Social Mobility Stands Still

A charity's study has found that children born in the 1950s had a better chance of escaping poverty than those born in the 1970s. The research was carried out on behalf of the Sutton Trust by the London School of Economics .

Professor Steve Machin, from LSE, said: "We had a very big expansion of the higher education system in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but contrary to many people's expectations this actually reinforced social immobility." People at the bottom of the "income distribution" were ill-equipped to take advantage of the greater opportunities.

The founder of education policy group, the Sutton Trust, Sir Peter Lampl says Britain has "the lowest social mobility of any country you can measure".

He went on to say that inequality between the rich and poor in Britain was a root cause of the problem.

This study re-confirms an earlier LSE report on social mobility and Peter Lampl echoes the view of Alan Milburn, the former Labour cabinet minister who grew up in a single-parent family on a council estate, who said it would be harder today for someone from a similar background to get ahead in society than it was a generation ago.

Unite for Socialism

 

There’s no doubt that capitalism has improved material conditions in general and raised the standard of living for many people throughout the world. The point, though, is that it has also produced distinctive problems of a kind that never existed before, even in more prosperous economies. The basic principle of the capitalist system is the isolation of individuals and their naked exposure to market imperatives. It means eliminating everything that stands between people and dependence on the market, everything that makes them autonomous from the market. And when social life is driven by market imperatives, it’s also subject to the cycles and crises of the market. For example, dispossessed workers, who depend on selling their labor-power for a wage, have nothing to fall back on when the market doesn’t need them. It’s not hard to see how capitalism has created new social problems, and right from the beginning, the state has had to deal with them. From the earliest days of capitalism, the state has had to deal with growing numbers of dispossessed people, people with no property, no access to the means of subsistence, no customary rights, no social or communal supports. The state has had to deal with them not just out of humanitarian concern but out of fear of social disorder, even social disintegration. We see the destruction of communal networks — village communities, and so on — which traditionally gave people some kind of support in times of need. In the earliest days of capitalism, in England for instance, this meant among other things the loss of customary rights to the use of common land, in the famous process of enclosure. It also meant a change in communal values and changes in the way the law was applied. It meant new legal definitions of property in which any traditional commitment to a basic right of subsistence was replaced by the imperatives of profit. As capitalism developed into its industrial form, there were also measures, like changes in the system of relief for the poor, designed to uproot people from their local communities, to increase the mobility of labour.  It means the privatization of just about everything. It means what some people have called a whole new process of enclosure. In agricultural economies, for instance, it can mean outright dispossession of small landholders, or it can mean the imposition of economic policies that force producers to abandon strategies of self-sufficiency in favor of export-oriented strategies, the production of single cash crops, and so on. It also means, as it did in the early days of capitalism, the break up of various social networks which people have relied on for support.

 But even the most neo-liberal laissez-faire have needed at least a minimum safety net. If nothing else, they have to maintain a reserve army of workers, keeping them alive through moments in the economic cycle when they’re not needed so that they’re available when capital does need them. From the beginning of capitalism, the state has had to step in just to maintain social order or even to prevent revolution.  The threat of revolution, the threat of social disintegration in the long years of depression, and so on. Those threats, of course, led to the modern welfare state  committed to some kind of provision for various social needs, like health care or housing, which the capitalist market doesn’t supply, or at least not in ways that are affordable for everyone. There are still societies where even that minimal provision is still an aspiration and not a reality. Today reformists  have retreated from the welfare state. Even Scandinavian countries have been in retreat. Even the most secure gains, like universal education or old-age pensions or public health care systems like Britain’s National Health Service, have been subject to pressures for privatisation and so-called market choice.

 

Provision of social services is precarious not just because of changing political fashions but for a more fundamental reason, and that’s because it’s in constant tension with the imperative of capitalism, the power of the market.  Capitalism has throughout meant, and still means, the degradation  of vast numbers of the men and women who exist under its social system. In the greatest and richest of countries and  cities people pass their lives in wretchedness and misery. The revolts  against intolerable suffering almost invariably failed to secure improved conditions, or, where accidental success was achieved, it meant only that the victors placed the vanquished under the yoke from which they had freed themselves.  Capitalism has shown itself to be not only injurious to the vast majority of individuals, but a definite obstacle to the advance of mankind. The problems of life which now, manifestly, lie immediately ahead of us, cannot possibly be solved so long as we  bow down before the fetishism of money, and imagine that to produce articles of exchange for profit is the highest end and aim of mankind in society.

When all, peoples had reached the understanding of socialism and  embraced the ideas of the  cooperative commonwealth of all, can humanity  attain a higher communal life and fraternal interconnection. Every step will be in the direction of the co-operative commonwealth. Since there is no difficulty whatever in creating wealth far in excess of our requirements, by the scientific organisation and application of the light labour of all to the satisfaction of our social needs, then the  motto, “From each according to ability, to each according to needs,” ceases to be Utopian and becomes a reality.

For such delights in life as we can now foresee to be possibly attainable for all has never yet been experienced, even by the fortunate few. When the beauties and bounties of nature  can be entered upon and enjoyed with none of the degrading drawbacks due to the dire poverty; when work is but the useful and pleasing expression of zeal for the community and regard for the individual, toil and exhaustion being wholly unknown; when, throughout the longer, fuller and more active life which mankind will then be heirs to, the minds of all will be more completely cultivated than those of the most gifted have ever yet been.

We have a Dream

“Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That's the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr.

