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No. 31 MAY 1955 SIXPENCE FORUMOCIALIST DISCUSSION JOURNALTOWARDS BETTER UNDERSTANDING I I

CapitalislDIn last September's FORUM, F. Evanstells us how the competition of capitalscompels an ever-greater raising of theorganic composition of capital, which he

says means taking on more machinery at afaster rate than the taking-on of hands.This, he adds, leads to greater labour pro-ductivity and hence to an increased rate ofexploitation. Nevertheless, increased pro-ductivity via competition of capitals resultsalso in cheapening commodities and allowsan ever-increasing number' of use-values tobe embodied in the production and repro-duction of labour-power; which, it seems,more than compensates for the extraintensity of effort on the part of workers sothat their living standards are continuouslybeing raised.But this process of raising the organic

composition of capital, i.e., the increase ofconstant capital relative to the increase ofvariable capital, is the means by whichcapitalism brings into being an industrial

IN THIS ISSUETHE WORK OF LEWISMUMFORD.Part Two of c c Historical Materialismand Modern Times."MARXISM AND LITERATURE.Beginning a series of articles.SUPER SCIENTIFIC.An American view of Socialistprinciples.OUTLINE.First in a series of political cartoons.WHY I CRITICIZED THE M.C.H.S.R.P. replies to his critics.THE GOVERNMENT ECONOMICSURVEY.Some interesting extracts.The opinions expressed in FORUMare those of the contributors, and arenot to be taken as the Socialist Party'sofficial views.

and' Technicalreserve army. Now, there is no ineluctableprocess in accordance with any law of pro-gress which automatically brings an ever-rising organic composition of capital,although from Evans's remarks he plainlythinks there is.In actual fact the introduction of labour-saving machinery-the type which haspredominated in capitalism-as distinctfrom capital-saving machinery is dependent

on-a number of factors. The primary one isthe level of wages existing at the time. If-the level is high there will be an incentiveto employers to invest in labour-savingmachinery, which will again in part dependon the availability and the rate of intereston capital. In the case of an inventionwhich enables machines to be more cheaplyproduced, the level of wages will be less ofa factor. In short, where the reduction inlabour costs is greater than the increase inplant costs, the tendency will be to encouragea larger proportion of investment in machineproduction. Itwas this which led Marx tomake the general statement that the demandfor labour-power did not increase propor-tionally with the accumulation of capital.It increases, but in a constantly diminishingratio to the increase of capital.It is, in short, this double action of theintroduction of machinery and the appear-

-ance of an industrial reserve army thatregulates the upper and lower limits of wagelevels. It not only ensures that workers'wages will not increase to the point wherethe whole of surplus value is absorbed, butdefines the limit of trade union activity.The history of capitalism shows that theincrease in the organic composition ofcapital, by making workers surplus to exist-ing requirements, increases the competitionfor jobs and acts as a downward pressure onwages. I am, of course, concerned here withthe long-term trends of capitalism. Short-term trends gives a less clear picture, but togo into this would take us too far from thepresent subject-matter. If then the long-term trend in the raising of the organiccomposition of capital is to produce down-ward pressure on wages, how can it at the

Progresssame time be the means which ensures con-tinuous upward pressure? UnfortunatelyEvans's purple patches of description havenever been blended with the sombre greyof factual analysis.It may be of interest to note that inEngland, two crises-the last one in theroth century and the 1929 crisis-saw pricesfall faster than wages. In 1929 prices fell byabout 15 per cent. and wages by about 6 percent.; thus the wage rates of those workerswho were in employment rose by 9percent.,although net earnings probably declined.This rise, however, was offset by the tre-mendous increase in unemployment andshort-time working, so the general standardof living remained roughly the same. Thisincrease in wage rates was not due, however,to increased productivity as the result ofincreased industrial activity, but to its veryopposite.Now the brief outline given above con-tains what are generally considered byMarxists to be the main factors whichregulate wage levels. Evans does not acceptthem: instead he substitutes a piece ofmechanism which he calls" capital's specificmode of existence." This mechanism isself-developing and self-regulating, andhuman activity is merely a cog in the pro-cess. It may help to retard or accelerate theprocess but its momentum and direction aregiven.Its modus operandi is simplicity itself,

Technical development via the agency ofthe competition of capitals turns out use-values in ever-greater mass and more andmore cheaply. Workers get increasinglyhigh standards of living, capitalists ever-greater profits. One can hardly resist sayingin the light of this that capitalism takes onthe aspect of " all this and Evans too." Weare asked to believe that the present economyis one of almost unrestricted technical pro-gress and unlimited markets. In Evans'sempurpled language: "Through profusionof cheapening products ... profit, property,power and politics dig their own grave,"Or: "In proportion as productive powerpanting for profit showers indiscriminately

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all an increasing deluge of cheap use-UeS ... dissolving the power of persons tothhold or bestow ... changing sociall tions fundamentally, universally, con-ously in the direction of socialism."To put this rodomontade in sober per-ective, the question boils down to this: doeases in productive efficiency bringa continuous fall in prices whichin an increase in purchasing power?this is so, then some highly interestingplications are involved. It would seeman automatic regulation of capitalisminvolved. No matter how fast the intro-ction of labour-saving devices, it woulduse no net displacement of workers apartm temporary and unavoidable displace-:Jents. The rate of consumption and thee of industrial expansion would be syn-ronized. Capitalism-vide Evans-maybased on exploitation but it serves certaincial ends. Evans's theory of progressks suspiciously like the " hidden hand s .Adam Smith.In actual fact Evans is asking us to believelaissez-faire or cut-throat competitionthe rule of capitalism. Such a theoryght have had some justification in 1855,r it has none in 1955. The free play of::;'emarket which was the outstandinghough not exclusive) pattern of earlyitalism was being replaced even beforeturn of the twentieth century by varyingnopolistic forms as the dominant patternmarket behaviour.It may be asked, however, whetherchnical changes influence the price level.answer is to be found not in facileories but in actual observation. If we'se the assumption-and it is a valid oneat all branches of production improve

productive efficiency (even if not atctly the same rate), then workers may beked and the same output achieved at;>fercosts. In that case, profits wouldrase. Again, if an effective demand for'osegoods was still maintained there is noson why prices should fall. Itmight bebut what happens if there is a fall involume of employment? The answerbe that as the result of increasedISmore is spent on luxury goods and,a onsequence, more workers employed in. trades and employment restored to the: Ievel.

