Just another day (2025)

A Short Story from the September 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘You know that’s bullshit, right?’ Kelly looked up from his coffee and gave me a hard stare across the kitchen table.

I closed my eyes. I wanted sympathy, not a political debate.

‘Actually, no. I don’t think that at all,’ I said. And damn! I sounded querulous.

Kelly and I had been mates from childhood, messing around together, and propping each other up through life’s inevitable traumas. He was funny and loyal and caring, always willing to lend a hand. He was the brother I never had. And yet, at times like this, I didn’t actually like him much. We had never been on the same page politically but in the last five years he’d become a convert to so called “libertarianism”, and turned starry-eyed by the so-called magic of the market. Whenever he got political these days, he showed a callous streak, and it always came as a shock when I saw it. People have more defensive layers than there are geological strata in the Grand Canyon – layers cemented together by the anxiety of living in an unnecessarily insecure and unsociable world. It seemed to me that Kelly had grown to be at odds with his own nature.

I hadn’t intended to call on him that morning. After breakfast I’d headed into town on foot on a mission to replace my old, and now defunct, washing machine. Did I say, ‘old’? I’d bought it eight years ago and I wasn’t happy that it had died already. My previous machine had lasted me 35 years with barely a hitch.

It was a drizzly Saturday in February, the sort of day that makes you feel bleak inside. Passing the corner shop at the entrance to Kel’s road, I remembered that his wife, Margaret was up in Aberdeen for the week helping her sister care for an elderly father with dementia. Kel would probably be at home on his own. I turned aside and headed downhill towards his house. When he opened the door he was looking tired. We went through into the kitchen where he’d been working. He swept aside a pile of paperwork on the table and closed his laptop. We sat down.

‘Tax returns?’

He pulled a face.

We drank coffee, and talked of personal issues, of music and motorcycles and eventually of washing machines. I tried to avoid the topic, but you know how it is. It was like suffering a state of general inflammation. The topic emerged as a moan, the moan hardened into a rant, and I was soon well into it. The machine had broken down at a bad time. Only a month earlier I’d forked out a lot of cash to replace my failed boiler. Now there was this.

When it broke down at first, I wasn’t too bothered. I called Frank. He came over later that afternoon wearing the same tool belt he’d had for decades. He pulled the machine out from under the counter, prodded inside for a bit, grunted and then gave me a sympathetic look.

‘It’s the…X’ He said,

‘What’s an X?’ I had no idea.

It turned out to be something small but vital. The crucial detail however was that it was sealed inside the drum. That meant the whole drum assembly would have to be replaced as a unit, and that was going to cost me an arm and a leg. It would be more economical just to replace the whole machine. I trusted Frank. He’d been doing jobs for me for decades. He leaned up against the counter with a cup of tea and launched into a well-rehearsed diatribe.

Thirty years ago, he told me, manufacturers of domestic appliances made available a full range of replacement parts through their own repair people and through independent businesses. These days, once a new model went on sale, replacement parts for the old one became rare as hen’s teeth. Not that it often made any difference. In washing machines, it was common practice, these days, to spot-weld the drums, sealing components inside them and making them inaccessible when they failed. Customers were forced to buy new machines while their existing ones were still largely in good working order. Frank looked me straight in the eyes and grimaced. I nodded. I’d heard a depressingly similar story from the Gas Safe engineer who had been unable to source parts for my boiler.

After I’d shown Frank out, I got online and checked out a number of consumer magazines and independent repair companies. I was soon scribbling away in a notebook. The average life of a washing machine these days is seven years. Seven! Apart from the expense to the customer this represented immense wastage of resources and employees’ labour when they could have been doing something more useful. ‘Criminal!’ Frank had called it. Independent maintenance companies were reporting components designed to break down after a certain number of washes (a remarkably small number in some cases).

Kel sat listening while I spilled all this out across the table. He looked increasingly sceptical. This was going to result in an argument, but I was too far gone to stop.

‘Planned obsolescence is everywhere these days’ I said.

My words worked on him like some kind of dark magic.

‘C’mon, that’s left-wing bullshit,’ he said. He was trying hard to keep his tone moderate but there was a snarl in his voice.

We had hit a familiar impasse. Kel wore Free-Market Economic Theory like a cloak of invulnerability. I often wondered in these moments how our friendship survived. I gave him a crooked look.

‘It makes no sense,’ he said, spreading his hands. ‘Why would a business do that? Companies aren’t stupid. If something ends up being a piece of junk, who’s going to buy it again?’ He stopped and stared at me. ‘We’ve been through this before…’

‘Yes we have.’ I sighed. ‘There’s no point pretending it doesn’t happen when it plainly does. What about the Phoebus Cartel.’

‘Not that again! Socialists always trot that one out.’

‘And that kinda means it didn’t happen?’

‘It only lasted a few years’.

‘That’s not true!’

The doings of the Phoebus Cartel are well recorded and it’s an often quoted example of ‘planned obsolescence’. In 1925 light bulb manufacturers across America, Europe and Japan got together and agreed to make bulbs that lasted a maximum of 1,000 hours, despite their having lasted up to 2,500 hours before that time. The cartel was intended to last 30 years, but was forced to break up in 1939 at the onset of war. For a long time after the war, however, manufacturers continued independently to produce bulbs designed to fail after 1,000 hours. Even without the discipline of the cartel, they realised it was both individually and collectively in their interests (and very much against the interests of their customers) to carry on doing this. An individual company might win more customers by doubling the life of its bulbs, but they would sell only half the number they had before, not just to new customers but to their existing ones as well. And if one company did it, capitalism being a competitive system, other companies would be forced to follow suit. Kel’s idealised formula for how perfectly the market works in the customer’s interest failed to represent reality.

He scowled at me. ‘Washing machines don’t last as long these days because customers want cheaper products, so that’s what they get. What do they expect?’

‘Well that’s true, but people have limited incomes,’ I said. ‘They have always wanted cheaper products. So why weren’t they being produced cheaper before? And besides, how does that explain the use of sealed units’.

Washing machines are cheaper today for a variety of reasons, all to do with the profit motive and market economics: technology has advanced and the costs of manufacture have fallen. The market for white goods has become hotly competitive in recent years, which is driving down prices. And many of the components used are now being outsourced to low-wage economies.

In Kel’s ideological world customers control the market. Companies, it is argued, only produce what customers want. It follows, in theory and in Kel’s mind, that if washing machines don’t last as long as they used to, then it must be the working-class consumer’s fault for demanding cheaper goods. What a surprise. It is extraordinary that no matter how free-market economics theorises a problem, by some magic it invariably turns out to be working people’s fault.

‘C’mon Kel. Major companies have even admitted introducing all kinds of ways to limit their product’s lifespan, or making them unrepairable. Apple and Samsung for instance.’

‘Apple and Samsung don’t make washing machines,’ he snapped.

I threw up my eyes. It was Kel now who was sounding querulous.

‘We’re not just talking about washing machines. Obsolescence is widespread. It’s a consequence of the capitalist market system. There have been lawsuits taken out against companies in the EU for it. Against Epson, for instance. You’re clinging to a theory that justifies your belief in capitalism but doesn’t represent reality. Competition is built into the system, which means that if one company introduces a degree of planned obsolescence, they all have to.’ He said nothing, just pulled a face to show how stupid I was to believe anything so irrational.

There are multiple ways manufacturers have of manipulating consumer purchases. Back in the day Henry Ford figured out that by bringing out new models of cars regularly, he could stimulate public desires for novelty and get them to dump their old machines before they needed to. Mobile phone companies do the same today, producing new models every year, often with only minor improvements, or with a ‘new’ look which gets marketed as the latest must-have item. Newness is sexy. At the same time as new models appear, companies flood the market with adverts extolling their virtues, and people start to notice their existing phones are running unaccountably slow. Owning glitzy new things indicates status. It fills the emotional hole left inside us by the loss of community and closeness.

