except one, and that one, of course, is the most important.

Those who hold the bulk of the war bonds control the political machine. The Cabinet represents their interests, and neither our author nor anyone else will ever succeed in persuading them that it is only justice for them to forego their interests when so many thousands of the workers gave their lives to make the country safe for them.

Heroic measures like repudiation form no part of capitalist policy. Not only so, other wars are expected, and who would lend if the present debt is repudiated ? Moreover, war bonds are a source of income which their holders have no wish to relinquish. The first policy is therefore the most likely to remain.

The third policy, repayment, it is suggested should be by a capital levy. His chief idea is that the stocks and shares now held by capitalists should be transferred proportionately, according to the holdings, to the Government, which would then have an income from which to pay the debt. But if that were all the capitalists might just as well keep their shares and pay themselves with the dividends. They would at least save the expenses of collection and distribution.

The capitalist class and the capitalist government are one in interests and outlook. The debt is owed by the capitalist class as a whole to some of its members. It is the collective responsibility of the capitalist class, and the assets of that class are the means of wealth production, which, operated by the working class, produces the revenue enjoyed by the capitalist class. That revenue will be neither more nor less because some of the shares, or all of them, are held by the Government, If the capitalist class, therefore, adopt Mr. Villiers' suggestion, they would merely be giving up to their executive government annual dividends to be handed back to them as repayment of the executive debt.

Of course Mr. Villiers does not expect the capitalist class to be guilty of perpetrating such a delusion on themselves, but he does think they will allow the Labour Party to do so, or that the Labour Party will accomplish it, they having adopted it as part of their programme.

Debts or no debts, the workers under capitalism can never get more than wages based on the cost of subsistence ; the debt is, therefore, a capitalist debt, must be paid by the capitalist class if paid at all, and is their concern and their concern only.

But what of the Labour Party ? While claiming to be revolutionary it spends its time inventing and advocating schemes to relieve the capitalist class of their indebtedness, to get them out of a tight corner and establish their system on a surer foundation than ever.

If they were really revolutionary they would laugh at the "dilemma of capitalism," and explain to the workers how they can escape from their dilemma—wage slavery—by establishing a system of society where the means of wealth production are owned in common and democratically controlled. Until they do this the Labour Party, instead of being "the hope of the world," are a stumbling block preventing the workers' acquisition of Socialist knowledge. Instilling hope by its sentimental clap-trap, it spreads confusion and breeds apathy in the minds of the workers.

Mr. Villiers dreams of revolution and repayment of war debts at the same time ; but they contradict each other. The one is to overthrow capitalism and the other is to make it solvent. He cannot have it both ways. Either revolution and the abolition of class-ownership in the means of life, and consequently the abolition of interest on war bonds and dividends, and the workers continue to be exploited as hitherto. His failure to deal satisfactorily with his subject is chiefly due to the fact that he does not realise what is meant by revolution and cannot conceive the possibility of a system not based on capital and ownership of capital with all that it implies.

F. Foan

Who Remembers Korea? (1958)

From the March 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

1953, the year in which the Korean war ended, now seems a very long time ago. Really only five years, but in the present system military violence is so common that three years of slaughter in Korea are almost forgotten. It is a frightening fact that capitalism has brought about so much blood-letting in the last five years in various parts of the world that to start discussing the Korean war in any detail is like raking over the dead past, and few would be interested.

But the events surrounding Korea and the East-West propaganda at the time aptly typify wars in general (including the small ones since Korea). A film “The U.N. in Korea” was shown at Head Office on January 12th and a Party speaker used this to illustrate the S.P.G.B. answer to war. Looking back is cold comfort for those who pin their faith in U.N.O. as a means of maintaining world peace. Korea is the blood-soaked ground where U.N.O. was in fact at war.

