Work for Socialism—Now ! (1941)

From the December 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism is a question of historical development. That is to say, certain historic conditions must exist before Socialism is possible. It could not be brought about merely because people willed or desired it—in the absence of the economic and political circumstances which make it possible. It could not be brought about in the absence of the will and desire for it, even if the economic and political circumstances were favourable. The two things must go together: favourable economic conditions, and the desire, before Socialism can displace the existing social order.

Nothing is more certain than that to-day all the circumstances necessary for the establishment of Socialism do not exist. Those lacking are the desire, the will and the understanding. In a world in which the majority of the workers in one of the largest continents are organised behind their respective governments in a war which promises to provide the most wholesale example of suffering and self-sacrifice by any subject class since the beginning of civilisation cannot, by any strain of the imagination, be described as a world which is even remotely ready for Socialism. Millions are at death grips with each other in a war which, whatever the outcome, means the continuance of capitalism in one form or another.

And yet ideas concerning Socialism are more widely spread than ever. True that many are bastard ideas; true, tragically, also that few recognise their illegitimacy.

Let us therefore restate a few basic essentials of the Socialist case. We need not apologise for doing so. We regret it has been necessary for forty years. It is still necessary. Socialism involves the abolition of private and class ownership in the means and instruments of production, and the establishing of an order of things wherein they will be owned by society. For the first time in civilised history mankind will face the problem of organising production for society without an owning class. Things will be produced solely for use and because people need them. They will not be produced to sell and to provide profit for the owners of the means and instruments of production as they are under capitalism. There will be no profit. There will be no wages because men and women will not need to sell their energies in order to live. The function of money to circulate goods will disappear because it will not be needed. The function of wages to ensure that the worker receives only part of the wealth he produces will disappear because the worker in Socialist society will enjoy the full fruits of his production, after meeting the necessary replacements and enlargements of the means of production and distribution. Wages are an indication of working-class poverty and measure only its extent. The continuance of the wages system under any government or with whatever modifications is still capitalism.

The revolutionary change in the economic basis of society from private to common ownership will produce corresponding changes in the whole organisation of social life. Culture and leisure will be free to all instead of to a minority. Social, moral and family habits and customs which rest upon the private property basis of capitalism will adjust themselves to fit into the new order. Capitalist ideas will dissolve into history’s melting pot. Freed from the poverty and servitude of class-society men and women will face each and the other as free and equal social beings. All social values will undergo revolutionary changes. Reflection upon the potentialities of society organised on a Socialist basis humbles the imagination.

Anything short of this is not Socialism : it is capitalism by whatever name it is called.

Even most workers who desire some change would not accept Socialism as defined above. They would reject it because they are not ready for the revolutionary and profound changes which Socialism would involve. Socialism to them expresses no more than a drive for some particular adjustment in social conditions or some improvement in the conditions of life of the workers. Steeped in the prejudices of the capitalist system and all the ideas which go with it, most of them would reject Socialism as we expound it. The Socialist Party is opposed to them only on the grounds of logic and science. Simply, they are not Socialists.

We do not exaggerate the position. Take the I.L.P. as an organised political party, as an example—and, incidentally, since most other sections of the Labour movement have given up or suspended any claim to a role in the struggle for Socialism during the war the I.L.P. is perhaps the one organisation which to-day provides obvious examples of the misconceptions concerning the nature of Socialism. In the “New Leader” (November 15th) it announces that it has decided “to start a campaign for a Socialist Britain,” and accompanies the great news with bold headlines. And the programme? Just the old reformist trash : (1) “Social justice in Britain and National Liberation in the Empire”; (2) “To shorten the war by stimulating Socialist Revolution against Nazism in Europe”; (3) “To save Soviet Russia.” Plus the usual features in I.L.P. “programmes”—”the nation to take over the banks” . . .”the control of prices,” and “minimum standards of living,” etc. The disappointing thing about the “decision to start (our italics) a campaign for Socialist Britain now” was the realisation that the announcement did not preface a confession of the discovery, that until the “start now” the I.L.P. had concerned itself with anything but Socialism. Another striking thing was the uncertain interpretation as to whether it was in support of the war (“Save Soviet Russia”) or in favour of stopping it, as formerly.

We repeat, the fact that Socialism is assumed to denote no more than social reforms or government decrees shows that the worker is not yet ready for Socialism. Socialism is not round the corner. To pretend that it is or to ignore the immense tasks that yet lie before Socialists and the working class would be a disservice to Socialism, We scorn the easy road that might lead to large support and popularity. We have been in the business of making Socialists for nearly forty years for no other reason than that a majority wanting Socialism is the first condition for its establishment. For nearly forty years events have provided innumerable tests of the soundness of our Object and Declaration of Principles. Nothing has deflected us from our purpose and path, or diverted us to the pursuit of any secondary purpose or of any other object than Socialism. We have tenaciously ploughed our way unshaken by revolutions, civil wars and world wars. More than ever to-day we take our stand on the position that the economic and social problems of the world can be solved only by Socialism; that workers everywhere have a common interest with each other which overrides all other interests. When this second world war is over and the armed struggle for dominance is suspended pending recovery or regrouping, there will be a return to the problems which existed before the war. The workers will face basically the same problems as before. Unemployment and insecurity and the perpetual fear and threat of war.

There can be but one answer to these problems for the workers. There is no solution to any of them separately. The solution to any one of them is the solution which will sweep all of them away together. That solution is the one we have proffered at all times throughout our history as the remedy for the social and economic problems which confront the workers. That solution is not a new discovery. At all moments throughout our history it has been our answer. It still is and will continue to be:

It is SOCIALISM NOW !

Harry Waite

Editorial: Must Socialism Wait for the Last Hottentot? (1941)

Editorial from the December 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many people who—without being Socialists—have seen that the future of the human race lies in the direction of international organisation are worried and perplexed by the problem of the “backward races.” Forgetful of the processes by which their own opinions were changed and their knowledge enlarged, they look with dismay at the seeming hopelessness of converting the rest of the population. As one “young man in a hurry,” who later drifted into Fascism, used to ask, “Must we wait for Socialism until the last Hottentot has been converted ?” At present nobody worries about the Hottentots and other dark-skinned peoples, for the apprehension has taken a new twist. Now we are asked how the world can ever deal with the savage Germans and jackal Italians and other low-grade peoples who have fallen into the absurdities and brutalities of Fascism. For their part, of course, Germans and Italians who have swallowed the racial dogmas of their leaders despise the supposedly degenerate supporters of democracy and loathe the Jews. Taking a short view, the outlook for Internationalism and Socialism may look black, but actually the widespread character of these theories of racial inferiority, and the multiplicity of changes they undergo from time to time, are a good indication that the whole conception is false and will not endure. If history could show that the majority of the human race had been consistent in its belief that some one section was inherently inferior there would be a case to look into. Instead, history shows no agreement, no consistency. The sub-human races of one day are the esteemed brothers in arms of the next, and each new generation has disproved the judgments of the last. In our own century there have been wiseacres who have said that the Slav races (notably the Russians) are incapable of acquiring the mechanical knowledge and skill of the Latins and Teutonic peoples of Western Europe; just as, less than a century ago, it was confidently prophesied that the Germans were incapable of catching up the industrial development that had gone ahead in Britain and France. Latterly the view was that the yellow and black races were inferior to the white in this matter of mechanical and inventive skill. Japan and China and India have disposed of that view, and the present war has shown North American Indians, Maoris, Indians, East and West Africans, and many others acquiring all the knowledge and training required in the handling of the mechanical marvels of modern war.

