Life Under Socialism. (1919)

From the November 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

Before Marx and Engels placed Socialism on a scientific basis those who believed that capitalism was only a passing phase in the history of the human race often endeavoured to sketch plans for a future State. To-day we know that all such plans were Utopian dreams. We know it because the progress that has been made in the means and methods of production has left those plans—based on the then existing means —far behind. We know, too, that any such pictures of the future we might sketch to-day, if based on our present methods of production, would be idle dreams, because all the time we are hovering on the brink of new discoveries that, at any moment, may fundamentally change our method of living. Beyond the elementary facts that we, as human beings, shall continue to need food, clothing, and shelter, and shall be obliged to obtain them by some labour process, the future is unknown, and all efforts to lift the veil, or plan details of the future, are waste of time and energy.

The Socialist does not pretend to foretell the future. All that he claims is that he understands the present, with its class ownership of the means of life and the consequent enslavement of his class. The defenders and agents of the ruling class deny this enslavement and claim that Socialism would result in loss of liberty to the individual. It is evident, however, that class ownership and control implies a class that is subjugated and therefore without liberty.

Socialism, on the other hand, being a system of society where the means of life are owned in common and democratically controlled, must give the maximum freedom to the individual because there is equality of ownership and control.

Under capitalism the worker is subjected to restrictions and rules, and subjugated to a discipline which would be hard to beat. It is only the master class that possesses liberty, and their liberty means working class slavery.

The Materialist Conception of History, discovered by Marx, Engels, and Morgan, besides assisting to place Socialism on a scientific basis and explaining past history, also explains the present and makes it clear to us why we cannot foretell the future. The intellectual life and institutions of society are the result of—and can only be explained by—the means and methods of producing and distributing wealth. As we cannot foretell the future development of the means of life, the institutions, intellectual life, and general conditions must remain hidden.

Of what does the intellectual life of society consist ? After the commercial and technical sides (which are obviously determined in their nature by the means and methods of production) comes politics. Analyse politics and we find, first, international relations, treaties, diplomacy, and all the quarrels and agreements between the ruling class of different nations. This is the territorial side and divides the working class by boundaries for the purpose of arranging exploitation. Secondly, the legal changes and social reforms made necessary by the continual changes in the means and methods of production and distribution. The poverty of the working class increases because the social system is out of harmony with the means and methods of production; and this causes numerous disputes between capitalists and workers. The settlement or prevention of these disputes is a constant theme for discussion in Parliament and in the Press. Every debate in the House of Commons is, in one form or another, the outcome of social conditions in process of change. Social relationships, the relations between man and man, or between class and class, do not stand still; and the cause of their change is the evolution of the material things—tools, machinery, etc.,—on which man depends for his subsistence.

The political history of the past has been a succession of struggles 'twixt subject and ruling classes for the control of power. With the necessary physical force on its side to dominate society, each class has in its turn secured its position as far as possible, and settled down to enjoy the fruits of its victory. No previous class in history, risng to power, has ever doubted its ability to use it—why should the working class ?

The forerunners of the modern capitalist class in the sixteenth century were themselves a subject class. They threw off the yoke of the lords and monarchy, and commenced their rule with no settled policy beyond the determination to be masters of society. Their policy has never been any different down to the present day. The executive government deals with every situation as it arises. They cannot tell what problems will call for settlement in a year's time. Not knowing what the conditions will be, the problems that result from them cannot be known, consequently every act of government can only be an expedient to prevent friction, to avert a crisis, or to restore a balance that has been upset by changes in the means of producing wealth, and so preserve the even continuity of capitalist rule.

In short, history and experience tell us that it is impossible to foretell the future. Why should we try to do so? What we are concerned with is the present—how to make the best of life now. How do the ruling class achieve that ? By using the power conceded to them by the bulk of society, the working class. While the workers are asking questions about the details of a system which they can only arrange in accordance with the stage of development reached by the means of production, they are neglecting to understand and grasp their opportunities to-day. Is it not sufficient for the workers that they should be free from the domination of the capitalist class, and, controlling their own destinies, shape their lives in accordance with their knowledge of nature ? What have they to fear when free ? What must they suffer when not free ?

But "who is to do the dirty work?" a capitalist agent asks. And the half-starved wage-slave who has never done anything else all his life says "Ah! that's it, who indeed?" The absurdity of all such questions is apparent when we remember that man in the most critical period of his life's history, in the morning of time, when beset with enemies and dangers on every hand, treasured his freedom above everything else, and associating with his fellows on a basis of equality, controlled his social actions democratically.

Man's confidence in, and adherance to, these two principles, carried him safely through the age of savagery. His abandonment of these principles was the beginning of the long class rule, in which successive ruling classes have robbed the workers of the results of their toil.

Society has passed through the different stages from savagery to civilisation and machine industry. In the process those who have produced the world's wealth have submitted to various forms of slavery, each more oppressive than the preceding. From chattel slavery—its crudest form—to wage slavery—where the slave condition is veiled by the so-called freedom of contract. At first the incongruities of class ownership of the means of life and the commodity character of human labour-power are not recognised by either class. But as the system develops and poverty and squalor on the one hand, and enormous wealth and power on the other, become more pronounced men seek to know the cause ; and finding it in the fundamental principles that constitute the basis of the social system, they seek, according to their class, either to abolish the system or discredit the truths discovered.

Actuated by self-interest the ruling class hurries on the development the consumation of which threatens their extinction, while at the same time they do their utmost to retard any conscious action on the part of the working class to place society in harmony with the means and methods of production. Their first line of action drives the workers into worse poverty, while their second is aimed to prevent them seeing the cause of, or the remedy for, their poverty. Thus the task of harmonising the social system with the more highly developed means of production is wholly that of the working class, and must be carried through against the conscious antagonism of the master class.

To overcome this antagonism appears, at first sight, a stupendous task, but the means for its achievement are within reach. The knowledge is available and scientifically arranged. Communication is easy. The workers have the bulk of the votes and can acquire political power when they are ready. All that is wanted is for men and women to attain the knowledge, rouse their fellows from their apathy, and pass on the knowledge to them. Socialism can be established as soon as there is a majority of Socialists. The first step, therefore, is to make Socialists. With a clear majority Socialists can secure a majority in the executive councils, and through them control the armed forces. The possibility of the master class using these against the workers is thereby removed, and the workers can proceed at once to the second step—the restoration to the people of the land and all the means of production and distribution. The next step will be the organisation of production in such a manner that the workers have complete control—not a share in management, such as labour leaders plead for.

First must come ownership: until that is effected the workers can have no control, either over the means or methods of production, or over their own conditions of employment.

There is no question of morality or justice about this expropriation of the capitalist class. The wonder is that the workers have tolerated the system so long. A small class in society owns all those things required by man to produce for himself the necessaries of life. This small class imposes slavery on those who do not own. To free themselves from slavery must be the desire and the aim of the working class. But they must have confidence, based on knowledge, in their associated power to arrange the details of production and distribution for use. On such a basis they can tread the future without fear, because science has destroyed the superstitious terrors of the dark ages and given us a clearer understanding of the laws of nature. The days of oracles are past; the workers to-day, producing all wealth, understand all the secrets of production. It is they who discover all improvements in means and methods. Without a ruling class they can still carry on, producing wealth for their own use and consumption. Let them, first, understand ; second, take possession, and exercising full control, face the future determined to use nature's gifts for the well-being and happiness of society free, at last, from the withering blight of class rule.

