National traits?

Research published by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) found Scots are actually a little more right-wing than the English. Scots wrongly believe their fellow countrymen hold more Left-wing views than is actually the case. 

They were less likely to agree with statements such as “ordinary people do not get their fair share of the nation’s wealth.” Scotland more often than not promote the status quo on tax and spend. The report said: “We have not found evidence that there are significant differences between Scotland and the rest of the UK.” They added: “…there is relatively limited evidence that the Scottish electorate wants to see radical change to the system of taxation or benefits, supporting the notion that the demand for decentralisation is driven by the desire for local accountability.”

It cited research conducted for the British Social Attitudes survey that also found Scots are more “authoritarian” than the “libertarian” English as they are more likely to concur with views such as “people who break the law should be given stiffer sentences”.

Professor David Bell and David Eiser of Stirling University concluded that the SNP’s electoral success in Scotland cannot be explained by Scots having different preferences from people in the rest of the UK. Instead they said that support for greater devolution was driven by a desire for more local accountability and a belief that decisions made in Scotland were automatically better.

Scottish residents who describe themselves as British has increased “quite markedly” since 2001, from 23 per cent to 32.5 per cent. Although this remains lower than among people south of the Border (47 per cent). 

What do we mean by free access

Socialists often describe socialism as a society where there will be free access, but what could this mean in concrete terms? Socialism will be a society of free access to what has been produced. This does not mean alcohol being made available to children or anyone being able to get hold of guns. But there’ll be no money, credit cards or cheque books, no artificial barriers to people having what they’ve decided they want. But how would free access work, and would it lead to a free-for-all and chaos as people just took more and more?

It doesn’t matter whether they’ll be called shops, stores or warehouses, but there will be places where people will go to collect goods. Whether it’s food, clothes, electrical gadgets or whatever, these places will in some ways be like the shops that exist nowadays but in other ways will be rather different. There will be no price tickets, check-outs or security guards. There’ll be no ‘buy one get one free’ offers, no brightly-coloured promotions trying to pressurise you into buying certain goods. There may well still be shop assistants, whose task it really will be to assist people rather than talk them into purchases. There will still be plenty of choice, and probably more real choice than exists today, when you can ‘choose’ among masses of near-identical products. If you want food, no doubt you will go with a shopping list and make sure that you load what you want into the shopping trolley. And then you’ll just leave, since you won’t have to pay for anything.

Another big difference between the shops of today and the warehouses of the socialist future will concern the quality of what is in them. Everything will be the best quality, as production for use means there would be no point in producing cheap food or shoddy goods. Nowadays, the cheap and tacky are for those who cannot afford to buy the best, an idea which will be completely alien in socialism. A ‘prestigious’ brand name or logo will not be used to inflate the price of something or to make the consumer fit in or feel a cut above the rest.

Having only the best doesn’t mean that we’ll be eating caviar all the time, just that — even if you’re having bangers and mash for tea — you’ll be having the best of its kind. Furniture or TVs won’t be designed to wear out: a sensible use of resources would involve making things to last and recycling as much as possible.

The standard objection to the socialist account of free access is rooted in a view of human nature. People would take and take, it may be claimed, irrespective of what they actually wanted. But a bit of thought should show that this objection does not hold water. For one thing, the people who live in socialism will be convinced of the superiority of this way of organising society and will not act against its interests. And further, think about the things you consume and whether you would really benefit from hoarding them. Most people can only consume fairly limited amounts of milk or bread or toilet paper and won’t need to keep cupboards full of any of them. Even in these days of home freezers, where people do stock up on some foods, they don’t keep massive amounts of anything. In a society of free access, you’ll always be able to get more butter or dog food from the local warehouse, so you won’t need your own mountain of either.

But aren’t there other goods for which these considerations won’t apply? Well, again, people won’t need several cars or ten dining-room tables. There probably are some items which people may well want a lot of: no doubt it will vary from individual to individual, but clothes, books, CDs and DVDs might be good examples. In some cases, producing extra copies (say of a CD) requires very little extra resources. There might well be first-class public libraries or comprehensive book-recycling schemes, which would obviate the desire to own individual copies of some books. And clothing won’t be subject to the whims of fashion as it is now, so people won’t want new outfits each year. In general, the whole idea of consumerism, of possessions making you happy, won’t apply.

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.

A society of free access, then, will mean what it says. People will select their weekly food needs and take home what they’ve chosen, without anyone asking them to pay for it. They will choose clothes, furniture, sports gear, lawnmowers in the same way. And they will know that none of what they’re eating or using is dangerous or nasty, that none of it has been produced in an environmentally-unfriendly way or to make a profit for a few rather than to satisfy the needs of the many.

We say that socialism will be “a society of free access”. However, one obvious but rarely clarified question is: free access to what? Even if everything produced is made freely available to people, how will the range of goods and services to be supplied be determined?

One answer might be: if producing a thing is technically possible and if someone somewhere wants it, then it will be supplied. But most people might feel that a single individual should not have so much leverage over others’ work. A rule might be established that a new product will be supplied once a certain number of people have registered a request for it. The number of requests required could vary, depending (say) on the difficulties involved in providing the new product, but also on how essential it was to those asking for it. Thus, specialised medications and prosthetics would surely be prepared even for very small numbers of people suffering from rare conditions – something that capitalist firms are reluctant to do because it is unlikely to yield a profit.

However, it is possible that socialist society may decide, either by a formal procedure or spontaneously, not to produce certain things even if quite a few people want them. Such decisions might be made for a variety of reasons, good and not so good.

Dangerous products

First, majorities may vote against producing certain goods on the grounds that they endanger the consumer and/or other people. Examples might include guns for hunting, explosives for demolition, porn, and highly addictive substances (which might be made available only through treatment programmes). Conceivably, majorities might go too far and refuse to authorise some goods and services on vague and inadequate grounds such as being “inconsistent with socialist values.”

Second, the production of certain goods may be judged too unpleasant or dangerous, to producers or to local residents, even after all possible safety precautions have been taken. Consider bird’s nest soup, a delicacy treasured by gourmets for its supposed medicinal and aphrodisiac properties. Collectors stand on bamboo scaffolding to harvest swifts’ nests from high up on cave walls, at considerable risk to their lives. Capitalism resolves such conflicts of interest in favour of the consumer because people will do just about anything to survive. But members of socialist society, like the wealthy of today, will be free of economic duress: their needs will be met as of right. This will not undermine their willingness to work, but they are likely to be rather picky in choosing the work they do.

Few miners (to take a more important example) will be keen to go on working underground. Whether or not society adopts a formal decision to abolish the most unpleasant kinds of work, people will “vote with their feet”. The issue is how society reacts. Unless people can be gently persuaded to continue temporarily with work they want to leave, society may have to accept the situation and adjust to the resulting change in the range of products available.

Free access to outer space?

