The poet and designer William Morris has been described as a sentimental socialist with a nostalgia for the medieval period. He has also been described as a Marxist, as an anarchist, and as the inspiration for many members of the British Labour party. Motivated by the issue of whether or not Morris can be described as an anarchist, this essay outlines the historical context and the nature of Morris’s unique version of revolutionary socialism.
The political philosophy of William Morris has always been viewed as something of an enigma, which is one reason why he has been acclaimed as the founding inspiration for three very different political traditions — the British labour Party (social democracy), the Socialist Workers’ Party (Marxism) and various anarchist groups that still cherish his memory. In his well-known history of anarchism peter Marshall devotes four pages to Morris and suggests that he belongs more to the extended “anarchist” family rather than to authoritarian socialism, the usual depiction of Morris being that he was in some important respects a Marxist (1992 : 171–75).[1]
Marshall places William Morris alongside John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Oscar Wilde and Edward Carpenter, as a British libertarian, although neither Mill nor Spencer could be described as “anarchists,” and Morris was a libertarian socialist rather than simply a libertarian, as Marshall acknowledges.
In contrast Lucien van de Walt and Michael Schmidt’s (2009) history of anarchism and revolutionary class politics makes no mention of William Morris, or of the anarchists with whom Morris was closely associated, Frank Kitz and Joseph Lane. Yet all three men could be described as revolutionary libertarian or anti-parliamentarian socialists, and thus close to anarchism. Even so, neither Morris nor Lane would care to describe themselves as anarchists. So this essay is a journey along a well-trodden trail, and attempts to assess whether or not William Morris can be described as an anarchist.
After some initial remarks on William Morris’s romantic background, the essay consists essentially of two parts. In the first part I discuss Morris’s important role during the decade of the 1880’s when socialism emerged as a distinctive political tradition in Britain. In the second part I explore some of the key themes that constitute Morris’s libertarian socialism, aiming to re-affirm the importance of revolutionary communism (of which Morris was an exemplar) in an era when the only alternatives to the hegemonic neo-libertarianism that are offered by academic scholars are either some variant of liberal democracy (Rorty1999, Sen 2009), or a revamped form of Marxism (Derrida1994, Bensaid2002, Callinicos2003), or an atavistic appeal to ideas and theories that were in fact antecedent to the emergence of historical anarchism. These include an appeal to Nietzsche (poetic terrorism), anarcho-primitivism, Stirner (ultra-individualism), or Proudhon (mutualism). The latter, together, comprise what is nowadays described as the “new anarchism.”[2]
Some of the themes that I discuss in the second half of the essay are Morris’s writings on the rise of capitalism, socialism and the state, and Morris’s conception of a future communist society.
William Morris (1834–1896) was an extraordinarily talented and energetic individual, a truly creative artist. Unlike his friend Peter Kropotkin, he has, however, been the subject of numerous biographies and studies, many of them of high quality. These studies have all attempted to explore and integrate the many different aspects of his life and work.[3] For, as many have noted, William Morris had many different talents. Indeed he has been described as having several distinct lives or personalities.
He was, for instance, an extremely talented artist and designer, having trained as an architect as well as being a close friend of two renowned pre-Raphaelite artists, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones. Throughout his life Morris thus produced and designed furniture, stained glass windows, wallpaper, tapestries, carpets and books, and even today these designs are still popular. Morris also had a sound business sense, and along with some friends he established a small company known as “the firm” which produced printed fabrics, furniture and stained glass for a middle-class clientele. But Morris was also a talented poet and writer, and with such works as “The Earthly Paradise” and “Sigurd the Volsung” he was considered to be one of the leading romantic poets of his own generation. Influenced by John Ruskin, Morris had a particular fascination for the medieval period and for the Nordic and Icelandic Sagas. Thus from his earliest years Morris was an inveterate romantic, his poems and prose romances celebrating a past golden age. Yet it has to be recognized that such a romantic sensibility implied for Morris a deep seated antipathy towards industrial capitalism — with regard to both its “brutal squalor” and its social inequalities.
Morris declared himself a socialist in January 1883 when he joined the Democratic federation. He was already a well-known and well-respected public figure. He was then almost fifty years of age. But this “transition”, as he described it, from a romantic poet and designer with liberal sentiments, to a revolutionary socialist certainly caused consternation among his many friends, as well as among the general public. The poet Alfred Tennyson thought that Morris had ”gone crazy” (Henderson 1973 : 305), while his relationship with Edward Burne-Jones became severely strained. This was particularly upsetting as he and “Ned had been close friends ever since their undergraduate days at Oxford University. But it marked the beginning of a decade when Morris became actively engaged in socialist politics.
Morris’ involvement in politics began when he joined the liberal campaign against the Tory government’s plan to take Britain into war against Russia. It was, however, his decision to join the Democratic Federation in 1883 that essentially marked the beginning of Morris’ political career as a revolutionary socialist.
