The Policy of the I.L.P. (1923)

From the December 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

The New Leader, October 5th, published a statement outlining the policy of a “Socialist Government” on the question of unemployment. This statement was drawn up by the National Council of the Independent Labour Party, and is the first of a series on “outstanding political questions of the day,” to be issued weekly.

The introductory paragraph by the New Leader says ‘‘the I.L.P. is the militant socialist wing of the Labour Party.” In bold type is printed the headlines :

 "How to deal with unemployment. What a Socialist Government would do. ”

There is no mistaking this definite claim by the I.L.P., not only to the title of Socialist but also to this particular policy as being Socialistic

The statement opens with an absurd contradiction :—

   “Before the war even in time of trade prosperity, there were always at last 200,000 persons out of regular employment.  “The primary cause of unemployment is the capitalist system of society. The operations of capitalism result in (a) violent productive fluctuations ; (h) violent financial fluctuations; (c) constant international disturbances. These in turn create unemployment."

How these create unemployment when it already exists in /the most prosperous times, i.e., when the fluctuations and disturbances are absent, is for the council to explain.

The point to be noted, however, is not so much the contradiction as the pretended analysis contained in the paragraph quoted; (a), (b), and (c) are reputed to be the three causes of unemployment, and the statement of the National Council is divided into three sections as follows: “(a) methods of preventing violent productive fluctuations; (b) methods of preventing violent financial fluctuations, and (c) methods of preventing international disturbances.” It is quite unnecessary to go further than this supposed analysis, together with the methods denoted in the sub-headings to show conclusively that the statement is not drawn up from the working-class standpoint, nor does it explain unemployment in the light of socialist knowledge. Fluctuations in production when they occur are the result of fluctuations in demand, and are the bugbear of capitalist politicians, economists and captains of industry. The boom in trade catches them unprepared, and the slump finds them with unsaleable goods on their hands. It is their concern to find the mean level and abolish fluctuations. But the finding of such a mean level does not alter the amount of unemployment; all that it does is to diminish the numbers during the slump and increase the numbers during the boom. The result is best seen by taking a production chart over a number of years,' and cutting off the peaks to fill in the depressions ; when it will be seen that a straight line will result somewhere between the highest and lowest points.

It would be a mistake, however, to imagine that this line bore any definite relation to the amount of unemployment, or even to the quantity of wealth produced. For while the amount of production might show an enormous rise over a period of, say ten years, the number of workers employed in its production might have decreased considerably in consequence of new machinery, new methods, and. speeding-up generally.

It matters but little to the workers whether the growth of unemployment proceeds spasmodically through fluctuations or whether it proceeds evenly without them. The fact for them to notice is that unemployment does increase with capitalist development, and that the National Council produce no evidence, nor show any reasoning to prove that the elimination of crises, industrial or financial, would benefit the workers. On the other hand it is almost safe to assume that such elimination would in reality diminish the number of workers required to produce a given quantity or wealth. Chaos and uncertainty invariably cause wastefulness in the expenditure of labour power.

During the 19th century, when crises occurred periodically, Capital was often expended in anticipation of booms that never matured, and mistaken ventures by capitalists frequently resulted in gluts that compensated the workers to some extent by falling prices.

If the capitalists knew always the extent of the market, production would be arranged to that level. Mass production would be introduced more extensively. Competition would be eliminated by the closed formation of rings and combines, and the workers, as a result of these very reforms, advocated by the National Council, would be in a worse plight than now.

Nor must it be forgotten that without help from the I.L.P. capitalism is already developing rapidly along these lines. Prices, over extensive markets, are fixed, and maintained by agreements between the capitalists concerned. In many cases the demand is known, and shared, by arrangement between the associated concerns.

For the workers to organise politically with the object of smoothing away difficulties in the path of the class that exploits them is folly. Such action could only follow from lack of knowledge of their actual relationship towards the master class. Given the facts of Socialism, every worker of ordinary intelligence can reason for himself how he stands in relation to every question that engages public attention.

The paramount fact of every worker’s existence is his poverty and insecurity, and those who trade on his poverty or play on his fears without helping him to understand the antagonism of interests between the working-class and the master-class, together with the reasons for that antagonism, are guilty of trickery and fraud.

On this question of unemployment the National Council have utterly failed to explain either the cause or tbe cure. Their contribution to the general discussion might have been published in any capitalist newspaper without fear of enlightening a single worker to the fact of his slavery. It barely scratches the surface. It analyses the subject from a purely capitalist viewpoint, and proposes reforms to patch up the existing system, with no proof that such reforms would benefit the working-class in any way whatever. It claims to stand for the workers yet fails to lay down the working-class position on the most prominent question of the day. It calls on the workers to consolidate for the achievement of capitalist ideals; a system of exploitation without trade upheavals or international conflicts; a system where dividends would be assured; where the percentage of unemployed would always be sufficient for capitalist needs, but never so high that it threatened the system.

F. Foan

The Class War . . . And The Facts Behind it. (1924)

From the December 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. J. H. Thomas recently said that the “talk about a class war left him cold.” In a leading article, 14/11/24, the “New Leader,” while agreeing with him in “denouncing class hatred,” says :—

  But we think it almost the gravest mistake which a Labour Party could make to ignore the fact that a process which is usually called the Class struggle is the most vital fact of our lives.

According to the “Daily Chronicle,” 15/11/24, Mr. C. G. Ammon “remarked that they all agreed that, so far as possible, they were not desirous of carrying on a class war. . . . They must admit that the class war was with us.”

From the same source we get the following : “Dr. Salter, M.P., also declared that class war was a fact. It was a struggle between the people who were exploited and those who exploited them, and there was no possible method of reconciling the interests of the two.”

One it leaves cold. To another it is the most vital fact of our lives. Another admits its existence, but would not prosecute it; while the fourth declares it a fact with no possible method of reconciliation. Surely it is time that the Labour Party seriously considered whether they do or do not believe in the existence of the class war.

But neither the declarations of these gentlemen nor the flaring headline of a Sunday picture paper "No more class war” proves or disproves the existence of that struggle. The class struggle and its growing intensity is the one outstanding feature of modern times. The pathetic denials of capitalist agents like Mr. Lovat Fraser deceive no one, except those who want to be deceived. The facts are patent to anyone capable of observation and thought. Millions of workers organised on the industrial field to defend themselves against the constant efforts of still more strongly organised employers to reduce their standard of living and bind them more completely to the wheels of industry.

Modern society is split clean across by the antagonism between those who produce wealth but do not own it, and those who own wealth though never assisting in its production. Disputes follow one another in rapid succession over the whole field of industry between the class that owns and controls the means of wealth-production and those who own nothing but their energy.

It is in this last elementary fact that the germ of the class struggle lies. Unable to obtain access to the means of life, the propertyless human being is compelled to sell his energy to those who own. He becomes a wage-slave and must bargain with the capitalist for a wage that will satisfy his wants. As the number of workers seeking to sell their energy is nearly always in excess of the demand, bargaining power is on the side of the buyers, or masters. It is a simple business axiom that when a commodity is plentiful it is generally cheap. But cheap labour-power means a low standard of living, and the owner of labour-power being human and more or less intelligent resents being thrust ever more deeply into poverty; while at the same time those who cut down his rations make huge additions to their bank balances and finding that markets have somehow become glutted, stop production for a time and turn their workers on the streets. Slow starvation on the dole for a time and then, back in the factory to repeat the process with, possibly, a lower wage and managers and overseers hustling and driving with feverish haste that they may be first with their goods on the awakening market.

On the one hand a super-abundance of wealth. On the other poverty to the verge of desperation. Whether they do little or nothing, those who own the means of life increase their wealth daily beyond their power to spend it. The propertyless wage-slaves are driven by the fear of the sack, and the more they yield the poorer they become.

The capitalist increases his wealth by machinery and methods that enables one worker to do the work of many and then reduces that worker’s wages. He does nothing to assist production, but his overseers—themselves urged on by fear of the sack—in his interest, are constantly sacking and speeding up and reducing wages. This is the class war, waged from the employers’ side and accompanied by an avalanche of propaganda that attempts to reconcile these conflicting interests.

