The Scottish Season (1932)

From the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

Amongst the publications which help to brighten the butterfly lives of the idle rich is “The Sketch.” This paper records, in bright and witty language, the activities of our noble masters. In the issue of October 5th, 1932, “Marigold” describes the doings of her society friends, who have just returned from their annual pilgrimage to the French Riviera and are now in Scotland for the Scottish season. Apparently all the notabilities are there just now, including the Duchess of Bedford, who keeps herself fit upon the Macrihanish golf course, “one of the most magnificent in Scotland,” and so inaccessible that many people cannot get there. For her ladyship, however, this is no drawback, as she is most “air-minded,” and flits to and fro in her aeroplane, which she also uses to add to her already extensive knowledge of bird life, by flying to other places of bird interest.

We also learn that the Strathconas, who are immensely rich, love the lovely island of Colonsay, where they spend a large part of every summer, and keep open house for their many friends. All the guests must come by Lady Strathcona’s yacht, which is most luxurious, and well fitted out.

The page containing all this tittle-tattle is enlivened by some illustrations of that hoary superstition, so dear to the minds of our masters, that workers, when transferred to the new bug hutches provided for them, inevitably use the bath as a receptacle for coal. This idea about the coal in the bath is a bit out of date just now, however, because the funds so generously provided by the Public Assistance Committees hardly provide for such a luxury as coal; the workers will now be able to use the bath for a cold bath at least—provided that they have sufficient cash to purchase the necessary carbohydrates to replace the warmth lost through their immersion in cold water !

It is perhaps unnecessary to point out the contrast between the comfortable lives of our masters and those of ourselves. We know that when in work we get a wage barely sufficient to house, feed, and clothe ourselves, and when we are out of work, that, our position is well-nigh hopeless. J. L. Hodson, who has been investigating the position in Lancashire for the News-Chronicle, quotes in the issue of October 18th, 1932, the statement of Mr. Luke Bates, Secretary of the Blackburn Weavers, viz. : —

“The Superintendent of the Weavers’ Convalescent Home at Poulton told me that the Medical Officer there has recently said that 90 per cent. of the weavers coming to the Home are suffering from malnutrition. Those you see knocking about may not look much different, but I think they are taking it out of their stomachs ; they must be living on a reduced diet.”

Capitalist apologists have urged that Socialism would break up the home. We workers know from our own experience that in many cases the wife has to go to work to support a husband out of work through no fault of his own. But, as a result of the administration of the Means Test, Capitalism has still further broken up the homes of hundreds of the unemployed, and sons and daughters have had to go into furnished rooms in order to ensure their getting the meagre pittance allowed them by the Government, which they have themselves voted into power.

The wealth which enables our masters to fly about to magnificent golf courses is the surplus value of which the workers are robbed in the course of their employment. This surplus value flows to the master class through their ownership of the means of production (land, mines, and factories, etc.). Therefore, in order to remedy their position, all that the workers have to do is to appropriate the means of production. They cannot do this by forming processions and getting their heads broken by the police. The road to our emancipation lies through Parliament, which controls the Army, Navy, and Police, and by voting our delegates there, we shall be in a position to control those forces and to establish Socialism. These delegates will enter Parliament as instruments of a working-class political party, whose instructions they will carry out. The Socialist Party of Great Britain is the only genuine Socialist party in this country, and we invite all those who agree with our Declaration of Principles to join with us and work for the establishment of a system of society where each shall do his share for the common good.

Ramo.

A “Marxist” with a Heart Attack (1932)

From the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a series of articles appearing in the New Leader, entitled “The Danger of Orthodoxy,” Mr. J. Middleton Murry is making desperate efforts to graft on to Marxian economics a brand of emotionalism which he seems to think will make it more attractive. He finds Socialism, based on exact definitions and scientific analysis, too logical and convincing in a mathematical sense, but lacking in appeal to the heart. With him the heart should come first. He says :

“Therefore it is far more important that a man should be a complete Socialist at heart than that he should be a Marxist in his head. (It is not possible to be a complete Marxist in one’s head alone). For there is no difficulty in converting to Marxism a man who is a genuine Socialist at heart—that is, ready to give up everything for the establishment of complete economic equality among men.”

Now, a man does not think with his heart, but with his head. True, his heart has something to do with the process, as do all the organs of the body. To become a Socialist, however, a man must think, and thinking is the special function of the brain. Mr. Murry would not, of course, deny this. Even his “Socialist at heart” must first have what Mr. Murry calls the idea of “complete economic equality among men” in his head. But why he must be ready to give up so much for it is a mystery, seeing that he has nothing to give up but his slavery.

The brain is an organ that develops by use and is a better organ the more it is developed. But even the cross-word enthusiast does not rack his brains for the mere sake of development. There must always be an incentive to thought; usually it springs from material interests in some shape or other.

