By The Way: Of Mice and Men—or Rich Tabby (1944)

The By The Way Column from the September 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Of Mice and Men—or Rich Tabby

A Boston lawyer has left $100,000 for the maintenance of his pet cat. He has also cancelled seven bequests of $20,000 each to seven relatives “because of their contemptuous attitude and cruelty towards my cat.” (Daily Mail, August 5th, 1944.)

He left $40,000 to his housekeeper, to ensure that she is in a position to maintain “Tabby.” This reminds us of the Pekinese dog that was left a few thousand shares in a British company some years back.

The workers in the concerns where the $140,000 is invested may now have the pleasure of slaving to maintain the governor’s pet in luxury, after the bloke himself has snuffed it. This is only a difference of degree; we doubt not that the cat has far more intelligence and is much more useful than some of the “film-stars” (? !), chorines, dancers, and others whom wealthy men frequently marry, especially when one dies, leaving the producers of their wealth, the workers, to maintain and fawn upon them in ridiculous opulence. The bequeathing of large chunks of labour productivity to animals and “pets” is the final epitome of the irrational and obsolete capitalist system, where the best portion of society toils unnecessarily for a few largely idiotic parasites, to the detriment of both.

* * *

One of the Four Freedoms

From the Daily Mail of August 15th we learn that the Registrar-General announces that a complete scheme of National Registration is in preparation for use after the war.

“Under a peace-time National Register everyone throughout life would have, in addition to a name, a code number.”

This, he thinks, would abolish bigamy and be necessary for operating the new social services.

We have had occasion to point out previously, and it is no discovery of the Socialist Party, that this sort of “temporary” war-time legislation is always much more difficult to get off the Statute Book than to put on.

As capitalism is allowed by politically ignorant workers to develop further in the direction of State centralisation, it becomes more obvious that we are approaching the conditions described by Mr. Hilaire Belloc in his book “The Servile State.”

This was a state of affairs where every citizen was numbered and docketed like a parcel, and every intimate personal action supervised by a board of State bureaucrats, with endless cards, numbers, permits, etc.

This is not Socialism. A genius like Oscar Wilde was much nearer the mark when he wrote in his “Soul of Man under Socialism” that only “with Socialism could we reach real individualism.” Wm. Morris expressed the same idea.

In the early days of the working-class movement nothing in Continental despotism was so roundly denounced as the reactionary passport system. The yellow spot of the Jew was a similar measure. Labour Liberals of two decades back poured the bitterest invective on the reactionary oppression of the Tsar’s secret police, with its individual passport system. It has taken a war for the Four Freedoms to shackle the working class with the National Service officer and a code number, like a convict, for life. Socialism will not be servile neither will it be a State.

The State is a private property institution which under Socialism will wither away. Freedom will be inevitable because economic equality of all will be the basis of society.

* * *

German Women to Work Harder

From the Times, July 29th, 1944 : —

“It is announced from Berlin that as a part of Goebbels’s efforts to secure total mobilisation women and adolescents will be directed into war work to the fullest extent. Curiously enough, the German press points out that while Russian women and children served unstintingly in Leningrad during the siege, and British women work as dock labourers and in all sorts of arms production, German women have hitherto contributed far less to the war effort. Why should they be exempt, the newspapers ask, now that the German homeland is being besieged ?

One of the first changes is that women will release men for the forces by becoming motor drivers.

Goebbels issued his first total mobilisation decree yesterday. According to an announcement by the German wireless last night, the decree is aimed "at all persons liable for work who have fulfilled their labour duties in appearance only, persons who through family or other connection have obtained a labour contract enabling them to lead an easy life far away from the nation’s common strain of war’.”—Reuter.

After a terrific fanfare of the usual boloney, Goebbels is now announcing the measures to be introduced to find more men for the shambles. British readers will probably be somewhat surprised to read that one of the drastic “total” totalitarian war schemes is that women are to release men by becoming motor-drivers. Really ! Dr. Goebbels ! the poor old, worn out, effete democracies did this years ago. Apparently Mr. Bevin can give the Nazis ten yards start in a hundred at this game, and beat them any time. The stories the British Ministry of Information told us about “Hitler’s slaves” don’t sound so good any more either, if it has taken all this time for them to check up on “dodgers” (who seem to manage pretty well in England, too, if they’ve enough money), and tell the women to start driving motors.

