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A Professor Defends Capitalism

Serious consideration of alternatives to capitalism needs to address: the nature of capitalism; its validity as an instrument of progress; the threat from existing alternatives; and the plausibility and cost/benefit ratio of socialist alternatives.

The nature of capitalism

The real nature of capitalism is widely misunderstood, especially by intellectuals. Over and above ignorance, there is widespread prejudice.This serves to confuse description with evaluation, and fosters naive wish-fulfilment.

Capitalism is not inherently or by definition exploitative, cruel and arbitrary, or unjust. These are empirical issues, to be judged as part of the objective evaluation of capitalism in terms of relevant evidence and reasoned argument.

Capitalism is a specific mode of organising society, and in particular the economy. It is a recent and rare phenomenon in human social development. It should not be confused with other completely distinct forms of social organisation.

Capitalism is characterised by: cultural individualism; private property; private ownership and control of capital; effective laws of contract; competitive markets shaped by the pursuit of profit; the key role of entrepreneurs; real prices; free labour; liberal political democracy; and limited government.

The benefits of capitalism

By comparison with other systems, capitalism has one major built-in advantage. The freedom which it structurally requires, permits it to learn from its mistakes, and to adapt flexibly and rapidly. In addition, analysis of the historical record demonstrates, quite contrary to socialist allegations, that capitalism has powerfully beneficial effects.

It creates massive wealth, dissipates it widely, and destroys poverty. The "poverty" celebrated so noisily by the Poverty Lobby is "relative poverty" for the most part. This is inequality rather than genuine poverty.

Capitalism requires some—modest and changing—economic inequalities, to provide incentive and aspiration. But capitalism eliminates destructive social in¬equalities. It keeps even economic in¬equalities modest by comparison with all save primitive societies.

Socialists' moral castigation of capitalism is as unjustified as their economic critique. Empirical research reveals — despite recessions and the risk of unemployment — extraordinarily high levels of work and life satisfaction, widespread positive commitment to opportunity and social mobility, and remarkable achievements in self-expression and spiritual development. Moral denunciations of capitalism, such as Erich Fromm's The Sane Society, are invariably emotional, hysterical, and contradicted by the evidence.

Immigrants flood out of all sorts of evil systems into capitalist societies. They are pursuing, first, an escape from poverty, secondly freedom, and third, the dream — which is no mere fantasy — of a good life for themselves and their families in the truest sense of the concept of good so far available. Ironically, it is the supposedly destructive features of capitalism — property, profit, competition, and the market — which are the sources and causes of its economic and moral success and its magnetic attraction for outsiders.

Real alternatives

There are existing alternatives to capitalism which challenge its pre-eminence. They do this either as rivals' for control of humanity's destiny — for example Islamic theocracy, and the decaying remains of "actually existing socialism"; or as exemplars of the conditions into which we might fall if we lose faith in capitalism — for example the barbarous despotisms of much of the third world.

It is much more likely that we may decay into one or other of these regressive models, than that any of the apparently more positive alternatives on offer will be established. Should that happen, as it easily might if we fail to treasure freedom, democracy, and capitalism, and to protect them from their critics, the future is bleak in¬deed. It was ill-founded socialist criticism of capitalist democracy in pre-war Germany which sowed the seeds of Fascism.

Socialist alternatives

The major alternative to capitalism proffered throughout this century by self-styled socialists has now been exposed once and for all as a moral and economic disaster, and as infinitely worse in every respect than capitalism. "Actually existing socialism" is and always was objectively regressive.

Anti-Stalinist socialists who nonetheless acclaim 1917 remain influential. But the mistakes were as much Lenin's as Stalin's. There is no real threat to capitalism from this quarter.

This leaves the minority of Marxist socialists who have always condemned Lenin and dictatorship, and the idealistic, allegedly non-Marxist, socialists whose anti-capitalist utopianism permeates intellectual life in the free world. Socialism in this sense is a permanently retreating mirage of empirical analysis and defensively resistant to rational critique:

• Its postulate of an infinitely elastic human nature is wholly implausible.
• Its concept of democratic planning as a replacement for the market would impoverish us all.
• Its objections to property, wage labour, competition, economic inequalities, and in the last resort money are grounded in a gross misreading of history and the human psyche.
• Its dream of a "peaceful socialist world" is a major threat to the natural and gradual evolution of a community of co-operatively competing nations, each and all of them prosperous, capitalist, and democratic.

In short, to quote a respected authority, "there is no alternative".
Professor David Marsland, West London Institute.
Key References
P. Berger, The Capitalist Revolution (Gower, 1987). F. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit (Routledge, 1988). D. Marsland, Seeds of Bankruptcy (ClaridgePress, 1988). A. Seldon, Capitalism (Blackwell, 1990).

Marsland's magical capitalism repudiated

Those who seek to defend the capitalist system and prove the case against the socialist alternative are usually disappointing, often pitifully so. Too often they exhibit little understanding of what the system of capitalism is and no serious awareness of what the socialist alternative is. Added to this are archaic notions about "human nature" and "the human psyche" which are the last resorts of the confused thinker. Scratch a pro-capitalist sociologist and you will find a priest, his mind packed full of ridiculous ideas about the immutability of existing human behaviour and social organisation.

Exploitation

Professor Marsland's attempt at defining capitalism is inadequate. He correctly states that "competitive markets shaped by the pursuit of profit" characterise capitalism, but also speaks of "free labour". In fact, the pursuit of profit is only achievable on the basis of exploited labour.

Unless labour power is legally exploited, unless, that is, wealth producers are paid wages and salaries which are less than the value of what they produce, not a penny, cent, rouble or yen of profit could even be produced. But for Marsland it is simple enough to state that "capitalism is not inherently or by definition exploitative". Without the exploitation of wage labour, how on earth does he think capital could ever be accumulated?

Socialists are urged by the professor to evaluate capitalism empirically and objectively. This is good scientific advice and we take it seriously. Alas, the educator needs to be educated, for, as well as his failure to explain how profits can arise other than through exploitation of wage labour, our opponent makes several wildly unjustifiable observations about capitalism which are empirically false. We shall deal with just three of them.

Wealth, waste and want
Firstly, we are told that capitalism "creates massive wealth, disseminates it widely, and destroys poverty". Capitalism creates massive wealth — and is faced with periodic crises of overproduction, which means that too much wealth has been produced for the market. So, food is dumped or locked in warehouses and farm owners are paid subsidies to take land out of cultivation while in other parts of the capitalist world (capitalism dominates the whole planet) every single year 15 million children under five die of starvation and malnutrition-caused diseases. Society is capable of producing the "massive wealth" of which Marsland boasts, but the profit priority dictates that such potential abundance be constrained or destroyed.

The claim that capitalism disseminates wealth widely is absurd. In fact, in Britain the richest 10 percent own half of all marketable wealth and the poorest 75 percent of the British population,
i. e., the vast majority, own less accumulated wealth than the richest 5 percent (Economic Trends, October 1990). This extreme wealth concentration in the hands of the privileged few is the basis of capitalism.

More crazy still is the claim thatcapitalism "destroys poverty". Poverty is defined by socialists as the gap between wealth (goods and services) which is produced and what workers have access to. But even on the Conservative government's own empirical data, "official poverty" (the number of people forced to live on less than half the average income) has increased from just under 5 million in 1979 to just under 12 million in 1988 (Daily Telegraph, 23 October 1991). So, according to sociologists working on data supplied by the government which Marsland has faith in, poverty has increased, not been destroyed. Professor Marsland should go and tell the homeless beggars on the streets of London, whose numbers grow by the week, or the starving millions in the world whose kids scream with hunger pains, that capitalism "destroys poverty".

Insoluble problems

Secondly, we are informed that capitalism "learns from its mistakes" and adapts "flexibly and rapidly". This is a justification for the futile policy of reformism, of patching up capitalism. We challenge Professor Marsland to tell us of one basic problem of capitalism, from homelessness to unemployment to racism to pollution, which any government running capitalism has ever remedied. All of these problems have been presented as "mistakes" to be rectified by government reform. In fact, these problems are endemic to the system of production for profit.

Increasing misery

Thirdly, capitalism is said to offer "extraordinary levels of work and life satisfaction" and critiques of capitalism by writers such as Fromm are dismissed as being "invariably emotional" and "hysterical". Such abuse is easy, but it is less easy for pro-capitalist sociologists to explain away the escalation of a massive, escapist drug culture, the rise of frustrated urban violence, the existence of mass tranquiliser addiction caused by anxieties generated by ruthless competition and dull frustration, or the fact tha millions of workers fear the indignities of old age or the living hell which characterises numerous boring jobs. It is not "hysterical" to recognise the widepread sense that the quality of life is worsening under the strain of the profit system, but to ignore the increase of working class misery is to display an insensitive unwillingnness to face the facts.

What "socialism"?

Professor Marsland misunderstands capitalism, but is totally in the dark about the meaning of socialism. He seems to think that it exists somewhere, but does not tell us where. He rightly observes that Leninism-Stalinism offered "no real threat to capitalism", but then repeats the foolish remarks of those who refer to Leninist state capitalism as "actually existing socialism". With confused definitions of this kind, what hope is there for our opponent to have anything sensible to say about socialism? He opposes "democratic planning as a replacement for the market", but this is probably an attack on centralised, state planning which is a left-wing capitalist policy for regulating the market. We doubt whether Professor Marsland has ever seriously thought about the possibility of real democracy where all resources belong to everyone, production is for use and there is free access for all. If he had, he would not conclude that this would "impoverish us all".

