Books and pamphlets for sale. (1906)

Advert from the March 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

An interesting selection of books and pamphlets. The following are available online:

• Capital
• Six centuries of work and wages
• Poverty
• Communist Manifesto
• Wage Labour and Capital
• Socialism and the Worker
• How I Became a Socialist
• The Social Revolution

Spokeshave's 'Jones' Boy' is not available on the net but there's an interesting article on its background over at the Kate Sharpley Library blog.

A Look Round. (1928)

From the September 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Bishop on Slums.

We have often stated that the housing “problem” is insoluble within Capitalism. After the Lord Mayor’s Show comes the Bishop of Ripon. Saith he :—

“At the present rate of progress new generations will be born and will die in the existing slums. Before the present slums are abolished new insanitary areas will have come into being.” (Nineteenth Century and after Magazine—June.)

Likewise the Daily Chronicle, August 8th, 1928 :—

“The centre point of the housing problem today is not that of building new houses, but of building houses in which the working-class can afford to live.”

This, according to the Bishop, is equivalent to saying that at the present rate of Capitalist “progress,” some of us will not be able to afford to live even in the slums. But the Bishop and the Chronicle reckon on the assumption that you will remain blind to your own interests for ever. See to it now. The price of our pamphlet “Socialism” is two pence, it gives the remedy for housing, and all the poverty problems of the working class.

A Rest Cure.

“For Society jaded after the fatigues of the season, Goodwood is at once a rest cure and a tonic, for the fine air of the Downs is marvelously invigorating.” (“Evening Standard,” 30/7/28.)

Poor dears ! how tiring! they need a change ! Apparently others, too, have been jaded with the fatigues of “looking for work,” for in the same paper we read that at Bethnal Green “2,000 unemployed besiege a workhouse.” These contrasts obtrude everywhere. The Daily News, July 12th, 1928, tells us in heavy headlines of EIGHT MILLION PEOPLE ON POVERTY LINE—LUXURY TRADES BOOMING. This latter condition, is what is termed in our masters’ press, “Our improving Trade,” “National Prosperity,” and so on. Any attempt to alter such arrangements is heralded as a threat on the life of the “Nation,” “Public,” or “Community.” For all such terms issuing from Capitalist sources, read Capitalist or Parasite Class.

A Capitalist Admission.

“The root cause of the present suspicions and antagonisms lies in the separation of those interested in industry into the two classes of capital-owning profit takers, and ownerless weekly wage earners.”

This admission comes from a high-class Capitalist business publication (Business Organisation, June). At the same time it is interesting to compare one of the latest publications of the Labour Party. They tell us :—

“The workers are not a class, they are the nation. Talk of the class war is obsolete.” (Labour Encyclopaedia, Vol. I, p. 117.)

The correct and scientific point of view we have given in every issue of the Socialist Standard since we were an organisation. It will be found on the back page, paragraphs one and two, of our principles.

Liberal Insanity.

The Liberal Party possesses some wonderful minds. Think of the mental strain involved, and the disturbance of the grey matter, in putting this lot over :—

“In the long run the cure for unemployment must be found in expanding opportunities for natural work. . . . ” (Sir John Simon, “Manchester Guardian,” 30/7/28.)

This, mind you, in an age when, through privately-owned wealth, we must restrict its output and compel millions to cease production. The learned Liberal after years of office and opportunity, can propose nothing better than an aggravation of the causes, Capitalism remaining unchanged. Read the following carefully, and then reflect upon the ease with which we could produce wealth to-day if the needs of the producers, and not the Capitalist’s profits, were the object of production :—

“At the end of the 15th Century a peasant could provision his family for a twelvemonth by fifteen weeks of ordinary work. An artisan could achieve the same result in ten weeks.” (Six centuries of work and wages, p. 389, Thorold Rogers).

W. E. MacHaffie

Personality. (1920)

From the September 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist has great difficulty in propagating the principles of Socialism, inasmuch as the mass of the people look at political and economic affairs from a personal point of view.

