A paramedic whistleblower has been banned from two hospitals after he reported overcrowding in A&E. Stuart Gardner, of West Midlands Ambulance Service, received the ban after telling the BBC under-pressure emergency units were "not safe". 'He said the chief operating officer (COO) of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust has told him he was "not welcome" on either of its sites. The trust said the ban was imposed as Mr Gardner's comments had upset staff.' (BBC News, 15 January) Things have come to a strange conclusion when whistleblowers are disciplined for doing what their job dictates they should be doing. RD
The Glasgow & Edinburgh Branches Blog. Towards a better understanding of the world, in order to change it.
Saturday, January 17, 2015
For a social revolution
One of the successes of the capitalists is convincing us to
accept the status quo as normal - inevitable even - and forgetting just how
absurd a system it is. Inequality is at grotesque levels. 1% owned 40% of all
wealth and the top 10% owned 85%. Meanwhile, the poorest 50 percent--half the
world's population--own barely 1% of all wealth. It is impossible to justify
such vast wealth when 800 million people go to bed hungry every night. This is
getting to the heart of what is so crazy about capitalism, the gap between what
is possible and today’s reality. Take food production. There's enough food
produced in the world to make everyone fat, yet millions of people starve. The
logic of the system is that the food must be destroyed rather than given away at
a loss, or otherwise profits would suffer. When they say socialism will never work,
socialists simply ask: Exactly how is capitalism working? With capitalism this is as good as it gets. But it's not enough
to just hate the capitalist system. We need to believe a better world is
possible. A socialist world, is possible, not to mention necessary if we want to survive as a species.
One way to see the potential of a future society is to look
at the workers’ movements of the past that have shaken capitalism. Another kind
of society is possible. And the reason we can say this with certainty is a
series of historical experiences of struggles and movements that have shown--if
only for a brief time--what amazing things are possible when the working class
take control of society. Most of the time, as individuals, we're powerless to
control most things in our lives. This is often described as apathy, but it's a
pretty understandable response. Everything changes when people get a taste of
their collective power. Suddenly, politics become relevant in a way they never
were before. There are countless examples to show that workers are perfectly
capable not only of shutting down production, but also of running things for
themselves.
Socialism can only be established on a worldwide level.
Capitalism is international; no country today is economically independent from
the world market and thus no workers’ government would have on its own all the
resources needed to produce an abundance of goods. Socialism is premised on abundance,
and worldwide there is an abundance of resources to take care of everyone. In a
socialist society, we would have time to focus on the things that really matter
to us. We'd also have the time and energy to actively participate in making
decisions about how society is run. The communications technology and corporate
media that is now used primarily to sell things and perpetuate the ruling ideas
of capitalism could be turned loose under public control to facilitate the most
widespread and varied debate. All borders will be open and all individuals,
regardless of their country of birth, will be free to live and travel wherever
in the world they please. And, eventually, all our existing borders and
nation-states will fade away. Human solidarity will encircle the globe and
conquer it. The state will wither away because it will cease to have any role
to play. Who would need to be repressed in a society without exploiters and
exploited? The government over people (military, police, courts, prisons) will
be replaced by the administration of things (coordination of services,
distribution of goods.) A classless society is possible is that the economic
and technological potential exists today to produce more than enough goods and
services for everybody on this planet — an abundance. It is impossible to
overstate the importance of this point. All the enormous cultural changes can
only proceed from a dramatic rise in society’s economic productivity, through
the use of technology to produce more quality goods, more efficiently and more
sustainably. Socialism cannot be created from will alone. For millennia, people
have dreamed and fought for an egalitarian social order, but all such past
movements were faced with the insurmountable obstacle of the material poverty
of their society. No matter who was in power there was still not enough wealth
to go around. A democratically planned world economy, even with today’s level
of economic development, could guarantee a decent standard of living for
everybody on the planet.
