Letters: Frustrated reader (1987)

Letters to the Editors from the May 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Frustrated reader

Dear Letters Editor.

I find what I interpret to be the SPGB line at times stimulating and at times immensely frustrating!

The point made in Questions of the Day, that as the frontiers of the state have become wider many posts have been taken by the working class, is a good one. And I acknowledge that the position as regards democracy and socialism favoured by the SPGB has been "logical and consistent".

However, having said this I would like to draw your attention to the fact that for all your theoretical consistency nothing has been achieved by the SPGB in its 80-odd years' history in terms of changing British, or for that matter world capitalism. Is that not enough to convince you of a change of emphasis? For, as you ceaselessly point out, man's labour and life is alienated under capitalism, and in socialist terms this is a very serious state of affairs. Too serious, I suggest, for theoretical purity to take first place in a list of priorities. Surely the time is now right for a wide alliance of progressive forces led by socialists to oppose the capitalist system and stem the tide of damage and wasted human potential?!

To call Socialist Workers. Communists, social reformists, revolutionary communists, social democrats, anarchists and Liberals as equally all "agents of capitalism” is neither meaningful nor helpful for the working class. You in the SPGB may religiously believe in a sort of early Marxian class consciousness just over the horizon that will sweep the SPGB into power, but when you walk away from your copies of the Paris Manuscripts 1 think you'd find for a considerable time to come that nothing had changed.

The reality of all previous working-class movements is that consciousness has not occurred in the "pure" universal and objective way Marx predicted. Consciousness and hence action invariably results from a number of factors combining together and then workers drifting back into an "unconscious" state once the victory has been won or defeat made obvious.

It is not sufficient for your magazine to assert that the past proves that the time is not ripe for change yet! How far does capitalism have to exploit man and his environment before the SPGB squeezes out of its ivory tower?

The struggle of the working class for its emancipation is far too serious for theoretical abstractions to get in the way of its progress, I trust you'd agree.

Why then do you persist in this rather naive belief that capitalism has provided us (the working class if you need reminding) with the institutions for the expression of our movement's values and aims? Somewhere in Questions of the Day, I think there is an oblique reference to Marx's vague statements on the working class "winning the battle of democracy" in the Communist Manifesto, to back up this clearly ridiculous position

Why should the bourgeoisie be so accommodating? I appreciate and accept that Marx believed the fate of capitalism to be lodged in its own system, i.e. it is inevitable that the antagonism inherent in capitalism will lead to its destruction. But isn't it just taking this analysis a little too far to suggest that the capitalist class will actually go out of its way to assist in this area? If you do believe this then I fear that you are labouring under the misapprehension that the bourgeoisie can achieve "objective" class consciousness too.

The battle for socialism and against capitalism must be waged on a number of fronts, parliamentary, industrial, in the media and in the educational system, and because of the nature of this struggle it is inevitable that socialists will form alliances both temporary and permanent with other "progressive'' forces. It is clearly ridiculous to claim that a small insignificant (and some would say anachronistic) party like the SPGB holds the monopoly on truth; it raises politics to the level of religious belief and is an insidious trend in many of the parties of the broad "left".

I also think that the SPGB's insistence on "peaceful means", are either shallowly naive or downright counter revolutionary. Engels warned us that capitalism would not give up an inch without a struggle. Eduard Bernstein (the father of genteel peaceful "socialism"). successfully destroyed Marx's revolutionary party. Let us not fall into the trap of splendid isolationism, for as Marx put it. we have a world to win and I think the SPGB is in danger of missing the contest.

Call me Leninist, elitist, proto-fascist or whatever fine phrase you choose to implement for minority consumption in your next publication, but I at least know that socialism is worth fighting for. I am working-class. I have a sufficient knowledge of Marx to understand my world. I cannot therefore stand the torpor that you in the Sodalist Party have descended into!! Wake up! There's a war going on under your noses!

A Walker 

Colchester, Essex

(We have deleted a paragraph of this letter which summarised the criticisms made by our correspondent. Editors)

Reply

The writer makes a number of points about The Socialist Party which we think need a reply. But first we would like to make it clear that we take very seriously the human condition in capitalism — so seriously, in fact, that we are engaging in the political action we think is necessary not just to patch up capitalism but to abolish it and replace it with socialism. That, and not "theoretical purity", is our sole objective.

We also think that those involved in meaningful political activity do need theory — in the sense of an understanding of why society is the way it is, what could be achieved given what we know about the world and an idea of how that objective is going to be attained. Without such a conceptual map to guide political action then many sincere political activists become hopelessly lost or find themselves somewhere very different from where they intended. This is not a question of "religious belief" in theoretical purity, but a matter of practical political necessity.

To turn to the specific points that the correspondent raises. Firstly, the question of class consciousness. We do not understand what is meant when the writer refers to class consciousness not occurring "in the pure' universal and objective way Marx predicted". However, what we understand by the term class consciousness is a recognition among workers that they are indeed members of the working class and. as such, share common interests with other workers world-wide — interests that are in direct opposition to those of the owning class. Class consciousness also means a recognition that those collective class interests cannot be met within the present system of society and therefore political action is necessary to abolish capitalism and bring about socialism. Our conception of socialism is of a society in which all wealth is held in common and is democratically controlled. In other words socialist society will be based on voluntary cooperation. For that to be possible, people would have to want socialism and be prepared to actively participate in making it work. Class consciousness within capitalism is therefore a necessary pre-requisite for socialism.

How does that class consciousness come about? Unlike the correspondent, we do not think that it can suddenly arise and then subside again so that workers "drift back into an unconscious' state". We think that class consciousness arises for all sorts of different reasons. Some workers may well gain a greater insight into their position in society from reading the works of Marx and Engels or other socialist propaganda. Many are likely to be driven into becoming socialists as a result of their daily experience of life in capitalism — its contradictions, deprivations, insecurity and so on.

We agree with the writer completely that "the struggle of the working class for its emancipation is far too serious for theoretical abstractions to get in the way of its progress". But it is certainly not the view of The Socialist Party that the time is not yet ripe for change. On the contrary socialism is an urgent and immediate task and the technology, knowledge and skills exist to make socialism a practical possibility now. However the sad fact remains that what is lacking is the political will to make socialism happen, among a majority of the working class.

This brings us to the criticism of The Socialist Party's argument for the need for the working class to win "the battle of democracy". But first we would like to clear up some important misconceptions. We do not think that capitalism has provided democratic institutions for the benefit of socialists; neither do we think that the capitalist class will "go out of its way" to assist us to get socialism; we insist that socialism must be established democratically and we agree that propaganda for socialism can be made in all areas of life. (Incidentally. Eduard Bernstein and his revisionist followers destroyed the German Social Democratic Party as a revolutionary socialist organisation not because he believed in parliamentary methods, but because he was willing to sacrifice the party's revolutionary socialist principles in order for the party to achieve political power on the basis of a reformist programme.)

Because The Socialist Party thinks that it is essential for there to be a majority of socialists before we can have socialism, then it is necessary to have some kind of measure of support. Elections (for all their limitations) are one way of finding out whether sufficient support for socialism exists. There is the added advantage that contesting elections provides a useful platform from which to make socialist propaganda. But let us make it quite clear. We do not propose to form a socialist "government" (which is a contradiction in terms); neither do we believe that parliamentary elections are the only kind of political activity socialists should engage in. Indeed most of The Socialist Party's energy goes at present into talking to people at meetings, on the street, in trade unions, at work, in schools and in colleges with the intention of trying to persuade them about the need for socialism.

