Letter: Are We Wrong About Capitalist Crises? (1931)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Are We Wrong About Capitalist Crises?

A correspondent (“Robbo,” Croydon) has been digging into year-old articles published in the Socialist Standard, and wants to know if we have changed our mind about capitalism’s crises. He writes as follows : —

“In spite of your evident contempt for the “doctrine of collapse,” I think there is at least an outside chance (notice, I do not say a certainty) of a breakdown, before we have time to make the Socialists. In this connection I have been studying the article, “Will Capitalism Collapse?”, in your April, 1927, issue. There you refer to a previous criticism (February, 1922) of the same doctrine, pointing out that “half the allotted time” had passed, and that all the essential signs of a collapse were lacking. May I now point out that the “other half” has passed, and although, to be quite fair to you, the actual collapse has not yet taken place, it is significant to notice that almost all the features which you postulated as acceptable indications of collapse, and which may have been lacking in April, 1927, are now present in overwhelming force.

For instance (front page), “Where, now, are the unemployed organisations?” May I suggest, very much in evidence. Again (page 114), “Barring the failure of the natural physical basis of human life, it (the capitalist system) cannot fall,” and (also page 114), “The system does not cease to function.” Again I suggest that these things are happening. The physical basis is failing, and the system has almost ceased to function. Also (page 115) you say, “Since 1921 unemployment . . . has been almost halved, currency problems . . . have been . . . satisfactorily solved, and no one now supposes that the war debts present any special difficulty.” In the light of present conditions, comment on the latter statements is surely superfluous, and a re-reading of your own article should give you “furiously to think.”

Reply:

The late Mr. Bonar Law once retorted to a political opponent who had been making wild prophecies about the effects of a certain policy, “It is no use trying to argue with a prophet: one can only disbelieve him.” Fortunately one can do more than Mr. Bonar Law was disposed to do in that case. One can ask the prophet to state the grounds of his belief.

For the benefit of other readers we must first explain the references made by our correspondent to earlier articles in this Journal. In 1921 and 1922 the Communists were busy preparing for the breakdown of capitalism which they believed to be imminent. One of them said in reply to a question that 10 years would prove or disprove the soundness of that theory, on which the whole Communist movement was built up. In February, 1922, and again in April, 1927, articles by the present writer appeared in these columns criticising the assumptions of those who founded their policy on the supposed collapse of capitalism. In April, 1927, attention was drawn to the fact that half of the allotted ten years had passed, without the promised collapse and the world revolution which was to accompany it. What our correspondent “Robbo” asks us to believe is that even if the Communists misjudged the situation in 1922 and 1927 they have not over-estimated its seriousness to-day, because factors then lacking are now present. Let us consider these factors one by one.

In 1921 and 1922 the organised unemployed who were trying to force concessions from the Guardians and the Government by means of demonstrations, deputations, and the seizing of public buildings, were said to number hundreds of thousands, and the Communists claimed that they had the leadership of them. By 1927, with the passing of the worst of the industrial depression, the unemployed organisations had simply melted away ; hence the remark, “Where now are the Unemployed organisations?” Our correspondent; replies that in 1931 “they are very much in evidence.” But he quite mistakes the point of the remark to which he refers. The intention was to show the uselessness of the Communist theory of so-called “mass organisation.” Instead of building up a party of Socialists understanding Socialism, they believed in building up a loose organisation of vaguely discontented workers. Our criticism was that no permanent organisation could be constructed on such a base, and that anyway it could not be used for the achievement of Socialism because the members did not understand Socialism. We were right. Apathy and a decline in the volume of unemplovment destroyed the unemployed organisations and robbed the Communist Party of the bulk of its own members. The same thing will happen again. Our correspondent must not imagine that we believe the capitalist system to be in danger from the activities of organised unemploved even if they do number hundreds of thousands. The capitalist class can always deal with such situations by the joint method of police action and the giving of more unemployment pay and other concessions. The Communists themselves were compelled to admit that this is so. Their official organ said in 1923 : —

“The unemployed have done all they can, and the Government know it. They have tramped through the rain in endless processions. They have gone in mass deputations to the Guardians. They have attended innumerable, meetings and have been told to be “solid.” They have marched to London, enduring terrible hardships. . . . All this has led nowhere. None of the marchers believe that seeing Bonar Law in the flesh will make any difference. Willing for any sacrifice, there seems no outlet, no next step. In weariness and bitter disillusionment the unemployed movement is turning in upon itself. There is sporadic action, local rioting, but not central direction. The Government has signified its exact appreciation of the confusion by arresting Hannington.

The plain truth is that the unemployed can only be organised for agitation, not for action. Effective action is the job of the working-class as a whole. The Government is not afraid of starving men so long as the mass of the workers look on and keep the ring.” (“Workers’ Weekly,” February 10th, 1923.)

The next point is the conditions under which capitalism might come to an end. The passage referred to is as follows (S.S., April 1927, p. 114)

“Capitalism might conceivably be rent asunder and destroyed in a long-drawn-out struggle for mastery between contending classes, but, barring the failure of the natural physical basis of human life, it cannot fall and cannot be revolutionised except by the actions of the men and women who compose it.”

To this our correspondent retorts, “The physical basis is failing, and the system has almost ceased to function.” (Italics his.)

This statement is amazing, and our correspondent should himself have recognised the need for evidence to justify something so utterly out of keeping with the obvious facts of the present situation. The physical bases of human life—food, clothing, and shelter—were never so plentiful and so easily produced as they are to-day. The world is overburdened with supplies and the means of producing more of them. Yet in face of that our correspondent says that “The physical basis is failing.” Like the late Mr. Bonar Law one can only disbelieve him.

Then we are told that the system has “almost” ceased to function. There must be much virtue in that “almost” in the eyes of our critic. The production and distribution of wealth goes on with no more difficulty than it did 10, 20, or 50 years ago. The number of workers actually in employment now is more than 1,000,000 above the level in the 1921 slump. In many respects the capitalists are now better informed and better able to make adjustments to the constant demands of their system than in the past. As regards the political side we have just seen the capitalists get a new mandate for the retention of capitalism in spite of all the causes now operating to make the workers discontented. Perhaps “Robbo” will enlighten us as to what he means by “almost ceased to function.”

The last passage referred to by our correspondent is the following :—(S.S., April, 1927, p. 115.)

“Again, allowance should have been made for the familiar recurring depression which is a century old feature of the system. Such a depression, affecting almost all the world in 1921, no more justified the prophecy of ruin and collapse for British capitalism than depression did in pre-war days. Since 1921 unemployment in this country has been almost halved, currency problems in most European countries have been from a capitalist standpoint satisfactorily solved and no one now supposes that the war debts present any special difficulty.”

Our correspondent says about this, “In the light of present conditions, comment on the latter statements is surely superfluous, and a re-reading of your own article should give vou furiously to think.”

