Phrase Worship. (1924)

From the February 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are few things more dangerous to the student—whether of politics or of any other subject—than the habit of mind which mistakes an eloquent phrase for a powerful argument, and, accepts a striking illustration as proof of the principle it is intended merely to illustrate. Persuasive eloquence may be a gift, or it may be won by arduous toil, but there is at least no reason to believe that it serves only under the banner of Truth. There would be lean times for lawyers if this were so.

As for the seductiveness of the carefully chosen example, there never was an unsound theory which could not be supported by battalions of plausible instances ; and there is no notion so transparently false that it will not serve to explain certain experiences to some person or other.

How else could fallacies win adherents or be conceived at all?

Everyone knows how the skilful orator can persuade people by his eloquence to accept an argument which would fail to convince them if they examined it coldly and critically. And even if the argument be sound, it is probable that most of those who hear it and are so readily persuaded that it is true have in fact not understood it at all. It is not possible to grasp in a moment the whole of the strong and weak points of a new principle ; but it is fatally easy to grasp its application to a special instance, while overlooking the probability that the instance has been chosen because it is appropriate, and not because it is typical. The general principle, to be true, must apply without exception to all – the events coming within its scope.

Protectionists urged at the recent election that unemployment cannot exist where there is protection of home industries, and for evidence they said : “Look at America.” It gained many votes, but it will be remembered that there was usually no attempt made to prove the assertion. Those who made it relied solely on the force of the illustration, which was of course selected because, to the unreflecting, it seemed to be conclusive. No account was taken of the many countries where unemployment and protection are existing side by side at the present time, nor of the many occasions when they have coincided in the U.S.A. This illustration is of so little value really, that it could be used to support any number of other fallacious explanations of unemployment. For example : “Those countries are free from unemployment whose national pastime is gum-chewing. Look at America ! ”

In order that such a statement could be regarded as proved it would be necessary to list all the main possible consequences of protection in a particular country, and show how they would be likely to affect the amount of unemployment. The existence of both unemployment and protection in any other country would be fatal unless it could be accounted for by some special counteracting circumstances, for there can be no exceptions to a valid principle.

The saying, “The exception proves the rule,” is, as usually understood, just nonsense. What is really meant is that the apparent exception tests the rule. We, for instance, assert that unemployment is a necessary feature of the capitalist mode of production. If that is true, then every capitalist country should be subject to periodic trade stagnation and unemployment. France at once presents itself as an exception, until we remember that France has a large standing army composed of men who would otherwise be unable to find civil employment. The rule is thus tested by the apparent exception, and found not to have been shown incorrect as far as France is concerned.

There are many people who have phrases like the one given in the last paragraph, which they use on all occasions to explain any controversial question. Unfortunately, they do not realise that they are erecting a barrier between themselves and the truth they wish to comprehend, and that through making no real effort, but simply satisfying themselves with a surface explanation, they are retarding their mental development. They also lay themselves open to deception by interested persons who know the powerful effect on the mind of these deadly drugs.

How often do we meet opponents who think they have answered our arguments by repeating the proverb, “Half a loaf is better than no bread.” By this they mean that Socialism is not immediately obtainable, therefore, it is advisable to make the best of a bad business and try to reform capitalism.

They have some near relations—described satirically as the “step-at-a-time-and-the-smaller-the-better” school—who reach the same conclusion by way of the saying, “You must walk before you can run.”

Now let us examine these two wise remarks, beginning with the first. As a simple statement of fact, meaning that the persons who want bread to eat had better the half a loaf than no bread at all, its truth needs no demonstration; but when used as an argument it is intended to mean much more than that. We can safely go further and agree that it can be applied correctly to all things of the same kind in similar relationships.

But it is just here that the danger arises. Examination ought to be, but generally is not, made before we can be satisfied that there is any analogy. For this reason we might usually just as well try to get our independent proof by treating each new problem on its merits. The trouble is that the phrase is used without discrimination, as if it were a general proof, valid in all kinds of circumstances; which it certainly is not.

If someone were searching for things to throw at your head you would hardly consider that “half a loaf is better than no bread at all.” Again the force of the proverb depends on the nature of loaves. Solomon had no hesitation in deciding that half a baby is not better than no baby at all, and the baby’s mother agreed with the verdict. And the Prince in “Hassan” quite rightly foresaw that his chief of police and his military commandant, who were rival claimants for the credit of capturing an important prisoner, would not feel honoured by being compelled to split a gorgeous robe between them.

Before this proverb can properly be used as an argument in favour of reforms as against concentrating on the demand for Socialism, it is necessary to show that Socialism is divisible like bread, i.e., that it is merely the result of adding reforms to reforms. Examination however shows that it is not. Socialism is a system of society based upon the common ownership of the means of wealth production. Reforms are reforms of capitalism, which is a system of society based on private ownership. It therefore untrue that “reforms of capitalism” and “Socialism” stand to each other in the same relation as “half a loaf” to a “whole loaf.” There is no analogy and thus the proverb has no bearing whatever on the problem under consideration.

It is, of course, open to those who hold this view to argue on other grounds that agitation for reforms is justifiable. They might try to prove that such agitation yields, or could yield, material benefit to the workers; but they would need to bear in mind that if they could give satisfactory proof, they would then be in danger of proving at the same time that Socialism is unnecessary. Our contention against the reform programme is that it usually fails, that the efforts are out of all proportion to the gains, and that it obscures the main issue, and thus hinders progress towards Socialism.

It is not my purpose here to substantiate my assertion : that has often been done in these pages. My present purpose is merely to show that our case is not so much as touched by the story of the loaf.

Treating in the same way the proverb, “You must walk before you can run,” notice how this too depends on the special nature of the activities referred to, while like the other, claiming universal application. Is it necessary to walk on one leg before you can walk on two? Do tadpoles have to learn to walk before they can learn to swim? And has it any real bearing on the kind of activities required in replacing one economic system by another? Is it not merely a piece of laziness to avoid the necessity of dealing, with the facts of the situation?

Some of the things requiring proof are these: (1) That modification of capitalism, such as nationalisation or State capitalism, are steps towards Socialism, and not away from it; (2) That they are in themselves beneficial to the workers; and (3) That they are necessary. The facts are: (1) That they are only additional obstacles; (2) That they are intrinsically bad for the workers; and (3) that they are quite unnecessary.

