A Labour of Sisyphus (1951)

From the April 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

The position of the working class in capitalist society is like that of Sisyphus, the mythological king of Corinth, who was condemned to constantly roll a huge stone to the top of a hill, and when he got it there, it always rolled back down again. His task was unceasing. To-day a minority of the population, the capitalist class, own the means and instruments for producing wealth. It necessarily follows that the vast majority of the population, the working class, must sell their labour power to this minority. In return they receive barely enough to keep them at the customary standard of living. If they were to receive more than was sufficient to keep them they would attempt to free themselves from that economic enslavement. The working class then must produce wealth for the capitalist class and receive in return just sufficient to bring them back to the factory to produce more wealth for their masters—a labour of Sisyphus.

The tremendous productive capacity of man's labour power applied to modern industrial equipment together with the working class receiving only the necessities of life results in the great difference in income that exists between most members of capitalist class and most workers.

Reformers seeking to bring about a more equitable distribution of income put forward the plea for taxation. They maintain that by taxing the “rich” and establishing social services a large redistribution of income between the two classes could be effected. But Douglas Jay, now financial advisor to the Treasury, wrote in a book called “The Socialist Case,” “ some may argue that whatever the statistics of income and property show, a huge redistribution of income has been achieved in the last twenty-five years' by means of national taxation and the social services. . . . It is consequently rather startling to find, on an impartial examination of the facts, that there has been scarcely any redistribution at all.” (p. 45). A few pages later he quotes the “Economist”:—

  “The poorer classes of the community have therefore received back from the Exchequer approximately as much as their increased contribution. But there is very little sign that the system of taxation has effected any redistribution of income between rich and poor.”

(From Budget Supplement, 13th April, 1935, “The Socialist Case," p. 50.)

Then Mr. Jay sums up with, “All authorities are agreed, however, that the great bulk of the social services are paid for by the working classes themselves, and that there has been only a very slight shift in their favour even since before the war.” (Page 51.)

And the Labour Party after all this experience still cling to the view that taxation and social services will bring to the workers a bigger slice of the “national cake.” After the first five years of Labour's majority Government the responsible ministers claimed that taxation had reached its peak. The rich couldn't be taxed any heavier. All the social services and reforms that had been on the Labour Party's programme since its formation had been brought about. Yet Mr. James Griffiths, Colonial Secretary, said at the Labour Party Conference held in Margate:—

  “The ownership of wealth has by no means been adequately shared out. Far too much of the nation’s wealth is owned by too few people." (Daily Herald, 4/10/50.)

And Sydney Silverman at the same conference said, “There are hundreds of thousands of our fellow workers whose wages make a bitter mockery of our claim that we are providing fair shares ” (Daily Herald, 4/10/50).

The other side of the picture is filled in by the Tribune, a Labour weekly:—

  “Flicking over the pages of those same popular dailies . . . in this grim austerity Britain with its food shortages, housing shortages and labour shortages, the Government’s guiding philosophy of fair shares for all worked out in practice so that one could still have a house in town run by eight servants, a mansion in the country, a cottage by the sea, pocket money on a scale that comfortably covered details such as £3,000 a year on presents to a lady friend, another £1,000 a year thereabouts to the same lady and when after all you decided not to marry the woman, £20,000 to console her for the loss of a good thing." (February 9th, 1951.)

The “Economist” in an article examined the report of the EGA. Mission “Facts about the British Economy” and stated, “since it is the lower income groups which benefit mainly from social expenditure the report says, 'the social expenditures are chiefly financed by transfers of income within the lower income groups in accordance with variations in the patterns of consumption, family size, etc., rather than by transfer between different income level.' " (1/4/1950)1

Labour Party supporters and other apologists for capitalism maintain that even if the wealth the workers produce was divided equally among all members of the population, the increase in the average worker's income would be insignificant.

But this isn't the socialist's argument. He recognises the potential productive capacity of mankind with modern machinery and realises how production is misused in present society. He takes into consideration the waste that goes on under capitalism. In a system based on private ownership where goods are produced for sale a vast number of workers are engaged in all the multiple tasks which arise from the sale of commodities and the realisation of the profits contained in them. The waste of productive effort in the cheap shoddy goods the majority of the community must buy.

In a society based upon common ownership wealth would be produced solely for use. All members of society would be occupied in producing things to satisfy their needs. This is possible with the present industrial machinery. All that is required is that the workers realise this and take steps to bring it about.

Jim Thorburn

Letters: Work within capitalism? (2006)

Letters to the Editors from the April 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Work within capitalism?

Dear Editors

The article about Fair Trade (Socialist Standard, February) was certainly very interesting and the author puts forward a strong case, I haven’t got the time to outline counter-arguments to all the points but I can give an overview of what we are calling for. As a development charity we are working to improve people’s lives. You may disagree with the present socio-economic system but there is no current alternative, therefore, we think it is better to try and work within this system rather then just point out the difficulties and decide that nothing can be done. It also doesn’t take in to account that not all benefits for developed nations are so overtly determined by economics. For instance, what about the problems caused by mass-migration due to poverty? Surely rich nations have a vested interest in helping poorer nations to try and stem this flow. Our position is quite clear. We want developed nations to stop putting tariffs on imports from developing nations, stop using protectionism that leads to dumping and allow developing nations to protect their fledgling industries. I disagree with the article, as this would make a difference to the lives of some of the poorest. They would be able to sell their produce domestically and eventually be able to export it. To read about our ideas on Fair Trade please follow this link: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/fairtrade/index.htm

I think 2005 was a landmark year in the struggle against poverty. Firstly, there was the agreement to write off debt at the G8, something that the author can’t account for using his/her premises, Gordon Brown also reconfirmed the pledge to raise aid levels to 0.7 percent GDP. Added to this is the fact that due to the Global Call to Action against Poverty Campaign (GCAP) more people all over the world protested to end poverty then has ever been seen before. If we can keep the pressure on in this way we can force our governments to change their actions. Governments aren’t just led by economic determinism, they are also led by public pressure. Therefore, while there is still a lot to be done we think that there have already been successes and that we need to keep up the pressure.

Ian Sullivan, 

Supporter Relations, Oxfam

Reply:

We have never denied that campaigning charities like Oxfam can, and do, help a limited number of people. Our case is that they will never solve the problem they have chosen to concentrate on. We note that you confirm that Oxfam does have a reformist approach, as you claim that there is no current alternative to “the present socio-economic system” (capitalism) and so pursue a policy of working within that system to try to reform it. We, on the other hand, think in terms of action to replace capitalism by a system in which begging bowls can be assigned to the museum of antiquities because, with common ownership and production for use, people’s basic needs would be able to be met as a matter of course. – Editors.

Feeling Lucky

Dear Editors

My thanks for pointing out that www.worldmapper.org is worth a look (March Socialist Standard) .

Readers of the Socialist Standard may think they know a lot of the answers and even more of the problems, but look worldwide and inequalities are somewhat more stark than between the two social classes you refer to.  Are you feeling lucky? Then here’s an old thought game. You are having a child and you are concerned that your child might not to live to see the end of its first year of life. You can choose when and where you give birth and your class. You have three options:

Your husband is a very rich factory owner living a hundred years ago in England, you have servants, a huge home and gardens (in say 1906).  You are a middle class women in Pakistan living in Islamabad in 2006.  You are a working class woman living in Yorkshire in England in 2006. The respective chances of your child dying before their first birthday would be roughly: 1 in 10, 1 in 30 and 1 in 100. You could improve those chances further to 1 in 300 and almost 1 in 1000 by being middle class now in Yorkshire, or being that and moving to Iceland.

