Читать книгу The Christian Left - Anthony A. J. Williams - Страница 12

The Labour successes of 1945 demonstrate for us that Christian Socialism was not solely restricted to the church. James Keir Hardie (1856–1915) is regarded as the founder of both the Scottish Labour Party and the Independent Labour Party (ILP), and latterly the Labour Party itself. Hardie’s poverty-stricken upbringing left him with a hatred of both capitalist exploitation and hypocritical Christianity, yet he himself had a religious commitment that was expressed in his membership of the Evangelical Union. ‘The only way you can serve God,’ asserted Hardie, ‘is by serving mankind. There is no other way. It is taught in the Old Testament; it is taught in the New Testament.’⁸⁶ The same themes are evident in Hardie’s thought that can be observed in the varieties of church socialism considered above. The Gospel, in Hardie’s estimation, declared that all people were children of God and consequently brothers and sisters to each other; capitalism stood condemned because it prompted competition and strife rather than the familial co-operation which should be the outworking of this spiritual reality.⁸⁷ For Hardie, socialism was ‘the application to industry of the teachings contained in the Sermon on the Mount’. While Hardie allowed that the Sermon did not specify state socialism with its aims of owning and managing industry, it nevertheless provided the principles for this form of collectivism by denouncing property and the selfish pursuit of individual wealth. Striking something of a Marxist note, Hardie argued that it would be ‘an easy task to show that Communism, the final goal of Socialism, is a form of Social Economy very closely akin to the principles set forth in the Sermon on the Mount’.⁸⁸ This, for Hardie, is exemplified in the common ownership practised in the Acts of the Apostles; the earliest Christians could not bear to have differences in wealth and the ownership of property cause divisions in a community characterised by brotherhood and consequently by equality and co-operation.⁸⁹

Hardie’s Marxism, though, was inconsistent. He appealed to Marx to support his own political activism, arguing that the policy and methods of the ILP and the Labour Party were in keeping with those laid down by Marx and Engels, and was happy to refer to Marxist analysis in order to denounce capitalism.⁹⁰ Yet he was no systematic Marxist, his biographer Bob Holman suggesting that ‘Hardie read some Marx and selected bits which fitted with his own views of an ethical and peaceful socialism’.⁹¹ Hardie’s assertion that the teaching and arguments of Jesus Christ were the basis of his socialism must be taken seriously; anything else, even the theories of Marx and Engels, was an optional extra. In this Hardie stands as representative for the labour movement and the mainstream British Left, which holds to a non-Marxist ethical socialism of which Christianity was a key component. This differs from the social democratic parties of Europe – the German SPD being the chief example (see Chapter 3) – which, whether orthodox or revisionist, absorbed an anticlericalism and, indeed, an atheism that remained a minority position in the early days of the Labour Party.

As such, Hardie was joined by other Christian Socialists. Hardie did not live long enough to see it, but the first Labour cabinet of 1924, headed by James Ramsay MacDonald, included Christian Socialists such as Philip Snowden (1864–1937), Arthur Henderson (1863–1935) and John Wheatley (1869–1930). Snowden and Henderson returned in MacDonald’s second Labour government of 1929–31, and were joined by Margaret Bondfield (1873–1953) and George Lansbury (1859–1940). Snowden was a strict Methodist, who came to politics via the ILP and the Free Church Socialist League, of which John Clifford had been a keen member. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, Snowden was committed to maintaining free trade, balancing the budget and remaining on the gold standard, enduring criticism that he did not allow for a truly socialist budget; in his defence, however, both of these Labour governments were minority administrations that relied upon the support of Liberal MPs.⁹² Henderson was brought up as a Congregationalist but later committed himself to Wesleyan Methodism along with trade unionism; he was a key figure in the creation of Labour’s 1918 constitution, including the Clause IV, which would generate so much heated discussion in the decades which followed; he went on to serve as leader of the Labour Party from 1931 to 1932, after MacDonald had formed the National Government coalition.⁹³

