Cooking the Books: Who is Exploited? (2019)

The Cooking the Books column from the January 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

If you work in an office how can you be economically exploited if you don’t produce anything that your employer appropriates? That was a question touched on in the Morning Star (12 November) in an article on ‘What is “surplus value?”’ prepared by the Marx Memorial Library. Their answer was that all workers create surplus value. Among the work and workers that the article said produce value and surplus value were those in sales, accountancy and marketing. Marx would have disagreed.

He held that value (and so surplus value) was created only in the process of producing commodities as use-values for sale. He defined production as the fashioning of new use-values out of materials that originally came from nature. This included not just the work of handling the materials but also that of planning their production, so it did include office workers such as designers, draughtspeople and architects. It also included transport as transporting a commodity from where it was produced to where it was to be consumed did make it more useful.

In Marx’s view, if work did not add to the use-value of a commodity then it could not add to its value. The work of selling a commodity, essential as it is under capitalism, does not add to the commodity’s use-value. So those performing such work do not produce surplus value. The capital invested in such activities does return a profit, but its source is a share of the surplus value created in the value-producing sector of the economy. It is not created by its employees.

This does not mean that such workers are not exploited. They do perform surplus labour for which they are not paid over and above the labour equivalent of their wages. It is just that this surplus labour does not create surplus value; what it does is reduce the costs to the employer of running their business.

As one exponent of Marxian economics put it:

  ‘The merchant has invested a certain amount of money-capital in a store, equipment, and wage laborers (clerks, salesmen, etc.). These wage workers are unproductive like the merchant himself although they work for him a longer time than he pays for. But their surplus-labour is as unproductive as the capital of the merchant. They merely realize the surplus-value for the merchant, which was produced in the sphere of production, and make profits for him so much quicker, the more their unproductive surplus-labor is extended and their necessary labor shortened (Ernest Unterman, Marxian Economics, 1903, Ch. XVI).

The same applies to workers in banking, insurance, and other money handling activities.

There is a second category of work and workers that Marx didn’t consider produced surplus value. In a comment in Volume 1 of Capital on the 1861 Census Marx pointed out that there were as many people employed as domestic servants (1,208,648) as in textile factories and mines together (1,208, 442) (ch. 16, section 6). Although he described them as ’modern domestic slaves’ he did not consider that they created surplus value; they were an expense paid out of income. This applies also to those called, appropriately enough, civil servants. They are the servants of the capitalist class as a whole employed by their state and paid for out of their income (via taxes). They too perform more work than they are paid for, which economises on the cost of government, national and local.

The fact that commercial and financial workers and civil servants don’t produce surplus value does not make them any less, or lesser, members of the working class. They, too, are victims of the wages system and have an interest in working for its abolition.

The human family (2019)

From the January 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

The human family can produce abundance for itself without harming nature — as soon as the world’s workers take possession of the human family’s home, this planet, in the interests of our species. When the population is in conscious control of its affairs, it will not jeopardise its future or commit mass suicide by destroying its source of sustenance,

It will develop and make use of sources of energy such as tidal, geothermal, solar, satellite solar, and wind power, and nuclear fusion. Experts in these fields insist that the knowledge, technology, energy, and materials are available to produce abundance for today’s population and more, with a sustainable environment.

It will use the brains of the 50 percent of scientists in industrial countries that now is tied up in military, mass killing research. It will free the productive talents of the 50 percent of every labour force that is now tied down to occupations only required by the existing insane society, such as money counters, police, armed forces, lawyers, judges, etc.

It will allow the present tiny minority who are the ruling class in today’s crazy system to join in to support themselves. It will free the repressed energies, intellectual, physical, and creative, of a population that is now restricted to the requirements of obedient profit producers.

We cannot rely on leaders, who represent the world’s minority owners, who cannot even cooperate to save themselves. They can only see themselves as dominant beings, investors, top dogs in a class-divided world.

Their businesses and governments cannot police each other in controlling environmental destruction.  Capitalism can no more prevent climate change than it can prevent wars or poverty, because capitalism is the system that’s causing them in the first place.

How we act depends on how we think. We must think for ourselves, not let ‘great’ women or men do our thinking for us.

Points for Propagandists: Whose Savings? (1930)

From the May 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Whose Savings?

At frequent intervals we are reminded by capitalist apologists of the sums of money owned by workers and deposited in Savings Banks and similar institutions. The amounts themselves, although large in the aggregate, represent only a small fraction of the amounts owned by the capitalist minority of the population, and those who accept the figures have never attempted to show that the savings in question really do belong to members of the working class. Now comes Mr. T. S. Ashton, Reader in Currency and Finance at Manchester University, and shows that, in the main, they do not. The information was given by him in a paper which he read on Wednesday, January 15th, to the Manchester Statistical Society, reported in the Manchester Guardian on the following day (January 16th, 1930). Mr. Ashton agreed that the majority of the Post Office Savings Bank and Trustee Savings Bank accounts are held by workers, but he then showed that the total deposits, on. the other hand, are largely concentrated in a few accounts held by non-workers. In 1919 four Trustee Savings Banks analysed their accounts with the following results : At Kirkcaldy, 60 per cent. of the depositors had deposits averaging less than £10 per head, and all their deposits together amounted to less than one twentieth part of the total deposits; 82 per cent. of the depositors held together only a little over a quarter of the total deposits.

At Paisley, 10,000 depositors owned together only 3 per cent. of the deposits (£32,000), while 700 large depositors held £764,000, including holding of stock.

Mr. Ashton stated that the position with regard to Post Office Savings Banks is similar to that of the Trustee Savings Banks, and there has been no essential change since 1919. The Manchester Guardian accepts Mr. Ashton’s conclusions.

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Labour Government Waiting For "Prosperity." 

We have asked when the Labour Government intend to provide the benefits which it promised to give to the workers in the shape of social reforms. Mr. Snowden, Chancellor of the Exchequer, has answered the question.

He gave a wireless broadcast on April 15th and his address was reported in the Daily Telegraph on the following day. He said :—

  I have held all my life that the happiness of the people can be vastly improved by great schemes of social reform and national reconstruction. I believe that the distribution of the national wealth calls for reform. I believe also that these vital improvements are only possible out of revived and prosperous industry from which our national revenue is derived. (Italics ours.)

