MODERN CAPITALISM
The foreign policy of Pitt, who used the financial power of Britain to subsidise the European States; to fight against each other, resulted in Britain, due to her geographical position, being almost the only country in Europe wherein industry proceeded unmolested. So great was the demand for English goods that it was impossible to produce them quickly enough. The difficulty lay not in finding raw materials, because Engels shows that it was impossible to work up the large stores of wool then on hand. A great subdivision of labour took place before the introduction of the steam engine. The manufacturing system—which must not be confused with the factory system—begins by speeding up and intensifying the productive capacity of the labourer. On the other hand, the great Industrial Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century begins with a revolution in the tools of production. With the invention of Watt’s steam engine industry entered into its new period. This new and powerful driving force was able to drive the tool or machine—a machine being simply a complex tool working at an extraordinary speed. The invention of Watt’s engine made possible the utilisation of the great mineral deposits of Britain. Then began the great shifting of the population to the parts of the country where industry could be best conducted. Here we observe, again, the mobile nature of industry and the need for a “free” or mobile population. “From 1770 onwards a student with a geological map and some knowledge of the economic data of the new trades might have predicted a priori not where the industrial centres might be, but where they must be.
The productive capacity of Britain leaped forward at a phenomenal rate. The revolution in the methods of commodity production made it possible for the British capitalist class to undersell every other country in the world. Britain became the workshop of the world. Not only were foreign manufacturers undersold; at home the smaller capitalists, unable to compete with the great machine industry, were crushed, and their numbers helped to swell the ranks of the proletariat. The immediate benefits of the Industrial Revolution increased the economic power of the capitalist class. The workers, whose capacity to create wealth was greater then than at any previous period, were beaten and battered down to the lowest level, relatively speaking, • ever experienced in the history of English Labour. Modern economists argue that an increase in national wealth is shared by the workers. The conditions of the workers at the opening of the nineteenth century prove that the workers’ share of wealth is not determined by the amount of national wealth, but by the price which they, as sellers of the commodity, labour-power, obtain in the shape of wages on the labour market. At no period in social evolution was the truism so apparent that riches are but the obverse side to poverty. The Venetian Monk, Ortes, an acute student of economics, says:—the abundance of wealth with some people is always equal to the want of it with others.” Another writer—Storch—speaking of the workers, says:—” The progress of social wealth begets this useful class of society which performs the most wearisome, the vilest, the most disgusting functions, which takes, in a word, on its shoulders all that is disagreeable and servile in life, and procures thus for other classes leisure, serenity of mind, and convential dignity of character.” “Thanks to the advance of industry and science,” says Sismondi,” every labourer can produce every day much more than his consumption requires. . . Exertion to-day is separated from its recompense; it is not the same man that first works and then reposes; but it is because the one works that the other reposes.
. . . . The indefinite multiplication of the productive powers of labour can then only have for result the increase of luxury and enjoyment of the idle rich.” And Sismondi also says: “it can almost be said that modern society lives at the expense of the proletarians on what it keeps out of the remuneration of labour.” At a later period in the nineteenth century Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons (1843) admitted :— It is one of the most melancholy features in the social state of this country that we see, beyond the possibility of denial, that while there is at this moment a decrease in the consuming powers of the people, an increase of the pressure of privations and distress, there is at the same time a constant accumulation of wealth in the upper classes, an increase of the luxuriousness of their habits, and of their means of enjoyment.” At the same period Prof. H. Fawcett declared:—” The rich grow rapidly richer, whilst there is no perceptible advance in the comfort enjoyed by the industrial classes.” At the beginning of the twentieth century the social relation between the workers and the property owners had .widened. In the year 1909 Mr. Lloyd George said :— “It is rather a shame for a rich country like ours— probably the richest country in the world, if not the richest country the world has ever seen—that it should allow those who have toiled all their days to end in penury and possibly starvation.”
Such were the conditions created by the Industrial Revolution. The development of Capitalism makes the position of the workers ever less secure. The workers bereft of their small patch of land were completely at the mercy of the owners of the means of life. The wage-earners instinctively realised that they would have to defend their own interests. Thus we trace the rise of trade unions from the middle of the eighteenth century. As the Industrial Revolution proceeded and crushed out the small handicraftsmen, riots and strikes occurred, and machines were smashed by the “Luddites.” In the years 1799-1800 Acts were passed which prohibited the right of the workers to combine.
At the opening of the nineteenth century the workers’ struggle against the State was reinforced by the political agitation of the Radicals, who demanded the extension of the franchise and the reform of the electoral system. The Radicals, assisted by men like Cobbett, Paine, Hume, Place, etc., fought on behalf of the small property owners who had no vote. By linking up their cause with that of the workers, who were seeking the right to combine, the Radicals incidentally strengthened their own movement. During the Napoleonic wars the British State was too busy fighting for “freedom abroad to tolerate political and economic demands for freedom at home. The capitalists resented the combination of workers in unions because it interfered with profits; the landlords bitterly opposed the demands of the Radicals because they feared the stability of the constitution was threatened. The period was a reign of terror. The policy of Pitt and Castlereagh was one of brutality and oppression. Small wonder that Adam Smith said:—” Whenever the Legislature attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters.” The demands of the workers for the rights of industrial organisation, and the demands of the Radical political reformers were met with abuse and persecution. The success of the French Revolution made the Government most tyrannical against the so-called revolutionaries at home.
