Social contrasts. (1910)

From the December 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anatole France in one of his novels says that “the life of a people is but a succession of miseries, crimes and follies.” This is largely correct. Certainly, from the manifold volumes of historical works in existence, treating of various periods and various peoples, we may gather some knowledge of the crimes and follies perpetrated by the ruling classes of these times, and the enslavement, and consequent misery, of the other, and greater, portion of the populace. It would, indeed, appear from an examination into different historical epochs, that the greater the wealth and culture of the ruling class, the more degraded and hopeless is the condition of those they rule.

If, for example, we turn back to the so-called “golden” age of Greek civilisation, we find that at the time of the greatest prosperity of the Attic state, the whole number of free Athenian, citizens, women and children included, amounted to about 90,000 ; the slaves of both sexes numbered 365,000 ; the balance of the people being made up of aliens—foreigners and freed slaves—these numbering about 45,000. History tells us little or nothing of the lives of these 365,000 human beings on whose toil practically the whole structure of the much-vaunted Greek culture rested. We have had handed down to us the philosophical systems of Plato and Aristotle, the lyrical dramas of Aeschylus and Euripides; the sculpture of Pheidias can yet be seen in the British Museum ; in the glowing pages of Pluttarch (to say nothing of William Smith) are to be found the records of all the heroic deeds performed by Pericles and Alcibiades ; but the life of a slave does not make such pretty reading as that of a philosopher or artist, and so the historians have been very careful not to disturb the sleek complacency of their readers by a recital of the doings of the mere wealth-producers. The blood and sweat of the slaves would soil the classical purity of Greek culture, so the blood and sweat must be buried beneath the traditional glory of the slaves’ taskmasters.

Coming down to later times a very similar contrast may be observed between the status of the rich and the poor, between the dominant class and the class dominated. In another “golden” age—that of the “virgin”‘ queen Elizabeth—wealth, we are told, increased to an enormous extent. Green, in his “Short History of the English People,” says,

“The lavishness of a new wealth united with a lavishness of life, a love of beauty, of colour, of display, to revolutionize English dress. The Queen’s three thousand robes were rivalled in their bravery by the slashed velvets, the ruffs, the jewelled purpoints of the courtiers around her. Men ‘wore a manor on their backs.’ The old sober notions of thrift melted before the strange revolutions of fortune wrought by the New World. Gallants gambled away a fortune at a sitting, and sailed off to make a fresh one in the Indies. Visions of galleons loaded to the brim with pearls and diamonds and ingots of silver, dreams of El Dorados where all was of gold, threw a haze of prodigality and confusion over the imagination of the meanest seaman.” English literature, following in the wake of the Italian Renascence, took on. a new lease of life through such men as Spenser, Shakespeare, [Bacon and the numerous other poets and writers who graced the Elizabethan age. A scientific knowledge of natural laws was spreading.”

“It was only in the later years of the sixteenth century that the discoveries of Copernicus were brought, home to the general intelligence of the world by Kepler and Galileo.”

Drake, Raleigh, Hawkins and Frobisher, between the intervals of “singeing the King of Spain’s beard,” were circumnavigating the globe, breaking into the charmed circle of the Indies, or discovering the North-West passage.

And yet there is very distinctly another side to the medal. During the reigns immediately preceding that of Elizabeth, a great and ever increasing number of the people had been forcibly expropriated from the soil and thrown out upon the highways to exist as best they might.

“They were turned en masse into beggars, robbers, vagabonds, partly from inclination, in most cases from stress of circumstances. Hence at the end of the 15th and during the whole of the 16th century, throughout Western Europe, a bloody legislation against vagabondage The fathers of the present working class were chastised for their enforced transformation into vagabonds and paupers. Legislation treated them as voluntary criminals, and assumed that it depended on their own goodwill to go on working under the old conditions that no longer existed.” (Marx in “Capital.”)

Marx further tells us that

“In Elizabeth’s time ‘rogues were trussed up apace, and there was not one year commonly wherein three or four hundred were not devoured and eaten up by the gallowes.’ (Strype’s ‘Annals of the Thee-formation and Establishment of Religion, and other Various Occurrences in the Church of England during Queen Elizabeth’s Happy Reign,’ Second ed., 1725, Vol. ‘2.) According to this same Strype, in Somersetshire, in one year, 40 persons were executed, 35 robbers burnt in the hand, 37 whipped, and 183 discharged as ‘incorrigible vagabonds.’ Nevertheless, he is of the opinion that this large number of prisoners does not comprise even a fifth of the actual criminals, thanks to the negligence of the justices and the foolish compassion of the people ; and the other counties of England were not better off in this respect than Somersetshire, while some were even worse. . . . Thus were the agricultural people, first forcibly expropriated from the soil, driven from their homes, turned into vagabonds, and then whipped, branded by laws grotesquely terrible, into the discipline necessary for the wage system.”

In modern capitalist society these same sardonic contrasts prevail. In the Daily Chronicle of June 6th, 1903, it was pointed out that “the whole volume of British Trade has increased from 764 millions sterling in 1898 to 877 millions in 1902,” and in the same issue appeared a report of a speech delivered by the late Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, in which he declared that about 30% of the population were underfed, were on the verge of hunger. (Vide SOCIALIST STANDARD, August this year.)

During the first nine months of 1910, official trade returns show that :

Imports rose by £37,530,000,

Exports of British goods rose by £41,239,000, and Exports of imported goods rose by £11,063,000

as compared with January to September 1909. In the same issue of the paper (Morning Leader 8th October) in which these figures are given, is a short paragraph, headed “Pea-pickers Hardships,” giving an account of a meeting held at Romford, at which “the lamentable conditions under which the pea-pickers live in Essex” was discussed, Canon Ingles remarking at this meeting that the way the pickers lived while on the farms was a disgrace to a Christian country and Canon Lord William Cecil supporting the view that employers should be compelled to provide pure water for drinking and clean straw for beds.

In spite of the great increase in trade that has taken place since the beginning of 1910, at the present time there is perhaps more dissatisfaction among the industrial workers of this country than for some years past. The boiler-makers, the miners, the cotton operatives, the chain-makers and the railwaymen. to mention only a few, are seething with discontent. And yet exports of British goods rose by £41,239,000 !

Historical research shows that, no matter at what period—ancient, medieval or modern,—no matter what may be the wealth and culture, the spread of knowledge, the goodwill even (if such there be) among the dominant class, the condition of the class dominated is, in the main, one of base and degrading servitude, of physical and mental misery. Using the words of the before-mentioned French author, we may epitomise the history of the members of the slave-class by saying that “they were born, they suffered, they died.” Suffering has been their only heritage since slavery was first instituted ; whether it he chattel slavery or wage-slavery does not make very much difference, except that perhaps the chattel-slave was, in some respects, better off than the modern wage-worker.

The Socialist Party exists for the purpose of abolishing, once and for ever, both slave-class and master-class. We of course recognise that natural inequalities between individuals do and must exist. But we know further that social inequalities and contrasts between individuals or classes are an anomaly. To help do away with these social inequalities and contrasts, to raise society to a higher plane, where equality of opportunity shall be accorded to all, irrespective of race or sex, is the reason for our existence as a party. We ask for the intelligent co-operation of our fellow wage-slaves to assist us in this work, so that the day may be hastened when such terms as slave and master, owner and owned, working class and capitalist class, will be, without meaning. When society has evolved into this stage, when the Socialist Commonwealth has at last been established, then for the first time will a period of real culture and intellectual activity be possible to all, and not to, comparatively, a mere handful of men and women, such as have monopolised all the best things of life up to the present.

