The Review Column: Sonic Booms (1967)

The Review Column from the September 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sonic Booms

Let no one deceive themselves that the sonic booms over various parts of the country last July were inflicted as part of a test of people's reactions.

Firstly, it soon became clear that Wedgewood Benn's Ministry of Technology had not bothered to set up any machinery to gauge reactions to the booms, secondly the booms were nothing like what can be expected if supersonic airliners are allowed to fly overland.

If the development of other types of aircraft is any guide, the operators of the supersonic planes will want to fly them all day and all night, everyday and every night. The prospect which this conjures up is nothing like the single isolated crack of a small jet fighter in the middle of a summer afternoon, described by Wedgewood Benn as ". . . at an intensity well below that of supersonic airliners”.

Of course the booms provoked a lot of protest, but Wedgewood Benn, under fire in the Commons, had the answer to them all: 'Substantial sums are being put by this country into advanced aircraft, the financial success of which will in part depend on whether the aircraft fly from other people’s territory.'

The Concord, then, is no more than a typical product of capitalism. A lot of money invested in it; side effects unpleasant, probably dangerous; competition the driving force behind its production; no profit incentive to solve the problem of its effects.

In this situation, the comfort and safety of people on the ground are only a secondary consideration. There is reason to believe that the booms last July were not tests of our reactions, but the first step in getting us accustomed to the idea of them, in preparation for the days when they are banging off in earnest.

And this, let us remember, is what capitalism calls progress.


Aberfan

The Aberfan Tribunal promised that there would be no whitewashing. They produced a report full of memorable phrases (“bungling ineptitude"; "subterfuge and arrogance by the National Coal Board"; “eight years of folly and neglect”) and they laid the blame for the disaster, on the National Coal Board, its headquarters, its divisional board, and four of its officials.

In this, the tribunal followed the accepted pattern of all enquiries into disasters. Somewhere, somebody—a railway signalman, an airline pilot, a ship's captain—makes a mistake or breaks a rule. It is all too easy, afterwards, to point the finger.

Very few people care to wonder about the context in which the ‘mistakes' are made, the rules ‘broken’.

Only in passing, for example, did the Aberfan tribunal deal with the basic cause of the disaster, which was the very existence of the slag heaps, up on the mountain above the doomed village.

Tipping waste from coal mines is, after all, the simplest and cheapest way of disposing of it. In South Wales, the valleys cannot be used for the tips because that is where the pit heads and the houses must be built. So that the stuff is dumped onto the mountains, where it is a continual eyesore and menace.

Of course they could stop tipping but, as the tribunal said on this very point ". . . the reflection that to stop tipping could bring about the closure of the Merthyr Vale Colliery may well have led to the quick suppression of those doubts . . ."

Of course they could deposit the stuff underground but this, said the tribunal, was neither “technically feasible now nor economically practicable" (The Times estimated the cost of removing tip complex alone at £3 million).

Thus the tribunal accepted the economic confine within which capitalism’s industry operates. It accepted that anything which is not economically practicable must be rejected, it accepted that people must live in the constant need to work for their living. It accepted that, although a certain amount must be done to mitigate the hardships of this social set-up, in the end we must make the best of it.

The economic practicabilities of capitalism have a lot to answer for, in coal mining more than in most other industries. Aberfan was only the latest, if one of the most unusual, of the disasters caused by the ‘economic’ production of coal.

Lord Robens (as the Daily Telegraph of 7th August was unkind enough to recall) once said that the Labour Government in 1950 “washed the blood off the coal” which was normally on it when the Tories were in power.

After Aberfan it may be convenient to blame individual workers, employees of the National Coal Board. The true culprit is capitalist society—and there is still, after all, blood on the coal.

Sandys’ Racialism

One of the first to exploit the irrational fears the Detroit riots created was Tory former Minister Duncan Sandys. In a statement he called for a stop to all entry into Britain of what he called coloured people and added, for good measure, “including relatives of those who are here’’. We don’t know if Sandys has prepared a series of amendments to the Commonwealth Immigrants Acts which will provide immigration officials with a precise standard for judging who are to be considered coloured and who not. We doubt it. For Sandys seems just to be concerned with encouraging hostility between people with lighter and people with darker skin pigmentation.

Perhaps the most revolting part of Sandys statement read:

  The breeding of millions of half-caste children would merely produce a generation of misfits and create increased tensions.

The words breeding, half-caste and misfits seem to have been carefully chosen—with a view to stirring up hostility to so-called mixed marriages and their offspring. What precisely does Sandys mean by misfit? He may be subscribing to the old racialist myth that what they call race-mixing leads to physical and moral degeneration. Or he may just mean that such children will be subject to prejudice. Or perhaps he deliberately meant to be ambiguous; to suggest one thing while having a let-out if challenged. If he means that these children would be the victims of prejudice, we can only assume from the fact that his words encourage such prejudice that he thinks it a good thing; that he favours a virtual caste system under which the so-called whites are on top and the so-called blacks at the bottom. We can only suggest that as a former director of Ashanti Goldfields and other goldmining companies in Ghana he should be careful about biting the hands that have fed him for years. He should also be careful about talking of sending people back. Somebody might take his fancy French name as a reason to send him to Normandy.

What to read (1967)

From the September 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

Besides Capital there are various other books and pamphlets that the student of Marxian economics might find useful. Marx himself summarised his views in simple language in an address he gave in 1865 to the First International. This was later published as the pamphlet Value, Price and Profit. The first five chapters deal with views that are no longer widely held if held at all, but from the sixth chapter onwards Marx explains his theory of value and exploitation. Engels, too, wrote a useful review of Capital for a German paper in 1868. Karl Kautsky, who did so much to popularise Marxism, tackled economics in his work The Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx, which went through many German editions. This sticks closely to the form of the first volume of Capital but also incorporates material from the other volumes which were published after Marx’s death. Another German Social Democrat, Julian Borchardt, in The People's Marx, wrote what translators call "an abridged popular edition of the three volumes of 'Capital' " which, despite the limitations of such abridgements, is worth looking at. 

Perhaps the best original (rather than popularising) work in Marxian economic theory is Louis Boudin’s The Theoretical System of Karl Marx, written in the first decade of this century. This book is no simpler than Capital but it does deal very well with the various criticisms that sprung up after the deaths of Marx and Engels. The best pamphlet is without doubt John Keracher’s Economics for Beginners, published in America in the thirties.

Some of these works will probably not be available at local libraries but they are all in our library at head office.

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The pages of Capital reproduced on the cover are from the edition published by George Allen & Unwin, translated by Moore and Aveling.

50 Years Ago: Artists and War (1967)

The 50 Years Ago column from the September 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

The world will never know what men of talent, of genius, who probably would have contributed their quota in the realms of art and literature, poetry and science,' have, through their masters’ orgy of futile organised slaughter, been crushed and destroyed in the ruthless progress of the ‘great war'. It is indeed a tragedy for the individuals and for humanity also.

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To the Socialist it is pleasant to know that certain artists “continue their work as though they had never heard of the war which is now raging”. The spirit of art and that of the warrior are frankly antagonistic. One is creative and contemplative; the other is destructive, and thinks in terms of force. 

(from an article by ‘G’ in the Socialist Standard, September 1917).

How Workers are exploited (1967)

Click on picture to enlarge.

From the September 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Law of Value holds that the values of commodities are determined by the quantities of socially necessary labour time congealed in them and that commodities, in the long run, sell at their values.