Human nature again

The bottom line of Marsland's attack upon what he dismisses as "anti-capitalist utopianism" is that socialists' idea of "an infinitely elastic human nature" is unrealistic because "property, wage labour, competition, economic inequalities and . . . money" are grounded in "the human psyche". This is unhistorical. All of the above are part of social relationships which did not once exist and need not exist in the future. Money is no more a function of the natural human thought process than were witch burning or slavery. Our opponent is a poor sociologist, but no historian at all. The lesson of history is that society changes. Alas, Professor Marsland does not comprehend the structure of the capitalist present (which he thinks will last forever) nor the nature of the materially-based socialist alternative (which he thinks is not for humans) and therefore, like priests of old, he falls back upon unscientific, morally dubious, metaphysical nonsense about the evil nature of human beings. We pity the wage slaves who are convinced by such pessimistic lack of social vision.

S. COLEMAN.

Socialist Standard, December 1991

Practical Socialism

I.
Any discussion of the subject of Socialism as a practical alternative to capitalism must begin with a clear idea of what is meant by socialism. The Socialist Party defines this under the three broad headings of com¬mon ownership, democratic control and production solely for use. By common ownership we mean a relationship between all people whereby the means of production are held in common. By democratic control we mean that social policy and action will be decided by the democratic decisions of the whole community. Production solely for use will replace the present capitalist system under which goods take the form of commodities for sale on the markets. In socialism, voluntary co-operation will produce goods directly for needs without the intervention of buying and selling.

This definition clearly distinguishes socialism from capitalism and because the Socialist Party has maintained this as its sole political objective we are the only party able to consider sensibly how these principles of socialist organisation can be applied in the modern world.

Material Factors

At this point we have to be aware of some dangers in our thinking. Because socialism is a society yet to be established, we might be tempted into thinking that we have unlimited latitude in the ways we consider the alternative society or that we are free to indulge our ideal personal preferences in a quite arbitrary way. This is not the case. In adopting a sound Marxian method, we have to accept that our thinking must be constrained by a background of existing material factors and unless we are guided by these we could lapse into a quite useless utopianism. In the Marxian literature there are extensive references to the difference between Utopian socialism and practical revolutionary socialism. Marx and Engels wrote, for example, in The German Ideology:

Communism [or socialism] is not for us a state of affairs which is to be established... an ideal to which reality will have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions for this movement result from the premises now in existence. (Lawrence and Wishart, 1970 edition, pp 56-57.)

This is again emphasised later on:

In reality and for the practical materialist, i.e. the communist, it is a question of revolutionising the existing world, of practically attacking and changing existing things. (p.62).

So Marx is here saying that to dream up some ideal state of affairs and then expect society to adjust itself to this futuristic vision is quite useless. This is not practical revolutionary socialism. The only sound method is to base our proposals on the present state of things. This shifts the focus of our thought and action from the "future" to the practical work of revolutionising the existing world.

In our own day, what are the important elements which constitute the present state of things? These are the present conditions of the working class and the problems they face in their continuing struggle with the capitalists or the state. These also include the availability of the vastly developed powers of production, world communications, the administrative machinery and political institutions. Therefore, practical socialism has to develop its proposals from the problems faced by the working class now and the material means which are presently to hand which could be used to solve those problems once they are released from the constraints of class society.

Marx's Day

In criticising the Utopians of his own day who based their ideas on highly abstract concepts such as the "essence of man" or "ideal man", Marx did provide an excuse for them: "In Germany, a country where only a trivial historical development is taking place, these mental developments, these glorified and ineffective trivialities, naturally serve as a substitute for the lack of historical development." This referred to the fact that capitalist industrialisation was at its most advanced in Britain and therefore Britain provided the conditions for a revolutionary socialist movement based on the realities of the class struggle. However, in world terms, this development was relatively local and Marx's comment can also apply to the great difference between the position that he was in and the state of things as they now exist at the end of the twentieth century.

At the time Marx was writing, only relatively few of the world's population were engaged in the class struggle between capital and labour and these workers did not have the vote. Now, the vast majority of the world's industrial population get their living as wage workers. Goods are now produced by a worldwide structure of production. The development of world communications has broken down the barriers which separated peoples in the nineteenth century. In every sphere of life there has been a development of useful administrative institutions including many world bodies. Millions of the world's workers are free to organise politically. As distinct from Marx's day, not only is there now a com¬mon interest in the establishment of socialism among workers throughout the world but the political means of attaining it substantially exist, together with the productive and administrative means of socialist organisation. So, in the nineteenth century, the lack of historical development did not only apply to the Utopians criticised by Marx; it was also a greatly inhibiting factor for him when it came to the work of putting forward practical revolutionary proposals for how socialism could be organised to deal with working class problems. What he was able to do was formulate the sound principles on which the work should be done.

Practical Movement

Marx also recognised that the success of the socialist revolution would depend on the growth of socialist consciousness on a mass scale and that these changed ideas could only develop through a practical movement:

Both for the production on a mass scale of this communist consciousness, and for the success of the cause itself, the alteration of men on a mass scale is necessary, an alteration which can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution, (pp 94-5).

A great deal has been made of the remark by Marx that he was not interested in writing recipes for the cook-shops of the future. His point was to emphasise his dissociation from those Utopians who construed socialism as an ideal futuristic society. For Marx, a practical movement had to formulate its proposals and set its revolutionary objectives within the framework of possibilities and limitations given by the conditions of the here and now; and this was vital for the work of changing ideas.

These conditions have been vastly altered. As we now see, the limitations on revolutionary activity since Marx's time have been greatly reduced and, conversely, the possibilities have been greatly expanded. As we are now active in a position of highly developed world capitalism which has established an adequate material basis for the establishment of socialism, it is our task to apply the principles laid down by Marx in pursuing the work of revolutionary socialism. In this way, our practical proposals for the re-organisation of society on a socialist basis support analyses of working class problems with descriptions of alternative arrangements developed directly from everyday experience. This is indispensable to the work of building up the socialist movement.

The key to the question of developing our revolutionary proposals from the known facts of everyday experience is given by the distinction Marx made between the usefulness of production and administration on the one hand and the value factors which determine their economic mode of operation under capitalism on the other. When we say that socialism will produce for use, this will not be new: every society must produce for use. Marx put it as follows:

So far as therefore labour is the creator of use value, is useful labour, it is a necessary condition, independent of all forms of society, for the existence of the human race: it is an eternal nature-imposed necessity without which there can be no material exchanges between man and nature and therefore no life. (Capital, Vol.1, Chapter 1, section2).

When we argue that production in socialism will be solely for use, the word "solely" is an important qualification which accepts that production for use already takes place, but under capitalism is subject to the economic constraints of class interests. When we come to the question of how production solely for use will operate in socialism we begin with the fact that a worldwide structure of useful production already exists and therefore we already have a working model in front of us. The task is to identify the useful mechanisms which co-ordinate production and distribution now as distinct from the value factors of buying and selling in the markets which under capitalism constrain useful production. In socialism, these useful mechanisms will operate on their own, freely and directly for need. In addition, our proposals for practical socialism should include the ways in which useful institutions and decision making bodies could also be adapted from "the existing state of things".

II.
Our practical proposals for the organisation of production in socialism are not based on arbitrary speculations about future society. These are developed, as Marx insisted they should be, from "the existing state of things". In socialism, useful labour will produce goods and provide useful services directly for needs. In outlining the ways in which this could operate we begin from the fact that a world-wide structure of useful production already exists.

Under capitalism, useful production serves privileged class interests and is geared to all the conditions of the market, buying and selling and the profit motive. With the establishment of socialism these class features will be abolished, leaving the useful factors to operate freely and directly for needs. The mechanisms which co-ordinate the structure of useful production now will be continued into socialism.

Modern production is an immense structure throughout which even a simple article has a complex productive history involving a world-wide division of labour. For example, the components of a ball-point pen include a plastic holder, a plastic tube containing ink and perhaps a brass ferule joining the steel ball point to the tube. Yet these few components and their materials are the products of metal mining and processing, the oil and chemical industries, energy supply, and world transport. These features of modern production are widely dispersed and, in supplying each other with processed materials and finished components, they combine to produce goods with no single or overall plan. Instead, they operate in a way which is self-regulating. Each mine, industrial plant or manufacturing unit and each point in the distribution of materials and goods performs its function without having to know what is happening in all the other parts, even though it may depend upon what these other parts are doing.

Useful Stream of Information

A copper mine in Zambia receives orders from around the world and this is sufficient information to signal it to begin mining activity. A plant processing brass in Britain may order quantities of copper from Zambia and quantities of zinc from Australia, and on receiving these materials it produces brass which it then supplies to the units producing things like ferrules for ball¬point pens. At a further stage in this sequence, the unit which produces brass ferules supplies them to the unit which assembles ball-point pens. In response to its orders, this point of final assembly then supplies them to the distribution system and eventually they are taken up by the users.

This communication of required goods and materials operates as a sequence of signals throughout the entire structure of production, indicating what each part of the structure should do. If orders exceed stocks, this indicates more production. Conversely, if stocks exceed orders, this indicates reduced production. Without any need for a single, overall plan, this will operate in socialism as a system of self-regulating production directly for need.

This useful stream of information begins with consumer needs and then flows throughout distribution and on to each required part of the structure of production. In the opposite direction, throughout the markets under capitalism, there takes place a contra-flow of information. It flows from producers, through distributors, to the consumer. This information is the prices of goods determined by the accumulating costs of production and distribution plus profit. Prices are increased in each part of productionn, from mining through industrial processing, manufacture and assembly, then accumulating further through distribution until the final price is passed on to the consumer.

