World at work (1971)

From the January 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

Private property utilises every aid in upholding its rights. Armies in the field, policemen in the streets and detectives in the stories, each armed with the marvels of modern technology, are obvious examples of this. All this is necessary in a society in conflict where every man's interests seem to be in opposition. The struggle is world wide and is carried into every sphere of human activity — even London Underground, where one of the latest technical innovations, automation, is being used to protect the property rights of London Transport against the encroachment of an army of fare-dodging passengers.

The exact amount of income which London Transport loses through this phenomenon is unknown although they put the figure for buses and Underground combined at around 1 per cent of receipts, which were £112 million in 1969. So by their own reckoning it is costing them over £1 million yearly, and since it is harder to dodge paying on the buses, especially with the introduction of pay-as-you-enter, then it can be safely assumed that most of this is lost on the Underground. London Transport have tried to fight back as convictions for dishonest travelling on the Underground show — an average of 6,000 yearly, but still the cash is lost and they must continue the fight.

The answer as London Transport sees it is to ensure that correct fares are paid. Today, thousands simply buy no ticket at all and just hand the collector a shilling at the exit. This disinclination to pay full fare was best seen during the 1965 strike of booking clerks when “honesty buckets” were placed inside stations for passengers to put the cost of their journey into. The response prompted a London Transport official at Victoria to complain that “so far as I can gather over the weekend thousands of people must have moved to within a sixpenny travelling distance of Victoria". (The Times, 16 March 1965). Therefore, a way has been devised whereby passengers must have paid full fare before being allowed to leave the station. The solution is automated ticket issuing and collecting.

This entails selling chemically coated tickets on which the details of the journey are magnetically encoded. To gain access to the trains the passenger feeds the ticket into the entrance gate which scans it before letting him through. The ticket is again electronically read by the exit gate which opens only if the code is correct. If not, the passenger is “attended” to by one of the station staff. This system is already in wide use on the new Victoria Line and double the normal excess fares have been collected at some stations during the first year. The signs are that London Transport’s figure of £1 million lost due to fare-dodging will be shown to be hopelessly under estimated.

How much of society’s resources will it cost to introduce automated ticketing throughout London Underground? Anthony Bull, London Transport’s Vice-Chairman, stated in 1966 that it would cost, at a very rough estimate, £10 million at 1966 prices. Obviously the final figure will be much higher, but Bull sugared the pill by adding that the capital expenditure of designing and installing the system was of a once-and-for-all character. (Modern Railways, June 1966). We shall return to this.

Of course fare-dodging isn't the only reason for installing automation. London Transport expects to save £1 million a year by dispensing with surplus staff who, as we have seen, are liable to take costly strike action. This saving, together with the money at present being lost, would go a long way towards solving London Transport’s financial plight. It is currently losing £10 million a year—£7½ million on interest on loans and the rest on running losses. Accordingly, vast amounts of highly skilled human time and energy are to be wasted in order to prevent workers freely utilising the transportation which their brain and muscle power alone created . . . but which they do not own. And this is something which is happening all over the world. The growth of private motoring is forcing authorities in countries like America, Germany, Japan, Holland, to turn to Rapid Transit Systems as a means of maintaining communications in large cities and automated ticket issuing and collecting is being almost universally adopted.

But there is even more waste involved than meets the eye, because London Transport’s Mr. Bull was reckoning without human ingenuity when he made his “once-and-for-all” claim. When Milan’s Underground opened in 1964 it used an admittedly simple automated ticket system. A few minutes after the Archbishop and Mayor had cut the riband and the Milanese discovered that a holy picture cut to the correct size would operate the electronic turnstiles very well. So it was back to the drawing-board in order to produce an even more sophisticated machine. And in America change-giving machines, which are a “must” in the new systems, were withdrawn for modification a few years ago because workers were getting the change by inserting copies of banknotes run-off on office photocopy equipment. Obviously today’s ticket machines will cope with these simple ruses and no effort is being spared in ironing out the snags. In two American cities passengers have been invited to try and beat the system any way they can without retribution —for a trial — period — and if successful to confess their secret afterwards. No one can say with certainty that new methods of beating the machines won’t be developed. For example, if currency notes can be forged or stolen then why not special extended-travel tickets valued at, say, £5?

Reporting the Milan episode the Guardian correspondent cited it as proof of “man's answer to the tyranny of machines” (4 November 1964). The fallacy is that it is machines which dominate men when what actually happens is that some men, through their ownership of capital, use machines in the production and realisation of surplus value from other men — the workers, who sometimes hit back in whatever way they can, usually at the machines.

Nor is the situation any different in “communist” Russia. Moscow Metro is considering introducing automated ticketing and change-giving machines in the hope of dispensing with 300 booking clerks. Already Leningrad Metro employs a simple light-ray device which is placed just behind the coin-slot on the gate. If the intending passengers breaks the ray without first inserting the required coin then, just as in avowedly capitalist Britain or America, the gate remains closed. The Russian government claims that all public transport will eventually be free of charge as a social service (Modern Railways, April 1967). We have heard promises like this before, but even if it is realised it has nothing to do with Socialism when carried out within the context of an exchange relationship society such as Russia. The Expo 67 railway in Montreal was free “because of its importance in distributing visitors”. Substitute “workers” for “visitors” in state capitalist Russia and you have another reason why free transport can be such an attractive proposition to exploiters the world over.

Capitalism can easily provide us with better examples of its wastefulness and divisiveness and the contest between London Transport and the fare-dodgers is really only a sideshow. But it is part of the overall picture of how capitalism, in attempting to solve its problems, not only increases the productive forces and technical know-how but also glaringly exposes itself as the cause of the accompanying social conflict. In a society where all the goods and services man needs, including transport, were freely available themselves with brilliant thoughts of how to cancel out each other’s inventiveness would be impossible.

Vic Vanni

Freedom is the recognition of necessity

Consider...

That human society must reproduce itself continually, because its constituents—we life forms—are compelled to replenish life continually.

That this compulsion for society to reproduce itself imposes temporal persistence upon the social modes of its reproduction.

That these social modes of reproduction are constrained by the historically developed means available for society to reproduce itself.

That these social modes of reproduction manifest themselves historically—in their pure form—as persistent moments in an evolving dialectical process.

That these persistent moments are grounded in persistent forms of social relations of ownership and control of the means available for society to reproduce itself.

That when persistent social relations of ownership and control of the means available for reproducing social existence are overturned then the entire social formation, which has been raised upon these persistent social relations, is transformed into a new mode for reproducing social existence that is raised upon, and appropriate to, the changed social relations of ownership and control.

That a social process that is grounded in persistent social relations is not grounded in our will, but rather grounds our will.

That ownership and control of the means of social reproduction by a class of society—the ruling class—is the foundation upon which the ruling class exploits the dispossessed social class—the working class.

That the capitalist ruling class has transformed the social reproduction process into the reproduction of capital, and has simultaneously transformed the worker from a producer of goods into a producer of capital, independent of his/her will, but determining his/her will; independent of his/her conceptions, but determining his/her misconceptions.

That so long as the necessity of the process of social reproduction is not comprehended by the dispossessed class, the current social form prevails.

That Marx and Engels gave their working lives to comprehending the necessity of the social process as a deterministic science, with the practical aim of ending the persistence of the current mode of production and establishing social relations of common ownership and democratic control of the means of social reproduction to ensure the persistence of a socialist mode of production.

That the capitalist ruling class has hijacked the necessary process of social reproduction and converted it into the socially parasitic process of return on investment.

That the capitalist social process has turned working life into a moment in the expansion of capital, and has produced the producer as a non-producer of goods—the unwitting producer of the ruling class’s capital that enslaves him/her.

That a persistent social system driven by return on investment is not driven by social freedom, but is necessarily driven by the negation of freedom for those compelled to labour persistently at producing illusory proxies for the capitalist class’s return on investment.

That the delusion that producers produce goods is the sustaining illusion of an unfree working class, that is productive only when productive of capital.

That the motive force of return on investment overrides consideration of sex, colour, health, disability, intellect, security, love, community—in short, humanity.

That the motive force of return on investment generates obfuscation, lying, brutality, cheating, swindling, war—in short, anti-humanity.

On consideration, capitalist society gives us zero freedom to control it.  Human will is powerless to intervene successfully in a process it doesn’t comprehend.  Society remains at the mercy of its uncomprehended process.