But comment is not superfluous, it is just what is needed, and in its absence we are left wondering what is our correspondent’s point. Between 1921 and 1927 unemployment fell from 2,500,000 to about 1,250,000, and now with a larger insured population it is back to about the same percentage as in 1921. But what does that signify to our correspondent ? To us it signifies that capitalism is behaving in very much the same way as in all the crises of the past. As regards currency problems our correspondent need only refer to contemporary political and economic journals to find that in the years just after the war the currency muddles of the European countries were far more disturbing than anything the world can show to-day. This country has now returned more or less to the currency position it occupied in the years from 1918 to 1925. Does that portend collapse? Obviously not. And has our correspondent forgotten that several times during the 19th century financial crises forced British Governments to suspend the Bank Charter Act governing the gold backing for the Bank of England Note issue ?

If “Robbo” believes that the war debts do present some special difficulty,” all he has to do is to tell us what feature there is in the present crisis that cannot be paralleled in one or other of the pre-war crises, when war debts did not exist in amounts comparable with the present debts. We can see no such additional feature. What we can see is the German capitalists using the depression as an excuse for getting rid of their burden of reparations. They have also used reparations as their excuse for reducing the pay of Government employees. But our correspondent has only to look at the other countries to see that reparations are a convenient excuse, nothing more, for the British Labour Government and practically every Government in the world has used the fall in prices and the depression as an excuse for reducing civil service pay. Wage reductions were of course a feature of every pre-war depression also.

In conclusion it may be of interest to point out that the idea of the imminent and certain collapse of capitalism, with its fatal effect on serious Socialist study and organisation, is far older than the Communists, who are indeed only carrying on the theories and tactics of the reformists in the Social Democratic Federation. In the ‘eighties and ‘nineties of last century unemployed organisations, demonstrations, deputations to the Guardians demanding “work or maintenance,” conflicts with the police, the seizing of public buildings, all of these things were in full blast whenever unemployment became acute. And then, as now, the reformists thought that capitalism would collapse and that the discontented non-Socialists in the unemployed organisations could be led to establish Socialism. And then, as now, there were the half-educated so-called “intellectuals,” who had misread Marx, assuring the workers that this theory is Marxian, and that it is true although it fails to fit the facts. The late Mr. Hyndman had perhaps some excuse in 1884 for holding this unsound theory of the collapse of capitalism. He wrote in “Justice,” in January, 1884 :—

“It is quite possible that during this very crisis, which promises to he long and serious, an attempt will be made to substitute collective for capitalist control. Ideas move fast; the workers are coming together.”

Later on he suggested 1889 as the probable date for the revolution. (See “Rise and Decline of Socialism,” by Joseph Clayton, p. 14.)

Edward Carpenter, in “My Days and Dreams,” says :—

“It was no wonder that Hyndman, becoming conscious as early as 1881 of the new forces all around in the social world, was filled with a kind of fervour of revolutionary anticipation. We used to chaff him because at every crisis in the industrial situation he was confident that the millennium was at hand. . . .”

Hyndman continued to see the revolution “round every corner” until the date of his death, although, ironically enough he bitterly hated the Communists who are only carrying on in Hyndman’s own earlier tradition.

His successors in the I.L.P. and the Communist Party have no such excuse as Hyndman had. They have no excuse for their ignorant assumption that Marx supports their view, nor for their failure to acquaint themselves with the easily accessible facts of past experience and the theories Marx based upon them, which show how capitalist society actually works, and how it may be replaced when, and only when, the workers want Socialism and will organise politically to obtain it.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Socialist Forum: War and the collapse of capitalism. (1931)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

War and the collapse of capitalism.

A correspondent objects to our statement made in the September issue that it is a hoary fallacy to suppose that capitalism will collapse of its own accord. He asks, “How is it possible for it to survive another world war? And under capitalism another war seems inevitable. Such a war would smash past repair the financial systems of Europe.”

To this question we would reply by asking another : “How was it possible for capitalism to survive the last war?” It is certainly true that capitalism did survive it, in spite of the hysterical prophecies of the believers in that hoary fallacy that it would collapse “past repair.”

What our correspondent overlooks is that no matter how great the damage a war might cause to parts of the capitalist system, the survivors of the war, unless they are Socialists, will turn to and build it up again. There is no way of getting Socialism without Socialists.

Ed. Comm.

Letter: Capitalism’s limits? (2010)

Letter to the Editors from the December 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors

Capitalism is reaching its expansionary limits and being driven by these limits to substitute saturation for expansion. It is turning inward and “eating out its own guts”. The result is “barbarism”. 

“Normal” capitalism generated profits through expansion (growth). Apart from some margin for maneuver in near-earth outer space, it no longer has room for profitable expansion. This drives the system to “expand” inward, deriving profits from forcing down production costs by cutting wages, forcing more family members onto the labour market, and imposing higher productivity levels on workers (intensified exploitation), thereby increasing the quantity of commodities but degrading their quality. Here again, force is an essential factor.

As Rosa Luxemburg wrote in The Accumulation of Capital in 1913, capitalism always needs an “outside” somewhere. Although material conditions have changed since Rosa’s time, this remains true in a “metaphorically substantive” sense. 

With capitalism expanded to its spatial limits and turned inward, exploitation and profits grow apace. The biosphere, however, is a fixed system of reproduction. It took “time out of mind” to generate the hydrocarbon fuels that production for profit has consumed in the course of less than 200 years. It is true that “biological resources, if rationally exploited, are renewable and therefore practically everlasting” (Standard, November 2010, p. 6). But globalised capitalism does not follow a rational logic and already has a toe in the waters of barbarism. Socialists must be the lifeguards on this shore: there is no alternative to socialism.

Joe R. Hopkins, 

Florida, USA.

Reply: 

As we pointed out in a reply to a letter in the September issue, Rosa Luxemburg’s book was based on a faulty analysis of capitalism even if its descriptive parts about the barbaric effect of the spread of capitalism are good. We don’t accept that capitalism does have any “spatial limit” – Editors.

Letter: Mr. Middleton Murry Protests. (1932)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

The letter below, written by Mr. Middleton Murry, refers to a paragraph in the September Socialist Standard : —

Larling, nr. Norwich,

September 3, 1932.

Sir,

Your reference to me in the September Socialist Standard is partly false, and partly misleading. I must ask you to publish this note.

I have never had “leanings towards the Communist Party” ; nor have I ever been “a worshipper of Russia.” I have never “quarrelled with the Communists” in the sense your statement bears. I have had no connection of any kind with the C.P.

I joined the I.L.P. in December last. In or about March this year I read a very sensible pamphlet published by the S.P.G.B.: “Why Capitalism will not Collapse.” Until that moment 1 had never even heard of the existence of the S.P.G.B. Since I agreed with its view that the expectation of a melodramatic collapse of Capitalism was mistaken and dangerous, I thought I ought to learn more about the S.P.G.B. In the letter in which I asked for information I used the phrase which you, rather disingenuously, quote : “It seems to me that I ought to join.”