Whereas the useful flow of information expresses needs and both stimulates and co-ordinates the production process, the opposite flow of information about the prices of goods constrains production by restricting it to what can be sold at a profit. In this way the effects of the market, with its buying and selling, are disruptive in that they erect economic barriers against the free use of society's productive powers.

The effects of the market also load production and distribution with a burden of wasteful activities which vastly reduce overall productive efficiency. A further related fact is that the disruptive effects of the market constrain the rational allocation of resources for needs.

Waste of the Market

This is most obviously demonstrated by the countless billions of work days which have been tost over recent years as a result of unemployment and the fact that it has not been profitable to employ the workers concerned. Unemployment has excluded from production a wide range of human skills vital for the well-being of the community and represents a lost opportunity to produce of incalculable magnitude. Due to the constraints of the market we have seen from time to time an accumulation of unsold stocks of goods that people have desperately needed. This has included such things as building materials when many people are homeless. Millions of hectares of land in Europe and America have been taken out of production because of limited market capacity for food sales, while at the same time millions have died of hunger.

Because of economic rivalries between capitalist states, millions of people are held in military forces and vast resources including materials, sections of industry, manufacture, energy supply and high technology are diverted into armaments production. Because of the high costs involved, the techniques which are now available for reducing emissions of sulphur dioxide from coal-burning power stations have not been applied. As a result, this pollution continues.

The economic mechanisms of the market serve no socially useful function whatsoever. On the contrary, their effects are entirely destructive. The function of cost/ pricing is to enable a business enterprise to calculate its costs, to fix its profit expectations within a structure of prices, to regulate income against expenditure and, ultimately, to regulate the exploitation of its workers.

With the establishment of socialism these economic barriers against the free flow of information about consumer needs to the structure of useful production will be swept aside. People in mining, industry, manufacture, farming, energy supply and transport will in the first instance carry on

with what they are doing, together with the people runninng useful services such as hospitals, education, communications and so on. The basic difference will be the new relationships in which they carry on this work. Instead of being employed as wage workers by capitalist companies or state capitalist enterprises, they will be able to work in voluntary co-operation with each other to provide goods and services directly for the needs of the community.

A proviso is that the self-regulating mechanisms which have been outlined, although adequate for an existing useful structure of production, will also operate against a background of democratic planning where further development is required. With the elimination of wasteful and destructive activities, however, vast resources of people, materials, means of production and techique will become available. Any such development would take place in accordance with a balance of needs and not the least of these would be a proper care of the environment.

P. LAWRENCE. Socialist Standard, January and March 1990

Socialism (part 8)

CHAPTER VIII.
The Essentials of the Political Organisation.

The political organisation of the working class, having for its object the establishment of the Socialist system by a politically educated working class, must first of all be an instrument capable of fulfilling its purpose. It must then be firmly anchored to its object so that it is impossible for it to drift. The first thing needed, therefore, is a clear statement of what the object is. It must be clear because the party seeking working-class emancipation can only gain its object through men and women who thoroughly understand what that object is. Those who hold that it is the "leader" or representative who is the source of power are of course quite logical in adopting an "object" that will appeal to the greatest numbers. In such a case all that is wanted is shoulders to climb upon. The "leaders" being the strength of the organisation, it is quite sufficient that they understand the object of the organisation — the others do not matter.

The case is very different with a democratic organisation. The first principle of such is that it is the workers as a class who must fight the battle for emancipation; it is they who must be strong, since their servants and delegates can be strong only with their strength. The logic of this is that the fitness of the organisation for its purpose depends upon the quality and strength, not of "leaders," but of the membership.

The first essential, then, of the political party of the working class is a clear and definitely stated Object. The statement of Object of the Socialist Party of Great Britain is a clear and definite statement of the Socialist object. It hides nothing, and contains the most correct and concise
definition of Socialism that has yet been formulated. It is:

The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whols community.

In this Object there is nothing but the revolutionary purpose. There are no side issues to cause dissension and to sap the working-class movement of its vitality.

The next essential is to anchor the party to that Object. For this purpose it is necessary to lay down a definite set of principles, based upon the facts of the working-class position, and indicating the path to be followed in pursuit of the party's Object, and the test for all its members' actions.

The S.P.G.B. declare in the first clause of their declaration of Principles:

That society as at present constituted is based upon the ownership of the means of living (i.e., land, factories, railways, etc.) by the capitalist or master class, and the consequent enslavement of the working class by whose labour alone wealth is produced.

We have sufficiently proved, by what we have said in the foregoing pages, that the basis of society is the class ownership of the means of living, and that this results in the non-possessors having to sell themselves for wages to become wage-slaves — and to produce, not only the wealth they consume, but also the wealth consumed by the possessing class. The second clause is:

That in society, therefore, there is an antagonism of interests, manifesting itself as a class struggle, between those who possess but do not produce, and those who produce but do not possess.

This is really a deduction from the first. Since society is divided into two classes, one of which is enslaved to the other, one of which exploits, robs, preys upon the other, there must necessarily be an antagonism of interests. The interest of one class is to maintain its position of dominance ; the interest of the other class is to escape from its position of servitude. Any lifting or sinking of individuals from one class to another does not affect this position. The masters can only maintain their position as a class; the workers can only achieve their emancipation as a class. Clearly. then, the interests, being class interests, must result in a class struggle — a struggle between those who possess, to maintain the private property basis of society that makes them masters of the world, and those who do not possess, to abolish the property condition that reduces them to slavery.

The third clause is as follows:

That this antagonism can be abolished only by the emancipation of the working class from the domination ot the master class, by the conversion into the common property of society of the means of production and distribution, and their democratic control by the whole people.

Those who want office, who are "determined to get our feet on the floor of the House of Commons and are not particular how we do it" (because that is all they want), claim that the emancipation of the working class does not need a revolution. The reason of this is easily seen. The only way in which they could get their feet on the floor ot the House of Commons to-day is by compromise with the capitalist class. In order to provide an excuse for allying themselves with the enemies of the working class they deny the need for revolution. They assert that "Socialism will come like a thief in the night" (Mr. Keir Hardie) and as the outcome of the combined efforts of the master class and the working class.

Revolution and the class struggle, of course, are necessarily connected. The " evolutionist," therefore, in order that he may get his feet on the floor of the House of Commons with the help of the capitalists, is forced to deny the revolution because that implies a class struggle, and is forced to deny the class struggle because that implies that he is a traitor in allying himself with the master class.

Those, however, who realise the facts of the political situation, know that the workers would not be driven to seek emancipation but for the class antagonism ; hence they are driven to accept the class struggle as the very basis of their action. So the seventh clause declares for war upon class lines in the following words:

That as political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class, the party seeking working-class emancipation must be hostile to every other party.

There is the sheet anchor of the revolutionary party. It is this which, beyond all else, secures to the consciously organised working class the efficiency of their organisation for its revolutionary purpose. While adherence to this vital principle remains one of the conditions of membership of the Socialist Party, it can never become the plaything of leaders and dictators. A membership holding to that clause have a gauge wherewith to measure any man's action, and an instrument to fire him out with, if he be found wanting. The first sign of compromise, the first indication of alliance with the enemy, the first particle of evidence that a member has become the tool of any section of the master class, and he is dealt with by a membership imbued with the principle of the class struggle.

Based upon such principles as these, the political party of the working class cannot drift away from its Object, and must remain a sound organisation, an instrument capable oi achieving its purpose. Just as it can only be composed of Socialists, of men and women conscious of their class position and the remedy for it — the men and women who alone are capable of achieving the Social Revolution — so it is capable of creating such a class-conscious working class, by its clear-cut, class struggle, revolutionary policy. This policy leaves no doubt as to the enemy, it leaves no doubt as to the character of the struggle that dictates it. And, above all, it leaves no doubt as to the strength of the revolutionary movement.

For when every vote is asked for in opposition to Liberal and Tory, in opposition to I.L.P., Labour Party , aind Communist muddlers, in opposition to reformist confusion and vote-catching slogans — asked for (to use the words of the sixth clause of our Declaration of Principles) "for the conquest of the powers of government," every vote will be found a sound vote — a vote which owes the master class nothing, and from which they can take nothing away — a vote backed by the revolutionary force of the voter, and therefore a vote to strike fear into the hearts of our exploiters.

In concluding our case we desire to emphasise again the most important facts. The first is that terrible poverty exists among the workers to-day. The second is that though the command of man over nature, and the fertility of human labour, have increased enormously during the last 500 years, the bulk of the workers, especially in view of the vastly increased production of wealth, are poorer to-day than they were in the Middle Ages. The third is that this poverty is worst when the warehouses are full to bursting and the markets glutted. The fourth is that sufficient wealth is produced to-day to afford comparative comfort to every member of the community. The fifth is that every detail of the work of producing and distributing that wealth is performed by the working class. The sixth is that the work of producing and distributing that wealth is performed by men and women who together, probably, would not number more than half the male population between, the ages of 16 and 60.

Are those six statements true? If they arc, then all that is required is that working-class intelligence, courage and determination shall rise to the height of seizing " this sorry scheme of things entire," and remoulding it to the end that the general happiness and well-being shall be the sole purpose of all productive effort. If they are true they impose upon every working man and woman the serious duty of giving thought to these matters; for it is from them alone that the remedy can come. The salvation or the working class involves the overthrow of the master class, therefore it is futile to look for help from the latter.

