4) Morris on working class self emancipation

Posted in PaulHampton's blog on ,

The theme of working class self-emancipation runs through his writings. As the constitution of the Socialist League put it: “the liberation of the workers will be brought about by the workers themselves”. (Meier 1978 p.242)

Introducing the first issue of Commonweal, February 1885, Morris wrote: “Lastly, a word of appeal, to the workers chiefly. It is not only that whatever we say is professedly directly in their interest: much more it is that through them alone, through the slaves of society, we look for its regeneration, for its elevation from its present corruption and misery.” (Salmon 1994 p.82)

In a lecture entitled, Monopoly; or, How Labour is Robbed (20 February 1887) he argued that “it is the workers themselves that must bring about the change”. In 'Common-Sense Socialism', a review in Commonweal (18 June 1887), he chastised the author for being “incapable of conceiving of the class-struggle, or the historical evolution of industrialism, or of understanding that the real point at issue is when and how the workers shall emerge from their condition of pupillage and be masters of their own destinies.” (Salmon 1994 p.258)

Morris retained this idea even as his political organisation fell apart. As he put it in the Daily Chronicle (10 November 1893): “‘By us, and not for us’, must be their motto”.
(A. Briggs, William Morris, Selected Writings and Designs, 1984, p.145)

Hal Draper, in his seminal study, The Two Souls of Socialism (1966), championed the conception of socialism from below, i.e. of socialism as essentially the self-emancipation of the working class. He described Morris as “the leading personality of revolutionary socialism in that period”. He argued that “Morris’ writings on socialism breathe from every pore the spirit of Socialism-from-Below” and are “pervaded with his emphasis from every side on class struggle from below, in the present; and in the future.”

Draper was absolutely right. It was working class self-liberation that demarcated Morris from most of his contemporaries and places him centrally within the real Marxist tradition.

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