Russia and Democracy (1946)

From the June 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

On March 23rd, under the title “True Democracy,” the Manchester Guardian opened a discussion on democracy when reviewing a recently published lecture by Professor E. H. Carr. This review was followed by contributors from Lord Lindsay, Mr. Laski and Mr. Bertrand Russell on April 20th and May 4th respectively.

The striking thing about all the contributions was that they distinguished an entirely different outlook on democracy between Russia and the Western Countries, but, to all of them, the Russian outlook is accepted as a sincere one, tied up with the view that the Russian rulers are acting on behalf of one section of society alone, the workers, and that their dictatorship signifies the rule of the workers. This, the writers agree, explains the difference between “Proletarian Democracy” and “Bourgeois Democracy.” This, for instance, is the reviewer puts it:-

“It is important, as Professor Carr points out, to realize that the Russians are just as sincere in their use of the word democracy as we and the Americans are in ours.”

We have not the space to examine the many misleading ideas that are foisted upon the Marxian point of view by these writers, but must confine ourselves to the alleged basic difference between the Russian and the Western definition of democracy.

Cutting away all trimmings, democracy simply means a state of affairs in which the will of the majority of a group, a nation, or an international society, shall always prevail. The will of the majority cannot prevail unless circumstances exist which make it possible to know at any time what the will of the majority really is and whether, for any reason, it has changed. This cannot be known unless there is at least freedom of discussion and means existing for this purpose; freedom of equality of voting; freedom to select those who are to carry out the will of the majority; and equality of electoral conditions.

Although in theory these four fundamental conditions exist in the Western democratic states, in fact there are considerable limitations. One needs only to remember the private and business votes processed by some, the enormous influence of a press owned by a propertied minority, the economic penalties suffered by the workers who express their opinion too freely; and the governments who coalesce instead of dissolving. In spite of the limitations, however, there is sufficient democracy in most of the European states and in America to enable the majority of the people to change the basis of society if, and when, they wish to do so. The point is to get them to wish it. It is therefore to the interest of the workers, who form the great majority in the nations, to use these democratic avenues and not to ignore or destroy them.

The Russian Government was, and is, fundamentally undemocratic, and under its inspiration Communist parties of the other countries have worked to discredit democratic institutions. Sometimes the plea has been that these democratic institutions were barrier to the taking over of power by the working class. In fact, however, they were simply the barrier to the taking over of power by the tiny minority, the Communist Party. The workers did not want to take over power because they had not sufficient confidence in themselves and would not know what to do with power if they got it.

At the time of the Russian Revolution the Bolshevik or Communist Party was a small minority in a largely peasant country. By taking advantage of the favourable circumstances and by carefully planned manoeuvres they succeeded in getting control of government power; every action since that date has had behind it the aim of strengthening the hold on power of the leaders of the Communist Party. Some statements of Marx and Engels on the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” were misused to support the false claim that the workers were in control in Russia. In fact the Russian dictatorship is at present the rule of a small group, with Stalin at their head, who have so tightly organised their autocracy that it is difficult to dislodge them. In this, certain peculiar circumstances have played directly into their hands. From the beginning there was a bitter struggle between members of the ruling clique, and the successful ones imprisoned, deported or executed their rivals. The secret police, as in Germany and Italy, was, and still is, one of the principal of props of power. Lately the church is also taking a hand in the game.

With such background, to write of the Russian idea of democracy as being a sincere one is just nonsense. The rulers of Russia are solely interested in keeping their privileged position as rulers and, like the capitalist rulers here, are only concerned with democracy to the extent that it achieves this object. To write of the Russian dictatorship, as the contributors to the Manchester Guardian have done, as being a dictatorship exercised in the interests of the workers is contrary to the facts. On similar grounds they could as logically argue that Capitalists rule in the interests of the worker.

The business of the Communist parties of different countries has been to serve the interests of the Russian Government, and their “day-to-day” policies have twisted and turned and been reversed merrily in tune with the needs of Russia. On this question of democracy, so far as it concerns the parliament, their somersaults have been particularly spectacular. Starting twenty-five years ago with fierce denunciation of parliament as a sham and a snare, they have alternately denounced and applauded participation in parliamentary action. We will extricate two examples of this lunatic policy:-

In 1932 the Communist Party published a 20-page pamphlet entitled “Report on the Crisis Policy of the Labour Party, the T.U.C. General Council and I.L.P.” This report was submitted to the twelfth Congress of the Communist Party. It repudiates parliamentary democracy in the following manner:-

“Revolution for the Communists means the forceful overthrow of the capitalist and the establishment of the workers’ dictatorship, this to be achieved by the organisation of the daily struggle of the workers as the road to the seizure of power” (p. 17).

Any Party which accepts parliamentary democracy, however revolutionary its phrases is an instrument of the capitalists” (p. 20).

“We must expose the sham of parliamentary democracy, and show the positive results of the workers’ dictatorship based upon the workers’ councils. …” (p. 20).

The Daily Worker of March 6th, 1943, tells an opposite story. It opened its columns to a discussion of the oft-recurring enigma “Communist Affiliation to the Labour Party.” Mr. James Walker put the case of the Labour Party and Mr. William Gallacher replied for the Communist Party. In his reply Mr. Gallacher made the following bland statement:-

“Of course we believe in parliamentary democracy. That is why I am in Parliament. That is why I am such a regular attender, and why the Party is so anxious that I should a good account of myself.”

Could blatant impudence and political perfidy go further? It might, but not very much!

In the West the capitalists find that they can rule under democracy. In Russia the Bolsheviks found they could not do so. To veil their dictatorship and obtain support at home and abroad they rigorously applied the censorship and produced quantities of literature urging the claim that the workers are the real rulers who endow their leaders with supreme power and authority on the ground that the leaders know better than they do themselves what is best to be done. This autocracy was then labelled as a new form of democracy, proletarian democracy, though the proletarians have, at the most, only the influence of the dumb, obstinate cattle who may stray this way and that along the road but are always driven home in the end. In social systems based on chattel slavery the slave either acquiesced in his slavery or went under. In Russia the position of the worker is fundamentally similar. No one before has had the brass to suggest that the slaves participated in democracy. It has been left to the twentieth-century dictatorships, with the unbounded cheek of the confidence man, to foist his fantastic view upon an apprehensive and credulous world.

With an extraordinary tenderness towards Russia the contributors to the Manchester Guardian discussion find a basis for Russian views in an idea that has been revived again. Russia, they urge, has not political democracy, but it has economic democracy. This is how Mr. Laski puts the idea:-

“Soviet Russia is a more democratic society than Great Britain. No special privilege attaches either to birth or to wealth, to race or to creed. There is a wider and more profound attempt to satisfy maximum demand than in this country. … The maddening distinction which we make between the high social prestige attached to intellectual labour and the low social prestige attached to manual labour has no meaning. … Access to the courts is not dependent upon the wealth of the parties to an action.”

Democracy is a term that is used to signify the opposite of privilege. Whatever it is called, political or economic, it either means, in the circumstances that are being considered, that everyone has an equal standing or it is meaningless. Mr. Laski is out of touch with the practical world and, consequently, his description of the economic position in Russia is a travesty of the real position.

What economic equality is there between Soviet millionaires, who can command the best food and everything else, and the average poorly paid Russian worker; between the rich, who can take their holidays in pleasant surroundings, and the poor, who must stew or freeze in the cities; between the wealthy writers and the poor manual workers; between the trembling critic of the Government and the ruling group with its ruthless instruments of oppression; between the rich, to whom all the avenues of divorce are open, and the poor, who cannot afford to pay the court procedure, between Soviet ambassadors giving sumptuous feasts and Soviet workers who can barely get enough to live on; between the prisoners in the labour camps and the Secret Police? If there is economic equality in Russia, why, and for whom, do the black markets flourish? The economic democracy that critics and servile adherents alike admire in an illusion, as the ugly facts testify.

While conditions remain such that modern society is composed of capitalists and workers, two classes with antagonistic interest, then the modern democratic state is the capitalist state, the executive committee of the ruling class, no matter what name is applied to the party in power nor what theory it masquerades under.

But the democratic state has been forced, against its will, to bring into being methods, institutions, and procedure which have left open the road to power for workers to travel upon when they know what to do and how to do it. In this country the central institution through which power is exercised is Parliament. To merely send working-class nominees there to control it is not sufficient. The purpose must be to accomplish a revolutionary reorganisation of society, a revolution, in its basis, which will put everybody on an equal footing as participants in the production, distribution and consumption of social requirements as well as in the control of society itself. So that all may participate equally, democracy is an essential condition. Free discussion, full and free access to information, means to implement the wishes of the majority which have been arrived at after free discussion, and the means to alter decisions if the wishes of the majority change.

