Building socialist foundations, not castles in the sky

In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.” George Orwell

“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” George Orwell

Amid a myriad of global, regional and local social crises they say to us “We are in trouble. We all need to pull together on this.” But we have to ask ourselves upon what basis. The experts, the politicians, the intellectuals and academics are unable and unwilling to even touch the surface of the issue and activists remain paralysed and splintered. Fortunately, the Socialism Or Your Money Back blog and this one has the mission to present the inconvenient truths against the mainstream myths and to read between the media-headlines and the politicians sound-bites. To understand our world and its political-economic reality, is far from being easy, yet it remains our primary survival-tool. The capitalists’ ideology is that capitalism is the one and only economic system for mankind.

Contrary to the widespread myths about capitalism, in reality the capitalist system is theft, scarcity, austerity, poverty, servitude, inequality, unemployment, homelessness, mass refugee migration, chaos, economic crisis, state control, war and terror. To put it bluntly capitalism is hell on earth. Capitalism does not equal democracy – to the contrary. Capitalism is an anti-democratic, anti-social, dysfunctional, crisis-inflicting, inequality-generating, unstable and exploitative system. Capitalism is the modern version of slavery and tyranny: a system owned, controlled and dictated by a few billionaires. Capitalism does not equal human rights – to the contrary, capitalism elevates the rights of the capitalist class above all. Capitalism does not equal freedom – to the contrary. Capitalism is NOT a system of freedom (liberty), democracy and dignity. In the current system those who exercise power over the majority own the most capital and via capital, own most lands, resources, the means of production and governments of the world. And that group has a name: the capitalist class, the oligarchs and plutocrats of our era. The only solution to change our present and future is to remove the capitalist class. The capitalists are not irreplaceable and we can do much better without them

 Capitalism is a system driven by one single factor: profit-making. In order to keep a business up and running, the managers of the enterprise are obliged to maximise the profits for the shareholders, that is, to make as much profit as possible and as quick a time as possible despite at any moral, ethical, human or environmental cost, regardless of the consequences. Any other considerations that would reduce profits, such as refraining from environment-destroying activities, improving working conditions or reducing work-hours to employees are inherently alien to the capitalist. The capitalist class constantly seeks new cheap resources and markets where they can export their profit-making activities. When the capitalist enterprise grows, it eventually grows beyond borders and strives for new lands, resources, labour-sources and markets.

Do we really need to be buying every new thing that comes on the market? Why do we need new car number-plates every six months? To try and encourage people to buy more new cars. Is this really necessary? Why does Apple bring out a new computer/phone/watch every few months? Sure, the technology is better, but the root technology, the solid state drives and what have you, is typically no different to that in the previous model. It's just a ploy (which only makes sense in the capitalist model) to keep us spending. Capitalism is all about the cultivation of desires that ultimately cannot be met through such as means as advertising because this is the corollary of its own irrational expansionist dynamic: production for the sake of production. Looking at the impact if consumer culture on the environment, is it really the way to go in the future? Do we really need exponential growth in energy consumption? Can we afford to keep the game going? These are irrelevant questions in capitalism, because anything that turns a profit is good. Socialism offers a sane, sustainable model for the future of humanity.

 Scarcity, Poverty, Hunger. The capitalist class constantly creates scarcity to keep demand and prices as high as possible. This is why large amounts of food has been and is being wasted while millions have no access to food. Scarcity is to maintain the capitalist establishment and hinders all areas of research and development in green and abundant energy sources, affordable housing, etc. Capitalists discard products in massive quantities rather than feeding the hungry and provide for the less fortunate. Austerity, unemployment, debt. The capitalist class constantly seeks opportunity to keep the vast majority in a non-bargaining position, so that the capitalist class could keep their economic power– price and wage-fixing – position. Those who are unemployed can’t negotiate with a potential employer and those who are employed can’t negotiate for higher wages since there are many unemployed to replace them any time. The capitalist interest is to keep competition as low as possible, to reduce the scope and strength of any existing or potential competition, in order to maintain their market-leader position and in order to maintain a labour market with over-supply of the cheapest labour possible. Capitalists attack the unions and force employees into a race-to-the-bottom contest to compete for jobs by accepting lower and lower wages.