Imagine growing up in a world in which you've never known
exploitation or oppression, nor deprivation, a world in which the needs of
people and the planet come first. Imagine living in a world where you don’t
have to worry about how you will pay the bills or whether you will still have a
job next month. Imagine a society freed from capitalism’s straightjacket on
technology and production.
Friday, January 16, 2015
Having to beg for a morsel
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A record number of adults and children relied upon food
banks in Scotland in December, according to new figures obtained by the BBC. Nearly
10,500 people visited the Trussell Trust's 48 food banks for the first time in
the charity's history.
The data also reveals a third of users cited low income -
and not welfare benefit delays - for their predicament. 3,005 people (28%) said
they used a Scottish food bank due to low income in December, closely followed
by 2,527 (24%) because of a benefit delay, and 1,555 (15%) due to a benefit
change. The Clyde, Avon and Nethan food bank reported that 77% of people given
a food package in December cited low income as the main contributing factor. Many
users visiting the food banks at Airdrie and Lochaber also blamed low incomes
(50% and 48% respectively.)
The figure is a 13% increase from the 9,263 people who used
a Trussell Trust food bank in December 2013. In December 2014, 10,489 people
visiting Scottish food banks were given a three day supply of nutritionally
balanced food by the charity - a third of them children. The charity underlined
that the final figure for December visits is likely to be even higher as food
bank staff continue to input data into their system.
Ewan Gurr, the charity's network manager for Scotland, said
he was concerned that many low income families were forced to face hunger in
the run-up to Christmas due to financial difficulties. He said: "Every day
we are hearing working people describe the devastating reality of sustaining
their families with static incomes and unstable employment against consistently
rising costs of essentials like food and rent. In the most harrowing accounts,
we hear from the families choosing whether to prioritise heating their homes or
feeding their families and parents losing weight because they overlook their
own health and wellbeing to feed their children."
The Trust, which partners with churches and communities,
currently operates more than 1,200 food distribution centres across the UK. The
Trust's figures also reveal Dundee had the highest number of adults (3,750)
using food banks in the last year, while south east Glasgow had the highest
number of children (1,975).
A government document published last month suggested low
income families may face increasing financial difficulties in the future. According
to the report, approximately 820,000 people were living in relative poverty in
2013 - an increase of 110,000 from the previous year. This increase in relative
poverty - where someone lives in a household that receives less than 60% of the
UK average income - was attributed to a continued fall in incomes. The report
concluded: "Low wage growth (particularly for those in less skilled
employment), changes in the labour market, and tightening of eligibility and
conditionality under welfare reform have resulted in lower median income."
Belgian Intervention
Belgian authorities have thwarted plans for massive attacks on police stations, one week after 17 people were killed by Islamist gunmen in France. Police have shot dead two members of armed group and arrested another in a shootout on Thursday in the eastern city of Verviers . 'Police said the three were Belgian citizens and some of them had returned from Syria. Prosecutors said the group was about to launch attacks on a grand scale, and that they raided about 10 locations including some in the capital, Brussels, to block the plan.' (NHK WORLD News, 16 January) RD
Money Money Money
Capitalism distorts everything in modern society. Fine arts are judged by the prices they can command, sport is evaluated by transfer fees and salaries. Reading a football report today is like studying double-entry book-keeping. Speculation about the possible transfer of Lionel Messi of Barcelona is a case in point. 'Messi's buyout clause from Barcelona is £250 million. He has more than three years left on a contract that is worth £16.3 million a year. Taking the salary and transfer fee together, then, the overall cost of any deal could be well in excess of a quarter of a billion pounds.' (Times, 14 January) To show how crazy some of these deals have become it is reported that Manchester United have a ten-year kit deal with Addidas worth £750 million. RD
Mere Doggerel
MERE DOGGEREL?
