The Class Struggle. Part One

 

Relations between Capitalists and Wage Workers defined.

 

1. The population to-day is made up of all kinds of people, showing much variation in their persons and habits. They differ in size and age, health and mind, dress and looks, and in every family circle, we see wide differences in form, mind and conduct. With all this variation, there is a broad line of distinction, which divides the members of modern society into classes.

 

2. What is a class? Is it a group of people possessing some taste, habit, or ability, in common? No. A class in society is a body of people distinguished by their economic position. What divides one part of the population from the other, and separates them into classes, is the possession or non-possession of wealth and the necessity or otherwise of having to work for employers. There have been classes ever since private property existed, but the classes we are concerned with are those existing in the present social system. Class lines may not be as absolute and sharp as a mathematical figure, but the above property distinctions generally mark off one class from another.

 

3. There are two classes to-day. One, the working class, who do not possess property, and are therefore compelled to sell their mental and physical ability, that is, their working power, to owners of wealth in order to live. Whether they are employed in an office or a mine; whether they are paid wages or salaries, as long as they are driven through lack of property to seek a master, they are members of the working class.

 

The other class in modern society is the Capitalist or Master class. They own the means and instruments required for producing wealth but take no part in production themselves. They buy the workers’ mental and physical energy which is used to produce the wealth. The Capitalists pay the workers in the form of wages, just enough to live upon whilst working, and they retain the surplus themselves.

 

One class owns the means of production and the products but does not produce. The other class produces but does not own the wealth.

 

The working class possess only their labour-power—their energy. Like bread, coal, etc., it is an article of merchandise— a commodity. They must sell this to Capitalists in order to get the food, clothing and shelter they need.

 

4. The buyers of all kinds of commodities have an interest in buying as cheaply as possible. The seller’s interest is to sell as highly as possible. Obviously, therefore, the interests of buyers and sellers are opposite and conflict with each other.

 

The workers’ commodity, labour-power, is distinguished, however, from all other commodities by the fact that the buyers of that commodity are all of one class and the sellers all belong to another class. The masters are always buyers of labour, and the workers always sellers.

 

These relations of employers and employed, masters and servants, are due to the divisions of property in society. Out of the material conditions of production and distribution arises the separation of the population into two distinct groups: property owners and wage workers. The ownership of the means of production by the Capitalists and the resulting enslavement of the working class is the basis of the class struggle.

 

The Hostility Between The Classes.

 

5. The welfare of each class depends upon its position in society. In other words, the position occupied by the classes gives them distinct interests, according to their place in the social system.

 

The Capitalist class, being a property-owning class, have a direct interest in protecting their present property and seeking to increase it. Their interest is to pay as little in wages and keep as much in profits as possible.

 

The working class is a class that lives by working for the owners of capital and their immediate interest is to get as much as possible in the form of wages for the fewest. hours. Moreover, they are the only class that produces the wealth and consequents their interests are to obtain the product of their industry.

 

6. The interests of the working class and the Capitalist class are different. Not only different but opposite. The Capitalists’ interest is to maintain the slavery of the workers and retain as much as possible of the fruits of the workers’ industry. The workers’ interest is to end their slavery and to abolish the profits of the Capitalists by enjoying all the wealth themselves.

 

7. Conflicting interests cause these classes to take actions in defence of their interests, and those actions constitute an unceasing struggle—the class struggle. This struggle arises from the existence of classes and will continue until the class distinctions are abolished and consequently the classes with them.

 

A Capitalist may be a genial, so-called kind-hearted man with good intentions, but as a property owner and employer of labour, he is compelled to take a position and engage in actions hostile to the workers.

 

The class struggle is a fact. The Capitalists know it and pursue their policy accordingly, so that they may be victors. Most of the workers do not realise that the class struggle exists. Their day-to-day actions as wage slaves, however, in bargaining about terms with employers, and the disputes arising out of it, demonstrate that, whether the workers are conscious of their interests or not, the class struggle goes on.

 

Battle Ground of the Conflict.

 

8. The class struggle originates out of economic conditions. It manifests itself on the industrial field in the never-ceasing conflict about the every-day conditions of employment, and on the political field, it shows itself as a struggle by Capitalists to retain their ruling power against any attempts to unseat them.

 

The actions taken by the employers to obtain wage-workers, the methods used to exploit them, and the policy pursued in strikes and lock-outs to defeat them, are part of the class struggle. The workers’ resistance to the actions of the employers and their efforts to get the best possible price and terms for their labour-power through strikes, etc., are incidents in the same class struggle.

 

9. The foremost battlefield of the class struggle, however, is the political field. On that plane the masters obtain their ruling power and there they concentrate to wield power over the working class. Every class in history which has risen to supremacy has had to obtain control of the political power. Through that political control, the masters are able to use the armed forces and the legal machinery against the workers in the class struggle. With their political power, the masters are able to defeat strikers, to starve workers, to keep unemployed workers from getting food, to make war and drive the workers to fight for them. As the political machine is the lever whereby classes dominate, the highest expression of the class struggle is on the political field.

