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Labour in Irish History
by James Connolly
Chapter X
The First Irish Socialist: A Forerunner Of Marx
It is a system which in its least
repulsive aspects compels thousands and tens of thousands to fret
and toil, to live and die in hunger and rags and wretchedness, in
order that a few idle drones may revel in ease and luxury.
-- Irish People,July 9,1864.
For Ireland, as for every part of Europe,
the first quarter of the nineteenth century was a period of
political darkness, or unbridled despotism and reaction. The fear
engendered in the heart of the ruling classes by the French
Revolution had given birth to an almost insane hatred of reform,
coupled with a wolfish ferocity in hunting down even the mildest
reformers. The triumph of the allied sovereigns over Napoleon was
followed by a perfect saturnalia of despotism all over Europe, and
every form of popular organisation was ruthlessly suppressed or
driven under the surface. But driving organisations under the
surface does not remove the causes of discontent, and consequently
we find that, as rapidly as reaction triumphed above ground, its
antagonists spread their secret conspiracies underneath. The popular
discontent was further increased by the fact that the return home of
the soldiers disbanded from the Napoleonic wars had a serious
economic effect. It deprived the agriculturists of a market for
their produce, and produced a great agricultural and industrial
crisis. It threw out of employment all the ships employed in
provisioning the troops, all the trades required to build, equip and
repair them, all the industries engaged in making war material; and
in addition to suspending the work and flooding the labour market
with the men and women thus disemployed, it cast adrift scores of
thousands of able-bodied soldiers and sailors, to compete with the
civilian workers who had fed, clothed and maintained them during the
war. In Ireland especially the results were disastrous, owing to the
inordinately large proportion of Irish amongst the disbanded
soldiers and sailors. Those returning home found the labour market
glutted with unemployed in the cities, and in the rural districts
the landlords engaged in a fierce war of extermination with their
tenantry, who, having lost their war market and war prices, were
unable to meet the increasing exactions of the owners of the soil.
It was at this period the great Ribbon conspiracy took hold upon the
Irish labourer in the rural districts, and although the full truth
relative to that movement has never yet been unearthed, sufficient
is known to indicate that it was in effect a secret agricultural
trades union of labourers and cottier farmers -- a trades union
which undertook, in its own wild way, to execute justice upon the
evictor, and vengeance upon the traitor to his fellows. Also at this
time Irish trade unionism, although secret and illegal, attained to
its maximum of strength and compact organisation. In 1824 the chief
constable of Dublin, testifying before a committee of the House of
Commons, declared that the trades of Dublin were perfectly organised,
and many of the employers were already beginning to complain of the
`tyranny of the Irish trades unions'. Under such circumstances it is
not to be wondered at, that the attention which in the eighteenth
century had been given to political reforms and the philosophy
thereof, gave way in the nineteenth to solicitude for social
amelioration.
In England, France, and Germany a crop of
social philosophers sprang up, each with his scheme of a perfect
social order, each with a plan by which the regeneration of society
could be accomplished, and poverty and all its attendant evils
abolished. For the most part these theorists had no complaint to
make against the beneficiaries of the social system of the day;
their complaint was against the results of the social system. Indeed
they, in most cases, believed that the governing and possessing
classes would themselves voluntarily renounce their privileges and
property and initiate the new order once they were convinced of its
advantages. With this belief it was natural that the chief direction
taken by their criticism of society should be towards an analysis of
the effects of competition upon buyer and seller, and that the
relation of the labourer as producer to the proprietor as
appropriator of the thing produced should occupy no part of their
examination. One result of this one sided view of social relations
necessarily was a complete ignoring of historical development as a
factor in hastening the attainment of their ideal; since the new
order was to be introduced by the governing class, it followed that
the stronger that class became the easier would be the transition,
and consequently, everything which would tend to weaken the social
bond by accentuating class distinction, or impairing the feelings of
reverence held by the labourer for his masters, would be a hindrance
to progress.
Those philosophers formed socialist sects,
and it is known that their followers, when they lost the inspiring
genius of their leaders, degenerated into reactionaries of the most
pronounced type, opposed to every forward move of labour.
The Irish are not philosophers as a rule,
they proceed too rapidly from thought to action.