_ \ " , o a i n , increases in productive efficiencyincreases in investment and conse-rrdy more employment in the machine-a industry. As a result the demandoilier goods will increase and prices will_ \ . 8 I have pointed out in the series-ores on Crises," during the revivalof the business cycle, prices rise.vertheless when the building-up process

orer workers may become increasingly:mdant and this may well constitutenward pressure on wage levels. But, itbe said, will not prices fall? Yes, butv.ill the wage level. It can be seen thenmere is no over-riding compulsion insociety to bring about a continuous

fall in prices which ensures a permanent andincreasing net gain to consumers.The best way to test a theory is to findwhether it fits the facts and phenomena ofreality. Only people with the attributes ofdivinity can discover truth in the wayEvans does. From my point of view, I cansee only that any selected period of indus-"trial activity fails to show any markeddownward influence on the price level. Take

1924 to 1929, one of the most progressivephases of technical progress in capitalism:apart from the distortion induced by thereturn to the gold standard, it was a periodof rising prices.Again, in the U.S.A. productive efficiencyduring those years was increasing by 3 percent. per annum, yet the price 'level remainedpractically stable. According to the U.S.Bureau of Labour Statistics, based on thereturns of 16,000 manufacturing concerns,wages paid out in 1926 were represented by

100. The total fluctuated but was again 100in 1929. Interest and dividends representedby IOOin 1926 rose continuously to 173 in1929. While we cannot have the controlledexperiment in economics, we can applycertain tests, and the test applied heredemolishes the airy assertions of Evans.Another way is to take wages as a propor-tion of total income (here I am indudingonly wages of industrial workers-in recentyears salaried and professional sections havebeen included-but it will demonstrate thepoint). In 1890 the wage bill was 38 percent. In 1925 it was 42 per cent., but fellto 39 per cent. in 1939. In 1944 it rose to41 per cent. and in 1954 it was a little under42 per cent. But, it may be argued, supposeproduction has continuously increased, thenthe workers will have got a bigger slice from

a bigger cake. Here again, the evidencegiven in Phases of Economic Depression(published by the League of Nations)showed that productive efficiency in theadvanced capitalist countries-induding, ofcourse, Britain-had increased by aboutIper cent. per annum. According to ColinClark it is about the same now. Allowingfor depreciation charges and some of thebenefits of increased productive efficiencygoing to the capitalists, it can hardly bemaintained that there have been sensationaladditions to the standard of living.Capitalism remains a system of organizedscarcity, and Evans has not offered the

slightest evidence to the contrary. In thenext article I propose to deal with mon-opolies and restrictive practices typical ofcapitalist society, and attempt to show therelation of capitalist investment to technicalprogress, which is far more fundamentalthan the preliminaries stated here. E.W.

Bound Volumesof " FORUM" for 1954 will be availableshortly at about lOS. Orders should be sentto the Literature Secretary at the Party' 3Head Office.

From the Government'sEconomic Survey, 1955The increase of 351,000 in civil employ-ment ... was made up of an increase of

267,000 in the working population, a reduc-tion of 64,000 in unemployment and areduction of 20,000 in the size of the ArmedForces. With the growing number of jobsavailable unoccupied people went out towork in greater numbers, and the campaignto encourage the employment of olderworkers may also have helped to swell theworking population, which increased bymore than in any year since the war.Manufacturing industry alone took on

258,000 more workers. Most of them wentinto the metals, engineering and vehiclesgroup, which absorbed I77,000, includingabout 50,000 in vehicle manufacture and50,000 in the industries making electricalgoods and equipment. There were alsoincreases in the other groups of manufactur-ing industry, except for textiles and clothing.

-x - * *Now that nearly two million new perma-nent houses have been built since the war,local authorities will be increasingly con-cerned with slum clearance, and provisionis made in the Housing Repairs and RentsAct, I954, for the preparation of five-yearslum clearance programmes.* * *

The trend in textile manufacture towardsincreasing use of rayon and other man-madefibres continued, and output of these fibres,and of fabrics made from them, reachedrecord levels. The total labour forceemployed in textiles and clothing (excludingfootwear) remained fairly steady throughout1954 at about Itmillion, which was slightlybelow the peak reached in 1951. There wasa further reduction in the number ofunemployed from I7,000 in December,I953 to I5,000 in December, 1954; theworst figure reached during the recessionwas 160,000.

* * *Personal incomes rose sharply in I954,as in 1953 ... Wages and salaries increasedby 7-!- per cent. Part of this increase wasdue to the higher level of employment andthe rise in productivity, but most of it tohigher rates of pay ... Consumers' expendi-ture is estimated to have risen by almost thesame amount, which suggests that there waslittle change in personal saving. In each ofthe last two years between 7 and 8 per cent.of total personal income after tax has beensaved.

* * *The amount of short time worked in themanufacturing industries remained lowthroughout the year, affecting only one

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operative in every 200. Overtime workingon the other hand continued to increasepar~icularly in the metals, engineering andvehicles group, and in the last week inNovember 28-! per cent. of operatives wereworking overtime as against 27 per cent. ayear before. Average hours worked inmanufacturing industries rose from 45.9 aweek in October, I953, to 46.3 in October,1954

* ~- *Estimat~s relating to the financial positionof compames are set out ... The increase ingross profits (including stock appreciation,but before providing for depreciation) ledto an increase of over 200 million in thetotal income of companies. Tax paymentsFe l l by about 80 million as a consequenceof the abolition. of ~he Excess Profits Levy.and the reduction m the standard rate ofincome tax in I953; on the other handdividends are estimated to have increasedby about 80 million. Undistributed profitsaf~~~ tax therefore rose by over 200

million.* * -x -

... Nevertheless, it would be wrong toconclude from last year's experience that therest of the world need no longer be con-cerned about the level of activity in NorthAmenca. A recession in the United Statesmore serious or prolonged than last year'scould always have serious consequences forother countries, particularly if it were tostart at a time when activity elsewhere wasless buoyant, and the dollar position lessfavourable.