To use Mr. Murry’s phrase, the man who got the idea of “economic equality” must first have got the idea of economic inequality from his everyday experience. Consequently, however crude the process, it is a process of reasoning. Crude reasoning is often forcible, but seldom comprehensive, and the man who has only the two aforementioned ideas in his head is more easily confused or misled than the man who is capable of reasoning correctly from a series of connected facts or factors. The student of Marxian economics is, therefore, not only a better Socialist; he is better equipped to resist the wiles and intrigues of the political adventurer. But Mr. Murry will not have it that way. He says:—

“The fact is that Marxism, genuine dynamic Marxism, itself rests on an ethical postulate. It rests on the ethical postulate that the man who understands the historical process, and approves of what he believes must be its eventual outcome, will make himself the willing instrument of the process. Without this ethical resolve in the individual, Marxism becomes a mere armchair theory of revolutions.”

The words “historical process” are, of course, an abbreviation for the “materialist conception of history” discovered by Marx and Engels. The latter expresses it as follows:—

“That the economic structure of society at a given time furnishes the real foundations upon which the entire superstructure of political and juristic institutions, as well as the religious, philosophical and other abstract notions of a given period, are to be explained in the last instance.”

Abstract notions based on sentimental ideas of justice, duty, patriotism, brotherly love, etc., are quite common to the period in which we are living. They are the result of economic relationships. The class that owns all the means of wealth-production exacts duty and patriotism from the dispossessed. And while exploiting them do actually obtain brotherly love—or is it money-bag worship?—in place of a natural resentment. The well-paid moralists of the capitalist class have built up quite a respectable doctrine around the idea of self-sacrifice, and large numbers of workers are quite incapable of seeing realities, so strongly are they affected by these and similar sentiments.

Now, while it may be true that men often act purely from sentimental motives, Mr. Murry says that when actions are dictated by reason alone, non-action invariably follows. Reason and the will to act are common sense, while Socialism of the heart and ethical postulates are quite obviously abstract notions with no foundations on the solid earth. True, the heart has always been spoken of as the organ of good intentions ; but then, orthodoxy, that continually prates about this quality of the heart, is flatly opposed to Socialism. Consequently, Mr. Murry is responsible for a contradiction in terms, i.e., an ethical Socialist.

Moreover, according to him, the difference between the ethical Socialist and the Socialist without adjectives is the difference between action and inaction. The question of useful or useless action does not arise with him. Apparently that is irrelevant. Although the people most loudly advertising themselves as Socialists—the I.L.P.—have been nosing up a blind alley throughout their political existence. Even now, when their failure as a working-class party has forced them to take stock of their ideas, they are still befuddled with reforms that are based on capitalist ideas of justice, fairness, etc. The obvious course being to determine the cause of working-class poverty and the action necessary to end it.

The will to act in the case of the Socialist is not ethical, but an impulse to act which arises from self-interest. Convinced Socialists quite rightly assume that every worker who recognises the soundness of Socialism will act in accordance with his reasoned conclusions. Whether the new-comer does little or much in the movement depends on circumstances, temperament, opportunity, physical and mental qualities, etc. The totality of these individual efforts at a given moment constitutes the Socialist Movement, with the growth of which, individual effort becomes more and more unnecessary and only the question of counting heads remains.

The Socialist is not prompted by ethical considerations in his work for Socialism. He works according to the strength of his convictions and his desire for Socialism. There is no question of sacrifice. He puts time and effort into the movement that brings nearer the thing he wants. Mr. Murry calls this an ethical resolve in the individual. The capitalist calls it by other names. Much depends on the point of view, but Mr. Murry’s point of view does not square with either. The explanation, no doubt, lies with the party to which he belongs—a party that runs with the hare and hunts with the hounds.

F. Foan

Will Politics Do Good? (1932)

From the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

In discussing Socialism with one’s fellow workers, whilst agreeing that the present system of society is rotten and that something else will have to take its place, the statement is frequently made that “politics will do no good.” Another objection frequently raised is that the members of the working class are often such traitors to each other that it is impossible to conceive that they should work together in a co-operative spirit for the establishment of Socialism. In support of the latter statement, instances were given to the writer where, in a ‘bus and tram combine, a so-called “red-hot trade union socialist” had given away three of his fellow workers to the bosses, resulting in their dismissal; another case, where after an attempt to form a trade union, the leaders had been bought off and been given better jobs in the office, and also at the time of the shop stewards’ movement, where the shop stewards themselves had been bought off and given jobs as inspectors. Such instances as this are common throughout industry.

They are, however, merely illustrations of the principle, long ago put forward by Marx and Engels, that it is the economic conditions which determine morality or conduct. Under capitalism, whilst the interests of the workers as a class are identical, yet each individual worker is striving against the others to get into a job, to hold it, or to get a better job than his fellow worker, and some workers, in an effort to curry favour with the bosses, will betray their own fellow workers, or allow themselves to be bought off by their masters. It is the dependence of the workers upon the capitalist class for a living which causes the subservience and betrayals complained of. In a society where no man, through his ownership of the means of production, was in a position to control the lives of his fellow men, such betrayals could not occur, because there would be no boss to whom to run and tell the tale, or who could play off one worker against another by bribery.