F. Foan

By The Way. (1919)

The By The Way column from the November 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

One has grown accustomed of late to hear it asserted in various quarters that the working class has entered upon an era of untold "prosperity." This being so I am at a loss to understand why it is that throughout the length and breadth of the land vast numbers of little children labour long hours for very little monetary reward. To me this seems to suggest the opposite of "prosperity." Why do parents of working-class children send their offspring of tender years out to toil? Though Cabinet Ministers repeatedly tell us that the panacea for all our ills is increased production, we never read of their children or grandchildren, as the case may be, going in early years (or any other) to labour in mill, mine, or factory, or to deliver the morning milk or papers. Why, then, is this phenomenon reserved for the workers' children? It therefore appears that the poverty position of the parents forces them to send out their young in order to swell the family exchequer. With the ever-increasing cost of living the struggle to make ends meet becomes ever more keen.

While not desiring to overburden the reader with tedious statistics, I cannot refrain from reproducing some interesting details on the question of employment of school children. Here they are:

  "The Medical Sub-Committee of the Warrington Education Committee has published some striking figures as to child labour in that town. Several hundreds of children under eleven years are employed out of school hours. One girl of seven works 7½ hours weekly, another works 21 hours for 6d., and a girl of nine is employed 14 hours for the same wage.
  A boy of eight years works 2¼ hours every day and 8 hours on Saturday for 2s.; another, aged nine, works 28 hours a week in a bakehouse. A lad of ten works 25 hours a week, of which 13 are on a Saturday. A girl, aged ten, washes, peels and chips potatoes for 20 hours a week for the sum of 1s. Not one of the 721 cases investigated got proper remuneration with the exception of the boys who sell and deliver newspapers."

Sir George Newman gives the following instances in his report to the Board of Education:

  "Errand boy, aged twelve, works an hour before breakfast, 1 hour at mid-day, 4 hours after school, and 13 hours on Saturday. His wages are 1s. 9d. a week, and his teacher reports him inattentive in school, overtired and nervous.
  Boy of eleven worked 2¼ hours before school, 2¼ after school, and 13 hours on Saturday. Teacher reports he often fell asleep at school.
  Boy of eleven works in and about stables for 8 hours a day, and 14 hours on Saturdays. Wages 6d. a week and his food. Teacher reports that he is dull and languid in school."

Then Mr. Spurley Hey, Director of Education in Manchester, says that—

"in that city there are 6,000 children of school age employed for profit, some of whom work for 40 hours a week in addition to their time in school."

The last quotation which I shall give is by no means the least. It states—

  "In Birmingham there are 9,000 school children similarly employed, several hundreds of whom work over 40 hours a week, and one poor little child who works over 70 hours a week".—Quotations from the "Daily Chronicle," October 7th, 1919.

Thus in Christian England nineteen centuries after Christ is supposed to have said "Suffer little children to come unto me," we find those who "call upon His name" re-echoing his words in their endeavour to obtain cheap labour and enhanced profits. Well may our contemporary refer to it as a "Child Labour Scandal."

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More prosperity ! "The Barking Education Authorities are to spend £50 on providing boots and shoes for necessitous children," runs an announcement in the "Daily Herald" (15.10.19). This step is being taken, so we are informed, owing to the number of cases in which want of boots is given as an excuse for non-attendance at school.

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Strong comment was made at the London Sessions by the Deputy-Chairman on the niggardliness of "our grateful country" to its heroes when a case was before them of an ex-soldier charged with shop-breaking. Here is what the Deputy-Chairman said :

  "I understand you have been so severely wounded that you are incapable of doing any work, and a grateful country gives you 11s. a week to live upon. In those circumstances I do not know what on earth you could do except commit crime for a living. I shall take all steps in my power to see that this matter gets attention. It is perfectly scandalous, and the prisons of this country will be filled if that sort of pittance is given to people rendered incapable of doing any work."—"Reynolds's," October 26th, 1919.

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In that entertaining column, ''The Office Window," which graces the pages of the "Daily Chronicle," there recently appeared a jingle of rhyme which, like the straw, shows how the wind blows. The writer of the verses ("Sleet in Picadilly') inquiring why the vagaries of the weather, concludes that it is because—

"Jove has been dealing in sealskins and muffs."

God as a profiteer! That any writer in one of the great English dailies should dare suggest such a thing is pretty significant of the trend of current ideas.

The Scout.

Our £1,000 Fund. (1919)

Party News from the November 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

The burning desire for Socialism is reflected below. It to two months since we published our last list, and in that time nearly £7 has been subscribed to our Thousand year—pardon, Thousand Pound Fund. Five guineas of that stun, be it observed; are from branches. leaving something less than £2 from individuals—£1 a month (nearly); 5 bob a week (nearly). In two months eight (8) individuals have “cast their bread upon the waters”—what a shock this must be to our trembling masters!

Now we are not going to beat about the bush. We have s desire. We have an ambition. We will out with it, yes swelpuschrist we will.

And this is what we have set our heart upon —that the revolutionary proletarians of this country seal their faith in sacrifice. It can be done. How about a Self Denial Week? How about sending a Tank round ? How about a Victory Loan and Premium Bonds?

Well, tot will not be put off. Whatever the means you have got to raise that fund to— 5 bob a week clear of branch donations.

Correspondence. Concerning Russia Again. (1919)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

Continued from the October 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

When our correspondent "digresses," to use ills own term, "to discuss the class-consciousness of the Russian masses," he does not really digress at all, but gets back to the point at issue. "I deny that ability to discuss the Marxian theory is essential to a feeling of 'class-consciousness,'" says "A.P.L." That one sentence makes clear the different standpoints from which we are respectively arguing. To the Socialist class-consciousness is not a "feeling" but a knowing. A hatred of the master class does not of itself make a class-conscious proletarian. To be such one must know more than that one is oppressed. To say that : "Owing to the Government opposition to workers' organisations for self-protection the Russian industrial worker could feel his 'oppressed' position better than most as his wages were scandalously low," is fatuous, since other races of workers have passed through the same stage of "oppression" and scandalous wages without exhibiting any clear knowledge of their class position and the course of action dictated by that position.

If class-consciousness were no more than a "feeling," no more than a realisation by the workers that there is "something rotten in the State of Denmark" because they were oppressed and their wages were scandalously low, then indeed would class-consciousness be of so little use to the workers as to be unworthy of serious thought.

As to how far a proletarian must be able to "discuss the Marxian theory" before he can properly be termed class-conscious is quite beside the point. The minimum that is essential to class-consciousness is that it shall be useful in the struggle of the working class for their emancipation. It must, therefore, not only comprise a knowledge of the existence of classes in society—that is not very helpful. It must comprise a knowledge of the "Marxian theory" of the class struggle (i.e., that all written history is a history of class struggles), as only that knowledge can raise the worker's strivings to the class struggle basis, and prevent him being trapped into fatal alliances with his inveterate and historic enemies, the master class.

