Economics and Ideas. Their influence on Political Institutions. (Part 4) (1925)

From the July 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Continued front last month).

The Machine Age.

Towards the end of the eighteenth century there were then three powerful states in which the class with free bourgeois property, alone or, in England, in conjunction with a commercialised landed-class, ruled society.

It is well to bear in mind the economic stage that had been reached. A majority of the population still lived either wholly or in part on the land. All industry was on a relatively small scale with tools that were individually operated. Production for sale was widespread, but not universal as it is to-day. The supply of materials and the marketing of the product was largely in the hands of merchants and great trading companies. The merchant capitalists had a powerful hold over industry, but the genuine industrial capitalists were few and relatively unimportant.

The workers—the “common people”— were illiterate, inarticulate and unorganised. For the most part they accepted without question the lowly position and toil to which Providence for its higher purposes had consigned them, and they looked upon the affairs of government as the natural and rightful monopoly of “their betters,” the “gentlemen,” the “people of quality,” elegance and education.

But into the apparently stable, easy-going complacent world of eighteen-century England burst an economic tornado that was destined to sweep the whole “bag of tricks” into the museum of antiquities and to create a new civilisation. This power was that child of science and economic necessity—the industrial revolution.

As machine-production extended itself to an ever wider sphere of industry, the whole complexion of social relations was transformed. Of little significance hitherto, the class of capitalist factory-owners now waxed fat in wealth and importance. But at the opposite social pole there gathered an ever-swelling multitude of propertyless wage-earners, factory hands, machine-driven and disciplined, separated entirely from the soil and herded, amid unprecedented squalor, into dismal industrial towns scattered over the coalfields.

The slow, steady controllable methods of the age of hand-tools were replaced by the uncontrolled production of commodities en-masse, by a ceaseless effort to cheapen production and by a wild competitive scramble to sell. In an industrial anarchy without parallel the only regulation and order came through the blind balance of the market, through the inexorable operation of economic forces. “Economic law”—that made and unmade—became the “divine principle” of a new philosophy of social life. Its prophets were the “economists.” They endeavoured to convince the workers as they had succeeded in convincing themselves that the wealth of the rich and the destitution of the poor were due to the “natural,” “eternal” laws of wealth creation that could neither be avoided, controlled, nor—with safety—interfered with.

The bible of the new thought was the “Wealth of Nations,” by Adam Smith, one of the most practically effective books ever written. In it was put forward not alone the economic theory of unbridled competition, but its natural, ethical accompaniment, that the general happiness of society is best secured by the assiduous devotion of individuals to their own interests. In the turmoil of the economic scramble, unlimited wealth and power seemed open to the man of initiative, nerve, organising ability and—capital. Competition, emulation, struggle, were elevated to the dignity of moral principles. The duty of “getting on” was proclaimed. “Hard work” became a virtue par excellence—though not always practised by its preachers. The conviction that the individual is superior to, and can dominate the “fell clutch of circumstance,” gained a hold upon men’s minds.

The idea of “progress” as an accepted moral principle dates from this dawn period of industrialism. For the first time in history men could see society being transformed before their eyes—not the mere outward change of political forms or the disruption due to war, but a steady, unceasing progression in one constant direction. For the first time men in general could predict the certainty of development in the future. Men no longer worshipped the past—the “good old days”—they looked ahead, and let their imaginations play tricks. To stand still, to stagnate, became a moral evil—to move, to progress, a moral excellence.

Amongst the political adaptations to the economic needs of the new era the most outstanding were those resultant upon the doctrine of “laissez faire”—the freedom of production and trade from legislative interference, expressed in the “liberalism” of Cobden and the “Manchester School.” The old restrictive Navigation Acts and the Corn Laws were abolished and all fetters removed upon the perfect liberty to buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market. Upon the principle of “unfettered production” the fullest exploitation of the worker, regardless of life or health or age or sex, was justified, and it was nominally on the ground that they were “restraints upon trade” that the early trades unions were declared illegal in the Combination Acts of 1799-1800, and thus the attempts of the workers at organised resistance forcibly repressed by the State.

The politics of the “new age” were soon also violently complicated by the struggle of the new capitalists for political power. The necessity of the conflict sprang largely from the fact that the industrial revolution had transferred the mass of production and population to the north and west, areas hitherto thinly populated and economically of little importance. Large industrial towns, such as Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester, were entirely without representation in Parliament. A further factor of importance, however, was that the new industrial conditions had produced a large, politically conscious body of lesser capitalists with an intense appreciation of the rights and privileges of property—their property, and intolerant of political control by the landlords and merchant princes.

The great reform struggle lasted some forty years and was bitterly contested by the ruling oligarchy. In the hope, encouraged by the bourgeois reformers that they stood to gain, large masses of the workers were drawn into the conflict which again and again reached open violence. At length, amid intense public excitement, the Reform Bill of 1832 was passed, which redistributed seats in accordance with existing economic facts and extended the franchise to some half-million large and smaller property owners. This was the final victory in England of free property over landed privilege—of the precious yellow metal over “precious” blue blood.

R. W. Housley

(To be continued.)

“The Anti-Fascists”. Their rejoinder and our reply. (1925)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

Comrades,

Our reply will be brief. It is a dirty game you play. It is exactly the game we expect the Fascists to play, and we are well prepared to meet it. You would suggest that we are not willing to disclose all (italics, please—they were yours) our books to the public. Very well, examine them for yourself. They are here. Will it be necessary to turn out our pockets also? They are very light—and that by reason of our Socialist activity. We can prove that, too.

We note also that Mr. “H.,” like Mr. “A.” and the Fascists we have had to deal with, prefers cover. Fortunately, we have others means of defending ourselves, and need not depend on the very precarious indulgence of that abstraction you call Ed. Com.

You will note that we address you as “comrades,” and that we subscribe ourselves.

Yours fraternally,

Alfred Holdsworth,

Editor, The Clear Light.