But the antagonism cannot be hidden. It cannot be smoothed away by patriotic blather or glib phrases about the indivisible interests of employer and employed. Whether they want to "carry on a class war” or not the workers are compelled to fight back. Whether they understand how to carry the fight to a successful issue or not millions all over the world realise that it is necessary to organise against the capitalist class.

The knowledge that should go with that realisation awaits them in Socialism. Let them acquire it and, instead of being always the victims of capitalist aggression they will fight back on an equal footing. There is a class war; consciously fought on one side, it is true. Talk of it may leave Mr. Thomas cold, and Mr. Ammon may not be desirous of carrying it on, but the “New Leader” is right for once when it says that it is the most vital fact of our lives; however much they may qualify it next time the Labour Party takes office.

F. Foan

The Industrial Revolution (1925)

From the December 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

By the Industrial Revolution is meant that rapid and complete change in the methods of production and distribution, which, becoming increasingly evident during the first three-quarters and very marked during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, has continued without intermission to the present day. It involved the breaking up of the old forms of the organisation of production and their replacement by others; the superseding of the skill of the craftsman by machinery; the widespread application of mechanical power to manufacture, and later to transport both on land and sea. It was the cause of the rise of new social classes, and new social relationships with their own peculiar problems requiring to be solved.

An enormous increase of population was made possible, concentrated in fresh areas, and industrial towns arose which in turn led to important developments in sanitary science and alterations in local government. With this progress new ideas were spread abroad which were in keeping with the changed conditions.

In the middle of the eighteenth century this country was still largely agricultural. The bulk of the population (at that time about six millions) was engaged in agriculture, and even as late as 1773 corn was regularly exported. Many even of those workers who worked at other occupations also relied partly on their small plots of land. The country was, on the whole, prosperous, its population and its trade were increasing steadily, and it stood in importance second only to France. By far the largest industry was the wool and cloth manufacture, which was regarded by the Government as of great national importance. The cotton industry was small but increasing, and there was already a distinct tendency for both to concentrate in Lancashire and Yorkshire, with a consequent decline of the Eastern counties.

Owing to the scarcity of wood for charcoal making, the iron industry, never very large, was scattered and more or less stagnant. Coal had not yet come into general use for household purposes and means had not been found then of using it successfully for iron smelting. The amount raised each year was only 4½ million tons. The roads were so bad as to be often impassable after wet weather, and these being the only means of internal transport except where there happened to be navigable rivers, the amount of traffic was exceedingly small. Coal, for instance, was brought to London by sea from Newcastle.

As with goods so with people, for there was usually little need for people to travel or change their place of living.

The spinning and weaving of wool and cotton were carried on in the main in the homes of the workers, who were not, as now, brought together in the employer’s factory.

The development of machinery to replace hand labour began in the textile trades. With an increasing foreign and colonial demand for cotton goods it was found that spinning by hand could no longer suffice. Workers were also semi-independent and in a position therefore to demand high wages. As a consequence great efforts were made to invent machinery to supplant hand labour, and in 1761 Hargreaves was successful with his spinning jenny. This was supplemented by Arkwright’s water frame four years later, and in 1775 Crompton’s mule further extended the sphere of the machine.

Evidence of the revolution in the cotton industry is that the import of cotton wool rose from 11 million lbs. in 1780 to 56 million lbs. in 1800.

Similar progress was made later in the woollen industry.

When the use of coal became more general great difficulty was experienced in keeping the mines from flooding, because as the shafts went deeper hand pumps became useless. About 1700 Savery and Newcomen invented steam pumps, and Newcomen’s engine partly solved the problem for a while. In 1782 Watt so far improved on the old pattern of engine as to reduce the consumption of coal by three-quarters and his engine soon superseded Newcomen’s. The amount of coal raised had increased by 1816 to 15 million tons, the demand coming now chiefly from the iron industry. As has been said, this industry had been languishing for lack of fuel. A series of inventions, particularly those of the Darbys, made it possible to use coal instead of charcoal. Henry Cort and others found a method of purifying the iron and the development then was extraordinarily rapid. The production of pig iron, which in 1783 was only 90,000 tons, had risen hy 1820 to 400,000 tons and by 1860 to 4 million tons.

During the early years of the nineteenth century steam power was being applied to the textiles and other industries, and each of these developments in iron, coal, etc., had its reflex in a corresponding stimulus to other industries.

The last half of the eighteenth century also saw great activity in improving communications. The great turnpike roads made wheeled traffic possible, and the building of canals, which by the end of that century had become almost a mania, gave the first real solution of the problem of transporting bulky goods.

Then Stevenson built his steam locomotive, which completed the solution as regards internal communication. Railways turned this country into one big market of which no considerable area was any longer inaccessible. Steamships were built, and with the opening up of America, Russia, and later Africa, India and Asia, by means of railways the stage was reached in which the enormous powers of machine production could be adequately used in supplying the manufacturing needs of a world market, from which in turn our food and raw materials were drawn.

Another great forward leap was made when machines were produced capable of reproducing in unlimited quantities the parts of machines themselves, thus laying the foundation of the modern engineering industry.

Accompanying the process outlined above came the growth of the factory system with the massing of hundreds and thousands of workers under one roof, and the concentration of a huge industrial population in a few coal areas in South Wales, the Midlands and the North.

This led directly to struggles by the workers to organise themselves and the growth of the labour movement, with bitter conflicts between employers and workers, and the spread of new ideas of class interest and Socialism unknown to eighteenth-century England.

The nineteenth century also witnessed the political struggle for the extension of the Franchise, changing the. whole basis of government.

The State has developed wholly new functions. The growth of industrial towns and the rise of the factory system have led respectively to the systematic study of sanitation and public health, and the building up of a code of protective legislation for the workers necessitated by excessive exploitation in the factories and mines; first, for children and women, and, latterly, for men as well. The new methods have again produced the need for a wholesale raising of the level of education and the present State activity in this direction, in order to cope with the technical development of industry.

The Industrial Revolution is the general description given to the complicated movement outlined above.

To understand why the Industrial Revolution came in England it will be useful to make a brief comparison with the other nations of Europe. The only nations at that time of any serious industrial and commercial importance were France, England and Holland. Spanish sea power had been shattered in the sixteenth century and she was no longer a serious rival; Russia had but recently entered on a course of industry and commerce, and Germany was still suffering politically and economically from the exhaustion following the thirty years’ war, 1618-1648.

The population of England and Scotland was about 9 millions in 1780, that of France 20 millions and that of Holland only 3 or 4 millions. The Dutch had lost their seafaring advantages and were already declining in importance. They had in any event always specialised in financial and commercial rather than industrial undertakings, and at that time the internal condition of Holland was disturbed. The choice, therefore, lay between England and France. Why, in view of France’s larger trade and greater industrial activity did the industrial Revolution occur in England and not in France?

France had a population nearly three times as great; her foreign trade in 1780 amounted to £40 million as against £22 million for England. Domestic industry in France was developing rapidly with the removal of legal hindrances in 1762, and French peasants were in comparison with those of most other European countries fairly prosperous. French foreign trade was extending, and with America, for instance, was larger than ours. The rate of increase between 1715 and 1787 was also greater. Paris had a larger population than London, and not only in Europe, but in the West Indies, Canada and India, France had a decided advantage.

In spite, however, of whatever initial advantages France may have possessed, her position became hopeless with the disastrous internal struggle of the Revolution and the external wars which followed. It is true the outbreak of war in 1793 immediately lost us our trade with Holland and France, but already English foreign trade had doubled between 1782 and 1792, and France, on the other hand, was at once cut off from her own colonies and lost her important American trade. The internal state of chaos, while contending classes fought for mastery, meant the complete cessation of the industrial development which had begun, and, in fact, normal commercial activities became almost impossible.

Even prior to the Revolution, however, the conditions existed whieh gave the victory to the English capitalists.