We do not believe that it is either inevitable or desirable to form alliances with other "progressive” forces. We certainly do not think that we hold "the monopoly on truth", but what we do think is that we have a coherent set of ideas which both explains capitalism and makes the case for a socialist society. It makes sense to us. Why then should we compromise those ideas by forming alliances with other groups whose views we don't share? While we are always willing to discuss our ideas and debate with other political organisations, we have not as yet found any which shares our view of what socialism is, let alone how to achieve it. Surely for a political alliance to be forged there must at the very least be broad agreement about ends and means.

Finally, even though there is a majority of socialists, we do not believe that the capitalist class will necessarily give up without a struggle. For that reason we take the view that in order to establish socialism it will first be necessary to take control of the state machine to prevent its forces being used against the socialist majority. And we do not rule out the possibility of force being used to defend socialism from attack by a minority of capitalists and their supporters. What we do not accept is that socialism can be established by means of insurrectionary violence undertaken by a small minority who claim to be acting in the interests of the majority. Action of this kind — no matter what the declared intention of the insurrectionists might be — could not lead to socialism since, if there was not majority support for the new society being established, the minority would be forced to use coercion and repression. Such a society would not be the cooperative, harmonious and democratic society that The Socialist Party is working for.

Editors

Letter from LEW

Dear Comrades.

Since the Editors did not reply to Alan Jones' letter in the February Socialist Standard (p. 271). I would like to reply to the comments he made.

I wrote the review of the SWP's book The Revolutionary Road to Socialism (December Socialist Standard, pp. 321-32). to which Alan Jones refers. He criticises the use I made of a quote from the book on the grounds that it is an acceptable description of socialism. But he omits the sentence which immediately follows the quote: "This is about as sound a definition of socialism as you will get from the SWP . . .  " Of course Alan Jones is right to say that the SWP quote does not show that they support state capitalism, but I did not say it did. The sentence above then continues: " . . . but, as with other statements coming from them, extreme caution should be used." Here I was suggesting that the SWP are confused and/or dishonest in their thinking about socialism. By "socialism" they do mean state capitalism but, contrary to Alan Jones' supposition, statements to this effect do not abound in their literature. It is in fact very difficult to get them to say anything specific about socialism. Nevertheless, that they do support state capitalism can be inferred from their Leninist principles, an axiom of which is that wage labour must be subordinated to state capital.

Lew Higgins

Birmingham

Clement Freud (1987)

From the May 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Each time the nation goes to the polls the Palace of Westminster stationery department will have a substantial run on crested paper. Teaspoons disappear from the cafeteria even more rapidly than they do normally, and the Sergeant at Arms' stock of hand towels available in all Members' washrooms takes a terrible hiding.

We call it "just something with which to remember our happy years at the helm". (You must know it has been authoritatively ruled by Mr Speaker himself that MPs cannot be drunk; any day now there will be other advantageous decisions taken in respect of our guiltlessness.)

(Clement Freud, Choice magazine, February 1987)

The Mockery of “Freedom”. (1925)

From the March 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recent General Election was not entirely devoid of colour. Apart from the favours that varying schools of opinion adopted, there were the miniature cascades of leaflets in blue, yellow, green, orange, and other colours, which descended through our letter-boxes each day. Among them was one of a delightful lemon-yellow, bearing the leaded caption, “The Road to Freedom.” It informed us with Spartan brevity that Great Britain was the freest country in the world. We were spared the encumbrance of definitions or comparisons, but were brought up against realities at once by the poser : “How did we get this freedom? ” Then followed the answer: “We got it almost entirely through the work done by the Liberal Party.”

You recognise the style, of course. Apart from the little word “almost,” there is a refreshing sweep about a statement like that, which convinces everyone—except those who know the facts.

“But the facts are given overleaf!” Are they? Pray let us examine them. The pamphlet says :—

    “Here are the four main stages by which we have obtained political freedom. (1) The Reform Act of 1832—passed by a Liberal Government; (2) The Reform Act of 1867—first introduced by Gladstone, 1866; finally passed 1867, when Disraeli was Prime Minister, and when Conservatives were in office, but passed by the Liberal Members who were still in a majority in the House of Commons. (3) The Reform Act of 1884—passed by a Liberal Government; (4) The Reform Act of 1918—the first steps were taken by Mr. Asquith in 1916, and the Act was passed when Mr. Lloyd George was Prime Minister of a Coalition Government. The Liberal Party also secured secrecy for the act of voting by passing the Ballot Act in 1872.”

Now we will call some more evidence. We shall perhaps appreciate how useful a little word like “almost” can be. In the interests of space we shall have to condense, but the authorities given can be consulted at any public library.

No. 1. The Reform Bill of 1832 left the working class almost entirely out of the franchise; it broke down the monopoly which the aristocratic and landed classes had enjoyed, and admitted the middle class to a share of the law-making. This was all the more exasperating (to the workers) because the excitement and agitation for the Reform Bill were in great measure that of working men.—(Justin McCarthy : Short History of Our Own Times, p. 17.)

No. 2. The Reform Bill of 1867. The £10 Borough Franchise was passed by the Tories in 1867 and was opposed by the Liberals. Gladstone’s solicitude for the working class having the franchise may be gauged by his attitude towards the £6 Franchise proposed in 1866. Writing to Mr. Horsfall, Manchester, on Aug. 8th that year, he said : “I do not agree with the demand either for manhood or household suffrage.”—(Mr. Gladstone: A Study, by L. J. Jennings, p. 245.)

The same work, on p. 22, records Mr. Gladstone as uttering the following :

  “Changes that effect sudden and extensive transfer of power are attended by great temptations to the weakness of human nature; and however high our opinion may be of the labouring classes, or of any other class of the community, I do not believe that it would be right to place such a temptation within the reach of any of them.”

From 1832 to 1867 the Liberals had a majority in most of the nine Parliaments of that period, but although repeatedly pledged to give the workers a share in the franchise they broke their promises time after time. —(History of Our Own Times.)

No. 3. The Reform Act of 1884 did little more than extend the franchise given to householders, etc., in 1867, from the boroughs to the counties.—(Any Encyclopaedia.)

No. 4. The Reform Act of 1918. This is a gem : “The first steps were taken by Mr. Asquith in 1916,” says the pamphlet; about the same time as he was conferring the inestimable “liberty” of conscription upon us, we presume. No details are given, but surely credit should have been claimed for giving the vote to Service men. Much was made of this colossal advance, at the time, but there appears to have been a conspiracy of silence on the point since. The reason may be that, as so few of them could use it then, self-bestowed bouquets were quite safely in order, whereas now it is somewhat dubious as to whether it exists at all.

  “It dates from March of this year, when the Admiralty decided to fall into line with the War Office, and to withdraw from the Navy, as had already been done early in 1922, from the Army, the privileges accorded originally during the 1918 election …. and to revert to the pre-war rule in this respect.”—“Daily News,” 24/10/24.

But as the whole Act was passed by the Coalition Government, the credit must be diluted under the “almost” clause. The remainder of the pamphlet claims credit for the benefits and liberties conferred upon the workers by Education and Industrial Freedom, i.e., freedom of combination. The following facts may be helpful in assessing the value of the Liberal Party’s efforts in those directions.

The anti-combination laws evolved during the 56 years of Whig rule, 1714 to 1770, were consolidated by the Tories in 1799. In 1824 Francis Place and Joseph Hume pushed through an Act permitting combination. In 1825 the Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, and Lord Eldon, the Lord Chancellor, obtained the repeal of the Act, declaring they were quite unaware such an Act had been passed.—(Footnote, p. 94, Webb’s History of T.U.).

In 1830 the Whigs took the name of Liberals, and Lord Melbourne appointed two Commissioners to enquire into the standing of Trade Unions. These in their report advised such repressive measures that the Government dared not bring them before Parliament. It was the Liberals who prosecuted the Lancashire miners (1832) for threatening to strike; the Southwark Shoemakers (1832) for picketing; the Bermondsey Tanners (1834) for leaving their work unfinished ; who were guilty of the blackest crime on record against Trade Unionism when they sentenced six Dorchester labourers to seven years’ transportation to Tasmania for the appalling offence of forming a Trade Union, the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers.—(Sydney Webb’s History of T.U.)