Having said that, the onus is on us to prove it, and on our opponent’s to disprove it. If I were to point out that a doctor tending a smallpox patient does not waste his time treating each spot separately, but goes straight to the root of the trouble; and if all the members of the Labour Party were to reply in chorus : “You must walk before you can run,” no advance would have been made towards the settlement of the disputed question. But both statements are unquestionably true, and each is legitimately applicable to certain phenomena.

I would like to add that it is now about 120 years since capitalism began its “great” code of social reform. During those years the system has been constantly changing, but it is still the same capitalist system. The workers have had inflicted upon them innumerable reforms of different kinds, yet they are now, relatively to their powers of production, worse off than ever before. And the reason is simplicity itself. Reforms are but attempts to remedy the ever-increasing evils wrought by capitalism, but even if successful, the system still goes on producing new evils or aggravating old ones, and it does so much faster than the reformers can hope to arouse a sufficient demand for the passing of reform acts to meet them.

It has yet to be proved that further experience of “walking” under capitalism will teach the workers how to “run” under Socialism. It appears to me that the State-regulated “Labour” administered capitalism of to-day or to-morrow has no useful lesson to teach the worker with eyes to see, which was not plainly visible in the competitive anarchy of fifty years ago; and there are many activities, modes of thought and ethical notions that must be unlearned before Socialism is going to be a reality.

Running may be regarded approximately as “quickened walking,” but Socialism is not by any means capitalism polished and tinkered up; it is something different, because its foundation is different.

I suggest that the workers have been passive under capitalism because they have not yet learned to see that it is obsolete and therefore a social nuisance. If the inevitable worsening of conditions under capitalism breeds discontent in place of passivity it is a criminal act to turn that discontent towards reforms of capitalism, when without much more trouble it might be turned towards Socialism.

That passage like the one I wrote before contains assumptions to be justified and conclusions to be proved, but again I am not going to try to prove them here. All I wish to do is to repeat with emphasis that they are not to be proved nor disproved by references to quite other forces operating on objects of a different kind.

It is not possible to compile a complete, twentieth century “Guide to Emancipation” out of ancient proverbs, old wives’ tales, nursery rhymes and other interesting odds and ends of learning and wisdom, gathered from the mind of the race in its infancy, or coined in rough and ready fashion in the turmoil of every-day life.

Edgar Hardcastle

Queensland's Labour Government. (1924)

From the February 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the December issue an attempt was made to disprove some of the many untrue assertions about Labour rule in Queensland which have appeared in Forward and the Daily Herald. Tom Johnston has not replied to the charge of deliberate misrepresentation, and to support the charge against him further evidence is now to hand.

Among other things, I stated that the exploitation of the workers is keener and the rate of profit greater in Queensland than elsewhere in Australia. If anyone wants to see the full substantiation of this, it is contained in the reports of the debates in the Queensland Legislative Assembly (Parliamentary Debates, No. 25, Legislative Assembly, Oct. 4 and 5, 1923, page 1481 and following pages). The reason for the publication of the statements, some of which I am going to quote, is that the Queensland Government is faced with the problem of raising new loans to meet repayments of old loans falling due now. Twenty-four million pounds is required at once, and Premier Theodore is in London to negotiate these loans, as cheaply as possible. Failing London, he will be forced to go to New York, but in either financial centre it will be necessary to prove to the investors that Queensland is really a safe and profitable field for investment. Thus we have Mr. Fihelly, Agent-General in London, writing to The Times (Aug. 29, 1923) as follows :—

  “I would again ask critics of Queensland to await the Premier’s arrival, and in the meantime I can assure readers that no sensible investor seriously regards Queensland securities otherwise than of the soundest description.”

It must be comforting to the workers in Queensland to know that the absentee investors who exact tribute from their labour can rest secure that those securities are of the soundest description. The additional material provided in the Legislative Assembly must be still more comforting.

A Mr. Weir, Labour Member for Maryborough, answers home critics at length, and so ably does he do so that it is a matter for regret that the whole speech cannot be reproduced here owing to its length :—

  “The production of the workman in this State is head and shoulders above that of any other State . . . This year I have again gone to some considerable trouble to frame a set of figures which will prove that this State, far from being ruined by the workers, owes more to the workers for its prosperity than to anyone else, and that this State is taking more out of the workers in the matter of industry than any other State. I have graded these figures and have segregated the items, to make my case clear, into raw materials, fuel and light, wages, and then surplus. The surplus is what 1 shall call ‘swag.’ . . . Some belongs to us, the workers, and some to them, but they take too much.”

Mr. Weir then gives figures of wealth production per head of workers engaged, one set taken from the Official Commonwealth Year Book for 1922 (p. 403), and the second set taken from Government publications for the current year (1923). In the first set Queensland, with £921 per head, comes third, after Victoria (£953) and New South Wales (£951). By 1923 Queensland, then the only Labour State, had come top with £954, leaving New South Wales a bad second with only ££892. Deducting the value of raw material and fuel and light, M. Weir gives the percentages going as wages and profits :—

He does not give the percentages wages in Tasmania or South Australia, but states that both are higher than Queensland’s. He protests on behalf of the Queensland workers against this difference. “We claim that they are entitled at least to the same percentage of wages based on the total output as is received in the other States.”

He then gives statistics of actual average wages. “In a table on page 397 of the Official Year Book the Commonwealth average for wages is £169 per head. ‘The amounts paid in the various States are :—

Mr, Weir then gives later information from “Bulletin No. 92 :—

It will thus be seen that in the first year Queensland’s average wage was £8 below the average for Australia as a whole, and £21 below the highest. In the second year it is still £15 below the highest.

Mr. Weir also deals with one or two industries to give further illustration.

In the sawmills of Queensland the total output is £2,971,079, while wages amount to approximately £750,000. Raw materials, fuel, light, etc., account for £1,635,221, leaving a balance of “swag” of £584,858. Mr. Weir, after allowing apparently for depreciation, puts profit at £500,000 and wages at £750,000. In other words, out of the total wealth produced by the labour of the sawmill workers no less than 40 per cent., or, two-fifths, is appropriated by nonproducers at home or abroad.

