Knowledge is mostly potential (1996)

Book Review from the September 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

We Can Change the World: the Real Meaning of Everyday Life. David G. Stratman, New Democracy Books. £7.

From a socialist point of view, this book has much to commend it. However, it does have a few features which make us less happy. First the positive points. David Stratman’s main thesis is a critical opposition to both capitalism and Communism (the system he sees as having operated in the USSR) and their replacement by what he calls revolutionary democracy. In Part I he seeks to show the links between class struggle and people’s everyday lives. He discusses the bussing in Boston of black children into white neighbourhoods, the British miners’ strike of 1984-5, a meat packers’ strike, and working-class opposition to an élite educational programme. The common theme he sees running through these episodes is that “class struggle is a struggle over different conceptions of what it means to be human”.

In Part II Stratman backs his claim that “the history of the past two decades is driven not by competition among rival business economies, but by a struggle between the world élite and most people over the future of human society”. One chapter is devoted to “revolutionary” activity in the USSR. The author’s general conclusion is that “the problem of capitalists is not each other; their problem is their inability to subdue the working population. Capitalism is in crisis because it cannot win the class war”.

Part III is intended to show that “Communism” has been consistently counter-revolutionary and that trade unions function as instruments of capitalist control. In a chapter on the current US political scene Stratman attacks “the left” for not really believing in the possibility of revolution and hence restricting themselves to aiming at a reformed capitalism as the best possible system.

Finally, Part IV discusses the nature of the revolutionary movement, and the rôle of the revolutionary party which follows from “a new model of social change and a new view of people”. Socialists would not dispute his contention that “the role of a revolutionary party is not to bring to the working class a consciousness from outside, but to uncover and bring together the fragments of consciousness that are already there, rooted in workers’ experience and their values and social relations”.

Stratman writes well and with conviction. He says many things with which we agree. However, here are some differences and disagreements.

We recognise that Stratman and his associates are living in a country where, perhaps even more than in Britain, “communism” is insistently and deeply identified with what went on in the USSR and elsewhere, and even “socialism” is grossly distorted. But do we get over this problem by calling our object the attainment of “revolutionary democracy”? Stratman admits that both “democracy” and “revolution” have been distorted in meaning, but he doesn’t make a convincing case that a doubly distorted label for the kind of world we are working for is any better than a singly distorted one.

His major failure to recognise the positive theoretical insights to be drawn from Marxist thinking is made worse by his unsustainable claim that “Leninism is a consistent development of the internal logic of Marxism, adapting it for practical use … The Soviet Union and other Communist societies represent not a betrayal of Marxism but its fulfilment.” There are also some worryingly approving comments on the Cultural Revolution in Mao’s China.

Stratman talks about a “revolutionary party”, yet he is very vague about what a revolutionary democratic world will actually be like, other than that it won’t be capitalism. Will it be a world in which the means of wealth production and distribution will be commonly owned and democratically controlled? Will it be a world in which there are no nation states, no armies and police forces, no buying and selling, no money? In the absence of a solid and widely understood basis for fundamental change, and democratic action to achieve that change, some form of capitalism will surely go on.

Stratman believes that “people collectively know enough now to crush capitalism and to create a new world”. If they do know enough, what’s stopping them? The answer must be that the knowledge is mostly potential, and that it needs to be converted into actual knowledge and then appropriate revolutionary action.

Stan Parker

Letter: The Class Struggle and Socialism (1955)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

(We have received a further letter from the critic to whose letter we replied in the August issue.—Ed. Comm.)

Golders Green, N.W.11.

22 August, 1955.

The reply to my letter on the subject of Class Struggle and Socialism (August issue) makes no serious attempt to meet my criticisms. The class struggle, in any meaningful sense, is a struggle between class and class. The struggle for Socialism (I would not dhoqse the word struggle here, but accept it for the purpose of the present discussion) is not of one class against another but is against the whole theory and practice of classes in society. It may be deplorable that benevolent old gentlemen say, in ostrich fashion, “Let us ignore classes . . ." but when they add “. . . let us regard each other as human beings" they are stating no less than the essential truth about how people will regard each other in Socialist society. And if the achievement of such a society is our conscious aim, then we cannot start too soon to put into practice the theory we value so highly.

The Ed. Comm frequently uses the phrase “the Socialist working class.” This is not a very helpful classification, because it confuses two quite different functions. In so far as people are members of a class they think and act in class terms. In so far as people are Socialists they work for a Socialist, i.e., a classless society. This is not to say that workers cannot be Socialists. It is a criticism of the statement “I want Socialism because I’m a worker.” This statement is misleading. You want Socialism because you want to change society from a class-divided one in which you are a worker to a classless one in which you are simply and more fully a human being.

“The interests of the human race are bound up with the aspirations of the oppressed working-class in its struggle with Capitalist domination.” There is some truth is this. to the extent that workers are struggling against the Capitalist system and to introduce a system more worthy of human beings. But the separate interests of either of two antagonistic classes cannot be identical with the interests of the whole. The very term “ class ” is by definition descriptive of less than the whole of society, and that is why Socialism is not a class issue but a human one,

An individual Capitalist can be a Socialist and can join in the work of achieving Socialism on the same terms as any other person. Obviously he doesn’t have working-class aspirations—except in the sense that he seeks the welfare of workers. He, in common with the worker, can have no greater aspiration than the welfare of the whole of humanity. Whatever makes one aspire to Socialism, one certainly does not do so from the standpoint of a class that is to disappear with the realisation of Socialism.

It is quite true that I reject the conception of a Socialist working class taking political action to end class society. The Ed. Comm calls this “the Socialist conception.” Let us see to what extent this is true. The statement by the Executive Committee in the August issue on the interpretation of Cause 6 of the Declaration of Principles explains that “when the workers understand the source of their subject position and the action they must take to abolish it, they can do so by sending representatives to Parliament to take control of the State power for this purpose.” Coming into what the Executive Committee calls the region of conjecture, allowance has then to be made for “a theoretically possible attempt in some form of violent sabotage during the revolutionary reorganisation. The control of the armed forces during this period will be an effective deterrent to any such violent attempt without these forces having necessarily to be used. Should a violent minority attempt to destroy Socialism they would have to be forcibly dealt with.”

