Tit-bits from the Capitalist Stewpot (1941)

From the June 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard 

What Mr. Ford thinks.

“Making his annual visit to his plantation here (in Georgia), Mr. Henry Ford again gave expression to his peculiar view of the war, saying that the United States should supply both sides until they collapsed.

Voicing the ‘sincere hope’ that neither side would win, he declared that the suggestion that Germany might one day attack the United States was ‘pure nonsense—a hoax with the sole purpose of getting us into the war.’

‘There is no righteousness in either cause,’ said Mr. Ford. ‘Both are motivated by the same evil impulse, which is greed’.”—(Daily Telegraph, February 17th, 1941.)

Mr. Ford should know something about capitalist greed, for in times of depression he has been quite unscrupulous in discharging workers or putting them on half-time. And to supply both sides—at a profit—is that not also greed ?

* * *

Rowton Houses make a Dividend.

People who think of Rowton Houses as philanthropic institutions, providing cheap beds for extra-poor workers, may have had a shock on reading in The Times (April i7th, 1941) that for 1940 a net profit of £5,455 was made, permitting a dividend of 4 per cent. This compares unfavourably with the previous year, when a £14,621 profit enabled a 4 per cent, tax free dividend to be declared. Though Rowton Houses have evidently been hit by the war, it is clear that there are still plenty of people who are too poor to be able to afford more luxurious accommodation.

* * *

Business in the Far East.

Despite an all-embracing censorship, company reports are still worth reading, and that of the Hong-kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (The Times, March 26th, 1941) is of particular interest. We quote the following extracts: —

“In view of their bearing on exchange and trade balances, I should here mention the various credits and loans which China has received during the year from foreign sources. Detailed particulars have not been made public, but you must be aware that such loans were made chiefly for political reasons. The published announcement dealing with the most recent of the United States loans showed that the donors were desirous that ‘arrangements for purposes of monetary protection and management’ [the words actually used] should be completed. That is satisfactory so far as it goes, but that is all the information which is at present available.”

“As regards Japan, recent regulations issued there seem to be designed to restrict or to drive foreign banks out of business altogether in the same way as banks in Manchuria have already been restricted and, in some cases, driven out. The position awaits further clarification, but in the meantime we have notified our diplomatic authorities, as their intervention seems to be the only action now possible. I will, therefore, say no more about this, nor will I deal with trade in Japan, since it is now under very comprehensive Governmental control.”

* * *

The “Classical” Doctrine.

Writing from Berlin six months before the start of the war, the French Ambassador, M. Coulondre, is quoted as stating, in a despatch to M. Bonnet, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs: —

“In other words, will the Führer be tempted to return to the idea expressed by the author of ‘Mein Kampf’ which, be it said, is identical with the classic doctrine held by the German General Staff, according to which Germany cannot accomplish her high destiny in the East until France has been crushed and, as a consequence, Britain reduced to impotence on the Continent?—(French Yellow Book, Hutchinson, page 91.)

* * *

A Baron’s Romance.

The Star (March 7th, 1941) reports the interesting case of a wealthy baron who induced a young woman to live with him on the understanding that if she did so, he would further her stage ambitions. She was about 18 at the time, and at first refused, so then the baron lived with a more complaisant lady. The young woman, however, subsequently changed her mind, and the union was a fruitful one. The really interesting point about his case, however, is that the newspaper report refers to it as a “romance.” If an affair on somewhat similar lines had occurred in a lower strata of society, we can imagine that it may well have been described in less rosy terms.

* * *

Paint white—Paint black.

For some reason known only to themselves, Graham and Gillies, the advertising agents, republished in The Times (March 1st, 1941) and other papers an advertisement issued by J. Hatchard, of Piccadilly, in 1805, when Bonaparte, not Hitler, was the enemy. The advertisement takes the form of a supposed dialogue between John Bull and Boney. Space forbids us to quote the advertisement in full, but after implying that John Bull wished to remain at peace and that Bonaparte was an enemy of the liberty of the Press and of religion, the dialogue continued : —

“John Bull: Why have you suffered your soldiers to burn so many towns, shed so much innocent blood, destroy cottages as well as palaces so indiscriminately, murder in cold blood thousands of poor men, and ravish thousands of poor women in Italy, in Egypt, in Syria, and lately in Hanover?