Socialism is not some Utopian scheme. Capitalism has created the economic conditions for socialism in the world. Today there is social production but no social ownership. Socialism will bring social ownership of social production. With socialism, the working people will take over the economic forces developed by capitalism and operate them in the interests of society. Because the working people will control the great wealth they produce, they will be fundamentally able to determine their own futures. The end of exploitation of one person by another will be an unprecedented liberating and transforming force. Socialism will not mean government control. Today we often hear of government control of the railroads or post office as socialism. But under capitalism the state serves the interests of the ruling capitalist class. Government involvement in the economy is a form of state capitalism. When the government intervenes in the economy, it does so to help, not hurt, capitalism.

What, then, will socialism look like? The specific exact features of socialism will emerge as the struggle against capitalism develops and evolves but our vision of socialism can be generalised. There will be no basis for billionaires or paupers.

The means of production – the factories, mines, mills, workshops, offices, agricultural fields, transportation system, media and mass communications, medical facilities, retailers, etc., will be transformed into social property – common ownership. Private ownership of the main means of production will end. The economy will be geared not to the interest of profit, but to serving human needs. This will release the productive capacity of the economy from the limitations of profit maximisation. A great expansion of useful production and the wealth of society will become possible. Rational economic planning will replace the present anarchistic system. Coordination and planning of the broad outlines of production by administrative agencies will aim at building an economy that will be stable, benefit the people, and steadily advance. Because capitalism already has a developed and centralised economy, socialism’s main task will be to reorient this structure towards social needs. Redirecting the productive capacity to human needs will require a variety of economic methods and some experiment. There could be a combination of central planning and local coordination. Working people will assume administration of the economy, manage democratically through workers’ and community councils. The people will elect officials and delegates at all levels. There will be the right of recall and referendum. Various policies might be used, depending on what will be appropriate to changing conditions. But no matter what means are chosen, a socialist economy must uphold the basic principles of common ownership, production for the people’s needs, and the elimination of exploitation. The protection of the environment would be ensured.

Standing in the way of social progress and socialism is the capitalist class, composed of the owners and administrators of the huge multinational banks and corporations that control the economic life and whose power extends far beyond the boundaries of nation-states to control the destinies of millions of others around the globe. These capitalists are very wealthy and live off the exploited labor of others.

The working class is the class that is most systematically and brutally exploited by capitalism, and is the most revolutionary class. The working class is composed of all wage earners – mental and manual, urban and rural – whether in basic industry, manufacturing, service, farm, sales, domestic, clerical, public, or other jobs. The working class is composed of skilled and unskilled, employed and unemployed. Some workers may make more money than some in the petty bourgeoisie, but they are still members of the working class because they do not exploit the labor of others and must sell their labor power to survive. The vast majority of people belong to the working class. The working class produces the wealth appropriated by the capitalists and its basic interest lies in the abolition of the private ownership of the means of production. It will be the leading class in the socialist revolution. The working class is worldwide, composed of workers of many different nationalities. Their common identity is that they are all exploited by the capitalist class.

Although the promise of capitalism is that it is colour-blind and a system that provides equal opportunities for all to attain upward social mobility, the empirical reality across the globe has been anything but the promise. The market system has always taken advantage of race, gender, and ethnicity to divide the working class. What a better way to co-opt a segment of the disgruntled masses and keep them divided than to have such right-wing populists who point to working people of a different race, ethnicity and religion? Divisive tactics based on race, religion and ethnicity were commonly used by European colonialists to co-opt the native population and to keep it divided, whether in Africa, India or the rest of Asia, especially in the 19th and early 20th century. In short, the tactics of European imperialists remain alive and well in 21st century. Class solidarity is the only hope for blacks, Hispanics and all working people. Solidarity exists among the black and white capitalists but not necessarily among the black and white working class. 

SOCIAL IMMOBILITY

One of the boasts of the present government is that we now live in a society of social mobility wherein someone from an impoverished background can still have access to a higher education. Like most of their boast it is nonsense. "A quarter of English universities failed to meet their targets to admit substantially more disadvantaged students last year, a government watchdog has revealed. Cambridge, Bristol, Exeter, Durham and University College London are among 23 institutions that admit making insufficient progress in widening their mix of applicants in 2009-10, leading to accusations that the intake of the most selective universities is "increasingly privileged". David Willetts, the universities minister, said the report was proof that social mobility had stalled." (Guardian, 29 September) RD

No change at the top

The top echelons of Scottish society are dominated by an elite group of people who attended private schools and the best universities, according to a new study which warns that people from poorer backgrounds are being prevented from reaching the top of their chosen professions by a “class ceiling”. Many of the top professions in Scotland are dominated by privileged people in much the same way as the rest of the UK, busting the “myth” that the country is inherently fairer and does not have a problem with social mobility, the Elitist Scotland? report concludes.

“The lack of people from ordinary social backgrounds at the top of Scottish society indicates that a lot of talent is going to waste. Perhaps most importantly it is unfair that those with the talent from less advantaged backgrounds too often find a ‘class ceiling’ that prevents them from reaching the top of their chosen fields,” it adds.

Studying the backgrounds of almost 850 leaders in politics, business, the media and other areas of public life in Scotland, researchers at the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission found that 45 per cent of senior judges were privately educated compared to less than 6 per cent of the country’s overall population.

