Marxism and the English Workers Movement

2. ECONOMICS AND THE PROLETARIAN CRITIQUE

In the first article of this series we dealt with the relationship of Marx and Engels to the revolutionary tendencies in Britain, particularly in the Chartist Movement, through to the First International and finally to the defection of trade union bureaucrats in forming the counter-revolutionary Trades Union Congress. We shall now deal with a number of schools of thought which have had an important impact in Britain. The first one we will deal with is the Cooperative Movement.

Before proceeding further, we shall state that the Cooperative movement went through two phases which we can designate as firstly Utopian and secondly as bourgeois. The first one was an instrument of the class struggle, while the second has become an integral part of the bourgeois system. The first phase resulted in some experiments which all failed to survive for any length of time, while the second is still with us and enshrined in the principles of the Rochdale Pioneers of 1844.

We don’t intend to detail here the events of the Utopian phase as we have dealt in part with it in Origins and History of the English Workers Movement and in any case there are plenty of examples in works on Robert Owen, etc. We will be dealing with the criticisms of bourgeois economics which arose out of both the Utopian phase and also against capitalism in general.

The offensive of financial and industrial capital was proclaimed in works by people such as Adam Smith. Very soon these same ideas, particularly on the question of wealth and value, were being taken up and used as criticisms of the existing distribution of wealth. The initial ideas of Charles Hall have been dealt with elsewhere, but it was a work by Thomas Spence, with the intriguing title of Perish Commerce, which stung James Mill to directly countering such criticisms. Suddenly, the bourgeoisie felt under pressure, not only on the industrial front over the levels of wages, but through being directly attacked on the level of bourgeois economics. This dangerous tendency had to be fought by the bourgeoisie before it could make the workers movement “safe” for capitalism.

The bourgeoisie could not fail but to examine the nature of the new economic relationships, examine the internal functioning of the economy and industry as well as the consequences for society as a whole. The identifying of value with labour by Ricardo was further grist to the mill of the “labour” economists. By 1821 the conception of “surplus-produce or capital” appeared in an anonymous pamphlet – this phrase was taken up in Capital by Marx and further developed. Even the “great test” of Bentham (the greatest happiness to the greatest number) was being used directly against the new capitalist system itself.

In the preface to Capital Vol 2, Engels points out;

“Our pamphlet is but the furthest outpost of an entire literature which in the twenties turned the Ricardian theory of value and surplus-value against capitalist production in the interest of the proletariat, fought the bourgeoisie with its own weapons. The entire communism of Owen, so far as it engages in polemics on economic questions, is based on Ricardo. Apart from him, there are numerous other writers, some of whom Marx quoted as early as 1847 against Proudhon (Poverty of Philosophy), such as Edmonds, Thompson, Hodgskin, etc, etc, ‘and four more pages of etceteras’. I select the following at random from among this multitude of writings: An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth, Most Conducive to Human Happiness, by William Thompson… [written in 1822]… The constant effort of what has been called society, has been to deceive and induce, to terrify and compel, the productive labourer to work for the smallest possible portion of the produce of his labour.”

Engels goes on further to say: “But what is there new in Marx’s utterances on surplus-value?”

Such modesty indeed! We will record the fact that the critiques of the English “labour” economists have been incorporated into the Marxist world outlook of the proletariat.

 
Class Struggle by the New Industrial Working Class

The great difference between German and French polemics in the 1840s on the one hand and in England in the 1820s on the other, is that in the former case the attempt was made to build bulwarks against the new economic system, whilst in the latter the struggles within the new system were seen as requiring to be fought out. The English “labour” economists were looking for ways to resolve problems in favour of the industrial workers whilst not holding back the wheel of time, as in the case of Proudhon, etc. With the class struggle going on all around them, there was an obvious need for this conflict to be pushed forward as far as possible. It was within this context that theoretical constructions were built and plans for the future reorganisation of society laid. With capitalism itself still only on the threshold of its youthful phase, the instrument for resolving the contradictions in society, the industrial proletariat, was not as yet fully formed. For this reason the plans put forward were as yet still limited, and rested in part on hopes rather than material forces, confining such programmes to utopianism. But this however does not invalidate the bulk of the criticisms of capitalism taking place, which were in some aspects superior to those of many later socialists.

Marx was to show that these critiques of capitalism were divided into two groups, those who wanted to pursue the class struggle, such as Hodgskin and Thompson, and those who fell into Proudhonist errors and advocated labour vouchers as a form of currency, such as Bray and Gray. The basic division between these two tendencies was over whether solutions were to be found within the relations of production, i.e., diminishing the extraction of surplus value, or whether the problems lay purely within the realm of distribution. Within the revolutionary tendency we shall see the division between a form of syndicalism and the genesis of socialism. The inevitable question of the right to the whole of the product of labour was confronted and fought out.

Thomas Hodgskin is chiefly noted for his work Labour Defended, which was published in 1825 at a time when the struggles for the legalisation of trade unions were reaching their height. He also gave a series of lectures to workmen at the London Mechanics’ Institution, published later as a Popular Political Economy.

Labour Defended asserted that, throughout the country there was raging a struggle between capital and labour. Because of the conflict of interests, workmen felt impelled to organise in trade unions to pursue their own aims. The employers paid them only the barest minimum in order for them to subsist. By his own calculations he asserted that while because of the new machines and science ten times more goods could be produced per worker than two centuries previously, the workers saw none of this increase and were forced to live on the same subsistence level as their counterparts of two hundred years before. All the advantages had gone to the capitalist and the landlord. Hodgskin asserts that this is wrong and that the value created by the worker should go to that person and not to the capitalist, as it is only by the use of living labour that goods are produced. Without the use of living labour, then the machinery of production would fall into decay. Capital, as dead or stored-up labour, can not produce anything without the use of living labour which sets it in motion in order to produce useful goods. As the possessor of capital, the employers are a burden on the backs of the workers. But it is not just the individual employer who is a burden to the worker. For instance, if a labourer buys a coat, he pays over and above the cost of what nature demands for its production; by making payments of interest to the owner of the sheep, the wool-buyer, the capitalists in the spinning mills and weaving sheds, the cloth merchant and the master of the tailoring shop. It is hard to say how much all these exploiters make out of the sale of the final coat, but it may be six times that of the necessary wages incurred in the overall processes involved in producing the coat. Thus the labourer, by purchasing goods pays many different types of capitalists.