Bonaparte: Foolish again, John. I did not merely suffer it—I encouraged it. My object has always been to strike terror. I don’t mince matters. Witness the deliberate massacre of four thousand Turks at Jaffa, who were my prisoners; and my poisoning several hundred of my own soldiers, who were of no use to me.”

To say the least of this advertisement, it is surely a rather indelicate compliment to General de Gaulle and the “Free French Forces.”

R. M.

Notes by the Way: The Little Corporal: Then and Now (1941)

The Notes by the Way Column from the March 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Little Corporal: Then and Now

One of the curious by-products of the rise of Hitler has been the revision of formerly accepted views of his predecessor, Napoleon. Typical of this swing-over are the following: —

On August 12th, 1940, the Daily Telegraph published an article by Mr. E. C. Bentley entitled “Hitler’s Mirror can reflect no Napoleon”; with the sub-heading “The Corsican, for instance, was a gifted and constructive despot: To his vassal states he brought order, not a gang wielding whips of persecution.”

Then on December 15th, 1940, 100 years after the ceremonial burial of Napoleon’s ashes brought home from St. Helena, The Times wrote similarly, saying: ”English historians have assessed scarcely less highly than French the value of Napoleon’s contribution to the structure of European civilisation.” The Times finds the following distinction between Buonaparte and Hitler: —

“The difference is that, whereas the opinions that Napoleon’s arms carried across the Continent were in their origin noble, and only became debased by the manner of their propagation ; we fight to-day against opinions that are evil in their very conception.”

If this is true it prompts the two-fold reflection that the British ruling class contemporary with the French Revolution and Napoleon held very different views, and that quite a number of their successors who witnessed the progress of Nazi brutality in our time were convinced that there was a lot of merit in Nazism.

On February 13th, 1941, the Manchester Guardian also explained that “in a great many cases his [Napoleon’s] own ideas were, of course, more enlightened and more just than the arrangements in force in old Europe.”

Now contrast these views with the abuse heaped on “Boney” by all and sundry when he was rampaging across Europe and Russia and threatening invasion of England. Not much then about his “enlightened” views.

Mr. Seymour Cocks, M.P., speaking in the House of Commons on December 19th, 1940, recalled the words applied to Napoleon by the Allied Powers which defeated the French armies over 100 years ago—”having broken every pledge and treaty, had placed himself outside the bounds of civil and social relations and, as the general enemy and disturber of the peace of the world, was abandoned to public justice.” Mr. Cocks wants the British and Allied Governments now to issue a similar declaration about Hitler.

William Cobbett, in his letter written in 1803 urging the Government to issue an appeal to the British public to resist Napoleon’s invasion, used words curiously like those now applied to the Nazis : 

“Now, like gaunt and hungry wolves, they are looking towards the rich pastures of Britain; already we hear their threatening howl, and if, like sheep, we stand bleating for mercy, neither our innocence nor our timidity will save us from being torn to pieces and devoured. The robberies, the barbarities, the brutalities they have committed in other countries, though, at the thought of them the heart sinks, will be mere trifles to what they will commit here … no man, woman, or child would escape violence of some kind or other. . . .”

If the capitalist historians could wash off all those blemishes from Napoleon it looks as if the principal qualification required of them is a capacity to wield a whitewash brush. What will they be doing with Hitler 20 years ahead ?

Merchant of Death

In years past the Communists have been among those who have expressed their horror at the spectacle of munition firms making profit by supplying weapons and materials of war to both sides engaged in a war. Now it seems that circumstances alter cases. The Russian Government is interested in the profits to be made out off international trade, including trade in essential war materials, and when the Russian Government cynically supplies such materials to those whom it denounces as the enemies of the working class and of democracy its apologists can see nothing wrong. A case in point is a letter written to the Manchester Guardian by Mr. Albert Inkpin, Secretary of the Russia To-day Society. Here is what Mr. Inkpin says:—

“Germany is importing oil products, raw materials, and grain from the U.S.S.R. Commenting on the recent new agreement, the official Soviet newspaper, “Izvestia,” states the willingness of the Soviet Union to trade “with other States, both belligerent and non-belligerent,” thus showing its readiness to trade also with Britain.” (Manchester Guardian, January 21st, 1941.)

