Disunited Nations (1957)

From the February 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain has always maintained that the United Nations Organisation, and before it, the League of Nations, could never provide a solution to the problem of war.

We have gone further than this. We have claimed that most politicians, British and foreign, have always been well aware of the fact. But politicians, if they are to keep their jobs, must profess to have an answer. After each world war the working class has looked to its “leaders” for a scheme to prevent the next one. No politician in these circumstances could hope to win votes without some solution to offer.

How many politicians have supported U.N.O. in the knowledge that it could not be effective can only be surmised. That it constitutes a majority we assume from the fact that they are generally no less intelligent than the rest of us.

U.N.O. Moonshine

But here is one who, in an unguarded moment, comes right out into the open. Here is what Ted Leather, M.P., thinks of the United Nations:—

"Sir,—Mr. Gaitskell’s statement that whatever the United Nations may say we should meekly reply “ we obey ” is perhaps the key to much of our differences in the last few weeks. Mr. Awbery, Labour member for Central Bristol, recently referred to the United Nations as a “court” which had passed “judgment” on us. In an ideal world they might both be right. In this one it is the view of many of my friends and I that they are talking moonshine.

For good or ill, it is just not true that the United Nations is a supreme court, or that it hands down objective judgments that have any moral force at all. The Assembly in New York, important though it is, is a body of politicians. They make political speeches, and the great majority of them vote according to their own political interests. A large number of them represent dictatorships. Many are openly hostile to Britain. If there were an international Government based on sound principles, or an international supreme court empowered to enforce law, many of us might support it. To surrender the ultimate sanction of the interests of the lives and interests of the British people to a body constituted as the United Nations now is, seems to me not only unrealistic but downright suicidal.

Yours, etc.,

Ted Leather,

House of Commons.”  

(Letter to the Times, December 10th, 1956.)

We may well wonder how long Mr. Leather has been of this opinion, whether he proclaimed these views when he sought votes at the last election.

He suggests that there are “many of us” who do not support the United Nations. That is what we thought. But we do not remember “many of them” saying so at the election.

We do not think there are many members of the British electorate who now have any faith in the effectiveness of U.N.O. We believe that most of them are aware, if only vaguely, that international conflict is an inevitable outcome of international Capitalism. The trouble is that they see no alternative.

It is that alternative which is offered in Socialism. We urge all workers to study the case for Socialism. With that understanding they will never again surrender their votes for spurious solutions to the problems of Capitalism —whether it be war, or poverty or unemployment or any other of its manifestations.

Read our two pamphlets, on Socialism and on War. Think for yourself and put not your trust in “leaders.”

John Moore

Editorial: The Myth of Planning (1957)

Editorial from the February 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the world has taken the great forward step of establishing Socialism production will, of course, be planned so that there will at all times be enough basic materials, finished products, and transport and other services, etc., to meet the requirements of the population. The chief aim will be to have enough to satisfy all needs after making allowance for growing population and for all possible wastage and destruction through storm, fire, and other eventualities. But it will not matter greatly if too much is produced because nobody will be dependent on paid employment for his living and therefore nobody will lose anything by finding that the articles he works to produce have been produced in too great abundance. Men and women will be be rather complacent about producing too much and only worried if they should err by producing too little.

Too Much or Too Little

Notice how this differs from the kind of planning that goes on in the world of manufacture today. Now the business man would be quite unruffled if he had planned the output of his factory so that it turned out to be rather less than demand, but he would be very worried indeed if his output was too large for the market for that would mean falling prices and smaller profits.

Planning versus Forecasting

We are, however, dealing with two different operations, for the kind of planning of production that will be possible under Socialism is quite unlike the market forecasting that goes on now. The one is concerned with determining how much you need and then getting things organised so that you will have that amount produced in good time. But present day forecasting of demand starts at the other end and is really much nearer to guesswork.

It requires that the manufacturer shall form an opinion about what kind of product will be a saleable one, two, five or ten years ahead and how much of it will in fact be sold and at what price. Of course the length of time varies according to the nature of the product. Christmas Cards are designed and planned something more than a year ahead and women’s dresses and hats something less than a year. Planning and sinking coal mines may take several years, as also does the planning and construction of an oil refinery. In all these instances market conditions at the end of the period may be quite different from those the planner thought they would be. He may find his anticipated sales of summer dresses and hats ruined by an English “summer,” or that the market for coal or oil has suddenly grown or suddenly shrunk.

Forecasting for 1960-1970

Information was given in a Financial Times supplement on the Motor Industry, about the problems of forecasting future sales of motor cars (15 October, 1956, p. 7). The head of the Sales Analysis Department of the Ford Motor Company, Mr. K. D. Bull, explained that companies in the motor industry undertake two types of forecasting:

“The first covers the short-term period up to and including the next 12 months and is used for production planning. The second covers a longer period and is used for much wider purposes. This latter type of study is undertaken not as an interesting academic exercise, but as a necessary concomitant of future planning; The time taken for the installation of new facilities, and in the processing of new models from conception to production, means that the investment involved can only be justified in terms of the sales to be expected over the period of their employment, which may be some years ahead.”

Mr. Bull went on to explain that this second type of forecasting deals with the period which “does not start for two or three years hence and covers generally the ensuing ten years. In using this forecast we pay little attention to the results for individual years, accepting only that these give a reasonably accurate measure of the market in the average.’’

This period of three to ten years means that in 1957 they would be trying to figure out what average conditions will be between 1960 to 1970 and it is not at all surprising therefore that they do not attempt to forecast what is likely to be the state of the market in individual years within the 10 year period.

Mr. Bull says too that past efforts to forecast the long term demand for motor cars have all underestimated the size of the demand that actually came.

Where Labour Party Planners Go Wrong

The Labour Party (and the Communists), are believers in what they call planning, but the trouble with it is that it is out of its time. They are trying to apply planning of production to Capitalism, but what Capitalism requires is not the planning of production but the forecasting of demand in the market—a very different thing. So far as this near-guesswork about sales is possible at all, the manufacturers can do it as well (or as ill) as anyone else; certainly better than a Labour Party Committee, or a Labour Cabinet. The real planning of production is not. required under Capitalism and will only be possible under Socialism.

Letter: Our attitude on Hungary (1957)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our attitude on Hungary

Salford, 7,


December 18, 1956.

Dear Comrades,

I think the Party’s attitude on this subject needs further elucidation. In this month’s S.S. it is considered that the revolt is not worth the shedding of a drop of working-class blood.

This seems to conflict with previous statements that the Hungarian workers were trying to improve their miserable condition. In my view it also differs from the position on the first Russian revolution recently quoted in “50 years ago.” There it was stated that the workers and Capitalists have a short way to travel together. But not in Hungary!

In any case it needs to be made clear what the workers are supposed to do under a Communist dictatorship. It won’t be smashed without the shedding of working class blood; and there won’t be any Socialism or even propaganda for Socialism till it is smashed.

It has often been said that the Capitalists will never let themselves be ousted but if defeated on the Parliamentary field would form a dictatorship. I should have thought the original success of the Hungarians against their own national dictatorship (before overwhelming Russian intervention) was a good case for the Party in that respect. I think it also might have been mentioned that the working class, even those who had been schooled only on “Communism,” showed that objective conditions still prevailed over ’phoney propaganda.

In general I did feel the S.S. was less than generous to the heroic effort which wrested power, “with bare hands” from a police state.

