Jottings. (1912)

The Jottings Column from the August 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

“It is astonishing to the ‘businessmen’ to find how ‘practical’ the ‘Socialist dreamer’ is when he is on public committees. His ideas nearly always work out best as ‘business propositions.'” 

The above is culled from the columns of “Justice” (29.6.12) in order to give wider publicity to the self-condemnation of the B.S.P. which is therein contained. Any comment would spoil it.

* * *

The Anti-Socialists are fond of indulging their vivid imaginations by weaving tales to the effect that ability is bound to make its way while competition prevails, and that under Socialism talents would cease to be used for the common good because of “a lack of incentive.” How ability is rewarded under the existing order may be judged from the Civil List Pensions for any year.

Take the financial year closing March 31st, 1912, for instance. There are 17 awards to 19 persons, total amount, £1,200 per annum. Eight of the persons whose qualities are the basis of award are still alive ; three of these have been awarded their pensions on account of ill health and necessitous circumstances, and of the remaining eleven awards to dependents of well-known workers in the realms of the graphic arts, literature, research, and science, eight receive their pensions because of “reduced circumstances,” “inadequate means of support,” necessitous circumstances and “ill health.”

Of course these 19 cases are only an infinitesimal portion of the vast number where talent fails to get its due reward under capitalism.

Professors Tyndall and Huxley for a large portion of their lives were very poor, Herbert Spencer had to struggle long with poverty, and Karl Marx had to depend upon the kindly aid of Engels. A rather striking illustration is the case of Colonel Robert Hume, R.E., a brilliant officer, who, according to Sir William Butler, “was finding brains and knowledge, geographical and other, for Ministers and Statesmen whose names figured largely in the European congresses that preceeded and followed the Russo-Turkish War. He frequently sat late into the night at home, working a sewing machine to keep his children in clothes.”

This was the man who “coached” the Ministers in charge of foreign affairs at the time of the Russo-Turkish War, 1877.

Talk about “the reward of ability” and “incentive to gain” ! Ye gods !

* * *

By an error, in the paragraph in last month’s issue dealing with the B.S.P. and the St. Rollox bye-election, the word “Liberals” appeared instead of “Tories.” This will be sufficient intimation to those readers who know the old S.D.F. policy of “voting against the men in office”.

* * *

Substantiation of the Socialist explanation of the why and wherefore of war is to hand in the comments of the “Daily Telegraph” (11.7.12) on Sir E. Grey’s speech on the relations between England and the foreign powers. I could not, for instance, add much to the following :

“The solid truth—if only it could be realised abroad—is that we have no vaulting ambitions or schemes which can run counter to the aspirations of neighbours unless these aspirations are essentially inimical to our welfare. The real rivalry of nations in this generation is the rivalry in commerce.”

* * *

The “Manchester Guardian” (8.7.12) also assists in the confirmation of our contention that wars to-day are fought in the economic interest of the capitalist class. Dealing with Mr. J. W. Graham’s book “Evolution and Empire” it says :

“With remorseless logic Mr. Graham traces the economic interests moulding Imperialism and enforcing a policy of armaments as an instrument in this sordid game. He shows how the loan-monger, the concessionaire, and the investor become more and more the directing influences in foreign policy, utilising for their profitable ends the ambition of politicians and sentimental patriotism of the peoples. . . . The pressure of surplus goods and surplus capital for foreign markets is everywhere at work making history. . . . Nothing that Mr. Graham can say about the waste and folly of modern warfare disposes of the fact that it may pay, or seem to pay, powerful interests within the several nations to expose these nations to risks and sacrifices of unknown magnitude in order to gain their private profitable ends.”

This is plain speaking.

* * *

When some of us have criticised the B.S.P. from evidence appearing in “Justice,” exception has been taken to the evidence on the ground that “Justice” is not the official organ of the party. The first number of the official organ of the party is to hand, and judging from the report of an Executive Council meeting held July 8,1912, the same confusion repudiated in “Justice” is to figure as officially certified. Take this as a sample:—

“Some correspondence and a resolution were read announcing the intention of the Aberdeen branch to attack the I.L.P. locally: decided to write the branch that such action was contrary to the decision of the Conference to send fraternal greetings to the I.L.P., and the branch must refrain from such action or withdraw from the Party.”

Which makes the “Appeal” leaflet of the B.S.P. lie when on page 3 it says :—

“The British Socialist Party, therefore, refuses to consider any reforms as beneficial which presuppose the continuance of poverty.”

For in so far as the I.L.P. stand for reforms which are only necessary because of a continuance of poverty, to that degree do the B.S.P. acquiesce in the workers being misled when they prevent their branches opposing the fraudulent campaign of the I.L.P.

* * *

Take also the matter dealt with on page 3. (“Bye-Election Policy.”) :—

“Consideration was therefore given to the bye-election proceeding at Holmfirth, but in view of the presence of the Labour candidate and the absence of any branches in the division, it was decided to take no action.”

From which it can only be assumed that the B.S.P. is unnecessary since it is not to oppose Labour candidates and the I.L.P. Especially is one driven to the conclusion that the B.S.P. is entirely superfluous when one considers that it is “a union of Socialist (!) forces which have hitherto been divided on method and detail” (“Appeal,” page 1). For if the I.L.P. is reckoned a Socialist organisation by the B.S.P., and its method and detail have not altered, why the B.S.P. ?

J. B.

This Month's Quotation: George Bernard Shaw (1937)

The Front Page quote from the August 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Let as therefore dismiss the fear that persons of exceptional ability need special inducements to exercise that ability to the utmost."

G. B. Shaw

This Month's Quotation

The quotation in the panel on the front page is from Shaw's "Intelligent Women's Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism and Fascism," Pelican Books Edition, P. 322.

Blogger's Note:

The Shaw book quoted from was reviewed in the August 1937 Socialist Standard by Edgar Hardcastle.

How we live and how we might live (concluded) (2025)

From the May 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Continued from last month)

In a voluntary society without a monetary incentive, who would choose to do the dirty work? Wouldn’t people avoid it (surely that’s human nature)? And wouldn’t that have serious consequences for society?

Talk to an apologist for capitalism and you will almost certainly be told at some point that the system’s competitive private property structure is well adapted to meet the demands of ‘human nature’. According to capitalist apologists our ‘nature’ is self-interested and competitive. How do they know this? Well, they say, look around at the way people actually do behave. Competitive and self-interested behaviour is to be found everywhere. As socialists, we have no disagreement with that. In property-based societies like our own, selfish and competitive behaviour is ubiquitous.

But does that define our ‘nature’? In reality, we know this simple model of ‘human nature’ leaves a lot out. We can begin by drawing our apologist’s attention to Douglas Adams’s parable of the puddle: one rainy morning a puddle wakes up in a large pothole. It scans the world around it and is delighted to discover that the pothole is exactly the right shape to accommodate it, and the same is true for its companion puddles and their potholes. The puddle therefore concludes that the world has been designed specifically for the needs of puddles. We can apply this analogy to our current society and ask whether capitalism’s private property system has been designed to accommodate an intrinsically selfish and competitive ‘human nature’ as the capitalist apologist claims, or, on the contrary, whether the competitive and selfish behaviour we see around us, is a learned strategy for surviving in capitalism.

Wide range of capacities

If we look at human behaviour with a more inclusive eye, we can see that even in a capitalist society, people’s behaviour is not solely competitive and selfish, but is often deeply co-operative and generous. Modern capitalism itself consists of huge businesses which employ thousands of people all co-operating together. In our domestic lives, family members support each other, they help out friends with time and money, and they give generously to charitable causes at home and abroad. Donald Trump’s withdrawal of USAID, for example, while applauded by his ideological supporters, has also generated a large backlash as evidence builds of the deadly effects of withdrawal on the populations USAID previously supported.

