Prosperity and “Dividing-up”. (1926)

From the February 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

In spite of the testimonies, plain to the eye of the beholder who observes intelligently, most people do not really grasp the immensity of modern production. When the Socialist puts forward his plea for the common ownership of the means of wealth production he is sometimes greeted with the statement that if all the wealth produced was divided among the whole of the people, the workers would receive little more than they do at present owing to the small number of those who are very wealthy and the multitude of those who are poor. Quotations are given from economic “authorities” who assert that if the wealth of the rich, or the total income of the whole of the people were “divided up” the result would only amount to an extra pound or two each. The insignificance of the amount is then paraded as a demonstration of the unpractical and delusive nature of Socialist proposals.

Although “dividing up” has no place in the Socialist philosophy, and our case, from the point of view of wealth, is built upon modern productive capacity rather than the actual amount of wealth at present produced, yet it is still possible to build up a strong position even on the ground of what is actually produced. The great war furnished us with unanswerable evidence on this side.

Captain B. H. Liddell Hart, dealing with the cost of the war in his little book. “Paris—the Future of War,” makes the following statement : —

“For this country alone it reached a cost of £8,000,000 daily. Our total war expenditure was nearly ten thousand million pounds.” (page 10.)

There are roughly fifteen million families in this country. Taking this and the above figures, a little arithmetical calculation gives us an interesting result. Ten thousand millions for four years is two thousand five hundred millions a year; and this divided by fifteen millions is, roughly, a hundred and sixty-six pounds a year per family, or more than three pounds a week. Modern production, then, is so prolific that this country was able, literally, to throw down the drain for four years the equivalent of three pounds a week per family, and yet produce enough to feed, clothe and house the civil population during the whole of that time and even enable war profiteers to accumulate vast fortunes !

Unreflecting people may raise objections to the view here set forth on the ground that the war was financed, to a great extent, by credit, and brought in its wake a National Debt ten times the size of the prewar debt. In reply to this, it may be well to point out that credit will not fill empty stomachs or the cannon’s hungry mouth. Wealth to the full value was actually produced. An army of approximately four millions was fed, clothed and supplied with munitions of war; munition workers were fed, clothed and housed ; and the rest of the civil population were fed, clothed and housed, during those four years of comedy and tragedy.

The professional economist who claims to “prove” that modern production is incapable of meeting with ease the needs of the whole population, can only do so by playing tricks with figures, an old and oft-used method by the special pleaders for those who rule.

There is another type of special pleader who is constantly urging the worker to work hard, work long, and work cheaply in order that goods may be produced in greater abundance so that there will be more to “divide.” The theory being that cheap wares flooding the market will “stimulate” industry and bring work to the workless and more wages to those working. There has been a minor boom in this stuff lately (I learn that it has also invaded the columns of the “Daily Herald”), and America has been held up as a kind of El Dorado of hard work, peace and prosperity for workers and masters.

As the information is both interesting and conflicting, I will give some specimens.

The New York correspondent of the “Evening Standard” (16. 12. 25.) writes rapturously, “All classes in the country are saving money and making investments in stocks and bonds” ; Trade Unionism as a challenge to Capitalism is practically dead ; “the leaders of the American trade-union movement have long recognised that if they kill the golden goose of financial leadership, they must go without the advantages of high wages” ; class antagonism is breaking down and the United States is well on the way to demonstrating that “Capitalism is its own justification and is the most effective economic system to ensure general prosperity.” The New York Correspondent concludes with the remarks that, “The necessity for trade union threats to secure higher wages is disappearing fast from American industrial relationships. . . . So improved machinery finds no obstacles among the working men, who see in every time-saving device the possibility of more money to themselves, if not immediately, yet in the measureable future.”

So writes the New York Correspondent, and I must say I am “drawn” by his touching reference to the “golden goose of financial leadership.” A golden goose must be a dead thing, and utterly different from the American goose that lays the golden eggs.

Two days after reading the New York Correspondent’s article, I was brought up with a jerk by another article in the same paper, but in the columns headed “A Londoner’s Diary” (18. 12. 25.), and this is what “A Londoner” said :—

“It is too much our custom to believe that wage disputes are indigenous to this country, and that no other peoples are affected by Labour troubles.

“I am advised from New York that a first class industrial crisis is rapidly maturing in that city, as a consequence of a general increase in prosperity. Fifty trades, representing some 120,000 mechanics and labourers, are asking for new wage contracts for the coming year.

“Of these some thirty-seven trades demand increases varying from 50 cents, to four dollars a day, which would mean for the year a total increase of the wages bill of 80 million dollars) or 20 million pounds, in the industries affected.

”The employers, however, are disinclined to consider these demands. . . .

“A typical demand is that of the building trades, who ask for an average wage increase of 14 per cent. There is still, of course, plenty of time for negotiation, but the means for a settlement do not appear favourable.”

Here is contradictory information which suggests that the amicable relations praised by the New York Correspondent partakes, of the stuff of which dreams are made. But there is a point of agreement between the two which it would be wise to make a note of—there is prosperity in America whether the American workers have a part in it or not.

The Washington correspondent of the Sunday “Observer” (10. 1. 26.) also has something to say on this subject. He writes of American prosperity in even stronger terms. He says :

“There was never in any country in any time such a prodigal production of goods or such a wide diffusion of them.” . . .

“America has not only escaped the post-war debacle, but has gone on to unparalleled prosperity.” . . .

“In America, organised labour is so fully committed to the principle which looks with suspicion upon any limitation on individual output, and which favours the largest output by each man, on the theory that the more goods produced the more there will be to divide.”

The correspondent of the “Observer” explains American prosperity by the economies, mechanical short-cuts, standardisation, and other devices that have “made Henry Ford’s automobile factory a model for the maximum output with the greatest economy of labour,” and “America has just seen a combination of conditions that defies orthodox political economy : lowering costs and prices of goods, accompanied by higher wages for labour.”

