What the Labour Party wants. (1927)

From the September 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the Labour Press Service (August 3rd) is a critical summary of the activities of the Government during the past parliamentary session. The Conservatives are condemned, and we are given the chief Labour proposals which, because they were “aimed at helping the working classes” were “overwhelmingly rejected by the Government and their Tory supporters.”

We need not waste much time over the record of the Conservative Government. They were elected by voters—mainly members of the working class—who want Capitalism and who prefer it to be administered by the Conservative Party. The Conservatives have, naturally, looked after the interests of their own section of the propertied class, and if this has not been approved by those who voted for them, the latter will presumably register their dissatisfaction at the next election.

Now for the Labour Party’s case against the Government:—

“What is the record of the session as it affects the workers ? Firstly, their wages have gone down by nearly a quarter of a million pounds a week. Secondly, scores of thousands of them, having been deprived of their unemployment benefit, have been driven either to the workhouse or to the Relieving Officer. Thirdly, the Government grants in aid of relief work have been cut down by one half, and thousands of willing would-be workers have consequently been turned on to the streets. Fourthly, relations with Russia have been broken off, and many orders for British factories have thereby been jeopardised. Fifthly, the balance of £12,000,000 which stood to the credit of the road fund has been grabbed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and many millions of pounds’ worth of employment on road-making has had to be cancelled. Sixthly, several new taxes have been imposed upon the workers—notably on crockery, tobacco and matches—and all the food taxes have been re-imposed.”

This is a formidable-looking list, and to it have to be added the Trade Union Bill, and one or two other non-financial measures.

The Labour Party in the House opposed all of these, and claims credit for the fact that when they were in office wages went up instead of down. Had they remained in office another year they would have abolished entirely the “iniquitous” sugar tax, and reduced the tax on tea.

Now let us examine the value of the aims the Labour Party has set before itself, itself.

First, there is the increase of wages during the Labour Government’s term of office, contrasted with the decline this year. The Labour Government began in January, 1924, and ended in October, covering eight completed months from February to September. During those months the average of the Board of Trade cost of living indices was 73 per cent. (approx.) above the 1914 level, as compared with 72½ per cent. (approx.) for the same months of 1923. As a result of this slight rise in prices, wages tended to rise, the nett increase being about £500,000 per week.

The average cost of living index for the 6 months from February to July, 1926, was approximately 70 per cent. above the 1914 level; and for the 6 months ended July, 1927, approximately 67 per cent. In consequence of this fall in prices since 1926, wages have fallen by about £250,000 per week. We see, therefore, that this particular claim made by the Labour Party is an empty one. The purchasing power of the workers’ wages was not appreciably different under the two Governments; and in view of the fact that neither of them made any change in the economic organisation of the country, this is as we would expect. The change of Government had no more effect on wages than it had on the weather.

With regard to point number (2) regarding unemployment pay, it is interesting to recall that, under the Labour Government, owing to a tightening up of the administration, many thousands of unemployed workers were deprived of out-of-work pay.

As grants in aid of relief work for the year 1926 amounted to about £6,500,000 (Labour Year Book, p. 88) it would appear from point (3) that the Government has cut down that expenditure by about £3,250,000.

The Conservatives for political reasons broke off diplomatic relations with Russia; the Labour Party would resume them. From the Road Fund, £12,000,000 which might have provided a certain amount of employment on road repairs, has been allocated for other purposes. Sixthly, new taxes have been imposed on crockery, tobacco and matches amounting to a total of about £4,000,000 (Labour Bulletin, May, 1927).

The sugar tax amounts to less than £20 million and the tea tax less than £6 million. These the Labour Government would reduce or abolish. Adding together the various items mentioned, we find a grand total of £45 million which is the kernel of the dispute between Labour and Conservatives. It is assumed by the Labour Party that taxes are a burden on the workers and that they would gain from tax reduction. In fact, this is quite untrue. Even if we assume (which is not always or necessarily the case) that prices fall as taxes are reduced, the workers do not gain thereby, because wages fall correspondingly. In the Ministry of Labour Gazette (July) figures are published showing the movement of prices and wages from 1920 to 1927. Taking March in each year the following gives a rough comparison of the “average percentage increase in weekly full-time wages” and the “average percentage increase in cost of living”— both based on the 1914 level:—

As will be seen from this, during the first year wages and prices were both about 130 per cent. above the 1914 level. In 1921 and 1922 wages were ahead; in 1923, 1924 and 1925 prices were ahead; and in the last two years wages were slightly above the price level again. On the whole, wages followed prices fairly closely. The purchasing power of the workers remained almost constant. Remission of taxes, if it caused lower prices, would benefit not the workers but their employers, if prices remained the same, the manufacturers would benefit. If this were not so the employers and the manufacturers of the articles affected would not constantly be agitating for lowered taxes. Taxes are a burden on the propertied class. The struggle is an internal one, each group of capitalists trying to “pass it on” to another group. This is the non-working class issue on which the Labour Party concentrates its attention.

But let us put aside for the moment the question as to who pays the taxes. Let us suppose that this sum of £45 million is, as the Labour Party says, a burden on the workers. Still, the Labour Party deserve condemnation. They seek the support of the workers to fight out the question of this £45 million. It is the chief plank of the more permanent part of their programme. On it they fight tenaciously, but on the question which matters they are forever silent. The amount of unearned income, calculated for the purpose of the income tax is about £1,200 millions per year (The National Income, 1924, Bowley & Stamp, p. 47). The Labour Party will put up a strenuous fight for £45 millions, but have nothing to say about the £1,200 millions. They strain at the gnat and swallow the camel. The expenditure on unemployment pay and Poor Law Relief is less than £80 millions a year all told, yet in face of this £1,200 millions pocketed by non-wealth producers, the Labour Party can only charge the Conservatives with failure to spend a few millions on the unemployed.

