Marxism, a Virile “Ghost” - Part 1 (1933)

From the August 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

According to an article in John O' London's Weekly, dated May 13th, 1933, "Marxism is Dead,” and though students of Marxian thought may feel ill disposed to mourn the loss of one departed spirit alone, we find the theories of Adam Smith coupled with those of Marx.

In passing, we should like to take the opportunity of mentioning that the number of times Marxism has been "appointed dead” during the last half century must surely surpass the number of times the world has been “coming to an end" since the going of Jesus Christ.

However, the death of Marxism having been “duly certified,” the writer of the article in question proceeds to the post mortem examination. But what does the analysis reveal? Lest Marxians should await the result of the analysis in fear and trembling, we hasten to disclose the findings of our journalistic analyst. Let us reproduce his own words. After suggesting that the two most important books ever written on political economy are “The Wealth of Nations,” by Adam Smith, and ”Das Kapital,” by Karl Marx, our critic says: — 

“The doctrines of Adam Smith and Karl Marx alike are, of course, discredited amongst modem students of economics for the simple reason that those doctrines left out the human factor."

It further appears that both Marx and Smith helped to bring their own works to disaster because of "their essentially materialistic outlook on the economic activities of mankind.”

What a revelation, indeed! We seem to remember hearing all this before, many a time. Anyhow, aside from the positively untrue and dogmatic assertion that Marx’s theories are discredited amongst students of economics (unless it is meant that they are discredited by those who oppose Marx’s theories, in which case we sympathetically agree). What, may we ask, is meant by the "human factor.” Presumably, since no details are given by our critic, we can but conclude that we have once again encountered that hoary objection to Marxism that it leaves no part to the influence of human behaviour in moulding the history of human society.

Now, were it not that this notion is so often stated in open or disguised form, even by pseudo-Socialists, we would feel impelled to act similarly to the Pharisee of old and ”pass by on the other side.” But, unlike the Pharisee, instead of thanking ”God” for not being "as other men,” we should confer the honour upon Marx himself. For even a casual study of Marx’s works is sufficient to dispel the illusion stated above. But perhaps a casual acquaintance with his writings is too much to expect from some of his critics.

Rather does it seem that the one indispensable condition for a criticism of Marxism is not to have read Marx at all. Or to have read him and ignore what he says. Significantly enough, in the same article from which we have quoted, the writer says quite bluntly: “It is safe to say that not more than a very small percentage of Marxian Communists have ever read ‘Das Kapital' or any of their master’s voluminous writings.” From which we gather at least one of the reasons for his criticism, for, if only a comparatively small number of Marx’s adherents are adequately acquainted with his writings, then it is fairly safe to make any kind of attack upon those writings. One may gain access to a “coward’s castle" at any time, where ignorance and credulity offer an easy passport.

However, what was the materialistic outlook of Marx? Did he fail to observe the operation of what is called the human factor?

These are questions which have often been replied to in the history of Socialist thought and will bear answering again in view of the continuously increasing interest in Marx’s theories.

At the moment we shall do well to let Marx speak for himself. When dealing with a series of events in French history during the nineteenth century Marx wrote as follows:—

“Man makes his own history, but he does not make it out of the whole cloth, he does not make it out of conditions chosen by himself, but out of such conditions as he finds close at hand.”

This is taken from a work in which, from first page to last, he proves how men acting upon the political and economic conditions of their time, exerted a considerable influence upon them. We refer to "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.’’ Again, when contrasting the materialistic views of some of his predecessors with his own, Marx declares in the most unmistakeable manner:—

“The materialistic doctrine that men are the products of conditions and education, different men therefore the products of other conditions and changed education, forgets that circumstances may be altered by men and that the educator has himself to be educated.” (Engels, “ Feuerbach,” appendix, page 130.)

What could be more dear and comprehensive than these two statements. Those who really want to understand will find in them the foundation stones, so to speak, of the science of sociology, the science dealing with human society, and the history of its development.

But to return to the matter of Marx’s materialistic outlook upon mankind. The materialist attitude of mind, both in science and philosophy, Which took definite form in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was the result of a lengthy process of investigation made by thinkers over many centuries. Hence, apart from certain definite modifications introduced into materialist thought by Marx, materialism as a doctrine was no more the exclusive product of Marx’s brain than the general theory of organic evolution was that of Darwin’s. Historically considered, the foundations of materialism were laid by some of the greatest thinkers of Ancient Greece. Democritus, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Aristotle and Hippocrates, were among the ancient minds who formulated the rough and ready groundwork of all modern materialist methods of thought, despite the fact that they lacked the solid backing at the disposal o£ modern scientific workers.

Democritus formulated his world-renowned theory of the atom and indicated the general truth upon which modem science rests, namely: “Nothing comes from nothing, and nothing is ever annihilated.” In this view-point he was followed by a number of thinkers who endeavoured to explain the whys and wherefores of existence, aiming all the time to find the cause or causes of things within nature’s own operations. Some idea may be gathered of the influence these men had on the world of thought and understanding immediately around them, from that powerful poem of classical antiquity, ”Of the Nature of Things,” by the Roman poet, Lucretius. He attempted to explain the many phases of existence, including man himself, biologically considered, and the rise of mankind from the savage to the civilised state, by means of purely natural causes. Amongst his most notable examples in this direction are his suggestions on the origin of speech and language. Says Lucretius: —

“ But Nature ’twas

Urged men to utter the various sounds of tongue. 

And need and use did mould the names of things. 

About in same wise as the lack-speech years,

Compel young children unto gesturings 

Making them point with finger here and there, at what’s before them.

For each creature feels by instinct to what use to put his powers.”

Of course, modern scientific thought would not put it in quite this way, but it cannot be logically disputed that here, at last, are the germs of a rational interpretation of natural phenomena.

In effect, the whole mode of reasoning here referred to marked a revolutionary departure from the primitive and age-long method of regarding all manifestations of existence as though some power or powers outside and above nature guided and controlled existence. Those of our readers who are desirous of obtaining detailed information concerning the methods of enquiry of the Greeks, and even thinkers of recent times, should consult ”The Biographical History of Philosophy,” by George Henry Lewes. This work is easily one of the best of the nineteenth century’s productions.

However, it is not without significance that these early attempts at a true understanding of nature’s workings were suppressed or kept in the background by the tyranny exercised by and through the power of “Holy Mother Church," but a discussion of this need not detain us at this juncture.

But when the revival of learning and the spirit of “free" enquiry arose after the “long winter sleep of the Christian Middle Ages," the formulas of some of the Greek thinkers were revived and re-employed in investigation, but this time with the more ripened experience and accumulated knowledge of a later social advancement. Perhaps it will appear strange to some to learn that, in the words of Engels: “The original home of all modern materialism, from the seventeenth century onwards, is England." A nasty knock this for those who attribute the origin of materialism to Germanic sources in the attempt to preserve the illusion of “English respectability."

Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Hartley, Priestley and others form a band of thinkers who, by the scientific method of observation and experiment in their various fields of research, helped to furnish the truth of modern materialist thought. Further, the growth of the various natural sciences from the fifteenth century onwards until the explanation of the origin of species by Charles Darwin, in the middle of the nineteenth century, mainly settled the question as to whether natural phenomena had a natural or supernatural origin.

Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, Geology and Biology were the sciences which, each in their turn, presented the world with a picture of nature's workings without the aid of any external power. In strict logic the “Gods" were consigned to the limbo of the dark and ignorant past.