But the only respect in which industry, as a whole, is unprosperous is in respect of the poverty of the workers—both employed and unemployed.

The employing class collectively have never been other than prosperous, and the workers have never been other than poor.

All, then, that Mr. Snowden offers is a promise to help the workers at some time unspecified when they are prosperous and will not need help.

We would add that capitalism, whether left to its own devices or aided by the Labour Government, will never bring about that result.

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Marx versus Maxton.

Mr. Maxton, Chairman of the I.L.P., is pleased on occasion to describe himself as a Marxist in spite of his transparent ignorance of Marxian theories.

The disservice he does to Socialist propaganda is well illustrated by a statement made by him in debate with the Hon. Oliver Stanley, M.P. In this debate, reported in the Daily Herald on 27th February, 1930, Mr. Maxton made the assertion that “the manual workers produced the real wealth, and it was produced in no other way.”

Although his attention was drawn to this in a letter which the Herald published a few days later, Mr. Maxton did not question the accuracy of the report.

His statement was seized upon by the daily press and use was made of it to ridicule Marx. The Daily Express in particular published a letter from a correspondent denouncing Mr. Maxton’s statement as an “absurd Marxian doctrine” (the Daily Express, 5th March). A letter to the Daily Express pointing out that Marx quite clearly rejects the view attributed to him was not published, but a day or two later the Daily Express inserted another letter repeating the untruth.

Marx deals with the question in Capital, Vol.I., Chapter IV., section 3 (“Purchase and Sale of Labour Power "). He wrote:—

  I use the term labour power or capacity for labour to denote the aggregate of those bodily and mental capabilities existing in a human being, which he exercises whenever he produces a use-value of any kind. (Capital: Allen & Unwin Edition, page 154.)

It is a pity that Mr. Maxton cannot give his errors some other label.

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Is Parliament Too Slow?

It is often urged that Parliament as a machine is too unwieldy and slow. This criticism is usually based upon the disappointing results of legislation when judged from the standpoint of some or other group of electors. The critics forget that the failure of those who control the parliamentary machine to do something for the workers is not evidence of defective machinery, but of lack of intention. Even if the machine is at present defective, those who control it can always alter it if the electors want it altered.

General Seeley has, however, recently disclosed how speedy Parliament can be when those who control it really want it to be speedy.

General Seeley was Secretary of State for War in 1912, and in view of the anticipated war with Germany, Sir John French and Sir Henry Wilson wanted an increase in the Secret Service Fund and the passing of a more stringent Official Secrets' Act. They wanted the Bill passed through all its stages in one sitting. The Speaker of the House of Commons (Mr. Lowther) and the Clerk of the House said it was "contrary to every Parliamentary precedent and to every principle of sound government.'' Nevertheless, it was done and the Bill was introduced, put through its second reading and its Committee stage, and given the Royal assent, all within 24 hours (having previously passed the Lords). Two or three M.P.'s, who tried to speak on the Bill were pulled down by their coat tails.

General Seeley's disclosures are made in his book of reminiscences, "Adventure" (Published by Heinemann’s, 21/-).

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Bombs Are Cheap. 

The Labour Party and the Air Force.

A debate took place in the House of Lords on April 9th on the use, of the Air Force for "police" work in the outlying parts of the Empire.

"Police" work is a polite way of describing the forcible suppression of native races who resent British rule.

In the debate military and naval authorities raised objections to the use of the Royal Air Force for this purpose. The Earl of Cavan and Viscount Plumer raised the amusing objection that bombing from the air "hurts guilty and innocent alike" and "leaves bitterness behind" (Daily Telegraph, 10th April). It has remained for these military men to discover that high explosive shells fired many miles away are cute enough to select the "guilty" victims and leave the "innocent" untouched.

The Labour Party's Minister for Air, Lord Thomson, defended his policy.

  As an airman he ridiculed the naval and military arguments on the inhumanity of air warfare. He could not see the inhumanity of a bomb as compared with a shell. The question for him was efficiency and cheapness, and if the bomb satisfied that test he was for the bomb. (Daily Telegraph, April 10.)

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The Benefits of Capitalist Civilisation.

Mr. H. J. Greenwall, special correspondent of the Daily Express in Morocco, has been writing up the benefits which the French occupation has brought to the poor, untutored Moors. The work of the French is based, he says, upon "what Great Britain had accomplished in other climes (Daily Express, 10th April, 1930).

The French have abolished slavery. "Before the French conquest of Morocco the slave trade flourished, and in some parts of this country there were what might be literally termed slave studs, where slaves were bred by the pashas of the cities for sale. Since the French established a protectorate here there have been no public slave markets. Slaves may be freed on their own request."

Now that the bad old days of slavery have been abolished by the chivalrous French capitalist, the Moors have entered into a new and better world, not only the men, but also the children.

  Labour, of course, is very cheap, and the exploitation of child labour in some industries takes one’s breath away. I visited a carpet factory here. . . . the first thing that struck me was the number of tiny children, from eight to twelve years of age, working in the factory, sitting in front of the looms. They are paid per knot, and their baby fingers make knots in the twinkling of an eye.

The fathers were so unappreciative of capitalist civilisation that they resisted the French troops. It is to be hoped that the children will some day appreciate the value of being kept out of mischief from the age of eight, and saved from slavery in order to sit at a loom in a factory.

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Wealth and Directive Ability.

The Daily Express correspondent in New York tells an interesting story about the relationship between the wealth and the alleged superior grains of the capitalist class. (See Daily Express, 18th March, 1930.)

Mrs. Ida A. Flagler is the widow of the late Mr. Henry M. Flagler. He left his money to her, but she had the misfortune to become insane and was sent to a mental home in 1898. She then had property worth £200,000. This property has in the meantime grown in value to the enormous sum of £3,219,000 and her income alone is £l25,000 a year.

