To Relax Is To Say....

Every month we include wise words from such luminaries as Marx, Engels and Gustav Bang; but this month we are going to give them a rest and cross the pond to the glamour and glitz of Hollywood though we'll be looking at a man not so glitzy, movie director, Robert Aldrich. He came from a wealthy family and was, in fact a cousin of Nelson Rockefeller. 

Aldrich turned his back on the prosperous life his family offered him for which he was ostracized. Starting as a $50 dollar a week clerk at R.K.O. Studio he progressed to directing some socially conscious movies, such as ,''The Dirty Dozen'', ''The Longest Yard'' and Twilight's Last Gleaming''. Though Aldrich was no Marxist, he nevertheless had a detestation of capitalism and believed that struggling against it was important. Perhaps he summed up well why socialists fight on against the odds.

''Well, I don't think you can relax and enjoy it. To relax is to say,'' well I'm dead already''. Why not struggle and maximize the victories. They may not come, probably won't come, but they might come, and when they come your one victory ahead of total defeat''. (R. Aldrich, 1918-1983. Body and Soul, by Tony Williams (2004), Scarecrow Press.)

For socialism, 

Steve, Mehmet and John

Non-Profit Company? Fat Chance.

British Premier, Theresa May and London Mayor Sadiq Khan have ordered an inquiry into the cause of the devastating fire at the Grenfell Tower. The tower is, or was, a public-housing project, owned by the local government and managed by the Kensington and Chelsea Tenants Management Organisation, which is ''officially'' a non-profit company--fat chance! Last year this group completed a $16.91 million renovation that included new outside insulating panels, double glazed windows and a communal heating system.

Flames raced up the outside of the tower, triggering speculation that the new panels contributed to the fire by not being up to the specifications of the fire code. Fire resistance panels cost $40.60 per square meter which is $3.40 more than those which the company is said to have used. If this is true it underscores the fact that people's safety comes with a price, which is sometimes too high for, even, non-profit groups. 

Steve and John

Socialist Ideas

The SPGB ideas about Parliament will continue to be debated and in the end it will be the working class who will vote with their feet and choose whether they consider the Socialist Party's approach the most appropriate or not. However, we do take issue that our understanding of political action is essentially non-marxist as many claim.

The fundamental position of the SPGB is that"Where it is a question of a complete transformation of the social organization, the masses themselves must also be in it, must themselves already have grasped what is at stake, what they are going in for [with body and soul] - ( Engels 1895)  The same article repeatedly counsels the use of the vote and of Parliament.

Our case remains:
"The state is an expression of and enforcer of class society. Intrinsically it is a coercive institution...but it has assumed social functions that have to exist in any society and which have nothing to do with its coercive nature: it has taken over the role of being society’s central organ of administration and co-ordination.... it would have to be reorganised on a thoroughly democratic basis, with mandated and recallable delegates and popular participation ( my emphasis again) replacing the unaccountable professional politicians and unelected top civil servants of today....The only people who can introduce socialism are the great majority of men and women. Socialism is a democratic society that can only function with the active participation of its members. It will be a participatory democracy...This is not to say that the socialist majority only needs to organise itself politically. It does need to organise politically so as to be able to win control of political power. But it also needs to organise economically to take over and keep production going immediately after the winning of political control. We can’t anticipate how such socialist workplace organisations will emerge, whether from the reform of the existing trade unions, from breakaways from them or from the formation of completely new organisations. All we can say now is that such workplace organisations will arise and that they too, like the socialist political party, will have to organise themselves on a democratic basis, with mandated delegates instead of leaders.With the spread of socialist ideas all organisations will change and take on a participatory democratic and socialist character, so that the majority’s organisation for socialism will not be just political and economic, but will also embrace schools and universities, television, film-making, plays and the like as well as inter-personal relationships. We’re talking about a radical social revolution involving all aspects of social life."

