Re: LABOUR PARTY AND PURITANISM - 1923 BY E. Belfort Bax

E. Belfort Bax
Puritanism and Labour
(24 May 1923)

E. Belfort Bax, Puritanism and Labour, Justice, 24 May 1923, p.4.
Transcribed by Ted Crawford.
Marked up by Einde O'Callaghan for the Marxists' Internet Archive.

The zeal of the Puritan spirit in curtailing individual liberty by
legislating against what it is pleased to consider forms of enjoyment
having a tendency to become vicious is much in evidence in the present
day, especially in Anglo-Saxon countries. The spirit which prompts this
is from its historical prototype known as Puritanism. The old
Calvinistic Puritans regarded all worldly pleasures especially
pleasures of sense, as sinful. With the class of mind in question the
objection to the practices which fall under its ban lies without doubt
mainly in the pleasure involved in them, although it may be
"camouflaged" by alleged reasons otherwise. Macaulay said that the
Puritans of the seventeenth century forbade the entertainment of bear
baiting, not because it hurt the bears, but because pleased the people.
The old theological Puritanism of the seventeenth century, at least in
its old form, is now dead, but its spirit survives amongst us. Its most
striking and important field of operations to day is of course, the
drink question; but we meet with it in legislation on other matters. We
find it in laws against gambling, in attempts to prevent the young
person from enjoying his cigarette, in meddling and exaggerated
legislation on sexual matters, etc. In all these things one may see the
cloven hoof of Puritanism.

The Labour Party and Prohibition

Now it is not to be denied that the tendency of the Labour Party has
been hitherto to back the pretensions of Puritanism. It was not from
the ranks of the Labour Party we regret to say that the wise man came
who said that if he had to choose between the two he "would rather
see England free than sober." The fact that a section of the Labour
Party is actually prepared in the teeth of the experience of the United
States to support a tyrannical measure like Prohibition is significant.
But, as Polonius says, this defect "defective comes by cause." The
cause is that the working class is still infected by the traditions of
the small middle class out of which it originally sprang, and with
which it was so long and so closely associated, politically and
socially.

Now the modern small middle class as a class originated on the break up
of the mediaeval system and the rise of modern capitalism in the
sixteenth century. Economically it meant individualism as against the
corporate life of the guild system and in general a larger amount of
time devoted, to labour. On its religious side it tended to favour the
notion of personal salvation by individual effort rather than by
entering into the corporate life of a church or religious organisation.
It was averse to the old Church holidays when labour was suspended in
favour of popular amusement. The ascetic idea a the root of the
Christian religion, the practical application of which was reserved
under Catholicism for a distinct class of persons who specially devoted
themselves to the "religious life," was extended by the new a
religious notions to everybody. The idea that all pleasure, certainly
sensuous pleasure bordered on sin, became prevalent. This coincided
with and was strengthened by the feeling of class distinction.
Economically the aristocratic and wealthy classes were in a position to
spend their life in pleasures from which the new middle class, by its
economic conditions, was debarred. Hence the conception of a society in
which enjoyment should be within the reach of all alike not having
arisen - class "jealousy" and the fox and grapes principle led to
a stigma being placed on all pleasures as such.

Excess

The fact that excess in sensuous pleasure may lead to undesirable
results became later on used as an argument to buttress up the original
position. The governing classes have always encouraged this attitude
amongst the working population for obvious reasons. But the well-to-do
classes have by no means been equally zealous in applying it to
themselves. We had an instance of this quite recently on the occasion
of the "Performing Animals Bill" (based on the idea of repressing
cruelty to animals), against which our friend Ben Tillett protested in
stigmatising the zeal for protecting circus animals, which ministered
to popular amusement, and which least of all need protection while no
legislation was even proposed against fox hunting, the most cruel of
all forms of modern sport.

Puritan Hostility to Pleasure

The tendency above spoken of on the part of many members of the Labour
Party to favour Puritanical principles and their enforcement by
legislation, I take to be, as already said, largely due to the survival
in the modern proletariat of the ideals and traditions of the small
middle class out of which the modern proletariat originally sprung. The
contrast between the pleasures possible to the capitalist class, but
debarred to the working class owing to the economic disparity between
the two, continues, of course, to exercise its influence in determining
the trend of working class sentiment in these matters. For in itself,
and apart from excess, there is hardly one of the things which
Puritanism condemns, or at which it looks askance, against which there
is any solid objection. In spite of the tirades of teetotal fanatics
there is no reason for supposing that there is any harm in moderate
drinking or anything especially wicked in gambling when pursued as an
amusement within reasonable bounds. (It is interesting, by the way, to
notice that most of those who are strongest in denouncing gambling in
the form of horse running or games of chance are quite content to
tolerate the commerce and business speculation of modern capitalism of
which gambling forms an essential element.

The objection to games on Sundays in the parks and other forms of
Sunday amusement on the specious plea of its causing extra labour on
that day is only another manifestation of the Puritan hostility to
pleasure in general. The tender solicitude affected about Sunday
amusement causing extra labour is simply the hypocritical
"camouflage" of Puritanism, since it would be easy to ensure the
same amount of rest for every member of the community in other ways
than by the senseless attempt to enforce mechanically a complete
cessation of all kind of labour on one and the same day of the week.

The Limits of Moderation

The rational Socialistic view of the "pleasure" side of the problem
of life is, I take it, that all pleasure, whether of sense or
otherwise, within the limits of reasonable moderation, is in itself
good, that these limits of reasonable moderation are not fixed, but
vary with the individual and with circumstances, and hence that all
attempts to draw a hard and fast line by means of legislation or penal
sanctions, whatever may be the specious excuse for them on grounds of
expediency, imply as their aim essentially nothing better than an
oppressive tyranny. For Socialists, therefore, who, whatever a certain
old fashioned type of individualist may say, hold personal liberty as
involved in their principles and programme, it is surely a duty to seek
to free the less developed section of the Labour Party from the
shackles, usually associated with an element of hypocrisy conscious or
unconscious, of an attitude of mind deriving from the irrational
prejudices and the belated moral code of the bourgeoisie of an earlier
period.

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