Reply.

Mr. Holdsworth seems to find it difficult to believe that any statement can mean just what it says and no more. We said that freak organisations are usually fair game for the political job-hunter, and further that if the N.U.C.F. made all its meetings and books freely accessible to the public as does the Socialist Party, it would show that it is not so affected. Instead of telling us that the N.U.C.F. does, or will, allow the public free access to all its meetings and books, Mr. Holdsworth offers to let us examine the books; something we are not the least concerned to do.

The remarks on “cover” are merely silly. We published a criticism of the N.U.C.F. Its validity depends on the nature of the evidence provided, but instead of answering the charges made, Mr. Holdsworth prefers to beat the air about a supposed accusation, which was, in fact, never made at all. The soundness of the charges does not in the least depend on the identity of Mr. “H.” It is perhaps for this reason that Mr. Holdsworth prefers not to accept our invitation to defend the N.U.C.F. in our columns.

In passing, it is interesting to note that the N.U.C.F. is also guilty of the “crime” of publishing contributions in its organ without disclosing the identity of the writer.

We do not know what Mr. Holdsworth was trying to express by the words, “precarious indulgence of that abstraction you call Ed. Com.,” but it certainly supports our charge that the literature of the N.U.C.F. is obscurely written.

Why Mr. Holdsworth calls us “Comrades” we do not know? We do not know that we have done anything to deserve this, “the most unkindest cut of all.” We have made it perfectly clear that we regard the N.U.C.F. as an anti-working class organisation. We gave our reasons and our evidence and are still waiting for Mr. Holdsworth or some other representative to explain why we should alter our opinion. Our columns are still open for them to do so.

Editorial Committee

Editorial: Working class education. The failure of the Labour Colleges. (1925)

Editorial from the July 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

By dint of strenuous and persistent agitation the National Council of Labour Colleges (N.C.L.C.) has won its fight for recognition by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress. It and the London Labour College are to be permitted to take part in an Educational Scheme in co-operation with their old enemies the W.E.A., Ruskin College and the Co-operative Educational Committee. The participating bodies are to retain their separate organisations and machinery, and each may continue to operate independently any educational scheme it can arrange in addition to the joint scheme.

Elated by being recognised the Plebs League and other supporters of the N.C.L.C. appear not to have recognised that this event has a quite other significance. No doubt it represents a personal success for the active N.C.L.C. workers, and a propaganda victory for the organisation; but it also signifies the death of an idea, it gives the final blow to the theory of Independent Working Class Education which they have proclaimed and popularised.

The scheme means co-operation with those organisations which in the past have been denounced by the N.C.L.C. and the Plebs League as camouflaged instruments of Capitalist propaganda. Against this the right to operate separate schemes is of little value. A circular addressed to Plebs members by a Plebs E.C. sub-committee admits that in practice “individual Unions…. would probably sooner or later feel it incumbent upon them to transfer their support to any general scheme approved by Congress.”

Nominally, the freedom of action of the N.C.L.C. is guaranteed by a paragraph which concedes “the rights of criticism on propaganda” to the separate organisations “provided that there shall be mutual abstention from criticism of the good faith of any educational organisations recognised by the T.U.C. …” A moment’s thought will show it to be an inadequate safeguard, and this the Plebs E.C. feel for they urge “the importance of getting a clear decision, at the outset of exactly what is implied by the paragraph.” Can one describe the W.E.A. as a body of Capitalist apologists, built up on Capitalist money without “criticising their good faith? ”

In passing, one cannot but ask if the Plebs Leaguers really do believe that working class education is likely to be assisted by the association of mutually warring elements claiming to speak from fundamentally different standpoints. Clarity goes the way of independence and confusion comes into undisputed possession.

The Plebs E.C., while supporting the entry of the N.C.L.C. into the scheme, try to “have it both ways.” They comfort themselves with the argument that “The Plebs League, not being bound by the agreement or signatory to it, will in any case retain the fullest freedom of criticism, and as before show that co-operation with Capitalist-controlled universities and dependence on financial grants from non-working-class sources (as practised by the W.E.A.) are inconsistent with working-class independence.”

The logic is curious. It is wrong for the W.E.A. to associate with Capitalist Universities but not wrong for the N.C.L.C. to associate with the W.E.A., although it always used to be wrong. The N.C.L.C. is right in signing away its independence and Plebs members are to support them in doing so; but in the same breath the Plebs congratulate themselves because they are not doing what it is right for the N.C.L.C. to do.

If the Plebs do continue to denounce the W.E.A. they will find it a little difficult to explain why they urged the N.C.L.C. to co-operate with the W.E.A.

And, moreover, what in fact will be the value of the “fullest freedom of criticism” which the Plebs will continue to enjoy? The “Plebs Magazine,” the chief vehicle of criticism, happens to be the organ of the N.C.L.C., which is giving up its “fullest freedom of criticism.” It is perhaps good propaganda for the vanquished to go on claiming the right to fight while giving up their arms to the victors; but it is not war.

The reasons why this co-operation appears as a desirable object are frankly stated in the Plebs circular. They are the threatened loss of financial aid from Trade Unions and the fear of being “left outside the main field of Trade Union educational activity.” These admissions bear out what we have always contended—that the movement for “Independent Working Class Education” never was really independent. Because their “educational policy,” in the words of the Plebs E.C., “has been from the beginning to win Trade Union support,” the N .C.L.C. had to proclaim and the Labour Colleges had to teach theories which did not offend the reactionary members and officials of the Unions which put up the cash.

To please the miners they were forced to pretend that industrial organisation is the method of achieving working-class emancipation. It is a cruel fate which has reduced the Miners Federation to a state of confessed impotence.

They styled themselves Marxians, but had to take great care, when explaining the significance of Imperialism, not to give offence by exposing the part played by the Trade Union officials in leading the workers into the war.

