Pamper the rich – Punish the poor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Left-overs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Big Deal!

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

It's Almost Anti-septic?

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

Bright Prospect?

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

All That Glistens

Book Review from the June 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

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

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

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

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

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

The Late Richard Donnelly 

(Glasgow Branch)

A SCOTCH BROTH OF PECULIAR COMPOSITION

From the August 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

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

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

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

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

Thomas Anthony.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The market regulates capitalist production in two fundamental ways.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fact of the Day

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

It's Democracy?

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

It's Endemic

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

Defend Fellow Workers

There are those on the Left who oppose immigration and seek strong immigration controls being imposed on foreigners seeking to live or work in the UK. They offer three reasons. Firstly, employers use them to put a downward pressure on wages by creating continuous competition on the job markets.  Likewise they add to the demand for the limited services such as school places and housing. They then add the “altruistic” motive for their opposition by saying it perpetuates economic problems on countries which the immigrants come from through a “brain drain” and reduces class conflict in those countries because workers in each country should unify to change their respective situations and better their own positions. They argue we should be put on helping other countries develop rather than helping people immigrate. This all sounds very reasonable commonsense but only when you look at a small part of the picture and leave out some important details. The problem is that people easily fall prey to extremist reactionaries when they coat themselves in moderate colours.

It really doesn't matter if there is a huge influx of immigrants. The exploitation remains the same, except now, the immigrants are designated as enemy instead of capitalism itself and capitalists continue to make increasing profit margins and continue to enrich themselves at an increasing almost exponential rate. Those profits are deprived to the working class, non-immigrants and immigrants alike, and extracted from them. Of course the capitalist class uses workers from other lands to try to maximise their profits by reducing wages, working conditions etc. But let us suppose there is no immigration...what then? The capitalist class will still continue using workers from other lands by exporting their capital and jobs to take advantage of cheaper labour. If there is no inward immigration, there will be outsourcing. Capital will seek the lowest possible price for labor regardless of the nationality of the worker. All this negative focus on workers who are guilty of nothing more than being from somewhere else and trying to have a better standard of living is sickening because the capitalist class is ignored. It's one-sided and anti-worker.

What immigration restrictions and laws have historically done is not to prevent migration, but to manage and create a lower caste of workers from the migrants. In the US this was true from the restrictions on Chinese workers to Latino migrants today. The same dynamic of creating divisions in the working class also is true for internal migration from the Okies in the US to the Californian fruit fields as the John Steinbeck’s 'Grapes of Wrath' ably depicts. Or the rural Chinese moving to the new industrial centres. Capitalism destroys the small farmers and their capacity to support themselves and so people seek out wage work. In parts of the world it means moving from the country to the cities within a country but right now, this also means crossing borders.

Supporting these laws or restrictions on migration in general weakens the ability of workers to organize and helps pit different groups of workers against each-other by restricting rights and the ability to organize (for fear of deportation or so on) for part of the working class, while helping to create an illusion on common cause between native workers and their native ruling class. it is precisely because of the border controls that capitalists are able to play workers off against one another.

The basis of the exploitation is the economic system itself. Pitting workers against other workers is what it does. It creates a system of competition in order to be able to survive to detract attention from the true problem: the system.

Immigration should be free for everyone. A socialist cannot be anti-immigration because socialism eliminates borders. The working men and women have no country, no nation. People should be allowed to freely immigrate and emigrate. The world will be united, not divided into states, when there are states there is hierarchy and class struggle, and if class struggle exists there is no socialism. To the genuine socialist who favours the empowerment of the organised working class, immigration restriction is seen as a tool of the ruling class to enforce cultural norms, secure domestic institutions, and to simply express irrational xenophobia and racism. The topic of immigration and especially "illegal" immigration is the venue for the most acceptable articulation of modern racism. Our struggle is an international one, and so is our goal. Because some of our fellow workers are against immigrants doesn't mean socialists should be. We don't idealise workers. If they are acting against their interests, and this anti-immigration is not in their interests we state clearly that those workers are wrong and their actions self-defeating. We don’t pander to their prejudices for popularity. All those who have settled and work here in the UK are members of the British working class. If we define socialism as the destruction of capitalism and the state in favour of a globally united and free working class, you can't promote keeping "foreigners" out or discriminate against “foreigners” who have crossed the border.

The problem at the moment in the UK is that not enough workers are properly unionised, so they are disorganised and not challenging the bosses or fighting against the capitalist system.

