Inventors as Trust Hirelings. (1907)

From the November 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The applications for patents come mainly from professional inventors. The largest number of applications come from the great trusts—the United States Steel Company, the great electrical companies, the harvester trust and the automobile trust. These trusts employ hundreds of inventors to devise improvements of their machinery. They are paid large salaries in many instances, and the business is gradually falling almost completely into their hands.”

Report of Asst. Commissioner of Patents, U.S.A., 1907.

So They Say: Light the Blue Paper and Retire (1973)

The So They Say Column from the December 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

Light the Blue Paper and Retire

When war broke out in the Middle East, the leaders of the Great Powers all spoke of “deep regret”. Newspapermen enlarged on the horror and futility of it. In the Sunday Mirror on 15th October Jon Akass wrote:

A pity, really, that technology is not yet up to bringing the smell of war to our living-rooms, because that would finally remove whatever romance is left in human combat . . . The best that Israel can hope for is that the Syrian army will be eliminated and the Egyptian army in Sinai routed. And perhaps another year or two of peace. It will not be enough for the price that will have been paid in blood.

It was as if sons of a good home had been caught housebreaking, to their parents’ grief. But on 16th October The Guardian gave an account of the military background.

The Israeli air force was then [in 1967] predominantly French until De Gaulle placed his embargo on the Mirages. President Johnson supplied the first Skyhawks and Phantoms to Israel in 1968 but the bulk of the $1,000 millions of arms sales to Israel since the June, 1967 war was made by the Nixon Administration.

. . . [The Soviets] arms shipments were designed to enable Egypt and Syria to do exactly what they have done in the last nine days, which is to defend themselves against Israeli air power while making limited incursions into occupied territory.

So the sorrowful parents are shown as a Fagin family — teaching the art, supplying the tools, and then lamenting the consequences. Capitalism calls this hypocrisy “diplomacy”.

Lord God of Property

Talking of hypocrisy, the Church of England springs to mind. Its finances were reviewed in the Business section of The Observer on 4th October, with two writers advising how the Church Commissioners’ “£600 million-plus assets” might produce a higher income. Their chief criticism was of the Commissioners’ unadventurousness in holding on to house-property with a relatively low return:

Margaretta Terrace, SW3, provides a good example. This street contains about 40 houses, with an average rent of around £1,000 a year: as the houses are worth a minimum of £40,000—and probably much more—the ‘true’ yield is thus only 2.5 per cent.

Their suggestion was to sell, and to require a down payment of £5,000:

The balance of the consideration would take the form of a 25 or 30-year mortgage: and, at the current mortgage rate of 11 per cent, the Commissioners would receive £154,000 a year.

Eye of a Good-Sized Needle

The Church Commissioners have had this sort of advice before and — no doubt for equally sound business reasons — chosen not to follow it. But an interesting question is raised here. “The current mortgage rate of 11 per cent” has taken on the status of a social problem in recent months. Its rise to that figure was a financial vicious circle: to get more money to lend, the building societies had to offer higher rates to investors, which meant charging a higher rate to borrowers.

But the Church Commissioners do not have that problem. Selling the houses in question, they would not be advancing money but simply taking deferred payments. Using the Observer calculations, if they charged a mortgage rate of only 6 per cent, they would receive £84,000 a year from those houses — which is still more than twice as much as they are said to be getting now in rents. The Commissioners would not only do what the writers want them to do, i.e. make more money; they would be Giving a Christian lead to the Nation, etc.

Is it likely that they will? No. It will not enter the Commissioners’ heads, any more than it did the Observer writers’. As the Good Book says: “Where a man’s treasure is, there shall his heart also be.”

Beggars Cannot be Choosers

And talking of borrowing money. Newspapers have given a good deal of publicity to the Consumer Credit Bill published on 2nd November. It is designed to check “abuses” in hire-purchase, moneylending, second mortgages, and so on. The provision which was asked for most persistently is the one requiring that borrowers shall be told clearly what they are letting themselves in for:

Borrowers required to put up their homes as security for loans and those who obtain loans by mail order will have to be informed of their right to back out before finally signing the loan agreement; and all borrowers will have to be given a copy of every agreement they sign.

(Observer, 4th November)

The Observer writer on "Family Finance”, Paul Wilson, thinks this is inadequate:

Why not lay down a formula by which loan interest rates are calculated, so that all advertised rates are comparable? Why not define what constitutes an extortionate rate of interest, so consumers will know when they have cause for complaint?

This talk is as fatuous as the Bill itself. People go to moneylenders and second-mortgage companies when they have no alternative, and therefore no choice but to accept the terms whatever they are. Can you imagine a loan company’s client, with creditors breathing down his neck, exercising his “right to back out”? Every rate of interest is extortionate. The only way to end problems like this is to get ride of capitalism and, with it, money.

What Makes Great Men ?

People, particularly those who think themselves mentally superior, are often reluctant to accept our contention that intelligence is a social concept. The acclaimed genius of one set of circumstances can be the blithering idiot of another: it depends what society is looking for.

There is an example in the balance at present. Harold Bate is a retired engineer who runs a car on methane gas made from pig and chicken manure. He has done it for seventeen years, and has occasionally appeared in newspapers and on TV as a comical curiosity. Now, suddenly, it is being taken seriously and he has had to take production to a Walsall firm. The Sunday Express on 4th November reported his growth:

“At the moment I am receiving around 150 orders a day from the US and Canada. They are coming in shoals from all sorts of sources—even oil companies. Two major American oil companies—I agreed at their request not to name them—have already used my conversion kit to convert a fleet of oil delivery tankers to run on gas."

Is Harold Bate a genius or a crank? We have yet to learn. What will decide is the world fuel situation. If there is a world shortage of oil, he may well go down with Edison and Stephenson and his story be told to every schoolchild. If it doesn’t happen, he will have been nobody of note.

Gaiété Mancunienne

The magazine calls her Marie-Helena. a model born in Lyons and now living in Paris. But Paula, on a commerce course at school, lives with her parents in a council house at Wythenshawe, Manchester.

(News of the World, 14th October)

The magazine is Men Only. The cream-bun fantasies it sells cannot be set in Manchester or anywhere else the readers may actually live. How sad.

Robert Barltrop

The Forum: “Directive Ability” and Other Bogeys. (1914)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

[To the Editor]

Sir,—Referring to your front page article, “The Capitalists’ Directive Ability,” in the “Standard” dated July, 1914, I respectfully beg to ask if you will make clear to me a few points on that subject. According to the above article your contention is : there is no such thing as directive ability among the capitalist class. Assuming that to be true, then it is essential there is no such thing as directive ability among the working class; in short, there is no such thing in existence.

Now I ask you what is genius? Herbert Kaufmann says : “Genius is a birthright” (“Reynolds,” July 5th, 1914). In my dictionary, I read, “Genius: a man endowed with superior faculties.” Now is it a fact that we mortals (both capitalist and slave) are born, each one different in calibre and disposition to the other? If you answer in the affirmative then you must admit that one individual can be born with superior mental faculties to his brother. There are men of the capitalist class who are certainly very clever, possibly through the splendid education their wealth enables them to procure, but there are also many men of that class who are confirmed imbeciles.

On the other hand, we have men of the working class who, through their own exertions, work their way to fame and fortune, while others, with an indolent disposition—certainly born in them—live to be led by the individual of sharper mental faculties. The reason I have quoted both classes is to disprove the theory that environment or condition make any difference. To make my meaning more clear I will deal with a few cases of what I consider come under the heading of directive ability.

I am very fond of chess, and though I am considered good, I am perfectly sure I should never make a “Dr. Lasker” or a “Capablanca.” These eminent players were, I firmly believe, born with a natural aptitude for the game.

Then again, we have that famous composer, Guiseppe Verdi, who, though a poor man in his youth, became Italy’s favourite composer.

Now I venture to say that few men still living have a theoretical knowledge of music equal to the well known Major A. J. Stretton, M.V.O., R.M.S.M. Yet I think you will agree with me, with all due respect to Major Stretton, it is impossible for him to conceive beautiful ideas of melody equal to those of Verdi.

There are many instances which I could go on quoting. Take, for instance, our public schools. Are the scholars equally clever at drawing, arithmetic, and mechanics ? No ! one may develop into an eminent artist, the other into a brilliant mathematician, and where is the school without its “dunce” ?

