50 Years Ago: Bernard Levin and the SPGB (2026)

The 50 Years Ago column from the June 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Levin wrote a criticism of the SPGB in an article entitled Credo Quia Impossible (The Observer, 18th April 1976) — and here we must add dog Latin to his many other talents. The article patronized us and what he described as the ‘glorious nonsense’ emanating from the SPGB. This attack on the Party gave the impression of an amused tolerance for a ‘sect’ based on ‘eccentricity’ (his words) and was made in a review of a book called The Monument — the story of the SPGB. Unfortunately for Levin, some of the facts and anecdotes contained in The Monument, despite its many merits, are a personal version and the Party does not accept any responsibility for its contents. (…)

He says our position is ‘Marx is right; the SPGB interpretation of Marx is right’. We do not accept that Marx was always right, and we have in the past criticized Marx. Nevertheless, we agree with the main Marxist theories of Historical Materialism and his analysis of capitalism.

Finally the SPGB has never been opposed to, or supported, reforms. Levin is confusing the political action which is necessary to get reforms with the content of the reforms. Nobody could oppose the introduction of safety working measures, of which Levin accuses us, free heating for old age pensioners, or other reforms, and we have never done so. If workers wish to sell their votes for a few crumbs of social reform that is their privilege, and equally, it is our privilege and duty to show that there is an alternative. We want them to take political action that will remove the need for reforms.

We mention these few facts in the rather forlorn hope that Levin will correct his mistaken view of the Party. We would also bring to his notice that no member was expelled or disciplined for carrying a gas-mask, nor is it true that ‘every time there was a vote on an expulsion those who had voted against it were themselves forthwith expelled’. Levin can satisfy himself on this score, as the weekly Minutes of the Executive Committee are intact from 1904 and photocopies are available.

[From the article, 'Bernard Levin and the SPGB', by Jim D'Arcy, Socialist Standard, June 1976]

Blogger's Note:

The Monument was reviewed by Harry Baldwin in the December 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Revolution’s Reply to Reform. (Part 2) (1910)

Pamphlet Review from the January 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

The answer to “Arms for the Workers: A Defence of the Programme of the Social-Democratic Party.” (E. C. Fairchild, Lon. Organiser, S.D.P.)

(Continued from the previous issue.)

Something Less than Socialism.

The first objection, says Mr. Fairchild, “to the adoption of a programme of proposals to palliate or diminish the evils of capitalism, is the doctrine that anything less than the realisation of complete Socialism would be valueless to the working-class.” He goes on to declare that

“The argument that Socialism only can remove the artificial inequalities of to-day, restore the social produce to the social workers, and abolish all forms of actual poverty is perverted. That argument is held to mean that the condition of the workers is a fixture, and that poverty cannot be diminished under the capitalist state.”

This statement is untrue. The so-called impossibilists do not pervert the argument to any such meaning. On the contrary, so far are they from regarding the condition of the workers as a fixture, that they continually point out that it is ever becoming worse—a verity the reform champion himself subscribes to when he says (p. 4) “In all capitalist countries the share of the total wealth production taken by the working class is falling.”

The “Social-Democracy,” ill-grounded in social science, and, therefore, groping like blind Samson for that which they cannot see, imagine that they have their arms about the pillars of capitalist society when they grasp their “palliative programme.” But they cry “palliation” without knowing what palliation is, and think they have palliated the system when they have helped to do that which the system forces the capitalists to undertake in their own interests.

Out of such ignorance as this comes the puerile statement that “the system has been palliated to provide magnificence and great wealth for the few.” Magnificence and great wealth for the few, however, were inherent in the system, and not provided by any imaginable “palliation” Mr. Fairchild can instance. And when the term “palliation” can be applied to such opposites as the depression of the multitude in order to “provide magnificence and great wealth for the few,” and, the wrenching from these few, of the means of lessening the misery of the toiling many, then it behoves us to look to our anchors, lest we drag and drift on to the rocks of lunatic chaos.

What, after all, is a palliative ? In sociology, surely, some betterment of the social conditions, given or obtained apart from the decree of economic law and the necessities of the social system.

Thus, trade union effort to advance wages is not palliative effort, but simply the exercise of that power of resistance necessary to arrive at and assert the value of labour power. The law of exchange in accordance with which wages are determined by the cost of production of labour-power, presupposes resistance on both sides of the market. The same resistance between buyer and seller exists in all commodity exchange. It takes the place of that theoretically presumed exact knowledge of values, which no buyer or seller ever yet possessed. The man has not been born who could trace the cost of production (in units of socially necessary labour time) of two commodities through all its intricities and say of them “in such and such quantities these goods are equivalent values.” The question of values must be referred to the competitive market, where the appeal is to force and the only gauge the mean of prices over extended periods.

Similarly, as the struggle for higher wages is not a palliative straggle, since it is a necessary and presupposed part and parcel of the wages system, so there are many measures of a seemingly ameliorative nature, which, since they are necessary to the continued working of the capitalist system itself, are not in any sane sense palliatives.

What possibility, for instance, would there be of the existence in a state of profit-producing efficiency, of several millions of persons within the London area, under the sanitary conditions of the middle ages ? In these days when gardens are on the roofs, and tube underlies tube in the bowels of the earth, surface area is far too valuable for open sewers and cesspools. The night-soil man has become an impossible person, and the earth closet an insupportable expense. In addition, black plagues (and consequent scarcity of labour-power) and high profits do not go well together. Capitalism, and not the sentimental tear of the palliator, demanded cheaper and more efficient sanitary arrangements, and that demand was met by, among other things, that “liberal water supply” and “modern drainage” which the S.D.P. champion (pp. 4-5) declares have “modified the original structure of the capitalist system in the interest of the workers,” (!) and are, therefore, palliatives.

The poultry farmer who runs ten to twelve hens to the acre need not worry greatly about sanitary arrangements for his stock, but when he multiplies the number of birds by four or five, he immediately has to face and deal with the problem of sanitation. To say, however, that he does so for the hens’ sake is ridiculous. Yet it is a parallel case with the claim that modern drainage and the liberal water supply are palliatives of the capitalist system.

They are nothing of the sort. They are necessities of the capitalist system, without which the process of profit production would be hampered at every turn. They are perpetuators, not palliators, of capitalism. Is it imaginable, highly developed capitalist transport, expressed in the latest phrase—motor haulage—on the old feudal bridal paths, or even the roads and bridges that were good enough for our grandfathers’ stage-coaches ? Is it thinkable, the modern industrial and business world with the illiterate working class of the “hungry forties ?”

We all know that the constant wail of representative British manufacturers is that German education has been allowed to get so far in advance of English, and one of their number who recently said “I do not fear Germany’s competition, but I fear her technical schools,” spoke volumes as to the motive underlying the educational palliative.

Again, during the last 35 years the birth rate has steadily fallen from 36 to 26, to the horror of the patriotic pulpit and the uneasiness of the exploiting class—who can see only less honey from fewer bees. But with fewer births has come the desire to keep more of the children alive, and so we find “the amenities of the worker’s lives” (as our author puts it) by the provision of municipal sterilised milk supplies, maternal training, free meals for school children, and such “palliatives.”

The truth is that the gradual development of the productive system demands and necessitates an unceasing adaptation of social conditions, but these are not palliatives of the system, but the mere adjustment to the needs of an industrial machinery whose one motive force is the production of the greatest possible profit. They leave the workers’ position untouched. These “amenities of the workers’ lives” have not kept pace with their steady degradation. The “liberal water supply” of the water company may not altogether compensate for the loss of the sweet air that moved about the well, nor could the site of the Thames Embankment have been, as a low-lying muddy waste, a picture of more utter and hopeless despair, than now when it offers its proud, granite bosom to be the dreary, comfortless bed of scores upon scores of poor wretches that once were men, and women—and children.

No, Mr. Palliator, the position of the worker is not a fixture. Their exploitation increases, their unemployment increases, their insecurity and anxious misery increases, in spite of those “amenities of the workers’ lives,” “a liberal water supply, modern drainage, and the extension of public open spaces.”