The Democratic federation was formed in June 1881 by Henry Myers Hyndman, who has been described as the “father of English socialism.” He was, however, something of a political maverick, a wealthy “Tory Democrat” who always wore a frock coat and a top hat. Around 1880 Hyndman had read Marx’s “Capital” and produced a booklet “England for All” that was mainly based on Marx’s ideas. The Federation consisted largely of members of radical clubs, although it also included a number of gifted working class men, such as Harry Quelch, Tom Mann and John Burns.[4] But the Federation also included such people as the Marxist economist Ernest Belfort Bax and Andreas Scheu, and Austrian socialist and furniture maker — both of whom became close friends of Morris. Bax is said to have taught Morris the elements of Marx’s economic theory, and co-authored with Morris the book “Socialism: Its Growth and Outcome” )1893). The book was based on a series of articles “Socialism from the Root Up” that had earlier been published in “Commonweal” (1886–1888). Marx’s daughter Eleanor also became a member of the democratic Federation, along with her partner Edward Aveling, a talented free-thinker and intellectual, who was also, by all accounts, a thoroughly disreputable character. It has been suggested that the Democratic Federation consisted only of about two hundred members (Thompson 1976 : 287–300, MacCarthy 1964 : 464–6).
Given its increasing socialist orientation in August 1884 the Federation adopted the name Socialist Democratic Federation, having earlier launched a propaganda paper “Justice,” the first weekly socialist periodical. Morris was a member of the executive committee of the SDF, along with Joseph lane, Edward Aveling and Eleanor Marx, and the name of the organization was declared to be:
“The socialization of the means pf production, distribution and exchanged to be controlled by a Democratic State in the interests of the entire community, and the complete emancipation of labour from the domination of capitalism, with the establishment of social and economic equality between the sexes.”
(Thompson1976 : 344).
But at the same time that the Social Democratic federation was being formed, a deep schism was already emerging within the embryonic socialist movement. Scheu and Morris, in particular, had come to thoroughly dislike Hyndman, with regard to both his personality and his politics; for Hyndman was seen as dictatorial, dogmatic, jingoistic and given to political intrigue. But as Morris wrote to his daughter Jenny in January 1884, the “real subject” of the dispute was on the question of the “parliamentary programme” whether or not to utilize the state in order to further the cause of socialism (Thompson1976 : 338). Morris had by then come to adopt an anti-parliamentarian stance.
The split in the Social Democratic Federation became final in December 1884 when a majority of the council resigned from the organization. The “cabal”. besides Morris, included Eleanor Marx, Aveling, Ernest Belfort Bax, and the “anarchists” Joseph lane and Samuel Manwaring. At that time Frederick Engels, whom Hyndman famously and disparagingly described as “the Teutonic Grand Lama of Regents Park Road” — acted as a kind of political advisor to both Aveling and Eleanor Marx. He too thoroughly disliked Hyndman, whom he described as a “petty and hard-faced John Bull” — vain and jingoistic (MacCarthy 1994 : 494). Towards Morris Engels was more positive, and although he acknowledged Morris’ talents and integrity, he had little sympathy with his medieval romanticism, and thought Morris “impractical”. Engels thus tended to dismiss Morris as a “very rich but politically inept art lover”, or as a “sentimental dreamer pure and simple” (Hunt 2009 : 327).
After resigning from the SDF Morris and his associates formed the Socialist League — on December 30th, 1884. On the provisional council of the league were not only Eleanor Marx, Aveling and Scheu, but also the libertarian socialists that Morris identified as anarchists — Joseph Lane, Charles Mowbray, Frank Kitz and Sam Manwaring. Both lane and Kitz have been described as “class conscious workers in revolt against intolerable conditions”, and although they expressed a strident individualism and were against party discipline, to suggest, as Edward Thompson does, that they inherited their libertarian politics from the “ultra-Jacobin tradition” is quite fallacious (Thompson 1976 : 376–77). They were both, like Morris, libertarian socialists. Morris had a high regard for both men in spite of their later differences — and this affection and respect was reciprocated. Lane and Kitz had both been involved in forming the Labour Emancipation League in 1882, which was based in the East End of London. A group of anti-state socialists, its membership became affiliated to the League on the latter’s foundation. Lane became joint publisher with Morris of the Socialist league’s monthly paper the “Commonweal.”[5]
At the annual conference of the Socialist League in July, 1885 its membership adopted its “manifesto” drafted by William Morris. This “splendid document”, as Thompson describes it, began with the words:
“Fellow citizens — we come before you as a body advocating the principles of Revolutionary International Socialism; that is, we seek a change in the basis of society — a change which would destroy the distinctions of classes and “nationalities”
It was stridently anti-capitalist, seeking to put an end to a system of production that was based on profit and competition. It repudiated land nationalization and state socialism, and sought through education of the people, the realization of complete revolutionary socialism. It ended with the words that the religion of socialism was “the only religion which the Socialist League professes” (Thompson 1976 : 732–37). On the Manifesto John Quail writes:
“The document, if not anarchist, is clearly libertarian in its commitment to revolution, its view of the role of socialist groups, and its depreciation of state and party hierarchy” (1978 : 38).
Yet within two years a further schism emerged within the Socialist League itself. It occurred at a time when there was political turmoil throughout Britain, with mass demonstrations of the unemployed, which often developed into riots, and widespread strikes — especially of miners. At the third annual conferenceof the Socialist League in May 1887 a clear division became evident over the issue of parliamentary action. In fact, it was a deep division between those who advocated parliamentary action, such as Edward Aveling, Eleanor Marx, Ernest Belfort Bax and John Mahon and those who, like Morris, were anti-parliamentarians. The first group, encouraged by Engels, were committed to a form of state socialism — the advocacy of parliamentary action — that was based on the German Social Democratic (Marxist) model. In contrast, the political outlook of the anti-parliamentarians was clearly expressed by Joseph Lane in his “An Anti-Statist Communist Manifesto”, which Lane presented to the annual conference as “ minority report”. It is a remarkable document considering the fact that Lane was not an accomplished writer or public speaker, but mainly a local organizer and a working class agitator.