Only a few months ago the following report appeared in the Times of the training of Abyssinians to operate telegraph systems :

“One of the most curious and impressive sights in Addis Ababa at present is that of 200 young Ethiopians, with hardly a word of English between them, who are being initiated into the arts and mysteries of telegraphy by half a dozen British n.c.o.s of the Royal Corps of Signals. These pupils are destined to form the nucleus of both the new Ethiopian Telegraph Service and a signal company in the Ethiopian Army.

A few of them have had some slight experience of the matter during the period before the Italians were evicted, but most are complete novices. Nevertheless, after eight weeks’ training, a handful are already sufficiently advanced to be employed as assistant wireless operators, while others are out reconstructing the telegraph lines destroyed during the war, under the supervision of British signallers.”—”Times,” August 27th, 1941.

It will be said truly enough that mechanical skill and capacity is only part of the problem. What about the other qualities, without which the smooth working of a world social system based on common ownership is unthinkable ? How can peoples co-operate who are given to aggression and filled with a desire to dominate those weaker than themselves ? To which the answer is that these are not inherent, racial characteristics. There are no peoples or groups which would not acquire them under appropriate conditions and were incapable of shedding them with changed conditions and greater knowledge. Take the Italians who have supported or condoned Fascist intolerance and imperialist brutality. By general agreement the Italians were regarded, to use the phrase of a recent book on Italy, as “one of the most kindly and tolerant peoples on earth.” It was stated in the Press only last month that Italian prisoners of war in a camp in England refused to draw their small pay on All Saints’ Day. They asked that it be given to the poor in a neighbouring village, “especially to any poor families who have lost men in the present war” (Times, November 21st, 1941). Will anyone who knows the Italian workers and their past record of loyalty to the earlier attempts to form international working-class movements believe them incapable of playing their part in the future, on the ground that they fell into the common error of trying to solve the problems of capitalism by the road of dictatorship and colonial conquest ?

The truth is that, no matter how much the conduct of human beings may deteriorate under bad conditions, nor what mistakes workers may make in their search for a way out of the chaos in which the world finds itself, there are no nations or races in which the suppressed class have been or can be permanently robbed of the desire to understand and to learn. What Mr. H. G. Wells wrote of young people in this country is true, at least in large measure, of adults here and everywhere else. “Most people want to learn,” he wrote. “Put the stuff attractively before your new generation and they will take it greedily, just as they will grow healthily if wholesome food is put within their reach” (Sunday Dispatch, November 23rd).

One nation learns from another, and one group of workers learns from another as well as from their own experience. If we who are Socialists look after the task of teaching Socialism, we shall not in the long run have to trouble overmuch about the so-called backward or degenerate races.

Blogger's Note:

Naturally, I was intrigued by the following passage in the editorial, 

As one “young man in a hurry,” who later drifted into Fascism, used to ask, “Must we wait for Socialism until the last Hottentot has been converted ?”

I believe this is in reference to a debate that the SPGB had with the British Union of Fascists in 1935 where the B.U.F. representative, Probyn, said the following during the debate:

Socialism asks us to wait until world conditions are ready for a change, but that will be over 500 years hence. We are not going to wait until every Hottentot has a bicycle. Fascism believes in getting down to earth and making the best of the material we have now  . . . 

(April/May 1935 Socialist Standard)

Earlier in his speech Probyn had 'confessed':

Mr. Probyn said that as usual he found nothing new in the Socialist case. He had been a Socialist for ten years and had even flirted with the S.P.G.B. However, he would leave the question of Socialism until his second speech and would first put the case for Fascism.

 Funnily enough that line "Socialism asks us to wait until world conditions are ready for a change, but that will be over 500 years hence . . . " sounds familiar. Didn't Lenin say something along the same lines?

The Problem of India (1941)

Book Review from the December 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism is no Sleeping Beauty. The apostles of the “inevitability of gradualness” have been pulverised by the crashing blows of events during the last decades. War—crisis—then war again; the false complacency of “improvers” and social reformers is now revealed in all its inadequacy, for like a series of terrific earthquakes, capitalism administers periodical shocks.

The backward countries are particularly affected. Already it is clear that the battleground of the present conflict is moving east. Africa and particularly Asia will bear much of the brunt of the world-war.

Again, the productive powers of the warring countries will be strained to their limits, no source of supply will be left untapped; think of these factors and then think of India.

“The Problem of India,” a “Penguin Special,” is a book of some two hundred and fifty pages. The author, Doctor K. S. Shelvankar, an Indian student, presents his case exhaustively, efficiently and clearly. In his foreword he claims that it is not “pro-British and anti-Indian or vice-versa,” but that he is “pro the things that can bring food and freedom for the millions who are to-day deprived of them.” “Food and Freedom !” In his historical survey of pre-British India the author makes it quite clear that there was not much of the first and none of the other for the masses of peasants and handicraft workers. A multitude of oppressors and exploiters, princelings, landowners and middlemen, plus the inevitable crowd of religious parasites, the priesthood, had to be maintained according to their social status out of the products of the labouring masses. The system of agriculture was backward even when compared to the then feudal structure of Western Europe. This was due to a variety of reasons: Lower fertility owing to lack of irrigation, wasteful methods of tilling, little domestication of animals. It is not the purpose of this article to follow the author deeply into the historical development of India, for Socialists here the main question is the position of India under the rule of British capitalism.

However, Dr. Shelvankar’s investigation of India’s past is an impressive, though necessarily condensed, piece of work. Methodically he describes for us the whole structure of India as it was when the traders from the European continent came to barter and cheat the Indian population under the banner of Christianity. First the Portuguese, then the Dutch and the French and finally the British in the form of the East India Company. The British stayed.

At this time, during the 15th century, the country was under the rule of a Moslem dynasty, the Moguls, having been conquered by a series of attacks some four centuries previously. Victors and defeated were of different religion, the former were Mohammedans, the latter Hindus. The two faiths did not assimilate each other; both existed side by side and do so to the present.

The invasion made little or no difference to the economic life of the country; it merely deposed one ruling group and substituted another. Peasants toiled on the land, the craftsman worked on his job, but the surplus-value, politely called “tax,” went to the princes and priests of Islam instead of to the Brahmin caste.

The Indian feudal structure differed in important essentials from the system prevailing during the same period in Europe. This must be remembered in order to see why India did not develop into capitalism of its own accord, but had to have the capitalist virus injected into the body economic from without.

The Indian village community remained static. The handicraft worker stayed put, the victim of the peasant’s abysmal poverty; the towns remained the pleasure-grounds of the feudal rulers. Commerce was restricted to the needs of the thin upper crust, a mere by-product of an effete social system, as was the highly-skilled artisan labouring in the prince’s courtyards.

Into this paradise for capitalist exploitation came the British merchants and soldiers ready to assume the “white man’s burden” of gold. The Whig politician, Sheridan, described the East India Company as “wielding a truncheon with one hand and picking a pocket with the other.” The truncheon was soon replaced by the rifle and bloody battles throughout the country blazed the trail of British conquest. Then came the mutiny in 1857, the Company was wound up, and India came under the control of the Government, as the “brightest jewel in the British Crown.”

For more than eighty years India has been a Crown Colony. The British ruling class cannot therefore disown responsibility for the conditions now obtaining among the mass of the Indian people. It is not a pleasant thought. Out of a total population of 353 millions, and a working-mass totalling 154 millions, excluding children, about 66 per cent, are still employed on the land either as smallholders or labourers. Only 18 per cent. are employed in trade, transport and industry. There is a middle group composed of professional workers, officials, small business men, etc., numbering roughly 15 millions. Then comes the top layer of big landlords (princes, etc.), industrialists and others living on big private incomes.