 

10. The master class carry on the struggle against the workers by enacting and administering laws, by controlling the press, the church and the school, and using them to try to prevent the workers taking steps to wrest political control from the Capitalists.

 

Consciousness of the Struggle Essential to Victory.

 

11. The workers are in the class struggle but are not conscious of their interests. Hence they fight, blindly and vainly to improve their condition. Inside the unions, in political parties and in their every-day actions they do things that work to the Capitalists’ advantage. They continue to act on lines that perpetuate the system that enslaves them, and support men, measures and parties that work against the workers’ interests.

 

The workers must recognise that the class struggle exists. They must become aware of their slave position, and the way out, if they are to prosecute the struggle to a victorious conclusion for themselves. If the working class become conscious of their class interests and welfare, they will refuse to take actions that injure them. The guiding policy for class-conscious workers must be: Will a contemplated action assist the workers to triumph in the class struggle?

 

No Compromise.

 

12. Any action taken by the workers against their own interests assists the Capitalists to retain power. Those who advise the workers to support the Capitalists, or their policies and ideas, are helping to strengthen the position of the Capitalist class.

 

The interests of the Capitalists being opposed to the workers upon every point of social life and conduct, the action of the workers must be ever hostile to that of the Capitalists. In their fight to retain control, the masters are ruthless, brutal, and know no mercy; and the workers must expect no help from them, but wage the struggle intelligently and unceasingly against them.

 

Every political party expresses the interests of one class or other, and the party expressing working-class interests must, therefore, be opposed to all other parties.

 

Results of the Struggle.

 

13. The object of the conscious struggle by the workers must be to raise themselves to the position of ruling class.

 

The class struggles throughout history, of chattel slave holder and chattel slave, feudal lord and merchant, etc., have been forces in the progress of society. The struggle between the wage working and the Capitalist class is also a force making for social development, and the victory of the working class will mean the end of class rule. The working class is the last subject class to be emancipated, and their supremacy will result in the abolition of class distinctions through the common ownership of the means of life.

 

The interests of the workers are identical in spite of the apparent hostility between individual workers in their struggle for jobs. They are all victims of Capitalist domination and dependent upon the employing class for permission to live. “Solidarity” must be the motto of the working class, as an injury to one is an injury to all. 

Adolph Kohn

 

The health divide (1987)

 From the May 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

In March the Health Education Council brought out its latest — and final — report. The Health Divide: Inequalities in Health in the 1980s. It was released amid a storm of controversy and accusations of an attempted government cover-up. The Council's chairman. Brian Bailey, cancelled a press conference to announce the report, at short notice, saying that the full council had not had time to consider it. He said that its findings could be political dynamite in an election year.

The report illustrates how the poor, especially the unemployed, are more likely to suffer from bad health. The death rate for unemployed men is 36 per cent higher and their wives also die earlier. They are more likely to suffer from deteriorating mental health and lung cancer and suicides are more frequent. There is a substantially higher death rate for children among the poorest 25 per cent of the population. The rate of stillbirths among the top 25 per cent is four per thousand while it is nearly twice that for children in the bottom quarter.

Although people's lifestyles — for instance, smoking and drinking — do influence the figures, by far the biggest impact is caused by material deprivation. Bad housing, "low and inadequate income", overcrowded conditions. pollution and high-rise living are among the main factors which affect people's health. Areas of high unemployment coincide with areas with the worst health records. There are more areas in the north with severe poverty. But there are pockets of prosperity in the north, as well as areas of severe poverty in the south where the health statistics are just as bad. Clearly it is class, not geographical location, which determines people's health.

These figures certainly should be political dynamite in an election year or indeed in any other year. But predictably the response from concerned reformers was as pathetic as the government's claims to be tackling the problem. Douglas Black, the former president of the Royal College of Surgeons, was involved in compiling the report. He advocated more help for mothers-to-be, better child benefit, good school meals, better housing and improved employment. These suggestions fail to confront the cause of the problem and the last one in particular fails to recognise the findings of other reports which show the detrimental effects that employment can have on workers. To suggest that people should kill themselves at work rather than on the dole is not a sensible solution, although it's one the capitalist class and their apologists would welcome.

The most hypocritical response to the report came from Labour's spokesperson on health, Frank Dobson. He said, "The report shows bluntly that poverty kills. Thousands of people would still be alive today if the Tories pursued policies to tackle poverty rather than worsen it”. He concluded. "Our ultimate slogan for the next election will be 'Vote Labour, Live Longer'". But Labour's cries of anguish and horror should be seen in the light of the fact that the gap between the health of the rich and that of the poor also widened during the period of the last Labour government. Poverty was not invented by Thatcher although since the Tories have been in power, and with the increase in unemployment, the gap between rich and poor has widened still further.