F. J. Webb

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For December. (London District.) (1910)

Party News from the December 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

 

 

Blogger's Note:

Once again, I don't have enough room in the label section to include all the listed speakers, so some brief information on a few of the speakers missing from the sidebar is posted below. You can also check out these older posts which covers the same ground:

• F. Dawkins was a member of the Romford Branch of the SPGB, joining in August 1905. His wiki page goes into extensive detail on his background and on his political journey from Methodism (and the ILP) to Marxism (and the SPGB). Later in life he was a parliamentary candidate for the Labour Party in the Hampstead constituency at the 1929 General Election.
• J. Kelly was a member of the Tottenham branch of the SPGB. There were two 'J. Kellys' in the Tottenham Branch of the SPGB (father and son?), both joining the Party in late August 1909.
• F. Leigh was Fred Leigh. He was a founder member of the SPGB. His membership lapsed from the Paddington Branch of the SPGB in January 1914.
• R. Fox was R. M. Fox. He joined the SPGB in Tottenham in September 1906. Better known after he left the SPGB, his 1937 autobiography, Smoky Crusade, sticks the boot into his old SPGB comrades. He should the offending excerpts from his book on the blog some time.
• G. Holmes was probably Johnny Holmes, who joined the Earlsfield Branch of the Party in August 1909, and who subsequently rejoined the SPGB (Tooting Branch) in April 1921.
• R. Kenny was Robert Kenny. Though not a founder member of the SPGB, he joined the Edmonton Branch of the Party on the 26th June 1904. That was two weeks to the day after the SPGB  was founded. His membership lapsed in late August 1914, but he rejoined Edmonton Branch in October 1916. He resigned his party membership in December 1931 on the grounds that he felt "he was too old to be active".
• J. Kemble was possibly John Kemble. He joined Earlsfield Branch of the SPGB in November 1907. There's no details of when he left - or why - but a John Kemble joined the Tooting Branch of the SPGB in January 1918, lapsing his membership in July 1923.
• H. Cooper was H.J. Cooper. He joined Earlsfield Branch of the SPGB in September 1908, and his membership was lapsed in December 1915.
• A. Jacobs was Alf Jacobs. There is more detailed background on him in this feature which appeared in the September 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Naked and unashamed. (1911)

From the August 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is an old adage running somewhat to the effect that when men of doubtful honesty have a difference of opinion, then is the time for honest men to come by their own. The Labour Party, through its prominent members, who appear at the moment to be very much at variance, enables us, by means of its internal squabbles, to give further proof of our contention as to its utterly incompetent and fraudulent methods ; enables us to show, once again, how much—or rather, how little—reliance can be placed in its vaunted independence of the Liberal party and policy.

As is well known, for years past, in and out of Parliament, the members of the Labour Party have vehemently protested their independence, have repudiated with indignation and scorn any suggestion of a coalition between them and the Liberals. Now, however, it would seem that the object for which they have been striving and intriguing is near enough to accomplishment to render any further disguise on their part unnecessary. They stand condemned, not from the words of the S.P.G.B., but out of the mouth of one of their most prominent leaders, who, for reasons of his own, wishes still to pose as an incorruptible.

Mr. Philip Snowden, writing in the “Labour Leader” of June 14, referring to the vote of the Labour Party the previous Thursday on the Financial Resolution of the Insurance Bill, says :

“Six members of the Labour Party voted against that resolution ; the majority supported the Government.

“The Labour Party had amendments down to raise the contribution of the State from 2d. to 3d. They had others which proposed to increase the benefits. The Financial Resolution submitted by the Government was designed, as Mr. Lloyd George frankly said, to rule out every amendment which would increase the State’s contribution.

“In answer to a question the Chairman said that if the Resolution was passed it would not be permissible to move the Labour Party’s amendments. Yet in the face of this the official spokesman of the Labour Party, after joining with the Unionist speaker in condemning the resolution, and after condemning the State’s ‘inadequate contribution,’ announced, not that the Labour Party would vote against it, or abstain, but that they would support the resolution which killed every one of their amendments worth trying to get !

“If the I.L.P. will stand this it will stand anything. If it submits to this it is time to go into voluntary liquidation as a preliminary to affiliating with the National Liberal Federation. The official Labour Party is now indistinguishable from the official Liberals. The Labour Whip was put on to send the Labour Members into the lobby to destroy their own amendment.”

Further, in “The Christian Commonwealth,” July 12, he writes with reference to this same amendments :

“There was never a clearer case of men deliberately putting an halter round their necks. … The Labour Party was instructed by the Conference which met three weeks ago to proceed with that amendment.

“But when the test of its independence came, when it was called upon to choose between obeying the instructions of its own conference and supporting the Liberal Government on an occasion when the Tories were not voting, the Labour Members, with about half-a dozen dissentients, showed that they were more anxious to follow the Liberal Whip than to obey the authority from which they profess to derive their mandate. This action on the part of the official Labour Party finally completes their identity with official Liberalism.”

This righteous indignation on the part of Mr. Snowden is rather amusing when one considers that it emanates from the man who, but a short time ago, was eulogising the honesty of Mr. Asquith, defending the action of the Liberals in sending the military to shoot down the workers at Belfast and Featherstone, and who was only returned to Parliament with the aid of Lord Morley and by Liberal votes.

If further evidence is needed of the betrayal of their followers by these leaders of “Labour,” it can be found in a recital of their doings during the recent Coronation festivities. As was pointed out at the recent I.L.P. conference, a Labour Party representative was allowed to serve on the Committee which sat in connection with the Coronation celebration. At the Coronation ceremony itself Messrs. Mullin and Davis attended on behalf of the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress ; Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, “in faultless morning dress, disquietingly like a labour leader” (“Christian Commonwealth”), also graced the ceremony with his presence.

The sycophantic attitude of the Labour Party to Royalty is still further illustrated by the appearance of the Chairman of the Labour Party at the luncheon party given by the Secretary of State for War in honour of William II. of Germany. Mr. MacDonald went to the luncheon with the consent of the Labour Party, thus becoming its official representative. It might well be asked what a member of the Independent Labour Party, which a few months previously had been indulging in what was called “a great anti war campaign,” and who himself had taken a prominent part in the campaign, was doing in such a galley. He had as fellow-guests, such lovers and advocates of peace as the war-lord of Germany himself, Count Matternich, Gen. von Plessen, Admiral von Mülller, Lord Kitchener, and numerous others. Did the Kaiser and the Labour leader discuss, during their long conversation, the brutal repressive measures that have been taken in Germany, even in recent years ? Did Mr. MacDonald mention, for example, the ruthless manner in which the police shot down men, women, and children at the end of September last year during the strikes in Berlin ? Possibly, however, these small troubles of the working class slipped his memory—the memories of Labour leaders are conveniently short upon occasions.

Again, at the recent investiture .of the Prince of Wales, it might reasonably have been supposed that the official representatives of Labour would have no part. At the time this investiture was taking place, on the hillsides and in the valleys of South Wales were thousands of locked out and striking miners, fighting what must, unfortunately, be a losing fight with the powers of capitalism. The distress prevalent among these men and those immediately dependent upon them was appalling in its intensity. One would have thought that in common decency the least the Labour representatives could have done would have been to refrain from identifying themselves with the symbols and regalia of the flaunting wealth of capitalism. But no ! In the procession formed to do honour to the boy Edward, among other Welsh M.P.s, walked Mr. Keir Hardie, the Rt. Hon. W. Abraham, Mr. William Brace, Mr. J. Williams, and Mr. T. Richards. So glad were these men to be allowed the opportunity of licking the boots of Royalty, so eager were they to be acclaimed loyal subjects, that less than nothing to them were the starving men and women whom they have the audacity to claim to represent. The insult contained in this wanton callousness could not very well be greater.

The Labour Party appear to have thrown off all disguise. What does this kow-towing to kings and princes, this servile waiting upon the Liberal party, portend ? Perhaps the following paragraph, which appeared in the “Daily Chronicle” of 19 July, may throw some further light on the subject.

“The Ministry of Labour Bill, the text of which was issued yesterday, has for its object ‘to establish a Ministry of Labour for the better organisation of the labour market, for the prevention of unemployment, to regulate and in certain cases prohibit child labour, and to establish a general minimum wage for adult workers.’

“The salary of the Minister is placed at £5,000 a year, ‘and to the secretary, assistant secretary, officials and servants such salaries as the Treasury may from time to time determine.’

“The Bill, which is presented by Mr. Lansbury, is supported by Mr. Keir Hardie, Mr. Barnes, Mr. Jowett and Mr. Snowden.”

The vultures are gathering together about the carcase and have already started fighting among themselves for the choicest tit-bits. They are welcome to the spoil. The present writer, however, for one, finds that even the thought of its putridity is almost too nauseating for his mental digestion. Would that the whole working class could say the same.

