The Science of Revolution. (1927)

Charlie Chaplin and Max Eastman in Hollywood 1919. 

Book Review from the June 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

A crimson-covered volume of some two hundred and odd pages has come to hand possessing the above ambitious title. The author, Max Eastman, poses as something of a psychologist of the analytical type, having apparently imbibed Freud in large doses. Thus fortified, he trains his critical guns upon what he regards as the tottering fabric of the Marxian philosophy, or as he terms it, “dialectic materialism” ; which procedure, he would have us believe, is animated by nothing more than a friendly desire to rid Marxism of a paralysing encumbrance, and to convert it, at last, into a real practical science.

The effect is somewhat bewildering, to say the least of it, and the present scribe, afflicted with a mere working-class education, candidly confesses his inability to make any practical head or tail of the involved argumentation in which Mr. Eastman indulges. In his first chapter on “The Function of Thinking,” he drills into the reader the idea that “Thought is purposive,” yet at the end of the book the said reader is left guessing as to just what purpose the author considers himself to have served.

There is not a single criticism of Marx that is new in the whole volume, and nothing is added, even by way of suggestion or example, to our knowledge of the social revolution. All that the author attempts is to shake the confidence of the Marxist in the reality and objective basis of his conclusions. Economic knowledge is derided and belittled, and a simple faith in our own desires and will is offered as a substitute. All this, of course, the author would have us lay at the door of psychology.

According to Mr. Eastman, Marx’s conception of history as a process based upon economic development, was merely a “rationalisation” of his desire for a revolution. We are asked to believe that in the “ideological” and “metaphysical” pages of “Capital,” Marx satisfied the mystic yearnings of his soul by philosophical communion with an “Economic God” of his own invention.

The present writer is not, of course, in a position to divulge what subtle “complex” dominates Mr. Eastman’s mind, but it appears to be one which leads him, for some obscure reason, into hostility against any form of abstract thought as applied to history and economics. He would throw overboard both metaphysics and dialectics and confine himself to the common-sense methods of practical investigation. Yet in the realm of biology he accepts Darwin and in psychology he accepts Freud.

He appears to be unable to see that both of these investigators are compelled to use the dialectical method whenever they generalise their conclusions, and leave for the nonce the realm of particular facts.

Darwin was forced to connect the evolution of organisms with changes in the earth’s crust. Are we therefore entitled to suggest that he was merely “rationalising” a subconscious hostility to the Book of Genesis? Marx, we are told, does not explain the practical variations in prices, etc., by his theory of value. Neither did Darwin attempt to explain the variations which occur in every succeeding generation. He looked for the law of survival and found it—horror of horrors, Mr. Eastman—in the material conditions of existence which alone could determine what were “favourable” variations, regardless of the will and desire of unfavourable ones.

In the sphere of psychological theory, Freud elaborates the conception of a conflict between the conscious and the unconscious mental processes. This he attributes to the existence of a censorship which represses the thoughts and feelings incompatible with civilised behaviour. Obviously, as Freud himself admits, this censorship is nothing but the reflection in the individual mind of the social conventions necessarily arising from a given stage of economic development. The professed object of psychoanalysts is to resolve the conflict, i.e., to bring the buried “wish” into harmony with reality, and what is this, Mr. Eastman, but the essence of dialectics?

It matters not to what realm of investigation we turn, the same law holds good, that a thing is and moves, and has its being only in relation to that which is not itself. So-called realists like our author may wriggle this way and that, but the only practical way of escape from the barren waste of metaphysics is the dialectical materialism which they affect to despise.

This is obvious whenever a scientist leaves his own realm and pronounces as with pontifical authority upon some subject of general interest of which his knowledge may easily be less than that of the average man. Men like Crookes and Lodge, for example, exhibit all the vices of the metaphysician when dealing with the subject of spiritism, while the number of Anti-Socialist professors has not been counted.

Marx’s “metaphysics” were attacked and the attacks answered by him in his own preface to “Capital” long before Mr. Eastman was heard of. Economic forces being social in character, cannot be dealt with in the same way as chemical compounds. Acids and microscopes are useless when we want to analyse a commodity.

Only the force of abstraction can help us. Abandon that force, and a science of economics becomes impossible, and we are left a prey to every Utopian fantasy liable to be misled by any will-o’-the-wisp “reform,” whether proposed by the professional politician or the crack-brained “rebel.”

Mr. Eastman endeavours to maintain that an idea cannot at one and the same time be a “reflex” of conditions, expressing some class interest, and also have objective validity. He holds that the Marxian “ideology” is thus no more scientific than the “ideologies” of the capitalist class, which it attempts to replace. In other words, Marx only saw what he wanted to see and described the result as “science !” This line of argument leads us to the conclusion that a truth ceases to be such if we want to make use of it. Thus, mechanics are no more scientific than magicians, since they simply express in their theories a “rationalised” form of their desire to control the universe.

For sheer puerility, some of the self-styled “psychologists” would be hard to beat, but as Engels has it, “The proof of the pudding lies in the eating, and human action had solved the problem long before human ingenuity had invented it.”

The soundness of Marx’s economic view is evidenced by facts which become daily more obvious, e.g., the concentration of capital and the intensification of exploitation, and of the consequent class-struggle. Mr. Eastman affects to regard these facts as immaterial to the main issue. “Look at Russia !” he exclaims. “Never mind about whether the triumph of the proletariat is inevitable ! Suffice that it is possible.” Yet in a very few pages further on he has to lament the appalling growth of bureaucracy in Russia !

Lenin, of course, comes in for eulogy in comparison with poor old Marx.

We have the “brilliant social revolutionary engineer” held up to admiration in comparison with the “foggy old metaphysician.”

The Bolshevik upheaval proved Marx wrong according to Mr. Eastman. Had it succeeded in its alleged object, we might agree with him, but all the evidence of its failure surely proves that Marx was right, and that social and political forms cannot be forced upon countries where the backward economic conditions make them premature.