The preponderance of agriculture is evident. It is not agriculture as we know it in the Western world. Large-scale farming is practically unknown except in products designed for export such as cotton, jute, linseed, tea and coffee. The production of food grown for home consumption, cereals, pulses, sugar, and so on, has been left to stagnate under a system of primitive small-holdings, the owners of which are burdened down by government tax and money-lenders. The standard of living among these peasants as well as the urban proletariat is so low as to be incomprehensible to our minds. To quote the author:

“Excluding the cultivators, most of whom, clinging to dwindling plots of land, are on the brink of insolvency and steeped in debt, we have sixty or seventy million agricultural and industrial workers holding on to dear life by the skin of their teeth. Very few of them—a fraction of 1 per cent. at the most—earn as much as 1s. or 1s. 6d. per day (i.e., between £12 and £18 a year); all the rest toil and sweat for a few pennies a day.”

How do they exist? Dr. Shelvankar tells us.

“The average village dwelling is a low, flimsy, crooked structure with mud walls, a mud floor and a thatched roof. It is windowless, airless and has no sanitation.”

The urban proletariat vegetate in hovels “with no windows, chimneys or fireplaces. There is neither light nor water supply, and, of course, no sanitary arrangements.”

Their diet is reminiscent of kept animals, only much smaller in quantity. The daily food of an industrial worker in the towns of Bombay or Madras consists of l¼ lb. of cereals and little else. The average consumption of milk per head in working-class households in Bombay “is less than ½oz. supplemented by .05oz. of melted butter.” Many of the peasants exist on an even poorer diet.

Is it any wonder that during the first thirty years of this century “Cholera has claimed 10¾ million victims, influenza 14 millions, plague 12½ millions and malaria 30 millions ” ?

And yet pacifists can only see the horrors of war !

What remedies can be applied to alleviate such distress? As was to be expected, the author of this book argues strongly that first of all India must be freed from British domination before any comprehensive policy of progressive amelioration can be put into effect.

The core of his case is, that by a deliberate policy of imperialist exploitation the development of industry has been stifled, whilst a mortal blow has been dealt to the old village communal system, adding the burden of alien exploitation to the existing native incubus. As a consequence the demand for working recruits to industry is not large enough to relieve the economic pressure on the over-populated small-holdings. He contends that the country has in the main been allocated the role of supplying to British capitalism the natural products so vital for an empire of industry and commerce, plus the provision of countless well-paid sinecures to members of that exclusive ruling-class “freemasonry,” the old school tie.

During and since the last war, however, there has been a marked rise in industrial output, particularly in textiles. It is certain that this industrial impetus will be intensified as a result of the present war. Therefore, even if it were the wish of the British ruling class to retard the growth of capitalism in India, the evolutionary process is not a thing that can be held back for ever.

That is the Socialist view, and it should be taken into account when we are dealing with nationalism in a colonial country. Further, it has yet to be shown that “national liberation” would prove to be something worth the effort and sacrifice for the hungry millions.

For as the author himself notes:

“The outstanding feature of Indian industry to-day is the degree to which ownership and control are concentrated within a comparatively narrow circle. ‘The same set of individuals’—rich merchants with a sprinkling of the more prosperous professional people—‘hold the bulk of the shares in all the cotton, jute and other concerns.’” (Page 155.)

We have still to be convinced that in matters of economic welfare or on any other questions the Indian masses could expect a better deal from their native exploiters.

Dr. Shelvankar seems to recognise the truth of this. He agrees that the handing over of the country to a native bourgeoisie, or worse still, the princes, would not improve the situation. In his view the only hope for India lies in the introduction of a “planned Socialist economy” for which national liberation would provide a stepping stone, a period of brief “transition.”

It is a view which has no basis except in the optimistic imagination of the author, who assumes that “liberation” would give the nascent Indian bourgoisie only a short lease of life. Quite the contrary. Success in the struggle for national freedom may have the effect of eliminating for a long time to come whatever influence (and it is very small indeed) the ideas of independent working-class action, not to speak of Socialism, has in India to-day. The very status of national independence presupposes a powerful native ruling-class secure in the support of a nationalist-minded population.

The author several times quotes Ireland in dealing with the agrarian problem. It is a pity he did not allow himself, and his readers, a glimpse at the virtual stagnation of the working-class movement in the Irish Free State at the present time. It is certain that this standstill is partly the result of the struggle for national independence which completely occupied the energies of the Irish workers.

Dr. Shelvankar wants his working-class compatriots to make the same mistake, but expects them almost immediately after to turn on the movement for which they have suffered and bled, throw over the nationalist illusions with which they have so long been nurtured, and proclaim their conversion to socialist ideas.

However desirable Mr. Shelvankar’s hopes may be, they are totally unrelated to the problems he is attempting to solve. Under present conditions in India, and with the standard of political consciousness prevailing among the majority of its inhabitants, the platform of national liberation can at best only lead to some form of native capitalism. This is clearly seen from the nature of the mass-movements India has so far produced. The Congress Party, though some of its leading spokesmen such as Nehru claim to the Socialists, is in fact no more than a movement of national liberation. This is implicitly recognised by the author himself when he deals with the growth of Indian industrialism during the last war. On page 176 he says: “These developments marked a critical transition in the nature of Indian capitalism. From being predominantly commercial in character, it was launching out into industrial production. But its real strength lay not so much in the economic resources at its command as in its affiliation with a political movement (the Congress Party) which was becoming a menace to imperialism.”

Later, in dealing with the record of Congress in office, in 1937, he has to admit that so far from justifying hopes of a working-class character, it showed even amity to British rule. As for the peasants, they received a rude shock when, in the province of Bihar, their champions entered into a pact with the landlords, whilst “the entire labour movement . . . denounced a Trades Disputes Bill designed to interfere with the right to strike,” which was the act of the Congress Government of Bombay (page 231).

But the chief force in India is still wielded by Ghandi. He is the real spokesman of the peasants, the bulk of the Indian people. For him the future of India lies in the past, a return to the primitive agricultural community; he is the idol of the masses, the illiterate, half-starving millions, who have not yet been pulled out of the primitive slough of religious fanaticism, and are left to the mercies of money-lenders and their agents. Not content with their “legal” whack, they take advantage of that illiteracy to double-cheat their prey.

The author’s sympathy for Ghandism is evident by the approval with which he quotes the policy of the peasant leagues, “which is nothing less than the abolition of landlordism and the cancellation of peasant debts and reorganisation on such a basis that exploitation in every form would be ended and ownership vested in the cultivator himself” (page 221).

This raises the question: What does Dr. Shelvankar mean by Socialism ? What kind of India does he visualise that would justify the term “planned Socialist economy”? For Socialists private ownership of land, as well as any other form of ownership in the means of life, is not compatible with Socialism at all. On the contrary, the small land-owner is a particularly reactionary obstacle to the achievement of Socialism. Dr. Shelvankar reveals his misconception of Socialism when he refers to Russia as a Socialist country, and gives the Soviet state-capitalist order as the example which India must follow.

In fact, the author, like many other left-wing Indian nationalists, completely disguises, perhaps even from himself, the real issues of the Indian problem. The vexed questions of religious and caste differences are fobbed off under the theory of the British policy of “divide and rule.” This may or may not be true. But that they are able to do so depends primarily on the low level of understanding, and particularly class-consciousness, which inevitably exists among the Indian masses to-day.

An important omission from the book is the total absence of any appraisal of the international issues of which the Indian problem is only a part. The wars in Spain and China have apparently taught Dr. Shelvankar nothing, but their lessons have not been lost on Socialists. Backward and smaller countries cannot assume a ”national independence” that does not exist in fact. Even Russia has had to face the bitter tragedy and humiliation consequent upon a balancing of capitalist world-power. The chances of an independent India are nil.

Socialists have, of course, to aim to break down all barriers, whether of nation, race or religion, which to-day divide the workers of the world according to the convenience and benefit of their exploiters. And let it be noted by cynics, pessimists and opponents of Socialism alike: The world to-day is more interdependent than ever before. The conflict raging at present will leave its mark in every corner of the globe. In India it will have far-reaching effects.

