To be or not to be. (1911)

From the April 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

Objections to Socialism may be roughly grouped into two divisions—those which arise through ignorance, and those which are prompted by self-interest. The objections of the working man usually belong to the first category, either from lack of information or weakness in reasoning power. If he were prompted by self-interest in his efforts, he would reach for Socialism with both hands. It is the Socialists’ task to show him that his true self-interest lies in bringing Socialism into being, at once. There is no excuse for delay. You, the working men and working women of the country, are living in poverty surrounded by wealth—the wealth you have made. You have to obtain permission to live. You are slaves. Why don’t you revolt ?

You will revolt, some day. Ah ! some day. We want you to revolt, not some day, but now, at once. But stay. How are you going to do it ? Are you going to quit work one summer afternoon and march through the West End smashing windows ? or “demonstrate” in Trafalgar Square and throw bottles at the police? or erect barricades across Oxford Street and Piccadilly and await the arrival of the Maxim guns ? Are you going to do any of these or similarly silly things ? I hope not. Let me tell you the Socialist way.

First you must convince yourself that Socialism is supremely desirable. Then you must reason thusly : the great majority of my fellow men are workers like myself, similarly poor, equally slaves. Socialism must be equally desirable to them. I will convey the good tidings to them. If they hearken not the first time, I will tell them a second time, and yet a third. And when there is a greater number of us all convinced that Socialism is the only thing worth while, we will ignore the shrieking of Tariff fools and Free Trade fatheads, the blandishments of Labour salary-hunters and “some-day Slowcialists,” and we will select from our midst good men and true, and send them into Parliament to take hold of the political machinery in our name. The elected members of the working class shall then say unto the capitalists in the Riviera or the South Pacific, on the pleasure yachts or visiting Venice : “Stay where you are, we have no use for you.” And to the capitalists who tarry within the city gate : “Go and join the others or stay and work.” The latter part of the sentence will do the trick. Exit the undesirables. And those who have worked for the enrichment of their masters up till that time, will work for the good of themselves. And those for whom the masters had no use in their day, they also shall contribute to the great store of wealth. And those who toiled in the old days foolishly, in the digging of holes to fill up again, in advertising, canvassing, and unprofitable toil generally, they also shall add their quota to the nation’s store.

There is nothing so very unreasonable in all this. Perhaps its very simplicity tells against it. Briefly we may put it thus : The masters own your means of livelihood, they therefore own you. This ownership is safeguarded by the control of the political machinery of the country, which, in the last analysis, means that they possess a variety of big sticks to whack you into submission when you get obstreperous. But from historical causes they have to let you elect them into possession of the big sticks. Well, you should decline to do it. Take possession of them yourselves. Now comes an important point. With no one to keep in subjection, the need for big sticks vanishes, so that the State is no longer necessary, a central administrative body taking its place for the administration of affairs. Other details you can work out for yourselves.

As a working man, objections you can have none. Your opinions as a capitalist (if that be your social standing) are of no interest to Socialists. The latter are working men, looking at things from a working-class standpoint, and nothing else matters. The capitalists have always provided a splendid object lesson in raising objections on the one hand and ignoring them on the other. The history of the railway provides some striking examples of the types of people who oppose anything like progress, and also of the manner in which those who found it to their interest to introduce the new factor obtained their way in spite of opposition.

In “Francis’ History of Railways” it is recorded that on presentation to Parliament of the Bill authorising the first Liverpool and Manchester railway, antagonistic petitions poured in from all classes. To quote the authority named : “Country gentlemen objected that the smoke would kill the birds as they passed over the locomotives ; manufacturers cried out that the sparks from the funnel would sat fire to their stock; ladies were certain that their horses would take fright and overturn them into ditches ; horse-breeders lamented the extinction of the noble quadruped ; while farmers were convinced that oats and hay would no longer be marketable commodities.”

And again our old friend the “Quarterly Review” said in 1825 : “The gross exaggeration of the powers of the locomotive steam engine may delude for a time, but must end in the mortification of those concerned. It is certainly some consolation to those who are to be whirled at the rate of eighteen or twenty miles an hour by means of the high-pressure engine, to be told that they are in no danger of being sea-sick, that they are not to be scalded to death or drowned by the bursting of the boiler, and that they need not mind being shot by the scattered fragments, or dashed to pieces by the flying off or breaking of a wheel. But with all these assurances we should as soon expect the people of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be fired off by one of Congreves’ Ricochet Rockets, as to trust themselves to the mercy of such a machine going at such a rate. We will back old Father Thames against the Woolwich Railway for any sum.”

Sir Astley Cooper, the eminent surgeon, said : “Your scheme is preposterous in the extreme ; it is of so extravagant a character as to be positively absurd.”

And that is what people say of Socialism now. But observe, where they are not people totally uninformed, they are of those who are making a fat living out of capitalism. As such their opinion doesn’t matter. But if you are not of their number, if you are sick of the bestial horror of capitalism and all its ways, if you are one of those who realise that a dog’s life is not good enough for human beings, join with us in ending it. Behind you there stretches a long history of oppression and servitude ; you are slaves in the midst of stupendous plenty at this present moment. The future, at least, is yours, if you take it. With nothing to lose but your chains, you have a world to win.

“ETRE”

Do you see what Cecil, K.C., sees? (1911)

From the April 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

Among the many “topics of the moment” may well be included the question of co-partnership, or profit-sharing. The matter has been dealt with in these columns on several occasions, but the appearance of the following paragraph in the Evening News of 12.11.10 makes it opportune to again direct attention to the tricky purpose behind the specious wording of the phrase co-partnership.

“The West London Parliament will meet to-night in the Council Chamber of Marylebone Hall, when Lord Robert Cecil, K.C., will move : 

‘That in the opinion of this House, the fair division of the profits of industry, as between capital and labour, is of supreme importance, and can only be secured by the adoption of co-partnership ; that being the only effective alternative form of industrial organisation to Socialism.'”

I do not know the result of the debate, but anyway, that is unimportant. The discerning reader will draw quite a number of conclusions from the paragraph as it stands, but I would ask him more particularly to consider the last few words. The only alternative to Socialism is co-partnership, according to Lord Robert Cecil. Good ! I hope the toilers can see it equally clearly.

Observe there is no hypocritical reference to Socialism destroying family life, religion, initiative, etc.; to it being the “end of all,” the creed of the chronic grumbler, or piffle of that description. With refreshing candour the fact is specifically admitted that Socialism is a form of industrial organisation. Grant that and you have the unique spectacle of one of the Cecils, with a pedigree as long as a poker, inferentially preaching Socialism.

Prove it ? Set your thinking apparatus in motion. Look here, if co-partnership be the only alternative to Socialism, logically the bankruptcy of the former leaves you but one course. In that the noble lord concurs. Co-partnership has been proved in these columns to be a fraud. It has proved to be a failure wherever it has been inflicted upon the workers—notably quite recently in the shipbuilding industry, where it was installed with a nourish of drums and sounding of brasses, but only to demonstrate that the wealth producers would still obtain but a mere fraction of their product.

Out of capitalism nothing but its effect can be expected. The method of wealth making that we call capitalism depends and rests upon the fact that the class that makes all wealth gets only a small portion returned to it in the shape of wages. Any juggling with the proportions of the total product of labour, and calling the process the profit-sharing or bonus system, does not alter the central and fundamental fact that the people who make it do not get it. They only receive a portion of it. And yet there are people who talk of a fair division of wealth between those who make it and those who don’t. K.C.s may be able to see it, but workers cannot —there is a difference.

Wilfred.