Throughout the book the author negligently confuses historical materialism with “economic determinism,” and blind fatalism. He follows innumerable bourgeois “critics” of Marx in attributing contradictions to his thought which do not exist, and generally re-hashes all the stale metaphysical dualism in the guise of psychology. It is difficult, however, to believe that Professor Freud would recognise many of his “disciples” who appear anxious to show themselves off as “Jacks” in all and sundry branches of inquiry and “masters” of none.

As for dialectics, this method of reasoning will no doubt survive the attempts on the part of the “Communists” to drag it in as a support for their alternate criticism and support of Labour leaders; but this is a practical question of working-class politics here and now, which appears to be beneath the notice of such a “practical scientist” as Mr. Eastman.

Eric Boden

Blogger's Note:

The full title of Max Eastman's book was 'Marx and Lenin: The Science of Revolution'.

Incentive—yesterday and to-day. (1927)

From the June 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

A few thousand years ago, before the world had become thoroughly civilised, young men and old men lived on a Spartan diet, and worked arduously in order that they might become pre-eminent in games, in the arts and in warfare. Their sole recompense, apart from that personal feeling of satisfaction, was the approbation of their fellows expressed in the form of a crown of bay leaves or some similar token of public appreciation.

Since those healthy times, the unhealthy influence of Commerce has cankered the sources of action and the Daily Press periodically provides us with the sordid details of boxers who will only box if thousands of pounds is guaranteed to them; tennis players, golfers and all the rest who make a like proviso. We are even told that England cannot hear the best singers and musicians often because sufficient cash is not forthcoming. The old slogans “Art for Art’s sake” and “Art for Life’s sake,” are rapidly being transformed into the miserable howl of “Art for Money’s sake.”

It has become usual, with a self-satisfied feeling of genius unrecognised (particularly among the so-called “Intellectuals”) to blame that mysterious entity the “Public” for this state of affairs. It were better to observe the source of the trouble, which lies in a social organisation that compels people to think of income before work. Fortunately for us, though unfortunately for themselves, there are still plenty of people who place joy in the work of their hands and brains before income, but, in many cases, this healthy attitude brings a direful end, as the records of penury and suicide, and of the workhouses and lunatic asylums abundantly prove.

What, from the point of view of incentive, can be more sordid than the following extract from the “Daily News,” of April 18th, 1927 :—

“Gertrude Ederle, the New York girl who swam the English Channel, is complaining that the fortune she was promised is not reaching her.

Critics of her management point out that excitement in America was allowed to cool while her father carried her off to Germany to “swank” to his old compatriots, and that when she returned, and New York itself went wild about her, her advisers’ ideas grew so inflated that they frightened good money away.

The facts are that in the six months of last year in which she had her great record to capitalise “Trudy” Ederle got nothing out of it but a nine weeks’ music-hall contract. All the customary “by-products” of sporting success which are exploited here were neglected.

It is true that for her music-hall performance Miss Ederle still receives £1,200 a week. But she has been explaining how the money goes before she touches it. Here is her balance sheet:

             A Week

Her lawyer, Dudley Malone ……                     £200

Her father …………………………….                     £200

Agent for her act ……………………                     £120

Publicity agent ………………………..                     £35

Manager…………………………………..                   £40

Two girl divers ………………………..                   £100

Man setting up tank………………….                    £20

This leaves £485 a week, from which Miss Ederle herself pays the fares, travelling expenses of seven people and charges for the water used in the tank on the stage, probably £60 a week at least, leaving out of her £1,200 about £400 for herself.

Mr. Malone draws his percentage because he lent her £500 for expenses. Her father, who is. a successful pork butcher, draws his percentage because he advanced £300 of his own and £200 of the girl’s own savings from her swimming prizes.”

Is not this a fitting commentary on a society that judges nearly everything by £ s. d., and allows the views and the power of the money bugs to dry up nearly all the springs of healthy human activity ?

The cynical, the pessimistic, the gloomy-minded, and the supporters of the present rotten foundation of society, observing these facts, are apt to jump to the conclusion that nothing good can or will be done to-day without having money and “position” held up as a prize to provide incentive for the courageous and the skilful. It would not be matter for wonder if this idea were true, when one considers the tremendous obstacles that confront those who choose to ignore, up to, and even beyond, the verge of starvation, the commercial side of what they do, and prefer rather to follow the calling they love, asking as recompense only joy in the work they do and appreciation from their fellows.

A careful examination of the facts, however, is rewarded by the gratifying information, so full of hope for the future, that the bulk of the important things done to-day, in every direction, for the benefit of humanity, are not done with the object of securing either place or pelf, and often foreshadow to the doer social loss, poverty and misery. Of such things are the great industrial discoveries, the great works in literature and other forms of art, and the expeditions to the untrodden places of the earth.

There is one side to the problem that is apt to be missed by many well-meaning people. People of an imaginative and energetic temperament must find some outlet for their energies or perish. This fact is at the root of much of the activity that, on the surface, appears suicidal to the unobservant.

Apart from the fields of activity mentioned above, the different forms of sport provide myriad illustrations for the readiness of men and women to undergo arduous training purely for pleasure, or for the approbation of their fellows. When the social organisation has been cleared of the cankerous influence of private ownership in the means of production, with the limitations such a state of affairs imposes upon human activity, everybody will be free to exert their capacities to the full in whatever way they like best, with the only condition that such activity shall not be to the hurt of the rest of the people.

Gilmac.

The Onward March of Capitalism. (1927)

From the June 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

To show the degrading effect of capitalist production on the modern wage-worker, Paul Lafargue uses this comparison.

“Look at the noble savage whom the missionaries of trade and the traders of religion have not yet corrupted with Christianity, syphilis and the dogma of work, and then look at our miserable slaves of machines.” —The Right to be Lazy (p. 10).

