Steady State Socialism

The aim of the Socialist Party is to replace the global capitalist system with world socialism. Socialism will be won and built by the working class, the billions of oppressed people. The socialist revolution is the most radical break with oppression and exploitation in history where society no longer proceeds in chaos, but according to the planned fulfilment of genuine human needs. With the abolition of classes and class distinctions, all social and political inequality arising from them will disappear.  As classes will not exist, the state will not be necessary as an instrument of class rule and will wither away. Socialism is not some Utopian scheme. Capitalism has created the economic conditions for socialism. Socialism will be possible only when the workers, those who meet the needs of society, decide that they are determined to lay the living conditions of mankind on a new foundation. The whole future of humanity rests on the emergence of the working class as the creative force in society.

In 1923 the communist activist Sylvia Pankhurst opened an article with the declaration that ‘Socialism means plenty for all. We do not preach a gospel of want and scarcity, but of abundance…We do not call for limitation of births, for penurious thrift, and self-denial. We call for a great production that will supply all, and more than all the people can consume.’ (1) We have the technology and the know-how to end deprivation and offer everyone on this planet the decent and comfortable standard of life they deserve that Sylvia advocated and it need not take decades to come about. Yes, socialism can bring security to billions within our lifetimes. It is achievable.

Along with folk like Herman Daly, socialists are seeking ultimately to establish a steady-state economy (or ‘zero-growth’) society, a situation where human needs sits in balance with the resources needed to satisfy them. Such a society would already have decided, according to its own criteria and through its own decision-making processes, on the most appropriate way to allocate resources to meet the needs of its members. This having been done, it would only need to go on repeating this continuously from production period to production period. Production would not be ever-increasing but would be stabilized at the level required to satisfy needs. All that would be produced would be products for consumption and the products needed to replace and repair the raw materials and instruments of production used up in producing these consumer goods. The point about such a situation is that there will no longer be any imperative need to develop productivity, i.e. to cut costs in the sense of using less resources; nor will there be the blind pressure to do so that is exerted under capitalism through the market.

It will also create an ecologically benign relationship with nature. In socialism we would not be bound to use the most labour efficient methods of production. We would be free to select our methods in accordance with a wide range of socially desirable criteria, in particular the vital need to protect the environment. What it means is that we should construct permanent, durable means of production which you don’t constantly innovate. We would use these to produce durable equipment and machinery and durable consumer goods designed to last for a long time, designed for minimum maintenance and made from materials which if necessary can be re-cycled. In this way we would get a minimum loss of materials; once they’ve been extracted and processed they can be used over and over again. It also means that once you’ve achieved satisfactory levels of consumer goods, you don’t insist on producing more and more. Total social production could even be reduced. This will be the opposite of to-day's capitalist system’s cheap, shoddy, “throw-away” goods and built-in obsolescence, which results in a massive loss and destruction of resources.

In a stable society such as socialism, needs would change relatively slowly. Hence it is reasonable to surmise that an efficient system of stock control, recording what individuals actually chose to take under conditions of free access from local distribution centres over a given period, would enable the local distribution committee to estimate what the need for food, drink, clothes and household goods would be over a similar future period. Some needs would be able to be met locally: local transport, restaurants, builders, repairs and some food are examples as well as services such as street-lighting, libraries and refuse collection. The local distribution committee would then communicate needs that could not be met locally to the bodies charged with coordinating supplies to local communities.

Of course there will be a short phase where there an increase in production will be necessary to relieve the worst problems of food shortages, health-care and housing which affect billions of people throughout the world. There will also be action to construct the means of production and infrastructures such as transport systems for the commencement of the supply of permanent housing and durable consumption goods. These would be designed in line with conservation principles, which means they would be made to last for a long time, using materials that where possible could be re-cycled and would require minimum maintenance. When these objectives have been accomplished there would begin an eventual fall in production, and society could move into a stable mode. This would achieve a rhythm of daily production in line with daily needs with no significant growth. On this basis, the world community could reconcile two great needs, the need to live well whilst sharing and caring for the planet, sparing it from excesses.

Whether it is called ‘the market economy, ‘neo-liberalism’, ‘free enterprise’ (or even ‘mixed’ or ‘state-command’ economy”), the social system under which we live is capitalism. Capitalism is primarily an economic system of competitive capital accumulation out of the surplus value produced by wage labour. As a system it must continually accumulate or go into crisis. Consequently, human needs and the needs of our natural environment take second place to this imperative. The result is waste, pollution, environmental degradation and unmet needs on a global scale. The ecologist’s dream of a sustainable ‘zero growth’ within capitalism will always remain just that, a dream. If human society is to be able to organise its production in an ecologically acceptable way, then it must abolish the capitalist economic mechanism of capital accumulation and gear production instead to the direct satisfaction of needs.

The problem for a great number of people in the environmental movement is that they want to retain the market system in which goods are distributed through sales at a profit and people’s access to goods depends upon their incomes. The market, however, can only function with a constant pressure to renew its capacity for sales; and if it fails to do this production breaks down, people are out of employment and suffer a reduced income. It is a fundamental flaw and an insoluble contradiction in the green capitalist argument that they want to retain the market system, which can only be sustained by continuous sales and continuous incomes, and at the same time they want a conservation society with reduced productive activity. These aims are totally incompatible with each other. Also what many green thinkers advocate in their version of a “steady-state” market economy, is that the surplus would be used not to reinvest in expanding production, nor in maintaining a privileged class in luxury but in improving public services while maintaining a sustainable balance with the natural environment. It’s the old reformist dream of a tamed capitalism, minus the controlled expansion of the means of production an earlier generation of reformists used to envisage.

David Pepper in his ‘Eco-Socialism’(2) suggests we start from a concern for the suffering of humans and look for a solution to this. This makes us ‘anthropocentric’ as opposed to the ‘ecocentrism’ – Nature first – of many ecologists. The plunder and destruction of Nature is rejected as not being in the interests of the human species, not because the interests of Nature come first. Environmentalists can learn from Marx’s materialist conception of history which makes the way humans are organised to meet their material needs the basis of any society. Humans meet their material needs by transforming parts of the rest of nature into things that are useful to them; this in fact is what production is. So the basis of any society is its mode of production which, again, is the same thing as its relationship to the rest of nature. Humans survive by interfering in the rest of nature to change it for their own benefit. Those active in the ecology movement tend to see this interference as inherently destructive of nature. It might do this, but there is no reason why it has to. That humans have to interfere in nature is a fact of human existence. How humans interfere in nature, on the other hand, depends on the kind of society they live in. It is absurd to regard human intervention in nature as some outside disturbing force, since humans are precisely that part of nature which has evolved that consciously intervenes in the rest of nature; it is our nature to do so. True, that at the present time, the form human intervention in the rest of Nature takes is upsetting natural balances and cycles, but the point is that humans, unlike other life-forms, are capable of changing their behaviour. In this sense the human species is the brain and voice of Nature i.e. Nature become self-conscious. But to fulfil this role humans must change the social system which mediates their intervention in nature. A change from capitalism to a community where each contributes to the whole to the best of his or her ability and takes from the common fund of produce what he or she needs.