This Marxian analysis has stood the test of time. All other theories have been found wanting because they are, primarily, subjective rather than scientific. Two examples will suffice: marginal utility and supply and demand. There are no methods for measuring usefulness in any meaningful sense. Not all persons find fishing rods useful and the values of fishing rods are not governed by personal considerations. As for supply and demand, there still remains a value when supply and demand balance each other out, even though some economists maintain that there is a “natural price” when supply and demand equilibrate. Similar limitations apply to the "scholarly, profound” economic text books so popular today.

The evidence of experience has amply demonstrated that there is a correlation between the socially necessary labour time required by society as a whole for the production of commodities and the values of commodities. Both are not only measurable but labour, applied to natural resources, is the only source of wealth. (And this was recognised long before Marx’s time.)

Let us examine the unit of capitalist society: a commodity—an item of wealth for sale in the market. What distinguishes capitalism from all previous social systems is that buying and selling (the dollar bill) permeates every facet of life whether it be a rare art treasure or a loaf of bread; bibles or whiskey.

In the chart above, note the centre block. It represents the commodity. All items to the left of the block indicate hours (units) of socially necessary labour time. All items to the right of the block indicate units of value expressed in dollars.

For purposes of illustration, let us assume we are analyzing a $16 raincoat that took 16 hours socially necessary labour time to produce. Each hourly unit of labour time added $1 in value.

The manufacturer had purchased raw materials and machinery for the production of raincoats. The raw material that went into this coat cost $7 and the depreciation of the machine allocated to the coat was $1. It required 8 hours socially necessary labour time to produce the portion of the raw materials and machinery used up in making the coat. This $8 value was transferred to the value of the coat. It was a mere transfer because 8 hours socially necessary labour time was stored up in it before its use in the raincoat factory.

In order to convert the raw materials and machinery into a finished product, the manufacturer must hire labour power. Machines and raw materials, by themselves, are incapable of producing raincoats. It required 8 hours living labour to make this conversion. Living labour added $8 NEW value to the coat.

The total value of the coat is $16 produced in 16 hours socially necessary labour time.

In order to produce commodities, factory owners must buy such other commodities as raw materials, machinery and labour power (the muscles and brains of workers).

Labour power is a commodity owned by workers, who sell it in the market to capitalists. The value of labour power is determined in the same way as all other commodities: the socially necessary labour it takes to produce it, in other words the socially necessary labour time it takes to produce what a worker needs in terms of food, clothing, shelter, raising a family, training, minor luxuries, etc. This value is expressed in wages.

In the chart, the value of the commodity labour power is represented as being $4. At the end of 4 hours, the worker has created $4 worth of new value (replaced the value of his labour power). Everything should be even-steven. He had fulfilled his obligations and he should be through for the day.

But, lest we forget, labour power and labour time are not synonymous terms. Labour power is a commodity that the worker sells to the capitalist. Actually, labour power is really the only commodity that is exclusively his. However, once he sells it, it becomes the property of the capitalist to use as he sees fit. At the end of 4 hours, the raincoat is only half finished. The capitalist can only sell completed raincoats, which require 8 hours living labour to make.

Here comes the great discovery of Marx: How profits are made by selling commodities at their value and how the workers are exploited at the point of production.

The cost of production was $12 ($7 for raw materials, $1 for wear and tear of machines and $4 for labour power). The value of the commodity is $16. The 4 hours labour time the capitalist did not have to pay for are essential for profiting commodities and constitute the surplus value which belongs to the capitalist class. There is a doggerel called Surplus Value that goes:

The merchant calls it profits
  And he winks the other eye;
The banker calls it interest
  And heaves a cheerful sigh.
The landlord calls it rent,
  As he tucks it in his bag,
But the honest old burglar,
  He simply calls it swag.

Within capitalism, wealth assumes three basic forms: 1. Wealth, as such—things that satisfy human needs and social wants, part and parcel of that social animal, man. 2. In capitalism, wealth takes on the form of commodities — goods for sale in the market. 3. Likewise, wealth, within capitalism, also takes on the form of capital—wealth used to create more wealth with a view to profit. 

What is produced in capitalism is not primarily wealth to satisfy needs and wants (use values); it is surplus value for the capitalist class. It can be said that the capitalist class is a consuming class; it consumes the chief product of capitalism—profits. The workers, like the machines and the cattle, merely consume the necessities to keep them in good working order.

The ownership of the means of producing wealth (capital) rests in the hands of the capitalist class. By virtue of this ownership they are enabled to extract surplus value out of the sweat and blood of the working class.

The mechanism for accomplishing this objective is variable capital—the self-expanding capacity of labour power to create a value greater than itself. As noted above, the raw materials and machinery merely transfer their own value to the finished commodity. That is why they are described as constant capital. 

This chart serves a useful function in the movement for Socialism. It gives a visual picture of basic Marxian economics and presents a panorama of the Marxian Law of Value. For over thirty-five years it has been very effective for use in economic classes. It has been instrumental in encouraging further reading of the Marxian classics and paved the way for a clearer grasp of their contents.

Isaac Rab

(WSPUS)

The Source of Value (1967)

From the September 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

This article was first printed in the Socialist Standard in 1910

The proofs adduced by Marx in support of his contention that the origin and rise of capital can be traced, distinctly and indisputably, to robbery, fraud and violence, form only a small part, and by no means the most important one, of his profound investigations into social wealth production. The portions of his work describing so lucidly the process of the reproduction and accumulation of capital are for the purposes of proletarian enlightenment of even greater value.

Marx’s evidence as to the reproduction and accumulation of capital bears out completely his theories of Value and Surplus-Value. According to them only two factors exist in wealth production – natural objects and social, co-operative labour. 

Capital is part of the social wealth, of which the workers have been robbed and which is invested by its owners for the purpose of further robbery. Social, co-operative human labour applied to natural objects being alone necessary to produce wealth, it follows that the reproduction and accumulation of capital – a portion of social wealth – can exclusively be traced back to the exploitation of human labour.

The development of capitalist production causes ever-extending co-operation and productivity of labour, resulting in a gradual cheapening of human labour-power. Hence the proletariat, who alone produce all wealth, grow increasingly poorer, since their sole source of income is the sale of their labour power; while the idle owners of the means of production are accumulating more and more social wealth. 

So soon as it is conceded that to-day social labour applied to natural objects is the only source of wealth, the claim to the means of production – capital in present-day Society – by its capitalist owners can only be sustained on the ground of heredity or privilege.

Now whenever the possessing class find themselves in the dilemma of being faced by the irrefutable facts of history or economics, they mostly succeed, by means of their wealth, in getting the services of the strongest and most cunning of economic and political prize-fighters. But with the growing enlightenment of the toiling masses the attitude and methods of these “intellectual” pugilists undergo continual change.

Until a few years ago it sufficed for the capitalist class to oppose to the Marxian theory of Value (that labour applied to natural objects is the source of all Value) the utility theory of Jevons – according to which the value of an article depends upon its final utility, that is, upon how useful to the community another article of the same kind would be.

But as this final utility twaddle was exploded by Marxian writers and speakers, the theory was superseded by another utility theory – that of the Austrian school – the theory of marginal utility, according to which “the value of an article is fixed when one is debating whether it is worth while to obtain it or not, the decision arrived at indicating the utility of an article on the margin of production, viz., on the margin of doubt whether it be worth while to produce it or not”.