The report, and those who commented on it, all stressed that being poor, or as they put it, being part of a "lower social class", was the main factor in bad health. Yet the solutions they offered were various reforms which ignore the cause of this problem and which have failed in the past. The obvious answer would be to put an end to class-divided society in which a small minority live in ease and luxury while many of the rest of us have to endanger our health to make them rich. Capitalism is the real cause of poverty and the poor health that goes with it. It is a diseased, cancerous system that needs revolutionary surgery, not useless elasto-plast reforms.

Ian Ratcliffe

Socialism - the Fire of Anger and the Flame of Hope

 

Our very existence depends upon finding and keeping employment. Yet, from infancy to old age we are surrounded with poverty and the miseries that are due to poverty. But poverty is not a disease imposed by nature ; it is not due to a shortage of wealth but to the way in which wealth is distributed. It is born out of particular social conditions and its existence to-day is due immediately to the way in which wealth is distributed. The way in which wealth is distributed depends upon the method of production, so that this is the fundamental cause of poverty.

To-day wealth is produced by means of privately owned means of production (land, machinery, and so on), consequently the wealth produced belongs to those who own the means of production. The workers work upon and operate the means of production but they do not own a fraction of the wealth produced. The economic evils that exist are caused solely by the fact that the means of production belong to private individuals and not to the whole people. The only solution of these evils is to change the basis of society; transfer the means of production from the hands of private individuals to the whole of society—change private ownership of these things into social ownership. That is socialism. If you will consider the matter carefully for a little while you will discover that much of the complication existing to-day is due to, and bound up with, the making of profit.

Let us assume for a few moments that the majority of society have considered that socialism is desirable and have elected delegates to Parliament to make the change. What would be the steps to be taken once these delegates had obtained control? We will emulate the prophets and indulge in a little idle surmise, on the assumption that general conditions will be as at present on the morrow of the revolution.

First of all three main lines of investigation would have to be followed. It would be necessary to—

1. Ascertain the needs of the population.

2. The means available to satisfy these needs.

3. The labour required to do the necessary work.

Let us take these three items in turn and examine them.

1. It would be necessary to divide the country up into areas according to the distribution of the population, and to find out the kind and amount of goods required for different areas. The skeleton of such an organisation already exists to-day in the form of Urban, Rural and County Councils. It would only be a question of compiling different kinds of statistics from those which are compiled to-day. The main things we require are food, clothing, and habitations.

2. The means available to satisfy the above needs would include land, raw material, machinery, and transportation facilities—roads, canals, railways, sea routes, air routes. Again a question of compiling statistics.

3. It would be necessary to find out the number of workers, the various kinds of skill, and the distribution of the workers over the country.

In the above three directions it would be a matter of compiling statistics. The vast amount of statistical work that is done at present and its nature show that the organisation for doing such work is already in existence and would be available.

Once having compiled and collected the statistics (a relatively simple matter) it would be necessary to distribute the work according to workers and resources, and spread the work approximately equally over all so that more work would not be demanded from one than from another.

By the time the majority of the people in this country had arrived at the idea that socialism was desirable, the people in other countries would be near, if they had not actually reached, the same view. So that a fundamental social change in Britain would rapidly develop a corresponding change abroad and ease the necessary international dealings. While each country must settle its own social problem, yet each cannot do so without involving the world in its operations. Hence the international character of socialism.

 

The point to be borne in mind is that financial operations are built up on the production and distribution of wealth, and that without such production and distribution there would be no financial operations. On the other hand production and distribution of wealth can exist, and has existed, without financial operations. When the workers of the world take control of the production and distribution of wealth on their own behalf there will be no room for the financier and the latter’s operations will no longer interfere with the production of the things necessary to life. Born out of profit-making he, and all his tricks and entanglements, will go out with the going out of the profit-making system.

Socialism and nothing less

 

The Socialist Party is the only party that puts socialism forward as the solution to present evils, for the workers will only be freed from those evils when their cause, capitalism, is abolished. The working class must grasp the fact that the capitalist system, itself a result of historical development, has evolved means of producing wealth which, if democratically controlled by the whole of the people, would give useful work to the able, leisure, comfort, and happiness to all mankind. 

The capitalist system has been constantly changing, but it is still the same capitalist system. The workers have had inflicted upon them innumerable reforms of different kinds, yet they are now, relatively to the power of production, worse off than ever before. And the reason is simplicity itself. Reforms are but attempts to remedy the ever-increasing evils wrought by capitalism, but even if successful, the system still goes on producing new evils or aggravating old ones, and it does so much faster than the reformers can hope to arouse a sufficient demand for the passing of reform acts to meet them.  Workers have been passive under capitalism because they have not yet learned to see that it is obsolete and therefore a social nuisance. The inevitable worsening of conditions under capitalism breeds discontent in place of passivity it is a criminal act to turn that discontent towards reforms of capitalism, when without much more trouble it might be turned towards socialism.