A social revolution in tandem with the capture of the state machine through parliament which the SPGB does describe as the ultimate source of political power. For Marx, universal suffrage was “the equivalent of political power for the working class” and its “inevitable result” would be “the political supremacy of the working class.” Engels argued that “democracy means the dominion of the working class”and so workers should “use the power already in their hands, the actual majority they possess... to send to Parliament men of their own order.” The worker “struggles for political power, for direct representation of his class in the legislature” (quotes taken from an anarchist website who appear to recognise the Marxist roots of the SPGB's strategy better than some "Marxists")

Some upbraid the SPGB for holding non-Marxist ideas such as taking little account of what he posits as hesitant and uneven process both within particular countries and accross the globe in contrast to the SPGB vision of world revolution. But is this a non-Marxist position? But i know he knows that this is SPGB shared the same view as Engels once again."It follows that the communist revolution will not merely be a national phenomenon but must take place simultaneously in all civilized countries – that is to say, at least in England, America, France, and Germany...It will have a powerful impact on the other countries of the world, and will radically alter the course of development which they have followed up to now"

It is not the SPGB who envisage the non-Marxist process what Engels de-rided with the dismissive comment "one fine morning, all the workers in all the industries of a country, or even of the whole world, stop work, thus forcing the propertied classes either humbly to submit within four weeks at most, or to attack the workers, who would then have the right to defend themselves and use the opportunity to pull down the entire old society." 
The SPGB adheres to the Marxist view that Engels puts elsewhere which is "whenever we are in a position to try the universal strike, we shall be able to get what we want for the mere asking for it, without the roundabout way of the universal strike"

“The word Revolution, which we Socialists are so often forced to use, has a terrible sound in most people's ears, even when we have explained to them that it does not necessarily mean a change accompanied by riot and all kinds of violence, and cannot mean a change made mechanically and in the teeth of opinion by a group of men who have somehow managed to seize on the executive power for the moment. Even when we explain that we use the word revolution in its etymological sense, and mean by it a change in the basis of society, people are scared at the idea of such a vast change, and beg that you will speak of reform and not revolution. As, however, we Socialists do not at all mean by our word revolution what these worthy people mean by their word reform, I can't help thinking that it would be a mistake to use it, whatever projects we might conceal beneath its harmless envelope. So we will stick to our word, which means a change in the basis of society." —William Morris in How We Live and How We Might Live.

The world is crying out for change. Millions of children die each year of starvation while those with millions spare themselves no indulgence. People say that we in the Socialist Party are utopian because we hold to the view that a new society is the only lasting solution to the mess we're in and because we dare to suggest that we could run our lives in a much more rational and harmonious way. Some people on the "Left" decline to define socialism, because they think that any account of a future society is a waste of time and that we should concern ourselves with present-day struggles. But unless you do talk about where you're going, how will you know when you've arrived? 

More and more people today recognise that the present system of production for profit makes our lives needlessly painful and is ruining the planet.  Unless you do have a clear idea of socialism then anyone can claim it, defame it and say it doesn't work. And unless we keep the idea of working directly for a worldwide co-operative community on the agenda people will always be sidetracked. It is essential that the ideal of the new society should always be kept at the fore.

It cannot be stressed enough, that without a widespread and clear idea among workers of what a socialist society entails, it will he unattainable. The reason is simple. The very nature of socialism—a moneyless, wageless world of unrestricted access to the goods and services provided by voluntary cooperative effort—necessitates understanding. There is absolutely no way in which such a sweeping fundamental transformation of social relationships could be thrust upon an unwilling, unknowing majority by some minority, however, enlightened or well-meaning.

The Socialist Party is not prepared to associate with organisations which carry on propaganda for the reform of capitalism, recruit members on that basis and seek the votes of reformists. Our case is that work for socialism is the essential end and it cannot be combined with reformism. Socialism cannot be achieved without a social revolution, that is a change in the property basis of society, from private ownership to social ownership and democratic control.  Alone, we have stood for a social revolution to overturn capitalist society and replace it with socialism.

Dishonesty. Well, It's Capitalism.