CORRECTIONS.In the article" The Socialist Movement"the following italicised words were notprinted, spoiling the meaning of the sen-tences concerned:Page I27, col. I, line 27, " the change inthe operation of government has becomebig enough to be given a name-Bureaucracy."- Page. I27, col.,3, line I I, "but also ofprovz4m g creatzve and socially purposiveexercise of the faculties."Page I28, col. I, line 23, " a social wholeinwhich the fine products of joyful labournourish faculties of men."

Contributions to "Forum" should beaddressed to the Internal Party JournalCommittee, at Head Office. If they cannotbe typed, articles should be written in inkon one side of the paper only, and con-tributors are asked to give their addressesand the names of their Branches. Con-tributors intending series of articles shouldgive an indication of the scope of their series,not send merely a first article.

THE WORK OF LEWIS MLTMFORDHistoric Materialism and Modern Times

(Part 2)

In recent controversies in the S.P.G.B. on1\1-assPr~duction, the Materialist Concep-tion of HIstory and other subjects, there has,of course, been at least one nigger in thewoodpile, or genius 'in, the background(depending on your attitude to these dis-cussions) that has influenced a number ofmembers. He has shown himself rarelythough his influence appears to have beenappreciable none the less. He is LewisMumford, the author of "Technics andCivilisation" and a number of other bookswhich have undoubtedly influenced ~number of the" new look" Socialists.For that reason alone his work is worthreviewing. Here however, we shall mainlybe concerned with his contributions to thesubject he calls Technics, and space willrestrict consideration to his methods and themajn ~ramework of his studies in that field.'His method is to follow his teacher,'Professor Patrick Geddes, and divide thelast 1,000 years into successive, but over-lapping and interpenetrating phases. Heexplains the significance of this classificationas follows: - ."While each of these phases roughly

represents a period of human history, it ischaracterized even more significantly by thefact that it forms a technological complex.Ea~h'phase; that is, has its origin in certaindefi~lte regions and tends to employ certainspecial resources and raw materials. Eachphase ~as its specific means of utilising andgeneratmg energy, and its special forms ofpr?duction. ~inally, each phase brings intoexistence particular types of workers trainsthem in particular ways, develops 'certainaptitudes and discourages others, and drawsupon and further develops certain aspectsof the social heritage."-Pps. 109 and IIO," Technics and Civilisation." (All refs. areto the I947 edition made in Great Britain).We see that he follows Marx (and he~cknowledges his debt) in realising theImportance of the techniques of the period.However he. does not give it the pride ofp~ace found m the materialist conception ofhistory.and he tends to describe and classifywhile Marx analysed and searched fo;causes. Of course in that respect each wastypical of his time.He divid~d the last 1,000 years into 4phase~, calling t~ese the eotechnic, paleo-technic, neotechnic, and biotechnic respec-tively. He has defined them as follows:-"EOTECHNIC." Refers to the dawn age

of modern technics and an economy based

upon the use of wind, water and wood aspower, with wood as the principal materialfor construction. Dominant in WesternEurope from the tenth to the eighteenthcentury. Marked by improvements in navi-gation, glass-making and the textile indus-tries, from the thirteenth century on: bywidespread canal-building and increasedutilisation of power and power-machines inthe later phase."PALEOTECHNIC." Refers to the coal andiron economy, which existed as a mutationin the eotechnic period (blast furnace

and primitive railway) but began in theeighteenth century to displace the eotechniccomplex, and became a dominant between1850 and 1890. Key inventions: steamengine, railroad, steamship, Bessemer con-verter, va~ious automatic devices in spinningand weaving. Up to the last quarter of thenineteenth century the eotechnic economyremained as a recessive.c c NEOTECHNIC." Refers to the neweconomy, which began to emerge in theeighties, based on the use of electricity, thelighter metals, like aluminum and copper,and. rare met~ls and earths, like tungsten,plat1~~m, .thorIum, et al. Vast improvementsm _ut1h~at1onof power, reaching its highestpoint in the water-turbine. Destructivedistillation of coal: complete utilisation ofscrap and by-products. Growing perfection~nd a_utomatism i?- all machinery. Keyinventions : electnc transformer, electricmotor, electric light, and electric communi-cation by telegraph, telephone, and radio:likewise vulcanised rubber and internalcombustion engine. At the present time theeot;c~ni~ compl~x is a survival, the p~leo-

technic IS recessrve, and the neotechnic is adominant."BIOTECHNIC." Refers to an emergenteconomy, already separating out moreclearly . from the neotechnic (purely~e~~an~cal). complex, and pointing to acivilisation m which the biological scienceswil~ be freely applied to technology, and inwhich technology itself will be orientatedt?wards the culture of life. The key inven-tions, on the mechanical side, are the air-plane, the phonograph, the motion picture,and modern contraceptives, all deriveddirect~y, in part, fr~m .a study of livingorgams.~s. The apphcatlOn of bacteriologyto medicine and sanitation, and of physiologyto nutrition. and daily regimen, are furthe~marks of this order: parallel applications inpsychology for the discipline of human

behaviour in every department are plainly131

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icated. In the biotechnic order the bio-gical and social arts become dominant:riculture, medicine, and education takeecedence over engineering. Improvements,stead of depending solely upon mechanicalanipulations of matter and energy willupon a more organic utilisation of thetire environment, in response to the needsorganisms and groups considered in theirultifold relations: physical, biological,ial, economic, sesthetic, psychological.ges 495-6. Culture of Cities. (I944Aluminum, phonograph, and airplane arecourse usually called aluminium, gramo-one and aeroplane in England to-day.By telescoping down his descriptions, orfinitions as he terms them, something ofhe fuller exposition is lost, so the readero desires a more accurate description ofte technological complexes should readTechnics and Civilisation." However, thisthod has intrinsic limitations in the studyhistory. History is the dynamic ofciety. It is the study of the development ofciety. This classification method of look-g at the past is only at best social staticsd never social dynamics. It is like takingur stil l photographs, as against the recorda cine-camera. He describes each period,technological complex, as if in equi-

librium. His analogies come from staticsciences like geology, where we consider thestrata as results of biological evolution,rather than biology, where the mechanismsof evolution are considered. In fact thoughhe predicts a biological age, biology appearsto be rather a closed book to him.He has also shown a partiality to writingof the need for an integrated view of society.

