Social Cut-backs or Social Revolution (1996)

From the July 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the past the big argument in the working class movement was
 “Social Reform or Social Revolution?” At present, as there have
 been no beneficial reforms for over twenty years and with none on 
offer, the choice is rather “Social Regression or 
Social Revolution?”

Over the years a running argument has gone on between reformists and revolutionary socialists. Between those, on the one hand, who wanted to concentrate on pursuing improvements within capitalism and, on the other hand, those like ourselves who wanted to concentrate on ending rather than reforming capitalism.

The reformists argued that reforms were worth pursuing because they bring immediate benefits to people. We didn’t deny this could happen but pointed out that reforms could never be anything more than palliatives and that they could never solve the problems they were directed at.

We added—and this was the most important factor for us—that campaigning for reforms was not a sound way to build a socialist party as it would attract the support of reform-minded people who would eventually drag the party in a reformist direction. Campaigning for reforms diverted time and energy away from campaigning for socialism, so postponing the achievement of the only framework within which the problems could be solved and so in fact prolonging the existence of those problems and the suffering they caused.

What was required was an immediate change in the basis of society from class ownership to common ownership; in other words, a social revolution.

We have to admit that, although we won the argument at an intellectual level, we didn’t win in terms of convincing even a large minority of those who wanted to further the interests of the working class or of those who considered themselves socialists. Most of these felt that, if reforms could be had, they should be pursued. To their way of thinking, socialism was a long way off, so what was wrong in trying to get improvements via reforms in the meantime? Some reformists called themselves “possiblists” to emphasise that their policy was to pursue something that was possible as something that was achievable in the immediate future, “something now".

In some ways this was an understandable (though mistaken) attitude but it had consequences. Reforms, as measures introduced by governments, have to be pursued by political means; which implies the need for a reformist political party. In Britain this was the Labour Party and, this century, hundreds of thousands of people put their time and energies into building up Labour as the political vehicle for obtaining reforms within capitalism

Reformists in power

Labour, in power, did introduce some reforms but the main purpose of any government is not to introduce reforms but to run the common affairs of the capitalist class of a country. So, in assuming government power to introduce reforms, Labour also assumed responsibility for running capitalism. As, however, capitalism by its very nature is a system based on the exploitation of wage-labour for profit and can never be made to run in the interest of the exploited majority, anybody taking on responsibility for running the political side of capitalism has to do so on capitalism’s terms.

Capitalism can only run as a profit-making system in the interest of those who live off profits and against the interest of the useful majority of wage and salary earners and their dependants. This is why all Labour governments ended up taking measures against the interests of the majority (such as restraining wages or opposing strikes) and disappointing, by cutting spending in such fields as health, housing, education and pensions, those who saw them as a vehicle for obtaining reforms.

This has always been the limitation of reformism. Capitalism can never be reformed so as to work in the interest of the majority, so the most that reforms are only ever going to be able to do is to alleviate some problem a little but never solve it. Such reforms as capitalism can be pressured into granting are always granted on its terms, basically, as long as they are not too expensive and as long as there is something in them for the capitalist class or some section of it—in terms, for instance, of a better trained or less inclined to be sick workforce.

Any reformist party that becomes the government has to work to capitalism’s agenda not its own of trying to improve working class conditions. If profits and reforms conflict it is profits that must come first.

Profits before reforms

n the first half of the 1970s the background to the reform-revolution argument changed. Since the post-war boom came to a final end with the world economic crisis of 1973-4 there have been no beneficial reforms, there have been no improvements in the fields of housing, education, health, pensions and state benefits generally. Quite the opposite in fact, the reforms that existed at that time have been gradually whittled down.

No government in Britain since the mid-70s has introduced any reform. All of them have cut back on reforms. All of them have been anti-reform governments. The basic reason for this has been the increased competition on world markets that the end of the post-war boom heralded. In order to provide businesses operating from within their frontiers with the means to remain competitive all governments have had to take measures to increase profits.

Profits are the source of funds businesses draw on to invest in the more up-to- date equipment and productive methods needed to keep their productivity and costs in line with those of their competitors. Profits are also the main source of government revenue. Governments produce nothing and so have to be maintained out of the surplus value produced by workers over and above the value of the goods and services they consume.

Apart from what they borrow, governments obtain their income via taxes. Although taxes don’t all fall directly on profits as corporation tax and income tax on dividends do, all taxes fall indirectly on profits. This is because direct taxes on wages and salaries and indirect taxes on the goods and services that workers consume increase the amount of money workers must have to be in a position to maintain their working skills. They increase the cost of the workers’ consumption. To take account of this, employers have to pay higher wages and salaries, which reduces their profits. However, the benefit of these higher nominal wages doesn’t go to the worker; it goes via taxes to the government. The result would be the same if workers paid no direct or indirect taxes and received lower wages and the government taxed profits directly.

Government income and profits come out of the same pot, the surplus value produced by the workers. The more there is for one, the less there is for the other. During the post-war boom this latent conflict did not come to the surface except occasionally during balance of payments crises and the relatively mild recessions of the period. With the world market expanding, sales were relatively easy and profits were rising. Most of the time capitalist firms were able to let go without too much problem a portion of their profits to finance government spending, including on reforms, especially as the result of this reform spending—a relatively healthy, well trained and contented workforce—would benefit them in the long run in terms of a more productive and therefore more profit- producing labour force. Despite this levy they still had enough profits left to accumulate as new machinery and more up-to-date productive methods.

When the post-war boom came to an end, however, and the period of intense world market competition opened up, the situation changed. Capitalist firms needed all the profits they could to stay competitive and the cry went up “cut government spending”, “cut taxes”. Governments had no alternative but to comply. In fact the political and economic history of Britain since the mid-70s is the history of the means adopted to reduce the share of surplus value taken by governments, so as to leave more for profits.

Although this policy is particularly associated with Thatcher it actually began under the 1974-79 Callaghan Labour government, even if reluctantly. Labour had started by trying to spend its way out of the 1973-4 slump, i.e. by increasing government spending, but had been forced by economic circumstances (as relayed via the IMF) to do a U-turn and cut spending on reforms.

When the government sought to cut spending by local councils, both on wages and on the services they provided, the result was the notorious Winter of Discontent—when rubbish piled up uncollected and bodies were left unburied—which the Labour Party has only recently succeeded in living down.

Undoing reformism

Thatcher, however, showed no reluctance. In fact she made it a crusade. When she was elected leader of the Tory Party in 1975 she declared that her aim was to “destroy socialism”. By this she meant not socialism (which of course hadn’t been established to be destroyed) but the house that the post-war Labour government built, and the Tory governments of the 1950s maintained, of a capitalist economy with a large state sector and a Welfare State providing benefits as of right. Destroying “socialism” meant destroying this and, unusual as it is for a politician to honour a promise, she did.

The nationalised industries were sold off to the private sector. Local council spending was capped and services which people had come to take for granted, including help for the elderly, the sick and the handicapped, were axed or charged for. Council housing too was sold off. Market forces were introduced into the NHS and prescription and dental charges increased enormously. The conception of the Welfare State as a state that provided benefits as of right to people in return for the contributions they paid was abandoned and the old National Assistance (previously Poor Law) system where benefits were only paid after a means test to people in dire poverty was reintroduced.

Not only have there been no beneficial reforms since the mid-70s, there are not likely to be any in the foreseeable future either. Such struggles as reformists have engaged in over the past twenty years have been defensive, not struggles to achieve some new reform but struggles to prevent some previously-achieved reform from being taken away.

This, too, changed the terms of the argument between reformists and revolutionary socialists. When reforms are achieved the hope is there, even if illusory, that they may be steps forward towards a better society ; reformists are able to claim, as some used to, that a slow accumulation of reforms was the way to socialism; and ordinary workers will be inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. But in a period when reforms are being taken away this argument can’t be used. Who can claim that slowing down things getting worse is a step towards socialism or any sort of better society?

Back to charity

How have reformists reacted to the disappearance of the only thing—the availability of reforms—that gave their mistaken position an air of plausibility? In two ways. One has been to cease to be reformists by coming to accept the present, unreformed capitalist status quo. This is the option the Labour Party has chosen. The other has been to retreat into charity and individual case work, the option taken by those who have gone into charities like Shelter, Child Poverty Action Group, Low Pay Unit, Age Concern and the like. Both options are an admission of the failure of the original reformist project of going into parliament to get legislation passed that would improve the condition of the working class.