Liberation Propaganda

It is certainly worthwhile for workers all over the world to ask themselves when threatened with being “occupied" — does it matter whether or not we are “liberated”? Here a grim lesson is to be learned from Korea. In 1945, after about 40 years, the Koreans were “liberated” from the Japanese. The film showed that the workers under the Japanese ruling class were expected to work. They were in fact working before the Japanese went there and have done nothing but work for their own bosses since. It is a great shame that Japanese workers in common with the rest thought it in their interest to don their bosses’ uniforms and go plundering for them, because, of course, workers in both occupied and occupying countries always have to work for their masters. The struggle for existence in terms of wages and conditions is fought with the enemy at home, not with fellow-workers elsewhere who are in the same position. The working-class, it must be emphasised and driven home, do not own any country anywhere. The land, the factories, the mines, the raw material, do not belong to the worker, but to State or private owners. In fact, it is because they own nothing of the country that they have to sell the one thing that is theirs—the energy in their bodies for wages. What then does liberation really mean? Korea once again shows that one ruling class replaces the other and exploitation of the workers continues. It is the need for markets, trade outlets, mineral wealth and strategic points that sets the capitalist groups of the world at one another’s throats commercially and they in turn set the workers at one another’s throats militarily.

More Jargon

Both major capitalist powers in Korea. America in the South, and Russia in the North, tried hard to pass their butchery off as a campaign for ideals. One capitalist mouthpiece, the then foreign secretary of Egypt, called the war “peace action” because U.N.O. was involved. But despite charge and counter-charge, lie and counter-lie, the strategic importance and mineral wealth of Korea could not be disguised. The Chinese rulers also were not slow to see their geographic position, and “aggression ” is an excellent cry to influence workers who do not understand their class position, but think nationally.

Contradiction

The film showed how vast quantities of various materials, industrial plant and buildings were destroyed to prevent their capture. The population were in chronic need of food and all other essentials, but in every war this folly is “normal.”

It must not be forgotten that in 1950, when the Korean war started, the Labour Government was in power here. Those who think changing Tories for Labourites makes any difference must have very short memories.

All wars produce their heroes. A hero is one who though afraid of the boss at work endangers his life to a point which even amazes the boss when fighting other workers. General McArthur, like most good generals, never suffered a scratch, but the film did not mention him as U.N. Commander Perhaps it is embarrassing for those in U.N.O. who try to pass as peace-lovers to recall how McArthur wanted to use A-bombs and, after bombing Manchuria, to extend the war into China.

Is War Worth It?
In preparing notes for the meeting, the speaker found back numbers of the Socialist Standard most helpful. It was pointed out at the meeting that while the so-called communists and the other major political parties supported the blood-letting on one side or the other, the S.P.G.B., with its traditional world working-class approach, opposed it. We said of Korea what we had said of 1914-18 and 1939-45 that there is nothing involved worth the shedding of a drop of working-class blood, that workers' interests lie together, not being at each other’s throats and, having no quarrel with workers anywhere, we extend the hand of Socialist fraternity to all workers and continue working for Socialism. It does not matter who is the ruler, home-grown or foreign, it is against rulers as a class world wide that workers should organise and politically not militarily, to prefer one gang to another is pointless.

Quoting from The Times (28/7/53) the Socialist Standard showed that 3,000 people died for every mile of territory won, not enough to bury the dead. In all, an estimated five million were killed. After being “liberated" there were two-and-three-quarter million refugees and four million destitute in Korea. Having helped to bring about this horrible plight. U.N.O. started a Relief Fund. But the various voluntary donations to aid the stricken population were paltry compared with the nine thousand million dollars spent in three years on ammunition. With the passing of time the political capital to be gained from posing as the champions of freedom in Korea died down. By the time Hungary came along with its promise of political advantage to Western Governments organising charity to the “freedom" fighters, the victims of capitalism in Korea were relying on adverts, in newspapers to collect funds.

What of Socialism?

While the mineral wealth of the world, along with the other means of life are in the hands of the capitalist class, places like Korea with its geographic importance and its mineral wealth of copper, coal, iron, bauxite, and tungsten, etc., will remain the objects of plunder for any gang of rulers who get the chance. The alternative to these continuous thieves' quarrels is obvious. It is to make all the natural and industrial assets of the world the common property of all mankind, to finish with buying, selling, profits and wages, and start producing for free distribution on the basis of people’s needs. This alternative can only be made operative by the workers first understanding the need for it and then organising for it. To bring these necessary conditions about will take a lot of work, but looking at Korea and looking at capitalism today, the need could hardly be more pressing.