Be it further noted that all the above instances occur in the industrial field as distinct from the political field. Is it to be inferred that, because the workers may sometimes betray one another on the industrial field, they would not do so upon the political held ? The answer depends to a certain extent upon the type of the political association. In the case of the Liberal and Tory parties, we know that very few workers are actually members of these parties, and are, hence, powerless to control the parliamentary member. The Labour members, at the elections, are financed largely by the trade unions, and they secure support from all sections of the electors by making various promises. Once a member is elected, there is no means of controlling his actions. In general, however, the member elected does act more or less in accordance with the wishes of his electors, who have voted for the continuance of the present system, and if, whilst he is a Member of Parliament, he changes some of his views or his policy, he often feels compelled to undergo another election to test the feeling of his electorate. A confusion of thought often arises because the Labour Party is supposed to represent the workers, and there have been so many instances where members of this party have gone over to the other capitalist parties. The programme of the Labour Party has often been examined in this paper and shown to be not essentially different from that of any other capitalist party. Various reforms are advocated, but none of them are likely to ameliorate in any essential degree the conditions of the workers; in fact, the general effect is to worsen their conditions and to facilitate the smoother running of the capitalist machine. Therefore, when the leaders of the Labour Party go over to some other capitalist party, they are simply carrying on their career without changing their principles.

We, the Socialist Party of Great Britain, claim to be the only political party genuinely representing the interests of workers. We are an association of workers democratically organised with the object of gaining political power from the capitalist class. No member is in a position to control any other and, therefore, none can betray any other. If a member of the Party were elected to Parliament, he would go as a delegate of the socialists who had elected him, and they would see that he carried out their instructions.

It is only through politics, by the capture of political power from the capitalist class, who, at present, are in a position to control the army, navy, and police force, that Socialism can be achieved. It is therefore the duty of all those who agree with us to join with us and work for the overthrow of the capitalist system.

R. M.

Editorial: Shorter Hours No Cure for Unemployment (1932)

Editorial from the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

Large numbers of people have been impressed with the suggestion that unemployment can be abolished or much reduced by shortening the hours of work while retaining capitalism. The argument takes the form that the overproduction of goods in relation to the demands of the market (with consequent falling prices and profits, and growing unemployment) can be met by reducing the hours of work. Now it is obvious that if wages were reduced along with hours (and assuming no intensification of work) the total volume of goods being produced would be smaller, but so would the total amount of wages. The problem would remain essentially the same as before, because the workers would have less money to spend, and this would off-set the smaller output.

Alternatively, the employers might pay the reduced wages to a larger number of workers, giving work to some unemployed. But in that case the total amount of wages would be the same as before (but spread over more workers) and the total output of goods would be the same as before (i.e., the shortening of hours would be off-set by the larger number of workers).

So that if wages are reduced along with hours the problem, of “overproduction” is not solved and unemployment is only reduced by reducing the wages of the workers generally.

Various labour leaders, having therefore rejected the idea of shorter hours with reduced wages, have stood firmly by the notion that the problem can be solved if hours are reduced and wages left unchanged. The Transport and General Workers’ Union have made much of an agreement fixed up with Mander Brothers, paint manufacturers, of Wolverhampton, under which hours are reduced from 47 to 40 without reduction of the minimum rates of pay. The agreement may or may not be a satisfactory one in other respects, but it certainly does not show a way of remedying unemployment, for the change is accompanied by a reorganisation of the works and the introduction of a new system of piece-rates winch will increase the output per head of the workers and will result in eventual dismissal of redundant staff. The only guarantee is that no dismissals shall take place for six months and that the dismissed men will then receive some “compensation.” (See Record, published by Transport Workers’ Union, October.)

In the meantime, the increased output at smaller costs will enable Manders to undersell their competitors and throw their workers into the ranks of the unemployed.

While the means of production and distribution remain in the ownership and control of a class instead of being the property of society, there is no solution of the poverty problem.

Editorial: Mussolini: The Reality behind the Shadow (1932)

Editorial from the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

The industrial city of Turin has hitherto been known as an area where a large number of workers have maintained unbroken hostility to Mussolini and the programmes of the Fascist Party. Recently, under the heading, “Mussolini Conquers Turin,” the Italian Correspondent of the Daily Express (October 22nd and 24th) described how Mussolini had ventured into this stronghold of his working-class opponents and had won them over by his display of courage. The enthusiasm, according to the correspondent, was immense, stupendous ! The Duce was greeted by thousands of cheering, yelling admirers. Turin lay willingly at his feet.

But the gilt on the gingerbread of Mussolini’s popularity is somewhat spoiled by the same correspondent’s account of the precautions taken by the hero to dissuade his opponents from giving expression to their opposition. Mussolini took no chances. First, there was an army of plain clothes detectives, 5,000 strong, rushed to Turin from all over Italy. Italian Air Force machines circled over Turin with orders to open fire on sight of any foreign aeroplanes heading for the city. (This was because, on a former occasion, Italian exiles showered anti-Fascist leaflets over some Italian towns.) Six hundred “suspects” (i.e., people suspected of not admiring Mussolini) were arrested prior to the visit. The route of the triumphal procession was kept a secret until the last moment. All doors facing on to the streets on the route were locked by police order, and on the night of Mussolini’s arrival all the windows in the streets which he traversed had to be illuminated. Lastly, every Fascist in Turin was fetched out to mount guard.