Lane’s manifesto suggests that:
“the object of socialism is to constitute a society founded on labour and science, on liberty, equality and solidarity of all human beings”
It expresses opposition to all “those who desire by means of parliamentarianism to achieve a conquest of political power” as Marx and Engels had advocated in the “Communist Manifesto” (1968: 52–53).
Thus Lane writes: “If we are atheists in point of philosophy, and anti-statists in point of politics, we are communists as regard the economic development of human society” (1978 : 30–32).
Thus lane’s “Manifesto” was opposed to the democratic state and to the parliamentary system, as well as to the individualism (mutualism) — as expressed by several of his contemporaries. Lane concluded by declaring his commitment to Free Communism, or anti-state communism, or International revolutionary Socialism — and he seems to regard these as synonymous. (1978 : 37–39).
Like Morris, Lane used the term “anarchism” to describe various kinds of individualist anarchism, especially that advocated by the mutualist Henry Seymour:[6] but, in fact, the Manifesto is essentially an anarchist tract. Morris, of course, was a staunch anti-parliamentarian at this time, and threatened to resign from the Socialist League if it adopted a parliamentary strategy. For Morris, involvement with the parliamentary system implied reformism, careerism, opportunism and political corruption. (Thompson 1976 : 453, 510).
Yet the departure of the parliamentarians (Eleanor Marx, Belfort Bax, Aveling) from the Socialist league, meant that the League by the time of the Fourth Annual Conference in may 1888 had been virtually taken over by the anarchists, most of whom were working class activists. They included, besides the anti-[parliamentarians like Lane, Kitz and Mainwaring — who were also essentially anarchists — working men like Fred Charles Slaughter, David Nicoll, Charles Mowbray and James Tochatti.
Several factors were involved in this resurgence of anarchism; namely the events surrounding what came to be known as Bloody Sunday (November 13, 1887), when a large demonstration approaching Trafalgar Square were attacked by police and the cavalry with great brutality, which led to three people being killed, more than two hundred injured, and scores of people arrested;[7] and the sympathy and theoutrage invoked by the execution of the Chicago anarchists on the eve of Bloody Sunday. One final factor, Thompson suggests, that may have motivated the socialist League to move in an anarchist direction — besides the two events above — was the teachings of Peter Kropotkin (Thompson 1976 : 506).
Kropotkin had arrived in Britain in 1886, after spending several years in prison in France. Like Morris, he was a libertarian communist, and they had much in common, especially a deep interest in ecological issues. By all accounts they were close friends, and Kropotkin often gave lectures at the Hammersmith branch of the Socialist League and visited Morris’ family. Throughout 1887 Kropotkin toured the country giving lectures and engaged in socialist propaganda — and was widely acclaimed as an “apostle” of revolutionary socialism. But it is significant that Kropotkin tended to maintain his independence, and was mainly associated with the Freedom group. He thus kept aloof from the Communist League, including the working class anarchists, like Kitz and Lane, from the East End of London. Max Nettlau always regretted that there was never any real political collaboration between Morris and Kropotkin (Quail 1978 : 59).[8]
Feeling isolated within the Socialist League which by 1890 had become a largely anarchist organization, and repelled by the actions and pronouncements of many anarchists who were advocating revolutionary violence and insurrectionary tactics, Morris severed connection with the League in November1890. This marked the beginning of the end for the Socialist League. The paper “Commonweal”, now edited by Kitz and Nicoll — it became in May 1891 a revolutionary journal of anarchist communism” — did however publish in 1890 in serial form Morris’ classic utopian novel “News from Nowhere.” The book essentially outlined Morris’ conception of a future socialist society.[9]
In his last years Morris is said to have abandoned his rather intransigent stand on “anti-parliamentarianism” and, as the only alternative to armed insurrectionism, seems to have accepted the necessity of following the so-called “parliamentary road” to socialism. He this reconciled himself with the politics of the Social Democratic Federation, and supported one of their candidates, George Lansbury, in the 1894 elections. But he insisted, according to Thompson, in making a distinction between the revolutionary and reformed use of parliament (1976 : 617–619).
Morris died peacefully on October 3, 1896, apparently because, according to his doctor, of his enthusiasm for spreading the principles of socialism.” (Thompson 1976 : 635)
Completely devoid of any socialist sensibility, Blair’s politics are in fact akin to the American neo-conservatives. (see Stelzer 2004).
Throughout the socialist decade 1883–1894 Morris spent an extraordinary amount of time and energy endeavouring to further the cause of revolutionary socialism. Indeed, he practised the socialist imperatives that he had inscribed on the membership card of the Democratic federation: educate, agitate, organize. He thus wrote numerous letters, tracts and articles relating to socialism which were published in “Justice” or in “Commonweal”. And he travelled throughout Britain addressing open-air meetings and giving lectures on a wide variety of topics relating to art and socialism, as well as being involved in popular demonstrations against the iniquities of capitalism. His collected essays are a unique contribution to socialist theory, as well as to radical ecology. Although Engel may have dismissed Morris as a “sentimental” or “emotional socialist”, Morris was, as John /Quail affirmed “a powerful and original thinker” (1978:28). Here, in this final part, I want to simply outline some of the essential themes which emerge from Morris’ political writings.