While it is true that the French peasants were prosperous, their main desire was always to own land, and their savings became absorbed in this rather than in industrial investment. In England the Bank of England had been formed in 1694, and since then there had been considerable accumulation of capital, which, by the legal prohibition of Joint Stock trading, had been turned to industrial undertakings. In France, again, through a deplorable financial policy, the State was well-nigh bankrupt, currency was bad, and, owing to the failure of big financial schemes in the early part of the century, people had no faith in investments. When it is remembered how expensive were the experiments which led to mechanical inventions, how costly were the new machines, and how large were the new undertakings in comparison with the old, the importance of big and easily accessible capitals is obvious.

England’s second advantage appeared at first to he a misfortune. France had no lack of workers, but throughout the 18th century continual complaint was made in England that the shortage of labour and the consequent high wages made competition with the French well-nigh impossible. Many workers had small holdings and were to a large extent independent of the manufacturers who employed them. A scarcity of labour, however, always encourages the installation of labour-saving machinery. The shortage creates the demand, and this is invariably satisfied by inventions when it arises. It is instructive to note that it was in the spinning industry that machinery first became important, because weavers had long been handicapped by the insufficient supply of yarns. When machinery had solved that problem, inventions to remedy the consequent shortage of weavers were at once in demand, and before long the demand was satisfied.

Again, England enjoyed large and expanding markets, without which naturally these developments would not have occurred. Had there not been a constant and ever-growing demand for cotton goods, it would have been worth no one’s while to invest money in the large-scale production of cotton. Holland, owing to the competition of England, France and Germany, and her loss of her semi-monopoly of the world’s shipping, had a declining trade, and it was not to the interest of individual producers to commit themselves to the expense of enlarging their production.

In this country, too, the population was free from the restrictions of movement which were still the rule in France and Holland at that date. Peasants in France were tied to their birthplaces by their ownership of land and by the dues they had to render to their feudal lords. How, in such circumstances, could there have been such migrations and concentrations of population as took place in England? Without such massing in the coal areas there could have been no developments of production such as did take place with the introduction of mechanical power.

The Guilds in France and Holland were still largely in control, and were able successfully to oppose factory production. In England they had by this time long decayed. In England, too, there was a degree of security unknown in any other European country, and, of equal importance, this country (except Ireland) was economically one market. It was not split into tariff divisions, of which France had three, Holland seven, and Germany 300. While the financial institutions were by no means so delicate and complex as to-day. one has but to observe the effect of the actual, or imagined, political insecurity of the present i Russian Government to realise how incompatible are flourishing trade and a lack of political confidence.

Further, in England, coal and iron are found conveniently near each other. In the days before the building of railways even a distance of ten or twenty miles was sufficient to prohibit transport cheap enough for iron making. This need not have proved fatal to France, as wooden machines and water power were the first stage of development, but by that time French industry was already half in ruins.

Lastly, English merchants had had long experience of large-scale production and export in the wool trade, and the experience so gained was available for the many directions in which it was now needed.

The combination of these advantages gave England the certain lead over most countries, and France, the one serious rival, was—owing to the Revolution—out of the running for forty years.

Edgar Hardcastle

Should We Join The Labour Party? (1926)

From the December 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our Position Vindicated. 

We have always maintained that the only place for Socialists is inside a Socialist organisation, completely independent 'of all other political parties. This, we say, is the only way of carrying on Socialist propaganda free from compromise and from distracting side issues. Those who differed from us on this point have urged that it was worth while to make a sacrifice of some amount' of independence in order to keep inside the Labour Party and carry on progaganda there. But what has been the result of their policy? Never have events shown so plainly as now, how unsound that policy and how poor its fruits.

As a political machine the Labour Party is a success, but its successes are not for Socialism. It has just won some 200 seats in the local council elections, but as is pointed out by a correspondent in the New Leader (November 12th), the Labour programme in Cardiff contained "little that could not be supported by any well-meaning Tory. . . . Only one candidate mentioned Socialism in his election address.” And as he rightly adds, "these shortcomings are by no means peculiar to Cardiff.” The winning of elections on non-Socialist programmes may give power for certain things to those who come into control of the political machinery, but it will give no power for the furtherance of Socialism. So also the enrollment of non-Socialist members will make the Labour Party larger, but it will not make it more favourable to Socialism. One of the recent notable recruits—Commander Kenworthy— has confessed (Daily Herald, November 15th) that just before his decision to leave the Liberals he was invited to join and receive the support of the Conservative Party. A man who was in the Liberal Party and is considered fit to receive Conservative support is not a Socialist, whatever he may be. The ex-Liberals who flock in with Kenworthy are no more Socialist than he.

John Beckett, of the I.L.P., a Labour M.P., laments that those who control the Labour Party are rapidly turning the "Labour movement . . . into a carefully controlled pawn in the political game.” (New Leader, November 12th.) He wants the I.L.P. to carry on the fight against reaction in the Labour Party, but is then compelled to admit that, "The Left must fight in the I.L.P. almost as hard as in the wider movement.”

The present situation, then, is this. The I.L.P. tries to permeate the Labour Party, but in the process has itself reached such a state that the permeators must "fight in the I.L.P. almost as hard” as in the Labour Party. The Labour Party wins elections on non-Socialist programmes, and the permeators are compelled to assist at these elections and suppress their own opinions for the sake of their loyalty.

George Lansbury makes a humiliating confession of his own position inside the Labour Party in explaining why he recalled a promise to support the candidature of Dr. Dunstan in West Birmingham. Dr. Dunstan was a Labour candidate and a Communist, and was replaced by an "official” Labour man in accordance with the Labour Party decision to refuse to endorse or accept to membership all members of the Communist Party. Lansbury writes to Dr. Dunstan (Lansbury’s Labour Weekly, November 13th): "I still think your position in West Birmingham entitled you to the support of every working-class elector . . . and I am only sorry that circumstances connected with my membership of the Labour Party and the loyalty which such membership involves prevents me carrying out my promise.”

Dr. Dunstan is in Lansbury’s view "entitled to the support of every working-class elector,” but is not going to receive Lansbury’s support because of the latter’s loyalty to the Labour Party, and while Labour Party discipline prevents the permeators from propagating Socialism, the Labour Party goes on absorbing Liberals at a rate which makes it possible for its leaders to continue to change its programme in an anti-Socialist direction, and make it a "pawn in the political game.” All the time the permeators find that their efforts to keep their own organisation straight are hampered by association with non-Socialists. How can a Socialist hope to convince electors that they should support non-Socialist labour men and programmes, if at the same time he is trying to preach Socialism? One or the other must suffer. In fact the Labour Party grows in size with the help of the I.L.P., but both the Labour Party and its would-be permeators become too much bound up with seeking for votes to have time for Socialist propaganda.

There is, of course, another group believing in permeation—the Communist Party. Their present undignified position is a further justification for our attitude. The Labour Party, not unnaturally, only wants assistance from those who will help it to get into power. It does not want to be hindered by affiliated bodies which propagate policies which have no electoral value, and since the mass of electors are not Socialist, Socialism is thus ruled out. Thus it accepts the I.L.P., which, as Mr. Beckett says, differs little from itself. But if the I.L.P. tried to justify its argument by concentrating on Socialist propaganda, it would be summarily ejected. The Communists have so far not been accommodating enough, and therefore are refused admission.

To preach Socialism inside the Labour Party just as much as to preach it outside means condemning its programme and its methods. If, therefore, the Socialist Party desired entry into the Labour Party, it must consent to give up its work for Socialism and devote at least part of its energies to promoting non-Socialist candidatures which it honestly knows are of no value to the working class. We cannot accept such conditions.

We are Socialists because we believe literally that Socialism is the sole hope of the working class. We are independent because that is the only safeguard against confusion and compromise and the growth of non-Socialist tendencies in our own ranks.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Class Struggle in Soviet Russia (1927)

From the December 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

Owing to the deplorable suppression of opinion and rigid censorship of news in Russia it is well nigh as difficult now to obtain reliable information as it was 10 years ago when the censorship was that erected by the Allied Governments. The policy of suppression is always deplorable and usually utterly useless for the end it has in view. Where there is smoke there is fire. Where there are the economic conditions for class conflict there will inevitably arise the discontent of the ruled class with the ruling class and its agents, followed by spontaneous attempts to organise for the removal of the cause of the discontent. It is impossible in the long run to prevent the individual members of a class with a grievance drawing the same general conclusions from the same set of facts. It is possible to delay the spread of ideas from one to another, but not to prohibit it for all time. In the last resort, if class demands are ignored or suppressed, there will inevitably arise organised movements to enforce them, peaceably if possible, but violently if need be. Suppression cannot prevent discontent, it can only direct it into secret and more destructive channels.