There are good grounds for the doubts that those both inside and outside the Socialist Party have about the validity of this approach. Note the curious view that Socialists would be justified in threatening or using violence to deter the violence of others. Remember that Socialism is a society in which, to quote from the Party pamphlet on War, “no coercion will be needed because each will gain from co-operating harmoniously with his fellows.” Many Socialists feel that it spoils the whole thing if the rider is added “but we are prepared to bash those who won’t co-operate.” And they have some reason for feeling this. “A violent minority attempting to destroy Socialism” does not present a picture of any kind of possible social situation that I could imagine. If it was an attempt to destroy London or the Red Army, for example, it would be meaningful to me. However, a majority at least of the E.C. must be able to visualise circumstances in which Socialism could be physically battled for. We must then proceed to ask what further social arrangements will accompany the Socialist armed forces. Are we to have Socialist prison camps, judges, and spies? Fortunately, as a “critic” I do not expect to be called upon to take up arms to defend the revolution.

Another objection to the view expressed by the E.C. is more serious, and will be treated accordingly. We are asked to imagine a stage in the future development of society when the mass of people will be Socialists, i.e. will have abandoned support of Capitalist institutions, and will have in general the attitudes to social issues that Socialists have today. What will have happened to institutions while these tremendous changes in attitudes will have taken place ? The E.C. writes of such entities as Parliament, the State, the powers of government, the armed forces, as though they will remain substantially unchanged and function as they do today, but in an environment in which the barometer of social attitudes will be registering Socialism. For such a colossal disparity to exist between prevailing attitudes and institutions in any human society would be as major a denial of all that has been learned in terms of every social science as the denial of the law of gravity would be in physical terms.

I have so far largely only criticised the case put forward by the Socialist Party. For a statement of positive views which are consistent with the above criticisms, readers are referred to the article “The Socialist Movement,” in the April, 1955 issue of Forum (published by the S.P.G.B.) and to the publications of the Movement for Social Integration.

Yours sincerely,

S. R. Parker.

Reply:

This correspondence started with our critic objecting to a statement published in these columns which declared that the interests of the human race are bound up with the triumph of a Socialist working class in the struggle to establish Socialism. (See August issue.) Our critic’s first line of attack was to state that victory in the class struggle could only be a class victory because the class struggle is the struggle between those who buy and those who sell labour power.

In reply we pointed out that this is a complete misconception of the term class struggle. In his second letter no reference is made to this; from which we conclude that that line of attack based on misconception of the class struggle has been abandoned.

The second line of attack is on the idea of a “Socialist working class ” striving for Socialism. Our critic writes:— “In so far as people are members of a class they think and act in class terms. In so far as people are Socialists they work for a Socialist, i.e. a classless society.”

This is a statement that may have the appearance of containing some meaning but which in fact says nothing. As all the people are members of a class it asks us to accept that all people “think and act in class terms.” If this meant anything it could only imply that they therefore cannot act and think in terms of a classless society. But our critic hastens to explain that it does not mean this, for he writes:—“This is not to say that workers cannot be Socialists.” (To which we would add that some individual Capitalists become Socialists, for example Marx’s collaborator F. Engels.)

We are therefore left to wonder what the statement does mean. And whatever it does mean it would have to apply equally to our critic's conception of Socialism coming through the struggle between two “groups”, Socialist and non-Socialist. It would then read:—“In so far as people are members of a group they think and act in group terms.”

Our critic carries this point about class a stage further when he says that “the separate interests of either of the two antagonistic classes cannot be identical with the interests of the whole. The very term 'class ’ is by definition descriptive of less than the whole of society, and that is why Socialism is not a class issue but a human one.”

Certainly on a long-term view Socialism is in the interest of the human race as a whole. A current illustration of this is the fact that war, inseparable from Capitalism, threatens the existence of civilization. The fact remains, however, that it is in the immediate interest of the working class, the exploited class, to abolish Capitalism and establish Socialism; the same cannot be said of the exploiting class.

Again we must point out that the above passage also necessarily applies to our critic’s conception of a group struggle, for, “ by definition ” a group is “descriptive of less than the whole of society.”

A further point made by our critic needs to be dealt with, that is the curious passage in the first paragraph of the present letter in which he tells us, in reference to the struggle for Socialism, “I would not choose the word struggle here, but accept it for the purpose of the present discussion.”

What precisely does our critic mean by this? Anyone coming to the correspondence now for the first time might imagine that, since our critic says he would not choose the word struggle, someone else must have foisted it on him. The fact is that the word was chosen by our critic and by nobody else. In his first letter (see August issue) he wrote of his own conception of Socialism coming by way of struggle between two groups, Socialists in one group and “those who are not Socialists, and who either support or acquiesce in the continuation of Capitalist institutions” in the other group. He repeatedly referred to it as a “ struggle.’

In our reply to our critics first letter we pointed out that he omitted to tell us how this group struggle is to lead to Socialism. This of course is a crucial question. He rejects the conception of a Socialist Working Class taking control of the machinery of government to establish Socialism and offers instead the conception of Socialism coming through the struggle between the two groups. But instead of answering our question as to how this struggle will lead to Socialism he offers the disingenuous plea that he “ would not choose ” the word that he did choose, the word struggle.

We can, of course, understand his difficulty. In our August issue a statement was published setting out the view of the S.P.G.B. on the unlikely but “theoretically possible” attempt by a minority of opponents to Socialism to sabotage the establishment of Socialism after a Socialist majority had gained control of the machinery of government.

Our critic wishes to attack this, but apparently does not wish to explain how that same hypothetical possibility would be dealt with on his own proposition of a struggle between a Socialist group on the one hand and on the other those “ who . . . support... the continuation of Capitalist institutions ” (his description in his first letter).

On the question of institutions of political power changing because of changing “attitudes” it would surely be to the point if our critic had produced evidence from history of a new class not needing to gain full or shared control of the machinery of government because of changing “attitudes or if he produced current evidence of such attitudes having changed and having already brought about essential changes in the Capitalist institutions of political power.

Ed. Comm.

Human Nature and Socialism: 6—The Socialist Future (1953)

From the October 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Continued from the previous issue.

6—The Socialist Future

The object of the socialist movement is not “political” in the sense of advocating one type of government rather than another. It is nothing short of an entirely new social set-up and, to a large extent, it means an entirely new type of human nature. This is not to say, as non-socialists are so fond of putting it, that it needs an entirely new race of human beings to make it work. It simply means that people living in the new society will be shaped by a socialist environment instead of, as today, by a capitalist one.

In what ways will people living under conditions of production solely for use be different from people today? This is a question that has appealed to the imagination and reasoning powers of men ever since the idea of Socialism first arose. The answers have been many and varied; some (in particular, the various utopian visions) have become outdated by the very developments of Capitalism itself, and others will doubtless take shape as the ideas of Socialism become fruitful and multiply.

What should be our concern is not so much to work out a detailed picture of the future—a castle in the air—but to construct from the materials at hand a solid socialist edifice. For example, we do not know enough about future material developments within Capitalism to foretell how people will travel under Socialism. On the other hand, we do know that, given conditions of common ownership, the phenomena which are exclusive to private ownership (buying, selling, stealing, etc.) will no longer exist. The people who now engage in these activities will use their energies in more socially useful and constructive ways.