All this seems to show very clearly that genius does exist, and though, as you point out in your article, Lipton or Rockefeller may now be tyrants of the first water—which is evidently true—they must (unless they inherited their wealth) in the first place have possessed ”Directive Ability.” 

Richard Sharman

——————————————

Our critic’s letter is rather confused and misses the whole point at issue. The question, in reality, is not whether “directive ability” exists but, if it exists, who exercises it.

If our view is correct (and our friend has not denied it) that all the work of society, from the obtaining of the raw materials of production to the distribution of the finished articles to the consumers, is performed by wage workers, from the “unskilled” dock labourer to the highly skilled scientist, from the office boy to the manager, then obviously there is no room in production for the capitalist, and he is merely a parasite. His function is simply to hold shares or titles to a certain amount of profit ; but he is in no way instrumental in the actual turning out of wealth. And it is with the production and distribution of wealth that we are concerned.

This is the position laid down in the article criticised, and our opponent has not attempted to deal with our argument.

And now for the few isolated points or misconceptions of our opponent.

He sets out in the following confused and unscientific manner “according to … your contention . . . there is no such thing as Directive Ability among the capitalists ;” then comes an unwarrantable assumption: “Then it is essential, there is no such thing as Directive Ability among the working class, in short, there is no such thing in existence.” Why ? No reason is given.

What “Directive Ability” actually is seems to be shrouded in mystery. It is the name given to something that is supposed to organise industry. In reality, however, modern industry is like a vast mechanism in which all the parts are interdependent and of equal importance. The ignorant, superficial and superstitious, unable to clear the cobwebs from their cloudy brains, do not see the natural interdependence of every cog in the wheel and have to imagine a mysterious master mind, like the god of the theologians, keeping everything in order.

Socialists agree that men are born with different faculties, but we contend that only under a system where economic security for all exists will it be possible for all to exercise these varying faculties to the best advantage. No matter what his faculties may be, the child of the working class has to find a job. He cannot pick and choose his job, but must take one of the first to hand, and from that day to the end of his life the continual struggle with poverty leaves him scant time to employ his faculties in. directions that satisfy him, leaving out of sight the fact that the degrading and brutalising conditions that surround his childhood tend to strangle his finer feelings at birth.

Among the millions of workers very few ever “work their way to fame and fortune”; the vast majority work their way to early graves instead. Here and there, perhaps, one may have the good luck to struggle into a position of comparative security, but they who do so possess the particular faculties necessary for money making : the faculty to lie unblushingly, to work little children till they become almost imbeciles, and to take no thought at all for the much vaunted sanctity of womanhood and the family hearth. Our critic instances Rockefeller and Lipton who have made their own (!) fortunes. If he digs a little deeper and sees how they made their beginnings he will obtain ample proof of the truth of our remarks. The facts recorded in the article in question are in themselves sufficient to damn the characters of both the honorable gentlemen. We may also point out that both Rockefeller and Lipton started at a time when conditions favoured their undertakings. The large industries were just coming into being.

The remark that environment and conditions make no difference to individuals is obviously absurd. For example, why are the inhabitants of Equatorial regions indolent while the inhabitants of Temperate regions are energetic ? Is not the outlook on life of a coast tribe different to that of an inland tribe ? But take the references quoted. Where would Capablanca be were it not for the development of the science of chess, and Verdi but for the development of the science of constructing musical instruments and in musical technique ? Probably in the same position as the embryonic landscape painter, born in the slums of some great city, never seeing the beauties of nature, but sweating his life away in a modern factory. Myriads of potential Verdis die every year unknown and unheard of.

Regarding the existence of dunces in schools that can safely be put to the credit of the capitalist method of educating the young, which makes no allowance for the natural curiosity and aptitude of children.

Apparently, judging from our critic’s remarks, he considers genius and “directive ability” much the same thing. A glance through history will show that the fate of the genius has been anything but similar to that of the alleged possessor of directive ability. We will give a few instances in support of our contention.

James Thomson (author of “The City of Dreadful Night”), one of the finest of poets, was in early life a book-seller’s hack, after which he spent his nights on the Thames Embankment, dying in poor circumstances from a disease brought on by hardship. Henrich Heine, the leading lyrical poet of Germany and an incomparable essayist, had a perpetual struggle for existence. Herbert Spencer, the Synthetic Philosopher, could only carry through his great work by the subscriptions of friends. Lavoisier, the father of modern chemistry, had to accept a position as tax farmer in order to obtain funds to carry on his experiments. Linnaeus, the father of modern botany, had to work his way to the Universities of Lund and Uppsala, living on £8 a year, and making his own boots from the bark of trees. Fortunately for him he attracted the notice of a man with similar tastes who made his future life comparatively smooth, otherwise the famous classification of the animal and vegetable world might never have been attached to his name. John Kay, the inventor of the “fly shuttle,” one of the most important inventions ever made in the loom, was beggared by the costs of litigation owing to the unblushing infringements of his patents by the capitalists of his day. He starved to death in France, in spite of the fact that his brain teemed with schemes for the improvement of industrial machinery. Joseph Marie Jacquard, the inventor of the famous silk-weaving loom, had to sacrifice everything he possessed to carry on his experiments. He was unsuccessful, became a labourer, then a soldier. It was not until he was fifty years of age that the fame of his invention became public. Inigo Jones, the great architect, was born in poor circumstances, and would never have been heard of had he not attracted the attention of the third Earl of Pembroke, who sent him to Italy to study. And lastly, Karl Marx, admitted by his most bitter opponents to have been ons of greatest minds that ever applied themselves to Sociology, spent nearly the whole of his life in the direst poverty, sometimes being without a crust of bread in the house. There is just one further instance that the present European conflict calls to mind. General Shrapnel, the inventor of the explosive that has done such terrible execution, was an English officer and (according to the “News of the World,” 18.10.14) died in 1842 a poor and bitter old man. The Government never repaid him the money he spent on his experiments. Wellington stated that the most important battle of the Peninsular War, and even Waterloo itself, were won by the aid of shrapnel.

In conclusion, when the economic problem is solved for all men and we no longer crawl along on our bellies, the innumerable splendid minds that abound will no longer be stifled, but will be given the opportunity to develop to their fullest extent.

G. McC.

The Queer side. (1915)

From the November 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists have been frequently met with the taunt that they are going to “break up the home” (for firewood?), “destroy the sacredness of the family hearth,” “invade the innermost secrecies of the family life,” etc., etc. How this desperate invasion was going to occur our opponents (in their usual clear-headed way) were not quite sure ; but somehow or other the State (metaphysical muddle heads must have Gods, you know) was going to walk in through the door (without knocking) and tear children from their parents and wives from their husbands to make them economically independent of each other, thus destroying the calm security (!) and harmony (!!) of the family circle. (Sometimes we are told that pa comes home blind drunk and beats his wife—but I forget, that is when another thesis has to be proved.)

This view receives the pious support of wealthy men doubtless from the knowledge that the economic independence of working women will mean the end of their present paradise, in which they enjoy (like their prototypes, the beasts) the almost unlimited satisfaction of their sexual appetites. An examination of the true facts of the case, however, shows the hollow hypocrisy of the plea.

The average working-class family of the past century and a half has been composed of wage-workers— from the child of 8 or 10 who sells papers and delivers milk, to the father and mother who work in the factories, sometimes alternately—the one through the day and the other through the night.

The number of females who have appeared upon the labour market has grown year by year. Every year sees fresh branches of industry open to women, and the ties of the family are insen­sibly loosened, to be eventually torn asunder, not by the growth of Socialism, but, by the iron hand of modern industrial conditions.

Women are more submissive, more long-suffering, and more economical wage-slaves than men, and are therefore introduced wherever possible by our philanthropic and tender-hearted masters. In the early development of machinery the workman saw in the machine his mortal enemy, and the smashing of the machine instead of the smashing of the system was the order of the day, as witness the historic Luddite Riots. Now that the greater number of the workers have become operators of machinery, their antipathy to the “iron man” has died, although quietly and insidiously the machine is rendering unnecessary larger and larger proportions of workers in every department of capitalism. Now that women are replacing men in their various spheres the enmity of the men is directed toward the women instead of against the system that breeds such conflicting tendencies.