  “After a good deal of opposition on the part of the Whig Ministry of that day, backed as it was by the major portion of the manufacturing classes, and after much delay, the men were ‘pardoned,’ and ordered to be liberated. But …. the men had been hastened out of the country, and …. literally sold as slaves at £1 per head ; and even when they were pardoned, some of them did not hear of their pardon until years afterwards. . . . ”—(Geo. Howell’s “Conflicts of Capital and Labour.”)

Yes ! The Liberals have ever been great lovers of liberty. The bitterest opponents of the Factory Acts were Liberals. The venomous persecutors of the Chartists were Liberals. The deadliest enemies of combination on the part of the workers were Liberals. When, in 1869, Frederick Harrison drew up a Bill legalising Trade Unions, the Liberal Government opposed it. They passed one themselves in 1871, and shortly afterwards seven women were sent to prison for shouting “Bah” after a blackleg in South Wales, and some London gas-workers were sent to prison for preparing to strike. This under Gladstone.—(History of Trade Unionism.)

The draft of the Ballot Act of 1871 contained a clause authorising payment of election expenses. Rejected by a large Liberal majority.—(History of Our Own Times.)

For several years Mr. Plimsoll had urged the Liberals to pass an Act to prevent the sending of rotten ships to sea for the sake of the insurance, whereby numbers of sailors were deliberately murdered. On one occasion when he pointed out several Liberal shipowners guilty of this practice, he was thrown out of the House of Commons. The first Bill introducing the load line, called the Plimsoll Line, was passed by the Tories in 1875.—(History of Our Own Times.)

When Bradlaugh was returned for Northampton and declined to take the oath in their form, the liberty-loving Liberals refused to let him sit; on one occasion employing ten policemen to throw him out.— Gladstone period, 1884-1886 (History of Our Own Times). It was the Liberal Asquith who had the troops despatched to Featherstone in 1893, resulting in the killing of two innocent people and the maiming of others.

But need we go on? More recent history you already know. D.O.R.A., of blessed memory. National Registration (precursor of Conscription in spite of explicit denials at the time), the brutal suppression of conscience and opinion during the war; these, and more, were the work of the Liberals.

Freedom ! Liberty ! ! Read their record. The only liberty they have known is the liberty to exploit labour. Have we omitted anything from their rotten record? We have—piles of evidence. We have even omitted to mention they were a capitalist party. Is it necessary to add this now? Why, in their earlier days they were capitalism, as distinct from the Tory landed interest. The plague spots of Sheffield, Ancoats, Lanark, Cradley ; the industrial wens of the Black Country, the Potteries, the chemical districts, the mining areas; these are the heritage of the Liberal Party. A generation or so ago they re-christened Liberty. They called it by a French name—laissez faire—let alone. That was their idea of liberty, “Let us alone.” The slogan of the Manchester school : Starve, sweat, bludgeon, oppress and exploit, but let us alone. Men were stunted, crippled and crushed; women brutalised in mines and factories; children taken from workhouses and “apprenticed” to industrial exploiters; but—laissez faire; let us alone.

Fortunately, there are other conceptions of Liberty; other conceptions of Freedom. For us they are not mere mellifluous phrases to which are offered high-sounding apostrophies at election times. To us they are not thin abstractions floating gossamer-like over a sea of blatherspite. We visualise real freedom as belonging to a time when the whole people have free access to Mother Earth; when the whole people are free from the incubus of a parasitic class ; when the whole people socially own their means of living; when development shall be free from the shackle of selling, and production free from the necessity of profit. Freedom will then lose its capital letter. It would be the normal, not the sum of a few piffling, fraudulent reforms.

It remains but to remind you : “who would be free, himself must strike the blow.” Put not your trust in people of any party who are going to get freedom for you. Join with us in the Socialist Party and get it for yourselves.

W. T. Hopley

A Look Round. (1925)

From the March 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Increased Production—of Profits.

   “The big facts to concentrate on are two. First, the great majority of Englishmen are much poorer than they ought to be. Secondly, the problem of how to make them richer can only be solved through a great increase in their productivity. It never can be solved by tinkering at the distribution of the utterly inadequate wealth, which at present is all that they can produce.”—(“Daily Chronicle,” 7/2/25.)

Both the above “big facts” avoid the main issue. The first is ambiguous, the second is disproved everywhere. The question the workers must ask is, Why are they poor? despite the fact that it is they alone who convert the earth’s materials into a prodigious quantity of wealth. The object of the “Chronicle” writer is to obscure as far as possible the main contradiction within capitalist society, increasing poverty side by side with increasing wealth. If increased production was all that was required to remove poverty, then one and a half million idle workers could help to solve the problem, or the capitalists could refrain from deliberately restricting production in tea, cotton, rubber, wheat, and in practically every large industry. “How can it be done? Upon an adequate scale only in one way—by increasing the output per man of the workers.” (Ibid.) Note well the “per man,” which means an increased output by those AT WORK, or in other words, fewer workers required for an equal or even greater amount of wealth produced. Has increased production brought prosperity to the mill operatives?

  “The power loom abolished the hand weaver—to-day a girl in a Lancashire mill turns out more cloth in a day than a whole village of her ancestors could have done in a week.”—(“System,” August, 1924.)

Yet the operatives live in poverty, and short time working has been the order of the day. Though the “Chronicle” talks of the “utterly inadequate wealth,” observe how adequate it is for those who take no part in its production :—

  “The immense profit of £8,365,168 was earned by the Imperial Tobacco Co. (of Great Britain and Ireland) during the last year. … It is nearly £1,000,000 in excess of the nett income for the previous 12 months. (7/2/25). (“Daily Chronicle,” same date.)

  “Those who invested in March, 1918, in the Rolls Royce Company, Ltd., have had their capital doubled by bonus shares, and have each year received a dividend of eight per cent, on the whole of that capital.”—(“Daily Herald,” 13/1/25.)

Everywhere it is the same, a production of wealth once unthought of and yet—the worker to-day gets on the average just what the chattel and the serf did, their subsistence, except that they get it through the medium of money (wages). While the workers remain sellers of labour power they cannot command more than the price of that sale (wages), therefore in proportion to the ever-increasing amount of wealth they produce their conditions MUST GET WORSE. Heed not the capitalist liars, there is no problem of wealth production to-day, for the industrial revolution solved that problem. The question of poverty can only be solved by the workers themselves through the Social Revolution.

* * *

Elastic Principles. 

The class war does not depend for its existence upon the whims of agitators as our rulers and their supporters pretend to believe. The conflict existing between the two historically developed classes, capitalists and wage workers, is that between buyers and sellers of labour power. Buyers wish to buy cheap, and sellers realise as much as possible on their sale. The human element of necessity on the part of the workers (for labour power quickly deteriorates) makes, the conflict a stern reality. This fact is becoming thrust upon the workers in their struggle to live, with such persistency that even the Labour leaders, once wont to deny the class struggle, find themselves compelled to admit its existence by lip service, even if they outrage its every implication in practice.

The following is a choice example of this fact:—

  “I am not an unrepentant believer in the class struggle. I know of no Socialist Party that preaches the class struggle. There is no word in the Socialist vocabulary of that description.”

  “Mr. R. C. Wallhead said he was not one of those who went about the country proclaiming there was no such thing as the class struggle, because he was not prepared to deny the facts as they were.”

The above are the statements of the same individual, a prominent member of the I. L.P. (Gleanings and Memoranda, July, 1924, and February, 1925, respectively.) Neither are they the mere inconsistency of an individual, for that party, like the Labour Party, has from their inception, through the war, and down to the present time, been a party of confusion and compromise.

