Italy and the Peasant Problem (1940)

From the July 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Volcano beneath the Dictators 

“Blood is thicker than water, but trade is thicker than blood.”

Herodotus, who lived 2,500 years ago, and is spoken of as the father of history, said : “Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.” Napoleon summed the matter up in the pithy statement, “History is a lie agreed upon.” In other words, we do not get the truth, even in the records, but Socialists are able by means of the law of history to unearth what the historian failed to observe or neglected to mention.

Italy has for some time been sitting on the fence, afraid to take sides for fear she might line up with the loser. This is in accord with her usual practices; “she never won a battle and never lost a war.” A prostitute amongst the nations, she cynically sells herself in what she considers to be the best market. The revolutionary period around 1848 was to some extent due to the fact that the map of Europe had been so stupidly “remodelled” after the Napoleonic wars that every boundary line was an irritation to one or more nationalities. For example, Poland was left divided, with Russia, Austria and Prussia controlling parts. Lombardy, Venice and Hungary were ruled by Austria. Most of Italy was in small principalities under corrupt scions of “noble” houses.

Mazzini and Garibaldi led movements more or less revolutionary but failed in their purpose. Piedmont under a progressive monarch attempted to unify Italy and had partial success. (Cavour, a few years later, succeeded in bringing Italy under a constitutional monarch, but the Austrian reactionary regime was not displaced.) It was the appearance of a new economic factor which eventually brought about what certain progressive forces were striving to accomplish.

The development of steam power was applied to transportation and the first results of the railways was to break down a number of petty frontiers in Europe, especially between the small German States, and Germany rapidly became the distributor for Central Europe. The commerce of Europe, no longer dependant upon British sea-borne control, was now open to competitors. Bismarck in Germany and Cavour in Italy were able to carry out their political plans for uniting their respective countries because of railway developments. G.W.W., in an article on the Outline of History, says:—

“One of the “great men” of his day, Cavour was a statesman of high order and used his talents without scruple. He is quoted as saying : “If we did for ourselves what we do for Italy we should be great scoundrels.” He stabilized finance, built railways and promoted trade, and then deliberately set out to break Austrian hold upon Italy. To this end he used Press propaganda at home and abroad, entered the Crimean War in order to have an equal seat at the “peace” conference, and then secured a French promise of assistance against Austria. France in 1859 started to keep the promise, but then withdrew when the Emperor realized that Italy was playing no second fiddle to France. Cavour’s plans were halted for a time, but he had advanced a good way towards his objective, and when Naples was captured by Garibaldi unity was almost complete. In 1861 the first King of all Italy was proclaimed and within about ten years Rome and Venice came under the Italian crown. . . .”

It was Italy who bred Machiavelli. Mussolini, like his predecessor Cavour, is an astute Italian who acts in accordance with Machiavellian principles. His appeal is to youth. While economic conditions have been rearranged for the Italian people, largely through a programme of rural electrification and low cost housing, serious financial and social problems persist. He is driven to the expedients of the ancient Caesars and tries to substitute circuses for bread. When the people yell for spaghetti he gives them Abyssinia, Spain, and the world war. So long as youth has adventure it tends to forget the poverty of its parents; the aged are weak without the backing of their sons.

The main problem of South-Eastern Europe is a peasant problem, and the principle which wins and holds the allegiance of the European peasants will triumph in the struggle now going on between the rival social creeds in this part of the world where the peasants are in a majority.

The inflation of the currency indulged in by Italy, Germany and the Danubian countries from time to time has driven a wedge of self-interest between the city workers and the farmers. This cleavage frustrated the Social Democratic Governments without exception. Inflation upsets the basis of exchange of commodities between city and country, inasmuch as it puts one over on the peasant; he has to give more for what he receives; the price of industrial wares rises at once after inflation, but agricultural products for a time remain at the same figure. Inflation, controlled or uncontrolled, has “liquidated” the farmers and peasants of many industrial nations, and the result is discontent in those areas that feel the pinch.

There are, of course, other factors. Capitalism makes agriculture a subordinate industry everywhere : high grade capital can compel low grade to yield and hand over; the fact remains the farmers and the peasants get it in the neck, and they will support with enthusiasm any policy upon which they think they can depend for deliverance. Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini are up against a peasant problem for which as yet no satisfactory solution has been found, and this has far more to do with the present conflict than most people realise.

It is well known to students that the troubles of the peasant is the foundation of anti-semitism. The impoverished tiller of the soil is driven to borrow from the moneylender, and when once in the clutches of the latter can never extricate himself. When the rate of interest is higher than the average rate of profit it is practically impossible for the borrower, if a peasant, to escape from the clutches of the usurer. Land has no value—exchange values come from the labour-power of the man on the land. When the peasant who works his farm himself becomes entangled in debt he is done for. There is no hope except in the repudiation of what is owing, and the Fascist attack on the Jew can be understood when the above is given full consideration. It is a means of obtaining the support of the peasants.

Hitler promised to break up the estates of the powerful Junkers but chose war rather than do so. Stalin tried to solve the problem by clubbing the peasants and driving them into collective farms. Mussolini reclaimed the marshes and tried to deal with the issue in a practical manner, but the results have been meagre.

In Italy and Germany, and above all in the Danubian countries and the Balkans, State policy is bent to preserve the peasants as they are and to use the powers of the government to make small-scale independent farming a stable and profitable form of economic activity. All of the post-war (1914-1918) social settlements in this region involved the process of breaking up the large estates and establishing the peasants in nominal ownership of the land. The Bolshevik upheaval began with the same process but later had to reverse it.

All attempts to settle this question have failed, and as it cannot wait it still confronts Europe, and will be a source of conflict until a solution is found.

The Catholic Church is intensely interested. The Catholic order of things bears the marks of its birth from the ruin of the Roman Empire. It inherited from Rome two great principles: the knowledge of what to imitate and the knowledge of what to avoid. So says the author of “Our Lords and Masters” : 

“It has imitated and perpetuated the political organization of the Roman Empire. For nearly two thousand years it has functioned as a slowly growing and maturing body of men, recognising a single authority and basing that authority on a commonly accepted doctrine. This, the model of the Caesars, has been the model of their latter day successors, and when Lenin, Mussolini and Hitler desired to renovate the political and social life of their countries they could find no better example.”

The Church holds the idea that the fall of Rome was hastened by “race suicide.” Divorce was frequent and casual. Roman matrons refused to bear children; Roman men refused to found families; human ingenuity, as always, discovered that it is possible to obtain sensual enjoyment without social responsibility. According to the Church, Rome fell because the system degraded women and because women returned the compliment. This, of course, is what is believed and acted upon, and the Church’s influence throughout the feudal system and at present is devoted towards preventing the return of those evils which destroyed the old civilization.