Class-consciousness must also include a knowledge of that other "Marxian theory," the Materialist Conception of History, which shows that the roots of social change lie in the development of the means and methods by which mankind gain their livelihood, and indicates that the whole social structure rests upon its economic foundation. This knowledge teaches that the basis of the social system is the private ownership of the means of living, that wage slavery must necessarily (chattel slavery being out of the question) be the life condition of those who produce the wealth, because while a section of the community own all the means of living, those who do not own must sell to the others their labour power for wages.

This theory leads logically, also, to the conclusion that, since the social system rests upon its economic foundation (which is the private ownership of the land, factories, machinery and other means of living), and since this in turn in the long run depends upon the development of the instruments of production, the present social base must, given the continued development of those instruments (which nobody doubts), give place sooner or later to another, with the result that the whole social system must undergo a change.

It is needless to go further. Let us compare the actions of A.P.L.'s Russian "peasant-labourer," whose "class-consciousness" rests on the fact that he "saw his landlord, i.e. his immediate oppressor, every day," with the actions of the truly class-conscious worker.

The latter, from the study which has brought him to the acceptance of the Materialist Concept, realises that the only property condition in harmony with that stage of development of the means of production wherein those means can only be operated by social labour is social ownership, proceeds to institute social ownership. The Russian "peasant-labourer," on the other hand, "A.P.L." tells us, elected "Maria Spirodonova, the 'extremist,' chairman of this All-Russian Congress,. . . as was only natural, she being the great apostle of the communal system of land ownership, also favoured by Lenin, on the lines of the ancient Mir."

Of course this is "only natural." The Russian "peasant-labourer" understands nothing of Marxian theories, so he is anxious to get back to the "good old days" of the Mir—under which the land was not the propetry of the whole of society, but only of the Mir group.

But "A.P.L." may be assured that as surely as "direct ownership" may, as he says, transfer the peasant back to his old position of landless agricultural labourer, so will the return of the land to the Mir carry him back to the semi-barbarism of that ancient system.—Ed. Com.

A Retrospect. Lessons drawn from the Socialist Movement from 1848 to 1895. by Frederick Engels. (1919)

From the November 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

  [The reprint given below of the last of the published writings of Frederick Engels is of especial value to-day in its application to the conditions prevailing in Europe. If events have so strongly falsified his views as to the strength and soundness of the rank and file of the German Social-Democratic Party, it should be remembered that when that organisation was formed by the fusion of the two previously existing parties — the Lassalleans and the Marxists—both Marx and Engels opposed the fusion, and only accepted the situation some time after, when the steady growth of the party seemed to justify its formation. The war has shown completely that the original views of Marx and Engels were right, while those of Bebel, Leibnecht, and the others were wrong, though many Marxian students proclaimed the unsoundness of the German party long before the war. In other words, the principles which Marx and Engels did so much to establish have proved to be correct even in the case where Engels was persuaded that a modification was required. A firm grip of those principles is the only safe guide for the workers to-day.—ed. com.]

As the February revolution of 1848 broke out we were all, as regards our views of the conditions and course of revolutionary movements, under the influence of previous historical experience, especially that of France. It was just this latter which had controlled all European history since 1689, and from which once more the signal for a general upheaval had gone out. Hence it was natural and inevitable that our ideas of the nature and course of the "social" revolution proclaimed at Paris in February, 1848, the revolution of the proletariat, were strongly coloured by recollections of the prototypes of 1789 to 1830. And particularly as the Paris revolt found its echo in the victorious uprisings at Vienna, Milan, Berlin; as all Europe up to the Russian border was swept into the movement; as then in June at Paris the first great battle for supremacy was fought between proletariat and bourgeoisie ; as even the victory of their own class so convulsed the bourgeoisie of all countries that they flew back again into the arms of the monarchic-feudal reactionists whom they had just overthrown : under all these circumstances there could be no doubt in our minds that the great decisive conflict had begun, and that it would have to be fought out in a single long revolutionary period with varying success, but that it could only end in the final victory of the proletariat.

After the defeats of 1849 we did not by any means share in the illusions of the pseudo-democracy which was grouped around the outskirts of the provisional governments. This was counting on an early, once for all, decisive victory of the "people" over the "oppressors"; we were counting on a long struggle after the removal of the oppressors, a struggle between the antagonistic elements hidden in this very "people" itself. The pseudo-democracy was expecting from day to day a renewed outbreak; we declared as early as in autumn 1850 that at least the first chapter of the revolutionary period was closed, and that nothing more was to be expected until the outbreak of a new economic world crisis. And for this very reason, too, we were excommunicated as traitors to the revolution by the very same people who afterwards almost without exception made their peace with Bismarck—so far as Bismarck found them worth having.

But history has shown that we, too, were wrong, and has exposed our opinion at that time as an illusion ; it has done more: it has not only demolished our error, it has totally recast the conditions under which the proletariat has to fight. The 1848 method of warfare is to-day antiquated in every particular, and that is a point which at this opportunity deserves to be closely examined.

All previous revolutions resulted in the displacement of one class government by another. All previous ruling classes were, however, only small minorities compared with the subject mass of the common people. A ruling minority was overthrown, in its stead another minority seized the helm of state, and remodelled the political institutions according to its own interests. In every case this new minority group was one which the progress of economic development had trained for and called to rulership, and for that very reason and only for that reason it happened that at the time of the revolution the subject majority either took sides with it or at any rate acquiesced in it. But ignoring the concrete details of each particular case, the common form of all these revolutions was this, that they were minority revolutions. Even when the majority assisted it was, consciously or unconsciously, only working in the interest of a minority. This fact, or even the passive non-resistance of the majority, gave to the minority the appearance of being the representative of the whole people. 

After the first great victory the successful minority as a rule became divided ; half was satisfied with what was already won, the other half wished to go farther yet and made new demands, which at least in part were in the real or apparent interest of the great mass of the people. These more radical demands were in particular instances carried through, but for the most part only temporarily : the more moderate party again got the upper hand, the latest gains were wholly or partly lost again. The radicals then raised the cry of "treason," or attributed their defeat to accident. In fact, however, matters stood about so :—the results of the first victory were made secure only by another victory over the more radical party. This done, and thereby the immediate demands of the moderates being attained, the radicals and their following disappeared again from the stage.

All the revolutions of modern times, beginning with the great English revolution of the seventeenth century, showed these features, which seemed inseparable from every revolutionary struggle. They appeared to be also applicable to the struggles of the proletariat for its emancipation ; all the more applicable as in 1842 the few people could be counted who understood even in a general way the direction in which this emancipation was to be sought. The proletarian masses themselves even in Paris after the victory were still absolutely in the dark as to the course to pursue. And yet the movement was there, instinctive, spontaneous, irrepressible. Was not that exactly the condition in which a revolution was bound to succeed, though led, it is true, by a minority, but this time not in the interest of a minority, but in the truest interest of the majority? If in all the more prolonged revolutionary periods the great masses of the people had been so easily won over by the merely plausible inducements of ambitious minorities, how could they be less accessible to ideas which were the purest reflex of their economic situation, which were nothing else but the clear, intelligent expression of their own wants, wants as yet not understood by themselves and only indistinctly felt ? It is true this revolutionary temper of the masses had nearly always, and generally very soon, given way to lassitude or even to a reaction into the opposite attitude, as soon as the illusion had vanished and undeception had taken place.