The last quotation knocks the props away from the case built up by employers in this country who contend that England cannot compete in the international market on account of high prices due to relatively high wages. It is not the work of the low-paid coolie that is threatening English industry so much as the low-priced product of the high-priced American workman. The railwayman, the shipyard worker, and the coalminer would be wise to bear this in mind when fighting wage reductions because American high wages (whether true or false) is boosted by the papers that publish matter serving the interests of the employer.

The “Daily News” (22. 1. 26.) publishes extracts from a report by two young British engineers, who have recently toured America, on the conditions that have brought about American prosperity. They also support the high wages—low prices view as a lesson to European nations.

But to return to the main point—the suggestion that cheapening productive methods brings as a result a greater production of goods and consequently more to divide with greater prosperity for everybody.

It requires very little thought to dispel this pleasant phantasy.

The absolute ideal aimed at by industry is a future when one man can, by pressing a button, set in motion the machinery that will automatically perform all the functions necessary to produce what will meet the needs of the whole world without the help of another labourer. The greater the productivity of machinery and the economy of labour the nearer industry approaches to this ideal. That is to say, that fewer and fewer workers are required to attend to the needs of the world. Given the capitalist method of production, under which the means of production and the products are owned by the employers, it is surely obvious that, after a certain limit has been passed, the greater the productivity of machinery the more workers will be thrown out of work whose labour has been “saved.” How will they stand in the division of wealth? As they will not be receiving any wages they will have no means with which to buy—unless it be the unemployment dole ! So that the future of industry would appear to present a picture of growing prosperity in which wage earners tend to decline and dole receivers tend to increase. A beautiful picture of prosperity !

Gilmac.

The Survival of the Fittest. (1926)

From the February 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

“As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as consequently there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, it vary however slightly, in any manner profitable to itself under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life will have a higher chance of surviving and will thus be ‘naturally selected.'” Introduction to “The Origin of Species,” C. Darwin.

This generalization in Darwin’s epoch-making work, the result of a lifetime of study of the evolution of organic life, can with equal force be applied to the evolution of the organism known as Society. Modern capitalist society—the outcome of many thousands of years of development—depends upon the individual and collective effort of the workers. The sum total of all these efforts results in the production and distribution of all those things which provide the comforts and wants of modern civilization.

The millions of unemployed workers throughout the world are perfectly conscious of a desire to use their energies, their manifold capabilities, to this end, but they are unable to find a suitable opportunity. It is obvious that, in order to live, mankind is forced to make such efforts as will wrest from mother earth those things which will satisfy his needs. The earth is ready to hand—but !—and there’s the rub—the unemployed worker finds himself obstructed by a code of laws and regulations which says, in effect, that the land belongs to various individuals—a distinct and separate class in society. It is the nature of this legal code, this property right in the private ownership and control of the source of the means of life which the workers have to enquire into. It comes to this, therefore, that by a generalization similar to the one made by Darwin quoted above, the organism known as society can be divided, in the main, into two classes :—

1. The class who possess but do not produce—the property-owning master class, and

2. Those who produce but do not possess—the propertyless working class.

The socialist, therefore, may be said to vary from the rest of the members of his class, as a result of a consciousness of this division of society into classes. Let us now examine in what way such variation makes for ultimate survival of himself and his class.

The socialist, being class-conscious, recognises that there is a constant struggle going on between the two classes referred to. He probes into the nature of this struggle, and as a result of his study of the economic conditions and the political history of capitalism, is forced to the conclusion that it is through their control of the political machinery of the state that the master class—the owners of the means of life—are able to subject the working class to their wage-slavery position.

The long history of the struggle which has taken place between these two classes is admirably expressed in the life-long labours of Karl Marx, in whose writings is revealed the nature of the struggle and the historical mission which confronts the working class, so far as the future reorganisation of society is concerned.

Inherent in the capitalist system is an antagonism, a conflict of interests—the class struggle. Leaving aside for the moment periods of trade depression, when such conflicts of interests between the workers and the masters is glaring and needs little illustration, let us examine the conditions when so-called peace prevails. Even then the struggle still goes on; the struggle on the part of the worker to obtain as much by the sale of his labour power as he can get, and the struggle on the part of the master to buy that labour power at the lowest possible rate. Employers of labour compete for the world’s markets. To do this successfully, up-to-date machinery, the very latest equipment and industrial organisation, efficient workers, are essential for this success.

Further, the workers also compete with one another for jobs. Non-unionists, blacklegs, the introduction of women and juveniles into industry, all tend to keep the workers’ wages, in the aggregate, down to the bare cost of subsistence.

Despite all these obvious facts, we have the Rt. Hon. J. H. Thomas, the railwaymen’s leader, making the following observations in a speech on the occasion of the opening of the Congress of Chambers of Commerce of the British Empire at the Guildhall. London :—

”Cheap labour is bad, but while we demand the best, we should be in a position to give the best in return. That can only be done by sweeping away that absurd and dangerous doctrine that the Empire belongs to one class or section of the community. Nothing is more dangerous than that doctrine of class hatred” (Daily Herald, 2nd July, 1924).

If the worker will compare the above with our brief analysis of the workers’ position, he can only come to one of two conclusions, either that Mr. J. H. Thomas is a fool or a deliberate distorter of the facts of every-day working-class experience.

Utterances like these are typical of modern labour leaders. They are attempts to blind the minds of a credulous working-class following, in the hope of reward from the ruling class, when the plums of office are being distributed. By such servile conduct do labour leaders endeavour to prove their fitness to survive—at the expense of the working class.

