Bellamy, socialism and utopia

From the Winter 1987-88 issue of the World Socialist

For as long as there has been human oppression there have been dreams of the oppressed. Oppressed people have not usually had access to the means of recording their dreams, so too many of them have been lost. Nor have they had the power to communicate their dreams as widely as the powerful have been free to spread theirs, so all too often such visions of what could be have been relegated to an area outside of "serious politics", derided as the literary yearnings of unimportant masses, or neatly filed away under the heading of "impossibility" — a heading which is made to measure the needs of the ruling class of the day, as Mannheim clearly showed in his book, Ideology and Utopia.

The politics of Utopia begins with the visions of those who see beyond the way life is. Utopia — which derives from the Greek words for good place and no place — is never compatible with the mistaken certainties about how society must always be which all ruling classes in the history of class society have sought to perpetuate. Utopias smash through the barriers of "reality" (our rulers' reality) and project a new form of existence.

Early Utopias reflected naive and physically unrealisable wishes of the oppressed majority. For example, the 14th century poem, The Land of Cockaygne, depicts a world where geese fly around ready-roasted calling out to be eaten. This was no realisable scheme of how society could one day be, but it did reflect the impotent desires of hungry serfs, just as the American folk song. The Big Rock Candy Mountains (originally a Norwegian Utopian song, according to the folk music historian, A.L. Lloyd) tells us something about the dreams of the American hobo when it depicts its land of soda water fountains, lemonade springs, streams of alcohol trickling down the rocks, and lakes of stew and whiskey too which you can paddle all around in your own canoe.

Not all Utopias have been fantasies. Many have constituted genuine critiques of the existing social order. In The Politics of Utopia by Goodwin and Taylor it is contended that we should take what have been labelled as Utopian ideas seriously; instead of pushing them aside to a discarded limbo between political science and mere literary criticism, those interested in politics should find time to recognise the important contribution of "utopian" thought:

Consciousness of the difference between existing reality and a non-existent, but potentially existent, future — a morally desirable future — was one of the most important ingredients of this quest (for the good life). Unless we feel absolutely confident that we have now reached the limits of our capabilities and creativity, that we have advanced to perfection already, to dispense with utopianism would be to renounce a large part of what it is to be a political animal.

Our present rulers, be they avowedly conservative or allegedly radical, do feel confident that with the present social system we have reached our human destination: reform it, perhaps, but scrap it: impossible, it's utopian.

Capitalism, with its big promises of liberty and rewards for hard work and freedom, and the mean reality of what the system has been in experience, has given rise to utopian thought. Never was such thought more expressive than in the decades of disappointment which followed capitalism's hour of glory, the French Revolution. Schemes were drawn up by men who believed that they alone had the blueprint for The New Social Order. These men — Fourier, Owen, St Simon, Babeuf, Weitling — were "utopian socialists". Much of what they dreamed about would not be dismissed by socialists today, either in terms of their political ends, such as the abolition of government and money or their poetical impulse to destroy the pompous claims of property-based civilisation. To be sure, much of what they envisaged seems crazy now — some of it must have done then — but that is the price to be paid for the idealistic act of constructing a blueprint for the future.

MARXISM AND UTOPIA

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels began to construct their theory of revolutionary socialism at a time when to be socialist was regarded as an act of futuristic utopianism. Most socialists in the 1840s were followers of one blueprint or another; in America the Utopias had become more than blueprints and embryonic Utopian socialist communities had sprung up in their thousands.

Marxism (that rather inadequate term which we use to sum up the essential theories of Marx and Engels and those who think in their tradition today) is a materialist theory of history. Its starting point is not based upon the moral imperative of what should be or the ideals of blueprints which start and finish in the realm of human consciousness, but upon the material recognition that in order to transform society we must revolutionise its material (productive) base. We should not be surprised, then, that the advocates of such an outlook would find themselves at odds with the utopians of their day.

The main criticism levelled against utopians by Marx (and, with greater force than in any other work, by Engels in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific) was their lack of a theory of history: Who was going to construct their Utopia? The answer of the Utopians was, We are — we who have had the unique foresight of seeing life as it could be. For Marx and Engels that was the arrogant nonsense of philosophical idealists who imagined that Ideas make History. The working class, which constitutes the majority of humankind, must be the creators of the new social system. If the workers are to create socialism (or communism; Marx and Engels used the words interchangeably) they must want it and desire it. The utopians had no time to wait for the workers to be brought in on the act of their own emancipation. This was a crucial reason for hostility between Marxism and utopianism, just as it is for the battle between modern socialists and the Leninists and other vanguardists who like the Utopians believe that they, as exclusive possessors of the revolutionary ideal, must lead the witless masses to the New Jerusalem — which all too often comes to look something like East Berlin or Gdansk.

