TOWN AND COUNTRY
Agreement on the Future

"BEFORE tackling the main subject, I must briefly answer two direct questions in Comrade Turner's article opposing mass production. Readers will be able to assess the merits of the other points without further debate here.

First, he questions whether a single, standardised process can relieve arduous toil. Remember, all I maintain is that some mass production is preferable to achieving a similar result by other methods. For example, except for special purposes, I cannot imagine society abandoning the use of screw-making machines —i.e,, mass-producing screws—and laboriously ~making each one separately. My case is that socialist society is not going to stop using such machines (assuming the end-product is still required) just because some people might prefer to make things like screws individually rather than use the hated standardised machine processes.

Turner wants to hear from members about the " differences" which will make mass-production. methods attractive within socialism. The answer is they won't be particularly attractive or repulsive for that matter. They may simply be preferable to the alternatives. I agree there is no question of socialism giving us repetitive jobs that require the use of only a small part of our nervous system and brain capacity. Machines will be used as a substitute for slave labour, performing monotonous tasks and leaving people free to do essentially human work.

Abolishing the Cities

The masters of scientific socialism advocated the abolition of town and country, asserts Comrade Turner. But the actual quotations from Capital and Landmarks only include the phrase " the separation between town and country"'. To abolish the separation is not necessarily to abolish every distinction between the two. When we say that socialism will abolish the separation between men and women in the sphere of work, we do not mean that

men and women will be abolished.

In order to get Engels' quotation in perspective

, one should read the preceding paragraphs.

The large cities which " will take much time

and trouble to abolish " are the factory towns.

Engels doesn't refer to socialism, but writes of

“the proportionate distribution of the greater

-industry throughout the country ". Earlier, in

a letter to Lange, he had written:

“ We start from the premise that the same

forces which have created modern bourgeois

society also suffice to raise the productive

power of each individual, so much that he can

produce enough for the consumption of 2, 3, 4, or 5 individuals. Then town industry, as it

is today,, will be able to spare people enough to give agriculture quite other forces than it

has had up to now: science will then at last

be applied in agriculture on a large scale and with the same consistency as in industry.

Selected Correspondence p.199

And this process has, in fact, already begun. The town has spread into the country—satellite towns are being developed and farms mechanised. True, the increase in productivity is to some extent offset by the more " roundabout " mass-production methods. On the other hand, the growth of universality, being brought about by the world-wide nature of capitalism, means that the gap between the city slicker and the country yokel is narrowing, despite the excessive localisation of production for a market. With socialism, it may still be convenient to localise certain production (e.g., of minerals), and to gather together populations in towns—but nothing like the kind Engels wanted to abolish.

Towns of the Future

Whether or not. William Morris and Belfort Bax are numbered among the ' masters' of scientific socialism, their ideas of the future are more reasonable than many, and do, I think, provide a sound basis for discussion: _

" As to the manufacturing towns . . . they would be superfluous, while on the other hand there would be no great centres of government or finance to attract huge populations or to keep them together. In the future, therefore, towns and cities will be built and inhabited simply as convenient and pleasurable systems of dwelling-houses, which would include, of course, all desirable public buildings."— —" Socialism—Its Growth and Outcome ", p. 314.

But whatever our particular concept of the towns or communities of the future, we must always keep in mind the significance that such speculation has for our propaganda. For, regardless of our personal preferences, the way in which we answer the question " what will sodalism be like?" will largely determine whether our audiences are made to feel with us, apart from us, or even against us.

Significance for Propaganda

Our main object is to get the people we address to agree that the things we propose are practicable and desirable. We all have different ideas about what the future society will look like, which we can discuss endlessly and to which we can convert each other. But remember that all this is sterile unless something emerges that will convince others, that will heb them to understand the principles upon which socialist society must be built.

We are accustomed to saying that we know the past, and indeed much undoubtedly accurate information about it is available. But the n:cture we piece together is not of what really took place—it is our picture of the past,

coloured by our present experiences. Much

more so is the future, of which we have no

concrete data, necessarily our picture of the

future.

The use of the scientific method demands that we ascend from the particular to the general. But with the future this is not possible—there is no ' particular' to ascend from. We are accordingly obliged to describe the future by agreeing upon generalities; seeing, as through a fog, the vague outlines of the new society, which become clearer as our audiences approach it in ideas and we all approach it in time.

What do most people want from life? Take away all the products of capitalist influence (difficult though this may be) and you have a residue of human hopes, desires and fears that is remarkably universal. Each of us, in becoming a socialist, integrates these feelings with the formal socialist case—though sometimes this process is painfully slow. Perhaps our propaganda has not been as helpful as it could be. There is so much common ground that we and our audiences share, so many ways to express and appreciate our similarities, that it seems a pity to accentuate the trifling differences.

Points of Agreement ?

Any summary of the ground covered in dealing with the whole question of future production must be inadequate, since its ramifications are so all-embracing. The articles on mass-production may be taken in conjunction with the extracts from "The New Vision" (Jan. Forum) and with the article on Wealth Production in this issue. From these I tentatively suggest that the following points will be acceptable to members:

1.There will be no belt-systems under Socialism. Machines will be used to perform tedious and irksome tasks, but not at the expense of making people into appendages of machines.

2.The division of labour will be such as to encourage the maximum all-round development of human potentialities. (How this will be achieved is a more contentious matter.)

:3. The separation between town and country will be abolished—there will be no vast cities like London to-day. Production will be to satisfy the requirements of individuals and society in a mutually complementary way.

4. There will no longer be a separation between work and leisure. Work will become the expression of living.

There is vast scope here for making contact with people. Let our speakers and writers go at it—and put some flesh and blood on that skeleton of production for use.

S.R.P.