Yours truly,

L. E. Weidberg.

Having said the above, may I add that the general excellence of the articles in the S.S. over the years is not unappreciated by one who has left the work to others.

Reply

The article in the December S.S. to which the critic refers made it clear that, whilst expressing sympathy with the victims of the “Communist” savagery, the Hungarian revolt was fundamentally a movement in favour of Hungarian Capitalist rule, and therefore was not worth the shedding of a drop of working class blood. One reason for this is that the removal of Russian Capitalist oppression is no guarantee that Hungarian Capitalist rule would be any better in the long run.

We have learnt from experience during the last 50 years. We were urged to support the Russian armed rising against the Czarist Police State 40 years ago. The result of that rising has been the establishment of one of the most savage and oppressive police states in the history of the world. We were urged to support the German rising about the same time and the result was another form of police state equally savage. Austria and China have had similar experiences.

However much we may desire to see freedom of expression where it is denied, armed uprising is not the way to accomplish it. Once guns enter into the dispute then guns continue to be be arbiters in internal clashes of ideas afterwards, until either economic development or organised working class action compels the powers that rule to make concessions. That has been the lesson repeatedly driven home, but not wholly appreciated, during toe last 100 years of working class activity. However much we may desire to make progress there is no quicker way than this organised working class action to clear the road to working class emancipation.

Thus, although we appreciate the courage of those who were prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice rather than continue to suffer Russian domination, it is our duty as Socialists to tell the bitter truth. Firstly, that it was not a rising aimed at bringing toe workers freedom; secondly, that armed uprisings may bring a change of rulers but will not bring freedom from class rule; thirdly, that the success of toe uprising would not necessarily have put an end to the police state.

It is not true that there cannot be any Socialist propaganda until a “Communist” dictatorship is smashed. The critic himself suggests that there can be Socialist propaganda when he writes that “the working class, even those who had been schooled on 'Communism' showed that objective conditions still prevailed over phoney propaganda” The revolt was not a bolt out of toe blue. It had been discussed and organised. There is, and has been. Socialist propaganda in all “Communist” and other police states.

It is worth while bearing in mind that, according to the information so far available the peaceful agitation of the Hungarian workers by stopping work has accomplished more, at far less cost in human life, than the armed uprising did. Thus, it certainly appears that the sounder attitude for the Hungarian workers would have been to stick to that method from the beginning in order to accomplish the limited objectives they were after. Sooner than see the whole social fabric collapse into confusion the rulers would have conceded some at least of their demands. However, once an armed revolt was embarked upon bloody conflict was inevitable, with savage reprisals and the use of Russian armed might; and now the atmosphere is still there for further savage reprisals.

Another advantage strike action alone would have achieved would be this. Attacks on peaceful strikers by the police, the militia, and the army, would have made the savagery of the Russian overlords more obvious to the world of Labour. The Russian rulers would not then be able to pat forward the pretence that they were quelling an armed rising against the government.

We are surprised at the last paragraph of the critic’s letter. Over and over again we have expressed our admiration for the courage and devotion of those who took part in the rising; we have, however, been truthful in regretting that it was not done in a better cause, the freedom from all oppression. To be generous without being truthful is to invite cheap praise. We have done our best to be helpful to the working class cause by pointing out realities in order to minimise, as far as possible, useless heroism in the future. We are also mindful of the bitter fact that the victims of today are so often the oppressors of tomorrow.

The revolt did not, as our critic puts it “wrest power, ‘with bare hands,’ from a police state.” The repressive action from outside was a foregone conclusion, and the power remains where it was. Furthermore, the action was not taken “with bare hands.” A portion of the Hungarian army took part in it and arms were in the the hands of the revolters.

Finally, let us consider the reference to the extract from the Socialist Standard of “Fifty Years Ago” that appeared in the November number. It concerns the attitude of the Socialist movement in a country where there is a revolt against a particular form of repression. We would urge the critic to look at the whole extract again in order to get a clear picture of what the writer was driving at. We would particularly urge him to take note of the following selections from the extract:—

“Hence, in the other nations of Western Europe a straight fight is possible between the proletariat and the capitalist ruling class, whilst in Russia the rising capitalist class has yet its emancipation from autocracy to accomplish: so that, in contrast with practically the whole of civilised nations, the working class and the capitalist class in Russia have, in the abolition of Tzardom's tyranny, a step to go together. This historical circumstance, which is at once the strength and weakness of the Russian movement, distinguishes it from that of all capitalist countries." . . .

“ Let us then do all in our power to help our Socialist comrades in Russia in the hope that they will not be deceived as to the outcome of the present upheaval: in the hope. also, that they will sternly keep their separate identity, and distinct aim. so that the Russian bourgeoise State of tomorrow may find a militant class-organisation of Socialist workers leading the final struggle against the Capitalist class, whose defeat must herald the Triumph of Humanity."

It will be seen from the above that the struggle in Russia 50 years ago was to get rid of the semi-feudal barriers, and the Socialist movement there was urged to keep their independence and their Socialist policy. As far as Capitalist Hungary is concerned that is still the attitude for the Socialist to take. Socialists there, just as under autocratic Russia in days gone by, should stand by their Socialist objective and do what propaganda they can under existing conditions, just as, for instance, an Austrian comrade of ours did under the Nazi and Russian occupations.

Editorial Committee.

Notes by the Way: The Fabians and the House of Lords (1957)

The Notes by the Way Column from the February 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Fabians and the House of Lords

In the Socialist Standard for February, 1907, was an article about the Fabians which opened with a quotation:—

“ The government of the future will be by experts and we, naturally, want to be the experts."

This little gem had been spoken by Mr. H. Snell, of the Fabian Society.

The writer in the Socialist Standard had appropriate comments to make on this typically Fabian proposal for running other people's lives. He began:—

"So now you know, if you did not before, what the Fabian Society are after. Their ‘Socialism’ is government by bureau, and ‘naturally’ (sweet word) they want to be the bureaucrats. ‘Naturally’ they want the plums. ‘‘Naturally’’ they want to sit in the seats of authority and arrange things for the benefit (naturally for the benefit) of the other and somewhat lower orders who do the mere producing."

Our writer hit the nail on the head when he said the Fabians aimed to occupy the seats of authority and in the course of time many of them had their little hour in the Labour Governments, where they showed that their “superior brains” could no more cope with the chaos of Capitalism than could those they affected to despise, the political aristocrats and the business men.

One of the “reforms” supported by the Fabians was the abolition of the House of Lords. They came to be glad that they hadn't succeeded because it was to be a final refuge for a number of Fabians, including Sidney Webb (who wrote the Fabian tract demanding abolition of the Lords), and Attlee, and of course Mr. Snell, who became Lord Snell of Plumstead in 1931 just about the time two million unemployed were wondering how their Fabian trained leader had managed to get things in such a mess.

Macmillan Must Go!

If we were Labour or Communist vote-catchers we would be campaigning for “Macmillan Must Go!" and telling anyone silly enough to believe it, how successful we had been with our last campaign for u Eden Must Go!"

Since the S.P.G.B. was formed in 1904 there have been ten such campaigns for getting rid of a no-good Prime Minister. There have been rather more than ten governments because some of them, after being pushed, pulled or squeezed out have managed to get back again. When we survey the list we marvel at the rich variety. Scots, English, Welsh, and half-American (Churchill); spell-binders like Lloyd-George, and others who didn’t know how to gild the lilies of oratory; philosophical types like Balfour and Asquith and "plain, blunt men" like Baldwin;; semi-Pacifists and war-mongers; business men and professional politicians; the relatively poor and the passing rich; religionists and agnostics; aristocrats and commoners; Tory, Liberal, and Labour.