Evidence of that is obvious enough when the people take part in a general election. The general election of December 14th 1918 was acclaimed as a victory for Mr. Lloyd George— and so it was.

The workers, or at least the majority of them, wanted Mr. Lloyd George to be Prime Minister, and their will prevailed. Mr. Lloyd George and his Coalition party went into Government with flying colours —and the workers’ choice of persons was settled.

Strange to say, the workers’ action on the industrial field has been a complete contradiction of their hopes and expectations. Their “good men” have missed fire. The workers thought that so and so would try to improve working-class conditions. There are thousands of men and women unemployed, and the increased cost of living makes the unemployed workers more dangerous and worrying, more anxious and poverty-stricken. Mr. Lloyd George and his party are in power, but are powerless to improve the position of the working class.

Strikes took place soon after the General Election and have continued up to the present. Mr. Lloyd George was not asked if he approved of the workers striking. Why not ? Mr. Lloyd George was sent to Parliament to govern the country. Why were the workers so fickle-minded? One would have expected such a “great man” to be consulted. Strikes make it rather awkward for the right honourable gentleman. The workers keep him busy organising schemes to beat the strike, when he might be playing golf or composing a speech about downing the Lords and giving heroes a chance to have a lick at a decent life.

In spite of it all—the winning of the war, the winning of the railway strike, the winning of votes from the working class—Mr. Lloyd George has nothing to give you but promises. Why ? Because the right honourable gent upholds the capitalist principles of private ownership and the consequent exploitation of the workers to enrich the owners of the means and instruments of wealth production. He has promised to make this country fit for heroes to live in !

The Socialists expect no more than that, because we know that personality has never yet improved the workers’ life. There is something greater than personality, and that is principle.

Principle is defined in a dictionary as “fundamental truth, original cause, motive, rule.” The system under which we live is dominated by the capitalist class, and consequently is and must be run on capitalist principles.

Wealth, which includes margarine, dud food, dud drink, dud clothing, dud houses, and perhaps in the near future monkeys’ glands, is produced fundamentally for profit, and not as a rule for use. The motive of the capitalist class is to get as much wealth as possible with as little expense as can be in the producing of the same. Therefore it is not strange that the workers are poor in the midst of plenty.

Capitalist production and distribution make the worker strike and in other ways show his discontent. Personality is best suited for the capitalist class, for their system is established and in working order. For them a choice of persons is quite correct. Whether Mr. Lloyd George or some other person shall be at the head of their administration is logical from a capitalist point of view. The working class are not organised for the establishment of a system suitable for them. So, when they are voting for a Person they are not minding their own business. The persons whom the working class vote for must work for capitalist interests, for the simple reason that the workers are not against the capitalist system. Their votes are for or against a Person or Persons, with the idea that some are for working-class improvement and others against.

A remarkable example of a minority of persons who have usurped political power is to be seen to-day in Russia. There you have a body of men and women who determined to establish society on communistic principles. It has turned out to be a failure, because the majority of the people were not mentally fit for a system of common ownership, and because the economic conditions were not ripe. The Bolsheviks were compelled to compromise with the capitalist class, who own and control the world’s means of production and distribution.

Therefore as long as the majority of the world’s workers are not prepared and organised to institute the Socialist Commonwealth, they will have to suffer poverty in the midst of plenty, wholesale slaughter, and a future black with the hovering clouds of war and unemployment, strikes and so forth.

In spite of sending ” jolly good fellows” to Parliament this chaos must ensue, and the workers only exhibit their ignorance of political and economic affairs in so doing.

Thorold Rogers in his book “Six Centuries of Work and Wages,” tells us (p. 398)

  What a husbandman earned with 15 weeks work in 1495, a whole year’s labour would not supply artizan or labourer with in the year 1725 throughout Lancashire. I have protested before against the complacent optimism which concludes, because the health of the upper classes has been bettered, and appliances, unknown before, have become familiar and cheap, that therefore the country in which these improvements have been effected must be considered to have made, for all its people, regular and continuous progress, I contend that from 1653 to 1824, a conspiracy, concocted by the law and carried out by parties interested in its success, was entered into, to cheat the English workman of his wages, to tie him to the soil, to deprive him of hope, and to degrade him into irremediable poverty.