Socialists everywhere feel the deepest sympathy for the Indian masses in their struggles to raise their heads from under the yoke of poverty, of domination, alien and native. The problem of India is part of a world-problem; a world-wide movement for the achievement of Socialism is the only solution.

Sid Rubin

Science, Capitalism and the New Order (1941)

From the November 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The British Association recently organised a meeting to “discuss plans for a new order in which science will play a leading part.”

Early in the conference Mr. Eden told the scientists that science had brought about inequalities, selfishness, and unfair division.

Here we have another instance of a professional champion of Capitalism selecting a scapegoat to bear the blame for the evils that Capitalism itself actully produces.

Unfortuntely, the view that science is wholly responsible for some of the grim and sordid features of modern life is held by many members of the working class.

How many workers, for instance, believe that science’s inventiveness has, without pressure from behind the scenes, created the ingenious machinery that has thrown many workers on the scrap heap ? How many believe that the inventing of planes and bombs, and the discovery of poison gases, are the things that actually create war ?

Let us see whether examination will throw light upon the question.

We live in a society wherein a comparatively small section, by virtue of its ownership of the mines, mills, factories, railways, warehouses, etc., is able to acquire a mass of commodities by exploiting the larger non-possessing section of society—i.e., the working class.

But unless each competing section of the Capitalist class can ensure a large and ready sale of their commodities by keeping down, and even lowering, their commodity prices, they will find themselves ousted by other competitors.

Capitalists, therefore, to keep up the sales that will ensure large profits, must undercut their rivals.

This can be done in two ways—by lowering wages, or by reducing the amount of labour spent on the production of their commodities.

The lowering of wages, however, has, from the Capitalist viewpoint, this disadvantage—wages cannot profitably be lowered below the level that will maintain a standard of satisfactory working fitness.

Therefore, in order to reduce the prices of their commodities, Capitalists find themselves mainly reliant upon reducing the amount of labour embodied in commodity production.

The only means of doing this is by displacing human labour by machinery.

Thus we find sections of the Capitalist class competing keenly against each other in the introduction of machinery, by which means alone they can appreciably lower their commodity prices and thus capture the trade of their rivals.

Only the introduction of such machinery will assist in retaining that essential in Capitalist competition—a rate of profit that will prevent being ousted from the competitive field.

Only such machinery, therefore, will be in great demand by the Capitalist class, and the competition to secure this machinery will send up its price and bring a rich reward to the owner of the invention. On the other hand, machinery that will bring benefits to mankind will not be in great demand unless it also aids the raising or maintaining of profits.

Inventors and scientists, therefore, faced by the fact that only the ideas that will fill a Capitalist need will bring ample payment, are, in the main, compelled to concentrate on such ideas. When the competition for trade, fields of exploitation, etc., can be divided by the border-lines of the competing countries, you will find the Capitalists of each country uniting against the menace of being ousted by a Capitalism from outside.

Diplomacy may for a time maintain a tolerating relationship between each country, but so urgent is the need for Capitalist countries to expand their markets, and secure new fields for trade that the strings of diplomacy are overstrained, and finally break, throwing the people of the opposing nations into the blood-drenched arenas of modern war.

When this happens the most urgent need of sectional Capitalism is for its own nationalistic entity to survive against the nations that threaten it. Thus the individualistic competition within the opposing countries is, temporarily, almost abandoned, and every muscle is strained to achieve a greater task for national Capitalism—i.e., winning the war.

In this manner the demand for labour-saving machinery is almost entirely displaced by the demand for machinery most effective in the prosecution of the war; machinery, in short, that would be most destructive against the opposing country.

Once more the demand for certain machinery sends up its price, and makes it the only mechanisation that will bring adequate recompence to its originators

Thus, although certain machinery will certainly throw many men out of work, or bring new horror into warfare, scientists, in order to live, are compelled by Capitalism to create such machinery. Not until Capitalism is ended and replaced by Socialism will there be a welcome for all mechanisation beneficial to society. Only then will inventors and scientists be unrestricted by the question, “Will it be profitable to the Capitalist class?”

Frank Hawkins

Notes by the Way: We Live in Strange Times (1941)

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

We Live in Strange Times

War is notoriously disrespectful to ancient prejudices and the present war seems to have produced more startling reverses of position than any. Who would have thought, a few years ago, that the time would come when M. Maisky, Bolshevist Ambassador, would be touring British factories urging the workers to work harder, while Lord Beaverbrook, on a visit to Moscow, promises that every tank produced in the week should go straight to the aid of the Russian army ?

The Daily Express (September 23rd, 1941) had the following two news items : —

“After M. Maisky had told workers at a tank factory yesterday, “We will go on fighting to the end until our enemy is crushed for ever,” the works manager mounted a tank and asked the men, “What is your answer?”

“More tanks,” they chorused. 

“Then go to it,” he replied, and they immediately swarmed back to their jobs.

An “Aid Russia” plea helped to settle a strike in Glasgow yesterday. Several hundred men at an engineering works, who came out on Saturday, listened to an appeal to return to work immediately to get aid-for-Russia production into full swing, and agreed to do so.”

The correspondent of the Daily Telegraph who visited the factory with M. Maisky reports that “in the factory he saw tanks chalked with slogans such as ‘Another for Joe,’ or with names like Marx, Lenin and Timoshenko,” while at the station when the official party arrived it inspected two tanks, “one flying the Union Jack and the other the Red Flag.”—(Daily Telegraph, September 23rd, 1941.)

Then a few months earlier there had been the little matter of playing the “Internationale” in B.B.C. broadcasts, neatly sidestepped by stopping all such broadcasts. While the argument was in progress the Times, in an editorial, committed itself and said “it was right and reasonable to expect that before long the appropriate addition would be made to the ceremonial array of national anthems.” —(Times, July 11th, 1941.)

* * * *

Religious Items from Moscow and elsewhere

Equally startling has been the news about religion from Moscow. Here are a few items:

A call to all Christians, Protestant and Catholic, to unite in a Holy Crusade against the anti-Christ, Hitler, was broadcast by Moscow last night.

Hitler has launched war against Christian civilisation, said the appeal. He has twisted the Holy Cross into an unholy crooked cross.

The call for a crusade was made particularly to the Christian peoples of Germany and the occupied territories.

“We appeal to all German Christians to fight the Godless regime of Nazism and Hitlerism,” said the announcer.

”That criminal Hitler is urging war against the hundreds of millions of Slav people, the people of those nations which have given the world great writers, thinkers, scientists, and religious martyrs.”-(Sunday Dispatch, August 17th, 1941.)

“The Moscow anti-religious paper, Besbozhnik, has ceased publication. A number of trade papers have been temporarily suspended owing to war conditions. —Reuter. (Manchester Guardian, September 11th, 1941.)

An appeal to the entire Islamic world to rise in the name of Islam “to defend the Moslems and the peoples of Russia, their peaceful life and religion, from the devastation of Fascism,” was made to-day by the head of the Central Mohammedan Administration, the Mufti Abdur Akhman Rasulev.—Associated Press. (Manchester Guardian, September 20th, 1941.)

Religious misgivings over the British-Soviet Alliance are misplaced, writes the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Canterbury Diocesan Gazette.

The Primate gives reasons why Christians should wish “every success to the valiant Russian armies and people.”

Our essential aim is to overthrow the tyranny of evil embodied in the rulers of Germany.

It may well be that Russia’s defence of its own land may lead to religious tolerance by the Soviet Government and a new resurgence of religion always deep-seated in the hearts of the Russians.—(Daily Express, July 24th, 1941.