The Socialist case is fundamentally different from that of the Labour Party, We point to the fact that out of the wealth annually produced by the workers a large proportion is retained and consumed by the employing class merely because they are property owners. Professor Clay states (“Manchester Guardian,” Feb. 19, 1925) that 94.5 per cent. of the population receive only 56 per cent. of the national income. This is due to the fact that the means of wealth production are privately owned. The same authority declares (“Daily News,” Aug. 2, 1927) that 76 per cent. of the population own only 7 per cent. of the capital of the country, while 6 per cent. own 81 per cent. of the capital. The workers are poor because of the existence of a wealthy class living by owning property. Our aim is to dispossess that class. The aim of the Labour Party is to dicker about a paltry £45 million. If every one of the points mentioned here were to be put into operation by a Labour Government, the workers would still be wage-earners, producing wealth for the propertied class. They would still be poor in the presence of the power to produce wealth in abundance. The choice for the workers is between Socialism and Capitalism. If they choose Capitalism, it matters little whether it is administered by Liberals, Conservatives or the Labour Party.

Edgar Hardcastle

Songs and Revolution. (1927)

From the September 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the course of our work as Socialist propagandists we frequently come in contact with people who appear to imagine that the bulwarks of capitalism will collapse as the result of much lusty singing of the “Red Flag.” No “Labour” meeting is considered a success unless this or some similar ditty is borne upon the night air, with or without orchestral accompaniment. What the arguments presented at such gathering’s lack in logic is amply made up for by vociferation. This attitude of mind recalls the legend of the Walls of Jericho falling before the blasts of the trumpets of the Children of Israel. In fact, idealism generally has its roots far back in the magic past, although it serves a very useful purpose to the capitalist class of the present day, as we shall endeavour to show.

The following is an extract from an article in the “Daily Chronicle” of July 20th entitled, “Music; the Life Force,” by Dr. Leigh Henry :

“The French Revolution was the outcome of a reaction in music.

When Rouget de Lisle wrote “La Marseillaise” he roused the people to such an inflammatory pitch that they rose in arms and overthrew their tyrants, only to create a greater and more powerful one; but it was a German, Theodore Korner, who brought about the downfall of Napoleon by going among his countrymen and singing to them old folk songs and poems of revolt which past generations had handed down.”

Dr. Leigh Henry may be an authority on musical forms, but his notions of history are laughable. He might as well ask us to believe that the War and the Allied victory in 1918 were due to the influence of “Mademoiselle from Armentiers,” or “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” ; but let us examine his illustration a little more closely.

The French Revolution resulted in the triumph of the Third Estate (or middle class) over the feudal nobility, with the monarch at their head. The convocation of the National Assembly, the imprisonment and eventual execution of the Royal Family, the war with Austria, and Europe generally, were simply events in the struggle for supremacy of the bankers, merchants, shopkeepers and manufacturers in the towns, assisted by the lawyers and by the peasantry in the country at large. As this, that, or the other section of the insurgent mass asserted itself, so group after group of leaders were pushed forward or thrust aside.

All the so-called great men of the epoch from Mirabeau to Napoleon were simply the tools, conscious or otherwise, of the rising class.

At this period, owing to the undeveloped state of French industry, the number of wage-workers in the country was comparatively small, and their political influence, such as it was, fell into the scale on the side of the capitalist revolutionaries. The peasants hankered after the land, and did in fact secure a greater degree of control than they had till then possessed; but the richest estates, including those of the clergy, were seized by the Government and auctioned off to the highest bidders. Thus the poor remained poor. Instead, however, of performing forced labour for the aristocrats, they commenced to slave to fill the pockets of the tax-gatherer and the usurers.

On this basis was erected the First Empire, and the problem of a bankrupt national exchequer was solved. No sooner had they dealt with their feudal enemies at home than the French capitalist class found themselves set upon by the remaining feudal monarchies of Middle and Eastern Europe and the capitalist government of Britain; the former feared the spread of the Revolution, the latter could hardly favour the rise of a new commercial competitor.

Conscription filled the armies of Napoleon as taxation filled his purse. Nevertheless he was idolised by the very peasantry who bled for his glory, both financially and physically.

The “Marseillaise,” which inflamed the imagination of the insurgent capitalists, became the National Anthem in the hour of their triumph, and in spite of temporary eclipses, still holds that place of “honour.”

That the German folk-songs assisted in stimulating the more simple-minded of the German peasants to enable their overlords to regain their lands and power from the hated upstart, Napoleon, may be granted; but the actual force which mobilised the German armies was the same pressure which every ruling class is in a position to bring to bear upon its slaves. In other words, the musical accompaniment of historical events plays a secondary part in determining their character.

The primary factor is the economic development of the society concerned.

The “Marseillaise” or “God save the King” would be quite unintelligible to the inhabitants of Central Africa or the South Sea Islands, owing to their totally different stage of development and mode of life, giving rise to different groups of ideas, including notions of musical taste and methods of expressing emotion.

Similarly, the barbarians celebrate birth, initiation, marriage, war, and death with rhythmic monotones which appear positively weird to the European. They may haunt him, but he would hardly describe them as melodious. The nearest approach to their effect is that of the Church chants, which are little more than modified survivals of the dirges droned out by the slaves in the catacombs of Rome. In the ancient and medieval worlds, music was practically inseparable from religion, first of the pagan, later of the Christian variety.

Even the lays of the troubadours combined profanity with mysticism; as the bloody sagas of the Norsemen would be incomplete without reference to the gods of Valhalla.

With the grand operatic masters of the 18th and 19th centuries a change is evident. From Mozart to Wagner they all exhibit the influence of the economic and political upheaval which characterised their age.

The rise of the capitalist class was reflected in the musical world by the triumph of the secular principle. The church choir gave way to the stage chorus, which provided an enhancing background for the efforts of individual vocalists.

The destruction of the old village life by modern industry spelt the death knell of the ballad and the folk-song. These mediaeval modes of expression have been supplanted by the music-hall ditty, while the negroes of America have avenged their enslaved ancestors by infecting their 100 per cent. American masters with jazz tunes and “spirituals.”