What I’m trying to point out is that the importance of class is contingent on both history and geography – and a woman giving birth in the world today cannot choose her history, or geography or class. You claim that “So, if ‘where you are born’ determines how your life will pan out, that has to be seen as a matter of class, not of geography”. I think that if it was quite as easy as that then there would no longer be a problem. It is a matter of class and geography and history (and sex, race and more) as to how you are treated, what your chances are and how your life will pan out or whether you will live through your first year to have a life at all. None of these are circumstances of your own making. In Britain – increasingly, geography is helping make class – but that is another story altogether. 

Danny Dorling, 

Sheffield.

Reply: 
We have no quarrel with the idea that a person’s date and place of birth affects their chances in life. And we assume you wouldn’t deny that class enters into the picture too. Our article dealt not with infant mortality but with the kind of job people are likely to have. There is no middle class (they’re part of the working class). And it’s the class people are born into (working class or capitalist) that determines whether they will need to worry about working for a living. We appeal to workers on the basis of their class interests, not the question of being from Yorkshire or Iceland. Not everyone can move to Iceland, but we can get rid of class divisions. — Editors.

Cooking the Books: Living in an asset (2006)

The Cooking the Books column from the April 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the beginning of March the Nationwide Building Society reported a fall in its house price index of 0.2 percent. They attribute this to a mere blip in the market. Other commentators are not so sure; they see it as a sign that the predicted end of the present house price boom is nigh.

Actually, it is not really a boom in the price of houses. Houses are a product of labour and so have a value of their own but, once built, they are subject, through use, to depreciation and will only maintain their value if money is spent on their maintenance. With inflation, the price of a properly maintained house will tend to rise anyway, though, with gains in productivity in the building industry, the cost of building a house will fall.

What is booming is not the price of the house as a building but the price of the land on which it stands. As land is not the product of labour it has no value, just a price which Marx (in Capital, Volume I, chapter 3, section 1) called an “imaginary price-form” as it wasn’t an expression of value. The price of land, however, is not entirely irrational but is calculated by “capitalising” the income it can be expected to bring. So, if a plot of land brings in an annual income (normally as rent) of £5000, it can be regarded as a capital-value bringing in an income of this amount and, if the rate of interest is 5 percent, as worth £100,000.

This in fact is how surveyors and property speculators calculate the monetary value of a property, though over a longer period than a year. Because of the permanent, if at the moment fairly slow, inflation, “income” can include the expected rise in price by the end of the chosen period. Also, if the chosen rate of interest is different, then so will the monetary value. For instance, if, in the example above, the rate had been 4 percent the monetary value would be £125,000. If the rate had been 6 percent it would be £83,333.

Low interest rates will tend to encourage a rise in the actual selling price of land anyway because they will tend to increase the demand for it. This is especially the case with the land on which houses stand, in that the house with its land is generally bought by taking out a loan (a mortgage) and the lower the rate of interest charged on it the more people that can afford to enter the market.

Most people buy a house to be their home for the foreseeable future, but a significant number now buy a house as a financial asset which they hope will increase in price, so enabling them to realise a capital gain. This has introduced the same sort of speculative element into the housing market as exists on the stock exchange, with people gambling on an increase in what their asset is worth.

It is this that has led one school of capitalism-watchers to argue that not only does this make a housing bubble possible, but that a bubble actually exists at present and which will sooner or later burst, leading house-and-land prices to fall.

If this happens, then, in a period of relatively low inflation as at present, this price fall wouldn’t be absorbed by house-and-land prices not rising as fast as inflation but by them actually falling. There would be widespread negative equity and repossessions. And it wouldn’t be just those who bought a house as a speculative investment who would get their fingers burnt. Those who bought a house merely as a place to live in would suffer too.

Capitalism is exposed as an irrational and anti-human system when a basic human need such as shelter can become the subject of stock-exchange-like speculation with all the consequences that can result when a speculative bubble bursts.

Alternative voice (2006)

TV Review from the April 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Democracy Now! Pacifica Radio. http://www.democracynow.org/

“Independent media has a crucial responsibility to go to where the silence is to represent the diverse voices of people engaged in dissent.” Thus is the journalistic philosophy of Amy Goodman, host and executive producer of the New York–based radio/television news programme Democracy Now!, now in its tenth year. True to her vision, Goodman’s one-hour show covers the stories ignored or suppressed by the corporate-sponsored media, and provides a platform for the politically underrepresented to give their views and commentary on stories reported by the mainstream news. Artists, leftist academics, peace activists, whistleblowers, union representatives, and independent journalists make up the majority of those interviewed. In many respects, then, Democracy Now! is like a daily edition of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, reporting on the activities of various segments of the working class to resist political and economic oppression.

Each show begins with Amy Goodman delivering ten minutes of headline news; while there is a tendency to focus on American politics, the show is much more international in scope than most other American news programmes. The remaining fifty minutes explores one or two stories in further detail via interviews or a live debate between a prominent activist or academic and a government spokesperson. Past guests have included academics Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky, and Howard Zinn; authors Alice Walker, Arundhati Roy, and Salman Rushdie; and spokespeople from civil rights and activist groups such as Greenpeace and the American Civil Liberties Union. The plethora of voices critical of the government and society is a welcome diversion from the business and government cronies featured on most corporate news programmes. (And unlike other so-called “independent” or “public” media outlets, Democracy Now! is funded entirely by listeners, viewers, and foundations; they run no advertising and do not accept donations from corporations or governments.)

If the show has one fault, it is that it sometimes assumes a particular political group or ideology must have merit simply because its views are in the minority. Such was the case with a February show commemorating the assassination of black nationalist leader Malcolm X. Guests were brought in to heap praises upon the man, and a long excerpt from his speech “The Ballot or the Bullet” was played. No comment or criticism was made on his racist-separatist agenda, nor on his suggestion that the “black community” would be better off if blacks ran their own economy. Goodman, who is usually unafraid to pose hard-hitting questions, neglected to challenge the ludicrous implication that black workers would be any less exploited serving black masters than white ones.

Nonetheless, Democracy Now! serves a useful purpose in bringing underreported stories and views to the forefront. Until socialists can establish their own news programme, Goodman’s show is a good supplement or even outright replacement for the corporate nightly news.

Tristan Miller

Democracy Now! is broadcast in London on Resonance 104.4 FM Thursdays at 11:00; across Europe on Sky Digital channel 0122 Monday to Friday at 15:00; and on the Internet via RealAudio, RealVideo, MP3, or Ogg Vorbis at http://www.democracynow.org/ .

A Great Contradiction: Ca' Canny - A Capitalist Necessity. (1920)

From the November 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

It has become quite a fashion with capitalist speakers and writers on social subjects to wind up their perorations with demands or appeals for greater production. Now, if production, in any industry, or in all industries, has fallen off, it must be due to one of two causes. Either the individual worker produces less, or fewer workers are engaged in production. In either case it is quite clear that, from a purely material point of view, a lower production is due to reduced expenditure of energy by the workers.

The Cause of Confusion.

The working class is composed of people who work. The capitalist class do not work, therefore the workers doing less work is the cause of reduced output.

If this question were confined to the material point of view alone, everything would be clear, and those who do not work at all would be held responsible for the shortage, especially when it was noted that they consumed the largest share of the wealth produced.

In a colony of ants or a hive of bees there is nothing to confuse the material point of view. There the relations are between ants or bees and nature. Social relations are simple, and are not confused by questions of ownership, exchange, and so on. All the members of the colony, or hive, take part in the necessary labour and share according to their needs. In human society, however, things are not so simple—private or class ownership of wealth transforms relations that should be clear into a veritable pandemonium of conflicting interests.

Working a Stunt.

