Common Sense - Common Ownership

Quite simply, common ownership of the world’s resources and productive capacity is the basis for a reorganisation of society that would ensure plenty of the necessities of life for everyone on the planet – no more starving, malnourished people, no wandering homeless, no senseless deaths for the want of easily affordable medical care and medicine, no more poverty, unemployment, or inequality. How can this be so? Surely, if it were possible to eliminate these scourges we would have done it long ago. Aren’t we working on these problems anyway? At present we live in a world where the resources of the earth and the products made from them, the processes needed to make them, and the transportation systems to get them to you, are all owned by private individuals. A company proposes to extract resources or manufacture commodities. It needs money in order to do this. Wealthy people loan the company the necessary capital, but they don’t do it for nothing. They will expect a healthy return on their money every year of say, 10%, or $100 000 on every million dollars loaned. If this return is below expectations, then the lender will withdraw his funds and look somewhere else to invest. This puts every enterprise in a competition for capital to fund their operations and for expansion. Thus all companies must compete and strive to do whatever is necessary to create profit to pay dividends to lenders. If a company fails in this, capital will dry up and production will stop, rendering its physical assets as junk or sold at a fraction of its value, and its employees will be out of work. In other words, commodities are only produced for the purpose of profit or they are not produced at all. As we have seen, profits go to a tiny minority of big investors of capital to enhance their already vast fortunes that allow them to live in luxury while contributing no work whatsoever.

We believe that the earth’s resources are the common heritage of all mankind and should be managed for the benefit of all. Those resources are easily abundant enough to feed, clothe, and house everyone on earth and provide medical care, education and everything else necessary to ensure a full and happy life for everyone. The establishment of common ownership would eliminate the competition for resources and for capital. It would eliminate production for profit only. It would eliminate the need for states and their central governments that exist to serve today’s competitive system. It would even eliminate the need for money and trading as goods and services would be produced solely to meet the needs of humans who would have free access to those goods and services, taking them as needed. Competition would be replaced by cooperation, eliminating conflict and war and because everybody and therefore no one person or group would own the means of producing wealth, everyone would stand equal to the powers of production – no owners and non-owners, no exploiters and exploited, no employers and employed, and therefore, no classes. Today, this is quite obviously not the case. We have constant conflict and war, vast inequality, poverty, malnutrition, starvation, and deprivation amid wealth and plenty. Workers produce all the wealth in the world and perform all the work, yet are only allowed to take home a small share of that wealth to enable them to exist so they can show up at work the next day to produce more profit that goes to the already wealthy. And they are only allowed to do so at the whim of that tiny minority of owners. Today, nobody starves or goes hungry because we lack food. Nobody is homeless because we lack building materials or builders, nobody lives in poverty because we lack wealth. People suffer theses scourges because they are unable to pay and thus realize a profit for some enterprise or other.

Is common ownership a utopian dream? Is it practical? At least we know our present system works, don’t we? Firstly, common ownership is a practical alternative to capitalism because it would rely on all necessary goods and services being produced by exactly those people who are doing the job now. It is only the capitalist class, the owners of capital, who presently do nothing in return for their financial rewards. The rest of us, the vast majority, go to work every day and earn our living by producing those necessary items. We are capable of doing that with or without the capitalist. The capitalist class, along with all those who now perform jobs that would be unnecessary in a system based on common ownership (soldiers, military- industrial workers, financial and insurance industries, salespersons, advertising, accounting, law and court workers, and so on) would become producers, too, reducing greatly the current workload of the rest of us. Common ownership would mean voluntary labour, no wages or employment, and free access for all to all the goods and services produced. Some say that in such a system many would choose not to work or take too much from the common store – that’s human nature, isn’t it? Actually, that’s human behavior learned and acquired under capitalist economic relationships, not human nature. If anything is free today that we normally pay for, we have to grab it because we know it won’t be free for long. But if it were free and available forever, we would soon learn to take only what we needed – like the air we freely breathe but take for granted. And if you had voted for such a system, why would you want to abuse it? 

Of course, a social revolution such as a change to common ownership would have to be the desire and democratic choice of the vast majority in order for it to work, but once that majority has been attained and the change completed, we would all want to make it work. Secondly, how well does capitalism work today? Very well, if you are a capitalist and receive the wealth to live a luxurious life style for no contribution to the common good. We acknowledge that capitalism is a system that has advanced human knowledge and the production of goods remarkably. Unfortunately, although capitalism is quite capable of producing enough for everybody, it is not capable of delivering. The kicker is that commodities can only be produced if there is a reasonable chance of profit so the supply is limited to match those who can pay, not all those who need. No money? Go without! No profit? No production! This means that the system doesn’t work for that half of humanity that must exist on $2 a day; or the almost 1 billion that go to bed hungry every day; or the tens of thousands of children who die every day from malnutrition; or the millions who live in poverty in the midst of incredible wealth and plenty; or the millions of unemployed, underemployed, underpaid, or food bank users even in our rich country. Capitalism doesn’t work at all well for a lot of people. Since power is invested in the state, and since capitalism is legitimised through the laws of private property, created and passed in state legislatures and upheld by the state police and army, then it becomes clear that control of the law-making bodies is a key element to effect change. A majority of representatives in the legislature in favour of social revolution could institute laws establishing common ownership safely and legally. A political party with a platform of common ownership of the means of producing and distributing wealth democratically, in the interests of all humankind, would be the one to bring this change about.

