Society and Morals. Part I. Morality. (1917)

From the August 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

When we examine the mental condition of any people or section of mankind it is invariably found that, among each and all of them, human actions are judged as good or evil according to the degree they approximate to an ideal standard of conduct, held up and “somehow or other” acquired by the people in question. This standard by which conduct is judged is usually termed their moral or ethical code. The voluntary actions and opinions of men, be they savage or civilised, are guided by the moral code which either they have partly inherited, unconsciously grown up to accept, or their ripened experience has suggested.

The utmost variety is to be found in the moral notions of mankind. Cannibalism, incest, nudity in public, chattel-slavery, piracy, and a host of other practices to-day considered immoral have, in their age and place, all been perfectly moral and thoroughly justifiable.

The Problem of Ethics.

The problem of the origin and nature of the “moral law” has been one which thinkers in all ages have taxed their brains to solve. We all remember being told in our childhood how the god of the Jews gave to his “chosen people” the ten commandments. Most barbaric peoples believe their moral standard to be thus decreed by their god or gods.

Among all people who hold this view, be they uncivilised, or civilised people who accept the barbarian beliefs of Christianity, we naturally enough find a violent intolerance of those codes which differ from their own and sanction actions which theirs condemn. Those people who hold and act up to these other codes, are “working against the will of God” ; they are condemned as wicked, perverse, immoral, or as devoid of a “moral sense.” The books of missionaries are full of such allusions regarding the “heathen.”

It was only after morality in general was made the subject of research in the critical scientific spirit that any serious opposition to the “god theory” was forthcoming. Even the ancient Greeks did striking work in this field considering their very limited means. Notably the so-called “Sophists” of the Protagorean school denied the absolute and emphasised the relative character of morals. With the revival and growth of science in Europe since the fifteenth noiitury, ethical science advanced step by step ; Adam Smith, Kant, Locke, Hume and others building up a scientific theory which was finally rounded off by the work of Darwin, Spencer, Marx, and Morgan.

Social Regulations.

The labours of travellers, explorers, and historians gradually piled up data and widened the field for investigation. As in all other branches of science, the accumulated array of material first had to be sorted out and classified by finding the common characters in which the seemingly unlike agreed. It was then discovered that there is one common factor running right through all varieties of morality—they all have a social basis.

We have stated that the moral law is a guide to action. But all the activities of men do not come within the scope of the moral code. In the wearing of clothes there are fashions and customs the violation of which is not, usually, to-day, regarded as immoral. In the performing of the normal operations of living, e.g., eating, drinking, and sleeping, there are certain manners and customs, but they are not considered moral obligations where they affect only the personal welfare. But consider certain variations of the above cases. Let a man over-eat so as to knowingly deprive others of food ; or by being drunk cause obstruction in the public highway ; or being a working man remain in bed when he “should be working for his employer,” then contempt and perhaps punishment are meted out to him for he has outraged the morality of the community.

This is the crux of the matter. It is those activities which, when performed by an individual, affect and interfere with his fellows which are embraced within the moral law. Morality is a regulator of the relations existing between beings living in association. It is essentially a social phenomenon. A few illustrations will make this clear.

To-day a farmer may plough his land, sow and reap his crop on any day which suits him without regard to his neighbours ; but in the Mediaeval village where the villagers held several strips of land each, these strips being strewn and intermingled over a large area, such independence would have led to endless confusion, and accordingly certain days were allotted for the various kinds of field work and the whole agriculture of the community was carried on according to customary rules. Strict adherence to these rules was of the highest moral importance. In the first case, the labour was an individual concern ; in the second, one affecting the entire village community.

Again, the killing of a person, for private reasons, which brings discord into a society, is highly immoral ; when the killing, however, is multiplied a millionfold, but is in the “national interest,” showers of praise fall upon the heads of the slaughterers.

Barbarian societies are usually small, self-sufficing, and independent of other communities. While, in them, theft, fraud and murder are considered awful crimes when a fellow-tribesman (a kinsman) is the victim, such actions are permitted against men of other groups, are indeed, considered glorious and praiseworthy, for the neighbouring tribes are usually dangerous enemies and thus any injury to them is beneficial to the community.

That which is believed, by the bulk of its members, to be in the interests of the social group, is regarded as moral, that which is injurious to it—immoral. Apart from, society morality has no significance—solitary beings would have no use for it.

The Light of Evolution.

Before the science of society itself developed, the moral code could never be really understood and this was the great handicap upon the early ethicists. One school carrying their belief in the “supremacy of reason” to the extreme believed society to have originated in a consciously made agreement or contract entered into by primitive man. All moral principles were the product of reasoning from experience. Recognised social utility was, they argued, the basis of morals, hence this school is often entitled, the “utilitarian.”

Another school pointed out, however, that the basic impulses towards social unity and harmony appear to be grafted into the very personality of man—to be part of his physico-mental nature.

Conflict waged between the two schools until the evolution theory revealed for the first time man’s real place in the scheme of nature. Man was then clearly proven to be the outcome of a long line of changing animal ancestors, developing in succession from a jelly speck in the warm primeval ocean, through the worm, fish, reptile, lowly mammal and finally ape stages. Darwin showed in his “Descent of Man” that altruism and social solidarity is widespread among the higher types of gregarious animals and that a sort of instinctive “morality” is very prevalent.

It required the historical materialism of Karl Marx, Engels, and Morgan, to reveal how, granting the animal origin of sociability, its many-sided applications as reflected in morality are worked out, as we see them, in human society—savage, barbarian and civilised.

The Social Instinct.

Animal societies are bewildering in their number and variety. There are temporary unions like the wolf packs for hunting in winter ; the wonderful organisations of the ants and bees ; the fine examples of mutual support, among the hoofed animals, the rodents and the monkeys. The closer and more permanent the unions, the more developed are the social impulses of sympathy, self-sacrifice, the sense of duty and responsibility which are vital to a society’s existence, for they function as a protective discipline against the too full assertion of the primary instinct for purely personal welfare.

The impulses bound up with sociability therefore, develop in the same proportion as the greater efficiency of co-operation over individual competition asserts itself in the struggle for existence which pervades the animal kingdom.

The social instinct was, it must be remembered, not evolved to safeguard the community for its own sake, but only because the organisation was a factor in securing the welfare and survival of the bulk of its members, as individuals capable of perpetuating the species. The more thoroughly social a species becomes the more dependent upon the association is the individual creature, and, correspondingly, the greater is its danger and helplessness when isolated from its kind.

Early man, conspicuous and yet without any efficient organic means of defence, was forced to use collective might and action to struggle successfully against opposing nature. Speech evolved through and for social intercourse, and reacting, greatly aided his intellectual development. Even the artificial tools and weapons which man uses were dependent upon social habits for their progress. Perfected by an infinite series of modifications, such did not pass away with the death of the inventors but were taken up, adopted and passed on to succeeding generations by their fellows. Primitive man was therefore as dependent upon his social organisation as is a lion upon its teeth and claws.

At their dawn the social impulses are as unreasoned and instinctive as those of sex or maternity and so can hardly yet be classed as moral forces, which presuppose a certain consciousness of choice in actions. But once reason begins to supersede blind instinct in the ordinary work of living it also urges in man an enquiry into the why and the wherefore of his conduct in relation to his fellow man, and a conscious conception of morality gradually takes the place of unreasoned, half or non-conscious social impulsiveness.

R. W, Housley

(To be Continued.)

Letters: Religion and Socialism (1946)

Letters to the Editors from the March 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Religion and Socialism 

Radlett, Herts.