With a support comprising every shade of opinion except Socialist, and led by individuals either ignorant or unscrupulous, they merely lend their numbers to the support of every nostrum drawn across the workers’ path. The important fact for the Socialist, however, is the anti-working class nature of the activities of these Labour leaders. They do take part in the class war, whether they deny it or admit it—on the masters’ side.

* * *

Soft Soap.

According to a leading article, “Daily Herald,” 14th Feb., 1925, “The Royal Family appears anxious above all things to avoid change,” “to maintain old pomps and ceremonies,” etc. Not the capitalist class, mark you; and has the “Herald” forgotten the toadying of Labour leaders at Court functions? Mrs. Snowden, that ardent admirer of capitalist institutions, was much perturbed by the remarks of the so-called “wild men” anent the money required for the Prince of Wales’ trip to South Africa and America. Think of it. Gracious !

  “The suggestion that the Royal House does not do any work is just absolute nonsense. I consider they are the hardest worked people in the country.”—(“People,” 15/2/25.)

At what they worked Mrs. Snowden did not say.

Mere physical effort does not constitute work in the economic sense, otherwise burglars, coiners, etc., would be deemed to be engaged in that enervating pastime. The unremitting toil of the workers in mine, factory and chemical hell, such trifles can be dismissed with an insinuating insult—it is the parasites on parasites who are the “hardest worked” people. The “wild men,” too, must justify their position in order to allay the growing suspicion and discontent of their followers who expect somebody to do something for them. They must obtain a little notoriety in some way or other so as to appear to be doing that “something.” But it does not concern the workers whether the wealth of which they have been robbed is spent on rebuilding churches, champagne orgies or Royal Figureheads. When in the House of Commons capitalists like Sir Alfred Mond lie and misrepresent Socialism, or when the Labour Party prepares the armed forces as strike breakers, the extremists or wild men show their capitalist subservience—for they are as tame as white mice.

* * *

Shortage of Hovels.

It would appear from a reading of the capitalist press that slums and rotten houses, or no houses, were innovations in the workers’ drab existence. Even parsons and “ladies” have discovered this phase of social corruption when its gravity threatens the future security of the idlers whose affluence is based upon such misery. Are houses the only things of which you suffer a shortage? Does it not apply equally to millions of the workers regarding food, clothing, and the essentials for a rational existence? Though you can provide these things in abundance, under present-day arrangements they will not be produced unless providing profit and rent for the idlers first. Your masters try to hide the true cause of the present housing conditions by lies about irksome labour restrictions, dearness of materials, etc., but did one ever hear of a shortage of residences for the capitalists, or of buildings in which to carry on their commercial undertakings? The following shows the hypocritical nature of their excuses, for business must come first whatever the wealth producers lack :—

  “The year 1924 has seen a big revival of building in London, much of which, including some great operations in the City, will not be completed until the end of the year. . . . The square mile of the City indeed is undergoing a more vigorous transformation than at any time in the present century.”—(“Manchester Guardian,” 12/2/24.)

  “Commercial rebuilding has nowadays become so insistent that there appears to be hardly a great thoroughfare in London in which there are not evidences of it.”—(“Fortnightly Review,” February.)

* * *

The Alien Myth. 

With an ever-growing army of unemployed and increasing insecurity of life for the workers, old bogeys are dug up to do further service. Commenting on what they call the alien question the “Evening News,” 12th Feb., 1925, says:—

  “How odd it is that Socialists, who pose as the only friends of the British workman, are invariably on the side of the foreigners who wish to come in here and take his job.”

Presumably the wealthy visitors to “our” country are not aliens, as like their thoroughbred (!) British prototype, they are not likely to undertake any jobs.

No matter the land of birth of the workers, as a class it is they who have the monopoly of work, a most desirable arrangement for the capitalist class and one they will be in no hurry to upset. A little reasoning would soon convince the worker that the alien question is merely dust thrown in their eyes to blind them to fundamental causes. Competition for jobs is just as keen, and conditions just as vile, in occupations where the so-called alien hardly enters—docks, railways, agriculture—as it is upon the seas where every nationality sails.

The world over, irrespective of geographical boundaries, poverty is the lot of the Working Class. In peace, as in war, your masters will make to order, as friends or foes, workers of other countries in order to divide you. Study Socialism and you will find a wealth of meaning in the words of Marx and Engels :—Working men of all countries, unite. The Proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

W. E. MacHaffie

Letter: Some Communist Questions Answered. (1925)

Letter to the Editors from the March 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

To the Editor, “The Socialist Standard.”

Dear Comrade,

For the instruction of some readers, will you kindly deal with the following controversial matter in next issue of “Standard”?—

1.  What is the view-point of the S.P.G.B. re claim of Communist Party to be the only correctly-poised party of the working class?

2.  What is the real aim of the Communist Party in seeking affiliation to that anti-Socialist organisation, the Labour Party?

What is meant in reality by the phrase, “The United Front” as used by the Communist Party?

3. What does the phrase “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” infer?

4.  Are Communists correct in saying that it is insufficient to use the word Revolution without also adding the prefix Violent?

5. What is your opinion of their historical knowledge in claiming that the first known revolution in history was the Capitalist overthrow of Feudalism?

6. That this was a Violent Revolution, so, consequently, the Socialist Revolution must of necessity be violent?

7. That the Communist Party being alone in preaching the slogan Violent Revolution, are the only class-conscious revolutionary working-class organisation?

8. And is there not every possibility of the Communist Party being driven underground, or even out of existence altogether, through their idea of correct tactics?

Even a brief answer to above matter would be welcome.

Yours fraternally,

“Student.”

Answer to "Student."

To answer fully the above questions would mean reprinting numerous articles that have appeared in the previous issues of the “Socialist Standard.” Among these may be mentioned articles in the January, February, March and October, 1923, issues, and in the January and March issues, 1924.

As our correspondent only asks for brief answers, the following may meet the present case. It should be noted, however, that the policy of the Communist Party is not a stable guide or definite pronouncement for their general activities. It changes with the ease and rapidity of a chameleon. Nor does it merely change. The policy of one day will contradict that of another, sometimes with ”violence” to both sense and logic :—

1. The Communist Party are not even incorrectly poised—they are not poised at all. They will follow any will-o’-the-wisp that offers them a chance of a little notoriety, whether it is a “United Front,” a shout about taxation, or an attack upon some misleader of the working class, whom they support at an election.

2. The real aim is to secure the jobs now held by the Thomases, MacDonalds, etc., whom they denounce one day and support the next, and to obtain a position of influence and leadership over the organised workers for the purpose of taking the bigger jobs such position may bring. The “United Front” means that the organised workers are called upon to unite in placing their organisations, their funds, and the full control of all matters, economic and political, in the hands of the leaders of the Communist Party. The reluctance of these workers to commit such an act of suicide for the temporary advantage of a few frauds is, of course, due to these workers being “bourgeois-minded.”

3. The only inference that can be drawn from this phrase as it is used by the Communist Party is that the leaders of that party should be given power to “dictate” to the rest of the community.

4. To establish Socialism a social revolution is necessary. Violence is not only not necessary, but, under favourable conditions, will not occur in such revolution. Even if violence did appear it would be due to the folly of the opponents of Socialism—like capitalists and Communists—and not by the wish of the Socialists.

5. Such “historical” knowledge is beneath contempt, and shows an ignorance even of the “Communist Manifesto” by Marx and Engels.

6. This claim is not merely illogical—it is ridiculous. Because under a certain set of conditions violence was used, this does not give the slightest reason for the claim that under different conditions it is necessary.

7. Merely another sample of the empty bombast of the Communist Party. Moreover, their claim is false, as they are not the only party to preach violence. Groups of anarchists have done so for years—with ghastly failure as a result.

