The Development of Capitalism and its Lessons. (1927)

From the July 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

For many years it has been a platitude with capitalists, and capitalist newspapers, that agitators are the cause of discontent among the workers. Many workers who unquestioningly absorb capitalist ideas and opinions themselves believe it to be true.

The labour agitators are undoubtedly on the increase. There is money in the business. It is a calling that appeals to those who love to be in the limelight, and like most callings is becoming terribly overcrowded.

To become a labour leader, either on the industrial or political field, is one way of escaping from the onerous conditions of capitalist employment, or possibly unemployment. In this we find evidence that it is not agitators who make discontent, but that it is the already existing discontent of the workers with their conditions that makes agitators possible. Capitalist conditions of employment are so wretched that many of those with ability slightly above the average endeavour to escape them by becoming leaders. Too often it must be admitted, such aspirants care little where they lead the workers. Their chief concern is where and what they get themselves. While those who cannot escape in this way, the majority of the workers, are ready to listen to anyone who will promise them some improvement in their lot.

For many years before the possibility of leaders living on the backs of the workers could be foreseen, the workers themselves used to meet secretly to discuss their grievances and agree upon common action against the masters. The chief grievance then and since has always been the low standard of living forced on them by means of the wages system. The trade union movement, as we know it to-day, has grown out of those secret meetings, that had their origin in the early days of the factory system, in the North of England. The degrading conditions of employment and the low standard of living were the cause of discontent then as they are now.

Trade unions were originally organisations to raise or maintain wages. As the workers realised the advantages of combination in this direction, trade unions grew up in one industry after another. While the capitalists were disunited, the unions met with frequent successes. Every success was an inducement to others to organise. It was out of these successes, and the recognition by the workers, that if they did not organise against the masters, their wages would be forced ever lower, that trade unionism grew to its present dimensions.

But side by-side with the growth of trade unions, and in a great measure responsible for its rapid and enormous growth, there took place what has been, in all probability the greatest and most sensational movement in history. This was the invention and introduction of labour saving machinery and methods, which has developed from its simplest forms to its present complexity and importance during the same period.

An adequate idea of the effects of labour-saving machinery and methods on production and employment can be obtained from the S.P.G.B. pamphlet “Socialism,’’ pages 9 and 10. It is there shown what a relatively small proportion of the population can, by modern methods, produce all the wealth for which markets are available. So efficient are these powers of production that capitalists everywhere find it necessary to restrict them. In many industries capitalists have combined for the purpose of ascertaining the market and dividing the amount of production necessary between them. By this means they avoid over-production; competition is eliminated, and prices can be kept up. It is thus seen that by their ownership of the means of wealth-production, capitalists can and do hold up production to suit their own ends. The only useful purpose of labour-saving methods is, consequently defeated. That purpose, for a sane people, can only be to satisfy their material needs with the smallest expenditure of energy. But this is impossible unless the people own the means of wealth-production and use them by common agreement to satisfy their needs.

It would be stupid to denounce capitalists for restricting production, however. It would be absurd from their point of view if they allowed the production of commodities to go on when there was no sale for them. Their need is evidently for wider markets, but where can they be found without elbowing other capitalists out of their preserves? One reform party, the I.L.P. proposes to find them by persuading the capitalists themselves to pay higher wages. In other words, that capitalists should extend their markets by giving the workers more money to spend.

Without questioning the philanthropy of the capitalists or the strength of the trade unions to-enforce higher wages, the futility of such a reform is shown by America’s example. In the United States higher wages are paid than in most other capitalist countries. As a set-off against these higher wages, however, must be reckoned the much higher cost of living. But higher wages are not paid, either in America or anywhere else, unless individual production is increased. In other words, higher wages are paid to a few men for producing as much as had been produced by many. Higher wages, in this sense, by the fact that unemployment is increased, really spell a wage reduction for the workers as a whole.

We should expect to find, if the above is correct, that unemployment in the States is extensive, in spite of the enormous trade they boast. We are not surprised, therefore, to read the following reference to conditions in the U.S.A.

  The Mackenzie report takes a million and a half unemployed at any time as more or less normal; Trade Union evidence suggests a far higher figure. There is no security of employment—the rate of labour turnover is as high as 300 per cent. per annum.

The above is from the “New Leader” (17/6/27, p. 6), the organ of the I.L.P., that advocates the same policy for this country. While nobody would be so fool-hardy as to deny that a high wage is better than a low one, the amount of poverty must necessarily increase as the number of workers who receive wages at all are reduced.

The main fact that stands out clearly is that the number of workers required to produce the world’s wealth is constantly diminishing. As unemployment increases, competition for jobs intensifies in proportion. The conditions of labour become more exacting. Wages, generally, fall rather than rise. The same problem as of old faces the workers. Not only their standard of living, but their security is threatened. But the irony of the situation lies in the fact that the enormous development in the means of wealth-production has made security of life possible at a far higher standard than ever before. Possible, that is, when the workers see the necessity for making those means of production the common property of society.

What is the solution? Evidently not by paying a minority higher wages to do all the work, and sacking the majority. Nor yet by pointing the way to new markets, fighting for them, as in the great war; or even by entering with zest into the competitive struggle to help one capitalist group to win markets from another. None of these things will help the workers.

A few moments' consideration will show that poverty exists for the workers because they are unable to use the means of wealth-production to satisfy their needs. The means of production are the property of the capitalists, who only permit the workers to use them on condition that the product belongs to them. What the worker gets we have seen, while the capitalist controls the rest. Taking no share in the work of production the capitalists nevertheless are able to appropriate in this way approximately two-thirds of the total wealth. In addition to this, by virtue of their ownership, they hold up production until they have found markets for the product.

There can only be one solution for the workers. They must take over the means of wealth-production, making them the common property of society. These means can then be democratically controlled by the people, and used for the purpose of satisfying their needs.

For this organisation is necessary; and history and commonsense alike dictate that the form of that organisation must be political. That its first concern must be with the capture of the parliamentary institutions controlling the forces that make capitalist government possible. This much being achieved, the way will be cleared for the establishment of the new order— Socialism.