Another asset of the present war to the capitalist class has been the opportunity offered to experiment in the introduction of women into departments of work which they were hitherto supposed to be physically incapable of performing. The following extract from the “Daily Mail” (16.9.15) will illustrate the point:

“The great movement among women toward filling up gaps in labour is shown in all classes of work ; but nowhere more strikingly than in the big munitions iron works. That woman’s work in this new sphere is satisfactory is acknowledged by works managers and foremen. Asked if a motor cylinder would offer greater difficulty than a shell to bore one of these men said, ‘Hardly any.’ ‘A woman, then, could go in for ordinary industrial steel working, lathe work, screw-cutting, and the like, just as well as a man ?’ ‘Certainly, for the general run of work.’ ”

A quotation from the same paper of another date (10.9.15), dealing with the interim report of the committee appointed by the British Association is also enlightening :

“In some cases the experience gained during the war had shown that certain jobs could be more efficiently done by women than by men.

The great increase of women’s employment could hardly fail to have permanent results, and it might be anticipated that after the war the proportion of women in industry would be greater than before and the competition of men and women would increase.”

Now what about the sacred family circle ? The wave of female labour is to be converted into a torrent, and the war-worn warriors who return from the battle-fields (poor crippled, broken wrecks) will find a labour-market choked with women competitors, the standard of living lowered, and the general conditions of the workers worse than before the war commenced. A splendid reward for all your hardship and sacrifice, ye poor deluded, fellow-workers.

Of course, the “family hearth” ghost is easily laid by the worker who reflects on his present penurious and work-weary condition ; and the prospect of that mythical sacredness being violated under Socialism has no terrors for him. I may suggest, however, that the love which is born of economic necessity can neither be so deep nor so lasting as that which exists between those who are economically independent of each other and who seek each other’s company and affection purely from mutual esteem.

The Socialist, in promoting the common-ownership and democratic control of all that nature, ingenuity, and human energy can produce—in suggesting the equitable distribution of the burdens as well as the pleasures of life—is also giving the opportunity for human affection to develope to its highest and purest form.

—————-

Whilst turning out an old drawer the writer came upon the following quotation from “Lloyd’s Weekly” (31.3.12). It is worth treasuring.

“Arrangements are being made at Lyons to celebrate next year the centenary of the birth of the inventor of the sewing machine, Barthélemy Thimonnier, who died in 1857 an abject poverty.—Reuter.”

The above fate has been the reward of the majority of the brilliant thinkers who, applying their brains to the various spheres of production, have assisted largely in the rapid evolution of modern industry, in which those wonderful machines and processes operate to enslave the ignorant masses.

For the present the wealthy shareholders of the Singer Sewing Machine Company and their international fellow capitalists reap the fruits of the inventor’s teeming brain. But when the worker awakens and hails the dawn of freedom with open clear eyes, those same mighty brains and marvellous machine will be converted into a means to lighten labour and increase the sum total of human happiness.

In the days that are to come, fellow workers, remember the annals of your class. Remember the bloody massacres of your fellows upon the industrial and political battlefields. Remember the sweating and the destruction of child life, and the violation of womanhood. Remember !—and proceed unswervingly upon your course. Do not be deterred from prosecuting the war of your class by the sentimental humbugs who regard the destruction of vermin as a crime against “God’s creatures,” and are for ever trying to divert the attention of the workers from the main issue—their emancipation from wage-slavery.

The war between the exploiting and exploited classes can only end with the extinction of one or the other. The “war that will end war” is the war waged by the down-trodden, masses against their task-masters ; and victory will signify the abolition for ever of privilege, private property, and its accompanying oppressions. The place for all working men who would play a man’s part in the struggle of their class is under the red banner of Socialism, sounding the tocsin of the Revolution. There they will ally themselves with comrades worthy of their aid.

Gilmac.

Random Notes. (1907)

From the May 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bernard Shaw has a three column article in the Clarion upon “the moral of the L.C.C. elections,” one column and a half of which is devoted to his showing, mainly on the evidence of the return of Sidney Webb and Frank Smith, that the results of those elections do not spell defeat for Socialism. The other column and a half is mainly devoted to supporting the contention of Robert Blatchford, that the results of the elections do spell defeat for Socialism ! And yet we are urged by the quidnunc and the cognoscente to believe that Shaw is not merely the farceur he has been represented, but, on the contrary, is a desperately earnest person.

o o o

The Tribune (April 1st) quotes this from the report of the Executive of the S.D.F. to their annual conference :—

“It is necessary here to call attention to the conduct of Mr. John Burns, who, as President of the Local Government Board, has now gone back entirely upon his former opinions, and the most hypocritical employer of sweated labour, with a predilection for conventional Sunday-school morality, might well envy the power of glib pharisaical cant which the “man with the red flag” can now always bring to bear upon the unemployed question.”

o o o

and this is the S.D.F. conception of correct tactics on the unemployed question :—

“This conference further calls upon the Government at once to amend the existing Unemployed Workmen Act to such an extent as to provide useful and remunerative work for unemployed men, and to make sufficient grants from the Imperial Exchequer to local authorities to enable them to give employment to all citizens in need of it.”

o o o

And then reflect that Burns is at the head of the Governmental department which must deal with the call “to provide useful and remunerative work,” etc. And that the Government is, according to the S.D.F., representative of capitalist interests. And that, also according to the S.D.F., capitalist interests absolutely rely upon continued labour redundancy. So, we will call upon the capitalist Government to put into operation the pharisaical cant of their obedient servant, the ex-“man with the red flag,” in order that the unemployed upon whom capitalist interests depend, may obtain the work that the capitalist Government cannot provide !

o o o

Sweet, isn’t it ? Likely to have an exceedingly enlightening effect upon the working class the S.D.F. allege they are educating—what? Don’t tell the unemployed that the capitalist Government can do nothing for them. That would be the truth, of course, but it wouldn’t be good “tactics.” Therefore we will lead them to suppose that the Government can do something for them, and we will call upon the Government to do that something which they cannot ! So will our reputation as practical politicians grow.

o o o

May the beneficent fates turn the hungry eyes of the uneducated working-class unemployed away from such tactic-struck educators. And may the same beneficent fates turn the brains of those well-intentioned S.D.F. rank-and-filers in order that they may see their own stupidity in following with such pathetic fidelity the fatuous leading of their purblind—or is it pharisaical—captains. We offer the beneficent fates aforementioned, the columns of THE SOCIALIST STANDARD as a medium for the expression of their powers. Indeed, the S.D.F. man may rightly regard these columns as the instrument which the fates are using to divert his path from that abyss of political impotence toward which his unthinking steps are being urged by the tactical grotesques he hails as leaders. If he will not so regard these columns, he must needs gang his ain gait (I hope that’s good Scots) and suffer the penalty which “baffle-headedness” always invokes. And he may count himself a fortunate fellow if he awakes from his somnambulistic perambulations before he finds himself up to his neck in a slough of despond, being pelted by the objurgatory brickbats of a long-suffering working class.

o o o

At the annual dinner of the athletic club of Messrs. J. Lyons & Go’s employees, the chairman (Mr. Isidore Gluckstein) in responding to the vote of thanks to the directors of the Company for the support they had given the club, remarked that they were pleased to encourage athletics among their staff because “outdoor sports not only bettered a man physically but enabled him to do his indoor work all the better.” So. Scratch the benevolent director and you find the hungry capitalist. It is good for the men that they should be physically robust. It is also good business for the employer. And the greatest of these (to the employer) is the good business.

o o o

The Paris Herald reports the death, in Pittsburg, of John Brislin, the inventor of modern rolling mill machinery. John was a boyhood friend of Andrew Carnegie, and John thought, when, in conjunction with Anton Vinnac, he perfected his patent, that his old pal, Andrew, who was in the steel business, would see him through all right. Instead of which, John and Anton had to take action against the Carnegie Steel Company for stealing and working their patent. They estimated their invention to be worth 40,000,000 dollars. Andrew’s company offered them 100,000 dollars. They refused and the States District Court gave a verdict in their favour. Then old pal Andrew’s company took the case to the Federal Court of Appeal which, being a court of commercial justice and Andrew’s company easily having the most money, naturally reversed the order of the lower court. Having no more money to fight, Anton died of grief and John lost his eyesight and Andrew by the grace of God and the poverty of his old pal, waxed fat upon the invention that didn’t belong to him and began to make a name as a philanthropist and library purveyor. Recently John received a letter from Andrew in which Andrew seems to have held out some hope that Jobn might expect some justice soon and John was so shocked that he died of heart failure.

o o o

Under Socialism of course, it will be impossible for genius to reap the reward due to it. It is only under capitalism that genius can hope to secure adequate recognition. All the same I don’t marvel that John died.

o o o

“There is no other movement in the world, unless perhaps the Christian Church, which numbers among its professed followers so many who fail to understand or appreciate, the meaning and application of its fundamental teachings, as does Socialism in England. This is the more remarkable as the points in dispute are scientific facts, capable of the fullest and most complete demonstration.”