The position of the Socialist Party is, not that the condition of the workers is a fixture, but that it is constantly being adjusted to the requirements of the capitalist system, and that this adjustment is not palliation of working-class conditions. For the working class, they hold, there is no palliation—there is only emancipation. This is why “something less than Socialism” would be valueless to the proletariat.

The Distribution of Wealth.

In the brief confines of this chapter we are treated to several curious statements. We are are told, for instance, that “the productive capacity of labour is subject to continuous change. It will rise or fall with every application of knowledge to industrial functions.” This piece of owlish wisdom, of course, flies in the face of all experience, and it would be interesting to learn when the application of knowledge causes the productive capacity of human energy to fall.

In one breath our author declares that the “proportion or amount of the requirements of life which fall to the share of the respective classes” is not “fixed by economic or political laws,” and prescribes a political law for the fixing of a minimum wage !

The Socialist Party holds, not that “the proportion or amount of the requirements of life which fall to the share of the respective classes” is fixed by economic or political laws, but that, in capitalist society, the “return to labour” is determined by the cost of producing labour-power.

This is an economic law. It operates through competition. Therefore, if the statement of the law is true, the only way to increase the “return to labour” is either by raising the cost of producing labour-power or by restricting competition.

If the reformer started out to induce the people to “waste their substance in riotous living,” to become more drunken and to burn a loaf for every one they ate, he would be derided for his pains, but he would be logical. He would be trying to raise the “return to labour” by increasing the cost of producing labour-power which governs it. But to propose to raise the cost of producing labour by increasing that which it determines (wages in the long run) is madness.

If, on the other hand, the reformer aspired to so completely organise the workers for resistance in the economic field that competition was effectually strangled, again, in spite of the hopeless magnitude of his task, he would be logical. He would be trying to defeat the economic law of exchange by eliminating the mainspring of its operation—competition.

Now the law as stated above is a law of capitalism—not of other social systems. Capitalism presupposes and hangs upon competition. To eliminate competition in the labour market (of all markets) is to eliminate capitalism. Hence every force of the existing system is arrayed against any attempt to tamper with the freedom of competition. But our would-be palliators, who say that labour’s share of the wealth produced is not fixed by economic or political laws, are going to tilt against the windmill. They are going to match a political law against an economic law. They are going to set up their Minimum Wage Act against the whole world of masters interested in paying the least possible wages they can, and the whole seething mass of hunger-driven workers, striving for employment at any wage.

Later Mr. Fairchild gives us “a little history.” Let us have little history now.

The Black Plague in the 14th century made labour-power very scarce. The Statute of Labourers was enacted to prevent the payment or reception of higher wages than had ruled prior to the outbreak. What was the result ? Many on both sides were imprisoned, but labour was not made one whit more redundant. Hence the labourers continued to get the best of the competitive straggle, and wages rose 50 or even 100%. So we have it on record that complaint was continually made in Parliament that the Statute of Labourers was utterly inoperative (see “Six Centuries of Work and Wages,” Thorold Rogers, p. 226 on).

If wages could not be kept down by law then, when labourers were not free, as they are now, to seek other masters, and when the masters, who controlled the political power, were interested in supporting the law and keeping them down, how much less can the law enforce a minimum wage now, when the masters, controlling the political power, are interested in evading such a law, and the workers themselves are forced by the awful competition for work, to cast every artificial barrier to their degradation into oblivion ?

A. E. Jacomb

(To be Continued.)

Revolution’s Reply to Reform. (Part 5) (1910)

From the April 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

The answer to “Arms for the Workers: A Defence of the Programme of the Social-Democratic Party.” (E. C. Fairchild, Lon. Organiser, S.D.P.)

(Continued from previous issue)

On the Generosity of Capitalists.

We will lump several of Mr. Fairchild’s sections together under this heading, partly because in some of them there is no very definite argument, and partly on account of exigency of space.

Our opponent says it is often argued that a Socialist party need not ask for measures to alleviate poverty. “The assertion that improvement in the workers’ conditions under capitalism is impossible,” he says, is “changed into an admission that good housing, maintenance of the children or the public provision of employment, are of benefit to the people, but we are told that it is unnecessary for us to ask for legislation dealing with these matters, because the governing class will give concessions of their own free will.”

It is difficult to know who Mr. Fairchild is girding at. The only persons claiming to be Socialists who still believe in that hoary old supertition, “free will,” are (as might be expected) just those who believe in asking the capitalists to make “public provision of employment” and the rest, “of their own free will.”

The attitude we take up is the proper and logical attitude of those who deny the whole theory of “free will.” Moreover, it is the proper and logical attitude of those who assert the preponderating influence of economic forces upon the human will. How obscure our author’s ideas in this connection are is shown by his assertion (p. 13) that the feudal baron was “surrounded by an atmosphere which contained the elements of magnanimity, but there is nothing generous in the nature of the man who introduces a mechanical time recorder to check the entry of his employees and when they leave.” What rubbish ! Had Mr. Fairchild said that the man who introduces a mechanical time recorder is “surrounded by an atmosphere” that contains no element of magnanimity, environed by economic forces which tend to thwart, restrict and penalise every generous impulse of employer toward employed, he would have been right. But to declare that the capitalist can have no spark of generosity in his composition is not only folly, but is peculiarly grotesque on the lips of one who charges his opponents with regarding “the capitalist in business as devoid of all sentiment and deaf to human appeal.” It is capitalism that has no heart, not the capitalist.

But to get back to the argument, no one in his senses would deny that some improvement in the workers’ condition is possible, even under Capitalism. Capitalism itself may conceivably demand such an improvement, and then it will take place. This, however, is no confession that it is possible for the “palliator” and his “palliatives” to improve the workers’ conditions. Of course we must confess that “good housing, maintenance of the children or public provision of employment, are of benefit to the people,”—if other things remain constant. But other things have a knack of changing. Thus it is significant that the Board of Trade reports that during the first year of operation of the Old Age Pension “palliative,” the total wage income of that section of the workers covered by its returns decreased by £3,599,024, and this in a year when the slight decrease of unemployment might have tended to a rise of wages, and the abnormally high price of necessaries in no way encouraged a fall. Again, it has been shown that any attempt to relieve the congested labour market, such as by the public provision of employment, lessens the relative redundancy of labour-power, hence tends to raise wages, and hence again encourages the adoption of more economical machinery, which in turn displaces further workers, and refills the depleted ranks of the “palliated” unemployed.

Now let us turn to the question of the “maintenance of the children.” Capitalism provides wages for one object only—the production of labour power. Capitalism, moreover, never ceases its efforts to reduce to the lowest possible limits the cost of producing that labour-power. In this direction, indeed, capitalism abhors waste. Yet, from capitalism’s viewpoint, the production of labour-power, at least in respect of the raising of children for the continuance of the supply, is proceeded with in a very wasteful manner. For instance, there is no way of distinguishing in the labour market between the man who is bringing up a dozen children for future exploitation, and the man who has only himself to keep, hence the wages of the latter include a margin which to Capitalism is a lamentable waste. Of course it may be argued that the single or childless man having smaller needs, is an instrument in lowering wages, but on the other hand, having less responsibility, and having moreover a margin in times of employment his power of resistance is greater.

Then under the present system of “parental responsibility,” mothers are largely prevented from entering the labour market by the fact that they have children to look after. Nor does it end here. Since the support of these children’s attendants must, broadly speaking, be included in the fathers’ wages, and as the childless married man cannot be distinguished in the labour market, he is generally able to keep his wife at home. This is a further leakage. Again, the single man, whom Capitalism was forced to credit with a certain share of “parental responsibility,” is not only the gainer in as much as he has no children to keep, but also in that he has not to support a wife to look after them.