It would be interesting, however, to know why J. H. Thomas considers the doctrine of “class hatred” so dangerous. He and his kind conveniently forget to explain their reasons. On the other hand, is it likely that a recognition by the workers of their class position tends to make them love the system which crushes all their aspirations? Of course not. The more the workers become convinced of the nature of the class struggle, so will their respect and reverence for their “betters” dwindle, and to that extent will their worship of trade union and political leaders diminish.

In conclusion, therefore, we repeat that the fundamental principle of Socialism is based on the recognition of the class struggle. The workers will prove their fitness to survive by associating themselves with the work of the Socialist Party. That work consists in resolutely organising for the dethronement of Capitalism and the establishment of Socialism. Naturally this work falls upon those who will benefit therefrom, i.e., the working class.

Help to prove the fitness of your class to survive ! “Eat or be eaten” ; that is the issue.

O. C. I.

The Great Discoveries and their economic effects. (1926)

From the February 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

When civilisation was concentrated round the Eastern end of the Mediterranean, Phoenician ships from Syria pushed further and further westward, trading; and colonising as they went, and preventing the too credulous Greeks from intruding by spreading tales of the quite mythical sea monsters they had met on the voyage. They eventually reached the Atlantic and coasted south-west round Africa, and tradition has it that their ships made call at Britain for supplies of Cornish tin. Of this we are not sure and we know still less about the Scandinavian voyager, Leif, son of Eric the Red, who it is said reached America in the year 1,000.

But in 1492 Christopher Columbus, fortified by nothing more definite than his inability to believe “that the sun shines upon nothing, and that the nightly watches of the stars are wasted on trackless seas and desert lands,” sailed westward across the Atlantic to look for a route round the world to India and the East, and hit upon the West Indian Islands. This was the era of the Great Discoveries.

Five years later, after half a century of persistent Portuguese exploration of the West African coast, Vasco de Gama succeeded in passing the Cape of Good Hope and in opening direct sea communication with India. By 1500 the Portuguese were settled in Brazil and there followed innumerable explorations from end to end of the Atlantic shores of North and South America. In 1520 Magellan had rounded the southern tip of South America and found a sea route to Eastern Asia, although the voyage of over two years cost the lives of Magellan and half his crew. We read of repeated attempts during the succeeding centuries to find sea passages to the North of America and Asia.

To understand the effects of this era of expansion, we must consider the economic condition of Europe in the preceding centuries, and its relations with the East.

Over the greater part of Europe “natural economy” as distinct from “money economy” still prevailed. That is to say, food and clothing were in the main produced for use in the immediate neighbourhood ; trade, and the use of money, were comparatively rare, and limited to luxury goods. The exceptions were the great trading and manufacturing towns which had sprung up at convenient centres for the collection and distribution of commodities, and on the most important land or sea trade routes.

The sea trade was in the hands of merchants of Genoa and Venice and other Italian towns, and of the Hanse towns in the Baltic. The Hanse traders dealt chiefly with Russia, Scandinavia, and the Baltic lands, and were interested in raw materials such as wool, which they obtained from England, corn which they supplied to many Mediterranean nations, and fish.

The Genoese had a monopoly of the South Russian trade which came overland round the Black Sea bringing silks and spices from India and China. The spices were valued highly because it was only by their liberal use that the meat of those times could be made really palatable.

The Venetians, too, dealt in spices, drugs and other Eastern products transported by caravans which entered Egypt from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. These spices were grown in the East Indian Islands and reached the termini of the caravan routes in the ships of Arab traders who held undisputed sway over the Indian Ocean.

Both Genoa and Venice brought their luxury wares to depots such as Antwerp, where exchange took place with the Hanse merchants. Overland routes ran up the Rhone to Paris; over the Alps and down the Rhine ; and from Venice via Augsburg and Nurembourg to Hamburg and other Baltic centres.

Both groups of merchants made regular calls at English Ports, and the bulk of European trade was in their hands. It was this trade which gave political importance to the cities and was the cause of their rivalries. The chief source of the merchant’s wealth and the goal of every adventurer’s ambition was the East, which up to that time had not been directly and easily accessible to Europe.

During the 15th century, owing to the advance of the Turks into Europe, the whole of this trade was endangered. In 1453 Constantinople fell to them and the Genoese routes were altogether barred; while the Turkish approach to Egypt threatened also the activities of the Venetians. It was the Turkish invasion which was the immediate cause of the desire to reach India by sea, and consequently of the great expansion during the 16th century.

The marked increase of exploration had the effect, which was of great importance afterwards, of giving rise to a new tradition of more daring and skilful seamanship in Portugal and Spain and later in Holland and England. The discoveries caused the shifting of the centres of commerce from the Mediterranean to those countries with an Atlantic coast; the drying up of the overland routes to the Baltic and the consequent decline of the Mid-European cities ; the abandoning of much of the caravan communication with Asia; and the sapping of the vitality of Venice and Genoa. Spain, Portugal and England were thus encouraged to build their own mercantile fleets.

The Portuguese established an Indian Empire and gained control of the East Indian spice islands and a monopoly of the traffic in the Indian Ocean. The amount of trade increased enormously, but the distribution of the wares in Europe was conducted and financed by the Dutch, who obtained the bulk of the profits and laid the foundations of their own later financial supremacy. It was the Portuguese monopoly of the Indian Ocean and the endorsement of their claim which they obtained from the Pope, that induced the Spaniards to finance Columbus in his attempt to reach India by sailing westwards. The discovery of America was, however, not used by Spain to develop commerce. The finding of gold and silver and the extensive mining of the latter which began in 1530 enabled Spain to prosper for a while on a different basis. She attempted to make the new world merely a source of bullion monopolised by her, and to keep this bullion inside the mother country. The result of the monopoly and exclusion of foreign traders was to incite Dutch and English freebooters to attack the bullion ships, and the bullionist policy at home was equally disastrous in the long run. There was a world rise in prices as a result of the inflow of gold and silver, but instead of allowing the food and other industries to profit and grow by satisfying the big demand from the new colonies, the sheep-owning families who were the ruling class deliberately hampered them.