 This is precisely what The Socialist Party proposes, and all it proposes. No promises of a higher minimum wage, tax the rich, carbon taxes etc., just the establishment of common ownership which will address all the major ills afflicting society under capitalism such as war, poverty, and deprivation of food, housing, and medical care. The Socialist Party is a companion party in The World Socialist Movement, a federation of parties promoting Common Ownership. All we need to succeed is for you and your family, friends, and neighbours to read our literature to understand the incredible possibilities that establishing Common Ownership would have on all humanity. It would lift us to a higher form of social organization that would benefit mankind. Why wait any longer?  

Capitalist economics

Most workers realise they are hired to help create profit for the owners of the enterprise. Most realize that their wages are not equal to what their employer makes for their labour. A visit to your local car dealership service department will soon prove that. They advertise labour rates of around $90 per hour, and we all know the mechanics don’t make that much. But few would count themselves exploited, or be able to tell you exactly where profit comes from. That’s not surprising as the capitalist class does its best to hide it and it’s not taught in school. Their propaganda machine, the media, will constantly ask you, “There’s nothing wrong with making a profit, is there?” and tell you that profit comes from entrepreneurial skill, hard work on the bosses’ part, making smart deals, or buying low and selling high, all of which are pure nonsense. That’s because if the source of profit were general knowledge, many workers would be contemplating a better system of producing and distributing wealth. 

It was Marx who discovered the real source of profit through his Labour Theory of Value. Classical economists such as Ricardo, Smith, Say, and Mill regarded the value of a product as the amount of labour in it. Marx went further describing value as the amount of necessary labour embodied in a product, meaning the average amount of labour under average conditions ( hence the struggle to constantly improve productivity, i.e. reduce the amount of necessary labour). This definition of value applies also to the only commodity that the worker possesses, labour-power. Its value is determined by the amount of goods, services, and training needed to keep him fit to be able to show up for work the next day and perform his tasks. It includes the necessaries to bring up his family, the next generation of workers. The price of labour-power is your wage. Labour-power has the unique ability to add value to a product. This difference is called surplus-value, is embedded in the product, and realized by the capitalist when he sells the product on the market. Thus the worker produces a value equal to his wage in one part of the day, and the extra value that goes into the product and ultimately into the owner’s pocket, in another part of the day. Therefore PROFIT = UNPAID LABOUR. This we call exploitation as the worker is working for nothing for a part of the day. The length of the part of the day needed to produce value equal to the worker’s wage determines the rate of exploitation – the less time needed to produce the wage equivalent and the greater the amount of time given to the employer, the greater the exploitation. So, if you think you are not exploited, think again. No matter how generous your employer may be, or how pleasant your surroundings may be, the only reason you are there is to produce surplus-value, and when you cease to do this, or even if you don’t create enough surplus value, you’ll be out the door. Just ask Ontario’s manufacturing sector whose jobs are vapourising at an alarming rate, and reappearing in places like Mexico, South America, and Asia where the workers can produce more surplus-value, and therefore, more profit. This exploitation is the basis of capitalist wealth and will only end when the riches of the earth and the systems used to transform them into wealth are held in common and used to produce goods for the benefit of all mankind.

In capitalism, the production of wealth is created by the investment and production of thousands of competing companies. Economic growth is guided by the so-called “unseen hand of the market”. There is no oversight or regulation involved in the market system. Production occurs according to the expectation of profit and is not associated with the expansion of other industries. This “driving blind” approach to production causes imbalances in the quantity of wealth produced by the varying sectors of an economy. The competition for capital accumulation causes companies to inflate production above the levels of consumer demand. In the case of GM and Ford, overproduction has caused commodities to go unsold, lowering their exchange value in the market, causing massive losses in profits and majors cutbacks coming in the form of layoffs and plant closures. The main cause for these economic slowdowns is almost rarely ever touched upon. It is due to the competitive nature of the market system that owners of companies are increasingly forced to squeeze more and cheaper production out of their workers. In the chase for capital expansion, companies over-extend themselves, the result coming in the form of production cutbacks. As profits shrink and commodity consumption slows down, investment follows suit causing the shoring up of loans and the lowering of credit interest rates. Downturns in one industry soon begin to have a ripple effect in other sectors of the economy as commodity demands begin to fall causing other industries to follow suite with cut-backs. Along with the profit system comes the great cost to the working class. Out of the loop and unaware of the financial dealings our employers engage in, the working class are always at the bottom of the hill when the proverbial feces runs downward.Over-productivee workers are rewarded by their employers with the loss of their livelihood. While the owning class gets billions of dollars received in the form of a bailout designed to protect their control over the economy, thousands of workers who are in serious need of a “bailout” themselves are kicked to the curb and forgotten. This current economic downturn could get better or it could get worse. One thing for certain is that recessions and depressions are a unavoidable inheritance of the capitalist system of production. There will always be booms and slumps so long as the means of production are owned and controlled by the owning class and operated in their interests. It is because the profit motive is the driving force of production in our society that we face such times of uncertainty. 

