The Futility of Reform.

 Social Reform Explained.

 The basis of the present system is class ownership of the means of producing wealth. The class that rules has always maintained that basis, as no other foundation for their system is possible.

Various changes are made, however, in the manner of conducting the system and in the detailed conditions under which the people live. These changes do not affect the basis of the system and are therefore called reforms as contrasted with revolutions. The policy of altering the social conditions within a system is called social reform. These reforms are mainly carried out by means of legislation.

Its Purpose and Results.

 The growth or evolution of modern industry affects the conditions under which the masses work and live. Our masters, therefore, are continually using their political power to “reform” industrial, social and political conditions. They do this to patch up and perpetuate the social system that benefits them, as it is against their interests to allow it to decay.

 The rapid development of industry makes a complete change of the social system more and more possible and necessary. The growing competition for jobs with the increasing uncertainty of a living tends to make the workers oppose the present system. Hence the master class tries to content the workers by promising and often establishing reforms in the hope that the victims of the system will turn away from revolutionary policies. The purpose of reform is to cover up some of the worst features of the system; to adjust conditions so as to obtain more profits from industry, and to secure and strengthen capitalist domination.

 The result of reform is a more efficient working of capitalism. The employing class learns by experience what detail changes will benefit them and introduces the reforms upon the plea that they are improving the lot of the worker. The other result of reform follows from this, namely, that they secure the support of the workers and cloud the class issue in their minds.  Balfour, a Tory prime minister said: “Social reform is the antidote to socialism.”

Historical Survey of Influence of Reform.

The factory system in its early years sank the workers into the most miserable conditions possible. It drove them from their cottage industries amid green fields and fresh air into the unsanitary buildings of smoke-poisoned and overcrowded cities. The women and children of both sexes were also recruited for the busy machinery. They worked fourteen and sixteen hours per day and often by night. In factories, shops or mines, they worked under brutal conditions for starvation wages. Individualism was celebrating its victory and the manufacturers' accumulated fortunes in a few years. There was no factory legislation restricting the conditions of labour and attempts to form workmen’s combinations resulted in merciless repression.

The terrible conditions of life and labour had a disastrous effect on the health of the population and the workers died off rapidly. Some of the far-seeing employers demanded legislation to compel the manufacturers to improve the state of their victims. Workers in their misery destroyed machinery, but it was mainly due to the antagonism between landowners and manufacturers that factory legislation came to be passed.

These factory reforms undoubtedly improved conditions for a time. It was because the workers had sunk to such utter degradation and inefficiency that the masters eventually enacted laws to prevent the workers from being killed off. The reforms were necessary to the preservation of the system and only improved the workers’ conditions compared with the depths to which they had previously sunk.

 Since that time nearly all reforms have left the condition of the workers untouched, except where they made them worse. Political reforms, factory laws, pensions for the aged and allowances to the unemployed and sick; such legislation has been enacted in most capitalist countries without making any permanent improvement in working-class conditions. Bismarck, in Germany, heaped up reforms to win the workers away from socialism and make them good fighting material, but the general condition of the workers remained the same. British capitalists have been ingenious in their reform policy, for it has built up the strength of the masters and kept the workers interested in their masters’ affairs to the exclusion of the working-class issues.

The Economic Barrier to Beneficial Legislation.

 The operation of reform legislation brings in its train counter effects due to the economic laws of capitalism. A shorter working day is a desirable thing, but anything which makes labour-power more expensive drives the employers to adopt some method to cheapen the cost of production. The hours are made less, but the energy and output remain the same as during the longer working day. Greater division of labour, more efficient superintendence, the elimination of the unfit, more scientific methods, better machinery and the introduction of women into the factory are some of the after-effects inevitably resulting from an increase in the price of labour-power. The unemployment and insecurity of the worker are thereby continued and grow with the economic development.

 

So-Called Revolutionary Reforms.

Many well-known reformers call themselves socialists of the revisionist school. They claim to have revised the teachings of Marx and Engels and made the theory up-to-date. They say we must go a step at a time. They argue that their reforms are revolutionary.