On June 7, a committee of federal M.P.s heard testimony from ex-bank workers about how all of Canada's top banks pressured them to get results by foul means or worse. They were forced to hit unreachable goals, coax clients into raising their credit card limits, offer mortgages beyond what the customers could afford and in general sell unnecessary products and services in order to increase revenues and meet very high sales targets.

According to Sally Watson, a Scotia bank worker for 33 years,'' It is absolutely profit before anything else. It has nothing to do with servicing the clients''.

At the time of writing it is not known what the outcome of the enquiry will be, but it is pointless telling the banks to clean up their act when the very nature of capitalism breeds dishonesty. 

Steve and John.

What is socialism?

Capital Expansion

There are no supreme saviors,

Neither God, nor Caesar nor tribune;
Producers, let us save ourselves,
The International 

Capitalism, as its name suggests, is quite simply, the system of capital.  Its sole purpose is the accumulation of capital through the exploitation of human labour.  It is a system that accumulates capital in one phase simply so that it can accumulate still more capital in the next phase -- always on a larger scale. Capitalism requires unlimited economic growth. It cannot stand still. The capitalists' task is to expand their profits, capital, wealth. Corporations are machines for accumulation. It is as simple as that. 
Capitalism is also a system of periodic crises. Capitalism has a tendency to break down. The fact that production is organised not to satisfy human needs but to make profits for the capitalist class is the ultimate cause of the system's recurrent crises. The alternative is a real socialism in which workers replace production for profit with production to fulfill human needs and create a society with democratic control over workplaces and society as a whole. We need an ecological and social revolution.  We have all the technologies necessary to do this.  It is not primarily a technological problem because the goal here would no longer be the impossible one of expanding our exploitation of the earth beyond all physical and biological limits, ad infinitum.  Rather the goal would be to promote human community with the earth.

Few words can have suffered as much as "Socialism". There have been countless claims for having implemented Socialism. If Socialism as a word is to have any meaning, by its nature it must be a precise one. Contrary to a widespread, but wrong idea, socialism is not a transitional society preparatory to communism. Socialism for Marx is communism (including the two stages). Marx called post-capitalist society identically and indifferently, communism, socialism, republic of labor, cooperative society, union of free individuals, society of free and associated producers, or simply association - all equivalent terms for the same society.

The victorious outcome of the workers’ self-emancipatory revolution is the socialist society. A socialist revolution is according to Marx, the “dissolution of the old society” It is not the so-called `seizure of power' by the oppressed, least of all by a political party in the latter's name. There is also no political power, no state, and so no “workers’ state” in the new society. InMarx already wrote in the 1840s that the “proletariat can and must liberate itself  and that “the consciousness of a profound revolution, the communist consciousness, arises from this class (itself)” As Engels  summed up Marx's ideas: “For the final victory of the ideas laid down in the Manifesto Marx counted only and singularly (einzig und allein) on the intellectual development of the working class as it necessarily had to come out of the united action and discussion"

So what is Socialism? Simply stated the means of production would be held in common, with people giving voluntarily to that society whatever they were able and taking that they required satisfying their self-defined needs. The productive forces in such a society would be so developed to meet those needs, liberated from the restrictive necessity to accrue surplus value, profit. It is not enough to take productive property into state ownership, for this merely transfers property from private to public control. The essential relationship between that property and the actual producers, the workers, remains unaltered.

  A productive enterprise transforms raw materials into saleable commodities: trees into furniture, for instance. In simplistic terms, the raw material arrives at the entrance to a factory, undergoes various processes throughout the factory and emerges from the exit as a product ready for sale. The raw material remains inert unless subjected to labour which transforms it into the finished article. It is the labour that gives the item its value. The process is enacted not to produce any particular commodity, the final product is irrelevant. It is the realisation of the acquired value of the commodity through sale that is the objective and the consequent profit it entails. For the labour is bought at a rate less than the value it creates in the product so that the eventual sale brings a greater return than that paid for labour. This is surplus value, profit, the whole purpose of the enterprise. This surplus value accrues to the holders of the productive process, those with title to the "economic" property that is the social relation for making profit.