It is for this reason that the Vatican supports the idea of peasant proprietorship and stubbornly opposes the collective farm policy of the Russians. Communism is the orthodox State religion of Soviet Russia.

As will be perceived, it is the ideological reflection of a peasant economy which is anathema to the Catholic Church. The stand taken by the Vatican in Spain and elsewhere can only be understood when the above is taken into consideration.

Enough has been said to give the readers of the Socialist Standard another view of what is transpiring. Socialists could give more attention to the agricultural question because of its importance.

The development of capitalism has brought the predicament of the peasantry glaringly into the open : there is no solution under the system.

Production for profit has been forced upon the peoples of Europe and the world; the agricultural section of South-Eastern Europe cannot live any longer under this mode of production; the whole of the Danubian basin is involved in an attempt to get rid of what is strangling them.

All dictatorships have one policy and one object forced upon them by conditions—the compelling of the people to accept a lowering of the standard of living. The nations of the dictators when they have been squeezed to the limit by their rulers and capitalist circumstance, are armed and led to plunder their weaker neighbours; they are preceded by a method of propaganda, bribery and treachery that storms the strongest fortresses and jumps over all national barriers. Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Finland, France, Norway, Denmark, together with the Baltic States, have been overrun by hungry hordes let loose by a bankrupt system and led by unscrupulous and merciless men.

The forces making for Socialism are still at work in every part of the system, even in the mechanism of war : the economic problem will remain unsolved no matter what is attempted or done until the means of production are commonly owned and used for the benefit of mankind. Millions are beginning to see what the situation calls for.

We have a trying period to pass through. What of it?

Let us face it with courage. It will eventually pass : “Come what, come may, time and the hour runs through the roughest day.”

Charles Lestor

Socialism’s Invincible Ally. Ever-changing Society (1940)

From the July 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Greek philosopher Aristotle believed that chattel-slavery would exist eternally.

Such a belief was natural at the time Aristotle lived, for on all sides were slaves and slave-owners. More important still, it must be remembered that the means of wealth production were then at a low stage of development: they could provide comfort and luxury for a few people only if the masses were in a state of absolute slavery. Consequently, Aristotle could not foresee that, as a method of piling up wealth for a ruling class, chattel-slavery would at some future date become inadequate and be superseded by more efficient forms of human exploitation.

To-day, we have much more information to hand than had Aristotle. We have, for instance, access to historical data which, for obvious reasons, were beyond the ken of anyone living in Ancient Greece.

By a study of history the working class can learn many useful lessons, one of which is this : society and human relationships are constantly changing: ideas and morals are not permanent, but are subject to change as are the methods of producing the material things needed by man.

However, notwithstanding the teachings of history, one meets many people, including those with a university education, who can conceive of improvement ONLY within the present system of society. They are unable to visualise society without capital, wages, empires, trade and all the other paraphernalia of Capitalism.

Yet, sooner or later, Capitalism will give place to another form of society. Just as older forms of society—Primitive Communism, Chattel-Slavery and Feudalism—were in turn superseded, so will Capitalism itself be superseded some day. From the worker’s point of view, the sooner Capitalism gives place to Socialism the better it will be; it is for this reason that we, Socialists and members of the working class, propagate Socialism.

What Makes Change Inevitable ?

It would, however, be a serious mistake to imagine that the voice of the Socialist is the sole agent in bringing about the change. The Socialist has an ally which is, so to speak, pushing on ahead all the time in order to prepare the road and make easier his task. This ally is ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, which caused man to abandon the earlier forms of society and which finally will force him to abandon Capitalism.

When chattel-slavery and wage-slavery came into conflict during the last century in America, it was not the kindliness of human nature that caused the former to be replaced by the latter. Chattel-slavery was not ended because man revolted to see his brother degraded and suffering. In fact, most of the supporters of the Anti-Slavery Movement were blind and callous when confronted with the deplorable conditions in which wage-workers toiled and eked out their existence.

Chattel-slavery in America passed away because the manufacturing interests became the predominating interests in the country and wage-labour was more economical for factory work.

Northern capital needed workers it could employ and discard at will—in short, it needed “free” wage-labour.

The following extract taken from the “London Economist”—at that time (1853) the leading organ of British free trade Capitalism—gives point to our statement that the economic factor was decisive in shaping the opposition to chattel-slavery :

“Slaves,” this paper says, “are costly instruments of production. … A slave population hampers its owners in more ways than one. . . . The responsibility of the employer of free labour is at an end when he has paid the covenanted wages; and his advantages in dealing with the general market are exemplified in that THERE ARE MORE FORTUNES MADE BY THE EMPLOYERS OF FREE LABOUR THAN BY SLAVE OWNERS. The Astors, the Girards and the Longwofthys are the millionaires of the States, as the Rothschilds, the Lloyds and the Barings are the millionaires of the old world—not the slave owners, however wealthy, of Carolina, Cuba or Brazil.” (See Simons' “Class Struggles in America.”)

The feudal system in Europe, too, broke down and passed away, when it became a fetter on production. With the discovery and colonisation of new lands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there arose an ever-increasing demand for goods. This demand could not be satisfied by a Europe which remained for the most part feudal. The guilds imposed restrictions which were a brake on production. New methods in the producing of goods were, for example, strictly forbidden by the guilds; also a master craftsman was restricted in the number of journeymen he could employ and in the quantity he could turn out. Individuals, therefore, began to break with the guilds and, to avoid public opprobrium, set up their workshops on the outskirts of towns, in country districts or in new towns on the coasts, where the rate of production could develop apace and without hindrance. In time this rising Capitalism began to undermine the guilds, since the goods produced by Capitalist manufacture were cheaper and more plentiful than those produced within the guilds.

Soon the feudal lords, the large landowners, who usually held themselves aloof from industry and trade, found their privileged position challenged. As a class, the old feudal nobility had become superfluous; no longer did it render any service to society. “In the Middle Ages …. the peasant needed the feudal lord, who protected him from violation, relieved him of part of his judicial and administrative duties towards the community, and, above all, freed him from the oppressive burden of military service.” (Kautsky’s “Thomas More and His Utopia.”) With the growth of Capitalism all this was changed. The modern State arose, enforcing internal order. The feudal lord could no longer claim to be the protector of the peasant, nor could he save him from military service. “The army of chivalry was replaced by a paid army, recruited from peasants.” (Kautsky.)

As the child, Capitalism, grew more and more robust, it yelled more and more for the total abolition of those restrictions on trade imposed by feudalism, and which were becoming more and more irksome to the capitalists. Capitalism was in conflict with feudalism. The agents of Capitalism, the capitalist class, fought out a class struggle against the upholders of feudalism, the feudal lords. This class struggle culminated in the gaining of political power by the capitalist class, who, once enthroned with power, began reorganising society so that Capitalism could develop unrestricted.

