Gleaming Gods

For some time now the working class in Britain has been enjoying a period free from unemployment such as it has not experienced in peacetime since the early 1870’s. Full employment means, as a matter of course, increased consumption. Workers have more money to spend and there is consequently a bigger demand for consumer goods. When the war-time rationing was finally ended by the Conservative Government, capitalism was able to gear itself to meet the new demand. The past few years have seen the emergence of commercial television and the supermarket as well as the expansion of hire purchase as means to take advantage of the fact that workers have more money to spend.

The figures show that consumption has gone up fairly rapidly in the 1950’s and especially that of consumer durables, that is of furniture, motor cars, refrigerators, washing machines and other electrical appliances:

(NOTE.—During the period covered by this Table the population of England and Wales increased from a little below forty-four million to just over forty-five and a half million)

Table I shows that “despite the interruption of the Korean war and the need to limit consumption in order to restrain inflation, consumption as a whole was just over one-fifth higher in 1960 than in 1950” (The British Economy in the Nineteen Fifties, ed. Worswick & Ady, from which also the table is condensed). As can be seen from the figures the pattern of consumption varied: “The volume of durable household goods sold in 1959 was more than double that sold ten years earlier. In comparison, purchases of food rose by only 25 per cant.; of drink and tobacco by 14 per cent.; of clothing and footwear by 24 per cent, during this ten-year period.”

These are the figures showing the total amount consumed. Such figures, however, do not tell the whole story. Notoriously, figures and graphs can be deceptive. Politicians and journalists frequently speak as if most people had a TV and a refrigerator and a washing machine and a car. They talk of the “affluent society.” The Economist of October 27, 1960, for instance, referred to “the revolution in household equipment that has transformed the life of the working class housewife.” It spoke as if everywhere the vacuum cleaner had replaced the “brush and pan,” the “washing machine,” the “boiling pot and mangle,” the “TV,” the “disintegrating crystal wireless” and the “motor car,” ” the battered old bicycle.” Certainly this has happened in some working class households but in how many? Some of the better-off may have all the items mentioned, but they are in a minority. Dr. Mark Abrams, the statistician, in an article in The Observer in the very same week, provided some figures on this question.

In 1960 a large nation-wide sample survey on this question of the ownership of consumer durables was conducted. The results showed that compared with 1957, when a similar survey was carried out, the ownership of refrigerators had gone up by 75 per cent, of washing machines by 54 per cent, of TV’s by 41 per cent, and of cars by 29 per cent. But, says Dr. Abrams, the figures also show “that still, after an unprecedented boom, only one item—the television set—is to be found in a majority of British homes. The rest are the possessions of minorities.” Dr. Abrams divides the population into two groups; a “middle class “which he defines as “the one-third of all British families whose chief earner is in a white collar post and earning at least £800 a year” and a “working class.” The ownership figures for these two groups are given:

Commenting, Dr. Abrams says that even among his so-called middle class “there are many who in terms of material possessions, lack the traits of the popular idea of a middle class home. Approximately two-thirds own their own home and a lawnmower; barely half have a car or washing machine; and only two out of five middle class homes today have a refrigerator.”

We are now in a better position to answer our question: in how many working class households has this equipment revolution occurred? Note first, however, that Dr. Abram’s “middle class” are actually members of the working class even if they do earn £800 a year or more. We see that of all households 79 per cent, do not own a refrigerator; 69 per cent, do not own a car and 60 per cent, do not own a washing machine. It is only with regard to televisions that ownership is widespread. Furthermore, we can see that the percentage of those who own a refrigerator, washing machine, car, TV and house cannot be any higher than 21 per cent.—and will, of course, be much less than this.

The figures show, then, that for a minority of the working class the consumption of consumer durables has increased. Beyond that what can we say? There is a widely held view that an increase in consumption is equivalent to an increase in the standard of living. This is not necessarily so. When, a few years ago, Mr. Butler predicted the doubling of the standard of living in twenty-five years, what he meant was that aggregate consumption could be doubled in that period. Which is an altogether different proposition. It is a physiological fact that the harder a man works the more he must consume. This is because when a man works he uses up his energy which has to be replaced. It is this energy which the employer pays for in the wage packet. If the employer wants his workers to produce more—and therefore to expend more energy—he must be prepared to pay for it. Today many of the larger employers are quite prepared to do this and have been doing so for some time. They pay higher wages to attract a higher grade of worker. The worker in these industries is required to work harder and faster than those outside and is therefore paid more, so that he can consume more to replace his used up energy.

What does it all add up to? No one is denying that today some workers can do things their parents couldn’t. Who, twenty or thirty years ago, for instance, would have dreamt of a production worker visiting the Continent in his own car? But what about the other side: the faster machine pace, the longer journey to work, the overtime, the shift-working? Some may consider it worth it, but the fact remains that the member of this new “labour aristocracy” together with the white collar man with his “staff” job still gets, like the rest of the working class, a wage about sufficient to sustain him, together with his family, so that he can perform adequately and efficiently the work required of him. Only he is paid more for working more. Is he better off for that? Or, perhaps, are you better off for that?

Nor does increased consumption mean the end of exploitation. Whatever their standard of living, the working class remains dependent on selling its ability to work to the owning class in order to live. But even so, as Dr. Abrams’ figures show, the so-called household equipment revolution has by-passed most workers, if the Economist was right in saying that “there is now some reason to believe that the main force of the secular boom ‘in household equipment may be coming towards its end.” Their wages were too low for them to join in the spending spree. For them it’s still brush and span, boiling pot and mangle and battered old bicycle. Their only consolation a TV set!
A.L.B.