The Book's background (1967)

From the September 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 1847 Karl Marx wrote The Poverty of Philosophy. It was written in French and was a criticism of Proudhon’s Philosophy of Poverty. Of the Poverty of Philosophy Engels remarks that it was written “when Marx had just elucidated the principles of his new historical and economic theory”. In 1859 Marx wrote his Critique of Political Economy which was the forerunner of Capital. Vol. I of the latter was published in 1867, and was the only volume of Capital that he himself saw through the press.

Thus twenty years of preparation elapsed between his first book on the subject and the publication of Capital. During those twenty years many changes occurred in the world signifying the development of modem capitalism.

Now let us take a brief look at the background of the times in which Marx was writing his book.

It was the birthtime of modern industry, with the industrial capitalists just coming to power. The Bessemer process of making steel was soon to be patented and shortly afterwards the first steel ship was launched. In the factories and on the land hours of labour were long and the exploitation of women and children was widespread. Everywhere the expression of revolutionary opinion, and even radical criticism of existing evils, met with ruthless suppression, and the spokesmen were frequently imprisoned by the governments of the time. Here and there groups of workers exchanged expressions of international brotherhood but, for the most part, workers were too concerned with their own local troubles to have time to worry about the hardships of their fellows abroad.

In 1848 oppressive conditions had led to a wave of revolutions throughout Europe; a mixture that included working class and nationalist revolts. The real basis of the struggles was the movement of the industrial capitalist for elbow room and political power; the other classes were just pawns, sometimes awkward ones, in this struggle. The spark that set the movement alight was a commercial crisis which, starting in England in 1847, upset production and trade. It affected every economic group, each of which hoped to solve its difficulties in the various uprisings. The most troublesome element in these struggles was the working class, the only really energetic class in the movement, which pushed its claims to the front at the beginning and eventually frightened some of the revolutionary fervour out of the other groups.

The outcome of these uprisings was the suppression, for the time being, of incipient working class movements like the Chartists movement in England and similar movements in France and Germany. At the same time, in France, the uprising enabled Napoleon’s nephew, Louis, to get into the seat of power and inaugurate the Third Empire. The latter came to an ignominious end with the defeat of France in the war of 1871. The uprisings also elevated the power of the Prussian state, leading to the unification of Germany, and the nationalist movement in Italy that led to the unification of Italy.

The instabilities and suppressions of the Forties, along with the discoveries of gold in California and Australia, started the emigration of large numbers of people from Europe to America, where they hoped to start a new, less frustrated and more comfortable, life; a hope that often met with defeat. The Irish famine of the late forties, together with abortive nationalist uprisings, drove a large number of Irish abroad, most of them to America.

America at this time was roughly split into two different sections; the industrial North and the agricultural South. The South supplied cotton and other agricultural products to the Northern manufacturers but had the principal influence in political control. Development of the North was hampered by burdens put upon them by Southern enactments. Resentment grew until it finally boiled over in the bitter Civil War that broke out in 1861. Although, on the northern side, it was extolled as a war to end slavery, it was in fact a war waged by the North for control of political power by the industrialists in order to remove obstacles in the way of their expansion. One among the many ways in which the South was obstructing the march of the North was in land hunger. The Southern planters needed to constantly extend their landholdings for their cotton and tobacco plantations, and were coming up against, and trying to swallow, the lands of Northern cattle and sheep farmers.

At the beginning of the Civil War the incipient labour movements were opposed to it, but they eventually gave up their opposition and lined up with the North. The outcome of the war, and the victory of the North, released a rapid movement of expansion in industry, fanning and transport. The West was opened up, working class exploitation on a grand scale began to flourish and, along with this the basis was laid for a growing group of American tycoons to accumulate large fortunes by the most ruthless methods.

In the meantime in Europe the spread of the ideas contained in the Communist Manifesto of 1848, and the growing contact of English and Continental workers, led to discussions which were instrumental in establishing the International Working Mens Association in 1864, in which Marx played a leading part. It had an uneasy existence and collapsed after a few years, partly through the opposition of English trade union leaders and the machinations of the Anarchists, but mainly because the workers were not yet ready to accept the principles laid down by the International. However a movement was growing in Germany and other countries which brought about the establishment of a number of social democratic parties, the flimsy basis of which, in working class understanding, was not finally disclosed until they fell to pieces in the First World War.

During the twenty years Marx worked on Capital, English governments were acquiring territory by war or trickery in various parts of the world, and building up the empire that has since largely disintegrated. In three wars with China it pierced the Chinese wall and opened up ports to European trade. In the second war, 1854-1860, the Chinese were forced to legalise the importation of Opium.

One of the outstanding events of the period was the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species which gave a solid foundation to the theory of evolution. Another was the first successful laying of the Atlantic Cable in 1866.

Two acts passed, one in 1864 and the other in 1868, are indications of the extent of the exploitation of children. In 1864 the employment of child chimney sweeps was forbidden. The children used to be pushed up the chimneys to clear the soot. Like all such acts its implementation was constantly infringed. In 1868 gang labour of children under eight years of age in agriculture was prohibited.

In 1867, the year the first volume of Capital was published, the Court of Queens Bench decided that trade unions were illegal associations acting in restraint of trade!

During the twenty years Marx was engaged in writing his book, the world had undergone upheavals and changes in the course of which some of the remaining relics of Feudalism were swept away, the owners of land and industry grew richer but the working class still remained a subject and exploited class.

Gilmac.

The Birth of "Capital" (1967)

From the September 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

We celebrate the centenary of the publication of Volume 1 of Karl Marx’s "Das Kapital” by these special articles on the book and its Influence.

In September 1867, Otto Meissner of Hamburg published the first edition of the book that was to rank with Darwin’s Origin of the Species, and Morgan’s Ancient Society; Volume One of Capital. What Darwin’s book did for natural science, and Morgan’s for sociology, Marx's Capital did for political economy. In this work Marx was able, by his use of the dialectical method, to solve the riddle of value, which had eluded all previous economists, and so lay the foundation for a scientific understanding of capitalism.

At the end of 1865 the work existed in the form of an enormous manuscript which only Marx could prepare for publication. From January 1866 to March 1867, out of this mass of material, he produced the first volume of Capital, in the form we have it today, a complete work. This was an achievement which displayed a terrific working capacity, as during this period he was troubled by ill-health, including a serious illness in February 1866, and by an accumulation of debts that worried him.

The final work was started in January 1866. Marx writing to Engels in February of that year said. . . “I enjoyed licking the infant clean after so many birth pangs”. No work of this nature has ever been written under more difficult circumstances. On at least two occasions, Marx fixed a time limit for its completion; in 1851 it was five weeks, in 1859 it was six weeks. Always the time limit was ignored, due to his tremendous care and scrupulous regard for facts, from which he would not be shaken, even by the impatient urging of his friend Engels.

The first bundle of manuscript was sent to Meissner in November 1866. In April 1867, Marx personally took the rest of the material to Hamburg, and was able to complete the arrangements for publication.

A letter from Engels to Marx, dated April 1867, portrays the strain Marx underwent during the years of preparation.

I have always thought that the damned book on which you have worked so long was the reason for all your misfortunes, and that you would never be able to overcome them as long as you had not shaken it off. Its incompleteness dragged you down physically, intellectually and financially, and I can well understand that you feel a different fellow now that you have got rid of it

The hope expressed in this letter was only partly fulfilled. Marx was not able to maintain the improvement in his health, nor was his financial position very much better, although he was optimistic when he wrote to Engels on 7 May. . . .  "I firmly hope and trust that by the end of the year I shall be a made man, at least in the sense that I hope to be able to reform my financial position”. He did not become a ’made man’ by the end of the year, or at any time.

Marx, on his return to London, corrected the proof sheets and at two o'clock in the morning of the 16 August 1867 wrote to Engels informing him that the last printer’s sheet had just been corrected. “So this volume is now finished”. His tribute to Engels reads . . .  “I must thank you alone that it was possible, without your sacrifices for me, I could never possibly have done the enormous amount of work for the three volumes. I embrace you with heartfelt thanks. Greetings, my dearly beloved friend.”

