Power to the Workers?

Words take on less meaning every new day. Historically, the demand for workers’ control was a socialist demand because it was seen as a way of rationalising the production process, allowing the development of workers’ creative capacities, and creating the means for realising the socialist ideal of equality in power and wealth. Genuine worker self-management is only possible in a socialist society. Worker self-management models adopted by many co-operatives are a local and defensive tactic. These coops exist and are part of a capitalist economy that they do not control. Consequently, the workers’ self-directed activity remains fundamentally constrained by capitalist competition and the market. There have been many examples of workers’ cooperatives that went wrong, there have even been some that have ‘succeeded’ – in capitalist terms that is! All that they have succeeded in, however, has been to transform themselves into profitable capitalist enterprises, operating in the same way as other capitalist firms. There is no way in which they can pose any solutions for the working class as a whole.

It is important to realise that what happens in each self-managed enterprise is directly and closely interdependent with what happens in other economic units. To restrict self-management to single industry, let alone individual factories is to reduce it to a mere façade. We contend that it is misleading to say that it’s enough to give workers decision-making power at the level of the factory to create a real industrial democracy. What is the point of giving workers the power to make decisions when this turns out to be a mere sham and when the decisions taken at factory level are continuously overturned by the operation of market laws. The only solution is to democratically regulate industry at a social level. The more power given communities as a whole the less opportunity for sectional in-fighting and the internecine struggles of different groups of workers. From the outset factories do not have the same productivity so, if they compete with each there will be conflicts of interest. Certain decisions are inevitably taken at higher levels than the work-place, and if these decisions are not consciously made by society as a whole, then they will be made by other forces in society behind the workers’ backs. Whether it’s in terms of tools, machinery, equipment and even local situation was a matter of luck or of social factors, there is no possible justification for those who are fortunate enough to work in above-average factories to enjoy an economic advantage over those who are employed in below-average factories.

We do not support centralisation nor believe that centralisation implies the necessity of a new division of labour within the working class between a small group of managers, professional administrators and bureaucrats on the one hand, and the majority of the workers on the other, incapable of centralising its own management in a democratic way. We support delegated self-management organised around interconnected workers’ councils as broadly-based as possible to involve the maximum number in the exercise of power. It is because it is only in a complex structure where self-management takes place at all levels of economic and social life that it is possible to involve the maximum number of workers at different levels of decision-making. We have a very simple formula to apply in this context: decisions must be taken at the level where this can be done most effectively. It is unnecessary to call a general congress of workers’ councils to work out a bus timetable for London; Londoners are quite capable of working that out for themselves without the interference of any bureaucratic institutions. There’s no need to organise a general congress of workers’ councils to organise the production process in a work-place: the workers in that factory or even department are quite capable of sorting that out on their own. On the other hand, when it comes to making decisions industry-wide on production targets, or how to end industrial pollution then a general congress of workers’ councils is necessary, since this sort of decision can only be taken at a regional or world-wide level. In economic matters each decision must ideally be taken at the level at which it can be most effectively and efficiently implemented.

In our debates we have found many are wedded to the idea that a socialist economy would be a centrally planned economy - that is, one in which there would be one single society wide plan covering to the totality of inputs and outputs for the entire economy and specifying in advance the quantitative targets for each and every single conceivable good that would be produced. There are several different arguments they make against this proposal but the most important of which is the informational complexity argument, chiefly associated with FA Hayek. Hayek's argument is that the dispersed nature of knowledge in society necessitates a self-regulating market. Trying to concentrate this vast amount of information within the rigid framework of a single giant plan is totally unrealistic. Moreover, we are talking about millions upon millions of different kinds of goods, from 3-inch screws to stainless steel tumble-dryers. Trying to reach a decision about how much each of these goods ought to be produced is daunting enough in itself; trying to reach that decision democratically would be infinitely more difficult. How on earth is the global community going to decide on the global output target for, say, 3-inch screws? The whole idea is a preposterous.

So Hayek and his ilk are correct in that respect and they are also correct in deducing that if you are going to have centrally planned economy in this classic sense it almost lends itself to a form of governance that might be called a technocracy - rule by a tiny technocratic elite.  The logistics of decision making under this hypothetical arrangement virtually guarantees such a form of governance. The socialist response to such arguments present by these critics is to say this is a complete straw-man argument. Socialism will not and cannot be, a centrally planned economy but, on the contrary, will be a mainly decentralised economy  Indeed, most of the decisions that will be made in a communist system will not even need to be subjected to democratic control at all but will simply be part and parcel of an automatic self-regulating system of stock control.

For example Production Unit X123 receives an order for 200 cans of baked beans from Distribution Centre Y445.  You don't needs a democratic debate on whether to meet that order; you just do it!  Because a communist society is about meeting needs which needs are expressed as an order for 200 cans of baked beans in this case. This kind of response, of course, always floors our anarcho-capitalists since they imagine in their folly that they cornered the market in the idea of a "self-regulating system of production".  The market is such a system but there is another much more effective version of that which dispenses with the market altogether: real socialism.

So what place has democracy in this mainly decentralised communist scheme of things?  The need for democracy arises where there is a potential conflict of interests and this has somehow to be resolved.  This can happen at different levels of spatial organisation - local regional and national.  It would not make much sense, for example, for the global community to debate on whether my local community should go ahead and construct a childrens’ nursery but it would make sense for the global community to talk about action to counter global warming for example. The level of decision making should be appropriate to the kind of decision that needs to be made and vice versa. This is why self-management is impossible without real socialist industrial democracy with workers making real decisions with unfettered access to real information. If the wage system is to be abolished, decisions on allocation of resources has to be established. The people themselves have to disentangle the complexity and this can be done by means of democratic decisions, from the level of the enterprise up to the highest levels of administration.

Post-Script

The aim of nationalisation is to remove the ownership of the country’s principal means of production (banks, industries, commerce) from the hands of big capitalists and transfer them to the whole ‘nation’. This transfer of ownership is carried out by the State, which is supposed to represent the interests of the national community. The State is the expression of the collective interests of the dominant class in a particular society, and takes the form of an articulated series of institutions. Therefore, to bring something under state ownership does not mean to ‘nationalise’ it (‘nationalisation’ in the sense of ‘socialisation’, where ownership is transferred to the ‘nation’, the whole society). To bring something under state ownership, simply by having the workers get their wages from the state rather than from private bosses, is not sufficient to transform social relations in a socialist sense. The most widespread image of a so-called ‘socialist’ regime is one of the planned economy under state ownership, directed by “the Party”. This means the virtual fusion of State and the Party, with the unions reduced to the role of a transmission belt for State requirements aimed at the working people. Since the State is defined as “socialist” and the Party described as “revolutionary” the conclusion is that these institutions are the same thing as the power of the working people. Of course, this was never the conception of Marx. Nationalisation is not socialism. It is socialisation what is needed. Who runs the economy? With nationalisation it is the state and its officials. In such circumstances the position of workers haven't changed. Instead of one capitalist, who is a private owner, workers get another one, who is by Engels called "ideal capitalist". Marx knew the difference between the private character of appropriation and private character of ownership. Private character of appropriation is possible also without private ownership. Marx found the root of exploitation in the fact that those who create surplus value are not its controllers. In the liberal capitalism capitalists were controllers. In state capitalism the controllers were the state and we do not have situation that the controllers of surplus value are those who make it. Socialism is not possible in society where workers create but don't decide about products of their labour.