The Labour Party is still a “reformist” party in the broad sense of the term, as a party that mistakenly believes it can make capitalism work in the interest of the majority. But in this it doesn’t differ from the Tory and Liberal parties which suffer from the same illusion. In that sense they, too, are reformist parties. But reformism was originally a current within working class opinion which sought to improve working class conditions by means of social reform legislation.

Because it now accepts that it must govern capitalism on its terms and according to its economic laws, the only reforms Labour now offers are not social reforms but constitutional reforms such as the abolition of hereditary members of the I louse of Lords or regional government for Scotland and Wales. Unlike social reforms, these don’t cost anything and so won’t be a burden on profits but, equally because they don’t cost anything, they don’t offer anything tangible to people and leave their conditions—and problems—completely unchanged.

All they amount to is rearranging the furniture, a game the Liberals and Nationalists are into too but with different proposals as to where to put the furniture. Apart from this, politics today is a choice of which gang of professional politicians is to form the government and preside over the capitalist system as it is without trying to extract social reforms from it. That is no longer on the agenda. Reformism has now become a fringe political movement, as represented by Arthur Scargill’s breakaway SLP.

The campaigning charities have come on the scene more or less avowedly as mere stretcher-bearers dealing with the worst casualties of capitalism. Their aim is not even the old reformist one of trying to improve the conditions of the whole working class by social reform legislation; it is only to try to help out the worst cases. They don’t think in terms of solving the problem they have targeted. They act on the assumption that the problem and their charity work will have to continue indefinitely, a never-ending struggle not, as with the reformist struggles of the past, to achieve and maintain social reforms but only to help out a tiny minority of those affected. They do demand legislative changes and they do ask for more money to be spent to help their clients, but the most they have ever got is the removal of some minor anomaly in the treatment of similar cases.

This is what “possibilism” has been reduced to—dealing with individual worst cases—as this is all that is possible under capitalism today in terms of social action.

The argument for reformism was weak enough anyway but, faced with this bleak social prospect, it’s got nothing going for it at all.

Adam Buick

Chapter Two: Reform or Revolution (1984)

From Samuel Leight's book, The Futility of Reformism

An acceptance of capitalism is indicative of a political approach that must inevitably enmesh itself with the reformation of the system and not with its abolition. Conversely, a genuine opposition to capitalism implies an understanding and knowledge that should preclude any desire to embark on a reformist program, recognizing the futility of such action, irrespective of the merits of the reforms contemplated. 

Wherever and whenever there is a program of reforms you will always find the "Leaders" ready and willing to perform, but always unable in the end to properly fulfill the promises which originally were so artfully dangled. Reforms never live up to their expectations because the very nature of capitalism invariably sabotages the performance of the reformers. Even when certain problems get resolved they are replaced with new ones, generally of an equal or greater magnitude. Apart from the wasted energy and time that reformism engenders, the danger of such activity lies in the inevitable apathy and disillusionment that arises in the aftermath. These are the breeding grounds for dictatorial regimes. 

It is a political delusion to think that one can shelve the case for socialism and still serve the interests of the working class by helping to reform capitalism in its quest for greater efficiency. The interests of the majority can only be served by the elimination of a system that can never be made to operate on their behalf irrespective of how it is manipulated or reformed. Socialist, political energies are channeled solely for the achievement of socialism — we do not concern ourselves directly with the administration of a system whose major social evils are irremovable notwithstanding the nature of the reforms that may be introduced. Reforms leave the fundamental basis of the system unaltered. It is this social and economic core, resting up on the class ownership of the means of production and distribution, that gives rise to the insoluble problems. 

In conjunction with this approach, we nevertheless urge our fellow workers to maintain and improve their standards of living through active participation in the Trade Union movement. However, such activity should always be kept in proper perspective with the realization that Trade Unions are limited in their scope. They demonstrate the class struggle in ever-constant action, as distinct from the separate policy of reformism to which we are opposed. 

With logic and socialist insight, we advocate peaceful, democratic revolution as the only political course to follow. At the same time, we recognize the necessity for the working class to continuously strive at safeguarding and improving their economic conditions, through appropriate, well-conceived Trade Union activity, in the interim. 

Can the working class "relate" to such a policy? We emphatically claim that they can, and should —without delay! 

Socialism, of course, can never be established or operated without a socialist majority. Once this fundamental position is fully appreciated it becomes obvious that any so-called Socialist Party that advocates a policy of reforms would automatically attract to its ranks reformists but not revolutionists. In no time at all any Party which naively attempted to take a dual position of reformation combined with "revolution" would be swamped and outnumbered by the reformists and would be politically castrated as far as socialism is concerned. The Fabian Society, established in January 1884, as a Society and not as a Political Party, and the Social Democratic Federation, which changed its name to the Social Democratic Party in 1908, both originating in England, are examples of reformist organizations that, in addition, purported to advocate socialism. The Fabian Society's doctrine was "the inevitability of gradualness," while the SDF referred to their reforms as "stepping stones to Socialism." A small group of secessionists from the SDF, opposing the reformist approach, formed the Socialist Party of Great Britain in 1904 with an object and set of principles that uniquely distinguished them as a Socialist Party in every sense of the term. 

Rosa Luxemburg in her work entitled "Reform or Revolution" written in April 1899, stated in her Introduction: 

"The daily struggle for reforms, for the amelioration of the condition of the workers within the framework of the existing social order, and for democratie institutions, offers to the Social-Democracy the only means of engaging in the proletarian class war and working in the direction of the final goal — the conquest of political power and the suppression of wage-labor. Between social reforms and revolution there exists for the Social-Democracy an indissoluble tie. The struggle for reforms is its means; the social revolution, its aim." 

This statement is fallacious in content and deviates from the significance of her title which poses a choice between reform or revolution. 

Another unacceptable aspect supported by Rosa Luxemburg, is the theory that at some stage of development, due to the contradictions of the system, capitalism will "collapse" and that, quoting, "Without the collapse of capitalism the expropriation of the capitalist class is impossible." We would deny this statement and substitute a vital alternative position: without a socialist working class socialism is impossible! Capitalism has demonstrated its remarkable staying-power and adaptability from crises to crises, through recessions and depressions. And even if a "collapse" occurred, socialism could never be introduced unless the vast majority were already converted to the socialist case and properly organized to attain political power. When this situation happens it would of course be completely unnecessary to wait for a "collapse," because socialism becomes immediately practical. However, in fairness to Rosa Luxemburg, affectionately called Red Rosa by the SPGB for her heroic class-conscious defense in her trial at Weimar in 1907, she also supported a positive role to be played by the working class, and indicated that the workers might achieve power before the breakdown of the system took place. The socialist position looks for no anticipated crash that would mark the death-throes of capitalism—on the contrary, we emphasize that the socialist revolution depends upon a sufficiency of socialists and we work towards this end. 

As and when socialist delegates become elected to the Congresses and Parliaments throughout the world, with a mandate for socialism, they will of course be confronted from time to time with reformist measures, and called up on to either vote or abstain, approve or otherwise. They will be instructed in these matters by their respective Socialist Parties. The guiding principle will revolve around the interests of the working class together with the achievement of socialism. The socialist delegates will therefore act within this framework. They will also never lose any practical opportunity for propagating, at the applicable time, the case for socialism. When the World Socialist Parties finally get representation in the seats of power, we can rest assured that the ruling class and their aides will be churning out a plethora of reforms in order to appease the growing, awakening socialist working class in an effort to delay the inevitable. The foregoing scenario is in no way analogous to the advocacy of reforms as an initial attempt to gain political support' and vote-catching representation. 

With the magnificent, international declaration and enactment that every human being is the common owner, with democratic control, of the means of production and distribution, with free access to all goods and services, a new era commences. Poverty, unemployment, insecurity and war become immediately and irrevocably eliminated. Their cause, the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution by a minority, in a "commodity society," would have been eradicated. The structure of a socialist society makes their existence an economic and social impossibility. What reform, or series of reforms, could match, or in any way be comparable with, this position and attainment? 