These two value theories of utility have, however, with the aid of the Fabian theory of “the rent of ability”, fully blossomed out into the “directive ability” so crudely championed by the capitalist economist Mr. W.H. Mallock, (A Critical Examination of Socialism).

Now while Marx in his Capital (p. 322) shows that “directive ability” is only “a special kind of wage-labour”, the Fabians agree with Mr. Mallock that it is an entity apart from wage-labour, possessed by a class of “great men”. Mr. Mallock considers that class to be the capitalist class. The Fabians hold that this ability is possessed by another (strange to say a third) class in society.

Mr. Bernard Shaw in The Times (2.2.1910) made an absurd onslaught on Mr. Mallock because of the latter’s alleged distortion of the Fabian “rent of ability theory”. Shaw, ignorant of economics, cuts a comic figure when he endeavours to instruct others on the subject. But this time he out-Shawed Shaw. Here is one of his “up-to-date pearls of wisdom”, taken haphazard:

  This is not a question of the difference between the Socialist and the anti-Socialist: it is a question between the gentleman and the cad. Lord Landsdowne has not asked for the hundred millions he saved Europe by making our treaty with Japan, and Lord Charles Beresford, if the German fleet attacked ours, would not refuse to conduct our naval defence unless the country were to be given to him as prize-money when he had saved it.

In order to flatten Mallock, Shaw hashes up his old balderdash, “Socialism and Superior Brains” in pamphlet form, and therein (p. 57) he gives the following definition of the Fabian theory of the “rent of ability”:

  He (your skilled economist) does not romance about capitalists inventing Atlantic steamers: he shows you the capitalist and labourer running helplessly, the one with his money the other with his muscle, to the able man, the actual organiser and employer, who alone is able to find a use for mere manual deftness or for the brute strength or heavy bank balance which any fool may possess.

So ignorant is Shaw that he does not realise that his criticism of Mallock amounts only to the pot calling the kettle black, and therefore tends to still further confuse the issue between Socialist and anti-Socialist.

Now Mallock states his conception of the theory of “directive ability” (A Critical Examination of Socialism, p. 40) as follows:

  “Though labour is essential to the production of wealth even in the smallest quantities, the distinguishing productivity of industry in the modern world depends not on the labour, but on the ability with which the labour is directed, and in the modern world the primary function of capital is that of providing ability with its necessary instrument of direction”.

All this confusion as to what are the factors operating in wealth production and the functions of the capitalist, or whether “directive ability” is an entity apart from the labour-power of the working class, is dispelled, and the issues cleared up by Marx in Capital, particularly in those chapters dealing with “Co-operation, Machinery and Modern Industry”.

The main reason so many seekers after Socialist knowledge remain reformers is that they do not realise that man is a social product and that wealth production throughout human history has been based on co-operation. With a thorough grasp of these primary Socialist principles no proletarian can remain in ignorance of the meaning of social evolution and revolution. In his efforts to trace the history of man as a social product he will discover the fact that society is an organism with its own laws of development and that the various stages of such development are determined by the evolution in the tools of production. And in his endeavour to gather evidence of the existence of the co-operative principle in human society, the worker will learn that the condition of the wealth producers depends entirely upon the ownership of these tools of production, that is, upon whether they are owned by the users, or by another class, to whom such ownership gives the power of exploitation and domination. He will also come to realise that a change in the ownership of the means of production cannot be brought about by any evolutionary process, but, on the contrary, must be accomplished, by the propertyless class, by a political revolution.

In order to be able to show that “directive ability” does not exist apart from wage-labour it is necessary to briefly summarise and illustrate here what Marx has so minutely and exhaustively propounded in Capital, particularly in the chapters on “Co-operation, Manufacture and Modern Industry”. 

In perusing such classical writings as Ancient Society by Lewis Morgan, The Origin of the Family by Frederick Engels, The History of Politics by Jenks, and other works by avowed bourgeois authors we learn that the principle of co-operation has throughout history – under savagery, barbarism and civilisation – prevailed in the production of human sustenance. Already in primitive communist society – among the red Indians who lived mainly by the proceeds of the hunt, in the Indian village community that pursued principally agriculture for its maintenance, and in the patriarchal peasant family which produced its own means of subsistence – labour was organised on co-operative lines. Under chattel slavery, where the slave rendered personal service to his master, under feudalism, where the serf was attached to the land and worked part of his time for the maintenance of his master and the other part for himself, and under handicraft, when each handicraftsman used a set of tools of his own to produce an article right out, the principle of co-operation was not obliterated but concealed.

As each producer was only able to produce a particular article of wealth, but required a variety of such articles for his sustenance, exchange of commodities was necessary, and though the principle of co-operation was hidden in the process of production, it was clearly brought to light in the process of exchange. After all, each commodity was the embodiment of one man’s activities, and therefore by the exchange of one commodity for another the exchange of men’s activities was continually taking place.

A close examination into the history of wealth production convinces us that Mallock and his supporters are speaking altogether contrary to fact when they assert that with the development of modern Industry, the capitalists, the owners of the means of production have developed a new factor, possessed by them, namely, “directive ability”, to which can be traced the origin of the greater amount of wealth produced. The records of history prove just the contrary. 

Whether we take the evidence supplied by Marx and Engels on the one hand, or by Adam Smith, Thorold Rogers and De Gibbins on the other, we find it all supports the contention that the owner of the means of production is only performing the function of superintendent in production while the same is in its infancy, that is to say, while it is in the stage of manufacture, where production is carried on with small primitive tools and by means of ever growing division of manual labour. And the aforementioned historians and economists further agree that as soon as machinery, steam and electricity are introduced into production, resulting in what we term “Modern Industry”, the capitalists engage their superintendents of labour in the same way that they purchase ordinary labour-power. In the modern factory, workshop or other place of production, the average superintendent is not a capitalist but a wage-worker, commonly called a salaried official, who, having as a rule no property, is compelled to sell his labour power to the capitalist. It is true that the salary paid to such official contains not only the price of his labour-power as superintendent of production, but often includes his pay as “hustler”, of the producers.

Marx, far from denying the need for a directing authority in modern production, emphasises the fact of its indispensableness. He writes in Capital (p. 821):

  All combined labour on a large scale requires, more or less, a directing authority, in order to secure the harmonious working of the individual activities, and to perform the general functions that have their origin in the action of the combined organism, as distinguished from the action of its separate organs. A single violin player is his own conductor; an orchestra requires a separate on.

But wisely Marx does not ascribe the ever growing productivity of co-operatively used labour to the directing authority, which, after all, is only a single organ of the social organism, and like all others, a social product, which society has nourished, clothed, taught and trained for the position it occupies.

And on the other hand, Marx does not ascribe the increasing productivity to manual labour alone, but proves that all activities, physical and mental, combined in one social co-operative mass, contribute to the production of wealth in society. To single out individuals – even the cleverest and most capable – amounts to an allegation that a man can exist apart from and independent of society. These points are brilliantly explained in the following passages in Capital. On page 311 we read:

  “Capitalist production only then really begins, as we have already seen, when each individual capital employs simultaneously a comparatively large number of labourers; when consequently the labour-process is carried on on an extensive scale and yields, relatively, large quantities of products. A greater number of labourers working together, at the same time, in one place (or, if you will, in the same field of labour), in order to produce the same sort of commodity under the mastership of one capitalist, constitutes, both historically and logically, the starting-point of capitalist production.”

