Politics: Rates, Taxes & the Working Class (1975)

From the March 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

The swindler Horatio Bottomley, when he was a Liberal MP in 1907, proposed in Parliament measures to finance Old Age Pensions for all people over sixty-five. The chief proposals were an Employer’s Tax of a penny in the pound on all wages; super-tax on investments; Stamp Duty on share certificates; a tax on racing and betting stakes; and State appropriation of all dormant bank balances and securities.

His biographer Alan Hayman says: “It is a tribute to the acumen of Horatio Bottomley that nearly every one of his suggestions has subsequently passed on to the statute book in some form or another.” The acumen obviously came from the frauds Bottomley had already been involved in: having done down a number of wealthy individuals, he knew that if revenue on a big scale was wanted it could only be had from the capitalist class on the assumption that it was in their ultimate interests to pay.

It is a pity that more people have not understood the position so realistically. The idea that taxes are paid by the working class to upkeep institutions which belong to them is one of the myths by which the majority are misdirected towards non-issues. Of course phraseology plays a major part; the revenue from rates and taxes is always described as “public money” and “the taxpayers’ money”. As with terms like “the nation” and “the British people”, it is necessary to ask what is meant by “public” and who are the taxpayers. The case which the Socialist Party of Great Britain has put forward consistently since 1904 is that rates and taxes are a burden not on the working class but on the capitalist class; and this remains just as true in 1975.

Working Out Wages

Many workers would at first glance treat this as preposterous. They are possibly “having to pay” several pounds a week in income-tax deducted from their wages; the prices of petrol and cigarettes are high, and other prices are pushed up, by tax additions. At the present time local rates are expected to go up by fifty per cent. or even more. These are seen as inroads on the money people have to live on, and there has been talk of organized refusal to pay rates if the increases are as great as expected.

The first and most important question is: what are wages? The capitalist system is based on the ownership of the means of production and distribution by a minority, who therefore live by owning. The great majority, having no such resource, have to live by selling their labour-power — that is, working for wages. Thus, labour-power is a commodity like anything else, and its price like all prices is the expression in money of its value — what went into producing it and is needed for reproducing it. At the lowest level that can mean enough money for the food and the rent, but in practice it means meeting many requirements. If the unskilled worker’s labour-power is a cheap product sold at a low price, the professional worker’s salary (equals wage) takes account of his training and the components of his “standard of living”.

But whatever their amount, wages are obviously what is received: the actual payment, not a hypothetical one. Workers cannot help but be aware of this. No-one will be persuaded that £30 is £40 and that the latter figure is a “true” wage; the opposite is the case. The illusion created over “tax deductions” is that if only they could be evaded or reduced in some way, the worker would be so much better off. The single man with a big gap between gross and net pay sees that his colleague with a family has a smaller gap, i.e. takes home more wages, though he probably has less to spend in the end. If only some benevolent tax legislation would provide the best of both worlds!

Paring and Portions

It should be recalled that large numbers of workers were not involved with income-tax at all before the last war; like keeping a bank account, it was regarded as a sign of being well-off. In Studies in an Inflationary Economy (1966) F. W. Paish gives tables showing the percentages of total earned-income tax drawn from different income groups before and after the war. In 1938, 87 per cent. came from the first (the highest) 500,000, and all the tax was attributed to the first 5 millions or less than half of all employed persons. By 1959 the first 500,000 were responsible for only 42.3 per cent. The first 5 millions provided 72.3 per cent., and the range covered the first twenty millions.

This is part of an argument by Paish that there had been a marked equalization of incomes. In fact, the changes in the figures for earned incomes at the top and tax drawn from them reflect changes in the taxation system more than anything else. But, if one granted that the working class as a whole had become concerned in direct taxation since 1938, these figures show what a small concern it is. In 1938 more than half of earned incomes paid no tax; in 1959, with the number of employed persons doubled, roughly three- quarters paid only just over one-quarter of the tax.

What tax deductions achieve is an apportionment of income among the working class. Their introduction early in the war (linked with the post-war credits scheme, a fraud which Bottomley would have envied) had the object, besides raising money, of restricting consumption: they were reductions in wages. The workers most hit by them were, of course, the unmarried ones whose spending money was cut. This remains the case, and it means that the discontent of married workers with homes and families, which is the main strength of wage demands, is checked to some extent.

Incidentally, a report in The Observer of 16th February bears out that tax deductions are cuts in wages. Wedgwood Benn, the Secretary of State for Industry, addressed a Labour meeting at Hillingdon:

Although ostensibly attacking the Tories, Mr. Benn was evidently warning the Chancellor [Denis Healey] that he would not accept any brake on consumption. He denounced as a ‘pre-war remedy’ the idea of a wage cut.

Under Mr. Healey’s plans for bringing down inflation, the level of take-home pay after tax would have to rise less fast than prices.

Paying for What ?

