Against Leaders

 

If we are without knowledge, as, for instance, in social affairs, we are at the mercy of those who say that they know, and who are endeavouring to persuade or drive us to follow out a course of action that they say is for our good.

There is a group of people who propagate the view that the working class are an ignorant lot, incapable of deciding what form of society is best for them, or, in the event of a new form of society coming into existence, running such a society in a proper businesslike manner. This group of people proclaim that it is necessary for a few intellectuals to apply their cultured brains to social problems, tell the workers what must be done, prepare the framework of a new society, and occupy all the important posts under any new arrangement of social affairs. To such people, leadership is an essential idea, as democracy is supposed to be incapable of managing its own affairs.

Now, democratic methods may result in slow motion, may have many faults, but they are nothing against the waste of effort, the sickening failures, and the empty achievements obtained by methods of autocratic rule, or rule by faction or clique.

The case for the capable man in the right job sounds plausible until we look at the results before our eyes. The temptation to stay in a good job, prolonging its lease of life and blinding the eyes of the trusting followers has, so far, been irresistible to the majority of the cultured that have sought a career in labour affairs. Once having gotten ahead of the crowd, they do their best to stay there and make the job as comfortable and lucrative as possible.

 

The weakness of the intellectuals’ position is apparent once we look at the matter, with a little attention. Let us take the case of a man we are entrusting with the carrying out of certain work. How can we judge the capabilities of such a man unless we ourselves have a fair knowledge of the work he is to do and the results he is to achieve?

Knowledge is the only safeguard for the workers against trickery and false advocates, and it is also the only doorway through which society can pass to a society based upon common ownership. If the mass of those who are seeking a new arrangement of social affairs do not possess knowledge of what they want and how it is to be attained, then a new society can only be new chaos, be the leaders of the people as cultured as they may.

The way of the intellectual is a curious one. He points out that the mass of the people are ignorant, but, instead of showing how they can obtain knowledge, he contends for the improvement in affairs according to his own plan, so that the people will, unconsciously, come into the new Jerusalem. Instead of seeing that it is possible for people to be educated, he sets out with the assumption that such a thing is absurd.

The leadership group is composed of two elements; the one lays stress upon the “capable man” side, and the other lays stress upon the “trusted leader” of spectacular movements.

That modern society is a complex affair is a fact that should hardly need labouring, yet there are many who think that, like the prophet, they can blow down the walls of Jericho with a trumpet. This false idea leads to the enthusiastic and futile strike demonstrations and the like, which is much favoured by the Communists, although the Russian example ought to have knocked such rubbish out of most people’s heads. However, it has not done so. It is still necessary to point out that the running of society requires a vast amount of technical and administrative knowledge. This knowledge the worker can obtain by studying and taking an active part in the work of a political organisation having for its object the establishment of socialism and for its methods democratic principles.

It will not be by mob rule, nor yet by the rule of intellectuals, but the rule of educated democracy that the new society will be ushered in and its needs met. Educated democracy would adopt means to select the most fitting people for given occupations, and, having the knowledge themselves as to the general course to be followed, would see that those selected carried out their duties properly.

There is a tendency to confuse the appointment of capable men for a job with the appointment of leaders, and this confusion of the two is done by the intellectual type above mentioned.

Take a leaf out of the book of an ordinary capitalist business organisation. When a company is formed a Board of Directors takes charge of affairs and appoints managers and the like. Now, the Directors are, themselves, by no means necessarily capable managers and so forth, but they know quite well what they want and have a general idea how it is to be obtained. We are, of course, referring to the Directors who really act as such, and not to the ornamental figureheads who frequently figure on Boards. Above all, they want the business to pay, and, therefore, before the managers can embark on any enterprise they must, first of all, convince the Board that such an enterprise is a paying proposition. This analogy will serve to illustrate the point. The educated worker will have to be convinced by reason, and not emotion before he gives his support to any proposition.

A man who can speak well and move an audience by emotional outbursts is usually lacking in the accomplishments necessary to perform work of any administrative nature, and yet, under the influence of the leadership idea, this is just the type of man who generally falls into the administrative vacancy.

Let us leave the intellectual and emotional leaders to take care of themselves, and conclude this brief article with a question and an answer.

How would society have to organise in the future, assuming the workers were in the seat of power?

