From the December 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard
“Socialist Worker”, the weekly paper of the International Socialists, regularly publishes a statement of their main principles called “What We Stand For”.(1) We would expect this organization to stand for Socialism. Surprisingly, Socialism is nowhere defined in the statement and it only appears as a word upon which various people and organizations have placed many different interpretations. Still it is possible to get some idea of what IS stand for by a careful reading of their statement. It is also possible to get very confused. For instance, the statement starts off:
We believe that socialism can only be achieved by the independent action of the working class.
Whereas, the last part says they are
For the building of a mass workers’ revolutionary party . . . which can lead the working class to power . . .
Now, unless the workers are supposed to be getting power for something other than Socialism, it is simply ridiculous to say that someone who is being led is taking independent action. Could IS tell us which statement they stand for and which is this week’s deliberate mistake? It would also be interesting to know just how large a “mass” the workers of this “revolutionary party” are to be. Presumably, if it attracted too many workers the working class would be leading themselves!
The second part of the statement reads:
We believe in overthrowing capitalism, not patching it up or gradually trying to change it. We therefore support all struggles of workers against capitalism and fight to break the hold of reformist ideas and leaders.
We would wholeheartedly agree with this although we wonder if they only mean reformist leaders in the last bit. However, IS don’t appear to agree with this part of the statement themselves. Later on they say they are:
Against unemployment, redundancies and lay-offs. Instead we demand five days’ work or five days’ pay, and the 35-hour week. For nationalization without compensation under workers’ control.
What is this if it is not an appeal to patch up capitalism? No form of nationalization ever has or could solve the problem of unemployment in capitalism. This is a strange way to fight reformist ideas. As another example, at the two general elections this year they have supported the return of a Labour government. This is despite acknowledging (although their election posters made no mention of the fact) that such a government would be anti-working class and reformist. This is another strange way of supporting all struggles of workers against capitalism and fighting reformist ideas. Again, perhaps IS could explain?
The fifth part of the IS statement at least gives us some idea of what they stand for. It contains the sentence:
The experience of Russia demonstrates that a socialist revolution cannot survive in isolation on one country.
This holds the definite implication that a Socialist revolution took place there. So, we must go back to the Russia of 1917 to find out what they mean by a Socialist revolution. There, in a backward, predominantly agrarian country which was collapsing under the strains of a modern twentieth century war, the Bolsheviks took power in a minority insurrection. They did so on the promise that they would provide “Peace, Bread and Land” and not Socialism. The Bolsheviks had also expressed the wildly optimistic hope that the workers of other countries would follow their example and take power also. When these workers, who at the time were butchering each other in defense of their masters’ interests, did not do so any hope of establishing Socialism was obviously futile. In this situation, which could have been predicted from the start, the Bolsheviks consolidated their position by establishing a dictatorship which suppressed all opposition and under Lenin’s guidance, embarked on a program me of state capitalism.
If this is the IS idea of a Socialist revolution it is easier to understand their opposition to parliamentary democracy with an almost universal franchise and their preference for soviets (or “councils of workplace delegates” as they put it) which have at best only a haphazard democracy. Their stated reasons are that
The state machine is a weapon of capitalist class rule and therefore must be smashed. The present parliament, army, police and judges cannot simply be taken over and used by the working class.
True, the state machine is a weapon of the ruling class but there is little logic in saying that because someone uses something as a weapon then nobody else can use that weapon. And of course the present parliament, army, etc. cannot simply be taken over and used by the working class. In the words of Engels:
. . . the victorious proletariat must first refashion the old bureaucratic, administratively centralized state power before it can use if for its own purpose . . .(2)
The IS preference for soviets may also be due to the fact that they are less representative and thus provide a better opportunity for a minority to come to power as the Bolsheviks did. It is to be hoped that IS have a greater love for democracy than their counterparts of 1917 who dissolved the first and last completely democratically elected Russian assembly (the Constituent Assembly of 1918) when they found they were in the minority.
To return to the point about “the independent action of the working class”. The statement also says that
To achieve socialism the most militant sections of the working class have to be organized into a revolutionary socialist party . . .
