Prospects For Professions (1937)

From the April 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have often been at pains to teach the fairly obvious truth, that the private ownership of the means of production under capitalism divides the community into two antagonistic classes, but unfortunately there are still quite a number of people afflicted with the snobbish obsession that they belong to some superior body of beings graded somewhere above the working class, but not, of course, actually capitalists; it is probable, indeed, that they still call themselves the “middle class.” A reader of that technical journal, The Wireless World, recently enquired the steps he would have to take in order to succeed in the wireless industry, and a communication from a member of this self-styled “middle-class” in reply reads very interestingly: -

 With reference to “Enquirer’s” letter in a recent issue of The Wireless World, I would like to state briefly my experience as a radio engineer. 

  I went straight from school to an engineering college at the age of 18, and after three years’ study at great expense to my parents (who fondly imagined that the profession was worth while) I graduated with the usual diplomas, etc. Armed with these—and six months’ practical experience—I sallied forth, brimful of enthusiasm, to obtain a post. Soon, however, the wind was taken out of my sails, when I found that the best offer I could get was 11d. an hour (less than a common labourer) and no guarantee of a job beyond one hour. I do not think this needs further comment. Apparently radio firms make a practice of engaging men (many with university degrees) just when they are busy, and then, at an hour’s notice, consign them to the labour exchange! They appear to have no regard for the men, nor the profession. One would like to know what would happen in any other industry if highly-trained technical men were treated in this manner. It certainly does not conduce to attracting the best brains, and it is impossible to enter the industry full of enthusiasm for one’s work, and desirous of putting the best into it, when one does not know whether or not he will be wanted on his job to-morrow. I would like to inform “Enquirer” that I have worked side by side with university men, with B.Sc. degrees, who were being paid 1s. 3d. an hour. To any young man contemplating entering the radio branch of engineering, my advice is “Don’t!” Take up a branch where ability is appreciated, even if it does mean the sacrifice of a subject you love.— (Sgnd.) “ Sadly Disillusioned,” Hampstead.

So that we learn from our disillusioned friend that, in return for three years’ training, he received 11d. an hour, that the capitalists consign members of his profession, including B.Sc.s, to the labour exchange, and that this is an experience that would not be expected in any other industry.

In spite of our industrial steeplejack having soared to such heights beyond the “common labourer,” we notice he still has a great many things to learn, not the least important being that he would find conditions very similar to those in the wireless trade in other industries. We imagine, in fact, that even an ordinary man, not claiming the special competence implied by the award of engineering diplomas, would be able to realise that, given a present unemployed percentage of one man in eight, it must be quite unusual for the positions held by the remaining seven, whatever the trade, to be other than transitory.

Perhaps we may also remind our disillusioned victim that the free education given to “common labourers” and their debased confrères is enabling them to win scholarships, and that, in consequence, the ranks of the technicians and professions are being very considerably swollen. The capitalist class, whether purchasing technicians, accountants, or other trained men, or bricklayers and manual labourers, display no sense of such uneconomic and antiquated distinctions as “middle class,” “lower middle class," ”the working classes,” “labouring classes," and so on, and when they hire any of these gentlemen, hire them each and all on exactly the same terms. There are thousands of you there, and if you cannot live on thirty or forty bob a week to begin with, you may as well have a little practice on seventeen bob and perhaps that will whet your appetite. As for showing “regard” for you, you can just go to the devil.

G. M. A.

A Curious "Class" War. (1929)

From the April 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

As an insight into the minds of the people to whom it is necessary to direct propaganda, surely there has been nothing better for some time than a little incident just lately reported in the Daily News and which they describe as a cruel hoax upon 10,000 hungry ex-Service men.

In the issue of that paper dated January 9th the report is made of a rumour which was spread in regard to the proposed Ford factory at Dagenham and, according to which, a contingent of 400 miners were being brought to Romford with the object of work associated with this factory being given to them. The report continued that the unemployed ex-Service men in the district accepted the rumour as true and that in consequence 500 of them went to the neighbourhood of the proposed factory to offer resistance, by force if necessary, to what they regarded as an unfair measure and so as to obtain for themselves all such temporary jobs as there might be available.

The point to be noted is that one section of the working class was prepared, if necessary, to use violent methods in order to coerce a number of other workers suffering from the direst poverty—possibly in a sorrier plight than they themselves were in —to take no advantage from this possibility of a job. An intention by one section of workers, we may say, to fight another section in order to get a job—the only thing all workers now live for.

What a sad reflection it induces as to the state of their minds. Or, rather, what a reflection upon the means used to produce that state of mind.

Communists imagine that, by some method that they alone understand but which they are entirely incapable of explaining, that they are going to lead such a divided rabble against all the powerful, devastating and horror-producing means of destruction that the capitalists know so well how to use, in an attempt to overthrow the capitalist class.