After all this, it is not surprising that the applause was not broken by one jarring note.

SPGB Meetings (1932)

Party News from the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

Roosevelt and the American Workers (1932)

From the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

The faith which the American workers have in the new President, Mr. Roosevelt, shows that, like the workers of England, they cherish the belief that somebody, someday, will rescue them from their poverty.

They have been told that the Roosevelt Government will be a business Government. In other words, the Cabinet will not consist of politicians, but of business men—men who will have the trade of the country at heart—men who will understand what is needed to put the U.S.A. on a good business footing.

And, blinding their eyes to the fact that business Governments have held sway in the past without bettering their lot at all, the workers of America are congratulating themselves and expecting Roosevelt and his Cabinet to give them better conditions. The possible passing of Prohibition has played a great part in winning votes in this well-boosted Presidential Election. Superficialities have, as usual, drawn the attentions of the working class away from the things that matter. What should prohibition or its abolition matter to them, when, in many cases they find it difficult to secure the bare necessities of life?

What should it matter to them which set of individuals composes their Government? The means of production, and the wealth the workers produce with these means, will still be in the hands of the capitalist class, and the workers will consequently remain poor.

There will still be a Secretary of Finance to keep an eye on the property interests of the American master class, whilst a Secretary of the Navy will perform his function of maintaining a fleet to protect American territory against other sections of capitalists.

Moreover, there will still be a Secretary of War who will not hesitate to send the youth of America on a mission of killing and mutilating if this is necessary in securing new markets and territorial advantages. And both Army and Navy will be used against the workers when capitalist interests require this.

In short, working class conditions will not be altered in the least. Unemployment and poverty will still exist, and there will still be present the dread of a future war. There is only one remedy. The overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a new social system—a system with the common ownership of the means of production and distribution as its basis. That, and that alone, will bring about the emancipation of the working class, not only of America, but of all countries.

F. Hawkins

Letter: Machinery and Socialism (1932)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent asks us what is our attitude towards those who condemn machine production and want to go back to handicraft methods.

“Some time ago, within the past year, I read an issue of the Saturday Evening Post, one of the most widely circulated weekly magazines in America, and a correspondent, Marcossan it was, gave an account of the character, aims and objects of the Nazi, or National Socialists in Germany in that issue of the Post.

Among the points he listed and described as features of that movement, was one that struck me as having a lot in common with the Socialist philosophy, and it was this : —

The Nazi’s organisation deplore the predominant role that the machine occupies, in this day and age, in the lives of the masses living within those countries that are for the most part industrialised.

They go in for rites and ceremonial functions that are reminiscent of Mediaevalism, as a reaction to the machine age, and they would revive the colourful picturesqueness of the people lived back in the period of the Holy Roman Empire.

However fallacious all this may seem to us, is there not something wholesome and worthy in a resentment against the necessity for being dominated by the machine, both in economic and social phases of life ? Many authorities agree in this; that the machine age has all but done away with a desire in the present generation for the acquisition of culture, i.e., literature, music and art, and the tendency on the part of the younger generation, so far as the development of their mental capabilities go, are all too one-sided, in the direction of motor mechanics and the repair of engines, etc. The types of people who can carve wonderful designs in wood-work, plaster or clay are only to be found in remote districts like the Bavarian Alps, the Black Forest, Sicily, and other places where the spirit of the Middle Ages still lingers on.”

Reply.

It may be as well to start off by explaining that the name used by the Hitler Party in Germany—”National Socialists”—does not justify the assumption that they have something in common with Socialists. Hitler, in the attempt to build up a large working class following, has found it useful to talk in the phrases of his opponents, the Social Democrats. But neither in his mouth nor in their mouths do these phrases betoken knowledge or acceptance of socialist principles.

Nor do we share Hitler’s alleged longing for medievalism and hatred of machine production. That such a hatred should exist is natural enough among workers who knew or have heard from their parents of the easier conditions under which handicraft production was carried on before the craftman’s products were swept off the market by the cheaper products of the capitalist factory. But it is not correct to describe the workers’ subjection to the capitalist as being simply a condition of “being dominated by the machine,” and it is also fallacious to assume that the course of industrial development can be reversed. If it were possible to reproduce the greatly overpraised conditions of the Middle Ages the same developments which undermined feudalism and led to its replacement by capitalism and machine production would be at work, leading on to the same results.

The chief objection, however, to our correspondent’s argument is the belief that the disabilities under which the workers now suffer are due to their subjection to machines. It is true that machine production, like every other form of production, imposes certain restrictions on the producers. It is true, for example, that it is necessary for all the crew of a boat or a train to be ready for work at a stated time, although this may involve considerable discomfort for those who would prefer to stay in bed for another hour. But what of the discomfort of having to get up early to milk the cows ? What of the inconvenience of having to make hay while the sun was shining, instead of at some other time more pleasing to the mediaeval peasant ? Some machine work is monotonous under capitalist conditions (perhaps some monotony is unavoidable under any conditions), but what of the deadly monotony and brutal exhaustion of primitive agriculture, and of housework ?