To justify this statement, we need only compare the general conditions of the workers to-day with the following description that Lewis Morgan gives of the American Indian :—

“All the members of an Iroquois gens were personally free, and they were bound to defend each other’s freedom; they were equal in privileges and in personal rights, the sachem and chiefs claiming no superiority; and they were a brotherhood bound together by the ties of kin. Liberty, equality, and fraternity, though never formulated, were cardinal principles of the gens. These facts are material, because the gens was the unit of a social and governmental system, the foundation upon which Indian society was organised. A structure composed of such units would of necessity bear the impress of their character, for as the unit so the compound. It serves to explain that sense of independence and personal dignity universally an attribute of Indian character.” (Ancient Society, pp. 85-6.)

Such was the state of man in this form of society, before modern civilisation played its part. And the curse it has been to these people is evident from the following item of news that appeared in the “Daily News,” 7/3/1927 :—

“The Red Indians, confined to reservations in various parts of the United States, even as near the east coast as New York State itself, are dying by thousands, abused and neglected.

Mr. Robert E. Callahan, a writer on western life, has just spent a year surveying the 22 principal Indian reservations. He declared that on some reservations he found the Indians killing their pet dogs and their horses to keep themselves alive”

And further, we are told that :—

“Judges appointed by the agents have been known to throw Indians into gaol for resenting an agent’s treatment of them. An Indian named Kill Thunder was chained by one of these men, who was judge, gaoler, and prosecutor all in one, for visiting a friend without the agent’s permission.

There are estimated to be 340,000 Indians left in America. Mr. Callahan says 225,000 of them have been reduced to the most miserable conditions of existence, and that unless some drastic changes are made the Red Indians within a few years will be extinct.”

So we see that the capitalist method of wiping out, what is to them, an odious comparison, between the Barbarian and the wage-slave, is to reduce the former to a state of poverty and subjection, parallel to that suffered by the latter.

Exploitation by the capitalist class, together with the evils that flow from it, spreads like a plague, and to escape from its vile influence is out of the question.

In drawing up the manifesto of the Communist Party (1847) Marx and Engels dealt with this point :

On page 10, they say :—

“The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere. ”

And further, on the same page, we read :

“It compels all nations on pain of extinction to adopt the bourgeoisie mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.”

Events since this was written have demonstrated the truth of the assertions made. The most recent example, on the one hand, is China, whose development has been accelerated through its exploitation by the Western Powers. And an effort is now being made by the property-owning class in China, to rid itself of that influence, and secure the full benefits from the exploitation of the workers of that country.

On the other hand, there is the American Indians, who, not having reached the preceding stage in historical development to capitalist society, is unable to adopt that form of production, and consequently must suffer the penalty of extinction.

A nation or class can only establish that form of society which has been made possible by conditions which have developed within the prevailing system. And the chief factor which determines the character of a society; and the direction or form which the new system will take, is the way in which the wealth of that society is produced, and the form of ownership or distribution.

The introduction of capitalism, necessitated, not only that the production of goods for sale should be developed, together with the merchant and his capital, but also the presence of a body of producers that could be profitably utilised as wage-workers.

The backward nature of the vast populations of Russia and China, accounts to a great extent for the slow development of these countries. And the fact that they are, in spite of this handicap, following in the direction of the more advanced countries, speaks volumes for the penetrating powers of the capitalist method of production. But had the social system of these countries been in a more primitive state, their fate would have been that of America and the Colonies, which were developed by the modern emigrant wage-worker. And the original inhabitants, who were not slaughtered by the invading force, pushed in the background, and used later as chattel slaves or exterminated in compounds, provided by the “benevolent” Christian capitalists, because they could not profitably use them in the modern method of production.

As the establishment of capitalism was made possible by conditions that developer in feudalism, so in turn have the conditions been developed in the present system that makes the next social change both possible and necessary.

The growth of social production within the present system, supplies the foundation of the society that is to take its place, and makes the change to Socialism possible. The private ownership by a non-producing section of the socially produced wealth implies on the other hand a propertyless producing class, whose interest dictates the need for that change; a change that awaits the understanding by this class; that to secure the benefits their social productive powers justify, they must end the private ownership in the means of life, and establish a system of society in which the wealth that is socially produced, shall be socially owned.

And by taking advantage of the political conditions that have grown up with the system, they will secure control of the machinery of state, and with command of this force, accomplish the social change which their class interest dictates.

Ted Lake

Editorial: The Socialist Party and the Labour Party. A comparison. (1927)

Editorial from the June 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are often told by supporters of the Labour Party that we are out of touch with the workers. That we do not participate in or encourage them in their daily struggles on the industrial field, nor support them in their efforts to gain legislative reforms.

To test the truth of this, it is necessary to examine the nature and constitution of the two parties : The Socialist Party of Great Britain and the Labour Party. The first is composed of working men and women who have realised the slave position of their class, and are organising on carefully defined principles with a definite object clearly stated. The principles and objects are logically evolved from ascertained facts patent to everyone, but so clearly worded that they cannot be misunderstood. As it is a condition of membership that the worker shall understand and endorse the principles, every member is in a position to participate intelligently in a movement that is really democratic. In other words, the members control the activities of the party.

The Labour Party is the opposite of this in character and constitution. True, it is composed mainly of working-class men and women; but few of them understand how completely they are enslaved by the wages system ; or the necessity for its abolition. Beyond the understood practice of electing leaders to Parliament, and the non-Socialist objects of nationalising industries, nothing is clearly defined. This lack of principles and socialist objective, permits a wide freedom of action to ambitious schemers for power. The result is confusion, not only in the minds of the rank and file, but also among the leaders themselves.

Every question that is dragged to the front in Parliament and Press is responsible for differences among the Labour leaders. Right and Left Wings, and sometimes a centre as well, take up different attitudes, neither of which is in accord with an analysis of the case from the working-class viewpoint.

This confusion, as can readily be seen, is due to the absence of any clearly-defined basis, outlining the position and objective of the organisation.

The lack of unity among the leaders, however, does not prevent them from lecturing the workers on the need for unity among themselves. The contradictory and useless reforms advocated from time to time by innumerable leaders, and would-be leaders, form the basis of Labour action—a foundation of shifting sands on which the workers are exhorted to erect and maintain a united organisation.