UBI - Pie in the Sky

Old fallacies that were debunked years ago are resurrected and presented as new and profound truths. It is fascinating to watch left-wing media because whatever their disagreements, the one thing that is never open for discussion is the questioning of capitalism itself. One being circulated around as the panacea for poverty and all the accompanying social ills is the Universal Basic Income (UBI) or Citizen's Wage. According to some “visionaries” robots will soon take everyone’s job, and a universal basic income will become necessary. A UBI is an unconditional pay packet for everyone in the country. It replaces all existing benefits and is granted to people no matter their job, wealth or circumstance. It will not make you rich, but provide you with the means to survive. Such schemes were first suggested as far back as the 1930s and the ILP but actually goes as far back as the Speenhamland system in the Middle Ages. The first Muslim caliph, Abu Bakr (573-634 CE), who introduced a guaranteed minimum standard of income, granting each man, woman, and child ten dirhams annually; this was later increased to twenty dirhams. Thomas Paine advocated a citizen's dividend to all US citizens as compensation for "loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property" (Agrarian Justice, 1795). While Napoleon Bonaparte echoed Paine's sentiments and commented that 'man is entitled by birthright to a share of the Earth's produce sufficient to fill the needs of his existence'. Nevertheless, no country has actually implemented such a system nationally.

Recently some of those technocrat “philanthropists” from Silicon Valley are especially eager to extol the results of an UBI pilot project in Kenya. The project provides a guaranteed poverty-ending income for those who receive it. In 40 poor, remote villages, 6,000 adults are now receiving 75 cents (yes, cents) per day – or $22 per month for 12 years.  In poor developing countries, an UBI can mitigate expensive aid programs that fail to address the targeted population’s needs, and that are often undermined by corrupt regimes. But The Kenya UBI relies on M-Pesa, a for-profit mobile banking system that was built with the support of foreign aid, private companies, and the government – not well-meaning philanthropists. Even if an UBI succeeds in Kenya it is not a capitalist-friendly solution for the United States: it would be prohibitively expensive and it is doubtful it would not solve the problems that it is meant to address.

On the right UBI in some shape or form has now a solid base amongst its neo-liberal advocates (such as Hayek) who hope to use it to abolish the provision of any state provision of social services and just give every citizen a small equal cash handout instead. It is clear why the UBI concept is most popular on the libertarian right - a means to dismantle the Welfare State. UBI proposals are disingenuous distractions from such immediate problems as persistent poverty, especially for children and racial and ethnic minorities; stagnant real (inflation-adjusted) wages and incomes for most households; expanding income inequality; declining social mobility; inequalities in educational opportunities; and the income volatility that comes with erratic employment. In the US, where the official poverty line for an adult in 2016 was $12,700 per year. Each year, a $10,000 basic income for every American adult would cost more than $3 trillion, consuming more than three-quarters of the annual federal budget. This would require historically high taxes, and yet we rarely hear wealthy UBI advocates calling for their taxes to be raised. They are more likely to advocate cutting existing social-welfare spending, such as Social Security and other programs that benefit the bottom two-fifths of the population, including children.

Many Left proponents assume that if the government gives everybody, working or not, a regular income this is going to have no effect on wage levels? They seem to be assuming that this would be in addition to income from work whereas what is likely to happen is that it would exert a huge downward pressure on wages and that over time real wages would on average fall by the amount of the "basic" income. In other words, that it would be essentially a subsidy to employers. It would be "basic" in the sense of being a mimimum income that employers would top up to the level people needed to be able to reproduce and maintain their particular working skill. Don't they understand how their much-vaunted law of supply and demand works?

These radical supporters of a Universal Basic Income want to end capitalism while presupposing its continued existence. If people are free from any compulsion to work for a capitalist company, this would destroy the capitalist mode of production. This, after all, relies on the workers to produce the products which are turned into profits. It also relies on the exclusion of workers from these products so that they can become profits. However, at the same time, the same supporters also ask the same capitalist firms to produce the profits to pay for freedom from them in the form of a Universal Basic Income. They want both: the continued existence — for now — of the capitalist mode of production where the reproduction of each and everyone is subjugated to profit and the end of this subjugation by providing everyone with what they need. They want companies to make profits, which relies on and produces the poverty of workers, while at the same time ending mass poverty. They want to maintain the exclusion from social wealth through the institution of private property and end this exclusion by giving everyone enough money.

Capitalism - Each Against All

 

A few can rise out of their class and become traitors and renegades to their own working people; the mass is going to remain where they are. They can rise when the whole class rises together, to real social power. That’s why Eugene Debs said: “I want to rise with my class, not out of it.”

We are a class-stratified society and are getting more so. And no amount of media talk can disguise this fact. The most fundamental social fact is that the people are divided into classes, and the walls between the classes, instead of growing less, are getting higher. Class barriers are increasing. The picture is becoming clearer and clearer: on the one side, Big Business, property and its CEOs; and, on the other side, labour.

When they talk to you about “unlimited opportunity” for “social mobility” but working people live out their lives on the level at which they happen to be born and that is the bone and gristle of the capitalist class system. It is hard to find the media that tells the truth about capitalism, its exploitation and oppression of the people.

The voice of socialism is clear and distinctive and beyond the reach of effective argument because it speaks always and everywhere for this powerful idea: Without the fight for economic democracy, and without the fight for socialism, there can be no social progress. The question of our times grows clearer: the struggle for socialism or world destruction.

Economic power is political power. Don’t let anybody fool you otherwise. Economic power is direct political power. And the bigger industry gets, the more integrated its technology, and the more interdependent its parts, the more dependent the whole society and its government becomes upon those who own and control that technology. What this means is that, with the growth of big industries and monopolies, corporate share in total power has grown enormously.

Socialism will eliminate exploitation. It will rid the world of inequality, competition, social robbery and the nationalism and imperialism that gives rise to global war. In the absence of world socialism, a planet of human harmony, science and technology is now capable of destroying all mankind. Socialism has now moved from the realm of the possible or probable into the realm of necessity in order to save life itself.