A somewhat similar line is taken by Mr. Pat Sloan, though he was dealing with the fact that while the Italian Government was destroying Abyssinian troops and civilians by aerial bombardment the Russian Government went on supplying Italy with the necessary oil fuel for their aeroplanes. (It will be recalled that at the time the Communists were very indignant at the suggestion that this was happening.) This is Mr. Sloan’s statement, in a letter to Reynolds News (February 16th, 1941): —

“According to your book review, “Nazi Ways in Russia,” Arthur Koestler has written a novel the U.S.S.R. in which an “Old Revolutionary” goes anti-Soviet because the U.S.S.R. sold oil to Italy during the Abyssinian war and trades with Germany to-day.

As one who was in U.S.S.R. during the Abyssinian war, I may say that the Soviet people were proud that their Government was the first to apply sanctions against Italy, and that it proposed the application of further sanctions. I never met a single individual who advocated unilateral sanctions without the cooperation of the other States.

I may also say that nobody I ever met in the U.S.S.R. objected to trading with Britain so soon as the British Government adopted a reasonable attitude to the U.S.S.R.”

Now it is quite true that the Russian Government offered to support international action to stop oil supplies reaching Italy, but how does the refusal of other states to take action relieve the Russian Government of its responsibility in the matter ? Take the parallel case of the munition firms, they use precisely the same argument and excuse. British and American munition firms have repeatedly excused their action in selling arms (in peace-time) to all and sundry on the ground that if they did not get the trade somebody else would. The one difference between the Russian Government and the munition makers is not in their action but in their professions. The “merchants of death” admitted that they were concerned with trade and profit; the Russian Government affects to be guided by loftier motives.

There was a time when the Communists were demanding a world boycott of the Fascist countries and condemning the international trade union movement for its failure to make such a boycott effective, but we have not heard what reply, if any, the Communists and the Russian Government have given to the appeal made by the Greek trade unions (reported in The Times, November 2nd, 1940) asking workers in Russia and other countries to insist that their governments forbid exports of raw materials to Italy.

A Labour Peer on Profit

Writing to the Picture Post (January 11th, 1941), Lord Strabolgi, a Labour Peer, put in its briefest form the attitude of mind of the Labour Party as a whole on the subject of Capitalism and Socialism. He wrote: —

“I agree with Douglas Jay that monopolies should be broken ; but we are not ripe for the complete abolition of the profit motive.”

It is true enough that the majority of the workers are not yet ripe for Socialism, but whose fault is that ? What has the Labour Party been doing to make them ripe ?

Graziani Flatters Them

When Marshal Graziani, Italian Commander-in-Chief in Libya, retired with his defeated army from a village near Cyrene, he is reported to have told the village priest that the Italian settlers had nothing to fear : —

“The British are gentlemen. . . . They will treat you kindly and leave you to work in peace. . . .” (Daily Herald, February 7th, 1941.)

This was all right but we cannot help feeling that Graziani’s final words betray a slightly wrong idea if they are intended to apply to the British “gentry” as a whole. What he told the priest was: “If you want anything, ask them for it.”

Graziani cannot have seen the stony glare that some of the very best people in this country can put on when their workers ask them for another few bob a week.

“The Niceties of Civilization”

Fears have been expressed that tribesmen in Abyssinia may exact a savage revenge on the Italian settlers in Abyssinia when Italian control of the country breaks down. The tribesmen have bitter memories of the way the Italian invaders, armed with all the latest weapons of the modern arsenal, treated them five years ago. But what exactly did the Daily Mail Services Correspondent have in mind when he wrote (February 5th, 1941) that some of the tribesmen have “little regard for the niceties of civilisation” ? Niceties is hardly the word we would apply to modern war between “civilised” countries.

What is “Economic Democracy”?

The Labour Party has always fought shy of committing itself to any explicit proposal for the abolition of capitalism and its replacement by Socialism. That is why in the last 20 years Labour speakers and writers have made so much use of the term “economic democracy” as a description of their aim. It appeared to say a great deal but was capable of any number of interpretations.

Now comes Mr. J. A. Cecil Wright, M.P., writing to The Times (February 5th, 1941) to say that he, too, is all in favour of it. But before jumping to the conclusion that Mr. Wright is declaring for Socialism read the following: —

“If we are going to retain a capitalist system, and I hope we shall, because with safeguards it is the fullest system of life in an industrialised world (in fact it is economic democracy), then we must see to it that the essential ingredients of capitalism and democracy are there . . . .”