Present-day society, capitalism, which exists all over the globe is a class-divided society where the means of production are owned and controlled by a tiny minority of the population only. Capitalism differs from previous class societies in that under it production is not for direct use, not even of the ruling class, but for sale on a market. To repeat, competitive pressures to minimise costs and maximise sales, profit-seeking and blind economic growth, with all their destructive effects on the rest of nature, are built-in to capitalism. These make capitalism inherently environmentally unfriendly. It is a highly misleading notion that society can live with a market economy that is ‘green’, ‘ecological’, or ‘moral’, under conditions of wage labour, exchange, competition and the like.

Humans behave differently depending upon the conditions that they live in. Human behaviour reflects society. In a society such as capitalism, people’s needs are not met and reasonable people feel insecure. People tend to acquire and hoard goods because possession provides some security. People have a tendency to distrust others because the world is organised in such a dog-eat-dog manner. If people didn’t work society would obviously fall apart. To establish socialism the vast majority must consciously decide that they want socialism and that they are prepared to work in socialist society. If people want too much? In a socialist society ‘too much’ can only mean ‘more than is sustainably produced.’ For socialism to be established the productive potential of society must have been developed to the point where, generally speaking, we can produce enough for all. This is not now a problem as we have long since reached this point. However, this does require that we appreciate what is meant by ‘enough’ and that we do not project on to socialism the insatiable consumerism of capitalism.

If people decide that they (individually and as a society) need to over-consume then socialism cannot possibly work. Under capitalism, there is a very large industry devoted to creating needs. Capitalism requires consumption, whether it improves our lives or not, and drives us to consume up to, and past, our ability to pay for that consumption. In a system of capitalist competition, there is a built-in tendency to stimulate demand to a maximum extent. Firms, for example, need to persuade customers to buy their products or they go out of business. They would not otherwise spend the vast amounts they do spend on advertising. There is also in capitalist society a tendency for individuals to seek to validate their sense of worth through the accumulation of possessions. The prevailing ideas of society are those of its ruling class so then we can understand why, when the wealth of that class so preoccupies the minds of its members, such a notion of status should be so deep-rooted. It is this which helps to underpin the myth of infinite demand. It does not matter how modest one’s real needs may be or how easily they may be met; capitalism’s “consumer culture” leads one to want more than one may materially need since what the individual desires is to enhance his or her status within this hierarchal culture of consumerism and this is dependent upon acquiring more than others have got. But since others desire the same thing, the economic inequality inherent in a system of competitive capitalism must inevitably generate a pervasive sense of relative deprivation. What this amounts to is a kind of institutionalised envy and that will be unsustainable as more peoples are drawn into alienated capitalism.

In socialism, status based upon the material wealth at one’s command, would be a meaningless concept. The notion of status based upon the conspicuous consumption of wealth would be devoid of meaning because individuals would stand in equal relation to the means of production and have free access to the resultant goods and services. Why take more than you need when you can freely take what you need? In socialism the only way in which individuals can command the esteem of others is through their contribution to society, and the stronger the movement for socialism grows the more will it subvert the prevailing capitalist ethos, in general, and its anachronistic notion of status, in particular.

All wealth would be produced on a strictly voluntary basis. Work in socialist society could only be voluntary since there would be no group or organ in a position to force people to work against their will. Free access to goods and services denies to any group or individuals the political leverage with which to dominate others (a feature intrinsic to all private-property or class based systems through control and rationing of the means of life.) This will work to ensure that a socialist society is run on the basis of democratic consensus. Goods and services would be provided directly for self-determined needs and not for sale on a market; they would be made freely available for individuals to take without requiring these individuals to offer something in direct exchange. The sense of mutual obligations and the realisation of universal interdependency arising from this would profoundly colour people’s perceptions and influence their behaviour in such a society. We may thus characterise such a society as being built around a moral economy and a system of generalised reciprocity.

Capitalism is not just an exchange economy but an exchange economy where the aim of production is to make a profit. Profit is the monetary expression of the difference between the exchange value of a product and the exchange value of the materials, energy and labour-power used to produce it, or what Marx called ‘surplus value.’ Defenders of capitalism never seem to ask the practical question about what the critical factor determining a production initiative in a market system.

The answer is obvious from everyday experience. The factor that critically decides the production of commodities is the judgement that enterprises make about whether they can be sold in the market. Obviously, consumers buy in the market that they perceive as being for their needs. But whether or not the transaction takes place is not decided by needs but by ability to pay. So the realisation of profit in the market determines both the production of goods and also the distribution of goods by various enterprises. In the market system the motive of production, the organisation of production, and the distribution of goods are inseparable parts of the same economic process: the realisation of profit and the accumulation of capital. The economic pressure on capital is that of accumulation, the alternative is bankruptcy. The production and distribution of goods is entirely subordinate to the pressure on capital to accumulate. The economic signals of the market are not signals to produce useful things. They signal the prospects of profit and capital accumulation. If there is a profit to be made then production will take place; if there is no prospect of profit, then production will not take place. Profit not need is the deciding factor. Under capitalism what appear to be production decisions are in fact decisions to go for profit in the market. The function of cost/pricing is to enable a business enterprise to calculate its costs, to fix its profit expectations within a structure of prices, to regulate income against expenditure and, ultimately, to regulate the exploitation of its workers. Unfortunately, prices can only reflect the wants of those who can afford to actually buy what economists call ‘effective demand’ – and not real demand for something from those without the wherewithal – the purchasing power – to buy the product (I may want a sirloin steak but I can only afford a hamburger.)

Socialist determination of needs begins with consumer needs and then flows throughout distribution and on to each required part of the structure of production. Socialism will make economically-unencumbered production decisions as a direct response to needs. With production for use, the starting point will be needs. By the replacement of exchange economy by common ownership basically what would happen is that wealth would cease to take the form of exchange value, so that all the expressions of this social relationship peculiar to an exchange economy, such as money and prices, would automatically disappear. In other words, goods would cease to have an economic value and would become simply physical objects which human beings could use to satisfy some want or other. (One reason why socialism holds a decisive productive advantage over capitalism is by eliminating the need to tie up vast quantities of resources and labour implicated in a system of monetary/pricing accounting.)

Humans are capable of integrating themselves into a stable ecosystem. and there is nothing whatsoever that prevents this being possible today on the basis of industrial technology and methods of production, all the more so, that renewable energies exist (wind, solar, tidal, geothermal and whatever) but, for the capitalists, these are a “cost” which penalises them in face of international competition. No agreement to limit the activities of the multinationals in their relentless quest for profits is possible. Measures in favour of the environment come up against the interests of enterprises and their shareholders because by increasing costs they decrease profits. No State is going to implement legislation which would penalise the competitiveness of its national enterprises in the face of foreign competition. States only take into account environmental questions if they can find an agreement at international level which will disadvantage none of them. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Competition for the appropriation of world profits is one of the bases of the present system. So it is not “Humans” but the capitalist economic system itself which is responsible for ecological problems and the capitalist class and their representatives, they themselves are subject to the laws of profit and competition.