It was claimed in the King’s speech (1st December, 1793) that a desperate conspiracy was on foot to destroy the Constitution and uproot law and order. It is also worthy of note that the despotism of the State increased during the French wars (1793-1815). A series of Acts were enforced—some passed as “temporary” were in operation for 32 years! The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended (1794); the Treasonable Practice Acts destroyed the right of free speech, printing, and writing, (this Act empowered the Government to imprison anyone, and there was no need for proof or evidence against the accused). The Seditious Meetings Acts empowered any magistrate to break up a public meeting; the introduction of stamp duties increased the price of papers, and a keen censorship controlled printers. The fear that the working class, which becomes active from this time, might organise industrially led to the passing of an act making trade combinations or unions illegal. Political societies were suppressed by a law which placed reading-rooms and debating clubs in the same category as brothels. The period was notorious for the brutal sentences meted out by the State to serious and zealous reformers. State-endowed judges and Crown lawyers, “scavenging in the reports of spies and agents provocateurs,” sentenced men for alleged” conspiracy.” Many honest workers were imprisoned, transported, and executed on trumped-up evidence. For criticising Russian tariffs three men were tried before Lord Kenyon. There were undoubted rumblings of revolt, but it was worked up by the insane persecution of the State. Despotism was defended upon the grounds that it was necessary in order to enable the Government to prosecute the war. But the “enemy” which seemed to attract the energy of the Government, and which Pitt savagely prosecuted, was the band of men at home striving to defend elementary liberty of thought, speech, and action. The State feared the workers and the Radicals. It therefore utilised its power to crush their propaganda. Those who attacked the Radicals for seeking to destroy the Constitution practically did away with the Constitution in order to root up Radicalism. Sir Erskine May said that the Constitution had been suspended.
After the ‘Napoleonic wars the smaller capitalists— the middle class—became active in the agitation for political reform and the extension of the franchise. This was merely a conflict between the landed and capitalist interests. By granting the vote to the middle class the power of industrial capital was strengthened against the power of the landlords. It was the former who, with the aid of the workers, backed up that contentious measure the famous Reform Bill of 1832. The workers were not merely left out, they were, as Mr. McCarthy says, “shouldered out.” A few years later the Chartist movement was organised. The hope of the working-men Chartists lay in the desire to secure political reform as a means to improving their economic position it was the early fusion of the middle class and this workers which taught the latter to look to the State as a means of having their grievances redressed. Unfortunately this middle-class idea is prevalent to-day and has been propagated by many who call themselves Socialists.
The rapacity of the capitalist class, however, forced the wage-earners to throw up defensive organisations in the shape of trade clubs and trade unions. It is a fact worth noticing that, while Capitalism was in its laisser-faire period, and while it was theoretically opposed to State intervention, the capitalist class was always eager to use the State against the workers. The new factory system presented a series of workshop problems which the capitalists dealt with privately. So long as the individual masters had the power to successfully combat Labour’s demands in the workshop, the capitalists did not seek the aid of the State. As soon, however, as the workers became rebellious the masters used the State to protect their propertied interests and to restore “order.” When it was a matter of Free Trade, in order to get cheaper labour-power the Manchester school of capitalists, who so resolutely opposed State intervention where their own interests were involved, were as eager for State interference as any modern middle-class Fabian. Despite their criticism of State intervention, the capitalists during the laisser faire period always looked upon the State as a glorified policeman for keeping the workers in subjection.
The growth of Britain’s commercial supremacy required the free importation of raw materials necessary for an industrial and manufacturing nation. The desire to lower the cost of subsistence and to thus lower wages led to the introduction of cheap corn. The economic interests and the expansion of British Capitalism therefore manifested itself in the political struggle for Free Trade and the Repeal of the Corn Laws. The passing of these Acts was the triumph of the capitalist interests over the interests of the landlords. Despite these political reforms the workers were still dissatisfied. The Liberals had sought to pacify the workers by contending that the Repeal of the Corn Laws and introduction of Free Trade were reforms inaugurated in the interests of Labour. It was difficult for the wage-earners to reconcile the reforming “zeal of the Liberals with their virulent opposition to the Factory Acts and Trade Unions. On the other hand, the landed interests strove to gain the support of the workers by passing the Ten Hours Bill and the Factory Acts. The two sections of the ruling class were eager to pacify the workers by passing reforms at each other’s expense. Thus factory owners like Cobden and Bright were quite willing to repeal the Corn Laws at the expense of the landlords; whereas the rack-renting Lord Shaftesbury was enthusiastic regarding a shorter working day in factories, but was not so keen about the conditions of agricultural workers. The granting of reforms, like the Education Acts, made the workers more efficient wealth producers. Likewise the granting of a limited suffrage to male householders of the working class fostered the belief that the State was the institution which could aid Labour. This also led to the superficial theory, advocated by sentimental Labourists, “that the State is the people.”
Following the repeal of the Corn Laws and the introduction of Free Trade, British Capitalism was able to undersell every other manufacturing country. So phenomenal was the expansion of British industry, so great was the demand for British products, that the industrial machine was worked at high pressure. The capitalists were making such large profits that it did not pay them to quarrel with the wealth-producing wage-earners. During this period the theory that the interests of Capital and Labour are identical was promulgated; the larger trade unions were founded with their cry of a “fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work’ and that combination meant “defence not defiance”; while the middle class permeated the working-class movement with its bourgeois ideas on social reform. To the reformer the wages system seemed to be a desirable state of society; it only required to be reformed, or at best slightly modified. In this way trade unionism received its purely capitalistic conceptions and ideas; and the Labour movement assimilated theories which looked upon the wages system as the highest expression of social perfection.
With the unification of the German States, with the industrial advance of France after 1871, with the rapid development of America, Britain began to realise that it would be necessary to fight to retain her position in the world’s markets. In 1876 the more important capitalist nations, seeking an outlet for their surplus goods, commenced that struggle for new markets which, from that year to this, became more and more menacing to the preservation of peace. At first the competition was of an easy kind; but as capital in the various countries centralised and concentrated, as production leaped forward with increasing bounds, in the same measure the struggle became fiercer between the competing nations. The rapid development of the iron and steel trade, with its demand for mineral lands, brought the industrial and landed interests closer together. An illuminating piece of economic history could be unfolded by drawing up a list of the marriages which took place about this time between the families of the industrial capitalists and landed aristocrats. The landed and steel interests are now merged in the party of Imperialism, which has altered the basic theories of Liberalism and Conservatism. The landed and large capitalists have dropped their historic quarrel for two reasons. Their interests are becoming more identical and they require mutual support in face of the revolutionary movement of Socialism. It is only during periods of social unrest, when the attention of the discontented propertyless class is directed towards the cause of their poverty, that we get a revival of the attacks upon the landed aristocracy. Thus during 1909, a period of desperation for the workers, the wage-earners were misled by the clap-trap of “Limehouse “orations, and by politicians who were at a later date to prove themselves as treacherous as they were pitiless and hypocritical.
