Labour policy—false and true

Socialism is too amorphous to admit of any workable definition. Each age exhibits schools of thought, industrial and philosophic, which define Socialism in different ways according to contemporary political circumstances, economic conditions and industrial tendencies or their interpretation of them. There is no more interesting study than to trace out the variant meanings of “Socialist” from its first appearance in the Co-operative Magazine of November 1827 up to the present time, and to note its successive contractions and extensions in political, ethical, economic and social implications as decade succeeded to decade.

The Common Characteristics of all Socialistic Creeds

But certain brands of Socialism can be described if not defined. The one common characteristic is abolition of the “capitalistic organization” of industry. If we call this A, then we can say that all schemes of Socialism can be reduced to the general formula A + x, where x is a symbol standing for a very large number of variables which comprise the methods by which the capitalist is to be extinguished; the terms on which the present capitalists will be compensated or otherwise expropriated; the persons or authority in whom the means of production—and probably there should be added distribution and exchange—will be vested; the persons or body to be responsible for the organization of industry and for its control; the means by which capital will be found and prices regulated; the relation in which the new industrial system will stand to the community, and the various socialized industries to one another. These are the practical points to which attention should be directed rather than academic definitions.

Of the term “capitalism” and what is implied by it all kinds of definitions are current. Socialists of different schools have their own definitions embellished with epithets which vary in virulence according to their particular trend of thought. Employers too have their definitions, but it will be sufficient for our purposes if we take capitalism to mean the existing scheme of industrial organization. The basic vices of capitalism, according to all Socialists, are that it is a system under which the owner of the capital employed in industry possesses and controls the whole business of production and sale of the output, buying, just as he buys raw materials for his business, the labour power of the workman, paying him as little for it as possible, and that in the form of a wage merely in respect of the time he is at work; a system under which the employer maintains a reserve of unemployed labour in order to provide for the variations in trade, while recognizing no responsibility in respect of the workman at times when the employer cannot or is not prepared to provide him with work. Under such conditions the workman is said to occupy a quasi-servile status, to be a wage-slave and entitled to no voice at all in the control of the industry. That, without the usual garnish of abuse, is probably a fair description of the present organization of industry as it is envisaged by the Socialist. The two great incidents of capitalism which the Socialist therefore seeks to eradicate are: the private ownership of land and capital; and the employment on a wage-basis of hired labour. If only capitalism could be abolished the workman would no longer see his employer and other capitalists appropriating, in the shape of rent and interest and profits, all the value of the product which the labourer is said to create over and above the amount of his wages.

To capitalism, it is customary, and, indeed, necessary for his argument, for the Socialist to attribute all the ills from which industry suffers and most evils to which the community is heir. With the exit of capitalism the Socialist says that unemployment would disappear and adequate maintenance be secured for sickness, old age and other incapacity, equality of opportunity afforded to all, full scope provided for individual expression and development, and a universal millennium inaugurated. In the minds of some Socialists there seems no limit whatsoever to the mephitic influence of capitalism. Dr. Shadwell, in his discerning articles in The Times[2] on “The Revolutionary Movement in Great Britain,” mentions that the Daily Herald of February 2, 1921, found the cause of influenza in capitalism, and argued that unless the latter is destroyed it will destroy mankind; conversely Dr. Shadwell logically suggested we may assume that if capitalism is abolished influenza will disappear!

We are now in a position to distinguish the principal schools of Socialism that exist to-day. One will not find them formulating their principles as crisply as I set them out. My object is merely to indicate the main outlines.

State Socialism

First we have the State Socialist who advocates that the State should acquire, as he generally says, the means of production, distribution and exchange, or, to reduce it to practical terms, land and the national industries. Taking, for example, a concrete case—the railway industry—the State would take over all the railway undertakings in the country from the various companies of shareholders who now own them and, under most schemes of State Socialism, would compensate the shareholders by paying them, in State securities, something approaching the capital value of the net maintainable revenue of the undertakings. Under this system the State steps into the shoes of the original owners of the railways and acts as the employer controlling the industry and employing the workmen just as the private owners previously did. The industry would be run by a Government Department in Whitehall and, the State Socialist says, will be run in the interests of the community and not for private profit, inasmuch as the Government Department is, through its ministerial head, responsible to Parliament, which represents the community.