When the working class removes themselves from this backward and illogical method of wealth production, society will finally be free from the unpredictable vagaries of the profit system. Production of wealth for the profit of a few individuals is the name of the game in todays world. Carried along with that are the unavoidable scourges of the so-called “market corrections”. The Socialist Party offers a practical alternative to a society that fails so many time and time again. We advocate a world where the production of wealth is owned and controlled by the entire working class in the interests of the working class as a whole. We advocate a world where labour exists not to make the rich even wealthier, rather to produce what mankind needs. In a world owned in common the worker possesses what he produces, and exploitation does not exist. Common ownership and free access to the wealth of the world is merely a breath away. The only element hindering the working class from achieving true emancipation is our lack of understanding of the class system and its inherent exploitative nature. In order to change the world for the better, we must first understand what it is about the world that we need to change. We have waited far too long for our so-called leaders and political saviors to create a fair and just world . It has come time for th e working clas s to pu ll its elf up fro m their bo ots trap s an d p ut an end to the system that brings continual insecurity to our lives. Worker, the time for common ownership has come!  

Turning On And Up The Flow Of Cash.

Despite overwhelming opposition in this country and beyond what any thinking person knows of the ludicrous madness increasing CO2 levels and global warming, The Canadian Press May 25th tells us that "Kinder Morgan announces Trans Mountain expansion will go ahead."

The sprawling Texas monopoly is quite used to public opposition, but what overrides any embarrassment of what science or the public says, what's highest in these bird's minds is their offering of 102.9 million shares at a price the of $17 to raise the underwriting capital powering the ecological nightmare and ensuring their profit$ keep going Up, Up and Up! And ain't that the name of the game? Profits at any cost?

With the company's two lapdogs Trudeau and Trump ensconced in power, horizons looks rosy for this oil hustling shifter to do quite handily out of the deal.

Environment? Who cares, other than what the gutter press tells about the BC Greens holding the 'balance of power' swaying BC's two other capitalist parties to do the right thing: keep those voters docile while turning on and up the flow of cash for the ever hungry capitalist lobbyists who pay big bucks to install these guys in power!

We read the Alberta NDP likes the deal too. Notley, says "opponents of the pipeline expansion have no power to stop it nor should they hold hostage the economy of another province." Well, that's a convenient thing to say Rachel – at least your tribe of labour fakirs are off the hook!

Citizens wake up! You're voting for capitalism here. Until we figure the racket out there ain't going to be any stopping pipelines like the Trans Mountain or any other. Like Hollywood tells us folks: The show must go on!

Next time voting comes around we wage slaves have to make it real socialism, cause that's a show where we plebs write the whole script!

For socialism, 

Steve, Mehmet and John

The Essence of Capitalism

A corporation doesn’t have a heart or compassion. It is simply a paper entity and an agreement between risk investors whose DNA is to make a profit. It’s all about money and in tough times, all measures must be taken to protect that capital. Lay-offs are an unfortunate part of the business cycle. This is an assessment of the system with which we can agree, except to him it’s perfectly natural to continue this insane way of doing business. The ‘business cycle’ to which he referred is what Marx identified a hundred and fifty years ago as regular periods of steady production, leading to rapidly increasing production (a boom), eventually causing oversupply and reduced profit and production (a recession), followed by recovery of steady production. This cycle is inherent to the capitalist mode of production so we can expect to see crises and job losses every decade or so. The timing, length, and depth of such recessions are not predictable, only that they will occur sporadically. All this shows that we work at the pleasure of capital. When profits are high and production is expanding, the worker is a sought after commodity. 

When profits dip and production falls, the worker is expendable. Capital, therefore, dictates when you will have a job and when you will be out of work, struggling to survive. The worker must tolerate this insecurity because he has no ownership of, and no say in, the productive process. In fact, the workers own practically nothing but their personal possessions (and ability to labour). Even our houses and cars, for the most part, are owned by the banks. That fact has been shockingly brought to our attention as 2.3 million American homes, and 3% of all California homes became bank properties in 2008, and 2009 is expected to be even worse. In a system of common ownership and free access to all goods and services produced, energies in unneeded sectors of production would simply be applied where needed with no interruption in the access to the necessary goods and services for citizens. This end to recessionary insecurity and obeisance to capital can only come about when we end the wages system altogether and transform society to fulfill our needs rather than private profit.

Most people are drawn to examine and accept the socialist case because of its pure logic and common sense. Once socialism is comprehended, the view of our current system of production, capitalism, comes into focus and the view is bleak and incomprehensible. The very basis of capitalism – that the ownership the earth’s resources and riches should belong to a small minority that stole and plundered them, eliminating millions of people who stood in the way in the process, is sheer insanity. That those riches, and the means to convert them into useful goods, should be organized in the interests of that minority to the detriment and deprivation of the vast majority of the earth’s population only serves to compound that insanity. This state of affairs leads to our present relations of production, e.g. oppressor and oppressed, owner and non-owner, boss and worker. This gives us our two classes – those who own but do not produce and those who produce but do not own. The owners take possession of the producers’ products and the profits realized from their sale to live a life of ease and luxury, while those who labour to produce them get just enough to keep them labouring and often much less than that. Does this make sense? Unfortunately, it gets much worse. The parasitic owning class enjoys the best housing, clothing, education, healthcare, holidays and recreation that money can buy, with so much left over that they couldn’t possibly spend the excess if they tried. Meanwhile, most of the producers make do with substandard housing, food, healthcare, and education. While some workers, whose skills are in high demand by the system for making a profit, may do quite well, they are greatly outnumbered by the millions, even billions who live in abject poverty and scramble daily to survive. 