The working-class movement grows clearer in viewpoint in the same measure that the capitalist system develops its contradictory tendencies. Thus at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution the workers’ aims were difficult to discern apart from the aims of the smaller capitalists. The Chartist movement witnessed the advance of the workers in boldness of demands; but due to lack of a definite aim and object this movement passed away. The London dock strike revealed a new spirit in the industrial artisan. And at the beginning of the twentieth century the British Socialist movement, while realising that Capitalism had to be removed, was very hazy as to how Socialism was to be organised and Capitalism overthrown. So difficult indeed was this question that the most influential section of the Labour movement repudiated revolution and the class struggle. It fell back upon the theories of the middle class, and advocated Nationalisation or State Control. These ideas were propagated for over twenty years as “evolutionary” Socialism. Fortunately for the British working-class movement, recent tendencies in capitalist evolution have clearly shown that State Control is the most oppressive form of capitalist administration. In other words, the historic role and function of the State has, since the war, asserted itself and has, therefore, caused confusion in the ranks of the “evolutionary” State Socialists. It is in this way that Capitalism by the laws of its own development exposes the superficial intellectuals of the “Socialistic” middle class. On the other hand, the Russian Revolution showed the function of revolution in destroying an effete State.
This lesson from Russia again illustrates the fact that social development explains the meaning of revolution and its historic work in human evolution. Thus not only has Capitalism exploded the claims of the State “Socialists” it was left to the Russian working class to demonstrate the absurdity of an ” evolutionary ” movement which had for its not very clear aim the reforming of Capitalism. These two events—the Revolution in Russia and the capitalists’ demand for State control—have had far-reaching effects on the outlook of the British working class.
Before defining the attitude of modern scientific Socialism towards the capitalist State, it is imperative to examine the conditions which have fostered the idea that the State is a benevolent institution.
Middle class conception of the state
The development of Capitalism is towards the concentration and centralisation of capital. This law which Marx so ably formulated has been criticised by ” revisionists ” like Edourd Bernstein ; it is now admitted to be correct by the most critical of anti-Socialists. In the struggle for markets the tendency is for the large and centralised capitals to crush out the smaller capitals. Thus with the progress of Capitalism the smaller capitalists get thrust out of the ranks of the capitalist class. This accounts for the appearance in recent years of the new or so-called ” middle class”—the intellectual proletariat. It is from this class that teachers, civil servants, journalists, secretaries, etc., are drawn. The modern middle class realises that the development of Capitalism will not add to the security of its members. Indeed it clearly understands that its ranks are being dangerously overcrowded by brilliant men forcing their way from the industrial wage-slave level and also by defeated combatants in the savage struggle among the capitalists. The intellectual wage-workers have no definite political ideals. Many of them are compelled to play the political game of their employers. Some of them fondly and vainly imagine that one day they may enter the ranks of the capitalist class ; these, consequently, support the political interests of Capitalism. The most original and by far the cleverest section of the middle-class intellectuals have, agitated for the extension of municipal and State enterprise. Many of them have seen that the safest investment for the funds of the middle class have been in municipal loans. They are, therefore, energetic in their agitation on behalf of Municipalisation. They also realise that certain services in large towns, such as gas, water, trams, etc., lend themselves, by their very nature, to monopoly. Between the desire for a safe investment and the fear of monopoly, the middle class has been highly successful in its advocacy of Municipalisation. This explains why it comes about that in large cities like Glasgow the cars, gas, water, etc., had been municipalised long before any ” Labour “men entered the Council.
The middle-class activity on behalf of State enterprise or control is due to the fact that the future of competitive Capitalism shows little hope of the intellectual proletarians improving their lot. With the extension of the activities of the State, new avenues of well-paid official jobs are opened up. The candidates for these official posts have to pass examinations for which they have to be specially prepared. It is indeed a problem for modern middle-class parents to find well-paid situations for their sons and daughters. To them the extension of State ownership shows a way out of the difficulty. Consequently during the past few years there has been an amazing increase in the number of State employees. Small wonder that the middle class looks upon the State as a glorified institution, as something destined to save the world. The economic ideal of the intellectual wage-earner is a national State controlling the industry of the country, in which each is rewarded according to a weird theory called the ” rent of ability.” Thus, just as the capitalist uses capital as the test of remuneration, just as the wages labourer demands the social organisation and control-of the products of labour, so the middle-class intellectual desires ability to be the test of income. And as Capitalism controlled by individual capitalists is property domination, so a State managed by middle-class bureaucrats would be an intellectual despotism. The intellectual proletarians are indeed anxious to ape the luxuries of the rich, consequently their social demands aim at incomes. Whereas the demand of the wages-labourer is for the social control of the wealth created by labour in order to achieve economic freedom.
The theorists of the middle class who demand State and municipal enterprise have been grouped under the banner of the “Fabians.” The most serious aspect about their advocacy of State and municipal ownership has been their labelling these bourgeois reforms as Socialism. Unfortunately it is only too true that British Socialism has been dangerously influenced by the spurious “socialism “of middle-class Fabianism. The most influential political leaders of the British Labour movement have been advocating State ownership for over twenty years as Socialism. These men, springing from the teaching profession and the Civil Service, have taken their conception of Socialism from their middle class colleagues, and until recently made no sympathetic attempt to understand the aims of the Socialism of the international proletariat. Every advance in Municipalisation was heralded as Socialism in practice; every extension of State control was greeted as a conquest by the workers. And in a recent handbook on “Socialism” appears a chapter giving a list of State enterprises. The chapter is headed “Socialism in the Making.” A close scrutiny of the various undertakings controlled by the State and enumerated in this volume clearly demonstrates that, instead of these making for the economic freedom of Labour, they tend to reinforce Capitalism and perpetuate class rule! The number of enterprises which the author suggests could be controlled by the State are sufficient to make the average middle-class family see a solution of the problem regarding future “incomes” in the extension of State officialdom.