Yes, socialism is a real alternative and the only viable means to achieve the steady state economy sought by so many.

(1) https://www.marxists.org/archive/pankhurst-sylvia/1923/socialism.htm
(2) http://www.amazon.com/Eco-Socialism-From-Ecology-Social-Justice/dp/0415097193

Against nationalism

 The Socialist Party rejects allegiance to any State and regard themselves as citizens of the world. We accept the boundaries between States as they are (and as they may change) and work within them to win control of each State with a view to abolishing them all. Our aim is the establishment of a democratic world community without frontiers based on the common ownership of the world's resources.  Independence simply meant a transfer of power to a new group of politicians, while the structure of state and society is but little changed.


Certainly socialism will allow the fullest linguistic and cultural diversity. Of course, people should be free to speak the language of their choice and, if they occupy a distinct area, to have social affairs discussed and administered in that language. The language question, however, is distinct from the so-called national question.  Welsh-speaking socialists have long recognised that they are Welsh-speaking world citizens.

The Scottish TUC once in 1921 declared "It was disgraceful they should be wasting time over a question like Home Rule. It was of no consequence to the working class. While capitalism continued the workers would not be any better off even when Home Rule was in operation". Let us hope someone can be found to say the same at the next STUC conference.


Marx and Engels got it wrong on nationalism. Although Marx and Engels had declared that workers have no country and urged the workers of the world to unite, this was not their only statement on the matter. They also made a distinction between "historical nations" (such as Poland and Ireland) and "non-historical nations" (such as the Czechs, Scots and Welsh). Historical nations met with their approval because, as independent states, they could be progressive in terms of capitalist development. Non-historical nations, on the other hand, were doomed to be assimilated into the more progressive states (with "democracy as compensation", as Engels put it). Non-historical nations were not viable as independent states in a capitalist world, argued Marx and Engels, and any movement for state independence in such nations could only be reactionary.  Marxism explains how workers are exploited and unfree, not as individuals or particular nationalities, but as members of a class. From this perspective, identifying with a class provides as a rational basis for working class political action. The objective would be a stateless world community of free access. Given that nationalism does nothing to further this understanding, however, it is an obstruction to world socialism.

 Becoming class conscious involves rejecting nationalism.  The illusions of nationality are yet another tool of the ruling class, intended to trick workers into thinking that this really is some kind of collective society, and to misplace their passions that could otherwise be directed into the class struggle.  

The Socialist Party emphasises the world, rather than the inter-national, character of socialism.

A Scientific Socialist Party

The meaninglessness of our existence is obvious to most of us and more and more people are lashing out against the system in anger and defiance yet too many fail to understand the cause. It is because we feel vulnerable by our utter dependency on the capitalist system to clothe, feed, and shelter us which only too frequenty fails to do so or demands a heavy price for us to pay. We have lost our sense of belonging, trading it in for the privilege to be exploited by capitalism, toiling in jobs that alienate us from ourselves, our families, our communities and our environment. To protest this wage-slavery makes us to be viewed as some sort of Luddite. We a Fellow-workers need to get some perspective into their livesre presented with so-called radical ideas that only an economic collapse or series of natural disasters could possibly provide the impetus for revolutionary change to occur. This only leaves us feeling helpless, depressed, and passive in the face capitalist oppression.

For societies where poverty is endemic, you find a history of colonialism, disease, corporate exploitation, ethnic clashes, dictatorships, and environmental degradation. Poverty alleviation is a hoax. Poverty eradication is a myth. There is a whole industry and market out there where poverty is a commodity. Almost every effort at eradicating poverty only exacerbates it. Every poverty alleviation/eradication attempt has provided temporary fix and perpetuated worse outcomes for the long term, including producing disease and further helplessness and dependency. Once we appreciate fully the capitalist system along with its class privileges that produce, reproduce, and transmit power globally and locally, we then can end poverty and inequality resulting from the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution. To end poverty one has to focus on the society that deprive people of resources. When people have control over their tools, machinery and technology as well as control of their environment then they can emerge out of their poverty.

Socialism is not some utopian scheme. Capitalism has created the economic conditions for socialism social evoution. Today there is social production but no social ownership. Socialism will bring social ownership of social production. It is the next step in the further development of  social evolution. Working people will take over the economic forces developed by capitalism and operate them in the interests of society.    Because the working people will control the great wealth they produce, they will be fundamentally able to determine their own futures. The end of exploitation of one person by another will be an unprecedented liberating and transforming force. Socialism will not mean government control. The economy will be geared not to the interest of profit, but to serving human needs. This will release the productive capacity of the economy from the limitations of profit maximization. A great expansion of useful production and the wealth of society will become possible. Rational economic planning will replace the present anarchistic system.  Socialism will open the way for great changes in society.

The Socialist Party endeavours to educate to inspire change for the common good. The Socialist Party's description of itself is that we are "scientific socialists" and what is meant by this is that our method of understanding society is based on a scientific approach. The scientific method which socialists follow is both open-minded and sceptical, willing to embrace or drop an idea depending on the evidence, willing to change the theory if the evidence demands it. Carl Sagan described it well:

"Science is generated by and devoted to free enquiry: the idea that any hypothesis, no matter how strange, deserves to be considered on its merits. The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but it is not the path to knowledge."

Migrants have a voice

Those who have defended the contribution of migrants have frequently fallen back on facts and statistics. But the case made by the likes of Ukip is about emotion and, all too often, the power of stories. The problem is they tend not to be true. Ukip is a party of con artists, myth peddlers, charlatans and professional shysters. But they have succeeded in poisoning the debate on immigration . Now, in contrast, there’s the opportunity to promote the honest, emotional case for the rights of migrants. The migrants’ fightback has begun, bringing a reminder that the problems we suffer are not caused by those who have benefited this country in ways words alone cannot describe.

Ake Achi moved to London to improve his English and seek opportunities. It was a life of hard graft. He juggled a full-time job as a security guard with full-time studies at Kingston University. Today he is a full-time union organiser, helping workers to combat injustices perpetrated by the powerful but all too often blamed on migrants. He has also founded Right2workuk, to protect Britain’s migrants’ right to work. Achi is part of a new movement – One Day Without Us, or 1DWU – that seeks to give Britain’s frequently demonised migrants their own voice.  Migrants will organise to challenge the xenophobia surging on our own side of the Atlantic. Across Britain migrants and non-migrants alike will be encouraged to link arms, grip their placards and take a picture in a national show of solidarity. The arrival of 1DWU is not before time. Migrants have lacked a prominent collective voice: the debate has all too often been about them rather than with them. 