Sadly, thousands every day, mostly children under five years, lose the struggle. All producers, including those considered relatively wealthy, live with the insecurity of job loss and the prospect of falling into poverty. The workers only work at the pleasure of the owners and their expectations of profit. Like compound interest, inequality in the capitalist system compounds as profit and dividends are re-invested to accumulate ever-larger sums of capital, increasing the gap between owner and producer. The competition for resources and profits between these groups of capital, to which the owners contribute, frequently leads to conflict and, sometimes, even war, surely the greatest insanity of the human experience. What could be more insane than one group of humans dropping bombs on another group, or having 20% of the world’s scientific brains given to creating more efficient tools of death and destruction? For the thinking person, many everyday realities are insanities – food banks in the “developed” rich nations where food abounds; homelessness or unsatisfactory housing where building materials and skills are prevalent; malnourished, sickly people where hospitals and doctors are, or could easily be, plentiful; recreational, educational and job restrictions where there is no need, save to serve the profit motive; a whole “third” or “developing” world of billions who live in unimaginable poverty and deprivation when our productive forces could provide good food, housing, health care, and education. Ready for the common sense part yet? 

A socialist world would be based on the common ownership of the world’s riches and the productive forces to turn them into useful goods. Since all products would, therefore, be commonly owned, they would be freely accessed by all, according to their needs. Imagine, No more rich or poor, privileged or marginalized, boss or worker, owner or non-owner. All producers would meet as equals to decide what, how, where, when to produce to meet everyone’s needs, without regard to money or profit. Would we then produce the shoddy goods of today, using dirty, polluting techniques? Would we ravage and despoil the earth’s forests, soils, waterways, and air, in the pursuit of profit for a privileged class? Of course not! That’s just common sense. Would we go to war over resources, or manage them sensibly in the interests of all humankind? Would we allow anyone to live malnourished, homeless, illiterate, unfulfilled lives if we had the power to change it? Of course, we wouldn’t. It is only the restriction of the capitalist mode of production and the pursuit of profit that creates the insanity of our world. It is only the common sense of a socialist society that can remedy our present situation and create a world of cooperation and plenty for everyone – no classes, no money, no war, no poverty, no want. Capitalism has brought the potential to do this but cannot deliver. That next step must be the purpose of a socialist society. It is possible given today’s productive capacities and scientific knowledge. So it’s up to you, reader, to choose to continue this insanity or to look at the alternative. When a majority have done that and decided to act, socialism and common sense will become a reality. There really is no choice, is there?  

Profiting From Your Vital Organs.

SOCIALIST PARTY OF CANADA

The daily MailOnline, reports in NY organ trafficker admits buying kidneys in Israel for $10,000... and selling them in U.S. for $120,000 that: "The 60-year-old was arrested two years ago following a huge investigation into corruption in New Jersey.

The probe led to 46 arrests, including several rabbis, the New York Daily News reports. Many of the donors were desperately poor immigrants from eastern European countries such as Moldova, Romania and Russia."

I am just at a loss for words. Impoverishing masses (and now their vital organs) for private gain is the game. 

Steve and John.

What we want

'But of late, since Bismarck went in for state ownership of industrial establishments, a kind of spurious socialism has arisen, degenerating, now and again, into something of flunkeyism, that without more ado declares all state ownership, even of the Bismarckian sort, to be socialistic. Certainly, if the taking over by the state of the tobacco industry is socialistic, then Napoleon and Metternich must be numbered among the founders of socialism.’ Engels, Socialism Utopian and Scientific.

Reformism is the conviction that socialism can be achieved by the use of and participation in the existing political institutions by petitioning for regulatory and legislative measures to ameliorate and improve the conditions of the working class. Every delay in breaking with and exposing reformism does harm to the cause of promoting working-class consciousness. Revolutions do not take place against backgrounds of recessions and austerity. They take place when in a period of rising expectations the established order cannot satisfy the expectations which it has been forced to bring into being, a working-class with further horizons than mere wage rises.

One of the most enduring myths about socialism is that it is a doctrine of nationalisation and state ownership. Engels explained, ‘The more the state proceeds to the taking over of productive forces the more does it actually become the national capitalist ... The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head.’ Nationalisation is a reform within capitalism, not a measure that overthrows it. To the Socialist Party it was self-evident from 1917 that the Soviet Union was not socialism but a form of state-capitalism, a centralized command economy where the state performed the function of the capitalist. The Socialist Party recognised the fraudulent claims of the Bolsheviks and their followers. Even before the NEP, all the conditions which led to the growth of state-capitalism were already being developed. The market, i.e. the exchange of commodities between independent producers, cannot be abolished by a political act.

Socialism as understood by Marx and other socialists does not mean a state-capitalist programme of national ownership and control. Marx declined to give any detailed picture of what he expected it to be like: that was something for the working class to work out for itself. Nevertheless scattered throughout his writings, published and unpublished, are references to what he believed would have to be the basic features of the new society the working class would establish in place of capitalism.

Nowhere did Marx distinguish between "socialist society" and "communist society". As far as he, and Engels, were concerned these two words meant the same, being alternative names for the society they thought the working class would establish in place of capitalism, a practice which will be followed in this article. As a matter of fact besides communist Marx employed four other words to describe future society: associated, socialised, collective and co-operative. All these words convey a similar meaning and bring out the contrast with a capitalist society where not only the ownership and control of production but life generally is private, isolated and atomized.