Machinery possesses two associated possibilities. It will, when socially owned, act as a saver of much unpleasant and exhausting labour, and it will make it possible so to increase the production of articles needed by the population as a whole that the necessary hours of labour will be greatly reduced. When this happens the majority will have opportunities of recreation and self-development now denied to them. It is not the machine which prevents the workers from living full lives, but the private ownership of the machines, along with the remainder of the means of production and distribution.

Editorial Committee.

Death Takes Away Another Old Comrade (1932)

Obituary from the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

We regret to say that Comrade G. Seach died in a hospital on November 21st, after an illness of several months. So little did he think that death was near, that the day before he died he was regretting that bad health had kept him from participating in the work of the organisation, but he expected to carry on again when he came out of hospital.

Comrade Seach was, perhaps, better known to older members of the Party. Before and immediately after the War he did a considerable amount of speaking, which finally brought on throat trouble. After speaking for twenty minutes, he suffered from bleeding of the throat. On this account he had to give up platform work at last.

He was a sturdy comrade and a valuable worker for the Party, and it is with deep sorrow we place him among the growing band of those who are only our memories. To his family we extend our sympathy.

A Mad World (1932)

From the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

(From the Star, October 13th, 1932.)

Over 20,000 British out-of-work settlers stranded in Australia are begging to be brought home. Forty children yesterday left British homes and orphanages for “down under.” It’s a mad world, my masters.

Newcastle-on-Tyne and Gateshead (1932)

Party News from the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

With a view to extending its activities to Gateshead, the Newcastle-on-Tyne branch has transferred its business meetings to the Gateshead district. The branch will henceforth be known as the Gateshead Branch.

A Class for the study of Marxian Economics is being formed, and non-members are specially invited. Full particulars may be obtained from the Secretary, Edmund Howarth, 95, Bewick Road, Gateshead.

Producing and paying (1932)

From the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent asks if it is correct that “Labour is the source of all wealth.”

The answer to this question is “No.” To say that “Labour is the source of all wealth” would mean that Labour of itself is some kind of inexhaustible reservoir from which wealth (articles of use—or use-values) can be extracted, and would leave out of account the part played by Nature. It is the sort of loose phrase that might be justified in casual conversation if the part played by Nature is left to be understood, but as a definition to be used in studying economic laws it is useless and likely to lead to unsound conclusions.

Nature provides the materials to which labour is applied, and Nature and Labour play an inseparable part in the process of wealth production. Marx criticised the phrase “Labour is the source of all wealth.” He wrote: —

“The phrase quoted is found in all primers for children, and is accurate insofar as it is left to he understood that the work is effected with the aid of the appropriate object and means. But a Socialist programme ought not to permit itself the use of such bourgeois locutions; it ought not to ignore the existence of the conditions upon which the meaning of the phrase solely depends.” (“Criticism of the Gotha Programme.”)

The correct statement of the source of wealth is that wealth is produced by the application of human labour to Nature-given material.

Another correspondent, while agreeing with the above definition, thinks that it contradicts our contention that rates and taxes are not a burden on the working class or, as he puts it, that the workers “do not pay for armaments.”

Here, again, is need for precision. The idea behind our correspondent’s difficulty is that if the workers produce all wealth, then they must pay for everything. The ability to pay is associated in his mind with the ability to produce. But this is a mistaken notion. The workers do not produce for themselves but for their employers. The whole of the articles produced belong to the employers, who sell them and receive the proceeds of the sale. Out of the proceeds they pay away various amounts, including the wages of the workers and rates and taxes. If the armament burden could be reduced the capitalists would benefit by paying away less of their profits in the form of taxes for armaments. Not so the workers. The workers have no means of paying for anything other than the wages they receive (supplemented by charity, social services, etc). If taxes are reduced, and if, as a consequence, prices fall, the workers’ cost of living also falls, and with it their wages. The workers produce the wealth but do not own it.

The tax burden which the various groups of property owners are constantly trying to pass off on to each other, cannot be passed off on to the propertyless class.

DON.

Demands which Have Not Effective Backing (1932)

From the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

During the final stages of the debate on the Means Test Bill in the House of Commons, Mr. Seymour Cocks, M.P. (Labour, Broxtowe), was reported as saying; “Men are unemployed, not through their own fault, but as a result of the economic system under which they live. That being so, the fault lies with society.”

In saying that much, Mr. Cocks stated a fact so well-known that it has become almost a platitude. Prominent men of other parties have said the same thing years ago. It is not necessary to belong to the Labour Party to become acquainted with a fact that is so obvious.

The capitalist system is undoubtedly responsible for unemployment, which is only a part of the general evil of poverty for which the system is to blame. When the workers are considering Mr. Cocks’s suggested remedy they should keep that fact in mind. His remedy is as follows: —

“We say they have a right to demand from society everything required to keep them in strength, health, and self-respect. This should not be looked on as State relief, but as compensation paid by society in default of providing work.”