F. Foan

Correspondence. (1927)

From the July 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

E. Wright (Southwark). — If you can reduce the chaos of statements in your letter to a coherent and intelligible form, we may be prepared to deal with your views. In their present shape it is impossible to do so.

Editorial Committee

New Pamphlet. (1927)

Party News from the July 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are proposing to publish a new pamphlet but we cannot do so until we have the money. If we print 20,000 copies the cost will be in the neighbourhood of £100. We ask, therefore, for donations. As soon as we get sufficient to justify giving the order to our printer we shall be pleased to proceed.

Economic Tendencies. (1927)

From the July 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

 . . . and still the Socialist utters his mumbo jumbo about the imminent coming of the Socialist state; as a fact the whole tendency of our times is in the direction of the multiplicity of small capitalists, every one of whom is a bulwark against Socialism. This increasing growth in the wealth of the wage-earning classes which gathers impetus before our eyes is the whole justification of the principles of Capitalism. (Business Organisation, April.)

If Capitalism is justified on the basis of the above piffle, then its defenders must indeed be running short of subtle and plausible excuses for the existence of working-class poverty: Socialists are not concerned with the “coming” of any state, but with its “going.” With the establishment of classless society (Socialism), institutions such as the State, Government, etc., could serve no purpose : Without a subject class to govern and repress, the object of their existence to-day, their function would be ended. Regarding the growth of “small” Capitalists, one would have thought that in face of the growth of combines, trusts and amalgamations within the last generation, the fact of the concentration of Capital would have a commonplace admission. If the tendency is toward an increase of Capitalists, why is it that every trade paper devotes columns to the reports of bankruptcies in their particular trade? If the smaller fry are unable to stand the competitive pace of to-day, the process is obviously a “coming down,” and not a “going up” one. These business wiseacres have so much justification for capitalist principles that in the same issue of their journal they furnish us with the evidence that gives the lie direct to their previous statement.

Proof:—

  "Personal ownership has given way to the Limited Liability Company, and to-day this is rapidly becoming the large combine or group of companies. . . . the employer is now identified with an association, and these associations are also combined into large federations"—Ibid. 

Imagine the chance that the budding capitalist would have arriving on the scene to compete with the combine or the group of companies. Yet this is the sort of argument that justifies this “rosy” outlook. The present state of affairs is becoming fatal to the small investor. With the stagnation due to want of markets, his investment brings small return in a safe concern, whilst it is well-known what easy prey such investors make for the bogus or apparently promising financial adventure. Karl Marx demonstrated in a way what to-day reads like prophecy —how the battle of competition between the Capitalists is fought out on the basis of cheapening commodities. This is done by increasing the productivity of labour through up-to-date machinery, large scale production and so on. In competition, therefore, the largest capitals beat the smaller. Our opponents, in their weak attempt to meet the Socialist case, pay tribute to the analysis Marx made, and by which he showed the broadening and the deepening of the gulf between the Capitalists and the Workers. It is this gulf that intensifies the antagonism between the two classes as non-producers and owners, and producers but non-owners of wealth respectively.

"All you want to do is to buy brains.” (1927)

From the July 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

  When I started business in America Andrew Carnegie told me, "All you want to do is to buy brains.” (Sir Algernon Frith, Shoe and Leather Record, 6/5/27.)

Simple, isn’t it? Obviously they don’t buy their own brains. Those brains belong to workers, even if in return they receive salary and dress so like the buyers. The latter may be prospectus ornaments of any number of concerns, while the actual, as distinct from the nominal directing, is undertaken by these “special kind of wage earners.” The “Daily Chronicle” (16/11/26), commenting on the increase in the numbers seeking these kinds of jobs, made a discovery and headed their comments : “Brains nearly as cheap as Brawn.”

Mac.

Why We Are Socialists. (1927)

From the July 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is by no means uncommon for anti-Socialists of various types to try to explain away Socialist principles as a result of a mental kink, as a symptom of pure cussedness, so to speak. This attitude finds considerable encouragement in the posturing of the sentimentalists of the Labour Party and kindred bodies. To judge by the speeches and writings of many of these worthies, they "thank God that they are not as other men are”—that their pure and lofty aims spring from hearts brimming over with loving-kindness to all mankind—in vivid contrast with the base machinations of their "hard- faced” opponents.

The members of the Socialist Party, however, make no such angelic pretensions. Our temperaments are as varied as our physical qualities, and these, again, are as numerous as those of the rats in Browning’s "Pied Piper of Hamelin.” Attend one of our annual conferences and you will observe the lean and the fat, the tall and the short, the bald and shock-headed, the ugly and the—well, we will not claim that anyone is pretty; somehow capitalism doesn’t have that effect. As for mental disposition, you will find the verbose and the reserved, the calm and the excitable, the artistically loose and the mechanically precise, all contributing their quota to the discussion, and either impeding or expediting the business to the best of their ability; and while this is not the place in which to disclose unofficial secrets, we may perhaps admit that there are to be found in our ranks both the austere and abstemious, and those who indulge not wisely but too well—tho’ in this respect, again, the system we oppose involves obvious limitations.

Whence, then, arises this tendency to regard the Socialist as a crank—a conceited meddler with the welfare of the human race? The answer becomes obvious the moment we consider just what it is that Socialists have in common.

Despite the variety of their physique and character, almost all, without exception, are drawn from a certain class in society, i.e., the working-class. The Socialist may be distinguished from his fellows perhaps by his greater sensitiveness to certain aspects of his environment, by his keener insight into conditions, and his greater readiness to grasp general causes; but that in itself does not explain the ideas he has.

There are adaptable men and women of mental vigour among the members of the capitalist class, but they do not become Socialists. On the contrary, their class interests lead them to oppose the Socialist movement with all the greater steadfastness the more they understand the conditions under which they live.

There have been, it is true, capitalists who have accepted the Socialist outlook through the operation of exceptional circumstances, but in order to do this they have had to forsake the standpoint of their own class and to study the position of the workers. That is the crux of the matter— the struggle between workers and capitalists forms the basis of Socialist ideas.

The Socialist is discontented, but so are many non-Socialists.