Of these the word Marx used most frequently — almost more frequently than communist — was an association. Marx wrote of future society as "an association which will exclude classes and their antagonism" and as "an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all". In Volume III of Capital Marx writes three or four times of production in future society being controlled by the "associated producers". Association was a word used in working class circles in England to mean a voluntary union of workers to overcome the effects of competition. This was Marx's sense too: in future society, the producers would voluntarily co-operate to further their own common interest; they would cease to be "the working class" and become a classless community.

Natural resources and the man-made instruments of production would be held in common: Marx speaks of "a community of free individuals, carrying on their work with the means of production in common" and, in his Critique of the Gotha Programme, of "the co-operative society based on the common ownership of the means of production" and of "the material conditions of production" being "the cooperative property of the workers themselves" . It is significant that Marx never defined communist society in terms of the ownership and control of the means of production by the State, but rather in terms of ownership and control by a voluntary association of the producers themselves. He did not equate what is now called "nationalisation" with socialism.

The State as an instrument of political rule over people and an organ of coercion was, in Marx's view, only needed in class-divided societies as an instrument of class rule and to contain class struggles. As he put it, in a socialist society "there will be no more political power properly so-called since political power is precisely the official expression of antagonism in civil society" and "the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another" Socialism would indeed need a central administration but this would not be a "State" or "government" in that it would not have at its disposal any means of coercing people, but would be concerned purely with administering social affairs under democratic control. Marx endorsed the proposal of Saint Simon and other early critics of capitalism for "the conversion of the functions of the State into a mere superintendence of production", and also declared that "freedom consists in converting the state from an organ superimposed upon society into one completely subordinate to it." Once Socialism had been established and classes abolished, the coercive and undemocratic features of the State machine would have been removed, leaving only purely administrative functions mainly in the field of the planning and organization of production.

In Marx's view, there would be consciously planned production. He writes of a society "in which producers regulate their production according to a preconceived plan" and of "production by freely associated men . . . consciously regulated by them in accordance with a settled plan". He was well aware that to regulate "production according to a preconceived plan" would be a huge organizational task. Indeed, that it would be, if you like, the economic problem of socialism. Matching production with social wants would in the first instance be a huge statistical exercise. Marx emphasised that for this sort of reason "book-keeping" would be more necessary in socialism than under capitalism — not that he envisages the books in socialist society being kept in money. Socialist society, he felt, would use some direct measure of labour-time for its statistics and planning. Calculations would have to be made of how much labour-time would be needed to produce particular items of wealth; the real social (as opposed to monetary market) demand for the various items of wealth would also have to be calculated; and all the figures put together to construct a definite plan for the allocation of resources and labour to the various different branches of production.

Marx compares how capitalism and socialism would tackle the same problems, for instance, a long-term project which would not bear fruit in the form of finished products for some years but which in the meantime would have to be allocated labour and resources. Under capitalism, said Marx, this creates monetary problems and upsets; but in socialism, it is only a question of "preconceived" planning, of making allowances for this beforehand. Similarly with miscalculations, say overproducing: under capitalism (where overproduction means in relation to market demand) this causes a crisis and a drop in production; in Socialism (where overproduction would be in relation to real social demand) there would be no problem: it could be corrected in the next plan.

In his Critique of the Gotha Programme and in Volume III of Capital Marx lists the various major uses to which the social product would have to be put in a socialist society:

1) Replacing the means of production (raw materials, wear, and tear of machinery, etc.) used up in producing the social product.

2) Expanding the means of production so as to be able to produce a larger social product.

3) A small surplus as a reserve to provide against accidents and natural disasters (and planning miscalculations, we might add).

4) The individual consumption of the actual producers.

5) The individual consumption of those unable to work: the young, the old, the sick.

6) Social consumption: schools, hospitals, parks, libraries, etc.

7) Social administration not connected with production.

This is obvious but it is as well to spell it out so as to show that Marx did discuss some of the practical problems of totally planned production.

Socialism, Marx repeatedly makes clear, would be a non-market society, with all that that implied: no money, no buying and selling, no wages, etc. In fact, it was his view that proper planning and the market are incompatible: either production is regulated by a conscious previously worked-out plan or it is regulated, directly or indirectly, by the market. When Marx talked about men under capitalism being dominated by blind forces, which were, in the end, their own creations, it was precisely blind market forces he mainly had in mind. For him, capitalism was essentially a market economy in which the allocation of labour and resources to the various branches of production was determined by what he called "the law of value".

Although production under capitalism was not consciously controlled, it was not completely anarchic: some sort of order was imposed by the fact that goods exchanged in definite proportions, related both to the amount of socially necessary labour-time spent in producing them and to the average rate of profit on invested capital. Under capitalism it was the averaging of the rate of profit on the capital invested in the different branches that regulated production. But this was an unplanned hit-and-miss process which was only accurate in the long run; in the short run it led to alternating periods of boom and slump, labour shortage and mass unemployment, high profits and low profits. The assertion by society of conscious control over production, and the allocation of resources to the various branches of production in accordance with a previously settled plan, necessarily meant for Marx the disappearance not only of production for profit, but also of the whole mechanism of the market (including the labour market, and so of the wages system), of production for the market ("commodity-production"), of buying and selling ("exchange") and of money.

