Who spread Christianity (2026)

Book Review from the June 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Domination : the fall of the Roman empire and the rise of Christianity. By Alice Roberts. Simon and Schuster, 2025. ISBN 9781398510081

In the foreword of this book, the author explains that she became interested in ‘whether we can trace the spread of ideas and beliefs through changes in material culture’ and also how did ‘Christianity reach the West’ and become a dominant idea over such a wide region from its western Asian origins. Her account rebuts any idea that evangelist saints spread the religion solely through their faith or the inherent correctness of their ideas.

As she notes, she had to check herself from thinking about Christianity as an ‘it’ as if it had agency, but instead ‘who had spread this religion. Who, how and why?’ Throughout the book she repeatedly corrects herself, and although she never expressly describes her method as materialist, nevertheless, she does give a clearly materialist account of how real individuals in concrete situations found that what they perceived as their best interests was to produce, reproduce, spread and adhere to the ideas of what is now known as Christianity.

Possibly this book was intended as a treatment or idea for a television series, as it follows the format typical of modern history series, moving from one location to another, in this case from South Wales, to Brittany, to Rome and eventually to Constantinople (although her account does not stretch as far back as the foundation of Christianity itself in the Levant). The reader can picture her striding determinedly past ruins and archaeological digs, and in musty museums looking at the artefacts she discusses.

Accompanying that is a bit of showmanship as she purports to be ‘astonished’ by what she found, as if uncovering some ancient mystery Scooby Doo style. Her claim is that Christianity never was an anti-establishment religion, and that, indeed, its spread was very establishment indeed.

She begins with the evangelist saints who came to post-Roman Britain. She notes that Christianity had already been here as part of Roman culture, and many of these saints were members of elites who had what amounted to a traditional Roman education. The very prominence of these saints was connected with the relative power of churches, places of pilgrimage and the peoples associated with them.

As she notes, in the collapsing Roman Empire, wealthy and powerful families sought to protect their interests by sending sons off for education, and then ensuring their placement as bishops in the church, with the command of land, money and status that brought. This came about, in part, because of the charitable role that the church established for itself as it grew in Rome, supporting widows and orphans; and also providing some of the civil bureaucracy of running regional centres within the empire. As a part of this, the church obtained incentives through tax breaks.

The church had grown within a small and mobile professional class, as it spread through the Roman world. It was never a majority in that world, but plague and financial stresses on the empire may have helped it grow, with its institutionalised resilience alongside its doctrines of salvation and life eternal. It became, as she says, a business of charity.

It was Constantine, an emperor proclaimed in York, who further institutionalised Christianity by making it the official religion of the empire. Roberts doesn’t resolve whether Constantine was a Christian by conviction, but she does note how his rhetoric shifted as he defeated his rivals within the empire, adopting Sun cults and eventually Christian attributes in a traditional imperial display of divine favour for his rule. The suggestion seems to be that, as he consolidated his power, it became useful to tap into the institutionalised networks of Christianity.

To that end, he convened the Council of Nicea, which organised and collated the doctrines of the previously dispersed and differing (and thus bickering) Christian communities, to make a single doctrine and a state religion. As Roberts notes, the fine hair-splitting about whether Jesus existed before his birth, or was of one being with God, became a means of organising factional fights within the Church, which could spill into civil disorder, as it had in Alexandria. Obviously, the idea of one god over everyone appealed to the one emperor of such a diverse and far-flung empire.

In her final analysis, she contends that ‘in a very real way, the Empire became the Church’. The church then became the way that the empire survived its collapse. This is a very readable cross-discipline account of the way that the church grew and became the thing we know today. The metaphor of a business model that she uses throughout is very useful.

If there are any weaknesses, they may lie in sidelining the ideas. As other authors note, one tool the church used was a command of rhetoric and logic: creating effective and plausible arguments would have been an advantage: a business model needs a good sales pitch, and some of those doctrinal disputes may well have had a practical effect on the way the pitch landed.

Pik Smeet

Loose change (2026)

From the June 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Change! The single word summary of the Labour Party manifesto presented to voters at the last general election. There was certainly a change to the Party’s fortunes, increasing its number of seats in the Commons from 202 in 2019 to 411. This seeming landslide victory would appear to be an overwhelming endorsement on behalf of the electorate. However not quite so overwhelming in terms of the percentage share of votes cast. This change, of over more than 100 percent in the number of MPs, was achieved through an increase of just 1.6 percent in votes received.

After fourteen years of various Conservative administrations, the official opposition had barely stirred the electorate’s enthusiasm. Rather the falling away of the Tory vote opened the way to the government front benches. A significant element in Tory decline was the increasing popularity of Reform UK. Not a political party, but a limited company. Ironically appropriate as an aspiring administrator of a capitalist society.

The new Labour government found that not only had the Conservatives left the treasury chest empty of money, but had filled it with IOUs. Not that this was a novel situation. The new Tory government in 2010 inherited the same predicament after 13 years of Labour. Government expenditure almost constantly increases. Demands and expectations of the electorate are many and varied, encouraged by the competing political parties seeking votes. Oppositions can afford to sound generous, governments become austere.

The role of governments

It is for government to manage and administer capitalist society. Its fundamental function is to optimise profit making. The contradiction lies in the division between the small minority of wealth holders, the capitalists, and the vast majority, the wealth creators, the workers. While wealth holders recognise the need to maintain workers, otherwise there is no wealth creation, this maintenance is drawn from the wealth accumulated. Therefore, the more that goes to that maintenance, as wages/salaries, pensions, benefits, healthcare, etc, the less the wealth held.

Governments have to try and balance maximising profit while sustaining a stable, productive society. Any government action or crisis upsetting that balance impacts on the financial markets, threatening national bankruptcy. No matter how popular a government is in terms of electoral support, its options for action are constrained by the market. The market trumps the ballot box.

A common complaint amongst the electorate is that governments do not listen to them. Voters subject to the machinations of capitalist economies more often than not find their aspirations are not going to be met. Reasonable, even modest wishes for economic security and stability, decent housing, efficient healthcare, good education and a generally comfortable lifestyle, are frustrated. Instead, there is widespread discontent and frustration, often coalescing into cynicism.

Politicians are seen as remote and unsympathetic, concerned only with their own advancement. Daily experience does little or nothing to dispel such notions. Rather there is only a sense of powerlessness, which periodic voting does nothing to assuage. Indeed, the main political parties seem so similar that replacing one with another makes little significant difference. ‘They’re all the same’ is a commonplace. And the fact is they have to be because, despite minor differences, overall they must deal with an economic system that remains dominant, capitalism.

This does not mean the appearance of the political situation cannot change. The grip of the two main post-Second World War parties, Conservative and Labour, has been significantly loosened. An inkling of this change occurred in 2010 when the outgoing Labour government was replaced by the Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition.

Giving Reform a go

The 2016 Brexit referendum saw cross-party alliances on either side of the argument. And also the sowing of the seeds of a rising populist movement that scored a remarkable success in the 2026 local government elections. Media vox pops in places where Reform UK have displaced en masse whole swathes of councillors, replacing long-established Labour fiefdoms, often appeared to feature change by weariness rather than enthusiasm. The prevailing response seemed to be giving Reform a go, largely on the grounds that they couldn’t be any worse than the ‘present lot’. This is not to say there aren’t those who are enthusiastic, though not of course racist, as they will insist. Having effectively, in 2024, seriously weakened the Conservative Party at national level, at local level they have now humbled the presiding government.