Contrast this confusion with the attitude of the Socialist Party. Questions that agitate the public are always analysed from the standpoint that the workers are a slave-class—that there can be no identity of interests between them and the class that owns the means of life and enslaves them. If the questions involve capitalist interests only, we refuse to take up sides, but always point out their unimportance for the worker. The clearly-defined position laid down in the Party’s principles enables every member to analyse any question prominently before the public, or any reform advocated by politicians.

The Labour Party encourages the workers to struggle for reforms within the present system. The Socialist Party tells the workers that capitalism is the capitalists’ own system, and if the latter want it to last, it is their business to patch it up. Obviously they will endeavour to make working-class conditions more endurable in proportion as a genuine working-class party develops and threatens their system.

How far the leaders of the Labour Party are out of touch with the workers can easily be seen by a study of their activities in Parliament. Most of the debates in which they take part have no bearing on working-class conditions, and are not of the slightest interest to the workers. Parliament for the leaders is merely a hunting-ground for prominence and positions.

The pamphlets and periodicals of the Labour Party have never explained Socialism to the workers. “The New Leader,” the official organ of the I.L.P., is a mixture of sentimentalism, hero-worship and quite orthodox comments on current capitalist politics. Its tone is of the intellectuals. Insignificant ideas magnified by ostentatious phraseology constitute one of its chief assets—its fantastic ideas of reform, and its ultra dignified philosophy on social questions carry no message which the average worker can understand; it would indeed be surprising if he could.

The current number of the “New Leader” (13/5/27), page 7, contains an article typical of many, in its use of high-sounding, but almost meaningless phrases. Statement number one is as follows :—

“Socialism is a dynamic force, too great to be confined in one mould of organisation, and too vital for us to see its ultimate effects.”

How enlightening this must be to the worker who is trying to understand Socialism; but how puzzled the same reader will be when he reads, a little lower :—

“Family endowment is fundamental Socialism, and without it I doubt whether any industrial order can produce a Socialist Commonwealth ; but family endowment may take more forms than one.”

But the reader who imagines that Socialism will end class struggles, will be more confused still when he reads :—

“Our trade unions must not be weaker in a commonwealth ; they must be stronger and more dignified.”

The same reader’s confusion must end in despair when he reads the concluding paragraph :—

“I have crowded a big picture on a small canvas, and perhaps have raised more questions than can easily be answered; but I am sure that we must look forward, not to any final form of social organisation, but to a progressive and developing social organism.”

In other words, capitalism will continue, with occasional, but gentle modifications calculated not to disturb the ruling class or their agents.

In the same number of the “New Leader” is an article entitled “The Psychology of Socialism and Crime,” in which the following passage occurs :—

“Millions in our days suffer from the sense of inferiority. They are largely unconscious of it because the sense of inferiority is so painful that, whenever it is excited, the mind instantly imagines some kind of superiority, in order to compensate for it. That hides it from the sufferer himself : and to others also it often gives the opposite impression, as it puts him all the more upon his dignity. In fact, he is likely to appear uppish and conceited, precisely because his soul is falling to pieces with diffidence, and the despair of ever being anyone’s equal.”

By the manner in which the I.L.P. leaders endeavour to hide the poverty of their ideas under pompous phraseology, they must be badly afflicted with the “inferiority complex.”

“Inflation” once more. (1927)

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

To the Editor, Socialist Standard.

Dear Sir,

It was not my intention to again encroach on your space, but the last few lines of your reply to my letter in May issue of “S.S.” invites, with your kind permission, a further contribution from me.

You introduce an innuendo which is uncalled for by implying that those who differ from you as to whether the currency of this country was inflated or not from 1914 to 1925 are “misleaders of the workers.”

You admit the possibility of credit-inflation, but object apparently to the term currency-inflation. On that point I am in agreement with you, and consider it would add to clarity if temporary movements of the price-level were studied from the angle of credit manipulation, and currency, as an effect, relegated to its rightful subordinate position.

Is it not, however, rather a play with words, and a waste of time, to differ greatly from those who insist on using that term, especially when we consider the mass of material available to justify their point of view?

For instance, credit necessitates a legal-tender currency backing, and 15 per cent. cash, to liabilities, is generally considered more than ample. When war broke out, metal was replaced by paper as legal tender. Bank obligations could now be met in currency notes to any amount, and so accommodating was the British Treasury in this respect, that provision was made for the supply of legal tender currency straight from the printing press to the banks up to 20 per cent. of their total liabilities. Currency notes could be loaned to banks at the bank rate of interest, or alternatively bought outright by the transfer of securities, Treasury Bills, etc. The method by which Treasury Bills were acquired by the banks, and which in turn enabled them so easily to become possessed of legal tender on which ultimately a mountain of credit was based, needs no labouring here.

Consequently, it is maintained, the Government’s action in so freely granting legal tender facilities invited and made possible credit inflation.

Hence, currency inflation was the primary cause of high prices.

That undue inflation of credit was responsible, to an extent, for the high prices that obtained during the war period, and after, goes without saying.

The Cunliffe Committee admitted inflation, and demonstrated how it had been brought about.

The heavy buying of gold on the open market and its exportation, mainly on American account, may have been a factor in forcing it to a premium, i.e., appreciation of the metal may have been unaccompanied by a corresponding depreciation of the paper currency.

Unfortunately for those who hold to that point of view, too insistently, the premium persisted right up to the return to the gold standard in 1925; and as late as 1922 it still required nearly £1 10s. in currency notes to purchase the gold contained in one sovereign. If that was not inflation, then, words have no meaning.

That inflation was not the sole reason for the high price-level previous to the reversion to the gold standard, as compared with the pre-war period, is made clear by the fact that now, with no suspicion of inflation, prices still remain considerably above the 1914 level.

That is due to one thing, and one thing only : a fall in the value of gold, and not as stated by many of the Labour Party, to the conscious action of trusts and combines.

Your stricture on my statement re “newly-mined gold,” warrants more attention than it is possible to give it on this occasion. Suffice to say, that the axioms “socially necessary” and “cost of reproduction,” have for me a significance, and one feels that they should be treated as something- more than mere empty phrases to conjure with.