There has been widespread discontent under previous forms of society. The serfs and burghers under feudalism, the slaves under the Roman Empire, were the victims of oppression, and occasionally revolted; but their revolt did not form a Socialist movement. Their aims were either personal freedom and more private property, or some vague Kingdom of God in which all material problems would find magical solution. Scientific Socialism could arise only when the development of machinery had rendered antiquated all the old utopias and made the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life both possible and necessary.

So long as the means of production were small and could be operated by individuals or groups in isolated villages, the total wealth produced was insufficient to provide all with comfort and leisure. Hence private property was the necessary condition of security for producer and parasite alike, and the struggle between them was a struggle for one form or another of private property. The feudal lords struggled with their peasants over the land, but whichever side won held to the private form of ownership. The merchants and the handicraftsmen struggled over conditions of trade and production, but each side saw their “beau ideal” in the individually owned workshop or sum of money.

What is the position to-day? Millions of wage-earners co-operate, directly and indirectly, in the production of the wealth of the world, which is so abundant that it suffocates the markets. The means of production are so huge that they have long ago passed out of purely individual control. The individual capitalist only holds so many shares in a giant concern which may extend its operations over the whole earth. The vast mass of the producers are disinherited. For them private property has long ago ceased to exist. They have nothing to struggle over of an individual nature except wages; and these can only be defended (and but seldom extended) by collective action.

If under these conditions the workers still idealise private property, that is only because they have not yet fully realised their position. If the grasping of new facts is the hall-mark of the crank, then Socialists are cranks; but the only people whose interests are served by the worker’s ignorance are the parasites.

Eric Boden

"An old prevaricator of the truth . . . " (1927)

From the July 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

 The Police-aided scheme for destitute children in Edinboro' has had to provide boots for 4,600 children during the past winter as compared with 2,500 a year ago. (Daily Herald, 30/4/27.)

This is the sort of “progress” that will cheer that brand of optimist who finds the workers’ conditions improving, because, in addition to the small fraction of their total output returned as wages, necessity compels sections to accept insurance benefits, pensions, relief, etc. Reasoning from such mental shallowness, it would appear that the more we need such things, the happier we shall be.

#    #    #    #

 I am an old Socialist and I have done more for the British Worker than any Red-flag-waving churl in the kingdom. (Robert Blatchford, Sunday News, 8/5/27.)

For “British Worker” read Robert Blatchford. Those who remember this gentleman’s boasting of Tariff Reform, big navalism, conscription, municipal bakeries and milkshops, everything on earth to Spiritualism in the clouds, will appreciate this modest claim. In the opinion of R. B. he is an old Socialist. Our evidence from the past shows him to be an old prevaricator of the truth.

Mac.

Letter: The Value of the Franchise. (1927)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

 The correspondent whose letter was dealt with in our May issue writes again. His letter and our comment are given below:—

To the Editor.

Thanks for the consideration of my letter under above heading in S. S. May. We want the facts certainly, not so much that they prove our case, but because they are facts. It is absurd to draw the inference that I am a busy body nobly searching for “injustices” to put right, but I am not half so enthusiastic as your good selves in your endeavour to prove the “injustice” but a little one. The extracts you give from the Acts of 1918 are quite correct, but I am by no means impressed by your figures when I know that almost every brick that stands on top of another, and almost every piece of enclosed land, carries a vote, and I am convinced that such is by no means a negligible factor in determining the result of an election. On the authority of an official connected with the compilation of the voting register, I am enabled to state that, while the act says that a person may not vote in more than two divisions at a general election, the lawyers have found a flaw in the Act which enables a person to exercise the vote under business premises or occupational clauses in as many pieces of property above a certain value in separate divisions as they may possess. As this applies, not only to the actual owner, but the members of his or her family, and in the case of a limited company, to the directors and their dependents, the plural vote assumes enormous dimensions. I am not able to state definitely the nature of the “flaw” in the Act, but should imagine that it has something to do with the Acts round about the time of the Charles.

“No taxation without representation.”

You ask me how many persons there are in the family cited who qualify for twelve votes in the three Leicester divisions. Four—father, mother and two sons. You also ask me to state the disqualifications which militate against working-class representation, and I will name a few: for instance, soldiers and sailors (R.N.), lodgers and boarders of the artisan class, who form the bulk of the floating population, inmates of workhouses and other Poor Law institutions, the Mercantile Marine in most cases, as they never know where they will be at the time of an election. As to the proxy vote, you speak as if, when those on the absent voters’ list die off, there will be no more. Then, of course, we come to the final argument. If the plural vote is of such infinitesimal importance as you would lead your readers to believe, why do the Capitalist Class retain it? They are not such fools as to cling to a thing which carries with it a certain amount of odium, unless it is of use to them. Perhaps you can find an excuse.

F. L. Rimington.

Reply.

I did not suggest that Mr. Rimington is interested in searching for “injustices” to put right. What I said was that we are not interested in doing so.

Mr. Rimington “is not impressed” by the figures given in my article but does not show where they are in error. He cannot, in the circumstances, expect me to be impressed by his repetition of his criticisms: He says he "knows” that “almost every brick . . . carries a vote.” If it did, the plural vote would not be a negligible factor. But it. does not, as I showed, and I repeat, therefore, that it is a negligible factor. Against my figures from official sources of the negligible number of business premises votes, Mr. Rimington refers to an unnamed “official connected with the voting register,” in proof of the existence of a ”flaw in the Act,” the nature of which he is ”not able to state definitely,” but which he “imagines” has "something to do with the Act round about the time” of the Stuart kings. Really, Mr. Rimington, how can you expect such nebulous stuff to be answered ?

Mr. Rimington lists a number of obstacles which may make it difficult for some workers to use their votes, but he does not answer the main point of my reply, which was that, in fact, the workers have so overwhelming a majority of votes that, allowing for these disabilities and all the plural votes of the employers, the working class are in a position to swamp the master class at the polls. If this is true in fact, then the anomalies are negligible. If it is not true, it is for Mr. Rimington to show that it is not true.

The reference to the proxy vote and the dead I do not understand.