The first consideration of society, in such circumstances, would be to provide a living equally for all its members and the second consideration would be that the living should be a comfortable one. First, the hunger problem would have to be settled and the housing and clothing; and then the aesthetic side of life could receive attention.

It is argued that if we were all comfortably placed, life would be dull and drab and that it is the ups and downs that make life interesting. It would be difficult to prove this point to the sleeper on a park bench, the dweller in the slum, the sufferer from lead poisoning, or the prostitute. It is small comfort to such as these, whose lives are made up of “downs,” to appreciate the delight of the alternating phases. It will usually be noticed that those who preach the gospel of the alternating phases are those who have been favoured with the “ups”! It is equivalent to the moral sermon preached by the rich to the man who steals a loaf because he is hungry.

Most of us lead dull, drab lives from our earliest to our latest days, and yet we can end this state of affairs if we wish. The chief consideration is that the majority of us must do the wishing. The father to this wish is the acquirement of the knowledge of why we are poor, and how to end our poverty.

The Scottish Wealth Gap

 

The richest 10% in Scotland are more than 200 times wealthier than the poorest 10%.

The median wealth held by the richest in the country rose to £1,651,700 between 2018 and 2020, and has risen by 32% since 2006-08.

In contrast, median wealth for the poorest 10% was just £7,600 – a difference of 217 times.

One in three people said they do not have the required savings to keep themselves above the poverty line should they lose their job.

Half the people in the bottom 20% of earners in Scotland are deemed financially vulnerable, compared to just 8% of the highest 20% of earners.

Some 46% of households who would struggle to financially see out a month after losing their income include a person who is disabled – up 8% since 2006-08.

Some 72% of the households who reported struggling with debt were in the lowest 40% of earners, the figures show, compared to just 3% of the top earners.

The second lowest 20% of earners also added another 10% to those reporting debt to be at an unmanageable level.

The gap between the richest and poorest in terms of property wealth also expanded, with the bottom 10% reporting a median property wealth of £18,000, compared to £500,000 in the top 10%.

The figure for the poorest declined from £23,200 in 2006-08, while their wealthy counterparts saw median property wealth rise from £469,600.

Median pension wealth was even more unequal than wealth in general, with the bottom 10% boasting just £1,700, and the top 10% reporting £617,300 in pensions – 363 times more than the poorest Scots.

Scotland’s wealthiest 200 times richer than nation’s poorest, figures show (yahoo.com)

Understanding our world

 

The Socialist Party proposes the abolition of capitalism; that is, of the private ownership of the means of social existence, land, machinery, etc.

Wealth, in any form (and capital is a form of wealth), is the product of human energy applied to nature; in other words, of work or labour. A little reflection will show that the draining, fencing and cultivation of land, the sinking of mine shafts, the construction of railways, docks, roads, etc., and the production of machinery such as exists at present could not possibly be the work of the small class which owns and controls these embodiments of capital, nor yet of their ancestors. These immense forces have been brought into being by the labour of the disinherited mass of society, the working class. Every day this class is busy maintaining, repairing and adding to these instruments, as well as using them for the production of everyday necessities, such as food and clothing, etc.

The owners of capital, as such, do not invent or discover, direct or manage, the process of production, but hand over to salaried experts (specialised members of the working class) these various essential functions. Any part that the ancestors of present-day capitalists may have played in production was as important, but not more so, than the part played by those whom they controlled and directed. One of the essential features of capitalist production is its social character, the element of co-operation involved in each factory, and expressed in the fact that no person can say that this or that article is the product of his or her undivided effort.

The savings which the capitalist class have accumulated have been derived then, not from their labour, but from that of society at large. From the sale of goods produced in their various establishments, the owners derive money to pay wages, replace raw material and machinery, pay rent, interest and taxes, and then find a surplus to be divided into personal income for the capitalist-owner and revenue with which to increase the capital of the concern. The workers’ wages are based, not upon what they have produced, but upon the average cost of living of their class. The greater proportion of the produce of their cooperative labour is thus filched from them under cover of a legal contract by which they makeover to their employers the use of their energy for certain periods, i.e., hour, day or week as the case may be.

It is thus obvious that the workers are unable to save up and become capitalists themselves, in spite of the fact that they spend their whole lives in toil. Here and there, individuals climb from one class to the other, but their number is exceeded by that of capitalists who are ruined by competition.

