Notes Chapter 1: Introduction 1. The two main accounts, apart from some useful anthologies, have been G. D. H. Cole, A History of Socialist Thought, 5 vols (Macmillan, 1953-60) and, before him, Max Beer, History of British Socialism (G. Bell & Sons, 1929). A recent interesting work has been Nicolas Ellison, Egalitarian Thought and Labour Politics: Retreating Visions (Routledge, 1994). 2. The difficulties of conceiving this has led to misunderstandings of the nature of this work - see, for example, Ellison, ibid., p. x. 3. J. M. Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (Macmillan, 1974 edn) p. 383. 4. H. M. Drucker, Doctrine and Ethos in the Labour Party (George Allen & Unwin, 1979). 5. Leo Panitch, Social Democracy and Industrial Militancy: The Labour Party, the Trade Unions and Incomes Policy, 1945-74 (Cambridge Uni­ versity Press, 1976). 6. The Labour Party Foundation Conference and Annual Conference Reports, 1900-1905 (London, 1967) p. 12. 7. Noel Thompson has written about Hodgskin in The Market and its Critics: Socialist Political Economy in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Rout­ ledge, 1988), but he virtually ignores Hodgskin's writings on trade unionism at the expense of the pro-market enthusiasm of the years when Hodgskin was editor of The Economist. In contrast, Edward Thompson has pointed to the contemporary importance of Hodgskin's labourism in The Making of the English Working Class (penguin Books, 1968 edn) pp. 569, 887. 8. Thomas Hodgskin, Labour Defended Against the Claims of Capital (Labour Publishing Co., 1922 edn) p. 89. 9. Karl Marx, Theories of Surplus Value, Part III (Lawrence & Wishart, 1972 edn) p. 296. 10. Hodgskin, Labour Defended, pp. 89-90. 11. Ibid., p. 106. 12. Ibid., p. 26. 13. See, for example, R. Samuel and G. Stedman Jones, 'The Labour Party and Social Democracy', in R. Samuel and G. Stedman Jones (eds), Culture, Ideology and Politics: Essays for Eric Hobsbawm (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983). The labourism thesis has been put forward by a number of New Left writers, notably Perry Anderson and Tom Nairn in 'The Nature of the Labour Party', New Left Review, no. 27, September-October 1964,. and no. 28, November-December, 1964. However, it was never stated with precision as a set of political ideas, its radical aspects were ignored by a concentration on its con­ servative aspects, and its relationship with socialism was never adequately defined. 349 350 The Labour Party's Political Thought Introduction to Part Two: The Fonnation of British Socialism 1. E. Durbin (ed.), Socialism: The British Way (Essential Books, 1948) p. 1. Chapter 2: Marxists, Fabians and Ethical Socialists: The Traditions of British Socialism 1. Stanley Pierson presents an interesting account of the British nature of Marxism in Marxism and the Origins of British Socialism (Cornell Uni­ versity Press, 1973), though he overestimates Hyndman's radicalism and does not relate the ideology to labourism. 2. Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1 (Lawrence & Wishart, 1974) p. 558. 3. Marx defined the rate of profit as the ratio of surplus value to the total capital in society, differentiating it from the rate of surplus value of labour power. Hodgskin confused the rate of profit with the rate of surplus value and did not recognise the importance of the falling rate of profit. To Marx, this fall was 'in every respect the most important law of modem political economy, and the most essential for understanding the most difficult of relations' (Grundrisse, trans. M. Nicolaus, Penguin, 1973, p. 748). 4. Marx, Theories of Surplus Value, Part III (Lawrence & Wishart, 1972) especially p. 296. 5. See, for example, Marx's letters on Ireland in Marx, The First Inter- national and After, ed. D. Fernbach (penguin, 1974). 6. Quoted in Marx, ibid., p. 270. 7. Marx and Engels, On Britain (Lawrence & Wishart, 1968) p. 574. 8. See, for example, H. M. Hyndman, The Historical Base of Socialism in England (Kegan Paul, 1883) p. 287. 9. Engels to Sorge, 4 May 1887, in Marx and Engels, Selected Correspond­ ence (progress, 1975). 10. Tom Mann, What is the ILP Driving At? (Labour Press Society, 1894) p. 11. 11. G.B. Shaw, Bernard Shaw and Karl Marx: A Symposium (Random House, 1930) pp. 170-1. This contains the early debates on Marx's theory of values in the Fabian Society. 12. Quoted in N. and J. McKenzie, The First Fabians (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1977) p. 153. 13. Ibid., p. 8. 14. Shaw, The Impossibilities of Anarchism (Fabian Tract 45, London, 1893) p.27. 15. Labour Party, Annual Conference Report (1923) p. 178. 16. Fabian News, November 1896, p. 35. 17. Fabian News, January 1897, p. 43. 18. New Statesman, 2 August 1913, p. 525. 19. Beatrice Webb, Our Partnership (Longmans, Green, 1948) p. 195. See also Shaw, 'Illusions of Socialism,' in Edward Carpenter (ed.), Forecasts of the Coming Century (Clarion Press, 1896). 