What Good News?

The Rio + 20 summit has been and gone and little or no progress is still the watchword, only serving to remind us, if we needed it, that nothing is happening. World leaders attended the first one but were conspicuous by their absence at the latest one. No problem, it's of little importance anyway. It does also let us know how far we have slipped. Little was reported in the leading newspapers but in 1992, every paper had an environmental reporter covering the event. Canada's environment minister, Peter Kent, commented, "There is a lack of familiarity with the good news that Canada has to report." Well, we are waiting! John Ayers.

Planet of Plenty (3/3)

It is asserted by pro-capitalists that socialism is an end to freedom, not the beginning of liberty. Those who make that assertion very often are the same people to whom freedom means only the right to grab all you can and keep all you have grabbed. This is not true freedom at all. The freedom we seek is the freedom which guarantees to the individual justice even from those who do not wish to be just to him or her; which assures the right "to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience" -- in short, free speech, free press, free assemblage, free association, for which mankind has so long struggled. The Socialist, Party believe in freedom, peace, and plenty and know that they cannot be realised unless they are realised promptly in a cooperative commonwealth or rather in a World Federation of Cooperative Commonwealths which will embrace the world. There is no hope in capitalism with its practical certainty of new cycles of wars and tyranny. Is this great goal of socialism practicable? Let us emphasise that the goal of abundance in a society of free men and women who seek life rather than death and possess the machinery which can produce abundance is so desirable that it ought to compel people to move heaven and earth to make it practicable. There has been encouraging progress made in the cooperation of workers in the management of their own affairs. I ask you to consider the history of trade unionism. It is a magnificent record of the onward march of exploited workers. I ask you to consider what many cooperatives have accomplished. They have shown the capacity of plain men and women to manage in voluntary association the production and distribution of goods on another principle other than the principle of private profit. We can have industrial democracy.

Freed from the restrictions of profit-making, modern productive techniques could provide the abundance that would allow a socialist world community to introduce free access, according to need so that no man, woman or child anywhere on the planet need go without adequate food, clothing, shelter, healthcare or education. The characteristic mark of our system is that it leaves in the hands of private owners the land, the natural resources, the great machinery, the power necessary for our common life. And these private owners or the managers who act for them, use or fail to use what they own, solely in accordance with what they think will make for their own profit. Their profit depends upon relative scarcity. The case for Socialism arises logically and reasonably out of our examination of the development of capitalism and its present failure to use the machinery of abundance for the conquest of poverty. Socialism says: "Let us go about the business of making machinery provide abundance directly. Let us begin by asking, not what price will bring profit to private owners, but how much food, clothing and shelter do we need for the good life for men. Then let us produce for the use of men, women, and children, in order to supply them with abundance." Clearly this requires social ownership of the principal means of production and distribution. This not in order to abolish all private property but to give to the exploited workers, for the first time in the long history of mankind, the good things of life which labor of hand and brain, applied to the power-driven machine, can produce. Abundance is possible when we can set our engineers and technicians to planning for society, instead of planning, in so far as they can plan at all, for the profits of an owning class.

The socialist proposal is wholly reasonable but it is not, of course, self-executing. Socialism will be the result of struggle, and the successful application of Socialism requires intelligence and the capacity for co-operative effort. The collapse of capitalism is inevitable. But there is no inevitability about Socialism or shared abundance. We may have a long stretch of chaos, wars, dictatorships, and regimented poverty. This can be prevented only by men who will not accept poverty in the midst of potential abundance. Not man but technology must be the slave of tomorrow's world.

It is not merely plenty that we want, but peace. Mankind is divided not only into economic classes but into nations. And nations as well as men are divided into Haves and Have-nots. We live in an interdependent world where not even the capitalist nations with the most resources, the United States, the EU, China or Russia, are fully self-sufficient. Yet each nation claims absolute sovereignty, absolute sway over its citizens, and blindly sees its economic prosperity, not in cooperation, but in competing with its neighbours for control and capture of markets, to obtain sources of raw materials outside its borders, and a place for its capitalists to invest more profitably than at home the surplus wealth they have acquired by the successful exploitation of the workers who are their own fellow countrymen. Modern wars arise out of the clash of nations for power and profit. Patriotism and nationalism makes people blind so that they cannot see that out of this struggle for power and profit there can be neither true prosperity nor true peace. We cannot make peace secure or glorious under the loyalties of the institutions of capitalist nationalism. The hardest task for socialism is to bring about a real unity of workers with hand and brain across the dividing lines of nation, race and creed. Yet it is only in the federation of cooperative commonwealths to which there is hope of lasting peace. Socialists want a world of freedom. This we do not have and cannot have under the shadow of war and the bondage of capitalist exploitation.

There is no man, woman or child in the world who would not be better off with the menace of war and poverty and insecurity banished. There are few in the world who would not, as individuals, be better off economically under the abundance of planned production for use. We shall never have a true cooperative socialist commonwealth until we think of our reward as workers who create all wealth and not any longer of their reward as owners of property which enables them to exploit other's labour. That is one of the reasons why our appeal must be always to the workers with hand and brain, in city and country. It is they who have so long been exploited. It is they who can and must be free. Ours the responsibility to apply the technological power we now possess to conquer poverty and release humanity from immemorial bondage. Let us harness that power for life, not death.

Planet of Plenty (2/3)

The ruling class has discredited socialism by equating socialism with dictatorship while treating capitalism and democracy as one and the same. Economic systems are the set of relations between people and classes in social production, essentially who owns the means of production and how the product is distributed. Under the economic system of capitalism, the capitalist class owns the means of production (factories, transport, etc.) as private property. The basic law of capitalism – competition in the production of commodities to maximise profits – results in poverty, war, exploitation and crises. Capitalists hire workers to produce commodities, which are socially produced, but privately owned by the capitalists, and then sold for profit. The state provides an infrastructure to assist the capitalist class in maximizing profit and towards this end provides some basic necessities (such as schools, unemployment insurance, and social security) to maintain a workforce and ward off starvation, social chaos, and revolution. With the economic system of socialism, the means of production are not in the private hands of the capitalists, but are socially owned. The means of production are commonly owned and capable of producing abundance sufficient to meet the needs of all of society. The use of money disappears because commodities are no longer produced for a market, but for distribution on the basis of need.

 In the era of preceding the Industrial Revolution, the vision of a world without exploitation, hunger and war galvanized the working class movement but industrial capacity was unable to create the material conditions required for a socialist economic system. The idea of socialism preceded the possibility. Today, in this era of new technology the reverse is true. Now, the material conditions for socialism exist, but the ideas are lagging behind. Socialism possible today. The introduction of robotics and automation into production has created the conditions for this abundance. In the 21st century, the global capitalist system has reached a stage where goods can be produced with little or no labour. A level of production has been achieved that makes a socialist society possible. This is the turning point at which we stand today. Humanity today faces the choice: will we do away with private property and build a future for all or will a system of private property be preserved at the expense of human beings and the planet? Technology is reducing a class that was once an essential element of industrial production to redundancy. Attempts to do no more than blunt the worst effects of capitalism may be well-meaning, but they divert energy from the tasks ahead. The working class has nothing to gain from private ownership of the means of production and needs to take the reins of power and construct an economic system that can sustain a better world. The struggle today is not the struggle of the last century to expand industrial production. Nor is it reformist struggle to increase the crumbs that fall from the table of the world’s billionaires. Though people may have different ideas about and different ways of describing it, at this moment in history, the essence of every struggle for a better life is objectively the struggle for socialism. Socialism is not just an idea, but the practical resolution to immediate problems.