An example is the passage quoted on thefront page of FORUM of August, I954, byS.R.P. Unfortunately he does not use theconcept of integration effectively when heanalyses society. He writes of consideringsociety as an organism, but instead of usingthat approach, to get the .. best out of rheclassification method, and writing of each ofhis' phases in turn, he writes as if it issufficient to consider the evolution of eachaspect of society in turn, and so rather inisolation. Thus he writes four histories ondifferent subjects, or aspects of society,technology, cities, etc., in turn, calling thebooks: I, Technics and Civilisation; 2, TheCulture of Cities; 3, The Condition of Man;4, The Conduct of Life; instead of writinga book on each "technological complex,'considering each aspect of the complex inturn, and then showing the integrated viewof the phase, as an organism, how the factorsinteract, how the era came into being, and

how it prepares the way for the next phase.For after all, as Plekhanov wrote:-"Men do not make several distincthistories-the history of law, the history ofmorals, the history of philosophy, etc.-butonly one history, the history of their ownsocial relations, which are determined by thestate of the productive forces in each par-ticular period. What is known as ideologies

is nothing but a multiform reflection in theminds of men of this single and indivisiblehistory. - The Material Conception ofHistory. New York (I940), Page 48.It is important to consider the subject ofour study, in this case society, in an integralfashion, but it is even more important not tomerely pay lip service to the method, but touse it. It is not, in essence, novel, for it isthe basis of the so-called "Synoptic""approach used in modern weather analysis,examples of synoptic weather charts beingshown each evening on T.V. Also becausethey understand the need for an approachof this sort historians specialise in a certain

period of history, and study the interactionand relevance of each aspect of society atthat time, so obtaining a whole, or intezralpicture of a limited period of society. 0(To be continued).

ROBERT.

MARXISM and LITERA TIJRE: 1

Historical materialism abhors a vacuum:t is, it does not accept that any aspect ofn's development exists and can be studiedcept in relation to the mode of productionciety's" real foundation." The institu-ns and ideas, the moralities, laws, con-pts and knowledge held in any society areults of, basically, the way labour isanized and its products distributed. Thuse primitive measurement of land gaveto geometry; the making of pots andskets to the idea of capacity; the divisionfields to the concept of justice, which isin Greek that originally meant

Literature is one of man's oldest activities.m earliest times, man has recorded thepressions and ideals given him by sociale, in plays, poetry and prose. The inten-n of these notes is to show the evolutionliterature as something closely interwoventh the evolution of society. Beowulf andnyan, Juvenal and Joyce, ShakespeareDamon Runyon show it; it is in theubadors' songs, purveying the middles' new concept of romantic love, and in

the epics of Homer, where kings' divinerights are backed. by the gods' divine retri-bution." Literature" had better be defined, asfar as that is possible. In one sense, it meansjust printed matter: furniture shops andpolitical parties distribute literature, butnobody places it with Shelley's poems. Onthe other hand, political speeches and factualwritings can and have become literature in

the other sense: Cicero's orations, orHerodotus' histories, or White's NaturalHistory of Selborne. When reading matterhas given pleasure and satisfaction to manypeople for a long time, it must be calledliterature. That does not mean all books oflong-standing fame must be good; manyhold their places in the histories becausethey mark new trends and phases. In thiswriter's view, there could be no other justifi-cation for those monuments to hack writing,Scott's works.Prose literature is a comparatively recentdevelopment. The earliest literature was inverse and unwritten; our knowledge of it

comes from present-day primitive peoples.

: ' In every historical epoch, the prevail-mg mode of economic production andexchange, and the social organizationnecessarily following from it, form thebasis upon which is built up, and fromwhich alone can be explained, thepolitical and intellectual history of thatepoch." MARX.------------

In their societies, the poet is not separatedfrom h~s hearers by the barrier of literacy;poetry IS generated spontaneously by every-day life and passed from mouth to mouth.The origins of speech itself are believed--see Malinowski, Ogden and Richards, andothers-to lie in rhythmic sound-makingas an aid to work. "The group workedtogether, like children in a kindergartenorchestra, and each movement of hand orf?ot, each stroke on stick or stone, wastimed by a more or less inarticulate recitativeuttered by all in unison. Without this vocalaccompaniment the work could not bedone."-(Geo. Thomson, Marxism andPoetry).When speech and skill were betterdeveloped, that accompaniment becameunnecessary. It went Oil, however, as arehearsal of work before the work was done~in other words, as a piece of magic. Itstill happens: Frazer in The Golden Boughand Jane Harrison in Ancient Art and Ritualgive numerous examples. In these ritualsmusic, dancing and poetry had a commonorigin. Plenty of labour songs are still