Human beings are capable of self-interested and competitive behaviour, and also co-operation, kindness and generosity. Rather than ‘human nature’, it would be more accurate to speak of a wide range of ‘human capacities’. We then have to ask what determines which of our capacities predominates in an individual or in a particular society, and under what circumstances. Research in social psychology points to the fact that though we have a capacity for both co-operation and competition, both are socially learned behaviours. If a society is organised on the basis of property relations that isolate individuals and set them in competition with one another, then the best way for its members to survive in such a system will be to behave competitively. If society is organised to produce what we need co-operatively and without private ownership or the profit motive, then this is how things get done, and everyone learns and values much more co-operative behaviour.

At this point our apologist will still insist that even if we have a wide range of capacities, without externally imposed incentives like money wages, individuals will ‘naturally’ gravitate to doing pleasant or interesting tasks and to avoid unpleasant ones. If you ask most people would they rather do something they enjoy than something they don’t, we can probably guess the answer. But dirty work is not necessarily unenjoyable. Many people in the UK and elsewhere do dirty jobs for low wages. It is also the case that all actions have consequences. And those consequences may in themselves be pleasant or unpleasant. Very often actions we find pleasant to do have unpleasant consequences that we want to avoid and vice versa. Humans are not robots, but conscious beings that can estimate consequences and judge how they act on that basis.

Psychological needs

According to research in social psychology, humans have three psychological needs which motivate us strongly to act. We have a need for ‘relatedness’ with our fellows, a need for autonomy and a need to obtain mastery over our environment.

Relatedness: Human beings have never lived isolated lives. We are social creatures and we seek to act and live our lives in collaboration with others. Moreover, we commit ourselves to looking after those we identify and bond with. In capitalist society where the property-based employer-employee relationship divides us economically and forces us to compete, we do not go to work to provide for society in general, but for a wage in order to support ourselves and our families. Our ability to expend time and resources to care for others outside our narrow circle of family and friends is necessarily limited, and if it cuts into the time available for employment, comes at a cost to ourselves. In a socialist society of common ownership and free access, productive activity is not carried on directly to meet our own needs. Our needs are met freely, and we freely give our time to meet the needs of the community of which we are a part. In such a society the circle of those we act for and identify with widens dramatically. And because we have free access to the things we need, the time we give to others never affects our entitlement.

Autonomy: We are motivated to seek relatedness, but we are also motivated to seek personal autonomy, the ability within society to freely make our own choices and decisions. Autonomy is different from ‘independence’ which is a powerful buzz-word in capitalist apologetics. ‘Independence’ has to do with not relying on others. This means that autonomy, the freedom to choose, is compatible with our human need for relatedness, but independence is not. Although capitalist ideology often likes to deny it, our lives are wholly dependent on others, from our first breath to our last. Human beings as we know from experience have a capacity to dominate others. But we also have a powerful drive: a capacity to resist domination. We do not feel comfortable when others exercise power over our lives. People can only dominate us, however, if our society is organised in ways that allow some individuals to stand in the way of our access to the means of life, as occurs in capitalism’s wages system. Dominance hierarchies of this kind limit our freedom and control. A voluntarist society like socialism which is organised without a dominance hierarchy allows us much more autonomy (freedom) and relatedness.

Mastery: Human beings in general are strongly motivated to seek mastery. It may be that we want to become a better guitarist, to produce better carpentry joints, to write better poetry, to bake fancier breads, to become a better astronomer, to invent new technologies. Our drive to achieve mastery in our skills and knowledge often provides good illustrations of the activity/consequence relation discussed earlier. In order to achieve mastery of the guitar for instance, many people are prepared to put themselves through hundreds of hours of a monotonous and often frustrating learning process while painfully developing the calluses on their fingertips which allow them to play their chosen instrument. Satisfaction may be the end goal of our activity, but it may not at all be a feature of the activity itself.

Extrinsic motivators like money tend to suppress our intrinsic motivations for relatedness, autonomy and mastery. In a voluntaristic socialist society without dependence on an employer, we become free to make our own decisions about how we act and how we develop our skills. Without the blinkers of the wages system, which subordinates our actions to a narrow self-interest, we develop a much broader concept of our mutual interdependence. To the extent that some work, therefore, remains ‘dirty’, our much-extended sociability and a shared identity allows us to find value and meaning in contributing to the communal process of meeting our collective needs. And because we have much extended choice, there is also much we can do to eliminate ‘dirty’ work altogether or to make it more attractive.

Questions to ask

1. Is the ‘dirty’ activity necessary? Maybe we are happy to live with the consequences of not doing it. The consequences of certain mining activities for precious jewels, for instance, we might choose to live without.

2. If we can’t live with the consequences, is the work really that unpleasant? We often exaggerate how unpleasant some work is. Many people happily do work that others find ‘dirty’. The dirtiness of ‘dirty’ work is often an exaggerated response to a society that identifies ‘cleanliness’ with status so that we respond to this kind of work with exaggerated disgust. Some people find pleasure in hard physical work, even if it is in ‘dirty’ conditions.

3. If we cannot live with the consequences of not doing the work, and the work is genuinely unpleasant, can we do it a different way? In a socialist society, providing for human need means looking after ourselves in all our roles including that of producers.

3a) Can we make the work ‘cleaner’? A significant amount of ‘dirty work’ in capitalism is only dirty because it is more profitable to organise it that way than to clean it up.

3b) Can we mechanise the work, wholly or partly?

3c) Can we make it pleasanter, by providing, for instance, a better environment, better tools or better protective equipment?

3d) Can we share ‘dirty work’ around more, so that no one does it as a full-time occupation unless they want to?

3e) Can we make the task more sociable, obtaining satisfaction through working together as part of a self-managing team for a common social goal.

3f) Can we find resources and means of having fun while doing it? This may seem like a flippant suggestion, but, if so, ask yourself why? Human beings are a playful species. Under capitalism’s system of employment, time and productivity mean money for the capitalist, so we are taught to be serious in our jobs, to work hard, and to keep our heads down. In socialism, we decide how to balance the effort or unpleasantness of production against how much we think we need.

3g) Can we make the work creative or instructive so that those doing it can advance their knowledge and skills?

Capitalism or socialism?

So, what conclusions have we drawn in this series of articles? We have argued that capitalism is a system based on the employer/employee property relationship which isolates individuals economically from one another and forces them to compete at all levels of society, and that competition frequently spills over into all kinds of conflict, from domestic disputes to gigantic, mechanised world wars. It is the source of poverty, climate crisis, pollution and loss of species diversity.

Socialism, by contrast, is a system of free access, free association and common ownership of the means of production by the whole of society. It extinguishes the profit motive and wasteful competition, undercuts the private ownership of capital and releases a vast amount of labour power tied up, for instance, in the management of capitalism’s monetary system. It undercuts the motivation for greedy behaviour, turns work into productive activity, and laziness into leisure. It also eliminates the need for extrinsic incentives such as money and provides genuinely human motivations like relatedness, autonomy and mastery.

Hud.

Letter: Incentive to work (1974)

Letter to the Editors from the March 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Incentive to work

In the event of the establishment of Socialism in this country or any country; whereas people would take a job preferential to his ability and aptitude, how would one influence a person to mine coal (taking into account that machinery could not be put to this work) as the work is held in much disfavour, unless incentives were given to do the work?

Yet in a Socialist society, every person would take what he needed to sustain life, including creature comforts. For that matter how would people be encouraged to do any job held in his or her disfavour?

P. W. Ralphs, 

Stoke-on-Trent

Reply

We do not envisage a Socialist society existing solely in any one country. The question of carrying out work which is necessary to society will rest with the members of society. If the supply of coal is considered a necessity, it is logical to conclude that those who have brought Socialism into being will take steps to ensure that the supply of coal is maintained.