8. The Communist Party apes a secret society now. Their Executive Committee not only meet but act in secret, and members are given orders to take certain actions, even relative to their private affairs, without having any consultation or voice in the matters. Members are expelled without the formulation or hearing of any charges, and often the member knows nothing of the matter till he receives the notification of his expulsion. The members are kept in ignorance of what schemes are being prepared, or what policies are decided upon, until they receive their orders from the head office. The antics of this pantomime secret society merely results in the bewilderment of the membership, while adding to the hilarity of the lookers on. If the Communist Party ever attempted to form a serious secret society their end would be swift and certain.

Editorial Committee

The Class Struggle. Its Economic Origin and Mental Results. (1925)

From the March 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ideas don’t fall down from heaven, but are drawn from material at hand. Consequently the idea of the class-struggle must have been drawn from the struggle itself. In other words, the class struggle must have existed before we could become conscious of it. This is involved in the very expression Class-conscious. A logical conclusion from this is that those who were not conscious of the class struggle must have waged the battle in the first place. If this is so, why cannot class-unconscious (what one questioner calls “non-revolutionary”) workers still take part in the struggle?

Those who contend that the class struggle only exists where there are class-conscious workers, and even then only between the class-conscious and the ruling class, are driven to the absurd position that the class struggle is imposed on society. That instead of ideas being the product of material conditions, material conditions are produced by ideas.

In spite of views to the contrary, however, no individual with a mighty brain came on the scene possessed with the brilliant idea of imposing the class struggle on society and ordered the combatants to line up and go ahead. The combatants were there, the struggle existed, but whereas formerly it was fought blindly, now some of the combatants fight with their eyes open. Marx could only lay bare the modern class struggle by tearing aside the surrounding veil of confusion and illustrating its existence.

The statement that the commodity the worker owns is sold and bought upon the market like any other commodity is quite correct yet it is misleading when put forward without full explanation of the nature of the transaction.

The worker comes upon the market with a commodity to. sell—the only commodity he has for sale—his power to work. The commodity the worker sells, however, differs from all other commodities in certain essentials. In the first place, it is the commodity of a particular class, and is sold to another, entirely different, class. The workers combine among themselves to sell their commodity as high as possible—the masters combine among themselves to buy it as low as possible. This is the industrial aspect of the class struggle.

While there is a similarity between the worker coming on the market to sell his commodity and the capitalist coming on the market to sell his wares, yet there is an essential difference—the difference that breeds the class struggle. There are temporary opposing interests between buyers and sellers of ordinary commodities, but there is a permanent class cleavage between buyers and sellers of labour-power.

The commodity the worker sells produces all value, and the amount of surplus value the buyers of it obtain is determined by the difference between the value of the labour-power and the value that the labour-power can produce.

The value of labour-power is determined by its cost of reproduction, and this largely depends upon the standard of living physical surroundings necessitate and social development have handed down. Around the question of the standard of living a constant struggle goes on—on the capitalist side the attempt to reduce it to the absolute minimum, on the workers’ side the resistance to this attempt. The result of the struggle so far has been a steady lowering in the workers’ standard of comfort. This struggle is peculiar only to the labour-power commodity, and this peculiarity bears fruit in the form of the class struggle.

The workers and masters meet upon the market as equals in the sense that they are both either buyers or sellers of commodities—but here the equality ends. The worker is bound to sell his commodity or starve, and it is this fact that binds the worker to a position of slavery—it is this fact that illustrates the sham nature of the “equality” of buyers and sellers so far as the labour-power commodity is concerned. The main objective of the two classes, so far as buying and selling is concerned, is entirely different. The capitalist buys in order to sell—invests capital; the worker, on the other hand, sells in order to buy—sells his energy in order to obtain the wherewithal to live.

The basis of present society is the ownership of the means of living by one class. This compels the other class that makes up society to. sell its only possession—labour-power—in order to live.

Therefore the sale of labour-power is the sale by a class of its only possession, whilst the buying of labour-power is the purchase by a class of the factor that enables it to live without working. It is in his capacity as a member of the master class, as opposed to the working class, that the capitalist buys labour-power. Consequently, the buying and selling of labour-power is a class question.

It is otherwise with the ordinary commodities which are sold without respect to class distinctions and where buyers and sellers meet as equals unaffected by the class question.

As soon as a child of the working class enters employment it takes a part, however insignificant it may appear, in the class struggle. This struggle, in its early stages, is not a struggle for the overthrow of the system ; nevertheless, it is part of the class struggle—the struggle of a class for existence. Ultimately it develops into the struggle for the overthrow of the class that suppresses. In other words, the industrial struggle, the struggle to resist the encroachments of capital (the early form of the modern class struggle), with growing knowledge of necessity demands the political struggle, the struggle for the overthrow of the ruling class.

Capitalism took its departure from the conditions that severed the bonds binding the worker to the soil and threw him upon the market a free labourer—a seller of one commodity. The subjection of the wage-labourer—the class division—was the basis and starting point of capitalism. Therefore, to place the worker, from the point of view of a commodity seller, on a par with all other sellers of commodities is to discard the scientific examination of society and social development, and signifies the throwing overboard of the life-work of Marx.

The capitalist as a seller of commodities is engaging in an ordinary trading transaction—the worker in selling his commodity is engaging in a struggle for life. The failure to sell for a comparatively short period in his case is likely to result in death by starvation—quite a common occurrence.

The fact that there is a broad class distinction between sections of the population has been recognised by most people for generations, as instance thè general acceptance by the workers of the sobriquet “Working Class,” and their deferential attitude towards their “Betters.” Where they were lacking in knowledge of the real position was shown by the common idea that the way was easy for a worker to get out of his class and into the idle class.

As the class struggle becomes fiercer and the line of class cleavage more apparent, the facts impress themselves more and more clearly upon the minds of the workers—even though the process may appear slow to a superficial observer. Ideas that not very many years ago would have been looked upon as the ideas of dreamers are now generally accepted facts. The question, “Is it necessary that the workers must change their mental attitude towards past and present conditions?” is quite unnecessary, because the fact is that the workers are changing their mental attitude quite apart from their wishes in the matter—although very slowly becoming class-conscious. The knowledge of capitalism and how it affects them is becoming clearer and clearer, and consequently the workers are slowly coming nearer to the view that the overthrow of the system is the only solution to the surrounding evils. Class action on the part of the workers is not necessarily class-conscious action, as witness the Chartist and similar movements on the part of the working class.

The working class is destined to be a revolutionary class, whether the members of that class recognise the fact or not. They are the inheritors of the highest achievements of the past and the harbingers of the era when man’s age-long-developed ingenuity will have the opportunity to give of its finest flower. The experiences of the struggle develops knowledge on this point and breeds sound ideas. This knowledge is not acquired in a day, a month, or a year, but is the result of the accumulated experiences of years of struggle—class struggle.

The matter is summed up, then, as follows :

The labour-power commodity is like all other commodities in that it is bought and sold upon the market, its value determined by the cost of production around which the higgling of the market allows its price to fluctuate.

It is unlike all other commodities in that it is the commodity of a particular slave class sold to a particular dominant class; and further in that the standard of living, an historical element, enters into the question of its cost of production.

It is these two distinctions that make of the matter a class conflict as apart from the ordinary matter of the competitive buying and selling of commodities.

The modern class struggle, therefore, presents two aspects. On the one side the struggle on the part of the workers to sell labour-power under the best conditions—the industrial struggle for wages and hours of labour; on the other side the struggle for the overthrow of the wages system—the political struggle for Socialism. The class-unconscious worker takes part in the former, but only the class-conscious in the latter. The class struggle is, consequently, both industrial and political—the latter is its ultimate, its revolutionary form.

Gilmac.