On pages 315-316 we are told:

  “Just as the offensive power of a squadron of cavalry, or the defensive power of a regiment of infantry is essentially different from the sum of the offensive or defensive powers of the individual cavalry or infantry soldiers taken separately, so the sum total of the mechanical forces exerted by isolated workmen differs from the social force that is developed, when many hands take part simultaneously in one and the same undivided operation, such as raising a heavy weight, turning a winch, or removing an obstacle. In such cases the effect of the combined labour could either not be produced at all by isolated individual labour, or it could only be produced by a great expenditure of time, or on a very dwarfed scale. Not only have we here an increase in the productive power of the individual, by means of co-operation, but the creation of a new power, namely, the collective power of masses.”

And on page 319 Marx says:

  “The combined working-day produces, relatively to an equal sum of isolated working-days, a greater quantity of use-values, and, consequently, diminishes the labour-time necessary for the production of a given useful effect.”

and further on:

  “When the labourer co-operates systematically with others, he strips off the fetters of his individuality, and develops the capabilities of his species.”

A cursory glimpse at capitalist production in modern times convinces us that the capitalist – the receiver of interest, profit and rent – has, as far as production is concerned, long ceased to fulfil any useful function whatsoever, and it is no exaggeration to allege that even the work of gathering in the interest, profit and rent is nowadays performed by paid menials – clerks, collectors or private secretaries. And if we occasionally find a capitalist seemingly engaged in work, closer enquiry always shows that his “work” amounts to nothing more or less than scheming how to more successfully exploit the workers. We possess, apart from the statistics of the enemy, practically no figures to prove how much surplus-value the capitalists are wringing from the toilers. The most recent census of production (1907) was taken deliberately to ascertain only the values produced and the number of workers employed in various trades. The Census Act particularly provided that salaries and wages were not to appear in the returns. But taking roughly the underestimated figures of capitalist statisticians for guidance, the surplus-value wrung from the workers in this country approximates 75 per cent of the wealth produced by them.

Now when we consider that the capitalists are not only useless members of society, but the worst of parasites on the social organism, with the result that millions of workers are either steeped in direct poverty or are on the brink of it, we see that the time has arrived when the toilers, realising their tremendous collective power both in the economic and political field, must consciously and revolutionarily organise for the overthrow of the parasite class and their own emancipation from wage slavery.

Hans Neumann

From the Socialist Standard, April 1910.

By the Way (1967)

From the September 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

In effect, a Labour Government has decided not to do much about the poverty in our midst. (Professor Peter Townsend in a letter to The Times 28.7.67).

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As far as the United States is concerned the search for peace in South East Asia never ends. (R. McCloskey, State Dept., spokesman, Washington 2.8.67).

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Soviet economists have in recent years worked out a theory of price formation for the present stage of our country’s development, and while much more has still to be done, already triumphant in the new prices is the scientific principle of the so-called socialist price of production. It embodies, besides cost price, labour inputs, depreciation of assets and capital investments. (Anatoli Klinsky, Learned Secretary, Economic Research Institute of the USSR State Planning Committee, The Times 2.8.67).

Another View (1967)

From the September 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

We wrote to three opponents of Marxism, asking them to contribute their criticism to this centenary issue. Mr. Raymond V. McNally, a regular correspondent to the "Financial Times", sent me a letter which we publish, with our comments, and we are grateful to him for doing so. The Economic League thanked us for our letter but said: "We do not wish to avail ourselves of the offer made therein". Enoch Powell, M.P., wrote: "I confess I cannot recollect having written or stated my views on Marx anywhere, and I do not feel competent to do so."

Dear Sir,

It seems fitting for the centenary of the publication of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital to be commemorated by the Socialist Party of Great Britain, for it was in this country that Marx did the bulk of his research and writing.

Since first studying this monumental work over 30 years ago, my continuing interest in it has stemmed chiefly from the impact it has had on the quality of modern thought. In Britain alone, the activities and attitudes of the trade unions, and the increasing intervention of government in economic and social life unmistakably bear the stamp of Marxist influence, which therefore, must bear considerable responsibility for the steady decline in this country’s economic and political power during the last 50 years.

Although Das Kapital reveals occasional flashes of real insight, unfortunately it never succeeds in putting them together in one integrated whole. As a result, it never arrives at a true understanding of the nature and functioning of capitalism. Whether Marx would be pleased by what has transpired since his death in 1883 is a big question. Certainly what has replaced capitalism in Soviet Russia can scarcely be called a ‘higher’ social organism. Indeed, Marx was quite aware of what ‘makes production by slave labour such a costly process.’ Doubtless, if he were alive today, he would suffer some mental agony over the spectacle of Marxist Russia relying on capitalistic America to feed her starving people — a striking example of a country that combines industrialism and famine.

But Marx's work (even including Karl Kautsky’s three volumes entitled Theories of Surplus-value prepared from Marx's own notes) always struck me as a kind of ‘unfinished symphony.’ There is too big a gap between fact and theory. Factually (in his more objective moments) he has the capitalist-employer appear as a very busy and important person — initiating, financing, organising, employing and directing labour, keeping the books, seeking out markets, and buying and selling. In fact, he makes it quite clear that the worker left to his own devices would scarcely be any better off than he was in feudal times. Yet, theoretically, the capitalist appears to be a disembodied spirit, no longer the brains and spark-plug of the enterprise who makes such a valuable contribution to the production of wealth. Instead, it is the lowly worker who creates all values, saves the capitalist from starvation by providing him with an ‘unearned’ income and gives him the means for accumulating capital, in the form of Surplus-value.

In vain one seeks an explanation from Marx for this vast disparity between fact and theory. For the truth is that he has become the victim of his own dialectics that leave no room for introducing realities into his various theories, even if he were so disposed. In borrowing the worst from the classical economists and leaving the best, and making manual labour the sole source of value, he cannot include the labour-power of the capitalist-employer in any category of values except as an expropriator. Thus, unlike the classical school, he is compelled, not only to oppose the intelligence and genius of the innovator, but even to deny their existence.

But since Marx knows that it is the results of this muscular exercise of labour-power and not the labour-power itself that is of value to the capitalist, he must now perform a semantic convulsion and turn the worker into a commodity. In this way he gives the labour-power a value based on ‘the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of the labourer,’ akin to the value of any commodity ’that lies hidden behind' its exchange-value. Thus, he has the capitalist pay wages for the worker’s subsistence (‘hidden’ value) and not for the results of the exercise of his labour-power.

These results, says Marx, the capitalist gets for nothing! This then is the sum and substance of the famous Surplus-value theory, the very core of his entire thesis. But instead of the worker being ‘tricked’ by the capitalist and the capitalist mode of production, it is the capitalist and society that have been tricked by Marx’s dialectics, thus earning him from an American economist in the nineteenth century the title of ‘Prince of Muddleheads.’

It seems tragic that in this ‘enlightened’ age, so much human energy is wasted squabbling over a mythical Surplus and striving with increasing futility to divide it up, while capitalism, buffeted on all sides by abuse, excessive taxation, government regulations and intransigent trade unions, tries to carry an ungrateful world on its weary shoulders. Such are the fruits of Marxism.

Yet a final word. In one of his more lucid moments, Marx seemed to glimpse, as through a rift in the clouds, the true nature of capitalist production when he wrote that commodities ‘cannot go to market and make exchanges of their own account’ but ‘must, therefore, have recourse to their guardians, who are also their owners.’ Further, that these owners ‘whose will resides in these objects’ (italics mine) ‘must make the exchange by means of an act of mutual consent’ and ‘must, therefore, mutually recognise in each other the right of private proprietors (italics mine; Vol. I, Book I, Part I, Chap. II)’.