This interesting resurrection of the primitive seems to indicate that capitalism has reached the limits of originality in art, just as, on the economic plane, it condemns the masses to an ever-worsening standard of living. To avoid misunderstanding, the writer would add that, while jazz has much that can be said in its favour when compared with the stilted products of the Victorian epoch, it nevertheless represents a reaction rather than an advance. It is a symptom of the decay and break-up of the classical musical tradition, but it gives little indication of what will take its place.

The struggle of the working class for emancipation has yet to make its mark, but when it does it can hardly leave the dance-hall and the theatre as it finds them. As the workers acquire leisure, they will develop their critical faculties in other directions besides that of economics. When they enter freely into possession of the fruits of their labour, they will have something to make a song about. Till then, perhaps, we shall have to put up with the “International” and the “Red Flag.”

Eric Boden

Business experts and their bubbles. (1927)

From the September 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the Socialist Standard (July) we criticised some statements made in “Business Organisation” (April). We said that the coming of Socialism would dispense with the need for coercive State institutions, as there would be no subject class to govern and repress. To this and other criticisms “Business Organisation” (August) now takes exception. They offer no evidence to show our statement unsound. Their retort is to call it “a farrago of nonsense.”

As every student of social science knows, the State did not always exist; it is a product of society at a stage of evolution. Through different forms, its essential character has been a power of coercion apart from the mass of the people. To-day we know it as the Parliamentary State, in which the subject class, the workers, are enfranchised. The State is the executive of the present ruling class (the Capitalists), and it protects and maintains their ownership of property because the slave class politically permit it. Even a Capitalist authority could inform our critics. The Britannica Encyclopaedia (llth ed.) says :—

“The word state expresses the abstract idea of government in general, or the governing authority, as opposed to the governed.”

“Business Organisation” asks :— 

In whom would the ownership of the means of Production, Distribution and Exchange be vested under Socialism if not in the State ?

If they had troubled to read our object and Principles, they would have seen that Production and Distribution (no Exchange) could only be vested in Society, the whole people, as distinct from the Capitalist few, any other method (State Capitalism, for instance) would still retain private ownership, and therefore class society. Who, they ask, “would organise the maintenance of supplies in this classless society” ? These are the business experts who accuse us of talking nonsense ! Who organises supplies to-day? The Landlords, the Shareholders, and the Dummy Directors or the Working Class? What the workers now do for idlers, surely with growing intelligence they can do for themselves. It is in politics they are ignorant, not in production. When wealth is no longer produced for profit, i.e., when the workers cease to be exploited, Exchange as a means to realise that profit or unpaid labour will be as unnecessary as the State. Our opponents do not deny the continued growth of trusts, and amalgamations, but they claim that these ensure a wider distribution of wealth, which benefits the wage-earning class. To explain the growth of the large concern, we evidenced the fierce competitive pace of to-day, the recurring bankruptcies, and the elimination of the small independent Capitalist by the cheaper and more economical methods of large scale production. The way our opponents attempt to refute fundamental tendencies is to charge us with suppressing certain figures which, they say, prove the growth of these embryonic wage-earning “Capitalists.” We also confuse “proprietorship of wealth with its organisation.” The figures “Business Organisation” quoted in their April issue were those given by Walter Runciman in a speech made on March 18th, 1925, upon “The Distribution of Wealth.” Here are their own words and the figures :—

“The Socialists, chief among the propagandists of ill-will in our modern states may be invited to draw what comfort they can from Mr. Walter Runciman’s arresting figures of the growth of small investors. . . . There are to-day, he added, over 15 million small investors, chiefly members of wage-earning households, whose total holdings in the Post Office, in Trustee and Railway Savings Banks, National Saving Certificates, Life and Annuity Funds, Building Societies and other Approved Societies, amount to the colossal figures of £1,776,247,000.”

There isn’t any evidence given that, in the main, these are workers’ savings. An individual would appear as a separate “Capitalist” as many times as the number of concerns in which he could have investment. As evidence of working class prosperity, they are, to say the least, unreliable; even a Liberal Economist recognised this, for Professor Clay, of Manchester University, wrote to the “Times” (24/3/25) regarding them. We ourselves criticised them, and quoted Professor Clay’s letter in the Socialist Standard over two years ago (April 1925). Part of that quotation will be sufficient here. It says :—

“Whether the tendency is in the direction of greater equality of distribution or not, progress in that direction has not been great, and what Mr. Runciman calls the stupendous total of £777,834,000 is not more than 5 per cent. of the national capital—not a large proportion to be held by “15 million capitalists.” On the other hand, allowing a considerable margin for error, it is probably safe to say that over two-thirds of the national capital is held by less than 2 per cent, of the people. (“Times,” 24/3/25.)

In any case, income does not determine a man’s social position when we have to deal with class interests. One individual may be independent on an income of £500 a year derived from investment, another may draw a salary, equal in amount, for the sale of services which economic necessity compels him to sell in order to live : the latter is a member of the working class, whether he likes the classification or not. Again, a Capitalist may, and often does, retain part of his former wealth after the weeding out process has deprived him of his former independent Capitalist status, but his troubles are by no means ended. In large concerns a few generally own the bulk of the stock, and the existence of the small investor is an uncertain one, to say nothing of the organised methods of relieving him of his “all.” International competition, with quickly glutted markets, litters the industrial battlefield with casualties, otherwise the bankruptcy courts would cease to function.

True, Capitalism has brought into existence a small section of higher paid workers, managers, supervisors, specialists, etc., but they, too, find their struggle and existence as keen and precarious as the great body of their class. The march of time compels the recognition of facts once strenuously denied. Ramsay Muir, a prominent Liberal, speaking at the Liberal summer school on the “Distribution of the Ownership of Capital,” drew attention to the fact, “not commonly realised, namely, that in this country there is a larger true proletariat or propertyless mass than in any other country in the world” (“Daily News,” 2/8/27). Another defender of Capitalism, Harold Cox, in the “Daily Mail” (26/7/27), commenting on the fact that there are only 2,300,000 persons chargeable with income tax, says :—

“That minority is even smaller than the figures of 2,300,000 suggests, for a very large number of income tax payers are paying quite rightly a comparatively small tax. The main burden falls on persons with fairly large incomes who are numerically a minute fraction of the population. . . . More than half of the direct taxes in Great Britain and Northern Ireland is provided by 100,000 people, whereas there are over 21 million electors.”