I was surprised to discover that the constitution of the S.P.G.B. forbids its members to be members of the I.L.P. So I went no further into the matter. The restriction seemed to me stupid in itself, and, as my knowledge of the S.P.G.B. grew, indicative of a fundamental limitation in an otherwise valuable organisation. To represent me as having wavered between the C.P., the S.P.G.B., and the I.L.P., is quite false.

For my part I have to apologise to the S.P.G.B. for having implied that it was not a “genuinely Socialist organisation.” I am sorry to say that I had forgotten all about it when I made my remarks about the I.L.P.

I will not take up your space, or my time, in replying to your assertions that I understand nothing about Socialism, because in one passage I say that the essence of it is “economic equality.” “Economic equality” is as much the essence of Socialism as “the common ownership of the means of production.” You cannot get “economic equality” without establishing “the common ownership of the means of production.” Economic equality is the ethical aspect, common ownership of the means of production the economic basis, of a Socialist society.

It is the singular and distressing rigidity of mind revealed in so superficial a criticism that it made it easy for me to forget the claims of the S.P.G.B. to be a genuinely Socialist organisation.

Yours faithfully,

J. Middleton Murry.

Reply

Mr. Murry’s letter does not justify his assertion that the references to him were “partly false and partly misleading,” except, perhaps, in respect of his attitude towards the Communist Party. The statement about the Communists to which he takes exception was this :—”He appears at first to have had leanings towards the Communist Party, and is still a worshipper of Russia, being under the impression that Socialism is being built up in that country.”

The writer of the offending paragraph appears to have been wrong in supposing that Mr. Murry’s leanings towards Communist doctrine had ever included a sympathy with the Communist Party in Great Britain. Mr. Murry defines his position in his book, “The Necessity of Communism.” In it he says (p. 15): “Leninism is … valid for Russia, ridiculous in England.”

In the Adelphi (August) he goes further and declares that it should be the function of the I.L.P. to build up

“something analagous to the Communist Party in Russia, the inward nucleus of convinced Socialists "whose creed carries conviction because they live in accordance with it.'”

(Having accepted Mr. Murry’s explanation of his attitude, it is necessary to point out that we certainly do not accept the argument that a whole body of theory for working class action can be valid in one country and ridiculous in another.)

Mr. Murry goes on to say that he has never been “a worshipper of Russia,” but he omits the second part of the passage, which reads, “under the impression that Socialism is being built up in that country.” His half-denial, therefore, leaves his attitude still undefined. The fact is that Mr. Middleton Murry’s party (the I.L.P.) commits itself unreservedly to the delusion that Socialism is being built up in Russia. If Mr. Murry shares his party’s view then he ought to be a “worshipper of Russia.”

The explanation given by Mr. Murry for liking and disliking the S.P.G.B. well illustrates his muddled state of mind. He says that after reading our pamphlet, “Why Capitalism will not Collapse” he wrote to us saying “It seems to me that I ought to join “; but was then surprised to discover that the constitution of the S.P.G.B. forbids its members to belong to the I.L.P. If Mr. Murry had read the pamphlet with ordinary care he would have seen that it states and explains the hostility to the I.L.P. which he did not discover until after he had written to us commending the pamphlet and its attitude.

He calls the S.P.G.B.’s refusal to permit membership of the I.L.P. “stupid in itself . . . and indicative of a fundamental limitation in an otherwise valuable organisation.” Now, at the time Mr. Murry made this discovery, the I.L.P. was in the Labour Party, and membership of the I.L.P., therefore, meant also membership of the Labour Party. So Mr. Murry’s view was that it was “stupid in itself” that a Socialist Party should not allow its members to be in the Labour Party. But since that time, and with Mr. Murry’s wholehearted approval, the I.L.P. itself has left the Labour Party and has imposed precisely the same “stupid restriction.” It now expels any member who belongs to the Labour Party.

Mr. Murry stands by his statement that the essence of Socialism is “economic equality.” The danger of such a phrase is that it is acceptable to people who utterly reject the demand for the common ownership of the means of production. No better example could be found than Mr. Tawney, of whom Mr. Murry wrote that he is a “genuine Socialist.” Mr. Tawney is a believer in “true economic equality,” as defined and explained by him. Yet in his “Acquisitive Society” (p. 99) Mr. Tawney writes : —

“The idea of some socialists that private property in land or capital is necessarily mischievous is a piece of scholastic pedantry as absurd as that of the Conservatives who would invest all property with some kind of mysterious sanctity.”

(Mr. Tawney is here discussing current problems, not the historical evolution of private property.)

Mr. Bernard Shaw is another advocate of “economic equality” who manages at the same time to be an opponent of common ownership, a supporter of capitalist wars, and of State capitalism, and an admirer of Mussolini.

Mr. Murry’s reasons for his disregard of the S.P.G.B. when he wrote of the I.L.P. as the only Socialist organisation in this country are quite unconvincing. First he says that he had forgotten all about the S.P.G.B. when he made his remark about the I.L.P. Then later on he says that it is the rigidity of the S.P.G.B. which “made it easy for me to forget the claims of the S.P.G.B. to be a genuinely Socialist organisation.” If Mr. Murry (who has the Socialist Standard by post each month) forgot the existence of the S.P.G.B. how could he remember its alleged rigidity ? And if he remembered the rigidity how could that make it easy for him to forget its claims that it is genuinely Socialist ? Does Mr. Murry mean that he remembered it, but thought that it claims to be something other than genuinely Socialist ? If not, what does he mean ?

And if Mr. Murry forgot the S.P.G.B., did he also “forget” to reply to a letter sent to him on the same subject on August 4th ? And then “forget” again at the end of the month to refer to the matter in the September issue of Adelphi ?

If Mr. Murry’s memory works like this he should be grateful to us for having used a well-known specific in the shape of a little publicity to jolt it into activity.

Edgar Hardcastle

Some theoretical questions (1954)

From the September 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Through having a formal Declaration of Principles to act as basis for membership and for the control of conduct, and through the use of Marxian economics and explanation of social change, the S.P.G.B. has maintained a continuity of outlook unknown in organisations guided largely by the mood and circumstances of the moment. But continuity has not meant refusal to recognise changes of capitalist trends or the emergence of important new information.

Marxian economic conceptions, in spite of the continuous stream of disparagement from critics, have shown themselves remarkably robust in serving to explain the workings of the capitalist system under modern developments. One illustration is the great rise of .the price level in the last forty years. While reformist parties have offered “explanations” which consist of little more than attributing the rise of prices to the wickedness of capitalists and the cowardice of governments,, Marxism economics enables us to see that the overwhelmingly largest factor has been the devaluation of the currency in terms of gold, in U.S.A., to about one half and in Great Britain to about one-third of the value before World War I.