Here Marx seems to recognise that the value of any property ultimately lies in its private administration, that is, at the point of exchange, thus ensuring its equitable, civilised distribution. By contrast — since it takes two to make an exchange — the so-called common ownership and administration of property can distribute wealth, not fairly on the basis of values freely arrived at, but only arbitrarily and erratically by a sort of tribal technique.

Yours faithfully,

Raymond V. McNally

65 Eaton Square,

London, S.W.1.

Reply: 

Mr. McNally seems to think that the surplus over and above what people get as wages and salaries is “mythical’’. No doubt this is news to those who live off rent, interest and profit — a property income they receive even if they do no work. As far as we know, the only way in which wealth can be produced is by work, by human beings applying their mental and physical energies to the materials found in nature. It follows therefore that non-work incomes like rent, interest and profit can only come out of the wealth produced by those who do work.

Nor did Marx say that manual work was the only work that counted. A little thought will show that it doesn’t make sense to separate so-called brain and so-called manual work; both are necessary for any work.

‘Marxist’ Russia is, of course, just a myth.

Editorial Committee.

A World of Plenty (1967)

Editorial from the September 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

The material and technological resources exist now to allow production of plenty on a world scale. There is no need for any man, woman or child to go without adequate food or shelter. People are today deprived of plenty because the means for producing wealth are monopolised by a few and because wealth is produced for profitable sale. This artificial scarcity is maintained by force, deception and ignorance.

A society of abundance can be created just as soon as working people are prepared to make the means for producing wealth the common property of a democratic world community.

The Socialist Party exists to help the emergence of a conscious movement to create a society of abundance. We aim to convince people that such a society is possible; to expose the lies by which the present economy of scarcity is justified; and to oppose those organisations which help to maintain this artificial scarcity. We are opposed to all governments, all other political parties, to all nationalism, racialism and religion, to all wars and preparations for war, to all restrictions on the free expression of ideas.

Wealth is not produced in the abundance it could be. Much is wasted on weapons of war. Much is of low quality. Some is even deliberately destroyed. Wealth is not owned or consumed on any fair basis: a privileged few enjoy the best of everything while most have about enough to keep them alive and working; some don't get even that. Why?

The bar to the rational use of the world's resources to meet human needs is production for profit. As wealth is produced for profitable sale on a market production is geared to the market and not to human needs. Only so much wealth is produced as is thought can be profitably sold. To keep up prices and profits production is held back and wealth destroyed.

Production for profit on a world scale means universal competition: competition for markets, for trade routes, for sources of raw materials. For most of the time this competition is economic and peaceful. Every so often it involves the scientific killing and wounding of human beings and destruction of wealth that is called war. Always it means that states must devote a part of their resources to having the best armed forces and weapons they can afford.

People depend for a living on the few who monopolise the means for producing wealth. Their share of the wealth they alone produce is limited by the price they can get from selling their ability to work, a price that can never be much more than enough to keep a man and his family in efficient working order.

This scarcity, waste and want is not decreed by some supernatural being. Nor does it arise from nature. It is man-made and can be ended as soon as man wills.

It is said that there will always be scarcity as men’s wants will always outstrip the capacity to meet them. Men are greedy and compete against each other for the scarce resources. If social chaos is to be avoided men must be restrained by instruction (religion and morality) and by force (government and law). As some give more to society than others they should be rewarded with wealth and power. So runs the defence of oppression, inequality and privilege that has been used throughout the ages.

This argument is based on the myth than men have some unchanging nature that compels them to act in certain ways. But men are social animals. How they behave depends on the society in which they live. Throughout history and pre-history human behaviour, motives and wants have varied from society to society. There is no fixed human nature, only human behaviour in society. The argument that it is human nature that demands the oppression and exploitation of man by man stands exposed as a defence of the existing unnecessary oppression, inequality and privilege.

There is nothing in the make-up of men that would prevent their rational co-operation, without coercion and as social equals, to meet their needs. Men no longer need a social organ for governing and coercing people. For the smooth running of social affairs all that is needed is an unarmed, democratic administrative centre.

Obituary: Freddie Adams (1967)

Obituary from the September 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our comrade Freddie Adams, of Haringey branch, died in hospital on June 12 at the age of 84. He joined the old Wood Green branch in 1910 and between the wars was involved in the central administration of party affairs as assistant and later as general secretary. After the war he was a regular attender and lecturer at Palmers Green branch. One of the last things he did for Socialism was to help in the GLC campaign in April by proposing, in accordance with the law, our three candidates in Haringey. He was very pleased that before he died he had the chance to cast his ballot for a Socialist world community.

Squaring the Circle (1967)

From the September 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

Russian state capitalism claims that Marxian economics is its economic theory. The Socialist Party of Great Britain rejects this claim. A comparison of Marxian and Russian state economics will show that in Russia Marx’s theories have been twisted beyond recognition.

In Capital Marx examines the working of capitalism in detail. He takes as the basic unit of the capitalist economy the commodity, an item of wealth produced for sale. Where goods are produced for sale then, and only then, do they have a value. The law of value operates only where there is commodity-production. For thousands of years goods, produced for sale under pre-capitalist conditions, exchanged more or less at their values. Capitalism, which is a system of production for profit as well as for sale, is more complex and commodities only accidentally exchange at their values. Nevertheless the law of value still operates. In fact, under capitalism all the paraphernalia of exchange—money, prices, trade, banks, bills, bonds, credit—are developed to a high degree.

For Marx the classless society that would replace capitalism—which he called either Socialism or Communism— would not be an exchange economy. Wealth would be produced for social use and not for profit or for sale. Hence the law of value would not operate in Socialist society. There would be no commodities, no money, no prices, no trade, no banks and the like.

This was also how all the Social Democratic writers on Marxian economics, people like Kautsky, Luxemburg, Boudin and Untermann, saw it. The standard textbook on Marxian economics used by all sections of Russian Social Democracy, including the Bolsheviks, was A Short Course of Economic Science by A. Bogdanov first published in 1897. Bogdanov was not a Bolshevik (in fact he later came to see Russia as state capitalist) but his book was still used after 1917 and was translated into English in 1923 and distributed by the so-called Communist Party of Great. Britain, from whose edition we quote:

The new society will be based not on exchange but on natural self-sufficing economy. Between production and consumption of products there will not be the market, buying and selling, but consciously and systematically organised distribution (p.389).

After 1917 the Bolsheviks felt a need for a textbook on their party's theory. Bukharin and Proebrazhensky were commissioned to write one. This work, The A.B.C. of Communism, appeared in Russian in 1919 and was translated into English in 1922. Here is what Bukharin wrote of Socialism (which he, for political reasons, calls Communism):

The communist method of production presupposes in addition that production is not for the market, but for use. Under communism, it is no longer the individual manufacturer or the individual peasant who produces; the work of production is effected by the gigantic co-operative as a whole. In consequence of this change, we no longer have commodities, but only products. These products are not exchanged one for another; they are neither bought nor sold. They are simply stored in the communal warehouses, and are subsequently delivered to those who need them. In such conditions, money will no longer be required (p72).

This, then, was the theory that the Bolshevik rulers inherited and it was in fact the Marxian position. After thinking they were introducing Socialism in Russia immediately, the Bolsheviks were forced to face the facts: the transition from capitalism to Socialism which they saw as their task was going to take a long time. Their experts on Marxian economics argued that in the transition period the law of value, together with money, prices, wages and profits, would continue to operate but would gradually wither away as the transition period drew to an end.