Here, however, it was not a question of promoting the most vital interests of the great majority itself—interests which, it is true, at that time were by no means clearly seen by that great majority, but which in the course of practical enforcement were bound soon enough to become clear to it by the convincing force of experience. And now when in the spring of 1850 the development of the bourgeois republic which arose out of the "social" revolution of 1848 had concentrated all actual power in the hands of the great bourgeoisie, and this having monarchical inclinations, too; and when on the other hand this same development had grouped all other classes of society, both peasants and small-bourgeoisie, around the proletariat in such a way that in and after the joint victory the controlling factor would be, not those others, but the proletariat itself, grown sharp-witted through experience—was there not every prospect at hand for turning a minority revolution into a majority revolution ?

History has shown that we, and all who thought like us, were wrong. It has made plain that the condition of economic development on the Continent at that time was not yet ripe enough by far for the abolition of capitalist production ; it has proved this by the economic revolution which since 1848 has transformed the whole Continent and has for the first time effectively naturalised large-scale industry in France, Austria, Hungary, Poland, and, more recently, in Russia, while out of Germany it has actually made an industrial State of the first rank—all on a capitalist, basis, which system therefore in 1848 was still capable of great expansion. Moreover, it is just this industrial revolution which first brought about clearness everywhere in class relations ; which shoved aside a lot of middle men who had come down from the early manufacturing period and in Eastern Europe even from the guild system ; which created a genuine bourgeoisie and a genuine factory proletariat and pushed them to the front place in the social development. Thereby, however, the struggle of these two great classes, a struggle which in 1848 existed outside of England only in Paris, and at most in some few great industrial centres, has spread for the first time over all Europe and reached an intensity which in 1848 was inconceivable. Then there were many confused sectarian gospels with their different panaceas ; to-day the single, transparently clear and universally recognised theory of Marx, which sharply formulates the ultimate aims of the struggle ; then, massed, separated, and differentiated by locality and nationality, bound together only by a feeling of common suffering, undeveloped, tossed helplessly back and forth between enthusiasm and despair; to-day one great international army of Socialists, unceasingly advancing, daily growing in numbers, organisation, discipline, intelligence and certainty of victory. If even this mighty army of the proletariat has not yet attained its object, if far from wresting victory at one grand stroke, it has to press slowly forward from one position to another in a hard, tenacious struggle, this proves once for all how impossible it was in 1848 to effect the transformation of society by a mere sudden onslaught.

A bourgeoisie, split into two dynastic monarchical factions, but which demanded before everything else peace and security for its financial transactions ; confronting it a proletariat, conquered but still threatening, and around which the small tradesmen and peasants were grouping themselves more and more ; the constant threatening of a violent outbreak, which after all offered no prospect of a final solution— that was the situation, fitted as if made to order, for the forcible usurpation of the pseudo-democratic pretender, Louis Bonaparte, yclept the Third. On December 2, 1851, with the aid of the army, he put an end to the strained situation, and secured internal peace for Europe in order to beautify it with new wars. The period of revolutions from the bottom up was for the time being closed ; there followed a period of revolution from the top down.

The setback of 1851 towards Imperialism gave new proof of the unripeness of the proletarian aspirations of that time. But it was itself destined to create the conditions under which they must ripen. Internal peace secured the full development of the new industrial life; the necessity of keeping the army busy and of turning the revolutionary activities away from home engendered wars in which Bonaparte, under the pretense of giving effect to the "nationality principle," sought to rake up annexations to France. His imitator, Bismarck, adopted the same policy for Prussia ; he played his political grab-game, his revolution from the top, in 1866 against the German confederation and Austria, and not less against the recalcitrant Chamber of Deputies in Prussia. But Europe was too small for two Bonapartes, and so the irony of history would have it that Bismarck should overthrow Bonaparte and that King William should restore not only the small German empire, but also the French Republic. The general result, however, was this, that in Europe the autonomy and inner unity of the large nations, with the exception of Poland, had become a reality ; true, it was only within relatively modest limits, but yet far enough so that the developing process of the working class was no longer materially hindered by national complications. The gravediggers of the revolution of 1848 had become executors of its will; and beside them arose the proletariat, the heir of 1848, already threatening, in the new International.

After the war of 1870-1871, Bonaparte disappears from the stage and Bismarck's mission is completed, so that he can now subside again to the level of an ordinary country squire. But the closing act of this period is formed by the Paris Commune. A treacherous attempt by Thiers to steal the cannons of the Paris National Guard called forth a successful revolt. It was again demonstrated that in Paris no other revolution is possible any more, except a proletarian one. After the victory the leadership fell uncontested into the lap of the working class, just as a matter of course. And again it was shown how impossible it was even then, twenty years after the former effort, for the leadership of the working class to be successful. On one hand France left Paris in the lurch and stood by looking on while it was bleeding under the bullets of McMahon; on the other hand the Commune wasted its strength in a barren quarrel of the two disagreeing factions, the Blanquists, who formed the majority, and the Proudhonists, who formed the minority, neither of which knew what to do. The victory of 1871, which came as a gift, proved just as barren as the forcible overthrow of 1848.

With the fall of the Paris Commune it was thought that the militant proletariat was ever lastingly buried past resurrection. But quite to the contrary, its most vigorous growth dates from the Commune and the Franco-Prussian war. The complete transformation of the whole military system by bringing the entire able-bodied population into the armies, now running into millions, and by the introduction of firearms, cannon and explosives of hitherto unheard-of power, put a sudden end to the Napoleonic war era, and assured a peaceful industrial development by making impossible any war other than a world-war of unprecedented gruesomeness and of absolutely incalculable consequences. On the other hand, the increase of the army budget in a geometrical progression forced the taxes up to an uncollectable point, and thereby drove the poorer classes into the hands of Socialism. The annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, which was the immediate cause of the mad competition in preparations for war, might goad the French and German bourgeoisie into chauvinism towards each other, but for the workingmen of both countries it was only a new bond of unity. And the anniversary of the Paris Commune became the first general holiday of the entire proletariat.

The war of 1870-1871 and the overthrow of the Commune had, as Marx foretold, shifted the centre of gravity of the European labour movement from France to Germany. In France it took, of course, years to recover from the blood letting of May, 1871. In Germany, on the contrary, where industry was developing faster and faster, forced on in hothouse fashion by the providential milliards from France, the social democracy was growing faster and yet more enduring. Thanks to the intelligence with which the German workingmen made use of the universal suffrage, introduced in 1866, the astounding growth of the party is revealed to all in incontestable figures. In 1871, 102,000 social democratic votes; in 1874, 352,000 ; in 1877, 493,000, Then came the high official recognition of the gains in the shape of the anti-Socialist law. The party was for a moment demoralised ; the number of votes in 1881 fell to 312,000. But the relapse was soon overcome, and then under the pressure of the anti-Socialist law, and without a Press, without a recognised organisation, without the right of association or of assembly, the growth began to increase more rapidly than ever. In 1884, 550,000 ; in 1887, 763,000; in 1890, 1,427,000. Then the hand of the State was palsied. Then anti-Socialist law disappeared ; the number of Socialist votes rose to 1,787,000, over a quarter of the total votes cast. The Government and the ruling classes had exhausted all their expedients; they were useless, aimless, resultless. The tangible proofs of their impotence which the authorities, from the night watchman to the imperial chancellor, got shoved under their noses, and that, too, from the despised working-men, were numbered by millions. The State had got to the end of its Latin, the workingmen were only at the beginning of theirs.