Kel stood up abruptly and left the room. I stared at the rain running down the windowpane and sighed. No matter how hard we tried to avoid these confrontations, they kept occurring. It was a couple of minutes before he came back. He stood in the doorway. His frown deepened for a moment, but then he exploded into laughter. I smiled and shook my head.

‘Sounds tough. Do you need some cash,’ he asked? ‘I’m not badly placed at the moment.’

I looked down at his tax returns. Even if true, I knew it was a half-truth at best. His work was seasonal. This was not his best time of year.

‘I’ll get by. I’ll need to economise for a while. No extras. Right now, though, I need to go and buy this bloody machine or else I shall start to stink.’ I got up, and we walked to the front door.

‘Give my love to Margaret’ I said when we reached the hallway. ‘When is she due back?’

He sighed. ‘Depends how long she’s needed. Her sister is pretty exhausted looking after their dad. He wandered out of the house by himself last week and got lost. They had to call the police.’

‘Ouch!’ I knew that situation from personal experience.

He shrugged and then nodded. ‘It is what it is! We cope.’

I said goodbye, pulled up my hood and walked down his path into a February drizzle. For a while my head was full of messy thoughts and feelings. Money, property, competition: they screwed up all our relations. Capital value dominated our lives. Kel, though, was a good friend, whatever differences we might have. That was something of real value to hold on to. I pulled myself back to the here and now. The road on either side was lined with a jumble of small businesses, pubs and tiny Victorian terraces built originally for railway workers. They looked shabby now. I skirted a few gathering puddles, dodged some pedestrians hurrying towards the station, and prepared myself mentally to do battle with sales staff eager for a sales commission.

Hud.

Work and Employment (1967)

From the July 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fortunate indeed is the man who gains his livelihood by performing a task that he enjoys. Millions, born of working class parents, are condemned to earn their living by doing jobs that, at best, they can tolerate or, at worst, they hate.

Workers from birth, by teaching and training, are blinkered from sight of an alternative to a life of work for wages. High wages and security of employment become their life’s target. Boyhood dreams of a life devoted to some sensational, romantic or interesting occupation turn out to be—just boyhood dreams.

There is a tendency to confuse work with employment. The terms are used haphazardly, ‘Work’ being used when ‘Employment’ is meant, and vice versa. Work is the effort used to overcome a resistance, it is the expenditure of physical and mental energey. Employment is work performed in someone else’s service. All employment is work but all work is not employment. Work, in itself, can be enjoyable, employment seldom is. That is why millions go reluctantly to their employment and hasten away from it to seek pleasure in some form of work.

After five days in an office or factory, on a lorry or down a mine, workers will devote their week-end leisure to gardening, driving a car, some do-it-yourself occupation or a strenuous sport.

Why, then, does work, when it is employment, become distasteful? How does employment contaminate work and make it unpalatable?

The elements which make work enjoyable are, variety, the exercise of the worker’s initiative and intelligence, the satisfaction of creating something, and pride in the product. Remove one of these elements and the pleasure diminishes. Remove them all and it vanishes, the work becomes tedious.

A few centuries of capitalism have succeeded in eliminating those elements from the work men do for their livelihood by making employees of practically all workers.

Capitalism is a system where wealth is produced essentially for a market with a view to profit. The market is competitive and the competition exerts a continuous downward pressure on the cost of production, resulting in the introduction of ever more and more labour saving devices and more intense methods of production. Employees are coerced to produce more commodities in quicker time for the minimum possible total wage cost. Labour saving machinery ousts the craftsman. The division and sub-division of labour increases productivity but creates an army of semi and un-skilled workers doing repetitive jobs. The worker becomes proficient, not by the exercise of his initiative and intelligence, but by the continual repetition of a task.

Professor Charles Babbage, a nineteenth century mathematician, who devised a mechanical computing machine and who was a forthright apologist of capitalism, stated,

“. .. the most important principle on which the economy of a manufacture depends, is the division of labour amongst the persons who perform the work. 

… If, however, instead of learning all the different processes his (the worker’s) attention be confined to one operation, a very small portion of his time will be consumed unprofitably at the commencement, and the whole of the rest of it will be beneficial to his master.”

Sixty years later Henry Ford in his, My Life and Work, was able to show the application of the idea.

“With one workman doing a job he could turn out from thirty-five to forty pieces in a nine hour day, or about twenty minutes to an assembly. What he did alone was then spread into twenty-nine operations. That cut down assembly time to thirteen minutes, ten seconds. Then we raised the height of the line eight inches—this was in 1914—and cut the time to seven minutes. 

… we began to departmentalise so that each department would do only one thing … I did not know that such minute divisions would be possible; but as our production grew and departments multiplied we actually changed from making automobiles to making parts.”

The development of this process has varied in different trades and industries. For generations clerical workers considered themselves immune from its effects, but the typewriter, the adding machine, the electric Hollerith calculator, and the electronic computer have brought home to them with a vengeance the realisation that capitalism works on them in the same way that it works on their manual labouring colleagues.

Variety of task is almost extinct. Demands on most workers’ initiative and intelligence are low. The final product of his labour is so remote that interest in it has waned almost to vanishing point. During his hours of employment his attention is divided between his task and the clock and his interest is focussed on finishing time and pay day.

This is not a condemnation of machinery. Machines enable men to avoid many laborious tasks. Without machines society would not be able to enjoy many of the comforts and luxuries of modern living. The evil lies not in the machine itself, but in its ownership by an exploiting class who introduce it only when it serves their profit-making ends.

Employers introduce labour saving machinery, not to lighten the labour of their workers, but to cheapen it. The workers have had to fight every step of the way to achieve the shorter working hours which machines have made possible. Every gain by the workers of shorter hours is an incentive to their employers to instal more labour saving devices.

Modern automative machinery does not sub-divide labour processes into smaller units. It takes over batches of consecutive labour units and performs them mechanically with a minimum of human aid.

At the end of last February the British Computer Society held a symposium in London. The talks dealt with computer operations applied to grocery, brewery, tobacco, fashion goods, departmental stores and bakery trades. Automation introduced by the American bakery firm of Sara Lee was discussed and reported in the April issue of the Transport and General Workers’ Union journal, The Record.

This bakery produces fifteen different products which are frozen immediately after baking. On the bakery side the computer monitors raw materials, liquid and dry, including eggs, and weighs and mixes the ingredients.

“The cakes are baked in foil, packed in cartons and conveyed automatically to the warehouse.

Each carton surface has a “bar code” which decides the route that it shall follow. The cartons are tripped off the conveyor and pallet loading is automatically controlled by the computer, each tier is picked up by a suction head crane and stacked on the pallet. The warehouse contains eight of these suction head cranes. A loaded pallet consists of 80 cartons, which is then picked up by one of five stacker cranes and randomly stored in one of the ten racks in the warehouse. Each rack contains 5,310 individual cubicles. The computer memorises information concerning the whereabouts of each pallet load and when goods are being despatched it sends the stacker crane to pick up the appropriate quantities of each product. The computer sorts out the load and sends it to the despatching area where for the first time it makes contact with human beings who check the order and load on to the delivery vehicles. The computer records all products in and out and gives a rundown of stocks every quarter of an hour on tape.”

A reduced number of workers programme the computer and serve as a human check on mechanical accidents; they are adjuncts of the machinery. Their interest in the product is so remote as to be almost non-existent. They see and handle only the cases in which it is packed and the sheets of paper showing production data and marketing statistics.

Everything that gave the craftsman pleasure, satisfaction and pride in production is gone. Employment has made work a routine and often boring task. Physical effort is reduced, mental stress is increased.

The ideas of millions of workers are confined within limits set by the present social system. They conceive of no alternative to a wages system and, as discontent is a nagging sensation, they subdue it and become resigned to a life of employment. They look forward with pleasant anticipation to their daily leisure time relaxation, their week-end rejuvenation and their annual holiday recreation.