Come rally, comrades…

Since Marx first called for a society "from each according to ability, to each according to need" this vision has been a driving force in history. But it has also raised the problem: how do we win, how do we build a revolutionary movement capable of creating socialism? Despite the many setbacks, we remain convinced the working class will understand its revolutionary potential. Socialism is closer today than we recognise. If there is a single word to characterise our time, that word is change.

Everyone knows the economy is undergoing a profound change. This change is fundamental and irreversible; it is so great it is causing great change in every aspect of life. The content of the change in the economy is the replacement of human labour by new and ever expanding automated technologies, the core of which is computer-controlled robotics. Every employer understands that the surest way to increase profits is to have the worker produce more for the same amount of wages. Huge sections of the population are locked into “McJobs” or permanent joblessness. The new poor includes the throw-away workers — temporary staff with no benefits, the part-time workers on zero hour contracts.

In the history of this planet such fundamental changes in the economy have always forced revolutionary changes in the social system.  Economic revolution has always precipitated political revolution. Social reorganization becomes inevitable because basic necessities of life must be paid for with money. We make money by going to work. If the robots do the work, then how will we get the food, housing and clothing we need? If there is going to be production without wages, then there must be distribution without money! We must guarantee that the change result in a better life for the people. We must guarantee the new technological revolution reach the potential for common good through common ownership. Can we who understand today visualise tomorrow with enough clarity to accept the historic responsibilities of revolutionaries?

Under capitalism, the capitalists own the means of production. Workers are forced to sell their labour power and the capitalist exploits them. In socialism, the means of production are owned by the working class. The technology exist to produce all that we need. For the first time in history, a true flowering of the human intellect and spirit is possible. The Socialist Party fight is to reorganise society. Our vision is of a new, cooperative society of equality, and of a people awakening. Important in understanding socialism is understanding what it is not. Distortion upon lie upon distortion have been piled so high that genuine socialism is now buried underneath a pile of deceit. There are now so many people with diametrically oppose socialist ideas who nevertheless claim to be socialists that the term has become almost meaningless. Socialism is not a movement of reformist social legislation while the workers play either a passive or merely supportive role. The real socialist tradition rejects the identification of socialism with the actions of small minorities in which a few hundred or even several thousand armed insurrectionists liberate the masses on their behalf.

Socialism rejects the establishment of one-party state bureaucracies, or the gradualist approach that asks the working class to put its faith in well-meaning politicians. Ordinary people must themselves organise, creating their own institutions of struggle and of administration. The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the workers themselves is a principle which means our class needs independent organisations it controls in order to secure its liberation. Self-emancipation requires that the working class gain power in society. A self-managing society needs a structure through which the people make and enforce the basic rules of the society and defend their social order.

Green capitalism is still capitalism

Today, many Greens promote community-centred economics based upon small businesses, municipal-owned enterprises and cooperatives. Such a small business-based market economy would supposedly permit us to avoid the problems of corporate capitalism and bureaucratic state-ownership. They accept the idea of private property and competition for profit are natural where small businesses must serve the public, because they can never be powerful enough to manipulate the public or control the government. This is all an idealistic fantasy of a make-believe capitalism. There is nothing "natural" or ecological about private property, capitalist competition, or the profit motive. These are part and parcel of class society.

Greens insist that many small mom and pop businesses and small farmers are kindly and benevolent. Perhaps so. But to be sustainable, every single small capitalist would have to be a saint, would have to give away his profits to his competitors and to the community if he started winning too much at their expense. That is impossible. And if we talk about workers' cooperatives, or the various utopian schemes put forward by the populists for broad employee-and-community-shared stock ownership, the same problem applies. With competition for profit, most such cooperatives will eventually go under, while a few will survive. Competition always intensifies, because the rate of profit tends to fall. Capitalists, big or small, cooperative or corporate, compete with each other on the market, and they do so by cutting their prices. The best way to do this is to replace their workers with machines. This works out for the first capitalist who gets the new technology: he can undercut his competitors. But then his surviving competitors get the same technology. Since profit is based upon human labour, profits, in general, fall, as they get squeezed between falling prices and higher technological costs. As profits fall, competition for profits intensifies. As competition intensifies, there will be a strong temptation for relations even within cooperatives to become hierarchical, for a few "elite" members to drive the rest to work harder, so that the cooperative can compete better, externally. In the case of both small businesses and cooperatives, as they compete with other concerns for survival, their decisions will be based upon profit and survival rather than upon what is good, in the long term, for the environment, the larger community, or even for their own workers and their smaller shareholders. The more powerful and larger businesses will use their superior wealth and power over the economy to ensure that their candidates will win, so as to distort the electoral process, the law, and the state to favor their own interests.

No matter the starting point, competition will always lead to the corporate capitalism abhorred by the Greens. The only alternative to capitalism is community based, democratic socialism, a theory of sharing and living in common dates back to prehistoric times, even being mentioned in the Christian New Testament as a way in which some of the early Christian communities ordered their lives. When masses of people who own the means of production work toward a common goal and share their products in common, when they contribute labour without wages and enjoy the fruits free of charge, it's not unreasonable to call that socialism because technically it is the best word to indicate a range of technologies that rely for their power on social interactions. Broadly, collective action or "dot-communism" is what Web sites and Net-connected apps generate when they harness input from the global audience. The online masses have an incredible willingness to share. The number of personal photos posted on Facebook and Flickr is astronomical. Add to this the millions of videos served by YouTube each month in the US alone and the millions of fan-created stories deposited on fan sites. The list of sharing organizations is almost endless. Not only that but they have tagged them with categories, labels, and keywords. The popularity of Creative Commons licensing means that communally, if not outright communistically, your picture is my picture. Sites like Reddit and Twitter let users steer public conversation as much as newspapers or TV networks.

Organised collaboration can produce results beyond the achievements of ad hoc cooperation. Just look at any of hundreds of open source software projects, such as the Apache Web server. In these endeavors, finely tuned communal tools generate high-quality products from the coordinated work of thousands or tens of thousands of members. In contrast to casual cooperation, collaboration on large, complex projects tends to bring the participants only indirect benefits, since each member of the group interacts with only a small part of the end product. An enthusiast may spend months writing code for a subroutine when the program's full utility is several years away. In fact, the work-reward ratio is so out of kilter from a free-market perspective—the workers do immense amounts of high-market-value work without being paid—that these collaborative efforts make no sense within capitalism. We've become accustomed to enjoying the products of these collaborations free of charge. Instead of money, the peer producers who create the stuff gain credit, status, reputation, enjoyment, satisfaction, and experience. Not only is the product free, it can be copied freely and used as the basis for new products. Alternative schemes for managing intellectual property, including Creative Commons and the GNU licenses, were invented to ensure these "frees." The tools of online collaboration support a communal style of production such as Linux that shuns capitalistic investors and keeps ownership in the hands of the workers, and to some extent those of the consuming masses.