Marx and Engels refused to prepare recipes for the cook-shops of the future. The only statements which they could make about what socialism would be like were made upon the materialist basis of what was then possible. Of course, time has rendered some of these projections obsolete, and, as good materialists, Marx and Engels would be the first to admit the outdated nature of some of their comments about socialism which came out of 19th century conditions, but are still advocated religiously and unhistorically by 20th century utopian leftists. For example, the view of Marx that labour vouchers could play a role in the distribution of goods in the early days of socialist society before enough for all could be produced, has been superseded by developments in technology which make the move to a moneyless world society an immediate result of the socialist revolution to come.

So, we can see that the utopian outlook, which we began by praising as the innocent child of oppressed desire, met the wrath of science and became perceived as a hindrance to revolutionary change. In short, it is precisely when "Utopia" becomes practical that Utopians become obstacles to the achievement of the new way of living. We need to dream when we are unfree to act.

BELLAMY'S UTOPIA

Marxism left the task of transforming society to the workers. For historical reasons too complex to enter into here, the workers did not jump to the task. On the contrary, capitalism survived the scientific theory of its destruction, just as it had outlived the utopian desire for the same end. Socialism and Marxism came to be dirty words and those seeking change began to look in new directions.

Edward Bellamy, the son of a strict Baptist Minister and a frighteningly puritanical mother, a journalist of some ability, born in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts on 26 March, 1850, set himself the task of writing a utopian novel which would show the world how different society could be from the rottenness of American capitalism. That he did well depict the absurdity of the capitalist way of organising society is demonstrated by the passage from Looking Backward which we re-publish at the end of this article. That his novel did have an impact is clear from the fact that approximately half a million copies of it were sold in the few years after its publication in 1888. It was, according to Goodwin and Taylor, "probably the most widely read fictional utopia ever written". In addition to being read it was acted upon: the novel gave rise to a Nationalist movement, seeking to put into practice the vision of Bellamy's novel. According to Cyrus F Willard (who was one of the movement's leading figures), the Nationalist Clubs had over 6,000 members and 500,000 "believers''. He wrote that:

We have fifty or more papers and magazines unreservedly advocating Nationalism. (The Nationalist, II, No. 1, December 1889)

The Nationalist movement's principles were based upon those in Bellamy's book and the book was a bestseller, so the obvious question remains, what did it say? The novel tells the story of Julian West, a prosperous resident of Boston, who, unable to fall asleep, has his butler hypnotise him and . . . then, one hundred and thirteen years later when he wakes up, he finds himself in a fundamentally transformed Boston, the social details of which are explained to him by the rather tedious Dr Leete and his daughter, Edith — with whom, of course, Julian falls in love during his trip to utopia. What is Bellamy's utopia like? The following features, supported by some quotations from Bellamy's own summary of the novel in the Dawn of 15 September, 1889, define the new system:

1. The entire nation of the USA has become "a general business partnership, in which every man and woman is an equal partner".
2. All people in the new society are part of the "army of industry" which they must serve in some form between the ages of 21 and 45. The argument is that just as capitalism conscripts labour for destructive purposes in times of war, the new system conscripts labour for peaceful, productive ends. There is, incidentally, a special corps of the "army" for professional people and even one for the disabled.
3. No wages are paid for working, but people receive vouchers (in fact, an elaborate credit card system operates) which allow them to have what they need from the common store. If some fields of work are less attractive than others, then the hours of work are shortened.
4. The feminine corps of the army is "devoted to the lighter classes of occupations".
5. At the age of 45 all people are discharged from the army of labour and are "free to occupy themselves as they will for the remainder of their lives".
6. There is no money (in the old sense) and credit cannot be stored by individuals, so creating economic inequality.
7. There is virtually no crime: "Robbery, theft and fraud of every sort are without a motive in a society where all have abundance, where covetousness is not stimulated by different degrees of luxury, and where equality of resources is annually renewed".
8. Much more wealth is produced than under capitalism because waste is avoided and science is properly used for peace and not war.

These features provide only a rough summary. For example, Bellamy devised an elaborate scheme for electing officers for the national army, giving the vote only to those over the age of 45! We shall not bother ourselves here with the more obviously outlandish features of Bellamy's vision. Its most important contribution to the thinking of the time was its vision of a moneyless, wageless, classless society — although, as will become clear, those conditions were somewhat equivocal in Bellamy's scheme of things. His utopia showed workers a society where life could be different — better, happier. That is what socialists must be doing. The influence of Bellamy upon the American working-class movement was considerable. The foremost Marxian thinker of early 20th century America, Daniel DeLeon, was quite evidently influenced by Bellamy. (Indeed, DeLeon maintained some of Bellamy's non-socialist utopian features within his own vision of socialism even after he ceased to be a Nationalist.)