But while the Bolshevists are able at a gulp to swallow Protestantism, Catholicism, and Moslemism, and the Archbishop is able to remove misgivings about the Bolshevists, the British non-conformists are made of sterner stuff, and still won’t mix with other brands of Christianity: —

“After the lapse of three years the Free Churches have decided against the outline of a scheme for reunion with the Church of England. . . . Episcopacy is still a serious stumbling block . . . and even should an episcopate be agreed to as one organ of a United Church, the Free Churches definitely reject the doctrine of apostolic succession.”—(News-Chronicle, September 23th, 1941.)

* * * *

Men and Women Air-Raid Victims

The Old Technique of “Divide and Rule”

On Saturday, September 20th, a demonstration was held in Trafalgar Square to protest against the Government’s refusal to pay women injured in air-raids the same amount as men. One young woman was there who had lost the sight of both eyes and suffered other serious permanent injuries. She receives 24s. 2d. a week. Had she been a man the amount would have been 34s. 2d.

The demonstration was supported by Labour M.P.s, including Dr. Edith Summerskill, as well as by that persistent defender of capitalism, Lady Astor, M.P. According to the News-Chronicle, the latter said that the Minister of Pensions had expressed the hope that women would “not make this a sex war.” Lady Astor added: —

“We have not done that, but the trade unions and the employers’ organisations have, by giving us unequal compensation”.—(News-Chronicle, September 22nd.)

Mr. A. J. Cummings, writing in the News-Chronicle, backed up the demonstrators: —

“Widespread indignation has been aroused by this strange new injustice, by which the worth of a woman’s body is rated so much lower than that of a man’s.”—(News-Chronicle, September 19th, 1941.)

Before giving the matter any thought most people will allow their natural sympathy with the victims of air-raid injuries to sway them into approval of the sentiments expressed, but it is worth while looking more closely into it. It will be noticed that there was no protest against paying a disabled and blinded man the niggardly amount of 34s. 2d. a week. Common-sense would suggest that if the promoters of the demonstration really wanted to avoid a “sex war” they would have based their claim simply on the fact that the amounts in question are paltry either for a man or a woman and that no approach to a decent living is possible on them. Why was this not done ? Why did not the leading lights get together and decide what larger amount should be aimed at both for men and women ? Doubtless the answer would be that if they had they would have found a cold lack of interest on the part of some of the defenders of capitalism who were willing enough to lend themselves to a “sex war.”

Notice, too, how the wealthy Lady Astor associates herself with her working-class sisters when she condemns those alleged to be responsible for giving “us” unequal compensation. If she were to become a victim does anyone suppose that she would be expected to live on 24s. 2d. a week or 34s. 2d. a week? But then she sees no “injustice” in a system that enables a small number of men and women to have incomes hundreds of times as large as those of the great majority of both sexes.

Then Mr. Cummings is moved by the injustice which rates “the worth of a woman’s body” 10s. a week less than a man’s, but he too is more concerned with this than with the fact that a man’s is rated at only 34s. 2d.

Some of those who use this technique of setting one body of worker against another know exactly what they are doing. They know that capitalism will be safe enough while workers can be divided by nationality, colour, religion, sex, skill, craft or any other side-tracking characteristic. Others are the muddle-headed dupes who cannot see the use that is being made of them. They might start by asking themselves exactly what is the principle they think should underlie the claim they make. Is it the principle of equality for all? If so, they will find Lady Astor and others their bitter enemies. Or is it the principle that while it is most important to have equality between disabled men and disabled women, between men wage-earners and women wage-earners, between men surtax payers and women surtax payers, there is nothing wrong with a system which breeds vast inequality between the classes, between the wealthy property owners and the poverty-stricken workers !

* * * *

What is a Doctor?

Under a sanely ordered social system goods would be produced solely for use and transport and medical and other services would be organised to meet the needs of the population. Not so under capitalism. At least half the energies of those who work are demoted to financial and other activities, the purpose if which is to look after the interests of the propertied class. ‘Bus conductors are not employed primarily to help the passengers but in order to prevent them from travelling without paying fares. Postmen and sorters are largely engaged in preventing evasion of postage and in carrying bills, receipts, cheques, etc., instead of facilitating useful communication. So also with doctors, who are less and less engaged in a disinterested care for health. The following is taken from a report of a recent conference of the British Medical Association: —

“British doctors are to approach the Government with an urgent demand to “cut all the red tape and let us get on with the job.” They complain that they are being overwhelmed by the present system of industrial certification, and are being asked to give certificates outside the scope of their professional duties.

Complaints were fully aired at the British Medical Association Conference yesterday, when nine motions were tabled protesting against the system. The case made out by the doctors is as follows : —

1. Demands for certificates are growing every week. Certificates for munition workers saying that they are unfit for work; certificates entitling expectant mothers to obtain special food; certificates, as one doctor put it, “for everything under the sun, from corsets to oranges and lemons.”

2. Doctors spend so much time signing certificates that they have no time to attend to their ordinary practice.

3. Apart from recognised certificates, employers are inventing their own certificates for their work people “further to harry the overworked general practitioner.”—(Daily Mail, September 13th, 1941.)

* * * *

Have we seen the last Millionaire?

In a broadcast talk on September 7th, 1941, Professor T. Jones spoke of the high rate of taxation now imposed on large incomes and prophesied that “we are almost in sight of the last millionaire.” The professor is being unduly optimistic and perhaps he has not very clear ideas of the way in which millionaires are made. The big fish devour the little ones and each other, and always there is fresh accumulation from the exploitation of the workers. Even if under war conditions large incomes are heavily reduced, war, and the post-war ups and downs of industry lay the foundations for new fortunes and for the increase of old ones. While during the war the prices of shares on the Stock Exchange have generally fallen this has been accompanied by a big rise in the wealth of landowners. According to the agricultural reporter of the Daily Express (September 1st) since the war started there has been a 25 per cent. increase in prices of land. He mentioned a public auction in South Lincs, at which agricultural land was sold at £140 an acre and quoted an estate agent who said that he had a long list of people anxious to buy land “even if the places do not show a profit on the investment.” “All they want to do is to safeguard their capital, and they believe there is less risk attached to land than to any other form of investment.”

As soon as investors believe that the end of the war is in sight with a defeat of Germany the prices of shares on the Stock Exchange will leap ahead and new millionaires will be in process of creation. Already it only needs reports of moderate Russian successes to send up prices. Marshal Budenny’s successful withdrawal of his armies from Kiev was sufficient to send prices “sharply ahead.” (Daily Express, September 24th.)

It is only necessary to recall how vast fortunes were made in shipping, textiles and other industries after the last war. Yet then, too, there were people like Professor Jones who looked only at a high wartime taxation and consequently missed what was happening. Below, for example, is an extract from a speech by Lord Emmott on July 7th, 1920: —

“I will take next the large capitalist who, in many cases, is a benefactor and not an enemy of the nation. Mr. Chamberlain has stated during the course of the Budget debates that putting excess profits duty, income tax, sugar tax, and provision for death duties all together, the wealthy man to-day is taxed at the rate of 16s. for every £ which he receives in income. Taxation at that level is dangerous to the community at large, and again I say, particularly to the working classes. . . .”—(Liberal Magazine, August, 1920.)

But Lord Emmott’s fears for the workers were groundless, and there were, ten years later, 540 millionaires in the country.—(Daily Mail Year Book, 1933.)

* * * *

” War-time Socialism ” that is not Socialism

A writer who signs himself “Landor,” writing in the London News, organ of the London Labour Party, discusses those of his colleagues who think that war-time Government control is Socialistic. He himself thinks they can properly be described as “steps towards Socialism” (which they cannot), but he has learned something from the last war: —

“But history is full of steps towards goals which were never reached. We had a lot of Government control in the last war, followed by books explaining that this was a step towards Socialism, but we never got the socialism. What we did get was a lot of trade associations, and quite a number of commercial combines and one or two monopolies. That is where the steps and the tendencies led us.