Although some may dismiss it as just a piece of doggerel I remember it as being quite memorable when I first heard of the case for socialism and somehow this old burlesque rhyme has stuck with me. 'The banker calls it interest and heaves a cheerful sigh. The merchant calls it profit and winks the other eye. The landlord calls it rent as he tucks it in his bag, but the honest old burglar simply calls it swag!' RD
More Prejudice
There has been an increase of 20 per cent in the past year of Jews emigrating to Israel because of antisemitic attacks and other incidents. 'The Jewish Agency said that there were 620 immigrants from Britain last year compared with 320 in 2013. This coincided with an increase by by almost 40 per cent of recorded antisemitic incidents in Britain.' (Times, 14 January) Capitalism breeds hatred and prejudice and the main sufferers are always the workers. RD
Capitalism Must End
Today we are faced with multiple interrelated crises, for
example the threat of catastrophic climate change or equally catastrophic
thermonuclear war, and the threat of widespread famine. These threats to human
existence and to the biosphere demand a prompt and rational response; but we
are failing to take the steps that are necessary to avoid disaster.
A serious weakness among activists in movements for social
change has been a lack of understanding of the true nature of the system they
live under. Instead of naming capitalism as the problem activists often use
vague populist terms like “the 1%,” “the rich,” “banksters,” or “greedy
corporations.” But the problem runs much deeper than the corruption of any
particular individual or institution. It lies in the structural foundation of
the entire way of life that currently dominates the globe. This is an integral
part of Socialist Party’s function; to educate people on the complex and long
history of capitalism. We need to understand how it works and what the nature
of the crisis is and the nature of the different moments that it passes through
so that we can identify its vulnerabilities and weaknesses. We ask ‘What’s the
labor theory of value?’ and say of those militant protesters ‘How can you call
yourself a socialist if you don’t even know what the labor theory of value is,
one of its basic concepts?” The labor
theory of value means that the exchange value of a product is based on the
socially necessary amount of labor power that is generally required to produce
it. But under capitalism, one of the key ingredients is surplus value. And
under capitalism, the buyer of labor power — the capitalist — appropriates the
surplus value generated in the process of commodity production. But theoretical
clarity for its own sake is pointless intellectualism; instead, it should be a
guide for action. Mastering Marxist political economy is tough enough. But
putting it into action is even harder.
One increasingly urgent reason to abolish capitalism is its
prominent role in harming the planet. Capitalism possesses an inherent growth
imperative. This means that the normal functioning of capitalism is causing
water shortages, polluted oceans, destroyed forests and ruined depleted topsoil.
But even if the pending ecological catastrophe weren’t upon us, capitalism
would still need to be dismantled because it’s based on exploitation. There’s
no reason why the social result of production needs to be in private hands and
that only a few people should own what everybody produces.
Critiques of capitalism have entered the mainstream debates,
with Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century and Naomi Klein’s
This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate as notable examples. Both
authors, however, approach capitalism from a reformist stance and hold up
social democratic versions of capitalism as viable alternatives. For sure, it
is worth defending the social safety nets and more enlightened views on
environmental issues. But it has to be kept emphasized that capitalism, in
whatever form, is inherently destructive because it converts the natural world
into commodities. And it’s inherently exploitative because profit always comes
from the exploitation of workers. It doesn’t matter if you give them healthcare
or a higher salary; you’re still exploiting them for private gain.
The problem with Piketty and Klein is that regardless of
intention are complicit in promoting the supremacy of capitalism which remains
unchallenged questioned. They no matter
how reluctantly only offer a framework that exists within the system. Their
debate has to be inside that framework. Nothing can exist outside. It is not
unlike when Thatcher said, ‘There is no alternative. It’s hard for people to
imagine that there could be any alternative. People think this is all there is.
This is the only way humans can behave. Capitalism is natural. The level of
political consciousness within the working class is very low. And that didn’t
happen by chance. It is by design and it’s by indoctrination and conditioning.
The capitalists and their representatives in government are adept at finding
new ways to squash and tamp down threats to their control. So the socialist
movement has to keep evolving our tactics as well. The Occupy movement provided
a glimpse at what’s possible. It made people realize they can rise up and take
collective action. It was very inspiring to people for that reason. It made
people feel good that they weren’t alone and it showed the potential of what
could happen. But Occupy also was a learning experience. It expressed the
discontent, it showed the weakness and the need to be stronger. But if we’re
actually going to go up against the system, it can’t just be a spontaneous
gathering of a bunch of people. It has to be organized — planned and strategic.