Then, owing to an anti-foreign agitation, due to a mistaken notion that the presence of foreigners in the country had caused the rise in prices, the Government expelled those who had been their best artisans and merchants and without whom industry declined. Spain then became largely dependent on supplies of fish, corn, and manufactured goods from Holland and England, this again stimulating the economic development of the latter.

The rise in prices had a generally quickening effect on trade outside of Spain, and not only did this affect the trading nations and their industries, but it materially speeded up the introduction of money in place of “natural economy.” This was the immediate cause of the peasant war in Germany in 1525, owing to bitter disputes about the money value of labour services. The war set Germany back economically, and the other advanced nations benefited by the removal of a rival. The working out and decline of her mining industries also affected Germany adversely. Accumulation of capital, which was rendered easier by the abundance of gold and silver, led to the opening of new commercial and industrial enterprises in the East and the New World as well as in Europe.

This growth of capital, the consequent greater power of the merchants, and the new contact with the non-Christian East were also the causes of a revival of slavery and had a depressing effect on the condition of the peasants and wage earners in Europe itself.

England rapidly changed from a wool exporting to a wool manufacturing nation and before the end of the 16th century her commerce was largely carried on in English ships; both the Venetian and Hanse fleets having ceased to call.

The high prices which ruled universally, and the particularly high price of wool due to the demand from Flanders and from home manufacturers were the chief causes of the great decrease of arable and increase of pasture farming in England, a process assisted by the suppression of the Monasteries and the dispersal of their lands in 1536. This agricultural revolution which was in progress up to 1600 had the effect of driving many thousands of tenants and labourers off the land into the towns, where for a long time there was no demand for their services. In the meantime vagrancy grew to be a serious problem and the Poor Law became a permanent national institution.

Great trading companies to East and West were formed and out of the strife of the early buccaneers an English merchant fleet was built which eventually surpassed that of the Dutch, and was to be the foundation of England’s future commercial and naval power.

The development of shipping and the demand for timber from Russia opened up communications with that country and materially hastened its internal political and economic growth.

New East coast towns like Boston and Hull grew up for the Baltic trade, while Bristol flourished on the trade across the Atlantic. England now became the centre of the Christian world, owing to her admirable position as a depot. There was a corresponding decline in the commercial monopoly previously exercised by Jews in the Eastern Mediterranean.

With the rise of her commerce and banking, Holland also carefully developed her agriculture, and her success in the use of root crops and grasses which for the first time made it possible to keep stock alive during the winter, was of great importance to England and other countries which later learned from her example.

For Europe as a whole the results were important and lasting. The need for big accumulations of capital to join in the new commercial enterprises, which were of an unprecedented size and expense, and the need for adequate protection against attack in distant waters, gave an urge towards national instead of city organisation. This was the economic basis of the new nations and Empires, Portugal, Spain, Holland and England.

The great increase in sea voyages, the new experiences and the new knowledge of navigation obtained from the Arabs gave an added importance to overseas trade and, as has been seen, destroyed the old Mediterranean and overland trade routes.

In its turn commercial activity created bigger markets and a steadier demand for raw materials and industrial products, which reacted immediately on the hitherto small and unprogressive industries. Local isolation tended to be broken down as bigger areas were drawn into the sphere of commerce either as sources of supply or as consumers of Colonial and Eastern goods. The use of money became everywhere more general with its disintegrating effect on the old Manorial relationships, and banking began to be of new importance as a support of industry.

In short, the discoveries began the era of industrial and commercial activity which continued without essential change till the Industrial Revolution.

Edgar Hardcastle

Editorial: Socialism and the Humanitarians. (1926)

Editorial from the February 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ever since the recent International Blood Carnival, the word “Humanity” has seemed to have acquired a slight sarcastic flavour. It has certainly been demonstrated that the so-called beasts have much to learn from humanity in the way of beastliness. And the curious part of the whole business was, that those whose particular role was supposed to have been the preaching of Humanity, Love, Brotherhood and the rest of it, were the first to drop it when the butchery started. Doubtless you will be wondering why we are dragging this old tale out again. Everybody knows that when the call came to take up the bayonet, very few of its students experienced any difficulty in dropping the Bible. We only refer to it again as a sort of a prologue to another study of human psychology.

Just before the great Christian festival at Christmas, the Animal Defence Society thought to improve the shining hour by inserting a seasonable advertisement in the newspapers. “Christmas is approaching,” they said, “and the Spirit of Mercy is knocking at the heart of Everyman.” And so the Animal Defence Society suggest that in answer to the knock, why not send them a nice donation towards building a beautiful new slaughterhouse. A lurid, and possibly true, picture is drawn of reeking carcases, pools of blood, pole-axes and knives, pain-poisoned meat and other horrible details, calculated to draw the money from the pockets of revolted readers. To aid in this lofty work one is informed that donors of £1,000 will have their names inscribed upon a tablet as Founders; those of £500 as Builders; those of £250 as Masons; of £100 as Carpenters, and of £50 as Bricklayers. This, you will admit, is interesting. What a reflection for the proud Mason that he is considered worth five common Bricklayers or two and a half lordly Carpenters. It should provide some interesting dinner-hour discussions for the men who erect the building. It is rather a pity that few of them will have the forethought to provide themselves with a copy of the list of potential Masons, Carpenters, and Bricklayers, the advertisement mentioned. In these days of sex-equality it is cheerful to note that over two-thirds of them are women. But we digress. What is their precise grievance?