* * *

New Curtains, Fruits of Victory

There is probably no clearer indication of the real frame of mind of the capitalist class than the advertisements which the directors of various large firms are publishing just now. All sorts of concerns are stating their post-war intentions. Motor manufacturers advertise the advent of a world with wide motor roads and better “So and so’s” cars. The I.C.I. state that their view is that the post-war world must be international. Makers of toffees and wireless sets, building societies, brewers, tobacco manufacturers, textile firms—all strike the same note.

“Bigger and Better” this, or that, is what it practically amounts to. One of the most fantastic actually says : —

My Peace Terms.

“Freedom for the oppressed people of Europe. . . . New curtains in the sitting room . . . and back to fresh butter, honey, and lovely—Cream Crackers! (Daily Telegraph, July 26th, 1944.)

One can only conclude that people who can write of “Freedom for the people of Europe” in the same breath as curtains for the sitting room have been rather seriously affected by the buzz-bomb.

The hollow mockery and revolting hypocrisy of this mentality is the strongest possible proof of the real aims of the Capitalist Government in war. They have no more concern for the people of Europe than those of anywhere else. Their idea of Freedom is a new pair of curtains.

That’s all right—as far as it goes—but when they want us to believe it’s for freedom for the oppressed people of Europe or somewhere—Well, Donald Duck has a word for it’

* * * 

“Pay Them Well”

Thus the Daily Mail for August 4th, 1944. They refer to the fighting Services. Lord Rothermere and friends are quite indignant with the Pensions Minister and the Cabinet for being niggardly with Services pay and “huckstering” about pensions and allowances.

That it is utterly outrageous that the wife of a soldier killed in battle should get less than the wife of a soldier still lucky enough to survive, the Socialist is the last to deny !

But, says the Mail with lordly (“Press-Lordly”) disdain, “A copper or two granted here, a readjustment made there is considered sufficient.”

“The costly policies initiated by the Government (free public schools, public health services, social security) are the hall-marks of the twentieth century.”

The “pay per day” method is a relic of the times when soldiers were mercenaries—mere casual labourers of the battlefields. It should be abolished, just as it has been abolished in the docks. The modern fighting man is a highly trained combatant and a skilled technician. He should be paid a salary and a good one.” (Italics ours.) (Daily Mail, August 8th.)

What the Mail calls a “good salary” for soldiers it carefully refrains from saying. We know men who would not do it for all the tea in China. Certain it is that, like working for the Socialist Party, nobody does it for what he gets in money—which is a joke, even for the officers.

Two things about the Daily Mail’s viewpoint interest us as Socialists, apart from the fact that the British capitalists, having raked in big profits during the war, feel at the moment—but only at the moment—like a man at the last course of a magnificent banquet—(“Gentlemen, you may smoke”), and are ready to chuck a pound in the plate for the waiter.

One is the statement that the “costly policies of the Government are the hall-marks of the twentieth century.” In other words, it is the considered policy of the capitalists to-day to give up a little, in the shape of reforms for the workers, to try to avoid having to surrender the lot to a discontented, Socialist, working class. As Socialist knowledge spreads among workers, and Labour leaders find it more difficult to convince them that reform of capitalism is “instalments” of Socialism, Lord Rothermere, Sir Samuel Courtauld, Lords Mcgowan and Nuffield will shower reforms, like the Beveridge Plan and More Pay, upon them to keep them occupied—and quiet. Even if it is reforms you want—which we Socialists do not—it is better to plump for Socialism.

But more important than this—the Mail points out that the one-time mercenaries who sold themselves for the King’s shilling—the “scum of the earth” of Rudyard Kipling and Billy Bennett—the old beer-swilling sweats—the “poor bloody infantry” of the past—like their civilian counterparts, the unskilled labourer, have become “highly trained skilled technicians.”

Modern fighting men, unlike their predecessors in history, are simply modern working-men put into uniform for organised scientific technical mass killing.