Apart from the enormous changes which will become possible to make the physical conditions of labour more pleasant, work will be viewed in the new light of usefulness to society. The incentive to carry out work will therefore lie in the personal knowledge that one’s efforts are meeting a social need. The maintenance of Socialist society where starvation, the threat of warfare, unemployment and poverty with all its implications are things of the past, and where men and women are free to work in harmony for the sole purpose of satisfying their social requirements, will be the over-riding incentive.

The pre-supposition that machinery will not be available to carry out certain work is dubious. Professor Meredith Thring (mechanical engineer at Queen Mary’s Hospital, London) has recently been complaining in the press that his coal-mining machine with caterpillar tracks, television eyes, and diggers, which could be operated from the surface by “a man in an armchair” and could work in currently “unworkable” coal seams, to produce four times the amount of coal now produced, has been rejected by mining engineers [whose] theories, according to Professor Thring, are out of date.

Editorial Committee.

Letter: Sitting duck rules (1977)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sitting duck rules

Thank you for publishing my letter plus your reply. However, I'm afraid that good at criticizing the status quo (who isn’t? It’s a sitting duck) you weaken completely when asked for your alternative.

Without money, how can it be decided whether I’m to have the use of a pair of low-quality, plastic shoes (the present reality), or of a Rolls Royce (which, of course, I richly deserve)?

Without the need for money, how on earth am I (and a few million others) going to get up and go to work each day?

Politics is the art of the possible and. having recently exceeded the allotted three-score and ten, the SPGB should seriously consider what Marx and Engels would think, say and do were they here today.

With or without class and money, the tough-minded people—the aggressive, assertive minority—will pursue their interests at the expense of the rest, who have neither the energy nor courage to oppose them. What humanity needs most is for the powerful and influential, in all walks of life, to decide to co-operate with each other for the good of all.

Allan Bula

Guildford

Reply:

Though you speak of money as an indispensable facility, on your own evidence it is not: instead of enabling you to get things, it prevents you from doing so. How was it “decided” that you have low-grade plastic shoes? Obviously, you want better ones but your choice is nullified by your pay-packet. Nor does the capitalist class or the government "decide” that you shall have only so much money. The government (any government) would like to have everyone in work, well paid and contented; it does not choose but is forced into policies which have the opposite effects. For the capitalist class as a whole, workers are customers. Each capitalist would like all the others’ employees to have plenty of money to buy his wares; but he must try to keep his own employees’ wages down. No "decision” is made. It is the way capitalism operates.

You need to reason this out. The sellers of wealth are the owners of it. If common ownership existed, there would be no owning class; the means of living and the products would belong to everyone. Can you explain what basis there would be for buying and selling, and what function money could possibly have? As for its being an incentive, you clearly see it as the reward of labour. Yet you acknowledge (see above) that it provides an inadequate reward for you. We are saying that Socialism would provide incomparably better material rewards, and therefore as much incentive as you need.

Without class there are no interests and no powerful people: power is political. Since a class society produces competing interests, it is impossible for "the powerful and influential” to co-operate "for the good of all” (you say this yourself in the preceding sentence). But society has been and is ruled by so-called strong men, and the .result in your own words is that the status quo is “a sitting duck”—i.e. has almost nothing to be said in its favour. Why do you think it will be different in the future? Socialists take the realistic attitude that a change of rulers makes no difference because the problems are produced by the class structure of capitalist society. Your view is the Utopian one.

Editors.

Material World: The politics of envy (2024)

The Material World column from the August 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

In capitalism, the basic marker or criterion of status is material wealth. The more wealth you can accumulate and display, relative to your peers, the more status you attract. The same goes for them. We are talking, in other words, of a zero-sum game. Crudely speaking, if Jane’s accumulated material wealth increases and overtakes John’s, then her status in the eyes of society will rise while his will fall.

In principle, as long as there is somebody wealthier than you in our present-day society, the motivation to accumulate more wealth, and hence more status, remains. This is not quite as far-fetched as it might seem. Even among the super-rich who have absolutely no reason to want for anything, ‘making comparisons’ can become an all-consuming obsession.

George Monbiot refers to one of their ilk – a Saudi prince by the name of Alwaleed – who was the subject of an article published by Forbes magazine in March 2013. Let Monbiot’s words speak for themselves:

‘According to one of the prince’s former employees, the Forbes global rich list “is how he wants the world to judge his success or his stature.” The result is “a quarter-century of intermittent lobbying, cajoling and threatening when it comes to his net worth listing.” In 2006, the researcher responsible for calculating his wealth writes, “when Forbes estimated that the prince was actually worth $7 billion less than he said he was, he called me at home the day after the list was released, sounding nearly in tears. What do you want?” he pleaded, offering up his private banker in Switzerland. “Tell me what you need”’ (Guardian, 6 May 2013).

This is someone who, as Monbiot points out, owned (at that time) a 747 plane with its own specially installed throne to sit on, a palace with 420 rooms, a private amusement park and zoo and, according to Alwaleed himself, $700 million worth of jewellery and yet, still, he was apparently not satisfied!

It would seem, then, that the title of Monbiot’s article is entirely apt in this case: ‘Why the politics of envy are keenest among the very rich’. Indeed. Not that this is going to deter those who regard any criticism of the ‘very rich’ as a class as tantamount to the ‘politics of envy’. That’s rich, as one might say, coming from these staunch defenders of the very rich when it is precisely ‘envy’ that lubricates the very system of status acquisition under capitalism. They don’t mind endorsing capitalism but, seemingly, do mind when it is spelt out to them what exactly this entails.

In any case, perhaps those who accuse others of engaging in the ‘politics of envy’ regarding the super-rich are somewhat off base in their criticism. As the 18th century Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume shrewdly noted in his Treatise on Human Nature, envy tends to be quite selective as an emotional response. It is one that is likely to become more intense, the more socially proximate the object of one’s envy:

‘It is not a great disproportion between ourselves and others which produces envy, but on the contrary, a proximity. A common soldier bears no envy for his general compared to what he will feel for his sergeant or corporal; nor does an eminent writer meet with as much jealousy in common hackney scribblers, as in authors that more nearly approach him. A great disproportion cuts off the relation, and either keeps us from comparing ourselves with what is remote from us or diminishes the effects of the comparison’.

Hume had a point. Envy is stimulated to the extent that we believe it realistically possible to match or surpass, in terms of our material possessions, the person with whom we compare ourselves. We tend not to feel particularly envious of the multi-millionaire because we do not seriously envisage ourselves ever enjoying the lifestyle of such an individual. So we evict the very thought of it from our minds or, at least, recognise it for the mere idle reverie it is. However, we may very well be envious of our neighbour with his gleaming new car provocatively parked outside our front door. It somehow contrives to makes us feel a little more inferior – a little devalued. The point is that we feel devalued only because we have bought into a value system that judges people in terms of their material wealth.

If envy is the spur to enhancing our social standing, it also an emotion that helps to reproduce the kind of society that typically makes such judgements. For that reason alone, envy is precisely not the sentiment of those who would want to fundamentally change the kind of society we live in. Obsessively aspiring to become a wealthy capitalist is probably not going to be very conducive to wanting to get rid of capitalism.

What envy does is to both reinforce, and reflect, the extremely unequal distribution of wealth and income that is to be found in society today – such inequalities being considered indispensable to the system of money incentives upon which this society depends.