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known, in places where they have not beendrowned by machinery: spinning songs,rowing songs, sea shanties and so on.The incorporation of poetry in ritualmeant its separation from ordinary speechand its association with magic. Thus, forbarbarian peoples the poet is a prophetinspired by the gods (the status of the OldTestament psalm-singers). Said Plato: "Allgood poets are enabled to compose not by

art but because they are divinely inspired orpossessed. When they compose, they are nomore sane than the Korybantes when theydance." The conception of poetry as magical,inspired and different from other speechhas remained: that is why Shakespeare usedverse. for lofty sentiments' and prose forcommonplace talk, and why poets are stillregarded as " weirdies " to-day.The oldest written literature which isknown is that of the Egyptians. FromMemphis of more than four thousand yearsago there are incised tablets with the folk-songs of peasants and fishermen, the pre-cepts of rulers, the bitter testament of a kingwho had escaped from assassination. Thegreat age of Egyptian literature was roughlybetween 2000 and 1800 E.e., when thenobles had broken the power of the PyramidAge Pharaohs. There were temple libraries,extensive private libraries, and a goddess ofbooks named Safekh. The papyrus rollsinclude religious plays and pageants; there1 5 "The Voyage of Sinuhe "--the originalSinbad=-with stories of travel, explorationand military adventure, the earliest scientificwritings and the earliest prophecies of aMessiah.The growth of literature in this age-abruptly ended by the Hyksos' invasion ofEgypt-is comparable with what happenedin Britain in the Elizabethan era. A languagehad been perfected for writing. Theboundaries of Egypt were extended, andEgyptian ships were going to every part ofthe known world. Navigation, irrigation toincrease the agricultural yield, the building

of huge cylindrical granaries-in a word,commerce-vgave tremendous stimulus tothe gaining of knowledge -and to the imagin-ation. There was another factor, too. AsFord Madox Ford puts it in The March ofLiterature: "You have to consider that allacross Asia there was a continual, an unend-ing, going and coming of merchants, ofconquerors, of missionaries, of nomads, andthat one body of men cannot come intocontact with another body of men withoutmaxims, practices, or merely material habitsand knowledges getting transferred fromone to the other."The Babylonians, too, had their literature,and the immense flow of Chinese poetrybegan more than a thousand years E.c., longbefore the Emperor Shi Hwang Ti orderedthe burning of books. The Hebrews wereenslaved in Egypt at that time, assimilatingthe legends of the Creation and the Floodthat had been carried from Babylonia andwent with a dozen more Egyptian myths

into the compendium of propaganda and

folklore that is the Old Testament. And, inthe same period still, the man or men Homergathered the folk-legends and hero-myths ofbarbarian Greece into the Iliad and theOdyssey.The Greek epics were tales of past glories,composed when the first warlords had beendriven out of Mycenae and Sparta by others

like themselves. They began as extemporesung lays; for two centuries they existed in adozen different forms, until an Atheniantyrant commissioned what would to-day becalled a definitive edition; they were goneover again about 150 E.c. by Aristarchus ofzh e library of Alexandria. Even the ancientworld doubted that Homer had much to dowith them, and even the ancient worlddoubted the stories: Herodotus, for example,thought it moonshire that a world shouldfight for a woman when virgins were cheapin the market place. The real fact is that theGreek epics were a popular heritage, passedon by countless bards, of mythology andtradition.Yet they were great and skilful works.

The historical conditions of early Greecemade them so. Thus, they were not writtenfor generations; when writing was widelypractised in Greece, they were heard andnot read-they thrived in and were mouldedby the declamatory traditions of the Greekfestival and the agora. When finally theywere written down there were skilled handsto do it. Then there is the question-toowide to go into here-s-of the Greek concep-tion of beauty in simplicity; it went intotheir epics as it did into their architectureand sculpture, and it derived mainly fromthe physical environment.Greek epics were inspired by war. Drama

was the product of agriculture. Beginningwith magic ritual, it evolved as religiousdrama with the poet speaking as a god. Inthe growth of Greek democracy in theseventh and sixth centuries Re., tragedybecame part of the great religious festivals." It was employed from above," says Ford," by the governing class to instil into moreor less turbulent proletariats the lessons ofdiscipline and of obedience to rulers whohad behind them the divine beings ofOlympus."That is near enough to the truth. Theideas of retributive justice and retributivelaw are the core of Greek tragedy, as theyare of the Homer epics. Of the latter,Kelsen says in Society and Nature: "Retri-bution is regarded-always and everywhere-as a kind of trade in which good isexchanged for good and bad for bad. Thus itis said at the beginning of the Iliad, "Whosoobeys the gods, to him do they gladly giveear." The whole character of the tragediesof Aeschylus and Sophocles is the demandfor obedience to the gods, who representbut an idealized human authority. Divinelaw is personified in Dike, the aoddess ofrighteousness and punishment. In"huripides,third of the great tragic dramatists, thereligious theme gives way to a national one,but authority suffers no loss.Euripides' nationalism was a sign of the

times: the rivalry between Athens andSparta was approaching its climax. Whenthe walls of Athens were torn down and theSpartan hegemony established in 405 B.C.,the curtain fell on Greek tragedy. The othercelebrated dramatist, Aristophanes, was C lpolitical propagandist; an aristocrat, anti-democrat, pro-Spartan. His comedies aimedat sitting targets-the Athenian democracy,the philosophers and artists who got fewchalks under the Spartans' Thirty Tyrants.Lysistrata, enjoyed nowadays for its bawdi-ness, was a plea for Athens to make peacewith Sparta; The Birds and Peace clamouredfor alliance with the Lacedaemonians.The conflicts between the states and thevictories of Alexander reduced Greece',population and sent commercial and culturalleadership eastwards. The museum andlibrary at Alexandria became a storehouseand a refuge, the home of second-rate poetsand philosophers and finally the cradle oftheology. A small colony of Greeks- Theo-critus, Bion, Moschus-lived in pretty,sheltered Sicily and produced pretty,

sheltered pastoral poems for a few yearsuntil Alexandria called them too. Ptolemywas generous.When Greek epics and tragedies wereflourishing, the Romans were a barbariantribe. By the beginning of the Christian erathe importation of arts and artists fromRome's province Greece, commissioned bymillionaire connoisseurs, was enormous.Cicero decried the Greek arts, but the othersborrowed from them. Virgil, Ovid andLucan were official poets of the court whileRome became a great, busy, money-madcity, reflecting the manners and upper-classideals but little of the real life of that time.Petronius and Apuleius saw to the lastmatter; the former, with his shrewd up-roarious pictures of parvenu and low-lifealike, one of the greatest realists ever.The separation of everyday life from whatis called literature must be evident, throughall this. The sweated populace of Romeknew and cared nothing of bucolics orhexameters. All the same, they had some-thing in the nature of a last word. Theirlanguage-Latin, but only coincidentallyresembling the classic tongue of Seneca orLivy-spread over Europe. It became thelanguage of the Romance period-that is,

of Chaucer, Ronsard, and the others whostand at the beginning of modern Europeanliterature.R. COSTER.

