An Ownerless World

 

We live in a society in which almost everything we need is owned by someone else. It is their property. We must buy it from them. we are taught from a very age certain basic concepts: theirs; ours; yours; mine; "Don't touch, it doesn't belong to you.", “private property, do not trespass.” 

We learn early about ownership. It is time for common property. Or. as a logical consequence, no property. A propertyless society: common ownership — no ownership.

A society of free access to whatever people need is readily achievable by replacing today’s capitalism with a new system where we all collectively and directly own and democratically control the means of production and distribution (i.e., farmland, factories, raw materials, power stations, water supply, roads, railways etc). 

The case for a class-free society, in which production is geared to satisfying human needs, and in which production for sale and the market economy are abolished, is underlined by the fact that modern industry and technology have now been developed to the stage where they could provide an abundance of consumer goods and services for all the people of the world. The problem of production — of how to produce enough for everybody — has been solved. 

If we all directly own and control these assets – rather than them being owned by private individuals and, or, the state – then we will also collectively own all that they provide, resulting in free access to all goods and services. People don’t have to buy what’s jointly theirs already.

Nothing will have a monetary cost with real socialism. In fact, money, having no function at all, will be redundant. People will still work, but the purpose will then be for meeting society’s needs – not making profits for, and rewarding, a tiny minority class who have taken possession of the vital resources and machinery that make life possible.

A society of abundance is not an extension of today’s so-called “consumer society” with its enormous waste of resources. It does not mean people will come to acquire more and more useless and wasteful gadgets. It simply means that people’s material needs, both as individuals and as a community, will be fully satisfied in a rational way.

Contrary to what is popular wisdom and carefully cultivated by the defenders of capitalism, people are not inherently greedy; human needs are not limitless. From a material point of view, human beings need a certain amount and variety of food, clothing and shelter; what this is in individual cases can soon be discovered by the individual self — and would be if there were free access to consumer goods and services.

But, it may be objected, with free access wouldn’t people take more than they needed? But why should they if they can be certain (as they would be given the productive power of modern industry and the common ownership of the means of production) that there would always be enough to go around? When all goods and services are freely available people can be expected to take only as much food, clothing etc. as they feel they need. To take any more would be abnormal and pointless.

Modern industry really can supply enough for everybody to have free access to consumer goods and services.  Capitalism wastes resources.

First, there are the armed forces and armament manufacturing.

Second, there are all the people, buildings and equipment involved with the market and money economy generally: banking, insurance, government pension and tax departments, salesmen, ticket collectors, accountants, cashiers etc. Indeed, it might e said that under capitalism well over half the population are engaged in such unproductive activities.

Third, there is planned obsolescence, the deliberate manufacture of shoddy goods made to break down or wear out after a comparatively short period of time. In a rationally organised society, consumer goods could be made to last; this would mean an immense saving of resources.

With the elimination of these three sources of waste that are inherent in capitalism, enough to adequately feed and house everybody could easily be produced.

Workers' Song (music)

 

A world of free access

 

The ability of the world has long since reached the point which would allow mankind to go over, in a very short time, to free distribution of the things needed to live and to enjoy life. Socialists are suggesting a world community where wealth is produced by voluntary labour and is available to all free of charge. Socialism will be a society of free access to what has been produced. There will be no money. To many, this suggestion seems fantastic.

It would be wrong to claim that socialism offers the solution to all our problems. However, enormous resources will be freed up when we rid ourselves of the waste inherent in capitalism. A new socialist society will face urgent daunting tasks to remedy the mess capitalism had bequeathed. Socialists do not assume that socialism will solve all problems at once, especially its ability in the crucial early stages. There is a need to be practical and realistic. 

 It’s doubtful that there could ever be free access to everything for everybody.   Not everyone's whim will be accommodated. Socialist communities will have to decide, through their democratic bodies and procedures, what free access will and will not cover, and how to distribute things to which free access cannot be provided. Socialists sometimes discuss free access as being possible by the technological capacity to produce material abundance but this can create an impression of socialism as being some kind of cornucopian consumer paradise. This is not so and there is a need to distance ourselves from such unfortunate connotations that "free access" conjures up over-consumption.