Many are pessimistic about the prospect of a socialist
revolution, probably with a certain amount of justification, and they know that
eradicating capitalism is a long shot. But it’s our only shot. The reason that socialists
are politically active is because there’s nothing else. The only other
alternative is to give up, surrender and submit to a slow death for ourselves
and our planet. When we accept things
the way they are we’ll end up in a worse situation. If a person really
understands what’s going on, he or she cannot stand idle. It’s a matter of
human dignity and it becomes part of our historical social responsibility to
try and change things. Accepting things the way they are would mean allowing 10
million children under the age of five to die annually because, under the
normal functioning of global capitalism, it’s not profitable to save them. It
would mean continuing to accept racism, which has always been central to
capitalism’s divide and rule manner of domination and control. It means the
acceptance of capitalism’s expansion and the unremitting accumulation of
capital.
We should never forget that we are potentially stronger than
they. We outnumber them. But equally important, we have right on our side.
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Capitalism Is Unpredictable
All sorts of self-styled experts claim that they can predict how capitalism operates, but recent developments in the North Sea illustrate how wild that boast really is. Energy firms are pulling the plug on billions of pounds worth of investment in the North Sea, as industry leaders prepare to meet ministers to discuss mounting jobs crisis caused by plummeting oil prices. 'In the latest blow for Scotland's oil industry, the Edinburgh-based global consultancy firm Wood Mackenzie said nine projects that had been earmarked as requiring £2 billion of investment over the next two years and had been awaiting final approval could be axed as a direct result of the dramatic decline in global prices over the last six months. (Herald, 14 January) Capitalism's booms and slumps leave the so-called experts clueless. RD
Anti Semitism
Capitalism is a society based on competition and conflict so it comes as no suprise to learn that anti-semitic views that seem outdated are being revived by recent events. A YouGov poll showed that 45 per cent of Britons agreed with at least one of four anti semitic statements put to them. 'Some 25 per cent agreed with the idea that "Jews chase money more than other British people" while one in five accepted as true that "Jews' loyalty to Israel makes them less loyal to Britain than other British people". A further 13 per cent said of those surveyed in the poll commissioned by the Campaign Against Anti Semitism (CAA) agreed that 'Jews talk about the Holocaust too much in order to get sympathy'. (Independent, 14 January) All of this nonsense splits workers apart. RD
Housing Shortage
After World War Two the UK used to build more than 300,000 new homes a year, but recently it's managed about half that. Consequently the country is facing up to a major house building crisis. 'A decade ago, the Barker Review of Housing Supply noted that about 250,000 homes needed to be built every year to prevent spiralling house prices and a shortage of affordable homes. That target has been consistently missed - the closest the UK got was in 2006-07 when 219,000 homes were built. In 2012-13, the UK hit a post-war low of 135,500 homes, much of which was due to the financial crisis.' (BBC News, 13 January)Needless to say the main sufferers of this housing shortage are once again the working class. RD
Looking Forward
Growing numbers of people are concerned about the state of
the world and the fate of the planet. Do things have to be this way? No, there
is a real world alternative: socialism. Granted none of us will live to see
Socialism, and like millions before us we will probably die without seeing that
really better world we long and struggle for. The vision of a socialist Utopia
was around long before Marx and continues to this day, although today it exists
only by a thread. We all know that Marx founded “scientific socialism” in order
to replace “Utopian socialism”, but as a matter of fact, he had some pretty
complimentary things to say about Owen, Fourier and Co. We all know that for
Marx the foundation of socialism was not the counterposing to the real of an
imaginary Utopia, but rather a critique of existing social conditions. This is
the great contribution that Marx made to the world. There are people hungering
for an alternative to this system. We are bombarded with the idea that there is
no alternative, that capitalism is the natural order of things. We are told
that as much as capitalism has problems, any attempts to get rid of it will
make things far worse.