The prime minister came under threat – still in office at time of writing – with his supporters in parliament and the cabinet demanding loyalty. This is a little rich considering the pernicious use of accusations of anti-semitism to bring down Labour’s previous leader and purge his supporters. It is the very nature of capitalism to be competitive and combative. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that it spawns politics which reflect this. Because none of the parties can challenge capitalism, they must fight each other.

Cost of living crisis, illegal immigration, benefits culture etcetera become raw material from which to manufacture political advantage. That they are issues in the first place shows how capitalism simply does not, cannot, meet people’s needs. That Reform UK is a limited company seems fitting as their scope for giving people what they require is limited. Their councillors will quickly find that 80 percent of their council’s funds is already legally spoken for; social care and special educational needs. Are they really going to start turning old people out of care homes to fend for themselves? Will parents enjoy seeing their special-needs children flounder unsupported in already overworked and underfunded schools?

Yes, change is needed

The desire for change is perfectly reasonable. The problem for the electorate is that the many present difficulties people encounter daily cannot be voted away. Neither is there a party or leader to be elected who can do it for them.

The Prime Minister may well be dismissed, but then there will just be another one, equally unable to make any significant difference. Whether a populist ultra-conservative demagogue or a reasonable, left-of-centre sympathiser, the problems won’t go away.

If people really want change they will have to accept responsibility for playing their individual parts in the collective action to bring it about. Capitalism cannot be reformed into being benign; better trying to train a tiger to become vegan. Society can be organised so that everyone’s needs are met. We have the technology to make this practical. The rub is that the technology must be wrested from the grasp of capitalism, along with all means and methods of production.

The democratic process is fundamental to bringing this radical change about. But it will require so much more than just putting an X against a name every four or five years. The first big change must be in how people think about constructing a better future for all.

D. A.

Editorial: The struggle for oil (1948)

Editorial from the September 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

The countries of the world are faced with the vital problem of obtaining sufficient oil to meet the expanding demands of transport, industry and mechanised agriculture. Oil is also needed in vast quantities for armies, navies and air forces, and the problem is not only that of obtaining sufficient in peace time but of knowing that the supply will continue in time of war. During the second world war Germany obtained the bulk of her supplies by developing chemical processes for producing oil from coal. Mr. A. D. Cummings, M.Sc., writing in “Discovery” (February, 1948), states that none of the known processes can yet compete commercially with natural oil.

“As now used, these processes are not an economically successful solution to the problem . . . the petrol obtained from them still costs at least twice as much as the natural oil, which has been refined and transported to its destination. Using hard coal it takes nearly 5 tons of coal to make a ton of petrol; using brown coal it takes 17 tons of raw coal from the mine; moreover, the capital cost of oil-from-coal plants is enormous. Only a country whose need was desperate would contemplate using them in the present circumstances. The processes have no future until natural oil resources dwindle even more rapidly than they are doing at present.”

A small amount of synthetic oil was being produced in this country before the war, but according to Mr. Cummings the British Government decided then against developing it for the needs of the coming war, preferring to rely on supplies of natural oil from abroad. Efforts are now being made to improve the processes and it is of course possible that they may become competitors with natural oil if oil prices continue to rise.

In the meantime consumption of petrol is increasing by leaps and bounds, and the problem of securing increased production and of controlling the petroleum regions becomes more acute. U.S.A. is still by far the greatest producer. In 1947 the United States oil wells produced nearly two-thirds of total world production, but so great is the consumption that the U.S. is now an importer of oil.

According to figures published in the last annual report of the Shell Transport and Trading Co., United States production in 1947 was about 2,000 million barrels. Next comes Venezuela with 435 million, the Russia with 200 million, Iran 155 million, Arabia 90 million and Mexico 56 million.

It will be observed that Russia, with a population greater than that of U.S.A., produces only one-tenth as much petrol. Even if production in Rumania, Hungary and other countries on Russia’s western border is added to Russia’s own resources, the total is still only about 240 million barrels compared with U.S.A.’s 2,000 million. It is true that in Russia very little is used in private motoring, and that every effort is made to develop coal and hydro-electric schemes and thus reduce the demand for petrol, but notwithstanding these alternatives Russia’s need of oil is acute and growing; which explains their anxiety to gain control of further supplies in Iran and other countries. But America too is vitally interested in oil from the Middle East. it is not merely that America needs more oil at home, but that American capital invested in Arabia, Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East calls for “protection,” and that the American Navy in Mediterranean, waters requires local supplies. In December, 1946, when American interests were negotiating for oil concessions in Saudi Arabia, it was stated that the major part of the oil produced in Arabia by the Arabian-American Oil. Co. “is going directly to the United States Navy” (Daily Telegraph, 12/12/46).

Western European countries, including Britain, are more than ever dependant on Middle East oil. As Elizabeth Monroe states in the Observer (11/7/48), “the chief interest of Western Europe is no longer the Suez Canal. The main post-war interests of the Western Powers lie further east. The prime one is to preserve the great oil fields on the Persian Gulf and Tigris from falling into hands that would deny their output to Westerners.”

The “hands” in question are of course those of Russia.

In passing it is, however, interesting to note a report from New York “that the United States is negotiating for the purchase of a substantial shareholding in the Suez Canal Co.” (Daily Telegraph, 25/6/48.)

Russia’s interest in trying to prevent American-British domination of Middle East oil resources is obvious. While Middle East production as a whole is still only about 10 per cent. of total world production and only about one-seventh of production in the United States, it is rapidly expanding. If Russia could get into that area, even if Russian activity were to be confined to Northern Iran, her oil problem would be greatly eased. Looking further ahead, there is the certainty that the Middle East will in a few years have doubled or trebled its output.

There have from, time to time been forecasts of the early exhaustion of oil reserves, particularly in U.S.A. According to Sir F. Godber, Chairman of the Shell Co., there is no present danger. Speaking at the annual meeting he said that in the past 20 years continuous discoveries have led to an increase in established world resources, from 23,000 million barrels which was the estimate in 1928, to 72,000 million which is the latest estimate. Even in U.S.A. there is no danger of reserves soon being exhausted. Sir F. Godber says that ” the most conservative estimates of the American Petroleum Institute show that in the United States, in spite, of the constantly increasing rate of consumption, the ratio of reserves to current production is being maintained.” (Financial Times, 22/6/48.)

Nevertheless the Middle Eastern countries, with their enormous undeveloped oil reserves, their cheapness of production, are destined to be a centre of acute, Imperial rivalries for many years to come.

The over-population myth (1948)

From the September 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

In orthodox economics the population theory of Malthus, British Economist, 1766-1834, has long played the role of “The fat boy.” With certain modifications successive generations of economists have sought to “make our flesh creep” from the dismal conclusions he drew from it. To-day there are still many who would seek to give us Malthusian goose-pimples.

The substance of Malthus’ “Essay on Population” was a shameless plagiarism of earlier writers like Townsend and Dr. Wallace. He contended that population always tended to increase faster than food supply. This created a vicious circle. Increased wealth only brought even greater increases in population. Too many people meant too little food. Famine and a high death rate then came automatically into operation. As a result population sank below the level of food supply: then the cycle began all over again.

Malthus’ remedies for this alleged population “evil” was small families, late marriages and abolition of all forms of public assistance.

In view of all this his controversy with Ricardo in which he defended the consumption of the wealthy land-lord class on the grounds that it offset the effects of capital accumulation and thus helped to prevent gluts is not without certain sardonic implications.