Robin Cox

Socialism: A free cooperative commonwealth (1985)

From the Spring 1985 issue of the World Socialist

Many people pose questions about the state of human existence. It is obvious that we live in a deadly dangerous world in which survival is by no means certain. We are bound then to consider an alternative to this. The practical option is to establish a society in which useful work ceases to be a saleable commodity. This would be a world in which the means of production and distribution are used in common by the whole world community. A world in which the useful work of the individual would be given freely to the community, where the welfare of the individual becomes the responsibility of the community, and where the welfare of the community, in its turn, becomes the responsibility of the individual. Only with the end of private property and where human energy ceases to function as a commodity can the mutual interest of the individual and the community be made to serve each other.

The land, factories, mines, railways and other productive resources would belong to no one. They would exist for the purpose of producing and distributing the things that people need in order to live, it would mean no shareholders in companies and no working for money wages or salaries. It means production and distribution solely for needs. This would be a society operated through cooperation. There would be no exchange of goods and no need for a medium of exchange—money. It would mean the end of competition and war. It would mean the coming of age of mankind.

Free Society geared to needs

These simple and practical ideas are contrary to the values we are taught at the moment. We learn the values of private property and that the means of life must be owned by some and therefore not owned by others. We are taught the relationships of ownership and non-ownership. These are the relationships which determine the quality of social life. In socialism the fact that no one will own "the means by which I live" will be the basis for a free society. On this basis, the means of production will be used solely for the purpose of satisfying human needs. Apart from such needs as food, clothing and shelter the needs of one person may vary from that of another. In a free society this would be determined by the individual as part of social co-operation.

The essential need in order to survive in our present society is to have money. In socialism all that we will need is to be human—and to co-operate as humans.

Some people might say that such a society is eventually inevitable, an ultimate stage of social evolution. They might argue that just as the taming of animals and the cultivation of land made it possible for organised society to emerge from hunting communities, and as the use of steam and electrical power gave rise to modern industrial capitalism, so automation and computerisation will give rise to socialism. But this change will not happen automatically; it requires the conscious action of political organisation. The main barrier which stands against this is that ideas are not in tune with the need to change society. In many counties democratic rights are not established.

Many people are still conditioned by tradition, religion and superstition. However, there can be no halfway house. Present society can be abolished and replaced by a new world system which is organised for needs, but it cannot be reformed to make it serve needs. So long as capitalism exists, and human energy remains a commodity and goods are produced for profit, society will remain dominated by the economic forces of the market and social divisions and strife will remain. The idea of socialism must be understood and acted upon by a majority of the world's people. Therefore this change must be the result of education, communication of socialist ideas and democratic political action on the part of people who must work for it. A better world is not "just around the corner", it has to be brought about by the conscious efforts of those who stand to benefit by it.

Competition not healthy

The problems caused by present world society extend to every country, even though they are at various stages of industrial development. Whereas in underdeveloped countries the vast majority are forcerd to endure abject poverty, with many starving to death, even in the so-called developed countries deprivation still persists. Poverty in industrialised countries is evident in several different forms. Many people are compelled through stress, tension and insecurity to indulge in drugs and alcohol to excess. The drug companies are making huge profits from the sale of drugs which people consider necessary in a stressful society. The threat of war, insecurity about employment, loss of health, and the social isolation of individuals are just some aspects of our lives which give rise to the need for drugs, and such "tranquillisers" as valium are amongst the best sellers in "developed" societies.

It is said that "healthy competition" is a desirable feature of human behaviour. Socialists deny this. We maintain that competition is a destructive feature of a society based on property. The quest for profit and the accumulation of wealth involves competition and not co-operation. Cooperation is a constructive force associated with the creative abilities of people which could provide for needs. Competition is part of the market system, it is a destructive force and ultimately results in war or the waste of preparations for war. Competition is entirely related to the acquisition of property on the part of some at the expense of others. The material security of the whole community in an assured future requires co-operation, not competition.

The most satisfying social activity is useful work carried on in co-operation. Work, however, is not to be confused with employment, or the sale of human energy in the labour market for wages. Such employment is carried on around the competition for jobs, it is motivated not by needs but by profit, and many employment occupations reduce workers to mere mechanical functions, and many are useless, or destructive of the welfare of the community.

Voluntary co-operation and free access

It is argued that people will only participate in social production if they are paid with money, yet this does not correspond with actual behaviour. The fact is that even in a world motivated and geared to the sale of goods, many groups of people successfully operate and manage projects which bring them no more reward than the satisfaction of being able to participate. For example, within the northern boundaries of Sydney is a radio station, which, except for two full-time paid people, and a further three who are paid on a part-time basis, is maintained twenty-four hours a day throughout the year by volunteer workers. Not only do they work for no money but it is also necessary for them to donate part of their earnings from their employment in order to pay the expenses involved in running the venture. Hundreds of people, electricians, engineers, electronic experts, carpenters, you name them and they are there, giving their time freely, in spite of the pressures on their time imposed by their employment.

In 1976, the year the station began, there were great problems such as building studios, erecting antennae, etc. The amount of required work was enormous. Today, nine years later, in spite of all the problems caused by the money system, the station, 2MBS FM, is working smoothly and reliably in the Sydney area, day and night, constructed and run overwhelmingly by voluntary co-operation.

Even now, under the present capitalist society there are many examples of such voluntary co-operation which provide the utmost satisfactions to those who participate in them. At the present time this can only operate at the margins of society because it is excluded from the means by which we live and from the natural resources of the world. In socialism, voluntary co-operation will come to its full fruition because it will operate with free access to all the productive means which could be at the disposal of the whole community.

It is a fact that in the common experience of ordinary people, in the main they behave decently to each other, and for the most part the spontaneous responses of one person to another are those of mutual concern and care. It is these responses which find their expression in the many examples of voluntary co-operation, without which no human society, not even capitalism, would be either practical or tolerable. For example, no family could function in a practical, day-to-day manner without co-operation, and the life situations of people would not be viable if they were governed at every point by ruthless competition.

Anti-social behaviour has to be prepared by definite programmes of social conditioning. We are taught that commercial competition and social inequalities are "normal". The justification for war is given by the attitudes of nationalism and prejudice which have to be learned. Against this background of conditioning people are inclined to regard the possibility of a society based on voluntary co-operation with scepticism even though such voluntary cooperation is within their everyday experience.

Prejudiced ideas about human nature

In 1978, the Australian Broadcasting Commission published a book entitled It's Only Human Nature. It was based on a series of broadcast discussions between people who had spent a great deal of time studying human behaviour in varied social and geographical environments throughout the world. In speaking of prejudiced ideas about "human nature", Dr Anthony Barnett from Canberra, stated:

I think it is just a casual mode of speech that sometimes is used as a weapon in argument, I think, illegitimately. Suppose you are supporting a particular kind of political system and someone else comes up with another idea, you describe this other fellow as an "idealist"; you can't change human nature, you say, you'll never achieve these "ideals". That kind of argument is one of the most commonly used on occasions when people talk about "human nature", but they are talking about their own particular "nature" produced by their own particular environment.

Margaret Mead also participated in this discussion:

The way English-speakers use the term "human nature" has very little to do with anything; I mean they invoke "human nature" to support any prejudice they happen to have at the moment. So people say, well, you believe in heredity don't you? Identical twins are alike, aren't they? And doesn't that prove whatever they want to prove, that white people are superior to black people, or that black people are superior to white, or that people will always fight, will always have aggression, or any of these things? Now what one can safely say, scientifically, is that human beings are capable of an incredible range of behaviour, and we haven't tapped a tenth of it. All we need is a greater understanding of the interaction between individuals (in society) and innate abilities. We are now in an entirely new ball game where we can use everything we have learned to date about the potentialities of human beings to build the kind of society that will make this planet safe. If we don't—we won't be here. Societies are built by men and women and they can rapidly adjust to living in totally different societies.