There can be no poverty in a classless society, technologically capable of satisfying the needs of the population, with free access to all goods and services. 

There can be no unemployment, or employment, when all men and women are co-owners of the means of production and distribution, giving of their abilities in useful work for society as well as for themselves. 

There can be no insecurity when all "needs" can be satisfied as the result of "common ownership" and "free access." 

There can be no war when humanity is united as a whole without states, national boundaries, or armed forces; with production and distribution solely for use, and not for profit, eliminating money, wages, exchange, and the "market place." 

Audit each of these categories today, after the deluge of all the reforms that have been passed since the advent of capitalism, for complete justification of the case for socialism.

On August 20, 1980 a report from Washington (UPI) stated: “The World Bank estimated this year 780 million people throughout the world are living in ‘absolute poverty.’ It described this as ‘a condition of life so characterized by malnutrition, illiteracy and disease as to be beneath any reasonable definition of human decency’.”

On September 29, 1981 according to the National Advisory Council on Economic Opportunity, “Twenty-five million Americans are poor” and “Another 30 million—if they lose a job, get sick or burn out—could be poor.” On August 2, 1983 the U.S. Census Bureau stated that the number of Americans classified as poor increased by 2.6 million, from 31.8 million in 1981 to 34.4 million in 1982. The official poverty rate, reflecting the portion of the population living in poverty, was 14 per cent in 1981. The 1982 rate was the highest since the start of the “War on Poverty” in 1965, when the rate was 17.3 percent. Of course, by socialist standards, poverty is the economic lot of the whole of the working class, at all times under capitalism—but, be that as it may.

Unemployment in Great Britain reached 14 per cent of the work force in September, 1982; and in the U.S.A. 10.8 per cent in November, 1982—both record figures since the Great Depression and World War II. Canada had a post-Depression high of 12.6 per cent in March, 1983. According to researchers at Williams College and the University of Minnesota, as reported in the Wall Street Journal on October 21, 1982, each percentage point increase in the unemployment rate correlates with 318 additional suicides. They estimate that the current recession is prompting 1,200 to 1,300 suicides a year.

If an unparalleled Arms Race between the major powers is touted as the supposed road to peace, then this futile pursuit alone is sufficient unto itself to condemn the anarchy, wastefulness and social stupidity of modern-day capitalist society. Of course, peace is non-existent under capitalism—in fact, the director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in May 1977, stated that since September 1945 there has not been a single day in which the world was free of war.

Here, we have only briefly touched upon the major social evils, ones that reforms are completely unable to penetrate with any kind of practical solutions. The reformists, therefore, also direct their ingenuity and efforts towards the “minor sores” of society. These have included so-called high taxes, “the economy,” balancing the budget (but not yours), inflation, violence, crime, pollution, premature death and ill-health caused directly by the system, racism, “freedoms” and “human rights.” And, lest we forget, the “privilege” of working class women having “equal rights” with the men of being exploited on equal terms. Presumably, also, the right to be massacred in the wars, alongside the men, for their masters’ interests—all this in the name of “equality”!

Every major political party in the U.S.A., Europe and elsewhere that has taken on the job of running capitalism has done so on a reformist ticket, failing dismally as far as the interests of the working class are concerned. And it can never be otherwise. Capitalism will always remain a system of perpetual crises, with unending competition and confrontation, both on the social and individual levels, all this impervious to reforms and reformism.

Letter: Has the S.P.G.B. a Policy? (1958)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Has the S.P.G.B. a Policy?

Leeds.

“Dear Sir,

If you have a constructive policy, and presumably you have one, it does not seem to come through in your columns; at least, I have not been able to find.

“You are excellent at attacking the other parties. In fact, your whole paper seems to me to be largely destructive.

‘‘If you have a policy I should very much like to know what it is. 1 regret I have been unable to find it

“I am not interested in mere platitudes. What are your constructive proposals for Britain and how are you going to put them into effect when you are in power?

Yours truly,

K. Hoyle.

Reply:

This complaint is one we often hear, and one with which we have every sympathy. But it simply is not true that our correspondent and others like him do not know what our “constructive proposals" are. They read our Declaration of Principles, which briefly states our objective —a Socialist system of society—and read, for example, the opening chapter of the pamphlet, “Questions of the Day,” a chapter headed “What Socialism Is,” but they just do not believe us when we say that this is our objective and our only objective. They are the victims of the “double talk” that has become the accepted propaganda of the Labour Party and similar bodies. The Labour Party has a double line of talk—on the one hand it says that its aim is Socialism, though it never defines it; on the other hand it has a set of ever-changing proposals that are claimed to be constructive, but which all boil down to trying to devise ways of enabling this country so to administer capitalism as to be able to survive in a capitalist world. Necessarily the main items in the proposals of any party aiming to do this consist of trying to capture markets for British goods and to gain and hold sources of materials (oil is one that at present holds a prominent place), and at the same time to achieve military security in a world that is driven to conflict and war by that same search for markets, etc.

When therefore readers ask us what are our “constructive” proposals for Britain, what they really want us to do is to say in what respect our proposals in these capitalist, economic and military fields differ from the Labour Party’s. To which our reply is that we have none. We are Socialists and our aim is world Socialism, not the futile and suicidal search for ways of making capitalism work to the benefit of Britain. Our only constructive proposal is Socialism; a new and different social system for the people of the world. The method of putting this aim into effect is that a Socialist majority must gain control of the machinery of government for the purpose of refashioning the social system. It is a quite simple aim though hard to achieve. One of the greatest difficulties we have is with people like our correspondent, who do not believe that the aim of Socialists is to achieve Socialism— though what other aim should Socialists have? The proposition is, however, so staggering to non-Socialists. including the membership of the Labour Party, that they cannot easily bring themselves to consider it.

Editorial Committee.

Correspondence: Is Society an Organism? (1906)

From the November 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

[To the Editor, The Socialist Standard.]

Dear Comrade,—It is affirmed by Socialists and others that Society is an organism. If this be true it is evident to me that the reforming or evolutionary Socialist is right when he contends that Socialism can evolve from, and grow up side by side with, Capitalism. For, if human Society is an organism it must be governed by the same evolutionary laws that govern the human being and must be in itself at least as complex as man.

A child born of human parents grows up under their care, is tended by them, evolves to manhood or womanhood and eventually takes the place of its parents in the perpetuating process. Therefore, if society is an organism, we must look to Socialism, as the offspring of Capitalism, to follow the same lines as to both birth and development. That is to say, Socialism, born of its parent Capitalism, must evolve to maturity, side-by-side with, and under the care of, Capitalism, which it will finally supplant in the perpetuation of Society.

If Society is an organism, such a process appears to me not only possible, but inevitable, for an organism must act in accordance with the organic laws of its nature.

By the way, I do not know, when an infant society-organism is born, whether the old society stands merely as mother (in which case I wonder where the father may be found), or whether it serves in the dual capacity of both mother and father.

The analogy of the birth of a child as used by Kautsky, does not apply to the question under discussion. The birth of a child, which he terms a revolution, does not kill the parents (occasional exceptions in the case of the mother recognised) who, as we see, go on living and tending the child to maturity. The birth of Revolutionary Socialism, not as an idea, but as a living entity, would most certainly kill its parent Capitalism. Consequently were Socialism an organism the day of its birth by revolution would be the day of its death, for by analogy, and as an infant society organism, it would require a parent society to take care of it.

Though I have studied the question for some years, I have hitherto been unable to find an atom of evidence to prove that Society is any more of an organism than the Milky Way, a herd of cattle, or a field of cabbage. The word “man” suggests an organism; the words “a society of men” suggests to me a number of these organisms, all of similar organic structure, not an intangible organism arising from their association.

Again reminding you that human Society to be an organism must be as complex and contain the same organic parts as its individual members, I will ask, to where in Society can you point and say, “There are the brains of Society, there are the lungs of Society, there is the heart of Society,” and so on.

We know that in Society a deadly struggle has been waged for centuries. What would be the result to any organism that was continually at war with itself? Complete and utter destruction, and no other organism could arise from its ashes, for it would die long before it reached maturity. The fight that takes place in Society is between organism and organism, not between organic parts of the same organism.