I am, Sir, Yours faithfully,

William Nicholls.

Our Reply to Mr. Nicholls.

Despite all his previous admissions and evasions, Mr. Nicholls still struggles to maintain his lost cause of “Inflation.” In the present letter he stresses two points.

One is that our charge against the Labour Party, the Plebs League, Bernard Shaw, etc., of being misleaders of the working-class when they supported the lie that high prices were due to “inflation of the currency,” is “uncalled for.” The only defence of their position Mr. Nicholls can bring forward is to ask us to consider “the mass of material available to justify their point of view.” Out of this “mass of material,” wherever it may be, Mr. Nicholls takes one piece—the introduction of the currency note—and elaborates on the technical points connected with this introduction. This forms his second point. Yet he has only to turn to the December, 1926, issue of the Socialist Standard, which was the starting point of his controversy, to find his whole elaborate case and his deduction— “Hence, currency inflation was the primary cause of high prices”—completely smashed by one simple fact. We will quote this fact from page 63 of our December issue :—

“War was declared on Germany by Great Britain on Sunday night in the fateful August of 1914. On Monday morning people rushed to buy up supplies and prices began to rise at once, before any inflation could take place. As a matter of fact the new currency notes were not issued till some little time after. Prices continued to rise and more currency was, therefore, required to circulate the goods. All through the war the rises in prices preceded the increases in currency. In fact, as shown by the Cunliffe Committee, the total increase in prices was greater than the total increase in currency. These facts prove beyond dispute that no ‘inflation’ of the currency had taken place.”

It is a pity that as, according to Mr. Nicholls, the Cunliffe Committee had “demonstrated” how the inflation had been brought about, he did not quote this “demonstration.” It would certainly be interesting to see how they tried to do it.

That the fall in the value of gold is not the “only” thing that maintains high prices has been shown in certain investigations and reports; a glaring instance being that of the Light Castings Trust, who deliberately raised prices afresh when the subsidy was given to builders of working-class houses.

Unless the “new-mined gold” has been produced by some new method, or discovery, that materially lowers the value of that gold, the existing available gold will, obviously, be taken into account with it.

Editorial. Committee.

‘Psychic Science’. (1927)

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

95a North View Road, N.8.

You have not accurately read my letter which you print in the May “S.S.” I wrote that Flammarion had not said that the claims of Spiritists are unfounded. Will you quote a passage in which he does say such claims are unfounded? What you allege to be Flammarion’s position, would not— even if true, which it is not—controvert my guarded statement. But I think you are confusing Flammarion with Professor Richet, because Flammarion says :—

“The occurrences cited prove that there is no death. . . . These phenomena convince us also that the soul manifests itself after death.” (After Death, by Camille Flammarion.)

With regard to “Great Men,” I would point out that, in all subjects, we rely on specialists, experts and authorities. For example, the name of the great Marx appears on nearly every page of the “S.S.”

Your remark to the effect that children are better acquainted with inductive logic than Sir William Crookes and Sir Oliver Lodge is certainly original ! ! !

Geo. T. Foster.

Our Reply to Mr. Foster.

Mr. Foster’s position is that of a man who, having stepped into a bog, finds himself sinking further in the mud at each attempt to struggle out.

The statement in his first letter was a loose general one—namely, that Flammarion, etc., “do not say that the claims of spiritualists are baseless, but rather the contrary.”

What are the claims of spiritualists?

As Mr. Foster has not “guarded” his statement by any limitation or qualification, the only meaning left is “all the claims of spiritualists.” That Mr. Foster wished the reader to understand his statement in this sense is shown by his linking Flammarion’s name with Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William Crookes and Sir William Barrett—all avowed spiritualists. That Flammarion believes in life after death does not make him a spiritualist. Millions of people who hold this belief are bitter opponents of spiritists and spiritism.

Flammarion is not a spiritist. He rejects many of their claims, particularly in reference to mediums. Numerous quotations could be given to prove this, but the following will establish our point : —

“But all mediums, men and women, have to be watched. During a period of more than forty years I believe that I have received at my home nearly all of them, men and women of divers nationalities and from every quarter of the globe. One may lay it down as a principle that all professional mediums cheat. But they do not always cheat ; and they possess real, undeniable, psychic powers.

“Their case is nearly that of the hysterical folk under observation at the Salpétrière or elsewhere. I have seen some of them outwit with their profound craft not only Dr. Charcot, but especially Dr. Luys, and all the physicians who make a study of their case.” (Mysterious Psychic Forces, pp. 3 and 4.)

Thus, according to Flammarion, these mediums are “nearly” lunatics !

Another example can be taken from the book Mr. Foster quotes. After describing the type of conversation purported to be given by spirits at séances, and gently jeering at the spiritists who believe this sort of thing, he says :—

“If this is what is called being a spiritist we can say we are not spiritists.” (After Death, p. 344.)

As an example of the sloppiness of Mr. Foster’s methods, we may point out that he does not give the page from which he has taken the quotation from After Death. The reader who is not acquainted with this work will naturally think that as the quotation is inside one set of quotation marks, it all comes from one paragraph. This is not so. The first phrase, from which a clause has been omitted, is taken from page 346, while the second phrase is taken from page 348.

A child can see that his reference to “specialists, experts and authorities” does not touch our exposure of the emptiness of the case of those who rely on the names of “Great Men” to take the place of evidence. As pointed out in our previous reply, it is a matter of evidence—not names. “Specialists, experts and authorities” are those who have made discoveries in, or special studies of, the subject in which they are “expert.” The real “experts” on mediums, and séances are the first-class conjurers, like Maskelyne and Devant, and their views are well known. Neither Lodge, Crookes, Barrett, nor Flammarion, are even amateurs at conjuring, and their words on these matters are worth no more, if as much as, the ordinary man in the street.

The statement in Mr. Foster’s last paragraph is “certainly original.” So “original” in fact, that it has never appeared in the Socialist Standard before, either from myself or anybody else.