There is, of course, no obstacle preventing the unemployed from making any demands they choose. The workers have been demanding this, that and the other thing, ever since they have had leaders, with varying degrees of non-success. Successive governments have permitted them to go on demanding. Most of the demands put forward by labour leaders, in the name of the workers, have been made on the Government in office at the time. But Mr. Cocks makes his demand on society.

In blaming society for unemployment Mr. Cocks is right; in suggesting a remedy that can only be sponsored by the capitalist class, he is wrong. If the social system is to blame, then society, as a whole, is responsible. The capitalist class because they are interested in preserving unemployment; and the working class because they fail to understand its cause and cure. While the working class submit to capitalist exploitation—the cause of poverty and unemployment—and by their votes give the capitalist class control, the latter, quite naturally, deal with the question along lines that suit their interests as a class.

To put the case in a nut-shell, unemployment is only a part of the greater and more general evil from which the workers suffer. But as a class, the latter outnumber the capitalists many times. Organised in the Socialist Party on the basis of their class they could easily swamp all capitalist parties, and gaining political control, establish Socialism, when all forms of poverty due to exploitation would be ended.

The responsibility is on the working class to bring this about. They are the class that suffers unemployment and the fear of unemployment. Only the class that suffers can bring about its own emancipation. Demands are useless unless backed by an effective force, and unnecessary when this force is on the workers’ side.

Mr. Cocks’s last statement, that, unemployment pay “should not be looked on as State relief, but as compensation paid by society in default of providing work,” shows that he is not opposed to the capitalist system in itself. He is quite prepared to leave the system intact in return for the right of the unemployed to demand the necessaries of life.

Right without might is an illusion of the sentimentalist. Might lies behind the guns of the armed forces, and it allows what “rights” it deems fit.

F. Foan

Sting in the Tail: Good news, bad news (1995)

The Sting in the Tail column from the December 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Good news, bad news

The publication of a 400-page Genome Directory as a supplement to Nature Magazine should be really good news. It is an attempt to provide a map of a large portion of the 100,000 or so human genes. Medical experts believe it could be a step on the road to finding the genetic causes, and eventually the cure, of many killer diseases.

But we live in capitalism, so this good news has a major downside to it. In America where many companies provide their workers with health care insurance as part of their wage, we learn how such advances are being used to cut the capitalists' health care liabilities:

“To avoid hiring people with ‘disease genes' some companies ask job applicants about their family medical histories or ask for samples of blood or cell tissue without revealing that they will be used for genetic tests " (Herald. 19 October).

Job losses inevitable

That proposed merger of Lloyd's bank and the TSB has once again had banking unions complaining about likely job losses. They pointed to the increased profits of the Big Four last year—up £1.5 billion to £5 billion, and Ed Sweeney of BIFU argued that:

“The shareholder will do very nicely and top executives will get fatter pay cheques. The least they can do is ensure staff there will be no sackings ” (Guardian, 11 October).

Those increased profits are mainly due to fewer bad debts and not to any growth in banking activity. Then there is fierce competition for business from building societies and now the insurance companies are entering into banking. Also, new technology means that banks simply don’t need as many workers now, so the pressure is on to cut costs.

Fair enough, unions must protest at job losses, but oh for even a glimmer of recognition from them that their real enemy is capitalism and not mere mergers, executives or shareholders.

Of cops and hookers

Members of the working class have to sell their abilities to work for wages and salaries. Some even have to sell their bodies.

“Prostitution is not legalised, yet in genteel Edinburgh there are about 400 women at work in saunas or massage parlours, earning £2,000 per month, according to a recent survey.

"Trying to stop prostitution is like trying to compress water: all you do is displace it. It will come squeezing out of the sides somewhere else, ’ says Tom Wood, assistant Chief Constable of Lothian and Borders police." (Independent, 26 September).

If the assistant Chief Constable had prefaced his remark with “Inside a buying and selling system like capitalism . . ." no-one could have disagreed. But he didn’t, so let us be quite plain about this matter.

The only way to stop prostitution is the establishment of the classless, private property-less society. Inside that system the 400 hookers and the even more numerous policemen can start doing worthwhile and dignified work for the first time.

Hell drivers

Ever felt a little queasy on the motorway as you passed one of those mammoth heavy lorries and wondered if it was swaying a bit on the road? Well start feeling really queasy for a report in the Observer (22 October) makes frightening reading:

“Lorry drivers forced to work illegal hours by unscrupulous employers are to blame for up to 200 road deaths a year. Haulage firms, prompted by the recession to cut costs to the minimum, are pushing drivers to break the law or face dismissal."

When you read that between 600 and 1,000 people die in accidents involving HGVs every year in Britain; that 20 percent of these are caused by lorry driver fatigue and that up to 40 percent of the drivers have been asked to exceed the legal limit of 10 hours a day, you may come to the conclusion that the sway you detected was because the driver was half-asleep at the wheel.

It is just another example of capitalism lowering costs to boost profits and to hell with people’s lives.