Morris, following Marx and Engels, was very much a historical materialist, and viewed European history over the past millennium as essentially a history of class struggle. Although, as he put it, he always felt a “strange emotion” when he recalled the medieval period (1973:161), Morris viewed medieval society as a rigidly ordered class system based on hierarchical principles that were sanctified by religion. It was a society in which feudal lords enacted “the robbery of the workers” — the agricultural serfs — openly through taxation and coercive power. Capitalism, or what Morris described as the “great commercial epoch” began essentially around the 17th and 18th century with the destruction of aristocratic privileges and the rise of the capitalist farmer/landowner. This essentially entailed a “portentous” change in agriculture, as it became focussed on the generation of profit not on livelihood.[10] This led to the growth of towns, as the landless peasants drifted into urban areas. These peasants eventually developed into a definite proletarian class, with the emergence of industrial production — manufacture — under the control of an embryonic bourgeoisie.
The French revolution though fought under the banners of liberty, fraternity and equality, was, according to Morris, essentially a class struggle that freed the commercial class from the fetters of “feudalism”, and put an end to aristocratic privilege.[11] But the bourgeois leaders of the French Revolution always defended the rights of “property”, and the revolution ended with the dictatorship of Napoleon. In Britain, by contrast, Morris suggests, there was a “covert alliance” between the landed aristocracy and the rising “middle class” — the industrial capitalist (1973 : 164).
The development of industrial capitalism not only led to a protracted war between France and Britain with regard to the possession of colonial markets, but to the complete destruction of the “individuality” of the working man. The industrial worker became a mere appendage of the machine, and enslaved to the profit-seeking industrial capitalist. Morris argued that at no point in English history “was the condition of the workers worse than in the early years of the nineteenth century” (1973 : 170).
Such conditions gave rise to what Morris described as two “currents of hope”; the paternalistic socialism of Robert Owen and the Chartist movement of the 1840’s. Morris emphasized that Chartism was a thoroughly working class movement and a genuinely popular revolt; but that it was limited in that it focussed purely on political demands. Such demands constantly led to “palliative” measures and reforms being accepted by the British government; the Factory Acts, the repeal of the laws against the formation of trade unions and the right to strike. But the Chartists did not understand, Morris wrote;
“that true political freedom is impossible to people who are economically enslaved” (1973 : 172).
Morris suggested, however, that the “flame of discontent” eventually lost its fervour, and until the formation of the Social Democratic Federation in the 1880’s there was little sign of any “revolutionary feeling” in England. On the continent it was different. France, under the influence of such socialists as Fourier and Proudhon, retained a tradition of revolutionary socialism, and the Paris Commune of 1871 was an attempt to establish a society “on the basis of freedom of labour” (1973 : 174). In Germany Lassalle had formed the German Workers’ Party in 1863, and it was the German economist Karl Marx, Morris suggested, who made “modern socialism what it is” — the “new school” — of historical materialism (1973 : 175).
Capitalism, for Morris, was a class society, consisting of a propertied class, the “modern slave owners” as Morris described them, who, controlling the means of production, exploit the labour of working men (as well as women and children). The only alternative to capitalism, Morris argued, was the creation of pure communism which Morris defined as the “absolute equality of condition” (1973 : 177). He is thus extremely critical of those — his contemporaries — who preached the importance of “thrift” and “industry” or advocated the “shame co-operation” between the two classes. But Morris clearly felt, like Kropotkin and other socialists, that with the rise of socialism, the capitalist system was in a state of “decay” and that it now seemed — and Morris was writing in 1885 — as if capitalism was “sickening towards its end” (1973 : 179).
Alas, capitalism as an economic system has proved to be extremely resilient, and more than a hundred years later, it continues to develop and expand, penetrating through so-called “privatization” into every aspect of social life and culture.
“History so-called has remembered kings and warriors, because they destroyed; Art has remembered people, because they created” (1947 : 42)
Although Morris by no means romanticized the medieval period, recognizing that the history of the period reflected the “evil deeds of kings and scoundrels” and the exploitation of the agricultural serfs; he always emphasized the art of the period essentially reflected the cooperation of many craftsmen, and was a form of popular art. Medieval art was thus the art of the people.
Morris had a clear distinction between wealth and riches: wealth is “what nature gives us and what a reasonable man can make out of the gifts of nature for his reasonable use” (1947 : 179). Wealth signifies the means of living a decent life; it consists both of material things such as food, raiment and shelter, and of “mental wealth” specifically art and knowledge (1947 : 126), as well as human fellowship. But it also consisted of the sunlight, the fresh air, and the unspoilt aspects of the natural world — all things, in fact, that give pleasure to humans and are conducive to human well-being (1947 : 179). Riches on the other hand, for Morris meant the exercising of dominion over other people — and was thus to be deprecated.