This makes our 15 million Capitalists look “small,” about 13 million do not receive enough wealth on which to pay income tax. An analysis of the distribution of wealth, therefore, gives us enormous wealth in the hands of the few, while the great majority own between them only a fraction of the total wealth, and are consequently compelled to work in some capacity or other to live. The writer of the above (H. Cox) also gives us some evidence of the effects of the worsening of the workers’ position. He says :—

“In round figures pauperism in 1914 represented 21 per 1,000 of the population, and in 1927, as above stated, just under 40 per 1,000. It is, therefore, not far from the truth to state that the proportion of paupers to self-dependent citizens has doubled since 1914.” (“Sunday Times,” 31/7/27.)

Certainly a wider distribution — of pauperism. From Gladstone to Lloyd George, from Malthus to Chiozza Money, all have had to confess to the growing contrasts of wealth and poverty. Marx and Engels scientifically explained the cause. Marx did not expect the workers to win Emancipation as a result of poverty itself. He specifically refuted that view. What he emphasised was the relative worsening of the workers’ position as a class, and with the consequent growth of class consciousness, the struggle for Emancipation. Capitalism, in its development, is carrying out Marx’s predictions. It has swelled the ranks of the workers in proportion to the other section of society. Machinery and modern methods render more and more workers redundant. Wage slavery, high or low paid, cannot prevent these worsening conditions, because the workers’ opportunity to enjoy the results of their increasing productivity is denied them by the present outworn system of production for profit. Private property in the means of life allows an idle class to monopolise the benefits, the privileges, the comforts. Disciplined, united, and organised by the very system that enslaves them, the workers will acquire the knowledge that will set society free from the last phase of class exploitation.

W. E. MacHaffie

Labour Party refuses to debate. (1927)

Party News from the September 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

On July 24th, a Mr. A. Axelrad challenged one of our speakers to debate the merits of the Socialist Party and the South-West Bethnal Green (Divisional) Labour Party. On July 30th we wrote to that body asking for their confirmation of the challenge. On August 15th the Secretary wrote to say that his party “cannot favourably consider” the proposal to debate which was put forward by their own treasurer, Mr. Axelrad. Mr. Axelrad will in future no doubt exercise more discretion, and remember that his party are not prepared to defend their case against Socialist criticism. It is interesting to note that this very retiring Labour Party is not the “official” body affiliated with the National Labour Party, but a branch which has been put outside for its “left wing” deviations. Its presiding genius is Mr. J. J. Vaughan. We have been unable to learn that it differs from its parent body in any respect of importance. Like the National Labour Party, it advocates the reform of capitalism, not its abolition.

Editorial Committee.

Letter: Is the vote a weapon? Some questions and our reply. (1927)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

Comrades,—I am prompted to ask the following questions after having read article “Backward Race ” in August S.S,

First of all, I had better state that I am not an “Industrial Unionist” or an “Anti-Parliamentarian.” I agree with the words of Marx that “the workers must first of all acquire political supremacy” in order to control the State machinery for the sole purpose of establishing Socialism.

(1) Yet how are our black comrades to get hold of the State forces if they are “disfranchised” and “legally barred from effective participation in most political activities in South Africa”? Would the S.P.G.B. oppose the agitation of “disfranchised” workers, such as our black fellow workers for the vote, because it was not Socialism?

(2) Does the S.P.G.B. lay it down that the workers can only “acquire political supremacy” through Parliament? I fully agree that this is the only method known at the present time in Great Britain, or in any other country where the workers have the majority of the votes !

(3) Would Socialism be impossible to establish if the workers are without votes? I am not suggesting that the Capitalists have only to disenfranchise the workers whereby making Socialism impossible. That would, I think, not be possible under a highly industrialised country. Am I correct?

(4) When South Africa becomes industrialised, will our fellow black workers be enfranchised by the Capitalists? I am not wanting you to be prophets, but it is a historical fact that, in countries that begin industralism, the franchise is a necessity for the carrying on of the Capitalist system?

Has the Franchise ever been granted to the workers in any country without agitation?

Yours fraternally,

T. W. C.

Clapham.

Reply.

For convenience I have numbered “T. W. C.’s” questions.

(1) It is obvious that the black workers cannot unaided gain political control in South Africa against the might of those who govern, backed up, as the latter are, by the full strength of capitalist Britain. We would strongly urge them to agitate for the franchise, although it is plain that workers who have only just begun to organise, and have had no political experience, are not yet possessed of the knowledge and confidence necessary for the establishment of Socialism.

(2) The S.P.G.B. is concerned primarily and directly with conditions in this country, and our Declaration of Principles is framed accordingly. Speaking generally, however, we may say that the centralised political machinery of the Capitalist State (whatever its name and its peculiarities in different countries) must be controlled by a working class seeking to establish Socialism.

In passing, it is interesting to see how the Irish Republicans, in spite of all their brave words and threats of civil war, have been compelled to enter the Southern Irish Parliament as the only alternative to political extinction.

De Valera says :—

“The alternatives with which the new Free State legislation confronted them were to resign their responsibilities, to dissolve their organisation, sacrifice everything they had built up, or to take the step they took”. (“Manchester Guardian,” 23 August.)

Here we have a striking illustration of the power of Parliament, in spite of the fact that the Free State Parliament is still in its infancy, and that the Government has only a bare majority of votes. (Of course, the Republicans are as Capitalist as their opponents.)

(3) In the long run, the Capitalist State, in its modern developed form, needs representative government as a means of maintaining stability and carrying on the increasingly complex work of administration. In spite of the post-war fascist movement, there has been no general tendency to limit the franchise. Here and elsewhere the tendency is to extend it still further.

(4) The black workers (in Cape Colony only) did possess a limited franchise, which, owing to their own backward condition, has not been of any particular value to them. Under the recent “Colour Bar” legislation, a new and more limited form of representation is to be given to black workers throughout the South African Federation.