Imagine a society where all its members organise production and distribution on a cooperative, democratic basis according not to profit, but solely on the basis of need.

Such a society has no exploiting minority or exploited majority. All property other than personal property is held in common, for the benefit of all. Consequently, there is also no money. If you are hungry, you can eat from the collective store of food. If you want to work, work is always available, and each contributes what he or she can. When you are sick or old or too young, society always takes care of you. Women are not the property or handmaidens of men. All decisions are made collectively, and leadership is chosen rather than imposed. There are no prisons, no standing army, and no state bureaucracy. The threat of social ostracism is sufficient pressure against anyone who threatens the collective or harms another. It is realisable. The truth is, similar societies have already existed in one form or another, in all parts of the world, in what is known as "primitive communism." The words mine and thine were unknown. They held all things in common. Human beings are naturally not greedy and competitive. There are plenty of examples of spontaneous acts of sharing and cooperation in our present society that contradict this. In a socialist society money, indeed, even a system for accounting for what was produced and how it was allotted, would eventually disappear. In the socialist society, when there is plenty and abundance for all, what will be the point in keeping account of each one's share. The point is that with socialism, society's surplus wealth would be collectively used to enhance the welfare of all rather than that of a small group. Based as it is on the collective solidarity of the producers, it would also be compelled to socialize household functions, freeing women from bearing primary responsibilities for taking care of kids and home, and create a society in which all discrimination based on race, ethnicity, nationality, religion or sex were erased.

The ethic of capitalism is: 'From each whatever you can get out of him--to each whatever he can grab.' The socialist society of universal abundance will be regulated by a different standard. It will  'From each according to his ability--to each according to his needs.'"

Poor Still Go Hungry

We all know that India is the latest capitalist economic miracle/poster boy. The economy is booming and 'all boats get lifted by the rising tide', right? Well, not exactly. The New York Times June 17) reports, "Despite India's Plenty, Poor Still Go Hungry". Apparently, infrastructure to get food to the needy does not take priority over infrastructure that is necessary to make a profit. This, we know, will never change in this system. John Ayers

Cafeterias Closures

The Toronto and District School Board is looking to close school cafeterias that take in less than $35 a day in an effort to save $600 000 a day. Apparently, serving up nutritious food for their students doesn't seem to be a consideration. Not too surprising in a money driven world but disappointing that those charged to look after our children are oriented in such a way. And, of course, we all know about the 9 year-old girl in Scotland who posted pictures of the crap food served in her school on the internet only to be banned from doing so. Again, good food was not a consideration. Saving face was. John Ayers.

Planet of Plenty (1/3)

Capitalism is very poor at the just distribution of necessities.  The end of capitalism is at hand, but there is much to do to save the economy and assure the long-term survival of the population. If survival as a human species is our primary long-term goal, then deep changes are necessary to the way we organise ourselves socially. It is artificial scarcity which threatens future survival by siphoning wealth to an infinitesimally small percentage of people thereby depriving the majority of people a sustainable living standard. Artificial scarcity is the engine of wealth concentration under capitalism and its logical antecedent: poverty. With austerity measures increasing and economic growth decreasing across the West, poverty is on the rise. It is the goal of this essay to outline a plan to eliminate poverty by instantiating socialism through a number of pragmatic measures.

Eliminating poverty by ending artificial scarcity is what is called socialism. Real socialism (or just socialism from this point forward) seeks the end to artificial scarcity of all essential commodities irrespective of social class such as the free distribution of food which are designed to end poverty and upholding the common good. It is the only way to create a sustainable future that ends deprivation of the poor and the profit-seeking of the ruling-classes. Socialism, as Karl Marx argues in his famous work The Communist Manifesto, replaces failed capitalism.

Capitalism has failed to provide the basic needs of society.  Even the “social welfare” state as only manages to mitigate deprivation. Capitalism fosters tautology; the rich are seen as successful by virtue of being rich and the poor are seen as unsuccessful by virtue of their poverty. This is a “Social Darwinist” view of human achievement which makes implicit that having money (with little regard to how the money is made) correlates with a greater right to survive and therefore entitles one to greater receipt of community benefits. Socialism begins with the assumption that monetary status is inadequate determinate of entitlement.

Universal essential commodity entitlement provides an opportunity for equality by eliminating desperation. Taken to its full potential, socialism not only eliminates desperation, but also encourages increasing levels of satisfaction, gratification and enlightenment. Through the arts and sciences (and all the sub-disciplines of the humanities paradigm), humans seek greater and greater fulfilment, but such striving for more has been, at least in the West, driven by the vehicle of capitalism, a system which promotes the capabilities of those belonging to legacy wealth whilst ignoring the potential contribution of those belonging to legacy poverty. Hence, terms such as “starving artist” define those individuals who must sacrifice security of food to pursue their talent. Conversely, terms such as “fat cat” describe those people who, through a system which rewards unethical and unsustainable business practices, exploit the labour of a desperate workforce and profit off the irrational decision-making of the easily-duped consumer. Unlike capitalism, socialism supports the individual – no matter his or her background – in the pursuit of a better life and therefore exploitation of labour and unethical consumerism cannot be used for wealth generation. And so, there are no longer any starving artists, nor are there any fat cats. -

 Automation should both require fewer people to work AND enable people to work less. In a world where a minority, historically known as the capitalists own the physical means of production like factories, robots and patents this will result in greater inequality as labour becomes less and less important as an economic factor. The owners of capital will be able to produce to satisfy market demand with little labour input. This will result in more former labourers leaving that field and becoming dependent on welfare.

In theory, physical labour may become totally obsolete. If every house has a decentralised energy source like solar panels and reliable energy storage, as well as an advanced 3-D printer or molecular assembler that can produce almost physical object imaginable from a few basic recyclable chemicals then human poverty will essentially have been abolished. We can just spend the vast majority of our time doing things that we enjoy, while spending only a few minutes or at most hours a day programming our machines to fulfil our material desires. As we proceed through the 21st Century and as the technologies of superabundance — solar energy, nuclear energy, wind energy, cybernetics, genomics, the internet, 3-D printing, molecular manufacturing, desalination, etc — create more and more wealth.

That is the more optimistic vision. In a less optimistic vision, only a small minority of people will have access to such technologies as while the technology may exist, the costs of mass distribution remain too high (at least for a time). The vast masses, will be stuck in impoverished material conditions — dependent on welfare, and charity — without any real prospect being able to climb the ladder through selling their labour. Only a lucky few — who have an inimitably good idea, or a creative skill that cannot be replicated by a robot — will have a prospect of joining the capital-owning upper class. And for the others who are left out in the cold, political action may look attractive. Simply have the government take a larger chunk of the capital-owning class’s income or wealth, and redistribute it to the poor. Ideally, this would be done with the intent of abolishing poverty through making cheap electricity, internet access and molecular assemblers available to all. Less ideally, rather than giving the poor the means to fish (so to speak), it might instead take the shape of a giant welfare net, keeping the means of production in limited hands and simply confiscating and redistributing some wealth. These issues unresolved could create a lot of tension between the two classes. In a worst-case scenario, that could lead to social breakdown or even revolution.