UNSATISFACTORY DEPICTION OF SOCIALISM

Like all Utopians, Bellamy lacked an historical theory of social transformation. By far the weakest part of his book is that which describes the coming of the new order: it came because people saw that it was a good idea, so they let it be, capitalists collaborating with workers, without any violent resistance, without any political action. Indeed, Bellamy goes out of his way to state that socialists were a counter-productive influence upon the great utopian change. But history does not change like that. The class struggle will not collapse into a utopian act of national goodwill. And Bellamy's utopia was an historical non-starter. The Nationalist movement, which sought to bring about the utopian change simply by the moral preaching of educated persons of goodwill did not take long to fall to pieces, now utterly forgotten except by historians. 

So, the first criticism which socialists must make about Bellamy is that he was utopian, not in the sense of being a visionary (which all revolutionaries are), but in the sense of rejecting a scientific or materialistic idea of change. But it was not only the lack of a means of achieving socialism (and Bellamy refused to call his utopia that in case it might offend Americans) for which socialists criticise Looking Backward. The very depiction of socialism presented is unsatisfactory. The idea of such a change occurring in one country is an impossibility, given the global interdependence of the capitalist system. The state-capitalist sense of the nation being organised as a huge business corporation, with all the people as its conscript employees, does not inspire those of us seeking a truly liberated society. The abolition of the wages system (a quiet common socialist demand in American history) is spoilt by the picture of everyone having to live in a society of credit cards. The sexism of the role of women is unattractive to socialists, as indeed is the potentially eugenicist notion of creating a perfect human race which follows from Bellamy's ideas on marriage. The new social order (and you will need to read the book to get the sense of this) is over-concerned with consumerism, technology and the pleasures of living an ordered existence. That crucial element of socialist vision which is about the unity of work and art, values beyond immediate consumption, and life being more than a process of individual satisfaction, is too often missing from Bellamy's outlook. No wonder that it was William Morris, a socialist who embodied all of those broader notions of what it is to be a revolutionary socialist, who was amongst the first to attack Bellamy's novel. Indeed, it was Morris's disgust at reading Looking Backward which led him to write his infinitely better novel about what socialism might be like: News From Nowhere.

Looking Backward, published a century ago, is a novel worth reading, if only for the kind of penetrating critique of capitalism typified by the extract which follows. His rather less interesting book. Equality, written in 1890 and lacking the literary quality of Bellamy's magnum opus, pursues the same corporatist vision, showing clearly the link (one which is often a source of embarrassment to the state-loving Left) between state-capitalism and fascism as corporatist ideals of economic organisation.

A century after Looking Backward came off the press the oppressed are still entertaining visions of what could be. Those of us who seek to pull from the roots the rottenness of what our rulers say must always be are still derided as utopians. But then, as Thomas Muntzer, the anabaptist revolutionary of the Sixteenth Century, pointed out, history belongs to those of us who "possess the strength to realise the impossible".

Steve Coleman

Edward Bellamy on how people live under capitalism

By way of attempting to give the reader some general impression of the way people lived together in those days, and especially of the relations of the rich and poor to one another, I cannot do better than compare society as it then was to a prodigious coach to which the masses of humanity were harnessed and dragged toilsomely along a very hilly and sandy road. The driver was Hunger, and permitted no lagging, though the pace was necessarily very slow. Despite the difficulty of drawing the coach at all along so hard a road, the top was covered with passengers who never got down, even at the steepest ascents. The seats on top were very breezy and comfortable. Well up out of the dust, their occupants could enjoy the scenery at their leisure, or critically discuss the merit of the straining team.

Naturally such places were in great demand and the competition for them was keen, every one seeking as the first end in life to secure a seat on the coach for himself and to leave it to his child after him. By the rule of the coach a man could leave his seat to whom he wished, but on the other hand there were many accidents by which it might at any time be wholly lost. For all that they were so easy, the seats were very insecure, and at every sudden jolt of the coach persons were slipping out of them and falling to the ground, where they were instantly compelled to take hold of the rope and help to drag the coach, on which they had before ridden so pleasantly. It was naturally regarded as a terrible misfortune to lose one's seat, and the apprehension that this might happen to them or their friends was a constant cloud upon the happiness of those who rode.

But did they think only of themselves? you ask. Was not their very luxury rendered intolerable to them by comparison with the lot of their brothers and sisters in the harness, and the knowledge that their own weight added to their toil. Had they no compassion for fellow beings from whom fortune only distinguished them? Oh, yes; commiseration was frequently expressed by those who rode for those who had to pull the coach, especially when the vehicle came to a bad place in the road, as it was constantly doing, or to a particularly steep hill. At such times, the desperate straining of the team, their agonized leaping and plunging under the pitiless lashing of Hunger, the many who fainted at the rope and were trampled in the mire, made a very distressing spectacle, which often called forth highly creditable displays of feeling on the top of the coach.