Gravity likewise acts independently of our will.  We no longer engage in merely willing freedom from a gravity that is indifferent to us.  We have learnt by bitter experience to unleash gravity’s inexorable necessity for our ends.  The modern motor car relies on gravity’s necessity, comprehended in the form of general relativity, to help it navigate by GPS.

This is precisely what Engels (following Hegel) means by his deep enigmatic gloss “Freedom is the recognition of necessity”.  Think it through.  Engels, like Marx, assumes a reader willing to think.

Necessity must be comprehended for us to be able bridle her, for us to gain freedom through her.  We can never free ourselves from necessity.  The illusion that we can ignore necessity is illusory ignorance—anti-human utopian dreaming.

Willed ‘freedom’ is zero freedom, so long as prevalent necessity remains uncomprehended.  That’s precisely why humanity needs science.

Consider the inhumanities we will free ourselves from when we free ourselves from the necessity to drive society for return on investment—when we free ourselves from the insatiable necessity for capital to expand itself at the expense of the socially crippled humans whose socially-necessary task it is to perform this compulsion for the capitalist class.  Those humans are us, you and me!


TWC

The fool's tale (1983)

Book Review from the November 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Democratic Alternative by Peter Hain

Like a good comrade I agreed to review one of several books offered to me by the Socialist Standard. Like a loser I picked this one and had to plough through 180 pages of muddle-headed nonsense. Peter Hain’s intention in writing this book is to outline how he thinks the Labour Party can win back the support it has lost and get back into power. This is to be achieved by what he calls “socialist policies", which inevitably turn out to be just another collection of reforms of capitalism.

For example, he wants to sec the pound devalued, exchange controls re-imposed, price controls, a statutory minimum wage, the drug companies nationalised, a windfall tax on bank profits and, for good measure, Bobbies back on the beat. Of course, even if all of these reforms were enacted we would still be living in capitalism: the workers would remain an exploited class.

Hain still believes, despite all the evidence, that capitalism can be managed and controlled by a future Labour government. All that would be needed is the will to do it. He wants the next Labour government to work with the unions in developing yet another “National Plan" which would regulate production, trade and investment. But no government can plan these things with any hope of success because it cannot know what future market conditions will be like or what action other governments may take. In other words it cannot act independently of what is happening in the rest of the world.

Hain’s answer to the current slump is the old one of spending-your-way-out-of-it, the spending to be financed by increased government borrowing and heavily taxing the rich. This, he claims, will rejuvenate the economy and bring unemployment down; but it is not as easy as he thinks. Increased government borrowing causes interest rates to rise to levels where many employers cannot afford to borrow just to survive let alone expand. Indeed, in the last few years this “lack of liquidity" has caused many companies to go down the drain and with them a their workers' jobs. And the more taxation is a raised then the less profits the capitalists will have for re-investment or dividends. If profits fall to the point where investors are unwilling to invest then this, too, will act against reducing unemployment. Incidentally, another of Hain’s ideas for raising capital to finance extra government spending is to lay hands on trade union pension funds!

Other sure-fire vote losers proposed by Hain include giving the rank and file of the armed forces a say in the selection of military leaders, turning the diplomatic service into an instrument of “international socialism", and Britain to sell armaments only to those who ". . . are advancing the cause of human justice". Needless to say he is thinking of the likes of Mugabe of Zimbabwe, whose forces are responsible for the murder of thousands of that country's citizens.

Over and over again Hain reveals his ignorance of even the simplest aspects of capitalism’s operations. He thinks that wages are paid out of profits when, of course, profits are what is left to the enterprise after all costs, including wages, have been met. He also thinks that trade unions protect their members against exploitation. If that were the case then those workers would be producing no surplus value at all. What trade unions do, to one degree or another, is to minimise the level of exploitation. As any genuine socialist knows, exploitation of wage-labour by capital is a feature of capitalism and will only be ended by socialism.

Although this book is studded with references to socialist-this and socialist-that, nowhere does the author reveal any knowledge of what a socialist society entails — a worldwide system of common ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution. A system that will exclude exchange relations and all the things that go with them such as money, prices, wages, profits, banks and pensions. On page 116 Hain writes: "What do we mean by . . . socialist?”, but he never tells us. Maybe this is what he meant when he warned us in the Preface that he wouldn't be "dotting the i's and crossing the t’s”.

 Vic Vanni

Capitalism's Gamble

The report on the shoddy construction of schools in Edinburgh which led to the closure of 17 as they were unsafe and required to be fixed has been released and , surprise-surprise, the cause was the council and the builders cost-cutting. The fact that no injuries or fatalities to children resulted from the collapse of the gable wall at Oxgangs School was a matter of timing and luck. Approximately nine tonnes of masonry fell on an area where children could easily have been standing or passing through.

  The report explains that City of Edinburgh Council could have employed someone, for example a Clerk of Works, to oversee the work on site. This costs money.

Keeping costs down is one of the factors that appears often in the report. It says "the procurers of buildings need to consider whether the drive for faster, lower cost construction may be being achieved to the detriment of its quality and safety".

One of the senior staff at VB Contracts who built the walls at Oxgangs, and others, has previously said they were told to build the walls in a way that is not considered good practice.  The report explains that the architects spotted the way the walls were being built at one school and highlighted it to the main contractor who, they say, ignored it.

PPP was the private finance model used to fund the schools. The report says that aspects of the way the private finance model was put in place put the quality of the buildings at risk.
 Larry Flanagan, EIS General Secretary, said: "This is not an area where corners or costs should ever be cut. The legacy of the PPP/PFI funding model is too many inferior buildings, for which we will all be paying a vastly inflated price for decades to come. Scotland's pupils and school staff and, indeed, Scottish taxpayers deserve far better."

The Socialist Party and social revolution

The Socialist Party wants a revolution involving much more than a change of political control. We want a social revolution, a revolution in the basis of society which is a sweeping, fundamental change in political and economical organisation. The meaning of socialism is simple to grasp, and grasp it you must, if you wish to support it. Socialism describes the future world that socialists think you ought to desire as the creators of wealth. It will be one world of common ownership, democratic control and free access to the products of labour. A social system like that is yours for the taking. It will be a struggle to get. but there will be a new world waiting for all at the end.

We hear a great deal about the future. The Socialist Party has much to be proud of. We have stuck to our principles despite all the so-called pragmatic "something now” opportunism. We started out as, and remain today, the only genuinely democratic political party in Britain. We have no leaders, no secret meetings, no hidden agendas. We are a party run by its members. The S.P.G.B. claim that dependence on leadership is a menace to the working-class movement and that not emotionalism of leader-worship but knowledge, understanding and self-reliance are the workers' road to emancipation  Never once have we made any concessions to racist or nationalist sentiments, and from our inception declared against racism and sexism in all their forms. We have no blood on our hands, having never once supported a war for capitalist interests. Every war since our founding in 1904 has been exposed and opposed, even when some of our comrades were thrown into prison for their principles. We have not lied about the possibility of reforming capitalism so as to make it tolerable to live under. Whilst never opposing reforms which might alleviate the lives of the wealth-producing majority, we have consistently and. at the risk of unpopularity, stood firmly against reformism and the illusion that capitalism can somehow be made decent.  We have never collaborated with any capitalist government, unlike the Left who  accept the view that the Labour Party is anti-working-class until election times when they have consistently told workers to vote Labour.  We have kept alive the great socialist vision of common ownership and democratic control, never once confusing that with the state capitalist nationalisation proposals for placing the profit system under new management. We have stood out not for fair wages but for the abolition of wage labour; not for more money for the poor but for the abolition of money and thereby the end of poverty; not for the welfare crumbs but free and equal access for all to the abundant resources of this rich and fruitful planet. And we have never flinched from advocating revolution as our goal. Ours has never been to ask the bosses for a share of the loaf; only when conscious and democratically organized workers take the means of life will the world be ours. The Socialist Party has stood alone and with iron principles throughout these years and for that we have reason to be proud. We will not let our political enemies forget how we, in opposition to both Right and Left, refused to be taken in by the Leninist claims of having introduced socialism in one country a backward, peasant economy at that. But remembering the past is no substitute for making the future. We look forward to the day when the absurdity of having to argue in favour of producing food for people to eat and not for it to be sold with a view to profit will mystify historians of our movement. Our purpose is not merely to dream, but to make real our vision by destroying the nightmare which is the system of production for profit.

 Let the supporters of the status quo promise what they may, no modification of capitalism can relieve the workers to any important extent of the evils that are bound up with the system— poverty, insecurity and oppression. But these evils will disappear once the source of them—the private ownership of the means of production—has been removed by substituting common ownership by the whole community.