The most cited objection to socialism is incentive. Capitalism argues that without money to motivate, there is no reason to go to work, let alone innovate. However, that people will become ever more sedentary if their basic needs are fulfilled is a dogmatic supposition perpetuated by profiteering propaganda. There is no genetic basis that determines the superiority of money – or rather the threat to withhold money – over social incentive. In fact, cash is only a means to an end – a symbol of one’s contribution – and as such this symbol can change. Under capitalism, it is insecurity that motivates people to go to work. Eliminate insecurity and the result is that incentive for work upgrades to what this essay calls “additive benefits”. Additive benefits are those benefits in life that exist on top of the essentials.

The benefits of work itself – social interaction, credit for one’s work output and access to luxuries – provide incentive to go to work. Although everyone is entitled to essential commodities, a job provides greater diversity for the palette. Thus, choose to stay at home and thus eat a basic nutritionally-balanced food handed out freely to citizens; no one starves, but unless one goes to work, then luxuries are, for the most part, out of reach. And so, work is no longer equated with access to survival, with the alternative being starvation and homelessness, but rather access to luxuries.

In short, the incentive for turning up to work under socialism is the means for getting something more than the basics, and thus, no one need suffer the indignity of being identified as poor even if relying purely on the basics. It is uniform society, as it were, with the option of not wearing the uniform. Would most people decide not to go to work and sit idly in front of a television if all their basic needs were provided for? Socialists argue that the human compulsion for activity and striving for more motivates one to contribute to society in one’s best capacity if only one is provided dignity and the means to pursue one’s full potential.

Hence, the incentive for productivity is the benefit attached to working to one’s full potential. One might say that people lose their “free time” when going to work, and should therefore not have the full burden of supporting those who choose not work, but the human compulsion to fill the hours with more than idle tasks – the boredom that comes of doing nothing – motivates one to do work if only there is more to it than a means to mere survival. The compensation need not be cash, as such, but rather the knowledge that one’s contribution is valued for the work itself and all the social benefits that come from the recognition of one’s contribution. There is bound to be a small population of people who seem comfortable with doing nothing, but these people should be treated as having a psychological problem and referred to a doctor or psychologist, not threatened with a withholding of livelihood.

More specifically, the incentive for turning up to work is to receive social advantages, such as meeting potential partners for dating/marriage, friends with whom to go out for meals/drinks and the gratification of social advancement for having performed to a high standard and being recognised formally as having done so. Everyone has the opportunity to perform to their highest potential and formal acknowledgment of one’s work contribution – as opposed to cash in the bank – satisfies the craving for professional accomplishment. The Marxist phrase “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” is not merely an ideological argument, as if truly exercised, life satisfaction is a standard, as opposed to merely an ideal. The only way to achieve this ideal is converting the incentive to go to work from the fear of starvation to the positive reinforcement of additive benefits when work is completed to standard. Socialism requires first and foremost a change in thinking from the idea that some people must always lose to the idea that everyone can win if given all of the basic necessities for survival and allowed to pursue their best potential unfettered by desperation.

Noticeable Absence

Noticeably absent in the Greek financial tragedy is any action on the part of the wealthy class. Shipping magnates have their tax-free status enshrined in the constitution and oil, gas, media, and banking magnates are showing their patriotism by NOT buying government bonds to help the country. (New York Times, June 10). John Ayers.

The Mental Part(y)

Information keeps popping up re the Harper governments massive omnibus bill. Environmental amendments account for 170 pages of the total 425. For example, the Tories are no longer required to report on their green (?) progress (nothing to report anyway!), less protection for fish, cut Parks Canada employees, reduce or eliminate the number of monitoring programs for water (not important, eh?). The Tories see environmental protection as a hindrance to economic growth. The only part of environmental that applies to this government is the "mental" part. John Ayers.

Pamper the rich – Punish the poor

Since the beginning of the 20^th century the state has had to intervene in British industry, either to provide large amounts of capital which could not be raised privately or because there was a strategic advantage in the state controlling a particular industry. Now a policy has arisen in which the state does NOT bailout an industry by nationalization but merely provides the funds for continued investment. It is a programme to rescue capitalism from crisis. The reformists, Old Labour and Trotskyists are unclear and muddled about the nature of socialism, of capitalism, the nature of the state and the class character of political parties. Thus the equation of nationalisation with socialism, the description of the Labour Party as a working class party and the demands for nationalisation as a means of making inroads into the capitalist state.

The vast majority of British industry is corporately owned; by banks, by finance companies, or by the STATE. These are all forms of capitalism in which capitalist property relationships remain intact. Surplus-value is still appropriated and production is governed through the market by the operation of the law of value and commodity exchange. These laws operate whether private companies or the state control production. The essence of capitalism is property relationships; ownership is merely a formal question, which can take MANY forms. To portray nationalisation as a means of making inroads into the capitalist system is to ignore the central role of the capitalist state. Hence nationalisation can never be a means of making ’inroads’ into capitalism. To argue so is to deny the fundamental teachings of Marxism. For all these reasons there is no advantage, either strategic or tactical, in calling for the nationalisation of private industry. It is irrelevant to the real interests of the working people whether profits are in private or state hands.

A major battle for the Socialist Party has always been to combat the fight for reformism and gradualism which diverts the fight for socialism. Throughout our history we have opposed all the various ‘hangers-on’ to the labour movement who have sought state-ownership. An important part of the Socialist Party’s work has been exposing the socialist pretensions of the Labour Party, the ‘Communist Party’ and in opposing the false strategies of their Trotskyist offspring who demand that they nationalise industries. The Labour ‘left-wing’ and the Left demand nationalisation as a means of making inroads into the capitalist system – as a form of creeping socialism. SWP and SPEW say that they are making ‘transitional’ demands but in essence their strategy is reformist. They claim that slogans for nationalisation under workers control raise the question of state power and heighten the consciousness of the workers. Tagging on the phrase  ‘workers’ control’ is merely lipstick on Frankenstein’s monster.  Objectively all these organisations are serving the capitalists in that they are attempting to mobilise the working class in order to bring about the expansion of state-monopoly capitalism to rescue bankrupt private industries and enterprises. Nationalisation is always conditional on improving ‘efficiency’ and ‘rationalisation’. Nationalisation cannot stem the tide of redundancies and indeed may accelerate it. The call for nationalisation as a means of saving jobs is an aspect of the general reformist outlook of the Left. Nationalisation not had a demonstrable record of consistently improving wages, jobs, rights and safety. Instead of begging the ruling class to save their jobs the working class urgently needs to develop a consciousness of its latent strength. The strength of the working class lies in their labour and their relationship to the means of production – let us help them to learn to use it! We must always always remember that that the state intervenes in the economy only for the benefit of the capitalist class as a whole and not for the benefit of the workers. The entire class character of nationalisation means that they exploit the labour of the worker. Socialism is not nationalization. State-owned companies have played  a central role in exploiting the working class in every single country, regardless of their rhetoric about socialism, workers’ power etc

