Escape to Happiness (or drama on the Trans-Siberian Railway) (1986)

A Short Story from the October 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

This summer I took a party of tourists to Lake Baikol and Irkutsk, the capital of Siberia. Any professional "courier'' will tell you that every package tour has its "freaks", and this one had two — both young women with college degrees in — "surprise, surprise" — sociology. One, who was quite small and looked like death warmed up. said "she was not getting enough fibre". The other, larger, with a huge shock of fair curly hair, shuffled around in a voluminous covering like a pair of old curtains — and large, soft, fluffy boots. She could have just escaped from the local pantomime, playing Widow Twanky. They were both engaged in local community projects. One was forming a group in Hounslow to help people "analyse their dreams

They were (or had been) "into" everything. of course, running the gamut of the so-called "Left Wing": ex-Socialist Workers Party; CND; Battered Wives; Women's Liberation; Greenham Common — and now "Animal Rights". The little one had been prosecuted for disrupting a fur auction, but did not believe in "violent action" (her boyfriend was doing six months for it) and now the very latest — they were "vegans'; not just vegetarians — but vegans. No meat, fish, eggs, butter. milk, bread or cakes baked with animal fat. etc. etc.

The manager on the dining car of the train (Trans-Siberian Railway) just could not grasp it. "Then what the hell do they eat?", he asked plaintively. The usual Russian attitude to vegetarians is very practical. They just take a knife and scrape the meat off the plate. Not with vegans they don't! They actually sent back an excellent Borsht (beetroot soup) because one suspected a sliver of meat in it — which is just not possible.

Nevertheless, all went well until we reached Ormsk. Here a handsome, almost beautiful Russian lady boarded our train with an enormous quantity (even for Russians) of luggage, including possibly a washing machine, and certainly a child's pram, and three very good-looking children. A boy of ten. a girl of five and a baby of a few months.

There are four berths to a compartment (second-class), obviously two up. two down. The newcomer with a small baby, two other children, and terrifying luggage was quite flustered, almost hysterical with anxiety. With that frank openness so typical of Russians, especially when travelling, she naturally assumed that she would be granted the bottom berths, whatever the tickets said, on account of the children, especially the tiny one.

Our vegans had omitted to master the Russian language prior to their trip, so that no dialogue or explanations were possible. She just plonked herself, her kids, the cradle, and her bags on the bottom berths, pointing heavenwards to indicate her proposal that our two "liberators" move up to oblige.

But no! Not a bit of it! Why should we move? They could not move their luggage. "These are our seats." "Besides", said Widow Twanky, "I've got a bad back"! A "bad back"? How many millions of working days are skived every year with "bad backs"? The one undiagnosable. indefinable gimmick known to all for a couple of days off.

By this time our Russian visitor found everything just too much — and with a voluble stream of rich Russian invective, rudely shoved poor little fibre-less No. 1 violently out into the corridor. Screams, tears, kids sobbing, everyone shouting, with calls for the unfortunate "courier" to "do something'. Calmly surveying the scene I announced portentously: "It's dinner time! Come along! We'll sort all this out later!!" Once our freaks left the compartment, their chance of retaining the bottom bunks was about as likely as snow in the Sahara.

Safely shepherded half-way up the quarter-mile-long train to the Diner, I was able to divert attention and calm hysteria by guaranteeing that the "Schee" (cabbage soup) was utterly meatless. So it was; the meat had been given to somebody else. "Now really". I started persuasively, "You are animal lovers. so am I! So are we all! But little children are animals too! Don't you think? Have they no rights? Is their mother wrong to want to care for them?" No dice. I was talking to a brick wall. "Yes. but we paid for our ticket! They are our seats! She should not be allowed to travel with all that luggage with children. Why should we have to move?" Argument was obviously futile.

But a solution was to hand. Our handsome newcomer had told me, through her tears, that she was joining her husband, an Army officer, in Budapest. This was my cue. Lowering my voice and wagging a finger. I whispered mysteriously "Do you know what I think?" They were agog. "I've suspected it from the start", I murmured. "She's escaping from the KGB." This completely flattened them. After a long pause, little Miss No-Fibre whispered. “Does this happen very often?" "Often", I breathed heavily, "almost every other day or night. We've got to help her. for the sake of the kids." The result was magic. All their sentimental longings for some practical worthy cause were aroused. They obediently and efficiently transferred to the top bunks, proud members of a dramatic liberation conspiracy. Harmony reigned. The Russian lady was now treated with reverential respect, more deeply convinced than ever that the English were nuts.

I am sure that for many months to come the local Community Centre at Ruislip will thrill to the story of how they helped a beautiful Russian lady with her three lovely children to escape the dreaded KGB. But 1 must be getting absent-minded, for 1 clean forgot to tell them that what I had meant was Kinky Girls from Britain.

SPUTNIK

Blogger's Note:

Mmm, what were the SSPC thinking? I grew up reading The Sun newspaper in the 1980s, and I was getting flashbacks as I was scanning this in. Understandably, this short story stirred up quite a bit of controversy amongst the readership at the time, and the following letter from John Usher appeared in the December 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard:

Escape to happiness 

Comrades, 

As a party member I would like to ask what purpose was served by the publication of Sputnik's article in the October Standard. As far as I can see no socialist viewpoint is advanced, rather the contrary; to suggest that "scraping the meat off the plate" is a practical attitude to vegetarians is obtuse and. in practical terms, counter effective. Further, stereotyping of the kind employed can do nothing other than alienate interested neutrals. A propagandist of experience must surely know that stereotypes are no more effective when purportedly factual than avowedly imaginary. Although this should make no difference, the article is not even funny; on my reading it did not even raise the involuntary and quickly regretted chuckle sometimes elicited by sick jokes. 

If I did not know that Sputnik had published excellent articles under another name, I would suggest that he sends his next offering to Punch, a magazine long renowned for bridging the gap between seriousness and humour by eschewing both.

John Usher

London SW4

 

Reply: 

We have received many letters in a similar vein and note the points made.

Editors.

I believe 'Sputnik' was a one-off pen-name for Harry Young ('Horatio' in the Socialist Standard).

A New Capitalist Revolution? (1952)

From the October 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

With the passing of time and the acceleration of the tempo of events over the last few decades, there seems to be growing among the supporters of Capitalism a desire to see their system as young and virile as it was a century or more ago. In Britain this desire has lately found expression in the concept of a New Elizabethan era, with all its supposed opportunities for giving rein to those doubtful virtues of individualism and enterprise.

In America, however, there is no comparable period of history upon which to found such a mythology of a golden era to return. Instead of feeling that they have something approaching senility which can somehow be rejuvenated, propagandists for American Capitalism appear to be very concerned to create the impression that they have something completely new—an American Revolution, unique, progressive, and above all superior to a "Socialist” Britain or “Communist” Russia.

Let us take a closer look at some of the evidence that is brought forward to substantiate this theory of a new capitalist revolution. One of the most consistent media used to expound it in this country is the monthly "Reader's Digest.” In its August issue there appeared an article on “Humanising Industry—A New Revolution” (from “Time” magazine), and in September “The Unsystematic American System” (from “Harper’s Magazine”). Both are fairly representative of the sort of views that Americans are encouraged to hold about their country’s economic system in historical relation to the rest of the world.

Humanizing Industry

One of the chief effects of the Industrial Revolution upon workers as a class was their reduction to the status of appendages to a vast impersonal machine, caused by the development of mass production for a market. Socialists recognise that the nature of Capitalism is such that within it no basic change can be made in this subservient status of the workers. But, according to “Time” magazine:—

“Now a second Industrial Revolution, quieter but more profound, is sweeping through U.S. industry. Its name: Human Relations in Industry. Its purpose: to give the worker a sense of usefulness and importance. Its goal: to make life more fun by making work more meaningful.”