While for Queensland as a whole, out of every 36s. worth of wealth produced by the workers about £1 goes as profits to members of the property-owning class.

  “On the total cost of production, the men doing the hard work in this State get the least in the Commonwealth.”

In effect we have these Labour “caretakers” of capitalism in Queensland inviting the investment of foreign capital with the plea “that our slaves are the most profitable, the most heavily exploited, and the most docile in Australia.” Well may the Workers’ Weekly of Sydney complain that “the Queensland workers are being sold on the auction block” (Nov. 16, 1923), and well may the workers demand an explanation from their “revolutionary” leaders who ask them to continue returning to power Theodore and his gang who are responsible for this flagrant betrayal of the working-class interests.

Let me repeat that there is no hope for the workers save in Socialism.

Edgar Hardcastle

The bacillus Mussolini. (1924)

From the February 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Daily Telegraph of October 25th seized the opportunity of Fascism’s anniversary of accession to power in Italy to review its history. The review is the more valuable in that the writer makes little effort to conceal the direction in which his sympathies lie. No time is wasted on detailing how the poor peasant boy of Romagna, the bricklayer of Lausanne, the “Socialist” agitator and journalist, fought his way to the highest position of a Capitalist State. At the commencement of the article we find him there. No mention of his horde of Dirty Shirts, with their bludgeons, stilettos and castor oil. He is there! This is a free condensation of the article (italics mine) : His first sweeping reform was to throw out of office the great army of lazy “grafters,” political protégés, etc., created by a generation of government by unscrupulous and self-seeking politicians. The higher the official, the smaller his chance of being spared. The next step was to hit out against the petty political groups. One after another the old political groupings were smashed up and obliged to pronounce themselves for or against, but mostly for, the great Conservative reaction. The Liberals, the Populars, the Socialists have all been attacked on questions of principle; their ranks have been broken and scattered. In electoral reform he preserves proportional representation, but gives to the winning party two-thirds of the seats in Parliament. As the Telegraph man naively says : “This is in order to ensure for the governing party of the day the possibility of carrying out the reforms promised in its electoral programing. The world will follow with interest the working of this experiment in practical politics.” We shall. “Mussolini has been eminently successful in bringing about social peace and the cessation of class warfare. In the beginning the means employed were physical pressure by the Fascist militia, which had recourse to very drastic means.” (Pause for fiendish laughter.) “But very soon the tendency became manifest to apply more peaceful methods. The results are excellent, and during the last twelve months there has not been a single strike in the whole of Italy. This is a fact from which even Mussolini’s detractors cannot get away.”

The gloating contributor makes a bad slip just here. They can get away, for lower down he tells us quite refreshingly, in the long run Mussolini’s foreign policy is entirely governed by the necessity of finding satisfactory outlets for Italian emigration. The country is a great reservoir of man-power which must be exported, and Mussolini is casting about for outlets.”

What a country ! What a Paradise ! What a prospect ! Having bludgeoned, hacked and castor-oiled his way to political power, he discovers he is lord of a huge reservoir of excellent, exploitable material for foreign capitalists. His message to the Italians is, “Italy is no place for you.” There is one reservation. “A new departure is the decree forbidding the emigration of doubtful characters, so as to raise the reputation of Italy abroad.” Mussolini has judged his world well. As the reservoir is emptied of all save the ”doubtful characters” (doubtless fitted up with black shirts and oil equipment), the surrounding capitalist states will warm up wonderfully. A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind. It is good to learn that in this holy business he has the blessing of the Church. To again quote in full :—

  “The ex-Socialist Prime Minister has frankly recognised and accepted the preponderating part played in Italian life by the Church. He has established a firm friendship with the Vatican, which in its turn supports him. .​ .​ . The alliance with the Vatican gives to Mussolini, not only the active support of the powerful clerical elements in the country, but also assists him to a great extent in the development of his foreign policy.”

Now read the bit about his foreign policy again. And then you will, or will not, be pleased to learn that 50,000 railwaymen have been ruthlessly sacked, in the name of economy. Presumably they are now at the gates of the reservoir. They may even be numbered with his detractors. Happy, happy country ! Surely someone will inform the wretched denizens of Old Compton Street, Greek Street, and Little Italy, of what they are missing. Perhaps they are wise after all. Why go to the expense and inconvenience of a voyage, when all these inestimable benefits will soon be brought to our doors. One reads with delight that Britain possesses at least two Fascist organisations thanks mainly engaged at the moment in squabbling over which one is the real, genuine, dyed-in-the-wool article. This question settled, and an agreement reached as to who is to sign the cheques, one can already discern the rosy flush of a new dawn. Italy, hitherto associated in our minds, with ice-cream men, opera-singers and organ-grinders, is to fill our cup of indebtedness to the brim by presenting us with the New Liberty. Our cup runneth over. Already its prophets are afoot. You will remember Earl Grey at Newcastle on February 3rd last: —

  “It is possible, under the chaos and confusion in Europe, that democratic representative government may go down for a time in favour of some other system.”

Italy, we presume, shows us an example of the ”other system.” We hope you like it.

W. T. Hopley

* * * *

Since writing the above, we read in the “Westminster Gazette” of October 26th :

  “Italy at present offers a remarkable spectacle. The country is absolutely quiescent, the people intent only on their calling, and abiding by the laws. But the Fascisti leaders and rank and file alike .​ .​ . are quarrelling among themselves, unable to resist the temptation to usurp functions and prerogatives pertaining to the Government, unable either to rid themselves of the primitive, expeditious habit and the craving to take the law ruthlessly into their own hands.”

Readers can supply their own comment. It may be useful to mention that Mussolini is referred to as the Duse. The deuce he is.

W. T. Hopley

Correspondence: Labour-power. (1924)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

Manchester.

November 14th, 1923.

Dear Comrade,

I would be greatly obliged if you could please explain to me the following point in the next issue of the Socialist Standard.

I remain,

                   Yours fraternally,

                                            S. Million.

In “Capital,” Chapter 7, Section 1 (The Labour-process or the Production of Use- values), Marx says :

  “Suppose that a capitalist pays for a day’s labour-power at its value; then the right to use that power for a day belongs to him, just as much as the right to use any other commodity, such as a horse that he has hired for the day. To the purchaser of a commodity belongs its use, and the seller of labour-power, by giving his labour, does no more, in reality, than part with the use-value he has sold. From the instant he steps into the workshop, the use-value of his labour-power, and therefore also its use, belongs to the capitalist.”