These elementary lessons of political history were forgotten in the turmoil following the Bolshevik seizure of power. Suppression of the voting rights, newspapers, and political organisations of the landowners and capitalists, led naturally to the similar treatment of every opponent and critic not only of the acts, but also of the persons of the governing party. The culminating point is the exclusion and threatened criminal prosecution of Trotsky and other once honoured revolutionaries. (One of the charges against Trotsky is the fatuous one of “insolence.”) This degradation into the methods of royalty, with their major crime of “lèse majesté,” is the normal course of all such suppression.

We are then compelled to seek for information about events in Russia, either in the columns of the official Communist Press (where it is naturally coloured in favour of the official point of view as against the critics), or else piece together the fragmentary reports smuggled out of Russia and reprinted (usually with exaggerations) in the opposition journals abroad or the capitalist newspapers.

For two years or more Trotsky has been the figurehead round whom various opposition groups have centred inside the Russian Communist Party. His main criticism appears to be based on his view of an old subject of controversy, that is whether it is possible to build up Socialism in Russia alone. Trotsky, like ourselves, says no. Russia, in his opinion, must aim at rapid industrialisation (with the aid of foreign capital but prohibiting, as far as possible, any foreign control), thus building up a numerous working class in Russia. At present the Russian workers represent at most 15 per cent. of the population, being hopelessly outnumbered by peasants, the great majority of whom are quite naturally more interested in maintaining and extending their private ownership of land than in Socialism. The development of Russian industry will, Trotsky argues, enable the Russian workers to withstand the reactionary pressure of the peasants until such time as the world working class come to their aid.

At present, so the opposition maintain, the trend of Government policy in Russia is steadily in favour of the peasants as against the workers. If this is so, then sooner or later working class discontent will manifest itself in organisation and attempted resistance, at least to the extent that the Russian workers understand their class position and have not been deceived by propaganda aimed at obscuring the fundamental conflict of interests between the workers, on the one side, and the peasants and capitalist traders and concessionaires, on the other. In justification of his view Trotsky maintains that the Russian workers and their trade unions are rapidly developing an attitude of hostility towards the Russian State, the relations with which being more and more clearly recognised as the normal capitalist relations between employers and employed.

The Manchester Guardian (November 15th) summarises a German translation of Trotsky’s programme which has been published in Hamburg. The following passages are taken from it and may help readers to understand the meaning of the present conflict. It is, of course, to be understood that this reproduction of Trotsky’s views is not an indication that we can guarantee the accuracy of his estimates of conditions, nor that we share all his views on policy :—

   “A new bourgeoisie of bureaucrats and of private traders is emerging in the towns and of kulaks (wealthier peasants) in the country, while industrial labour is losing its share in the management both of the Communist party and of the workshops and factories. Since October, 1925, the upward movement of real wages has ceased, although the output per man has risen by no less than 15 per cent. At the same time the rights and privileges of the managements and of the administration have grown.
 
   The increase in employment stopped this year, and there has been a big and rapid increase in unemployment. For two years the prices of industrial products have been nominally stable, but in reality they are rising, for the quality of the goods (especially manufactured goods) has conspicuously deteriorated. Wholesale prices have risen steadily since July, 1925, while the quality of wholesale articles has likewise deteriorated. Retail prices sank in 1924 and 1925, but rose again in 1926, and are now (if the inferior quality is considered) roughly as they were in 1923.
   
   The increased output of Russian industry has been accompanied by a deterioration of plant and machinery, and a steady increase in the number of accidents in the factories has resulted. 

   Although wages are not rising, the so-called intensification of labour is being steadily forced by the authorities. The maximum output of the most efficient workman is being made the standard for all. The sifting out and rejection of the more inefficient men is going on with ever-growing rigour, while the wages for piece work are not rising, and in some cases are sinking. Wages are at best no higher than they were before the war. Industry is worse equipped now than it was then, but the output per man is considerably greater. 

   Thus the wear and tear on the health and constitution of the individual workman is very great. Low wages do not allow workmen to enjoy tolerable housing. The amount of room space, allowed to each family is steadily diminishing. The reintroduction of 40 per cent. vodka has injured the health of the working classes, especially of the younger generation, and has increased the number of accidents. State revenues from the sale of alcohol are being won at heavy cost in human misery. 

   Economy in the factories is being enforced with growing severity. A system of penalties has been introduced under which a workman is dismissed if he arrives a minute late. Men who report sick are now assigned to so-called light labour and health insurance benefit is refused on the slightest pretext. Overtime is increasing in spite of the vast unemployment. Special labour is growing more frequent. Regular workers who cannot legally be dismissed without a fortnight’s notice are got rid of by being dismissed and then being re-engaged as casual workers after which they can be dismissed at one, two, or three day’s notice. 

  The power of the management is steadily growing. It has the exclusive right of dismissal for default or misdemeanours, and no appeal is possible. Men are also engaged by the management, the function of the factory Soviets being limited to mere registration. The workmen no longer share in the control and management of these factories. Their opinion and criticism are disregarded more and more. Conditions in the factories are again approaching what they were in Tsarist times. 

   The workmen are becoming indifferent or even hostile to the trade unions. Meetings are poorly attended, embryonic illegal unions have come into existence when illegal strike committees are formed (that is to say, when there is a strike, the men having lost confidence in the official! Communist trade union organisations, form a secret strike committee of their own). The struggle of Russian labour for better conditions is being conducted either in disregard of the trade unions and of the Communist party, or sometimes even against them. The election of trade union officials has become a mere formality; workmen join these unions because they cannot obtain employment without a membership card. 

   The Soviet State and system is undemocratic. Members of the Government and of the administration are not elected but selected. The electorate is denied the right to recall its delegate whilst the Communist bureaucracy has the right to get rid of any delegate whom it does not like without regard for the opinion of those who voted for him, nor are the delegates themselves in the least responsible to the electorate. For the working-class balloting has become an empty formality and an irksome obligation. 

   The prestige of the Soviet has sunk so low in the eyes of Russian Labour, that the authorities sometimes use compulsion so as to make the workmen vote at all.

 The “Proletariat Opposition” within the party is being expelled. In the factory “cells” only favoured persons receive promotion, and those in disfavour are degraded or even dismissed. There is a growing army of Oppositional unemployed. Dissatisfaction is being suppressed and hushed up, and there has been an epidemic of suicides.

  The broad Communist masses are excluded from some of the most vital discussions of the party leaders. The Communist bureaucracy exercises an uncontrolled and irresponsible domination. 

  Relations between the workmen and the management are becoming more and more what they were before the revolution.”

The Manchester Guardian’s correspondent states that the memorandum goes on to give a similar analysis of conditions in the rural areas, where the poorer peasants and the agricultural labourers are exploited by the wealthier peasants, whose power is increasing.

Among the points in Trotsky’s programme, the most important is the restoration of democracy within the Communist Party, which would, among other things, make impossible the suppression of such a document as the one quoted above.