A word that has climbed the charts of the English languague is “Escapism”. Originally coined by psycho-analysts to define the attitude of mind of people who seek to avoid unpleasant realities by withdrawing into a world of fantasy, the term has assumed a wider application to include those who seek temporary escape from boring or harrassing life by concentrating on more pleasant activities or subjects for thought.

The workers’ week-ends and holidays are not so much times for rest as periods of “Escapism”, that offer the variety and interest denied them during their hours of employment.

Socialism, by ending the private ownership of the means of wealth production, will end work for wages and the division of society into an employing class and an employed class. Millions now employed in defending private property, calculating profits, seeking markets or in other socially unnecessary tasks, will be released for productive work. Machinery will be used to lighten or eliminate the more obnoxious or laborious tasks. When profit is no longer the motive for production all people will have the opportunity for a more varied experience and will be able to regain an interest in the productive process.

When men are no longer exploited by employers and can go to work with a light step and a smile in pleasant anticipation of an interesting day, leisure time and holidays will assume less importance in their lives.

W. E. Waters

Conspiraloons (2009)

Book Review from the November 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History. By David Aaronovitch, published by Jonathan Cape, 2009

  Perhaps the most disastrous of all conspiracy theories is the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This is largely based on a book written by a Parisian lawyer in the 1860s as a satire on Napoleon III. It was altered later in the nineteenth century by a Russian secret policeman to depict a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. The man who popularised the Protocols around the world was the capitalist Henry Ford. Published by Ford’s publishing house in the 1920s (along with other anti-semitic literature), subsidised with five million dollars, it sold half a million copies in the US alone. After mounting complaints about his anti-semitism Ford recanted and apologised, but Adolf Hitler saw him as a hero and the Protocols formed the basis of his world-view in his manifesto Mein Kampf. The rest, as they say, is history. Aaronovitch thoroughly demolishes this conspiracy theory, as he does with the alleged conspiracies in Stalin’s show trials, McCarthyism, the deaths of President Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Diana, the story underpinning Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code (in a chapter entitled “Holy Blood, Holy Grail, Holy Shit”), the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon (in which some claim the Bush government were complicit) and more besides.

  Aaronovitch argues that belief in conspiracy theories is harmful since it “distorts our view of history and therefore of the present” and can lead to disastrous decisions. He detects a pattern in which conspiracy theories are “formulated by the politically defeated and taken up by the socially defeated”. Conspiracies become an excuse to explain away a  movement’s own inherent weaknesses or unpopularity by attributing blame to a ruthless enemy. Aaronovitch claims that capitalism is not the cause of conspiracy theories since “[s]tate ownership in Russia was no guarantee against the most fabulous of conspiracy theories”. But this mistakenly assumes that state ownership is incompatible with capitalism. When President Bush effectively nationalised some financial institutions in last year’s “credit crunch” this was done for the benefit of American capitalism as a whole. In any case, capitalism’s continued existence does not require a conspiracy or a conspiracy theory. All it requires is the support, or more likely acquiescence, of the overwhelming majority in their own exploitation.

Lewis Higgins

Notes by the Way: Heroes and Geniuses (1947)

The Notes by the Way Column from the May 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

Heroes and Geniuses

Back in 1918 Mr. Lloyd George told the soldiers that he aimed to build a country “fit for heroes to live in.” The disgusted sufferers in Lloyd George’s post-war Britain were soon telling him bitterly that only heroes could stand it. Mr. Aneurin Bevan, Minister of Health, has now been telling the National Institute of Houseworkers that housekeeping to-day (that means under Labour Government), has to be an art, “ and even sometimes a work of genius ” (Sunday Express, 13/4/17). Of course we are all heroes now, or so we were told during the ‘‘blitzes” by "We can take it ” Mr. Morrison, but how do we stand as geniuses? According to Dr. J. R. Rees, formerly chief psychiatrist adviser, to the army., we don’t shape very well—“nearly 30 per cent. of people in Britain are mentally backward, chronically neurotic or emotionally handicapped” (Sunday Express, 13/4/47).

The truth is that this capitalist bedlam is becoming unendurable even to heroes and geniuses and unless we break out of it soon the human race not only won’t live (as distinct from partly living), it won’t even survive.

America Seeks Democracy (and Oil) in the Middle East

”Mr. Chester Morrow (Republican) told the House of Representatives to-day that any failure to approve President Truman’s programme 'will imperil American oil interests in the Middle East.’

"Mr. Morrow, who is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said : ‘In the event of future trouble the almost illimitable supply of oil in Arabia will be of paramount importance to our national defence. To protect our national interests, and help to guarantee our security, we must not allow the Middle East to he overrun by the Power whose actions clearly indicate an unfaltering determination to dominate all the world.’ ” —(Manchester Guardian, 27/3/47.)

Flowers for the Funeral of Full Employment

Under the heading "Luxury Labour Exchange has flowers, settees,” the Evening Standard (January 29th. 1947). published a picture of a new exchange at Westminster. "There are no long counters, no queues, no benches at the new Labour Exchange for women . . . Instead, women wait on soft chairs and cushioned settees, are interviewed individually in small cubicles . . . and there are even flowers on occasional tables.” 

Dalton Promised an Age of Plenty

Speaking at Deptford on December 11th, Mr. Hugh Dalton. Chancellor of the Exchequer, said

“ It is true we had to put up with great shortages, but gradually we shall work our wav through the age of scarcity into the age of plenty and abundance is within our reach provided we organise our economic life in the interests of the collective effort, and in the national interest ” (Daily Mail. December 12th. 1946).

Mr. Dalton follows an ancient tradition. It is an old-English custom for Chancellors to promise "plenty.” In the meantime one industry seems to he doing well under Labour Government, the "Millionaire” industry. Since Labour came into power there have been some ten people who have died worth a million or more. The same issue of the Mail reported that Mr. W. J. Yapp, director of Carreras, the tobacco company, "has left a fortune estimated at about £4,000,000.” of which there will still be upwards of £1,500,000 left after payment of death duties.

Workers' Control?

"Lord Dukes—formerly Mr. Charles Dukes, the trade union pioneer—has been appointed a director of the Bank of England for four years.”

"The Hon. Hugh Kenyon Molesworth Kindersley, who has also been appointed a director for four years, is managing director of Lazard Brothers and Company Limited.”—(Daily Mail, 1/3/47.)

The Labour Government and the Idle Rich

Everybody knows that under Labour Government there are many people living in idleness at the expense of the wealth producers, though Government spokesmen profess not to know how many there are.

Back in 1937 when the Labour Party was in the political wilderness and its present leader had time to write books explaining what they would do when they got power, Mr. Attlee wrote:—"It is true that in the Socialist State people will be deprived of the right of living in idleness at the expense of the community . . .”  "The Labour Party in Perspective,” Mr. Attlee, page 143.)

Only a non-Socialist would refer to Socialism as the "Socialist State,” and all Socialists knew that the Labour Party had no intention of depriving the capitalists of the right to live on the proceeds of the exploitation of the working class. There were, however, Labour supporters who believed that a Labour Government would take that step: Had they not heard Labour speakers declaim against the war-time injustice of workers being conscripted while capitalists were left in possession of their property? Remembering this and remembering too how often the Labour Party pledged itself against conscription in peace-time it must be a bitter experience for many Labour supporters to reflect on the fact that it is their party that legislates for conscription in peace-time, and gets it passed with the votes of Churchill and the Tories..

The Usefulness of Henry Ford

The death of Henry Ford, the American motor magnate, whose fortune has been variously estimated nf from £150 million to £200 million. induced Mr. G. L. Schwartz in the Sunday Times (13/4/47) to discuss the usefulness or otherwise of millionares to the community. This is his case for the millionaires: —

"Here is a simple test. Suppose the price of a 20 per cent, all-round rise in the standard of living in this country over the next decade was the emergence of 50 new millionaires, bloated millionaires. if you like . . . Would you advocate foregoing the improvement for the sake of greater equalitarianism? We can quarrel about this, but let us quarrel intelligently.”