 In classical capitalism, the owners of the factory might be an individual, a family, a partnership or a group of shareholders. It is clear that in terms of the factory's raison d'etre it is irrelevant which of these are the legal owners. The twentieth century brought forms of ownership that apparently blur such a simple distinction. Transport the factory to the Soviet Union and the claim would be that the social relations had significantly altered. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat, having abolished private ownership in all its forms, had freed labour from its former exploitation, ie it being robbed of part of the value it created. However, it had done nothing of the sort. The State fulfilled the function of owner, buying labour and accruing the surplus value created. Essentially, the factory operates in precisely the same manner, the "economic" property is unaltered. What has changed is the "juridical" property, who has legal title to the factory. Even if the Soviet authorities used all the profit for the benefit of the workers, building hospitals, schools etc., the essential element, the accumulation of surplus value, remains central. How a capitalist spends profit is irrelevant, it is still capitalism according to the "economic" property no matter how the "juridical" property is altered. In this country, miners remained bought labour after nationalisation as much as before under private ownership. The same is true of co-operatives who must realise profit or go bankrupt. The legal ownership of things, factories, and machines etc. does not determine the operation of "economic" property. The only way a significant change can be made is to bring all "economic" property under the democratic control of society so it can be deployed to produce to meet needs and not profit. 

With the fall of the Soviet Union and the capitalist transformation of China and Vietnam, the lauded triumph of capitalism is a hollow victory in that it was bound to win in one form or other, private or state. Socialism cannot have been defeated or proved invalid as it has never been tried.

 Marx identified the working class as the liberators of society. In the latter part of the nineteenth century they were easily recognisable as factory workers. A century later the worker has become as diverse as the modes of work. However, they are still in that crucial relationship with the means of production, having to sell labour for less than its actual value. If this were not so, there could be no profit at all in the world. The suburban house-owner ith a mortgage or the rented council house tenant have that relationship in common no matter how different all other aspects of their lives might be. It is that common element that makes socialism a possibility.

Saving Us From Ourselves!

 In British Columbia the three capitalist parties that ran for the provincial power of the legislature have now traded hats – but not capitalism's: NO WAY! 

Smiling as Cheshire cats, the three brimming halfwits, Clark, Horgan, and Weaver, well know their bread is still getting buttered running capitalism BC style.

With gasping maneuverings from the Clark tribe openly stumping the NDP-Green election platform reforms right before they fell no one could easily tell one political capitalist stripe from the other. 

They could have made it easier for wage slaves to figure out and just announced they were running capitalism together in the interest of, well, capitalism (you dummies!), not workers. 

Now smile for the cameras and get back to work idle readers. These birds of a feather who flock together have a job to do: make profits from your labour! Thank goodness they are saving us from ourselves. 

Steve and John.

A Steady State Society

We in the SPGB are seeking a "steady-state economy" which corresponds to what Marx called "simple reproduction" - a situation where human needs were 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 stabilised 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 fewer resources; nor will there be the blind pressure to do so that is exerted under capitalism through the market. Of course, technical research would continue and this would no doubt result in costs being able to be saved, but there would be no external pressure to do so or even any need to apply all new productivity enhancing techniques

Since the needs of consumers are always needs for a specific product at a specific time in a specific locality, we will assume that socialist society would leave the initial assessment of likely needs to a delegate body under the control of the local community (although, other arrangements are possible if that were what the members of socialist society wanted). 

Capitalilsm's Priorities

Over the last 15 years scientists and scholars pursuing independent research in Canada have had their funding cut by 35 per cent. This fact was made public by Dr. David Naylor, former University of Toronto President, at a meeting in June of many of Canada's top scientists and researchers at the Toronto Convention

Center. 

These cuts have,''Robbed the future of innovations in science, health and technology.'' Yet the Federal Government have announced a massive increase in spending on armaments. So much for capitalism's priorities. 

Steve and John

Two Ways To Wreck The Environment

This writer has a buddy who has just returned home after 4 months in Peru. He said,''It rarely rains there but this time the rain was torrential. The rivers couldn't hold it; they burst their banks and 30 towns were destroyed.'' 

