Editorial: Manpower and the Crisis (1947)

Editorial from the March 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

Remedy the Labour Government Cannot Use

Capitalism breeds war, waste and want as a jungle swamp breeds pestilence. Practically every minister in the Labour Government has acknowledged the truth of this some time or other and has pointed the obvious moral that if you want to remove the pestilential effects you must remove the capitalist cause, and introduce Socialism in the place of Capitalism. They said this, but did any of them understand what they were saying? Probably not. If by chance some of them did then by taking office in the Labour Government they were acting a deliberate lie for they were promising something it was not in their power to do. There can be no Socialism until there are a majority of convinced Socialists in the electorate and even the most deluded of Labour leaders would surely not claim that the 12 million Labour voters were Socialists. A government cannot impose Socialism on an unwilling electorate. This should be obvious, but it took the recent crisis to jolt the “Daily Herald” into even a partial recognition of the facts. The “Herald’s” admission, a veritable masterpiece of understatement, was framed as a warning to Ministers not to entertain the “treacherous delusion” that would “regard the whole electorate as enthusiastic converts to Socialism” (February 8th, 1947). The same Editorial goes on to claim that “a peaceful revolution is being wrought in this land which will bring solid benefits within our lifetime, and will confer blessings untold on posterity.” We can leave posterity to speak for itself and content ourselves with foretelling a time when the electorate will count it an immediate blessing to be rid of the Labour Government.

The reader is of course entitled to ask us why we are sure that Labourism cannot succeed. The answer is to be found in the opening paragraph of this article. Capitalism we know; Socialism the workers can have when they are ready to grasp it; and there is no other choice. The root fallacy of Labourism is the belief that a Labour Government can administer capitalism in a non-capitalist way. With all the good intentions in the world it cannot be done” Labour Ministers may make election promises with perfect sincerity, but in office they learn day by day what it really means to keep this exploiting, profit-making system .going, in competition with the rest of the capitalist Powers. It means resisting wage claims so that the capitalists can go on making profit. It means perpetuating the vast gulf between rich and poor. It means maintaining the armed forces and struggling with rival Powers for trade, raw materials and colonies.

It is hardly necessary to say that it also involves swallowing past declarations of what ought to be done, such, for example, as Sir Stafford Cripps’ complete reversal of his views on trade rivalry. Now he is chief director of the export drive. Five years ago he declared, “If, after the coming of peace, we were to start once again the vicious circle of international trade competition, we should be lost, and in a few years would be confronting another war” (interview with a Brazilian newspaper—”Sunday Express” November 8th, 1942).

The recent crisis, forerunner of others, took on the appearance of a problem of fuel and manpower, brought to an acute phase by an “Act of God,” the British weather. It was, however, not a crisis of coal or of cold, but of capitalism. Let us examine this and see how capitalism, which caused the problem, prevents the Labour Government from solving it. The second World War (itself a product of capitalism) destroyed vast amounts of wealth and left a legacy of shortages of housing, food, fuel, clothing, transport, etc. Not that want was a new experience for the working class, but the war aggravated the problem by the immensity of the destruction it wrought all over-Europe and Asia. What would a sanely organised human society have done about this, assuming that such a form of society had to tackle the problem? It would have stopped all waste of labour and materials, halted the production of armaments, and of luxuries for the rich, and would have concentrated on producing the necessities of life in the quantities urgently needed by the population of the world. How did the Labour Government (and all the governments in all the countries) tackle it? They spoke the right words, but proceeded to apply fiddling half-measures. The British Labour Government said they needed man-power in production, but they found that British capitalism had a still more pressing need to keep 1,500,000 men in the armed forces and other hundreds of thousands supplying the needs of the forces and preparing for future wars. They said they needed more workers producing coal, food, houses, etc., for the millions who lacked bare necessities, but they left intact the class structure of capitalism, with its hundreds of thousands. of wealthy idlers consuming without producing, and its hundreds of thousands of workers engaged in banking, financial and other operations that only arise because of capitalism. There are over 700,000 non-industrial civil servants, about 350,000 of whom are Post Office workers. The great bulk of the remaining 350,000 are doing work rendered necessary only by capitalism, as is also much of the work of the Post Office. We are told that many civil servants are employed on insurance and similar work which the Labour Government regards as socially useful; but it is only the mind habituated to capitalism that cannot see what this work really is. Staffs handling unemployed and health. insurance are not there to see that the needy (needy because of capitalism) receive enough to satisfy their needs, but to protect capitalism against the needy receiving more than the niggardly amount allotted to keep them quiet.