At first glance this may look to be a reasonable presentation of the conflict between Socialism and Capitalism, as Mr. Schwartz intends it to be: but only at first glance. It is actually a statement of the division of opinion between those who advocate unrestricted Capitalism and those, like the Labour Party, who advocate legislation to impose high taxation on large incomes, and high duties on fortunes passing at death. Socialists are not in either camp. Our proposition is that Socialism is quite different from and vastly superior to either wav of trying to run Capitalism, the American way or the British Labour Government’s way. In both countries the mass of the population live in constant poverty, in fear of losing their employment, and in fear of losing their lives in capitalism's wars—for wars and crises are just as much part of Capitalism as are millionaires.

So also is unemployment. In the much-quoted article "The Carrot and the Stick” the “Economist” (29/6/46) showed how necessary unemployment is to Capitalism in order to goad the workers into the degree of effort required by the employers. “Provided that no one is unemployed for more than a short time, an unemployment ratio of 5 per cent, is not only supportable but absolutely necessary to provide mobility and elasticity in the economy. Full employment, in fact, will not work without a million unemployed.” Now look at Mr. Schwartz’s assumption in the light of the facts. Note that he places his assumption in the future, why not in the past? If it is a sound assumption it should be true of the past decades as well as the coming ones.

So it now can be restated as ”Suppose there was an all-round 20 per cent. rise in the standard of living in the past decade . . .” Need we say any more than to challenge our economist to prove that British workers are 20 per cent. better off than in 1937, 40 per cent. better off than in 1927, and 60 per cent. better off than they were 30 years ago! We have had lots of millionaires: we have also had two world wars, two major crises, hundreds of strikes and lock-outs, bad housing, under-feeding and all the miseries of unemployment and insecurity.

We think these things are a high price to pay for Capitalism, and we are willing to quarrel intelligently with Mr. Schwartz about it.

Why Daddy Goes Down the Mine 

For a while the Labour Government feared that too many workers were listening to the old refrain: “Don’t go down in the mine daddy.” Then a campaign to popularise the miner’s life was launched, and now recruits are coming in: ”2,000 men join the pits every week ” (Daily Express, 21/3/47). But it isn’t all due to propaganda; that never failing Capitalist persuader, unemployment, is playing its part. “In January, fewer than 800 men a week were volunteering. Now all men under 35 who are out of work for four weeks are being advised to go to the pits ” (Daily Express, 21/3/47).

No More Sneers at Capitalism

Captain Raymond Blackburn, Labour M.P. for King’s Norton, Birmingham, has been in hot water with some of his constituents for a speech he made recently Declaring that an entirely new approach is needed he went on :—

“We in the Labour movement must realise that the export trade is in the hands of private enterprise. We must proudly acclaim its achievements instead of sneering at those who are successful. It is an odd paradox that the success of Socialism in Britain depends in large degree upon the efficiency of private enterprise

“I believe that despite the clear statement of our position in the White Paper and by the Prime Minister in his broadcast we are still heading for disaster. This is not pessimism, but realism.

“It seems impossible that we can survive as a great exporting nation in the years of competition that lie ahead, if there is any substantial reduction in the hours of work in our main industries.—(Daily Telegraph, 24/3/47).

What Captain Blackburn calls an odd paradox is more than that, it is utter nonsense. The success of Socialism has nothing to do with the Labour Party’s ability to run Capitalism. The truth is that the Labour Government is in a jam, as everyone who looked squarely at the facts knew it would be. They promised to give the workers the benefits of Socialism without abolishing Capitalism; to make the wage-earners comfortable, prosperous and contented without getting rid of wage-slavery. Two particular promises were higher wages (without higher prices.), and shorter hours. Now they are damping down on claims for higher wages and shorter hours because they have to make it possible for the Capitalists to get their profits. The Labour supporters who are surprised and horrified at Captain Blackburn’s statement have no real ground for complaint. If they had studied Labour Party literature with care they would have known what was bound to be the outcome of keeping the Capitalist leopard alive and in good health while trying to change its spots.

The Royal Trip to South Africa

Some Labour M.P.s criticised the Royal trip to S. Africa on ground of its cost—altering H.M. “Vanguard” cost £170,000 (News Chronicle, 19/3/47), and others on the ground of its obvious object, that of helping to prop up Smut’s government against his Nationalist rivals.

Mr. Hannen Swaffer, Labour Party supporter, admitted the purpose and that Smuts is “anti-native and an enemy of the trade unions,” but defended the trip.

“The King’s visit to a Dominion where there is a very strong anti-British republicanism may do infinite good to our relations.

“General Smuts is admittedly anti-native and an enemy of the trade unions. But he is a Prime Minister whose friendship for Britain was one of the deciding factors in the war. His loyalty to the Commonwealth will be greatly helped by a tour which, extravagant though may be its circumstance, is a normal part of constitutional procedure.—(People, 9/2/47).

Indian Nationalists and the Trade Unions

Indian workers who supported the Nationalist movement in the belief that the Indian propertied class would behave differently from British rulers in India are soon learning their mistake. The following statement, taken from the journal of the All-India Trade Union Congress relates to a Trade Union Bill introduced by the Interim Government:—

“ Mr. Jagjivan Ram, Labour Member of the Interim Government of India introduced in the Legislative Assembly (Central) on November 1st, 1946, a Bill which claims 'to make provision for the investigation and settlement of industrial disputes ’ but which, in reality attacks the worker’s right to direct action and strike. The Bill not only embodies all the objectionable features of the Trade Disputes Act, 1929, but seeks to incorporate the hated provisions of Rule 81A of the D. I. R banning strikes and thus perpetuate the wartime restrictions on the right of workers to strike so as to practically annul it. He seemed to be in such a great hurry to put this measure on the Statute Book that he moved that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee with instructions to report within a week.—(Trade Union Record,” Bombay, November, 1946).

What Is Prosperity?

Future historians who look back and read to-day’s descriptions of our own age will be puzzled by the restricted meaning applied to the word prosperity. It is usual in the Capitalist Press to apply the term to the propertied class only, and to ignore vast masses of the population. We are told that U.S.A. is prosperous, “the only nation to-day in which a glut of goods threatens disaster"—(Sunday Times, 13/4/47). Farmers and business men are jittery lest overproduction should lead to drastic price cuts and loss of profits, hut this doesn't mean that there aren't millions of poverty-stricken workers who need the products but cannot afford them. The "Economist" (5/4/47) thinks that the situation may be relieved by Government grants “to help local groups provide well-balanced midday meals at cost to all children in school, and free to those whose parents cannot afford payment"

Britain, on the other hand, is said to be a very poor country and Sir Stafford Cripps says: "We can't win through by chiselling and scrounging, by black marketeering or evading our fair share, or by trying to live on the industry of others"—(Daily Herald, 20/3/47.)

Yet the propertied class are living on the industry of others as usual, and doing quite well. The News Chronicle (12/3/47) reported a visit to a small grocery shop in South Audley Street where he saw caviare at £10 10s. a lb., and Truffles at 26s. 6d. a pint as well as other expensive delicacies. The owner of the shop told the reporter “that most of his customers are wealthy and spend lavishly to get what they want." This shopkeeper, by the way "considers the price of his caviare very reasonable. Another West End shop charges £12 12s. a lb."

Spain is another prosperous country, according to Sir. Mont Follick, Labour M.P. for Loughborough. He went to Spain and wrote about it in the Sunday Express (6/4/47). Here are some statements taken from Mr. Follick’s article:—

“Franco has introduced a large variety of reforms that benefit the working classes, though he has quashed their liberty to strike.

"There is no doubt that at this present moment there is extraordinary prosperity in Spain.

“But the working classes are very badly off.