Mr. Rimington’s final point is that the capitalists would not keep the plural vote unless it were worth something to them. In the first place, I did not deny that it is useful. I expressly pointed out that it gives them the control of a certain few constituences like the City of London, and this is valuable to them. But the loss of the City of London is not of so great importance to the workers that it is worth while suspending Socialist propaganda in order to secure further amendments in the franchise law. It may, however, be pointed out in passing that the Capitalists are, contrary to Mr. Rimington’s belief, “such fools" as to cling to useless forms. The long resistance of influential capitalist circles to any extension of the franchise in the 19th century shows that they were “such fools” as not to realise that the workers, when given votes, would use those votes for the retention of the capitalist system.

In conclusion, I would repeat that the only major obstacle to socialism is the non-socialist outlook of the workers, not anomalies in the franchise law. If those anomalies were abolished to-morrow, the great mass of the workers would still vote capitalist candidates into Parliament.

Edgar Hardcastle

"Profligate Extravagance . . ." (1927)

From the July 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

Never has Le Touquet seen bigger gambling than this Whitsun.  . . . Banks of £2,500 were by no means uncommon, and the losing of a million francs was a frequent occurrence. (Daily Mail, 8/6/27.)

Karl Marx showed that, in contrast to the earlier parsimony of the Capitalist Class, profligate extravagance becomes a normal expenditure to them as an off-set to the enormous increase of their wealth. The above is only an incident which shows that our masters can afford to gamble away at one sitting an amount that has to suffice to keep a worker’s family for years.

Mac.

The "Plebs" on China (1927)

From the July 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the June "Plebs,” a writer signing himself “Zed,” tries to explain the meaning of the Chinese Nationalist movement for the benefit of the Marxists who can see in it "no more than in the various bourgeois nationalist movements of the past.” As we are Marxists who can see in capitalist nationalist movements nothing but capitalist nationalism (except, maybe, nationalised capitalism) possibly "Zed” is speaking of and to us. When, however, he says that the “defection of Chiang-Kai-Shek” must seem to these Marxists "an inexplicable surprise,” we can assure him that the boot is on the other foot. The people who were most surprised—apart from the Chinese workers whose heads Chiang-kai-Shek cut off when he had no further use for their propaganda activities, were precisely those who urged the workers to support the Chinese Nationalist Movement and its leaders. As was pointed out in our May issue, almost at the moment when Chiang was openly suppressing the trade unions, the Labour Research Department was explaining why the workers could go on supporting him with confidence in his aims and integrity. It is not a personal question, but one of class interests, as "Zed” correctly remarks, but it is emphatically not correct that the Chinese Nationalist Movement is “a bloc united by a common interest . . . against Imperialism.” "Zed” is led astray by his unquestioning acceptance of the view that peasants and workers can be lumped together as one class. This is as unsound as his further assumption that these two classes and the Chinese capitalists have a common interest in resisting foreign capitalism. True, peasants and workers are both, in their different ways, exploited, but the formers’ desire for private ownership of the land free from punitive taxation, and their desire for good marketing facilities for their products, do not make them allies for the workers, either in the struggle for higher wages or for the abolition of capitalist. In the fight for and against private property they are on opposite sides.

"Zed” does not offer one scrap of evidence that the Chinese workers have an interest in fighting foreign capitalist governments. The interests served in China by the Nationalist Movement are those of the Chinese capitalists and peasants, not those of the Chinese workers. We therefore expected from the first that the leaders of that movement would never permit their own workers to get out of hand, and that any danger to capitalist interests from that quarters would be ruthlessly suppressed. Nor are we surprised to learn that Chang, the Northern anti-Nationalist dictator, who represents another section of the exploiters, contemplates hoisting the flag of nationalism to cover the too blatant class interests he represents. It is only the too-trustful "Zed” and the Chinese dupes of this anti-working-class theory who are surprised at what takes place.

“Zed" goes on to consider why, in such movements, the capitalist nationalists ultimately ally themselves—on terms—with their "Imperialist enemies." It is because we recognise that this is inevitable that we urge the workers everywhere to oppose their own capitalist class from the outset and build up their own independent organisations. If this were done, so soon as the organisations of the workers became anything of a power, the employers would come to terms with foreign capitalists, and the confusion of a nationalist struggle, with its obscuring effect on the class issues, would be avoided. To justify the alternative policy “Zed" needs to offer some substantial evidence that the workers have ever gained by supporting the employing class in a struggle with foreign capitalists. In which of the European nations between 1914 and 1918 did defence of the "fatherland” bring: gains to the working-class movement.

What were the concessions won from capitalist governments by the fraudulent “National Socialist Parties” which littered Europe in those days, whether our own Labour Party, that in Germany or those in the new Polish, Czecho-Slovak and other republics?

Let "Zed” tell us what the Indian, Egyptian and Irish workers have secured by pursuing the will o' the wisp of nationalism. In truth, of course, none of these movements ever pretended to aim at working- class emancipation. The Kuomintang, like Sinn Fein, has purely propertied-class aims. In "Lansbury’s Labour Weekly" (another journal urging support of what it is pleased to call "Socialist-nationalism”) Feng-Yu-hsiang, Commander-in-Chief of the Chinese Revolutionary Army, sets out "Our Programme" (June 4th). It contains not the slightest reference to any working-class problem. It is "revolutionary” enough : it involves, among other things, the complete evacuation of all foreign troops, but "Zed" must surely appreciate the fact that revolutions are not the monopoly of the working-class, a change over from feudal land tenure to peasant proprietorship in China is a revolutionary change, but it is not one which will aid the workers.

May we advise "Zed” to read in the same issue of the "Plebs" an article on Ireland. In it A. Ellis writes as follows:— 

  Republican capitalism once it had become a partner with European capitalism sets about to share the exploitation of the Irish workers. Their reactionary measures have strengthened the hands of the reactionaries in the North, providing additional material for the division of the workers as Loyalists, Republicans, Nationalists, Catholic and Protestant, to the confusion of the real issue of capital versus Labour.

The Irish workers have gained nothing by helping the Republican Movement. There are yet hardly the beginnings of a genuine working-class movement in Ireland. The war for independence has only embittered the relations between the Irish workers, and workers outside the Free State, by stressing racial and religious divisions, and by strengthening the illusion of a common bond between the classes in the Free State. "Zed" wants us to persuade the Chinese workers to copy this fatal example.