Meanwhile, the alarmists are, in case you didn’t know, claiming jihadists are coming to Europe and the UK disguised as Muslim refugees and they are “hell-bent on committing atrocities.” Thus the necessity of bombing them over there so we don’t have to bomb them here. If you don’t want hordes of refugees, then don’t bomb their homes; that’s the simple truth that is lost on NATO warmongers. NATO is using the ‘concern’ about the refugee crisis it created to continue to ‘manage’ the Middle East in a way that ensures Western control of the oil. In 2011 NATO carpet bombed Libya. Now four years later, and the same Western leaders are telling us they need to ‘do’ Libya again. The EU has agreed with itself that it should still take military action against the refugees it created: According to the EU foreign policy chief, the operation will consist of three main phases – intelligence gathering, inspection and detection of smuggling boats, and destruction of the captured vessels. How much of a coincidence is it in which “terrorists” pop up in a foreign country and threaten the West just as Western governments are proposing to bomb that country. The pattern couldn’t be more obvious after so many interventions justified in like manner since 9/11.

“Arise, ye prisoners of starvation” (3/3)

“The capitalist system works against a rational agriculture … a rational agriculture is incompatible with the capitalist system.” – Marx (Capital, Volume III.)

The human and ecological crisis we face is simply not just the product of mismanaged capitalism – the result of greedy, power-hungry people at the helm of business and government. It is the inevitable by-product of the profit system. Reformists have long condemned socialism as a pipedream but at the same time rarely explained how their promises can be achieved within the constraints of capitalism. The reality, however, is that meaningful reform within capitalism is the pipedream.

We live in a world capable, in principle, of providing a diverse and healthy diet for all, and yet one quarter of its people suffer from frequent hunger and ill health generated by a diet that is poor in quantity or quality or both. Let us repeat that so it is perfectly clear. There is no shortage of food in the world today. Abundance, not scarcity, best describes the supply of food in the world today. A quarter of the world’s population eats too much food, food that is often heavy with calories and low on nutrients (colloquially called ‘junk food’). This quarter of the world’s population risks diabetes and all of the other chronic illnesses generated by obesity. Food is absolutely essential for human survival. The very least that humanity should expect from any social system is that it try to prevent starvation — and above all that it does not promote policies which deny access to food to hungry people.

Rather than asking how to increase food production, our first question should be why, when so much food is available, are over 850 million people hungry and malnourished? Why do 18,000 children die of hunger every day?  Why can’t the global food industry feed the hungry? Once more let it be clearly stated so there is no misunderstanding. The answer is the global food industry is not organised to feed the hungry; it is organied to generate profits for corporate agribusiness. The shift to industrial agriculture has driven millions of people off the land and into unemployment and poverty in the immense slums that now surround many of the world’s cities. The people who best know the land are being separated from it; their farms enclosed into gigantic outdoor factories that produce only for export. Hundreds of millions of people now must depend on food that’s grown thousands of miles away because their homeland agriculture has been transformed to meet the needs of agribusiness corporations. Industrial farming in the Third World has produced increasing amounts of food, but at the cost of driving millions off the land and into lives of chronic hunger — and at the cost of poisoning air and water, and steadily decreasing the ability of the soil to deliver the food we need. Industrial farming continues not because it is more productive, but that’s where the profit is, and profit is what counts, no matter what the effect may be on earth, air, and water — or even on hungry people.

Capitalism requires that capitalists continually shift production from goods and services that are unprofitable (and will, in due course plunge them into bankruptcy) to goods and services that are profitable. Since competition forces them to maximize short term profits, it is this focus and not that becomes the over-riding goal. If a capitalist learns that by adding more sugar to food, profits will increase both because sugar is a very cheap input  then a rational capitalist would do this, despite many studies that show a craving for sugar that borders on addiction can be established very early in children through a diet of sugar dense foods. The capitalist cannot afford to be concerned with the lifetime of obesity and connected illnesses that such a diet might generate. In short, in order to be rational, a capitalist needs to focus on profits and not the quality of life of humans unless that quality can be converted into profits. Similarly, if the market for palm oil is profitable, and the easiest way to expand its production is to cut down the rain-forests of South East Asia, then a rational capitalist would not hesitate to do this. Finally, if capitalist farmers profit from paying low wages to undocumented field workers, then any capitalist farmer who does not do this is likely to lose out to the competition.