Realistically, therefore, income-tax as far as the working class is concerned is a more sophisticated version of Bottomley’s proposed Employer’s Tax on wages. Not much thought is needed to see that it is paid by employers in any case. It is applied to individual wage-packets to effect varying payments according to status — single, married with no children, married with several to support, etc. — from a notional common wage. (We are not here considering national insurance contributions, which generally are returned to the workers as benefits.)

One argument is that workers do pay taxes but receive benefits in return; thus, that food and housing subsidies and public services are, as it were, purchases on an equalled-out, socially “just” basis. Certainly it is true that subsidies and services are provided by the Government out of taxation, but the beneficiaries over the costs are the capitalist class. Subsidies are an important means of keeping down the cost of living, and but for them the wages bill would be much higher.

Moreover, they are a means again of apportioning. Those chiefly affected by them are workers with families. Why should capitalists have to pay workers ail round to meet a cost, when those to whom it applies can be selected ? This is the purpose of housing subsidies, rent rebates, family allowance and so on, as well as subsidies on food.

What should always be borne in mind, nevertheless, is that the main burden of taxation is for government expenditure on the civil service, armaments, law enforcement and the rest of the general maintenance of capitalism. This is what the capitalist class must support. That is not to say they pay tax willingly. On the contrary, they try continually to have the costs of government reduced — usually by one section seeking to have part of the burden transferred to another section. The differences between the main political parties are largely differences over taxation and expenditure: hew the money shall be collected and how it shall be spent.

Taxes and Prices

Where indirect taxation is concerned, here again it is commonly assumed that the taxes on commodities are an extra charge to the purchaser. In fact price increases caused by taxes are no different from increases due to other factors. Although the introduction of Value Added Tax in Britain has made the prices of many commodities rise (though some have fallen, or risen less than they would otherwise have done), few people would think of it as a reason for continuing inflation; and even fewer would think of taxation as a reason for the difference in prices between 1914 or 1939 and now.

Government policy over indirect taxation in the past has always been to seek industries where monopoly or near-monopoly conditions ruled, demand for the products was fairly inelastic, and high profits being steadily made; and then to “cream off” some of the profit. It is by no means true that the tax must be passed on as an addition to retail prices. In Benham’s Economics (1967) F. W. Paish says:

In practice, however, a monopolist seldom charges a price high enough to maximize his profits . . . The normal response of producers is to “pass on” the tax to consumers by adding it to their selling price. They may discover after a time that their sales fall off so much that their best course is to reduce their prices somewhat, but to begin with they are likely to add on the full amount of the tax.

The position may appear slightly different with VAT, since the tax takes the form of a straight percentage addition to the retail price. The increasing practice is for prices to be stated “including VAT” instead of naming a separate price to which tax is added. In other words, the producer or seller still seeks the best price he can get, taking the tax he must pay into consideration: prices are prices, just as wages are wages.

The Rates Bill

To workers who are householders, it seems undeniable that rates are an increasingly heavy burden on them. Since there are misunderstandings over what rates are for, it may be worth explaining that they pay the running costs only of local government administration and services: staff salaries, welfare services, the maintenance of schools, roads, sewers, etc. The maintenance of Council housing is normally a separate fund which must be supported from the housing income.

Capital expenditure — the building of houses, flats and schools, the provision of roads and sewers etc. — does not come from rates. The large sums required for these are borrowed by local authorities, if and when the projects are approved by the government department involved. Local government is the branches of central government; its work implements the policies of the central government, by whom its expenditure is controlled.

Rates are a charge on property, and before rent restriction (starting in 1914) diminished private landlords the rates were paid by them from rent revenues. Since that time, house rents have divided into “inclusive” and “exclusive” of rates; in the latter case the tenant pays the rent to the landlord and the rates to the local authority. It is a matter of landlords’ book-keeping — most local authorities still offer a 10 per cent,.reduction for rates paid en bloc, but not many landlords think it worth while. The effect has been to create the impression that it is the tenant who is the ratepayer; whereas he does not own the house, and is only paying in two parts what he would have paid in total.

The position has been further complicated by the growth of owner-occupation, to the point where alternatives to the rating system are now being urgently considered. The most popular suggestion, though made vaguely, is a “local income tax”. Insofar as a great many workers have thought (encouraged by deceitful political catchphrases like “a property-owning democracy”) that acquiring their own house was a step upward, it is a tragedy that they acquire only crippling mortgage repayments and are caught in a system of charges intended for bigger fish altogether. When an alternative system is produced, it will show where the burden of supporting government correctly lies.

Socialism, not Reform

One of the hopes of working people when they vote is for reductions in rates and taxes. They hope for "tax concessions”, i.e. that their take-home pay will be increased by the deductions being lightened; and for changes in the situation over rates so that they have to pay out less. Their belief is that these changes would make them substantially better off.

A simple answer is to look at times, not so many years ago, when few workers were conscious of income-tax problems or received rate demands and prices were lower. Were they better off ? Alternatively one may ask if, supposing it were possible for a government to make tax and rate alterations which favoured the working class, the employers would readily accept the consequent jump in wages ? Hardly. Any fall in the cost of living has always been followed by the forcing down of wages, as happened in the early nineteen-twenties. The general lowering of wages was, in a short time, practically equivalent to that of the cost of living. Farm workers’ wages, which were 46s. a week in 1920, were 29s. by 1924 and remained at that level up to 1939.