"Everybody feels that something should be done for the working classes, but not a single subsidised house has been built for them, because it it not a business proposition to do so."

If we are to take Mr. Follick literally Spain is indeed a remarkable place. It is very prosperous but the workers are very badly off—this in spite of the variety of reforms Franco has kindly introduced for them—and everybody feels that something should be done for them but nobody does anything.

One at least of Mr. Follick's observations has a familiar ring, it is so true of all countries—"A man who has money in Spain has a life of luxury."

The Churches and the Dogs

The Churches are worrying about the spread of gambling and religion appears to be fading out. On March 11th the Manchester Guardian published a report of a Churches Committee on gambling which estimates that out of a working population of 20,000,000 16,000,000 bet regularly on football pools, horses or dog-racing. In the same issue of the Guardian the Lord Mayor was quoted as saying that "as few as 5 per cent. of the population of London attended places of worship."

If the figures are placed side by side it appears somewhat odd that the Churches (5 per cent. of the population) should be telling the Government to curtail the waste of man-power on betting, which interests 80 per cent. Mere weight of numbers suggests that the 80 per cent. should call for inquiry into the waste of man-power on religion, in which relatively few are interested. Point is given to this by the recent inquiry about religious knowledge made by the Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth. He examined young recruits in the Navy and found that only one in five could repeat the Lord's Prayer word perfect and only 45 per cent knew what Easter commemorates.—(Daily Mail, 12/4/47.)

Some Labour Party Pronouncements on Wages and Prices

"Maintenance of a high and constant purchasing power through good wages."—(From " Let Us Face the Future," Labour Election Programme, 1945.)

"A Labour Government will co-operate with the Trade Unions to improve wage standards ..." (“Labour's Immediate Programme," 1937.)

Now the unions are being asked to co-operate with the Government in avoiding claims for higher wages.

Edgar Hardcastle

Tit-bits from the Capitalist Stewpot (1941)

From the June 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard 

What Mr. Ford thinks.

“Making his annual visit to his plantation here (in Georgia), Mr. Henry Ford again gave expression to his peculiar view of the war, saying that the United States should supply both sides until they collapsed.

Voicing the ‘sincere hope’ that neither side would win, he declared that the suggestion that Germany might one day attack the United States was ‘pure nonsense—a hoax with the sole purpose of getting us into the war.’

‘There is no righteousness in either cause,’ said Mr. Ford. ‘Both are motivated by the same evil impulse, which is greed’.”—(Daily Telegraph, February 17th, 1941.)

Mr. Ford should know something about capitalist greed, for in times of depression he has been quite unscrupulous in discharging workers or putting them on half-time. And to supply both sides—at a profit—is that not also greed ?

* * *

Rowton Houses make a Dividend.

People who think of Rowton Houses as philanthropic institutions, providing cheap beds for extra-poor workers, may have had a shock on reading in The Times (April i7th, 1941) that for 1940 a net profit of £5,455 was made, permitting a dividend of 4 per cent. This compares unfavourably with the previous year, when a £14,621 profit enabled a 4 per cent, tax free dividend to be declared. Though Rowton Houses have evidently been hit by the war, it is clear that there are still plenty of people who are too poor to be able to afford more luxurious accommodation.

* * *

Business in the Far East.

Despite an all-embracing censorship, company reports are still worth reading, and that of the Hong-kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (The Times, March 26th, 1941) is of particular interest. We quote the following extracts: —

“In view of their bearing on exchange and trade balances, I should here mention the various credits and loans which China has received during the year from foreign sources. Detailed particulars have not been made public, but you must be aware that such loans were made chiefly for political reasons. The published announcement dealing with the most recent of the United States loans showed that the donors were desirous that ‘arrangements for purposes of monetary protection and management’ [the words actually used] should be completed. That is satisfactory so far as it goes, but that is all the information which is at present available.”

“As regards Japan, recent regulations issued there seem to be designed to restrict or to drive foreign banks out of business altogether in the same way as banks in Manchuria have already been restricted and, in some cases, driven out. The position awaits further clarification, but in the meantime we have notified our diplomatic authorities, as their intervention seems to be the only action now possible. I will, therefore, say no more about this, nor will I deal with trade in Japan, since it is now under very comprehensive Governmental control.”

* * *

The “Classical” Doctrine.

Writing from Berlin six months before the start of the war, the French Ambassador, M. Coulondre, is quoted as stating, in a despatch to M. Bonnet, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs: —

“In other words, will the Führer be tempted to return to the idea expressed by the author of ‘Mein Kampf’ which, be it said, is identical with the classic doctrine held by the German General Staff, according to which Germany cannot accomplish her high destiny in the East until France has been crushed and, as a consequence, Britain reduced to impotence on the Continent?—(French Yellow Book, Hutchinson, page 91.)

* * *

A Baron’s Romance.

The Star (March 7th, 1941) reports the interesting case of a wealthy baron who induced a young woman to live with him on the understanding that if she did so, he would further her stage ambitions. She was about 18 at the time, and at first refused, so then the baron lived with a more complaisant lady. The young woman, however, subsequently changed her mind, and the union was a fruitful one. The really interesting point about his case, however, is that the newspaper report refers to it as a “romance.” If an affair on somewhat similar lines had occurred in a lower strata of society, we can imagine that it may well have been described in less rosy terms.

* * *

Paint white—Paint black.

For some reason known only to themselves, Graham and Gillies, the advertising agents, republished in The Times (March 1st, 1941) and other papers an advertisement issued by J. Hatchard, of Piccadilly, in 1805, when Bonaparte, not Hitler, was the enemy. The advertisement takes the form of a supposed dialogue between John Bull and Boney. Space forbids us to quote the advertisement in full, but after implying that John Bull wished to remain at peace and that Bonaparte was an enemy of the liberty of the Press and of religion, the dialogue continued : —

“John Bull: Why have you suffered your soldiers to burn so many towns, shed so much innocent blood, destroy cottages as well as palaces so indiscriminately, murder in cold blood thousands of poor men, and ravish thousands of poor women in Italy, in Egypt, in Syria, and lately in Hanover?

Bonaparte: Foolish again, John. I did not merely suffer it—I encouraged it. My object has always been to strike terror. I don’t mince matters. Witness the deliberate massacre of four thousand Turks at Jaffa, who were my prisoners; and my poisoning several hundred of my own soldiers, who were of no use to me.”

To say the least of this advertisement, it is surely a rather indelicate compliment to General de Gaulle and the “Free French Forces.”

R. M.

Henry Ford or Karl Marx? (1926)

From the August 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the Sunday Observer (11.7.26) Mr. J. L. Garvin wrote an article headed “Ford or Marx.” The inspiration for the article was Norman. Angell’s book, “Must Britain Travel the Moscow Road,” which professes to be a reply to Trotsky’s book, “Where Britain is going.”

Times out of number we have balanced accounts with the Russians, and incurred much odium by pointing out that Bolshevism was not Socialism, and that Bolshevik policy was entirely opposed to the principle set forth by Marx. But it pleases the opponents of the workers to confuse the two positions in order the better to resist the spread of Socialism.

For this purpose any stick is good enough. Mr. Garvin brings forward the once execrable, but now quite respectable, Bernard Shaw, and even the ghost of the honest and delightful old dreamer William Morris.

A single article is not sufficient to deal fully with the collection of false suggestions put forward by Mr. Garvin, so I will confine myself to a brief examination of one or two of his leading points.

The first point to clear up is the confusion between Bolshevik policy and the principles laid down by Marx.

Briefly the Bolshevik policy was as follows :—

The conversion of Russian industry from a culture that was overwhelmingly a backward peasant culture into a communistic culture at one bound, without the intervention of capitalist methods of organisation. The capture of power was to be accomplished by a small minority who were to lead the backward masses. Parliament was taboo and armed street risings the method of procedure. The providing of suitable “slogans” with which to play upon the emotions of the ignorant majority was an important part of the policy. The final futility of the Bolshevik programme has been amply proved by subsequent Russian history. The peasants were too backward to grasp the meaning of communism, and to get out of their own insular way of looking at things. A small group of quarrelling partners rule Russia at present, but are compelled to rule in accordance with the needs and wishes of the vast mass of the population—the backward peasants. It is the peasant that, in the main, determines Bolshevik policy to-day, and will do so for a long time to come.