The slow application of state control over industrial activity in the last war, and its more rapid application, on the whole, in this war merely proves that it is generally accepted by the country at large that some measure of collectivism is necessary at a time when there is simultaneously scarcity and danger. It is nonsense to think that because people want more state control now they will want state control when the happy days of peace are here again. Most people associate Government regulation and rationing with danger and scarcity, and in consequence they associate derationing and decontrol with plenty and safety.”

* * * *

Money for Nothing

A writer in the Daily Mail (September 13th, 1941) was shocked to discover some workers in a West of England factory who demanded pay for the time they had to spend travelling forty miles between their homes and the new site to which their factory had been moved on Government instructions. He worked it out and found that “the skilled man travelling two hours every day between the two factories would be paid a guinea a week for producing nothing.”

He did not make a comparison between these workers and their well-to-do betters who in peace time can afford to go on world tours and other lengthy pleasure-seeking journeys, but the injustice is glaring. Why should workers be paid for the pleasure of travelling when the rich have to pay for their own ?

Another case nearly as bad was reported in the Daily Express (September 25th). “Boys of 15,” it said, “are earning £3 a week for making tea.” But in the adjoining City column is another report that the discovery of oil in Venezuela had sent up the 10s. shares of an oil company from 18s., which was the price a fortnight earlier, to 24s., and then, in one day, to 27s. This latter news item is published without comment or criticism. It will, however, be noticed that an investor who had, say, 20,000 of those 10s. shares, would have been enriched by £9,000 in 14 days. This is at the highly satisfactory rate of £4,500 a week. Making whoopee on the Stock Exchange can often be more profitable than making tea on a building job. If the Express and Mail object to money without work they might turn their attention to the whole capitalist system which is based on incomes from rent, interest and profit for the privileged few; including the many thousands of people with incomes of over £200 a week, all for nothing.

Edgar Hardcastle

Poverty and Food (1941)

Book Review from the November 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Englishman's food : a history of five centuries of English diet by J. C. Drummond and Anne Wilbraham (Jonathan Cape, 12s. 6d.)

Blessed be ye Poor (Luke vi. 20).

J. C. Drummond and Anne Wilbraham make a notable contribution to Social Science in their book “The Englishman’s Food” (Jonathan Cape, 12s. 6d.). The general reader will appreciate its vigorous and clear treatment and apt illustrations, the student its wealth of duly documented references, while the Socialist will find a rich mine to quarry. Its main theme is to be found on page 484: “Most of them (the poor) did not even get enough food to satisfy their hunger; in nine cases out of ten, sheer poverty was the cause.”

* * * *

Dives and Lazarus.

It is the same hideous tale throughout the ages, and on the whole the wage slave has suffered more than the chattel slave from under-nutrition; gluttony and guzzling have characterised sections of the governing class no less under modern Capitalism than under Roman Imperialism. The cartoon opposite page 259, “A Lord Mayor’s Banquet,” may remind readers of Herbert Morrison’s tears for a blitzed Guildhall, which our County Hall tribune associated with noble fights against tyranny ! The dietary given for workhouse inmates in the nineteenth century on page 264 is a fitting contrast, where “same” occurs with damning iteration, and the changes are rung on broth, dumplings, and treacle.

* * * *

Noblesse oblige !

Wholesale exploitation eked out by petty thievery is clearly indicated in Chapter 17; some of the facts recorded will be an eye-opener. “When his own stocks were short, the Lord of the Manor seldom hesitated to draw upon the poor man’s reserve. Usually this amounted to confiscation. Piers Plowman described the plight of one left with nothing but a worthless ‘tally’ in exchange for the goods removed.” They order these things better to-day, our Lords of the Manor, with their retinue of “economists.” The smaller thieves, it is true, occasionally had a slim time, as “The Fraudulent Baker,” reproduced from an early MSS., grimly portrays, but, be it noted, the Lord of the Manor was almost as nearly touched by the baker’s fraud as the serf or tenant farmer.

* * * *

Patriotism and Profit.

Petty thievery attained bigger and bigger stature, until, under fully fledged Capitalism, it assumed the rank of the Order of Minor Brigandage, and was officially recognised and blessed by the Liberal hero, John Bright, who recognised Adulteration as a form of Competition. Chapter 17 will repay careful reading.

“In 1852, the public was shocked to learn of the proportion of tins supplied to the Navy which, on being opened, were found to contain putrid meat . . . unprincipled manufacturers utilised all sorts of unsavoury materials in preparing their products” (page 555). Since the Crimean War, a huge number of attempted safeguards, extending to and amplified in the present war, have sought to protect the armed forces of the nation against patriots who grace boards of directors;—it is at least unfortunate that to-day the office of Government watch-dog and profit maker are not altogether dissevered.

* * * *

Benevolent Fagins.

The Boer War effected more than the compulsory union of Dutch and British exploitation of the unfortunate African native; it brought home to the governing class the necessity of conserving Labour Power to meet the exigencies both of industry and of war under modern conditions. As a result of Government enquiry, reluctantly undertaken, it was found that “the public which had rejoiced vicariously in the triumphs of the football field and cycle track were discouraged to learn that of those who wished to serve their country in the day of trial a startling number were found physically unfit to carry a rifle” (quoted on p. 484). The Commiittee “tended to give greater attention to such factors as overcrowding, bad sanitation, alcoholism, ignorance, etc., than to what was, in fact, by far the most important cause, SEMI-STARVATION DUE TO SHEER POVERTY.” Since that period, milk in schools, infant welfare, vitamins, carrot juice. The “expectant mother” was discovered— the working class father is still left in a blurr of uncomfortable and perplexed “expectancy.”

* * * *

Limping Reform.

Page 539 affords a striking example of how Capitalism, twist and turn how it may, is itself dogged and thwarted by inherent contradictions and nasty snags. Stockton-on-Tees removed a foul slum, and settled its inmates on a relatively decent estate. Surprisingly enough, the death-rate increased under the new conditions; enquiries made it clear that attempts to throw the products of poverty out of the windows will only result in them coming in at the doors in other guises. “The move to the new estate had involved the tenants in larger rents, which had been just sufficient to reduce their purchase of the most nutritious foods.” It is worth noting that one year on the estate recorded 3.2 per cent, as against an average slum percentage of 1.4 previously.

Exigencies of space forbid further references to the many good things in this highly interesting book, but the quaint picture reproduced on page 182 is too precious to pass by. A German artist of the 15th century presents a Madonna holding the hand of the Child whose limbs clearly betray Rickets. Hans Burgkmair took this then very prevalent infantile evidence of malnutrition for granted. Science to-day has made its complete abolition possible; children of the working-class alone to-day suffer from Rickets, a Poverty afflication. Lean Rickets and Swinish Gout mingle in the ghostly Dance of Death staged by Capitalism. The establishment of Socialism alone can ensure the utter and complete annihilation of Poverty, with its attendant horrors; Socialism alone can create the Carefree Madonna and the Happy Healthy Child.

Augustus Snellgrove

Editorial: News from New Zealand (1941)

Editorial from the November 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

How the workers fare under Labour Government.

Mr. W. Holmes, General Secretary of the National Union of Agricultural Workers, former President of the Trades Union Congress, has paid a visit to New Zealand, and contributes to the “Landworker” (October, 1941) an article on his impressions. He calls it “New Zealand: A Workers’ State. A Triumph of Labour and Democracy.” He is, of course, chiefly concerned with the economic and social changes that have taken place since the Labour Party took over the government in 1935.

An earlier account of New Zealand’s Labour Government was published in this country by the Labour Party in 1937. It was called “New Zealand’s Progress under Socialism.”