The question inevitably arises of how this division of society into capitalists and wage-slaves came about. How did the workers become separated from the means of production in the first place? For it is important to notice that capital cannot accumulate so long as the workers remain in possession of an alternative mode of life to sell their power to labour. Where the workers, for instance, have sufficient land and tools with which to feed, clothe and house themselves, their capital howls in vain for a labour supply. It is restricted to the sphere of commerce.

This was, roughly speaking, the state of affairs in Britain in the fifteenth century. The peasants in the country and the craftsmen in the town, free from the burden of feudalism to a considerable extent, tilled their land and plied their crafts as it suited themselves and enjoyed the greater proportion of the fruits of their labour. They were organised locally in guilds that supervised trade in the interests of their members.

With the spread of knowledge, the growth of inter-communication and the development of national and international markets, a new economic class arose, i.e., the merchants. In the circumstances of its origin, this class had an important social function to perform. It broke down the isolation of the mediaeval cities, which was their principal weakness and limitation. It increased the articles of use available in different districts and countries by developing trade and stimulated the increase in social wants and the general standard of life, but the ambition of this class was not to be satisfied with the comparatively limited returns with which purely commercial relations provided them.

The merchants saw that they had to live on the difference between what the workers could produce and what they were able to retain for themselves; and they further saw that, so long as the workers remained in secure possession of their means of production, the share of the merchants would not be large.

The problem facing this enterprising class was thus: How to separate the worker from his tools and means of production, land, etc.

The solution of the problem was the result of the development of the elements of the problem itself. The growing demand for wool led to the big land enclosures and the forcible dispossession of a considerable portion of the peasantry, who had to resort to the towns in search of a livelihood. Thus was provided with the labour market desired by the merchants, who set up small factories in competition with the craftsmen.

The process by which merchant capital eventually captured the whole field was a protracted one lasting from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. The first means by which the merchants gained the advantage was by the introduction of division of labour in the workshop. The craft guilds laid down definite limits to the number of apprentices who might be employed by a master; but these restrictions did not affect the new masters, and the larger number of their employees enabled them to split the work up into detailed processes at which individual workers specialised, thus increasing the speed and quantity of work turned out.

The wealth produced no longer belonged to the workers; they were paid wages which by degrees were pushed down to subsistence level. The merchant sold the produce of his employees’ labour, whose share thus grew less as the total produced increased.

The handicraftsmen carried on the losing struggle in ever-worsening circumstances until the introduction of machinery finally terminated their misery along with their existence. The last obstacle to the industrial supremacy of capital was thus removed. Wealth grew by leaps and bounds, accumulating and concentrating in the hands of the few, while poverty spread over the lives of the many.

Socialism and the State

 The impregnation of the worker’s mind with individualist beliefs and delusions of freedom are obviously a tremendous asset— practically a necessity—to the smooth running and perpetuation of the capitalist order. This was early recognised by the employing class, and, from the dawn of the system, the deliberate fostering and strengthening of such ideas by propaganda were attempted. But after the workers had won the franchise, definite organs for their “instruction” in the “way they should think” were necessary. “Now, if ever,” says Engels, “the people must be kept in order by moral means.” Engels, in his introduction to “Socialism—Utopian and Scientific” goes on to show the use the English bourgeoisie made of religion. Here we will consider three other agents—educational institutions, the media, and the public platform.

 No worker could now escape from acquiring not only the groundwork of bourgeois ideology in his or her most impressionable years but also the special national applications of it through falsified history and the glorification of his “heritage”—the constitutional “charter” of supposed “liberties.” The training of the young was a masterstroke of the ruling class.

When the workers had the power of the vote, the media developed a new purpose and with it new methods and characteristics.

The modern media sets before the worker distorted “news” and a view of affairs deliberately calculated to foster the hold of bourgeois ideology. It does not produce this ideology, but constantly provides fresh details acceptable to it—the “evidence” upon which it feeds and thrives.

"That unique political fact, an enfranchised slave-class, furthermore, meant the unqualified triumph of the type of politician whose business it is to deliberately cajole and mislead the electorate.  The new political show-men were a necessity of the new political situation. They became the latest popular “heroes of society.” To regularly give a semblance of intense sincerity to the most hypocritical arguments is no light task, and men who excelled in it won the gratitude of the ruling class."

 It is significant that in the United States—the land of “liberty” —where the workers have been enfranchised for a longer period than in any other capitalist State, the art of the “spell-binder”—of gushing, emotional, meaningless, wordy rhetoric—has achieved its most exquisite development.