While cooperation can write an encyclopedia like Wikipedia, no one is held responsible if the community fails to reach consensus, and lack of agreement doesn't endanger the enterprise as a whole. The aim of a collective, however, is to engineer a system where self-directed peers take responsibility for critical processes and where difficult decisions, such as sorting out priorities, are decided by all participants. Throughout history, hundreds of small-scale collectivist groups have tried this operating system. We find at the heart of online collectives is actually a sign that stateless socialism can work on a grand scale. A company that tracks the open source industry, lists roughly 250,000 people working on an amazing 275,000 projects. That's almost the size of General Motors' workforce. That is an awful lot of people working for free, even if they're not full-time. Imagine if all the employees of GM weren't paid yet continued to produce automobiles. The biggest efforts are open source projects, and the largest of them, such as Apache, manage several hundred contributors—about the size of a village. One study estimates that 60,000 man-years of work have poured into last year's release of Fedora Linux 9, so we have proof that self-assembly and the dynamics of sharing can govern a project on the scale of a decentralised town or village. The number of people who make things for free, share things for free, use things for free, belong to collective software farms, work on projects that require communal decisions, or experience the benefits of decentralized socialism has reached millions and counting. Operating without state funding or control, connecting citizens directly to citizens, this achieves social good at an efficiency that would stagger any government or traditional corporation. it makes an indisputable case that the sharing model of free access is a viable alternative to both profit-seeking corporations and tax-supported civic institutions. Collaboratively building encyclopedias, news agencies, video archives, and software in groups that span continents, with people you don't know and whose class is irrelevant—that makes political socialism seem like the logical next step. We underestimate the power of our tools to reshape our minds. Did we really believe we could collaboratively build and inhabit virtual worlds all day, every day, and not have it affect our perspective? 

The force of online socialism is growing. Some people abhor the term because of its connotations but the only alternative is socialism, where property is owned and administered in common by all the people and not merely one section. We know the principle works because we witness it with the collaborative nature of the internet everyday.

A return to nature

“Many people look at these expansive views and call them beautiful,” says Alan Watson Featherstone, looking out over the remote hillsides north of Loch Ness. “But what we’ve really got is a barren landscape that is almost entirely devoid of native woodlands and predators. What we’ve done here, and across much of rural Britain, is to allow herbivores [deer, sheep and cattle] to run wild, destroying flora and fauna,” he says. “At the same time, we’ve hunted all their natural predators to extinction.” He goes on to say “By eliminating our native forests and replacing them with non-native and fast-growing pines, we have stripped out the bottom layers of the eco-system. In places the rampant deer population and forestry has shaved the earth, so we have exposed peat hags of ancient tree stumps. These are an open sore on our landscape.”

 Featherstone is a leading advocate of rewilding – a strand of the conservation movement with ambitious plans to revive the biodiversity of rural Britain by reintroducing native species. He wants to see the return of birch, oak, Scots pine and aspen across the Highlands but his plans don’t end with flora. If the rewilders have their way, wild boar, lynx and even wolves could soon be restored to sylvan Britain, where they once roamed more than 1,000 years ago. But Featherstone insists the reintroduction of natives species is not about “returning to a particular time or age in natural history”.

He adds: “What we are doing, by planting trees and bringing the top predators back, is kickstarting nature’s evolution in circumstances where she can no longer do it on her own.”

It may well mean an end to those artificial grouse and deer shooting estates to permit some real wildlife which is not 'managed' for profit. We may have a few whingeing lairds and landowners but that is nothing new.

Dick Talking Socialism

Sadly, the Socialist Courier blog has to inform its visitors that Richard "Dick" Donnelly has died. He had been a member of Glasgow branch of the Socialist Party since the mid-1950s and was a regular outdoor and indoor speaker, a writer for the Socialist Standard and frequently a contributor to this blog. Dick would probably be the first to tell comrades, "Don't Mourn - Organise!"

The Socialist Party website has a few recordings of Dick that are well worth listening to.

The Principles of Socialism  (16 April 1976)

How Can a Real Revolution Be Achieved?Debate between Dick Donnelly, SPGB, and Albert Meltzer, 'Black Flag' (anarchist) (12 February 1987)

Why Is Socialism Still Relevant (12 June 2004)

Your World, Our World, One World

“Arouse, ye slaves! Declare war, not on the capitalist, but on the capitalist system” – Eugene Debs

Many sneer at socialism as unattainable. But we in the Socialist Party maintain socialism is practical. Is it necessary to prove that socialism is not dead? We need only see what is going on all over the world today. Socialist ideas are everywhere. Socialism is not an academic and Utopian conception, it is ripening and developing in closest touch with reality.

The objective of socialism is a free individual in a free society, the well-being of each assured by the well-being of all. Socialism is that social system under which the necessaries of production are owned, controlled, and administered by the people, for the people. Class rule is at an end. Socialism is rule by the working people. They will decide how socialism is to work. To use the word “socialism” for anything but working people’s power is to misuse the term. Nationalisation of mines, railways, steel, etc. is not socialism, nor does this constitutes “the socialist sector of a mixed economy”. Nationalisation is state capitalism, with no relation to socialism. Nor is the “welfare state” socialist. Many good men and women have viewed the sufferings of the working class and have attempted to make reforms which would ease the misery of the masses. But these reforms have inevitably failed, not because the intentions of those who proposed them were not good, but because they did not fit in with the force dominant in social and industrial life –capitalism.  Socialism will certainly give high priority to health, education, art, science, and the social well-being of all its members. That is why it exists, that is the purpose of its economy. But “welfare” in a capitalist state, to improve the efficiency of that state as a profit-maker, is not socialism but another form of state capitalism. It can be an improvement on capitalism with no welfare, just as a 40-hour week is an improvement on a 60-hour week. But it is not socialism. Socialism is the society of the free and equal. It is simply a question of capitalism or socialism, of despotism or democracy?

Socialism is the only remedy. Its philosophy of cooperation is rational, humane, and all-embracing. The trend is toward the cooperative commonwealth. It is the hope of the world. Capitalism is the breeder of selfishness and greed. Capitalism has spawned a brood of vices.  In the wage system you and your children, and your children’s children, if capitalism should prevail, are condemned to slavery and there is no possible hope unless by throwing over the capitalist and voting for socialism. What you must do is to organise your class and assert your class interests just as the capitalists do to rob you. What we want is not to reform the capitalist system. We want to get rid of it. What is wanted is not a reform of the capitalist system, but its entire abolition. Socialism is not a reform, it is a revolution. The working class must get rid of the whole brood of masters and exploiters, and put themselves in possession and control of the means of production. As soon as capital shall cease to govern, wage-labour and the rest of slavery will be abolished. Freedom and equality will then be no longer empty and cheap phrases, but will have a real meaning; when all people are really free and equal they will honour and advance one another. It is therefore a question not of “reform,’ the mask of fraud, but of revolution. The capitalist system must be overthrown, class-rule abolished and wage-slavery supplanted by the cooperative commonwealth.

We are educating, we are agitating, we are organising. If all the working class were to use their eyes to see; their ears to hear; their brains to think, how soon this Earth would be transformed. No sane person could be satisfied with the present system. Socialism struggles for the emancipation of all in every stratum of society, fighting against all exploitations and all oppressions. It is the defender of all the exploited and all the oppressed. To let the working class speak clearly is the mission of the socialist movement of the world

 “The rich man is he who, being young, has the rights of old age; being old, the lucky chances of youth; vicious, the respect of good people; a coward, the command of the stout-hearted; doing nothing, the fruits of labour.” - Victor Hugo

Socialism - One for all, All for one

It's time to break a taboo about the word "socialism". Down through the ages, working people have dreamed of a world of freedom and equality, an end to exploitation and misery. From the time of the Roman slave revolts, people have struggled for the dream of a society based on the values of equality, freedom, generosity and solidarity. For thousands of years the dream could never become reality – society was too poor to provide a decent life for all. We call ourselves socialists because we are proud of what we are. No matter what we call ourselves, our opponents will use it against us. Anti-socialism has been repeatedly used to attack working class people. We call ourselves socialists to remind everyone that we have a vision of a better world. Socialism has never been truer or more relevant: Most of the world's main problems today are inseparable from the capitalist system itself. With capitalism everywhere in command, the outlook is for increased poverty and more environmental degradation, undermining of traditional societies and ways of life, for a culture dominated by marketing, advertising and uneven global development. It is the capitalist system, based on private ownership of the means of production, which has no future. Having outlived its usefulness, it is incapable of meeting the needs and aspirations of the world’s peoples. By its very nature, capitalism generates and intensifies mass unemployment and poverty, national chauvinism and exclusiveness, racism, gender inequality and oppression, environmental collapse, and war. Capitalist “democracy” guarantees the right of the capitalist class to dominate the economy and society and to exploit the people.