They talked of the need for revolutionising society, but had to keep on good terms with the Labour Party opponents of revolution.

They followed the popular school of orthodox economists of the Tory, Liberal and Labour Parties in regarding inflation of currency as the chief cause of high prices in Great Britain. Events have here, too, rewarded them unkindly. Although we have returned practically to 1914 currency conditions, including gold export, yet prices remain 75 per cent. above 1914 level.

The hard truth is that independence can be had only at a price. You cannot base an educational system on the urgent need for the overthrow of Capitalism and yet honestly gain the financial support of Trade Unions whose members would not approve the overthrow of Capitalism. Still less can you avoid discussion of the ways and means of achieving emancipation, and if ways and means are to be discussed you cannot escape the responsibility of approving or condemning particular theories and existing industrial and political policies.

To try to teach Marxism without pointing out the political implications of the class struggle is to rob it of its meaning and value. The exponents of Independent Working Class Education set out determined to preserve their independence ; but they also wanted to succeed and show tangible results, a very human but, nevertheless, dangerous weakness. The price of independence in the existing state of working class indifference and political backwardness is to be “left outside the main field of Trade Union Educational activity,” and the N.C.L.C. and the Plebs have just decided that the price is too great.

The Road to Power. An exposure of the Social Democrats. (1925)

From the July 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

An exposure of the Social Democrats in Germany and their allies.

In the June “Labour Monthly,” Mr. M. Philips Price, writing under the title “The Great Retreat,” gives a useful account of the position of the German working class since 1918, dealing in particular with the impotence of the Social Democratic Party and the treachery of its leaders. He quotes from a recent book, “Vom Kaiserreich zur Republik” (From Empire to Republic) by Richard Mueller, a Social Democrat who, in 1919 was chairman of the Berlin Workers’ Council. Mueller states (Vol. II., page 112) that when his council after the armistice drew up plans for the immediate workers’ control of industry in Berlin, the “Social Democratic Trade Union leaders protested ; they had already signed an agreement with the employers which was neither known to us nor to the public.” This agreement, it appears, bound the Trade Unions not to demand “any kind of workers’ control over the employers or insight into their financial transactions, in return for which the workers should get the eight-hour day.” (Price.) The ensuing years have shown, as might be expected, that even the eight-hour day was not to be safe when it suited the employers to attack it.

To excuse their refusal to attack the employers, at so opportune a moment, these leaders argued that if such an attack were made the allies would at once stop the supply of food for the starving. This was officially denied by the American Government, and the “Temps” (November 16th, 1918) declared that “The conditions which President Wilson put for the supply of food to Germany did not come from him, but were suggested to him by the German Chancellor himself.” (The Chancellor was the Social Democrat Ebert.) Again, the capitalist paper the “Frankfurter Zeitung” announced, “In actual fact, M. Clemenceau is quite indifferent to what form of government there is in Germany, whether it is Capitalistic or Socialistic, if Liebknecht is crowned Kaiser in Prussia or Prince Henry is elected President of the Republic in Kiel.”

What really happened was that “Vorwaerts” (Social Democrat Official Organ) got someone to telegraph to it from Holland that “the food which has been obtained abroad for Germany is being held back by the American Government because it is not certain if Germany can guarantee that she will have a free constitution . . .”

Ebert, when asking the U.S.A. for food for Germany, worded his telegram “provided that public order prevails there.” (Vol. II., page 118.)

This treachery was engineered, of course, to please the employing class, and to dissuade the workers from listening to the minority, who urged an attack on their class enemies.

The disclosure of these actions is useful, chiefly because it emphasises what we have always taught, that the workers can never afford to place uncontrolled power in the hands of leaders, no matter what their record and views may be. It is, however, no less essential to view these actions against the background provided by the general conditions and our knowledge of the rank and file. We must avoid the groundless assumption that different leadership could have altered the result materially.

The Socialist knows that there must be a majority of the working class understanding and determined on achieving Socialism before the real tasks of the socialistic revolution can even be begun. Given such a majority in possession of the machinery of government, with the powers and in the position of a ruling class, nothing but a possible capitalist revolt can stand between the workers and their object. Such a revolt would, in the nature of things, be foredoomed to failure, and need cause anxiety only to those who may be misguided enough to resist the forces of the State when the workers control those forces. We do not seek a majority out of any merely sentimental attachment to the idea of democracy. We need a majority because our aim is Socialism, and Socialism is democratic or it is nothing at all; only self-deception allows the belief that Capitalism is any the less Capitalism because in Russia it is administered by a Communist bureaucracy. Indeed, we do not have to look so far ahead to see the uselessness of minority action. Vain hopes to the contrary notwithstanding, there are not in existence any means by the use of which a minority can seize and keep the powers of government in modern democracies. Those who govern us on behalf of the Capitalist class do so with the active support or passive consent of the great majority of the workers. To oust them the minority which aspires to power would need to overwhelm not just the Capitalist few, but the mass of the workers as well. Merely to state this is to expose it for a wild and dangerous dream.

And, if further argument be necessary, what one minority could do, another minority could and would endeavour to undo. The knowledge of the numerical weakness of the revolutionary forces would naturally encourage the defeated Capitalists to a new trial of strength. Prolonged civil war may sound fine to young Communists, but Socialism does not from choice select such difficult beginnings.

The German Communists have signally failed to achieve anything tangible and lasting. Anxious for quick results and impatient of educational work to win the support of the workers, they have relied alternately on intrigue with Capitalist parties and on futile violence. They played with extreme nationalism and urged the workers to defend the interests of German Capitalists in the Ruhr against the French and British. They are now reaping their reward.

In the May, 1924, elections they polled over 12 per cent. of the votes cast; in December, 9 per cent.; in March, 1925, 7 per cent. ; and in April, 6.4 per cent. The Communist “short cut” does not lead to Socialism.