Fellow-workers, the neglect of this duty is not without its penalty, neither is this penalty so far off but that it may fall on you. The evolutionary process which has brought the workers to slavery, has brought them now the opportunity of freedom. It has done more also. In bringing the means of living to that stage of development where they may be the instrument of the workers' emancipation, just as they were, long ages ago, the instrument of their enslavement, it has given us means of living which can only remain means of living in the hands of a free people. Unless the workers themselves assume control of them they must become means of death and destruction. Can the teeming millions of Lancashire, for instance, view with equanimity the rapid growth of the cotton industry in China, Japan, and India? The cheap labour of the entire East stands now ready for capitalist exploitation — ready to flood the world with such a deluge of oheaply produced commodities as will strangle Western production entirely. Who may say what penalty of chaos and destruction will fall upon the world, out of war or out of such an industrial crisis as these things portend, if the knowledge of the workers as a class is not sufficient to enable them to perform their historic task?

Socialism (part 7)

CHAPTER VII.
Has the Hour Come ?

What we have just said points irresistibly to the conclusion that there is an " appointed hour " for revolution, in the sense that it must fail if it is attempted before the general conditions are ripe. Be it now our task to show that these general conditions, with the exception of that single factor, working-class education, are ripe for the change.

What are the essentials that make the conditions fit and favourable for the establishment of society upon a new basis? First, the industrial processes or methods of wealth production and distribution must have developed as far as they can under the prevailing system without injury to the social organism. Secondly, they must have reached such a stage as will allow the revolutionary class to assume control of them and operate them.

That the first condition has been reached is shown by the spread of capitalism over the earth. It is a characteristic of the present system of production that ever-increasing markets must be found to absorb the growing volume of surplus products which its wage-workers produce. It is natural and inevitable when capitalist groups come into violent conflict through their competition for markets, that they should seek a way out which leads to war — as in 1914. This, the true cause of modern wars, was bluntly exposed by a French General, Marshal Lyauty, speaking at a banquet of the National Congress of Councillors of Foreign Trade, at Marseilles in October, 1922. — (Star, October 31st, 1922.)

French soldiers are fighting in Morocco to acquire territory in which rise rivers capable of supplying power for electrification schemes which will prove of great advantage to French trade. When we have acquired the last zone of cultivatable. territory, when we have nothing hut mountains in front of us, we shall stop.

Our object is commercial and economic. The military expedition in Morocco is a means, not an end. Our object is the extension of foreign trade.

Similarly Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, in a speech to the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, 1896, stated that

All the great offices of state are occupied with commercial affairs. The Foreign Office and the Colonial Office are chiefly engaged in finding new markets and in defending old ones. The War Office and the Admiralty are mostly occupied in preparations for the defence of those markets and for the protection of our commerce. — (Quoted in Empire and Commerce in Africa. L. S. Woolf, page 7.)

There remain now no considerable tracts of country to be thrown open to commerce. On the other hand, nations which until lately had been the safety-valves of the great manufacturing countries, are now fast becoming the competitors of these latter. There is no British colony of any importance that has not industrial aspirations. When, for example, the Canadians proposed to furnish ships for the "Empire's " navy, they were to be Canadian built. The entry of Japan into capitalist manufacture is getting to be an old story, but the case of Turkey, Persia, and other Eastern countries is a tale of to-day. When, some years ago, an East London jute factory closed down, and hundreds of girls were thrown into the streets, the explanation of the owner was that he could not continue in the face of foreign competition. The foreign competition was a factory established by the London jute manufacturer in India!

India now has an industrial population at least equal to that of France, and greater than that of either Italy or Japan.

But the crowning act is the capture by capitalism of the mighty Chinese Empire. The conversion of this immense and densely populated quarter of the globe from a feudal monarchy into a capitalist republic shows what power oapitalism has attained in the, flowery land.

As these newer capitalist countries develop their manufacturing powers, and more and more supply their own requirements, and then throw their surplus on the world market, the industrial crisis and period of stagnation caused by over-production and congested markets, must assume such a violent character as to threaten the very existence of society.

Nor is this all. The mad pitch to which production is being screwed up to-day is producing disastrous results upon the race. The physical deterioration which is taking place among the most advanced capitalist nations is a source of anxiety to those who are hard put to it to find men equalling the original standard set for the bearing of arms, while the steady but striking increase of lunacy is eloquent of the danger humanity is in from further development along present lines.
It was disclosed during the war. when recruits were being examined by the National Service Boards, that only 36 per cent, were of " full normal standard of health and strength." Two out of every three were unfit. (Command 504, 1917.)

The development of the means of production has also made it possible for the working class to carry on all productive operations for themselves by the simple process of removing the master class from production and distribution and leaving the workers to it. The joint stock company is the type of the exploiting organisation to-day. The vast bulk of the world's capital is owned by these concerns. This form of organisation effectually separates the owners from all connection with wealth production. The shareholder cannot even pretend that he takes any part in it. He has not even, legally, any right to set foot in the factory in whose possession he shares. He may not, and probably does not, know where and how the profit is produced which his shares bring him. (It will be remembered that in the course of the enquiry into the Putumayo rubber atrocities the defence of the British directors of one rubber company was that tbey were utterly ignorant of the manner in which the rubber was obtained.) The board of directors which the shareholders elect are not appointed even to supervise production, but only to secure the profits. All the necessary work of production and distribution, the organisation no less than the operation, is performed by members of the working class — by men and women who, however high their position or their pay, have to sell their labour-power for wages or salary in order to live.

Thus it is seen that the development of industry has rendered the master class quite superfluous. Whatever useful function they may at one time have fulfilled, there is in typical cases no shred of it left to-day. We know, then, that the working class can carry on the work of the world without the assistance of the master class because they are already doing so. They have become the only useful class in society, and for this reason the only thing that is needed to make the conditions ripe for the establishment of the Socialist system of society is that economic and political education of the working class which will alone enable them to establish it.

By what means the revolutionary working class are to proceed to their task of overthrowing the present social system and establishing a system of society based upon the common ownership of the means of living, is the next question that demands our attention. It is a question of vital importance.

The means by which the ruling class maintain their social system and their dominance long after it ceases to meet the requirements of society are mainly coercive. The police, military, naval and air forces — the armed forces of the State — are the chief bulwark by which they protect their social edifice against the assaults of those who would overthrow it.

It needs very little thought to convince one that it would bo the height of folly to expect or to attempt to dispossess the possessing class so long as they have under their control such mighty forces of repression as these. What the result would be is indicated by many tragic episodes, both at home and abroad, but in particular by the ferocious suppression of the Commune of Paris in 1871, when the master class of France, with the approval of the master class of the whole world, butchered over 30,000 working men, women and children after resistance had ceased.

The workers must therefore, as the first essential step in the dethroning of the capitalist class, gain control of the armed forces of the State.

Those armed forces are controlled by the House of Commons. There is voted the money that supports them. There is decided whether they shall be extended or reduced, whether they shall be voluntary or compulsory, and in the ultimate, whether they shall be launched against any object of capitalist fear or malice.

The course the workers have to follow, then, is plain to view. They must capture the political machinery through which the armed forces and other means of repression are controlled — Parliament, where the naval and military forces are controlled and the laws are made; the local councils and governing bodies, which administer the laws and control the " civil " forces.

This political machinery must be captured by the workers organising themselves into a political party, having for its object the overthrow of the present social system and the establishment of a system of society based upon common ownership of the means of living. Thus organised they must wrest control of the political machinery from the ruling class by means of the ballot, and having achieved this control, must use it to strip the capitalist class of their possessions, and consequently of their privileges.

The vote is to be the weapon. Let us inquire, therefore, what is the real nature of the vote.

At one time men supported their interests by force of arms. Gradually it was recognised that, other things being equal, power rests with numbers. From this to the idea that those who possess militant power can express it just as effectually and much more conveniently by a vote than by a blow, is but a step. Thus we find the vote in existence at the very dawn of authentic history.

A vote, it is thus seen, is something more than a cross in a scrap of paper. In this respect it is very similar to a bank-note. A bank-note of itself is practically valueless. It derives its "bank-note value" entirely from the public-confidence that it has gold at the back of it. Where any doubt exists as to this the fact is indicated in the depreciation of the " value " of the paper money. Exactly so with the vote. No section of society obtains voting power until it proves by struggle that its demands cannot be ignored. It then becomes to the advantage of the dominant class to permit these demands to be expressed through the ballot rather than through the disruptive and wasteful channel of open struggle.

The value of the vote is measured by the man behind the vote.

That being so, then, it is clear that it is not the elected representative who is the all-important factor, but the quality of the vote which puts him into place.

What, then, must be the quality of the vote? Surely the quality that will enable it to effect its purpose. The revolutionary purpose being revolution, the votes cast for the revolutionary representative must be revolutionary votes. They must be the votes of those who understand
the need for revolution, desire it, and are determined to achieve it.

What are the respective positions of men returned to Parliament or other elected public bodies by votes of this quality and those elected by votes of the politically ignorant, who do not clearly understand what it is they want?

The former is the servant of his constituents. Understanding the position, they are able to direct his course of action, hence they are his masters. If he plays them false, if he departs from the revolutionary path, they know it at once, and seize the first opportunity of dealing with him. On the other hand, such a representative knows that in all sound, revolutionary action he has the full support of those whose delegate he is, and hence becomes the strong and efficient servant of a strong master.