Marx was, during this period, very anxious about his book. Writing to Engels on 2nd November 1867, he said . . . “The fate of my book makes me nervous. I see and hear nothing”. The impatience shown by this quotation was hardly justified. The book had been published barely two months, certainly not long enough to write and publish a proper criticism. Engels and Dr. Kugelman, the latter a friend of Marx, did their best to call attention to the book. Between them they secured the publication of advance notices in a number of journals, and even a reprint of the introduction. In addition, they prepared an advertisement, which was quite sensational for those days — the publication of a biographical article in Die Gartenlaube. But Marx requested them to stop ‘Such nonsense’.

The article which Engels wrote for Die Gartenlaube was eventually published in a Berlin paper, and later, in an abbreviated form, by William Liebknecht in a Social Democratic journal.

Shortly after this, Marx’s work received some excellent criticism; Engels in the Demokratischer Wochenblatt, Schweitzer in the Social Democrat, a review by Joseph Dietzgen. Eugen Dühring, did a review in Meyer’s Encyclopaedia of 1867. Although Marx was not quite satisfied, he declared it ‘quite decent’. However, it was not long before Dühring, did his best to tear the book to pieces.

Probably one of the most curious opinions of the first volume came from a friend of Marx, Freiligrath, who was presented with a copy by the author. Frieligrath wrote to Marx, thanking him and commenting,

I know that many young merchants, and manufacturers in the Rhineland are enthusiastic about the book, and in such circles it will fulfil its real aim, and besides, it will prove an indispensible work of reference for students.

It seems fantastic that anyone should have regarded Capital in such a manner.

Ruge, an anti-socialist who as a young man fought for the Hegelian doctrine, wrote as follows:

It is an epoch-making work and it sheds a brilliant, sometimes dazzling, light on the development, decline, birth pangs and the horribly painful maladies of social periods. The passages on the production of surplus value by unpaid labour, the expropriation of the workers who work for themselves, and the approaching expropriation of the expropriators are classic. Marx’s knowledge is wide and scholarly, and he possesses splendid dialectical talent The book is far above the intellectual horizon of many people, and many newspaper writers, but it will make its way despite the breadth of its plan, or perhaps it will exercise a powerful influence for this reason.

Ludwig Feuerbach reacted in much the same way as Ruge, with the difference that he was less interested in the dialectics of the author, than the fact that the book was "Rich in undeniable facts of the most interesting, but at the same time, most horrible nature”.

In his preface to the second edition, dated 24 January 1873, Marx refers to the reception of the first edition in the following words:

The learned and unlearned spokesmen of the German bourgeoisie tried at first to kill 'Das Kapital' by silence, as they had managed to do with my earlier writings. As soon as they found that these tactics no longer fitted in with the conditions of the times, they wrote under the pretence of criticising my book, prescriptions 'for the tranquilisation of the bourgeois mind’ But they found in the workers' press (see e.g. Joseph Dietzgen’s articles in the Volkstaat) antagonists stronger than themselves, to whom (down to this very day) they owe a reply.

The statement by Ruge, that the book would ‘make its way’ has been proven correct.

During the century since the first appearance of Capital, it has been translated into many, if not all, languages. One of the early translations, in 1872, was Russian.

Permission to publish was given by the Russian censorship authority with the explanation that "although the political opinions of the author are of a very definitely socialist character, the manner of its presentation is certainly not such as to make the book open to all, and in addition, it is written in a strictly scientific fashion, so that in the opinion of the committee it should not be prosecuted”.

The reasoning of the committee of 1872 was as strange then as that of censors today. It was during this period that work commenced on a French edition. The English translation appeared in 1886, three years after the death of Marx.

One of the difficulties which has stood in the way of understanding Capital is one which Marx suggests in his Preface to the First edition, where he says: “I pre-suppose of course, a reader who is willing to learn something new and therefore, to think for himself”. Such readers are very rare. Marx was very optimistic when he made the supposition. Another difficulty has been, and still is, that of the alleged Marxists who apparently have never read the main work of Marx, or have never understood what they read, so that all sorts of weird ideas are attributed to Marx, and to Capital. Engels once asked to be spared the Marxists.

R. Ambridge

Party Notices. (1921)

Party News from the January 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

NOTICE TO LITERARY FLEDGLINGS.

The Editorial Committee will be glad to receive for publication brightly written branch Reports. No report should exceed fourteen and a half pages of the “S.S.,” for the simple reason that we do not wish to encroach upon the back page or to leave out the title of our organ, and we rather favour the idea of completing the report in one issue.

CONCERNING THAT FUND.

Old Moneybags, the Party Treasurer, declares that the Party Publicity Agent will have to be hanged if that Thousand Pounds is not raised this year. Well, so he ought to be. Will all who are tired of sitting on the family chest with a revolver and bombs, to discourage thieves, please send their money along for us to look after. Think what a shock it would be to any decent burglar when he flashed his dark lantern on your door to find our Acknowledgment List nailed thereon, and underscored the announcement—“Comrade Nosumthink, his last brass farthing*’! 

“KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.” 

Economic Class at Head Office, 17 Mount Pleasant, W.C.1. (off Farringdon Road) on Thursdays at 8 p.m. Try to attend.

Society in Effigy (1957)

Theatre Review from the June 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the Phoenix Theatre, London, Tennessee Williams’ play, Camino Real (Royal Way), is one of imagination run riot, which is also a plea for imagination and humanity. This is not a story but a nightmare; an allegory of man’s inhumanity to man, which we can read back into the world we know. Here, on the Camino Real, "the well of humanity has run dry”; here is known only callousness and greed, and those who do not fit in get short shrift. People have no value as human beings and are worth more dead than alive. Poverty is a crime and law is for the property owner and the sharper. On the Camino Real the most dangerous word is “ hermano "—brother—which unites the masses and creates unrest. The daily ritual of the social myth—the restoration of the virginity of a gipsy girl by the moon—maintains the social equilibrium.

Tennessee Williams’ theme is that a world that rejects the humanity of man becomes the horror comic of the Camino Real, or, in the words of the play, “a comic, strip read backwards."

If the theme is a grim one, it is set in a play nevertheless full of colour, richness and humour. In all. a fascinating circus of life well worth a visit if you've got a few shillings to spare and feel like a tough evening.

Ian Jones

Too Much Work (1976)

Book Review from the April 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Right to be Lazy, by Paul Lafargue. Charles H. Kerr, Chicago. New edition. $1.25.

Many people will be delighted that The Right to be Lazy has at last been reprinted. It appears at a time when “the Right to Work” is being demanded again. This was the slogan, put in currency in 1848 and persistent ever after, that Lafargue satirized. He urged the workers to raise their sights and demand something better: the right to take life easy.

The essay is part humane vision, part anger. Economists, philosophers, politicians and priests united in preaching the capitalist doctrine of “work, work, night and day”. Lafargue quotes them — and lashes the working class for acquiescing and making work its be-all. He describes the consequences the workers have brought on themselves.

Because, lending ear to the fallacious words of the economists, the proletarians have given themselves up body and soul to the vice of work, they precipitate the whole of society into these industrial crises of over-production which convulse the social organism. Then because there is a plethora of merchandise and a dearth of purchasers, the shops are closed and hunger scourges the working people with its whip of a thousand lashes . . . With pale faces, emaciated bodies, pitiful speeches they assail the manufacturers: ‘Good M. Chagot, sweet M. Schneider, give us work, it is not hunger, but the passion for work which torments us'.

The first version of The Right to be Lazy appeared in Guesde’s paper L’Egalité in 1880. In 1883 Lafargue, with Guesde and Dormoy, was sent to prison for six months for advocating social seizure of industries; and in prison he re-wrote it. It is not explicitly a plea for Socialism, though in the conclusion Lafargue says: “A citizen who gives his labour for money degrades himself to the rank of slaves.” He urged that the machine was “the saviour of humanity” and “the god who shall give him leisure and liberty”.