In Society there are two chief parts, sections or classes warring against each other. By Socialists this conflict is termed the “class struggle.” But this is not all. These two sections known respectively as the capitalist and working classes, are again further divided and sub-divided until they practically come down to units, each unit fighting desperately against his fellow unit.

I do not know what part of the organism the capitalist represents, but he is fiercely fighting the rest of his own organic division in addition to the working-class section. The working-class part of the organism is engaged in precisely the same game, so that a raging, tearing cross action amongst the individual cells of the organism is ever in progress.

But, and here comes the funny part of the matter, when the class interests of the Capitalists are threatened by the attitude of the working-class section the capitalist units band themselves together for defensive purposes.

That an organism should be divisible into two classes, that it should possess class-interests, or that a fractional part of the organism should be able to maintain any interest whatever apart from the welfare of the rest of the organism, is to me extremely comical. But if in spite of this, Society is an organism, the fact that the capitalist part of it know how to defend their interests would appear to show where the brains of the organism are situated.

But where in the whole of nature may be found an organism the organic parts of which are all of similar structure ? Where is the organism that ruthlessly and unceasingly kills off its organic parts and still waxes stronger and stronger?

Where in nature may be found the animal organism in which, say, one third part doing no useful work in the economy of that organism, grows sleek and fat and is able to keep the other two-thirds, which do all the necessary work, unnourished and undeveloped ?

Where in nature is to be found the vegetable organism, a third part of which, doing nothing useful in that organism, receives the greater portion of the sap, and the other two-thirds, drawing all the sap from the roots, die for lack of nourishment ?

Such monstrosities are to be seen only in nightmares.

We all know that the part of an organism which does not take its proper share in the work of supporting the organism is the part that is undeveloped and uunourished. The reverse is the case in Society.

How then can Society be said to even resemble an organism in any particular.

If my reasoning is unsound, if Society is an organism, then I repeat, the position of the Socialist who asserts that Socialism may be and must be brought a bit at a time is logically unassailable, for that position is strictly in harmony with organic law. The complex animal organism, born of another complex animal organism must in its infancy be attended to, and for a longer or shorter period grow up beside its parents ; otherwise it will perish. Therefore, if Socialism is to be born in natural order from Capitalism, the child must live under the care of its parent, or some other similar organism ; which, of course, does not exist.

Socialists appear to be oblivious of the fact that the social revolution for which they are working will be something entirely unique in the world’s history ; though the revolutionary sections are conscious it will require unique efforts to bring it about. Thereby, from the point of view I have laid down, showing that their belief is not in harmony with their base.

Despite all beliefs to the contrary, a new Society has never been born in tlie whole of the recorded history of civilisation. The infant, Private Ownership, saw the light many centuries ago, and the effects of all revolutions so far have been to change his appearance : to win for him the right to wear a new suit of clothes : to wax his moustache or part his hair in the middle. That is absolutely all that previous revolutions social, and, political, have accomplished.

But though Private Ownership is dressed in a different fashion, though he has substituted the frock coat and the tool of industry for the armour and the sword, he is still the same individual in essence as he was on the day of his birth. The storm and stress of the centuries have left their mark upon him, but there’s life in the old boy yet, and the numbers of his loyal supporters are as the sands of the sea shore.

Putting metaphor aside, various forms of Society have evolved from their predecessors because they grew from the same base—individual ownership in the means of life. But I submit, it is as absurd to expect collective ownership to evolve directly from private ownership as it would be to expect an acorn to evolve directly into a beech tree. Both the oak and the beech are trees, but they evolve from different bases, and neither can evolve into the other, unless, it may be, by the passage of a long period of time. If the oak is to grow in the ground now occupied by the beech, then the beech must be uprooted before the oak can be planted.

Here we touch upon the essential difference between evolution and revolution, as the latter word is used and understood by Socialists; but as that is not the subject with which we are now dealing, it must be left to another occasion.

I trust I have now said sufficient to show how much depends upon the question as to whether Society is, or is not, an organism. Upon demonstrable proof, one way or the other, hinges the possibility of Socialist unity.

Not only that. If it is proved as I think it may be that the term is merely figurative, then it will be seen that such a base is not the right one upon which to build a scientific thesis, and in consequence, many concepts arising from its assumed truth will have to be reconsidered or abandoned. If the proposition is proved correct, then I, for one, will most readily accept the proof, even though in the process my reasoning faculties are twisted out of shape.

The vital importance I conceive to be attached to this question must be my excuse for the length of this epistle.

—Yours fraternally,

H. Philpott Wright

The Value of Principle. (1905)

From the September 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is curious to note how large a number of ordinarily lucid thinkers go wool-gathering upon the question of the value of the State recognition of principle. So long as the State admits the correctness of the principle involved in any agitation, although it may cover years, although it may necessitate the expenditure of tremendous effort and demand no inconsiderable sacrifice, although it may occur that all the work has not beneficially affected a single individual of the many thousands they probably set out to benefit, these good people are satisfied that their participation in such agitation was entirely justified.

In connection with the recent unemployed agitation (which has culminated in the unusually useless Act already referred to in these columns) for example, the participants, undoubtedly comprising many honest and earnest men, profess to find occasion for congratulation in that the State has recognised that it has a responsibility to the unemployed—meaning that the State, through its Parliamentary mouthpiece, has admitted that its duty is to provide work for the workless. As a matter of fact the mouthpiece specifically repudiated any such responsibility, but assuming that the State had just as specifically accepted the responsibility, would that be a good and satisfactory thing in itself ? Our friends say, yes, without hesitation, and argue that having admitted the principle it is practically impossible for the State to refuse to translate its acceptance thereof into action.

Those who take this line are probably unaware that it involves the admission that the capitalist-class—who, because they are the dominant class in the State are dominant in the legislature—are unconscious of the fact that they are rioting through life upon wealth they have never produced. Because if the capitalist-class are aware that they live by the proceeds of the robbery of labour, they know themselves as frauds. And if they know themselves as frauds they concede the principle that Labour is poor because it is robbed, and that they are the robbers. They are in the uncomfortable position, that is to say, which our friends seem to think will preclude their continuance in the robber role.

This, although the logical deduction from the proposition advanced, will probably not be accepted for the very sufficient reason that the capitalist-class have not abdicated. The only other alternative, therefore, is that they do not understand that they are robbers.

It is questionable indeed whether many of our principle-mongers (to coin a phrase) will acquiesce in that alternative. It is admitted, of course, that some members of the capitalist-class will not be aware of their position. It is also admitted that most of the members of the capitalist-class will not think the term “robbery” as applied to their method of getting a living, justified. But speaking of the capitalist-class as such, and having regard to the fact that they are generally possessed of good educations, it is a fair assumption, and moreover in strict accord with the evidence, that they know the wealth they live upon is wealth they have never produced. And how else can the individual who does not produce find the wherewithal to exist—and exist luxuriously at that except by—robbery ?

If this is so we may take it that the capitalist-class have already recognised the principle that they live at the expense of others, and every indication available goes to show that they will only vacate their position as a result of forcible ejection. Now why is this if the recognition of the principle is the important thing that the principle-mongers would have us believe ? What is the use of the recognition of principle if it does not effect a betterment in the condition of those on whose behalf the recognition is contended for ? Is it not the fact that the right of every needy person to sustenance has been recognised in the British Constitution for several hundred years ? Is it not true that the principle of equity before the law has been admitted for any length of time ? Then why is it that needy persons cry aloud for sustenance and cry in vain ? Why is it that we have palpable administration of law in the interests of the dominant class ? The fact is that there is as wide a gulf between the State recognition of a principle and its application as there is between recognition and non-recognition. Any principle can be admitted without danger to the dominant class—indeed, this class stands to gain by their concession, because they are thereby enabled to lull unrest by an affectation of concern for the triumph of Right—unless the power that enforces the admission is sufficiently strong to compel its practical application. And what power is it that can enforce the application of the principle of the right of every man to work and to the full result of his labour, except an educated, class-conscious, thoroughly organised working-class ?