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For April. (1911)

Party News from the April 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

Editorial: The Labour Party and Secret Diplomacy. (1930)

Editorial from the June 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Most people will remember how fervently the Labour Party protested against Secret Diplomacy immediately after the War. With the cunning of the opportunist politician, its leading spokesmen traced the cause of the war to secret diplomacy, and all the white papers, pink papers and yellow papers were triumphantly flourished as a proof of this contention. Of course, all this was many years ago. Now that the Labour Party has become “The Government,” their attitude to this, as to many other questions, has undergone a change.

The Daily News for the 16th May reports a “scene” in the House of Commons that occurred the previous day, with Mr. Churchill as the centre.

It appears that Mr. Churchill read a telegram despatched by the Coalition Cabinet to Lord Balfour in 1921, during the Washington Naval Conference. It further appears that no Cabinet document can be read in Parliament without the consent of the King, which implies the consent of the existing Government, which “advises” the King.

When Churchill picked up the paper, “the Prime Minister looked up in surprise, and said in a low voice : ‘Are you going to read it?'” Churchill then read it. Ramsay MacDonald then asked Churchill if the paper had been published, to which a reply in the negative was given. After one or two further questions, Ramsay MacDonald then said : “I happen to know the document. Is this a Cabinet paper, and, if it is, has the right hon. gentleman got the usual leave for the disclosure of Cabinet documents.” Fenner Brockway followed by asking the Speaker if it was in order “for one who has been a member of a previous Cabinet to quote from Cabinet documents.” Lloyd George followed in a similar strain, and finally he and Ramsay MacDonald had a consultation behind the Speaker’s chair.

From this it will be seen that “secret diplomacy” still pursues its old course, and information of it only leaks out when politicians like Churchill don’t “play the game” or, in vulgar language, “play the dirty” ! Mr. MacDonald communicates Cabinet secrets to Liberal and Tory leaders, but not to the general public.

Editorial: The Power to Produce. (1930)

Editorial from the June 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recuperative powers of modern industry have been fully vindicated by the remarkable position of France eleven years after the war.

In spite of the enormous waste of wealth and loss of man-power during the four years of war, France, according to recent reports, is now being strangled by prosperity ! There are no unemployed worth talking of, and there is a tendency for workers to flock to the easier and better paid occupations, so that, for instance, coal production has seriously slumped in consequence.

A part of France’s opulence is due to the amount they have received from Germany ; under the Dawes Plan they have had over £200,000,000 during the last five years.

Germany has paid heavily in money, labour, and kind since the war to the “victorious” nations, besides harbouring an army of occupation.

How is it with Germany, then? Is Germany sinking under the burden? Not at all. Germany has shouldered the burden and more. She is again attacking the world’s trade routes, both by sea and air, and looks very much like being successful again.

In each case, then, we have an example of the marvellous fecundity of modern industry. When it is also realized how much of the labouring power of to-day is wasted on useless objects, or going over the same greengrocers, and the like, the fruitfulness of industry is seen to be more remarkable still.

Imagine the numberless workers who waste their time in advertising trades, in menial duties for the rich, in military service, and similar occupations; in useless clerical work and salesmanship. If all these workers, including the unemployed and the rich, were devoted to useful occupations wealth would be more abundant still, and would call for a comparatively small amount of effort from each if the work was spread equally over all.

Here, then, is convincing evidence that the sufferings of the workers are not due to any weakness in the capacity to produce wealth, and also exposes the hollowness of the plea of the nationaliser, except that nationalization produces larger profits.

The workers’ attention should, therefore, be directed to securing an alteration in the distribution of wealth. The distribution, of course, depends upon the method of production. The method of production to-day is by means and instruments of production that are privately owned. By converting these privately-owned means into social property the workers will then reap the benefit of the energy they put into the production of wealth, and will also reap a good deal of much-needed leisure and freedom from worry.

When the workers decide to secure this fundamental change there will be no need for Labour sponsored cotton weeks, silk weeks, leather weeks, wool weeks, or any of the other Canute-like or cute dodges with which the employing class try to throw dust in the workers’ eyes.

Pull up the blinds. (1930)

From the June 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

The present system of producing wealth we define as the Capitalist system, and we do so because the button that sets all the machinery in motion is the investment of capital. Whenever a fresh company is about to commence operations a prospectus is issued asking for capital, and describing in glowing colours how profitable such an investment will be. It is true, as the recent columns of the papers show, many companies come to grief, but this is due to many things outside of the scope of the present article.

A society lives by the production of wealth of one kind or another, and as we look back through history we find that there have been certain definite and different forms of wealth production and that each form has brought into existence certain relationships between the people who have made up each Society.

At one time the bulk of the goods were produced by what were called chattel slaves, for example, in Ancient Rome. There was a privileged class who owned the land and tools and this class bought labourers to work for them in return for food, clothing and shelter. The chattel slave then was like a horse or other domestic animal.

In later times the bulk of the goods of society were produced by serfs or bond slaves. That is, people bound by custom, and paying tribute to a privileged class in the form of a certain number of days’ free labour each week—work for nothing.

But the growth of trading altered both these forms. In each of the above instances the goods produced were consumed mainly at home or in the local area. Only a tiny fraction of what was produced was sold and trade was looked upon with disfavour. But trading grew until it ultimately became, as it is to-day, practically the sole object of production. This has made a tremendous difference in the relationships of the groups within Society. The slave owner of old occupied a paternal position towards his slaves. The relationship was a personal one. The Feudal Lord likewise had a personal connection with his serfs and discharged certain duties in the local courts. In each of these cases privilege was based upon the ownership of land. It was territorial.

The coming of universal trading with capital as its main-spring destroyed the earlier systems based upon land with personal relations between employer and employed, and substituted a new system based upon the ownership of capital. The ownership of capital carries with it the ownership of the means of production, although the capitalist finally becomes merely the holder of titles to profits. The relation of the capitalists to their employees ceased to be personal long ago. In consequence the capitalist can go to Africa or the North Pole, but his capital still brings in dividends and he still remains the controller of his employees. This fact produces, at times, some curious situations. An instance of one was given in the columns of this periodical last month, where it was shown that money left to a woman who was insane still piled up dividends for her.

Wealth, in the economic sense, is food, clothes, houses, ships, and so on. This wealth is produced by the application of human energy, in one form or another, to material supplied by nature. For instance, for the building of a wooden hut trees are felled by workmen, transported by workmen, sawn up by workmen, and erected into a hut by workmen. In order that these workmen may fell, saw, transport and erect, other workmen must produce food, clothing, and so forth, so that the hut workers may live while doing their work. That is because to-day there is a division of labour and workers specialize in different industries. Under Feudalism this degree of specialization did not exist, for huts were made from the trees grown on the manor and the serfs on the manor produced enough food and other things to keep them selves while doing the hut-building. Now industries have grown up calling for specialization, and something else has occurred as well.

Under feudalism the worker used small tools, hand tools, which he owned himself, and in the case of the handicraftsman carried with him when he changed his place of living. When trading and the use of capital became general the small tool disappeared with the handworker, and the great factory and machine tool, served by machine minders, took his place. With the coming of the machine, goods were produced rapidly and in large quantities. The natural resources near at hand were not sufficient to feed the mouth of the huge machine, and the market close at hand was not sufficient to consume what was turned out. So there began to occur periods of time between the beginning and the end of the productive process and during this period the workers who had become specialists had to live. So it became necessary to provide ever larger and larger quantities of wealth to keep the workers while they worked and it was here that capital came in and, as it were, caught the worker by the throat, for the worker is without capital and depends upon wages to keep him from week to week.

Now let us see what was the source from which this capital flowed.