E. J. Lamel in “Justice,” 6.4.07.

Many a true word spoken even in Justice. We entirely agree with Mr. Lamel, but cannot allow the exception which he makes in favour of the S.D.F., to which he belongs.

o o o

Our objection to the S.D.F. is quite as strong as Mr. Lamel’s objection to the pseudo-Socialists who will have none of the S.D.F. because that organisation refuses “to accept an anaemic, milk-and-water ‘Socialism’ as the genuine, full-blooded article.” And our objection to the S.D.F. is for very much the same reason. S.D.F. “Socialism” is anaemic and milk-and-water as Mr. Lamel will find if he will peruse fairly the statement of the position set out in the Manifesto of The Socialist Party of Great Britain (price Id.)

o o o

It is curious, too, to find a writer like Mr. Lamel, who seems to pose as an exponent of the scientific view, making reference to the private ownership of land and capital, as though the common ownership of capital, like the common ownership of land, was conceivable. He speaks of the predictions of Marx with the air of one who has Marx at his finger-tips. But if he really knew his Marx he would not confuse (as he appears to do) capital with wealth.

o o o

Nor would he fall into the error common among those unscientific persons whom he so vigorously trounces, that the working class which “suffered the most” in prosecuting the South African War, “now has, directly or indirectly, to pay the piper.” As a matter of fact the working class temporarily benefited by the industrial incentive which the war gave. And if it is true, as Mr. Lamel states (a statement in which the “scientific Socialist” will concur), that the working class “has to rely for its livelihood upon the proceeds of its labour” (read labour-power) “sold as a ware,” it will be interesting to know how the working class can ”pay the piper,” having regard to the fact, accepted by all “scientific Socialists,” that competition for work reduces the average working-class return to a bare subsistence level.

o o o

These points are urged, not with a view of scoring off Mr. Lamel’s ignorance, but rather with the idea of suggesting to Mr. Lamel and those who stand with him, that just as the S.P.G.B. has been at pains to establish itself on what Mr. Lamel may regard as the minutiae of Marxian economics, so it has been at pains to discover the error of the pseudo-Socialist Parties in order that it might, by dissociating itself from such error, and the confusion which it must inevitably work, present a clear issue to the working class.

o o o

This clear issue is absolutely necessary to enable the working class to begin to build up that organisation upon which it must rely in the struggle of the future. That is essential to class-conscious action—the only action that can effect working-class emancipation. Wherefore, to Mr. Lamel and all those whose desire it is to do all that men may to forward the revolution, we throw out the challenge to show us wherein our position is unsound. Failing that—and in the three years of our existence it has not been done once—we insist that the S.P.G.B. is the only Party of the workers, and that in it all Socialists (the term connotes a scientific appreciation of all the facts of the economic situation and needs no qualification) should be organised for the purpose of giving effective assistance in the working-class struggle for freedom.

o o o

At the meeting of the London Central Unemployed Committee (April 5th)—

“Mr. Lansbury said he thought it was time the Body seriously considered their position. THEY HAD FOOLED THE UNEMPLOYED LAST WINTER. They had the amusing spectacle of Parliament voting £200,000 and setting up in London elaborate and costly machinery, and yet they had not been able to spend that money in providing work.

They had registered the unemployed, investigated their birth, and “inquested” them up and down London, and the result had been that a petty few thousand had received a few weeks’ employment. He protested against the way in which things were being managed and against the man at the head of affairs and the whole of his wretched department.

He protested against the return of £90,000 to the Treasury and against the man who was doing it. The Liberal Government was fooling the unemployed.”

o o o

And this is the organisation brought into existence by the Government measure for which the S.D.F. claimed credit ! This is the abortion which was hailed by “Labour” members, (and those who want to be “Labour” members,) as something very like a revolution. For the first time, we were told, Parliament had recognised its duty towards the out-of-work. For the first time the legislature had admitted its moral obligation—and so on. We pointed out at the time that the thing was a fraud—must be a fraud and could not by any chance be any other. And now Lansbury comes along to say that the unemployed has been “inquested” and “fooled” and that practically nothing had been done or could be done,

o o o

What now ? Well, if the unemployed are not sick to death of the dreary business ; if they are content to believe that their self-styled representatives in the House are doing everything needful or possible ; if they can still manage to find spiritual sustenance from the faith that is in them—faith in others doing what they require—if these things still are, then the next step will be the step that was taken last. And it will be productive of the same result. But if the unemployed recognise the futility of starving and insist for themselves upon the right to the things which are life, then, although the unemployed problem will not be solved, they will not be hungry.

o o o

There is no solution for the unemployed problem short of Socialism. The working class sooner or later must recognise that and organise accordingly for the overthrow of capitalist domination. But in the meantime? Well, in the meantime they will get the equivalent of nothing unless they evince a determination to refuse to starve quietly—unless, in short, they constitute themselves a menace to the peace of mind of the master class. We are no advocates of rioting because an unarmed mob versus a well disciplined, well armed force means immediate defeat for the rioters. The most powerful menace to official complacency is the growth of a class-conscious working-class organisation. Given that and a refusal to be satisfied with promises or with anything short of the extirpation of capitalism, and doles will come tumbling down as manna from heaven. Take the doles in your stride but do not allow them to divert you from your purpose a hair’s breadth. Concentrate upon THE WORLD for the working class and, as the scriptures have it, all other things shall be added unto you.

Alegra.

In Defence of Property. (1907)

Book Review from the March 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Socialism: Its Fallacies and Dangers.” A collection of papers edited by Frederick Millar. Published by Watts & Co. for the “Liberty and Property Defence League.”

“Let us jealously watch the encroachments of the State, and never suffer it to become more than a watchdog.” Such appears to be the political doctrine of the band of belated individualists who are responsible for this book, for they include and condemn under the name of Socialism practically all State activity other than that of the mere policeman. Since, however, the propertied class has in its own interests been compelled to add to the State many other functions than that of the “watch-dog,” it is hardly necessary to consider the question at issue as being individualism versus collectivism at all, but rather as being—the class which lives by labour versus the class which lives by ownership, and whether those who produce should not own and control the product.

To those who seek a clear and useful criticism of Socialist principles the book under review will be disappointing. The facts of industrial evolution are not appreciated. The significance of the huge company and combine, where great and complicated branches of industry are run by hireling workers for absentee shareholders, is not taken into account. Nor is it recognised that industry is developing to the point at which the workers’ choice lies only between the oppressive collectivism of the trust or capitalist State for the profit of a few, and the collectivism of democracy for the benefit of all united in producing. The writers place themselves athwart the economic trend, and though as modern Mrs. Partingtons they may be excellent at a slop or a puddle, yet, trundle their mops as they will, they can hardly succeed in checking the rising Atlantic of economic development.

That there are misrepresentations is to be expected from such a source. Thus on page 17 we meet our old and hoary friend, “Sharing Out,” Socialism being referred to as the “confiscation and division of the national income.” It is also stated that Socialists “maintain that if a man lives in the house of another man, it is an extortion to ask him to pay a rent.” But the scientific Socialist knows that, apart from what is called economic rent, house rent is but the price of a commodity that, like every other commodity, tends to exchange at its value, which already includes its proportion of unpaid labour. The Socialist, therefore, holds that the robbery of the worker really takes place in the factory, not on the market.