Harry Baldwin

For Future Reference. (1916)

From the August 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

At a War Savings meeting held at the Mansion House on Monday, June 19th, Lord Buckmaster insisted on the following facts:

• Four days of war represents the cost of a year of education.
• Three days of war is more than the whole of the Old Age Pensions for a year.
• Five weeks of war costs more than the annual peace budget.—“DailyMail," June 20.

Therefore, said in effect my Lord Buck, with paralysing logic, hurry up and save more money to throw down the bloody sink!

The Finance of War (1959)

From the September 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

Who Pays for Wars?

In the middle of the first World War the Socialist Standard published an article which brought us into sharp disagreement with both wings of the Labour Party, those who were all for war and the minority who wanted to stop it : on this one issue they were in complete agreement and held that we were wrong. The issue related, not to the deaths and destruction of war, but to the finance of war. The article was called “Who Pays for the War?" (Socialist Standard, Nov, 1916) and the answer given to the question was in line with what the Socialist Party had been saying about Capitalism before the war broke out. The Socialist argument was (and is) that the workers live by selling their mental and physical energies to the employing class. They then go to work and produce wealth for the employers of value far larger than that represented by their wages. It is out of this “surplus value” that the employing class came to be the owners of all but a small part of the accumulated wealth of the country. Broadly speaking, the employing class, in peace and in war, have squeezed out of their workers in factories, fields, mines and offices, all that can be squeezed out of them in the existing circumstances. This is a very fortunate situation for the propertied class, but it has its corresponding disadvantage in that the civil and military costs of running the State, its administration, its police, its armaments and its wars, are in the last resort a burden on their profits and property. In short, it is the propertied class who pay for wars.

The article published in 1916 pointed this out, and pointed out, too, what would be the likely position of the workers of the victorious and defeated nations after the war. It foresaw that in the event of the defeat of Germany the victors would levy war damages on the property owners of Germany, but that this would not alter the position of wage-earners there. The anticipation was in fact confirmed many years later, when it was shown that in 1929 the purchasing power of the wages of German workers had kept in line with that of British workers despite the yearly payment to the British Government of many millions of pounds of “Reparations” by the German government. (Socialist Standard, August. 1929). Indeed, at one period it was a common complaint that while German workers were busily employed producing the "Reparations” goods for delivery to Britain, thousands of British workers were unemployed in the trades that would otherwise have been producing those goods here.

The Keynes' Scheme in the Second World War

But if it is broadly true that the employing class at all times get all they can out of the workers, they are always willing to try to get something more if they can. And a big war has a double disadvantage for them/ On the one hand they are paying for the war, and on the other hand, under the influence of “full employment,” the workers are likely to press for higher wages. For the employing class this is a very difficult problem. They need maximum production of armaments to win the war and consequently need minimum consumption of civilian products by the workers; but this is at a time when, because of labour shortage, the workers are in a favourable position to press for a higher standard of living. The late Lord Keynes in his How to Pay for the War (Macmillan & Co., 1940), came forward to help. His solution of the problem of how to get the workers in war-time to produce more and consume less was to introduce compulsory saving and refund it after the war.

He was a realist and he recognised that workers with less than 75s a week could not go lower: indeed, he proposed that their standard of living should be raised. (It is one of the ironies of war that quite a sizeable part of the population are better fed and clothed in war-time.) Those with between 75s. and 100s. a week were to continue on their existing standard, but the group with over £5 a week were to be compelled to save, in the aggregate, about a third of their income. Refundment, after the war, was to be achieved through a capital levy. Keynes put forward his suggestions as a way to avoid inflation and as a way to transfer wealth from the propertied class to the workers. Looking back to the first world war which left the National Debt owned by the capitalist class, Keynes thought that his scheme would have the result that at the end of the second world war ownership of the National Debt “will be widely distributed among all those who are foregoing immediate consumption, instead of being mainly concentrated . . . . in the hands of the capitalist class.” (Pages 10 and 11.)

In view of what happened, and particularly in view of the fraudulent “Post-War Credits” scheme, it may be thought that Keynes, in his book, was guilty of promoting the fraud. The truth seems to be that Keynes was guilty of no more than muddle-headedness, over-optimism, and a certain array of political innocence. Under the influence of war-time emotion he had convinced himself that things really were going to be differently ordered when the war was over.