Indications from the Present

Our method of discovering what the future can and will bring must be to ask ourselves what we know of

the present, its relationship to the past, and what we may call the directional lines to the future. What do most people want from their lives today? What are they seeking and yet faying to find? What do they desire to be rid of, and yet lack the knowledge of how to do it?

The answers to these questions will largely determine the sort of world which can be created when men at last start to make truly human history. Let us first consider what is basic to all societies—work, or productive activity. Marx has suggested that work will become, not merely the means to live, but itself a prime necessity of life.

Capitalism has so reduced the status of the worker, taken all the joy from his work and separated him from its fruits, that he has come to regard it as an evil necessity. Socialism will restore dignity to all human labour, remove its price tag, and make it fit the needs of human beings instead of those of machines or markets. People will work because they know it is necessary to the sustenance of themselves and society, and because they desire to work—or, in the case of those activities which in themselves are not pleasurable, because they desire the end product

We can gain some indication of the attitude to work that will prevail under Socialism from the way in which people regard certain of their activities today. A man may work far harder on his allotment to produce vegetables directly for his limited community (family) than he does on the job at which he works only for money and which he probably cordially detests. When you suggest to him that he likes work, he hotly denies it. But when you ask him whether he likes working on his allotment, he replies: “That's different. That's my hobby.”

It is significant, as Professor Nunn has pointed out in “Education: Its Data and First Principles,” that where spontaneity prevails, work and play become one and indistinguishable. When the socialist says that work in the new society will become as hobbies are today, he is not suggesting that people will adopt exactly the same attitude to all work as they do now to their hobbies. He knows that the influence of Capitalism extends beyond the hours of employment, and corrodes even the simplest pleasures and the most personal relationships.

Social Relationships

Yet a different facet of human nature is revealed in the behaviour of people under adverse conditions. Solidarity with those whom you recognise as being “in the same boat” as yourself, tireless and selfless work on behalf of a stricken community such as during the East coast floods earlier this year—all indicate the human potential, and even craving, for co-operative endeavour. This will attain fulfillment in a society in which there are no drawbacks to helping others, and no penalties for dropping the attitudes of self-defensive mistrust which a highly competitive system forces us -to adopt.

Social relationships will change from those of mutually antagonistic owner and non-owner, buyer and seller, employer and employee, to those where such antagonisms will no longer exist Instead of coming into conflict with those Capitalism makes your enemies, and even having to be "on guard” against your friends, all human relationships will be conducted in an atmosphere of social harmony, where the separate individuals who make up the social whole will be working with each other and not divided against themselves.

Under all forms of society one of the basic human desires is to seek and obtain acceptance from one’s fellows. Today this has become narrowly interpreted as seeking and obtaining acceptance from one’s boss, who is, in turn, supposed to be acceptable to someone or some institution higher up—the Monarchy, Church or God, perhaps. To question any of the “accepted” attitudes to these things is—well, it is not always easy and not always a sound policy if you seek success in the capitalist sense of the term.

With Socialism, however, social acceptance will not rest upon standards dictated from above. The absence of economic rivalries will mean the absence of social rivalries. “Keeping up with the Joneses” will give way to working and generally behaving in ways which help other people instead of seeking to get the better of them. From being atomised into millions of separate families, the world will become one vast human family. The marriage institution, based on the needs of property, will be replaced by associations based on the needs of human beings, and they will promote a wider love of humanity instead of seeking a refuge from its present vast impersonality.

Different Outlook

The absence of private property will have far-reaching effects upon all human activities and relationships. It is easy to see that many of the employments so necessary to Capitalism will have no place in a socialist society—armed forces, police, lawyers, gaolers, insurance and advertising agents, bank workers and many others. Another aspect not so often considered is the different outlook that people will have. Today, when someone whom we do not know makes a friendly advance or an unsolicited offer of help, we tend to look askance at him and ask ourselves: “Ah, what’s he up to?” Not that the caution is altogether unjustified, because in present society we are encouraged to regard those outside our own small circle as "fair game” and legitimate objects for passing on the kicks we receive from the hostile world. But with Socialism all this will be gone—the world will be a friendly place, because it will not cost anything to be indiscriminate in bestowing affection.

When goods and services are no longer commodities to be bought and sold and haggled over, it will bring different attitudes to these things or, rather, it will then enable the existing attitudes to be freed from considerations of profit-seeking. After all, even today the relationship between buyer and seller is not completely reduced to the cash nexus and dominated by satisfaction of self—there is usually a residue of concern that the other fellow is satisfied with the transaction. Socialism will enable this concern to be present in all human intercourse, and will free it from the calculations which now cramp the expression of generous feelings.

All manifestations of the insecurity that cannot be escaped in property society will become things of the past. It will no more occur to people to store up freely available goods in excess of their current needs than today to fill every available receptacle with water “because it is free.” No longer will people be worried, often to the point of mental illness, about what tomorrow will bring forth—whether they will lose their job, fail to find somewhere to live, go hungry, badly clothed or unwanted. They will be secure in the knowledge that the welfare of all, as society’s aim, will not be something talked about by politicians, but naturally acted upon by the whole people, who will have no inducement to do otherwise.

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Since this is the concluding article in the series, it may be useful briefly to survey the ground we have covered. We started by discussing some of the misuses of the term “human nature,” explaining that it is his environment which makes man a creature of one society rather than of another. The myth that “you can’t change human nature” was exploded, and the role of the Socialist as an agent in the making of history was outlined. Then, in the fourth article, we saw some of the patterns of behaviour which Capitalism generates, and how it does so. The writings of social scientists (mostly non-socialists) were quoted to show how human nature varies under different social conditions, and how men acquire it through those conditions. Finally, we have been concerned with explaining the object of the S.P.G.B. by giving some indication of the socialist future.

Our aim, throughout all these articles, and indeed in all our propaganda, is to convince all people that Socialism is both desirable and practicable. If you still believe it is not desirable, we are ready to take some of the blame—perhaps we have not explained it sufficiently clearly, and you can help to put that right by questioning our case. If, however, you believe that Socialism is desirable but not practicable, then we can only suggest that you do yourself a favour and join with us to make it practicable.

Stan Parker

Human Nature and Socialism: 5—We Learn from Social Scientists (1953)

From the September 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Continued from the previous issue.