In order that this change may come about, the workers, in whose interest it mainly is, must understand a few broad general principles, and desire and work for the change. It is not necessary that the workers must first of all become erudite students of Marx, or have a first-class knowledge of the sciences, though, of course, if it were possible it would be helpful. All that it is essential they should understand is that they run society to-day in the interests of a privileged and idle few, and that they could much more easily run it to-morrow in the interests of the whole of society; that capitalism is only one stage in social development, and it had a beginning and will have an end, just as other social systems had; that what they can get out of life to-day is determined by the fact that they must find a buyer for their physical energies because they exist in a system where everything is bought and sold; that at election times they present the capitalist class with the political power which enables that class to order society in its interest.

Armed with this understanding, the workers can build a new society that will be well worth while living in. Human labour is so productive and human brains are teeming with such knowledge that once given free play the mind is staggered by the vast possibilities that open up for the human race. There will be no religious bars, colour bars or social bars to stand across the path of anyone in the employment of his faculties for his own enjoyment and the benefit of society at large. The citizens of the socialist community will work voluntarily because they are doing a job they love, for the benefit of society as a whole—i.e., in the long run, for themselves. All labour in the socialist society will be essential and useful. There will be no need to try to stop people from doing wasteful and unessential things, like pouring luxuries into the lap of parasites.

The building of this new society must and can only be the work of the workers themselves; they cannot expect help from above, for privilege will hang on until it is shaken from its perch. In this new society there will be no privileged idlers; unless they have physical disabilities, each will play his part according to his ability. The future belongs to the workers, and the capitalists are already trembling at the vision. Socialism cannot be achieved without a social revolution, that is a change in the property basis of society, from private ownership to social ownership and democratic control.

Scotch Mist

 In Scotland today it’s true that there is a struggle – as there is in England, Wales, Ireland, or rest of the world for that matter. But the struggle in Scotland is not, as the Scottish National Party would have us believe, the struggle for home rule, self-government, self-determination, or self anything. The struggle in Scotland, as in the rest of the world, is a class struggle: the struggle between the working class and the capitalist or owning class.

The SNP tell us, the workers, that independence from England and the control of our own purse strings will cure all our problems. What they do not seem to realise is that the problems they are going to try to solve are an integral part of the capitalist system, and history has shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that within this system there is no satisfactory solution to these problems apart from Socialism.

The SNP talk about the Scottish culture and the Scottish way of life. But in what way is the life of a Scottish wage slave basically different from that of an English, an American, or for that matter a Russian wage slave? There is no basic difference in the way of life of the world’s working class because we all suffer from the same problems such as poverty and insecurity. Independence from England will not cure the poverty and insecurity of the Scottish workers, because they will still be the wages labour and capital relationship.

There is no truly independent country in the world, because international capitalism has made sure of this, and our own experience here in Britain, especially since 1964, should have brought it home to us. The past few years should have shown us just how independent Britain is, when foreign "bankers" tell the British government how to spend money, and how it must not spend money, in order to keep the international capitalist class happy.

Class Struggle
 Independence for Scotland therefore is a myth put about by the Scottish National Party, which further confuses the Scottish section of the working class and blinds them from the real struggle – the class struggle.

The outcome of the class struggle is the abolition of capitalism and an end to poverty, insecurity and the ever-present threat of war.

Socialism is a sane society, where the means of life will be owned in common by the whole of the world socialist community. By the means of life we mean the land, mines, factories, railways, and the like – in short, the means of production and distribution. In Socialism the rule of life will be : from each according to his or her ability, to each to according to his or her need. There will be no need for buying and selling, just a free world for a free people. It could be like that now, so why not do something about it ? The world is ours for the taking. So why not take it ?

WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE FOR SOCIALISM!

J. MOIR

From Socialist Standard No. 779 July 1969

Economics: Theory of Rent (Part 2)

 GENERALLY SPEAKING, commodities sell at their price of production. This is calculated by the amount of the total capital involved in their production - constant capital (machinery, materials, etc.); variable capital (wages); plus a profit. Through the action of competing capitals an average rate of profit is formed, and all capitals, usefully employed,whatever the field of investment, will generally obtain the average.

 This means that the range of goods produced by these capitals will sell at average prices appropriate to their classification as use-values. For instance, similar-quality bread produced by one baker would not alter dramatically in price from that of another baker, although their individual prices of production may be different. The amount of profit is the difference between the cost of production and the average price of production, which is not determined by individual prices, but by a socially determined price based on socially necessary labour which regulates the market, Socially necessary labour is not measured industry by industry.

 It should be borne in mind that no capitalist manufacturing concern by itself produces commodities or value; products only become commodities when they come into contact with other commodities which provide their social equivalent. This means they all contain social labour - the labour of society. The individual labour which has gone into the production of groups of commodities forms part of the social labour. The value of commodities is determined by the amount of social labour, measured in time, and they exchange with one another according to the amount or proportion of this social labour vested in them. It is not individual producers who determine the proportion, but society generally. The realization of the market price (value) of a commodity depends purely on social interaction without regard to the nature of the commodities, whether they be agricultural products, motor cars, pig-iron or coal.

 Commodities can only average this price of production with reference to the whole field of commodities, and the total social capital, and cannot realize their price of production in groups isolated from other groups. If we assumed that all commodities sell at their price of production, and that all capitals secured the average rate of profit, there would be no rent available for the landlord. As land in itself does not form part of the social cost of production, it cannot have any influence on the rate of profit. Therefore, rent must come from a profit over and above the average rate of profit - in effect a surplus profit. The individual cost of production for most capitalists within particular industries are generally the same, pro rata to the capital invested. The larger firms may be more efficient, although this is not always the case. Wage rates are regionally and nationally determined, and the cost of materials, machinery, etc. and the other elements of constant capital are similar. This will establish a general average cost of production.

 Let us assume that a few factories within a certain country, because of their location are able to drive their machinery with the use of natural hydro power, whereas the great majority of other factories have to use electricity in the production of their commodities. Suppose that for every £100 unit of capital expended the factories using electricity make a profit of £15. The average price of production of the commodities in that case would be £115. (We are ignoring for the moment any temporary fluctuation of the market or any other accidental factors.) Assume that the factory using water power could produce the same quantity of commodities in the same time, but that instead of using a unit of £100 capital they need only use a unit of £90, because the water power was provided by a natural force, and not having to buy electricity they managed to save £10, this brings their production costs down to the £90 referred to above.

 In effect, through the use of this force they were able to produce the same amount of commodities with less capital. In the normal way their commodities would contain less value than those of the capitalists using electricity, because less social labour was involved in their production. But the average price of production is based on the socially-necessary labour of the whole of society, not of individual factories. The majority of factories using electricity determine the price of production, because all commodities can only realize their value by acting as equivalents to each other over the whole field of commodity production, and not in separate compartments.

 Individual industries do not produce commodities as value; it is society at large which creates the commodity form (e.g. a tailor produces a coat. He does not produce the exchange-value of a coat - that is socially determined.) The capitalist using water power, would, therefore, be able to sell his commodities at an average price of production, i.e. £115 - the same as the others. In that case, he would receive a surplus of £25 per unit of capital, an excess of £10 over all the other capitalists who had to buy electricity. This is a surplus profit; a profit over and above the average rate of profit, and this fact directly arises because the conditions under which he used his capital were more favourable; his exclusive use of the natural force denied to other capitalists, and which
could not be reproduced by them and consequently was not at their command. Capital can reproduce electricity at will, but you cannot reproduce a natural waterfall or the land upon which it flows.

 In the same way, capital cannot reproduce land, and therefore the landowner holds a position of monopoly. In the final reckoning, the surplus profit of the capitalist using water power was due entirely to this force - something which had no value because no labour had entered into its production, as with all natural power. The labour of harnessing this natural power would add value, and this is taken into account. Nevertheless, the cost of harnessing and supplying electricity has been shown to be greater, and it is this difference in cost which constitutes the surplus profit.

 Inevitably the owner of the land over which the river or waterfall flowed would require payment for permission for the use of the land which contained the natural force, otherwise he would forbid its use. If the capitalist were to part with the surplus profit of £10 out of the £25, he had received, to the landowner that would constitute a ground rent. He would have, in effect, transferred his surplus profit to the landlord. At the end of the day he would have earned a profit of £15, the same as the body of capitalists who used electricity. If he owned the land it would make no difference to the formation of the ground rent. In that case he would retain the surplus profit of £10 in his capacity as landlord and not as an industrial capitalist, because the surplus profit was not due to
his capital as such but to a natural force which he has monopolized. It is evident that any capitalist who is able to use ( a natural force based on land, whether it be hydro power, naturally fertile land, natural pasture-land, Iand( where the climate is more favourable, and other natural attributes, will be able to cut down his production cost below that of his fellow capitalists who are no in a similar position. He will always be in a position of earning a surplus profit
over the average rate o1 profit, which he transfers to the landlord by way of ground rent for permission to use the land in question.