F. J. Webb

The Meaning of Life. (1912)

From the June 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Probably ever since men have possessed the faculty of reasoning they have, each one of them, at some time or another, asked themselves what life means to them. Most men have conceived of life in its direct relation to themselves. A few, however, with a wider knowledge and a greater power of concentrated thought, have attempted to discover some

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE

in life which shall apply, not only to themselves individually, but to the whole of humanity as they know it. How unsuccessful they have been in this attempt a study of the history of philosophy clearly shows. From the philosophy of Thales in the 6th century B.C. to the Bergsonian cult of the 20th century A.D. is a far cry. Yet if we smile at the conclusion arrived at by Thales that the principle of all things is water, it may well be asked whether the theory of Bergson that “life is nothing more than consciousness using matter for its purpose” is very much more satisfying to the ordinary man or woman.

No. Though abstract ideas (or ideas as abstract as they can be conceived) may possibly be a source of a certain amount of intellectual pleasure to idle dreamers and philosophic doubters, yet how little do such ideas come within the scope of the man or woman

STRUGGLING FOR EXISTENCE

in the seething whirlpool of modern capitalist society ! One can imagine what would be the outcome, for instance, if such a man as Bergson, instead of addressing himself to a well-fed, well-clothed, more or less well-educated “upper class” audience, were to turn his attention, say, to a meeting of miners striking for a minimum wage of 5s. per day, or a crowd of sweated East-end tailors and tailoreeses, and try to talk to them about the “identity of contraries” or the “joy of creative evolution.”

It is the same with philosophy as with art and literature, as with culture in general. Such things are only for the rich, for those who, neither toiling nor spinning, live on the labour of the uncultured working class. Even if any “culture” manages to filter down to the great mass of the people (the working population) it usually reaches them in such a

VILE AND EMASCULATED FORM

as to be worse than nothing at all. The workers’ business in the world (so our pastors and masters tell us) is to work, to work hard, to work contentedly, leaving to their “betters” the philosophical, the literary, the artistic knowledge. But they do not tell us that philosophy and art are, actually, the gift of past and present society to the philosophers, and should, in turn, be offered with a free hand back to society.

What does life mean to the working class today ? What is the working-class outlook on the world ? Ask the alkali worker of Widnes or St. Helens and he will tell you that to him it means working for twelve or more hours a day in return for the sum of perhaps twenty shillings a week, a dragging out of existence, with teeth rapidly rotting away, half-blind and asthmatical, liable at any moment during his period of employment to inhale sufficient poisonous gas to make speculation on life, or on anything else, evermore impossible for him.

What does life mean to the men and women in the white-lead factories ? A period between birth and death, wherein they work for a miserable pittance in an atmosphere laden with death-dealing dust, becoming paralysed, purblind and insane at the time when they should be in the fulness of health and strength; it means for the women the agony of bearing

STILL-BORN CHILDREN

or children literally soaked in the poisonous fumes among which the mother is obliged to work. What does life mean to the railwaymen, to the miners, to the industrial workers in general ? Hard and unremitting toil; the contemplation of the killing and maiming of their comrades, with the fear of the same happening to themselves ; and perpetually hanging over them the possibility of unemployment, slow-starvation, an early and wretched death.

The majority of men are totally unable to realise what life could be made. Even if a few have a vague idea of what existence should be and the strength of will to put such idea into practice, yet the environment in which they find themselves, the circumstances surrounding them, very soon crush out this vitality, leaving them disillusioned and bitter, doggedly going through their day’s work

WITHOUT HOPE OF REWARD

or the possibility of change (except for the worse) ; or, in despair, blindly smashing themselves against the forces that enslave and degrade them.

Surely life holds for us something more than this if we could only understand it. The Socialist, at any rate, with his knowledge of the forces working in society and his further knowledge of the way in which these forces could be used, could be diverted, in his own and his fellow’s interest, sees life as something different, something greater, than a continual round of hard and degrading work, of sordid sorrows and still more sordid pleasures. If philosophy is of any use at all it is to teach men how to live. And the Socialist philosophy does this. It speaks to the only people in society who are now worth speaking to—the people of the working class—adjuring them to work out their destinies in spite of the almost overwhelming powers of capitalism that are arrayed against them. Learn, it says in effect, that no man is fit to be your master any more than you are fit to be the master of any man ;

ANALYSE SOCIETY

with all its evils and miseries, find the cause of these evils and miseries, and then act in such a way as to abolish, once and for all time, the root-evil that makes life a curse. While you have two classes in society, while there is a dominant class and a class dominated, while there are masters and slaves, you must have brutality on one hand and cringing servility on the other, and undying hatred on both sides. With such a state of things what chance is there to evolve any other form of life but one that can only be compared to the ape and the tiger stage.

Life is movement. Nothing living can ever become stagnate. If the human race is not going forward to something higher than itself then it ie certainly going back to some lower form of life. It rests with the working class to say whether we shall sink back into a state of barbaric chaos, whether we shall, perhaps (it is possible), perish in our entirety ; or whether we shall move upward to a form of life undreamt of to-day.

THERE IS THE TASK,

a hard task admittedly, but worth the doing. Life to the Socialist means unremitting toil in the cause of Socialism, perseverance in spite of all discouragement, the marching onward in the face of all doubts and difficulties. Even if we of this generation do not see and taste the fruits of our sowing, yet even then we shall have our reward—in the knowledge that we have fought on the side of energy against apathy, of youth against the decrepit, of life itself against death.

F. J. Webb

The Making of a Socialist. (1919)

From the August 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

Someone has said that fools learn from experience, and wise men from observation and reflection. If this be correct, it is to be feared that the dictum of Carlyle as to most people on these islands being found in the former category has a good deal of truth in it. Certainly, with regard to political and economic phenomena, the great majority of working-class men and women—even those who have a tendency towards independent thinking—seem to require something obvious and hammer-like to be forced on them in a quite personal way before they are able to visualise and focus the true political and economic situation and their place relative to it.

For instance, the loss of a dearly-loved relation or friend in war will be necessary before they can bring themselves to attempt fathom the cause and object of war; the disaster of unemployment must overtake them before they can understand the part unemployment plays in the present social system ; the continuous scraping to make ends meet must be brought forcibly home to them before they can realise that the amount of the meagre wage they receive is based upon their cost of subsistence; the superciliousness or brutality to them personally by someone "drest in a little brief authority" must touch their self-esteem before the fact of their degradation as members of the "lower" class, as social slaves, can germinate in their brains.

In some way or other their self-interest must suffer before they can realise that politics is anything but a game played by followers of different schools of thought for their own amusment, or that economics is anything but a dry and pedantic subject, fit only for professional pedagogues and a few fanatics.

It is, of course, not surprising that such an attitude of mind shomld predominate. The early training of working-class men and women, both in the school and the home, the noxious doctrines innoculated later on from the pulpit, platform, and Press, all do their part in forming the working class into what the capitalists desire that they should become, that is, in the sphere of politics, adherents to, and supporters of, one or other of the orthodox political parties, and in the sphere of economics, hard-working, docile, and respectable wage slaves.

So complete and successful is the slave-morality engendered by the agents of the capitalists, and accepted without question by most of the contemporary generation of working-class men and women, that the younger and growing generation finds it almost impossible, without some particularly violent reaction, to fight against the stream of capitalist ethics, and become instead opponents of capitalism ; to become, indeed—at least in theory—what is, from the capitalist standpoint, immoral, irreligious, and unethical.

Even when this negative attitude of direct and bitter opposition to the capitalist system has been attained, it is practically useless inasfar as it remains purely negative. A consciousness of the further development of society must be born; the knowledge that, following the inevitable downfall of the capitalist system—based as that system is on the production of wealth for profit—must come, in the ordinary course of evolution, a system based on production for use—the system known as Socialism— such knowledge must grow and fructify, otherwise the negative attitude of antagonism to capitalism is injurious to the individual, either soon ending in sterility, or developing into an idée fixe, with the unfortunate results of anarchy and chaos of intellect which such "fixed ideas" usually generate.