Some historians declare that the hired mercenaries of the Middle Ages fixed up representative conferences the night before “battle commenced” to arrange terms, and that sometimes battles did not start until the generals had agreed to “the rate for the job.” On other occasions armies just transferred during battle to the other side for more money.

But modern complicated capitalism, handling immense armies of millions at war, with colossal modern scientific equipment, can no more work on these methods than a man can pilot a plane without instruments.

Modern soldiers, or workers, in the world of 1944 are becoming highly trained skilled technicians; they are rapidly becoming producers of modern super-abundance in control of mighty complex engines which subdue and transform the forces and resources of nature—in other words, the result of the development of capitalism—is to make the working man of to-day a potential Socialist. But only potential; the ground is getting richer for the reception of the seed; the job of the Socialist Party is to implant it, deeply and firmly— it is certain to grow and multiply.

As workers and soldiers become still more highly educated, they will more easily grasp the futility of illusory scrambles for pennies or shillings extra, and fix their eyes on the real goal—abolition of private ownership—not large salaries, but what they produce. Lord Rothermere can pay as well as he likes. It will avail him nothing.

Horatio.

Revolution and its opponents. (1925)

From the May 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

It has often been necessary to deal in these columns with misrepresentations that have been made on the subject of revolution, and to explain what Socialists mean when referring to the social revolution.

The matter may be discussed again, however, in view of the recent references to it in the Press and in Parliament.

By the term “revolution” is meant that complete change in the relationship between the classes in society, and the fundamental change in the institutions of society that are brought about by the rise to power of a class that has hitherto been held in subjection. And the Socialist, when he speaks of the social revolution, refers to those changes in society which will be brought about when the working class, holding political supremacy, is the dominant class in society, and takes possession of the means and instruments of wealth production and distribution.

This object and this method are, of course, in the strongest contrast to the object and policy of the Labour Party.

The Labour Party is a reformist organisation engaged in advocating the patching up of the present system of society. Although some of its leaders are termed Socialists, and at times have claimed that title, they have time and time again made it quite clear that they are nothing other than reformers, and, as such, are to be ranked with the reformers of the Liberal, Tory, and other parties.

Mr. MacDonald’s concern for the maintenance of the capitalist system is by no means new. In the course of a debate with Mr. J. St. Leo Strachey on the 11th May, 1908, Mr. MacDonald said :

  “Moreover you must not imagine that the Socialist simply stands for labour. That is the profound mistake so many of you make. We are the greatest friends the capitalist has got. The Socialist, properly understood, is a better friend of the capitalist than anybody else.”

Mr. Philip Snowden, recently Chancelier of the Exchequer, wrote an article in 1922 entitled “How Far is the British Labour Party Socialist?” (Manchester Guardian Commercial. Reconstruction in Europe, Section 9, October 26th, 1922). In the course of this article Mr. Snowden says :

  “The British Labour Party is certainly not Socialist in the sense in which Socialism is understood upon the Continent. It is not based upon the recognition of the class struggle; .​ .​ .”

Further on he observes that the Labour Party “emphatically repudiates such absurdities as the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat.’ ” After touching upon the Labour Party’s Constitution, Mr. Snowden continues :

  “In view of the foregoing, it may now be said that while the British Labour Party has the Socialist aim in its constitution, while carefully avoiding describing it as Socialism, in fact, its programme is limited to the nationalisation, with democratic management, of the land, the mines, the railways, and other services, which are of the nature of monopolies.”

In 1922 “its programme is limited.” Decidedly. And in 1924, it may be remarked, the Labour Government’s actions are still further limited. They are limited by the requirements of the capitalist class. An excellent idea of the limitations that would operate on Labour Party policy was given some years ago by one of “the greatest friends the capitalist has got”—as the Prime Minister described himself. On May 5th, 1911, Mr. MacDonald spoke as follows in the course of a debate with Mr. Hilaire Belloc :

   “Says Mr. Belloc, we have never confiscated anything yet, and therefore we are no good. Well, we have confiscated a good many things. I will tell you what we have confiscated. We have confiscated a shilling in the £ of Belloc’s income. And if he’s fortunate enough to have any of his income invested in the funds, we have confiscated a little bit more.”