Thus did the capitalist class gain supremacy on the wave of economic development, thus did Capitalism sweep away feudalism, when feudalism proved inadequate to satisfy new needs.

Socialism Inevitable

The arrival of the capitalist system did not arrest economic development. On the contrary. New methods in industry were introduced with greater rapidity than ever before.

It is precisely this development of Capitalism, this continuous revolutionising of the means of production, which will lead to the end of Capitalism. Socialism will not come because a few thinkers wish it, but because its establishment will become a necessity, felt by the mass of the population, the working class.

Before Capitalism had reached maturity, Socialism was an impossibility. Whenever it happened that some could see the ultimate end of society’s evolution and attempted to hasten its arrival by minority action, they were either crushed by reactionary forces or became disillusioned when confronted by the enormity of their task and by the lack of response from an immature working class. Baboeuf and his followers in France provide us with a classic example of how intellectual idealists, reaching out for a new system of society before conditions had ripened, were stamped out by the armed forces of the capitalist State. And we have all met the old agitator who has given up the struggle as useless because he regards the working class as “a dud egg.”

We, of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, do not consider our class—the working class—as a dud egg.

We do not aim at leading the worker into the promised land; we know, from experience, he cannot be led to Socialism. Socialism will never be established until the workers are willing to cooperate actively in its running, until they have realised that Capitalism is unable to satisfy man’s needs and must go.

Capitalism, as it evolves, with wars and more frequent and prolonged industrial crises, will itself make the workers turn to Socialism.

As time passes, the class struggle, at present waged so blindly by the workers, will take on a new significance. Whereas now, for the average worker, the struggle is waged in order to maintain his standard of living, to gain minor concessions in his working conditions, it will in the future become more and more a struggle against Capitalism as a whole.

The progress of Capitalism over the whole globe is going on apace. Capitalism pushes itself into every nook and corner, thus increasing the number of wage-slaves.

India, once a market for British goods, is itself an exporter of some of the self-same articles. Even China, so often looked upon by the average person as a market for foreign goods, is developing on capitalist lines and producing certain articles in excess of the demands of the home market. In a book, “Empire in the East,” edited by Joseph Barnes, Groves Clark, writing on “Changing Markets,” says:

“This modern cotton industry in China now has reached the point where it is able to supply a large part of the demand in that country for the coarser grades of cloth, and even to furnish considerable amounts of manufactured cotton goods for export . . . But the mills in China, besides having gone far towards closing the Chinese market to foreign manufactured piece goods, also are becoming serious rivals of the mills in Japan in supplying piece goods to the East Indies regions, especially to the large Chinese communities there.” (P. 140.)

The change that has occurred in India and China has either already taken place or is now taking place in many other parts of the world.

The fact is that Capitalism, as it spreads to every corner of the earth, is glutting the markets of the world with goods. Hence it happens, especially in times of economic crisis (as 1929-31), that goods, urgently needed by the workers, are destroyed because no markets for them can be found.

In addition, be it remembered, technique is continuously being improved so that machines become more and more efficient and turn out commodities in ever increasing quantities.

Unfortunately for the life of Capitalism, production always shows a tendency to expand; markets, however, cannot indefinitely be extended to keep pace with this greater and greater production. Production for sale (i.e., profit) becomes, therefore, a fetter, since goods are produced only when they can be sold at a profit.

Thus the point is fast being reached when Capitalism will in most of its industries be permanently unable to produce at full capacity. Indeed, in some industries, this point has already been reached : hence, unemployment.

What of the future, therefore ?

The tendency will be for machines and workmen to stand idle more than ever before. Those in work will be forced to struggle constantly to maintain their standard of living. Big business alone will be able to compete in the restricted and keener markets of the world; the small capitalists, like the workers, will find their position even less secure than previously.

In those days, the power of the capitalist Press will be gone. Promises of improvement will be powerless to soothe a working class already satiated with promises. The working class will become solid against the common enemy : Capitalism. With more and more readiness will workers listen to Socialist propaganda and accept the Socialist position. Socialism will become THE subject of conversation. The workers will see that as long as production for profit prevails, their insecurity and poverty will continue. The issue will become clear cut—SOCIALISM OR CAPITALISM?

And so it is that economic development which caused Chattel-Slavery and Feudalism to pass away, will lead the workers to abolish the capitalist system and its wage-slavery. Modern industry is now producing goods in such quantities that they cannot be consumed in capitalist society, although millions suffer from malnutrition and starvation and are badly clothed. Private ownership of the means of production and the consequent production of goods for profit are preventing the workers from having access to the wealth that they produce, are barring the road to the further progress of the human race. This lesson will be learned by the working class and they will gain political power to introduce Socialism—a society wherein goods will be produced, not to enrich a class consisting of relatively few persons, but by the whole of society for its own enjoyment.

Clifford Allen

War and Work (1940)

From the July 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

In one respect this war is just like the last. It has shown once more the simple truth that the maintenance of life depends on production, and that production depends on human labour. To most of the men and women who normally get their living by expending energy in mental and physical work—the miners, landworkers, railwaymen, clerks, organisers of industrial processes, etc.,—this is a truism but there have been many people who have been misled by surface appearances into believing that human society can be carried on by other less practical and more mystical notions. From Robert Owen to our own day there have been dreamers (and some otherwise level-headed men) who have been dazzled with the vision of a world already within reach in which machines would be almost self-operating and in which the human race would just toy with a few knobs and levers and have little else to do but enjoy continuous leisure. Others, including most of the orthodox economists and city editors, have depreciated production and enormously magnified the importance of trade, especially foreign trade, and with it the investment of capital abroad. At the same time they turned much of their attention to financial institutions and to problems of gold and currency. With superb inconsistency they explained the manifest poverty of large numbers of the world’s population alternately by the alleged over-production and alleged under-production of gold. Needless to say, their expert and authoritative forecasts a few years ago of the amount of gold that would be produced have been utterly falsified. The Bolshevists, showing themselves in this respect as orthodox as Montague Norman, have concentrated vast efforts on putting Russia second only to South Africa in quantity of yearly gold production; they no longer share Lenin’s early view that gold would be so useless to a properly organised society that it would probably be used for the construction of street lavatories.

Along with these groups have been those modern magicians, the followers of Major Douglas and his various predecessors during the past 150 years, who have believed that the production of wealth is no more than the simple act of writing figures in a book, the so-called “credit creation” of the bankers.

War shows more strikingly than any other event that the basic factor in the production of food (and armaments), and the carrying on of land, sea and air transport, is human labour, the expenditure of the physical and mental energies of men and women. No longer does anyone but the last-ditcher Douglasite believe that bombers and tanks and the necessities of life for the population can be produced by means of the operation of banks, Treasury officials, trade experts and so on; at most their efforts have meaning only to the extent that they promote the hard labour of field, factory, and workshop.