Socialists do not want to create an all-powerful government bureaucracy.  The Socialist Party has been among the harshest critics of authoritarian so-called "communist" countries. Just because their bureaucratic elites called them “socialist” did not make it so. The Socialist Party has long rejected the belief that the whole economy should be centrally planned. Nor do we want huge corporate bureaucracies to control our society either. Today, executives answer only to themselves and a few of their wealthy stockholders make basic economic decisions affecting millions of people. Socialism is a real political force espousing radical democracy. Socialism is the rule of the people, by the people and for the people. Only socialism makes the needs and aspirations of the people its highest priority. Only socialism can use the benefits of the scientific and technological revolution for the well-being of all, not for the enrichment of a few and for waging war. There is no alternative to socialism, no “third road.’ In socialism the means of producing and distributing wealth will be the common property of society as a whole. The exploitation of labour will be abolished. Ecological degradation will be stopped, and a planned approach to the relationship of human life with the natural environment will be implemented. Want, poverty, insecurity and discrimination, rooted in capitalist exploitation, will be ended. Socialism will finally realise a new society based on solidarity, equality and emancipation, a classless society, in which for the first time in history, the free all-round development of each individual can be the condition for the development of all.

We don’t agree with the capitalist assumption that starvation or greed are the only reasons people work. People enjoy their work if it is meaningful and enhances their lives. They work out of a sense of responsibility to their community and society. Although a long-term goal of socialism is to eliminate all but the most enjoyable kinds of labor, we recognise that unappealing jobs will long remain. These tasks would be spread among as many people as possible. In short, we believe that a combination of social, economic, and moral incentives will motivate people to work.

As socialists we bring a sense of the interdependence of all struggles for justice. No single-issue organisation can truly challenge the capitalist system or adequately secure its particular demands. Socialists have conceived of a society that provides for the needs of every individual, including adequate means to live a decent life and develop each person's capacities. The well-being of all the people of the world would be the goal of society, not their exploitation as it is under capitalism. Socialism should belong to the people, be part of their living politics. Socialism is not supposed to be like any other political movement. Socialism needs to be participatory. Socialism is the only possible alternative to capitalism, the source of gross inequalities and environmental disasters around the world. We could readily meet everyone’s needs for food, housing, health, education, culture and recreation if the modern technologies, scientific knowledge and organisational know-how were brought under the control of all people.

The Future We Need

Socialism is a political movement that aims to create a classless and stateless society structured upon common ownership of the means of production, free access to articles of consumption, and the end of wage labour and private property in the means of production, distribution and the land.

Committed to building a more just future, The Socialist Party challenges the taken-for-granted “truths” that support capitalism as the only common-sense possibility and that there is no alternative. Does capitalism “work”? For sure, capitalism works well for the few, accumulating wealth and power in their hands but is that what we want, or do we want a system that works for everybody? The capitalist system breeds the incentive for corruption, theft, and greed. In socialism, money would not be required to help one achieve or create, as facilities would be made available to serve everyone's needs. No more poverty - At this moment in time, tens of thousands of children die each day in 'developing' countries due to malnutrition, and preventable diseases. Every person on this planet would have the chance to live and flourish and create and benefit humanity as a whole. No more wage slavery and the need to work for the majority of our lives to pay our living costs, pay our debts, our housing costs, for food and all the things that we need to be fulfilled in our lives. No more property crimes - why would it exist in a world where there was no need for financial gain or the opportunity to profit from crime? No more wars - if all resources are available to everyone, then armed conflict would be as pointless as mugging someone for their possessions.

Schools have for decades been institutions that train and focus children on competing and gaining employment. They are not about what a child may be good at, not about promoting individual ability and creativity. A simple example would be a child who excels at art. They cannot aim to simply leave school and create art. They are encouraged to train for a career in art, so they can make a living. In a socialist society they would be fully supported and allowed to create for the sake of creation, not to earn a living. There will be the chance for all individuals to reach their potential - And this would be supported fully by the system. People would have the unrestricted opportunity to contribute to the overall advancement of Humanity as a whole. There are children alive today, who may have the ability to contribute, but will never have the opportunity because their family is poor and can't afford to fund their further education, or their training in a particular area. Socialism would remove this profoundly wasteful fact of life. Choice and opportunity would open up to everyone more than we can ever know now, people would be more free to live their lives in a more comfortable, stress free world. Imagine the time we would save from waiting in line at the banks, in the stores, at the markets. What about the time we would have to spend time with our children instead of a job, imagine the time we would have to find other ventures in life to enrich our lives and others all at a remarkable level.  The possibilities are far beyond our imagination or comprehension today. Knowledge will be made freely available. All information in society will be transparent. Education will be tailored to meet the children's interests not society's perceived interest. The idea being that given the opportunity to excel in the areas that they have a proclivity for, this type of learning will benefit society more than if learning was standardised and directed.

We are told the world is complex for socialism. Yet many things are quite simple—we live in a world where a billion people go hungry while we dump half of all food produced. Today we have the ability to reflect and draw upon the past and present and to create the best possibilities. Doing away with capitalism doesn’t mean resorting to primitivism, denying the poor their right to development, or abandoning all of our technology. There are limits to the Earth’s resources, but we can organize a productive, equitable, and sustainable social order that includes many of the comforts of modern life and the benefits of technology. In fact, getting rid of capitalism gives us the best chance of having time to organize a sustainable system of consumption before it is too late—staying hooked into capitalism may be the quickest route to social collapse.

Modern society has access to highly advanced technology and can make available food, clothing, housing and medical care for free. In socialism all of the world's resources are held as the common heritage of all people. At present, we already have enough material resources to provide a very high standard of living for all of Earth's inhabitants. Money is only important in a society when goods must be rationed. Socialism is a system in which all goods and services are freely available without the use of money, credits, barter or any other system of debt or servitude. Free access to plenty for all. We believe in a world of people cooperating, collaborating, and committing to holding each other accountable to planning and acting on what is in the best interest of everyone.  There is no possibility for true freedom until we are all free, and this will only come through a much richer and deeper conception of human freedom.

We can stick to this old system where everything for profit, where peoples’ lives are valued in monetary terms, where there is, wars, suffering, hunger and scarcity. Or we could live in abundance with a sustainable ecological system, where everyone could do what really makes him or her happy, not what the commercial consumerist world wants you to think what makes you happy. In capitalism everyone grabs for the largest slice of the pie they can get away with. No need for PROFIT anymore! Need for more and more profit destroying men, society and planet. No more environmental destruction with an end to planned obsolescence – the process of a product becoming obsolete and/or non-functional after a certain period or amount of use in a way that is planned or designed by the manufacturer. Planned obsolescence has potential benefits for a manufacturer because the product fails and the consumer is under pressure to purchase again, whether from the same manufacturer (a replacement part or a newer model), or from a competitor. The purpose of planned obsolescence is to hide the real cost per use from the consumer, and charge a higher price than they would otherwise be willing to pay (or would be unwilling to spend all at once). In socialism, technology would be made to have a vastly longer operational life span and even when required to be upgraded, would be done so without charge, making sure that everyone would have the best that technology can provide at any given time.