To obtain wealth, or what he also described as people’s livelihood, humans had to labour; for Morris, as for Marx, labour was thus a key concept. In his well-known pamphlet “Useful Work Versus Useless Toil” (1885) Morris stressed thatlabour was a necessary activity for humans and that they must “either labour or perish”, for nature “does not give us our livelihood gratis”(1947 : 175). He was critical of those who made a cult of work, who insisted that all labour was good in itself, a convenient belief, he wrote, “for those who live on the labour of others” (1947 : 175).
Acknowledging that humans, like all living things, find pleasure in the exercise of their energies, work, as an essential human activity involved, according to Morris, three distinct forms of pleasure: “ the hope of pleasure in rest; the hope of the pleasure in our using what it makes, and the hope of pleasure in our daily creative skill” (1947 : 177).
Under capitalism, however, it was not wealth that had been created, but riches, which for Morris, had the inevitable accompaniment of poverty and wage slavery. For while the landed aristocracy did little work, living mainly off their rents, the middle classes, particularly the industrial capitalists, essentially derived their riches from exploiting working people through a system of wage slavery. Forced to work for the capitalist or “manufacturer”, as they had no other source of livelihood, the “surplus labour” of the worker was extracted by the capitalist as profit — Morris, in his political essays, largely following Marx’s critique of the capitalist political economy.. The worker thus became an appendage of the machine, and work under capitalism became useless toil, lacking any artistic creativity or pleasure. The worker had little or no control over the labour process, which usually involved long hours of labour in unhealthy conditions, or of the product of his or her labour.
As the Marxist historian Al Morton indicated, Morris’ emphasis on the exploitation of the worker through the extraction of “surplus value” and the inhumanity of the labour process under capitalism, was pretty well “identical” — although thesewritings were unknown to Morris and not in fact translated and published until 1959. (1973 : 14, see Fromm 1961).
Art for Morris was motivated by the imagination and a sense of beauty, and was essentially defined as “the expression by man of his pleasure in labour” (1947 : 50.) In the past, both in tribal society and in medieval Europe, art was essentially made by people for people and was conducive to the happiness or pleasure of both the artist (or craftsman) and of the user of the product — whether this was a building or a household utensil, or the everyday surroundings in which people lived and worked. Art, Morris stressed, was an expression of the society in which people lived; its aim was to increase the happiness of human life, to give people a sense of beauty and an interest, thus giving them pleasure in both their work and leisure (1947 : 84–85).
But again, with the advance of western conquest (colonialism) and commerce, genuine art under capitalism had been largely destroyed or devalued. Morris acknowledged that there had been something of a revival of the fine arts in the nineteenth century, and an increasing interest in art education; but there had also been a devaluation of handicrafts, and of art generally; and art had become “art for arts sake” cultivated and possessed by a few rich men. While such men pretend to value art, their own commercial activities had led to the pollution and despoliation of the landscape, as well as to the destruction of beautiful and ancient buildings in the pursuit of profit (1947 : 71–73). Art, under capitalism had produced, Morris argued, simply luxury goods for the indulgent rich and cheap and shoddy goods for the poor., who live ands work under the most appalling conditions — utterly devoid of any aesthetic sensibility. Real art, Morris concluded, the expression of human pleasure in the labour of production, made by people for people, had been virtually destroyed under capitalism.
It is evident that Morris, like Kropotkin, often used the terms “socialism” and “communism” as virtual synonyms. He did, however, make a clear distinction between what he described as moderate or “state socialism” and revolutionary socialism or communism. The state socialists, exemplified by both the Marxists within the Social Democratic Federation (Edward Aveling, Eleanor Marx and Ernest Belfort Bax) and the more reformist Fabian Socialists (Bernard Shaw and Annie Bessant)[12] believed , Morris wrote, in sending socialists to parliament
“who should try to get measures passed in the interests of the working class, and gradually transform the present parliament, which is a mere instrument in the hands of the monopolizers of the means of production, into a body which should destroy monopoly, and then direct and administer the freed labour of the community” (1996 : 438).
Such state socialists:
“accept as a necessity a central all-powerful authoritative government, a reformed edition, one might say, of the state government at present existing” (1996 : 437).
Like both Marx and Kropotkin, Morris argued that parliament (or representative government) largely functioned to maintain the hegemony of the capitalist system. Its essential purpose was to maintain the stability of “robber society”, upholding its system of wage slavery (1996 : 439). Parliament, he felt, was a “contemptible thing” that falsely pretended to be “representative” of the whole society, when in reality it served only the interests of the capitalist class. What is the aim of parliament? He wrote:
“the upholding of privilege: the society of rich and poor; the society of inequality; and the consequent misery of the workers” (1994 : 481).
Morris therefore advocated, as a political strategy, a “policy of abstention” from “parliamentary action”. Like the anarchist-communists he was radically opposed to political action, that is, becoming involved in parliamentary or electoral politics. As he put it in the organ of the Socialist League, the “Commonweal” (1890):
“our policy is …abstention from all attempts at using the constitutional machinery of government” (1994 : 480).
It is clear that Morris associated parliaments with intrigue and corruption, and that involvement with parliamentary elections was simply reformist, leading only to “palliative” measures that would tend to support and bolster rather than undermine capitalism — the system of wage-slavery.