Wheatley, a devout Roman Catholic, was excluded from the second Labour government because – along with his fellow Red Clydesider James Maxton – he had been critical of MacDonald and Snowden for not pursing a more radical agenda.⁹⁴ Indeed Wheatley was responsible for one of the few successes of the first, short-lived Labour administration, the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act (1924), which extended more central funding to municipal governments or the building of homes. Wheatley held that it is socialism ‘which emanates from that spirit of brotherhood which is ever present in the heart of man but is so often suppressed by the struggle for existence’, arguing that the competitive environment engendered by capitalism did not allow for people to live as children of God.⁹⁵ Wheatley struggled to reconcile his political views with the opposition – both official and unofficial – of his church. The official opposition came in the 1891 papal encyclical Rerum novarum, when Pope Leo XIII, while attacking the abuses and injustice of capitalism, condemned socialism.⁹⁶ The unofficial came when Wheatley’s own parish priest incited a mob to protest outside his house; Wheatley responded to this with what, especially under the circumstance, was a highly eloquent speech attacking the capitalist class for stealing the universal God-given right to share in the beauty of creation and enjoy a flourishing life.⁹⁷ ‘The Catholic Church,’ Wheatley maintained, ‘has always leaned more to socialism or collectivism and equality, than to individualism and inequality. It has always been the church of the poor and all historical attacks on it have emanated from the rich.’⁹⁸

Bondfield, a Congregationalist and trade-union activist, became the first female cabinet minister in 1929. Although she spent a part of her life away from the church after a deacon admonished her to choose between church and union – taking him at his word she chose the latter – it was her Nonconformist upbringing that provided the basis for her socialism and the campaigns against the exploitation of female shop workers such as she had been.⁹⁹ Bondfield’s aim was to see the Golden Rule – ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’ – applied to economy and society, suggesting that this would involve state ownership of key industries and the financial sector.¹⁰⁰ Crucially for Bondfield it was not sufficient merely for industries to be nationalised, but that their priority should be service to the public rather than the pursuit of profit.¹⁰¹ Neither would state ownership go far enough if workers and consumers were not involved in the management of industry; while such a situation would be an improvement upon private ownership, it would not allow fully the spirit of co-operation to develop. Socialism, Bondfield argued, must involve ‘the reorganisation of society on the basis of both political and industrial democracy’.¹⁰² Another noteworthy figure is Ellen Wilkinson (1891–1947), distinguished by her role as co-author of the 1945 Labour Party manifesto, who declared the need to combat ‘injustice’ wherever it afflicted ‘human beings, the children of God’.¹⁰³

Lansbury remains among the best known of the British Christian Socialists. A committed Anglican, he was one of the most forceful and consistent exponents of Christian Socialism’s core concept of, as he phrased it, God’s ‘Fatherhood and the consequent Brotherhood of man’.¹⁰⁴ For Lansbury all the injustices and exploitation of capitalist society come as a result of humanity’s failure to live according to these universal principles; yet he never lost hope that people could unlearn the selfishness of capitalistic Mammon worship and live together as children of one Father.¹⁰⁵ Sadly Lansbury’s reputation has been tarnished by his unwillingness as Labour Party leader in the mid 1930s to countenance war against the Axis powers; he was ‘efficiently and brutally removed from the leadership in 1935’.¹⁰⁶ Lansbury committed himself to a peace crusade in the years leading up to the war, meeting with Adolf Hitler in 1937 in an ill-fated attempt to avert the inevitable and, as late as 1939, imploring Hitler by telegram: ‘All mankind is looking to you and Signor Mussolini for such a response as will lead all nations away from war and along the road to peace through cooperation and sharing territories, markets and resources for the service of each other.’¹⁰⁷