Incidentally his “Essay” was an attack on the proposed Poor Law reform of Pitt whereby the Tories were attempting to cope with the dislocation arising from the passing of feudal society and the emergence of a new social order. It was also shrewdly aimed at the Utopian thinkers who under the stimulus of the French Revolution had carried to its most optimistic conclusions the doctrine of utilitarianism—“The greatest happiness of the greatest number,” by an advocacy of an ideal based upon equality of property and sex.

To say that increases in population tend to out-run food-supply is of course the merest of truisms. It would only have force if the productive powers of society were themselves incapable of progressive improvements. Such has not been the case: Indeed since Malthus lived all evidence has gone to show that wealth has tended to increase at a faster rate than population.

Ironically enough it has been these very increases in population which Malthus apparently dreaded so much that have contributed so decisively to making large-scale production, and the enormous increases in wealth production that went with it, possible. For it is clear that only when population has reached a certain level can that co-operation of mass aggregates of labour-power, working and organised for a given end, take place. It is in fact, as Marx points out, this very form of large-scale co-operation basic to capitalism that brings in a new economic force, the social productive power of collective labour. “When the labourer co-operates systematically with others he strips off the fetters of his individuality and develops the capabilities of his specie.” “Capital” (Vol. 1, p. 319, Kerr Edition.)

At the same time this large-scale power-motivated form of production has produced its own type of inventiveness and specialised forms of scientific application and technical skill. Moreover the capitalist greed for more and more surplus value has acted as a perpetual spur to increase the productivity of workers by seeking to constantly revolutionize technically the existing means of production. Such things of course would be impossible in a smaller society based upon agriculture and handicraft.

For Malthus, however, and those who followed him, poverty and pauperisation were simply the product of a growing population which provided more mouths than could be fed from the extant cultivated soil.

The shallowness of the contention that overpopulation is exclusively a cause of poverty and pauperisation is evidenced by the fact that the pauperisation and proletarianisation of large sections of the English population were taking place at a rapid rate during those centuries when the population was relatively static or at least increasing very slowly.

In Malthus’ time forcible evictions due to land enclosures reached a peak never before attained in the long history of land enclosures in England. It was the elimination of the peasant and small-holding section of the community, coupled with the ruin of the handicraft workers in face of the superior productive powers of industrial capitalism, that the condition indispensable for modern capitalism was fulfilled. The latter half of the 18th century and the first decades of the 19th century were the culmination of that long historic process which divorces the labourer from his productive means and converts his working energies into a commodity—labour-power. It was these large masses of the dispossessed which formed the “surplus” population which provided the human raw material for a rapidly expanding capitalism.

Although the population during the industrial revolution was many times greater than that in the Tudor period yet such was the demand by employers for ever fresh layers of labour-power that women and children, lunatics and paupers, plus heavy emigration from Ireland, were means by which the capitalist sought to increase the working population.

Density of population is of course no proof of over-population. One country may be densely populated, yet in no sense could it be said to be over-populated. On the other hand another country could have a sparse population without being under-populated. Note also that Ireland has suffered heavy depopulation due to a high rate of emigration. Yet there is extreme poverty in Ireland and also a surplus agricultural population.

Professor Carr Saunders, in “World Population” (p. 142) says that Germany and Italy have approximately the same density of population. There was, however, before the war a vast difference in wealth producing capacity between them. Obviously the possession of essential raw materials and the scope and efficiency of their respective industrial organisation, both economic factors, were responsible for this. In the same book (p. 142) Professor Carr Saunders says that there is no proof that the industrialised countries of Western Europe are over-populated.

Increases in population have never occurred in the absurd way Malthus suggested they did. Modern research points rather to the fact that increases in population since the latter half of the 18th century have been due to a declining death rate rather than any absolute increase in fertility.

History has also dealt Malthus and the neo Malthusians a shattering blow. Before the war it was rather a question of Malthusianism reverse. Then publicists, politicians and newspapers were prognosticating gloomily not on the dangers of a rising rate of population, but on a falling one. Many are still prognosticating gloomily about it to-day. In fact they assure us that if the population decline continues the optimum level of population will be seriously disturbed, i.e., according to them the best possible level of population which at a given time is most efficient for maximising wealth production. As a result they say productivity might decline, there would be less opportunities for capital investment, the standard of living lowered and unemployment possibly intensified.

Marx rejected the Malthusian doctrine in toto. He called it a libel on the human race. For Marx “Each specific mode of production had its own special law of population historically valid within its own limits.”

Capitalism, as Marx says, has a law of population peculiar to its mode of production. It is this law of population which reveals that poverty and unemployment exist, not because human labour is unable to wrest a sufficiency from nature-given materials, but because exploitation in the form of wage employment extracts unpaid labour or surplus value.

To put it simply, the capitalists are concerned with reducing costs of production. The most potent method of achieving this is to economise on the wages bill by the introduction of labour-saving machinery. This leads to the discharging of redundant workers. The net result of all employers seeking to do this is large-scale dismissals. Thus a relative surplus population comes into being. Should, however, an acceleration in production be such as to warrant additional supplies of labour power, then this surplus population, or as Marx terms it, ” reserve army of labour,” becomes a source of recruitment for the capitalist. Thus the expansion and contraction of employment is but a corollary and consequence of the expansion and contraction of the productive forces of capitalism. Added to this is the effect of crises which, because profit anticipation is lowered or threatened, leads to a sharp decline in productive activity and precipitates wholesale and widespread unemployment.

It is then this surplus population which, because of its active competition in the labour market, serves as a continuous downward pressure on the wage level.

In this way Marx indicated the mechanism which operates to keep wages in check and thus guarantees the appropriation of surplus value to continue and capitalist accumulation to go on.

Thus is the Malthusian population myth exploded. There is no “surplus” population in the sense that it is unable to contribute to wealth production. There is only a relative surplus population, relative, that is, to the needs and requirements of capitalist production itself.

The Marxian law of population remains then the most fruitful way of looking at the population problem, not from the restrictive standpoint of population growth as such, hut from the standpoint of sufficient increases in the working population to sustain and maintain the growth of capitalist accumulation.

It can also be shown then that the Marxian law of population is independent of the postulates of various population theories. Should the natural increases of population be such as to make labour-power relatively plentiful and cheap there will be less stimulus for the capitalists to introduce labour-saving machinery. On the other hand, should a decline in population rates bring about a diminution of the available, labour-force then there will be a strong incentive for the capitalists to replace men by machines, and so help to restore a situation more favourable to themselves. As a result of a diminished labour-force the acceleration of labour-saving devices will intensify the contradictions inherent in capitalism. Over-production, under-consumption, crises and unemployment will still be normal and recurring features of capitalist society. Marx’s law of population can then be shown to work with the same validity in an increasing or declining population.

The existence of unemployment is not in any way a test of over-population. In the first place the growth of population can be shown to have been steadily ascending. On the other hand unemployment has occurred in sharp and violent fluctuations. It is obvious then that there is no sign of any relationship between population growth and the appearance of a labour reserve army. Anyone who thinks that periods of continued and widespread unemployment are due to excessive numbers in the Malthusian sense must hold that this and other capitalist countries have been over-populated every few years. Following the same logic we must also conclude that in times of boom, when there is a demand for labour-power, they are under-populated.

Again in the U.S.A. there arc only 50 persons per square mile as against 700 in England. What is more the United States is highly favoured over its capitalist rivals in natural resources and geographical location. There cannot be any question of over-population in America. Yet unemployment has in recent years been more severe in America than anywhere else in the world. It is obvious that only the Marxian law of population can adequately account for this phenomenon.