The representative of the politically ignorant is in an entirely different position. As he gets his votes on all manner of vague pretexts and promises, the only safe course for him is a vague wobble. A definite course in any direction would result in the alienation of support. He therefore dares not attempt to take a revolutionary course, whatever his views may be, for he has all sorts and conditions of persons in his following except revolutionists — the revolutionist does not follow.

Such a representative is in a position to sell his electors. Depending upon confusion for his place, his best chance of maintaining it is to preserve that confusion. This suits the masters' hook very well, for their chief concern is that the workers shall not know who their enemies are. Therefore the political parties of the master class welcome such representatives of Labour — they know there is no revolutionary force behind them.

The first essential, then, of having a vote of revolutionary quality is to have a working class that thoroughly understands its position in society, that thoroughly realises the hopelessness of any endeavour to improve materially that position under the present social scheme, and that therefore is thoroughly resolved to abolish the system and establish Socialism. The crying need, then, is education.

The first thing that the workers must learn is that there is only one working class and that their interests are one and the same the wide world over. Then they must learn that, just as the workers are made one by common interest, so a common interest binds the capitalists of the world into a solid class. The realisation of this teaches the lesson that the interests of the workers and the capitalists are diametrically opposed, for this follows from the fact that it is interests that divide the people into classes. The logical implication of this is that the workers must proceed to work out their emancipation as a class. This means organisation — the closest, the highest, most perfect organisation possible — organisation on class lines.

Socialism (part 6)

CHAPTER VI.
Historical Support for Revolution.

It may be asked what historical support the Socialist has for advocating a social revolution. We shall try to prove briefly that all social history supports the revolutionary idea.

It is beyond denial that the primary reason people come together in a form of society, whether they are conscious of the fact or not, is to get their living together. This is seen clearly in the simpler forms of society, such as the hunting pack.

It is obvious that the primary reason for coming together was co-operation in the chase.

The methods by which the people co-operatively get their living must evidently be determined by the means at their disposal. Thus one would not expect to find top sawyers and bottom sawyers co-operating as they do until the pit-saw and the saw-pit had been invented.

If it is admitted that the methods by which people produce their living must be determined by the means by which they do so there is no escape from the revolutionary position.

The means of wealth production are always evolving. The discovery of the art of domesticating animals, of the art of agriculture, of the method of smelting and working iron, and of the means of adapting steam as a motive force, are all epoch-making cases in point.

Now this evolution of the means of production is always more or less steadily taking place; and as the development proceeds it sets up different conditions which make changes in the social system imperative and inevitable.

Thus the domestication of animals and the development of agriculture made it possible for men to produce more than sufficient for their own needs, and so opened the road for a social system based upon chattel slavery — in which slave labour produced a surplus upon which the owners of the slaves lived. The knowledge of iron and its manipulation, bv affording eventually large and complicated machinery, made possible the complete divorce of the user from ownership of the means of production, and hence produced the necessary conditions for the establishment of society based upon wage slavery — in which wage-labour produces surplus wealth upon which the owners of the means of production live.

And now the application of steam and electricity to production and distribution, together with the general advance of the instruments and processes of labour, have carried society on to the point where the social base no longer suffices for the social needs, and the conditions which at one time were socially necessary have become social fetters.

Let us make our meaning plainer. It is easily understood that, given the general conditions prevailing in the Middle Ages, the only means by which production could develop to its present stage was through the wages system. The man who operated the hand loom might own it, but in the development of the hand loom into the weaving factory it was necessary to make men propertyless, to deprive them of the means of living, in order that they might be driven into the factory to operate for wages the looms that did not belong to them. At the time there was no other way in which the developing instruments of labour could be operated, therefore the divorcement of the working class from the means of production in spite of the enormous suffering it has entailed, was necessary to the ultimate good of the race. It enabled human labour to reach its present high state of fertility.

But the very development, the very fertility, which has resulted from the reduction of the workers from peasant-proprietors and artisans owning their own labour-instruments to wage-earners owning nothing but their labour-power, has itself rendered a change of social basis necessary. Class ownership of the means of production was essential to enable wealth to be more freely produced. It has resulted in wealth being too freely produced for class ownership to continue. While the wealth which the vast bulk of the people is permitted to consume remains relatively stationary, the wealth which they produce increases by leaps and bounds. The surplus reacts against production, and chokes it. Because this surplus belongs to those who own the instruments of labour, it must glut markets and throw men out of employment. Thus the property condition that made possible such lavish wealth production, has become a drag upon the social industrial efforts.

It may be asked how it is that, if the means and methods of production evolve continuously and without violence, the social base does not nlso evolve smoothly and without the pain and shock of revolution.

The explanation is simple. The gradual development of the means of production forces itself on the owning class. Self-interest compels men to adopt improvements as opportunity offers. Under the present system competition forces the owners of the machinery, etc., to seek continually to render them more perfect. The only people who might find it to their interest to endeavour to check this development of the means of production — the working class — cannot do so because they do not control these instruments. So the means by which society gets its living develop by a process of evolution in which the shocks of revolution do not occur.

With the social basis it is different. The social basis in private property forms of society, has always been the result of the conscious efforts of the class which has risen to power upon it. Thus, for instance, the rising manufacturing class placed society firmly on the capitalist class-ownership basis bv depriving the, workers of their lands. But a class which, by revolutionary action, has succeeded in establishing that social system they desire (and which system is demanded by the stage of development of the means of production which has brought them to power) at once ceases to be revolutionary. They have got the system they want, and have nothing left to revolt against. Hence from revolutionary they become reactionary, ooncerned only with maintaining the social basis which makes them the dominant class in society.

But if the basis of the social system remains stationary the means of production do not. These go on evolving and relentlessly undermining the position of the dominant class. They produce another revolutionary class, and press it on until it overthrows the class above, and in turn dominates society.

The feudal nobility, for instance, held their power through their control of the land; but as the instruments of labour developed they became superior to land as a source of social power. These instruments of labour made men richer and more powerful, and as they were chiefly in the possession of the merchants, this class was ultimately advanced to domination through the overthrow of the nobility.

The basis of the social system, then, and therefore the social system itself, while it is ultimately determined by the stage of development of the means of production, evolves by revolution. It is changed by a victorious revolutionary class, and brought into line with the methods by which wealth is produced.

History, then, teaches us that our emancipation must be sought in revolution.

Socialism (part 5)

CHAPTER V.
Socialism.

It is not for us to build up in detail the social system that will arise from the common ownership and democratic control of the instruments of labour. Our knowledge of the conditions which will prevail at the time of the change, and of the outlook upon life of people who are free to arrange matters pretty much as they wish, is not extensive enough to warrant us seriously attempting to foretell the details of the future social system. How can we, for instance, fettered as we are by the customs and prejudices of a social system in which sexual relations are based on private property conditions, understand the views upon such matters that will obtain among women who no longer need sell their bodies for a home, and men who do not need to fear the financial consequences of their marital acts?

We can only state the broad changes that we know must arise from the revolution in the social base.

The most obvious result of the establishment of common ownership of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth is that the wages system would be abolished.

It is quite plain that there is no other course open than this. With all the means of production and distribution socially owned no one would be in a position to exploit labour-power, therefore no one would buy it. On the other hand, with the socially owned instruments of labour open to every worker, none would wish to sell his labour-power for another's profit, even if he could find a buyer.

Thus the very conditions of wage-labour — the divorce of a portion of the community from every opportunity of gaining a livelihood save by selling their labour-power — having ceased to exist, the whole wages system must, perforce, tumble to the ground.

As, when the worker owned the tools he used, he produced in general only the things he required to satisfy his own needs, so society, when as a whole it owns and controls the means of production, will produce the things society needs. Necessity alone will demand industrial activity. If warehouses then become overstocked productive efforts will slacken; on the other hand, production will be pushed forward until all those material wants have been satisfied for which society is willing to sacrifice leisure and energy.

Another feature of the new society will be the abolition of class distinctions and privileges. To-day it is the privilege of the owners of the world's wealth that they need not perform any labour. This privilege, of course, is based on their possessions. Strip them of these and they would at once be on an equality with the other members of society. Society would have nothing to sell them, even if it left them the means to buy. For the social products would not be produced for sale, therefore money would be useless; there would then be nothing left for them but to work for their living.

So society would be made one. Social distinctions as we understand them to-day would no longer exist. All would be workers because all would equally need the products of labour.

Now as to appropriation and distribution. The wealth produced by social labour through socially owned instruments could only be socially owned. The individual could not own what he produced for the simple reason that no man would individually produce anything. The man who digs in a garden works with tools made by others, and approaches his ground and leaves it over roads which are the results of others' labours.

The distribution of wealth which had been produced for no other purporse than to be used (toward the production of which all those who were physically able had contributed their fair share of labour), would present no difficulty. Each would freely satisfy his (or her) needs. The greedy scramble predicted by our opponents, who are blind enough to the greedy scramble for bread (at the dock gates and elsewhere) into which they force us under their system, is a bogey that need frighten no one. It would only be a sign that insufficient was being produced, and the remedy would obviously be to produce more. Even the pig will turn away from the trough when it can eat no more.

These, then, are the essential features that must necessarily distinguish a social system based upon common ownership from one founded upon private property : equal opportunities for all to make the most and the best of life; social equality of all persons; production of wealth for use instead of for profit; free access for all members of the community to all the necessaries of life.

On these basic conditions, of course, men and women would shape their lives anew. Much ink has been wasted in vain forecasts of the details of that life. Some have pictured it as a " glorified barrack life," with meals taken in great dining halls, and so on. Others have drawn fanciful Arcadian pictures, all the men supermen, all the women angels, all the children chirping cherubs with nothing to do but to look pretty and to peck here and there at hanging fruits.