Moreover, in addition to this, the German workingmen had done their cause a second great service, besides the first one, consisting merely in their existence as the strongest, best disciplined, and most rapidly growing Socialist party; they had shown their comrades of all countries a new weapon, and one of the keenest, in showing them how to use the ballot.

Universal suffrage had long existed in France, but had come into disrepute through the misuse which the Napoleonic government had made of it. After the Commune there was no labour party in existence to make use of it. In Spain, too, it had existed since the republic, but in Spain it was always the custom of all the real opposition parties to refrain from voting. And in Switzerland, too, the experiences with universal suffrage were anything but encouraging for a labour party. The revolutionary working-men of the Romance countries had become accustomed to look upon the ballot as a snare, as an instrument of oppression manipulated by the government.

In Germany it was different. The Communist Manifesto had already proclaimed the winning of universal suffrage, of democracy, as one of the first and most important tasks of the militant proletariat, and Lassalle had taken up the point again. And when Bismarck saw that he was forced to introduce this franchise as the only means of getting the masses interested in his plans, our workingmen at once took the matter seriously and sent August Bebel into the constitutional convention. And from that day on they have used the ballot in a manner that has repaid them a thousand fold and has served as an example to the workingmen of all countries. They have transformed the ballot, in the words of the French Marxians, "de moyen de duperie, qu'il a ete jusqu'ici, en instrument d'emancipation" ; from a means of jugglery, which it has been heretofore, into an instrument of emancipation. And if universal suffrage had offered no other advantage than to allow us to count ourselves every three years, and by a regularly certified and unexpectedly rapid increase of votes to raise in equal degree the confidence of the workers and the terror of their opponents, and thus to become our best means of propaganda ; and to inform us exactly as to our own strength and as to that of all opposing parties, and thereby give us a standard for apportioning our activity such as could not be equalled ; and to save us both from untimely hesitation and untimely rashness: if that were the only benefit derived from the franchise, even then it would be enough and more than enough. But it has done far more. It gave us in election campaigns an unequalled opportunity to come in contact with the masses where they still stood aloof from us, and to force all parties to defend their views and actions before all the people against our attacks ; and it also opened to our representatives in Parliament, a forum from which they could talk to their opponents in Parliament as well as to the masses outside, with an entirely different tone of authority and freedom from what they could use in the press and in meetings. What good did the anti-Socialist law do the government and the bourgeoisie so long as the election campaigns and the Socialist speeches in Parliament were continually nullifying it ?

(To be Concluded.)

Note from ALB on the English translation of this text:

First published in English in an abridged form under the heading “Revolutionary Tactics” in The Plebs, London, 1921, Vol. 13, No. 1, January, pp. 12-15; No. 2, February, pp. 48-50; No. 3, March, pp. 71-74; No. 4, April, pp. 112-14. Published in full in English for the first time in: The Revolutionary Act, New York city, New York Labor News Company, 1922.

The Class Struggles in France 1848 to 1850

Apparently from MECW.

This link refers to an earlier translation:

“Excerpts from The Class Struggles in France were first published in English in the journal The Marxian, New York, 1921, Vol. 1, No. 2, and it appeared in full as a separate edition by Labour News Company, New York, 1924.”

Either there was an earlier American translation (the one in the Standard is American, see spellings of defense and pretense ) or the date of the one from the Marxian is wrong. Later quotes from Engels’ introduction are from the Plebs one.

I have the 1922 SLP edition and the one in the Standard is not the same as that. In fact I’ve sent it to the MIA and it is now up here.

Editorial: Coal and Cant. (1919)

Editorial from the November 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the 9th October the Prime Minister met a deputation representing the Trades Unions Congress and the Miners' Federation, who presented a demand for the nationalisation of the coal mines on the lines laid down by the Sankey Report. Mr. Stuart-Bunning, representing the T.U.C., said the demand was made not on the views of the miners alone, but of the large number of organised workers affiliated to the T.U.C. The fact that the representatives of 5½ millions of workers should fancy that the nostrum of Nationalisation would be of use or benefit to their class is good reason for examining the proposition in detail.

According to the report of the interview given in the "Daily News" (11.10.19) Mr. Smillie, representing the miners, put forward two main reasons why the mines should be nationalised. The first was that "the mines are largely unsafe because they are working for private profit." In what way Nationalisation would make them safer we are left to guess. There is no evidence that the railways have become safer for the railway workers since they have been under government control, nor has it ever been put forward that the Admiralty Dockyards are safer than private ones. Until evidence of this character is forthcoming the hope that the mines would be safer if nationalised remains purely a hope. The Government's treatment of its broken tools—the disabled soldiers and sailors—shows how much the "hope" is worth.

Mr. Smillie's second point is given as follows:

"I want the mines nationalised in order that by the fullest possible development on intelligent lines, with the assistance of the engineering power we know we possess, we might hereby develop the mines and increase the output and so reduce the price of coal."

Coming at this moment, after a certain bitter experience by the miners, the last suggestion in this statement is simply staggering. Coal is under government control now, and a few months ago, without any economic reason, the price was raised by 6s a ton. Despite this swindle, perpetrated on his own members so recently, Mr. Smillie still calls for increased production. Yet increase of output by itself does not mean a reduction in price, and, as the above example showed, it may be accompanied by a rise in price. For the purpose of playing political tricks and misleading the workers the Government would be quite prepared to repeat and extend these swindles. An illustration from a branch of industry that is practically a trust will show the absurdity of this claim that increased output necessarily means reduced prices. The capitalists in this industry are urging the worker to "produce more," and the surplus above the requirements of the home market is exported. But note the situation. Prices are kept up or even raised at home while the exported articles are sold below cost—or to use a well known phrase, are "dumped"—to beat the foreigner in hie own market. (See Report of Committee on Trusts.)

Neither is it certain that Nationalisation would result in "the fullest possible development of the industry." While this is possible it is far from probable, as experience of the Government departments during the war— and since—have shown only too well. Corruption and incompetence have been rampant in those departments, and there is no reason to suppose there would be any improvement in the case of coal.

But these points are not the important ones. The ignorance of the organised workers and lack of knowledge—or lack of honesty—of their leaders is shown in this demand made upon a capitalist government to nationalise an industry. It should be clear to any worker that the control of an industry by such a Government means that the business will be run on capitalist lines—that is on profit-making lines. Though it may not be run for individual profit, it will be run for the collective profit of the capitalist class. Nationalised industries are expected to show as good a result as—or a better than—the private business, as, for instance, in the case of the Admiralty Dockyards. As a consequence of this fact the workers in Government departments are so badly paid as to have to struggle as hard to lift up their wages, or to improve their conditions, as the workers employed by private capitalists. The Post Office and Government dockyards are good examples of this truth. But there is one important difference. When an industry is nationalised there is only one employer—the Government. If for any reason a worker is discharged from such an industry he is compelled to seek a living in another calling, as there is no one else in his old business to give him a job. In this respect the worker is worse off under Nationalisation than under private employment.

