IV. The End of the Money Trick

Two features of capitalism are essential to its existence—the wages system and a thorough and all-reaching system of money relationships. Unfortunately men are now so used to living by money that they find it difficult to imagine life without it. Yet it should be obvious that no libertarian and equalitarian society could make use of money. Syndicalism, as well as ending the wages system, also aims at the destruction of money relationships.

Money, more than any other human product, has been the means of creating false values. We each know of persons who began by wanting money as the means to other ends, but who spent so much energy accumulating money they forgot their original aim and continued to live for money. For means become ends. Is it not obvious that the wealthy trade unions, which have collected hundreds of millions of pounds by the promise to pay strike and other benefits, are now capitalist investment trusts afraid of strikes which threaten their investments?

Socially too, money creates its illusions, giving a false notion of progress. We are always hearing of the great progress that is being made in the Twentieth Century, and the advance in workers’ wages is often cited as example. Everyone knows, of course, that prices have advanced with, or before, wages. Yet, because the advance is gradual, such is the illusion of money, that few realize how small is the progress made.

A few days ago I listened to a conversation on soldiers’ pay. All agreed that the private soldier of 1943 with his 2 shillings and 6 pence a day was immensely better off than the soldier of 1913 with his 1 shilling a day. True, prices were higher, nevertheless 2 shillings and 6 pence is considerably more than 1 shilling. Let us see. The soldier spends his half-a-crown on small pleasures and refreshments. We shall compare the cost of these now and thirty years ago.

1913—1943

Cigarettes (Woodbines) per 10 2d 10 1/2d Matches, per dozen boxes 2d 1/6d Beer, per pint 2d 11d Cinemas and Music Halls (cheaper seats) 2d to 4d 1/- to 1/9d

As to snacks, always important to barracks-fed soldiers, in 1913 these cost a few coppers a time. Now, nothing could be more imprudent than the prices of indifferent meals so often served to service men, especially in the West End. And in 1913 public houses usually supplied free counter snacks of cheese, biscuits and pickles, and often beef sandwiches. No, the advice of the soldier’s wage is just another example of the money illusion.

Money has developed out of all resemblance to that simple medium of exchange which our ancestors used to displace barter. Certainly it was more convenient than barter. But, whereas money once had a real economic value, a golden sovereign having twenty shillings worth of economic value, just as twenty shillings worth of shoes, now, money being paper and adulterated metal having no real value. Being economically worthless, it is potent as a deceiver of the workers, a source of illusions and false values, a hatcher of Beveridge plans.

Even at the paper money stage the monetary system does not halt its development. Now, big money transactions usually mean a new entry in another set of books. A big insurance company may subscribe ú100,000,000 to a War Weapons Week without a dime leaving the bank. Yet it is to this book-keeping trick that we are slaves. By such manipulation they can (and are now so doing) cause inflation and gobble up the savings of the Petty Middle Class or the more fortunate workers. By this method they may, and do, reduce to a fraction the obligations of the insurance companies and gain control of smaller businesses.

The so-called “War Debt” is the greatest of all money tricks. There is no real wealth except that which is produced by labor applied to natural resources. Now every gun used, every bullet fired, every bomb dropped, has been paid for by human labor. One cannot borrow human labor from the future. In true economics there is no “War Debt.” Yet, we owe thousands of millions for products of labor, and our descendants to the end of time must continue to pay usury on them. The harder we, the workers, toil producing planes and tanks and guns, the more money we owe as the price of these our products. It’s a great trick.

The development of the money system has also led to that creation of modern imperialism, international finance capital, money, in the form of industrial loans. Putting it simply, an agent of certain industrialists goes to, say, a South American republic and points out to its rulers the country’s need of a railway and his employers’ fine products in that line. “Yes,” replied the South Americans, “We like your railways, but we have no money to buy one.” “That’s right,” replies our super-commercial traveler, “we’ll find that for you.” A loan, with a high discount and interest is floated on the London market and the South Americans buy the railways with borrowed money.

So far, so good, but interest has to be paid and, as the finance capitalist is not content, as we often are, with pieces of printed paper, goods are exported to Britain to cover the money bills. As most of the goods will be agricultural products it should be obvious that British agriculture must suffer to allow the foreign products of the international finance capitalist system to be dumped on the market. This has led to a strange corruption of public taste. Even in peace time I have seen country-women returning from town, with foreign machine-skimmed milk and margarine from West Africa in their baskets!

A little while ago I picked up the menu in a London restaurant and was delighted to find spiced ham on the list. To me that meant the hams cooked in delicate spices, once so well known in Northern England. Of course I ordered the delicacy, but lo and behold it was just our old friend Spam! Pickled, yes in obnoxious chemicals. Oh! The odium of being pickled in sodium.

Eggs, which were once those lovely white and gold things from shells, are now powder from a carton. Just as good as the real thing. Official, M. of F.. In a few years time real eggs will be as strange to us as are bananas to war children and the taste of one will probably make us vomit. Still, exported capital and its system must have their return.

Great are the sacrifices that money demands. We have seen miners in Durham who, because they were out of work, shivered over the embers in their grates because they lacked the money to buy coal. Yet they sat above the richest seams in the country. We have seen textile and clothing workers in the West Riding without overcoats in winter because they had not the money to buy their own products. We know farm workers who have starved because unemployment meant they lacked the money to buy the food their labor might produce. There is no economic wealth except that produced by labor applied to natural resources. Let the miners produce coal for their own and their fellows’ use, let the textile workers produce cloth and the farm workers food for societies’ needs without regard to money relations. Only thus can we conquer unemployment without going to war.

We know that it is hard for men who have always lived in a money society to imagine a life based upon natural principles, but consider, had we been born into different circumstances it would be difficult to imagine life without money. I suppose most of our readers saw the film Mutiny on the Bounty. They will recall a certain incident in the film. The mutineers having landed in Tahiti are welcomed by the natives who give them food, drink, and huts to live in. A pleasant life in return for a little labor. Christian, the rebel leader, wishing to show his gratitude gives the native chief a large coin, a piece of English money. The chief, puzzled, asks its purpose. Christian explains that in England all food is stored in shops and to obtain it one tenders money.

“And if you have no money?” asks the chief.

“Then you get no food,” replies Christian.

“What is wrong in England,” asks the old chief. “Is there not plenty of fish, plenty of bread fruit, plenty of chickens?”

“Oh, yes,” replies the seaman, “ plenty of fish, plenty of bread fruit, plenty of chickens.”

“And if you have no money you starve?” returns the native.

“Yes, you starve,” is the reply.

The old chief considers awhile, then shakes his head and says, “I think I stay in Tahiti.”

“Poor savage! Entirely without education of course ...”