There are the differences: What of the similarities? They have all had a strange belief that the country was very lucky to have them at the helm. They have all come in generously promising how much better they will make life for the people and have all gone out little lamented.

And what difference has it made in the one thing that ought to be of paramount concern to the workers, the question of establishing Socialism in place of Capitalism? Just no difference at all. That job has yet to be done and it won't matter in the least whether the next Prime Minister who tries to administer Capitalism is Mr. G., or Mr. B., Mr. X or Mr. Y.

“Why We Left the Communist Party”

A group calling themselves the Nottingham Marxist Group, has issued an eight-page leaflet under the above title. As a criticism of the leaders of the British Communist Party from the standpoint of members whose confidence was first shaken by the dethronement of Stalin and then shattered by the Russian Army's onslaught on the Hungarian workers, it is effective enough. But that is all it is. In no way does it justify the claim that the group are Marxist in outlook. Indeed the limited range of their criticism clearly shows that they are not. Their case is against “the politically and morally bankrupt leaders of the Communist Party," but not against the idea of leadership and if it were not for their view that it is in practice impossible to change the leadership they would he working for new leaders in place of the old. They fail to see that a Socialist Party has no use or place for leaders.

They condemn various comparatively recent consequences of dictatorship in Russia and Hungary, but nowhere do they show an understanding of the fact that Socialism is incompatible with dictatorship. They do not explain how it was that they accepted the dictatorship and only woke up to some of its inevitable consequences at a late stage. Above all they do not square their claim to be Marxist with their tacit acceptance of the absurd belief that the Russian dictatorship is Socialism. This ought to have been the central theme of their declaration because every criticism they make stems from the fact that the social organisation in Russia and Hungary is and always has been Capitalism. They do now see that Socialism cannot be imposed by force and they quote from an American Communist journal:—“Socialism . . .  could not be imposed on a country by those means”; but they do not face up to the truth that that was the original, impossible, aim of the Communist group that seized power in Russia, and that dictatorship and a police state were the inevitable outcome of that attempt It was then that the Russian Communists “betrayed” the principles of Socialism, not at some later date, as the pamphlet would have us believe, when the “cult of leadership” was carried to such lengths as to endanger the stability of the dictatorship itself.

The Not-so-Stupid Tory Capitalists

The Hon. William Douglas-Home, writer of successful plays and unsuccessful Parliamentary candidate standing on one occasion as a “Progressive Independent," and on another as “Atlantic Charter" candidate, wrote to the Observer (3 January, 1957) advising the Tories to apply in foreign politics the policy they have used so well at home. He described the latter as follows:—

“. . . they never seem to realise that a controlled withdrawal is precisely what they have conducted with considerable skill in domestic policy since the industrial revolution, and that to this policy, and to this policy alone, they owe their survival. Whereas any attempt to preserve the status quo would have resulted in either their total extinction or a revolution, or both.”

Strikes by Hungarian Workers

On January 13 the Russian imposed government of their Hungarian colony announced a new decree imposing the death penalty for a number of acts, many of which would in most countries be regarded as normal trade union and political activities.

The Manchester Guardian (January 14), quoting B.U.P. and Reuter despatches from Budapest, had the following:—

"The death penalty was introduced in Hungary today for anyone calling a strike, damaging factory machinery, or committing  'any kind of offence directed against the State.’ The death sentence could be ordered for distributing leaflets, or for entering a government factory without permission, according to the new regulations, announced in a supplementary paragraph to the martial law declared in December."

The News Chronicle and other newspapers gave similar versions. Only the Daily Worker (January 14) managed to twist this new decree almost out of recognition. They left out the reference to strikes and reported it as:—

“ Death sentences may be imposed on people who ‘ sabotage or interfere in any way with public utilities and other essential enterprises'. "

But if the Hungarian workers in Hungary may now be hanged for striking, Hungarian refugees in Britain have shocked a lot of people by refusing jobs offered to them and by coming out on strike. The Sunday Despatch (January 16) reported:—

"Eighteen refugees walked out of their jobs at St Albans because they were dissatisfied with their pay. They were receiving an average of £7 a week as cooks, waiters, carpenters and farm workers. Mr. G. P. Bannister, manager of the Employment Exchange at St. Albans, said: ’They expected £14 or £15 a week. Most of them want to go to America or Canada'. "

This sort of conduct will get the Hungarians disliked by the employers and before we know where we are we shall hear the Hungarians denounced as unwelcome agitators. Being spirited in demanding the right to strike in Budapest is not at all the same as continuing to behave like that here.

But British workers ought to be delighted that the refugees do not intend to become a source of cheap and servile labour. And if the incident makes British workers more assertive in trying to raise their wages so much the better.

Exodus to Canada

And while the Hungarians pour in the Britishers pour out as fast as they can, Canada-bound for preference. Rhona Churchill, in the Daily Mail (January 8, 1957), made inquiries and these are her conclusions:—

“ Emigrant applications at Canada’s London and Liverpool offices have now reached 20,000 a week.

John Bull Taxpayer has had enough.

Emigration figures had been falling off. Then suddenly the Butler austerity Budget of October, 1955, doubled the numbers, calling at Canadian immigration offices, the Macmillan squeeze Budget of April, 1956, trebled them, and Suez, with its promise of more Budget austerity three months from now, increased them sixfold.

A quarter of a million Britons, tired of being told for ten austere years: ’Belt-tightening today means prosperity tomorrow,' and, finding that tomorrow never comes, are now actively organising their escape, believing that Britain has no sound financial future to offer their children."

But while the exasperated British workers flee from the rigours of “Welfare State" Capitalism to seek paradise in Canada the Canadian Railwaymen were on strike because they too have grievances against their “free enterprise” Capitalism.

Profits and the Ugly Head of Politics

For a century or more business men, stock exchange speculators and economists have recurrently dreamed of a beautiful world in which Capitalism would function “naturally” without being disturbed by politics. The latest is Mr. A. G. Jenkins, City Editor of the Empire News (January 3,1957).

’’So much for the short-term view. Dividend limitation, nationalisation, confiscation and many other 'ations’ loom ahead when politics rears its ugly head, and for the moment this may discourage buyers of industrial ordinary shares."

Mr. Jenkins thinks Capitalism would be nicer without the serpent of politics and other “ations.” He should think again. If there were no political machine to be controlled by the politicians bent on keeping Capitalism going, our class divided society would disintegrate. One “ation” would, indeed, be taken away, but Mr. Jenkins would not be pleased for it is “exploitation," and if there were no exploitation of one class by another there would be no rent, interest or profit, no Stock Exchange, and no City Editors.

Over in Bombay the great Indian iron and steel concern of the Tata Company knows better. They don’t want to rule out politics; on the contrary they have just appealed successfully to the High Court for the right to make contributions to political party funds.

"Mr. Justice Tendolkar allowed a petition by the company for confirmation of alteration in its memorandum enabling it to make such contributions. He said that expenditure by way of donations to political parties could in the long run be economic.

”The petition said the company was at present carrying out a Rs. 750m. (£57m.) expansion programme and any further expansion would depend on Government approval. The company’s prosperity was therefore bound up with the policy of the party in power.”

(Financial Times, 12th January, 1957). 