The growing unrest in the ranks of the workers is forcing the propertied interests to rely ever more on the power of the State to maintain “order.” Hence the intellectual apologists of Capitalism have sought to show that every measure of State control and activity is a step forward in the best interests of society. The cunning nature of the ruling class is clearly seen when it uses the State powers to crush a strike which is opposed to the best interests of “society” By “society” is meant the propertied interests! In this way superficial observers see in the State something which means “order” and which represents “society.” It is the aim of every ruling class to further its economic interests by showing that it is really furthering the interests of society. This is necessary for the property owners, because it hides the class nature of their activity. In the measure that the modern capitalist class can show that the State represents the community, in the same measure is all suspicion removed regarding the real class function of the State. When, therefore, prominent Labour politicians assert that the State is society, and that it represents social order, then the ruling class have much to be thankful for, and have little to fear from a Labour movement nurtured on such capitalistic sophistry. By such means the State has been glorified and the workers taught to rely upon it. When, therefore, the capitalists of Britain controlling large amalgamations of centralised capital required to make British Capitalism a National Trust against foreign competition, they were able to advocate State control and quote Fabian and I.L.P. writers in support of their advocacy. Thus a false conception of Socialism became the means of misleading Labour. So eager have the State “Socialists” been to bestow the label of “Socialism “upon profit-making institutions that a modern Statesman could say “we are all Socialists nowadays.”
Any demands, such as the reduction of taxes, the extension of tramway car systems, opening of municipal pawnshops and burying-grounds, have been advocated as “socialistic” legislation. Thus Marx in his criticism of the French crisis of 1848 shows how the capitalist class—i.e., the bourgeoisie—cultivated dangerous reform nostrums under the title of Socialism. He says :— ” Whether the question was the right of petition or the duty on wine, the liberty of the press or free trade, clubs or municipal laws, protection of individual freedom or the regulation of national economy, the slogan returns ever again, the theme is monotonously the same, the verdict is ever ready and unchanged: Socialism ! Even bourgeois liberalism is pronounced socialistic; socialistic, alike, is pronounced popular education; and, likewise, socialistic is national financial reform. It was socialistic to build a railroad where already a canal was; and it was socialistic to defend oneself with a stick when attacked with a sword.” The capitalist class fears revolutionary Socialism ; it seeks to make Socialism a term at once contradictory and confusing ; and it can best accomplish this by dubbing the most essential things necessary to the development of Capitalism as—Socialism. Municipalisation, Nationalisation, and Trustification are all parts of the higher evolved Capitalism. These things are no more “steps” in the direction of Socialism than is the general centralisation and concentration of capital. On the Continent State-owned railways are not the outcome of “steps” towards Socialism, but are the result of these nations requiring their railroads at a moment’s notice for the purpose of the mobilisation of their armies. State ownership is also a means of keeping the revolutionary working class in its place by the heavy hand of a tyrannical and bureaucratic plutocracy.
The growth of Capitalism is entering upon the period wherein the whole force of the capitalist class will be centred upon suppressing the ” unrest ” among the workers, A great deal of the labour ” unrest ” is due to the presence of many irritating grievances in the workshop caused by unsympathetic and overbearing State officials; and the wage-earner is in sheer terror at the insecurity of his employment. As Capitalism enters upon its final stage the speeding-up process will be intensified, due to the ever increasing conflict for the world’s markets. Competition will tend to accelerate national rivalries and the productive forces will have to be controlled with greater care than hitherto in order to eliminate overlapping within the nation. The desire to control national production, the fear of industrial unrest, and the wish to enforce discipline upon the workers will compel the capitalist class to extend State control. The extension of State control will bring with it armies of official bureaucrats, who will only be able to maintain their posts by tyrannising and limiting the freedom of the workers. The nominal wages of the workers may rise, but it will be at the expense of their relative position in society and of the limitation of their freedom. Within such a system the workers will be little better than serfs. And instead of having to overthrow a system buttressed by a handful of individual capitalists, the workers will be faced with a system reinforced by a gigantic army of State-subsidised officials, who will fight like tigers to maintain their status and power. Such indeed is the logical outcome of the advocacy of State or National ownership. It is a social despotism organised from above.
Not only will Capitalism be strengthened as a consequence of State control, but it will dominate in an ever-intensified form the press and the educational forces. The working-class movement has not realised the tremendous influence that capitalist thought wields over the brain of the workers through the press. It is absurd to imagine that even a working class with universal suffrage can vote intelligently until it understands its class interests and its historic mission. The press has such a far-reaching power over the thoughts and actions of the workers that the first step taken by the State during a crisis is to set up a Censor over the newspapers. During normal conditions the class interests of the capitalists are sufficient guarantees to ensure that the ideology of Capitalism will be emphasised in the press for the consumption of the subject class. This aspect of the case was clearly stated in one of a series of articles published in The Socialist:—
“We know that certain superficial critics will demur at our analysis, and will insist that as the workers control most votes, they control the State.