The establishment of a new world socialist society in which people throughout the world will have free access to all the means of living and natural resources which exist, and in which they will therefore be applied solely for human need through voluntary co-operation, will not require any "new" forms of human behaviour. The establishment of socialism would eliminate from daily life the present destructive economic forces which engender competition, violence, and all forms of civil strife. This will enable the better sides of human behaviour which already exist, such as co-operation, creative individuality, and mutual care, to find their fullest expression. In a society which would be united in the common purpose of providing solely for needs, and which would operate on the basis of free access to the means of living, what place could there possibly be for the divisive attitudes of competition, nationalism, race prejudice and class antagonisms? On the contrary, co-operation will mean that individuals would see each other differently, as fellow human beings, expanding the diversity of skills and talents which would enrich the quality of life of all people.

Chas Lawrence

(Australia)

Is Money the Master? (1976)

From the June 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Despite the fact that the great majority of people never manage to obtain very much of it, money is without doubt the dominant thing in the life of everybody.

Those who have little of it are usually those who work for wages producing the wealth of society. Those who have a lot of it are usually those who produce nothing, but who own means of wealth production. Right away a contradiction presents itself. Those who spend their lives working, carrying out all the multifarious tasks in the world, when they come to the end of their working lives have accumulated precious little. Productiveness and possession are polar opposites.

Money is to the system we live under what oxygen is to organic life, the essence of existence. To most people’s minds, money is part of the natural order of things without which continued existence would be impossible. Money, or considerations resting on money, forms the basis of nearly everything we say and do. It is the centre of most everyday conversation. The theme and plot of most of what is euphemistically called entertainment on TV etc. The politician of the system would be speechless if he could not refer to money. Every promise and reform scheme from pensions to pollution and from H-bombs to education is argued in money terms. The reason given for promoting many reforms is to save money. The excuse for not pursuing others is that they haven’t got the money. Which is shadow and which is substance is a question most would find hard to answer. Such reverence is felt for money that its complete artificiality is rarely noticed.

Exchange & Incentive

To establish, as Marx did, that money is a means of exchange, a standard of price and a measure of value, is to raise the question as to why such a medium is needed. Again, most people and certainly the politicians would not answer the question. The working class need money to obtain life’s essentials, food, clothing and shelter. People have to buy and sell in order to live. It is accepted that access to life’s needs is possible only through money. So money is all-powerful. The legal machinery of the state stands ready to punish anyone found trying to obtain goods without money. Another contradiction. If money is there to circulate goods, why is it a barrier standing between you and what you cannot afford—even though you helped produce it?

If audiences in Hyde Park are anything to go by (they must represent a cross-section of the working class) money is the only conceivable incentive for doing anything in the minds of most people. That such a distorted view of life can prevail as popular opinion underscores the fact that the dominant ideas in society are those of the ruling class. (No, this does not rule out Socialism, because ruling-class ideas will cease to dominate when the workers have had enough of capitalism.) The idea that money is the real incentive for doing anything is part of the wider ideology of capitalism, an attempt to justify the profit motive.

The capitalist only risks his money in investments because he hopes profit will be forthcoming. This keeps him on his toes because he has to compete, and profit is his just reward for the service he provides for society. The workers, of course, should be grateful because he provides them with work. So monetary gain, in one form or another, is normal and natural. After all, nobody does anything for nothing. Simple, isn’t it? You must be a crank or a utopian dreamer to advocate a world without money.

Social Relations

The pundits of capitalism can avoid the really awkward questions, because their crude rationalization— the three-card trick—is accepted. Where did the capitalist get the money which he seeks to reinvest for further profit? How did a minority come to own and control the means of wealth production in the first place? Does not man’s development stretch back over many hundreds of thousands of years of communal existence without money, and without private property in the means of production? Were the first class systems (the beginnings of recorded history) not built upon the violent theft of common land and the ownership of slaves? Is the wages system operating throughout the world today anything more than a form of slavery?

The capitalist (state or private) is not saddled with direct personal responsibility for feeding, housing and maintaining his employees, as was the slaveowner. He pays them a wage out of the wealth they produce and which he owns, and they maintain themselves. Also, unlike the slaves of old who changed hands when they were bought or sold by their owners, the modern wage-slave is “free” to hire himself to any capitalist who is interested in his particular skills or abilities. This is what freedom amounts to for the working class.

But while a wage-worker can divorce himself from a particular capitalist, he cannot for long divorce himself from capital. Wage-labour is utterly dependent upon capital. Capital is utterly dependent upon wage-labour. They co-exist in mutual antagonism. Capital can live only on continuous supplies of fresh labour to reproduce it by the creation of new wealth, and labour submits to the draining away of its life- force, because in replenishing the vampire capital it is allowed to maintain and reproduce itself.

Those who believe the money system is natural and eternal have not begun to understand the world they live in, or the many phases of development through which human society has passed. Man did not descend from the trees clutching bundles of inflated dollars, roubles or pound-notes and head straight for the nearest supermarket. The nearest supermarket was about two million years away in the future. The universal rôle of money is a fairly recent development, historically speaking. For the far greater part of man’s existence he has produced the wherewithal of life without the use of money.

Attitudes

“Nobody does anything for nothing.” That is a glib piece of ignorance on the part of those who think money is the only possible incentive, but in another sense it is true. Man has always worked and produced to stay alive. That is not doing something for nothing. Even today, with the prevalence of the perverse attitudes ingrained by capitalism, people do a tremendous amount of work without receiving any money. The satisfaction gained by millions of people from the often back-breaking work of gardening, in many cases, simply to create a colourful display of flowers, is one of hundreds of possible examples.

Buried somewhere deep in the muddle-minds of the money-incentive school is the vague suspicion that work, as employment, lacks any satisfaction and sense of achievement. People only do it because they have to. Perhaps what they are really trying to say is that they can’t imagine any mentally healthy person doing many of the jobs done today, unless made to. Capitalism engenders many such tasks. Jobs that are monotonous, unfulfilling or socially destructive: we might instance banking, insurance, munitions-making and thinking-up fairy stories for TV commercials—there are many more. Work under capitalism means employment, working for wages. Work has lost much of its pleasure for most people. The idea of work (as employment) is not to produce clothing, food or furniture, but to obtain money. Surely this relegation of usefulness and the elevation of money to the supreme position in society, far from being a reason for the universal acclamation of money, is the strongest ground for condemning capitalism.

Very early in his life Marx understood and wrote about human alienation. Marx was a great admirer of the works of Shakespeare, and in 1844 he wrote an appreciation of Shakespeare’s grasp of the nature of money. Marx quotes from Timon of Athens:

Gold ! yellow, glittering, precious gold ! No gods,

I am no idle votarist: roots, you clear heavens !

Thus much of this will make black white; foul fair; 

Wrong right; base noble; old young; coward valiant. 

. . . Why, this

Will lug priests and servants from your sides;

Pluck stout men’s pillows from behind their head;

This yellow slave

Will knit and break religions; bless the accursed;

Make the hoar leprosy adored; place thieves,

And give them title, knee and approbation 

With senators on the bench: this is it T

hat makes the wappen’d widow wed again;

She, whom the spital-house and ulcerous sores 

Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices 

To the April day again. Come, damned earth.

Thou common whore of mankind, that putt’st odds 

Among the rout of nations . . .

Image or Reality ?

Marx’s essay, where he also quotes from Goethe’s Faust, runs to five pages. Space prevents reproduction in full. It is a stirring piece of writing. A short excerpt might prompt another look at capitalism by some of those who too readily swallow its sales talk.