What about goods that may not be dangerous to consume or produce but do incorporate large amounts of labour, energy, and materials, with a correspondingly large environmental impact? Will socialist society ensure free access to luxury goods like those currently consumed by the wealthy – for instance, the “off road vehicle” sold as a boys’ toy by Harrods (see http://www.harrods.com)?

It may be objected that the members of socialist society will not want to ape the lifestyle of the idle rich under capitalism. However, a demand for highly intricate products need have nothing to do with frivolous self-indulgence. It may arise from a spreading interest in artistic self-expression and scientific exploration. There may be numerous amateur scientists clamouring for the latest sophisticated equipment for their home labs. Will socialist society provide free access to electron microscopes? Or to space travel for the millions of people who dream of venturing into outer space? (At present the Russian Space Agency offers trips to the International Space Station for $1 million.)

There is also a class of “locational” goods that can never be supplied in abundance because they are tied to specific locations. Whatever precautions are taken, for example, the number of tourists allowed into nature reserves must be restricted if ecologically sensitive habitats are not to be degraded.

Another knotty question is how the principle of free access is to be applied in the sphere of housing. One of the top priorities when socialism is established will be to replace substandard housing stock so that everyone has access to spacious and comfortable housing. Presumably certain standards will be set for new residential construction – quite high ones, no doubt. But surely the new housing will not be as spacious and luxurious as the most expensive residences under capitalism. People will not have free access to their own marble palaces.

Restricted access?

In short, for certain categories of goods and services free access is bound to be infeasible, certainly in the early stages of socialist society and possibly even in its maturity. The real choice in these cases is between non-provision and restricted provision. So alongside free access stores, there may be restricted access outlets for various kinds of specialised goods, perhaps using some sort of coupon system.

It is conceivable that socialist society will decide that things that cannot – for whatever reason – be produced in abundance should not be produced at all. Such a decision would have obvious disadvantages, but it would preserve the principle of “free access to what has been produced” and avoid the difficult problems associated with restricting access, such as enforcement.

However, we can envision restricted access arrangements that socialist society is much more likely to find acceptable and on which it may, indeed, extensively rely. People may have free access to many facilities at local and regional centres but without the option of taking equipment home. Museums and art galleries that do not charge for entry exemplify this kind of arrangement. Similarly, there could be community centres equipped for specialised cuisine, exercise and sports, arts and music making, and scientific exploration.

There could also be depots where people have access to specialised goods – for instance, do-it-yourself and gardening equipment, and also motor vehicles – on a borrow-and-return basis, as in libraries. The staff at these depots would also maintain the equipment in good working order and provide advice and assistance as needed. This would be much more efficient than keeping machines like lawn mowers at home, where they stand unused 99 percent of the time.

The solution to everything?

To sum up, it would be wrong to play down the scope that socialism offers for the solution of our problems. Enormous resources will be freed up when we get rid of the waste inherent in capitalism. But the new society will face urgent tasks that will also be daunting in their enormity. It is hard to judge which enormity is likely to be the greater. Socialists do not assume that socialism will solve all problems at once, and prefer to think about socialism – and especially about its crucial early stages – in a practical and realistic spirit.

Who Owns the Land

Burning the moors is allowed at certain times of the year to aid heather growth and is done to help increase numbers of red grouse on sporting estates.

The RSPB said its study, which used aerial photography and satellite images, showed conservation areas were being damaged. Burning was detected in 55% of Special Areas of Conservation and 63% of Special Protection Areas assessed in the study, said the conservation charity. Such sites are designated by the EU for their conservation importance, and governments are charged with protecting them from damage and ensuring they are restored. In Scotland and England, the study found a third of burning took place on deep peat soils, an important carbon store. These upland areas are also a vital water source, supplying around 70 per cent of drinking water and burning has been linked to poor water quality, requiring large sums of money to treat.

Dr David Douglas, senior conservation scientist at RSPB Scotland and lead author of the study, said: "Upland ecosystems are highly sensitive to burning practices.” 

Martin Harper, the charity’s director of conservation, said: “Many of our uplands are in poor condition, due to intensive land management practices. It’s very worrying that burning is increasing, given the damage it can cause and that it occurs in many of our conservation areas. Governments and statutory agencies across Britain need to take action to reduce burning in our uplands rather than allowing them to be increasingly damaged year on year.” 

The Committee on Climate Change’s 2015 progress report to parliament notes: “Wetland habitats, including the majority of upland areas with carbon-rich peat soils, are in poor condition. The damaging practice of burning peat to increase grouse yields continues, including on internationally protected sites.” They are home to a diverse range of wildlife and up to 8,000 years old. And, according to a damning analysis by an independent government advisory body, the UK’s upland peat bogs are facing a sustained threat from the shooting classes’ desire to bag grouse.

With clients paying more than £150 to bag only a single brace of grouse, estate owners know that delivering a plentiful supply of targets makes sound business sense. It also adds to their considerable net worth because the capital value of a grouse moor is based on its grouse population. The birds are valued at anything between £2,500 and £5,000 a brace.

“It probably is fair to say there has been more burning in recent years compared to the preceding decade, and a lot of that is to do with reinvestment in estates because new entrepreneurs are coming in,” said Amanda Anderson, director of the Moorland Association. “A lot of the estates are getting back to their prewar potential. They’re possibly at their optimal level now [in terms of burning].”

According to the RSPB, some 76,000 hectares, or 27% of the UK’s blanket bog, have already lost peat-forming vegetation due to regular burning. In a briefing produced last year, the society claimed: “If we don’t restore upland peatlands, CO2 emissions from degraded peatlands are likely to increase by 30% for every 1C rise in average global temperature. Peatlands with healthy ecosystems are by contrast expected to be relatively robust to climate change.”

Pat Thompson, senior uplands policy officer at the RSPB, said it was time to rethink the burning of Britain’s countryside: “It is utterly perverse to me that we are degrading our uplands in a way that benefits the minority rather than society as a whole.” 

What we mean by common ownership

The Socialist Party defines socialism as a moneyless society based on common ownership of the means of production, production for use, and social relations based on cooperative and democratic associations as opposed to bureaucratic hierarchies. Common ownership means resources and property that are owned in common by the people and administered according to the will of the people. Everyone must have a right to participate in the decisions that affect their lives. It is through democratic control that the people express their will. There are some items, however, that are impractical to common ownership for various reasons such as personal care items and clothing. For example, you would not want to share a used toothbrush or underwear with others. Personal ownership of items such as these does not contradict the principle of common ownership. Socialist production is undertaken to meet human needs rather than producing goods for profit. Under socialism the people generally determine what those human needs are through democratic control. In this way the people control production. In a socialist society everyone has free access to the products and services intended to be used to meet people’s basic needs.