However, when in 1936 Stalin proclaimed that Socialism now existed in Russia, such a radical departure from Bolshevik, let alone Marxian, theory was bound to lead to difficulties. For Marx Socialism was not an exchange economy, yet in supposedly Socialist Russia all the paraphernalia of exchange existed. How was this contradiction to be explained? Stalin’s philosophers erected a false distinction between Socialism and Communism (which Marx used interchangeably to refer to the classless society of the future) saying that Socialism was a stage below “full” Communism, when there would be no exchange. But this was not really adequate for till then the Bolsheviks had not seen even their “lower stage of communism” as an exchange economy. After much mental gymnastics the state economists had no choice; they had to square the circle. An article on “The Teaching of Economics in the Soviet Union” appeared in 1943 (translated into English in the American Economic Review of September 1944); The authors were quite frank:

The mistakes of the former teaching in denying the operation of the law of value in socialist society created insurmountable difficulties in explaining the existence under socialism of such categories as money, banks, credit, etc. The understanding of the role and significance of the law of value under socialism makes it possible correctly to cast light upon all these problems, in a strictly logical interrelation, proceeding from the premise that under socialism too the law of value functions and, furthermore, evaluating the fundamental peculiarities under which it functions in socialism (p.523).

They overcame the difficulties by merely asserting the law of value would still operate under Socialism and had the insolence to add that “the notion that the law of value plays no part in socialism is, in essence, opposed to the whole spirit of Marxist political economy.”

They argued that whereas under capitalism the law of value worked blindly under “socialism” it was controlled by the state in the interests of society. This led them to make some peculiar statements which seem like parodies on the Marxian position:

The labour of the members of socialist society produces commodities.
The value of a commodity in socialist society is determined not by the units of labour actually expended on its production, but by the quantity of labour socially necessary for its production and reproduction.
In socialist society the product of labour is a commodity; it has use value and value.

There was, however, one conclusion they stopped short of; that wages in Russia were the price of labour power. This would have conflicted with the claim that in Russia the exploitation of man by man had been abolished and that work was performed by the free labour of members of a classless community. For if wages existed so would the whole mechanism of exploitation. To this day this remains an inconsistency in Russian state economics. If anyone in Russia is going to point it out it will have to be the workers there, not the state philosophers.

After the war the Great Leader himself stepped in. In his Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R., Stalin discusses “commodity production under socialism” and “the law of value under socialism”. The position decreed in 1943 still holds. A popular pamphlet Fundamentals of Marxist Political Economy, brought out by the Novosti Press Agency in 1965, poses the question “How does the law of value operate under socialism?”

Under socialism this law operates as a controlled force but it remains an objective economic law (p.122).

As a matter of fact the Russian state does try to plan capitalism by monkeying about with the law of value. Substitute “state capitalism” for “socialism” and Russian state economics begins to make sense. What is claimed to be Marxian economics is in fact the (mistaken) economic theory of state capitalism. It has nothing in common with what Marx wrote save some of the terminology.

Adam Buick

Marxism Today (1967)

From the September 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

On an occasion such as the centenary of the publication of Volume I of Marx's Capital it is appropriate to consider whether Marxism is more widely accepted today than it was fifty or a hundred years ago, but no simple answer can be given to that question.

Some parts of Marxist theory seem to have lost ground while others have gained; but to a large extent both developments have to be weighed against the extent to which acceptance has been based on less than full understanding.

In the most shallow aspect, the use of Marx as a name to inspire political movements, a notable change has taken place. At one time there were social democratic parties in European and other countries which described themselves as Marxist and do so no longer. But it is a change of little real significance. Nominal acceptance of Marxism by the leaders meant little to the majority of members. It did not determine their principles and policy, as was to be proved by their attitude to capitalist wars and, when they became governments by their disregard of Socialism and absorption in the sterile task of trying to administer capitalism. How little Marxism meant to these parties can be shown by comparing them with the British Labour Party. While they professed to be Marxist the British Party made no such claim: as a former secretary put it, the British party owed more to Methodism than to Marx. Yet as political parties and as governments their behaviour was identical.

While the social democratic parties have dropped their lip service to Marx this role has been taken by the communist parties but with just as little justification.

Certainly one aspect of Marxism, the Materialist Conception of History has made a large and increasing impact though many of those who have been influenced do not regard themselves as Marxists and some may indeed even be unaware of the source of the influence. Sir Isaiah Berlin, eminent Oxford Professor of Political and Social Theory and by no means an uncritical admirer of Marx acknowledged the debt in an interview published in the Observer (6.11.66).

. . . there are certain originally resisted truths which Marxism put on the map. For example, the notion that . . . classes exist and class consciousness exists and has a decisive effect on men — that, although violently exaggerated, is now something no rational man denies. The notion of reification, to use a technical term —the idea that human beings tend to regard institutions which they themselves have in the past created as something objective and inexorable, the product of objective laws, like the phenomenon of gravitation — whereas they can in fact be altered by sufficient concentration and direction of human will-power and energy, if necessary by revolution — is again something which is by now accepted by quite a large number of sane thinkers.

A non Marxist historian, the late Professor Hearnshaw claimed for Marx that he “created the beginnings of scientific outlook in social studies" and that “the aspirations towards human equality, perhaps the most significant feature of the modern mind, draws its chief nourishment from him".

When we turn to Marx’s writings on economics it is a different story. The attitude of the popular TV and newspaper commentator, Bernard Levin, is typical of most of the Press and of the academic world. He wrote:

Das Kapital is after all, a vast book of no more relevance to conditions in Britain today . . . than the controversial philosophy of Haeckel or Henri Bergson. All Marx's major prophecies have been conclusively proved wrong by events, and much of his theory has been entirely exploded for half a century, indeed, the central economic doctrine—his labour theory was shown to be based on a misconception almost in his own lifetime. (Daily Mail, 13.9.65).

Regrettably, as so often happens with Marx-critics, Levin did not explain why he holds the labour-theory to be erroneous, or what are the major prophecies disproved by events. (Could he perhaps be induced to use our columns to tell us more?) There is however, a sufficient, if not exactly good, reason why Marx's writings appear to the popular commentators, the economists and politicians to be irrelevant. Marx scientifically analysed the way in which capitalism works according to its own economic laws and he put the capitalist system in perspective in the evolution of society. He saw the future of mankind in the replacement of capitalism by Socialism. He did not and could not work within the false assumption that capitalism is eternal and that we must therefore seek daily expedients to lessen the chaos and correct the contradictions inherent in the capitalist order. It was therefore only to be expected that the economists and politicians in today's world should decide that Marx has nothing to offer of use to them.

Confident in their baseless belief that it only needed expertise and goodwill to get rid of all the “bad" features of capitalism they did not want to read Marx and learn there that they were wasting their efforts. But how does this prove Marx to be irrelevant or show his prophecies to be wrong?

Marx showed how capitalism functions through expansions and contractions of the market and production and why it needs unemployment They ridiculed the idea as old fashioned, and did they not have Keynes to show them how to achieve full employment? But just as the Labour Government in 1929-31 planned to reduce unemployment and ended with achieving a record level, so in 1967 after nearly three years in office, the Wilson government in July scored the highest summer unemployment (nearly 500,000) for any year since the war.

Marx showed too (the misconceived labour-theory, according to Levin) that the money commodity, gold, has value like any other commodities, and that an over-issue of inconvertible paper money will push up prices. This, too, they scoffed at, but events have proved Marx right.