The Indian Capitalists, who used the nationalist movement to establish themselves as a Capitalist India, learned all the tricks and devices of Capitalist rule practised by the British ruling class.

The Communists and the S.P.G.B.

Letters written to the Daily Worker by members of the S.P.G.B. have been refused publication recently. This is not in itself surprising but the reason given deserves comment. A letter from the Editor, J. R. Campbell (October 10, 1956) included the following:—

“It is true that the Daily Worker does not propose to publish letters dealing with insignificant political bodies like the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Our space is precious and we have to devote it to more important questions.” 

We can imagine the indignation of the Communists if, say the Daily Herald were to give the same reason for not publishing their letters. And of course we can guess that J. R. Campbell (responsible recently for the suppression of reports from Budapest by its own correspondent) may have other reasons for not wanting the Marxist case against his party to be put before his readers.

One small point about Campbell’s letter is that he addressed the S.P.G.B. member as “Dear Friend” and ended it “with best wishes.”

Another letter (January 7, 1957), this time signed “with all good wishes” by the Assistant Editor of the Daily Worker, Mick Bennett, informed our member that “the role and influence of the S.P.G.B. has declined over the years largely because of its conscious deliberate policy of remaining a small sect devoted largely to the theory that until all the working class have been sufficiently educated in Marxism they will not be able to get rid of Capitalism.”

This implies that the S.P.G.B. used to have more influence and was therefore worthy of the notice of Communists but, except on very rare occasions, the Communist Party has always maintained the policy of ignoring the S.P.G.B. and declining debates. But the official reason given for this in the early days was that there was no time or place for discussion because revolution, here and in the world generally, was "just around the corner.” Privately members of the C.P.G.B. were advised to keep away from discussion with the S.P.G.B.

Bennett's letter (in the last sentence quoted above) re-iterates the Communist’s case that Capitalism could be got rid of in speedier ways than by building up a movement of Socialists. What a pity we can't have from him his explanation of the total failure of Communist governments in Russia, Hungary and elsewhere, to get rid of Capitalism and introduce Socialism.

Brotherly Love from a Christian

A reader sends us an article by Pastor W. W. Kirkby. published in the Elim Evangel (December 8, 1956), called “Ambitious Russia,” which sets out to describe the imperialist aims of the Russian Government; including, so the writer says, the conquest of Israel as a main objective.

It is full of the common misconceptions about the social system in Russia (the writer of the article thinks it is Communism and that Marx was responsible for it), and about the driving force behind the Russian Imperialism (the writer naturally fails to recognise that it is like the imperialism of the rest of the Capitalist powers).

One interesting item is an alleged quotation from Karl Marx in which he is made to say that as “loving my neighbour” has not changed the world, “let us see what hatred can do.” (No source is given).

But just to show how different the Christian and his God are the article ends:—

“Four thousand years ago God declared to Abraham, the father of the faithful: 'I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee.'

. . . That principle has been carried out right down the years, and in the future God’s curse is to fall upon atheistic and ambitious Russia.”

Edgar Hardcastle

The "Prosperous" Working Class (1957)

From the February 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are often told by people who do not really understand its meaning, that poverty no longer exists. Largely they mistake poverty for destitution, and think in terms of pre-war days of dole-queues, hunger marches, and the general hardship suffered from not being able to afford sufficient food, clothing and shelter.

Workers who feel secure in their jobs at the moment must bear in mind that the era of full employment was started by the last world war, when a vast amount of industry was smashed up, and the world market at the end of it had six years dearth of consumer goods to make up, and, all the while, massive preparations have gone on for World War III.

If our measure of prosperity is to be that we have all got "jobs,” it still leaves Capitalism, with a great deal to answer for. In the first place, our jobs are not really “ours ” at all, because they can be taken away from us, and today, just as before the war, how long they last depends on how long our employers can sell, at a profit, the things we produce.

Neither poverty, nor destitution, has been abolished, and these evils of Capitalism only smite the useful people of society—the working class. Poverty is not something which depends on what Government is in power, it is a permanent condition of the wage-earning class.

Poverty can be recognised in the existence of hire-purchase; it can be seen amongst the crowds of window-shoppers looking in at the things they cannot afford; it is the reason why workers “save” for holidays, Xmas, clothing or furniture; why they live in low-rent homes; take out insurance against their old age; shop more in Brixton than in Bond Street; buy one necessary thing, and forego others; and generally live from pay-day to pay-day.

There are many other instances of the condition of poverty, but the above will be sufficient to take any heads from the clouds, in order to take a closer look at the world we workers “live’ in. Destitution is always a threatening possibility to wage-earners, as their only source of income is through finding hirers, and, as we shall see, all kinds of dire consequences can follow when the hired are dispensed with. The old age pensioners, the disabled, and the sick, ca still be found destitute, on the pittance doled out by the “Welfare State.” .

One example of the prosperity we are all supposed to be enjoying, comes from a report in the Daily Express of 15th October, 1956. In Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire, the Chamber of Trade is starting a “Black Book” of customers who do not pay. “The idea is to protect traders from people who run up accounts at one shop, and then open accounts at others, when they cannot pay off the first In another town, housewives may be secretly investigated, and find it difficult to open accounts at a second shop, after exhausting credit at the first.” 

Mr. Raymond Broad, President of the Chamber said:—

“ Many people who formerly paid cash now want credit. Things are getting more difficult for traders."

" Some women in Axminster have been going 10 miles to Honiton, to run up new bills. But a woman who leaves her grocer, when he asks for his money, will find her new grocer more cautious,’ said Mr. Herbert Jeffery, Secretary of Axminster Chamber of Commerced."

We are sure to be told that people who cannot pay the grocer must be buying television sets or motor-cycles but, after 17 years of full employment, for workers to have to choose between paying the radio shop or the grocer, is poverty.

The Daily Express, a day later, carried an even more remarkable story. After we have been told, by Eden and others, of the terrible fate in store for "us,” if “we” lose the Suez Canal, the Express gives an account of what happened to the family of a reservist, who was called back while the Canal dispute raged. The income of Mrs. Bedford was "chopped from £14.16.0 a week, to 16/- for children’s allowances. Food ran out. Her three little daughters, Anne, aged five, Christine, three. Denise, two —began to fret, and then weep with hunger.” The mother “broke open the gas meter at her home in St. Paul’s Road, Middlesbrough. She was found out. Yesterday, she was conditionally discharged, on payment of 15/- costs. The electricity authorities have cut off the current, because she has not paid the last bill.”

It is indeed ironic that the same Capitalist State machine, which took the man away from his work, was responsible for cutting off his electricity, and imposing the Court costs on his wife. Even more remarkable, in view of the story of the Canal being vital to our survival, and the fact that we are told that the public own nationalised electricity.

The eventual allowance from the Army was £4 0s. 6d. per week, and, being a member of the working class, with no property income, Mrs. Bedford had “9d. left out of the allowance, after she had paid:—

Rent                  £1    8   9

Clothes on credit      £2    0   0 

Furniture, H.P. ... 11   0

Total                   £3 19  9

This woman had a child “ recovering from polio,” and “was expecting another baby.” Before her allowance arrived, she had taken sheets and blankets off one of the beds, and gone to the pawnbroker with them. “ He allowed me 18/-. With that, I bought bread, margarine, and milk, and gave them to the kids. They were ravenous.”

The fact that workers do not own the Empire, the oil, or the Country, is often tragically brought home. As the S.P.G.B. pointed out at its formation,“ the machinery of Government, including the armed forces of the nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the Capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers.” (See clause 6 of our Declaration of Principles).