They object to the use of the pole-axe in killing large animals. They object to the use of the knife without preliminary stunning in killing pigs, calves and sheep. They object to the way animals are roped and dragged and driven to the point of slaughter. They object to animals being slaughtered in sight of each other and their standing awaiting their doom on floors covered with blood and amid the carcases of those slain. In short, they object to all avoidable cruelty in the killing of the animals upon which mankind feeds. The Foundation Stone of this model slaughter-house was laid on Dec. 14th, when a prayer of dedication (whatever that may be) was offered that the building might serve as an example of pity and kindly treatment of animals.

Now what is wrong with all this? Surely we also are in sympathy with any movement to lessen the amount of suffering in the world ! Surely we are not going to crab any attempt, however feeble, at abolishing avoidable cruelty ! Perish the thought. Then where does our grumble come in ? Just here. We do believe in first things first. We do insist upon a sense of proportion. We also have our objections. They relate primarily to human beings. Consider recent history. We objected to human beings being torn to pieces by shrapnel and splintered steel. We objected to our boys being taught the proper way to insert a bayonet into the intestines of a fellow human being, and to so twist it as to make the most ghastly wound. We objected to fathers, brothers and sons being blinded, gassed, poisoned, blown to fragments, driven insane, butchered, or tortured by every horrible device that perverted ingenuity could evolve. We objected to women and children being starved, exploited, maddened and massacred in the sacred name of Patriotism. We were the Human Defence Society. Where were the members of the Animal Defence Society then? Were they weeping over pole-axed cows and distressed sheep, or were they taking part in the great work of disembowelling their fellow-creatures. We fear the latter. It needs little more than the list of Lords, Dukes, Earls and Admirals who figure in the list of contributors to convince us of that.

And what did we do? For the ten years of our existence before the War we denounced the conditions that made the catastrophe inevitable. During the progress of the Horror itself, we protested against it as a crime against humanity; that is we protested so far as the friends of the Animal Defence Society would ignore our efforts, as not being weighty enough to hinder their great Blood-feast. And now that that War is over, we are engaged in the work of pointing out the inevitability of another, and yet another war so long as capitalism lasts. We are not oblivious of the claims of animals to consideration, but we think the claims of mankind are greater. What of the horrors of mines, slums and factories; the degradation that follows unemployment; the disease inherent in foul conditions, malnutrition and neglect? We think these are primary things. We say further, that the horrors of both peace and war have their origin in the capitalist basis of society. Time and again we have proved it. We get remarkably few bouquets thrown to us, neither do we expect them. But when we see people who are making a handsome living out of the cruelties of capitalism, distributing thousand pound cheques to ease the lot of pigs and sheep—well, we are mildly surprised, that’s all. They have a heart, we suppose, but the cry of suffering humanity has less effect, apparently, than the bleat of a sheep.

To be quite candid, we have little hope of their hearts at all. Should that sensitive organ ever be perturbed by the patent evils in the fabric of society, we may be sure there are learned economists among them who will provide a comfortable explanation. We have more hope of the working class itself. It is to them we address our message. We ask them to consider whether the present system of society gives them anything approaching what they expect of life. We suggest to them that the existing huge engines of wealth production are capable of providing ease and plenty for all, and that the reason they do not do so is because they are the private property of a few instead of the common possession of all. We therefore recommend them to seriously study our literature, gain a knowledge of how the present state of things has come about, and how it may be altered. Cruelty to animals will go the way of all forms of cruelty, when a real civilised existence becomes a possibility to everyone. So let us have first things first. If anyone has a thousand pound cheque they would like to devote to the abolition of cruelty to human beings, our address is on the back page.

Compulsory arbitration. (1926)

From the February 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

There has been some talk recently about compulsory arbitration in the settlement of industrial disputes. Let us examine what is behind the idea.

It should be remembered that the general practice employed in the past has been the so-called “fight to a finish” method: we refer to the “strike” or “lock-out,” the armed forces being kept in readiness, as a government would say, “to maintain law and order” : this, so far as the national life is concerned.

In the international arena of world politics, it is to be noticed that the governments of most of the large States are beginning to realise that there lurk grave dangers in the use of force in the settlement of threir differences. Consequently the League of Nations made its modest bow to a war-weary world a few years ago. Behind the League of Nations is said to be the principle of “compulsory arbitration.” It is the first feeble flicker in the minds of the more astute capitalists of the need for an alternative to “blood and iron.”

Hot on the heels of the League of Nations comes the “Arbitrate First League,” the formation of which was recently reported by the “Daily Herald.”

Naturally enough J. Ramsay MacDonald, political tourist and odd-job man for the capitalist class, gives it his blessing. He hails it as the greatest discovery of the age —next to himself—and the “Red Letter.”

This development in the international relationships of the ruling class has its reflection in the domestic life of the nation. We refer to the recent coal-mining dispute in this country. It will be remembered that a stoppage was averted at the eleventh hour by the intervention of the Government by the granting of a subsidy.

While, therefore, the degree of economic development of the foremost nations of the world permitted, up to within recent years, “a fight to a finish” as between employers and employed (the former generally being the victors and necessarily so by virtue of the political power enjoyed, and ironically enough, bestowed upon them by the workers), the growing interdependence of what are known as “key industries,” raises objection to such methods to-day. Another important factor has also to be considered, i.e., competition for the world’s markets. This is now so keen (owing to the entry of the colonial dependencies, Canada, Australasia, India and again Japan, the most formidable rival in the East, to the age-long supremacy of the Western world) that time lost through “strikes” and “lock-outs” means loss or cancellation of orders and contracts.

Compulsory arbitration in consequence, therefore, may well become the new guiding star—for the ruling class—for the future safeguarding of their economic aspirations.