Many “great men” since 1824 have been elected to Parliament—with great enthusiasm. Yet to day the workers are worse off than in 1495, and for a very good reason. The masters have reaped all the benefit of the vast strides made in the improvement of the instruments of labour, and have even succeeded in turning the very fertility of his labour against the wage labourer.

And to-morrow, if a so called Labour Government were elected, capitalist interests would prevail, because the workers are not organised for common ownership.

Salvation from poverty in the midst of plenty cannot be obtained by voting for Persons. The only way is to organise and vote for the principle of the common ownership of the meang and instruments of wealth production.

Until the time of working-class enlightenment and consequent control of our lives and destiny, we must suffer the evils of private ownership and “great men” with tongues of promise.

S. W.

50 Years Ago: Machinery (1962)

The 50 Years Ago column from the January 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Machinery, says the Liberal, has deepened the working man's chest and increased his stature by shortening the hours of work. When he says ‘shortened hours' we promptly ask ‘compared with when?’ and as promptly comes the answer: 'In comparison with the hours worked in the hungry forties’, or ‘when my grandfather was a lad’.

To compare present hours of work with the length of the working day in that transitional period when capitalism was in its birth throes (with the aim of extolling the difference), is an inane procedure.

Thorold Rogers has shown the comparative leisure of the workers under the system of ‘small production'—with that we need not deal. If we take our case at its worst and compare hours of work today with the hours toiled in the early years of capitalism, we find justification for our case. We find that side by side with the shorter working day has come a quicker pace, a more rapid rate of production, a faster consumption of working-class brain, nerve and muscle. Whether it be in the sphere of production—at lathe or loom, or in distribution on train, tram, or taxi, the working pace is fierce.

Even if we examine types of work where steam-power cannot be applied —office executive and the like—we find mechanical appliances such as calculating machines, typewriters, dictating appliances, etc., adding to the intensity of the workers grind.

From the Socialist Standard, January 1912.

About Books (1953)

From the July 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

When Plato, Aristotle and others of their day spoke about Greece and the Greeks, they did not include the slaves; when historians of the 18th and 19th centuries wrote about Americans, they gave no heed to the negro slaves. Likewise today, when there is so much blather about the Elizabethan age, our super-patriots and political quacks refer only to the upper crust of the late 16th century society, not to the Toms, Dicks and Harrys who had to strive to earn a meagre living by the sweat of their brows. Not only are the humble workers not mentioned, they are not even considered. A picture of prosperity and regal pageantry is painted against a background of period architecture and costume, with farthingales, ruffs and fancy pants much in evidence. To have painted against a background of masses of hungry, oppressed serfs and workers would have spoiled the colourful effect, and destroyed the object of the painting.

We Socialists are inoculated against this “Elizabethan fever,” but living daily in the very heart of the epidemic it is hard to avoid becoming slightly infected. So we find ourselves pulling books from the bookshelves and reading about the age of Elizabeth I. Some most illuminating reading we can assure you.

We passed over the history books that deal with such world-shattering events as the gallantry of Sir Walter Raleigh in spreading his cloak over a mud puddle for his queen; the cool, casual courage of Sir Francis Drake, finishing his game of bowls whilst the Spanish Armada was in sight, and the heart-flutterings and hand-holdings of Good Queen Bess and her noble lovers. We selected books that told of the domestic tragedy of a certain Joan Wynstone who, on February 6th, 1575, was whipped and branded as a vagabond, on July 26th was saved from being hanged by being set to service to her husband, and on October 3rd, having run away from the husband, was caught and hanged. We browsed into books that gave records of the rates of wages paid and the cost of living during the years of the reign of Elizabeth I. And we read how many a noble lord, whose descendants were privileged to be inside Westminster Abbey on June 2nd this year, laid the foundations of the family fortunes by indulging in practices that would have brought a blush of shame to the cheek of an 18th century highwayman, and by investing in schemes that to this day give off a strong smell of working class blood and sweat.