Now assuming that the S.D.P. attain their pet and chief “palliative”—State Maintenance of Children—in all its “stupendous magnitude” and gaudy magnificence, what happens ? In the first place, parents having been relieved of the cost of maintaining their children, their wages will suffer equivalent depreciation by competition. In the second place the childless married men, standing now on the same footing as the fathers of families, share in the wage reduction without being relieved of any burden. In the third place the mothers are freed for and forced into the labour market, to accentuate the competition there. Fourthly wives who are not mothers, being now in no favoured position, are also forced into the struggle for work. Fifthly the male workers, released now from the necessity of supporting their women-kind, being, indeed compelled to compete with them for the means of subsistence, quickly find their wages reduced accordingly, so that Capitalism gets the labour-power of the women as well as of the men, for the sustenance of the two sexes, instead of only the labour-power of the men. Sixthly the advantage of the single men, who have no wives or children to keep, vanishes. 

As regards the children, it is argued that they would be better looked after and more of them would survive. As for the first argument, and better conditions after birth might be more than outweighed by the less favourable prenatal environment due to their parents' increased struggle for subsistence. As for the second argument, it is an insane sentiment of humanity that would preserve children for the labour market conditions that would arise from launching the whole body of working-class women into the industrial arena. A word as to the effect upon the working-class movement. It is fatuous to argue that the measure would strengthen the workers' hands in case of strike. The children would be returned to them in order to smash the strike. Nor could the workers prevent this unless they had strength to end capitalist domination for ever. Then when we hand our children over to the capitalists for maintenance, we hand their education entirely over to the priest and the capitalist moralist, who would blur the class line, teach them to lick the hand that fed them, and so place mountainous obstacles in the way of the growth of class-consciousness. 

And now my space is exhausted, and I can only say in conclusion

FOR THE WORKERS THERE IS NO PALLIATION, BUT ONLY SOCIALISM.

A. E. Jacomb

.

Concluded.

Editorial: Newcastle. (1908)

Editorial from the November 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Hartley’s programme in the Newcastle election had one advantage over Burrows’ in Haggerston. It was rather less windy. But it was not more sensible because of that. Said Hartley, “First, last, and all the time I am a Socialist; knowing that Socialism is the only hope of the workers, and the only escape from your present difficulties.”

That was good enough for us. But Hartley continued, “The first and most important question is that of unemployment. I am in favour of public provision of useful work for the unemployed at not less than trades union rates of wages.” And there the fatuous baffle-headedness of the reformer came in.

The fact is that you cannot have “public provision of useful work for the unemployed “at trade union or any other rate of wages, while the capitalist is in control. The unemployed are an inevitability under capitalism, and a necessity. Socialism alone will solve the unemployed problem, and then the question of wages will not arise.

What, then, was Hartley’s duty if “first, last and all the time” he was a Socialist ? Clearly to emphasise the fact that “the first and most important question” must remain unanswered until the workers answered it themselves by securing control of the means of life ; and that if they wanted something now they simply couldn’t have it, except to the extent that by organisation they gave unequivocal expression to their determination to be after nothing less than Socialism. To that extent they would find the capitalist class prepared to make concessions in the way of work for the unemployed and other forms of doles.

___________

The old, old Folly.

In unimportant matters such as womans' Suffrage, the Quelches and Hartleys and the rest of the “whole hoggers” point out against the “limited” Suffragettes that the measure of the demand for votes will be the measure of the concessions made; that even if the “limited” Bill was a good thing, the best method to secure it was to set up a fight for the complete measure. The governing class was bound to make as large a deduction from the total demand as possible, so that in asking for the lot and backing it up with organised determination, there was far more likelihood of getting approximately the total of the ”limited” measure than if the sum of the demand was no more than the “limited” measure embraces.

Yet when it comes to the vastly more important question of the unemployed, we have the same Quelch-Hartleys falling back upon the despised methods of the “limited” suffragists, and for the purposes of their pose as practical politicians, disguising the cold and brutal facts of the unemployed problem lest they lose votes thereby (what other explanation fits the circumstances than this ?) what time they talk of half loaves and other pseudo-remedial piffle, to meet immediate requirements.

They are more preposterous than the “limited” suffragists. The “limited” Bill, even the adult suffrage measure, may easily be obtained under present conditions—a very certain indication of the unimportance of both. But Hartley knows that this half loaf of his for the immediate consumption of the unemployed, cannot be secured at all under present conditions. Either he knows this or it is time he left the platform and did a little reading. Why then does he put this in the forefront of his programme ? The only answer that occurs is that he knows his audience will probably not take the trouble to worry the thing out for themselves, and that while they are content to take his word for it, the thing looks feasible and within the range of “practical” politics. In other words Hartley, like Burrows, trades upon ignorance to capture votes. If he has any other explanation to offer we shall be glad to hear of it.

___________

Another Sale.

The Newcastle election, however, did one good thing. It set in the strongest relief the fact that we have emphasised for years—and been sneered at for our pains. The “Labour” Party has sold itself, lock, stock, and barrel, to the Liberalism it professes to stand absolutely independent of. Even Joseph Burgess, to whose work the present position is admittedly largely due, breaks out in vehement protest against the “unholy compact between Liberalism and Labour” which has resulted in the Star Chamber (consisting of Henderson and MacDonald), which directs the “Labour” Party, frankly declining to contest Newcastle against the Liberal for fear of imperilling Hudson’s seat, and invoking reprisals in other double-barrelled constituencies, from which the “Labour” member obtains his seat by collaboration with the Liberals.

Well, Burgess and the rest of them may howl. The murder was out for us long ago. The particulars we published in THE SOCIALIST STANDARD immediately following the general election left no sort of misapprehension as to the position, in the minds of anyone capable of weighing evidence. To-day the “Labour” Party stands confessed as a pitiable appendage of capitalist Liberalism, worse than useless from a working-class point of view, and only concerned to save the worthless carcasses of the members from being cast into the outer darkness that lies beyond the walls of St. Stephens, where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, because of the lost two hundred dirty pieces of gold (as Burns, the capitalist tout and working-class harpy, once unkindly called them) and all the kudos and the potentialities thereof, that attach to the position of a member of Parliament.

__________

How Long?

Just how long the trade unions will be prepared to find the money to keep this wretched gang in position is a moot point. It will depend, of course, absolutely upon the spread of Socialist thought amongst the union workers. Our part is to propagate the principles of Socialism on every available opportunity, to the end that a Socialist group under the direction and control of Socialist constituencies, shall appear for the first time in the Parliament to displace the alleged Labour group, put an end to the sham divisions between Liberal and Conservative capitalists, force them all into one camp in open antagonism to working-class interests (they will go soon enough when faced with direct issues) and give expression to the proletarian revolt without by ceaseless, irreconcilable struggle within until the capture of political power has been accomplished in the name of the workers of the world.

The guarantee that the shameless sale of working-class interests which it is now obvious to anybody the “Labour” group has been party to, cannot be repeated by a Socialist group, consists in the fact that a Socialist member of Parliament is unthinkable apart from a Socialist constituency. A Socialist constituency instructs its Parliamentary delegate, and removes him incontinently if he departs from his instructions. He is, and must remain, servant, never master, never anything else than delegate. Given a Socialist constituency, therefore, “deals” are impossible. Without the Socialist constituency, the Socialist member is impossible.

Well, comrades, let us get at it. The barometer of our success will be the rise of the storm of indignation which the awakening workers will direct against the Parliamentary “Labour” misleaders who have gone over to the enemy, as well as against that band of hope— the misleaders who are still awaiting the chance of “getting in”—who have aided and abetted the treachery.

___________

The Price of a “Labour” Member.

Arising out of the Newcastle discussion, Mr. Frank Rose (Clarion, Oct 2), replying to the charge that the “Labour” members are more concerned with the safety of their own seats than with the “bigger, bolder, and better policy” which he (Rose) would like to see adopted, says “Why should they not look after their seats ? . . . The critical Simon Pures who have not got seats to lose might act differently if they had seats. On the other hand, they might not. I want a bigger, bolder, and better policy, but I do not expect one for a farthing a week.”