Edgar Hardcastle

Corrupt America and Pure England. (1928)

From the December 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

In our October issue we left Mr. Baker gravely pointing out to a sullen House of Commons that there were many right honourable gentlemen, whose conceptions of what was right and honourable were inadequate. Doubtless the right hon. gentlemen will endeavour to put other conceptions of those qualities before Mr. Baker, before the Wireless and Cable Merger question goes off the stage. He went on to speak of some of the big people, as he called them, in the business. There was Sir Robert Kindersley, mentioned before, who was managing director of Lazard Bros., and also one of the directors of the Bank of England. His firm, Lazard Bros., were represented on the board of the Newcastle-on-Tyne Electric Supply Co. Lazard Bros, and S. Pearson & Sons, Ltd., were associated with the Whitehall Securities Corporation, Ltd., which holds half the share capital of Messrs. Pearson & Dorman & Long, Ltd., whose electric power interests in the Kent coalfield interlock with the County of London Electric Supply Co. S. Pearson & Sons completely controlled Whitehall Electric Investment, Ltd., along with the Power and Traction Finance Co. Ltd., in the Hungarian Trans-Danubian' Electrical Co., Ltd. Messrs. S. Pearson & Sons are associated with Metropolitan Vickers Electrical Co., the G.E.P. of Berlin and Callenders Cable and Construction Co. Mr. Baker expressed himself as puzzled at the attitude of The Times newspaper, in view of his previous feeling that The Times at least is a national newspaper. And then he made the discovery that the Hon. R. H. Brand, one of the directors of The Times, was also a director of Lazard Bros. Another director is Sir Campbell Stuart, who is a member of the Imperial Wireless Conference, which is settling the whole thing. After briefly referring to the ramifications of Hambro’s Bank, he next referred to Mr. Szarvasy. So far as is known, he was a mere shareholder in this country in 1910, but from 1912, became substitute director for Baron Springer, of Vienna. To-day he is managing director and chairman of the British, Foreign and Colonial Corporation, and a director of the Dunlop Rubber Co. When Lord Rothermere formed the Daily Mail Trust, it was through Mr. Szarvasy that the British Foreign and Colonial Corporation issued a mortgage debenture for £9,000,000. Mr. Szarvasy is also a director of the Danube Navigation Co., the Guardian Assurance Co., and Martins Bank. With the late Alfred Lowenstein, and Albert Pam, of J. H. Schroeder & Co., he is on the directors’ committee of the Hydro-Electric Securities Corporation of Quebec. This last belongs to the group of interests which control the power used by the Canadian Marconi Co., Ltd. Mr. Szarvasy is also chairman (and Lord Derby, president) of the Anglo-French Banking Corporation.

Proceeding with the big people, as Mr. Baker put it, there is Sir Charles Coupar Barrie, who is linked with Mr. Szarvasy on the directorate of the Danube Navigation Co. Sir Coupar Barrie is a member of the Post Office Advisory Council. There is Mr. F. R. S. Balfour, associated with Mr. Szarvasy on the Guardian Assurance Co., is also a member of the Bank of Montreal. Both these gentlemen have recently been added to the board of the Marconi Company. A third addition is Sir Frederick Sykes, who has been appointed Governor of Bombay. He was a director of the Daily Mail Trust, the Marconi Telegraph Co., the Underground Railways of London, the London Express Newspaper, Ltd., the Sunday Sketch and the Sunday Herald. And to-day he is Governor of Bombay. Of course as a Governor, he should give up his other jobs as director. But still, it is interesting, isn’t it: yesterday a Daily Mail governor, to-day a Bombay Governor!

There are a few more columns of similar engaging facts, and it will be well worth the while of anyone interested to obtain a copy of Hansard, for Thursday, August 2nd. It should be carefully read over two or three times between now and the next General Election. Then, when you are passively listening to the fervid oratory of the sleek, oily, persuasive gentlemen who are anxious to serve their country once more, permit yourself to reflect on the vast and intricate network of interlocked capitalist interests, and to wonder just where the orator before you, fits in. At the moment, it may be useful to remember that the catchword for the next Election has not yet made its appearance. Doubtless behind closed doors, what they will call the plan of campaign is now being carefully sketched out, including possibly Another “Red Letter,” or some similar fooltrap. But this can safely be prophesied. Each of the capitalist parties will assure you by all they hold sacred, that never in the whole history of the planet was there such a set of moral, virtuous, upright, self-sacrificing patriots as those now seeking your suffrages as so-and-so candidates. Likewise, never hitherto, has this burdened earth been required to support on its suffering breast such a vile, scurrilous, inept rabble as is comprised in the other party. You will be emphatically assured that between the one party and the other, there is fixed a great gulf, a yawning abyss.

But then, if you have read your Hansard, and your Socialist Standard aright, you will perceive that interlocking directorates and international capital make light work of any gulf. You will see your Melchetts and your Derbys, your Szarvasvs and Lowensteins, your French Bankers and German Barons, your Hungarian financiers and Canadian company promoters, all without distinction of race, religion, sex or creed, joined in one happy family whose name is PROFIT. It is for you to see behind the trickery of Elections, the pomp of ceremonial, the intoxication of oratory, to the reality beyond, capital exploiting labour. You will notice, if you listen to one of our speakers, that we do not divide our political opponents into good men and bad men, clever men and numbskulls, upright men and tricky men, rich men and poor men. No! We go deeper than that. We see society divided into two distinct classes, those on the one side who own our means of existence, and on the other, those who have to work for them and who are in consequence the slaves of the first. This system is an excellent one—for the Melchetts, the Derbys and the rest of them. One does not expect them to favour an alteration of it. Therefore, when they, or their friends, appear before you at Election time, a vote for them however obtained and however given, is a vote that society shall remain divided as at present, with a few very rich and a vast number poor. But the system is not an excellent one for you, and for me. It is necessary, therefore, that we band our greatly superior number together, and appoint our own representatives to Parliament who will not spend their time in delivering marvellous, flowery speeches, to sullen, bitterly hostile opponents, but who, when in a majority shall use the whole powers of Parliament to take our means of life from the hands of private profit-makers and convert them into socially owned tools of production. As Mr. Baker’s speech has revealed and as we have tried to make clear frequently in our columns, day after day, at amazing speed, capital is actively engaged in linking up the civilised world’s life-units into closely knit monopolistic trusts. There is only one alternative, Socialism, and there is only one party fighting for it, the Socialist Party. Capital is moving, rapidly, ceaselessly, remorselessly. What are you doing?

W. T. Hopley

Letter: Need The Workers Understand Socialism? (1929)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent (whose name we unfortunately cannot make out) writes from Stepney, expressing his views on several points and asking for our comments and reply.

The first point relates to the struggle of the workers against wage reductions and for wage increases.

This was fully dealt with in the October “Socialist Standard," to which we would refer him.

Our correspondent is mistaken in thinking that we oppose such struggles.

His second point is the following:—

  Seeing that the dominant class, the capitalists, control the Press, which moulds to a great extent opinion (especially in rural districts), the churches, also the cinema, an excellent propaganda weapon, besides other channels of influencing thought. That the workers, despite the rottenness of their conditions, cannot understand “scientific Socialism," will it not be that as capitalist crises occur—the workers—will eventually gravitate to a united organised resistance to their conditions?
   This only after bitter struggles, strikes, lockouts, brutality of the authorities, after such a process the climax will come. On one side will be the workers; on the other, the lackeys of capitalism, managers, high officials, ignorant police, and soldiers, who are kept in mental darkness, but for one thing, obedience. Nothing but violent struggle in my opinion.

What our correspondent overlooks is that while a politically ignorant working class may unite for some purposes they will not unite together and replace Capitalism by Socialism. They may unite to resist a wage reduction, but such resistance, whether successful or not does not bring Socialism. Quite apart from the question of the conquest of power, Socialism as a working system of society is impossible without a Socialist working class to carry it on. Resistance to some effects of Capitalism might temporarily result in reducing the Capitalist system to a greater or less degree of chaos (with consequent aggravated suffering for the working class), but the bringing of chaos is not the bringing of Socialism.

In any event, the outcome of such resistance depends always on the Capitalist class themselves. They have the choice either to give way to the particular demand which unites the workers, or to resist. The discontent of people who want only some reform of Capitalism, or any thing less than Socialism, can be bought off by granting what they want, and thus destroying the very platform on which this non-Socialist working class is united. The Capitalist class are not so blind or foolish that they will in the long run endanger their system by withholding the concessions necessary from time to time to bring off or side-track working class discontent.

Our correspondent also forgets one very important thing. Soldiers may be politically ignorant, but they are not ignorant of the science and art of organised coercion by violent means. After the politically ignorant workers have voted control of the machinery of government and the armed forces into the hands of the Capitalist class and their agents, it is nothing but madness to talk of waging a “violent struggle" against those who have a monopoly of the weapons and forces of violence.

