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Monday, January 11, 2016

If you need leaders you are slavish sheep

The idea of socialism has been around a lot longer than Marx, indeed is older than capitalism, if one takes John Ball's speech - 'When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?' in 1381. An aspiration for social equality which could not be met from the primitive technology of its day...but what an aspiration when Peasants Revolt leaders were being beheaded and put on spikes.

Marx was a radical journalist who wished to see the end of feudal relations and the ushering in of capitalist development and technology. He supported emerging capitalist revolutions for a while. He saw peasants being cruelly treated and driven from land which had long been in common where wood could be gathered for fuel. He was chased into exile by the powers that be when his journalism questioned events such as that one. He learned his socialism from the French working class. As a polymath Marx was a prodigious scholar and teacher. He even gives credit to the Anabatists, who opposed private property and preached that all goods should be held in common. His gibe about the Church of England illustrates this, "...The English established Church, e.g. will more readily pardon an attack on 38 of 39 of its articles than on 1/39 of its income. Nowadays atheism is culpa levis (a relatively slight sin, c.f. mortal sin) as compared to criticism of existing property relations." This is the one he had in mind. (What a learned chap he was)
“XXXVIII. Of Christian men's Goods, which are not common.
The Riches and Goods of Christians are not common, as touching the right, title, and possession of the same, as certain Anabaptists do falsely boast. Notwithstanding, every man ought, of such things as he possesseth, liberally to give alms to the poor, according to his ability.”

All wealth springs from the collective labour of the working class. It should be owned in common. Why settle for crumbs when we can own the bake-house in common? If we abolished the wages system, the governments (slavemasters’ overseers), the private and nominally public ownership by corporations and individuals (The slaveowning class), of the means of producing and distributing wealth, and established equal access in a production for use, market free, free access, commonly owned world, there would be a sufficiency and more, indeed a superabundance probably.

Capitalism is incapable of satisfying or meeting human needs and must exploit the poverty stricken majority's relationship to the means of production and distribution, by ensuring wage slavery for the majority, to produce a surplus value (The workers commodity labour power produces a surplus over its value, the only commodity which does so) for the continued economic dominance enrichment and benefit of the minority parasite owning class. Capitalism is obsolete and has been so since the beginning of the last century. We need to have a dialogue with fellow workers worldwide, and make our common cause about abolishing the wages system and establishing a post-scarcity world of free access for all. It is a 'Free Access' society. The access will be 'self-determined', according to self-determined needs. There will not be any overlords in a free access society or access privileged above anyone else. In this sense we will all be genuinely social equals with equal access but needs are of course individual. Contributions likewise will be 'self-determined'. Free labour rather than waged. The surgeon will have gone into medicine to administer to the health of society. The sewage worker likewise, will have the same access to the common wealth. There will be no buying or selling so no need of monetary transactions, banks, Insurance sales, advertising, etc. and therefore a freeing up of the general population to render useful service utilising the previous productive capacity from the inefficient rationed economy of capitalism, to efficient allocations and sharing of resources globally instead of warring over them. As all will be held in common there is no need for rationed access, policed restrictions, or armies fighting over minority controls over vital resources. As it is a post capitalist society, it sees the end of social classes proper, in the last great emancipation. The end of governments 'over' people and the genuine democratic administration of resources introduced, (with re-callable delegation where required) with the utilisation of 'calculation in kind' stock controls using information technology to provide automatic stock controls and replenishment signals. There would be no prices, taxes or other rationing when we utilise the productive potential of present day technology, to produce a superabundance of wealth, with free access, instead of rationing it via waged slavery and price mechanisms, turning it off, when markets become glutted as at present. It is past time for a societal upgrade. Capitalism is well past its useful social stage. Politicians can't do it for us. But we can ourselves. It is time to turn ourselves to saving the planet and utilising the productive capacity allied with the latest in technology and informational techniques, algorithmic based decision-making instead of price mechanisms, to satisfy production needs, ensuring everyone without distinction, has free access to all we need, to live a useful and healthy life.

Smarten up and get up off your subservient knees to help create a 'post capitalist' system of society, where everything is owned in common and controlled democratically. Hasten the post-capitalist, free access socialist society, of open borders and healthy and secure places the world over, from which no one has to flee! We can have a class-free, slavery-free world to win, where we really can be, "Free at last".


You will find more on the World Socialist Movement website, or one of the companion parties site such as Britian’s oldest existing socialist party and second oldest political party, an honourable and refreshing exception to the usual run-of-the-mill organisations. 


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