It is easy from our historical vantage point to hold in contempt those such as Lansbury – a sincere and unyielding pacifist in any and all circumstances – who, even faced with such evil, sought peace at all costs. We need to remember that the Great War – the first total war, unprecedented in its bloodshed and carnage – was still fresh in the minds of those who hoped they could prevent another cataclysm. Lansbury in particular has been painted as naive, too saintly minded for the dirty world of real-life politics. This view is mistaken: it overlooks Lansbury’s hard-headed leadership of the Poplar Rates Rebellion in which many concessions were won for the residents of that impoverished borough; it cannot account for Lansbury’s achievements as the First Commissioner for Works in the 1929–31 government; nor does it give Lansbury enough credit for sustaining the Labour Party after the electoral disaster of 1931, ensuring, with Clement Attlee as his deputy, that there remained a genuine opposition to MacDonald’s Conservative-dominated National Government and an alternative vision for the country which could be put to the electorate in 1945.

We have already noted William Temple as one of the proximate architects of that vision. Another was Temple’s close friend and fellow Anglican Richard H. Tawney (1880–1962). Tawney, an economic historian and Labour Party activist, set out his view on the events of 1931 in a famous essay, ‘The Choice Before the Labour Party’, published in Political Quarterly in 1932. Tawney argued, while naming no names, that the Labour Party had been overly cautious, failing to commit itself to restructuring the social order and allowing itself to be satisfied with a few efforts to make capitalism more bearable.¹⁰⁸ Is it surprising, asked Tawney, given Labour’s lack of vision, if the electorate ‘concluded that, since capitalism was the order of the day, it had better continue to be administered by capitalists, who, at any rate – so, poor innocents, they supposed – knew how to make the thing work?’¹⁰⁹ In place of this noncommittal attitude Tawney called for ‘a serious effort […] to create organs through which the nation can control, in cooperation with other nations, its own economic destinies; plan its business as it deems most conducive to the general well-being; override, for the sake of economic efficiency, the obstruction of vested interests; and distribute the product of its labours in accordance with some generally recognised principles of justice’.¹¹⁰ Tawney was well placed to make such criticisms. He had drafted the 1929 manifesto Labour and the Nation, committing the party – at least on paper – to a socialism that he framed as a moral imperative.¹¹¹ If MacDonald’s actions in forming the National Government are a betrayal of socialism, then they are a betrayal of Tawney’s socialism.

Tawney’s socialism was clearly and unapologetically Christian. For Tawney, the ‘essence of all morality’ is ‘to believe that every human being is of infinite importance, and that no consideration of expediency can justify the oppression of one by another’. But, he added, ‘to believe this it is necessary to believe in God’.¹¹² This remark, though, was made in Tawney’s private diary and only published posthumously. Some have suggested, on the basis of Tawney’s public writing, that he is rather more secular-minded than is often interpreted; some of Tawney’s key works – for example, most of The Acquisitive Society, published 1920 – keep rather quiet about any religious basis for socialism.¹¹³ This argument, though, is hard to square with the final chapter of The Acquisitive Society, which sets out unmistakably the Christian ethic driving Tawney’s argument. Tawney describes the anti-materialistic teaching of scripture, as exemplified in the Magnificat and in the life and teaching of Christ, as a ‘revolutionary’ creed with which the church can and should seek to remodel society. If taken seriously, the Christian message ‘destroys alike the arbitrary power of the few and the slavery of many’.¹¹⁴ Political historians Matt Beech and Kevin Hickson conclude that, ‘for Tawney democratic socialism is only possible because it flows from his Christian faith’.¹¹⁵

