The Socialist and Trade Unionism - Part 3 (1912)

From the January 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 2

Part 3

The anti-trade-union “Socialist” even goes so far as to declare that a Socialist organisation or journal cannot legitimately criticise trade union action — cannot offer comment upon a strike that has failed, and point out mistakes that have been made, and courses it would have been wiser to follow.

The argument used to support this contention is that a strike, and also the object of it, is a sectional concern, and that therefore the Socialist organ that enters upon the subject is guilty of sectional action contrary to the class basis of its principles.

Here again we have the old trouble — the shibboleth; the tyranny of terms and theories. The class idea is only partly understood.

When we speak of the class basis of Socialism we imply its direct and irreconcilable antagonism to capitalism and the capitalist class. Our organisation, our politics, our activities, are based upon the recognition of the class struggle. That is all.

Now the first phase of the class struggle which the workers are up against is the struggle to live in the present. This is quite as real a part of the class struggle as the endeavour for emancipation itself, though some otherwise enlightened wage-slaves whose lot is a comparatively easy one, seem unable to realise this.

The very elements of this struggle to live are “class”. True, a strike is sectional in a certain narrow sense; but it is only a sectional phase of a class effort; it is a part of the struggle of the working class against capitalist aggression.

As a matter of fact, this phase of the class struggle — the fight for wages and conditions — can only assume this sectional aspect. To assume an entirely “class” aspect involves the General Strike in its complete form. That, of course, can never come, because it presupposes organisation so far in advance of itself as to make it reactionary: organisation calling for Socialism, not for improved wages and conditions.

It is not, then, inconsistent with the revolutionary position to render support to trade unions in any action they may take upon sound lines, or to criticise their actions when they are unsound.

From what has been said it is clear that the Socialist Party cannot be antagonistic to the trade unions under present conditions, even though they have not a revolutionary basis. On the contrary, it cannot even wish this base to be changed for the revolutionary one, since the revolutionary material does not exist in sufficient quantity to enable unions restricted to such to perform their necessary functions.

What the Socialist Party must, however, be hostile to, is the misleading by the trade union leaders and the ignorance of the rank and file which make such misleading possible. But we call the manifestation of this hostility by a very good name — propaganda.

As to the future attitude of the Socialist Party toward trade unions, of course, the present penman has no warrant to speak. But to give a strictly personal view, it seems hardly conceivable that the trade unions will fail to adapt themselves to the growth of revolutionary knowledge amongst their memberships. There at present appears to be no reason why they should not. There is nothing fixed about their bases which would preclude the change without the whole structures toppling to the ground, always provided, of course, the one essential condition for their maintenance — a revolutionary rank and file — is at hand.

And even when the time comes when the revolutionary element among the membership could secure a narrow majority in a vote there seems to be no obvious reason for purging the organisations of those who do not hold the revolutionary opinion. Such a course could hardly avoid weakening the unions in their proper sphere of action under capitalist conditions, and would not strengthen them for the revolutionary purpose of the future. In addition, to do so must inevitably be to set up rival trade unions on a reactionary basis, and this would defeat the object of the revolutionaries in taking the step of revolutionising the unions.

For when it becomes a question of the respective strength of revolutionary and non-revolutionary unions, and more particularly as the first increased in strength, economic necessity would force men to hide their political convictions and creep into the organisation which offered them the best prospects immediately, just as it forces revolutionary workers to-day to join economic organisations on a non-revolutionary basis, and dominated by reactionaries and traitors.

To make political convictions the test of membership of organisations which men are forced to join on pain of economic penalty, therefore, is pre-ordained to defeat its own object.

And what good could be expected? The two functions of economic organisation are—immediate, and ultimate. The first is non-revolutionary, the second revolutionary. But though the two are so different they are not antagonistic. The non-revolutionary is not anti-revolutionary. To fight for present life does not delay the overthrow of the present social system. When the worker acquires revolutionary consciousness he is still compelled to make the non-revolutionary struggle.

Moreover, after his conversion his methods on the economic field differ little from those he previously was compelled to follow. His greater knowledge will save him from many blunders in the field, will show him how little he has to hope for from the struggle he is compelled to make. But substantially the efforts of the revolutionary and the non-revolutionary unionist on the economic field are reduced to the same plane; that is, they must endeavour to restrict competition amongst themselves; to organise for collectively withholding their special quality of labour-power.