Marx thus shows that it is his labour-power, and not his labour, which the labourer sells to the capitalist.

In Chapter 7, Section 2 (The Production of Surplus-value), Marx says :

  “The circumstance, that on the one hand the daily sustenance of labour-power costs only half-a-day’s labour, while on the other hand the very same labour-power can work during a whole day, that consequently the value which its use during one day creates is double what he pays for that use, this circumstance is, without doubt, a piece of good luck for the buyer, but by no means an injury to the seller. . . . Every condition of the problem is satisfied, while the laws that regulate the exchange of commodities have been in no way violated. Equivalent has been exchanged for equivalent. For the capitalist as buyer paid for each commodity, for the cotton, the spindle, and the labour-power, its full value.”

Since Marx admits that the capitalist pays for the commodity, labour-power, at its full value (i.e., a sum of money necessary for the means of sustenance and reproduction of labour-power), and since the circumstance that the labourer can in a day create double the value to that he consumes, “is by no means an injury to the seller,” by what economic law does Marx prove the exploitation, or the robbery, of the working classes?

Answer to S. Million. 

If the questioner will read more carefully Sec. 2 of Chapter 7 (from which he takes his second quotation), he will see that Marx is speaking from the point of view of the market, and is dealing with appearances only, accompanying his statement with ironical remarks. Equivalent is exchanged for equivalent, therefore how can there be any robbery, is the view of the capitalist as set out by Marx. Subsequent chapters investigate the problem in greater detail and go behind the appearance to see what gives rise to it.

The buying and selling of labour-power presupposes the labour market, which in its turn presupposes a propertyless class that must find buyers for its labour-power or perish. The labour-power sold on the market is consumed outside the market in the sphere of production, and it is here that the worker is robbed. In using up his labour-power the worker not only produces surplus value for the capitalist, but at the same time he produces his own means of subsistence ; the worker is paid with a portion of his own product. This position arises from the fact that the worker does not own his product.

Owing to a process of robbery that has gone on for ages, the means of wealth production have eventually come into the hands of their present owners—the capitalists. The bulk of society—the workers—are thus left with only one method of obtaining a legitimate living—selling their labour-power to the capitalist. In doing this they do something more in reality : they hand over to the capitalist a portion of their product without any equivalent. This latter fact is concealed from the worker by the money—or wage—relation. Just as the serf gives over to the feudal lord a portion of his product for nothing, so does the wage-labourer.

Marx sums the matter up in Chapter 24 as follows : —

   “The exchange of equivalents, the original operation with which we started, has now become turned round in such a way that there is only an apparent exchange. This is owing to the fact, first, that the capital which is exchanged for labour-power is itself but a portion of the product of others’ labour appropriated without an equivalent ; and, secondly, that this capital must not only be replaced by its producer, but replaced together with an added surplus. The relation of exchange subsisting between capitalist and labourer becomes a mere semblance appertaining to the process of circulation, a mere form, foreign to the real nature of the transaction, and only mystifying it. The ever-repeated purchase and sale of labour-power is now the mere form ; what really takes place is this—the capitalist again and again appropriates, without equivalent, a portion of the previously materialised labour of others, and exchanges it for a greater quantity of living labour. At first the rights of property seemed to us to be based on a man’s own labour. At least, some such assumption was necessary, since only commodity owners with equal rights confronted each other, and the sole means by which a man could become possessed of the commodities of others was by alienating his own commodities; and these could be replaced by labour alone. Now, however, property turns out to be the right on the part of the capitalist to appropriate the unpaid labour of others or its product, and to be the impossibility, on the part of the labourer, of appropriating his own product. The separation of property from labour has become the necessary consequence of a law that apparently originated in their identity.” (pp. 597/598).

Gilmac.

The Manorial System. (1924)

From the February 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

How often do we hear discussion stifled by that familiar remark from the lips of some defender of things as they are, that “Capitalism has always been and must therefore always be.” Even if the first part of thè statement were true, the second part, the conclusion, would still need proving. Because cows through all the ages since they were first domesticated had been milked by hand, that did it in not prevent inventors from trying (finally with success) to make a machine to do the same work. But it is not true that capitalism has always been, and if only the workers were even slightly familiar with the way in which capitalism has grown up, and with the forms of organisation which preceded it, how much easier our task would be.

You will all of you have heard of the “Lord of the Manor”; nowadays, a country gentleman who sits on the Bench of Magistrates, draws rent from his landed estates, and is generally an ornament of county society, even if not a very useful person. There was, however, a time when the Manor, was a vital part of the life of the country, and I will try to give a brief outline of the system that then existed, in the hope that it may make some readers interested in the history of their own class and its predecessors.

The Manorial system is the name given to the agricultural organisation of society which was general in Western Europe in the Middle Ages; that is, between the breakup of the Roman Empire and, say, the fifteenth century. Whether it arose in England as a direct result of Roman rule over the original inhabitants, and was continued through the replacement of the Romans by the Anglo-Saxon invaders, or whether it developed out of the free villages which the latter introduced from the Continent, it is difficult to decide. It can be said, anyway, that its hold over Western Europe was evidence that it was admirably suited to the needs and conditions of the age, and it was certainly far advanced in this country at the time of the Norman invasion in the year 1066.

To outline the system one may conveniently consider the Manor, which was its unit, but it must be remembered that not only did manorial customs vary greatly with the locality, but also the continual process of change was by no means uniform. Some parts of Europe, and even of this country, developed much faster than others.

The basis of the system was the tenure of land. In the eleventh century there were about 1,400 direct tenants of the king, who as Manorial Lords had to give him military and other services. Then these chief tenants had 8,000 sub-tenants, who had to give similar service and allegiance to them. Each of these sub-tenants might hold one or two manors, while the chief tenants would have a large number. Within each manor were various groups of inferior tenants who received military and judicial protection, and gave their lord in return some payments in kind—that is, goods—and also gave him some of their labour free of payment.