Examination of current economic problems from the Marxian standpoint enabled the S.P.G.B. to show the absurdity of the periodical waves of currency crankism such as the Douglas Scheme; the truth that rates and taxes, in spite of their deceptive appearance, are a burden on property not on the workers' wages and that war likewise is paid for by the capitalist class; and that while wages do not merely follow prices—other factors including the workers' struggles play a part—the belief that lower prices mean prosperity for the workers is a delusion.

In all these matters economic understanding reinforced the S.P.G.B.'s political principles and saved it from floundering in the confusion that fogged the reformists.

Special reference needs to be made to economic crises.

Marx’s valuable material on capitalism’s economic crises was published after his death in Volumes II. and III. of Capital in virtually the incomplete form in which he left it—he had not reached the stage of rounding it off into a comprehensive whole. In the hands of later writers, friendly, critical, and hostile alike, who have overlooked this, Marx’s tentative and piecemeal conclusions have sometimes proved to be dangerous half-knowledge, and many are the explanations of and prophecies about, crises that have not stood up to the test of events; including some by the S.P.G.B. But this has not been of too great importance because the S.P.G.B. was never dependent on crises and crises theories in the way the Communists and some other groups have been. The S.P.G.B. has never been in the position of some reformists of believing that capitalism is only open to condemnation during crises and not during its boom periods; or in the position of Communists of believing that capitalism can only be got rid of through a crisis, a collapse.

This belief has a long history and it has been the S.P.G.B. alone which set itself firmly against it

When Marx and Engels were first approaching the subject of crises they thought, on the evidence then available, that crises happened at shorter and shorter intervals, each one worse than the one before. They soon dropped the first and worked on the supposition that crises happen about every ten years; and they later recognised that it was possible for a relatively acute crisis to be followed by a mild one. It is, however, probable that Marx, and certain that Engels, thought that the general trend was for crises to become worse. This came put most markedly after Marx’s death when we find Engels in 1884, under the influence of the prolonged “Great Depression,” believing that the 10 year cycle had gone and that permanent depression had taken its place; and writing two years later that “we can almost calculate the moment when the unemployed . . . will take their fate into their own hands.”

Just as 30 years earlier, in 1856, he had expected the coming economic crisis to end capitalism, so he now thought in 1886 that unemployment would drive the workers to revolt; and seven years later he was pinning his hopes on the crisis he anticipated from America’s invasion of world markets.

Nobody could hold a theory that crises become worse and worse without being at least strongly tempted to believe that this could not go on indefinitely; a time must come when the crisis would be too great for recovery to be possible. This notion was gratefully taken up by many groups, including the Communists and the I.L.P., for they had dire need of some such theory. How else could they envisage the end of capitalism? The Communists never accepted the S.P.G.B. case that capitalism would be ended by the positive action of a majority understanding Socialism. Instead they trusted in leadership of the discontented masses by an intellectual minority and they welcomed the notion that an economic crisis would provide the opportunity.

The I.L.P. had earlier believed that foe road to emancipation was through Labour Party pressure in Parliament for reforms, especially under Labour government. But by the 1931 crisis, after two Labour Governments, the I.L.P. leaders could no longer be enthusiastic for this and they gladly swallowed the “collapse” theory which promised an easy and early alternative.

The S.P.G.B., which had never needed such a theory, never entertained it and in 1932 marked its opposition to the then popular collapse doctrine by publishing a pamphlet “Why Capitalism will not Collapse,” in which was reaffirmed the Party’s view that “until a sufficient number of workers are prepared to organise politically for the conscious purpose of ending Capitalism, that system will stagger on indefinitely from one crisis to another.”

Because the S.P.G.B. has this firmly based and comprehensive Socialist case against capitalism and is not dependant on particular temporary trends of capitalism, it could view with equanimity unforeseen new developments and reversals of trends that have seriously shaken other organisations. The S.P.G.B. never mixed up State capitalism with Socialism and was therefore able from the start to examine critically the organisation, and finances of nationalisation and expose both the Labour Party propaganda asking working class support for it and the equally fraudulent campaigns against it carried on by sections of the capitalists and by the Tory and Liberal parties. The limited progress made by nationalisation in the U.S.A. and many other countries (contrary to Engels’ expectation 60 years ago), and the present perhaps temporary flow of the tide against nationalisation do not at all affect the S.P.G.B. case though they profoundly disturb the reformists to whom nationalisation meant something different and so much more important

The S.P.G.B., while opposed to building up an organisation on a reform programme, never accepted the two ideas that from time to time have obtained wide acceptance in Labour circles, that the capitalists either would not concede reforms or that they could not afford to do so. So the rise first of unemployment insurance (not foreseen by Engels and others who foretold unemployed revolt) and later of more comprehensive schemes has not in any way affected the basic case of the S.P.G.B. against capitalism.

Nor has the S.P.G.B. case needed to be modified because of the growth in trade union membership and changes in structure and activities. Members of the S.P.G.B. could be and were keenly interested in discussing trade union trends, forms of organisation, strike tactics, etc., but all of these aspects were secondary ones viewed in the light of the recognition that trade union action cannot end capitalism and establish Socialism. The “general strike” of 1926 was for the S.P.G.B. a complete confirmation of views long before thought out and discussed by members. The “general strike,” that is to say united action to hold up industry as a whole, had been advocated in the Socialist Standard four years before (Apr. 1922) as the only means of meeting the general attack on wages. The three guiding conditions then insisted upon were that the stoppage should not be prolonged, it would succeed in its object quickly or not at all; that it should be carried out peacefully for its limited objective with no encouragement of riot or destruction to give excuse for the use of the armed forces; and that the decisions to come out and go back should be in the hands of the rank and file and not entrusted to leaders. In the event it was misguided trust in leadership that made the strike of 1926 less impressive and effective than it could have been, though the S.P.G.B. certainly had never encouraged illusions as to what could be hoped for from such a strike.

On war there has been some development in the Party’s attitude due to events stimulating deeper consideration. In 1904 it seemed sufficient to explain war between capitalist powers (and their wars of colonial expansion) and to insist that the workers had no interest in the issues behind war; rounding this off with denunciation of capitalist greed and capitalist cruelty. Little was said of the attitude of Marx half a century earlier of being prepared to support one side in war either on the ground that the outcome would be an advantage for the democratic and working class movements (e.g. the defeat of reactionary Russia), or that the workers should resist aggression against the country they live in. Had this question been raised as a live issue in 1904 there can be no doubt that the Party would have decided then (as it did nearly 30 years later) that Marx was mistaken in thinking that results worth while for the working class or for the speeding up of the introduction of Socialism could result from waging war. That the S.P.G.B. should have reached a conclusion different from his was due partly to the fact that, looking back, we could see that his hoped for beneficial results did not happen; partly to realisation of the tremendous barrier to Socialism presented by nationalism; partly to the much greater magnitude and destructiveness of the weapons and organisations of war; but basically to the S.P.G.B.’s unique appreciation of the importance of understanding in the achievement of Socialism. For us it was unthinkable that lack of understanding could be compensated for by use of force. Hence the affirmation in a lengthy statement on war formally adopted by the Party that “war is not an instrument that can be used by Socialists or supported by Socialists.”