20. Ibid., p. 539. 21. Stephen Yeo, in 'Notes on Three Socialisms - Collectivism, Statism and Associationism', in C. Levy (ed.), Socialism and the Intelligentsia, 1880- Notes 351 1914 (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987) brings out the ambiguous nature, conservative and radical, of the vague term 'community'. 22. Quoted in C. Tsuzliki, Edward Carpenter, 1844-1929 (Cambridge Uni­ versity Press, 1980) p. 117. 23. J. B. Glasier and K. St John Conway, The Religion of Socialism (Labour Press Society, 1890) p. 16. 24. Robert Blatchford, Merrie England (Clarion Office, n.d.) p. 119. 25. Ibid., pp. 47-8. 26. R. Blatchford, Britain for the British (Clarion, 1902), p. 151. Chapter 3: The Emergence of British Socialism 1. Duncan Tanner gives an account of the ideas in Labour politics in this period in Political Change and the Labour Party (Cambridge University Press, 1990), but, as with so many otherwise excellent historians, it is couched in terms of political strategies. See Stanley Pierson, British Socialists: The Journey from Fantasy to Reality (Harvard University Press, 1979) for a different approach to ideas as Weltanshauungen. 2. Labour Leader, 19 September 1904. 3. Labour Leader, April 1893. 4. Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism (George Allen, 1907) p. 35. 5. Ibid., p. 44. 6. Ibid., p. 24. 7. Ibid., p. 79. 8. Ibid., pp. 77-8. 9. Labour Leader, January 1894. 10. Keir Hardie, Labour Politics (Independent Labour Party, 1903) p. 8. 11. Keir Hardie, My Confession of Faith in the Labour Alliance (Independent Labour Party, 1909) p. 5. 12. Ibid., p. 6. 13. Ibid., p. 12. 14. Quoted in Frank Johnson, Keir Hardie's Socialism (Independent Labour Party, 1922) p. 9. 15. Quoted in ibid., p. 11. 16. Keir Hardie, My Confession, p. 3. 17. Isabella Ford, Women and Socialism (Independent Labour Party, 1904) p.8. 18. Keir Hardie, From Serfdom to Socialism, p. 63. 19. Ibid., pp. 68-9. 20. Labour Leader, 26 January 1901. 21. Labour Leader, 27 January 1900. 22. Keir Hardie, India: Impressions and Suggestions (Independent Labour Party, 1909) pp. 78-9. 23. Winston Churchill, Great Contemporaries (Thornton Butterworth, 1937) p.293. 24. Philip Snowden, The Christ That Is To Be (Independent Labour Party, 1903) p. 10. 25. Philip Snowden, The Economic Case for Socialism (Independent Labour Party, 1921) p. 11. 352 The Labour Party's Political Thought 26. Philip Snowden, Labour and the New World (Cassell, 1921) p. 10. 27. Ibid., p. 112. 28. Hansard (1924) vol. 172, col. 1610. 29. Philip Snowden, The Way to Industrial Peace (The Brotherhood Move­ ment, 1927) p. 13. 30. Hansard (1930-1) vol. 248, col. 448. 31. MacDonald to Crisp, 16 July 1894, quoted in David Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald (Jonathan Cape, 1977) p. 36. 32. James Ramsay MacDonald, Socialism and Society (Independent Labour Party, 1905) p. 29. 33. Ibid., p. 31. 34. Ibid., p. 2. 35. Ibid., p. 61. 36. Ibid., p. 70. 37. Ibid., p. xx. 38. James Ramsay MacDonald, Parliament and Democracy (National Labour Press, 1920) pp. 35, 71. 39. MacDonald, Socialism and Society, p. 127. 40. James Ramsay MacDonald, Socialism (T. C. & E. C. Jack, 1907) p. 12. 41. Ibid., p. 55. 42. James Ramsay MacDonald, Socialism, Critical and Constructive (Cassell, 1921) p. 175. 43. James Ramsay MacDonald, The Social Unrest: its Cause and Solution (T. N. Foulis, 1913) p. 104. 44. Quoted in Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald, pp. 83-4. 45. MacDonald, Socialism and Society, pp. 159, 164. 46. Hansard (1929-30) vol. 229, col. 65. 47. Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald, p. 641. 48. Quoted in Carl F. Brand, British Labour's Rise to Power (Stanford University Press, 1941) p. 69. 49. ILP, Annual Conference Report (1915) pp. 109-10. 50. Labour Party, Annual Conference Report (1917) p. 82. 51. H. N. Brailsford, The War of Steel and Gold (G. Bell & Sons, 1915 edn) p.62. 52. Ibid., p. 63. 53. Ibid., p. 80. 54. Ibid., p. 231. 55. Ibid., p. 80. 56. Ralph Miliband, Parliamentary Socialism (Merlin, 1972 edn) p. 62. Chapter 4: R. H. Tawney and the Philosophy of British Socialism 1. For the varied nature of interpretations of Tawney, see Ross Terrill, R. H. Tawney and His Times (Andre Deutsch, 1974), who sees him as a Fabian and Ethical Socialist; and J. M. Winter, Socialism and the Chal­ lenge of War (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974), who points to the influence of Christianity and Guild Socialism on Tawney. 2. For his revisionism, see his article 'British Socialism Today', in Rita Hinden (ed.), The Radical Tradition (George Allen & Unwin, 1964). Notes 353 3. For Laski and Cripps, see Chapter 8 below. 4. R. H. Tawney, The British Labour Movement (Yale, 1925) pp. 144--5. 5. Published as The Attack and Other Papers (George Allen & Unwin, 1953). 6. R. H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (pelican Books, 1938 edn) p.