“Immigrants have always been blamed when things go wrong in a country,” says Achi. The government now bans non-EU skilled workers from settling in Britain permanently if they have lived here for less than a decade and earn less than £35,000 a year. That has an impact on many NHS workers, for example. As Achi points out: “The NHS wouldn’t survive without us.” It is all too convenient to turn on migrants propping up Britain’s beleaguered health service, rather than addressing the government that plunged it into what the Red Cross describes as a “humanitarian crisis”.

Birgit Möller, a 55-year-old German works for a nursery, driven by her passion for children and education. She has a husband and a son here. It was London’s multiculturalism that first attracted her, “the buzz of so many people from so many places coming together in one community”. There are many problems in this country, she says, that have nothing to do with migrants – “like huge income differentials and problems with businesses having too much power”. Like Achi, she notes that “it is very convenient to find a scapegoat to deflect from real issues, because real issues are much more difficult to tackle”.

Silvia Aced has lived in Britain for two decades and is an advocacy worker for disabled children. “I have a child with autism myself, and I’ve dedicated my life to things like that,” she tells me. “I know first hand what it’s like to have a child with special needs and how difficult it is to advocate for them.” The scapegoating of migrants is nothing less than “horrendous”, she tells me. The principle behind 1DWU is simple: “Imagine we didn’t go to work just for one day. It’d be chaos. People complain when the Underground goes on strike – but it’d be nothing compared to the chaos that would be unleashed if we didn’t work.”

It will not be easy to transform the debate on migration. Successive British governments have failed to build housing, provide the secure well-paid jobs people need, defend living standards, and – in recent times in particular – properly invest in public services. Immigration has become a catch-all narrative to explain problems caused by capitalism. This is not a debate that can be won with facts and statistics. When we consider issues, emotions and gut feelings play a critical role. Migrants have been missing from the debate about them. 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/16/migrants-scapegoats-ukip-compelling-stories-win-over-xenophobes

Understanding socialism

What is socialism? If we are socialists, what are we actually fighting for? This question, long a subject of debate on the left, is receiving even more attention today.It is also a perplexing one for revolutionary socialists. Some say socialism is simply public ownership of the means of production, or a government welfare system and other criteria are irrelevant. Socialism can seem quite complicated and daunting to a lot of newcomers, as its an idea that is very different from our current system. We need a more profound understanding. While it would be impossible to describe exactly what this new social system will look like we can offer general features of it.

The fundamental position of the Socialist Party is our rejection of wages, market, and money system. We claim to constitute the only real alternative to capitalism's exchange economy and seek to create a livable world and we argue against the very notion that capitalism can be significantly reformed in the permanent interests of working people. To avoid social, environmental and economic collapse, the world needs to move beyond capitalism.

Our current task is the patient winning of ones and twos to the idea of socialism, perhaps of small groups, but certainly not the creation of a mass party, which is not possible at the present time. To attempt to shout louder than one’s voice merely results in a sore throat and the loss of voice altogether. First, we have to establish ourselves as a presence within the labour movement. Ours is not a strategy of opportunism or adventurism which results in defeats, despair and cynicism, leading to the feeling that the real world will never change, but one of education, agitation and organisation. We endeavour to fertilise fellow-workers with the ideas of Marxism. The most vital requirement is a proper sense of proportion. Our present strength and resources are extremely small. That has been the curse of the epoch, made little better byt he defeats experienced by the working class movement which have led to a low level of struggle. The dominant ideas continue to be the ideas of the ruling class which all the time hammers it into our heads the idea that socialism is impossible to achieve. One way to combat this is education in Marxist ideas. People who are new to the idea of socialism need to understand the rudiments of the Marxist analysis of how society has developed and can be changed, to learn the lessons of past working class struggles, how we can understand the modern world, and the basics of the analysis of the capitalist economy. Existing socialists need continually to deepen their understanding of these matters, so that they can cope with all the arguments thrown against them.

There are many who promote all manner of regulated capitalism to tame it and advocate such things as 'fair trade" and "green capitalism" and these have been quite successful in deluding people into devoting their energies and resources to hopeless struggles for minor palliatives. But there is no such thing as "fair trade", when the workers who produce the commodities that are "traded" are exploited in every country by virtue of their condition of wage slavery; unfairness is ineradicable under capitalism. Without a critique of the inherent unfairness at the very root of capitalism, reformist leaders of the "anti-globalization movement' appear to be primarily concerned with getting the capitalists and ruling elites of undeveloped nations a better deal from their bosses in the industrialised countries.

A "fair wage" or a "living wage" or even a universal basic income won't eliminate exploitation. "Debt relief" won't solve the problem of Third World poverty; "generic drugs" won't end the crisis in health-care; "political campaign contributions reform" won't either; nor will reform of corporation taxation. All of these reforms together fantasised by their most passionate advocates, would hardly slow the destruction of the world by capitalism. And how would these reforms be implemented and enforced? Through the further increase in the controlling powers of the State. The "anti-globalisation" movement are, whether they admit it or recognise it or not, statists. The solutions they propose and the reforms they seek all presuppose an increase in the interventions of states into social life.

The socialist revolution, then, is the necessity of the times, and it is essential to get prepared now. The prospects for the future of the workers' movement appears bright. This year could bring about a revitalised struggle on the part of people around the world.

Change must happen

Humans are finally coming to an understanding the harsh truth that it is by their own actions and inactions that we are bringing the prospect of our own demise. A painful lesson is being learned, by us that we must accept that our continued existence on the planet is dependent on our capacity to live in harmony with it. All levels of society now realise that homo sapiens may be facing its extinction if change does not take place. As the ecological events begin to unfold and tipping points are reached can our civilisation continue. The dire prognosis that some make for the future due to the effects of climate change raises two questions: Will humanity survive? And if it does survive, how?

Today, business attempt to have their say and seek to dominate the conversation in order to protect their private interests. They  use every means available to exercise power over the people so as to achieve their objectives, including methods such as marginalizing data. These corporations and individuals go to extraordinary ends to preserve their power and privilege in society. However, their aim and goals do not coincide with the public interest for human survival. The political/financial elite endeavour to preserve its status quo by maintaining self-serving law and order internally through existing institutions. Ecological matters may well be important, but they are not all important - profit and accumulation of capital is the prime directive.  Capitalism is not be able to offer lasting solutions to the ecological catastrophe. The point  is that an entirely new society is required. There is now a need for a new Age of Enlightenment proposing new, radically advanced political, social and economic formulae designed for sustainability. The world requires the prevalence of a new human ethic which truly places value on human life and not simply play lip service to such humanitarianism. Cooperative action among the population will bring about a collective determination to foster needed changes without the violence and authoritarian rule of yesteryear. Economics will take on an entirely new form not like any form from the past such as command central-planning or free-market laissez-faire.  Today’s exchange economy of  market-driven consumerism will vanish. Croplands, grasslands, forests and fisheries will be administered and stewarded so as to be able to meet human population needs. The good of the planet and every life form on it will take precedence over all else. The long term survival and welfare of the human species will be the foundation  A ruling class Kleptocracy will be a thing of the past.

