50 Years Ago: Origin of the idea of justice (1965)

The 50 Years Ago column from the May 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Locke, who, like the philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries, used the deductive method employed in geometry, came to think that private property engendered the idea of justice. In his “Human Understanding” he expressly says that “Where there is no property there is no injustice, is a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid: for the idea of property being a right to anything, and the idea to which the name injustice is given being the invasion or violation of that right . . .”

If the idea of Justice, as Locke thought, can only appear after and as a consequence of private property, the idea of theft, or rather the tendency to take unthinkingly what one needs or desires, is on the contrary, well developed, before the institution of private property. The communistic savage and barbarian behave in regard to material goods as our savants and writers do in regard to intellectual goods: whenever they find them they take them, to use Molière’s expression. But this natural custom becomes theft, crime, from the time when common property is replaced by private property.

Into the head and heart of savages and barbarians common property put ideas and sentiments which bourgeois Christians, those sad results of private property, will find very strange.

Heckwelder, a Moravian missionary who in the 18th century lived fifteen years among North American savages, not yet corrupted by Christianity and bourgeois civilisation, said:

“The Indians believe that the Great Spirit created the world and all that it contains for the common good of men; when he stocked the earth and filled the woods with game, it was not for the advantage of some, but of all. Everything is given in common to the children of men. Everything that breathes on the earth, everything that grows in the fields, everything that lives in the rivers and waters, belongs jointly to all, and everyone has a right to his share."

[From a lecture by Paul Lafargue on Idealism and Materialism, Socialist Standard, May 1915.]

Knowledge. (1931)

Advert from the May 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

It's always interesting to note what books and pamphlets were advertised for sale in the pages of the Socialist Standard back in the day. Quite a narrow list in 1931, but you have to take into account that in the midst of the Great Depression buying books was beyond the means of many people. Note the inclusion of Louis Boudin's book in the list, which is interesting because he's not a writer who is mentioned much these days. I can't find a review of his book from this period but when it was reprinted in the late 1960s, it was reviewed in both the Socialist Standard and The Western Socialist:

• A Marxist Text Book (May 1968 Socialist Standard)
• The Theoretical System of Karl Marx (#3 1968 The Western Socialist)

Similar type adverts of books for sale were published in the Socialist Standard over many decades and you get a flavour of particular times from what books at what time were being 'promoted' by the SPGB. Here's a similar type list from the March 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Anarchism in Spain (1976)

Book Review from the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Collectives in the Spanish Revolution by Gaston Leval (Freedom Press, £2.00)

In the months following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War about 1,5000 collectives were formed, mainly in the countryside and small towns, under anarchist influence. This book gives details of the organization of a number of them, and presents the anarchist view of the conflict in Spain.

Leval starts with an account of the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist movement in the last quarter of the 19th century. As elsewhere in Europe, there were organizations with large memberships and journals with circulations reaching 50,000. For their decline into irresolute factions Leval blames Marx, Engels and Lafargue, and the importation of “deviations” from France. However, had the movement been founded on understanding instead of the emotionalism he commends (“the ideal dwells deep in the Spanish soul”), its supporters would not have been so easily persuaded by whoever came along.

In his visit to Spain in 1872 Lafargue noted: “The agricultural workers live in the towns and villages like other labourers, with whom they are continually in touch; it is for this reason that so many peasants take part in the insurrectionary movements (Engels-Lafargue Correspondence, Moscow, Vol. 1, p.27). When the Civil War began in July 1936 the harvest awaited gathering-in, and the collectives were initially a movement by municipalities to organize labour and supplies in that emergency.

Anarchists and other radicals keenly fostered this sudden opportunity to apply their ideas and were helped by the fact, as Leval states, that “in general the Catalan industrial bourgeoisie was anti-francoist”. The collectives helped arms production and transport, and organized distribution; the Aragon Federation substituted ration-books for money. Inevitably, they in turn required military protection. Leval and his translator, Vernon Richards, are both self-conscious about this. Leval speaks of “libertarian troops” and says: “It is true that the presence of these forces . . . favoured indirectly those constructive achievements by preventing active resistance by the supporters of the bourgeois republic and of fascism.” They were at war, weren’t they?

The “bourgeois republic” contained four anarchist Ministers. Leval criticizes the “socialist and republican leaders” for not introducing “daring reforms” before the Civil War; their failure, he says, created support for Franco. That was the background to the rise of other European dictatorships — the inability of reformist labour governments to make parliamentary democracy appear worthwhile.

The collectives do provide an example, within limits and special circumstances, of communal organization and to answer to those who say workers by themselves could not manage anything. They also provide a lesson for anarchists. Leval speaks more than once of necessary “workshop disciplines” and tells how “workers wishing to advance to a higher category . . . were required to undergo an examination in theory and practice before the central council of the Syndicate and workshop delegates”. Yet anarchists still wax indignant over Engels' “authority letter”, written apropos Spain in 1871:

Whether it be the will of a majority of voters, of a leading committee, or of one man, it is still a will imposed on the dissentients; but without that single will, no co-operation is possible. Go and run one of the big Barcelona factories without direction, that is, without authority!

B.B.

Editorial: Et Tu Brute. (1906)

Editorial from the May 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

After Bebel—Lafargue. Writing to Justice, our comrade says:—

“The Socialists of the two worlds unite fraternally in heart and voice with English Socialists in celebrating the electoral victory of the working class of Great Britain. Its victory is the victory of International Socialism. . . . The Trade Unionists . . . understand at last that in order to ameliorate their lot and to benefit by the wealth which they alone produce, the workers must form themselves into a class party for the purpose of expropriating the capitalist class from political and economic power.”

Which is precisely what they do not understand. As Lafargue himself unwillingly admits, ”the movement is confused, uncertain, unconscious.” And it is unconscious and confused because the Trade Unionists do not understand the necessity for the formation of “a class party for the purpose of expropriating the capitalist class.” How, therefore, Lafargue can hail the electoral victories of a confused, uncertain and unconscious movement as victories for International Socialism we fail to understand, while to talk of “the cool energy of the British working class that no effort will weary and no defeat discourage,” is to attribute to us virtues which are certainly not the conspicuous or peculiarly characteristic possessions of the British working class. We fear that Comrade Lafargue has allowed his kindly May-day desire to say something nice and appreciative to lead him to express himself in terms provocative of the idea that his acquaintance with English conditions is unhappily superficial—an idea which, knowing Lafargue’s high standing in the international movement and being acquainted with his exceedingly valuable contributions to Socialist thought, we are loth to entertain. We cannot agree that the election of the nominees of the Labour Representation Committee were working class victories. We have shewn them to have been achieved partly in alliance with capitalist Liberalism, and wholly by a class-unconscious vote. Does our comrade believe that because Trade Unions stimulated into political activity by certain legal decisions having the effect of endangering the financial reserves of their organisations, have entered into a loose association, for the purpose of recovering a position they had thought themselves secure in, that, therefore, they have established themselves upon a definite class basis in opposition to the political expressions of capitalist interests ? Why, every indication gives a flat denial to the supposition. Their leaders dare not formulate a programme that would emphasize the antagonism of interest and dare not even if they desired it, proceed in such fashion as would bring them into sharp conflict with the capitalist parties, because the membership of their organization have not yet withdrawn their allegiance from those capitalist parties. These leaders, some of whom at times profess Socialism, frankly drop their Socialism to secure the support of the Labour Representation Committee on the ground that to urge Socialism would alienate the Trade Unionists who are not Conservative ! And, so they proceed with halting steps and no little trepidation along the tortuous and unprofitable path of reform legislation, which, as our Comrade Lafargue will not be inclined to dispute, is not calculated to effect that sound class organisation of the workers which it is the sole purpose of the Socialist propagandist to facilitate, but is, on the contrary, more likely to result in confusion and apathy, because the attention of the working class is diverted to the consideration of immaterial issues. We need only add here a quotation from a speech by one who is regarded as among the most advanced thinkers, directing this new pseudo-labour organisation, which Lafargue regards so favourably. He may see in it an indication that the Trade Unionists of Great Britain are still far from recognising, “that their ideal of a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work recedes in proportion to the development of capitalist production.” Thus;