Reformers exist by persuading workers that adjustments and reallocations within capitalism can change their situation. Before the war Dean Inge wrote in the Evening Standard: “Popular education is taking the bread out of our mouths.” He was voicing the belief of workers who considered themselves “middle-class” that they were being ruined by taxation; the same section of the working class now complains of being ruined by the rates instead.

The level of taxes makes no difference to the continual struggle to keep abreast of the cost of living, as the history of legislation in our lifetime shows. It is an error to think that rates, taxes and prices are an issue for the working class; the only issue is Socialism.

Robert Barltrop

Mrs. Partington again. (1911)

From the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

John Bull for June 10 published an article headed “Is the Small Trader Doomed? The Multi-Shop Octopus.”

Once again the wild, despairing cry of the small shopkeeper is heard deploring the passing of his kind. After describing the methods by which the great firms oust the “little men,” the position of the combine’s employees is summed up thus :

“The lot of the employees is very unsatisfactory, the majority of these companies refusing to employ a man who has been in the service of their rivals, no matter why he left his previous situation. They are discharged on the merest pretext, as the continuous advertising amply proves, and their wages compare unfavourably with those paid by the small trader. One of the managers recently remarked that he did not think it advisable to keep a man more than 6 months as by that time they had exhausted all his ideas. Pick his brain and throw him on the human scrap heap !”

“The remedy” for the small trader is, John Bull tells us, “for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to impose a tax on multi-shop trading, as is done in Germany.”

Is this a case for Bottomley’s “Business Government” or—the Lunacy Commissioners ?

A. Kay

Blogger's Note:

Once again mention of a 'Mrs. Partington' crops again in the early issue of the Standard. Once again, here's a link to give you the background details.

A Look Round. (1907)

From the May 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Louis A. Hill, to whose utterances I have previously referred in these columns, continues his advocacy of an Eight Hours Act for bakers and continues to make unprovable statements in connection therewith.

***

In communications to the Dally News and the Daily Express recently, he stated that the passing of the bill would “find work for practically every unemployed baker in London” and “would find employment in London alone for some 4,000 or 5,000 extra hands.” Now in my humble opinion Mr. Hill knows he cannot justify these statements, hence his refusal to debate the matter with a member of the S.P.G.B., when asked to do so at the meeting of bakers held at Canning Town on February 9th.

***

In the February issue of the Journeymen Bakers’ Magazine, Mr. Jenkins, General Secretary of the Amalgamated Union of Operative Bakers, reported that during the Labour Conference at Belfast he visited one of the largest and most up-to-date bakeries in the city, and “had special facilities offered me to examine the newest machinery that had been introduced from a labour-saving point of view, and found, as I had expected, that every development of machinery was throwing men out of work, the result being that 102 men were on the out-of-work list, so that with a 700 membership, one out of every seven were out of work, which represents a very serious state of things ; up to now they have been able to deal with this small army of unemployed, but from all appearances they may be eventually hard pushed to provide for them unless by a serious increase of contributions, notwithstanding they are working under a 48 hour week.”

***

According to the British Baker for April 19 last, Mr. Jenkins attended the Annual Dinner of the Portsmouth Branch of the A.U.O.B. & C. on April 10 and in replying to the toast of “The Amalgamated Union,” laid special stress on the Eight Hours Day Bill for the Baking Trade now before Parliament, which had, he said, been rendered necessary by the excessive labour forced on those who could find employment, the result, in connection with modern improvement, being an ever-increasing army of unemployed bakers, which the proposed Bill would practically eliminate. Where ten or fifteen years since ten or eleven sacks was considered a fair output per man, now double that amount was the output in many of the factories, and it was evident that something to alter the conditions of the workers was an absolute necessity.

***

Once again I ask Mr. Hill, and also Mr. Jenkins, to reconcile their extravagant statements with the actual facts as admitted by, at any rate, the last-named.

***

That “Radical of Radicals,” Mr. Horatio Bottomley, has made Mr. Featherstone Asquith a present of a suggestion, but does not for a moment suppose that Mr. Asquith will adopt it. He says : “An Old Age Pension of 5s. per week for every law-abiding citizen—whether otherwise “deserving” or not—of the age of seventy years and upwards, who cares to claim it. That will exactly fit the case—and Mr. Asquith’s name will go down to posterity as that of the great Chancellor who, out of the country’s wealth, fed and clothed the aged when their powers of contributing to it were exhausted. No man could seek a higher reputation than this.”

***

Oh! that will be joyful. Most members of the working class are “too old at forty.” The great friendly societies, who take care only to enrol “good lives,” show in their statistics the number of middle-aged members who, mainly because of unemployment, lapse. And if they can only manage to “hang on” until they are 70, and never break the law, Horatio would give them five shillings per week !