The fundamental fallacy underlying the T.U.C and Miners' demands for Nationalisation of Coal Mines—and it applies with equal force to the nationalisation of any other industry—is their failure to recognise the slave character and position of the workers. Denied all access to the means of production, except by the permission of the master class, the workers are unable to produce the necessities of life for themselves. As their means of life are controlled by the master class, it necessarily follows that their life itself is under the same control. When one's life is under the control of another person, one is a slave to this person. The working class are therefore SLAVES to the master class.

This great fundamental fact remains whether the masters split up the control of the means of production among the individuals or groups of their class, or whether they decide to collectively control them, or any part of them, through their executive committee called the Government.

The workers will remain wage slaves while capitalism lasts, even though every industry were nationalised.

Not until the working class grasp this simple fact will they organise correctly for the overthrow of capitalism and the real control by the workers of their means of life. Nationalisation is one of the red-herrings the agents of the master class are always ready to trail across the path to divert the workers from the course their interests demands that they should follow. Its failure to fulfil expectations will help to disillusion many of those workers who are urging it forward now. When the workers realise this they will begin to examine and study the right course to follow—which is to fight for Socialism.

The Lord Didn't Provide. (1919)

From the November 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Press has been shedding the usual crocodile tears over a rather interesting case of poverty. The vicar of Hubberholme, Buckden, has, it seems, been suffering the evils of the vile system which he supports, in consequence of which he finds himself in the hands of the Official Receiver.

Debtor had been having what many a man of greater use to his fellows has had—a rough time. His missus has had to do what millions of equally good mothers have had to do—turn out and work in order to help to feed and educate her kids. The Socialist may not deny her a little sympathy. It is not her fault if there is a flaw in the old tag—"The Lord will provide."

But the unfortunate Holy Joe found a pal in the Official Receiver. "I stand beside this debtor," this officer said ("Daily Chronicle," 11.6.1919), "who has been faced with the alternative of the starvation of his wife and his children or of resorting to moneylenders. If the Church and other denominations don't see that their clergy are better paid, if Christianity does not compel them to do it then humanity ought, and we should not have people of education faced with such a horrible alternative."

Ah ! There you see the source of the Official Receiver's emotion. Parson is a man of "education"—and the O.R. is another. For such people financial embarassement should never, of course, exist. The little ironies and jokes of this mad system should not pucker the "educated" brow. Starvation really should, you know, be reserved for those who have not sufficient education to enable them to get into the moneylenders' ribs to the tune of several hundred pounds.

And somehow or other, it usually is.

Jacko.

Paisley. (1919)

From the November 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Housewives all over the country will learn with interest," says the "Daily Chronicle" (7.11.1919) "that Messrs. J. and P. Coats, the huge Paisley cotton and thread manufacturers, yesterday disclosed the fact that in their last year's trading they made a profit of close upon four millions sterling ! This profit was made after paying excess profits duty, which probably runs into hundreds of thousands of pounds."

And now does anybody doubt that higher wages means a 7½d. reel of cotton ?

Obituary: Gordon Docherty (2020)

Obituary from the August 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

West London branch regret to have to report the death of Comrade Gordon Docherty in June at the age of 79. He hailed from Glasgow where he joined the local branch in 1964 after listening to Party speakers in George Square. He served an apprenticeship as a turner lathe operator at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Govan and was one of a number of Glasgow comrades who moved to London at the end of the 1960s.

As a skilled engineering worker he had no problem in finding a job, at the Lucas CAV factory in Acton where he was an active trade unionist and AEU shop steward. In 1974 he won a landmark court case – which the New Statesman called ‘the case of Mr Docherty’s furniture’ – which resulted in hundreds of thousands of furnished tenancies becoming unfurnished and so enjoying a greater security against eviction.

He was a regular attendee at branch meetings and other branch events till last year. Our condolences go to his family and friends.

Cooking the Books: Big Deal! (2020)

The Cooking the Books column from the August 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

When Boris Johnson announced the bringing forward of a modest package of public works, he remarked that,  ‘it sounds positively Rooseveltian. It sounds like a New Deal. All I can say is that if so that is how it is meant to sound to be’ (Times, 30 June). He was referring to the policies pursued by the Roosevelt administration in America in the 1930s.

When Roosevelt assumed office as President in 1933 the US was confronted with an unprecedented economic crisis – a huge fall in output, mass unemployment, a frozen financial system. To try to deal with this, his administration adopted a programme of public works (for which he is remembered) and of restricting production until stocks cleared (which is not remembered, but which is essential before capitalism can recover from a slump).

Re-elected in 1936, he expanded the public works programme. Capitalist production recovered to some extent but in 1937-38 there was another recession. As for unemployment:

‘When Roosevelt ran for re-election in 1936, the unemployment rate was 16.9 per cent, almost twice what it had been in 1930. (…) When Roosevelt ran for the unprecedented third term [in 1940], unemployment was 14.6 per cent.’ (LINK).

No wonder a Times sub-editor, in a note explaining Roosevelt’s New Deal to readers who might not have been familiar with it, wrote:

 ‘The extent to which it helped the US economy to recover from a deflationary recession remains a matter of debate. Some argue that FDR, as the president was known, did not spend enough and that it was the Second World War that finally put the US economy back on track as government spending soared.’

The ‘some’ referred to who wanted FDR to spend more are left-wing reformists, and currency cranks, who do not understand how capitalism works. The Roosevelt administration could in theory have spent more on putting people to work on infrastructure projects but this would have had to have been at the expense of private capitalist investment, a fall in which would have had the opposite effect of more unemployment. But it is true that mass unemployment in the US only ended when the government mobilised resources to fight a war.

The New Deal was opposed by some sections of the capitalist class who regarded it, as Johnson’s hero Churchill put it in an appeal to Roosevelt in 1937, ‘this war on wealth and business, this war on private enterprise’ (quoted in the Guardian, 29 June). Most capitalists, however, were more level-headed. Roosevelt himself was reported as having said, in May 1935, that ‘I want to save our system, the capitalistic system.’

By capitalism he meant private capitalism as production for profit by private capitalist enterprises. This survived as the dominant form of capitalism in the US. It was never really in need of ‘saving’. Nor was capitalism in its more accurate sense of production for profit on the basis of wage-labour, since those Roosevelt wanted to save private capitalism from – the fascists who wanted America to emulate Hitler’s Germany and the ‘communists’ who wanted it to emulate Stalin’s Russia – were merely advocating alternative ways of operating this.

Cooking the Books: Consumption – not the driver (2020)

The Cooking the Books column from the August 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

Interviewed on the Andrew Marr Show on 14 June, the Chancellor Rishi Sunak stated that the economy was ‘driven by consumption’. It is understandable why he might think this since consumption (consumer spending) accounts for some two-thirds of GDP. But it does not follow that it is therefore this that drives the economy. In fact, it isn’t.

Apologists for the system claim that under capitalism ‘the consumer is king’; that, in other words, production is carried on – even initiated – in response to what consumers want as indicated by what they are prepared to pay for and do pay for. But this does not explain how consumers come to have money to spend in the first place.