The last example we will give here, is of how the “benevolent” State treats wage-slaves from whom profits cannot be made, as they are too old. It is from a letter to the Sunday Graphic for October 14th, 1956:—

“There are large groups of humans, men and women, who suddenly cease to belong economically to the everyday world that swirls around them, almost over them. They grope and scheme for a little food, a little warmth, and, above everything else, a little security.”

The writer is a pensioner, aged 71, with a semi-invalid wife.

“ We receive a weekly sum of £3 18s. 6d., for all our needs. After budgeting for rent, gas, coal, and clothes, it leaves 6s. a day between us and starvation. And the dread of the winter is on us. The little extra something an old body craves in the winter, is beyond the few shillings needed for sheer necessities to keep alive.”

After going to a rally of the Old Age Pensioners’ Association, and listening to the speeches by the High Sheriff, a padre, and others, about what must be done, "Hope surged again,” and, after the collection was taken, “I trudged back home. My twopenny bus fare was in the plate. The heart and soul shrink from the dreary, hopeless future that stares bleakly at us. For how much longer now? Who knows? Who cares?”

As Socialists, we care about the poverty suffered by workers. We also know how long it will last. It will last as long as the working class are content to work for wages; for as long as they look for solutions to their problems within Capitalism.

Whilst a minority owns the means of production, and profit remains their goal, older workers, who have slowed down, will always have to make way for younger, faster ones. Consideration of human suffering and hardship is a luxury which Capitalism must always place as a poor second to profits. It is only with Socialism that the peoples’ needs will count first

When the means of production are held by society in common, the fruits of our social labour will be available for use. Goods of all kinds will be freely distributed without the barrier of money.

If only workers, young and old, would ponder the possibilities of this sure but simple solution, instead of allowing competing reformist parties to deceive them into the continued support of Capitalism, the misery, poverty, destitution, insecurity, and war threats, with which our whole lives are cursed at present, would be banished for ever.

Harry Baldwin

Poverty or misery: a correction (1957)

From the February 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the article “Poverty or Misery” in the January issue (page 5, middle of column 2) reference was made to Mr. Strachey’s unjustifiable use of a translation which gave the word “poverty” in place of the German word meaning “misery” in a passage from Marx’s Capital. This point stands, but error was made with regard to the various editions of Capital. The editions in English of Volume I. of Capital are:—

(1) The Swan Sonnenschein edition (1886) translated by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, is based on the 3rd German. This was the only English edition edited by Engels.

(2) The Charles Kerr edition (1906) is the same translation as the Sonnenschein, except for incorporation of additions and revisions to text made by Engels to the 4th German edition. These amendments to text were translated by Ernest Untermann. 

(3) The Allen & Unwin edition (1938) is a facsimile reprint of the Sonnenschein. The amendments made by Engels to the 4th German edition, are printed as an appendix. It is only these amendments which Dona Torr translated. 

(4) The Allen & Unwin edition (1928) in one volume was newly translated by Eden and Cedar Paul from the 4th German edition. (It was reviewed in the Socialist Standard in March, 1929). 

Later on this edition was taken over by Dents and published as two volumes in the Everyman series.

Ed. Com.

Party News Briefs (1957)

Party News from the February 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

Lewisham Branch has had to alter the date of their propaganda meeting from 10th January. It is now being held at the same place (Davenport Co-op Hall, Davenport Road. Rushey Green), on THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7th, at 7.30 p.m. This alteration is due to the later date of the Parliamentary election which is taking place in Lewisham.

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Head Office Film Lectures. These are being well attended and audiences are taking part in interesting discussions after the film. A list of films for February are given in this issue.

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Glasgow (City) Branch is holding propaganda meetings every Sunday evening at 7.30 p.m. at the Central Halls, Bath Street. The meetings will be of topical interest and will be held weekly (with the exception of 21st April) until the end of April.

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Glasgow (Kelvingrove) Branch is holding a propaganda meeting at St. Andrews Halls (Berkley St. entrance) on Sunday, 17th February. Further details in this issue.

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Bristol Group are planning a debate with the local branch of the Communist Party. Members are also very active in getting letters in the local Press, thus bringing the Party to the notice of readers.

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Ealing Branch. The second series of Branch discussions will start on February 1st and continue fortnightly thereafter. All members are being individually notified and are asked to give their support. In addition there will be a visit to the Geological Museum one Sunday in February, full details of which will be sent to the members later. In line with the E.C.’s request, all the local branches of the Communist Party have been circulated with the Party’s open letter. At the same time, the first letters are bring sent out asking local Trade Union branches to receive one of our speakers.

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Comrade G. R. Jacobs, who died in October last, has been associated with the Party for many years. His work caused him to travel considerably but when he returned to London he was active at meetings, particularly at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Solicitors acting for his Niece have forwarded the sum of £200 which Comrade Jacobs willed to the Party “ for its General Purposes Fund.”

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News from America. Comrades Evans and Henderson, of Los Angeles Local, upon receiving a supply of S.P.G.B. Suez Crisis leaflets, held a good propaganda meeting in Pershing Square and distributed the leaflets to the audience. Leaflets have also been posted to sympathisers.

Phyllis Howard

Blogger's Note:

According to Party records that I have to hand, G, R. Jacobs joined the Ilford Branch of the SPGB in September 1934. He had a previous association with the IWW before party membership. He resigned from the SPGB in January 1943, as he was going abroad. He presumably was going to New Zealand, as he's next recorded as a member of the New Zealand companion party. He rejoined the SPGB in the 1940s after returning to the UK, and remained a member of the Party until his death.

New Pamphlet (1957)

 

Party News from the February 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

A pamphlet, Socialist Comment, is now on sale (40 pages, 6d. , post free 8d.) It contains seven articles reprinted from issues of the Socialist Standard during the past year or two. It deals with the colour problem in South Africa; why Socialists oppose the Labour Party; Housing; boom and slump; the ownership of property; and the workers' ideas about their pay.

50 Years Ago: The Quintessence of Socialism. (1957)

The 50 Years Ago column from the February 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are quite a number of people in this country who call themselves Socialists because they believe in the municipalisation or nationalisation of various things. And these good people appear to be oblivious of the fact that the very essence of Socialism is the control of wealth production and distribution by the wealth producers. It is obvious that it a number of thieves are banded together they are not likely to seek less booty, or seek it less effectively, than when isolated ; so, therefore, the capitalist class, who control the national and local administrative bodies, are not likely to seek less profit, or to seek it less effectively, when their businesses come under their collective control than when they control them individually. The end and aim of a Capitalist is profit, whether it comes as interest on Metropolitan Water Board bonds or as dividend on shares in the A.B.C.; and the ruling class will not, indeed, undertake municipal or national services at all unless their interests are thereby served and their general profits increased. An industry taken over by the Capitalist State, though it may be also of advantage, in other respects, means that more wealth is thereby to be wrung from the workers. The sweating in government factories, the low wages in the Post Office that enable over £4,000,000 to go in relief of Capitalist taxation, are an earnest of what State Capitalism means. Nationalised industries can only become Socialistic, and can only be of real benefit to the workers, when the working class has obtained control of the administrative machinery. It is therefore of the utmost importance that the political movement of the workers place itself firmly on the basis of the class struggle. Indeed, all who do not recognise this fact, whatever they may call themselves, are emphatically not Socialists, for mere nationalisation, we repeat, is not Socialism at all.