Such speculations are futile, and the details in themselves are not matters of importance to us. The wishes of the majority will prevail in all matters of collective interest, and the only consideration will be the greatest happiness and welfare of the community.

We know that when the abolition of classes has placed every social unit on the same footing, and therefore made their interests one, the customs, manners, ethics, and ideals of humanity at large will be lifted to a higher plane.

Socialism (part 4)

CHAPTER. IV.
What is a Social System ?

There is no question, then, of abolishing these economic effects while retaining the system. Therefore, if the working class are ever to be freed from the tyranny of economic laws which decree that they shall receive only enough to enable them to exist as an efficient labour force, with no lot or portion in the joy of living, no business in the world but to work, it must be, not by tampering with the workings of the social system, but by abolishing the system.

We have to deal with a social system or system of society. Let us see, then, what a system of society is.

Society is a number of persons united by certain ties or relationships. To-day, for example, people are united by the relations of employer and employee, buyer and seller, debtor and creditor, and so on.

These relations are called social relations.

Now the social relations do not take the same form at all times and in all places. Under the Roman Empire, for instance, the vast majority of the people of Rome were slaves. Between them and their masters, therefore, there existed, not the relations of buyer and seller of labour-power, but the purely property relation which unites the horse and its owner. Like the horse, the slave was property. He did not own his labour-power, so he could not sell it, and for that reason could not enter into the same relationship with his master as exists between the modern worker and his exploiter.

But if the social relations do not always take the same form, they, in any given society, are always sufficiently in accord one with another to form, in the mass, an orderly scheme or system. Thus our universal relations of buyer and seller, debtor and creditor, landlord and tenant, and employer and employee, are all in accord, because they all arise from one social institution.

The sum total of these social relations, together with the institutions through which they operate, constitutes what is known as the social system or system of society.

EVERY SOCIAL SYSTEM HAS A BASIS.

Every social system has a definite basis or foundation on which its whole structure rests.

The basis of all primitive, social systems, such as that of the Greeks and Romans at the dawn of history, was common property in what was at the time the essential means of living — the land. Because every social unit had equal rights in the soil, or, to put it more correctly, because no individual rights in the land existed, there were no class privileges. Society was, therefore, not divided into economic classes. There were no employers and employees because the common lands afforded each the opportunity of gaining his livelihood without selling his labour-power. The social relations for this reason were those of social equality, and the whole structure of society, arising from and resting upon the basis of communal ownership of the means of living — the land — shaped itself, in agreement with that base, into a communistic social system.

When the people of Greece and Rome lost their communal control of the land a new social system was developed. Society became divided into classes based on property, and the whole of the social relations changed in accordance therewith. No longer were they relations between social equals; instead, they were relations between people rendered unequal by the new property basis of society. Those who possessed became the social superiors of those who did not possess.

It will be observed that the reason the social system changed from primitive communism to a class society was that the social base had changed from common ownership of the means of living, in which each had an equal place, to private property in those means, which placed those who owned in a position of privilege, and reduced those who did not own to servitude.

The Basis of Modern Society.

The social system prevailing to-day, like all previous systems of society, has its definite base. To this base almost every feature of modern society can be traced.

Let us take one of the main features of existing society — its division into two classes; a propertied class and a propertyless class. This is obviously the result of the ownership of the wealth of society by some of the people, to the exclusion of the others, for this alone produces a class of possessors and a class of non-possessors.

With record to the ownership of property, Mr. Zorn has shown (Daily News, November 29th, 1919) that 10 per cent of the population owns 99 per cent of the wealth, while the remaining 1 per cent, is divided among nine-tenths of the people. And Professor Clay tells us that —

it is probably safe to say that over two-thirds of the national capital is hold by less than 2 per cent of the people. — Times. 24th March, 1925.

So the two-class nature of the present social scheme is directly traceable to that form of private property which excludes one class from ownership.

As the wealth of society comprises all the means of living, its ownership by a class sets up that most widespread set of social relations of modern life — the relations between employer and employee. For those who do not own must become wage-workers in order to live. It is plain, therefore, that the whole institution known as the wages system, arises from and rests upon the class ownership of the means of living.

The relations of landlord and tenant, buyer and seller, debtor and creditor, are also all seen to have their roots in the private property institution. Our laws are mainly property laws; our political institution is an instrument for maintaining the property system and property interests, our marriage institution is at bottom a means for legalising heirs and for establishing property relations between the parties concerned — as the divorce court reveals in assessing monetary damages for the broken " civil contract." The very ideas current amongst us take their shape from the property basis of society, for the possessors view all things from the stand-point of property owners; and even the revolutionary idea, inasmuch as it is a reaction against the present form of society, arises, finally, from that property condition — the ownership by a small section of the community of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth — which we have said is the basis of the modern social fabric.

The Basis of the Future Social System.

When we were speaking of primitive social systems we pointed out that primitive communism gave place to a class-divided social system because the basis of the social structure underwent a change. Arguing from this it seems that we are to change the present social system by changing its basis—by substituting something else for the private ownership by a few of the people of the means and instru¬ments of prodnotion and distribution. We must find the substitute first.
We have seen that the present social system does not fail in the matter of the production of wealth. Wasteful as the system is of natural resources and human energy, the fact remains that sufficient wealth is produced to maintain every social unit in a considerable degree of comfort. To-day some of this wealth may be of the wrong kind. We do not want bullets for breakfast, and battleships and the like add nothing to the general comfort. But to turn bullets into waterpipes, and battleships into baths, and swords into ploughshares, is simply a matter of re-directing human energy.

Where the system principally fails is in the distribution of the wealth that is produced.

We know why it fails in distribution. It is because the workers' demand upon the wealth they produce is limited to the amount which is necessary to enable them to produce it.

The reason for this is, of course, that the worker has to sell his labour-power, and has only the price thereof on which to live.

This means that the new basis of society must be such as will remove from the workers the need to sell their labour-power to others. It must, therefore, give them free access to the means of living.

Now one thing is certain. If the workers are to have free access to the means of living, those means must not be in the ownership and control of any section of society.

Either they must be divided among the whole of the people and individually owned by them, or they must be collectively owned by the whole of the people without any form of division.

The first is ruled out of court at once. We have seen that the present method of production is satisfactory, since it results in ample wealth for the needs of society. This method of production could not continue it the means of production were divided among the whole of the people. A factory or a. railway system would be useless for the purpose of producing arid distributing wealth directly it was divided.

The fact is that the means by which man gets his living have developed beyond the stage of individual ownership, because those means have developed beyond individual operation. Only social labour — the labour of many united — can operate the modern instruments of production.

It is clear, then, that the form of ownership with which we are to replace the private ownership of to-day must be social ownership. Only this is in agreement with socially operated instruments of labour. If we are to retain all the advantage which ages of evolution and invention have culminated in; if we are to reap the reward of the centuries of suffering with which the working class have paid for this perfection of productive processes, we must bring the ownership of the instruments of labour into agreement with the stage of development they have reached.

What is the difference between the flail and the threshing machine, the windmill and the steam flour factory, the spinning wheel and the spinning mill, the pack horse and the railway system? The most pregnant difference is that the first-named in each instance is an instrument of labour operated by one person and capable of being owned by the user, while the second in each instance is an instrument of social labour, and cannot be individually owned by those who use it. If we are to have individual ownership we must go back to the crude instruments of labour which lend themselves to such ownership without disruption. If we are to retain the gigantic means and instruments of production and distribution which make our labour so tremendously fertile, we must bring the ownership of the instruments into unison with their highly developed character.

It is because that ownership is not in unison with the development of the means of production to-day that the workers are in their present, miserable position. The evolution of the instruments of labour has divorced their users from ownership in them. When a machine requires several people to work it they cannot all individually own and control it. But the taking of the instruments out of the possession of the workers has destroyed the sane and logical incentive of the workers to produce. The peasant proprietor, owning his own means of production, did not produce for sale, but for his own consumption, he therefore produced what he required — bread to feed his family, clothing to cover them, and so on. But when the productive wealth ceases to belong to the user, and the latter becomes a wage worker, he cannot produce what he needs : he must produce what his master needs. The master needs goods to sell — it is only by selling these that he can pay his men. And above all, it is only by what is left after paying his men that the owner of the means of production himself lives.

This surplus (or rather the portion which remains after rent and interest are paid) we call profit, and it is for this profit that goods are produced to-day.

In developing the instruments of labour so that they could only be socially operated, the old incentive to produce (use) has been destroyed. No longer is bread produced to feed the hungry, and clothing to cover nakedness, and houses to shelter those who need shelter — they are produced for profit. Hence the cry of children for bread sets no wheel of industry in motion, and people starve, not of dearth, but of glut.

Just as the means of living demand social labour to operate them, so they demand social ownership and control in order that they may be used as means of living instead of as means of producing profit. At present the workers must produce more than they consume. Since, however, it is not produced to maintain them, but for sale, it heaps up in the warehouses and throws them out of work. That is because the stage of' development of the instruments of labour (which has taken away from the workers the power to produce individually the things they need) and the ownership and control of those instruments of labour, are out of unison. They clash and conflict. In order to make them agree we must TAKE AWAY FROM THEIR PRESENT OWNERS ALL THOSE THINGS THAT ARE NECESSARY FOR THE COMFORT AND WELL-BEING OF SOCIETY AND MAKE THEM THE PROPERTY OF THE WHOLE OF SOCIETY.