 "Free access" simply means an absence of any kind of quid pro quo exchange relationship that underlies access to goods and services in capitalism. While one's access to goods and services in socialism will not be linked to one's productive input this does not mean a severing of consumption and production. In socialism, of necessity, we will recognise far more clearly that we mutually depend upon each other and that we all benefit by ensuring the needs of our fellows are met. Such empathetic understanding will promote a kind of virtuous circle of sustainable development.mIn practical terms that might well mean ceasing or curtailing the production of certain kinds of goods in order to ensure the increased output of higher-priority goods.

Indeed, a socially agreed hierarchy of production goals will be a very important influence on the allocation of relatively scarce resources. A self-regulating system of stock control will reveal the availability of different factor inputs and enable decision-makers to identify those inputs which most constrain or limit the output of any given good. If the supply of a particular input is scarce in relation to the different demands placed upon it, it makes sense to be able to sort these different demands into some sort of order in which they ought to be met. This is precisely where a socially agreed hierarchy of production goals will come into play with priority in resource allocation being given to important goals such as meeting basic human needs (like providing adequate nutrition and housing) possibly at the expense of other less important goals such as the production of certain luxury goods. The less important such goals are the more likely are they to be starved of the necessary resources for their manufacture.

The point is not that we can explain in detail now just how the demand for every item will be realised in socialism. Rather, we can just set out some general principles about how free access would function and suggest that the human nature objections to it are based on a very narrow view of how human beings behave under capitalism. The combination of socialist consciousness and good old common sense will ensure that people will take what they need rather than all that is available or all they can carry. There will be no price labels, and no check-out cashiers because you won’t have to pay for anything. A society of free access will mean what it says. People will select their weekly shopping needs and take home what they’ve chosen, without anyone asking them to pay for it.

The point is not that we can explain in detail now just how the demand for every item will be realised in socialism. Rather, we can just set out some general principles about how free access would function and suggest that the human nature objections to it are based on a very narrow view of how human beings behave under capitalism. The combination of socialist consciousness and common sense will ensure that people will take what they need.

This is oor land (song)

 

Hail the Socialist Commonwealth of the World.

 "I feel only contempt for those who can take pleasure marching in rank and file to the strains of a band. Surely, such men were given their great brain by mistake; the spinal cord would have amply sufficed. This shameful stain on civilization should be wiped out as soon as possible. Heroism on command, senseless violence and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism—how passionately I despise them!"  Albert Einstein 

People are searching for answers. Our role is to provide them. The problem with being a socialist is that we view the world differently. Once one becomes a socialist it is as if a light comes on and that viewpoint or understanding colours everything we look at. And, too often, we are alone. Simply, there are too few of us right now and we have to build the movement, and make it vibrant so that we can at least have a community of like-minded people around us to share views, meet, and communicate our ideas. It is essential that more people are brought into the movement. 

In the society envisaged by non-market socialists, the people of the world would own the global means of production in common and would operate them communally for the benefit of humankind as a whole. Socialism in one country, or even one part of the world, is impossible. Since capitalism, today is a global society which encompasses all parts of the world, the socialist alternative to capitalism must be equally global in its scope. Socialism is as relevant to the plight of those who are starving in Africa and other parts of the world as it is to the inhabitants of London or Paris. It is true that non-market socialists have generally seen the wage workers of those advanced, industrialised areas of the world which act as the power-houses of international capitalism (Europe, North America and Japan) as the force which is likely to initiate the revolutionary change from world capitalism to world socialism.

Yet the establishment of non-market socialism can not be accomplished without the active cooperation of the majority of the population in those parts of the world that capitalism has consigned to underdevelopment. In contrast to the hopelessness and destitution which afflict the majority of the people in backward countries under world capitalism, the prospect of dignity and sufficiency which world socialism would open up for them would be overwhelmingly attractive. It is also worth mentioning that several of the non-market socialist principles closely resemble the principles of social cooperation found among hunter-gatherers and other supposedly 'backward' people. People in their social position would take much less convincing of the desirability of non-market socialism than would many of those in 'advanced' countries who are currently steeped in the values and assumptions that capitalism encourages. Socialism would be a global solution to the global problems which have accompanied the rise of world capitalism.