As the Daily Express correspondent cannot in this case attribute the increase to its owner's "directive ability" he calls it a "natural growth." When we find nature-given material transforming itself by “natural growth” into food, clothing, houses, ships, motor-cars, etc., without the expenditure of mental and physical energies by the workers who at present carry on industry, we shall be prepared to share the Daily Express correspondent's belief in the miraculous power of money to multiply itself. Until then, we shall continue to believe, in accordance with the facts of everyday experience, that the wealth of the rich is produced by the brains and brawn of the working class.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Workers' Share. (1930)

Book Review from the May 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Workers Share: A Study in Wages and Poverty, by A. W. Humphrey. Published by George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 92 pages, 2/6; cloth bound, 3/6.)

This little work is a compact handbook of information on the wealth and poverty which exist side by side in capitalist society.

Part I, "Evidence of Statistics of Wages and Wealth," gives facts and figures relating to wealth distribution over the past three-quarters of a century, together with the authority for the various statements.

Part II, “Evidence of Social Investigation," gives the summing-up of the poverty problem by many well-known social students: Booth, Shewell, Bell, Bowley, Rowntree, etc.

Part III, "Present-day Wages and the Poverty Line,” includes an estimate based on Ministry of Labour figures of the cost in 1928 of purchasing the bare necessities of the "Rowntree" Poverty Line. The cost in March, 1928, of purchasing the articles which in July, 1914, cost 35s. 3d. (the Poverty Line) was 59s. 7d.

For contrast, the author gives particulars of the average earnings of workers in different industries. The average earnings cf all male workers in industries covered by the 1924 Ministry of Labour Inquiry was 56s. 3d.

The price 2s. 6d. seems somewhat high for a work of 92 pages, but the book is a mine of information, most of it not easily accessible otherwise, and not elsewhere brought together in one handy volume. It will prove of great value to propagandists.

Edgar Hardcastle

Received For Review (1930)

From the May 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

• Brusski: A Story of Peasant Life in Soviet Russia, by F. Panferov. Published by Martin Lawrence, Ltd., 300 pages, 7/6.
• Imperialism and World Economy, by N. Bukharin. Published by Martin Lawrence, Ltd., 170 pages, 6/-.
• The Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels, with an introduction and explanatory notes by D. Ryazanoff. Published by Martin Lawrence, Ltd., 6/-.
• The Workers' Share, by A. W. Humphrey. Published by George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 92 pages, 2/6; cloth, 3/6.

Karl Marx on Christianity. (1930)

From the May 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

In answer to a “Christian Socialist” who contributed to the German Brussels Journal, Marx wrote the following :—

  “The social principles of Christianity have had eighteen centuries in which to develop, and have no need to undergo further development at the hands of Prussian consistorial councillors. The social principles of Christianity justified the slavery of classical days; they glorified mediaeval serfdom; and they are able when needs must to defend the oppression of the proletariat, though with a somewhat crestfallen air. The social principles of Christianity proclaim the need for the existence of a ruling class and a subjugated class, being content to express the pious hope that the former will deal philanthropically with the latter. The social principles of Christianity assume that there will be compensation in heaven for all the infamies committed on earth, and thereby justify the persistence of these infamies here below. The social principles of Christianity explain that the atrocities perpetrated by the oppressors on the oppressed are either just punishments for original and other sins, or else trials which the Lord in His wisdom ordains for the Redeemed. The social principles of Christianity preach cowardice, self-contempt, abasement, submission, humility, in a word, all the qualities of the canaille; and the proletariat which will not allow itself to be treated as canaille, needs courage, self- confidence, pride, a sense of personal dignity and independence, even more than it needs daily bread. The social principles of Christianity are lick-spittle, whereas the proletariat is revolutionary. So much for the social principles of Christianity" !

(Literary Remains, Vol. II., pp. 442-442.)

“The Opium of the People.”

   “The fact is that religion is the self-consciousness and the self-feeling of the man who has either not yet found himself or, having done so, has lost himself again. . . .  Thus the struggle against Religion is a direct struggle against the world whose spiritual aroma is religion. Religious poverty is in one, the expression of real poverty, and, in another, a protest against real poverty. Religion is the sigh of a heavy laden creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is a prerequisite for the attainment of real happiness by the people. . . . Thus the criticism of heaven is transformed into a criticism of earth, the criticism of theology into a criticism of politics.” (Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe, Vol. I., page 607-608. Marx, Zur Kritik der Hegelischen Rechtsphilosophie.)

Socialism vs. Nationalism. (1930)

Book Review from the May 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The History of Nationalism in the East" by Dr. Hans Kohn. (Routledge, 1929).

"East is East, and West is West And never the twain shall meet.”

So sang the jingo bard, Kipling; but, like most poets, he was prone to inaccurate statements. Dr. Kohn’s book shows that the view quoted is as absurd historically as it is geographically. Just as surely as any line of latitude forms a circle, so it is also true that “eastern” and “western” races have acted and reacted upon one another.

In the past the Arabs and the Jews have, in different ways, influenced European development profoundly under suitable economic conditions. Since the eighteenth century dawned this development has in turn spread with rapidly accumulating force over the entire globe—“the Orient ” included.

Dr. Kohn’s theme is the effect of this development upon the literary, ethical, religious, and above all, political aspects of oriental existence. Not that he puts the matter quite like that. Here and there he gives unmistakable evidence of an acquaintance with the materialistic view of history, but he is far from logically applying it. On the contrary, there are times when it is a little difficult to tell whether one is reading a transcription of the mystical views of the people, whom the author describes or the author’s own views on the subject. This is most noticeable in the two final chapters on “India’s Awakening" and “ Indian Nationalism.”

Dr. Kohn is nothing if not comprehensive. Russia, Northern Africa, Turkey, Arabia, Persia, Afghanistan, India and China are all more or less thoroughly reviewed. One wishes the author had probed as deeply as he has travelled widely, at least in the literary sense. His clearest sentences are contained in his introduction on page 10. Having briefly sketched the downfall of feudalism and the rise of capitalism in Western Europe with the accompanying religious and political changes he goes on to say :—

  “A similar process is repeating itself in the East. Ancient economic systems are falling into decay, modern industrialism, wholesale trade and finance capital are beginning to penetrate everywhere. The old ruling caste of landed nobility, warriors and priests is being slowly ousted by a rising class of merchants, lawyers and men of letters. Professional men — especially lawyers and students—are protagonists of the new nationalist movement, their champions and leaders.”