We live in a world in which 35,000 children die each and
every day of malnutrition and preventable disease. We live in a world system in
which the three richest Americans control assets exceeding the combined gross
domestic product of the 40 poorest countries in the world. We live on a planet
whose ecosystems is threatened by the blind workings of an economic system that
takes profit as its measure and motor of development. The question is: Do we
have to live this way? Can you really radically change things? But it is a
problem if people think they have a basis for an opinion about the desirability
or viability of socialism, first you need to know what it is. Imagine a society
where people consciously learn about and transform the world...where people are
no longer imprisoned by the chains of tradition and ignorance...where people
not only cooperatively work to produce the necessities of life, but get into
art and culture and science—and have fun doing it...where the scientific
outlook and the flight of imagination strengthen and inspire each other...where
there is unity and diversity, far-ranging debate, and ideological struggle over
the direction and development of society—but no longer stamped by social
antagonism...where people interact with each other based on mutual respect,
concern, and love for humanity. A world that cares about and takes care of the
environment. That is socialism.
Socialism is a worldwide society and a community of freely
associating human beings — and it is yet to be achieved—in which all classes
and class distinctions have been overcome; all systems and relations of
exploitation abolished; all oppressive social institutions and relations of
social inequality, like racial discrimination and the domination of women by
men, put an end to; and oppressive and backward ideas and values cast off. Socialism
is a world of abundance, where people together hold all of society's resources
in common. Socialism is not some sort of wishful and airy dream or utopia. The
productive forces of society—not just machinery, equipment, and technology but
also people and their knowledge—have developed to a level that can allow
humanity to overcome scarcity, to provide for people's basic material needs,
and beyond that to have a large surplus left over to devote to the all-around
and future development of society. The productive forces of society are highly
socialized. They require thousands and ultimately millions working together to
mass-produce the things—whether we are talking about clothing or computers—that
are used by people throughout society. And these productive forces are highly interconnected
on an international level: raw materials and transistors and machine tools
produced in one part of the world enter into the production process in other
parts of the world. But these socialized productive forces are privately
controlled. A capitalist class of owners appropriates the results of production
as private, capitalist property. This is the fundamental problem in the world.
And this is what socialism solves. People are unleashed to run and transform
society. This is a society in which you want and need. People must feel that
they have room to disagree with those in authority. And socialist society must
make available the resources and outlets, so people can express these views.
Socialist society is organized to achieve the goal of abolishing all classes
and class distinctions; overcoming all systems and relations of exploitation;
overcoming all oppressive social institutions and relations enabling people to
cast off all oppressive and enslaving ideas and values.
We should not assume that such a future socialist society
would be without conflicts between people or without problems. Socialism don’t
make all problems disappear and create a perfect world; they only solve those
problems which stem from class-based society and specifically, capitalism.
Mankind already faces many challenges which are not a direct result of
capitalism, yet cannot be solved because of capitalism’s peculiarities.
Socialism does not automatically solve these issues, but rather it merely
removes the barriers to solving them. There are some who wish to sell the
workers an ideal Utopia. The Keynesians believe free-market principles plus
prudent government intervention and regulation will simultaneously delivering
hefty profits to the capitalist class and social welfare benefits to the
poorest. While others of the more right-wing “libertarian” variety promise that
the elimination of virtually all government interference with the market will
lead to widespread prosperity, an idea which is not much more ludicrous than
the previous. The more progressive of the dreamers offer us future communities
based on state ownership, both national and municipal, plus cooperatives and
worker-owned enterprises , with little explanations as to how they will be
achieved and with few ideas of how to put such into practice that can put a
dent in capitalist global domination.
We must dream socialist dreams. It’s the dreams of the
future that give us the strength to fight in the present. The goal of socialism
and of the struggle of the working class is freedom. Freedom from hunger and
poverty, freedom endless toil, from exploitation, freedom from war, from racism
and sexism, freedom to live without the supervision of the state - these are
the freedoms.