Taken in conjunction with the apparent endorsement of the Bolsheviks’ tactics this would seem to indicate that IS hold the Leninist “vanguard” theory. This theory says that far from taking independent action for Socialism, the mass of the present working class will never understand Socialism anyway and will have to be led by professional revolutionaries who will introduce it from above. Whatever way you look at it, the IS statement is either confused or dishonest. Quite possibly it is a mixture of both as any "vanguard" can only survive on the confusion of its followers.
The Socialist Party, in contrast to IS, has a clear line on what Socialism is, and how it will be achieved. Socialism will be a society in which all the means by which wealth is produced and distributed will be under the common ownership and democratic control of the whole community. Of necessity, it will be a worldwide system because the means of production and distribution are worldwide. There will be no wage or price system as things will be produced solely for use and not for sale. People will work to the best of their ability and take according to their needs. The nature of Socialism shows that it can only be achieved by the conscious and independent action of a clear majority. It is the job of Socialists to help build that majority. We do not deprecate the struggles of workers but we insist that they must understand the class basis of those struggles. Without that consciousness all their efforts will eventually be futile.
Once Socialists are in the majority they will have to get hold of the state machinery to prevent it being used against them. Socialist delegates elected to the various assemblies of the capitalist nation-states by a Socialist working class would have this control, and would leave any recalcitrant capitalists in a virtually helpless position. The capitalist class only maintain their order with the active support or acquiescence of the workers. Once they lose this and are faced with an organized, uncompromising working class it will be plain to all what they are—a socially useless, parasitic minority living off the backs of the workers.
Con Friel
Glasgow Branch
(1) The quotations in this article are taken from the statement as it appeared on 24 August, 1974.
(2) Extract of a letter from Engels to Bernstein on 1 January, 1884.
|
Friday, July 24, 2015
I. S. STAND FOR - CONFUSION (1974)
What we mean by no State
A classless, stateless world
Running global human society without the machinery of states
is regarded by some as being as unachievable as radio and hi-fi systems were to
some people before their invention. Socialists observe that the coercive
governmental machinery of the state has not always been a feature of human
society but was created necessarily in a phase in our history and will, with
equal necessity, be abolished with the establishment of socialism.
For the greater part of the history of human society social
affairs have not been regulated by governments. The state arose from the need
to keep class antagonisms in check. The economically most powerful social class
becomes the politically dominant class through the state and uses its machinery
as a means of holding down and exploiting the oppressed class. "The
ancient state was, above all, the state of the slave owners for holding down
the slaves, just as the feudal state was the organ of the nobility for holding
down the peasant serfs and bondsmen, and the modern representative state is an
instrument for exploiting wage labour by capital." (Engels, Origin of the
Family, Private Property and the State)
When the majority of men and women —the wealth producers —
democratically act to put the means of life into the hands of the whole
community there will no longer be a social need for the coercive machinery of
the state. The majority of people will no longer have to suffer government by a
minority. The government of people will be replaced by the administration of
things. This will mean that the institutions now used by the state to keep the
working class in check — the judiciary, laws, police forces and prisons — will
become socially redundant. Similarly, the organised force used by the state to
protect the interests of territories and markets of its wealth owners—armies,
navies and air forces — will also become socially unnecessary. "The
society that organises production anew on the basis of the free and equal
association of the producers will put the whole state machine where it will
then belong: in the museum of antiquities side by side with the spinning wheel
and the bronze axe." (Engels, Anti-Duhring)
Organising the world on the basis of a society in which
people will contribute according to their skills and inclinations and take
according to their self-determined needs is an attractive idea. A world society
undivided by national boundaries and free from war and famine. A world society
unfettered by the rationing system of money. Is it possible? Socialists contend
that not only is the establishment of socialism immediately possible, but that
it is an urgent necessity if we are to avoid the potentially horrific sorts of
destruction which the continuation of capitalism would render probable.
There are several ways in which the practicability of
socialism can be doubted but basically these doubts arise in three areas of
inquiry. First, will "human nature" permit a classless world without
government? Second, will the resources of the planet be sufficient to support a
society based on producing goods and services simply to meet all human needs
and third, do we have sufficiently advanced systems of communication,
organisation and distribution to cater for running the world for all humanity?