5—We Learn from Social Scientists

People who criticise or object to Socialism because they think that human nature makes it impossible, assume that the characteristics they ascribe to human nature are fixed and unalterable. However, the science of anthropology (the study of human beings as creatures of society) shows that most of the characteristics are cultural acquisitions and have not been present in all societies. The importance of this to the case for Socialism lies in the fact that what is acquired culturally must change as the culture changes, and that the behaviour we are accustomed to think of as “natural” under Capitalism can and will be something entirely different under Socialism.

It is a commonplace that man is a social animal, i.e., that it is in human nature to be social. But it is not true in the sense in which it is commonly understood, namely, that our social nature is due to a social “instinct.” We were not born with our social nature; we acquired it. Likewise, we were not born with a certain sort of social nature, but developed it because of the sort of social environment into which we were born.

Each step man makes in his history alters his environment, each alteration in his environment changes that in which his fellow men and the oncoming generation live. The background of the child differs from that of the parent; in a changed social atmosphere men themselves react differently: they acquire new knowledge, new experience, new understanding. They value things anew. Human nature is itself transformed.

Nor should the inter-relationship of man and society be overlooked. Apart from his group, a man is a mere potentiality. He is developed in a milieu that fosters, modifies, or destroys his capacities. To explain the individual and discuss his psychology as something distinct from the society is a false dissection, by which structures are isolated from one another artificially and their organic connection destroyed. Society in its full sense is never an entity separable from the individuals who compose it. No individual can arrive even at the threshold of his potentialities without a culture in which he participates. Conversely, no civilisation has in it any element which in the last analysis is not the contribution of individuals.

Socialised habits

The life-history of the individual is first and foremost an accommodation to the patterns and standards traditionally handed down in his community. From the moment of his birth the customs into which he is born shape his experience and behaviour. By the time he can talk he is the little creature of his culture, and by the time he is grown and able to take part in its activities, its habits tend to be his habits, its beliefs his beliefs, its impossibilities his impossibilities.

People interpret the inevitability, under Capitalism, of economic competition as proof that this is the prime motivation that human nature can rely upon. The behaviour of small children, as it is moulded in our civilisation and recorded as child psychology, is the way in which the young human animal is “bound to behave.” It is the same with ethics or family organisation. It is the inevitability of each familiar motivation that is defended, with the attempt always to identify particular local ways of behaving with Behaviour, or certain socialised habits with Human Nature.

Let us take as an example the case of warfare. War is a phenomenon that may or may not be a feature of a certain culture. There are regions where organised resort to mutual slaughter never occurs between social groups. It may be impossible for a people to conceive of the possibility of a state of war. Rasmussen tells of the blankness with which the Eskimo met his exposition of the custom. Ruth Benedict tried to talk of dignity, uprightness, strength of character and courage warfare to the Mission Indians of California, but it was of these “barbarians" impossible. Their misunderstanding of warfare was abysmal. They did not have the basis in their own culture upon which the idea could exist, and their attempts to reason it out reduced World Wars to the level of alley brawls. We may conclude that if war is justified it is because people always try to justify their behaviour, and not because war will bear an objective examination of its merits.

Property

When we turn to the question of private property we can learn much from the reports of field workers who have lived in societies where communistic sentiments prevailed. When on the Banks Islands, W. H. R. Rivers worked out the history of a plot of land which was cleared about four generations ago. The greater part of the plot had been divided up between the children of the clearer, and had since been regarded as the individual property of their descendants, but part had been left for the common use of all the descendants of the original clearers. Rivers was told that disputes were frequent concerning the portions of the land which were owned individually, while there were never any quarrels concerning the part which had been left for the common use of all. Let this be a lesson to those who think that there will always be disputes over land and other wealth, and that if it were all commonly owned we should all grab as much as we could!

A comparison between the Melanesian and people in our own civilisation is enlightening. The Melanesian knows that were he to wander into the next tribe he must look out for himself. The next tribe are strangers and enemies. But he does not live among strangers as we do. He lives among friends. They have never sought to rob him, or cheat him, or slander him. If he is down, if he has bad luck, if he has nothing to eat, they will vie with one another in supplying him with food. They will make a point of going hungry themselves rather than he should. And they will not even make a virtue of it, and think how very noble they are and how grateful he should be.

There is little ground for the conflict of individual interests where there is little private property. Where all interests are in common, mutual assistance and goodwill are spontaneous sentiments. To assist others, to share with them and to protect them is as natural in “uncultured” societies as it is natural in individualistic communities to rob, to cheat, outwit and defraud.

Even today there are some remote parts of the world that illustrate in embryonic form the basic social relationships of Socialism. Hunza, a country of 26,000 people high up in the Himalayas, has no money, no police, no jails, no courts and no army. Without money there is no crime. It is not, let us hasten to add, an example of Socialism—there is a king, and it is a pre-property rather than a post-property society. But at least it shows that people can live without money and private ownership, and live quite happily and fully too. “ We are fond of sport, life and laughter. We work hard —then when the harvest is in, it is there for everyone,” Daily Graphic, 31/12/52. Engels’ description of the Iroquois is in the same vein, and he writes of the admiration inspired in all white people who have come into contact with unspoiled Indians, by the personal dignity, uprightness, strength of character and courage of these "barbarians."

Morality

If we study the history of human sexual relations we find that these have varied considerably with different types of culture. Sexual jealousy, a high esteem for chastity, sexual modesty, and the tendency to fall passionately in love with a single object (so-called “romantic love”) are such common and distinctive characteristics of civilised man, that not only laymen but frequently psychologists and naturalists take them to be inherent in man and inseparably united to his character. Nevertheless, these emotions are foreign to many primitive peoples. They have arisen in the course of the evolution of civilisation, and have been built up slowly and gradually as secondary characteristics under the influence of definite social conditions.

The technical use of morality—as a thing pertaining to the sex relation only or especially—is the application of our standards of sex behaviour, and our form of the sex taboo, to judge the folkways of all people. But all that can properly be said is that a great range and variety of usages, ideas, standards, and ideals can be found which differ greatly from ours. “Immoral” never means anything but contrary to the customs of the time, and place. There is no permanent or universal standard by which right and truth in regard to these matters can be established and different folkways compared and criticised.

It is now a moral principle that it is wrong to commit murder. But in early Judea to sacrifice the first born was not murder; in the 17th century “not to suffer a witch to live” was not murder; in the 20th century war is not murder. Abstract precepts are of very little significance in the ethical history of mankind; it is their concrete interpretation which has varied.

The ethical problem of selfishness v. social-mindedness (one that is so often brought into discussions about Socialism) is not in fact theoretical but practical. Its solution lies not in the construction of new ethical philosophies but in the creation of a new society. Every act which leads towards that new society is a contribution to solving the problem. When mankind has attained a state in which goods and services abound and exploitation has ceased, selfishness, having no longer anything important to do, will wither away.