Every capitalist newspaper and magazine contains articles deploring the shortage of commodities and blaming the workers for it. When the workers in any industry determine to strike for higher wages because rising prices compel them to do so, a howl of protest goes up because output will be reduced. In short, the word has gone round for the reduced output stunt to be worked for all it is worth, with the result that one fine morning we read in every capitalist paper, side by side with the customary lecture on increased production, accounts of numbers of factories closing down and thousands of workers unemployed. Even then the prostitute writers and speakers of the capitalist Press make frantic efforts to blame the workers for the falling off in trade. Trade is bad, they say, because the capitalists cannot afford to pay the high wages prevailing, or because the workers deliberately work at a slower pace.

Capitalist Ca'canny.

Now, the power of the workers to go slow or hold up production is almost negligible. Their need for wages, and the fact that there are always more workers than jobs, throws them into competition with one another and compels them to work at top speed. In any case they must work to live.

But not so the capitalists, who never work, and yet are the last to suffer when production is impeded. Moreover, it is often to the interest of capitalists that production should be slowed up and they never hesitate to use the power they possess in that direction—a power that is far greater than the workers possess, because they (the capitalists) own and control the means of wealth-production.

In the long and futile wrangle that preceded the coal strike, the miners, who evidently knew what they were talking about, in this respect at least, accused the companies of refraining from working the best seams, reserving them for the time when Government control was removed.

During the last few weeks newspapers have quoted numerous instances of factories in a large number of industries curtailing production by working shorter time. Not long ago we read about milk poured down drains and fish flung back into the sea or allowed to rot, to be then sold for manure.

The Proper Thing to do.

In all such cases it seems to be taken for granted that the stoppage of production, or the deliberate waste of wealth, is the only possible thing to do in the circumstances. No one questions, for instance, that in the case of tea anything other should be done than is done by the tea-growing associations, that is, circularising all growers to reduce their output 20 per cent. With a surplus stock of 120 million pounds it is absurd that anyone should go short of tea. It is absurd, too, that any other question than the satisfaction of human needs should be considered, yet in reality this question is not considered at all. The whole question whether production shall go on or not depends entirely on whether it is profitable to some capitalist or capitalist company.

A member of the Ceylon Tea Growers' Association says that "their action (limiting output) is an attempt to save the companies from being wiped out, for it is obvious that production cannot be continued at a loss." Carried to its logical conclusion this means that if production ceases to provide profits for the capitalist class the human race must perish.

Who Produce the Wealth?

Everybody knows that the cute business man pretends to be running his business at a loss. The industrial capitalists (especially the small fish) are often between the devil and the deep sea when they try to square accounts with the money-lender and the landlord. But this squaring process always takes place after the workers have produced the wealth. It could not possibly take place before, because there would be nothing to share. The companies do not produce the tea, neither do the moneylenders nor the landlords. Nor do they contribute anything, either in the shape of labour (mental or manual) or material toward its production. The things they own—land, money, machinery, etc.—are either nature-given, or the result of working class energy applied to what is nature-given.

Why, then, should the existence of companies be considered at all? If they perform no useful function they would not be missed if they were all wiped out, and the workers of the world produced the tea—and all the other things they need—in the quantities they require and according to a settled plan. It would, of course, be galling to the capitalists to be forced to realise that production goes on to-day without assistance from them, and that there is no excuse for their existence as a separate class ; but it would be still more galling to know that the workers had discovered it, and were organising to act upon the knowledge.

Besides being a useless class, the capitalist class consumes twice the quantity of wealth consumed by the working class. A writer in the "Sunday Pictorial," Mr. Lovat Fraser, says that if the wealth taken by the capitalist class were shared among the workers it would be no more than a drop in a bucket. This is obviously untrue, because the workers would then share the whole product, which is three times greater than their total wages.

Capitalists MUST Curtail Production.

But the wealth taken by the capitalists, either as rent, interest, or profit, is produced by the workers. It is evident, therefore, that the capitalist system is a system whereby the workers are robbed of the major portion of the wealth they produce by an idle class ; but this is not all. The system which enables this robbery to take place is so arranged that production cannot go beyond a certain point without causing the rate of profit obtained by the capitalists to fall, so that they are forced to curtail production in their own interests.

What can be said in favour of such a system ?

An idle class takes two-thirds of the wealth produced by the workers, and then stops production, not only before the needs of the workers are satisfied, but by that very act of stoppage condemning the workers in ever-increasing numbers to unemployment and starvation.

The Crux of the Matter.

Meanwhile a swarm of mercenary intellectuals continue to shriek for greater output from those who remain in employment, exhorting them, all the time, to economise in order that wages can be reduced. These are the fruits of a system based on class ownership of the means of life. Unemployment side by side with a shortage of the necessaries of life ; millions of willing workers in all capitalist countries held back from the work of producing wealth, and starving meanwhile, because capitalist companies, that are not even necessary to production, will suffer a reduction in profits if the workers are allowed to carry on.

In the face of well-established and obvious facts like the foregoing Mr. Lovat Fraser has the hardihood to declare that high prices are the result of reduced output, in its turn the result of high wages, which induce leisure. It is, of course, unfortunate for this contention that capitalists everywhere should compel workers in increasing numbers to take more leisure in the shape of unemployment. Forced leisure and diminished output is the great contradiction within the capitalist system that, when fully revealed, becomes the motive for its abolition. When Mr. Fraser, in the midst of wholesale unemployment, whines "it is not a rich world," he reveals this contradiction by the violence with which he brings the two material facts together.

A Pertinent Question.

With modern methods of production and a sane system of society, sufficient wealth could be produced to satisfy the needs of a population enormously greater than exists upon the earth at the present time. Then why stop production before those living on it to-day are satisfied ? Because the world's markets can only be won by cheap commodities, says the capitalist.

Precisely; it is the capitalist need for cheap commodities with which to win markets that causes unemployment, low wages, and intensive toil. And the hardships and poverty of the workers increases as the struggle for markets becomes keener. Those who cannot keep up the pace are ruthlessly flung on one side to make room for younger men and women. Labour-saving machinery, which Mr. Robert Young, M.P., says ("Reynolds's Newspaper," 12.9.20) will solve the problem of diminished output, can only flood the markets and accelerate the process that is rapidly making the capitalist system impossible—because it will no longer satisfy the bare wants of the majority— while at the same time revealing unlimited possibilities in the direction of wealth production.

The Remedy Revealed.

To reconcile this great contradiction society must be established on a basis where the means of wealth production are owned in common and democratically controlled. Then the production and distribution of all kinds of wealth can be arranged according to the needs of the people themselves.

But these two systems are opposed to each other ; and the conflicting principles of the two systems are represented by the conflicting interests of the two classes in society to-day. The conflict is between the class that owns and controls and the class that is dispossessed. The antagonism is revealed in the continual struggle over wages.

Working-class interests conflict with capitalist interests at every point, and the bitterness between the two classes increases as the struggle becomes more severe and the workers recognise its nature. Manifesting itself on the industrial field, the class struggle can only be ended on the political field, by the organised workers gaining control of the political machine, and using the armed forces and the machinery of the State to clear the way for the establishment of Socialism.

F. Foan

Letter: Mr. Dight says this is the "The Kybosh" (1920)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

To the Editors.

Dear Sirs,

Your correspondent's reply to my letter is, like the flowers that bloom in the spring, nothing to do with it. I could not for the life of me grasp what he was driving at till I came to that part of it where he says—

"How the quotation from the twelfth paragraph describing the Commune as 'the political form at last discovered,' etc., helps Mr. Dight, who is opposed to political action and policy, I fail to see." 