The Communist Manifesto specifically speaks of "the Communistic abolition of buying and selling" and of the abolition not only of capital (wealth used to produce other wealth with a view to profit) but of wage labour too. In Volume I Marx speaks of "directly associated labour, a form of production that is entirely inconsistent with the production of commodities . . ." and in Volume II of things being different "if production were collective and no longer possessed the form of commodity production . . ." . Also, in Volume II, Marx in comparing how Socialism and capitalism would deal with a particular problem twice says there would be no money to complicate matters in socialist society: "If we conceive society as being not capitalistic but communistic, there will be no money-capital at all in the first place . . ." and "in the case of socialized production the money-capital is eliminated" . In other words, in socialism it is solely a question of planning and organisation. Marx also advised trade unionists to adopt the revolutionary watchword "Abolition of the Wages System" and, in his Critique of the Gotha Programme, stated "within the co-operative society based on the common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products" for the simple reason that their work would then be social, not individual and applied as part of a definite plan. What they produce belongs to them collectively, i.e. to society, as soon as it is produced; socialist society then allocates, again in accordance with a plan, the social product to various previously-agreed uses.

One of these uses must be individual consumption. How did Marx think this would be organised? Here again, Marx took a realistic view. Eventually, he said, the principle "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" would apply. In other words, there would be no social restrictions on individual consumption, every member of society being free to take from the common stock of consumer goods according to their individual need. But Marx knew that this presupposed a higher level of productivity than prevailed in his day (he was writing in 1875). In the meantime, while the productive forces were being expanded, individual consumption would unavoidably have to be restricted. How? Marx made the simple point that how wealth would be allocated for individual consumption in a communist society would depend on what and how much there was to allocate: "The mode of this distribution will vary with the productive organisation of the community, and the degree of historical development attained by the producers".

This was another obvious point, but on three or four occasions Marx went further and referred to a specific method of regulating distribution: by "labour-time vouchers". The basic idea of such a system is that each producer would be given a certificate recording how much time he had spent at work; this would entitle him to draw from the common store of wealth set aside for individual consumption an equivalent amount of consumer goods, likewise measured in labour-time. This, as Marx himself recognised, was only one of many possible systems Socialist society could democratically agree on for allocating wealth for individual consumption in the temporary conditions of relative scarcity here assumed — realistically for 1875 — to exist. As long as the total number of vouchers issued matched the total amount of wealth set aside for individual consumption, society could adopt any criteria it chose for deciding how many vouchers particular individuals, or groups of individuals, should have; this need bear no relationship at all to how many hours an individual may or may not have worked. Similarly, the "pseudo-prices" given to particular goods to be distributed need bear no relation to the amount of labour-time spent on producing them. Marx himself described some of the defects of the labour-time voucher system, but also made the point that any voucher system of allocating goods for individual consumption would suffer from anomalies, being forced on socialist society by the not-yet-developed-enough productive forces in what he called "the first phase of communist society".

When Marx mentions labour-time vouchers in Capita! he always made it quite clear that he was only assuming such a system as an example: "merely for the sake of a parallel with the production of commodities" or that the producers "may, for all it matters, ..." receive labour-time vouchers. He also emphasised that these vouchers would not be money in its proper sense: "Owen's 'labour-money' ... is no more 'money' than a ticket to the theatre" and "these vouchers are not money. They do not circulate" .

Marx's point here is that the vouchers would merely be pieces of paper entitling people to take such and such an amount of consumer goods; they would not be tokens for gold like today's paper money; once handed over they would be cancelled and so could not circulate. Besides, they would be issued as part of the overall plan for the production and distribution of wealth. Finally, we repeat, any voucher system, whether on a labour-time or some other basis, was seen by Marx only as a temporary measure while the productive forces were developed as rapidly as possible to the level where they would permit socialist society to go over to free access according to individual need.

This is why this is now only an academic problem. The further development of the forces of production since Marx's day has meant that the system he always said was the final aim of Socialism — free access to consumer goods according to individual need — could now be introduced almost immediately Socialism was established. The problem Marx envisaged labour-time vouchers as a possible solution to no longer really exists.

Conclusion

We have seen, then, that Marx held that future communist society would be a class-free community, without any coercive State machine, based on the common ownership of the means of production, with planning to serve human welfare completely replacing production for profit, the market economy, money and the wages system — even in the early stages when it might not prove possible to implement the principle "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need", which, however, always remained for Marx the aim. Marx, and Engels, never drew any distinction between "socialist" and "communist" society, using these (and other) terms interchangeably. He did, however, believe that this society would only be established after a "period of ... revolutionary transformation" of a number of years duration during which the working class would be using its control of political power to dispossess the capitalists and bring all the means of production under democratic social control — but, here again, the further development of the productive forces since Marx's day means that the socialist revolution can now be carried through very quickly with no need for any lengthy period between the capture of political power by the working class and the establishment of socialism.

AND A WAGE-LESS WORLD 

Share the Planet, Spare the People and Save Humanity

 All forms of life, vegetable, and animal, are part of a network of relationships called an ecosystem. This system is normally self-regulating so that, if disequilibrium occurs, it is corrected spontaneously, either restoring the former equilibrium or establishing a new one. The problem is that the industrial revolution came along, i.e. pollution of earth and water due to the dumping of toxic waste, or the use of non-recyclables, chemical fertilizers, nitrates, pesticides and other processes in agriculture; pollution of oceans due to an increase in maritime traffic, pollution of and from continental waterways, to shipwrecks of oil tankers (seventy recorded in 1996), to the discharge of toxic waste, chemicals, radioactive material, to over-fishing; air pollution due to massive utilization of fossil fuels and the development of individual automobiles, to destruction of forests, the lungs of the planet, to industrial accidents (for instance, Bhopal 1984, Chernobyl 1986), to emissions of greenhouse gases by vehicles, factories; deforestation leading to global warming and its consequences; raising the levels of the oceans due to melting of polar and continental glaciers; desertification; storms; acid rain; species extinction; stockpiling of nuclear weapons; development of mega cities that now house half the world’s population. 