Stan Parker

 

Some useful books to read:—

“Human Nature in the Making,” M. Schoen.

“Patterns of Culture,” R. Benedict.

“The Making of Man,” ed. V. F. Calverton.

“ Sin and Sex,” R. Briffault.

“ Folkways ” W. G. Sumner.

“ The Making of Humanity,” R. Briffault.

“ Man against Myth,” Barrows Dunham.

(Concluding Article: “The Socialist Future.”)

SPGB Meetings (1953)

Party News from the October 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

During his first spell in the SPGB, Robert Barlrop's pen-name/party name was 'R. Coster'. 

'R. Coster' was speaking on the Kinsey Report at Head Office on the 25th October, 1953. The front page article in this month's Standard was by 'Coster'/Barltrop on the Kinsey Report.

Socialism and the immediate future (1952)

From the April 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

The starting point of any fruitful discussion about the conditions of the immediate future must be found in the present ones. Past revolutionary changes of the economic system have taught us that in any new society there can never be a complete break with the conditions of the immediate past. The physical basis upon which the new society rests is the end product of the development of the economic and political forces within the old society. This is why socialists stress the necessity of understanding how capitalism functions, as a necessary pre-requisite to taking action to replace it by Socialism.

The method and means of production that Capitalism has developed and will develop are the only ones upon which Socialism can be built. As long as thinking about the future takes the form of planning an ideal world, as an architect plans a house, it will remain a dream, unrelated to and without bearing upon the present. One of the chief reasons why those who agree that Socialism is desirable refuse to work for its establishment is that it is regarded as having no connection with what to-morrow is likely to bring. It is important, therefore, to emphasize that the form of society we direct all our efforts towards attaining is possible to institute to-morrow, given the understanding of and desire for it by the majority of people.

What is there about Capitalism that enables it to continue, in spite of the fact that it produces effects which are repulsive to the majority who endure them? The answer is that acceptance of its basic institutions— wage-labour and capital, money, the state—is deeply rooted in most people’s minds. These institutions govern property relationships and their continued existence is, in fact, unchallenged except by socialists, though others may express a desire to modify some of them.

The basis of production under Capitalism is the pursuit of profit and this economic basis creates effects which permeate the whole of capitalist society. It is not just production for sale and profit that is tacitly, if not avowedly, accepted by the majority, but the whole set of ideas, ethics or morals that is in line with it The two-class nature of present society is accepted, not consciously as a scientific theory, but implicitly in all the conventional mental attitudes towards it in practice. Such is the power of tradition that most people invariably expect the continuation of property relationships into the immediate future at any rate and can conceive the possibility of only superficial changes in them.

Having acknowledged the power of tradition let us now look more closely at how it exercises its sway over the minds of all who fail to examine it critically. The class that owns the means of production and distribution also controls the instruments of mass education and propaganda — schools, churches, newspapers, cinemas, radio, etc. Only those ideas and concepts that do not militate against the present order of things are reproduced on any wide scale. In effect there is an even narrower choice of mental diet than that dictated by the requirements of Capitalism as a world system. Periodically the citizens of each nation are inculcated with the ideas needed to ensure their support for the prosecution of a particular war, though not for war in general

The ideas and edicts which make up the moral code (in the widest sense) of the present system must be acceptable to or at least not opposed by, members of both capitalist and working class. In the case of the former, rights connected with property ownership are to be upheld and of the latter their continued acceptance of wage-slavery is required. Although the moral code is interpreted in a different way in each of these rôles, it necessarily has certain feature which are common to both. For example, most workers offer as much resistance to the idea of a world without money as capitalists do, and they have the satisfaction of knowing that this is a “common sense,” i.e. mass produced, attitude. Their explanation of this similarity of outlook is that the basic difference between capitalist and worker is not primarily a political one, but one of relationship to property. An employer stands in relation to his employee as owner of means of production to non-owner and the relationship is accepted, willingly or not, by both.

In order to retain the acquiescence of workers as a whole in this arrangement the capitalist class, through all the media of mass influence, diverts their attention from abolishing it by allowing and often encouraging them to reform it The level of political understanding is prevented from rising by the dominance of the so-called "practical” programmes which involve the continuation of the property system and the consequent need to preserve it in modified or unchanged form.

Thus Capitalism continues because the possessing class uses its control of the means of mass influence to persuade the producing class that no other order of things is possible. It is the task of socialists to point out that there is an alternative which may be put into effect just as soon as the need for it is commonly understood. To hold no opinion about how society is and could be organized is not neutrality but assent to its present form, Capitalism. It is not logical for workers who are capable of achieving Socialism to refuse to work for it because it appears to be out of the question as far as the immediate future is concerned. Once the position is taken up that Socialism is the only solution to our common problems then all political effort should be directed towards bringing the day of its establishment nearer. This involves the rejection of all the ideas and concepts that sustain Capitalism and the adoption of a revolutionary outlook towards all its institutions.

To many workers it may seem a tall order to refuse to swallow the mental dope which is offered on every hand to give the ugly present a roseate hue. This is no doubt partly due to the fact that the routine work connected with capitalist propaganda is mainly carried on by members of the working class themselves, either as their paid job or, in its less obvious forms, as conventional conversation. Unfortunately most minds tend to act only as receivers of ideas, which they repeat to others, and the most powerful transmitters are capitalist controlled. However, once it is realized that their object is to keep the property basis of present society intact then there is a strong incentive to challenge every idea that seeks, no matter how indirectly to prolong it.

Stan Parker

SPGB Meetings (1993)

Party News from the October 1993 issue of 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

SPGB Series of Meetings: History . . . Not Our Masters Voice (1992)

Party News from the September 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

My guess is that this series of meetings were organised by the (then) new Camden Branch of the SPGB.

Unfortunately, only one of the meetings listed is available as an audio recording on the SPGB's website. Maybe recordings of the other meetings are out there somewhere. It would be nice to know who gave the talk on Tudor England.

Here's a link to the audio recording of Clifford Slapper's meeting:

• The Movement for "National Efficiency" 1880-1914

Human Nature and Socialism: 4—Capitalist Patterns of Behaviour (1953)

From the August 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Continued from the previous issue.

4—Capitalist Patterns of Behaviour

In previous articles we have seen that, although men do, in a very real sense, make history, they are nevertheless also products of conditions and creatures of circumstance. Since we are primarily concerned with the possibilities of change that exist today, we should discover as much as we can about the sort of human behaviour that is produced by Capitalism. Provided that we bear in mind the limitations of the phrase, we may enquire what sort of "human nature” has resulted, so that we may more adequately see the respects in which change is both possible and desirable.