I can only conclude that J.F. was sick when he read and replied to my letter, as I certainly do not believe that he would wilfully misrepresent, and the other alternative of stupidity on J.F.'s part is very far from being manifest. If he had read my letter carefully he would not have wasted, what must be to you, your valuable space, in replying, at such great length, to something that doesn't exist, except in his own heated imagination. If he had paid more attention to my letter he would have seen that I was NOT "opposed to political action and policy," but that I was concerned with advocating ''the political form at last discovered, under which labour could work out its own economic emancipation" as opposed to your parliamentarism. To utterly ignore and dismiss the above quotation from Marx with the remark that it doesn't help me, "who is opposed to political action and policy" (J.F. says that, I don't) is on a par with the rest of his reply, namely, a shuffle.

Even though I were opposed to political action, the above quotation from Marx does not help your party, or J.F., but diametrically opposes your position, when in your Declaration of Principles you refer to "THE machinery of government" and the need for utilising "THIS machinery" as a means for achieving working-class emancipation. The British parliamentary political machine existed at the time when Marx wrote in reference to the Commune that "its true secret was this. It was essentially the government of the working class—it was the political form at last discovered, under which labour could work out its own economic emancipation." (Italics mine.) Note the words "at last discovered." For the purpose of emancipation, therefore, .Marx had apparently been seeking to discover "the political form," etc., and in spite of the existing British parliamentary political machinery, "the political form" was only "at last discovered" with the advent of the Paris Commune.

Another instance in J.F.'s reply which may be cited as one in which he attempts to set up an Aunt Sally before proceeding to knock it down, is the one in which he quotes Lenin in "contradiction" to my "attempt at a case" (as if in my letter I was in any way concerned with supporting or opposing Lenin). And how does Lenin "so flatly contradict" etc. To show how J.F. quotes as follows : "The exploited classes need political supremacy in order to abolish all exploitation," etc. Seeing that I advocate this political supremacy, I fail to see how it contradicts my position. As I have already inferred, J.F. could not have read my letter with any great care, else he would have noted my statement that "during a proletarian revolution the bourgeois State machine will not be utilised but broken and in its stead another State erected—the dictatorship of the proletariat." What J.F. fails to see (among other numerous things) is that there is a vast difference between attaining to "political supremacy" and the politically unsound attempt at capturing "the machinery of government" and utilising it as "the agent of emancipation and the overthrow of privilege." (Your Declaration of Principles.)

With reference to the charge levelled against me of having lifted a sentence from its context and so subjecting that sentence to a different interpretation than was originally intended, I am fully aware that that has been attempted by Anarchists in the past, and I have had occasion to frustrate the attempt and to point out that Marx and Engels were not "opposed to political action and policy." But then I quoted the sentence from its context in the sense that implied the existence of the context in the same way as Marx and Engels have seen fit to do, for in the preface to the "Communist Manifesto" Marx and Engels have found it quite sufficient to quote the sentence only as being all-important in itself.

I note that my letter has been given the title of "Those Misrepresentations of Marx Turn Up Again." Now I am very much concerned about "those misrepresentations," and I contend that you are the party that has been indulging in them on the one hand, and the Anarchists on the other : for, while on the one hand the Anarchists have sought to establish the claim that Marx and Engels were opposed to any political activities on the part of the workers, you, on the other hand, claim that the working class can "simply lay hold of the ready made State machinery and wield it for its own purposes." If J.F. read my letter as he should have done, he will see it to have been an endeavour to turn those "misrepresentations" down rather than up.

How the long quotation from "The Civil War in France" goes to show "the workers' position after they have seized this power (political supremacy) I cannot see. Nor is it very clear what is meant by "the workers' position after they have seized this power." We get an inkling, however, from another source, as instance, the statement of Gilmac in this month's Socialist Standard, Says Gilmac:

  "This statement appears before Marx's summary of the development of the State and he then goes on to show why the working class cannot wield it for its own purposes. The reason is that the State is a repressive power used against a subject class. As there will be no subject class in the new society, there will be no use for a repressive power." 

The quotation by Gilmac from Engels as well as from Marx is very unfortunate for your party and supports my contention. But how does Gilmac quote Engels in support of your Declaration of Principles that the "instrument of oppression" (the State) can be "converted into the agent of emancipation"? Here is the quotation from Engels:

  "From the very outset the Commune had to recognise that the working class having once obtained supremacy in the State, could not work with the old machinery of government." (Italics mine.) 

And here is his quotation from Marx :

  "The worker must, sometime, get the political power into his own hands in order to lay the foundations of a new organisation of labour. He must overthrow the old political system that upholds the old institutions, etc." (Italics mine.) 

Marx here clearly shows my contention in my letter to have been correct, namely, that "during a proletarian revolution the bourgeois State machine will not be utilised but broken," etc. Your party is not out for the "overthrow" of the "old political system," etc., but to "convert" it "into the agent of emancipation." The position when Socialism is established is such, of course, that the State will not be needed, because of the abolition of classes, and Engels has told us that in the process of this abolition "the State will wither away." What State did Engels refer to? Did he refer to the bourgeois or the proletarian State? The Communards "overthrew the old political system" (it did not "wither away") because "they could not work with the old machinery of government," and Marx says that the workers "must overthrow the old political system." Obviously it is the proletarian State to "which Engels refers—the erection of which you should advocate if you are Marxians. I said in my letter that I was opposed to your parliamentarism and in justification of this parliamentarism J.F. quotes as follows; "The Commune was to have been a working, not a parliamentary body, executive and legislative at the same time."

Well, of course, the proletarian State will be parliamentary in the broad sense of its meaning, and so are the Russian Soviets; but then I used the term in the limited sense, as you did some months ago when you had an article on "Parliament or Soviets," and when you advocated for Parliament as opposed to the other.

Referring to my statement that there can be no such thing as a constitutional social revolution J.F. says that in that way I have shown my "ignorance of even modern history, for Japan carried through a constitutional social revolution in 1871 when feudalism was abolished." I do not deny that Japan carried through a social revolution, but is J.F. sure that it was constitutional? I take it from his remarks on this point that he has read the constitution of feudal Japan and that he hasn't in any way found it in conflict with the political aspirations of the Japanese bourgeoisie of that time. If that is so, then I am astounded at J.F.'s merit in the analytical sense—or the lack of it. All I know is that it runs counter to the Marxian theory of the Materialist Conception of History. Fancy, a constitutional social revolution when "the economic structure of society is the real basis on which the juridical and political superstructure is raised, and to which definite social forms of thought correspond : in short, the mode of production determines the character of the social, political, and intellectual life generally." (Marx," Capital.") And again:

 "In every historical epoch the prevailing mode of production and exchange, and the social organisation necessarily following from it, form the basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of that epoch." (Engels, second preface to the "Communist Manifesto.") 

In conclusion, I am convinced that if Marx and Engels were living to-day, and providing you had any influence with the working class, they would ask to be saved from their "friends." Apart from commenting upon the fact that I have noticed one or two minor distortions of my letter, I think I have given you enough to ponder over.

The statement by J.F. that I haven't read the works I quoted from is not true. This is the result of his knowledge that I did not quote from the actual works which I read years ago, but which I did not possess at the time of writing my letter. I note that J.F. calls his reply "The Socks." Will you kindly permit me to call this rejoinder "The Kybosh"?

Yours faithfully, 

H. Dight

Reply:

Then What Is This? 
One can easily agree with Mr. Dight when he complains that he does not understand my reply to his first letter. The lack of understanding is certainly not limited to that reply. It extends to Marx's writings, and even to several of his (Mr. Dight's) own statements.