Hodgskin refutes the notion that wherever workers are brought together to undertake production the end product belongs to any individual worker.

“Each labourer produces only some part of a whole, and each part having no value or utility of itself, there is nothing on which the labourer can seize, and say: “This is my product, this will I keep for myself”. Between the commencement of any joint operation, such as that of making cloth, and the division of its product among the different persons whose combined exertions have produced it, the judgment of men must intervene several times, and the question is, how much of this joint product should go to each of the individuals whose united labours produce it ?” (Labour Defended, 1922 edition, p,53).

Hodgskin goes on to declare that the division of value would be left to those workers involved. It is at this point that a number of unsatisfactory conceptions arise. While he passionately defends the workers’ struggles over the surplus product of their labour, he never comes up with a way of actualising a new form of distribution, of new forms of social relations. Whilst desiring that the workers have full access to the products of their labour, he still concludes that it is impossible to do away with capitalists altogether. He applauds the prospect of drastically reducing the profits of the capitalists, but concludes that driving them out completely would only “do mischief” as it would wreck economic relationships. It all comes down in the end to ideals, believing that if all decisions were taken on the basis of honour and principle between all those involved in production, then the rewards of labour would be settled by competition in the market. He could not escape the notion of free and competing units of production. In later works he asserted that individual property was natural and essential to the welfare and existence of society. The achievement of a more equitable distribution of the products of labour was, in Labour Defended, attributed to the working classes, but later on, he sees this as the role of the middle classes. These conclusions are nothing other than the sorry product of syndicalism.

Thompson, while recognising Hodgskins’ work in defending the interests of the working class, takes him to task for defending competition and the marketplace – the infamous “higgling of the market” – as a solution for the endeavours of the workers. In paying due respects to his “friend and fellow-labourer” he warns Hodgskin that he is in bad company in defending competition between enterprises, as all its advocates are on the side of capital and against the claims of labour.

 
Plan for the Reorganisation of Society

With William Thompson we find the process of transformation from bourgeois theories towards a form of socialism, combining elements of Bentham, Ricardo and Owen. Initially Thompson had been a follower of the Utilitarian school which praised Bentham’s test of the greatest happiness to the greatest number. This cannot be achieved without the physical means of enjoyment and objects of wealth. Abundant production and a just distribution are indispensable for the achievement of the greatest human happiness. The conditions in society showed that it wasn’t meeting this test, so he examined why in his Inquiry into the Principles of the distribution of Wealth most conducive to Human Happiness. It is a rather torturous work with many ideas and concepts being weighed in the balance… and found to be wanting. Thompson found that the mere abundance of wealth could not guarantee happiness. There already existed in 1822 a country rich in the means of production but there was still unhappiness. Moreover, poverty and misery were the lot of the majority of the producers. The only way this situation could be overcome was by the abundance of wealth being linked to a just and equal distribution; the wealth must be distributed over the whole population in order for each member to satisfy their needs instead of leaving wealth in the hands of a few.

All we can do here is summarise a few of the points raised, such as the view that labourers and craftsmen are the real producers of value and useful goods, as opposed to those of capital and the capitalists. Also, the system of private property does not give security to the producer, for much of the value of what he produces is taken away in the shape of profit and rent. The lack of security of the producer prevents the productive forces from producing enough to satisfy all of human wants. It is the unjust and unequal distribution which checks production; moreover, the little that is produced is monopolised by the few. Excessive wealth and luxury on the one hand, abject poverty and misery on the other – weighed in the balance, the existing form of society is found wanting.

In examining all aspects of production, distribution and the concept of value, Thompson could not find any way within the existing economic relations to alter the distribution of wealth in favour of the producer. It was this conclusion which pointed him in the direction of alternative solutions. The conclusion he drew is that there is no more potent force which operates on human character and on human happiness than the mechanism of the distribution of wealth. Considering the tremendous capacity of the new productive powers, there should be no hesitation in undertaking a redistribution of wealth. The existing accumulated wealth is really insignificant when compared with the possibilities of the creation of new wealth which a just and equitable distribution would effect. All this can be achieved only by (1) labour freely and voluntarily given; (2) the products of labour secured to the producers; (3) all exchanges of these products shall be free and voluntary. Only on the basis of these principles can there be both security and equality.

Thompson takes a further few steps forward in 1826 in his Appeal of One Half the Human Race, Women, Against the Pretensions f the Other Half, Men, in pointing towards ways of eliminating oppression and exploitation.

“Under such arrangements [Labour by Mutual Cooperation], women may have equal improvement and use of all their faculties with men; under these circumstances, they may derive as much happiness from every source – of the senses, of intelligence, and sympathy – as men, according to the peculiarities of organisation of each: under these circumstances, all may be perfectly equal in rights, duties, and enjoyments, according to their capabilities of acting, suffering, and enjoying.”

He goes on to point out that even though men may be able to work harder than women in producing the objects of enjoyment [commodities under this society], where would men be without the peculiar pains, privations and cares that women endure in bearing children. Against the rather doubtful advantages of the present state of improved chemical and mechanical science, of mere superiority of animal strength on the part of men in producing goods, how does that compare with what women go through in preserving the human race. Which is more indispensable, the production of a few more broadcloths and cottons, or bringing up the next generation? He concludes by stating that “no person cheerfully exerting his or her means, whatever they might be, for the common benefit, would be punished for the scantiness of those means, still less from the pains or privations attending their development.”

In 1827 Thompson published his main work, which was Labour Rewarded, in which he directly took up some of the limitations of Hodgskin’s Labour Defended. Here we can only summarise, and give a few quotations, from this important work. Were justice and kindness the basis in rewarding labour, the largest rewards and compensation would go to those who do the most severe and repulsive toil. But to such labourers, because they are the most helpless, does competition with its unequal remuneration, award uniformly the smallest share. Better means in the earlier stages of society being unknown resulted in competition with its unequal remuneration – prizes for the idle and few, want and misery for the many – calling forth the activity of industry. The end has been sacrificed to the means. This inequality of remuneration has been erected into a God by the successful patrons of brute force, or “higglers of the market”, and been consecrated and worshipped by public opinion, by law, by superstition. It can not be otherwise under such competition.