In our experience, the most common questions that arise when discussing socialism revolve around feasibility and motivation. Is it really possible? How will anything get done, how do you keep people motivated without money? The simplest answer to both of these is looking at the existing example that almost everyone is familiar with: the family. In most families a sharing of resources without exchange or barter is in place. The family works together to achieve their common goals and family resources are all shared. Family sizes and family structures vary greatly but the basic principles of working together and sharing are fairly universal. Extending this idea outside of the family to the community and society is our objective. People would want to do something and volunteer for a greater cause because it gives them a sense of being part of something bigger than they are

The great unspoken phrase of politics is “class war”. The media tries to present the fiction that society is without class and we are all individuals. Today’s robber barons know that PR matters and have effectively bought-off the popular opinion makers. Stylishly groomed corporate executives and financiers, who are morally no better than thieves, have become celebrities. They are flattered on reality TV shows and praised on business programmes but it is more and more untenable as actual class struggle daily intensifies. The profound fact is that the world is in the midst of class war. Class struggle is being explicitly fought out in Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, and not to forget Australasia. Presently it is manifesting itself by the ruling class demanding austerity. It is time to remember the concept of class war so we can fight it determinedly to the finish. How can we effectively resist and fight back? And how can we organise and educate to revive and strengthen our movement

The discussion on how socialism will work is as old as the workers’ movement and many authors have interpreted it in various ways. It is easy, at the beginning of the 21st century, to be pessimistic about the future prospects of a socialism. No one, of course, can give a blueprint of how socialism is going to work. All we can do here is indicate those general features that we believe a socialist society must have in order qualify as truly socialist. Beyond generalities, however, the specifics of how to structure socialist communities must remain open for discussion and experimentation. It is important to emphasise that the principles are not the arbitrary creations of intellectuals but rather, based upon the actual political and economic structures that have arisen spontaneously whenever the working class has attempted to throw off its chains during eras of heightened revolutionary activity, such as the Paris Commune. The important thing is that a practical alternative is shown and that it is not ascribed as an unrealistic aspiration. A socialist economy would for the first time give people, as producers and users, the chance to control every step of production, take initiatives and experiment without being strangled by profit-driven competition. This would make possible an economy based on equality and in harmony with nature.  Why would people produce poor quality goods when they are producing to meet their own (and others) needs? Imagine a world in which all barriers to a decent life for all human beings had been removed; a society in which the resourcefulness of modern technology and industry was put to the task of decreasing labour and increasing leisure.

Capitalism is not simply a ‘free market economy’; it is a market economy with a particular form of class relations. Capitalist economics systematically generates both increasing concentrations of wealth and privilege and expanding deprivation. Capitalism’s profit-driven dynamic towards increasing production and markets—with its bias towards a consumption oriented society and the creation of artificial consumer ‘needs’—has inordinate environmental costs. Profit-maximizing creates incentives for capitalist firms to dump waste into the environment.

Many may think they have all the answers, but the problem is, they never asked the questions that matter. Capitalism is a global system based on wage slavery. Against exploitation we raise the banner of emancipation. The end of class society comes through revolutionary change with the abolition of wage slavery, to a society based on the principles “from each according to their ability; to each according their needs” and “the freedom of each is the condition of the freedom of all.”

Socialism rather than always the red flag, has more often than not been the flag of convenience waved by politicians of all hues. There has been hardly any other word in the economic dictionary, more elusive, more ambiguous and confusing than 'Socialism'. It has been hounded, criticized and extolled. It encompasses all types of political system, dictatorships, democracies, republics and monarchies. Everybody imagines socialism in his own way. It embraces such disparate systems as an Islamic socialism practiced by Libya and Algeria, welfare socialism of Norway or Sweden, the Baathist Socialism of Syria, the Ujamaa socialism of Tanzania’s Nyerere and so on. Roosevelt’s New Deal was called socialist to condemn it, as was Keynes" economics. In fact, Roosevelt and Keynes were about as socialist as King Edward VII who once declared at a banquet: "We are all socialists nowadays”. Socialism refers to a body of writings, ideas, beliefs and doctrines and it refers to real world political movements. It will be worthwhile to acquaint ourselves with the more important definitions of socialism.

Politicians do a disservice to their audience by manipulating the language of to conceal a political record that tells a much different story. Discerning audiences must ask difficult questions and hold those in power to account. When socialists talk about the abolition of private property, we are referring to the socialisation of the means of production—the resources and equipment that create wealth. Working people do not own this type of property—which is why we have to work to survive. The Socialist Party stands for the destruction of the present class society and holds a vision of the future of a system where useful work based on a system of cooperation would be the norm for all and where the struggle for bare subsistence would be supplanted by harmonious production of common wealth without the waste of labour or material. Such an aspiration can only be carried out by the workers themselves. The progress of socialist ideas finds different expression depending on the circumstances

Socialism is the economic organisation of society in which the means of production and distribution are owned by the whole community and democratically run by elected delegates responsible to the community, with all members of the community entitled to benefit from the this socialised production on the basis of equal rights. Socialism refers to that movement which aims to vest in society as a whole, rather than in individuals, the ownership and management of all nature-made and man-made producers goods used in production. In G.D.H. Cole’s view "Socialism means four closely connected things—a human fellowship which denies and expels distinction of class, a social system in which no one is so much richer or poorer than his neighbours as to be unable to mix with them on equal term, the common ownership and use of all the vital instruments of production and an obligation on all citizens to serve one another according to their capacities in promoting the common well-being."

The idea of a moneyless economy is not new. It was part of the vision of Thomas More in his Utopia. The Diggers also sought a world where money was redundant. An important obstacle stopping more people supporting the idea of a society based on production for use, is that they simply can’t see how a society without money or wages could work. It seems too daunting - too much of a leap of faith to make. The more we discuss it and argue why a new society needs to involve the removal of the market and money system, the less fearful it seems. In particular, the closer you look, the more examples we can find of where humans routinely behave inside capitalism in "socialistic" ways. There are plenty of examples today to indicate that free access will not lead to abuses. Let us take just three everyday examples, public libraries, water and pavements.

In public libraries people are free to sit and read books all day. However, few if any actually do so. Neither do people always take the maximum number of books out at a time. No, they use the library as they need to and feel no need to maximise their use of the institution. Some people never use the library, although it is free. In the case of water supplies, it’s clear that people do not leave taps on all day because water is often supplied freely or for a fixed charge. Similarly with pavements, we do not spend our free time walking up and down the street because it doesn’t cost us anything extra. In all such cases we use the resource as and when we need to. Why would we not expect similar results as other resources become freely available?

