XVIII

ENOUGH FOR ALL

A GREAT captain of industry derisively remarked, at the time of the publication of the first official report on what was then stated to be Messrs Coats's virtual monopoly of the thread industry, that if the Coats profits were divided up, we should each of us get Ind. per annum.

This is very odd arithmetic. Coats's profits approximate to £4,000,000 a year. There are roughly 45,000,000 people in the country. Therefore, if the profits were divided, we should all of us get nearly a tenth of a pound—say Is. 9d.

It does not sound very much, but it is more than 1 d. Does the public realise how much money there is available and how well off everybody could be if it were not for the makers and takers of profit?

Before the war, experts put the income of the country, in the sense of the total wealth annually produced, some at rather more and some at rather less than £2,000,000,000.1 Let us compromise for the moment on that figure, which is, anyway, by universal consent, near enough for a rough calculation.

After four years of war, the value of the pound had depreciated by roughly half. For the purpose of our immediate argument, we may say that the pound in 1918 was worth 10s. of pre-war money and that the pound to-day is also worth that amount. Therefore 1 See succeeding chapters.

the peace-time production of £2,000,000,000, reckoned in war pounds or present-day pounds, amounted to £4,000,000,000; and on top of this, to arrive at what was being actually produced after four years of war, we have to add sufficient production to meet the war expenditure of £8,000,000 a day, making roughly another £3,000,000,000 per annum.

We must not, however, add all of this on. For one thing, there was a genuine reduction in ordinary expenditure in many quarters to be allowed for. For another thing, a large part of the £3,000,000,000 war expenditure consisted of outlay transferred from peace expenditure. For instance, it included the feeding, clothing, etc., of 4,000,000 men as soldiers who would in normal peace times have had to be fed and clothed anyway. We shall, however, be making an altogether too liberal allowance for these factors if we put them at much more than £1,000,000,000 a year.

If we add the £3,000,000,000 war expenditure to the £4,000,000,000 ordinary expenditure and deduct £1,000,000,000, we get £6,000,000,000 as the figure of total annual production. Let us, however, to be very much on the safe side, reduce the figure to£5,000,000,000. That, then, was the annual national product after four years of war.

The argument that the war was financed by borrowing, by some method which laid the burden on the future, is mere ignorance. Our soldiers did not eat the future nor fire the future out of guns. The war was financed, as everything must be financed, by the actual production of goods. Our real borrowing-of actual goods from America-was not big enough to affect the issue vitally.

It may be said that this great production could be effected during the war only because of excessive

overtime and speeding up, and ought not to be attempted now. This is true as far as it goes, but it ignores the fact that this enormous productiveness coincided with the removal from production of 5,700,0001 of the strongest men. With those back in industry, it is clear that, without overtime or excessive strain, we can, simply by proper organisation, produce £5,000,000,000 worth of real wealth every year.

Not all this is available for distribution. Let us say that a fifth would have to be put back every year as fresh capital. This would cover depreciation, re-investment, etc., leaving roughly £4,000,000,000.

Now there are roughly 10,000,000 families in the United Kingdom. Divide 4,000,000,000 among them, and you get a level family income of £400 a year, or more than a pound a day.

It is not, at present prices, enough for luxury or even for a very full life. It is little enough, but it is considerably more than the 16s. a day which constituted the modest demand of the dockers.

It is quite true that, in some of the great industries, renewal of plant and general provision for the future is not taking place to the extent to which it ought to be, and that a large sum must be employed for this. So let us suppose it is argued that our general deduction of a fifth-namely, £1,000,000,000-for all re-investment, replenishing, etc., is inadequate. But still we have two arguments left on the other side which far more than cancel out that objection, and are quite overpowering.

In the first place, re-organisation on this basis would immediately do away with the enormous expenses of competitive salesmanship between rival

1 Admittedly, not all withdrawn at once; but nearly 4,000,000 were withdrawn at one time.

capitalists an expense which American business men calculate at 25 per cent. of their whole costs.

In the second place, we have all along in this calculation been reckoning that the amount of production which meant £1 in the money of 1918 means only as much in money now. Actually, of course, it means very much more.

For £400 a year per family, calculated on the 1918 basis, should, on the present basis, be well over £500; and when we have further allowed for the immediate saving in organisation (to say nothing at all of the absolutely illimitable saving that would ultimately, as I shall show, result in other ways), we find the family income lying much above the £500 a year level. To say the least of it, every family could easily have far more than a pound a day."

There is this amount available for all; but, while Messrs J. & P. Coats and the other captains of industry have so very much more, the dockers and miners and railwaymen and their class will have very much less. The problem is not one of speeding up production (however nice that may be if it is done without penalising or sweating the workers). The problem is one of distribution.

There is enough for all. Under capitalism, some will always have too much, and, therefore, some too little. This, in a nutshell, is the case against capitalism.

1 See Appendix I.

See also Chapter XX., end.

XIX

'MORE PRODUCTION'

I HAVE contended above that the problem is not one of production, but of distribution. I have argued, from the known facts and figures, that, even without increase of production beyond what would be here and now possible if we had an organisation and a purpose such as, despite all the waste and futility, we had during the war, there is enough for all.

But, with the socialisation of industry, enormous new forces of production would be immediately let loose. There is a difference of productive energy according to the motive of work. Wherever there is ca' canny' or deliberate slackness in any industry, it can almost always be traced to suppressed resentment. And if the workers are more and more convinced (as they are) that the product of their energy is unjustly confiscated by the few, they will be more and more unwilling to increase that product. The contrast was made very clear during the war. Ignorant people wondered that workers in private firms at home should strike when soldiers were willing to face every extreme of hardship and exertion and peril for little over a shilling a day. The psychology of the contrast, however, was simple. The men in the trenches felt that they were toiling and enduring for a communal object; their officers were not making money out of them, but were in the trenches with them. The men at home felt that their special sacrifices and