Recently Sir John Boyd Orr told us that soil erosion and exhaustion and the waste of labour and materials on armaments threatens the world with famine. This then is due not to the niggardliness of nature but to the colossal misdirection of human effort, which because of capitalist imperialist rivalries is building up a mighty war machine instead of “applying,” as Boyd Orr said, “the world’s steel and industrial production to conserving the land.” Clearly it is capitalism and not nature that threatens the world with, famine and destruction. Clearly it is capitalism that must go if we are to remove that threat for ever. Alike in agriculture as well as industry, capitalism sows its dragon’s teeth. It is the peoples of the world who will reap its grim harvest.

Ted Wilmott

Roundabouts (1948)

From the September 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

Roll up! Roll up! All the fun of the fair! Who can resist the call of the jingling mechanical music, the raucous voices, the gaudy colours, the light-hearted throng of people, the crack of the wooden ball at the “coconut shy,” or, – for the unlucky – the dull thud on the dingy sheet behind the serried ranks. Yes—these are the places to cure the misanthrope, delude the unwary, or entertain the pleasure seekers. How much senseless joy there is in the roundabout ride. On we get, pay our tanner, and away we go.

On the move, faster and faster, the sea of onlookers becomes a hazy mist arid we may indulge in dreamy thoughts of riding through glorious fairylands as though in a magic carpet. The barrel organ blaring at the hub, the weird animal shapes, the pagan designs in gaudy paint all foster our illusions. But, alas! Our sixpennorth is done. Grinding to a stop we find ourselves back where we started!

Back where we started. Ah, yes—that reminds us of politics.

As after the 1914-18 war, there is an opinion gaining support in the minds of numbers of workers that if only they could get back to pre-war years they would be much happier and contented. We do not pretend to be psychologists, but we assume that this frame of mind must spring from man’s fear of the unknown,

The future is unknown and insecure; the past is known and the insecurities of the years forming it are forgotten.

Compared with the instability apparent to-day in economic affairs the years immediately preceding 1939 must seem quite stable to those people who have the happy knack of having a very short memory for the unpleasant realities of a worker’s life under capitalism.

Such a one is Mr. Ernest Bevin, at present Foreign Secretary in a Labour Government. According to The Star (28th May, 1948) Mr. Bevin, speaking at a conference of women trade unionists, said that after four years of Marshall Aid Britain would be back to 1938 standards of living.

“When we emerge from those four years,” he added, “we shall have so closed the gap that we shall have brought up the standard of living not only here but in the 16 or 17 European nations involved.”

So far as the ordinary worker is concerned, with little or no knowledge of the economics of his everyday existence, we can understand his thinking how nice it would be to be transported back to an era of 1938 prices with his pocket containing 1948 wages! But no such illusion should mar Mr. Bevin’s judgment.

For the benefit of our fellow workers (not for Mr. Bevin’s, for at the time he was General Secretary of the T. & G.W.U., and surely must remember the facts) let us re-quote the following: —

“Mr. Seebohm Rowntree, who estimates that at present prices, it is impossible for a family of man, wife and three children to live decently under 55s. a week in a provincial town, estimates that ‘more than 40 per cent. of the adult urban male workers earn less than 55s. per week and over 33 per cent. earn less than 50s’.” (News Chronicle, March 16th, 1938).”

Mr. Rowntree dealt, of course, with workers who had a job—let us not forget those without a job of whom there were approximately 1¾ millions in the middle -of 1938. No one will disagree that there was little difference between conditions in 1937 and 1938, so let us also re-quote from the Socialist Standard (July, 1938) which said when dealing with some aspects of the Report of the Unemployment Assistance Board for 1937 that “half the male applicants declared normal wages of less than 50s. per week,” and also drew attention to the astounding fact that some applicants for unemployment assistance were better off when out of a job !

In four years’ time, with the aid of dollars from capitalist America, the standard of living in “Socialist” Britain will be raised to that of the halcyon days of 1938. “Let us Face the Future” (Labour Party Election Manifesto, 1945) certainly never promised the workers a prospect so, rosy—it certainly looks as though the workers will have something to face in 1952, after seven years of the “future” have elapsed.

It is rather strange that Mr. Bevin should wish to go back to 1938. If we put the roundabout in reverse for a while we land back in 1938 to find a National Government with a large Tory majority in the House of Commons. Strange that Mr. Bevin should want to return to the standard of living provided by a Tory controlled capitalism !

If he wants to send the roundabout gyrating backwards why doesn’t he go back to the Labour debacle of 1929-31 ‘or the “Labour-in-office-but-not-in-power” days of 1924? Surely these times would be much preferable to Mr. Bevin, or—perish the thought—can he believe that by 1952 the Tories will be in power again to provide the workers with his much boosted 1938 standard?

Following most peculiarly on The Star’s report mentioned above came next morning the Daily Herald’s version of Mr Bevin’s address to the women trade unionists.

According to the Herald he told them that “they should keep before the rising generation the knowledge of what things were like between the two wars.” By this, according to the headline over the report, he meant, “Tell the children of the hard times.”

The Star omits mention of this advice on the education of the children to the horrors of the inter-war years, and the Herald blows no trumpets regarding the return to the promised land of 1938. What are we to make of these contradictory reports?

Let us look at Bevin’s second proposition stated in the Herald. Having said that the rising generation should know what things where like between 1918 and 1939 we think he, or the Herald, might have devoted some time and space to this important matter and given us some information. But no, apparently we must seek this for ourselves, if we are interested.

Here again surely it would have been mentioned that between the two wars there was one Labour Government in 1924, and another in 1929/31, followed by a National Government with Ramsay MacDonald as Prime Minister with a coalition cabinet until 1935. These Labour Governments during their periods of office led the workers through such prosperous and happy times that on each occasion when next they had an opportunity to vote they sacked the Labourites, and reinstated the Tories! This story of the hard times suffered by the workers in between the two wars because of Tory mismanagement of affairs is a line of Labourite propaganda churned out with much repetition and emphasis. It must, however, not be forgotten that for three of these years Labour Governments were in office and for a further four years (1931-1935) the Prime Minister was J. R. MacDonald, the former chosen leader of the Labour Party. He and other ex-Labour Ministers, including Snowden, claimed that they were carrying out Labour Party policy as far as the crisis would allow a plea that the present Government echoes.

Between the two wars the workers have been for many rides on the political roundabout. The man in charge may have been a Labourite at one time and a Tory at another, but the workers have still been taken for the same ride on the same roundabout and every time they have come back to the place from which they started. During the last, war they were still riding on the same roundabout although the hobby horses had given way to tanks and aeroplanes. Now that it has been repainted and the tanks and aeroplanes largely replaced by the old hobby horses again they are still being taken for a ride! What a fascination this roundabout of capitalism has for the workers.

Just as the visitor to the fair is inveigled by the showman to enjoy a ride, so the showmen of capitalism entice the workers to continue supporting them. When the political roundabout stops at election times the music blares forth in the shape of flowery phrases from the lips of demagogues and the gaudy paint bestowed on the capitalist economic machine distracts the eye from its cheap crudity and ramshackle construction likely to result in a breakdown at any moment.

Why, fellow workers, do you find such enjoyment in this deceitful monster? Think, for one moment, that if you walk the other way, away from the dusty and noisy fair ground, along the road to the country there you will find the cool forest glades, the green meadows, or the pleasant river banks. Here is no harshness, no gaudiness, no deceit, no unhappiness; here is happiness and honesty, beauty and serenity.