Socialism is the new understanding of common purpose by which each person becomes an integral part of the social whole. This unity can be broadly defined as one where every person has the opportunity to achieve his or her aspirations  within the confines and constraints of ecological balance. Nature will no longer be seen as the servant of humanity to be used and abused at will. An understanding of the “oneness” of all life on the planet will take its place and there will emerge a belief in shared responsibility for our world. The more we share this responsibility, the more stable becomes the society, and the greater the chance for each person to achieve his or her individuality where a human and planetary interdependency will prosper. A metamorphosis of humanity, far surpassing others seen throughout history, will be occur.

Wealth in Scotland

The wealthiest 1% of Scots are richer than the bottom 50% combined, a new report has found with the poorest 40 per cent of households 9.4 times worse off in 2012/14 than the top 10 per cent, compared with 8.8 times in 2010/12.

The richest 10 per cent of households own 43 per cent of all private net wealth - worth £374 billion.

The report found the median wealth of the richest 10 per cent in Scotland was £1.34 million, while the median wealth of the poorest 10 per cent was just £6,300.

The research paper found that the least wealthy 30 per cent of households “have very few assets, with employment no longer a guarantee against low wealth.”

Criminal Capitalism

  Populism is on the rise in many parts of the world. Populism is based on the perception that the political establishment  has betrayed the people and that what is required is a more direct and forceful representation of the people's wishes.  Often populism goes hand in hand with  belief in a charismatic "strong man" political figure to do the job. At the heart of the idea of populism is a patron-client relationship,  In return for the support of the voters , the Leader-cum-Saviour will affect radical change to the the existing political order to bring it into line with the wishes of the people.  It is for this reason amongst others that socialists oppose populism.  The emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class itself.

 Developments like Brexit and the election of Trump are part of a wider pattern. This signifies something more than the usual change of government and its replacement by a more or less identical successor government. Of course, fundamentally its still capitalism but there has been a shift in the relationship between the political and economic realms, a change in the institutional  architecture of capitalism itself - possibly away from neoliberalism towards a more mercantilist world if Trump's words are to  be taken at face value.  Trump's whole campiagn hinged on the delusion that he was some kind of saviour of the people who  had beeen maltreated  and betrayed by the political establishment represented by the likes of Clinton.  And the people bought into this message,  imagining that a billionaire buffoon was one of them, intent upon overthrowing this political establishment and draining the Wall St. swamp. A lot of Trump's support came from the industrial rustbelt.   And you can bet your bottom dollar that many of those gullible voters that voted for Trump in the expectation that he will radically overhaul the status quo will sooner or later realise they have been conned and will come to see him as part of the "establishment."

 The current populism is not a working class movement but a movement run and financed by the ruling elite, using demagogues to motivate the workers to support their national and international interests, and their geopolitical plans.  Our real target should be capitalism itself instead of blaming the economical problems on others workers, which is what the Trump movement is doing. Blaming the economical and political problems on the Mexicans and the Middle Easterners is leaving intact the profit system and destroying one commercial cartel to create another one is only beneficial to the capitalist class, a group Mafioso trying to take the market of others groups of Mafioso. They are just a bunch of glorified gangsters. Consider some of Al Capone's observations on society:
"Some call it bootlegging. Some call it racketeering. I call it a business."
"All I do is supply a demand."
"I am just a businessman, giving the people what they want"
"This American system of ours, call it Americanism, call it capitalism, call it what you will, gives each and every one of us a great opportunity if we seize it with both hands and make the most of it."
"My rackets are run on strictly American lines and they're going to stay that way."
"Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class."
"It's a racket. Those stock market guys are crooked."
"Don't you get the idea I'm one of those goddam radicals. Don't get the idea I'm knocking the American system."
"Bolshevism is knocking at our gates, we can't afford to let it in...We must keep America whole and safe and unspoiled. We must keep the worker away from red literature and red ruses; we must see that his mind remains healthy."

Populist movements can be viewed as the pus coming out after the boil has been lanced.  Many workers are not so tired of the elite when they are electing members of the ruling class to govern them, a capitalist is not going to defend our own interests. They are tired of certain problems that are taking place in the capitalist society, but they do not have the proper political and economical knowledge to understand  why this is taking place, that is the importance of studying socialist theory. Racial prejudice, blind patriotism and extreme nationalism using foreigners as excuse for political purposes is nothing new in the USA. Despite all that,  the main problem is not racism, the main problem is capitalism

If we understand that  profit is produced by the workers and that we are supporting a bunch of parasites, and legalized thieves known as capitalists, we will understand that  the root of the problems is capitalism. If we understand that we are wages slaves we will understand that this society in divided into two social classes only and that the so called middle class is one a fallacy
If we understand that our real allies are all the members of the working class of the whole world, workers would not be claiming to build walls and seeking to deport others workers, or to go into wars with others workers.
If we understand that the state is financed with surplus value, and we are not the so called taxpayers, workers will not become echo of the rulers by saying that they are the ones providing social services to others workers. Religion is not the main problem of the world, it is the profit system, that is the excuse used in order to cover the real root of the problems. All our problems are socially produced, they are not produced by an individual's failing.

There is a long list of social and economical issues that workers do not understand due to the lack of political and economical knowledge, that is reason why workers should read socialist materials, and throw out the trash the bourgeois political education. There is a lot of talk among the ruling class of different nations about trade treaties but none of them will ever benefits the majority of the workers of the world. They will only benefits the bourgeois class. Capitalism will never be beneficial for the working class.

The World Socialist Movement does its best to counter the falsehoods of the likes of Farage and Trump, but we need help. Marches, protests and demonstrations mean little unless practical gains in understanding, organisation and action spring from them. Part of the understanding is to link issues to the wider class nature of society.  This essential point seems difficult for many to grasp – even to want to start trying to understand.  For example, there is a lot of talk among some groups about the "evil" influence of banks – as if banks can be seen in isolation to their role within capitalism. This is also like the case of the African Americans who believe that their main problem is race and the solution is electing black leaders, senators and governors, but they also become co-opted by their capitalist masters.

 Are we doomed to forever experience the “awakenings” of global movements to fizzle out, leaving no trace on our political lives?

Not seeing the forest for the trees

An interesting article in the Scotsman about the foresty business in Scotland where profit prevails over common-sense.

"...The financial drivers for forestry planting and management over the last few decades in Scotland have resulted in the dominance of one species of tree – the Sitka spruce, which makes up a staggering 70 per cent of the forested areas in this country.

It’s easy to understand why. Forestry developers seeking wealthy investors have plumped for Sitka spruce because it grows quickly and provides a high-quality softwood timber product, felled in as little as 25 years. Solid long-term returns in excess of 12 per cent, which have been largely unaffected by volatile markets ...