MINORITY RULE NOT NATURAL
Does "human nature" stand as a barrier to a world
without governments? In answering this question, socialists would draw a
distinction between human nature and human behaviour. There are a few
characteristics of humans which could be described as "natural" in
the sense that they are anatomical or physiological features of all people
irrespective of the social system that they live in. Reflex actions, like
blinking to water the eyes, stereoscopical colour vision, bi-pedal locomotion,
prehensile manipulation and so forth are examples of this sort of feature and
they are relatively fixed characteristics. Also, of course, the needs for food,
drink, clothes and shelter. Contrasted with this are a great variety of
behaviour patterns which are socially learnt. Behaviour traits instilled in
young people by families, the indoctrination of education systems and the
aggression and murderous techniques taught by military forces are all examples
of this sort of socially conditioned behaviour. In commercial society we are
steeped in a competitive mentality from a tender age but this learnt behaviour
conflicts with an essential characteristic of human society: that of
co¬operation. As a society we are a highly integrated body of entities and we
all rely upon one another. Our very advanced division of labour means that we
are all, to some degree, mutually dependent and require each other's
co-operation even in capitalism. Because socialism will abolish classes — the
relationship of employer and employee — and create a social equality of human
beings, it will harmonise our social relationships with the way that we need to
work in order to survive. It is worth observing that even in today's
competitive world we are all co-existing in an intricate network of
co-operation. Picture the seething mass of work going on in one of today's big
cities — it would grind to a halt in one second without the continued and very
complex co-operation amongst millions of people.
Primitive humankind co-operated for tens of thousands of
years without government, but apart from this evidence that we are not
organically predisposed to be ruled by a minority, there are many examples to
corroborate the versatility of our nature. Anthropological examinations of Red
Indian, Aboriginal and Eskimo societies all testify to the fact that we can and
have organised society on a democratic basis. Many modern societies which
organised themselves on a communistic, democratic principle (like the Kalahari
Bushmen, or Kung people, of southern Africa) are now being sucked into the
commercial, competitive world. They are being driven from the lands that they
inhabit as it is "purchased" by developers, and are forced to seek a
living by wage-slavery. Another example of this, occurring now, concerns the
Panare Indians who live in the Orinoco basin in Venezuela. They have enjoyed
life, until recently, in 38 communities living on the basis of "from each
according to ability, to each according to need". They have no divisions
of class and no status discrimination on the grounds of age or gender. Ideas of
competition and violence are entirely antithetical to them. Their stress-free
lifestyle is now being shaken by an American airborne evangelical group, the New
Tribes Mission. Their lives are being smitten with religious indoctrination and
all sorts of sinister devices are being used to make them docile, ashamed of
their lifestyles, and to go in search of employment in the local mines.
In a rat-race we do acquire rat-like propensities but even
now they do not dominate us and more importantly, they are subject to change if
and when we decide to abolish the sort of social environment which causes them.
SUFFICIENT MATERIAL AND HUMAN RESOURCES.
The latest United Nations estimate of the world population
is 4.7 billion. Are the resources of the world enough to support everyone?
Today there is a massive unmet social need as a result of a social system which
only produces goods if there is the prospect of selling them on the market for
a profit. These unmet needs range from the horrors of mass starvation
(according to Oxfam 500 million men, women and children go hungry every day)
and homelessness to the relative impoverishment of all the wealth-producers.
Alongside these needs capitalism presents in all countries the conspicuous
over-consumption of a small elite, lakes of wine and milk and mountains of food
(the European Common Market has a current butter stockpile of approaching
600,000 tonnes) and gigantic resources being pumped into socially useless or
destructive ends.
Military spending now totals close to the equivalent of
£1,000,000,000 across the world every 24 hours. This greatly exceeds the
resources needed to meet the United Nations targets (idealistic as they are
under the profit system) of providing everyone with adequate food, sanitary
water, health care and education. UNICEF, working in 112 countries, had a total
income of £171 million in 1981. This is the equivalent of the expenditure the
world makes on the military forces every 4 hours and ten minutes (World
Military and Social Expenditures 1982). It is an unchangeable priority of
states in capitalism to put the needs of the Death Industry before basic human
requirements. In a socialist society all of the ingenuity, human effort and
resources which are now pumped into militarism will be donated instead to
producing goods and services which are useful and enjoyable. On a similar
point, consider all of the materials and human resources which are spent today on
the necessary workings of the commercial system which would be liberated in
socialism to be devoted to more rewarding sorts of work. The millions of men
and women who are today engaged in running the system that exploits them in
banking, insurance, commerce, tax revenue, everything connected with the
production and running of prisons and the police forces, would be freed to help
take part in the task of providing the sort of things that people really want.