Every society, no matter the form of its social relationships, presupposes that men engage in productive activity. The way in which they come together to produce wealth (the economic aspect) is the key to all the other aspects of society. The basic question to ask, then, is: how does man work under Capitalism?

The outstanding feature of present-day labour is that the bulk of it is undertaken, not primarily to satisfy a human need, but to satisfy something interposed between production and consumption called a market. Everything is dominated by the basis of the system which recognises only motives of material gain. A tailor, for example, can no longer appeal to society’s need of clothing as a justification of his existence. He has to say^that tailoring is one way of “making a living.” He Is considered a “successful” tailor, not because he makes good clothes for people, but only when he achieves an income remarkably large for a tailor. The cash nexus, not need, is the determining factor, since, without money, access to both the means and the fruits of production is denied.

False Separation

There are a number of consequences of this economic set-up that constitute a condemnation of present arrangements and a challenge to make better ones. First, there is the separation of the individual’s interests from those of the community as a whole. The objective of the employee in selling his working abilities is to receive a pay-packet "for himself.” The objective of the employer in buying those abilities is to reap a profit “for himself.” Both may, of course, form temporary alliances with others of their class but, within Capitalism, each worker is a potential (if not an actual) rival to every other worker seeking employment, and each capitalist a rival to every other capitalist seeking profit.

Production under Capitalism is social, not individual, yet the worker does not labour primarily because in doing so he renders a service to the community. Lacking access to the means of production, he is compelled to become "gainfully” employed. He gets back in wages part of the value of what he produces, and the employer gets his profit out of the remainder. The conflict between "capital” and "labour” arising out of the capitalists’ ownership of the means of production and distribution constitutes the class struggle. It is entirely out of place to apportion blame to either capitalist or worker for their "selfish” conduct. Nor is it helpful to suggest a reconciliation between classes while consenting to the continuation of a system that makes the gain of one class the loss of another.

Capitalist division of labour is objectionable because it makes harmful separations in the productive process. Production is separated from consumption, enjoyment from work, mental labour from physical labour. These separations lead to antagonisms, and the function that should be an integrated whole is divided against itself. Thus the producer of wealth who demands more wages is castigated for making the "consumer” suffer higher prices. The worker who takes his ideas from capitalist propagandists is encouraged to vent his frustration as producer on to the consumer, and his frustration as consumer on to the producer—and the underlying, but real cause of the trouble is ignored.

The aim of the employer is to make the human labour power that he has bought as productive as possible. All kinds of aids to intensified exploitation are introduced, so that the maximum amount of profit is achieved in the shortest possible time. It is a matter of little concern that the conditions of work are such that all joy is taken from it, and the worker comes to look upon it as an evil necessity. The remedy applied, under Capitalism, for this deplorable state of affairs is not, as one might reasonably hope, the adjustment of the work to the needs of the worker as a human being, though industrial psychology whitewashes its economic motives by pretending to do this. Instead a substitute —leisure—is found for the satisfaction that is lacking in capitalist employment. Tied to unpleasant, boring and socially useless jobs, people are encouraged to make their non-working hours the centre of their lives, the part that they "look forward to.” But you cannot switch on a human being as you can a machine, and so the way in which the hours of employment are spent inevitably has its effects on the ways of spending leisure. Regimented and controlled at the factory or office, the worker tends to lose the desire to participate actively in his own amusement, and all to often relies on mass-produced entertainment to be sold to him. 

Impersonality and Excessive Specialisation

As a consequence of the commodity function placed upon human labour power, personal worth is reduced to exchange value. Everyone has his price, not only for what he does but for what he is. Human relationships are regarded as the subject of calculated business transactions ("what does he want in return?”) and are lacking in all dignity. The situation is well described by Hortense Powdermaker in "Hollywood— The Dream Factory”:—

“Man has become increasingly lonely. Although people live in close physical contact, their relationships have become more and more depersonalised. We have a sense of being with people, and yet do not feel in any way related to them. The technique of business and many other organisations in trying to personalise 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. The market place is still basically impersonal."

Perhaps the greatest denial of human characteristics is the excessive specialisation of function that Capitalism has developed. In earlier societies man was able to combine in one person many different functions and, in relation to his society, his development was many-sided. The craftsman in feudal times had the satisfaction of making whole articles, and his work held interest and pleasure for him because he could clearly appreciate the social value of what he produced. Today the worker rarely makes a whole article or gives a service that is wanted, not for business, but for its own sake. He is part of a machine for producing wealth and, like all machines, he must be made to function as "efficiently” as possible. Thus the multifarious operations required in the production of a motor-car for competitive sale must, as Ford has shown, be broken down into their simplest component parts; so that the ultimate aim is that the worker shall make only one movement as frequently as possible.

Throughout the whole range of capitalist employments the accent lies on paying attention almost exclusively to a small section of the whole economic process, which involves a failure to comprehend that it forms a segment of a much wider field. Few men have first-hand experience of any productive activity outside their own jobs—they come to rely more and more on the services of “ specialists.”

Symptoms of Maladjustment

What sort of cultural “superstructure” arises from this falsely separated, depersonalised and excessively specialised mode of production? In the short space of this article we can only touch upon a few aspects of present society, and show that they are given their character by the capitalist system. We read, for example, in Margaret Mead’s ‘“Male and Female,” of 

“ . . . the cultural meaning of prostitution and promiscuous homosexuality, venereal disease, acute alcoholism, and sex crimes. These all occur, and their form and frequency are indices of the maladjustment that exists in the United States, as in every modern society. They are symptoms of the state of society, just as the phobias and compulsions of the patient are symptoms.

“They are systematically related to the culture.” 

When we compare this approach to the one that seeks to lay blame for society’s ills on the individual’s wickedness, we can see how much more rational the former is. The solution, we perceive, is not to complain that there are “problem” people in the world who must be reformed, but to tackle the cause of the problem in the world itself. The dualism that characterises everything under Capitalism—buyer and seller, employee and employer, competition and monopoly, work and leisure—is perhaps most apparent in the gulf between the theory of what should be and the practice of what is. This is aptly illustrated by Bergen Evans in “The Natural History of Nonsense”:—

“We are brought up to expect rewards for certain kinds of behaviour and then thrown into a world in which none of the signals works. We are taught as children to be kind, self-sacrificing, and helpful, never to to be greedy or aggressive. Then we must five in a ruthlessly competitive economy. We are taught to be honest, in preparation for a world in which honesty is often penalized, and dishonesty, in a thousand forms, is often rewarded. Our ambition is stimulated and we are assured of success if we will onty ‘apply ourselves,' when actually, by the very nature of things, nine out of ten must be disappointed, and chance carries as much weight as merit.

