Mr. Rennolls Again. A Fine Part for Shopmen
(To The Editor)
Sir,—You have been fair enough to publish two letters I sent to you under your own headings. In these letters I tried to make plain a few ideas which I thought of considerable imortance, and apparently I have failed, at least as far as “F.F.” is concerned, to make them plain, for he doesn’t seem to have any notion of the whereabouts of my arguments. His Calvinistic adhesion to a few shibboleths called a “party programme” prevents him from seeing anything outside the glass case in which he keeps his precious doxology and benediction. He replies to me by answering questions I do not ask, by explaining intensively and extensively the obvious, by trotting out from the glass case facts and arguments which are expected to, but do not, fit any criticism and explain any difficulty, as if they were the dependable elixir of wisdom, and by getting into an awful state of alarm lest the sacerdotal arrangement of his revolutionary diary gets deranged.
Such a reply only goes to support my impression of the indequacy of this doctrinaire state of mind. “F.F.” has not yet considered my essential question to Socialists to answer, viz., “What would be done to-morrow morning by all the people if all the people were like . . . any member of the S.P.G.B., . . . class-conscious, revolutionary Socialists ?” to be out of order, or ridiculous, or unnecessary, or what not. On the contrary he answers it, and I gather from his answer that they would “capture the political machine.” Here again is an “abstraction.” Yet “F.F.” dares to challenge me to prove that “abstractions” exist in the S.P.G.B. view of things. Perhaps his is not this view, in which case why is he put up to answer me ? [It is rather remarkable that Mr. Rennolls has forgotten that this discussion commenced with a criticism of his upon an written by our contributor, “F.F.,” and that therefore there is no question of the latter being “put up” to answer him.—Ed’s. “S.S.”] If his reply is the official one, I beg of him to see how he provides the very evidence he demands to be brought.
There is another side to his reply. As I gather we should all “capture the political machine,” we shall, whilst messing about doing this, work for the capitalist. Fancy Socialists doing this ! And here’s the rub. It is all very well for an isolated Socialist now working for a capitalist under economic stress and strain yet at the same time not losing hold of his principles, but withal more strongly adhering to them and desiring their consummation. That position of his holds good, but when everyone or nearly everyone is like him—rabid, red-hot, and revolutionary, it is not their business to work for the bounders for five minutes.
If we can get an idea of revolutionary action that will cover this contingency, then Socialism is something to us. If, however, we are still going on talking about capturing (sic) the political machine, if that is all you can offer, then Socialism to you, by this test, is what your “abstraction” is, an abstraction buttering on parsnips.
Why should we not consider ourselves in the light of everyone being like us ? To “suppose” or “if” that is quite in order. It stamps us individually, for what we are worth. We prate of what we would do IF we were “in power.” That itself is “iffing” it. But as soon as “F.F.” does it he lands himself into a no-man’s-land of “looking up the book,” and then just recites, Psalms-like, something about “capturing political power.” But to “if” what would-be done TOMORROW is still a more searching test into our concreteness of Socialism. Timing the thing leaves “F.F.,” und I take it the S.P.G.B., stranded.
“F.F.” gets out of it all by saying : “If all the people were Socialists to-night could anything be mores impossible or absurd?” Yes, this reply. Which is the absurdity, the “if,” the “to-night,” or the “all the people” ?
Anybody can “if,” so it cannot be that, and as you’ll want all the people or most of them with you, it cannot be that, and as I never said the people would be Socialists “to-night,” it isn’t that. We are left, therefore, with a typically anti-Socialist “argument” pretending to reply to a Socialist question. Yet “FF” admits in a previous breath that underlying the dictum “Labour-power produces all economic wealth” is intimated one possible answer—to this “absurdity.” Should I succeed in finding exactly what people would do to-morrow morning on the strength of my impressions and understanding of Socialism, why should it not be done ? What they would do I would do and what I would do they would do. It is a mere accumulation of my individuality acting on the basis of my impressions of Socialism. Why should I put off thinking out what would or should be done to give live Socialism a chance, a start, just because others have not troubled ?