Jack Fitzgerald

New York. (1927)

From the June 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

Readers and sympathisers in New York are invited to communicate with the Socialist Educational Society at 557, Amboy Street, Brooklyn, New York.

Does capitalism reward inventive genius? (1927)

From the June 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recent celebrations held in Lancashire to commemorate the memory of Samuel Crompton, a Bolton weaver and inventor, who died 100 years ago, call to mind a question often asked of the Socialist. How about the inventor under Socialism?

Ironical as it may seem, it is such inquiry that throws a lurid light upon the treatment that Capitalism has meted out to genius and ability. When this is understood, the position of all under Socialism will present no difficulty. We do not claim that exceptional ability can exist apart from the social conditions which give it birth. We propose to show that it is those who can exploit such ability to-day who reap the reward which the labour of others makes possible. Without the discoveries in the remote past of such now apparently simple things as the wheel, the lever, the ratchet, all the machinery of to-day would be unthinkable. Without the skill and dexterity of the workers, past and present, all the inventive genius ever born would have remained sterile. The cotton industry of to-day is one to which a number of fundamental inventions have been applied during the last century. Their application, with its operatives, has increased its productivity far beyond the effective demands of the world’s markets, but under the present system these operatives live in poverty and suffer years of short-time working through their very productivity. What insanity ! And what of those who did so much to make such output possible. One of these was John Kay, inventor of the “Fly Shuttle,” one of the most important inventions made toward the improvement of the loom. He was a man of whom it was said he invented “everything.” But his ideas were shamelessly stolen, and he died in poverty and obscurity somewhere in France. Another, James Hargreaves, saw a spinning wheel overturned which caused him to reflect upon certain improvements. He invented a machine as a result of which 20 to 30 spindles could be attended by one person. He died in Nottingham Workhouse. Richard Arkwright invented the water-frame. He appears to be one of the few who gained financial reward, yet, strange he is one about whom there are doubts as to his originality. He was assisted by Kay, who declared “the water-frame was no device of Arkwright’s,” but of another obscure individual. Whether this was true or not he, like others, had to contest his patent rights, and had at one time as many as nine law-suits going. Samuel Crompton invented the “mule,” a combination of Hargreaves spinning jenny and Arkwright’s water-frame, which, with Watts’ steam-engine revolutionised the cotton industry. He was a man of gentle and sensitive nature, made a violin, taught himself to play, and earned eighteen-pence a night in a Bolton theatre while working in his spare time on his invention. His machine was such that any mechanic who saw its finished condition could carry away its leading features ; crowds gathered round his house, and he was often afraid to go out lest it was stolen. A few months, he says,

“Reduced me to the cruel necessity of destroying my machine altogether, or giving it up to the public. To destroy it I could not think of, to give up that for which I had laboured so long was cruel. I had no patent, nor the means of purchasing one. In preference to destroying it I gave it to the public.” (National Dictionary of Biographies, Vol. XIII.)

For using his invention, 80 firms and independent manufacturers gave him a document possessing no legal validity, in which they agreed to pay him certain sums. As a result, he received the handsome reward of £67. Sir Robert Peel offered him a partnership, but he declined. Like so many of his type, he possessed little business acumen. Making fortunes possible for others, he reaped little or no pecuniary reward himself, and died in poverty, embittered with his experiences. A like fate has awaited in the past composers, artists, scientists, poets, writers, public performers, etc. It is the Capitalist reward and fitting tribute to a rotten system. Mankind will ever crave to approbation of his fellow-man. When, with the coming of Socialism, security and a full life is made possible for all, those who show exceptional ability will not need to give of their talent to serve the profit of the idle few, but will add to the comfort of the whole race —whose best interests will be identical with their own.

W. E. MacHaffie

The budget, taxes and prices. (1927)

From the June 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the April “Socialist Standard,” we showed briefly that the wages the Workers receive represent only the sum total of the prices of the things required to reproduce them. They cannot, because of that reason, contribute toward the growing expenditure of Capitalist bureaucracy. Though the Press always tells the worker that “he pays,” that is to conceal the truth that the great bulk of their product forms the subsequent wealth of their masters. The introduction of the Budget provided an opportunity to unearth this mouldy illusion. This is how it reads :—

“The broad truth remains that taxes on commodities tend as by a law of nature to be passed on to the consumers.” (Daily Chronicle, 18/4/27.)

Even upon the basis of their own reasoning, this would not be much consolation to our masters, who, by a Capitalist law of surplus value, consume nine-tenths of labour’s product. The statement is really made to hide this ugly fact by the veiled inference that the Workers loom large as consumers. The Budget, in money terms, has risen from 194 million in 1914 to 825 million in the present year, and if this expenditure can be shifted on to other shoulders by the wealth-owners, why the howls that went up from the “business” men of the day? In the “Westminster Gazette,” 5/4/27, bold headlines informed us that “Industry warns the Chancellor,” and of “Trade Leaders’ anger.” Sir Hugh Bell, director (on paper) of a dozen large concerns, bemoaned that :

“Really the country is bankrupt. It will not mend until public expenditure is lowered, taxes reduced and the costs of industry diminished ” —Ibid.

What becomes now of passing on taxes “as by a law of nature” ? But enough, this tripe is only for the workers. In “Business Organisation” (April), is an article by H. A. Silverman, B.A., addressed to “those who maintain high income-tax is prejudicial to the interests of industry and trade.” Those interested in profits get, of course, the facts, though it seems absurd to doubt that they don’t already know them. For those who are only the human raw material in producing those profits any old bunkum will do. Compare this with the statement quoted from the “Chronicle ” :

“… to increase the price is to risk a serious contraction of the market. . . Where competition prevails the seller will hesitate to add the equivalent of the tax to his prices lest his rivals should continue to charge the old price and so capture the market.”—Ibid.