“For years the Association he represented had been trying to organise the town of High Wycombe. They were not doing that with any animosity towards the employers or the capitalists. Whatever might be their opinion as between capital and labour, as practical men of the world they knew that under present circumstances capital and labour had to co-operate in production . . . They as Trade Unionists said that if the principle of combination was good for the workmen it was good also for the employers. As workmen they wanted to see as strong a combination amongst the employers as it was possible to get. And why ? Because if the employer wanted to conserve the interests of his capital, the only possible way to do it was to prevent unfair cut-throat competition. The only way he could do that was to combine with his fellow capitalists, so that they might come to an understanding with the organisation representing labour, that there should be a bed-rock set of conditions that should determine the prices at which they should put their goods on the market . . . He believed that if there were 75 per cent. of the workmen in the Trade Union at High Wycombe and if there was a strong federation among the employers, they would double their wage in five years.”—J. O’Grady, M.P., made organizer of the National Amalgamated Furnishing Trades Association, reported in the Society Circular for April, 1905.

And this is one of the “Socialist” leaders of the new “Labour” Party, one of the victors in the electoral contest which achieved “a victory for International Socialism.” He is a fair type of the new movement’s fore-front men, and his views a fair sample of the views of the “extremists ” of the Party. How long then, Comrade Lafargue, will it take, think you, to build up a working class party on these lines ? And where in this speech is the idea of mutuality of interest between capital and labour, which is the hallmark of class-unconsciousness and continued working-class enslavement, combatted as one would expect it combatted by an organizer of victory for International Socialism ? It is not combatted at all of course either by O’Grady or any other leader of the new Party. It is deliberately fostered, and while that continues to be the attitude of the leaders of the Party acquiesced in by the rank and file, it is idle and mischievous to endeavour, as both Bebel and Lafargue have done, to invest the movement with an importance that may only be correctly applied to an enlightened proletarian organization on well defined class lines.

Knowledge. (1930)

From the December 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Invention: A Capitalist Monopoly. (1905)

From the May 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

Recently in a London Police Court an Engineer was charged with stealing two sheets of drawing paper belonging to his employers. The employers, however, were not so much interested in obtaining the paper as the drawings it bore. Property in drawings on paper is not defined by law, but the right to such property has been frequently asserted by enforcing the right to the paper. In this case the defendant had been sent to inspect the exhibits at Olympia Motor Exhibition, and as the result of these visits “at his employers’ directions and expense” he developed ideas for the invention of a new gear box, the rough sketch of which he outlined on paper, “doing his drawing work in his employers’ time, at his employers’ office, with his employers’ materials.” The magistrate notwithstanding discharged the defendant, it being in his judgment “impossible to say that any invention which might earn £1000 a year belonged to those who paid the inventor £3 a week.”

Now this form of property comes under the classification of “Intellectual Property,” and it will be observed that the right to such property is not legally defined, being, as the plaintiff’s solicitor put it, “as in the dark ages.” Neither did the magistrate give judgment in favour of the defendant as a matter of principle, but solely in consideration of the comparative insignificance of his salary.

Why is the right to intellectual property so ill-defined? Lafargue, in an admirable little pamphlet entitled “Le Socialisme et Les Intellectuals” touches upon this subject. He says :

“Material property, whatever may be its origin, is declared eternal by capitalist law : it is assured for ever to its possessor, handed down from father to son until the end of time, no power, civil or political, being able to lay sacrilegious hands upon it.

. . . . . . .

“Capitalist law has none of these considerations for intellectual property. Literary and artistic property, the only forms which the law protects, have but a precarious duration, limited (in France) to the life time of the author, and to a certain period after his death; 50 years according to the latest legislation. This moment passed, the right succumbs and falls in the public way : so that from March of the present year (1900) publishers can enrich themselves by publishing the works of Balzac, the genius of romantic literature.

“Literary property, if of importance to publishers, in reality not a very numerous class, does not yield any profit to the capitalists as a whole; but it is not thus with the property in inventions, which is of supreme importance to the industrial and commercial capitalists together. Likewise the law extends no protection whatever to it. The inventor, if he desires to defend his intellectual property against the bourgeois plunderers, must begin by buying this right by taking out a patent, which must be renewed annually. One day behind time in paying the tax, his intellectual property becomes the legitimate prey of the capitalist robbers. Even while paying this sum regularly his right is limited to 14 years (in France). During this short number of years, generally insufficient to have his invention completely adopted in practical industry ; it is he, the inventor, who at his own expense must put the legal machinery against the bourgeois plunderers who would seize it.

“The ‘trade mark,’ which is a form of capitalist property, never having demanded any intellectual effort, is on the contrary indefinitely protected by law like material property.

“The capitalist has only grudgingly granted to the inventor the right to defend his intellectual property, because by his right of reigning class, he believes himself master of the fruits of intellectual labour as well as of manual labour, just as the feudal lord arrogated to himself the right of possession over the property of his serfs.

. . . . . . .

“The capitalist-class, the most revolutionary class that has ever oppressed human society, cannot increase its riches but by incessantly revolutionising the means of production by the never-ending introduction of new applications of the mechanical, physical, and chemical sciences to the industrial tool. Its thirst for inventions is so insatiable that it has created factories of inventions. Several American capitalists have associated in organising at Mungo Park, for Edison, the most marvellous laboratory in the world. Here they have placed at his disposition an army of scientists, the aristocrats of labour, and the material means necessary to make and continue making the inventions that the capitalists patent, exploit, or sell. Edison, who is himself one of the sharpest of business men, has, however, taken precautions in order to insure his participation in the profits which the inventions of Mungo Park will yield.

”But all inventors cannot, like Edison, impose their conditions on the capitalists who build factories of inventions to exploit them. The Thompson-Houston Company at Paris, Siemens in London and Berlin, have, side by side with their electrical machinery, workshops and laboratories where engineers are engaged in research work, seeking new applications of electricity. At Frankfort in the factory of aniline colours, the largest in the world, and where the mineral antipyrine was discovered, there are more than one hundred chemists paid to discover new chemical products. Each discovery is immediately patented by the firm, which, by way of encouragement, gives some reward to the inventor.

“To a certain point we can consider all factories and workshops as laboratories of inventions, because a considerable number of improvements in machinery have been found out by the workmen in the course of work. As the inventor has not the necessary money to patent or apply his discovery, the employer takes out the patent in his own name, and thus, as bourgeois justice wishes it, it is he who gathers all the accruing profits therefrom. When the government thinks of rewarding talent it is the employer who is rewarded; the workman inventor, who is but an “intellectual,” continues toiling on as before, and as in this capitalist world one must be contented with little, he consoles himself in his misery, saying that his invention brings profit and honour to his master.

. . . . . . .

“Will the intellectuals yet hear the voice of the Socialists calling them to the rescue to free Science and Art from the capitalist yoke, and liberate thought from the slavery of wagedom?”

P. J. Tobin

Being Lazy (2023)

Book Review from the March 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Right to be Lazy and Other Writings. By Paul Lafargue. Selected and translated by Alex Andriesse. New York Review of Books. 2023.

Paul Lafargue’s classic satire on the obsession with work and the working class’s demand that they should be given work as a ‘right’ was first translated into English by the left-wing publisher Charles Kerr in 1907, so a modern translation is not out of place. This one, by Alex Andriesse, reads better in general than Kerr’s, if only because today is 2023 and language changes.