A typical manor would consist of perhaps 20 or 30 small dwellings grouped together, and standing somewhat apart the much bigger house occupied by the Lord of the Manor. There would also be a church, and if there was a stream, a mill standing over it. Round this village would be several hundred acres of ploughland in two, three, or four large fields—three being the usual number. Outside this would lie the pasture land, and beyond the pasture there would be a great stretch of waste and woodland.

This little centre of production would be almost self-supporting and independent of the outside world. In it could be produced all the food and clothing needed, except for one or two articles like salt for meat preserving, mill-stones, and a small quantity of iron for swords and ploughshares.

Under the lord were the following classes:—The “villeins,” who were the most numerous, and had holdings of about 30 acres; the “cottars,” somewhat less numerous, who had up to 5 acres ; a small class of “freemen” or “socmen” ; and a still smaller class of slaves. All of these, except sometimes the freemen, were tied to the manor where they were born, and were not permitted to leave it; at first, however, they did not want to do so, because there was nowhere for them to go. The land of these various classes was not in a compact holding, as it would be in our day, but was scattered all over the three big fields in acre or half-acre strips. No man would have two strips together, and they were re-distributed each year so that each man would have a chance of getting his fair share of good and bad land.

The Lord of the Manor protected his tenants or “serfs” against attacks from outside, and they gave him labour service, and the freemen, who gave him military service as well. The freemen used to do what was called “boonwork” for him; that is, work at special seasons like haytime and harvest. The villeins had to do boonwork, and would also have to work three or four days each week on the lord’s land instead of on their own ; and the cottars would give perhaps one day a week. The cottars, having little land of their own, would work for some kind of payment. All this work was done under the supervision of the bailiff, and the land of the Lord of the Manor—the “Demesne” land—would often, but not always, be scattered about in strips like the rest.

It used to be complained by the lord or his bailiff that although the serfs worked hard on their own land, when they were ploughing the demesne land they would stop at the end of each furrow to pray and sing hymns. You can imagine your employer having a fit if you did this in his workshop, or on his farm, but in those days people were much more pious than they are now.

The work on the arable land, both ploughing and reaping, was done by the villagers working in common; they would all help each other, instead of each doing his own little plots. In those days this was a very economical way of getting the work done, and it prevented any of the land from being cultivated less carefully than the rest. Of course, it also had the disadvantage that it prevented one man from introducing any new ideas, and later on, when men began to learn better ways of farming, this became a serious matter.

The villagers had the right to graze their oxen and swine on the waste and woodland, and after harvest on the stubble land as well. There are, many places in this country, especially in the Southern Counties; where the villagers still have the right to graze cattle and cut bracken on the manorial lands; but most of these rights have long since been stolen.

The methods of cultivation were rigidly fixed by tradition, so that each year one field would contain wheat or rye for bread, one would contain barley, oats, beans, or peas, and the third would lie fallow, waiting for the soil to recover from the exhaustion of previous crops.

It will be noticed that no money passed between the lord and his serfs, and there was no buying and selling. Even the king’s taxes and the Pope’s tithes were paid in wool or other produces.

This organisation was at the height of its development during the thirteenth century, and signs of decay began to appear in the early years of the fourteenth century, just as capitalism has long shown signs of decay in our own day. The main forces which disintegrated the Manorial system were the appearance of money and its general use in place of the old labour services, and changes in agricultural methods which led eventually to the setting up of farms on which the farmer and his labourers do the work as he thinks fit, quite independently of the other villagers. Men began to work individually instead of in common.

By the middle of the thirteenth century it was already customary for the bailiff to sell some of the produce outside the manor, and with the money so obtained to hire day labourers to work alongside the “villeins,” who still gave their services according to the old arrangements. Gradually both lords and serfs became familiar with the use of money, and they got into the habit of reckoning the services as worth so much money even where no money was paid over. Neither of these changes I have mentioned could become important until there was a reliable coinage, and until there was someone who wanted agricultural produce and was able to pay for it.

The market was provided by the towns which had been growing up during the centuries. They were formed round monasteries and garrison towns, and at places where foreigners came to buy English wool and sell their fine cloths, and they were recruited by runaway serfs who found that there was a demand for blacksmiths, cloth-workers, and other handicraftsmen. At first these towns were only like big villages, and grew their own food, but when they got too large they had to get what they wanted from further afield. As these towns became more important and their craftsmen and merchants more powerful, they required a stable coinage in order to carry on their business. The kings at that time were in need of money, too, so that they could carry on their foreign wars, and they eventually took steps to provide the necessary coinage.

The Lords of the Manors also wanted money to buy luxuries from abroad, and to equip themselves for the wars of the Crusades, and to get this they began the practice of accepting money from the serfs in place of labour service. To this the villeins readily agreed, because they had always resented being called away from their own work at the busy seasons of the year just when they could least afford to be away. The valuation of services in money had probably become fairly general in the first half of the thirteenth century, although it cannot be said that all the serfs had established any right to demand this.

It was a growing practice, too, for the lord to let the demesne land to his bailiff for a money rent, which was something quite unknown before, and he then might draw revenue, but be freed from all trouble and responsibility himself. And, owing to the more settled state of the country and the increasing power of the king, it was no longer necessary for the Lord of the Manor to provide military protection, and the Manorial courts were deprived of their old power.​

The fact of having rent-paying tenants in charge of the demesne lands naturally led these men to try to improve their methods of cultivation and bring in big profits. Nothing like this could have been attempted under the old order of things.

These various changes were going on with increasing speed when an outstanding event occurred which drastically hastened them. This was the plague called the Black Death, which happened in the year 1348. Nearly half of the population was swept away, and this completely upset the existing relations between lords and serfs. The shortage of labour naturally made itself felt in an increase of money wages for those workers who had firmly established the custom of money payments, in spite of severe and repeated legislation to prevent them from getting any more than had been paid before 1348. Equally naturally, those who were still bound to give their services were much dissatisfied when they saw how much free men were able to demand. On the other hand, the lords were impoverished by the loss by death of so many of those on whose labour their wealth had depended, and at the same time they found that they had to pay more for their hired men. There had alwavs, of course, been some discontent, but now it broke out in open insurrections. The greatest of these, the Peasant Revolt of 1381, was of importance, although it did not seem to have been fully successful at the time. The Manorial Lords looked in another direction to save themselves. They turned their lands into sheep farms, instead of ploughing them, as had been the rule.