[From the editorial, London County Council, Ltd., Socialist Standard, February 1907.]

SPGB Meetings (1957)

  Party News from the February 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

Rowton Houses (1957)

From the February 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

Here the soul finds poppy-juice to ease and glad her,

   And the radiant lotus-flower of royal slumber.

Surely this cemented stair's a golden ladder

    Angel-cohorts, bearing lilies, climb and cumber . . . 

     (Rowton House Rhymes.)

Dirty washing never flapped more disconsolately on a line than these men. They hang over the barrier at the Broadway’s edge watching the traffic pass, stamping their feet among muddy newspapers. The neon lights flick on and off, touching their flesh first red and then green. They stare at the bright shop windows and at the painted faces borne perilously past on stiletto heels. Spasmodically, they drift off home to bed. For them, and for a few thousand like them, that means to the local Rowton House.

To most people, the term “Rowton House” evokes an image of a verminous flop-house where dead-beats and desperadoes rub shoulders, paying a copper or two for a couple of feet of rope under the armpits (has anyone ever slept like that?) The Houses are the butt of many a music-hall joker and the subject of much prejudice; few employers would take on a cashier who gave the local Rowton House as his address and it has been known for a mother hearing that her son was living at a House, to storm hotfoot from the provinces to take her boy away from such supposedly evil surroundings. Yet it is a fact that if such impressions ever find their way into print, a sharp solicitor’s letter is enough to extract a public withdrawal; once the B.B.C. had to climb down and apologise after a comedian’s crack about Rowton Houses in the programme “Palace of Varieties.”

So it seems that Rowton Houses are not as bad as most people think them to be. What is the truth of the matter? What are they like, what type of person uses them and what goes on inside them? And how did they come about?

Light-hearted Aristocrat

The founding of Rowton Houses was the work of Montagu William Lowry-Corry, who was a light-hearted 19th Century aristocrat, a favourite of Disraeli, who caught the famous man’s attention by livening up a stodgy party at Raby Castle. Corry became Disraeli’s private secretary and served unflaggingly through all the years of his chief’s prominence as Chancellor of the Exchequer and later as Prime Minister. When in 1875 Disraeli persuaded the Cabinet to try for a loan from Rothschild to buy a substantial interest in the Suez Canal Company, it was Corry who ran the errand from Downing Street to get the banker’s approval. Later, when Disraeli had relinquished power and was a pitiful figure, it was usually Corry’s arm he was seen to be leaning on in public. Corry got his reward in 1880 when he became the first and last Baron Rowton. When Disraeli died (with Rowton; of course, at his bedside), he left all his papers and letters to his secretary’s discretion.

Rowton conceived the idea of his Houses in the early 1890’s after the investigations into common lodging houses which he undertook as a trustee of the Guinness Fund. At that time the lodging houses of London were little better than the sort of place which Dickens described in Bleak House. The Lodging House Bill of 1851 had been drafted to stamp out the kip-houses where, it was said, the bugs could be scraped up by the handful and the only sanitary arrangements were communal buckets placed one to a room; a room which could hold anything up to 60 people. But there were many convenient loopholes in the Bill and it is certain that 40 years on there were still some unsavoury establishments for Rowton’s investigations. The aristocrat also made it his business to approach the Embankment sleepers—one story tells of him leaving the House of Lords of an evening and spending the best part of the night talking with the Thames-side down and outs. It was then that Rowton decided on his scheme to build cheap working men's hotels, where at prices they could afford, the homeless of London would find a clean bed, food and somewhere to sit of an evening. At the same time, the venture had to yield a return on the money invested in it; Rowton’s slogan was said to be “ Philanthropy—at five per cent.”

First Night

Brushing aside the warnings of his friends, Rowton put £30,000 of his own money into the building of the first House at Vauxhall. This was opened on the very last day of 1892, when only 77 men paid their sixpence for a night's lodging. Over 400 beds were left empty and the first day's takings in the catering department came to about 15s. 10½d. The building had been designed so that in the event of failure it could easily be converted and sold as a warehouse and it seemed that this would have to be, but business became brisker; in the first month over 200 beds were taken nightly and soon the 400 mark was passed. In 1894, a company, Rowton Houses Ltd., was formed with a capital of £75,000, of which £30,000 was given to Rowton in return for the money he had invested in the Vauxhall experiment. At the company's first annual meeting it was reported that the House had been full to capacity on nearly every night and a comfortable dividend of four per cent. was declared. Other, ’Rowton Houses were subsequently built at King’s Cross, Elephant and Castle, Hammersmith, Whitechapel, and Camden Town, each in densely populated areas, within easy reach of the principal transport termini and centres of employment in the markets, docks and railway goods depots.

The Houses have always been an interesting barometer of the prevailing economic weather; for instance during the slump of the thirties, there was a decrease in the number of beds booked by the week and a striking increase in reservations on the days when the dole was paid at the local employment bureau. At that time at least five doctors and nine journalists were resident at Rowton Houses, touching elbows with men whose living depended on a charity ticket. When the 1931 dole was reduced to 15/3d., the Houses cut their prices so that a man could live there (just about) on the money. Their budget allowed for nothing apart from food and lodging; not surprisingly, many men took to a bench on the Embankment rather than face a tobacco-less existence. During the two World Wars the Houses were variously used as barracks, refugee centres and unofficial air-raid shelters.

Rowton Houses To-day

Rowton Houses Ltd. is to-day a solidly flourishing £505,000 capital company, with assets of some £650,000 and a dividend steadily at about 8 per cent. It is not a charitable institution or a trust and has no connection with any religious organisation; business, pure and simple, is its line. “Although we are undoubtedly doing a good work,” said a one-time director of the company, “there is nothing of patronage or philanthropy about it.” The Houses never spend money on public advertisements, yet something like 98 per cent, of the 5,000-odd available beds are filled each night; how many hoteliers would like to be able to make a similar claim? The company has its own laundry and maintenance staff and supplies a barbering and cobbling service in the Houses. Charges have recently been increased from 2/6d. to 3/- a night (in 1910 it was 9d.). It is here that the profit is made— although the catering department pulled in nearly £130,000 during 1955, there is little profit in this side of the business. Post-war full employment has made its mark, in the Houses which now offer special private rooms, instead of cubicles, at 35/- a week. A dinner of soup, steak pudding with potatoes, followed by plum tart and custard, costs 2/8d. (in 1910 again, it would have set you back by 7d.)—and the House dining rooms are open to non-residents.

What are the Houses like? From the outside they are imposing, barrack-like buildings with their smooth red-brick and small windows. Their impressive size—for example at Hammersmith—is often blanketed by the buildings which have sprung up around them. Inside, overwhelming impressions are of the white and chocolate glazed bricks which are everywhere in all the Houses, the smell of cheap tobacco, the men who are openly down on their luck and looking for something cheap and quick, men who are existing on their wits (on one afternoon visit, nearly every other lodger seemed to be studying a greyhound race card). Men stand aimlessly in the entrance hall, despite stern notices asking them not to. The floors are stone or wood and there are no soft §eats— all the furniture is in wood, mostly with iron standards. The dining rooms and kitchens are unfailingly clean, with much up-to-date equipment. There is a billiards room (always well full of an evening), writing room and lecture room—now, of course, with television installed—in each House. For some reason, draughts is a passion of Rowton House residents; regular demonstrations take place, which give men the chance to show off their considerable skill at the game; the 1948 English champion was a Rowton House regular. All the Houses have their permanent lodgers—some of them have been booking the same cubicle, week after week, for over a quarter of a century. 