Not all the changes are improvements. Why, for instance, ‘preachings’ into ‘preachments’, ‘idleness’ into ‘otium’? Other changes reflect a lack of understanding of socialist terminology as when ‘wages’ is changed to ‘salaries’ and, on two occasions ‘working class’ to ‘working classes’ (Lafargue wrote ‘classe ouvrière’). While Andriesse’s ‘peacefully if possible, violently if not’ is the more literal, Kerr’s ‘peacefully if we may, forcibly if we must’ reflects how this view was expressed in the English-speaking working-class movement.

The Right to be Lazy is a pamphlet and only takes up 39 pages of this 120-page book. The rest is made up of A Capitalist Catechism, a skit based on the Catholic church’s catechism, The Legend of Victor Hugo, a demolition job on the author of Les Misérables who at the time seems to have been known just as much for his poetry as for his prose writing, and Memoires of Karl Marx (Lafargue was married to one of Marx’s daughters and so knew Marx well).

As this edition is published by the prestigious New York Review of Books it should reach a new audience and have a wider circulation than versions and selections (such as ours) published by small radical or socialist groups. Which can’t be bad.

Adam Buick

Knowledge. (1929)

From the August 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following Books can be obtained from Head Office :—

Anarchism and Socialism. Plechanoff. 3/6, paper 1/2

Civil War in France. Marx 2/9.

Conditions of the Working Class in England in 1844. Engels. 5/-

Critique of Political Economy. Marx. 6/6.

18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon. Marx. 3/6.

Evolution of Property. Lafargue. 3/6, limp 1/6.

Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. Engels. 3/6.

Poverty of Philosophy. Marx. 6/6.

Revolution and Counter-Revolution. Marx. 3/6 limp 1/6.

Social and Philosophical Studies. Lafargue. 3/6.

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. Engels. 3/6, limp 1/6.

Postage extra.

The Class Struggles in France: Before and After the Commune. By Paul Lafargue (1928)

From the March 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

Appearance of the Working Class on the Political Stage.

Although, prior to 1848, Socialism scattered into an endless number of variations of schools and school-lets, it could not, all in all, count many adherents. It did not gain a foothold among the masses of the workers and it enticed only a few artisans and bour­geois.

Therefore there was no reason for the capitalist class to worry about that kind of Socialism; it regarded its adherents as queer specimens and harmless visionaries, which indeed they were. These adherents themselves contributed all that is humanity possible to appear as such and to be very grotesque. They wore garments of very peculiar cut—the St. Simonists buttoned their coats at the back so that they needed the aid of a comrade when dressing, and thus had their attention directed towards co-operation—excessively big hats, long beards, etc. So long as Louis Philippe ruled, the bourgeois political parties continued to struggle for ascendancy as though there were no Socialists in existence. But the June insurrection revealed to them the existence of a Socialism essentially different from that of the Utopians, of a Socialism that appeared to them as the most terrible of all monstrosities. The vicious and silly slanders spread by the entire press about the insurgents, the capitalists accepted as gospel. The newspapers de­clared that Communism and Socialism aimed at a division of goods. The capitalists believed that. For the individualist bourgeois, whose entire mental activities centre upon what he can pocket, a division of goods is the most horrible eventuality he can think of.

Prince Napoleon, who under Louis Philippe had played the role of a Communist reformer, now offered himself to the bour­geoisie to save society from Communism. The brand of Socialism which had not had sufficient comprehension to organise a political party and to instil into the workers a consciousness of their class interests, in the hands of a Bonapartist pretender became a political instrument wherewith to overthrow the republic, erect the empire and “protect order, the family and property.” The first appearance of Socialism on the political stage furnished weapons to the reactionary parties by means of which they retarded political development and suppressed the working class for the benefit of the capitalist class.

The first years of the empire brought an unparalleled prosperity traceable to the foundation of the “Credit Mobilier” (a credit bank for movable property), of the “Credit Foncier” (a credit bank for real property), and of other credit institutions of modern finance, to the building of railroads, the development of agriculture, etc. Due to this prosperity, the June insurrection and the terror it had carried into the ranks of the bourgeoisie were totally forgotten. Those who still remembered the insurrection regarded it as an extraordinary event caused-by extraordinary conditions, a repetition of which they would never live to see. In a like manner Socialism was forgotten and not even spoken of. It was ranked among the whims gone out of fashion, like the National Guard, for which early in the government of Louis Philippe the bour­geoisie had greatly enthused itself.

But Napoleon III. did not forget that he owed his throne to the first political mani­festation of the class struggle. When there came the years of commercial and industrial decline, when a series of bank crashes caused by the collapse of the “Credit Mobilier” ruined numerous existences in all layers of the bourgeoisie, then the republican party again raised its head and attacked the empire. It was then that Napoleon felt the time had come to re-kindle anew the class struggle between the proletariat and the capitalists. The working class and the capitalist class were mutually to rend each other, and the government, as a smirking bystander, was tranquilly to look on and make good use of the respite cleverly gained. Prompted by such considerations, Napoleon restored the right of assembly abolished at the time of his coup d’etat, but limited it to meetings in which economic questions were to be considered. Every meeting dealing with political questions had to be dispersed by the police. These restrictions produced effects opposite to those aimed at. Napo­leon raised politics to the position of forbidden fruit, which alone excited the ardent interest of the public. It remained apathetic, indifferent, toward the economic questions, which the Emperor wanted to put in the foreground of public interest in order to incite the workers against the capitalists and to conjure up before the eyes of the scared bourgeoisie the “red spectre” of Communism and of the division of goods.

The workers, who for fifteen years had heard no more of Socialism, did not even understand the meaning of the term, while the words republic, liberty, etc., smote their ears like a fanfare of trumpets. In order to cater to the passionate interest of their audiences, the speakers at the meetings did not open a fight against the employers and against capital, but interlarded their discourses with allusions to the Emperor and Empress and even with attacks upon both. Instead of picturing the misery of economic exploitation and the allurements and advantages of collective property, they indulged in romantic lamentations about the shame of political oppression, about the happiness of liberty, the greatness of the republic and of the revolution. So that quiet might return to the political waters, Napoleon was prompted again to prohibit public meetings. But it was then too late—the stone had begun to roll.

For the first time since the Great Revolution of the past century—if one disregards the June insurrection and the revolt of Lyon in 1831—a real popular movement swept through the land. Until then only the various layers of the propertied classes had participated in the political struggles. Now, however, it was the workers who got into motion, who assailed the imperial government and fought for the republic. The working class appeared on the stage of political struggles and made common cause with the republican faction of the bourgeoisie. And therewith it obeyed unconsciously, following the logic of events, the slogan Marx and Engels had given to the proletariat in 1847 in the “Communist Manifesto,” namely, “everywhere to support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political conditions.” This first political manifestation of the working class showed how untenable had been the anti-political tactics of the Socialists prior to 1848. This attitude, forced upon the proletariat by existing conditions, confirmed the capitalists in the opinion that there were no longer any classes. They were full of the sweet illusion that the workers, in the present as in the past, as well as forever after, would see in the propertied their “natural” leaders and, forgetting about their own class interests, would render to the bourgeoisie dray-horse service in the mainten­ance of its interests. So far from opposing the foundation of the International, the bour­geois republicans joined it hoping that : it could be made to serve them. Like Mazzini, they, too, sought in the International a weapon against the empire. And, indeed. it proved to be such a weapon. While Jules Favre and the leaders of the republican party flirted with the government and accepted its favours, the members of the Paris section of the International proudly and contemptuously rejected the offers of Rouher, the vice emperor. They understood that, first of all and at any price, there must be a change in the political situation, that the empire must be overthrown and the republic restored so that Socialism could develop and gain a foothold among the working class.

