Labour win less than 2% of the vote
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“What if the majority of voters wanted socialism, but the majority of the women and the third of men didn’t?”
The short answer would be that, in that situation, socialism would not be possible as not enough workers would be in favour. But extending the franchise wouldn’t solve the problem. Only convincing workers without the vote of the need for socialism would.
However, I don’t think the early Party members would have regarded the situation you posit as being likely as, if a majority of workers who had the vote wanted socialism, this was likely to mean that a majority of those without the vote would too.
They were concerned with a majority of the working class coming to want and understand socialism whether or not they had the vote. In fact, not even all Party members would have had the vote.
The vote was (and still is) seen as a tool that could be used to gain political control. If most workers, electors and non-electors, wanted socialism then those with the vote could use it to win control of political power on behalf of the whole class. Universal suffrage could be quickly brought in after that.
Anyway, that was their assessment of the position at the time. But by 1918 this had ceased be an issue as the franchise was extended then to a majority of the working class.
Also of course they regarded making socialists as more important than extending the franchise.
I never wrote or implied I’m against people who don’t have the right to vote being allowed to join the Party (and participate in party affairs) as equal members.
You’ve made a good point. However, here’s a question for you:
If there was a referendum this year on extending the franchise to 16 & 17 year olds, what (do you reckon) would be the SPGB’s position?
It would be up to the membership to decide but I can’t see us advocating that workers shouldn’t vote for it or objecting to workers, including party members, voting for it. I suppose our attitude as a party would be: vote for it if you want to.
Matthew, there are so many issues and questions that can go to a referendum such as they do in Switzerland and in some US states. It may be impractical to take a Party position on them all and in some cases, there will be dissenting Party voices, so it is as ALB says, we will leave much of it to the individual to choose.
On extending the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds specifically, I don’t believe Party members would object. They raised no objections in Scotland when they got the vote.
Nor was there any objection to non-UK citizens getting a say in if Scotland should get independence or not. Residence was sufficient criteria. (I read there is now a debate for Scottish ex-pats to be able to vote in the next independence referendum.)
But I pose another question. There is some talk of raising the age of marriage consent to 18 from 16. If they held a referendum on that, I think members would as individuals be more divided on their opinion.
We can go down a rabbit hole to a warren of questions on what and why our attitude could or should be.
This brings us to the big question of how decision-making inside socialism will work out in practice.
There is an application called “collaborative filtering”, a technology where people can navigate huge numbers of options. It starts off by collecting data on an individual’s preferences, extrapolates patterns from this and then produces recommendations based on that person’s likes and dislikes. With suitable modification, this technology could be of use to socialism – not only to help people decide what to consume but which matters of policy to get involved in. A person’s tastes, interests, skills, and academic achievements, rather than their shopping traits, could be put through the CF process and matched to appropriate areas of policy in the resulting list of recommendations. A farmer, for example, maybe recommended to vote upon matters which affect him/her, and members of the local community, directly, or of which s/he is likely to have some knowledge, such as increasing yields of a particular crop or the use of GM technology. The technology would also put them in touch with other people of similar interests so that issues can be thrashed out more fully, and may even inform them that ‘People who voted on this issue also voted on…’
We are all still on a learning curve and can only speculate for just now.
So, if I understand this correctly. In 1904, 2/3 of men had the vote. And no women. We advocated revolution through the democratic process. But w e were not in favour of the franchise for women because only women ‘with property’ would get the vote. Did we object to the 2/3 of men having the vote because they had property? I can’t understand this argument. Are we saying that we were (at best) indifferent to votes for women, because it was a campaign for only women ‘of property’ (whatever that means) to have the vote? What was wrong with women ‘of property’ having the vote? Given our understanding that there are only two classes in society – and 2/3 of men didn’t comprise the capitalist class – I still fail to see why the party was unsympathetic to votes for women. Instead of defending our position of 1910, we should admit we were wrong.
Our position should be that the franchise is extended to everyone including 16 year olds, because revolution can only be achieved through the democratic process.
Adam says: “Anyway, that was their assessment of the position at the time. But by 1918 this had ceased be an issue as the franchise was extended then to a majority of the working class.”
No thanks to the SPGB. All thanks to the working class, and in particular, women – whether or not they had property.
