1. The English Bourgeoisie
 Knowledge of the foe, knowledge of his resources, of his forces and his weaknesses, is the first demand in every fight. The first requisite to protect us, when seeing his superior powers, against discouragement; after partial success, against illusions. Hence it is necessary to consider how, with the evolution of society, the present ruling class has developed. This development was different in different countries. The workers of each country are exploited and dominated by their own bourgeoisie ( the property owning and capitalist class ); it is the foe they have to deal with. So it might seem sufficient to study its character only. But at present we see that the capitalist classes of all countries and all continents grow together into one world class, albeit in the form of two fiercely fighting coalitions. So the workers cannot restrict their attention to their direct masters. Already in the past, when taking up their fight, they themselves immediately felt an international brotherhood. Now the capitalist classes of the entire world are their opponents, and so they must know and understand them all. Old capitalism is best seen in England. There for the first time it came to power; from there it spread over the world. There it developed most of the institutions and the principles imitated and followed afterwards in other countries. Yet it shows a special character different from the others. The English revolution, of the time of Pym and Cromwell, was not a conquest of power by the capitalist class, won from a previously ruling feudal class of landowners. Just as earlier in Holland, it was the repulse of the attempts of a king to establish absolute monarchical power. In other countries, by means of their standing armies and of the officials and judges appointed by them and obeying them, the kings subdued the independent nobility as well as the privileged town governments. Making use of the money power of rising capitalism, they could establish strong central governments and turn the tumultuous nobles into obedient courtiers and military officers, securing them their feudal rights and properties, and at the same time protecting commerce and industry, the source of the taxes from the business people. Their power was based on a kind of equilibrium between the rising power of capital and the declining power of land ownership. In England, however, in consequence of the local self-rule of the counties, of the traditional coalition of landowners and town citizens in the House of Commons, and of the lack of a standing army, the Stuart kings failed in their striving for absolute monarchy. Though it broke out in defence of the medieval rights and privileges, the revolutionary fight, convulsing the depth of society, to a great extent modernised institutions. It made Parliament, especially the House of Commons, the ruling power of the land. The middle class, thus becoming the ruling class in England, consisted chiefly of the numerous class of squires, independent landowners, the gentry, forming the lower nobility; they were associated with the influential merchants of London, and with the wealthy citizens ruling in the smaller towns. By means of local self-government, embodied in their office of Justices of the Peace, they dominated the countryside. The House of Commons was their organ, by means of which they determined the home and foreign policy of the country. Government itself they left mostly to the nobility and the kings, who were now their instruments and steadily controlled by Parliament. Because England as an island was protected by her fleet, there was hardly any army : the ruling class having learnt to hate and fear it as an instrument of governmental despotism, jealously kept it insignificant. Neither was there a police to restrain personal liberty. Thus the government had no means to keep down by force new rising powers. In other countries this keeping down of course could only be temporary, till at last a violent revolution broke out and swept away the entire old system of domination. In England, on the contrary, when after long resistance the ruling class in public opinion and social action felt the irresistible force of a rising class, it had no choice but to yield. Thus by necessity originated the policy grown into an English tradition, of resisting rising forces as long as it is possible, in the end to yield before the breaking point is reached. The governing class then retained its power by sharing it with the new class, accepting its leading figures into its midst, often by knighting them. The old forms remained, even though the contents changed. No revolution, as a cleansing thunderstorm, did away with the old traditions and the old wigs, with the meaningless ceremonials and the antiquated forms of thinking. Respectfully the English people look up to the aristocratic families ruling with such sensible policy. Conservatism permeates all forms of social life. Not the contents; by the unlimited personal liberty labour and life develop freely according to practical needs. The industrial revolution broke into the careless life of old England of the 18th century, an irresistible new development and a destructive catastrophe. Factories were built, provided with the newly invented spinning machines, driven by water, and then by steam power, soon to be followed by weaving, and then by machine factories. The new class of factory owners arose and grew rich by the exploitation of the new class of miserable workers, formed out of the impoverished artisans beaten down by the superiority of the new machines. Under the indifference of the old authorities that were entirely inactive and incapable of coping with the new situation, industrial capitalism grew up in a chaos of free competition, of the most horrible working conditions, of utter neglect of the simplest exigencies of health and careless waste of the nations vigour. A fierce struggle ensued, in a complicated triangular way. Repeatedly the workers broke out into revolts against the miserable working conditions combined with cruel oppression from the old political institutions, against the employers, as well as against the governing landowner class. And at the same time the new industrial bourgeoisie growing in wealth and social