“Support” — Tory style

Last November we mentioned on this page that the Young Conservatives were “set for the chop” because they had become an embarrassment to the Tory Party. This provoked an indignant letter in the January issue from a YC who told us:

“The Young Conservatives are not for the chop; both the Prime Minister and the Party Chairman have pledged their support for the organisation. ”

What this “support” amounts to was revealed in the Guardian (13 October). Tory’ Central Office has closed its youth department and the YCs now have to share the services of “one tenth of a person” at Central Office with Conservative Students.

Often, when the Tories have wanted to kill off some state benefit or allowance but without causing a row, they have left it to, in their own words, “wither on the vine”. The YCs are looking like a bunch of mouldy grapes to us.

Beyond cynicism (1995)

From the December 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The battle against capitalism seems to me to be an impossible task. You say socialism can only be established by the majority wanting it—this is true but capitalism will never let that happen. They control television, media and education and they are experts in propaganda tactics. Leaflets, posters, talks, meetings, etc. are not powerful enough. The capitalists know this and that is why they let you operate.

If socialism did spread here in the capitalist western world and the capitalists saw it as a real threat they would stamp it out immediately, by any means necessary, remember they have everything to lose. But they wouldn't even need to take any drastic measures, it would only take a few propaganda programmes on TV and a few articles in the tabloids anyway. The majority are easily manipulated, conditioned and controlled.

The majority are not even concerned with politics or life on a global scale, most people are more concerned with materialism, wealth, sex and violence. I know I must sound like I lack faith in the human race but I must admit I do. When do you realistically think socialism on a global scale can come about? Are we talking decades or hundreds or thousands of years?”

This doleful missive of defeatist pessimism has been sent to us by a reader from Surrey. It is fair to assume that he is not consumed by high expectations for the future. In this he is not alone. Most people today are hopeless, in relative degrees of dejection about the future of society. They have come to expect the worst, and all too often experience worse than the worst that they expected. We who are socialists, filled with a passion fed by understanding that history does change and the future can be different and better, would be foolish to ignore the political sighs of such Jeremiahs as our correspondent. For hopelessness itself is the enemy of positive action and the anticipation of failure to build a decent society makes real such failure. The cynics should not be ignored or sneered at as fools. Negativity is not answered by the constructive intones of derision, but on the basis of scientific logic and historical vision; nothing less will do.

This has been a century of cruelly extinguished hopes. The embarrassed blushes of those who applauded the “justice” of the Stalinist purges and heaped praise upon the state-capitalist hell-holes which posed as “socialist states” will not conceal the false faith in the Religion of Leninism which pseudo-socialists promoted, so distorting everything that the real hope of socialism offers; the workers who rejoiced gullibly in 1945 as British industries were nationalised as “public utilities” have had to see how in half-a-century the profit motive, which was always built-in to state-managed capitalism, has crushed the hopes of the public who were tricked into thinking that industries belonged to them; those who believed that scientific reason would culminate in a rationalised capitalist system this century have had to watch in sheer horror as millions of humans were pushed into the gas chambers and the gulags, as bombs of unimaginable destructiveness wiped out whole cities and populations, as the gross inhumanity of the mass torture of millions through slow starvation has proceeded while food is destroyed lest profits fall. To cultivate boundless optimism amidst the ruins of hope and the realities of capitalism’s manifest evils is not a task for the faint-hearted.

False hope of piecemeal reform

What has been the most pernicious lie of this century? It is that hope for the future lay in the gradual, imperceptible, but certain amelioration of capitalism through the process of reform, The false hope of piecemeal improvement of an essentially cancerous system captured the imaginations of millions, exhausted their energies in the reformist struggle to humanise the profit system, and then left them dumbed by frustration. Whether the changes were to come through the division lobbies of Westminster or by gaining control of local councils or trade union committees or by humanitarian slogans or empty “green” appeals for a nicer, gentler world, the system which puts profit before need has persistently spat the hope of humane capitalism back in the face of its advocates. The progressive enthusiasm of millions has been stamped out in this way.

Dare we imagine how different it would have been if that energy—or even a half or a tenth of that energy—which has gone into reforming capitalism had gone into abolishing it? With a movement great in number, if still a minority, how much stronger would we be if our fellow workers had not experienced that bitter disillusionment of failed reformism and the indignity of abandoning principles for the sake of short-term gains? Should we who struck to undiluted socialist principles— the world for the workers with production solely for use, and nothing less—be the ones to bow our heads in defeat when the policy of Reform, not Revolution, has so miserably failed?

Yet how easy it is to step out of the shadow of reformist frustration and commit the two errors of our hopeless correspondent. First, deny that workers are intelligent enough to ever see through their own oppression and exploitation. Claim that they are suckers and suckers they will forever be. Second, attribute to the small class of parasites who now own and control the earth and its abundant resources huge powers of persuasion and coercion. Imagine that the capitalist will eternally have a confident smile on his face and you can be sure that he will. These are not verifiable observations, but the sigh of a battered wage-slave who begs to be persuaded that his miser)' for the future is unfounded.