No thanks to the SPGB. All thanks to the working class, and in particular, women
Perhaps, more thanks to the female contribution and inclusion into the war effort and the fact that the Suffragettes along with the Pankhursts (with the notable and noble exception of Sylvia) all became jingoist war-mongers, sending men possessing the vote and also those without that democratic right, off to die in the trenches of the Somme and Ypres.
Perhaps their loyalty to capitalism and the government of the day persuaded the powers-to-be that they could be trusted with the vote.
If we are to re-assess SPGB history, what is your opinion, Paula, on the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War, fought to preserve “democracy” we were told?
I am not sure about that. Or if it is was, it was at a huge price — taking part in the first world slaughter. At least that was the reasoning of the Pankhursts who clanged the name of the Suffragette paper to “Britannia”, expecting the vote in return for supporting the war (except Sylvia who opposed the war but by then had come to the conclusion that the vote was useless even for men). Also, the ruling class couldn’t defend denying the vote to all men when, in supposed defence if “democracy”, British troops many without the vote faced German troops all of whom did have it.
This thread is providing an opportunity to try to nail once and for all the lies and fabrications in circulation about the Party’s attitude to the pre-WW1 campaign for votes for women.
Before 1918 the franchise system in force for parliamentary elections in Britain was Male Household Suffrage, or One Household, One Vote (plus a vote for those who owned property of a certain minimum value even if they weren’t a head of household).
This excluded all women but also many men.This article from 1912 quotes the Home Secretary as saying that of the 12,032,000 men over 21 in Britain only 7,409,034 had the vote, which is 62%. In other words 4,622,034, or 38% did not.
The Suffragettes were not campaigning for universal suffrage but for women to be eligible to vote on the same conditions as men. In other words, Household Suffrage for both women and men. This would have given the vote only to women who were heads of household, i.e., either single women or widows. Since this would have excluded all married women (except those who owned property in their own right, who could already vote in local elections).
This other article calculated how many existing electors were property-owners and how many were workers. It is clear from these figures that extending the franchise to women on the same terms as men would have given the vote to more property-owners than to workers, so increasing the overall percentage of property-owners in the electorate. Not an outcome that would be in the interest of working class.
Note that both articles state that the Party had no objection in principle to universal suffrage. One says it would be a “useful measure for the working class” and the other that “we are necessarily and without any qualification democrats”. The reason the Party, while not opposing its introduction, didn’t advocate it was we did not regard is as an absolute necessity nor the immediate priority (socialism was).
Thank you for the links Adam. So, the party’s position was that because enough working class men had the vote, there was no need for women ‘of property’ to have the vote? Particularly as those women were imagined to be hostile to working class emancipation.
I am still struggling to see how we could have achieved socialism in 1904 if only half of two thirds of the electorate had the vote.
Setting aside the question of women’s suffrage, why was the party advocating revolution through the ballot box at a time when only a minority of the working class actually had the vote?
Paula
It seems the Batley and Spen by-election might also be interesting.
Seems identity politics will feature with Galloways on opposing rights for trans and appealing for solidarity with Palestine to Muslim voters
Will serial party-founder George Galloway receive another trouncing that he got in the recent Scottish Elections?
I don’t see why you are struggling, Paula. We do not say that socialism has to be established through the ballot box and that therefore if there is no ballot box socialism cannot be established. That is a caricature of our position concocted by our opponents.
We say that socialism can only be established when a majority want and understand it. The vote is a means of measuring this and also a way to win political control.
If a majority wanted socialism but didn’t have the vote, then they would have to find some other way to win political control. It is difficult to see how this could avoid violence occurring — one reason why we say workers in this situation should struggle to get the vote.
The situation when the party was formed was that some workers had the vote and some didn’t (the majority in fact). But this would not have stopped a majority coming to want socialism or socialism being established.
Why did we say in 1904 that the way to win political control to establish socialism was through the ballot box? Because the majority of electors were workers (they had been since 1867), so if a majority of workers wanted socialism then those workers with the vote could use it to win political control.
(The hypothetical situation of a majority of workers with the vote wanting socialism but a majority of those without the vote not wanting it has already been discussed and dismissed as highly unlikely).
If the party had been formed 40 years earlier, before most electors were workers, they would no doubt have joined the campaign to extend the franchise, as Marx did in participating in the campaign that eventually led to the passing of the 1867 Reform Act (which enfranchised male urban voters who were heads of household, extended in 1884 to such workers in the countryside).
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