The purpose of production in socialism is to produce
products to meet the needs of the people. Thus, socialism represents a
fundamental change in the capitalist relations of production: it is the
opposite of capitalism which exists to make profits for the few. State
ownership simply means that the state has effective control over the means of
production and in no way implies a change in the relations of production. Marx
distinguished judicial change of ownership from real change in the relations of
production. He cared little of who actually had the property deeds to an
enterprise which was merely the legal aspect, not the real form. There is also
a myth that in the capitalist countries there is a "free enterprise
system" which solely relies on the market mechanism to function. Planning
is not the opposite of market, the two complement each other in a capitalist
system. State participation in economic planning is extensive. Government
intervention either through ownership or planning, cannot, however, change the
fundamental nature of capitalism. Many reformists have the wishful thinking
that the state can play a major role in altering the purpose of production from
capital accumulation to meeting the needs of the people. They fail to realise
that capital accumulation is fundamental to the capitalist system; it cannot be
altered at will. Instead, the state plays an important role in facilitating the
accumulation of capital.
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Health Threat
A charity is warning that poor diabetes care in England is leading to avoidable deaths, record rates of complications and huge costs to the NHS, . 'Diabetes UK says the disease is the fastest growing health threat of our times and current care models are not working to get on top of the problem. The NHS spends a tenth of its budget on diabetes, but most goes on managing complications not preventing them. Diabetes is a chronic condition and, if poorly managed, can lead to devastating complications, including blindness, amputations, kidney failure, stroke and early death. (BBC News, 14 January) Another example of the ruthless disregard for the health of the workers. RD
Terminally Ill Left To Die
A NHS report disclosed that 57 patients died after their calls were downgraded after a decision to not to send terminally ill ambulances. 'More than 50 patients have died after an NHS trust introduced a secret policy to downgrade 999 calls and not send ambulances to terminally ill patients. managers at East of England ambulances were accused of "the most cruel form of rationing imaginable" after admitting that 8,000 patients had been affected by the changes.' (Daily Telegraph, 13 January) This callous treatment is typical of how the working class are treated. RD
Coalition Split
As the general election approaches the Liberal Democrats are distancing themselves from Tory spending plans. According to them these cuts beyond 2017-18 will lead to "Dickensian" public services, the Liberal Democrat chief secretary, Danny Alexander, said in comments exposing coalition splits over public spending and the deficit. 'Alexander said that "as a country we should not be wedded to austerity for austerity's stake", adding that he thought the UK would not support an ideological drive for an ever smaller state." (Guardian, 13 January) The coalition was committed to eliminating the current structural deficit by 2017-18, a target that would require cuts of £30bn, he said, but it would be "grossly unfair" to try to reach that figure by spending reductions alone, with £12bn of those cuts coming from welfare. Despite all the fine words both parties are committed to gigantic welfare cuts. RD
Peering into the Future
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What does the socialist
society of tomorrow look like?
Many who advocate a socialist
system are hesitant to talk about what such a society might look like, however,
the discussion on how socialism will work is as old as the workers’ movement.
Marx once said it was not for socialists to describe “the recipes of the
cookshops of the future”, that a future society must emerge from those who are
actually creating socialism and not from a wishful imagination. In general this
aversion to drawing up blueprints has been healthy, in the respect that we
cannot predict the specifics of the revolutionary situation and it is not the business
of socialists at this moment in time to tell those who will be engaged in the
socialist revolution how they should construct their post-revolutionary
economy. We're not going to get a blueprint of socialism from Marx who knew that
something would come after capitalism...
… Yet he did make some predictions
about what it could be like, and those are the very famous pieces of his speculations
about future society that he divided into two phases where the first involved
labour tokens and an accounting system to determine how much workers would get
paid. But they're very small compared to the majority of his work, which is
just about understanding capitalism. What socialists should decline to do is to
lay down detailed instructions for every minutia of daily life in socialism. It
may be difficult to draw up our vision of future society and a degree of
confrontation with differences of opinion. But if we're serious about
revolution, we have to be serious about what we want and how we propose to get
there. The important thing is that a practical alternative is shown. We can easily
alter it on the way taking into account new experiences and the new lessons to
be learned from them.