Hence it is not to be wondered at, that the
same period which produced the Utopian Socialists before alluded to
in France, England, and Germany produced in Ireland an economist
more thoroughly Socialist in the modern sense than any of his
contemporaries -- William Thompson, of Clonkeen, Roscarbery, County
Cork -- a Socialist who did not hesitate to direct attention to the
political and social subjection of labour as the worst evil of
society; nor to depict, with a merciless fidelity to truth, the
disastrous consequences to political freedom of the presence in
society of a wealthy class. Thompson was a believer in the
possibility of realising Socialism by forming co-operative colonies
on the lines of those advocated by Robert Owen, and to that extent
may be classed as a Utopian. On the other hand he believed that such
colonies must be built by the labourers themselves, and not by the
governing class. He taught that the wealth of the ruling class was
derived from the plunder of labour, and he advocated, as a necessary
preliminary to Socialism, the conquest of political representation
on the basis of the adult suffrage of both sexes. He did not believe
in the State as a basis of Socialist society, but he insisted upon
the necessity of using political weapons to destroy all class
privileges founded in law, and to clear the ground of all obstacles
which the governing class might desire to put in the way of the
growth of Socialist communities.
Lest it may be thought that we are
exaggerating the merits of Thompson's work as an original thinker, a
pioneer of Socialist thought, superior to any of the Utopian
Socialists of the Continent, and long ante-dating Karl Marx in his
insistence upon the subjection of labour as the cause of all social
misery, modern crime and political dependence, as well as in his
searching analysis of the true definition of capital, we will quote
a passage from his most important work, published in 1824: An
Inquiry into the principles of the distribution of Wealth most
conducive to Human Happiness as applied to the newly-proposed System
of the Voluntary Equality of Wealth. Third edition.
What, then, is the most accurate idea of
capital? It is that portion of the product of labour which, whether
of a permanent nature or not, is capable of being made the
instrument of profit. Such seem to be the real circumstances which
mark out one portion of the products of labour as capital. On such
distinctions, however, have been founded the insecurity and
oppression of the productive labourer -- the real parent, under the
guidance of knowledge, of all wealth -- and the enormous usurpation,
over the productive forces and their fellow-creatures, of those who,
under the name of capitalists, or landlords, acquired the possession
of those accumulated products -- the yearly or permanent supply of
the community. Hence the opposing claims of the capitalist and the
labourer. The capitalist, getting into his hands, under the reign of
insecurity and force, the consumption of many labourers for the
coming year, the tools or machinery necessary to make their labour
productive, and the dwellings in which they must live, turned them
to the best account, and bought labour and its future products with
them as cheaply as possible. The greater the profit of capital, or
the more the capitalist made the labourer pay for the advance of his
food, the use of the implements or machinery and the occupation of
the dwelling, the less of course remained to the labourer for the
acquisition of any object of desire''.
Or again, see how, whilst advocating
political reform as a means to an end, he depicts its inefficiency
when considered as an end in itself: --
As long as the accumulated capital of
society remains in one set of hands, and the productive power of
creating wealth remains in another, the accumulated capital will,
while the nature of man continues as at present, be made use of to
counter-act the natural laws of distribution, and to deprive the
producers of the use of what their labour has produced. Were it
possible to conceive that, under simple representative institutions,
any such of the expedients of insecurity should be permitted to
remain in existence as would uphold the division of capital and
labour, such representative institutions (though all the plunder of
political power should cease) would be of little further benefit to
the real happiness of mankind, than as affording an easy means for
the development of knowledge, and the ultimate abolition of all such
expedients. As long as a class of mere capitalists exists, society
must remain in a diseased state. Whatever plunder is saved from the
hand of political power will be levied in another way, under the
name of profit, by capitalists who, while capitalists, must be
always law- makers''.
Thompson advocated free education for all,
and went into great detail to prove its feasibility, giving
statistics to show that the total cost of such education could
easily be borne by Ireland, without unduly increasing the burden of
the producers. In this he was three generations ahead of his time --
the reform he then advocated being only partially realised in our
day. Living in a country in which a small minority imposed a
detested religion by force upon a conquered people, with the result
that a ferocious fanaticism disgraced both sides, he yet had courage
and foresight enough to plead for secular education, and to the cry
of the bigots who then as now declared that religion would die
unless supported by the State, he answered: --
Not only has experience proved that
religion can exist without interfering with the natural laws of
distribution by violation of security, but it has increased and
flourished during centuries in Ireland, and in Greece, under and in
spite of the forced abstraction of its own resources from its own
communicants, to enrich a rival and hated priesthood, or to feed the
force that enchained it''.