Our correspondent’s third point concerns resistance to war :—

  If, as a result of national economic rivalry, war occurred in the course of which spontaneous opposition is given by the workers (though not intellectually understanding Socialism) and a change is desired by them, could not the situation culminate in the overthrow of the dominant class and the laying of the “ foundation for the sway of the proletariat,” if the mass feeling is correctly led?

This point is really a particular aspect of point Number two. Resistance to war is not resistance to Capitalism, and can always be removed in the last resort by stopping the war, leaving Capitalism intact. Furthermore, we suggest that instead of considering some hypothetical situation arising out of a hypothetical war, it would be more instructive to consider the war of 1914. In August, 1914, far from there being “spontaneous opposition," the working class in the overwhelming majority, owing to their political ignorance, were enthusiastic supporters of their respective sections of the Capitalist class, and if they had been otherwise there were Capitalist politicians (e.g., Lloyd George, Lord Morley, John Burns) ready and willing to lead the opposition to war. Our correspondent talks about “correctly leading" the "mass feeling” of the workers, but does not tell us how workers who still accept Capitalism and Capitalist leaders are to be induced to forsake them and follow people, whose general principles they reject, into a struggle for Socialism which they do not understand and do not want.

It is true that towards the end of the war the workers were becoming war-weary. But did they in fact do what our correspondent suggests? Did they overthrow Capitalism? On the contrary, in every country, not excepting Russia, the great majority of votes were cast at the first general elections not for Socialism, but for Capitalist parties of one kind or another. These are facts which show our correspondent’s hypothesis to be fantastic.

Finally, our correspondent writes about workers not “understanding Socialism,” but laying the “foundation for the sway of the proletariat.” Does he really believe that workers who still vote for Capitalism are capable of acting as a ruling class? You do not change the character of the workers by changing the labels of their leaders.

The fourth point concerns democratic methods. Our correspondent writes :—

  Is not democracy being superseded when capitalist crises occur—by capitalist force; witness events after the war. Hungary, Italy, etc. At present the threatening coup d'état by the Weim-wehr in Austria.

Our correspondent asks, “Is not democracy being superseded . . . by Capitalist force?” His question shows that he has failed to understand what is the meaning of democracy, and what is the Socialist argument in favour of democratic methods. The use of force by the Capitalists who have been placed in power by the electors is not a supersession of democracy; it is as democratic as any other use of their power. It is not peculiar to the after-war period. Has our correspondent forgotten the brutal crushing of the Commune of Paris, in 1871, or the use of armed forces against the workers at Tonypandy and elsewhere?

The Socialist’s argument is that it is control of the machinery of Government which puts the Capitalist class in a position to compel obedience from any section of society. Those who control the political machinery, including the armed forces, are in a dominant position and literally their word is law, which they can enforce if need be by the methods of armed force. While the working class continue to be politically ignorant they will continue to vote into control of the political machinery parties which will use their power for the maintenance of Capitalism. The workers will not act differently until they become Socialists. Then they will use their votes to secure political control for themselves instead of handing it to the Capitalists and their agents. There is no other way under the conditions of modern Capitalism by which the workers can gain political control. Attempts to organise armed attacks on the Capitalist-controlled armed forces are foredoomed to failure. Therefore Socialists oppose them.

When our correspondent refers to Hungary, Italy, Austria, etc., he fails to see that these cases bear out our statement, that control of the political machinery is the deciding factor, enabling the Capitalists to coerce their opponents. For example, as has often been pointed out in these columns, Mussolini’s forces were financed, armed, and allowed to organise by successive Governments democratically elected to power by the votes of the Italian electorate. Far from crushing him, as they easily could have done, they deliberately chose to place him at the head of the State.

In Austria now the Heimwehr have no power or importance except to the extent that they are aided by the forces of the Government. If they are now placed in charge it will be by the deliberate act of the present Government, which owes its position to having been voted into political control. To repeat our main argument: those in control of the political machinery are able to impose their will and alter the constitution as they may think fit. That is why the workers must gain political control which they can only do in the advanced capitalist countries by means of the vote.

Editorial Committee

What The Socialist Party Stands For (1930)

From the December 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many new readers of the Socialist Standard are puzzled when they find that the Socialist Party claims to be opposed to the Labour Party and I.L.P., not merely in matters of method, but also in respect of the object to be worked for. This puzzled state of mind is easy to understand. It arises from the use, by ourselves and by those other parties, of terms and phrases which appear to have a similar meaning. When a member of the Labour Party speaks of “Nationalisation, ” the newspapers will assume that he means Socialism, and the Labour Party leaders often have no interest in removing the false impression. It is the practice of many of the widely-read newspapers always to describe Labour M.P.s as Socialist M.P.s. Confusion has been increased in recent years by the use in the Labour Party’s official programme of a form of words which resembles a passage in our Object. Where we say, "The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interests of the whole community”; the Labour Party’s object, as set out in "Labour and the Nation,” is "to secure for the producers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry, and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible, upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.”

The phrasing of the Labour Party’s object tends to be vague, and is in one particular plainly inaccurate. It speaks of securing for the producers the "full fruits of their industry”; but if this were to be carried out the non-producers—among them the young, the infirm, and the old—would get nothing. The Labour Party here refer to common ownership, and it is very important to us that the apparent similarity with our aim should be challenged. We would rather be opposed for what we are and for what we aim at, than be supported, under a misapprehension, for what we are not. Let it, then, be clearly understood that the aims of the two parties are essentially different. The Labour Party stands for nationalisation, which is a form of capitalism embodying all of the chief features of the system of society which the Socialist Party works to abolish. When the Labour Party writes "common ownership” they have in mind such institutions as the Post Office and Mr. Morrison’s proposed London Traffic Corporation; but these are not "commonly owned.” The owners of the Post Office are the capitalist investors in Government Telegraph and Telephone loans and other Government stocks, and the capitalist class as a whole. Their tax burden is reduced by the Post Office profits.

Ownership to the capitalist no longer ordinarily involves the actual personal possession and control of plant, land, factories, etc. It is good enough for him that his stock or share certificates entitle him to a portion of the unearned property-income, which flows from ownership by the exploitation of the workers. The railway shareholder does not own any particular part of the railway system, nor does he wish to do so. If the Labour Party gives him shares in Government loans instead of his company shares he will not be a penny the worse. He will, on the contrary, have gained through the increased security of his holding.

The capitalist will not be a penny the worse and the workers will not be a penny the better for the change. The workers will still be wage-earners producing wealth for others and receiving back as wages and salary enough to enable them and their families to live. That is not Socialism or common ownership. The Socialist Party opposes it without qualification.

If there are Labour Party supporters who doubt the accuracy of the outline given above, we would refer them to the words of Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Snowden on the subject.

Mr. MacDonald, in his book, “Socialism: Critical and Constructive," first published in 1921, deals (Chapter VII) with the part which the capitalist will play in society moulded on Labour Party lines. On pages 302 and 303 (Cassell's pocket edition), he says that property becomes defensible “when Labour uses capital and pays it its market value." (“Urges" in the Cassell edition is a misprint for “uses.") Mr. MacDonald's wording is odd, but his meaning is not in doubt. He envisages a retention of capitalism with the capitalist shorn of some of his present privilege.

Mr. Philip Snowden, writing in the “Manchester Guardian Commercial Reconstruction Supplement," on 26th October, 1922, put the case in a nutshell:—

  The nationalisation of . . . public services does not carry the Labour Party further than many Radicals, who would vigorously disclaim being socialistic, are prepared to go. The nationalisation of mines has been recommended by a Royal Commission, not preponderantly Labour or Socialist. The Land Nationalisation Society has among its vice-presidents a large number of M.P.s who do not belong to the Labour Party.

Mr. Snowden wrote in the same issue:— 

  The British Labour Party is certainly not Socialist in the sense in which Socialism is understood upon the Continent. It is not based upon the recognition of the class struggle; it does not accept the teachings of Marx. . . .  The Socialism of the Labour Party is just a matter of fact, practical aim for the extension of the already widely accepted principle of the democratic ownership and control of the essential public services.