***

This, in Mr. Bottomley’s opinion, will enable them to feed and clothe themselves. I should like to see Bottomley, Asquith & Co. doing it at the price. And what about rent ?

***

In the following year Mr. Bottomley would extend the pensions to those of 65 years of age, thus bringing himself into line with those other advocates of “justice” for the squeezed-out workers, the Labour Party, who through Mr. G. N. Barnes, urged this proposal in the House of Commons in February, 1906.

***

In sending stamps for twelve months’ subscription to THE SOCIALIST STANDARD, “Wrong Fount” expresses his appreciation of our efforts to produce an interesting and instructive journal, the reading of which has greatly strengthened him. He is a member of the S.D.F., and has been recently a municipal candidate for that body. He does not wish his name and town to be mentioned, as “the time has not yet arrived,” whatever that may mean. He adds:—”You have a good work ahead ; it is good if only for what the ‘S.S.’ has taught me, although I am still ashamed of my ignorance. Go on, Lads!”

***

Well, we cannot expect to dispel ignorance all at once. It took many years for some of us who were in the S.D.F. to arrive at the stage of entirely breaking away from the reform and palliative mongering of that body. But at last “the time arrived,” and we formed the S.P.G.B.

***

One paragraph in “Wrong Fount’s” letter is undoubtedly based upon an insufficient knowledge of the facts, and may also be due to some prejudice on his part against us. He says: “might I suggest that there is a vast difference between criticism and vilification—although I must confess that the latter weapon is not used so much now as it was formerly by you. That is good, too.”

***

Now, I do not think it can be charged against us that we have ever vilified anyone in the columns of this journal. To vilify means to degrade by slander and a slander is a false or malicious report. So far as we know, no “slanders” have ever appeared and every effort will be made to keep them out. Upon reconsideration “Wrong Fount” will no doubt withdraw his remark.

***

On Wednesday, September 6th, 1905 (one year and eight months ago), whilst the Trade Union Congress was sitting at Hanley, over a hundred people were evicted during a heavy downpour of rain from their homes at New Hemsworth, near Barnsley, at the instance of the Colliery Company, with whom they were in dispute. Other evictions followed later. The dispute is not yet settled, and the evicted ones have not yet returned to “their” homes. They are endeavouring to subsist on the few shillings that can be raised by making charitable appeals to their fellow members of the working class, who have not sufficient for themselves.

***

For fourteen months out of the twenty there has been a “Labour” Party in the House of Commons, specially claiming to represent the Trade Unionists, of whom the Hemsworth colliers form a part. While the colliers and their wives and children have been suffering and starving, the “Labour” Party have been earning the encomiums of the capitalist party, and boasting of their “sensibility, adaptability, and respectability.” One of them (Ramsay MacDonald) moved the adjournment of the House to discuss the shooting of natives in Natal, but none (not even W. Thorne, S.D.F.) has risked his reputation for “sensibility, adaptability, and respectability” by denouncing the damnable system which produces such outrages as the Hemsworth evictions.

***

“Wrong Fount” may accuse me of vilification, but can he deny that what I have written is true and justifiable ?

***

Of course one can quite understand the reluctance of Keir Hardie and his friends to take action concerning such a glaring illustration of that class war which they declare is only a “shibboleth” and “a reactionary and whiggish precept, certain to lead the movement away from the real aims of Socialism.”

***

A formal report has been issued by the Departmental Committee appointed to inquire into the “probable economic effect of a limit of eight hours to the working day of coal mines.” Some interesting evidence has been given, particularly as to the effect of a reduction in other industries. Mr. H. F. Donaldson, M.I.C.E., chief superintendent of the Ordnance Factories, Woolwich, detailed how the hours in the factories had been reduced from 54 to 48. Their method of work was really piecework, and the production had been approximately the same as under the old regime. The attendance of the men had been more regular since the shortening of the hours. He did not think that the reduction had meant an increased intensity of labour, but it did mean “hustle,”

***

Mr. J. Lowrie, manager of the Royal Army Clothing Factory, Grosvenor Road, also gave evidence. He said that at his establishment there were employed 1,532 women and girls, of whom 1,385 were on piece work. Until 1894 they were working 55 hours per week, after which year they were reduced to 48. He did not think this reduction of seven hours had made any difference in the output: there was the same efficiency in the shorter hours. He considered it had been an economic success.

***

And there are some folks who talk of dealing with the unemployed problem by enacting an Eight Hours Day !

J. Kay

Low Life in High Places: The Political Scandals (1973)

From the August 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our politicians have recently been looking rather like a man who has found the first flakes of dry rot in his house and who knows that as he crumbles away each piece of dead wood he will reveal more and more damage. The uncovering of scandalous goings on in high places has caused some excited voices to ask whether capitalism is being undermined by its own rottenness. Journalistic fashion, which at other times can be preoccupied with war, or crime, or economic crises, now luxuriates in stories of secret cameras and microphones and boardroom deals.