In passing, it is amusing to notice that, in exchange for the spilling of much blood, the Irish have not even won the sentimental satisfaction of having done for ever with the hated British troops. Their Minister for External Affairs recently declared in the Dail that the Free State troops "would co-operate in resisting a general attack" on Great Britain, and Ireland, and that "it is practically inconceivable that our army would be opposed to the British Army.” (“New Statesman,” February 19th).

In the last war the Irish effectively resisted the application of conscription in that country. Having fought voluntarily for "freedom,” they have great hopes next time of enjoying the compulsory privilege of being enrolled with their British fellow-dupes. What a victory for nationalism!

Edgar Hardcastle

A. J. Cook versus Herbert Smith (1927)

Editorial from the July 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

Those who criticise leaders, but continue to believe in the need for leadership, usually fasten upon the personal defects of the man they condemn. What the workers want, according to these critics, is better leaders, leaders who can be trusted. In Herbert Smith and Arthur Cook, the miners have, so far as it is possible to judge, two leaders who are to be trusted in the sense that no one has ever yet accused them of betraying the miners to the mineowners, and it is hardly conceivable that they have done so or deliberately would do so. Yet we unhesitatingly warn the miners not to put their trust in Smith and Cook, or in anyone else. Our case is that the working-class movement will never succeed until the workers put all of their trust in themselves, formulate their own policy, and instruct their representatives to pursue it, with a full recognition that the responsibility for success or failure must rest on their own shoulders, and cannot without grave danger be placed on those of leaders.

Recently, both Cook and Smith have advised the miners how to escape from the difficulties they are in. A. J. Cook says (“Sunday Worker," June 5th):—

 We must get power in the shape of a Miners’ National Union backed up by a 100 per cent. organisation. Then we will be able to speak to the owners and the Government in the only language they understand. . . . The only way out is for an International Miners’ Organisation that will engage upon a struggle to arrange the hours, wages and working conditions. This would end the present cut-throat competition that is starving the miners in every capitalist country in the world.

Mr. Herbert Smith, on the contrary, said (“Daily Herald," June 6th):—

  More and more in the future we have to think, talk and act politically. We have to fight in the House of Commons instead of on the stomachs of the women and children. We can get all we want by marking the ballot paper properly.

Now it is impossible for both Cook and Smith to be right. It cannot be true that each of both political and industrial action is the best of all possible ways. I would go further, and say that as both Cook and Smith are aiming not at Socialism, but at Nationalisation, which will not solve any of the miners' problems, it does not matter much which means the miners adopt to achieve an undesirable end, and that Cook and Smith are both wrong. The question of the moment is, however, what is the use of leaders? Having heard two conflicting pieces of advice, the miners cannot simply trust their leaders, they have to make a deliberate choice which one of them to trust. As this cannot properly be made without examining critically the advice given, the miners might just as easily recognise that there is no inspired person able to do their thinking and solve their problems for them. The sooner they recognise this, the sooner they will recognise also the limitations and useful qualities of Smith and Cook, and utilise them accordingly to carry out a genuine working-class policy framed by the miners themselves.

Marxism or Communism. (1927)

Book Review from the July 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Communism," by Harold J. Laski. Home University Press.

Professor Laski's book is one of the most informative and interesting of the dozens of interpretations and criticisms of Marx which have appeared since the Russian upheaval. If, in addition to some minor inaccuracies, the book has one or two important failings, these are not due to the absence of ordinary care or to the class bias and lack of imagination which have marred so many of the works of scholastic critics. Professor Laski has succeeded in compressing a great deal of matter into small space, and has admirably summarised certain aspects of his subject. In a brief historical introduction, he covers adequately the development of Socialist theory, and in the other four chapters he deals with the Materialist interpretation of History, Marxian Economics, the Communist Theory of the State and the Strategy of Communism. Lastly, there is a brief statement of Professor Laski's own conclusions. While the approach to the subject is critical, the writer does not make the common mistake of imputing to Marx or to the Communists “bad" motives (using bad in the popular sense of a departure from conventional capitalist standards).

He does not make the easy assumption that Bolshevist theories are unsound merely because the Bolshevists repudiate capitalist standards of conduct, fight under strange flags and use unorthodox weapons. He is more than fair, he is generous to his opponents, but it is this very generosity which leads him astray. First he assumes that Bolshevist theory and the Marxian philosophy are identical. This is not entirely true and it is unfair to both Marx and to Lenin.

On the one hand it is the boast of many Communists that his practical revolutionary experience enabled Lenin to improve upon the teachings of Marx; and on the other hand, it is misleading to hold Marx responsible for some of the vagaries of Communist thought and action. Professor Laski's second and most serious failing is one which perhaps he copied from Professor A. D. Lindsay, who recently wrote a book entitled “Karl Marx's Capital."

In his preface, Mr. Laski acknowledges his debt to Professor Lindsay in the writing of the chapter dealing with Marxian Economics. On page 61 of Lindsay's book we read :—

   The Labour theory of value is misleading. .  .  . It is primarily interested in what a man ought to get in reward for his labour. .  .  .

On page 95 of the present work; Professor Laski, in explaining the Labour theory, writes:—

  Thus we can measure the amount of "labour-power” in each man’s effort, and so determine scientifically how he ought to be paid.

And on page 116 he says:

   It is clear, then, that at the root of Marx’s view there lies an ethical test of value. Commodities for him .  .  . have an inherent value which is what they would obtain in exchange where society was properly organised .  .  .

Professor Laski apparently picked this up from Professor Lindsay. From what source Professor Lindsay obtained it I do not know, but it is a fantasy so far removed from the Marxian method and purpose that it is impossible for one who sees Marx through these spectacles to grasp his theoretical system as a whole. Marx was not concerned with Utopian societies or with ethical values as a basis for economic theories. His economic doctrines sought to do no more than explain what exists within the capitalist system. For Marx there is no amount that the worker ought to receive, nor was the non-receipt of the full value produced, ever offered as a justification for restitution or for the struggle to rebuild society. Exploitation to the Marxist is not something “wrong,” and therefore to be condemned. Exploitation in various forms has been the necessary basis of different social systems. The need for it is passing, and only that fact calls for and justifies our efforts to establish Socialism. Marx’s economic theories must be judged on their merits, not as contributions to an ideal society of the future. Professor Laski does seriously attempt this, but fails through missing the precise meaning attached to the terms Marx uses. This is his answer to Marx :—

   It is clear that if we say (1) that the value of a commodity depends upon the amount of socially necessary labour-time it embodies, (2) that this amount is discovered in the process of exchange, and (3) that the exchange rate is fixed by the value of the commodity, we are really saying that value depends upon value. (Page 96.)