Privatisation – the transfer of functions and industry to the private sector – is widely and correctly rejected on the Left and in the working class. Privatisation leads only to higher prices, less and worse jobs, and worse services. Privatisation and nationalisation have failed the working class. Nationalisation and privatisation are just two different ways that the ruling class runs society; they are not means through which the working class can run society. Both are undemocratic, run top-down by and for the rich and powerful. The government bureaucracy and ministerial managers are part of the ruling class, along with the private capitalists. As we have already stated, the working class is exploited in the so-called public sector, just as in private, through wage labour, and lacks any real control over these means of production. The work process is authoritarian, run top-down by officialdom, and, just as in the private sector, unpaid surplus value is accumulated and reinvested. A “mixed economy” is merely a mixture of top-down state and top-down private ownership: the main form being the Keynesian Welfare State

Faced with the evils of capitalism, radicals are looking for alternatives which do not require the state ownership and bureaucratic planning of the failed “communist” (state capitalist) economies. Now another idea with its roots in the 19^th century has become prominent once again as a supposed remedy – Co-operatives (or as some of their modern proponents prefer to call them, Worker Self-Directed Enterprises or a Pluralist Commonwealth. It might be called decentralized ‘market socialism’. Worker-managed enterprises, consumer coops, very small businesses and shops, family farms, etc., would compete in the marketplace. Disappointingly they too fail to fulfil the promise.

Enterprises such as workers cooperatives are unable to mount a strong enough challenge to the capitalists.  As Rosa Luxemburg stated, workers forming a cooperative are under pressure from competition in the market and must rule over “themselves with the utmost absolutism” forcing them to either “become pure capitalist enterprises,” or dissolve if they hold on to their principles.

The Mondragon cooperative federation in Spain is exemplary.  Because of its success, in the mid-1990s Mondragon began to come into competition with multinational corporations.  In order to survive the competition the cooperative federation began to change its policies.  It started opening factories in low wage countries like Poland, Egypt, Morocco and Mexico.  None of the employees in these factories are cooperative members and have little say in the operation of their workplaces.  Furthermore, cooperatives could now apply to hire up to 40% non-member employees in order to remain competitive.  At the time these changes led one cooperative member to lament that Mondragon could not “flourish as a cooperative island in a capitalist world.”

Many say that factories and the means of production in general should be controlled by independent groups of workers. But it has been pointed out if production is controlled at the factory level, you can't have society-wide socialist planning—and in fact you have individual factories interacting with each other through the market, reproducing capitalism. If you have worker co-ops or autonomous factories, you begin to have something that resembles separate commodity-producing units. You won't have society-wide mechanisms to foster cooperation between enterprises. If you fall back on market principles, you begin to have competing interests over resources and sales. You begin to have a situation in which stronger enterprises pull ahead of weaker enterprises. It is impossible for society to pull in a unified direction—towards meeting larger social goals and with the needs of world humanity in mind. The workers of any one enterprise could choose how to respond to the climate of economic conditions and how to weather it but could not control the movements of the economy itself. There would be business cycles, including periodic recessions. Some self-managed businesses would do better than others; some regions would do better than others; there would be inequalities within enterprises as well as between them; there would be overproduction, unemployment, areas of relative poverty, and various amounts of resentment.

Complete local self-reliance is neither possible nor desirable, but there could be an emphasis on as much local autonomy as possible – for municipalities, communes, cities and regions. The more localized the community, the easier it will be for people to democratically plan its overall economy. Like small shop-keepers and artisans of the medieval guilds, the workers would be capitalists to themselves, “exploiting” themselves for the sake of the enterprise. So long as self-directed enterprises still exist in a mainly capitalist economy, then they have to compete on the market, like it or not.

This is not “socialism” as meant by the historical mainstream of the socialist movement. Historically, most socialists did not include the market (with money, commodity exchange, and the law of value) as part of their goal. At most that was seen as a remnant of capitalism in a post-revolutionary society. As scarcity was overcome, the market (commodity exchange) would die out and be replaced by conscious planning. Thinkers such as Wolff and Alperovitz make the strategic claim that cooperative worker-run businesses could be so successful that they can spread until they dominate the economy and wipe out capitalism. A popular idea among many ‘anti-capitalists’ among others. It is a delusion. It ignores the reality that the capitalist class controls the marketplace as well as the government at all levels. The ruling class will let people form a relatively small number of cooperatives, mostly at the margins of the economy. They will not let cooperatives “supplant” the corporate steel industry, auto industry, oil industry, and the giant banks. In the unlikely event that the co-ops could accumulate enough capital to threaten to “supplant” these semi-monopolies, the capitalists would cancel bank and government credit, forbid the use of transportation and communication by the co-ops, and pass laws against the cooperators. The courts and police would enforce these laws. Those who advocate cooperatives are sincere in wanting a wholly new society but they wish to get there by step-by-step, gradual, mostly peaceful and legal methods, without ever expecting a direct conflict with the capitalists and their state. Which is what defines these strategies as reformist – and as unrealistic. Some advocates are like millennialists awaiting the second-coming, hoping that a severe economic crisis perhaps sparked by environmental disasters will offer an opportunity to institute the changes out of necessity. If such a policy is adopted it condemns the socialist movement to one of passivity and not a political movement which will consciously expropriate the capitalist class. Working people will decide to cease to labour for masters.

The Socialist Party view is that we have to keep raising the issue of a genuine alternative society (without wages, money, finance, value, etc) to capitalism as the way-out for the working class and not get bogged down in defensive struggles to survive under capitalism or imagine that these by themselves will lead to an understanding of the need for an alternative society.

The Left-overs

"Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none." - Shakespeare

The question before the workers of the world is plain, urgent and inescapable. The attacks of capitalism, to maintain its profits, grow ever more sweeping and ferocious, ranging over every field, against both employed and unemployed workers, against the sick and the disabled, holding down wages with new forms of intensified labour, cutting pay-rates. Capitalism can no longer organise production even on its own basis, the fight between profits and the workers’ needs grows ever more desperate. Demands and yet more demands are pressed for cuts in wages, for drastic reduction of the social services, for speeding up, for lowered standards. All the capitalist spokesmen speak of “restructuring,” of new policies of this, that and the other (but never touching rent, interest and profits), to “save” industry. They appeal to the workers to make “sacrifices” to help in this. Struggle after struggle develops of the workers against capitalism for the needs of life. Where will this process end? The labour movement and the trade unions offer no answer; they wait for a business revival. To-day the crisis is more intense than ever. The current cry is for a “living wage.” Can such a policy offer a way out? Not for a moment because no policy of patching up capitalism can avail. Many would-be reformers urge that if only the capitalists would pay higher wages to the workers, enabling them to buy more of what they produce, there would be no crisis. This is utopian nonsense, which ignores the inevitable laws of capitalism — the drive for profits, and the drive of competition. The drive of capitalism is always to increase its profits by every possible means, to increase its surplus, not to decrease it. Individual capitalists may talk of the “gospel of high wages” in the hope of securing a larger market for their goods. But the actual drive of capitalism as a whole is the opposite. The force of competition compels every capitalist to cheapen costs of production, to extract more output per worker for less return, to cut wages. The “gospel of high wages” conceals the real process of capitalism at work - intensified output from the workers, with a diminishing share to the workers.