Capitalism reaches into every nook and cranny of our lives and society. It is in process of conquering those few parts of the world that have not yet been exploited, privatised and commercialised. Capitalism is only five or six centuries old, but increasingly it causes serious problems, destroys or distorts many lives --- yet it remains virtually unchallenged. It has seen off two sham 'opponents': Soviet state capitalism (wrongly called communism) and Labour nationalisation (easily contained within reformed capitalism).

Quite simply, the common ownership of the world’s resources and productive capacity is the basis for a reorganisation of society that would ensure plenty of the necessities of life for everyone on the planet – no more starving, malnourished people, no wandering homeless, no senseless deaths for the want of easily affordable medical care and medicine, no more poverty, unemployment, or inequality. How can this be so? Surely, if it were possible to eliminate these scourges we would have done it long ago. Aren’t we working on these problems anyway?

At present we live in a world where the resources of the Earth and the products made from them, the processes needed to make them, and the transportation systems to get them to you, are all owned by private individuals. A company proposes to extract resources or manufacture commodities. It needs money in order to do this. Wealthy people loan the company the necessary capital, but they don’t do it for nothing. They will expect a healthy return on their money every year of say, 10 percent, or 100 000 on every million pounds loaned. If this return is below expectations, then the lenders will withdraw their funds and look somewhere else to invest.

This puts every enterprise in a competition for capital to fund their operations and for expansion. Thus all companies must compete and strive to do whatever is necessary to create profit to pay dividends to lenders. If a company fails in this, capital will dry up and production will stop, rendering its physical assets as junk or sold at a fraction of their value, and its employees will be out of work. In other words, commodities are only produced for the purpose of profit or they are not produced at all.

The profits go to a tiny minority of big investors of capital to enhance their already vast fortunes that allow them to live in luxury while contributing no work whatsoever.

We believe that the Earth’s resources are the common heritage of all mankind and should be managed for the benefit of all. Those resources are easily abundant enough to feed, clothe, and house everyone on earth and provide medical care, education and everything else necessary to ensure a full and happy life for every one.

The establishment of common ownership would eliminate the competition for resources and for capital. It would eliminate production for profit. It would eliminate the need for states and their central governments that exist to serve today’s competitive system. It would even eliminate the need for money and trading as goods and services would be produced solely to meet the needs of humans who would have free access to those goods and services, taking them as needed. Competition would be replaced by cooperation, eliminating conflict and war and because everybody and therefore no one person or group would own the means of producing wealth, everyone would stand equal to the powers of production – no owners and non-owners, no exploiters and exploited, no employers and employed, and therefore, no classes.

Today, this is quite obviously not the case. We have constant conflict and war, vast inequality, poverty, malnutrition, starvation and deprivation amid wealth and plenty. Workers produce all the wealth in the world and perform all the work, yet are only allowed to take home a small share of that wealth to enable them to exist so they can show up at work the next day to produce more profit that goes to the already wealthy. And they are only allowed to do so at the whim of that tiny minority of owners.

Today, nobody starves or goes hungry because we lack food. Nobody is homeless because we lack building materials or builders, nobody lives in poverty because we lack wealth. People suffer theses scourges because they are unable to pay and thus realize a profit for some enterprise or other. In one fell swoop, in one simple action, production for profit could be replaced with production to satisfy the needs of all.

Socialism - The hope of humanity

Human beings have an inherent drive to care about one other and the levels of human misery in our world today demean us all. Socialism began as a quest for community with the utopian socialists wanting to restore what industrialism was taking away. Defining socialism often required defining what it was not. It never meant mean the tyrannical rule of a bureaucratic class in the Soviet Union (or China or Cuba) but even with the fall of the old Soviet Union the identification of socialism with centrally planned, state capitalism seems as strong as ever after.  Many still view socialism as the nationalisation of major industries when the experience of nationalized industries shows that it was not a model of social enlightenment even if they do add on caveats that it is nationalization “under workers control.” The task of the Socialist Party is to open up thinking about what socialism truly is and provide the necessary revolutionary vision. Many pro-capitalist seek to prove the idea of socialism is dead or that it is impossible because of some ‘human nature’, yet, how could socialism possibly be dead, or against human nature, if they're so concerned to keep killing it off? The argument that socialism can't work is akin to the person behind the wheel of a car who refuses to change direction as he or she drives towards the cliff. Divide the workers to maintain mastery has long been the tactic of the ruling classes the world over. They stir the embers of religious bigotry long after the musty creeds have lost whatever justification they had for emerging in the first place, and they fan the flames of patriotism, of so-called nationalism, long after the disappearance of the historical basis for narrow chauvinism and provincialism. Capitalism will not change its drive for profits at the expense of our existence as a species. Socialists hold that the exploited will not let themselves be passively dragged towards the catastrophes that threaten our future and survival.

The knowledge and technical means exist to conquer hunger and disease and to satisfy the basic social and cultural needs of our whole planet. But, inequalities grow and catastrophes threaten us. The idea that self-sacrifice and sensible reforms are enough to ward off these dangers is an illusion. Reformist preaching have never prevented crises, avoided wars or contained social explosions. Resignation has always been infinitely more costly than struggle. It is delusional to imagine capitalism without economic crises, without unemployment, without poverty, without discrimination against women, young people, the aged, immigrants and national minorities, without racism or xenophobia. Capitalism cannot be judged simply by looking at the comfort of – the small elite while closing one’s eyes to the living conditions of the large majority of people. Over-population’ and the hunger and misery associated with it, are not products of nature but products of men, or rather of social relationships which preclude such a social organisation of production and of life generally as would abolish with the problem of hunger that of ‘over-population’.

The socialist movement will not advance again significantly until it regains the initiative and takes the offensive against capitalism. Our task, as socialists is simply to restate what socialism meant to the founders of our movement but  the expansion and development of the socialist movement will not be overcome unless and until we find a way to break down the misunderstanding and prejudice against socialism. We are passionately devoted to the idea that socialism cannot be realised other than by democracy. All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The socialist movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority, as stated in the Communist Manifesto. Socialism and democracy are linked together as end and means. Socialism cannot be anything else but democratic, if we understand by “democracy” the rule of the people, the majority. The socialist reorganisation of society requires a workers’ revolution. Such a revolution is unthinkable without the active participation of the majority of the working class. Nothing could be more democratic than that.

Socialists do not argue with workers when they say they want democracy and doesn’t want to be ruled by a dictatorship. Rather, we should recognise that this demand for human rights and democratic guarantees, now and in the future, is in itself progressive. The socialist task is not to deny democracy, but to expand it and make it more complete. That is the true socialist tradition. The Marxists, throughout the century-long history of our movement, have always valued and defended bourgeois democratic rights, restricted as they were; and have utilised them for the education and organisation of the workers in the struggle to establish full democracy by abolishing the capitalist rule altogether.