When a correspondent misquotes, misinterprets, and opposes the works of an author he claims to agree with, there are two explanations possible of his action. One is that he has not read that author, the other is that he is deliberately misquoting him. I gave the long quotations from Marx to show the inaccuracy of Mr. Dight's statements, and gave the charitable interpretation that he had not read Marx. Now, while claiming that he has read Marx, he states that it "was years ago," and admits that he had not the works by him when writing, thus confirming my case. But he makes a far more important admission. In quoting from Lenin's book he had omitted certain words that I pointed out altered the whole sense of the paragraph. He now admits that he omitted those words, and then says "Well, of course, the proletarian State will be parliamentary in the broad sense of its meaning." This latter statement not only shatters his whole position, but is another illustration of the lack of understanding referred to above.

Mr. Dight tries to contend that his first letter showed that he "was not opposed to political action and policy," and in support of this contention says he was "concerned with advocating 'the political form at last discovered under which labour could work out its own emancipation' as opposed to your parliamentarism." This is another case of failure to understand his own terms. Although I had, in my previous answer, given a short account of political and parliamentary actions, Mr. Dight makes not the slightest attempt to deal with that account, nor even to state what he means by "parliamentarism."

There are two, and only two, general methods of political action open to the working class. One is to use their political weapons to place the master class in Parliament—the citadel of power—and the other is to use those weapons to drive the master class out of that citadel. We, being Marxists, advocate the latter method.

Mr. Dight opposes this policy. But he does not advocate the former policy. Therefore the only attitude left open to him by his antagonism to our policy is opposition to political action.

Mr. Dight says that he "cannot see" how the long quotation from "The Civil War in France" says what it states. Most of our readers will agree as to his blindness when they are reminded of a phrase in the Manifesto of the Central Committee given in the earlier part of the quotation: "They" (the proletarians of Paris) "have understood that it is in their imperious and their absolute right to render themselves masters of their own destinies, by seizing upon the governmental power." Marx gloried in their action, which is the policy laid down in our Declaration of Principles. When I said that the quotation in full showed that the much abused phrase of Marx was referring to the workers' position after this seizure Mr. Dight retorts that I am answered by Gilmac when quoting Engels in the same issue. Doubtless it surprises Mr. Dight to find two writers in such close agreement, a crime of which our writers and speakers are commonly guilty. Gilmac's quotation says: " From the very start the Commune had to recognise that the working class having once attained supremacy in the State, could not work with the old machinery of government." Here, in language simple enough for a child to understand, Marx and Engels state that the workers must first seize political power to achieve emancipation. It is as clear as daylight that before the workers can construct a State in harmony with the common ownership of the means of life, they must have reached power, must have "attained supremacy," must have "laid hold of the State machinery," must have captured Parliament. Not until they have carried out this political action can they control the armed forces and use them as the agent of emancipation to drive the capitalist class out of possession.. Obviously those who oppose this policy are anti-Marxians, whether they call themselves Anarchists or Communists.

Mr. Dight asks if I found "the constitution of feudal Japan in conflict with the political aspirations of the Japanese bourgeoisie of that time?" And then he says: "All I know is that it runs counter to the Marxian theory of the Materialist Conception of History." Of course, he does not know anything of the sort. His statement shows first the confusion existing in his mind, secondly the lack of knowledge of the conditions by his reference to the "political aspirations" of the Japanese bourgeoisie, and thirdly his entire ignorance of the Materialist Conception of History.

That theory points out that when economic development reaches a certain stage, a more or less rapid change must take place in the superstructure of society, but, of course, says nothing at all of the change being brought about "constitutionally" or "unconstitutionally." as, clearly, this factor depends upon the circumstances prevailing at the time. In accordance with the powers given them by the constitution, the ruling class in Japan (partly capitalist partly feudal) carried through a social revolution. All Mr. Dight's "fancies" cannot touch these facts. Another illustration of what can be done "constitutionally" occurred in this country in 1914. When war broke out the Parliament—the central organ of Political Power—wiped out the whole legal basis of Private Property and Personal Right by giving the Government power to take any property and any person it desired under the notorious Defence of the Realm Acts. And this was quite "constitutional" and not in the least "Fancy," as so many found to their cost.

There is one other inaccuracy. Mr. Dight wishes to call his rejoinder "The Kybosh." Its proper title would be "The Boomerang."

Jack Fitzgerald

Editorial: Light, More Light ! (1920)

Editorial from the November 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

Now that the winter season is upon us, with the usual contraction of outdoor activities and surrender to the lure of the "kitchen cobbles"—at 3s. 3d. per cwt. (observe how neatly we steer between the sentimental poetic and the stodgey prosaic)—we take the opportunity of directing our readers' attention to the very important matter of their education—Socialist education.

If it is anywhere true that 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing,' it surely must be in the movement for working-class emancipation. Here a mere glimpse of the truth, revealing the glory of the possibilities of the future society, may kindle hopes and stir emotions that might become a very valuable asset—to the labour misleader, and therefore to his capitalist paymasters. Socialist education is the only thing that can make the workers thoroughly acquainted with their economic and social interests and how to proceed to secure their earliest realisation, and is, therefore, the only thing that can keep them out of the hands of those ghouls the "labour leaders," and from being led off onto the roads of error, and even shepherded into the masters' camp.

Those upon whom devolve the task of producing this journal keep ever before them the vast importance of this matter of education in the deeper things of our propaganda, as also do our speakers and lecturers; but it is precisely these things that are least suitable for expounding in the meagre pages of a monthly journal, and even less suitable for exposition from the street-corner platform. For these highly scientific and technical subjects there is nothing to compare with the classic works, and no method within the general reach of men and women of the working class which can altogether take the place of home study.

We urge upon all readers, therefore, to make profitable use of the winter nights by securing Socialist works and studying them. In this course we unreservedly place our services at the disposal of our friends, and shall be happy to advise, or to explain difficult points.

To Heel. (1920)

From the November 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

The antics of the "Daily Herald" are just now extremely interesting and, in these days of fakes and fakers, keep the observer wondering what will turn up next.

We have seen the one in which the Bolshevik £75,000 was turned down in heroic mood, and our admiration was excited—more or less—by the beatific terms of self-righteousness in which the martyrs made public their martyrdom.

Being credulous, we may try to believe in the protestations of Lansbury and Co. that they were ignorant of the negotiations carried on by Francis Meynell in Russia, although it may be noted that this individual resigned from the "Herald" board when their action was made public. Nelson is alleged to have put his glass to his blind eye at the battle of Copenhagen, and one wonders if that was the action of the "Herald" directorate whilst Meynell was wandering around in Russia. In any case, the offer became public property from other sources than the sheets of the "Daily Herald" before its readers were regaled with the details and were asked to express their opinions as to the acceptance or rejection of this mysterious lucre.

If any of my readers followed the published answers to this query they will have waded through extracts giving ayes and nayes, and will have had fresh evidence of the hope for Socialism expressed by such a journal, supported by such a medley of points of view.

The latest turn is the raising of the price of the "Daily Herald" from 1d. to 2d., and at the moment of writing the matter is being presented as a life and death struggle between the capitalist Press and itself. And judging by the tone of the scribes who are entrusted with the "writing up," the demise of the "Daily Herald" would be a double funeral—that of itself and that of Socialism. This, however, is hardly likely to be the case for the following reasons :

The "Daily Herald" is not a Socialist journal, is not run by Socialists, is not written by Socialists, does not present Socialism in any shape or form, and is not read by Socialists as such. The only thing connected with it that has any relation to Socialism is the word, and it has to be presumed that the idea behind the constant use of the term "Socialism" in its columns is that constant repetition of terms is the only necessity for the production of facts.

This point of view may be good enough for readers of the "Daily Herald" (which is so much the worse for them) but it is not good enough for us, and we state unequivocally that Socialism would not suffer one jot or tittle if that paper suspended publication to-morrow.