Dare I suggest it was another symptom of how capitalism is wrecking the environment it

its pell-mell rush for profits? 

Steve and John

Scotland's Inequality

We’re kidding ourselves if we think a just society is possible when a handful of people control the vast majority of the world’s income and wealth.

 In Scotland, income inequality is at its highest level in decades. Yet, at the same time, one in five people in Scotland live in poverty. If we’re going to bring that number down we need to address Scotland’s inequality problem. Currently, the richest 10 per cent of the Scottish population have more income than the bottom 40 per cent put together. Wealth inequality is even starker: the wealthiest 1 per cent own more than the bottom 50 per cent combined. (Oxfam)

Protest and Survive

Because of the crisis, people are actually questioning capitalism because they’re being forced to. Capitalist "truths" are being delegitimatised by experience on the ground. People are educating themselves but because of the nature of the economic crisis seen as a breakdown in Wall St they have become fixated on banking and finance capitalists. To paraphrase Marx; ’It is not enough that theory seeks people, people need to seek theory‘.  People need to use that education intelligently. If they do not become part of the solution, they may become part of the problem. So-called ‘experts’ offer solutions to the economic woes of capitalism. But many of the remedies and supposed cures are throw-backs to earlier populist movements during previous depressions.

Liberals and Leftists alike argue that the economic crisis was caused by a lack of state regulation over the banks and financial markets. Consequently, they conclude that we just need new regulation to keep the financial sector in line. There's a confusion about what a capitalist state is. A capitalist state responds to and sponsors and facilitates markets. The notion that it's there to restrain markets, to restrain capitalism, that if only it would do that it would remove the contradictions of capitalism is simply a topsy-turvy way of seeing the world. 

Protests against Wall Street have inspired many people to move their money from big banks to smaller banks and credit unions and encourage others to do the same. Many of the big banks wouldn't be too sad to see some of these customers go. One of the reasons that the banks are imposing or threatening to impose account fees is that they're not dependent upon the small client. They lose money on them and are happy to see them go. If the balances and transactions are small, then they're just not worth the bother. So it's not going to cause a lot of consternation.

“I'M JUST WILD ABOUT HARRY!” (weekly poem)

“I'M JUST WILD ABOUT HARRY!”

(Apologies to Noble Sissle & Eubie Blake, 1921)

June 17. In an interview, Prince Harry said the Royals don't really

want to rule but will do so for “the greater good of the people”!

A word in your ear, 'Arry Boy,

Before it gets too late;

Don't worry 'bout “the greater good”,

Just bleedin' abdicate!

And take the rest of all your clan,

The inbred Windsor mob;

Down to the local work exchange,

And get a proper job.

That old twerp, Charlie boy, could sweep,

The Slough to Windsor road ;

And bruvver Will could check each verge,

To see it's prop'ly mowed.

You ponce around in uniforms,

And look a proper tit;

Grow up and give us all a rest,

You'll soon get over it!

And 'Arry Boy, ‘Spare to the Heir’,

We've seen through your excuse;

Of photo calls with Africans, (1)

Pretending you're of use!

Two-Hundred million quid a year, (2)

Is just insanity;

For patronage to help the poor,

Raise cash for charity!

You must be joking, 'Arry Boy,

If you think we're that green;

To want your big-girls-blouse step-Dad, (3)

To rule just like a Queen!

The fact you're getting tired, old son,

Of the whole pantomime;

Shows even Royals think it's an,

Expensive waste of time.

If you find Royal life a bore,

Just get up off your arse;

And work upon the factory floor,

Just like the working class!

(1) Much has been made of Harry's 'work' for African charities.

(2) The Royals real cost including security estimated by Republic.

(3) Some believe Diana's lover, James Hewitt, to be Harry's father.