As to the social and economic consequences of the ecological crisis, they will be dire with ninety per cent of the population exposed to natural catastrophe, especially in the poor regions and half the world’s population occupying coastal zones. How many climate refugees will be forced from flooded lands or from desertification that renders their lands unfit for agriculture? In the nineteenth century, some people were already concerned about the consequences of industrialisation on the environment, but it was the ecologists in the second half of the twentieth century when the ravages caused by human activity worsened, who provoked a consciousness of ecological problems. To remedy this, conferences and summits were held where international accords were reached, e.g. Declaration of Rio, 1992, Protocol of Kyoto, 1997, Earth Summit, Johannesburg, 2002, Paris Treaty 2016 on the greenhouse effect and global warming but not respected by the signatories who were submitting to global multinational interests. No nation is going to pass legislation unilaterally that will penalise the competitiveness of its national enterprises in the face of foreign competition. It would be almost impossible to find the international agreement that would penalise no one. That’s the snag since competition for profits is the basis of our current system.

Attempts at international agreement have been made, e.g. the UN, founded with the goal of maintaining peace. Yet the twentieth century has experienced the most murderous and devastating wars in history. No accord aiming to limit the machinations of the multinationals in their tireless quest for profits is successful. The measures that favour the environment, and the fundamental transformation of the productive apparatus and transportation systems that these measures imply, hurt the interests of the enterprises and their shareholder since adding to costs diminishes profits. Human beings are capable, whatever the form of production, of working with the environment. That was the case for many primitive societies that co-existed in complete harmony with the rest of nature and there’s nothing to prevent that being possible today, based on our technology and methods of industrial production, but for the capitalists, they are a ‘cost’ that would penalise them, faced with international competition.

It isn’t, then, that production itself, i.e. the use of nature to produce for human needs, that is incompatible with sustainability, but the use of certain productive methods that ignore nature’s balance or that brings about changes too rapid to allow a new balance to develop. In effect, environmental preservation is a social problem that imposes on humanity the establishment of a rapport with the rest of nature. In practice, that implies a society that uses as much renewable sources of energy as possible and recycling of non renewable material; a society that, once the appropriate balance with nature is found, would hold a level of stable production and zero growth. That doesn’t mean to say that changes are excluded on principle, but that all changes must respect the environment making a rhythm to which nature can adapt. Yet, the destructive methods of capitalist production over the course of the last two centuries destroyed the natural balance. What is called ‘market economy’, ‘economic liberalism’, ‘free enterprise’, or whatever euphemism is employed, the social system we live under is capitalism. Under this system, the means of producing and distributing social wealth – the means of society’s existence – are the exclusive property of a dominant, parasitic, minority, the holders of capital or the capitalist class, in whose interests the system is inevitably managed. 

In effect, capitalism, ruled by economic laws that act as external constraints on human productive activities, and within which businesses compete on the market for short term economic gain, pushes the economic decision makers to adopt methods that serve profit without taking their ecological impact into account, and pillage the earth’s natural resources without regard for the future. It isn’t, then, man, but the capitalist system itself that is responsible for ecological problems. Not only do the salaried workers have no influence in business decisions, but those who have the power to make decisions – the capitalists and their managers – are themselves subject to the laws of competition and profit. Of course, capitalism must face up to the ecological problems sooner or later, but only after the fact, after having caused the damage. Yet the ecologists, critics of ‘liberal capitalism’, accept, like the other types of reformers, the economic dictatorship of the minority, because they do not understand the relationship between environmental destruction and the private ownership of the means of production. That’s why the Greens are forced to make concessions whenever they participate in government. Because, by definition, capitalism can only function in the interests of the capitalists, no palliative, no adjustment, no measure, no reform, is able (and never will be able) to subordinate capitalist private property to the interests of all. For that reason, only the threat of a socialist movement, based on the establishment of social ownership (hence socialism) of the means of existence of society, managed by, and in the interests of all, would push the capitalists to concede reforms favourable to workers for fear of losing the whole pie, but still retaining the system that causes the problems! 

It is, then, for the construction of such a movement that we launch a call to all workers conscious of the fact that their interests are in opposition to those of the capitalists, to all those who are subject to the incessant attacks and dangers of the capitalists’ destruction of our planet, and wanting not just to patch up for now, but to solve the problems forever. We are only able to heal the planet by establishing a society without private property, commodity production, or profit, where human beings are free to choose the employment of productive methods because only such a society is free of the economic laws of the quest for profit and capital accumulation. In short, only a world socialist society, based on common ownership and the democratic management of the world’s resources, is compatible with production that is respectful of our natural environment.  

Dreams And Reality.

JOIN THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF CANADA

The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy, is a new book by economist Peter Temin.

We know that there are only two classes: those who have to work to earn their living, and those who do not. I visited the US only three or four times, but just a quick glance at any neighbourhood is enough to see that "American Dream" is only true for a select few.