But while the Communist Party is no longer the danger that it was, those who believe that salvation for the workers lies along the road which is followed by the British Labour Party and the German Social Democratic Party, are more numerous than ever. The Communist does not appreciate the nature or the magnitude of the task of overthrowing Capitalism, and wants to set enthusiasm and pea-shooters against the organised might of the State. The Labour Party aims at organising a majority of the electorate, but does not seek the overthrow of Capitalism at all. It is a party not of Socialism but of reform; not of knowledge but of discontent. It lacks a definite and primary object on which to enforce unity among its self-centred and often hostile elements. Only on one issue is general unanimity possible; that is the search for some ground on which the exploited and the exploiters can live amicably together. Believing such amity to be possible it rejects the Socialist solution of the abolition of private ownership in the means of life. The Labour Party view is that expressed by Mr. Clynes (“Daily Herald,” April 3, 1925) :

  “If all classes can preserve the spirit that carried us through five years of terrible war, we can go forward in a spirit of co-operation and goodwill which will benefit the whole community.”

We believe on the contrary that the Capitalist class alone have an interest in promoting such co-operation. We want for society the property now owned by the employers, and we do not anticipate that they will yield it up with goodwill. We recall not with pride but with regret, the years when the workers of each nation willingly hated and fought the enemies of their respective sections of the ruling class. We urge not co-operation but the acceptance of the truth of our peacetime and wartime slogan “The enemy of the working class is the master class.”

And because the Labour Parties are not fighting for any fundamental change their method of organising is quite unlike that which is required to win Socialism. The Labour Parties command millions of votes and the support of thousands of active and devoted workers. They have highly-organised and richly-financed political machines for winning elections, and a press of growing power with which they endeavour to mould opinion. The Socialist Party lacks these things because its aim is Socialism, and there are as yet too few Socialists to make such widespread organisation possible. But of what use to the working class are these millions of votes cast for Labour candidates and these electoral victories leading as they do merely to “colossal” parliamentary battles about taxes on silk stockings and such trivialities? Germany developed such a party well nigh to perfection and next to Germany, England. And what is there to show for it all?

They boast of the reforms, old age pensions, insurance schemes which have been initiated or at least amended through the influence they are able to exercise on the various governments; yet in spite of all, the condition of the workers gets worse year by year, and was getting worse for a decade before the war. This is true of Germany, England and America and of “our” colonies. It is the worsening conditions imposed by Capitalism which make reforms necessary to the Capitalists, and it is the vague discontent bred of worsening conditions which builds up these huge Labour Parties. The reforms are not the effect of the growing power of the Labour Parties. As George Washington learned by hard experience, “Influence is not Power.” The entry of Labour Leaders into Capitalist Cabinets and to their social functions merely shows how easily the non-Socialist rank and file are deceived by the gift of the shadow of power by those who keep tight hold on the substance.

Advising the ruling class what to do to stave off revolutionary discontent is not winning power for the working class. When Capitalism had its time of crisis the leaders and the machinery of the Labour Parties of the warring nations were openly employed to help the master class wage their war. This was the end in England, Germany, France, and in fact In every country the workers of which had followed the same unsound policy. Many have now realised the disastrous failure but have quite misunderstood the underlying causes.

Philips Price is one of these. He knows well the black record of the Social Democrats during the war. He knows how fully they deserved the epithet “the Kaiser’s Socialists,” and he must see that their policy after the armistice could not become suddenly and completely different from that which they had pursued before. But what he fails to see is that long years before the war the ground was being prepared and the harvest could be no other than it was and is. For him as for most of those who criticise the Social Democrats, 1914 was the year when what he calls “the pillar of the old International, the party of August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht” threw over its Socialism and betrayed the workers of Germany. Thus he writes, for instance, that “an aristocracy has risen up during the last ten years in the party” (italics mine). This simply is not true. To the Socialist Party of Great Britain the internal rottenness and anti-Socialist outlook of the German S.D.P. were apparent long before the war, and consistently with our knowledge, we declined to share the current foolish confidence in the Second International. Neither it nor its affiliated societies were Socialist; how then could it or they take up a Socialist attitude to the war? Years of war were needed to teach this simple lesson to the founders of the Third International.

Yet as long ago as 1896 Bertrand Russell was able to see what was to prove the fatal defect of the S.D.P., although at the time he seems to have anticipated that the weakness would be overcome. In his “German Social Democracy” (1896, Longmans, page 131), he wrote as follows :—

  ” . . the élite of the Party acquire a dominion over their less intelligent and less definite companions; these are often very vague as to what Social Democracy is, and may even retain a liking for the military or a disbelief in Communism, totally inconsistent with the Party Programme.”

Russell quoted Paul Göhre, whose conclusions on the outlook of the party membership coincided with what he himself observed.

He goes on (page 132) :—

  “The final alms of the Party, in particular, appear for the most part rather unpopular, so great a change as the abolition of private property was unintelligible to the average working man. The opposition to militarism, too . . was not shared, if Gohre may be believed, by any but the official members.”

He concludes :

  “As, however, the official members alone are clear as to the aims to be pursued, and alone decide the choice of candidates, their views alone are represented in Parliament . . . the views of the rank and file, however different from those which find expression in party literature, do not seem to me to have any great political importance.”

Events have shown Bertrand Russell’s hope to be ill-founded. The views and lack of views of the rank and file proved to be all-important. Not being Socialists they were as easily led into war as they had been led before the war. Sheep do not at the cry of danger suddenly become lions. It would be absurd to expect those who looked with favour on peace-time militarism to turn against it when their own leaders ranted about the danger to the “Fatherland.”

Naturally too, years of wartime propaganda left the Social Democrats, war-weary though they were, still less ready to take a Socialist course of action. Philips Price charges the leaders with giving a wrong lead in 1919, but what else could he expect? Were the members who supported the German Capitalists in the war the kind of body to carry on a fight against the Capitalists and for Socialism immediately the war ended?