Unfortunately, the author does not maintain the argument on this level. He advances the theory that there are three "fellowships of common destiny,” viz., the Anglo-Saxon (including the U.S.A.), the European (excluding Russia), and the Oriental. Says the Doctor (page 3):—

  "The Anglo-Saxon fellowship feels and wills its unity more consciously and fervently than the others. This sentiment of unity led England to come to an agreement with the United States in 1923 regarding the payment of her war debts, thus voluntarily burdening her citizens with an unprecedented weight of taxation.” 

Dr. Kohn apparently fails to observe that war-exhausted debtors—like the proverbial beggars—can hardly be choosers.

This superficial idealism spoils the book in several places. For example, in dealing with Russia, the author remarks: “England was the birthplace of middle-class revolution. Russia has been the first to achieve social revolution ” (page 125). What does he mean? Was not the middle-class revolution a social one? Is the Russian revolution anything but a middle-class one, in spite of the activity of the workers therein? Indeed, Dr. Kohn seems far too ready to accept Bolshevik claims at their face-value, and is prepared to make excuses of this character.

  ‘‘Though Russian policy in Asia after 1917 was often determined by national egotism and conducted from the point of view of Russia’s well-being and expansion, yet this was done in the name of an international ideal which augmented its force and, at the same time, gave it a sanction comparable only with England’s middle-class European ideal of gradual training in the blessings of freedom and self-government ” (pp. 130-1).

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” and we do not like Russian capitalist nationalism and imperialism any the better because it is labelled "Communism.” Dr. Kohn is on firmer ground when he points out that ‘‘there were similarities between Russia’s social structure and that of the Easts . . .  Like Russia, the East was predominantly agricultural. As in Russia, the most urgent task was to solve the problem of the peasants and the land (page 143).

There you have the matter in a nutshell. Neither Russia nor the Orient provide the conditions necessary for the establishment of Socialism (i.e., social ownership of the means of production), and Communists who argue that ideas can be transplanted regardless of that fact are trying to stand the historical process upon its head. Unfortunately, once more Dr. Kohn fails to look at the matter in the light of his own observations, and appears to look at the peasant millions of Russia and the East for considerable assistance in the elucidation of Europe’s problems; "Europe’s,” that is, in the same sense that they have originated there and do not change their essential character when they spread eastward.

We look in vain for evidence in support of this view. It is true that (as in Europe in the sixteenth century) religion in the East is losing authority and its place is being taken by nationalist politics; but Dr. Kohn provides ample evidence in the course of his book that this movement touches but the fringe of the population. Everywhere it is the "intellectual minority,” an insignificant fraction, that is struggling for power; the passive fatalistic peasant mass may here and there be stirred into activity in support of this minority. Temporarily, the peasants may score victories and some increase their holdings; whereupon they become as reactionary as any feudalist.

In the long run, however, capitalism expropriates the peasants as ruthlessly as it does the handicraftsmen before them. The tax-collector and the money-lender denude him more or less rapidly of his property and thus convert him into raw material for the labour market.

For this expropriated class of producers neither nationalism nor Dr. Kohn’s “fellowship of common destiny ” (much less his "world-consciousness”) has anything intelligible to offer. They are but pawns in the game of life so long as that game is played by rival sections of the master class. Their historic mission is the "expropriation of the expropriators,” and on this point Dr. Kohn is most disappointingly foggy.

Eric Boden

A Debate. (1930)

Party News from the May 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

A debate took place on Friday, March 28th, at the A.E.U. Institute, Sheffield, between J. T. Murphy, representing the Communist Party of Great Britain, and our representative, E. Boden, of the Sheffield Branch.

Our Case.
The subject of the debate was: "Which Party should the workers support—the S.P.G.B., or the C.P.G.B.?”

Comrade Boden, who opened the debate, outlined the subject position of the working class in capitalist society, and showed that this subject condition could only be abolished by converting the means of living from being the private property of the capitalist class into the common property of society. This conversion could be carried out only after the capture of the political machinery by the workers, organised in the Socialist Party. Comrade Boden laid stress on the fact that the state control of capital (as in Russia) and the administration of capitalism by so-called "Labour” representatives (as in Great Britain) are not Socialism.


The Case Of The Communist Party.
In his reply, Mr. Murphy described this as the "most hopeless message he had ever listened to.”

He said that our representative had outlined some very simple facts concerning the class division in society which he did not dispute, but had not told the workers what they were to do to-morrow morning. The Soviet Union was the one exception to the general statement that the capitalists owned the means of living. The S.P.G.B. maintained a counter revolutionary attitude towards the Soviet Union. (Mr. Murphy did not venture to offer any evidence for this statement but merely contented himself with making it.) Definitions of capital were of minor importance. The burning question was how to establish Socialism!

The S.P.G.B. had a wonderful philosophy. They regarded the workers as a lot of fools who were no further advanced than they were ten years ago.

The Communist Party held that Marxists must be in the struggle consciously; but the S.P.G.B. stood society on its head. They told the workers not to strike or organise in the factories, but to be quiet. The Communist Party regarded strikes and unemployed marches as part of the political struggle leading up to the smashing of the State machine. Parliament was a capitalist machine, which could not be used by the workers; but the S.P.G.B., like the I.L.P., held that the workers could get Socialism by simply voting for it.

Second Speech For The S.P.G.B. 

In his second speech, Comrade Boden pointed out that Mr. Murphy had made a series of false statements. The S.P.G.B. did not tell the workers not to strike, and to be quiet. What they did say was that strikes failed either to remove the cause of poverty or to change the general direction of capitalist development. Hence the necessity for political action. Mr. Murphy’s statements regarding Russia were not in accordance with the facts. Lenin’s “Preparing for Revolt” was quoted as evidence that the Bolshevists had no intention of dispossessing the capitalists as a class, and further quotations from the Soviet Union Year Book, 1929, were read to show that capitalist property in the form of State loans was rapidly developing in Russia. Comrade Boden pointed out that the workers there were exploited by means of the wages system as in other countries.

Communist Reply.