This, one may think at first glance, sounds just what the doctor ordered. But these otherwise admirable sentiments turn out to be only a build-up for a variant of that bugbear of regimented workers, time and motion studies. Pioneered in the 1880’s by Frederick Winslow Taylor, whose system caused managements to think of workers as little more than machines that had to eat, these studies facilitated speed-up on the factory assembly lines up to the point where greater “efficiency” no longer yielded greater output. Then in 1923 a sociologist, Elton Mayo, made the startling discovery that the men were poor producers (i.e., produced less than was felt could be squeezed out of them) because they were unhappy; so he prescribed four daily rest periods and brought in a nurse to whom workers could complain. Result: production for the first time reached the established quotas of efficiency.

The industrial psychologists were called upon to counteract the ill effects on production of the over-application of time and motion studies. But have these refinements in any way altered the workers' status as sellers of labour power? Obviously, the object of introducing welfare measures is to create more efficient workers, and not “to make life more fun.” It is certainly an adroit move on the part of employers to disguise their profit motive by talking about making workers happy, though this is not to suggest that they prefer unhappy ones. The proof, however, that the workers’ feelings are the by-product of the system and not its chief concern is the obstinate reluctance of employers to spread a little happiness by granting wage increases.

While on the subject of humanising industry it is interesting to note that some American observers dispute the view that any real change has taken place. Thus, in “Hollywood—The Dream Factory,” Hortense Powdermaker writes:—

“The technique of business and many other organizations in trying to personalize their selling relationships, such as by announcing the name of employees to customers, really fools no one. The fact that the name of the post office clerk, the bank teller or the person who handles complaints in the department store, is posted, does not really influence their relationship with customers."

There is no reason to suppose that the selling relationship between worker and capitalist has in fact changed, despite the propaganda to the contrary.

New Role of the Unions

In order to gain the fullest advantage from the introduction of expensive plant and machinery, industrialists in America have been obliged to find ways of overcoming the resistance of workers to intensive exploitation. Recognising the labour unions’ right to bargain collectively, the employers have turned what might have been defeat into victory by inviting them to co-operate in the task of exploiting the workers.

“Management began to learn that the once-feared unions themselves held keys to higher production. In Pittsburg the United Steel Workers challenged one management to name its most productive department. Then the union boosted production there by 210 per cent, in a month.

“In one Detroit metal tubing company, every attempt to boost production by special incentives had failed. The company offered the union a novel proposal: set a certain standard for labour costs and let workers and management share all the savings when increased output drove costs below that figure. Not only did production beat all records, but the workers themselves began prodding slackers.”

Perhaps the author of the above, in his enthusiasm, has not noticed the irony of using the phrase “a certain standard for labour costs” in an article on humanizing industry. It effectively explodes the myth that American capitalists regard their workers as something more than costs of production. A few extra dollars “profit-shared” seems to be a pretty high price to pay for the spectacle of workers prodding each other instead of the boss and his union-leader lackey.

The working class of America (and elsewhere) has yet to see that if its “share” of the profits becomes more than an insignificant fraction of the total profit, then this enables wages to be reduced, which in turn makes it harder to get a cut out of what the boss saves on labour costs. New production records become new standards, which the worker must exceed before he qualifies for his hand-out There is nothing revolutionary about this ingenious device—the carrot is perhaps a little juicier but is still out of reach of the straining donkey.

The Unsystematic System

According to the article in the September “Reader’s Digest” the word Capitalism no longer fits the present American system because "it stands for the primitive economic system of the 19th century.” Let us grant, for the purpose of argument, that another word may be used to denote the economic system of the 20th century to date. Have there been any fundamental changes to justify the assertion that a revolution has taken place comparable to that transforming Feudalism into Capitalism?

“A combination of patchwork revisions of the system—tax laws, minimum-wage laws, subsidies, guarantees and regulations, plus union pressures and new management attitudes—had brought about a redistribution of income, from the well-to-do to the less well-to-do.

”. . . the business system as a whole seemed to run better if some of the national income was ploughed into improvements in the income and status of the lower-income groups, enabling them to buy more goods and thus to expand the market for everybody. Americans had discovered a new frontier to open up: the purchasing power of the poor.”

The claim to have redistributed income must be treated with considerable scepticism. Every capitalist power describes its reform measures in this way; in this country Lord Beveridge may be credited with having reorganised poverty along similar lines. The most significant part of the argument concerns the purchasing power of the poor. Note that no reference is made to abolishing poverty—the poor are still to remain such, but with improved income and status.

To sum up. Capitalism in America, far from having been revolutionised, is still immensely strong and resourceful. It has succeeded in gaining the acquiescence of the majority in ways that are remarkably similar to those used in Soviet Russia—allegedly new management attitudes, democracy in industry, raised purchasing power of the poor. But, even assuming that all these things have all the advantages claimed for them, the system based upon private property and exploitation has not disappeared. Neither the threat of war nor the poverty and insecurity of the majority has been removed.

To workers seeking a way out of their problems without understanding what causes them, the idea of a capitalist revolution may seem to be a kind of second best to a socialist one. To socialists, the word revolution has a precise meaning—a complete change in the structure of society. All imitations must be refused, since they bring inevitable disappointment and delay the coming of the real thing.

Stan Parker

Book Review: Is Revolution ahead? (1915)

Book Review from the August 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Social Problem by Chas. A. Ellwood, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology in the University of Minnesota. New York: Macmillan Co. 235 pp. 5/6 net.

“Nothing can prevent a war throughout Western civilization between the possessors and the dispossessed—a war infinitely more horrible than the present one—nothing except the dominance in the mass of individuals, or at least in the leaders of both classes, of intelligence and of the ideals of peace and brotherhood.” (p. 223.)

This is the burden of the book in a nutshell. The “Social Problem” according to the author, is to harmonise the warring factors that are wrecking civilization. Of these factors he claims that the one to be relied upon is the “spiritual.” He says:

“If the governing class will keep in touch with all classes; if those in authority in law, in industry, in education, in religion will seek first the public good ; if all classes will seek to keep open the means of understanding and sympathy with all other classes, there will be no more need of revolution as a means of social progress than there is of children’s diseases in individual development.” (p. 231.)

We have it, on the best authority that there is much virtue in your “if.” And the professor has by no means exhausted its possibilities. For example, if———, But why go on? The labouring man is learning in bitterness how utterly futile is the expectation that those in authority in industry, law and all the rest, will ever “seek first the public good.” Therefore from the facts upon which the learned professor bases his case we know that revolution is inevitable. Not only is it inevitable, but the professor himself tells us that it is also justifiable, for he says (p. 100) :

“The sacrifice of life through industrial accidents and disease, through overwork and underpay, through unsanitary dwellings, through commercialized pandering to men’s vicious appetites, we must cease to tolerate among us if we are to progress either morally or physically. The evils of war are great, but they are no greater than these evils of peace which we have tolerated too long.”

It appears, however, that it is not so much the evils of today which move the professor, as the fear of revolution. He indicates with apprehension (p. 83) that the industrial system generates class antagonism ; that class conflicts increase ; that class interest has become a war cry ; that class hatred grows ; and that a gulf, in social conditions as well as in feeling, develops between the fortunate and the less fortunate: “a gulf which the sympathy and understanding necessary for social solidarity finds it difficult to bridge,”

And how does the author set about his diffi­cult task ? In the first place by defining the social problem as “the problem of humans living together.” The definition is significant. It implies that a means is to be found of softening the antagonisms so that capitalist and labourer can peacefully live together. It leads him naturally to a gospel of social harmony by means of reform and mutual concession. Above all he abhors revolution. It is the end of all things. Like practically all of capitalism’s salaried intellectuals, he fears the working class far more than he dislikes his present masters ; and there is nothing he dreads more than a working-class dictatorship. Like most of his brethren, also, he agrees with all progressive thought—to a certain extent, and there are few advanced movements that do not get a kind word from him. But what he thinks the world really needs is a “new soul,” even more than a new economic system.