What was Marx’s views on the above methods? In the preface to Capital he states in unequivocal language :

“One nation can and should learn from others. And even when a society has got upon the right track for the discovery of the natural laws of its movement. … it can neither clear by bold leaps, nor remove by legal enactments, the obstacles offered by the successive phases of its normal development. But it can shorten and lessen the birth-pangs.” (“Capital,” Vol. 4, p. xix.)

Marx’s collaborator, and “other self,” Engels, stated, in the last thing he wrote, the introduction to “The Class Struggles in France,” that:—

“The time is past for resolutions carried through by small minorities at the head of unconscious masses. When it gets to be a matter of the complete transformation of the social organisation, the masses themselves must participate, must understand what is at stake, and why they are to act. That much the history of the last fifty years has taught us. But so that the masses may understand what is to be done, long and persistent work is required, and it is this work that we are now performing with results that drive our enemies to despair.”

The Bolsheviks took the leap, and have landed in a quagmire.

The above quotations on Marx’s point of view are sufficient to dissociate it from Bolshevism.

The next point we come to is Mr. Garvin’s statement that:—

“Mr. Shaw could do more than any man in Europe to destroy the antiquated Marxist superstition which hinders or paralyses the progress of labour on this side of the Atlantic.”

Mr. Garvin gives us no information about this “superstition,” nor does he point out how it hinders. This is a convenient method of arguing, as it knocks the object down without the trouble of hitting it.

Farther on he says :—

”Marx egregiously over-estimated the importance of manual labour by itself. The single person with the original idea is more important economically than the thousands of workers whose employment never would have existed if he had not created it. When Henry Ford in 1914 had the idea of a minimum wage of a pound a day for his workers with profit-sharing on a large scale—terms improved since then—he knocked the bottom out of abstract Marxism deduced front studies in the British Museum.”

The opening sentence is false; the second is a joke. Marx examined the way in which the wealth of capitalism (commodities) was produced and analysed the part played by capitalist and worker. Up to the present no one has been able to show any essential fault in this analysis, although hundreds of professors of political economy have attempted the task. In the course of his analysis Marx showed the respective places of the so-called “manual” and “mental” workers and demonstrated that each was a member of the working class, and had identical interests as opposed to the interests of capital. It has been a common charge against Marx that he ignored the so-called “intellectual” worker. The charge has been levelled by the professional intellectuals, who feel their importance acutely, and would like to think that they are in a class apart, and distinct, from the “common working man” and the wealthy idler. Many years ago Paul Lafargue, in his brilliant essay entitled “The Intellectuals,” reduced their dignity to the level of carrots and potatoes.

Mr. Garvin, however, makes a variation, and puts Henry Ford among the band of economic giants. The argument is a joke.

Taking it at its face value Henry Ford introduced more economical methods of production. The result of improvement in methods is the production of a given quantity of goods with the employment of less workers, and the more rapid satisfaction of the demand for goods. Carried out on a sufficiently extensive scale this means that relatively fewer and fewer workers are required to meet the international demand for goods, an increase in the number of workers seeking jobs ‘that have ceased to exist. The final El Dorado is a small number of workers enjoying high wages and producing all the world requires to meet its needs, and a vast number of workers without employment or the means to purchase goods so lavishly produced ! Not long ago Mr. Ford himself experienced the effect of his methods. So rapidly had motor cars been produced by his system that the market was glutted and he had to close down his works ! A curious way of providing employment !

Another aspect of the question is given by the following quotation from the American Appeal, June 5th, 1926 :—

“Labour’s share of the automobile dollar is shrinking under large-scale mass production, as revealed in the United States census of manufactures for 1925. These figures show that last year only 32.4 per cent. of the value created in the industry went to wages, compared with 40 per cent. in 1923 and 38.6 per cent. in 1919. In 1899, the first year in which automobile production appears in the census, the workers received 44.8 per cent. of the value they created.

“In 1925, according to the figures, automobile manufacturers received $3,371,855,805 for their output, an increase of $208,257,931 over 1923. Deducting the cost of materials leaves the actual value created by manufacture at $1,168,868,466, an increase of $153,003,944 over 1923. In 1925, however, those who actually produced the motor vehicles received only $379,284,935, a decrease of $27,445,343 from 1923. While employer receipts increased 15 per cent. in 2 years, labour’s receipts for operating the industry decreased nearly 7 per cent.” (“American Appeal,” 5/6/1926.)

The above figures show clearly the object and result of the Ford method—more profit for the employers and less return to the workers for the energy they use up.

Mr. Garvin concludes his article with the statement that:—

“Karl Marx, the mid-Victorian Calvin of economics, is as dead as a dodo. That practical, original, Henry Ford—as the epoch-making symbol of high wages and profit-sharing—is the real spirit of the morning.”

In the land in which Henry Ford is a financial king the Federal Trade Commission reports that:—

“One per cent. of the population of the United States owns 59 per cent. of the wealth.

“Thirteen per cent. of the population own 90 per cent. of the wealth.

“Eighty-seven per cent. of the population own 10 per cent. of the wealth.” (“Labour,” June 5th, 1926.)

So much for the land of high wages and profit sharing !

Finally the following quotation may help to dispel any delusion as to who benefits by the prosperity of Ford industries :—

“Last year’s profits of the Ford Motor Company, which started business in 1903 with a capital of $28,000, amounted to $145,000,000, approximately $23,000,000, according to reports filed by the company yesterday.

“Only three persons, Mr. Ford, his wife, and his son, own the stock of the company. On the basis of the published figures it is estimated that every vehicle manufactured by the Ford works brings in a profit of 44.90 dollars (£9), to the shareholders.” (“Daily News,” 9th May, 1926.)

If Marx is “antiquated,” and “is dead as the dodo,” why all the excitement? We have been reading for years that he was “dead,” but he seems to be a pretty lively corpse, and a pretty awkward one.

The facts are he ruthlessly exposed the groundwork of capitalism, and correctly foreshadowed the general methods of its future development. The main propositions he laid down are as true, but more obvious, to-day, as when he wrote. The worker is poor because he is robbed of the product of his mental and manual labours. He is kept in a subject condition by a class that lives like a leech on his back. The means of subjection are the public coercive powers that are centred in Parliament. By preaching “brotherly love” between capitalist and workman the emissaries of the masters seek to disarm the worker’s growing suspicions and induce him to send to Parliament representatives whose object is either to conserve the power of capital or to mislead and make futile any real attempts of the workers to remove wage-slavery.

When Mr. Garvin and Mr. Ford are as dead as a dodo the people of future generations will be celebrating the memory of one of the greatest thinkers of all times— Karl Marx.

Gilmac.

"Facing the Facts." (1921)

From the June 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

"An Appeal To Experience."

Nearly every exponent of new and old political and economic teachings now-a-days invariably commences his address with phrases similar to the above title and sub-title. But few of them really face facts, while for most of them experience is merely a superficial representation of accepted paradoxes.

"Truth and Freedom" !

An organisation calling itself "The League of Truth and Freedom" has recently issued a pamphlet entitled : "The Teaching of experience applied to Labour and Capital," in which it is claimed that the truth is arrived at by facing facts and learning from experience. A bold display is made of this claim. On the cover we read in italics :

  "Now it is evident that, if this country is going to become a better and happier country in the future, when dealing with great social problems, we must face facts and give up advocating what disagrees with them. We cannot afford to adopt any teaching that does not agree with experience."

After this bold declaration one would expect to find every statement, after careful elimination of non essentials, simple, direct, and in accordance with facts; the actual truth and nothing but the truth. But what do we find ?