Tawney’s socialism is based on an ideal of service. At its most basic this is a call for a spirit of co-operation rather than competition, based on the concept of brotherhood. ‘A well-conducted family,’ argued Tawney, ‘does not, when in low water, encourage some of its members to grab all they can, while leaving others to go short. On the contrary, it endeavours to ensure that its diminished resources shall be used to the best advantage in the interests of all.’¹¹⁶ Here, Alan Wilkinson suggests, Tawney is drawing upon the Pauline image of the body (1 Corinthians 12:12–26; Romans 12:4–5) to say that all members of society are members of one body – each has its own function, but all must co-operate. More deeply, Tawney’s ideal of service is a call for the economy to be based on function rather than functionless property rights. He excoriates those who defend the rights of landowners who provide no service or function to merely receive payments for the use of their land – for example, the owners of coal mines who profited from the activity on their land through the payment of royalties, but play no part in the mining or distribution of coal, nor even the planning and management of the work. ‘Such rights,’ he says, ‘are, strictly speaking, privileges. For the definition of a privilege is a right to which no corresponding function is attached.’¹¹⁷ In place of an acquisitive society, which allowed such profiteering shorn of any contribution to the common good, Tawney advocated a ‘Functional Society’, which would aim at ‘making the acquisition of wealth contingent upon the discharge of social obligations’ and in which ‘the main subject of social emphasis would be the performance of functions’.¹¹⁸

Tawney was not opposed to state ownership if it allowed industry to be conducted in a spirit of service and with an eye to function rather than an eye to profit, particularly as state ownership need not necessarily involve direct state management.¹¹⁹ The key thing for Tawney was to cultivate a sense of professionalism, in which all workers – whether manual labourers or managers – would make service rather than profit their aim. Such a sense could be cultivated by professional associations or guilds: Tawney cites the creation of guilds in the building trade which were organised, he said, ‘for the discharge of professional duties’.¹²⁰ A society in which workers co-operatively maintained ‘the standards of their profession’ was, for him, ‘the alternative to the discipline which Capitalism exercised in the past’.¹²¹ Tawney’s hope to replace amoral profiteering with a professional commitment to service for the common good has similarities with the ‘civil economy’ advocated by Adrian Pabst (see Chapter 2). Tawney also shares with radical orthodoxy and Blue Labour that his critique of capitalism is effectively a critique of liberalism, for having replaced an ideal of community-minded service with self-centred individualism; as such, it shares some points in common with a conservative critique of liberal capitalism. In modern society, Tawney argues, ‘men recognize no law superior to their desires’, having instead adopted an individualism which ‘appeals to the self-assertive instincts, to which it promises opportunities of unlimited expansion’.¹²² Tawney’s view – set out famously in Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, published in 1922 and dedicated to Charles Gore – was that capitalism was a product of modernity, of an individualism linked to the Protestant Reformation.¹²³ The solution then was not to look ahead and discard the past as progressivism is apt to do, but rather to recover and restore the ideals of a former age characterised by service and community-mindedness.

Tawney, despite this overlap with conservatism, was most certainly a socialist. In another of his key works, Equality, published in 1931, he urged a socialist vision committed to tackling the inequalities caused by capitalism. Tawney did not suggest that all individuals are naturally equal to one another, as though ‘all men are equally intelligent or equally virtuous, any more than they are equally tall or equally fat’, but that ‘it is the mark of a civilized society to aim at eliminating such inequalities as have their source, not in individual differences, but in its own organization’.¹²⁴ Equality of opportunity, argued Tawney, was an illusion in a society that systematically excluded whole classes of people from educational opportunities, the highest-paying jobs, and all positions of power and influence; it was necessary to seek equality of outcome, or at least to minimise inequality of outcome. Without this ‘the phrase equality of opportunity is obviously a jest, to be described as amusing or heartless according to taste’.¹²⁵ It was not in Tawney’s view necessary to observe a strict equalisation of incomes, even if such a thing were possible; rather, the aim was ‘the pooling of [the nation’s] surplus resources by means of taxation, and the use of the funds thus obtained to make accessible to all, irrespective of their income, occupation, or social position the conditions of civilization, which, in the absence of such measures, can only be enjoyed by the rich’.¹²⁶ It is this vision that Tawney commended to the Labour Party, and which the party set about putting into practice at the end of the Second World War.