The Party’s original condemnation of unscientific emotionalism and insistence on the need to understand the causes and methods of social and ideological change and of the emergence of new forms has stood every test. The early issues of the Socialist Standard contained many articles and answers to correspondents on this issue and the article “Unscientific Emotionalism” in the issue for December, 1914, will show how adequately the problems were understood by that time. The following are extracts;—

"When our method of reasoning is applied back through history, we find that man’s thoughts have always been governed by his inherited notions and the material conditions surrounding him; and as these conditions have centred round the obtaining of food, clothing and shelter, so at each period of social history the more or less clear relations that were built up on this basis (the particular relations that existed at the particular time between the various producers and distributors of the social wealth) have been reflected in the mind in a correspondingly more or less clear manner. After the break up of the early tribal communities society was split into various classes, and history since then has been the record of the struggles of each class in its turn to control society for its own advantage. When the progress of the method of producing wealth had reached a certain point the class in society that, was taking the principal part in production found the old laws (that were suitable to the old governing class) placed a restriction on their further development. The problem of the removal of all these restrictions therefore constantly occupied them, and it is then forced home to their minds that the only solution to the problem of the removal of these restrictions is the control of society by themselves, and the alteration of the existing laws to suit the new conditions. Just so at present the spectacle of the workers doing all the work of the world forces home to the minds of men the socialist view that if the workers produce and distribute all the wealth of society they therefore should own it, and reap the benefit of their work themselves, instead of supporting a group of idlers and good-for-nothings. The solution of the problem is contained within the problem itself. 'Therefore mankind always takes up only such problems as it can solve’ (Marx).”

The article showed how the ideas of equality that had lain dormant in the minds of men since the break up of tribal Communism, had been exploited in the past by particular propertied classes struggling for supremacy and wanting the support of the oppressed, and were being exploited now by reformist bodies that did not understand the nature of the problem. The following further extract is a fitting note on which to end this brief survey of some aspects of Socialist theories.

"The socialist reasons from the practical affairs of everyday life to general conclusions, while the emotionalists set out with a plan formed in accordance with certain abstract ideas true for all time (!) without taking account of the historical development of society. They try to organise society according to the idea instead of recognising that the shape their particular ideas take has been formed by society.”

Edgar Hardcastle

Blogger's Note:

In the original text, Hardcastle thought that the article where the Party was advocating for a General Strike was from the February 1922 issue of the Socialist Standard; it was, in fact, an editorial from the April 1922 issue.

Cooking the Books: Will capitalism collapse? (2020)

The Cooking the Books column from the June 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

In fact, is it already collapsing? Yes, according to John Smith, author of Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century, in an article published online on 31 March ‘Why coronavirus could spark a capitalist supernova’.

Likening capitalism to a supernova (a rather dubious analogy), a star which implodes before finally exploding, Smith sees the implosion stage as what happened after the crash of 2008. The trillions of dollars, he says, that the ‘neo-liberals’ spent ‘bought another decade of zombie-like life for their vile system.’ Then, after the dubious analogy, the bold prediction:

  ‘This time they will be lucky to get 10 months, or even 10 weeks, before the explosion phase of the supernova begins.’

Well, it’s not happened in the ten weeks since 31 March, so Smith is well on the way to making a fool of himself. We will have to wait till the end of January next year to see just how much egg there will be on his face.

There is a precedent for this. In August 1931, as the slump which followed the Wall Street Crash of October 1929 got worse, Jimmy Maxton, the left-wing leader of the Independent Labour Party, then still affiliated to the Labour Party, predicted:

‘I am perfectly satisfied that the great capitalist system that has endured for 150 years in its modern form, is now at the stage of final collapse, and not all the devices of the statesmen, not all the three-party conferences, not all the collaboration between leaders, can prevent the system from coming down with one unholy crash. They may postpone the collapse for a month, two months, three months, six months but collapse is sure and certain’ (quoted in our 1932 pamphlet Why Capitalism Will Not Collapse.

Smith based his prediction on an inevitable coming collapse of the price of shares traded on stock markets rather than on anything happening in the real economy such as overproduction in some key sector. Capitalism, however, is not driven by what happens on the stock exchange but by what happens in the realm of actual surplus-value production.

The stock exchange is a place where past profits are distributed and future profits anticipated. Those who gamble on the future profit-making of particular companies base these on information about what is happening in the real economy. To this extent a fall in stock market prices can be a sign that a slump in production is coming. But it is not the stock exchange crash that causes the slump but, rather, overproduction in some key sector that causes both.

There has been a slump, a quite drastic one in fact, but not caused by a stock exchange crash nor even by overproduction but by actions taken by governments to deal with the pandemic of an infectious disease. Governments deliberately shut down production by locking down all but key workers and requiring them to stay at home.

When the pandemic is under control or when, with the development of an effective vaccine, it is over, governments will allow people to go back to work and production to resume. Of course things might not go to plan and production might take longer to resume than they anticipate or hope, but in the absence of a movement that consciously aims to end capitalism and replace it with socialism, capital accumulation will eventually recover and resume its zig-zag upward course of ever-repeating cycles of booms and slumps.

Capitalism did not collapse (1969)

From the December 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part I

Part II of the abridged version of our pamphlet, Why Capitalism Will Not Collapse, originally published in February 1932.

The depression shows itself, every few years, in the accumulation of stocks of goods in the hands of retail stores, wholesalers and manufacturers, farmers and others. While trade is relatively good each concern tries to produce as much as possible in order to make a large profit. It is nobody's business under Capitalism to find out how much of each article is required, so that industries quickly expand to the point at which their total output is far larger than can be sold at a profit. Quite young industries, like artificial silk, soon reach the degree of over-development shown by the older industries. Goods such as farm crops, that are ordinarily not produced to order, but with the expectation of finding a buyer eventually, naturally tend to accumulate to a greater extent than those produced only to order— such as railway engines.

As traders find it more difficult to sell, they reduce their orders to the wholesalers, who in turn stop buying from the manufacturers. Plans for extending production by constructing new buildings, plant, ships, etc., are cancelled and the workers are laid off.

Here is a situation that always arouses grave discontent. It is from this discontent that the believers in the theory of the collapse of Capitalism think that they can draw the force which will overthrow the capitalist system. But it does not work out like that. In spite of riots and agitations, Capitalism still continues. The actual events show why this is and why it must be so.

IV. What happens in practice

In Great Britain two outstanding events may be considered. First, there was the great depression of 1921 and 1922, when, as now, unemployment was between 2,000,000 and 2,500,000. Then, in 1926, there was the spontaneous demonstration of sympathy with the miners in their resistance to wage reductions, that resulted in what is known as the “General Strike." Since the communists have been the most persistent advocates of the doctrine we are attacking, let us see what came of their efforts to take advantage of these two crises.