Mr. Murphy, in his reply stated that the attempt by revolutionary workers in Italy to capture Parliament was met by Fascism. The workers would have to crush the capitalists on the streets. The Russian Revolution had shown the way in which the workers should come to power. The S.P.G.B. said there had been no Revolution in Russia, but the workers owned the means of living there. True, they did not receive the full fruits of their labour individually, but they did so collectively through their control of the State. They talked of their “wages,” but that was only a convenient expression for the benefit of people with only average intelligence. Really, another word should be used to describe the arrangement. The workers ruled in Russia, but the S.P.G.B. talked the language of counter-revolution. Mr. Murphy said that the S.P.G.B.’s case had vanished and in its place stood a diatribe against Russia. The S.P.G.B. took its stand alongside the Archbishop of Canterbury. Our speaker had accused the Communists of supporting the Labour Party, but Mr. Murphy asserted that this was only because its leaders were at the head of the Trade Union movement in the General Council during the General Strike. True, they were only there to betray it, but what were the Communists to do—become strike-breakers ?

Final Speech For The S.P.G.B.

In his concluding speech, Comrade Boden said that Mr. Murphy seemed unable to distinguish between taking part in a strike against the employers, and supporting the Labour Party (a party admitted by the Communists to be a capitalist party) during an election.

To a Socialist the difference between a strike and a demand for reforms of the capitalist system is obvious.

Mr. Murphy’s statement that in Russia the workers are the rulers is not in accordance with the facts. The assistant secretary of the Russian Communist Party, V. Molotov, in his book, “The Communist Party of the Soviet Union,” states that less than half of the Party members are workers, and they constitute a small minority of the working class of Russia. Further, the reactionary elements who were supposed to have been suppressed 10 years ago are active inside the Russian Communist Party, as is shown by the repeated "purgings.” This fact alone disposed of the claims made on behalf of the dictatorship in Russia.

Finally, the three principal pillars of the State which the Bolsheviks were alleged to have smashed (i.e., the political police, the bureaucracy and the standing army) remain intact according to Molotov. They would do so while capitalism lasted in Russia.

Mr. Murphy Winds Up The Debate.

In winding up the debate, Mr. Murphy asserted that the army in Russia is “ours.” It was only natural that reactionary elements should force their way into the ruling party in any country. It had happened in Ireland, but in Russia these elements were being discovered and expelled.

To New Readers. (1930)

From the May 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our object is the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by, and in the interests of, the whole people. Let us examine this object a little closer.

First of all, what do we mean by common ownership? Do we propose taking over all the means of production, etc., and then dividing them up amongst the whole people? Of course not. Mills and factories, railways and steamships, are all too large and too complicated to admit of piecemeal division. In fact, one of the benefits capitalist production has conferred upon society is just this: that it has organised production on a large scale, though the process has brought misery to millions of workers and small proprietors. If we were to attempt to “divide up” existing wealth, therefore, we would have to take a step backward in development and revert to the primitive productive methods of our forefathers. And even if it were possible to take such a step backward, we would then be faced with two hopeless tasks: (1) To produce enough to satisfy the needs of the present huge population, without the productive, transport and other facilities that exist to-day; and (2) with private property of a primitive kind in existence to prevent the regrowth of huge amalgamations, such as exist to-day.

So for the above reasons, and a host of others, we do not propose a “dividing-up” policy. What we do intend is that all the means of producing and distributing the things we need shall be taken over and administered as the common possession of one huge family—the human family. In other words, that each will be free to eat, drink and clothe himself according to his needs, and that in return each will contribute his services to production according to his capacities and the requirements of the times. This will involve the organisation of production according to plan. That is, it will be necessary to determine roughly : (1) The production required; (2) the raw material and machinery, etc., required; (3) the amount of work required to ensure the necessary production; (4) the allocation of the population to the work required.

Now the early stages of this alteration will obviously not be easy; it will involve an internal readjustment that will be great or small according to the size and mental clearness of the majority in favour of Socialism. Once a real beginning has been made, however, the tremendous surplus of working energy society possesses will soon make itself plain, and the call upon each individual for necessary productive work will be small. As we have often pointed out in these columns, one has only to pause for a moment and reflect upon the appalling waste of labour to-day involved in useless competition, in advertising, in Army, Navy, Police and Air Forces, in pandering to the tastes of a luxurious, bored and debauched ruling class, and finally—apart from myriads of other ways—in the tragic comedy of hundreds of thousands looking for work, while hundreds of thousands are in want.

When the new society has settled down to production on the new plan of organisation there will be ample leisure for each individual to employ himself in ways productive of pleasure. To some leisure time devoted to invention; to others the devotion to the different arts will be the outlet for their superfluous energies. Others again will like to spend some time in travel and it is just here that the new arrangement promises most. Modern industry has so simplified production that it has reduced the part of each to a comparatively simple one, and the tendency in this direction is still rapidly proceeding. Hence, under Socialism, as long as there is sufficient man (or woman) power in a given centre, it will not matter how often or how rapidly people change from one place to another. In the early days of capitalism it was customary for the handicraftsman to spend a part of his training in travelling from town to town, gaining experience before settling down, hence the name “journeyman.” In like manner, in the future, a worker will be able to cover the whole globe, working here and there, and dull, drab routine work will disappear.

This is not an idle dream. Ponder upon it, and you will find it is possible, inevitable and the glorious legacy of ages of suffering.

Gilmac

Choose Your Job — And Get Rich. (1930)

From the May 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Lord Cowdray (better known as Sir Weetman Pearson), the Liberal engineering and oil millionaire, built up a fortune out of the shares in firms and combines, he “controlled.” When he died recently he left behind advice to parents and children which the Daily Express (February 20th) entitles, "How to Become a Millionaire.” Among the hints are the following:

  Be sure that the career you are embarking upon is going to be congenial to you, that you have an aptitude for it, and that you can put your whole heart and energy into it. Your business in life should also become your great pleasure.
  Work hard and be patient. Do your best each and every day.

Like most employers who become multi-millionaires, Lord Cowdray made it harder for the worker to become an employer because he increased the size of his business so largely that competition became more difficult. He did not leave any information telling the workers how they could choose congenial occupation in these days when Labour Exchanges say "take any job you can get.” "Work hard,” says the industrial Lord, but most of the workers who have slaved their whole lifetime are without any wealth. The Editor of the Sunday Express (Mr. James Douglas) admits that hard work under this system is ruinous to the workers. His words are :

   "Our working people live their whole life on the poverty line, some of them a little below it and some of them a little above it, but most of them precariously poised on it.”