The growth of the wool trade with Flanders cloth merchants helped them materially. First, it made sheep-farming very profitable ; and as sheep require large areas and only a small amount of labour to tend them, the Lords used every conceivable means to rid the Manors of their small tenants, who had been serfs and had bought the right to work their holdings without giving labour service in return. They also found means to become possessed of the huge wastes and commons which, of course, did not really belong to them. Secondly, a class of wealthy merchants had sprung up who were willing to pay large rents for farm lands which they wanted to cultivate on a basis very much like that with which we are familiar to-day.

Thus many strips were amalgamated to make compact farms, and these again were grouped into still larger ones.

The result of all this was that by the reign of Queen Elizabeth about the middle of the fifteenth century there were no longer any serfs in England, although the rest of Europe was much more backward. In Russia serfdom was not abolished until 1861.

Instead of the Manors on the old basis, there were now a number of individually cultivated farms run for profit and a large number of small farms owned or rented by the free descendants of the serfs, but still cultivated in the ancient manner by the whole of the villagers working together and dividing their holdings up into scrips. It was, however, now the rule for money rent to be paid for all these farms, whether big or small, except where they had been bought outright as had often been done.

Those who had been turned off the land drifted amid intense suffering into the towns to take part in the industries which were everywhere growing up, They became in the main independent craftsmen, and it was not till long after that anything arose similar to our modern factory-system, where one capitalist employs hundreds or even thousands of “hands.”

In the same way there were not yet in the country a very large number of labourers without any land, compelled to work all the year round for someone else, and entirely dependent on their wages for their upkeep.

These further changes did not come till the eighteenth century, and must be described in another article.

Edgar Hardcastle

Financial Fog. (1924)

Pamphlet Review from the February 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

I have read this pamphlet with ordinary care, but I have not the least idea what Mr. Neft is driving at. The 48 pages would be heavy at 6d., even if they contained something of value, but they are in fact full of contradictions, unsupported assertions, pious hopes, and ill-chosen quotations.

The actual proposal before the workers is the Labour Party’s scheme for halving the National Debt and reducing taxation. Mr. Neft’s main argument is this. High taxation is good for the workers; therefore, vote for the Labour Party and low taxation!

He proves quite neatly on page 43 that all taxes are paid by the capitalist class. This is, however, only a tribute to his own powers of persuasion, for when he wrote page 20 he was of quite another mind. He there says that during the war capitalist governments borrowed money for war expenditure instead of raising it by taxation, because “Only the few can lend, but ALL can be taxed,” and thus the Government “made the Many pay interest to the Few” (capitals by Mr. Neft).

He has made several startling discoveries. One is that the capitalist class live by owning all the means of wealth production, land factories, railways, etc., and “In addition, they claim £7,000,000,000 from the rest of the community ” (page 28).

He knows that there is a robber class and a robbed class, but he has found a third class, the “middle class.” These unfortunate people, who it seems neither work nor live on the labour of others, must live on their own backs by robbing themselves.

I cannot tell whether Mr. Neft wants us to think that he is a socialist or whether he wants us to be most impressed by the prominently displayed support for the levy from W. L. Hitchins, chairman of Cammell, Laird & Co.

It is certainly interesting to learn that the levy is going to benefit everybody, and that

  “As every penny taken from them as levy will be returned to them in payment of their war loans the rich will actually lose nothing ” (page 21).

With this “nothing” taken from the rich, Mr. Neft is going to pay for “an increased and improved social service, and never mind the cost” (page 44).

He calls capitalism a “social disease,” but wants the capitalists to be compensated. Still, I am not worrying, because the compensation is to come out of whatever balance is left after the “nothing” mentioned above has been used to pay for those increased social services.

It appears not to have occurred to Mr. Neft that if capitalism is a social disease it would be advisable to abolish it. He has a simple and original remedy. The capitalist class pay all the taxes; therefore, the workers should aim at becoming burdens on the taxes and thus win back some of the surplus value stolen from them in production. Mr. Neft omitted to draw specific attention to the permanent paupers who have won through to this desirable state of things. Everyone knows what a fine, prosperous, independent, intelligent and morally admirable crowd they are. A moment’s thought will show that if the capitalists could get what Mr. Neft wants them to have, it would be the finest thing that ever happened—for them.

He tells us on page 40 that “The levy can reduce taxation. . . . It can, therefore, reduce the price of commodities. “That is evident,” but that as wages will fall correspondingly, the workers will not gain anything.

Then on page 44 we learn that remission of taxes is useless, because “You can take a penny off the worker’s beer, but as soon as the tea-thief smells that penny he puts the price of his commodity up and gets the penny that the beer-thief has relinquished.”

Thus we have (1) the beer-thief voluntarily, and out of kindness of heart, reducing the price of beer by the amount of the remitted tax; (2) wages falling; (3) wages not falling; (4) the tea-thief being less kindly than the beer-thief, and putting up the price of tea; (5) the tea-thief robbing the worker of the surplus which has already been taken by the wage reduction which has both taken place and not taken place, etc.

There are two things Mr. Neft might have said but didn’t. One is that as on his own showing the capitalist class will still own the means of production after the levy, it does not matter a twopenny damn or a sixpenny pamphlet whether the capitalists have a levy or not.

The second is that the capitalist system is the evil and should be abolished.

There is also a question he might have answered. During the war when the Labour leaders were trying to prevent the workers from taking advantage of the labour shortage to get wage increases it was an article of faith with them (although fallacious) that the capitalist could always pass such burdens on to the consumer. What is to prevent them from doing this with the capital levy? If they can do so and also get it back “in payment of their war loans” as Mr. Neft promises, it looks as if they will be “ quids in.”

Edgar Hardcastle

By The Way. (1924)

The By The Way column from the February 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under the heading of "The Workers’ Searchlight,” a writer in The People, 7/9/23, Andrew Buchanan, J.P., appears rather anxious regarding what he terms, the various and contradictory conceptions of "Socialism” existing. Of the writings of Mr. and Mrs. Sydney Webb he states :—

  “It would be of immense advantage if their next book would deal with the various conceptions of Socialism and ‘Control of Industry,’ held by the leading members of the Labour Party, S.D.F and I.L.P.”