This is as frank as we shall get it. If those who pay the wages of the “Labour” members want better value they must pay a bigger price. You cannot expect a big, bold policy on £200 a year. Presumably, Rose would have taken the exact opposite of the action the Executive of the Labour Party took, but you cannot get big, bold action like that for the present price paid. All you can expect is that the “Labour” members shall look after their seats and their paltry £200 a year. The £200 a year is clearly due to them for the worry and trouble they are caused in keeping those seats !

A very big, bold gospel; a very precious gospel, this. Now if we had said that the “Labour” members were primarily after their salaries and were prepared to sell out their convictions as to the necessity for a big, bold policy, because they only received a paltry £4 a week and required £5 or more before they would move further than they do move, what in the way of base calumniators should we have been according to Rose & Co. ? And yet that is, in effect, precisely what Rose would have us understand in this connection. Well, Frank Rose is in the running for a job at the regulation salary. He holds that a bigger, bolder policy is necessary. He holds that the workers can’t have that policy at the price. So, presumably, he will, if he gets the job, go in for the policy that is useless—even as the other “Labour” members.

What other attitude should he adopt ? It would certainly seem to us as “impossibilists” and “vulgar persons,” that the only action possible to a man holding Rose’s views is to retire from candidature altogether or until such time as the money, upon which alone a big and useful policy can be pursued, is forthcoming. But then Mr. Rose is not a Simon Pure.

However, for the present the workers are to understand that they must raise their members’ screw if they want anything more than a receipt: for the money, or, although the alternative does not seem to strike Mr. Rose, they may sack their present employees and get representatives instead of job-hunters. When they understand they surely will. Meanwhile their leaders do not intend to show them the way to the bigger, bolder and better policy. They are not paid to !

Blogger's Note:

For more background on the aforementioned Haggerston bye-election, the September 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard covered it in some detail. 

The Socialist Party and reforms (1977)

From the October 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have been asked to clarify two recent statements in the Socialist Standard. An article in the May issue (page 94) said: “A revolutionary party is committed exclusively to revolution and cannot support reforms— which are anti-revolutionary.” An article in August (page 156) began: “The case of the SPGB against reforms is based on the fact that reforms of all kinds involve the working class in political action which is detrimental to the cause of Socialism.”

These statements are correct, but some expansion of them is required. The SPGB has a single policy, laid down in our Object and Declaration of Principles: the political organization of the working class for the establishment of Socialism. We oppose other political parties because they are committed either to maintaining capitalism and seeking to clear up problems by reform, or to the mistaken idea that reforms can radically alter it. This is reformism; belief in it keeps the workers from recognizing that they can only be emancipated by Socialism, and the SPGB does everything it can to dispel that belief.

We do not advocate reforms of any kind, or support proposals for them. Reforms can only be enacted by those who control the machinery of government. If we pursued the line that a particular reform would be beneficial, we should have to give electoral support to one of the parties of capitalism in the hope that they would enact it—thereby helping into power the enemies of the working class and Socialism. This is underlined by the fact that some “useful” legislation has been the work of Tory governments, including the Reform Act of 1867, the trade union Acts of 1875 and 1876 and the first Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1897; while the social security Acts were produced jointly by Tories, Liberal and Labour.

The SPGB condemns many reforms on specific grounds. In other cases we do not dispute that legislation which serves capitalist needs also benefits the working class, and that some measures have provided weapons in the class struggle for the workers and the Socialist movement. This does not modify our attitude to policies of reform. Such measures have frequently been brought forward by the capitalists themselves to meet economic developments. When support is canvassed for a proposal by a reformist party, its basis is a statement of intentions. A realistic judgement can only be formed on the complete measure—and perhaps by seeing to what extent the capitalists can get round it.

If there were a Socialist minority in Parliament or a local council, it would be able to view finished legislative proposals and assess their advantages or otherwise. But the criterion for an advantage has always been clearly stated by us: it would be the measure’s relationship to the achieving of Socialism.

Correction (1933)

From the October 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Origin of Unemployment Insurance.

In an article in the September issue. "Do Social Reforms Kill Socialism?" it was implied that Unemployment Insurance was directly borrowed from Germany. This appears not to have been the case. Health Insurance was directly borrowed from Germany, and the working of the Health Insurance system there was known to those who introduced Unemployment Insurance in England, but although the practice of Governments making payments to the unemployed was, of course, known, the principle of insurance had not been applied to it. In a Liberal Party publication, “A Nation Insured," written by Leo Chiozza Money, and published in 1911, it was stated that "in unemployment insurance Britain is leading the way."

This correction does not affect the argument contained in the article.

Ed. Comm.

The Forum: Our Position Queried. (1909)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Harrison (Salford) writes :

I should esteem it a favour if you would explain through your journal the following points. (1) Does the S.P.G.B. control the votes of its members by similar conditions that obtain for the speakers ? (2) Does the Party consider it futile for members to use their votes in support of the other political parties (S.D.P., I.L.P., Liberal, Conservative, etc.) when not represented by their own party ? (3) What is the motive of your Rule 31 (that no member shall take office unless the whole number be elected)? Knowing that several representatives from scattered constituencies should equal the influence of a like number from one constituency, what is the object of the Party in seeking representation ? (4) Assuming the success of all its candidates in a given area, what would be their attitude in the House to such reforms as State Maintenance of School Children, Eight Hours’ Day, States Railways, and Old Age Pensions, and in the Council chambers toward Municipal enterprises (Trams, Gas, Water, etc.) when brought forward by the other parties ? Although refraining from advocating these reforms, does it consider such measures as mentioned no alleviation to the suffering masses? (5) There are pronounced opinions respecting the relations between Socialism and Religion, Christianity, etc. Numerous Church ministers assert that the two doctrines run smoothly together, others assert that they are antagonistic. Notable Socialist (so-called) speakers definitely affirm that the two doctrines may be conscientiously observed. A quotation appears this week in Justice to this effect. When questions are asked in public there is always a lot of uncertainty in the replies, as if afraid of hurting someone’s feelings. Do you affirm that the two are in harmony ? (6) In what sense are we to accept the phrases “Revolutionary Socialism” and “Revolutionary Socialist”? A lucid definition of these points will oblige,

Yours truly, 

H. Harrison.

Reply:

In reply to Mr. Harrison’s first question the only rules giving the Party control over speakers specifically are rules 2 (“A member shall not speak from any other political party platform except in opposition”) and 6 (which requires that before a member is put on the official lecture list he shall give evidence of the possession of the necessary knowledge and ability to expound the principles of Socialism and defend the position of the Party).

The same reason which led to the formulation of the quoted item of rule 2 makes it clear that a like control, at least as far and as effective as the “secret ballot” will allow, over the votes of members is exercised by the Party. That reason is found in the opening sentence of the last clause of our Declaration of Principles, where it is declared that our Party “enters the field of political action determined to wage war upon all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist.” This being the position of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, it follows that no member can use his vote in favour of any other political party without acting contrary to the principles he subscribed to upon becoming a member. The sixth clause of the Declaration contains a syllogism—two premises and a conclusion which necessarily follows from them. The premises are : “All political parties are but the expression of class interests” and “The interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class.” The conclusion arrived at from these two propositions is that “the party seeking working-class emancipation must be hostile to every other political party.” The only possible ground of escape from this conclusion is that these two classes are not the only ones in society. Apart from this, if the two premises are correct, then the conclusion must be correct also, and that being so, members of such party must not in any circumstances support by any political activity, whether of voice or pen or at the ballot box, any other political party. Of course, it is open to Mr. Harrison (or anyone else) to suggest that the two classes named are not the only ones in society, or to challenge the truth of one or both of the premises, but until that is done the answer must be regarded as conclusive.