Despite the differences of categories of labour, there seems to be no reason to justify the difference of remuneration. It aggravates the misery of the wretched, while giving the rewards to superfluity and vanity at their expense. As to different classes of labourers, those who supply the necessities of life are now almost uniformly the worst rewarded; while those classes which provide superfluities, particularly if novelties, are the best rewarded. As to the same class of labourers, the scheme of unequal remuneration by task-work, produces at the same time excessive toil, and brings down to the lowest level the remuneration of labour. “It may be that skill, utility, and great demand, may happen to coincide; but this is purely accidental.” Some through apprenticeships, corporations and guilds, etc., may have been able to elevate themselves higher than others; while the great mass of labourers have through competition been unable to do otherwise than live out their average lifespan and leave behind there a new race of labourers to continue the routine of unattractive, unrequited, toil. Those classes of trades or subdivisions of classes which are better remunerated are the mere aristocracy of trades, possessing no superior merit but certainly having all the vices of all aristocracies, which the chance of circumstances enables them to procure above the mass of their brethren. Later on in his book, Thompson points out that the highest price which Free Competition will enable unions of the industrious to obtain for their labour, is nothing like the value of their labour, but the same rate of remuneration which will permit the capitalists in the same industry to reap profits from their capital. Hence it is evident that the benefits of these voluntary unions to the industrious classes, are almost entirely limited to times of ordinary or extraordinary prosperity in their trades. In a declining state of trade, particularly when the crisis is more generalised, voluntary unions to guard against the under-bidding of the industrious against each other are rendered inoperative.

Thompson, in examining whether it is possible to secure to labour the products of its exertions, and giving equal remuneration to all labourers, concedes that this is impossible to achieve within the framework of individual competition, but not under other arrangements. How could these arrangements be brought into being? It is only by the workers becoming owners of the means of production.

“We have seen that, in any state of society ever so little advanced from barbarism, it is almost impossible to ascertain what portion of the produce of combined labour – and all labour to be economical must be combined out of the minute sub-divisions of its various branches – has been the work of any individual labourer, and of course that it is impracticable to award to the individual, separately, the products of his labour. What cannot be done individually, we shall see may be done collectively, and it is clearly our duty to make the nearest approach we can, consistently with reproduction, to the securing to all the products of their labour.” (p. 37)

Thompson put forward plans for reorganising existing industries. Funds should be raised for the utilisation of the labour of the unemployed and other casualties of capitalism. He put forward plans for the acquisition of buildings and machinery to create new units of production and set them to productive work. Out of the products of this labour nothing should be withheld except the cost of management and depreciation of capital. [We refer the reader to Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Programme to see how close these two positions are.]

The form in which the plans are formulated show that Thompson still had not been able to totally leave the Owenite utopian school. The plans still talk in terms of each worker having a share, but one share only, in their own enterprise. It would still operate as a business but he pointed the way towards a break between use value and exchange value. He talks often about remuneration rather than wages, and the workers collectively having access to everything produced, with provisions being made for those incapable of work, etc. To Thompson goes the credit of formulating value by labour time and, pursuing the consequences of the quotations above, this could only be done as an average of the endeavours of all those involved in the collective processes of production. He was facing in the direction of scientific socialism, while still clinging to notions of moral enlightenment and progressive advancement.

Even with the most perfect organisation in industry imaginable – given the workers being able to achieve this – the problems of the workers would not end. They would still be prey to the burden of rents to landlords, rivalries to similar enterprises still operated by capitalists, profits made on the supply of raw materials and the fluctuations of trade dependent on general markets. He advocated the raising of funds to purchase land and settle agricultural associations as well as the formation of communities of cooperative production for their mutual requirements.

The general problems of the market continued to dominate Thompson’s work. In 1830 he was putting forward ideas for its suppression or replacement by the generalising of cooperative production.

“Want or uncertainty of employment for the industrial classes is the master-evil of society as now constituted. What immediately causes want of employment? Want of sale or market. Goods when produced cannot be sold at all or not at a price that would repay the cost of production; therefore manufacturers’ cannot give permanent and remunerative employment.” (Quoted by Max Beer, History of British Socialism, Vol. 1, pp. 227-8)

 
Limits and Collapse of Utopian Socialism

The works of the English “labour” economists represented the limits that could be reached out of the criticism of bourgeois economics. They reflected also the upward turn of the growing class struggle, still at that time mainly on the economic level. Various aspects of the unfolding bourgeois economic relationships had to be examined to see their effects and limitations, as well as ideas proposed for society’s advance. As Max Beer points out “Most of the controversies of German and Eastern European scholarship concerning Marx’s Capital were, in their essence, fought out in the years between 1820 and 1830 in England round Ricardo.” (p, 188) These “labour” economists did not restrict themselves to economic theories but were a part of the developing proletarian movement examining the new world they found themselves a part of. These same “labour” economists were active in lectures and discussions of the early working class leaders in preparing them for the ensuing struggles. However, as there did not yet exist the material force which could overturn the prevailing economic and political situation, they did not have a revolutionary perspective. However, they reflected on the political level the slow and painful uphill struggle to lay the foundations for the first independent proletarian organisation – the National Union of the Working Classes formed in the early part of the 1830s. Not only were these works a formidable critique of the fundamentals of the bourgeois economy, but also represented veritable arsenals for Marx and Engels in developing the world-historic outlook, of the proletariat.

One could not have expected the work that was accomplished by these “labour” economists to have gone further than it did, nor for it to have been able to transcend utopianism, because of the limitations of the period in which they developed. But they prepared the ground for others. They anticipated the preliminary steps in the transition from capitalism to forms of socialism, but their chief problem was in not being able to consolidate their work into a single school of thought – this was only possible with the development of the movement in Germany, and thus Marxism was born. Marx and Engels took up the work of the English “labour” economists, not only to beat down such ideas as represented by Proudhon, but also to point the way forward. The conquests of these utopian economists have been put into good order and incorporated into Marxism.