On the professor’s own showing, however there is little hope for his solution. He acknowledges that the gulf between the classes widens ; that the rulers are deaf to humanity ; and that the workers are without “soul.” He laments that the machinery for national and social peace inevitably breaks down, Yet he hopes by religion, by moral education, and by social reform to reform that growing social antagonism which these things have not only failed to arrest, but have tended to foster.

He grants that material conditions mould at least the framework of “our” civilization, and that these conditions tend to sharpen social contrasts and defeat his aims ; yet he claims, in effect, that out cf the minds of trained leaders, despite the hostile influences of economic forces as a whole, an intellectual force will be made to flow which will check these dangerous influences and divert them into harmonious streams.

Thus Professor Ellwood finds it necessary to reject the materialist conception of history and seek help from a dualism which relies mainly on the idea of free will, the immortal soul, and that god-given moral force by which any man can rise superior to, and dominate, his circumstances whenever he cares to exercise the will to do so. In short, the writer of the book takes sides with the priest, the Christian-scientist, the charlatan, the ignoramus and the metaphysician, on this important issue. Since, however, few will take up a logical position on that side owing to the very obviousness of most of the facts against them, a refuge is sought in a catholic eclecticism, the confusion of which makes it extremely difficult to nail down the basic error.

The professor is, nevertheless, for all his eclecticism, clear-headed enough to see where the chief danger to his position lies. He devotes considerable space to a discussion of the materialist conception of history. He admits practically all that is contended for in that philosophy ; but since he must find some way of escape, he does so by misunderstanding or misrepresentation. He

“cordially acknowledges the complete dependence of civilized man upon the economic system under which he lives ”

and goes on to say that

“the dependence of man upon economic conditions increases as civilization advances “But,” he adds, “when we have conceded that modern industry has shaped the main outlines of our civilization, that is not sufficient warrant for concluding that our industrial system determines every thing in our social life. On the contrary, it needs but little investigation to show that there are many intimate personal relations which are very far from being determined by the economic system under which we live. Men still think and feel and act in these intimate relations not so differently from what they did long before the present economic system was born. Many of the ideas, ideals and values by which men live, in other words, far antedate our present economic system, and will probably survive it long after it is dead. It is not true, therefore, that the spiritual elements in life, and especially not those contained in moral, religious and artistic ideas and ideals, are determined by methods of producing and distributing wealth.”

In other words, because all men’s ideas and acts are not entirely explicable from the present economic system alone, therefore the materialist conception of history is an error. The professor’s misrepresentation is obvious. Whence come those ideas for which the present system cannot account ? They do not come from God. They cannot be uncaused. We know them to be accounted for by past social conditions. Many intimate acts and relations of men antedate all historical forms of society, They are the outcome of the primitive struggle for survival over other animals. Other customs and ideas originate at various economic stages in mankind’s advance towards what is called civilization. It has never been said that the existing system alone accounted for everything in man’s ideas and acts. That is a fiction of the professor’s, and shows to what he is reduced in order to make a case. Ideas that are the outcome of past social conditions tend to persist, and are altered or modified where they come into conflict with succeeding social orders. This is notoriously the case, as shown in the pamphlet published by the Socialist Party, in the matter of religion to which the professor refers. The modifications that have taken place in this phase of ideology reflect in an obvious way the changing needs of changing social conditions.

For the rest, as the author of the book under review rightly surmises, revolution is inevitable in the event of the failure of his panacea. Neither in the working class nor in the ruling class can the soulful humanitarian ideals upon which he relies become dominant. Our social circumstances destroy them. Present economic conditions sow hate, not love. Figs cannot grow on thistles. If it were necessary to wait for a complete moral regeneration of the working class ; if the mass had first to overflow with love and charity for our oppressors, our case as well as the professor’s, would be utterly helpless. Fortunately it is not so. Economic development is with us. On it our essential case rests. The propaganda of revolutionary socialism is a direct effect of existing social conditions. Capitalist conditions indelibly stamp the ruling class with the selfish, cruel and hypocritical qualities of the exploiter ; and we know what a little part sentiment plays in the struggle. Therefore are we undismayed, even at the prospect of a ruthless and hate-inflamed proletariat battling desperately for the destruction of the present hellish system in order to make at last possible that development of society which shall, through social co-operation and mutuality of interest make realisable for the first time since primitive communism, the ideals of social harmony and human brotherhood.

F, C. Watts

Organization and Socialism (1976)

From the June 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since the nineteenth century the capitalist world has been swamped with organizations. Political parties, trade unions, religious sects and nationalist groups have gained mass membership or support. All these organizations have been expressions of conflict, dissatisfaction or grievances among sections of the population. Trade unions were formed to try to safeguard the interests of groups of workers against pressure on wages by the employers. As capitalism brought under its sway more and more of the population, so did the belief spread among these workers that organizations like trade unions were necessary to protect their interests. Consequently these organizations grew, both in number and support.

But the workers were wrong in believing that these organizations could solve their problems. Because the organizations were based on attempts to solve economic problems only within the existing capitalist system, they took on the character of that social system. They lost democratic intentions which existed at their origin and became bureaucratic. Leaders arose to control them. Workers found that they had to accept organizational structures which reflected the class society they lived in.

In Germany, the Social Democratic Party gradually dropped the pretensions which a small number of members had for changing society. It adopted the objectives of the German trade unions, which were to gain immediate benefits for their working-class supporters within the capitalist system. The consequence of this was that the class nature of capitalism with its division of society into capital and wage-labour, owners and producers, leaders and led, was reflected in the structure of the Social Democratic Party. A large bureaucracy arose to control the organization.

Some theorists, like Michels in his work Political Parties have seen this development as an inevitable result of organization. But in arriving at this view he neglected the type of society in which the organizations have arisen. He saw their structure as reflecting the nature of man rather than the nature of the particular society. In looking at them without accounting for either the capitalist basis of society or the reformist objectives which the organizations had, he neglected those factors which determine their fundamental structure.

Many organizations have complained of apathy among the working class. Attendance at meetings of trade unions, political parties and other organizations has declined; “Leftists” and other reformists have declared that the lack of interest displays a lack of political consciousness among people. But all it shows is the absence of understanding. “Leftists” look to the odd clauses in the manifestos of reformist parties, like the Labour Party, to try and show that these parties are not reformist but have socialist origins. They fail to see that the original role of the organizations, and one they maintain, was as an expression of the wish for reforms of capitalism. They fail to see that the leadership nature of organizations was and is a reflection of these reformist aims.

What a decline in active involvement in these organizations shows is that numbers of the working class no longer believe that devoting their time to participation in reformism is worth while. Socialists agree with them. We have always advised the working class that involvement with these organizations can never solve the basic problems of society. At most, trade unions make gains which can quickly be eroded by developments like inflation. The reforms which political parties implement are introduced largely to facilitate the further development of capitalism. Even the National Health Service, that “sacred cow” of the Labour Party, has primarily served to ensure that the illnesses which workers have do not result in an excessive loss of labour-power from productive employment.

Socialists say that in the light of the failure of these organizations to solve the fundamental problems facing the working class, people should now take a further step and put an end to the capitalist system, which has been the cause of their problems throughout the period of mass organization. The Socialist Party of Great Britain has continuously and consistently put forward that those problems can only be solved by the establishment of Socialism. Throughout the SPGB’s existence it has opposed all other political organizations because it recognizes that the aims of these organizations were limited to obtaining reforms within capitalism. But unlike other organizations, the members of the SPGB do not see the political party and its structure as being maintained within a Socialist society. It exists solely to work for Socialism among the working class in order that they themselves can abolish capitalism. Consequently the organizational structures which reflect the class basis of capitalism will not be transferred to Socialism. Because it means that everybody will own and control the means of production, instead of a minority as in capitalism, the democratic structure of Socialism will reflect the very different purpose of the society. This is the aim of fulfilling human needs, as opposed to the aim of capitalism, which is to produce profits for a minority of the population.