Edgar Hardcastle

Editorial: The Peace Settlement : Back to 1815 or on to Socialism? (1941)

Editorial from the September 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Times, in a recent editorial, was discussing the kind of settlement that should be made when the war is over. Comparison was made between the Versailles Peace Treaty made after the last war and the settlement made in 1815, when Napoleon’s armies had been disposed of, and the comparison was wholly in favour of 1815 !

 Neither ingenious formulas nor noble aspirations will of themselves suffice. Those who made the Vienna settlement of 1815 were less affected by sentiment and took less account of abstract ideals than the peace-makers of Versailles. But the settlement proved more enduring because it was based on a shrewder estimate of the relative strength of the principal European Powers. No peace settlement can last which is not rooted in the realities of power. Mr. Eden was right, in his speech last Tuesday, to set down as the first of peace requirements the military measures necessary “to prevent a repetition of Germany’s misdeeds.”— (Times, August 1st, 1941.)

Thus does the Capitalist world progress. During and after the last war the keynote of the utterances of most of the leaders of the Liberal and Labour Parties was that the mistakes of 1815 must not be repeated. Instead of a peace based on the balance of force we must have, they said, a peace based on principles and ideals. Now that it is popular in the same quarters to ascribe the present war to the last peace, there is a revulsion of feeling, and back we go to the good old principles of the reactionaries who disposed of the boundaries of Europe 126 years ago. And what will that mean?

One thing the Times does not attempt to hide is that even when the Peace is settled, trouble will still be round the corner.

  “The danger point is likely to occur not at the moment when the settlement is made, but some 15 to 20 years after . . . when a new generation rises to challenge it.”

Indeed, the Times need not have postponed the trouble for so long a period. In accordance with its newfound enthusiasm for 1815, the Times pointed out that after this war.

  “Leadership in Eastern Europe is essential if the disorganisation of the past 20 years is to be avoided … This leadership can fall only to Germany or to Russia.”

This line naturally caused some apprehension in the minds of the Governments of the smaller Powers, notably Turkey and Poland, especially in view of the Times’ further remark that “an enforced disruption of Germany would run athwart the modern trend towards larger and more integrated units, and would be unlikely to endure.”

The rulers of the smaller Powers anxious to preserve independence can see the difficulty of doing so whether Germany or Russia rules the roost in Eastern Europe.

Then, a few weeks later, came a Times report about the growth of a Pan-Slav movement in Russia: —

  “Hence to-day virtually the whole Russian nation— and, indeed, all the Soviet peoples—stand in conscious solidarity behind the Government. They believe that a greater Russia may arise, destined to be the nucleus of the Slav peoples, and to play the same unifying role as Prussia did in Germany.”—(Times, August 25th, 1941.)

What with the existing Empires and new Russian and Chinese Empires in process of formation, or at least being thought about, will the new world be any better than the old? Let there be no mistake about it, there is no formula or principle, new or old, Prussian or Russian, British or American, which will solve the nationality problems of Europe and the rest of the world under Capitalism. Capitalism breeds conflict, and conflict leads on to war even though a Napoleon gives place to a Kaiser or a Hitler.

War! Psychological Causes (?) Aldous Huxley Psychoanalysed ! (1935)

From the March 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard

Aldous Huxley is a writer of some repute, but that he is not of the calibre of his illustrious ancestor is shown by some of the material which he occasionally publishes. One of his latest efforts appears in The Listener, under the title of “Sadist Satisfactions in War,” and a more illogical lot of nonsense it is difficult to conceive of.

He starts by saying that out of a mistaken idea to simplify things, it is now fashionable to state that the causes of war are economic. We were unaware that it was “fashionable,” but let that pass. He gives as the causes of war: "psychological causes," geography and climate, differences in race, language, and culture, the intellectual gifts, passions, and subconscious tendencies of great men, and, finally, and presumably least important, the economic causes of war.

“Strictly speaking," we are told, "all the causes of war are psychological." Mr. Bertrand Russell is quoted as having passed judgment in his latest book on the dispute between psychologists and economists in a single sentence, to wit: "It is true that the conflicts between nations are largely economic, but the grouping of the world by nations is itself determined by causes which are in the main not economic"—“causes," adds Aldous, “which are largely psychological." A careful reading of the quotation from Bertrand Russell gives one the impression that he is of the opinion that the causes of war are mainly economic, so that although Bertrand Russell is quoted in support of Aldous Huxley, it would seem that he is of a different opinion.