Democracy will have real meaning in a society where the production of goods and services is for human needs, with ownership and control of the means of production and distribution by all the people. Since the division into rich and poor will have been abolished, it will be a classless society. The precise day-to-day details of the running of this future society will be up to the people at the time, but what we can be sure of is that just as there will be free access to goods and services for everyone, without any need for money, so there will be open access to the administration of society for those interested in particular issues, such as food production, health, education, the building of houses, the environment and local matters.

Probably, there will be local administrations, perhaps in the form of councils, which will be reflected at wider levels, such as regional and global. The new democratic society will most likely involve the participation of delegates in these councils. The consequence of this is that certain delegates could be subject to recall if the electorate were dissatisfied with their activities. These factors would emphasise the genuine democracy and choice available to everyone. Humanity liberated from wage-slavery, will, at last, be free.  Society then will be one in which oppression, class-rule, and all the anomalies of the present order will have disappeared. The impetus this will give (through the reorganisation by a revolutionary class on a sane economic basis and the consequent liberation of that class) to the devotion of society to things of real worth will be tremendous. The fullest opportunity to gain and keep the health of mind and body; the development of each individual citizen's finest abilities and innate qualities will be accorded every facility; and culture and all that makes life worth living from youth to old age will, with socialism alone be the birthright of all.

"A Man's a Man For a' That" (music)

 Len Wallace of the Socialist Party of Canada and the Industrial Workers of the World performs his rendition of Robert Burns's classic call for equality

It’s Time to Move On

 

 ‘It is time for mankind to ensure itself of material abundance by establishing a free, self-managed world society of productive labour, thereby freeing its mental powers for perfecting its knowledge of nature and the universe’ Anton Pannekoek, A History of Astronomy, 1951.

We live in a world which has the potential to adequately feed, house and provide clean water and decent medical care for every single man, woman and child on Earth. The resources exist to banish material want as a problem for members of the human race. Yet millions throughout the world are malnourished, live in squalor or are actually dying of starvation or starvation-related diseases. The things that are desperately needed — food, clean water, housing, sanitation, transport, medical services and so on — can only be provided by useful labour, of which there is an abundance throughout the world. Useful production must be freed from the constraints of profit and class interests. Only useful labour applied through world cooperation in a system of common ownership can solve the problems of world poverty. World socialism could stop the dying from hunger immediately, and provide the conditions for good health and material security for all people across the Earth within a short time. World socialism will operate with one simple and ordinary human ability which is universal — the ability of every individual to cooperate with others in a world-wide community of interests.

Many people still believe that hunger is caused today by over-population and that if there were fewer people in the world, then, and only then, could they be adequately fed. This is not so. In the first place, the resources and technology exist now to feed the world’s population many times over. Second, even if the population did decrease substantially, there would still be a hunger problem, since hunger like homelessness is essentially an economic problem, a poverty problem.

The only genuine opposition movement in the world to capitalist war was and is today the revolutionary organisation of the Socialist Party. Nationality is a development of capitalism. Militarism and war are inseparable from capitalism and can only be understood against the background of commercial rivalry. Socialism will have no State apparatus, no frontiers and no military machine. The understanding and unity of the world’s working class must come before a socialist transformation of society is possible. 

Nationalism is the perversion of believing in a shared identity in the interest of some local elite. To move forward the dispossessed majority across the world must now look beyond the artificial barriers of nation-states and regional blocs, to perceive a common identity and purpose. Dividing up society into more and more pieces, more separate entities create more divisions, more fears and suspicions and when the globe is totally criss-crossed with walls and fences we shall become so paranoid, afraid and suspicious of each other that we finally close our minds? The frontierless world begins with frontierless minds. The challenge is to dismantle the barriers that shackle and dehumanise us. A mind without boundaries can value the vision in which all have a home.

The Socialist Party repudiates the myth that humans are inherently anti-social and non-cooperative, and states emphatically that human nature is no barrier to a sane socialist society.

Socialism is not a fantasy world any more than any other untried idea is a fantasy. Socialists cannot draw up detailed blueprints for a society which will have to be democratically organised by the men and women who establish it. However, we can—and do—examine the possibilities which a socialist world will allow humanity to bring about and we are certain that a society where production is for need will be far better than one where production is for profit.

