Unregulated Capitalism Sinks Ships

[donquixote99]

Ever notice these marks around the 'waterline' on ships? They are called 'Plimsoll Lines," after the too-much-forgotten Samuel Plimsoll, who fought a big hairy political battle, in Britain, to get the first law mandating them passed.

The lines are large, legible, and are important because they make it clear to anyone who sails on ships whether a ship is overloaded or not. That's crucial information, because overloaded ships sink easily. Lots of sailors used to get killed that way.

But why were the ships overloaded, you may ask. The answer is, 'on purpose.' The men who owned the ships, called 'capitalists,' found that when their ships got old, and became outdated and expensive to maintain, there was an easy solution. Send the ship out way overloaded, and hope it sinks. Then you get rid of the ship you don't want, and get a bunch of insurance money in return. The sailors called such older vessels 'coffin ships,' but that didn't bother the capitalists.

But it did bother Samuel Plimsoll. He noticed all the ships sinking, all the officers and sailors dying. He was the sort of person who gets upset over the big guys throwing away the lives of others, to make money. So as a Liberal member of Parliament, in 1867, he introduced a bill to have lines marked on ships to show if they are unsafely loaded. This would be an early example of regulation of industry by law.

So naturally, such a common-sense, life-saving measure passed immediately, right? Wrong. It turned out that a great many members of Parliament heeded the wishes of the shipowners, who adamantly opposed this regulation. (In fact, it turned out quite a few members of parliament actually were shipowners.)

You might think even capitalists would be ashamed to oppose this regulation, which imposed only nominal costs on honest, decent shipowners, and only threatened those who wished to benefit from insurance fraud, and murder. But they weren't.

Passing this regulation required years and years of struggle, but Samuel Plimsoll never gave up. Five years had passed when, in 1872, Plimsoll published a book, entitled Our Seamen, which mobilized public opinion on the issue. The result was that Plimsoll was able to get a Royal Commission of Inquiry, The Unseaworthy Ships' Commission. Endless argument and delay continued. Finally, in 1875, a government bill that addressed the issue was introduced, and action seemed imminent. But then the Conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli announced the bill's withdrawal. Plimsoll's frustration erupted, he denounced other members of parliament as 'villains' and actually shook his fist in the Prime Minister's face. This breach of parliamentary decorum demanded an apology, but public opinion echoed Plimsoll's passion, and finally, in 1876, law was passed giving stringent shipping inspection powers to the Board of Trade, and mandating the placing of load lines on ships.

The fight had taken nine years, to secure a simple, low cost, life-saving, immensely-popular reform, because capitalists and conservatives had opposed it. The lesson: there is no opportunity for profit that capitalists will willingly relinquish, even if it involves fraud and murder. There is no regulation, however beneficial, that conservatives will not despise and oppose. The belief that the owning class is always right is exposed as a rank delusion. As it was in England in the 1870's, so it is here now. Conservatives and capitalists are what they are.

Our response must be to remember the heroic dedication of Samuel Plimsoll, to keep up our own dedication to unending struggle against the abuses of capital--and to watch out if those lines ever disappear from the sides of ships.

Samuel Plimsoll, 1824-1898

[researched on Wikipedia and elsewhere, after initially finding an outline of the story in the novel The Shipping News by E. Annie Prolux.]