 Agriculture and mining dominate the use of land The degree of fertility of the soil and the potential mineral wealth will determine the amount of rent But the existence of rent is due to the use of the land itself. There is an erroneous view held by the Labour Party and other left -wing parties that if you nationalize land you abolish rent. In fact, at no time has any Labour government taken any action to abolish ground rent. The object of the present Land Nationalization Bill is to curtail by taxation the profits of the landlords the price of whose Land( has risen because of planning and other consents - external factors. In other words, an attempt to prevent landowners from consuming the whole fruit: of social progress instead of sharing it with their brother capitalists whose interests are represented by the State.

 This makes no difference at all to the formation of ground rent, nor would it make any difference if all ground rent were paid to the State. It would mean that all land was owned by the State and has been taken from the private owners. How this came to pass, whether by nationalization with compensation or by confiscation does not matter. In point of fact, the State is inevitably the largest land lord in any country, and the State is the embodiment of all capitalists' interests.

 As the total amount of agricultural land in England and Wales is 27.2 million acres (Min. of Agriculture statistics 1972), tenant farmers alone pay an average of £260 millions rent annually for the use of the 13.6 million acres. The formation of rent over the whole 27.2 million acres would amount to approx. £540 million by present rent levies. Practically the whole of London is in the hands of ground landlords, both public and (very) private family trusts.

 The colossal amount of wealth which is appropriated annually in rent comes solely from the surplus value produced by the working class. Every advance in agricultural science, every intensification of the use of land, is of direct benefit to those parasites who have literally inherited the earth. In the same
way, every advance in technology and science generally is appropriated for the benefit of their industrial capitalist brethren.

 If human rights mean anything, they mean the right of every man, woman and child to the best possible existence society can provide. Freedom from paying rent, selling labour-power, and producing surplus value for a wealthy group of international idlers.

 Capitalist society simply cannot cope with the multifarious social problems which it has created because of the restrictive social relations which hold it together. Socialism is an urgent necessity, and working men and women everywhere must devote their thoughts and energies to its establishment through the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

J.D.

From Socialist Standard No. 848 April 1975

Economics: Theory of Rent (Part I

 CARVED IN STONE above the Royal Exchange in the City of London is the Biblical legend "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof", to which we reply "The earth is the landlord's and the rent therefrom". In the same Biblical strain we add "And he reaps where he does not sow".

 The ancient forms of rent paid to a feudal lord, or lord of the manor, or to the Church, were usually levied in kind, and met either by the supply of a portion
of the produce from the land, or by performing unpaid labour on land belonging to these groups. These old social relations of feudal society have been replaced with other higher social relations of production associated with the land and its capacity to attract rent. Land use, including agriculture, has been specifically adapted to the needs of capitalism. The vast bulk of society's food is obtained from the land, and takes the form of commodities, i.e. articles
produced for sale and profit. Consequently agriculture is under the domain of capital.

 Rent is the money tribute levied by one section of society (landlords) against other sections for permission to use certain portions of the globe which they (landlords) have appropriated and monopolized to the exclusion of others. To grow food, to build houses, factories, shipyards, etc., a ground rent must be paid to the owner of the soil. Private property of land, and this includes land owned by the State, is a prerequisite for extracting rent. History is full of instances as to how the rural labourers were driven off the land by force, bloody violence, threats of imprisonment and deportation, as in the case of the Land Enclosures over the last few hundred years.

 The fact remains that permission even to inhabit the earth has to be obtained from a group of rentier parasites who monopolize it. Ground rent is surplus-value which has previously been extracted from the working class. Whether this is paid to private individuals, the State or the Church makes no difference. It is an element in the overall economic organization of capitalism.

 Land has no value - that is, it contains no socially necessary labour, the source of value. The labour of society has not participated in its creation. It cannot be reproduced, and is not a commodity. Not being a commodity it does not have exchange value, and consequently does not contain surplus value. Surplus-value comes from unpaid labour, and as no labour at all has gone into its creation it cannot contain value. Land has use-value as have commodities
generally, but whereas you can have use-value (the utility of a thing) without exchange-value (price), you cannot have exchange value without use-value.

 The landlord cannot sell non-existent commodities; the service he provides is the service of rent collection. It is obvious that land is bought and sold both as building plots and agricultural land. To that extent it assumes the commodity form. Capital can be fixed in the soil either through the erection of buildings, land improvements like ploughing, drainage and fertilization, mining and quarrying operations etc.

 This capital forms part of the labour of society generally and does not spring from the soil. The capitalist farmer produces wheat etc. in the same way as the capitalist manufacturer produces other commodities. They differ only in the element in which their capital is invested. Their capital, like all other, qualifies for the average rate of profit, and if needs be can move from one sphere of production into another. Capital fixed in the soil - plant, factories, office blocks etc., as with capital elsewhere, would be entitled (under the laws of capitalism) to attract interest, but strictly speaking this is not the same thing as ground rent, which is specifically paid for the use of the soil and for permission to fix the capital in it in the first place.

  Unlike machinery and industrial plant which wears away and has to be replaced, the land (apart from natural catastrophe) with normal care and attention, fertilized and drained regularly in the case of arable land, or developed with office blocks and shopping precincts, continues to improve. To that extent it can attract a higher price for its use in the form of ground rent, or fetch a higher price should the landlord decide to sell it. The price of land has nothing to do with its value, which is nil. The price of building land depends purely on the oscillations of the market, or competition between buyers and sellers.

 The location of the land is a very important factor in this competition. Land required for building in a big commercial centre like London will fetch a higher price than land elsewhere. With agricultural land the position is somewhat different, but the monopoly of the land owner is a major factor in the determining of the final price in both cases. Obviously good agricultural naturally-fertile land which can yield 2 tons of grain per acre would fetch a higher price than land of lesser quality which would only produce 30 cwts of grain per acre. The rent charged for the use of these lands would vary, and bear some relation to their yields.

 Certain vineyards in the Bordeaux/Medoc area - Pauillac, Pomerel, etc. because of certain chemical properties in the soil, are able to produce fine wine. Other vineyards which lack these properties in the soil are unable to produce such fine wines, although the same amount of useful labour has gone into their production. The finer wines and lesser-quality wines contain, broadly speaking, the same amount of useful labour, but there is a considerable difference between the price of a bottle of Chateau neuf de Pape from the Rhone valley, and a bottle of Chateau Petrus or Chateau Lafite from Pomerel or
Pauillac, as any wine- drinking capitalist will tell you - at £5 per bottle this is hardly a worker's tipple.

 The difference in price does not arise from the labour involved but purely because of the natural properties of the soil. The owner of land where the vines
were grown would be able to charge a higher rent for the use of this land, and the wine producer would have to part with a larger share of the surplus value to the landlord than would the Rhone wine producers. Were the fine-wine producer the owner of the vineyards instead of the tenant this would make no difference. In that case, he would pocket the extra profit in his capacity as a landlord and not as a wine-growing capitalist. In any event, before he could
become a landlord, he would have to acquire the land from the previous owner, and spend a capital sum in order to achieve this. To that extent, the rent that he virtually paid to himself instead of to the landlord would merely represent the interest on the capital which he had invested in the purchase of the land.

 Rent is the way in which land realizes itself economically, and whilst rent itself is not interest (i.e. money paid for the use of c apital), it is influenced by the rate of interest, as also is the buying and selling of the land. Naturally, market conditions intervene because of the monopoly of landlords (sellers) and demand from the other portions of the capitalist class (buyers), particularly competition for building sites in city centres where any price may be paid.

 During periods of inflation the price of land will rise with other prices, not only because the value of money has fallen but because ownership of land provides a certain protection against the depreciation of money. The price of farmland rose from approximately £50 per acre in 1949 to £800 per acre in
1973, due to inflation. Prices are now falling. They fell 22 per first half of 1974, and are expected to fall to £582 per acre towards the end of 1974.
(Farmland market, Farmer's Weekly: The Times 3rd February 1975).
 Mr. Donald Campbell, editor of the report, said "The market is highly volatile; only a few years ago changes in value were gradual and their range was small."