But at that, the Socialism that could then be offered to the workers was by no means such as to satisfy them and meet their requirements. It confronted them as “mutualism,” as the Socialism of the artisans and petty industrialists, built up and extended by Proudhon through his own anarchistic and reactionary theories. It was he who, in the name of liberty, had publicly championed the secular power of the Pope; and he had also defended the right of American Southern States to abandon Union in order to maintain slavery. The members of the Paris section of the International who, barring a few exceptions such as Varlin and Malon, were Proudhonist “Mutualists,” at the congresses of the International were conspicuous by their reactionary and arrogant attitude. Tolain, Limousin, Chemale and the other Proudhonists entertained the strange assumption that they were to lead the International and force upon it their ideas, although they could not even lay claim to being clear upon its purpose. They always voted with the minority against all Communist motions. The fall of the empire surprised the working class before it had been able to attain a firm organisation or rise to a clear Socialist conception. It strove for nothing but the restoration of the republic. The few workers and artisans forced into the foreground by the political agitation of the later years, also possessed no Socialist convictions. Thus, in 1870, the bourgeois republicans calmly took the place of the Bonapartists, just as in 1848 they had crowded the Orleanists out of power. The workers, even the members of the International, took this to be the natural course of events. On September 4th, 1870, there was in France but one single class politically active, the capitalist class.

It was the Paris Commune of March, 1871, which, though not a Socialist revolution, was a grand repetition of the June insurrection, and made clear to the perception the class struggle latent in the lap of capitalist society. Versailles, where had gathered the representatives of all political parties whom the prevailing conditions had closely welded together, Versailles became the embodiment of capitalist interests. The Paris of the Commune, on the other hand, was the advance guard of the proletariat.

For the second time the modern class struggle in its most pronounced and most terrible form, entered the arena of political life. The rising of the proletariat in 1848 resembled a bolt of lightning out of the blue sky, ominously lighting up the horizon and then striking earthward without leaving a trace. Under the Second Empire the June insurgents as well as the Socialism of Fourier and St. Simon had been forgotten. The Commune, however, although only an insurrection of the Parisians, shook up the entire nation and awakened in the minds of the workers the conviction that under the walls of Paris the struggle went on for their very own cause. For the first time it came about that the workers experienced this emotion, and it was destined to become an indelible one. The subsequent economic events could only deepen it and prepare the workers to become conscious of their interests as a class, and would cause them to come together as a class in a political party.

The Organisation of the Working Class as a Political Party.

The Franco-German war of 1870-71 led to a revolution of the economic conditions of France. The large machine industry, which since the trade agreement with England in 1863 had been slowly developed, suddenly took on a colossal upward swing. French industry had then to meet a severe task; it had to heal the wounds which the war had inflicted upon one-third of the country ; it had to furnish the means for the gigantic armaments, the colossal building-up of militarism ; and, finally, it had to fill the gap caused by the cession of Alsace-Lor­raine, the province of France most highly developed industrially before the year 1870. French industry met these demands in the course of a few years. In all parts of the country factories shot up like toadstools, destroyed petty industry and created an industrial proletariat, which until then had been present only in a few cities of the north-east, the only part of the country where large machine industry had got a firm foothold. Ten years after the war the industrial proletariat could be found all over France.

If the June insurrection had buried Utopian Socialism, the Commune had given the coup de grace to the Proudhon “mutualism.” The Fourierists and St. Simonists had been transformed into mani­pulators of great industrial and financial undertakings, while the mutualists landed in the Senate, as did Tolain, or in worse places, as did Chardey, Fribourg, Pierre Denis. A few attached themselves to the new Socialist movement.

The International, during its short life, had fulfilled an important mission the fruits of which were now to be harvested. The imagination of the scared bourgeoisie pic­tured the International as a powerful, gigantic organisation, firmly organised, able to dispose of millions who, blindly and without remonstrance, would obey the London General Council, which latter ordered strikes and prepared insurrections like that of the Paris Commune. Nothing can be more beside the facts than this conception. The International did not play this role, could not have played it. But even if the mission it actually did fulfil was less romantic, it was none the less great and important. It had the mission to bring nearer to one another and into communication the workers of Europe and America, who had until then been separated by political boundaries and national hatreds and prejudices ; it had the mission to formulate Socialist theories which, so to speak, became the Socialist confession of faith of the world proletariat; it had the mission to create, in theory, an international Socialist movement at a time when there existed in no country, Germany alone excepted, a national Socialist movement. Only a revolutionary and scientific genius like Marx could have conceived the thought of such a work, could prevent the International from being led into wrong channels and, instead, perform the task that had been set in so short a time. When the International, which in reality had died after the congress at The Hague in 1872, a few years thereafter entirely dis­appeared there existed in the world an international Socialist Party the members of which had the mission to found in their home countries national Socialist parties.

The men who in France, after the fury of the Versailles reaction had somewhat subsided, took up the Socialist movement at the point where the Commune had left off, had been members of the International. They had. therefore, drawn their new Socialist convictions from the common fund of Socialist theories which the International had formulated at its various congresses. Ten years after the fall of the Commune, the congress held at Marseilles, attended by representatives of the working class from all parts of France, decided against a strong minority to organise the workers as a class party, which was to participate in economic conflicts through the support of strikes and in the political struggle utilise the ballot to conquer the powers of state and by means of them transfer the land and the means of production into the possession of the entire nation. Therewith the Socialist Party had found its proper field of action, had raised its standard, and now it remained only to draw together its forces and to organise them. This task was taken in hand eagerly and with enthusiasm.

(From the Weekly People.)

Correspondence. (1904)

Letters to the Editors from the December 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

(To the Editors)

Our comrade Hawkins forwards a copy of the following letter which he has received:

“Draviel, 15.11.04

Dear Comrade,—I have just received No. 3 of THE SOCIALIST STANDARD, containing your interview, and I am glad to find that you have given a very full and faithful account thereof.

Trusting that the paper will be successful and with my best wishes and our kind regards to Mrs Hawkins and yourself.

Yours fraternally

Paul Lafargue.”

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12, Shelgate Road,

Clapham Junctn., S.W.

14.11.04.

Comrades,

Just a few lines of congratulations. I am glad to see that a straight, uncompromising Socialist party has at last entered the political field. If ever there were need of such party it is at the present time. When one looks around and sees the so-called Socialist parties wobbling about, advising the workers to do one thing one moment and the opposite the next, it is no wonder that the workers are in a chaotic state. It is no wonder that they are apathetic. Therefore, when almost at the last moment as it seems, a straight party springs into existence, I cannot but feel that every success should meet its progress. I think that if you continue as you have begun, the workers will wake up from their apathetic mood and support you wherever you lead. I am heartily pleased with the SOCIALIST STANDARD, and wish it every success. I, at any rate, will do my best to advertise the paper and forward the Cause.

I remain, yours fraternally,

H. T. Davey.

A Forecast of the Coming Revolution: Interview with Paul Lafargue. (1904)

From the November 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

Amongst the best known leaders of Socialist thought is our comrade Paul Lafargue, author of "The Evolution of Property", "Socialism and the Intellectuals", and many other volumes and pamphlets of great value to International Socialism. A visit to Paris brought us in touch with a French comrade, through whose kindly offices we received an invitation to visit the veteran debater at his pleasant retreat in a little village some dozen miles from the French capital. Lafargue and his wife (once known personally to English Socialists as Laura Marx) received us with the true comradeship, which in palpable form made it plain that “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”, is no empty phrase amongst Socialists.