Those who go into the highways and byways facing the opposition and abuse of the ignorant and the interested, and who, in their championship of the workers against oppression and robbery, brave the malice and persecution of the defenders of property, are told on page 24 that “The root of Socialism is cowardice. Here is the real source of the whole movement. It is the whine and the dream of the weaklings’ base fear of rivalry, of competition. It is the duty of real men to circumvent and defeat, by war if necessary, by invasion if necessary, by conquest if necessary, by extermination if necessary, the despicable effeminacy of creatures unworthy of the name of men, because they fear to carry on the competitive struggle in which the true life of manhood consists. The Socialist movement is popular because it appeals to these numerous creatures ; panders to their baseness ; promises them what they would be ashamed to desire or seek if they were men.”

Socialism and the Family.

Next comes the war-cry of the pro-property hypocrite,—”Socialism means the abolition of family life.” On this subject the defenders of that class whose heroes fill the divorce courts and whose morals are said to be “of the poultry yard,” have only vague innuendo and misrepresentation to offer. But what are the simple facts ? The family life of the workers is being destroyed by capitalism through the man, wife and child being forced into the factory to earn the daily bread; and where the home life remains it too often spells brutalising drudgery and ill-temper, owing to the poverty of the wage earner and the great waste of labour entailed by the individual household. The tremendous saving in drudgery that the co-operative household under Socialism will allow, the improvement in comfort, health, and happiness that it will bring, leave no room for doubt regarding the future of the home, while should any prefer the greater labour and discomfort of the old style, they would certainly be allowed to please themselves.

But what of the relations of men and women ? The Socialist knows that the methods of obtaining the material living, and the social order essential thereto, form the foundations of the moral and intellectual life of the time; and that with the changing economic foundation, not only must the relations of individuals to each other change, but their ideas also. The history of family life affords a striking example of this. As Prof. Jenks points out, permanent marriage had its origin in patriarchal society, and was due to no improvement in morality, but to the necessities of the pastoral pursuits of the man, and to his desire to secure for himself exclusively the labour of the woman and her offspring. The wife was bought or captured, and the children were valuable articles of merchandise. The very word “family” is derived from an old Italian word, famel, meaning a slave.

From its origin in the institution of property the marriage relationship has reflected the changing needs of property. Children are no longer chattels or assets in the old sense ; they are “encumbrances,” and paterfamilias’ former power of life and death over his household is now restricted to very meagre dimensions. The present marriage contract expresses the needs of the economic dependence of women and children on the man, and becomes an instrument for the control and transmission of property. Mutual affection is quite subordinated to questions of property and income, with the consequent outcrop of hypocrisy, adultery, and unhappiness. While on the one hand the number of men who do not marry is made greater by the insecurity of their lot, on the other hand the number of women who sell themselves on the streets is increased by the inability of many to obtain otherwise even the bare necessaries of life.

But when socialisation ends the reign of capitalist property and insecurity, when woman has economic equality with man, and the fear for the children’s future is ended by communal life, then the relationship between the sexes ceases to be a property one and becomes human ; and who can doubt that modern forms must alter with such change of circumstances, and that the matrimonial market and property contract, with the buying and selling of cohabitation for title and income, must, together with the corollaries of prostitution and domestic misery, become mere memories of a dark past. Who can doubt that the relations between man and woman, when freed of the demoralising influence of economic inequality and vicious social surroundings, will be healthier and purer than ever before being based no longer on a property transaction or economic compulsion, but upon mutual affection. Yet we are told, among much other nonsense on page 29 of the book under review, that under Socialism “the union of men and women would be an affair of the State, not of mutual regard” !

The Intellectual Few.

On page 54 the reader is told, “the more the origin of wealth is enquired into, the more clearly will the truth appear that wealth is caused by the intelligence of the few, as distinguished from the labour of the many.” Now even if this were so it would not bear the inference that the propertied class are the intellectual few reaping the reward of their intellectual labour, for the wealth of the few is accumulated from the purchase and exploitation of both “manual” and “intellectual” workers. But what is the truth regarding the wonderful inventions and improvements which have occurred in industrial processes ? Have a series of supermen arisen to produce at each stroke a great wage-saving improvement ? Herbert Spencer himself has exploded the “great man” theory, and has shown that the great man is the product of his age, whilst the history of industry shows that nearly all improvements have been the result of an accumulation of small inventions which up to a certain point were ignored or despised, in spite of their possibilities, because they were not immediately cheaper to work than the older methods. But a last slight improvement, based upon and supplementing the labour of those who had gone before, rendered the new process more profitable than the former methods, and rapidly the features of that industry became transformed. In 1857, Hodge, before a Commission said : “Present spinning machinery is supposed to be a compound of about 800 inventions. The present carding machinery is a compound of about 60 patents.”

And those who wrought these improvements, were they rewarded ? And were they members of our amazingly intellectual ruling class ? They were, indeed, rawly rewarded, while it is almost entirely from men of the working class that the leading inventions have come. J. Burnley, in “The Story of British Trade and Industry,” says, “It is a notable fact that the leading inventors of the latter half of the eighteenth century were of the artizan class—humble workers who, in their cottages and little improvised workshops, quietly worked out the mechanical problems which achieved so much for the world, if not for themselves.”

John Kay, after inventing the fly shuttle, died a pauper at the end of a few years of ineffectual struggle. Wyatt, who after three years of close effort produced a machine which “spun the first thread of cotton ever produced without the intervention of human fingers,” was poor, and allied himself with Lewis Paul, of Birmingham, who promised to finance the invention. Wyatt, however, never benefited by it, for nothing came of the idea until Arkwright revised it at a later date. Another poor inventor, Crompton, set himself to combine the spinning jenny and the water frame. It took him five years of secret experiment, but he eventually succeeded and for a while quietly used his improvement in his own work. Crompton, however, was asked how he managed to spin such fine yarn ; he then let the manufacturers into the secret on their subscribing about £50. The firm of which Sir Robert Peel, the grandfather of the statesman, was principal, were the first to make big profits out of the invention, making their machines after Crompton’s model. Soon millions of the spindles were working, but Crompton died a few years later in extreme poverty. Such is, indeed, the usual answer of capitalist practice to capitalist theory. The brains of the workers are picked, and their bodily strength exhausted, in order to increase the wealth of those who own the means of living.

The whole argument that “wealth is due to the intelligence of the few” is, in reality, nonsensical. There is no intellectual labour without some degree of manual labour, and no manual labour, however mechanical, that does not imply intellectual labour also. The marketable wealth of the world is not produced otherwise than by labour, intellectual and manual; yet the fact remains that it is a non-producing class who, by their ownership of the means whereby wealth is created, and by their control of political power, are enabled to compel the people to carry on production for them, and to hand over to them all the enormous surplus that remains when the bare necessities of the producers have been grudgingly provided for.

And it is in defence of the title of this owning class to the wealth created by others, that the book under review is published. Well does the League that is responsible for the book deserve to be called, as it is by many working men, the Liberty to Rob Defence League.

F. C.Watts

Blogger's Note:

There isn't a lot of information about Frederick Millar on the net, but he does get a few mentions in Edward Bristow's 1975 article, 'The Liberty and Property Defence League and Individualism', which was published in The Historical Journal.

Socialism in Debate. Part 4. (1914)

From the August 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

As mentioned in our April issue, it was brought to our notice that Mr. G. W. Daw, Conservative agent for Wandsworth, had stated publicly that Socialists are reluctant to open the columns of their journals to pronounced opponents. We therefore offered Mr. Daw space in this journal for three months to set out his case. The following is the outcome.

Link to Part 3.

[The original arrangement, under which Mr. Daw was to have space afforded him for three months, was departed from in order to give him opportunity to develop an attack on the Marxian theory of value. The present contribution from our opponent, and our reply thereto, closes the debate.—Ed. Com.]

The Case Against Socialism. 

Mr. Daw’s Final Contribution.

A great deal has been made of my admission that evils exist under what my opponents style “the Capitalist system.” But when we examine the causes of those evils we shall find them due, as I stated, to the shortcomings of human nature.

A man inhabiting an old and rickety dwelling may decide to pull it down and re-build on a new plan, but using the old material. The result is that he gets a different shaped dwelling, but the defects still remain, because the old materials are used. So, if it were possible to re-organise society on a Socialist basis, the same defects and evils would be manifest, because human nature and instincts would remain unchanged; and as the evils would be materialistic, the probability is that greed and selfishness would be far more rampant, and assert themselves, though of course in different forms to those to which we are accustomed under existing industrial organisation.