With real sporting instinct we may gamble that there is one conception that they, like Mr. Buchanan, will leave severely alone, and that is the scientific conception of Marx and Engels, upon which the Socialist Party is founded. A conception that furthermore proves the above organisations to be useless to the workers. Only the Marxian conception, which renders clear an understanding of the class conflict existing under capitalist society, can explain the misconceptions of such parties as the I.L.P., S.D.F., and the Labour Party, whether such misconceptions arise from a conscious effort to confuse and sidetrack the workers, or from the sickly religious sentiment of' a large proportion of their members. The manifesto of the S.P.G.B. is a small work that deals with the treachery and confusion of the various parties existing in this country, it is a challenge to all comers, our anti-socialist J.P. included.

#    #    #    #

Another body of people with a burning desire to "do something” for the dear workers is the Brotherhood movement. One of their number outlining their so-called principles in The People, 7/9/23, and anticipating that some impudent interloper may ask, "Is it practical?” "Does it do anything?” gives the answer in the softest of Brotherhood tones :—

  “In Britain at present we are trying to help the unemployed. During the week we held a series of meetings on the Tyneside. At these we were able to offer refreshment, some good music, and a bit of good cheer.”

Beautiful! Almost gives the impression of sublime innocence, had not the dear brethren something more far-reaching to offer:—

  “We propose an industrial truce for a period of at least five years. During that period there shall be no strikes or lock-outs, and no attempt to abuse the present situation. A genuine attempt shall be made to cope with foreign competition and restore prosperity.”

As one of the methods used by the master class to cope with foreign competition, and compete in the world’s markets is to intensify exploitation, and reduce wages as far as possible, we can imagine to what depths the Brotherhood bunkumites would reduce the workers by their nonsensical proposals. Contemplate the position: The masters using every means to wring the utmost ounce of useful energy from the toilers, gratifying their profit lust, whilst the said workers are to become such abjectly servile creatures as not even to raise a murmur in protest. What a paradise—for the masters. Truly the Brotherhood reveals its' obsequious capitalist nature in every utterance.

  "By means of warm-hearted fellowship it endeavours to free society from the murmur and the subtlety of suspicion with which we vex one another and to persuade the public mind with the finer essence of generosity forgiveness and forbearance. ”

What drivel! Warm-hearted fellowship under class robbery, through the vilest form of human slavery that ever existed, forgiveness foe the wholesale murder of the workers in industry and war, forbearance amidst unemployment, wearying toil, and vile surroundings; and yet this sloppy crew would plead with you that "There shall be no attempt to abuse the present situation.” Why? for their capitalist masters’ sake they do not wish to see the workers restless and impatient, seeking the way out of their misery, spurning the proffered assistance of the liars who pretend solicitude for the workers' welfare. They declare that

  “In place of the present feud between Capital and Labour there ought to be understanding and help. Unless it is secured we shall plunge into bankruptcy.”

We declare war, bitter, relentless war upon capitalism and its defenders until victory to the workers shall be secured by the coming of Socialism.

#    #    #    #

 "The time had come when someone should speak instead of waiting for Socialists to explain or exploit evils. People were asking for ideals, and it was the man with such who was after all the most practical and 'got there' every time” (South London Press, 2/11/23).

What a harvest awaits the advent of these practical people to-day. In Great Britain alone over 40,000 men, women and children succumb annually to that dread disease tuberculosis, a disease admitted by all authoritative opinion to be due to poor resistance to infection, through bad conditions, i.e., bad housing, insufficient food, etc.

  "The sanatorium treatment has taught this lesson—that Tuberculosis is more a social and economic than a microbe problem, and could be more or less eradicated in a generation if the nation seriously attempted to improve the social conditions of the people. Better feeding and better housing are surer weapons against Tuberculosis than vaccines” (Dr. Muthu, 25 years Mendip Hills Sanatorium: Daily News, 23/8/23).

But these conditions are an inseparable part of capitalism; it breeds them and fosters them.

 “When these are remedied this fell disease will as surely disappear in the same way as leprosy, typhus, smallpox, and typhoid fever ” (Daily Mail Year Book, 1923, p. 4)."

How does our idealist “get there”? He is so very practical, you know. By removing the cause? Oh dear no! A few months away from the original breeding ground, improved conditions—for a time, and then—the victim is returned to the same old source of infection to become acquainted with the same old conditions such is the remedy of the people who are the “most practical.” Disease is only one of the effects of the social conditions of to-day, and the only real service to suffering humanity is rendered by those who seek to establish a sane and healthy system in place of capitalism with its multitude of disorders.

#    #    #    #

What superficial observers of the social conditions of to-day we Socialists appear to be, for here in our midst is a source of social corruption unestimated by us, and yet so great in magnitude that common or ordinary mortals cannot even imagine its devastating influences!

  “I do not think it is possible for the ordinary reader to imagine the moral decline, the mischievous influence over all alike, which spring, from this evil thing. The steady receipt of money for which no equivalent in work is rendered makes against everything that is good in the receiver's life. I do not hesitate to say that tens of thousands of people in these islands have learned, or are learning at this very time, to live without work" (General Booth: Daily Mail, 14/12/23).

Without work—how sad, and terrible, and all that was once noble and idyllic in their tranquil lives bartered for a paltry pittance—a dole: surely the end of everything. It is not poverty, nor prostitution, your filthy slums or your work-burdened lives that casts a gloom over your existence, but, according to the comic opera general, the return by your masters of a microscopic portion of the wealth stolen from you in order to effect them a cheap insurance against the more costly discontent that might arise from your desperate plight. Is work such an elevating and ennobling pastime that it should be the sole purpose of your existence? The capitalist idlers and their charity mongers would have you believe so, that they may continue in affluent security; when all partake in the needful work of an organised community insulting charity for you and senseless luxurious debauchery for your masters will be relegated to the many absurdities of a class society.

W. E. MacHaffie

Napoleon on Religion (1924)

From the February 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

    “What is it that makes the poor man think it quite natural that there are fires in my palace while he is dying of cold? That I have ten coats in my wardrobe while he goes naked? That at each of my meals enough is served to feed his family for a week? It is simply religion, which tells him that in another life I shall be only his equal, and that he actually has more chance of feeing happy there than I. Yes, we must see to it that the floors of the churches are open to all, and that it does not cost the poor man much to have prayers said on his tomb.”