The producers of junk food that profit from the ease with which people become quasi-addicted to sugar, fat, and salt provide consumers with lots of calories but few nutrients. Hooked on junk food and lacking the income to afford more nutritious food, people consume too many calories and not enough nutrients. This is a recipe for obesity, a weakened immune system, and ultimately illness and early death. The food industry always emphasizes the enormous choice it offers the modern consumer, but this is an illusion. First of all because most people in the world are too poor to buy any but the cheapest of foods. Second, those that have the money are confronted with a huge array of processed foods that are largely rearrangements of soya, corn, fat, sugar, and salt. Food indoctrination is so widespread that most food choices are already heavily conditioned by powerful marketing techniques of the giant supermarkets and food manufacturers.

“Arise, ye prisoners of starvation” (2/3)

The issue of food is popping up everywhere and wherever you look the horrific state of food production hit the headlines but the current protests about food are just the latest crisis brought on by the way capitalism operates. Industrial food processing has gone hand in glove with the rise of capitalism, as mass production processes developed to provide cheap food to concentrated working-class, urban populations that became dependent on the market for their nutritional sustenance. At the turn of the 20^th Century Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, the story of the meat trade in Chicago. Today, many writers are still angrily describing much the same conditions. The damaging and dangerous aspects of our food supply have arisen out of its complete subordination to the dictates of the free market. Maximisation of profits has trumped all other considerations.  Plenty has produced waste, not health; science has poisoned us instead of fed us; and technology has intensified, not alleviated, poverty. Why, in a world full of food, should anyone be hungry? We are surrounded by an unbelievable abundance of food. Walking around one of the giant supermarkets, you might sometimes wonder if anyone actually buys anything, because the shelves are kept fully replenished. Yet millions of people are not getting the food they need, not only in other places, but right here at home. And it’s because food is not produced first of all for people to sustain themselves and enjoy, but to make money. Human beings currently exist in conflict with nature because capitalism sees nature as a means to an end: profit.

Feeding billions of humans is a mass-production industry. Products that are farmed all over the world are harvested, shipped, and processed to serve millions of people in distant markets. Even mundane products like apple juice may be made from apples from China, Mexico, and Canada. But food production, like any other industry, is not really about feeding people; it is about what commodities generate the largest profit margins for a handful of enormous conglomerates who process and distribute products. This means the bigger a company is, and the more transport and logistics it does, the cheaper it is for that company to be in the business. You need to be rich to do business. The small fry have all been devoured by the big fish and these few companies control the gateways from farmers to consumers that gives them market power both over the people who grow food and the people who eat it. While there are still millions of local producers of the raw materials of food (grains, fruits, young animals, etc.), the vast majority work under direct contract to larger conglomerates who mill, ship, or process their output, or have only one buyer with whom to deal at harvest time. Raj Patel describes in ‘Stuffed and Starved’ how a kilo of coffee grown by farmers in Uganda costs 14 cents; by the time it reaches a Nestlé processing plant, it has risen to $1.64. But this is where the real magic happens: when it emerges from the plant, it will be an astounding $26.40 a kilo. Nestlé, one of the largest food conglomerates on the planet, not surprisingly sold $107 billion in food and beverages in 2008. Between the more than 2 million family farms and corporate farms in the US and the 300 million consumers, there are 7,563 wholesale purchasers, 27,915 food manufactures, and 35,650 retail wholesalers. This hourglass shape provides for large profits for those sitting in the middle: in 2004 retailers made $3.5 trillion, food processors $1.25 trillion, and the agrochemical industry $31 billion. The most famous example of the utter dominance of the few with a chokehold on grocery sales is Wal-Mart determining, with a few other giant retail supermarkets, what will make it onto your dinner plate long before you visit the store. A retail chain like Wal-Mart can and does dictate the terms of sales to producers, including price, driving the cost to retailers down, even while they increase prices.

Within agriculture they are busy researching, developing, and demonstrating feasible alternatives to the high-input and ecologically damaging system of agriculture that we now have. They're proving that is possible to grow food-grains in an ecologically sound way. But in narrow market terms, this approach would not win out over agri-business. It's actually cost-effective for agri-business to grow annual grain crops that require huge amounts of herbicides and pesticides. You manage these crops in a certain way, you get huge, standardised output, and on the cost and profit side, it works— for agri-business, not for the farmer who does the actual growing. But once you start considering the effects on ground water, soil erosion, and public health, then the social costs go way up. The problem— and this is built in to the market mechanism —is that the market doesn't register the long-term and social effects of economic activity. Health and pollution don't show up in the supply- demand and profit maximisation framework of price and profit. That's what happens when profit is the starting and end-point.