The party did not even command a majority in Germany. In 1919, they polled 45 per cent. of the votes, but that 45 per cent. did not represent Socialist convictions. It was a combination of all kinds of discontent, natural in a war-weary and defeated country, and it rapidly disappeared as the immediate and pressing causes receded. Lack of success soon turned uninstructed enthusiasm into apathy and even hostility, leading eventually to a revival of patriotism.

By 1920 the vote of the S.D.P. had fallen to 42 per cent. ; and by 1924 to 20 per cent. Although it rose again this year it reached only 30 per cent., and the issue of recent elections has never been Socialism or anything which plainly challenged the position or privilege of the ruling class.

All the efforts of all the years of S.D.P. activity have led up to the Presidential election of May, 1925, when S.D.P. members had to vote for one avowed Capitalist in order to defeat another avowed Capitalist candidate. They had not even the gratification of selling out to the winning opponent of the working class.

In the meantime our own Labour Party, superior to the lessons of past or contemporary history, gaily treads the same path to the same slaughter.

Edgar Hardcastle

A Look Round. (1925)

From the July 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Meaning of Capital.

A study of past and present human society shows it to be marked off by distinctly different methods of producing and distributing the wealth that maintains such society. Each social economy, chattel slavery, serfdom, capitalism, has had its own particular religion, morals, philosophy, etc., and each system has developed within itself the elements that made possible the revolutionary change to the new social order. These changes mark important steps in the development of mankind.

To analyse and understand the workings and the forces within the capitalist system is the mission of the Socialist. The capitalists and their agents will fight such a method at every step, for it reveals them as a useless but property-owning class. Their wealth is used primarily for their own profit, irrespective of societies’ needs. Such profit is obtained without effort on their part, because the value of the workers’ means of subsistence for a given time is a minute proportion of the values he can produce in that same time.

Production is carried on to-day for the world’s markets, and profit is derived from the unpaid labour of workers who sell their energy in the labour market as a commodity. Only the capitalist system has presented these features in general, and it was not until the present system prevailed that economic wealth became known as capital. (Evolution of Property Lafargue.)

Capital is not a thing, it is a definite social relation, it presupposes a working class who possess nothing but labour force. In order to spread confusion our opponents often claim that we all possess capital of a sort, we are all capitalists; capital they say may be the workers’ health, the poor woman’s sewing machine, the navvy’s shovel; others, like the I.L.P. and the Labour Party, believe it ought to be publicly owned, while the university professors say it is wealth used to produce further wealth. All fail or pretend to be unable to see that capital is the wealth owned by the capitalists and used to exploit the working class for profit. As Socialism stands for the abolition of exploitation, it stands for the abolition of capital.

A Doctor's Dope.

According to a Dr. Shadwell (Quoted Observer, 17/5/26), there are over two hundred definitions of Socialism, which he says are cities of refuge to its apologists since:—

  “It is always possible to shift the ground and to say when any particular aspect is criticised that it is not Socialism.”

Fortunately Socialists do not rely on definitions, but facts, though there is a maxim that “all colours look alike in the dark.” Our pedantic doctor is eager to find some redeeming features of capitalism, especially as there are still Marxians who adhere to the doctrine of the inevitable “increasing misery.” He can dispose of them in a few words, thus :—

  “There has been a levelling up at one end and a levelling down at the other. It stares one in the face in visible matters of houses, clothes, and locomotion . . . As for clothes, it is no longer possible as it used to be to distinguish classes by clothes . . . and if Capitalists dash about by road in their own cars the proletariat do the same in charabancs.” (Ibid.)

We need not weary you with details of the delightful houses you habitate, every snob in the country has said that the dear workers must be better housed (some day), and the object of the Housing Bill, we were told, was to provide cheap houses for “us” (bye and bye). Clothes (sic)—we do not judge classes by clothes, but by methods of living, hirers and hired, robbers and robbed, but locomotion—ah ! the charabanc, what profligates ! Even the publican says, “No charabancs served here.” And, despite all, we still adhere to the fact that the workers’ conditions can only be measured in relation to the wealth and the pleasures they provide for their hereditary enemies, the capitalists. We fail to find consolation in the fact that when we are dead, other workers may have better houses. We do not appreciate the shoddy, bad fitting garments that cover our ill-fed bodies. Ungrateful scoundrels that we are, we cannot be soothed, because the growth of poverty and pauperism keeps pace with the increase in millionaires. We still want, and will fight on to obtain, the full use of the best that the skill and dexterity of the workers makes possible. We want the world for the workers.

W. E. MacHaffie

The Economics of Paying (1925)

From the July 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is irritating to the majority of workers to be told that the enormous expenditure incurred in running the capitalist system in its various departments is a matter of no concern to them. Schooled by the masters and their decoys in false economics, they fall easy victims to the delusion that they "Pay for everything." Dimly conscious of the fact that it is the working class who alone engage in the various functions necessary to the production and distribution of wealth (including management and supervision), they allow a hazy class sentiment to warp their economic reasoning; producing everything by no means involves paying for everything. An instance of how the press plays upon the workers' lack of knowledge in order to hide the facts is contained an the following :—

   The man in work is becoming more and more restless at the constant strain upon his resources, having to carry not only his own burden of maintenance, but the burden of a million or more out-of-works as well (Democrat, 25/4/26).