 What better plan has anyone offered anywhere for the ending of capitalist anarchy than the socialist reconstruction of society? Is there any plan that goes to the root of the evil as does that to make the means of production the property of the working people, controlled by them, for the production of the things the world needs, ending the limits set by money and markets?

 

Socialism - The Solidarity Economy

The class division of the capitalism we live under is not a supposition but a fact; and the Labour Party is not going to abolish the class system, its class division, and class privilege. What they offer instead to any who do not see through the subterfuge, is to blur the class lines by stopping labelling employers and investors as the capitalist class, and justify privilege by saying that it is committed to social mobility. This will be satisfactory to the capitalists and their hangers-on, political and managerial, but what is there in it for the workers?

Fellow workers, when will you realise that you need not go short of anything that you, collectively, are capable of producing? Between the present extremes of wage-slaves, who can afford little more than the bare necessities of a working life, and capitalists, whose wealth finds expression in idle and extravagant luxury, lies the possibility of all people having their reasonable needs satisfied. This entails the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of a system of production solely for use, needing no money and therefore producing no money problems of any sort. It is within your power to bring such a society into being if you will only think and act in your own class interest, instead of in that of a class of parasites. Your wages will not buy the things you need, and you ask for more in vain because your masters also want more at your expense. It will remain so while they have the whip hand of ownership of the means of living and until you decide to relieve them of it by establishing socialism. In politics, the division is between those who want the capitalist system and those who want a socialist society.

The  Socialist Party is an independent political organisation that has neither allegiance to nor sympathy with, any other political party or group in this country. Socialism is a wage-free, money-free, class-free society of production for use in which each member of society would contribute to the wealth of society in accordance with mental or physical abilities and take from the wealth of society in accordance to needs. It is a system of social organisation where the basic problems that we live with today under capitalism—problems like poverty, insecurity, slums, crime, and war - that arise naturally and inevitably out of the capitalist scheme of production for profit would cease to exist. Socialism offers us an escape from the evils that afflict our society. Capitalism has fulfilled its historic mission: it has opened the womb of social labour and developed the resources of society to a point where social distribution is possible now.

In order that  a change to socialism, may be brought about it is necessary that a majority of the working class, armed with the knowledge of what Socialism involves and entails, should use the means at their disposal, the power of the vote—which they now dissipate in trying to make capitalism work—to consciously institute the change. Socialism, by its very nature, requires the conscious and knowledgeable participation of the majority from the outset. It cannot be brought about by minorities or "action groups" leading the way, no more than it can be introduced gradually by tinkering with reforms of capitalism. It is too easy to achieve a following in crises. In the heat of class struggle immediate and fickle political alliances may be achieved but, in the long run, such a struggle allows for few real conversions and when the crisis recedes the real casualties will be the working class,  splintered and fraught with bitterness. Capitalism is discrimination both political and economic.

 Even when its full range of “civil rights” have been achieved by the working class its problems remain—each finding its victims mainly among the working class. Indeed those sincere and idealistic people who carry on the struggle for “civil rights” do a disservice to freedom when they channel the discontent of the working class into the safe stream of political reformism and assert, if only by implication, that working-class problems will be either solved or basically eased by this or that reform. Why should members of the working class involve themselves in a campaign against some of capitalism’s lesser evils, a campaign rendered more difficult by capitalism’s built-in bias for the creation of sectional interests?

We hold enough power now in the votes of the working class to banish capitalism and all its problems and establish a free society of production for use. What the working class lacks is an understanding of the alternative to capitalism, Socialism. This can only be achieved by a sustained campaign among our fellow members of the working class. The present social and economic system stands self-condemned. It is our sincere belief that a world without money, a WORLD COMMONWEALTH, will make this planet a better place for us to live on. There will be many of our fellow-workers who will refuse to accept it because of its very simplicity. "It's all very well" they will say, "but--." Others will say "It's a lovely dream, although--." Still, others will say "There are so many snags, the unforeseen, the unexpected--it's just impossible." To these and other critics we pose the simple question, "Is there any practical alternative solution to the world's problems which offers so much for so little for all humanity?" That there will be snags is not in dispute, but have there not been difficulties in the way of every human achievement, and of every inhuman achievement as well? And were not those problems overcome? Could we not by our combined efforts, and with this goal in view, overcome those difficulties that might arise in the development of the WORLD COMMONWEALTH?

Why struggle for the apple when the same effort can bring us the orchard?

Socialism is the only alternative

Under capitalism, so many in this society are forced to endure great hardship and suffering, exploitation, injustice and brutality, while wars and the ongoing destruction of the natural environment threaten the very future of humanity. Capitalism is a system of exploitation, misery and destruction. The capitalist system, based on private ownership of the means of production has no future. Having outlived its usefulness, it is incapable of meeting the needs and aspirations of the world’s peoples. By its very nature, capitalism generates and intensifies mass unemployment and poverty, national chauvinism and exclusivism, racism, gender inequality and oppression, environmental collapse, and war. Under capitalism, both labour and the natural environment are exploited for the capitalists’ overriding objective – profit. As a system, capitalism can exist only by continually increasing the extent and intensity of its exploitation and impoverishment of labour and plunder of the environment.

