Co-Operation.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 17, 30 June 1911, Page 5

Co-Operation.

'IVBAORIL.AND WORKER " SPEOIAL.

Is It Worth While ?

By DOGMATIST

Why turn aside after co-operation; why not make a bee-Line for Socialism ? In the light of present knowledge one would think it too late in tho day to do anything else. The facts of history, economics, and human nature so-called, have bean collected, and made vo disclose the message' which they in themselves contain, it is open 'co any to go and spell out this message for themselves. Some thero are that do it, and they thereafter have an eye for nothing else but Socialism, but there aro others who do not feel tho need of these tabulated experiences and this accumulated knowledge; they can do their OAA'n thinking without such things—tho small retail shopkeeping takes their eye and that is enough : straight away they aro men with a mission to make converts among the workers. What Marx Looked Upon. And so it was in the Avorld tliat Marx looked upon at the beginnin gof 1852, at which time, speaking of the working class, he said :— "It partly throAvs itself upon doctrinaire experiments, 'co-operative banking' and Tabor exchange' schemes; in other words, it goes into movements, in winch it gives up the task of revolutionising the old world with its own iarge collective weapons, and, on the contrary, seeks to bring about its emancipation, behind the back of society, m private ways, within the narrow bounds of its own class conditions, and, consequently, inevitably fails." Read, re-read, and thoughtfully absorb this passage into your .mmd — memorise it ana maiie it your /wii — it is an intellectual weapon of priceless value. According to this summing-up of the situation by Marx, the workingclass neglects its mission, which is to achieve tho social revolution and its own emancipation, when it turns aside after middio class issues and trifling palliatives. It is not engaging in the work of transforming society by putting it on the new Socialist basis Avhen it is only seeking to do something great for itself, as a private affair of itfl own, behind the back of the rest of and consequently always tails. It inevitably fails because it leaves the capitalists in the possession and control of industry, and when not running on tho political field alter capitalist reformers and politicians, is only seeking as wage workers to do something tor wage workers who are dependent upon the capitalists for the chance to earn a living, and acting as if they are destined to so remain in this tvage workers' position ot dependence and subjection, as if wage working were the tinal term of things. Go to the Dog, thou Human! This is of course due, not to their lack of brains but to their rearing and their snaring in the public ignorance and the public opinion carefully prepared and provided for them by the class above, which has seen to the wage workers' upbringiing and education—brought them up as it were, after the manner of the dog in the story. This dog, it is said, Avas reared up, chained to a stake in the ground, and when anyone appeared on tho premises he would set olf threatening all and sundry Avith what ho Avould do if he could only get at them, while he bounded round and round at the end of his chain. And in this way tho poor dog, I believe, worked hard for years. But at last the chain was snapped, and the dog was free to attack whom it liked. And what happened then, think you, to those who appeared on the premises V Did he rush at them ? No, he did not. Whether it was a friend or foe, ho rushed from them back to his old, wellbeaten circle, and bounded round and round in it with the same old barking and threatening as before. No need to buy a new chain for a dog like tliat. Thero is no fear of anything serious happening while the past rules in tho present. The wage workers have now the vote and the power to organise, and they could instal their agents in all the Beats of authority in the State, and could make a great class organisation "their large collective weapon" to take and hold all that they have by their labor produced, but their past rules in their present, and too many amongst thorn who do their own thinking have nothing in their heads to go upon but -what belongs to the old circle of the past, and these regrettably would have the workers waste their efforts within what Marx calls "tho narrow bounds of their own class conditions." While this is

done, however much they may, like the dog in the story, be out of breath with their efforts, nothing serious happens, only

"Endless labor all along, Endless labor to be wrong," "behind the back of society in private ways" that do not load to the emancipation of the sons and daughters of mon who only know tho lite of unrequited toil in a world in which, if all were as it might be, they need only know the joy of living. Society as it is. Well, now, here AA r o are, and stretching away out before us the great capitalist world of people, processes and things.

Stretching out before us society— the whole of the people with their ordered lives and ordered tasks, dwelling together from the necessity of making their livelihood together, by some doing one thing and some another. To have a livelihood one must be a member of this society and get a share of what is going.

This society —ail tne people taken together. Thoy all breathe but do not live on air. All this lot must have its meals and its ciothos; its houses, -huts, or mansions ; its entertainment and instruction ; newspapers, literature, and means of communication; its railways and boats for freight transit and travel on land and sea. Those are what a present-day community must have, and it cannot have all these things unless a lot of work is performed by tliose living in it. We see that a portion of "the people in this society does the whole of the work of this society; a friend asks some of these to turn their attention to "co-operation."

lt> is capitalist, society, and though all in it are of the same flesh and oiood. tiie people forming that part of it winch, does all the useful work find themselves under the dominion of that other small class of their fellow men in it who through the years attained to this dominion by "taking and holding tlie means of production," and so bringing it aoout that the essence of the position as between the two classes— capitalists and wage workers—is this: These workers till the soil and raise

ac crops, but the capitalists own the land and own the crops; these workers, with axe, pick; and spade, procure the raw material from the earth, but the capitalists own the earth and the raw materials j these workers using the machinery and other appliances which they themselves have made, transform those raw materials into the finished products, but the capitalists own all the machinery and finished products. Without making a longer story of it: what these worlters produce the capitalists own after it is produced—land, tools of production and finished commodities, but the workers must have a small proportion of these, and it is proposed they take them from the capitalists in fewer and bigger lots at a time instead of having them dribbled out as now. Bunch their orders, start a co-op. The Wage Process. It is capitalist society and these wage labor people in it do not work for themselves; they work for the capitalists, and for this the capitalists pay them wagee—that is, advance them the small sums of money the workers are modest enough to accept to live upon in their unambitious way. So far as these small sums will go, the workers can, as part of their little freedoms, select and make their few purchases from the immense stock of goods they have produced for the capitalists, and when they have selected their small share of this stock all that remains belong to tho capitalists; and published balancesheets and official statistics show regularly from time to time that the amounts retained by those who "take and hold" tho means of production are several timos over more than the wageworking creators of these values get. It is capitalist society and as regards that section of it which are the workers, are we yet arriving at a clear discernment of Marx's "narrow hounds of their own class conditions?" After the workers have done all their share of the work to be done in capitalist industries there is very little left to be done by anybody else. That is, paid labor produces and markets the wealth turned out. Labor produces all; it is paid labor, wage labor, and therefore poor. The capitalists as capitalists produce nothing and everything is theirs to command. When labor has produced these things the capitalist says, "They are mine, M-I-N-E, mine. I have had them made by you with my means of production and out of my raw mater-

ials, drawn from my land, or th© lands of my fellow capitalists. What the exchange value of these products are is none of your business. As between you and mc, so far as I am concerned, there is nothing more than this: you have worked for mc, and here are your wages. Dieu et mon droit, God and my right; I take and hold." And we know he gets more for doing nothing than they get for doing all the work. It is the workers' mission to eliminate tho capitalists; they are asked to turn aside from it and start a co-op. (To be concluded.)