Professor Laski has not distinguished here between "price” and "value.” His statement (1) is correct, (2) is not correct, does not link (1) and (3) together, and therefore does not warrant the conclusion drawn. The amount of labour-time socially necessary is fixed by the conditions of production themselves. What happens in the process of exchange is that value expresses itself in its price form — price fluctuating about value with the varying conditions of the market. Statement (3) is correct only if it means that price is ultimately dependent upon value, the point about which it oscillates. If by "exchange rate” in (3) Professor Laski does not mean market price, then he must mean "value.” Then (3) would read “the value is the value,” which is true but not useful as a step towards drawing a further conclusion.

The second main defect is the assumption that the Bolshevists are orthodox Marxians. To show the lack of justification for this we need take only one illustration : the Commune of 1871. Professor Laski says (38): “The lesson of the Commune is the need for dictatorship. The capitalist class must be repressed.” But neither Lenin nor Professor Laski shows that this is the lesson which Marx drew from the Commune, and it is certainly not the method adopted by the Communards themselves. Lissagary (History of the Commune, p. 172) makes it quite clear that there were no repressive measures, no dictatorship, on the Russian model in Paris then.

   Sunday the 26th (March, 1871) was a day of joy and sunshine. Paris breathed again, happy like one just escaped from death or great peril. At Versailles the streets looked gloomy, gendarmes occupied the station, brutally demanded passports, confiscated all the journals of Paris, and at the slightest expression of sympathy for the town arrested you. At Paris everybody could enter freely. The streets swarmed with people, the cafés were noisy; the same lad cried out the Paris Journal and the Commune; the attacks against the Hotel de Ville, the protestations of a few malcontents, were posted on the walls by the side of the placards of the Central Committee. The people were without anger because without fear. The voting paper had replaced the Chasse-pot.

Professor Laski lightly dismisses the defence of democracy put forward by Kautsky in the controversy with Lenin, but Kautsky’s arguments in "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat” have still to be answered by the Bolshevists. We are not defenders of Kautsky's actions, either since or during the war (we had repudiated his claim to speak for Socialism before 1914, while Lenin, Trotsky and others were still worshipping Kautsky’s reputation and his past) but we claim that the Bolshevists have failed to prove him wrong when he says that a minority cannot impose a new social system from above on a hostile or apathetic majority satisfied with and used to a more backward economic organisation. In this, Kautsky expresses the Marxian viewpoint, as against the "Blanquism” of the Russians. (For a full discussion of this question, see "Socialist Standard,” July, October and November, 1920, and October, 1921)

Professor Laski misunderstands the Marxian doctrine of the increasing exploitation of the workers. Marx did not assume and build hrs theories upon the inevitability of increased poverty. The change he had in mind was the worsening position of the workers relative to the wealth and power of the capitalist class. What he argued was that the productivity of the workers' increases more rapidly than their real wages.

Thus, in "Capital” (Vol. 1, p. 631), he said :—

   .  .  . They can extend the circle of their enjoyments; .  .  .  and can lay by small reserve funds of money. But just as little as better clothing, food, and treatment, and larger peculium, do away with the exploitation of the slave, so little do they set aside that of the wage-worker.

On page 661 he elaborated the point that the workers' position gets worse, even although his real wages may not fall, but actually rise.

I do not, however, think that Professor Laski would care to contend that in fact the workers in this country have maintained during 30 years the standard of living of 1897.

He offers one or two of the stock criticisms of the Materialist Conception of History. It will not, he says (p. 79), explain "the loyalty of Catholic working-men to their religion.”

It does explain even this. Working-men are loyal to the Catholic religion while that religion continues to play a vital part in a social system which has need for religion. And when the economic development forces to the front the conflicting interests of classes, while at the same time the mechanical processes of industry thrust religious modes of thought into the background, working-men cease to be loyal to the Catholic religion. Can any other theory of history satisfactorily explain this? The Materialist Conception does not rule out or minimise the powerful hold of tradition on men’s minds, but it shows how and why material forces will in time undermine all traditions. For an account of the rapidly waning hold of Catholicism in Germany over the minds of the Catholic trade unionists, readers are referred to the report of an enquiry recently conducted by the Catholic Trade Union Federation ("Socialist Standard” February, 1927)..

No one who reads the book can fail to be interested in the many issues which Professor Laski raises, but it is impossible even to mention here all the controversial points. It is, however, necessary to remind readers that the book necessarily contains many interpretations of events, theories and programmes which are likely to be questioned from one angle or another. It is not an authoritative statement either of Communist policy or of Marxian theory. On the first ground, the Communists question it, as we must on the second. This is, as I have said, necessarily so. Professor Laski is fair, and has no axe to grind, but no man can hope to state fully and with proper discrimination the views of an opponent. It is greatly to Professor Laski’s credit that, in addition to writing an interesting and thought-provoking book, he has so nearly fulfilled that impossible task.

Edgar Hardcastle

The "Empire" in the Tropics. (1927)

Pamphlet Review from the July 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

British Imperialism in West Africa. by Elinor Burns (64 pp. Labour Research Department, 162, Buckingham Palace Road, S.W.l. Price 6d.)

The above pamphlet constitutes No. 4 of the Colonial Series of the L.R.D. It reviews in brief the various stages by which British capitalist interests have acquired a grip of the economic resources of West Africa, including the labour power of the natives. Broadly speaking, the process is similar to that in East Africa and other tropical countries illustrated from time to time in these columns. The main difference is that it commenced at an earlier date, and has reached a higher stage of development.