Queer Types

Because Rowton Houses offer such cheap accommodation, we can expect them to attract some poor types. Sure enough, there are descriptions of wanted men in the reception desks, alongside the file of past residents who are now banned because they fought or stole or carried lice or made a mess in their rooms. No one is allowed to book in unless he produces some evidence of identification, which is checked against these files. Occasionally, gangs form and make a nuisance of themselves until the management can weed them out. The reception staff show all the signs of being case-hardened towards people who, after all, are their clients. And among the residents are the simply queer cases: the man who wore two jackets (and this on a stuffy evening).

Apart from these, the Houses are used a lot by young men who have left home to follow a job—the list of letters awaiting collection reveals the number of Irishmen and foreigners in residence. For these the Houses are not a bad proposition; they are usually earning a wage on which they can afford to get out in the evening, when the glazed bricks and old men’s pipes are by no means at their most attractive. It is a different matter for the old ones, who make up a good part of Rowton Houses’ customers. These are the men who have no family to care about them, whose life has been reduced to the tightrope act of living on a retirement pension. For them, apart from the cheapness, the Houses offer the attraction of living in the company of fellow human beings instead of eking out their last days in a lonely room. Here is one of the tragedies of post-war conditions; the lot of old people is to-day as precarious as it has ever been—indeed, some say that it is worse since the Welfare State boys took over the running of British Capitalism. Evidence of the tragedy can be seen in the Rowton Houses, in the old men sitting out the long evenings on the hard wooden seats, staring with patient eyes at the walls, waiting for the next meal, for bedtime, waiting in the end to die.

None is Secure

The Houses are fond of describing themselves as working men’s hotels—one of their officials actually went so far as to use the term “residential Club.” (A brochure says “Up to London? Stay at Rowton House”). Of course, all this is to rather stretch the meaning of words; no Rowton House lodger is ever called "sir” by the staff and nobody gets a hand with his luggage when he arrives. We can say that the Houses are not dirty or verminous, nor are they the stamping grounds of footpads and cut-purses. The most respectable among us could spend a night in them without fear. Because of this, a first inspection can give a strongly favourable impression; but that is only because one goes there expecting something much worse. In cold fact, they are places where men put up when they are too poor to have an independent home. The problem of not being able to afford the good—and some of the not so good—things in life is the bugbear of the great majority of us in the Capitalist world, where everything has its price and the amount we can buy is restricted by the narrowness of our wage packet. Some of us may live in a semi-detached in Accacia Avenue: but if some day we should be unable to work because there is a slump or because we have suffered an accident or have grown old then we could easily become clients of Rowton Houses. It is poverty which has been filling the places for over 50 years and will go on filling them as long as Capitalism lasts. Nobody is secure. The next time we see someone shuffling through the doorway of a Rowton House we may all reflect that there, but for the grace of something-or-other, go we.

Ivan.

Marx, Malthus and Mr. Strachey (1957)

From the February 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Strachey in his book Contemporary Capitalism (pp. 88, 89), says, “Marx in spite of his dislike for Malthus and all his theories agreed that a rapidly rising population would help to depress the standard of life of the wage worker.” Natural fertility would always be increasing the number of workers competing for jobs and this would be further augmented by the displacement of workers by continuous mechanisation. Mr. Strachey asserts that not only did Marx say this but he also went on to deduce from it that a labour shortage could never arise. Moreover because or the ever-increasing deadweight of unwanted workers on the labour market, wages would not only be forced down to a bare subsistence level but even increasingly below it. Thus as the result of capital accumulation the mass of the population would come to exist on a semi-starvation diet insufficient for the replacement of their working energies.

Mr. Strachey offers nothing to support these astonishing statements. He merely tells us airily that it can all be found in “the central chapters of Vol. I. of Capital.” But where we are to look for actual quotations or specific references for Mr. Strachey’s claims, God alone knows and Mr. Strachey presumably shares the secret with him.

Our advice to Mr. Strachey is first catch your facts before you cook them. Perhaps a quotation from one of the central chapters in Vol. I. of Capital will show that Mr. Strachey can economise truth as well as evidence. In Vol. I. of Capital (p. 626, Swan Sonnenchein edition), Marx states: —

  “The requirements of accumulating capital may exceed the increase of labour-power or of the number of labourers; the demand for labourers may exceed the supply. This must ultimately be the case if the conditions supposed above continue. For since in each year more labourers are employed than in its predecessor, sooner or later a point must be reached at which the requirements of accumulation begin to surpass the customary supply of labour and therefore a rise of wages takes place.”

The challenge to Mr. Strachey is to show us where in Marx’s economic analysis of Capitalism his conclusions pointed to the depressing of wages to the barest physical level, as the outcome of capital accumulation. So far from that being true, Marx in a detailed analysis in one of the central chapters in Vol. I. of Capital, viz., “Capital Accumulation,” shows the tendency for wages to rise under the impact of accumulation. Nevertheless Marx also pointed out that the defensive mechanism of Capitalism is such as to prevent rising wages from absorbing the whole of profits.

In the first place capital accumulation tends to slacken off appreciably should there occur a sharp threat to profit margins—and rising wage levels can constitute such a threat.

Secondly a typical reaction to advancing wages is the substitution of mechanical power for labour power. The net effect of each concern in its efforts to reduce “labour costs,” will, by freeing workers, bring into being an industrial reserve army or as Marx alternatively calls it “relative over-population ” which by its active competition on the labour market, exerts a downward pressure on wage levels.

The Factors Affecting Wages

The impulse for wages to rise under the stimulus of expanding capital accumulation produces in turn a counter tendency for them to fall. It is this profit motivated expansion and contraction of capital accumulation with its expansion and contraction of the industrial reserve army which constitutes the regulating principle in determining the upper and lower limits of wage levels.

Marx’s solution to the way Capitalism deals with the threat of rising wage levels can be stated in his own words, Capital, Vol. I. (p. 653, Swan Sonnenchein Ed.).

  “The industrial reserve army during the period of stagnation and average prosperity weigh down the active labour army; during the periods of over-production it holds its pretensions in check. Relative surplus population is therefore the pivot upon which the law of demand and supply of labour works. It confines the field of action of this law within the limits absolutely convenient to the activity of exploitation and to the domination of capital.”

Marx’s concept of relative over-population does not rest then on the assumptions of any particular population theory. It is valid whether we are dealing with a rising population, a stationary population, or even a relatively declining one.

If, for instance, we examine a particular country where capital accumulation has historically got under way, we find that an increased working population is one of its necessary adjuncts. In the genesis of capital accumulation the labour force necessary for its expansion is historically recruited by means of land expropriation, the ruin of domestic industry and the elimination of the independent craftsman. Even so this may be inadequate for its needs and in that case an intensive and extensive recruitment for additional labour supplies may be resorted to both inside and outside the national area.

On the other hand in a country where economic development is retarded and capital accumulation lags as a result, although the population may be stationary or even relatively declining, there may be considerable unemployment i.e. relative over-population.

It can be seen then that the Malthusian theory of over-population affords no clue to the emergence of an industrial reserve army in Capitalism.

It might also be mentioned as a point of interest that the growth of capital accumulation in the latter half of the 19th century gave rise to labour shortages in various sections of industry. Moreover large bodies of workers were now organised in strong trade unions and were prepared to make the most of the conditions. Thus in place of flexibility certain rigidities were appearing on the labour market.