Capitalism can only lift itself out of the recession by ever fiercer competition that leads to drive the workers harder for less pay. Only the working-class can save the situation by wresting production from the fetters of private ownership and profit-making and organise production for social use. How often do we hear the refrain “Revolution is not practical politics” and that “wild ideas of overthrowing capitalism is not common-sense. Instead we should follow the path of pragmatic gradual progress, make compromises and concede our central demands. How often have we not heard this preached from every capitalist platform and press?

Our current economic system is broken and must be discarded and replaced with an economic system that is compatible with the Earth and its ecosystems. This will require a massive global change in the underlying cultural and political values that drive our current economic system. The central problem is capitalist objective of accumulation that equates with growth, especially continual and endless growth. Some say socialism is a mirage. "Socialism," in common usage, is a word always shifting in meaning. Many use it without defining it, whether from ignorance or design. Socialists need to honestly face down reformist illusions with clear arguments in order to warn other workers who could get sucked into fake left propaganda. The left gravitates around the Labour Party and believes that the best way to 'solve' the crisis of capitalism is to construct a 'better' capitalism. There are some people that would deny that Labour has utterly betrayed its left-wing roots, however evidence of can be seen in the actual economic policies enacted by the Labour regime. The Labour party is no longer a party of the Left and the Left is no more the Left. The so-called “Leftists” hasten to proclaim their “opposition” to the Labour Party policy, to prepare even possibly the union disaffiliation and separation from the Labour Party, and to advocate so-called “socialist” alternatives. But on examination their policy will be found to be only the old policy of the Labour Party dressed up in new clothes. Although they speak roundly of “socialism” against “capitalism,” they do not propose the overthrow of capitalism, the working-class conquest of power, the expropriation of the capitalists; their basis is still the same basis of capitalism, of capitalist democracy, of the capitalist State, as with the Labour Party; and therefore the outcome can only be the same. Their only proposals are for the reorganisation of capitalism by a system of nationalisation, by which they promise a minimum wage for the workers. But in fact, reorganisation in the present period of decline can only, if the capitalist burdens are maintained, be at the expense of the workers. And there is a practical effect of the the Left’s propaganda. They intervene in the critical moments of the workers’ struggle with its proposals of regulation and legislation as an alternative to the workers’ struggle, thus assisting to weaken actual resistance. This is precisely its value to capitalism, to draw the workers from the struggle in the name of phrases of “socialism.” They endeavour to make a “left” appeal to the workers with the use revolutionary-sounding phrases. All these supposed “alternatives” to the Labour Party line are in fact conscious attempts to draw the workers back, as they become disillusioned with the Labour Party, from advancing beyond the Labour Party to the conscious revolutionary fight. It is necessary to break with the Labour Party. The Labour Party has become the chief instrument of capitalism for the enslavement of the workers, and the chief obstacle to the socialist revolution. It is necessary to break with the Labour in order to advance

All the so-called remedies not only fail to touch the root or the evil —capitalist parasitism -  they can only intensify the disease. The crises are of natural scarcity or shortage. Harvests are abundant. Foodstuffs are rotting in the warehouses. Stocks of goods of all kinds are piled up or unsold in warehouses. Millions of workers are willing and able to work; but existing society has no use for their labour. The power of producing wealth is greater than ever. It has grown far more rapidly than population, thus disproving all the lies of those who talk of “over-population” as the cause of the crisis. Capitalism does not use more than a portion of modern productive power, although it wastes most and deliberately cuts down and restricts production in order to increase profits. The crisis is a crisis of capitalism alone. Only the working-class, only socialism can bring the solution. Once capitalism is overthrown, then and only then can production be organised in common for all, and every increase in production bring increasing abundance and leisure for all. The socialist revolution is the only path forward to-day.

The first necessity is the working-class conquest of power. Without power, no change. But what do we mean by “power”? Do we mean simply a change of government? No. What is in question is not simply a change of government on top, but a change of class power; since our purpose, is not simply to carry through one or two legislative measures, but to change the whole class-direction of existing society. The capitalists own the means of production; the mass of the nation live at their mercy, depend on them for the means of life, are in literal fact wage-slaves in their daily lives. The change from a Conservative Government to a Labour Government does not affect this one atom. What is needed is a change in class power. What is needed is that the working-class shall rule — i.e., that the workers shall drive out the capitalists from possession, defeat their resistance, capture their State machine through the ballot-box where possible, and set up our own collective workers’ rule. What is the form of the workers’ rule? Some argue that it will be through elected workers’ councils, elected from the factories, from the community throughout the country, in every town and in every district, and leading up to the central workers’ council, which exercises supreme governing authority on behalf of the working-class. Every industry is organised as a single unit under its own Council, with workers’ control at every stage of production. The direction of all is united in the central Council of Industry or Workers’ Economic Council. The Council of Industry plans out the entire production of the country: so much coal, so much textiles, so much iron and steel goods, etc. The output is calculated, according to the given stage of the productive forces, to meet the two purposes: (1) goods to meet the immediate needs of the population; (2) means of production to extend the productive power in the future. The entire social product thus goes in one of these forms to the workers, whether socially or for individual consumption. The necessary work to be done is spread out over the entire labour force, i.e., the whole able-bodied community, hours being shortened to absorb the labour of all (in place of the capitalist method of overworking some in order to leave the rest unemployed). Necessary adaptations to new forms of work and industrial transference can be rapidly and easily effected, when these no longer involve cutting of rates, loss of skilled status, etc. (as in capitalism compels the justified resistance of the workers), but are carried out with the co-operation of the workers concerned. Agriculture will from the outset require special attention and development, since it has been deliberately neglected and crushed down by both capitalism and landlordism, and a great and growing part of the available land allowed to pass out of cultivation. The removal of all the burdens of rent, mortgages, bank loans, farmers’ profits and middlemen’s squeezings, as well as the obstacles of inadequate machinery, game rights and millionaire preserves, inefficient farming and unsuitable areas; the development of large-scale collective farms; and the close union of agriculture and industry, breaking down the old division of town and country, of rural and industrial workers, will rapidly build up agriculture anew. This is a question of meeting immediate needs; how far, in the final world organisation of production agricultural and industrial areas will be allocated on a world basis, or, as modern technical development appears to indicate, closely united and integrated throughout the world, is a question of the future.

The Socialist Party leaves the actual shape of social democracy to those who create it in the first place. We are not speaking of some utopia, but only of what is immediately and practically realisable so soon as the workers are united to overthrow capitalism and enforce their will. It is thus evident that, on the most immediate practical basis, and leaving out of account the tribute drawn by the capitalist class in the shape of rent, interest and profits but including the enormous increase in production which will result from universal socially organised production, as soon as the change is achieved, it is possible and practicable to realise the most enormous advances in living standards, working hours and conditions of labour. The capitalists and their propagandists in the working-class, the Labour reformists, try to frighten the workers from revolution by holding before them the spectre that revolution means “starvation,” that the workers depend on capitalism for their existence. The contrary is the truth. That the workers can by social revolution rapidly overcome difficulties to rapidly reconstruct and extend production and win prosperity for all. It is the continuance of capitalism that means shortages and hunger spreading. Already millions have been reduced to the barest subsistence basis. Deprivation increases and capitalism already sees no way out except to cut peoples’ living standards further. However, the spirit of struggle is rising in the working-class. What is the first need to-day? To unite the ranks of the workers against the capitalist attacks, to end the present divisions and sectionalism and reformist treachery which has opened the way to the capitalist victories, to organise the workers’ counter-offensive. We need to prepare for this. We need to prepare the new forms of struggle. We need to build up a strong and coordinated army of the working-class for a class war, determined to beat back the capitalist onslaught, determined to awaken and draw into the fight ever wider masses of workers to strengthen our ranks against the bosses attacks, determined to advance our class power but, above all,  determined to overthrow capitalism and establish a socialist society

Fight for Socialism! Forward to the Social Revolution! There is no time to lose.