On page 3 we read : "Nature makes classes, but does not make individual units alike, much less her greatest handiwork, MAN."

Facts to Face.

But Nature does not make classes in the sense implied here. She does not even make a parasitic class in the sense that she makes parasites in general, because a parasitic class in human society assumes and maintains its dominant position consciously. Classes are the result of social relationships that appear in the historical development of society. Before there can be a dominant class there must be a general recognition of similar interests, and a conscious movement by those concerned to obtain power. The class thus coming to the top use their newly acquired power to complete their victory over their predecessors and take over complete control of the enslaved lower orders.

A Natural Corollary.

But if we accept the dictum that Nature makes classes it is necessary that we should at the same time recognise that Nature makes also revolutions to break down classes—a fact that the league would do well to face. It explains the so-called unrest and discontent among the workers. That discontent, with the growing knowledge and organisation of the working class, is a revolution in the making. History is a record of revolutions and will continue to be so while society is divided into classes.

"We are none of us alike" is a marvellous discovery, repeated again on pages 15 and 16 and amplified as follows :

"People have been blaming Capitalists and Employers for this Fact, and for the Inequalities in Life that result from it. They have not understood that Nature has created these inequalities; that they are even necessary for Existence. If an Idle Man is to have the same award as an Industrious Man, then the whole World would soon be Idle."

God's Emancipation.

In other words, it is Nature who makes some men rich and others poor, consequently the poor must not blame the rich for their poverty, even though they can prove that the rich obtain their riches by robbery. This is quite a simple way of dodging facts, while at the same time conveying the impression that one is going right down to the roots of the subject. Instead of blaming God—as the parson has always been afraid to do—they blame Nature for the inequalities and thank their lucky stars that they are on the right side of the hedge. The league makes a fetish of Nature, not because it comprises all things, but because, at the moment it favours their class. There would be just as much—and as little—sense in saying that luck makes rich and poor. Just as the parson and his followers have always attributed what they could not understand to God, so the league attribute to Nature what they dare not explain and leave the workers to imagine that in some vague way Nature makes men rich or poor in much the same way as it makes them tall or short, thin or fat. In this way the league, while admitting the existence of classes, make no attempt to explain, to excuse, or to justly them. They merely evade in the most transparent and cowardly manner one of the facts they make so much pretence of facing.

Who gets the Toffee-Apple ?

The last part of the above quotation, "If an idle man is to have the same award as an industrious man, the whole world would soon be idle," is intended as a sneer of contempt at the average worker. In reality it vividly reveals the true nature of capitalist society by denying a fact that is obvious to everyone—that it is the idle shareholder who gets the award, the industrious worker providing it and getting nothing. Under capitalism those who live on rent, interest, and profits can, if they choose, remain idle all their lives. If they work at all they usually choose an occupation more or less in the nature of a hobby. They are not compelled to work for a living. The working class, however, as the name implies, must work, and as the capitalists among them own the raw materials and the tools, the workers must sell their labour-power to them.

Machine production tends to reduce the bulk of the workers to one dead level of skill and wages; nevertheless they are graded and priced according to their skill, or the service they can render. The most significant fact about this grading is that those who are lowest in the scale work the hardest, often mentally as well as physically, while receiving the lowest wages.

The Real Idlers.

Generally speaking, the capitalist class is an idle class. Here and there a big capitalist makes a brave show of directing and supervising—drawing a fat salary in addition to his dividend for it. His speciality is, of course, making a brave show rather than directing. The office boy could often do it equally well, as it largely consists of giving reports—prepared by managers and clerks—to shareholders' meetings and to Press reporters. Where he has to exercise judgment his managers see that their reports convey directions that influence him without offending his dignity by anything that looks like advice.

Then there are the small capitalists who can not afford to pay managers. They look after their businesses themselves, until they are broken in competition with the big concerns. Then, rather than work as wage-slaves, they shoot themselves, so much do they love work. Outside the fancy reasoning of the league, in real life, facing the facts and learning from experience we find that those who work the hardest get the poorest award, while those who do nothing but chase pleasure find their wealth increasing faster than they can spend it.

And if they do—

Knowing the workers' award, we can appreciate fully the league's next statement: "some save money and become capitalists." Before a man can save money, however, he must have it to save, and as the bulk of the workers only get sufficient in wages, per week, to replace the energy they use up and provide for their dependents, very few indeed can save enough to become capitalists, even in a small way. Usually, even these few, after a severe struggle against the competition of the big capitalists, lose what they have saved and are flung back into the ranks of the working class.

Next the league's pamphlet says: "Mankind in general has always specialised and divided the work, because by doing so it can be done much quicker and better." This is easily seen to be a perversion of historical truth. Division of labour has only appeared and developed in the history of mankind with the recognition and development of new and more complicated methods of production, caused by the progressive discovery and application of fresh tools and materials.

A Sight for Sore Eyes.

Then follow a number of things done by capital, according to the league. "It takes capital to erect the work and supply the furnaces. . . . To build houses, the bricklayer has to get a capitalist to make and bring him bricks, and cement, and timber and slates." To say that a bricklayer would be astonished if he saw a capitalist doing anything of the kind, is to put it mildly. Every worker knows perfectly well that it is other workers who fetch him materials and tools, make and prepare these things ready for the operation he performs, and erect buildings and machinery for the purpose. With the exception of the few instances already quoted the capitalist does nothing beyond drawing and enjoying the dividends that result from the sale of the workers' product.

When all these workers understand that capital is an unnecessary factor in production, that capitalists are parasites living on the results of their industry, they will abolish the system and establish in its place one in which everyone participates in the labour necessary to satisfy social requirements, without the existence of a class who rule solely in their own interests. In this way they will be facing facts.

Brains a Working-Class Possession.

Another fact that trips the league is ''Brains." The bricklayer, they say, is dependent on the architect, the man of brains, who has to design the houses. Of course, that is his job. Bricklaying is the bricklayer's job, and if he did not build the houses would remain on paper. Designing is the form of labour-power the architect brings to the labour market. The difference between him and the bricklayer is not an essential one: the latter gets wages; the former commission. In both cases it is payment for service, unlike profit, which is the proceeds of robbery.

Next the league try to make us believe that labour saving methods and machinery create more employment. They speak of the "enormous benefit that a creator of industry like Ford of America has been to Labour. At the present time Ford claims to be producing and selling three thousand motor cars per day— Think of the labour given employment by such a huge industry."

But this is only a part of the story, which is continued in the "Daily News," April 25th, as follows:

"Conditions in America."

"The verdict of employers is unanimous that output per person has increased. One illustration of this is furnished by Henry Ford. . . When manufacturing 100,000 cars a month last year, "Ford employed 52,000 persons. He now employs 32,000 to make 87,000 cars a month."!

In the face of facts like this the league should either change its title or withdraw the statement quoted above. The figures from the "Daily News" speak for themselves, but the league's figures, to put it politely, amount to suppression by selection. The figures that support their argument are taken, and those that smash their case are left.

Capitalism Creates Unemployment.

In its normal development, therefore, capitalism increases unemployment, because production is only carried on for markets. The workers can only satisfy their needs by wages earned in the production of commodities for these markets. It is apparent, therefore, that markets must be limited, consequently that the number of jobs is limited, and that, with the adoption of new machinery and methods, the number of workers unable to satisfy their needs must increase. These latter are not prevented from doing so by the lack of materials and machinery, but solely by virtue of the fact that the capitalist refuses to produce for anything but markets.

The Surest Thing.