The Other Side of the Picture

These observations may help to clear the ground, but it would only be half-true if we did not go on to consider another aspect of the question of work and wealth. War means a vast destruction of armaments and munitions which have to be produced by workers who are consequently prevented from carrying on their peace-time work. It also means the withdrawal of millions of men and women for service in the Armed Forces and Civil Defence Forces. This is partly, but only partly, compensated by bringing into activity large numbers of men and women who in peace-time were not at work or were working at what are now regarded as non-essential activities. A factor of more importance is that the workers are now working longer hours and with greater intensity than they were in peace-time—they are expending more energy on production and have less energy and less time for leisure activities.

Yet it is probably true that as regards the strict necessities of life, most of the population are no worse off than they were before the war, and a large proportion—those who were worst fed and clothed in peace-time—are better off than they were. It is one of the curiosities of war-time that all sorts of things that “can’t be done” are done. This war has seen old-age pensions increased, as also the allowances of the dependents of men in the Forces, agricultural workers’ wages have been raised to a level their union would hardly have considered practical politics twelve months ago, at a cost estimated to be £15,000,000 a year. And at a time when the Ministry of Food can say that no matter how long the war may last there will be sufficient food “to maintain life in all its vigour.” (Daily Telegraph, March 30th, 1940.) Sir John Orr and other influential people are pressing on the Government as feasible the idea of “strengthening the home front” by improving the standard of living of the third of the population who in peace-time could not afford a diet adequate for health.

The key to the problem is that Capitalism is for most of the population always a failure. Because the purpose behind Capitalist production is profit, all kinds of activities go on which from the point of view of the non-Capitalist majority are sheer waste and inefficiency, although highly desirable to the minority who benefit from them and indispensable to Capitalist, financial and other operations. Under the stress of war the State steps in and curtails many of these activities. It cuts off luxury consumption and also takes the power to enforce drastic industrial reorganisation.

We now see The Times, which ordinarily echoes the inanities of economic text-books about Capitalism efficiently organising production and distribution in the interests of all consumers, awakening to the discovery that industry is full of waste and inefficiency when viewed from a standpoint not concerned solely with the profits of shareholders. The following words come not from our pamphlet, “Socialism,” though the fact is there pointed out, but from The Times (May 28th, 1940):-

 “One instance of wasted effort and transport is to be seen daily all over the country. Perhaps as many as six different milkmen will call each at one or two houses in a short street. There will be a similar abundance of bakers, greengrocers, coalmen, and other tradesmen, and some will be consuming valuable petrol. A pooling of effort seems to be an urgent need here.”

But do not be misled into thinking that the enforcement of economy of production means a change of heart on the part of The Times and those whose views it reflects. Even if, after the war, they decide to retain some of the war-time practices, they will still have no appreciation of the possibility of a system of society in which production is carried on solely for the use and enjoyment of the whole population without privilege or distinction. Mr. Richard Coppock, General Secretary of the National Federation of Building Trades Operatives, who is now a Director of Supply at the Ministry of Labour, certainly did give expression to a revolutionary view when he suggested at the conference of the Federation that “it might be a wise thing, instead of giving people wages and profits, to see that they were fed, housed and clothed” (Daily Herald, June 8th, 1940), but he showed his appreciation of reality when he made it clear that he was not speaking for the Government but “in his personal capacity.” War may show up the deficiencies of industrial and social organisation, but only understanding on the part of the majority of the population will ever make it possible to translate that realisation into constructive work for a new social order.

Edgar Hardcastle

A quotation from Buckle (1940)

From the July 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

” . . . the two principles underlying religion are ignorance and danger, ignorance keeping man unacquainted with natural causes, and danger making them recur to supernatural ones. Or, to express the same proposition in other words, the feeling of veneration, which under one of its aspects takes the form of superstition, is a product of wonder and fear, and it is obvious that wonder is connected with ignorance, and that fear is connected with danger. Hence it is, that whatever in any country increases the total amount of amazement, or whatever in any country increases the total amount of peril, has a direct tendency to increase the total amount of superstition, and therefore to strengthen the hands of the priesthood.” (“History of Civilisation in England,” Vol. 3, p. 32. World’s Classics Edition.)

The Civil Service in Imperial Rome (1940)

From the July 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

In these days bureaucracy comes in for much denunciation, and the civil servant is held up as the example of how not to run an efficient and speedy service. All the criticism, however, is made on the assumption, even when it is not fully realised, that the Civil Service is a more or less unnecessary body, an encumbrance that could be drastically lightened. The following article on the Civil Service in Imperial Rome will put the Civil Service and its critics into proper perspective, for it shows that no Empire can be administered without an elaborate organisation of administrative departments, and that the problems and the methods of handling them are much the same now as they were 2,000 years ago under the Roman Empire, not forgetting, of course, that class and sectional interests played their part then, as now.

The Civil Service has a very long history. It came into existence, in a real sense, about two thousand years ago at the birth of the Roman Empire, and was in truth the nervous system of the mightiest empire the world has ever known, In fact it was the development of the Civil Service that saved Roman society from the chaos into which it was slipping fast when Augustus came to power.

Towards the end of republican times, in the last century before the Christian era, the population of the Roman world was split up into various economic groups or classes, the following three of which only concern us here: The old Patrician land-holding families controlled and comprised the Senate, the few administrative officials and the foreign governors. The Equestrian class (or Knights) were traders, money-lenders and speculators. They were represented on the Roman juries and were seriously challenging the political rule of the Patricians. It was the conflicting interests of these two groups that lay behind the civil strife of Pompey and Caesar. The third group was composed of freed men who had purchased, or been granted, their freedom from slavery. They were chiefly officials who took part in the management of private estates and did clerical work of one kind or another. As the soldier and the trader carried Roman conquest and Roman influence over ever-widening areas the power and the influences of the equestrian class grew enormously and added considerably to the difficulties facing the administration. Rome was like a small company suddenly called upon to transact the business of a huge trust but with the same small office and staff. The administration was cracking under the strain. Not only had the Roman world increased in size, but it was further complicated by the coming together of people of different ways and tongue under its sway.

Under the Republic the administration consisted of the Senate and a few officials. This was adequate for a small city state and was the political form that prevailed in the antique city states.