Pierre Laplace, the eminent French astronomer and mathematician, truly summed up the position in his reply to Napoleon. Asked by the Emperor why he had not even mentioned the supernatural in his work, “Mecanique Celeste," Laplace replied: “Sire, I have managed without that hypothesis."

Nevertheless, despite all that had been accomplished in the physical sciences, the last stronghold of supernaturalism was, as yet, to be conquered, namely, human society and its history, the science of sociology was yet to be placed upon a sound foundation.

It was inevitable that as something approaching exactitude had been established in the natural sciences, human history and its modes of being mid becoming could not for long be left outside the general trend of scientific thought and classification. Unquestionably, it was no mean task to survey the history of human society and reduce its movements to the operation of ascertainable natural laws, for the simple reason that history had mainly presented itself as a “ crude heap of irrationality and violence." The great task consisted in discovering some sort of order in the seeming disorder of historic events and their relationship and interconnection with one another. Further, was human society and its mode of being always the same as it presented itself to the general view of the nineteenth century, or had it also experienced an evolution, a process of development, such as had been ascertained in the purely physical world? In other words, could the principle of natural causation apply here as elsewhere? An affirmative answer to these questions was finally given by means of the materialistic method.

Thomas Henry Buckle, the author of the introduction to “The History of Civilisation in England," is outstanding among a few historians who made noteworthy attempts to formulate the laws of social development. Buckle saw clearly enough that such notions as chance action, the alleged free will of man theory, the doctrines of predestination and supernatural guidance could account for nothing of value to the problem of history. Moreover, he openly said so. Buckle went direct to the purely physical surroundings of mankind to find an explanation. Climate, Food, Soil and the General Aspect of Nature were the agents chosen by him to explain the rise and growth of society and its institutions. Rightly or wrongly this was a method of historical research which cannot be said to be other than materialistic throughout. It sought the material background of human existence as the propelling force behind the rise of society from its earliest beginnings.

But Buckle's theory of physical geography fell short in its application to the major question to be answered. Granted that it could account for the background, so to speak, of human endeavour in its earlier stages, but since the conditions of physical geography remain fairly stationary over immense periods of time, they could hardly be said to account for the many remarkable changes in human society that have taken place in historic times.

The real explanation to the problem was discovered and most comprehensively stated by Marx, with Engels and the American Ethnologist, Lewis Henry Morgan, making the same discovery independently of each other. This explanation is now known throughout the world as the materialist conception of history. Briefly, it is founded upon the recognition of the simple fact of organic existence, not, by the way, disputed within the domain of biology, that the primary need of mankind is the acquisition of the means of subsistence, and, therefore, the manner by which these are produced and distributed, forms the basis of all social organisation, no matter how varied the form such social organisation may take.

Further, this theory ascribes the final causes of all great social changes, namely, the changes from one form of society to another, to the changes which take place in the means and methods of producing and distributing the wherewithal to live, whatever form they may take, at particular stages of social development. We respectfully ask readers to note the phrase, “final causes of social change," and not the sole causes as is so often wrongly conceived or stated.

However, this is the essence of Marx’s crowning "crime," to use the phrase of our critic, his "materialistic outlook upon the economic activities of mankind."

From what we have so far stated, it should be perfectly plain that materialism as a system of thought amounts to our accounting for the operation of natural forces, through "laws" of nature herself. Observation and experimentation with the facts of existence, with verification through experience, is ^the kernel of the materialist doctrine. As far as human knowledge extends, the principle of causation is seen to be operative throughout nature, in all its manifestations, and whoever seeks to overthrow the materialist method must produce from nature something without a cause. We leave to other minds, however, this attempt at miracle working.

Robertus.

(To be continued.)

Marxism, a Virile “Ghost” - Part 2 (1933)

From the September 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1.

“Philosophers have only interpreted the world differently,” says Marx, “ but the point is to change it.”

It is well-known that in his early life Marx had taken a degree in Philosophy at one of the leading German universities. The Marx critic, whom we are now considering, attempts to find consolation for his declaration that “Marxism is dead" by an allusion to Marx’s early training in Philosophy. Thus he classifies Adam Smith and Karl Marx as having been “philosophers rather than scientists,” “deductive rather than inductive thinkers,” “metaphysicians before they were economists.” Strangely enough he finds a use for the materialist method, in that he traces all this to environmental influences. He says, Smith and Marx came from the two great homes of metaphysical thought, “Scotland and Germany.” We could prove, of course, that these countries have had no more than a ”fair” share of metaphysicians, but we will pass this with the lament that he ought to know better.

Volumes might easily be written to supply an adequate examination and reply to the observations set out above, but here only a brief analysis can be given in the limited space at our disposal.

In our last issue we outlined what constitutes the essence of modem materialist thought, for the present we propose to strike a somewhat retrospective note, thus to bring into bolder relief the materialism of Marx. We readily plead guilty to the assertion that Marx was a philosopher, but this fact must be booked on the credit side of the account, as a few references to what forms of thought have been embodied in philosophy will reveal. We make no apology for this, as our task is to try and arm our fellows against the attacks made upon Socialism by the hired “intelligentsia” of capitalism. And now about this philosopher business, since philosophy is in the picture.

Frederick Engels, with his usual keen insight into the core of any problem undertaken for consideration by him, has reminded us that the foundation of all philosophies is concerned with the relation between thinking and being. Tracing the roots of the question to lie, like religion, in the social status of savagery where ignorance of natural forces was predominant, then pursuing its development through the scholasticism of the Middle Ages when the question took the form—”What is at the beginning, spirit or nature?” until it resolved itself into the question—“Has God made the world or is the world from eternity?” Engels classifies the disputants to the question as forming two totally different schools of thought. Those who have placed the origin of spirit before that of nature are the idealists, whilst those who have taken nature as the source have formed the various schools of materialism. Here we must emphasise the point that the term idealism as expressed in philosophy bears no logical connection with moral or ethical concepts or theories concerning human conduct. Technically speaking, idealism represents the view of all natural phenomena which postulates “mind” as being primary to ‘‘matter.” Opponents of the materialist view seldom hesitate to import a moral signification into the controversy, but, such is, of course, a complete evasion of the position. Materialism can no more be disproved by this method than the falsity of Bishop Berkeley’s idealism was proved by Dr. Samuel Johnson kicking the stone to confute Berkeley’s insistence upon the non-reality of “matter.” Both idealism and materialism have to be considered from the point of view of their respective modes of interpreting natural phenomena, since both theories must necessarily be concerned therewith.

In the historical controversy between idealism and materialism, probably the ablest representative of the former school of thought, from the eighteenth century until to-day, was Bishop Berkeley. Anyhow, as far as this country is concerned. Berkeley set out in the early eighteenth century to combat the materialist tendencies as they were expressed in the leading thought of his age. He took his stand in postulating an idealist philosophy by an attempt to controvert the views of his philosophic predecessors, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, the earlier materialists. Hobbes had maintained that the source of human knowledge is based upon our sense perceptions of the outer world. Whilst Locke, in a more thoroughgoing manner, after vigorously disputing the alleged existence of “innate ideas,” i.e., ideas being in the human mind independent of and antecedent to experience, accepted the sensory origin of knowledge as formulated by Hobbes, but added a secondary factor to the process by which knowledge is ultimately acquired, namely, reflection. The idea that the real source of human knowledge comes from our sensations and reflections was a deadly blow to the conventional thought of the time. If positive knowledge originated in this way, what was to become of the “God”-planted ”tree of knowledge.” However, despite Hobbes* and Locke’s contribution to the science of understanding; they themselves were still hampered in thought by their acceptance of the theistic conception of a supreme power. Moreover, they regarded as beyond question the existence of “mind” and “matter” as ultimate tangible realities in the most limited sense of the terms. And this paved the way for the later idealistic philosophy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Bishop Berkeley challenged the reality of “matter” by attacking Locke’s position. Locke had maintained that material bodies have two qualities—primary and secondary. The primary are those of weight, shape, extension in space, etc. The secondary are those of colour, temperature, taste, and so forth. The former are known by their actual existence in the external world. We think of them as being in themselves extended, resisting and mobile, but not in themselves as coloured, hot or cold, or having taste. These latter belong to our special sensations. We perceive both primary and secondary qualities in objects because there is a “substance” in which they inhere.