We can fairly confidently predict that, in due course, the backward workers drawn into the realm of capitalist production will be given the vote. It must not be forgotten that the Capitalists are themselves divided into groups with sectional interests. While there remains in existence a body of disfranchised workers, there is always the inducement to the competing Capitalist groups to add to their influence by a campaign for the extension of the franchise. Instances are numerous. In this country, after the mainly working class Chartist movement had failed to secure votes for the workers, the Radical movement, under John Bright, rallied them. The objects of the Radicals were entirely capitalist, and their working-class supporters were regarded, and were, in effect, simply so many potential “voting cattle,” to be thrown into the struggle against rival propertied interests.

In Chicago this year the new Mayor, Thompson, appealed directly to the negro vote (hitherto left severely alone). Thompson won, and it is certain that the bosses of other political groups in America will in due course be compelled to bring the negro into the political arena, however little they may like doing so.

In Kenya Colony, during the heated struggle between the Indian trading class and the British landowners (who were in political control), the Indians threatened to start an agitation among the millions of blacks, intending to use them simply as a weapon against the whites.

In South Africa there has always been acute bitterness between the mineowners, who want to employ more cheap black labour and less white, and the white workers, who thought to resist a lowered standard of living by laws preventing the introduction of blacks into white men’s jobs. The Boer farmers, who resented the loss of their cheap black labour by migration to the mining areas, support the white trade unionists. In the great strike and riots of 1922 the mine owners already talked of supporting the claims of the blacks to political equality as a means of outvoting the white workers and Boer farmers, and it is inevitable that one or other of the political parties will sooner or later seek to gain kudos and votes by advocating an extended black franchise.

The franchise has certainly been extended without the existence of any strong agitation on the part of those who received it. (So far as can be seen, there is no strong demand for the vote among women under 30 years of age, who are promised the vote.) Clearly, however, there must be some degree of political knowledge and interest before it would be worth while giving votes. There must, for instance, be sufficient interest to make the newly enfranchised take the trouble to record their votes. What has usually happened in the past is that the struggles of the rising Capitalists for a place in the political sun has communicated some of its enthusiasm to the ranks of the workers underneath, and served to create interest.

Edgar Hardcastle

Letter: What is capital? (1927)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Critic” writes objecting to a statement made by “Gilmac” in an article, “The Source of Wealth” in the March “S.S.” The offending passage was “Capital is wealth used in a way that profit results from such use.” “Critic” says that, “Capital is capital whether profits or losses accrue from the use of wealth.”

“Critic” also writes the following :—

“The S.P.G.B. argue that the workers pay neither rates nor taxes; that the workers do not contribute to rates or taxes in the prices they pay for food, clothing, and shelter.

“If so, why the rush on the part of merchants and such people to take tea, tobacco, etc., out of bond before the operation of a new Budget.”

A Critic.

Answers.

Question 1 : Our critic is too smart entirely; but why did not he quote the following sentence? Let me assist him with the quotation in full :

“Capital is wealth used in a way that profit results from such use. Strictly speaking, capital is money invested.”

Of course, from the point of view of a definition, it does not matter whether profits or losses accrue, hence the statement “money invested.” The first sentence was intended to be no more than a general statement (which is quite correct) to introduce the substance of the article, “The Source of Wealth,” a few paragraphs on profit.

Question 2 : “The rush on the part of merchants and such people to take tea, tobacco, etc., out of bond before the operation of a new Budget” is due to their fear that the new Budget may cut into their profits. What this has to do with the payment or non-payment of rates and taxes in food prices, etc., is too subtle for me to grasp. Perhaps our critic will explain at greater length.

Gilmac.

Letter: Who invented capitalism? (1927)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Questioner Answered.

QUESTION 1.

“To speak of a Capitalist ‘System’ implies that at some date in history there was a DELIBERATE plan laid down—on paper—for the formation of that system. A plan, in which those who had would continue to own that wealth, while those who had no wealth should continue in that position.

“Who were the people who laid down this plan, and at what date and place was it done? What is the name of the document, and is it to be seen or obtained?”

“Curious.”

Answer.

It seems to me that the author of this question is trying to be funny. If so, then I would recommend him, before making such facetious remarks, to glance at a dictionary and find out the meaning of the commonly used word he is writing about.

A “system” is, any assemblage of things forming a regular and connected whole. The name given to such a system depends upon outstanding features of the things under consideration. For instance, we find the immediate heavenly bodies acting upon each other according to a certain order, forming a connected whole, the first of which is the sun—we call this order the solar system. We look into society at different periods and find different social forms, each as a connected whole having as outstanding features certain economic arrangements. At one time it is the exaction of dues in place of military service by the owners of land—the feudal dues of the feudal system ; at another time it is the ownership of the wealth produced by virtue of the investment of capital—as in the capitalist system.

Particular social systems are not necessarily laid down beforehand, one grows out of another owing to the development of a new form (or a latent form) in the older system. When the new form grows to such proportions that its further development is seriously hampered by the system suited to the older form, then a revolution takes place and the old system is swept away, giving place to the new. Within the feudal system, production for sale was originally a relatively minor economic form, but owing to various agencies, among them the discoveries that opened up a world market, production for sale brought into its circle of influence practically the whole of society in given countries, and those engaged in this sphere found they were constantly coming up against the laws and arrangements of feudalism. First in England and then in France, a successful effort was made to destroy the old shackling forms and remodel society according to arrangements suited to the new. Social philosophers in England and in France, prior to the revolutions, laid down very definitely “deliberate” plans “on paper” of what the new order should be like, and if “Curious” is sufficiently interested to read some of those plans, he could do worse than read ”Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham,” by Harold J. Laski, in the Home University Series.

Gilmac.

A. Yates (Hanley). — Will reply next issue.

F. L. Rimington (Leicester). — Your letter and reply crowded out of this issue. — Ed. Comm.

Letter: Do We Support Strikes? (1927)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent writes concerning the attitude of the Socialist Party towards strikes, etc. We print his letter and our reply below:—

Eltham, S.E.9.