Mindful of the interests of the Party, we secured from our comrade the following interesting expression of his views upon some vital topics of moment:

“The two countries which will benefit from the Russo-Japanese War”, said Lafargue, in answer to a query, “are America and England. Though the Japs succeed in expelling Russia from Manchuria, they are at the same time weakening themselves for a long period, and thus limiting their capacity for industrial competition. Again, the financiers of England and America—principally the former—will draw from Japan a great deal even of such profit as may accrue to her in return for their present assistance. Japan has for years been developing extraordinarily, but the War hinders this. The resources she is squandering in war are lost to industry.”

“And the results of all this upon our policy in the Far East, comrade?”

“The most important thing is the appearance of Japan upon the scene as the strong power of the East, so strong that no European country can compete with it. The rise of Japan marks the conclusion of European piracy in the Far East. Nobody expected such an extraordinary power. Further, Japan will organise China, industrially and politically.”

“What is your view, comrade, of the industrial position in Japan?”

“The rise of Japan industrially has been so rapid that the horrors of child and female labour in the England of the early nineteenth century have been reproduced—with the great difference that the intermediate stages from the England of the fifteenth century were totally absent in Japan. The psychological difference is enormous, and must produce a revolt, but the form we cannot forecast. In England and France the revolt was against the machine, and whilst this may not prove so in Japan, this we know—the Japs start with a Socialist movement such as was not, and could not be, in England and France in the initial stages of Capitalism. Just as the Japs adopt and adapt the ready-made science of Europe, so the Social science of the New Age finds there a ready soil. We may expect the Japanese people, who have shown such extraordinary courage on the battlefield, to show in the Social struggle the same indomitable energy and enterprise.”

“Now, as to the War again, comrade, what are its results upon Europe?”

“This war has shown that Russia has made a fool of Europe with a show of power. Particularly has Czarism befooled France. That show has enabled her to draw from France about eleven milliards of francs (some £400,000,000) by State loans and financial companies for the industrial exploitation of Russia. The latter investments have been chiefly for coal-mining and metal works. These found prosperity as long as the Russian State was a huge customer for railway construction, &c, but even before the War this fell off; and now, in so far as they have a revival, it is only the artificial stimulus of war time, which will have its due reaction. Even now the lack of money is strangling this revival. Either victory or defeat for Russia now means revolution—a bourgeois or constitutional revolution. The first thing that the new power will have to do will be to proclaim the bankruptcy of Russia—as the best means to obtain credit. You will recollect a similar process in the French Revolution. The new rulers of Russia will be the more ready to declare this bankruptcy, in that the losers will be, not the Russians but the French. The international effects will be felt primarily in France, where the chief debt of Russia is held. The fall of the present Russian political system will shake the whole fabric of European society.”

“What is the likely effect upon Socialism in France of the loss of all this capital through the fraud and folly of the bourgeois politicians and the financial magnates who dominate them?”

“Ah, that is the question. Remember the fuss about Panama involving only 1½ milliards of francs. You will see why I anticipate great results from the loss of some eight times as much. Only the Socialist Party of France has opposed itself to the Franco-Russian Alliances and denounced it as a fraud upon the French people. The discrediting of all the bourgeois parties must mean the immense growth of the party of the Proletariat. Only the Socialist Party of France, the Revolutionists of France, had the courage and insight to oppose the alliance with despotism.”

“Very good, comrade; so much for the economic factors. What of other forces?”

“Russia is a compound of different nationalities. In the centre the Slavs, surrounded by Poles, Finns, Caucasians, Armenians, &c, held down by main force. These will spring into position again on the occasion of the Revolution, and Poland principally (the Ireland of Russia), which has never lost the sense of nationality, despite the tyranny of centuries, will make her influence felt. She will want to reconstitute her nationality with the Austrian and the German Poles. Thus I believe that the next few years will bring us the European revolution, which, if Socialists are sufficiently bold and well organised, will mean also the Social Revolution.”

This concluded, as far as the War is concerned, one of the most instructive conversations in which 1 ever had the pleasure of participating. In a future issue I hope to reproduce some expressions of our comrade upon trade unionism, but with which it would be a pity to complicate this article. The difference between the Socialists and the pseudo-Socialists can easily be seen by a comparison of the large-mindedness and grip of the situation disclosed by our comrade, with the puny reflection of Capitalist sentimentality exhibited by Jaurès in dealing with this same position. The attitude of the Reformists in France sufficiently indicates the absurdity of the claim of such superficial politicians to in any sense represent Socialism either in France or elsewhere. Jaurès and his school are straining every nerve in a “Stop the War” agitation, on the surface in the interests of peace, but in reality designed to, if possible, stave off the evil day of capitalist collapse. It was not for nothing that our comrades of the Socialist Party of France moved the resolution at the recent International Congress, which declared against compromise and intrigue with capitalist parties. The Socialists of France have fought and are fighting the same battle against treachery and folly of opportunism, which we of The Socialist Party of Great Britain are waging in this country.

I am sure every Socialist in England joins with us in reciprocating the fraternal greetings extended by Paul and Laura Lafargue to the unofficial representatives of British Socialism to whom this interview was accorded.

H. J. Hawkins.

(Socialist Standard, November 1904)

Correspondence

Our comrade Hawkins forwards a copy of the following letter which he has received:

“Draviel, 15.11.04

Dear Comrade,—I have just received No. 3 of THE SOCIALIST STANDARD, containing your interview, and I am glad to find that you have given a very full and faithful account thereof.

Trusting that the paper will be successful and with my best wishes and our kind regards to Mrs Hawkins and yourself.

Yours fraternally

Paul Lafargue." LAFARGUE.

(Socialist Standard, December 1904)

Pamphlets for sale. (1927)

From the October 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have been fortunate in securing quantities of seven pamphlets published by the Socialist Party of Canada, and are offering them for sale at the rates set out below. There is, of course, no need to make special mention of the standard works of Marx and Engels. The pamphlet on the causes of modern war contains much useful information with copious references, and consists of articles which appeared serially in the Western Clarion (now defunct). “Slave of the Farm” describes and explains the hard and losing fight waged by the Canadian farmer against the organised financial and industrial Capitalists. It is a corrective to the fanciful tales of the Empire boosters and emigration touts.

“Causes of Belief in God,” by Lafargue, has not been published in this country in pamphlet form, and will be new to most English readers. It is written with Lafargue’s accustomed brilliance.

The Socialist Party of Canada has now ceased to exist, and the pamphlets will not be reprinted in the present editions.

Those we have obtained represent the bulk of the remaining supply. They are excellently produced, of convenient size, and well worth the price asked. All but two (“Slave of the Farm” and “Economic Causes of War”) are in the uniform and attractive series known as the “Whitehead Library.” As the stock will soon be exhausted, you are urged to make early application.

“Wage-Labour and Capital” (Marx), – pages, 4d.

“Communist Manifesto” (Marx and Engels), 59 pages, 4d.

“Slave of the Farm” (A. Budden), 63 pages, 6d.

“Economic Causes of War” (P. T. Leckie), 132 pages, 6d.

“Causes of Belief in God” (Lafargue), 48 pages, 6d.

“Socialism—Utopian and Scientific” (Engels), 95 pages, 6d.

“Value, Price and Profit” (Marx), 78 pages, 6d.

Note.—Postage extra : ½d. per copy.

Blogger's Note:

The Socialist Party of Canada referred to in the notice was the Party which dissolved in 1925. The Socialist Party of Canada, which is affiliated to the World Socialist Movement, was founded in 1931. There is an overlap between the two organisations because the original Socialist Party of Canada had a significant impossibilist membership within it, and there was an overlap of members between both organisations.