Adolph Kohn

Proper Gander: Sold A Pup? (2019)

The Proper Gander Column from the January 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

If you’ve been ripped off by a cowboy builder or scammed by a fraudster, then BBC1’s Watchdog could sniff around and get to the bottom of the issue. Since 1980 its reporters have investigated suspect business practices and exposed con-artists through undercover filming and foot-in-the-door confrontations. As well as raising awareness of ‘consumer rights’, the programme has been instrumental in recalls of dangerous products, closing down ‘rogue traders’ and securing compensation payments. In doing this, it highlights the cynical, exploitative nature of capitalism.

The programme regularly hounds ‘rogue traders’, firms which leave the job badly done and the customer disappointed. One example featured was a car rental business which hired out uninsured and unroadworthy motors to unknowing drivers, another was a delivery company with a track record of damaging and mishandling its parcels. Deliberately shoddy work tends to come about when the motivation to make a fast buck overrides any motivation to do a job well. So, tasks are rushed, or cheaper, sub-standard materials are used, or corners are cut. The less time spent on labour and the less money spent out, the more profit for the owners. Of course, this approach isn’t just found among ‘rogue traders’ – it’s built in to any enterprise within capitalism. A company only tips over into being a ‘rogue trader’ when it pushes its luck by breaking the law or the contract about what it will do. Some use more complicated rip-offs than just short-changing their punters. Fraudsters trick people into parting with their money, whether by pretending to be from an official organisation or hacking into bank accounts.

Watchdog reported how getting money back after it’s been scammed away is far from easy when banks reject fraud claims, adding insult to injury. Banks aren’t keen to sacrifice some of their potential profits by paying out, so will place a high burden of proof on the claimant. Only a quarter of the money lost to fraud ends up being refunded to victims, a failing which Watchdog attributes to the Financial Ombudsman Service. This organisation investigates disputes between consumers and financial services such as banks, insurance companies and investment firms, with 250 cases dealt with each week. It’s funded by these financial services, so no wonder it appears biased in their favour. People unlucky enough to get scammed often lose out twice, once to the fraudsters and then to the bank.

Watchdog has a bone to pick with unwanted phone calls as well. ‘Cold calling’, also known as ‘direct marketing’, is another way that scammers find their prey, although the technique can be used by firms working within the law. It’s usually just as we’re sitting down with our dinner when we get a phone call asking us about the accident we were recently involved in or trying to flog us double glazing or arrange PPI compensation. Registering with the Telephone Preference Service is supposed to remove your phone number from the list which direct marketeers can use, although this doesn’t stop the most unscrupulous ones. Despite cold calling being widely resented, the tactic must work otherwise the companies wouldn’t carry on doing it. If they call thousands of people, it only takes a few to part with their money to make it financially viable. Older people are targeted as they’re seen as particularly vulnerable to being conned. Cold calling sums up how alienating capitalist society can be. It must be a rather sad life to sit in a blandly oppressive call centre somewhere, treating whoever you’re phoning as nothing more than an opportunity to claw in money, a fraction of which you’ll get back as wages. No-one aspires to work in direct marketing; it’s the kind of job which people fall into when they’re desperate for cash and don’t have other options.

Watchdog also draws attention to misleading marketing techniques. For instance, some online clothes shops have time limited discounts on their clobber. On their websites, the clock which counts down to when the offer runs out just resets itself after the advertised deadline. It might not seem such a huge problem if a cheaper deal is always available rather than only for a short time, but really it’s a cynical marketing ploy. The countdown is supposed to give us the fear of missing out if we don’t buy quickly enough. It’s a way of being pressured into buying. Again, the aim is to squeeze as much money from us as possible. All advertising is a type of manipulation, even if this method is a bit more deceitful than most.

While Watchdog highlights problems and doggedly works to improve things for people who’ve had a bad deal, there’s a limit to how much it can achieve. Its bark is worse than its bite. ‘Consumer rights’ campaigners can help shape policies and reforms, but they can’t stop the impetus to maximise profits by whatever dodgy means possible; it’s inherent in capitalism.

Mike Foster

For socialism (2019)

Book Review from the January 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Socialism and Commodity Production’. By Paresh Chattopadhyay, (Brill, 2018)

Commodities are items of wealth that have been produced for sale. Commodities have been produced in pre-capitalist societies but such production was marginal. It is only in capitalism that it becomes the dominant mode of production, where goods and services are produced for sale with a view to profit. Commodities must be capable of being reproduced, and this includes the uniquely capitalist commodity of human labour power, the capacity to work which is sold for a wage or salary.

Because of the incidental nature of ‘simple commodity’ production in pre-capitalist societies, argued Marx, it would be a mistake to claim there had been a ‘simple commodity’ production society. It is capitalist society which has generalised commodity production. Under capitalism the value of a commodity is determined by the amount of socially necessary labour time needed for its production and reproduction. According to Marx’s law of value, generalised commodity production results in money as the ‘general equivalent’ in buying and selling.

In Marx’s writings the abolition of capitalism is the abolition of commodity production, and with it the money-wages-buying-and-selling-system, together with all the institutions needed to make it function, such as the state. He called this post-capitalist society variously social-democracy, socialism, communism, a free association, the co-operative society and more — but they all meant the same thing.

In Marx’s time there was a consensus on this view of commodity production. So August Bebel could write in Woman and Socialism (1879): ‘since in the new society there is no commodity to buy and sell … There is no money either’. Anybody who regarded themselves as Marxist would have agreed. However, the consensus broke down in the twentieth century as politicians pursued their own political agenda. In 1924 Kautsky wrote: ‘a socialist society would not be able to exist without a system of exchange of products’, that is, money, commodity exchange and the wages system. Kautsky was leader of the German Social Democratic Party and although he mouthed Marxist phrases he pursued policies favourable to a state-run capitalism. In 1917 Lenin asserted in State and Revolution that socialism was a transitional society between capitalism and communism. In this conception of ‘socialism’ the state, commodity production and the wages system not only continue to exist but in the years after the Bolshevik revolution their scope and intensity was extended throughout Russia.