Dear Sir,

I see from the "Socialist Standard” that the S.P.G.B. is in debt, which debt was incurred in paying fines for members who were summoned under The Emergency Powers Act.

Cannot you publish a few details? As I understand it, the S.P.G.B. does not believe in the usefulness or utility of industrial action. Surely, therefore, they could not have supported the last strike, or for that matter, any strike, and although I recognise that your members who are also members of trade unions must strike with their fellow workers, to be consistent to their principles they should not take an active part in such strikes. By active, I mean the part of the agitator who, unlike the S.P.G.B. orators who appeal to the reason and could not possibly come within the law, adopt the theatrical tactics of the Communists.

As I feel details of these proceedings would place in our hands valuable propaganda, perhaps you may see your way clear to meet my request.

Yours fraternally,

Alastor.

REPLY.

Our correspondent seriously misunderstands the attitude of the Socialist Party. We do not now, nor have we in the past, condemned economic organisation and strikes.

If "Alastor” were a regular reader of this journal he would know that we fully recognise the necessity and usefulness of trade unions under the Capitalist system. Our criticism of them takes two main lines: (1) that much of their activity is directed to useless objects, such for instance as their support of the Labour Party and other non-Socialist political bodies, and their wartime assistance in recruiting, etc.; and (2) that even where their intention is good, they frequently dissipate their strength or allow themselves to be side-tracked. The struggle to increase wages and improve working conditions, or to resist attacks upon these, are objects which receive our unqualified support, and we therefore condemn every endeavour to weaken the unions by subordinating working-class interests to the so-called needs of the "country” or of the "industry,” which in effect mean the interests of the employing class.

Lastly we continually point out that, while trade unions and strikes are useful for certain purposes, they are not the means of emancipating the working class. That—the one question of first importance—can be achieved only by the conquest of political power through Socialist political organisation.

(For further matter on this point, see our Manifesto.)

"Alastor" also fails to understand the nature of "law" and of political control and the powers it gives. The Capitalist class are in political control and—within the limits set by the Capitalist economic system —can make what laws they like and have their police and their judges interpret those laws as they choose. Normally they do not choose to make any political propaganda illegal. During the war, and again during the industrial troubles of 1926, they adopted a more repressive policy. Last year when some of the police were in a state of panic, it became well nigh impossible to hold meetings in certain areas without charges being made. These charges—as was admitted by the Judge at the trial of one of our members —did not rest on the substance of the speech, but on the possible effect of the words on members of the audience, or even on casual passers-by who heard a stray phrase only.

If the ruling class allow certain activities to go on it is because the stability of their system is vitally bound up with representative government. When it suits them they can, and on occasion do, make "appeals to the reason” illegal, and treat them accordingly.—Ed., Comm.

Editorial: Crime and Punishment. (1927)

Editorial from the September 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti.
All the world has been stirred by the execution of the two Italians, Sacco and Vanzetti, in Massachusetts, U.S.A. The workers, generally speaking, have assumed their innocence, and have seen in the case the vindictiveness of a ruling class which manipulates the machinery of the law against propertyless wage-earners. Legal circles in this and other European countries have been shocked by the glaring defects, of a judicial system which can keep men for seven years in jail, and still, in spite of manifest doubts as to their guilt, contemplate their execution. And hundreds of thousands of ordinarily humane people, who accept the original verdict of the American Courts, and do not think of reading class bias into the case, nevertheless felt impelled to protest against the brutality of adding to the sentence of death the torture of seven years' suspense.

By far the most significant and promising aspect of the tragedy has hardly been mentioned. We refer to the statement made by American newspapers that the attitude of propertied circles who resisted the release of these prisoners was frankly based on the interests, real or imaginary, of the ruling class in Massachusetts. They said, in effect, that, guilty or not guilty, Sacco and Vanzetti were men with opinions dangerous to the privileges of the capitalist class, and the latter needed, therefore, no other justification for taking their lives. This is naked and cynical class interest, the bold casting aside of the conventional cloak of the law. But we welcome it as a sign of the passing of the whole of the senselessly cruel and ineffective apparatus of "justice," which will have no place in the more rational social order at which we aim. We reject the self-righteousness of the timid nonconformist Labour conscience which mocks the victims of that modern Inquisition, the Law, by enquiring into their guilt or innocence. If Sacco and Vanzetti were "guilty," it would make no difference to our attitude. But it must not be thought that we share the equally vicious outlook of the alleged Communists who sought to justify the recent executions of political prisoners in Russia on the ground that they had been proved "guilty" of some crime or other, and that this was a piece of "stern revolutionary justice" meted out by the Soviet Government.

All this talk of crime and punishment is a relic of barbarism, and should be discarded by human beings laying claim to civilisation. “Justice” is "vengeance,” in origin the instinctive protection of primitive peoples against individuals who endanger the community by breaches of accepted custom. In later ages, with the entry of class rule, it became the repressive act of ruling classes against those who attacked their privileges. The human impulse which sanctions the cruelty, the legalised violence and murder of the law, is not obedience to some, noble abstract justice, but the animal instinct of vengeance. The infliction of punishment satisfies this primal impulse, and gives pleasure similar in kind both to the suburban Englishman, who likes to hear of criminals brought to book, and to the American mob, drunk with blood-lust, dragging some negro to horrible death by fire. Guilty or not guilty, what does that matter? It does not matter to the lynching party any more than do the moral qualities of the bull to a bull-fight audience, their pleasure is indifferent to such details, and it does not touch the real stability of society. The fabric of twentieth century civilisation is not held together by wreaking vengeance, in the name of justice, on the ignorant and half-witted who commit petty thefts, or on the too-clever Bottomleys who over-reach themselves in the circles of high finance, or even on murderers—what are the latter, anyway, but potential "war heroes” who have killed their man at the wrong time and place?