In the same debate Mr. Belloc asked :

   “What step have you taken, MacDonald—you and yours—in the direction of transferring the means of production from those who own into the hands of those who do not own, individually or collectively?”

Mr. MacDonald replied : “Income Tax.”

The Labour Party, then, in spite of what Mr. Snowden calls “the Socialist aim in its constitution,” is seen to be merely a social reform party. The utterances of its leaders, as well as the actions of the Labour Government, show that it is quite as firm in its support of the capitalist system as are any of the other reformist parties.

The real cause of the slavery of the working class is not touched by any of the reforms advocated by any of these parties. The cause of that slavery, with its poverty and insecurity, is the private ownership of the means and instruments of wealth production and distribution. It is true that the capitalist mode of production, with its property basis, was necessary for the development of the instruments of production to their present stage of efficiency. But the development of the machinery of production has long since reached the stage necessary for the production of the means of life in abundance for the whole of society. The present system is based, however, upon production of commodities for profit. The struggle for markets wherein to sell these commodities becomes keener and keener, especially as the capitalist mode of production, with its more and more efficient machinery, extends in the one-time backward countries. Wars, commercial crises extending over long periods of years, unemployment, and the reduction in the workers’ standards of living—these are some of the consequences of this struggle for markets. More commodities are produced than can be sold for a profit. Therefore restrictions are deliberately put upon production itself. This is not always done openly, but cases occur, and have been restored to in order to promote an artificial scarcity.

The essential facts of the situation cannot be disputed by the reformist apologists of capitalism. Natural material exists in plenty, but must not be used. At the same time vast numbers of people capable of useful work will either be engaged on useless tasks or remain unemployed. The capitalist ownership is seen clearly to be a hindrance to production.

While capitalism lasts, therefore, the working class must remain in their present condition of slavery, always faced with the prospect of unemployment and forced to struggle continuously against reductions in their standard of living. On the one hand the worker is told by the MacDonalds that his conditions are gradually improving—that he is receiving dose after dose of “Socialism.” On the other hand he is told by the Sir Allan Smiths that competition in the world market renders necessary a smaller cost of production with a lower wage for the worker. As for those workers whose masters cater for the home, market, they also are frankly told that their wages are much too high in comparison with those of the more skilled workers.

Socialism, the remedy for the workers’ slavery, cannot be brought about gradually, as the reformers would try to persuade their dupes. It can only be brought about by dispossessing the master class of the means of wealth production, and that cannot take place until the working class has made itself the ruling class in society. To accomplish this the proletariat must win political power, which means the control of the armed forces of the State. By this revolutionary method alone will it be possible to abolish private property in the means and instruments of wealth production and to substitute production for use for production for profit.

A. C. A.

Secret Political Funds. (1908)

From the April 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Twenty Labour members voted in the division on Secret Political Funds; ten for the motion and ten against. Thus was “ Labour’s Unity ” demonstrated.

Mr Belloc and the Servile State. (1929)

From the October 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Hilaire Belloc lectured recently on a favourite topic – the Servile State – at the Co-operative Summer School, held at the L.C.C. Training College. His address (delivered on Tuesday, August 27th) was reported in the Co-operative News on 7th September. After some very sound remarks on the dominance which belongs to the capitalist class through their ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, Mr. Belloc went on to air his views on Socialism. He said: –

  Under Socialism all men were to be in the servile state. There were to be no free men ordering other men about, but the politicians were to do that instead.

When Mr. Belloc uses the word ‘Socialism’, he possibly has in mind the administration of capitalism by Government experts, a theory beloved by the Fabians, who do the thinking for the Labour Party; but that is to give the word a meaning which robs it of sense and usefulness.

The existing subjection of the workers is due – as Mr. Belloc agrees – to the private ownership of the means of life.

How, then, can Socialism, i.e., social ownership, lead to the servile state? And how else than by social ownership can the evils of private or non-social ownership be eradicated? We are told that Mr. Belloc offers to enter into written controversy on the subject. We shall be pleased to offer him space in the Socialist Standard to defend his extraordinary statements about Socialism.