To the Editor of the Socialist Standard.

Dear Editor,

The article in your December number, under the title “Religion, Ethics, and Socialism,’' seems to me to involve some contradictions. You appear to throw doubt on the attitude of Secularists or Rationalists, who have claimed that the freeing of the human mind from the thraldom of religious superstition is a part of man’s necessary development. Yet, at the same time, you criticise the Church for trying to combine religion with ethics.

I hold that to destroy the religious basis of belief (still unconsciously held by many of those who have no part in the work of orthodox churches) is necessary. As it stands, religion is a valuable instrument of those whose motto is “divide and rule." For examples, see Ireland, India, and Palestine. If some people tend to concentrate on that aspect of the freeing of mankind, why criticise them? There is room in this troubled world for all who assist, in any way, towards the light.

Yours fraternally,

John Rowland.

Reply.

Surely no contradiction is involved in exposing the fallacies of both clergy and secularists, notwithstanding they are in mutual opposition. In the article our correspondent refers to, we show that in general the ethics practised in a period correspond to the social conditions prevalent; while the Church clajins them as part of the gospel and uses them to bolster up its superstitious beliefs, the secularists, on the other hand, accept the ethics, but deny the beliefs

They not only accept the ethics, they accept also the conditions that determine them. The class ownership of the means of life and the resulting poverty and enslavement of the working class.

If our correspondent reads the article more carefully he will find it difficult to substantiate his statement that we appear to throw doubt on the necessity to free the human mind from the thraldom of religion. On the contrary, we combat religion whenever it cuts across our path. The article he complains of is proof of this, and our criticism of the secularists is that they claim that Socialism can make no headway with the workers until religion has been eradicated from their minds. We deny this claim completely. The bulk of the workers are quite capable of understanding Socialism when it is clearly explained to them. Being indifferent to religion, it follows that they are not influenced by it when considering economic questions. If they have a basis of religious belief “unconsciously" held, why should they be jerked out of it only to be dragged into the futile and endless controversy on the question: God or no God?

Our correspondent's example of ruling-class policy "divide and rule’’ is typical of the secularist attitude. One section of the ruling class dominating less powerful sections of the same class is, to them, an outrage. But if the workers of those countries understood Socialism they could not be dragged into a conflict over the interests of their respective masters.

Our correspondent may chose to concentrate on freeing mankind from religion, as others concentrate on intemperance, gambling, or even Fascism, but this “troubled world” will remain troubled and confused until the workers understand Socialism. The need for this understanding becomes daily more urgent. The terrific struggle for markets that is on the way, and the threat of atomic warfare stresses the urgency.

Because it is urgent, because it is the only way, those who already ”see the light” should ignore the carrots dangled under their noses, or the red herrings drawn across their path, and get on with the Job of making Socialists.

F. Foan

"Wellwisher."

We are grateful for some useful suggestions on the leaflet, but your suggested improvements of the wording of the Declaration of Principles would seriously distort the meaning.

Ed. Comm.

The Scientific Basis of Socialism. (1915)

From the November 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

The aim of the Socialist movement is, as the declared Object of our party states, “The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.” We claim to be, not utopians, seeking to found a perfect social order because of its justness and moral advantages, independent of time or conditions, but rather working as a part of a social process which has made that change in society which renders our object necessary if society is to continue to develop. The scientific basis of Socialism must therefore be—an analysis of the laws in accord with which society evolves.

It was the work of the founders of modern Socialism, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, to make such an analysis, and the result of their labours, although for long ignored, suppressed, and misrepresented by the “intellectuals” of the bourgeoisie, continues to secure an ever-increasing acceptance. As students of the Hegelian philosophy, Marx and Engels were familiar with that dialectic form of reasoning which considers all things in their interrelations, in their birth, growth and decline, connected together into one universal evolutionary process. Marx and Engels were, however, materialists, and thus stood in contradistinction from the orthodox Hegelians, who were, like their master, idealists of the purest type. This evolutionary view of the Universe from the materialist standpoint is the basis of all real scientific work; and in the hands of Marx and his co-worker it became the basis of the sociological theory which subsequently became known as the Materialist Conception of History.

Historical Materialism.

“The materialist conception of history,” says Engels, “starts from the proposition that the production of the means to support human life and, next to production, the exchange of things produced, is the basis of all social structure; that in every society that has appeared in history, the manner in which, wealth is distributed and society divided into classes or orders, is depend­ent upon what is produced, how it is produced, and how the products are exchanged. From this point of view the final causes of all social changes and political revolutions are to be sought, not in men’s brains, not in man’s better insight into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the modes of production and ex­change. They are to be sought, not in the philosophy, but in the economics of each epoch.” (“Socialism, Utopian and Scientific.”).

The necessary facts for the formulation of the theory of historical materialism had gradually accumulated, and by the forties of the nineteenth century they only waited to be correlated and unified. So it came about that, as in the case of most great discoveries, this principle of social development was thought out independently by different minds. Engels himself partially developed the theory in this fashion before the work of Marx became known to him, and Lewis Henry Morgan, the American ethnologist, came to the same general conclusions in the course of his studies of primitive society. Morgan states In his work, “Ancient Society” (page 19) that “the great epochs of human progress have been identified, more or less directly, with the enlargement of the sources of subsistence,” and his greatest book, the one here quoted, consists largely of an attempt to trace the rise of the family, government and property upon this basis.

It was, however, Karl Marx who gave to the doctrine under consideration its most complete form; the form in which it, to use his own words, “continued to serve as the leading-thread” in his studies, and the elaboration of which, especially in the elucidation of the phenomena of modern society, constituted the great work of his life. Marx’s work, unfinished as it was, has been carried on and popularised by a host of thinkers amongst the revolutionary workers of all lands; so much so that the bourgeois professors and intellectuals, no longer able to ignore, now seek to revise, modify and un-revolutionise the Marxian philosophy.

Natural environment and economic conditions.

One common misconception of the materialist view of history is that it makes social changes dependent entirely upon the technical improvements in the tools and means of production, without taking into account man’s physical conditions and natural environment. Nothing is, however, further from the truth. In “Capital,” Vol. I., p. 521, Marx points out the influence of physical conditions upon the mode of production; he says: “Apart from the degree of development, greater or less, in the form of social production, the productiveness of labour is fettered by physical conditions. These are all referable to the constitution of man himself (race, etc.), and to surrounding nature.”

A good example of the effect of different geographical situations and natural environments upon communities of originally the same type, is to be seen in the evolution undergone by the various branches of the Semitic race. In origin they were a pastoral people, living in nomadic tribes in the region of Arabia. Migrating to the north-east, one branch settled in the Euphrato-Tigris valley. They assimilated the culture of the original inhabitants the Akkado, a people of Turanian descent and originally pastoral like the Semites. The fertile alluvial soil being adapted to agriculture, this soon became their mode of existence, and chattel-slavery arose as the productivity of labour increased. The periodic inundation of the river in the lower part of the valley necessitated a system of draining, irrigation, dams and other water works, resulting in the rise of a class of expert officials and a priesthood versed in geometry and astronomy. This was the rudiments from which the great slave states of Babylonia and Assyria arose.