Food policy is as destructive a force in the lives of billions of people as the use of fossil fuels or military intervention. The food system does not respond to the needs of people, nor to sustainable production based on respect for the environment, but is based on a model rooted in a capitalist logic of seeking the maximum profit, optimization of costs and exploitation of the labour force in each of its productive sectors. Common goods such as water, seeds, land, which for centuries have belonged to communities, have been privatised, robbed from the people and converted into exchange currency at the mercy of the highest bidder. Governments, international institutions and NGOs have bent to the designs of the transnational corporations and have become accomplices and co- profiteers, in this unsustainable food system. Never in history has there been so much food as today. But for millions of people who spend 50-60% of their income to purchase food, a figure that can rise to 80% in the poorest countries, the price of food has made it impossible to gain access to it. The problem today is not the lack of food, but the inability to pay for it.

Socialism with its democratic planning is the only solution to feed the billions of humans on the Earth in an ecologically sustainable way. The skill and science of sustainable farming already exists. How to implement sustainable models for larger and more urban populations will be a challenge for those who will build a new society. What to grow, how, where; how to prioritise land use; irrigation; transportation; storage and processing; the uses of animals; all these questions about agriculture will have to be debated and decided by producers who are not driven by Wall Street numbers and market share. The vision of human beings’ relationship to the Earth will not be of abuser or owner, but of a steward of the natural world, able to use the collective intelligence of generations to not just consume, but live harmoniously and heal capitalism’s damage to the environment.

 Political action with the aim of achieving real change is essential. The socialists who make up the World Socialist Movement envisage free access to food and other necessities of life, which simply means that workers will be allowed to take freely of the goods and services available to them, and in which they had a hand in collectively producing. Common sense will prevent over consumption, and due to the fact that we will be allowed to work at jobs which we have a natural interest and aptitude in, the enforcement of work entailed by labor vouchers will be seen as unnecessary. Therefore, free access consumption will not be based on how many hours we work, but on the self-defined needs of the individual. Of course, if we don't collectively agree not to over consume, or if we collectively choose not to work, socialism in general and free access in particular will not work. However, since everybody in a socialist society will be working at jobs in which they have an aptitude for and personal interest in, and since work will encompass only a fraction of the time for each worker that it does under capitalism (with far more leisure time available to workers than under capitalism), the need for some medium to enforce work will be unnecessary. Give people what they need: food, medicine, clean air, pure water, trees and grass, pleasant homes to live in, some hours of work, more hours of leisure. Don’t ask who deserves it. Every human being deserves it. Socialism will be the greatest gift to humankind - the right to collectively choose our destiny without a political state or ruling class to decide for us. Food production is too important to leave in the hands of profiteers. They don’t care who starves or who gets sick.

“Arise, ye prisoners of starvation” (1/3)

Food and its production is one of the most important issues of the anti-capitalist movement. The lack of access to sufficient quantities of food to satisfy minimum human need the quality of the food we consume and its impact on our health, and the control of the world’s food resources, have all been the focus of attention for many. Even in the developed world with supposedly ‘adequate’ levels of nutrition, the food we eat has become a major cause of ill health and early death, especially among the poorest in society who consume the foods with the least nutritional quality. Capitalist food production and Big Business lie at the heart of these issues. Human and animal welfare violations are shocking with food products devoid of nutrients. The extent of corporate power frightening. The world's population is larger than ever before - but so is world food production. Indeed the surplus potentially available is greater than it has ever been. Some claim that the equivalent of twice the minimum nutritional level for everyone in the world is already being produced. And with world transport and storage better than ever, it should be easy to overcome any local shortages, or even out shortfalls in one year with stocks accumulated in good time (and we have known how to do this since Old Testament times)

It is clear now that climate change and the increase in extreme weather events such as flooding, and drought – will impact on food production. Global warming is becoming an issue for food production on a global scale. While climate change is likely to increase world hunger, it is not the cause. The problem is capitalism. The motivation for big business to produce food is profit, not to provide for people. Despite the great strides the progress of technology and increased food production, this system cannot provide the most basic necessities for the world’s population. Advances in nutrition and agricultural science could allow us to produce abundant, healthy, safe, and tasty food for everyone. Humanity could produce an enormous variety of foods, both to guarantee food security against pests, disease, and climate change through agricultural diversity, but also to keep meals appetising. In short, the knowledge, technology, and collective potential to completely transform the way the world eats exists now. What doesn’t exist is a social structure that allows for a rational and balanced approach to food production, distribution, preparation, and consumption.