Rear View: Tarred with the same brush (2021)

The Rear View Column from the January 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

Tarred with the same brush

In an essay titled ‘Karl Marx was a racist misogynist – do not discuss’ we are told: ‘When it comes to neo-Marxist inspired cancel culture, rationality and reason fly out of the window to be replaced by politically correct ideology and cant . . . This latest campaign to rid the British Library of what is condemned as structural racism and white supremacism is part of a larger strategy associated with the death of George Floyd… ‘ (conservativewoman.co.uk, 26 November). Socialists are always keen to debate — anything, anytime, anyplace, anywhere could be our motto! — but those identified as ‘neo-Marxists’ and, it has to be said, Conservatives less so. Marx opposed racism and always insisted that ‘the emancipation of the productive class is that of all human beings without distinction of sex and race’ (1880 Preamble drafted by Marx to the Programme of the Parti Ouvrier). There is no doubt that black and ethnic minority workers overall have it tougher when it comes to police brutality and lack of opportunities in employment, education and housing. However, it does not follow from this that racism should be treated as an issue that is separate from capitalism and its class divisions. All racists and some feminists divide workers from each other. Along with reformists, they delay the day when, in the words of Oscar Wilde, one of the famous writers castigated for having links to slavery, ‘Socialism, Communism, or whatever, one chooses to call it, by converting private property into public wealth, and substituting co-operation for competition, will restore society to its proper condition of a thoroughly healthy organism, and ensure the material well-being of each member of the community’ (The Soul of Man under Socialism, 1891).

‘It’s about bloody time!’

‘Scotland becomes the first country in the world to pass landmark legislation offering free period products to anyone who needs them’ (dailymail.co.uk, 24 November). This is undoubtedly a positive step, particularly for members of our class experiencing period poverty, yet Scotland is just one of 195 countries in the world and the pace of reform is very slow and uncertain. We are informed that ‘ …70% of women in India… say their family cannot afford to buy sanitary pads. In fact… only 2 to 3 percent of women in rural India are estimated to use sanitary napkins as per 2016 data. This results in women resorting to unhygienic practices during their menstrual cycle, such as filling up old socks with sand and tying them around waists to absorb menstrual blood, or taking up old pieces of cloth and using them to absorb blood. Such methods increase chances of infection and hinder the day-to-day task of a woman on her period’ (countercurrents.org 28 October). Affordability, culture, distribution, and paucity of clean water all complicate matters as does the safe, environmentally friendly disposal of used pads. The author fails to address the obvious alternative of medically approved methods of menstrual suppression, where the need for pads, etc., is reduced or eliminated. Such alternatives are not free and do not register on the reformist radar.

Two steps forward, two steps back

Marx wrote, in a letter to Ludwig Kugelmann, dated 12 December 1868: ‘Everyone who knows anything of history also knows that great social revolutions are impossible without the feminine ferment. Social progress may be measured precisely by the social position of the fair sex (plain ones included)’.

‘Covid has resulted in a 20 percent increase in domestic violence and surprisingly misogyny is not a hate crime’ (thenorthernecho, co.uk, 24 November).

‘There were 1,575 individual women and girls who had an attendance where FGM was identified in the period between July 2020 and September 2020’ (digital.nhs.uk, 26 November).

‘Multiple private UK clinics selling intrusive ‘virginity tests’ and offering ‘hymen-repair’ surgery’ (inews.co.uk, 27 November).

‘Trans-women in police custody already suffered sexual harassment and abuse. Then came Covid-19’ (theguardian.com, 17 November).

‘Female LAPD Officer Details Sexual Harassment, Toxic Work Environment in Lawsuit’ (nbclosangeles.com, 9 November).

‘One in five men in the UK don’t believe that gender inequality is still a reality in society today… ‘ (independent.co.uk, 10 November).

Finland, under new (female) management

‘A year will soon have passed since Finland’s new coalition government headed by five women started work. It has dealt efficiently with the coronavirus pandemic, while drafting an ambitious Equality Programme – a programme that states, among other things, that everyone has the right to determine their own gender identity’ (bbc.com, 25 November). This is a reminder that women are just as capable of running society as men. Yet under capitalism, women have developed their potential for being every bit as destructive as men; they have become active participants in military carnage, fervent spouters of fake news and ‘alternative facts’ or superstitious nonsense and avid proponents of reactionary politics. In other words, the female of this species is becoming as brutalised as the male. Socialists know, however, without the support of a majority of women the establishment of a post-capitalist society is impossible. All wage slaves are members of the same class regardless of colour, gender and sexuality. We are a global class with identical class interests in all the 195 countries in the world. Marx’s son-in-law, Paul Lafargue, born in Cuba to French and Creole parents, provides this quotation: ‘The modern means of production can no longer be controlled except by society, and for that control to be established, they must first become social property; then only will they cease to engender social inequalities, to give wealth to the parasites and inflict miseries on the wage-working producers… ‘ (Social and Philosophical Studies, 1906).

Knowledge. (1925)

From the January 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

Knowledge. (1924)

From the June 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

50 Years Ago: Justice and Social Revolution (1970)

The 50 Years Ago column from the June 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

The philosophic historians attribute this evolution to the ceaseless action of the Spiritual Forces, particularly Justice, the strongest of all, which according to an idealistic and academic philosopher is always present even though it arrives only by degrees into human thought and into social facts. Bourgeois society and its way of thinking are thus the last and highest manifestations of this immanent Justice, and it is to obtain these fine results that this lady has toiled in the mine of history.

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A ruling class always considers that what serves its economic and political interests is just and that which disserves them is unjust. The Justice which it conceives is realised when its class interests are satisfied.

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The feudal and guild organisations injuring the bourgeoisie was in its eyes so unjust that its immanent Justice resolved to destroy it. The bourgeois historians relate that it could not tolerate the forcible robberies of the feudal barons, who knew no other methods of rounding out their fields and filling their purses all of which does not prevent their honest immanent Justice from encouraging the forcible robberies which, without risking their skins, the pacific capitalists have committed by proletarians disguised as soldiers in the barbarous countries of the old and the new world.

It is Justice who gives the slaveholder the right to possess men like a chattel; it is she again who gives the capitalists the right to exploit the children, women and men of the proletariat worse than beasts of burden.

(Extract from The Historical Method of Marx by Paul Lafargue. Socialist Standard, June 1920).

Agricultural Industry. (1921)

From the September 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the "Labour Gazette" for July,1921, some interesting facts are brought to light. We are told that the Agricultural Wages Board appointed a Committee in December, 1920, "to inquire into and report upon the extent to which the Unemployment Insurance Act might be made applicable and beneficial to agricultural workers." This report has now been completed, and in their comment on same we are told: "There was a time when the distress arising from unemployment in agriculture, at least in certain years, was considerable. During the latter half of the 19th century, however, changes in the methods of farming and the extensive introduction of machinery, caused a great reduction in the number of men employed on farms, with the result that the smaller number who were now employed enjoyed greater stability of employment." Here are some of the figures re-quoted from the report by the "Labour Gazette": —

The point it is desired to show once again is that, with the development of the forces of production under Capitalism, there follows greater insecurity of life for the worker. To those who happen to qualify for employment—generally the more skilled and efficient—there follows corresponding intensity of conditions arising from the manipulation of the intricate machinery brought into being to increase the output per hour per man. The writer repeats, therefore, that which has always been insisted upon in these columns, that so long as the means and instruments for producing the requirements of the community remain the private property of the capitalist class, the conditions of the workers must inevitably tend to get worse. The only remedy is Socialism, the common ownership of these means and instruments for producing wealth.

The above illustration shows the need for the worker to study his position in capitalist society and organise for the establishment of Socialism. Under that system every device invented will shorten the hours of labour necessary for the production of the requirements and comforts of the human race. As Paul Lafargue so brilliantly puts it: —

  Mechanical production which, under Capitalist direction, can only buffet the worker to periods of enforced idleness, will, when developed and regulated by a Socialist administration, require from the producer to provide for the normal needs of Society, only a maximum day of two or three hours in the workshop, and when this time of necessary social labour is fulfilled he will be able to enjoy freely the physical and intellectual pleasures of life.
   The artist then will paint, will sing, will dance ; the writer will write, the musician will compose operas, the philosopher will build systems, the chemist will analyse substances, not to gain money, to receive a salary—but to deserve applause, to win laurels, like the conquerors at the Olympic games—but to satisfy their artistic and scientific passions; for one does not drink a glass of champagne or kiss the woman he loves for the benefit of the gallery.