Another branch of the Semites settled on the narrow strip of coast land to the east of the Mediterranean. On this restricted area, hemmed in by the Lebanon mountains,

“the agricultural resources of the little country were soon outgrown, and the Phoenicaus were forced to gather a harvest from the water. They invented the fishing line and net. . . . The Lebanon mountains supplied them with timber ; in time they discovered how to make boats with keels, and to sheath them with copper which they also found in their mountains. From those heights of Lebanon the island of Cyprus could plainly be seen, and the current assisted them across. They colonised the island ; it supplied them with pitch, timber, copper, and hemp, everything that was required in the architecture of a ship . . . they discovered villages on other coasts, pillaged them and carried off their inhabitants as slaves. The Phoenicans from fishermen became pirates, and from pirates, traders ; from simple traders they became also manufacturers.”— Winwood Reade’s “Martyrdom of Man.”

Handicraft and commerce continued to rapidly develop and spread, and numerous sea-ports arose. All this resulted in the rise to prominence of a wealthy merchant plutocracy. This Semitic people the Phoenicians, in this manner became the first great sea-faring and commercial nation of the ancient world.

Still different were the methods of develop­ment among the Arabs and the Hebrews. The former living on the fringes of the great deserts, retained their nomadic habits, and plying to and fro, in time became the overland carriers and traders between the Egyptian and Mesopotamian societies, between which their caravan routes formed means of communication. On the other hand, the Jews, in the region of the Jordan valley, on a rugged tract of territory with mountains on one side and the desert on the other, were continually buffeted by and exposed to the invasions of the predatory tribes and powerful nations which surrounded them. Time and again plundered by their mighty neighbours, their country forming the battle ground in the campaigns waged by the Hittites, Egyptians and Assyrians, the rise of private property, and as a consequence classes, was a slow process, accompanied by irregularities and set-backs. At the time, therefore, when their cousins the Phoenicians had arrived at political government, the Jews still retained their tribal organisation.

We here see the great effect of natural environment and outside influence in modifying social forms, but it must be remembered that, apart from migrations, such as those we have just considered, transformations of these natural factors, is almost inconceivably slow, except in the case of such comparatively rare phenomena as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and the like; and the effect of these is, as a rule, only transitory. The influence exerted by physical conditions is best seen in primitive societies, where the natural predominates over the artificial environment, and where social change is correspondingly slow. The Marxian theory places the natural features such as race, climate, and geographical situation in their proper position as part of the determining factors among the causes of social changes. In this Marx differs from the thinkers of the type of Buckle, who made physical surroundings of primary importance. Marx and Engels saw that these factors often remain stationary in the midst of social transformations, and as it is the changes in society which constitutes history, the motive force in history must be looked for in something other than the comparatively static physical conditions, except in those cases where a definite physical change can be shown to have occurred. Natural differences must, however, always be considered when social structures in different parts of the world are to be examined.

The growth of ideas.

The same conclusions are arrived at when we consider the evolution of ideas. All ideas are but the more or less transformed reflections of real things. Our brain receives through the medium of the sensory organs impressions or sensations from the world exterior to it. Our thoughts are all of necessity based upon these impressions, which however, become combined in the most intricate manner. Nevertheless, our ideas can never go beyond the limits set by the experience thus gained.

From this basis the origin of entirely new ideas can only be explained by the fact that man is continually creating ail artificial environment, which means that fresh material from which impressions may be received are brought into being, and which also may assist in the perception of an hitherto unknown side and fresh attributes of the material in the Universe, which, up till then, he had been conscious of only in an imperfect manner or not at all. In either case it is the result of man’s powers of production, which adds to and supplements the world of nature, which is at the root of the new ideas.

Take for example the invention of the tele­scope. Not only does the newly constructed instrument of itself form the basis of new ideas, but the manner of its use also. The laws of light which may incidentally be discovered by its aid become further objects or rather subjects of contemplation, as also do the details of the Universe unfolded by its use, which previously, although obviously forming a part of man’s environment, had yet been unperceived by him because of the insufficiency for this purpose of his organs of sight. Metius, Lipperhey and Jausen, the three Dutchmen who, according to Professor Simon Newcomb, may each be credited with the invention of the telescope (this by the way, is a splendid example of the fact that, when the materials for the solution of any prob­lem, or the invention of any instrument are at hand, several minds usually make the required discovery independently of each other; a fact which completely knocks the bottom out of the “great man” theory.) gave to society a rich source of farther ideas; and when Galileo turned his “optik tube” upon the starry heavens, and first beheld the spots on the sun, the lunar mountains, and the Jovian satellites, he could little have known of the boundless matter for research and contemplation which his observa­tions, primitive though they must have been, judged by modern astronomical standards, laid the foundations of.

We have seen that the statement that the materialist conception of history ignores natural factors is contrary to fact. Nor is the charge of fatalism against the theory valid, for Marx says in his “Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bona­parte,” “Man makes his own history, but,” and mark this, “he does not make it out of the whole cloth; he does not make it out of conditions chosen by himself, but out of such as he finds close at hand.”

Historical materialism does not exclude the influence of tradition, or deny the usefulness of studying the past experience of society and turning it to good effect; for in the same work we have it stated: “The tradition of all past generations weighs like an Alp upon the brain of the living.” In considering the ideas, institutions, and history of a given period, therefore, not only have the natural and artificial conditions of the society in question to be examined, but also those of the previous societies which may have influenced it, together with the traditions, customs, and institutions which have persisted from times earlier.

Ethics and religion.

Many institutions and ideas originated out of man’s contact with external nature in very early times, and although modified by subsequent economic development, they persist throughout history. Among this class, may be mentioned the fundamental ethical principles, and also religion.

Morality, as Darwin has shown, originally consists of certain social instincts necessary for the preservation of society. He traces them back to our pre-human progenitors, and indeed they must assert themselves to some degree in all organised communities whether animal or human. Man being by nature a gregarious animal, the instinct of sociability is part of his physical make-up. Darwin says in his “Descent of Man” (page 149): “any animal endowed with well-marked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well or nearly as well developed as in Man.”

The social instincts, however, become modified by the social transformations which occur as a result of economic development. In a hunting community, for instance, the killing of newly-born infants at a time of food scarcity is considered no crime. Infanticide is, indeed, one of the most universal customs among savage peoples, who find the struggle for existence very keen, it being in the interests of the tribe to keep clown the number of consumers as much as possible ; and, where children are to be saved, preference is given to males as forming potential hunters, thus increasing the productive capacity of the tribe. In an agricultural community, however, where food is more plentiful and more regularly obtained, infanticide is no longer practiced, and it comes to be looked upon as horrid and immoral in the extreme.

In class societies the prevailing ethical code is always that best suited to the interests of the ruling class. Old ideas are cast aside or are modified to justify their position. This, of course, is necessary, for no ruling class ever maintains its supremacy for long by physical force alone. Chattel slavery was moral in America until it was discovered in the North that wage-labour was cheaper, and it is interesting to note that both North and South obtained the support of the Bible for their respective positions.

Religion arises out of the relations between savage man and the unknown and, to him, mysterious forces and phenomena around him. The partial or total lack of consciousness caused by sleep and by death, and also dreams, were explained by assuming the living body to be the temporary abode of a soul or spirit (the Egyptian Ka) which leaves the body for longer or shorter periods. The wind, fire, smoke, thunder, etc., were regarded as manifestations of these ghosts which became objects of fear and veneration.