Round about 1921 and 1922 the communists claimed that they had the leadership of the hundreds of thousands of members of the unemployed organisations. They organised marches and demonstrations, deputations to Cabinet Ministers and local authorities, and attempted to seize public buildings. They did everything they could to force the authorities to grant their demands for better treatment. By winning the confidence of the workers in this way the communists then hoped to be able to lead them on to an attack on Capitalism.

What was the result? A writer in their official organ tells us: —

 The unemployed have done all they can and the Government know it. They have tramped through the rain in endless processions. They have gone in mass deputations to the Guardians. They have attended innumerable meetings and have been told to be “solid". They have marched to London, enduring terrible hardships . . . All this has led nowhere. None of the marchers believe that seeing Bonar Law in the flesh will make any difference. Willing for any sacrifice, there seems no outlet, no next step. In weariness and bitter disillusionment the unemployed movement is turning in upon itself. There is sporadic action, local rioting, but not central direction. The Government has signified its exact appreciation of the confusion by arresting Hannington.
  The plain truth is that the unemployed can only be organised for agitation, not for action. Effective action is the job of the working class as a whole. The Government is not afraid of starving men so long as the mass of workers look on and keep the ring (Workers' Weekly, 10th February 1923.)

In 1926 the communists had an excellent opportunity to try out their theory on the millions !o workers who were involved in the strike or were sympathetic towards it. The result was just what we have said it must be. Strikes can serve a useful purpose in resisting wage reductions or securing increases, but they cannot overthrow Capitalism. To begin with, the workers themselves have not that purpose in mind, and even when they become socialists they will still need political organisation in order to capture the real centre of power — the machinery of government and the armed forces controlled by it. This no strike can do.

In a large strike, as in a small one, starvation fights on the side of the propertied class against the wage earners. We know from the General Strike, and from revolts of workers attempted in many countries at different times, that desperate men and women will take desperate action when goaded to it by the hardships of their life under Capitalism. But we have seen in the General Strike of 1926 how such spontaneous outbursts are always crushed by the forces at the disposal of the ruling class through their control of the machinery of Government. How much easier it is, and how much less costly in human suffering, to convert a majority to Socialism than to engage in these blind revolts!

There is, too, another factor of great importance. The ruling class usually and in the long run are not blind to their own interests, and do not drive the working class as a whole into revolt. They are not so foolish as to leave only that alternative. By means of charity, doles, and unemployment insurance, and, if need be, the grant of higher wages and other concessions, the capitalists can always take the edge of the workers' bitterness and misery, and thus tide over the difficult periods of the more acute industrial depressions.

V. The only road to socialism

The lesson to be learned is that there is no simple way out of Capitalism by leaving the system to collapse of its own accord. Until a sufficient number of workers are prepared to organise politically for the conscious purpose of ending Capitalism, that system will stagger on indefinitely from one crisis to another.

So long as the workers are prepared to resign themselves to the evils of Capitalism, and so long as they are prepared to place in control of Parliament parties that will use their power for the purpose of maintaining Capitalism, there is no escape from the effects of Capitalism. The workers will continue to suffer from the normal hardships of the capitalist system when trade is relatively good, and from the aggravated hardships which are the workers' lot during trade depressions.

That is the prospect before the workers of all the world unless they actively interest themselves in understanding socialist principles and assisting in socialist organisation.

(Concluded)

Capitalism did not collapse (1969)

From the November 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

  Forty years ago, world capitalism was descending into one of its worst ever slumps. So severe and persistent was the depression that the idea grew up, particularly among the "left wing", that the system was about to collapse. Not for the first time the Socialist Party of Great Britain stood aside from a popular clamour. At the depths of the crisis, in February 1932, we published our pamphlet Why Capitalism Will Not Collapse. This is too long to reproduce here in full but we are publishing in the Socialist Standard an abridged version, the first part of which appears this month.

1. Our view of the crisis

Foreward

We are in the midst of a crisis that is world-wide. Every country feels its ravages. Millions and millions of workers are unemployed and in acute poverty. Everywhere there is discontent and a feeling of insecurity, and the prestige of even the strongest governments has been shaken. All sorts of emergency measures have been hastily adopted, but the depression still continues. Working men and women who usually ignore such questions, are now asking why the crisis occurred, what will be its outcome, and whether it could have been avoided. In some minds there is a fear, and in others a hope, that the industrial crisis may bring the present system of society down in ruins, and make way for another.

I. Fears that capitalism will collapse

The purpose of the Socialist Party is to show the working class the need for a complete alteration in the organisation of society. But our work has been made more difficult by the idea that Capitalism may collapse of its own accord. It is clear that if Capitalism were going to collapse under the weight of its own problems then it would be a waste of time and energy to carry on socialist propaganda and to build up a real socialist party aiming at political power. If it were true, as is claimed, that Capitalism will have broken down long before it will be possible for us to win over a majority for the capture of political power, then, indeed, it would be necessary to seek Socialism by some other means. Workers who have accepted the wrong and lazy idea of collapse have neglected many activities that are absolutely essential. They have taken up the fatalistic attitude of waiting for the system to end itself. But the system is not so obliging!

At first sight there seems to be a ground for this idea. Capitalism from time to time develops acute industrial and financial crises; and at the depth of these it does appear to many observers that there is no way out, and that society cannot continue at all unless some way out is found. Men of very different social position and political convictions have been driven to this conclusion—reactionaries and revoluionaries, bankers and merchants, employers and wage-earners.

Let us go over some of the statements made by those who have foretold collapse, and notice how much alike they are. Notice, too, how each one falsifies the preceding ones. The fact of another crisis taking place is proof enough that the earlier crises did not turn out to be insoluble—the patient cannot have more than one fatal attack.

During the 19th century there were about ten well-marked crises. One commenced in England in 1825. William Huskisson, a former President of the Board of Trade, wrote about it in a letter dated 30th December, 1839:

  I consider the country to be in a most unsatisfactory state, that some great convulsion must soon take place. . . . I hear of the distress of the agricultural, the manufactural, the commercial, the West Indian, and all trading interests. . . . I am told land can neither pay rent nor taxes nor rates, that no merchant has any legitimate business. . . . I am also told that the whole race of London shopkeepers are nearly ruined. (“Huskisson Papers.” Pub., Constable, 1931. Page 310.)

Another crisis occurred in the eighteen-eighties, and was dealt with by Lord Randolph Churchill in a speech at Blackpool, in 1884:

  We are suffering from a depression of trade extending as far back as 1874, ten years of trade depression, and the most hopeful either among our capitalists or our artisans can discover no signs of a revival. Your iron industry is dead, dead as mutton; your coal industries, which depend greatly on the iron industries, are languishing. Your silk industry is dead, assassinated by the foreigner. Your woollen industry is in articulo mortis, gasping, struggling. Your cotton industry is seriously sick. The shipbuilding industry, which held out longest of all, is come to a standstill. Turn your eyes where you will, survey any branch of British industry you like, you will find signs of mortal disease. (“Lord Randolph Churchill,” By Winston Churchill, M.P. Pub., MacMillan & Co., Ltd., London, 1906. Vol. I, page 291.)