However, Sitka spruce is native to the Pacific north-west coast of the US, not Scotland. Add to this a strategy of “clear felling,” where all the trees in a forest planted together are cut down and replaced together, and we have been left with an endemic monoculture habitat that fails to support the natural fauna and flora that a mixed pine forest would. Furthermore, such monocultures can leave a forest susceptible to catastrophic diseases and pest damage, as happened in Thetford forest, which suffered from red band needle blight. If such an occurrence were to happen to Sitka in Scotland, it would spread rapidly and widely with enormous economic and social consequences. A naturally managed mixed forest, including Sitka spruce with native pine species and deciduous trees, would go a long way to redressing the monoculture issues Scotland’s forestry sector faces. Add to this a move away from clear felling to a continuous cover model of forestry, where a canopy is always maintained, would further resolve these issues.

On the down side, this model would deliver diminishing returns, which may be enough to drive wealthy investors away. That’s a shame because the principles and ideology that founded the accord, where countries agreed to support the reforestation of Europe, was really driven by the desire to replant natural mixed and deciduous forests that where once indigenous in Europe and would be ecologically more beneficial.

Sadly, this is a clear case of economic pressures competing against ecological drivers, and at the moment, the former is winning the day."

Expropriate the Expropriators

“He that being robbed misses not that he is robbed of, let him not know it and he’s not robbed at all.” Shakespeare, Othello Act 3

In a world where profit-making is the motive force to production all sorts of rubbish, shoddy and inferior goods are produced. The purpose which such goods will serve is secondary. Whether they serve any purpose at all does not really matter so long as a market can be found for them and a profit realised. Inferior goods must be presented as equal to superior ones. The health, wealth and general well-being of the people who buy does not come into the picture from the business point of view. Alternative medicines, for instance, even if not dangerous in themselves, can cause a delay in the time before proper treatment is applied, and thus be a danger. Advertisers can bamboozle workers into the acquisition of all sorts of consumer goods and create the impression that such possessions indicate an improved standard of living andworkers can look back on previous generations and imagine themselves better off than their forefathers, losing sight of the fact that their forefathers had things which they have not, and were without things which workers today might have missed with advantage. Capitalism is a system of society which produces goods incidentally. Fundamentally its aim is the amassing of surplus value. Productivity and Profit are interchangeable and synonymous terms. Of all the commodities exchanged in the market there is one peculiar commodity known as labour power. That commodity is represented by the mental and physical capabilities of the men and women of the working class. Since the workers under capitalism have no means of obtaining a living other than by way of selling their power to labour, that labour power becomes a commodity. Like other commodities, it is, broadly speaking, paid for or exchanged at its value. But between the value of labour power and the value of its product there is a difference. The capitalist does not employ workers from a motive of philanthropy. Capitalism could not exist in that way. The workers produce the wealth, only a portion of that wealth is returned to them, the remainder being retained or appropriated by the capitalist. The difference between what the workers produce and what they get in wages is generally known as profit, but called by Marx surplus value. That profit or surplus value, though not realised until the exchange of commodities takes place, is actually derived from the process of production, and represents the unpaid labour of the workers. The Marxian theory of value, not only shows us what value is, and how it is determined, but also shows us the source from which flow the riches and poverty in modern society.

There is a complete divorce of production and consumption. Production is earned out for profit and not for use. Capitalism is contradictory and anti-social. An unavoidable feature of capitalism is that goods and services are produced for sale. The profits which are realised when goods are sold go to the people who provide the capital - the investors, who invest their money precisely because they hope to get a profit. If the investors think their profit is in doubt they will usually withdraw their capital regardless of the consequences. Capitalism is now a futile social system. It cannot unite the human race — it can only divide it catastrophically. It cannot serve human interests; it can only deny and damage them. It cannot solve its problems, such as poverty and war, but only continue to produce them in one form or another. No socialist claims that in socialism the workers will receive the full value of their product, since a certain amount must be set aside for reproductive purposes. But all that is set aside for this purpose under socialism will be used for the benefit of the whole of society, and not as it is to-day, for the benefit of a few leeches.

Non-socialists may see certain evils in the world, evils which grow more glaring as the years pass, and all they can do is to say in effect, “Let us destroy these abominable evils, and if, in doing so, we, at the same time destroy associations of peoples, even if we thereby wipe out mankind itself; better chaos or annihilation, than the degradation and prostitution of life as it is to-day." The Socialist Party, however, has no desire for social chaos or total annihilation; these visions of despair would drift into nothingness if people could only be brought to understand—to understand themselves and the social system under which they live and which makes them the unhappy beings that they are. We are endeavouring to give to our fellow-workers an exposition of life as it now is, as it might soon be, and as eventually it will be. What we. desire is a sane and healthy system of society, to be erected on the dead ashes of the system which is passing, wherein no-one   shall be called upon to sacrifice ability or body in order to obtain the wherewithal to live; wherein the worker, the artist, the scientist (possibly a trinity in one person) may unite with, and dovetail into, one another, in the production of wealth, which would be the property of an appreciative and enlightened humanity; not, as now, the property of a few unworthy and unappreciative parasites.

The capitalist class, by means of their control of the media, are able to focus the attention of the working class on things that are often of little concern or consequence so the exploiter can devote his energies more closely to the source of profit. The wage-worker listens to the master’s voice and submits to the master’s will. The owning class live on the surplus value extracted from the workers: the workers have to wage a ceaseless struggle to maintain even a part of the value of their work for themselves. In such circumstances it is a truism to say that the more the owners can fool the workers into believing that there is no conflict of interests, the happier—and richer—the owners will be. The standard of living of the proletariat falls, yet one rarely hears a statement that places the blame where it belongs, on the supporters of the capitalist system. The exploiter could not long continue in his privileged position if he failed to keep going the deception; the capitalist not only lives at the expense of his victims but he succeeds in preventing them from finding out how it is done. It is obvious that the process will continue until the worker decides to end it, and the idea of ending it will never enter his head until he realises that only by doing so can he or she hope to enjoy a life worth living. The trouble with human beings, as anyone who has mixed with them knows, is that they are — human beings. They are too often different from each other; they have different tastes, capacities, abilities. Capitalism does not, and must not, see human beings like that. From its beginnings it has had the need to flatten individuals, as far as production and exploitation are concerned, into the same mould. The story of capitalism has been the story of the death of one individual craft after another, of the refinement of productive techniques and of the progressive separation of man from the things he makes. The first crude steam engine was part of this process and so is the most recent computer.  To capitalism human beings are units on the production line, just like nuts and bolts although needing different handling. They are part of the costs of production, a column in a ledger, a click on a computer. Capitalism tries to dehumanise mankind.