Watergate, of course, is the hottest piece of scandal, with its insight into the muscle tactics of American politics. Over here we have no Watergate, only Lambton and Jellicoe who show how capitalism’s rulers do not always keep to the standards of conduct they like to lay down for the rest of us. The Poulson case has revealed something of how firms can win contracts and influence people. The News of the World’s tireless muckraking has helped in turning up the BBC payola case, which promises to let us in on the well-known secret that although we may pay our money we do not necessarily take our choice. (America also has a payola scandal, but to the relief of its participants it is crowded off the front pages by Watergate.) Lonrho will go down in the history of British boardrooms as an example of how to succeed in business without really trying.

A big tax evasion scandal is about to break in France, which may involve a couple of hundred companies in accusations of fraudulent operations. In Germany there are rumblings that the hero of the left, Chancellor Brandt, held on to his office last year only by bribing a deputy to change his vote in Brandt’s favour.

We Never Closed

Now the surprising thing about all of this is that it is so surprising. Scandals are exposed only intermittently but the evidence is that they are happening all the time; there is always some group or individual who is trying to steal a march on the rest of the ruling class by bending the rules.

As anyone who has heard of Mayor Daley knows, American politics are almost synonymous with corruption. It was never established whether Kennedy did get his microscopic majority over Nixon in 1960 by virtue of a bit of vote-fixing in Illinois. At any rate, the Kennedys were probably too smart to allow themselves to be connected with any such dealings. Kennedy’s successor Johnson came into power on a cloud of suspicion over his connection with Bobby Baker, whose career included manipulated government contracts, questionable bank deals, diversion of party funds and the employment of the services of call-girls as a gainful investment. Johnson denied any suggestions that he was involved and while his one time protégé floundered in miserable exposures the great wheel-and- dealer president lived to fight and win another day.

How is it with the Empire ?

Rumour has it that things are more gentlemanly in England; or is it that British workers suffer from a different strain of gullibility? Remember, for example, Horatio Bottomley, who swindled his way into and out of several fortunes before he overstepped even the bounds of working class hero-worship. Bottomley’s first swindle was pulled off in the 1890’s but during the 1914/18 war the workers queued in their thousands to join up after hearing one of his famous recruiting speeches. He carried on during the war, while the men he had recruited died in the trenches, and afterwards, rooking rich and poor until it all caught up with him and he went to prison in 1922. Bottomley’s fall was not quite the distressful event it might have been for his admirers, because he had already been through the courts many times. Indeed, it was his success in these cases which made his enemies wary of challenging him; he once tried to bribe someone into taking out a hopeless action against him, to reinforce his reputation for legal invincibility.

Perhaps Bottomley picked up some tips from that other great popular man of the people, Edward VII, who resembled him in many ways — gross, vulgar, audacious and with enough sensual fixations to satisfy the most fervent Freudian analyst. Edward, especially while he was Prince of Wales, gambled, ran up debts, ate massively and indulged a copious and wide ranging sexual appetite, which landed him in scandals in which his only protection was his eminence. On at least one occasion he was the subject of a successful blackmail. None of this prevented him, when he became king in 1902, assuming the leadership of a church which instructs workers that of all sins the deadliest is sexual deviance. It even gave him a mild popularity with some of the workers who suffered deprivation in such bitter contrast to Edward’s vulgar opulence; they thought well of him for his racehorses, for what they called his sportsmanship and — more incredible than all — for his common touch.

Spies and Ribaldry

Under the memory of Edward VII Lambton and Jellicoe are small fry. It was perhaps their misfortune that their exposure, coming just ten years after the Profumo affair, should revive that episode. Profumo, the War Minister who became involved with an expensive prostitute called Christine Keeler, committed his indiscretions at an especially unfavourable time. When Edward VII was stamping the brothels British capitalism was powerful, secure. In 1963 it was a different story and much of Prime Minister Macmillan’s time was taken up with trying to persuade his followers to accept the reality of the decline of British power. It was a popular fantasy, to which the Labour Party was as attached as were the Tories, that British capitalism had secrets which powerful rivals like Russia were itching to steal. That was partly why the Foreign Office spy Vassall got as much as 18 years for allowing himself to be blackmailed into passing information and why soon after there was such a wave of hysteria over Profumo who was said to be, among other things, a security risk.

What memorable summer days they were, with ministers each week awaiting with dread the latest instalment of Christine Keeler’s story, the endless jokes and with the Daily Mirror, feeding the notion that the scandal reached to the peaks of society, suggesting that Prince Philip was involved by the simple ruse of publishing an outraged denial. Somewhere there had to be a halt and in the end the British ruling class took their revenge upon Stephen Ward, the toady who had introduced Profumo to Keeler. Ward was abandoned, then destroyed, by his influential friends — an ending with its own tragic but typical irony.

Privilege

That dirty episode was representative of a social system which cannot come clean. Capitalism has rules which are moulded by the privileged interests of the property-owning minority. It is a society in which there can be no general harmony of interests, in which agreements are signified by the knife in the back, the foot on the neck. Within the privileged minority there are other minorities continually forming, attempting to seize extra privileges and to bend the rules in their own favour. To some extent these are accepted and contained by the rest of the ruling class; it is when they overstep the limits of prudence and become a threat to capitalism’s public face that they have to be dealt with.