The Socialist Party has set forth an inspiring vision for the building a socialist society, where human beings everywhere would be free of relations of exploitation and oppression and destructive antagonistic conflicts, and could be fit caretakers of the planet But to make this a reality, we need a revolution. Many insist, “there could never be a revolution”. Today, Big Business and its intellectual apologists maintain that socialism is finished, that human development has ended, and that capitalism will endure forever. This is wrong—revolution is possible. Of course, revolution cannot happen with conditions and people the way they are now. But revolution can come about as conditions and people are moved to change as people come to see that things do not have to be this way, as they come to understand why things are the way they are and how things could be radically different, and as they are inspired and organised to join the world socialist movement and build up its strength. Revolution will not be made by trying to bring down this powerful system when there is not yet a basis for that—or by just waiting for “one fine day” when the revolution will somehow magically become possible. Revolution requires consistent work building for revolution, based on an understanding of what it takes to actually get to the point of revolution, and how to have a real chance of winning.  Only socialism makes the needs and aspirations of the people its highest priority.  And only socialism can use the benefits of the scientific and technological revolution for the well-being of all, not for the enrichment of a few and for waging war. There is no alternative to socialism, no “third road.” The achievement of socialism will mark a real advance towards true social democracy – the rule of the people, by the people and for the people. In a socialist world, the means of producing and distributing wealth will be the common property of society as a whole. The exploitation of labour will be abolished. Ecological degradation will be stopped, and a planned approach to the relationship of human life with the natural environment will be implemented. Want, poverty, insecurity, and discrimination, rooted in capitalist exploitation, will be ended, a new society based on solidarity, equality and emancipation.

The economic system in which we live is capitalism. Under this system the means of production are predominantly privately owned; the capitalists operate their factories, banks, and offices, mines, forest operations, transport and service industries in order to extract profits. The source of profit and accumulation of capital is the exploitation of the working class – all those who work by hand and brain. Human labour, in combination with nature, is the source of all material wealth and cultural values.

Under capitalism, the workers own no means of production. Having no principal source of income other than their capacity to work, they must sell their labour power for a wage to the capitalists in order to live. The working class is the vast majority of the population. It includes workers employed in all sectors of the economy, both organised and unorganised, as well as the unemployed and under-employed, and their families. The basic conflict between capital and labour is inherent to the capitalist system. The capitalists, who control the main means of production, employ wage-workers only so long as their labour produces profits for them. They hold down wages to the lowest possible level so as to squeeze greater profits out of the exploitation of the workers. The workers fight to maintain and increase their wages, improve their living and working conditions, and extend their economic, social and political rights. This is the heart of the class struggle under capitalism which affects the whole of society, and which at a certain stage impels the working class to revolutionary struggle aimed at changing the social system itself. Under capitalism, the labour process is carried on by the joint effort of large numbers of workers in factories, plants, and offices. But while labour and the production process is social, its fruits are privately appropriated by the owners of the means of production. This basic contradiction – between the social character of production and the private capitalist appropriation of the commodities produced – lies at the root of all the evils of capitalism: unemployment, economic and social insecurity, mass poverty, economic crisis and the drive to war. At the same time, capitalism also creates its own gravediggers – the working class.

Capitalism concentrates wealth and the ownership of the means of production into fewer and fewer hands. The ever-increasing concentration, centralisation, and internationalization of capital has created a staggering divide. capitalism confirms Karl Marx’s general law of accumulation – that capitalism everywhere creates more private wealth but also drives more people into wage labour and poverty. The capitalist economy operates in cycles of boom, crisis, depression and recovery. Periodically, expansion is followed by a glut of goods on the market. Plants close down, workers are thrown on the street – not because people have no need for what industry can produce, but because goods do not sell in quantities and at prices that would ensure a level of profit satisfactory to the capitalists.  The capitalists try to thrust the burden of such crises on the backs of working people, who are compelled to fight back.

The pace of scientific and technological advance and its rapid application in all spheres of life has qualitatively transformed the productive forces – the tools, the raw materials and most importantly, labour itself. The character and substance of workers’ labour in the process of production are changing, and this is affecting both the composition of the working class and its relation to other classes. Capital, is on the constant drive to increase profit, uses technology to lower production costs by replacing human labour with machines and other labour-saving processes. Scientific and technological progress has become the source of increased exploitation and alienation of the working class. The introduction of new technology has not changed the essence of capitalism, and will not emancipate the working class. Capital benefits most from the introduction of high tech and new production techniques, such as “just-in-time” production. The more technological progress there is, the higher the productivity rate, the higher the rate of exploitation, and the higher the intensity of labour, deepening the gulf between capital and working people. The longer (or shorter) hours and increased physical and mental stress demanded of the individual worker have a negative effect on the health and safety of all workers.

The revolution in science and technology has intensified the anarchy of production and the unevenness of capitalist development. The fierce competition between rival enterprises drives each corporation to introduce cost-saving technology. But technological innovation is extremely expensive, and its application in the workplace intensifies the tendency for the rate of profit to fall. Capitalists, in turn, tries to offset this tendency of declining rate of profit by: driving down its labour costs through wage cuts, speed-ups, lengthening the work day, contract work, redundancies, plant shutdowns, and other forms of corporate restructuring and absorbing or merging with its competitors. Technological innovation is responsible for major structural changes, unevenness between different spheres of production and overall distortion of the economy both within each country and on a world scale.

Advances in information technology are a key factor in the globalisation and standardisation of many areas of production. Within a general context of increasing mobility for capital, there is an enhanced transportability of production in particular. In expanding numbers and types of industries, capital can respond to strikes or workers’ demands by quickly – and almost seamlessly – relocating entire production processes on a permanent or temporary basis. As with all previous technological revolutions, these changes in production require the working class to develop new tactics and new forms of struggle to meet the challenge, including increasing international cooperation and joint action by the international working class movement.