It is important to realize this view of Lafargue’s. Some commentators, uneasy at a possible gift to opponents of Socialism in the word “lazy”, have claimed that the title in its original French meant “the right to leisure”. This is not so: the title is “Le Droit à la Paresse” — idleness — and when Lafargue means “leisure” he uses the word “loisirs”. His argument was essentially the same as Wilde’s in The Soul of Man Under Socialism, that machinery could and should do all the work. He says in The Right to be Lazy (somewhat optimistically):

Ploughing, so painful and so crippling to the labourer in our glorious France, is in the American West an agreeable open-air pastime, which he practises in a sitting posture, smoking his pipe nonchalantly.

He believed that conditions would improve for the working class if they did not, by their willingness to toil, make the human machine the cheapest one: “O, idiots, it is because you work too much that the industrial equipment develops slowly.” His assumptions about “labour-saving” under capitalism were mistaken, but that does not diminish the strength of his appeal for man to live more fully. The Right to be Lazy remains a lively attack on the mentality of capitalism, and a pointer to a future of fun and freedom.

This new edition is rather utilitarian in its production, but that is a sign of the publishing times. It has a useful historical introduction by Fred Thompson, giving an account of Lafargue’s life and the political background in nineteenth-century France. The introduction has also some interesting material about leisure in history and in the present-day world. The English price of the pamphlet (82 pages in all) is not yet known.

Robert Barltrop

Marx: According to Humpty-Dumpty. (1934)

Book Review from the June 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

“What Marx Really Meant.” By G. D. H. Cole. (Gollancz, 5s. net.)

“It's a stupid name enough!” Humpty-Dumpty interrupted impatiently, “ What does it mean?" “Must a name mean something?" Alice asked doubtfully. . . . "When I use a word," Humpty-Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “ it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."

Mr. G. D. H. Cole has the same impudent disregard for the ordinary meaning of words. The title of a book is usually expected to give some indication of the contents. When, therefore, a book has the title “What Marx Really Meant,” it is reasonable to assume that it will contain an account of Marx's theories. When the authority is G. D. H. Cole, however, one may wonder what are his qualifications to act as an interpreter of Marx, for he is not a Marxian, and has never given any evidence of beginning to understand Marx (even Mr. E. H. Carr, a non-Marxist, in his recently published biography of Marx, groups Cole among the pseudo-Marxians), but this does not alter one's anticipations regarding the subject-matter of a book with the title “What Marx Really Meant." In other words, the plain man will give words their plain meaning and expect to find in a book with this title a plain statement of what Marx meant. He will be sadly disappointed. There is no connection between the contents and the title. The title is a sheer catchpenny label for a book which has as little connection with Marx as it has with common-sense political understanding. The book is undiluted Cole, with Marx's name dragged in to catch the unwary.

Even Mr. Cole cannot live up to the impertinence of the title, and early explains that his book is “not meant either as an exposition or as a criticism of Marx's doctrines," but is intended “to disentangle from Marx's teaching, from what is dead or no longer appropriate what remains alive and capable of that process of growth and adaptation which is the prerogative of living things.” If that was his object, he ought to have called his book, “What Cole happens to mean—at the moment.”

He betrays a certain amount of nervousness at setting himself up as an authority on Marx, and at dragging Marx into the hotch-potch of his ideas. After asking his readers to make “due allowance for (his) shortcomings as a guide,” he attempts to forestall criticism with the following statement: —

   “Some Marxists will say that what I have been stating is not Marxism at all, but a radically different doctrine. Even if that were so, it would not matter, provided that mine was the better doctrine for to-day. But I think what I have written is in essence Marxist, in that sense in which Marxism is to-day a living force, and not the opium of the Socialist orthodox.” 

As a piece of impudent writing, this would be hard to beat.

Before dealing more in detail with the book, one other instance should be noted. Marx put forward a theory to explain the evolution of society. To that theory he gave a name, the Materialist Conception of History. He did so intentionally. He used the term materialist because that is what he meant, and Marxians have always referred to that theory by that name. Now along comes this writer of detective stories, and announces: “I shall write ‘realist' in place of 'materialist,’ for I can see no point at all in that form of servility which clings obstinately to a name.” It will easily be appreciated that after being connected with thirty different political organisations, Mr. Cole is not likely to cling obstinately to anything.

The book is a difficult one to review on account of the author’s method. He has jumbled up together his interpretation of certain of Marx's doctrines with a statement of his own political views. His aim seems to be to support those views by relating them to Marxian principles—or what he conceives; to be Marxian principles. Where he is expounding Marx he reveals such a complete lack of understanding of everything Marx wrote, that the doubt at once arises whether, notwithstanding the fact that he wrote an introduction to the Everyman edition of “Capital,” he has ever seriously read much more than the “Communist Manifesto.” It is inevitable, therefore, that what he claims to be A reading of the “signs of our times by a method which is largely that of Marx,” bears absolutely no relation to Marxian thought. No Marxian could be guilty of the errors of analysis contained in this book, while the recommendations of policy in it are, in the main, contrary to the whole of Marx's teaching.

As an example of the kind of statement in this book that raises a doubt as to whether the author is really acquainted with Marx's writings, the following may be quoted: —

  It is sometimes suggested that Marx did believe the coming of Socialism to be inevitable, and held that men could, by their conduct, only advance or delay its coming, or cause it to come in a more or less satisfactory form. It is quite possible that Marx did hold this.

If Mr. Cole knows what he is writing about, why this indefiniteness? Marx, of course, made specific statements which gave dear expression to his view. In the Communist Manifesto, he and Engels wrote:—

   The bourgeoisie produces its own gravediggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.

This passage was reproduced as a footnote to “Capital,” to which, as mentioned above, Mr. Cole wrote an introduction. (For footnote, see Everyman edition, p. 847.)

It is undoubtedly true that, as Mr. Cole states, Marx, if he had been alive and writing to-day, would not have written "exactly as he wrote in 1848, or 1859, or 1867, or 1883.” but that is no justification for claiming for non-Marxian ideas the support of Marx's name. Despite Mr. Cole's disclaimers, to suppose that Marx would have propounded the theories foisted off on him by Mr. Cole is “the rankest injustice to Marx.” Mr. Cole uses the following specious arguments for putting forward his own ideas as being related to those of Marx:—

  If the structure of classes has changed since Marx’s day, as I have tried to show that it has, the theory which Marx formulated as appropriate to the class conditions of his day can no longer be adequate to meet the needs of the present time, at all events until it has been modified and adapted in conformity with these changes. Every Marxist is compelled by his Marxism to be a “revisionist ”. . .  no Marxist can escape revisionism without denying the dialectical principle.

It is sheer sophistry to pretend that the dialectical principle which requires that things should not be treated and considered as though they were static, and insists that everything is in process of development, necessarily implies that ideas originated, say, seventy years ago, must be inapplicable to-day. In that case the dialectic view would itself be obsolete! Even if the dialectical principle did require a modification, it would not follow that revision should properly take place on the Labour Party lines followed by Mr. Cole. Further, the major premise of his argument is false. If he had properly appreciated what Marx meant by capitalists and proletariat, and by the class struggle between them, he would not have been deceived into believing that "the structure of classes has changed since Marx's day.” Far from changing, that structure stands to-day even more clearly discernible and defined than when Marx wrote. There can be no doubt now that in capitalist society there are but two classes, one dependent upon the possession of property, the other property-less and dependent upon .the sale of its labour power. Like all "intellectuals,” Mr. Cole tries to blur the clear-cut distinction between the two classes. For him the proletariat consists “in the advanced parliamentary countries of Western Europe . . . of a central mass of manual workers and their families, shading off at one end into the unemployables, and at the other into the 'black coats' of the middle class.'' In the world of Mr. Cole there appear to be a large number of classes, for he writes of “the middle classes, that is, the classes between the governing groups of the bourgeoisie and the wage-earners,” who “have increased markedly as a percentage of the entire population,” and who have “assumed the new character given to them by the increased wealth of modern Societies." Patronising snobbery prevents Mr. Cole plunging himself and his fellow “intellectuals" down among the “manual workers," so he puts forward concepts of middle classes which have no basis in reality. Unless the existence of only two classes is denied, the whole case of the “intellectuals" falls to the ground and they cease, as a group, to have any special political significance. Mr. Cole claims that an alliance “of the proletariat and new petit bourgeoisie against the large capitalists and the reactionary petit bourgeois groups . . . is the only possible way of achieving Socialism by peaceful and constitutional means, and probably the only way of averting the spread of Fascist dictatorships." The fact is, however, that whenever the proletariat (by which is meant what Marx meant, namely, all those who are dependent upon the sale of their labour power), want to achieve Socialism they can do so by the use of their own unaided power, and without the advice or leadership of " intellectuals."