The reply to the first question may be extended to the second, which is “Does the Party consider it futile for its members to use their votes in support of the other political parties (S.D.P., I.L.P., Liberal, Conservative, etc.) when not represented by their own Party ?” It only remains to be said, in referring our inquirer back to the syllogism, that as neither the S.D.P. nor the I.L.P., stand in opposition to the capitalist class (they both support capitalist candidates and otherwise ally themselves with the master class on the political field, see S.P.G.B. Manifesto) they therefore cannot represent interests opposed to the capitalist class. They do not stand opposed to all other political parties, hence they are not in actual fact, and judged by their deeds—not their words, parties seeking working-class emancipation. The political arena being merely the battle-field of class interests, where every tie and obligation is forgotten, every allegiance cast to the wind, every barrier swept away, saving only the barrier of class interests, those who, found upon that battle-field, do not stand with us upon our side of that barrier, are against us. Do we think it futile to support such as these ? Oh, we think it much worse than futile !

The third point concerns our 31st and last rule, which lays it down that the Party shall only contest elections by putting forward a candidate for each vacancy in the particular ward, district or constituency, and that no member, though elected, shall take office unless the whole number for the particular ward, district or constituency be elected.

Once again Mr. Harrison is referred to the sixth clause of our Declaration of Principles. If the three propositions of the syllogism are true, if in particular the last of them—”The party seeking working-class emancipation must be hostile to every other political party”—is correct, then hostility to all other parties must be one of the basic principles of its political activity. A vote, to be of any value to such a party, must be the vote of a person who is also hostile to every other party, and no such voter could be guilty of the idiocy of voting both ways, or giving one vote for Socialism, as symbolised by the S.P. candidate, and one for capitalism, as expressed by the candidates of all other parties. Neither could the class-conscious worker who has the opportunity of voting for two Socialist candidates, use the vote in one case and wilfully fail in the other. The rule is a safeguard against building up a position upon such votes as these. That such a safefuard is necessary will be at once seen when we consider the position of men who are elected by unsound votes. Whatever their private and individual opinions may be, in their public and official capacity they are neither more nor less than those who put them in office. The real power is not the man, or the seat, but those who control the one because the other is in their gift. It is a remarkable fact that those who so proudly label themselves Social Democrats, in contradistinction to us (who are merely Socialists), are blind to this first axiom of democracy, that power is with the electors, and not with the elected. They are guilty of undemocratic action at very outset, in suggesting, and acting upon, the idea that once in position, under no matter what pretext, they make themselves the masters of those who have placed them there, and who have power to presently cast them out. This is the very essence of demagogy, the central idea of bosses and fakers, the cherished instrument of all working-class cheats and misleaders and men who have taken “the print of the golden age” and want to “get there” for various reasons. Against a majority of men so elected, and upon such a mandate presuming to take action upon the only lines that could seriously touch capitalist interests — revolutionary lines—the master class would find their easiest and simplest remedy in an appeal to the country ! Those who had voted for reform would soon settle the attempt to cheat them into Revolution. Well if that appeal did not take the shape of bloody suppression, aided, connived at, or at least passively disapproved of by those constituents who had sanctioned reform only. This is why the masters are not afraid of the “Labour” Party. They know them at once for dishonest men, who can be bought whenever they have anything to sell—which is usually before they are elected, not after. They know perfectly well that they represent only the ignorance of the working class, and stand, opaque and obfuscating figures, between that ignorance and the light. And so long as they are content to do this the capitalists are willing to allow them, and even to help them into office and invite them to their little feasts, as a sign to the multitude that “Capital and Labour are Brothers.”

What is our object in seeking representation ? Simply the seizure of the political machinery for the purpose of overthrowing capitalism. We do not want the so-called palliatives—for they don’t palliate. Even if they did we should condemn the present system and clamour for a new one, for obviously it is the business of those interested in the continuance of the capitalist system to patch it up to last a little longer. And the louder we shout for its demolition the harder will they try to patch it up. It is our business to show the rottenness within—theirs to present a fair exterior : it is not for us to show them how to perpetuate their domination. We have work enough to see that the reformers do not lull the workers into such apathetic belief in the possibilities of the capitalist system that it shall be left to fall of its own rottenness, and plunge humanity into fatal chaos born of its own ignorance and unpreparedness. Seeking representation therefore, for the purpose named, we desire to build up our position with sound bricks, or sound, revolutionary votes, in order that it may be a true index of our strength and we may be neither led nor driven into the appeal to force until the time is ripe. It is in order to assure, as far as possible, that every vote given us shall be a clear demand for the ending of capitalism and the establishment of Socialism that we have formulated rule 31.

As to our elected representatives’ attitude towards reforms, it is hardly fair to ourselves to answer this question without ample room for supporting it with argument. And further, it is possible that the last word has not been said upon that subject yet. The S.P.G.B. is a scientific party. As such it is open to assimilate each scientific truth as it is unfolded, and to adapt itself to such altered circumstances as might be advisable. This remark has special reference to the possible contingency of the capitalists putting forward a measure to extend the franchise with a view to swamping the Socialist vote with the vote of the slum. But confining ourselves to the class of measures our correspondent enumerates, and pending a special paper on the subject (by editorial grace) the following may be said. We ask for no vote for palliatives or reforms or “municipal enterprises,” but only for Socialism. Just as we by our 31st rule try to avoid annexing “palliative” votes, so if voting against “palliatives” lost us votes they could only be votes we try by all means to get rid of. As we declare before winning seats that “palliatives” are no good to the workers, and as they cannot be one iota more useful after we have won seats, obviously we must go on saying the same thing about them, and pointing out their fraudulent nature. It is plain then that our representatives cannot vote for these things. Shall we oppose them ? Well, why not ? At present there is evidence that before one class-conscious constituency is evolved in this country, and therefore before one S.P.G.B. representative takes his seat upon any elected public body, bitter experience will have sickened a vast portion of our fellow workers of such expedients. The return of our representatives will signify as much, in fact. The demand for reform is not in any sense of the word an attack upon capitalism, but the movement for revolution is. Against the first the capitalists have no need to defend (as history since the Chartist movement shows), but against the last they are compelled to exert their greatest efforts. Therefore the first man returned to Parliament under conditions such as the S.P.G.B. candidates will alone accept office upon, will carry consternation into the enemy’s camp, for it will be an unmistakeable declaration against reform, an undeniable demand for Revolution. As the Revolutionary must necessarily attack, so defense lies with the reactionary. The only defense at that stage will be the pretended reform. The evils of the system will be too patent for denial: they must use the arguments of the quasi-Socialist that the social edifice can be reformed. They must try and patch up the crumbling structure in order that it may last a little longer. Unnecessary to state, the dominant class will do this in their own interests— which are tied up in capitalism. Once more if there is any truth in that clause of our Declaration of Principles which declares that the interests of the master class and the working class are diametrically opposed then the duty of revolutionaries is clear. The reform becomes the reactionaries’ defense, therefore it must be attacked tooth and nail. It will be defended, for it is the last ditch of capitalism, beyond which is nothing but the force of arms on the open battle field. So we shall have to take their reforms as long as we are not strong enough to reject them, and when the master class are too weak to continue to force their reforms upon us, then indeed the day of the Social Revolution is near at hand.

In view of the apace already occupied, Mr. Harrison must be referred to our 43rd issue for the answer to the fifth query. Under the title of “Can a Christian be a Socialist” the matter was ably dealt with. Further, a pamphlet on the subject of Socialism and Religion is in course of preparation.