Well might the worker ask why this concern, if the burdens are his and not those of the capitalist class? Beneath this superficial observation lies the true explanation. The workers are a slave class; they are as much slaves as their progenitors, the chattel and the serf, but in place of previous methods the worker receives his subsistence to-day through a money payment, he is a wage slave. To the chattel his whole labour appeared to be given gratis, to the wage worker his whole effort appears to be paid for. Behind this payment lurks the secret of modern methods of exploitation: ever since the dawn of slavery human energy has sustained a set of unproductive idlers out of the wealth produced beyond that required for the sustenance of the producers. As with the slave of ancient society so with the modern wage slaves, the wealth they produce is the property of the masters. Its proportionate increase is enormous owing to the increased powers of mankind over nature’s materials. This surplus over and above the value of the workers' wages is called by the Socialist “surplus value." Out of this surplus, whether its form be rent, interest, or profit, its owners have to meet the expenses of their profit-making system, i.e., wars, pauperism, crime, etc. Fellow-workers, heed not your masters' canting cry about “burdens," they are his, and in order to economise as far as possible he would have you think them yours. Whatever the total of the prices of the necessaries required to sustain your wealth-producing capacity must be given to you as a wage. Failing this, you will be driven to take measures to maintain your standard of living, or your labour power will deteriorate to your employers' disadvantage.

Why fritter your time away on matters that leave you bottom dog. Recognise the real and ultimate contest must be between masters and slaves. In numbers you are overwhelming, armed with the knowledge of your usefulness as a class, no power can withstand you.

Mac.

Is Compensation of the Capitalist Possible? (1925)

From the July 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under the heading of a “Socialist Dilemma,” the New Statesman describes the contortions of the Independent Labour Party, in conference assembled. It seems that they struck a snag. Not that this is unusual or unique. A party that views society as a vessel that will imperceptibly drift into the port of Socialism, with occasional help from a pole in difficult places, is bound to find snags. As one of their leaders put it some years back: “Socialism will come as a thief in the night.” Frankly, we never liked the comparison, but equally frankly, we never liked the I.L.P. We have even said they are not a Socialist party at all. We say so still, and perhaps their latest dilemma will illustrate our differences. What is this great question that agitates the I.L.P. after its thirty odd years of vigorous torpidity? What is this tough nut that defied the teeth of the delegates assembled and had to be referral back to the branches for another year? It is, briefly, compensation versus confiscation. Shall we buy the capitalist class out or kick them out? Small wonder the delegates were flabbergasted. Thirty years of “Socialist” propaganda doesn’t leave much time for questions of that sort. Leave it another twelve-month. Perhaps by next year’s Conference another dilemma will have become sufficiently prominent to enable them to forget the last one. And, anyhow, one must have something to discuss during the hot weather, mustn’t one?

Before dealing with this profound enigma, it may be useful to enquire what has caused this sudden interest in such a question. Obviously it arises from the possibility of the Labour Party finding itself in power as well as office at a future date. This possibility exists, and it must be faced. Having made itself look as much like the late Liberal Party as possible; having broadened its base until it is all width and no depth; having stuffed itself full of Colonels, Majors, Knights, Solicitors and Clergymen; the possibility is becoming a probability with all its awkward implications. But why awkward? Because if the Labour Party is returned to power, it will be by the votes of people who are not in favour of real Socialism; who will have been told that nationalisation is Socialism; who will be doomed to be immensely undeceived within a few short months; and who, with the increasing worsening of conditions under Capitalism, will become increasingly desperate. But the Labour Party wants power. To get power it must capture the votes of politically ignorant people. And if politically ignorant people are told that the advent of the Labour Party to power means that their five shillings in the bank will be nationalised as well as the railways, they will not vote for the Labour Party. So that, as it is easier to trick and cajole people into voting for you than to educate them, the question arises, what sort of a tale shall we tell them?

This is where the Nemesis that will ultimately destroy the I.L.P. and the reformers generally, appears. They have insistently propagated the doctrine that Socialism was an evolutionary process of which the steps were nationalisation or public ownership. The Post Office has been repeatedly quoted as an example of Socialism in being. Now, say the opponents of nationalisation are you going to compensate the shareholders of concerns taken over by the State or are you going to confiscate? If the first, where are you going te get the money; if the second, where are you going to stop, and what are the distinctions you are going to make? This lands the reformer into a labyrinth of discussion on State Bonds, Sinking Funds, Tax Relief, and other financial jargon, together with interminable difficulties with small investors, savings bank depositors, and petty enterprise generally. We do not recollect it, but the New Statesman assures us, there was a time when the I.L.P. was whole-heartedly in favour of confiscation. That was when power and office seemed remote. The obvious absurdities consequent on trying to reconcile piecemeal nationalisation with confiscation would have given pause to any party but the I.L.P. They did not see that railway companies owned land; that engineering companies owned railway shares; that colliery companies owned engineering shares; that shipping companies held colliery shares; in short, that Capitalism was a system. They therefore did not see that to confiscate the capital of one basic industry was inherently as difficult as to confiscate the Capitalist system. That is if the New Statesman is right. Our recollection is that the I.L.P. has always stood for State Ownership on the lines of the Post Office, existing shareholders simply becoming Government Bondholders. Their view was and is that when a sufficiency of industries were thus nationalised the resulting state of things would be called Socialism. Their view always implies compensation, for wherein essentially does the holder of Government shares differ from the holder of company shares? Shareholding implies profits, and profits connote unpaid labour. So that the I.L.P. has always floundered in an illogical morass. How they are to get out of it will provide them with some food for thought. We shall watch their deliberations with some interest. If they pursue them far enough they may discover that Socialism is not a narrow principle which can be applied in homoepathic doses to the body politic, and so cure it of a chronic malady. They may discover that Capitalism is a system of society based upon, and permeated throughout with, the robbery of productive labour; that Socialism is a system that will have for its basis, the return to labour of the whole fruits of its industry. They may discover that the two systems are so fundamentally different as to be entirely incompatible; that the replacing of the one by the other, necessarily involves the complete change we term a revolution. That revolution may be peaceful or otherwise. It can be peaceful only by the majority of people realising the nature of society, the supreme need for the change, and the overwhelming necessity for capturing the political machinery by a clear and conscious effort. Faint and woolly formulae, speciously designed, appeals to ill- informed, politically ignorant people, can only result in the other sort of revolution, the non-peaceful. The Socialist Party has no wish for a bloody revolution. That is why we have had to devote so much time to the denunciation of the I.L.P. and the other reformist bodies, whose activities can only result in that catastrophe. Our policy is less flamboyant, and consequently our growth is slower. Our appeal is to the intellect rather than the emotions. We want people to think; Capitalism will see that they feel.