To this power and to this power alone will the capitalist-class finally submit, and not then until they have exhausted all the resources of force and fraud by the exercise of which they have hitherto been enabled to maintain their ascendancy. In the last resort it is not ethical considerations that will weigh as our friends seem to suppose. These have failed as they must always fail before the fundamental and all prevailing motive of material well-being. If it were otherwise the capitalist-class, already convicted of sin, already well knowing that their position is built up upon the exploitation and misery of the many, would have abdicated long ago. It is force, organised and intelligently directed, that will achieve the victory, and it is The Socialist Party of Great Britain that in this country is educating and organising the working-class to that end.

Therefore it is not the State recognition of a principle that matters when that State is capitalist. It is the recognition of principle by the working-class, and the intelligent organisation of that class into a power that can enforce the principle’s application that matters.

Let our friends consider themselves. They are wasting a lot of time.

A. J. M. Gray

Correspondence: Evolution and Revolution. (1905)

Letter to the Editors from the June 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Correspondents MUST be brief.

Communications must be authenticated by name and address of writer and written on one side of the paper only.

The writers only are responsible for the views expressed.

Evolution and Revolution. 

Dear Comrade,—Ignoring Mr. T. A. Jackson’s opening remarks on my article, “Evolution and Revolution,” I will come at once to his first point.

He complains that in one place I use the word “revolution” in the sense of “destruction,” in other places as meaning “dissolution,” “sudden transition,” and “catastrophic change.” Quite right, I do; but, what is more surprising, Mr. Jackson himself runs me pretty close in so defining the word, for after giving a brief account of his experience he says : —

”The acquirement of the knowledge necessary to the apprehension of this fact and to a recognition of its importance was a long and gradual process, but the apprehension was a single and sudden mental occurence.”

If that does not mean a sudden transition, what does it mean ? A little further on your correspondent says :—

“From one point of view here was a continuous development; from another a destruction of one form and the substitution of something entirely different.”

Had Mr. Jackson proceeded much further he would doubtless have introduced the other definitions to which he appears to take exception—dissolution, and catastrophic change; the former, by the way, being one of the definitions of “destruction.”

As it is, however, the comrade has practically conceded all I asked in that direction. Revolution is a sudden transition from one form to another; it is destructive to the old, and stands as base to something entirely different. So far we agree. Now as to evolution.

In the article Mr. Jackson so ably criticised these words occur :—

“The change revolution produces may of course go on evolving, but we must not forget that revolution brought that particular phase of evolution into existence.”

Here is my meaning:—

Man, it is affirmed, has evolved from the ape, but he is not an ape. Socialism, as we understand it, has evolved from the capitalist system, but it is not the capitalist system. Therefore, I hold that Socialism is not evolution leading up to revolution, but revolution in the process of evolution; that is, revolution evolving to its final consummation.

The theory of Socialism being revolt against present institutions, it must of necessity be revolution in the making; in other words, evolving revolution. Being so, it must, while fostering its own development, regard all similar developments with more or less hostility, proving that revolution is antagonistic to all forms of evolution but its own.

Without that revolutionary principal in our midst, no revolution, as we now use the word, could occur. That is to say, left to evolve without the revolutionary force behind it, the capitalist system could not evolve up to a revolution, only in the sense of a change produced by the lapse of time. The two systems being antagonistic, one could never evolve directly from the other, any more than a young tiger could evolve into a gazelle.

I submit that Mr. Jackson mistakes the nature of the force governing his conversion. When he first began to take a live interest in Socialism, he was immediately in the throes of an intellectual revolution ; consequently, his evolution up to a full apprehension of what Socialism means had a revolutionary base, without the aid of which Mr. Jackson would never have been a Socialist.

Is it not evident that as Socialism is revolutionary, all Socialists must evolve from that revolutionary base ? From the point of view of their ideal they have cut off all connection with the present system; standing, as an embodiment of revolution, in direct hostility to that system. If this is not correct, how is it that the present system does not evolve every man into a Socialist ? It is apparent that men must grasp the revolutionary principle before they can evolve into Socialists.

The capitalist system is complete in itself. The theory of Socialism is complete in itself. Each is controlled by a distinct and hostile evolution. The one is established; the other seeks to take its place. Each constitutes a system in process of evolution ; the one evolves with preceding revolution as base, the other evolves upon its own base, and when the time is ripe, will step in as a complete and new revolution, so cutting off the further evolution of the old.

If these two forces are not antagonistic, I should like to know where we are to look for antagonism.

Should these conclusions be correct, there is nothing illogical in certain Socialists calling themselves “Evolutionary Socialists” in contradistinction to the Revolutionary. They are evolving Revolutionists, believing that they can apply their principle of revolution a “bit at a time,” so gradually bringing about the realization of their ideal.

In the extract which your correspondent gives from Karl Marx, it will be noted that the great economist discriminates between evolution and revolution.

The former, he observes, “takes place unconsciously, strictly according to the laws of natural science.” Of the latter he says, “Men fight out this conflict as a revolution, conscious of their opposing interests.”

Therefore, without the revolutionary principle you cannot get the proletariat class-conscious. Evolving with the present system, they can never become class-conscious in a Socialist sense. They must step across the borders where revolution awaits them.

Mr. Jackson, like many another, had a hard fight with his doubts and prejudices, but being conscious of this, he was, as I have said, from the very first in the throes of an intellectual revolution. His new ideas, the instruction he received, did not come to him directly from the present system, but from the revolutionary impulse at work within that system. The comparison enabled Mr. Jackson to choose; his sense of justice enabled him to choose rightly. That, I submit, is the secret of the mental process he describes.

But introspective reasoning is always defective, for the experiences of any two men rarely agree. For instance, the experience of a young man who from his infancy had been brought up as a Socialist, would be quite different to that of Mr. Jackson ; for where, in such a case, would come in “an evolution with a revolution as an integral phase phase” ?

Again, suppose a man who was formerly a Socialist were to change his political belief and join one of the present political parties, would Mr. Jackson call this a revolution ? I am inclined to think our friend would call that man a Reactionary, not a Revolutionist. A man must change from the orthodox to the revolutionary before he can be regarded as a Revolutionist. From this base he stands as an individual personification of Revolution, ready to play his part in putting a period to the further evolution of the thing to which he is opposed.

Therefore, a complete change of opinion, as such, does not constitute a revolution, as Mr. Jackson appears to argue.

I am not trying to score points against Mr. Jackson or anyone else, rny sole desire being to lessen the confusion apparently prevailing as to the “true value and relative application of the words evolution and revolution.”

I could say much more upon the subject, but noticing that you ask for brief communications I will close with a few words in reply to your correspondent, Filius Populi.

I am sorry to say I cannot dispute his statement that he is a “peregrinating paradox and several other things.” The truth of his sad admission is only too apparent. He wants to know what he is as a Socialist. A ghastly failure, I should say, for a man afflicted with such a decided kink in his cerebrum could scarely be a success. However, let him take courage: with study and persistent application he may presently begin to understand things.

He requests you to fix on a title that will explain his brand of Socialism clearly. If you decide to oblige him you have some tall thinking ahead. But as he pleads so pathetically for your help, I trust you will not withold it altogether. May I suggest, however, that you refrain on this occasion from calling a spade a spade. You might hurt friend Populi’s feelings. May I also suggest that you make your answer as elementary as possible.

—H. Philpott Wright.

______________

The accident of a call at the Editorial address coinciding with the receipt of Mr. P. Wright’s letter enables me to pen a line designed to appear in company with Mr. Wright’s latest contribution to the confusion of terms. I leave the task of straightening out Mr. Wright’s unhappy tangle to Jackson, moderately confident of his ability to deal with it expeditiously and effectively with no great mental exertion, and confine myself to pointing out with becoming humility, that Mr. Wright has shunted his responsibility in the matter of finding a name satisfactory to himself for the Socialist who is at once evolutionary, revolutionary, and involutionary in the definition I set upon the words, upon the shoulders of a long suffering editorial committee.

It was, of course, natural that Mr. Wright should endeavour in that way to unhook himself from the triple-horned dilemma upon which he so ably, howbeit unconsciously, transfixed himself, but I think he might have assisted the Editorial Committee with one of those scintillating inspirations that characterized his first letter and set the Party membership agog. We should then have again seen how far Mr. Wright can be wrong in his conception of what a Socialist should hold. I invite him most cheerfully to be quite ruthless of my feelings: they don’t matter. Let him call a spade a spade. It will be wonderful to hear him speak clearly, although I fear me he will get a hoe somehow woven into his definition. And then I will retire into my wonted obscurity with a full heart.