I am prepared to admit that the "Daily Herald" very occasionally tells a little more of the truth than the organs of the Press when it suits the powers behind it, but the Socialist knows what value to place on the news ladled out daily to the working class, and therefore is not to be carried away by that, and the members of the working class who have not yet awakened to the knowledge of their position in society will not arrive at that awakening any faster by reading what the renegade Atheist, Lansbury, or any of his staff, may decide is good for them to know.

To give an idea of the "freedom" of opinion represented in the columns of the "Daily Herald" we have only to remember that quite a large and growing interest is controlled by the trade unions and co-operative societies, and various of them from time to time vote sums of money to be invested therein. In addition it is common knowledge that a proportion of seats on the board are allotted to their representatives, "responsible trade union leaders" and co-operative society officials, all of which obviously shows that the policy of the paper has to coincide with the ideas of these gentry. Otherwise the funeral service of the paper would soon be read, as it could not exist through many issues without such support.

Thus it is quite clear that any criticisms of the actions of ''responsible trade union leaders'' and their like have to be made, if at all, with an eye to the possible effect upon the funds and circulation. As an illustration of this may be cited Robert Smillie's crawl out over the miner's strike, where he endeavoured to get the miners to consent to their demand for higher wages being made contingent upon increased production. Only Smillie can explain how the miners could benefit under such a scheme, and though he might satisfy the readers of the "Daily Herald" by such an explanation, the could not satisfy a Socialist, and probably only a small proportion of the miners. Anyway, the "Labour" daily dared not criticise Smillie, although its policy—if such a term can be applied to a total absence of any semblance to a definite point of view—appears to be in disagreement with the Smillie backslide.

The same argument applies generally. No journal not supported by Socialists can put the Socialist viewpoint, just as no worker can produce works of art if he is paid to make golly-wogs—"he who pays the piper calls the tune," and the tune the "Daily Herald" has to pipe is called by as motley a crew of anti-Socialists and time-servers as could be found in the whole newspaper world.

When the workers decide that they require a Socialist daily Press they will have it and support it, and they will not invite assistance from Lansbury and his like, or accept it if offered. They will see to it that Socialism is presented and Socialism only, recognising that Socialists can only be made by Socialist propaganda.

D.W. F.

Don't Be Misled. (1920)

From the November 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

While attending a crowded meeting held by the Socialist Party of Great Britain in North London the other night, the writer was afforded a glimpse into the mind of a man in the audience who might be taken as representative of the ordinary type of individual.

This man showed by his manner that he was intelligent to a degree, but he also showed that his education was sadly in need of extension.

He asked the speaker (who had referred to the probability of the coming winter being a very hard and

BLACK ONE for the workers) a question, the gist of which is as follows:

  "Don't you think that, while keeping to the idea of bringing in Socialism, the workers would be well advised to agitate for reforms to mitigate the hard times that are undoubtedly in store for them this winter ? Such reforms as getting the Government to give up the campaign in Mesopotamia, to resume trade relations with Russia, to start building houses on a large scale in England, which would put thousands into work, and to take full advantage of countless other ways of economising and making work for the enormous army of unemployed ?" 

It may also be noted here that the questioner declared that he was "in sympathy with the Socialists," in fact he was a Socialist !

Now, as men who have studied the matter from the point of view of working-class interests—and the interests of the only other class, the capitalist class, are in good enough hands— we are able to state most emphatically that agitating for reforms of THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM will not better the material conditions of the working class generally.

It matters not what reform the working class may agitate for or against, the final say as to whether it shall or shall not be rests with the capitalist class and their agents.

The term "capitalist agent" comprises every member of Parliament and a great many who would like to be members. Very few workers, however, have sufficient knowledge to understand that the three candidates who stood for the constituency of Ilford at the recent bye-election were, without exception, agents of the capitalist class.

However, let us get back to this matter of reforms.

During recent years we have had some shining examples of reforms that were or WERE NOT WANTED by the workers being placed on the Statute Book because the capitalist class judged them expedient for their own interests. Take for example the National Health Act.

When that "rare and refreshing fruit" was dangled before the eyes of the workers by the capitalist agent, Mr. Lloyd George, it was a reform strongly objected to by the workers in general, but because it suited the interests of the capitalist class, and because, as at Ilford recently, the workers had blindly given away their power to have things otherwise, that reform went on the Statute Book.

Again, the granting of a pension to aged poor persons was a reform that the workers generally desired.

The capitalist agents examined the idea, laughed up their sleeves, and old age pensions became an accomplished fact.

And now the poor old pensioner knows that he would be better off in the workhouse. We can get what satisfaction we may out of knowing that the workhouses are practically empty (some having been sold), and that old age pensioners—who must have led "respectable" lives—cannot possibly live on the miserable pittance that reform has given them.

Old people without friends or resources did not starve in the workhouse, but now they are COMPELLED to do so on the terribly inadequate sums they receive, while, by way of contrast, a law-breaking criminal, a convict, according to Sir J. L. Baird, Under Secretary at the Home Office, costs the Government the sum of £111 per annum for his upkeep.

Take the latest reform that has come about, the Unemployment Insurance Act that comes into force on November 8th.

Unemployment benefit will be at the rate of 15s. weekly for men and 12s. for women—and not for more than 15 weeks in any insurance year.

According to the "Daily Chronicle" of Oct. 8th, Preston, to take only one town, had a sixth of its population out of work, and "an increasing number of firms are adopting short time and curtailing output."

Our capitalist masters hare seen the possibility of serious trouble arising as a result of the terrible misery, want, and disease that will unavoidably follow in the train of such widespread and lasting unemployment.

They know that it is easier for them to subsidise misery than to meet strife, hence the 15s. per week for the breadwinner to keep himself, his wife, and his children on, and bread costing 1s. 4d. per quarter ! AFTER 15 WEEKS WHAT?

Let the workers gravely consider these reforms, and then reflect that all the material wealth of the world is the result of the application of the workers' energy to nature-given material.

Wealth can be produced in stupendous abundance by the workers, but that production is limited by its profit-extracting possibilities for the capitalist class. When the capitalist sees no chance of disposing of the articles that his employees have produced, for a substantial profit, he curtails production or closes down his works altogether.

To-day the warehouses of the world are filled to overflowing with the goods necessary to life. The capitalists cannot dispose of them; the workers are forbidden by capitalists' property-protecting laws to take what they are so much in need of, although there is plenty for all.

And the worker, in his profound ignorance and general apathy toward these problems that concern him so vitally, is content to starve, or at best to agitate for reforms !

The wonderful knowledge attained up till now by human beings is not sufficient to prevent the vast majority of them being in danger throughout their lives of starving in the midst of plenty—of the plenty created by themselves.

This vicious system that we live under has not always been, and it need not continue. But before it can be superseded by Socialism, which is a system of society based upon the common ownership of the means of life, Socialism must be understood and desired by the workers generally.

To agitate for the reform of a system which has such a basis as the capitalist system has, to endeavour to palliate its inevitably harsh bearing upon those who possess nothing, is a waste of energy and time.

Worse than that, the struggle for reform obscures the main issue.

One thing, and one thing only, will change for the better the condition of the workers generally, and that is the OVERTHROW OF CAPITALISM and its supersession by Socialism.

Our friend the questioner, although declaring himself to be a Socialist, proved beyond doubt that he did not understand what Socialism means, and consequently he could not be a Socialist.

He is not alone, however, in labouring under a multitude of disarranged ideas. There are many unfortunately like him who do not understand what Socialism means but who are always ready to assert that they are Socialists.

There are also a great many who, while thoroughly understanding the Socialist position, are satisfied to improve their own position at the expense of the workers whom they mislead—men who make a good fat living out of wearing out the workers' energy and obscuring their understanding by leading them in strivings for reform that, at best, only prolong the life of a system that makes the existence of the worker a long-drawn-out terror.