Just imagine the case of these ex-Service men. Having been willing to make every possible sacrifice for "their” country and that glorious Empire upon which the sun never rises, they come home to this country of “theirs” and in which their permission to live is conceded by the luxurious provision of a dole or a pension, and are willing to fight men by whose side they fought in the War in an attempt to secure a job which it is certain would only be temporary from a firm owned by those “hated foreigners" who have brought the art of exploitation to the highest pitch of efficiency.

The Press and capitalist parties, the school histories, religion, etc., we know, are responsible, as we also know who foster the "education" supplied through these agencies.

There is only one conclusion: the nature of capitalism and the remorseless and ruthlessly brutal nature of the pirates who exploit them will have to be brought home in a very clear manner to a very large number of workers before a Socialist society becomes a nearer possibility.

Miners, ex-Service men and others: Wake up!

G. M. A.

A 1932 Memory. (1933)

A Short Story from the January 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Tired of the gloomy public library and its shabbily dressed habitués vainly seeking employment or feverishly struggling for news of the latest racing results, I wondered what I should do next. I went some distance along the main road and a Lyons tea shop with its stereotyped white and gold front—unimaginatively the same in Camberwell, Streatham, Balham, Poplar, Brighton, or wherever the octopus has extended its suckers— attracted me; at least the marble walls, glass tables and not-so-shabby public were an improvement, and I sat down, and awaited a cup of tea.

A man, old in experience, but still young in outlook, entered and sat opposite and ventured a remark on the weather. Another commonplace or two, and then he observed that the weather was really of not much importance; the economic difficulties were what mattered most. I could only agree and confided that I myself had been sacked with a large number of other employees about six months ago by a prosperous rubber company.

“You don’t know what to do these days,” he said. “When I was young you could try your luck abroad, but to-day it’s the same everywhere; Australia has its big unemployment problem. I have been in many parts of the world and carried on businesses, but it's no good leaving this country nowadays.”

He then told me he was in the bakery business and had come over from West London to collect a little account from one of his customers.

“It must be a large business,” I said, “ if you have customers in this neighbourhood.”

“No, it isn’t that,” he replied, ” the customer moved here.”

“Not the most pleasant of occupations endeavouring to get people to pay their debts,” I observed.

“Well,” he said, “there is nothing in it when you get used to it. In a case of genuine hardship we make all the allowance we can, but if we are sure a man has the money and is being obstinate, we serve a summons. Of course, it must be very hard for all those people thrown out of work by the large companies.”

“Well,” I said, “ the large combine companies don’t think much about their employees; from their point of view it is merely a costing operation.”

“Yes, but I don’t think it helps them much,” he said.

“Why not? ” was my answer. " They make a big saving in labour costs and are able to entrench themselves and get an even bigger hold on the market.”

As a man who had been in business ventures himself, he was bound to agree, and could only add, “Well, if they continue throwing men out of work it will turn them into Socialists. And what do you think the small business man who goes under in the struggle is going to do? You know, I think it really accounts for these motor bandits.”

I told him that was my opinion, too. I might also have said that the capitalist, whether on the rocks, or secure behind the fortress of profits, bombs, bayonets, poison gas—real or vocal—is just the same and will stick at nothing to gain his ends—a fact which unemployed demonstrators and rioters might learn with advantage. What I did say, however, was that probably the hardship endured by those out of work also accounted for the increasing number of suicides.

“Oh, don’t speak of suicides,” he said, seemingly anxious to dismiss the subject, and giving an order for a second cup of tea. It was difficult not to have the suspicion that one of his hard-pressed debtors, or an employee he had dismissed had thus found a solution, "whilst of unsound mind,” to the hopeless struggle for existence. At any rate, with that remark the subject of economics dropped and this journal is uninterested in what followed.

A point which the writer would like to emphasise, however, is that the small capitalist with whom he had been in conversation was sufficiently thoughtful and understanding to perceive the inherent tendencies and consequences of capitalism, which translated into reality for the working class mean abominable conditions of living.

Monopolisation of the ownership of the bulk of the means of production by a few giant organisations is proceeding apace, and the continual reorganisation, rationalisation, and use of more intricate and labour-saving machinery which the capital resources of these organisations enable them to buy, must mean also, amid the overabundance of wealth and luxury which the working class have produced, a tendency for growing numbers of this class to be struggling to live on the dole and living in conditions of abject poverty.

The application of the only remedy for the workers—Socialism—will result from their own effort alone, and we urge them to do the little brain work necessary to understand the nature of their class enslavement. When they have done that, no force on earth will prevent them establishing a society wherein a condition of things characterised by sanity will be enjoyed by everyone.

G. M. A.