The Modern State. 

Schools and colleges, the media, are used assiduously to foster the “great illusion” of capitalism—that the worker is free, possessing freedom of opportunity with every other person, and liberty of contract. The preservation of this illusion is almost a necessity to, and is certainly one of the greatest safeguards of, the present system—and is recognised as such by the clear-sighted agents of the ruling class. The bourgeoisie is compelled to avoid anything that will tend to destroy this illusion. Even the “right to strike,” apparently menaced from time to time by “compulsory arbitration” schemes, is a necessity to the capitalists as well as to the workers—and the more far-seeing members of the employing class well know it. If ever the capitalists, in the height of fear and folly, endeavour to force the proletariat, as a class, to labour by law, and thus to thrust them into a legally recognised worker’s “status,” then indeed their days of power will be numbered.

For the same reason, we may regard the enfranchisement of the workers, once established, as a necessity for the continued existence of the system. The ideology of the proletariat, flowing, as we have seen, from the relations of production, makes it inevitable. Engels says :

“The highest form of the State, the democratic republic, know officially nothing of property distinctions. It is that form of the State which, under modern conditions of society, becomes more and more an unavoidable necessity. The last decisive struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie can only be fought out under this State form” (“Origin of the Family,” )

But we must not, of course, overlook the fact that the capitalist system and its State forms are still in process of development, and that there exists today in concrete reality a number of capitalist societies, each with a different history and each showing minor traits peculiar to itself. In Europe, nearly every State contains vestigial institutions leftover from Feudalism which affect its activities to a greater or less degree. More important, however, is the fact that capitalist production has by no means completely eliminated petty industry, and, in particular, wherever the peasantry is numerically very strong, as in Spain, France, and Italy, democratic forms can at least be temporarily suspended without immediate injury to the ruling class. Were the majority of the Italian population, for instance, proletarians, it is certain that the Fascist reaction would have been much more hazardous, if not impossible.

The necessity of the Parliamentary State, with an enfranchised working class, where capitalism is highly developed and the industrial proletariat strong, was vividly demonstrated after the collapse of the German Empire in 1918, when, amid an unprecedented political crisis, when larger masses of workers were agitated and organised for revolt than probably at any other time in capitalist history, the bourgeoisie was compelled to set up the most democratic republican constitution in the world, with male and female suffrage over the age of twenty, proportional representation, and the referendum.

The State, however, of no matter what period or what form—monarchic, oligarchic, or parliamentary—remains, in essence, the same. It has one function, and one essential function alone—the preservation of the property of the exploiting class, and, accordingly, the suppression of the exploited. Throughout the history of capitalism, the State has served as the instrument of the bourgeoisie. The slaughter of the Communards of Paris, the bloody suppression of strikes all over the world are evidence that it has served right well its historic function.

The capitalist class dominate society today because they control the public forces of coercion. But, unlike the ruling classes of other ages, this control does not arise from the fact that they themselves are the essential part of those forces. The bourgeoisie is not, and never have been, a military class. They, unlike their predecessors at the helm of State, are not only economically, but politically and militarily, entirely dependent upon the working masses. The workers make up almost in entirety the armed forces, and the workers, through the political machinery and through their bourgeois ideas, place these forces in the hands of their oppressors. The capitalists rule the immense majority of society because that immense majority sanctions their rule. The slave and the serf knew they were enslaved and exploited; the wage worker does not. The economic relations of modern production serve to disguise the fact of exploitation, and, furthermore, tend to generate that widespread individualism and the illusion of freedom that facilitates the inculcation of ideas and opinions favourable to bourgeois rule.

As Engels says :

“The possessing class rule directly through universal suffrage. For so long as the oppressed class, in this case the proletariat, is not ripe for its economic emancipation, just so long will its majority regard the existing order of society as the only one possible” (“Origin of the Family,”)

And when will the proletariat be “ripe for its emancipation”— except just when they realise that they require emancipating and understand the facts of their exploitation? Not when they begin to know that there is something rotten in the state of capitalism—for they know that now—but when they realise the cause of that rottenness. Then, when they grasp the truth that the evils of capitalism are inherent and inevitable, not accidental and curable, will they set about its destruction and the inauguration of a socialist society in which the producers will control production and the distribution of its product. This transformation of attitude towards the system will involve, necessarily, the shattering of the illusion of “freedom,” and the replacement of economic individualism by a realisation of the possibilities of social ownership.