It is on the political field that the two part company and become antagonistic.

It is not difficult to understand this. The immediate object of economic organisation—the only one which present trade unions have—is non-political. It cannot be fought out on the political field. The arena is the labour market.

On the contrary, that other and future function of economic organisation, which is to take over and administer things when the workers have obtained political supremacy and destroyed the power of the State, that function cannot begin to be active until the workers have fought out the struggle upon the political field.

All fit material, revolutionary or non-revolutionary, for the struggle on the economic field, the resistance to capitalist encroachment, can and must prosecute the fight together. But directly the political is entered upon, one is necessarily working for or against the revolution, and the non-revolutionary worker of the economic field becomes an anti-revolutionist in the arena of politics.

It is just because this is so that it became necessary to organise a separate political party of the workers. It was necessary to leave the workers the instrument of their resistance to capitalist encroachment while the weapon for capitalism’s overthrow was being forged. Had the requirements of the two objects been the same, had the non-revolutionary worker been unnecessary in the present struggle upon the economic field, or had he been of any use in the revolutionary struggle, then the political and the economic organisations might have been one.

This seems to indicate that, as the revolutionary element in trade unions grows stronger, the same difficulty that at present makes it impossible to impose any political restriction upon their membership—that is, that disruption would result—will compel the unions to relegate all political action to political organisations.

Thus with the gradual spread of Socialist views and the consequent change of men’s minds, the unions may gradually become the fit instrument of what final purpose of economic organisation may have, without the purging process.

For it is difficult to see, at the present time, what is to be gained by the expulsion of such members as have not then embraced the revolutionary idea. The strength of the Socialist movement can never be judged by the strength of the economic organisation, whatever the supposed basis, but by the power of the working class political party, hence the presence of un-class-conscious workers in economic organisations avowedly open to such cannot well mislead. And at all events they will be present in such economic organisations as are ostensibly closed to them when those organisations are strong enough to influence their chances of obtaining work.

Of course, if the economic organisation was formed to “take and hold” in the face of the political supremacy of the master class, things would be different—a different material would be required. But economic organisation is not demanded for that purpose, but for carrying on production and distribution when the political party has achieved its purpose. It seems logical to suppose that, since production and distribution will not then be carried on by the revolutionaries alone, even the reactionary labour power may be better organised inside the economic organisations than outside.

However, interesting as these speculations are, they are rather outside the province of the present articles, which concern the attitude to-day of Socialists toward trade unions. This attitude cannot be one of hostility, though it devolves upon Socialists to combat the unsound action of trade unions and trade unionists, as also the ignorance from which these unsound actions spring. But when trade unions take action on sound lines it becomes Socialists to remember their class allegiance and give them support.

A. E. Jacomb

(Concluded.)

The Influence of Machinery upon the Working Class. (1912)

From the January 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

J. S. Mill, to the surprise of the Radicals. said that it was “questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being. They have enabled a greater population to live the same life of drudgery and imprisonment, and an increased number of manufacturers and others to make fortunes.” We of the Socialist Party have always held that labour saving devices have not lessened the sum total of work that is done by the workers, or increased the remuneration they receive for that work.

This position we defend against “cheery” social reformers who contend that machinery has had a beneficial effect upon working class conditions; that it has brought us nearer to a heaven upon earth.

They assert that machinery has (1) shortened the working day, (2) abolished heavy and wearying work, (3) educated the worker by giving him intricate machinery to mind, (4) lowered the price of commodities, (5) whilst negatively it is contended that it has not made employment more irregular, nor caused any considerable amount of suffering by disturbing working conditions when applied to new industries. All misery attendant on machine production is due to Free Trade, or Protection, or Land Monopoly, or some other Will-o’ the Wisp.

Machinery, says the Liberal, has deepened the working man’s chest and increased his stature by shortening the hours of work. When he says “shortened hours” we promptly ask “compared with when?” And as promptly comes the answer : “In comparison with the hours worked in the ‘hungry forties,’” or “when my grandfather was a lad.”

To compare present hours of work with the length of the working day in that transitional period when capitalism was in its birth throes (with the aim of extolling the difference) is an inane procedure.