Marx and Engels never taught that the simple nationalisation of the forces of production signified the establishment of socialism. That’s not stated by Marx and Engels anywhere. Marxists define socialism as a classless society—with abundance, freedom and equality for all; a society in which there would be no state, not even a democratic workers’ state, to say nothing of a state in the monstrous form of a bureaucratic dictatorship of a privileged minority. The Communist Manifesto said: “In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association.” N.B. “an association”, not a state—“an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all”

Capitalism, under any kind of government—whether ‘bourgeois’ democracy or police state—under any kind of government, capitalism is a system of minority rule, and the principal beneficiaries of capitalist democracy are the small minority of exploiting capitalists; scarcely less so than the slaveowners of ancient times. To be sure, the workers have a right to vote periodically for candidates selected for them by the capitalist parties. And they can exercise the right of free speech and free press. But this formal right of free speech and free press is out-weighed rather heavily by the inconvenient circumstance that the small capitalist minority happens to enjoy a complete monopoly of ownership and control of all the big presses, and of television and radio, and of all other means of communication and information.

In the old days, some socialists used a shorthand definition of socialism - “industrial democracy” - the extension of democracy to industry, the democratic control of industry by the workers themselves, with private ownership eliminated. That socialist demand for real democracy was taken for granted. Capitalism created a top layer of people who are the owners of peoples’ lives. Socialism will end that.

Great Transition

 The theme of the July issue of Popular Science is all about building a better world. One article examines four futures – Market forces (or business as usual); Policy Reform (governments take action to meet UN climate targets); Fortress World (overwhelmed by environmental and social problems, governments become authoritarian and the rich retreat behind walls); Great Transition (Society's values change radically to prioritize environmental preservation, social equality, and cooperation). Looking at seven broad topics - land use, purchasing power, water shortage, hunger incidence, income disparity, environmental impact, and the year when oil and natural gas will run out, the article has Great transition in front in every category except purchasing power. Great Transition is obviously a reasonable description of socialism although, of course, that word never comes up. What is certain is that we will never survive with Market Forces or Fortress World. Cooperative action is necessary now but impossible with the scramble and competition for the world's resources that we have today. John Ayers.

Socialism - A World Community

“All humanity is one undivided and indivisible family.” Gandhi

The profit-driven capitalist system—marked by the anarchy of production and the furious chase for markets, the division of the world into nation-states and the accompanying rivalries—will remain a fundamental barrier to addressing climate change. The goal of socialists is not to reduce people’s wants to some preconceived minimum. Rather, it is to realise and expand those wants. In a socialist society, everyone will have access to the great variety of material and cultural wealth accumulated over the course of civilisation. Consider what is required to do research in particle physics or to investigate the archaeological remains of ancient civilisations. Socialists aspire to a future society in which all can pursue the creative scientific and cultural work hitherto restricted to a privileged few. Progress in human development, i.e., ending misery and want, will not result from curtailing production but from raising it to unparalleled heights. Socialism is a society of material abundance.

Before the rise of capitalism, trade was simpler. Say you’re a bread maker, but you need shoes. So you swap the commodity you have for another commodity of equal value, and you use money as a simple intermediary to make that exchange possible. With capitalism rather than the purpose of exchange being a utilitarian one (I make such and such commodities, I need something else), the sole purpose of exchange is money. In this case commodities become nothing more than the intermediaries to make more money. Which commodities are made in order to increase capital, are completely incidental. As one magnate said “We’re not in business to make steel... We’re in business to make money.”

Every capitalist, in order to survive and out-compete others in the industry has to worry about just one thing: How to make some amount of money into more money. Whether or not the products are useful, rational, fulfill needs, or whether they create landfills full of crap, exists nowhere as a policy in corporate budgeting strategies.  So, for instance, mass production of any commodity is generally the most efficient way for capitalists to turn a profit. In the case of agriculture this leads to monoculture farming, which is a disaster of a system. It both depletes the soil and creates a need for artificial pesticides, basically poisoning both the earth and us at the same time.

Even if one company were to spend the resources necessary to cut down on pollution, carbon emissions, and waste, it would be competing with companies that don’t do this and can therefore sell their products more cheaply and in greater numbers, and the responsible company would quickly find itself pushed out of its necessary market share. Capitalism therefore promotes a built-in focus on short-term profitability to stay ahead of the game, with regard only to the money at the end of the process, rather than the utility or rationality of what is produced.

Of course a focus on short term gains is deadly for the environment, which by definition is a long-term issue. As Marx put it: “The way that the cultivation of particular crops depends on fluctuations in market prices and the constant change in cultivation with these prices—the entire spirit of capitalist production, which is oriented towards the most immediate monetary profits—stands in contradiction with agriculture, which has to concern itself with the whole gamut of permanent conditions of life required by the chain of successive generations.”

There has to be constant growth for individual capitalists in order to stay competitive. The more they make at the end of the production cycle, the more they can invest in the next round of production and the more they can invest in newer/cost-saving technologies to beat out their competitors. This process then also feeds a system-wide growth in which more and more is constantly being produced. Capitalism goes into crisis if it isn’t constantly growing.

What do we all want? We want to be all that we can be. And we want this not only for ourselves. We want our families and our loved ones to be able to develop all of their potential—that we all get what we need for our development. To each according to her need for development. If we are going to talk about the possibility of human development, we have to recognize that a precondition for that development is sufficient food, good health, education, and the opportunity to make decisions for ourselves. How can we possibly develop all our potential if we are hungry, in bad health, poorly educated, or dominated by others? Secondly, since we are not identical, what we need for our own self-development obviously differs for everyone. Engels asked, “What is the aim of the Communists?” He answered, “To organise society in such a way that every member of it can develop and use all his capabilities and powers in complete freedom and without thereby infringing the basic conditions of this society.” Marx summed it all up in the final version of the Manifesto by saying that the goal is “an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” Our goal, in short, cannot be a society in which some people are able to develop their capabilities and others are not; we are interdependent, we are all members of a human family. The full development of all human potential is our goal.

The moment we realise that a society based on money and profit has become counterproductive we have reached understanding. The moment we realise that our task and mandate as a human family is to build a world based explicitly on cooperation we have acquired consciousness. A cooperative commonwealth (or human family, if you prefer), our global society, and its economy, would be controlled by everyone, together, not just a small group, whether that group was the tiny corporate "ruling class" of the capitalist nations, or "the party" of the totalitarian nations (Cuba, China, North Korea, former Soviet Union, etc.). Economic activity as one human family would occur cooperatively, to satisfy human need and want, not to allow a tiny group of owners or power-holders to accumulate vast riches. It would be a dramatically new and different society, offering a way of life we can only dream of under our present system. The reality is, every problem we face as human beings is either caused by the normal operation of our money-and-profit system (i.e. "capitalism"), or exacerbated by it. In fact:  it is the natural, normal operation of our money-and-profit-based system that causes, or worsens, each and every social (which includes economic) problem we face. Thus, if we really want to eradicate these problems, we must begin to work toward ordering our society in a manner that reflects the reality of who and what we are: brothers and sisters in one human family. This would create a whole new framework that would allow for the solution of many problems that are simply unsolvable under capitalism. The new socialist cooperative framework would be broad and flexible, while our present capitalist framework is obviously and undeniably rigid and constraining.