Though prices of commodities are determined at the time of sale by supply and demand, they are ultimately governed by their value, and it is this value that the up-to-date Capitalist is always trying to reduce in order to lower his prices and thus increase his market. The falsity of the raising prices, argument is often a deadly weapon used against the workers when endeavouring to secure wage increases in order to maintain their standard of living. It is argued that such increases will be passed on to them as consumers. A little reflection will show that argument false, for why should the sellers of commodities wait upon such increases? Were they previously taking a lower price than they could have charged? The advice given to the traders supports our contention, they tell them,

“and this is the crux of the matter, that they are, as a rule, already charging the highest prices consistent with maximum profits . . . The case of the “benevolent Monopolist who has been deliberately and consciously charging less than his strict financial interests would permit, but under the stress of income tax is compelled to raise his prices, is so rare that we may disregard the effects on the general position.”— Ibid.

All the ups and downs of prices matter little to the workers in the long run. To understand the cause of poverty they must realise that it is as producers and not consumers that they are kept poor. It is to production that they must look if they would understand how the great thieving trick is done.

W. E. MacHaffie

An Appeal to Manchester Readers. (1927)

Party News from the June 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain exists as a result of the war between the classes —the antagonism of interests between the class of wage-workers and the class of property-owning employers. Its work, at present, lies in its efforts to arouse the wage-earners to a conscious recognition of their class slavery. The need for such a party is felt when one realises the amazing lack of class consciousness existing amongst the working-class.

To-day, the workers give their support to capitalism because they are saturated, quite unconsciously, in the majority of cases, with the ideas of the ruling class. They oppose the Socialist philosophy because they do not understand it. Not understanding it, they do not desire it. These capitalist ideas amongst wage-workers have to be fought, and their opposition to Socialism has to be removed, before we can organise effectively for the abolition of the capitalist system.

The work of spreading Socialist knowledge—and we are the only party that is doing this work—is a big job, and we are in need of many more members to help along this campaign. The larger the organisation, the more widely known can we make our object and principles.

To all Manchester friends and sympathisers, we make a special appeal and ask “Why not join us now?” We want your support, not only as readers of the Socialist Standard, but as members of the organisation.

The Manchester Branch has recently been re-organised, but at present is handicapped by a small membership. We are ambitious and restless. We want to grow and forge ahead, and as quickly as possible. We want to become known by the extent of our activities. We want to send up the Manchester sales of the “S.S.” We want to hold many indoor and outdoor meetings, and make the Party’s name and activities a mark of fear amongst those anti-working class organisations, the Conservative, Liberal and so-called Labour parties.

All this can be realised if all our Manchester sympathisers will join up, and help us in the fight against working-class political ignorance and apathy, and for the spreading of Socialist knowledge amongst the wage-earners.

Come then, all you unattached Manchester and district sympathisers. The Branch needs you. Don’t put off the good intention until someone else has made up their mind to join. Set the example. Join now and help towards making the world fit for workers to live in. Don’t merely keep on wishing that the workers were more alive to their wage-slavery status. Come in and help the Party towards making them Socialists.

Socialism is the only hope for the working class—all else is illusion. But Socialism will only come when a majority of wage-workers understand it and desire it. That time can be hastened or retarded by YOUR joining, or remaining apart from, the only party worthy of working-class support.

Class-consciousness is the first essential. Organisation to help in furthering it is the next. Here’s the organisation. Come in and join us now’.

W. Addison

Branch Secretary

An Urgent Appeal (1927)

Party News from the June 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Party is in urgent need of money. Being dependent entirely on the small amounts which our members and sympathisers can afford to contribute, we have always had a struggle to keep our organisation intact and carry on our propaganda. For years we were never out of debt, and this in spite of the fact that, with the exception of printing and a few similar items which had to be paid for, we depended on the willing and unpaid services of our members, who acted as speakers, writers and workers in the branches and at head office. We are not disturbed because we have no accumulated funds. We do not wish to save money. Any that comes our way is immediately spent on printing literature and selling it at prices sometimes below cost, and always within the reach of even the poorest worker. For various reasons our financial difficulties have become acute, and we are compelled to make a special appeal for donations. The position is that we owe our printer about £100, and it is essential that this hampering debt be discharged once. The position has arisen largely owing to the strikes of last year. Heavy expenses and fines had to be paid on behalf of members prosecuted under the Emergency Powers Act. Fewer propaganda meetings could be held, so that sales of literature and collections both fell off, and we have had to face the loss of a considerable and dependable income formerly derived from meetings in the London parks. Under new regulations, collections and literature selling are both permanently prohibited. These difficulties can be met and are being met, but it takes a long while to develop new street corner propaganda stations, and in the meantime we are compelled to ask you to dip into your pockets once more.

And apart from these unexpected drains on our income, we are ambitious. During 1926 we made really encouraging progress in membership, and a sustained effort during the summer months would give us half-a-dozen new branches in London. We are in touch with comrades in numerous centres in the Colonies and the U.S.A., and are hopeful that within a year or two the efforts which are now being made there will lead to the formation of vigorous bodies propagating principles in line with our own. We have at last got a strong foothold in Vienna. We want to be able to put full-time organisers into the field to develop our organisation in the provinces; we want new pamphlets. There is no limit to what we want, but lack of money very effectively delays the carrying out of many promising schemes of development. You can help us financially by pushing the sales of the Socialist Standard, and our pamphlets, but those who can afford to do so are also urged to make a special effort to send along a large or small donation, and to send it quickly.

A Rare Fragment. (1927)

From the June 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

   “A British Labour delegation came to Moscow. It consisted of three well-known members of the British Labour Party and of the Trades Union Congress. They had come to show the solidarity of the British workers with the Russian Revolution. I was present when they received a deputation from the Moscow Council of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. These men who were members of all parties in the Soviet, began by asking what was the attitude of British Labour to the Russian Revolutionaries’ proposal of peace without annexations or indemnities and with the right of self-determination for nationalities . . . the British delegates were firm, ‘ only the complete military defeat and crushing of Germany for many years to come would bring peace in the world.’ ” 

    “ 'But even if that were the best tactics to adopt for destroying Prussian militarism,’ . . . said one of the Russians, ‘is that any reason why we should not renounce the old annexationist plans of the Tsar’s late régime and publish the secret treaties? The Tsar made us fight for Constantinople, which is not Russian and never was.’ One of the British delegates thereupon jovially burst out : ‘ If you don't want Constantinople, then, damn it, we'll take it! ’ I remember the long silence after this remark, then hand-shaking and the withdrawal of the deputation from the representatives of British 'Labour.’ ” (Italics outs.) 