Thorold Rogers has shown the comparative leisure of the worker under the system of “small production”—with that we need not deal. If we take our case at its worst and compare hours of work to-day with the hours toiled in the early years of capitalism, we find justification for our case. We find that side by side with the shorter working day has come a quicker pace, a more rapid rate of production, a faster consumption of working-class brain, nerve, and muscle. Whether it be in the sphere of production—at lathe or loom, or in distribution on train, tram, or taxi, the working pace is fierce.

Even if we examine types of work where steam-power cannot be applied—office routine and the like—we find mechanical appliances such as calculating machines, typewriters, dictating appliances, etc., adding to the intensity of the workers’ grind.

The spheres of production and distribution are worked at such a pace that even porters and packers and carmen and shopworkers and the like are affected by the pace which permeates from the departments where machinery reigns as God. The change from the leisurely life of the 17th. century to the horrid bustle of to-day is a change so scenic, so grim, so fraught with great possibilities and fearsome forebodings, that one’s brain whirls at the revolution — and one smiles at fussy politicians and dozy economists. Machine production under private ownership has rendered futile the behest to “love thy neighbour” and ushered in the modern cry: "Get on or get out!"

Economists tell us that machinery is abolishing heavy and “very laborious” work. But whilst machinery has a tendency to make work less “ muscular,” we must not forget that (as J. A. Hobson puts it): “As regards those workers who pass from ordinary manual work to the tending of machinery, there is a good deal of evidence to show that, in the typical machine industries, their new work taxes their physical vigour quite as severely as the old work.” And: “A lighter form of labour spread over an increased period of time, or an increased number of minor muscular exertions substituted for a smaller number of heavier exertions within the same period of time, may, of course, amount to an increased tax upon the vital energy.” (“Evolution of Capitalism,” pp. .'337 et seq.)

We must not overlook, either, the striking number of horrible accidents arising from the tending of machines. Even if those gullible optimists who find in machinery a “ palliative,” an economiser of working class energy—if these people had a defensible case at all it is destroyed by this one factor, the mutilation, mortal and otherwise, traceable to machinery.

If we examine the tables of death rates in various occupations we find evidence of the risk run by the workers. Taking figures for 1900-1-2 (and an index number of 1,000), we find that in the list of occupations “ men of God ” stand well at 524, and farmers at 590. Tramway workers are represented in the holocaust by the number 1,013; copper, tin, etc. workers by 1,043; tool, saw, and file workers 1,315; cotton workers 1,114; brush makers 1216: whilst publicans (terrible example of the pious) are overtopped in the figures by general labourers at 2,235.

General labourers! The phrase calls up reflections of physical and mental misery deeper than of Grecian helot or “the rude forefathers of the hamlet.” 2,235! Pythagoras saw things strange and mystical in numbers; in the death rates and the accident rates of the class of labourers and miners Christian capitalists see things tangible— say a safe twenty per cent.; Socialists see the machine and the man, and curse the capitalism which serenely massacres the real pillars of society.

The machine (so we are told) “educates” the worker by giving him a complex machine to make and tend. If we grant the intricacy and skill involved in machine manufacture (an exercise of skill on the workers' part as great, as the much puffed “labour of superintendence”), it is more than counterbalanced by the tedious times of the machine-tenders, by the “sameness” of the proletarian's work. His home. Ins necessities, and his “luxuries,” all bear evidence of the mechanical, low-priced, and mean. Production in iron, brass, copper, wood, cotton, etc., is simply a story of the exercise of similar actions, the making of prosy repetition articles. To quote J. A. Hobson : “The constant employment on one sixty-fourth part of a shoe offers no encouragement to mental activity, but dulls by its monotony the brains of the employee to such an extent that the power to think and reason is almost lost.”

The workers, as Dickens said, are “those people who all go in and out at the same hours to do the same work; people to whom every day is the same as yesterday and to morrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next." The “rude forefathers of the hamlet" were oblivious of the motor car. the Linotype, and the music hall; hut in every village the craftsman in metals, wood, stone, or leather had by his daily work qualities of initiative and forethought cultivated, contrasting with the heavy band laid by machines on their bored minders.

