The Class Struggle. Part Two

 

The Futility of Reform.

Social Reform Explained.

14. 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.

15. Various changes are made, however, in the manner of conducting the system and in the detail 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.

16. 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 which benefits them, as it is against their interests to allow it to decay.

17. The rapid development of industry makes a complete change of 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.

18. 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. Arthur James Balfour, the Tory prime minister well said : “Social Reform is the antidote to Socialism.”

Historical Survey of Influence of Reform.

19. 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 insanitary buildings of smoke-poisoned and over-crowded 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 factory, shop or mine, 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.

20. 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.

21. 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.

22. 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.

In spite of a century of reform Lloyd George admitted in 1911 that there was greater slavery, more poverty and deeper hardship amongst the workers than ever before. In the United States, technical education and other reforms have been instituted to better compete with Germany and other countries, but the early exhaustion, insecurity, lack of property, and poverty of the workers has been testified to by the report of the Committee on Industrial Relations of the U.S.A. Senate.

The Economic Barrier to Beneficial Legislation.

23. 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.

24. Henry Ford testified that the output was greater in eight hours than during ten hours, and profits increased enormously. The evidence of Lord Leverhulme, the advocate of a six-hour day, is, that in his great soap factory profits multiplied with the reduction of hours.

So-Called Revolutionary Reforms.

25. 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. The reforms advocated by Kautsky in The Erfurter Programme would not improve the workers’ conditions, and even to get them we would have to engage in the anti-socialist tactics of the German party.

Arguments of Reformers.

26. All the leading capitalist reformers, from Lloyd George to the leaders of the Labour Party, 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.

27. 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 show that all the reforms have failed to stop the decline in labour’s 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.

28. 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 which eventually worked out to our disadvantage. Reformers forget that the very growth and evolution of the industrial system is 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.

29. The advocate of Socialism finds his 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 mind. 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 To-day.

30. The societies advocating reforms are countless. They range from nationalisation Societies to Currency Reform Leagues. Shopkeepers, professional men, manufacturers, bankers and brewers, all vie with each other in seeking some reform to benefit their particular interests. Business men wanting more credit advocate currency reforms, but they fail to show how any alteration of banking laws will alter the relative positions of employer and employees. Labour Parties and Communist 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 Anti-Sweating League has been loud in its demands for Trade Boards to be established in “sweated trades.” They rejoiced when the Trade Boards Act was passed, and reformers are busy demanding its application to more trades. The fraud of reform is clearly shown by the admissions of labour leaders concerning these Trade Boards. Mr. J. Beard, President of the Workers’ Union, says (Daily Herald, Aug. 19): “Trade Boards stabilised low wages and servile conditions and weakened trade

unionism.”

Social Reform Leaves Causes Untouched.

31. An examination of modern society shows that the poverty and degradation of the workers is 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 by a social system in which the means of production are owned in common, and in which exploitation will not exist.

32. 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.

33. 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.

34. 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, as can be seen from complaints about conditions in the Post Office, Mint, etc. In France and Canada, strikes on the nationalised railways have been frequent and ruthlessly suppressed, and active workers victimised.

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 Trust.

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

All these arguments apply against municipal ownership.

Adolph Kohn

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.