The spirit of a dead chieftain in course of time is elevated to the dignity of a god with power over various natural forces, he is conceived of by the living of his tribe or people, in the shape of a glorified personification of themselves. Thus Thor, the Scandinavian god of thunder, was a mighty warrior, the sparks and noise from the crash of whose battle-axe constituted the lightning and the thunder. The beliefs of the Norsemen, indeed, form an excellent illustration of the intimate connection between material condition and theology. The discovery of the smelting of iron-ore had raised them to the upper stage of barbarism—the “Heroic Age” of history. Now, the iron sword and scale armour supplanted the cruder and less effective weapons of the earlier period. The warrior class became predominant, and when one of the mighty ones passed away, his corpse, together with his paraphernalia of battle, were burned in his Viking vessel, that his spirit, clad in ghostly armour and armed with ethereal weapons might ascend to the “Hall of Valhalla,” there to live with his ancestors.

The rise and further development by modification of religion is excellently dealt with in the pamphlet on the subject issued by the Socialist Party, and need not be longer dwelt upon here. Nevertheless, an interesting illustration given by Marx, of the effect of changed conditions upon religious opinions, and also showing how the ideas of the ruling class are accepted in the main by the mass of the community, may not be out of place. Writing upon the Crimean War, Marx says:

“We see England, professedly Protestant, allied with France, professedly Catholic (damnably heretical as they are in each other’s eyes, according to the orthodox phraseology of both), for the purpose of defending Turkey, a Mohammedan power, whose destruction they ought most religiously to desire, against the aggressions of “holy” Russia, a power Christian like themselves. … To perfectly appreciate this state of things we must call to mind the period of the Crusades, when Western Europe, so late as the thirteenth century, undertook a “holy” war against the “infidel” Turks for the possession of the Holy Sepulchre. Western Europe now not only acquiesces in the Mussulman jurisdiction over the Sepulchre, but goes so far as to laugh at the contests and rivalries of the Greek and Latin monks to obtain undivided possession of a shrine once so much coveted by all Christendom ; and when Christian Russia steps forward to “protect” the Christian subjects of the Porte, Western Europe of to-day arrays itself in arms against the Czar to thwart a design which it would once have deemed highly laudable and righ­teous. To drive the Moslems out of Europe would once have roused the zeal of England and France ; to prevent the Turks from being driven out of Europe is now the most cherished resolve of those nations. So broad a gulf stands between the Europe of the nineteenth and the Europe of the thirteenth century ! So fallen away since the latter epoch is the political influence of religious dogma.

We have carefully watched for any expression of of the purely ecclesiastical view of the European crisis, and have only found one pamphlet by a Cam­bridge D.D., and one North Irish Reviewer for England, and the Paris Univers for France, which have dogmatically represented the defence of a Mohammedan power by Christendom as absolutely sinful ; and these pronunciamentos have remained without an echo in either country.” “Eastern Question,” pp. 482-3.

Classes and the state.

Religion and ethics we characterised as deriving their origin in man’s natural environment. A further set of institutions arise only at a certain stage of economic development. Occupying a prominent place among this division of institutions are, the State with its political and juridical sub-divisions, and social classes. The distinguishing feature between classes is the mode by which the members thereof obtain the wealth which is necessary for their subsistence; except in those cases where the class in question is a remnant of a decaying order of society, in which case it sometimes happens that it will retain its distinction, by reason of its political power, and the force of tradition, after all economic distinction has passed away. This state of things can, however, but be of temporary duration, as instanced by the Roman patricians who in time lost the political privileges which were their only distinction from the upper or wealthy land-owning plebians.

Although there have been classes, such as handicraftsmen, who worked with their own tools and material, and owned the product of their labour and were, therefore, to a large degree economically independent, the most typical form of class division is that between producers and non-producers, exploiting and exploited. The division of society into producers and non-producers only arises when the productive forces have progressed to a certain point ; for, when man’s whole time was occupied in providing the necessities for his own continued existence, there could be no idle class. When it became possible to produce a surplus of wealth over and above that essential for the maintenance of the producer, the war captives previously slaughtered or eaten, were set to work for their captors whose sole property they became. Thus arose chattel slavery, the first form of exploitation. Three historical varieties of exploitation may be distinguished : chattel-slavery, where the slave was bodily owned by somebody and was bought and sold, typical of ancient civilisation; serfdom, where the serf produces part time for himself, and part time for his lord to whom he owes allegiance, and who gives in return protection, prevalent in the Middle Ages, and wherever feudalism exists ; wage-slavery, where the worker is “free” to-work for anyone who will employ him, but being propertyless is compelled on pain of starvation to sell his labouring power to one who owns tools and material for production, thereby losing all claim to the product of his labour, the value of which must be greater than that which is paid to him as wages, this form characterises. the modern capitalist epoch.

It is out of the growth of classes that the State arises. Wherever ruling and oppressed exist, the ruling class must control a coercive force, the function of which is to keep in subjection, the exploited class and maintain the existing order of property conditions. “The antique state was, therefore,” says Engels, “the state of the slave owners for the purpose of holding the slaves in check. The feudal state was the organ of the nobility for the oppression of the serfs and dependent farmers. The modern representative state is the tool of the capitalist exploiters of wage labour.” “Origin of the Family,.-etc.,” page 208). The political State marks the-dawn of the era of civilisation.

The class struggle.

The nature of and the relations between the classes of any epoch, are determined primarily by the mode of production operative, which gives rise to certain forms of property. When new productive methods arrive, new classes are born into society. The struggle for supremacy between the old methods and the new reflects itself in the struggle between the classes whose material interests are bound up with the respective modes of production. The struggle between classes having divergent and clashing interests, has been behind all the political contests, upheavals, and revolutions which have characterised the history of society since the epoch of civilisation was entered upon. The control of the State, the stronghold of every ruling class, has been the objective in every struggle for emancipation.

The class war, more enduring and pitiless in its form than any other war, contains innumerable instances of the savage extremes to which a ruling class will go when its material interests are menaced. Brutal suppression, followed by wholesale crucifixions, was the price paid by the revolting slaves of Roman days; and this finds its counterpart in the crushing of the peasant, risings in mediaeval Europe, and in modern times by the massacres of proletarians, after the Paris Commune in France, on the Rand, in Colorado, and in Dublin, Featherstone, and elsewhere in these British islands. “The civilisation and justice of bourgeois order comes out in its lurid light whenever the slaves and drudges of that order rise against their masters. Then this civilisation and justice stand forth as undisguised savagery and lawless revenge. Each new crisis in the class struggle between the appropriators and the producers brings out this fact more glaringly.” (Marx’s “Civil War in France.” Page 68.)

However necessary were classes at the period in social evolution at which they arose, it can no longer be claimed that such is the case now. In support of this first proposition, Engels says (“Anti Duehring,” page 209) :

“Slavery first made the division of labour between agriculture and industry completely possible and brought into existence the flower of the old world, Greece. Without slavery there would have been no Grecian State, no Grecian art and science, and no Roman Empire. There would have been no modern Europe without the foundation of Greece and Rome. We must not forget that our entire economic, political and intellectual development has its foundation in a state of society in which slavery was regarded universally as necessary. In this sense we may say that without the ancient slavery there would have been no modern Socialism.”

But he also says in the same work (page 211) ;

“As long as the actual working people claim that they have no time left at the close of their necessary labours to attend to the common business of society—the organisation of labour, the business of the government, the administration of justice, art, science, etc.—just so long will distinct classes exist which are free from actual labour to carry on these functions . . . The development of the great industry with its enormous increase in the forces of production for the first time permitted the subdivision of labour in all the social grades and this allowed the reduction of the time necessary for labour so that enough leisure remains for all to take part in the actual public business—theoretical as well as practical. So that now for the first time the dominant and exploiting classes have become superfluous and even an obstacle to social progress.”