How far Mr. Cole is from understanding Marx’s analysis of Capitalism is revealed in his remarks about Russia, of which the following are samples. He writes: "The U.S.S.R. . . . has already thrown Capitalism over . . . under the new Russian system it is utterly impossible for the characteristic dilemma of Capitalism ever to arise . . the Russian system does ensure that as much as they can possibly produce will find a market, so that over-production and under-consumption and also unemployment, save as a temporary consequence of friction in the process of industrial change, simply cannot arise." (Pages 61 and 70.) It is difficult to say whether that displays the greater ignorance of Marx or of conditions in Russia. Capitalism in the sense in which Marx understood it, as a system of society based on the exploitation of a class of property-less wage labourers exists to-day in Russia, just as much as in England. Unemployment has certainly not been banished. The Russians have also been faced with the problem of over-production. Like other capitalist producers, they have had to curtail production because they could not sell various products in the world market at a profit during the depression.

It may be wondered how people like Mr. Cole contrive to achieve their reputations as authorities on Marx, in face of their patent ignorance. It is to a large extent the result of mutual back-scratching. For example, that other self-constituted authority on Marx, Professor H. J. Laski reviewed Mr. Cole's book in the Manchester Guardian, and praised it as providing "a really admirable summary of the Marxian theory of value." Unwary readers may be impressed by Professor Laski’s judgment, but others will know that this Professor of Political Science does not understand Marx’s economic theories, and has confessed as much. When he wrote his "Communism" (see review in Socialist Standard, July, 1927), so little was he able to deal with this aspect that he borrowed his  "criticism" of the Labour Theory of Value from a book called "Karl Marx's Capital," written by Professor Lindsay, and Lindsay knows no more about the subject than Laski or Cole.

That is by the way. Here it is impossible to examine in detail Cole's summary of the theory. Whether the Marxian Theory of Value is right or wrong, nobody who had mastered even the first few chapters of "Capital" could ever believe he was representing Marx's ideas in writing: "Marx's 'value' or ‘exchange value' is, then . . . purely and simply objectified use value. It is the real amount of objective utility which a commodity possesses as a result of the labour bestowed upon it." What this all means only Cole and, presumably, Laski, know. Fortunately it is not Marxian.

It is to be hoped that nobody will be enticed into buying or reading the book in the belief that it is a statement of Marxist principles. It is nothing of the kind. It is a vastly irritating sermon on Labourism by a man who, incidentally, has now discovered that his fellow "intellectuals" were wrong when, a short time ago, they proclaimed that Capitalism was in ruins and unable to stand the burden of paying for further reforms or an extension of social services. At any rate, he writes that "the history of the past few years has very plainly illustrated the toughness and resisting power of Capitalism . . . even in face of prolonged world depression; and who is bold enough to say that the present depression, deep and long as it has been, will not pass and be succeeded by a phase of capitalist revival?"

Another author, with whom Mr. Cole claims some acquaintance, is Wm. Cobbett, for he wrote an introduction to Cobbett's "Grammar." Cobbett has a passage which can be fittingly applied to this book:—"the pompous tone, the self-conceit that is manifest from the beginning to the end, forbid us to give (the author) credit for sincerity when he confesses his deficiencies, and tell us that the confession is one of those clumsy traps so often used with the hope of catching unmerited applause."

There is some advice in Mr. Cole's book which we can heartily endorse, contained in the last paragraph: —

Having presented in this book my conception of what Marxism really means, I can only ask the reader, if he is in any doubt, to go and study for himself what Marx wrote, and not merely what others have written about him.

In conclusion there is one thing that should be made dear. The S.P.G.B. has been described by Cole as a "body of rigid Marxians." (Enc. Brit., Vol. 32, Page 507.) It might have been thought, therefore, that the author of a book supposed to deal with Marx would be particularly careful to ensure that it was sent to us for review. This book has not been sent to us. We wasted 5s. on buying it.

B. S.

About Books (1953)

Book Reviews from the February 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Unfortunately, or maybe, fortunately, we are not on the lists that book publishers use for sending out free copies for review. Being members of the working class we are unable to acquire all the books that are published, and very few books when they are first published. Further, being members of the working class, we have limited time for reading. Invariably we wait until we learn something about a book before we give it a scanning and refer to it in these columns. That means that some books are in their second or third, or even later, editions before we get round to them.

Such a book is “Cry, the Beloved Country,” by Alan Paton published by Jonathan Cape at 10s. 6d. This book was first published in 1948 but the recent film of the story has drawn a lot of attention to it.

It is a story of what may be termed the industrial revolution of South Africa. It deals with the final destruction of tribal life among the African negroes and the drawing away of the younger men and women from the rural areas to. the industrial centres where they become wage workers. It emphasises the difficulties that these people experience in adapting themselves to the conditions of a rapidly expanding capitalism and the crimes that follow from their abject poverty.

The story centres mainly in Johannesburg where theft, prostitution, drunkenness, rape, robbery with violence and murder are rife. The author tells us in his introductory note that his story is a compound of truth and fiction. He says that his account of the boycott of the buses, the erection of Shanty Town, the finding of gold at Odendaalsrust and the strike of the miners is such a fiction-truth compound; that in some respects it is not true, but “considered as a social record it is the plain and simple truth.”

The whole theme is worthy of a better approach. The events narrated are viewed through the eyes of a religious humanitarian and the story is plastered with religious quotes and sentiments. There are passages that reveal a clear understanding of the process that is taking place in South Africa, but the idea that permeates the book is that the solution to the negro workers' problems is to be found in a kinder, more Christian and humanitarian approach, especially on the part of the white population. This is overdone and spoils the reading. This is a book worth reading if it should come your way, but it is not worth going out of your way to read it.

Another book first published in 1948 is “Men, Machines and History” by S. Lilley and published by the Cobbett Press, 10s. 6d. This is volume seven of a series entitled “Past and Present” which is being published under the guidance of an impressive editorial board of professors. We learn that it was the publisher's original intention to complete the series with about forty books but they seem to have petered out after number eight. The eight books of this series that we have read are good. “Men, Machines and History” is exceedingly good.

Fundamental to an understanding of the socialist case is the knowledge that it is the continuous improvement in the tools that man uses that is fundamentally responsible for the changes in the structure of the society of which he is a member. Human society has travelled a long way since the days of the flint sickle and stone hammer—to the days of jet-propelled transport, radar and the release of atomic energy. At certain points in that journey we can observe how a particular discovery or a group of inventions have had an outstanding effect upon the prevailing method of production. We can, for instance, see how the invention of gunpowder hastened the end of the rule of the feudal baron protected by his armour and his castellated walls. We can see how the discovery of steam power released a flood of subsidiary inventions and gave impetus to the industrial revolution in this country, and the social changes that followed it.

Those are the glaring examples. This book, “Men, Machines and History,” takes us from the time of Palaeolithic man with his primitive tools of stone, bone and ivory through the 7,000 and more years to the end of the last war and the release of atomic energy. It refers to many hundreds of inventions between those times and gives us a little of the mechanics, a little of the technology and a little of the social effects surrounding many of them.

The author says that he has made his references to social conditions very brief because other books in the series will provide the social background at greater length. All the same, his references are extremely pertinent.

He tells us of the discovery of copper and the inventions that followed from it and how, by 3000 B.C. it had produced a decisive change in the social structure.

  “The simple communities of more or less equal farmers had been replaced by states in which the vast majority of the inhabitants lived at subsistence level, often as slaves or serfs, while all the surplus product of their labours was used to provide a luxurious existence for a small class of kings, nobles and priests, as well as supporting the civil services and armies which formed the mechanism for extracting from the masses the products of their work. Class-divisions had become the basis of social structure." (Page 11.)