© Richard Layton

Thinking Chomsky

Noam Chomsky is a highly respected political commentator and activist over a number of decades. Chomsky has often often dubbed as the world's greatest living philosopher, a man who is steadfastly opposed to icons of any description, to human sheep following political shepherds. He even opposed the documentary about the book he co-wrote with Edward S. Herman (Manufacturing Consent) on the grounds that it personalised grand political issues. Noam Chomsky, one of the world’s most important intellectual figures in both the sciences and the humanities, and one of the ten most quoted writers of all time, ranking with Marx, the Bible, and Shakespeare, has admitted that his speeches are very boring. But, he says, that’s the way he likes it. It means that when people turn up to listen to him, and millions do, they’re doing so because they’re interested in the issues Chomsky is talking about, not in Chomsky himself as some kind of intellectual celebrity. Therefore it is always surprising to witness the degree of personal adulation bestowed on this man by many people. We do not underestimate the immeasurable contribution that Noam Chomsky has made, and is making, to radically change the world, but to treat him as a saviour is to misunderstand his arguments.  His popularity cannot be doubted. Books and lectures are bought and attended in the thousands and he has a strong influence amongst the left and anarchists. But mere anti-capitalism is not enough as it can encourage reformism. 

Chomsky's opposition to the wages-system is always clearly put: "I don't think that many people ought to be forced to rent themselves in order to survive", as he once put it. He's quoted at on point as saying, "capitalist relations of production, wage labor, competitiveness, the ideology of 'possessive individualism' - all must be regarded as fundamentally antihuman." Another time he said “Presupposing that there have to be states is like saying, what kind of feudal system should we have that would be the best one? What kind of slavery would be the best kind?"  Noam Chomsky puts it, “the effort to overcome ‘wage-slavery’ has been going on since the beginnings of the industrial revolution, [and] we haven’t advanced an inch. In fact, we’re worse off than we were a hundred years ago in terms of understanding the issues.” Chomsky is right, and it’s the reason we in the Socialist Party devote so much of our time and energy to promoting an understanding of the issues. We seem, in fact, to be the only political organisation in this country to take this task at all seriously.

Chomsky has argued that the problem of human rights abuse was just a necessary consequence of having a system run by bankers, not by philanthropists or moral philosophers, yet the reformers want him to approve of huge human efforts to plead with governments to act more kindly. Chomsky seems to treat legal interference with capitalism as an unreliable solution to the problems of human rights violations. Chomsky patiently explains there was no convincing evidence that governments could be persuaded by moralists to run capitalism in accordance with anything but the principles of accounting. Many people on the Left have an unwarranted optimistic view of what can be achieved by using the law to tame and control commerce. History has shown them to be nothing but disposable guarantees whenever they prove an inconvenience to the ruling class. Chomsky's analysis of capitalist society broadly hits the mark and socialists could find little to disagree with generally. However, the leftist and anarchist supporters who look to Chomsky for inspiration miss the wider point. While Chomsky blames capitalism for poverty, human rights abuse, limited democracy and so on, his adherents support fruitless reformist campaigns banging the capitalist table with a begging bowl, waiting for some new "right" like a dog barking for a crumb from his master's plate. To blame Chomsky for his supporters may seem a touch harsh, especially as he has consistently spoken out against the following of leaders. many who read or hear Chomsky will arrive at something close to anti-capitalist conclusions but without the aim of abolishing capitalism itself, this means relatively little. If Chomsky can be accused of a fault it is he does little to redress this.  He does not oppose reformism as such and so, unfortunately, his analysis serves to assist futile reformism, however much this may not be his aim. While Chomsky's anti-leadership, anti-capitalism stance is sincere it runs counter to the adoring leftists who persist in quoting his analysis while campaigning for minimal gains and not for the abolition of the system which creates the need for such demands that seek to address problems which capitalism inevitably cannot solve.

According to Noam Chomsky, writing in On Power and Ideology and referring to the US as a 'capitalist democracy', true capitalism isn't possible, state intervention being a necessary component for several reasons: to regulate markets, to support business interests and to employ its means of violence in the international arena on behalf of  business. Many would agree with this assertion and with his comment that democracy is a commodity – you can have as much of it as you can afford. It is probably pertinent to add to Chomsky's statement that true democracy also is not possible in capitalism because the system (and the market) is manipulated by the capitalists to fit their agenda by use of media, advertising, and lobbying. The incompatibility of capitalism and democracy, which follow opposing principles, render democratic capitalism an oxymoron.  Chomsky has said, 'Propaganda is as necessary to bourgeois democracy as repression is to the totalitarian state.' The purpose of both to keep control.