The sufferings endured in the past by the hungry strikers, the murder of their defenceless dependents, the horrors of infantile mortality, the wholesale butchery of countless millions, occasioned in the last great war, pale into insignificance compared with the one all-absorbing passion of the capitalists, i.e., to maintain their political supremacy and their position of affluence and idleness which this implies. For this all-important reason the workers are being called upon to forget the past, i.e., Germany’s “war guilt.” Therefore, Germany comes into the sacred circle of the League of Nations. The “horrible hun” we were called upon to hate and revile is now to be looked upon as a repentant sinner. The oscillations of world trade, influenced largely by the war, demand new undertakings and agreements between the capitalist highwaymen; or, to use the terminology of the professors, “maintain balance of power.” The League of Nations represents the machinery which they hope will achieve this desirable end.

THE WORKERS’ VIEW-POINT.

Although the majority of the States of the Western world depend upon a very wide and universal suffrage, nevertheless the freedom of any organised section of the workers to sell their services exists only in name. The workers may look forward with cold comfort, therefore, when they are informed by an all-wise and beneficent Arbitration Court, that as from such and such a date they will be permitted to suffer a reduction in their standard of living under the plea, perhaps, that the Empire’s future welfare demands such a sacrifice.

It must be emphasised here that the workers get what they vote for, that is all. The simple economics of the wages system clearly reveal that the workers can only hope, at the best, to receive in wages what it costs to maintain them in a condition to continue working and replace their type. Carrots and labour power are commodities ; the price at which they are sold is determined by the same economic law, i.e., the cost of production, which, of course, fluctuates with the operation of supply and demand.

CAPITALISTS ON THE DEFENSIVE.

Compulsory arbitration, then, if and when it becomes the rule for regulating national and international differences, will simply stand revealed as the great gun of the ruling class.

“But why do we give the arbitrators political power?” asks one, a little less dull-witted than the rest.

The answer is, that the working class fail, as yet, to recognise that their interests, as a class, are diametrically opposed to those who govern or arbitrate for them. That in a class-divided society, Arbitration Courts will be influenced, ultimately, by the economic necessities of the ruling class.

The Socialist seeks to abolish class-divided society. To achieve this, the revolutionary object of the workers must be Socialism.

O. C. I.

Letter: Taxation and the workers. (1926)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

Reply to a correspondent.

An article under the above heading in our issue of June last has called forth a letter from Mr. A. Mortmain, of Sydney, N.S.W.

The gist of the article was that taxation, is a part of the machinery of government, exists only to provide means for maintaining the privileges of the property-owning class; that the workers’ wages leave them no margin out of which to pay taxes and that consequently it is a matter of indifference to their interest how or what taxes are levied. As Socialists, we are concerned with Socialism and not with any scheme of taxation. Hence we oppose all other parties which endeavour to maintain in the workers’ minds the illusion that taxes are a political issue for them.

Mr. Mortmain’s contention is that while this is correct in the main “insufficient taxation . . . does prejudice labour” and concludes that “taxation alone is sufficient to socialise Great Britain.”

Our correspondent appears to consider that the “rentier class” forms the chief burden upon the backs of the workers and suggests that we should concentrate upon “the abolition of the socialised debt, the pooling of rent,” and State loans “at a low rate of interest.” It is evident from these suggestions that he does not look upon the matter from the standpoint of the wage-slave but of the small proprietor and his “Socialism” is not a system based upon common ownership and democratic control of the means of life but a petty bourgeois Utopia in which, as he puts it, “the individuals are each in pawn to society as a whole.”

In any well-developed capitalist country interest is only one of the means by which certain capitalists appropriate part of the surplus produced by the labour of the workers. Mr. Mortmain ignores the exploitation which proceeds in the factory and makes no effort to show how the workers therein would benefit from his proposals, even if they were sufficiently practicable to get adopted by any political party with a chance of success. On this last point he appears doubtful himself for he says, “the Labour party are not likely to suggest this except vaguely in the form of a capital levy.” May we point out that where, as in France, the “rentier class” is possessed of relatively great power and the small proprietors exist in considerable numbers, it is the latter rather than the former who will be hit by a capital levy.

When the working-class have become conscious of their position as disinherited slaves and have determined to end capitalism and substitute Socialism—when they have organised as a class and become politically supreme, they are hardly likely to waste their time in piecemeal measures of the nature suggested by our correspondent. Instead of indulging in financial tricks in order to enable their wages to “buy back the whole of the wealth” they produce, they will organise a system of production and distribution in which wages and interest, along with the whole financial camouflage, will find no place. They will cease to produce commodities and will commence to produce use-values only. Money therefore will cease to have any function to perform and the problems connected with money will cease to trouble them.

Eric Boden

Publications Funds Acknowledgments. (1926)

Party News from the February 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

Signs of the Times. (1926)

From the February 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

While the Capitalists control political power the Workers will receive the quantity and quality of education that it suits their Masters for their own purposes to give them. To them the Workers’ Children are no more than potential wealth-producing units and in educating them their sole consideration is “Does it Pay?” Sir Austen Chamberlain truly speaks his Masters’ voice when he says we must have more “if our commerce and our education are to hold their own against a host of active rivals” (“Daily Chronicle,” 19-12-25). and that in brief is the reason for our “education.”

Modern methods of wealth production have made a higher education necessary in all directions, and as is usual among the lower grades of workers, a supply much in excess of any demand now affects the once better educated and privileged workers in their efforts to obtain a livelihood. The parent of a University graduate writes complaining to the “Times Educational Supplement” (12-11-25) as follows:

“Boys and girls who are kept at secondary schools until they are 16 or 18 years of age find on leaving that there is no vacant job of the nature for which they have been trained and either they are compelled to undertake work which they could have done equally well—possibly better—without secondary and University education or join the army of the unemployed.”