The bourgeois era has fulfilled its “historic mission”—the organisation and development of the machine process of industry—but it has now become a fetter upon the full utilisation of the great powers it has created. Just as the feudal forms and restrictions hindered the expansion of the capitalist method of production, so now, socialised production cries out for the social ownership and control of the productive forces, which the revolutionary proletariat alone can establish. As the bourgeoisie rising to power swept aside the remnants of feudalism which obstructed its progress, and reared a social edifice adapted to its own mode of production, so the proletarians realising the interests of their class, must seize upon the governmental power, and establish that form of society which economic evolution demands.

With the rise to political predominance of the working class and the subsequent institution of Socialism, the period of classes and class struggles with its concomitant social forms, including the State, will be at an end, and a new era will be entered upon.

To this end let all our energies concentrate. With the lamp of science held up to the record of history, let us read its lesson aright. Guided by the class-struggle, with faith in the sound­ness of their position, let us spread this know­ledge of Marxian teaching among the wage-slaves of the world. To them as to us, the work of Marx and Engels stands, a beacon light, shed­ding rays around it; shining down the path of man’s social history it illuminates the gloomy passages of his past. Ahead, its beams piercing the haze, light upon a glorious future, which through the triumph of the workers will become the heritage of all mankind.

R. W. Housley

50 Years Ago: The Ethics of Revolution (1956)

The 50 Years Ago column from the March 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some good people in the Labour movement . . .  are keenly endeavouring to get the workers to study ethics. They urge that the world would be much better and happier if only people were more moral and altruistic, and they further argue that if the working class, the despised and rejected of men, would display a higher morality, the Capitalist class would be converted to the Labour movement. The Socialist has one of his most insidious foes in the ethical culturist. Their position is a denial of the materialist basis of Socialism, because it is simply an appeal to the individual, as though the majority of individuals could elevate themselves above their environment. If the teaching of ethics were all that is required to bring social salvation, how comes it that after 2,000 years of the teaching of the ethics of Christianity for example, the hewers of wood and drawers of water are worse off, than they have been for ages? Buddha, Confucius and others taught the Golden Rule long before Christ, yet the world is little the better.

The teaching of love and brotherhood, in a system that exists owing to the robbery of one class by another, is immoral. The moral course is that followed by the Socialist, who points out why this robbery takes place, explains the method by which it is done, and shows how it may be ended.

Standing firmly all the time on his material philosophy, the Socialist keeps clear of the illogical position taken up by the ethicist and the alleged Labour leader. Realising that with a society whose material foundation is conducive to a better relationship between man and man, a higher morality must ensue because of this advance in civilisation, he endeavours to teach his fellow members of the working class the opposition of the Capitalist class and their system to their interests, and the immorality of their position, and he organises them for the overthrow of Capitalism and the establishment of the higher system—Socialism. The revolutionist is the most moral because he points out the causes of today's evils, and organises to uproot them, while the Utopian ethicist leads the workers, consciously or unconsciously, in a manner calculated to breed despair, since they do not show the way to social emancipation, but on the contrary, blind them to the root causes of their misery. Revolution alone is moral, because it is consistent with the facts of life. The revolutionist is the true ethical teacher, because he endeavours to establish a form of society in which man’s relationship with his fellows would necessitate a higher ethic than that of today.

[From the “Socialist Standard",  March, 1906]

A “Marxist” with a Heart Attack (1932)

From the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

F. Foan

Alison Assiter's Revisiting Universalism (2003)

Book Review from the December 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Revisiting Universalism. By Alison Assiter. Palgrave Macmillan. 2003.

This is a book that re-asserts that there are universal values applicable to all human beings. It is directed against the “post-modernists”, “multi-culturalists” and some feminists, who assert that, on the contrary, there are no universally shared values by which to judge conduct, that any group’s view is as good as any other’s and ought to be respected as such (i.e. not criticised), or, as one wit has put it, “cannibalism is a matter of taste”.

Assiter starts from a materialist position. What all humans share in common, she says, is the basic need for a minimum level of food, clothes and shelter as essential to their physical health:

“(i) All human beings have needs which must be satisfied, if they are to act in any way at all;

(ii) These needs therefore ought to be satisfied, and this is a universally valid ‘ought’”.

Therefore “each one of us has an equal right to have our basic needs satisfied”. At the abstract level at which the argument is being conducted, Socialists can go along with this. But then Assiter extends this by adding that it means that every human being therefore has a “moral obligation” to do what they can to ensure that every other human being has their basic needs met.

This would make the case for socialism (as one among possible actions to try to ensure that every human has their needs met, the only effective one in fact) a moral case whereas we have always argued that socialism is based on interest, class interest to be more precise. It is in the material interest of the working class to have their needs met; these cannot be properly met under capitalism; therefore it is in the interest of the workers to abolish capitalism. So, when we approach our fellow workers, we don’t say “You should be a socialist because you have a moral duty to ensure that the basic needs of all your fellow humans are met”. What we say is: “You should be a socialist because only socialism can assure that your basic needs are met”.

In any event, to say that every human has this moral duty towards all other humans is pointless since ineffective. It would mean that the capitalist class has some moral obligation towards the working class. Tell them that and they’ll laugh in your face. And why should we assume any moral duty to the capitalist class, who exploit us? Not that workers are likely to respond to appeals to a supposed “moral duty”; they will establish socialism out of material self-interest, individual and collective. Socialism is a class issue not a moral issue.

To tell the truth, this book will have little relevance outside the academic world, indeed outside university philosophy departments. Academics are wage-slaves like the rest of us and one of their conditions of employment is “publish or perish”. As a result publishers’ lists are clogged up with books written just for this purpose. Something marginally different about this book is that we get a mention (even if our address is wrongly given).

Assiter, a leading feminist intellectual who was once a Socialist Party member, quotes Slavoj Zizek as writing that

“when the ‘left’ makes its demands ‘for full employment’ ‘retain the welfare state’ ‘full rights for immigrants’ . . . it is bombarding the capitalist state with demands it cannot fulfil. The left, he writes, is ‘playing a game of hysterical provocation, of addressing the Master with a demand it will be impossible for him to meet’”.

And contrasts this with the approach of

“the British SPGB, a political party that has operated in the UK, and elsewhere, since 1904. Members of the SPGB reject Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky as ‘impure’ versions of Marx, and believe that they must argue the socialist case in as many venues as possible, in order to convince a majority of the working class of the veracity of their case. They adopt the strategy of believing that rationality will prevail and that once people see and understand the logic of their case, just like the believer in decision procedure, then those people will convert to their cause and there will be no more capitalism, no more wars and no more wage slavery”.

A bit over-simplified in that we are not trying to “convert” people to our “case” as such, but to convince our fellow workers that it is in their material interest to establish socialism. But perhaps we shouldn’t look a gift-horse in the mouth.

Adam Buick

Capitalist “Humanity”. (1911)

From the April 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The Socialist is almost always, yet, in most cases, without conscious hypocrisy, a non-Socialist in his own private life. On all sides of his character, indeed, the average Socialist shows the absence of that feeling for humanity which his creed inculcates.”—Witness (Ontario).

Ignoring the obvious contradiction that “the Socialist” is “nearly always a non-Socialist,” the truth of the above depends upon the writer’s interpretation of the words.

If the term Socialist is intended to mean one who endeavours to practice Socialism, then none can be other than non Socialist—unless our critic would expect the aspirant to the name to start a co-operative commonwealth, as a hobby, after knocking off work.

Let me elucidate. Socialism is a name given to a system of society wherein the present anachronism : social production—private ownership, shall find no place; a system wherein classes with opposing interests shall give place to a community with a common interest.