Production/distribution decisions inside non-market socialist society will involve complex decisions - but not much more so than happens at present. Some say there will always be trade-offs, opportunity costs, to use the technical term. Well yes, there will still have to be some trade-offs, but far fewer than at present. How will those trade-offs be calculated? Some believe we need some sort of money accounting system, presumably because this reduced everything to a simple comparable number. But we know that inside capitalism the apparent precision of a price arrived at by the invisible hand of supply and demand hides massive assumptions (need to make a profit for the owner of the productive capital) and is simply not a good measure of social need. But it doesnt even apply in capitalism anymore that buyers and sellers only look at price - they know that the immediate price on offer doesn’t always give a good indication of long-term risk. Do you buy the cheapest nuclear power station available? Or do you check on the health and safety or environmental protection controls in place. Even the smallest local authority contract now places some weight on "external" issues such as quality of product being tendered, timescale for delivery, on-going maintenance support, stability/security of provider (i.e. will they be around in 5 years’ time to service the equipment sold, or be taken to court in the event of a failure).

The need for internationalism flows from the position of the working class internationally. This in its turn has been developed by capitalism through the organisation of world economy as one single indivisible whole. The interests of the working-class of one country are the same as the interests of the workers of the other countries. Because of the division of labour established by capitalism, the basis is laid for a new international organisation of labour and planned production on a world scale. Thus, the struggle of the working class on all countries forms the basis for the movement towards socialism reflected by the statements of Marx that "the workers have no country" and therefore "Workers of the world unite".

Like no other time in history, we have the opportunity to connect using technology and to work with people all over the world to achieve our shared goals. Coming together with like-minds. Just begin to imagine the possibilities where all people had access to everything they needed to live, to think, and to contribute to the common good. Fear of change is a great tool to limit our imagination about human possibilities. The fear of change is always a problem. Anything that relates to something new or out of the basic norm, is a scary thing. It's because people are afraid of trying a new system or testing something different. If you think that socialism will never happen and do nothing, then nothing will change. The Revolution won't be on the barricades with petrol bombs, but will be fought in the hearts and minds of people around the world. The real revolution is the revolution of ideas. We need a shift in consciousness that must take place before we can ever be in a more free society. If we sit around and do nothing then, of course, we will never see socialism, but if we stand strong together, we can literally make this new world. 

You Must Be The Change.

Scotland's Haves and the Have-Nots

Poverty Alliance identified 167 different organisations providing emergency food to struggling Scots. It claimed there is now a "real danger that emergency food aid provision may become a permanent feature of the welfare landscape in Scotland".

Report author Mary Anne MacLeod stated: "It is crucial to understand that we are not just dealing with a problem simply of food, but of poverty and inequality.”

Meanwhile, Blair’s old college has overtaken Prince Charles’ alma mater to become Scotland’s most expensive school. The fees charged by Fettes College, now outstrip Gordonstoun, in three out of four categories, according to the schools’ websites. Fettes now charges over £23,000 a year for senior day pupils – just ahead of Gordonstoun. Fettes’ sky-high fees, say experts, are partly the result of super-rich parents from overseas picking the Scottish capital its combination of relative safety and cultural richness.

Today’s parents have to find £21,825 a year to send junior pupils to board at Fettes – £918 more than Gordonston. Junior day pupils at the city school will cost parents £13,965 a year – £1,110 more than Gordonstoun. Senior day pupils at Fettes have to pay £23,190 a year to attended the prestigious school – £108 more than Gordonston. The only category where Gordonston remains the most expensive in Scotland is for senior boarders currently priced at £30,885 a year – but only £235 a term more than Fettes.

Loretto in Musselburgh is not far behind with fees of £29,460 a year for senior boarders. Merchiston, in Edinburgh, charges £28,560 for senior borders. Dollar Academy charges £25,524 a year for senior borders and £11,034 for day pupils. The High School, Glasgow, charges up to £10,500 a year for day pupils while in Aberdeen Albyn School charges £11,520 a year for senior day pupils.

The Cease-Fire That Wasn't

More optimist noises about the deal arranged by Germany's Angela Merkel and France's Francois Hollande yesterday. They said the truce starting on Sunday could end Ukraine's conflict with Russian-backed separatists, in which more than 5,300 people have died. It is a strange cease-fire however. 'Ukraine witnesses reported heavy shelling in the east of the former Soviet state. Dozens of tanks, missile systems and armoured vehicles crossed the border from Russia, they said.Two Ukrainian soldiers were killed and Kremlin forces began military exercises in 12 regions on the Russian side of the border.' (Daily Express, 12 February) RD

Profit And Pollution

Details released at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science show that about eight million tonnes of plastic waste find their way into the world's oceans each year. 'The new study is said to be the best effort yet to quantify just how much of this debris is being dumped, blown or simply washed out to sea. Eight million tonnes is like covering an area 34 times the size of New York's Manhattan Island to ankle depth.' (BBC News, 12 February) In the battle between profit and pollution there is a clear winner. RD

The world can function without money

Many different political groups and thinkers have given the word socialism many different and often conflicting definitions. The term is loosely defined. Perhaps the worst one being Hitler's national socialism which no advocate of socialism would associate with. Still, sadly, today, socialism is often associated with state ownership or government regulation. When members of the Socialist Party speak the phrase ‘Abolition of Money’, people look at us as though we are mad. Someone who has no money cannot live. This is the way the world is at present. Even in today’s corrupt society, no-one could say that this is right and proper. The Socialist Party describe socialism in terms of free access to all the social wealth of society. The term ‘resource based economy’ was coined by Jacque Fresco in The Venus Project as the name for what kind of economic system he envisions in the future.

There are some criteria of a socialist society that the Socialist Party apply to its meaning and those include that it uses no money and possesses no market system, that all goods are freely accessible to everyone, and that work is voluntary. Socialism does include the idea of a society controlled by everyone, instead of elites. Such a society would ultimately be lacking a state, political leaders and classes. Even Karl Marx realised that the idea and system of the state is wrong, and opposed it.

Thus we would therefore claim that a "real" socialist system has never been established before. Socialism carries ideals, and a theoretical strategy, but factual plans backed by hard proofs are not laid out in blueprints of the future. Everything would be different. This brings us to socialist principles of common ownership and systems without money. Money will become unimportant through the availability of advanced technologies to provide all the means to obtain a good life. To put it simply, money is a commodity and commodities exist because property exists. I make something (property) and you make something I need, but you don't need what I make, so a universal equivalent has to emerge to facilitate this movement of value from one person to another. "Ah ha!" someone might say "this is overcome by labour vouchers". Wrong. Substituting a piece of time-chit for a dollar isn't going to change the nature of the money-form. It can exist as wheel barrows for all that it matters. This is really where the majority of so-called "socialists" fall down, they don't know what property is and they don't know what capitalism is. Money in a post-capital society would not exist because property would not exist, which is the fundamental constituent of capitalism, even if this is state-owned property. No one is selling their labour-power commodity for a wage (money) to buy more commodities produced by people, institutions, corporations, etc that are separate from them.

Billions of us go to bed hungry every night and despite considerable advances in science and technology. We've been accepting widespread poverty, famine, disease and war as part of life. If the economy doesn't serve our needs, then why do we serve the economy? Why do we continue to give our consent to the rule of the few? Why do we vote for our own continued enslavement? Why do we do these things when we know that there is an alternative? The economic system we choose does have a large influence on how we treat each other and the way we think about life in general. It defines much of who we are.

Imagine a world where all property other than personal possessions is held in common, for the benefit of all. Consequently, there is also no money. If you are hungry, you eat. If you want to work, you work. When you are sick or old or too young, society takes care of you. The vast majority of us would like to live in a global community where neighbours help each other and none get left behind. Imagine if we eliminate the very concept of money from our society. This does not mean going back to bartering. It doesn't mean violence to overcome the wage slave system. It only requires that we realise that that together, the people, which includes everyone, have the power to run our own economy.  Implementation of a cooperative commonwealth would establish the basis for a more egalitarian relationship with the values of sharing and caring among the members of society.