Blogger's Note:
See 'Mr. Belloc and the Servile State' from the November 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Hilaire Belloc (1959)

Quote from the January 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

  "Men will eat dirt by the bushel rather than lose their jobs. And this is true of large men as of small." — Hilaire Belloc, New Age, 2/5/1908.

Editorial: The Bethnal Green Bungle. (1911)

Editorial from the August 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

That stale old wheeze, the “three-card trick,” has been worked off on the electors of South West Bethnal Green. You know the process—as an onlooker, of coarse. Three cards are performing simple evolutions, and a flat comes along and tries to “find the lady.” He turns up a card—a knave; he tries again—another knave. About the time his money has all gone the flat becomes convinced that he has been trying to pick “the lady” from among three knaves.

At Bethnal Green the three cards were Masterman, Hoffgaard, and Scurr. In view of the law of libel, which exists to protect those whose actions will not stand the light of day, we are not going to use hard names, but whichever of those cards you turn up forces you to exclaim: “got him again.” The workers of Bethnal Green tried Masterman—and they got the man who presided over the “secret” commission the Government were compelled to appoint to enquire into the treatment of the workers’ children committed by the magistracy to that diabolical inferno, the Abkur Nautical Reformatory.

How this commission whitewashed the Home Office (which had deliberately shut its eyes to sworn statements concerning the inhuman brutalities of this institution flourishing under Government support, and had only moved under a strong fire of criticism), and issued a Report in which the evidence was garbled—this makes one of the most noisome pieces of history that could befoul any age or country. Even the late member for South West Bethnal Green, whom the Liberals have raised to the Bench in order to find a seat for Masterman, declared in the House of Commons that it was one of the most glaring and disgraceful cases of “whitewashing” he bad ever known.

Of course, the Labour Party served this “ fighting democrat ” a good turn, for when he was attacked over the reformatory affair he retorted that only 17 members of the Labour Party voted against the Government, the rest voting for.

The Tory candidate, Mr. Hoffgaard, anti-alien,Tariff Reformer, and Strong Navy advocate, was as little worthy of support.

Mr. J. Scurr ran as a “Socialist and Labour” candidate. The S.D.P. in their manifesto (“Justice,” 22.7.11) state that “at the desire of the Bethnal Green Branch and a number of dissentient Radicals” they have put Scurr forward.

After criticising Masterman, “Justice" says “No wonder the Radicals of South-West Bethnal Green resent having this person foisted upon them. We are affording them the opportunity of showing their resentment in a practical way, by supporting" Scurr!

And over 5,000 electors seized the opportunity of going to the poll to show their resentment at having Scurr foisted upon them.

Scurr opened his election address with the statement that he came forward “at the request of a considerable body of electors.” He got 134 votes. So events proved that, true to S.D.P. traditions, he sought the electors’ suffrage with bluff and deceit. These 134 votes cost over £1 apiece, and in view of all the facts that there was no attempt to use the opportunity for Socialist propaganda, and that the most the S.D.P. could have hoped for was to let the Tory in—it would be interesting to know who paid the cost.

The methods used to obtain votes for Scurr were utterly contemptible. He said in his address : “I believe in Legislative Independence for Ireland, and should support the Irish Party in any action they may take if a Home Rule Bill is introduced.” That, of course, was a sop for the Irish. But for any professing Socialist to promise to support the Irish in any action they may take is nauseous, for from O'Connell's day to the present the tactics of the Irish Party have been reactionary. He fishes for Nationalist votes by stating that he has been member of the E.C. of the United Irish League. In “Justice’’ (July 22) he says there is no bar to a Catholic becoming a Socialist.

Scurr angles for Radical votes by recording that he has been Lecture Secretary of the Metropolitan Radical Federation and Executive Councillor of the English Land Restoration League.

Various leading lights illuminated Mr. Scurr’s platform. Hyndman and Quelch, the strong navy champions; Victor Grayson, the bombastic assistant on Blatchford’s sinking ship; Hunter Watts, that founder of the S.D.P. who in 1903 supported Masterman because he thought his opponent a scoundrel—what discrimination !— and even Belloc, of the Anti-Socialist Union.