The polarisation over the question of cooperation during 1831-4, between those who advocated and pursued the class struggle on the one hand and those who defended the existing form of society on the other, is dealt with in our other series, Origin and History of the English Workers Movement. It represented a dividing line between the revolutionary movement and the defenders of bourgeois order. Also it is one of the issues involved in the bourgeois falsification of history, carried out in particular by Sidney and Beatrice Webb.

In the Webb’s History of Trade Unionism we find the rather fanciful notion that Robert Owen was led astray by utopian and impractical ideas. For the amusement of the reader we shall give a short quotation.

Owen 
was disabled by the confident sciolism and prejudice which has led generations of Socialists to borrow from Adam Smith and the “classic” economists the erroneous theory that labour is by itself the creator of value, without going on to master that impregnable and more difficult law of economic rent which is the very corner-stone of collectivist economy. He took his economics from his friend William Thompson, who, like Hodgskin and Hodgskin’s illustrious disciple, Karl Marx, ignored the law of rent in his calculations, and taught that all exchange values could be measured in terms of “labour time” alone.” (pp, 162-3)

So here we have Owen as a lovable idealist led astray from practical tasks by nasty extremist socialists with their nefarious ulterior motives. It is a pity for the Webb’s that the blame could not be laid at the door of “foreigners”, but had decidedly English origins. Indeed, it was the whole classical school of economists who had got things “wrong”. After a century or more of examination by bourgeois economists, labour was identified with value and rent “forgotten” – one can wonder whether the Webb’s had read Ricardo on the subject, or if instead they were just plain liars, [An interesting aside is that the main reason the Labour Bazaar left the Grays Inn Road, London, premises is that the landlord, a friend and supporter of Robert Owen, wanted £1,700 per year rent – a substantial amount in those days]. The Webb’s apparent lack of scruples is neither here nor there. What does matter to us is the falsification, that the “utopian” form of socialism had been tried and failed, to be replaced now by a more “practical” strategy.

The truth is that Hodgskin and Thompson’s plans for industry were not put into practice at all. They were in truth impractical (barring a complete takeover of society by the “industrious classes”, meaning in effect a revolution), but what was put into effect in Owen’s Labour Bazaars was a programme for the survival of self-employed craftsmen and artisans. It was a strategy more to the liking of bourgeois radicals, such as Francis Place, who wanted the working class to remain under the political control of the middle class. The goods exchanged were the result of very small-scale production, such as hats, coats and boots, etc., precisely the industries where mechanisation hadn’t penetrated yet. The hopes for a self-sufficiency based upon such exchanges were erroneous because many of the goods people needed were the product of large-scale production, such as woven goods (cotton and wool products), steel, coal, food, etc, and thus were controlled by the capitalist class, The capitalist owners of the means of production expected to be paid in coin of the realm, instead of fancy bits of paper. This was the real application of the law of value.

A more important point needs to be stated. The Labour Bazaars did not implement exchange by labour-time calculation – rather it was the other way around. A maximum price (calculated in money) was decided on what the market would stand for a particular type of commodity, then a wage was stated for the value of the labour of a worker, and so a number of hours he should have worked for was deduced. If he took longer than that, then it was just too bad. Why should the customer subsidise lazy workers? That was the rationale of the advocates of Labour Bazaars. As one disciple of Robert Owen put it later, the equitable labour exchange failed because “those who availed themselves of it were too ignorant, too selfish, too dishonest.” (Cooperator, 15th August, 1865) The Owenite partisans would rather blame the lack of enlightenment of the masses than the consequences of the market system, which was the real cause of the problems.

Another problem of the Labour Bazaars should be stated. At times there were increasing stocks of goods that were sold only slowly. In fact they became repositories for the dumping of goods that people did not want. For the Webb’s, this just showed that the whole process was unresponsive to the needs of the market. They expected and wanted the productive processes, in this case that of the independent artisans, to be disrupted by the whims of the buying public. In other words, the whole process of capitalist anarchy in the market place should be introduced into the Labour Bazaar system. Periodically the whole system of production of handicrafts would then be thrown out of gear in precisely the same way as in large-scale production, brought about by the bourgeoisie re-asserting its levels of profit. For Marxism neither over-production and dumping on the one hand, or the chaos of the market on the other, is an acceptable solution for a future society. We attack both the concept of production for the sake of profit and the squandering of human and material resources of production for its own sake. We don’t give a damn about having people working just to fulfill “quotas”, for completing a set “working week” or satisfying some damn account book. All this nonsense will go with capitalism in general, and alienated labour in particular.

By challenging the falsification of the Webb’s we are not defending the Utopians as a school of thought. We have our own criticisms of the Utopians which we are quite open about. But at least those members of the Utopian school we have mentioned were against the capitalist economic relationships and strived to project forward an alternative world outlook. It is that element in their work we shall not have defamed, because it is part of the ideological offensive of the bourgeoisie to deny that there is any “realistic” alternative to the capitalist social relations. Falsifiers, such as the Webb’s, not only want to rob the workers of a future, they also want to rob them of their past. Opportunists hope that when the workers are convinced that there is no alternative to capitalism, then perhaps will they settle down to appreciate the wonderful nature of the bourgeois world. It is people such as the Webb’s who are the real Utopians,

Those who today deride the works of the early labour “economists” as “impractical” and “unrealistic” are those who look for more practical ways, inevitably within capitalism, within the present framework of society. They look for some aspect of capitalism which they can declare to be progressive (stalinism), independent (libertarianism) or state controlled (trotskism). We can do nothing better than to end this section by recalling the words of Thompson that anyone that defends competition and the market are on the side of capital and against the claims of labour. We will deal next with the bourgeois phase.

1. THE ENGLISH TRADITION

In looking at the perspectives of Marxists for their work in Britain, and the English-speaking world in general, it can only be understood from the historical point of view. Issues that are discussed today are nothing new but have been hotly debated for a century and more. Modern capitalism developed in Britain first and following from that it was the first to develop that other expression – opportunism. The proletariat in Britain was the first to produce a workers party (Chartism) and was the first one to be corrupted, in a determined and conscious way by the bourgeoisie.