There is one important thing to notice about the two statements quoted above. Huskisson wrote at a time when England was a protectionist country. He was an advocate of free-trade. Lord Randolph Churchill spoke at a time when England had long been a free-trade country. He was an advocate of protection. It is clear that neither free-trade nor protection offers a solution for trade depressions, and that the return to protection in March, 1932, will not prevent further crises.

Of late we have been asked to take a very serious view of the alleged “adverse balance of trade,” by which is meant that this country has had more imports than exports, with the consequence that debts have been incurred abroad to the extent of the excess of imports. The facts are still the subject of argument, but it is not necessary to go into that question. All that we need to remember is that the fears about the “adverse balance of trade” are not new.

In a paper read to the Royal Statistical Society on December 19th, 1876 (see “Trade, Population and Food,” by S. Bourne, pub. G. Bell and Sons), Mr. Sidney Bourne, who for many years was in the Government Service, engaged in the compilation of trade statistics, painted an alarming picture of Great Britain’s trade. He argued that serious consequences would follow if the adverse balance (which he pointed out was then in evidence) was allowed to continue. He mentioned, too, the considerable and influential body of political and public men who shared his views.

After making the adjustments he considered necessary on account of income from investments owned abroad by British subjects, and the so-called “invisible exports" (i.e., the services, such as shipping and financial services, that are paid for by foreigners, but which do not take the form of actual articles passing through British ports), he declared that there was an “adverse balance" in the years after 1872.

He said:

  In 1872 the true excess would seem to have been on the side of exports rather than imports, to the extent of nearly £4,000,000; but in the following year the imports again predominated, and have continued to do so with increasing weight up to the present moment. (Page 69.)

Mr. Bourne, like many modern observers of the course of trade, was apprehensive about the future:

   I firmly believe that Britain now stands tottering on the eminence to which she has attained, and that it rests entirely with her sons whether a further rise or a rapid fall is to mark her future history. (Page 75.)

II. The Idea of a Blind Revolt of the Workers.

The defenders of Capitalism who have been panic-stricken in times of crisis, have sought for ways to save the social system, which they believed to be in danger. On the other hand, many who desired Socialism have looked at industrial crises not with fear but with hope. They have though that in a time of great unemployment and distress the majority of workers, although not socialists would be forced by their sufferings to revolt against the capitalists and their government, and that they would place in power a government which would try to remould society on a socialist basis.

Similar ideas are held by members of the Labour Party and Independent labour Party, and they were handed down from the Social Democratic Federation to the parties that in 1920 became the Communist Party of Great Britain. It is indeed probable that the Russian Bolshevist leaders, many of whom hold these views, learned them during their exile in England round about the beginning of the century.

In the October, 1931, “Labour Monthly" (just before the General Election), Mr. Dutt, the editor, wrote in a manner indicating the utmost excitement at the likelihood of a decisive crash: “The fight is here," “the crisis marches on relentlessly,” “it is the whole basis of British Imperialism that is now beginning to crack,” “the whole system is faced with collapse,” “the hour of desperate crisis begins”; and much more to die same effect.

Mr. James Maxton, MP., putting the I.L.P. point of view, has been as confident as the communists. He made a speech at Cowcaddens on 21st August, 1931, reported as follows in the columns of the Daily Record,” 22nd August, 1931 (reprinted in “Forward” 12th September):

  I am perfectly satisfied that the great capitalist system that has endured for 150 years in its modern form, is now at the stage of final collapse, and not all the devices of the statesmen, not all the three party conferences, not all the collaboration between the leaders, can prevent the system from coming down with one unholy crash.

(to be concluded)

Link to Part 2

Socialism—or Barbarism (1943)

From the December 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

Recent issues of the New Leader (August 28th and September 25th) have carried rather sweeping onslaughts on the Socialist Party by Mr. F. A. Ridley.

He is annoyed at the "incurable colour-blindness” of the S.P.G.B., which is a "still surviving relic of the meliorist Victorian age" (shades of Keir Hardie!) “They seem to think that the world is a glorified Hyde Park," he snorts contemptuously. Whereas Mr. Ridley, according to the New Leader, sees through “ Socialist eyes."

These "relics" "have accused the present writer [Ridley] of exaggeration, because I have always maintained that the concrete alternative to the Social Revolution was not even the continuation of Capitalism, but, ultimately, the Barbarism of a new dark age." (New Leader, August 28th.—our italics.)

But on Saturday, September 25th, the Editor of the New Leader heads the article with the words " F. A. Ridley says the choice before humanity is Socialist Revolution or violent and bloody collapse" (our italics).

In the first few lines of this particular outburst he says, “a few weeks back I raised in this column the fundamental question of our time: Socialism or Barbarism," then follows a lengthy diatribe anent the “superannuated drivel" of those “fundamentalists" the S.P.G.B. who imagine "there are no set-backs in history."

Incidentally. he did not announce all this till after the reported destruction of Hamburg—when he says "it is time to speak out " (August 28th). Why he kept it bock till then is a mystery.

He also states, “we are in a state of war. In my opinion this state of war will end with the end of Capitalism and not before " (August 28th), i.e.. not permanent revolution, like Trotsky—but permanent world war.

The present war, "it is not fanciful to predict," will lead, he says, to an underground society like that predicted by Bulwer Lytton in his novel, "The Coming Race," and lastly, as though all this were not enough, "a grimmer .age of permanent war, of revolution and counter-revolution has arrived“ (August 28th).

Four weeks later, "apart from the victory of the Social Revolution, everything indicates the collapse of this era as the bloodiest and most violent of all." (Italics ours.)

We have cited all this wearisome rigmarole because we cannot start to sort it out until we have got the whole mass of self-contradictory notions in one heap.

We may now draw up a little table as follows:—

In the opinion of Mr. Ridley the present war shows that alternatives before humanity are:—
Socialism—OR

1. Barbarism.2. A new Dark Age.3. Violent or bloody collapse.4. An underground society,5. Permanent War.6. A grimmer age of War, Revolution and Counter Revolution.

It is obvious, of course, that to Mr. Ridley and the New Leader all these are synonymous terms.

It must be admitted that if one's only concern is to put the wind up readers of the New Leader, i.e., publish sensational "horrific" articles about what will happen to you, presumably, if you don't vote for Commonwealth candidates (who support "Victory"), and eat up all your nasty I.L.P. porridge, it is probably quite effective.

Unfortunately, it has nothing whatever to do with Socialism—or its attainment.

Mr. Ridley says "I propose to apply this dialectical method, the method of Marxism, to the historical philosophy which denies the present retrogression and approaching collapse of capitalist civilisation."

"Propose" is the operative word.