So, fellow workers, you can turn your back on the rotten, sordid ugliness of capitalism and make your way to the happiness, security and beauty that is Socialism.

Remember next time you cast your vote—will it be for another ride on the roundabout or will it be a sane gesture for a complete change—a real journey under your own initiative, following your own path in the joyful company of fellow Socialists, to a land where things will be produced not for the profit of the few but to satisfy the needs of all, where all shall be free and none be slaves.

N. S.

Foreign trade and the workers (1948)

From the September 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

On every conceivable occasion the Labour Government has urged the workers to work harder to wipe out the gap between imports and exports. “When this gap has been closed,” says the Government, “Britain will again be prosperous; there will be plenty to buy in the shops, and the workers will no longer suffer the shortages and restrictions of the present day.”

A glance at history is sufficient to show the fallacy of these claims as far as better working-class conditions are concerned.

The closing years of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth found British capitalism enjoying unparallelled prosperity. Exports, profits on shipping, and returns on foreign investments more than balanced the value of imports. Looked upon as “the workshop of the world” Britain had rich and plentiful rewards for those who invested in her industries. An idea of the wealth being acquired by the British capitalists at that time can be gained by a glance at the estates upon which death duties were levied in 1903. According to the “Daily Mail Year Book” for 1904 (page 270) five millionaires left estates totalling nearly eight million pounds, whilst two hundred and nineteen further members of the comparatively small capitalist class left a total of nearly forty-nine million pounds.

Yes! England was certainly a, rich country at that time—yet, for the workers, where was the freedom from shortage which, according to the Labour Government, comes with this national prosperity?

Let us refer to a writer of the time, Mrs. Bernard Bosanquet. Imbued with immense but ill-founded optimism, Mrs. Bosanquet and other philanthropists mistakenly imagined that help from the rich could reduce the poverty of the workers. Yet, so bad were working-class conditions, that even Mrs. Bosanquet’s great optimism became depleted and we find her writing in her hook, “Rich and Poor” (published 1896) : —

“Of other charities it would take too long to speak. The parish is beset with them at certain seasons of the year; and money is flung in amongst us much as nuts are flung to boys to scramble for. Soup-kitchens, philanthropic societies, country holiday funds, ragged school funds, funds from all the enterprising newspapers, and funds from all the political clubs in the district; church funds and chapel funds, missions and mothers’ meetings, all are engaged in pouring money into a slough of poverty which swallows it up and leaves no trace of improvement.” (Page 37.) (Our italics.)

Let us revert to the “Daily Mail Year Book” for 1904. On page 141 we find that the number of people seeking poor relief in the year 1900 was 1,882,000, and when referring to the unemployed in 1903 Mrs. Bosanquet said :

“They seem to increase year by year, and the next trade depression will probably show them in formidable numbers.” (Page 9.)

Page 246 tells us that a Professor Vort gave the minimum cost of the diet required by an average working man, his wife and three children as twelve shillings to thirteen shillings and sixpence per week. This diet was so stringent that it did not allow for tea or cocoa—only water. Looking then at the wages of agricultural workers (same page) we are informed that in England the average weekly pay was 17s. 1d., whilst in Wales and Scotland the averages were 16s. 5d. and 18s. 2d. respectively.

Eighteen shillings per week in wages when the weekly cost of the barest food necessities for a man, wife and three children was round about thirteen shillings. Five shillings left over for the provision of rent, clothing, insurances, etc. ! And what of those married workers who had more than three children to support?

The “Twelfth Abstract of Labour Statistics,” issued forty years ago by the Board of Trade, gives us further information. It states that “on every day throughout the year 1892 the average number of persons in receipt of poor relief was 953,719, this number rising steadily each year with but very slight fluctuation to 1,103,724 in 1906, being an increase not only in the number, but also relatively to the increase of population.”

Such was the prosperity of many workers during the Golden Age of British Capitalism when the export trade was said to be in a highly flourishing condition.

Experience shows that whilst the capitalist class is endeavouring to sate the world’s markets it will keep wages as low as possible, for only by doing this can commodities be produced at a price that will allow the undercutting of rival competitors.

On the other hand, as soon as the markets are filled and commodities can no longer be sold profitably, production is curtailed and large numbers of workers are thrown out of work. The capitalist class does not employ workers out of benevolence, but for the express purpose of amassing profits from products that will sell. When commodities cannot be sold it is useless, as far as the capitalist class is concerned, to retain workers in commodity production.

Thus it is seen that whether trade is balanced, or whether there is a gap between imports and exports, the lot of the workers, as a class, remains much the same.

Only Socialism will end commodity production with its wage-cutting;, “sweating,” unemployment, and wars over markets, etc. Only Socialism, wherein the means of production and distribution will be commonly owned, will bring production for use and not for sale. Only within Socialism will production bring plenty to every man, woman and child.

F. W. Hawkins

Letter: Mitres and Miracles (1948)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have received a further letter from Lord Amwell. The letter and our contributor’s reply are set out below. The original article was published in February, and Lord Amwell’s first criticism in June.— Ed. Comm.

The Editor, Socialist Standard.

Dear Sir,—I must thank you for the generous amount of space you were good enough to allow me. If I am entitled to a short come-back I would make the following one or two comments on F.F.’s reply.

F.F. says that the only statement in his original article which corresponded to the postulate that matter is force was in quotes and was made by Dr. Blunt. On the contrary. The sentence “Matter and force are merely two names for one and the same thing” was two paragraphs away from the quotation from Dr. Blunt and was not in quotes. In any event, it is modern physics, and if it doesn’t fit in with the stern and unbending prejudices of the S.P.G.B., that’s just too bad.

Again, F.F. says that it was I and not he who gave the details about atoms and electrons. Wrong again; I took them word for word from the Socialist Standard. Why this anxiety to hedge in face of printed evidence?

Next; “It is an elementary principle of correct thinking that ‘all knowledge begins with the senses’.” Quite so. That’s what the senses are for. Presumably in order to show how incapable Christians are of thinking correctly, F.F. calls to the witness-box if you please the greatest Catholic theologian of all time, Thomas Aquinas, to prove just that! As I have said, F.F. doesn’t know what educated Christians believe. He really doesn’t!

The picture of scientists deliriously seeking to abstract force from matter so as to leave a residue, or to “draw oft energy and bottle it,” is hardly up to Heath Robinson’s level, but is of that category. It exposes the limitation of F.F.’s mind on scientific matters or else his idee fixe on the subject of what Engels said in 1848.

Finally, ” . . . if we know the qualities of a thing, we know the thing in itself,” so Kant (dear me !) is ignored by serious thinkers. That verbal quibble was disposed of by serious thinkers in the 90’s. If by the word “of” is meant “belong to” it is palpably incorrect, since nothing can “belong to” nothing. If what is meant is that when we know all about a thing we know all about it, the formula is a piece of redundant verbiage. “Take away all the qualities and you’ve nothing left” goes without saying if by “qualities” we define all that can be said about anything. But, “who’s a denying of it, Betsy?” Not an Atheneum full of Bishops, believe me. The trouble is that only the cheapest public forum atheist knows all about anything.

If I had more space than I could have the face to ask for I could convict F.F. of contradictions enough to hang him—intellectually, of course. My main contention stands. It is bad enough to clutter up Socialism with metaphysical logic-chopping on either side; it is worse to attempt to do so without the requisite philosophical and scientific training. I apply that to myself too; but I am not the original culprit.