As Rome added conquest to conquest and spread over Italy, and finally over a great part of the ancient world, administrative difficulties became more and more pressing until the system finally broke down. No general system of provincial administration had been introduced, nor had proper provision been made for the collection or assessment of taxes. Taxation, in fact, was a very haphazard affair. Roman citizens, both at home and abroad, were exempt, and the people who did pay the taxes had neither a voice in the assessment of them nor in the use to which the taxes were put. Groups of financiers paid a lump sum for the right to collect the taxes for a period—usually five years.—and then by devious means wrung fortunes out of the unfortunate victims of their greed. Tax-farming was a lucrative form of speculation and various methods were used to extort large sums during the period of the contract. It was not the state treasury that benefited to any great extent but the private fortunes of a small class of speculators (publicani). The miseries of the provincials were increased by another influence allied to taxation. Many provincial municipalities found themselves unable to meet the extortionate demands of the tax-farmers and had to resort to borrowing. They borrowed heavily from money-lenders (negotiatores), who also belonged to the equestrian class, and had to pay high rates of interest. There was no law regulating the rate of interest outside of Italy, and the rate was sometimes as high as 48 per cent.

Matters were made considerably worse by the civil war of Pompey and Caesar as the cost of the campaign fell upon the provincials.

The Senate found it difficult to curb the operations of the financiers, particularly as some members of the Senate either had money invested with them or were deeply in their debt. They were powerful, their operations ramified in every direction to the farthest limits of Roman power, and the state was often compelled to seek their aid when in financial difficulties. Consequently the provincial governors, when not in their pay, were forced to look helplessly on at their extortionate methods without the power to curb them.

Such was the position when Caesar crossed the Rubicon and marched on Rome.

With the coming of the Empire a fundamental change commenced, both in the method of levying and of collecting taxes. Taxation was the first and most pressing problem tackled, and for long everything was subordinate to its solution. Things were put upon an orderly footing so that each knew exactly how much he would have to pay in taxes and also for what purpose the money would be used. Officials were appointed and paid out of the state treasury to make assessments on an understood basis, to see to the collection of the taxes and to keep records. The officials were answerable only to the Emperor and depended upon him for appointment and advancement. A census was taken covering the whole imperial Roman world and territorial divisions were made, and each put in the care of a superior official who had a staff of assistants. Each superior official was responsible for the finances of his area and made reports and transferred money or goods to a central office and treasury at Rome. 

The system only came into operation gradually, piecemeal, and was spread over a long period of time. Caesar commenced the business but he had not got far when he was killed and the real work of organising the financial system devolved upon Augustus. Before the latter died the main part of the work was done and his successors only carried further the system of which he had laid down the complete foundations.

Some idea of the problem confronting Caesar and Augustus may be gathered from the fact that the population of the Roman Empire in the time of Augustus has been estimated to have reached about eighty millions, scattered over an area of thousands of square miles. One favourable condition, however, existed to a degree not reached anywhere in modern times. No city has ever been so truly the centre of an Empire as was Rome. 

As one historian puts it: —

“There were thousands of agents for the great Roman corporations scattered throughout the Empire. Rome was the money centre of the world, and the great stock companies organised to lend money, construct public works, collect taxes, and engage in the shipping trade had their central offices in the capital whence they sent out their representa-times to all parts of the world.”—(Abbott.)

From Rome roads radiated over mountains and across deserts to the most distant parts of the Empire.

When Augustus had succeeded in taking the place left vacant by the death of Caesar, and had firmly established himself, he put an end to the civil wars that had for so long racked the Roman world and in which he and his supporters had played a considerable part. For two hundred years after his accession there was internal peace. It was during this time that the civil service was built up and solidly established. Augustus was faced at the outset with two problems. His treasury was practically empty and he had to find a reliable and regular method of filling it. His first business was to bring order into the assessment of taxes and then to adopt dependable means to collect them.

As a preliminary he appears to have had a survey of the empire made. A great deal of geographical information was collected and tabulated by Agrippa, and a census of the population was taken by special imperial officials.

The principal objects of the census were: (1) To find the number of the population. (2) Sort the population out into age classes for the easier levying of certain taxes. (3) To have an exact registration of property holding. (4) To provide an exact means for valuation.

A specification for measurement was decided upon and engraved on copper. The original was deposited in Rome and a copy in the principal city of each province. This arrangement provided a basis for the land-tax (the chief provincial tax) and relieved the provinces of the extortion practised by the tax-farmers. Augustus also transferred some of the burden from the provinces to Rome by introducing a tax of 5 per cent. on inheritance and legacies, which only affected Roman citizens. There were other indirect taxes, the object of which was to put Italy on a level with the provinces and make the Italians bear their fair share of the burden of taxation. As taxing Roman citizens directly was too revolutionary a method to be successful at the time, Augustus achieved the same result in the end by introducing indirect taxes.

The main object of taxation was to provide for the army, the expenses of provincial government, salaries of officials, the corn supply and the police of Rome, the maintenance of religion, the building of temples and other public works, the public roads and aqueducts.

In the year 6 A.D. Augustus appointed a commission of three to enquire into and cut down expenditure, as a further part of the organising of finance.

The means adopted for collecting the taxes brought into existence the Civil Service.

The estates owned by the Emperor himself were considerable, and the method used for handling revenue on them was the original method adopted for the empire, modified rapidly and considerably as time passed. The revenues of the imperial estates were handled by the Emperor himself, assisted by freedmen and slaves. Hence at first the Emperor employed freedmen in the principal positions as officials of the empire. On many grounds they proved both unreliable and dangerous in positions that gave them considerable power.

Augustus had, therefore, to look round for more suitable assistants, and in this predicament found at hand a class (the equestrians) suited in almost every way for providing, in the first place, the financial officers he needed. He then set about making the imperial service attractive to this class and also placing them in a position of dependence upon him. The chief military and administrative functions were at the time performed by members of the Senate.

There was one very important reason that induced Augustus to turn to the equestrians. The latter were rivals of the Patricians, who controlled the Senate, and by using them he was opening a road to satisfy their ambitions safely, and at the same time he was attracting to his side a very useful ally in the struggle he was waging against the conservative Senate. There was also the important fact that as private speculators and money-lenders the equestrians had already acquired experience in the handling of finance.

Originally the equestrian order consisted of the state cavalry of the republic, serving on horses provided by the state. Later it covered also those who, although not actually serving, were qualified so to do. In the days of the empire a man who had the necessary property and other qualifications became a member of the order by the act of the Emperor conferring upon him the public horse—knighting him. The giving and the taking away of this honour, however, was entirely within the discretion of the Emperor. The equestrian class comprised the great bulk of the financiers of Rome.

As already noted, the process of supplanting senatorial officers and methods by imperial officials was a gradual one, spread over a long period of time. The first step in this direction was the appointment of imperial procurators to control the publicani—the financiers, who had purchased the power to collect taxes. The next step was the appointment of imperial officials who engaged to collect the taxes for a fixed payment. Finally, these officials (conductors) were replaced by imperial procurators, who raised the money through their immediate subordinates. By 200 A.D. direct collection of taxes had been introduced everywhere and the tax-farmer had entirely disappeared.

