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    Socialism Looks Forward
    Socialism Looks Forward
    Socialism Looks Forward
    Ebook130 pages1 hour

    Socialism Looks Forward

    By John Strachey

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    About this ebook

    The author and politician analyzes the troubled state of Britain’s post–World War II political and economic systems, and proposes a solution.

    When World War II ended for Great Britain in 1945, MP John Strachey wondered what he and his country were going to do with the freedom they had fought for and won. The men who ran the country before the war had taken England so far down the road to disaster that it seemed almost impossible to save. To prevent history from repeating itself, changes needed to be made.

    In Socialism Looks Forward, Strachey shares his plan to lead Great Britain into a prosperous future in which its people are free from want. Examining both political and economic factors, he breaks down why the system in Britain was in such disrepair prior to World War II, with some of its citizens being even better off during the war. He then outlines his proposed solution—Socialism—explaining what it would be like and how Britain could make it happen.

    Originally published in 1945, Socialism Looks Forward provides insight into Great Britain’s political and economic history in the post–World War II era, as well as an introduction to Socialist thought.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPhilosophical Library Open Road
    Release dateJun 7, 2022
    ISBN9781504075930
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      Book preview

      Socialism Looks Forward - John Strachey

      Part I

      THINGS AS THEY WERE

      Chapter I

      Britain Before This War

      What Shall We Do with Our Victory?

      We have fought this war to preserve our freedom: what are we going to do with it? What are we going to make of this country of ours after the war?

      A lot of people have fought or worked pretty hard for Britain in the last five years; and a good many have died for her. As a matter of fact, practically every man and woman in Britain has fought or worked in this war. They will want a say in what is done with their victory.

      It is the people of Britain who have saved her: the soldiers, the sailors, the airmen and the millions of men and women in the factories. In 1940 the people saved this country after the men who had ruled her had taken her so far down the road to disaster that it scarcely seemed possible that she could be saved. We do not mean to let Britain get into that kind of mess again, ever. To make sure of that some fundamental changes in how Britain is ruled, and in what kind of people rule her, will have to be made. The fact is that the tiny clique of very rich people who really ruled Britain before this war put their own narrow, selfish interests before the vital interests of the country. They showed it in a dozen ways—they were so scared of Russia, for example, that they actually helped and encouraged Hitler to rearm, because they thought he would attack Russia and not us. They can never again be trusted to rule this country. They would do the same thing again. They would let the country down for the sake of protecting their money. Henceforward the only true guardians and champions of Britain are the millions of ordinary men and women whose interests are the same as the interests of their country: who do not own thousands of pounds of capital, about the safety of which they are always worrying, and for the sake of which they are willing to let their country down.

      But in order that the ordinary men and women of Britain may rule their country, some basic changes will be necessary. It won’t be enough just to change the Government We shall have to change, step by step, the economic system under which we live. For the people can only rule the country when they control its land and industries.

      This book is not an attempt to work people up to demand something better after the war. There is no great need for that. People are demanding that already, and will do so more and more. This book tries to tell people why things were as they were before the war, and how to change them.

      How Much Money People Had

      There were about 47 million people in Britain before the war. Just under half of them—about 20 million—earned wages or had an income of one kind or another: the rest were housewives, children, old people—dependants of the 20 million.

      Just over 17½ million of this 20 million—nine out of ten—had incomes of under £5 a week. (And 12 million of these got little above a bare living.) You may, broadly speaking, call these 17½ million people and their dependants the working class, although not all of them were manual workers. Then about 2 million people got incomes of between £5 a week and £20 a week (£1,000 a year). You may call them and their dependants the middle class. And just over a quarter of a million people had incomes of over £20 a week. You may call them the rich.¹

      That was the way in which we divided up the national income before the war. It meant that nine out of ten of us were either wage-earners, mostly getting a bare living, and none getting more than £5 a week (or dependants of wage-earners).