Julian Simon and Herman Kahn in their book The Resourceful
Earth produce carefully researched evidence to demonstrate that the planet
enjoys much greater resources than are currently being tapped. Their writing
is, ironically, aimed at advocating a free market economy with minimal economic
controls — the very principles which produce such great hardship now — but
their evidence is nevertheless useful. As they observe, the scaremongery about
dwindling resources is not new. People have always been predicting that one or
other natural resource will be exhausted. It was once a respected view that oil
reserves would dry up in the 1880s. In practice these predictions encourage
discoveries of new reserves or the development of new substitutes for the
threatened material.
Capitalism only ever aims to produce on a scale matching
what people can afford to buy, not what they actually need. For this reason
many agricultural techniques are underdeveloped compared with our technological
abilities.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) still sees great
scope for expanded production. It reported this year that, using current
Western farming methods, the world could produce enough food for up to
33,000,000,000 people, seven times the world population. Using somewhat less
sophisticated farming methods, 15,000,000 people could be fed and, even if the
whole world relied on primitive farming methods, using no fertilizers or
pesticides, traditional seeds and no soil conservation methods, the present
world population could still be comfortably fed. ("In Defence of Population
Growth", New Scientist 4 August 1984)
ORGANISING A GLOBAL CLASSLESS SOCIETY
Do we have adequate systems of communication, organisation
and distribution to operate a global classless society? As with the questions
of "human nature" and the earth's resources, the answer to this
question is partly apparent now. Because it is necessary for capitalism's
international trade, the world is already a highly integrated network of
communications, travel and distribution. In this sense, capitalism is pregnant
with socialistic organisation. With its booms and slumps, shortages and gluts,
disruptive wars and embittered industrial disputes, capitalism is a chaotic,
anarchic social system. In socialism production and distribution will be
democratically planned. Society will not be told by a minority that food cannot
be produced because there is no market for it. We shall harness all of the
technology that capitalism has produced, discover exactly what our needs are,
and where, and then plan production to meet them. Computer systems, current
electronic stocktaking devices used in supermarkets and the astonishing
technology of communications and travel used today by military forces and banks
will all play their part. And think how much easier it will be to simply find
out how many people in what places need what goods, than the task of market
researchers of discovering who might buy what in the uncertainties of the
market.
Without nations and governments, how will this production be
planned? The world administration for production for use will need to satisfy
the requirements of historical continuity, practical necessity and democracy.
That is, it will need to adapt existing social organisations, develop them in a
way to deal with the practical problems which need to be solved and to permit
democracy in all decision-making. Socialists are currently in a minority and it
will be for a majority to make the final decisions about how socialism will
work. We can however still make some practical suggestions today.
Decision-making could operate on three sorts of geographical level: the local
level (corresponding to current local government areas), the regional level and
the global level. Decisions about social policy and planning, whatever the
scale of their intended effect, would need to originate in a locality. They
could be raised by individuals, groups or local representatives of a specialist
global group, connected with, for instance, health or the ecology. A policy
proposal intended to affect society generally would need to pass successfully
through all three levels of decision-making and then be implemented at local
levels across the world.
The decision-making process in socialism will be such that
everyone will have access to any information they need to make the decision and
the opportunity to express views on the issue to everyone else. In the age of
advanced telecommunications and the teletext this will not present any
significant problems. Decisions only affecting a locality will probably be
participated in by people living or working in that locality and similarly with
regional decisions. We could make great use of the various
information-gathering systems and expert organisations which have been
developed by capitalism. Take one example, the Food and Agriculture Organisation
of the United Nations. It is organised in 147 countries and has 4,000 planners
and technicians all over the globe. It produces scientific papers which collate
research material from all over the world and maintains a library of knowledge
on food, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, nutrition and conservation. It keeps
a census of world agricultural resources. In 1978 it completed a soil map of
the entire world using a variety of techniques from aerial photography to
satellite surveillance. This combines details of climates and soils and builds
up a picture of potential world food production.