In 1936 Stalin declared that the USSR was officially ‘Socialist’ and in a work published in 1954 spoke of ‘the necessity of commodity production under socialism’. For many the existence of commodity production and the law of value in ‘socialism’ was self-evident. The economist Oskar Lange could confidently write: ‘A careful study of Marx’s writings establishes clearly that he held the view that the theory of value applied to a socialist economy’ and ‘In a socialist economy the law of value continues to operate because production continues to be commodity production’. Unfortunately for Lange, Marx never held that view and here are just a couple of his repudiations:

 ‘Only on the basis of the capitalist mode of production do commodities become the general, predominant form of production’ (Capital, Volume 1).
 ‘Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products’ (Critique of the Gotha Programme).

Paresh Chattopadhyay does a good job of showing why and how the establishment of socialism means the abolition of commodity production. Included in this work are detailed analyses of so-called ‘Market Socialism’ and the ‘Economic Calculation Argument’ and much more. It is to be hoped that a cheaper and more readily accessible version will soon become available.

Lew Higgins

Hope (2019)

The Wood for the Trees Column from the January 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

The only good news these days, it would appear, is no news. The rise and rise of populist fascism; the ever-broadening gulf between rich and poor; the degradation of the environment; the multiplicity of wars; all of this seems to leave little space for hope. Is all hope an illusion or is it essential for life to exist at all? Everything we do is motivated by the hope that it will achieve the desired result; without hope we would do nothing because nothing would always be the result of both action and inaction equally. But without some evidence that human agency can achieve the aims hoped for, it becomes an empty faith. Ironically the hope that its absence will bring about a level of contentment courtesy of complacency and cynicism is nothing more than a paradox – the hope that a lack of hope would be emotionally and rationally preferable is also a hope. Unless we are clinically depressed it would appear that we’re stuck with hope; and that being the case is there any evidence that ‘the glass is half full’ rather than ‘half empty’?

Famously when Pandora opened her box (jar) and released all of the evils into the world only one thing remained, after she had hastily closed it again, and that was hope. Since that time hope has had a deeply ambivalent quality; was it one of the evils within the box or was it the only incarnation of the good? Were we saved from hope by its imprisonment in the box or does it represent a positive resource preserved to enable us to face the evils? The hope for immortality in heaven and that karma will right the wrongs done to us are examples of the evil nature of hope since they are both represent the negative and impotent ‘triumph of hope over experience’. But does the hope that socialism represents the redemption of humanity also fit into this category? Certainly the ‘culture industry’ of capitalism ceaselessly endeavours to convince us that it does. It is very illuminating that our culture readily embraces a supernatural parental deity but finds the idea of a mature, rational and democratic society completely crazy! Let’s have a look at the hopes incarnate within capitalist ideology.

Happiness, we are told, depends on our ability to find someone to exploit our labour so that he can join the Freemasons and send his children to public school; it depends on us producing everything and then buying a tiny portion of it back to create profits and a ‘thriving’ economy; it depends on two weeks in a year where we get to work on our skin cancer under a ‘foreign’ sun; it depends on chaining ourselves to debt and mortgages; it depends on finding a ‘significant other’ that will give ‘meaning to our lives’ etc. Those who hope for these things deny the overwhelming evidence that all they bring is alienation, disappointment, bitterness and anger together with an early grave. The hope for the creation of a community based on mutual love and respect rarely features in the ‘bucket list’ of contemporary humans. This is the triumph of hope as a consumer durable with built-in obsolescence.

Socialism represents the antithesis to consumerism and its promise that if you have enough ‘stuff’ you will be happy; it offers a world where meaningful and fulfilling production for and within an egalitarian community provides for our most profound human needs. This is what socialists ‘hope’ for and believe in; it is not a faith because with faith you have certainty and with certainty there is no need for hope. We are well aware of the alternative which is barbarism; the fear that, as happened in Europe 1600 years ago, we are entering another Dark Age. Once it was thought that God would end the world because of its violence and injustice; today it is the Earth itself that will reject us by heating up and making human life unsustainable. Our species only just avoided a nuclear holocaust and we might never be that lucky again; those who say they cannot ‘wait’ for the revolution and want to do something ‘now’ are just prolonging the agony by promoting anti-revolutionary reforms.

Many in the past have been convinced of the imminence of some kind of ‘Armageddon’ and our contemporary fears are, in some ways, no different to theirs because since the development of private property societies and their violent parasitic elites there has always been much more room for despair and cynicism than hope. But there have also always been minorities who have courageously worked for a better future driven by the hope that humanity will turn its back on the tribalism of property and create a global community worthy of our potential – socialism.

Wez

Beyond the Suffrage (2019)

Pamphlet Review from the January 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Sylvia Pankhurst on Socialism’. Socialist Party. £1.50 (£2.50 incl p&p inland UK)

‘Full and complete Socialism entails the total abolition of money, buying and selling, and the wages system.’ So wrote Sylvia Pankhurst in a 1923 article ‘The Future Society’ reproduced in this pamphlet, an article which makes it clear that she viewed socialism in essentially the same way that the Socialist Party does.

Socialism and communism are the same, she says, and involve common ownership of the means of production, with production for use. Capitalism, in contrast, involves many people engaging in unproductive work such as banking. It also entails such institutions as pensions and the Poor Law, and the wages system makes the worker’s life precarious and leads to unemployment. She in effect opposed reforming capitalism, though she discussed this in a rather confusing way as setting up a half-way house to socialism.

In ‘Socialism’, another article from the same year, also reproduced here, Pankhurst emphasised the idea of abundance, and stated that the aim was not to put new rulers in place of the present ones. Capitalism limits production: for instance, agricultural land is turned into deer forests or private parks, and much land is left vacant. Production is further limited because only a certain amount can be sold at a profit. Workers who could be productive are unemployed, and factories are idle. In socialism, in contrast, the land and other means of production will belong to all the people. Production will be for use, and every effort will be put to supply essentials such as food, clothing and housing. What is produced will be freely available, with no money or exchange.

The pamphlet also contains a review, reprinted from the Socialist Standard (November 1999), of Mary Davis’s book Sylvia Pankhurst: A Life in Radical Politics. The review contrasts Sylvia’s position with that of the ‘official’ suffragettes led by her mother Emmeline (wrongly referred to as ‘Emily’), who advocated votes only for wealthy women. Sylvia supported universal suffrage and then, unlike her mother, opposed the First World War and was for a short while a member of the ‘Communist’ Party. She later abandoned radical causes and supported Ethiopia against fascist Italy.