At such times the passengers would call down encouragingly to the toilers of the rope, exhorting them to patience, and holding out hopes of possible compensation in another world for the hardness of their lot, while others contributed to buy salves and liniments for the crippled and injured. It was agreed that it was a great pity that the coach should be so hard to pull, and there was a sense of general relief when the specially bad piece of road was over. This relief was not, indeed, wholly on account of the team, for there was always some danger at these bad places of a general overturn in which all would lose their seats.

It must in truth be admitted that the main effect of the spectacle of the misery of the toilers at the rope was to enhance the passengers' sense of the value of their seats upon the coach, and to cause them to hold on to them more desperately than before.

If the passengers could only have felt assured that neither they nor their friends would ever fall from the top, it is probable that, beyond contributing to the funds for liniments and bandages, they would have troubled themselves extremely little about those who dragged the coach.

I am well aware that this will appear to the men and women of the twentieth century an incredible inhumanity, but there are two facts, both very curious, which partly explain it. In the first place, it was firmly and sincerely believed that there was no other way in which Society could get along, except the many pulled at the rope and the few rode, and not only this, but that no very radical improvement even was possible, either in the harness, the coach, the roadway, or the distribution of the toil. It had always been as it was, and it would always be so. It was a pity, but it could not be helped, and philosophy forbade wasting compassion on what was beyond remedy.

The other fact is yet more curious, consisting in a singular hallucination which those on the top of the coach generally shared, that they were not exactly like their brothers and sisters who pulled at the rope, but of finer clay, in some way belonging to a higher order of beings who might justly expect to be drawn. This seems unaccountable, but, as I once rode on this very coach and shared that very hallucination, I ought to be believed. The strangest thing about the hallucination was that those who had but just climbed up from the ground, before they had outgrown the marks of the rope upon their hands, began to fall under its influence. As for those whose parents and grandfathers before them had been so fortunate as to keep their seats on the top, the conviction they cherished of the essential difference between their sort of humanity and the common article, was absolute. The effect of such a delusion in moderating fellow feeling for the sufferings of the mass of men into a distant and philosophical compassion, is obvious. To it I refer as the only extenuation I can offer for the indifference which, at this period, marked my own attitude toward the misery of my brothers.

The Parade (1987)

From the Winter 1987-88 issue of the World Socialist

Swaying kilts and swinging arms,

Skirling bagpipes, Beating drums,

We're marching on parade.

With measured beat

Of soldiers feet,

Spit and polish and tunics neat,

We give the passers-by a treat

When we are on parade.

Swaying kilts and swinging arms,

We're marching on parade.

Our sweethearts wave,

The know we're brave,

We are the sons our mothers gave,

We do not think of soldiers graves,

When we are on parade.

Skirling bagpipes, beating drums,

At last we reach the church.

Thou shalt not kill,

Least not until,

The priest has blessed the guns.

Skirling bagpipes, beating drums, 

Mud and blood and battles won. 

It was kill him Jack - Bayonet or gun, 

We wondered what we've all become, 

The world's no different - just the same, 

So was the killing all in vain?

Sid Catt

Japan: the other side of the miracle (1987)

From the Winter 1987-88 issue of the World Socialist

The following is the text of a talk first given as an open lecture at the University of York, England, in October last year. We reproduce it not only because of its interesting factual content but also because we share its general analytical approach.

Everyone has heard about the "Japanese miracle". Not only is it a term which is constantly on the lips of journalists, politicians and other hacks, but wage-earners outside Japan are constantly admonished to work harder and emulate the Japanese in order that a similar 'miracle' can be achieved in 'their' countries. Of course, socialists are little inclined to believe in miracles, least of all those which are attributed to capitalism. But, with certain qualifications, we too can recognise that the economic growth of Japanese capitalism since Word War Two has been phenomenal. Measured solely by capitalism's standards, there is something miraculous in the way in which, during only four decades, an utterly defeated nation-state such as Japan has been transformed into a major economic power, overtaking many rival nation-states in the process. To put it another way, there is something miraculous in the sheer quantities of wealth which the wage-earning class has created in Japan since World War Two. How has this come about? What price has the wage-earning class paid for the "miracle" of Japanese capitalism? And what lessons should we draw from the experiences of our fellow wage-earners in the land of the rising capital?