Quote from Sir William Ashley. (1925)

From the March 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

   “By capital the business world has always meant—whatever the economists may have tried to mean—wealth which its owner can employ for the purpose of gain ; and by investment we meant partly the external, or business, fact that there really exist openings for the use of wealth in directions which will bring an income or ‘revenue’ over and above the return of the sum employed ; and partly the internal, or psychological, fact that its owners are actually desirous of using it in such directions.”

Sir William Ashley.

New Publications: Here is Your Opportunity! (1925)

Party News from the March 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are continuously asked why we don’t publish new pamphlets or re-publish old ones that are out of print. Our answer has been to point to that ever-pressing problem of finance. A party like ours, depending upon its members for financial support and faced with the inevitable poverty of a working-class membership—our party is forced to curb its publishing activity within very narrow limits. Such a valuable and much needed publication as our party pamphlet, “Socialism and Religion,” is urgently required at a low price, and its re-publication in that form would find a ready sale. It would have been re-issued long ago had sufficient funds come in.

Amongst other publications very much needed we have in view a pamphlet on the Principles of Socialism. The enormous amount of rubbish printed in the name of Socialism in recent years, with its confusing effect on the workers’ minds makes the scientific and revolutionary pronouncements of The Socialist Party an urgent necessity. We have, therefore, opened a fund called “A New Publications Fund,” which will be reserved for the purpose of new publications. We invite members and sympathisers immediately to send in donations marked for that fund. If you cannot afford much send in the little you can. If the readers of the Socialist Standard who appreciate the soundness of our party position will hurry along their contributions to the fund we can rapidly get to work.

We get letters of appreciation of our literature from all over the world. Here is your opportunity to put your appreciation into a postal order and send it along.

The Editorial Committee

Answers to correspondents. (1925)

Letter to the Editors from the March 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marxengelian (Hackney) asks: °Does the Army and Navy add any value to the wealth produced under the system where they are socially necessary?”

Answer: No. The Army and Navy are maintained out of the surplus value taken from the producers. The Army and Navy are necessary to the ruling class to maintain their domination. The armed forces are not required in the production of exchange values. Value is created in the production and socially necessary transportation of wealth. In this sphere the armed forces do not function.

Ed. Com.

Socialism and the so-called “middle class”. - Part 2 (1925)

From the February 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Continued from January issue.)

The property holdings of the “middle class,” unlike those of the capitalist, do not free their possessors from worry, and do not give them command over the lives and destinies of other men. They represent deductions from present income for future needs; they are therefore not capital in the sense of being “wealth used for the purpose of gain” (the definition of capital used by a Conservative, Sir William Ashley), the receipt of a return on them being only incidental, and not the object of their existence. Unlike Topsy, they have not “just growed.” On the contrary, these reserves, for the future of themselves and their children, can only be accumulated by deliberate and self-denying effort. Failure to make such saving against the future is followed by a fall to a lower level of life, either in this or the succeeding generation. The effort to retain their “nest egg” occupies so large a part of their lives that it becomes the basis of the political philosophy of the more highly paid workers, and, like the bird in the Mediaeval romance, they are so busy sitting tight on their eggs so that they shall not be stolen, that they do not see they are being robbed by the opening of the nest from below. To secure their savings from “predatory Socialists” who are supposed to have raiding designs on their women and children, they hitch their wagon to capitalism. But what security does capitalism offer even for their savings ?

Savings can be held in one of the following forms—in currency or in bank balances which represent claims to a definite amount of currency, in government bonds, or in titles to property of various kinds, such as title deeds of land, shares in industrial and commercial undertakings, etc. Of the two main kinds of shares, debentures represent a claim to a fixed annual interest and the repayment of a definite sum of money. Therefore debentures, government bonds, currency holdings, and bank balances can be lumped together as being holdings of money, and it follows that the value of these holdings depends on “the value” of money. But there is no guarantee under capitalism that the value of money measured in the commodities it will purchase for its possessor will remain constant, or even that it will fluctuate only within narrow limits. Wherever there has been money economy there have been violent fluctuations. (For an example in the Ancient World, see Gibbons’ “Decline and Fall,” Chapter 11.) The recent happenings in Europe provide an instructive illustration of the lack of security in all currency holdings. In Germany the value of money has fallen to such a degree that the internal debt has been wiped out. In France pre-war holdings of Government Stock have lost seven-eighths of their real value; in Italy, eleven-twelfths; and in England, one half.

  “Throughout the Continent pre-war savings of the middle class, so far as they were invested in bonds, mortgages, or bank deposits, have been largely or entirely wiped out” (“A Tract on Monetary Reform,” J. M. Keynes, page 16).

Mr. Keynes adds : 

  “What was deemed most secure has proved least so. He who neither spent nor ‘speculated,’ who made ‘proper provision for his family,’ who sang hymns to security and observed most straightly the morals of the edified, and the respectable injunctions of the worldly-wise—he, indeed, who gave fewer pledges to Fortune, has yet suffered her heaviest visitations” (page 17). 

And this lack of security proceeds not from natural causes such as make uncertain the life of the savage—that is, famines, plagues, earthquakes, floods, etc.—but from a defect in the organisation of society based as it is on money economy. If it be argued that these fluctuations were the product of war, which is an abnormal condition, it need only be pointed out that where there is production for profit there will be struggles for markets and raw materials, and where there is a clash of interests there is an ever-present danger of war. And, moreover, price fluctuations before the war were considerable over a period of years. Here it is sufficient to note (see Keynes) that between 1896 and 1914 the capital “value of the annuity of any investor in Consols fell by about one-third, and the purchasing power of his income from them by about the same amount.” Consols are chosen as representing a class of investment free from ordinary speculative risks of trade, and therefore affording the best index to changes of the kind we are here concerned with.

There is, then, no permanent security in that class of savings which represent titles to certain sums of money. Titles to land and ordinary shares remain to be dealt with. But, first, two possible criticisms must be anticipated.

Economic Insecurity.

It may be objected that lack of security affects the capitalist as well as the small saver. It certainly does, but as all authorities admit, not nearly to the same extent. The capitalists as a class are not ruined by changes in the value of money, though some individual members may be. Their economic domination is not ended by fluctuating prices, any more than the subjection of the workers is lessened by either stable or changing prices. This is because capitalists hold goods, factories, mines, and commodities of all kinds, and not money, which is only a means to the obtaining of goods. To quote Keynes again : “Small savers have most to lose by currency depreciation” (page 66). But even if it were true that the capitalists are also insecure, this would not disprove our contention that capitalism fails to provide security for the “middle class,” and it would be additional evidence of the decay of the system.

The other objection which might be raised is that there could never be complete security under any system. This is obviously true as regards natural catastrophes like plagues, crop failures, earthquakes, etc., whose effects we can at present not guard against entirely, but it has no bearing on the kind of insecurity which is an effect of capitalism and which can be removed with capitalism.

Now let us consider titles to land. This kind of “middle class” property needs little attention, because it hardly exists. Some own their own houses, and a few own other houses as well as the one in which they live. Those that are held on lease are not a form of permanent revenue, thus only freehold house property remains, and the capital and rental values of this are by no means certain. The decay of industry in a particular neighbourhood may completely destroy the value of house property in it. Even since the war, and in spite of the Rents Restriction Acts, there have been local falls of the value of house property, and before the war fluctuation in value of house property was notorious.

As for ordinary shares, they are a type of investment not in favour with those people now under discussion. They play for safety and avoid investing in industrial shares whose fluctuations are so wide and unpredictable. Only the favoured few experienced persons “in the know” are aware of impending movements by which money can be made, and they are not members of the so-called “middle class,” whose savings, moreover, are not large enough to be widely distributed so as to minimise the risk of loss. The recent happenings in Dunlops will serve to drive home our point. Adverse trading conditions resulting in a loss of ten and a half million pounds have involved the reduction of the ordinary £1 shares to 6s. 8d. each. Yet Dunlops was regarded as one of the safest companies in that trade. Crosse and Blackwell’s, and Burberry’s, other perfectly “safe” concerns, have had to carry through similar re-organisation schemes.