War is one of the most profitable businesses hence one of the most attractive enterprise for capitalists. In addition to the mega-profits made by the military industry complex, wars deliver additional benefits to the capitalists such as the opportunity to seize new lands, resources, markets and cheap labour. In addition via the extreme poverty, scarcity that wars create on immense scale and the need only the capitalist class, as the owners of means of production, is ready to meet. If there is no apparent reason to start a war, they create reasons for a war. They organise terror as pretext for wars. Capitalism is a system that uses techniques of covert aggression.

Many still believe that socialism has been tested and found wanting during the so-called “communist” period of the USSR and is satellite states so it is concluded that the only option we are left with is the current system, regardless of its tragic failures. Socialism, the way how Marx and many early proponents envisioned it, never has been realised. Soviet-type Socialism was in fact state-capitalism, a yet another form of the orthodox master-slave relationship. It was just another form of unbridled exploitation. There is no socialist state in socialism.  In the classical definition of socialism the state disappears since it is an instrument of class rule whereas with socialism classes cease to exist in the Marxian sense.  Hence, Engel’s observation:

“The people’s state has been flung in our teeth ad nauseam by the anarchists, although Marx’s anti-Proudhon piece and after it the Communist Manifesto declare outright that, with the introduction of the socialist order of society, the state will dissolve of itself and disappear.”

It is not part of the socialist case that the billionaire class consists of the lazy and the idle. Actually, even if they all worked their socks off 24/7 and 365 days of the year it would still be the case that overwhelmingly the money they have acquired to invest in business or give away to charity would have come from the efforts of the working class, not them  They have acquired this money simply by virtue of the fact that they have ownership rights over the means of production and are thus able to exploit the excluded property-less  majority by paying the latter significantly less in wages and salaries than the value of the goods and service the latter provide or make. Warren Buffet, the second richest man in the world said, "I personally think that society is responsible for a very significant percentage of what I've earned." Erick Schmidt, CEO of Google says, "Lots of people who are smart and work hard and play by the rules don't have a fraction of what I have. I realize that I don't have my wealth because I'm so brilliant." Do you imagine for one moment that the world that exists is one that correlates with the pro-capitalist’s hypothetical dream-world of a level playing field? Do you really think that the 62 multibillionaires who  currently own between them more wealth than half the world's population - 3,500,000,000 people - have contributed as much to humanity as the latter?  We would put it to you that the "rewards" that these 62 individuals have received has very little, if anything, to do with their own effort but overwhelmingly has to do with efforts of those who produce their wealth for them - the working class.  The workers in effect run capitalism from top to bottom but are largely excluded from the means of production However  hard they work it is the owners of capital that reap the benefits simple because they own capital and not because they merited or worked for what they receive.

On the question of work incentive, it is a complete myth to suggest that without monetary incentives individuals will be less inclined to work.  Actually there is quite a lot of evidence to suggest that monetary incentives (so-called) actually have the effect of undermining the intrinsic motive to work. Most of the work that we do even in capitalism is unpaid.  This is what constitutes what is called the grey economy which is counter-posed to the official white market economy and the unofficial black market economy. Studies undertaken by social researchers and bodies like UN  have shown that in terms of total hours worked , the grey economy is marginally larger than both the white and black economies combined.

The administration required for a socialist society to operate will be a tiny fraction of the size of capitalism’s sprawling bloated bureaucracies. What will need to be kept track of is not what individuals consume but broad patterns of consumption in respect of the aggregate demand for specific lines of goods to ensure there is an adequate supply to meet future demand.  This is something that is already done today in the guise of a self-regulating system of stock control based on calculation in kind e.g. numbers of tins of baked beans on the shelves.  However, alongside calculation in kind we also find today, monetary calculation.  Socialism will dispense with the latter but retain the former so simple logic will tell you that in terms of its administrative apparatus socialism will be vastly more streamlined than capitalism. What we argue for is a democratically run economy, run to benefit humanity. Socialism is not about painting a pretty picture. Socialism is not about building castles in the sky. Socialism is democratic control. Socialism is common ownership.