If we examine the present and the past we are struck by the fact that a number of people, the privileged or ruling class in each system, have been able to live without working. The conclusion is, therefore, forced upon us that at each period those who were engaged in production must have produced far more than would keep themselves, otherwise there would not have been enough to keep the idlers.

Now feudalism with its system of customary payments makes this as clear as daylight for the serf worked 3 or 4 days for himself—that is on his own plot of land raising enough for his keep—and gave three days’ work to the lord’s land to keep the lord and his retainers. The feudal worker was, therefore, exploited and robbed of nearly half of the product of his energies and he realized this fact so well that he used to dawdle and take tilings easy when working on the lord’s land. In fact this became such a crying evil, from the lords’ point of view, that it had a great influence upon the movement for substituting money payments for payments by service.

Now the worker is also exploited to-day, but his exploitation is cioaked by the complexity of the present system. Whereas in the past the payment of service to the employer was made directly and openly, now it is hidden by the system of paying wages.

Trading is the buying and selling of goods and originally was accomplished by means of barter—that is by exchanging one kind of goods directly for another. As the business of exchanging grew, it became necessary to have a certain fixed medium of exchange, whose value would be recognised by everyone and at the most distant trading points. Custom and its handincss finally made gold the universally recognised medium or money. Later still titles to quantities of gold, if sound enough, became as good as gold in normal times, and so the habit grew of accumulating a store of money to buy goods. These goods were then sold for a greater amount of money than they cost. The trader pocketed the difference and used his original store of money over and over again.

This money that was used is capital. From the purely trading side, capital gradually intruded into the productive side until we have to-day capital as the starting-point for every productive and trading enterprise—in fact, the whole process of production and distribution, in a multitude of cases, is accomplished by the one business organisation. Big trusts, like the Oil Trust, control the product from its origin as a natural product to its delivery as a finished article to the consumer.

In all the processes connected with production money enters as a paying medium, and except in the profit accounts of the companies there is nothing to show where the exploitation of the worker comes in. For while it is said that money talks, it gives no secrets away.

Consequently, when the capitalist pays wages for work done the matter is supposed to have ended and the worker is supposed to have received full value for his work. But what in fact has the worker received? What does his wage represent? A glance at tlie condition of workers in general will give the answer. The worker receives in wages, on the average, only what is necessary to keep him fit to continue his occupation and bring up a family to replace him. Sometimes he does not even receive that, and has to resort to charitable and other sources.

But what has the worker produced during the time he has been working? The capitalist will say that the worker is but a cog in the machinery and has only taken part in the work of a fractional portion of production. Very well then ! What does the working class as a whole produce? The total wealth of society. And what docs the working class receive back? Only a fraction of what they have produced. The rest goes to provide means for the riotous living of the privileged class. It goes to help tine ladies to ride in Rotten Row—to play tennis on the Riviera, to go yachting in the Tropics. It goes to provide fine ladies and gentlemen with the army of servants to answer their beck and call.

The workers produce wealth in such quantities to-day that it chokes society, and means have to be devised to limit production ; and this because the worker’s wage limits what he can buy back, and this wage is so far below the value of what has been produced that ihe capitalists, in spite of their wasteful methods of living, cannot consume the whole of the surplus. The capitalists, therefore, live out of the surplus value extracted from the exploited worker. The sooner the workers pull up the blinds and see this fact in the clear daylight the sooner will they make away with wage slavery, and the oppression to which it gives rise.

Gilmac

A Knight out. (1930)

From the June 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

I must admit I find the wireless lectures very stimulating. The lecturer has prepared his subject, there are no interruptions, no interjections, no bronchial whoopings, no scuffling feet, no late-comers or early-goers; in short, there is perfection—nearly. I say nearly, because one feels sometimes that the speaker has prepared his paper in some far-distant country, a good many years ago, and has just walked off the steamer into the studio. Unsuspectingly, he says his little piece, and favoured by the absence of a visible audience, delivers himself of some “truth” that had better remained in its coffin. Now perfection would provide for the lecturer being reminded that his data were slightly mildewed ; that possibly in picking up his notes for the lecture on “The Sex Life of Slugs,” be had inadvertently added a leaf from the lecture on “Stamp Collecting in the Stone Age.”

Something of this sort must have happened to Sir James Jeans, for in his “Point of View, ” broadcast on February 24th, be made an astonishing mix-up. It is only charitable to assume some such accident, for no scientist since 1880 would have included such matter in a serious lecture. At a birthday party perhaps, or a Fleet Street “smoker,” but not in any place where the bracing-wind of science can reach.

“Quite frankly,” he commenced, “my point of view is that of a scientist—an astronomer.” He will not need me to remind him that a scientist frames and tests theories based on verifiable data.

We may take it that when Sir James Jeans says, “We believe that the earth is merely a tiny fragment of the sun, which got splashed off, almost by accident, something like 2,000 million years ago,” he could produce some sort of evidence. When he tells the listening world that the earth is millions of years old; that it remained uninhabited for millions of years; that life arrived and passed through the forms of protozoa, fishes, reptiles, and mammals culminating; in man, we may assume he is dealing in facts; that volumes of ordered knowledge bolster up his statements, and that scores of eminent colleagues agree with him. And yet, would you believe a scientist would commit himself, before an audience of millions, to the following fragment of ordered knowledge.

“Our socialist orators tell us much in glowing terms about the hypothetical socialist future. Why do they tell us so little about the socialist and communist experiments of the past, in which their theories were really tested? It is, I think, because those experiments all ended in failure. The truth seems to be that no socialist state ever endures for long—as such. ”

That, of course, is where his manuscript must have got mixed up with the lining of his lunch bag, and he found himself reading a pre-war page from the Swamp Herald or Daily Express. Unfortunately his attention has not been drawn to the happening, and the statement has received the publicity of print in the Listener of March 5th. However, as there may be some few people who think he really meant what he said, I am prepared to make a public confession. I also have wondered in the past why our Socialist orators have told us so little about the Socialist and Communist experiments in which their theories have been tested. I candidly admit my heart gave a great bound, when I heard him raise this question. I thought I was going to satisfy the hope of a lifetime, and hear the names of the Socialist states referred to. Sir James was strangely reluctant to mention them. He himself deplores the reluctance of our Socialist orators to do likewise. I am keenly disappointed, and it looks as though the truth is where I have long suspected. Failing some scientific evidence from Sir James Jeans, I shall be compelled to affirm that he does not know of such a state ; that there never was such a state and that Socialist theories have never been tested “really” or in any way. Both his reluctance, and that of our Socialist orators are founded in the same fog-bank. There never was such a Socialist state. The noble knight must have mixed his notes.

The fact of the statement having also been printed rather complicates matters, and perhaps some little explanation may put things right. The ground has been covered many, many times in this journal, and there is not room in this article to cover it again. But this may be said. As a scientist Sir James Jeans will have heard of evolution. It is the name we apply to the process of development by which life, the earth, and the universe, have changed from simple beginnings to their present state. Nothing is stationary; nothing stagnant—all is ceaseless change. The very Alps were once liquid mud; the mighty oceans were thin gases; the whole earth a boiling globe, incapable of any form of life as we know it. Scientists have described for us the whole wonderful pageant of change, which through millions of centuries, slowly paved the way for the coming of man ; and man is fond of regarding himself as the crown of evolution. Anyway, crown or not, he appeared very late upon the scene and has still a lot of development before him. Like everything in the universe, he has evolved. Although h likes to regard himself as something distinct from what he calls Nature, his links with animal ancestors are beyond dispute. Every baby, born into the world, recapitulates in embryo stages of his journey.