On the other band, if Socialists have all got to think alike on all matters, exchange some of those dog-eared pamphlets of a past age for up-to-date stuff, if only to know what, the present state of affairs looks like.

Yours sincerely,

Amwell.

Reply:

In his previous letter Lord Amwell asserted that I defined matter as force. I pointed out to him that it was Dr. Blunt who raised the question of the non-existence of matter. He now quotes my actual words, “matter and force are merely two names for one and the same thing,” but in fact this was intended as a paraphrase of what Dr. Blunt said.

Regarding Amwell’s charge of hedging. He could hardly have thought I was referring to him as the scientist responsible for all the information on atoms and electrons that I used in my original article. In using his name I was addressing him personally. He is hereby absolved from any imputation on my part that be is the source of any scientific knowledge I may possess.

His reference to Aquinas is rather unfortunate for him. He jeeringly suggested in his first reply that “Tommy Aquinas and Karl Marx would make an interesting combination.” I countered with one thing on which they might be in agreement. Though Aquinas was an idealist and Marx a materialist, Amwell failed to see the connection because it was not specifically pointed out to him. Aquinas’ dictum on the senses seems a small matter to-day; until we remember that the trustworthiness of the senses had been disputed by philosophers and theologians since 300 years B.C. During an age of metaphysical speculation this constituted a decided step towards clear thinking, in spite of the dualistic beliefs of its originator.

But why the “educated” Christians? Are their beliefs different from those of their congregations? There is no evidence to induce anyone to think so. On the contrary, the constant repetition throughout a long life of the crude dogmas they learned in their Bible classes become firmly embedded in the grey matter of their brains, and what is good enough for the sheep is good enough for the shepherd. The feeble efforts of Dr. Blunt to put up a case for miracles is not only evidence that there is no case, but also of the stultifying effects that religious dogma has on the mind. Dr. Barnes, on the other hand, realising the growing indifference and decreasing credulity of the masses, does his best to preserve Church and jobs by discarding the miracles while retaining God. Well, it’s for Christians, educated and uneducated, to decide. Gods only exist in the mind, and the individual is free to believe, but he does so with no single shred of evidence. He pays the parson and takes his choice.

Lord Amwell seems incapable of dealing with any argument in a straightforward manner. He suggests that I pictured scientists deliriously trying to separate matter and force. There was no suggestion on my part that scientists, deliriously or otherwise, were trying to do so; I am tempted to suggest he must have seen that picture in one of those mediumistic trances of which he boasted in the House of Lords on the 17th of June of this year. The plain fact is that matter and force have never been separated. And that goes for the living organism, with all its organs and functions. Thinking is not the brain, it is a function of that organ; just as digestion is a function of the abdominal organs. The mind consists of thoughts, the result of impressions received through the senses. Does Lord Amwell deny that mind is a function? No, he simply expresses his intense dislike of the thought. Anyway, why eternal life for mind and not for digestion? Sheep’s brains and tripe are equally messy things when exposed for sale on a butcher’s slab.

Still more misrepresentation. It was not Kant, but one of his ideas that had been ignored. Lord Amwell has become so muddled over this question that he is uncertain whether he is on the side of the bishops or the materialists. Kant’s assertion was: “When we know all the qualities of a thing we still don’t know the thing in itself.” My statement that we do not know is a direct negative. Further if we eliminate all the qualities there is nothing left does make sense. Which is more than can he said for his meaningless transformation. Pity he is unable to tell us how it was disposed of in the 90’s.

What are the implications of Kant’s doctrine? Our senses and reason fail to give us a true picture of the world. Underlying all phenomena—like the modern theologian’s idea of God, present in every smallest particle, is the thing in. itself—”noumenon.” The idea is a fantastic speculation on what is called the ultimate nature of existence. Of course serious thinkers ignored it. They were too busy with observation, theory and experiment, adding to the fund of general knowledge that deals with realities. They were slowly but surely adding to the sciences that explain how the universe works. How all living things have evolved, and, what is perhaps the most important discovery of all: the fact that human society itself is subject to evolution. Its laws can be ascertained and man himself can take a hand in that evolution for his own well-being.

The S.P.G.B. is always willing to accord space or platform time to opponents. It is a pity, however, that Amwell did not frame his objections in a straightforward manner that could have been easily understood, instead of cloaking them under literary attempts to be facetious.

“Mitres and Miracles” was an effort, subject to limitations of space to present the Socialist attitude towards both religion and science. With every opportunity afforded him, Amwell has failed to show a single contradiction or unsound reasoning.

His objection to cluttering up Socialism with metaphysical logic-chopping, and his plea that he was not the original culprit, shows, on his side, a failing memory or ignorance of metaphysics. When he wrote that ”attraction and response were the questions begged,” he was postulating a mystical something beyond experience. If he did not realise it he is ignorant of metaphysics. If he did he is the first culprit, and further is self-convicted of a deliberate attempt to throw a spanner into the works.

Regarding philosophical and scientific training before voicing opinions on those subjects, a general knowledge of science can be acquired without special training—which is only needed by specialists making a career such as chemists, etc. Reliable works are available on all the sciences. There is a constant flow of articles in magazines and press, together with radio talks that are highly informative. Any man of average intelligence having once acquired this general knowledge, and most socialists have done so, is qualified to speak on any subject of general interest.

About “those dog-eared pamphlets of a past age.” They at any rate accurately forecast what the present state of affairs would be like. They told of increasing-competition for a limited world market, world crises, unemployment and war, and much else that is rotten. S.P.G.B. pamphlets to-day deal with phases of political and economic conditions as they affect the working-class of the world. If the old ones were dog-eared these have a thousand tongues and speak earnestly of the urgent need for all workers to learn the cause of their wretchedness and fear of the future.

Finally we only expect socialists to think alike on the principles governing their organisation. Socialist principles and action are based on the facts of social life. There is no mystery about the relationship of capitalist and wage-worker.

“Society as at present constituted is based on the ownership of the means of living (i.e., land, factories, railways, etc.) by the capitalist or master-class, and the consequent enslavement of the working-class, by whose labour alone wealth is produced.”

There is only one solution to this enslavement: The establishment of Socialism by the working-class, consciously organized for that purpose alone.

F. F.

Letter: Mitres and miracles (1948)

Letter to the Editors from the June 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

We publish below a letter from Lord Amwell criticising the article published in the February issue. A reply by the writer of the article follows the letter.

“Mitres and Miracles” in the February number of The Socialist Standard presents itself to me as a contradictory hotch-potch of old and new in quasi-scientific jargon. I hold no brief on behalf of either mitres or miracles but I am interested in the desirability of keeping socialist education free of meta-physical entanglements. Your correspondent, F.F., seems to think that scientific “explanation” consists in giving commonplace happenings ponderous names. He reminds me of famous humourist’s account of why cooks love policemen and of Pavlov’s cutting a dog’s throat, for the insertion of an instrument to prove the canine equivalent of our dressing for dinner (if we do) when we hear the first gong.

Thus: kissing is not a spiritual impulse causing physical effects, but physical attraction evoking emotional response. The writer issues a form of words which entirely begs the question with an air (I beg pardon, a response!) of devastating finality. Spiritualists do the same kind of thing I know, but F.F. is not thereby excused. Attraction and response are, of course, the questions begged.