There is another fact to be taken into consideration. The mental process by which the opponent of capitalism becomes a Socialist is often retarded by his wanderings after fallacious ideals. He is sometimes caught in the toils of the reformist parties, is mentally fleeced and plundered by one or other of the pseudo-Socialist organisations, and it is only after many false starts and much perturbation and disillusionment that by means of a process of deduction he eventually arrives at what the force of circumstances and the logical sequence of events urge and finally compel him to become, that is, a class-conscious proletarian, with a historical sense of his place in nature and society, and a definite philosophical standpoint from which all phenomena can be judged and commended or condemned as the case may be—in short, a Socialist.

We have now arrived at the point where the Socialist, having evaded, or escaped from, the quicksands of pseudo-Socialism, has clearly realised the fact of his new theory of life, and has began to take his part in the work of propaganda, which is so vital to the early and successful inauguration of the Socialist Commonwealth. There still remains, however, the need for unrelaxing vigilence in all that he thinks, or says, or does. While capitalism lasts the Socialist, who must of necessity live and work under the present system, is obliged, however much it goes against the grain, to accept, for all practical purposes, the morality of a system with which he finds himself totally at variance. Hence the paradox, that the Socialist, even while he is doing his utmost to overthrow a system which he hates, must at the same time act, to a very great extent, at any rate, in accordance with, and adhere to, the conventions of that system.

It will be seen, therefore, that there is always a necessity for alertness, for a steadfastness of purpose, in the cause of Socialism, to militate against any possible undermining of the Socialist's principles. The Socialist, like any other member of the working class, has to live and work under capitalist conditions and has to conform, in the main, to the conventional morality of capitalism. But he must, at the same time, use every effort and take every opportunity to hasten the downfall of what has, in effect, become an obsolete social system, and to help inaugurate the next stage in the development of society.

One of the reasons of defection from the principles of Socialism is to be found in the inability of certain superficial minds to build up, as it were, brick by brick, a philosophical structure, from whose topmost tower every hill and undulation of the workings of modern society can be surveyed. Unless the Socialist possesses a definite and unassailable point of view, it is really a misnomer to speak of him as a Socialist at all. He is simply one of those mental ineffectives who are always to be found attaching themselves to any unpopular cause and who, having no rock-bottomed principles, are easily swayed by any stronger personality with whom they happen to come in contact. If that stronger personality should be a direct or indirect agent of the capitalists, the result, of course, is the deviation from the Socialist cause to any passing craze, such as Woman's Suffrage, or Nationalisation, or something of that description. To such people capitalist environment is too strong to enable the somewhat vague and nebulous ideas they possess relating to Socialism to stand any chance of developing on right lines.

To the Socialist, to the man, that is, who has realised his position in nature and society, and who has built up for himself a philosophy of life in accordance with that realisation, the questions that would have vexed and distracted him in the non-Socialist days have become simplified to an enormous degree. Whether it be in the ordinary routine of every-day affairs, or in the realms of literature, art, or science, his whole activities will be examined in the light of their value to Socialism; the facts appertaining to the present social system will be arraigned and judged at the bar of the Socialist philosophy, and the results used in the most effective way in criticising capitalism and advocating the establishment of the new order of society. 

It is hoped that the foregoing will give some idea as to the making of Socialists, which, of course, is one of the main objects of the Socialist Party. The road to Socialism is a hard road, and perhaps this account of what is largely a personal experience may lend some assistance to those younger future comrades who are now groping more or less blindly toward the beacon—seen only by them at present as a faint and far-off glimmer—of the Socialist Commonwealth.

F. J. Webb 

What The World Wants. A Vapourer Criticised. (1921)

From the April 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

On reading in any newspaper the editorial comments appertaining to what is known as a "question of the hour," one is continually and increasingly aware of the obliqueness of mental vision, or the conscious hypocrisy (or often a combination of both), shown by the writer of such commentary. If there is any possibility of the facts of the case being distorted or the generalisations deduced from such facts being drawn exactly the reverse of their sequential logic, one may reckon with confidence on the possibility becoming a certainty.

What a Leader Writer Wants.

The main qualifications for success as a writer of editorials seem to be a blindness to the truth, a vagueness of expression, and a fear of facing the facts of life and the obvious and inevitable deductions any intellectually honest man would draw therefrom.

The writer of a recent leader in the "Daily News" under the heading "What the World Wants," gives a very fair example of the truth of the above statement. To start with, the title he uses, "What the World Wants," is in itself vague and misleading. He seemingly uses the word "world" as embodying the whole of the individuals existing in the world, and takes it for granted that the needs and desires of every individual must be similar to those of every other. He presumably does not and cannot understand that the desires of one portion of the populace may—owing to the basis on which our present social structure is built— very well be strongly objectionable to some other portion.

What Parson Wants.

He quotes and agrees with the President of the National Free Church Council, whose opinion is that "the most obvious need of the day is a renaissance of personal morality." The supposition is that what is here meant is personal sexual morality. (By the way, why is it that religious people are always so obsessed with the idea of sex ?) Undoubtedly greater sex continence would be an excellent thing, both for the individual and for the race. But supposing, for a moment, that the President had his way and all the vicious people became virtuous, what does he propose to do with the monstrous army of women who now earn their living by pandering to the vicious desires that run rampant in the modern social system, and who would then be thrown out of employment ?

What our author DOESN'T Want.

Here is a question that the editorial writer might very well have attempted to answer; but as that would have necessitated a scrutiny into the fundamentals of capitalist society, it is perhaps just as well for his peace of mind and the retention of his position as a wage-worker, that he elects to pass over what is, after all, a difficulty impossible of solution whilst society remains on its present basis.

What WE Don't Want.

After writing some meaningless rubbish about the world needing "a renaissance of personal religion, using the word in its broadest and oldest sense," and pointing out very truly that "to the horrified eyes of many very honest men and women the great war and 'the little peace' which has followed it has [sic] revealed a generation as cruel, as unscrupulous, as frivolously selfish and wonton as any that preceded it," the writer goes on to deplore the fact that the virtues and vices of the man of to-day tend more and more to be mechanical products, the conventions of the class in which he lives. "Man is becoming morally standardised to a degree never before approached."

We congratulate him on his realisation of the truth of the Socialists' contention that the material conditions prevailing in any given society determine not only the economic position of the men and women comprising such society, but also their moral and conventional outlook; indeed, it may be said that their whole mentality is so determined. We are afraid, however, that our congratulations will not be accepted with the grace they deserve. The writer of the editorial, being of the usual type of journalist, that is, timid, conservative, and unintelligent, is frightened at his discovery, and the remainder of his article is an endeavour to convince himself and his readers that the theory of historic materialism must, somewhere or other, contain a flaw, its acceptance implying a reversal of the laws of nature ; that only by the workings of what he calls "personal virtue," and "individual effort," and "individual conscience" can the world be saved.

The Socialist knows that man is, always has been, and always will be, the creature of circumstances. To-day, as heretofore, he is the outcome of the social system in which he lives. He must conform to the capitalist morality and conventions. The laws under which he lives, the ethics and religion which he learns in childhood, the rules and tastes which govern his conduct and which he acquires in the same way and at the same time as he acquires what is miscalled his "education," are all themselves offshoots of the tree of capitalism.

They force his mentality into a groove useful and necessary for the maintenance and development of capitalism. Mentally and physically, capitalism holds a man fast in its iron embrace so long as he is born and dwells within its precincts. The writer says "The system is made for man and not man for the system." True, man is not made for the system, but neither is the system made for man, Man is born—without volition on his part—into the system, and its workings and ramifications determine his outlook on life and his mental and physical development. He may indeed react against his environment (he may be a Socialist), but even then his efforts are infinitesimal compared with the mighty social forces which encompass him on all sides. He may perhaps slightly accelerate the development of the system, may hasten to some extent the dissolution of what he has come to consider an inherently rotten condition of society, but, in the main, he will be compelled to watch and wait until the system works itself out. Capitalism, like any other organism, has had its birth, has developed and matured to the full extent of its powers, and to-day we are witnessing the gradual decay and disintegration of what has been, in some respects, the greatest, and in other respects the most brutal and degrading, social system ever known.