A Socialist is one who recognises that private ownership must give place to social control in order that society shall progress ; one who sees that the evils attendant upon mankind are due to the clashing interests of producer and owner, and who works for the society of harmonious material interests that must result from the abolition of class domination.

That is a Socialist, both public and private ; and the piebald individual with Socialistic principles in spots is ruled out.

The “feeling for humanity which his [Socialist] creed inculcates” is, evidently, conspicuously absent in the pro-capitalist, for, be it noted, our Socialist in parts “shows its absence” on his non-Socialist side. Certainly such feelings are not rapidly generated in the hothouse of capitalism. It does not pay ; but capitalism is never at a loss. If the real thing cannot be produced at a profit, nevertheless, quite an overdose of shoddy goods of this character has been dumped upon an unsuspecting proletariat in this enlightened country.

The humanity made so much of by the pro-capitalist does not appeal to the Socialist, who is more concerned with preventing the evils than sympathising with the unfortunate victims thereof.

What does capitalist humanity amount to ? Human beings are maimed and crippled in the scramble for dividends. Commerce demands such sacrifice. Production for profit ignores humanity, and after each day of modern industry hundreds are left by the wayside, maimed and bleeding.

The humanitarian here steps in and calls upon his brothers to assist in the holy work of rescue. How awful it is for the “image of the Creator” to expire in the gutter ! To tend the sick and to comfort the weary should be the work of the more fortunate ones.

To be sure. And, apart from the usefulness of such work, it may be very dangerous to allow the carcass to rot. Germs from the body may travel even into the homes of those more fortunate brethren. So, while supporting the system which maims and kills, they erect hospitals and poor-houses to receive the wreckage from the capitalist workshops.

Year by year the mass of that wreckage increases, and, of course, with the growth in the number of those who have fallen among thieves and got broken, the “good Samaritan” business expands also. To quote a writer in the Daily Chronicle, “they are awaiting the half starved children and consumptive sempstresses who will never get well until they have had enough to eat, and for the mothers who cannot feed their babes because they have no food for themselves.”

Describing a visit to the “House of Horror” (the London Hospital) the same writer says :

“Throughout the length and breadth of a building covering a space of eight acres, men and women were busy with the great and ceaseless fight with death. Always the great city casts up its human wreckage, its broken bodies, its scum of disease. The supply is inexhaustible from the torture chamber of life. . . I saw the vision of life’s cruelty in a great city. I saw sharp knives in whirling machines of great factories chopping off the fingers of working men and slicing off their limbs. I saw great ladders falling and smashing the bodies of men. I saw starvation weakening the fibre of the people of mean streets, and the microbes of disease grow fat in the filth. I saw vice eating up the bone and blood of men and breeding children of despair. For here around me in the London Hospital were the victims of all the seething cruelty of a great city in a civilised world.”

The modern hospital resembles nothing so much as the repairing department of a large factory. The human machine is received broken and worn ; the broken parts are patched and the worn parts rebuilt, and then it is returned to be rebroken and again repaired, until at last it is thrown on the industrial scrap-heap as utterly useless.

At present parsons, labour leaders, and others engaged in the dissemination of the “feeling for humanity” are busy denouncing the horrors of war and calling for “international arbitrament of national quarrels,” heedless of the fact that wars are necessary factors in the expansion of markets, and that standing armies are required to subdue a subject class.

Great though the loss of life by warfare is, it pales into insignificance beside the myriads needlessly slaughtered in factory and mine.

“Where is the Socialist’s humanity ?” “Where is he who practices Socialism in ‘private life’?” “Where are your Socialist hospitals ?” “What has Socialism done for the workers?” Such are the questions of the unthinking. Ask rather “What does that ‘humanity’ amount to which waits until the damage is done and then applies the sticking plaster; which calmly stands by while the limb is broken, and then hastens to supply a splint ?”

Look for the humane instinct in a system which is based upon the robbery and murder of the useful in the interest of the useless. Enquire into and discover what capitalism has done for the toiler.

Dr. Newman, chief medical officer of the Board of Education, reports that of the 6 millions of children attending elementary schools, approximately 50 per cent. require medical treatment.

The chief registrar of births and deaths, in his report for 1909, states that 20 per cent. of the deaths in that year occurred in the workhouses, hospitals, lunatic asylums, and prisons.

In London 1 in 7 and in Glasgow 1 in 2 live in overcrowded conditions, while in both cities thousands of houses are unoccupied, and there are thousands upon thousands of acres of unused land in both England and Scotland.

We are told that in Great Britain “there are a million men unemployed ; that one third of the population are on the verge of hunger.”

The total wages paid are ever decreasing, it being estimated that the wages now paid to the workers of this country are less by 6 millions than they were 8 years ago, and further, that the number of paupers in the United Kingdom has increased by 118,000 since 1901.

T. S. Chouston, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S.E., in a recent work, says : “In the report of a Royal Commission it is estimated that there are at least 350,000 persons representing the mentally helpless, dependent, and diseased element in the body politic. I should add another 50,000 and be well within the mark. Those have as first cousins an army of defectives of another kind. . . . It comes to this, that a large part of our ‘submerged tenth’ lacks brain-grit to cope with the conditions of modern life, especially in large cities.”

These are a few of the good things capitalism has done for the workers. The mechanism to cope with this enormous poverty, disease, and crime, necessary for the maintenance and upkeep of present society, springs, we are told, from a “feeling for humanity.” The Socialist wants none of it.

Just as every vice alleged against Socialism is found to actually exist to-day, so every pretended virtue of capitalist society shows its inherent rottenness.

No greater condemnation of the existing order can be given than the fact that it creates the necessity for these vast “humane” institutions to deal with the worst of its flotsam and jetsam, to provide, for decency sake, a screen for awful spectacle of its wreckage.

T. W. Lobb

Asked & Answered. (1911)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

D. A. Conroy writes :

I have read your article entitled “Might is Right.” To me it was a regular “stunner.” I fail to see what good can come of such views. They seem to vitiate all the aims of Socialism. If what you say is correct, why trouble at all about your fellow-wage-slaves? They are hopeless and helpless, and provoke only cynicism or pity. “Might is Right.” Those on top are only there because they are mighty—on your own showing they have every right to rule. “Down with the meekling,” so be it. It is only just and natural that the weakling and the meekling should go down and be kept down, You can’t make a giant out of a jellyfish. Take the lowest types of physical and mental degenerates one meets in the streets by the million—is the new democracy to be evolved from such human wreckage? Is this dull-brained human herd fit to assimilate revolutionary ideas, much less act upon them? Or is the task of emancipation to be achieved by those amongst us who are of a fairly high order of intelligence ? If so, it will be a very incomplete democracy. You would still have the rule of a class, the intellectual class.

Can you help me out of this dilemma ? What has become of skill and cunning as factors in the struggle for survival and supremacy ? You seem to have left them out of account.

Reply:

My critic’s letter has been handed to me to reply to. There is a suggestion of poetic justice about the editorial command. Having thrown friend Conroy into the frying-pan, it serves me right that I am ordered to get him out again. Haply I may not drop him into the fire.

The first question is : “What good can come of such views?” “Such views,” as set forth in the article criticised, are that man has no other right to live than that based upon his ability to do so ; that the only right he has to exist, therefore, is the “right of might.” Is this correct or incorrect ?

