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Action that struck directly at Capitalism was required, and that could only be industrial. The logic was not bad; the absolute indifference to the social conditions in which it was to operate had a divine air of aloofness about it. The idea was, by combining the workers into one great industrial union, to overthrow the present system and put in its place one after labour's own heart. Part of this movement came from France, where the philosophy of a violent syndicalism and the utility of the myth as a revolutionary inspiration had been popularized by Sorel, and a belief in the domination of instinct,* in conduct, had held sway for the usual length of the reign of a Paris fashion. Another part of it came from America, where the Socialist Labour Party and the Industrial Workers of the World had begun an intransigeant propaganda of Socialist industrialism and class war. This American movement was inspired by the writings of Daniel Deleon,† a man of Latin origin and temperament. He valued Marx for having written of the revolution that was to establish the rule of the proletariat, for he looked upon Society as though it were a South American Republic. He was a singularly well endowed intellectual forerunner of the revolutionary conceptions which an imperfect study of Russian conditions is now commending to Europe as an efficient substitute for Parliamentary inefficiency.

did

These movements hastened, if they not originate, the most important modification

* Bergsonism was the fashion, or the Zeitgeist, at the time. † It is also of some interest to note the influence of the philosophy of Pragmatism on this movement, though its effect was not so direct as that of Bergson on the French movement.

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in Socialist conception that has been made since the time of Marx. The leaders had become so completely absorbed in politics, that they appeared to consider that political action alone was the worker's means of improvement, and the political state the only means of expressing the democratic will. First of all the Syndicalist, and after him the Guild Socialist, challenged that view, and emphasized the fact that labour had industrial as well as political organization and power, which ought to be used, and that the scheme of Socialist reconstruction could not be satisfactory unless the former was fitted in and recognized. Up to that time the general exposition of Socialism was State Socialism, a Socialism which, as the "Communist Manifesto " says, was to centralize all means of production in the hands of the State." That served as a provisional view whilst the necessary work of building up organizations was being done. The consideration of details could be properly and economically postponed till principles were accepted. In this country, however, we had no military or philosophical conceptions of the State to make us assume without thinking that its officialdom could take the place of a hierarchy of capitalists, or its centralized bureaucracy function as a national capitalist trust. The British movement could not be regarded as one of State Socialism, and it welcomed the inquiry into how far the industrial organization of the workers could be used along with Parliament, not only to effect the transformation but to work in the new system.

The result is that industrial organization has been restored to a place equal in importance to the political organization. Industrial transformation cannot be made by legislative action or Civil

Service interference alone; it must also take place within the workshops themselves by labour having to shoulder increasing management responsibility, and by carrying through a policy of industrial enfranchisement worked out in detail for trade after trade. And when industry has been transformed and a communal organization is managing production and distribution for common ends, that organization will not be of the type of a bureaucracy but of a self-controlling function wherein the intelligence of the workman will be used for management as well as his muscles and skill used for work. This is explained in more detail in the section on "Production"; here, I notice the change because it is of the greatest importance in guiding our political and industrial work, and it is a landmark in the development of the Socialist conception of the economic state. The "tyranny of Socialism" is now a bogey word more nonsensical than ever, and the "freedom of the man under Socialism" becomes a still more reasonable expectation. In the first energy of their enthusiasm, the disciples of the Guild idea of industrial control overshot its proper claims, and made it the basis of a brand new system for building up the political state. Proposals were made to destroy the political state altogether, or to create a series of Parliaments or Councils representing consumers and producers whose mandates were to run alongside those of the political state without any co-ordinating, or arbitrating, or adjudicating authority being set over them, and complexity was piled upon complexity because a rigid application of an absolute theory had to be made. These somewhat fantastically logical deductions of a method set in a field which is not only

inappropriate to itself, but which has been only cursorily and faultily surveyed, must be cut out like rogue shoots from the root. I have dealt with them in the political section of this book. They must not be regarded as part of Socialist theory. In that, the State remains in its proper place, holding the power of supreme sovereignty not only because its interests are communal and not sectional or functional, but also because under any reasonable form of economic and industrial organization mere industrial interests will fill a much smaller part of life than they now do. The failure, conflicts, and waste of Capitalism not only lengthen unnecessarily the time which men have to spend in mine and factory, but intensify industrial problems and make economic affairs loom much larger in human interest than they ought to do.

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Be that as it may, these new explorations

happenings have strengthened Socialism in two directions. They have filled in details and so enriched it as a rational scheme, and they have discovered for it the next stage of the road upon which it must go, and so have ended the feeling of bafflement which was stealing over the movement when the war broke out. The Socialist movement of construction will not only traverse political ways, although along them will move the large creative ideas of communal life. It will also advance by the steady conquest of industrial control by the workers, including foremen and managers, coming into co-operative contact with each other, and by a diminution of the field in which capital is superior, until at last the mere capitalist has disappeared from the scene.

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CHAPTER IV

PRODUCTION

THE ORGANIZATION OF PRODUCTION

RODUCTS are the economic life blood of Society. As the ages have gone past, the organization of production has widened over fields farther and farther away and has become more and more complex. Our ancestors who made flint instruments chipped them from flints found on the spot; when the Iron Age arrived, the forges were blown where the ore was to be found along with the fuel, as in Sussex. The mobilization of raw material in convenient spots came later; now every producing centre draws upon the whole world for what is necessary for its production and uses the whole world as its market. As the massing of the raw material proceeded and production on a large scale became possible, there were so many simple processes to do, that bodies of men did them and nothing else, whilst others brought them together and thus the product was completed. There were both subdivision and co-ordination. That was a cheap and a quick way of doing things. The effect was to make the individual workman incomplete in himself; his particular product was not immediately fit to be exchanged for commodities; he and the work of his hands or his machine were but little things to be fitted into great things. An enormously complicated system had grown up which embraced the whole earth and every race and colour, which brought

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