In East Africa British influence had to contend from the first with the Arab slave-power. Its initial enterprises in that direction could conveniently assume the hypocritical guise of philanthropy, i.e., the suppression of the slave trade. In West Africa, however, British heroes from the time of Drake and Hawkins down to the latter end of the 18th century had indulged in the time-honoured practice of carrying off the comparatively defenceless inhabitants and selling them to the plantation-owners of the American colonies. This policy led to such a serious reduction in the population in these regions that the trading companies, which eventually sought profit there in other forms, actually had to bring back slaves liberated from America in order to provide themselves with a labour supply.

These companies extended their influence from the coast to the interior by intrigues with native chiefs (ready to sell even the land and persons of their tribesmen for whisky and trousers) until the inevitable revolts arose, which necessitated falling back upon the support of the Imperial Government. This led, as in India and elsewhere, to the companies selling out to the Government, which henceforth assumed control and responsibility for the administration of the areas concerned.

As a result of this change the native chiefs became, in practice, unofficial agents of the Crown. Those who proved refractory and independent were forcibly removed and replaced by others more amenable to "civilised” influences, who have been used to "collect taxes, recruit labour, supervise the native courts, and generally carry out British policy” (p. 12).

These political changes reacted inevitably upon the economic organisation of native society. Instead of producing foodstuffs for themselves the inhabitants had perforce to produce articles for sale, such as palm oil, cocoa, rubber, etc., in order to obtain the money wherewith to pay the taxes; and as they found that, even by these means, their income was insufficient, numbers of them had recourse to the labour market and sold their energies for wages.

Native chiefs and traders developed into small farmers, exploiting their own tribesmen. Tribal land became private property and the old communal organisation and customs fell into decay, and the population became simply a source of raw material for large-scale capitalist industry.

Being dependent upon the wholesale buying concerns, the native producers find their position growing steadily worse. They have to meet the competition of large-scale plantations in other countries, which results in a lowering of their prices, while, on the other hand, the destruction of their old mode of life increases their wants, which tend to become more "civilised.”

From this external and internal pressure there appears to be no escape short of a complete economic change the world over.

In addition to the soap and cocoa trusts, other capitalist interests have a finger in the pie of colonial development. The heavy iron industry finds room for expansion in the construction of railways, harbours, docks, etc., while behind them the financiers scoop up interest on loans for these enterprises, most of which are State owned. In fact State "Socialism” thrives to such an extent in the tropical Colonies that Mr. Ormsby-Gore (Under-Secretary for the Colonies) proposed in a recent Report that the Government itself should start plantations in order "to set an example ” to the natives in large-scale production. What effect this procedure would have on the already impoverished small-peasantry can readily be imagined. The State would conscript labour-power for its plantations as it does for its transport and other public works. The few native "large fish” would swallow up the "little fish” at a more rapid rate, and the outside trusts would gain the benefit of improved efficiency and organisation.

Eric Boden

The Moscow executions (1927)

Editorial from the July 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Communist Editor of the “Sunday Worker” (June 19th), defends the execution of 20 political prisoners by the Soviet Government as an “act of stern revolutionary justice.” My thought on reading this was to wonder why the Russians allow soft-headed Communists in this country to broadcast such sentimental poppy-cock in their name. When professional politicians like Lloyd George or MacDonald speak as if they are the humble instruments of the Almighty, dealing out even-handed justice in a wicked world, we recognise an accepted trick of an old-established trade, but the Communists should be above such things. The working-class movement has no need to defend its actions on the illogical ground that they are in accord with some everlasting standard of abstract justice, or on the ground that those who suffer from those actions have “deserved” what they get. If the working-class should ever be compelled to take human life, its only justification—and that a sufficient one—is that working-class interests necessitate that action. If one may believe some of the Communists, these 20 prisoners were executed out of revenge for the assassination of Voikoff in Warsaw. If so, that is a piece of indefensible emotionalism, for which the working-class movement has no use. If the rigid test of working-class interests is applied, it is hard to see how this action could assist the progress of Socialism. It may be answered that those in control of the Russian Government thought that it was called for in order to serve some interest of State, to enhance the prestige of Russia by a defiant gesture. Our answer to this is that as Socialists, we are not interested in the game of Statecraft and we repudiate the notion that “reasons of State” can be adequate grounds on which to base working-class policy. When the Russian Communists allow themselves to be drawn into the bogs of diplomatic intrigue, trying to play off one capitalist state against another, they may prove as cunning as their opponents (although this is doubtful—certainly, the present incident has not added to their reputation for wisdom or strength) but the pleasure gained through the satisfaction of their desire for revenge will be at the direct expense of the real interests of the working-class.

Is A Socialist Policy Applicable To America. (1927)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Correspondent’s Letter and Our Reply.

Crockett, California.

I am an interested, though at present unaffiliated sympathiser, in fact an adherent to the principles and programme of your party, and have been in the recent past aligned with small study groups both in Detroit and in New York, patterned very much along the same line as your organisation in point of principles.

The question I am about to ask may or may not be fatuous, or ambiguous, it may even have been already gone over in your columns several times in the past year. I have not been able to get copies of your paper in a long time, but now that I live adjacent to San Francisco, I can get the “Standard” at McDonald’s book store as often as it comes, hoping that my query is given an airing in an early issue.

The Kautskian position is, as I understand it, fully endorsed by the S.P. of G.B., particularly where it emphasises the prime importance above all things of political action in the form of parliamentary representation, and by using the constitutional camouflage of the bourgeois state, as a means to attain power. All schemes, such as military coups de etat, are in that case foredoomed, and in the final analysis Socialism as Marx has it, must come about only through the efforts by and for the immense majority. Otherwise, it is not Socialism. Agreed. 

Is the editor able to answer a question that only has to do with America? If so how would he deal with a political situation at present, such as it now exists in the United States, that on the surface of it, and as far as the interests of the proletarian revolutionary movement is concerned, is well-nigh hopeless? I have run across this continent time and again over a decade, and have conversed with countless numbers of workers everywhere, besides reading contemporary periodical literature, giving a more or less accurate expression to the prevailing psychology of the American people. The popular notion is growing, and by now has become well-nigh universal, that political campaigns, election promises and programmes, ballots and everything else that goes with it, is hopelessly corrupt, and the very mention of Socialists, as a trial proposition, in way of political power, elicits no response.