 Over a period, the yardstick for measuring the price of land is by a capitalization of the rent. That is, by assuming that the rent represents the interest on an imaginary capital. If the prevailing rate of interest is 10 per cent, and the landlord receives a ground rent of £500 p.a., that £500 would represent the interest on an imaginary capital of £5,000. Were the rate of interest to fall to 5 per cent, the £500 p.a. would represent the interest on an imaginary capital of £10,000. The price of land is arrived at under normal conditions by the number of years it would take for the rents to reach the capital sum. In the first case the price of land would be £5,000 i.e. 10 years' ground purchase. The external rate of interest can and does influence the price of land. During a period of low interest rates, the price of land will tend to rise, and during a period of high interest rates the price of land will tend to fall,without affecting the rent at all. In England particularly, land is usually sold at so many years' purchase, usually twenty years or more.

 A value is therefore conferred on land by circumstances outside, i.e. the rate of interest, and does not arise from the land itself, simply because those who own the monopoly can prevent others from having access except on terms and conditions decreed by them. In this the landlord is joined by capitalists generally who operate in the same way by excluding society at large from access to the means of production and distribution, as well as monopolizing the social wealth.

 As society develops, and the population increases, and there is a growing demand for land for all purposes, the landlord will share in the fruits of this social progress without contributing anything at all. The industrial capitalists who dominate the political machinery take legislative measures to curb the appetite of the landlord, but you cannot abolish rent without abolishing private property in land, and as this forms the basis of the capitalist system of production, you cannot abolish private property in one sphere and retain it in another.

 Private property includes State property, which will be dealt with later.

J.D.



From Socialist Standard No. 847 March 1975

The Big Bang

 So that was the Big Bang was it? What revolutionised the Stock Exchange and shook the City actually made no difference to most. Workers woke up one morning to a deregulated Stock Exchange, but would not have had much time to ponder the significance of such a revolution on their lifestyle before they had to get to their work or their place in the DHSS queue.


 But of course, such matters must be important mustn't they? After all, it's on the news every evening, after the royal item and before the Granny parachuting-for-charity, we get the summary of the share price fluctuations, and hear how the Pound struggled, rallied, finished weakly. As one who after a usual day's work (struggled, rallied, finished weakly) cannot see the significance of it all, I sent off for the Stock exchange's glossy pamphlet An Introduction to the Stock Market. Thinking that "bull" was what economists talked about (rather than a type of market), I needed to see what all the fuss was about.

 The cover had lots of photographs of the type of people who, Presumably, own shares, all ages from smiling babies to smiling OAPs; all occupations from cooks to builders, welders to fishermen. They even managed to get half-a-dozen different ethnic groups represented on the pamphlet cover, which is about five more than are effectively allowed on the trading floor of the Stock Exchange, to go by recent reports.

 Of course it's the same sort of rubbish that we get on TV with every advert for the TSB flotation, the idea that becoming a capitalist is as easy as wearing a bowler hat, everyone can do it. It's a popular notion - borne out by the over subscription for TSB - that we can drag ourselves free from the varying degrees of poverty and pressures of working-class life. There is nothing wrong with wanting to escape that, but there is everything wrong in believing that a handful of shares in the TSB will free you of anything but a few hundred quid.


 It is a popular notion because people want it to be true but it has no basis in fact. Research by London Weekend Television shows that the City is not full of self-made men (or women).Those who reach the top in the City still come, predominantly, from a privileged background. Indeed the class division between rich and poor, owners and non-owners did not end Years ago with the nineteenth century, nor the nationalisation of the 1945. Labour government, nor the privatisation of the present government and certainly it will not end with the next stock market flotation (there should be one soon), nor with the next boom period (there should be one sometime), nor with a next Labour government.

 The situation today has changed little, the top one per cent own some twenty per cent of the total wealth in Britain, which is as much as the bottom seventy five per cent;the 20,000 millionaires in Britain own more wealth than half the population put together;the top six per cent enjoy forty-four per cent of unearned income, while two-thirds have none.(They didn't tell me that in the glossy brochure, I had to look elsewhere.) The fact that, some of those who work in the factories now have a couple of shares in British Gas tucked under their pillows, and a fifty pence reduction in their gas bill, will not upset the factory owners.

 But isn't the Big Bang going to change all that? Isn't it going to sweep away the inherited privilege of a lucky few, in favour of real rewards for those with courage, enterprise and a will to work hard? You know the sort of person, a cliché that only exists in the head of a Tory Party speech writer - he (not she) is pulling himself up by the bootstraps and pulling in his belt, he's got his nose to the grindstone, one foot on the ladder and is on his bike . . . Well, "Yes" is the answer if you have eyes to read the brochure with;.. "No" is the answer if you also have a brain to think with.


 Far from opening up the City to the individual and the entrepreneur, the Big Bang means the deregulation of exchanges and emphasis on high technology, allowing very complex and very fast transactions of commodities all over the world. In the USA this "programme trading" has produced much larger and more frequent swings in the markets. Judgements are decided by short-term market fluctuations, not on longer term evaluations like the state of the economy in general. Consequently, small investors cannot weather the large swings in the market without large financial backing. It's the big fish that remain.

 But regardless of the fluctuations of share prices, the legal business of exploitation is not just a matter of gambling on the Stock Exchange - buying and selling at the right times and the right prices - where you are rewarded for your "courage". All you need to do is sit on your shares and spend the money as it comes in. You don't need talent or guts, just a lot of money.


 Indeed, a BBC Nationwide news programme a few years ago had an item about a dog (presumably they could not find a parachuting grandmother that day), who placed his paw on the Financial Times and chose the shares for his master. The dog was a millionaire. And his owner looked about as happy as a dog with two million pounds. You can do it too. Try it at home all you need is a dog and somewhere in the region of £100,000. A trained monkey could do it. Even Gerald Grosvenor (the Duke of Westminster - two billion pounds and two 'O' levels to his name) can do it.

 Most capitalists are the same, they get someone else to do the little bit of work of buying and selling shares. Most hardly even see the Stock Exchange, let alone the factories, land or offices they profit from. Quite simply, the City cannot be opened up to everyone. As my brochure says (stuck away in the last paragraph on the bottom of page nine), your broker will "tell you honestly if your personal circumstances are such that you would be ill-advised to become an investor".


Capitalists need workers but we don't need them. They couldn't tolerate  builder or a manager or a secretary retiring at the age of thirty to live off the proceeds of their work. They need to squeeze as much as possible out of you, from when you are strong enough to work until you are old enough to drop. The rest of your life is your own.

 Unfortunately for this scheme of things, capitalism never runs smoothly for very long. The deregulation which has already started has produced some blatant examples of inflated salaries in the City. At a time when wage councils are being abolished and while one quarter of full-time workers in London are below the poverty line, the news that a few miles away in the City salaries can touch £1m cannot help the government's pleas to workers for wage restraint. At least the Queen has set the right example to Britain's greedy workers by accepting a pay rise below the rate of inflation, in the process boosting her earnings last Year from £3,850,000 to over £4million.


 Then we have the interesting sight of Thatcher criticising the excessive salaries. The champion of the market-place, outflanked by the uncontrollable nature of the system she supports. For capitalism, which periodically bares its "unacceptable face" that no cosmetic can hide, is the best ever advert for socialism.

 We could have a society where personal consumption of wealth will not be restricted by your personal circumstances and where production of wealth will not be restricted by the requirement of a surplus called profit.

 Socialism will take the information and communications technology that today enables vast amounts of useless information - Like market fluctuations and share prices – to circulate the world in seconds, every second, and will liberate its potential for a society based on production for use, as we liberate ourselves in a movement for World Socialism which makes the Big Bang look a damp squib.


BRIAN GARDNER

From Socialist Standard December 1986

Poverty

At the end of last year in The Holyrood magazine there were a series of posts asking Scottish based political leaders the question, What’s more important - tackling poverty, tackling inequality or mitigating the impact of poverty?
 

 Being born poor in order to be exploited as a waged slave,  creating wealth for the enjoyment and luxury of a parasitic economic class, or leading an existence full of poverty both relative and absolute can't fit in with the principle of healthy and meaningful living, can it ?


 In truth, the majority is impoverished. It is impoverished insofar as it has no other option than to sell its working abilities to those who monopolise the means of living and whose conspicuous wealth must irresistibly provide the very yardstick by which that poverty will be starkly exposed.