“ The result is mass frustration and despair.”

#    #    #    #

Such is the capitalist environment into which we are born. Yet, in spite of it all, people do, on the whole, manage to be kind, unselfish, helpful and honest, and their greed and aggressiveness is mostly the reaction to unfortunate circumstances. It is certain that if such a disunited, contradictory, and anarchical system as Capitalism can hold people together in society, then one which is designed to harmonise with their needs will not fail because of the frailty of human nature.

Stan Parker

(Next Article: We Learn From Social Scientists.)

The Future of Leisure (1953)

From the July 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

The phrase “working for a living” suggests a distinction between working and living which most people accept. But if “working occupies five or six days a week and fifty weeks a year, how much “living” is left?

That was the challenging question put to readers of the “Radio Times” some little while ago, in describing a programme on “What is Work?” The question is of particular interest to socialists, who advocate a form of society in which such a distinction between working and living (or the division of living into work and leisure) will no longer be recognised.

The present division which exists for most people between their work and their leisure is the product of historical conditions. Probably the concept of leisure as something apart from and opposed to work was unknown in societies in which there was no privileged class. Some primitive people have no word for “work” —work is for them the expression of living. And even the class-divided Greek civilisation evolved no separate word for leisure—the word they used also meant “school.”

The handicraftsman and artisan received a certain satisfaction from the work they did. They made whole articles, and used their skill and inventiveness to overcome the difficulties which arose. They were really educated by their labour. But the manufacturing division of labour under Capitalism has changed all that. A large proportion of workers are relegated to monotonous machine-minding and office routine, and few are able to gain real satisfaction from their work.

Even those who do make things that are useful to people often do not gain the pleasure of a good job well done, because of the tyranny of clocking-in, speeding-up, and down-to-a-price quality of products. Capitalist and worker alike are dominated by the need to compete successfully with others, since failure means an end to their “living"—yet success is bought only at the price of orienting one's life to goals that are trivial and artificial instead of basic and real.

Leisure Class

The emergence of a class in society that is not compelled to participate in production coincided with the beginning of private ownership. A leisure class was the outgrowth of an early discrimination between employments, some being considered worthy (“exploit” by the males) and other unworthy (drudgery by the females).

“During the predatory culture labour comes to be associated in men’s habits of thought with weakness and subjection to a master. It is therefore a mark of inferiority and, therefore, comes to be accounted unworthy of man in his best estate. By virtue of this tradition labour is felt to be debasing, and this tradition has never died out. . . . In order to gain and to hold the esteem of men it is not sufficient merely to possess wealth or power. The wealth or power must be put in evidence. . . . A life of leisure is the readiest and most conclusive evidence of pecuniary strength and, therefore, of superior force; provided always that the gentleman of leisure can live in manifest ease and comfort.”—(“The Theory of the Leisure Class” Veblen, p. 36-8.)

Yet the fact remains that work is the foundation of any society. Hence, the value of work to society should be its prime consideration. But because, within property society, the dominating ideas arise from people who need not toil, and because a substitute for satisfaction from work must be found for millions who know it only as an evil necessity, leisure becomes the supreme goal.

Employment is a necessity imposed upon all but a privileged few. Consequently there comes to be a divergence between the conditions of working “for a living” and the kind of life which is held out by supporters of the system as desirable. The message preached is that the end of life is idleness and enjoyment. But workers, having absorbed the message, must return to the factory or office to earn the money without which they cannot live.

Machinery of Amusement

The means of mass influence—press, cinema, radio and television—all focus attention on those aspects of our lives that have nothing to do with everyday tasks. People figure in the “news” who are notable only for having money and time to spend. The constant display of wealth and leisure as desirable ends influences the standards of those who seek an outlet to express themselves which the conditions of their work deny them.

Various factors have combined to oust the old family-gathering type of popular leisure—doing has given way to watching and listening. Probably the Victorian party-piece was not as happily endured as many would have us believe, nor is the advent of television the unmitigated evil that some suppose. Nevertheless, leisure has largely taken on the form of a commodity that is passively consumed rather than an experience that is actively enjoyed. As Henry Durant writes in “The Problem of Leisure":

“All forms of leisure have become commercialised, endless devices are offered to the idle person, each to be enjoyed only on condition that he has money to pay. Without money he is condemned, unable to share in the pleasure and pastimes which press on him from all sides. But commercialisation does not merely erect a gate through which only those with the necessary fee can pass. It has a profound effect also on the nature of the fare offered. The ’machinery of amusement’ is run by business men actuated by business motives. Their concern is not primarily with the character of the entertainment or amusement they provide, for it is merely the means to the end of making profits.”

The ways in which leisure is spent are unavoidably influenced by the prevailing conditions of employment. Take, for example, the workers on a belt system in a factory who, in the course of their work, use only a small part of their brain capacity and nervous system. To stave off monotony their off-duty hours are mostly spent in such feverish pleasures as speedway and the more hectic forms of dancing—and their nervous systems inevitably suffer.

When work lacks interest it is either forgotten altogether on “knocking off” or else it is the subject of grumbling. It is not complimentary to be told that you can never forget your work; and those who do take their socially useless work seriously often develop boring personalities and have few interests outside their daily occupations.

Self-expression

Here we can do no more than touch upon the various ways in which people search today for something different, something outside of their own drab existence. The cinema is an obvious example that springs to mind, but there are others that are not so often considered. All the preparations, the plans, the excitements and the ballyhoo that surrounded the recent Coronation surely demonstrate the emptiness of most people's everyday lives. And what of the weekly football pool coupon that excites study and comment out of all proportion to its importance? The punters are members of a Happy Circle, so they are told—and the atmosphere of mock geniality is shattered only when a court action is brought over winnings. Then it is admitted that the “Happy Circle" is just an advertising circular.

Some imagine that the socialist revolution either will or ought to bring a state of affairs where all will spend their leisure as the wealthy do now. Certainly the atmosphere in which they move is one to which the adjective “drab" hardly applies. Yet if you ask those who minister to the “needs" of the élite whether the latter really have the control over their environment that is the mark of free men, then the answer may surprise you. According to one writer, for instance, the rich take up gambling more or less because they are driven to it—they find they are “out of it" unless they join in roulette or whatever happens to be in vogue. And so they drift from one aimless diversion to another . . .

Whilst the first onset of mechanisation has taken all the joy from work, it may be predicted that its final result will be to return to human activities a freedom that is absent today. Man will then possess the machines and use them selectively, thus restoring dignity to all human occupations. Labour, in Marx's words, will be not merely a means to live, but itself the primary necessity of life.