Conditions such as these have no room to grow in Russia at present. Those who rule there to-day are essentially anti-democratic. They rule by the secret police, the concentration camp, and the executioner. They hoodwink their subjects into believing that that is the best of all possible worlds.

Gilmac.

Professor Laski’s Secret (1946)

Pamphlet Review from the June 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many of the trade union element in the Labour Party dislike Professor Laski’s ideas. To them he is a troublesome interloper, a sort of cuckoo in the nest trying to make them responsible for intellectual progeny that may some day grow up and push them out. Without delving further into the habits of real cuckoos, we do learn from Professor Laski’s Secret Battalion (Labour Party, 2d.) just what happens in the political world when cuckoo number one finds a second cuckoo trying to lay eggs in the same nest; cuckoo number one becomes very indignant and says that cuckoo number two is not playing the game.

In 30 pages of argument Professor Laski tries to convince members of the Labour Party that it would be fatal to their cause to let the Communists become affiliated. With a rich array of facts he shows, that the Communists, while swearing their acceptance of Labour Party methods, are hiding their true aim, which is to capture the Labour Party as a first step towards setting up a one-party dictatorship in this country.

As propaganda to help the Labour Party repel the latest attack of the Communist political paratroopers it may serve its purpose, but as a contribution to Socialist thought it is largely stale and unprofitable. It echoes the 25-year-old controversy between Kautsky on the one side and Lenin and Trotsky on the other, adding nothing of value and enlarging an element of confusion that was already present. The protagonists then, like Laski and Pollitt to-day, were debating whether the working class should soberly use democratic Parliamentary methods or go in for a hectic bout of forcible seizure of power and minority dictatorship. The S.P.G.B., while endorsing Kautsky’s principal arguments – they were those put forward by the S.P.G.B. at its formation nearly 20 years earlier – pointed out that Kautsky the Labour politician was at variance with Kautsky the theoretician, for the politician Kautsky cherished the illusion that Socialism could be achieved by Labour Governments elected on the votes of workers who want reforms of capitalism but do not understand and want Socialism. Our answer to both Kautsky and Lenin was that Socialism cannot be brought about either by Labour Governments or by a Communist Party dictatorship, since its achievement requires that there should first be a majority of convinced and understanding Socialists.

Professor Laski’s pamphlet is liberally sprinkled with Marxist phrases and references to Marx’s views, calculated to give the impression to those who do not know the facts, that the Labour Party is Marxist. He claims (p.16) that the Labour Party “does not deny either the reality of the class-war or the imperative need to change fundamentally the capitalist foundation of society.” This seemingly clear declaration is ambiguous. The Labour Party would certainly subscribe to it, meaning that they do not deny the hostility of workers towards employers and that they favour replacing private capitalism by State capitalism. To Marxists, however, recognition of the class struggle means recognising that the interest of the working class is incompatible with the interest of the class that owns the means of production and distribution and that, the class struggle can be abolished only by dispossessing the capitalist class and introducing a social system based on common ownership and democratic control, involving, of course, the abolition of the system of wage-labour and of the production of goods for sale.

Laski, who makes so much use of Marxist phrases, must know that the Labour Party does not accept the Marxist view. Like Kautsky he is a theoretician who in words propounds one theory, but belongs to a Party that works on a quite different one. If he believed his case to be sound he had a magnificent opportunity to floor the Communists by pointing out that Socialism has not been, and is not being, achieved in Russia after nearly 30 years of dictatorship; and then try to show how Labour government (here or in Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere) had introduced or is introducing Socialism. He does neither. On Russian State capitalism masquerading as Socialism he says nothing —how could he without inviting the retort that Labour Government State capitalism is not Socialism either? Instead he gives away his case by trying to justify the Labour Government for its reforms and for its policy of State capitalism. He writes: “Socialism in Britain has …. already secured for the working class of this country great reforms, both in the economic and in the social realm. It has made it possible to place in power a Socialist Government which, also by constitutional methods, moves steadily forward to national ownership and control of the vital instruments of production” (p.17). He must know that Socialism as understood by Marx and other Socialists does, not mean a State capitalist programme of “national ownership and control.” For all their Marxist phraseology, he and the Communists are actually debating whether the workers should seek State capitalism by the Parliamentary road, or seek it by dictatorship. Rejecting both disputants, the S.P.G.B. holds that the working class should certainly use the Parliamentary road – but for Socialism.

One small point of interest. Professor Laski has exposed the secret battalions of Communists. Will he now yield up the secret of why he claims to be a Socialist but does not repudiate the reformism and State capitalist aim of his Party?

Edgar Hardcastle

Editorial: The Labour Party Drops Nationalisation. (1931)

Editorial from the May 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

The New “Socialism”

It is not amazing that the Labour Party should alter its programme—that has happened often—but it is amazing that the chief item in the programme should be quietly replaced, and that the membership not only do not protest, but appear to be unaware of the substitution. The one thing the Labour Party and the I.L.P. have stood for since their earliest days has been nationalisation. No formal statement has been made about dropping it, and certainly no Conference, either of the Labour Party or the I.L.P. has ever endorsed a change of policy, but we now have Mr. Herbert Morrison, Minister of Transport, and Mr. W. Graham, President of the Board of Trade, calmly stating that nationalisation has been abandoned in favour of public corporations under “business” management.

Mr. Graham, President of the Board of Trade, speaking at a Labour demonstration at Stirling on January 30th, 1931, appealed for the support of the Liberal Party on the ground that “the industrial problem is now so grave that the old divisions of parties become meaningless” (Times, Jan. 31st).

He remarked on the tendency towards the formation of trusts and said that Liberals had opposed the Labour Party’s proposals for nationalisation,

“because they usually regarded it as management from Whitehall. No one now makes such a proposal. I am convinced that in the leading industries, and in due course in others, this trust concentration must shade into public corporation. In short, we must make a business proposition of this economic transition.”

The Liberal News-Chronicle wrote approvingly of Mr. Graham’s speech and accepted it as evidence that the Labour Party “is painfully and somewhat confusedly ‘Liberalising’ its policy” (quoted in New Leader, Feb. 6th).

Mr. Morrison’s London Passenger Transport Bill proposes the grouping of London ‘buses, trams and tubes under the control of a board of five members who are to be “persons who have had wide experience, and have shown capacity, in industry, commerce or finance, or in the conduct of public affairs” (Part I, Clause 1, par. 2). They are to be appointed by the Minister of Transport after consultation with the Treasury, but are not to be under any effective control by him. The kind of people Mr. Morrison has in mind is shown by a. speech he made at a staff dinner of the London General Omnibus Company on March 26th, in which he paid tribute to the “ability, courage and initiative” with which Lord Ashfield had controlled the transport companies which he directs (News Chronicle, March 27th). In fact, the trump card Morrison played in the debate in the House was to read a letter from Lord Ashfield, expressing his agreement with the main principle of the Bill.

Mr. Morrison said (Hansard, March 23rd, col. 63) :—

“With the exception of the independent omnibus proprietors, who have very much misunderstood the Bill, and possibly the London County Council . . . none of the existing transport undertakings have really challenged the fundamental economic and administrative basis upon which this Bill proceeds.”

He quoted a Tory leaflet as follows :—”Mr. Morrison has sounded the death-knell of municipal Socialism and nationalisation.”

In the course of his speech Mr. Morrison, said :—

“I then considered, but not for long, whether the new concern should be operated by a State Department. I have a great admiration for the civil service . . . but I have come to the conclusion that the old idea of Departmental nationalisation in the ordinary sense of the term is not the appropriate way for a great business undertaking of this kind. Therefore, I rejected the idea of State Departmental management, and in that sense this Bill is not nineteenth century nationalisation. . . Part of the new thought is my own, but part came from the right hon, gentleman, the late Minister of Transport, and part from members of the Liberal Party in their famous publication ‘Britain’s Industrial Future.'”

At this point a Member of Parliament very pertinently interjected : “Is there any of your own ?”

We would like to ask since when Mr. Morrison’s new views have been the policy of the Labour Party. His statement does not square with the Labour Party’s opposition to the handing over of the Government cable and wireless services io the “Imperial and International Communications Co.” Does it foreshadow the denationalisation of the telegraphs, telephones and postal services ?