Big Deal!

The Ontario budget finally passed. The ruling Liberals are in a minority position and so have had to rely on the support of the NDP to get it passed. One sticking point for the Liberals was the NDP proposal of a wealth 2% surtax on those earning more than $500 000. Big deal! And some believe this is a socialist party! John Ayers.

It's Almost Anti-septic?

On that topic, the American 'War from Above' touted to be so clean and accurate that it's almost anti-septic, was taken to task in The Toronto Star, June 23, 2012. According to the drone database compiled by the New American Foundation, the non-military fatality rate for Pakistan is seventeen per cent, not counting missile attacks such as the Majalah tragedy. The true count of civilian bodies will never be reported or known but it is heavy, even under Peace Nobelist Obama! John Ayers

Bright Prospect?

The development of drones is making war too easy to wage. David Kepes writing in the Toronto Star reports that drones are appealing because they save the lives that would otherwise be committed to action, it's easier to expend dollars than human lives and easier to get funding, and because if we can go to war for less, we will. Bright prospect to look forward to in the future! John Ayers.

All That Glistens

Book Review from the June 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Power of Gold: The History of an Obsession . By Peter L. Bernstein. John Wiley & Sons, New York.

The author is president of his own economic consulting firm and author of seven books on economics and finance. He is also well-connected with powerful establishment figures, citing for example in his foreword the "significant assistance" of such as Alan Greenspan and Milton Friedman. In addition he also acknowledges the assistance of half-a-dozen researchers. So what is the outcome of such an undertaking into a fascinating subject? There is an astounding collection of stories, anecdotes and speculations on the subject of gold that embraces Biblical legends, Greek mythology, medieval nonsense and modern received wisdom, but nowhere will you find an explanation of what determines the value of gold.

The researchers have obviously been assiduous in their set tasks of tracking down just about every reference to gold they could find in Ancient and Modern History. No expense has been spared in tracing what Moses, Job, Herodotus, St. Thomas Aquinas, Pizzo or Newton had to say on the subject. But nowhere a mention of what determines the value of gold. We can understand that Bernstein and his team of researchers would ignore the ideas of Karl Marx, because of their background and aspirations, but it is a pity one of them hadn't taken a day off from his research and spent an afternoon in a local cinema watching a rerun of The Treasure of Sierra Madre.

He would have seen the Humphrey Bogart character bemoan to the old prospector in the flophouse about how it was a pity gold was so difficult to find, and the Walter Houston character reply, "Many men search for gold, very few find it. Therein is the value of gold." It's as simple as that. The value of gold is determined, like all other commodities, by the amount of socially-necessary labour time spent in its production.

If you want a lot of colourful anecdotes about some of the crazy things people have said and done about gold, then this is the book for you. If you want to know something about the value of gold, and how is determined you would be much better employed reading the 100 or so pages of Part 1 of Marx's Capital, Volume 1. Alternatively look out for the next TV rerun of The Treasure of Sierra Madre.

The Late Richard Donnelly 

(Glasgow Branch)

A SCOTCH BROTH OF PECULIAR COMPOSITION

From the August 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

As the war nears its climax, the capitalist political representatives—and their sidekicks—are doing a lot of jockeying for place and power in what they consider will be the political set-up. In Scotland, as in England, recent events in Parliamentary by-elections have indicated clearly that the working-class electorate are not whole-heartedly enamoured of the National-cum-Labour Government. A definite swing of the pendulum "leftwards" has been observed, and a post-war continuation of that process has been envisaged. The "Commonwealth" movement has had some measure of success in stealing the thunder of the Labour and Communist Parties. This organisation, which receives the financial backing of Sir Richard Acland and other rich men, has made attempts—with varying degrees of success—to take united Parliamentary action with the other reformist organisations, the Labour Party, Communist Party and I.L.P. "Commonwealth" spokesmen have, of course, demonstrated their confusion and invincible ignorance of what the term "commonwealth" means. To them it means anything and everything, from State ownership to public utility corporations—in a word, anything but the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life.

Enchanted, apparently, by the measure of success which has attended the efforts of Acland and Co. yet again to beguile the workers, a "Scotch broth" of various "lairds," "literary men, Communist gents and Labour politicians have arisen in Scotland in the form of a "Declaration on Scottish Affairs," in which various problems are discussed and palliatives set forth. The ancient slogan, "Scottish Home Rule," is revived from its centuries-old semi-torpor, and blazoned forth to an —as yet—incredulous working class. This specious document contends initially that "Scottish conditions are not identical with English conditions," a masterly and illuminating observation! In support of this, various evidence is adduced: "Hill farming, forestry and fishing are more important than in the South"; "depopulation of the Highlands is an entirely Scottish question"; "The Scottish housing question is different in scale." The solution to these perplexing anomalies is modestly claimed to be: "A Scottish legislature and Government should be established to deal with Scottish affairs, and that Scottish representation in the Parliament of the United Kingdom should be retained."

We have heard all this before, in varying guises. Yes, my Lords and Ladies and inspired Commoners, your "fresh" Scottish fish stinks of crumbling antiquity! It was also claimed by the Irish Nationalists over long years, that the problems of the Irish workers were uniquely different from the other workers of the world. After years of bloody struggle the Irish Nationalists—to some extent—had their way, with what results? Are not poverty and unemployment inevitable accompaniments of wealth and leisure in the "Emerald Isle"? Are slums, poorhouses, pawnshops, diseases, malnutrition and the other horrible characteristics of modern society the exclusive product of Scotland, Ireland or any other country in the world?

An amusing reflection that strikes me on examining the "Home Rule" claims is the one that arises when they claim that Home Rule for Scotland will result in more work. More work for whom?—for the Lords, Dukes, ladies, authors and Labour politicians who modestly sign the declaration? No! As is usual, for the already over-worked working class of Scotland! It could be thought that, at least, it had occurred to John S. Clarke (one of the signatories) that what is wrong with the working class is not lack of work, but their divorcement from the means of wealth-production. To talk of Scottish, as opposed to English, interests is to gloss over, to ignore the basic conflict of interests that inevitably arises from the structure of capitalism. The defenders of capitalism adopt sundry devices to hide this fundamental class-antagonism, and one of the handiest ones has been for years to play on the difference of nationality and seat of government. The defence against this stratagem is, as always. the re-statement of the Socialist case and an iron confidence in the working-class ability eventually to solve their own problems without the assistance of Lairds and Lords, or leaders.

Thomas Anthony.