Although we can see on every hand signs and portents of the ultimate downfall and dissolution of capitalism, yet the intelligent man—that is, the man who is able to appreciate the facts and conditions of life in their right proportion relative to his status as an individual amongst other social units—will certainly not be content to sit with folded hands watching the wheels of capitalism run on to their destined end. Inactivity is the forerunner of stagnation and atrophism ; one's mental faculties must find some outlet of expression, otherwise they quickly become effete and cease to function. By organised collective effort much can be done to accelerate the forces of disintegration working in the midst of capitalism; and further, the power behind such collective effort will gather strength in a ratio proportionate to the growth of the organisation.

Moreover, it must be remembered, the organisation can, by means of written and oral propaganda, raise the mentality of its members and the outside general public to a plane sufficiently high to enable them, when the change from the present order of things to the forthcoming order ensues, to seize and take charge of the institutions then obtaining, and use, divert, and improve them for the benefit of society as a whole.

To the ordinary non-Socialist member of the working class, the present outlook is, without question, black and threatening. To such a one existence must appear very similar to that of a rat caught in a trap, running round and round and turning this way and that, in wild and abortive efforts to find a means of egress from captivity to freedom. Only when he hears and accepts the lessons taught by the Socialist philosophy, when, for example, he realises that organic society—like any other organism—is doomed by its governing laws eventually to pass from its present form onward to a different and, as we believe, a vastly superior and higher form, will a gleam of hope appear on the dark horizon of his fears and disappointments. Nay, more, to the man who understands his class position, who is able to conceive the possibility of the emergence of his class from wage-slavery into the freedom of Socialism, the gleam of hope will glow ever brighter as the erstwhile problems and puzzles of his economic and political position are found quite easily solvable ; until, standing on the high peak of Socialist philosophy and viewing the whole intricate workings of capitalism spread like a map beneath him, he will be able, by the power of his imaginative reasoning, to catch glimpses of the promised land of Socialism, whose actuality is not yet too bright for the purblind, still chain-bound victim of present-day conditions altogether to visualise.

What does the world want ? What common factor can be found whereby the people of the world shall benefit ? The Socialist, looking at all phenomena in the light of his Socialistic knowledge, sees that until the present system of private property ends, the majority of the people—the working class, that is—will remain in their present condition of penury, sordidness, and degradation, dependent upon another class for their very existence.

The capitalists themselves, although they would probably scoff at the idea, would actually be far higher under Socialism (where, of course, they will have ceased to be capitalists) than they can ever hope to be while capitalism lasts. When there is neither a class to exploit nor a class to be exploited, all men then being on an economic equality, it would be possible for everyone—the former capitalists included—to live sane, healthy, and joyous lives. To-day, the workers are born, they suffer, they die— such is an epitome of working-class life; while, on the other hand, the capitalists live amid a whirl of inane and unsatisfying pleasures, or in a state of brutal rapacity.

But we can leave the case of the capitalists on one side. It is our own class—the working class—to which we appeal for help in our task of making Socialists. We ask for their co-operation so that when capitalism falls, out of the wreck the working class will rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes of an outworn and unregretted order, into a new world of freedom and happiness.

Looking back, we seem to have travelled a long way from the editorial in the "Daily News" to the words just written. How far have we travelled, is it asked ? As far as the distance dividing the "Daily News" from the Socialist Standard and the writer of a capitalist editorial from a Socialist writer.

F. J. Webb.

Leaders and Leadership. (1921)

From the February 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recent appointment of a prominent official of the Miners' Federation to a remunerative government post emphasises, once again, how logical the Socialist Party is in its fierce opposition to all forms of leaders and leadership. It will, perhaps, be instructive at this juncture to examine and analyse at some length the relative position of the leaders and the led, and to trace the motives that instigate the desire of so many members of the working class to follow blindly anyone with the ability to impress upon them the qualifications generally considered necessary for successful leadership.

The Socialist, holding as he does a materialist conception of the universe, and understanding how great a part environment plays in the development of the individual, realises that the mentality of the majority of the workers is such as provides an excellently fruitful soil for the sowing and growth of the leadership idea. They—the workers—are taught from youth upward that they are beings of a low order of intelligence; that they must obey implicitly the precepts and orders of certain people who are supposed to "be much wiser than they; that theirs is not to reason why, but to do or die in whatever way their "superiors" may ordain. They have instilled into their minds from childhood by the priests of the various religious organisations the idea that the intellect must be quiescent and subservient when coming into conflict with anything that appertains to the doctrines taught.

All religions are forms of mental weakness. They embody, without exception, the desire of feeble minds to find something stronger than themselves on which they can lean and to which they can turn for help and guidance when faced by any tribulation or trial. The Press from the time of its inception has invariably used its power to impress upon the workers the fact that their place is, and should be, the lowest possible at the table of life, while at any orthodox political meeting one is made to feel that the politicians are the elite of social and intellectual refinement and the audience (if it is a working class audience) merely the residue left after the refining process by which politicians are made has been accomplished.

Teachers, priests, pressmen, politicians, all the agents employed to train and bend the proletarian mind in the direction desired by the capitalists have for generations done their business so well that it is really not surprising that most working-class men and women are in a mentally supine condition, willing and eager to follow blindly anyone with a strong and commanding personality, a glibness of tongue, or a persuasive manner. This gullibility is almost incredible, until one remembers past occasions and incidents, such as occurred, for instance, during the late European war and the General Election campaign during the close of 1918.

Thus it is easy for a would-be leader to obtain followers and an enormous ascendency over them. The material he has to work upon has been so well prepared for him that little or no difficulty is found in making people accept at his own valuation; in making them believe in his superior wisdom and attainments ; that it would be all to their benefit to follow unquestioningly whatever dictates he may give or in whatever direction he may lead ; that he is a man to be trusted, a shepherd whose only desire is to bring his sheep to more juicy pastures and better feeding places.

On the part of the leaders themselves, various motives may come into operation in the process of elevating a member of the rank and file to a position as a full blown labour leader. The motive may be a desire on his part for place and power; for a better social position ; for money and the power it gives. He may desire to escape from a hard and uncongenial task to an easier and more congenial one. He may see dangling before his eyes a position in Parliament and the emoluments that generally accompany such a position. He may realise how much more valuable to the capitalist Press (and consequently how much more remunerative to the writer) are articles written by a prominent labour leader in comparison with those written by a mere rank-and-filer. It may even be at the outset that he sincerely believes that in accepting the position offered him he is doing what is best for those from whose ranks he has risen— though in this case, the strength of the social and political environment in which he finds himself—a totally different environment as a leader from that in which he moved before— will very quickly change his outlook and bring him into line with those of his confreres who look down from their high altitude at the plane from which they have sprung and wonder how in the world they could ever have found anything in common with the denizens of such a benighted district.

In any case, whatever the motive may be, it is inevitable that directly a man reaches a position wherein he is able to exercise to their fullest extent his powers of personality, or plausibility, or rhetoric—that is the very powers that have enabled him to occupy the place he does—he is to all intents and purposes a martinet whose word is law and who is able to sway whatever way suits him the people from whom he has risen and who have themselves elected him to the position he holds.

Take the generality of labour leaders. One would have thought that long ere this their followers would have seen on which side—the workers' or the capitalists'—these men actually were. Their past record is sufficient for any impartial observer to perceive that their sole aim is their own advancement, and that they are astute enough to see that such advancement will be quicker and better obtained by keeping in agreement with the capitalists rather than by opposing them. But their followers are too obtuse to understand what is happening, or even when, in rare instances, their eyes are opened, they prefer to put up with the men they have elected rather than dismiss them and admit that they have been misled, gulled, and betrayed by those to whom they have been stupid enough to give their confidence and trust.

A short time ago a prominent trade union official and member of Parliament was subjected to a good deal of criticism from certain recalcitrant members of his union with regard to his activities on behalf of the capitalists more directly connected with his particular union. His retort to his critics was a threat to resign, whereon all criticism was immediately silenced and as a mark of confidence his salary was raised. Not only so, but soon after he was presented with other pecuniary tokens of his followers' reverence for authority and their willing acceptance of the fact of their inferiority. When one comes to consider the question, it must really be the easiest thing in the world— for anyone with few scruples and plenty of bluff to lead such a purblind and readily deluded mob as the bulk of the working class is at present. "In the kingdom of the blind the one eyed man is king," and the workers are so blind to their own interests that the men they elect as leaders, however oblique of vision they may be, apparently appear quite god-like in comparison with the electors own humble opinion of themselves.