The capitalist system has long since become parasitic, unable and unwilling to satisfy the growing needs of the people. For the working class to exercise genuine people’s rule, they must control the economy. Democracy, therefore, requires socialism: the common ownership of the machinery, raw materials and other means of production used to sustain and enhance human life. For the first time in history, however, the majority of the people will rule and establish a genuine democracy. The dictatorship of capital over labour – the rule of the minority over the majority – will be abolished and replaced by a social democracy in which political power will reside with the people For the first time, the interests of the people will be the prime determinant of our economic, political and cultural life. With socialism, the creation of social wealth has only one objective – to further the interests of the people, by raising living standards, improving and extending social services and unleashing the cultural forces now stifled by capitalist domination. Since industry will be owned by the working people, the bourgeoisie will disappear as a class; consequently, the conditions will be created for ending the conflict between labour and capital. New social relations, socialist in character, will come into being in which the interests of the workers, engineers, scientists, and managers will be harmonised. The socialist alternative will bring into being the sort of society humanity has dreamed of for centuries – a class-free society founded on an abundance of material wealth in which the state will wither away and people will each contribute according to their abilities and receive according to their needs.

End of the Dream

No, not third division Rangers FC but the United States of America.

The "American dream"- consisting of the traditional ideals of freedom, equality and an upward social mobility achieved through hard work - turns out to be a myth, according to Howard Friedman, a statistician and health economist at the United Nations. The United States, the land of opportunity is no more.

Friedman drew this conclusion after systematically comparing the United States to 13 other wealthy countries in five key areas: health, education, safety, democracy and equality. All wealthy countries with GDP per capita exceeding $20,000, and have populations of more than 10 million. They are: Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Portugal, The Netherlands, South Korea, Spain and the United Kingdom.

In the last 30 years, the gap between rich and poor has widened. The top 1 per cent of US citizens saw their incomes grow by 275 per cent between 1979 and 2007, according to the Congressional Budget Office. At the same time, the bottom one-fifth of US citizens only experienced income growth of 18 per cent. The US has very little socio-economic mobility compared to other wealthy nations. Canada has nearly twice the level of socio-economic mobility as the US.

"The amount of support poor people get in the US is much less than in any other country in terms of social benefits. There's not much of a safety net to help you out. On the other hand, if you do well, you can do very well in the US. In America, if your parents were poor, you were more likely to be poor compared to other countries. The top student from a poor neighborhood has roughly the same chance of graduating from college as the worst student from a wealthy neighborhood" said Friedman.

Americans spend on average nearly two to four times more on healthcare than any other wealthy country, yet have lower life expectancies. Americans are confident that the US education system is one of the best in the world, but again, the data indicates that this perception is not supported by facts. In 1960, the US had the 12th-lowest infant mortality rate in the world, but it sank to 34th by 2008.  The US used to have the highest rate of college education and now it barely makes it into the top 15

A Chinese report on the US said that in the last 20 years, incomes of 90 per cent of US citizens have stagnated, while incomes of the richest 1 per cent have grown by 33 per cent. According to the report, the US has the largest prison population in the world per capita and the highest rate of incarceration. One out of every 132 Americans is behind bars. In his book, Friedman notes that US incarceration and homicide rates are 10 times higher than Japan's. "There's an interesting financial incentive. Not all prisons are run by the state. Those privately run prisons make profits when people are put into jail, so they support laws that improve incarceration," he said

CLASS DETERMINED BY OWNERSHIP

You can always rely on the political experts in the HM government to come up with facts that are blindingly obvious. "Published this month, the all-party parliamentary group report, 7 Key Truths About Social Mobility, confirms the OECD's findings that the UK has the lowest social mobility rate compared with any other "developed" country and warns that "it does not appear to be improving". Key findings from the report include the discovery that, by the age of just three years old, the "class" of British children is already defined. Also, half of all British children's future prospects will be determined by the circumstances of their parents." (Aljazeera, 27 June) All over the world we live in a class divided society wherein the majority own little or nothing but their ability to work for a wage or a salary and must sell this ability to the owning class who live off the resulting profit. We don't need "experts" to tell us this. RD

A lesson that goes unlearned

Socialist Courier has often reported on the inequality of opportunity in education and our stance is that it is not accidental or a result of mistaken policy but integral to the class divide of society .

Yet again the media carries the same old story , privilege over poverty in education . Clever children from poor families face being overtaken by less bright children from affluent homes . The findings are part of a study for the Sutton Trust which says UK social mobility has not improved since 1970.

"It's a terrible thing that children from poor backgrounds, who are bright, end up actually not getting a very good start in life. They end up in schools that aren't very good and end up poor as adults and that's a terrible waste of talent and it's also basically wrong, it's just unfair." trust chairman Sir Peter Lampl said.

The trust's study by the London School of Economics and the University of Surrey concludes that the UK remains very low on the international rankings of social mobility.

Children from the poorest fifth of households who score some of the best results in tests aged three have fallen behind by the age of five. The report said that children in the poorest fifth of households but in the brightest group drop from the 88th percentile on cognitive tests at age three to the 65th percentile at age five . Meanwhile those from the richest households who are least able at age three move up from the 15th percentile to the 45th percentile by age five. The report authors conclude: "If this trend were to continue, the children from affluent backgrounds would be likely to overtake the poorer children in test scores by age seven".

They also said while 44% of young people from the richest 20% of households were awarded degrees in 2002, only 10% from the poorest 20% did so.

The report concludes: "Parental background continues to exert a significant influence on the academic progress of recent generations of children. Stark inequalities are emerging for today's children in early cognitive test scores - mirroring the gaps that existed and widened with age for children born 30 years previously."