“This presentment of the case overlooks some very important facts. The ideas which determine how the workers vote are ideas which they gather from the press. No one dare deny that the press of this country is owned, controlled, and dominated by the capitalist class and reflects its interests and aspirations. The press itself has become a capitalist industry and is run by the North-cliffes, the Hultons, etc., for profit—just like any ordinary capitalist undertaking. In this way the owners of the press find their interests identical with-the capitalist class, consequently they strive to perpetuate the profit-making system. It is true that like all competitive capitals the press have their minor quarrels. Let, however, the Clyde workers or the South Wales miners revolt, and the press will immediately drop its petty differences and use its united strength—from Comic Cuts down to John Bull, from the London Times down to the Daily News, from Punch down to the Clarion—to blast the rebels, by dragging from the dictionary of slander every foul and cowardly epithet of slimy vituperation. Let the uncrowned monarch of blatant prevarication forge a speech in order to vent his spleen upon those whom he was unable to fight fairly and openly, the press knowing full well that such an oration had never been delivered, MUST publish it. It knows that to print the facts would mean—as it did mean—SUPPRESSION. And it is from this press that the workers get most of their ideas. The press, controlled by capitalist interests, is a glorified conspiracy to dope the minds of the workers, to throw dust in their eyes regarding their true interests. Who knows better than those in the Labour movement that the capitalist class, through its press, can hound on subsidised and beery hooligans, led by light-fingered financiers masquerading as full-fledged officers in uniform, to smash up meetings? And do not the illustrated papers print scenes depicting the clubbing of anti-militarists as an incitement to other hooligans to do likewise, and as a warning to rebels what their fate may be?
“All our ideas regarding happenings abroad and at home only reach us through the press after the critical eye of the defender of the interests of capital, the censor, has caused ‘ dangerous’ news to be deleted. These facts are patent to the Labour movement. Therefore, the capitalist class with its gigantic press need not fear, and does not fear, in the meantime, the votes of its wage-slaves. By controlling the press, capital is able to control the workers’ votes. In this way the master class is able to take out of the hands of Labour the control of the political machine. It is for this very reason that the profiteers have so organised and disciplined their press. This state of affairs must continue until the Socialist movement realises that its propaganda, only becomes important the moment it begins to set on foot a press owned, controlled, and disciplined by the party of the social revolution. Because the votes in the hands of uneducated workers whom the Socialist literature cannot reach are votes for Capitalism. And the capitalist class know it. Hence its control over its press.”
Lord Northcliffe, speaking to the Players’ Club, New York, recently admitted that the censorship of the press was such that readers of newspapers were deliberately confused. His words were:—
“The people were not permitted to know the truth, and when the truth finally emerged out of costly blunders and sacrifices they were loth to accept it.”
The power of finance over the press was admitted during a banquet of newspaper men in New York (1916).
In response to a toast on “The Independent Press,” Mr. John Swinton said:—
“There is no such thing in America as an independent press, unless it is in the country towns.
“You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write his honest opinion, and, if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print.
” I am paid 150 dollars a week for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with—others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things—and any one of you who would be so foolish as to write his honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job.
“The business of the New York journalist is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his race and country for his daily bread.
“You know this and I know it, and what folly is this to be toasting an ‘ independent press.’
“We are tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping-jacks; they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities, and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”
A prominent English politician, Mr. Gibson Bowles, confessed in an article in the Candid Review that journalism is simply a trade. The writer declares that the only idea behind newspaper proprietors is how to make a profit. The hired journalist has to write “to order for pay.” “No newspaper leading article is more worthy of belief than a pillmonger’s advertisement of his own pills.” The really honest writer who equips himself with the requisite knowledge to understand and grapple the problems confronting humanity excludes himself from the sphere of journalism. ” There is no market for him, no employment for him, and he, usually a poor man, either turns to writing to order ; if he be of the better sort, stops writing altogether and takes refuge in some more honourable trade,”
The power of the press as a moulder of working-class opinion cannot be over-emphasised. The ideas and thoughts of most workers come from the capitalist-controlled press. These ideas and thoughts are precisely the ideas and thoughts which correspond to the economic interests of the capitalist class and which make for the perpetuation of the capitalist system.
We see, therefore, how the economic interests of the capitalist class, manifesting itself through the press, moulds the political ideas of the workers. In this way economic inequality makes the so-called political democracy of Britain a sham. Real democracy can only proceed from economic equality.
It is generally assumed that the voting power of the workers gives them control of the “important” political issues placed before the country during General Elections. This, however, is a fallacy. The working class is seldom permitted to decide any important measures within capitalist society. The elections of 1906 were fought upon the “great ” question of Tariff Reform versus Free Trade. This issue is a minor quarrel between two sections of the ruling class regarding the better method of facilitating the exchange of commodities. Whichever side wins, the capitalist class will continue to own and control the means of productions and will continue to exploit the workers. Judging by what many Liberals said during those elections, the introduction of a tariff would have meant the ruin of society. Nevertheless a Liberal Statesman—Mr. McKenna—placed a tariff on certain goods. And Mr. Austen Chamberlain, at the request of the Bombay millionaires, placed a tax on Lancashire cotton entering India without Parliament even discussing the matter! The political history of latter-day Capitalism shows a tendency to lash the workers into a fury during an election, and to get them divided regarding questions of no real importance to them. Once, however, the ruling class has been returned to political power ; once it has the State—which includes the Army, Navy, spies, police, legal machinery, etc,, etc.—in its grasp, then it puts into operation the legislation that is vital to its interest and enforces it upon the community. The real and important laws necessary to the perpetuation of Capitalism are seldom placed before the constituencies at election time. Such measures as the declaration of war, the Defence of the Realm Act, Munitions Acts, Military and Industrial Conscription, are never placed before the “democracy.” Through its control of the press, the capitalist class can always launch out upon some sham fight to keep the workers from realising their true class interests. Journalists and editors can be depended upon to show the special advantages which will accrue to Labour by taking sides on either this side or that. The journalists are not above “writing up “both sides of the great controversy by attacking and defending the same proposition. The Rev. Mr. Graham, in his study of ” Russell of The Scotsman’, shows how that brilliant editor, in his younger days, wrote ” slashing ” leading articles in the Liberal and Conservative organs of the same town. Thus editors can change their chairs as easily as politicians can change their coats.