But, said Berkeley, I agree that material bodies exist in the outside world, and our knowledge of them is based upon sensation and reflection, but the distinction between primary and secondary qualities is wholly illusory. The primary qualities are equally as mental or sensuous as the secondary —temperature, taste, and so forth, and he attempted to prove this position by the contention that when we try to think of any material body apart from its attributes or properties, we have nothing left but an empty abstraction. Put into plain language, this means that the desk upon which I write can only be known by its colour, hardness, shape, extension in space, etc. Divested of these there is no “material substratum" left, such as Locke had intimated. “All the choir of heaven and the furniture of earth have not any substance outside the mind.” Thus ran the trend of thought in Berkeley's theory. When confronted with the problem as to what became of things when they were not being perceived, his philosophy is amazingly consistent to the end. Since the reality of things lay in their being perceived, when they are not so by us, they subsist in the mind of some “ Eternal Spirit.” The real world is therefore one of “ mind ” and its contents. “Matter” was rejected by Berkeley as “an unintelligible figment devoid of any sensuous or imaginative content. After this remarkable exhibition of skill in philosophical meandering, David Hume, the Scotch sceptic, subjected Berkeley's postulate of “mind” as the sole reality, to an analysis, and provided an equally devastating attack upon its alleged reality when considered apart from perception. Hence for the time being at least philosophy was in the state that nothing could be known for certain; scepticism reigned supreme. Even after the famous philospher-scientist, Immanuel Kant, had tackled the problem from a different standpoint, though making a valuable contribution in clarifying the problem, he got no further than declaring our knowledge of things to be strictly limited to their appearances alone, but what these “things in themselves” really are, we cannot know. To the mystical type of mind this “ un-knowability ” must almost have amounted to something worth worshipping. Anyhow, the thinker who, to a great extent, lifted the cloud of mysticism from speculative philosophy, was the German philosopher, Hegel. And admittedly it was his work within the realms of philosophy and history which had a profound influence upon the minds of the founders of modern Socialist thought, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. But in stating this we must make certain important reservations. Presumably our present Marx critic has this fact in mind when he describes Marx as a philosopher rather than a scientist, and as a “ metaphysician.” But Hegel was far from being a metaphysician in the technical sense. He was an idealist whose system and method differed profoundly from the subjective idealism of Berkeley and the “ phenomenal ” idealism of Kant. He dismissed the Kantian postulate concerning the unknowability of the “ thing in itself,” and declared “the universe is penetrable to thought.” The world of reality is made known to us by our practical correspondence with it. As the entities of the outer world answer to our mode of apprehending them and to our use of them, their existence apart from us is proven. Hegel's idealism consisted of a conception of an “absolute idea” or “mind” through which the universe was created with a view to the attainment of ultimate “ good ” and “ freedom” at the “final” stage of the evolutionary process. Hegel comprehended the principle of evolution in nature and history, and although his idealistic system of thought considerably marred a thorough grasp of the inner workings of natural and historical development, his revival of the “dialectic” method of enquiry and understanding furnished a method by which the evolutionary process in nature and history could be scientifically understood. He “freed history,” says Engels, “ from metaphysics—he had made it dialectic.”

“For the first time the whole world, natural, historical, intellectual, is represented as a process, i.e., as in constant motion, change, transformation, development; and the attempt is made to trace out the internal connection that makes a continuous whole of all this movement and development.” The contradictory feature of Hegelianism lay in his fixing, quite arbitrarily, a finality to the evolutionary process which was opposed to his dialectical method that ruled out “ finality ” in actual evolutionary processes. But this may be largely explained by the limited knowledge of his time. Nevertheless, his revival of the dialectical system of thought, as first enunciated by the thinkers of Ancient Greece (Heraclitus had said, “Nothing is, everything is becoming ”) proved a weapon in the hands of Marx, not merely , in the establishment of his philosophical and historical standpoint, but also to mark his departure from Hegel's idealism.

“ My dialectic method,” says Marx, "is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life-process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of ‘the idea' he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external phenomenal form of ‘the idea.' With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and transformed into forms of thought." Thus have we an outline of the fundamental distinction between Hegel and Marx in philosophy. But the application of the dialectic to human society and its history shows an even more striking contrast between these two thinkers. With Hegel the modes of being and becoming in human history are to be explained by their “rationality.” “The real is rational, and the rational is real," declared Hegel. But they are only real and rational in turn so long as they are necessary. Every past phase in human history had at one time been rational and therefore real, but had become irrational and therefore unreal, consequently, had been swept aside to give place to still higher “rational" forms of human society. The ultimate development of all this “reality" and "rationality" Hegel saw in the “full development" of the Prussian State of his age. Here was to be found the final working out of “the idea"; its self-realisation having been immanent from the “inception” of the world’s life “history. Thus Hegel. But with Marx, however, all the self-imposed “rationality and reality" merely meant the material conditions of human society in their manifold operations being interpreted by an ideal abstraction made apart from their actual content. And an examination of those, material conditions was, to Marx, an essential condition before “rationality" or “reality” could be understood. Our critic says Marx was a “deductive thinker." Was he? A deductive thinker is one who takes something as proven before examination. A man takes the Bible, for instance, as true and then attempts to trace everything to harmonise with Biblical teachings; this man is a deductive thinker. Another man sets out by first enquiring as to whether the Bible is itself actually true; this man is an inductive thinker. Our critic’s assumption is that Marx set out with the conviction that capitalism was wrong before he had made an analysis, hence the entire criticism of capitalist society and the conclusions drawn therefrom are nothing more than Marx’s pre-conceived thought, the wish father to the thought, so to speak. But an analysis of Marx’s writings simply annihilates the suggestion.

Before ever Marx had formulated his materialist conception of history, and therefore before he had made an analysis of the economy of capitalist society, he had proved in actual practice what an inductive thinker he really was.

In 1842-3, as editor of the Rheinische Zeitung, he tells us how he was embarrassed at first when he had to discuss so-called material interests. Further, how on certain specific questions he was unable at the time to “hazard an independent judgment.” Therefore he gladly welcomed the opportunity, for reason we need not now dwell upon, “to retire to the study room” from public life. There are few thinkers to be found ready to make such a candid confession, and fewer still with minds so inductively inclined, as the nature of this confession indicates.

Within the confines of the study room Marx’s first task consisted of a study and analysis of Hegel’s work on the Philosophy of Law. After this he formulated his materialist conception of history. From a totally different standpoint, Marx was therefore able to explain man’s “knowing" by his “being," instead of, as heretofore, his “being" by his “knowing."

“It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence,” says Marx, “ but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness.”

This contains the kernel of Marxian thought. Human consciousness can only be related, in the final analysis, to its practical correspondence with the outer world in all its phases.

Philosophers may interpret the world differently, but “by acting upon nature outside himself and changing it, man simultaneously changes his own nature.” We await the first real attack on that position.

Robertus.

(To be concluded.)