How different was the spirit of the
Socialism preached by Thompson from the visionary sentimentalism of
the Utopians of Continental Europe, or of Owen in his earlier days
in England, with their constant appeals to the `humanity' of the
possessing classes, is further illustrated by the following passage
which, although lengthy, we make no apology for reproducing. Because
of its biting analysis of the attitude of the rich in the various
stages of political society, and the lust for power which
accompanies extreme wealth, the passage might have never been
written by a Socialist of the twentieth century: --
The unoccupied rich are without any
active pursuit; an object in life is wanting to them. The means of
gratifying the senses, the imagination even, of sating all wants
and caprices they possess. The pleasures of power are still to be
attained. It is one of the strongest and most unavoidable
propensities of those who have been brought up in indulgence, to
abhor restraint, to be uneasy under opposition, and therefore to
desire power to remove these evils of restraint and opposition.
How shall they acquire the power? First by the direct influence of
their wealth, and the hopes and fears it engenders; then when
these means are exhausted, or to make these means more effectual,
they endeavour everywhere to seize on, to monopolise the powers of
Government.
Where despotism does exist, they
endeavour to get entirely into their own hands, or in conjunction
with the head of the State, or other bodies, they seize as large a
portion as they can of the functions of legislation. Where
despotism does not exist, or is modified, they share amongst
themselves all the subordinate departments of Government; they
monopolise, either directly or indirectly, the command of the
armed force, the offices of judges, priests and all those
executive departments which give the most power, require the least
trouble, and render the largest pecuniary returns. Where despotism
exists, the class of the excessively rich make the best terms they
can with the despot, to share his power whether as partners,
equals or mere slaves.
If his situation is such as to give them
a confidence in their strength, they make terms with the despot,
and insist on what they call their rights; if they are weak they
gladly crawl to the despot, and appear to glory in their
slavishness to him for the sake of the delegated power of making
slaves to themselves of the rest of the community. Such do the
historians of all nations prove the tendencies of excessive wealth
to be.
In the English-speaking world the work of
this Irish thinker is practically unknown, but on the Continent of
Europe his position has long been established. Besides the work
already quoted he wrote an Appeal of one-half of the Human
Race -- Women -- against the Pretensions of the other half -- Men --
to retain them in Political and thence in Civil and Domestic Slavery
published in London in 1825. Labour Rewarded, the Claims of
Labour and Capital Conciliated; or, How to Secure to Labour the
Whole Product of its Exertions, published in 1827, and Practical
Directions for the Speedy and Economical Establishment of
Communities, published in London in 1830, are two other known
works. He also left behind the manuscript of other books on the same
subject, but they have never been published, and their whereabouts
is now unknown. It is told of him that he was for twenty years a
vegetarian and total abstainer, and in his will left the bulk of his
fortune to endow the first co- operative community to be established
in Ireland, and his body for the purpose of dissection in the
interests of science. His relations successfully contested the will
on the ground that `immoral objects were included in its benefit'.
His position in the development of
Socialism as a science lies, in our opinion, midway between the
Utopianism of the early idealists and the historical materialism of
Marx. He anticipated the latter in most of his analyses of the
economic system, and foresaw the part that a democratisation of
politics must play in clearing the ground of the legal privileges of
the professional classes. In a preface to the English translation of
the work of one of his German biographers, Anton Menger, the writer,
H. S. Foxwell, M. A., says of his contribution to economic science:
`Thompson's fame will rest, not upon his
advocacy of Owenite co- operation, devoted and public-spirited as
that was, but upon the fact that he was the first writer to
elevate the question of the just distribution of wealth to the
supreme position it has since held in English political economy. Up
to his time political economy had been rather commercial than
industrial, indeed he finds it necessary to explain the very meaning
of the term `industrial,' which he says, was from the French, no
doubt adopted from Saint Simon'.
If we were to attempt to estimate the
relative achievements of Thompson and Marx we should not hope to do
justice to either by putting them in contrast, or by eulogising
Thompson in order to belittle Marx, as some Continental critics of
the latter seek to do. Rather we should say that the relative
position of this Irish genius and of Marx are best comparable to the
historical relations of the pre-Darwinian evolutionists to Darwin;
as Darwin systematised all the theories of his predecessors and gave
a lifetime to the accumulation of the facts required to establish
his and their position, so Marx found the true line of economic
thought already indicated, and brought his genius and encyclopaedic
knowledge and research to place it upon an unshakable foundation.
Thompson brushed aside the economic fiction maintained by the
orthodox economists and accepted by the Utopian, that profit was
made in exchange, and declared that it was due to the subjection of
labour and the resultant appropriation, by the capitalists and
landlords, of the fruits of the labour of others. He does not
hesitate to include himself as a beneficiary of monopoly. He
declared, in 1827, that for about twelve years he had been `living
on what is called rent, the produce of the labour of others'. All
the theory of the class war is but a deduction from this principle.