('Thomas Anthony' was the pen-name of longstanding SPGB Glasgow Branch member, the late Tony Mulheron. Tony joined the SPGB in 1935 and, except for a brief disagreement over the party's attitude to the Spanish Civil War, remained a member of the end of his life. A brilliant speaker and debater, his flamboyant style and wit made him a joy to listen to. Although he had only the minimum of formal education he acquired a thorough knowledge of Marxist theory, which he applied to wipe the floor with numerous left-wing opponents.

The old Workers' Open Forum in Glasgow was Tony's favourite stamping ground. This was run by a committee of working people who for many years organised regular political talks and debates and Tony was a frequent and popular lecturer there.)

‘No’ to slavery – but ‘Yes’ to our chains.

Socialists are against buying and selling things with money and for money. But, we exist in a capitalist world that requires us to do much of what we are against. In order to survive we need to buy food and such and what we sell is our labour-power – our capacity to work. Only by buying the worker’s labor power can the capitalist make profits. Workers produce more than what the capitalist pays them in wages and benefits. This is the basis of exploitation of the workers. What the workers produce over and beyond the socially necessary labour for keeping themselves and their families alive and working is surplus value. Surplus value is the only source of profits and is ripped off by the capitalists.

Our goal is to move beyond capitalism. We also use fossil fuels while pre-Civil War and people in the North wore clothes made of cotton picked by slaves. But that did not make them hypocritical when they joined the abolition movement. It just meant that they were also part of the slave economy, and they knew it. That is why they acted to change the system, not just their clothes. Also remember that the people in the North didn't "fight" slavery by buying non-conflict fair trade cotton from somewhere else to somehow stop slavery. What do most consumers know about how food is grown and processed? We know to find it on grocery shelves. But we don't know about the actual social process of production—that's not listed on the ingredients. We know price. That's the essential market information. I buy a chocolate bar. But do I know that the Ivory Coast is the world's leading cocoa exporter and supplies most of the chocolate I crave? Do I know that Nestle and Hershey's work through a web of cocoa exporters, purchasing agents, and labour contractors linked to plantations that rely on child labor? The market doesn't convey this crucial information. Not only do commodity production and market relations hide exploitation and oppressive class relations rooted in the system of production. They also distort and obscure the real social relations that bind individuals to one another. We are not free-floating consumers but are in fact part of an economic and social “matrix.”

Socialism is incompatible with markets for goods and services in an exchange economy.

 Capitalism is a highly developed and interdependent system of social production, with highly advanced technology and a complex division of labor. The different units of production, let's say, steel mills and computer makers, depend on each other—both as suppliers of raw materials, machines, etc., and as customers. On the other hand, the system of production is fragmented into privately owned and controlled units. So the connections between producers are not, and cannot, be consciously and directly worked out. Instead, the links among units are spontaneously arrived at through endless processes of exchange. If something sells, fine; if it doesn't, something is wrong. If earnings rise, fine; if they plummet, the capitalist responds and adjusts. There is no “before-the-fact” planning. So the market) coordinates the different components of the economy. But this happens indirectly and in a roundabout way behind the producers' backs. Each owner goes his or her own way, and then sees what happens...in the market.

Money rules in the capitalist market. Not only is money the medium by which prices are paid and goods obtained. Money is the goal of production. The units of production are organized around profit. No capitalist is in the business of making soap or lighting fixtures or cars; they're in the business of making money. The capitalist aims to come out of the process of production and exchange with more money (profit) than he started with. And somebody has to produce that wealth which under capitalism is the worker. Why do we work for capitalists? That has everything to do with market and ownership relations. The capitalist class owns the  means of production. We have no choice but to sell their labour power (our ability to work—our energy, skill, intelligence and creativity) in the labour market, or we starve. Wages enable workers to obtain the means of survival—to buy back in the market a portion of the wealth they have produced. The rest belongs to the capitalists. The most fundamental market transaction under capitalism is the sale and purchase of labour power. The exploitation of wage labour is the source of capitalist wealth and power.

Markets are NOT the source of exploitation, rather, extraction of worker surplus value by the capitalist is the source of exploitation under capitalism. The market mechanism is not the same as the exploitation of wage labor. Exploitation takes place at the point of production. But some fail to see is that the market is integral to this process. On the one hand, a pool of labourers (a labour market) is available for exploitation, because these laborers have no means of production. The labour market represents a form of coercion unique to capitalism—the worker is not forced at gunpoint, or by feudal obligation, to work—but he or she is compelled to seek work (and labourers can work only insofar as the capitalist can make profit off their labour). On the other hand, the market is the mechanism through which the capitalist carries out and completes the cycle of production and exchange: buying means of production and labour, and then realizing (converting into money form) the surplus value produced by social labour. If people say that the market will exist under socialism, does that include the market for labour power?

The market regulates capitalist production in two fundamental ways.

First, the market imposes norms (standards) of efficiency . Each capitalist is in battle with others. Each seeks a larger market share (at the expense of others), and the chief weapon in the battle is to expand production, raise productivity, and reduce cost. That means getting workers to work harder, faster, and longer. If an individual capitalist doesn't operate at a certain level of efficiency, he loses out—he can't sell at the prevailing market price—and he either raises efficiency or goes under.

Second, the market guides investment. When the market and profits are growing in a particular sector or product line, capital moves in. For instance, big returns could be gotten in telecommunications a few years back, so huge amounts of investment capital flowed in (you can see the moral of the story). But when the economy gets out of whack, the market imposes discipline and dictates reorganization: companies go under or merge, assets get sold or liquidated, workers are laid off, wage levels are pushed down—and stronger capitals and speculators move in like sharks in a feeding frenzy. This is a highly wasteful, anarchic, and oppressive process of regulation.

The market is impersonal. It isn't accountable to people. It doesn't consult with you about your needs. It doesn't care whether you lose your job, house, retirement pension, or your health coverage. If those things stand in the way of market efficiency, so be it. If you want the market—let's call it a “Market with a Human Face”—to be the organizing mechanism of the economy, you have to explain how the market can function according to market rules and yet not do the horrible things that the market does. Let's say market mechanisms are allowed to operate fairly freely in the consumer goods sector. Different enterprises are producing goods and winning or losing in the marketplace, based on what people buy.

Will the managers of these enterprises be allowed to trim the work force if earnings decline?

Will enterprises be allowed to go bankrupt if they do not make adequate profit?

Will society allow the market to “freely” set prices for goods—including items essential to people's well-being?

Will society allow production to shift to upscale goods that people with higher incomes demand—even if this comes at the expense of things that broader numbers of people need?

If you don't want the market to do those things and you want it to act according to other rules, let's say safeguarding people's basic interests, then what is the market doing that keeps it a market?

Market mechanisms do not promote meaningful work that serves the social good, and they do not promote social equality. These values are totally contrary to competition.

There is no plan for social production in the capitalist market economy. Society as a whole is not figuring what its requirements are: its social needs, the equipment and technology to carry out production, the housing requirements of the population, the resources called for to deal with an AIDS epidemic.

Instead, this is left to the market to work out (of course, the government plays a role, but the market reigns supreme). What happens is that capitalists enter different fields and product lines. Each capitalist producer decides what and how much to produce, whether to expand or cut back, whether to hire new workers and build new facilities. These decisions are guided by the capitalists' ability to sell products at profitable prices and by the expectation of finding profitable markets in the future. The capitalist produces and then sees what happens. It's a hit-and-miss, shoot- and-overshoot, trial-and-error process. In boom times, investment is expanded too much. In periods of economic slowdown, there is too little investment. Great numbers of people can no longer work, resources lie idle, and urgent social needs go unmet. All this is tremendously wasteful and destructive.