influence, vindicating its share in government, organised itself ever more strongly. Under this double pressure the landowners were forced to yield; in the Reform Act of 1832 modernising the constituencies, the capitalist class of factory owners got their representation in Parliament. And in 1846, by a special repeal of the corn laws that raised the price of wheat by import duties, they succeeded in throwing off the heavy tribute to the landowners. Thus the way was free for producing and accumulating capital in unlimited quantity. The working class, however, stormed in vain against the ramparts of the State stronghold, now fortified by an additional garrison of defenders. The rulers had, it is true, no forces to suppress the working class movement by violence. Capitalist society resisted by its inner toughness, by its deep seated solidity, instinctively felt by the entire middle class to be a rising form of production destined to conquer the world. It yielded by steps, by granting such reforms as were unavoidable; so in ever new fights the workers obtained the right of association, the ten hour day, and finally, gradually, the franchise. The English bourgeoisie was undisputed master; its Parliament was the sovereign power of the realm. The first and strongest industrial and capitalist class of the world, it dominated world commerce and world markets. During the entire 19th century it was master on the seven seas and powerful in all continents. Riches flowing from all sides, from industry, from commerce, from the colonies, accumulated in its hands. The other classes shared in its enormous profits. In the first place the landowner class, the ruling nobility, from olden times was strongly affiliated to business and commercial life. It was not feudal at all, not of mediaeval descent -- the feudal class had exterminated itself in civil wars -- but of middle class origin, owing its elevation to wealth, services, to mere favour, the more jealous therefore of the outer appearances and ceremonies of prerogative. Now in the new system of unlimited profit-production it coalesced with the industrial capitalists into one powerful ruling and exploiting class. Where an aristocracy finds its place in capitalist society, its special pursuit, besides government offices, is the profession of arms. So the standing of the landowner class is shown by the power of militarism. In Prussian Germany the supremacy of the landed nobility was expressed in the ascendancy of military above civil forms. There, even under modern capitalism, civilians were despised as second rate, and the highest ambition for a wealthy business man or a deserving scientist was to don the uniform of reserve officer, "the kings coat." In England, with its small and chiefly colonial army, the same process took place in the navy. For continental wars there was an army recruited from the lowest classes, called "scum of the earth" by their honoured chief, the Duke of Wellington; fighting in the stiff linear tactics of hirelings at a time when in France and Germany enthusiastic popular armies practised the free skirmishing method of fighting; only as late as 1873 flogging of the soldiers was abolished. Military office was not esteemed, and the spirit of militarism was entirely absent. Civilian life was supreme above military forms; when the professional daily duties were absolved, the English officer put on civilian dress, to be simply a gentleman -- the word expressing a civilian code of honour not known in other countries. Thus the absence of continental militarism is an indication of how completely the landowning aristocracy in England is absorbed into the entirety of the capitalist class. The working class also got its part. Not all of course; only its most influential groups, "skilled labour," that by its trade unions was able to display fighting power. From its profits secured by world monopoly the capitalist class could grant them a share sufficient to turn them into contented adherents of the existing order. They separated from the miserable unskilled masses that filled the slums. Every thought that another system of production might be possible or necessary, disappeared. So capitalism was entirely secure; the solidity of a system of exploitation depends on the lack of capacity of the exploited class to discern its exploitation. Among the workers the middle class doctrine prevailed that everybody is master of his own fate. They took over all middle class ideas and traditions, even the reverence paid to the upper classes and their ceremonies. During the long years of exploitation and gradual development capital in private hands could increase along with the need for larger installations, brought about by the progress of technics. There was no need for organisation of capital; banking operations found sufficient scope in interchanging and lending money for facilitating intercourse. There was also little organisation of the industrial enterprises into large combines; the employers, themselves disposing of sufficient capital, remained independent owners of their shops. Hence a wilful individualism was the salient character of the English bourgeoisie. Hence also little concentration in the realm of production; numerous independent small shops kept up alongside of the large factories. Thus in the coal industry the demands of security and health put up by the workers and by the Sankey commission, ever again were frustrated by the small mine owners not having the means to modernise their backward installations. Entire freedom in social life allows every new idea to be tried out and to be put into practise, every impulse of will; whereas the lack of this liberty causes the impeded wishes and inapplicable ideas to develop into consistent theoretical systems. So, contrasted to the broadly worked-out theoretical character of science and activity on the continent, the English became men of practical deeds. For every problem or difficulty an immediate practical solution was sought without regard to further consequences, in technics as well as in politics. Science played a small part in the progress of technics. This is also a cause of much backwardness in English business life. In this way England in the 19th century became the model country of old capitalism with its free