Apparently man has always been a gregarious animal, that is, he liked living in company. Other forms of life do, too, baboons, elephants, whales, birds, etc. This custom has clung to man, ever since he was man. And no matter how his mode of life has changed — hunter, pastoralist, or civilised—he has ever been found in communities. These communities have in turn been the subject of change—in a word, have evolved, and scientists can tell us why one form of human society gave place to another, and how our own form stands at the end of a chain. This will suggest, of course, to the intelligent reader, that there is no reason why this should be the end of the chain. But before we consider that, there is one important point to make. Evolution is only a name we apply for convenience sake to a process. It is not like the word God, which we spell with a capital letter, and use as a convenient cover for all we do not know. Evolution is simply a word for the process of development. It does not imply purpose, or intention. For instance, the Mauretania has evolved from the dug-out canoe, but the prehistoric contrivers of the dug-out had not the remotest conception of the liner. The words you are reading are connected with the marks on the clay bricks of Babylon, but neither Nebuchadnezzar nor his dusky subjects could have seen the printing press in futurity. The Rolls-Royce has evolved from the ox-cart, the tractor-plough from the digging stick, the sky-scraper from the mud-hut, but none of those at the dawn of things had the fragment of an idea of latter-day developments. It was not until comparatively recently that evolution became a mental concept and that mankind realised its possibilities.

The working of evolution has been blind. In mankind Nature becomes conscious and aware of the forces of development. Man applies the methods of science to his own development and the development of his Institution. No longer is he at the mercy of blind forces. He is learning to tame them and use them for his own definite advancement. Wild beasts, famine and pestilence do not play the part they did in human affairs. Every year sees them more under control. The greatest problems man has to face are those arising from his living in huge communities. These communities have arisen in traceable progression, from the collection of mud-huts on the banks of a river to the intricate community of a hundred thousand towns and a hundred million people. But the allied questions of feeding, clothing and sheltering humanity have been treated in a haphazard fashion under civilisations dependent upon trading. Being fortuitous and haphazard, it has had the unscientific results one would expect. In one section of the community too many clothes, in another too few; one section glutted with food to satiety, another on the brink of starvation or living on inferior food and substitutes ; one section with huge houses, well built, well lighted and well furnished ; the other with inadequate shelters, poorly built, meagrely lighted and furnished with rubbish. At one place you will find thousands of hungry people, whilst food is being wilfully destroyed at another. You will find thousands of people contracting rheumatism through lack of proper foot covering, whilst makers of boots are unable to make them; because—crowning absurdity—because they have made too many for the market.

The needs of the community are neither ascertained nor met in any really scientific way. One ruling principle dominates society—the making of profit. When everybody wants something, that is called demand. Numbers of individuals in the hope of making a profit, rush forward with their goods; that is called supply. The rival suppliers try to overreach and ruin each other; they try to monopolise as much of the demand as they can; they waste huge sums in what is called advertising; they drive their workers to produce the greatest possible wealth, in the shortest possible time. Then suddenly it is found that they have produced too much, and those who have made the wealth are rewarded with unemployment and semi-starvation.

There are people who say this method of feeding, clothing and sheltering ourselves, this hapless, planless, mad scramble to make need and supply balance, is the best humanity has discovered. You will usually find such people occupy a fortunate position in society. It would be odd to find them decrying a system which yielded them a very happy life. But there are others who say that now mankind has achieved an understanding of evolution, he can organise his community upon a scientific basis, and one wherein poverty can be unknown. He has no need to leave his present community and proceed to some desolate, primitive country and start building huge machines in the wilderness. Nothing would result from that, but a heap of rust and a few skeletons. No ! he is to take the civilization he has built, and reorganize it upon a basis of communal ownership. He is to abolish the out-of-date cumbrous and unscientific custom of individuals or groups owning communal necessities. Without food we starve; without clothing we shiver; without shelter we become diseased and die; and yet there are people who say these human essentials are best provided by those whose sole motive is their own enrichment. Sounds a bit mad, doesn’t it! How future schoolchildren will smile, and wonder if it was really true. It will seem so obvious to them that the communal necessities should be communally owned. And to think that we can do it, whenever we like; whenever, that is, the working class organises itself to consciously .remould human society on the lines described in our Object.

W. T. Hopley

Points for Propagandists. (1930)

From the June 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Labour cannot improve Capitalism.

Mr. Herbert Tracey, the Labour Party’s Chief Election Agent, denies the claim made by his own party that conditions can be materially improved in this system. These are his words :—

“The workers are not getting a larger share of the national wealth. Under Capitalism the proportionate division of the national product cannot be materially altered ; the existing system secretes millionaires and paupers as the liver secretes bile.” (Daily Herald, April 16)

* * *

Who owns Great Britain?

The nonsense talked by all defenders of this system, from Tory to Labour, about the wealth of the workers, is completely smashed by the statement of Sir Leo Chiozza Money, the Labour-Liberal statistician. In the New Leader of April 11, he states :

“Twenty-five years have elapsed since first, in “Riches and Poverty,” I drew attention to the astonishing facts as to the distribution of property revealed by the collection of Death Duties. The facts are not less surprising to-day. In a quarter of a century very little progress has been made in securing a more equitable distribution of land and capital.

The nation, as a going concern, is still, for the most part, owned by a handful of people so small that, if they all left the country, the population would roundly remain unaltered. “

And he further says :

“It is equally true that, taking Great Britain as a whole, about 6 per cent. of its families possess nearly 70 per cent. of its land and capital.”

* * *

Nationalisation and unemployment.

How improved methods of transport affect post office workers in Scotland is shown by the report of the Scottish Council of the Postal Workers’ Union : —

“It is stated on the authority of official reports that during the last five years 1,700 full-time positions have been cancelled in Scotland as against an increase of 800 part-time positions. The reduction in the number of employees is attributed to the increasing use of motor vehicles in the conveyance of mails, which has made many rural postmen and auxiliary workers unnecessary. 

The union are suggesting a reduction in the working week with a view to the avoidance of unemployment in the service.”(Glasgow Evening Times, April 14.)

* * *

The cheapness of "Labour" Reforms. 

How Labour’s reforms save the property-owners money is shown in the following-from the I.L.P, paper, Forward:

“The change over of the unemployed from parish relief to unemployment benefit, as a result of the Labour Government’s new Unemployment Insurance Act, will save Glasgow Ratepayers £7400,000 a year, equal to 9d. off the Rates. Seven thousand men who have been receiving parish relief in Glasgow have been transferred to unemployment benefit through the new Act renewing their eligibility.” (Forward, April 12.)

* * *

The Revolutionary I.L.P. !

Unemployment relief should be a national charge, say both Winston Churchill and the I.L.P.

“That was the view of the I.L.P. in 1911 when Lloyd George framed his Unemployment Insurance Act. It is still the view of the I.L.P. The I.L.P. agitators of that time are the Government to-day, and it is left to Winston Churchill, the political adventurer with the adaptable mind, to express the I.L.P. point of view on unemployment relief.” (Forward, April 12.)

* * *

Humanizing Socialism !

I.L.P. object to Marx.

Mr. Fenner Brockway, the mouthpiece of the I.L.P., tells us in the Daily Herald (Jan. 22) that 20 years ago he read the American Socialist papers every week, and of them he says :

“They seemed to aim at making Socialism as difficult and forbidding as possible. The theories of the class struggle, the economic interpretation of history and surplus value were elaborated in detail, and their acceptance in entirety was made the test of Socialist conviction. 

I remember discussing this characteristic of American Socialism with Keir Hardie. He told me that before the formation of the I.L.P. British Socialism had been advocated in a similar way. The result was that the working-class was unmoved; it was left cold by the hard materialism, the dogmatic intolerance, and Continental phraseology in which Socialism was expressed.”