Both the article and the Labour Party pamphlet contain a description of the achievements of the Labour Government, and an indication of what else it aims to achieve, but neither the things done nor the things promised give any warrant for the use of the terms “Workers’ State” and “Socialism.” New Zealand is not a country in which the able-bodied non-worker has no place. Property incomes from the ownership of land or industrial capital are still the rule. Goods are still produced by the working class but owned by the capitalist class. Inequality of wealth may possibly have decreased; it has certainly not been abolished. Nor is it the intention of the Labour Party to abolish capitalism and introduce a system based on common ownership.

There is therefore no justification for claiming that Socialism is in being. That is the first quarrel the Socialist has with the supporters of Labourism; and it is not merely a dispute about words. Progress towards Socialism is not helped but hindered by propaganda which represents as Socialism what is no more than Labour Party administration of Capitalism.

The Other Side of the Picture.

Mr. Holmes, though he says, “Long life and increasing success” to the Labour Government of New Zealand, has not been swept off his feet by what he saw. He praises—but he also makes comparisons between life under Labour Government and life under frankly Capitalist Government. Sometimes his praises contain comparisons that he does not appreciate, and here we will help him out. Now for a few of his illuminating remarks. “The New Zealand Workers’ Union organises the country workers, and has already secured excellent arbitration awards for shearers, musterers, packers, and drovers; while the dairy workers are also covered by awards; but the ordinary farm and station workers are difficult to organise, and their conditions are not much better than those of the British farm workers.”

So it is obvious that in this “Workers’ State” the workers are not in ownership and control. They must still organise and struggle for livelihood, and the ordinary farm workers are not much better off than their brothers in this country agitating in vain for a wage of £3 a week !

Mr. Holmes searched for the reason for this state of affairs, and quotes a New Zealand Trade Union official as follows: —

“The present economic position of New Zealand farming could not support the introduction of trade union awards and conditions throughout the whole industry.”

Mr. Holmes, when he heard this plea about depressed industry and “the employers can’t afford to pay,” must have felt that he had made his journey of thousands of miles only to find things remarkably like they are at home.

Many Labour Party supporters have an answer to all such pleas. “Let the State take over the industry,” they say, “and then it will be run efficiently and will be able to pay higher wages.” Mr. Holmes probably shares this view, for he remarks: “I visited many workshops connected with railways, which belong to the nation, and saw the great strides they are making in war production. I also visited the State timber works and the State flax mills which have recently been established. There are also State mines and State forests.”

Again we shall have to recall the wanderer from the Antipodes and ask him to notice that here in Britain we have our State capitalist Postal, Telegraph and Telephone services, and they, too, are steadfast to resist when higher wages are demanded. Quite a number of the Post Office employees would like to get the £3 minimum which Mr. Holmes’ Union is trying to obtain for land-workers.

Mr. Holmes inspected housing schemes in New Zealand, for one of the Labour Party’s promises was good houses “at low rentals.” But he finds that “the housing of the country people is not very good” and “the rents are rather heavier than in England.” He notices, too, that the New Zealand Government, when it goes into the business of building houses and renting them to the workers, ”expects to get about 5 per cent. on its outlay.” Mr. Holmes apparently did not ask why they required any interest at all.

As regards the cost of living in general, “food seems to be about the same price as in England, but clothes and boots are dearer.” These are factors to be allowed for when making comparison between the higher levels of wages in New Zealand.

He gives an imposing list of social reforms introduced by the Labour Government, including old-age pensions of 30s. a week, children’s allowances, and free hospital treatment, but rather knocks the gilt off when he adds: “Of course, all these things have to be paid for, and there is a direct tax of 10 per cent. on all wages.”

Still a Capitalist World.

Some defenders of the Labour Party, faced with the above criticisms of Labour Government at work, will readily abandon the claim that New Zealand is a “Workers’ State” or has achieved Socialism. They will retort, however, that, apart from this, the criticism is unfair since it does not allow for the fact that in a capitalist world New Zealand must remain capitalist, and that capitalism places limits to the improvement of the workers’ standard of life. Socialists do not dispute this. We do not argue that Labour Governments fail in their task of administering capitalism through want of will or bad faith. They may be well-intentioned but the road to capitalist crises and capitalist war is paved with the good intentions of social reformers.

Work of National Importance (1941)

From the November 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

In The Tatler and Bystander (October 1st, 1941), Bridget Chetwynd, in her “Social-Roundabout,” reported the following: “Mrs. Paul Willert (who was Brenda Pearson) gave a wonderful dinner party for Air Force people stationed in Regent’s Park. She has a darling little house in Chelsea, into which she fitted incredibly many people, and gave them glorious lobsters, with mayonnaise made by herself, cold chicken, fruit and cake, and there were big stone kegs of beer. Young women being amused by the chaps included Miss Duff, Mrs. Pamela Tiarks, Miss Jean Nicoll and Miss Eve Fayne.”

Contrast that irresponsible nonsense with statements made in the House of Commons during a debate on the food question. Mr. Griffiths, speaking of the conditions in the mines in South Wales, said (Daily Telegraph, October 4th): —

“Three hundred men were observed for a week during the investigation in a coal mine in his constituency. One hundred of them could only bring in their ‘tommy-boxes’ plain bread and cheese with unsugared tea to support them during eight hours’ work. Some of the remainder were able to bring jam, some butter and some vegetables from their gardens. Unless steps are taken to provide these men with more adequate food, it is not physically possible for them to perform the tasks the nation is demanding of them.”

Mr. Griffiths also championed the interests of the steel workers in South Wales. “… Investigation in steel works showed,” he said, “that many of the workers had lost weight during the summer months—some as much as two stone. What they need is cheese, butter, and, in particular, more sugar.”

Major Lloyd George, in reply to the modest demands of Mr. Griffiths, said: “As to the supplementary rations for industrial workers, the Government intended to maintain their policy of allowing the maximum rations for all consumers generally rather than give a supplementary ration to a particular class.”

Oh, quite! Oh, quite ! The miners and the steel workers are not, of course, rationed in the quantity of lobster, cold chicken and other delicacies. They could, of course, buy them just like Mrs. Paul Willert (who was Brenda Pearson). Mr. Griffiths also knows this too. But, like us, he knows that they cannot afford them.

We wonder whether the “Air Force people” purred their approval of the party at Regent’s Park so unctuously as the society gossip writer. Or did they wonder why in these days when even the very rich are reduced by income tax to a mere thousand or two a year . . . that there are still people who can throw a party which costs the equivalent of probably many workers’ wages.

J. Cuthbertson

Letters: Are Cheap Imports a Concern of the Workers? (1941)

Letters to the Editors from the November 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have received the following letter from the Duke of Bedford criticising the article “A Few Words on the Atlantic Charter,” published in our October issue:

“Wigtownshire, Oct. 18th, 1941.

Sir,

In your October issue you raise the question of the threat to Agriculture provided by cheap foreign imports raised in a climate more favourable to agricultural production than our own. In view of the fact that we live in a labour-destroying age, I feel that we need to modify profoundly the whole of our thinking on the question of cheap imports, realising that the true purpose of both industry and commerce is not to provide work, but to provide real wealth in the form of desired goods and services. The close association of work with the right to receive an income has led us to attach too much importance to employment and far too little to the provision of adequate incomes for all citizens, whether they are employed, or, through no fault of their own, unemployed.

The policy of excluding cheap imports with the object of assisting a home industry inflicts an injury on three sets of people in the effort to help one, and is, therefore, not sound policy.

The restriction of imports of cheap goods is an injury to consumers; an injury to the men in our export trade whose goods indirectly “buy” the imports; and an injury to the foreigner who may need our exports but cannot obtain them if we refuse to buy his exports.