The latter, being a rabid Catholic, was expected to influence the very considerable body of Catholic electors, and being a disappointed man, deprived of his seat by the official Liberals, he was very wroth against their nominee, and did his best to lure the Radicals from his side.

Scurr issued as an election leaflet a reprint of “An Open Letter to a Bethnal Green Radical,” which appeared in Belloc’s newspaper, the “Eye Witness.” A passage says: “ It is in your power to resist and to resist without violating your traditions. You would not, perhaps, choose to vote Tory . . . Well, you have your alternative. There is a third candidate in the field —Mr. Scurr. . . . You may not agree with his opinions on abstract economic Socialism. But you know very well that the Nationalisation of the means of production will not come within the next few years: the obliteration of all popular rights, unless you stir yourself to prevent it, may, and probably will. A vote for Mr. Scurr means a vote for democracy and for the right of electors to choose their own member. A vote for Mr. Masterman means a vote for the Caucus.”

“Justice” (July 20) says: “Those Radicals should certainly be influenced by the article reprinted from the ‘Eye Witness’—'An Open Letter to a Bethnal Green Radical.' ”

So did these very revolutionary Socialists (!) of the S.D.P. join hands with a virulent Anti-Socialist Unionist, sit cheek by jowl with the man who said (Catholic Truth Society's Conference, 1909;: “He believed the prime political struggle of the future would be between his Church and the Socialist organisations . . . The Right of Property, the Catholic Church maintained, was exterior to and superior to the mere enjoyment or use of the thing possessed. The owner may be a bad man. and the thing owned may be of very little use to him and of great use to someone else, but to deprive him of it would be an offence, not only against him, but against the Power that created both him and you . . . the fundamental principle of property must not be denied." It is the same old dirty game of treachery, of lending (or should we say hiring ?) themselves to the Tories, of throwing dust in the eyes of the workers, who, as they become more enlightened, find they have no use for the S.D.P. and its filthy methods. 

It is gratifying to find the attempt to drag the name of Socialism in the mire meets with such small success.

#    #    #    #

We shall have ready in a few days a report of the debate between Comrade Fitzgerald and Mr. A. H. Richardson, M.P. Order now. 32 pages, 1d. Post free 1½d.

Have you read "Socialism and Religion,” the latest S.P.G.B. pamphlet? It will interest and enlighten you, whatever may be your outlook on the religious question. It is an important addition to working-class literature.

Private Property and its Catholic Defenders (1925)

Pamphlet Review from the October 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party has never sought to hide its hostility to all forms of religion. It frankly opposes all organisations, from the Church of Rome downwards, which seek to maintain the mental thraldom of the working class. In a special pamphlet and frequently in these columns attention has been drawn to the fact that religion in its present form is a part of the capitalist society, standing or falling therewith.

Additional evidence in this direction is afforded by a twopenny pamphlet recently issued by the Catholic Truth Society, entitled “The Catholic Church and the Principle of Private Property.” by Hilaire Belloc. Herein the author attempts to defend private property; not indeed, in its present-day capitalistic form, but in its pre-capitalistic, medieval or catholic form. Apparently Mr. Belloc regards capitalism as being almost, if not quite, as immoral as Socialism; not least because Socialism is the logical outcome of capitalism! To him the economic relations existing during the Middle Ages were the only normal, and therefore moral, relations possible, and his remedy for the present-day social conflict is a return to these relations (p. 28). He would reverse the process of capitalist accumulation by "just fiscal laws” (p. 13).

The Socialist can afford to smile at such childish proposals, for the simple reason that they have not the remotest chance of being adopted by any political party in real earnest. The fate of Anti-Trust laws in America, for example, is a painful object-lesson for all would-be reformers on those lines. Further, if Socialism arises out of capitalism, as Mr. Belloc correctly points out, it is equally true that capitalism was the inevitable outcome of Feudal society.

The principle of private property (which Mr. Belloc holds is a fundamental human institution) is no “eternal truth.” It has varied from age to age in accordance with the variation in the means and methods of production. The development of these means and methods forms the basis of social development. It was not, as Mr. Belloc holds, the revolt against Rome which gave rise to industrialism. On the contrary, it was precisely the other way about. The expansion of trade and the rise of manufacture was the cause, not the effect, of the Reformation. The burgesses of the rising towns opposed the Church, not primarily because they disagreed with her doctrines, but because they saw in her landed possessions and political power a bulwark of the system which oppressed them.