The same contradiction between proclaimed aims and practical activities can be found in every sphere. The luxury needs of the wealthy have not been sacrificed to speed up the provision of necessities. On the contrary, the Government has encouraged the planning of luxury liners, luxury air travel, and luxury goods for export. These schemes are defended with the plea that luxury exports make it possible to import necessities unobtainable in other ways. The curious thing is that the governments of other war-damaged countries (France, for example) are doing the same and on the same plea, so that some luxury goods are being imported by all the countries which declare their inability to supply enough necessities for their populations. What it shows is that, despite Labour Party talk about a “new world,” the British and other Labour Governments are basing their plans for the future on the continuance of the same old capitalism, with its extremes of wealth and poverty. They are all catering for the needs of the wealthy.

Here then is the simple problem and the simple solution. On a conservative estimate the production of useful goods could easily be doubled in short time if the armed forces and propertied idlers and the workers doing work necessitated only by capitalism, were brought into production. Why doesn’t the Labour Government even attempt to do it? They don’t do it because even if they wanted to they dare not. They were put into power by an electorate that does not understand or want Socialism and which therefore gave the Labour Government nothing more than a man¬ date to go on administering capitalism.

The recent crisis arose because the capitalist state needs to have millions of people taken from production for the armed forces and other non-productive activities and therefore cannot take simple straightforward measures to make good the destruction of war. It led to great suffering and to the increase of unemployed to about 2,500,000 at the peak. In due course another and more usual type of capitalist crisis will blow up. Goods will be produced in excess of what can be sold at a profit, then unemployment will soar again. Then the Labour Government will be looking for other excuses than the cold weather to explain the failure of its plans. The “New Statesman,” which shared all of the foolish Labour Party beliefs in the possibility of applying so-called Socialist policies to capitalism, has in anticipation already coined the appropriate face-saving formula for the next crisis: “… the Government is confronted with the certainty, now that the illusions about a liberalisation of America’s trade policy have finally been dispelled, that a Socialist experiment confined only to this country is bound to fail” (February 8th, 1947). So the “New Statesman,” shedding one illusion, grasps at another equally absurd. It proposes that Britain cut adrift from trade and financial ties with U.S.A. and collaborate instead “with other countries which are experimenting with planned economies.” If it is a fallacy, as it certainly is, that a Labour Government can apply Socialist plans to capitalism, common sense should make it clear that you do not escape from the dilemma by linking up with other countries in which similar governments are trying to perform the same impossible feat. Capitalist crises know no frontiers, and Labour Governments here and elsewhere will no more escape the next crisis than they did the “economic blizzard” that blew down the British Labour Government in 1931 and simultaneously toppled over the Labour Government in Australia.

For the world’s workers there is no escape from the problems and crises caused by capitalism except by introducing Socialism.

Delay in publication (1947)

From the March 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

Like other periodicals, the Socialist Standard was barred from being published on the usual date through the suspension order issued by the Government during the fuel crisis.

The consequent delay was aggravated by continuing difficulties arising out of the stoppage of power. Readers will appreciate that the delay has been unavoidable. 

New Zealand—A socialist country? (1947)

From the March 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain holds that Socialism involves a complete sweeping away of the prevailing system of society which is known as capitalism and the introduction of a system of society based upon the common ownership of the means of life. The introduction of reforms which occur in the normal evolution of capitalism and are necessary to its more effective working, do not constitute socialism though the reforms may be put through by politicians calling themselves Socialists as in New Zealand to-day.