Socialism will establish a community of interests. The development of the individual will enhance the lives of other men. Equality will manifest attitudes of co-operation. The individual will enjoy the security of being integrated with society at large. Socialism will end national barriers. The human family will have freedom of movement over the entire earth. Socialism would facilitate universal human contact but at the same time would take care to preserve diversity. Variety in language, music, handicrafts, art forms and diet etc will add to all human experience. Socialism does not try to "make everyone of the same." Quite the opposite. Socialism advocates more freedom and individual expression for people, not less. Whether it's freedom of expression or sexual freedom, socialism advocates increasing freedom.

The negative inter-related consequences of living under such a perverse system as capitalism are many and varied plus painful: disharmony, depression, anxiety, and loneliness are some of the effects of the resulting dis-connect – with ourselves, with others, and with the natural environment. Worldwide, according to Psychology Today, the numbers suffering from loneliness are at epidemic levels, and, with an aging population throughout the west, are expected to continue to rise. John Cacioppo, author of ‘Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection’ relates that in the 1980s “scholars estimated 20% of people in the US felt lonely at any given time, now it’s thought to be over 40%”. According to Cacioppa can cause lonely people to “feel others around them are threats rather than sources of cooperation and compassion.” Like many associated mental health illnesses, loneliness is stigmatized and seen, Cocioppo relates, as “the psychological equivalent of being a loser in life, or a weak person.” In a world where being tough, successful and ‘driven’ are championed, weakness (particularly in men) and other such inadequacies are frowned upon. As a result people deny loneliness, which is a mistake, as this suffocating condition can increase the risk of an early death by a staggering 45%, higher than both obesity and excessive alcohol consumption.

The ideal social unit for the benefit of the ‘Masters of the Universe’, as Adam Smith famously called them, is “you and your television set”, Noam Chomsky has said; in a world devoid of community spirit, where selfishness is encouraged, “If the kid next door is hungry, it's not your problem. If the retired couples next door invested their assets badly and are now starving, that's not your problem either.” Social unity and human compassion are the enemies of the elite and an unjust system, which promotes values of greed and indifference. Such values divide and separate, creating the conditions in which loneliness is almost inevitable. Selfishness and accumulation are encouraged; individual ambition and the competitive spirit, which “destroys all feelings of human fraternity and cooperation,” Albert Einstein said, and “conceives of achievement not as derived from the love for productive and thoughtful work, but as springing from personal ambition and fear of rejection,” pervade and largely dominate all areas of life.

“If humanity is to progress towards a new and peaceful way of living, such values, which creating the conditions in which loneliness is almost inevitable, need to give way to other more positive ideals. Cooperation instead of competition for example, will cultivate tolerance and understanding where suspicion and selfishness prevail, allowing communities to come together, strengthening unity – a primary need of our troubled times… So what is the answer? A strong social network, purpose and structure, and supportive relationships are crucial, but do these address the underlying emptiness, which triggers the loneliness? … The current socio-economic model is a poisonous system based on negative values; it has polluted the planet and is making us unhappy and ill in a variety of ways. It is a system that ardently promotes material success and the indulgence of personal desires. All of which encourages dependence on methods of ‘escape’ of one kind or another – drugs (prescribed, legal and illegal), alcohol, sex, entertainments in all shapes and sizes – including organized religion, to fill the chasm of loneliness, and keep the mind in a constant state of agitation and discontent…” (from here) h

The end of Fukuyama

From the December 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

A wise and confident-looking face gazes at us from beneath an article in the Guardian (7 September). The face is that of Francis Fukuyama, a consultant to the US State Department and the Rand Corporation. The article is his defence of his own essay 'The End of History', published last December. 

Fukuyama starts by complaining that he has been misunderstood. Critics have pointed to such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall and Iraq's invasion of Kuwait as evidence that he is wrong and history is not over. He explains that what he thinks is over is not "history" but merely "the history of ideas" and that the fall of the Berlin Wall and the overthrow of "communism" in Eastern Europe only back up his main argument that "liberal democracy is the only legitimate ideology left in the world". 

This type of thinking is not new. During the 1930s fascist and communist parties were convinced that "decadent democracy" was finished and would be replaced by their own creed. Fukuyama is as wrong now as they were then, but at least Hitler only gave the Third Reich a thousand years while he sees liberal democracy lasting for ever.

Ideology and war

We are also informed that the triumph of liberal democracy has been accompanied by "the victory of market principles, of market organisation" and that these two factors will lead to the creation of more and more liberal democracies practising free-market and free-trade economies and all living in harmony. The proof is that 

in the 200 or so years that modem liberal democracies have existed there is not one single instance of one liberal democracy lighting another.

According to Fukuyama the conflict between nations during most of this century 

was due to existence of serious ideological cleavages among the great powers, between liberalism on the one hand and fascism and communism on the other.

If Fukuyama's article in the Guardian had appeared on April 1st then it would have been taken for a joke, but he is serious. He actually believes that different political ideas are what produced World War Two, the Cold War, Korea, and so on. That these events were connected with the disputes between national ruling groups over such matters as control of markets, spheres of influence and vital raw materials has completely eluded him. 

For example, would America and Japan have gone to war if Japan hadn't threatened American interests in the Pacific? Of course not, their different political systems didn't matter one bit. Liberal democracies and dictatorships can co-exist very well so long as their interests do not seriously clash. Look at how Britain could for decades happily describe fascist Portugal as "our oldest ally". 

But even if the liberal democracies haven't fought one another this is only because they didn't need to, having agreed to carve up the world among themselves. Britain, France and the USA industrialised early and needed markets and raw materials for their mighty industries. The first two between them grabbed most of Africa and large parts of Asia while Central and South America were left to the USA. 

This carve-up, and not ideological squabbles, also explains why from 1939 to 1945 the big liberal democracies engaged in war with dictatorships, or to be more accurate, those which felt strong enough to muscle in on them. Italy and Japan were late to industrialise and thus to colonise, while Germany had lost its colonies and markets through defeat in World War One, so each of them had considerable ground to make up. The only way open to them, once diplomacy and threats had failed, was by military means. 

Is liberal democracy secure? 

What has also eluded Fukuyama is the glaring evidence that many nations cannot simply become, or even remain, liberal democracies just because they wish to. This depends on whether or not it is acceptable to the powerful liberal democracies, especially the USA. Remember the fate of Chile, Latin America's oldest liberal democracy, in 1973 when it offended US capitalism. True the US Marines were not sent in to crush it but the local military were. 