M. D.

Is the Materialist Conception of History sufficient? (1906)

From the February 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

[The completion of a correspondence between two members of the S.P.G.B., the first portion of which appeared in the November issue.]

Dear Comrade.

I do not see why we should be concerned because your friend says it is utterly impossible to view Sociology as a picture, for if he means that, it is impossible to look at Sociology from an entirely detached point of view (that is, quite objectively), then I am not aware of its possibility having been maintained. But why is Sociology indicated in particular ? Why not Biology also ? If it is impossible in one case, it must be impossible in the other, or, indeed, in any branch of natural science. That the difficulties are greater in some cases than in others is obvious, but the difference is less than is usually supposed.

There is, however, this difference between Sociology and Biology : regarding the animals human interests are practically identical, hence there is comparative uniformity of human views respecting the animal world; but regarding society, with its parasites and workers ; class interests, (and consequently class views), are hopelessly in conflict. The modern social scientist must take his stand on the side of

THE CLASS SOCIALLY NECESSARY

if he is to be logical in his philosophy. In the domain of Sociology to pretend to face society in the interests of all its classes is idiotic, confusing, “ethical” and hypocritical, whilst logically it is an impossibility. To stand for the reconciliation of opposing class interests, except by the abolition of classes through the triumph of labour, is either to confusedly deliberate or to deliberately confuse.

If, then, it is impossible to really objectively view things which we can only know and judge by subjective means, must we therefore abandon all attempt to discount subjective interference and get as near to a detached view as our human limitations will permit? Obviously not, for the detached point of view remains the counsel of perfection, the ideal scientific viewpoint.

That few even attempt to attain to this, or that none can completely so view social, physical or biological phenomena, simply means that to err is human.

In getting at the truth of any matter the observer is hampered by his physical shortcomings, by the limited knowledge accumulated to his day, by his interests or by the phase of life most to the fore in his time. A few men rise to such a height in their perception of truth that their works are enduring and stand as landmarks of the different stages of human knowledge. Aristotle, Roger Bacon, Darwin, Spencer, Marx and Lewis Morgan, are some examples of this in the domain of science.

To know and discount personal disturbing influences, and to get a point of view as nearly detached as possible, must be the aim of every true scientist. What other plan has your friend to propose ? Does he propose that we should bury our heads in the sands of our narrowest environment because it is impossible to get a perfect view of the universe ? Or does he hold, as we hold, that

ALL TRUTH IS RELATIVE ;

that while in Sociology (which, as I have said, is the most subjective of sciences) the difficulties of a scientific point of view are increased nevertheless, for a generalization to be even relatively true it, must be the result of, or in harmony with, an even and thorough view of each department of human knowledge at that epoch?

You say that the Socialist propaganda, which is necessary to the revolution, has little economic significance, and that the creation of a demand for Socialism is an intellectual rather than an economic process. We have here the shadow of our old friend—an uncaused effect: for if the intellectual process is not caused by the influence upon the individual of the conditions of existence, whence does it arise ? The fact that the Socialist propaganda (the demand for Socialism) arises in every country with the development of capitalism, is, in itself, a sufficient answer to our question. Further, to expect that Socialist propaganda can be the motive force changing economic conditions, is really to reject the materialist conception of history as explained by Marx in the extract I sent you.

Economic conditions (i.e., methods of wealth production and distribution) change gradually and independently of the will of man. They evolve by pressure on the means of existence and along the line of greatest economy, the line of least resistance, and thus form the real cause of intellectual and then political revolution. The Socialist propaganda and demand for Socialism is brought about by the decreasing harmony between the social (political) system and the economic mode of producing wealth (associated industry). The demand for Socialism is Nature’s preparation for the compulsory adaptation of the social organism to this economic change, a re-adaptation that must take place if humanity is to advance.

Strictly speaking, Socialism is not a revolution in economic conditions, but is a

REVOLUTION IN THE SOCIAL SUPERSTRUCTURE

which the ruling class has created in harmony with its material interests; the ruling class itself being the creature of economic necessity. Socialism changes (or rather abolishes) the class which controls, and the manner of profiting by, associated industry ; destroys attempted barriers to the further development of this, and places the social organism in a position of healthy reaction with its economic environment. The demand for Socialism is, then, in the main, the direct effect of the pressure of economic conditions on the individual organism. Just as a writer is great, and is understood, when he sees more fully and shows more clearly what others are being forced to (inarticulately) feel and believe, so the Socialist propagandist, more deeply impressed by economic conditions and social contradictions, voices more fully and clearly what others are economically being led to think, and so brings their aspirations to a focus. Thus the demand made by economic and social conditions on the individual organism is voiced again in the class struggle which can only end with the destruction of the social system that is growing more and more out of harmony with the economic basis of society.

In your first letter you said : “The point is, then, to demonstrate that the all important, the dominating factor in society is its economic conditions.” I endeavoured, briefly, to demonstrate that economic conditions (the how, where, and quantity of the necessaries of life) undoubtedly do form the dominant, and root factor in all life. In your second letter you say : “It is undoubtedly true that the ultimate explanation of any force or condition in society is to be found in the means adopted by men to satisfy their material wants.” But you add: “When you have explained the origin of man’s ideas as arising through economic and material channels, that does not explain the possible reaction of these intellectual forces on the economic and material conditions.” The problem, though essentially the same, is restated. Let us examine it.

If it is admitted that the origin and ultimate explanation of man’s ideas, social relationships, and intellect itself, lie in material conditions: if, in fact, the evolution of the human family from

THE EARLY SPECK OF PROTOPLASM

(which differed from the substance around it only in that it could absorb fresh substance and broke in two when its size became too great for the cohesion of its material) is due to, and is explicable only on the ground of the varying nature of the struggle for existence, then the rest follows as a logical consequence, for it is evident that the “ego” (or whatever fanciful name one may give the individual), is but the result of past conditions of the struggle to obtain the necessaries of existence. Obviously, therefore, the intellect can only reflect or redistribute under the pressure and through the channels of present economic conditions the influence of past conditions. The reflex or secondary action of the “ego” must, then, ever remain inferior in intensity and effect, but tend to be similar in direction, to the material conditions of life which cause and modify it. Intellectual, like all other forces, tend to run in worn channel’s ; and this fact of the “inertia of the mind” would cause mankind to continue always in the same rut were it not that changing conditions compel mankind to readapt itself to them. Intellect in itself would perpetuate, but not innovate, if changing material conditions did not compel it to change the direction of its activities.

This is important, let us insist upon it. Given the individual organism and the laws of its economic environment, it is obvious that the organism (which, with its experience, has been moulded by past conditions of life) will endeavour to play out its course along the line of least resistance and will continue into present conditions, in so far as they are similar to the past, the action forced on the individual by past environment. And since by pressure on the means of life, natural selection of the most economic methods, and the consequent

MODIFICATION OF THE ORGANISM,

(individual and social) the line of least resistance continually changes its direction, the organism (social and individual) must adapt itself (be adapted) to the changing economic conditions or lose its place in the economy of nature.

Now it will be seen that although with growing complexity of structure the individual grows more powerful and his influence on surrounding conditions appears to grow in importance; yet the individual can never become greater in power than the material conditions of which he is but the creature and reflection, for the secret of his growing power is the growth of his power to adapt himself to, and become more pliable before, these same material conditions.

You object to my analogy of the clay balls because it leaves out the reaction of the individual on his environment. But the analogy was not made to illustrate that. It simply illustrated the fallacy of the “identical environment” idea, and showed how some may be Conservatives and some Socialists in a given society. A purpose that I hope the illustration has served. An analogy is, of course, a comparison between different things which have nevertheless some features in common. Hence no analogy can be perfect, and argument by analogy is dangerous. It is enough for the purpose if the analogy illustrates (for it cannot prove) the working of some general law. In my example it was only the formation of individuality, or the cause of individual differences, that was illustrated.