The pamphlet’s introductory essay traces her political trajectory in a little more detail, including her work in the East End of London, her publication of the Workers’ Dreadnought and the various organisations she belonged to. The Bolshevik revolution in Russia led her to support soviets rather than the use of parliament and to oppose the CPGB affiliating to the Labour Party. For this she was fiercely criticised by Lenin, and she was expelled from the CP in 1921. She then went on to view Russia as capitalist rather than socialist, and in 1924 described Russian workers as wage slaves.

Sylvia Pankhurst ought to be recalled, not as someone who played a subsidiary but significant role in the suffrage movement or was an object of Lenin’s criticism, but as someone who saw through the propaganda of capitalist politicians and the Bolsheviks, and – for a few years at least – stood for the abolition of the wages system. This pamphlet should help to ensure that this aspect of her politics is not forgotten.

Paul Bennett

No longer invisible (2019)

From the January 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

In hi-vis vests France’s semi-rural towns get stroppy

Over the last few years French sociology textbooks have been preoccupied with the fraught situation of a new class of worker; workers whose discrete presence in the workplace, low participation in trade union activity and variable hours render them largely invisible to the society they live in. They are, for this reason, very expendable and easily exploitable. Another, much older, type of working class invisibility devolves from the very organisation of the great cities of capitalism: spatial segregations being a tried-and-tested method to organise political marginality. Many ‘sink estates’ in Britain, for example, are located on the periphery of the big cities and are largely inaccessible given the scanty coverage of transport networks dominated by the privately owned car. Small rural towns with declining industries are also increasingly isolated by the scaling back of public transport and so on. Invisibility is, in itself, an important political issue in modern capitalism.

France, of course, is distinctive in having massive council estates surrounding the larger cities; estates where major social problems can be concentrated and accumulated with little risk to the everyday lives of the more prosperous populations living in the prestigious centres. The largely immigrant population of the suburbs in France gained a massive upsurge in visibility during the violent riots of the early years of this century. For their part, the small towns seemed until recently to have managed to retain a surprising level of political tranquillity despite the gradual accumulation of distinctive social problems. Their material situation seems to have declined in the years following the crisis of 2008 and some of the more perspicacious sociologists have taken to contrasting the lively economic situation of the suburbs around Paris to the continual economic decline of the smaller rural towns, even those not too far from Paris. Poor access to medical care or to legal redress, distant social service provision, haphazard retail outlets and so on are problems that can be found in most rural areas across Europe, of course – in Scotland, for example (which shares a similarly low population density with rural France). The problem then is not why have workers in provincial France suddenly donned fluorescent yellow jackets, interrupted the flow of traffic and orchestrated noisy demonstrations in the distant towns? The real question is not what took them so long but how did they manage to do it. What and who is behind this yellow jacquerie?

The emergence of this movement into high visibility started suddenly in November when President Macron’s government rolled out its plan to increase the tax on diesel fuel for cars, motorbikes and scooters under the (questionable) pretext that this would eventually limit carbon dioxide emissions. In line with this thinking, motorists were supposed to oblige by selling their existing bangers and buying hybrid or electrical cars, cost being no excuse. The tax was also to be laid on the heavy fuels used to heat houses and out-houses in the smaller rural areas, presumably an invitation to install solar panels. But this was a tax hike which hit a population far more dependent on the private car than their contemporaries in the large cities. These are people who can rarely rely on the kind of cheap and efficient public transport commonplace in the large metropolitan centres. Financial capitalism, in other words, had finally caught up with those workers who had sought to avoid the off-putting compromises of life in the big cities by resorting to long-distance commuting to work from one provincial town to another. It was a tax bullet they felt they couldn’t dodge. To make things worse, it came on top of the disastrous emptying out of rural life which has accelerated over the course of the last two decades: Rural railway services are being run down for lack of profitability. Doctors are leaving for the bigger towns, hospitals are few and far-between, post offices and banks are closing, cafés, bars and restaurants are being boarded up. Those who remain are often the elderly, seniors or those who have — as we have seen – constructed an increasingly absurd life of long-distant commuting. For the elderly, in particular, the current rural set-up promises little more. Pensions were de-indexed a few years ago (thank you François Holland) and not revised upwards by Macron. Indeed, Macron’s hike in the Contribution Générale de Solidarité (CSG) took even more money from the poorer pensioners. Even if rural transport was available in the rural areas, many of the elderly would be in no position to afford it.

The revolt of these provincial workers owed a lot to the possibilities opened up by social media, of course. The internet allowed the distances between the smaller towns to be shrunk down. The militants used social media to co-ordinate road blocks disrupting the smooth flow of supply across the various départements, playing cat and mouse with the police. The result was chaos. Surprisingly, these roadblocks encountered massive support from motorists and from a majority of lorry drivers despite the inconvenience. Most of the ‘militants’ seem to be middle-aged with a sprinkling of young people including many single mothers. Many ‘activists’ are drawing a pension. There are many wage-earners though some are currently unemployed. There are also many self-employed craftsmen and small businessmen. To begin with exchanges with motorists and lorry drivers were good-natured although there were some violent scenes. This seems to have remained the pattern: that of a friendly movement of people who know each other and who, for the vast majority, are undertaking unconventional political activity for the first time. Here it should be mentioned that small town rural France is generally conservative. It votes for moderate candidates in elections and is rarely impressed by the noisy extremist leftism one finds in the bigger cities. No wonder everyone is surprised.

In response Macron announced a rise in payments to those on the minimum wage and in the income level above which pensioners have to pay the CSG and promised to increase taxes on the ‘digital giants’ Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple. Nothing fundamental will change except perhaps the people themselves; ordinary people on barricades or on road blocks. Or those who have (amazingly) found themselves on television arguing for a fairer taxation regime which pursues the wealthy and counters tax evasion. Then there will be those who have discovered the power they have to co-ordinate political activity via social media. Perhaps that’s one reason why Macron wants to increase the tax on Facebook.

M.M. 

Paris.