As to Malthus’s arguments having been crushed to powder by Godwin and Henry George, that is a matter of opinion. Some modern Socialist writers have recognised the difficulty of the question I raised, and suggested methods for overcoming it which would place intolerable restrictions on individual liberty, thereby justi­fying the contention of anti-Socialists that under Socialism there would be no individual freedom. The natural tendency of population to increase up to the extreme limit of the means of subsist­ence is a fact, manifest to all who care to study statistics, and argument against facts is futile.

The Editor seeks to score a point because I admit that there is a surplus value. Yes, but not produced by manual labour force. Moreover, under the theoretical industrial organisation prescribed by Socialists this value would cease, because production is to be for use and not for profit. Exchange, as Bastiat observes, produces at once two interests where there was formerly one; and then the price, as I previously pointed out, is largely determined by the eagerness of the buyer on the one hand, and the eagerness of the seller on the other.

Those who carefully scrutinise the theory of communistic Socialism will discern that it is a reversion to a primitive form of life. Hyndman suggests that man lived under communism for a much longer period than he has lived under forms of private property. This is an important admission, because it will be noted that although the world then contained all the wealth, it was undeveloped, and tribes were constantly warring one against the other to escape starvation. Probably cannibalism had its origin in the extreme poverty to which mankind was driven under that communal organi­sation of human society.

In this discussion I have assumed for the sake of argument that Socialism is practicable. Personally, as the result of a fairly exhaustive study of Socialist writings, I am convinced that the reconstruction of the industrial and political order of things, in accordance with Socialist theories, is impracticable. Socialism is potent for one thing, and that is to cause a revolution which could only overthrow civilisation and leave those remaining in the direst misery and poverty. In a word, although Socialism may profess to be constructive in theory, it is destructive in practice.

When I suggest that the workers should set up their own machinery and factories I do not, as seems to be implied, suggest that the workers should steal someone else’s property. My proposition is that the Trade Unionists should devote a few thousands of their five millions capital, now invested in property, etc., and put their Socialist theories to a test. Whenever I have advanced this argument in debate it is evaded by my opponents. I am therefore not surprised to be told that “the working class have no capital.” On referring to the Fifteenth Abstract of Labour Statistics, compiled by the Board of Trade, I find that 100 principal Trade Unions had funds at the end of 1910 amounting to £5,121,529. The Retail Co-operative Societies of the United Kingdom have a share capital of £4,849,926, and a reserve of another two millions; the agricultural and wholesale departments have several more millions. In 1910 the Depositors in the Post Office and Trustees Savings Banks had 221 million sterling in deposits, the greater part of which must be savings of the workers.

If the workers are the inventors of machinery, why have they persistently opposed the introduction of the same? If they discovered “how to control various forces in nature” why have they allowed them to pass into the hands of others? Are our patent laws defective? Let anyone infringe a patent and he will soon find that it is a very difficult matter to rob the inventor. There is as much skill necessary to conduct a business as is required to invent a machine, and whereas the inventor’s task is generally an affair of months, the capitalist has to exercise his ingenuity throughout his career.

I come now to the criticisms in the last issue of the “Socialist Standard.” Utility. I am informed, “is not considered in measuring value,” and bread, by way of illustration, is cited as “immensely more useful—or possesses greater utility—than gold, yet its exchange value is enormously less,” because “the amount of labour power embodied in a given weight of gold is far greater than that embodied in the same weight of bread.” I venture to controvert this statement. In the first place, the weight of the two commodities can have no bearing on the question. If my critic will again peruse “Capital,” page 25, he will observe that Marx is careful to state that for measuring a commodity by weight “the iron officiates as a body representing nothing but weight,” and says “just as the substance of iron, as a measure of weight, represents in relation to the sugar loaf, weight alone, so in our expression of value, the material object, coat, in relation to linen, represents value alone.”

Therefore when my critic compares the weight of bread with gold, as an illustration in the way he does, he is giving an interpretation of Marx which is not born out by the philosopher’s own words. There is nothing in Marx’s conclusions which qualifies his very definite statement on utility I previously quoted from page 8. He tells us you can only measure value by comparing one article of human labour with another—”the most simple expression of value such as twenty yards of linen = the coat.” In anticipation of further questions which may be put to me I submit this: supposing instead of a coat the same material was cut up and sewn into a shape which was of no possible use whatever? There might be the same amount of material and labour, but it would not be the equivalent of twenty yards of linen. Without utility there can be no value after all.

In conclusion, if we are to measure human labour, let us do so fairly. “As far back as 1886,” Mr. W. C. Anderson, I.L.P., tells us “the Commissioner of Labour for the United States reported that in America the machinery at work represented 3,500,000 horse-power, and that 4,000,000 work people were able to turn out wealth to produce which, without power, would have required 81,000,000.” And in 1887 it was estimated that the power exerted by all the steam engines in existence was “equal to the labour of 1,000,000,000 men.” Notwithstanding all special pleading and argument, I, at any rate, remain, a hardened unbeliever in the Socialist faith, that seeks to maintain the omnipotence of human labour-force in the industrial world by blindly ignoring that greater labour-force and wealth producer, viz., steam power.

George W. Daw

—————————-

The Socialist Reply.

Mr. Daw’s concluding contribution empha­sises the truth of our statement in the first reply, namely, that no one has yet shown a flaw in the essentials of the Socialist case. In this closing contribution to the debate we have a number of question-begging statements, but no facts or evidence are brought forth to support these statements.

For instance, what is the chief evil under Capitalism? Want in the midst of plenty due to the slavery of the working class. Mr. Daw was quite unable to meet this point when we first put it. He is unable to do so now, and to fall back on the “shortcomings of human nature” after our analysis of the cause of poverty, is a confession of defeat.

Again, who are the “Socialist writers” who have “recognised, the difficulty” of the popula­tion question? We are not told—and for the simple reason that they do not exist. In our first reply we pointed out that neither Malthus nor anyone else had given any evidence of the “natural tendency of population to increase up to the limit of the means of subsistence.” If Mr. Daw has any evidence why does he not produce it? Our first reply to this Malthusian rubbish has not been touched, let alone met, by our opponent.

We are again told that surplus value is “not produced by human labour force.” We never said that it was. What we stated was that it was produced by applying human energy to the nature-given materials and forces, and we challenged Mr. Daw to show how it could be produced otherwise. Instead of doing this he merely repeats his former statement.

Socialism will not be a “reversion to a primi­tive form of life,” because it will be neither a “reversion” nor “primitive.” We state quite distinctly that we desire the common ownership of all the modern means of wealth production—huge machinery, control of colossal forces, far-reaching organisation and distribution of the results of productive activity. There is nothing “primitive” about this, but only action in line with social development.

The present “civilisation” leaves the mass of the workers “in the direst misery and poverty” to-day. How its overthrow would leave this condition remaining Mr. Daw, wisely, does not attempt to explain. The great thing Socialism will destroy is wage-slavery and exploitation.

Then the hoary wheeze of telling the workers to “set up their own machinery and factories” is trotted out again with figures from the “Fifteenth Abstract of Labour Statistics.” Mr. Daw is evidently quite ignorant of trade union work or responsibilities, or he would know that only a small portion of the £5,000,000 is invested in property. The larger portion has to be kept in readiness to meet the continual Sick and Death Benefit claims, as well as to furnish dispute pay.

As we mentioned in the June “S.S.,” it would be absurd to suppose that any serious critic would suggest the withholding of these benefits to buy machines or factories. The co­-operative societies are not restricted to working men. Anyone can take up shares in most of them, no matter which class he belongs to. Ah! but what of the 221 millions sterling in the Post Office and other savings banks? We are told that the greater part of this “must be savings of the workers.” Why “must be”? Can Mr. Daw or anyone else give any evidence to support this claim ? We say they cannot. It is largely baseless assertion. It is true that the bulk of the trade unions’ funds are deposited in the Post Office Savings Bank to meet their current liabilities ; but these having been already reckoned in the trade unions’ funds, should be deducted from the Post Office account. Again, a number of businessmen put money in the Post Office, while, where competition is keen, or some scheme of bankruptcy is contemplated, the funds are often deposited in the names of the various members of the family. Where workers do put any savings in the bank, these, as we said before, are only the few pence scraped off the wages to provide against serious sickness or unemployment. It would be useless for this purpose in the form of shares in a factory, for it could not be turned into cash when wanted.