New Zealand was opened up :by the New Zealand Company, and not by independent settlers as took place in America, hence its particular evolution. The dominant figure of the company and the man who defined its policy was Edward Gibbon Wakefield. He looked at the American colonists’ progress in the early days, and from his capitalist’s outlook found it unsatisfactory, because each ‘settler was virtually independent, making their own clothes, candles, soap, etc., in addition to growing their own food. That was not Wakefield’s idea. Where all are independent, as were the early American colonists, there is little capital accumulated, as there are few, if any, labourers to exploit.

Wakefield saw that if many workers could be attracted to New Zealand they would require the products of manufacturing industries in order to support life, thus creating more employment with resultant profits to the capitalist class.

Primarily employment was to be in the form of work on the land and steps were to be taken by the company to see that the ownership of the land was concentrated in a few hands, thus preventing the workers from becoming smallholders and achieving a measure of independence.

England in 1840 was, for the labouring masses, a country best left behind. The history of 1830-1840 is of revolts by agricultural workers, miners and iron workers against their appalling conditions: revolts which were ruthlessly put down. The French revolution was too recent for clemency, which might he mistaken for weakness. With the industrial revolution accomplished, there was unemployed capital as well as labour; Wakefleld believed that both could be profitably employed in New Zealand.

Alas, his hopes were doomed to failure for many years. The New Zealand Company bought up land from the Maoris at less than the proverbial song and sold it in large lots to those who were to become capitalist farmers and would, it was hoped, employ and exploit the labourers which the New Zealand Company intended to persuade to emigrate.

In order to induce workers to go out to New Zealand the Company gave free steerage passages and undertook to give paid employment in the service of the company if the workers could not at once find masters. The company did not bargain with having to redeem this pledge; they made the fatal mistake of not ensuring that buyers of land went to the colony in order to employ labour to work it. With promises of employment, hundreds of working people emigrated from England. The rough sea journey was a smooth passage compared with their sufferings when they arrived and found none of the promised jobs, and were forced to take employment with the New Zealand Company at less than a subsistence wage.

Few landowners but many labourers continued to arrive, as having once been set in motion the recruitment did not cease. Agents in England continued to be paid at a fixed rate per emigrant, and news did not filter through to warn the prospective worker emigrants.

Finally, in 1844 matters had reached such a pass that the company ceased employment and payment altogether and distress was widespread. Here the lack of any elementary form of doles became evident. The destitute labourers in England had, meagre though it was, Parish relief or relief in the Poor House. In New Zealand, however, nothing of the kind existed and charity was most tardy.

As colonization continued the price of land increased still more and the land remained in the hands of the few. As the franchise had a property qualification the government represented the interests of these few. Legislation therefore, for the provision of hospitals, schools, and the relief of pauperism, was blocked in successive Parliaments. By 1853 only four hospitals had been built in the whole of New Zealand, and these left everything to be desired, but they became the beginning of relief, the Poor Law infirmary without the Poor House ! Another attempt to deal with pauperism was the setting up of Soup Kitchens in Auckland, and in 1865 a contributory form of health insurance was inaugurated among the road makers, on the basis that they paid the whole contribution.

The year 1865 also saw the passing of the repressive “Master and Apprentice Act,” which contained a clause stating that boys or girls refusing to serve their apprenticeship could be sent to jail for three month’s This related to children of twelve.

1868 saw the first attempt at unemployment insurance, which was a tax of 10s. a year on adult male^ to provide a fund for the destitute, the sick, orphans, etc.’

By 1898 it had become necessary to make some provision for the aged poor. These were the young labourers of the early immigration ; they had not grown rich or become landed proprietors, as some earlier colonists of other countries had done. In old age, after a life time of privation, they were awarded a pension of 6s. 11d. per week.

Meanwhile, industry was going forward in New Zealand, and the introduction of refrigerating ships made export of food a paying proposition to the big farmers. The workers learned that organisation on the industrial field was essential if their standard of living was to be maintained. The United Federation of Labour was formed in the teeth of opposition from the employers, who victimised the members at ever, conceivable opportunity. The climax came in October 1913, when the employers cancelled their contract wit: the Wellington Watersiders and staged a lockout During the bitter weeks which followed the workers were completely defeated. The Labour Disputes Investigation Act was passed making sudden strikes illegal, and the Federation of Labour lost most of its power as the unions became more and more concerned with arbitration.