The emotionalists who gloat over the sickening details of murder trials and executions are a much more potent source of social instability than are the "criminals” who happen to transgress capitalist laws and are found out. If punishment were a question of "deserts," or if it served a purpose commensurate with the harm it does, why not punish these people too, and those who pander to their tastes? The obvious answer is that the remedy lies in education, not in the infliction of penalties. Socialist society will, of course, try to protect itself against anti-social acts. What it will not do is to debase human life and stultify its own efforts by introducing the irrelevant idea of punishment. It will seek primarily to remove the cause, a line which our present rulers are prevented from following by their need to defend private property. How can they, for instance, remove the incentive to theft—poverty—in face of the simple fact that, without the poverty of the workers, there would be no wages system and no profits for the employing class? Secondly, it will recognise that some breaches of public order are inevitable, and are risks which society must accept as it accepts the wind and the rain. To embody brutal penalties in legal codes is no better insurance against them than is the action of the savage who makes an image of his God to protect him against the terrors of nature and then smashes the image when he suffers loss through storm or flood. All he does is to give vent to his disappointment. We are not savages, and must learn not to wreak our rage on unfortunate prisoners whom chance has brought within the reach of the law!

To return to Sacco and Vanzetti—while we do not imagine that the Dollar aristocracy who wield the sceptre in Massachusetts is occupied with the problem of introducing socialism, their refreshing candour on the real nature of "justice" may well serve to interest others in the class motives of that institution. If the Sacco and Vanzetti case brings justice into disrepute so much the sooner will the workers perceive that the time has arrived for its abolition.

The Communist Mixture (1927)

From the September 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Saklatvala, the only Communist M.P., recently added to the humour of life by calling a public gathering of prominent members of the Labour and Conservative parties and idle society dames to witness the mumbo-jumbo ceremonies connected with the initiation of his children into the Parsee faith. This drew down on him the indignant censure of the Communist Party, on the ground that Saklatvala’s action was contrary to Communist principles, and set a bad example to other party members.

This, however, is not the only case of its kind affecting members of the Communist Party. Francis Meynell, a prominent Roman Catholic, was Editor of the "Communist.” Larkin still boasts of his faithful service to the Mother Church, and it is not long since Miss Isabel Kingsley was advertising in the "Workers' Weekly” asking fellow Communist members who were "idealists” and rejected the Materialist Conception of History to join her in forming a group inside the Communist Party.

A Leaflet just issued by the C.P.G.B., with the title "Has Communist Expulsion Helped,” deals with the relations of that party with its fellow reformists in the Labour Party. It is interesting to learn from this that "It is false for anybody to accuse the Communist Party of favouring a revolutionary coup d’état by a minority of the working class; we are, and have always been, in favour of utilising existing Governmental machinery to the limit of its possibilities.” As has been shown by copious quotations from official Communist publications, the Communists certainly have advocated precisely this thing. But if their present statement is correct, in what way do they now differ from the I.L.P. and the Labour Party?

In the past the C.P.G.B. have, at least in this country, claimed to stand for the working class. It appears they are now preparing to drop this. "We do not say that the Labour movement should have no message for the middle class. We do not say that it should refuse to fight for the demands of certain sections of the middle class, but what we do say is that it should put the demands of the middle class alongside those of the workers, fighting for them both, and not water down the workers’ demands to appeal to the middle class prejudices.”

Will the Communists now explain what is the middle class, and how the aims of non-workers can be reconciled with the abolition of private ownership and all forms of property income?

Edgar Hardcastle

What Does Socialism Offer You? (1927)

From the September 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

At present we who are workers are employed by Trusts, like the Soap, Oil or Electric Trusts; by companies not yet combined into Trusts; by Governmental and Municipal bodies; and by private individuals. In each of these cases people who have more money than they require to meet their needs use what is over either to buy shares or to buy what may be called "means of production," that is, machinery and whatever else is necessary to produce something that can be sold for a profit. This way of spending the surplus money is called investing capital, that is, spending money with the object of getting back more money that is paid out.

Nearly everything that we need to-day— food, clothes, and the rest—are produced by an organisation that has capital at its back, and therefore with the object of making a profit. That is why bad food is often produced, shoddy clothes are often made, houses that you can nearly blow over are often built, and the workers who produce the needed goods are paid such low wages that many of them spend the whole of their lives in a state of poverty that often takes away the wish to remain alive.

The Socialist intends to have all this altered. Instead of somebody, or some company, having to buy the machinery and other things before food and clothes can be made, he says, let the land and machinery belong to the whole of the people, and let us arrange things so that some will make machinery, others will plough the land, some will go down in mines, others will drive the trains, and so on. As each took an equal part in making what we all needed so each would take an equal part in using what was made.

Now if we had such a state of affairs we would only make the best things we could, and we would make them in the best way. Everyone that could would take his part in making things, so that they would be neither rich unemployed nor poor unemployed. Everyone would take his part in eating, drinking, and wearing whatever was made, so that there would be no one in poverty. As there would be no milkman or baker wasting his time going up streets where milk and bread was already being supplied; no travellers wasting their time trying to get business away from another traveller; no bill posters, printers, and others wasting their time printing and pasting up lies about different kinds of goods; no enemies without or within for young men to waste years in armies, navies and other services in the "noble art of war,” there would be no lack of hands to make everything that was needed, of the best material, and in the best way.

Now people will say it is very silly to write in this way, as the idea of everyone working together in such a manner is impossible—each will want to get the lion's share of what is made and do as little as he can. When, however, everyone understands that by not doing his part either in the work or the consuming he is only hindering the producing of things, and therefore, in the long run, doing himself an injury, then there will be, in the main, neither slacking nor greediness. Besides, there will be so little work for each to do and such an abundance of things to be got that these inherited vices will soon disappear. 

Gilmac.

Bernard Shaw and Socialism (1927)

From the September 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

A few days ago I picked up an old copy of "Bernard Shaw," by Holbrook Jackson, and in it I came across a quotation from a lecture given by Shaw in 1896, which it struck me was worth quoting again before I forgot it, owing to the bearing it has upon Shaw's conception of what Socialism would be like. The need to publish this statement again is the more urgent as there is a tendency, even among many who claim to accept the Marxian outlook, to regard Shaw as the arch-socialist.