At one time the Church held a third of the land of Christian Europe. Her wealthy prelates were feudal lords, able to raise small armies of tenants and retainers, and were admitted to the seats of the mighty as part of the second estate of the realm. No wonder, then, that the zealous Catholic of to-day looks back with longing on the vanished past and views with jealous hatred the class which has usurped wealth and power; but the Church has learned to temper her celestial pretensions with worldly wisdom, and has accommodated herself to the requirements of her new masters. Whatever she may proclaim as theory, her actions are circumspect and law-abiding, and her heaviest denunciations fall on the rebel workers.

Similarly, Mr. Belloc, a "critic” of capitalism, was for years an active member of the capitalist Liberal Party and supported with "commendable” literary courage the Allied capitalist Governments during the recent war. The fact that his fellow-Christians were slaughtering one another for the sake of trade routes and markets, oil-wells and cotton lands, did not seem to worry him. This, however, by the way.

The medieval system of society collapsed largely because it was founded on the isolation of the producers. The peasants in the country and the craft guilds in the towns were unable to withstand the nation-wide activities of the merchant class. Assuming that by some miracle the workers could again enter into individual possession of the means of production, it would require another miracle to prevent history repeating itself.

Collective production as organised by capitalism is more economical than individual production. Machinery which is used against the workers by the capitalist class so long as they possess it will be used for the workers when, the latter assume possession; but how are the workers to become individually the possessors of machinery? Mr. Belloc does not tell us ! "The workers operate the machines in common; let them be possessed in common.” That is the proposal of the Socialist. A system of society based upon the common ownership of the means of life —that is Socialism; but Mr. Belloc assures us that "there is nothing new nor anything requiring a moment’s study in the proposal” (p. 22).

He is not averse, however, to betraying his ignorance. Thus he confuses Marxism with Proudhonism, and describes Marx as a mere populariser of Proudhon’s ideas. Apparently he has never read or even heard of "The Poverty of Philosophy,” in which Marx tore to pieces Proudhon’s "Philosophy of Poverty.” According to Mr. Belloc, Proudhon was brilliant, while Marx was dull. The latter merely "sat down to write a book,” which the former (although "a literary genius”) presumably could not do. It is interesting to note, however, that while the compilers of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica” consider Marx’s theories important enough to devote two or three columns to, they confess their inability to reduce Proudhon’s ideas to any system.

The simple fact is that there was a fundamental divergence between the views of the two men. Proudhon took his stand, as Mr. Belloc points out, on the view that private property was immoral under all conditions. Not so Marx. The doctrine of historical materialism formulated by him showed that moral conceptions themselves arose from economic conditions which varied from age to age. While Proudhon, as the spokesman of "eternal justice,” pleaded for an "equal exchange” to abolish exploitation, Marx showed that, on the average, exchange already was equal and that the exploitation took place, not in the realm of exchange, but in that of production! Finally, Marx held that capitalism was doomed, not because it was "unjust" but because it was a fetter on further economic development and inimical to the interests of an ever-increasing majority in society.

Details like these, however, are beneath the notice of smart men like Mr. Belloc. Consequently, he proceeds to confuse materialism with fatalism. To hold that the human will is determined or shaped by the conditions of its existence is to deny its existence! This is his idea of logic !

After this the reader will not be surprised to learn that Mr. Belloc shows a common inability to distinguish between democracy and bureaucracy. He trots out the moth-eaten bogey of despotism. This may indeed prove useful for flattening out the Labour Party and other advocates of "nationalisation"; but our withers are unwrung. The bureaucrats stand or fall with the capitalist class; and, although he would probably not admit it, Mr. Belloc knows that so does the Catholic Church! Hence his animosity to Socialism, his mean, Jew-hating sneers at its scientific founder.

The mother of Marx was no immaculate virgin, but the Son of Mary uttered nothing so inspiring as the slogan—"Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains, you have a world to win.”