The Social Democratic Party originally declared Socialism to be its aim deteriorated into reformism. like the British Party, and in 1916, the present Labour Party emerged from it, its avowed object, being simply the nationalisation, that is the taking over by the state of the means of production.

It was this Labour Party that took office in December, 1935, on a programme which included state control of currency and credit, guaranteed farm prices, i national health service, and a recognition of the “right to work” !

Whatever else it may be, it, is clear that a programme of this kind bears no relation to Socialism. When Socialism is established there will be no currency, no credit, no guaranteed farm prices, nor any of the provisions that capitalism is forced to make to try to combat the effects of slumps and booms. State intervention in these problems of capitalism is not Socialism.

The set-up in New Zealand is accurately described by R. S. Parker, a New Zealand political writer, in ” The Australian Quarterly ” (March, 1941, page 30) :— 

”The Labour Government has simply continued in the New Zealand tradition of state control and regulation, private ownership and operation. The central feature of the present set-up is the survival of the spirit and content of an essentially capitalistic economy, upon which the state has imposed a far reaching, but largely negative system of regulations, controls, prohibitions."

The Labour Party has been in office for over ten years, yet in many aspects conditions in New Zealand are worse than those of Britain.

The latest report of the Director-General of Health for the year 1944-1945 proves Public Health and Industrial Hygiene to be worse than in the “old country.” As comment on all points is impracticable for reasons of space, only the most significant will be given.

The general health of the Maoris, who were in 1840, a healthy race, is poor. Tuberculosis is rampant, and the infant mortality rate very high (102.26 per 1,000 live births). Much ill-health is due to the notoriously bad state of Maori housing and no great improvement in health is possible whilst they are living under such overcrowded and insanitary conditions.

The report on Industrial Hygiene is very enlightening. Many of the comments of its author, Dr. Davidson, would fit any industrialised country: —

“… many thousands are employed in work which is hot, dusty, laborious, dirty or merely monotonous and uninteresting, and they, too, may be exposed to environmental dangers, the effects of which although less immediately disabling are none the less real” (page 20).

Continuing, Dr. Davidson holds up British Factory Legislation a-s a shining example to New Zealand, and advises those capitalists who are reluctant to spend money on amenities for their workers to think again. Covering the bitter pill of expenditure on nurses and doctors in the jam of future profits, he shows what skilled treatment of accidents, etc., may save in absenteeism, accident compensation, etc.

Dr. Davidson recognises the reasons why necessary reforms in industry are not carried out when he points out: —

”It is partly a matter of finance; merely to, keep a factory clean costs money” . . .

“Good seating, too, is no mere philanthropy, its pays.”

To the ears of the capitalist class the words “it pays” are sweeter than the sweetest of music—perhaps they will be convinced!

We have seen how young children might be jailed for refusing to work, but Dr. Davidson was surprised to find them still working : —

“I have been surprised to find children under school leaving age working full time in various factories during school vacations and in isolated cases during school terms. Children of 13 and even 12 can be seen working whole time—and sometimes overtime—in factories which in many cases are very ill-kept and in some of which highly poisonous chemicals or dangerous machinery are in use ” (page 27).

After the above report was compiled the Statutes Amendment Act of 1944 prohibited the employment of children under 14 years. Such conditions had, however, prevailed for almost 10 years under the “Socialist” Government.

The workers of New Zealand have been taken in by the promises of their Labour Party as were the workers of Britain in 1945. Disillusionment must come when it is found that neither state control nor private ownership within the framework of capitalism will solve the ills thrown up by capitalism. Only when the workers of New Zealand, together with the workers of other lands, realise the reason for their exploitation and combine to overthrow it can Socialism be achieved.