The market rewards the minimization of cost in pursuit of the maximization of profit. This is the “bottom line,” what it all comes down to in the market. The capitalists equate the “bottom line” with efficiency. But efficiency has definite class content under capitalism. It is the efficient exploitation of wage labour. It is the calculation of what is cost- efficient and profitable in a narrow and short-term sense. A factory might belch out pollution, but that cost to society is not a worry for the factory owner—you see, air is not within his boundary of ownership, not part of the cost structure that the market rewards and penalizes. The market doesn't register the long-term and social effects of economic activity. Health and pollution don't show up in the supply- demand and profit maximization framework of price and profit. That's what happens when profit is the starting and end-point.

Take the example of pharmaceutical industry. It is not profitable for the pharmaceutical industry to develop cheap drugs for diseases that affect the vast majority of humanity. The market returns are too low. So people go untreated and die of curable diseases. But it is profitable to develop “life-style” drugs and to slightly modify existing drugs to get new patents. Housing is another example. There is an obvious need for affordable and decent housing. But the market doesn't respond to social need or social demand. It only recognises monetary demand—“show me the money.” So you have the problem of homelessness; you have a public housing crisis; you have a situation where the average worker in retail in the U.S. can afford the rent for a one-bedroom apartment in only three of the largest 20 housing markets in the country. Globalization is all about the “bottom line.” In the anti-globalization movement, they call it the “race to the bottom.” The global investor scans the global market in search of low costs, high productivity, and big returns. Sweatshops, lax environmental regulations, few worker benefits—all this makes “good market sense.”

Each capitalist seeks to outmaneuver and out-position others. They keep technical and scientific knowledge from one another through trade secrets and patents and intellectual property rights. Ideas can become private property, and the “rights to these ideas” are bought and sold—just like everything else. To win in the market is to maximise competitive advantage and gain.

We can't eat, put a roof over our heads, or work without going through the market. But when you relate to the market for a house or for a job, you are relating to other people in very definite ways. You are competing for jobs, for housing, etc. The market breeds a mind-set of “me-first,” of “look out for number one.” The market is cold and cruel. It's about “winners and losers.” And in such a world, our world, it's just not “cost-effective” to show concern for others. Of course, we do try to care about others (today, even in this world dominated by the capitalist market), and we organise on the job and in the community. But the fact remains: capitalism and market exchange pit us against each other; the system of private ownership and the market fragment and atomise people.

The situation of exploitation and market relations alienates workers from the means of production, from the goals of production, and from work itself. Work is an alienating and oppressive activity. We work for an impersonal market and we work to obtain life's rewards in the market. There's nothing intrinsically rewarding about work, nor is work about serving meaningful social purposes. We “market ourselves” for jobs, for education...even for relationships. Happiness in the market society is measured by wealth and by the acquisition of things. Okay, there is the cornucopia of products. This, however, is not a market response to consumer want. Logos and brands are not about satisfying real material and social needs, and advertising is not a public service announcement. It's all about manipulating wants, stimulating and steering demand, and fighting for market share. Yes, “we get to choose things.” But three points have to be said about that. First, it's a “sliding scale of choice” based on class position and income. Second, as I have emphasized, the market does not respond to social need. And, third, like the ritual of elections, the “illusion of choice” masks and reinforces the basic powerlessness of the great majority of society. The ideology of consumerism is part of the psychology of control exercised in the capitalist market economy.

There is no plan for social production in the capitalist market economy. Society as a whole is not figuring what its requirements are: its social needs, the resources, equipment and technology to carry out production for the requirements of the population. We are often told that the capitalist consumer market is a kind of “referendum” in which consumers “vote with their dollars”—that in the market the “best product” wins. This is an extraordinary distortion, because it is the market that shapes the consumer. What wins in the marketplace is a function of marketing. What wins is a function of the manipulation and creation of wants (It is estimated 20 to 25 percent of the U.S. labour force is engaged in selling and marketing and advertising). What wins out in the dog-eat-dog world of capital is profitability and least-cost production. We get this message from capitalist ideologues that socialism will only produce a standardised and dull selection of goods that people don't like; or that people won't be able to get what they need, because there isn't enough attention paid to distribution of products. From people who are more radical the argument that socialist planning is inappropriate to consumer want, because these wants are so varied and changing. The “preference question”—the question of the volume, assortment, and variety of consumer goods is the standard bourgeois charge is that a socialist economy can't respond to, or doesn't care about, changing wants.

 A genuine system of socialist planning cannot be ignorant or indifferent to people's needs and wants. It must safeguard people's basic interests and it does have to be responsive to changing wants. Socialism is not “more of the same”—or “less of the same”—with the private individual as the starting and end point. Socialism has to forge new relations of social life and community. Responsiveness requires “feedback mechanisms” and information flows into the planning process. It requires social interchange and social investigation at all levels. It's not a question of bureaucrats deciding from afar through a command economy, or of letting the market and price dictate what gets produced and who gets to buy it. It can be achieved by processes already in place. Trade organizations can periodically engage in consumer surveys. The distribution system keep tab on the changing pattern of tastes by what and at what speed items leave the shelves. Outlets can periodically hold public forums at which suggestions and customer grievances were aired. When new product lines were introduced, the distribution centres specifically solicit consumer reactions. Meetings can be held between agencies which handled supplies and retailers to discuss problems of marketing, volume, quality, and appropriateness of goods handled. Mobile teams were sent out regularly to make “on the spot investigations” of user needs and responses. Telephone or internet research carried out. Supply agencies can keep representatives at the plants of major suppliers to act as liaisons for user interests. Perhaps some of those suggestions may be imperfect life-styles can be so messy. But this approach to consumer and user wants helps people take off the blinkers and think about real alternatives to market/ price mechanisms of decision-making.

People's most basic needs will be met, and the new economy will strive to produce a rational variety of consumer goods. But the ‘convenience’ of having Indonesian workers cater to athletic clothing needs, or peasants in other parts of the world cater to upscale coffee sensibilities, will be no more. At the same time, people's social needs will change with the transformation of social life. There will not be the obsession with consumption, the need to define oneself on the basis of what and how much one consumes. We are saying that a goal of socialist society is to create a common (shared) material abundance.

Fact of the Day

Scotland contained the highest rates of slave ownership in proportion to the population.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/vast-scale-of-british-slave-ownership-revealed-10383768.html

It's Democracy?

 Well, Egypt finally got its democracy – you can choose who you like for President as long as we, the army aristocracy, get to vet all the candidates and reject whoever we don't like, and as long as, when you have chosen a president, we get to suspend the elected assembly and make up our own constitution. That's what will happen until the working class realizes that only a socialist revolution will do the trick. John Ayers.

It's Endemic

 In Britain, thieves are ripping up railway and telephone cables, stealing lead of church roofs, prying off manhole covers, blatantly carting away ramps for the disabled, and causing children to shiver in schools by stealing heating pipes. This is in response to a soaring demand for copper and lead as developing countries race to build skyscrapers, factories and other infrastructure. It's pointless to blame greed when it's endemic to the capitalist system. John Ayers.