 ‘ All men are brethren. We denounce all political and hereditary inequalities and distinctions of castes… We believe the earth, with all its natural productions, to be the common property of all… We believe that the present state of society, which permits its idlers and schemers to monopolise the fruits of the earth and, the production of industry, and compels the working class to labour for inadequate rewards, and even condemns them to social slavery, destitution, and degradation, to be essentially unjust… We condemn national hatreds which have hitherto divided mankind… Convinced that national prejudices have been, at all ages, taken advantage of by the people’s oppressors to set them tearing the throats of each other when they should have been working together for their common good, this society repudiates the term ‘foreigner.’ We recognise our fellow-men, without regard to country, as members of one family, the human race, and citizens of one commonwealth, the world’ (Manifesto of the Fraternal Democrats, 1845).

No Gods and Precious Few Heroes (music)

 

Change the World for Ourselves

 

To the other political parties, we offer the ideal of the universal harmony between peoples. Others may have paid lip service to this ideal. The Worlds Socialist Movement has acted upon it. Socialism will be a world society, one without states or frontiers.  Our message is equally addressed to all our fellow workers iaround the world.Socialism is the only solution to the problems of wage and salary earners in the country you come from, problems which are basically the same—unemployment, struggles to keep wages up with prices, bad housing, schools and hospitals, racism, insecurity and so on — precisely because they have a common cause — the capitalist system of class monopoly of the means of existence and consequently production for profit.

Capitalism is international. Economically, it operates as a single system dominating the whole world, but, politically, it is divided into a hundred or so artificial “nation-states”. Each of these states seeks to ensure the loyalty of its subjects by inculcating into them, from the cradle to the grave, the idea that they are members of a “nation” with a common interest against those of other “nations”. Socialists reject this mistaken and dangerous idea, regarding themselves not as British, Irish, French, American or whatever but as members of the human race, as citizens of the world. The working class has in reality only one enemy: the capitalist system.

The real division in the world is not between people of supposedly different “nationalities” but between two social classes both of which are international: a class of capitalists who own and control all that is in and on the Earth and a class of people who, excluded from such ownership and control, are obliged to work for an employer in order to live. Wage earners everywhere, whatever their language, passport, skin colour, have a common interest. Socialism will see the abolition of frontiers and the dismantling of the various armed states into which the world is now divided. As classes will have been abolished, people really will become citizens of a united world.

There is a common misconception of the workers becoming socialist in one part of the capitalist world but not in other parts. Those who have become socialists are everywhere a small minority, and everywhere at present the socialist idea spreads only slowly. Experience everywhere supports the view that the progress of the socialist movement will be much the same everywhere because broadly the workers’ experience of capitalism is everywhere similar. Also the movement in one country influences growth in other countries. The tempo will at some stage increase but again there is no evidence of any kind to suggest that it will quicken in Britain and hang back in U.S.A. and Russia or vice versa. On the contrary the only expectation is that the growth of the socialist movement everywhere will be accompanied by increasingly effective common international action by the socialist movement. The international socialist movement will be strong everywhere before the possibility of socialism arises, and if the election at which socialists take governmental control out of the hands of the capitalists in one country slightly precedes the elections at which the workers elsewhere do the same, the situation will present no problem of any moment The capitalists everywhere will be at the end of their rule, and will know that they are at the end of their rule, in face of the world socialists acting as one united movement.

 Capitalism being an international system spanning the world with a network of interlinked production units, ‘socialism in one country’ is not possible. So, we are talking about a world-wide socialist revolution with the same process taking place in country after country over a relatively short period of time, rather like, for instance, the overthrow of the state-capitalist regimes in East Europe in the 1990s or the so-called Arab Spring. This is not an unreasonable supposition as, already, economic and social conditions are basically the same in whatever geographical or political areas capitalism dominates. Nor is it unreasonable to suppose that, when the socialist idea catches on, it will spread in all countries. It is the opposite supposition that is unreasonable: that this will be confined to one country or that one country would be way ahead of all the others. This is not how ideas spread today. Everywhere they face the same problems that result from this, problems which can only be lastingly solved within the framework of a borderless world society based on the Earth’s natural and industrial resources having become the common heritage of all humanity.

They Have The Plant, But We Have The Power (music video)