Marxism, a Virile "Ghost" (Conclusion) (1933)

From the October 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 2.

One of the strangest sights that could be brought within the range of human experience is the living existence of that which previous experience had definitely calculated as dead.

But our John O' London's scribe may have the honour of adorning himself with the "Pope's mantle " for having seen that which is “dead" yet it "still liveth." Rising to giddy heights of contradictory ability in his article "Marxism is dead," he "unblushingly" informs his readers that it is still alive.

He says that "the essential truth of the doctrine of surplus value is now almost universally admitted by economists of all schools." What a Journalistic Daniel come to judgment. Now either these economists must be treading the earth uncomfortably burdened with a ghost, or their knowledge of the body's vitality is such as to prove it to be very much alive. We leave Mr. Clifford Sharp, the author of the article in question, to make his choice free of charge. He attempts to 'outline the meaning of surplus value, but his opening statement proves him to be utterly unacquainted with Marx's writings, unless, of course, he merely desires to misrepresent them. He commences with wages. “The price of labour," he says, is normally determined by the “bare cost of subsistence." We will undertake to supply him with a small pamphlet in which it is written that such terms as value or price of labour are senseless terms within the meaning of economic science. The booklet we refer to is "Value, Price and Profit";  the author is Karl Marx. Therein Marx explains that when using the phrases "value or price of labour " he does so only in the popular slang sense of the term. Therefore the statement is not Marxian. Rather is it representative of the classical school of political economy in Adam Smith and David Ricardo. Even the newest student of Marx knows how he criticised these economists on that very point of their theories.

When the capitalist pays wages to the workers he but hands to them the price of their labour-power, and not the price of labour, which is totally different. The distinction is important. "When we speak of capacity for labour," says Marx, "we do not speak of labour, any more than when we speak of capacity for digestion, we speak of digestion, The latter process requires something more than a good stomach. " ("Capital," Vol. 1, page 152.)

If our critic fails to see the difference in question, and thinks it purely theoretical, then many a capitalist will reveal to him the distinction in practice. When the capitalist has his goods or commodities placed on the market for sale, he is in fact offering to prospective buyers things which have labour embodied in them, they are but products of social labour, and have cost him so much money for wages plus other expenses for raw material, etc.

Obviously if the wages paid were the price of the labour contained in these commodities there could not arise any profit to the capitalist.

But the world of capital “do move.” Broadly speaking, wages cover the cost of the things required by the workers to enable them to maintain their energy as producers of wealth. In buying that energy the capitalist buys a commodity much in the same manner as he buys any other as far as its value or price goes. But of all the commodities, the energy of the workers, their labour-power, has the great merit to the capitalist that it produces a greater value than it itself possesses. Labour-power when in useful motion results in products which have labour stored within them. Not the labour of this or that individual, but the labour socially necessary, gives these products their value and finally their price. Between the cost of that labour-power and what the capitalist ultimately realises from the use of labour-power in the form of saleable commodities, arises what is known as Surplus Value.

Our critic thinks the doctrine of surplus value somewhat “crude," in that it ignores the “benefits of cheap luxuries" which arise from the process by which surplus value is gained from the ever-increasing efficiency of production. Ye gods! How the millions of unemployed workers must be revelling in the benefits of “cheap luxuries." We often wondered why they rushed to the labour exchanges on pay-day; now we know. Who knows what capitalism may yet have in store for us? We may yet be able to take the favourite trip down the Mediterranean and generally travel the world for months on end out of even the smallest wage. But we confess to our being quite pessimistic as to the prospects, no matter how cheaply “luxuries" may be produced in the future.

But his handling of Marx's view of the means by which wages are determined provides a precious pearl of political economy. He alleges that according to Marx wages are determined by the “bare cost of subsistence," i.e., the minimum wage or salary which the average worker will accept as an alternative to destitution or the dole. What nonsense, to be sure! Where, may we ask, is to be found in Marx’s writings such a grotesque caricature of economic realities? How much more will the workers want in wages than what amounts to destitution or the dole? A shilling a week, two shillings, or half-a-crown ? The position needs merely stating in this form for its absurdity to become obvious to even the average journalist. The ”bare subsistence” theory of wages is not Marxian at all. Marx’s theory of wages can only be understood when its historical and social factors are fully comprehended. When Marx analysed the economic workings of capitalist society and formulated his findings thereon, he had seen clearly enough the historical background of that society. In point of fact his conception of the evolutionary process in human, society is complementary to his economic theories. Hence with wages alone their historical and social make-up is amply allowed for in Marx’s system. Perhaps the following reference may give an idea of the truth of this statement.

“His natural wants, such as food, clothing, fuel and housing, vary according to the climatic and other physical conditions of his country. On the other hand, the number and extent of his so-called necessary wants, as also the modes of satisfying them, are themselves the product of historical development, and depend therefore to a great extent on the degree of civilisation of a country, more particularly on the conditions under which, and consequently on the habits and degree of comfort in which, the class of free labourers has been formed.” (“Capital,” Vol. 1, page 150.)

Perhaps this may be sufficient to convey to our critic how enormously wide of the mark he is when aiming his shot at the Marxian ”Law” of wages.

We assure him that with space, time and inclination we could make this position on wages much more illuminating, not only to his own type of Marx-critic, but likewise to many who pay mere “homage” to Marx’s work. The theories of Marx are not to be dismissed by a mere article in a half-baked serio-pseudo-scientific journal. If only the tiniest fraction of the time Marx spent in formulating his theories were spent by those who criticise them in an effort to understand them, much that is said against Marxism might never see the light of day.

However, before concluding, there are one or two further points made by our opponent to be touched upon. He says Marx failed to see or foresee ”three very important factors in the development of capitalism.” There are (1) the invention of the Joint Stock Company, by which the ownership of capital was widely distributed amongst all but the very poorest classes, (2) the political power of organised labour, which has led. especially in England, to the steadily increasing comfort and security instead of the increasing misery of the wage-earning class, (3) the development, especially in America, of a very large measure of equal economic opportunity for all classes.

Surely John O' London's Weekly is large enough to contain “facts and figures” to help sustain these unsupported assertions. Why were these not given? We suggest that Mr. Clifford Sharp, even if he had the desire to prove his case, found himself utterly unable to do so. A series of mere assertions hardly merits a detailed reply; they merely call for an explanation of their validity. For our part we summarily dismiss the three statements above as being contrary to the facts. Perhaps Mr. Sharp will oblige with the information to prove how capital is so widely distributed to permit any appreciable number of the workers to be “interested” in Joint Stock Companies. To prove the steadily increasing comfort of the workers when compared with the increasing wealth of the capitalist class, not merely in this country and America, but throughout the world. That reference to the ”political power of organised labour” really wants some beating, for as workers ourselves we haven’t the faintest notion that organised labour has gained such power. However, any criticism of Marxism, to be complete, must take in the “class war” theory. Mr. Sharp does this, but with an equally faulty method of attack. Marx postulated the theory of class struggles, but largely because he saw the class struggle in modern society in operation. That struggle is no more the invention of Marx than the earth’s motion around the sun is the invention of Copernicus. The struggle is patent to all who want to see it. Maybe the working class as a whole do not realise it in theory, but they are made to feel its effects in practice. The essential feature of the struggle is economic, the conflict which inevitably arises through the ownership of the means of life being the property of a class, with its consequent exploitation of those who, without such ownership, are compelled to toil for others in order to live. In its final analysis the struggle resolves itself into a class war in that each class consciously fights to retain or gain mastery of the means of life through political forces. The foregoing has been a factor of historical development throughout historic times, as may be gathered from a study of past history from the time of tribal communism. Here Marx was on ”safe ground,” for his theory of “social revolution.”

