Labour policy—false and true

by Lynden Livingston Macassey

“These principles find three forms of expression in the working-class movement, each at different stages of development, but each necessary; the political, the industrial, and the co-operative. These must, as autonomous bodies, continue to strengthen their national influence and their international unity, and, at the same time, as their ultimate aims are common, and as they are aspects of one great world movement, they should take every opportunity for joint action in an internationalist and revolutionary spirit for the maintenance of the world’s peace.”

The Geneva Resolutions on Socialism of 1920

A number of resolutions were also passed, and those which relate to “Socialization” are worthy of careful study; they were the draft of the British Labour Party’s representatives and were in the following terms:

“Socialization.—By Socialization we understand the transformation from ownership and control by capitalists to ownership and control by the community of all the industries and services essential for the satisfaction of the people’s needs; the substitution, for the wasteful production and distribution with the object of private profit, of efficient production and economical distribution with the object of the greatest possible utility; the transformation also, from the economic servitude of the great mass of the actual producers under private ownership, to a general participation in management by the persons engaged in the work.

“The continuous and rapid growth of monopolistic control of industry by Capitalism increases the power of private owners to manipulate the prices of all the necessaries of life, thus reducing consumers to despair. On the other hand, there is the growing unwillingness of organized labour any longer to support a system of production which keeps them in subjection and does not even enable them to raise effectively their standard of life. The consequent intolerableness of Capitalism renders every day more urgent the reconstruction of industry on the lines of Socialization.

“Socialization will proceed, step by step, from one industry to another, according as circumstances in each country may permit. Objectionable as private profit-making enterprise is to Socialists, they will refrain from destroying it in any industry until they are in a position to replace it by a more efficient form of organization. Such a gradual process of Socialization excludes, in general, expropriation of private ownership without compensation; not only because it would be inequitable to cause suffering to selected individuals, but also because a process of confiscation would disturb capitalist enterprise in industries in which Socialization was not immediately practicable. The funds required for compensation will be derived from taxation of private property, including capital levies, income-tax and death duties, and the limitation of inheritances for the benefit of the State.

“In a community of highly developed economic life, with an extensive population largely aggregated in urban centres, Socialization takes three main forms—namely, national, municipal and co-operative.

“For instance, whatever may be provided for the administration of agriculture, the ownership of land should be national, provision being made for the maintenance and security of peasant cultivators, wherever such exist. Other industries of supreme national importance, such as the transport system, the generation of electricity and mines, should also be national. But the management of a large number of industries and services will be in the hands of the municipalities and other local authorities, and federations of these, not only the provision of water and gas and the distribution of electricity, but also, in some countries, the provision of food, clothing and housing. The production and distribution of household supplies of every kind will form, for the most part, the sphere of the consumer’s co-operative societies.

“Industries which have not yet arrived at a state of concentration at which they are suitable for Socialization, or in which, for other reasons, Socialization is not immediately practicable, will be subjected to control by the community, with a view to effecting economies and improvements in production and distribution, fixing prices, and ensuring prescribed conditions of employment.