An extract from—“ My Reminiscences of the Russian Revolution,” by M. Philips Price, at that time Russian correspondent for the "Manchester Guardian.”

At the street corner. (1927)

From the June 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of our earliest, and one of our wisest decisions of policy, was that wherein we allowed an opponent access to our platform. Having heard our case, and subject only to the common usages and decencies of debate, we offer any opponent the right to oppose us, on our own platform. We believe that, as a party, we are unique in this respect. But then, of course, we are unique in having a position that we know will stand the test. Obviously a case can be made out for anything, even the most absurd proposition, if you ignore enough, and throttle the opposition. So that propagandist parties of all sorts, religious or political, who decline to allow their statements to be combated, where and when uttered, stand self-convicted of cowardice or dishonesty.

To allow questions is not enough. Their very allowance is often transparent trickery, for a false position can rarely be overthrown by one question. As soon as a questioner follows up by supplementaries, one usually finds the speaker evading an issue by saying the questioner is selfishly monopolising too much attention. He should give someone else a chance.

Or again, an awkward question is parried by another question from the speaker, or met by a provocative remark, and the succeeding jeers and howls used as a cover, whilst a more congenial questioner is baited. This is notoriously the method of the Anti-Socialist Union, and analagous bodies. They will not permit anyone on their platform to state a reasoned opposition. Oh, no! But questions! Bless you, yes!

There was a speaker the other day in a London market place, representing the British Empire Union. His remarks were a strange blend of sense and fallacy. He said, very wisely, “Do not be led hither and thither by leaders of any sort. Do not read the exclusive literature of any one party; read all, and come to your own conclusions. Read and think deeply,” he said. "Do not hurry to a decision, but let what you read and hear, have time to digest in your brain and then, as an individualist, stick to your own opinion.” How wise! How sensible! It impressed the audience. But someone asked him what he meant by an ”individualist,” a term he had used rather frequently. He replied : "One who believed in making his own bargain with an employer, and not being dictated to by a union.” Then, of course, the storm broke. Howls and jeers from obvious Labour adherents, gradually died down into questions, dealt with as outlined above. Then the mention of China was seized upon by the speaker as a useful get-out, and a peg upon which to jibe at the Labour Party and then invite further questions. Did he think it right, asked one questioner, that the Chinese women and children of Shanghai should have to work 14 hours a day in the cotton mills. As an "individualist,” replied the speaker, he believed anyone should have the unquestioned right to work as many hours as they wished. More howls and jeers, and then a quiet, insistent little man who had evidently thought out a short series of consecutive questions, got a hearing with his first one. "What was the cause of the trouble in China?” he asked. Twice the speaker ignored him. The third time the speaker paused, waved the crowd into comparative silence, and replied : "I don’t know, do you?” Bang went the little man's series. Thrown on the defensive, he said, "But I’m-asking you.” "Yes,” retorted the speaker, "but I don’t know. I’m asking you.” Bravely the little man started to explain conditions in the cotton mills in Shanghai when the lecturer interrupted by asking which mills, British or Chinese. The little man was not quite certain, but said both, when the speaker followed up by saying, "How many British mills are there out there?” The little man got nettled and said "I do not know, and the number is immaterial. What I contend—” "Oh, no!” said the speaker, "you are not sure of your facts. Let us have the facts,” and so on. Collapse of the little man.

So that the acceptance of questions at a public meeting does not constitute it a fair vehicle for the diffusion of views. Politics is essentially a subject for public discussion, and that cannot be called discussion which says "These are our views. You may ask us questions about them, but we will not allow your contrary views to be heard.”

Obviously, the British Empire Union is not concerned with the dissemination of accurate views, for its speakers must know perfectly well that the phenomenon they call an "individualist” cannot exist in human society. They must know that in ten short minutes a capable opponent could make the absurdity of such a claim apparent to the simplest intelligence. They must know, in spite of their waving of Union Jacks and their blether of King and Country, that the Government gave very short shift to "individualists” during the War or during the coal trouble. The B.E.U. therefore, take no chances. The capable opponent is kept off their platform. He may question, but not expound.

The Socialist Party is not built that way. We have a position, a philosophy, a policy, which has been tested in every possible way. Scientists, economists, politicians, have attacked it, belittled it, sneered at it, but Socialism remains. It is the one subject that is the common talk of the whole civilised world. Wherever human progress has attained the stage known as Capitalism, there inevitably the problems it raises are sure to be soluble in only one way. Nothing hinders its steady onward march. Even a world-war, overturning thrones and making hay of political frontiers, leaves Socialism still the talk of the world, and the hope of millions. As a policy, we of the Socialist Party have always realised that Socialism can only come when the majority of people want it. We conceive it our task therefore, to convert a majority of people to our point of view. With this clear object before us, we believe there cannot be too much opportunity for discussion. We are so convinced of the impregnable strength of our position that our platform is open to anyone who cares to try to prove us wrong. We have nothing to hide, no secrets to keep, no leaders to apologise for, nothing but straight Socialism to preach. So we have nothing to fear. If anyone thinks we are crying for the moon, or are on a wild-goose chase, he is at liberty to tell us so. If he can prove it, he will save us wasting our precious time, and so do us a service. On the other hand, if we can in turn show that he is harbouring delusions unawares, he should be indebted to us. We have everything to gain by discussion. Can it be said that any of our political opponents are similarly anxious for discussion, or that they are prepared to offer equal facilities? Try them and see. And in the meantime read our pamphlet called Socialism, still obtainable at the modest price of twopence (plus postage) in spite of its 48 packed pages.

W. T. Hopley