Industrial News, published by the Trades Union Congress, contained the following (March 24th) :—

“Nationalisation, under a State Department, Mr. Herbert Morrison said, was a 19th century conception, and he did not think a vast business undertaking of the kind would be appropriate for politicians to manage. The solution of the problem is to set up a Business Board, which is not a political body or a State Department, and will not even be responsible to the Minister for its day-to-day actions, though he would be, of course, answerable to Parliament, on matters of policy. Salaries, fees and allowances for the Board will be fixed by the Minister; the Board itself will appoint the appropriate officers for the management of the undertaking ; ‘and, indeed (said Mr. Morrison) we shall take over the officers and staffs of the existing transport undertakings.'”

Mr. E. F. Wise, of the I.L.P., described the Bill as being as nearly as possible “pure Socialism,” and approved the abandonment of the nationalisation schemes that have been the stock-in-trade of the Labour Party and I.L.P, all these years (Hansard, March 23rd, col. 117).

Our position is clear. We have always opposed State capitalism or nationalisation on the ground that it alters the form but not the substance of capitalist ownership and control. The capitalists continue to receive their property incomes on their investments, with the added security which Government guaranteed bonds have as compared with company shares. But we were always told by Labour Party defenders that “nationalisation is Socialism,” or, alternatively, that “nationalisation is an inevitable step towards Socialism.” Now the “inevitable” has been quietly dropped in favour of a new “inevitable” which Mr. Morrison has culled from the Liberals and Tories. The new capitalism is just as objectionable as the old, from a working-class standpoint.

One amusing consequence of the Bill is that the Tory capitalists who control the Common Council of the City of London are supporting Mr. Morrison (their interest, no doubt, being in the financial provisions of the scheme), while the Tories who control the London County Council (their chief interest being in the rates) are opposing municipal ownership. The Labour members on the L.C.C., who for years have told the workers to be proud of “their” municipal trams, are backing Morrison against the Tories (Star, Feb. 5th, and Daily Telegraph, April 1st).

The change of policy has been carried through so discreetly that even some of the Labour Party “intellectuals” have been caught napping, although they are notoriously quick at trimming to any new wind that blows. Professor Laski, who has of late given less attention to misrepresenting Marx in order to write popular potted biographies for Odham’s Daily Herald, dealt on April 4th with President Hoover, of the U.S.A. Laski usually has his ear very close to the ground, but on this occasion he was several weeks behind the times. While Morrison and his I.L.P. supporters were proclaiming the new creed of salvation through control by business men, Laski was writing that Hoover’s outlook is “pathetic” “because the creed that business men are the salvation of mankind has so completely broken down.”

By The Way: The Labour Government’s Communist Friends (1945)

The By The Way Column from the November 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Labour Government’s Communist Friends

The Communist Party helped Labour M.P.s everywhere at the July elections, rejoiced in their success and is backing the Labour Government. Now read what choice epithets they applied to the last Labour Government.

“It shoots down the workers and peasants in India; it imprisons such gallant workers as the Meerut prisoners, who have fought for the economic and political freedom of the Indian workers and peasants; it sends warships to intimidate the Egyptians; warships and soldiers to China. The Labour Government is the most open and blatant tool of imperialism, both in its attacks on the workers at home and in its policy of bloodshed and violence abroad.”—(Mr. Harry Pollitt in “The Workers' Charter,” published in 1930, by the National Minority Movement).

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Communists Denounced Nationalisation and Now Support it

The Communists now approve of the Labour Government's nationalisation schemes, but read what the Communists said about the schemes when they were drawn op.

“The Labour Party and the trade union leaders try to hide their policy of surrendering the workers’ daily interests to the capitalists, by using socialist phrases, so called Socialist schemes, such as were adopted at the Leicester and Newcastle Conferences.

“All their schemes for the 'control of banking system,’ 'public control of industry land trade,’ 'transport boards’ are schemes of capitalist reorganisation, designed to strengthen capitalist monopoly at the expense of the working class.” 

(From “Resolutions adopted by the 12th Congress of the Communist Party of Great Britain.”—Published by the C.P.G.B., 1932. Pago 6)

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“A Third Labour Government Will be Even Worse than the Second ”

After the collapse of the second Labour Government, when MacDonald had joined the National Government and the 1931 Election was in progress the Communist Party published “The Workers’ Answer to the Crisis,” by R. P. Dutt.

Here are some extracts: —

“But the policy of the Labour Party was and remains the policy of maintaining capitalism, of attempting reforms within the framework of capitalism, of taking over the capitalist state, of administering capitalism, of denial of the class struggle, of unity with capitalism. . . . The outcome for the workers who trust the Labour Party is disaster. The talk of socialism and reforms becomes only deceiving the workers, because the practice is capitalism.

“This is the lesson of the two Labour Governments.” And again:—

“Will a Third Labour Government be any better than the second Labour Government? Will a Henderson Labour Government be any better than a MacDonald Labour Government?

No, a third Labour Government will be even worse than the second Labour Government, because of the greater intensity of the crisis of capitalism, will deal even heavier blows against the workers, will lead to worsening of the crisis and end in intensified capitalist dictatorship. . . .

What are the promises of the Labour Party worth ? Nothing, as experience has abundantly shown. The Labour Party speak of ’socialism,’ of ’Nationalisation of the banks/ of ' public ownership and control ’ of the key industries. This is a paper programme of promises to deceive the workers. . . . It is meaningless deception so long as the capitalist exploiters are in fact to be left secure.”

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Less Compensation for Coal owners

“After the discovery of atomic energy we are unlikely to want coal as a source of power 20 years hence. If the mines stayed in private ownership, their value would be small. When they are nationalised it would be ridiculous to compensate the shareholders at anything like the present Stock Exchange prices. The railways will probably be obsolete in another 30 years, so the same applies to them.” —Prof. J. B. S. Haldane in Daily Worker, 2.8.45.

Was it not Professor Blackett who said on the wireless in 1935 in discussion on Science with Julian Huxley that “scientists, if in the position of politicians, would act like politicians”? So a man of Haldane’s unquestionable scientific ability—because harnessed to the C.P.-Labour Party policy of compensation for poor capitalists—can see nothing more in the supercession of the old forms of production and transport by atomic energy than a haggling point to pay less compensation.

The Communist Party, which started by “taking the Labour Party by the throat,” now pleads for lest compensation.

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Too Unreliable

Gangsters for Commandos.

Proposal Was Dropped.

“Among recruiting suggestions considered in the early days of the commandos was whether it would be better to use real toughs or gangsters either from the United States or British cities rather than soldiers. The view taken, it is revealed in 'Soldier,' the British Army magazine, by Brig. Dudley W. Clarke, who recruited the first commandos, was that the gangster was too unreliable. The idea was dropped.

“So, too, was a proposal from a convict who offered to form a commando of convicts And warders.”—Sunday Times, August 12, 1945.

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Liberation

German charges that Moroccans attacked Girls. 

“Rumours arising out of German allegations that more than 1,000 women were raped by Moroccan troops during the first few days of the French occupation are still growing in the German city of Stuttgart. Hundreds of girls in the city were Poles or Russians brought there by the Germans as slave labour.

“The German police chief in the new administration working under U.S. occupation, Karl Weber, said most of the women were attacked in their own homes by the dark-skinned, turbaned Moroccan troops, who broke down doors in looting forays.

“The official German police report lists 1,198 rape cases involving women whose ages ranged from 14 to 74. Weber claims that each case has been verified and estimates that twice that number of women were attacked but were ashamed to report.—Sunday Express, August 12, 1945.

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Reluctant “Comrades"

A correspondent of the Manchester Guardian reports the extremely difficult problems which repatriation of Russian “displaced persons” involves. First, he points out that by the Yalta agreement the Soviet authorities do not recognise “ non-repatriables” like the other powers—i.e., they insist on the handing over of all Russian citizens. 

Secondly, and more importantly,

“Apart, however, from certain questions of principle involved, there are practical difficulties about doing this, as some are prepared to fight rather than be arrested. Individuals or groups may well have arms, and there is an obvious reluctance to risk the lives of British or American soldiers for what is essentially a matter of internal Russian policy.”—Manchester Guardian, August 31, 1945.

So what does emerge is that thousands of former Russian citizens, having escaped the “Socialist Fatherland” during the war, are prepared to risk their lives fighting to avoid repatriation to the Soviet Utopia.