Watergate, unsavoury as it is, is no worse than the everyday usage of capitalist politics, which could not continue without a succession of consciously formulated deceptions upon the working class. During the presidential election last year the American workers were aware of a lot of what was involved in the Watergate scandal, yet they gave Nixon an historical vote of confidence — because he promised them, if anything, a more controlled and repressive capitalism and wrapped it all up in the familiar smooth avowals of the used-car salesman.

The Lambton affair has demonstrated little beyond the fact that the privileges of the ruling class extend into all aspects of human life. Lambton himself (Daily Telegraph 21 June 1973) justified it in a predictably audacious way:

. . . men with great ambitions also had a strong sexual urge that was not satisfied easily.

If such men were limited and ordered to be irreproachable, there was a danger of the creation of the power élite. This would undermine the the fundamental purpose of democracy.

And he rubbed in his advantage, when the scandal broke, by holing up in an expensive hideaway. Workers who are caught in similar tangles have no such relief available to them; they have to sort out their personal and emotional difficulties at the same time as they cope with the drudgery of housework, of the office or the relentless production line.

Smoothing it Over

Heath tried to salvage something from the Lonrho affair, which showed up another aspect of privilege, by making his instantly famous remark about the "unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism.” There are no reports of him choking on the words. The shareholders displayed their feelings by packing the company’s special general meeting and enthusiastically supporting the management policies, big handouts, tax avoidance and all, simply because they had produced big dividends. That is the normal face of capitalism, much more logical than Heath’s pathetic attempt to humbug his way out of the matter. The Tory leader, like any other politician, can accept any face of capitalism without a thought for the savagery of its exploitation. Beside that, there are no grounds for objecting to some company directors fiddling a few hundred thousand on the side.

In one way Heath was pointing to a danger in the present situation. The working class are continually allowing themselves to be diverted from attending to the essential matter of abolishing capitalism and replacing it with Socialism. They are diverted by the notion that capitalism would he more acceptable, were it organized by one bunch of tricksters rather than the other. They are diverted by the glamour of a princess marrying a man who is rich partly through a family interest in selling sub-standard food for working-class consumption. They are diverted by the idea that capitalism need not be run as a cut-throat, scandalous business, by this sort of assurance:

It was the Government’s prime concern to see that capitalism worked fairly and effectively because it was on that that our prosperity was established. (Geoffrey Howe, Minister for Trade, replying to questions in the Commons about Lonrho; Daily Telegraph 12 June 1973.)

It is instructive to observe how the ruling class as a whole unite in fostering these deceptions. Brezhnev’s visit last month to America signified another stage in the resolve of the Russian and American ruling classes to divide the spoils of world capitalism as peaceably as they can. Not so long ago, in the depths of the Cold War, the Russians could have been relied upon to make the most of something like Watergate. Yet there was Brezhnev, helping Nixon to divert attention from Watergate and look like the weighty statesman so beloved by all workers — and doing it with a deliberate measure of publicity-catching clowning. Seeing those two robbers at the White House, beaming and waving, who would have believed what they are both capable of, both responsible for?

The world working class should match this with a unity of their own. As the scandals put capitalism’s leaders under pressure, they respond in a familiar way. Nixon adopts the mask of a betrayed innocent, Heath of outraged decency. They are papering over the rot, trying to delay the awful moment when the leprous reality can no longer be hidden.

Ivan

“Liepocracy.” (1922)

From the October 1922 issue of the Socialist Standard

Certain writers in the capitalist press are telling us that Bottomley was a canting hypocrite. What a study for the cynical philosopher? This erstwhile defender and champion of capitalism is now “down and out,” he therefore better than any other can be used as a scapegoat, a means to delude the working-class into the belief that the methods he employed were unusual, were contemptible, and therefore to be condemned. Was Bottomley, during the war, with his highly paid patriotic speeches, a greater hypocrite than his satellite recruiting sergeant, Ben Tillett? Was Lloyd George with his “Land Fit for Heroes” make-believe, or Asquith unsheathing the sword and spending his last shilling less despicable? They knew that they lied, that their words were dope for war victims. What of the flood of nauseating hypocrisy that is launched during a strike, the tears of anguish from the smug and complacent fat bellies for the consequently suffering women and children; even while the same gang at the same time, fight bitterly to reduce the workers to the lowest possible standard of subsistence consistent with the maximum output of wealth. What is all the lying pretence and the soft-soaped promises given to the long-suffering worker at election times by capitalist politician and labour misleader alike, if it is not the quintessence of cant and hypocrisy? The Socialist claims that this insidious form of working-class chloroform is an essential attribute of a now useless and parasitic capitalist class. That they may justify their luxurious and leisured life and your inhuman existence with the consequent antagonism between the two conditions, they pretend sympathy to blur class cleavage; they buy your votes with honeyed words that you shall give them the power to rule you; they insult you with the return of a little of the wealth you alone of the human factors produce, and call it charity. Though you are the only useful class to-day, you have still to become conscious of the fact. When you understand Socialism you will be PROOF against the cant and, humbug of all sections of the capitalist class and their agents, whether it be priest, politician, or pretending sympathiser.