Eric Boden

The Party Funds (1917)

From the September 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recent debate in the House of Lords on the subject of the sale of parliamentary honours is of decided interest to those who are not acquainted with the inner workings of the political machine. Raised in debate by the Marquis of Salisbury, the ensuing discussion brought out some really delightful admissions of corruption in legislative channels. The admissions hardly come as news to seasoned Socialists, but this is one of the first occasions where the subject has been discussed at any length, many previous attempts to raise the matter, especially in the lower house, having signally failed.

The party funds, let it be here stated, are moneys contributed by financiers and rich business people for the purpose of securing recognition in “birthday honours" lists and the like for services rendered or expected. In the course of the discussion, however, mention was made as to the way in which the party funds were expended. Hilaire Belloc, a well-known character in jingo journals, has said that he resigned his seat in the Commons some years back owing to his disgust at party politics and “the party system generally".

In the course of his short career as a member of the Commons Belloc tried hard to raise the question of the expenditure of the party funds by asking for an audit, but needless to say, he failed. In his book The Party System is dealt with at some length, and much that we knew of legislative corruption is proved to the gaping world.

One of the richest morsels of the recent discussion came from Lord Curzon, who said with all the impudence possible:

  The idea of a commercial transaction, of disposing of a peerage like a parcel of goods across a counter, is a horror to all right-thinking men. When such things are spoken of some of us are moving, however, in a world of which we know nothing. I know no foundation for these public rumours.

—“Daily Express," 8.8.17.

His talk of “moving in a world of which we know nothing" may in a sense be true, for has not the great patriot Bottomley just said that “Sir Edward Carson is under the impression that the Rhine is the border of France and Germany” (“Sunday Pictorial,” 12.8.17), and that Mr. Balfour has “never beard of the kingdom of Bohemia” ? (Same source.)

Just previously, however, the noble earl had said:

   . . . that but for the aid of party funds he would have been unable to enter political life, as neither his father nor he at that time was able to afford a parliamentary contest .—Ibid.

From which it will be seen that if he did not know where the party funds came from and why, he was not altogether ignorant of where they went and why.

Evidence that elections are contested by means of such funds was handed out by another noble lord, for listen to this:

   Lord Charnwood said that he had contested several expensive elections and received help from the party funds, and was not in the least ashamed of having received it .—Ibid.

This, therefore, is the way the present-day politician rejoices in the sickening fraud of party politics. The average member of the back benches is merely a pawn in the political game, the real power coming from the front benches and the Ministers. In the matter of choosing the members of this front bench the workers have no part whatever. Small wonder that Ministers themselves were found describing the whole thing as “despicable.”

When will the workers awake to a consciousness of their surroundings and, taking over the political machine in their own interests, sweep the whole tainted system from public life?

The present brief criticism is but a detail. Pages might be written in condemnation of the stinking mass of corruption. I will be content with quoting that clever reflection of Oscar Wilde’s, who, upon the subject of “Critics and Criticism” said: “Surely in order to test the quality of a wine it is not necessary to consume the whole cask.”

B. B. B.

Mr. Belloc and the Servile State. (1929)

From the November 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

In our October issue we quoted from the Co-operative News (September 7th), the following passage from their report of an address by Mr. Hilaire Belloc:—

Under Socialism all men were to be in the servile state. There were to be no free men ordering other men about, but the politicians were to do that instead.

We invited Mr. Belloc to defend his mention of Socialism in connection with the Servile State.

We have received from him the following letter, from which it will be seen that Mr. Belloc was mis-reported:—

                                                          “Kings Land,
                                                             “Shipley, Horsham,
                                                                  “October 8th, 1929.

          “The Editor, The Socialist Standard,

“Dear Sir,
     “I don’t know who wrote that sentence as being mine. I never said it or wrote it. The Servile State does not mean the Socialist State: it means a State in which the larger number are compelled directly by law—not indirectly, by economic pressure —to work for the benefit of the rest. In my book, the “Servile State,” I show how the tendency of which such a condition would be the final result, has now been established and is increasing in force.
                                         “Very faithfully yours,
                                                       “ H. BELLOC.”