POSTWAR ECONOMIC GROWTH

Firstly, let us briefly review the economic growth and social changes which are said to constitute the "Japanese miracle". At the end of the Second World War, Japan's economy had been pounded into submission. Due principally to the military blockade of Japan's ports, industrial production in 1945 was only 60 per cent of average production during the period 1934-6, and a mere 40 per cent of the level attained in 1940. Between 1937 and 1945, 3.1 million Japanese had been killed. Apart from the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, somewhere in the region of 120,000 people are thought to have died in one night of horror alone, when on 9/10 March 1945 American B-29 planes set much of Tokyo alight with incendiary bombs. By the time of Japan's surrender, 30 per cent of all Japanese had lost their homes as a result of war damage. In addition, wages had been driven down remorselessly throughout the years of war. Taking the average wage for 1934-6 as 100, the wage index had fallen to 79.1 by 1941, to 65.8 by 1943, and had reached the starvation level of 41.2 by 1945. By the end of the war, many workers had no alternative but to leave the devastated cities for the countryside and attempt to scrape a living from the land. The drift back to the land continued during the first, punitive years of the American occupation of Japan, so that by 1947 49.9 percent of the workforce was engaged in agriculture (compared to 16.3 per cent engaged in manufacture). Postwar governments also continued the policy of attempting to increase production while forcing down real wages. For example, in 1947-8 the coalition government led by the Japan "Socialist" Party sought to implement a policy whereby wages would be pegged at 26.8 times the 1934-6 levels, while prices would be allowed to rise to 65 times the corresponding levels. One statistic will suffice to illustrate the misery experienced by Japanese workers of the period: the rate of infant mortality was as high as 67 per 1000 live births during 1947-9.

In contrast to the battered state of Japan's economy in the late 1940s, the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 marked the beginning of unprecedented economic growth for Japan. The average growth rate for the period 1955-73 was a staggering 10.5 per cent per annum, and although the Japanese economy has suffered from the ill effects of world capitalism's economic slump since then, it has nevertheless generally continued to outperform the economies of most other countries, be they private capitalist countries such as the USA or West Germany, or state capitalist countries such as Russia or China. Tables 1-3 compare the growth rates of Japan's economy over recent decades with the corresponding rates of growth of various categories of capitalist countries.

The result of this spectacular growth is that Japan's economic muscle has increased enormously. In 1955, Japan's GNP (Gross National Product) was less than half the size of the UK's GNP. As late as 1965, Japan's GNP was still smaller than either the UK's or West Germany's, and was a mere 12 per cent of the USA's GNP. By 1984, Japan's GDP (Gross Domestic Product) was more than twice the size of the UK's, 47 per cent greater than West Germany's and 43 per cent of the USA's GDP. Not only has the Japanese economy grown, but its structure has changed fundamentally. Agriculture, forestry and fishing now account for less than 10 per cent of the workforce, whereas 55 per cent of the workforce are engaged in the tertiary (services) sector of the economy. Within the industrial sector of the economy too, restructuring has taken place, so that textiles (which were the mainstay of the pre-war Japanese economy) and heavy industries such as steel and shipbuilding (which were at the cutting edge of Japan's economic growth in the 1950s and 1960s) have been relatively marginalised by the rapid development of "high-tech", "knowledge intensive" industries such as electronics and engineering.

WHAT ABOUT WAGES?

If Japanese capital has expanded in this fashion over recent decades, what about the wage labour half of the capital/wage labour equation? After all, structural change for capitalism's economy necessarily means structural change for the wage-earning class, and if we talk about "knowledge intensive" industries, the knowledge in question is not an attribute of industry as such but of flesh-and-blood working men and women. Since the 1950s, the Japanese working class has experienced major improvements in its living conditions and educational standards. Average wages rose rapidly during the peak years of economic growth (doubling in real terms during the period 1965-75, for example) and although since then they have increased only marginally (0.86 per cent in real terms between 1976 and 1985, due to the influence of the world recession) they are now among the highest in the world. This is reflected by the spread of consumer durables among the population. Whereas a bicycle was a prized possession for many working class families in the 1940s, by 1984 69 per cent of all Japanese households owned motor cars and more than 98 per cent owned vacuum cleaners, colour TVs, refrigerators and washing machines. Life expectancy has increased from 59.6 years for males and 63.0 years for females in 1950-2 to 74.8 years and 80.5 years respectively in 1985. As for educational levels, over 90 per cent of young people remain at school until 18 years old and 35 per cent go on to attend universities and colleges.

All this has created the impression for some that Japanese-style capitalism confers benefits on all - capitalists and wage-earners alike. Needless to say, this is an illusion which the agents of capital accumulation have fostered vigorously. The truth, however, is rather less cosy. There has been a price to pay for the success of capitalism in Japan and it comes as no surprise to socialists to discover that it is wage-earners who have been forced to pick up the bill. In other words, the "Japanese miracle" has another, darker side - one which never finds its way into the glossy, technicoloured accounts of Japan's postwar economic development. There are many facets of this "other side" of the "Japanese miracle", but in this article we shall concentrate on two aspects. One is the increasing exploitation and alienation experienced by the better paid and better educated wage-earning class and the other is the rising threat of nationalism and militarism.