NOTE.-In addition to many otheropinions, the writer thinks the provision ofbook lists with articles rather unctuous.However, for those who are interested, herecommends the works cited. Erman's TheLiterature of the Ancient Egyptians is thestandard work on its subject,and Thomson'sAeschylus and Athens is worth anybody'stime. There is also Lafargue's very goodessay, "The Origin of Abstract Ideas," inSocial and Philosophical Studies.133

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SIR RICHARD ACLAND, BT., cranky, churchyon Quixote of the Labour Party. r ythonet, public school, began in ParliamentLiberal. Changed to Labour and sup-rterl Popular Front movement of 'thirties.;-ote Penguin bestseller Unser KampfStruggle), 1940, urging nationalizationmoral principle. Formed and financedommon Wealth Party, 1942, breakingrtime " political truce" (successful candi-aie was cold-shouldered when he enteredrliament), Supported last war; refusedmmission, serving as a private. Decided~ership of estates not in accord withsocialism," so gave them to National Trustd told Common Wealth no more moneygive them (the kybosh). Returned tobour fold and elected to Allighan's seatGravesend in 1947. Now resigned inagainst Britain's labour-supportedmeasures; delights New Statesman

rl I.L.P.-latter invites him to join. Hasother books, pamphlets, helped foundocialist Christian Group of M.P's. Knowswartime Common Wealth cam-ns were spectacular, and had hymn-g=ng miners on election platform atConclusion: tilts at windmills with one

supports them with the other.

SUPER SCIENTIFIC

It takes all kinds of people, they 'say, tomake a world. This is undoubtedly true andit is not always easy for "us' to understandone another's reasoning processes and whywe think the way we do, Take, for example,even organizations like the World SocialistParty and its companion parties in otherlands. One would imagine that a socialistparty founded and built round a set ofgeneralizations which describe the societywe live in and the society we are attemptingto help bring about-that a party of thistype would find enough unanimity of under-standing among its members to prevent itfrom getting bogged down from time to timewith harmful internal bickering. Unfortun-ately this is not the case, and it has becomeapparent that there are at least three distincttypes 'represented in our groups.We have those, the large majority as yet,who hold to the position as expressed in ourprinciples and policy, in our pamphlets andin the columns of the Socialist Standard andthe Western Socialist. Then again we havethose who are in basic opposition to theseprinciples and ideas, The type and nature

of the opposition may vary all the way fromthose who advocate, even if in an indirector roundabout manner, a violent and bloodytype of revolutionary act to those who arguethat organization upon class lines and anappeal for socialism upon a class basis areall wrong.Much as we deplore the fact that ideassuch as these are permitted to involve theParty in internecine warfare and obstructout vital work for Socialism, we must admitthat those who represent such thinking haveat least one thing to be said in their favour,They take a position and stand upon it-which is more than can be said for the third

type, the individuals we wish to deal within this effort, the comrades who are. so" scientific" they see no basic difference inthe debate, who take no position whatsoever."We accept the Declaration ofPrinciples,"these positionless members proclaim, "butwe assert that we should not be dogmaticabout them, that the main thing we want isunderstanding, not adherence. As long asone understands what socialism is all aboutand says he wants it he is a socialist andthere is no reason to bar him from a socialistorganization just because he is convincedthat the principles which we understand tobe the basis o f such an understanding are

all wrong;" This is characteristic of the

double-talk or Newspeak language found inGeorge Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, andamong certain members of the Comp-anionParties.On the other hand, while we cannot con-ceive of any other method than the ballot toeffect a socialist revolution, they argue, wemust also proclaim that not only' do weadvocate the ballot because it is the onlypossible weapon in our times, but that thisonly possible weapon may conceivably be

replaced in some inconceivable manner at afuture time with another type of revolu-tionary weapon! More Newspeak!Let us examine this "reasoning," Wehave, of course, the Application for Member-ship blank which asserts that the applicantunderstands and also is willing to adhere tothe principles of the organization. Trueenough, one has the right to change one'smind and question the validity of thoseprinciples after joining the organization, Itis even conceivable to this writer that suchmembers be permitted to remain memberswhile they are making up their minds as tothe correctness or incorrectness of theprinciples. However, it would seem that theonly logical thing to do once one is con-vinced that the organization is bandedtogether round a faulty set of premises andthat the majority is determined to continueon its "mistaken" path is to get out, Butno ! These oppositionists seem to believethey have a right to remain in the Partydespite its "mistaken" principles, whileour positionless friends go on arguing thateven though the principles are scientificallysound we should permit those who nowdisagree with us to go on disagreeing,within the organization.If this attitude is scientifically soundthere is something else which flows from itand must immediately be considered, Whyis it in harmony with the democratic methodand sound socialist logic to permit thosewho disagree with us to remain in theParty while we at the same time bar othersfrom joining who have the same type ofdisagreement? The only sensible thing todo would seem to be to lower the bars andallow those who disagree with our principles,even if only in the manner that those wespeak of disagree, to join if they wish. Inwhich case those of us who are now in themajority and who are convinced that theprinciples are sound and constitute a basis