Every so-called civilised form of society in history has rested upon the exploitation and control of the labour of a “lower order” of some kind. The maintenance of society has always been central to those classes which owned and controlled the means of production. This ranged from the enforcing of exploitation, whether for slaves, serfs, journeyman or industrial workers, to the ideological expressions of that society. This was done consciously by the organised expression of those exploiting the labour of others, the ruling class and its State, in an organised and systematic way in order to defend and advance their own interests

In 1383 the Corporation of the City of London prohibited all «congregations, covins, and conspiracies of workmen». Four years later the «serving men of the London cord-wainers» are reported to be aiming at making a permanent fraternity. More specifically, in 1417 the tailors’ serving men and Journeymen in London «have to be forbidden to dwell apart from their masters as they hold assemblies and have formed some kind of Association» (Webb’s History of Trade Unionism). Thus the guild system evolved in such a way as to prevent the workmen from forming themselves as a class! Guild socialists – please note!

The invention and introduction of industrial machinery for production in factories, etc., led to a new class – which needed to be brought together in large numbers – the industrial proletariat. The old guild system broke down and was replaced by new social relations and new ways of organising at the governmental level of society. To counter-act the already existing forms of proletarian organisation, democracy was slowly but steadily introduced to establish control over these new and troublesome expressions of the working class. At a banquet in Liverpool on October 8th, 1838, Lord John Russell declared: «It is not from free discussion, it is not from the unchecked declaration of public opinion that governments have anything to fear. There was fear when men were driven by force to secret combinations. There was the fear, there was the danger, and not in free discussions». As the bourgeoisie was able to establish its control over the proletariat so the democratic institutions were developed to maintain this control. The traditional weaknesses of the British working class, i.e., their bent for empiricism, for fragmentary views and half-measures, can in large part be traced to the ideological imprisonment imposed by the bourgeoisie.

Origins of Marxism

In a short article by Lenin entitled “Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism” he pointed out that Marxism comes from German philosophy, French socialism and English economics. We should say a little more on the English component as it requires more than just the works of Smith, Ricardo, etc. Capitalism developed in England first and it was specifically this, and the resulting class struggle, which resolved problems raised by German philosophy, gave substance to the French ideas of Socialism and so resulted in the international outlook of the proletariat. We must really lay down the law on the following point: Marxism has also specifically English origins! The carefully woven illusion that Marxism is some sort of Continental disorder that could never gain ground in England without being modified, made more “realistic”, adapted to “English conditions” is the delicious myth spread by the bourgeois falsification industry. We must also make the following point, unfortunately: England is also the home of opportunism!

There is no such thing as Marxist ideology (which is a contradiction in terms) and no separate categories like Marxist economics, Marxist philosophy, etc., in that Marxism is the theoretical outlook of a class, that is the proletariat, and its role is in the preparing of the proletariat for prosecuting the class struggle through to the abolition of capitalism. Without the perspective of the organising of the proletariat as a class and preparation for power, Marxism ceases to play its role and the ideas and groups involved became ossified and end up as mere sects-barriers to the class struggle and new enemies of the working class.

Marxism records the fact that the industrial proletariat is a revolutionary class, and this is after capitalism itself which, in its earlier phases, had also played a revolutionary role. It is the internal nature of the capitalist economy, which periodically throws society into profound crisis, which tends to make the proletariat revolutionary – it is this fact alone and not just that workers are exploited. As Marx pointed out to the English workers,

     «The so-called Revolutions of 1848 were but poor incidents – small fractures and fissures in the dry crust of European society. However, they denounced the abyss. Beneath the apparently solid surface, they betrayed oceans of liquid matter, only needing expansion to rend into fragments of hard rock. Noisily and confusedly they proclaimed the emancipation of the proletarian, i.e., the secret of the nineteenth century, and of the revolution of that century.
    «That social revolution, it is true, was no novelty invented in 1848. Steam, electricity, and the self-acting mule were revolutionists of a rather more dangerous character than even Barbes, Raspail and Blanqui. But, although the atmosphere in which we live, weighs upon everyone with a 20,000 lbs of force, do you feel it? No more than European society before 1848 felt the revolutionary atmosphere enveloping and pressing it from all sides.
     «There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces, which no epoch of the former human history had ever expected, On the other hand, there existed symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman Empire» (Speech by Karl Marx at the Anniversary of the “People’s Paper”, delivered in London April 14, 1856 – Marx and Engels, Articles on Britain, p. 260).

At this anniversary meeting of the journal of the English workers movement, Marx was there as the representative of the Continental workers, much to the dismay of other “exiles”. It is paradoxical that the isolation of Marx and Engels from the workers throughout Western Europe, since the dissolution of the Communist League, was the period of the greatest influence of Marxism on the English workers – though the situation was to reverse itself as the century went on.

The links of Marx and Engels with the English workers movement was already of at least ten years standing at this time. During his youth, Engels went to England also to learn from the struggles of the working class. He was active in and around the Chartist movement, and knew many of its leaders. Towards the end of the 1840s Engels was also an emissary for the revolutionary Chartist leaders. From being a student of the class struggle, Engels (together with Marx) were to became teachers of the English workers.

Defeats and reorganisation

We will give here only a brief outline (our work Origins and History of the English Yorkers Movement will deal in more detail) of the developments of the proletarian movement. The year of 1848 was generally speaking a period of defeat. The Chartists suffered a defeat in that same year (they shared the same fate as their fellow workers on the Continent) but did not experience the bloodbath as in other countries. This was because the commercial crises of these years emanated from England and also strengthened England’s position. The Chartist demonstration was defeated without a shot being fired and one leader who was calling for proletarian organisation (Ernest Jones’s famous expression for the workers to go on “organising, organising, organising… and the rest will follow” was an indication of this) was put in gaol.

These defeats, and the lessons of them, led to the constitution of a definite revolutionary tendency under the leadership of Julian Harney and Ernest Jones, during 1849-50. The discussions in the Communist League spilled over into the members in exile and the resulting splits were on an international level, with Harney lining up with the Willich-Schapper faction and Jones supporting Marx and Engels. So much for national insularity! (It is worthwhile recalling here that Marx and Engels were instrumental in assisting the development of the revolutionary tendency. When Jones started off “Notes to the People” as the publication of this tendency, Marx actually ended up editing a couple of the issues as well as supervising, theoretically speaking, Jones’s diatribe against the Cooperative Movement).