Socialism is not to me, and ought not to be to anyone else, what others would do without me, and as it must, under those circumstances, present itself to be, a pure speculation, a nebulous programme of well-juggled phrases, that does not satisfy me, if it satisfies you.
I put the extreme test my essential question, to myself, and I answer that if all were like me, say to-morrow, we would go to work just as usual, in the old coal-pit or saw-pit, in the same field or factory, ship-yard or show-room, bakery or workshop—just as usual. We would go on producing, but the shopman—the keystone to the edifice of “realising” surplus-value, the man who does the trick for the capitalist in that he takes money for the products, sells them, exchanges them, would do nothing of the kind anymore. He would give the “goods “away instead.
Herein the least interference would be made with the existing social order with all its complexities, but the greatest damage would be done to the exploiting principle in it. It would be annihilated, in fact.
The effect of such action would be immediately felt in free-everything instead of looking to the moonshine of a remote democracy of intellects. While the old strikers were charged with stopping production and starting starvation, the boot would be now on the foot of those who would interfere, in this case, with production.
Instead of delegating some bounder to perform the miracle of “representing” you, you set about the job yourself. And so on and so on. Any Socialist can work it out for himself.
The lack of concreteness, suggestive of an active part for everyone to play in the economic revolution, giving no momentum to propaganda, has created the stagnation and mistrust that has overwhelmed working-class movements in the world of Socialism.
The overbearing interpretation of Society as a gutter of material phenomena through which marches a helpless working class that can only find salvation in general elections and mechanics on the Woolsack, is a looking-backward proposition of no earthly use. The decrying and tabooing of initiative and assertiveness, qualities of great value possessed by every Socialist, and left to rot for want of probing, has given place to the worship of such self-contradictory absurdities as “Democracy” and “social-property,” and to the study of our revolution as if it were a lesson in mathematics and an “As it was in the Beginning ” affair.
My dear sir, Socialism is the greatest psychologicalproposition of the age, and from that standpoint has received scant consideration.
Let Socialists organise and come together with open mind, plain speaking, earnestness and mutual respect.
—Yours fraternally,
TOM RENNOLLS
If Socialism is a proposition it is more of a social or an economic than a psychological one. The relation of Socialism to psychology was the subject which first attracted Mr. Rennolls’s none too definite criticism, though his intervention has provided us with a sample of working-class mind that is, unfortunately, all too numerous. He scorns and overlooks the obvious truths of Socialism, whether concrete facts or general statements. The latter he stigmatises as abstractions. I pointed out in my first reply that Mr. Rennolls did not define “abstractions” for us according to his conception of the word, therefore I refrained from replying to his charge. Now that we know from Mr. Rennolls himself that any general statement is an abstraction, I have only to point out that all such general statements contained in our Declaration of Principles are deduced from concrete facts and placed in that form in order to give expression to general or abstract truths. If this is not scientific, logical, or practical ; or if the principles are not correctly deduced, if there is not sufficient evidence to justify them, if they are too sweeping or not broad enough, it was, and still is, open for Mr. Rennolls to show.
In my first reply I also referred to my critic’s slipshod methods of reading and quoting, and proved conclusively that he had been guilty of misquoting. He ignores the charge and commits the same offence once more, when he pays that I challenged him to prove that abstractions exist in the S.P.G.B. Had I known at the time that according to him an abstraction was a generalisation arrived at by surveying a number of concrete facts upon which it was based, and the truth of which could be proved by both the inductive and the deductive method ; had I known this and known also that Mr. Rennolls held such generalisations in contempt—irrespective of their truth—I should not have “passed over” his “discovery of abstractions” without showing that such “abstractions” are necessary to any organisation and to a working-class party are absolutely essential.