of socialist understanding will be abandon-

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ng the organization and will find ourselvesverwhelmed if not convinced by those weisagree with. This may make sense to ourition1ess comrades. It does not to thisAnd now let us look into this question ofogmatism a little farther. We should note dogmatic, they tell us, about a proposi-ion like the revolutionary weapon becauseistory may "make liars of us." Or wehould not be dogmatic about an adherencen the part of the membership to the prin ..iples or policy, because a dogmatic attitude,hey say, is unscientific and one must alwaysave an open mind. But such an idea betrayssublime ignorance of science and scientificethods. It is fortunate indeed that scienceas been quite dogmatic in its approach tohe problems which have confronted it andas barred and fought tooth and nail allhose who would attempt in the name ofopen-mindedness " or any other suchhibboleth to foist disproved and untenableeories on society.We find upon examination that somethingike the following takes place in any branchf science we wish to consider. First of alln assumption or a postulate, based uponctual evidence arising from past experience,made. The scientist then goes to worknd carries on his thinking and experimenta-ion accordingly. It may well be that theuture will prove him to have been wrong inertain of his theories, in which case he wille willing and eager to abandon his methodsor new ones which fit the new discoveries.t must be emphatically pointed out, how-ver, that until he is proved wrong by newindings he must be extremely opinionatedbout his methods and attitudes and doesot have the time to spare for argumentsbout whether or not history may make himut a liar. In short he does what he musto-he uses the tools and the knowledge ofo-day and . leaves conjecture about theuture to the future.Would our super-scientific socialist wanto reason, for example, that medical sciencehould not be so dogmatic in its insistencehat modern medical and surgical methodsather than faith-healing are the ways forreating disease? Certainly he cannot denyhat the Christian Science practitioner wouldike to see a diseased disciple cured asarnestly as would a doctor of medicine orurgery. Does this mean that our comradeould insist that the faith healer has asuch right as the M.D. to belong to aedical society if he wishes because he alsoants to wipe out disease? That the doctorsuld be unscientifically dogmatic in refus-ng admission to their association of theaith healer just because he disagrees withhe basis of the physician's reasoning andas one of his own?For hundreds of years the stars weretudied and explained by astrologers whilelchemists laboured to discover a " universalolvent" and an elixir of youth. Doesur super-scientific. socialist believe thathese people, some of whom are still around,hould be given representation in ourodern universities just in the event that

some unforeseen quirk or developmentshould come about to prove that they hadsomething on the ball after all? That themere fact that alchemy and astrology werethe forerunners of chemistry and astronomyshould be sufficient cause to allow theirvoices to be heard in the same conclaveswith the chemists and astronomers? No,there is no room in our modern scientificassociations for people who represent intheir thinking the dead hand of the past.But if this is true of medicine andchemistry and physics and astronomy andall the other individual sciences, why is italso not true for Socialism? Has it not beenpointed out time and time again, even byour super-scientific socialists, that Socialismis the queen of the sciences, that Socialisminter-relates all science?If that is true-and we think it is-why isa socialist organization, a socialist politicalparty which carr be the only type of socialistorganization that counts, any different?Why must we, in order to be democraticand scientific.permit the political alchemists,astrologers and faith healers membership?

Radicals who hold to an ideology whichemanated from former revolutions, whoinsist on applying the thinking of the rSthand roth centuries to the as-yet-not-realizedsocialist revolution, do not really belongwith us.Are the "class-less" revolutionists ofto-day any more sound in their thesis thanwere the early Utopian socialists likeFourier and Owen, who saw the job as onemerely of appealing to the reason of peopleregardless of which economic class theyhappened to be in? Why would such anattitude be unscientific in the roth centuryyet sound to-day? On the other hand, what

has happened in the last fifty years thatmakes once more tenable a position basedon the expectation if not the advocacy of aviolent, bloody type of revolution? Or forthat matter, what has happened since 1904that has wiped out the validity of ourprinciples as a sound socialist analysis? Isthere actually any difference in the base orstructure of capitalism to-day?It is not as though there is anything newor different about the reasoning of ouroppositionist comrades. It has all been donebefore and answered before. And the newestthing in the working-class movement is stillthe Declaration of Principles of the Com-

panion Parties, flowery as some of thelanguage may be. The comrades who in1904 drew up those eight principles reallycontributed something new to the move-ment, something which has been tested andnot found wanting in two world wars," communist" revolutions and social-demo-cratic revolutions, a multitude of smallwars, depressions, recessions, disinflationsand cold wars. For the first time in thehistory of the revolutionary movement, herewas an organization which proclaimed byprinciples and propaganda that Socialism isa world-wide system of production for usewhich will be brought about by an over-whelming mass of the workers of the world,

after they: have become convinced that sucha course 1S necessary.Furthermore that a democratic societysuch as Socialism cannot be ushered in inany other than a democratic manner, whIcheliminates from the propaganda suchschemes as Vanguards (intellectual or other-wise), Dictatorships of the Proletariat, etc.That still further, before it becomes possibleto effect such a transformation the centralorgan of power, the capitalist state, must be

gained control of in the only way possible,by converting the ballot from a means ofduping, as it now is, to the agency ofemancipation. In short, by voting forSocialism, Socialism only and nothing shortof Socialism. By not compromising in anyway, shape or form the struggle for a newworld.That has been the understanding of thiswriter of the purpose of the W.S.P. and itscompanion parties. That is why I belongand should I feel at any time convinced thatthis is a basically wrong approach it will betime for me to find another group, if this ispossible, that more nearly represents my

thinking. Our positionless comrades not-withstanding, we must still proclaim as ourpurpose a position of non-compromise withwhat we consider non-socialist attitudes;that socialism as we understand it isexplained and embodied in our principlesand policy, and that we require not justadherence without understanding nor under-standing without adherence, but a combina-tion of both as the chief requirement formembership. HARMO.

Why I criticised theM.e.H.

Below are answers to the three critics ofmy article "A Critique of HistoricalMaterialism." (August, 1954).GILMAC (October).Gilmac's main point is that I should showwhere M.C.H. does not fit, where it hasfailed to explain the changes and directionof social development. Let me point out atonce that my article was mainly an attemptto show the inadequacy of the basis-super-structure theory of society-to obtain a moresatisfactory explanation of social change,not to demolish the M.C.H. Cannotmembers see that it is possible to acceptsome points of a complex theory like theM.C.H., to reject others.and to have doubtsabout still others?It is true that my article dealt with thetheory of the M.C.H. rather than its appli-cation to past events-though I did apply"to Socialism. If the M.C.H. is a basis-superstructure conception, then my criticismsstand. However, Gilmac's own ideas deservesome comment. He says that in a societywhere the work is performed by slave labour"it is proper to state that that particularsociety is based upon slave labour, becausewithout the slave labour that form of society