Mr. Lilley then goes on to tell us that a given social structure, having been thrown up by a level of technical development, can then become a retarding influence on further technical advance. He instances the great slave empires that arose in Greece and Rome following the division of society into classes. The stagnation of technique that prevailed at that time was not due to lack of problems to be solved but to the make-up of society into, broadly speaking, two classes; the down-trodden peasants, slaves and serfs who did all the productive work and received only the bare necessities of life in return, and the small ruling class of priests, nobles and kings who did no productive work but lived in privilege and luxury on the fruit of the work of others.

The working class had knowledge and experience of the tools and techniques that were then in existence. They could quite simply have invented improvements, except that they had no incentive to invent since any increase in production would be taken away from them to add to the wealth of their masters. Further, as they worked to the utmost, they had no leisure time to devote to invention.

The ruling class, on the other hand, had no contact with the process of production, was ignorant of the technical deficiencies and had no practical knowledge and experience to effect improvements.

Yet, in this period of stagnation progress did not altogether cease; we learn of the invention of the spoked wheel, improvements in military equipment and the diffusion of the use of bronze over large parts of Europe.

So we can proceed through the middle ages, the industrial revolution and two world wars marvelling at the ingenuity of man. The book is splendidly and copiously illustrated and carries graphs and charts showing relative invention rates and other interesting data. Right at the end of his book the author betrays a sneaking regard for Soviet Russia and boosts the rate of progress in that country. We can overlook that against the excellence of his work.

In “Retrospect and Summary” at the end of the book the author arrives at two complementary conclusions: 

   “. . . the form of society has a very great effect on the rate of inventions . . .  a form of society which in its young days encourages technical progress can, as a result of the very inventions it engenders, eventually come to retard further progress until a new social structure replaces it.”
  " . . . technical progress—invention and the spread of the use of invention—is a fundamental factor in determining social structure and in bringing about the necessity for a change from one social structure to another."

We could not agree more. Hasten the day when the capitalist social structure gives way to the socialist one.

W. Waters

Notes on Party History: The Trade Union Question (1954)

From the July 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Trade Union question was a very thorny one in the early years of the Party. Some of those who founded the Party had a leaning towards industrial unionism, whilst others were inclined to regard the trade unions as only another facet of Capitalism. These conflicting views were reflected in disagreements over policy that were brought to a head in 1906 when a number of meetings were arranged to discuss the Party’s attitude to Trade Unionism..

Before reaching this discussion we will relate some of the events that led up to it.

At the Inaugural Meeting a motion had been carried instructing the E.C. to convene a special meeting of members as soon as possible “to discuss and determine the attitude of the Party towards trade unions.” The E.C. arranged for this special meeting to be held on the 9th July at the Food Reform Restaurant in Furnival Street. Lehane, Anderson and Neumann, were appointed as a sub-committee to draft a resolution on trade unions to be submitted to the meeting.

The sub-committee reported that they were unable to come to agreement. The following resolution and amendment were then submitted to the Executive Committee meeting. We are giving them fully because they became the motions discussed at the special meeting. 

Lehane and Jackson moved:

   “Whereas the private ownership by the master-class of the means whereby the people live produces in the field of industry, as the inevitable outcome of the very conditions of modern society, an unceasing conflict between the propertied idlers and the propertyless workers, a conflict manifesting itself in the form of strikes, lock-outs and general social disturbance, and
  “Whereas the workers in their endeavour to resist the encroachments of the exploiting class, or to secure higher wages, shorter hours, better conditions of labour, have largely organised themselves into Trade Unions, and,
   “Whereas, the capitalist class in its desire to wring more profits, rent, and interest out off the labour of the workers, has for years been organised into rings, combines, and trusts with the object of controlling markets, raising prices, limiting production, reducing wages and intensifying labour, and,
   “Whereas, the capitalist class through its judges has recently seized Trade Union Funds and shows its intention to further confiscate the property of the Trade Union organisations, thereby forcing members of the latter to turn their attention to political action.
  “The Socialist Party of Great Britain, in General Meeting assembled, realising that this twofold organisation of the hostile classes in society is preparing the way for the transformation of capitalist property into common ownership by limiting competition among the workers on the one hand and by combining and concentrating capital on the other, recommends its members to join the unions in their respective trades in order that by the spread of socialist enlightenment the members of the working class organised in Trade Unions may be enabled to prosecute the class struggle with the efficiency which results alone from clearly defined class-conscious action and taught to translate the industrial conflict into the field of politics, calls upon the Trade Unionists and all other wage workers in this country to join the Socialist Party in order that they may proceed to the conquest of the powers of Government as the indispensable preliminary to the overthrow and dispossession of the capitalist class and the establishment of a society in which the means and instruments for producing the necessaries, comforts and luxuries of life will be the common and democratically controlled property of the whole people."

To this resolution Anderson and Neumann moved the following amendment:

  “Whereas the Declaration of Principles of the Socialist Party of Great Britain is one of hostility to all other parties in the political field, and,
  “Whereas the Trade Unions have definitely taken up a position other than that of the Socialist in that field.
 “The Socialist Party in General Meeting assembled declares that while through other circumstances its members may be compelled to belong to such organisations, such members and any others who may deem it advisable to be in Trade Unions shall simply use their position therein to reiterate the Socialist position, but shall in no case accept any official position where their actions would be controlled by the Trade Unions instead of by Socialist convictions.” 

At the Executive Committee the Anderson amendment was carried by six votes to two. It was submitted to the General Meeting and Lebane’s motion was moved as an amendment. After considerable discussion the General Meeting carried Lehane’s amendment by twenty votes to nineteen and it then became the resolution. An amendment to it was proposed, but as it was too late to take it. the meeting adjourned with the request that the Executive Committee arrange another meeting.

The adjourned meeting on Trade Unions was continued on the 7th August. The following amendment to the Lehane's resolution was moved by Hawkins and Jacobs:

  “The Socialist Party of Great Britain, recognising that the working class must be organised both politically and economically for the safe-guarding of working class interests and the overthrow of Capitalism, declares nevertheless the ultimate uselessness of any economic organisation not based on the principle of working-class solidarity and recognition of the class-struggle.
  “The Socialist Party of Great Britain, seeing that the trade unions of this country are sectional in character and unconscious of the historic mission of the working-class, cannot give unreserved support to these organisations, which have been frequently manipulated to suit capitalist interests. Members of the Socialist Party who belong to non-Socialist Trade Unions are therefore required not to accept any political office whatever in their Trade Unions, nor any office or position in the execution of the duties of which they may be required to take political action. They are, further, advised to form Socialist groups inside their unions for the purpose of common counsel and joint action to counteract any abandonment of working-class interests and to educate their fellow members in the principles of the class-struggle.
  “The Socialist Party recognises that the Trade Unions are essentially economic organisations and that when based upon and informed by correct principles they are capable of fulfilling their function as such. It demands from the Trade Unions a similar recognition that the political action of the working-class must be revolutionary, and the function of, and can only be taken by, the Socialist Party.
  "The political and economic organisations of the working-class should work together, in harmonious cooperation, and the Socialist Party desires, to this end, the affiliation of such unions as shall recognise the necessity for ending the wage-system and establishing the Socialist Republic.”

This amendment was lost by twenty-five votes to ten.

Auger and Fitzgerald then moved that the following addendum be incorporated with the Lehane resolution:—

  "That this meeting is of opinion that the only solution of the Trade Union problem will be found by forming within each union, in which we have members, groups which shall consider such unions constituencies for propaganda and electoral purposes and be under the full control of the Executive Committee of the Party, and resolves that the Rules of the Party shall incorporate this principle.”

This addendum was carried by seventeen votes to nine, and was followed by a further amendment moved. by Hawkins and Anderson:—

  “That the Socialist Party of Great Britain, recognising that the Trade Union movement as at present constituted is organised on an unsound basis, declines to take part in its action until such time as these organisations shall be brought into line with the Socialist principle. In the meantime, members are permitted to join Trade Unions where compelled by economic circumstances, pending the organisation of Socialist Trade Unions.”

The amendment was lost by nineteen votes to sixteen.