He is scathing of the so-called libertarians. “If you care about other people, you might try to organize to undermine power and authority. That’s not going to happen if you care only about yourself. Maybe you can become rich, but you don’t care whether other people’s kids can go to school, or can afford food to eat, or things like that. In the United States, that’s called “libertarian” for some wild reason. I mean, it’s actually highly authoritarian, but that doctrine is extremely important for power systems as a way of atomizing and undermining the public.” http://www.alternet.org/economy/chomsky-business-elites-are-waging-brutal-class-war-america-0?paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

Socialists aren't the only people pointing out that it is useless pleading with governments to end the problems which are endemic to capitalism. Noam Chomsky reiterates this. Chomsky’s conception of socialism is not quite the same as ours. He is against the idea of providing a detailed plan of a future society, preferring to rely on general principles. He favours making changes piecemeal since we cannot know the effects of large social changes; and if one change works out well, make further changes. But he does not explain how a major change to abolish the wages system could be carried out piecemeal.  Many anarchists also disagree with him when he advocates defending and strengthening some aspects of state authority. His stance is that only the (US) federal government can protect people from the tyranny of corporations. Chomsky has also often expressed his support for 'left wing' governments such as Lula and Chavez. He gives the example of environmental regulations but admits that these have only a limited effect. Chomsky points out that in capitalism "politics takes place in the shadow cast by big business". His objective is to get out of that shadow. “Once democracy has been enlarged far enough for citizens to control the means of production and trade, and they take part in the overall running and management of the environment in which they live, then the state will gradually be able to disappear. It will be replaced by voluntary associations at our place of work and where we live.”

The main criticism to level at Chomsky, although he would not see it as a criticism at all, is that he is insufficiently Marxian. He understands, as he puts it in the book, that many of the crimes he documents are “rooted in deeper features of prevailing socioeconomic and political systems”. But he is unconvinced of the power of Marxist theory.  It means that Chomsky is able to applaud efforts to democratise capitalist commodity production, without having anything much to say about whether it might be necessary to go beyond this if humanity is ever to achieve a truly free society.

 Capitalism subverts human need to profit and this is at the heart of the problems Chomsky so ably denounces. No amount of tinkering within capitalism can change this essential characteristic. Two centuries of hope has produced nothing but more capitalist misery and failed reformist efforts. Only organisation for socialism will do. The working class must organise not to reform capitalism but to abolish it and establish a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of productive wealth. A society of free access and real democracy and an end to classes, states, governments, frontiers, leaders, and coercion. A world without vested "interests" and freed from the constraints of profit.

The last word should be left to Chomsky:
“There are no set anarchist principles, no libertarian creed to which we must all swear allegiance. Anarchism - at least as I understand it - is a movement that tries to identify organisations exerting authority and domination, to ask them to justify their actions and if they are unable to do so, as often happens, to try to supersede them. Far from collapsing, anarchism and libertarian thought are flourishing. They have given rise to real progress in many fields. Forms of oppression and injustice that were once barely recognised, less still disputed, are no longer allowed. That in itself is a success, a step forward for all humankind, certainly not a failure.”

Machines and Threats

Nearly half of Canada's workforce could be unemployed in a few years if there is any credence to a report just issued by the Toronto think tank, McKinsey and Co. This doesn't seem quite so far-fetched when one considers that in recent years both the manufacturing and natural resources industries have eliminated hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Off-shoring, automation and the recession caused this, while the commodities slump didn't help either. The report stressed that other industries threatened by automation include accommodation, food services, transportation, warehousing, and agriculture. To put it not too scientifically, '' 

Why should a capitalist pay a person money to do a job if he can get a machine to do it?" 

Steve and John.