O. C. I

The Historical Method of Karl Marx by Paul Lafargue. (1920)

From the August 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

Reprinted from the “International Socialist Review,” Oct., 1907.

Link to Part 3.

IV. The Natural Environment and the Artificial or Social Environment—Continued.

A few historical facts, too recent to be forgotten, will illustrate the interplay of the various parts of the artificial environment through the medium of man.

When industry had utilised the elasticity of steam as a motor power, it demanded new means of transportation to carry its fuel, its raw material and its products. It suggested to the interested manufacturers the idea of steam traction on iron rails which began to be practised in the coal fields of Gard in 1830 and in those of the Loire in 1832; it was in 1829 that Stephenson’s first locomotive drew a train in England. But when it was desired to extend this mode of locomotion, active and various opposition was encountered, which delayed its development for years. M. Thiers, one of the political leaders of official capitalism, and one of the authorised representatives of its common sense and public opinion, opposed it energetically, because, he declared, “a railroad cannot work”. Railroads, indeed, upset the most reasonable and established ideas: they required, along with other impossible things, grave changes in the mode of property – serving as a basis for the social edifice of the bourgeoisie then in power. Till then a capitalist created an industry or a mercantile establishment with his own money, increased, at the most, by that of one or two friends and acquaintances who had confidence in his honesty and skill; he directed the use of the funds and was the real and nominal proprietor of the factory or the commercial house. But the railroads were obliged to amass such enormous capitals that it was therefore necessary to induce a great number of capitalists to confide their money, which they had never left out of their sight, to people whose names they scarcely knew, still less their ability or morality. When they let go of the money they lost all control over its use; they had no personal proprietorship in the stations, cars, locomotives, etc., which it served to create; instead of pieces of gold or silver, having volume, weight and other solid qualities, they received back a narrow, light sheet of paper, representing fictitiously, an intangible morsel of the collective property, the name of which it bore, printed in big letters. Never in bourgeois memory had property taken on such a metaphysical form. This new form, which depersonalised property, was in such violent contradiction with that which summed up the joys of the capitalists, that which they had known and handed down for generations, that to defend it and propagate it no one could be found but the men charged with all the crimes and denounced as the worst disturbers of social order, — the Socialists. Fourier and St. Simon welcomed the mobilisation of property in paper stock-certificates. We find in the ranks of their disciples the manufacturers, engineers and financiers who prepared the revolution of 1848 and were the plotters of December 2: they profited by the political revolution to revolutionise the economic environment by centralising the nine provincial banks into the Bank of France, by legalising the new form of property and causing it to be accepted by public opinion, and by creating the network of French railways.

The great mechanical industry, which must draw its fuel and its raw material from a distance, and which must scatter its products widely, cannot tolerate the parcelling of a nation into little autonomous States, with tariffs, laws, weights and measures, coins, paper currencies, etc., of their own; it requires, on the contrary, the development of unified and centralised nations. Italy and Germany have met these requirements of the great industry, but only at the cost of bloody wars. MM. Thiers and Proudhon, who had numerous points of resemblance, and who represented the political interests of the little industry, became ardent defenders of the independence of the States of the Church and the Italian princes.

Since man successively creates and modifies the parts of the social environment, therefore, in him reside the motive forces of history, — so Vico and popular wisdom hold, rather than in Justice, Progress, Liberty, and other metaphysical entities, as the most philosophical historians stupidly repeat. These confused and inexact ideas vary according to the historical epochs and according to the groups or even the individuals of the same epoch; for they are the mental reflections of the phenomena produced in the different parts of the artificial environment; for example, the capitalist, the magistrate, and the wage-worker have different ideas of Justice. The Socialist understands by justice the restitution to the wage-working producers of the wealth which has been stolen from them, while to the capitalist justice is the conservation of this stolen wealth, and as the latter possesses the economic and political power, his notion predominates and makes the law, which, for the magistrate, becomes justice. Precisely because the same word covers contradictory notions, the capitalist class has made of these ideas an instrument of deceit and of domination.

That portion of the artificial or social environment in which a man functions gives him a physical, intellectual, and moral education. This education by things, which engenders ideas in him and excites his passions, is unconscious; so when he acts, he imagines he is following freely the impulses of his passions and ideas, while he is only yielding to the influences exercised on him by one of the parts of the artificial environment, which can react on the other parts only through the intermediary of his ideas and passions. Obeying instinctively the indirect pressure of the environment, he attributes the direction of his actions and emotions to a God, a divine intelligence, or to ideas of Justice, Progress, Humanity, etc. If the march of history is unconscious, since as Hegel says, man always finishes with a result other than that which he sought, it is because thus far he has been unconscious of the cause which makes him act and directs his actions.

What is the most unstable part of the social environment, that which is changed oftenest in quantity and quality, that which is most apt to disturb the whole?

The mode of production; answers Marx.

By mode of production Marx means not what is produced but the way of producing it; thus there has been weaving from prehistoric times, but it is only for about a century that there has been machine weaving. Machine production is the essential characteristic of modern industry. We have under our eyes an unparalleled example of its terrible and irresistible power to transform the social, economic, political and legal institutions of a nation. Its introduction into Japan has lifted that country in one generation from the feudal state of the middle ages into the constitutional state of the capitalist world, and has placed it in the front rank of world powers.

Multiple causes unite in assuring to the mode of production this omnipotence of action. Production absorbs, directly or indirectly, the energy of an immense majority of the individuals of a nation, while in the other parts constituting the social environment (politics, religion, literature, etc.) a slender minority is occupied, and even this minority can not but be interested in procuring the means of existence, material and intellectual. Consequently all men undergo mentally and physically, more or less, the modifying influence of the mode of production, while but a very small number of men are subjected to that of the other portions; now, as it is through the intermediary of men that the different parts of the social environment act on each other, that which modifies the most men possesses of necessity the most energy for moving the whole mass.

The mode of production, relatively unimportant in the social environment of the savage, takes on a preponderant and ever-growing importance through the incessant incorporation into production of the forces of nature, in proportion as man learns to know them: prehistoric man began this incorporation by using stones for weapons and tools.

Progress in the mode of production is relatively rapid, not only because production occupies an enormous mass of men, but again because, by enkindling “three furies of private interest”, it puts into play the three vices which, for Vico, are the moving forces of history, – hardheartedness, avarice and ambition.

Progress in the mode of production has become so headlong for the last two centuries that the men interested in production must constantly remodel the corresponding parts of the social environment to keep them on the level; the resistances which they encounter give rise to incessant conflicts, economic and political. Thus, to discover the first causes of historic movements, we must seek them in the mode of production of material life, which, as Marx says, dominates in general the development of the social, political and intellectual life.

Marx’s economic determinism takes away from Vico’s law of the unity of historical development its character of predetermination, which would carry the idea that the historic phases through which a nation passes, like the embryonic phases of an animal, are, as Geoffrey Saint-Hillaire thought, indissolubly linked to its very nature and determined by the inevitable action of an inner force, an “evolutionary force”, which would conduct it along pre-established paths toward ends marked out in advance; whence it would follow that all nations must progress, always and whether-or-no, at an equal pace and along one and the same path. The law of the unity of development, thus conceived, would be verified by the development of not one nation.