By using its economic power to control the press and the political State, the capitalist class also controls the avenues of education. The power of this influence was clearly defined by Mr. J. Hobson, who has shewn that the teachers are compelled to propagate economics and history in the interests of the class who provide their salaries. The legend that universities are impartial regarding what is taught within their walls has been exposed by the persecution meted out to distinguished scholars who have opposed the imperialism of the capitalist class since 1914. With the spread of independent working-class education among the workers, organised by the Marxian’s, the financiers’ press has called upon the universities to bestir themselves and fight the influence of the tutorial classes which seek to educate the workers regarding the principles of scientific Socialism. At no distant date the struggle between Capital and Labour will manifest itself on the question as to which class will control the education of adult workers in social science. Already the attitude of revolutionary Socialism has been defined. It contends that just as Labour has been compelled to create its own press and political and industrial organisations, so it must build up its own educational organisation. Labour must combat Capitalism in every avenue of social activity.
Thus Capitalism, to-day presents itself, through its various institutions, as a social system organised from top to bottom to perpetuate wage slavery and profits. It dominates industry, politics, education, and the press. The modern ruling class is undoubtedly the most splendidly equipped exploiting force that has ever existed. Because of its control of the means of production, and in consequence of the increasing ratio of exploitation, it becomes ever more necessary for the capitalist class to enforce its power over the workers by means of the State. Hence as Capitalism becomes more decadent, and the greater is the number of the workers who rally round the banner of revolutionary Socialism, the more the capitalist class is driven, in order to reinforce its system, to rely upon the power of the State as a means of keeping the workers in check and of prolonging the system of wage slavery. Capitalism, when seen in its true light, is not a democracy; it is what the Athenians called a “Timocracy”—the rule of private property, or, to use another word, a plutocracy.
During the past few years every attempt on the part of the workers to wring better conditions from the employing class has resulted in the State placing its powers at the disposal of the capitalists. Featherstone, Belfast, Tonypandy, etc., are illustrations regarding the use of troops against strikers. Again, there are innumerable instances where the police have been used for the same purpose, while an even more subtle influence has been the interference of Statesmen in wages disputes. A few days before the Great War Sir Edward Grey promised the aid of the powers of State to British capitalists seeking profit abroad; and likewise Mr. Asquith, confronted with a strike in 1911, as chief representative of the State, made a similar offer to the railway directors at home. The history of the war further demonstrates the great contrast that exists in Capitalism between the lives of the workers and the property of the ruling class. The war has also shown that during any crisis the State, by a series of Orders in Council, can suspend the Constitution and rule by the power of sheer intimidation. It is futile to argue that such measures are the work of militarists. The State has behind every mandate it promulgates the armed force of the nation. It is this power which enforces the will of the ruling class.
Capitalism has reached the phase at which its greatest safety lies in hampering its true evolution. Like the social systems which preceded it, Capitalism has developed a series of inherent contradictions which are fettering industrial growth. These social contradictions demonstrate that the system has entered upon its period of decadence, and that it is now trying to postpone its inevitable dissolution. That is why during the past few years Capitalism has relied more and more upon the State; it is seeking to throw barriers in the way of its own development in order to stave off its downfall. State control, while making for a better organised Capitalism, is the last great organised effort of the ruling class to perpetuate wage slavery.
The modern productive forces are of a purely social nature. The Industrial Revolution made the social creation of wealth possible. The labour-process is now so subdivided that the energy of all sorts and conditions of workers enter into the production of simple commodities. Labour is now a social quantity; neither colour nor sex counts in the production of wealth. Social labour creates social wealth; that is the great economic truism of to-day. But the socially produced wealth is individually owned and controlled. Capitalism thus presents a great contradiction; its existence is threatened by the fact that social production in the Course of its evolution is bound to substitute social control for the control of the individual capitalists. Capitalism is struggling to retain individual ownership vested in the hands of a class. The law of capitalist development makes the social contradiction more apparent; indeed, from this fundamental contradiction —social production and individual control—there springs forth many others.
The competition for markets compel the capitalists to produce as cheaply as possible. This can only be done, apart from lowering wages, by speeding up labour either by subdividing or diluting processes, or by introducing labour-displacing machinery. In either case the struggle for markets means that more and more wealth is created with less and less labour. Thus Capitalism not only gluts the world’s markets with commodities, but in doing so it throws the wage-workers into unemployment. The increasing unemployed, side by side with overstocked markets, is a serious enough contradiction, but it breeds others; it forces capitalist economy to preserve itself by waste. So productive are the social forces that it is becoming more difficult for the international capitalist class to find new outlets for its surplus capital. The millions spent on armaments is a form of waste which temporarily eases the problem regarding surplus capital. These millions spent on armaments are exploited from international Labour working under conditions of peace; but these peace conditions become the very basis for war. Hence modern Capitalism in its mad career through its maze of contradictions has been forced to embark upon the path of Imperialism. Imperialism, however, only makes Capitalism universal. Every new territory or colony opened up and capitalised brings the “backward” countries within the vortex of Capitalism. Imperialism, like State control—they are inseparably connected—• only makes for a more highly organised and centralised social system. In this way modern Capitalism internationalises and socialises the economic foundations of society; it thus hastens the day of its dissolution and prepares the foundations for the future International Republic of Labour. Not only has Capitalism socialised the production of wealth, it has also created the proletariat, the army of workers whose historic mission it is to socialise the control of production in the interests of humanity. Nowhere has this law been so well outlined as by Marx, who, in summing up the historical tendency of Capitalism, says:—”One capitalist always kills many. Hand in hand with this centralisation, or this expropriation of many capitalists by few, develop, on an ever-extending scale, the co-operative form of the labour process, the conscious technical application of science, the methodical cultivation of the soil, the transformation of the instruments of labour into instruments of labour only usable in common, the economising of all means of production by their use as the means of production of combined, socialised labour, the entanglement of all peoples in the net of the world-market, and, with this, the international character of the capitalistic regime. Along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolise all the advantages of this process of transformation, grows the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this, too, grows the revolt of the working class—a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined, united, organised by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself. The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production, which has sprung up and flourished along with, and under it. Centralisation of the means of production, and socialisation of labour, at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated.” Like a Nemesis treads the avenging contradictions of Capitalism no matter where it extends its relentless power. Every instrument which it uses to prolong its existence ultimately becomes a weapon to strike it down.