I am an evil, dishonest, unscrupulous, dull-witted man, but money is held in honour — hence so is its possessor. Money is the highest good, hence its possessor is good: money saves me the trouble of being dishonest, so I am assumed to be honest. I am dull-witted, but since money is the real spirit of all things, how can its possessor be lacking in spirit? More-over, he can buy the cleverest people; and if a man has power over the clever-minded, is he not cleverer than they? I who, through money, can do anything the human heart desires — do I not possess all human virtues? Does not my money therefore transform all my inabilities into their opposite?

Capitalism has the deceptive knack of turning things into their opposites. The imaginary has thus become the greatest reality. Man’s power does not derive from money. The power of money derives from man.

Socialism will end human alienation. In a world based upon common ownership, money will not exist. People will relate to each other purely as human beings. They will co-operate to produce life’s requirements and freely use or consume what they need. Under capitalism, need can only manifest itself through money; capitalism presumes that where money is lacking, no need exists.

Harry Baldwin

Life and Times: Trump v the Binman (2024)

The Life and Times column from the May 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Recently, at enormous risk to himself, a binman rescued a family and their dog from a burning house in the West Midlands. He had a cup of tea in Greggs and then carried on with his job.

How does this tie in with Donald Trump? Well, a recent Guardian article by George Monbiot pointed to the theory among psychologists that human beings can be broadly divided into two groups -‘extrinsics’ and ‘intrinsics’. What they mean by ‘extrinsics’ are Trump types – people attached to ‘prestige, status, image, fame, power and wealth’. They are a group that tends to ‘objectify and exploit other people’, to be rude and aggressive, to ‘have little interest in cooperation or community’, to dismiss social needs and care of the environment, and at the same time to be likely to exhibit ‘frustration, dissatisfaction, stress, anxiety, anger and compulsive behaviour’.‘Intrinsics’ on the other hand are ‘inclined towards empathy, intimacy and self-acceptance’, open to change and reasoned argument and ‘protective of other people and the living world’.

Winners and losers

If this theory is valid – and it does seem to correspond very much to the reality we see around us – how is it that different groups of human beings can be so different? How is it that Donald Trump can seem so manifestly uncaring about anyone other than himself while a binman can risk his life to save the lives of others who are complete strangers? Monbiot points out that, according to the theory, we are not born with either of these tendencies but rather pick them up from the environment – personal, social and political – in which we are nurtured. So ‘if people live under a cruel and grasping political system, they tend to normalise and internalise it, absorbing its dominant claims and translating them into extrinsic values’. In the same way, if they live in an environment ‘in which social norms are characterised by kindness, empathy, community and freedom from want and fear, their values are likely to shift towards the intrinsic end’.

This would seem to account for the widespread support enjoyed by an openly ‘bully’ politician like Trump, who divides humans into ‘winners and losers’, among not just some of the wealthy in the US but also among some of the poorest, most insecure and disadvantaged members of that society. Such people will blame their plight and vent their anger and frustration either on those they see as slightly better off than themselves or on those even worse off than themselves who they see as somehow spongeing off society by claiming ‘welfare’. And they will be particularly hostile towards the ‘intrinsics’, those behaving in a kind, cooperative way, labelling them as ‘woke’ or ‘snowflakes’ or the like. Monbiot suggests that, in the US in particular, this mentality has been engendered by ‘toxic myths about failure and success’ and the importance given to the idea that wealth needs to be acquired at any cost, solely by individual endeavour and without concern for other people or for social or environmental consequences (the so-called ‘American Dream’).

The same kind of mentality is of course widely found, if perhaps in a less overt and brutal way, in other countries too, subject as they are to the competitive ethic and the ‘sink or swim’ imperative of capitalism. In fact, everywhere we look, the system we live under pressures workers (ie, those who form the vast majority of all populations) to ‘get on’, to make money, to compete against others and, if necessary, to blame others if they fail to do that satisfactorily.

In trouble

Yet, as this column has often pointed out and is demonstrated by such acts as the rescue by the binman, people are on the whole powerfully inclined not to behave in selfish, self-seeking ways but to assist, support and be cooperative with their fellow humans where and when necessary. Such interactions are absolutely intrinsic to everyday life, be it in such everyday acts as giving others right of way in traffic, making contributions to and organising food banks, doing simple favours for others, but also in helping others who suddenly and unexpectedly find themselves ‘in trouble’. The fact is that we, as humans, will usually choose to help others in a worse situation than ourselves, if only because it makes us feel better about ourselves and, as has been shown by scientific research, gives us higher levels of well-being. Such examples of help and cooperation without the prospect of material gain or advantage abound but are taken for granted and are rarely reported or commented on precisely because they are so numerous, so common and such a perpetual feature of everyday life. Of course, human beings are also capable of the most horrendous antisocial acts, which may involve selfishness and brutality, but these are not the norm. This is so much the case that, when they happen, they stand out, leading to the ‘if it bleeds, it leads’ scenario whereby we seem to be constantly bombarded by ‘bad news’.

Ultra-social

This says something about how human beings, though their behaviour is extremely flexible, are fundamentally ‘ultra-social’ creatures, who, given the opportunity, are only too ready to make common cause with their fellow creatures unless influenced into doing otherwise by circumstances or deeply embedded conditioning. This is the default, that, despite contrary ideas common in the past, is now widely accepted by those qualified in the subject of human behaviour. Of course, as exemplified by the Trump cult in the US, where the conditions of society push many people into behaving in unkind, uncooperative ways and in seeking to maximise their own self-interest, there is still a long way to go. Yet in a society organised in an entirely different way from the current capitalist one, it is clear that people will not have the slightest problem in behaving as ‘intrinsics’, ie, in operating in a harmonious and cooperative way most if not all of the time. In such a society, a socialist one of common ownership, free access to all goods and services and democratic organisation, the natural human tendency to share and cooperate will surely be its guiding principle.

Howard Moss

Letter: Hours of Work in Socialism (1946)

Letter to the Editors from the May 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

In our issue for November, 1945 (“The Simple Life Under Socialism"), we replied to a correspondent who had asked whether, under Socialism, a man of simple tastes would have to work for as many hours as those whose needs are greater. We have received a further letter.

London, E.11.

Editor, Socialist Standard,

2, Rugby St, W.C.1.

Sir,

“Common Ownership" 

Surely it is not the intention of the S.P.G.B. to ghetto-ize, or put in a concentration camp, all those who resent giving extra labour time to produce a standard of life for others in a Socialist Society, far above that which the objectors seek for themselves? It is the purport of your reply to my earlier letter to do so. But I cannot believe it without further information.

It isn't fair to caricature my Objector as a Simple Lifer, thriving on little more than plates of fresh air.

Ernie Bevin likes motor cars, others like aeroplanes, so all I ask is that the extra labour time “equivalent” to the production of these extras shall be provided by Ernie Bevin and aeroplane fanatics. The same goes for tobacco, alcohol, scent, and so on. A very large minority may not want these things, thereby living at a standard requiring less labour time. I do not refer to an extreme simple lifer, such as your caricature for the purpose of your case, as it is easy to cater for a few simple lifers.

I grant that children do not produce and must be provided for out of a common fund, but it doesn’t affect the point I’ve raised as regards those adults who are satisfied in the production caused by substantially less than the average labour time per capita, and do not wish to yield more labour time.

Unless you can explain, I am afraid that common ownership has a very elastic meaning—if any.

Since “ need ” is the basis of your case, and exchange is ruled out, as is the receipt of the product of one’s own labour or its equivalent, you must face the question in this letter.

Yours faithfully,

Chas. E. Berry.

Reply.