Socialism envisions an attainable democratic society in which workers have direct control of their work and environment. It is based on the production of goods and services that meet the needs and wants of the society as a whole - it is not one that merely enriches an elite. Therefore, creative individuals would be free to do what they do best. The engineers could design their idea of the best car, the chef could create and convince people to eat his or her newest dish, the clothing designer could put his or her newest creation on the runway for consumers to see and choose. In a socialist society, the individual's creativity, desires, and talents are at the heart of a socialist economy. Socialism essentially levels the playing field by clearing the economic and educational hurdles that prevent individuals from fulfilling their dreams and their potential. In short, Socialism seeks to ensure that everyone reaches their full potential. Human society existed for many millennia before the advent of money, and it would eventually be rendered redundant in a socialist economy. It is a myth that socialists seek to do away with all personal property. Socialists have no intention of taking away your house, your car, your material possessions, etc. What socialists do desire, however, is common ownership of the means of production, the factories and work-shops, communication, and transportation.

Why don’t people who want to improve the human condition and the ways of the world stop their petty squabbles and put their efforts into achieving socialism? If they did this, it would be the quickest way for them to achieve their objectives. We can speak up for our planet as one community with intertwined interests that can only be satisfied through mutual respect and cooperation. We can replace capitalism with a system based on social ownership, equal human entitlement and workplace democracy. We can exist in harmony with our environment if we get rid of capitalism and promote respect for nature and understanding the interdependence of all forms of life. We can work together in organizations that exist in local communities, but which also connect with like-minded regional, worldwide groups to accomplish the changes we need. Through our words and actions we can demonstrate that the realistic alternative to capitalism is an expansion of democracy. In order to build the peaceful, ecologically sane world we desire, our tactics are non-violent

Desperate Workers

According to the UN at least 300 migrants are feared to have drowned after attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa this week in rough seas. 'UNHCR official Vincent Cochetel said it was a "tragedy on an enormous scale". Survivors brought to the Italian island of Lampedusa said they were forced to risk the bad weather on ill-equipped vessels by human traffickers in Libya.' (BBC News, 11 February) Desperate workers are prepared to take enormous risks just to get a job. RD

An Expensive Education

Thinking of sending the kids to a new school this year? How about this then?  'Le Rosy, the £80,000-a-year Swiss Institute is attempting to attract British students.' (Daily Telegraph,26 January) Counting among its scholars the Shah of Iran, Prince Rainier of Monaco and King Farouk of Egypt. Its catchment area was once the glittering palaces that housed the grandest families on the Continent: the Metternichs, the Borgheses and the Hohenlohes.  But Institut Le Rosey is now spreading its net to humble old Britain. RD

Name the Blame

The debate between socialism and capitalism is a battle of ideas that is intensifying. Capitalism’s huge problems have provoked millions to question and challenge it. Socialists offer an alternatives that inspires. Socialism views human nature as co-operative, positive and altruistic. They believe that humans are born equal and that differences in their success are created by society and nurture, not nature. As such they believe that equality within human society is both normal and should be encouraged as humans are collaborative and that co-operation will create the most progress for everybody than individualistic competition. People who have power and wealth oppress the majority and forcing their ideology onto the majority.  This is achieved because the ruling class own the means of production and the workers who actually produce the finished product don't.  Capitalism is a global economic system which has certain intrinsic features which cannot allow full and true liberation to take place as long as it remains. Full and true liberation can only be achieved after destroying capitalism itself first and during the course of building socialism. Its features exist to guarantee its own survival and growth as a system. These are as follows: selfishness; individualism; greed; competition; market forces; wasteful consumerism; planning not based on sustainability but on short-term and maximum private profits and interests of the ruling class minority; militarism; corruption; racism; oppression and exploitation of one class by another; cyclical financial crises; massive and continuous destruction of the environment.

There are advocates of responsible regulated capitalism (some think of themselves as philanthro-capitalists) who are currently in vogue right now for a very good reason - capitalism has clearly got us into a fix, those to blame are rightly unpopular, and there is the strong sense that something must be done. They try to make the case that the bankers and lack-of-regulation have put us in this mess in what could otherwise be a healthy capitalism and suggest that by regulating and mitigating the effects of the profit-motive, a more equal and just capitalism can be obtained. Responsible or ethical capitalism is a vacuous phrase, a slogan smoke-screen, meant to divert attention from the socialist vision for a better future. Those apologists present to-day’s capitalism that can ironed out a few wrinkles by a bit of government legislation and businessmen incorporating a new ethos. They still maintain that capitalism is the best economic system possible, that the market encourages efficiency through competition, and creates an unequaled range of consumer goods, permits people to get ahead if they work hard, respects the individual, and promotes democracy.  It's not perfect, but it works is their case.

Socialists are not just aware of the existence of inequality and the misery it visits on the millions of people across the planet. We propose an alternative way of running society and a strategy to change the world. As unrepentant socialists, we seek to replace capitalism and we claim its nature produces oppression and exploitation whereas a socialist democracy is cooperative and ecological. Socialism offers the best hope for humanity. Socialists can't get there on their own.  A society that strives for equality and participation will only come about through the coordinated action of many people.  Socialism won't solve your personal problems or bring you eternal bliss. The reason to join a socialist organisation is work toward socialism.  The abolition of class rule and establishment of workers' democracy will not come about unless there are socialists organised for it and to win over others. The urgency grows to end hunger, poverty and disease.  Our planet's decaying eco-systems must be rescued before it reaches a point of no return. Never before in history have science and technology provided such opportunities for the all-round development of every human being. Even under wasteful and destructive capitalism, the productive forces exist that could, if planned and utilised to meet human need instead of maximising capitalist profit, ensure sufficient food, nutrition, health care and education for all.

Crime And Capitalism

TV programmes and the national press are fond of depicting the police as dealing successfully with the problem of crime, alas that is a complete fallacy. The advent of cheap heroin in Chicago has led to an increase in crime undreamt of by Al Capone and his contemporaries. 'In the 1920s, 227 gangsters were said to have been killed in the city in the space of four years. Last year there were 424 murders in Chicago, most of them said to be gang-related.' (Times, 9 February) An increase of almost double in a quarter of the time. Some progress. RD

A Modest Lifestyle

Jeff Greene is a billionaire who took a private jet to this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, along with his wife, children and two nannies, and then told Bloomberg that "America's lifestyle expectations are far too high and need to be adjusted so we have less things and a smaller, better existence." (Yahoo Homes, 23 January) His idea of a "smaller better existence" is difficult for a worker to understand as Green owns a $195-million palace in Beverly Hills with 23 bathrooms and a rotating dance floor, two other Los Angeles mansions, a mansion in Palm Beach, a mansion in the Hamptons, and a 145-foot party yacht.  RD                    

Socialism Changes Everything

Capitalism has failed. Across the entire world increasingly desperate conditions exist for the vast majority—mass unemployment, poverty, indebtedness, ever declining wages—are combined with the most fantastic levels of wealth. CEOs make more in a day than their workers make in an entire year, and hedge fund managers make more in an hour than most Americans make in their entire lives. At the root of all the problems of modern society is capitalism, in which everything is subordinated to the interests of a tiny elite. Under capitalism, this tiny capitalist class dominates society by dividing the working class and derives its vast wealth from the extraction of profit by paying workers less than the value they produce. Every capitalist is committed to raising productivity – increasing the amount of capital that can be squeezed from each worker and confiscated by the employer. As more wealth is extracted from the working class and concentrated in the hands of the one percent, society becomes increasingly unequal. Counter-measures can slow the twin process of capital accumulation and growing inequality, but it can be stopped only by eliminating capitalism. Individual capitalists might see the value of a fairer society, but any who chose to slow the rate of capital accumulation would be replaced by others with no such concern. Capitalism has socialised production and distribution i.e. commodities are produced socially by many people, while the products and the value from their sales are privatised, appropriated by the owners of the means of production. Socialism merely balances out the situation, that is to say, production is still socialised, but the appropriation of the value that is produced, including surplus value, is also socialised – all people have a claim upon the goods. Thus society benefits as a whole from common ownership.