In the first place, the possibility of the view that man has a God-given right to live was admitted, and it was pointed out that such a view commits one, logically, to the conquest of the means of life by the whole of the people. The Socialist, however, who has no place for God in his philosophy, cannot admit any God-given right to live. If there is no intelligent force outside the human (or animal) race, then there can be no other source of man’s right to live than man himself—and man can give himself no more than the right to live if he can. This is nothing but the right of might.

Does Mr. Conroy go so far with me ? If he does not, he must be clinging to the hem of some metaphysical garment, for the external and the internal are the whole, and the external intelligence (if such exists) is God, and the internal, man.

Now if man gives himself the right to live if he can, he must also give himself the right to live as well as he can. Between such miserable, attenuated existence as is not worth living, and the full flush of riotous luxury which can only be possible to a very small number, there is no place where the logical man can put a mark and say : “Here ends the right of might.” Even the plea that the right of might ends where exploitation begins—that men are justified in using their might to secure all that they produce, but not to obtain more, is shattered by the facts of history, for exploitation was in the direct path of human development. From the communism of primitive man, with its intimate dependence upon the capricious hand of Nature, to the fuller communism which it is yet our task to achieve, there was but one way to travel— through the robbery or exploitation of the wealth producers. How, then, can it be maintained that the right of might ceases on the border of robbery ?

“Those few on top,” then, have all the justification they need. They are there, as my critic puts it, “because they are mighty.” And, by the same token, they are there because the many underneath are weak.

So it becomes apparent “what good can come of such views.” The weakness of the underlings lies primarily in their ignorance, hence it is quite in accordance with Socialist aims to teach them that there is no special Providence watching over them; that there is no Justice, even ever so blind, and with ever so rusty a sword, holding a balance between the weak and the strong ; but that the only hope is strength, the only right—might.

If I showed that the strong few “have every right to rule,” at least I pointed out that the right ceases with the power. “It is just and natural,” says Mr. Conroy, “that the weakling and the meekling should go down, and be kept down.” Why, then, should we not say so ? It might lend the weakling strength, and the meekling combativeness ; it might put vertebra into the jellyfish, and make a giant of it.

And it is quite as “just and natural,” when the weakling has lost his weakness, and the meekling his meekness, for them to rise and overthrow those who have kept them down—a fact my critic seems to overlook.

As to who are to achieve the emancipation of the working class, the answer is : the working class itself. Not “the lowest types of physical and mental degenerates,” nor “those amongst us who are of a fairly high order of intelligence,” but the working class. And Mr. Conroy’s fear of being ruled by an intellectual class may be set at rest by this comforting assurance—there is no intellectual class.

Finally, it is difficult to understand why my critic distinguishes between the mighty and the wise. Might may proceed from wisdom, or from “skill and cunning”—which I am supposed to have forgotten.

And now, after the “finally,” a “lastly.” I desire to express my appreciation of the compliment so delicately conveyed in the words “those amongst us who are of a fairly high order of intelligence.” I am quite sure Mr. Conroy was thinking of me first and (to return the compliment with that delicacy my friend’s modesty demands) of himself second.

A. E. Jacomb

Socialist Unity — Is there any choice? (1995)

From the July 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

This article and the one on the following two pages should be
 read together since the first expresses some views which are 
countered in the second. Peter Nielsen is a former Labour
 parliamentary candidate.

"All it takes to do away with the ills of capitalism is a politically aware and motivated working class which wants and understands socialism." So said the Cover Feature, “What makes you angry?”, in the July 1992 edition of Socialist Standard. All? In a political environment where the word “socialism” is applied with such disregard for its real meaning, “understanding” it is no easy matter for people whose general political awareness is shaped by the capitalist agenda on which all mass media discussion takes place.

The experience of the working class of so-called “socialism” has not been a happy one. “Socialists” of many hues have come and gone this century world-wide, their promise unfulfilled through subversion and betrayal. In Britain, all the achievements of previous Labour governments have been partly or wholly destroyed since 1979. Cowed by Thatcher, seduced by an establishment which it has never repudiated anyway, and betrayed by its leaders. Labour now seeks an electoral mandate to govern the same old rotten system under Tony Blair declaring itself “a socialist party”. Coupled with the slavering triumphalism of the capitalists that “socialism is dead” following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, ordinary people are understandably lost in a maze of meanings. Worse still, the disowning of socialism by the Labour Party in recent years has only reinforced the capitalists in their propaganda that socialism is associated with hopeless idealism, incompetence and failure. The fact that the chronic economic and administrative incompetence of the nomenclatura of Soviet state capitalism caused it to collapse in chaos and defeat only adds to the scepticism of working class people. In their eyes, through their mass media, all systems end up with people at the top looking after themselves.

If socialism is to advance and not continue to be scandalised by vested interests who patronisingly describe it as a good idea which will never work in practice because of “human greed”, the task of socialists is not only to expose the ills of capitalism, but also to meet the challenge of cynicism and hopelessness so successfully nurtured by decades of Tory propaganda and Labour betrayal. Socialists need more than a definition of socialism. They need a language of socialism which expresses the rights and moral standards by which human beings must live to survive in peace, freedom and with justice. It must be capable of being articulated in a consistent way and of being recognised each time it is spoken.

The language of socialism must be the language of the ethical. It must not waver from principle. The concept of human rights must be total. It must not only concern itself with freedom from victimisation, false imprisonment, torture and execution. If anything, such acts are sanitised by being on the human rights agenda rather than in the sphere of criminality where they belong. Human rights must extend to the fields of economics, housing, health, education and the environment and they must be applied universally. The redistribution of wealth and the democratisation of industry must not be a mere policy option for socialists seeking votes in elections but must be taken for granted as an inevitable consequence of supporting socialism. Socialism should be synonymous with the highest standards of life. Human rights in the social and economic spheres demand the elimination of poverty, unemployment, homelessness and alienation. They also demand the highest levels of performance and professionalism in all work by each other for each other.

No conflict

There should be no conflict between the good of the individual and the good of the community. The two are inseparable. Individuals benefit from communities organised to provide the best in public services, and communities benefit from free and fulfilled individuals realising their full potential be they highly gifted or severely handicapped. The full realisation of the potential in all human beings is the ultimate guarantee of the best society that can be conceived. Th waste of one human being through neglect and exploitation denies others the fruits of their endeavour.

Such general tenets are not, as cynics would have it, the utopian beliefs of idealists and dreamers. They command wide support according to the ICM State of the Nation polls published annually in the Guardian newspaper. For years, they have shown big majorities who regard unemployment more serious than inflation, who think that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor, who oppose privatisations, who regard environmental protection as more important than producing “cheap” goods, and who prefer better public services to lower taxes. Substantial minorities still oppose Britain's nuclear weapons and support more trade union involvement in industry and the economy. There is an even split between those who believe that more socialist planning would be the best way to solve Britain's economic problems and those who did not.

These views are some way from being those of “a politically aware and motivated working class which wants and understands socialism”, but that is not the point. Given that such opinions are expressed in the context of the capitalist agenda by people who have rarely or ever been exposed to a true socialist alternative and whose most recent encounter with commentaries on socialism was intended to consign socialism as variously “unworkable”, “failed”, “discredited” and “dead”, they must be regarded as remarkable. They should tell us that all the political parties represented in Parliament, including the Labour Party, should speak for less than half of the people and that there is a huge political void waiting to be occupied by advocates of socialism.

Political void

The crunch is, how is it to be occupied? Who will occupy it? The Lahour Party has abandoned it if it ever occupied it at all. Socialist thinkers and activists are scattered across a profusion of parties and organisations which collectively represent a common rejection of capitalism and its wars, its environmental vandalism, its poverty, starvation, homelessness, unemployment and racism, and its ambition for the usurious enslavement of all humanity. How many more decades will it take socialists to work through their differences towards a socialist consensus? Is there no synthesis of socialism, democracy, peace, freedom and justice to which we can all subscribe?