Procurators were in nearly all cases knights. It was only in exceptional cases that freedmen occupied the position. Hadrian, in the second century A.D., further revolutionised the Civil Service by excluding freedmen from all but the subordinate posts. After his day the knights monopolised all the higher posts in the Civil Service.

When the Civil Service was finally firmly established it opened up a prosperous career to men of the knightly order, and the way was open to them to rise to the highest positions in the state in the Emperor’s service. Military service, however, was a necessary preliminary to civil employment, and the time spent there and in the various grades depended largely on the favour of the Emperor, who could push a candidate through rapidly or slowly, as he deemed fit. In some cases promising candidates were allowed to skip some of the intermediate stages in their progress to the highly-paid and influential positions.

With the methodical organisation of the administration and the revenues multitudes of posts were open to those attracted to the service. There were procurators for land, mines, money for the Mint, provincial finance; ports for corn supply, streets; Public buildings and the like; water in connection with aqueducts, libraries, public games, and so forth.

The service reached its highest development in the second century, A.D., and comprised a huge body of officials covering every sphere of the administration. The salaries of these officials ran up to the equivalent of about £3,000 a year for the highest posts.

There were three principal sections in the service, and within these, again, different grades. The highest section included the Prefects. They occupied positions somewhat analagous to the present First Sea Lord, Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Governors-General of Canada, South Africa, Australia, etc. The next section consisted of heads of various departments, roughly similar to our present Secretaries of State. , The lowest section (the procurators) comprised the various officers of different degrees of importance, whose duty it was to see to the collection of the taxes, etc.

The principal officers in the first section in order of importance were : —

(1) The Commander of the Praetorian Guard, the troops on which the Emperor depended to keep secure his power over Rome and Italy.

(2) The Governor of Egypt.

(3) The official charged with the duty of keeping Rome supplied with food.

(4) The Chief of Police.

(5) The Admiral of the Fleets.

The Commander of the Praetorian Guard presided over the Imperial Council when the Emperor was away, controlled all the troops stationed in Italy as well as the imperial slaves, and had considerable civil and criminal jurisdiction.

The importance of Egypt as an imperial province gave the officer who controlled it the high position he occupied in the Roman administration. Egypt occupied a position in relation to Rome roughly similar to that occupied by India in relation to this country. It was distant, rich in products, and its governor was armed with considerable power, although directly responsible to the Emperor.

The official in charge of the food supply had assistants in Rome and agents in the provinces. He also had the duty of supervising the bakers and the captains of merchant vessels. He was particularly responsible for securing the public corn supply.

The Chief of Police was in charge of all police duties, including the watchmen of the city.

The Admiral of the Fleets was directly in charge of the two principal fleets and also controlled all the naval forces in time of war.

The second section of the administration comprised the heads of departments, graded in the following order : —

(1) The Imperial Chancellor of the Exchequer, who controlled the treasury department.

(2) The Imperial Secretary, who made the Appointments to all except the highest official posts, received and replied to all despatches, and dealt with all the public correspondence of the Emperor.

(3)The official who received and dealt with the private petitions addressed to the Emperor.

(4)The official who assisted the Emperor in his juridical functions, providing him with information and preparing the cases for his examination.

(5)The official who prepared and despatched all short resolutions of the Emperor.

The third section included all those charged with the collection of the taxes, the supervision of lands, mines, coinage, streets, public buildings, water supply, public games, education, and many other things. The highest of these officials sometimes had the governorship of minor provinces.

The service described above was so organised that there was a regular system of promotion from the lowest to the highest posts. There were numerous subordinate officials attached to each post and the various departments had staffs of clerks and assistants.

The department of finance was the earliest organised, and appears, also, to have been the most completely organised ultimately. The official in charge of the administration of justice was generally a trained lawyer and was assisted by a council of expert advisers.

Such was the Imperial Civil Service. Centred in Rome, and spreading like a web over the whole empire, it enabled the huge conglomeration of different nationalities to be welded into a single piece and kept closely knit together for decades. Never before had there been such a bureaucratic organisation, and its extent and efficiency has been the admiration and the model of later administrators.

Gilmac.

This Month's Quotation: Richard Rumbold (1940)

The Front Page quote from the July 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

  “I never could believe that providence had sent a few men into the world, ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden.” 

Richard Rumbold. (When on the scaffold 1685)

The "Socialist Standard" in War-Time (1940)

Editorial from the July 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

The war has at last dealt our propaganda a hard blow. The recent drastic additions to the regulations on printing and publishing have forced us to the conclusion that it is impossible, in present circumstances, to explain our case adequately as we would wish. As we are not prepared to put our views forward in such an emasculated form that it would be bound to give rise to misunderstandings and a misconception of our attitude, we have decided to abandon the publication of propagandist matter, in the customary meaning of the term “propagandist."

While we deeply regret having to adopt this course, we cannot see any workable alternative to it.

We prefer to explain our position frankly, and hope our readers will understand and continue to support us.

Whatever the future may have in store for us we stand steadfastly by the pledge made in August, 1914, and again in September, 1939, that the principles and policy that have guided us throughout the whole of our history remain our unaltered attitude, and will continue to guide us and determine our actions until the war clouds pass away.

The Importance of Marxism—(continued) (1940)

From the July 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

Continued from the June 1940 issue.

Thomas Hodgskin was joint honorary secretary of the London Mechanics’ Institute. According to Marx, his writings are outstanding in the realm of economic science. In his work,. “The Natural and Artificial Rights of Property Contrasted,” Hodgskin says: —

  “At present, all the wealth of society goes first into the possession of the capitalist, and even most of the land has been purchased by him; he pays the landowner his rent, the labourer his wages, the tax and tithe gatherer their claims, and keeps a large, indeed the largest, and a continually augmenting share of the annual produce of labour for himself. The capitalist may now be said to be the first owner of all the wealth of the community. . . . The capitalist was originally a labourer, or the descendant of a villein, and he obtained profit on what he was able to save from the produce of his own labour, after he had wrested his liberty from his masters, because he was then able to make them respect his right to use the produce of his own industry. But what he then received, and now receives, under the name of profit, is a portion of the wealth annually created by labour. In fact, the capitalist has obtained the whole of the landlord’s power, and his right to have profit is a right to receive a portion of the produce of the landlord’s slaves.” (PP. 98-99, Steil Edition, published in 1832.)

In another work entitled “Labour Defended Against the Claims of Capital” Hodgskin writes:

   “The capitalists and labourers form the great majority of the nation, so that there is no third power to intervene betwixt them. They must and will decide the dispute of themselves. . . .  I am certain, however, that till the triumph of labour be complete, till productive industry alone be opulent and till idleness alone be poor, till the admirable maxim that he who sows shall reap be solidly established, till the right of property shall be founded on principles of justice and not those of slavery, till man shall be held more in honour than the clod he treads on or the machine he guides—there cannot and there ought not to be either peace on earth or good-will amongst men.” (P. 105, Labour Publishing Co. Ed.)