That is establishing social ownership in instruments which can only be socially operated. It is enabling those who can no longer individually produce the goods they require, to produce them collectively. It will result in the social appropriation of the social products, and will therefore harmonise the purpose of the means of wealth production with the incentive to operate them.

The substitution of this new property condition for the old one will abolish the existing basis of the social system and provide a new one. This is what we call the Social Revolution. It results in a revolution of the social structure — a complete change from top to bottom.

Socialism (part 3)

CHAPTER III.
The Cause of Unemployment.

It is seen that the general insufficiency of wages to lift the workers above poverty is due to the operation of economic forces which determine that wages shall approximate to bare subsistence level. We will now turn to unemployment.

There are two aspects — the constant, and the periodic. We will deal with the constant first.

When a master buys labour power he buys it in order to produce wealth. But his object is not simply to produce wealth. The law of the land demands that he shall, in view of the possibility that the official receiver may at any time develop an unwelcome interest in his affairs, keep certain books recording his transactions. Any worker who has to keep those books for his master knows that each of those records starts with money — the money thrown into the process in which the concern is engaged — and ends with money — the money that comes back with the sale of the product. Nay, this is hardly correct, for the record, strictly speaking, is not complete until a balance has been struck showing the difference between the two sums. The process is not, therefore, one of producing goods and selling them in order to produce more goods, but one of putting money into production in order to get money.

But the essence of the transaction is not simply the turning of money into money. To spend £1 in labour-power wherewith to produce wealth which one sells for £1 is only •exchanging one sovereign for another, which is absurd. To record only such transactions would soon bring even the wealthiest firms into troubled waters. The money realised at the end of the transaction must differ from that spent at the beginning. It can only, in the eye of the book-keeper, differ in amount — it must be greater. Therefore, it is this difference, this increase, or surplus, alone which impels the capitalist to engage in production.

The purchaser of labour-power therefore endeavours to make that surplus as large as he possibly can.

Now there are several ways of doing this. He may cut down wages, he may lengthen the working hours, he may introduce new methods and organisation. But the most important means he has at hand for increasing the surplus wealth is machinery.

New mechanical devices for rendering labour-power more fertile are always being developed and constantly being adopted. This unceasing introduction of machinery has the effect of continually reducing the number of people required to produce a like amount of wealth, and as every advance of machinery at the same time makes greater the difference between what the worker produces and what he buys back (because his product increases while his wages remain stationary), the result is that the surplus grows more rapidly than the demand, and consequently the workers find that, their labour-power is unsaleable. In this way improved machinery and methods add to the army of unemployed.

In the American automobile industry, for instance, the productivity of each man employed has increased 10 times in the 24 years since 1899 The figures given below are taken from a report prepared for the U.S.A. Dept. of Labour by M. W. La Fever.


Year. Cars produced. Cars per worker.

1899 3,723 ... 1.66
1904 21,692 ... 1.80
1909 126,570 ... 2.47
1914 568,781 ... 7.17
1919 1,888,059 ... 8.97
1921 1,602,336 ... 11.15
1923 3,890,134 ... 16.11

The result in 1924 is that tens of thousands of workers were being paid off from the factories, and enormous numbers of cars were left unsaleable on the hands of the factory owners.

Similar progress has taken place in the building industry in Great Britain. It was pointed out by Mr. R. Coppock, at the Court of Enquiry presided over by Lord Bradbury (March, 1925), that

whereas in 1914 the 73,761 bricklayers in the country used 3,000 million bricks, in 1924 57,170 bricklayers used 2,000 million bricks more.

Now for the second aspect of the same process. The surplus which the masters so anxiously desire bears a certain proportion to the wealth produced, hence, other things remaining the same, the more wealth there is produced the more surplus will there be.

In their anxiety to obtain surplus the employers, when the markets are favourable, strain every nerve and fibre to increase their output. New machinery is laid down ; fresh " hands " are taken on; the hours of labour are extended. There is a trade boom. Then at the very height of the boom reaction sets in. One day we read such a notice as. this, which appeared in the Daily Chronicle (Nov. 11th,. 1913): —

Nearly 3,000 cotton workers in Colne, Nelson, Barrowford and Earby are affected by the reduction of working time adopted by individual firms. About 10,000 looms were idle yesterday in North-east Lancashire. Manchester merchants find themselves overstocked and with no foreign demand.

It is clear what has happened. Production has out¬stripped demand; the markets are glutted and the warehouses full to bursting. Orders have fallen off and products have become unsaleable. A note such as the above is the first ominous warning. Workers are discharged, and these, losing their purchasing power with the loss of their wages, affect other industries, and so the depression spreads. Soon there is a crisis and the streets are full of starving unemployed — a crisis and starvation — not because of sterility or famine, but because of the fertility of human labour; not because the necessaries of life are scarce, but because they are too abundant!

James J. Davis, Secretary of the U.S.A. Department of Labour, showed in 1923 that many of the chief industries in the U.S.A. were

so over-developed during the war that nothing can be done to warrant their full-time operation in peace time production, since such production could not possibly be marketed either at home or, at present, abroad.

The coal industry could produce twice as much as America required ; the iron and steel industries could satisfy all demands in 7 months out of 12, and if the plant were made as efficient as is possible the whole of the output could be maintained with one-third of the labour; with the latest machinery 5,000 men could make enough bricks for the whole country, instead of the 33,000 at present inefficiently employed.

In this way does Capitalism hinder production and perpetuate poverty.

The existence of unemployment, as regards its constant aspect, is seen to arise from the development of the means of production, and with regard to its aspect of periodic severity, from unrestrained output in the wild scramble of the masters for the surplus which results from the exploitation of their wage-workers.

Can unemployment be removed by shortening the hours of labour? And can poverty be abolished by higher wages? Machinery and organisation prevent these proposals from being permanently effective.

The Laws of Machine Development.

It may be stated as a preliminary, that every increase in the price of labour-power tends to hasten the development of machinery. Many people do not grasp this because they fail to understand the general condition of the instruments of labour. They think that, for the statement to be correct, every increase in the price of labour-power must give birth to a number of new inventions, and they say inventions are not made to order.

This, however, is a wrong view to take. In almost every industry the instruments of labour vary very much as regards their stage of development. Thus in the printing of posters, some firms who print enormous numbers do them on special machines, others lower in the scale print them on the general purposes machine, while yet others can employ nothing better than a hand press. But there are degrees among presses, and while many posters are run off on modern presses, here and there the " Stanhope " of our great-grandfathers clanks its tardy way to destruction.

Every industry may be viewed as a sort of inclined plane down which machines are more or less steadily slipping to the scrap heap. No matter how useful a machine may be, it is not profitable or advantageous to every firm in the industry. Above are those to whom it is not sufficiently economical; below arc those who find it beyond their reach.

But ever, both above and below, there is a fringe of doubt, on the one hand where users are hesitating whether to relinquish it for something higher in the scale, on the other hand where capitalists are wondering whether it would be sound policy to adopt the appliance.

Let us take the Linotype composing machine for example. This wonderful appliance, though a great labour-saver, is profitable only to a certain circle of printers — those who have a considerable amount of book or newspaper work. But many are considering the pros and cons of its adoption. A very little will decide. An extra monthly magazine — or perhaps putting in a machine, by saving two or three men's room, will avoid an expensive removal to larger premises.

Now suppose wages rise, immediately the doubters are decided. They adopt the machine, and each machine throws three or four compositors into the street. Machinery takes a step forward, not by a new invention, but by the wider adoption of what is already invented and in use.

It is quite true that this development of production is always going on, and would continue in the face even of declining wages. But nevertheless, since machinery is at all times the competitor of the worker, an increase in the cost of labour-power, whether by a direct rise in wages, or by a reduction of working hours or restriction of output, is in the competition between labour-power and machinery, a handicap on labour-power. Desirable as it undoubtedly is, it gives a jolt to the inclined plane, quickens the development of machinery, reduces the number of workers needed to produce the social requirements, and by forming a new army of out-of-works, defeats every attempt to solve the unemployed " problem."

It may be argued that at all events higher wages would have been secured, but it is evident that could only last until the full fruits of the reform had been realised in a new unemployed army.

It is not denied, of course, that legal enactment may, to some extent, prevent those fearfully low wages being paid which are the reward of arduous toil in the lowest strata of the so-called sweated industries, but the fact must not be, lost sight of that many of these unhappy workers are deprived by such legislation of the opportunity of selling their labour-power at any price. The many earning a pittance by toiling in their own slum dens are enabled to compete with factory machinery and factory organisation only by debasing their standard of living to a point that now and again shocks humanity. But to try to raise their remuneration by minimum wage acts has the effect of making it more to the advantage of the " sweater " to have the work done by a higher strata of labour and higher means of production in factories — the law of the development of machinery again.

That this is some improvement, is possible, but as a cure for poverty it falls a long wiy behind consigning the displaced workers to the lethal chamber, instead of setting them clamouring at the factory gates to depress higher wages to the legal minimum. The legal minimum always tends to become a maximum also.

The Struggle for Higher Wages Necessary

It may appear that the condition of the workers is fixed, and that it is useless for them to struggle for better conditions under the present system. That idea is foolish. To say that supply and demand is the immediate regulator of wages is to say that wages find their natural base through competition Competition is strife, therefore the operation of the laws of wages presupposes struggle.

In the world of commodities prices in the long run are just as much pre-determined, yet no one would dream of suggesting that because the fluctuations of price cancel one another and leave an average corresponding to value, buyers and sellers should cease to struggle over prices.