Post War Credits

Borrowing part of the Keynes idea the Government put over the Post-War Credit plan. It allowed the workers to have the higher wages they asked for (and came on strike for, often against the law), but took back some of the wages for repayment after the war. Keynes wrote in 1940 about the workers “deferring” consumption of goods till a later date: the government combined it with a steady inflation and rise of prices so that when the workers got their Post-War Credits, the money (held all these years without interest) would buy only a half or a third of what it would have bought at the time it was stopped from wages. The same applied to all the other savings the workers were induced to invest in war bonds and other government stocks.

But the government got what it wanted. The workers worked longer and harder, by day and by night, and were joined in the factories and services by their wives, grandparents (and even by the schoolchildren, who helped with the harvest). Yet the destruction of war was so great that the increased output of the workers fell far short of making good the losses suffered by the propertied class, an estimate of which put the figure at £7,000 million in pre-war values. The national debt, which in 1939 was about £7,000 million, was three times as large by the end of the war.

In a period of continued inflation and rising prices all items expressed in terms of money appear to be getting larger and larger—an appearance which is quite illusory as the worker knows when he discovers that his higher wages have to buy goods with higher prices. Nevertheless. if wages and profits aye both related to the upward movement' of prices it will be seen that the destruction during the war left its mark on the profits of the propertied class. Whereas wage rates on average have just about kept pace with the rise of the cost of living since 1939, and the total wages of the working class have risen appreciably more (one reason being the larger numbers employed) the total amount of profit, rent and interest of the propertied class in the years after the war had failed to increase in line with the rise of prices.

One other interesting confirmation of the Socialist argument is the way wages have moved before and since the great re-armament which started in 1951. In the years 1947-1951 armament expenditure was about £750 million a year, but wage-rates (due partly to the success of Government “wage freeze” propaganda) were falling behind the rise of prices. Since 1951 armament expenditure has doubled, yet the workers' wages, aided by a greater determination to press their claims, have been rising rather faster than the rise of prices, thus recovering ground lost in the earlier period.

The moral of this is that war in the modern world not only has its cause in capitalism, but it is waged financially in the only possible way, one designed to fit the economic laws of capitalism. The workers, in war and peace, do better to trust to their own determined struggle against the employers than to trust in the promises of governments, economists and politicians, about the rewards they will get later on.

Edgar Hardcastle

Looking Forward (1943)

From the July 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

What sort of world awaits the working class after the war? Will it be a brand new world free from class privilege and wage-slavery; a world of social equality, security and happiness? The so-called progressives of all political colours have indulged in unlimited crystal-gazing, but no tangible blessings for the workers have emerged out of their Utopian vapourings. Certainly, President Roosevelt has said that he is looking forward to a world freed from want, but he carefully defines it as "economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peace-time life for its inhabitants." (Message to Congress, January 6th, 1941.) So, after all, we are not going to have the common ownership in the means of life, and production for use; merely "economic understanding."

The President also said that he stood for the ending of special privileges for the few, though he did not propose the abolition of rent, interest and profit. It is quite evident that Roosevelt does not consider the exploitation of one class by another as a "special privilege." To him and his supporters the making of profits is a necessary condition for progress and civilisation. In the same message to Congress he also expressed himself in favour of bringing more citizens under the coverage of old-age pensions and unemployment insurance. We can, therefore, expect, as he expects, that in the new world where want is to be abolished, there will also exist large numbers of elderly working-class paupers and jobless dole-drawers.

In another celebrated message, this time to I.L.O., held in. New York in 1941, he observed: "If that world is to be one in which peace is to prevail, there must be a more abundant life for the masses of the people in all countries. There are so many people in this world who have never been adequately fed, clothed and housed. By undertaking to provide a decent standard of living for these millions, the free peoples of the world can furnish employment for every man or woman who seeks a job."

We think the President is mistaken. There are certain facts he has overlooked. Firstly, what the workers receive as wages, high or low, represents only a part of what they have produced. Secondly, assuming a higher standard of living for these inadequately provided millions, the resulting increase in the speed and efficiency of industry would leave the workers in a relatively worse position, and suffering conditions of more acute insecurity. Experience has already proven that an increasing demand for goods will not necessarily prevent increasing unemployment, and the prospects of employment for every man and woman who seeks a job are a remote possibility under capitalism. Employers are only willing 'to give the workers more wages when they can anticipate more profits out of them, and they are not prepared to allow production beyond the point where it ceases to be profitable. Surely, the President must know that in his own country, where wages are the highest in the world, unemployment and starvation were prevalent!