Again, my critic put the question : “What would be done to-morrow morning if all the people were Socialists ?” and says that I answered it by saying “capture the political machine.” Good advice to the working class, but it was not written in answer to his question, the absurdity of which he is still unable to see. “Why should we not,” he says, “consider ourselves in the light of everyone being like us? To ‘suppose’ or ‘if’ that is quite in order.” Of course it is—for the dreamer. If Mr. Rennolls likes to spend his time imagining situations like that contained in his question he is free to do so ; but the only practical thing for the Socialist is to make Socialists—until Socialists are in a majority over all other parties ; until their representatives dominate the Parliamentary, urban and rural councils, judiciary, etc. That time will come long before Mr. Rennolls’s night of Socialists ; it may even come before he realises that his question is one that does not apply, that the situation he envisages cannot possibly arise, still, for his sake, let us hope not. “Timing the thing,” he says, “leaves ‘F.F.’ and I take it the S.P.G.B. stranded.” The position is the reverse : the S.P.G.B. makes a definite statement with regard to time—when a majority of the electorate are Socialists. But Mr. Rennolls would wait until the whole of the working class are Socialists. Why, he does not say, and this omission is all the more surprising seeing that the success of his plan only depends on the conversion of the “shopmen.”
Mr. Rennolls is quite sure of his plan, quite sure that the shopman is the keystone of the system, and equally sure that he would give the goods away instead of selling them. But he does not tell us what would happen when the shopman had parted with all his goods and applied to the capitalist for more. Would the latter give the goods instead of selling them ? Would he allow them to be taken ? Or would he call on the Government to provide the physical force necessary to protect his property ? On all these questions my critic is silent. His plan is deadlocked as soon as the shopman has given away all his goods, and the class that controls the political machine locks out the workers from all the chief sources of supply—by means of the fighting forces—and starves them into submission.
“Herein,” to quote from Mr. Rennolls’s following sentence, “the least interference would be made with the existing social order.” That is quite true : it would be a case of “as you were,” and Mr. Rennolls could ask himself his previous question once more—”Why should I put off thinking out what would or should be done to give live Socialism a chance, a start,” etc. The fact that his plan had failed because its supporters came up against physical force, which was controlled through the political machine by the capitalist class, might cause him to take the political machine into consideration. Without respecting it, he might still recognise that it was the source of power, and the simplest, easiest, and most direct way to overcome capitalist opposition to Socialism is to control it.
The political machine can only bo controlled through representatives or delegates. But Mr. Reunolls jeers at the idea of being represented.. He calls it a “miracle,” and says, “you set about the job yourself. And so on, and so on. Any Socialist can work it out for himself.” Well, so he can, in fact the question of representation is so simple that it does not require working out. A concrete example is before every Socialist (and incidentally before Mr. Rennolls as well), which proves without the shadow of a doubt its inestimable value. The capitalist claps by means of representation controls the political machine, and through it subjects the whole working class to its rule. Here is a practical illustration of the value of representation. If the master class find in that method all that is necessary to retain their supremacy—everything else being added unto them as a consequence—surely the working class cannot afford to ignore it.
Let Mr. Rennolls think it over instead of dreaming about “nights of gladness” when all will be Socialists, to wake up in the morning ; and get on with the game old job ; when all the shopmen will “give their goods away,” when none of us will work for the capitalist” bounders for five minutes,” when “F.F.” will get some “notion of the whereabouts” of his arguments, when “live Socialism” will get a start, when you set about the job of representing yourself, and all the other absurdities that are roosting in his brain to the exclusion of rational and consecutive thought.
To sum up, all Mr. Rennolls’s bombastic jeers, anent the “dependable elixir of wisdom,” tha “sacerdotal arrangement of the revolutionary diary,” and the “doctrinaire state of mind,” fall flat, because he absolutely fails to show that our declaration of principles are not genuine, scientific generalisations. Those epithets would more aptly fit his own confident but confused state of mind. His dream of the benevolent shopman, is Utopian and impossible. His imaginative conception of a working class entirely Socialist and Socialism still awaiting establishment is childishly absurd. His careless assumption that “you” can always represent “yourself” shows that he has yet to learn the first principles of organisation. His contempt for political action is not based on reason or argument, and therefore stamps him as an Anarchist. He would preach discontent, but can present no feasible or scientific method by which the working class can achieve its emancipation.
F. F.