These men simply act as agents of capitalism in teaching the workers to fight for reforms. The time thus spent is lost to the teaching of socialism. The difficult details of the million and one reforms would take as much time for the average worker to understand as the real teachings of socialism. If the reforms advocated were likely to aid the workers in their struggle, the capitalists in control would not yield them, and to go before the workers with a reform programme is, therefore, a fraud, for it can only be carried into legislating with the consent of the employing class in power.

Arguments of Reformers.

 All the leading capitalist reformists argue that if the workers will give them the power they will help the workers. The whole history of capitalist legislation is against them. The reform policy of capitalism is carried out to deceive the workers, to make them more efficient wage-slaves and to bind the workers more securely to allegiance to capitalism.

 We see how bitterly the employers fight the workers’ demands for higher wages and how brutally they subdue them. Can we expect these same employers to pass beneficial legislation? Their claim to have improved our conditions by reforms is flatly contradicted by every inquiry into industrial conditions. The unceasing unrest and strike fever in the ranks of labour shows that all the reforms have failed to stop the decline in labour conditions. All the arguments of reformers fail to show how it is possible to reduce the economic insecurity of the workers or to strengthen the producers’ position against the employer by reforms.

Waste of Effort in Fighting for Reforms.

 The time spent on preaching reforms is wasted because it does not enlighten the worker on the causes of his conditions and the remedy. It simply leads him to expect benefits from the ruling class and the present system. All the reform campaigns of the past have resulted in some kind of legislation that eventually worked out to our disadvantage. Reformers forget that the very growth and evolution of the industrial system are quicker than the passing of legislation, and the actual development of the system causes more evils than are temporarily reformed. As soon as one evil is reformed twenty more arise. If the workers devoted one-tenth of the attention and energy to socialism that they give to reform advocacy—socialism would be here.

Confusion of Issue in Worker’s Mind.

 The advocate of socialism finds his or her work hampered at every step by the confusion created in the worker’s mind by reformists. The workers are taught to believe that they have a common cause with non-socialists in fighting for amelioration. Instead of explaining to the workers the class character of modern society with the resulting enslavement and poverty that will always be the workers’ portion, the reformers create false hopes in the worker’s minds. The great majority, therefore, follow the policy of exhausting every possible error before coming to the right conclusion. They usually grow apathetic and sickened of politics altogether before the right stage is reached. Socialist activity by the workers requires a clear recognition of the class conflict, and as the belief in reforms obscures this, reform advocacy is injurious to the workers’ interests.

Some Reform Organisations of Today.

 The societies advocating reforms are countless. They range from nationalisation to currency reform. Shopkeepers, professionals, manufacturers, bankers and brewers, all vie with each other in seeking some reform to benefit their particular interests. Business people wanting more credit advocate currency reforms, but they fail to show how any alteration of banking laws will alter the relative positions of employers and employees. Labour Parties and left-wing bodies have reform programmes and enlist their membership by this means. Their reforms, however, are either of the same variety as we have had for decades from Liberal and Tory or they are reforms which are impossible under capitalism, such as the demand to “absorb the unemployed.” Capitalism needs an unemployed army to keep down wages, and this industrial reserve is continually reinforced by those thrown out of work by machinery and speeding up methods.

 The fraud of reform is clearly shown

Social Reform Leaves Causes Untouched.

An examination of modern society shows that the poverty and degradation of the workers are due to the capitalist system itself. The only remedy, therefore, is to remove the cause of the social condition—to abolish the present system and replace it with a social system in which the means of production are owned in common, and in which exploitation will not exist.

 Socialists are scientific and therefore seek to remove the causes instead of tinkering with effects. Social reform is like charity—it perpetuates the misery and does not prevent its continual reappearance. The reformer fights tuberculosis, whilst the workers’ conditions cause the disease to flourish. “Criminals” are hounded while poverty and unemployment drive men and women to recruit the army of “criminals.”

Evolution and Revolution.