If objectives can be broadly agreed, then two steps towards unity will have been made possible: A united critique of capitalism and a united vision of what should replace it. There only remains agreement about the process of achieving it. That will be difficult and will require the putting to pasture of some sacred cows on the left. It will be an iconoclastic endeavour, not against socialist sentiment but against long and dearly held convictions about the “only” way to defeat capitalism in a left culture in which there are many “only” ways including insurrection, revolution, entryism, the ballot box and just waiting around until the system grows rotten, collapses and dies.

The achievement of socialism is the responsibility of all who take up the cause irrespective of which organisation, if any, they identify with. Socialism is no longer a luxury which can occupy our intellects in interminable arguments about strategies for achieving it to the exclusion of events unfolding around us. Socialism has become an urgent necessity. To hand over the world's economy to the business élites to exploit for profit, by collusion or by default, is a recipe for social and environmental disaster. If socialism is denied for lack of the will to unite, it will amount to a criminal act of passive surrender to the capitalists and to betrayal of the working class. It is not just about filling a vacuum left by the Labour Party’s rightward shifts. It is also about a vacuum in the understanding of people who have never thought about politics, who are dissatisfied but don’t know what with, some of who may even vote for the Tories without being sure why. That requires that socialists organise to demand the attention given to the capitalist parties in the media, on the stump and on the street. Socialists must speak the language of socialism which the people understand. Above all, they must reach the people, confronting the capitalist agenda issue-by-issue, blow-for-blow.

United Left

Demanding attention requires presence. Presence comes from the status conferred by the strength of a united socialist front which cannot be dismissed as “marginal” or “extreme”. The capitalists may control the media through the ownership of its assets but they do not own the right of communication and dialogue between peoples any more than they own the rain in spite of their efforts to privatise it. Their monopoly of the use of the media and of the agenda should not be surrendered by default. As long as these powerful levers remain in their hands, the capitalists retain the ability to contain everything a divided Left can throw at them A united Left could not be denied, especially if it scored enough points under the capitalists' own rules of access to the media, namely by the election of MPs and councillors.

The point is not to sign up to the traditions of British politics and the institutions of the establishment which sustains them. It is to give united public expression to the socialist cause in a form which is familiar to people and which can reach people in an age of mass telecommunications which demands presence and status to justify participation. Virtue is not enough. A show of strength is needed, strength in numbers which demands attention and can show that socialism is not a scattered body of non-conformist belief but a philosophy which is the true reflection of the natural state of human society. To a rising generation which has known no other political environment than that which exists today, and to who this century’s two World Wars and the Cold War exist only in history’ books, the arguments for socialism must address the world as it is today. Not the “modern” world of Tony Blair which accepts a limited democratic influence over the forces of international capitalism, but the modern world whose awesome problems of inequality and environmental plunder and destruction can only be solved by co-operation through assent, inseparably by socialism and democracy.

The capitalists are rampant in the wake of the collapse of the Iron Curtain and the ascendancy of the so-called New World Order. If they are to be challenged, it must be done before it is too late. Socialists bear that responsibility. United we stand, divided we fall. After all, if professing socialists can’t get their act together, how will the people ever be persuaded “to want and understand socialism”?

Peter Nielsen

Blogger's Note:

Here's an obituary for Peter Nielsen which dates from 2018, and which gives more background on his political and personal life.

The Judgment of Joad (1941)

From the June 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard 

It is most lamentable that Socialists, in their long and arduous struggle to dispel working-class political ignorance, receive hindrance rather than help from those acclaimed by many as intellectual leaders. In April’s Socialist Standard we referred to the shortcomings of Mr. George Bernard Shaw on the subject of Socialism, and now we feel impelled to pass judgment on Dr. C. E. M. Joad. Writing in’ the New Statesman and Nation, for May 3rd last, in an article, “The Wheel Comes Full Circle (II),” he observes:

“It is one of my most profoundly held convictions that the methods for the achievement of Socialism which have been fashionable during the last twenty years . . . can be productive of no good thing.”

He accordingly welcomes the “renewed intrusion of ethical concepts into political and more particularly into socialist, political thinking,” and one of his conclusions is that “there is a definite relation between Socialism, as my generation were brought up to understand it, and the values of ethics and the virtues of Christianity.”

Let us make it clear to Dr. Joad, that if his concept of Socialism be accepted by the rest of his generation, then neither he nor they were brought up to understand it, and, as evidence, let us quote again from his article :

“In my last article I described the conceptions which have increasingly dominated Communists, and we may add Socialists—for what Socialism has there been in England during the last twenty years, save that of Communism?—in the period between the two wars. And now again there is a change. John Strachey writes a book which appeals to faith in the name of love. . .”

With absolute confidence we defy Dr. Joad, or anyone else, to prove, (a) that the Communist Party has even been Socialist; (b) that Mr. John Strachey has even been a Socialist; (c) that there has at any time been a Socialist organisation in this country other than the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Let us offer Dr. Joad further information regarding Socialism, so that he may know that the hope for humanity lies there, and there alone, and not in those doctrines he falsely conceives to be Socialist, nor yet in the Christian approach.

Dr. Joad argues that “Socialist” methods are fallacious because one cannot “be sufficiently sure one is right to justify one in the infliction of untold suffering in the present to make straight the way of the future,” and because human beings are corrupted by power. We share his aversion from the “authoritarian dogmatism” of these methods; but they have nothing to do with Socialism, neither has “the ordering and ruling of human beings.” Socialism cannot be till society consciously desires it. Violence will not achieve it, and consequently there will be no need of power to impose it.

Regarding his suggested alternative, Dr. Joad mentions without a trace of rebuke the Oxford Union tenet, that an essential condition of world reconstruction is a “return to God through organised religion.” (Italics ours.) Does he not realise that the State, instrument of man’s oppression by man, was even in early times essentially theistic, and that organised religion—including such as the Catholic overlords of Spanish workers and the Church of England landlords of London slums—is a potent factor in that oppression ? What, one may well ask, has this to do with “love, kindliness, respect for the individual” ?

Assuming Dr. Joad really means Christianity, then we may reply that while Socialism will be the practical realisation of “Love thy neighbour as thyself” (whereas capitalism is its antithesis), yet the Christian belief leads men not only to seek salvation apart from this earth, but also to feel that the patient endurance of hardship will speed that salvation. It contends, too, that if man is to have material emancipation here, it must be consequent upon his moral reform.

Particularly apposite is Dr. Joad’s comment that the record of two thousand years of ethical incentives to the betterment of society “is not encouraging.” He tries to argue away this point. Fails. Gladiatorial games and duelling have gone, yet the slaughter of man by man is surely more prevalent in the world than ever before. Wars may be condemned, but the condemnation is generally utilitarian rather than principled. No longer is there persecution for witchcraft; yet in its place we have widespread maltreatment of the workers who struggle for a better world.

Concluding his plea for ethical considerations, Dr. Joad states: “I do not think the appeal to moral values is always futile.” Let him observe that war and other capitalist evils which beset us are invariably bound up with appeals to moral values.

We strive for Socialism—common ownership and democratic control of the means of life—not because it is moral, ethical, virtuous, or seemingly eligible for any other relative abstract description, but because it is a scientifically demonstrable social and economic necessity.

Richard Tatham