E. Belfort Bax September 1911

Socialism and Communism.


Source: New Age, 21 September 1911, p. 500
Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.


Sir,- I have no wish, certainly at the present time, to encroach further on your space in the above discussion. I limit myself to calling your readers’ attention to the somewhat astounding assertion of Mr. Haldane Smith that the “calculation of each worker’s share in social production will be an insignificant cost of labour.” The notion of calculating the precise aliquot part of each worker’s share in the production of a thousand pounds of cotton yarn, say, from the first stages of its cultivation in America to the time of its being turned out of the factory in Manchester and that at an “insignificant cost of labour,” too, strikes one as a piece of subtle humour on Mr. Smith’s part. It would seem hardly possible that he means us to take him seriously. I need scarcely say, of course, that I entirely repudiate Mr. Smith’s differentiation between Socialism and Communism. Socialism must always be Communism, Communism of the means of production even before it has developed into Communism of the product.

E. BELFORT BAX.