Filius Populi.

P.S. 

My conscience smites me. I fear I ought not to lure Mr. Wright into the position of a butt for derision. He didn’t know—how could he ?—that all Socialists are evolutionary, revolutionary, and involutionary to the extent suggested in my note. He didn’t know—how could he ?—that the “Dear Comrades” he fraternally addresses are “ghastly failures” to a man. Ah me! these intellectuals!—Fil.Pop. (not Philpott)

Cooking the Books: Was Marx really a reformist? (2023)

The Cooking the Books column from the July 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

A controversy has broken out between two reformist groups about reforms. It started with an article by Dylan Riley in the New Left Review in April which criticised ‘neo-Kautskyites’ for advocating a green new deal; this, argued Riley, would come up against ‘the structural logic of capital’ and so wouldn’t work as intended (tinyurl.com/4wy2hc75). Accepting the tag neo-Kautskyite, Seth Ackerman replied in Jacobin magazine to try to show that Marx himself believed that reforms could overcome the ‘structural logic of capital’ and so were worth struggling for (tinyurl.com/5whj5u8p).

Ackerman’s case was based on Marx’s support for the 1847 Factory Act which limited the working day for women and children to 10 hours. This had been opposed, not just by most factory owners but by tame economists one of whom notoriously argued that profits were made in the last hour of a day’s work and that cutting hours would ruin businesses. Marx refuted this by showing that every minute a worker worked was divided into paid and unpaid labour and so the Ten Hour Bill would not result in a total loss of profits (see section 3 of chapter 9 of volume I of Capital). It was also in the longer-term interest of the capitalist class as a whole, as over-working workers threatened their fitness as profit-producers of future generations of workers. In other words, it was not against the ‘structural logic of capital.’

Nevertheless, in his Inaugural Address to the founding congress of the International Working Mens’ Association in 1864 Marx did describe (which Ackerman quotes) the passing of the Ten Hour Bill as the first time that ‘the political economy of the middle class succumbed to the political economy of the working class’.

Marx’s strategy at the time was to get a workers’ movement going, even just on a trade union basis, in the expectation that it would later develop into a conscious movement for socialism. So, this was a rhetorical flourish to show that working class struggle, even within capitalism, was not useless. In the event, Marx’s strategy didn’t work. Working class political parties did emerge but turned out to be more interested in obtaining reforms under capitalism than in campaigning for socialism.

In arguing that this meant ‘that Marx knew that the struggle for reforms was part of the struggle for socialism’, Ackerman reads too much into Marx’s rhetoric for the occasion and ignores his insistence in the same speech on the need for the workers to win control of political power (‘revolution’) before anything could be done to end their exploitation. Marx did support certain reforms that benefitted workers, and the Factory Acts did do this, but he never saw campaigns for them (‘reform’) as part of the struggle for socialism, only to try to get a better deal under capitalism.

Ackerman went on to argue that there is no ‘structural logic of capital’ that prevents reforms working but chose an easy interpretation of this logic to refute — that reforms will fail due to ‘the falling rate of profit’. That is not our position. Ours is that capitalism is a profit-driven system and that any reform that impinges on profit or profit-making won’t work as envisaged; the only reforms that are accepted are those that don’t go against this ‘structural logic’, including health services and universal education (which help create and maintain a reasonably educated and fit working class to operate modern industry).

The real argument on reforms is not about the reforms themselves but against reformism, the policy of advocating reforms in the belief that this will somehow help the struggle for socialism. It doesn’t and it can’t and it encourages illusions that divert from the struggle for socialism.

Correspondence: Evolution by Revolution. (1905)

Letters to the Editors from the May 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

Evolution by Revolution

Comrade,—

In the March issue of the Socialist Standard appeared an article over the signature of H. Philpott Wright, entitled “Evolution and Revolution,” which, in the humble opinion of the undersigned, is a positively brilliant production—except for the fact that it is grammatically obscure, logically deficient, historically absurd, and economically unsound.

Mr. Wright endeavours to prove that “revolution” and “evolution” are antithetical or antagonistic terms, and makes this clear by using “revolution” in one place in the sense of destruction, in another as meaning “dissolution,” in another as meaning a “sudden transition,” in another a “catastrophic change!”

Mr. Wright avoids discussing the question Reform v. Revolution on its own merit, contenting himself with arguing that if you are a revolutionary you must aim at revolution, while if you are a reformer you must aim at reform.

But the climax is reached when Mr. Wright says or gives us to understand that the transition from Capitalism to Socialism can be effected as well by reform as by revolution; that is, in his own words, “if Socialism evolves from this system there can be no revolution, for none will be needed.”

Now I, although unworthy, venture to assert that on the contrary, Socialism will evolve from this present system, and one phase of its evolution will be a revolution—the transition from Capitalism to Socialism constituting a social revolution; one essential stage in the transition being a political revolution.

Before we proceed to discuss the point will Mr. Wright please turn to our “Declaration of Principles” on page 1 and read it through carefully? He will notice that after pointing out the economic relation of the exploiting and exploited classes, the Declaration proceeds:

“That as in the order of social evolution the working-class is the last class to achieve its freedom, the emancipation of the working-class will involve the emancipation of all mankind without distinction of race or sex.”

Following Mr. Wright’s example I will now give a “little illustration.” I was at one time not a Socialist, in fact, I was violently opposed to Socialism. For me to change from an anti-Socialist into a Socialist entailed a complete and fundamental change in my political, social, and moral beliefs and ideals—in short an intellectual revolution.

Yet this revolution was produced merely by the apprehension of one simple fact, viz., that where one section of the community own all the means of life the rest of the community are in fact, if not in name, enslaved.

The acquirement of the knowledge necessary to the apprehension of this fact and to a recognition of its importance was a long and gradual process, but the apprehension was a single and sudden mental occurrence.

What had happened? I had acquired from various sources (environment) a certain quantity of knowledge bound up with a certain quantity of prejudice and a certain number of beliefs. Addition to this knowledge entailed as a necessary consequence the destruction of a mass of prejudice and the reconstruction of social and moral ideals.

Now what was that but an evolution with a revolution as an integral phase?

From one point of view here was a continuous development; from another a destruction of one “form” and the substitution of one entirely different. From one point of view the process was an evolution; from another a revolution. And as the latter necessarily followed upon the former, we sum up the process as an evolution with revolution as an integral phase.

Much in the same way does Society evolve: for we must always remember that one of the forces whose operation produces social evolution is human intelligence. In fact, in discovering the forces producing or laws governing social development, we have to trace the laws determining the development of public opinion; and here lies the essence of the socialist philosophy first expounded by Karl Marx. I cannot do better than give his own words:

“In making their livelihood together men enter into certain necessary, involuntary relations with each other.

“These industrial relations arise out of their respective conditions and occupations, and correspond to whatever stage society has reached in the development of its material productive forces.

“Different stages of industry produce different relations.

“The totality of these industrial relations constitutes the economic structure and basis of society.

“Upon this basis the legal and political superstructure is built.

“There are certain forms of social consciousness or so-called public opinion which correspond to this basis.

“The method prevailing in any society of producing the material livelihood determines the social, political, and intellectual life of men in general.

“It is not primarily men’s consciousness which determines their mode of life, on the contrary, it is their social life which determines their consciousness.

“When the material productive forces of society have advanced to a certain stage of their development they come into opposition with the old conditions of production, or to use a legal expression, with the old property relations, under which these forces have hitherto been exerted.

“Instead of serving longer as institutions for the development of the productive powers of society, these antiquated property relations now become hindrances. Then begins an epoch of social revolution.

“With the change of the economic basis the whole vast superstructure undergoes, sooner or later, a revolution.

“In considering such revolutions we must always distinguish clearly between the change in the industrial methods of social production on the one hand: this change takes place unconsciously, strictly according to the laws of natural science, and might properly be called an evolution.

“And on the other hand, the change in the legal, political, religious, artistical or philosophical, in short, ideological institutions; with reference to these, men fight out this conflict as a revolution conscious of their opposing interests.

“This conflict takes the form of a class struggle.