It will be useful to start by making it clear that the problem, if it arose at all, could only be a small one. Firstly, it obviously could not affect a majority of the population because they could decide in accordance with their wishes. Nor could it, as our correspondent assumes, affect “a very large minority.’' While there may be a group that does not want tobacco, another that does not want alcohol, and innumerable similar groups, it is entirely false reasoning to add them together and thus make up "a very large minority” of the population. The problem only concerns those people who want a low standard of living all round, and if we ask ourselves how many people there could be who want none of the things listed by our correspondent—in his earlier letter he mentioned also books, theatres and cinemas—the answer is obviously that there could be very few. (It should be observed that doing without cars and aeroplanes looks simple but may cover much. Are these individuals intending to do without all articles transported by those means?)

If, however, we grant that there might be a small minority that has no wish to share in most of the articles and services that the majority of the population consider desirable, it still does not follow that all of this minority will want to work fewer hours than the rest of the community. Let us, however, suppose, for the sake of argument, that there may be a small minority that wants a low standard of living and insists on very short working hours (as also possibly a few anti-social individuals who want to consume but not to work at all). Why should society bother about such small problems? Both groups could well be left to please themselves. The alternative would be for the majority to burden themselves with making special arrangements to measure each individual's work and consumption. Socialism will not need or want any such capitalist notions. In conclusion we must emphasise how unimportant such hypothetical problems are in relation to the benefits that the great mass of the population will derive from Socialism. The millions who, for the first time, get security and adequate food, clothing and shelter, and who work shorter hours than they do now, will not be unduly exercised in their minds about the proposition of doing without lots of things in order to work, say, only one hour a day. It seems reasonable to suppose that the majority will easily agree on a standard of comfort and corresponding hours of work, which, without being exactly what all groups or individuals require, will please most people and not give any a cause for a sense of grievance.

Editorial Committee

Here and There: On Initiative (1933)

The Here and There column from the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Initiative

It is a commonplace argument of the apologists of capitalism that the possession of wealth is the reward for and the result of the initiative of its owners. Socialism, they argue, would destroy this initiative and progress would be impossible. Three reports in the Daily Telegraph for January 1st and January 2nd completely upset this claim.

It was stated that Professor Haldane, who was Professor of Bio-Chemistry at Cambridge University, was resigning his position to take up a position at the London University. Some remarkable facts were given of his career. It was stated that he had produced in his own body the condition of certain diseases in order to discover a remedy for them. In doing so he had knowingly and deliberately endangered his own life in order to increase the knowledge of science in the conquest of these diseases.

Yet he does not appear to have had any pecuniary advantage in view.

Another instance was given in an appreciative obituary notice of Dr. Alfred Smith: Dr. Smith was one of the eighteen pioneers of X-ray work. In devoting his life to X-ray research, he fell a victim to X-ray dermatitis. The consequences for Dr. Smith were the loss of a leg, semi-blindness, and physical ruin. Unable to practice in his profession, his life savings gone, he was rewarded with a disused army hut to live in, and 35s. a week from the Carnegie Hero Trust.

The Daily Telegraph also gave the names of twelve others who had lost their lives in the cause of X-ray.

The same newspaper reported the trial of J. Geen, the associate of Factor, the fraudulent company promoter, who had successfully displayed initiative in relieving his fellow capitalists of millions' of pounds. It was stated of Factor that he was an illiterate, who "was even unable to sign his own name without difficulty.

Such are the rewards for initiative. It would be true to say that the ownership of wealth by the modern capitalist class is as much due to initiative as Factor’s millions were due to his academic attainments.

Some Effects of Capitalism

From Wépszava (“The People’s Voice”), the Hungarian Social-Democratic daily, for December 22nd, 1932: —

In 1932 down to December 20th 1,126 women began giving birth to children in the street, and were taken to a hospital or nursing home. 1,126 fearful blows in the face for Hungarian social policy, which does not even take steps to see that new-born children shall come into the world with a roof over their heads! . . . A mother who finds herself lying in the hour of her greatest stress in the filth of the street instead of on a clean operating table, not only feels that society has no use for her, but that her child is born with the chains of poverty shackling its limbs, and to a destiny devoid of hope.

And from The Star, December 22nd, 1932: —

The best study I have seen recently of the psychological effect of unemployment is the vivid report on life in the Austrian village of Marienthal which appears in “Character and Personality.” The 1,500 inhabitants have been workless since a local factory closed three years ago, and are living on 5d. per family per day.

The investigators got at the facts in an ingenious way. Before distributing clothing they called from house to house, inquiring into the need, and in this way secured an insight into the domestic conditions. They also organised sewing classes and made the keeping of household accounts a condition of membership.

The inquiry revealed that the unemployed, having time on their hands, lose all sense of it. They become unpunctual and slowly resign themselves to a state which renounces even the discussion of politics and the reading of newspapers.

After three years the inquiry tabled only 14 per cent. as unbroken in spirit. Of the rest most were resigned to enduring their present state and the remainder broken completely. “heedless of the future as of the present.”

We can imagine all the parsons and priests in the kingdom arising with a great self-righteous show of protests if animals were treated with a fraction of the inhumanity meted out to the unwanted wage-slave.

Incidentally, these conditions and their results on the workers in Austria are a somewhat tragic commentary on the notion held by many woolly headed persons that starvation makes Socialists.

In the House of Commons

During the debate on the Kenya New Lands Trust Ordinance, which deprives the Natives of Kenya of the right to their lands on it being required by the Kenya Administration or White Settlers, Sir J. Sandeman Allen, commenting on the protests on behalf of the natives made by several prominent clergymen, said: “ . . .  If Church dignitaries in East Africa confined themselves to their missionary work and did not try to do anything outside of their proper sphere it would be. better for all concerned.” (Hansard, February 8th, 1933.)

The social influence of the Church seems to be in its twilight. When it interferes in class conflicts, as in the “General Strike,” it is told—in the words of Mr. Baldwin to the Archbishop of Canterbury—to ” mind its own business.” In short, the business of the parson is to console and not to interfere.

The varied attitude of the British Government in foreign affairs makes a somewhat interesting and contrasting reading. Mr. J. H. Thomas, being asked in the House of Commons what there was to be gained in pursuing the policy of the Government in relation to Ireland, replied (amidst laughter): “I have got a few hundred thousand pounds more as a result of the increased duties.” (Hansard, February 9th, 1933.)

On Saturday, February 10th, a wireless debate took place between students of Yale University, America, and students of Cambridge University, England, on the subject of War Debts. The English case was for the complete cancellation of War Debts, thus summarising the attitude of the British capitalist class as expressed through its Press. The reasons given for cancellation were ingenious, and were to the effect that cancellation was really in the interests of the United States of America. Somewhat after the sanctimonious manner of the schoolmaster, who, having punished a pupil, claimed the punishing to have hurt the schoolmaster the most. In Kenya the attitude of the British capitalist class is one of the heavy boot; in Ireland, that of a. bullying braggart; but their attitude to America is—well, sycophantic is a mild word, perhaps Pecksnifian would be appropriate. The reasons, of course, are obvious. Beneath the tender solicitude for backward countries and the polished verbiage of diplomatic documents, there are hypocrisy and greed as crude and as vicious as that which characterised the early days of Capitalism..

Strange Bedfellows.

The Leader, February 7th, 1932, contained an article called “Blasphemous Attacks on Christianity.” Among other books that were quoted was our pamphlet (without reference to its source of publication), “Socialism and Religion.” The Leader is very concerned about these attacks and thinks leaders of the Labour Party, especially ”those who call themselves Christian Socialists,” should do something about it. The Leader is a "tipster’s ” journal, which thrives on the belief among millions of gullible workers that they can get rich quickly and easily from betting and competitions of the kind run by popular newspapers for large money prizes. (Quite recently, a mathematician publicly stated that the chance of winning a prize in one of these competitions was many millions to one.) It is perhaps quite fitting that those who thrive on one form of superstition should feel a brotherly concern for those who foster superstition in another form.