W. P.

Nationalisation news (1947)

From the March 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Cheques sent in bundles by the Bank of England to the clearing house are now tied with red tape instead of white.” (Daily Express, 13/1/47)

The Town and Country Planning Bill (1947)

From the March 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

“A man will no longer be able to buy farmland at £200 an acre in the hope of reselling it as a factory site at £600 an acre. True, it will be worth more as a factory site—but the State, through a Central Land Board, will collect all or most of the difference” (Daily Herald, 8/1/47).

Thus the Labour Government carries out a longstanding demand made in the interests of the industrial capitalist. H. M. Hyndman, in his “Economics of Socialism,” dealt with this. After reviewing the Ricardian theory of rent and the many objections which present themselves to that theory, he wrote: —

“It seems, therefore, that a wider definition of the rent of land under Capitalism is needed than that, given by Ricardo, and the following is suggested: Rent of land is that portion of the total net revenue which is paid to the landlord for the use of plots of land after the average profit on the capital embarked in developing such land has been deducted.”

On the question of confiscating rent he pointed out that it “would not affect the position of the working portion of the community unless the money so obtained were devoted to giving them more amusement, to providing them with better surroundings and the like. . . . In fact, the attack upon competitive rents is merely a capitalist attack. That class sees a considerable income going off to a set of people who take no part in the direct exploitation of labour; and its representatives are naturally anxious to stop this leakage, as they consider it, and to reduce their own taxation for public purposes by appropriating rent to the service of the State. That is all very well for them.”

On this point Marx says: —

“We can understand such economists as Mill, Cherbulliez, Hilditch, and others, demanding that rent should be used for the remission of taxation. That is only the frank expression of the hate which the industrial capitalist feels for the landed proprietor, who appears to him as a useless incumbrance, a superfluity in the otherwise harmonious whole of bourgeois production.” (“Poverty of Philosophy,” Kerr edition, 1920. Page 176.)

“Rent,” says Marx, “results from the social relations in which exploitation is carried on. It cannot result from the nature, more or less fixed, more or less durable, of land. Rent proceeds from society and not from the soil.” (P. 180.)

(The above quotations are used by H. Quelch in his Introduction to Marx’s “Poverty of Philosophy,” Kerr edition, 1920.)

Horatio.

"St Moritz and Miners" (1947)

From the March 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Observer of Sunday, Dec. 29th, 1946, describes the absence from work of Miners and Railway men, etc., on Friday and Saturday of Christmas week as “Shockingly anti-social.”

On the front page of the paper, and also in the Sunday Times, there was a photograph of the winter sports at St. Moritz (Switzerland), and many British holidaymakers are thus seen enjoying themselves there.

The Sunday Times (same date) tells us that between 13,000 and 14,000 holidaymakers travelled to the Continent during Christmas week. Considering that the workers in the main get two days’ holiday at Christmas, we are certain that a Continental trip for them is quite out of the question, apart from the expense. If that is so, then the lucky 13,000 must have both the time and the money.

The Observer, as a Capitalist organ, runs true to form in condemning the workers for absenteeism while wealthy idlers enjoy themselves in Swiss luxury hotels with the wealth created for them by their sweating wage-slaves.

J. D.

Peaceful Preparations (1947)

From the March 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

The American Government is going ahead with plans to build up stocks of raw materials required for war. In two years the expenditure on purchases at home and abroad will amount to well over £100 million. Is this good news? The Manchester Guardian rather thinks it is: “This plan will incidentally provide other countries — in particular British Empire countries — with dollars to supplement those earned from normal exports to America.” (February 14th, 1947).

“This,” says the Guardian, “is particularly welcome now that the world banks lending plans are hanging fire” ; not to mention the fact that the “purchases made inside the United States will also help to ward off the much talked-of ‘business recession’ there.”

Thus in one short news item two war-time hopes, of no more war and no more trade depression, are forgotten and here we are back in the pre-war atmosphere of being glad that war preparations keep trade going !