In December, 1896, Shaw lectured at Kelmscott House, Hammersmith, on "What Socialism will be like," and his opening remarks, which I am quoting, are taken from the report published in the "Labour Leader" of December 19th, 1896:

My lecture will be very short. It consists of three words—I don't know. Having delivered it, by way of opening a discussion, I will proceed to make a few remarks. The first thing that strikes one in discussing the matter with a Socialist—if you have a critical habit of mind, as I have, professionally—is the superstitious resemblance of the notion your ordinary Socialist has of what Socialism will be like to the good old idea of what heaven will be like! If you suggest that under Socialism anybody will pay rent or receive wages your ideal Socialist jumps on you. If I venture to suggest that such questions as who shall be allowed to live on Richmond Hill under Socialism, it will have to be settled much as it is to-day, by seeing who will will pay most to live there, such an eminent and enlightened Socialist as Mr. Hyndman immediately loses his temper, and retorts that that is a disgusting middle-class idea.

Here you have a view entirely different from that which sees in Socialism a state of society in which the means of production will have ceased to be the private monopoly of a small class of wealthy people, and will have become the common property of all—socially owned. Where there is wages and rent there cannot be social ownership, though there there may be those highly developed forms of capitalism—Nationalisation and Municipalisation.

Gilmac 

The Vienna Butchery (1927)

From the September 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

A reader who lives in Vienna sends us the following letter on the so-called "Revolt" in Vienna, which ended so tragically. The letter arrived too late for insertion in August issue.—Ed., Comm.

Vienna,

July, 22nd, 1927.

Last year a Russian film called "Potemkin" made the round in Germany and Austria; its main feature were a successful revolt of Czarist Russian marines in the battle cruiser "Potemkin," and its sequel in Odessa—the crushing by Czarist soldiers of a people's manifestation of sympathy.

Little did the people of Vienna dream that they would so soon have a real life experience of the terrifying scenes they saw last year from a comfortable chair in a picture palace. And if the numerous English, American and other foreign visitors who stop in this city at this time of the year on their continental pleasure trips, and whom a considerate censor had prevented from seeing the Potemkin film in their own countries, they have now been able to learn and to appreciate Czarist Russian manners and methods in grim reality in the fair city of Vienna, "the city of songs and music on the blue Danube, the centre of art and of culture."

Anyone who, like the writer, happened to be on the Friday (July 15th) afternoon on the beautiful Ringstrasse, could not but become the terrified witness of scenes not one whit less revolting and gruesome than those he had seen in the said film. Police. mounted and on foot, and gendarmes firing into a mass of unarmed and fleeing civilians, screams of falling men, women and children, under a sky laden with the smoke-clouds from a burning building. And a hundred men, women and children are now lying in their graves,  a mass grave, as befits members of the working class to which they all belonged; a thousand others left to continue the battle for life with broken limbs and shattered nerves, many of them still in the hospitals at the time of writing, fighting between life and death; two hundred in prisons awaiting trial fro lawlessness and incendiarism; such is an episode in Capitaism's career—the sequel to "Bloody Friday in Vienna."

What had happened? What was it all about? What had aroused this special anger and fury of the powers that be?

Had the poverty-stricken mass of the city's workers suddenly lost their patience and their temper, and broken into the comfortable quarters of the rich and wealthy? Had they tried to ease their and their families' wretched lot by forcibly seizing some of the goods with which the countless stores are filled to the roof tops? Had they made a determined attempt at gaining access to the good things of life they produce and store up for a favoured few? Had the workers suddenly come out of their dens and hovels with the set purpose of establishing themselves in the elegant and spacious garden villas and mansions of the "Cottage" or the "Ambassador's quarters"?

Had the sumptuous palaces of the Rothschilds', the Fürst Liechtenstein, and the innumerable other palaces of the city been seized by the "common" people? Had the warehouses been attacked and plundered? Was property in danger? Could it be that the workers marched up to overthrow the Capitalist order and to proclaim the Socialist Commonwealth?

But though the fear of these things, which was stimulated by a general shutting of shops, betrays the existence of great social inequalities—"injustices," if you like—that will sooner or later force a correction, not one baker's or tailor's shop, and not one villa in the "Cottageviertel!" was in danger. And even the fact that the scene of that terrible collision between working men and the powers that be was the "Palace of Justice" (the Law Courts of Vienna) does not do more than provide an accidental omen.

This attack, however, of July 15th, silly and stupid as it would be in any circumstances had nothing to do with Socialism. though the party that pretends to stand for the interests of the working class in this country, namely, the Social Democratic Party, cannot be acquitted of a large measure of the guilt for the massacre of so many working class lives. This guilt lies in the awful confusion which that party creates among working men and women by identifying them with, and wasting their energies on, all kinds of minor issues and reforms. The workers are dragged into every kind of political fracas, the petty squabbles of the innumerable organisations, and thus become easy preys of Bourgeois intrigues.

Only class-unconscious workers could have been so staggered by the acquittal of the two nationalists who shot dead a social democratic working man and a boy at Schattendorf last January as to begin a "wild strike" and a march to Parliament with the disastrous consequences that followed.

For let us make it clear that these thousands had come for no other purpose but to protest against the acquittal of the two murderers; they soon found the police, mounted and on foot, confronting them and moving them on in the usual police style, until the sight of the "Palace of Justice," with more police and showers of bullets, provided the signal to a maddened crowd to set fire to the building. In vain did the well-tried "leaders of labour" endeavour to appease the infuriated masses from resurrected barricades, in vain did the Social-Democratic mayor himself mount a fire-engine to save the burning building, but—is it necessary to say—after an all-day and night struggle the police and military eventually "cleaned" (as they put it here) the streets.

With a more or less obscure object the Social Democratic Party declared a partial "general" strike. On Wednesday, the 20th, the victims were laid to rest, and now things are "normal" again. The "labour market" is relieved to the extent of the murdered and mutilated workmen, and by an increase of the police force supplied by members of the S. D. Party, ready, as that party always is, to assist the Capitalist class in maintaining and perpetuating Capitalist order.

The Communists saw in the march once more the advent of the social revolution, though it is not all certain whether they will survive its defeat.

Frank.