The I.L.P. Finds Inspiration.

During January, letters appeared in the columns of the New Leader from members of the I.L.P. on the subject of “ Religion and Revolution.” The varied views held aptly expressed the confusion of ideas of the I.L.P. on the subject, and ranged from the view that “Christianity is Socialism” to an attitude that more or less approached the Marxist position on the subject. In the issue for January 10th, Dr. John Lewis replies in what the Editor of the New Leader describes as an “able contribution” to the discussion. Dr. Lewis's reply is a typical piece of I.L.P. shuffling. He evades the essential points in the letters from critics of Christianity, and, like Paton in his reply to a similar discussion on "Parliament and Democracy,” attempted to placate and satisfy all the diverse elements that make up the I.L.P. Christianity, he says: —

. . . .Takes on a totally different form according to the period, and at no period is it a mere reflection of a static economic order. . . . At periods of crisis in which we are mainly interested, religion splits. One part sanctifies the obsolete; one part champions the new order.

Which, as historical summary, is fairly accurate. But his conclusion, based on the above, is as follows: —

To-day religion inspires, for the first time, a movement which can achieve its ideal by building a classless society, and finally overthrowing the exploiters.

Dr. Lewis's view, which he attempts to support with Marxist formulae, is that the demand for Socialism by the workers will express itself in a religious form inspired by Christianity. Dr. Lewis is, of course, entitled to his peculiar views, but to pretend that these are the views of Marx is sheer misrepresentation of Marx's explanation of religion. Had Dr. Lewis gone one step further he might have discovered that the forces which, in the past, determined that Christianity took on a “totally different form according to the period,” also determined the decay of Christianity in Capitalist Society. So much so that, for all practical purposes, Christianity is dead so far as the workers are concerned. It is almost a certainty that if Christianity ceased to be taught in the Schools and subsidised by the State, it would quickly take its place in the museums of antiquities.

It is an interesting explanation, however, that the I.L.P.'s latest pose as a “ real revolutionary party ” is so inspired. This is a new angle on the decisions of the Bradford Conference, which was perhaps a waste of time.

Harry Waite

The Socialist Forum: Incentive under Socialism. (1931)

Letter to the Editors from the March 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent writes asking what will be the incentive under Socialism.

“Human nature being as it is—what incentive for hard work do you propose to put in the place of the desire for freedom from financial worries (both for themselves and those they respect and love), which alone drives men and women of good-will to create (at great cost to themselves) wealth from the resources of nature.

If left to all to set a common standard of life, that standard (besides being an extremely dull one) would be at a lower level than the more advanced would rightly be content to live. Would you drag all humanity down to a low level beyond which so many would not be prepared to work hard enough to go?”

Reply:

Human beings, whatever the social system under which they live, must either work to produce the necessities of life, get someone else to work for them, or die of starvation. Our correspondent apparently assumes that under capitalism the wealth and security of the rich results from their own efforts. This is not the case. The rich are rich simply by virtue of owning the means of production which are operated by the working class. We are faced, then, with the remarkable situation that the workers put up with a system in which they are working to enrich a propertied class. When they realise the nature of capitalism and the way in which it can be replaced by Socialism, we believe that they will take that way. We further believe that the members of society will not find it more difficult to co-operate in producing wealth for themselves than the workers now find it to produce wealth for the capitalist class. In view of the enormous and avoidable waste of capitalism, and in view of the admitted activities of capitalist Governments and industrial associations in restricting production, we are confident that life under Socialism will not be at a low standard. It is for our correspondent to give his, reasons for believing that it will.

Editorial Committee.

Letter: Attractive Outsiders (1983)

Letter to the Editors from the January 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

I am attracted to the SPGB as an alternative to left wing parties that suggest everyone has the "right to work", that the Soviet Union is potentially less harmful than America, that support the IRA, that want to gain power for ultimately financial reasons, etc. Trendy students wearing lapel badges and make-up (if male) who advocate the slaughter of everyone whose house is larger than their own (while “actively" backing Lord Stansgate for "President") have laughably shallow conviction and false opinions.

I have never dreamed of aligning myself with a political party before now, because I have wanted nothing to do with boosting the egos and wage packets of those who pretend to have a "social conscience”. Because the SPGB works outside the current political arena, I would like to know more. Your principles and object, as stated, have set me thinking, and these arc the questions which spring to mind regarding SPGB policy:

• Is the SPGB an idealist organisation?
• Even in an ideal world, how could the Irish problem be resolved?
• By "entering the field of political action’’ would the SPGB be creating a revolution, fighting an election, or theorising in TV debates?
• In the SPGB’s socialist world, who would live in the biggest houses?
• What would happen if someone rejected the socialist work ethic to the extent of refusing to "work to his own capability”?
• How docs socialism differ from theoretical communism?
• And anarchist libertarianism?
• In a society without currency, how could greed and jealousy be eradicated?

Yours in good spirit.

Derek Hammond 

Birmingham

(This letter has been slightly abridged - Editors)

Reply:

The SPGB is a party made up exclusively of conscious socialists. We have no leaders and any member who does a job for the party (like editing the Socialist Standard) does so as a delegate, under the vigilant control of the membership. So there are no careers to be made in the SPGB - and no careerists.

We are in fact in the political arena but we are hostile to all other parties. We aim at the capture of political power and, when we can afford it in terms of money and member power, we contest elections. The SPGB won’t create a revolution; we are the political instrument which the working class will use. when they understand socialism, to establish the new society. At that point the world's socialist parties will cease to exist, for with the establishment of a classless society political parties will be made redundant. So the SPGB will never "take power".

Socialists are materialists; we reject all religious, idealist theories and instead interpret human affairs by reference to the prevailing mode of wealth production. That is the basis of social ideas and morals, and not the other way around. We don’t regard some ideas as "bad" and others as "good". We don't think capitalism is "immoral", only that it has been an essential phase in historical development, that it has now outlived its usefulness and operates against human interests. It must be abolished, if humanity is to progress.

Socialists don’t set out to solve the "Irish problem" in isolation, nor any other of the conflicts and crises of property society. The roots of the Irish conflict lie, typically, in a ruling class dispute over which group of robbers should have the right to exploit the human labour power and the natural resources of the place. The bigotries which — again typically — were stimulated by each side in this struggle have now virtually taken over to the point at which the original conflict has become obscured. Socialism will have no class division, no class interests, no religious bigotries, no unnatural national barriers; problems like the conflict in Ireland simply won’t happen because they won't be able to.

In socialism all people will have free access to however much wealth they need — or want — to consume. There will be no class or individual ownership of wealth so no one will think in terms of “my" house or "your" car; such words will be meaningless. If someone wants or needs to live in a bigger house there is no reason why this should not happen; people will have all sorts of preferences and socialism will not have artificial barriers of property to prevent them being realised. In such a social system there will also be no concepts like greed and jealousy, which again are based in the restrictions and inequalities of a property society. There will also, of course, be no such concept as generosity, which again springs from a society which denies access to wealth to the majority of people.

Socialism will be an extremely hard working society. Under the incentive of contributing to the common good, all humans will co-operate happily and productively. If there are a few who need or desire to stand outside the general satisfaction at doing useful work they will present socialist society with no problem; the choice will be theirs. They will, simply, be carried by the rest of society and have the same free access to society’s goods as the rest (even capitalism can carry millions of people who do no productive work, like bank clerks, salespeople, soldiers, judges, lawyers . . .)

The socialist movement is a political organisation with the object of capturing power over the state machine to use it to establish another social system. That is very different from the fragmented idea of the anarchist. Socialism and communism are words with the same meaning but we obviously don’t need to tell Derek Hammond that the so-called communist countries are in fact capitalist states and have absolutely nothing to do with socialism.

Editors.