You ask for an illustration of the reaction of the individual on his environment, and you suggest an excellent example the colonies. Let us take, in the first place, the animals transferred by the white man to the “colonies” during historical times. We find

EXAMPLES OF INDIVIDUALITIES

(or I should say, organisms) developed by conditions in the broader and more differentiated area of the old world, running feral in the new. The horse, the result of continuous natural selection in the old world, transplanted in its developed form to the new world, found itself more adaptable (intelligent) and better fitted to obtain the necessaries of life than the native animals whose economy and distribution were consequently considerably altered. The rabbit, developed by the keener old world struggle for existence, transferred to Australia, found itself more fitted to exist than many of the natural inhabitants because the latter were the creatures of a less diverse or more restricted environment. Thus the animal and vegetable economy of Australia became modified by the reaction of the rabbit’s inherited nature upon it. So the human inhabitants of parts of the old world, their individual and social organisms the results of a keener and more varied struggle for existence, were economically forced to introduce themselves and their superior naturally selected methods of production into America and Australia, where their greater adaptability and more efficient means of obtaining food and shelter caused them to oust the less adaptable native populations, and to develop afresh on lines determined by their newer material conditions.

We see, then, that at bottom it is the methods of wealth production and distribution which determine the existence or extermination of races, the development of their intellect and the societies they form. Any known more profitable method of production will inevitably, in the long run, take the place of the old.

In grasping the reaction of the individual on his environment,

A PATHOLOGICAL ILLUSTRATION

may help us. A man, let us say, living under conditions inducive of typhoid fever, catches that disease and communicates it to others, thus spreading the effects of his own environment. If many live in typhoid-giving circumstances there will be a severe epidemic: indeed the disease will probably break out at several independent centres. But if very few live under conditions inducive of typhoid fever, there will be no epidemic and the disease will rapidly disappear. Hence individuality only gives a little longer life to an effect produced by external causes, for if the same causes are not operative elsewhere, the disease finds no food to live upon and is starved out.

The spread of Capitalism to Japan is another illustration to hand. In Japan, development from a kind of Feudalism to Capitalism has been very rapid. The visits of merchants, the settlement of Europeans bringing their methods of production, with them to Japan and starting factories with the cheap labour available, combined with the existence of the requisite degree of energy and adaptability on the part of the Japanese, and the favourable natural resources and geographical position of the country, enabled the more efficient methods of production to rapidly oust the old and brought about a change (a feature of which was a revolution) in Japanese society that placed it in harmony with the changed economic basis, and with the interests of the new class thereby given power.

The Socialist propagandist also propagates a policy, a class interest, created by circumstances. If the same circumstances are acting around, the ideas propagated spread in milder or more acute form. If the same causes do not operate around the propagandist, his efforts will make but an eddy that will rapidly die away. Our propaganda is, then, simply the means of giving definiteness, cohesion, and conscious expressions to the direct effects of economic and social pressure.

THE PROBLEM OF MAN’S CONSCIOUSNESS

now begins to assume truer proportions. For just as the social organism in a more or less embryo stage may be seen in the lower social animals, and in higher and higher forms as we go from the most primitive folk to the most civilised nation: so man’s well developed consciousness may be seen in lower degrees of development among the less developed organic beings. Man’s intellect can only put together things he has seen or known, but he can put them together in new order and form fresh patterns. By the process of reasoning (that is to say, by mental comparison) man can, to some extent foretell the results of certain actions if he has known similar results to occur (even though separately or partially) in the past. Growing to grasp the essential oneness of Nature and her inviolable order, and finding that he cannot alter her course to suit his phantasies, but that he is Nature’s plaything and his sane wishes are Nature’s wishes, man realizes that his salvation lies in knowing Nature and in more completely adapting himself to her in all her moods, for, if the forces within him fail to respond to the forces without, he is annihilated.

Thus the pressure of economic necessity, acting on the individual and on society, brings man’s consciousness into line with the new conditions of the struggle for life. The seeking of self interest, necessarily common to all sentient beings either individually or socially, brings humanity into contact with the obstacles that bar its path. An increasing number of the class economically necessary, by contact with the obstacle in the line of their interests and helped by the teaching of those who have explored it more fully, become conscious of the existence of the barrier and of the necessity for its removal. Economic pressure continually swells their ranks till a sufficient number of the rising class have become conscious of their mission, and aided by the ripeness of material conditions, throw down the obstacle to their progress with a crash.

Taking human society we can then say in view of the organic unity of the human family, that changing conditions of wealth production compel human beings to change the form of society in adaptation to the economic change, and therefore that all over the world and in every historical epoch, varied by climatic and racial conditions, “the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange and the social organization necessarily following from it form the basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of that epoch.”

F. C.Watts

Is the Materialist Conception of History sufficient? (1905)

From the December 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

[A continuation of the correspondence between members of the S.P.G.B., the first portion of which appeared in the last issue.]

The contribution to the discussion with which you have favoured me corroborates the position taken up by Comrade R. Kent in the article he contributed some months back now to the Socialist Standard with which I found myself in complete agreement. But in a discussion with a friend of mine on the aforesaid article, he saw fit to object, that it is not possible for a man to look at the Social Problem as a man would look at a picture. And while I do not for one moment admit the impossibility of the attitude for which I have repeatedly argued, I am of opinion that to approach sociology in the same frame of mind as biology is and has been approached is, to say the least of it, difficult. The “furies of private interest” (unconscious as well as conscious), do undoubtedly act and act forcibly, and the question arises whether a man can get outside himself to look at such a question in the desired way. Is it possible to ignore the action of our individual promptings ? In many cases the wish is unconsciously father to the thought. Some wise person has said that man does not know how anthropomorphic he is, and it seems to me he does not know how far he is influenced by his own wishes, etc.

But the point that I desire to raise is that while it is undoubtedly true that the ultimate explanation of any force or condition in Society is to be found in the means adopted by men to satisfy their material wants (I never objected to that), is it sufficient, to explain their origin ? When you have explained the origin of man’s ideas as arising through economic and material channels, that does not explain the possible reaction of those intellectual forces on the economic and material conditions. We see that colonies, once the markets for an industrial and colonising country, themselves become industrial and enter the field, ofttimes in competition with the mother country herself ; or the grown chick enters into competition with its own forbear and ultimately squeezes it out of existence. Is it sufficient to say that such a country developed her industry through the action of her functioning as a recipient of the commerce of the parent ? Or is it necessary to take into consideration the reaction set up by that process ? So with our social problem. Granting that the root of the whole lies in the economic development; granting that the change must primarily be economic, it still seems that to attain the desired economic revolution, it is first necessary to revolutionise men’s ideas and men’s conceptions. In other words change the existing intellectual conditions so as to change and improve the economic conditions, in order to make possible still further intellectual advancement.

Consider the Socialist propaganda. It is, in my opinion, one of the most necessary elements towards the revolution. Yet it has little direct economic significance. It is an appeal to the ethical and intellectual faculties of the audience, and until we have made the demand for Socialism, Socialism will not come. The creation of that demand is an intellectual, rather than an economic, process.

It may be that I am mistaken, but your illustration of the clay balls seems to leave somthing out, viz., the reaction of the balls on their environment. Without overlooking the differences that may exist in the hardness or the softness of the balls, which may be taken to correspond to the varying resistance offered by individuals to the pressure of the environment, it must not be lost sight of that this “resistance” is purely “passive,” whereas the more or less conscious resistance of the individual to his environment is more active and has a modifying effect on the environment. To tell me that the intelligence of the individual which consciously resists its environment is the result of helps me but little, for I want to know how that intelligence can be so awakened as to be made to forcibly, actively, consciously, and definitely act on its immediate environment in order to alter it.

The same thing applies, of course, more or less, to biological as against sociological questions. In sociological questions you have to reckon with an intellectual consciousness that does not (so far as I know) obtain to the same extent in other scientific problems.