 This may not only be the poverty of material destitution. But if the measure of a human being consists in the accumulation of material possessions to which he or she may claim then, by that token, we are demeaned. And, ultimately, it is in this devaluation of our human worth—not simply in the fact of material inequality but in the meaning this society attaches to it—that we may glimpse the very essence of this poverty.

Ruth Davison Scottish Conservative leader on poverty

What’s more important - tackling poverty, tackling inequality or mitigating the impact of poverty?

None of these issues can be tackled in isolation and they each affect the other. At root, you need a strong economy with well-paid jobs and an ability for people to access those jobs without discrimination.


Comment: But they are ignoring the reason why these resources and people are unused in the first place, which is that the market does not recognise any profitability in employing them. This is the cruel fate of many workers who have struggled to pay for their own training and skills only to find that the market does not want them, even though their skills would be considered useful by any sane person. Capitalist economics is not interested in what is useful, it only cares what is profitable.

  Further to this it is essential to know that some of the existing higher paid occupations are in the war industry, capitalism's 'aye ready' but  essential for capitalism, murder and mayhem machine needs geared up to be unleashed upon upon fellow workers worldwide. Figures produced this year show more than 60 defence companies have a presence in Scotland, supporting 12,150 workers and making £2.2 billion worth of sales every year.


Patrick Harvie Greens co-convener on poverty
What’s more important - tackling poverty, tackling inequality or mitigating the impact of poverty?

  Poverty and inequality both matter, and ‘mitigating’ them will never be enough. Thinking that only poverty matters, and that a safety net at the bottom justifies a vast gap between the richest and the rest, breaks the feeling of connection and solidarity between people and can never lead to a cohesive society. We need to deal with the structural causes of poverty and inequality, in particular, the massively unfair distribution of wealth in our society.

Comment: He seemed to be almost there when he said, "We need to deal with the structural causes of poverty and inequality", but then he looks at 'the massively unfair distribution of wealth in our society', as something seemingly capable of being fixed, while retaining ownership and control of the wealth producing and distribution means in the hands of a minority class.


Nicola Sturgeon First Minister and SNP leader on poverty
What’s more important - tackling poverty, tackling inequality or mitigating the impact of poverty?

  It’s crucial that we do all of these things, but what we really want to do is change deep-seated, multi-generational deprivation, poverty and inequality.

  We have a proven record of taking action to protect people on low incomes - through our commitment to universal services, establishing the Scottish Welfare Fund and ensuring no one in Scotland is impacted by the ‘bedroom tax’. But we need full powers and resources to lift people out poverty, not just mitigate continually to a standing start.

  In our Fairer Scotland Action Plan, we pledged to increase early learning and childcare provision, introduce a new Best Start Grant for low-income families in the early years, and tackle the poverty premium – all of which will help deliver our ambition to eradicate child poverty.

Comment:
 Again a hopelessly deluded belief that governments can 'lift people out of poverty', instead of just managing its social control on behalf of the profit accumulating capitalist class for whom poverty is an essential driver of economic activity, (labour) through the exploitation of this asset and wealth poor resource, to produce surplus value above their subsistence. The solution, establishing a welfare fund, negating the 'bedroom tax' in some instances, a new Best Start Grant for low-income families in the early years, and tackle the poverty premium, while welcome for those for whom it applies won't do as she says 'help deliver our ambition to eradicate child poverty', but if successful will impose minimum standards upon capitalism as to enable and produce an adequate supply of the poor to be exploited.

Willie Rennie  Liberal Democrat leader on poverty
What’s more important - tackling poverty, tackling inequality or mitigating the impact of poverty?

  What's important is that all three are connected that you cannot substitute one for the other. Making sure we have a social security system in place that tackles all three must be the priority of any government so that everyone in society has the chance to get on in life, especially at Christmas.

Comment: Rennie must have been asked this question around the festive season as his answer seems redolent of Whigism at its best/worse, this kind hearted capitalism supporter wishing to ensure social security in place of adequate and ample proportions for the Tiny Tims of the wage enslaved class to ejaculate, 'god bless us every one', as they rush refreshed after the festive break into the very wage enslaved conditions of exploitation which produces unearned income and immeasurable wealth for his parasite paymasters, happy with capitalisms iron law of the minimum for the 95% wealth producers and the maximum extraction of surplus value for the 5% capitalist class.


Kezia Dugdale  Scottish Labour leader on poverty
What’s more important - tackling poverty, tackling inequality or mitigating the impact of poverty?

  This isn’t an either/or. Tackling poverty and tackling inequality go hand-in-hand. We need to ensure that everyone has the same life chances, and that starts with ensuring that our public services are properly funded. I didn’t get into politics just to mitigate Tory decisions that are hurting local communities. I came into politics to make different decisions to the Tories, rather than just pass on Tory austerity, like Nicola Sturgeon has chosen to do.

Comment: This platitudinous and vague nonsense from someone allegedly, a pro- working class politician, for the purpose of winning power to govern over workers, almost beggars belief. 'We need to ensure that everyone has the same life chances', so why then, ensuring that our public services are properly funded'?  If we all had the same 'life chances', surely we would be born wealthy.

 Capitalism's iron law prevails, with very few exceptions, if one is born poor one will die poor and vice versa, if one is born rich one will die rich.

 Comic book crude humour seems to have  a better handle upon the state of affairs which prevails regardless of the shades of difference, implemented or enunciated by capitalist supporting politicians, when in Furry Freak Brother parlance one anti-hero utters, "Life is a shit sandwich, the more bread you have, the less shit you eat".

 Managing on behalf of the smooth running of capitalism's production for profit system,  with the wealth producers in waged slavery and the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth in the private, corporate or state ownership, ensures poverty will continue to exist either in relative or absolute terms, as well as ensuring the conditions for war will continue to exist as capitalism's plundering bands of owners compete over trade routes, markets, geo-political interests against each other and in combinations, of allies one day and protagonists another.


 It is possible for us all to be wealthy and live in real social equality with each other, but for that to occur all wealth must be held in common by all of the worlds population with production for use in distributive conditions of free access, but for that we need to dissolve the politicians and elect ourselves to a socialist society.

"From each according to their ability to each according to their needs"

What a way to run the world

 We live in a world in which 800 million are malnourished, in which 600
million have no home, in which 1 billion have no access to clean water
and in which over 1 billion have no work. Our world is racked by war and
civil strife, crime is on the increase everywhere and racism and
nationalism is again rearing its ugly head. Were this not enough we now
face the threat of environmental catastrophe.

 These are not natural problems, they are social problems and all rooted
in the way our world is organised for production – production for profit
not social need. The terrible irony is that these are problems we are
already capable of solving.

 While we destroy mountains of food, children starve. We employ 500,000
scientists world-wide on weapons programmes, while the world cries out
for medical and technological breakthrough that. can directly benefit
humanity. Countless families sleep rough on the streets or the world's
cities, yet there is no shortage of vacant building, stockpiled bricks
and mortar and unemployed builders. We pollute the world, yet for 6 per
cent of the money we spend on weapons each year we could provide 1
billion people in underdeveloped countries with solar power. The list is
as endless as it is insane. Everywhere we look we are reminded of the
maxim of capitalism: "can't pay, can't have". At every turn we find
evidence that capitalism impoverishes our lives and retards real human
development.

The alternative

 The World Socialist Movement, which dates back to 1904, believes the
only way forward lies in the establishment of a world of free access. A
world social system based upon the common ownership and democratic
control of productive wealth by and in the interest of all people.

 Production for social need, not profit. A world without borders or
frontiers, social classes or leaders, states or governments, money,
wages, buying and selling. A world in which we all give freely of our
abilities and take according to our needs, with all work being based on
voluntary cooperation. A world devoid of force or coercion and in which
we each have a real democratic voice.

 We reject that such a system can be brought about by force. World
socialism will only come when a majority of the people of the world want
socialism and are prepared to organise for it peacefully and
democratically to get it. We further reject the idea that socialism has
already been tried and has failed. We have always maintained that what
was named 'socialism' was only ever state capitalism.

 We are a leaderless organisation consisting of a membership of equals.
We have companion parties and members throughout the world, all sharing
the same vision of a moneyless world. We make no promises and ask not to
lead you. There is nothing we can do for the workers of the world that
they are not capable of doing for themselves – after all, they already
run the world from top to bottom. If we want change then we have to
bring it about ourselves.

The Proxy War in Syria

 When Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson rather undiplomatically criticised key British ally, Saudi Arabia, for being amongst those 'puppeteering' in Syria, he blurted out the truth. What has been going on in Syria for the past five or so years has been much more than a civil war. Rival regional powers, as well as the West and Russia, have been intervening both directly and via groups on the ground which they finance and arm.