Socialism means the extension of democracy to the foundation of all of society for the general improvement of humanity. Many today wrongly assume that the struggle for democracy in much of the world has been won. States that claim to be democratic are taken at their word, or at least those with universal suffrage and ‘free’ elections of representatives. This is because democracy is conflated with elections, which are equated with democracy (while occasionally paying lip service to referendums.) If people cannot gather in assemblies to act directly, they can at least elect representatives to act on their behalf: this is called “representative democracy”. The reality is quite different. It replaces the rule of the people, by the people, for the people with the rule of the self-proclaimed representatives of the people. Neither the expansion of the electorate through universal suffrage nor electoral reform (of the voting system, campaign finance, nomination rules, ballot access, media access, etc.) changes the underlying oligarchic logic of elections. This does not mean that socialists should oppose it but take cognition of its flaws. Socialists argue that capitalism undermines democracy.

Human beings in a given society produce wealth, in various forms, and this wealth is distributed among the members of society via various institutions, laws and mechanisms. However, to speak about how and to whom wealth is distributed inevitably leads to asking questions as to who produced that wealth in the first place. Speaking about distribution without mentioning production is simply useless. Capitalism is an exploitative mode of production in which the capitalist class extracted "surplus value" from the working class. For the first time in human history, labour power itself was sold as a free commodity on the market. Workers are free to sell their labour power to whatever capitalist chose to employ them. But the asymmetry of power in this alleged "free exchange" is that while the capitalist class owns the means of production, the working class only has their labour power to sell. This asymmetry means that while capitalists pay labour a "living wage," the value of this wage (the value of labour power) is always less than the value of the commodities produced by the workers' labor -- if capital could not make a profit it would not employ labour.  Under capitalism, private ownership of the means of production such as factories, machines and raw materials is what determines the ownership of not only the commodities produced via those means of production, but also the proceeds of the sales of the commodities. In other words, shareholders and proprietors appropriate commodities they did not produce, and pocket the profit from their sales. Workers' needs under capitalism are always subordinate.

Realistically, there’s only one way to achieve workplace democracy across the whole of society – a global working-class revolution that takes collective control of production and eliminates the two-class system of capitalism. Socialism is something far more comprehensive than a simple redistribution of wealth but entails the expropriation, the seizure, of the means of production by the working class. Then we could build a truly cooperative society in which everyone is equally worthy to share life’s work and life’s rewards.

Our Aim is True

We live surrounded by inequality. Some have wealth, health, education, satisfying occupations. Others get poverty, ill-health and drudgery. Social mobility scarcely exists. Wealth is funneled to those on top. It is not so much true that “power corrupts” as it is a fact that easily corruptible persons gravitate toward exercise of power. Is this the type of society we want? What does it mean to fight against inequality? The problem of gross inequality in capitalist society is not fundamentally a problem of inequality within our class, between the unemployed and destitute workers and the so-called ‘middle-class’ in relatively more secure jobs and on higher pay. The fundamental problem of inequality is inequality between the capitalist ruling class and the working class.

This inequality between the employing class and the wage workers is taken for granted as a given and is rarely questioned. The income of the capitalist class comes from the unpaid labour of the workers in the form of profit, or surplus value. Everything created by the workers belongs to the bosses. And everything created by the workers contains unpaid labour time in it. The bosses sell goods and services and get the money for the unpaid labour time of the workers — that is, profit. They keep part of it for themselves and become rich. The other parts they pay their banker his interest or their land-owner his rent, the rest they re-invest so that they can get richer in the next cycle of production and selling.

The income of the workers, on the other hand, comes from the sale of their labour power to his or her employer. The workers receive wages or salaries and the amount is always kept somewhere within the range of what it takes to survive. Some workers are paid somewhat more than that and can have a certain degree of comfort, even luxury. Many workers, more and more these days, receive just about enough to get by on in a life of scrimping and saving while others barely get enough to survive. Wages under capitalism are basically what it costs a worker to subsist and to keep the family going so that the bosses are assured of the next generation of workers to exploit. Workers have to struggle to preserve whatever they can through the ups and downs of capitalist crises and periodic unemployment.

No worker can ever get wealthy on wages, no matter how high-paid he or she may be. But the capitalist class as a whole automatically grows richer, (even if a particular capitalist goes bankrupt.) The employing class continuously reinvest their capital and keep alive the ongoing process of the exploitation of more and more labour. The capitalist’s children and grand-children, as a rule, get richer and richer from generation to generation and become family dynasties.

It is in this context, that socialists ask those who are for genuine equality, the question what exactly are you fighting for. If the ultimate goal is to reform the tax code, or to reduce corporate money in politics, or to regulate the predatory capitalist class and the greedy bankers  then it may reduce the obscene excessive levels of inequality a little but most definitely, these palliatives won’t end inequality itself. Class inequality is built-in to the system of class exploitation. The profit system spreads misery and it is time to expose capitalism.

Under capitalism, products and services are only produced and distributed if they can make a profit for the capitalists – those at the top of the system who own the means of producing and selling goods and services, like the factories and the shopping malls. Even when the capitalist system is “working”, when it’s “fine”, it creates massive inequalities between rich and poor. All profit generated by the capitalists always has to be reinvested (as “capital”) to make more profit. Capital never sits still – it’s always moving. Products are made in factories, then sold on the market (exchanged for money), then some of that money pays the workers their wages, while the capitalists pocket the rest as profit. And then the “circuit of capital” begins again. Workers are always short-changed, they never realise the full value of their labour power that they put in because the capitalist always takes out the profit. All the capitalists bring to the table is their legal ownership of the factories, companies and private property in general. Thanks to this or that piece of paper – a share ownership certificate or credit note in their possession – the capitalists are able to make “legal” claims on the profits generated by working people’s labour. The rule of capital is the rule of a crazy market, which creates massive wealth at one pole only to create misery at another.

There is an alternative. If only the system wasn’t run for profit, if only it was democratically controlled by working people, then we could run it on the basis of the need of all – not the profit of a few. That’s socialism – and it is really worth fighting for. 

Tax Dodgers

If a worker tries to dodge tax or fiddles his expenses it is a terrible crime, but the old adage "never steal anything small " seems to apply when the owning class rip-off millions in tax dodges.  According to a huge cache of leaked secret bank account files HSBC's Swiss banking arm helped wealthy customers dodge taxes and conceal millions of dollars of assets, doling out bundles of untraceable cash and advising clients on how to circumvent domestic tax authorities,. 'The files "obtained through an international collaboration of news outlets, including the Guardian, the French daily Le Monde, BBC Panorama - and the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists - reveal that HSBC's Swiss private bank routinely allowed clients to withdraw bricks of cash, often in foreign currencies of little use in Switzerland.' (Guardian, 8 February) RD