Shorn of all his irrelevant allusions to various classical writers, militarists, poets, historians, etc. (his articles are liberally sprinkled with frequent references to Tacitus, von Clausewitz, Leonardo da Vinci, Marx, Lord Tennyson, dear Lytton, Darwin, Aristotle, Flinders Petrie, Spartacus and old Socrates and Cicero, of course; Sir Geo. Paish, Lord John Ball), and his alleged "quotations," page references for which he never gives, what does all this ridiculous taradiddle about “bloody and violent collapse " amount to? It amounts to this—that Mr. Ridley and the New Leader have swallowed whole the moth-eaten Communist Party nonsense of twenty years ago (and even the Communists lifted it from the Labour Party), that Capitalism will collapse; and the S.P.G.B. have not. F. A. Ridley, therefore, says they [the S.P.G.B.] think that “evolution is uninterrupted," and are like "Lot's wife frozen into a permanent pillar of salt.” (September 25th).

The plain fact is that Mr. Ridley has lost the faintest glimmer of a notion of economics—and consequently, of the part they play in history; and all his flashy citations of scores of “great names" are merely an ineffectual attempt to conceal his ignorance.

Mr. Ridley does not know what Barbarism is—or Capitalism—either. He has no notion of how it is defined, or was determined. To a scientific Socialist, these terms are not fancy trimmings for political ghost stories; they connote a certain definite stage in social development; and Marx's great merit was in discovering that a certain stage of development of the productive forces produced that scheme of social organisation, e.g.. Barbarism. In other words, he gave us a clue to the law of social development.

Ridley talks glibly of Barbarism OR a new Dark Age. The period called the Dark Age by historians was not Barbarism—it was feudalism, something totally different, and to announce blithely in print that we may revert, to one or the other, just accidentally, is sheer idle nonsense.

If Mr. Ridley could forget Socrates and von Clausewitz for a minute, and turn to the man who actually studied Barbarism—Lewis H. Morgan, or the man who popularised him, Frederick Engels, he might learn something. There, we find Barbarism defined as—

"The time of acquiring the knowledge of cattle raising, of agriculture and of new methods for increasing the productivity of nature by human agency." (Origin of the Family, Kerr ed., p. 39.)

Barbarism started with, the discovery of pottery and ended with the invention of writing.

Is Mr. Ridley seriously suggesting in an article in which he describes the tremendous advances made by aviation, that humanity is discarding the knowledge it has accumulated and returning to primitive pasturage and agriculture as occupations?

And because he is hopelessly ignorant of the economics of Capitalism, he actually says in his article that "capitalist society does not differ in its social framework of exploitation and inequality from earlier vanished civilisations, such as those of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans . . .

   

"Wage-slavery is slavery, even if technically different from chattel-slavery." (September 25th.)

So it turns out that it is no different anyway—so why Ridley is so worried about going back to it nobody knows.

Even the New Leader has hardly ever printed a more stupid statement.

Modern machinery, etc. (constant capital) presupposes "free" wage-slaves (variable capital) to operate it, and cannot be run in any other way. Chattel slaves couldn’t be trusted with a mattock—let alone a tractor.

But now we come to the guts of the question — will Capitalism collapse ?

The Socialist Party said No, when almost everybody else, including James Maxton, was saying Yes.

   "I am perfectly satisfied that the great Capitalist system that has endured for 150 years in its modern form, is now at the stage of final collapse, and not all the devices of the statesmen, not all the three-party conferences, not all the collaboration between the leaders, can prevent the system from coming down in one unholy crash. They may postpone the collapse for a month, two months, three months, six months, he cries, but collapse is sure and certain." (August 22nd, 1931: "Why Capitalism will not Collapse," S.P.G.B., February, 1932. p. 9.)

So that all Ridley has done, after twelve years, is to stick a few "bloodys" in. Maxton even knew the date then, which Ridley doesn't claim to—now.

The whole thing originates in the absurd 1920-30 propaganda of the Communists—the idea of automatic collapse followed by blind revolt of the workers—which, for the Communist Party bosses, was the "psychological moment" to "seize power." 

Everything has shown since that "BLIND” revolts of the workers don't end in Socialism—but much more likely in Fascism.

   "Our work has been made more difficult by the idea that Capitalism may collapse of its own accord. It is clear that if Capitalism were going to collapse under the weight of its own problems then it would be a waste of time and energy to carry on Socialist propaganda and to build up a real Socialist party aiming at political power. If it were true, as is claimed, that Capitalism will have broken down long before it will be possible for us to win over a majority for the capture of political power, then, indeed, it would be necessary to seek Socialism by some other means. Workers who have accepted this wrong and lazy idea of collapse have neglected many activities that are absolutely essential. They have taken up the fatalistic attitude of waiting for the system to end itself. But the system is not so obliging."
(Why Capitalism will not Collapse, S.P.G.B., p. 1.)
   "The problem of over-production that is behind every crisis is always relieved in due course for a time. Employers close down production. . . .  Capitalists destroy stocks. . . . Stocks deteriorate. . . .  As a last resort there is the colossal destruction of wars to relieve the pressure. Sooner or later, these crises of over-production have always given place to a resumption of fairly brisk trade and employment." (Ibid, p. 14—our italics.)

That's just what Ridley can't grasp. When ho avers that the crises will become permanent wars, he doesn't understand that the WAR is the temporary solution of the crisis.

   "How does the bourgeoisie overcome these crises? asked Marx. On the one hand by the compulsory annihilation of a quantity of the productive forces." (Communist Manifesto, Rejayonoff edition, p. 33.)

This war is that annihilation. Even Lenin was well aware that "no situation for Capitalism is without a way out—we know that the overthrow of Capitalism . . .  requires the most titanic and long-drawn struggle, action, organisation and victory of the working class, and that until that is attained, Capitalism will still drag on from crisis to crisis, from hell to greater hell. (Why Capitalism will not Collapse, p. 15.)

To which we added : 

"The workers will never be able to take sound action until they possess the knowledge of Socialism that it is our aim to provide, so long as the workers lack a knowledge of Socialist principles and determination to bring Socialism about—each crisis will pass off in this fashion. . . . Until a sufficient number of workers are prepared to organise politically for the conscious purpose of ending Capitalism, that system will stagger on indefinitely from one crisis to another." (Why Capitalism will not Collapse, p. 15.)

   "There have been  . . .  political parties such as the Labour Party, the I.L.P., and the Communist Party seeking support on programmes of reforms. Some of these bodies have obtained a large membership and have appeared to gain small concessions. Some have even taken over the government and tried to apply their reform programmes. But such organisations do not, and cannot, bring Socialism. Their members are attracted by the promise of immediate results. . . . They may reform Capitalism, but they cannot abolish it." (Ibid, p. 16.)

Mr. Ridley should not be entirely unaware of all this. For he has rushed in where Brockway and other I.L.P.ers fear to tread; and debated with the S.P.G.B. The result has always been the now-evident and bloodless collapse not of the Capitalist system—but of Mr. F. A. Ridley.

Horatio.