Some of these paid misleaders of men have actually enough subtlety and bare-faced villainy about them to call themselves Socialists.

This refers to such agents of the capitalist class as the apostles of reform who, a short time ago were strenuously advising the workers to PRODUCE MORE with the result that is plain for any poor fool to see to-day, when, as the consequence of having "produced more" than our capitalist masters can find a ready market for, the workers are unemployed and unable to obtain the things they need to keep themselves alive.

The abolition of capitalism and the inception of Socialism is a work that necessitates knowledge of the system now obtaining, of the system that can replace it, and of the necessary work that shall make Socialism an accomplished fact.

To gain this knowledge the workers must think for themselves !

Socialism will not come until it is generally understood and desired.

Organisation will give knowledge an effectiveness that will sweep want and poverty from the earth.

Such an organisation is to your hand in the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Your lot to-day is insecurity of life, misery, degradation and want, but if you will have it.

S.

Letter: An Interesting Letter from a Reader. (1920)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

To the Editor.

Dear Sirs, —The article “Paradox or Illusion” which appeared in your July issue should be read by all who desire their minds cleared of the bunkum served up by the daily Press.

The vicious reasoning that leads to a “vicious circle” conclusion is effectively dealt with. Therefore it surprised me not a little to find a discordant in the person of ” Bannochie,” whose contribution appeared in last month’s issue.

Our friend assumes, apparently, that as the market price of gold is above the mint price, the law upon which your conclusions are based is inoperative,

Is it not probable that this unusual phenomenon of gold premium is due to the chaotic state of the foreign exchanges, and not to an excessive issue of paper money, and that the sum total of prices still determine the sum total of money and not vice versa ?

A perusal of the metal market quotations shows that the price of gold varies inversely with the exchange rate for American dollars. The Government is redeeming a portion of the debt contracted during the war. The usual method adopted in the repayment of foreign loans is the cancellation of “bills” purchased from the exporters of goods to the creditor country. “Bills” are, however, at a premium, and it may be more economical to purchase gold and export it than to purchase “bills,” which, incidentally, by reducing the number available for importers, would tend to depreciate the rate of exchange still further.

No private individual is allowed to draw sovereigns from the Bank for export, but he may purchase gold bullion. Consequently the keen competition for gold to evade the necessity of buying ‘”bills” forces the price of gold to a premium.

And now for the point at issue:

Every “bill” endorsed is a promise to pay in gold.

It matters not the method, or the expense incurred in the process. The question of premiums and discounts is, strictly speaking, a domestic one.

Goods have had their values expressed in terms of gold, and equal quantities of gold have equal value, nothing more or less.

Yours faithfully, 

Wm. Nicholls.

Our Comment.

Mr. Nicholls’s views are correct, as is easily seen when one calls to mind the large number of countries that are in debt owing to the war. This means that not only here, but in every country in Europe, there is a scramble for gold either to meet the interest on this debt or to pay balances for goods received. As the gold is, obviously, not paid for by gold, but by goods or credit, it simply means that more goods, or more credit, is being offered for the gold to-day. Hence its “price”—a term causing great confusion in the minds of people at the moment, is higher than before.—Ed. Com.

Letter: Tales of a Traveller. (1920)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

Comrade Editors,

Reverting to some remarks made by F. F. in the July "S.S." in his article "Paradox or Illusion," I am tempted to offer a few myself in view of the fact that further argument was indulged in in the September issue.

In the first case I would state emphatically that the £1 Bradbury note does not represent the value of the sovereign, despite the fact that one is able to exchange notes for gold if one cares to pay a visit to the Bank of England.

I may say in this connection that it is necessary to be very sparing in one's demands for such exchange, otherwise the Bank will be sufficiently curious as to one's motives to set the "splits" moving to ascertain them, and a case recently tried in the courts showed what severe penalties are visited upon those who attempt to realise the difference in value contained in a sovereign and a £1 Bradbury and this difference is sufficiently tempting for folk out on the make to risk these penalties in their endeavour, to obtain it.

I was in France a few months since, and whilst exchanging English paper money for French asked what difference would be allowed for gold, and I can state categorically that in every case the offer was between 25 and 30 per cent. higher. Previously to this I was in Egypt, where I found 31s. was the price ; about the same period in India the figure ranged, in various districts, between 32s. and 45s., and while in the Strait Settlements the price was not so high, it was quite easy to obtain as much as 33s. to 35s. In China the same conditions prevailed in a lesser degree owing to the fact that less English money was available and the cost of forwarding the gold to the place of demand had to be taken into account.

I quote the above from actual experience, not from hearsay, and may say a thriving business is being done all the time in this realisation of the difference between the value contained in a gold sovereign and that alleged to be represented in a £1 note. In fact, if F.F. cares to try it, I could prove to him that he could pay first class travelling expenses and live like a duke on the proceeds of the sale of gold sovereigns in the right quarters, if he can be assured of obtaining a sufficient supply of the coin under discussion. But there's the rub ! I would emphasise that in all the cases I have quoted the exchange is offered in English paper currency.

To conclude, I would enquire, does F.F. maintain that despite the rise in price of other commodities that of gold remains unchanged ?

D. W. F.

Reply:
My critic states "most emphatically that the £1 Bradbury note does not represent the value of the sovereign, despite the fact that one is able to exchange notes for gold if one cares to pay a visit to the Bank of England." But he completely fails to show why they are so exchangeable if the note does not represent the sovereign. The fact that they are exchangeable is surely sufficient to prove that the £1 note is backed by the sovereign, and, therefore, that the latter's value is fully represented by the note. Unless it can be proved that the two are not exchangeable it is idle to assert that they are not equivalents. Only those things containing or representing value in equal amounts are exchangeable in the capitalist world.

The reference by D.W.F. to the "folk on the make" who demand sovereigns for notes has no bearing on the question, although as I pointed out in my reply to Mr. Bannochie, the fact that it is illegal to melt down sovereigns and unpatriotic to demand them, together with the knowledge that the gold is there if wanted, fully explains why it is not demanded.

All the cases D.W.F. cites of the difference allowed for gold when exchanging English for foreign money has nothing to do with the subject. Gold in the form of bullion is international money, and exchanges at its value everywhere. Where the rate of exchange between countries varies, the difference between credit notes and gold will vary in the same direction. The difference in the rate of exchange quoted by D.W.F. represents largely the state of government and other credits of those countries.

A paper currency convertible into the standard metal on demand can no more be inflated than a metal currency in which every coin contains its actual worth in that metal. If the Government in pre-war days had minted more sovereigns than were necessary for the exchange of commodities, all the sovereigns over and above those necessary would simply have lain idle at the Bank.

And exactly the same thing happens where gold is represented by notes that are convertible on demand.

In the business arena of the country the note will buy the same amount of commodities as the sovereign, and is treated with the same respect. Whether debts are paid in gold or paper the same amount must be handed over in £ s. d., and no discount or reduction is made for payment in either medium. Obviously, then, for all business purposes, for the transaction of all exchanges within the country the £1 note represents the sovereign.

The question with which D.W.F. concludes his letter does not affect the above conclusions. It would be just as absurd to deny that the price of gold had risen as it is to deny that the £1 note represents the sovereign. Those who claim that the inflation of currency is the cause of high prices can only establish their claim by explaining how it is possible to inflate a convertible currency.

F. Foan

Our £1000 Fund. (1920)

Party News from the November 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

Christmas is coming, and so a word about our Thousand pound fund will be a word in season. Important changes in regard to our Party Organ are now occupying our attention, and an influx of money to that fund would go a long way to clear the atmosphere. Send us along a shilling or two before you get the sack and haven't any to send. It will comfort you to think that when you could you had a cut at your tormentors. Do it now!