Call kissing an emotional response and licking one’s chops a conditioned reflex and there you are ! It follows then that material nature “makes” a man wear a hat to keep his head warm even if he isn’t a miller and the hat isn’t white. This, despite the fact that a few paragraphs ahead “material nature” becomes only a “supposed reality” which no philosopher or scientist has yet discovered. We are told in the language of the black-cat-in-a-dark-room merchants, and as if it were a new proletarian truth, that reality is “behind” phenomena, for all the world as if if were a bishop telling us that God is “behind ” material nature. How a “supposed” reality “makes” or “evokes” anything at all is a puzzle, but perhaps F.F. means that phenomena is sufficient to do the trick and reality isn’t really behind nature at all and wouldn’t be wanted if it were.

When bishops talk stuff of this feeble order they are supposed to be after four-figure salaries for their doping the proletariat and I should have thought that rotundity of words to hide a bellyful of ignorance would be no appropriate recourse of a class-conscious prophet even though so desperately anxious to show that man makes his own history by allowing material nature to make it for him, the said man not appearing to belong to material nature after all!

Matter and Force, says F.F., are one and the same thing. Hardness is no longer due to solidity. Electrons are points of force moving at incredible speeds. All of which, if said a hundred years ago, would have given Engels a perfectly Victorian fit, The “older materialistic theory,” just as dogmatically acclaimed, has been given the new look, but although according to F.F. we know nothing about reality we do know that mind is “merely” the function of a physical organ just as digestion is a function of the stomach, though the famous liver and its bile is given the go-by. Bishops are “driven back” on the mind because they cannot establish that spirit is anything but matter. Yet matter is nothing but force (meaning, I suppose, energy) and bishops are therefore supposed to believe, that force, qua spirit, is a separate entity waiting round the corner to give force, qua matter, one in the eye.

Doesn’t F.F. know that it is a cardinal principle of episcopal mythology that God is a spirit that exists in totality at every point in space including that occupied by the “force” which is “matter.” What it means I don’t know, but I also don’t know what F.F. means. I know only that F.F. is quite at sea about what educated Christians believe. They don’t believe, for instance, that mind is necessarily independent of matter, though they believe with Freud that mind is not necessarily dependent upon brain. F.F. has defined matter as force; it is he alone who segregates physical force in a completely unscientific way, having to invent “thinking” matter by making the assumption that molecules of carbon and phosphorous, take on a special nature for psychic purposes. It is the materialist who “separates” matter and mind into cause and product, not the opposite metaphysician. And if this is too abstract it isn’t my fault.

As an example of the lamest of limping logic take F.F.’s dictum that before the clergy talk of mind influencing matter they must establish it as a fact that mind is different from matter and independent of it. Turn this the other way round. Is a bishop entitled to argue that before a materialist talks about matter not merely influencing but creating mind he must first establish it as a fact that matter is different from mind and independent of it? If not, why not? The fact is that F.F. is quite unfamiliar with the ontological issues involved or he would not have fallen into such an inept pit.

In calling J. B. S. Haldane to his aid F.F. is on dangerous ground, for Haldane is a “new” materialist sans bustle or side-whiskers. He no more believes that mind is comparable to colly-wobbles or that thinking is a kind of cranial atomic jitterbugging than I do. Haldane even advances the theory that a future life, or “something hardly to be distinguished from it,” is a logical necessity of modern materialism.

The fact is, as F.F. hints, that the whole question has been, as they say, reorientated. It is useless to ignore this. It is deplorable to admit it, as F.F. does, and then drag in all the old clichés as it nothing had happened. Of course materialism stands—backside foremost—but who’s afraid? The one-time big black wolf frightens no bishop. Once identify matter with force, and the old-fashioned logic-chopping about “interaction” and what not is well and truly snookered. There cannot be varieties of “force.” F.F. should brush up his physics. If matter is force, so is mind, and no bishop could say more.

When F.F. tells me as a revolutionary and emancipating truth that I am something like my viscera, I can only remark that if this is true even the most scientific individual of us must think as his belly guides him. What exact reliance can be placed on the ratiocination of livers and lights or even cortex and thalomus I don’t know and hate to think of for the sake of my respect for scientists if not for the sake of my respect for bishops. And don’t give me the guff that brotherly love flowers exclusively on the secular fig tree. Brotherly love, my hat !

F.F. should also brush up his theology before venturing again in furrin parts. Tommy Aquinas and Karl Marx would make an interesting combination.

Reply:

Lord Amwell professes to be concerned about a question begged. Has he ever done anything else but beg that particular question? He wants to keep socialist education free of metaphysical entanglements, then sets a metaphysical conundrum that everybody bye-passes, including himself. It is set in many forms: what is attraction? What is life? To push it farther back, what, is universal existence? What are these things in reality?

Some of the greatest thinkers of the past have wasted many of the best years of their lives puzzling over that question, with no result except idle speculations on imaginary things, or happenings beyond experience. The socialist accepts the world as he finds it, including the knowledge that comes to him through the senses. Aquinas, in the thirteenth century, laid it down that all knowledge begins with the senses, an elementary principle for correct thinking.

It was in the eighteenth century that Emanuel Kant contended that we only know the appearances, or phenomena, of a thing; never the thing in itself. Lord Amwell pours ridicule on the notion in the mistaken belief that he is crushing an opponent of his friends, the bishops. Kant’s famous speculation has got no farther. It is ignored by serious thinkers because it suggests something beyond experience, and because in everyday life, if we know the qualities of a thing, we know the thing in itself.

“Man makes his own history by allowing material nature to make it for him.” This statement gives a wrong conception of the position. Man acquaints himself with natural laws and their operation and then uses those natural laws to suit his purposes. The atom bomb is an example of this. As a part of universal existence man is compelled to observe natural laws. This also applies to the social forms that develop and has a particular significance for the socialist. At certain epochs the social arrangements develop to a point where they cause internal disruption. Today the means of production and distribution are socially operated by the working class but they are capitalist owned, and there is a conflict of interest set up between owners and dispossessed. The working out of social laws based upon private property has brought about this disharmony. Class antagonism within society operates against the well-being of mankind. The longer it continues the worse become the penalties for ignoring the law.

It is the scientist, Lord Amwell, who tells us all those details about atoms and electrons, not F.F. The information was passed on to the readers with the comment that the alleged discovery had made no difference to our previous conception of matter. Scientists and chemists still carried on with the table of elements and their relative weights just as they did before the discovery.

Again, Lord Amwell attributes to me the ridiculous statement that matter is force, not once but several times; whereas the only passage that justifies it is in quotes and was by Dr. Blunt. The fact remains we can only separate matter and force in the understanding, never in the laboratory or anywhere else. No scientist has ever abstracted the force, or if he prefers it the energy, from any substance, solid, liquid or gaseous, and left a residue of matter only. Nor could the reverse be accomplished, that is draw off the energy and bottle it.

Lord Amwell admits his inability to understand what educated Christians believe, or the cardinal principle of episcopal mythology, that God is a spirit existing in totality at every point in space. It means that the history of religion, in its essence, is traversing its final chapter. It has not yet discarded its spiritual God, but in the esoteric circles of educated Christians God is identical with the physical universe.

All the bishops, together with Lord Amwell, use the words mind and spirit alternatively as meaning the same thing. The word spirit, with its implications of a future life, independent of matter, must be merged into mind clothed with so-called spiritual qualities.

If spirit is only another name for mind the bishops have nothing to prove, but if they insist on the generally accepted meaning, a spiritual power independent of flesh and blood, the onus for proof is on them ; because it is their assertion.