SPGB Meetings (1947)

Party News from the March 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Socialism and Religion (1947)

From the March 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Sunday in Christmas week the Rev. Donald Soper unloosed himself on the air. He claimed that the Bethlehem Boy-God, “Very God of Very God,” was an established historical fact, and that basing himself on this “fact” the Christian can cease to plague himself with anxieties arising from a grim present reality and a desperately bad Future Outlook.

Now the reverend gentleman acquired somewhere the imposing degree of a “Doctor of Divinity.” One might assume that his course of studies included a nodding acquaintance with the views of an ever-growing number of his more or less loving fellow-Christians (including a formidable array of D.D.’s) views which definitely point to grave doubts, to say the least, about his undoubted “historical fact.”

Outside the Bible, evidence is limited to the sorriest ha-porth of Tacitus and Josephus for establishment of the monstrous “fact” of the very existence of the New Testament "Jesus."

In “The Christian" Faith” (Religious Book Club) Canon Mosley writes regarding the Bible, “Its nature as the Word of God is not open to demonstration.” Our Kingsway hot-gospeller bases his assertion almost solely on the “Word of God,” playing the game of “open your mouth and shut your eyes and see what God will send you,” which we enjoyed in our early youth.

The “Encyclopedia Biblica” is not encouraging. Professor Bruce (D.D.) accords to the Synoptic Gospels "a considerable measure of historical worth,” and his estimate of Jesus is not enthusiastic: “The words of Jesus concerning the future show limitation of vision.” Tut, tut! After millions of Christians have chanted in unison, “ Light of Light,” “Very God of Very God.”

But for something more up to date than the E.B.: An imposing array of learned members of the Church of England spent, on and off, 15 years in an attempt to reach some degree of common assent to doctrine. The results of their labour were published in 1938. (Curious to reflect that at the same time Neville Chamberlain was making futile efforts to find common ground for peace conditions in the political field among states insecurely anchored to the treacherous sands of capitalist contradictions.)

“Doctrine in the Church of England ” (S.P.C.K., 2s. 6d. pre-war) is a remarkable document which all Socialist writers and speakers might well study. The introduction, by William Temple, late Archbishop of Canterbury, is a masterpiece of vague verbiage. “We have interpreted our function as solely theological and not in any sense judicial” is a typical utterance.

On page 82 we read, "The subject (Virgin Birth) is one on which the historical evidence by itself cannot be other than inconclusive.” Indeed, “There are some among us who hold . . .  that our Lord's birth took place under the normal conditions of human generation." One of the mighty pillars of the Church, St. Augustine, would have supported sentence of death against “some among us” for this clear denial of Creeds and Catechism. We draw the Reverend Soper’s attention to a deliciously naive remark of Canon Mosley’s (E.B.), “There are two independent traditions, Luke’s may be said to represent Mary’s point of view, Matthew’s that of Joseph.” In short, a choice between “ Mary, Mary, quite contrary,” and “ Poor Old Joe."

These Christian apologists leave about as much of the Christmas Carol Babe as Lewis Carroll left of the Cheshire Cat.

Now as to the second claim of Soper, that the Christian can bury all anxiety, present and future, in the deep cup of Faith. What does it practically amount to? The smug, self-satisfied sentiments of a priest finding refuge in escapism. It may be “unphilosophical,” but it is infuriating to contemplate that this stuff is shed over a comfortable Kingsway congregation, is in a more or lees degree retailed to school children, full-proof in “Church” schools, considerably under-proof in the “Undenominational” school; it is melancholy to reflect that but a comparative handful of teachers have contracted out of partaking in the “Act of Public Worship” forced on to children.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain has never made the attacking of religion a main objective. Our opposition to capitalism covers the ground. Our Party is the only political body which has issued a reasoned case against religion, “Socialism or Religion” (incidentally, probably our best seller, though now unfortunately out of print).

Only in the new world of Socialism, untroubled by the terrors of religion, will the poet’s dream of childhood “laughing as it goes,” be realised in actual fact.

Reginald.

Exchange Is No Robbery (1947)

From the March 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

If use-value is not the basis by which exchange-value can be measured, what then is the “something" common to all commodities by which this can be effected?