But all these stale old quibbles of Mr. Daw are quite beside the point. It is a sheer dirty insult to tell the working class, who are robbed of the whole of the means of wealth production—means of production which they alone fashion and operate—that they should pinch and starve themselves a little more to put their tiny mite into a factory or works. Let the workers stop the robbery and take possession of what is rightly theirs—the means necessary to live.

The question of the inventor and machinery has already been fully met in the June and July issues of the “S.S.” Our opponent, instead of trying to meet the refutation given to his previous statement, merely repeats it like a parrot. As to it being difficult to rob an inventor, only an appalling ignorance of the history of inventions could excuse so false a statement. From the day when Arkwright robbed Paul Kay to the time when Carnegie robbed John Breslin the growth of modern industry has shown countless instances of inventors being robbed of their discoveries by capitalists.

Note first that the onus is thrown on the inventor to prove his claim. The capitalists’ agents, the lawyers, raise every technical point and quibble the laws are so prolific of, and often in cases where the inventor does go to law he loses on some small legal shuffle that does not concern the essential questions at all. John Breslin was unable to pay the fees for hearing the case in the Court of Appeal. Even the mere stamps for the documents cost more than many working men can pay.

As for our patent laws being defective, we have only to point to the fact that to take out a full patent costs about £100, and most inventors would be glad of a hundred pence by the time they have worked out their drawings and made their models. The law is most effective—for the capitalists !

We are then told that “There is as much skill necessary to conduct a business as is required to invent a machine,” and that “the capitalist has to exercise his ingenuity throughout his career.”

The careful reader will see that there is absolutely no connection between these two statements. If Mr. Daw means to suggest—for he does not say it—that the capitalist “conducts” or manages his business we have already denied this in our first statement of our case. All the management of business, as well as the manipulation of machinery, is done by wage-slaves—a fact Thomas Lipton admitted to the shareholders of Liptons Ltd. when referring to the Army canteen scandals.

After having proved how little Mr. Daw understands Marx, it is rather refreshing to be referred to the portion we ourselves quoted. We never said that weight determined or measured value. We simply pointed out, that Mr. Daw’s illogical and confused statements on utility being the measure of value, because it always had to be present, was similar to saying that volume measured weight instead of density. Simple as our explanation was it was evidently beyond our opponent’s mental capacity.

Whenever two things are compared in any science or sphere some basis has to be taken to measure from. We may compare yards of silk with pounds of coffee or tons of iron or ounces of gold, and it is evident to the poorest intelli­gence that, having taken a given unit to begin with, it must be kept throughout the calculation. Gold is usually dealt with in small quantities, and the ounce is the unit of weight generally used in England. Now take our illustration.

Why does a given quantity of gold—say an ounce—not exchange for the same quantity of bread? Every schoolboy knows that an enormous number of ounces of bread (over 12,000), usually reckoned in multiples called pounds, exchanges for one ounce of gold ; yet the utility of one ounce of bread is much greater than that of one ounce of gold. It is simply idiotic for Mr. Daw to say that weight has nothing to do with it. He must take some unit quantity for comparison or obviously he cannot compare at all. The particular unit he chooses does not affect the question in the slightest. Let him take equal volumes if he prefers ; still the same dilemma faces him. Why does a bushel of gold exchange for a large number of bushels of bread, despite the greater utility in the latter?

Note how Mr. Daw shuffles round this point by failing to give the slightest indication of how utility can be measured. Yet indeterminate as he leaves it, he tries to claim it determines value. His last point on machinery and steam has already been fully met in our June issue. Instead of looking at our reply Mr. Daw merely repeats statements that have already been pulverised. Discovery of machinery and steam power and the manipulation of these forces are entirely due to the working class, not to the capitalists.

This debate has been successful in exposing another empty braggart—an agent of the capitalist class—who, evidently lacking the ability to understand the Socialist case, sets up as a powerful critic and demolisher of the “Red Spectre.” This claim sounded very well until he met the Socialists, and then his empty boast and pitiful lack of even an elementary knowledge of Socialism were fully exposed.

No one, whether a member of the capitalist class or a renegade from the workers’ ranks, has yet shown a flaw in the case for Socialism, because it is based upon the irrefutable facts of social life and development. Its propaganda steadily grows. The way in which the various agents of the master class, in pulpit and in Press, in the political field and in the economic arena, are all shrieking against Socialism, proves not only what progress its propaganda is making, but also the hate and dread in which the capitalist class hold the force that will wipe them out cf existence.

Ed. Com.

Socialism in Debate. Part 2. (1914)

From the June 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard 

As mentioned in our April issue, it was brought to our notice that Mr. G. W. Daw, Conservative agent for Wandsworth, had stated publicly that Socialists are reluctant to open the columns of their journals to pronounced opponents. We therefore offered Mr. Daw space in this journal for three months to set out his case. The following is the outcome.

Link to Part 1. 

The Case Against Socialism. 

Mr. Daw’s Second Contribution.

The statement in the opening paragraph of the reply to my previous contribution may claim to be the key-stone to the Socialist case, viz., that all existing wealth “is produced by the application of human labour-power to nature-given materials.” It has probably gained more adherents to Socialism than any other argument advanced by propagandists. No defender of Capitalism, we are assured, has been able to show a flaw in the statement. Nevertheless, we shall find on examination that this invulnerable argument is based on a partial suppression of relevant facts.

Existing wealth owes its origin not to two, but four primary agencies. (1) The nature-given material. (2) Machinery propelled by steam or electricity. (3) Labour. (4) Invention and Design. The Socialist argues that without labour, the material would be useless, but pursuing this method of deductive reasoning, we may contend that without demand there would be no value, for as Marx himself admits, “nothing can have value without being an object of utility,” and the same writer, referring to nature’s gifts, says “We see, then, that labour is not the only source of wealth.” It is obvious that labour without material is valueless, for labour creates nothing of itself, but merely shapes or changes the form of matter already existing.

We have now three sources of wealth recognised. It is when we come to machinery and design as wealth producers that the contention arises. Machinery is the most important item because it is the multiplier of wealth, to which we are indebted for that surplus value which Socialists use to dazzle the eyes of the proletariat.

“This wealth is all produced by your labour-power” the Socialist says in effect, “and is appropriated by the capitalists. They are robbers and you are the victims.” If this wealth was all produced by human labour-power, such a statement would be just, but it is not true. Machinery effected an industrial revolution which largely supplanted human skill, and steam power reduced human labour-power in the process of manufacture to such an insignificant part that the early manufacturers who first availed themselves of its agency, dispensed with men and—to their lasting disgrace—employed children of tender age to attend the same. But these employers of Lancashire and Yorkshire were not aristocrats, but all self-made men. A writer in “Justice” (9.12.1905) “estimated that of all work done by this country, an average of 84 per cent. was done by steam power.” To day it is not the workman that employs the instrument of labour, but the instrument of labour that employs the workman. When we examine the part steam power and machinery take in distribution, this is more plain. In past ages haulage was done by man. He carried produce on his back. To day the steam engine carries tons of merchandise and the workmen are driver and stoker.

Now let us examine the claim of the designer to be considered as a contributor to wealth. If I desire to become a ship owner I must utilise materials, labour, machinery, capital, and an architect to design the vessel. The material may be the best that can be obtained, the labour the most skilled, both human and mechanical, but when the ship is launched it has such a heavy list that it is condemned as unseaworthy and therefore useless. Labour and material alone, unaided by a competent designer, fail to produce wealth. As with the ship, so we shall find on examination, design, in one form or another, play an all-important part in wealth production. Two men start life with the same opportunities, the same capital and equipment, yet whilst one amasses a fortune, the other lands in the Bankruptcy Court. The different results are not due to the labour employed by each—both being equal—but owing to the inequality of business capacity on the part of the two men.