The final question concerns the meaning of the terms “Revolutionary Socialism” and “Revolutionary Socialist.” Well, the terms mean simply “Socialism ” and “Socialist.” There is no need to qualify these two plain words, for as Socialism at this stage implies revolution, Socialism must necessarily be revolutionary and every Socialist a revolutionary. Some of us who now know better may have been guilty of thus distinguishing terms that need no such distinction, but as we get older and learn the ropes we realise that speaking of “revolutionary” Socialism may create, does create, the impression that there is a form of Socialism which is not revolutionary, and of Socialists who are not revolutionary—an absurdity, at least until such time as (long after the realisation of the Socialist system) evolution shall have made the upholders of that system reactionaries against the system that is to follow it—if such a time ever comes. But it is probably the term “revolutionary” that is in question. The word “revolution,” from which the adjective is derived, signifies the entire change in the nature of the social structure which distinguishes Socialism from capitalism. It is the very antithesis of reform. Its root, germ or essence is the changing of the very basis of society—the property condition—while the root principle of reform is to preserve the social basis as the essential of perpetuating the social fabric unchanged. It is evident that one cannot be both revolutionary and reformer at the same time. To act in both directions at once, if such a thing is at all possible, is but to negate oneself, to cancel one’s political activity, to reduce oneself to the standing of the passive supporter of the status quo, and therefore of the anti-Socialist. The term “revolutionary,” then, implies the advocate of a change in the basis of society, and a “revolutionary Socialist” is a revolutionary who advocates that in making that change, it shall take the form of substituting social ownership of the means of producing and distributing wealth for the present private ownership of these things. But as only thus can Socialism appear, every Socialist must be revolutionary, and is best known as a Socialist only.

A. E. Jacomb

SPGB 2025 Summer School: What is Marxism? An update

The following session has been added to the programme of the Socialist Party Summer School:

Guest speaker Cat Rylance [of Communist Future] will present ‘Marxism, Reforms and Reformism’  

The question of the role and function that reforms play in the transformation from capitalism to communism has been brought to the surface again in recent years by ‘democratic socialist’ trends advancing the argument for ‘non-reformist reforms’. How does the idea of non-reformist reforms relate to existing approaches to reforms and reformism within the communist movement? And what place, if any, would we understand reforms as having within a Marxist programme? The talk will explore how reforms are related to in the programmes of Classical and Orthodox Marxism, in particular the purpose of minimum demands within this, considering these questions in relation to the approaches of the left today, and thinking about how we might deal with the challenges that emerge from these approaches.

Letter: The position of a Socialist minority in Parliament and on local councils. (1938)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

The position of a Socialist minority in Parliament and on local councils.

Mr. R. Jessop (Spalding) asks a question which has often been answered in these columns, but which is obviously of continuing interest and merits repetition.

“What are the tactics of Socialist Members of Parliament in a minority position to be? Supposing the Government should introduce a Bill to increase Old Age Pensions, introduce wages boards, or any measure that would be of benefit to some section of the workers. Would the Socialists oppose such measures on the general grounds that they only deal with the effects of capitalism, or would they support them as giving the workers some small benefit whilst at the same time pointing out that Socialism was the only satisfactory solution to the problem?

The position of a Socialist Town or County Councillor also is not quite clear to me. Whilst capitalism continues, such individuals will be obliged to administer that system on housing committees, gas and water committees, A.R.P. committees, etc. Except that they will be standing by to help in the administration of Socialism, when it is instituted, they will, for the time being so far as I can see, have to do a similar job to any Labour Party member who can see nothing beyond combating the immediate ill-effects of capitalism. Is this your view?”

Regarding Parliament, the answer, in brief, is that a minority of Socialist M.P.s would vote for or against measures introduced by other parties, or refrain from voting, in accordance with the Socialist Party’s view as to which course would be in the interest of the working class and Socialism. To use our correspondent’s own words, they would vote for certain measures “as giving the workers some small benefit, whilst at the same time pointing out that Socialism was the only satisfactory solution to the problem.”

A minority of Socialist M.P.s would obviously not vote against a measure which simply raised old-age pensions, or raised wages, or helped trade union organisation, or made it easier to carry on Socialist propaganda or organisation.

It would, however, be of the greatest importance that a Socialist minority should retain its complete independence and not enter into pacts or bargains with other parties or groups. Its position would be quite different from that of the Labour Party minority, which is elected on a non-Socialist programme by electors who are reformists, not Socialists, and which does enter into arrangements with other Parliamentary parties.

The position is much the same on local Councils, but it is not that stated by our correspondent, who takes it for granted that the minority of Town Councillors must take part in and share responsibility for the administration of local affairs. Although Labour minorities habitually sit on the sub-committees of the Council there is no need for them to do so. A Socialist minority of Councillors would use their position on the Council to put forward the Socialist view, but would make it clear that the majority in control were responsible for Council decisions and for the carrying out of the work of the Council on sub-committees and in the various departments of the local authority services.

The local authorities in Great Britain only have the powers devolved upon them by Parliament and the central Government. They cannot act on their own responsibility, outside the limits set for them. The Council majority are, in effect, only the agents of the central Government, and when a Council refuses to carry out the central Government’s wishes steps are taken, as at Poplar some years ago, to have local services carried on irrespective of the wishes of local electors and their representatives on the Council. A Socialist minority (or even a Socialist majority) on a local Council would be governed as to what they could do by Parliament and the central Government and the electors who voted Socialist would very well realise this and not expect their Socialist delegates on the Council to do the impossible.

Ed. Comm.

Letter: The Socialist Party and Reforms. (1911)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party and Reforms.

[To The Editor.]

Forest Gate, Essex.

Sir,—Recognising your Party’s hostility toward reforms, and being, for the most part, in sympathy with your standpoint in this respect, I still remain without any knowledge as to how such reforms as the following can be considered as being detrimental to working-class interest, and some comment on the matter may, therefore, elucidate your unswerving attitude in regard to any reform whatsoever:

(1) Educational reform (already conceded).

(2) Male suffrage (ditto)

(3) The feeding of school children, from the point of view that it is impossible for children to be effectively educated unless well fed. If they are well fed, therefore, it would follow that as a result of their education they would better understand their position in life than they would if they were ill-fed and mal-educated. Therefore why oppose this reform ?

(4) Secular education— the advantages of which need no comment.—Yours, etc.,

L. A. Bostock

 

Reply:

The S.P.G.B., as distinguished from every other organisation in this country, is the party with Socialism, and nothing but Socialism, as its object. It is, consequently, not to be side-tracked into raising mere hostility to reform or the reverse—into equal importance with its object. Its guiding principle is not hostility to reforms but hostility to capitalism ; and since its aim is Socialism its whole policy in regard to reforms is dictated solely by the exigencies of the class struggle for Socialism, and must continue to he so dictated, whatever changes in the conditions of the fight may intervene.

Wherever needful for its object the Party must, therefore, make use of, ignore, or resist, any reform as determined by the particular circumstances. Consequently it cannot seek support for or advocate any policy of reform or anti-reform, for such must always be sacrificed upon occasion for its object, while such policies might—as seen in other organisations—attract those who do not accept the object of the Party, thus weakening its definite aim. All such matters are considered by it as worthy of attention only in so far as they bear distinctly on the question of working-class emancipation.

This subordination of all means to one end, and of all issues to the supreme one of the conquest of the State for Socialism, is the only logical policy for the Socialist Party. Without it, indeed, the party could not be Socialist.

Mr. Bostock is, therefore, completely in error in assuming that in showing the unsatisfactory nature of reforms in themselves, and their utter futility as solutions of what is called the “Social Problem,” the S.P.G.B. is necessarily hostile toward all reforms, and considers them as being in every case inevitably “detrimental to working-class interest.”

Even were the capitalists omniscient and of one opinion on. every point, it would still remain a fact that they are compelled by economic development to weaken their stronghold. Our enemies are forced, as it were, to dig their own graves, and it is by no means our policy to prevent them doing so. We should, indeed, be traitors to our cause did we not endeavour to make it profit by every mistake and every point of weakness of the enemy. There is danger only in allowing any consideration whatever to influence the policy of the party other than its object and the conditions of the struggle necessary to its attainment. Socialists, in short, must beware of being scared or cajoled either to the right or the left of the scientific way to Socialism.

With regard to the reforms enumerated by our correspondent, our attitude results inevitably from the position outlined above. All of them have been dealt with in these columns. Let us, however, briefly notice them here.

(1) The Education Acts were not motived (despite declarations to the contrary) by any wish on the part of the ruling class as a whole to benefit the workers, but to benefit themselves and to obtain cheap and efficient wage workers. It should be noted that the paltry measures of working-class “education” now in force stop short even of this despicable ideal. Therefore the Socialist has certainly no feeling whatever of gratitude toward his exploiters when he takes the fullest advantage of this reform for the furtherance of the workers’ cause.