It is not surprising that when these "men in authority" are offered a well-paid Government position they jump at the chance of bettering themselves and throw over without the slightest compunction the rather shaky props upon which they have risen. So it will continue as long as the workers remain in their present condition of economic and political ignorance.

They must first of all realise their class position of wage slaves and ascertain why they are wage-slaves. Then will come in due course a knowledge of their tremendous strength as a social force and their organisation in the Socialist Party, which has no leaders in any shape or form, To follow blindly anyone or anything is a sure symptom of mental weakness. The training and strengthening of the working-class intellect is the first step towards the emancipation of the workers from the degradation which is the inevitable outcome of their position as wage-slaves into the freedom of body and mind desired by the Socialist, not only for himself and his class, but for all men and women—even perhaps (though this may sound fantastic) for labour leaders.

F. J. Webb

Paradoxes of Capitalism: Some Startling Revelations. (1921)

From the January 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Definition.

A paradox, as the writer understands it, is the relation of two or more dissimilar phenomena, which, taken by themselves and without a knowledge of the connecting links necessary for the elucidation of their relativity, apparently contradict each other in the absurdest fashion. When, however, the chain of reasoning between such phenomena is complete, it will be seen that the absurdity, although still existing, is what may be called a "logical absurdity," that the contradiction is the inevitable outcome logically deduced from the original premise from which the phenomena in question spring.

Capitalist society abounds in paradoxes, which, to a mind unacquainted with the basis and workings of our modern industrial system, must appear monstrous in their insane and perverse effect both on the individual and on society as a whole.

Riches and Poverty.

Under capitalism wealth is produced in practically unlimited quantities, and yet the great majority of people live and die on the verge of starvation, sometimes slightly above the poverty line, more often below it, but always approximating, in any case, to the bare subsistence level. Direst poverty prevails in the midst of vast plenitude ; food and clothing are produced to excess, yet thousands of hungry and underfed men, women, and children are never able to obtain a satisfactory meal or a sufficiency of covering. There is more than enough housing accommodation to shelter everyone quite adequately, yet in numerous cases families of four, six, and even more, persons are compelled to live in one small, badly-ventilated and cheerless room.

A Concrete Illustration.

Let us take another paradox of capitalism.

A few years ago in Northampton—which, of course, is the centre of the boot industry—many children were walking about unshod because their fathers had produced more boots than the market required and were therefore obliged to "stand off" until some channel could be found through which the surplus stocks could pass and be absorbed. Being unemployed, the bootmakers of Northampton received no wages and were therefore without the necessary means of purchasing the boots urgently required by their children, although all the time the warehouses in their town were full to repletion of the articles wanted.

The above is a glaring instance of the way in which "over-production" means unemployment and privation, but the same thing is constantly occurring, either directly or indirectly, in every part of the world. The harder a man works the sooner is he out of a job. He is debarred from obtaining the commodities necessary for the well-being of himself and his dependents because he has produced more such commodities than his employer can sell.

Idleness and Industry.

Yet another paradox of capitalism is the spectacle of the idle rich and the industrious poor—what a picture of incongruity the words "idle rich" and "industrious poor" conjure up !

The men and women who do the work of the world, without whose efforts human life on this planet would cease to function, are the poorest, economically, physically, and mentally, while on the other hand the people who do nothing useful or necessary, who indeed are the drones living on the honey produced by the workers, are the people to whom all the good things of life accrue. The wonders of nature, of art and science and literature, are open to the latter people—the members of the capitalist class— whereas all the workers can look forward to is a life of hard and generally sordid work, their reward for which is just a sufficiency of food, clothing, and shelter necessary to enable them to exist and to breed and rear a progeny, who in their turn will supply the place of their parents when the latter are considered by their masters unfit for anything but, the industrial scrap-heap.

The Socialist, for his part—

To any man or woman who can escape from the orthodox point of view and survey the composition of present-day society with impartial eyes, the workings of capitalism must appear bewildering in their contradictions and absurdities. The Socialist, for his part, possessing an understanding of the fundamental factors underlying such phenomena, will see the inevitableness contained therein and will pour scorn and contumely on a system which begets results best compared to the fantastic visions of a diseased brain. He will analyse and adversely criticise every manifestation of such a system. He will point out that while you have the means of wealth production held by a comparatively small number of people ; while the industrious majority are kept in a condition of slavery by an idle minority ; while the whole of the wealth that is produced becomes the immediate property, not of those who produce it, but of those who have nothing at all to do with its actual production : in a word, while capitalism lasts, poverty in the midst of plenty, and all the other tragic absurdities that are now commonplace, must by the logical sequence of events, continue and multiply.

There are two factors in capitalism, one useful, one injurious, to the welfare of the people as a whole. The useful factor is social production; the injurious factor is the private (the unsocial) ownership of the means of production and distribution.

The Task.

It is the Socialist's task, that is, the task of those who desire society to be placed on a physically and mentally healthy plane, to advocate a system wherein the means of production and distribution shall be socially owned and controlled. Wealth at the present time is only produced by the will of, and for the benefit of, the few who own the instruments whereby it is produced, and is naturally therefore, the sole property of those few. When the whole of the people have obtained control of the instruments of wealth production, of course, the wealth then produced will be the property of the whole of the people.

Nothing could be simpler or more logical. Yet such is the mental outlook of the majority of the members of the working class, so greatly are they saturated with capitalist teaching and ethics, that the fallacious arguments in favour of the present system still find ready adherents, while the nobler and healthier advocacy of the Socialist position obtains little hearing and small support.

As, however, capitalism develops and the paradoxes such as have been mentioned become more glaring and more ridiculous, as, moreover, the Socialist view-point continues to reach the
understanding of the people, our assurance is that the members of our class—the working 
class—will organise with us for the purpose of hastening the downfall of capitalism and of 
establishing in its stead the system of Socialism, the ramifications and workings of which, admittedly, are as yet but dimly perceived, even by those who have devoted almost a lifelong study to the subject, but which the youngest Socialist amongst us knows bears within it potentialities of life undreamt of in the insane and sordid system under the auspices of which we now live—or rather vegetate.

F. J. Webb

Love and Hunger. (1920)

From the September 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

It was a vision . . .

Two angels appeared to me . . . two genii.

I say angels, genii, because both, had no clothes on their naked bodies, and behind their shoulders rose long, powerful wings.

Both were youths. One was rather plump, with soft, smooth skin and dark curls. His eyes were brown and full, with thick eyelashes ; his look was sly, merry, and eager. His face was charming, bewitching, a little insolent, a little wicked. His full, soft, crimson lips were faintly quivering. The youth smiled as one possessing power — self-confidently and languidly; a magnificent wreath of flowers rested lightly upon his shining tresses, almost touching his velvety eyebrows. A spotted leopard’s skin pinned up with a golden arrow, hung lightly from his curved shoulder to his rounded thigh. The feathers ot his wings were tinged with rose colour; the ends of them were bright red, as though dipped in fresh-spilt scarlet blood. From time to time they quivered rapidly with a sweet, silvery sound, the sound of rain in spring.

The other was thin, and his skin yellowish. At every breath his ribs could be seen faintly heaving. His hair was fair, thin, and straight; his eyes big, round, pale grey . . . his glance uneasy and strangely bright. All his features were sharp; the little half- open mouth, with pointed fish-like teeth; the pinched eagle nose, the projecting chin, covered with whitish down. The parched lips never once smiled.

It was a well-cut face, but terrible and pitiless! (Though the face of the first, the beautiful youth, sweet and lovely as it was, showed no trace of pity either.) About the head of the second youth were twisted a few broken and empty ears of corn, entwined with faded grass-stalks. A coarse grey cloth girt his loins; the wings behind, a dull, dark grey colour, moved slowly and menacingly.