So Keir Hardie, who ridiculed the class war idea, and got his economics from Jesus, founded the I.L.P., with its sentimental appeal for social reform and a “humanized” capitalism, and support of capitalist parties.

Mr. Fenner Brockway reviews a book called the “Socialism of Our Times,” published by the “League of Industrial Democracy” (New York, 50 cents). This is a symposium by various writers who provide advice on “adapting” Socialism to the needs of the U.S.A.

Judging from the quotations, it is a collection of intellectual essays on everything except Socialism.

Mr. Brockway naturally commends the book, and quotes Mr. Harold Laski’s suggestions :

“The first step must be to awaken the American people to a sense of the positive character of the State. America still regards the State negatively, as we did in this country before the Labour Party entered Parliament. It does not recognise that the State has any responsibility for the unemployed, the sick, the widows, and the aged. Laski urges, therefore, that, the first need is to advocate unemployment and health insurance and old age and widows’ pensions, plus municipal ownership, taxation for social purposes, and Court and Parliamentary reform. In this way he believes a mental attitude will be created in the public for bigger Socialist reforms.”

* * *

Paralysing Socialism.

So Prof. Laski’s suggestion for “Americanizing” Socialism is to demand bigger reforms. What a Socialist Reform is, he doesn’t say. Seeing that all reforms are to be passed by the Capitalist Government—obviously they can’t be Socialist.

No suggestion is made that the workers should be taught Socialism, so that reforms will not be needed, but Socialism can be established.

The State is to be used by the worker to improve conditions under Capitalism ! The State, however, is a machine used under Capitalism to maintain private ownership and to repress the workers. The only use the State will be to a Socialist working-class is to capture it for the purpose of ending this system.

The workers of U.S.A. are advised by Mr. Laski to fight for the social reform legislation Mr. Lloyd George passed under Liberal Party rule.

This late professor of Harvard University understands the problem so little that he advises the workers in the most advanced industrial country to press for the paltry reforms that Germany had under Bismarck, and that England has suffered for many years.

Miss Jessie Wallace Hughan, another contributor to the book, says :

“American Socialism was imported by foreign-born doctrinaires. ’Gene Debs did much to humanise it, but it has still to be Americanised ‘from the pain economy to the pleasure economy, from the phraseology of the European labourer with nothing to lose but his chains to that of the American worker with his demands for a Ford and a radio.’”

American conditions are so different, she would have you believe, that the worker there has something to lose—and demands a radio and a Ford car. But how is it that both this writer and Mr. Laski advocate that the American workers demand all kinds of pensions, “doles,” and many other reforms similar to those we have in Europe, where “the labourer has nothing to lose but his chains”? The very reform agitation they favour gives the lie to the alleged differences in the condition of labour between U.S.A. and Europe.

Humanizing Socialism—Mr. Brockway calls his article. It should have been entitled—”Socialism” without Socialists— an I.L.P, beef stew !

* * *

Canadian Communists.

The Communist Party is as Reformist abroad as it is here. In Toronto Municipal Elections they are running candidates on a programme which covers everything except Communism. Their immediate demands according to their official organ, The Worker (Toronto, Dec. 21) include :

• “Unemployed relief of £5 per week to married men and £3 to single men.
• An Unemployed Insurance Act.
• Seven-hour day and 5-day week and 2 weeks’ holiday with pay.
• No night work for women and all those under 18 years of age.
• 2s. l1d. per hour for municipal employees.
• Abolition of property qualification for voters.
• Town Planning Scheme to pay union rates.
• Revision of taxation to benefit the workers.
• Free speech assemblage and Press.”

That’s how they build up Communist support in Canada.

* * *

More “Direct Action”?

“American Socialism or Labor Unions contra Company Unions,” by Robert Clausen, 409, East Fifth Street, Los Angeles. Price 35 cents.

This pamphlet, sent to us for review, is evidently the work of an ex S.L.P. member.

The writer claims that the S.L.P. have given up De Leon’s main idea, viz., reliance upon the economic organization, “taking and holding” the means of life without affiliation to any political party. Mr. Clausen does not deal with the weakness of De Leon’s position. In several articles in the Socialist Standard, our Comrade Jacomb showed that the S.L.P. had committed suicide politically by advocating that the workers give their undivided attention to economic organization.

The author of this pamphlet criticises both the “direct action” I.W.W. and also the industrial unions formed by employers for the harmless organization of their workers. These latter are called Company Unions in U.S.A., and their counterpart has grown up here since the General Strike.

Mr. Clausen’s pamphlet is a poor presentation of his views, but his chief idea is economic organization of labour, to take the means of production out of the hands of Capital.

He does not show how this can be done. Neither could De Leon or the S.L.P. Mr. Clausen supports Marx’s economics, but nowhere did Marx rely upon economic organization. Marx said that the first step was to capture political power (Communist Manifesto). The S.L.P. have not been able to deal with our case against their “direct action” policy, and so they remain silent on this, their special nostrum.

Perhaps Mr. Clausen would like to explain how economic organizations can “come into possession.”

* * *

“The Making of Socialists.”

“Why I doubt that the I.L.P. is a Socialist organization” was the title of a lecture given to the I.L.P. in North St. Pancras on March 6th by E. C. Fairchild. 

“He did not think the policy of social reform adopted by the Labour Party had any real connection with Socialism, and thought that the I.L.P. was making the fatal mistake of trying to outbid the Labour Party in reform measures, instead of concentrating on the making of Socialists.” (New Leader.)

The title of Mr. Fairchild’s lecture implies that he isn’t sure about the I.L.P. His doubts would not exist if he examined the I.L.P’s. position. It is inside the Labour Party, because that is where the jobs and popularity are. Its members run as Labour Party candidates because that is the way to get elected—and it’s election they want, not Socialism. The programme of rationalisation and reform gets millions of votes—advocating Socialism wouldn’t. The real crime of the I.L.P. and Labour Party is not merely their reform programme, but the assistance they give to keep power in the hands of the Capitalist Class.

Mr. Fairchild belonged to the Social Democratic Federation before the War, and in defence of their reform policy, wrote a pamphlet explaining that reforms and palliatives were the weapons of working class struggle.

In a series of articles in the Socialist Standard, our Comrade Jacomb analysed the reform nostrums of Mr. Fairchild. Since then the latter left the S.D.F. and joined the I.L.P., who had more reforms in their programme than the S.D.F. And now he is at Ruskin College as a teacher.

Before Mr. Fairchild started his wanderings in the reform wilderness, there was the Socialist Party of Great Britain in existence, and it still exists for the object of making Socialists and establishing Socialism.

* * *

Shaw v. Marx.

“And do not forget that the Marxian dream of a world-wide proletarian revolution, though it is not now practical politics, may yet upset all our conceptions of international relations. The Reformation did not seem practical in the Middle Ages; but it happened for all that.”

Thus spoke Bernard Shaw in an interview in the Sunday Observer (March 23}. It may suit Shaw to portray Marx’s idea as a dream, but the Capitalist Class don’t spend their time and money fighting dreams. They are busy with every weapon, from miseducation to repression, to try and prevent an end coming to their system. No wonder they are so full of praise for Labour Leaders like Thomas and Labour Politicians like MacDonald, who turn working class discontent into support of Capitalism. Lord Balfour, who has just “gone to heaven,” said that Social Reform was the antidote to Socialism. Shaw and the Labour Party support the antidote, while the very development of Capitalism makes Socialism inevitable.

* * *

The worker in America. 