Reformers claim that they believe in evolution as opposed to revolution. They preach “going gradually,” or “a step at a time,” and they attempt to justify their ideas on scientific grounds. Revolution, however, is a fact common to natural and human history alike. Revolution is the more or less rapid change made necessary by the previous evolution of the organism. Each system of society evolves up to the point where a complete change is required, and that complete change is a Revolution. The present system evolves, but no amount of evolution of private property produces common ownership. The common ownership for which Socialists strive can only be established by the rise of the working class to political power and the use of that power to transform the economic basis of society. That is a social revolution. No accumulation of reforms or steps can alter the economic foundations of capitalism.

Evolution and Revolution are not opposed to each other. The evolution of capitalism with all its reforms produces those conditions making a revolution inevitable if society is to progress. Socialists hold that conditions are ripe for revolution. Conditions are beyond reform.

Rationalisation and Municipalisation.

Government ownership is not socialism. The transfer of industries from private firms to State ownership is simply a policy dictated by capitalist needs and for capitalist advantage. The most open enemies of Socialism have nationalised railways and other businesses in various countries without in any way benefiting the working class. Under government ownership “sweating” is quite common.

The saving of waste resulting from abolishing competition means a reduction in the number of workers needed. That is the effect of government ownership. The control of an industry by one employer—the capitalist state—means a stronger force against the workers if they strike against their conditions, and the victimised workers have no other employer in the industry to employ them when they are dismissed. It is like a monopoly trust.

The profits made in government services are used to benefit the property owners—the taxpayers.

All these arguments apply against municipal ownership.

Revolution, Unions and Class Struggle

 

False ideas about Revolution are being spread by every agency of reaction and confusion. The open defenders of capitalism as well as the so-called Labour Parties are active in distorting the meaning of Revolution. Flaring headlines in the press speak of the advocacy of violence as Revolution, whereas in most cases the advocates, as well as the users of violence, are the defenders of property. In “respectable” labour circles the “right honourables” talk of bloodshed and revolution as interchangeable terms, thus soothing their followers in the belief that revolution is something horrible and chaotic as opposed to the quiet and peaceful policy of capitalism and reform.

These votaries of brotherly love ignore the fact that force and butchery have always been a part of the reign of private property. In war and in so-called peace times the property-owning class have never hesitated to use force to gain their ends. In fact, violence has often been promoted in the workers’ ranks by agents of capital to make the butchery or defeat of the workers easier. Labour Governments, too, have been active the world over in threatening and using force against the workers.

Hence the talk about revolution meaning violence is pure hypocrisy amongst the supporters and reformers of capitalism.

While anarchists and direct actionists have also talked about force, the fact remains that those who seek to replace capitalism by socialism do not play the capitalist game of advocating violence.

Force and violence are not Revolution. Revolution to a socialist means the complete change from capitalism to socialism achieved by the control of political power by an organised and informed working class. Not a rebellion of a section of workers; not a general strike for higher wages ; not a seizure of government by a few intent on dictatorship, but an organised action on the part of the majority of the workers who see the necessity of becoming politically supreme in order to transform the economic system. The revolution is made necessary by economic development, and it can only be successful if the working class understands the socialist position. Therefore the educational work of the Socialist Party

The Socialist attitude toward Trade Unions.

Origin of Trade Unions.

Trade unions are the outcome of capitalist conditions. The craft guilds nourished when petty enterprise and handicraft was the rule in the cities and the land workers owned their farms in the villages. The guilds died out with the change from feudalism to capitalism. Guilds were composed of men who quickly evolved from workers to masters and their association was a mutual defence body to advance their craft and regulate industry.

 

The enclosure of their lands and the use of machinery and steam brought men and women together in factories. They were wage workers for life. The chance for them to become masters was gone—they had to make the best of their position as employees. The crowding of the towns with men seeking work brought down wages to a starvation level. Women and children were enticed into the factory hells as the introduction of machinery rendered the skill of the craftsman unnecessary.