But our critic falsifies this position in every way. He says that Marx “did not ask the workers to understand his economic doctrines, he did not even invite them very urgently to arise and throw off their economic bonds.” Marvellous! For we have powerful recollections of Marx writing the slogan, “Workers of the world, unite,” and likewise have noted the extreme care taken by Marx to make his theories rightly understood by the workers. But our opponent merely makes these points as a means of leading up to a further falsification of Marxism. The revolution is alleged to be meant by Marx as a ”catastrophic event ”— ”as something which, when the time was ripe, would happen, as it were, in a single night.” Why the night time should be chosen is not stated, but we presume that, like the celebrated ”bogey man,” ” he likes the dark whose deeds are evil.” We are told that Marx wanted the working class to ”organise itself not in order to seize power by political methods, but in order to be able through its leaders to exercise power when power fell, miraculously, as it were, yet of historic necessity,

into its hands.” Our immediate comment here is that Mr. Sharp must himself be suffering from an acute attack of “ Russianitis.” The Bolshevik bogey of revolution from nowhere must have appeared in his dreams and he has mistaken it for Marx’s idea of social revolution. Thus does he say that, “a Marxian political party has always been something of a contradiction in terms.” But we reply to the contrary. The organisation of the working class for the control of the political machinery is of the very essence of Marxism. Who was it who said that the working class must first of all acquire political supremacy? Marx. Who actually participated in the demand for the extension of the franchise where such had not yet been gained by the workers ? Marx.

"The irony of history,” says Engels, Marx’s great co-worker, ” turns everything upside down. We, the 'revolutionists,' the ‘upsetters,’ we thrive much better with legal than with illegal means in forcing an overthrow. The parties of order, as they call themselves, perish because of the legal conditions set up by themselves.” This certainly sounds like Marxism insisting upon the political organisation of the working class. But to a Marx critic it may mean anything different from what it does actually mean.

It is significant that every attack upon the teachings of Marx should be based upon a fabrication of his writings. But the intellectual bankruptcy of the ruling class becomes more pronounced as time proceeds. They with their hirelings are driven from pillar to post to find a rational defence for their system. But the vital truths of Marxism are as a bulwark against the ablest of capital’s apologists. Their periodic and spasmodic displays of ”learning” in Marx criticism merely leave Marxians to humorously feel like repeating the Biblical incantation of old, "If these be your gods O Israel.”

Robertus.

Concluded.

SPGB Meetings (1938)

Party News from the October 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For August. (1914)

Party News from the August 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1937)

Party News from the July 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Who are the malingerers? (1938)

From the July 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

To be unemployed means to be without work to do. But who is likely to worry much about that ? Does work give us such a grand and glorious feeling that we need lose sleep over its absence?

It may be true, it certainly is true, that labour is “an eternal nature-imposed necessity” to secure the continued existence of the human race, but it is equally true that the march of humanity from savagery to civilisation has been largely motivated by the desire to avoid “work" or to lighten its load. That in this process more and more work has been effected is another side of the story. Whichever way one cares to look at the matter the fact is that work in modern society has assumed such paramount importance that people have actually demanded the "right to work.” It was this that prompted Paul Lafargue, the able and witty son-in-law of Marx, to summon the working class to proclaim the “right to be lazy.”

The Unemployment Assistance Board has undertaken an enquiry into the "causes of prolonged unemployment in individual cases.” Lord Rushcliffe, chairman of the Board, in his report for the year 1937, says that—"It is expected that, as a result of this enquiry, information of great practical importance will be obtained. It has already become clear that there is a considerable number of men and women who have lost interest and are content to remain on unemployment allowance.” The report goes on to point out that—"There are those whose unemployment is due to wilful idleness, who avoid or refuse work when it is obtainable, or throw up jobs upon some flimsy pretext.” It is admitted in this report that the percentage of such cases is small, “but the number is sufficiently large to cause the Board much concern.” That ”much concern” is ominous! From inquiries made in December over 250,000 of the male applicants to the Board were 45 years of age or over, and of such men about 140,000 were 55 years of age or over. Nearly one-third of the men of these ages have been unemployed continuously for three years or more. But the significance of another statement contained in this report may, we are afraid, pass unnoticed. “It is obviously against good policy,” says the report, “that an able-bodied person when out of work and dependent upon public funds for support should be as well off as or, indeed, better off than he would be in work.” What a handsome reward for work there must be that it can be so bluntly stated that men are better off without it.

We are told that half the male applicants declare normal wages of less than fifty shillings per week. In about six per cent., or over 30,000 of the cases, the applicant was receiving an allowance from the Board which was within four shillings of his normal wages. And what is normal wages? The following instances are given in the report. Applicant, aged 48, wife and eight children—scale allowance, 54s., normal wages, 38s., allowance paid, 45s. Applicant, aged 31, wife and seven children—scale allowance, 48s. 7d., normal wages, 40s. 6d., allowance paid, 45s. These are figures that tell their own story, but let us leave it at that for the moment, we have some comments to make. This Britain, which is called ours, but which in reality does not belong to 90 per cent. of the population, is one of the richest parts of the world. Yet, significantly enough, this is but another way of saying that poverty is as commonplace here as anywhere on the earth's surface. For riches and poverty exist side by side under capitalism as surely as night follows day; the one lives, leech-like, on the other’s existence. The wealth of this country or of the world does not descend from heaven, nor does it grow from the earth in the manner of a tropical vegetation.

The rich or ruling class lives, as it can only live, on the proceeds of the labour of the poor, and the poor are the people who are known as workers. They work for the benefit of others because, as things are, they have no other means of obtaining a livelihood. But our highly industrialised, civilised form of society is such that not even all those who are able and willing to work have the opportunity of so doing. At the moment there are roughly about 1,750,000 men and women in this country unemployed. This means that the rich, or employing class, can find no profitable use for them. But the time is past when the ruling class can with safety to itself leave so vast a number of people to starve, they cannot be left to rot and die. Hence we have the “dole” and Poor Law Relief, besides various charity societies ministering to “the poor and needy.” Of course, the whole thing is at bottom a gigantic swindle. For take a glance at the position of those who have need of the dole or Poor Law Relief and charity. They belong to the only useful class in modern society, the only class which actually produces the wealth of the world. The wheels of industry and commerce are dependent for their motion not upon the rich but upon the poor. But what is their reward for all this under capitalism? If the average worker is fortunate enough to be in employment for the major portion of his life, he generally finishes up much as he began, without means and often in debt. Throughout their entire lifetime the workers’ experience is usually a “hand-to-mouth” existence. It has been calculated that out of a total population of 47 millions 13½ millions are seriously undernourished, are compelled to eke out a miserable existence on less than six shillings per week to spend on food.

As we are writing these notes there comes to hand a Press report of a woman charged with stealing goods valued £8 10s. She stated in defence that she stole the goods to sell them to buy food for her children. Two years ago her husband had to go into hospital through eye trouble, the eye was finally removed. Meanwhile, she fell into arrears with the rent and her home was taken from her. When the husband left the hospital he was confronted with the double problem of finding work and a home.

On being asked by the magistrate what she had for dinner the previous day the woman replied—” The children had an egg, I had a corned beef sandwich, and my husband had nothing.”

The woman was placed on probation for twelve months!

The Grand Contrast

But the above state of affairs does not apply to all. The ten per cent. of the population who practically own “this England of ours” experience no such sensations. They live without fear of economic insecurity, in luxury, are never “out of work”—and never in. The same editions of the capitalist Press reporting the case mentioned above and the “concerns” of the Public Assistance Board display picture after picture of the grand scenes at Ascot, that historical annual parade ground of every conceivable kind of social parasite.