 What started as a bid to spread the so-called Arab Spring to Syria, with the aim of transforming a secular classic dictatorship (one party state, secret police, torture chambers) into a secular political democracy (which would have been a welcome development) was soon hijacked by Islamists of one degree of extremism or another with a quite different agenda. They won the support of the Islamic states, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and of Erdogan in Turkey who would like to turn his country into one too.

 With Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey using Sunni Muslim groups as their puppets and Iran, which supports the Syrian government, using Shia Muslim ones as theirs, the conflict has taken on the appearance of being a religious one. Some commentators have suggested, much more plausibly, that the real issue, for these states at least, has been for control of territory through which an oil pipeline from the Gulf to a Mediterranean port could pass most directly.

 For the West and Russia, it has been more a matter of geopolitics. The Syrian government, long controlled by a wing of the Arab Nationalist Baath party, has been sympathetic to Russia since the days of the Cold War, if only because during that period America kept trying to overthrow it. It even claimed to be 'socialist' but only in the sense of running a state-directed capitalist economy as in the former USSR, to which its dictatorial political system was similar too.

 Although Syria was not specifically included in Bush's 'axis of evil' it was still regarded as a hostile state deserving regime change. Russia, even though the pretence of being socialist has (thankfully) been dropped, continued to support the regime, if only to maintain its naval base in the Mediterranean, an objective of the Russian state since the time of the Tsars. For the moment at least, Russia has proved more determined in the defence and pursuit of its interests than the West, and it looks as if the regime is not going to be changed.

 These various clashes between rival capitalist interests have led to a minimum of at least 300,000 being killed, many more injured and much destruction as in the images from Aleppo. Millions more have been displaced both within Syria and as refugees living in misery in camps in Turkey and, if they didn't drown trying to get there, Greece.

 As socialists, we place on record our abhorrence of this latest manifestation of the callous, sordid, and mercenary nature of the international capitalist system, while hoping that the fighting, the killing and the destruction stop immediately and unconditionally.

From this months editorial (February 2017) Socialist Standard

Why pay?

  You don't need to be told that, no matter whether Labour, Tories or LibDems win power, nothing really changes for the better. Nor that millions no longer vote because it's so pointless. But what you might not know is that there is a way to stamp out the same old problems for good – along with the same old politicians forever talking the same old humbug about 'solving' them. How about a brand new, radically different, politician-free system guaranteed to provide all the top-quality food, goods and services you ever need, throughout your entire life, at  no cost whatsoever?

  Cornflakes, computers, cars, housing, rail travel, water, electricity, gas, phones, TV etc. all for free. You're now possibly thinking: "Rubbish! What new system can possibly bring this?" Well, prepare to be confused and annoyed by a word we have been conditioned, by years of disinformation, to immediately blow a fuse upon hearing. It's socialism. If you thought this has been tried already – and deceitful politicians and newspaper editors have done their damnedest to convince people it has – in fact, genuine socialism has never existed. In dictionaries, socialism is: "Common ownership of the means of production and distribution". That is, mineral mines, oil fields, manufacturing, utilities, trains, etc., owned by the people. But at no time, in no country, has any population directly owned and controlled these productive assets. Private and/or state owners have always possessed and run these, and consequently – surprise, surprise – they have benefited most.

  Does asset ownership really matter?  Absolutely. Whoever owns the means of living decides the manner of living. Capitalist possession has brought inadequate or no essential services due to profit-making and cost cutting; more cancers and illness due to pollution and unsafe food; excessive or dislikeable work; homelessness; ageism; too little free time; burglaries; inequality; unemployment; escapist drug abuse; racism; wars; environmental destruction; mortgages, bills, rent, taxes etc. With genuine socialism, all those worries would end – not just get a little better. Take cash troubles. If we all owned tomorrow what a few do today, money would be obsolete. Directly owning those vital assets mean we'd also own all the food, goods and services these provide. And as one of the new collective owners, you'd then have a right to these as required.

  That is why real socialism brings free access to whatever you need. Free access would not mean people grabbing everything in sight because, while work will obviously still have to be done to produce things, with genuine socialism the whole purpose of this work would have then changed from today's provision of goods and services strictly for sale (which causes artificial shortages and exclusion for the non-wealthy), to provision of goods and services purely to meet needs.

  No more money might seem bizarre – even frightening – but what's it for? It's for buying things that others own, and those owning what people need most – capitalists – benefit most. We are led to see money as offering freedom from worries, when in reality, it deliberately and barbarically maintains them. By deviously making money essential for life, asset owners can then compel those able to work to become their employees. Governments help out in this (e.g., by imposing paltry and hard-to-get benefits, and ensuring children are 'educated' to unquestioningly accept money, wages, profits, etc.). Workers end up buying what they together provided in the first place! Working long and hard, they can't earn enough to quit for good, since if they could, capitalists would then be unable to use them to make profits. Money is basically just one part of a massive scam to control and exploit the majority.

  Obviously, cash is needed while this scam goes on, but if we want a far more agreeable, healthier, plentiful free-access society, we need only take care who we support and how we vote. Most people really would gain from real socialism. Even those now with reassuring incomes and savings would benefit from this new system – not experience worse lives as a result of millions of others obtaining better ones. But after a lifetime deliberately hooked on must-have money, some people may find this radical change to cashless co-operation hard to take in. But weigh up the facts, examine the criticisms, and true socialism is seen to be infinitely better.

  For instance, you might think free access to whatever we need must mean harder work. Not so. Ending capitalist employment also ends its unemployment, so millions of people unwanted because bosses can't profit from using them, can then contribute. And with no more exclusive assets to protect, or money, millions more soldiers, solicitors, bureaucrats, etc. and those just tinkering with cash in retailing, banking, insurance etc., would all then be freed to add something of real value. What's more, many repetitive and unpleasant jobs could be done by sophisticated automation, which just won't happen today unless it's "cost-effective". So, for these reasons, real socialism would actually bring a far shorter working week, and jobs people enjoy – never again are forced to do for money, or by governments.

  For now, work is for profits, which means employees aren't paid the true value of their labour. Someone working 5 days may have done enough after 2 or 3 to cover their wages, but is kept at it so major shareholders can sponge off profits and thereby enjoy relaxed opulent lives. Even a 'good' boss must take advantage of workers to buy better equipment, premises, advertising, etc. to remain competitive. So, to some extent, all employees are cheated.

  Exploitation of workers is unavoidable with capitalism, as without it, the system won't work. This in-built abuse happens here now, just as it did in a so-called 'socialist' Russia. In reality, old Soviet Russia was capitalist too. It had employers (the state), leaders, money, wages, profits, inequality etc. None of these would exist if genuine socialism was established –  fact elitist 'left-wingers' choose to ignore even today. Such political activists claim to be 'socialist' while calling for "Full employment", "Strong trade unions", "Higher top-earner taxes" and "Nationalisation". But what they are therefore supporting is capitalism continuing, since waged work, labour bargaining, taxation and even full-blown state ownership of productive assets are all features of a capitalist system. Even replacing private bosses with state bosses changes nothing, as work will still be profit-driven.

  These would-be reformers may hope to change private enterprise into something better, but they'll never succeed. The Labour Party has proved this. They, too, wanted to keep reforming capitalism so we gradually moved towards socialism. But in the end, it was unchangeable capitalism which reformed Labour – into yet another 'New' Tory party!

  These "let's-make-it-nicer" tinkerers are quick to claim capitalism can help those suffering if more money is taken off the rich, or if it's governed 'properly'. This may sound good, but it's just tosh that ignores the only way capitalism can operate – exploiting assets in the most profitable way. If firms are made to pay higher taxes for state services and welfare, pay better wages, use the best food ingredients etc, then they can't compete in a global market. As profits suffer, businesses go bust. Investment shifts overseas. The economy fails. Public services collapse. Unemployment and poverty rise. Even more people suffer, and the government of the day get kicked out. So, no matter who governs, capitalism can never be run to benefit a suffering majority, as majority exploitation is fundamentally inevitable – for the chief benefit of a selfish minority.

  Due to this fundamental bias, there is one party that wants not to govern – but to enable voters to both elect themselves to power, as well as obtain direct ownership of productive assets, by choosing real socialism (once socialism's established, its purpose served, this party will then cease to exist). Freed from capitalism's asset-owner bias, money madness and marketplace wastefulness, aren't we perfectly capable of running our own lives? Why shouldn't we all decide how resources should be used (e.g., through occasional referendums) – rather than have these momentous decisions made by a self-seeking privileged few, aided by two-faced puppet politicians?
If you want a far better future, having had enough of capitalism's never-ending troubles and the contemptuous electoral game politicians play among themselves, where identical candidates from identical parties chase votes to deliver an identically odious outcome (a game they privately call Who's Best At Duping), then please get in contact for further details about real socialism.