It is, however, when we come to the inventor and the machinery he has designed that the absurdity of the Socialist claim becomes most apparent. For centuries human labour-power plodded along, turning out with no appreciable variation, the same amount of goods per man. Of production in those times it might be said with truth that wealth was due to human labour, plus material ; but it was comparative poverty. WE ARE INDEBTED TO THE INTRODUCTION OF MACHINERY, AND THE SUBSTITUTION OF STEAM-POWER FOR HUMAN LABOUR-POWER, FOR THE ENORMOUS SURPLUS WEALTH OF TODAY. These are facts which cannot be gainsaid, and to read the futile attempts of Marx and his followers to evade this fatal flaw in their argument provides amusement which is seldom found in the pages of professed economic works.

The contention of Marxists is that the use of machinery is to exploit labour, and of itself creates no value. “The surplus-value comes from unpaid labour only.” This surplus-value is said to be the difference between the cost of the labour-power to the capitalist and the amount of labour-power he is able to extract from his work people. This is Marx as interpreted by Bax and Quelch in their “New Catechism of Socialism.”

Then how stupid the capitalist employers must be to spend millions on the installation of steam power and machinery, which “create no value” and reduce the number and quantity of human labour power, from which alone profit is produced !

Of course, all Marxists do not take this view. For instance, Mr. H. M. Hyndman informs us in “England for all,” that “the riches due to machinery have gone to the few.” That the rich alone have benefitted is not true, but even if wholly accurate, I would emphasise the admission that this wealth is the result of the exploitation of machinery, and not men.

I have often met with the retort on the platform that the machinery was made by the workers. My reply is that it was designed by the few, and violently opposed by the industrial classes because they recognised that the machinery was a substitute for human muscle power, in fact, it was doing their work. The capitalists had discovered a substitute for human labour-power and skill, which was able to produce wealth in far greater abundance. The old hand-loom weavers became machine-minders. Bearing on this I ask, if labour makes the machinery, how can capitalists maintain an exclusive monopoly ? There is sufficient capital in the hands of the employed to acquire their own instruments of production.

If the workers are robbed of two-thirds of what they produce, they would, by setting up as their own masters, reap enormous profits, which would enable them to drive all competitive capitalist employers out of the market. The capitalists have no monopoly of human labour-power, or of the market—viz., the consumers. Anyone with capital can buy land, material, and machinery.

I should like, if space permitted, to have dealt in some detail with Chapter XV. of Marx’s “Capitalist Production,” showing how, whilst indulging in a long diatribe on “Machinery and Modern Industry,” he shuffles over the question. [We have pleasure in offering Mr. Daw additional space for this specific purpose. Ed. Com. “S.S.”] I will give one example of his sophistry for my critics to ponder over. He says (p. 405) machinery “being constant capital, does not produce surplus-value.” This platitude is as puerile and irrelevant as if he had written: “An overcoat bought on the instalment system produces no warmth.”

G. W. Daw.

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The Socialist Reply.

Practically the whole of our opponent’s second contribution is taken up with one point, viz., the one emphasized in his sixth paragraph that “We are indebted to the introduction of machinery, and the substitution of steam for human labour-power, for the, enormous surplus wealth of to-day,” and according to Mr. Daw, this is another “fatal flaw” in our argument.

Now even if this statement were true, as it is put by Mr. Daw, it would still leave our case untouched. All the various ringing of the changes, in words, about the same point can be met with two answers, so simple that only an opponent of Socialism fails to see them.

Firstly, machinery and steam-power are quite useless and incapable of producing a single atom of wealth until labour-power is applied in starting, running, and controlling that machinery and power. Hence these factors are still dependent upon the human element—labour-power—for their operation.

Secondly, the machinery and engines themselves are manufactured by the working class and the capitalists do nothing in the introduction or manipulation of this machinery and power, yet they own both the means and results of wealth production, thus enslaving the rest of society.

If we take our opponent’s variations upon the one theme, we will find the same answers fitting them every time, though amplification may be useful on some of them.

Thus we are told in paragraph (2) there are four primary agencies in wealth production instead of the two given in the brief statement of our case. But what is machinery itself except the result of labour-power applied to the nature-given materials ? We thus see at once that it is no new factor but simply a portion of the previously stated ones.

Again, are not Invention and Design the application of human energy upon certain materials in the endeavour to obtain a given result ? Then we are still left with but two primary agencies, labour-power and natural resources.

In paragraph (3) we read that “Machinery is the most important multiplier of wealth, to which we are indebted for that surplus-value which Socialists use to dazzle the eyes of the proletariat.” It would be interesting to know how this statement opposes Socialism. As shown above, machinery can do nothing without labour-power.

That various discoveries and the general growth of knowledge increase our powers of production is a point in favour of, not against, Socialism, though it contradicts Mr. Daw’s statement in his previous contribution that we can never supply the needs of our growing population. He even now admits that there is a “surplus value,” a thing not usually conceded by our opponents.

It is quite informing to know that the “early manufacturers” “to their lasting disgrace, employed children of tender age to attend” their machinery. The later and present manufacturers, who still employ children, are free, we suppose, from any such imputation upon their characters.

The reference to the part taken by steam-power and machinery in distribution is fully met by our first answer.

Paragraph (5) would be laughable were it not swallowed by so many working men when they hear it expounded by one of their masters or his agents. Our second answer meets this point, but a little extension may be useful.

The first point to note, and one that overshadows all else here, is that it it not the capitalist who is the designer. The latter is employed to do his portion, as the others are to do theirs.

Leaving out the entirely baseless assumption that “labour the most skilled” couid not design a seaworthy vessel, we may just point out that for thousands of years various branches of the human race built seaworthy ships with no other “designers” than those who constructed them. In this as in other branches of production and distribution, it is only when “division of labour” reaches a certain stage in its development, that the “designer” becomes a separate person with a single function to perform. That he is, sometimes, better paid than the ordinary craftsman, makes him none the less one of those employed by the capitalist.

Then we come to the “fatal flaw” with our old friend the “inventor.”

What was the greatest discovery mankind has made? According to the greatest ethnologist that ever lived, Lewis H. Morgan, it was the discovery of iron and how to smelt it. But certainly as great, if not greater, was the discovery of how to control fire, as without this factor iron could not be smelted. Did the capitalists discover these two great factors in human progress? Or have they discovered any such factor? What machine did they invent? What power did they discover the control of? The answer is, not one. Yet they own the results of all these discoveries. In the vast majority of cases no individual “inventor” is known. And of the others, nearly all died in poverty, while the capitalists stole their inventions. It is the working class who “invent” the machinery and discover how to control various forces in nature as well as manipulate these things in the production and distribution of wealth.

The attempted argument in paragraph (9) is utterly unhistorical, incorrect, and fallacious. What “few” invented the wheel, the inclined plane, and the lever? Yet every machine is a combination of such powers.

It is true that those who may be displaced by machinery sometimes—not always—oppose its introduction for the simple reason that under the chaos called Capitalism, we have the utterly insane absurdity that every new means of increasing production means increased poverty and misery for the workers. Hence the cure for such a position is obviously for the workers to own the machinery they invent and operate, as well as its results.

And note the question, childlike and bland, “if labour makes the machinery, how can the capitalists maintain an exclusive monopoly?” Even Mr. Daw dares not attempt to maintain that the capitalists make machinery, so he takes refuge behind his question.

The answer is well known to Mr. Daw. Let any body of workers attempt to take hold of any machinery—or any other commodity—they have produced, and what would happen? Mr. Daw knows quite as well as any Socialist that the legal machinery, backed by the armed forces of the nation, would be used to protect the “masters’ property” and prevent any workers possessing it. This machinery and force is used for the masters’ interests because they control the political powers, dominating and directing these forces, such powers being placed in the masters’ hands by the working class when they vote Tory, Liberal, or Labour candidates into Parliament.

And where is the “sufficient capital in the hands of the employed to acquire their own instruments of production”? It must be in some secret place for, as workers ourselves, we haven’t the faintest inkling of its existence.

The capitalist pays the worker, on the average, a wage that will buy such necessaries of life as will keep him in a condition to continue working. To meet the various ills that afflict the worker, even if in work, he sometimes scrapes a few pence together in a Friendly Society against serious illness (he cannot afford to stay away from work for a slight illness), or in a Trade Union against a lock-out or a strike. But it would be an insult to Mr. Daw’s intelligence to pretend that he is referring to these small sums scattered over so large a number.

One remark he makes, however, is generally true. “Anyone with capital can buy land, material, and machinery.” May we add “and labour-power.” As the working class have no capital they obviously are unable to buy any of these things.

Ed. Com.