From Essays in Socialism New & Old (1907), pp.106-108.
What Imperial extension, what the blessings of our beneficent rule, what the opening up of new territories are supposed to mean we all know. What these high-sounding terms really mean, few of us distinctly realise. The working-class at home see that they are not materially benefited by the expansion of Greater Britain, as it is called. But they are assured by their pastors and masters that it is a necessary and glorious thing, and as this thought affords them some amusement now and then at the music halls, in the shape of refrains and cheers, they are content to let the matter slide. They do not see that the question concerns their interests one way or the other, otherwise than sentimentally in the capacity of subjects of that glorious Empire upon which the sun never sets. Yet it unquestionably does concern them. It may not immediately influence wages or hours, but it affects something more vital to them than wages or hours, it affects the system upon which wages and hours are based.
The capitalist system of the Old World, as we often say, is breaking down by its own weight, i.e., the system of the exploitation of labour by the monopoly of the means of production has reached a stage at which it cannot control the means of exchange. The home markets of every country are exhausted, and the foreign markets hitherto open are becoming rapidly exhausted too. Even where this is not the case, the ceaseless expansion of competitive production of itself necessitates the continuous opening-up of new markets. Add to this the advantages as to cheapness in the employment of native as against European labour in many important branches of production which follows in the wake of the conquest or “civilisation” or annexation of new countries. The various mining companies of South Africa have already practically got rid of white labour altogether. Hence the Chinese slavery which has scandalised all decent persons.
Here, then, we have the true meaning of modern foreign policy, the real aim behind that philanthropy which is so anxious for the spread of civilisation, for the christianising of the negro, and for the suppression of the slave trade. What the governing classes and their catspaws, the philanthropists, really want is to open-up markets into which to “shoot” the shoddy products of their factories and to acquire fresh fields and pastures new wherein to start fresh profit-grinding operations. The sole benefit of Imperial expansion accrues in the long run to the large capitalist. That he may be glad to “shoot” certain portions of the surplus population of these islands into new lands is quite true, and even that he may be willing to grant free passages for the necessitous unemployed who are willing to be “shot” there. And for a very good reason. By so doing he kills two birds with one stone. He gets rid of dangerous elements at home, and he plants the nucleus of a new reserve army of labour in the fresh territories to be exploited. All this is gilded by the talk of the “chances” by which a few out of the thousands of emigrants sent out rise by land-grabbing to become rich exploiters in their turn. Emigration, we repeat, is only a subtle device to prevent a revolution at home by which a radical change in the present system might be effected, and to extend the operations of that system.
Whether the working-classes of Great Britain or of any other country desire an indefinite prolongation of present conditions it is, of course, for them to say. But it cannot be sufficiently impressed upon them that such is the effect, say, of the successful opening-up of Africa to capitalist exploitation, or, as it is speciously termed, to the “influences of civilisation,” by the European Powers. And this is the case, no matter which “Power” or “Powers” are engaged in the operations of conquest and annexation. How important is the opening-up of Africa for the growth and even the continued existence of capitalism, is shown by the fact that even where there is otherwise a rivalry among civilised nations, their governing classes will stand in together against the barbarian just as they will against the proletarian. Frenchmen will assist Italians, Germans Britishers when it is a question of the “nigger” asserting his claim to independence, and to live his own life in peace and freedom, just as German assisted Frenchman at the time of the Commune, when it was a question of the workman asserting his claim to independence. Whatever be the squabbles, national or sectional, of capitalists with each other, they will always close in their ranks when capitalists, as a whole, and capitalism itself, are threatened, whether by barbarians or proletarians. The insurgent barbarian attacks the invading capitalist civilisation in the interests of a pre-capitalist form of human society, the insurgent proletarian attacks it in the interest of a post-capitalist form of society. The savage or the barbarian fights for his independence, in order that he may live on in his old, crude, primitive, semi-communistic life of the past. The workman, the proletarian, in so far as he rebels against the power of capital, is fighting, unconsciously though it may be, for the higher, the fully-developed, communistic life of the future.
This higher Communism, in which the work of the world will be carried on by all in the interest of all, and not by one class in the interest of another class, is what modern civilisation has before it as its inevitable outcome, but the result may be retarded, the present system of exploitation and wage-slavery may be maintained for a generation or longer yet, by the sweeping away of the independence of the savage and barbaric peoples of the earth and the opening up of their territories to European commerce and industry. Just as the one hope of the slave-holding states of North America of maintaining the system of negro slavery lay in the formation of new slave-states out of the fresh territories that were being opened up on the eve of the American civil war, so the one hope of maintaining the present system of wage-slavery is to extend its sphere of operations. In order to continue to exist it must destroy primitive societies all the world over, together with earlier methods of the exploitation of human labour – above all, chattel slavery. Hence its sham humanitarian zeal! Its enemies, therefore, are two, one in the rear and one in the front – Barbarism and Socialism. This being so, it is clearly the interest of Socialists, and of the working-class movement generally, to make common cause with these primitive peoples – barbarian or savage, as we term them – who are resisting the invasion of their ancestral tribal lands and the overturning of their old social customs and constitution by hordes of hired ruffians and buccaneers sent by European Governments to clear the way for capitalism with maxims and new pattern rifles. There are many ways in which a spoke may be put in the wheels of these forces of aggressive capitalism. Those of an adventurous turn, instead of joining the hordes of chartered companies, might do good service in the organisation of native resistance in drilling, and in teaching the effective use of firearms. Those who remain at home can similarly do good service in stirring up working-class public opinion, till it becomes as much as a Cabinet’s place is worth to engage in “military operations” of this description.
Last updated on 13.1.2006