Before examining these two aspects of modern Japan, however, one point should be made abundantly clear. Socialists are in no sense embarrassed by the fact that capitalism has developed spectacularly in Japan over recent decades. It is no part of our purpose to paint a misleadingly gloomy picture of Japan or anywhere else. On the contrary, this development has made capitalism riper than ever before for socialist transformation. The accumulation of ever greater quantities of capital in Japan has added to the productive forces which would be available to a socialist world, just as the growth and maturing of the wage-earning class in Japan has created the social force which (in cooperation with wage-workers elsewhere) can bring about socialism.

INCREASED EXPLOITATION AND ALIENATION

One indication that those who praise capitalism are a lot less confident of the virtues of the system which they defend than they pretend to be is the number of lies which they are forced to tell. Many readers will have seen the Nissan advertisements which boast about a company where there has never been a strike. This is blatant deception, ignoring the bitter struggle at Nissan in 1953 which lasted for many weeks and took the form of the company whose workers "have never been on strike" locking out the workforce and engineering the creation of an alternative, compliant trade union. The resulting defeat of the workers' struggle was the rock on which Nissan built its subsequent prosperity. In the same league as Nissan's lies is a graph in a recent issue of the Japan Education Journal which, under the caption 'More for less', purports to show that wage rises in Japan have outstripped productivity. Not only are the wage rises which are shown nominal rather than real (ignoring inflation) but it is wage rises in large companies alone which are compared with general increases in productivity in large and small companies. In fact, when like is compared with like, one sees that increases in productivity have consistently outstripped wage increases. Even though real wages more than doubled between 1965 and 1975, productivity kept ahead, with the result that at the end of this period workers in Japan were receiving wages which represented a smaller proportion of the wealth which they created than previously. This is an important point when we consider the extent to which wage-earners in Japan are exploited. The rate of exploitation is not directly related to the level of wages. Workers do not necessarily become less exploited as their wages rise, nor more exploited as wages fall. Rather, the rate of exploitation expresses a relationship between, on the one hand, the quantity of wealth which workers create which is extracted from them as surplus value and, on the other hand, the quantity of wealth which workers create which is equivalent to the value of their wages. In the light of this, the fact that productivity increases have outstripped wage rises shows clearly that Japanese wage-earners have been subjected to an increasing intensity of exploitation, despite their rising wages and living standards.

The intense exploitation of Japanese wage-earners is reflected in the vertiginous rate at which capital has been accumulated in postwar Japan. Competition between rival capitals dictates that the bulk of the surplus value which is extracted from wage-earners will be used to renew and expand the stock of capital. Figures show that the capitalist class in Japan has proportionally achieved a far higher rate of capital formation than capitalists in many other "advanced" countries. Hence one can say that key elements in the success of capitalism in postwar Japan have been the linked processes of the high rate of exploitation of wage-earners and the capitalists' ability to achieve a high rate of investment.

THE EDUCATION RAT-RACE

Statistics on wage levels and enrolment in educational institutions are at best crude indicators of life as it is actually experienced by wage-earners. Set against the relatively high wage levels found in Japan in recent years, one has to put the expenditures which wage-earning families are obliged to make, and in this regard, education expenses are an important factor. Educational qualifications are vitally important in a highly competitive society such as Japan and are a key element in the capitalists' strategy towards the wage-earning class of divide and rule. Workers in large companies are set against workers in small companies, permanent workers against temporary workers and so on, and the chief means by which each new generation of wage-earners attempts to gain the coveted jobs as workers on the permanent payroll of giant companies is via educational qualifications. This means that most wage-earning families are obliged to make enormous sacrifices in order to educate their children. Current wage levels of workers in Japan look a lot less high when one realises that in 1984 Japanese families spent on average Y170,000 (£569) on education-related items (books, tutors, extra classes etc.) per child in elementary school, Y210,000 (£703) per child in junior high school, and proportionally increasing amounts for children in senior high schools and universities. In addition to regular schooling, more than one in four elementary or junior high school children attend an after-hours cramming school 2 or 3 days per week, paying an average monthly fee of Y9,200 (£30.80).

Not only is education a crippling financial burden on wage-earning families, but the psychological strain is unbelievable too. Socialists might talk about alienation, but many workers use more graphic terms such as the "examination hell". Since pensions are notoriously low in Japan, wage-earning parents buy education for their children as a hoped-for insurance for their old age. Conversely, working class children find that the future well-being of the entire family rests on their young shoulders. Small wonder, then, that many simply cannot bear the strain. During the 1985-6 academic year, the number of children who missed more than 50 days' school for psychological reasons was 30,998. More horrific still are the figures on child suicides. During 1985, 83 children under 15 years of age killed themselves. In 1986, 802 youths aged 19 or under committed suicide, 207 (25.8 per cent) of these because of problems directly arising from education. Could anyone quibble at describing as murderous a system which results in such deaths of young people?