Stan Parker

Human Nature and Socialism: 3—The Role of the Socialist (1953)

From the July 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Continued from the previous issue.

3—The Role of the Socialist

Let us try to see how socialists can use their knowledge of man in society to achieve social change. We must first discuss human nature a little further from a theoretical standpoint, in order to relate it to other socialist theories, and in particular to historical materialism.

There are two main points about human nature that are implicit in Marxist theory (though Marx and Engels avoided the term “nature” in connection with “human” because of its idealist associations). One is that it is essentially subject to change, and the other is that it is entirely made up of the behaviour and powers of individuals or groups within their environments.

Human nature is to be understood neither idealistically nor mechanically, but dialectically. It is no single universal form or essence which individual human beings share; nor is it the mere sum total of those individuals. It is the sum total of the needs, desires and activities of human beings in society. In other words, man can be no more than what men actually do in their historical and social environments. Thus human nature is essentially the history of humanity, and has nothing to do with any idealistic concept of some changeless entity called man.

Man has evolved as a species slowly and continuously through all the various phases of human society, from tree-climbing anthropoid to his present status. This evolution has been social, cultural, psychological— but hardly at all biological. It is therefore in a dual sense—biologically and socially—that human nature is to be understood; and this is why it has been truly said that human nature changes in some of its respects because it remains the same in others.

Production and Change

Of all the factors determining historical development the decisive element is the production and reproduction of life and its material requirements. Men must be in a position to live in order to be able to make history. The production of the immediate material means of subsistence, and the consequent degree of economic development form the basis upon which all other institutions, concepts and ideas have been evolved. All these things must be explained in the light of the material basis of life, and not vice versa.

Against this, the idealists portray history as though it were dancing to the tune of men’s ideas, or, more precisely, the ideas of a few “great men.” So determined were Marx and Engels to combat this line of thought that they ran the risk of being accused of saying that the production of the means of life is the only factor causing change. But, as Engels points out,

"Political, juridical, philosophical, religious, literary, artistic, etc., development is based on economic development But all these react upon one another and also upon the economic base. It is not that the economic position is the cause and alone active, while everything else has a passive effect There is, rather, interaction on the basis of the economic necessity, which ultimately always asserts itself." — ("Marx-Engels Selected Correspondence," p. 517.)

At each stage of history there is a sum of productive forces and relations of individuals to things and to one another—all handed down to each generation from its predecessor. While these forces and relations are modified by the new generation, they also prescribe the conditions of life of that generation. In short, circumstances make men just as much as men make circumstances.

Men are products of certain conditions, and therefore changed men are products of other conditions. But it must never be forgotten that conditions are changed precisely by men. Man changes history, and is thereby himself changed and, in this sense, “all history is but a record of the continuous transformation of human nature ” (Marx).

When production was primitive, man’s simple biological needs determined his activities—but as production developed his needs developed also. In the process of production man is driven to a fuller comprehension of the world in which he lives. By acting on the external world and changing it, man changes his own nature.

History-making Animal

The basic difference between man and other animals—the change-over, as it were, from non-human to human—is when he begins to produce his own means of subsistence. This is not to say that animals don’t produce. The difference is that human production is premeditated, planned action, directed towards definite ends. Again, this doesn’t mean that no animal acts according to a plan. But, with man, consciousness takes the place of instinct, or, to put it another way, his“ instinct” is a conscious one.

“What distinguishes the most incompetent architect from the best of bees is that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he constructs it in reality,” wrote Marx. The labour process ends in the creation of something which, when the process began, already existed in the worker’s imagination in an ideal form. We may say that what ultimately distinguishes men from other animals is consciousness of method in production. The animal merely uses external nature, and brings about changes in it by his presence. Man, by his changes, makes nature serve his ends.

Yet man is not only a nature-controlling animal. He is also a history-making one. He is the sole animal who has worked his way out of the merely animal state —his normal state is one of consciousness, one to be created by himself. Man’s mastery over nature, of which he is a part, consists in the fact that he is able to know and correctly apply its laws.

Man has achieved a considerable measure of success as a nature-controlling animal, but when it comes to history-making there is much less cause for satisfaction. Broadly speaking, human action has achieved its desired end only in exceptional cases, and much more often it has achieved the exact opposite. Unforeseen effects have predominated, and uncontrolled forces have been far more powerful than those set in motion according to a plan.

These and other considerations lead socialists to believe that man has not yet made truly human history. “Only conscious organisation of social production,” says Engels, "can lift mankind above the rest of the animal world as regards the social aspect, in the same way that production in general has done this for men in their aspect as species.”

Understanding and Co-operating

The question may be asked: why has man, who has been so successful in developing his powers of production, made such a failure of history? The answer is that men have made bad history because they have been unable to prevent the means of production from conflicting with the relations of production. They have been so preoccupied with having to “make a living” in competition with others that they have had no control over the long-term consequences of their actions. The history and human nature that have resulted have thus been unplanned and mostly unintended.

In the process of controlling nature man has been scientific, in the widest sense. But in the process of making history he has not. Man makes a machine by manipulating suitable materials in a certain way according to a planned purpose. On the other hand, he makes history as an indirect result, almost a byproduct, of quite another activity—that of competing with his fellow-man to “earn a living.”

The conditions of property society have never been, and can never be, such as to allow men to solve their problems with a collective will or according to a collective plan. The dominating motive being individual self-interest, their efforts clash, what each individual seeks is obstructed by others, and what emerges is something that no one sought.

Man has had greater success in his efforts to master the forces of nature than those of society, which dominate him as a power independent of himself. Slave to classes and to the conditions of class society, man (whether as owner of property or non-owner) has been merely a class animal. He has not yet become truly human, in the sense that he has been passive instead of active in the historical process that makes human nature.

The case for Socialism amounts to saying that history, like the control of nature, ought to be planned and consciously organised. It ought to be produced, like any other product, for a purpose, and this purpose ought to be broadly human, not narrowly individual. It should aim at the transformation of human nature to make man integrated, complete, and balanced through the free use of his creative energies.

The role of the socialist consists in his capacity for understanding the world, for understanding its natural and historical movement, and for co-operating consciously with all the factors that are working towards classless society. We are able to speak of Socialism as a potentiality because it already exists in the minds of men in an ideal form, just as the house exists in the architect’s imagination even before the blueprint stage.

Without classes, human nature can at last become the product of human science rather than the by-product of class struggle. With the abolition of class control of economic forces, when the whole of society has gained mastery of the conditions of social life, man will be able to exercise real control over his own nature. With the release of his human powers from capitalist servitude, he will be able to shape his environment so that it promotes the fullest possible development of all his faculties.

Stan Parker

(Next Article: Capitalist Patterns of Behaviour.)