“Ascot,” says a leader writer in the Daily Telegraph, “is like the King’s Birthday, the Tower Bridge, the cliffs of Dover, It has a purpose and a meaning. Do not run away with the idea that it is merely a race meeting. It is part of the English scene, as integral as a pack of hounds, a coster in his pearlies or a field of buttercups.” May we say that we haven't the slightest doubt about the integrity of it all. Ascot is as much an integral part of our great British tradition as the poverty of the woman who was placed on twelve months’ probation or that of the workers in general.

The King and Queen lead the way in the Ascot procession, not the stable lads who were recently on strike for a wage barely above the subsistence level. As a prelude a large dinner party was held in the Waterloo chamber of Windsor Castle. At this function the Press announced that the famous Windsor gold plate was in view on a specially-constructed stand and illuminated with tubular lighting. On the racecourse itself, “Beautifully-tailored coats and skirts of pastel-tinted silks were a dress feature.” The Duchess of Kent “wore a triple row of large pearls round her throat, after the style of a choker necklace, and had diamond clips in her hair.” And so on is one celebrity after another described in these Ascot scenes, which might conjure up to the mind the Arabian Nights or a horde of painted savages, whichever way one cares to look at it.

Shortly the King and Queen will visit Paris and their visit is to be marked by a banquet to be held in the Hall of Mirrors.

“M. Carton, President of the Association of the Chefs of France, has called for ten of the best-known chefs to collaborate with him in the preparation of the meal,” There is no mention in this forthcoming event about corned beef sandwiches. Perhaps those are reserved for the French waiters, to remind them of the great slogan of the French Revolution: "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.”

Now the Public Assistance Board have nothing to do with the class of people who dominate the Ascot parades. It is not they who are referred to as malingerers. Yet they are the people who “toil not, neither do they spin.” The wealth they enjoy is obtained from the blood and sweat of the working class. Among the men who are described by the Public Assistance Board as having been continuously unemployed for three years are those who have helped to make possible the wonderful clothes and ornamentation of these Ascot and other “society” gatherings. Malingering is a disease arising from the anarchy generated in human relationships through class exploitation. To live without working, to live above the standard of those who have to work, that is the hall-mark of “success” in capitalist society. Parasitism is an essential part of social life to-day, therefore, the fact that here and there a few who belong to the working class may sometimes attempt to “get by” without work is but mere child's-play when it is compared with the gigantic exploitation by ten per cent. of the population of the other ninety per cent. Socialism will end social parasitism in every form. Experience proves that when people are given decent and reasonably healthy conditions in which to work they do not shrink from the task. Even the report of the Public Assistance Board is compelled to admit that “of the 451,700 homes covered by the inquiry, 415,060, or 91.9 per cent., were described as well-kept, and only 36,640, or 8.1 per cent., ill-kept.” Further, the percentage of “ill-kept homes is, as might be expected, lowest where the dwelling is of good type."

When the workers awaken to an understanding of the causes of their social conditions they will realise the mockery and insults heaped upon them by the real malingerers, those who live upon the proceeds of their exploitation. The Socialist Party urges the working class to study their position to-day and to end it through Socialism.

Robert Reynolds

S.P.G.B. Lecture List, For July. (1914)

Party News from the July 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For December. (1914)

Party News from the December 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For November. (1914)

Party News from the November 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Notes:

'F. Vickers' was Frank Vickers. Harry Young ('Horatio') mentions him in a February 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard. Vickers was one of a handful of SPGBers who went directly over to the Communist Party after the war. 'B. Young' was Byron Young. From a family of SPGBers, his father had been a member of the SDF.  His brother, Percy, was also a longstanding SPGBer. (His parents must have loved their poetry.) A prolific outdoor speaker for the Party, he emigrated to Australia after WW1. He is mentioned briefly in the Socialist Standard in his brother's obituary and his nephew's obituary.

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For October. (1914)

Party News from the October 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

The S.P.G.B. Lecture List September. (1914)

Party News from the September 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1939)

Party News from the June 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Notes:

I don't know if I've noted this on the blog before, but by 1939 Clifford Groves had replaced Frank Grainger as the SPGB's parliamentary candidate in East Ham North. But for the outbreak of the war, there would have been a General Election in 1940 and the first SPGB parliamentary fight would have been in the East End of London. 

Fast forward five years, Groves was still the first SPGB parliamentary candidate but it was now contesting a seat in the west side of London. Groves contested Paddington North at the 1945 General Election. With regards to Frank Grainger - also known as Frank Ginger - according to Ken Weller in Don't Be A Soldier, he ended up as a lecturer for the Economic League. I'd be curious to know the time lag between him stepping down as the SPGB's parliamentary candidate, and when he joined the Economic League. There is no record of when he left the SPGB. I do know that he 'rejoined' the SPGB in 1932 via West Ham branch, and had previously been a member of the CPGB and the IWW. 

Other things of note from the meetings and lectures list:

• 'Robertus' was the party name of Robert Reynolds. By 1940 he had resigned from the party because of its position on the war.
• 'Reginald' was the party name of Augustus Snellgrove, a retired headmaster who had originally been an early party member - not a founder member -  and who had resigned over the WB of Upton Park affair. He rejoined the SPGB in 1933, and was an incredibly active speaker and writer. He is mentioned with affection in Barltrop's The Monument, and it's a crying shame that there was no obituary for him in the pages of the Socialist Standard.

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For June. (1914)

Party News from the June 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1936)

Party News from the December 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

'Raj Hansa' was the pseudonym of Ayana Deva Angadi. More details about 'Raj Hansa' are available at the following link.

SPGB Meetings (1938)

Party News from the September 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

East Ham Parliamentary Area (1938)

Party News from the August 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

In the late 1930s, it was the intention of the East Ham branch of the SPGB to contest the East Ham North parliamentary constituency at the forthcoming General Election and, as evidenced above, serious and systematic activity was undertaken to target the area with socialist propaganda. Frank Grainger was selected as a  Party candidate - only to be replaced later by Clifford Groves when he dropped out of Party activity - and a General Election would have been held in 1940 at the latest. However, war intervened and the next General Election did not take place until 1945, by which time the SPGB had switched their attentions to Paddington North in West London, where Clifford Groves had the honour of being the first SPGB parliamentary candidate.

The SPGB did eventually contest the East Ham South parliamentary constituency when Harry Young was the  party's candidate at the 1950 General Election.

A Bourgeois on Marxism. (1940)

From the March 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The fundamental fallacy of Marxism is the dogmatic assumption that men live by bread alone, and that ‘democracy’ can be expressed in terms of an enforced economic equality.”