Pressure Valves. (1920)

From the November 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

What is meant by the term "pressure valves" needs no explanation : the majority of men know their use in these days of highly developed machinery. Therefore it is not the present writer's intention to pen an article on valves as applied to mechanical devices, but to point the accusing finger at the human valves who appear in the form of Labour and trade union officials screwed rather tight upon the working-class ignorance.

At present we see these valves working vigorously, proof of the high pressure in the working-class boiler, which in its turn results from the still higher pressure put upon the working class by modern capitalist methods of production.

We have had many opportunities—and the future holds a good many more—to witness how the labour-leading charlatans adapt themselves as valves to relieve labour pressure and work only for the maintenance of the master class, sure, if something unpleasant happens for the master class, that the labour wheedlers must not be blamed.

For instance, analyse the attitude of the coal miners' leaders. Their alarm whistle has torn the air for four weeks to inform the master class that something unpleasant would happen if the high labour pressure was not relieved. Whenever they sound the alarm they take great pains to show the master class how to artificially relieve pressure in order that the old engine— which takes everything worth having and returns nothing worth keeping to the working class—may be kept going.

This artificial relief, you will have guessed, takes in all cases the form of wage adjustment to accord with the increased cost of living, but as you will have already observed, even the most generous (!) adjustment never puts the workers much above the poverty line.

There are many who are familiar with all manner of mechanical devices, mostly ardent T.U. men, walking alongside closed factories with nothing to do and next to nothing to eat. They were told by their leaders and other capitalist agents to produce more in order to save "their" country from ruin. They produced more, with the result that, whatever they have done for "their" country, they have put themselves on the starvation list.

Why don't they study our warnings given month after month ? Why don't they seriously investigate? Why don't they use their brain power in the right manner? They soon would realise the uselessness of following leaders who work hand in hand with the very class they ought to fight to the bitter end if they honestly wished to serve, and not to help dominate, the working class.

Do these ever-increasing masses of unemployed study the law of cause and effect ? They certainly suffer the effects of the capitalist system.

The S.P.G.B. is open to them if they are desirous of obtaining a thorough knowledge of the cause of their suffering and of the means whereby we shall rid the world of a system which causes such suffering.

A.  DRUMMER

Don't Be Misled. (1920)

From the November 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fellow Worker,

YOU ARE VICTORIOUS!

YOU have won the war. YOU have won the peace. YOU have won the General Election. YOU have won the lockouts, the strikes, the disease, the hospitals, lunatic asylums, and the workhouses.

YOU have won CAPITALISM !

Yours alone is the credit; you alone are to be praised.

You have followed your leaders' advice and worked harder, and now master's warehouses are chock full with commodities. You have glutted the world with wealth. Factories are closing down; "hands" are being discharged wholesale. The markets will not absorb the wealth produced. YOURS is the credit.

You VOTED for capitalism. You SUPPORT capitaliam. You WANT capitalism.

Women and children are taking your jobs. Your women are being forced on the streets. And the pawnbroker will only advance nine-pence on the "Services Rendered " badge.

YOURS is the credit.

You have returned your masters to Parliament. Again have you given them the right to exploit you, your wives and kiddies; to declare dividends on the wounds and scars of "heroes," to burn, maim, poison and destroy for profit.

Like sheep you have followed and follow "leaders," who knowingly lead you into the wilderness of Direct Action and anarchy, a wilderness that bristles with bayonets and machine guns, and where the only "manna" you are likely to receive will be in the shape of bombs from Handley-Pages, made in nationalised factories, where shop stewards see to it that trade union conditions are carried out.

You voted for the Co-Op Labour man, for the Coalitionist, for the Lib-Lab.—any old freak who would do his best to perpetuate capitalism. You voted for the capitalists' profits, and your own "right" to work or starve, to work AND starve, to idle and starve.

You have been of every shade of opinion, Christian, Atheist, Tory, Liberal, Labour— any and every thing.

BECOME INTELLIGENT. Study your position in society. Learn that the present system is based upon the private ownership of the means and instruments of wealth production and distribution ; that there are two classes in society, the possessing class and the working class—YOUR class.

Discover that because you are denied access to the means of life you are a commodity, bought and sold just like tomatoes and tripe. Then you will know that the only salvation for you will be the establishment of a system of society in which the whole people commonly own and control their means of wealth production and distribution.

When you have progressed so far JOIN THE ARMY.

Not an army to fight capitalist quarrels over trade routes and markets, but the army of revolutionary workers organised in the Socialist Party of Great Britain, with the object of capturing political power, in order to abolish capitalism and establish Socialism. 

A. H.

"Middle-Class" Respectability. (1920)

From the November 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

One hears a good deal about that portion of society yclept the "middle class." In reality the successive class struggles throughout history have wiped out all but two classes, viz, the capitalist class and the working class; but apparently the title "middle class" is still given to those unfortunates (or fortunates as the case may be) who wallow not in luxury or in mud ! Their main function seems to be to keep up the moral tone of mankind and save for humanity its chiefest virtue, Respectability.

To the discerning Socialist the capitalist system is, most of it, naked rottenness, while the rest of it is covered by a thin veneer that only accentuates the filth beneath. The working class, it would seem, do not notice the rottenness, but are deceived by the veneer. This veneer manifests itself in a variety of ways, in conventional respectability, religious and military ceremonies, persiflage, and, above all, in treating as "taboo" the ugly truth !

The shibboleth of the "middle class" is "respectability." It believes itself, on that account, as distinct from and above the working class as the dwellers upon high Olympus are from and above the cowherds of the plains below. It calls its ugly little villa "The Lindens," and marries its daughters respectably, whereas the working class lives in a tenement and very often does not marry its daughters at all, and therein lies the difference.

But when the Socialist comes along and points out that both portions are alike inasmuch as they are equally exploited and robbed by the capitalist class, what a raising of hands and eyebrows there is, what a fluttering in the dovecotes of Suburbia! But it is nevertheless true that the so-called middle-class man is as fearful and afraid for his economic position as any member of society who is forced to sell his power to labour in order to live.

To a very large extent capitalism thrives on this self deception of the "salariat." Most of the apologists of the system spring from this section of the working class. And though some of its opponents are of the "middle class," they have met with their most bitter opposition in its ranks. For why ?

The "middle class" knows that slums exist; it also knows that people starve to death occasionally. It will admit, when its young people are out of the room, that prostitutes abound in lasge numbers in great cities ; that venereal diseases fill hospitals. But then, you know, it is not usual to talk of such things—it is not respectable!

I once asked some young men of this "middle class" at the beginning of the recent war, why it was they rushed to avenge the outraged women of Belgium yet observed without indignation thousands of women forced to sell their bodies on the streets to avoid starvation. I think their answer was to call me a pro-German ! To them and their section fighting Germans was the proper thing to do. But to think why they should or should not never occurred to them.

It is not to be wondered at that the capitalist Press, particularly during a strike, keeps the "middle class " distinct from the rest of the community. But as Marx has pointed out, this section of society is gradually being brought face to face with its true position in relation to the rest of society, and the time is not far distant when "respectability" will have ceased to be a stumbling block in the path of progressive thought. We read now-a-days of unions for the protection of clergymen, bank clerks, doctors, and others who, perhaps unwillingly enough, are beginning to see thst so far as the capitalist system is concerned, there is not an atom of difference between the man with a pen or lancet and the miner or road-mender.

But they should bear this in mind and act upon it too: Capitalism can do nothing for them. There is one remedy only for the evils and discomforts they are up against, and that is the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of Socialism.

Stanley H. Steele