"Wars," he goes on to say, “are not fought by climates or systems, but by human beings" (Really!), “and wherever there are human beings, the question of psychology inevitably arises." No sane person would take the affirmative of the denied proposition, but it is evident from the last part of this sentence and other matter in the article, that Aldous is of the opinion that the mental states of a people taking part in a war are the cause of that war. Yet the majority of pictures of mental states which are given are those which have arisen once the war has started and cannot, therefore, be described as the causes of war.

There is, however, one paragraph which deals with the mental states preceding a war. Let it be quoted:

   So far from discouraging nationalistic hatred and vanity, all governments directly or indirectly foment them. At school, children are taught to boast about their own nation and look down on all other nations. In dictatorial countries, this education in jingoistic sentiments is continued by the state throughout adult life. In liberal countries, it is left to the voluntary labours of the Press. Our rulers profess to desire peace, but do their utmost to make their subjects think and feel in such a way that, the moment a crisis arises, they will all acquiesce in or even actively clamour for war.

Why do governments directly or indirectly foment nationalistic hatred and vanity? Aldous Huxley does not give the answer. Yet surely here is the point which does require to be answered if it is honestly desired to get to the roots of the matter. Aldous Huxley has omitted this point, Possibly, had he thought of it, we might have been told to look for it in the sub-conscious minds of the Government officials! Yet everyone knows that governments exist by virtue of the support of the majority of the people, and under capitalism the different parties gain that support by making various promises to the electorate, and these promises have as their basis the satisfying of certain economic needs on the part of the electorate. The promises are frequently not carried out, but the backing is there. The parties themselves act in the interest of the capitalist class or sections of it—economic self-interest again! Why does a capitalist (Labour in office) Government operate a Poor Law Means Test? Why does a National Government decrease and then increase the unemployment benefit? The answer to both is "to enable capitalism to function." Again, economic interest. And why wars? The Marxian analysis of capitalist society explains the conflict of interests which causes capitalist wars. The capitalists use the State power to capture markets and sources of raw materials, to protect trade routes and areas in which they have invested their surplus wealth—the motive all the time is the profit one. It is so clear and easy to understand as to be almost self-evident.

We will, however, endeavour to deal with a few more of the points in the morass of “psychological causes," in which Aldous Huxley would have us believe.

Perhaps the most farcical of these is the suggestion that, because less suicides are committed in war time, therefore life during war time is more worth living! Continuing, he says (and now prepare to laugh!): “We say, and with our conscious minds, we firmly believe, that war is a catastrophe; but our sub-conscious selves, it is evident, do not agree with our conscious selves!” How the warriors must have loved the mud in the trenches, how they must have enjoyed the sub-conscious delight of falling over rusty barbed wire, half their face being blown away by a bit of shell, or the amputation of a gangrenous leg! According to Aldous, the suicide statistics show that this sort of life is 45 per cent. more worth living than the dull humdrum life of peace! It would be difficult to believe this, were not Aldous Huxley there to assure us that it is so. Aldous Huxley has forgotten one thing, however, namely, that the majority of people who commit suicide do so, not from peregrinational gallivantings in the sub-conscious mind, but simply and solely because life is not darned well worth living. Has Huxley not read in the papers during the recent economic depression how day after day people committed suicide because they would sooner be dead than cold and half-starved? And is it not a fact known to everyone (except Aldous Huxley) that during a war, when capitalist powers need all the labour power at their command in order to wage it to a successful conclusion, jobs are easier to find and that, although destruction is the business of the majority of the people, yet everyone can get jobs and that, therefore, the prime cause of suicides at once disappears?

It should also be borne in mind that the official statistics of suicides during war time are unreliable, because they omit to take into account the suicides of the soldiers at the Front. There were hundreds of such cases during the last war, and these were almost invariably reported as “ killed in action.”

In the same issue of The Listener is the report of a broadcast discussion between Captain Ludovici and A. A. Milne. Captain Ludovici, who advocates armaments for "self-protection,” states "I am not a militarist. I loathe and detest war, and nobody could have been more wretched at the Front than I was.” This is probably the feeling of the majority of those who participated in the last quarrel over the wealth stolen from the workers. Yet Aldous Huxley would have us believe that, at least for many individuals, war is a source of “substantial pleasure” !