So that to solemnly debate at this date, compensation versus confiscation implies an ignorance, a divorce from reality, pitifully amazing—if it were not the I.L.P. Socialism means the taking from their present owners, of the means whereby society exists, and their conversion into social property. With what shall we compensate? With what should we compensate? With what can we compensate? Money ? Money will cease to exist. Shares? Shares are a form of parasitism, peculiar to Capitalism. Property? They will have enough: so will the rest of society. What else? Nothing! There is nothing else. We shall therefore confiscate.

W. T. Hopley

The latest criticism of Karl Marx (1925)

Book Review from the July 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have been asked to deal with a publication called "The Socialist’s Bible." It is sold by the "Industrial League and Council," which is one of the many bodies aiming at a reconciliation between the employed and employing classes.

The endless stream of books to prove that Marx was wrong is not only a tribute to Marx in showing how great is the respect his writings still inspire, but it reminds us also how limited and unscientific is the outlook of sections of the propertied class. Not knowing the way in which real social forces work, and quite lacking a sense of proportion, they are told and believe in their simplicity that revolutions are made by the wrongheaded brilliance of the Cromwells, the Rousseaus and the Marxs of history. What, then, could be more natural than the everlasting effort to stop the coming revolution by hurling tomes and pamphlets at the reputation of Marx? How perverse they must think the workers are who go on organising and striking despite, and, in fact, indifferent to the repeated "destruction" of Marxian theories. And how aggravating that the theories keep coming up as fresh and sound as ever although Labourites and Tories, intellectuals and economists have all agreed together that they are as dead as the Dodo.

The anonymous author of this pamphlet :discusses Karl Marx’s Theories" in 20 pages, and while going out of his way to appear generous in recognition of the genius of the man, rejects his philosophy in detail and in the lump.

He says nothing that is new, but in case there are novices who may be imposed upon we can perhaps usefully point out some weaknesses in these old restated objections to Marxism. A short sketch of the life of Marx is followed by some silly and ill-informed remarks about his influence on Socialism in England. We are told that few Socialists have ever read Marx, but rely upon “some small explanatory handbook." This is a queer complaint from the author of a 20-page " small explanatory handbook" which is to serve Marx critics in place of reading Marx himself; and worse follows.

Our critic of Marx goes not to Marx for his references and for a statement of the Marxian case, but to a "small explanatory handbook” by Mr. A. E. Cook. What we get is not a discussion of Marx but a cheap triumph over the grossly inaccurate work of one whose ignorance of Marx has been exposed in the pages of the Socialist Standard.

On page 1 Marx is condemned for not being “ scientific and impartial.’’ On page 2 it is admitted that he was scientific enough to “avoid any moral condemnation of the Capitalist," which is a tribute not earned by many active political workers and writers in their attacks on their opponents’ theories.

We are told that "Events having falsified his doctrine of social change the followers of Marx do not lay stress upon it.” The critic cautiously gives no evidence for the second assertion, but it saved him from the trouble of having to show where the doctrine has been proved false. The Socialist Party of Great Britain regards the doctrine as still unassailable, and is prepared to defend it.

The first volume of “Capital” was published in 1867 and it is argued that “many of the evils which Marx regarded as permanent features of industry have since been removed.”  Our author does not offer to tell us that the poverty of the poor and the riches of the wealthy are some of the evils which “have since been removed,” and they happen to be very important. He forgets, too, that the first Factory Act was passed as early as 1802; and that at the end of the last war it was still necessary to set up numerous Trade Boards to remove “sweating.” At the present time we have a Conservative Government compelled to give legal protection against intolerably low wages to the workers in what is almost our chief industry—agriculture. Has poverty passed away—if so why health insurance and pensions for the aged and for widows? Has insecurity been abolished from the lives of the wealth producers in face of 1¼ million unemployed dependent on the dole?

The most important of the foundations of the Marxian argument is the increasing disparity between the economic positions of the working and propertied classes. This tendency has not passed away. Relative to the powers of wealth production, the workers, as Marx forecast, have been and are getting worse off. Power and wealth are concentrated more and more at one end of the social scale, poverty and individual helplessness at the other. Events have justified Marx, not falsified him.

The author of the pamphlet is aware that Marx did not claim that labour is the source of all wealth; that, in fact, he pointed out the absurdity of ignoring the existence of wealth provided by Nature. But he attributes to Marx the assertion that an object “is worth something because it is useful.” (Page 4.)

On the contrary, what Marx said was that an article, “therefore, has value only because human labour . . . has been embodied in it.” (Capital, Vol. I., page 5, 1912 Edition. W. Glaisher.)

This is what comes of going for information to small handbooks.

Objection to the labour theory is made on the ground that “virgin soil or an undeveloped mine have a value for exchange although no labour has been put into them ” (p. 6). He omits, as is usual in this type of argument, to give instances of virgin soil, and undeveloped mines which have value for exchange. There are at the present day vast areas of land and mineral resources to be had for nothing. When, and not until, the necessary labour has been expended to make the soil usable and both the soil and the minerals accessible to civilisation, will they have exchange value.

There are other points that could be mentioned, but enough has been written to show that even where the criticisms are levelled against Marx and not against Cook, the author makes no real attempt to justify them, and that the basic theories of Marxism have not been seriously attacked, far less demolished.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Origins of Christianity (1925)

Book Review from the July 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

Foundations of Christianity, by Karl Kautsky. (Alien & Unwin)

Social movements and organisations are often claimed to be due to the power or personality of some individual or "great" man. In religious circles, due to the fear or ignorance of those following these movements, this view of a "great" or "good" man is carried to the point where the supposed founder is claimed as a saint or even a God. Buddhism and Mohammedanism are examples of the "saint" view, while Christianity is the great example where the supposed founder is claimed by large numbers of his followers as being God.