“If the depression continues for another three months the situation will become seriously acute. The American working man has not been accustomed to saving. He has no reserves, and all his luxuries and household goods have been purchased out of income. If he is out of employment, then he will not be able to meet his instalments, and the companies that are keyed up to mass production will find that the percentage of production necessary to make large profits will be reduced to such an extent that there will not even be small profits—there will be considerable losses.”

Thus writes the City Editor of the Sunday Express (March 23), on his return from America. This Capitalist paper explodes the myth about the prosperity of the American worker with his “home” and motor car—”bought” on the hire system. The effects of mass production in America should teach the worker here that “greater output” in the most advanced country makes the workers’ position more insecure than ever.

* * *

Labour bombs.

Mr. Fred. Montague (Under Minister for Air) is opposed to materialism—in philosophy. As a Labour Minister under the Capitalist system, however, he is a staunch materialist, and strongly defended spending nearly 18 millions on the Air Force, an increase of nearly a million on last year. The modern weapons of war are taking the form of more air forces, so this spiritual Air Minister brings in larger air estimates.

So the Labour Government is keeping up the pace for bombing planes and all the other deadly weapons of this Capitalist world.

* * *

Lloyd George “Behind” the I.L.P.

“Mr. Lloyd George’s article in the Daily Express this week strongly reinforces the I.L.P. policy, so closely associated with F. W. Jowett’s name.” These are the words of the New Leader—the I.L.P. paper. What better evidence of the I.L. P. ‘s Socialism can you have?—Mr. Lloyd George “reinforces I.L.P. policy.” Perhaps that is Lloyd George’s thanks to the I.L.P. for so long supporting his Budget and other Reform campaigns !

* * *

A Communist Programme.

(1) Feeding all school children.

(2) Unemployed men on slack time to be relieved from paying rates.

(3) A school holiday on May 1st.

(4) Joint action by unemployed and employed to force these demands.

This is the Communist Party programme in Fifeshire (Daily Worker, March 14).

That is what they call uniting the workers for Revolution. The workers are to join together—not fighting for Socialism, but fighting for a school holiday on May 1st, etc.

Did the Third International spend large sums to develop such powerful Revolutionaries ?

C.

Answers to Correspondents. (1930)

Letters to the Editors from the June 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why not join the Labour Party?

The Editor, the Socialist Standard.

Isleworth, Middx.

May 16th, 1930.

Dear Comrade,

Why this continuous attack upon the Labour Party: The Labour Party has declared in belief in Socialism, and the aim of all Socialist bodies and Socialists is to obtain Socialism in the shortest possible time.

How can this end be attained? ‘By holding meetings,’ by talking to our fellow-workers, and by the distribution of literature. Yes, all these methods can be employed and have been employed in the past. But are they sufficient? Is it not perfectly obvious that by these means we can only hope to make a few among the many thousands into competent Marxists, and that even those few must do some hard thinking and hard reading if they really wish to understand. But the majority of them live under conditions which compel them to think about the immediate necessity of getting a living, and therefore are not interested in Socialism as a distant theory.

If, however, we talk to them about things they do understand, such as the houses in which they live and the education which is given to their children, then we have some hope of getting them interested, and if we can hold out the prospect of improving things in the immediate future then we can not only get them interested hut we can get them to work hard in order to attain the aims of the party. Having got them into the party and made friends of them, we can now teach them Marxian economics and make real Socialists of them.

There are many competent Marxists within the ranks of the S.P.G.B. Would it not be better policy for them to get inside the ranks of the Labour Party and carry on their educational campaign there?

Come on, comrades, there is plenty of work to do and too few people to do it, and if we are going to get our objective we must use every means that offers. These people are already prejudiced in favour ; hundreds of them are young and intelligent—the very soil on which the seed should be dropped. Yours fraternally,

A. F. Forrest.

Our Reply.

Our correspondent’s picture of the Labour Party is purely fanciful. It is seeking to establish not Socialism, a system of society based upon common ownership of the means of production and distribution, but nationalisation, or State Capitalism. The Post Office is its model ; an institution which is privately owned by investors in various Government loans, and whose services are not provided freely for use, but sold in order to produce profit, just like other capital concerns.

Our correspondent envisages the Labour Party winning and retaining the “friendliness” of the workers by “improving things” for them. We deny that a Labour Government, elected by non-socialists, is in a position to carry out its promises of improving things. Has our correspondent considered what is going to happen when workers who voted Labour find that the improvement does not materialise ? Does he think that the reduction in wages of cotton workers and wool workers, and the half-million men thrown out of work since the Labour Government entered office, are steps on the way to Socialism, and calculated to make the workers more friendly to those responsible?

Our correspondent’s arguments are self-contradictory. He first tells us that the Labour Party is committed to Socialism, and then urges us to get inside in order to convert them. Convert them to what? In truth, the overwhelming majority of Labour Party supporters are ignorant of the elements of Socialist knowledge, and to talk of them having declared their belief in something which they do not understand, is merely the evasion of an unpalatable truth.

If we wished to enter the Labour Party (which, of course, we do not) we would most certainty not be permitted to carry on our propaganda for Socialism, for the reason that it would involve, as it does now, pointing out that the programme of reforms of that Party is valueless to the working class.

Our correspondent also assumes that the Labour Party desires to provide its members with Socialist knowledge. We deny this, and ask our correspondent for evidence that the desire, let alone the effort to that end, exists or has ever existed. If it exists, why does not the Labour Party use its press and its platform for that purpose?

Editorial Committee.

The Capitalists and reforms.

A correspondent suggests that the Capitalists will introduce a large number of reforms in order to dissuade the workers from interesting themselves in Socialism. He asks whether such reforms will, to any degree, make the conditions of the workers better.

If the Capitalists were agreed on the question, there is no reason why the position of the working-class should not be improved at the cost of the Capitalists themselves, but such agreement is not easily achieved. Even in those cases where Capitalist politicians perceive the advisability of a more generous treatment of some of the victims of the system, it is difficult for the Capitalist politicians to convince their backers that need exists, or that “generosity” is the way to deal with discontent. Occasions often arise of the Lloyd Georges, and Baldwins and Churchills of Capitalist politics being forced by their more stupid and ignorant supporters to carry out policies which go against their better judgment and their human sympathies. Future historians will probably be amazed at the appalling meanness (unnecessary, from a Capitalist standpoint}, of the treatment meted out to the victims of war and of unemployment, at the present time.

Even when the workers in large numbers go over to the Socialist Party, there will still be influential sections of the Capitalist class (with their working class followers) who will resist reforms, either on the ground that they are “demoralising” to the workers, or that they hamper trade, or that they merely encourage the workers to ask for more. It is, therefore, probable that reforms will always tend to lag somewhat behind the evils which Capitalism goes on producing.

Editorial Committee.

What is Capital?

An enquirer asks why we talk of abolishing Capital, since, in his view, Capital merely means machinery, tools, etc.

Our correspondent is in error. Capital is wealth used for the purpose of profit. Wealth not used for the purpose of profit is not Capital. When the tools, machinery, buildings, etc., cease to be used for profit, they will not be Capital. The abolition of Capitalism will leave the means of production to be used for the purpose of producing articles for the use of the members of society. There will be no question of private profit, and, therefore, no question of “Capital.”

Our correspondent goes on to suggest that “money, or, more truly credit-power,” will be needed under Socialism. This is incorrect. Under Socialism, there will be no function for money to perform. Money is a means of trading between the private owners of goods of various kinds. Where private ownership does not exist, the possibility of exchange, of buying and selling, disappears. The processes which will be necessary under Socialism are the production of useful articles and their distribution to those who need them. Exchange does not enter in, and money is not required. If our correspondent bears in mind that the means of production will be commonly owned, and the products freely distributed, he will see that money can have no function to perform. Looking at it in another way, he will see that money, by its nature, cannot be “commonly owned.” To contemplate individuals holding stocks of money under Socialism is to contemplate the possibility of private persons being able to purchase the means of living of other persons—which is, on the face of it, incompatible with our definition of Socialism.