“We may in wide outlines characterise the Asiatic, the antique, the feudal, and the modern capitalistic methods of production as a series of progressive epochs in the evolution of economic society.

“The industrial relations arising out of the capitalistic method of production constitute the last of the antagonistic forms of Social production; antagonistic, not in the sense of an antagonism between individuals, but of an antagonism growing out of the circumstances in which men must live who take part in social production.

“But the productive forces which are developed in the lap of capitalistic society create at the same time the material conditions needed for the abolition of this antagonism. The capitalist form of society therefore will bring to a close this cycle of the history of human society, as it has existed under the various forms of exploitation.”—From the Introduction to the “Critique of Political Economy.”

I make no apology for the length of the above quotation. Marx is too little known to the working-class of Great Britain for quotations so important to be superfluous.

It will be seen from this, what indeed Mr. Wright admits, viz., that the political, moral, and social revolutions recorded in history were nothing but re-arrangements of the relations between man and man made necessary by the development of the “material productive forces” of society (the “means and instruments for producing wealth” as the Party Declaration puts it)—in short, an evolution with a revolution as an essential phase.

One illustration from history will suffice: The Capitalist or Bourgeois Revolution in France—The French Revolution.

Just prior to 1789 the Political, Legal, and Religious forms in France were feudal—but at the same time the feudal method of wealth production—viz., individual production by guild craftsmen, &c.—had been breaking up and giving place to the modern capitalist system of manufacture.

Consequently the class-division of society in France was not merely into rich aristocrat and poor peasant.

Firstly, there was the feudal aristocracy, lay and clerical, possessing political power and social privilege.

Secondly, there was the rising middle-class, or bourgeoisie, composed of the professional classes, the growing capitalists, and the lower strata of the priesthood—possessing little or no political power but at the same time the greater proportion of the economic power.

Lastly, there were the proletarians or wage-slaves of the towns and the peasant-serfs of the country, possessing neither political power nor economic possession.

The growing financial embarrassment of the aristocracy compelled them to submit to the summoning of the States-General. The States-General summoned, the bourgeoisie were asked for money, which they granted on their own terms. In short, they seized possession of the political power and proceeded to wield it in their own interest as the aristocracy had done.

This conquest of the political power by the bourgeoisie involved the extinction of the aristocracy as an aristocracy.

The phases of the French Revolution consequent upon the calling of the States-General, viz., the struggle between the Jacobins and Girodins, &c., can only be understood as the manifestations of a class-struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, in which the latter, being undeveloped, eventually and inevitably succumbed. When the monarchy was “restored” in 18l5 it was shorn of most of its feudal privileges—and the return of the monarchy again marked the victory of the landed-class over the industrial capitalist.

In short, economic evolution differentiated society into classes with conflicting interests; with the development of the economic conditions the respective political power changed and with the power eventually went the victory; an evolution with a revolution as its dominating phase.

Just as the economic change developed the capitalist-class and forced them to fight, so the working-class is developed and forced to fight for political supremacy by the evolution of society.

When the workers shall have evolved so far that they conquer for themselves the political power, that day will mark the realisation of the Social Revolution.

—Yours, &c.,

Thos. A. Jackson

Evolution and Revolution.

Comrades,

After mature deliberation consequent upon the careful perusal of Mr. Philpott Wright’s article in the March issue, I discover that I am, (1) an evolutionary Socialist because I concede the principle of development in society and hold that Socialism must grow out of existing forms ; (2) a revolutionary Socialist because the change in existing forms which will inevitably give birth to the new order of society involves a revolution in those forms which I belong to the Socialist Party for the purpose of expediting, (3) an involutionary Socialist because I wish to revert to certain primitive society forms, though I want to retain the advantages of ages of progress.

Now according to Mr. Wright a revolutionary Socialist is entirely distinct from an evolutionary Socialist, while an involutionary Socialist is in complete antagonism to the others. So I am an irreconcilable duality on the one hand and on the other a trinity in violent opposition to myself in two places. I am also a perigrinating paradox and several other things that will occur to Mr.. Wright in the privacy of his chamber, but what am I as a Socialist ? I should like you to fix on a title that will explain my brand of Socialism clearly, but I cannot conveniently call myself an evolutionary-involutionary-revolutionary Socialist. Will you please help me ?

Filius Populi

Evolution and Revolution. (1905)

From the March 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard 

There appears to be some confusion of thought among Socialists as to the true value and relative application of the words “evolution” and “revolution.”

Influenced doubtless by Karl Kautsky’s reasoning in his “Social Revolution,” many students of sociology believe that the terms are synonymous. So far from this being the case, the words and the meaning they convey are in direct antagonism, as I shall try to prove.

Before the great French Revolution, society in France was evolving along certain lines, that is to say, a section of the community was becoming rich or profligate, or both, by the degradation, exploitation, and enslavement of the other section. Therefore, the tendency of the evolution of that society was to make a clear and ever more accentuated line of division between rich and poor, aristocrat and peasant.

The Revolution destroyed all that, cutting off for the time being all such tendency. In short, the Revolution put a period to the evolution of society as then constituted.

It may be contended that French society having evolved to a certain point, a change was inevitable. Even so, the change was none the less a revolution in that it altered most effectually the existing order of things, which, left to themselves—that is, had natural evolution been unchecked—would have developed into something quite different.

Here we may see the fundamental difference between evolution and revolution. The former means a gradual growth from that to this, with a connecting link so closely forged that the careful student may clearly see the second evolved from the first.

On the other hand, revolution is a force which comes in at certain periods, completely snapping the connecting link between the old and the new, rendering impossible, for the time at least, the further development of the old. The change revolution produces may of course go on evolving, but we must not forget that revolution brought that particular phase of evolution into existence. In doing this it necessarily destroyed the line of evolution which preceded the outbreak or upheaval, proving that revolution was opposed to evolution on those lines.

But, you will say, the Revolution aided the evolution of the French to a higher conception of equity and brotherhood. Quite so, but that by no means proves that revolution is an essential part of evolution, or that in fact it has any collateral relationship. Perhaps my meaning may be made clearer by an illustration.

If we took a boy from sordid and degraded surroundings and placed him in a refined and cultured environment, we should have revolutionised the life of that boy. His evolution to manhood would continue at about the same rate as if he had been left in the slum, but the evolutionary process would be of an entirely different nature. This change would have been brought about by stopping his old line of evolution and starting him on a new one—in other words, revolution has stepped in and performed its function, which is checking one form of evolution and supplanting it by another.

Now supposing that after the boy had spent two years in his superior environment, we then return him to the slum. That would mark another revolution in his life, and by that act you would be doing your utmost to set up the process of involution, which is the opposite to evolution. In short, you would be trying to get that boy back to the state in which you found him.

What may be said of the individual may be said of nations, and thus we see that revolution can not only elevate, that is, evolve, but it has power to degrade, to lower, to involve; again proving it is distinct from evolution, for were it the same thing it could not act in opposition to itself.

I am quite aware that an individual may rise above or fall below his environment, but that in no way affects the force of my illustration.

Involution is quite as important a factor in this question as evolution, for it has manifested itself, more or less, through every revolution.

For instance, the French people made no practical or lasting use of their splendid opportunities. There was in their Revolution the usual three turns of the wheel. First, the moderate movement, forward, then, after a time, the second, then the extreme party which created a reaction against the revolution, when the wheel moved backwards—involution. First, the Girondists, second, the Jacobins, then the reaction to monarchy.

So, then, we see that revolution can both build up and pull down, the latter power being altogether outside the province of evolution.

This should be quite sufficient to prove that the two words we are discussing do not mean one and the same thing, but let us go a little further.

The capitalist system was not caused by direct revolution : it evolved ; that is to say, it was established gradually, imperceptibly. The fact that the introduction of machinery later on brought about an industrial revolution in no way militates against this statement, for machinery was an outgrowth of the capitalist system, it did not produce it. The change it caused in the methods of production then prevailing, however, constituted a revolution, a revolution which cut off at once the further development of the old machinery.

The same may be said of many other things. For example, gunpowder as an aid to slaughter, was not evolved through the weapons of its day. It was a distinct invention or discovery, and its introduction caused a revolution in the art of war.