What socialists should be engaged in, Morris argued, was propaganda, and as a preliminary step should be involved in the “making of socialists! By preaching the principles of socialism (1996 : 441). What such propaganda should entail was to make all workers freely conscious of the nature of the capitalist system, namely, that it was a form of exploitation based on wage-slavery, and that there was an irreconcilable opposition between the interests of labour and that of the capitalist. Although Morris advocated holding aloof from parliamentary action and being engaged solely in socialist propaganda, he nevertheless envisaged that when workers had achieved “full consciousness” of their oppression, then their political action would involve a perpetual “struggle of labour against capitalism”. By organizing boycotts, strikes, and through trade unions becoming masters of their own destinies, administering their own affairs and their own business, the workers would come to form one “vast labour organization” that would change the basis of society. As Morris wrote:
“The workers can form an organization which without heeding parliament can force from the rulers what concessions may be necessary in the present, and whose aim would be the total abolition of the monopolist classes and rule” (1996 : 452).
The workers themselves through their own organization, independent of parliament, would put an end to capitalism — class rule. This is very reminiscent of both council communism and the anarchist-communist strategy, anarcho-syndicalism.[13]
But Morris perceived that this would inevitably lead to a reaction by the capitalist class and to a political “crisis”; then, he argued, socialists would be “obliged to usethe form of parliament in order to cripple the resistance” of the revolutionary capitalists. He saw this as the “last act” when “socialists are strong enough to capture the parliament in order to put an end to it” (1994 : 482).
Whereas Marx and Engels in the “Communist Manifesto”(1968 : 52–53) and elsewhere, advocated utilizing a highly centralized state in order to eradicate capitalism, which would then, in the process, simply “wither away”. Morris tends to put an emphasis on the workers’ struggle against capitalism, the state being utilized only as a last resort to counter the reactionary politics of the capitalist class — the “last act” of the state. Either way, the use of “state power” is thought necessary to engender a socialist revolution. Thus although Morris may be conceived as a libertarian Marxist he was not exactly an anarchist.[14]
In his pamphlet “True and False Society” (1888) Morris made a distinction between socialism and communism in relation to the future society. The former concept implied, he wrote, that a centralized state would possess all the means of production and be the “sole employer” of labour, while communism suggested a “federation of communities” in which all wealth would be held in Common. But Morris argued that these were not opposed categories, for socialism implied a “transition period” and that communism was simply a “necessary development of the former” (1947 : 315).
In a lecture five years later on “Communism” he reiterated the same view: communism would be “the completion of socialism” (1973 : 233). This, of course, simply expresses the typical Marxist conception of the role of the state in the revolutionary transformation of capitalism.
“The term revolution” as Morris admitted, had many negative connotations, implying riots and all kinds of violence. For Morris, however, it simply meant “a change in the basis of society”, namely the eradication of the capitalist mode of production, and thus an end to a society based on class divisions. He employed the term “revolution” specifically in contrast to that of “reform” which simply implied palliative reforms to the capitalist system, as advocated, for example, by the Fabian society and the Independent Labour Party.
A socialist visionary rather than a utopian socialist, Morris outlined his own vision of a future communist society in many essays/lectures as well as in his utopian novel “News From Nowhere” (1891). Especially important are his lectures “How we live and how we might live” (1884) and “The Society of the Future” (1887).
The communist society of the future, as Morris envisaged it, would entail the abolition of private property and the transformation of the means of production from individual into common property. It would be a society which does not “know the meaning of the words rich and poor, or the rights of property, or law and legality, or nationality; a society which has no consciousness of being governed” (1973 : 201).
It would be a society where land and means of production would be communally owned — although there would be no sense of exclusive “ownership” as such; where politics would involve a federation of independent communes; and where production would be organized through free associations and co-operatives — people working according to their capacity and receiving from the collectivity what they needed (1973 : 147). It would be a society based on co-operation and mutual aid — not on competition. For Morris was convinced that under capitalism competition (and war) was an inherent motivating factor — competition between rival capitalists, national rivalry with regard to overseas markets and the exploitation of colonial peoples; as well as involving the class struggle between owners of capital and the working class, (1973 : 137–44).
In contrast, production in a communist society would be communal, directed towards enhancing people’s livelihood and well-being, rather than for profit. When Morris suggested that asa socialist he had a “hatred of civilization” (1973 : 192), by the term “civilization” he clearly meant the industrial capitalism of the nineteenth century.
The aim of social life, according to Morris, was human happiness. This could only be achieved if humans had a “free and full life”; freedom both to express themselves as creative individuals and to enjoy life. I demand, he wrote: “a free and unfettered animal life”, the liberty to be amorous, merry, hungry or sleepy — and to enjoy the simple pleasures of earthly existence (1973: 192). Morris was no ascetic. The aim of existence, he felt, was to enjoy life to the full, and for a decent life he wrote, besides human fellowship, a person needed a healthy body, an active mind in sympathy with the past, present and future, a worthwhile occupation, and a “beautiful world to live in” (1973 : 156).
Although an advocate of communism and essentially a libertarian socialist, Morris always distanced himself from anarchist-communism. He seems to have equated anarchism both with extreme libertarianism and insurrectionist politics — the “terrorist tactics” of those advocating propaganda by the deed” — and with the suggestion that in a future anarchist society there would be absolute freedom, and the “absolute negation of society! (1973 : 210).