If imports are cheap, under a rational system which recognises that foreign trade should have the fundamental nature of barter, it simply means that the foreigner is able to send us a large quantity of goods in return for a comparatively small quantity of our own, and this, if we did not live under the economics of Bedlam, should be an advantage to us and not a drawback. Under the present system, the snag of course is that if cheap imports put people out of work in one of our home industries, the unemployed will not be able to buy the cheap imports— and other articles—low-priced though they be. But why should such a ridiculous state of affairs be tolerated ? If the goods are there for the unemployed to buy and the unemployed are out of work through no fault, or culpable indolence, of their own, why in the name of reason should new money not be created and given to them to enable them to buy the goods and enjoy a decent standard pf living ! Such money would not be inflationary because there would be the cheap imports behind it to back it and give it value and, seeing that it would be new money created not in the form of debt, and not existing money obtained by taxation, no one else’s standard of living would have been lowered in order to assist the unemployed.

Yours very truly,

Bedford.”

Reply.

It is obvious that our correspondent has not at all understood the article that he criticises. We are concerned with abolishing the Capitalist system and replacing it with Socialism, not with the question of solving the insoluble contradictions of Capitalism. The purpose of mentioning one of its contradictions, the conflict between the agricultural capitalist who wants protection and the industrial capitalist who wants cheap imported food because that means lower money wages, was to show the difficulty in which the Labour Party or any other party finds itself when it tries to administer capitalism.

There are many points in the letter deserving of reply. For reasons of space it is only possible to touch briefly on some of them.

Our correspondent writes of “the true purpose” of industry and commerce, implying that there is a true purpose which is not the actual purpose. This is a meaningless statement. The purpose that industry and commerce have can only be the purpose of those who own and control them, and as ownership and control are vested in a small part of the population, the owners of landed, industrial and commercial capital, their purpose is the only one and that purpose is not the provision of wealth for the population but the purpose of deriving an income from their ownership. Different sections of the propertied class have different interests in the question of cheap imported food, but the working class as a whole have no such interest. Broadly speaking, their money wages rise and fall with rises and falls in their cost of living. Their interest lies in abolishing the private ownership of the means of production and distribution.

Our correspondent sees a “close association of work with the right to receive an income.” This is only true of the working class. The propertied class do not enjoy their incomes because they work but because they own the means of production and distribution and own the whcle of the products of industry. The reason why the workers, employed and unemployed, cannot have and consume more of the goods that are produced is not the one given by our correspondent, that “cheap imports put people out of work,” but that the owners of the means of production and distribution are the owners of the products and are not primarily interested in any other question than selling them at a profit.

Like many other defenders of Capitalism who think they can solve Capitalism’s contradictions by currency juggling, our correspondent writes in amazement that his fellow property owners do not see what appears to him to be a solution. He is mistaken. They know at least a little better than he does what would be the consequences of his proposal of “creating” new money and giving it to the unemployed. If the penalty of semi-starvation through unemployment were to be removed, the workers would be in a position to wreck the wages system through which the propertied class are able to live on the backs of the wealth producers. Our correspondent may consider his fellow property owners are being ridiculous, but they know they are safeguarding their privileged position.

In conclusion, let us repeat that we are Socialists, and our purpose is to achieve Socialism, under which system goods will be produced solely for use and there will be no rent, interest or profit.

Editorial Committee.

Donations to General Fund (1941)

Party News from the November 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

I've not previously made a habit of posting these types of party funds columns from the war years on the blog, but I thought this time it was appropriate because of the bitter irony that the war economy brought full employment, and that trickled down into members and sympathizers pockets resulting in the Party being flush with donations for the first time in years. The sheer volume of donations was unprecedented and when you see the likes of Hamilton Branch donating to Party funds again and again, you know that for millions of workers war brought its financial benefits.

Hew to the Line (1941)

From the November 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The wage slaves of Britain are still packing their weary burden, and it is becoming increasingly plain that their exploiters have no intention of reducing the load the producers are called upon to carry. Indeed, all kinds of schemes are being devised to induce them to move at a more rapid pace; they are told they can do more than they are doing if they only try; the fate of the world depends upon the workers of this country making a supreme effort to increase output. This is what our masters would have us all believe, and they reiterate at every opportunity the necessity of working as we never worked before. The politicians on the platform and the parson in the pulpit harp incessantly on the same theme. Capitalism has at last got a market for all the goods that can be produced; the war has opened the flood-gates; production and more production is demanded. All wage slaves are graciously given the loan of a job and called upon by all those who live off surplus value to make work their ruling passion.

The ideas prevailing in capitalist society are the ideas of the ruling class; the moral code is that which preserves the master’s right to compel obedience, especially in war time.

The press nowadays makes interesting reading for those workers who understand their class position. Lord Halifax told some New York Republicans on the night of the 6th of October:

“We must put our aims higher. Don’t let either of us have to write across our records these tragic words, ‘Too late.’

For us both there is one dominant aim—production, more production, still more production.

We have got to put out every ounce of energy and power we have. Nothing else will do.”

Lord Halifax is even endeavouring to put all the wage slaves in the United States to work. It is interesting to speculate if he will be inspired by a like zeal should working men gather around the labour exchanges when the war is over. We did not notice any great effort being made to find employment for men and women who were out of work in the years preceding the war. The working men and their families were condescendingly allowed to exist on the miserable pittance known as the dole. Shipbuilders, mechanics, artisans and labourers of every description and of both sexes were then not wanted, and our masters apparently were unaware of their existence. Now these same individuals are told that their services are urgently needed; they must exert themselves and give of their best; the Empire is in danger, and those who were but recently despised and uncared for are called upon to slave unceasingly and even to risk making the supreme sacrifice for a system which heretofore has proved itself incapable of assuring a decent existence for large numbers of them.

Sometimes we see in the papers the report of a boy of seventeen or eighteen earning £4 or £5 a week; this is featured as something that should not be. He is not of those who live by exploitation.

We shall not hear anything mentioned about the way in which those who live by surplus value are safeguarding themselves and making plans which they hope will enable them to continue the system of exploitation after the war is over. Whilst the working class have their attention attracted to the struggle that is now raging, their masters are not neglecting future interests, but until the dove of peace again takes up its abode amongst us we may not be allowed to know what goes on in this connection behind the scenes.

Those who live by selling their labour power must judge the future their exploiters have mapped out for them by the past. The master class will not undergo a change of heart, and even if they did, such a change would not result in any great modification of the evils of the system. Capitalism has its own laws, and these work themselves out irrespective of the feelings of individuals. The war bids fair to last a long time, and will continue to affect every creature on the planet. All talk about the brave new world which is to come after the conflict is over is so much soothing syrup. There will be no improvement worth talking about unless the working class move in their own behalf.

This will come about when they grasp the nature of the job history has bequeathed to them. It is up to us to make them fully acquainted with the facts of their class position. The war is not the all-absorbing affair to us which the propagandists of our masters would make it out to be. Truly we have no use for the Swashbuckler of Berlin or the swollen bullfrog of the Pontine Marshes. We are opposed to dictatorship in any form, but the enemy of Labour is Capital, and we should be unfaithful to our class and our class interests if we allowed the war to cause us to forget this historic fact. Amidst the rationing system and the black-out, the clamour of work and the blitz, we take our stand for Socialism. Our cause is ours, the cause of those who live by selling their labour power, and no matter how chaotic the conditions or how eloquent the appeal of those who would divert us from our goal, we call upon the working class to make the means of life common property and establish a system of production solely for use. We are wholeheartedly in the fight for freedom—freedom from Capitalist bondage.

This is the only way in which a world worth living in can be brought into being: Socialism and Socialism alone guarantees permanent peace.

Socialism gives economic security and safety to all; Capitalism offers poverty, insecurity, war, and death. Choose ye!

Charles Lestor