So wrote Mr. Wickham Steed, ex-Editor of The Times, in an article on “Liberty and Property” (Reynolds’s News, 4/2/40) But he did not tell us where this assumption is to be gathered from Marx’s theories. Yet, judging by the number of times similar things have been said of Marxism, we feel that the old dictum—repetition is the mother of study—comes well within what has been described as man’s infinite capacity for telling lies. Repeat a thing over and over again, and what may be a myth will easily be accepted as established fact. It is well within the bounds of probability that Mr. Steed, and many another critic of Marxism, really knows different. If they are the well informed men they are supposed to be, they are unlikely to believe in the validity of their criticisms. It is far more probable that they feel an instinctive reaction to the suggestion of the break-up of the system from which they materially benefit. Anyway, the charge that Marxism implies our living by bread alone comes as a strange one from those who will defend a system which has contrived to reduce the mode of living of the actual producers of “bread” to little more than work, bread and bed. Maybe, because Marxism insists that the basis of all human society is economic, the above criticism derives its cause from that source. If this be the case, the objection to Marxism will have to be extended to all biological theory as well, for we humans are not alone in the animal kingdom in requiring the food supply as a primary condition of existence. But to put the widest interpretation on Mr. Steed’s statement, let us take it for granted that he concedes this fact. He might reasonably insist that man has long since shed his animality in that men are much more than biological organisms, that we have a widely different and more complex mode of being than that of the lower animals. Our question will still remain, where does Marxism deny such obvious facts ? There is only one answer that can be reasonably given—nowhere. Marxism, it should be understood, takes men as they are, for good or for bad, with all attributes of humanity, and seeks to explain the movements of human society in the past, with a view to laying a sound foundation for it in the future.

The whole of Marx’s theories led to the determination to secure a form of human society in which the great mass of mankind would be finally removed from a “bread alone” subsistence. Marx perceived that the economic foundation of society must be the primal factor for adjustment in the reconstruction of human social life on a Socialist basis. With this accomplished, the entire mode of living of humanity would follow from that foundation. It would prove, we think, an impossible task to find any great worker in the field of social science who realised more than Marx that human life is composed of a great number of things above those of economic considerations.

But Mr. Steed’s objections are based on the Marxian negation of private property. He says— “that without a modicum of private property neither personal freedom nor democratic government is possible.” But how much property it takes to make a “modicum” Mr. Steed does not say. What he does say, however, is that he realises that freedom is not absolute but relative. But what he may not realise so readily is that this relativity of freedom is largely conditioned by the strivings of men to stretch their personal freedom to an absolute.

Had men, or groups of men, gone about guided by nothing other than their own personal self-interest, it is certain that mankind could never have built up such vast and complex social communities we know in modern times; in fact, they could never have reached civilisation at all.

Human passions and desires need organisation and restraints if we are to live in any form of social system. Vico, “the father of the philosophy of history,” made an important contribution to human thought when he suggested that men’s vices rather than their virtues are the impelling forces which aid towards social union. As Vico puts it—

“Legislation takes man as he is to make of him a being adapted for human society. From ferocity, avarice and ambition—these three vices which lead men astray—it derives the army, commerce and the court, that is to say, the strength, wealth and knowledge of republics, and these great vices, capable of destroying the human race, create social felicity.”

The philosopher, Hegel, said something similar when he observed—

“One thinks he is saying something great if one says that mankind is by nature good, but it is forgotten one says something far greater in the words, ‘man is by nature evil’.”

The full significance of all this, we are compelled to believe, will be missed by our bourgeois critics of Marxism. Whilst neither Vico nor Hegel regarded vices and virtues from the conventional and traditional standpoint, they perceived that the make-up of human society is necessitated by the all-compelling need to curb human action from instinctive passions and desires. The question arises, what is the foundational factor upon which all human society turns ?

To the Marxist, the quest for the wherewithal to live, plus the means and methods of producing such, gives rise to the formation of all social relationships, including the vices and virtues of men and their concepts of freedom, justice and equality, their religions and their philosophies.

For the millionth time let it be stated that Marxism is no doctrine of economic determinism or fatalism. It is men, whole men, men with all their human characteristics, who make history from their action and reaction with their material surroundings. Hence arose our private property condition of society. But its rise did not bring a greater all round freedom. What it did accomplish was freedom for some and slavery for others: it gave us class struggles.

The expansion of private property brought in its trail the bond slavery of ancient times, the serfdom of the middle ages, and the wage-slavery of modern society.

The all-important point to notice is that throughout all these historic social changes, it is the few who have experienced freedom in proportion to their greater control of private property in the means of life.

Given the condition that the means of living are privately owned, it follows as a matter of course that economic subjection must result. Economic freedom must be the basis of all freedom. Whilst no Marxist denies that private property has effected a progressive influence in social development, the fact emerges that every advance in human society has seen a greater division between those who have property in the means of living and those who have not.

The Marxian sees that we have reached a stage n social development where this property condition has become a hindrance to real social progress. Not only do we experience poverty amidst plenty, but the character of present-day property ownership acts as a handicap against the greater volume of wealth we could produce were the productive forces freed from private ownership and control.

The Marxian proposes that such private property shall cease. If a real economic equality is to prevail, only social control of the world’s resources through Socialism can secure its success. There is no half-way house from the Marxian standpoint.

But what of Mr. Steed’s “modicum” of property? If he means that we may own our clothes, our furniture, our musical instruments, our drawings and paintings, together with many other things which human need and culture determine, then he need have no fears. Marxism does not include such property in its objectives. What the Marxian objects to is private property in those things which society as a whole needs, such as the land, mines, mills, railways, ships, and all other productive and distributive forces of social importance. Outside of these agencies of wealth production property confers no power of human exploitation, no power of economic and social subjection of the many by the few.

When Mr. Steed speaks of “democracy” being “expressed in terms of an enforced economic equality,” he must have in view, not the democratic aims of Marxism, but totalitarianism, which is a totally different matter.

His conception of democracy seems to extend no further than the limited form in which it is expressed to-day.

To Mr. Steed and most of the bourgeoisie, the democracy they fear will lapse with the triumph of Marxism is the form which permits the wage-slave to vote for his slavery, and to “voice” his demands, provided, of course, he does not demand too much from those who live by his exploitation.

As Marxians we appreciate even this limited form of democracy; it is of important value to our purpose. But our claim is that the highest democracy can only be attained when the basic condition of human society precludes the possibility of human exploitation through property ownership.

We would draw the attention of Mr. Steed to the following pronouncement of the founders of Marxism, namely, Marx and Engels :—”In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” This does not sound as though Marxism was intended as a denial of all democratic principles. But lest it be suggested that the above reference from Marx is nothing more than a form of words, sentiments which may fail to find material expression under Socialism, let us point out that, in the measure that the means of living are made the common property of the whole of the people, to that extent is the primal condition set to pave the way to the greatest freedom mankind can experience.

Robert Reynolds

How can Hitlerism be destroyed? (1940)

From the February 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

That the Nazi Government, or what has come to be known as Hitlerism, is a menace to the peace of the world, is a fact as much recognised by Socialists as by all those who support the war. No Socialist will deny that all the Hitler regime stands for is repugnant and revolting to every ideal which he strives to establish.

The suppression of free expression of opinion, the concentration camp, the racial persecution and exiling of all people arbitrarily deemed out of sympathy with Nazi-ism, the public and private burning of a vast literature on Socialist and scientific subjects, the untold number of outrages committed by the Gestapo, are things indicative of a form of social life (pardon the phrase) which must befoul the finer feelings of all those worthy to be classed as really human.

Intellectual development cannot be where such conditions are prevalent. And where intellectual forces are stifled, real social material well-being is impossible of attainment. There must be no mistake that Socialists hate Hitlerism in a manner beyond question. It stands out to us calling aloud for destruction. But when we have said all this we have but touched the fringe of the problem presented by the existence of the present German Government. That Government, like that of any other throughout the world, owes its origin and maintenance to definite historical and social causes, in which we include such mass ideology as that upon which all governments largely depend for their existence.

Let us begin at the beginning.

