Figures and Facts

“Why cannot we spend as freely for peace as we spend for war?” is the subject of an article by Norman Crump, City Editor of the Sunday Times, which appeared in the Daily Sketch, for May 28th, l945. He has much to say on trade and taxation, amongst it is the following :

“In 1942 people getting not more than £500 a year earned between them £5,200,000,000. Those getting £2,000 a year or more only got in the aggregate £540,000,000, or little more than one-tenth of the money earned by the relatively poor. If the Government wants more money it must go where the money is. The people with moderate incomes have the bulk of the money to-day, and so it is unavoidable that they should have to bear the brunt of such taxation as the Government, whom they return to power thinks fit to impose.”

It is often said that “figures cannot lie.” It is easy to prove that they can, but it is easier still for liars to figure and get away with it. We are not suggesting that Norman Crump is lying, or even that his figures are incorrect. On the contrary, we accept his figures; if anything giving him credit for understatement rather than exaggeration. Impressive, however, as the quotation—and indeed the complete article—reads, we cannot blindly accept the inference he draws from the figures. Let us see how they work out.

£5,200,000,000 contrasted with £540,000,000 gives an impression of a huge difference until we compare the recipients 22,000,000 and 34,000; or until we divide the £5,200,000,000 among the 22,000,000 “workers in factory, mine or farm”; Mr. Crump’s own description of “the people with moderate incomes.” When we find that the average earnings per year are £236, or just over £4 per week. Which provides the recipients with a very meagre living nowadays.

Next Mr. Crump says : “if we are to pay for our needs it is calculated that for every two tons of goods we exported in 1938 we must export three tons after the war. But in order to export we must persuade the rest of the world to buy our goods. And no one will buy them from us if he can buy them more cheaply elsewhere. It follows that excessive taxation would cripple our export trade by making our goods too dear in overseas markets. And if our export trade were crippled we could no longer import all the food and raw-materials which we need.”

Well, the cat is out of the bag and we know the worst. Instead of the new order they were promised the workers get the same old order. The pace being stepped up to increase production one-third over pre-war rate. There is no escaping the logic of Norman Crump’s reasoning. If markets at home, or abroad, are to be secured, our prices must be lower than our competitors. Whether the cheapness is accomplished by modernizing machinery or by speeding up the workers, the latter have to bear the burden. In the first case the new machinery displaces labour, and in the second they are worn out and flung on the scrap heap more rapidly.

That is the way capitalism works. Competition for markets. Producing and selling goods cheaper than the other fellow. It is what the Allied armies have been fighting for: “Our way of life.” What is this “way of life” so many millions have sacrificed so much to preserve for so few to enjoy? A system in which the means of life are owned by a relatively small class of capitalists, and the overwhelming mass of the people, the working-class, are enslaved by them.

We all know how the system works. Competition between workers to obtain and keep jobs, disputes and strikes daily over wages and conditions, wages being clamped down around the cost of living, and unemployment reaching astronomical figures with the almost continuous periods of slump. On top of all this comes the imperative demand that production per man-hour must be increased by one-third, and a hint from Norman Crump that any Government they may elect can do no other than tax their already meagre incomes.

This problem of markets is only part of the whole set-up. This plain talking to the workers that they must work harder and produce more cheaply, merely a piece of impertinence from an idle class to the class that produces wealth in all its forms. War invariably speeds up the pace of capitalist development. New devices and adaptations to the existing machinery of production have been prolific and far-reaching. With their application to peace-time industry many workers will be displaced, and competition for jobs will be keener.

Norman Crump is not the only man to tell the workers that they are in for a hard time. Responsible men of all three political parties have been warning them that there is no soft time coming. Nationalization cannot save them. With the Labour party’s claim that only nationalized industries can attract sufficient capital to make them efficient goes all hope, nursed by the ill-informed, that nationalization is socialism. Efficiency for capitalist industry is the Labour Party’s goal, as it is the goal of the Tories, with their slogan of free enterprise. From the worker’s view-point there is little or nothing to choose between them. The vile things they say about each other are, no doubt, largely true. The good things they say of themselves together with their promises are best ignored. In any case their promises will be forgotten after they are returned. The 1945 election presents the same spectacle of unreality for the workers as any that have preceded it during the capitalist era. The shallow nature of the issues. The utter lack of any deep principles affecting the well-being of the mass of the people, and the complete indifference to indisputable evidence that our way of life is in violent conflict with our environment and the scientifically established laws of social evolution.

During the war leaders have held the centre of the stage. Their foresight and planning for months, and even years ahead have been given the widest publicity, after the event. The ensuing victory being, of course, proof of their judgment and resource.

But the leader’s job in war is quite different to that of the leader in peacetime. Slogans are easily thought out to keep the workers minds on the job. Bait in peacetime confusionist propaganda of a subtle order must be adopted if the workers allegiance to capitalism is to be retained. If his thoughts are to be turned from contemplation of the sordid nature of his existence, and the possibility of establishing a system of society where the means of life will be common property, and he with his fellow workers will be able to plan life for themselves within the limits imposed by nature only. This is going to be a full-time job for the leaders of all capitalist parties. But they are on the losing side, because their ideas, when examined, are empty of realism. Like Norman Crump they can only offer a choice between two forms of capitalist government, neither of which release the workers from wage-slavery; and the liability to military service in defence of capitalist rights.

F. F.