This was not, of course, what anarchist-communists like Kropotkin actually envisaged, and Kroptkin’s and Morris’ vision of a future communist society were virtually identical; they differed only in their revolutionary strategy.
There have been numerous interpretations of Morris’ political philosophy. His first official biographer J.W.Mackail (1912), completely downplayed Morris’ political involvements, emphasizing his stature as a poet and designer. The Scottish socialist John Bruce Glazier, who knew Morris well and much admired Morris as a man of “genius”, was not only unsympathetic towards anarchism (considering anarchism and socialism to be incompatible ideas) (1921 : 125), but tended to play down the Marxist influence on Morris. Glasier firmly argued that |Morris was not a utopian socialist and not a Marxist-scientific-socialist (1921 :143). E.P.Thompson has questioned whether Glasier’s recollections of Morris are altogether trustworthy (1976 : 749) and emphasized that Morris had a profound admiration for the work of Marx and Engels, even though Morris admitted that though he enjoyed the historical parts of “Capital” he had difficulty in understanding Marx’s economic theory (1973 :241).It is important to recognize, of course, that Glasier was a keen member of the Independent Labour Party, and thus tended to be hostile towards both anarchism and Marxism. He therefore interpreted Morris as a precursor of the labour Party.[15]
E.P.Thompson (1976) in his well-known study, essentially interprets Morris’ life history as involving a transition from a liberal romantic to that of a revolutionary communist or Marxist, even if a rather unorthodox Marxist. Many scholars over the past decades have tended to affirm that |Morris was indeed one of Marx’s “legitimate heirs”, as Ruth Kinna puts it (2000 :13) and so largely repudiated his earlier romanticism. (See Arnot 1934, Meier 1978, Mahamdallie 2008).
What is clear, however, is that Morris’ writings during the socialist decade, certainly reflect some of the key themes of Marxist theory, namely, a historical materialist perspective that postulated a series of modes of production (tribal, ancient, feudal, capitalist);the importance of the labour theory of value; an emphasis on class struggle and class analysis; and finally, a firm acknowledgement that it would be the workers themselves who would bring about a revolutionary transformation.
Other scholars, however, have tended to emphasize Morris’ romantic heritage, and to place him outside the Marxist tradition. He has been seen as essentially a “sentimental socialist pining for the middle ages” as Morton (1977 :11) put it, and Engels certainly felt; or as someone who tried to combine the ideas of John Ruskin (romanticism) and Karl Marx (socialism) — with little success. Stanley Pierson (1973) suggested that Morris’ socialism was little more than a veneer, and, like Engels and Glasier, he argued that Morris was at best a Utopian Socialist — and that his socialism was “regressive” and “escapist” (Thompson 1976 : 779).
More recently, Fiona MacCarthy has suggested that Morris uniquely combined “the tradition of socialism as a critique of political economy with the tradition of Romantic anti-industrialism” (1994 :xix). And she rightly suggests that Morris would have repudiated the kind of politics adopted by Lenin and the Bolshevik Party in Russia.
The literary Marxist Raymond Williams long ago suggested that there was more life in Morris’ political lectures than in any of his prose and verse romances (1963 :159) and that his work still has a contemporary relevance. Yet although, as Williams and others have stressed, Morris’ romantic sensibility and his deep-seated interest in the arts and culture, undoubtedly influenced his socialism, Morris was at heart a libertarian or revolutionary socialist. This made him a rather unorthodox Marxist, given that he tended to downplay parliamentary action as a means to socialism. There is, therefore, certainly some truth in G D H Cole’s suggestion that Morris seemed to be “more than half an anarchist” (1954 : 415).
But the key point is that in an era of capitalist triumphalism, Morris should not be looked upon as an interesting and compelling historical figure, but rather as a “contemporary voice and an inspiration to all those today who still strive for radical change.” (Mohamdallie 2008 : 5)
Completely devoid of any socialist sensibility, Blair’s politics are in fact akin to the American neo-conservatives. (see Stelzer 2004).
Arnot, R.P. 1934 William Morris: A Vindication London : Lawrence
Bensaid, D. 2002 Marx for our Times London : Verso
Callinicos, A 2003 An Anti-Capitalist Manifesto Cambridge : Polity.
Cole, G.D.H. 1954 A History of Socialist Thought Vol 2 Marxism and Anarchism 1850–1890 London : MacMillan 1973
——— John Burns 1858–1943 in M.Katanka (Ed) Radicals, Reformers and Socialists London : Knight Pp 163 — 201
Cole, M. 1961 The Story of Fabian Socialism London : Heineman
Coleman, S. and P.O’Sullivan (1990) (Eds) William Morris and News From Nowhere Bideford : Green Books
Derrida, J. 1994 Spectres of Marx London : Routledge
Fromm, E. 1961 Marx’s Concept of Man London : Contimuum.
Glasier, J.B. 1921 William Morris and the Early Days of the Socialist Movement. London : Longmans
Henderson, P. 1973 William Morris: His Life, Work and Friends London : Penguin
Hunt, T. 2009 The Frock-Coated Communist : The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels. London : Allen Lane
Hyndman, H.M. 1911 The Record of an Adventurous Life London : MacMillan.