The movement was reorganised and although it had the same name, National Chartist Association, it was a different organisation. It had a properly constituted Executive Committee, centralised structure, a defined and committed membership, and a newspaper as an organiser – maybe Bolshevism has English origins! Also it was independent of and hostile to other classes, particularly the industrial bourgeoisie.

Although this movement was numerically small, and it was a struggle to keep the “People’s Paper” in existence, it turned towards all aspects of the class struggle. The strikes in Preston in 1853/4 was an event where they actively intervened. It was during this strike – a lock-out that lasted 8 months – that a Labour Parliament was called in Manchester. England had two Parliaments in 1654, one of the workers and another of the capitalists. All this was an expression of the acute crisis of over-production in the cotton industry, spreading out into other areas of commercial and financial crisis.

By 1855 the Crimean War had broken out. There were many lessons to be learnt from this experience. Here we had a revolutionary class, the proletariat, confronted with a “progressive” war against reactionary Czarist Russia and giving support for the liberation of nations without subordination itself to the government conducting the war. Social issues were being fought out at the same time and London saw numerous demonstrations leading to violence. This was a classic example on how to handle this situation, of an expanding progressive system without making concessions to national patriotism or giving support to the ruling class.

During these years the bourgeoisie was trying to establish its hegemony over the proletariat and could only do this by beheading the Chartist workers movement. The bourgeois Reform Movement underestimated the fighting and tactical capacity of the Chartists to retaliate. The attempt to use the name of the Chartists as giving them support, led to the bourgeois Reformists ending up with their fingers burnt good style, Chartists invaded their opponents meetings, moving amendments and getting them carried with overwhelming support, leading to the bourgeoisie holding their meetings in private. So paranoid were the Reformists that anyone wearing workmen’s clothing was ejected from their meetings, whether invited or not.

Finally there was established between 1855-9 an International Association and although it provided a link between the Communist League and vthe First International, it proved to be premature.

The above points show that the working class in Britain had a definite revolutionary tradition, buried and obscured deliberately by the bourgeoisie and its supporters, who are scared of this tradition. It is a precondition in establishing their control over the working class that the employers rob it not only of its future, prevent it from organising as a class by atomising it and tying it to a multitude of political and economic structures that seek to offer workers what appears to be a stake in this society, but also of its past, with revisionism and opportunism playing a vital role in all this.

The re-organised Chartist movement declined, and exhausted itself by 1858. It was defeated by the expansion of capitalism itself, with many going over to supporting the Liberal Party. This trend found its reflection in the defection of the Chartist leader, Ernest Jones, who proposed an alliance with the middle class. The workers were shocked by this (Popular Frontists, please note!) and scandalised by this idea. There is a deep-seated hostility in the working class for the ruling class which still exists, no matter how residually today, and waits only to reappear as a consequence at each renewal of the class struggle,

The period of 1848 to 1858 was a period of defeat and retreat, but it was a fighting retreat in which ground was not easily given. It took time for the bourgeoisie to establish its influence over the working class, in reality the trade union bureaucrats which Engels was to later call the aristocracy of labour, The crisis of 1858 was a watershed for the English workers in which the old movement died, as Engels commented:

     «After this affair one is really almost driven to believe that the English proletarian movement in its old traditional Chartist form must perish completely before it can develop in a new, viable form. And yet one cannot foresee what this form will look like. It seems to me moreover that Jones’ new move, together with the former more or less successful attempts at such an alliance, are indeed connected with the fact that the English proletariat is actually becoming more and more bourgeois, so that this most bourgeois of all nations is apparently aiming ultimately at the possession of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat alongside the bourgeoisie. For a nation which exploits the whole world this is of course to a certain extent justifiable. The only thing that would help here would be a few thoroughly bad years» (Engels to Marx, October 7th, 1858).

The disappearance of Chartism meant the end of mass involvement of the English workers on the political level for quite a long time. All that was left was the trade union level which at that time only represented the skilled workers and artisans, at best a rather conservative layer carrying over many of the attitudes from the guild form of organisation. This small layer could easily be bribed by better pay and conditions, in practice a clique which constituted its leadership, but should the mass of workers demand the same conditions, they would be faced with abuse, police truncheons and military bayonets. Bourgeoisification could only be extended to a minority of the working class otherwise the economy would be in danger of collapsing. While the capitalist class of Britain may well have exploited the world, the capitalist economy was always prone to crisis and collapse which led to increased exploitation and confrontation. Six months after Engels’s letter to Marx quoted above, Marx was writing to Lassalle about an improvement in the class struggle and lamenting over not having an English journal to write in.

The working class in Britain has always been able to build economic organisations, and consequently been led by the nose by the bourgeoisie politically speaking, precisely because they have been unable to assimilate on the political and theoretical level the lessons of the class struggle. It has been precisely because of the ideological and social weight of the bourgeoisie that the proletariat has been denied the theoretical and political level of understanding and has had thrust upon them the endemic disorder of empiricism, which raises to an art form the practice of stumbling around in the dark. The critique of all aspects of the existing social system inevitably means a criticism of all levels of the political and ideological reflections of the bourgeois relationships which emanate from the exploitation of the working class. It cannot fail to dig up by the roots all the beloved nonsense so prized by the bourgeois academics, namely all the latest ideas creeping out of the universities and colleges, breeding grounds of ideological diseases waiting to be launched on the world.