The essential process that must precede the proletarian revolution is the preparation and education of the workers for their revolutionary task. By “education” we mean, primarily, the education flowing from observation and reasoning—the instruction of experience. Today, socialists as a body are largely students who have acquired their mental outlook on society to a great extent by books and lectures—second-hand, so to speak. So long as the simple elements of socialist thought generally necessitate this kind of preparation, the World Socialist Movement is in its early, almost embryonic, stage. Not until the basic proposition of socialist theory takes root in the minds of masses of men because they are the inescapable inferences from the facts of social life, provide the obvious solution for the pressing, immediate problems of the social situation, and are so self-evident that no counter-propaganda can efface them—not until then can we consider that the movement has reached maturity.

There is evidence that capitalism has yet a considerable future before it; a future of intensive exploitation of the yet untouched areas of the earth; a future of economic centralisation crushing out the last effective remnants of individualism; a future of imperialism and war, of industrial and political anarchy without parallel; a future in which the workers will be hammered and battered into recognition of social realities.

But alongside the education of experience and practice will go also the education in theoretical principles and tactics born of the conception of history we owe so greatly to Marx. The first form will provide the necessary groundwork of class-consciousness; the second, the essential guidance to a policy avoiding the pitfalls and errors that beset a revolutionary class groping its way amid endless problems along the path towards emancipation.

When the “knell of capitalist private property sounds” and the workers are massed in their might to overwhelm the puny masqueraders—fossil guardians of order and civilisation—they will move with a resolute intention that nothing can frustrate, win the powers of society from the paralysed hands of the parasites of property, and, with confidence born of knowledge, forged in struggle, build upon the basis of humanity’s conquests over nature the Co-operative Commonwealth.

 

Against Patriotism

 

Patriotism has always proved stumbling blocks to the workers and to their immature organisations, and nothing has more clearly shown the danger of half-knowledge than the ease with which the ruling class have been able to muddle their minds and inflame their passions by raising such issues as nationalism and xenophobia.

We must have a clear idea of the economic position and class interests of the workers because it is from this foundation that they ought always to approach the issues presented to them.

The Position of the Workers.

Wealth (excluding the air and other things abundantly supplied by nature) is produced by work. The work is performed by the great propertyless mass, the working class, but the means of wealth production, the machines, the land and so on, are owned by a class of non-workers, the capitalists. From this arises a great cleavage of interests, for it makes the workers dependent upon the owning-class since they cannot live except by entering the service of the owners. Out of the total wealth produced by their labour, the workers receive but a portion as wages, the remainder being retained by those who employ them. The one class lives by selling its services and the other by owning property. The everyday struggle over the division of the product sets these classes in perpetual antagonism, but the socialist urges the workers to aim consciously not merely at increasing their share but at destroying the system of society which compels them to maintain a propertied class at their expense.

For the socialist all forms of “living by owning,” rent, interest and profit are in effect nothing more than forms of exploitation, or robbery, of the wealth producers.

If this is correct, then it follows naturally that it is in the interest of the workers all over the world to act jointly in resisting any attempt to heighten the degree of that exploitation, and in overthrowing the system which is based upon exploitation. The enemy of the working class is the capitalist class.

But certain complications exist which prevent many workers from seeing where their interests lie. Lack of knowledge and race prejudices prevent those in one country from realising how essentially similar is their condition to that of workers in foreign countries. There are too real differences between the present circumstances of the workers in the more advanced and the more backward countries. Standards of living, of education, of political and personal freedom, and of political knowledge vary from, say, Europe to the hardly developed African countries; this in spite of the quite marked tendency towards a general equalising of conditions as industrial developments become more uniform all over the world under the pressure of competition.

This very competition leads many workers astray. Exceptional prosperity in  British industry at a given time is gained at the expense of some foreign competitors. Viewing the matter from an individual and local standpoint, British workers are only too liable to agree with their employers who argue that their interests and owners are as one against those of their German or American rivals. Extending our view from one section of a capitalist industry to the whole of the industries of a country or group of countries, national rivalry often presents itself in such a form—war, for instance—as to induce great numbers of workers to join their own section of the ruling class against other sections which are likewise supported by their workers.

The Position of the Capitalist.