A socialist economy would for the
first time give people, as producers and users, the chance to control every
step of production, take initiatives and experiment without being strangled by
profit-driven competition. Each productive enterprise is managed by those who
work there. Workers are responsible for the operation of the facility and
organisation of the workplace. Though workers manage the workplace, they do not
own the means of production. These are the collective property of the society.
But it is invariably asked, "Will a self-managed firm do so as well as a
capitalist firm? Are workers sufficiently competent to make complicated
technical and financial decisions? Are they competent even to elect
representatives who will appoint effective managers?" it is strange that
these questions are raised in a world where that prides itself on its
democratic commitment. And which already deems ordinary people sufficiently
competent to select local councils and national governments. We regard ordinary
people capable of selecting representatives who will decide their taxes, who
will make laws which, if violated, consign them to prison, who might even send
them off to kill and die in wars. Should we really ask if ordinary people are
competent to elect their bosses? Nevertheless we can answer the question directly
from actual study. Research from 1973, which concluded: "In no instance of
which we have evidence has a major effort to increase employee participation
resulted in a long-term decline in productivity" (United States Department
of Health, Education and Welfare) A later by Jones and Svejnar (1982) report:
"There is apparently consistent support for the view that worker
participation inmanagement causes higher productivity.” In 1990 Princeton
economist Alan Blinder reaches the same conclusion. Levine and Tyson (1990), in
their analysis of some 43 separate studies, found: “Our overall assessment of
the empirical literature from economics, industrial relations, organizational
behavior and other social sciences is that participation usually leads to
small, short-run improvements in performance, and sometimes leads to
significant longlasting improvements…There is almost never a negative effect…”
Lastly, of course, there is also
the empirical evidence of the continued existence of tens of thousands of
viable co-operatives around the world that demonstrate that worker
self-management is any less competent than their conventional counterparts. Not
even the most pro-capitalist critics of cooperatives argues that worker
incompetence in selecting managers is the problem. It is not so surprising that
worker self-managed enterprises should be efficient since workers' well-being
is tied directly to the financial health of the enterprise, all have an
interest in selecting good managers. Bad supervision is not hard to detect by
those near at hand (who observe at close range the nature of the overseeing and
feel its effects quickly), incompetence will not likely long be tolerated.
Moreover, each individual has an interest in seeing to it that co-workers work
effectively (and not appearing themselves to be slackers), so less supervision
is necessary. The conclusions of Henry Levin (1984) after several years of
field study “There exist both personal and collective incentives in
cooperatives that are likely to lead to higher productivity. The specific
consequences of these incentives are that the workers in cooperatives will tend
to work harder and in a more flexible manner than those in capitalist firms;
they will have a lower turnover rate and absenteeism; and they will take better
care of plant and equipment. In addition, producer cooperatives function with
relatively few unskilled workers and middle managers, experience fewer
bottlenecks in production and have more efficient training programs than do
capitalist firms.” [http://www.luc.edu/faculty/dschwei/economicdemocracy.pdf]
“Our economic system and our planetary system
are now at war,” Naomi Klein writes in her book ‘This Changes Everything’, that
changing our relationship to nature is inseparable from changing our
relationship to each other by transforming our economic system. The immediate
threat to the earth “changes everything” in the sense that just adding “the
environment” to our list of concerns is not good enough. The sheer scale of the
problem necessitates a politics that can take on capitalism. We must do away
with any notions, Klein asserts, that the environmental crisis can be contained
and eventually rolled back through policy tinkering; geo-engineering technical
fixes or through market-based solutions
Klein is critical of the existing environmental and social movements. People
hunker down into a "survival bubble" in the attempt to ride out
economic hardships they face and this weakens social bonds that are essential
to political engagement. Significant numbers abandon reason and are more
susceptible to simplistic populist slogans and political messages based on