The First International

The industrial disputes of 1859-60 (particularly the builders’ strike), which showed a capacity to defend economic organisations along with the struggle to prevent British intervention in the American civil war, helped to lay the basis for the First International. In the Inaugural Address of the International Working Men’s Association, Marx pointed out:

     «After the failure of the revolutions of 1848, all party organizations and party journals of the working class were, on the Continent, crushed by the iron hand of force, the most advanced sons of labour fled in despair to the transatlantic republic, and the short-lived dreams of emancipation vanished before an epoch of industrial fever, moral marasmus, and political reaction. The defeat, of the continental working class, partly owed to the diplomacy of the English government, acting then as now in fraternal solidarity with the cabinet of St. Petersburg, soon spread its contagious effects to this side of the Channel. While the rout of their continental brethren unmanned the English working classes, and broke their faith in their own cause, it restored to their landlord and the money-lord their somewhat shaken confidence. They insolently withdrew concessions already advertised. The discoveries of new goldlands led to an immense exodus, leaving an irreparable void in the ranks of the British proletariat. Others of its formerly active members were caught by the temporary bribe of greater work and wages, and turned into “political blacks”. All the efforts made at keeping up, or remodelling, the Chartist movement, failed signally: the press organs of the working class died one by one of the apathy of the masses, and in point of fact never before seeded the English working class so thoroughly reconciled to a state of political nullity. If, then, there had been no solidarity of action between the British and the continental working classes, there was, at all events, a solidarity of defeat.
     «And yet the period passed since the revolutions of 1848 has not been without its compensating features. We shall here only point to two great facts.
     «After a thirty years’ (1) struggle, fought with most admirable perseverence, the English working classes, improving a momentous split between landlords and money-lords, succeeded in carrying the Ten Hours Bill. The immense physical, moral, and intellectual benefits hence accruing to the factory operatives, half-yearly chronicled in the reports of the inspectors of factories, are now acknowledges on all sides… Hence the Ten hours Bill was not only a great practical success; it was the victory of a principle; it was the first time that in broad daylight the political economy of the middle class succumbed to the political economy of the wording class.
     «But there was in store a still greater victory of the political economy of labour over the political economy of property. We speak of the cooperative movement, especially the cooperative factories raised by the unassisted efforts of a few bold “hands”. The value of these great social experiments cannot be overrrated. By deed, instead of by argument, they have shown that production on a large scale, and in accord with the behests of modern science, may be carried on without the existence of a class of masters employing a class of hands».

On this last point Marx was showing how much of a diplomat he could be when trying to weld together disparate elements of the British workers movement.

     «At the same time, the experience of the period from 1848, to 1864 has proved beyond doubt (what the most intelligent leaders of the English working class already maintained in 1851-2, regarding the cooperative movement ⁽¹⁾) that, however useful in practice, cooperative labour, if kept within the narrow circle of the casual efforts of private workmen, will never be able to arrest the growth in geomentrical progression of monopoly, to free the masses, nor even to perceptibly lighten the burden of their miseries (…) To conquer political power therefore become the great duty of the working classes. They seem to have comprehended this, for in England, Germany, Italy and France there have taken place simultaneous revivals, and simultaneous efforts are being made at the political reorganization of the working men’s party. One element of success they possess – numbers; but numbers weigh only in the balance, if united by combination and led by knowledge».

This fundamental position can not be emphasised enough!

     «Past experience has shown disregard of that bond of brotherhood which ought to exist between the workmen of different countries, and incite them to stand firmly – by each other in all their struggles for emancipation, will be chastised by the common discomfiture of their incoherent efforts. This thought prompted the working men of different countries assembled on 28 September 1864, in public meeting at St Martin’s Hall, to found the International Association».

The one expression of the working class in Britain that had consistently survived, the trade unions, was drawn into the First International. The struggle for Reform was taken into and up by the trade unions in a spirit so different today. In formulating a policy and perspective for the work of the trade unions, Marx wrote the following, “Instructions for Delegates to the Geneva Congress” in 1866. In section 6. we have the following:

     «Trade Unions. Their Past. Present and Future
     «(a) Their Past
     «Capital is concentrated social force, while the workmen has only to dispose of his working force. The contract between capital and labour can therefore never be struck on equitable terms, equitable even in the sense of a society which places the ownership of the material means of life and labour on one side and the vital productive energies on the opposite side. The only social power of the workmen is their number. The force of numbers, however, is broken by disunion. The disunion of the workmen is created and perpetuated by their unavoidable competition amongst themselves.
     «Trade unions originally sprang up from the spontaneous attempts of workmen at removing or at least checking that competition, in order to conquer such terms of contract as might raise them at least above the conditions of mere slaves, The immediate object of trade unions was therefore confined to everyday necessities, to expediencies for the obstruction of the incessant encroachments of capital, in one word, to questions of wages and time of labour. This activity of the trade unions is not only legitimate, it is necessary. It cannot be dispensed with so long as the present system of production lasts. On the contrary, it must be generalised by the formation and the combination of trade unions throughout all countries. On the other hand, unconsciously to themselves, the trade unions were forming centres of organization of the working class, as the medieval municipalities and communes did for the middle class, they are still more important as organised agencies for superseding the very system of wage labour and capital rule,
     «(b) Their Present
     «Too exclusively bent upon the local and immediate struggles with capital, the trade unions have not yet fully understood their power of acting against the system of wage slavery itself. They kept too much aloof from general social and political movements. Of late, however, they seem to awaken to some sense of their general historical mission, as appears, for instance, from their participation, in England, in recent political movement».

We have seen plenty of evidence of keeping aloof from politics on the part of trade union leaders, to be replaced by the support for bourgeois politics, participating in bourgeois wars, etc. What was held up as the best example at the time (of 1866): the Trade Union Congress, has ended up the most corrupt and nationalistic. It is worth recalling that from being an instrument of the defence of the working class, it actively participated in two world wars and at the end of the last war, reorganised the trade unions in Germany on behalf of American Imperialism.

     «(c) Their Future
     «Apart from their original purposes, they must now learn to act deliberately as organising centres of the working class in the broad interest of its complete emancipation. They must aid every social and political movement in that direction. Considering themselves and acting as the champions and representatives of the working class, they cannot fail to enlist the non-society men into their ranks. They must look carefully after the interests of the worst paid trades, such as the agricultural labourers, rendered powerless by exceptional circumstances. They must convince the world at large that their efforts, far from being narrow and selfish, aim at the emancipation of the downtrodden millions».

While not underestimating the opportunistic tendencies in the trade unions, a consequence of the working class being driven from the political plane, we cannot just turn our backs on the trade unions in periods of struggle. Either they must aid those in struggle, or they lose their purpose for existence. The trade unions in Britain are based upon different trades, industries or in a couple of cases, general unions. Given these different unions, there is little choice in which union a worker joins. In fact it is most frowned upon to transfer between unions. This is forbidden by the “Bridlington Agreement”, named after the town in which the agreement was made. This prevents the “poaching” of members of one union by another, and by implication the polarisation of workers within the various unions. The same goes for the famous “closed-shop” whereby everyone is required to be a member of a trade union affiliated to the T.U.C. This closed-shop also has the function in keeping the more militant workers in line. In these organised places, to be expelled from the union can also lead to those workers losing their jobs.