And that aim, as we have explained, is not Socialism at all. It is Slate capitalism. It is not “democratic ownership and control," but State control for the private owners.

It may be mentioned that Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Snowden were at that time active and influential members of the I.L.P., whose object is indistinguishable from that of the Labour Party, to which it is affiliated.

The Labour Party, in “Labour and the Nation," promises to “introduce the maximum possible publicity as to costs and profits." Our aim is quite different. We propose not to give publicity to profits but to abolish profits and all forms of living by owning property, a way of life which can continue only through the exploitation of the workers.

Under Socialism there will not be a class of property owners, and a class of non-owners compelled to sell their labour power to an employer in order to live. The wages system will have disappeared for ever. Men and women will produce the articles all need, not for sale and for profit-making, but for the use of all. If this appears to be a staggering proposal, just stop and ask what other remedy there can be for the colossal and permanent over-production and unemployment from which the workers suffer in a capitalist society. If it seems strange to suggest that people will easily fall into the habit of working without being driven by the threat of unemployment, remember that even under capitalism probably three-fifths of the population, men, women and children, get their living in some other way than by selling their labour power to an employer. We see the capitalist class living without any compulsion to work. We see children, invalids and the aged, more or less well cared for by relatives and friends. We see wives working for husbands and families, and rarely doing so on the job-and-cash basis which the economists like to pretend is so essential to civilisation. We even see millions of workers who have a greater or less degree of security against unemployment, working in much the same way as workers differently placed. Finally, we see a vast network of voluntary organisations carrying on every kind of activity outside, and without the stimulus of, the wages system. And who will venture to assert that the work of the genuine amateur is less conscientious, less thorough, and less fruitful than that of the paid employee?

There remains another question which interests many who have grasped the outlines of the case for Socialism. “What," we are asked by a reader, “will be done under Socialism to secure the distribution of luxuries like diamonds, pearl necklaces, fur coats, motor cars, etc. Would we all have these things if we desired them; only a few of us; or nobody at all?"

There are really two quite different questions raised here. There are people who want and will want jewellery, fur coats and motor cars, because they like these things; because they want to be adorned, want to be warm, and want to travel comfortably. Under Socialism society will have to weigh up the merits and demerits of producing a supply of such article's adequate for those who want them. Society will have to decide whether it is worth while trying to produce fur coats as well as, or in place of, cloth coats, if to do so will involve a considerable inroad into the powers of producing other things. Before the community as a whole will consent to give up all-round comfort in order to secure luxury in some one direction, it will have to be persuaded that the choice is a wise one. The advocates of diamonds and fur coats will have to get down to the task of converting their less luxuriously- minded fellow citizens.

The other aspect of our reader’s question is easily disposed of. At present diamonds are worn by the few only because they are beyond the reach of the many. The diamond companies get the Governments to intervene by force of arms to prevent outsiders from tapping new diamond areas, and thus flooding the market. Should Socialist society decide to provide diamonds for all, probably 99 out of a 100 of those who now have or who now hunger for diamonds would want diamonds no more.

Socialist society will not be able to provide the fantastic needs of every dreamer who craves for the moon, but it will plainly have to produce many articles not required at all by some of its members and required in unequal quantities by others.

Edgar Hardcastle

"The House of Industry." (1931)

Book Review from the December 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

The House of Industry by S. G. Hobson (Pub. P. S. King & Son, Ltd., price 1/-, 112 pages).

Mr. S. G. Hobson, who has in turn been a member of the I.L.P., a Fabian, and an advocate of Guild "Socialism" has written a book in which he advocates workers’ control. This is to become effective by superseding the House of Lords by a "House of Industry,” which will have full legal authority from the House of Commons to control "all industrial processes, including banking, finance, credit and insurance; and in which labour will have a permanent majority.” The members of the "House of Industry” are to be elected by economic groups and to be representative of all factors. Needless to say Mr. Hobson does not propose dispossessing the capitalist class. He proposes that shares should be changed into "some form of debentures” bearing a fixed rate of interest.

The problems of Capitalism are very simple matters to the "House of Industry.” Unemployment will be solved by "increasing wages, adjusting economic factors, by co-ordinating industry and controlling credit.” How it is going to be done or how the details will work themselves out we are not told. We are left to believe that the magical formulae, "Control of credit ” . . . "finance” . . . "co-ordination of industry,” etc., etc., which are repeated almost on every page, will perform the miracle.

The most interesting part of the book is perhaps the foreword contributed by two prominent Trades Council officials, A. M. Wall and A. A. Purcell. Concerned because the Labour Party has forsaken its policy of Nationalisation (see June S.S.) in favour of Public Utility Companies, they advocate support of Mr. Hobson’s proposals for "workers’ control” through a "House of Industry” as outlined in his book.

"The politicians,” they say, "are actively engaged at this moment in legislating away their control over industry . . .  We need only instance the creation of the Electricity Commission and the proposed new authority for the passenger transport system of London as illustrations of this tendency on the part of Parliament to give away its control of economic affairs.”

They continue:—

   The indications are that a decade of legislation under Labour Governments will give us a whole group of independent corporations of this type, administering railway and road transport, electricity supply, the cotton textile industry, and probably others. These concerns will not be, as the Post Office organisation is, under Parliamentary control, administered by Government departments, and with responsible Ministers at their head. If the proposed new transport authority in London is to be taken as a model, questions of wages and conditions of employment will be handled by these new bodies in exactly the same way as any powerfully organised capitalist-controlled industry handles them now. Trade Unions will negotiate with these boards of Commissioners as they now negotiate with employers' organisations; and the policy of the board in dealing with the Unions cannot be any more effectively challenged in Parliament than the policy of any capitalist organisation of employers can be challenged to-day. Labour members who are returned to the House of Commons at the expense of the Unions by working-class votes as Members of Parliament, will be as powerless to protect the interest's of their organisations whose members are employed under these corporations, as the group of miners' M.P.s are to protect the workers in the coalfields under capitalist ownership. Our Labour members, in fact, who are consenting to the creation of these corporations, are not only voting away their usefulness as Union watchdogs : they are legislating against the workers' control of industry. And if anybody alleges that the principle of workers' control will be safeguarded by the inclusion of one or two prominent trade unionists among the commissioners we can only say we do not agree. We take leave to say further that anybody who thinks the appointment of a Trade Union representative on one of these boards is a step towards workers' control understands neither the meaning of workers' control nor the purpose of Trade Unionism.

It will be seen that Mr. A, M. Wall and Mr. A. A. Purcell both vigorously denounce Mr. Morrison’s and the late Labour Government’s London Passenger Transport Bill. They represent it—quite truly—as the abandonment of the Labour Party’s old policy of Nationalisation. But is there any fundamental difference between these proposals? The difference is merely one of form. In the case of Nationalisation control is vested in a State Department; in the case of the Public Utility Trust in a Committee of business men who are responsible to a State Department. In the case of "workers' control,” on the lines of Mr. Hobson’s proposals, control would nominally be in the hands of elected officials. In each case, however, the capitalists still retain ownership, and perhaps more securely than ever. Instead of their shares being liable to considerable fluctuations in the open market and to possible complete loss, they are to receive a fixed rate of interest on bonds having Government backing.

Public ownership in any of these forms is capitalism in a new garb. The defect about these schemes is that they do not so much as touch the fundamental problem of the workers. What is the problem? It is that we live in a world where the means of production and distribution are the private property of the capitalist class. The workers produce everything that is necessary for the sustenance and continuance of society; the capitalist class own it. The workers receive wages based roughly on what it costs them to live and be efficient, and bring up families. The capitalist class keep the remainder. It has been calculated by a Liberal economist, Professor Henry Clay, that one-twentieth of the population own between them five-sixths of the accumulated property, land, buildings, shares, etc., and retain every year nearly half of the total product of industry. That is the workers’ problem. That is why they are poor. There lies the cause of unemployment and wars. The solution is that the means of production and distribution should be made the common property of society as a whole. When that has been done there will no longer be a working class, producing wealth but not owning it, and a propertied class owning-wealth but not producing it. That will be Socialism. Nationalisation, Public Utility Companies, etc., do not solve that problem. They leave the property owners still in possession of their property rights, still able to live at the expense of the producers.