The application of steam to locomotion was also a revolution, for it did not evolve through the old stage coaches or any other then known means of transit; it was in fact a separate discovery. But having proved its usefulness, the application of steam has gone on being evolved right down to the present day. Electricity in its turn has produced a revolution in the application of energy.

Neither of these forces became known through a channel which may be termed evolutionary, for neither grew out of its immediate predecessor in the world of dynamics.

Let me give another illustration; the well-known one of the egg and the chicken.

In this case, nature’s design—if I may use such a term in this connection—is to evolve from the germ within the egg a member of the species by which that egg was laid. To bring that member to maturity, or in other words, to evolve it, so that it may in turn assist in the propagation of its species, is surely a natural law.

Anything which interferes with the action of that law is revolutionary, bringing evolution to a halt, either in the egg or the chicken. That is to say, if I break the shell before the chicken is ready for its new conditions, I am displacing evolution by revolution. If I kill the chicken before it is matured, I am doing the same thing.

Evolution, beginning with the germ in the egg, is not complete till that germ has evolved into the fully matured bird, the breaking of the shell when the chicken emerges being a vital part of this evolution ; it in no way constitutes a revolution.

The same may be said of a human being. From conception to maturity is one regular process of evolution, each succeeding stage depending in sequential order on the preceding. The birth of a child, therefore, is an essential part of its evolution towards manhood or womanhood, and is no more a revolution than the cutting of its teeth, the dawn of its intelligence, its first attempt to walk, or in short, any part of its prenatal or breathing existence, each stage, as we have seen, necessarily depending upon the other.

It may be as De Vries says, that catastrophic changes have occurred in the development of organisms, which he avers have suddenly “exploded” and given life to numerous new forms.

That is the point. A sudden change from old forms to new goes to make a revolution ; that which we may term natural and observed evolution being for the time superseded by something temporarily more powerful than itself.

In the birth of a child no such change occurs. The birth takes place, so far as we are aware, exactly as births have always taken place ; there ia no catastrophic change to the child; it was formed in the image of its parents before it appeared. It was intended for a human being, it is a human being; it was destined to evolve to maturity, it will evolve to maturity, unless revolution, which did not attend at its birth, steps in and cuts that evolution short.

I am aware that the evolution of society has always led to the various revolutions within that society, for it is impossible to get away from evolution anywhere or in anything, but we must always remember that revolution has also its evolutionary stages, even though of itself it is no more evolution than man himself. In both, the power to advance comes from a force stronger than themselves, proving that though they are subject to evolution they are yet distinct from it, for surely nothing can be subject to itself.

Another little illustration. A man hews down a tree and plants a sapling, so cutting short the evolution of the tree and aiding the evolution of the sapling. He thus stands as Revolution to that which he destroys and that which he plants, acting revolution’s double part of destruction and beneficence; but who would argue from this that the man is the same thing as the evolution of these trees. A revolution in society is quite as distinct.

Again, if we grow grapes in a hot-house, we can develope them faster than when we grow them in the open, but the stages of evolution from the slip to the matured fruit are identical. The natural development is hastened, but no revolution takes place, unless it should be found, for instance, that a cabbage was growing where a bunch of grapes ought to have been. That we might term a catastrophic change—in short, a. revolution.

Now as the whole of my efforts so far have been directed towards showing the difference between evolution and revolution, I need not pause to combat the belief, held by many, that the present social system, will, of its own inhernt qualities, ultimately lead to Socialism ; but this much may be said : if Socialism evolves from this system, there can be no revolution, for none will be needed.

Were it possible to establish Socialism in our country within the next few years, that would certainly constitute a revolution ; but wait for Socialism to evolve from the present system, and I rather think we are in for a pretty long wait, for to be evolutionary it would have to be established as gradually as was the prevailing order of society ; the State, bit by bit, taking, control of everything essential; the people, department by department, taking control of the State, until the State became the people.

That would be the evolution of Socialism, and in the process it would probably have to-pass through stages of development of which none of us at present have any conception—other systems possibly intervening—and would, doubtless run through many generations in the transition ; for the cream of the power of human evolution always lies with the governors of society, and it is only reasonable to assume that they would stretch every stage to breaking point before they gave way.

Briefly, then, the evolution of Socialism from the present system would mean progress by reform—a higher development of society attained by gradual and easy stages, nobody’s corns being trodden upon in the process. Were Socialism established by revolution, it would have to be by a sudden, and, comparatively speaking, instant turnover.

Therefore, the man who calls himself a Revolutionary Socialist, while devoting his energies to reforms, has no very clear perception of the difference between the two forces we have under consideration. He should style himself an Evolutionary Socialist. Believing, as he necessarily must, that the more reforms he can wrest from the governing class the nearer he gets, to the day of emancipation, he cannot logically term himself anything else.

Where in the past history of the world have beneficial reforms led up to revolution ? Personally, I know of no single instance, and should be much surprised to hear of one. But in any case, to work for, and obtain reforms, and then expect that these reforms will lead eventually to revolution, is simply absurd. To reach Socialism by such methods would be evolution, not revolution.

All revolutions which have not been spontaneous have been planned, the malcontents working hard to gain sufficient numerical strength to strike. A revolution to Socialism from the present system must be brought about in the same way, or it will never be brought about at all. The more society is reformed, the less likelihood can there be of a revolution, and at the best, the further is the day of revolution put back.

I am not here discussing which is the better method to adopt, my main object, as I have already intimated, being to point out the difference between evolution and revolution.

By educating the people into a knowledge of Socialistic principles, we can hasten the day of revolution ; by educating them into a conception of reforms of a Socialistic tendency, we may hasten the day of evolution, but nothing is more certain than that we cannot have both. The question as to which would realise our hope the quicker is another matter.

The man who believes the present system will, of its own weight, evolve into Socialism, should be, by that very belief, a Reformer, in the ordinary accepted sense of the word, for in effect he is saying Socialism may be brought about without the aid of revolution. So it may, in some such manner as I have pointed out, but why then does he talk about and work for the Social Revolution ? Simply, I presume, because he is not quite clear as to the meaning of the words he employs.

The real Revolutionary Socialist, however, cannot believe in the near evolution of society into a State which at present may be said to be its direct opposite in almost every particular. Put the capitalist system into a hot-house and it would not evolve quite so quickly as that belief implies.

Never in the history of the world, so far as I have read, has a single social system evolved directly into its opposite, and it appears unduly optimistic to expect it ever will. Other systems have always come between, and I can see nothing to warrant the belief that an exception is to be made of the present system.

This being so, the man who believes in revolution and works steadfastly only for that, has this advantage over his less determined fellow-Socialist—he knows exactly where he is going. With his objective point ever before his inward sight, he moves along the main line of his belief, sternly refusing to be side-tracked at any intermediate Station of Reform, no matter how alluring the surrounding prospect may appear. For a Revolutionary Socialist, that position is logical, unassailable

On the other hand, his evolutionary comrade—for so, as we have seen, should reforming Socialists be termed—is quite content to be side-tracked, and though frequently switched off on to another line in addition, he does not seem to mind so long as his engine keeps moving from one point to another.

It must of course be admitted that evolution is in perfect harmony with the nature of things, but so also is revolution ; moreover, the principle of revolution is ever in accord with the advanced thought of nations, the intellect of the studious chafing and rebelling against the slow progress of evolution and the frequent set-backs, or reactions, which take place within it.

As I have tried to show, evolution has often been displaced by revolution, and were it possible for a syndicate of capitalists to possess themselves of a machine which would displace a million of men, would they hesitate to avail themselves of the chance ? Not likely. They would consider such a revolution as this machine would bring about a most desirable thing for the nation—that is, themselves. Not a word would be said of attaining such a result by slow and easy stages, or in other words, by evolution. Evolution might go hang. However sudden the change might be, however much misery it might produce, they would not refuse it. Not a word would then be heard about the “natural order of things.”

What, then, is there inconsistent or unnatural in Socialists advocating that the intellect of man shall displace the slow progress of evolution in society, as it does in methods of production or in other directions ?

Nothing at all, and personally, I think Socialists will do well to take a leaf out of the book of their governors, keeping their eyes always fixed on their main object, and not allowing considerations of “natural evolution” to turn them for one moment from their purpose.

H. Philpott Wright