chapter eleven
REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM
“THE modern movement of revolutionary Socialism is the direct outcome of the economic conditions evolved within Capitalism. The international working class is beginning to realise that freedom within the framework of Capitalism is impossible. Economic development has exposed the fallacies of the Utopian reformers ; it has demonstrated that the only means whereby the social problem—with its national and international complications—can be solved, is in the overthrow of Capitalism and the inauguration of a Socialist Republic. Hence Socialism is not a reform movement: it is a revolutionary movement aiming simultaneously at the destruction of Capitalism and the construction of Socialism.
The social reformers, who pose as Socialists, seek to uplift the workers by nationalising or controlling the means of production through the State. We have already seen that the perpetuation of Capitalism has forced the ruling class to adopt this policy of State control. We have also seen that the extension of State control means the finding of jobs for the intellectual proletariat, the so-called middle class. Independent Labour politicians—as distinguished from revolutionary Socialists—have put forward several ideas for preventing State officials from becoming bureaucratic tyrants. The whole difficulty of the problem rests upon the misapprehension of the function of the State and how it is organised. Whenever a modern Statesman is
appointed to control any industrial concern he has to elect expert and permanent officials who know something about that industry. These officials are appointed by the State—i.e., from above; they are only answerable to the State minister who has to depend upon them for all his information regarding his department. The officials are conscious of their power, and they use it. There is no method whereby it is possible to have democratic State control. This is due to the fact that State control is an attempt to make a geographically elected institution conduct an industrial process.
The State rests upon a geographical basis; its units are a conglomeration of territorial areas; and its members are elected by constituencies. Therefore the members returned to Parliament as representatives of constituencies have no direct relationship with the real basis of society—its industrial process.
The constituents have the right to vote, not according to their function as workers, but according to their status as electors in the geographical area wherein they reside. At the same time, so overwhelming is the influence of modern industry that it enforces itself upon the State. Thus Statesmen are unable to make any drastic moves regarding industry or finance until they first-consult the City— i.e., the capitalist interests. Therefore, when the State attempts to control industryi it is undertaking a task for which it is not fitted. Neither the constituents nor the ministers elected to conduct an industry are in any way organically or functionally connected with industry—i.e., in so far as they operate within the Constitution of the State. The State in controlling an industry has to connect a geographically elected administration with an industrial one. That connection, which links up the former with the latter, is represented by expert and permanent officials. No amount of quibbling can overcome this grave difficulty. Thus the social reformers and State ” Socialists” have been urging the formation of a condition of things which by its very nature, not only .brings the mass of the workers under the despotic rule of State officials, but which, as a means of controlling’ the workers, has’ become one of the last and most effective props for prolonging wage slavery. In the last analysis State ownership is more a means of controlling and regimenting the workers • than of; controlling industry. The Munitions Acts made but a little attempt to control the employers, but there can be no doubt that it attempted to absolutely control and dominate the workers. Tl»us State .control of- shipping enabled a Chancellor of the Exchequer to make 500 per cent, on some of his investments; .the same minister, however, arrogantly declared that high prices were caused by high wages!Capitalism cannot be controlled. But it can be destroyed and replaced by a workers’ Industrial Republic.
The attempt of the State to control industry is therefore the attempt of the ruling class to dominate Labour. The purely industrial basis of modern society is reacting against the geographical basis on which the Government is elected. The conflict between these bases is another of the contradictions undermining the territorial State. Not only have the labourists and State “Socialists ” been unable to comprehend the nature of the State, they have also failed to understand its social function. Our analysis has shown that the State is, the weapon by means of which the ruling class preserves “order “, in a system rent with the class struggle and conflicting social interests Such an institution presupposes the ownership of the means of life controlled by a class protecting its economic power by the armed force of society in order to preserve its class rule. As we have seen, the State evolved in human society after the advent of private property and after the rise of classes. With the disappearance of private property, with the passing of a ruling and a subject class the State, too, will pass away. The State “Socialists” having failed to understand the nature and the function of the State, have written volumes to show that there is no class struggle and to prove that ” evolutionary” Socialism is much superior to revolutionary action.
The revolutionary Socialist denies that State owner ship can end in anything other than a bureaucratic
despotism. We have seen why the State cannot democratically control industry. Industry can only be democratically owned and controlled by the workers electing directly from their own ranks industrial administrative committees. Socialism will be fundamentally an industrial system ; its constituencies will be of an industrial character. Thus those carrying on the social activities and industries of society will be directly represented in the local and central industrial councils of social administration. In this way the powers of such delegates will, flow upwards from those carrying on the work and conversant with the needs of the community. When the central administrative industrial committee meets it will represent every phase of social activity. Hence the capitalist political or geographical State, will be replaced by the industrial administrative committee of Socialism. The transition from the one; social system, to the other will be the social revolution. The political State throughout history has meant the government of men by ruling classes; the Republic of Socialism will be the government of industry administered on behalf of the whole community. The former meant the economic and political subjection of the many; the latter will mean the economic freedom of all—it will be, therefore, a true democracy. .