Nor are free-trade policies open to all, as Fukuyama supposes. These same powerful liberal democracies often ensure that the exports of under-developed countries are faced with the very trade barriers which they claim to oppose. Chile's Minister of Finance has welcomed George Bush's plan for a free-trade zone covering the entire Western Hemisphere but added

Unfortunately, many countries of the world—including the US—do not always reflect in their actions the free-trade gospel they preach. (The Wall Street Journal 14 September). 

So Fukuyama's vision of the future is of liberal democracies, including the great powers, settling down to "peaceful" competition. Yes, they may well fight with undemocratic countries but will make only economic war on one another. Great power status will depend, he says, not on the ability to move armed forces around the world but on remaining competitive by growing and innovating. The main threat a united, liberal democratic Germany will pose

will take the form of precision machine tools and high-quality Mercedes rather than Panzers.

Isn't that reassuring! But wait, what will be the response of the USA or some other great power if, say, Germany and/or Japan become too competitive? Will they simply accept a disastrous loss of markets and power with a philosophic shrug? History shows that free-trade is something nations support only when it is to their advantage. And what will be the response of the populace in those great powers should mass unemployment and falling living standards come in the wake of economic defeat? Dictatorships can certainly become liberal democracies but the reverse can just as easily happen in a situation such as this. 

Fukuyama's view of the world is a naive and simplistic one as it ignores the Marxist view that capitalism, because of its never ending need for expansion and capitaI accumulation, is rooted in conflict. In the last resort the way for nations to settle their irreconcilable differences must be through armed force or at least the threat of it. This applies no matter what form of government or economics happens to be in vogue. 

The history of ideas has not ended but is, and must be, a continuing process. Ideologies will persist and the old ideas which Fukuyama thinks are dead will probably come round again just as, incidentally, long-discarded free-market economics have done. Indeed only three days after his own article appeared there were two others in the Guardian arguing for more regulation in banking and more government spending! 

In whatever way future events unfold we can be sure that Francis Fukuyama's wise and confident expression will be replaced by one of pained bewilderment as his unsound theory is exposed. We are even surer that far from Marx's socialist idea having been ended, its day has still to come.

Vic Vanni

Glasgow Branch

What Good News?

The Rio + 20 summit has been and gone and little or no progress is still the watchword, only serving to remind us, if we needed it, that nothing is happening. World leaders attended the first one but were conspicuous by their absence at the latest one. No problem, it's of little importance anyway. It does also let us know how far we have slipped. Little was reported in the leading newspapers but in 1992, every paper had an environmental reporter covering the event. Canada's environment minister, Peter Kent, commented, "There is a lack of familiarity with the good news that Canada has to report." Well, we are waiting! John Ayers.

Planet of Plenty (3/3)

It is asserted by pro-capitalists that socialism is an end to freedom, not the beginning of liberty. Those who make that assertion very often are the same people to whom freedom means only the right to grab all you can and keep all you have grabbed. This is not true freedom at all. The freedom we seek is the freedom which guarantees to the individual justice even from those who do not wish to be just to him or her; which assures the right "to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience" -- in short, free speech, free press, free assemblage, free association, for which mankind has so long struggled. The Socialist, Party believe in freedom, peace, and plenty and know that they cannot be realised unless they are realised promptly in a cooperative commonwealth or rather in a World Federation of Cooperative Commonwealths which will embrace the world. There is no hope in capitalism with its practical certainty of new cycles of wars and tyranny. Is this great goal of socialism practicable? Let us emphasise that the goal of abundance in a society of free men and women who seek life rather than death and possess the machinery which can produce abundance is so desirable that it ought to compel people to move heaven and earth to make it practicable. There has been encouraging progress made in the cooperation of workers in the management of their own affairs. I ask you to consider the history of trade unionism. It is a magnificent record of the onward march of exploited workers. I ask you to consider what many cooperatives have accomplished. They have shown the capacity of plain men and women to manage in voluntary association the production and distribution of goods on another principle other than the principle of private profit. We can have industrial democracy.

Freed from the restrictions of profit-making, modern productive techniques could provide the abundance that would allow a socialist world community to introduce free access, according to need so that no man, woman or child anywhere on the planet need go without adequate food, clothing, shelter, healthcare or education. The characteristic mark of our system is that it leaves in the hands of private owners the land, the natural resources, the great machinery, the power necessary for our common life. And these private owners or the managers who act for them, use or fail to use what they own, solely in accordance with what they think will make for their own profit. Their profit depends upon relative scarcity. The case for Socialism arises logically and reasonably out of our examination of the development of capitalism and its present failure to use the machinery of abundance for the conquest of poverty. Socialism says: "Let us go about the business of making machinery provide abundance directly. Let us begin by asking, not what price will bring profit to private owners, but how much food, clothing and shelter do we need for the good life for men. Then let us produce for the use of men, women, and children, in order to supply them with abundance." Clearly this requires social ownership of the principal means of production and distribution. This not in order to abolish all private property but to give to the exploited workers, for the first time in the long history of mankind, the good things of life which labor of hand and brain, applied to the power-driven machine, can produce. Abundance is possible when we can set our engineers and technicians to planning for society, instead of planning, in so far as they can plan at all, for the profits of an owning class.

The socialist proposal is wholly reasonable but it is not, of course, self-executing. Socialism will be the result of struggle, and the successful application of Socialism requires intelligence and the capacity for co-operative effort. The collapse of capitalism is inevitable. But there is no inevitability about Socialism or shared abundance. We may have a long stretch of chaos, wars, dictatorships, and regimented poverty. This can be prevented only by men who will not accept poverty in the midst of potential abundance. Not man but technology must be the slave of tomorrow's world.

It is not merely plenty that we want, but peace. Mankind is divided not only into economic classes but into nations. And nations as well as men are divided into Haves and Have-nots. We live in an interdependent world where not even the capitalist nations with the most resources, the United States, the EU, China or Russia, are fully self-sufficient. Yet each nation claims absolute sovereignty, absolute sway over its citizens, and blindly sees its economic prosperity, not in cooperation, but in competing with its neighbours for control and capture of markets, to obtain sources of raw materials outside its borders, and a place for its capitalists to invest more profitably than at home the surplus wealth they have acquired by the successful exploitation of the workers who are their own fellow countrymen. Modern wars arise out of the clash of nations for power and profit. Patriotism and nationalism makes people blind so that they cannot see that out of this struggle for power and profit there can be neither true prosperity nor true peace. We cannot make peace secure or glorious under the loyalties of the institutions of capitalist nationalism. The hardest task for socialism is to bring about a real unity of workers with hand and brain across the dividing lines of nation, race and creed. Yet it is only in the federation of cooperative commonwealths to which there is hope of lasting peace. Socialists want a world of freedom. This we do not have and cannot have under the shadow of war and the bondage of capitalist exploitation.