Take the two metals, iron and gold. Both are mined and brought to market where they exchange, weight for weight, in a ratio of some thousands to one. It is not their respective use-values that causes this exchange disparity, for while gold is a commodity essential to the capitalist mode of production, in that it is hoarded by the banks to back up the money-notes issued by them as currency, etc., a more than equal case exists for iron in that it is the material of industrialisation and its modem machinery and tools without which present-day society ceases to function.

Finding in use-value no common factor that is measurable, there is left the fact that all commodities are the product of human labour. Human labour measured by time is therefore the obvious basis for assessing value in exchange. Take again our iron and gold example; miners, according to a recent radio talk, must hew and process some six tons of quartz rock before it will yield gold enough to fill a matchbox, while on the other hand, the same amount of labour would produce tons of more freely found iron.

Exchange is therefore the interchange of one labour product for another of different use-value, the exchange-relation being based on the labour-time that capitalist society allots to the production and reproduction of any particular commodity, while in every exchange the kind of labour that produced the commodities, be it specialised or “unskilled” is reduced to the unity of undifferentiated human labour, i.e., the labour embodied in machinery made by industrial workers, will exchange for the products of agricultural labour, skilled labour being a multiple of unskilled labour. Yet the amount of labour in commodities is not decided by the whims of the individual capitalists but is thrust on them all by those who manage to reduce the labour-time by the latest labour-saving technique and machinery, setting up in effect the “socially necessary labour time” to which one and all must adhere or have their commodities rejected by the market as too “dear.”

Every exchange comprises a sale and purchase and looking at our gold and iron example one can say that either could change position, in that the iron could "buy” the gold or vice-versa. This implication is borne out by the long history of exchange in which first this and then that commodity served as a universal equivalent, the most favoured, being the precious metals because they concentrated labour in a handy form and were easily divisible. Among these, gold holds supreme position to-day as the commodity set aside as the measure of value and standard of price. Thus an ounce of gold of legal fineness, will mint as coinage into just under four sovereigns of legal weight, making it possible for the labour embodied in one or many such portions of this metal to express in currency terms the labour-relation between it and any other product of labour. In brief, while labour is the cause of value, gold measures this value and expresses it in the various national currencies as price. The fact that sovereigns have been replaced by paper tokens does not invalidate the foregoing, except that tokens open the door to inflation by legally expressing price in an unwanted number of tokens over and above the real money of gold.

Keeping in mind the meaning of price, one can say that exchange is but the movement of labour products for others of equal labour value, and the question which naturally arises here is that if exchange amounts to the giving of one value for an equal, how can profit arise? It might appear that the capitalists in the exchange of labour products out-smart each other by giving less labour for more in return, but a seller, to continue in business, must at some time be a buyer and is himself “caught,” thus levelling up any gain. Finally, the “outsmarting” theory is entirely nullified by the fact that the whole capitalist class make a profit regularly. Let us look a little closer at this. The capitalist buys at the proper market price, machinery, raw materials and workers’ energies and when the process of converting the materials is completed and the sale of the new product is effected, he finds that not only has he sufficient money to repeat this process, but enough and more as the business grows to cease all ”work" and hand over his mandate to his paid manager. No “robbery” has been committed by the honest business man, yet he is in possession of values in the shape of commodities for which he has given no equivalent in return. How does it happen? Read the next article entitled “Something for Nothing.” 

Frank Dawe

Work Harder? (1947)

From the March 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

The working class, that long-suffering section of humanity, are being beseeched by the Labour Government and powerful organs of capitalist propaganda, to work harder in order that “greater effort now” may mean “better living sooner.”

However, an interesting sidelight on what really is in store for the workers comes from an article in the “Star” (February 1st, 1947) under the heading "Plans to Avoid Post-War Disaster.”

A report issued as a White Paper by the Preparatory Commission on World Food Proposals, tells us that “production capacity has been expanded in many countries outside the combat areas.”

Now from this simple statement of fact, the average worker might deduce that the good time so long promised him cannot be very far off.