Capitalist countries—all of them—must organise their forces and direct their policy to ends which are vital to capitalist society, they must seek markets for surplus products, endeavour to monopolise sources of supply of raw materials where these are geographically limited, and protect ocean and overland communications to these areas. Foreign markets are of prime importance for the profitable investment of surplus profit gained by the exploitation of workers at home. The necessities of such imperialist policy bring our ruling class into inevitable conflict with other imperialist powers who also seek markets and monopolies, and into conflict with the native-born capitalists who resent having to share with foreign investors the profits of the exploitation of their own working class.

The Socialist Position.

The only safe rule of conduct for the workers is to stand firmly on the basis of their class economic interests. From this standpoint, there can be no circumstances requiring them to participate in capitalist wars or trade rivalries. Even the supposed hardships resulting from military defeat do not outweigh the arguments in favour of the socialist course of action. We have always urged that reparations like rates and taxes are and must be a burden only on the propertied class. In victory and defeat the workers are still wage slaves, their poverty and insecurity are their only lifelong possession. They should not fight for “country and empire,” because they have nothing to fight for. They should refuse to help solve the economic problems of capitalist industry, or the political problems of capitalist empires and concentrate all their energies on the fight for socialism.

 

 

Socialism Will End Slavery

 

The first and most important question is  “How will Socialism be organised?”

If a defender of capitalism were asked to say how the capitalist system is organised all he or she could say would be that the means of production and distribution are privately owned and that production is carried on by a propertyless class in exchange for wages under permission from the owning class who control production and draw profits from industry. That is the base on which the present superstructure is raised, but the buildings are many and various. Municipal transit systems, monopolies, private family concerns,  public oned undertakings,  all differ from one another in detail, and yet are all capitalistic in that they are based on one thing—the existence of a propertyless wage-earning class.

If therefore, it is impossible to say how industry is organised under capitalism without writing a book, it is not surprising that more details cannot be given of industrial and social organisation under socialism. Any attempt at prophesying is foolish, for the co-operative commonwealth would obviously be a very different thing if it came in 2022 from what it would be if it came in 2122. Its form will depend upon the stage reached in industrial development and techniques when the revolution takes place.

 Socialism is not a matter of crystal gazing, Socialists are not prophets of the future but interpreters of past history. Socialism is a theory that claims to explain past history as a series of class struggles, and more than that it does not seek to do. And as socialism will be brought about by the united efforts of the workers, it is impossible for anyone socialist, or any party of socialists now existing, to interpret what exactly all the workers of the future will want.

Socialism will be prepared by the development of capitalism and the form of its society will therefore be evolved in the womb of capitalism. It is only “middle class” thinkers and intellectuals who are so impressed with their own intellects that they think that they can super-impose some organisation from without and that the child of their imagination will be cheerfully adopted by the whole working class.

The modern worker is the counterpart of the chattel-slaves of Classical Times and the serfs of the Middle Ages. In economic function, there is little or no distinction between these forms of exploitation. As economic relations, however, they have distinct differences which among other things determine the respective attitudes in the three systems, of the exploited class towards the social order that enslaves them. The slave’s attitude may be generally summed up as “ineffective opposition,” that of the serf as “passive acquiescence,” whilst that of the modern wage-worker is the apparently extraordinary one of “active support.”

It is often declared that this attitude of the mass of workers under capitalism is the result of capitalist propaganda. The truth is, of course, that it results from the conditions of society as a whole—propaganda forms a part of these conditions, but its seed cannot take deep root and flourish, except it falls on fertile soil.

Let us contrast the historic modes of exploitation, paying special attention to the peculiarities of the wages system. The chattel slave, the serf and the wage-worker are all compelled to labour and to surrender all the wealth they produce, except on the average that required for their own maintenance at the customary standard of living. Here, however, the resemblance ends for the social machinery whereby the exploitation is effected differs in each case. The kind of pressure used is different—with chattel-slavery it is naked force, the fear of the lash or torture; with serfdom, it consists largely of the overwhelming power of custom and tradition, whilst with wage-slavery, it is “economic need”—the fear of starvation.

Under chattel-slavery and serfdom, the workers were an openly subjected class having a definitely inferior legal “status.” The chattel slave had no legal rights, the serf had only those of the serf “status.” Moreover, between the subjected and the dominant classes, there were usually definite barriers of culture and often of race, language and religion. All these facts combined to make the class separation a fixed one and to prevent any interchange between the classes. The facts of slavery and exploitation were clear and undeniable. No slave or serf could make any mistake about it—if he did give way to the illusion that he was a free-man—he was promptly and painfully reminded of his true position.