There is no man, woman or child in the world who would not be better off with the menace of war and poverty and insecurity banished. There are few in the world who would not, as individuals, be better off economically under the abundance of planned production for use. We shall never have a true cooperative socialist commonwealth until we think of our reward as workers who create all wealth and not any longer of their reward as owners of property which enables them to exploit other's labour. That is one of the reasons why our appeal must be always to the workers with hand and brain, in city and country. It is they who have so long been exploited. It is they who can and must be free. Ours the responsibility to apply the technological power we now possess to conquer poverty and release humanity from immemorial bondage. Let us harness that power for life, not death.

Planet of Plenty (2/3)

The ruling class has discredited socialism by equating socialism with dictatorship while treating capitalism and democracy as one and the same. Economic systems are the set of relations between people and classes in social production, essentially who owns the means of production and how the product is distributed. Under the economic system of capitalism, the capitalist class owns the means of production (factories, transport, etc.) as private property. The basic law of capitalism – competition in the production of commodities to maximise profits – results in poverty, war, exploitation and crises. Capitalists hire workers to produce commodities, which are socially produced, but privately owned by the capitalists, and then sold for profit. The state provides an infrastructure to assist the capitalist class in maximizing profit and towards this end provides some basic necessities (such as schools, unemployment insurance, and social security) to maintain a workforce and ward off starvation, social chaos, and revolution. With the economic system of socialism, the means of production are not in the private hands of the capitalists, but are socially owned. The means of production are commonly owned and capable of producing abundance sufficient to meet the needs of all of society. The use of money disappears because commodities are no longer produced for a market, but for distribution on the basis of need.

 In the era of preceding the Industrial Revolution, the vision of a world without exploitation, hunger and war galvanized the working class movement but industrial capacity was unable to create the material conditions required for a socialist economic system. The idea of socialism preceded the possibility. Today, in this era of new technology the reverse is true. Now, the material conditions for socialism exist, but the ideas are lagging behind. Socialism possible today. The introduction of robotics and automation into production has created the conditions for this abundance. In the 21st century, the global capitalist system has reached a stage where goods can be produced with little or no labour. A level of production has been achieved that makes a socialist society possible. This is the turning point at which we stand today. Humanity today faces the choice: will we do away with private property and build a future for all or will a system of private property be preserved at the expense of human beings and the planet? Technology is reducing a class that was once an essential element of industrial production to redundancy. Attempts to do no more than blunt the worst effects of capitalism may be well-meaning, but they divert energy from the tasks ahead. The working class has nothing to gain from private ownership of the means of production and needs to take the reins of power and construct an economic system that can sustain a better world. The struggle today is not the struggle of the last century to expand industrial production. Nor is it reformist struggle to increase the crumbs that fall from the table of the world’s billionaires. Though people may have different ideas about and different ways of describing it, at this moment in history, the essence of every struggle for a better life is objectively the struggle for socialism. Socialism is not just an idea, but the practical resolution to immediate problems.

Imagine a society where all its members organise production and distribution on a cooperative, democratic basis according not to profit, but solely on the basis of need.

Such a society has no exploiting minority or exploited majority. All property other than personal property is held in common, for the benefit of all. Consequently, there is also no money. If you are hungry, you can eat from the collective store of food. If you want to work, work is always available, and each contributes what he or she can. When you are sick or old or too young, society always takes care of you. Women are not the property or handmaidens of men. All decisions are made collectively, and leadership is chosen rather than imposed. There are no prisons, no standing army, and no state bureaucracy. The threat of social ostracism is sufficient pressure against anyone who threatens the collective or harms another. It is realisable. The truth is, similar societies have already existed in one form or another, in all parts of the world, in what is known as "primitive communism." The words mine and thine were unknown. They held all things in common. Human beings are naturally not greedy and competitive. There are plenty of examples of spontaneous acts of sharing and cooperation in our present society that contradict this. In a socialist society money, indeed, even a system for accounting for what was produced and how it was allotted, would eventually disappear. In the socialist society, when there is plenty and abundance for all, what will be the point in keeping account of each one's share. The point is that with socialism, society's surplus wealth would be collectively used to enhance the welfare of all rather than that of a small group. Based as it is on the collective solidarity of the producers, it would also be compelled to socialize household functions, freeing women from bearing primary responsibilities for taking care of kids and home, and create a society in which all discrimination based on race, ethnicity, nationality, religion or sex were erased.

The ethic of capitalism is: 'From each whatever you can get out of him--to each whatever he can grab.' The socialist society of universal abundance will be regulated by a different standard. It will  'From each according to his ability--to each according to his needs.'"

Poor Still Go Hungry

We all know that India is the latest capitalist economic miracle/poster boy. The economy is booming and 'all boats get lifted by the rising tide', right? Well, not exactly. The New York Times June 17) reports, "Despite India's Plenty, Poor Still Go Hungry". Apparently, infrastructure to get food to the needy does not take priority over infrastructure that is necessary to make a profit. This, we know, will never change in this system. John Ayers

Cafeterias Closures

The Toronto and District School Board is looking to close school cafeterias that take in less than $35 a day in an effort to save $600 000 a day. Apparently, serving up nutritious food for their students doesn't seem to be a consideration. Not too surprising in a money driven world but disappointing that those charged to look after our children are oriented in such a way. And, of course, we all know about the 9 year-old girl in Scotland who posted pictures of the crap food served in her school on the internet only to be banned from doing so. Again, good food was not a consideration. Saving face was. John Ayers.

Planet of Plenty (1/3)

Capitalism is very poor at the just distribution of necessities.  The end of capitalism is at hand, but there is much to do to save the economy and assure the long-term survival of the population. If survival as a human species is our primary long-term goal, then deep changes are necessary to the way we organise ourselves socially. It is artificial scarcity which threatens future survival by siphoning wealth to an infinitesimally small percentage of people thereby depriving the majority of people a sustainable living standard. Artificial scarcity is the engine of wealth concentration under capitalism and its logical antecedent: poverty. With austerity measures increasing and economic growth decreasing across the West, poverty is on the rise. It is the goal of this essay to outline a plan to eliminate poverty by instantiating socialism through a number of pragmatic measures.

Eliminating poverty by ending artificial scarcity is what is called socialism. Real socialism (or just socialism from this point forward) seeks the end to artificial scarcity of all essential commodities irrespective of social class such as the free distribution of food which are designed to end poverty and upholding the common good. It is the only way to create a sustainable future that ends deprivation of the poor and the profit-seeking of the ruling-classes. Socialism, as Karl Marx argues in his famous work The Communist Manifesto, replaces failed capitalism.

Capitalism has failed to provide the basic needs of society.  Even the “social welfare” state as only manages to mitigate deprivation. Capitalism fosters tautology; the rich are seen as successful by virtue of being rich and the poor are seen as unsuccessful by virtue of their poverty. This is a “Social Darwinist” view of human achievement which makes implicit that having money (with little regard to how the money is made) correlates with a greater right to survive and therefore entitles one to greater receipt of community benefits. Socialism begins with the assumption that monetary status is inadequate determinate of entitlement.