History, on the contrary, shows nations as they are, some limping through certain stages of evolution, which others traverse like race-horses, while others again go back from stages already reached. These delays, progressions, and recessions are explained only when we examine the social, political and intellectual history of the several nations in the light of the history of the artificial environments in which they have evolved, the changes in these environments, determined by the mode of production, determine in their turn historic events.

Since artificial environments are transformed only at the cost of national and international struggles, the historic events of a nation are thus subjected to relations which arise between the artificial environment to be transformed and the nation, fashioned as it has been by its natural environment and its hereditary and acquired characteristics. The natural environment and the historic past have impressed upon each nation certain original characteristics; so it follows that the same mode of production does not produce, with mathematical exactness, the same artificial or social environments, and consequently does not occasion historical events absolutely alike in different nations and at all moments in history, since vital international competition increases and intensifies in proportion to the growth in the number of nations arriving at the higher stages of civilisation. The historic evolution of nations, then, is not predetermined, any more than the embryonic evolution of individuals: if it passes through similar organisations of family, property, law, and politics, and through analogous forms of thought in philosophy, religion, art, and literature, it is because nations, whatever their race and geographical habitat, experience in their development material and intellectual wants which are substantially alike and must inevitably resort, for the satisfaction of these wants, to the same methods of production.

Paul Lafargue 

(Translated by Chas. H. Kerr.)

(Conclusion.)

The Historical Method of Karl Marx by Paul Lafargue. (1920)

From the July 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

Reprinted from the “International Socialist Review,” Oct., 1907.

Link to Part 2.

IV. The Natural Environment and the Artificial or Social Environment—Continued.

A simple change in the habits, by subjecting one or more organs to an unaccustomed use, sometimes results in radical modifications in the whole organism. Darwin says that the mere fact of constantly browsing on steep slopes has occasioned variations in the skeletons of certain breeds of Scottish cows. Naturalists agree in regarding the cetacean – whales, cachalots and dolphins – as former terrestrial mammals which, finding in the sea food more abundant and easier to procure, became swimmers and divers: this new sort of life transformed their organs, reducing to a rudimentary state those no longer used, developing the others and adapting them to the needs of the aquatic environment. The plants of the Sahara Desert, to adapt themselves to the arid environment, have been obliged to dwarf themselves, to reduce the number of their leaves to two or four, to take on a layer of wax to prevent evaporation, and to prolong their roots enormously in search of moisture: their periodic changes come counter to the ordinary seasons; they are dormant in summer during the hot season and vegetate in the winter, in the season relatively cold and moist. Plants in other deserts present analogous characteristics: a given environment implies the existence of beings showing a combination of definite characteristics.

The cosmic or natural environments, to which vegetables and animals must adapt themselves under pain of death, constitute, like the organised being of which Cuvier speaks, combinations, complex systems without precise limits in space, the parts of which are: the geologic formation and composition of the soil, nearness to the equator, elevation above the sea level, courses of rivers which irrigate it, quantity of rain which it receives and the solar heat which it stores up, etc., and plants and animals which live in it. These parts correspond to each other in such a way that one of them cannot change without involving change in the other parts: the changes in the natural environment, although less rapid than those produced in organised beings, are nevertheless appreciable. The forests, for example, have an influence on the temperature and the rains, consequently on the humidity and the physical composition of the soil. Darwin has shown that animals apparently insignificant, like the worm, have played a considerable part in the formation of vegetable mould; Berthelot and the agricultural experts Hellriegal and Willfarth have proved that the bacteria which swarm in the protuberances of the roots of the leguminosae are active in fertilising the soil. Man by tillage and cultivation exercises a marked influence over the natural environment; forest clearings begun by the Romans have transformed fertile countries in Asia and Africa into uninhabitable deserts.

Vegetables, animals and man in a state of nature, all of which are subject to the action of the natural environment, without other means of resistance than the faculty of adaptation of their organs, must end by differentiating themselves, even though they might have a common origin, if, during hundreds and thousands of generations they live in different natural environments. The unlike natural environments thus tend to diversify men as well as plants and animals. It is, in fact, during the savage period that the different human races were formed.

Man does not merely modify by his industry the environment in which he lives, but he creates out of whole cloth an artificial or social environment, which permits him, if not to remove his organism from the natural environment, at least to reduce this action considerably. But this artificial environment in its turn operates upon man as he comes to it from his natural environment. Man, like the domesticated plant and animal, thus undergoes the action of two environments.

The artificial or social environments which men have successively created differ among themselves in their degree of elaboration and complexity, but environments of the same degree of elaboration and complexity offer great resemblances among themselves, whatever may be the human races which have created them, and whatever may be their geographical habitats: so that if men continue to undergo the diversifying action of unlike natural environments, they are equally subject to the action of similar artificial environments which operate to diminish the differences of races and to develop in them the same needs, the same interests, the same passions and the same mentality. Moreover, the same natural environments, as for example, those situated at the same latitude and altitude, exercise an equal unifying action on the vegetables and animals which live in them; they have an analogous flora and fauna. Like artificial environments thus tend to unify the human species, which unlike natural environments, have diversified into races and sub-races.

The natural environment evolves with such extreme slowness that the vegetable and animal species which adapt themselves to it seem immutable. The artificial environment, on the contrary, evolves with an increasing rapidity, thus the history of man and of his societies compared with that of animals and vegetables is extraordinarily mobile.

The artificial environments, like organised being and the natural environment, form combinations, complex systems without precise limits in space and time, the parts of which correspond to each other and are so closely bound together that one alone cannot be modified without all the others being shaken and being compelled to undergo retouchings in their turn. The artificial or social environment, of an extreme simplicity and consisting of a small number of parts in savage peoples, becomes complicated in proportion as man progresses by the addition of new parts and by the development of those already existing. It has been formed, since the historic period by economic, social, political and legal institutions, by traditions, customs, manners and morals, by common sense and public opinion, by religious literatures, arts, philosophies, sciences, modes of production and exchange, etc., and by the men who live in it. These parts, by transforming themselves and by reacting on each other, have given birth to a series of social environments more and more complex and extended, which, in proportion to the extension, have modified men; for, like the natural environment, a given social environment implies the existence of men presenting a certain combination of analogous characteristics, physical and moral. If all these corresponding parts were stable or varied only with excessive slowness, like those of the natural environment, the artificial environment would remain in equilibrium and there would be no history; its equilibrium, on the contrary, is extremely and increasingly unstable, constantly put out of balance by the changes working in one or another of the parts, which then reacts on all the others.

The parts of an organised being, like those of a natural environment, react upon each other directly, mechanically, so to speak: when in the course of animal evolution the upright posture was definitely acquired by man, it became the point of departure for transformation of all the organs: when the head, instead of being carried by the powerful muscles at the back of the neck, as in the other animals, was supported by the spinal column, these muscles and the bones to which they are attached became modified, and with their modifications modified the skull, the brain, etc. When the layer of vegetable soil in a locality increases through any cause whatever, instead of bearing stunted plants it nourishes a forest, which increases the rainfall, which again increases the volume of the water courses, etc. But the parts of an artificial environment can react on each other only through the intermediary of man. The part modified must begin by transforming physically and mentally the men whom it causes to function, and must suggest to them the modifications which they must bring to the other parts to put them on the level of the progress realised in it, in order that they may not hinder it in its development, and in order that they may again correspond to it. The parts not modified manifest their inconvenience precisely by the useful qualities which formerly constituted their “good side”, which by becoming superannuated are hurtful and then constitute so many “bad sides”. They are the more insupportable according as the modifications which they should have undergone are more important. The re-establishment of the equilibrium in the parts of the artificial environment is often accomplished only after struggles between the men particularly interested in the part in course of transformation and the men concerned in the other parts.

Paul Lafargue

(Translated by Chas. H. Kerr.)

(To Be Continued)