Like Thompson, however, Hodgskin advocates the establishment of communist colonies with “just exchanges.”

J. F. Bray (1805-1895) is the author of “Labour's Wrongs and Labour’s Remedy” (1839). In this work he uses vitriolic language against what he contends to be the forcible and unjust robbery of the working class. In the opening chapter he writes:

   “Throughout the whole universe, from the most stupendous planet to the individual atom, changes are perpetual—there is nothing at rest— nothing stationary, to affirm therefore that governmental institutions require no reformation—that social systems need no alteration—is just as absurd as to say that the man shall wear the swaddling clothes that befitted his infancy and be pleased in maturity with the rattle which charmed his childhood. . . . What are the working classes of every nation but beasts of burden without hearts and without souls whose doom it is to labour and to die? If they complain of tyranny and dare to resist they are slaughtered like wild beasts. The very marrow of their bones and the life blood of their children is drunk up with incessant toil.” (London School of Economics Ed.)

Bray repudiates any attempt to solve the workers’ problems by reforming Capitalism. His comments in this connection would be very well directed to the Labour Party of to-day.

   "Slavery in nature, if not in name, has ever been, is now, and ever will be, the portion of the working classes in every country where inequality of property exists in connection with the gradation of classes (p. 21) . . . . from this it will follow that the present state of things cannot be remedied unless we change at once our whole social system, for alter our forms of government as we will, no such change can affect the system and no such change can prevent inequality of possessions and the division of society into employers and employed—and therefore as a necessary consequence no such change can remove the evils which this system and this division of society engender." (P. 37.)

The following statements by Bray are humorous as well as fiery:

   “In all civilised communities, as they are called, society is thus divided into idlers and producers, into those who obtain double allowance for doing nothing and those who receive only half-allowance for doing double work." (P. 23.)
   “No other than the present social system could by any possibility create and perpetuate the gross injustice which is now inflicted upon the great body of exchangers—the working class. They form, like their parent earth, a common pasture-ground, on which all crawling and creeping things may feed and fatten." (P. 88.)

Finally, have we not often been confronted with the objection that there will he no incentive to invent things under Socialism? We shall let Bray reply to this point:

    “The inventor will ever receive, in addition to his just pecuniary reward, that which genius only can obtain from us—the tribute of our admiration.” (P. 45.)

Karl Rodbertus (1805-1875) is in many respects a spiritual ancestor of the Nazi “theoreticians," who to-day, prattle so much about “True German Socialism." (Wahrer Sozialismus.) Like the English Utopians, Rodbertus deduced his “Socialism" from the implications of the Ricardian theory of value, but he differed with them in this respect : In his work “Zur Erkenntniss unserer Staatswirtschaftlichen Zustande,” 1842 (On the Explanation of our Economic Position), he maintained that the collective ownership of the means of life was something to be established in five hundred years to come. In the meanwhile, he contended, rent, interest and profit (Rodbertus called all three “Rente”) would still have to exist, but the Prussian State would have to take over the means of life and distribute the products of labour equally among the three classes of the German community. That is to say that for having laboured twelve hours the worker would receive under Rodbertus’s scheme a certificate entitling him to the product of four hours' work, the Junkers and Capitalists receiving the other two thirds. In his “Zweiter Brief an Von Kirchmann" (1850-51, published in English by Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., 1898, under the title of “Overproduction and Crises"), Rodbertus writes:

    “. . . . Present-day society may indeed be well compared to a band of travellers in the desert. Suffering with thirst they find a spring which would suffice to refresh and strengthen them all, but a small number constitute themselves masters of the spring; they grudge giving the majority more than a few drops to quench their thirst; they themselves take long draughts, but the stream flows faster than they are able to drink, and so from satiety and want of good-will they let half of the gushing stream waste itself in the sand.” (PP. 57-58.)

Rodbertus falsely laid claim to be the founder of Scientific Socialism. Engels, however, has aptly categorised him as the “veritable founder of Prussian State Socialism.” In his preface to the second volume of “Capital” Engels says amongst other things:

   “Marx began his economic studies in Paris, in 1843, starting with the prominent Englishmen and Frenchmen. Of German economists he knew only Rau and List, and he did not want any more of them. Neither Marx nor I heard a word of Rodbertus' existence, until we had to criticise in the ‘Neue Rheinische Zeitung,' 1848, the speeches he made as the representative of Berlin and as Minister of Commerce. . . .  On the other hand, Marx showed that he knew even then, without the help of Rodbertus, whence came the 'surplus value of the capitalists,’ and he showed furthermore how it was produced, as may be seen in his ‘Poverty of Philosophy,' 1847, and in his lectures on wage-labour and capital, delivered in Brussels in 1847.” (P. 14, Kerr Ed.)

On page 24 of the same preface Engels continues :

   “Marx stands in the same relation to his predecessors in the theory of surplus-value that Lavoisier maintains to Priestley and Scheele The existence of those parts of the value of products, which we now call surplus-value, had been ascertained long before Marx. It had also been stated with more or less precision that it consisted of that part of the labourer's product for which its appropriator does not give any equivalent. But there the economists halted. Some of them, for instance the classical bourgeois economists investigated, perhaps, the proportion in which the product of labour was divided among the labourer and the owner of the means of production. Others, the Socialists, declared that this division was unjust and looked for utopian means of abolishing this injustice. They remained limited by the economic categories which they found at hand.
    “Now Marx appeared. And he took an entirely different view from all his predecessors. What they had regarded as a solution, he considered a problem. He saw that he had to deal neither with dephlogisticized air, nor with fire-air, but with oxygen. He understood that it was not simply a matter of stating an economic fact, or of pointing out the conflict of this fact with 'eternal justice and true morals,' but of explaining a fact which was destined to revolutionise the entire political economy, and which offered a key for the understanding of the entire capitalist production, provided you knew how to use it."

Marx's “Capital”

In our survey we have ranged over the entire field of political economy prior to Marx. Let us now turn our attention exclusively to the economic writings of Marx himself. We have already indicated (see May Socialist Standard) that the central theme of all political economy is the theory of value. This theory is intended by Marx not merely to solve the riddle of the determinant of prices, but also to reveal the economic law of motion of modern society. Apart from his earlier writings on economics Marx's main works are “Capital," volumes I, II and III, and “Theories of Surplus Value" (three volumes). Only the first volume of "Capital" was published during Marx's lifetime. Volumes II and III were issued by Engels in 1885 and 1894. “Theories of Surplus Value" (Theorien über den Mehrwert—not yet translated into English) were issued by Karl Kautsky, Engels' literary executor. The works published after Marx's death were compiled from his remaining fragmentary manuscripts, and consequently are not so rounded-off as the first volume. Notwithstanding this they remain to this day the most exhaustive scientific analysis of Capitalism that has yet been published.