We have a splendid solution! Let all those hysterical and vociferous Communists who haunt Socialist Party meetings volunteer to go back to Russia in place of the missing Russian nationals in Germany, who will remain where they prefer. A good time will then be had by all! We wonder!

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Strikers Shout Down Officials!

The Telegraph for July 30th reports that officials were shouted down at a railway strikers’ meeting. Delegates called for nationalisation of the railways.

A Birkenhead representative declared: “If we continue our present (strike) action the new Government will be able to turn to the companies and tell them they cannot manage their business. It would then be an easy step towards nationalisation. ’'

He got his answer on July 31st, one day later, when “three hundred soldiers swept in through the Surrey Commercial Docks at 1 p.m. to-day in lorries to take over loading and unloading of ships which had been at a standstill because of the dockers 'go slow.’ ”—Evening News, July 31.)

Strike action of itself will never achieve nationalisation of the railways or any other industry—even if nationalisation were in the interests of the workers. Only political power can do that, because it involves the State. The Labour Government will “nationalise” certain industries because it has a mandate (power) from the electorate to do so. It has persuaded working-class electors that it does so in their interests—though it is actually the policy of some of the industrial capitalists. Strike action against the State-brings the Army in to do the job, and breaks the strike.

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Bombs and Trade

“Post-war trade relations in the Far East are being rewritten by B.29 Super Fortresses and India’s Industrial future—particularly in textiles—looks extremely rosy in the glow of firebombs on Japan, 'Every time the Superforts hit Osaka’ said a leading Indian textile operator, ' I say to myself: There’s another year free of Jap competition in the Indian textile market.’ ”—(New York Herald Tribune, June 13th, 1945. Quoted in Plebs, September, 1945).

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That Odd Bird the Labour Party

Mr. Laski is reported to have said: “The bright bird of Socialism needs two wings—it can’t fly on a right wing only, or a left wing only.”—(Daily Mail, September 4th).

If Mr. Laski had stopped to consider the kind of progress made by a bird with oddly assorted wings, one pushing forward and the other pulling back, he would have realised that his analogy is very apt though not in the sense he intended.

Horatio.

The Labour Party in Perspective by M. Blum. (1950)

From the June 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Leon Blum, whose death was announced recently, was a Social Democrat—that is, a reformist of the Labour type who, while using the name “Socialist,” took part in the administration of capitalism whenever allowed to, holding ministerial posts at times. However, he seems to have understood the position of such reformists far more clearly than the British Labour Party; for in a fraternal “Letter to British Socialists” published in Tribune during the election (17/2/50) he made the following observations, which must have perturbed even readers of Tribune (who are accustomed to regard themselves as the lonely conscience of the Labour Party): —

“ My comrades of the British Labour Party . . .

“[In France] the Socialists have maintained all the essential economic and social reforms which have been introduced since the liberation, despite a counterattack by capitalist reaction.” (Our italics.)

He sympathises with the British Labour Party in office:—

“There is perhaps no more difficult task than that of a government working within the framework of a capitalist society and having neither the power nor the mandate to transform it completely at one blow." “ It must defend at the same time both the special interests of the workers and the general interest of the nation —which are not always identical.” This surely is only possible if the interest of the nation is equated to that of a minority, for those same workers are also the overwhelming majority of the nation.

“The Labour Government has . . . achieved a number of economic and social reforms . . . without changing the existing class structure . .. [The Conservatives] will interfere with scarcely any of its striking achievements.”

This certainly makes clear the considerable common ground the Labour Party shares with its opponents, and this worries Tribune quite enough as it is. But before his British comrades have risen from their gloom he goes on:—

“European capitalism . . . no longer maintains free competition, but moves towards monopoly capitalism, which is concerned above all with securing legal protection for its profits. It is incapable of offering a solution which will conform to its principles for to-day’s weighty problems.”

Ah, this is more what we are used to—general attacks on the idea of profit. One simply does not attack the Labour Party, old man. Recognise the difficulties, and all that. But Blum is not yet done with his unwitting wounding of his British friends—he deals a blow at the Labour Party’s belief that State control and/or ownership can be equated to Socialism in the following paragraph.

“The history of Soviet Russia proves another truth which no Marxist could have predicted fifty years ago and which I myself should have rejected outright in my youth. It is evident now that even a complete and revolutionary transformation of all property rights does not automatically lead to the true emancipation of the worker. In Soviet Russia the capitalist system of property has been completely destroyed. Yet a régime of wage labour persists, the material conditions of the workers remain miserable, and elementary liberties are pitilessly crushed.” (In point of fact of course only the private capitalist system of property has been abolished.)

The attitude of the Socialist Party of Great Britain has from its foundation been quite clear about the feasibility or otherwise of Socialism either “in one country” or in any society in which production and education are not at a high level and which has not developed the habit of democracy. Articles from The Socialist Standard on the Bolshevik regime from its inception are collected in our pamphlet, “Russia Since 1917,” and will be seen to be perfectly consistent about its oppressive and non-Socialist character. There is nothing particularly clever or clairvoyant in this, merely an absence of the self-delusion afflicting the Communist Party. In any case, it is regrettable M. Blum never picked up a Socialist Standard, if not fifty then forty-six years ago, for he would not have had to confess such disappointment.

In his closing remarks M. Blum says: “ [In] Britain under the influence of the Labour Government . . . the capitalist system of property has not yet been abolished,” thus nailing the Labour lie “Five years of Socialism have brought us, etc.” And having completely undermined the morale of the Labour Party, who thought they were after something different, he finally wishes them luck at the hands of the fickle workers, who as events have turned out cannot be relied upon to know when they are well off, and awaits the poll “ with great excitement.”

Before the war Mr. Attlee wrote a pot-boiler called “The Labour Party in Perspective.” Now the Labour Party really has been put in perspective, but by Mr. Attlee’s Gallic counterpart. Whether M. Blum was actually trying to educate his British comrades (he would keep calling them that, and it must have upset them), or whether he took it for granted that any party with pretensions to being Socialist would at least have read “all that Marx stuff, you know,” we can only guess. If an attempt at education, it seems doomed to failure when it is remembered that the Labour Party thinks of Tribune as its black sheep, edited by people who don't go into division as they are told and have nothing better to do than to spill inconvenient beans about Seretse and the (Unilever) East Africa Co. monopoly. In the issue of 31/3/50 Ian Mikardo opines that Harold Laski died heartbroken by the last five years of Labour government. It will be interesting to watch the fate of the Tribune group in the mighty democratic party which (also says Mikardo) expelled Zilliacus unheard. Yes, the Labour Party is indeed coming into perspective at last

OPIFEX.

Letter: Marx’s Economic Theories (1944)

Letter to the Editors from the March 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Glasgow

Editorial Committee, the Socialist Standard.

Dear Sirs,

In thanking you for your courtesy in publishing my letter on Marx, I would ask your permission to make the following answer to “H.’s” reply.

My critic states : (1) that the authorities I quoted are, with one exception, not economists, and (2) that they do not always agree with one another.

In reply to this I would say that they are all men who have devoted a lifetime to the study of political and economic questions, and that no one can expect them to agree with one another on every point.

In what branch of science are all the authorities agreed on everything?

As for the statement that they are not “political economists,” if by this term is meant those who are professors of the subject in our universities, I would ask what professor of political economy in any university in the world to-day, outside Russia, does endorse Marx’s theory of value? I have never been able to find the name of anyone who does, though I have questioned many of my Marxian friends on the subject. And it will not do to say that they refrain from doing so from fear of victimisation by the university authorities. In this revolutionary age anyone who came forward as an open champion of Marx would probably make a fortune from the sale of his books. The Dean of Canterbury was not put out of the Church for championing Russia, and his uncritical works (so thoroughly exposed in the Socialist Standard) are circulated by the million.

Moreover, the fact that one authority builds upon the theory of another (another point made by your contributor) does not invalidate his testimony. Sir Arthur Keith stood upon the shoulders of Darwin, but his testimony to the truth of evolution is no less valuable for that. Even Marx was indebted to his predecessors.

I scarcely think it necessary to dwell on Shaw’s remarks on Mallock. As a humorist, Shaw is at times superb, at others just a little tiresome. But surely no one takes him seriously on economic science. His criticism of Mallock is typical-—a man whose shoes, intellectually speaking, he was, in my opinion, never fit to clean.

The authorities I quoted gave reasons for their belief that Marx was wrong, but “H.” has not refuted them. In my opinion, their arguments cannot be disproved.