Anyone who wants to abolish the capitalist social system should not waste their time trying to reform the nature of capitalism. Their place is in the Socialist Party, helping with the task of achieving socialism. Yet nearly all of us, without knowing it, give our support to and help perpetuate the very things we find unacceptable. We endorse the poverty, hunger, cruelty and warfare that blight humanity. We do it every time we express support for the big political parties, every time we vote for them. Because all of these parties stand for the continuation of a world system of which poverty, hunger, cruelty and warfare are an integral part. We repeat the lesson we have been repeating, monotonously for years: No leader, however honest, clever or well-intentioned can lead the workers out of slavery. No man or group of men, however intellectual, can found a new society which depends for its success upon the knowledge and understanding of the bulk of the population. Socialism can only be attained by working men and women who know what socialism means and how it is to be obtained. Therefore, it is necessary for working men and women to do the comparatively small amount of thinking that is necessary to understand socialism. When they have done so they will know the steps to be taken, and will no longer need to rely on leaders. How then do we go about not supporting poverty, famine, disease and war? The answer is to take a long hard look at the world around us, to see that all attempts to improve the nightmare system of production for profit are futile, and to join a vigorous democratic movement determined to replace it by the society of abundance, equality and security which is there for the taking. But it can only be taken when a majority of men and women use their votes not to elect leaders who promise to run things for them but send to the seats of political power democratically elected delegates from a mass socialist party who are committed to one thing and one thing only the abolition of the outdated system of money, wages, profit and buying and selling and the bringing in of a new, truly humane society which will produce only for people’s needs and will make full rational democratic use of the abundant resources of planet earth.

According to many academics the world is full of "socialisms" and the plethora of definitions they present us with is certainly confusing. The Socialist Party has always had to challenge the avowed enemies of socialism and denounce the self-styled friends of socialism who attached the name socialism to the varied forms of state-capitalism. The anti-socialist parties and press, often for reasons of their own, but sometimes out of pure ignorance, helped on the work of misrepresentation by describing as “socialist” the Labour Party, and Soviet Russia. We are concerned to defend the name of socialism. Let us, then, reiterate that the Socialist Party never has and never will lend itself to the pretence that something else other than Socialism is "just as good.” We have never worked for or defended state-capitalism, whether as advocated by the reformist parties in this country or as practised by the Bolsheviks in Russia. We have never been prepared to pretend that Lenin and the Bolsheviks were democratic; we have never glossed over the brutalities of committed. We have always held that Socialism is, in its nature, democratic and international. We have never been prepared to compromise those views. In war, as in peace, we repudiate the false friends and avowed enemies of socialism who seek to associate socialism with various forms of capitalism and capitalism’s wars. Some continue to emulate revolutions of the past and so urge a revolutionary civil war, as the only ways possible, while condemning in advance as 'opportunist', 'reformist', the more peaceful ways of capturing power. The future revolution will take place with a minimum of violence since by becoming the movement of the immense majority it will have radically altered the relationship of forces to the detriment of the tiny exploiting minority, desperately seeking to maintain an exhausted and outdated economic system. Obviously no one can know in advance but it is possible to speculate that the capture of power will take place relatively without violence. No doubt the existing power will be tempted to install a dictatorship, but will it still have the strength, undermined as it will be by an immense majority determined to see things through; in the long term the ruling class will be obliged to yield.

The rate of progress in socialist thinking of the working class is difficult to judge. But it by no means follows that because we are a tiny handful of socialists now, a few hundred after over a hundred years, that their progress cannot suddenly take off. And once a take-off point is reached, it is reasonable to expect that socialists’ efforts to convince their fellow workers will accelerate at a rather more encouraging rate than we have seen until now. One lesson fellow-workers must learn, and must learn soon, is that the development of society has now reached a stage where nothing but the establishment of socialism can save society from collapsing into ruins. Capitalism is doomed by the fact that it inevitably produces poverty, wars ad environmental havoc; only by the replacement of the present order by the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production in the near future can society be saved. Failing this solution to the social troubles that afflict us the possibility of a complete social breakdown and a relapse into barbarism is a not impossible end to present social development. The future depends upon the workers understanding the source of social misery and taking the only course that can end it. That they will do so is our conviction in spite of the ugly shadows that are gathering. The job of a politician is to be an illusionist, to convince the property-less that they had power, that they were the strength and glory of the nation, that they were free and that their freedom was precious, that they controlled their civilisation by their vote, to make them feel proud and superior because they were not slaves. Then, no matter how how poor they were, they felt proud and ready to defend the society that kept them in that condition against those who were their companions in misery—their fellow workers. Only a social revolution can get rid of the ailments which afflict human society today. That revolution cannot be masterminded by leaders; it must be carried through by a politically conscious, participating working class, worldwide. This is at present a minority viewpoint yet it is the very stuff of social progress to a free, co-operative, abundant world.

Redundant managers (1981)

From the June 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Unemployment has particularly hit workers in manufacturing, shipbuilding, textiles and construction, but another section of the working class whose jobs have generally been protected until now has also suffered. This is the “executives”, those workers who are employed as managers of one kind or another. The Professional and Executive Register (PER), a department of the Manpower Services Commission, had 30,000 unemployed executives on its books in March 1974 but the total stood at 117,000 at the end of 1980 and is certain to be even greater now.

Until recently companies which wanted to economise during a slack period would get rid of shop-floor and clerical workers readily enough but would continue to carry managerial staff on the grounds of “mutual loyalty". Nowadays, the slump is biting so hard that, just to stay in business, companies are compelled to have a clear-out right up to the highest level, even the boardroom, and the result is a flood of redundant executives.

Who are these executives, and can they really be classed as workers at all? The Executive Post, which is the PER’s job-finding magazine, is mailed to registered jobless executives each month and the advertised jobs are almost all for “managers”, “officers", “administrators” and the like, but this cannot hide the fact that these are merely fancy titles for what are, in the main, only higher paid workers. The truth is that they have to sell themselves on the labour market in order to live just as mechanics, shop assistants, bus drivers and bricklayers must. Incidentally, many of these executives are not all that highly paid: although the salaries advertised in the Post go as high as £30,000 they go right down to £3,000 and many shop-floor workers earn a good bit more than that.

All these redundancies have given birth to a whole new industry in the shape of a horde of private agencies which, for a fee, will provide a course designed to teach jobless executives how to look for a new employer and maybe even find them one. Some of the “quality” newspapers regularly feature ads from these agencies in the job columns:

We offer the UK’s first Redundancy Counselling Programme designed exclusively for senior people. A concentrated, intensive programme to help you to resume your successful career path. (Daily Telegraph, 28/4/81)

Help from such agencies can cost as much as £2,000 so many of the jobless rely on the free course provided by the state-run PER or cheap courses run by other organisations like the Institute of Industrial Managers.

And how this help is needed! Many of the jobless executives have spent all their working life with one company and simply haven't a clue about how to look for a job. After all, getting the sack had always been something that happened to somebody else. The sacked executives are actually in a worse situation than their shop-floor counterparts because they have further to fall. They will almost certainly have much higher financial commitments such as a huge mortgage and perhaps children at expensive private schools. With the job will have gone various perks like the company car, expense account or private medical cover. Also, their chances of finding a similar job are poorer. They can expect to spend six weeks job-hunting for each £1,000 of salary they want, so a job at £8,500 a year will, on average, take a year to land. And because there are so many in the same boat they can also expect to follow up 200 leads with only one in ten of these producing any response.