There is certainly no security for small property ; is there any more security attaching to the employment of the “middle class”? The following London banks have collapsed since the war, and many of the staff are still looking for work, to be met always with the reply, even where vacancies need to be filled, younger men or boys will do:

Sir Robert McGrigors, Bart., and Sons; Hannevigs Bank Ltd. ; Alliance Bank of Simla, Ltd. ; Boulton Brothers. If it be said that these were not first-class firms, that objection cannot be raised against the Austrian Discount Bank, of Vienna, or against the Banco Disconto in Italy, or Alperin, Kisch, and Schiff, of New York—all of them first-class, old-established banks or banking companies which have recently failed. Shipping and insurance companies which have failed during the last few years and thrown thousands of men out of employment are too numerous to mention. Recall the affair of Bevan. He was a financier who gambled in a way that his kind do every day. But he was unlucky, and went to gaol, and an associated firm, the oldest-established stockbrokers in the City, was ruined. As a result, clerks of over forty years’ service found themselves suddenly out of a job.

As Mr. R. Tawney puts it (“Acquisitive Society,” page 204): The brain workers, like the manual workers, find that

  “Their tenure of their posts is sometimes highly insecure. Their opportunities for promotion may be few and distributed with a singular capriciousness. They see the prizes of industry awarded by favouritism, or by the nepotism which results in the head of a business unloading upon it a family of sons whom it would be economical to pay to keep out of it, and which, indignantly denounced on the rare occasions on which it occurs in the public service, is so much the rule in private industry that no one even questions its propriety.”

Enough has been written to show that there is no section of the working class without its problem of unemployment, and that the problem is the same for the whole class without distinction of sex or colour of skin or working coat. The problem, moreover, is not one of mere numbers. To reduce the number, as the Labour Party and other capitalist quacks seek to do, does not solve the problem. It is an effect of the social system that it cannot provide its members with the opportunity to labour in support of themselves. The only guarantee the present system gives is that certain privileged members shall be able to live in sumptuous idleness on the backs of their fellows. They do this by exploiting those they employ, and the latter, if alive to their own interest, would end the system which is based on exploitation.

The Inefficiency of Capitalism.

If the “middle class” are more foolish than the so-called manual workers, and instead of looking at social problems from the point of view of their own self-interest they wish to measure everything according to the standards set by the ruling class, they must still condemn the present system because it is grossly inefficient.

Is it efficient to have millions of workers seeking employment while the machinery of production is standing idle? Is it efficient to put checks on Nature because she yields too generously of her bounty? And yet this is what happens in the production of rubber, tea, jute, etc. Is it efficient to have trawlers dumping cargoes of fish into the sea in order to keep prices up? Is it efficient to fatten and pamper a select and useless few while half the people are on the verge of starvation? Is it efficient to be doing jobs which are not necessary for the ordering and use of society? Yet nearly the whole of the clerical profession are thus occupied. What need of insurance clerks in a world where risks are borne by society instead of by a special section with a view to making a profit. Solicitors’ clerks, what need of them except to haggle over private property? Abolish money economy, and what a reserve labour is made available for production from the ranks of the bank staffs. Whichever way you look at it, this system is rotten, inefficient, and destructive of the best potentialities in man. Social progress demands its overthrow, a task which only the working class can perform. The workers alone can break the chains that bind them, and replace a class system based on production for profit by a classless system producing for use. Chains are still chains though they are gilded, and the “middle class” being in reality merely a section of the workers, must join with the rest of their class in breaking those chains.

A. L. T.

(Conclusion.)

Blogger's Note:

'A.L.T.' could have been Albert L. Torr, who joined the Manchester Branch of the SPGB in October 1916 (alongside a William Torr). It makes sense that a bank clerk,  a 'brain-worker', would seek the anonymity of a pen-name in the pages of the Socialist Standard.

Replies to correspondents. (1925)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

Answer to G. T. Foster.

Your second letter takes us no further than your first one, and still consists of unsupported assertions.

Seeing, feeling, and other modes of consciousness, apart from something that sees, feels, or is conscious, is unthinkable to the human being. Your “Therefore” is thus totally unwarranted and illogical. Moreover, your sentence contains a fallacy. The brain is apprehended by the various modes of consciousness, but is clearly not in them. You make the usual mistake of the metaphysical idealist of confusing the state or mode of apprehension with the thing causing that state. Both Berkeley, hampered, it is true, by the limited knowledge of his time, and Bergson, with his empty, facile phrases, make the same blunder. This applies also to your last paragraph, for the “perceiving consciousness” is merely a mode of something having consciousness.

The answer to your question is now obvious. No one has ever known of a brain in anyone’s mind, but only as something apprehended by a mind.

Equally baseless is your remark that mind “would have to be known by a knower, or be absolutely unknowable.” Where is your evidence that it cannot “be known by a knower”? The metaphysicians you are so fond of continually use the word “self-conscious” or self-knowing; that is, according to your own definition, “the knower knowing.” But all this chatter about things being “unknowable” is, as Dr. Maudsley sarcastically says, like “a bluebottle fly calling its extra-relational the unbuzzable.”

Further contradiction appears in your next paragraph, where you admit our experiences are knowledge. Then so far as our experience—personal and racial—goes, we do know. Every year—nay, every day, every hour—sees our experiences continually increasing. That is to say, our knowledge is continually increasing, and neither you nor anyone else can set a limit to the increase of experiences while human beings exist.

Editorial Committee.

New Publications: Here is Your Opportunity! (1925)

Party News from the February 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are continuously asked why we don’t publish new pamphlets or re-publish old ones that are out of print. Our answer has been to point to that ever-pressing problem of finance. A party like ours, depending upon its members for financial support and faced with the inevitable poverty of a working-class membership—our party is forced to curb its publishing activity within very narrow limits. Such a valuable and much needed publication as our party pamphlet, “Socialism and Religion,” is urgently required at a low price, and its re-publication in that form would find a ready sale. It would have been re-issued long ago had sufficient funds come in.

Amongst other publications very much needed we have in view a pamphlet on the Principles of Socialism. The enormous amount of rubbish printed in the name of Socialism in recent years, with its confusing effect on the workers’ minds makes the scientific and revolutionary pronouncements of The Socialist Party an urgent necessity. We have, therefore, opened a fund called “A New Publications Fund,” which will be reserved for the purpose of new publications. We invite members and sympathisers immediately to send in donations marked for that fund. If you cannot afford much send in the little you can. If the readers of the Socialist Standard who appreciate the soundness of our party position will hurry along their contributions to the fund we can rapidly get to work.

We get letters of appreciation of our literature from all over the world. Here is your opportunity to put your appreciation into a postal order and send it along.

The Editorial Committee

The economics of social amusement. - Part 2 (1925)

From the February 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1

PART II.

To-day, under the fully ripened rule of capitalist production, the public amusements are in close organic relation with existing social conditions, just as was the case in previous historical periods.

All the institutions of entertainment and recreation—including the public games, football, baseball, boxing, and horse racing—are thoroughly organised on a capitalist basis. They are owned and controlled by private property owners with no other object in the main than financial profit. To-day the professional player who once occupied but a minor rôle now covers practically the whole field. The great majority of the players both in the theatres and in the sports are wage-workers. Exploitation and oppression prevails in the production of our most thoroughly enjoyable entertainments just as in any other sphere of industry. The means of amusement have become largely standardised “factory products” and as dependent uppn the fluctuations of supply and demand as any other commodities.