Examining the more concrete pronouncements of American spokesmen, one can see their anxiety to establish post-war conditions wherein their goods will be able to penetrate to every country in the world. For example, Mr. J. G. Winant, speaking at Liverpool University, November 26th, 1941, said: "Divergencies between Great Britain and the United States might easily arise if each country insisted on becoming as self-sufficient as possible in respect of producing goods of outstanding importance in war-time. This policy would necessitate the production at high cost within one country of goods which could be produced at much lower cost in the other country, and this would involve the erection of serious obstacles to trade." In plain words, Mr. Winant demands a free field and no favour, on behalf of American capitalists. On the other hand, British interests, being at a disadvantage with their American rivals, prefer to be reticent on this important subject. No doubt, after the war, they will become very voluble, as their interests may determine.

Another gentleman, Milo Perkins, Executive Director of the U.S. Board of Economic Warfare, in a speech on May 25th, 1942, delivered himself of the following:

   "The greatest untapped markets industrial capitalism has ever known will open up before us. Their development will be the one hope for our profit system. Industrial capitalism cannot survive without those markets. Of Course, it won't be easy. . . . There will be the problem of how to get purchasing power into the hands of potential customers so that they can become real customers. . . ."

He does not say exactly how all this is to be done, but he dwells on the virtues of “faith in the future of our country . . .  a new buoyancy . . .  a sense of adventure."

Mr. Churchill's recent speech gives a good pointer to what the workers may expect when the blood-letting is finished. He said: 

". . . we must beware of attempts to over-persuade or even coerce His Majesty's Government to bind themselves or their unknown successors in conditions which no one can foresee, and which may be years ahead, to impose great new expenditure on the State without any relation to the circumstances which might prevail at that time, and to make them pledge themselves to particular schemes without relation to other extremely important aspects of our post-war needs. . . . Therefore, I tell you round your firesides to-night that I am resolved not to give or to make all kinds of promises and tell all kinds of fairy tales to you who have trusted me and gone with me so far." (Daily Telegraph, March 22nd.)

Thus our masters, through their spokesman, are here saying quite plainly that they don't intend to give the workers anything now, and that they will not bind themselves to any definite promises for the future.

The motto of the Curzon family, "Let Curzon hold what Curzon has," is applicable to the whole of the property owning class, and it must necessarily be so for obvious reasons.

Now contrast Mr. Churchill's cautious utterances with the free and easy attitude of Sir Kingsley Wood on the occasion last year when he asked for another thousand million pounds for war purposes. He told the House that “our" total expenditure during this war has already reached the astronomical figure of £8,600 millions. He added: "This is by far the costliest war in history. But this does not dismay us. There will be no faltering in the financial or any other sphere." (Our italics.)

Let the workers consider for a moment the immense amount of wealth that is being expended for the purposes of destruction, and then let them reflect how easy it would be to organise society on a basis that would give each individual a civilised existence. The vastness of the wealth wasted on war is evidence of the vastness of the world's industrial and mineral resources.

As Mr. John G. Winant said to the miners of Durham on June 6th, 1942: 

"What we want is not complicated. We have enough technical knowledge and organising ability to respond to this awakening of social conscience. We have enough courage. We must put it to use. When war is done, the drive for tanks must become a drive for houses. The drive for food to prevent the enemy from starving us must become a drive for food to satisfy the needs of all people in all countries. . . ."

But we might well ask Mr. Winant a few very pertinent questions. It was just as easy to build houses before the war as it is now to build tanks and battleships. Then why were those houses not built?

Mr. Winant can only reply that there was something fundamentally wrong, but he does not say what it is that is wrong. We can tell him. It is the private ownership in the means of life, and the fact that food and clothing and houses are primarily produced to make profits for the capitalists, and NOT to satisfy human wants. When the fields, the factories, the mines, and all the means of producing and distributing wealth are placed into the hands of society, only then will human wants set the machinery of industry into motion.

Kaye.