M.Hess

A Scots Lament fur her American Fellows

By Lorna Wallace  (Oan their election of a tangerine gabshite walloper).

America, aw whit ye dain?!
How could ye choose a clueless wain
Ti lead yir country? Who wid trust
A man sae vile?!
A racist, sexist eedjit
Wi a shite hairstyle?

Yet lo, ye votit (michty me!)
Ti hawn’ this walloper the key
Ti pow’r supreme, ti stert his hateful,
Cruel regime.
A cling ti hope that this is aw
Jist wan bad dream.

But naw, the nightmare has come true,
A curse upon rid, white an’ blue,
An’ those who cast oot Bernie
Must feel sitch regret
Fur thinkin’ Mrs. Clinton
Was a safer bet.

So noo we wait ti see unfold
Division an’ intolerance, cold;
A pois’nous bigotry untold
Since Hitler’s rule
As the free world’s hopes an’ dreams
Lie with this fool.

Alas, complainin’ wullnae change
The fact this diddy has free range
Ti ride roughshod ow’r human beings
That fall outside
The cretinous ideals borne of
His ugly pride.

Awch USA, we feel yir woes
An’ pour oor wee herts oot ti those
Who ken this oarange gabshite isnae
Who they chose,
But jist sit tight; Trump’s cluelessness
Will time expose.

Fur sittin’ there beside Obama
Efter the election drama,
Trump looked like reality
Had finally hit:
Aboot the role of president
He knew Jack shit.


Poutin’, glaikit through this farce,
His mooth wis pursed up like an arse,
His Tangoed coupon glowin’ like
A skelped backside.

Despite all his bravado
Trump looked keen ti hide.

Let’s therefur no despair an’ greet,
Or see this outcome as defeat.

Let’s wait an’ watch this bampot
Flap his hawns an’ squirm
When presidential pressures
Crush him like a worm.


Hawd oan ti values you hold dear,
Don’t let this numpty bring yi fear,
His chants of hatred don’t speak fur
The human race.

Love will endure despite this
Oarange-faced disgrace.

So USA, in ma conclusion,
Know we Scots feel your confusion:

We are also chained ti those
Not of oor choosin’.
Stand firm fur unity will break
Through Trump’s delusion.

Think – and act – for yourselves

 The cult of leadership is essential for the preservation of capitalism. "Bad leadership" is a convenient excuse that something other than capitalism caused a government's failure to deliver, or a reform that doesn't meet expectations. And always there are new leaders, promising the never-never land.

 The market and other forces of the system are uncontrollable by any government; political leaders can't stop depressions, wars or the arms race. All they can do is try to run the system in the interests of their masters, the dominant class. And in the process, betray their naive and trusting followers.

 Faith in leaders presents a bizarre contradiction between the fact that the masses who have the brains and the ability to produce everything and run this system from top to bottom as they are now doing (indicating that the common people really have the ability to bring in a sane system and accomplish everything necessary for its success.) versus the myth that these people require "great men" to tell them what to do.

 The majority are capable of informing themselves and taking the necessary political action to establish common (not state) ownership and democratic control of the means for distributing wealth, by and in the interest of society as a whole. Every individual will then stand in equal relationship to the means of production. There will be no more use for the coercive state because division into classes of rulers and ruled will be ended. It will be replaced by social administration, predominantly local, but involving regional and global administration also. A war-less, wage-less, money-less system of conscious, voluntary co-operation and free access according to individually and democratically determined requirements.

 The removal of the present artificial restrictions on production and the elimination of capitalism's waste, combined with global materials and energy of which there is no real shortage, will make an abundant, harmonious and meaningful life for all.

 We can have all this and more. On the other hand we, as wage slaves, can continue to offer ourselves as commodities on the world market, along with sugar, soap, finger bowls and hydrogen bombs. We can go through life with price tags around our necks, looking for the highest bidder. We can obey orders – be treated like children.

 The system cannot be humanized or controlled. Even the owning class is endangered by potential nuclear holocaust and destruction of the ecosystem source of all life. This is not an emotional appeal. It is simply pointing to the facts. Considering the gravity of the situation, can you afford to dismiss our rational analysis without first thoroughly investigating it ?

(from a Socialist Party of Canada leaflet)

Why the William of Orange story is described as one of the biggest lies of British history

An article linking to a video in the Glasgow Herald by TV historian Lucy Worsley has the following.

IT is one of the central events of modern British history, which still resonates today on the streets of Scotland and shapes the islands upon which we live.

But our understanding of the so-called Glorious Revolution of King William of Orange is based on myth and spin. In fact, you would be forgiven for saying it was a case of 17th century fake news.

The official line is that the bloodless revolution changed the course of British history, establishing the supremacy of parliament over the crown.

On the 300th anniversary of the ousting of 'tyrannical' King James II during the 17th century to place his son-in-law William of Orange on the throne was proclaimed in Parliament in 1988 by then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as one of the "great events in the history of these islands" which helped bring constitutional freedom and was "important in establishing Britain's nationhood".

But TV historian Lucy Worsley, described the official version of history surrounding the installation of the Dutch prince who would be "reinvented" as a Protestant hero as one of the three biggest myths of British history.

In a BBC documentary to air next week, she will describe how the revolution began with an act of treason inspired by an anti-Catholic politician and how King William III, was a foreign invader who was engaged in "spin" over his motives and whose real agenda was to prevent a French and British Catholic alliance waging war in Europe.

The Joint Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces places the King William III story alongside three tales of turning points in British history that "have been manipulated and mythologised to become cornerstones of our national story".

The historian says a Dutch invasion was "spun into a triumphant liberation... and celebrated ever since as the foundation of our parliamentary democracy".

We at our sister blog SOYMB are glad academia and the mainstream press in Scotland have caught up with some of the falsehoods surrounding this event, but as usual socialist education on history tends to be more accurate than ruling class spin, as we had a feature on precisely this point in January 2010. written by our comrade Richard Montague in 1985.

 Our purpose was to disabuse workers on both sides of the notions and fictions that keep them divided; to show that neither , Unionism nor nationalism have anything to offer the working class and to bring them an examination of the cause of their real, common problems.

King James and King Billy

 James II succeeded to the throne of England following the death of his brother. Charles II, in 1685. A convert to Catholicism and a sickly pious man –following a life of profligacy and sexual abandonment---he was determined to re-establish the power of Catholicism in his in his kingdom. Within three years of becoming king, James’, polices had provoked fierce opposition in England and fear and distrust among the protestant population of Ireland. In 1688 seven members of the English parliament petitioned James’ son in law, William, Prince of Orange, to become King of England. James reacted by allying himself with the French king. Louis XIV, who manipulated the situation to his own advantage by making England of a semi-dependent his own kingdom.

According to Orange fiction, James was the agent of Rome and popery. Nothing could be further from the truth. In seeking the help and support of Louis XIV, King James was allying himself with the pope's bitterest enemy. Louis, bent on European domination, had made Lorraine a subject state, had attacked Genoa and attempted to sack Rome. The pope of the period, Innocent XI, was outraged and humiliated. In 1686 some of the European Powers, alarmed at the strength and ferocity of the French, entered into the Treaty of Augsberg. This Treaty, established specifically to resist the marauding armies of Louis XIV, was subscribed to by the king of Spain, the Emperor of Germany and by William, Prince of Orange. The nominal head of the Treaty powers was Pope Innocent XI.

So, rather than being an enemy of the pope, as Orange mythology asserts, “King Billy" was the pope’s ally when, in November 1688, he invaded England and his armies were partially provisioned and equipped by the powers of Augsberg Treaty - and he had the official backing of the Roman Catholic church Contrary to myth, when they fought in the Battle of the Boyne on 30 June and I July 1690. King Billy was an ally of the pope and king James an ally of the pope's most bitter enemy Louis of France, Indeed, when news of King William's victory over king James at the Boyne percolated through to Rome, the pope ordered the singing of a special Te Deum in St. Peter's and similar celebrations and rejoicings were held in Catholic churches in Madrid, Brussels and Vienna .
James was a Catholic , of course, and William a Protestant but, as always, the politics and economics underlying their conflict rose above religion.