W. E. MacHaffie

A Patriotic Swindler: Horatio Bottomley (1960)

From the March 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

March 23rd, 1960, marks the centenary of the birth of Horatio Bottomley, one of Britain’s most colourful and well-loved figures of the period 1890-1920. Yet this popular figure, who became almost synonymous with John Bull, was one of the greatest rogues alive, getting through in a day at the races more than many of his constituents in South Hackney earned in several years. And the money was always somebody else's; he was not even a Capitalist, he was a common swindler puffed up by his great flair for sensational journalism and by posing as John Bull, the Sporting Britisher's man.

The early part of Bottomley's career, the years 1890-1914. could well be called the Golden Age of British Capitalism. It was an age of great upper-class luxury; it was a flamboyant, opulent age. It was also an age of great optimism. Imperialism was at its height, the Sun never set on the Empire, all problems could be solved by the normal workings of Capitalism, Society was an unshakable rock. Men basked in the false sunshine of Prosperity—even those who were poor. Workers shared in the general optimism; if there was great poverty, there was also the great illusory promise of things to come. There were clouds drifting across the sun. the largest being the tremendous growth of Germany as an industrial, military and naval power, but these clouds scarcely disturbed the illusion of opulent serenity of Sporting Edward's reign.

Bottomley had many of the upper-class attributes of the time. He loved racing, champagne, pretty girls, money and power. And he displayed his likes in the arrogant, showy way so typical of the age. His long period of success can only be understood by seeing the man in his context. He was an important figure in finance, a great journalist, a clever lay lawyer, a tremendously effective orator, a man to whom the electors of South Hackney delighted to give their votes, and he was a leader of "Public Opinion." He was a patron of the poor, the friend of the rich and influential, a champion of the moral virtues and defender of the family, an incessant campaigner (through the pages of John Bull) against prudes, indecency, brutality and corruption. He was a “sport"; and he was the biggest liar and hypocrite in England. He was a man incapable of real generosity; a man who, to quote an old inhabitant of Hackney,  "would give a 5s. tip and pinch the bread-and-cheese out of your pocket.'' He appears a cardboard figure today, his actions all deliberate poses for the benefit of an admiring public. Yet he inspired real devotion in his assistants; perhaps in that age nothing succeeded so well as success, particularly success at large-scale swindle.

Bottomley lived during the great days of company flotation. The law was comparatively lax, and Bottomley infinitely audacious. He early acquired a taste for bankruptcy; a taste that harmed nothing except his political ambitions, for he lived as richly as when he was solvent. He floated many companies, and their funds stuck to his eternally sticky fingers in enormous quantity. He was prosecuted quite early in his career, and conducted his own defence in an able and witty manner. So well-liked was he that many of his victims still had faith in him and his enterprises, and even shared the jokes he made in Court at their expense. The Company schemes were difficult to unravel, the organisation chaotic, the book-keeping almost non-existent. His assistants could be relied on to be helpful in the most obstructive possible way when the Official Receiver and his agents were endeavouring to inspect the books. He was a ferret squeezing through every loophole in the Company laws.

Via Wiki: Front page of the Daily Mirror, 10 September 1915. 

Perhaps his greatest achievement was his building-up of John Bull into a best-seller among journals. This was one Bottomley venture which was quite safe from the law, for business and financial management was firmly in the hands of Odham's. Bottomley drew a large salary as managing Editor, a salary which was considerably augmented by the firms who paid not to appear in its pages, and by the lotteries, competitions and share-subscription schemes advertised in the journal! These schemes placed enormous sums in Bottomley's pocket. Through John Bull he not only raised money, he became an expert manipulator of Public opinion. His appeals to patriotism, his nauseating anti-Germanism during the first world war, his attempts to found a new political party, all pointed to the incipient demagogue. As he grew older, his love of power grew and his astuteness declined. After the war he hastily secured his discharge from bankruptcy (characteristically. with money not all of which was his own) in order that he could take part in the 1919 election. He finally came to grief over his share-subscription schemes, being prosecuted under the Larceny Act of 1915, an Act which was passed to prevent the depredations of Bottomley and others of his kind.

Bottomley was a liar, a thief, and a hypocrite. Yet for thirty years he remained an important, imposing figure in English life. His popularity with the many members of the upper class is easily explained. His depredations scarcely affected them, he was clever and a good conversationalist, he shared their tastes, and he was, as a “man of the people," a useful figure, particularly during the war. Their sympathy had lessened by the end of his career. His growing interest in politics was becoming an embarrassment: as a demagogue he might threaten their own privileged positions.

To many workers he was a “sport": they lived vicariously through his extravagances, and he posed as their champion. A reading public—unsophisticated, untrained in politics, crushed by poverty and eager for sensationalism—was provided for him and his kind by the Education Acts of the late 19th century.