The meeting had now reached closing time without it being possible to put the Resolution on account of the many amendments. It was obvious that the disagreements were too sharp to enable a useful conclusion being reached. The meeting adjourned after passing the following curious resolution, which is some reflection of the nature of the discussion:—

  "That this meeting adjourn until a decision is arrived at as to whether Trade Unions are political organisations and therefore if our relations thereto are covered by our Declaration of Principles.”

The E.C. appointed a sub-committee to report on this resolution. The sub-committee submitted a statement which they suggested should be recommended as a preamble to the Lehane resolution. This statement pointed out that organisations of workers in various trades being primarily formed for economic action were not covered by that section of our Declaration of Principles which declares hostility to all other political parties. The suggestion was carried by six votes to five.

At the September General Meeting Lehane’s resolution was replaced by an amendment which was carried and then carried as the substantive Resolution with only a few dissentients. This resolution, moved by Hawkins and McNicol, was as follows:

  "The Socialist Party of Great Britain declares that Trade Unionism is a necessary form of working-class organisation, but also declares that unless such unions are based upon the class-struggle they become useless and reactionary. Therefore members of the Socialist Party, as Trade Unionists, must work for the conversion of their trade organisations to the sound economic position which alone fits the Trade Union to co-operate with the Socialist Party for the overthrow of capitalism.
  "As a matter of tactics the Party considers it advisable that Socialists should not hold office in non-Socialist trade societies where such office involves political action, and in all cases members of the Party must resign office whenever continuance' therein would require deviation from the political action or policy of the Socialist Party.”

It is worth noticing that this resolution was put and carried after the members had been discussing the question for seven or eight hours and most of them must have been too weary to realize the full import of what they were voting on.

At the following E.C. meeting a resolution, moved by Anderson and Crump, was carried, which stated that as the resolution on trade unions carried at the General Meeting was in conflict with the Declaration of Principles it be held in abeyance until the whole party has been consulted on the question.

On September 25th a Special General Meeting was held to discuss the Trade Union question. At this meeting the resolution at the previous General Meeting, by Hawkins and McNicol,, was rescinded. After some motions had been put forward and rejected the meeting finally adjourned without coming to any decision.

At the General Meeting on 3rd December a resolution was carried that our Declaration of Principles is sufficiently clear to be a guide to members of the Party under any possible contingency and therefore no resolutions explanatory of our principles are necessary.

No further progress was made on the Trade Union question until the Annual Conference on the 20th April, 1905. At the Conference the following resolution by Watts and Harris was carried:—

  "Whereas the Trade Unions, while being essentially economic organisations are nevertheless in many instances taking political action either to safeguard their economic existence or for other purposes, and
   "Whereas any basis of working class political action other than that laid down in the Declaration of Principles of the Socialist Party of Great Britain must lead the workers into the bog of confusion and disappointment, be it therefore
   "Resolved that this Conference of the Socialist Party of Great Britain recommends that all members of the Party within Trade Unions be instructed to actively oppose all action of the Unions that is not based on the principles of this Party.”

There the discussion ended for the time being. It was brought up again as a result of a controversy over the action of the Bexley Heath Branch of the Party and a series of discussions were held from May, 1906, onwards, which were fully reported in the Socialist Standard at the time. Before considering these discussions we will explain the Bexley Heath controversy as it had a bearing on the discussions.

Gilmac.

Obituary: Victor Vanni (2017)

Vic Vanni

Obituary from the February 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is with sorrow that we mark the death of Vic Vanni, a Party member for more than fifty years and an unflagging stalwart of our Glasgow Branch. He was 86.

The son of Italian immigrants who settled in Glasgow and had a fish and chip shop, Vic worked all of his life as a sheet metal worker in the Clyde shipyards, where he was probably its only Guardian reader. He joined the Labour Party soon after the 1959 General Election and became extremely active on their behalf, with prospects of becoming a parliamentary candidate. In the following year, however, he fortuitously came across an SPGB outdoor meeting and set about persuading our members to support the Labour Party and the CND movement. In subsequent encounters, our arguments against such a sterile course so impressed him that he abandoned labourism and eventually joined the Socialist Party in 1963. Since that time, he devoted all of his energies to Party activity, as an outdoor speaker, lecturer, writer and branch organiser. Vic addressed public meetings throughout Britain, from Aberdeen to Bristol, Norwich to Bolton, and spoke in London’s Hyde Park, Earls Court and Lincoln’s Inn Fields as well as in Boston and New York when visiting American socialists. A Party candidate and agent in General and Scottish Parliament elections, he was also a Glasgow Branch delegate at fifty consecutive annual Party Conferences.

Vic was known latterly for a tendency to pour tepid to cold water on what he viewed as fanciful optimism about, or proposals for, the advancement of socialism, which made his commitment and integrity all the more admirable. The only thing wrong with our case, he insisted, is that it has too few adherents. He always made a point of speaking to new Party members or writing them letters of encouragement, as well as occasionally posting missives of gentle admonition to those of longer standing who should have known better. Where he lately bought his typewriter ribbons remains a mystery. While his life was the Party, he did have abiding enthusiasms elsewhere: his knowledge of Scottish, English and continental football was extensive (he could name most players in London teams of the mid-1950s, when he briefly lived in the capital); he became an avid devotee of speedway’s Glasgow Tigers; and he was a regular cinema-goer familiar with both continental and American films, being especially interested in Hollywood and its industrial relations. A convivial, unassuming and self-disciplined man of routine (explained, perhaps in part, by his conscripted time in the army as Sergeant Vanni), it is impossible to forget him putting in his forthright two pennies’ worth at Party gatherings. All members will be hard-pressed to emulate Vic’s example, which is his singular legacy.

MT

Debate - Socialism or Anarchism? (1957)

Debate from the August 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

Report of a Public Debate held at Bethnal Green Library on Friday, 16th May.

Donald Rooum for the London Anarchist Group,

R. Coster for the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Chairman George Plume (P.P.U.) 

The Socialist speaker opened by referring to the title of the debate. It would perhaps sound cryptic to non-Socialists and non-Anarchists; the subject of the debate, fully stated, was whether it was the Socialist case or Anarchist arguments that held the solution to the problems of mankind.

The Socialist case was against Capitalism and for Socialism. Capitalism was the latest stage in man’s social development; from his beginnings man had organized socially for survival and for the satisfaction of his needs. We had no knowledge of man as an individual, only as a social being in a social context.

All societies—primitive communism, slavery, feudalism, capitalism—were founded upon the manner in which man set about organizing to produce for the satisfaction of his needs: what Marx had termed the mode of production. On the different bases of different modes of production, he had found necessary different institutions, different mores, different religions, different laws, different attitudes and concepts, and different kinds of government. Always, however, the distinguishing feature between societies was none of these by itself, but the mode of production which gave rise to them all.

Capitalist society was based on the ownership of all of the means of life by a small class. The remainder, the majority, had to be wage-workers, all more or less poorly paid. This basic class-structure had never changed within Capitalism; the techniques of production might have altered, but not the basis.

The consequences of Capitalism in the form of social troubles were innumerable. War and its horrifying weapons, economic crises, poverty and its results, disease, bad housing, crime: all these and countless other problems were direct results of the system which was concerned only with sale and profit. The only standard by which a society could be judged was whether it satisfied the needs of the people living within it, and by this measure Capitalism—for all its spectacular achievements —failed completely.

The speaker referred also to attempts to reform Capitalism. If it were true that social problems were the outcome of the system itself, and not of mismanagement of it then it followed that all policies of reform were useless, since they aimed to abolish effects while retaining the cause.

The capitalist class, however, did not rule by their own strength. Many of them had never seen, had little knowledge of, the factories, land, workshops and enterprises which they owned. Their ownership was maintained and protected by the State, which had no other function. It was in this coercive agency, with its fighting forces and penal systems, that capitalist power resided.

It followed, therefore, that any body of people wishing to change the ownership basis of society must go to the place where ownership was kept: that is, it could only seek to take hold of the powers of government as the means of taking away capitalist ownership. This was the aim of the Socialist Party. Its policy was to make Socialists, for a conscious and politically organized working class to go to the State and make the ownership of the means of life common to everybody.