But, although Thompson recognised this class war as a fact, he did
not recognise it as a factor, as the factor in the
evolution of society towards freedom. This was reserved for Marx,
and in our opinion, is his chief and crowning glory. While Owen and
the Continental Socialists were beseeching the favour of kings,
Parliaments and Congresses, this Irishman was arraigning the rich,
pointing out that lust of power for ever followed riches, that
`capitalists, while capitalists, would always be law-makers', but
that `as long as a class of mere capitalists exists, society must
remain in a diseased state'. The fact that the daring Celt who
preached this doctrine, arraigning alike the social and political
rulers of society and society itself, also vehemently demanded the
extension of the suffrage to the whole adult population, is surely
explanation enough why his writings found no favour with the
respectable classes of society, with those same classes who so
frequently lionised the leaders of the Socialist sects of his day.
In our day another great Irishman, Standish
O'Grady, perhaps the greatest litterateur in Ireland, has been
preaching in the pages of The Peasant Dublin, 1908-9.,
against capitalist society, and urged the formation of co-operative
communities in Ireland as an escape therefrom. It is curiously
significant how little Irishmen know of the intellectual
achievements of their race, that O'Grady apparently is entirely
unconscious of the work of his great forerunner in that field of
endeavour. It is also curiously significant of the conquest of the
Irish mind by English traditions, that Irish Nationalists should
often be found fighting fiercely against Socialism as `a German
idea,' although every social conception which we find in the flower
in Marx, we can also find in the bud in Thompson, twenty-three years
before the publication of the Communist Manifesto,
forty-three years before the issue of Das Kapital.
We will conclude this chapter by another
citation from this Irish pioneer of revolutionary Socialism; we say
of revolutionary Socialism advisedly, for all the deductions from
his teachings lead irresistibly to the revolutionary action of the
working class. As, according to the Socialist philosophy, the
political demands of the working-class movement must at all times
depend upon the degree of development of the age and country in
which it finds itself, it is apparent that Thompson's theories of
action were the highest possible expression of the revolutionary
thought of his age.
The productive labourers, stript of all
capital, of tools, houses, and materials to make their labour
productive, toil from want, from the necessity of existence, their
remuneration being kept at the lowest compatible figure with the
existence of industrious habits.
How shall the wretchedly poor be
virtuous? Who cares about them? What character have they to lose?
What hold has public opinion on their action? What care they for
the delicate pleasures of reputation who are tormented by the
gnawings of absolute want? How should they respect the property or
rights of others who have none of their own to beget a sympathy
for those who suffer from their privation? How can they feel for
others' woes, for others' passing light complaints, who are
tormented by their own substantial miseries? The mere mention of
the trivial inconveniences of others insults and excites the
indignation, instead of calling forth their complacent sympathies.
Cut off from the decencies, the comforts, the necessaries of life,
want begets ferocity. If they turn they find many in the same
situation with themselves, partaking of their feelings of
isolation from kindly sympathies with the happy. They become a
public to each other, a public of suffering, of discontent and
ignorance; they form a public opinion of their own in contempt of
the public opinion of the rich, whom, and their laws, they look
upon as the result of force alone. From whom are the wretched to
learn the principle while they never see the practice of morality?
Of respect for the security of others? From their superiors? From
the laws? The conduct of their superiors, the operation of those
laws have been one practical lesson to them of force, of
restraint, of taking away without their consent, without any
equivalent, the fruits of their labour. Of what avail are morals
or principles or commands, when opposed, when belied by example?
These can never supply motives of virtuous conduct. Motives
arise from things, from surrounding circumstances, not from the
idleness of words and empty declamations. Words are only useful to
convey and impress a knowledge of these things and circumstances.
If these things do not exist, words are mere mockery.
With this bit of economic determinist
philosophy -- teaching that morality is a thing of social growth,
the outcome of things and circumstances -- we leave this earliest
Irish apostle of the social revolution. Fervent Celtic enthusiasts
are fond of claiming, and the researches of our days seem to bear
out the claim, that Irish missionaries were the first to rekindle
the lamp of learning in Europe, and dispel the intellectual darkness
following the downfall of the Roman Empire; may we not also take
pride in the fact that an Irishman was the first to pierce the worse
than Egyptian darkness of capitalist barbarism, and to point out to
the toilers the conditions of their enslavement, and the essential
pre-requisites of their emancipation?
Continued...
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