The Roots of Politics
As the Labour Party have failed to deliver the goods they promised there is a tendency to turn away from politics by many who previously supported the Labour Party. Some are turning to the trade union movement to seek the solution to their troubles, others are giving up the struggle in despair. A lack of understanding of the basis of their troubles led them to support the Labour Party in the first place. Had they realised that the policy of the Labour Party would not, and could not, lead to a fundamental change in the basis of society they would not have been disappointed with the fruits of Labour policy.
Wherever any class or individual throughout history has reached a dominating position it has been accomplished by participation in politics. Even the so-called dictators, like Alexander, Caesar, Cromwell, Napoleon, Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin, have all gained a dominating position in this way. When firmly entrenched they have sought for means to keep up the illusion that their power is based upon the interests of the majority, and have even been compelled to make certain concessions to popular dissatisfaction. They have continued in power by promising a return to older procedure when the external and internal enemies of the State have been finally crushed. Hence their power has been prolonged by their capacity to continue to foster the illusion that the external and internal enemy is hindering the people from entering into the prosperity that the policy of the dictators aimed at securing.
It is sometimes argued that we are living in the present and that a study of past history is a waste of time. That we should concern ourselves exclusively with the practical questions of to-day. Practical questions of two thousand years ago are still practical questions of to-day, although some of them may come up in a somewhat different form. This is so because a fundamental social condition of to-day, the existence of class ownership of the means of production, was also present then.
In the opening paragraph of one of Marx’s essays he wrote, “The tradition of all past generations weighs like an alp on the brain of the living.” Since the outgrowth of private property, thousands of years ago, traditions associated with it have troubled the brain of man across the ages and still muddle his outlook upon even the simplest problems of to-day, distorting bis views upon politics.
Politics has to do with the State. The State came into existence along with property and the division of society into classes that struggled against each other for power and domination. All class struggles are political struggles; struggles for control of the State for the purpose of using it or removing it The basis of politics is the production and distribution of wealth: the form political struggles assume is determined by the economic organisation of society at any given time. Political parties represent, or claim to represent economic interests. They are organised for the purpose of getting control of the State power to serve these economic interests.
Many of the institutions and the procedures bound up with government to-day are thousands of years old, and so are the arguments put forward in defence of these institutions and procedures. Elections, the secret ballot, short terms of office, rotation in office, majority rule, the whip, filibustering, the magistracy, representative government, leagues of nations—all these were present in societies, based upon property, that flourished over two thousand years ago. Every new class that economic development threw up sought, in its turn, to get control of the State machinery in order to put social relations into a mould that suited it.
Running through history like a thread are the constant disputations about how a well-organised State should be controlled, and property is the constant factor in which these disputations are rooted.
In ancient Greece class rule was philosophised into “the question as to whether the one ablest individual, or the most capable and virtuous minority, or the general body of citizens should, or does, rule”— and the same questions are debated to-day on the same basis, class rule.
An old Greek writer, Xenophon, put the idea in a general form when he wrote: “I am always of opinion that of whatever character governments are, of a similar character also are the governments which they conduct.” It is interesting, in passing, to notice that Xenophon, in an essay “On the means of Improving the Revenues of the State of Athens,” put forward a strong plea in favour of nationalising such enterprises as the silver mines, shipping, market buildings, shops, lodging houses and places of entertainment. He argued that State investment was “the safest and most durable of human things.”
Aristotle, the most influential of ancient writers, in his “Politics” proclaimed that “the State is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal.” Farther on he writes :
“’And so, in one point of view, the art of war is a natural art of acquisition, for it includes hunting, an art which ought to practise against wild beasts, and against men who, though intended by nature to be governed, will not submit; for war of such a kind is naturally just.”
In the Middle Ages Machiavelli (whom a humorist pointed out bears “the domestic name for the devil”) warns the Prince to take account of classes in governing, and balance one against the other for his own benefit.
In the early years of Capitalism, John Locke, in his essay on civil government, gave the following definition of political power:
“Political power, then, I take to be a right of making laws with penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties, for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community in the executing of such laws, and in the defence of the commonwealth from foreign injury, and all this only for the public good.”
Harrington, in his “Oceana,” argued that power naturally and necessarily followed property, and Cromwell opposed universal suffrage on the ground that: “The consequences of this rule tend to anarchy. For where is there any bound or limit set if men that have but the interest of breathing shall have voices in elections.”
lu America, Madison, one of those responsible for the Declaration of Independence, wrote: “From the influence of different degrees and kinds of property on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors ensues a diffusion of society into different interests and parties.” How sentiments can vary from practice was shown by the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the Constitution of the United States, 1787-1789. The Declaration contained the following paragraph:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life. Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
– Section 9 of the Constitution runs as follows:
“The Migration or Importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress … but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person.”
This section was put in to serve the property interests of the importers and users of black slaves. “All men are created equal “—well, not all men!
These are a few illustrations of the fact that since property came into existence it has produced the classes that contend for control of the State, and determined the attitude of a ruling to a ruled class. Further that as long as a class controls State power it seeks to mould society to suit its interests. To-day the capitalist class rules and rules in their own interest, though under the guise of “labour.” In order to bring about a fundamental social change, a change from Capitalism to Socialism, it is necessary to take control of the State out of the hands of the capitalists. This can only be done by political action. But something more than this is required. This political action must be taken by a majority who understand and want Socialism, otherwise it will only have the appearance of the removal of power while in fact power will still remain where it is. This is what happened when the Labour Party became the Government.
GILMAC