The slave States of Greece and Rome existed to exploit and intimidate the propertyless slaves. The feudal State, buttressed the interests of the landed class at the expense of the serf on the land and the craftsmen
in the towns. The modern capitalist State, the last in the series, will pass away with the inauguration of Industrial Democracy. Socialism will require no political State because there will be neither a privileged property class nor a downtrodden propertyless class; there will be no social disorder as a result, because there will be no clash of economic interests ; there will be no need to create a power to make ” order.” Thus, as Engels shows, the State will die out. With it will end the government of men and make way for the administration of industry.. Likewise Bebel declares :—” Along with the State die out its representatives—cabinet ministers, parliaments, standing armies, police and constables, courts, district attorneys, prison officials, tariff and tax collectors; in short, the whole political apparatus. Barracks, and such other military structures, palaces of law and of administration, prisons—all will now await better use. Ten thousand laws, decrees, and regulations become so much rubbish; they have only historic value. The great and yet the petty parliamentary struggles with which the men of tongue imagine they rule and guide the world are no more; they will have made room for administrative colleges and delegations, whose attention will be engaged in the best means of production and distribution, in ascertaining the volume of supplies needed, in introducing and applying effective improvements in art, in architecture, in intercourse, in the process of production, etc. These are all practical matters, visible and tangible, towards which everyone stands objectively, there being no personal interests’ hostile to society to affect their judgment.” We see, therefore, that the function of the future administration of society will be industrial. The constructive element in the social revolution will be the action of the Industrial Union seizing the means of production in order to administer the wants of the community.
True to the dictum of social science, that the embryo of the future social system must be nourished within the womb of the old system, the revolutionary Socialist movement sets out to build up within Capitalism the industrial organisation of the workers which will carry on the administrative work under Socialism. Industrial Unionism not only differs from sectional craft unionism in structure; Industrial Unionism’s most important function is to unite all the workers for the great and glorious task of carrying on the production of wealth under Socialism on behalf of the community. Thus Industrial Unionism is the constructive weapon in the coming social revolution.
It does not follow, however, that political action plays no part in the social revolution. We have already seen that the special function of the State is to protect the interests of the ruling class. In order to facilitate the work of the industrial organisation it is absolutely imperative for the workers to disarm the capitalist class by wrenching from it its power over the political State. The State powers include the armed forces of the nation which may be turned against the revolutionary workers. The political weapon of Labour, by destroying the capitalist control of the State, makes possible a peaceful social revolution. But in order to tear the State out of the grasp of the ruling class the workers’ political organise tion must capture the political machinery of Capitalism. Daniel De Leon, in a famous pamphlet, “The Preamble of the Industrial Workers of the World”—a work equally as epoch-making as the ” Communist Manifesto “—says regarding the function of the political organisation of Labour:—”Inestimable is the value, dignified the posture, of the political movement. It affords the Labour movement the opportunity to ventilate its purposes and its methods free, over and; above board, in the noonday light of the sun, whereas and otherwise its agitation would be consigned to the circumscribed sphere of the rat-hole. The political movement renders the masses accessible to the propaganda of Labour; it raises the Labour movement above the category of a ‘conspiracy’; it places the movement in line ith the spirit of the age, which, on the one hand, denies the power of conspiracy in matters; that not only affect the masses but in which the masses must themselves be intelligent actors, and, on the other hand, demands the freest of utterance. In short and in fine, the political movement bows to the methods of civilised discussion : it gives a chance to the peaceful solution of the great question at issue,” It is, therefore, the special function of the political movement to uproot the capitalist State. The work of the political weapon is purely destructive, to destroy the capitalist system.
Thus revolutionary Socialism is distinguished from State “Socialism” in so far as it clearly understands what it is out for. Moreover, it has an organised policy at once destructive and constructive, to achieve its aim and object. Revolutionary Socialism by its close alteration to the education of the workers is teaching them to think correctly in order that they may act correctly. We know that the continual pressure of capitalist exploitation in the mine, the mill, and the factory, etc., will compel the workers to organise ever closer along class lines. We know that the development of wage slavery, and the intensification of the class struggle, will give a clearer vision to the workers regarding the future. Capitalism in its international expansion fashions the world in its image; and, just as like produces like, so must Capitalism by its own mechanical development tend to make the aims and methods of the international working class more and more uniform. Hence every year witnesses the closer unity of the international proletariat. The war, despite the temporary friction it created among the less clearly poised workers, will only accentuate and solidify the revolutionary movement of the world. The rumblings of the future revolution may be distinctly heard. A new spirit permeates the British working class; the new demands are not only for better working conditions but for freedom. That spirit portends emancipation for Labour. Already the capitalist class is attempting to stave off its impending defeat by seeking to rely upon the extension of the activities of the State. But the workers are beginning to know what State control means; the war has taught them that. As the activity of the revolutionary movement extends, as its influence grows, the capitalist class will be compelled to use the State to intimidate Labour. And by doing so Capitalism will help to teach the workers what the State is and what its functions are.
It is perhaps strange that so much misunderstanding should exist regarding the State. It is due in this country principally to the fact that the so-called political leaders of Labour have failed to acquaint themselves with the struggles of the international workers* and the classic literature of scientific Socialism. Marx, Engels, Liebknecht, Bebel, Kautsky, Lafargue, De Leon, Labriola, Morris, and the many other brilliant men who have thrown in their lot with the revolutionary movement of Labour, have by their analysis of society, past and present, clearly defined the function of the State. But the great awakening which has taken place recently among the workers regarding the State has made the one-time advocates of State Socialism confess that they had not clearly defined their terms and that they must work out new aims and objects of Capitalism in its development has taught them what they failed to grasp by their superficial glance at the history of the past and their middle-class interpretation of the economics of modern society. If these men, now aware of their errors, courageously throw their past mistakes behind them, and take their place in the ranks of the revolutionary movement, they may yet undo the evil their past work has wrought. But if they prefer to hug their fallacies, the British workers will sweep past them in their historic march to uproot the last of all State despotisms—the Capitalist State.
* Mr. R. MacDonald admitted this in Labour Leader (5th July, 1917). He said that his party failed “to comprehend the deeper meaning which went on in some Continental countries between State Socialism and Social Democracy.”
** See Labour Leader (7th August, 1916), where Mr. R. MacDonald made such a confession.