“The Life and Times of Count Molé.” Quoted in the Daily News, December 31st, 1923.

Freedom! (1924)

From the February 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

  “But the man who is always hovering on the verge of want is in a state not far removed from that of slavery. He is in no sense his own master, but is in constant peril of falling under the bondage of others, and accepting the terms which they dictate to him. He cannot help being, in a measure, servile, for he dares not look the world boldly in the face; and in adverse times he must look either to alms or the poor rates. If work fails him altogether, he has not the means of moving to another field of employment; he is fixed to his parish like a limpet to its rock, and can neither migrate nor emigrate.”

Samuel Smiles.

Editorial: A "Socialist" Government (1924)

Editorial from the February 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are on the eve of great events—at least, Mr. Garvin, of the Observer, says we are!

  “The reason is that to-morrow in this country will see the end of the last purely Conservative Government—none of the same name is ever likely to exist again—and will instal the first Socialist Government in its place."

We really must take exception to this constant tying of the labels “Socialist” and “Marxian” to the Labour Party. It is not fair. Mr. 'Ramsay MacDonald has frequently pointed out that the Labour members are thorough gentlemen, that they do not propose to disturb seriously existing relations, and that “moral flourishes” will be one of the principal weapons. And is not Dr. Addison one of their pillars?

Anyone in doubt about the policy to be pursued by the Labour Government can obtain fruitful information from the columns of the New Leader. In the issue of January 4th they make the following remarks, under the heading, “ Labour’s Agenda: Suggestions Invited ” :—

   “All of us are discussing the items which may find a place in Labour’s programme, when it takes office, as it almost certainly will, before the end of this month. Everyone understands that many of the bigger changes to which we are committed are excluded by the composition of this House or by the conditions of national finance. As to the main lines of our policy, there is no doubt or division of opinion. We must (1) substitute work for doles, which involves a Housing scheme; (2) recognise Russia and bring to suffering Germany the promptest rescue we can devise; (3) clear up the dangerous tangle over oil, stop the Singapore dock, and drop the territorial claim to Mosul; (4) apply our Labour policy to the urgent case of agriculture as fully as the House will allow."

Can anyone, with even the most powerful microscope, find anything Socialist in these “main lines’’? Capitalism, the present social system, involves the private ownership by the capitalists of the means of wealth production and signifies the enslavement of the propertyless workers, the mass of the population. Socialism involves the common ownership, by the whole of the population, of the means of production, and signifies the end of slavery. The change from Capitalism to Socialism is a revolutionary one and admits of no piecemeal policy. The “main lines” of Socialist action, therefore, are revolutionary ones, definitely laid out to uproot the capitalistic foundations of the existing social system.

The attempt by Garvin and others to identify the ideas of Socialism with the Labour Party’s policy is a convenient method of curbing the workers’ desire for freedom and increasing the Confusion already existing. The tendency of the workers to see in capitalism the real source of their miseries is dangerous from the point of view of the upholders of the present system. Garvin and his kind are astute, so they endeavour to fix the workers’ attention upon the Labour Party as the representatives of the new social idea. In due course the Labour Party will fail at the same obstacles—unemployment, and so forth—as the older parties. The Garvin group will then point triumphantly to this failure as an illustration of the incapacity of Socialism to solve economic problems. They bank on the idea that disappointment will breed apathy. This is one reason why we are so anxious to dispel any illusions the workers may have about the advantages to be expected from a Labour Government.

The Labour Party is not a Socialist body, and it repudiates the views of Marx. It is a snare set for dissatisfied but unwary workers.

Robert Blatchford (1924)

From the February 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

Robert Blatchford recently resigned his post on the Sunday Chronicle and Sunday Herald. The reason he gave was that he was "tired of all this dirty business of lying about the Labour Party and similar tactics" (Daily Herald, January 7th, 1924). This sounds fine, and it drew from George Lansbury a column of extravagant appreciation, but when one remembers something of Blatchford's career it seems particularly out of place that he, of all men, should be praised for his independence and disinterested enthusiasm for Socialism. He had in his own words "been associated with these papers for seven years," and during those years had reached the point of repudiating most of the views of his youth, including all that he ever held of Socialism. He had shown himself one of the most violent of the stop-at-home fighters who gloried in the knowledge that the workers were butchering each other for the class Blatchford was serving. After selling his "great genius" to the capitalist Press for seven years, Blatchford decides to desert them; curiously, just at the moment when the Labour Party is about to take over the administration; and for this we are expected to honour him!

There are some who charitably ask that Blatchford be forgiven his treachery of the past seven years as a "mistake." Must we then also forgive his even more transparent treachery over the Boer War, when the open Imperialism of the British capitalists was opposed by Lloyd George?

As for his work for Socialism, it is as well to remember that it was the Clarion and its editor who reaped all the glory, not Socialism. The activities he organised were "Clarion" clubs and choirs and vans, and, as shown below, he appears to have reaped no small advantage from them. George Lansbury's opinion certainly does not seem to have been shared by one who knew Blatchford well—his brother Montague.

In a letter to David Lowe, reproduced by him in Forward (December 22nd, 1923) Keir Hardie wrote as follows: —

"House of Commons,

"9th August, 1902.

"Dear Davie,

"I am sending you a Manchester Guardian. It is good. When at Halifax recently I spent an evening at a friend's house where Mont. Blatchford was present. The bottle went round, and he came over to say that the C. (Clarion) was about to burst. That Nunquam and Dangle had not spoken, save to wrangle, for weeks. He afterwards saw me home in the wee sma' 'oors. The two able men have quarrelled about the division of the spoil. Each has an income, presumably, all told, of £600 a year. He, M.B., was happy on less than half, but the others had inflated notions of living; the more they got the more they wanted; they no longer wrote for the love of the Cause but purely for what it brought them; the Bounder, when alive, kept things straight with his fine scorn, but now there was no one to intervene, and the meetings of the Board were a series of wrangles over money affairs. All this and more, with much reiteration. He was sick of it, and was going to clear out, and felt sure the whole thing was about to burst . . . " 

"Nunquam," of course, is Robert Blatchford, and "Dangle" is A. M. Thompson, another loyal servant of the employing class who may also be expected to develop a tender conscience now that his erstwhile comrades have become His Majesty's Government.

Edgar Hardcastle