People cannot fill their bellies and go hungry or feed their families. It is not a question of there being too many people or not enough food available. We currently grows enough food to feed 10 billion. Hunger and malnutrition today is a result of structural and political conditions, not the inability to grow enough food. Our food production and distribution is not planned but is at the behest of the anarchy of the market and the exchange economy. This dysfunctional relationship with food is regularly lamented but the reasons are rarely explained. Today, capitalism is unable to feed the world. The future, under capitalism tomorrow, will mean this will get worse. Socialism is the only solution to stopping and reversing climate change – and for providing everyone with the necessities of life.

Many people want to do something about food and the closely related problem of the environment. But virtually all the proposals are limited to tinkering with the existing system or appealing to the good will and reason of the rich and powerful. This is utopian. In a system driven by and defined by commodity production and money, what matters to the capitalists is not food quality or the benefits to human health, but maximising profits. The solution is not to be found in blaming individuals for their “personal choices,” or in changing this or that aspect of the status quo. The solution can only come from abolishing the dysfunctional system of capitalism itself.

A central problem in the food system is one of exploitation of small producers and landless labourers by the more powerful corporations. The market control they seek is through the domination of supply chains and processing. It is here that they believe ‘value adding’ and product differentiation can be achieved. The development of large transnational firms has given rise to a system of production whereby their size and dominance have provided them with an ability to structure the food market. In the food chain, close linkages between large-scale farmers, manufacturers and retailers are used to regulate competition. The key players in the industry are the manufacturers and the retailers who dominate the individual sectors and in doing so attempt to determine the prices and profits in the industry as a whole. Most of these companies operate as dominant firms in their respective market sectors. That provides them with the opportunities to establish prices and profits within the supply chain and ensure governments introduce rules which benefit them and help them dominate small producers. Free-market ideology suggests that prices are determined by the interaction of demand and supply. In the food industry nothing could be further from the truth. Farmers receiving subsidies provide manufacturers and retailers with the ability to purchase low-priced raw materials and sell them at high prices to consumers. A system of import tariffs and subsidies from governments provides subsidies throughout the industry. Dwayne Andreas, the boss of Archer Daniels Midland - one of the global giants - said in 1995, "There isn't one grain of anything in the world that is sold in a free market. Not one! The only place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians."

To reiterate, there is currently the ability to produce enough food to adequately feed the world’s population plus extra. The primary problem facing the developing world is the distribution of food and its control. There exists the concern that current farming techniques, factory-produced meat, and fertiliser-reliant techniques for crop production are unsustainable in terms of wasting the earth’s resources and damaging the environment. Certainly we should seek methods of production which are sustainable, but that does not rule out all industrial or intensified forms of agriculture. For sure, a move away from monoculture farming heavily dependent upon chemical fertilisers and herbicides is necessary. Local food movements have sprung up but capitalism has created the conditions in which commodities can be transported around the world. Specialisation in production can be beneficial and can be more efficient for many products but again monoculture farming encourages the spread of disease and increases chemical use. The debate between localisation and globalisation in food production needs to start from considerations of satisfying human need rather than a value judgement on the benefits or otherwise of rival systems. Any rational food production system would certainly lead to higher levels of localised production, certainly to greater diversity in the food we consume and certainly not a world in which millions starve while food is left to rot. Nor would a rational food production system see millions being made ill from the poor quality of the food produced or a world in which the food produced was determined by the needs of big business to maximise profits. But equally it would almost certainly involve the continuation of some forms of large-scale agricultural production and not solely organic and international trade in food, but at a level which is sustainable, rational and aimed at satisfying the needs of all.

"The global food system is broken," say Oxfam. They are right. But what makes it this way, what stands between production and consumption. Our answer is capitalism and the drive for profit. What we need is to take control of the food system. Change will only come when those in power running the system for the purpose of profit are dethroned. This will enable us to deal with the wasteful and wilful system of buying and selling. Socialists look forward to a world of plenty.

United States of Anger!

A snippet in The Toronto Star recently focused on the United States of Anger. In 2011 there were one thousand and eighteen hate groups operating there, an increase of four hundred and eleven in that year. There was a thirty-five per cent increase in prosecutions of hate crimes during the first three years of Obama's administration, according to the justice department. That's what we like about capitalism – it brings people together in peace and harmony! John Ayers.

It Makes One Wonder.

 Actress Halle Berry has been ordered to pay ex-husband, Gabriel Aubrey $240 000 a year to support their four-year old daughter…"in the comfortable surroundings she has become accustomed to." How many starving children would that feed. It makes one wonder if there isn't something wrong with the system under which we live! John Ayers.