In the Socialist society, thus based on common ownership, the competition which led to wars, crises and chaos, would have ended. So would poverty; there would be no wages, no money barrier to the satisfaction of needs. The aim of society would be simply for all people to share, according to their needs, in all that the earth produced.

It might be thought that this was the common objective of Socialists and Anarchists, and that they differed only as to the means of achieving it. This was not so. The Anarchists had only the nebulous aim of overthrowing “authority,” and all their proposals were founded on complete misunderstanding of the nature of society. Indeed, by ignoring the role of the State and urging people to “direct action" against it, they sought to harm the interests of working people. The Socialist Party aimed at making Socialists; the Anarchist movement could make only martyrs.

Donald Rooum, opening for the Anarchists, said that in stating their case he would repeat much of what the Socialist speaker had said. The Socialist was completely mistaken about the idea of Anarchy, however. He would say that though Socialists and Anarchists had the same professed aim. Socialists did not mean what they said, whereas the Anarchists wanted people to act on their ideas. All factions but the Anarchists wanted people on their knees before some authority, and in the end would only swindle their followers.

"Anarchy” came from the Greek and meant "without government." Until the eighteen-eighties Anarchists had called themselves Anarchist-Socialists. They abandoned this because of confusion of thought among Socialists, as they had later to abandon the name Anarchist-Communists. The basis of Anarchist ideas was that society existed for the benefit of individuals, and the aim of Anarchist society would be to increase individual opportunities. There were two kinds of social relationships—free and coercive; Anarchy meant a society founded on free co-operation.

Our society was dominated by coercion. We hated work because we were forced by employers, police and money; we were all in danger of being bombed because mentally unhealthy politicians insisted on continuing with bomb tests. We suffered from having such people in power, with the right to do such things; they were insane and irresponsible—only delinquent lunatics could be politicians. Even if perfect beings formed a government, they would soon be imperfect.

Governments kept going by violence and the threat of it from bombs, police and possible poverty and unemployment. Thus, the world was made unpleasant for individuals. The alternative was for society to be based not on government, but on co-operative relationships: “common ownership" if you liked to call it that. In such a society workers would control the factories, land and so on themselves.

Anarchy could be brought about by making people Anarchists. Anarchists did not seek, as the Russian Communists had done, to take power dishonestly. They said that the way to get rid of coercion was to stop letting oneself be coerced. The Russian Communists had said the State would wither away, but they retained the police and the armies, like all other governments; the fact was that power corrupted all those who took it. Thirty centuries of grinding-down by governments proved this.

The solution, then, was for everybody to co-operate with his equals, and refuse to allow anybody to take power over him.

R. Coster, making the second speech for the Socialist Party, said the Anarchist speaker had not met the point that governmental power and coercion were founded on the private ownership of the means of production.

The Socialist case was that the problems of the present-day world originated in the capitalist economic system, and that a co-operative world could only be established on a different ownership basis. While private ownership existed, politicians—delinquent or otherwise —could only when they were in power carry out the requirements of capitalism. He instanced the recent history of the Labour Party, which had once had a strong pacifist strain, but when in office had instituted military conscription and begun the biggest armaments drive in history. Its members were not drunk with power, but were simply having to prepare for war because they had undertaken running the system which led to war.

The proposition that wars were caused by delinquent politicians was, in fact, capitalist nonsense; people had gone to war precisely because they had been told that the wars were begun by irresponsible and wicked rulers who must be opposed. It was equally silly to say that people were coerced to work by police and armies; they went to work because, having no ownership of the means of life, they could only live by selling their labour-power.

To change society there must be a body of people who knew what was needed and how it was to be done. It ill became the Anarchists to speak of "different kinds of Socialists," for they had little or no agreement Mr. Rooum had said he wanted the abolition of the wages system; many Anarchists were unsure about this, however, and some appeared to love the wages system. The means proposed were varied, too, though they were equally futile. Some thought Anarchy would be established by the practice of mutual aid within Capitalism: but it had already been shown that man was prevented from acting co-operatively by Capitalism. Others wanted to force Anarchist reforms until Capitalism turned into Anarchy; but reformism was the antithesis of revolution. And others still proposed a “social general strike"— that is, they wanted workers to do the most foolish thing of all, to throw themselves under the Juggernaut of the State.

Donald Rooum began his second speech by complaining of the nature of the debate; he had not wanted to continue making speeches, but to have the audience participate in questions and discussion.

He denied what the Socialist speaker had said of Anarchists and the wages system. The statement that some Anarchists were unsure about and even thought they would keep the wages system, showed Coster to be, if he was not a liar, daft in the head. As for Capitalism preventing cooperative relationships, people were coerced simply because they allowed other people to coerce them; if they refused to allow the capitalist into the factory, he could not be there. Working-class power existed only in the factories—the vote was useless as a means to change.

Clause Six of the Socialist Party’s Principles said that the working class must organize to conquer the powers of government to convert them “from an instrument of oppression into an agent of emancipation clear proof that the Socialist Party wanted not to change society, but to become the government. The Bolsheviks had done this—they were Socialists, they had been benevolent, but their good intentions faded when they had taken power.

Everyone was taught to revere authority from childhood; the authority might come from Capitalism, but whether or not it did so it was still authority. The Socialists asked people to surrender themselves to a body of people, and were either deceiving the people or deceiving themselves. The methods mentioned for establishing Anarchy were the only ones possible; the alternative to them was putting somebody else in power.

Before making his summing-up speech, Donald Rooum again said he did not like the form of the debate. He thought that Socialists regarded Anarchists as namby-pamby middle-class people, and had understood from the platform this evening that the Socialist Party was going to usher in Socialism in a very short time.

At this point the Anarchist speaker said he had nothing further to say and would let his opponent have any remaining time.

Summing-up for the Socialist Party, R. Coster replied to various points which had been made for Anarchism. He read quotations from Anarchist papers and from Berkman’s ABC of Anarchism to show the varied views of Anarchists on the wages system, from those who advocated a complicated system of credit and currency under Anarchy to those who proposed simply equalization of incomes and a standard working week.

The allegation that the Socialist Party wanted to govern could not be supported by a single word from fifty-three years of party literature. Comparison with Russia was meaningless, but the Anarchists, lacking in scientific analysis, had groped in the dark over the Russian Revolution: a quotation described how prominent Anarchists had supported the Bolshevik Revolution and become “disillusioned.” To be disillusioned one had to have illusions first.

The Anarchist speaker had said it did not matter where authority came from. This was the most extraordinary statement of all. The Anarchists were concerned solely with authority—its abolition was the only aim upon which they agreed—yet they were unconcerned and did not wish to know whence it came. To the Socialist, causes had always to be sought. The whole of history showed that, so far from the nature of government being unimportant, every class which had aspired to change society in its own interests had had to gain control of the powers of government This was the real lesson from countless centuries of political history; this was the aim of Socialists, who sought to replace Capitalism with Socialism and to do so by going to the seat of capitalist power.

C. R.

Marx's conception of socialism - Part 2 (1983)

From the August 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

The second part of a talk transcribed from a recent conference. [Part 1 can be read here.]

There is a useful book — David McLellan's Thought of Karl Marx, (Macmillan 1971) — which has a chapter in which has been brought together a number of Marx's references to socialist society. One of the points mentioned is Marx's view that in socialist society you would not have workers tied to one job all their lives, that it would be possible to change from one job to another. Marx used a very fanciful example. He said it would be possible to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening and criticise after dinner. But I don’t think we should take this literally. (I don’t know if he put in the hunting because Engels was fond of fox hunting, but the basic idea is alright.)

You will have noticed that British capitalism has been moving in this way. In the last ten or fifteen years you have had members of governments saying to workers, "You have got to forget the idea that you started as a steel worker and you end as a steel worker. You are going to have to learn the skills of two or three careers in your lifetime because your job is not going to last that long." Marx carried this idea a stage further. In the German Ideology he developed the same idea, that as the gulf between mental and physical work disappeared and the division of labour disappeared, people would become capable of doing all sorts of things. He extended this to the art field, where he suggested that artists should cease to be confined to separate activities such as painting and sculpture, and would be able to do the lot. This is an interesting idea.