The capitalists desires as much profit as possible. To obtain this they must pay as little as possible for the worker’s commodity, “labour power.” It is always the capitalists’ desire to keep the price of labour power at a minimum, compatible with its efficiency. On the other hand, the worker desires to obtain as high a price as possible for his commodity, labour power. The result is an antagonism between the two, which is impossible in the present social system to prevent. The workers in the unions are so organised because they realise that by this method they can more effectively struggle for a better price for their labour power, which price they obtain in the form of wages. In spite of the frequent fence-sitting attitude of many union officials they are forced to act in this struggle, for otherwise the workers would eventually repudiate them.

 

If working people would only realise that there is no way out of this rut within the present system. If reformers would realise that the cause of war, unemployment, poverty, lies in the capitalist system, and that the only way to deal effectively with these problems is to abolish this system of the private ownership of the means of production and establish socialism; if instead of attacking the evil results of this system by means of shallow platitudes which, on coming up against reality, they find necessary to throw overboard; if, in short, they would attack the root instead of the branches, then, and then only, would they have some hope of realising a new and better world.

The workers, the producers of wealth, are poor because they are robbed; they are robbed because they may not use the machinery of wealth production except on terms dictated by the owners, the propertied class. The remedy for working class poverty and other social ills is the transfer of ownership of these means of production from the capital class to society. That, in a few words, is the case for socialism.

The work of rebuilding society on this new basis cannot be started until power is in the hands of a socialist working class, and that cannot be until many millions have been convinced of the need for change and are broadly agreed on the way to set to work to bring it about.

 

The workers, the producers of wealth, are poor because they are robbed; they are robbed because they may not use the machinery of wealth production except on terms dictated by the owners, the propertied class. The remedy for working class poverty and other social ills is the transfer of ownership of these means of production from the Capital Class to society. That, in a few words, is the case for Socialism. The work of rebuilding society on this new basis cannot be started until power is in the hands of a Socialist working class, and that cannot be until many millions have been convinced of the need for change and are broadly agreed on the way to set to work to bring it about.

Is it not better, our critics tell us, in view of the certainty that socialism cannot be introduced at once, to devote much, if not all, our energy to making the best of capitalism, and getting “something now”? By “something now” they mean higher wages, increased State protection against destitution through illness or unemployment, and other like proposals. It may then come as a surprise to them that we also believe in getting something now. We differ in that we are not willing to subordinate socialist propaganda to the demand for reforms of capitalism, and in that we strongly hold that the best way to get these things is by the revolutionary activity of an organisation of revolutionaries. In other words, the quickest and easiest method of getting reforms from the ruling class is to let them see that it will endanger their position to refuse.

While we recognise that socialism is the only permanent solution, we are not among those who consider that the capitalists are simply unable to afford better conditions for the workers. A comparison between the total income from property, and the petty cost of doles and relief, shows the falsity of that somewhat common notion. On the one hand the workers would, if they ceased to struggle, soon find that there is still room for a worsening of their conditions, and on the other hand were they free from the mental blindness which prevents them from striking a blow when and where it would be most damaging, they might, even within capitalism, raise their standard of living and diminish their insecurity. Unfortunately they do not yet see the brutal facts of the class struggle, and too often allow themselves to be paralysed in action by their belief in the supposed community of interest between them and their exploiters, by their response to every deceitful appeal in the name of patriotism, and by their lack of confidence in their own powers and intelligence. They will put up a straight fight against their employers, but they have not yet seen through the more subtle hostility of the newspapers, the politicians, and all the other defenders of the employing class who pose as neutrals because it makes their influence more deadly. The employers and their hired defenders know well enough that your gain is often their loss, and they therefore have good reason to persuade you not to seize the opportunities that offer of raising your wages or reducing your hours. But many who talk about the beauties of an “advanced programme of social reforms” seem not to have realised that if such things are to be of any worth to you necessitate at first the dipping into the profits of the other class. Various well-meaning persons may preach arbitration and conciliation, but you know well enough that sweet words do not, as a rule, charm employers into giving higher wages. They will not give up any part of what they hold except under pressure one kind of pressure is fear; the fear that refusal to spend part of their on reforms will encourage revolutionary agitation for the seizure of the whole. There is supposed to be another way of getting “something now.” It is to assist into office a non-revolutionary party like the Labour Party.

Our aim as socialists is the destruction of the capitalist system of society, and we are therefore unalterably hostile to all political parties which seek to gain control of parliament for any other purpose than the establishment of socialism.