Communism or Socialism?

Finally, our correspondent asks if Communism and Socialism are terms which mean the same.

It is not a sufficient answer to trace back the original and interim meanings of the words, because the use of words changes from one generation to another. The chief point is that when we use the word Socialism we define it carefully. (See object on back page.)

Those who use the word Communism, define it differently from our definition of Socialism, or do not define it at all.

In popular usage, the word Communism is associated with the anti-working class policies of the Communist parties. Nothing whatever is to be gained by using two words interchangeably when one will do. Therefore, we do not use the word Socialism to mean the things ordinarily intended by those who use the word Communism.

Editorial Committee.

SPGB Meetings and Notices. (1930)

Party News from the June 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Labour Party and the Unemployed. (1908)

From the April 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why are there Unemployed?

Unemployment is the workers’ constant scourge. It is the haunting fear of this that makes the toiler cringe before the tyranny of the master or brutal foreman; that compels him to accept low wages and degrading conditions of toil; that forces him to blackleg those on strike and become a tool to break the spirit of his fellows. Any attempt, therefore, to seriously grapple with this question must command our closest attention, for it is above all necessary for wage workers to have clear ideas upon this subject.

But what lies back of the unemployed question? Is it that the labour of the worker cannot provide his necessaries of life? No, it is because he is denied the opportunity to apply his labour. It is because the means of life—land, mines, factories and railways—are the monopoly of a distinct class who will only feed the wage-slave when the conditions of the market enable a profit to be realised on his labour. In his profit hunger the capitalist continually cuts down his labour bill, and the worker is squeezed out of the factory by new machines and other labour saving devices. The enormous increase in the productivity of labour is accompanied by a slackening demand for products. The growing army of unemployed and paupers, the continued crushing of middlemen by company and trust, all tend to seriously restrict purchasing power in the home market; while other nations inevitably take a larger share in the markets of the world, and so slacken demand there also. Supply permanently outstrips demand. Workers must starve because they have produced too much!

The great social means of production which have now developed, and which are worked by the compulsory co-operation of thousands of workers in factory, mine and railway, are in violent conflict with the anarchy of capitalist distribution, and cry out for the adjustment of Society to the social nature of the new economic conditions.

What must be done?

But to correct this contradiction what must be done? Is it “practical politics” to deny the class antagonism, as does the Labour Party, and to beg the capitalist to get off the worker’s back ? Is it to be expected the masters will themselves abolish the unemployed, the keystone of their social arch ?

The only hope for the workers, employed and unemployed, is in their organisation as a class against the class that is organised against them. They must realise that they will only get what they are able to take; that it is utterly stupid to expect their enemies to legislate or administer against their own interests. The profits of the capitalist class, their income, and even their continued existence as a class depend upon the existence or creation of a reserve labour army.

If there were no unemployed there would be no blacklegs, the “sack” would lose its terrors, wages would rise and profits vanish. Voltaire said if God did not exist it would be necessary to invent one. The modern capitalist can say with more truth that if the unemployed did not exist it would be necessary to create them. How stupid it is then to expect any but the workers themselves to deal seriously with that vital question.

Those who live upon the workers may provide workhouses, or penal colonies as in Belgium and elsewhere, but this means simply that the lash of hunger is partly replaced by the lash of conditions so bad that the victim is glad to accept the worst paid and most wretched toil in the competitive world outside rather than stay.

This is the principle of the workhouse stoneyard—it is also the principle of the Labour Party’s Bill.

The Bankruptcy of Labourism

Never was the bankruptcy of Labourism more evident than in its attempt at legislation on unemployment. 

Having by its flabbiness lost much of the confidence of of its supporters, and having before it the prospect of meeting its Waterloo at the next election, the Labour Party was at last to make a stand and to do something to regain the lost confidence and prepare for the battle to come. That something is the Unemployed Workmen Bill!

The Labour Party is indeed fortunate in its defeat. Had not the Liberal Party thought it profitable, in view of the great Tory campaign, to make a show of opposition to the falsely so-called “Socialist” Labour Party, and had it adopted the Bill, emphasising its penal clause; the game of the Labour group would have been up; the rottenness of the Bill could not have escaped exposure, and the hopelessness of peddling Labourism would have been driven home to the multitude.

For what does the Bill amount to ?

One of the great claims for the Bill was that it was a training Bill. J. R. MacDonald in seconding the second reading said it was not relief works that were wanted, but to impose a course of training on the unemployed man ; and that it was a mistake to assume “that the purpose of the promoters was to put the unemployed to their own work.” What does this mean ?

It means, since there are unemployed in every calling, that an unemployed navvy, for example, is to be trained for carpentering or bricklaying, while the bricklayer or carpenter is to be trained for navvying! To attempt to alleviate general unemployment by such means is on a par with the suggestion that men could earn their living by taking in one another’s washing.

A Snare and a Delusion

But the crux of the Bill, according to the Labour Party, is clause 3, and we agree. At first glance the clause and appears to provide employment at conditions not lower than those standard in the locality, as demanded by trade unionists; but a second glance reveals that this is a snare and a delusion. It is so worded as to give a false impression to the trade union worker, while in reality it places no limit, to the badness of conditions which the unemployed man must accept under pain of punishment.

In the House of Commons Mr MacDonald confessed that the clause “may be badly worded,” but that it only meant that the trade unionist was not to be victimised because he may formerly have declined work for an outside capitalist at less than current rates. “It did not mean that the local employment authority must provide work at trade union rate of wages.”

No, indeed, the only conditions are such as capitalists may consider “reasonable,” and we know what that means. Under the Bill a man might be offered the wretchedest conditions of both work and pay, and what would be the result if he refused ? The local authority is then empowered under clause 7 to obtain an order “to enforce control over the person named in the order for a period not exceeding six mouths, which period must he passed in the performance of reasonable work under the control of the local employment authority.”

That is to say, if you will not accept the most degrading conditions that may be offered, they may inflict penal servitude upon you for a period not exceeding six months. Thus is the “Right to Work"!

And what is there to prevent the local authorities, as of yore, putting men to work at exceedingly low rates (under pretence of unemployed relief) at work which must otherwise have been done at full rates by men now transformed into “unemployed” ?

So long as there is a capitalist Parliament the LocaI Government Board will be its tool, while there is no more bitter enemy of the workers than its president. Yet the Labour Party in their Bill place enormous powers of control and in the framing of rules for carrying out the Act, in the hands of the L.G.B. Even were the Bill otherwise of any use, this would suffice to damn it.

The Only Hope.

Unemployment is the big stick that the master class use to break strikes, to beat down wages, and to make the employed “get a hustle” on them. The ruling class is not going to burn that stick. For the abolition of unemployment there is only one way, and that is not to follow the Will-o’-the-wisp of Labourism, but for the workers to organise as a class for Socialism. The workers must therefore organise to themselves capture political power in order that they may cease to be the despised beasts of burden of the propertied class, and become freely associated producers in a cooperative commonwealth.

Socialism is your only hope.

A Sketch of the Life of Marx. (1908)

From the April 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

May 5th, 1818. – March 14th, 1883.