Run down neighbourhoods, increasing racial violence, xenophobia, and many other ills, are the results of the very system they have been praising for years. America is not regressing into a developing nation. It has already been a developing nation, for capitalism, but is now far worse for most: it's anarchic barbarism.

The rich will understand that they cannot sustain their status much longer while there is so much injustice and suffering around. Hasten the day working folk of America wake up to know that "American Dream" is for all to prosper, not a select few! 

Wage slaves to the back of the line . 

https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/america-is-regressing-into-a-developing-nation-for-most-people

Steve and John

Come Fly With Me - If You Are Rich.

How much would you pay to avoid the common crowd? Now there is a great service available for 1% of the 1%. While the rest gets treated like crap going through security points, customs and struggling to get their baggage if you can afford, you can get the royal treatment. With a private entrance to suites at the airport and quick custom and security clearance, the service boasts that all you have to do is to walk 70 steps as while the rest walks about 2200 steps from the entrance to the plane. Capitalism continues to divide us and pushes those who are already at lower levels of the social structure further down.

Another article related to this by the Independent mentions that there are iPads showing the airport security and baggage queues. This adds insult to injury.

Now the very rich will be watching how hoi polloi suffer to get on planes (only to be further insulted as in the American Airlines incident) while they are sipping cocktails in comfy suites.

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lopez-private-terminal-lax-0503-story.html 

Steve and John.

The Waste of the Profit System

Capitalism has an odd way of producing goods in today’s world. The sheer amount of waste created by the capitalist system would almost be unexplainable if it weren’t understood that goods are only produced for a profit. When you look at the industries that have nothing to do with the production of goods to satisfy human needs this becomes apparent. The marketing industry in the United States is an excellent example of how labour is being wasted at an unprecedented scale.

 In 2004 the communications and research company, Blackfriars Communications, Inc. projected that marketing spending in the U.S. alone would near $1.074 trillion in 2005. That accounts for nearly 9% percent of the gross domestic product for that year. They found that manufacturers spent the most on the marketing of all the industries, almost $120 billion, which was spent on advertising, direct marketing, events and other activities. The sheer amount of labour hours wasted in this industry alone is astonishing. Let's take a look at some of the other industries that have nothing to do with the production of goods for human need. A breakdown of the American economy for 2007 shows that the labour pool, that is all employed workers in America, is approximately 134 million people. Of that number approximately 60 million are employed in industries that are involved in the production of goods that can be consumed or used. This figure is the added approximate number of workers employed in industries such as mining, utilities, construction, manufacturing, transportation and warehousing, scientific and technical services, education, health care and arts and entertainment. That leaves approximately 72 million workers employed in industries that have little or nothing to do with the production of goods for use or consumption. Industries such as wholesale, retail, information, finance, and insurance, real estate, management, administration and food service. Not to mention the number of workers employed by the armed forces and the police. It is striking to see that the number of workers employed in fields devoted to the selling of goods produced is much higher than those employed in sectors that actually produce wealth. This odd balance is only part of the unavoidable structure of the capitalist system.

 In a world of private ownership, the wealth produced is owned and controlled by a small minority of people. Jobs are available only when there is a profit to be made in that sector and goods can be had only if you have the money to buy them. It is the profit making system that creates a society of scarcity. It is not scarcity that creates the profit system. In the capitalist society, goods can only be produced if there is an expectation of making a profit. The capitalist class, who owns all of the wealth produced, sells the goods back to those who produce them in the first place. The wage or salary paid to the worker is always less than the value of what he or she produces. It is this surplus that creates profit. In this respect, profit can be considered as unpaid labour. In a society of common ownership, labour would be directly involved only in the production of wealth for use. Only the work that is involved in the production of goods would remain. That would leave more than half of the entire labour pool that could be immediately used to increase the productive capacities of wealth in society, greatly reducing the man-hours of each worker in the production of goods. Gone would be the countless numbers of jobs that only exist to administer the profit system. It has been argued that it is the competition that exists in the profit system that is responsible for all technological advancements.

 While this may true in some respects, it is also the profit system that is responsible for the hindering of many technological and productive advancements. For example, the know-how and will exist to create an automobile that can run on hydrogen power alone, i.e. water.2 Unfortunate, however, is the fact that there is no profit to be made in selling a car that runs for free. Another thing to consider is the production of shoddy goods that break down not long after they are used. Again, using the automobile as an example, it is not that we cannot build a car that would run for 20 years without having to be replaced, but it is the fact that there is no profit in selling a car that would last that long. Much more profitable to the owning class is to sell a car that breaks down after five or six years so that another car must replace it. Without the hindrance of the capital seeking system of production, the working class would be free to increase its efficiency and productive capacities to satisfy each human being to live a full life of abundance. It is only when the working class organizes politically and consciously to take the wealth of their labour into their own hands that the waste and exploitation of labour will end.  

Dictating The Course Of Enemies In WAR!

On May 5, a senior Russian diplomat, Aleksandr Laventriev, made an announcement that would make Trump seem like a wise guy in comparison. He said that as a result of the U.S bombing of Syria, their aircraft and that of allied nations are banned from flying over the areas of Syria where the war is being fought. This is a deal agreed on between Iran, Russia, and Turkey. It is not known at this time if the U.S. has agreed, what a laugh. 

Laventiev should be doing stand up comedy if he thinks one can dictate to capitalists what they are allowed to do or not in a war. 

The best thing anyone can suggest in relation to war is to abolish it, or better still abolish the cause. 

Steve and John.