The individual who has heard of the “miseries of grandfather’s days,” challenges us with the assertion that machinery has lowered the price of the necessaries of life. A quotation from Marx’s “Poverty of Philosophy” is apt here: “ The price of food [in civilisation] has almost continually risen, while the price of manufactured articles and luxuries has almost continually fallen. Take the agricultural industry itself: the most indispensable objects, such as wheat, meat etc. increase in price, while cotton, sugar, coffee, etc., fall continually in a surprising fashion. Even among food stuffs, properly so-called, luxuries, such as artichokes, asparagus, etc., are relatively cheaper to-day than the objects of prime necessity. In our epoch the superfluity is more easily produced than the necessaries of life. Finally, at different historical epochs, the reciprocal relations of price are not only different but opposed. All through the Middle Ages agricultural products were relatively cheaper than manufactured products : in modern times the relations are reversed.”

So Liberal-Nonconformists expect the worker to be ridiculously thankful at the cheapness of questionable boots, frail sovereign suits, and dollar watches, while the rent of his “ home,” the price of his beer, his food stuffs, his fuel, etc., was never so prohibitive as in the “palmy” present. On every point the machine defender is worsted. 'The worker is, indeed, badly housed, badly clothed, and badly fed.

The defenders of capitalism deny our assertion that machinery has made unemployment more acute. 'They admit that a new machine might cause a temporary displacement of labour, but contend that the decrease in price resulting from the use of machinery causes a new demand which absorbs the displaced labour. Things “adjust” themselves and all is for the best. But whilst the “adjusting” process is fructifying, the worker is being pushed further into the mire. The adjusting period may be only temporary, but human lives are likewise temporary. A knotting machine dispenses with five or six “twisters”; the later try to adjust themselves. Twisting is one of the numerous processes in cotton manufacture, and obviously the number of twisters is determined by the whole industry.

The production of cotton goods must increase six times if all the twisters are to find employment at their own occupation. Machinery thus makes the workers’ jobs more hazardous and temporary. It throws out six twisters and finds employment for one mechanic making the new machine. The mechanic in turn is displaced by a lad working a new machine which “economises labour” in the engineering shops. Commonplace statistics have shown the existence of unemployed in every “skilled’’ trade.

In conclusion. Socialists do not see a “devil” in machinery. They appreciate its value to a society wherein are neither peers nor paupers, moochers nor millionaires. Socialists object to the capitalism which uses machinery as a means of more rapid and efficient exploitation of the workers; object to the degradation resulting from the existence of a factor which, under Socialism, will add leisure and pleasure to life.

John A. Dawson

A Tale of the Submerged. (1912)

From the January 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bertram Williams, a homeless labourer of 21, fell, it is reported, into the Thames. In a moment of aberration of mind he got out again. An idea smote him, perhaps because it was a raw December night. He thought he would try and find somewhere to dry his clothes. He went to two police stations, where he was referred to the casual ward. There they would not admit him because he had no "order".

There was one other place he could apply at in Christian England, overflowing with the traditional "peace and goodwill" of Christmastide. To the Salvation Army Shelter! Ah! yes, a good idea. "Knock and it shall be opened." "Do unto others --." "For He e e doth mark th' spa a-rrow's fall." Excellent! B. Williams would go unto the Good Samaritan.

He found the G.S. on duty even at that early hour (4 o'c in the morning), which is not surprising, for thee Salvationist watch as well as bray. It is a habit they acquire through watching the financial aspect of their "prayer skirmishes." When Williams preferred his request to be allowed to dry his clothes, he was told to call again at 5, because their rules did not allow them to admit anyone before that hour. You see, though it is true that the bridegroom cometh, the S.A. are so firmly convinced of his respectability that they make no provision for his reception before 5 o'c in the morning.

Of course, the wisest course for B. Williams to have followed at least, from the moral point of view, would have been to get back into the river for an hour or two. Such Christian meekness would probably have met with its promised reward. He would have inherited the earth, or at least, six feet by two of it.

But there, we can all be wise after the event. Williams smashed the S.A. shelter window.

Oh dear! That's a crime against private property, you know. So they hauled him off to the police-station, where he was received with open arms. They didn't refer him to the casual ward now - he had smashed a window.

In the fulness of time Bertram appeared before the magistrate, to whom it was explained by the Good Samaritan that the Commissioner of the S.A. took a very serious view of the offence. That is only to be  expected. It is a much more serious affair, smashing a window, than sowing the seeds consumption in a homeless young labourer. But what a wonderfully convenient thing the prison is to those who preach the gospel of turning the other cheek to the smiter.

A. E. Jacomb.