For the benefit of anyone who may wish to follow our example and try to get a true picture of the conditions of life for the vast majority of people during the reign of Elizabeth I, we will list a few books.

First there is a book that is completely lacking in sensational writing but crammed from cover to cover with facts and figures of rates of pay for workers in various trades in different parts of the country at different times of the year, together with details of the cost of necessary commodities, fluctuations in price with their causes, and comparative figures with other periods. It will not be possible to buy this book now-a-days but it can be obtained from public libraries. It is entitled, "Six Centuries of Work and Wages” by Professor James E. Thorold Rogers, M.P. The book was originally published by Swan Sonncnschcin and Co., Ltd., but there have been many editions. It has, as its subtitle, “ The History of English Labour,” and that is just what it is.

In another book by Thorold Rogers there appears an interesting statement.

"... from 1260 to 1540 poverty was a distant risk in England.”—(“The Industrial and Commercial History of England,” page 10.)

This very concise statement throws the poverty of Elizabethan days into bold relief in contrast with the nearly three centuries to which Mr. Rogers refers.

Another book that tells a very gruesome story of working class suffering is “An Economic History of England, 1066 to 1874,” by Charlotte M. Waters, published by Oxford University Press. The author deals, interestingly and with numerous illustrations, with the causes of working class poverty during the latter fifty years of the 16th century; the break up of the feudal system, tenants turned from their land by landlords who enclosed large tracts for sheep farms, bands of feudal soldiers dismissed from their service, manufacture replacing handicraft, etc. A very, very useful book indeed.

If one would thoroughly understand that period of change that culminated with the English revolution during the 17th century and was at its highest tempo during the reign of Elizabeth I, one should read “Thomas More and his Utopia” by Karl Kautsky published by A. & C. Black, Ltd. Sir Thomas More died in 1535, two years after Elizabeth I was born and twenty-three before she succeeded to the throne. He cannot be classified as an Elizabethan, but Karl Kautsky, in writing of him and his work, devotes a large portion of his book to sketching a background of the social conditions of the 15th and 16th centuries in order that his readers may see the life of More in its proper perspective. So, we get a splendid history of the times and conditions under which the poor of the Elizabethan age lived.

To keep the list as short as possible we will mention only one more work, a well known one; “Capital” by Karl Marx. In Volume I of this great work, part VIII, Chapter XXV111, entitled, “Bloody Legislation against the expropriated from the end of 15th Century. Forcing down Wages by Acts of Parliament,” Marx tells of the cruelty of the oppressive working class legislation of the period and gives us chapter and verse of a number of the acts that were passed and enforced.

Other books dealing with this period of English history can be traced through the bibliographies in the ones we have mentioned should anyone wish to study the period in greater detail. There are also constitutional histories, political histories and social histories of recent publication dates that will help to build up a complete picture of the age.

When one realises that the Elizabethan period was a time of acute class struggle between the rising capitalist class and the decaying feudal groups one is better able to appreciate the works of men like William Shakespeare 1564-1616, and Miguel dc Cervantes, 1547- 1616. Both of these men, although they probably did not understand the social events that were taking place around them, at least saw those events and wrote about them. In novels, poems and plays they joined in the popular ridicule of the expiring feudal aristocracy. Shakespeare lampoons them with his Sir John Falstaff and Cervantes does likewise with his Don Quixote.

There are numerous works of Shakespeare to be had now-a-days and there is a cheap issue of Don Quixote published by Penguin Books at 8s. 6d.

Equipped with the knowledge contained in these books we can better understand what our masters desire when they prate about the second Elizabethan age being as glorious as the first. They are not interested in our living conditions. They are looking with shining eyes to the prospect of expanding trade and commerce, to enterprises that produce such astounding profits as did the Levant Company and the East India Company, to support and encouragement by the state, and to a docile and disciplined working class. That is what they mean when they talk of the Glory of Britain, that is what all the flummery and speech making of the coronation period indicate.

W. Waters