Aldous Huxley quotes with approval the saying of a psycho-analyist that the battle of Waterloo was prepared in the nurseries of Corsica. If the Huxley of our generation knew anything about history, he would know that the Napoleonic wars were caused mainly by the lust for markets, the invasion of France by surrounding countries, who saw in French capitalism a menace to their trade, and in the French revolution a menace to their own systems. And that revolution, which enabled the rising bourgeoisie to throw off the yoke of feudalism, was, it need hardly be said, due absolutely to economic causes.

The question may be raised as to whether the mental outlook of psychologists themselves is not determined by economic interests. The psychologists, if they are to get a living, must write books which will have a sufficient sale to enable them to get a living. The new “science” also opens the door to certain professorial appointments. These appointments being under the control of capitalist interests, they must be careful not to say anything which would undermine the capitalist system. Psychology, with its mostly incomprehensible terminology, unduly impresses the bourgeois mind and opens the door to the much-desired El Dorado. The bourgeoisie also, in their desire to find an excuse for the continuance of the present insane system, find natural allies in the psychologists.

Much light entertainment could be provided by giving further quotations from the article under review, but lack of space forbids. It must be added, however, that, in an article purporting to deal with the causes of war, the discussion of a remedy would naturally have first place, though, if war is so satisfactory from a psychological point of view, it would hardly be necessary to worry about its prevention. And the psychologists are not impatient, as the concluding paragraphs of the article, here below quoted, will show: —

   The psycho-analysts profess to have explored the unconscious to a greater depth than has been reached by other investigators. Perhaps it is for this reason that they are so pessimistic about the immediate prospects of abolishing war. Dr. Edward Glover, in War, Sadism, and Pacifism, asks for fifty years of intensive research into the human mind. Only then, he thinks, shall we know enough to be able to act with any real prospect of getting rid of the tendencies that make for war.

  What is to happen in the interval? We must be content, I suppose, to prescribe such political, economic, and psychological sedatives as shall prevent the patient from going completely out of his mind and committing suicide. If we can keep him alive long enough, the doctors may at last agree on the diagnosis and discover a cure.

If the workers are going to rely upon the psychologists to bring about a mental state unproductive of war, they will evidently have to wait a long time!

If our contention is correct, however, that is to say, that wars naturally arise from the existing form of society, then it is evident that only by a revolutionary change in the structure of society can they he eliminated.

Ramo.

Whose Tax is it Anyway? (2012)

James Gillray, William Pitt's Policy of Income Tax (1799)

A Short Story from the March 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

(The Socialist Standard Archives Department recently came across a hand-written document concerning William Pitt the Younger, Prime Minister and inventor of income tax, which appears to be part of the memoirs of some obscure 18th century official. We are unable to say whether the document is genuine, but the argument contained in it is plausible and may well have taken place in some form. We reproduce it here because it has some bearing on current debates about what ‘public money’ is used for.)

A Capital Notion

Being a true account of intercourse lately passed between Mr Pitt and one Edgar Crutchley, Comptroller in the Office of Customs and Excise, Whitehall, June 1796.

Mr Pitt (afterwards WP):          I am informed that you wait upon me for purposes of discussing the war with our French brethren?

Mr Crutchley (EC):      Indeed sir. I have an idea how you can raise the money to fight Napoleon.

WP:      Pray enlighten me, I am all ears.

EC:      Well, you know that whereas it is always easy to tax the poor, to separate the widow from her mite, as it were, the rich manage to squirm out of every tax you can concoct, and thus deprive the state of any meaningful revenue?

WP:      Ah, t’is ever so, more’s the pity.

EC:      You tax windows, they brick them up; you tax shoe buckles and hair powder, they adopt new fashions; you tax offices, they change the names…

WP:      Yes, yes. The gentle classes are most assiduous in such evasions.

EC:      And when you try to tax their land and business income directly, they cry pompously about invasion of privacy and then hide their money.

WP:      Well? Get on with it, man. Now you are taxing my patience.

EC:      There’s a form of purchase only the rich can make, and one they can’t hide or change like their wigs – that is when they hire workers. What if you create a tax on wages and force the workers, not the employers, to pay it?

WP:      Tax the workers? What nonsense. Where will they find the money to pay a tax? They are destitute, with scarce enough to live on. Indeed, they are sucked as dry as they can be sucked!