So much for the security in life of the educated. Neither does that other very respectable section of the Working Class known as the Professional, escape the vicissitudes of a Worker’s life to-day. Writing of Architects in the “Journal of Careers” (Dec.) this magazine says : “At least as many men are entering the profession as the profession can at the present time absorb,” and of women who qualify it states further that “they are not meeting a dearth or supplying a long felt want.” Further comment says : “There are more pharmacists seeking situations than there are situations available; more students are entering pharmacy each year than ever before and it is not easy to visualise how these students will be absorbed.” It is the same story in other professions, Actors, Doctors, Journalists, etc., all struggling to live. Despite the snobbery and conceit of such people the development of Capitalism will disillusion them and compel them to realise their common servitude with the rest of the Working Class.

The Capitalists have not educated the Workers’ children from philanthropic motives, but such education will enable them to interest themselves in our propaganda in growing numbers as they reach the Working age. To extend the intelligence displayed and exercised in the production of wealth to that which will see the need for social change, requires the patient and persistent application of Socialist teachings. The growing difficulty of our Masters and their agents to prove the Capitalist system a beneficent one for the Workers enables us to be assured with no false optimism that time and truth are on our side.

W. E. MacHaffie

Marx on Free Trade. (1926)

From the February 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Continued from previous issues)

Mr. Bowring’s speech is the more remarkable because the facts quoted by him are correct, and the phrases with which he seeks to palliate them are characterized by the hypocrisy common to all Free Trade discourses. He represents the workers as means of production which must be.superseded by less expensive means of production, pretends to see in the labour of which he speaks a wholly exceptional kind of labour, and in the machine which has crushed out the weavers an equally exceptional kind of machine. He forgets that there is no kind of manual labour which may not any day share the fate of the hand-loom weavers.

“The constant aim and tendency of every improvement of mechanism is indeed to do entirely without the labour of men, or to reduce its price, by superseding the labour of the adult males by that of women and children, or the work of the skilled by that of the unskilled workman. In most of the throstle mills, spinning is now entirely done by girls of sixteen years and less. The introduction of the self-acting mule has caused the discharge of most of the (adult male) spinners, while the children and young persons have been kept on.”

The above words of the most enthusiastic of Free Traders, Dr. Ure, are calculated to complete the confessions of Dr. Bowring. Mr. Bowring speaks of certain individual evils, and, at the same time, says that these individual evils destroy whole classes; he speaks of the temporary sufferings during a transition period, and does not deny that these temporary evils have implied for the majority the transition from life to death, and for the rest a transition from a better to a worse condition. When he asserts, farther on, that the sufferings of the working class are inseparable from the progress of industry, and are necessary to the prosperity of the nation, he simply says that the prosperity of the bourgeois class presupposes as necessary the suffering of the labouring class.

All the comfort which Mr. Bowring offers the workers who perish, and, indeed, the whole doctrine of compensation which the Free Traders propound, amounts to this—

You thousands of workers who are perishing, do not despair ! You can die with an easy conscience. Your class will not perish. It will always be numerous enough for the capitalist class to decimate it without fear of annihilating it. Besides, how could capital be usefully applied if it did not take care to keep up its exploitable material, i.e., the workingmen, to be exploited over and over again?

But, then, why propound as a problem still to be solved the question: What influence will the adoption of the Free Trade have on the condition of the working class? All the laws formulated by the political economists from Quesnay to Ricardo, have been based upon the hypothesis that the trammels which still interfere with commercial freedom have disappeared. These laws are confirmed in proportion as Free Trade is adopted. The first of these laws is that competition reduces the price of every commodity to the minimum cost of production. Thus the minimum of wages is the natural price of labour. And what is the minimum of wages? Just so much as is required for production of the articles absolutely necessary for the maintenance of the worker, for the continuation, by hook or by crook, of his own existence and that of his class.

But do not imagine that the worker receives only this minimum wage, and still less that he always receives it. No, according to this law, the working class will sometimes be more fortunate, will sometimes receive something above the minimum, but this surplus will merely make up for the deficit which they will have received below the minimum in times of industrial depression. That is to say that within a given time which recurs periodically, in other words, in the cycle which commerce and industry describe while passing through the successive phases of prosperity, overproduction, stagnation, and crisis, when reckoning all that the working class has had above and below mere necessaries, we shall see that, after all, they have received neither more nor less than the minimum; i.e., the working class will have maintained itself as a class after enduring any amount of misery and misfortune, and after leaving many corpses upon the industrial battle-field.

(To be continued)

Trade Unions—Sick Benefit Clubs. (1926)

From the February 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

Clyne's Confession.

Mr. J. R. Clynes, speaking at Southport on Saturday in support of the benevolent fund established by the local branch of the National Union of General Municipal Workers, said he thought the trade union was the proper organisation through which the spirit of benevolence that was in most of them should work. Many people were under the impression that trade unions existed only for making mischief, that they were always trying to stir up discontent. There could be no greater delusion than that. If trade unions did not exist we would have a condition of mob law. 

His answer to those who grumbled about the work of trade unions was that 6d. out of every 10d. subscribed to trade unions went back again to those who paid it in the form of benevolent benefits of innumerable kinds. Most of the money contributed to trade unions, amounting to £5,000,000 a year, was not spent on strikes or even in support of men in lockouts. It was not spent in fighting employers, but in sick benefit, in out-of-work pay, in supplementing the money workmen received as compensation during periods of injury. It was a pity the press did not give more attention to that side of trade union activity. If they did anything wrong it at once got into the papers; it had its news value. But they could live an absolutely perfect faultless life and would never be mentioned.

—(“Manchester Guardian,” November 2, 1925.)