As in other industrial fields, science and machinery have been applied to the production of amusement, especially in the mechanical devices, rides and so on, of the Pleasure Park and in the cinema. The enormous growth and popularity of motion-pictures is one of the striking phenomena of our times. It has become of all forms of popular amusement the one peculiarly characteristic of the latest phase of industrialism; In the cinema industry, which is claimed as the third in point of size in the United States, vast quantities of capital have been invested. It is organised internationally and the market for its products is the whole world.

* * *

Summing up the above, then, we may say that the public amusements under capitalism have lost all trace of their once intimate connection with social tradition, with communal, religious, or political life. We no longer attend the dance, the games, or the theatre as a rite, as a religious duty, or as a social function. The bourgeoisie of to-day have their own strictly class amusements and relaxations, and these to some extent retain social, and even political, characteristics. But the great popular games and entertainments with which we are here concerned are purely commercial in their methods and aims, and when an individual desires diversion and can pay for it he goes to the place where it is for sale and buys as much as he can afford or cares for.

Nevertheless, the social amusements occupy a place of greater prominence than possibly at any time in the past, and certainly they absorb the permanent labours of a far larger proportion of the population and cater for an immensely greater audience. The primary organisations for amusement are now permanent instead of being temporary and periodic. Every large city has its scores, its hundreds, or its thousands of theatres and cinema-houses—many open every day in the year. Here, then, is proof that, in spite of having shed their traditional character, these institutions draw their vitality from some deep social necessity and are a response to an insistent social demand.

Let us consider the manner of life of the masses of the people in modern communities. The great majority are workers engaged in the production and distribution of wealth. Destitute of property, they sell their natural energy to the owners of capital. They have no control over their labour and no interest in its product. The peasant, even when a tenant, has an interest in the land and its products that is unknown to the industrial worker. In the highly organised spheres of production the labour of the workers is machine-regulated to a degree of monotony never before known. The machine has ousted the craftsman, so that the “joy of workmanship” exists to-day only as a rare and curious survival. The typical worker in the most technically developed industries is the machine-feeder—the man at the power-press, punching holes in a metal sheet—all exactly alike—so many per minute—all day—for hundreds of days.

Even outside the workshop, the worker’s life is a monotonous routine. Home-life and comfort is more of an ideal than a fact. Living in the ugly congested areas of the great cities, he has little opportunity for healthy exercise in the open or of invigorating contact with the glory of beauty of Nature. His poverty will not allow him any really elevating luxuries, and the continuous round of exhausting and degrading toil leaves him with neither the energy nor the desire for self-education or for artistic or scientific pursuits. His life is like a narrow groove running in a perpetual circle; habit and ignorance make him fearful of changing the groove, and even when he does so he discovers that in general all the circles open to him are very much alike. Moreover, he cannot afford to take chances—he may have a family dependent on his regular wage, and in any case the prospect of unemployment is no enviable one. Occasionally, here and there a worker kicks, succeeds in breaking the circle and achieves a precarious life of greater freedom, excitement and variety as a tramp or a criminal; but the ideal of the mass of the workers necessarily is—a permanent or “steady” job, which almost inevitably spells inescapable monotony.

But this is not all. The lives of the toilers have always been narrow, drab, and monotonous. But to the slave or the serf, and even the peasant of our own day, the world itself was a relatively small place, often not much larger than the village or district in which he lived.

To-day, however, the whole world has been knit together by commerce and communications, and the horizon of knowledge has been enormously extended to include every land and every race and nation. Modern literature opens up for the reader the whole world, and describes—if only superficially—every part of the earth, every class in society, and every period of the past. Even the penny newspaper brings us news from “the ends of the earth.”

By contrast, then, with what the imagination can offer, the real everyday life of the mass of the population to-day appears vastly meaner, duller, and narrower than ever it did in the past. The imagination has been stimulated, and a yearning for variety, beauty, colour, and excitement produced which in real life can find no outlet, no satisfaction. Hence the widespread efforts to escape from reality into the boundless world of fiction and romance, and hence the enormous consumption of romantic literature and the fascination of millions by the “movies.” Naturally, it is the adolescent and young people who are primarily affected—youth is the period of romantic visions, but there are no restrictions of age in the drawing power of the cinema. Once the habit of seeking emotional stimulus in the “movies” has become rooted, it becomes almost a necessity of existence, as anyone can discover by a few minutes’ conversation with a “movie-fiend.”

Doubtless the thirst for thrills and the desire to escape from deadening reality is as readily satisfied by the stage-drama and the novel, but the motion-picture has peculiarities that make it well fitted to be the most popular vehicle to this end. It tells its story in visual pictures instead of verbal description, it can be exceedingly vivid and convincing, and it is cheap and easily accessible. The cinema demands less mental energy than reading, requires less imagination than the drama, and calls for only a small amount of intelligence. It is therefore eminently adapted to the recreational and imaginative needs of a population starved of beauty and intellectually stunted by over-work and mal-education.

The cinema has thus become the popular entertainment of capitalism par excellence. Its development is so immense that it even threatens the regular theatre with near extinction. Its audience is the most gigantic in the world’s history. Its statistics are almost incredible. In 1920 the estimated number of picture-theatres in the United States was 17,000, and the daily attendance ten millions. The figures for the British Isles in the same year were 5,000 picture-theatres with an average daily attendance of six millions—the attendance having almost doubled in three years. As far back as 1917, the attendance for the year in the British Isles was well over one thousand millions (“Ency. Britt"., new vol. 30).

The social influence of the cinema, and its value in direct propaganda, is immense. In its indirect influence in fostering and inculcating all the mental habits and moral ideals of the bourgeoisie, in cultivating a worship of wealth and luxury, and an unthinking response to nationalist sentiment, its effect upon the minds of the workers is pernicious in the extreme, doing much to blind them to the fundamental cause of the very drudgery, degradation, and meanness of life which impels them to seek oblivion and stimulation in the glamour of the film.

We shall not here discuss the artistic level and possibilities of the cinema. It is sometimes claimed that it has a brilliant artistic future, and this may be so. One thing, however, must be insisted upon, and that is, that the admittedly low artistic standard of the majority of moving-pictures is due first to the low intellectual development of the vast masses of wage-slaves who form their audience, and secondly to the necessity of hiding from this audience the truth about social life. It is not due to the incapacity of this producer or that—the producers are business-men first and “artists” a long way afterwards, and—“what pays goes.”

In conclusion : may we hope for a healthier, more artistic, and more intelligent standard of popular entertainment in the future? The answer is plain. So long as the mass of the people have to endure arduous, monotonous toil and poverty, so long will the present widespread craving for thrills and illusion continue. Existing conditions of labour leave the average workers mentally and physically exhausted and with neither time nor inclination for intellectual or cultural development. While these conditions remain, the prevailing popular forms of diversion will be those which readily stimulate the crudest emotions by the most obvious means and make little call upon the intellect.

While, therefore, it is quite likely that, with the growing revolt against capitalism, a small but increasing section of the population will demand and receive a higher standard of recreation and of dramatic art—such a section of course exists to-day—until capitalism is destroyed, things will remain much as they are or, possibly, for a time, even become worse.

With the re-organisation of society on the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, and the consequent disappearance of slavery and drudgery, will come a rebirth of the real spirit of association and conscious co-operation that capitalism has done so much to destroy. Public recreations will become again truly social, and they will be the vivid expression of the joy in life and the fellowship of free and equal men and women. A wider and nobler education will make possible the utilisation of an abundant and increasing leisure to understand and enjoy the titanic, wonderful drama of the universe in which we live. Artificial and hectic amusements and exaggerated melodrama will no longer be necessary in order to make us forget the meanness and narrowness of our lives. Only that art will flourish that genuinely represents the unfettered response of the human mind to the beauty, the wonder, and the tragedy of the Universe and Life.

R.W. Housley

(Conclusion.)