It is worth recalling that the militant reputation of the dockworkers in Britain can be traced to the extension of the “Blue” union (the National Association of Stevedores and Dockers), so-called because of the colour of the union card, from London to the Northern ports in defiance of the attitudes of the T.U.C. The Stevedores union was a relatively old union which became the vehicle of the more militant workers and recruited many workers from the “White” union, the Transport and General Workers Union. As a consequence of this the Stevedores union was expelled from the T.U.C. The ending of the closed-shop on the docks aided rather than hindered the organisation of minorities of militant workers. It was only as the T&GWU reasserted its control, along with the closed-shop, that saw the collaboration for the run down of the docks by making it more profitable, with thousands being made redundant. Another example would be that of the Glassworkers and General Union, a breakaway from the General and Municipal Workers Union, which arose out of a strike of glassworkers in St. Helens during 1970. After the break from the existing union, it turned to encouraging other workers to join it. It was a threat to the existing unions, and would not be allowed to join the T.U.C. and quietly died. Trade Union unity today represents the strangulation of any struggles that threaten to break out of their present sectional imprisonment.

Trade Union Bureaucrats’ Defection

We have already pointed out that in the First International’s section in England, the struggle for Reform (that is political questions) were placed in the centre of the strategy for the work in the unions. With the passing of the Reform Act of 1867, which gave the vote to a small section of the working class, there was a stampede of the trade union bureaucrats into supporting bourgeois parties, particularly the Liberal Party. The Reform League, which had been under the influence of the International, passed over to the possession of bourgeois politicians. Marx was to denounce all these traitors at the Hague Congress of the First International of 1872, by saying that it was an honour not to be called an English trade union leader. A little later Marx wrote to Sorge on April 4 1874, saying the following:

     «As to the urban workers here (in England), it is a pity that the whole pack of the leaders did not get into Parliament. This would be the surest way of getting rid of the whole lot» (Quoted in Lenin’s article “Imperialism and the Split in Socialism”, Autumn 1916).

The agitation of the International’s section in England was replaced by those in “The Land and Labour League” who took up the task of extending the agitation to the unorganised proletarians. These were not only the semi-skilled and labourers, like the dockworkers (this approach bore fruit years later in the famous dockers strike of 1889), but also to the unemployed as well. Here we see the tactic of by-passing the conservative elements of craft unions by bringing onto the scene fresh layers of unorganised proletarians to try to overturn the situation. However, as far as the First International was concerned, the tide of class struggle at that time was ebbing away. No matter how many desperate efforts at rear-guard actions could be fought, the International was facing either death or by being taken over by forces hostile to the proletariat as a class. The struggles against the anarchists are well documented, while the fight in England against bourgeois penetration was less publicised. England, the only country ripe for a proletarian revolution, in the sense that the proletariat was strong enough to hold power as a separate class and the bourgeois economy was so well developed (it dominated the world market) that such a revolution would have a profound effect on other countries; on the economic level it was mature but on the political level, it was abysmal. In a statement “From The General Council to the Federal Council of French Switzerland” Marx took up the question of whether there should be a separate national section in England distinct from the General Council. In section Four he states:

     «Whilst the revolutionary initiative comes probably from France, England alone can serve as a lever for a serious economic revolution. It is the only country where there are no more peasants and where real estate is concentrated in a few hands. It is the only country where the capitalist form – i.e., labour combined on a large scale under capitalistic masters – has taken over almost all production. It is the only country where the large majority of the population consists of wage-labourers. It is the only country where the class struggle and the organisation of the working class by the Trades Unions have acquired a certain maturity and universality. It is the only country where each revolution in economic matters would, because of its domination of the world market, immediately affect the whole world. If landlordism and capitalism have their classical headquarters in this country, as a repercussion the material conditions for their destruction are the most ripe. Therefore the General Council is now in the fortunate position of having a hand directly on the great lever of the proletarian revolution, what folly, we would almost say what a crime to let it fall into entirely English hands!».

We consider it appropriate to add, what a greater folly, what a greater crime it would have been to let the International fall into English (bourgeois) hands!

     «The English have all the material prerequisites for the social revolution. What they lack is a spirit for generalisation and revolutionary fervour. It is only the General Council that can supply it, thus accelerating the truly revolutionary movement in this country and consequently everywhere. The great success which we have already had in this respect is witnessed by those newspapers which are the most intelligent and most enjoy the confidence of the ruling class (…) They publicly accuse us of having poisoned and almost extinguished the English spirit of the working class and of having pushed it towards revolutionary socialism».

No doubt the trade union bureaucrats would be in complete agreement, that it is the influence from outside that stirs the workers into disputes, that creates troubles, which goes against that very special English attitude of peaceful development, of compromise, of respect for the aristocracy and monarchy, of national accord. The trade union bureaucrats have become the best defenders of the bourgeoisie. They see their future as inseparable from that of capitalism, realising that the abolition of wage slavery will also mean their disappearance as a privileged layer.

We could present a long list of events and quotations to show the trajectory of the trade union bureaucracy into the bourgeois camp. We will limit ourselves to just three examples. In 1872, from being feared antagonists linked to the First International, the Trades Union Congress held in Nottingham was feted by local officials and important wealthy citizens. During the 1880s many trade union leaders were being invited on to various Government Boards and Enquiries, their opinions being solicited, requests for them to attend Royal occasions, and one General Secretary of a trade union stepped directly over to a Government post, in what became known as the Ministry of Labour. By 1895 the trade union leaders, particularly those dominating the T.U.C. were in sufficient control so as to be able to exclude representatives of the local trades councils from any involvement in the Congress meetings, thereby preventing all influences from the mass of the members from having any influence within the proceedings. From that point onwards the T.U.C. had become the affair of a handful of paid officials, in practice accountable to nobody but themselves. One can well believe that this last move was as a consequence of the bureaucrats at the Newcastle Trades Union Congress in 1891, opposing the new unionism, which led Engels to comment «the bourgeois papers recognise the defeat of the bourgeois labour party». The programme of the T.U.C. had become bourgeois and a defender of the State.