I now come to the question of the. "withering away of the state". Engels in Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, wrote about the state in these terms: “State interference in social relations becomes in one domain after another superfluous, and then dies out of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct and processes of production, the state is not abolished, it dies out.” Marx and Engels had dealt with the same idea in the Communist Manifesto where they wrote: “When in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for the oppressing of another.”

You have got to read both these statements in the light of Marx’s belief that you start off with a lower phase of communism where, initially, you suffer from all sorts of disabilities that will not exist later on. I don't recall that the Socialist Party has ever discussed it. We have certainly had articles in the Socialist Standard, by implication repudiating Engels' idea that you have got to have a long period in which the state disappears. If you don’t accept the idea of a fairly prolonged lower phase of communism, then you don’t accept this idea that you have got to have a state which continues for a long time.

Also in the Communist Manifesto, and again in the light of Marx and Engels' recognition that the material conditions did not exist then for the emancipation of the proletariat, you have them laying down the idea that you wrest by degrees all capital from the bourgeoisie. I would say that this is another idea that we don't have to accept. It does not fit in with our conception of a working class taking power for socialism when they are ready to do it and not before. In The Poverty of Philosophy, answering a question which was being argued. Marx put his idea that society evolves by class struggle. That you have feudalism followed by capitalism and then socialism. The question was put: “Does this mean that future socialist society will be stagnant and will not develop any more?” Marx said: “It will only be in the order of things in which there will no longer be classes and class antagonisms, that social evolutions will cease to be political revolutions.’’ In other words he was saying that social evolution will continue but that it will no longer be, as in class society, settled by political revolutions and by class conflict.

Marx, or rather McLellan, has an observation about crime which is rather interesting. McLellan, on page 214 of his book, is explaining Marx’s view of the coercive power of the state, and he says this: “The (coercive) forces it seems, would not be needed by communist governments, certainly not exterior force. For the revolution would be nothing if not international and not even inside the state would there be need for coercive forces, for punishment would be," (and then he puts in quotation marks) “'the judgement of the criminal upon himself.” McLellan does not say where Marx said this, and I cannot find it. But it does seem quite likely to me that Marx may have said it.

Marx and Engels made some references to war and its abolition. In the Communist Manifesto they said that at all times the bourgeoisie was in constant battle with the bourgeoisie of other countries. In The Civil War in France, Marx referred to society: “Whose international rule would be peace because this national rule would be everywhere the same — labour." What he was saying was that when socialists are in control everywhere, they do not go to war. because they have no cause for doing so.

I want to come back to the question of production in socialist society and to the idea of free access and how it would be worked out. Again, as I have said, this is speculation. First of all you will require a very big increase in the productive forces of society to increase the production of useful goods and services. When the SPGB was formed, in some early articles and pamphlets, they made a calculation (I imagine they were assisted by some of the material published by Chiozza Money) that with the abolition of armaments and war and all the activities of capitalism, financial and otherwise, and the bureaucracies necessary to capitalism but not to socialism, socialist society could look to a doubling of its labour force and materials. There would be twice as many people available to carry on production in socialist society because they would no longer be required for all these purely capitalist activities.

Some two or three years ago I had another look at the material on which this was based. This means looking at the production census and also the occupational census. If you find in the production census that there are two million peopole in distribution you can then look at the occupation census to see what those two million people are doing. You can then form your own idea about the number who are engaged in purely capitalist operations and also the number who are not. It seems to me that the position is very much what it was when the early members looked at it. Socialist society can reckon that, having got rid of all the armaments and war, of the finance workers of capitalism and the needless bureaucracy, they will have double the labour available for production. This will be the main way in which production will be rapidly increased, as it will need to be.

But there are other factors entering into this. I have mentioned the rate at which the output per worker has increased in this country by 1¼ per cent a year. This has no doubt been stepped up considerably in this depression, because a lot of what the capitalist class regard as passengers have been squeezed out of industry — in other words work is being intensified. The figure for productivity increase has been higher than 1¼ per cent a year in some countries and for short periods it has been very much higher. But for socialist society I suggest that you could reckon on the increase being greater than 1¼ per cent for one reason which is that you will get rid of the restrictive practices by a trade union and periodical curtailments of production by capitalists.

On the other hand there is a fact that society has to reckon with already, and socialist society also would have to reckon with it. In the extractive industries — that is coal, oil, metals and agriculture — there has been and there is likely to be a tendency for production to fall. It was put very graphically by the Chief Planning Officer of the National Coal Hoard a few years ago when he said: "In the coal industry you have to keep running faster and faster just to stay where you are”. You have to go deeper and deeper in the mines and it takes more labour. I reckon that it takes as much labour to mine a ton of coal now as it did one hundred years ago. There is a new pit being opened at Selby where they have been working on it for five years and they have spent over £1,000 million developing the pit and they have not yet got a single ton of coal out of it. All the labour represented by the £1,000 million is part of the labour required to produce coal in the future.

The agricultural correspondent of The Times has said that recent reports by the FAO dismiss the idea that world hunger at the present time merely exists because of bad distribution. The FAO also draw attention to the fact that an additional 200 million hectares of cultivable land, that is about 8 times the area of the UK, will be needed by the end of the century just to stay where they are because soil is being eroded at this rate over the world. In other words they have got this same problem in agriculture, and it is a problem which exists in many ways.

On the other hand, as a plus to this, there will not be the destruction of resources that goes on under capitalism. Marx pointed out that in every depression enormous amounts of equipment and machinery are scrapped. A firm might go bust and they sell their equipment as scrap, and it is not used for its original purpose. In socialist society this would not happen. Socialist society will use out its plant for the length of its useful life. The capitalists do not do this. Quite apart from depressions, if somebody comes along with a new modernised form a capitalist concern, which has got plenty of capital, will buy it and scrap what they have got because they can make more profit by doing this than if they use out the life of their existing plant.

Free access

I want to say something more about free access. What exactly do we mean by “free access”? It is all very well to say that society co-operates to produce things and that we go along to what Marx called the consumer stores and take out what we want. But what is society going to decide about what it is going to put into these stores? Marx used the phrase about meeting the wants of the masses ‘‘decently and humanely”, but this does not really get you very far. In modern terms I would say it means this: everywhere you would have water services, sewer services, education and health services, transport, housing, food and all of the things that people want. But human needs are not all the same all over the world. In a tropical climate some things are materially different to what they are in a temperate climate or in a cold climate.

If "free access” is interpreted by saying that in a socialist society whatever you think you would like to have you can have, I would say that it does not make sense. In a socialist society you will only be able to have free access to the things which society decides it will make available for free access. I read recently that there is a company in America advising people to register now for trips to the moon, and they have had hundreds of thousands of applications. Well, if we had socialism tomorrow I assure these people that they can want to go to the moon as much as they like — they won’t go. The amount of labour and materials required to do it is simply fantastic and no sensible society, in present circumstances, would dream of doing something like this while so many prior needs have to be met.

In socialism you will provide means of entertainment, you will have a lot of theatres, theatre companies and ballet companies and so on, but if on some particular night there is a theatre holding 2,000 people and Nureyev is dancing there, and 10,000 people decided that they want to go. they won't be able to go whether it is under capitalism or socialism.

Bringing this down to the way I think socialism ought to look at it. I would say that the idea that you have production all over the world administered from a central office like the United Nations building in New York is out. I see no sense in it at all. I would say that the emphasis ought to be in the opposite direction. As far as is possible, naturally and sensibly, you leave it to local people to take the initiative in everything, that is in producing what they want and deciding what they are going to make available for free access where they are in the locality.

In this case, where does the central administration come in? I would say firstly that it functions as a centre of information, statistical and otherwise. Secondly, any locality which says they can’t reasonably produce certain things which are wanted conveys the information to the central administration and they pass it on to the people who could do it. They say, there is a shortage of something in Abyssinia which can reasonably be produced in England, we will tell the British administrative people and they would do what is necessary. In other words, you rely on local initiatives and you don't have to have a great central administrative organisation which is going to organise all these things. I don't see any reason why it should. It would seem to me that relying on the local initiatives is the sensible and practical and economic point of view.

Edgar Hardcastle

(concluded)