(2) Male suffrage does not exist. We take the greatest useful advantage of the present property suffrage, and would not consider Adult Suffrage “detrimental to working-class interest.” Socialism is the interest of the many, not of the few ; its method, therefore, is that of democracy. But since Socialism is greater than all means, we would not bargain with our enemies, or bate one jot or tittle of our object or principles for any extension of the franchise, much less for a more promise. We have, moreover, seen the dismal folly of supporting an individual or a party that is utterly opposed to us on every vital point because of some minor point of utility. The grain of good is overwhelmed by a flood of harm.

(3) We do not oppose, and never have opposed, the feeding of school children. We have adversely criticised certain proposals for State maintenance, which would mean the taking of children from their parents to be reared in barracks by the State, pithed with anti-working-class ideas, and given the mentality of the flunkey. We have further pointed out the economic effects of such a measure on the labour market, where feeding here, is often counterbalanced by more misery there, and where, owing to the worsening trend of economic pressure, every attempt short of Socialism to stem the tide of increasing working-class poverty must fail. And we have pointed the inevitable Socialist moral.

It is, further, a fallacy to assume that the class-consciousness of the worker has any definite relation to the amount of food he gets. The flunkeys are probably the best fed and the least class-conscious. The slum-proletariat is the worst fed, and is hardly more class-conscious than the wage-slaves of flunkeydom. We rely neither on feeding nor on starving, but upon ripening economic conditions, together with sound Socialist propaganda.

(4) As to Secular Education under Capitalism, it may well prove a mare’s nest. Its advantages may possibly be non-existent. Only when religion has lost its efficacy as a working-class drug will it be abandoned by the ruling class in the schools. But what will take its place ? A scientific curriculum ! Or superstition in even worse forms, such as cunningly devised capitalist ethics, or a deadlier patriotism ? Hence the peculiar wisdom of the classic phrase “Wait and see! ”

Reforms usually take away with the left hand what they offer with the right, and the last state of the reformed is often worse than, his first. There is a vast difference between the vague proposal and the final measure. The latter may in its own. cunning clauses more than neutralise the grain of good originally proposed. Let the capitalist class, therefore, take entire responsibility for its handiwork. Our lack of enthusiasm and severely critical attitude toward all reforms of whatever colour is, inconsequence, fully justified. Not only do we regard them as mere minor and relatively insignificant incidents in the class war, but we know them to be, in the main, fraudulent in themselves.

SOCIALISM can no more come by an accumulation of reforms than a new and up-to-date boiler can result from an accumulation of patches on an ancient one. It presupposes the conquest of. political power by the Socialist working class —the SOCIAL REVOLUTION.

A program of reforms is not only superfluous, Its existence proves that the party possessing it has taken reform for its object instead of Socialism. It is, moreover, a fraud upon the toilers, for until they are supreme their party can pass no reforms —these are grants by the capitalist class, to be considered only in so far as they can be made use of for the cause—and when the working class is triumphant reforms will be entirely redundant, for Socialism will be here.

W.

Asked and Answered. (1907)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

Question.

(1). Will capitalism have to go through the process of the nationalisation of the land, the mines, the railways, etc., before Socialism can be achieved ?

(2). Would not the fact of the working class being able to see the futility of these reforms—having acquired them—assist in the propaganda of Socialism ?

(3). If so, should not the Socialist Party do all in its power to secure these ”palliatives,” by adopting a programme on which these items figure, with a view to pushing capitalism forward at as great a rate as possible ?

(4). Would it be possible to establish Socialism, pre-supposing the existence of a clean-cut-class-conscious proletariat, with capitalism no further advanced than it is to-day ; in other words is it more a matter of hastening the development of capitalism than creating the hostile and revolutionary Socialist ?

M. Mullett

(Brixton, S.W.)

Answer.

(1.) Marx has truly said that

“No social order ever disappears until all the productive powers are developed for which it is adapted. New and higher social institutions are never established until the material conditions of life to support them have matured in the womb of the old society. Therefore mankind never sets itself any tasks, except those for which it has received proper training and which it is able to perform.”

An industry, however, which is developed to the trust stage is as completely organised as a nationalised industry and differs from it only in that it is controlled by a section instead of by the whole of the capitalist class. Since therefore the trust is a completely organised industry and presents but little if any greater difficulty of acquirement by the workers over a nationalised industry, there is no reason whatever to suppose that Society must of necessity pass through a stage of complete nationalisation.

The productive forces for which modern society is adapted are developed when the essential or chief industries are centralised under trusts or State, for the subordinate industries which have not reached that stage need in the main but the application to them of the form of organisation already developed in the trust or their absorbtion into the greater industrial organisations by the triumphant working class. So long as the method, structure and material of organised production be existent so that the unmistakable method and solution be presented, the workers, if class-conscious Socialists, can with little difficulty complete the organisation of the productive forces and turn them into social instruments of social welfare.

(2). It should be obvious that if the workers see the futility of reform tinkering, the propaganda of Socialism is enormously assisted. But the recognition of the futility of reform should and can, at least in part, be made plain to the proletarians without them having to exhaust all the possibilities of error, and having to suffer the disappointment and disastrous apathy and delay that such a stupid and wasteful way of showing the futility of reform methods implies.

(3). Clearly, also, the owning class are already causing the development of capitalism to proceed at as great a rate as is possible in their eagerness to secure greater profits, and we as members of the working class need all our available energy, not to increase the profit of our masters, but to help the growth of Socialism among the workers so that class-consciousness may keep pace with the headlong development of capitalism, and industrial democracy be the speedy outcome of the economic evolution.

The advocacy of reform items would not of necessity increase the rate of capitalist development, while it would leave the workers more at the mercy of the exploiters and unprepared to end exploitation even when development were ripe for the change. Indeed, many reforms are designed to head back economic development. Even municipalisation is often a barrier against centralisation and complete organisation.

The stupidity of identifying what is the only hope of the workers with something that must confessedly lead to disappointment, apathy, disgust and reaction and leave the workers unprepared for their deliverance need hardly be enlarged upon.

(4). The existence of such a revolutionary Socialist proletariat is the obvious and inevitable sign of the ripeness of conditions for Socialism. And were prevailing conditions such that so completely Socialist a working class was engendered it could clearly use the productive forces of the day, and, by completing industrial organisation, transform capitalism into Socialism with but little difficulty.

Social change is not a mechanical process but depends on the reaction of the economic evolution upon human beings. Hence the importance of the class struggle. Hence the importance of propaganda in spreading and giving definiteness and conscious aim to the effects of economic pressure to which some respond more readily and intelligently than others. Hence above all the importance of refraining from misleading or humbugging the workers in any way, and the necessity of doing all that one may to put the real issue ever clearly before them even though but a handful have seen the light, for upon the development of Socialist consciousness among our class depends whether they are to remain unhappy wage-slaves indefinitely, or whether they are responding readily and intelligently to the demands of their economic environment and so preparing for their speedy and happy deliverance from poverty and oppression.

W.

Editorial: The Eight Hour Day. (1908)

Editorial from the September 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Eight Hour Day.

The speeding up of the workman, the ever-growing intensity of the labour exacted from him, renders imperative a longer repose so that he may recuperate his working strength and maintain his maximum productivity. Hence flows the modern tendency toward shorter hours so that the profitableness of the worker to the capitalist may increase. It is the necessary and inevitable outcome of modern industrial conditions even from the capitalist point of view, and is by no means a sign of victory over the ruling class.

If the champions of the eight hour day were to confine themselves to stating the truth about their pet reform there would be little need to quarrel with them, but when they claim as one of the virtues of the eight hour day that it will abolish or greatly reduce unemployment, we join issue. It is rankest charlatanism to foist a piece of some necessary capitalistic patchwork upon the slow-minded as the remedy for the workers’ greatest ill, yet, unfortunately, it is the characteristic procedure of the labour leader.