Most consumers are wage and salary earners who get their spending money from the sale of their capacity to work at a particular job, their labour-power, to an employer. So, where do employers get the money to pay them from? It’s a part of the capital they must have to start up a business and keep it going. Marx divided the capital of a business into constant capital (plant, machinery, raw materials, power, etc) and variable capital (the money to pay the wages of the productive workers it employs).

Under capitalism production is initiated by capitalist firms seeking to expand their capital by making and accumulating profits. It goes like this. Capitalists invest in production, including hiring workers; workers exercise and use up their labour power to produce new value, including the value of their labour power; capitalists pay workers as wages the value of their labour power; workers spend their wages on buying what is needed (food, housing, clothes, entertainment, holidays, etc) to recreate their labour power to replace what they used when they worked; capitalists buy the renewed labour power; and so the circuit recommences.

Marx put it this way:

  ‘From the point of view of society, then, the working class, even when it stands outside the direct labour process, is just as much an appendage of capital as the lifeless instruments of labour are. Even its individual consumption is, within certain limits, a mere aspect of the process of capital’s reproduction … Individual consumption provides, on the one hand, the means for the workers’ maintenance and reproduction; on the other hand, by the constant annihilation of the means of subsistence, it provides for their continued re-appearance on the labour market’ (Capital, Volume 1, chapter 23. Penguin edition p. 719).

What this means is that what workers buy to consume is the reproduction of what variable capital is invested in. Capitalist apologists speak unashamedly of workers as ‘human capital’. Some Marxists describe workers’ consumption as variable capital. This is not strictly true (it’s only that both have the same value) but it gets over the point that workers’ consumption is a part, not the initiator, of the circuit capital goes through to increase its value.

What drives the economy is business investment for profit. This depends on the prospects for profit-making and goes up or down depending on whether these are good or bad. Less business investment means fewer workers employed and so less consumption; more business investment means more consumption. So, far from consumption driving the economy, it’s the other way round. Consumption is the tail not the dog.

Think about socialism (2020)

From the August 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

In July, BBC Radio 4 ran a series of programmes on ‘rethinking’ things in the light of the experience of the coronavirus and lockdown. Here are contributions sent by two Socialist Party members.

If we want the world to change for the better, we have to change everything. Otherwise we’re just rearranging the deckchairs. And so far that’s what the ‘Rethink’ programmes have been about – slightly different ways of doing the same thing. By ‘the same thing’ I mean vast economic inequality with a tiny number of people wallowing in most of the wealth we all produce. I mean the market forcing its decisions on governments. I mean the whole buying and selling and working for wages system. What do I offer in its place? I offer using the world’s abundant resources to feed, clothe and house everyone to a decent level through a system of voluntary cooperation and democratic organisation with free access to all goods and services. People contribute their work and skills according to their ability and take according to need.It can be achieved by people in a majority getting together, deciding this is what they want and voting for it democratically on a world scale. What can be simpler? Give this system what name you like, it doesn’t matter – all it needs is an effort of the imagination.

HM

 There’s never been a better time to ‘rethink’, but the rethinking has got to be truly radical. It has taken a blip in capitalism for millions of people worldwide to be thrown on the scrapheap and be plunged into despair, for people who never thought it would be possible to have to resort to foodbanks in this country and to face starvation elsewhere. That’s how precarious capitalism is for nearly all of us with its imperative to sell, sell, sell, to consume, consume, consume. Once something happens to prevent that, all hell breaks loose. But, if we don’t do something significant now, the regime we live under will just carry on and all the well–meaning attempts to make things better – for example the green movement, the feminist movement, the BLM movement – will just be co-opted by the system, absorbed into it and there won’t be that fundamental change that’s necessary. By fundamental change I mean looking beyond producing things for profit and instead producing for need via a collective, voluntary effort by humanity as a whole. In that sense the Covid crisis has pointed the way. It’s shown that we can get together collectively and help one another in a constructive organised way. The lesson we need to take from this is that we can and have to organise society in just this way. It’s the need we all have to make money to survive that has caused Covid-19 and that, even without any virus crisis, causes wars and poverty. If we don’t move to a rational, resource-based organisation of society where we are all economically equal, we can ‘rethink’ till we’re blue in the face, but it will be the ‘same old same old’.

JB

Voice From The Back: Growing Old Disgracefully (2005)

The Voice From The Back column from the August 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Growing Old Disgracefully

A feature often commented upon by historians, is that before private property societies existed the elderly of a kin, clan or tribal group were treated with great respect. Their knowledge of the terrain, animals and availability of food was invaluable to their society. How different today in modern capitalism. “The government is abandoning hundreds of thousands of elderly people to a care system that steals their dignity, denies them meaningful choice and risks endangering their health, according to a hard-hitting report out tomorrow. The report – by the country’s leading independent healthcare thinktank, the King’s Fund – concludes that funding and organisational problems are putting old people at a disadvantage compared with other recipients of care. It also says that untrained, unqualified and overstretched staff are putting them at risk.” The Observer (26 June) Let’s face it inside capitalism old-age sucks. Although all those social workers forced to make these decisions will themselves be old one day.

Moral Considerations

The growing practice of scientific journals to copyright and restrict access to scientific data without cash subscriptions has led Robert Smith, a former editor of the British Medical Journal, to raise a moral dilemma. “Making money out of restricting access to (medical) research is immoral.” The Times (2 July) In fact Mr Smith you are terribly wrong, inside capitalism it is not only moral but good business practice. Only inside a socialist society will we have unrestricted access to knowledge for every human being on earth. People dying because medical personnel couldn’t access the latest scientific knowledge would be unthinkable inside a socialist society. It is quite moral today.

The Grapes of Wrath

In any sane society an abundant harvest from the vineyards would be the cause of celebration and no doubt a little celebratory tipple. But we don’t live in a sane society, we live in capitalism where the whole purpose of production is to make a profit not satisfy a social need. “It may seem heinous to any enthusiastic bordeaux drinker, but the EU has pledged £100m under the common agricultural policy to turn 670m bottles of French and Spanish wine into industrial alcohol to help reduce a surplus caused by competition from the New World.” The Sunday Times (3 July) Inside a socialist society if we produce too much wine we’ll just have to drink it. Terrible prospect, aint it?

An Investment Opportunity

The callousness of capitalism and the cynicism of the capitalist press could hardly be summed up better than this report about the bomb carnage in London that left over 50 dead and scores wounded. “City Index, the financial spreadbetting firm, said that more than 8,000 retail investors had dived into the market on Thursday, correctly backing their hunch that share prices would quickly bounce back. Some will find profiting from horror distasteful. But many in the City applaud the resilience of capitalism.” The Sunday Times (10 July) The editors carried this story under the headline – “Investors made millions amid bombs chaos.” Could anything be more disgusting? We are talking about trauma, amputation, disfigurement and death here not an investment opportunity.

Dare To Think

“A penniless asylum seeker in London was vilified across two pages of the Daily Mail last week. No surprise there, perhaps – except that the villain in question has been dead since 1883. “Marx the Monster” was the Mail’s furious reaction to the news that thousands of Radio 4 listeners had chosen Karl Marx as their favourite thinker.” The Observer (17 July) Many people who read the works of Karl Marx realise that the popular concept that he has anything to do with Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin or Mao is nonsense, in fact that he was opposed to dictatorship and authority all his life. Start reading what Marx actually wrote and accept his challenge to think for yourself and bugger the Daily Mail.