Syndicalism

The next school is that of Syndicalism, which, curiously enough, was really in its origin a British conception evolved in the revolutionary phase of the Chartist movement, but afterwards touched up and elaborated by Continental Socialists, especially in France, as by G. Sorel. Under this system, the private owner would be evicted by the workers, who would form some consolidated body, usually in the shape of an industrial Union, including all persons concerned in the operation of the industry, and that body would carry on the industry solely in the interests of the workers. Possession of the industry would be secured by the workers seizing the political power in the State, or, as is more generally advocated, by direct pressure of such a kind, in the form of a general strike or otherwise, as would enable the workers in all industries by concerted action to seize the means of production. Regarding, as the Syndicalist does, the capitalist as an idle and useless parasite who battens on the labour of the workers, no compensation would be paid to owners. The Syndicalist has not quite made up his mind whether he will include the technical and administrative staff in the industrial Union which will own and operate each industry, nor has he worked out the relation to the State of individual industries or industry as a whole.[3] Most Syndicalists assume that the State and its legislative, administrative and executive organizations, as we know it, will cease to function and come to an end under a syndicalistic regime, and that the country will be governed by some organization representing the workers as a whole. Except amongst certain revolutionary elements, Syndicalism has not a strong hold on British labour.

National Guildism

Next we come to the school of Guildsmen, of which that section known as the National Guilds have worked out their theory in the greatest detail. This school says that State Socialism would mean a rigid bureaucracy, and, so far as the workers are concerned, little advance on the capitalistic regime, because the workers would really be in the employment of the State and enjoy little or no voice in the control of industry. On the other hand, they say that the syndicalistic conception is doomed to failure because it makes no provision for including the supervisory, technical, managerial and administrative staff in the industrial organization that controls each industry, nor allows any safeguards for the consuming community against the selfish exercise of monopolies upon which the people are dependent for their necessary commodities and services. Accordingly the National Guildist proposes that the system of craft Trade Unionism that exists in this country should be replaced by industrial Unionism under which all manual workers employed in each industry would be enrolled in a comprehensive Trade Union embracing the whole of the industry, which in course of time would be expanded into an industrial Guild that would also include all the supervisory, technical, managerial and administrative staff, and that this Guild should be entirely responsible for the control and organization of the work of the particular industry. Exactly how the Guilds are to acquire the means of production in each industry is not yet developed; some advocate acquisition by the State for a small payment to the owners and then transference by the State to the Guilds; others the forcible acquisition by the Guilds after such gradually intensive action on the part of the workers as will bring the capitalistic system of organization of the industry to an impasse. A Guild Congress for each industry will regulate the affairs of that industry, and a National Guild Congress of all industries the affairs of all the industries in the country. Prices and other matters in each industry which affect the consumer will be regulated by arrangement between the Guild and local and central organizations representing the consumers, and general matters in all industries affecting the community will be adjusted by negotiations between the National Guild Congress and National Consumers’ Organizations. Those who desire to follow out Guild Socialism both as an industrial and a political conception should read that most interesting and brilliantly written book by Mr. G. D. H. Cole, Guild Socialism Re-stated; and investigate the Building Guilds.

Nationalization and Democratic Control

In Great Britain, political, industrial and social schemes of reconstruction have never followed strictly logical lines; they have invariably assumed a character of compromise, thereby giving effect to national idiosyncrasies of temperament. Accordingly we find a large body of Socialist opinion in this country advocating what it calls “nationalization and democratic control.” Perhaps the best illustration of what is meant by that baffling phrase is afforded by the scheme of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain for the reorganization of the coal industry. In that scheme, which is explained in the Bill presented to Parliament by the Miners’ Federation in 1920, the basic proposal is that the State should buy out the coal owners and that there should be established a National Mining Council. Since the Miners’ Federation as at present constituted could not appoint the technical workers, this Council would be composed, as to one-half, of representatives of the manual workers in the coal industry, and as to the other half by representatives of the Government. If, however, the Miners’ Federation could appoint the technical workers, I rather gather that they would not have been prepared to acquiesce in such duality of control. Under their proposal, the one-half of the National Mining Council representing the workers would be appointed by the Miners’ Federation and the other half would be persons appointed by the Government to represent the technical, administrative and commercial sides of the industry together with other persons to represent the consuming community. This Council would determine the annual output, fix prices and control finances. In addition, there would be District Councils for each coal-mining district, one-half elected by men working in the district, and the other half being technical and administrative persons and representatives of the National Council. Further, there would be Pit or Colliery Committees at every colliery comprised exclusively of the managerial, technical and manual workers. The manager as the person responsible for the governance of the mine, would be responsible to the Pit Committee, and the Pit Committee and the manager would be responsible for conducting the colliery.

It will be observed that this scheme of organization, which is probably what the most thoughtful sections of Labour have at the back of their minds as the kind to be applied to a well-organized industry, differs from State Socialism in that the State is not the direct employer, and differs from Syndicalism in that the workers have not autocratic control, and differs from Guild Socialism in that the conduct of the industry is not entirely by a Guild representative of all persons concerned in the industry, but by a Council consisting as to one-half of representatives of the miners and as to the other half of Government representatives.