The league see in all this not competition between capitalists for world markets, but competition between the working class of different countries for their capture. What they do see, however, is that the working class of any country, if they are not to be starved out of existence by unemployment, must be prepared to accept a standard of living as low as, or lower than, the present lowest. There is no denying this. The hunger of the capitalist for cheap labour is about the surest thing under capitalism. First women and then children were dragged into industry because they were cheaper than men. Wherever the capitalist has been able to do so he has dragged in cheap native labour to compete with his own countrymen, while at the same time mouthing patriotism. The hypocrisy of the capitalist is well expressed in the following paragraphs, which are typical of the general attitude:

  "It is perhaps fortunate for the labour of this country, that capital and brains are so hindered by officialism in China, that they cannot at present give effective help to Chinese manufacturing, agriculture, and mining industries. For the Chinaman lives almost entirely on rice, and if he had the capital and the brains to help him, which we possess, his low standard of life and consequent low prices would under sell us in every market in the world."

It is quite evident from the above that the average capitalist has no objection to developing Chinese trade so long as his capital is in the business. It is not love of his country that hinders him, but Chinese officialdom.

The League's "Truth."

Perhaps the worst lie uttered by the League of Truth and Freedom is the statement that "although the cost of food and other necessaries has increased so greatly, the wages paid, except perhaps in isolated cases, have more than covered it." Every worker knows that his standard of living is lower than it was in 1914. Many articles of food, such as butter, eggs, bacon, beef, and most kinds of fruit, that entered largely into his diet before the war, are looked upon as luxuries to-day by the average worker, while for many they we absolutely unobtainable.

Then we are told that "the best men among the capitalists and the employers are anxious to help labour to improve its position" (apparently by reducing wages all round and speeding up). "They recognise that this country has in the past been run far too much for the benefit of the indolent and the idle."

And that is as much as we can expect from the league. Out for "truth and freedom," they stand only for the freedom of the capitalist class to continue their exploitation of the workers. They admit the workers' poverty, but their only remedy is, when translated, deeper poverty and more intensified labour. If the workers allow themselves to be led by such transparent hypocrisy and lies they deserve nothing better.

F. Foan

Is Another Slump on the Way? (1937)

Editorial from the April 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Professor D. H. MacGregor, in his “Enterprise, Progress and Profit,” has proved that there is a “trade cycle,” a regular succession of booms and slumps. The Economist (March 6th, 1937) is highly gratified that this question has been settled, but is reluctant to admit that the next slump cannot be very long delayed. According to MacGregor’s reckoning, the period between slumps in this country before the war averaged 8¼ years, though running sometimes to as much as 10, and sometimes to as little as 5, years.

What the Economist does not relate is that Fourier, Marx and Engels, Hyndman and others, had grasped the essentials of the trade cycle long before MacGregor was born.

Frederick Engels wrote the following in his “Socialism, Utopian and Scientific,” in 1877: — 

  We have now, since the year 1825, gone through this five times, and at the present moment (1877) we are going through it for the sixth time. And the character of these crises is so clearly defined that Fourier hit all of them off when he described the first as “ crise pléthorique,” a crisis from plethora.

Again, in an article in the London Commonweal, March 1st, 1885, Engels said: —

  Forty years ago England stood face to face with a crisis, solvable to all appearances by force only. The immense and rapid development of manufactures had outstripped the extension of foreign markets, and the increase of demand. Every ten years the march of industry was violently interrupted by a general commercial crash, followed, after a long period of chronic depression, by a few short years of prosperity, and always ending in feverish over-production and consequent renewed collapse.

It is, after all, rather funny that the people who all agree in regarding Marx out of date should be so far behind him in understanding their own capitalist system of society.

The Last Crisis

All the bankers, politicians and business men who have been pondering over the threatened next crisis are confident that it can and will be prevented. ”Something will be done,” they say. Unfortunately, they cannot make up their minds what that something is. The Economist's most helpful thought is that “since the War in fact suspended the working of the cycle, human action can plainly suspend it—if that action is sufficiently violent and sustained.” (Economist, March 6th, 1937). But even that blighted rose has a thorn, for the writer goes on to say that “suspension is not abolition.”

While we cannot place any hopes in the ability of these gentlemen to prevent the next crisis, because that can only be done by abolishing capitalism, we are entitled to ask whether they are even competent to recognise the nature of crises. Did they, for example, recognise the inevitable approach of the last one, or understand it when it happened ? The answer is an emphatic No!

Mr. Alexander, City Editor of the Evening Standard, who informs us (Evening Standard, January 22nd, 1937) that “we shall never have a slump like that again,” is one of the many experts (another was Mr. Francis Williams, formerly City Editor, now Editor of the Daily Herald), who believed that gold would lose its value entirely as a result of the so-called abandonment of the gold standard!

The Bank Chairmen, in their speeches at the annual meetings this year all advised a return to Free Trade as a means of avoiding the next slump, as if crises did not occur just as unfailingly under Free Trade as under Protection. What were these gentlemen saying before the last crisis, which was coming to a head in 1929? In their speeches in January, 1929, they were blandly ignorant of the precipice before them. The Economist at the time (February 2nd, 1929) could record that "the first thing to strike the reader of this year’s speeches is an air of quiet confidence in the country’s industrial future.”

More than that, Mr. McKenna, Chairman of the Midland Bank, could find that “considerable progress has been made towards a more ordered and prosperous world.” The Economist added, "while recovery was certain, it would be a slow process.”

In other words, in 1929, when they were at the top of a boom, following expansion after the former crisis of 1921-22, these experts did not know it, they thought they were in a depression! The financial mountaineers who were perched on the edge of a precipice thought they were climbing out of a valley!

In January, 1930, when the crisis had already shown its symptoms for all to observe, Mr. Goodenough, of Barclays Bank, cast his eyes over the previous year and could see “some improvement” in trade, and the depressed trades showing “substantially better figures." (Economist, January 25th, 1930.)

In January, 1931, just before the full force of the crisis had struck this country, the Bank Chairmen were arguing learnedly with each other as to whether high wages, maldistribution of gold, or other causes were mainly responsible. They were, says the Economist, “by no means wholly in agreement." (Economist, January 24th, 1931.)

These are the gentlemen who are going to ward off the next crisis!

What Hopes for the Next Crisis?

The bankers advice to trust to Free Trade and discouragement of speculation as means of preventing a crisis are merely fatuous. But most of their critics are in no better case. The Editor of the Daily Herald has for years banked on freedom from the gold standard as the surest means. But he based that view on the myth of a shortage of gold. We need only recall that gold production has been mounting all over the world to record heights in defiance of the learned report of the League of Nations “ experts," who predicted a steady decline.

Another Labour Party remedy is “high wages," but it is only a few years since these same people were assuring us that “high wages" in the U.S.A. had already done the trick, and brought permanent prosperity. Henry Ford, we were told, had proved Marx wrong! Mrs. Mary Agnes Hamilton, one of the influential members of the Labour Party and I.L.P., friend of MacDonald, wrote in the Daily Herald (January 20th, 1926) about this permanent prosperity. She had visited the U.S.A., and found

  prosperity so widespread and, since the temporary setback of 1921-22, so continuous, that unemployment, except in localised and special groups . . . has vanished.

But it all came to nothing. Mr. Ford hadn’t proved Marx wrong. The “temporary setback" of 1921-22 was duly followed by the year-long “temporary setback" of 1929-1933.

Now the Daily Herald (February 5th, 1937) has found new gods, in Mr. Keynes and President Roosevelt, and applauds their proposals.

  Our Government should be at work on the idea (of economic planning). It should appoint a central planning committee at once and tell it to prepare a plan of special anti-slump public works now.

Another piece of sticking-plaster for an earthquake.

There is a further useless idea Mr. Keynes and the Labour Party have in common, the transfer of wealth from capitalists to workers by means of taxation. It is based on a fallacious theory, but we need not worry about theory, since the facts are known over a long period of years. Those facts are that income tax, death duties, excess profits taxes, etc., have completely failed to stop the accumulation of still greater fortunes in the hands of the rich, and have left the poor as they were. That is capitalism.

In short, all who cherish the hope of keeping capitalism and avoiding crises are in for yet another disappointment.