At the ancient German town of Treves, Heinrich Karl Marx, the founder of scientific Socialism, was born of Jewish parents on May 5th, 1818. The father of Marx was a prominent lawyer, and a man of considerable talent, saturated with the ideas of the French Encyclopedists of the 18th century regarding religion, science, and art. After going through the ordinary school course, Marx entered the university of Bonn and later that of Berlin, studying “law to please his father and history and philosophy to please himself” At the conclusion of his university studies, Marx intended to take a lectureship in philosophy at the Bonn University, but the treatment meted out to his friend Bruno Bauer, who was a lecturer there, caused him to relinquish this plan.

Though Marx was at this time but 24, his remarkable talent already attracted the attention ot the Rhemish bourgeoisie, and at the founding of the “Rheinische Zeitung” in the Autumn of 1842, he was placed at its direction. The life of this journal was a continual struggle with the censorship. A double censorship not sufficing to curb this dangerous daily paper it was suppressed by the government in 1843.

With his young wife, Jenny Von Westphalen, Marx now settled in Paris. Here he made the acquaintance of Engels and Proudhon, and collaborated with Arnold Ruge in the production of the “Deutsch-Franzoesischen Jahrbuecher.” In these annals he published his long essay on Hegel’s “Philosophy of Law” and another on the Hebrew question, which show that he had by this time emancipated himself from his earlier Hegelianism, and had wedded the dialectic to experience.

After the cessation of the Franco-German Annals, Marx and Engels—for the two become henceforth inseparable, the one supplementing the other—wrote the “Holy Family,” a satirical critique of German idealistic philosophy; and collaborated with Heine and Ewerbeck on the Paris “Vorwaerts.”

Marx having, as he himself said, been led by his studies to the conclusion that legal relations, as well as the forms of state, could neither be understood by themselves nor explained by the so-called general progress of the human mind, but are rooted in the material conditions of social life; now took up seriously the study of economics as the anatomy of society. These studies were continued in Brussels, where Marx nevertheless found time to write articles and pamphlets, and to reply to Proudhon’s bombastic Utopianism by the “Poverty of Philosophy.” The Communist Alliance had been founded by German refugees in Paris, and while in Brussels Marx and Engels joined this semi-secret society, which henceforth became simply an organisation for Communist propaganda. In 1847 the Alliance was transformed by the adoption of the famous Communist Manifesto.

In the stormy times which followed the events of February, 1848, Marx was expelled from Brussels, went to Paris and thence after a time to Cologne, where he collaborated with Engels, Wilhelm and Ferdinand Wolf, Ernest Dronke, and the poets Freiligrath and Georg Weerth, on the brilliant editorial staff of the “Neue Rheinische Zeitung.” The defence of the Parisian insurgents by this intrepid daily paper, together with its outspoken policy in general, brought about a continuous struggle with the reaction and finally led to the suppression of the journal in May, 1849.

Marx now went to Paris, and having participated in the movement culminating in the fiasco of “June 13th, 1849” was expelled from Paris and came to London, then truly the hub of the world. Here he found the material for the work of his life, for, as Liebknecht says, “Capital” could have been created in London only.

Keeping aloof during this time from the dregs of the February and March movements, Marx now wrote his history of the coup d'etat of December 2nd, 1852, under the title of the “18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,” a work which, to those familiar with the chief personages and events of the time, is an illuminating application of the economic interpretation of history.

After the dastardly trial and conviction of the Communists at Cologne, and the consequent crushing of propaganda, the Communist Alliance was dissolved ; Marx writing his “Disclosures regarding the Cologne Communist Trial” in 1853. The time that followed was for Marx an entire devotion to scientific study and literary work. He became a regular contributor to the “New York Tribune,” then under the famous editorship of Horace Greely and C. A. Dana ; and became acquainted with David Urquhart, the talented explorer and student of Oriental questions.

From this period date the articles on “Revolution and Counter Revolution,” while the materials were now gathered for the “Life of Lord Palmerston,” “The Secret Diplomatic History of the 18th Century” and “The Eastern Question.”

In 1859 the “Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy” was published, and in it were laid down the foundations of the work afterwards developed in “Capital.”

Marx again entered politics in 1859, and came into conflict with Herr Vogt, a German ex-regent then at the court of Napoleon III. Carl Vogt’s abuse of the “Sulphur Gang” drew from Marx the classic pamphlet “Herr Vogt.”

A revival of the labour movement was now taking place almost throughout Europe. Meetings of sympathy with Poland led to the suggestion of an International Association of Working-men, and in September, 1864, at a meeting in the old St. Martin’s Hall, London, the International was formed. Its history is that of continued struggle with enemies within and without, and its dissolution was precipitated, not alone by the superior force of organised repression, but also by the internal struggle between the Communists, and the Utopians and Anarchists. It nevertheless served its purpose in laying the foundation of international working-class organisation.

In 1867 the first volume of “Capital” appeared, and its influence has steadily grown year by year. Even the acutest critics pay tributes to the value of the book and the genius of its author. Marx stands out as the protagonist of the economic interpretation of history ; a method of investigation and theory of social growth developed independently as regards ancient society by the great American, Lewis H. Morgan. “Capital” is, indeed, the demonstration of this method and theory, and even opponents are compelled to admit, as does E. A. Seligman of Columbian University, N.Y., Professor of political economy and finance, that “whether or no we agree with Marx’s analysis of industrial society, and without attempting as yet to pass judgment upon the validity of his philosophical doctrine, it is safe to say that no one can study Marx as he deserves to be studied—and let us add, as he has hitherto not been studied in England or America—without recognising the fact that, perhaps with the exception of Ricardo, there has been no more original, no more powerful, and no more acute intellect in the entire history of economic science.” [“The Economic Interpretation of History,” P. 56. The Macmillan Co.]

The war of 1870 and the Commune which followed it proved trying times for the International. To this period we owe the manifestoes by Marx on the war and the Commune. The International having become a terror to the rulers of Europe was now outlawed in all countries. The headquarters were transferred to New York by the Congress of La Hague in 1873, and this meant practically its dissolution.

Sickness, brought on by overwork, undermined the strong constitution of Marx and forced him to seek the South of France. The death of Jenny, his wife, dealt him a terrible blow, to be followed soon after by another in the death of Jenny Longuet, his favourite daughter. With sorrow thus heaped upon his head the scientist of the proletariat languished a few months longer and died peacefully in London on the 14th March, 1883.

* * *

It has not been attempted to deal with the touching family life of Marx; that may be glimpsed in Liebknecht’s “Biographical Memoirs” to which indeed we are indebted for many of the facts already set forth.

We are here concerned above all with the scientific method, the economics and philosophy of Marx, and its supreme utility to the working-class movement.

The enormous, continued, and yet ineffective literature of Marxian criticism is the highest testimony to the importance of what is called Marxism, and to the impregnability of its position. The dialectic of events daily confirms the dialectic of Marx, and now the duty devolves upon those with whom science is not subordinate to the buttressing of exploitation to cease their damnable faces and get to business. The instrument of investigation forged by Marx—and already so fruitful of results—has wide fields yet virgin before it in the domain of ideology, in the evolution of philosophy, art, and religion. To use the method of Marx, however, it is above all necessary to comprehend it. There are members of the working class, who, having studied and mastered the historic method of Marx, lament silently the lack of leisure and lack of means that condemn them to sterility. Adequate study is rendered impossible to them, and they are denied the opportunity of using the splendid instrument the genius of Marx has prepared, in increasing our knowledge along any of the wide vistas of scientific investigation that open out before them.

But the Socialist worker knows that this cannot always be, and though his intellect is despised by the would-be intellectuals of the bourgeoisie from behind their shallow learning and superficial polish, yet he, at least, sees clearly the trend o! evolution and holds the key of the future; while bourgeois social science has to declare itself bankrupt where it does not adopt the method of Marx.

F. Charles