The exchange of goods at their value is the result of the struggle, and in the same way, the result of the struggle between masters and men is that wages are determined by the cost of subsistence.

The Standard of Comfort.

It is not to be supposed, however, that this cost of subsistence is necessarily the absolute lowest amount of food, clothing, and shelter upon which a man can produce a given number of foot pounds of energy.

If wages tend to sink to the level of subsistence, it is to the level of subsistence under the prevailing standard of comfort. We shall see, however, that this does not weaken in the slightest degree, the contention that the cost of producing labour-power determines its price.

When the present system arose in England it found a producing class who had emancipated themselves from serfdom and become peasant-proprietors, owning all they produced. They, therefore, were accustomed to a comparatively high standard of living. Fighting on this basis, the working class of this country have maintained a higher standard of comfort than races overtaken by capitalism while they yet had a lower standard of subsistence.

On the other hand, in America, where, instead of a constant drift from the country to the towns, large numbers constantly drifted from the towns to the country, labour-power was very scarce in industrial centres, and a very high standard of subsistence, became established in consequence. But, just as in England, the development of capitalism, and particularly the increasing difficulty of making a living on the land, has resulted in a steady lowering of the worker's standard. In fifteen chief American industries it has been declining sinee 1896: between 1896 and 1907 by 6 per cent.: and over the whole 24 years to 1920 by nearly 25 per cent. (American Economic Review, September, 1921.) And again, while the poor have grown poorer, the rich have grown richer. Professor Alvin H. Hansen. of the University of Minnesota, tells us that—

In the period from 1897 to 1915. when real wages were falling in spite of an enormous increase in national production, business profits far outran the rise in the general price level. From 1807 to 1913 railroad and industrial stocks advanced about 100 per cent. . . . Moreover, this was a period in which huge., corporate surpluses were being set aside out of profits. — American Econ. Review, March, 1925.

Now how does the law work out to the result that, though there is such a divergence in the standard of living of the respective peoples, that standard everywhere represents the physical limit of exploitation in the given circumstances.

The answer is simple enough. Labour-power, having for its competitor machinery, becomes more intensely exploited where it is dearer, in accordance with the law which provides that as the price of labour-power increases, more and higher grades of machinery are introduced.

This explains why it is that machinery has reached such a high state of development in America compared with what it has in this country. It is not that the inventive faculties of Uncle Sam's children are so much greater than those of other people. Labour-power being dearer provides the condition under which machinery develops most rapidly, that is all. In the Victorian decades much machinery was designed and manufactured in England solely for use in America, for the simple reason that labour-power was too cheap to provide an opening for it here.

Two generations ago this contrast existed between England and the Continental countries. This is shown by the report of Mr. Commissioner Wells, the Special Commissioner of Revenue in the United States, to Congress in 1868, and the report of Mr. Bedgrnve, one of the Inspectors of factories.

The former said: (Work and Wages, Brassey. Page 103, First Edition.)

Whereas female labour in {he cotton manufacture is paid at from 12s. to 15s. a week in Great Britain; at from 7s. 3d. to 9s. 771. in France, Belgium and Germany; at from 2s. 4d. to 2s. 11d. in Russia : the one thing which is most dreaded by the continental manufacturers everywhere is British competition.

Mr. Hedgvave reported (Ibid. Page 101):

The average number of persons employed to spindles is — in France, one person to 14 spindles; in Russia one to 28 spindles; in Prussia one to 37 : in Great Britain one to 74.

(The explanation of the seeming discrepancy in the case of France compared with Russia is that the French spindles produced higher quality goods.)

Mr. Thomas Brassey, son of one of the largest contractors of the 19th century, gives in his book. Work and Wages, many striking instances of the truth of our contention. He says, for example (Pages 67 and 68):

At the commencement of the. construction of the North Devon Railway the wages of the labourers were 2s. a day. During the progress of the work their wages were raised to 2s. 6d. and 3s. a day. Nevertheless it was found that the work was executed more cheaply when the men were earning the higher rate of wage. ... In carrying out a part of the Metropolitan Drainage Works in Oxford Street, the wages of the bricklayers were gradually raised from 6s. to 10s. a day; yet it was found that the brickwork was constructed at a cheaper ra.te per cubic yard after the wages of the workmen had been raised to 10s. than when they were paid at the rate of 6s. per day.

Finally Mr. Brassey shows that whatever the wages are the capitalist gets his ratio of plunder. He asserts (Page 75) :

On my father's extensive contracts, carried out in almost every country of the civilised world and in every quarter of the globe, the daily wage of the labourer was fixed at widely different rates; but it was found to be the almost invariable rule that the cost of labour was the same that for the same sum of money the same amount of work was everywhere performed.

So much for work which is performed without the aid of machinery, and work that is peculiarly of a muscular character, concerning which no one could speak with greater authority.

But let it not be supposed that the efficiency even of the " manual " worker is merely a matter of food, clothing, and shelter. Mr. Edward Cadbury in his book, Experiments in Industrial Organisation, says (pp. 3-4):

In the early days at least half the girls taken on would be in the fifth standard, but now no girl is taken on who has not attained to the sixtli standard. Within the last few years the number taken on from the seventh standard has largely increased, and on a recent occasion when fifty girls were taken on, all were in the seventh standard. . . A record was recently taken of the wages of sixth and seventh standard girls, both doing the same work under the same conditions. The results were :

At the end of three months. At the end of six months.

Sixth standard 1.24 pence per hour. 1.58 pence per hour.
Seventh ,, 1.33 ,, „ 2.07 ,, „

These girls are employed at mechanical work, and the figures show that even in such work the mental development is a very important factor.

We see, then, that the standard of subsistence of the workers may, and does, vary very widely, yet the masters have always the means, provided by the automatic development of machinery and of other means of speeding-up, of exhausting their workers of all their productive capabilities, and, by increasing the intensity of labour as the cost of labour-power increases, of ensuring that high standards of comfort are not maintained at the expense of profits.

Let us take it that a higher standard of subsistence and a shorter working day are possible. In theory and in practice this induces an advance of machinery. It also enables the workers to go at a higher pace, and hence encourages new methods of organisation and speeding up. We may turn to the baking trade for an example.

In high-wage America there has sprung up an entirely different method of organisation in bread factories. The whole plant is divided into two complete and independent sets, down to the merest detail. The two sets of machinery are operated by two gangs of men, each under a separate ganger, in one large room. In the middle of the room hangs a clock, and up and down the pathway that separates the two gangs marches a man with a note-book. This individual's duty is to record the time taken by each gang over the performance of every operation. Both gangers know that no matter how fast they may get the work done, sooner or later the slower will have to go. Thus pitted against each other, they drive and bully as only those can who have to do it for their living. Moreover, since each ganger's job depends upon his ability to screw his gang up faster than the other, his success rests largely upon the keenness with which he singles out his slowest units, and the ruthlessness with which he throws them into the street.

This, of course, is a new phase of exploitation. A generation ago even the most forward employers worked on the theory that generally any five workmen taken haphazard yielded a fair average of efficiency, and little endeavour was made to select. But the higher the organisation and the more machinery is resorted to, the more is the pace of the whole retarded by the slowest operator. What this means to the weaker may be imagined. The least sign of slackness, of declining vigour, of departing youth, is doom. The eight hours day makes possible a pace that only the young and the strong can stand; it also calls for a severe process of elimination, and for a system of harassing and bullying hitherto unknown.

Employment under such harassing conditions wears men out very quickly. It also requires greater forces of oppression to keep the operatives submissive. These forces are provided by the method of organisation itself, for the higher the organisation, the more intense is the speeding-up, and therefore the fewer are the workers needed to produce the wealth required, and the greater is the number of unemployed clamouring at the factory gates.

So we see that, although the standard of comfort of the workers varies in different countries, the higher standard by no means implies better general conditions. A higher standard of living for the working class means, from the capitalist point of view, a higher standard of efficiency and correspondingly greater possibilities of exploitation. This is why greater intensification, greater insecurity, and greater unemployment are invariably found in those countries where wages are highest.

That the struggle for higher wages and shorter hours results in greater intensification of labour and increasing unemployment is no argument against the prosecution of that struggle. It does, however, foredoom any attempt of the workers to materially alter their conditions by means of such a struggle alone. To exchange exhaustion in twelve hours for exhaustion in eight might be a gain — we are not concerned to argue that it is not. The thing to be remembered is that it is exhaustion. The struggle, then, of itself, fails. It cannot alter the essential conditions of working-class existence. It must be maintained to prevent the more rapid worsening of working-class existence, but it cannot lift the workers from that vicious circle wherein a victory in the matter of hours or wages is answered by greater intensification of labour and increased unemployment. It can never lift them above poverty and anxiety.

Therefore the struggle must be supplemented by something else if any extensive and permanent improvement in the position of the working class is to be secured.

Our enquiries have shown us the hopelessness of any attempt to alter appreciably the condition of the working class while the present social system continues. We have seen that the reason is that every effort at reform is defeated by economic laws inseparable from capitalism — laws which arise from the fact that labour-power is sold. We see that labour-power can never be free from the governance of these laws while it is sold, because a sale is necessarily based upon competition, and these economic laws are laws arising from competition. Competition springs from the desire for advantage. When the production of one class of goods is excessive, it is an economic law that the price of that class of goods falls. There is then less profit for the capitalists engaged in their manufacture, and again by economic law capital is repelled and used in more advantageous enterprises. As a consequence the output of the first class of goods is restricted and their price recovers.

This illustration serves to show that the effects of competition are by no means accidental, hut are an integral part of the competitive struggle.