In his second article your contributor says, “Our critic obviously misunderstands the Marxian theory of value.” If this is so, I err in good company. After a careful, analysis of Marx’s teaching, Prof. Hearnshaw says : “The absurdity of the labour theory of value, stated thus succinctly, is so patent and so appalling that Marx himself was compelled to conceal its naked monstrosity by clouds of Hegelian vapour. He plays upon the word ‘commodity’ until it loses all recognisable features. He juggles with the word ‘labour’—abstract labour, concrete labour, skilled labour, unskilled labour, manual labour, mental labour, human labour, homogeneous labour, socially necessary labour, average labour, general labour, and so on indefinitely—-until the most devoted and most diligent Marxians (e.g,, Kautsky and Trotsky) tear one another to pieces in contradictory assertions as to what Marx means. ‘It is possible,’ said one despairing Socialist—and probably many more than one—’to prove anything from Marx.’ ”

I think my illustration of the fishing boat was quite appropriate, for if the Marxian teaching that rent, interest, and profit are three forms of robbery is true, it should apply not in certain cases but in all cases. The fact that modern industry is run on the joint stock principle does not alter the fact that capital so contributed is as necessary as labour in the production of wealth, and is entitled to an adequate (though not an excessive) return.

The way in which I see the matter is this : A ship requires £10,000 to build. I, as a worker, earn £200 per year—that is to say, I produce £200 worth of consumable goods and receive tickets in the form of money entitling me to draw upon the common store to that extent. I choose to spend only £100, however (that is to say, I draw upon the common store to the extent of only half of my contribution to it). The other half I hand to the directors or promoters of a joint stock company. This they pay, at least to the greater extent, in wages, which entitle the workers who receive them to draw upon, or consume, that half of the consumable goods I have produced but have refrained from claiming. The energy in these goods is converted into the energy of human labour, and the energy of human labour is converted eventually into a ship, since I am but one of 300 investors who act in a similar manner. My investment and the investment of my fellow-shareholders was as necessary as any other factor to the result. If we claim a share of the ship’s earnings (it may, to simplify the illustration, be regarded as a trawler), in what respect are we “robbing the workers?” It will not do to say that all transactions are not on such a clear cut basis. If the Marxian view is sound—if, as your contributor implied in his original article, labour is the only factor in production entitled to reward, it must be shown why this is so. And, as I have already said, this argument, should apply, not in one case, but in every ease.

My illustration of one book selling five times better than another—(I accept the amended version of your contributor, which puts the matter in an even clearer light)—I still consider valid, but considerations of space prevent my entering into a lengthy discussion of this. The example, however, serves to illustrate a further point brought out by almost every critic of Marx—namely, his disregard of demand as a determinant of value.

In conclusion; may I say just this : Quite by chance I came across a modern book by a political economist. “Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy,” by J. A. Schumpeter, Professor of Economics in Harvard University (published by Allen & Unwin). Mindful of your contributor’s reproach that my authorities were not political economists (though some have spent as long as Marx in study of the subject), I looked up Professor Schumpeter’s view of the matter under discussion, and here it is : “Everybody knows that this theory of value is unsatisfactory” (page 23); “In any case it is dead and buried” (page 25).

But the theory forms the very cornerstone of the Marxian attack on capitalism. Without it, Marxism itself is dead !

Yours faithfully,

H. W. Henderson.

Reply.

(Our critic’s first letter and our reply appeared in the November and December issues.)

The point has already been made that a dispute about economic theory cannot be settled by an appeal to authorities: if it could, Marx’s own statements are more weighty than those of his critics. The real test is that of experience. Our critic asks what professor of political economy in any university outside Russia endorses Marx’s theory of value. The arbitrary exclusion of Russian economists gives away our critic’s whole case. If economic authorities as such can decide the issue, then the Russian have as much authority as any others. It is a tacit admission by our critic that professors are liable to be influenced by those who control the universities and by the environment in which they make their living. Abundant evidence of this is given in Upton Sinclair’s ‘Goose-step,’ a study of the suppression of opinion in American universities. A typical incident among many is that of the professor who declined an invitation to address a student’s club on Marxian theories—he wanted to keep his job (p. 211). Incidentally, Sinclair quotes Laski on the way pressure makes university professors adopt reactionary ideas in order to get promotion, or makes them keep silent (p. 391). Quite recently (Daily Express, November 28, 1942) it was related how the late Sir Arnold Wilson found himself up against a conspiracy of silence at the universities about the ramifications of the insurance companies. Beveridge explained to him why the London School of Economics, “on grounds of expediency,” ignored the subject.

In addition to pressure, there are other reasons why economists reject Marx. One is that they pick up biased and incorrect views of what Marx’s theories actually are during their own training at universities. Another is that the atmosphere of social snobbery makes them reluctant to accept a theory which identifies their own “intellectual” labour with that of the working class.

Our critic, earlier quoted Laski against Marx. Since 1927, when Laski made that criticism, he has been moving more and more towards accepting Marx’s views, and in Reynolds News (March 7, 1943) he wrote:

“It is important to add that Marxism has never been more living than to-day; as the eminent American economist, Thorstein Veblen, said, his is the only socialism that really matters.”

Our critic says there is no branch of science in which all the authorities are agreed about everything. This may be true, but it follows that where they are disagreed the dispute cannot be settled by an appeal to authorities.

He quotes Sir Arthur Keith as one authority who builds upon the theory of another (Darwin). This has no bearing on our point about various anti-Marxian historians and others who simply passed on, parrot fashion, each other’s opinions about Marxian economics. Keith is himself an independent authority who claims that his anatomical experience and his original studies confirm Darwin’s main conclusions.

Our critic quotes Hearnshaw to show that if he errs he does so in good company. This may bring comfort to our critic, but if he persists in thinking that Marx claimed all labour as value-creating, despite Marx’s repeated statement that he was only referring to “socially necessary labour.” then fifty Hearnshaws won’t make it any different.

On the question of the operation of capitalist undertakings, our critic gives another example of what he thinks happens. We are asked to consider a worker who earns £200 a year (in return for his work which produces £200 worth of consumable goods), and who could draw the whole £200 from the common store, but actually saves £100 and invests it. In support of Ins claim that “capital … is as necessary as labour in the production of wealth,” our critic says, “If we claim a share of the ship’s earnings … in what respect are we robbing the workers?”

Here in a nutshell is the fallacy of the whole argument. Labour and capital are claimed to be equally necessary, yet on the basis of this principle of equal treatment our critic claims that the worker who puts in £200 (through his work) is entitled to draw out £200 and no more; while the investor who puts in £100 is entitled, not only to continue owning his £100 investment, but in addition is to receive “an adequate return.”

It may be asked, too, whence comes the “adequate return,” since, according to our critic, the workers get back as wages all that they producer As the investor, as such, produces nothing but merely allows the workers to use the means of production, and as inanimate capital itself obviously cannot add more than its own value to the product, our critic is asking us to accept the theory that there is no surplus value, yet out of this non-existent surplus the investor receives his profit. Actually it can only come from the unpaid labour of the workers. The workers are working, say, half their time to produce their own cost of subsistence (the value of their labour power, their wages), and the rest of the time to produce the surplus value the capitalist takes.

It should be added that under capitalism as it really is the great bulk of existing capital is not the result of current savings, most of it being inherited; still less is it the result of savings by workers. All their savings together do not and could not amount to more than a trifling part of the whole capital.

The capitalists as such are not producers, nor are they “savers” except in the technical sense that their income is greatly in excess of what they need to spend, and can spend, on their own consumption. They are monopolists who, through their control of the machinery of government, are able to exact toll in the form of surplus value on the wealth produced by the workers who operate the capitalist-owned means of production.

As a late after-thought, our critic charges Marx with disregarding demand as a determinant of value. It is quite unnecessary to go into that charge here, for it will be noticed that our critic likewise disregarded demand. When he explained that a worker produces value by his labour (“£200 worth of consumable goods”), he did so without mentioning this after-thought that not the worker but the demand produced the value.

Last of all, our critic asks us to consider Schumpeter’s opinion that “everybody knows that this theory of value is unsatisfactory,” and that “in any case, it is dead and buried.” They both protest too much. If it is dead and buried, and everybody knows it is unsatisfactory, why are Schumpeter and our critic so anxious to kill it again?

Edgar Hardcastle

Points for Propagandists. (1930)

From the June 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Labour cannot improve Capitalism.