Is it really true that workers will put up with this system forever? One percent of the population in Britain alone own a quarter of the marketable wealth and five percent own more than half. In several other countries the statistics of class inequality are more stark; in all modern nations do such figures of class division apply. Will the overwhelming majority of the world’s population forever consent to live and die for the profits of a small minority? We know that the workers of the world form the overwhelming majority of the population, and we know that it is the workers’ intelligence and hard work which keeps society going (from the building site to the operating theatre), and we know also that it is the nature of human intelligence to explore ever more and expand ever further.

Indeed, the propaganda of those who have a vested interest in workers’ political ignorance has been remarkably successful so far, but against what has it had to contend? The organised voice of principled socialists has been so small that the fraudulence of religion and the misinformation of education and the trickery of the tabloids have had an easy run. This will not be so when the considerable numbers of those discontented under capitalism move from self-defeating schemes to improve the system to a scientific movement to remove the system. The history of organised socialists is even shorter. It is a mistake to deduce from such limited experience that workers will never apply their intelligence to removing the cause of their problems. It is not a case of having “faith” in humans, but of learning from history that humans are characterised by a tremendous ability to adapt their social environment to fit in with their need to survive in greater contentment.

Seeing through the lies

Will the capitalists be able to stem the flood of working-class socialist consciousness by simply putting an article in the Sun or running a scare story about socialists on the TV? It is precisely when the socialist movement is growing that such tactics will be counter-productive. The more lies an intelligent human is told the more he or she will rebel against the liar. It is now, at a time of majority political ignorance, that such tactics may work, not when workers are getting up off their knees. Take the example of the Christian religion in Britain: for years it dominated the minds of peasants and workers because the victims were ignorant and therefore scared to criticise; once criticism began the efforts of the religionists to defend their mumbo-jumbo by accusing materialists of gross depravity and claiming that they had never stood for nonsensical beliefs (which they always had) led them into even greater discredit.

As for the claim that the capitalists might use violence to stop the establishment of socialism, well they might, but what chance would they stand against a conscious movement of well-organised workers? Killing its opponents is hardly likely to win converts to the cause of capitalism; on the contrary, it will create ever more dedicated enemies. What evidence is there that the armed forces and police, who are only wage slaves in uniform, would allow themselves to be used to murder their brothers, sisters, parents and friends whose sole crime would be to stand for a world in which nobody would be so degraded as to have to become a state killer or a cop? The suggestion that the simple alternative to such class war would be for the capitalists (many of whom may come to realise that they as humans have much to gain from a society of humane equality) to publish a few articles in the tabloids and thereby wipe out the political intelligence of the entire movement which has threatened them is an incredible scenario. Sure, those who are deluded can be made more deluded by the media of delusion-making; but can a whole movement which is so strong that the media needs to attack it be forced to regress intellectually as a result of the cunning efforts of the Murdoch press?

Evidence of history

The cynical loss of faith in humanity is not a matter upon which socialists can offer consolation to our dispirited correspondent. Our expectations are not based upon faith. Faith is a substitute for reason. The question of historical change is not a matter of optimistic or pessimistic moods, but of examining real material social relations. Are the relations of contemporary society in line with how we could live, given the development of the forces of production to a level where we could produce enough goods and services of a high quality for everyone— indeed, for several times the cuncnt population of the world? Clearly, these are outmoded social relationships. Wage labour and capital are obsolete obstacles to the realisation of decent and materially satisfied lives for all of us.

The evidence of history, as Marx so ably explained, is that when there is a conflict between the forces of production and the relations of production the latter fall in line with the former. Production for profit is out of date, it is harder and harder for defenders of this system to think of policies to make it sound attractive or even workable. That is why all political parties supporting capitalism now speak more than ever with one voice: the unconfident monotone of the ideologically bankrupt. Production solely for use is long overdue. Socialists do not believe that the pattern of historical development will be different in our own age from the long past when those with an interest in change have ultimately opted for change.

Of course, the socialist transformation of society is different from all previous ones. It must be the work of the majority acting for themselves by themselves. There has been no shortage of diversions along the way. Pitiful has been the wasted energies of workers who, instead of uniting uncompromisingly for the socialist alternative, have gone for reformist or statist or other futile options. But such is history: we socialists are made of stronger stuff than those who would give up on the entire human species just because the greatest change in human history' has taken a few decades being talked about but not yet enacted.

And how much longer must we wait? Our correspondent, thousand-year diary in hand, seeks to know the date of victory. He is already an expert on the dates of failure. No doubt he had counterparts in South Africa who told black workers that it would take decades—nay, centuries—before they would win the vote. And surely the bar-room dissident in Bucharest, Moscow or Prague who suggested that with force of numbers the workers could deny power to their state-capitalist dictators was regarded width more than the occasional cynical sneer. How easy it is to plot a prosperous future for this misery-causing system; to be sure, nobody will mind and nobody will care if such banal hopelessness proves prophetic. There are no prizes for predicting that the future under capitalism will be lousy. But the prize to be gained by transcending the rut of cynical inaction is the world and its abundant wealth which will be ours—the property of all—as soon and as long as the majority cease to be in mental bondage to the illusion of the impossibility of their own freedom.

Steve Coleman