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ould not exist." If that is the criterion foriling slave labour the basis, then relation-ips between master and slave are alsosic, since without them that form ofietywould not exist. The mental attitudesmasters and slaves cannot be left out ofe basis, since slave society could not existth a population 0: ' sub-human intelligence.When we look at society we are lookinga social organism. None of its partsugh separable in analysis) can be isolatedm the whole. That is why it is non-nsical to compare society to a building, inhich at one stage the basis can exist with-t the superstructure. Ignoring this,lmac writes:-" What is the basis upon which the newciety will be built? That everything thatin and on the earth will be the commonssession of all mankind. That will be theof the new society, and upon thatsis there will be a superstructure oflations and performances in harmony withIn other words, the most important factorthe new society will be the basis, becauseithout it we cannot built up the super-ructure we want, as it will determine, ine main, the nature of the superstructure."My criticism is concerned with the reasonr using this superstructure analogy. Couldbe to show that revolutionary changeeans a change of basis, to be- followed bychange of superstructure? Since Gilmacys that without the basis'" we cannotild up the superstructure" we may take itat with the basis we can build up theow let's apply this to Socialism. Weve a "basic" situation in which every-ing will be the common possession of allankind, on which we are going to build

relations and performances in harmonyit." But there seems to be somethingTong here. How can we have " commonssession" without relations of commonssession and performances of commonssession? The only way to make senseof applying Gilmac's theory to Socialismon the assumption that he imagines thecialist working class will capture Parlia-ent on the " common possession" ticket,d will then introduce legislation to dealrelations and performances. It is theaI1ifest absurdity of this position thatcourages us to take a process view of therning of Socialism.It was unfortunate if my meaning was notade clear to Gilmac (and perhaps others) :It is inconceivable to me that the socialiste:l will grow without a correlative develop-of material conditions approximatingQ.sero Socialism." This simply means thatpeople get more socialist ideas so the7orldbecomes more socialist. Even to-day,l.Ierialconditions show embryonic socialist:-ills-otherwise how do we explainLC.H. fashion) our own few socialist?

The following two passages make aninteresting comparison. This is fromGilmac's May, 1947 S.S. article on theM.C.H.:-" The confused social outlook of a period,including the present, is the resultant of themixture of ideas thrown up by the differentclasses that together make up society, butthe prevailing, or the most insistent, ideasare those backed by the dominant class; and

they remain so until another class becomessufficiently conscious of its interests andstrong enough to challenge the supremacyof the dominant class."S. Lowy holds no S.P. membership card.

If he came to our meetings he would pro-bably be called an opponent. Anyway, thisis what he wrote in Co-operation, Toleranceand Prejudice (page 2I8):-"Attempts at revolutionary changes ...are not infrequently examined from theexisting political or economic interests. Thisis the natural consequence of the fact thatthere does not yet exist a society where thatwhich is common is more dynamic than the

interests of particular groups."The point of this comparison is thatwhereas movements to establish forms ofclass domination may have been of a classcharacter, the movement to achieve har-monious and equalitarian society cannot bea class one. Gilmac's theory makes it appearthat Socialism is another form of classsociety-which is all that class movementshave ever achieved.McHALE (December).

Any resemblance between what Iwroteand the meaning McHale finds in what hesays Iwrote is purely coincidental, asreaders can look up for themselves. But his" dialectics in a nutshell" is quite illumin-ating:-" There are no causes which are not alsoeffects, no effects which are not causes. Anintegrated philosophy must contain argu-ments in a circle, for everything turns backto itself. We may commence our argumentfrom any part of the circle, in short, makeANY part of our circle our starting point,our THEORETICAL basis. Socialistschoose the mode of production as aTHEORETICAL basis because it lendsitself best to scientific examination."Apart from the last sentence, there is

little to quarrel with in that. Certainly Ihave no objection to commencing a theor-etical analysis of Capitalism from one partof the" circle," since it can be shown howone part fits in with another, and hence fitsinto the whole. Given capitalist techniquesof production one can deduce capitalistideology, the ideology throws light on thekind of institutions, the relations point tothe performances, and so on.Unfortunately, the mode of production is

more than aTHEORETICAL basis to manymembers. It is their PRACTICAL basis--it sets limits to their activities as socialists.And here is the core of our disagreement.My view is that socialists are not just mode-of-production changers. We are changers ofsociety as a whole.RUSSELL (December).

Russell complains that Idid not sub-stantiate my claim that idealism andmaterialism are complementary. The claimis valid in the sense that the M.C.H. is asone-sided in its emphasis on matter andmaterial conditions as idealism is in itsemphasis on ideas. The one completes theother by transposing the roles of basis andsuperstructure, so that taken together thetwo assert that all factors are both basic andsuperstructural. Expressed as a new syn-thesis, this means that neither material norideological elements are basic, but that thetwo are in dialectical relationship. Thisbrings us, by another route, to the concep-tion of the organic unity of society.Russell asks: if Marx is not correct instating that" the ideal is nothing more thanthe material world reflected by the humanmind" then what is the ideal? The pointof my objection was that the ideal must bemore than a mere reflection of somethingelse. It is a mistake to think of the ideal assomething apart from the material world:A reflection is passive, and cannot changeunless that which it reflects changes. Theprogressive element in society is thus heldto be the material world, with the world ofideas as a consequence. Itis because Idoubtthat every change, movement, developmentand product of society can be shown to

proceed exclusively from its material ele-ments that Iam critical of the M.C.H.We are told that there is "abundantevidence that Marxists do not separate ideasfrom material conditions." That is good.But it is not quite as Russell states. WhatVenable did, in his excellent little bookHuman Nature-The Marxian View, was tobring together actual quotations from theworks of Marx and Engels and to add hisown connecting and explanatory comments.It is he who tells us how Marx and Engelssaw mind and matter, not Marx and Engelsthemselves.In my view, the Party has been wise inusing the minimum of labels to distinguishits theories. "Marxist," "M.C.H.", etc.,are tempting blankets to throw over one'sideas, but they do not avoid the ultimatenecessity of getting down to cases.In conclusion, Ishould like to thank mycritics, especially Russell, for stating theirviews and for treating mine in a reasonablemanner, on the whole . S.R.P.

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