It has also been reported on the BBC The children who could benefit most from out of school clubs are least likely to have access to them . Young people on free school meals were less likely to participate in after school activities than those from more affluent homes, research suggested. This was because rich parents were able to buy their children access to such clubs, while poorer parents could not.

"It's probably the kids who don't get much support at home who need activity programmes the most. Yet struggling schools in disadvantaged areas often lack the resources to offer them."

And in Scotland , the BBC reports , it is children from deprived areas of Scotland that are more likely to truant or be absent from school than other pupils . Latest attendance figures showed pupils registered for free school meals were away for an average of 10 days more than those who do not receive them .

Social mobility

From The Scotsman :-

Alan Milburn, the former Labour cabinet minister who grew up in a single-parent family on a council estate, yesterday said it would be harder today for someone from a similar background to get ahead in society than it was a generation ago. Mr Milburn, a close friend of Tony Blair, said that "shamefully", Britain has become a less socially mobile society in recent years, questioning whether today's deprived children will be able to break out of poverty in adulthood.

A London School of Economics report in 2005 showed declining social mobility in Britain, with more poor children becoming poor adults, and more rich children staying rich in later life.

The LSE team found that 31 per cent of boys born in 1958 in the lowest-earning group stayed there in adulthood. But that rose to 38 per cent of boys born in 1970.

Also according to the LSE data, 27 per cent of British boys born in 1970 ended up in the same earnings group as their parents.

The State and its abolition

This is from the Spring 1985 issue of the World Socialist. The author was a one time member and secretary of Edinburgh branch.

Notes on the State

Central to socialist thinking on the nature of the capitalist state is the concept of class. Drawing on the writings of Marx, socialists argue that we live in a class-based society, in which a small minority own and control the means of producing wealth to the exclusion of the rest of the population.

Specifically, we live in a society which is divided on class lines: the owners of capital, the capitalist class, and the sellers of labour power, the working class. This relationship between buyer and seller of labour power is necessarily antagonistic and this antagonism expresses itself from time to time in struggle over the distribution of the social product. Because of this socialists argue that the state cannot remain neutral — a passive observer of the class struggle. Rather we say that the state must intervene on the side of the economically dominant or owning class, because the state is controlled directly or indirectly by this class. This puts us at odds with the views of the "pluralists" who argue that power is diffused throughout a plurality of institutions in society and that the state is neutral in relation to the class struggle. But although it is possible to demonstrate the unequal division of power and wealth in society, and hence show up the crucial weaknesses of this theory, we still do not arrive at an answer to the central question of what makes the modern state capitalist.

DISSATISFACTION WITH CLASSICAL TEXTS
Ralph Miliband's study, The State in Capitalist Society, that came out in 1969 signalled a general dissatisfaction in academic circles with the original Marxist writings on the state and this was reinforced in subsequent studies. It was concluded that Marx had not developed a coherent account of the nature of the capitalist state, particularly in regard to its role in the process of capital accumulation and the reproduction of capitalist social relations; indeed, that many of the references Marx makes to the capitalist state were contradictory and theoretically confused: at times he referred to the state as an instrument of class rule; and then, more subtly, as a social regulator moderating and channelling social conflict; again, he talked of the state as parasitic, that is, the private property of individuals; and, finally, as epiphenomenon (simple surface reflection) of a system of property relations and resulting economic class struggle.

The claim that the state is simply an instrument of class power used by the economically dominant class to dominate subordinate classes is highly problematical and (possibly) ahistorical. Although the ruling class owns and controls the material and mental means of production, one cannot automatically assume that it thereby controls, runs, dictates to, or is predominant in the state as well. The ruling class is not a monolithic power bloc; it is fragmented, with differing and, at times, conflicting interests. Moreover, in certain historical circumstances, the economically dominant class has not held state power, for example, in nineteenth century Prussia where the aristocracy (the junkers) controlled the state although it was a declining economic force.

Numerous problems also arise with the view of the state as a factor of cohesion in society, regulating the struggle between the classes, either by repression or concession. The main difficulty with this approach is that it suggests that the conflict over the social product is resolvable, and if taken to its logical conclusion it precludes the possibility of revolution as the state, in its role as class mediator, can act to defuse crises arising out of the contradictions within the capitalist mode of production. It is also very much akin to the liberal view of the state as "nightwatchman". Likewise, the parasitic approach can only lead to demands for a democratisation rather than the abolition of government and, perhaps, this is why Marx dropped references to it in his later writings.

The ephiphenomenon aspect of Marx's views on the state is rooted in the metaphor of base and superstructure, that is, that the state in its legal and political forms is simply a reflection of the economic base of society. This implies that the state is a passive instrument in the class struggle or, at best, is a tool of the ruling class. To adopt such a position leads one either to the reductionism of the equation that class power equals state power, or, to ignore the role the state has played, and is playing, in organising the labour process and in creating the conditions for further capital accumulation. The epiphenomenon view thus places a straightjacket on the activities of the state, divesting it of any autonomy or freedom of action, something which is at odds with the historical development of capitalism.

Dissatisfaction with the classical Marxist texts on the nature of the state led to a reformulation of theoretical perspectives by a new generation of Marx students. The outcome has been by no means theoretically homogenous, in fact, a variety of perspectives have emerged which we will now attempt to synthesise.