Yours fraternally,

To awaken that consciousness,

“ENGINEER.”

Comrade F. C. Watts rejoinder will appear in the next issue.

Is The Materialist Conception Of History Sufficient? (1905)

From the November 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

Interesting Letters on an Interesting Subject 

[The following correspondence has passed between two members of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. The subject matter is of such importance—an understanding of what is implied by the term “the materialist conception of history” being indispensable to anything like an adequate appreciation of the Socialist position—and our comrade Watts has presented his case so admirably, that we have readily undertaken to give the letters the wider publicity of these columns.—Editorial. Committee.”]

Dear Comrade,— So far as I understand it, I agree with the Materialist Conception of History, but recently I have been studying the reports of the Sociological Society, which magnify the problem of the unification of the Social sciences until it appears almost insoluble ; and I have had my faith shaken in the sufficiency of the Materialist Conception because these learned people have made the question appear so great that the Materialist Conception appears too simple. I will, therefore, explain the difficulty according to the disciples of the Sociological Society.

They appear to agree that society is an organism of a complicated type, and that these complications are made intelligible only through their relations being truly comprehended. They view the sociological field as at present being separated into many particular fields, each in the hands of specialist investigators, and they claim that the sociologist (through the Sociological Society) is the scientist whose duty it is to co-ordinate the social specialisms and generalise from the investigations of the social They consider that the specialist investigators should work with the idea of the ultimate unity of their investigations, an idea that they claim it is one of the duties of the Sociological Society to foster. They deprecate the interpretation of the highly complex social phenomena in the terms of any one specialism; and this, it seems to me, is the point that particularly touches us.

On every hand we see men working with a view to the application of their particular remedy for various social evils. Do we not come under the same ban ? Do we not offer a sort of Morrison’s Pill for the earthquake? Socialism, at the last and ultimate analysis, is an economic proposition, a fundamental one, I grant, but still purely economic. Now the economic relations of men in society are not the only ones. We say : true, but all other relations grow out of the economic ones, and this, as I understand it, is the basis of the Materialist Conception of History. The point, then, is to demonstrate that the all important, the dominating factor in society, is its economic conditions.

There are a considerable number of people sometimes designated cranks, who desire to regenerate society through the application of their particular Morrison’s Pill. According to your alleged philosophic radical, all that is required is political perfection—the carrying of in political revolutionary reforms (I use the Hibernianism advisedly). According to the temperance fanatic, all that is required is the entire removal of the “drink evil,” root and branch. The ethical reformer seeks to emphasise the moral factor in social relations and through that means to establish the millenium. The orthodox man seeks that everybody should believe that certain impossible things once happened, and through that belief, somehow, I know not how, the millenium is coming. And so on. Every reformer of whatever colour or creed, has some Morrison’s Pill to give Society, to cure it of all its evils at one blow. But again I ask, does not the Socialist fall into the same category ? He says that ethical, moral, religious ; artistic, asthetical; political and intellectual relations are fundamentally determined by the economic relations, and he seeks to alter those economic relations so that following from such revolutionary change should come the change (and. of course, improvement) in the ethical, moral, religious: artistic, aesthetical; political, intellectual, and all other relations.

Now the difficulty seems to be, even granting all that we claim for the dominance of economic conditions, how far can man’s intellect get ahead of his economic and other conditions, and frame ideas and ideals to work to and for ? If man’s ideas were rigidly determined by his economic environment, the Socialist would be impossible, and indeed, the social conservative would be impossible, too, because in the same environment we find most divergent minds.

The whole problem that I am trying to formulate would seem to be the old one of “free-will” and “determinism.” And the only explanation of the divergences can be the individual temperament, call it what you will. So that the position seems to resolve itself into the effects of the action of the environment (in which must be included every influence which the human mind comes into contact with from first to last) on the individual personality, the “ego.” The great difficulty would seem to be, therefore, the true recognition of the forces that go to make up that ego through hereditary channels. Is our knowledge of the action of heredity sufficient for the formulation of a philosophy that should comprehend all the influence that go to make men, in all their strange variations of temperament ?

In conclusion, therefore, I would ask, is the Materialist Conception sufficient for the explanation of all the complex phenomena of modern Society ?

Fraternally yours,

“ENGINEER.”

P.S.—of course, you must not suppose that I am such a heretic on the Socialist philosophy as I appear from the above. I have exaggerated my own difficulties in order, not only to make the matter more controversial, but to, so far as possible, get the other side discussed.

________________________

Dear Comrade,—I have read your letter on the the Materialist Conception of History, and as I hold firmly to that conception as a guiding principle (having entirely convinced myself of its truth), I shall be glad to discuss the matter.

Before doing so, however, I will ask you to carefully peruse the following somewhat lengthy but exceedingly important quotation from Marx’s “Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy,” which gives an explanation of the Materialist Conception of History, as it is necessary to define our terms before using them as signs in our discussion.

This extract is from the preface to Marx’s “Critique of Political Economy.” Published (in Germany) 1857.

“The first work which I undertook for the purpose of solving the doubts which perplexed me was a critical re-examination of Hegel’s; ‘Philosophy of Law.’ The introduction to this work appeared in the German French Year Books of 1844. My investigations ended in the conviction that legal relations and forms of government cannot be explained either by themselves or by the so-called development of the human mind, but, on the contrary, have their roots in the conditions of men’s existence, whose totality Hegel, following the French and English writers of the eighteenth century, summed up under the name of civil society ; and that the anatomy of civil society must be sought in political economy, to which study I next gave my attention.

“The general result at which I arrived and which, once obtained, served as a guide for my subsequent studies, can be briefly formulated as follows:

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

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

“Different stages of industry produce different relations.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“As little as we judge an individual by what he thinks he is, just as little can we judge such revolutionary epoch by its own consciousness.

“We must rather explain this consciousness out of the antagonisms of men’s industrial occupations, out of the conflict existing between the productive capacity of social industry and the legal institutions under which this industry is carried on.

“A society, no matter what its form may be, is never broken up until all the productive powers are developed for which it is adapted.

“New and higher social institutions are never established until the material conditions of life to support them, have been prepared in the lap of the old society itself. Therefore, mankind never sets for itself any tasks, except those for which it has received proper training and which it is able to perform.

“If we examine closely, it will always be found that the conflict never arises except where the material conditions of its solution are already at hand, or at least are in the the process of growth.

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

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

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

And now to proceed with my own contribution to the discussion.

All history, indeed all intellectual life, can be explained only from the accompanying and preceding material conditions, since any other theory than this postulates an uncaused thing, which is contrary to all experience, and is therefore unscientific and untenable. Intellectual life is but the reflex of material conditions. That intellectual life has a secondary reflex action upon material conditions in no way changes the fact that material conditions form the base, origin, and material of all intellectual life.

Now, in the Materialist Conception of History we are given the dominant factor in the determination of all history ; that is, the method in which wealth is produced and exchanged. Obviously, in order that there may be human history two things are essential; firstly, men, and secondly, food and shelter for them. How much, where and how food and shelter can be obtained, determines, firstly, man’s existence, secondly, where he shall live, and thirdly, how he shall live. Therefore the Materialist Conception of History is without doubt the determining and basic factor in all history ; indeed, broadly interpreted, all material conditions are comprised in it.

Just as we speak of the “Law of Evolution” so we may speak of the Materialist Conception as the “Law of History.” As in one case we can explain existing organic forms by the “Law of Evolution,” so in the other case can we explain existing social forms only by the materialist ”Law of History.” In organic, as in social, evolution, there are many minor matters that, with our present defective knowledge we cannot yet explain. Nevertheless, it would be absurd and unscientific to abandon the law which has been proved right in so many instances the moment we come upon obscure or complicated detail whose connection with the fundamental law is not at once seen.