The Capitalist answer to this less easy situation in the labour market was more extensive mechanisation and the effect of this is redundancy of workers and the net result an increase in labour supply with its tendency to depress wages.

Through such economic agencies did Capitalism maintain, perpetuate and at times multiply relative over-population and this was going on when a relative decline in fertility rates was taking place, for it was round about the 1870’s that there began marked decline in population trends in the most advanced western countries. Thus the emergence and maintenance of an industrial reserve army, is a phenomenon of Capitalist society irrespective of changes in population trends and contrary to the foolish assertions of Mr. Strachey.

The Changing Composition of Capital

Now what Marx did point out was something quite different from Mr. Strachey’s interpretation of what he said. What Marx actually did say was that the concentration and growth of capital accumulation had certain consequences which affected the lot of the working class and expressed itself in what he termed the changing character of the composition of capital.

If, said Marx, we examine the total outlay of capital, we shall find that the part spent on the means of production i.e. plant, tools, buildings, etc., and called by him “constant capital,” tends to increase relatively to the part spent on wage payments or what he termed “variable capital.” Now seeing that the demand for labour-power is determined not by the total capital outlay of investment but by the variable part of it alone, then although the demand for labour-power increases absolutely, as total capital expenditure increases, the demand falls relatively to the magnitude of the total capital outlay.

Stated as a general theoretical proposition it is this process of capital accumulation as stated above which, as the history of Capitalism shows, has produced relative over-population, or as Marx states, “a population of greater extent than suffices for the average needs of the self-expansion of capital.”

Marx rejected Malthus in toto. “An abstract of law of population,” he said, “exists for plants and animals only, and only in so far as man has not interfered with them.” (Capital Vol. I., p. 645). He also referred to Malthus’s theory as the dogma of the economist and a libel on the human race. Marx categorically denied that population factors were in any way responsible for mass unemployment and poverty.

Rejecting eternal laws of population supposedly applicable to all societies, Marx formulated the proposition that every stage of historical development had its own laws of population. It was not merely that Marx asserted it but he set out to demonstrate it by a detailed investigation of the law of motion of Capitalist society. He was thus able to formulate a law of population peculiar to Capitalism, a law which fitted the facts of the contemporary situation in a way which the eternal laws of Malthus could not do.

The “Iron Law of Wages”

When, therefore, Mr. Strachey asserts that Marx accepted Lassalle’s iron law of wages (Contemporary Capitalism, p. 105), but for politically tactical reasons appeared to oppose it, one realises just how disingenuous Mr. Strachey can be.

In case anybody might be deceived by the pseudo-learned sophistry of Mr. Strachey, let us state that Lassalle took his concept of the iron law of wages from Malthus and Ricardo, not from Marx. In the Critique of the Gotha Programme, Marx repudiated in all its forms, the iron law of wages. He said, “If excess of population is the cause of poverty then Socialism can not abolish poverty which has its basis in nature.” For Marx poverty and mass unemployment in Capitalism cannot be explained wholly or in part as due to an increase in natural fertility rates.

Engels in a letter to Bebel (March, 1875) said categorically that Lassalle’s iron law of wages was “a false statement with a false basis.” He also said “Marx proved in detail in Capital that the laws regulating wages are very complicated  . . . they are in no sense iron but on the contrary very elastic.” Evidently Engels was unable to find in “these central chapters of Capital,” what Mr. Strachey found there.

Nothing exhibits Mr. Strachey’s obfuscation of Marx more than his assertion that if Marx had only diagnosed a tendency towards ever-increasing poverty and final economic collapse instead of making it the automatic outcome of the workings of Capitalism, he would have been justified instead of being falsified. This, itself, is a falsification of Marx’s views which is either due to sheer ineptitude or the bad intent of the apologetic.

The Automatic Breakdown of Capitalism

Marx’s economic analysis never indicates some automatic breakdown of Capitalism. Nor even a tendency towards that end. Thus Mr. Strachey accuses Marx of something he never said, then reproaches him for not saying what Mr. Strachey thinks he ought to have said. Again not only has Mr. Strachey confused notions in seeing in the system a tendency towards greater poverty and collapse, but he reproaches Marx for not sharing his confusion.

Mr. Strachey then blandly assures us that although such a tendency inheres in Capitalism the Labour Movement has overruled this tendency. Mr. Strachey makes central to the Labour Movement the franchise, social reforms and trade unions, whereas in actual fact they are the outcome of the development of Capitalism itself. Such things are not the counter-balance of the Labour Party against some non-existent tendency but an aspect of the normal regularisation necessary to an exploitative system.

Theoretically Mr. Strachey sees the possibilities of this inherent tendency to breakdown producing on a greater scale, slumps, lowered standards of living, etc., but believes that the Labour Party will so manage and regulate Capitalism as to confer on it all the advantages of Socialism. Lord Keynes has made all this possible. Mr. Strachey is, of course, a great admirer of Keynes, whose sole claim to economic originality was to plagiarise Malthus’s doctrine of effective demand.

But this is another story and here we must take leave of Mr. Strachey and Malthus—both in their different ways, shallow and false prophets.

Ted Wilmott

Obituary: Comrade George Ritchie (1957)

Obituary from the February 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Executive Committee and S.W. London Branch members join in sending their deepest sympathy and condolences to Mrs. Ritchie and family on hearing of the sudden death of Comrade George Ritchie, of S.W. London Branch.

Comrade George Ritchie’s sudden death on December 21st. was due to Coronory Thrombosis. He was cremated at Streatham Vale on December 27th. Unfortunately news of his passing did not reach us in time, so no member of the Party was present at his funeral, a fact that is deeply regretted by many who would have certainly gone along to pay their last respects. The news of his death has been a shock to many who knew him.

He joined the Tooting Branch of the Party early in 1929. He never became known as a Speaker or Writer, but turned his energies to promoting the sales of Party Literature in the Tooting area. For many years George worked with Comrade Hutchins, known affectionately to older members as “Hutch” pushing the sales of the Socialist Standard in Tooting and Mitcham district, their joint efforts brought forward very good results. After, the death of Comrade Hutchings, George Ritchie carried on alone. He was also very active at his place of work. He earned his living as a transport worker, being employed first with the old General Omnibus Coy., then by London Transport. He became well known to many bus and tram workers in the South London area through his efforts at selling Party Literature at various garages and "turn round points,” and it would be no mean boast to claim that through his efforts some ’bus workers became interested enough in the Party to eventually become members.

During the 30’s and for a while after the war, outdoor propaganda meetings were held at Undine Street, Tooting, the street in which George lived for many years, and many members will recall the short walk along Undine Street to number 68 to collect the portable platform that was always stored there.

George Ritchie was, until recent years, a regular attender at Branch meetings, though latterly his attendances were limited to monthly calls, when he would collect his quota of five dozen Socialist Standards, which he would distribute to the newsagents and readers who he had canvassed and encouraged for years.

It is therefore fitting that the last tribute the Party can pay to Comrade Ritchie, is in the columns of the paper introduced by him into many South London homes. His death is a great loss to the Party, but he will be remembered by his S.W. London comrades for his kindness to members, for being ever ready to offer a word of friendly advice and always at pains to make a new member or a visitor to the branch “at ease.” His past efforts and achievements will remain to spur on younger members to continue in the task of propagating Socialism.

W. V. P.