The only difference is that they exchange shares in a private company for shares in a public utility company, or for Government securities. The workers are more or less where they were before, getting just enough to exist on, and faced with all the harrowing problems of how to make ends meet. Changing the form of capitalism from private companies to State-controlled concerns is a problem of interest to the capitalist class, the form of whose property is being changed, but it is not a question that is worth the attention of the workers.

Harry Waite

The Coming New Prosperity in America (1932)

From the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

Shorter Hours: More Work: Lower Pay
Uncouth indeed is the hurricane that blows nobody good! Out of the great depression, at last it looks as if a little breeze might cool the brows of our poor capitalists here in the U.S.A. Profits have been nowhere near what they ought to be, dividends falling off, taxes going up, prices going down; and you wouldn’t believe the amount of political grafting that has been going on at their expense! The tariff hasn’t been acting right, crops have been exasperatingly abundant, so that agricultural prices are, as Mr. Hoover says, “hideously low.” Even the Boll-Weevil proved disloyal by failing to destroy enough cotton, thus increasing unemployment among the brokers on the cotton exchange. Of course, wages did slip down a bit, here and there, pretty much all over; but still, you couldn't exactly say things were like they used to be in “normal” times. No, indeed!

But, maybe, happy days will come again. If our masters had to shell out to keep a lot of charities going, they also learned through these same charities just what a small amount the workers can be made to exist on, without in the least losing their love for the wage-system. The knowledge is to be applied in a manner to profit the owners of wealth and the means of production thereof.

We are to have the shorter working week, whose virtues have been sung so long by trade unions and reform bodies, amongst which may be mentioned the so-called Socialist Party of America, the Communist Party, and the Industrial Union groups. The chorus was that the five-day week and the six-hour day is the cure for unemployment. Much noise was made, and vast statistics gathered, to show the benefits to workers and to capitalists as well. At St. Louis, in May, 1927, the Order of Railroad Telegraphers put it to the bosses neatly in a resolution which started thus: —

  “Whereas, It is a demonstrable fact that a shorter work week is conducive to a more intensive production without an undue strain on the worker . . .” (Italics mine).

You see, after all, the capitalists have political power and own the industries. So it was very necessary to sell the idea to them. A thoughtful worker could see the point at once. The capitalists, having great minds, capable of pondering all these things, thought more slowly.

Now, the capitalists long ago resigned themselves to having a considerable number of jobless workers around, even in the busiest times. It helped them keep wages down somewhere near the food, clothing and shelter level. But when the number of out-of-works gets up around a dozen millions, as it is now, you can't blame even a capitalist for losing his patience. So much idle labour-power costs a lot of money, it is a nuisance, and a menace to private property. As Mr. Gibson says (Wall Street Journal, October 17th, 1932): —

   "Corporations and business firms which support unemployment relief funds may be insuring themselves against a semi-permanent government system of relief with resultant taxes over a long period of years, and also may be averting social unrest spelling business disaster . . "(italics mine).

The Interstate Commerce Commission refuses to allow the New York Telephone Co. to charge to operating expense $75,000 which they gave to the City's 1931 fund for the jobless, even though the Company pointed out that “in the absence of unemployment relief the general effect of the business depression might have been worse and riots or other disturbances might have injured the company's property " (Business Week, NY., October 12th).

Anyway, we are now in the midst of the "national share-the-work campaign," which is the new name of the shorter work-week movement. Directing the campaign are such sterling toilers for humanity as Walter C. Teagle, President, Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey, who hopes to report, “before winter, if possible," "that several million unemployed have been put back to work." Mr. Teagle's company adopted the five-day week some time back, and now the Socony-Vacuum Corporation states that, as from November 1st, “operations of the company will be placed on a five-day week, with a corresponding reduction in pay " (italics mine). (See Wall Street Journal, October 10th.)

Other work spreaders who are urging the idea on their fellow-capitalists are Alfred P. Sloan, President of General Motors; Fred. H. Ecker, President of the Metropolitan Life Insurance .Co.; Paul W. Litchfield, of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.; L. C. Walker, President of the Shaw-Walker Co.; J. H. Rand, Chairman of Remington-Rand; and the whole manoeuvre is sponsored officially by our great engineering President, Herbert Hoover.

Of course, somebody would bring up some difficulties in the way of the plan. The National Industrial Conference Board made public a survey of 1,500 employers, with the discouraging remark:

  “While, of course, the figures here given are averages that do not exclude individual cases with longer hours, it is none the less a striking fact that only four of the industries named provide an average of more than forty hours per week. By contrast, as many as eight industries have reached so low an ebb of activity that they cannot provide so much as thirty hours a week." (Times, N.Y., October 14th, 1932.)

They gave further figures, which are here arranged for convenience of the reader (same source): —

Foundries and machine shops were working only 27.4 hours, and—

“Other principal industries ranged between 30 and 40 hours."

The above was the state of affairs in August. Ordinary persons, like workers, might wonder how the five-day week and the six-hour day can be introduced in industries which aren't working even that long, and how this can put the unemployed back to work. But, shucks! this will simply make the job-spreading more interesting. It will be no puzzle at all for the great men. Maybe, we will get a three-day week out of it—"with corresponding reductions in pay"! The masters are not going to forget the lessons learned from their charity organisations. What they hope to achieve by this proposal is as follows: —

1. They would save millions in charity donations. The amount they had to tear themselves loose from last winter was agonizing, and already the (N.Y.) State Temporary Relief Administration estimates that $10,000,000 monthly will be needed for relief of unemployed the coming winter (in New York alone) and— “The estimate did not include funds to be raised privately . . ." (New York Times, October 18th, 1932).
2. The dole system would be staved off. (Voluntary giving has staved off permanent government relief, which would raise taxes. See above quote from Wall Street Journal.)
3. The workers will be more rested, therefore able to carry on “more intensive production" while working. This conclusion is amply supported by data compiled by the National Industrial Conference Board. Rival crews, or shifts, could be made up, and the friendly (!) rivalry between them will surely bring out some new high points in productivity.
4. We are assured that workers do not have to eat such large amounts as was formerly thought necessary; if they will only adopt the "scientific" menus being compiled for them by our dieticians, they can yield more energy with much less food. In Fayette County, Pennsylvania, it has been shown that a family of five can survive on one dollar per week! A working-class family, of course; a capitalist family needs a bit more. Another thing: the doctors have for years pooh-poohed the advocates of fasting and dieting as a disease cure, but in the present emergency even the medicine men are going to face their duty and lay bare the facts. It seems they have been fooling us all the time about fasting. Dr. W. A. Evans, who conducts a daily column in the Daily Nexus (U.S.A.), assures us (October 20th) that: —"A normal man should be able to go without food for nearly two months.”

This is not the first or only statement of the kind from orthodox sources, and more can be expected in the struggle to keep hungry workers from worrying about pork chops. Very useful when wages are about to be reduced.

To be sure, the sharpened competition which will be the life of trade with the coming of shorter weeks and days, will make necessary the introduction of more improved methods and machinery. The Wall Street Journal (October 14th) quotes "Iron Age"; —

   "The substitution of more efficient machine tools will eventually take place on a large scale.” 

The same issue quotes Walter P. Chrysler: —

  "Our Plymouth plant has been completely reorganised to take full advantage of the tremendous advances that have been made in machine tool design and manufacturing methods during the past few years.”

If the process is going on already, just wait till it gets going in earnest! The outcome, of course, will be the more rapid glutting of markets, with even worse unemployment than before; meanwhile, terrific increase of exploitation of those in work.

This will be the "New Prosperity.” The next depression will surely be a humdinger! Would it be out of place, fellow-workers, to remind you that this is the wages-system, capitalism; and that Socialism is a practicable alternative ?

Scott Frampton,

Workers' Socialist Party of U.S.A.