Mr. Herbert Tracey, the Labour Party’s Chief Election Agent, denies the claim made by his own party that conditions can be materially improved in this system. These are his words :—

“The workers are not getting a larger share of the national wealth. Under Capitalism the proportionate division of the national product cannot be materially altered ; the existing system secretes millionaires and paupers as the liver secretes bile.” (Daily Herald, April 16)

* * *

Who owns Great Britain?

The nonsense talked by all defenders of this system, from Tory to Labour, about the wealth of the workers, is completely smashed by the statement of Sir Leo Chiozza Money, the Labour-Liberal statistician. In the New Leader of April 11, he states :

“Twenty-five years have elapsed since first, in “Riches and Poverty,” I drew attention to the astonishing facts as to the distribution of property revealed by the collection of Death Duties. The facts are not less surprising to-day. In a quarter of a century very little progress has been made in securing a more equitable distribution of land and capital.

The nation, as a going concern, is still, for the most part, owned by a handful of people so small that, if they all left the country, the population would roundly remain unaltered. “

And he further says :

“It is equally true that, taking Great Britain as a whole, about 6 per cent. of its families possess nearly 70 per cent. of its land and capital.”

* * *

Nationalisation and unemployment.

How improved methods of transport affect post office workers in Scotland is shown by the report of the Scottish Council of the Postal Workers’ Union : —

“It is stated on the authority of official reports that during the last five years 1,700 full-time positions have been cancelled in Scotland as against an increase of 800 part-time positions. The reduction in the number of employees is attributed to the increasing use of motor vehicles in the conveyance of mails, which has made many rural postmen and auxiliary workers unnecessary. 

The union are suggesting a reduction in the working week with a view to the avoidance of unemployment in the service.”(Glasgow Evening Times, April 14.)

* * *

The cheapness of "Labour" Reforms. 

How Labour’s reforms save the property-owners money is shown in the following-from the I.L.P, paper, Forward:

“The change over of the unemployed from parish relief to unemployment benefit, as a result of the Labour Government’s new Unemployment Insurance Act, will save Glasgow Ratepayers £7400,000 a year, equal to 9d. off the Rates. Seven thousand men who have been receiving parish relief in Glasgow have been transferred to unemployment benefit through the new Act renewing their eligibility.” (Forward, April 12.)

* * *

The Revolutionary I.L.P. !

Unemployment relief should be a national charge, say both Winston Churchill and the I.L.P.

“That was the view of the I.L.P. in 1911 when Lloyd George framed his Unemployment Insurance Act. It is still the view of the I.L.P. The I.L.P. agitators of that time are the Government to-day, and it is left to Winston Churchill, the political adventurer with the adaptable mind, to express the I.L.P. point of view on unemployment relief.” (Forward, April 12.)

* * *

Humanizing Socialism !

I.L.P. object to Marx.

Mr. Fenner Brockway, the mouthpiece of the I.L.P., tells us in the Daily Herald (Jan. 22) that 20 years ago he read the American Socialist papers every week, and of them he says :

“They seemed to aim at making Socialism as difficult and forbidding as possible. The theories of the class struggle, the economic interpretation of history and surplus value were elaborated in detail, and their acceptance in entirety was made the test of Socialist conviction. 

I remember discussing this characteristic of American Socialism with Keir Hardie. He told me that before the formation of the I.L.P. British Socialism had been advocated in a similar way. The result was that the working-class was unmoved; it was left cold by the hard materialism, the dogmatic intolerance, and Continental phraseology in which Socialism was expressed.”

So Keir Hardie, who ridiculed the class war idea, and got his economics from Jesus, founded the I.L.P., with its sentimental appeal for social reform and a “humanized” capitalism, and support of capitalist parties.

Mr. Fenner Brockway reviews a book called the “Socialism of Our Times,” published by the “League of Industrial Democracy” (New York, 50 cents). This is a symposium by various writers who provide advice on “adapting” Socialism to the needs of the U.S.A.

Judging from the quotations, it is a collection of intellectual essays on everything except Socialism.

Mr. Brockway naturally commends the book, and quotes Mr. Harold Laski’s suggestions :

“The first step must be to awaken the American people to a sense of the positive character of the State. America still regards the State negatively, as we did in this country before the Labour Party entered Parliament. It does not recognise that the State has any responsibility for the unemployed, the sick, the widows, and the aged. Laski urges, therefore, that, the first need is to advocate unemployment and health insurance and old age and widows’ pensions, plus municipal ownership, taxation for social purposes, and Court and Parliamentary reform. In this way he believes a mental attitude will be created in the public for bigger Socialist reforms.”

* * *

Paralysing Socialism.

So Prof. Laski’s suggestion for “Americanizing” Socialism is to demand bigger reforms. What a Socialist Reform is, he doesn’t say. Seeing that all reforms are to be passed by the Capitalist Government—obviously they can’t be Socialist.

No suggestion is made that the workers should be taught Socialism, so that reforms will not be needed, but Socialism can be established.

The State is to be used by the worker to improve conditions under Capitalism ! The State, however, is a machine used under Capitalism to maintain private ownership and to repress the workers. The only use the State will be to a Socialist working-class is to capture it for the purpose of ending this system.

The workers of U.S.A. are advised by Mr. Laski to fight for the social reform legislation Mr. Lloyd George passed under Liberal Party rule.

This late professor of Harvard University understands the problem so little that he advises the workers in the most advanced industrial country to press for the paltry reforms that Germany had under Bismarck, and that England has suffered for many years.

Miss Jessie Wallace Hughan, another contributor to the book, says :

“American Socialism was imported by foreign-born doctrinaires. ’Gene Debs did much to humanise it, but it has still to be Americanised ‘from the pain economy to the pleasure economy, from the phraseology of the European labourer with nothing to lose but his chains to that of the American worker with his demands for a Ford and a radio.’”

American conditions are so different, she would have you believe, that the worker there has something to lose—and demands a radio and a Ford car. But how is it that both this writer and Mr. Laski advocate that the American workers demand all kinds of pensions, “doles,” and many other reforms similar to those we have in Europe, where “the labourer has nothing to lose but his chains”? The very reform agitation they favour gives the lie to the alleged differences in the condition of labour between U.S.A. and Europe.

Humanizing Socialism—Mr. Brockway calls his article. It should have been entitled—”Socialism” without Socialists— an I.L.P, beef stew !

* * *

Canadian Communists.

The Communist Party is as Reformist abroad as it is here. In Toronto Municipal Elections they are running candidates on a programme which covers everything except Communism. Their immediate demands according to their official organ, The Worker (Toronto, Dec. 21) include :

• “Unemployed relief of £5 per week to married men and £3 to single men.
• An Unemployed Insurance Act.
• Seven-hour day and 5-day week and 2 weeks’ holiday with pay.
• No night work for women and all those under 18 years of age.
• 2s. l1d. per hour for municipal employees.
• Abolition of property qualification for voters.
• Town Planning Scheme to pay union rates.
• Revision of taxation to benefit the workers.
• Free speech assemblage and Press.”

That’s how they build up Communist support in Canada.

* * *

More “Direct Action”?

“American Socialism or Labor Unions contra Company Unions,” by Robert Clausen, 409, East Fifth Street, Los Angeles. Price 35 cents.

This pamphlet, sent to us for review, is evidently the work of an ex S.L.P. member.

The writer claims that the S.L.P. have given up De Leon’s main idea, viz., reliance upon the economic organization, “taking and holding” the means of life without affiliation to any political party. Mr. Clausen does not deal with the weakness of De Leon’s position. In several articles in the Socialist Standard, our Comrade Jacomb showed that the S.L.P. had committed suicide politically by advocating that the workers give their undivided attention to economic organization.

The author of this pamphlet criticises both the “direct action” I.W.W. and also the industrial unions formed by employers for the harmless organization of their workers. These latter are called Company Unions in U.S.A., and their counterpart has grown up here since the General Strike.

Mr. Clausen’s pamphlet is a poor presentation of his views, but his chief idea is economic organization of labour, to take the means of production out of the hands of Capital.

He does not show how this can be done. Neither could De Leon or the S.L.P. Mr. Clausen supports Marx’s economics, but nowhere did Marx rely upon economic organization. Marx said that the first step was to capture political power (Communist Manifesto). The S.L.P. have not been able to deal with our case against their “direct action” policy, and so they remain silent on this, their special nostrum.

Perhaps Mr. Clausen would like to explain how economic organizations can “come into possession.”

* * *

“The Making of Socialists.”