The power of big business and the seemingly impregnable position of finance and industrial capital has, as it were, completely cowed and rendered tame the immense majority of the people in the United States. In the face of all this, what is there to be hoped for, if we are to go by what Kautsky tells us, and assuming that American “prosperity” breaks down in a year or two and renders living almost insupportable for millions who are now employed, and are living in a fools' paradise, to hear them talk, how is that condition going to bring about a swing towards anything that resembles intelligent co-operation in the working-class?

Can the inhibitions and ingrained superstitions of an idiotically ignorant and proud people such as the average Anglo-Saxon and Celtic, native American, be overcome and give way to a change of sentiment from that of extreme egotistic individualism to that of a class-consciousness in its correct sense in anything less than another generation? Does biology, and several other sciences, that deal with man, his physical and mental make-up, give us any hopes for a possibility of any much to be hoped for, sudden change, or at least a mental condition that will even listen to Socialist propaganda ?

I am not in the habit of transcribing articles, or writing anything, and you can condense this as you see fit, and answer it as far as you are capable of doing, living as you do, so far away from these conditions as they appear to me. In short, will Kautsky’s premise fit this country. I close hoping that you will give this due consideration and I remain,

Yours in revolt,

M. Wasson

OUR REPLY.

The above letter sets out by associating us with Kautsky’s attitude, and as the latter has continually shifted his ground politically, we must decline to be identified with such an anti-Socialist as Kautsky has shown himself to be.

Kautsky has, however, offered unanswerable criticisms of Lenin’s views on democracy and dictatorship, and no doubt our Californian correspondent has these points in mind.

The main question in the above letter deals with the application of Marx’s (and therefore the S.P.G.B.’s) policy to the United States. Socialist policy naturally depends for its application upon the conditions prevailing in a country, but those who argue that conditions in any country warrant an entirely different policy to ours, generally fail to deal with the so-called-differences in conditions between this and other countries.

The widespread ignorance of class interests among workers in U.S.A. offers no permanent hindrance to our Socialist policy. That ignorance is due to certain causes, and the lack of interest in revolutionary ideas amongst the masses is a phase which is true of every country for a time.

Economic development has rapidly converted the United States from a prairie into a nation of vast companies, where the largest and latest plant and machinery is in use, each employing many thousands under one roof.

The comparatively recent industrial growth and commercial expansion of the U.S.A. offers one reason for the so-called “better conditions" of labour. This is partly responsible for the lack of interest in social change amongst the workers there. This lack of interest, however, is not simply a reflex of “better” conditions, but a result of capitalist propaganda by press, priest and schoolmaster, which is more powerfully and carefully used in American life than perhaps any other country, to mould the working millions to capitalist views. The extremely careful selection of and control over teachers in school and college to avoid any advanced political views being taught, is notorious. Then we have the intense campaigns always subsidised to naturalise the immigrant arid “educate” him into worship of American institutions. The unexampled dominion of a vast newspaper and magazine press pouring out lies to cloud the “popular” mind is an immense factor in working-class ignorance there.

The primitive and highly-organised and well-financed religious bodies of America still have a remarkably large influence in U.S.A. These agencies of propaganda employed to keep the workers submissive, are effective because temporarily the conditions in the United States have not caused deep and lasting discontent. If a collapse of conditions causes vast discontent, can anything be hoped for if the working-class are ignorant of Socialism?

Such is the question asked by our correspondent.

Discontent in itself is not sufficient. We had 6 or 7 millions out of work in America in 1921 and 1922, but they were largely seeking charity or temporary relief whilst hoping for better times. They did not revolt though the Communists there told them the factories would never re-open, and that the revolution was on the way.

The insecurity of work in a country so highly productive and so scientifically organised in production as America is a very important element in the workers' life, and the growing experience of this in recent years does play a part in the workers' education. The apparent slowness of change in ideas amongst the workers there is evidently one of our questioner’s stumbling-blocks.

If he expects vast and rapid changes amongst the majority in a few years he is likely to be disillusioned. America has profited by European decline since the war, and has captured many of their markets, especially those on the American continent, and so for a while she will be able to keep the wheels turning. Apart from that aspect however, there is the fact to be faced that conditions in so vast and so recently developed a country as the U.S.A. cannot change the individualist outlook to a Socialist one overnight.

The conditions for generations bred an optimism and an individualism amongst the migrating settlers, and only continual experience of the insecurity and suffering of capitalist development can be effective in turning them to Socialist education for enlightenment.

Our experience and general information shows that interest in Socialist ideas and desire for social change does grow in the United States. The vast literature, even of Marx and Engels (apart from the more popular) which has been sold in America is an example that all is not as black as our questioner thinks. One large factor in their backwardness is the deliberate use of the labour leader over there as well as here, to confuse and mislead the worker. From Gompers down to the Communists parading as left-wing labour leaders, these have all been well used to side-track the worker. And as recent revelations and many “raids" and trials have shown, prominent Communists over there have been used by the authorities to preach violence by minorities, and so frighten wage-workers away from even the name of Socialism and Communism.

That conditions are likely to develop anti-capitalist views amongst the workers in U.S.A. is so well-known to the capitalists there that they have spent fabulous sums in controlling almost every agency of education and opinion, including the labour leader.

The open and constant use of the wealth of the few to control affairs by so-called corruption is inevitable, especially in the U.S.A., where the relatively few large owners do not enter into politics themselves, but hire the lawyers and professors to run affairs in their interest. Politics in America are as corrupt possibly as trade union officialism there. This, however, will not prevent or influence the awakened worker once be realises that economic and political action are essential for him, and that neither political or economic action are in themselves corrupt or need ever be corrupt once the workers understand and control the economic and political organisations for themselves and in their own interest.

With the overwhelming mass of the population in America being workers and possessing the majority of the votes as they do, there is no hindrance to them controlling the State machine in America for themselves once they want to and know what to do with it. There is no other way but control of political power in U.S.A., and the stupendous economic development of that country cannot but quicken what has already commenced—the ripening of the working-class mind, and the eventual acceptance of the Socialist position.

Adolph Kohn