RISING NATIONALISM AND MILITARISM

Japanese capital is locked in a life and death battle with rival blocs of capital, and each victory for Japanese capital has provoked threats of retaliation. For the moment the straggle is taking the form of propaganda salvoes and economic/ political manoeuvring, but due to the nature of capitalism, verbal confrontations and diplomatic sparring of this sort have a habit of escalating, as they did in the 1930s. It is not for nothing that representatives of US capital have been muttering ominously that if Japan wins the race to produce the "fifth-generation" computer, it will be "an economic Pearl Harbour".

In a world of carnivores, the Japanese state too needs fangs. But although the rearming of Japan and the resurgence of nationalism are under way, the Japanese state is having to tread warily in order to realise its ambitions in these fields. The chilling words of the Vice-Chief of the Naval General Staff, who flatly stated on 13 August 1945 that "if we are prepared to sacrifice 20 million Japanese lives in a kamikaze effort, victory shall be ours!", are still remembered by millions of Japanese workers. How could the horrors of war be forgotten when on 6 August 1986 the names of 4,941 people who had died in the previous twelve months from the effects of the Hiroshima nuclear bomb were added to the roster, bringing the total so far to 143,590 dead?

The Japanese state is dismayed that many wage-earners are lacking in patriotism and the spirit of devotion to the Emperor. In an effort to instill such sentiments, in August 1986 the Minister of Education launched a campaign for "moral education" within the schools in order to create "spiritually healthy Japanese, who can correctly inherit the nation's good tradition". Similarly, the government has been engaged in a multi-pronged strategy to revive the cult of the Emperor, whitewash wartime atrocities and re-establish symbols of militarism such as the Yasukuni Shrine, where the war-dead are commemorated. Japan currently has 270,000 men under arms and ranks eighth in the world in terms of military expenditure. The present objective of the Japanese military is to be able to control the sea lanes for 1000 miles around the Japanese archipelago (which, incidentally, means being able to control the entry routes of the Russian Far Eastern fleet into the Pacific). On the occasion of the 1986 RimPac (Rim of the Pacific) naval exercise, Japan dispatched eight destroyers, eight anti-submarine helicopters, eight anti-submarine patrol planes and a submarine. All of which is not bad for a country whose Constitution officially proclaims:

. . .  the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. (Article 9)

There has been considerable opposition from within the wage-earning class to the rising tide of nationalism and militarism. The following incident is typical. Recently, the Ministry of Education directed all prefectural boards of education to raise the national flag and sing the national anthem at all school events. In March 1986a disturbance occurred at a school in Okinawa when the headmaster carried the national flag into a school assembly. Schoolteachers surrounded the headmaster and asked him to remove the flag. When the headmaster refused, schoolchildren walked out of the assembly, together with their parents who were present. Socialists cannot help but be encouraged by incidents such as this and the distaste for symbols of nationalism which they indicate.

ANTI-CAPITALIST TRADITION

Within Japan there is a tradition of anti-capitalism which extends back to the early days of this century. A few quotations, taken at random, can illustrate the quality of this tradition:

What we are aiming at is a fundamental revolution in economic organisation -the abolition of the wages system, in other words. (Kotoku Shusui, 1970) [1]

. . . to take the example of the means of production having been nationalised, this would be nothing more than state capitalism in the end, since the workers could not escape their slave-like conditions. (Arahata Kanson, 1918) [2]

I raised the subject of the abolition of wage labour and commodity production, but that does not only apply to us in the capitalist countries. What is extremely regrettable, and what should be severely criticised, is that in the socialist countries too it is regarded as a dream 'which will come eventually in the distant future'. (Haniya Yutaka, 1974) [3]

Below these peaks of anti-capitalist consciousness is a plateau of hostility to capitalism, which is widespread among Japanese wage-earners. As a day labourer in a slum district of Osaka put it in July 1986:

Stiff competition between construction companies has produced day labourers like us. The companies can hire us only when business is good. So in a recession, we workers become unemployed and are forced to sleep in the streets or in the parks.
Japan is not a first-class country because the government is leaving us in the lurch. Not even gods and buddhas can help us. This place is like a slave market.

When this anger of exploited wage-earners fuses with the above insights into the alternative to capitalism, it will be a miracle indeed if capitalism can survive. Working men and women in Japan and throughout the world need to look beyond the tawdry gadgets and the gnawing insecurity which are all that even "successful" capitalism has to offer them. For until they act to abolish capitalism, their exploitation will continue (no matter whether wages are high or low) and the poisons of nationalism and militarism will fester (no matter how flowery the declarations written into Constitutions or uttered by political leaders).

