What Means This Strife?
During man’s very early history, when society was in the stage of primitive communism, there were no classes and no class struggles. Then—and the period must have lasted for thousands of years—private property was unknown, all members of the tribe joining in the ownership of the hunting grounds and fishing waters. The proceeds of the chase were for the enjoyment of every member of the tribe. Thanks to this ownership in common there was no monopolising of resources and wealth by one section of the community to the detriment of another. No man could live by the exploitation of his fellows.
The domestication of animals and the fashioning of tools suitable for agriculture brought to an end this first stage of man’s history. It is always a revolution in the means of producing wealth which causes social relationships to change. Now tribes conquered others with the express purpose of converting the vanquished into slaves. They were brought home and set to work the land. The conquerors owned the tools, the animals and the land; the conquered were propertyless. Thus did private property arise and with it came classes and man’s exploitation by man.
Since that time the history of all society is the history of class struggles, for private property has severed society into the “haves” and the “have-nots.” For this reason we find antagonism between one section of society and another. “Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, baron and serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, standing constantly in opposition to each other, carried on an uninterrupted warfare, now open, now concealed . . .” And present-day capitalist society has not abolished the class struggle. “It has but substituted new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of warfare for the old.” (See “Communist Manifesto,” by Marx and Engels.) To-day we have the class-struggle between the capitalist and working classes.
They Won’t Face the Facts
Frequently, especially in war time and during crises, appeals are made to the exploited, the working class, to abandon the class struggle.
Such an appeal was made on May Day by Marshal Petain. According to a Yorkshire Post and Leeds Mercury report, he “appealed to the French workers not to restore the class system (!)” and spoke of “the unhealthy ideologies of the class struggle.”
(The Marshal, in keeping with his shallow thoughts, is guilty of loose phraseology; the “class system”—capitalism—has not been abolished in France, or elsewhere, and so cannot be restored.)
It is strange how the workers are always held responsible for the class struggle. Yet, as we have shown, it owes its origin to private property, the corner-stone of capitalist society. The class struggle exists because of the clash of interests between the workers and their masters. That the interests of these two classes are opposed is quite clear if we take one aspect of it. The worker sells his energies, his labour-power, to the capitalist. Over the price of this and over the length of time it shall belong to the capitalist, there is bound to be disagreement. The worker, living on the starvation line, wants the best price (wage) he can get; the capitalist, seeking to produce his wares cheaply so that he can sell them in the world market, wants to reduce production costs. He, therefore, tries to keep wages down. Strikes and lockouts, both as old as capitalism, are evidences of the class struggle.
We can say with confidence, therefore, that the Marshal made his May Day appeal in vain. The French workers, like any others, are compelled by the very nature of capitalism to wage the class struggle in order to maintain their standard of life. This they are forced to do, even if they do not understand the economics of capitalism, even if they are not politically-minded. To quote Marx again : “The proletariat goes through various evolutionary stages. Its struggle against the bourgeoisie begins with its birth.” Not Petain, nor Hitler, nor anyone else can check the outbreak of the class struggle, either by words, government decrees or brute force. Nothing less than the abolition of that which gives rise to classes will accomplish that—the abolition of private property.
People like the Marshal are to be found the world over, wherever capitalism has (as it inevitably must) brought into existence workers and capitalists.
On the same day as Petain’s broadcast was reported, and in the same paper, a letter appeared entitled “Labour Discipline.” This writer, too, assumes that the class struggle is the workers’ creation. He deplores the fact that 400 factory workers on strike have refused to obey their union leaders’ orders to resume work pending negotiations. The writer does not stop to ponder why negotiations are so frequently necessary between the owners of industry and their workpeople. For this man the class struggle is a matter of will, of inclination, on the part of the working class. He cannot see that it is a sheer necessity inseparable from capitalism.
Another of those perturbed by this everlasting strife between employer and employed is Lord Dudley Gordon. Addressing the Leeds and District branch of the Federation of British Industries, he spoke thus : “We must do all in our power to get rid of the idea that the community consists of classes who have different interests clashing and competing one with another.” This paraphrased means: “Do your best to shut your eyes to facts. The class struggle is there alright, but ignore it.”
Lord Dudley’s solution for the whole problem is quite simple. “It would,” he said, “be better if we could look for competition in sacrifice.” This advice could, however, only have been meant for the workers—the usual call for more sacrifices. At any rate, his fellow capitalists ignored the message, for so far they have shown no inclination to enter into competition with each other in sacrificing the privileges of private ownership.
The Socialist Solution
Enough has been said to show that the way to a class-free society devoid of strife is not through the Petains and the Dudleys. Indeed, it can safely be maintained that the Socialist alone knows the solution to this problem. In his spoken and written propaganda, he aims at impressing upon the workers that the time has now arrived when classes need not be.
So long as the means of production were at a low stage of development and incapable of producing enough for all, it was inevitable that a few should ensure to themselves the privileges that ownership gives.
But that need not be now. The means of production can to-day pour our abundance. The truth of this is evident when one remembers that though so many millions are under arms and so many more millions engaged m turning out weapons of destruction, the world still carries on.
The Socialist urges that the way to end the class struggle is to make these gigantic productive forces the property of all society. This would immediately remove the cause of classes and conflict. This remedy, the only one, is, of course, opposed by the capitalist class. Their interests and privileges are at stake.
The task, then, of effecting this economic transformation rests with the working class, and sooner or later the workers of all nations will be obliged to undertake it.
The working class will carry the class struggle to its logical conclusion.
Beginning on the economic field over such particular questions as hours of work and wages, the struggle becomes a political struggle. The workers must win political power in order to carry through their revolution.
As time goes on the working class will realise more and more that this is their historical mission. The workers will become ever more critical of capitalist society. Every sphere of present-day society will be carefully scrutinised by them as their class consciousness grows.
When the majority of the workers become aware that class struggles need no longer be, that is, when they have become Socialists, they will use political power to abolish private property. Capitalism will be replaced by a harmonious social system—Socialism.
When we have the common ownership of the means of life, the individual’s interest will coincide with his fellows. Then, at last, strife and turmoil, so characteristic of capitalism, will no longer impede man’s progress.
With a society united and each giving according to his ability, who can say what will be the limits of man’s progress?
C. ALLEN