Also on the Labour government's prize exhibit, the incomes policy, Marx had something to say a hundred years ago. In the early days the Labour Party had the simple belief that the cure for an oncoming crisis is to push up wages. Marx was familiar with this argument and pointed out that if it were true crises would never happen because as a fact, in a period of boom, wages invariably rise and rise faster than the increase in production of consumer goods. Standing their former belief on its head the Labour government now seeks to prevent crises by preventing wages from rising: if they had read Marx's analysis of the situation they would have known that this was equally pointless except from the standpoint of protecting profits.

So who has been proved wrong, Marx or his detractors?

In another field Marxism was under fire from two opposite quarters—from those who said Marx did not know about the growth of monopoly and from those who said that his observations on the trend towards concentration of industry and wealth were mistaken.

Both were wrong. Marx fully understood the anxiety of capitalists to protect themselves if they could, against competition by forming monopolies and it ill becomes Labour Party critics to venture into this because, in their lack of any comprehensive economic understanding, they started as a party committed to the doctrine of keeping capitalist units small and competitive, only to come now to an officially backed policy of encouraging mergers so that British capital can stand up to the big battalions in capitalism abroad.

Before leaving Marx and his prophecies perhaps Mr. Levin, particularly in the light of current developments in Russia would like to show that Marx was wrong in prophesying that it was impossible for that country, or any other, to leap into Socialism without going through the normal phases of capitalism

Edgar Hardcastle

"Capital" in its place (1967)

From the September 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

There was a song we used to sing, on Labour League of Youth outings:

Karl Marx's body lies a-moulding in the grave,
Forgotten by the workers whom he gave his life to save
He wrote Das Kapital but never had a shave . . .

There is no need, of course, to take this sort of stuff seriously, except that it does signify a common attitude to Marx—usually by those who have not read a word of what he wrote, who think that anyone with a name and a beard like that must be a humourless, inflexible bigot, in love with remote theory and out of touch with the real world.

We young Labourites were going to reform the world—fill every stomach, banish disease, abolish war. It was all very simple. There were problems in the world because of faulty reasoning on the part of someone; or because of a lack of charity by Them; or greed; or a miscalculation. We would not have recognised the word, but we were idealists; we thought the deficiencies in society could be explained, and remedied, in terms of ideas. We had not read Engels, but he named those who had held similar concepts as Utopians:

If pure reason and justice have not hitherto ruled the world, this has been due only to the fact that men have not rightly understood them. What was lacking was just the individual man of genius, who has now arisen and has recognised the truth . . . (Socialism, Utopian and Scientific).

The question we never faced—the question no reformer ever faces—was, if society’s ideas are “bad”, what makes them so? Why are they not “good” ideas? Why is society so “unreasonable” that it accepts an arrangement which allows a few people to enjoy almost boundless wealth while the condition of the vast majority is never better than insistent poverty and can sink as low as outright starvation? Why is society so “foolish” as to waste so much of its resources on destruction? Such questions are endless but had we known, or cared, the one logical and consistent answer to them had already been found, by that man whose beard caused us so much amusement.

One of the essentials of the Marxist analysis of society is the Materialist Conception of History which, among other things, sees ideas in their place as the products of material conditions and not as the makers of those conditions:

. . . economic production and the structure of society of every historical epoch necessarily arising therefrom constitute the foundation for the political and intellectual history of that epoch . . . (Engels — Preface to the German edition of the Communist Manifesto, 1883).

From this viewpoint, history is not the jumble of accidents, personal misdeeds and romantic mysteries which was served to us as the staple diet of our schooldays. History is a continuous process of social development, passing from one system to another, marking its way with periods of social revolution and with each system giving rise to its own class antagonisms.

Man’s history, in other words, has been a process of class struggles which have brought him now to capitalism, a system with only two classes and therefore with only one class to struggle for its emancipation. Capitalism has done many things. It has broken the customs and taboos of earlier society, it has massed its people into great productive units. It has entirely separated one of its classes from the means of production and by so doing has brought into existence the most explicit of class divisions in human society. Capitalism has developed—and continues to develop—the process of extracting a surplus product, from the unprivileged class for the privileged class, into an unprecedented science.

This, then, is capitalism. But how do we examine the system, how explain its workings, its class relations, its method of exploitation? How do we come to an understanding of capitalism’s tendencies and the process by which it nourishes the seeds of its own destruction?

This analysis was the work of Marx’s Capital.

The first question Marx had to ask was—what is the mode of production in capitalist society? The answer was commodity production, that the mass of wealth under capitalism was produced as commodities. “Our investigation” said Marx, “must therefore begin with the analysis of a commodity.” 

Marx’s method is to isolate the commodity, as ". . . in the first place, an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another.” From this simple statement he goes on to examine the commodity in detail; the limits within which one will exchange with another, the implications of the social relationship of value, the way in which commodities perform their function of exchanging so as to realise a surplus value for the capitalist class.

Marx examined the nature of the commodity which all workers possess—human labour power—and he revealed the process by which the working class are exploited, he revealed the reasons for their alienation from the means of production and he charted the course of their ever-deepening misery and degradation:

. . . within the capitalist system all methods for raising the social productiveness of labour are brought about at the cost of the individual labourer; all means for the development of production transform themselves into means of domination over, and exploitation of, the producers; they mutilate the labourer into a fragment of a man, degrade him to the level of an appendage of a machine, destroy every remnant of charm in his work, and turn it into a hated toil . . . (Capital, p.661).

This passage, which ends with the famous statement that “Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole, i.e. on the side of the class that produces its own product in the form of capital,” has come in for much criticism from those who argue that the opposite tendency has taken place, that capitalism has solved its problems and makes its people ever happier in a flood of washing machines, cars and television sets.

But is what Marx said true? Misery? Agony? Join the rush-hour, take your place on a fast assembly line with everyone trying to keep up the bonus, have a go at finding somewhere to live which is bearable and within the pay packet of an average worker. Look into the figures of families who are suffering extremes of poverty amid the so-called Welfare State, which was another of those things which were supposed to have proved Marx wrong. [1]

Brutality? Look up the recent crime statistics, with their evidence that we live in times of almost unprecedented violence. [2] Consider the fact that men now earn their living by making the things which have the power almost to wipe out settled life on the earth. Mental degradation? This is the age when capital accumulation usually means the use of computers and automative techniques of production, when human beings are reduced to blips on a magnetic tape, metallic numbers to be scanned by an electronic eye, when exploitation is constantly being refined and intensified. This is 1967, when people are considered fit subjects for experiments by sonic booms, to see whether they can stand the noise made by the machines which the British aircraft industry hopes will bring it some big profits.

Capital probes the entire mechanism of capitalist society. While the “orthodox” economists grapple with their feeble expedients—their selective employments taxes, their import restrictions, their manipulations of Bank Rate—the Marxist analysis explains it all. And not at all in the popularly supposed manner of the unsmiling “Red Prussian.” Although he deals with a difficult and intricate subject, Marx never leaves his readers in doubt that he is a human being. His writing not only has power, but wit and movement as well:

Our capitalist, who is at home in his vulgar economy, exclaims: “Oh! but I advanced my money for the express purpose of making more money." The way to Hell is paved with good intentions, and he might just as easily have intended to make money, without producing at all. He threatens all sorts of things. He won't be caught napping again. In future he will buy the commodities in the market, instead of manufacturing them himself. But if all his brother capitalists were to do the same, where would he find his commodities in the market? And his money he cannot eat, (Capital, p.172).