Editorial: Bombings, Bombers and a Bomb (2005)

Editorial from the August 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recent traumatic events in London provide a poignant reminder of the depths of anger,  frustration and outrage simmering beneath the outward demeanour of many people who are leading apparently normal lives.

When such extreme acts of violence,with their tragic repercussions, happen so close to home, they understandably impinge more acutely on our consciousness  and touch us in a far more personal way. Straightaway our thoughts become crowded with the names and faces of any family or friends who might possibly have been travelling near the affected area and we anxiously seek assurance of their wellbeing.

Fortunately such barbarous occurrences remain comparatively rare in London or the other major cities of Western Europe but in some parts of the world, alas, they are an almost daily experience. Any half-decent, sensible human being quite properly deplores the invidious, misguided zeal – be it personal, political or religious – that spawns such a terrible, unreasoning thirst for bloody retribution in the name of whatever injustice or absolute truth. Political leaders, of course, waste no time in making a sanctimonious response by roundly condemning the “evil terrorists” and “brain-washed fanatics”.

Doubtless their perception of the public mood is accurate but the weasel words of politicians assuming the high moral ground are an unwelcome encroachment. They intrude upon the very real sympathy and feeling of support we reserve for the victims of such atrocities by inducing another kind of feeling altogether: one of profound nausea.

The breathtaking hypocrisy with which these serial perpetrators of ultimate, officially sanctioned, state violence, denounce those who, unofficially, pursue similar tactics – which, though horrendous, are on a far small scale – is truly stomachchurning.

They uniformly assert that only warped minds, with a callous disregard for human life, would deliberately choose to detonate bombs in an environment (such as a tube train) specifically selected to cause the most damaging effects and indiscriminately kill or injure the greatest possible number. And without giving any prior warning. And in the rush hour when the maximum number of people would be exposed.

State-approved violence has been responsible for tens of millions of deaths. The ethics of “legitimate” or “just” war have no bottom line. If there ever was such a bottom line, the saturation bombing of Hamburg, Dresden and Tokyo, generating the new military tactic of fire-storms, certainly plummeted below it. These raids resulted in vast numbers of victims exceeding by far any previous tally.

Sixty years ago, this month, on the 6th August 1945, the Japanese city of Hiroshima was virtually flattened – unnecessarily – by a single atomic bomb carried by a single plane. Three days later, another atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The city of Hiroshima was specifically selected (though obviously not by warped minds with a callous disregard for human life) as a target with an environment likely to cause the most damaging effects and indiscriminately kill or injure the greatest possible number. Many of its buildings were composed of paper, wood and straw. Mock-up structures built from similar materials had earlier been erected in the Utah desert for testing incendiary potential. Also, Hiroshima had been spared any previous aerial bombardment so that the precise effects of the explosion could be determined. The bomb was dropped at 8.15 am, without prior warning. In the rush hour when the maximum number of people were exposed. The official recorded number of deaths from the bomb is 186, 940.

Pathfinders: Is Socialist Theory Scientific? (2005)

The Pathfinders Column from the August 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is Socialist Theory Scientific?

“Nobody has yet proven that this experiment was safe,” says Marina Bay’s lawyer Alexander Molokhov, in the first day’s Moscow hearing of the amateur astrologist’s £170m lawsuit against Nasa, launched hours after the successful collision of the probe Deep Impact into the comet Tempel 1. Bay’s claim that such cosmological ‘vandalism’ has altered the world’s horoscope towards possible disaster can also not be proved false, and such lack of proof is clearly enough in the eyes of some lawyers to start proceedings these days, notwithstanding Nasa mission engineer Shadan Ardalan’s curt dismissal: “The analogy is a mosquito hitting the front of an airliner in flight. The effect is negligible.” (BBC News Online, 4 July).

The Moscow court is unlikely to be bamboozled by such chancers, but the attack on science is common enough: don’t do it unless you can prove it is safe.The problem is that science, with the usual exception of mathematics, can never actually prove anything, an apparent loophole exploited by everyone from 9/11 conspiracy theorists to neo-creationist Intelligent Design advocates. Now the law is being asked to test the assertion that astronomers can’t prove while astrologers don’t have to.

Socialists have every sympathy with scientists who find themselves under attack from unscientific prejudice and blatant opportunism, since this is not very dissimilar from our own experience. For a theory to be valid it should accord well with the facts, and offer one a way to disprove it. Thus religion and creationism are not valid scientific theories, whereas evolution and gravity are.

Socialist theory fits the first criterion, but what about the second? Is it possible to disprove it? Perhaps. If capitalism fed, clothed and looked after its people in peace and without coercion, socialism would not be disproved but it would be unnecessary. If genetic research uncovers an irreducible aggression or profit-seeking gene, socialism could be said to have been disproved. But nobody has yet found this gene, or shown any other evidence that would make socialism unviable.

 Meanwhile, like Marina Bay and her enterprising lawyer, our opponents expect us to prove everything we say while they are not obliged to provide any evidence in support of their argument, and indeed airily dismiss the very large volume of evidence against themselves.

The End of Mass Production?

A big question for socialist theorists is the matter of parts and supplies. While much of food production is likely to be localised, some highly specialised parts and accessories are not going to be generally available in the region. Global transportation would be a last and expensive resort, but what if many specialist machine components could simply be … emailed?

A new generation of 3D printers is making it possible to recreate perfect three dimensional objects from a software template which can be posted through an ordinary email server. At present the ‘ink’ is confined to wax and plaster powder so the finished models have limited durability, but work is already proceeding with fine grain steel using micro-heat welding instead of glue to hold the finished article together, and laser and water-jet cutters using emailed plans can work on heavy durable materials to make components as good as traditionally machined parts.In fact, with the rise of fabrication laboratories, or ‘fab labs’, individuals can have their own designs and specifications custommade on the spot (Scientific American, June 2005).

Once the labs have shrunk from roomsize to suitcases, we may be looking at the democratization – for a price – of the production process, or in fact, the reclaiming – within limits -of the means of production. The idea that mass production may be on its way out is not new:

“Mass production, the defining characteristic of the Second Wave economy, becomes increasingly obsolete, as firms install information intensive, often robotised manufacturing systems capable of endless, cheap variation, even customisation. The revolutionary result is, in effect, the de-massification of mass production.”  War and Anti-War – Alvin & Heidi Toffler (1993, Little, Brown and Co).

Being toffs who hang around with generals, politicians, think-tank drivers and other assorted toffs, the Tofflers are never overly concerned with how their capitalist utopia will impact on the lower orders, so they describe in perfect equanimity a Third Wave capitalism which even by today’s standards would be a catastrophe for workers, with widespread ‘oceans of poverty’ around ‘hi-tech  archipelagos’ such as California, Hong Kong or the Rhineland.

Capitalism’s development of customised production could hardly be expected to benefit the toiling masses for whom mass-production is both a treadmill and a treat factory. They would never be able to afford the luxury of individual consumer targetting. Nonetheless, the ability to micro-produce with minimal waste and distribution costs remains one of the most exciting innovations socialist society could possibly inherit, and one which it could put to very good use.

Paddy Shannon