In the present instance, if the reduction of working hours is to bring about more employment, it could only be by decreasing the output per man, and providing more work by causing the employment of more men to produce the same amount as before. But would it have any such effect ? So far as positive evidence goes it is directly against any presumption of a lessening of the output per man. Even past masters in the art of red-herring trailing give themselves away at times. Thus Sidney Webb and Harold Cox in their book, “The Eight Hour Day,” state in considering the result of a general reduction of the hours of labour in all trades that—

“The successive reductions of the hours of labour which this century has witnessed have been attended, after a very short interval, by a positive general increase in individual productivity. In many cases it has been found that the workers did more in ten hours than their predecessors in twelve. The effort to get more than a certain amount of work out of a man defeats itself.”

__________

The question that matters.

Instance after instance is given of the increase in efficiency and output that follows the reduction of the working day, showing how chimerical is the idea that a slight reduction in hours will put the unemployed in work.

Even as recently as the opening of the Mining Exhibition at Olympia on July 11th evidence was given of the normal result of a shortening of hours. Thus Lord Airedale of Gledhow: —

“In regard to the question of an Eight Hour Day, and of the consequent restriction of the hours of labour in mines, and the question of the increased cost that they were threatened with by mine owners, owing to the difficulties arising from the limitation of hours, he ventured to think that from what they saw that day of coal machinery, the mining engineers of that country would rise to the situation, and by the application of technical knowledge, he believed the threatened crisis would really not arise. It was cheering to note by such exhibitions that mechanical invention knew no end, and if it paid to use machinery when increased cost of labour came in, they might be assured that the difficulty would be successfully dealt with.”

It should be clear, then, that however necessary to capitalist development the reduction of the hours of labour may be, and however useful it may be in other respects, yet it most certainly is not the panacea for the great and growing evil of unemployment that its champions would have us believe. Besides, the question which overshadows all others in the eyes of the worker conscious of his position is not the paltry juggle with hours of labour, but rather the vital question of to whom shall the product of these working hours go ?

The workers, indeed, instead of wasting precious time and energy discussing and petitioning as to the particular sauce with which they are to be eaten, should at last awaken to the fact that it is not necessary that they should be eaten at all, and should take their stand with us accordingly.

Editorial: Once a Liberal always a Liberal. (1908)

Editorial from the February 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Mr. MacDonald, who is certainly practical enough in Parliament, has been represented as a somewhat bitter critic of the present Government. I believe it to be a fact that he considers he has a grievance against the newspapers for the way they have ignored his repeated efforts to do justice to the Government’s good works.” 

Manchester Guardian’s London Correspondent, Jan. 9th, 1908.

Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald’s political career has been an interesting one. Just previous to the general election of 1895 he was straining every nerve to induce the Liberal Executive to adopt him as one of their official candidates for Southampton. Had they done so and he had secured election, it is highly improbable that he would ever have been heard of as an “Independent” Labour man, provided always that the Liberal moneybags had recognised his “statesmanship” and seen to it that his political advancement was not retarded. But the official Liberals of Southampton would have none of him, and so, like many another job-hunter, he became “converted,” and being anxious to enter Parliament, at once pushed himself forward as the “Independent Labour” candidate for the borough. At the last general election he secured the coveted membership of the House of Commons, sinking all the principles of political independence which the I.L.P. claim to have as their basis of operations, by making a compact with the Liberals of Leicester. That he is still, for all practical purposes, a Liberal, is shown by his remarks to a Daily News interviewer on January 8th. That interview, as the D.N. editor pointed out, was “an interesting evidence of the substantial identity of the immediate aims of Liberalism and Labour.” Now the immediate aims of Liberalism are to maintain and, if possible, strengthen the economic supremacy of the master class over the working class. It is for that that they enter into politics, and as the immediate aims of the Labour Party are substantially identical (for the accuracy of the D.N’s comment cannot be questioned) we are once more justified in our criticism of the Labour Party as upholders of capitalism. Moreover, Mr. MacDonald declared, “you can find Socialists in both the big political parties.” Why, then, does not the Labour member for Leicester denounce them ? They must be either ignorant, or dishonest. But it is clear that in Mr. MacDonald’s opinion Socialism is only a general term signifying a desire to reform, not to change the basis of Society, for he added “the people get Socialism from Tory as well as from Liberal Ministers” ! Will the chairman of the Independent Labour Party take the object of that party (fearful and wonderful as it is) and explain how, if that is his idea of Socialism, the people are getting it from Tory as well as from Liberal Ministers ?

Reform or Socialism?

There is one aspect of the editorial comments in the Daily News which deserves very careful consideration on the part of those who claim to be Socialists, but yet advocate reforms. It is idle to deny that many do so quite honestly, believing that there is little hope of the workers organising for Socialism until their conditions are vastly improved, and they must therefore ask, or appeal, or “demand” these reforms of their masters. The Daily News welcomes the pressure of the Labour Party in the direction of a generous scheme of old age pensions, as it can only be salutary, and will certainly come with equal conviction and energy from the Left Wing of Liberalism itself. The same thing, it adds, is true of the problem of unemployment. In its opinion, a niggardly scheme of pensions, and, above all, one which attempted to set up any discrimination on the basis of merit, would do more than anything else to disillusionise those workmen who trust the sympathies and goodwill of Liberalism. It might drive them to Tariff Reform, more probably it would convert them to Socialism. And so, as Mr. Cadbury’s journal does not wish workmen to be converted to Socialism, it hopes the Government will pass something which, in the name of Socialism, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald and his party advocate. The Daily News knows, of course, that Old Age Pensions, whether carried out according to the plan of the Labour Party or otherwise, are in no sense of the word Socialism. They, therefore, do not father the twaddle of the I.L.P. chairman about getting Socialism from Tory as well as Liberal Ministers. As Mr. A.J.Balfour declared recently, Social Reform is the antidote to Socialism. It is therefore illogical for Socialists to advocate reforms. These will, of course, be passed into law by the master class whenever the exigencies of the political situation demand that operation. And as the working-class show they are becoming Socialists, the passing of reforms will be expedited by the capitalists. The only work then with which Socialists have to deal is the education of the workers to the principles of Socialism, for the spread of that education alone will secure, not only an amelioration of present conditions, but the complete change from capitalism to Socialism, which is necessary before freedom and general well-being can be possible for all mankind.

What’s in the Wind.

Not only is Mr. J. R. MacDonald anxious to show how very little Liberalism has to fear from Labourism, but other Labour members are going about the country proclaiming that they are not Socialists, and evidently endeavouring to conciliate the Liberals. At Hulme Town Hall on November 28, Mr. G. D. Kelley, M.P. explained that he did not wish to see the Government wrecked by the introduction of an unacceptable Licensing Bill. But, from the workers’ point of view, Liberals and Tories are but two names adopted by the one enemy, and it matters not to them which section of the enemy is in power or thrown out. Moreover, if the Labour Party’s view is the correct one, and the next general election will see a large increase in their ranks in the House of Commons, it would suit their purpose better if the Government were wrecked at once, no matter on what. At the conclusion of the meeting Mr. Kelley was asked if he were a Socialist and replied in the negative. Hence his solicitude for the Liberal Government. Mr. H. Nuttall, Liberal M.P., mentioned at Heaton Mersey on December 20th that Mr. Clynes, M.P., had expressed himself in a way as to a practical working policy that he fully agreed with, and, commenting on this, the Manchester Weekly Chronicle pointed out that since Mr. Nuttalls speech Mr. Clynes, speaking at Hulme, said Socialism was a long way off, and they had to work for immediate reforms. Again we ask “what’s in the wind ?” Is it that the Labour members, anticipating an early general election, and fearing the Liberals will decline to renew the compacts by which so many Labour men became Labour members, fearing the Liberals will force them to fight three-cornered contests, are striving to conciliate the Liberals as much as possible, with a view to preventing such a (to them) dire catastrophe as is here foreshadowed ?