Up-to-date physics will not answer his lordship’s question. But the knowledge as to how men do their thinking may. For instance, in the understanding they visualise a purpose in nature, and deduce a power controlling its fulfilment; after the same manner as man designs and carries through a work of art. But what purpose can there be other than infinite change? The world is in constant process of becoming something else. Its only purpose is existence. To say that the purpose of existence is existence may seem tautology, but not so in conjunction with infinite change.

If we know all the qualities of a thing we know the thing in itself. If we know how the universe works, we know the universe.

Amwell says next that “educated Christians don’t believe that mind is necessarily independent of matter. Though they believe that mind is not necessarily dependent on brain.” It’s a bit of a mix-up. Let us try and straighten it out, using the socialist method of approach. How does the brain work? Impressions are received and classified in the memory according to their association with previous conceptions. Throughout life the number of these impressions multiply enormously, and constitute a collection of memories on which we can. draw at will, though concentration is sometimes rendered difficult because much of this association goes on without conscious effort. Now, all our ideas come to us through the senses, therefore our apparent freedom of choice can only be exercised within the realms of experience. So we draw the conclusion that mind is dependent on brain, plus all the other parts of nature of which we have experience, for the materials on which it functions. If that is what educated Christians mean when they say “mind is not necessarily dependent on brain,” we can only ask: what has happened to the spirit? Their only answer is that it, “exists in totality at every point in space.” In other words; it is just universal existence.

One other point for our critic. We are only secularists in the sense that the materialist, explanation of the history of religion is part of the materialist conception of history as a whole. The greater includes the less. If the secularist accepts evolution in the physical world, he has failed to apply it to social science. He has not always recognised the conflicting interests and class antagonism in society. He only sees the confusion that is wrought in men’s minds by superstition. We are not blind to its stultifying effects. That is why we accept its challenge whenever it attempts to use science to bolster up its lies.

F. Foan

Christianity and Capitalism (1948)

From the September 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

Occasionally, when we pick up a newspaper, we are confronted with the reported utterance of some representative of the Church.

At this stage of scientific and industrial development the Church is very little thought about. It no longer commands the attention of large masses of the community. In fact it is continually seeking new methods of enticing people back into the light of the Lord and out of the darkness of barbaric superstition.

The priesthood now dabbles in such things as foreign policy, economics and politics generally. We read, at intervals, that another ecclesiastic has voiced his inexpert views on some aspect of everyday life.

Recently it was reported that an attack has been made by the Church of England Youth Council upon the discipline in post-war factories.

“What happens,” asks their report, “to the boy who leaves school for factory believing in the dignity of labour and in a fair return for a fair wage? ”

It supplies its own answer quoted from an observer in a London engineering factory:—-

“The boy finds that everything about the factory contradicts his belief. Everybody expects him to dodge work as much as possible. If he works steadily he is regarded as an oddity, a despised master’s man, toadying to the bosses. “The foreman winks at slackness. It is unknown for anyone to work voluntarily for one minute after the hooter has gone unless on official overtime.” (Daily Express, 11th June, 1947.)

The whole wording of the report is familiar. It is of the same type as other reports made from time to time by the supporters of the capitalist system. In the first sentence we have the foolish reference lo the “dignity of labour.” A man who has worked in an engineering factory for a number of years has no reason to think of his daily routine as dignified. It usually consists of being awakened by an alarm-clock before his sleep has completed its proper function, dressing himself in his dirty, smelly garments, bolting his breakfast (if any) and rushing to the factory to clock-on. He is afraid of being a few minutes late in case he should have the equivalent of a quarter of an hour deducted from his wages. This latter is the procedure at such times as the present when engineers are required to bolster the export trade. In times of economic depression the loss of a minute would furnish the master with sufficient excuse to dispense with the wage-slave’s services altogether. During the war, when it was necessary for the worker to supply the materials necessary for maintaining the supremacy of British capitalism, it was possible to be hours late. No notice was taken.

When the worker has performed all these degrading formalities he then proceeds to his bench or machine where he goes through the depressing and monotonous actions from the point where he left off the previous evening. All this in an environment of dirt and discomfort, but above all one of extreme monotony. In an atmosphere like this the officers of the Church expect a boy, fresh from school, to preserve a pure and righteous outlook presupposing, apparently, that he entered the factory in this condition in the first place. It would be interesting to discover the source of supply of these miraculous youths.

Let us examine the position as it really is through the eyes of a worker instead of through the eyes of a religious observer. The boys to whom the report refers are of the working-class. They may enter the engineering trade, through inclination, but being workers it is obvious that they must sell their mental and physical energies somewhere in order to live. Very few boys who take up engineering like this do so because of their intense interest in mechanical matters. They do it because, due to the specialised training required, they can, when fully qualified tradesmen, obtain a higher wage than a boy who has started life as an errand-boy.

In the days before mass-production the wages paid to engineers were relatively much higher compared with those paid to other types of labour than they are now, the reason being that capitalist competition has become so intense that many operations have become universally simplified to such an extent that no great skill is required to perform them.

Apprenticeships are of much less value now, and since much less training is required, it follows that this type of labour-power is more plentiful, more competition exists between workers, and wages therefore tend to suffer in comparison with other branches of industry.

Perhaps the reader who is not familiar with the subject will now understand the tendency towards work-dodging.

If we accept the fact that the boy enters the factory because of economic necessity and he finds his environment to be one of monotony and drudgery, there is little cause for wonder that he rebels against these conditions. He does all he can to compensate for his unhappy position.

The report did not mention that production is carried on primarily for the profit of the capitalists, nor that this is inseparable from capitalism. Profits are made by the exploitation of the working-class. Surely this vital point ought not to have been missed by those who drew up the report! The report also ignores the constant drive by the employers to capture markets and maintain profits by trying to get the workers to turn out more commodities in a given time than they were able to before.

It requires very little imagination on the part of the reader to understand the effect which this speeding-up has upon the worker. He becomes mentally and physically exhausted and develops a tendency to dodge work as much as possible. In factories where supervision is very strict work-dodging becomes practically impossible. Hence the increase in the number of thugs, spivs and gangsters. If there is any possibility of making a living easily and unlawfully the modern working-class youth has every incentive to try it.

The report goes on to say: “The boy may have been taught in church, home and school to respect other people’s property, but at work he finds that scrounging is almost universal.” This, presumably, refers to the practice of removing small quantities of the master’s plant and material either for sale or personal use. It is by no means a novelty from the point of view of the managements. They employ uniformed men to stand at the gates of the factory to look out for suspicious bundles and bulges underneath the coats of the workers. As the report says, this is commonly understood and is brought about by the conflict of interests between employer and employee. One owns the means of wealth production and distribution and the other owns nothing but his ability to work.

Towards the end of the column there is a paragraph which says: “In general everything about the atmosphere of the works, other than the friendliness of the people, conflicts with everything which a normal young Christian boy or girl has been taught.” This statement is quite correct. The friendliness of the workshop is not to be denied, but it is a friendship arising from human beings who, subconsciously at my rate, are aware of the, conflict of interests. The pilfering is one-sided arid rarely takes place between worker and worker.

The Church could hardly he expected to appreciate the day-to-day struggle of the workers. It is too much out of contact with reality, and the solution which it offers is not acceptable to intelligent men and women.

The object of the Socialist Party of Great Britain is to point out to the working-class the nature of the class-struggle and the only way in which workers can solve their problems. Study our case and compare it with those, of other political parties. Socialism, the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life, is the, only solution.

Rid the world of capitalism and society will rid itself of the evils of capitalism, including war, unemployment, poverty, thugs and parsons.

Chester.