Universal essential commodity entitlement provides an opportunity for equality by eliminating desperation. Taken to its full potential, socialism not only eliminates desperation, but also encourages increasing levels of satisfaction, gratification and enlightenment. Through the arts and sciences (and all the sub-disciplines of the humanities paradigm), humans seek greater and greater fulfilment, but such striving for more has been, at least in the West, driven by the vehicle of capitalism, a system which promotes the capabilities of those belonging to legacy wealth whilst ignoring the potential contribution of those belonging to legacy poverty. Hence, terms such as “starving artist” define those individuals who must sacrifice security of food to pursue their talent. Conversely, terms such as “fat cat” describe those people who, through a system which rewards unethical and unsustainable business practices, exploit the labour of a desperate workforce and profit off the irrational decision-making of the easily-duped consumer. Unlike capitalism, socialism supports the individual – no matter his or her background – in the pursuit of a better life and therefore exploitation of labour and unethical consumerism cannot be used for wealth generation. And so, there are no longer any starving artists, nor are there any fat cats. -

 Automation should both require fewer people to work AND enable people to work less. In a world where a minority, historically known as the capitalists own the physical means of production like factories, robots and patents this will result in greater inequality as labour becomes less and less important as an economic factor. The owners of capital will be able to produce to satisfy market demand with little labour input. This will result in more former labourers leaving that field and becoming dependent on welfare.

In theory, physical labour may become totally obsolete. If every house has a decentralised energy source like solar panels and reliable energy storage, as well as an advanced 3-D printer or molecular assembler that can produce almost physical object imaginable from a few basic recyclable chemicals then human poverty will essentially have been abolished. We can just spend the vast majority of our time doing things that we enjoy, while spending only a few minutes or at most hours a day programming our machines to fulfil our material desires. As we proceed through the 21st Century and as the technologies of superabundance — solar energy, nuclear energy, wind energy, cybernetics, genomics, the internet, 3-D printing, molecular manufacturing, desalination, etc — create more and more wealth.

That is the more optimistic vision. In a less optimistic vision, only a small minority of people will have access to such technologies as while the technology may exist, the costs of mass distribution remain too high (at least for a time). The vast masses, will be stuck in impoverished material conditions — dependent on welfare, and charity — without any real prospect being able to climb the ladder through selling their labour. Only a lucky few — who have an inimitably good idea, or a creative skill that cannot be replicated by a robot — will have a prospect of joining the capital-owning upper class. And for the others who are left out in the cold, political action may look attractive. Simply have the government take a larger chunk of the capital-owning class’s income or wealth, and redistribute it to the poor. Ideally, this would be done with the intent of abolishing poverty through making cheap electricity, internet access and molecular assemblers available to all. Less ideally, rather than giving the poor the means to fish (so to speak), it might instead take the shape of a giant welfare net, keeping the means of production in limited hands and simply confiscating and redistributing some wealth. These issues unresolved could create a lot of tension between the two classes. In a worst-case scenario, that could lead to social breakdown or even revolution.

The most cited objection to socialism is incentive. Capitalism argues that without money to motivate, there is no reason to go to work, let alone innovate. However, that people will become ever more sedentary if their basic needs are fulfilled is a dogmatic supposition perpetuated by profiteering propaganda. There is no genetic basis that determines the superiority of money – or rather the threat to withhold money – over social incentive. In fact, cash is only a means to an end – a symbol of one’s contribution – and as such this symbol can change. Under capitalism, it is insecurity that motivates people to go to work. Eliminate insecurity and the result is that incentive for work upgrades to what this essay calls “additive benefits”. Additive benefits are those benefits in life that exist on top of the essentials.

The benefits of work itself – social interaction, credit for one’s work output and access to luxuries – provide incentive to go to work. Although everyone is entitled to essential commodities, a job provides greater diversity for the palette. Thus, choose to stay at home and thus eat a basic nutritionally-balanced food handed out freely to citizens; no one starves, but unless one goes to work, then luxuries are, for the most part, out of reach. And so, work is no longer equated with access to survival, with the alternative being starvation and homelessness, but rather access to luxuries.

In short, the incentive for turning up to work under socialism is the means for getting something more than the basics, and thus, no one need suffer the indignity of being identified as poor even if relying purely on the basics. It is uniform society, as it were, with the option of not wearing the uniform. Would most people decide not to go to work and sit idly in front of a television if all their basic needs were provided for? Socialists argue that the human compulsion for activity and striving for more motivates one to contribute to society in one’s best capacity if only one is provided dignity and the means to pursue one’s full potential.

Hence, the incentive for productivity is the benefit attached to working to one’s full potential. One might say that people lose their “free time” when going to work, and should therefore not have the full burden of supporting those who choose not work, but the human compulsion to fill the hours with more than idle tasks – the boredom that comes of doing nothing – motivates one to do work if only there is more to it than a means to mere survival. The compensation need not be cash, as such, but rather the knowledge that one’s contribution is valued for the work itself and all the social benefits that come from the recognition of one’s contribution. There is bound to be a small population of people who seem comfortable with doing nothing, but these people should be treated as having a psychological problem and referred to a doctor or psychologist, not threatened with a withholding of livelihood.

More specifically, the incentive for turning up to work is to receive social advantages, such as meeting potential partners for dating/marriage, friends with whom to go out for meals/drinks and the gratification of social advancement for having performed to a high standard and being recognised formally as having done so. Everyone has the opportunity to perform to their highest potential and formal acknowledgment of one’s work contribution – as opposed to cash in the bank – satisfies the craving for professional accomplishment. The Marxist phrase “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” is not merely an ideological argument, as if truly exercised, life satisfaction is a standard, as opposed to merely an ideal. The only way to achieve this ideal is converting the incentive to go to work from the fear of starvation to the positive reinforcement of additive benefits when work is completed to standard. Socialism requires first and foremost a change in thinking from the idea that some people must always lose to the idea that everyone can win if given all of the basic necessities for survival and allowed to pursue their best potential unfettered by desperation.

Noticeable Absence

Noticeably absent in the Greek financial tragedy is any action on the part of the wealthy class. Shipping magnates have their tax-free status enshrined in the constitution and oil, gas, media, and banking magnates are showing their patriotism by NOT buying government bonds to help the country. (New York Times, June 10). John Ayers.

The Mental Part(y)

Information keeps popping up re the Harper governments massive omnibus bill. Environmental amendments account for 170 pages of the total 425. For example, the Tories are no longer required to report on their green (?) progress (nothing to report anyway!), less protection for fish, cut Parks Canada employees, reduce or eliminate the number of monitoring programs for water (not important, eh?). The Tories see environmental protection as a hindrance to economic growth. The only part of environmental that applies to this government is the "mental" part. John Ayers.

Pamper the rich – Punish the poor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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