      What It Meant

      If you wish to study what dividing up the income of the country in this way meant to people, you should read Sir John Orr’s official report on Food, Health and Income (Macmillan). He will tell you that before this war 13½ million out of the 47 million of us were gravely under-nourished. For 13½ million of us had less than 6s. per week per head to spend on food. And 4½ million of us had less than 4s. a week each to spend on food. Far worse still, a quarter of all children of the country were, in those families which could spend only 4s. per person weekly on food. Hence it seems clear that at least half the children of the country came from families making up the 13% millions of us who had only 6s. a week each to spend on food.

      Now, children whose parents can spend only 4s., or even 6s. a week each on their food do not necessarily die. But they tend to become mentally and physically stunted.

      At a teachers’ conference (Conference of the National Federation of Class Teachers, September 1937) a little incident from the county of Cumberland was described. A group of children were given some eggs to eat; but they did not know how to eat them, never having had them before. Similarly, some children from the town of Barnsley in Yorkshire, on being offered custard, butter and bananas, refused them all, never having tasted them, and not knowing if they would be able to eat them. This was in England in 1937. It is worth remembering that we lived in a very rich country which allowed half of its children to be brought up in these conditions.¹

      Concerning a Lie

      For Britain was (and is) very rich. We were very rich in respect of the actual amount of wealth which we produced; and we were far richer still in respect of the amount of wealth which we had the power to produce. Mr. O. R. Hobson (a well-known economist) put the national income for 1932-33 (a year of extreme slump) at £3,400,000,-000. If this had been shared out equally it would have meant an income of just under £300 a year (£6 a week) for every family of four (at 1932 prices).

      Such an exactly equal sharing out of the national income is not possible, and no one proposes it. But it is worth while to make the calculation, in order to prove that the constantly repeated assertion that general poverty is inevitable because there is not enough wealth to go round is, simply, a lie.

      Even in a very bad year before the war we actually produced enough to make it unnecessary for any British family to live in want.

      We Could Have Far More

      All the same, it is true that the biggest possibilities of improvement lie not in sharing out the existing wealth more evenly, but in increasing that total. As I shall describe, that total could be, ought to be, and will be shared out far more equally than at present, even though exact, flat equality is not practicable, or, at our present stage of development, even desirable. But it is even more important vastly to increase the national income. And how are we to do that? Why, simply by setting on to useful work the millions who in peace-time are always either prevented from working at all, or are made to work at useless jobs. (Of course it is a much more complicated business than that, as I shall show below: nevertheless, that is the essence of the matter.)

      Remember that in peace-time between 1½ and 3 million (according to the state of trade at the moment) of the 12 million insured workers of Britain were kept permanently unemployed—producing nothing. If unemployment was as bad amongst the million uninsured workers, that means that between 2½ and 5 million potential wealth-producers (out of 20 million) were kept permanently idle. Say (to be on the safe side again)¹ that an average of 3 million wealth-producers out of the 20 million, or one worker out of every seven, were kept idle all the time.

      Well, for a start, let us put them on to work. Then there are the probably even larger number of workers who (through no fault of their own) are made to do fundamentally useless jobs; jobs which, as I shall show below, are really only made work—work made necessary only by the extremely peculiar way we arrange our economic life in peace-time. All these millions of workers—for there are millions of them—are available for increasing the national output of real wealth.

      How Much More?

      In Britain we have no estimate of exactly how much we could produce in peace-time if we all worked steadily, using the marvellous machinery of the present day, our fertile land, and the wonderful reserve of skill in our people, to the full, year in and year out, to produce wealth. To make such an estimate would be quite a possible job; but it would be a big job, needing the services of a hundred or so skilled statisticians for many months. For it involves making estimates of the productive capacity of all the factories, mines, farms and other productive assets of the country. So it would cost a fairly large sum of money. And, naturally, the people who have got the money have no inclination to have such an estimate made ; for they know that it would show up the criminal waste of productive resources caused by our existing economic system.

      In America, however, such an estimate did actually (by a queer accident) get made. It is an authoritative job, and the results were published in a book called the Report of the National Survey of Potential Product Capacity.¹

      The conclusion was that America in 1930 could have produced enough wealth to give every family of four an income of £915 a year (nearly £20 a week)

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