Marx shows how capitalism develops and how and why it will end. He shows that there is now only one subject class, and that it is their historical function to abolish private property and build the new society of Socialism. All this is in his works, in Capital and others. But at the same time Marx was clear that none of this was inevitable; he knew that men make their own history and that, working within the society they find, they must carry out their historical task.

What this means is that capitalism is not a matter of mankind, in some blindingly tragic mistake, getting onto the wrong path. It is not a matter of incorrect or anti-social ideas. In the same way, Socialism will not happen simply because we think it is a "right” idea. Both systems are part of man’s social evolution, both have their own super-structure of institutions and ideas springing from a basis which can be scientifically examined and classified.

Socialists are distinguishable for their grasp of all this. Non-Socialists, however sincere they may be, however pressing the problems they protest against, can be identified by their failure to appreciate the scientific case for Socialism. We Labourites did not grasp it, as we jauntily sang about the dead revolutionary's beard. But Marx had already had his say, on we the reformers and those who had gone before and were to come after us:

They all want the impossible, namely, the conditions of bourgeois life without the necessary consequences of those conditions. (Letter to Paul V. Annenkov, December 28, 1846).

Ivan.

NOTES

All quotations from Capital are taken from the edition published by George Allen & Unwin Ltd. in 1946.

[1] According to a letter from Professor Peter Townsend in the Guardian (8/7/67), there are probably 450,000 families, with over 1,400,000 children, with resources less than the basic national assistance standards. Another 165,000 families, with 510,000 have resources up to £2 a week above this standard and another 130,000 families (370,000 children) have up to £3 a week more. Townsend gives the average standard as £15.

[2] The Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Constabulary gives the figures for crime during 1966, compared to those for 1938. Some of these are:

                                                                                                                         1938 1966

Found guilty of offences against the person:                                                    1,583 16,036

Found guilty of malicious wounding (included in above figures):                      1,195 14,198

The Chief Inspector comments that the increase in crimes of violence is “one of the most disturbing features in the present crime situation."

The Book's background (1967)

From the September 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 1847 Karl Marx wrote The Poverty of Philosophy. It was written in French and was a criticism of Proudhon’s Philosophy of Poverty. Of the Poverty of Philosophy Engels remarks that it was written “when Marx had just elucidated the principles of his new historical and economic theory”. In 1859 Marx wrote his Critique of Political Economy which was the forerunner of Capital. Vol. I of the latter was published in 1867, and was the only volume of Capital that he himself saw through the press.

Thus twenty years of preparation elapsed between his first book on the subject and the publication of Capital. During those twenty years many changes occurred in the world signifying the development of modem capitalism.

Now let us take a brief look at the background of the times in which Marx was writing his book.

It was the birthtime of modern industry, with the industrial capitalists just coming to power. The Bessemer process of making steel was soon to be patented and shortly afterwards the first steel ship was launched. In the factories and on the land hours of labour were long and the exploitation of women and children was widespread. Everywhere the expression of revolutionary opinion, and even radical criticism of existing evils, met with ruthless suppression, and the spokesmen were frequently imprisoned by the governments of the time. Here and there groups of workers exchanged expressions of international brotherhood but, for the most part, workers were too concerned with their own local troubles to have time to worry about the hardships of their fellows abroad.

In 1848 oppressive conditions had led to a wave of revolutions throughout Europe; a mixture that included working class and nationalist revolts. The real basis of the struggles was the movement of the industrial capitalist for elbow room and political power; the other classes were just pawns, sometimes awkward ones, in this struggle. The spark that set the movement alight was a commercial crisis which, starting in England in 1847, upset production and trade. It affected every economic group, each of which hoped to solve its difficulties in the various uprisings. The most troublesome element in these struggles was the working class, the only really energetic class in the movement, which pushed its claims to the front at the beginning and eventually frightened some of the revolutionary fervour out of the other groups.

The outcome of these uprisings was the suppression, for the time being, of incipient working class movements like the Chartists movement in England and similar movements in France and Germany. At the same time, in France, the uprising enabled Napoleon’s nephew, Louis, to get into the seat of power and inaugurate the Third Empire. The latter came to an ignominious end with the defeat of France in the war of 1871. The uprisings also elevated the power of the Prussian state, leading to the unification of Germany, and the nationalist movement in Italy that led to the unification of Italy.

The instabilities and suppressions of the Forties, along with the discoveries of gold in California and Australia, started the emigration of large numbers of people from Europe to America, where they hoped to start a new, less frustrated and more comfortable, life; a hope that often met with defeat. The Irish famine of the late forties, together with abortive nationalist uprisings, drove a large number of Irish abroad, most of them to America.

America at this time was roughly split into two different sections; the industrial North and the agricultural South. The South supplied cotton and other agricultural products to the Northern manufacturers but had the principal influence in political control. Development of the North was hampered by burdens put upon them by Southern enactments. Resentment grew until it finally boiled over in the bitter Civil War that broke out in 1861. Although, on the northern side, it was extolled as a war to end slavery, it was in fact a war waged by the North for control of political power by the industrialists in order to remove obstacles in the way of their expansion. One among the many ways in which the South was obstructing the march of the North was in land hunger. The Southern planters needed to constantly extend their landholdings for their cotton and tobacco plantations, and were coming up against, and trying to swallow, the lands of Northern cattle and sheep farmers.

At the beginning of the Civil War the incipient labour movements were opposed to it, but they eventually gave up their opposition and lined up with the North. The outcome of the war, and the victory of the North, released a rapid movement of expansion in industry, fanning and transport. The West was opened up, working class exploitation on a grand scale began to flourish and, along with this the basis was laid for a growing group of American tycoons to accumulate large fortunes by the most ruthless methods.

In the meantime in Europe the spread of the ideas contained in the Communist Manifesto of 1848, and the growing contact of English and Continental workers, led to discussions which were instrumental in establishing the International Working Mens Association in 1864, in which Marx played a leading part. It had an uneasy existence and collapsed after a few years, partly through the opposition of English trade union leaders and the machinations of the Anarchists, but mainly because the workers were not yet ready to accept the principles laid down by the International. However a movement was growing in Germany and other countries which brought about the establishment of a number of social democratic parties, the flimsy basis of which, in working class understanding, was not finally disclosed until they fell to pieces in the First World War.

During the twenty years Marx worked on Capital, English governments were acquiring territory by war or trickery in various parts of the world, and building up the empire that has since largely disintegrated. In three wars with China it pierced the Chinese wall and opened up ports to European trade. In the second war, 1854-1860, the Chinese were forced to legalise the importation of Opium.

One of the outstanding events of the period was the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species which gave a solid foundation to the theory of evolution. Another was the first successful laying of the Atlantic Cable in 1866.

Two acts passed, one in 1864 and the other in 1868, are indications of the extent of the exploitation of children. In 1864 the employment of child chimney sweeps was forbidden. The children used to be pushed up the chimneys to clear the soot. Like all such acts its implementation was constantly infringed. In 1868 gang labour of children under eight years of age in agriculture was prohibited.

In 1867, the year the first volume of Capital was published, the Court of Queens Bench decided that trade unions were illegal associations acting in restraint of trade!

During the twenty years Marx was engaged in writing his book, the world had undergone upheavals and changes in the course of which some of the remaining relics of Feudalism were swept away, the owners of land and industry grew richer but the working class still remained a subject and exploited class.

Gilmac.