Since the days when Marx and Engels established their joint discovery - later independently formulated by L. H. Morgan - that the methods of wealth production formed the bases of human societies, while the development of the tools and technical processes furnished the source of the changes in those Societies, the "great man" theory has been steadily losing ground. Even in Psychology orthodox Professors, like McDougal, following in the footsteps of Maudsley and Spencer (though in a manner far inferior to these writers) now include social forces as important factors in the building up of the Mind.

Kautsky's volume is an examination of conditions that gave rise to the birth and early development of Christianity, using the Marxian discovery, generally known as Materialist Conception of History, as a tool in his researches and studies. Kautsky does not set out to condemn Christianity but to explain it, and the result is a brilliant piece of work, calm, dignified and full of information. He accepts the case presented by Bruno Bauer to show that the Christ of Christianity never existed. But, more startling still, Kautsky claims that there is no need for Christ to have existed in order to explain the birth and rise of Christianity! Christianity without Christ will seem either rank blasphemy, or at least a contradiction in terms to the orthodox. Undeterred by such seemings, Kautsky patiently builds up a powerful case in support of his proposition. His presentation is so compact that it is difficult to make a summary of it. We will therefore content ourselves with giving one or two of the main points and refer our readers to the book itself for the arguments and evidence in support of Kautsky's case.

In the period immediately preceding the rise of Christianity degeneration had already begun in the Western world. The peasant producer - the backbone of the early Roman power - had been steadily crushed out by the growth of large estates worked by slave labour - the latifundia. Contrary to the view of some historians, the latifundia was not a progressive but a retrograde movement. It marks not an advance, but a decline in the career of a society. The peasant has a personal interest in his land, crops, tools, etc., and, within the narrow limits in which he moved, would use any technical improvement that came his way. The slave not only has no interest in these things but, on the contrary, develops an antagonism that results in his doing all the injury he can to the master he hates. The slave would take "revenge" for the whippings he received by ill-treating the animals in his charge, breaking the tools and instruments he used, and neglecting to take simple precautions in the crops, etc. The only thing that made the slave worth while was his cheapness. Hence the constant wars of Rome in the search for new sources of cheap slaves as the old sources were exhausted.

Along with this growth of the latifundia there developed the concentration of power into the hands of an individual - the Caesar - which not only killed political life and thought for the mass of the people, but led to decay of the social sentiment and turned people's thoughts to individual matters. These facts prepared the soil that, later on, was to accept the Christian notion of the individual being solely concerned with his own "salvation" and intent on making his peace with God.

Christianity arose among the Jews. Kautsky traces the history of this famous race in the period preceding Christianity and shows how the defeat and Exile of the Jews developed both their religion and Monotheism. The religion formed a common bond between the various tribes, while the fact that the various tribal Gods had been unable to avert defeat and disgrace led to the idea, already vaguely existing in Egypt, Babylonia and Persia, of a single all-powerful God who allowed this disgrace to fall upon his chosen people because they offended against his laws. When - the legend ran - they had passed through a sufficient period of repentance God would lead them to victory over all other nations.

When the Jews were allowed to return to Jerusalem the class divisions already existing became accentuated. The wealthy class wished for peace to allow of them enriching themselves further, while the exploited class looked to the fulfilment of God's promise (to set the chosen people over other nations) for the release from their miseries. Both classes realised that they were too weak numerically to conquer such a power, for example, as Rome. But God would send a Messiah to lead them to victory. Hence the continual revolts in Jerusalem and the religious character of the rebels. The rich people were denounced as traitors for not supporting these revolts. Each rising brought forth its "Messiah," who was the true elect of God - till he was defeated, when he was condemned as an imposter. In course of time these "Messiahs" became numerous and if Christ ever lived at all, it must have been as a rebel at the head of one of these conspiracies. His execution, if it took place, is only explainable on this ground.

The word "Christus" is the Greek for "Messiah." Hence, in translation into Greek, all those who had proclaimed themselves Messiahs were called "Christs." The rebel and, of course, religious organisation that was formed shortly before the fall of Jerusalem would, because of the conditions mentioned above, be proletarian in character, and portions of the early Gospels reflect this position. Originally the Jews had been an agricultural race but on the return from Exile their lack of land and other factors left them with trade as their chief occupation. But the old land routes for commerce had been superseded, to a great extent, by the development of sea travel through the Greeks and Phoenicians, and this was a basic factor in the dispersal of the Jews. When Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews dispersed, the above-mentioned religious organisation became a congregation that started making converts outside the Jews. At first it retained its proletarian character, but as the priesthood developed and became established, it began to angle for the favour, and funds, of rich people. To entice rich people into such a congregation, however, it was necessary to modify its rebellious teachings. So first the various legends and later the Gospel writings were "edited" both for the purpose of cutting out objectionable statements and interpolating ones flattering to the rich. According to the legend, Christ had promised to return to earth to lead his Apostles to Heaven, during their own lives. His failure to keep his promise enabled the editors to vary phrases and sentences to suit themselves. Moreover, the civil wars in Rome had died down and the ruling power was not only more free to deal with rebellious bodies, but to show, by the huge forces at their disposal, the utter hopelessness of any revolt. Thus, due to the changed conditions, the teachings of Christianity turned from that of a rebellious character into one that was servile and cringing.

These developments, as well as several later ones, are worked out with a wealth of evidence by Kautsky and the book can be strongly recommended to every serious student as a sound and scientific explanation of the rise of a social phenomenon that is usually hidden under a heap of religious rubbish.

Jack Fitzgerald

A Jack Fitzgerald page has just been opened on the Marxists Internet Archive. The above article, plus others articles and reviews from the pages of the Socialist Standard by Fitzgerald , will appear on the page in due course.