“Why I doubt that the I.L.P. is a Socialist organization” was the title of a lecture given to the I.L.P. in North St. Pancras on March 6th by E. C. Fairchild. 

“He did not think the policy of social reform adopted by the Labour Party had any real connection with Socialism, and thought that the I.L.P. was making the fatal mistake of trying to outbid the Labour Party in reform measures, instead of concentrating on the making of Socialists.” (New Leader.)

The title of Mr. Fairchild’s lecture implies that he isn’t sure about the I.L.P. His doubts would not exist if he examined the I.L.P’s. position. It is inside the Labour Party, because that is where the jobs and popularity are. Its members run as Labour Party candidates because that is the way to get elected—and it’s election they want, not Socialism. The programme of rationalisation and reform gets millions of votes—advocating Socialism wouldn’t. The real crime of the I.L.P. and Labour Party is not merely their reform programme, but the assistance they give to keep power in the hands of the Capitalist Class.

Mr. Fairchild belonged to the Social Democratic Federation before the War, and in defence of their reform policy, wrote a pamphlet explaining that reforms and palliatives were the weapons of working class struggle.

In a series of articles in the Socialist Standard, our Comrade Jacomb analysed the reform nostrums of Mr. Fairchild. Since then the latter left the S.D.F. and joined the I.L.P., who had more reforms in their programme than the S.D.F. And now he is at Ruskin College as a teacher.

Before Mr. Fairchild started his wanderings in the reform wilderness, there was the Socialist Party of Great Britain in existence, and it still exists for the object of making Socialists and establishing Socialism.

* * *

Shaw v. Marx.

“And do not forget that the Marxian dream of a world-wide proletarian revolution, though it is not now practical politics, may yet upset all our conceptions of international relations. The Reformation did not seem practical in the Middle Ages; but it happened for all that.”

Thus spoke Bernard Shaw in an interview in the Sunday Observer (March 23}. It may suit Shaw to portray Marx’s idea as a dream, but the Capitalist Class don’t spend their time and money fighting dreams. They are busy with every weapon, from miseducation to repression, to try and prevent an end coming to their system. No wonder they are so full of praise for Labour Leaders like Thomas and Labour Politicians like MacDonald, who turn working class discontent into support of Capitalism. Lord Balfour, who has just “gone to heaven,” said that Social Reform was the antidote to Socialism. Shaw and the Labour Party support the antidote, while the very development of Capitalism makes Socialism inevitable.

* * *

The worker in America. 

“If the depression continues for another three months the situation will become seriously acute. The American working man has not been accustomed to saving. He has no reserves, and all his luxuries and household goods have been purchased out of income. If he is out of employment, then he will not be able to meet his instalments, and the companies that are keyed up to mass production will find that the percentage of production necessary to make large profits will be reduced to such an extent that there will not even be small profits—there will be considerable losses.”

Thus writes the City Editor of the Sunday Express (March 23), on his return from America. This Capitalist paper explodes the myth about the prosperity of the American worker with his “home” and motor car—”bought” on the hire system. The effects of mass production in America should teach the worker here that “greater output” in the most advanced country makes the workers’ position more insecure than ever.

* * *

Labour bombs.

Mr. Fred. Montague (Under Minister for Air) is opposed to materialism—in philosophy. As a Labour Minister under the Capitalist system, however, he is a staunch materialist, and strongly defended spending nearly 18 millions on the Air Force, an increase of nearly a million on last year. The modern weapons of war are taking the form of more air forces, so this spiritual Air Minister brings in larger air estimates.

So the Labour Government is keeping up the pace for bombing planes and all the other deadly weapons of this Capitalist world.

* * *

Lloyd George “Behind” the I.L.P.

“Mr. Lloyd George’s article in the Daily Express this week strongly reinforces the I.L.P. policy, so closely associated with F. W. Jowett’s name.” These are the words of the New Leader—the I.L.P. paper. What better evidence of the I.L. P. ‘s Socialism can you have?—Mr. Lloyd George “reinforces I.L.P. policy.” Perhaps that is Lloyd George’s thanks to the I.L.P. for so long supporting his Budget and other Reform campaigns !

* * *

A Communist Programme.

(1) Feeding all school children.

(2) Unemployed men on slack time to be relieved from paying rates.

(3) A school holiday on May 1st.

(4) Joint action by unemployed and employed to force these demands.

This is the Communist Party programme in Fifeshire (Daily Worker, March 14).

That is what they call uniting the workers for Revolution. The workers are to join together—not fighting for Socialism, but fighting for a school holiday on May 1st, etc.

Did the Third International spend large sums to develop such powerful Revolutionaries ?

C.

Letter: A Critic of Marx’s Economic Theories (1943)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

Editorial Committee, Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Dear Sirs,

In the “Socialist Standard” for June 1943 I find the following explanation of how the worker is said to be exploited under capitalism : “The worker is not paid for the produce of his work for the whole duration of the day. In a working day of eight hours a worker may receive wages equivalent to, say, four hours’ produce of his work. The other four hours are given free to the capitalist. It is thus that the worker is exploited under capitalism. Were he paid for the full produce of his eight hours’ work there would be no profits for the capitalist class.”

It is surprising that a paper such as the “Socialist Standard,” which adopts such a scientific attitude to many of life’s problems, should be found in the year 1943 preaching this exploded and ridiculous fallacy of Marx. There is a case for Socialism—many will say a very strong case—but it is not to be found in the Marxian doctrines of value and surplus-value, the absurdities of which have been exposed by Socialists and non-Socialists alike.

Profit may, under certain circumstances, be robbery, but it is not robbery simply as profit. As Arnold Lunn has said, profit is merely a form of payment, and the fact that in certain cases there may be excessive profit is no more an argument against profit than the fact that in certain cases there may be excessive payment for labour would be an argument against wages. The illustration given in the “Socialist Standard” assumes that the only element entering into production is labour, and entirely ignores all other factors. But surely the contribution of capital and directive ability cannot be thus ignored. If I build a boat and lend it to a friend to go fishing, and if my friend catches ten fish and gives me five of them for the use of my capital (the boat), in what respect am I robbing him ? My capital was a necessary contribution to the final result. And if I am able to direct him to the place where he will catch the most fish because I have devoted lengthy study to the fishing ground, am I not to be rewarded for my contribution? Or let me use another illustration. The firm of Brown & Company print and publish a book, employing a certain number of men in doing so. Smith & Company in the next street do likewise, employing the same number of men. But the sales of the first book amount to 100,000 copies, while those of the second book reach several times that number. The profits in each case are different, but the labour employed is the same. Is it not clear that not labour alone, but the manner in which it is directed determines the difference ? The compositors on the first book no doubt worked as hard as those on the second. They put in the same number of hours. But in setting the type they formed different words. These were the words of the authors. And one was more successful than the other. Not labour alone, therefore, but how it is directed and the part that capital plays in the final result must be considered. Your contributor considers labour only.

I have said that Socialists and anti-Socialists alike have riddled the Marxian doctrine through and through. Permit me to append a few opinions.

“Upon Marx’s theory of value and surplus value it is not necessary to spend much time. It has not stood the test of criticism; it is out of harmony with the facts; and it is far from self-consistent.” “The Marxian theory of value seems clearly untenable not less on theoretic grounds than from an analysis of the facts of business.” (Prof. H. J. Laski : “Karl Marx.”) 

“A mass of congealed fallacies.” (Prof. Flint : “Socialism.”) 

“The greatest intellectual mare’s nest of the century which has just ended.” (W. H. Mallock : “A Critical Examination of Socialism.”) 

“Rests upon superstition and upon a wholly superficial misconception of facts.” (Dr. A. Schaffle: “The Impossibility of Social Democracy.”) 

“The widespread acceptance of it among the labouring classes is doubly mischievous. On the one hand, it makes their justified resentment at the working of the economic order take the form of denouncing one definite alleged injustice; and this gives heat rather than light to their examination of schemes of reform. On the other hand, it exasperates those whom they attack by the injustice of the particular allegation.” (“The Labour Theory of Value in Karl Marx,” H. W. B. Joseph.)

Dr. A. D. Lindsay describes the doctrine as “indefensible,” and Bertrand Russell describes it as “not a contribution to economic theory as much as a translation of hatred into abstract terms and mathematical formulae.” Sidney Webb (“The Decay of Capitalist Civilisation“) says that “the theoretic mistakes of Marx are as patent nowadays as the mistakes of Moses.”