The condition of the wage slave is very different. His is not a personal servitude. He and his fellows are subjected as a class solely by being excluded from the essential instruments and materials of production. Between he or her and the capitalist, there is no difference in legal status, no essential cultural distinction and none of race or religion. There is but one essential mark of distinction between the classes—the ownership of capital.

Now this talisman “capital” that divides exploiter from exploited has two important characteristics that make it unique as a class barrier and produce social and intellectual results that were impossible and inconceivable in previous slave systems. First, capital—the “giver of power”—is not a factor inherent in and inseparable from its possessor, but is something external and accessory to the individual that can be acquired, transmitted from person to person, and can be lost. Secondly, it is a quantitative thing. In practice, it implies sufficient money to carry on profit-making. Now, two sums of money can differ only in quantity. A quantitative change can, however, produce a qualitative difference, and the exploited wage-worker possessing a small sum of money has only to perform a multiplication sum to “see” himself a capitalist, and has only to make that imaginary increase a fact to become one in reality, and achieve, the distinction of living without working by the exploitation of his erstwhile fellows.

By the very nature of the class barrier under capitalism, it is possible to surmount it—and in both directions. A member of the exploited class may become one of the exploiters and one of the leisured may be “dropped” into the ranks of the toilers. However exceptional in the nature of things such interchanges necessarily must be, they can happen, do happen, and may even occur overnight without the knowledge of the individual and from causes altogether outside his control.

Such economic relations by their very nature deny the ancient traditional belief, inseparable from the older systems, that classes are based upon inalienable class rights and distinctions and that social status is a divinely ordained thing and unalterable, whilst just as obviously they must tend to promote the view that all men have equal “natural rights,” a dogma that to-day is almost universally accepted and is the basis of bourgeois political philosophy.

Furthermore, with the rise of capitalism and the extinction of the village and family as productive groups, the workers became isolated units individually contracting for employment. This and the further facts that under capitalism a person’s welfare depends upon the amount of wealth he can acquire, and that workers, as well as capitalist, must engage in a competitive struggle to obtain such wealth or increase it, necessarily breeds the attitude of “individualism”—”each for oneself.” Now when the idea of equal social rights merges with that of individualism the outcome inevitably is the raising to a moral ideal of “liberty”—liberty to “make the best of circumstances,” to “get what one can,” to do what one wills with one’s own—limited only by the equal rights and liberty of other men. “The law of right social relationships” is “that—Every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man,” says Spencer, the supreme theorist of bourgeois individualism, in his “Social Statics.”

These ideas are, of course, precisely those of the revolutionary philosophers of the eighteenth century who attacked feudal rights and absolutism. What was new in the nineteenth century was that ideas of “equal rights” and “freedom” began to infect and take deep root in the heads of the workers and that they used them not to attack the dead-horse of feudalism, but against the legal and political inferiorities under which they laboured in the youthful capitalist state. Eventually, they achieved the removal of these disabilities, and thus of the contradiction between the facts of the political system and the political ideas necessarily flowing from the relations of economic life.

The workers demand the franchise.

In the early years of the new factory system—when the hand workers were dying out when the machines were new and appeared as devilish instruments of death, when the workers, men, women and children, were forced from field and home into the new factories to grind out their lives for the new lords of industry—there was no shadow of pretence at equal rights for rich and poor. To the cultured upper-classes the restless, stirring workers were a dangerous mob, a horde of barbarians in the heart of a civilisation, a “swinish multitude,” as Burke in an outspoken moment called them. The industrial masters candidly regarded and spoke of their labourers as beings inferior to themselves, fit only for a life of labour. In them, the idea of “status” lived on in a caricatured form and, transferred now to the economic field, “directive genius” was its alleged basis in place of ancestral prestige and “blue-blood.”

 "The savage rebellion of the tortured workers again and again broke out in violent rebellion that filled the ruling class with the fear of general insurrection. This fear was intensified to panic by the “Jacobinism” of the French Revolution. Military were taken from the old garrison towns and distributed over the industrial areas."

Every political and legal device was used to suppress all signs of revolt amongst the “lower orders.”