EC:      Precisely sir. So wages will have to go up, won’t they? It stands to reason.

WP:      You mean, visit upon workers an insupportable tax which employers must needs supply the money for? And the point of this device, my good man?

EC:      The point is, workers can’t get out of paying the tax, and employers can’t get out of increasing their wages to pay for it, or else they’ll get no workers. So it’s a tax on the rich, not by the front door but by the servants’ entrance, if you like. One they won’t be able to evade like they evade everything else.

WP:      I suppose it might settle present accounts with Boney. But I could hardly make such a thing permanent. There would be pandemonium in the House, by God.

EC:      Well then, sir, call it a temporary measure. Like as not, a man of your noble intellect can find reasons to keep introducing it every year. One day you may even make it permanent, and your revenue thus secured.

WP:      Hmm. T’is true, an enforceable tax on the rich would answer our lamentable want of funds. We could have a proper civil service at last, an efficient administration of the state. Ah, but I perceive a problem.

EC:      Problem, sir?

WP:      The labouring classes will think that they are paying this tax, out of their own money, will they not?

EC:      Yes sir, they certainly will believe it to be so. It will even say so on their payslips.

WP:      Why then, they will think themselves entitled to parlay every purpose we put this tax money to. They will say that our institutions are really their institutions. We shall have a caterwauling mob every time we use the money to finance a war, build a government office, or bail out a bank. We shall have their damnable interference at every transaction, as if they were the true holders of the purse strings!

EC:      That may be, sir. But you shall have a reliable source of revenue from the rich, which is no small thing. And it may be that a working class which believes itself to be the source of state money will tend to ally its interests with that state, instead of being arraigned as outsiders against it.

WP:      Can such a working class, thus flattered above its degree, be kept in due station, I wonder?

EC:      That is for history to unveil, sir. I merely cast accounts in the present. But I believe a class which thinks itself already in power will see no need to seize power. By such grand illusions is true power maintained.

WP:      Are they all as smart as you in the Treasury? I shall have to watch out.

Transcribed by PJS

A Striking Coincidence. (1922)

From the February 1922 issue of the Socialist Standard

Although written by a man who lived too early to have studied Marx (and who, in addition, stated, he was no economist, and merely wished to learn from the public men of his day) the following analysis of the causes of the misery following upon the close of the Napoleonic wars is as applicable in its main points to-day as when written over a hundred years ago.

   “I said the cause of this apparently unaccountable distress seemed to me to be the new extraordinary changes which had occurred during so long a war, when men and materials had been for a quarter of a century in such urgent demand, to support the waste of our armies and navies upon so extensive a scale for so long a period. All things had attained to war prices, and these had been so long maintained, that they appeared to the present generation the natural state of business and public affairs. The want of hands and materials, with the lavish expenditure, created a demand for and gave great encouragement to new mechanical inventions and chemical discoveries, to supersede manual labour in supplying the materials required for warlike purposes, and these, direct and indirect, were innumerable. The war was a great and most extravagant customer to farmers, manufacturers, and other producers of wealth, and many during this period became very wealthy. The expenditure of the last year of the war for this country alone was one hundred and thirty millions sterling, or an excess of eighty millions of pounds sterling over the peace expenditure. And on the day on which peace was signed, this great customer of the producers died, and prices fell as the demand diminished, until the prime cost of the articles required for war could not be obtained. The barns and farmyards were full, warehouses loaded, and such was our artificial state of society that this very superabundance of wealth was the sole cause of the existing distress. Burn the stock in the farmyards and warehouses, and prosperity would immediately recommence in the same manner as if the war had continued. This want of demand at remunerating prices compelled the master producers to consider what they could do to diminish the amount of their productions and the cost of producing until these surplus stocks could be taken off the market. To effect these results, every economy in producing was resorted to, and men, being more expensive machines for producing than mechanical and chemical invention and discoveries, so extensively brought into action during the war, the men were discharged, and the machines were made to supersede them, while the numbers unemployed were increased by the discharge of men from the Army and Navy.
 
    Hence the great distress for want of work among all classes whose labour was so much in demand while the war continued. This increase of mechanical and chemical power was continually diminishing the demand for and value of manual labour, and would continue to do so, and would effect great changes throughout society. For the new power created by these new inventions and discoveries was already enormous, and was superseding manual power."—Robert Owen (page 171, “Life of Robert Owen," Bohn's Popular Library.)