John Crump

1. John Crump, The Origins of Socialist Thought in Japan (Croom Helm/St Martin's, 1983), p. 350. Japanese names are given in the normal East Asian form of family name followed by personal name. ,

2. Ibid., p. 280.

3. Haniya Yutaka, 'Chin Rodo to Shohin Seisan no Haishi' in Asahi Shinbun, 23 March 1974. Haniya here borrows the term "socialist countries" from popular parlance. In an interview with me, he agreed that the so-called "socialist countries" are state capitalist.

Socialism —A world of unity (1987)

Editorial from the Winter 1987-88 issue of the World Socialist

The modern age is noted for its declared desire for a world of accord. Over the past century since communications have brought the human population into closer contact, national leaders have never ceased to proclaim their desire for a world of peace. This has been rhetoric without substance. If mere words were enough, the speeches of statesmen would have long since realised the unity of all people. But alongside these "peaceful" tirades, and in spite of international institutions such as the League of Nations, The International Court of Justice, and the United Nations Organisation, humanity has remained divided. We are threatened by mutual annihilation.

During this time, killing techniques have been rapidly developed and have never been so sophisticated or horrific. The century numbers the war dead in many millions. The development of world communications has been accompanied by the greatest mass slaughter in history. Never have so many people been under arms, and never in the past have the productive resources of humanity been so greatly allocated to the means of waging war.

Yet the technology which has given us the long-range nuclear missile has also given us photographs of the Earth from space. These are the images of one world, inhabited by one human species. Those astronauts who have witnessed this view of humanity's home in space describe it as a beautiful place. It contains the natural resources which could provide the needs of everyone if only we could live and work together in cooperation. The question is, why doesn't it happen?

Why is it that in spite of a universal need for peace and material security, in spite of a world system of production and highly developed communications of every kind, humanity still remains divided? Why are we armed to the teeth, living in tension, and in some places, still fighting wars? What happened after the "wars to end all wars'?

Are there reasons, inherent in the differences of history, language and culture, which prevent people from cooperating together? No; to imagine this is to deny the fact that cooperation does take place between people from different countries. It is common that people respond to the desperate plights of others in countries where there is famine, or such disasters as floods or earthquakes. It is not true to say that ordinary people are pre-occupied by a compulsion to bomb and kill others in distant lands. On the contrary, experience shows the reverse to be true. People have to be conscripted for war under penalty of imprisonment or death if they refuse, then trained and mentally conditioned by propaganda to fight. War imposes stress and anxiety on all those who find themselves involved; and when war ends there is relief and celebration. So what are the facts about this divided humanity?

The human population is divided amongst 160 rival capitalist states, including the state capitalist nations of China and those under the dominion of the Russian state capitalist Empire. Within nations populations are divided again by economic class. Privileged minorities own or monopolise natural resources and the means of producing wealth. The vast majority are non-owners, compelled to live by selling their only means of life, their mental or physical energies, for a wage or salary. This is the modern system of wage slavery which divides all communities and all nations, where the rich and the powerful maintain their dominant position through governments who control different portions of the Earth's surface. The world's working class produce the commodities which their national masters then own and sell for a profit on the markets.

Governments stand not the slightest chance of bringing about a world of unity. They are driven under the relentless pressure of economic competition to pursue strategies based on rival capitalist interests. This is the cause of constant international tension, the reason why nations remain armed to the teeth, and why, from time to time, struggles over trade routes, sources of raw materials, spheres of political and military influence, break out into war. Governments and the entire system of exploitation which they represent are an anachronism which must be swept away.

Against the inevitable conflicts between rival capitalist groupings, the world's working class can have no interest in a divided world. Whereas capitalists are bound by the terms of their existence to compete and, through their governments, to organise for war, the interests of workers are in common the world over. In the conflict between wage labour and capital it is capital which is inherently competitive and exploitative, and therefore must maintain a divided humanity. Only labour, the world over, has the common interest which can establish world unity.

Pursuing this interest and organised as the World Socialist Movement, workers must strip the world's capitalist class of their monopoly of the means of life and establish a world system where all resources and all means of production are held in common by all humanity.

This will be a world of common ownership, democratic control, cooperation and production directly for needs. This will be a world without frontiers where machinery of governments will have been converted into a system of democratic administration at local, regional and world levels; where the obscene waste of resources in the military will have been re-allocated for useful production. In Socialism, communications such as transport, information technology, radio, telephone and television links would be immediately adapted for the benefit of all people. Thus the useful structures of existing world organisation, both technical and administrative, would serve the common interests and needs of one people in one world.

The positive action to establish this can only come from one source, which must be separate from the actions of governments; this must be the world's working class organised politically as a single socialist movement. In 1848 Karl Marx declared that workers have no country; that they have a world to win. Against the toll of human misery since that time, and against the appalling prospect of continued world capitalism, we repeat it now with greater urgency.