Kinna, R. 2000 William Morris: The Art of Socialism Cardiff: Univ. Wales Press
Lane, J. 1978 An Anti-Statist Communist Manifesto Sanday : Cienfuegos press
Lefevre, G. 1967 The Coming of the French Revolution Princeton : Princeton Univ. Press
MacCarthy, F. 1994 William Morris : A Life for Our Time. London : Faber
MacKail, J.W. 1912 The Life of William Morris 2 vols. London : Longmans
Mahamdallie, H. 2008 Crossing the “River of Fire” : TheSocialism of William Morris. London : Redwords.
Marshall, P. 1992 Demanding the Impossible : A History of Anarchism. London : Harper Collins.
Marx, K. and F. Engels 1968 Selected Works London : Lawrence and Wishart
Meier, P. 1978 William Morris : The Marxist Dreamer. Sussex : Harvester.
Morris, B. 1996 “The San-Culottes and the Enrages : Libertarian Movement in the French Revolution” in Ecology and Anarchism Malvern Wells : Images pp 93–107.
——— 2009 “Reflections on the ‘New Anarchism’” Social Anarchism 43 : 36–50
Morris, W. 1891 News From Nowhere in A.L.Morton (1977)
——— 1947 On Art and socialism Int. H. Jackson London : Lehmann
——— 1994 Political Writings : Contributions to Justice and Commonwealth. 1883–1890. Ed. Introd. N. Salmon Ponistal : Thoemmes Press
——— 1996 “The Policy of Abstention,” in S.Coleman (Ed) Reform and Revolution Bristol : Thoemess Press pp 434–453
Morton, A.L. 1973 (Ed.) Political Writings of William Morris London : Lawrence and Wishart
Oliver, H. 1983 The International Anarchist Movement in Late Victorian England. London : Croom Helm
Pannekoek, A. 2003 Workers’ Councils. Edinburgh : AK Press
Pierson, S. 1973 Marxism and the Origins of British Socialism Ithaca : Cornell Iniv. Press.
Quail, J. 1978 The Slow Burning Fuse London : Granada
Rocker, R. 1938 Anarcho-Syndicalism London : Secker and Warburg.
Rorty, R. 1999 Philosophy of Social Hope London : Penguin
Sen, A. 2009 The Idea of Justice London : Allen Lane
Steltzer, I. 2004 (Ed) Neo-Conservatism London : Atlantic Books
Thompson, E.P. 1976 William Morris : Romantic to Revolutionary 2nd edition New York : Pantheon
van der Walt, L. and M. Schmidt 2009 Black Flame Edinburgh : AK Press
Williams, R. 1963 Culture and Society 1780–1950 London : Penguin
Wood, E.M. 1999 The Origin of Capitalism New York : Monthly Review Press
Woodcock, G. and I.Avakumovic 1971 The Anarchist Prince : A Biographical Study of Peter Kropotkin, 2nd edition New York : Schocken
[1] Morton (1973), Thompson (1976), Meier (1978) and Mahamdallie (2008), for example, all emphasize that Morris was essentially a Marxist in spite if the fact that he consistently advocated an anti-parliamentary strategy.
[2] See my critique of the “new” anarchism. Morris (2009)
[3] See for example: Mackail (1912), Henderson (1973), Thompson (1976), Meier (1978), McCarthy (1994) and Kinna (2000).
[4] John Burns, a radical engineer who was once known as the “man with the red flag” eventually became a cabinet minister in the liberal government of Campbell -Bannerman in 1905. A renegade, to many, from socialist politics. On John Burns life and politics see Cole (1973).
[5] On the role of Lane, Kitz and other anarchists in the Socialist League see Quail (1978), Lane (1978), and Oliver (1983 : 50–64).
[6] Henry Seymour (1862–1938) helped to establish and edit the first English language anarchist publication “The Anarchist” in 1885. Seymour, a follower of Spencer and Proudhon, was essentially an advocate of mutualism see Quail (1978 : 47–52), Oliver (1983 : 33–36).
[7] See Morris’ account of the Bloody Sunday demonstration : “London in a State of Siege” COMMONWEAL 3/7 (1887), Morton (1973 : 204 -8).
[8] With regard to Kropotkin’s relationship with Morris see Woodcock and Avaku Movic (1971 : 213–17) and McCarthy (1994 : 544).
[9] For interesting and useful discussions of Morris’ utopian novel see Coleman and O’Sullivan (1990).
[10] See Wood (1999) on the agrarian origins of capitalism.
[11] On the French Revolution as a form of class struggle see Lefebvre (1967) and Morris (1996).
[12] For a classic history of Fabian Socialism see Cole (1961).
[13] On council communism and anarcho-syndicalism see the classical accounts of Pannekoek (2003) and Rocker (1938).
[14] Interestingly, while state socialists including the Marxists, seek to utilize the power of the nation-state to destroy capitalism, anarcho-capitalists, by contrast aim to utilize the power of capital to eradicate the state. According to anarchists (Kropotkin, Goldman, Rocker) the former, whether it involves the democratic state or a party dictatorship, inevitably leads either to reformism or to state capitalism, while anarcho-capitalism is simply laissez-faire capitalism supported by private armies.
[15] Even stranger; we are informed that Tony Blair was inspired by the writings of Morris when he was a student at Oxford University (Mahamdallie 2008: 3).