Solomon Goldstein

(To be continued.)

Stupidus and Sapiens (1940)

From the July 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Reprinted from the Western Clarion, Official Organ of the Socialist Party of Canada, July-August; 1925.)

The vista opened out by the patient research of the archaeologist, the ethnologist, and the biologist in the attempt to unravel the unwritten history of man is one in which the most exuberant fancy can revel endlessly. Gradually there has been unfolded to us picture after picture until we see, far in the past, beyond even the earliest tradition, man first emerging from the forest gloom of primeval days. Low of brow, long of arm, short legged, huge muscled, grim of aspect, the direct forbear of the human race, yet lacking all vestige of aught we are accustomed to associate with humanity. Dwelling as the beasts of the forest, wandering through the day in search of food, grubbing for roots, climbing for fruits or nuts, crouching at night in a cave or on the limb of a tree; mating as the beast. A beast in all things, naked and unashamed. Where do we find in him any of that human nature we speak of so glibly? Where any conception of good, or evil, of decency, of morality, of faith, hope and charity? Where the soul that has been the source of so much anxiety to his posterity? Where the habits and customs, where the laws, human and “ divine”?

As says our Haji:

“What reck'd he, say, of Good or Ill,
Who in the hill hole made his lair;
The blood-fed rav’ning beast of prey,
Wilder than wildest wolf or bear?
“How long in man's pre-Adamite days
To feed and swill, to sleep and breed,
Where the Brute-biped's only life,
A perfect life sans code or creed.”

Yet, this is man, blood of our blood, bone of our bone. Our relationship to him is undeniable, and its closeness a mere matter of a few hundred thousand years. A long time? Not it! A mere turn of the glass compared to the ages between that ancestor of ours and his far-away forbear, the slimy, formless amoeba.

That man, urged onward by the same mute irresistible forces that have brought him to the threshold of manhood, passes over that threshold, and, generation by generation, approaches us of to-day, just as we are pressed onward to the morrow we know not. At the stern mandate of necessity he adapts himself to new conditions, devises new means of gaining his livelihood, creates tools and weapons, and ever improves upon them.

“Yet, as long ages rolled he learned
From beaver, ape and ant to build
Shelter for sire and dam and brood,
From blast, and blaze that hurt and killed.”

Age by age we can trace the march of our fathers towards us, ever, as they come, proving painfully and slowly by the accumulated experience of past generations; growing in knowledge, growing greater in brain and less brutish in body. Ever impelled by the stern necessity of obtaining a better hold upon the means of life. Improving their dwellings, their boats, their clothing, their tools and weapons. Discarding the rough stone weapon for the polished, that for the flint, thence to copper, to bronze, to iron. 

Free, wandering, warring, hunting, lawless, propertyless, “ignorant” savages. Living thus for nigh three hundred thousand years before the first dawn of barbarism even. Then, finding a new source of food supply in the cultivation of the soil, swinging open the gates of Eden and passing out on the way that led to labour and to slavery, to progress and to civilisation.

That ancient forbear of ours, the child of the man-ape, the scientists call “homo-stupidus”— stupid man. Us they call “homo-sapiens”—wise man. Oh, fond conceit! Wise man! We who revere the antiquity of a civilisation barely ten thousand years old, and that with lapses. Who invest with a halo of heaven-born sanctity a mushroom system of property of little better than a century’s growth. Who bow before the altars of “eternal” deities discovered but yesterday. Who crystalise our miserable modern characteristics as “human nature”—as it was in the beginning and always shall be. Who elevate to the ludicrous dignity of divine law an upstart moral code coeval with shopkeeping. Who conceitedly plume ourselves upon the possession of a higher ethical sense than our rude forbears, and daily and habitually stoop to practises which the most untutored savage would abhor. Who lie, and cheat, and thieve, and prey upon one another. Who rob, ravish and oppress the weak and cringe before the strong; who pander to lust and prostitute for a pittance; who traffic, traffic, traffic in all things— in manly “honour,” in womanly "virtue,” in childish defencelessness, in the flesh and blood of kith and kin, in the holiest of holies or in the abomination of abominations; who crown our achievements by pouring over the festering heap of our iniquities the leprous, foetid slime of hypocrisy.

Wise man! Wonderful creature! Lord of creation! Hub of the universe! For whose uses all things, the quick and the dead, were especially created; the stars and the planets, the sun by day and the moon by night to light him; the earth, the seasons, the wind, the rain, the waters, the lightning, the metals, the mountains, the plains, the valleys, the forests, the fruits, the beasts, the birds, the fishes, the fleas and the flies—and corned beef and cabbage.

D. G. McKenzie, S.P.C.

Terms and Terminological Inexactitudes (1940)

From the July 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

All of the opponents of the S.P.G.B. have at some time or other twitted us with being hidebound to terms. What we insist—as we invariably do—that Capitalism and Socialism are different and distinct systems of society, both of which have predominant features that can be defined and described, we are told that because certain feudal remnants remain in Capitalism or because the capitalist state imposes restrictions on the freedom of action of the capitalist, therefore complete definition is impossible, and all definition should be abandoned. Where such looseness of thought has led can be seen in the depressing spectacle of social reformers who year after year hopefully propose new modifications of Capitalism believing that it will some day cease to be itself and become its opposite. They can only cherish such vain hope because they do not know how to recognise what are the basic, unchanging, features of the Capitalist system of society.

There are others whose inaccurate use of terms is due to indifference rather than ignorance; they change their terms to suit their policy. Thus, during the past few years, as policy has changed the same persons have been able to describe Russia as Socialist and as Capitalist (the Express newspaper is a case in point); others have looked round Europe and have been able to discern democracy in this or that country where earlier and later they could see only dictatorship. Hitler and Mussolini have been much to the fore in this verbal juggling. Both have claimed at times to be upholders of revolution and at others to be guardians of tradition. Both have pretended in some places and at some times that they stand for Socialism and working-class interests against Capitalism and the "pluto-democracies." Hitler, after years of hostility to Bolshevism, chose last year to discover close affinities between the Nazi and Bolshevist systems. Mussolini, likewise, while building warships for the Russians, declared that Fascism is a bulwark against Bolshevist encroachments on Christian civilisation. On the other hand, he has at times denounced Bolshevism, not for being anti-Capitalist, but for being "State super-Capitalism carried to its most ferocious expression" (The Times, November 2, 1936). All of which brings us to a point which needs no labouring in the utter confusion of thought which clouds political discussion at the present time, that there can be no progress towards the goal of a better social system without a clear perception of the nature and laws of the system now in being.

The S.P.G.B.'s insistence on the value of definition of terms and clarity of thought has never been more necessary than it is at the present critical juncture.