After his imprisonment, he found he was unable to make a success of a new journal on the lines of the old John Bull. His popularity had vanished, his journalism had become out of date, his utterances old-hat and naive-sounding. He died in poverty, denied even the comfort of an old-age pension.

His greatest crime went unpunished, and was indeed applauded and highly-paid; he was one of Capitalism’s greatest Recruiting Sergeants.

F. R. Ivimey

The John Bull League. (1910)

From the January 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

PHYSICIAN, HEAL THYSELF.

Our attention baa been drawn to the John Bull League and an opinion asked upon it. The principle guide we have to this organisation is the inaugural address delivered by its president, Mr. Horatio Bottomley, at the Albert Hall on October 21st, 1909. Before we criticise the speech and its contents, we may admit that the form in which the matter was presented is of the first order, with its rotundity of phrase and flashes of wit that easily explain the popularity of the person and emphasise the necessity for challenging the political and social position of the body. With regard to the matter, however, we can safely say that the vapid eclecticism that borrows phrases and ideas from all and sundry; that extracts suitable titbits from any and every philosophy and emasculates them by extracting, must be purely abortive when applied to questions of an economic and social nature, if the modern theory of the organic nature of society be admitted. The John Bull League, therefore, in tilting at windmills in the shape of abuses and ignoring essentials, undermines that practical understanding of present day social conditions which must precede the acceptance of the Socialist solution.

The stated object of the League is the stamping out of cant and self-righteousness, and the introduction of common-sense business methods into the government of the country. Much stress is laid throughout the speech on the “business methods" which matters in Parliamentary matters is the touchstone by which everything is tried. “What would a common sense board of directors do?” seems to be the question that has to be asked on every thing that comes before Parliament ; just as some people would ask on every question, “ what would Jesus do?" Now, the desirability of the standard depends entirely on the point of view. The object of the most common-sense business man is to make his business pay; that is, to increase profits. That object does not necessarily fit in with the point of view of the workers in that business, indeed, their object will be the increase of their wages, which will diminish profits. And this capitalist point of view is very strongly hinted at in its fullest significance in the peroration which is given in full, as follows: "I do not know how you read the signs of the times. For myself, I think that this country of ours, this Empire of ours, is entering upon a critical period. 1 think her sway is in the balance. The European nations are thinking what they dare not speak. Demos—the great god of the people—is shaking off his chains, and hungry men and women, conscious only of their sufferings and unable to understand the complicated phenomena of our communal life, are asking why they starve in the midst of plenty. And all the time, the professional politician prattles his party platitudes, and the ponderous professor prates about "political principles." Ladies and gentlemen, do you see the clouds gathering?- do you see the ‘trail of the curling winds’?— do you hear the distant rumbling? If you do, join the John Bull League." So! our country is in a critical condition; the people are rising and asking awkward questions; the professional politicians are not alive to the danger; if you are, join us. That appeal is not to the people who are awakening, but who do not understand, with the intention of enlightening them; it is an appeal to those who have to wake up and resist the demands of those who have not.

Having sorted out the object of the League, we may turn briefly to the statement of position regarding the larger questions that already divide the opinion of the country into more or less antagonistic camps. The position is carefully chosen in each case to appeal to as large a section of opinion as possible obviously. Take religion. On the negative side we are treated to a warm criticism of those who thrive on Foreign Missionary Societies and the like, we are told, coining to the positive side, "its church will be broad enough to embrace all mankind . . . It embraces all mankind, tolerating, respecting, and honouring their faith . . . It will know no sect, no dogma, no distinctions: it will rest upon the corner-stones of the four quarters of the world and it will be roofed over with the illimitable domain of heaven.” If anything could be more ambiguous than that, kindly refer us to it.

Politically, the party system is condemned, and business methods sought to be introduced in place. The anomalies of the present electoral methods are dwelt upon and proportional representation delicately hinted at. The House of Lords are very gently criticised, while the necessity for a second chamber is laid stress upon, and a suggestion made for a body, partly hereditary, partly appointed. The Crown is eulogised: The League looking upon the King as “our most valuable national asset—our best statesman, and, by a long way, our finest ambassador.”

And so on, almost without end. Throughout the whole speech, there is no hint of the underlying problem of poverty, no glimpse of a way to social and economic freedom for the working class. Quite the contrary, they are urged to send their masters to rule over them in Parliament on the same principles adopted in the workshop—the principles on which capitalist business is run. As though all capitalist government were not carried on for the capitalist class by the capitalist class to the exploitation and degradation of the working class, notwithstanding official incapacity, corruption or expediency, and as though the workers stood to gain anything by such a proceeding! When the working-class members of the John Bull League —if such exist—get down to think about the things that matter, they will discover that the greatest abuse they can find in modern society is the outgrowth —exaggerated, it may be — of some established principle consistent with the capitalist basis of society, and that the real cure in each case lies in the alteration of the basis from capitalism to Socialism. 

Dick Kent