competition, careless and improvident, full of hard egoism against the weak, persons as well as peoples, full of obsolete institutions and senseless old forms, full of downtrodden misery viewed with indifference alongside the display of luxury. Already such books as William Booth's "Darkest England" and Robert Blatchford's "Dismal England" indicate a state of dirty neglect not tolerated in other civilised countries, entirely left to the individual initiative of single philanthropists. In the later years only, and in the new century, social reforms began to play a noticeable role; and, especially after the first world war, a stronger concentration of capital set in. In this way at the same time, however, the English bourgeoisie developed that master character that was the envy of all capitalists of other countries, who in vain tried to imitate it. For many centuries it has been living in a state of complete freedom and unchallenged power. Through its monopoly of industry and commerce in the 19th century it felt itself master of the world, the only cosmopolitans, at home in every continent and on every ocean. It never learnt to fear; never was it faced by a superior foe attacking from outside or a revolution threatening from within, suggesting the idea of mortality. With unlimited self-assurance it confronts every new difficulty, sure to overcome it, by force if it can, by concessions if it must. In foreign politics, in the founding and defence of its world power, the English ruling class showed the capacity of ever again adapting itself to new situations, of defying its most solemn proclamations of yesterday by the opposite practise of to-morrow, of "shaking hands with murderers" where it was necessary, and, in seeming generosity, of making allies of vanquished opponents of whom it feels that they cannot be permanently kept down. All this not by a wide knowledge and foresight; on the contrary, it is a class rather ignorant, narrow-minded and conservative -- hence much blundering before finally the new arrangement is found -- but it has the self-sure instinct of power. The same instinctive sagacity to solve its problems by practical conduct was used in home politics to keep the working class in spiritual and actual dependence; here with equal success. Modern development, certainly, caused the English bourgeoisie to lose a good deal of its exceptional position in the world; but ever again it new how to resign and to adapt itself to the rise of other equal powers. Already in the latter part of the 19th century German industry made its appearance as a serious competitor in the world market, whilst afterwards Japan came to oust the products of British industry. Britain's financial supremacy was lost to America in the first world war. But its main character, acquired in an unchallenged rule of so many centuries was unshaken. In home politics also it knew how to adapt its rule to the demands of the working class, by introducing a system of social reforms and provisions. The English bourgeoisie had the good luck that the formation of the Labour Party, transferring all workers' votes from Liberal politicians to Labour leaders entirely filled with middle class ideas, rendered the working class an active agent in consolidating capitalist rule though it had to pay for it the price of a modernising reform of some of the worst abominations of capitalism. In leaders of the Labour Party it found able Cabinet Ministers, entirely devoted to the maintenance of the capitalist system, therein representing, when these temporarily had to prevail, the pacifist tendencies. This character of the English bourgeoisie is essential in determining the forms of the prospective rise of the working class. What must be overcome, the power of the bourgeoisie, the weakness of the workers, is not physical force but spiritual dependence. Doubtless physical force may play its role, too, at critical moments; English capitalism, in defence of its existence, will be able to bring up, when necessary, strong powers of violence and restraint. But the weakness of the English working class consists chiefly in its being entirely dominated by middle class ideas. Self-centred individualism, the conviction that everybody has to forge his own fate, respect for traditional social relations, conservatism of thought, are firmly rooted in it by the unchallenged power of capitalism, at home and all over the world. Strong shocks will be needed to stir the petrified brains; and capitalist development is at work already. When political catastrophes or the irresistible rise of mighty competitors undermine the world power of the English bourgeoisie, when the privileged position of the English workers has gone, when their very existence is endangered, then also for them the only way will be the fight for power over production. The fundamental ideas of council organisation are not entirely foreign to the English workers. At the end of the first world war the shop steward movement arose, establishing a direct contact of shop representatives in preparing fighting actions, independent of the unions. Already earlier "guild socialism" presented many cognate conceptions; and "industrial unionism" put up the demand of control of production by the workers, linked, though, with the ideas of the unions as the ruling bodies. The character of the English bourgeoisie and the freedom of all social relations make it probable that practical momentary solutions of the conflicts will be sought for, rather than fundamental decisions. So as an instance, we might conceive that as a temporary compromise, freedom of speech and discussion in the shop is established, and the capitalist's old right of hiring and firing is restricted by the workers' right to decide on the membership of the personnel; this would keep the road open to further progress. In such a course of development, when at last the partial concessions should amount to an important loss of power, attempts of the capitalist class to regain supremacy by serious decisive class war cannot be avoided. Yet it seems possible that, if anywhere, in England the mastery of the workers over production may be won by successive steps along intermediary forms of divided rule; each step unsatisfactory, and urging further steps until complete freedom is reached. |