"We're gonna take
the 4 hour day,
We're gonna surprise
the boss some first of May"
– The
I.W.W.
Work is an essential activity for humans. It is unfree (if
you want to live) waged slaved employment in return for a ration of what we
collectively produce, which is the killer. There wouldn't be shit sales,
advertising, banking, insurance occupations, all to do with the money economy,
so work would be able to be shared across a larger force of voluntary labour.
The present intensity of production where we work to produce duplicates of
commodiities to be thrown away Hours could be reduced and the distinctions
between work and play or leisure be so blurred in many cases as to become
meaningless. In a society where humans are free to choose both the pace and the
length of time they work, not only would the blind pressure to reduce to a
minimum the labour-time needed to produce a product no longer exist, but it
would become perfectly meaningless to measure the "value" or the
"cost" of a product in terms of the labour-time socially necessary to
make it. A society based on voluntary work would be free from such considerations.
And if productive activity is enjoyable how can it be regarded as a cost? The
self-employed and small business owner are just as likely to be subcontracting
to capitalist owners. It is in their interest to make common cause with the
rest of the world's workers and get rid of capitalism, its markets, wage-slavery,
buying and selling and establish a free access society of common ownership and
democratic control.
Stuff charity. Solidarity rules. We in the Socialist Party
don't 'ask' the general public, governments or philanthropists, to fund
anything. We insist you get off your knees, or up of your arses and make the
revolution instead of begging the capitalist class and its governments to be
nice to you. "Arise like lions from
your slumbers". It is 'our' job to solve the problem of poverty. Not
governments, they only exist to govern 'over' us and to manage us. They are all
subject to its anarchic market fluctuations, war over trade routes, raw
materials, resources and geopolitical advantage, boom, bust, stagnation. Not philanthropists. Despise the conditions
in which philanthropy is deemed necessary. Don't think voting for the Labour
Party is 'the road to socialism' either, regardless of the leader. Don't follow
leaders. Government exists to manage 'us' in the interests of capital
regardless of the colour of its politics. Dissolve all governments and elect
the people. Despise all nationalism as deluded and anti-working class. Workers
have no country. It is 'our' fault, if we support capitalism, from which
springs poverty (actual relative in or out of work), homelessness and war. Decent
acts of solidarity by individuals, such as these two blokes have displayed, can
help alleviate problems and must be welcomed, just as any reform which provides
a let up the misery, but the problems will persist and continue ad infinitum,
until we take control of our own destiny and establish a commonly owned, free
access society. Don't settle for crumbs from the bosses table. The solution is
not more 'redistribution' and bigger crumbs, but common ownership by all. Take
over the bakery and have free access to all you need and require. A socialist world
would make it possible for work to be voluntary and access to the common wealth
free. By abolishing the wages system and replacing the production of
commodities for sale on the market, with production to satisfy human needs, we
begin to rationalise production to that end, rather than the anarchy of market
competition in the interests of a few, restore some natural harmony into our
work life balance where work could also be play. No more rulers or ruled. We
will all be social equals.
Capitalism is the social system which now exists in all
countries of the world. Under this system, the means for producing and
distributing goods (the land, factories, technology, transport system etc.) are
owned by a small minority of people. We refer to this group of people as the
capitalist class. The majority of people must sell their ability to work in
return for a wage or salary (who we refer to as the working class.)
The working class are paid to produce goods and services
which are then sold for a profit. The profit is gained by the capitalist class
because they can make more money selling what we have produced than we cost to
buy on the labour market. In this sense, the working class are exploited by the
capitalist class. The capitalists live off the profits they obtain from
exploiting the working class whilst reinvesting some of their profits for the
further accumulation of wealth. This is what we mean when we say there are two
classes in society. It is a claim based upon simple facts about the society we
live in today. This class division is the essential feature of capitalism. It
may be popular to talk (usually vaguely) about various other 'classes' existing
such as the 'middle class', but it is the two classes defined here that are the
key to understanding capitalism. It may not be exactly clear which class some
relatively wealthy people are in. But there is no ambiguity about the status of
the vast majority of the world's population. Members of the capitalist class
certainly know who they are. And most members of the working class know that
they need to work for a wage or salary in order to earn a living (or are
dependent upon somebody who does, or depend on state benefits.) The small
shopkeeper is in-between, his identification may be as a worker, or petty
bourgeois with "notions of upperosity" (Sean O' Casey), he doesn't
constitute a class for our general purposes, but he is at risk of falling into
poverty especially as the big boys move in.
The problem is not austerity... that’s just a turn of the
screw. We have always been rationed by the size of our pay cheque and the poor
have always been poor. It used to Soup Kitchens; now it's Food Banks. Meanwhile
the rich go on getting richer. We can't hope to end poverty and inequality –
whether in Britain or throughout the planet – until we get rid of production of
wealth for the exclusive profit of a few.
The problem is not Zero-Hours Contracts... It's
wage-slavery. Unions should fight for the best deal they can get. But let's not
kid ourselves that the system of employment can ever be geared to our needs.
Demonstrations and protest rallies may make us feel like we
are 'doing something', but it’s an illusion. The real battle is over ideas: the
ideas in the heads of those who do all the work but get little reward. That's
why the rich and powerful spend so much time trying to suppress and ridicule
any idea of an alternative
The world is rich enough. We can have a world where free
access to the planet’s wealth replaces the market and a world where useful work
is to be enjoyed rather than endured and suffered, and where no individual can
monopolise access to wealth. Armed with knowledge, humanity can finally start
to demand the possible.
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