 

In self-defence the workmen were forced to form associations for protection against the greedy and powerful employers. Working side by side, the workers found themselves drawn instinctively together, as experience quickly taught them that the individual workman stood no chance against the powerful factory owner.

 Early Struggles.

The early unions, composed of skilled craftsmen, were necessarily craft in form and local in scope. Their chief weapon was petitions to Parliament.

For a time Parliament made some pretext of enforcing the old laws, but as industry came more and more under the influence of the larger capitalists the Government came out openly against combinations. Unable to obtain redress along constitutional lines, the workers turned to strikes and violence.

Alarmed at the threatening attitude of the men, Parliament rushed through the Combination Acts of 1799-1800. Contrary to expectations, these Acts did not destroy unions, but drove them “underground.”

The terrible suffering and misery of men and women employed in the machine-invaded industries caused secret societies, accompanied by riots, machine breaking, and incendiarism, to spring up on all sides.

In 1824, under pressure from the reform element of the capitalists, the Combination Acts were repealed and unions legalised. Immediately unions began to grow and flourish and numerous strikes for higher wages occurred. The next year the crisis, of 1825 broke. Industry was brought to a standstill and wages fell on all sides. During this period trade unionism fared disastrously. Most of them were destroyed in the attempt to stem the fall of wages.

The disasters of the past appeared to the most active unionists as the consequence of localised efforts. They now turned to general unions embracing all workers. The greatest of these, The Grand National Consolidated, was formed in 1834 and rapidly increased its membership to over 500,000. It advocated the general strike and some of Robert Owen’s communistic schemes. After a short period of activity it fell to pieces under the strain of strikes, boycotts, lock-outs, and the forces of the law. A fundamental source of weakness was the lack of knowledge of its members.

Their Necessity Under Capitalism. 

The basis of the present system is the class ownership of the means of life. The working class can only exist by selling its labour power on the market. Over the price and conditions of this sale there is a never-ceasing conflict. Possessed of all the economic resources and backed up by the political State, the capitalists use every effort to reduce wages to the minimum—at the same time trying by every available means to lengthen the working day and increase the rate of exploitation. By means of labour-saving devices, greater division of labour, more scientific managements, and the introduction of women and children into industry, an increasing body of unemployed is created. As the system develops it does away with the necessity of the skilled craftsmen and tends to reduce all to the same dead level. The general tendency of the capitalist system is to reduce the working class to the position of a coolie.

Against the conditions pictured above the individual worker is helpless. In order to protect themselves, the workers are forced to combine together into unions. Acting together, they are able to exert more pressure on the capitalist class and influence to some degree the conditions under which they live and labour. In actual practice unions can do little more than resist the downward pressure of the system. Instead of improving conditions, their whole energies are required to resist the encroachments of capital.

However much the socialist may deplore the ignorance of the rank and file, or the treachery of the leaders, however much we might understand the limitations of unions, we must admit that unions are inevitable and necessary under the present system. As someone said, it is the arm that the working class instinctively raises to defend itself.

The So Called "Commodity Struggle." 

The struggle over hours and wages arises from the economic position of the working class. It is a struggle by members of one class (workers) against members of another class (employers). Labour-power is unlike any other commodity—it is sold only by one class and bought only by another. The efforts to sell labour power at the highest price and the opposition by the employers is a manifestation of the class struggle.

The idea is sometimes preached that the struggle over hours and wages is a purely “commodity struggle,” like haggling over the price of fish or meat between buyers and sellers. But the struggle over wage conditions is a direct result of class distinctions produced by the system of private ownership. It is, therefore, not merely a struggle by commodity owners over the price of a commodity. It is a struggle by the working class to secure as much as possible of the wealth produced, against the efforts of owners to retain all they can in the form of “profit.” It is, therefore, a part of the class struggle. It is quite true that this fight about hours and wages is not carried on by class-conscious workers.

The class struggle, however, is not caused by class-consciousness. It is caused by economic conditions, and when the workers recognise intelligently the class struggle that is going on, they will consciously organise, not to raise wages and shorten hours of slavery, but to abolish the entire system of wage slavery.