falsehoods. Creating a vacuous political environment, and framing issues in the
simplest manner possible, avoiding complexity
becomes the political strategy driving
mainstream election campaigns. Democracy
is not defined as "we" but "me", denying the common welfare
and the public good in preference for the personal advantage and
individualism. The Socialists endeavour
to seek frameworks that reinvigorate democracy for all. There
is the tendency of many in the movement to mistakenly identify structures
themselves as part of the problem. There is no going forward, however, without
the most serious development of institutions that can deal on a mass scale with
resources, coordination, generational continuity, leadership development,
outreach, popular education, and, especially, the accountability structures to
make complex and difficult collective choices and to keep wayward leaders in
check. As Klein writes, “The fetish for structurelessness, the rebellion
against any kind of institutionalization, is not a luxury today’s transformational
movements can afford… Despite endless griping, tweeting, flash mobbing, and
occupying, we collectively lack many of the tools that built and sustained the
transformative movements of the past.” Klein also insists that the struggle
against climate change cannot be won by fear alone. “Fear is a survival
response. It makes us run, it makes us leap, it can make us act superhuman. But
we need somewhere to run to. Without that, the fear is only paralyzing.” Calling
for a more austere lifestyle only reinforces the austerity pushed by capitalist
states. The issue is not just living with “less” but living differently — which
can also mean better. It is about an alternative society. The tactic is to point
to a long series of issues directly linked to the environment — housing,
transportation, infrastructure, meaningful jobs, collective services, public
spaces, greater equality, and a more substantive democracy — and work to
convince people that “climate action is their best hope for a better present,
and a future far more exciting than anything else currently on offer.”
But more importantly to take on capitalism we
must be clear about what this means, to ensure what “anti-capitalism” really means.
For many it is not the capitalist system that is at issue but
particular sub-categories of villains: big business, banks, multi-nationals
corporations. There is no “neoliberal” capitalism, “deregulated” capitalism,
“unfettered” capitalism, “predatory” capitalism, “extractive” capitalism – only
one capitalist system. It is capitalism — not a qualified capitalism that is
the enemy and the concept of a “green” capitalism is an oxymoron. Capitalism
does of course vary across time and place, and some of those are far from trivial.
But in terms of substantial fundamental differences we still have capitalism
that is inseparable from the compulsion to indiscriminate growth, commodification
of labour power and nature and consumerism. A social system based on private
ownership of production can’t support the kind of planning that could avert
environmental catastrophe. The owners of capital are fragmented and compelled
by competition to look after their own interests first, and any serious
planning would have to override property rights — an action that would be
aggressively resisted. Arundhati Roy is quoted as saying: “There’s really no
such thing as the ‘voiceless’. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the
preferably unheard.”
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Class Room Crisis
Council leaders warn that the cost of creating places for the 880,000 extra pupils expected in England by 2023 could push schools to breaking point, . 'The Local Government Association fears the demand for school places could soon reach a tipping point with no more space or money to extend schools. The LGA wants the government to fully fund the cost of all the extra places, calculated to run to £12bn.' (BBC News, 13 January) Official government figures, published last year, project that by 2023 there will be a total of 8,022,000 pupils in England's schools - up from 7,143,000 in the current academic year. This increase has no budget to deal with the problem. RD
Cuts In Cancer Treatment
Health chiefs have announced that twenty-five different cancer treatments will no longer be funded by the NHS in England, . 'NHS England announced the step after it emerged the £280m Cancer Drugs Fund - for drugs not routinely available - was to go £100m over budget in 2014/15. Some drugs will be removed and others restricted - a move charities say could leave some without crucial treatments.' (BBC News, 12 January) Another example of government cuts coming before essential treatment for the working class. RD
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Paternalism is a common attitude among well-meaning social reformers. Stemming from the root pater, or father, paternalism implies a patria...