Prof. Hearnshaw (“Survey of Socialism”) makes the following criticism : “The Labour theory of value involves two propositions, both of which are entirely untenable. The first is that the cost of production is the only determinant of value; the second that the only active element in production is labour, and that consequently the wage of labour is the only justifiable element in determining cost of production. The first proposition wholly ignores the vital factor of demand as a determinant of value; the second wholly ignore all the factors of production except labour. . . . And yet this fake and now abandoned and derelict theory has been made for more than a quarter of a century (1867-94) on the one hand the chief weapon of the Marxian attack upon capitalism, and on the other hand the corner-stone of the Marxian economic structure.”

Prof. Flint, in his instructive work “Socialism,” states that : “The view of Marx is undoubtedly erroneous. Profits are derivable from all the factors of production, and not merely from labour. . . . Profit and loss in business are not proportional to what Marx calls the variable capital but to the total capital employed in it. To maintain the reverse implies blindness to the most obvious and indubitable facts of industrial and commercial life.”

Finally (for I cannot claim too great a portion of your space), let me quote the words of the veteran European Socialist, Max Beer (“The Life and Teaching of Karl Marx”) : 

“It is impossible to set aside the view that Marx’s theory of value and surplus value has rather the significance of a political and social slogan than of an economic truth. It is for Marx the basis of the class struggle of the workers against the middle class, just as Ricardo’s theory of rent was the basis of the class struggle of the bourgeoisie against the aristocracy, or as the doctrines of the social contract and of the natural rights of man formed the basis of the struggle of the middle class against aristocracy and divine right. Such militant philosophies need not in themselves be true, only they must accord with the sentiments of the struggling mass. It is with such philosophical fictions that history works. Marx’s theory of value explains neither the vast and unparalleled accumulation of wealth nor the movement of prices during the last sixty years. Wealth, measured in values, has, in the last few decades, increased by many times the increase in living labour power. In this connection the old formula: Wealth increases in geometrical, living labour-power in arithmetical progression. The greatest difficulty in Marx is that the inventors and discoverers, the chemists and physicists, the pioneers and organisers of industry and agriculture, are not regarded by him as creators of surplus values. Thinkers, who by chemical researches or discoveries double the productive capacity of the soil and conjure forth values in millions from the waste products of industry; physicists who place new resources of power and new means of production at the disposal of mankind and multiply the productivity of labour; organisers who co-ordinate the forces of production and introduce new methods of working—all this creative and directive work demanding, as it often does, an infinite amount of intensive intellectual effort, is not considered to increase the total sum of exchange values of the nation.”

In this letter I have confined myself to Marx’s theories of value and surplus-value. For a devastating exposure of the fallacies underlying Marx’s dialectical materialism I refer your readers to Max Eastman’s interesting book, “Marxism : Is it Science ?”—where the author proves that it is not.

Yours faithfully,

H.W. Henderson

Reply—An unconvincing appeal to authority

Our correspondent’s criticisms can be divided conveniently into two parts : (1) an appeal to authority; and (2) an attempt to show where Marx’s theories are wrong.

The appeal to authority calls to witness 13 individuals who have given it as their opinion that Marxian doctrines are absurd.

Let us say straight away that this kind of dispute cannot finally be settled by an appeal to authority; if it could many economic theories once backed by distinguishes economists would not have had to be abandoned later—for example, the mid-nineteenth century economists who held that a reduction of hours of work or the prohibition of child labour would bankrupt the manufacturers, and were therefore impracticable. The logical structure of a theory may be examined to see if it contains flaws, but the final test lies in the realm of experience. Does the theory explain what it sets out to explain ? Is it found to be in accordance with the facts?

Now let us examine these quoted authorities and the basis of their authority.

Our critic, seeing that Marx is repudiated by 13 more or less well-known writers, regards the sum of their 13 opinions as being more weighty than the words of Marx. Is there justification for this? Who are these people? Out of the whole 13, apart from Schaffle, who once had a considerable reputation as an economist, none of them have standing as economists. They comprise historians, writers on philosophy and political science, a mathematician (Russell), authorities on public administration, and several distinguished literary men who have written on a wide range of political and social questions—e.g., Shaw, Mallock and Eastman.

If this economic question could be decided by an appeal to economic authority, then Marx’s opinion is worth more than the rest of them put together. He spent far more time on painstaking study of economic theories and the workings of capitalism than any of them. He had an advantage possessed by none, that of having as his close collaborator Frederick Engels, who was not only a distinguished student of economics in his own right, but was intimately acquainted with the working of capitalism through being first an employee, then director of his father’s Manchester textile business. If it is an appeal to authority that is needed, then Marx and Engels have every claim to be treated as vastly superior to most of the 13, and in some degree superior to all of them.

There are other weaknesses in the appeal. If the 13 speak as experts when they say Marx is wrong, why cannot they agree on where he is wrong and on what is right ? They not only disagree with each other, but some of them deny the right of others to be regarded as useful or reliable witnesses at all. Is Shaw plus Mallock any weightier than either of them alone ? Not if we recall what they said about each other. (For the evidence see “Socialism and Superior Brains,” by G. B. Shaw.) Shaw charged Mallock with “rustic ignorance” of economics; declared that “any Socialist over the age of six could knock Mr. Mallock into a cocked hat ; said that Mallock’s “practical ignorance of society” was so incredible that he found it difficult to persuade his fellow Fabians that Mallock really believed what he wrote; and held him up as proof that “even the cleverest man will believe anything he wishes to believe, in spite of all the facts and all the text-books in the world.”

Mallock retorted that Shaw had entirely misrepresented his views, had obviously not read his book, and that “Mr. Shaw writes about myself very much as a man would write who mistook the Book of Genesis for the Koran.”

Now see where the appeal to authority gets us. If Shaw is an authority then Mallock is a rustic ignoramus about economics, and if Mallock is an authority Shaw is incompetent and untrustworthy.

Other similar illustrations could be given, as, for example, the statement made by Laski when reviewing the Webbs’ “Soviet Communism,” that in this book they had “a mood of ecstatic acceptance which makes them blind to facts which it is simply not possible to deny” Manchester Guardian, November 4, 1941).

Another weakness is that the long list of 13 is largely a duplication. Laski (who is not an economist) acknowledged when he wrote “Communism” (Home University Press, 1927) that in his chapter on Marxian economics he was indebted to Lindsay. A. D. Lindsay (also not an economist) in his book “Karl Marx’s Capital” (Oxford University Press, 1925, p. 53) admitted that though he differed widely from H. W. B. Joseph, he had “been greatly helped by his demonstration … of the indefensibility of doctrines often ascribed to Marx.” So Lindsay stands on Joseph’s shoulders and Laski stands on Lindsay’s, and Joseph anyway is not an economist but primarily a writer and lecturer on philosophy.

Next it could be shown, if space permitted, that many of the 13 put themselves out of court by rejecting Marx’s theories without knowing what they are. Earlier this year Shaw, in an article “What would Marx say about Beveridge,” declared that “Marx’s attempt to measure value by abstract labour-power can lead only to nonsense and bankruptcy.” Now this is not what Marx attempted to do. He expressly and clearly showed that value is determined by the amount of labour socially necessary for its production. When Shaw’s attention was drawn to his error in confusing “labour” with “labour-power” he stuck to his error and claimed that Marx really meant labour-power (Plebs, July, 1943). It would be easy to demolish anyone’s theories if we are permitted to re-write them to suit ourselves.

Then let us glance at Laski. In his “Communism” (p. 95) he assures us that, according to the Marxian theory of value, “we can measure the amount of ‘labour power’ in each man’s effort and so determine scientifically how he ought to be paid” (our italics). This may be Laski’s theory; it certainly isn’t Marx’s.

Laski evidently borrowed it from Lindsay, who wrote : “The labour theory of value … is primarily interested in what a man ought to get in reward for his labour . . .” (Lindsay, “Karl Marx’s Capital,” p. 61.)

This is not true, as any serious student of Marx knows. Marx was not concerned with how a worker “ought to be paid,” but with explaining how, under capitalism, he is paid. Laski is equally wide of the mark when he says (p. 116) that for Marx “Commodities have also an inherent value, which is what they would obtain in exchange where society was properly organised.” Laski ought to know that for Marx the aim was Socialism, a system of society in which there would be neither commodity production nor the system of wage-labour.

Is it then seriously suggested that these gentlemen, who do not know what Marx’s theories are, shall be regarded as good judges of the soundness of these theories?

Edgar Hardcastle

(To be continued.)