Both in biology and in sociology, inability to see the working of fundamental principles or laws is usually the result of insufficient knowledge, narrowness of the field of view, and a priori notions. This is especially true of the modern social specialist. Lost in a forest of detail he lacks the breadth of view that is necessary to an understanding of general principles. We do not now magnify the accidentals of zoology to the extent that the old naturalists did, who thereby got fanciful and conflicting classifications; but, probably aided by the fact that we see the detail of animal life from a distance, and so get a truer perspective than in sociology, we have grasped the basic principles of organic evolution in the food supply and the conditions of the struggle to obtain it. No science is so subjective as sociology, for here we meet the “furies of private interests ;” and hampered as are the majority of specialists by preconceived ideas and class prejudice, small wonder is there that even the most honest of them arrive at such inane conclusions. They fail to distinguish between essentials and accidentals, and detail assumes greater importance than principles or laws in consequence. “They cannot see the wood for the trees.” Specialisation is, of course, essential, but. the co-ordination of the social sciences can only he the work of one who takes a thorough but even view of all.

To realise the full force of the Materialist Concept a broad knowledge of history, economics, and natural science is absolutely essential, and history is the most important. Such broad surveys of history as are given in even elementary primers like Jenk’s History of Politics and Fyffe’s History of Greece, or in such works as Thorold Rogers’ Six Centuries of Work and Wages and Buckle’s Introduction to the History of Civilisation, throw into relief the general principles of history and afford a granitic foundation to the Materialist Conception.

It is too great a task to attempt any historical survey here ; but it is most clear; to take the example that immediately affects us; that the tremendous transformation in this country during the last three centuries of the conditions of things and the social life arising therefrom, is directly traceable to the wonderful change which has taken place in the methods of producing and distributing wealth. A new class has been created and forced to power. The face of the country has been changed from agricultural to manufacturing. Huge towns have arisen where once were cornfields. The change from individual to social production has revolutionised social relationships. Where once men worked singly for home consumption they now work in huge armies for others, disciplined and commanded. Where once was handicraft is now giant machine production. All this has been brought about by the gradual change in the methods of producing and distributing the wealth of the country ; due to the greater economy of co-operative over individual production, and to the greater economy of machine over hand labour. Modern social life is explicable only upon this basis : the line of least resistance in wealth production impelling men into entirely new social relationships.

It will be seen how curious is the idea that the scientific Socialist, by indicating economic conditions as the basis of all social relationships, has only a Morrison’s Pill a la Carlyle to offer of no greater efficiency than is usual with such nostrums. The cure-all pill idea implies idealism. It implies that men can, out of their own souls, evolve a scheme of things and force it on society without that scheme being of necessity the outcome of present conditions and in harmony with the natural trend of things. Socialism of the scientific type is, of course, not this by any means. The various reformers with their nostrums are rather like the quacks who profess to cure virulent fevers by means of prayers, charms and incantations, or at least, like the pseudo scientific quacks who prescribe drugs to counteract only the symptoms and effects of diseases, leaving the causes untouched. The Socialist is rather like the true scientist who goes to causes in material conditions, and sees that effective drainage is laid down, cleanliness maintained, and correct food given.

The question often occurs : how is it that in identical environment some are Socialists and some are conservatives, if economic conditions determine, in the last resort, the views of men ? The matter of this “identical environment” can be illustrated by a simple analogy. Suppose a hundred soft clay balls were put in a bag and sat on, these balls would all be in an identical environment, like men in any class in society subjected to economic pressure, so what would happen ? Some balls would be squared, some slightly flattened, and some utterly squashed, as determined by their position in this so-called identical environment. In society different classes have different environment. In a given class some would be slightly modified conservatives, and some revolutionary: as pressure increases so all would become entirely altered. All, then, would be affected, but slightly unequally, since no two balls, or two persons, could possibly be in exactly the same environment. So in society men picture the future from what they see and feel in the present. Some by hereditary fitness and actual environment would more easily and clearly comprehend the needs of the present and the tendency of things; others in conditions less violently affected would find it more difficult to see clearly, or would from the materials to their hands or inherited weakness, form false pictures which would lure them in wrong directions.

So far from economics being but one specialisation of no greater import than a host of other artificial divisions or specialisms, economics is, then, the fundamental, the essential specialism. It is the trunk upon which all the various branches depend, or rather, to be more accurate, it is the anatomy of social life. The truth of this proposition is amply demonstrated at the bar of social history, even with the knowledge at present, available ; just as the truth of the law of evolution is shown at the bar of the more developed natural sciences. The conclusions of all natural science, indeed, render no other interpretation of history logically tenable except the Materialist Conception of History.

F. C. Watts.

[A further instalment of this correspondence will appear in the next issue.]

Leadership (2001)

Book Review from the August 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Leadership and Social Movements. Edited by Colin Barker, Alan Johnson and Michael Lavalette. (Manchester University Press, 2001.)

Socialists are interested in leadership from a number of different perspectives. Capitalism as a class society engenders owners of the means of wealth production, the privileged, the leaders; and non-owners, the unprivileged, the followers. Most of the followers don’t oppose the system, which is why it persists. They elect leaders to get the best deal they can from the system. Socialism as a classless society based on social and political equality (though not on the absence of difference) is inconsistent with leadership. However, socialism is not inconsistent with some functions associated with leadership such as organisation, co-ordination – and even inspiration.

Then there is the perceived necessity and inevitability of leadership as an objection to socialism – “There will always be leaders and followers and you can’t change human nature.” This objection needs to be met.

Leadership and Social Movements touches on some of these issues but doesn’t really deal with them. As an edited book with 14 authors (mostly sociologists, social psychologists and related academics) it lacks the coherence of a single-authored work. The editors are frank about this: they invite readers to find “that it is worth poking about further in the black box of leadership”.

After an introduction, there are chapters on Robert Michels and the “cruel game” (of the alleged inevitability of leadership), Leninism, the French anti-racist movement, the women’s liberation movement, Martin Luther King, the Sefton Two, Brazilian youth leaders, a radical environment group, crowd leadership, suffragette movements, and the Soviet Revolution of 1905. The chapter on Michels has most of the book’s few references to the word socialism – “socialism from above” (the Labour Party’s Clause 4) and socialism as “the enhancement of state power via the nationalisation of property and state planning”. Not socialism at all, in other words, but state capitalism.

Readers interested in how leadership relates to the socialist movement would do better to read the three relevant pages (195-7) in David Perrin’s book The Socialist Party of Great Britain than the 215 pages of this rambling collection.

Stan Parker

Capitalism's Saviours. (1919)

Pamphlet Review from the June 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The Drift To Revolution." Issued for the Cities Committee of the Sociological Society by Headley Bros., Oxford St.

Coming from a committee within a society advertising itself in such dignined and ambitious terms, we naturally expect to find in "The Drift to Revolution" a work of at least some little scientific pretension. But those who read it in this expectation will be disappointed. For throughout its fifty pages of discussion and lofty idealism there is not one scientific or essential fact worth recording. The authors view the drama of life as spectators, free from bias, and only concerned with their science. Nevertheless this does not prevent them, after emphasising the "drift to revolution," from offering advice to the ruling class on the best means to stem or turn it.

This action at once places them in their true category. Their title implies that they are out for scientific research ; their conclusions prove them to be just one more instrument to falsify a science that in its development and progress threatens the social order in which the capitalist class have wealth and power.

The real interest of the working class is the possession of that knowledge in sociology, economics, and politics that will enable them to apply the revolutionary principle and establish society on a basis of production for use. All such knowledge points to this as the conclusion of the class struggle. But this involves the elimination from society of the class that lives by exploitation ; hence sociological societies that interpret the science on their behalf.

Sociology was revolutionised by Karl Marx. His twin discoveries, the ''Materialistic Conception of History" and the surplus value contained in commodities, gave to the working class the basis of a critical analysis of the capitalist system. He developed this basis till the system was laid bare and exposed to the full as a ruthless system of intensive slavery and exploitation. His chief works, together with those of Engels and L. H. Morgan, are the highest expression of sociological knowledge, and because of their conclusions, that point to the necessity for the working-class to triumph over capitalism, should have been made the target of every defender of the capitalist system. But the champions of capitalism, although possessing the will and the wish, have yet failed to discover anything that is not in accordance with science.