RELATIONSHIP OF THE RULING CLASS TO THE STATE
In Marxism and Politics, Miliband offers three possible, but not necessarily interrelated, explanations concerning the relationship of the ruling class to the state. The first of these concentrates on the personnel of the state. Miliband argues that those who control the state share a similar or common social background and are linked together by economic and cultural ties. These links result in a cluster of common ideological and political attitudes, as well as common perspectives and values. Thus those who run the state apparatus are by virtue of their circumstances favourably disposed to those who own and control the economic means of life. Empirical evidence would tend to bear out some of Miliband's assumptions. In The State in Capitalist Society, he provides an impressive array of detailed information which chronicles the interconnections between the elite groupings in society. The state is largely run by people from similar social backgrounds and educational establishments, in spite of numerous Labour governments and so-called working class occupational mobility. But this approach inevitably leads to the reductionism mentioned earlier as it does not explain how the state is capitalist. Crucially it does not amount to a Marxist theory of the state as it discusses the state in isolation from socio-economic forces. Miliband's work serves only as a rebuttal to pluralist assumptions about political democracy.

To buttress the obvious shortcomings of this approach Miliband introduces an economic dimension to his analysis. This centres on the role of capital as a pressure group. Here capital, particularly "monopoly capital", uses its position as the major controller of wealth and, hence, of investment to demand the ear of government. The fear in governing circles of multinationals redirecting investment and causing large numbers of job losses ensures that they listen sympathetically to them. In some accounts of this process, particularly that of Baran and Sweezey and the "Communist" Party, the state and monopoly capital become fused; the former acting as a pliant tool of the latter. These views ignore the fact that the state often acts against the interests of certain sections of the capitalist class. The state passes reforms in the social and economic fields which capital dislikes, for example, high levels of unemployment benefit and spending on welfare services in general. Moreover this approach reduces the state to an epiphenomenal position, that is, the nature of the state is drawn from the immanent tendencies of capital accumulation. It also disregards the role of class struggle in shaping the way the state responds to certain issues and problems.

HOW CONSTRAINING ARE THE CONSTRAINTS?
The problematic nature of the above approach and its corollary that small and medium size capitals should unite with the working class in a struggle to overthrow monopoly capitalism has been severely criticised by "structural Marxists" such as Althusser and Poulantzas, and this leads us to the third explanation offered by Miliband. Structuralists argue that "the state is an instrument of the ruling class because given its insertion in the capitalist mode of production (CMP) it cannot be anything else". Thus it matters little who constitutes the personnel of the state, or what pressure is exerted by capitalists, as the actions of the state are determined by the "nature and requirements of the CMP". In other words, a capitalist economy has its own logic or rationality to which any government or state must sooner or later submit, regardless of its ideological or political preferences; the existence of the capitalist mode of production constrains the state to act in ways favourable to the expansion and preservation of the economic system and against the interests of the working class.

The structuralist view has been further refined by the work of the "capital logic" school of Berlin. This approach derives the character of the capitalist state from the categories of the capitalist economy, the process of production and accumulation. The state is seen as a political force which is required to secure the reproduction of wage labour—to the extent that this cannot be done through market forces—and to ensure the subordination of labour to capital. This requires the state to intervene in areas such as factory legislation, supervision of trade union activities and social welfare. In this role the state is prepared to act not only against the working class, but also against individual capitals or fractions of capital which threaten the interests of capital in general.

Although it has a persuasive logic to it the structuralist view has a number of crucial weaknesses. Firstly, how constraining are the constraints? If total, then the outcome of that totality is economic determinism, as it would lead to a situation where human beings are deprived of any freedom of action or choice. Man however is not simply the product of economic forces, but a complex organism, whose actions are determined by many competing factors such as tradition, religion (where appropriate), altruism, nationalism, and so on. Secondly, and this follows from the first point, if we accept the structuralist position on the state, then we preclude consideration of how workers in struggle have affected the nature of the state and how it reacts to working class demands. In short, we could dismiss the last 150 years or so of the class struggle.

Similarly, the capital logic approach not only fails to account for the origins of the capitalist state, but fails to show convincingly how it can operate as the ideal collective capitalist. In short, how does it determine, and by what means, what are the "best" interests of capital? Moreover, in this scheme everything that occurs in a capitalist society apparently corresponds to the needs of capital accumulation, and even where modified by class struggle the interests of capital are always realised. The whole theory is deterministic, and can only provide a partial analysis to the central issue of what makes the state capitalist.

WHAT MAKES THE STATE A CLASS STATE
These explanations, although more systematic and coherent than some earlier Marxists' writings on the state, fail to explain the central issue of what makes the modern state a class state: the state of the capitalist class. The main reason behind this is the reductionism of the approaches. This means that a more adequate theoretical approach is necessary; one which takes account of the actual historical development of the state and how this development has been influenced by the balance of class forces at specific historical moments, and appreciates that the state can and does enjoy a fairly high degree of autonomy and independence in the manner of its operation as a class state. After all if the state is to act in the interests of the capitalist class it must be free to come to a decision as to what actually constitutes those interests. In doing so it may have to favour one fraction of capital against another in order to preserve or promote the long or short term interests of the sum total of the system's parts. This explains why particular social and economic policies are possible even though powerful economic groups are opposed to them.

This approach also allows for an account to be taken of the way the working class, through trade unions and other defence mechanisms, have affected the development of the state. For, given the nature of competitive capitalism, workers are forced to resist the encroachments of capital. The state must react in some positive way to workers' (reformist) demands. Failure to do so would lead to civil strife and political instability. Thus state forms and institutions, without this in any way threatening underlying capitalist social relations, are partly the outcome of working class struggle and cannot simply be attributed to the interests of the ruling class or a mere reflection of the changing needs of the capitalist mode of production.

Socialists, then, do not accept the pluralist view that the state is the property of no single class and that because of this it responds to the demands of all sections of society. We recognise that the modern state is comprised of a flexible set of institutions which operate subtly and is, ultimately, the executive committee for the capitalist class.
Bill Knox