The two youths seemed inseparable companions. Each of them leaned upon the other’s shoulder. The soft hand of the first lay like a cluster of grapes upon the bony neck of the second; the slender wrist of the second, with its long, delicate fingers, coiled like a snake about the girlish bosom of the first.

And I heard a voice. This is what it said:

“Love and hunger stand before thee—twin brothers, the two foundation-stones of all things living.

“All that lives moves to get food, and feeds to bring forth young. “Love and Hunger—their aim is one; that life should cease not, the life of the individual and the life of others—the same universal life.”

Ivan Turgenev.

* * * * *

In the foregoing, Turgenev has, in his allegorical way, personified very strikingly the two forces to which can be traced the motive-power of all animal activities. The desire to live and the desire to propagate the species are common to all animals; but beyond this, the animal man, since he has developed along the lines which have set him apart from, and ahead of, the lower animals, has evolved further desires, to live as easily and safely as possible, and to be in such an economic position as will allow of his breeding and rearing offspring who shall develop a healthier physique and a higher intelligence than his own.

Let us examine shortly man’s place in nature and society looked at from this point of view. A society is defined by Professor Edward Jenks as “a group or mass of people, bound together by a certain common principle or object.” A political society, which is the particular type of society we are dealing with at present, the type of society, that is, in which the civilised peoples of the World are to-day grouped and organised, he defines as not being formed for any special or limited objects, but which has grown up, almost spontaneously, as part of the general history of mankind, and which is concerned with its general interests.

The last part of this definition must, however, be taken in a very limited sense. We shall see how far, and in what way, society—present-day capitalist society—is concerned with the general interests of the group of people of whom it is composed. While you have—as you now have —society divided into two classes, of which one is the dominant class and the other the class dominated, you must necessarily have a clash of interests ; in which case the advantage of the one section can only react to the disadvantage of the other. To-day, the members of the dominant or master class, by virtue of their possession of all the means of life, are able to maintain their position, as individuals and as a class, only by keeping down, and pressing ever harder upon, the class they dominate—the working or wage-slave class.

So you have a comparatively small number of people who are only able to satisfy their desire to live (as easily and as safely as possible) and their desire to breed and rear a progeny (healthier and more intelligent than themselves) by keeping the rest of society—i.e., the great majority of the people—in an enslaved, unhealthy, and mentally inefficient condition.

Hunger and love are quite as powerful in their effect upon the workers as they are upon the masters, but owing to the latter’s more intelligent conception of their class position, the one class is able easily and satisfactorily to obtain the necessaries and luxuries that make life for the individual, and the extension of that life in the form of the breeding and maintenance of offspring, worth the having; whereas all that the other class—the working class—can do is simply to lead a precarious existence, with little or no outlook for themselves or for the children whom the forces of nature compel them to bring into the world. Hence the paradox that instead of the life of the individual and the maintenance of the race being the concern of society as a whole, one section is fighting another section to the death because only by so doing can it satisfy the insistent demands that the forces of hunger and love make upon the units that compose that particular section.

To the Socialist, with his knowledge of the fundamental forces of nature and their relation to the individual and to society, it seems that such a paradoxical and unnatural condition of things must inevitably end in disaster unless some way can be found by which the equilibrium between man and nature can be satisfactorily adjusted. The contention of the Socialist is that the remedy is to be found in the abolition of the master or capitalist class. It is indisputable that a certain quantity of food, clothing, and shelter is necessary to human existence; without such food, clothing, and shelter mankind would vanish from the face of the globe ; but as all the necessaries of life are the product of human energy applied to nature’s resources, so it follows that actually the only necessary people in society are the people who do the work of the world—that is, the members of the working class.

The master class might very well go out of existence and yet all that is requisite for the maintenance of life still be produced. Food would still be grown and manufactured, clothing still be made, houses still be built, even though such a calamity (!) happened as the extinction of the members of the capitalist class, who, while themselves performing no useful function in society, yet manage to secure for themselves and their dependents the major portion of the wealth produced by the men and women of the working class, without whose efforts mankind would soon pass into oblivion.

The abolition of the capitalist class can only be accomplished by the strenuous efforts of a class-conscious working class. It is obviously futile to expect the capitalist class to abolish itself. Therefore it is that the Socialist Party, by oral and written propaganda, is striving to implant in the minds of the workers the consciousness of their real position in the society in which they live. Not until they have been brought to an appreciation of their position as wage-slaves and a further appreciation of the overwhelming power they possess as a political force, will it be possible for them—by organising with us, in a class-conscious political party—to wrest from their masters the power which will enable them, not only to win their freedom from class-domination, but also enable them, by harmonising their economic position with their desire or will to live and to maintain and develop the species, to secure for themselves and their children initial entrance to the vast and unexplored wonderland of life, only fleeting glimpses of which are at present vouchsafed to them when they are perhaps able to contemplate nature in its pristine grandeur ; to watch the demonstrations of a great scientist; or to study the works of a great imaginative and creative artist.

F. J. Webb

The Blindness of the Workers. (1920)

From the June 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

In one of the world’s great novels, Dickens’s “David Copperfield,” occurs the following passage, the poignant significance of which appears to have been overlooked by the majority of even the most assiduous Dickensian students: “There was a beggar in the street, when I went down: and as I turned my head towards the window, thinking of her calm seraphic eyes, he made me start by muttering, as if he were an echo of the morning : ‘ Blind ! Blind ! Blind !”

Whether Dickens realised the almost universal application of what he had written is a matter of conjecture. Probably all he had in mind was its application to the particular set of characters with which he happened at the moment to be dealing. But to the Socialist, looking around at the world as it is to-day, seeing the foolishness, the illusions, the ignorance, which go to make up the mentality of so many men and women, it would seem as though a film had fallen across the eyes of his fellow-workers, causing either what amounts to total mental blindness or to so distorted a vision as to preclude any possibility of the realities of life being seen in their true perspective.

We could adduce many facts to show how mentally blind the working-class people of the world are. At the outbreak of the late war, for example, the people of this country (and of all other belligerent countries) who up to that date had, and desired, no quarrel with their reputed enemies, were so blinded by the wave of patriotism that swept over them, originated as it had been by the training and teaching they had received in childhood and youth, encouraged as it was by the insidious propaganda instigated from press, platform, and pulpit, that thousands, hundreds of thousands, of them clamoured for permission to kill and be killed in what they thought was the interest of their country, by which they meant, one presumes, their own interest.

Needless to say, permission to so kill and be killed was graciously conceded by their masters and accepted by the poor, deluded fools who, not understanding their class position as wage-slaves, not knowing what was at the bottom of of the whole bloody business, thought in their blind folly that they were doing something noble and heroic, thought that they were fighting and dying to save for themselves and their descendants what they considered their freedom, to save their “national heritage,” their “share in the Empire,” their womenfolk and children from the bestiality and oppression which they were quite convinced would be their fate were the forces against which they were fighting to prove successful.

They could not see that the war was simply a struggle generated by rival groups of capitalists for the possession of certain favourable (from the commercial point of view) portions of the earth’s surface. They could not all see that the only freedom they, as members of the working class, possessed was the freedom either to starve or allow themselves to be exploited for profit by their employers. They could not see that their only heritage, national or otherwise, was the lifelong heritage of hard and sordid work (when they were not unemployed) nor that their “share in the Empire” had no substance in fact, but was only a magniloquent phrase very useful to politicians at election times for purposes of vote-catching. They could not see that their womenfolk and children were, and always had been, the drudges, the toys, the slaves of a system whose bestiality and oppression had never been equalled since the dawn of the world’s history. They fought, and died, and were maimed, for —what? For an illusion which had been given a semblance of reality by the vicious teaching and smart word-spinning of innumerable capitalist agents. The people fought and died in their millions and the nett result is that, from a materialist standpoint, they are still struggling to rise to the very poor level at which they stood prior to the war.

Again, when we come to examine the attitude of the workers in regard to their political representation, we find how in a similar way the blindness of the people operates. At the last General Election they were, in the main, carried away by what they considered was the need for stabilising the “fruits of victory”—one of the pet phrases of the war rhetoricians—and voted practically solid for the Coalitionists. They have since tasted some of the “fruits of victory,” and found the taste not altogether to their liking; so at the subsequent bye-elections they have largely voted in even a worse and more foolish way; that is, they have voted for the “Labour” candidates.