The "Cities Committee" provides a good illustration of the usual methods of Marx's critics. After describing the manner in which they imagined he worked out and arrived at his conclusions (which, by the way, they never once pass under review), they first eulogise him as a German prophet of the Bolshevik regime. Next they picture him as a contemporary and compatriot of Bismarck, remarking, without producing a shred of evidence, that both, Marx and Bismarck, had a common faith in the cult of the State. They conclude by relegating him to a position somewhere beneath themselves in the realms of understanding. "He saw, but not with complete understanding," they say. "His mind was too severely handicapped. The embitterment of poverty does not conduce to clarity of insight. . . . The abstractions of Richardo and the metaphysics of Hegel, reared in the British Museum library . . . ensures a progeny of fallacies." Not one of which fallacies, again by the way, do the committee place on record.

This bumptious committee with the fraudulent name does not approach a single question scientifically or even seriously. There are whole pages devoted to what they term sabotage. Because the bricklayer proclaims 500 bricks a day's work in opposition to the master's demand for 1,000, that is sabotage; and the bricklayer is in the same galley with the trusts that restrict output in a falling market to keep up prices, or buy and suppress inventions and processes that would scrap their plants.

Whether he is or not matters nothing. The essential fact is ignored. The worker sells his labour power. The capitalist buys it and claims the right to work it to its fullest capacity. The question for the worker is, what is the extent of his power to do so ?

The committee failed to detect the antagonism between the buyer and the seller of labour power, and consequently failed to see the impossibility of reconciliation. Instead, they followed up the reasoning of the bricklayer to the point where this attempt to put a limit to the extent of exploitation resulted in a reduction of the work per day by one half, and a rise in wages of 100 per cent.

Had they taken the trouble to investigate the facts they would have found that their theorising never reached that far, and could not have ended there if it had. They would have discovered, if they had investigated, that the bricklayer never even reached the first stage in their journey, that of successfully limiting the output for a working day. Long before they reached that far the masters showed that they had full control of the situation. Bricklayers were made in shoals: American methods of building were introduced that simplified and cheapened, and in a few years the bricklayers were forced to submit to a bondage more tyrannical and exacting than anything in the annals of the trade. The war gave them a brief respite because they were in demand for the building of munition factories and aerodromes. But that work having ceased, they are once more at the mercy of the masters, who demand everywhere, as they do in all trades, that the day's output shall only be limited by the physical powers of the worker.

The committee reach the climax of absurdity when they describe "bearing" or "selling short" on the Stock Exchange as sabotage. It surely needs but little knowledge in economics to see that all such operations are merely gambling moves, whereby wealth changes hands. They have no effect whatever on actual production—or even on prices, when the average of a cycle of fluctuations is taken.

On the war their logic is a curiosity. On page 35 they say that "sabotage practised covertly by men of business, advocated openly by extremists of labour, applied deliberately by suffragettes, was one the major forces that made for war," and that "The popular verdict fixes the guilt on tbe Central Empires for the preparation and proximate causes." On page 37 we are told that "the hell's broth on which the world has lately been supping had many cooks to prepare it. . . . The culprits are the conventional parties and their insurgent counter-parties. These are the Liberals, Imperialists and Financiers on the one side, and the Radicals, Socialists and Anarchists on the other." And on page 42 they say, "On one side the party of order sees a way of escape through a 'good' war, capable of uniting the whole nation against the common foe."

It is scarcely necessary to point out the disparity between these statements. First of all it is sabotage and the Central Powers ; next it is the conflict between the so-called progressive forces and the party of Order; and lastly it (the war) was the only means of escape from revolution open to the party of Order, i.e., the capitalist class.

But with all their talk of sabotage they are totally blind to the fact that it is a natural fruit of the capitalist system. Profit being the motive for production, restriction of output to force up prices, and the excessive waste entailed in extensive advertising are explained. The wholesale destruction of wealth in the world war is explained likewise, as a conflict between capitalist groups over markets in which to realise their profits.

Having expressed their detestation of pre-war conditions and postulated the futility of social reform, the committee proceed to outline the remedy, or alternatives with which society-—or, to speak more correctly, the capitalist class— were, and are still, faced.

"To escape alike the Scylla of War and the Charybdis of Revolution by boldly steering for a peace which contains within itself the 'moral equivalents of war.' We have to find the formula of a peace that is not the negative thing, the mere war-peace of the Victorian era, but is, something positive, charged to complete the process of conversion begun in war, by carrying the ferment of idealism on into a peace war, a 'holy' war, constructive, evocatory, militant, yet also campaigning ruthlessly against diseases, poverties, ignorances, follies, vices, crimes."

The "process of conversion," etc., refers to the co-ordination of Liberals, Imperialists, and Financiers for the purpose of "organising the nation for war," who, the committee claim, "given the opportunity of high public endeavour, compose into a workman-like trio of real political efficiency." Then high purpose must be carried over to win the peace, says the committee, and further :

"During the war there was an impulse to place the energies of the warring societies at the disposal of their chemists, physicists, engineers, and chartered accountants. These, together with rural and town planners, educationists, economists, experts in health, intellectuals and administrators, should be entrusted with the conduct of the campaign against poverty. While poets, singers, musicians, artists and writers should work up the necessary enthusiasm."

Briefly, the Liberals, Imperialists, and Financiers, i.e.. the active section of the ruling class, will hand over to, and assist the sociological experts in a holy war against poverty. The aesthetics, intellectuals, and the clergy will work up the enthusiasm and "evoke a spiritual activity," and the result is to be Eutopia— which is the opposite of Utopia because it is "here and now."

These are the new materials and forces in the scheme that is seriously put forward as an alternative to "another 'good' war" on the one hand, or revolution the other.

The committee's observations and reasoning are false from the very outset. The various sections of the ruling class in all the belligerent countries, it is now apparent, far from co-ordinating in the common interest, only entered the war to safeguard or extend their commerce and territory, and only pooled their energies and resources because their class—or group— interests were assailed. They placed their class interests, for the time being, above individual interests, as they invariably do when those interests are threatened, either by rival groups of capitalists or by the workers,

As the working class have no share or interest in commerce or territory, whatever happened, they stood neither to gain or lose, but remained wage-slaves as before. All that the ruling class did toward winning the war—and the chief thing they did was to force the workers into the conflict—they did with the sole object of achieving and consolidating their position as the dominant group among the capitalists of the world. They acted during the war as they acted during the peace, in their class interest, but, if possible, with the exercise of greater brutality and hypocrisy.

The three groups, Liberals, Imperialists, and Financiers, constitute the old gang we knew in pre-war days. They still have the power— through the control of the political machinery —and still rely on poverty to drive the workers into their workshops. Consequently to abolish poverty would be to undermine their own position as a dominant class.

The committee have already shown how the "aesthetics, educationists," etc., are dependent on and under the control of the ruling class, either by convention or through the State. We may, therefore, leave them out of consideration. All the professions are too busy—like the rest of the workers—earning salaries and fees to start an independent movement of their own, unless it is in their own interest along the lines suggested by Bernard Shaw.

The committee's alternative, consequently, resolves itself into a flimsy idealism with no substance. It simply camouflages the fact that the old gang retains supreme power over the working class, and the basis of the system is left untouched.

If the Sociological Society were what they pretend to be—coldly analytical and unprejudiced—instead of collecting all the confusing details and non-essentials that appear on the surface, to fling in the eyes of the workers as dust to blind them, they would have brushed them aside, and laying bare the fundamental basis of existing society, the class ownership of the means of wealth production and the merchandise nature of human labour power, would have discovered in that basis the real cause of poverty. The remedy, to establish society on a basis of common ownership and democratic control, would then be apparent.

F. Foan