However, our capitalists have decidedly different views on the matter, for we read on: "If nothing is done to absorb the infinitely greater production that our efforts in World War II have stimulated, the result may he millions out of work, an unparalleled business recession and social and economic unrest.”

Could anything further demonstrate the futility and bankruptcy of capitalism to solve the world's economic problem? 

Here we see the most gigantic forces of production the world has ever known, where the potentialities exist for satisfying all the material requirements of mankind, yet we are promised nothing more than “social and economic unrest.’’

The cause is not difficult to understand. Socialists have pointed out incessantly that so long as a privileged class in society, the capitalists, own and control the means of production, so long will the motive for producing be one of procuring a profit

If no profit can be realised then production will either be restricted or closed down altogether, to the detriment of the rest of the population, the working class.

Only under Socialism, when the whole of society will own and democratically control its means of production, will the forces of production, unfettered, be harnessed for the common good, the needs and desires of the world’s population being the sole consideration.

The question of overstocked markets, unsaleable surpluses and starving workers, would then belong to a dead and forgotten era.

Fellow workers, wake up !

J. Pizer

The Changing Temper of the Workers (1947)

From the March 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

The industrial attitude of the workers since the Labour Government came to power strongly suggests a solid advance in appreciation of their wage-slave position; the stubbornness with which they advance their claims for better conditions, in spite of the appeals to desist from the leaders they placed in office, is an indication of growing class consciousness.

Immediately after the first world war the workers were also refractory, expressing their dissatisfaction with the leaders they had appointed and paid to work for them, in movements such as the Rank and File Movement. At that time the leaders were also appealing for a work speed-up and a shelving of wage claims and the like. But at least at that time the leaders formed part of the Government Opposition and had not the backing of the majority of the workers for the schemes they claimed would remedy the evils of the time.

How different is the position now! Less than two years ago the Labour Party obtained power by a sweeping majority, with a wagon load of nonsensical promises, but a mandate only to carry out their pettifogging schemes. In power they set about governing in the time dishonoured way, by jettisoning their promises and beseeching their supporters to got to sleep, hungry and homeless, whilst they prepared their five-year, ten-year, and fifty-year plans to make Capitalism run with the minimum of creak in the machinery. The revolutionary firebrands, Shinwell, Strachey, and others were metamorphosed by the tenure of Cabinet posts into the humble and contrite supplicants for the abandonment of industrial strife and the campaign for more hard work; whining for time to accommodate the lion and the lamb in peaceful and comfortable proximity. But the lamb has acquired a pleasant rumbling voice, powerful limbs, and a threatening attitude that is disconcerting to the advocates of submission. How far the lamb will go with his roaring and rending remains to be seen, and although we know he will not go as far as he could and should, at least he is making promising progress.

We are assured that the Government is deeply concerned with the interest of the community, but we notice that the Coal Crisis, which has brought suffering to thousands of workers, did not prevent the waste of fuel and labour involved in the Royal journey to South Africa for the customary soothing syrup tour, and members of the Government were able to tear themselves from their vital labours in order to attend the send-off. Talk of old Nero fiddling while Rome was burning, the Government were bowing and scraping and wasting fuel while London was freezing! Everything was arranged just as well as any other capitalist government would have arranged it; ships wasting tons of fuel, sightseers wasting vital traffic, and representatives of "Labour" wasting their time, though the latter is really nothing to shed tears over as they waste it anyway.

Right from the commencement of the Labour Government the workers have shown a determination to resist the attack upon wages and conditions that is very heartening in these dull times. We are particularly impressed with the steadfastness with which they have pursued a strike policy, striking again and again, in spite of the privations their actions have brought upon their families and their fellows, and with a total disregard of the solemn warnings about the imminent collapse of this rotten capitalist world.

One thing further may be said. The workers are receiving a salutary lesson in the futility of Labour politics which should go far to weaken their faith in programmes to reform Capitalism and in the parties that support these programmes. Maybe the time is not far distant when the workers will realise that is the Capitalist basis of society from which alone spring the evils that afflict them. From that point it will be a short step to the knowledge that their only hope of salvation lies in the establishment of Socialism.

Gilmac.