So despite the ego-massaging and corner-cutting techniques of the agencies the prospects of finding a job at all aren’t rosy because there are many more applicants than vacancies. According to the Sunday Times (14/12/80) all of this causes the redundant executives to suffer loss of confidence and become depressed and bad-tempered. All very well for the course organisers to tell them to “suffer no indignities” while job-hunting, but how do you keep your dignity after you have attended several interviews, written dozens of letters and been either turned down or ignored? In any case, indignity doesn’t end with landing a job: having to sell oneself to an employer is an indignity in itself.

The same article in the Sunday Times described how one redundant executive lost his £20,000 a year job. Having just planned the sacking of ten fellow executives and 750 other workers he found his own head was next on the block. How ironic that he had been employed as a “long range planning director": the anarchy of capitalist production means that it is nearly impossible to plan with any certainty what will happen next month never mind years ahead. How could he have forecast that the strength of the pound last year against the dollar would force his American employers to switch production back to the United States?

The popular notion that all redundant executives receive a “golden handshake” is untrue. For example, the chief executive of a big toy manufacturer which went bust last year earned £25,000 a year but left with only one month’s salary. The reason is that many executives are on a “service contract" which means they only get the outstanding amount of their salaries when they leave, just as sacked football managers do, and are not entitled to redundancy payment. This wangle is gradually being introduced onto the shopfloor. Marathon, the big oil-rig builder on Clydeside, employs its workers on thirteen week contracts which can be renewed at the end of the period but there are other companies whose workers are employed on contracts lasting as little as one week. That way you never qualify for redundancy payment. If the history of reform teaches us anything it is that a way can always be found round any reform which gives temporary benefit to the workers.

Doubtless, many of the redundant executives will find new, equally well paid jobs but many more will probably have to move down a notch or two on the salary scale. All of them, however, must be painfully aware that they are no longer a protected species where unemployment is concerned. Their position as members of the working class is being forcibly demonstrated to them along with the fact that, just like any other workers, their future job prospects will depend less on their “loyalty” to the company than on whether or not it is profitable to employ them.

Vic Vanni

Build a World to Change Our Lives

Nothing is guaranteed in this life, except change.  Our history shows society constantly transforming. We are told that there are “not enough” resources and that in order to ration scarce resources we need a system that efficiently allocates scarcity. The truth is most goods are in fact abundant. We have created the capability to provide for all, and it takes fewer and fewer man-hours each year to do it.  We  need to end commodity-based production and exchange. We need to create a world in which social needs form the basis of production and distribution. No one will need to, nor be able to, sell their labour power. This is the minimum criterion for a socialist society.  People will nonetheless work, not out of a need to get pay in order to live, but as part of their expected duty to others and, hopefully to an increasing extent, because we are able to re-design work so we will enjoy much of it.  A non-market socialist world  needs to be promoted urgently because present society has laid the basis for our extinction using capitalist practices and thinking.  At the heart of the capitalist system is the practice and concept of money as a measure, even a god. The structure and relations of capital are impossible without the practice and concept of money as a general all-purpose means of exchange and unit of account. Capital is money that begets more money.  Thus monetary values come to dominate social and environmental values. We see non-market socialism as the only way to address the combined crises we face, which are results of a capitalist system based in production for trade, relying on monetary accounting and exchange. This system contorts and confuses the values, relationships and structures that ideally exist between people and between people and nature. Capitalists are defined by money, their power is monetary power, their logic is a market-based logic. Socialism must mean sharing the power to decide what is produced, how it is produced and for whom. Socialism must be state-free and class-free because states and classes represent exclusive power. To institute socialism we only need to understand the potential, limitations and needs of a natural and built world held in common along with the basic needs of humans — and share decision-making based on a discourse of use values and distinct measures appropriate to differing use values. There is no need for a universal unit of account or means of exchange.

Imagine the entire world focusing our efforts on education, building renewable energy, growing healthier food, and improving our medical, housing, and transportation infrastructure.  Is that not what life's all about? Imagine, having the right to develop our human capacities more fully; the free time to become more active Citizens; to finally use our free time for something other than escape.

Deep inside, we know life can be much more than we experience and with less fear.  The working-class has little or no choice but to submit to our ritualistic commodification. We allow capitalists, landlords, corporations, and their politicians to dehumanise us as their tools. We are forced into the labour market, for example. Although business worldwide are using technological advances in robotics to replace humans labour power and thus lessen their dependence on the working class, there is still a heavy reliance on people. Under capitalism, the ruling hierarchy relies on the state to control and establishing cultural hegemony. Millions of impoverished people who can barely afford basic necessities to survive, spend much of their time admiring wealthy celebrities. This intense consumption process has exposed the working class to informal channels of indoctrination,  through advertising and marketing, popular media entertainment such as television shows, movies, and video games, and the worship of the cult of personality and fame (and, thus, wealth).  In fulfilling this role, workers become consumers in the market for both necessary and conspicuous consumption while showing up every few years to vote for politicians that do not represent them. Members of the working class receives its values through many different channels, formal and informal. Part of this is accomplished through formal education, where traditional intellectuals become more specialised, and where the process of learning and thinking is replaced by indoctrination. A prime example of this indoctrination can be seen in the field of economics, where students seem unable to apply their thought beyond the narrow confines of capitalism. All exhibit an unwillingness or inability to see the most obvious of contradictions within their theory. Public education is not concerned with the students’ ability to comprehend or critically think, but rather with turning them into docile and passive tools of production and the the creation of obedient workers who are minimally competent to fulfil their exploitative labour role. Through this manufactured acquiescence the working-class literally buy into, become vested in, and thus serve and protect, the capitalist system. In a class-based society, fear becomes an effective tool in shaping ideas and pushing through ruling-class agendas with widespread working-class approval. Today, corporate news stations that are concerned only with ratings (thus, profit) choose sensationalist narratives that strike fear in the viewer. In the media industry of profit-based ‘news’, there is no need for overt government propaganda because corporate ‘news’ outlets willingly fill this role through sensationalism.

Under capitalism, the working-class finds itself in a paradoxical state. Our entire lives are dominated by activities that directly benefit those who own and control the production of the commodities we buy and the businesses we work for. Our participation in these activities both strengthens those owners while also further alienating us from what would otherwise be productive and creative lives. Our activities increase the owning class social and political capital while at the same time separating us from our own families and communities. This existence takes on a more severe form when we are called upon to fight and die in wars that, only benefit the property owning elite. We are conditioned to follow the status quo, despite its propensity to steer us into authoritarian avenues.

 Socialism is a market-free, money-free, class-free and state-free society, want-free, sustainable and just world-system. We stand for a global society in which production is for need and not profit (and is therefore sustainable), where the state, national frontiers and money have disappeared. 

World at work (1971)

From the January 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vic Vanni

Freedom is the recognition of necessity

Consider...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


TWC

The fool's tale (1983)

Book Review from the November 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Democratic Alternative by Peter Hain

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 Vic Vanni

Capitalism's Gamble

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

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

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

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

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