Doubtless exception will be taken, in some cases, to the statement that it is more foolish to vote for a Labour man than for a Coalitionist. But when one considers the confusion caused by these Labour misleaders, these advocates of reforms which they must know are useless and worse than useless to the workers, these mouthers of phrases full of the most fatuous cant and sentimentality, the writer is justified, he thinks, in his antagonism towards them and his statement as to the enormous harm they do.

All these men seem to consider is how best to get into Parliament so that by virtue of the magic letters “M.P.” after their names they may be able to draw their salaries of £400 a year, to serve (for a monetary consideration) on Committees and Commissions ; to obtain well-paid jobs on capitalist newspapers and magazines. How these activities benefit their working-class constituents it is impossible to fathom.

As a matter of fact, neither they nor anyone else can benefit the working class. The working class, as we continually reiterate, must work out its own emancipation. The veil of illusion must be torn away from before the eyes of the workers, and this will only come about as the facts of life bite deeper and still deeper into their mentality, and as the unwearied propagandist work of the Socialist Party comes more and more to fruition.

We do not blame the workers for their blindness to their own interests. Indeed, the question of blaming or praising anyone or anything does not enter into the Socialist philosophy. What we endeavour to do is to open their eyes to the facts appertaining to capitalism and the logical deductions to be drawn from such facts.

The Socialist may claim to be the oculist of the working class. His aim is to give sight to those of his fellow-workers who are wandering in the darkness of capitalist orthodoxy. So the work the Socialist Party has in hand—the work of making Socialists—must go on until a majority of the people see eye to eye with us and organise themselves with us in one united political party. Then, and not till then, we shall know that the dawn of the Socialist day is near, wherein the potentialities of life will, at last, have an opportunity of developing on sane and healthy lines instead of being forced into a groove of insane and unhealthy activities which are all the present system of capitalism can afford to its wage-slaves.

F. J. Webb

An Aspect of Socialism. (1920)

From the February 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

The aim of the Socialist Party is to make Socialists ! That is a truism so obvious that it would seem that only a platitudinarian would think it worth his while to repeat it. But the fact is that this truism—perhaps because it is so obvious—is sometimes lost sight of by many whose theory and practice of the principles of Socialism are beyond dispute.

Socialism has two aspects, one of which may be called the "present," and the other the "future" aspect, and because of the presence of these two aspects, a certain amount of confusion often occurs.

The "present" aspect of Socialism may be defined as those activities, exercised by the men and women who have realised their position as wage-slaves, and who have, therefore, a desire for a system of society wherein they shall be economically free, which have for their object the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of the Socialist Commonwealth. The "future" aspect of Socialism comprises all the manifold activities which will be possible when the new social system—Socialism—has been established.

Many Socialists forget, if they have ever known, that Socialism is not an end in itself, but the means to a fuller and more richly endowed way of life. No manifestation of life, whether it be economic or political, artistic or philosophical, is or can be an end in itself. Life moves on to a higher or lower plane, aided or hindered, as the case may be, by the activities of its agents, who, in their turn, are acted upon, and re-act upon, the eternal and unresting forces of nature.

The aim of the Socialist Party is to make Socialists! How, then, shall we, who have torn the veil of illusion from our modern social system and seen the naked body of Capitalism in all its hideous deformity, use our knowledge to bring to our way of thinking the men and women of the working class, without whose assistance our ultimate object is unattainable? We must show that capitalism has outlasted its usefulness; must emphasise and criticise the evils which are now the inevitable consequence of its continuance; we must point out that capitalism as a social force has played its part and that the time is ripe for the next stage in the evolution of society to be born.

Capitalism is in its death-throes, but its time in dying will be determined by the efforts of the working class as a whole to hasten its demise. Even the question as to whether or not the death-night of Capitalism will herald the dawn of the Socialist Commonwealth depends upon the growth of the political and economic intelligence of the workers.

The first aspect of Socialism, the "present" aspect, is more applicable to actual members of the Socialist Party. This can, therefore, be left for the time being. The writer will, perhaps, revert to it in a future article.

The second aspect, the "future" aspect, is particularly important with regard to the making of Socialists. Many people, while sympathetic to the idea of Socialism, hesitate to join up with the Socialist Party because they are unable to visualise what conditions of life, other than the material, will obtain when the old system of Capitalism has passed and the new system of Socialism has taken its place. Many people consider, for instance, that under a system where the necessities and comforts of life are assured to everyone, society will lapse into a state of apathy and negligence. They cannot understand that, where people work for use and not for profit, the better the work done by the individual, the greater the benefit bestowed upon the society of which the better worker is a unit. The workers under the Socialist regime will work for themselves as a collective body and not, as now, for a comparatively few social parasites, who by reason of their class position as capitalists as against the workers' position as wage-slaves, hold in their hands the power of dealing with the very lives of the majority of the community, not as they will, but as the fluctuations of economic circumstance may force them to.

Again, many sympathisers with Socialism and Socialists, who have a smattering of artistic knowledge and appreciation—in most cases only a very minute smattering is possible to a member of the working class—seem obsessed with the idea that the advent of Socialism would mean the cessation of all artistic activities. Actually, the advent of Socialism would have the opposite effect. At present the working-class boy who happens to show any aptitude for literature or art very soon learns that such things are not for him. He learns that they are the prerogative of those people whom he is taught to consider as his "betters." Without help or encouragement, any desire he may have to become a writer or a composer quickly dies of inanition—before it has even had time to try its wings. Moreover, when it is considered that, generally speaking, a long and costly training is necessary in order to develop the literary and artistic faculties, it can be seen how improbable it is for a boy, say of 14 years or younger, who is compelled on leaving school to find work as an errand- or office-boy, or in some suchlike inane and enervating capacity, ever to know the joy of creating a great work in the realm of literature or art. He is soon too busy trying to discover how to earn a few more shillings a week to trouble himself about such unremunerative things as books, or painting, or musical notation.

Under Socialism, which we who are Socialists conceive as an intelligent and ordered system of society, the youthful mind would be encouraged to develop along the lines most in accordance with its particular receptivity. There would be no need for the youth of either sex to stampede, immediately on leaving school, to the factory or office door. They would have advantages similar to those now enjoyed by the children of the wealthy class, and it is not too much to say, I think, keeping in mind our knowledge of the modern university and college product, that the children of the working class would far outstrip, in the way of science, art and literature, the individuals who now leave their universities and colleges, in the majority of cases, with little else to show for their training than an "Oxford accent" and an unbounded conceit.

Socialism would mean the opening to the youth of the working class of a world undreamt of by them at present. To those members of the working class who cavil at Socialism because they fear that the downfall of Capitalism would mean the downfall of what they consider "art" and "literature," I would ask, "What are art and literature to you? What really do you know or care about the great artistic products of the world ? You have neither the time, nor the inclination, nor the means, to make a study of such things. Your business is to work in order to get the wherewithal to live. Leave such things to your masters, so long as you are content to have masters."

Even if the destruction of Capitalism meant the destruction of all known art and literature, what then? If the men and women of the working class are incapable of building a more lofty tower of art than any that has yet been erected, they are not worthy to occupy the somewhat stunted edifice which by much toil and suffering has grown to what it is. The writer, however, is confident that, given the opportunity that Socialism would give to every member of the community, art and science would advance in an irresistible fashion far beyond anything yet known. Men, take them all an all, do not desire to rise superior in their activities to the activities manifested by the men preceding them.

One word more to those who, although themselves members of the working class, have such a poor opinion of the potentialities of their fellows. Why not change your tactics? Why not employ the powers you possess in helping to found a state of affairs wherein the members of the working class—your own class— shall have a chance of showing what they can do? Understand Socialism. Organise for Socialism. Propagate Socialism. Work for Socialism. Do not worry so much about the future. The future, you may be assured, will be quite safe in the hands of an intelligent democracy. We ask for the co-operation of all who accept the principles of Socialism, so that when the inevitable disintegration of Capitalism takes place, we, the workers as a whole, shall be ready, equipped for any emergency, to enter into the new world to be won.

F. J. Webb