What "Labour" is Doing (1926)

From the February 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Advanced” people urge the workers to support the different Labour Parties on the plea that they represent the progressive element in society, and are hastening us onward to the much-desired solution of all our troubles. Times out of number we have shown that the Labour Parties act in reality as obstacles, hindering the enlightenment of the worker and do little more than aid the capitalists in their more delicate schemes.

Among the minor problems that occupy a principal place in Labour programmes is that of small nationalities.

When nothing can be done, prominent Labour leaders wax eloquent over the depressed position of subject nations, but when their opportunity comes, they do exactly the same as the governments they condemn. We witnessed this in the handling of Egypt and India by the English Labour Party during their brief period of office.

The “New Leader" (15.1.26.) sheds further light on this subject in a reference it makes to the treatment of Indians on the eastern coast of South Africa, as the following quotation will show : —

“Race antagonism, here as elsewhere. Is pressed into the service of economic jealousy. There is a voluntary repatriation scheme for Indians now in force, but it is found that those who take advantage of it are labourers, whom the planters are sorry to lose since they are more docile and efficient than Zulus. Indian traders, on the other hand, do not willingly seek repatriation, and they compete all too successfully with the Whites. It is the acknowledged intention of the Union Government that these new harrying measures should drive them out of the land, and for this South African Labour—to its shame—is jointly responsible. Yet Indian immigration to South Africa was stopped on the understanding that Indians already domiciled there should be justly treated.” (Italics ours.)

And these are the kind of people we are expected to support and assist into the seat of power at election time !

Gilmac.

Henry Dubb—and his brother (1926)

From the February 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

Readers of the “Labour” Press are familiar with that vacant-faced individual who is supposed to typify the Tory variety of working-class ignorance. Henry's weaknesses—his fondness for a drop of beer and a bob on a horse and a certain disinclination to think for himself have all been dwelt upon ad nauseam.

The weaknesses of his brother, Jimmy, are less often dealt with. Henry is, in the main, of a cheerful disposition; in fact his "good natured” tolerance lies at the root of much of his readiness to accept things as they are. Jimmy, on the other hand, is a taciturn, unsociable cuss whose chief object in life appears to be the airing of his "superiority" to Henry and his pals and the meddling with their habits. He is possessed with an all-absorbing itch to put them “right" in matters of faith and morals. Politically he is by tradition a Liberal, though of recent years he has taken to calling himself a “Labour” man, and even professes a leaning towards Socialism. So far, however, his leaning has done nothing to support its case and a good deal to lessen Henry's disposition to consider it as a remedy for the evils of which he is dimly conscious.

Henry, in spite of his obvious slowness, is not altogether dense. He has, for instance, a somewhat cynical disbelief in Jimmy’s “idealism,” so glibly vaunted.

He distrusts his own class on the ground that a boss who has risen from the bottom makes a harder taskmaster than one who is born in that position. Hence he views with disfavour all the "ranters” and “wind-bags’’ whom he shrewdly suspects of an ambition to exploit his support.

Jimmy, on the other hand, betrays an almost imbecile tendency to place absolute confidence in each and every would-be political climber, every man or woman with the gift of the gab and a professed desire to "help” the workers. He is a fanatical believer in the "intelligent minority,” and has little use for the "drink-sodden” democracy except as voting cattle for his favourites.

Another point, rather in Henry’s favour than against him, is his lack of enthusiasm for Jimmy’s pet obsession—increased State control. Whether it relates to the "pubs” or the mines, railways, etc.. Henry can see nothing in this proposal but a greater extension of official dominance, of the petty vexations, tyranny, inextricably associated with the modern bureaucracy. Needless to say, Jimmy’s feeble plea that the State is the people, leaves him cold. He knows otherwise, from everyday experience. This, again, strengthens his conservatism. The fact that all “progressive” proposals appear to involve State action induces in him a stubborn distrust of all progress.

The Socialist, taking a scientific view of social change, can regard the wordy struggles between Henry and his brother with some amusement, tinged at times with impatience at the blindness of both sides; but he further sees the relentless economic development which cuts the ground from under the feet of both. Increased State control. for instance, of industrial and social affairs, is the outcome, not of some Utopian theory, but of the increase in the size and social character of the productive forces, and the intensified antagonism which that increase begets in social relations. State regulation is the only means possessed by capitalism to preserve itself, the only means by which it can control the internal conflicts within the capitalist class on the one hand, and the greater conflict with the workers on the other. In other words, Nationalisation, etc., will proceed in accordance with capitalist requirements irrespective alike of the opposition of Henry and the support of Jimmy.

The extent of this development may be debatable, but one thing is certain. To whatever extent it proceeds it will not solve the social problem; it will not rid society of the struggle between the workers and their exploiters. Wherever State ownership exists there exists also the necessity for Trade Union effort to maintain wages and conditions at subsistence level. The State represents, everywhere, the interests of the exploiting class against the workers. Neither Henry nor Jimmy realise this. Each of them in turn put in power one section or another of the numerous political flunkeys of that class. They do not see behind the labels of these sections or parties Liberal, Labour or Tory, all alike, recognise and uphold the legal right of the owning class to their property, no matter with what fine phrases they may disguise their intentions.

All alike accept the exploitation of the workers and are prepared to use the forces of the State to maintain the system based thereon. This is their main function; their pet schemes are merely incidental efforts to further especially the interests of the particular section of the capitalist class on whose support they rely.

What, then, is there to choose between the Dubbs, Henry and Jimmy? Each allows himself to be duped in the interest of some section or other of the master class. Neither gains anything as a result of his political activities. As workers, they have as little to hope for in "reforming” capitalism as in "conserving” it. Its existence in any shape or form means misery and subjection for the workers. For the one, therefore, to deride the other, is merely an example of the pot calling the kettle black. The Socialist Party invites both of them to drop their mutual distrust and abuse and to study Socialism, confident that understanding will breed conviction.

Eric Boden