The basic condition for the rivalry between modern states is the quest for profit on the part of those who own the means of living, the land, mines, railways and all such resources of the earth as the whole of mankind needs in order to live. The people who own these vital forces of human life are, in broad outline, represented by those who are in control of the machinery of government. Whether such government be democratic or dictatorship in form, the above statement applies with equal force. It cannot be too often stated that the method of government in all capitalist countries is a sort of  by-product of the same general mode of wealth production and distribution. We leave aside for the moment whether the democratic or dictatorship form of the state in capitalist countries is more favourable for working-class expression and development. One point here is, that in democratic Britain, France and America, as in dictatorship Germany and Italy, wealth is produced primarily for profit. Therein is to be found the secret of the world situation in modern times. Profit represents–is in fact–the unpaid labour of the workers. Every worker must realise that after he has spent his energy in producing things for the capitalist, and after all materials and other items have been provided for, there is a surplus above the amount he gets in wages. When this surplus fails to materialise, capitalist production normally ceases. We describe the surplus wealth taken by the capitalist as surplus-value. The worker labours for the capitalist (when he is permitted to do so) for wages, and the capitalist puts him to work to realise the difference between the wages paid and the value of the worker’s product of labour. “It is this sort of exchange”, says Marx, “between capital and labour upon which capitalistic production, or the wages system, is founded, and which must constantly result in reproducing the working man as working man and the capitalist as capitalist.”

The perpetuation and expansion of the capitalist’s pursuit of surplus-value gave rise to the imperialism underlying modern war. For capital to grow to maturity it must break down national boundaries and seek the world for its sphere of activity and gratification. Hence the conflicts between national groups of capitalists represented by their respective governments backed by armed force.

The phrase, “the workshop of the world”, at one time so aptly applied to this country, indicates an ideological landmark, not merely in the economic history and development of England, but also in that of the other leading capitalist powers. Those who were once the customers of “the world’s workshop” became, in the very nature of the capitalist process, its competitors for markets, trade routes, spheres of influence, and the occupation of strategic positions, or the acquisition of raw materials.

Thus arose the intense rivalry of Britain and Germany, which culminated in the war of 1914-1918. The defeat of Germany in that conflict and the imposing of  the Treaty of Versailles upon her paved the way for the war in which we are once more engaged.

One of the chief architects of the Versailles Treaty, Mr Lloyd George, has said of his own part-handiwork:-

I am one of the four upon whom devolved the onerous task of drafting the treaties of 1919 . . . The conditions that were imposed upon Germany were ruthlessly applied to the limit of her endurance. She paid £2,000,000,000 in reparations. We experienced insuperable difficulties in paying £1,000,000,000 to America–and we are a much richer country than Germany.

We stripped her of all her colonies, confiscating her equipment in those vast territories.

We deprived her of part of her home provinces, some of which she had possessed for over 200 years.

We took her great fleet away from her.

We reduced her army of millions to 100,000 men.

We dismantled her fortresses and we deprived her of artillery, tanks, airplays, broke up all the machinery she possessed for re-equipping herself

It is no part of our Socialist work to shed tears over the demilitarising of Germany or any other capitalist state. But as we look back from the time of the termination of the last war, up to date, we are forced to observe the economic and political consequences which called forth the author of Mein Kampf and his gang as the heads of a great state. Hardly had the Versailles Treaty been signed than the then German Government began to plot and scheme to defeat it. Hemmed in as Germany was by strong powers like England and France, there is little cause for surprise that, to quote Mr Lloyd George again:-

“When communities are deprived of the protection of law by selfish and unscrupulous interests they generally find refuge in taking the law into their own hands.”

That the thrusting of the Versailles Treaty upon Germany was in principle no worse than the German or Prussian Treaty imposed upon France in 1871, than that imposed upon Roumania at Bucharest, or that on Russia at Brest-Litovsk, is but begging the question. The real point is that capitalist treaty-making is not only no safeguard against wars, but as a sort of storehouse for their recurrence. And so is Europe, perhaps the whole world, once more on the verge of a gigantic slaughter, blinding and maiming; the approximate end to the whole butchery and destruction being beyond reasonable forecast.

The British Government again drags the workers of this country and its colonies into the battlefields on the plea of resisting aggression, as it did in the last “war to end war”. This time we are to smash Hitlerism, as we were in 1914 incited to destroy the Kaiser and his military caste.

But it is not the Nazi form of government as such that the British ruling class seeks to end, but the policy of Hitler’s regime in aiming at the interests of those who own and control the British Empire. Hitler and his murderous thugs might have raped and persecuted, imprisoned and tortured indefinitely, without as much as a stir from the “Mother of Parliaments”. The sacking and slaughter of Abyssinia, the overrunning of Austria and Czechoslovakia, were as much undisputed acts of aggression as that of Poland, but they evoked the British Government to acts of accommodation rather than conflict. Not until it was certain that  Hitler had designs on the dismemberment of the British Empire were the forces of slaughter released by Great Britain and her ally, France.

If the present war is allowed to run its course until one or other of the combatants is crushed, are we likely to witness, if we are still alive, the downfall of the Nazi form of government in Germany, the restoration of some form of democratic social life in Germany, and the maintenance of what democratic means of expression remain in Europe today? If Chamberlain, Daladier and Company are the spokesmen in setting the seal of defeat on Germany, will they invite the “leaders” of the working-class movement to secure that the German workers be permitted to voice their political and social views, whatever they may be? We know from experience they will do nothing of the kind; it is not a matter in which they are the least bit interested. Therefore, the backing of the “Labour Movement” given to the British and French governments is preposterous.

The working-class movement of Europe, even that part of it which claims the war to be one of Democracy versus Nazi Dictatorship, is no more likely to be consulted at the “funeral” of Hitler than they will be granted their emancipation from wage-slavery by the international capitalist class. The real issue before the working class of the world is one of ending its exploitation and all that such entails.

The present war is most likely to bring in its trail, unless it is stopped by working-class action meanwhile, greater misery than the last war, greater and more intensified exploitation, less freedom to achieve our purpose than we now possess, whichever side is triumphant in the struggle.

The German workers must, it seems, be the means of effecting the downfall of the Nazi system of government.

For ourselves we, as Socialists, would render them any service which would assist in their accomplishing the overthrow of their despotic ruling gang, if only to gain for them the immediate means of being able to give expression to their social and political aspirations without fear of being murdered or placed in a concentration camp.

Until the working-class movement in Germany or anywhere else can gain the means of emerging from underground into the daylight, their chances of finally freeing themselves from capitalism through Socialism are well-nigh hopeless. To assist in the war against Germany is not the way by which this can be accomplished, we should be slaughtering the very people we desire to liberate from the Nazi yoke. Moreover, our action then would assist Hitler and Co. to bury still deeper the opposition to his rule. He would point to the unanimity of feeling here to secure it in Germany. We find no valid reason for the support of this war, as we found none for the last war, which left us, of the Socialist Party, more isolated in our opposition than we are today.

When the war of 1914-1918 was at its worst, when the blood-bath was full to overflowing, we said then:

“Every Socialist must, therefore, wish to see peace established at once to save further maiming and slaughter of our fellow-workers. All those who, on any pretext, or for any supposed reason, wish the war to continue, at once stamp themselves as anti-Socialist, anti-working class, and pro-capitalist.” (Socialist Standard, July 1917.)

Quite frankly, facing the matter realistically, we see no immediate prospect of the workers becoming Socialists in sufficient numbers to come to real grips with the capitalist class in a challenge to the latter’s political power. The talk of a Socialist peace, although supremely desirable and necessary, would therefore seem to be Utopian at the moment. If the working class becomes alive to the realities of  the war issue they will see that their first task is to stop the blood-letting, and finally to gain political power for themselves and establish Socialism throughout the world and thus end all wars.

Robertus.