Socialists propose the immediate establishment of a
classless, global society based on the common ownership and democratic control
of the means of living by the whole community. This sort of society can only be
created by a majority of people consciously and democratically acting together
to take on the responsibility of running the world for ourselves. Today's
reality is, very often, yesterday's vision:
It is a dream, you may say, of what has never been and will
never be; true it has never been, and therefore, since the world is alive and
moving yet, my hope is the greater that it one day will be: true it is a dream;
but dreams have before now come about of things so good and necessary to us
that we scarcely think of them more than of the daylight, though once people
had to live without them, without even the hope of them. (William Morris, The
Lesser Arts, 1877)
Imagine there's no
countries, it isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die
for and no religion too
Imagine all the people
living life in peace
You may say that I'm a
dreamer
But I'm not the only
one
I hope some day you'll
join us
And the world will be
one.
(John Lennon,
Imagine, 1972)
Gary Jay
Thursday, July 23, 2015
What do we mean by no money
Why Money?
Money is the universally accepted means of exchange. It is a
universal equivalent. Instead of me giving you three toasters for your
armchair, I pay in an accepted, legal currency. Sounds sensible. Who wants to
return to the awkward system of bartering goods? It seems sensible as long as
we have a property-based system of society where wealth is owned by some and
sold to others.
The two main uses of money by most people are for food and
housing. You need money to buy food from the corner store, or, more probably,
the supermarket. In effect, you are paying the owners of food production for
the right to have access to what they possess. These millionaire food
manufacturers did not produce the food. But you must buy if from them so that
they may profit. You pay money for housing to the landlord or the building
society. They own the land that you live on and they own the means of producing
the buildings in which you dwell. Directors of building societies are not to be
found on building sites making houses. They are too busy getting drunk in their
clubs or playing golf.
Now, imagine that all these things that you need were owned
and controlled in common. By everyone. All of us—you included. There is nobody
to buy food from—it is common property. There are no rents or mortgages to pay
because land and buildings belong to us all. There is no need to buy anything
from any other person because society has done away with the absurd division
between the owning minority (the capitalists) and the non-owning majority (the
workers). You would not need money. In a society of common ownership money
would have no role. It would be like the tramlines in a city which has done
away with trams. No longer would money exist.
The money test I
"But we need money—couldn't live without it". That
is what most well-conditioned readers will say. In our society people learn to
turn money into a fetish. In primitive societies certain objects were invested
with magical powers. For example, in Ancient Egypt cats were regarded as sacred
animals which had to be treated with great respect or they would turn the world
upside-down. Modern people are taught to believe that money contains intrinsic
powers. Where would we be without it? Beware of dethroning the money-god. Let
us put this to the test.
Take a pile of money. Three fivers and a couple of pound
coins. Leave them in a dark room and see what happens. Will they dig coal? Will
factories be built or homes furnished? Well. at least they could cook you a
good dinner: you can get good food for seventeen quid. Nothing will happen.
Humans make money powerful. Left to itself it is just a pile of tokens of no
worth. Even the picture of the Queen is ugly.
The money test II
But is money that important to you? Perhaps it is less
intrusive in your daily life than has been suggested. Try one more test.
Stop selling yourself for money for three months. That is
what you do every time you go out to work in return for a wage or salary. You
put yourself on the shelf along with the baked beans and the canned tuna fish
and you say 'Buy me!'. The wages system, which turns the vast majority of
people into exploited workers, is a process of selling your mental and physical
energies in return for some money. For most of us, if we do not sell ourselves
we will have little or no access to what we need in order to live. We devote
most of our waking lives to trying to obtain money. Our work is devalued by
money: if we enjoy working, the pleasure is diminished by the knowledge that we
are only really engaging in a sordid transaction—and how many workers hate the
miserable work that they are forced to do in order to get money?
Give it a try: stop selling your labour power for money. You
will give up on the test long before three months—or three weeks—or even three
days. Most wage slaves are too petrified of losing their jobs—their chance to
be bought for money—to even contemplate such an exercise. And rightly so, for
under the wages system we are lost if we do not sell ourselves for money.
Abolish money
Socialists stand for a world without money. All wealth will
be commonly owned, so there will be no body to buy what you need from. The
right to live, and to be comfortable and happy, will not depend upon your
pocket-book. Freedom will not be costed by accountants who will only give you
liberty if you can pay for it.
In a socialist society people will work according to their
abilities and take according to their needs. Who will decide what their needs
are? Not their bosses or the state or a cunning advertising industry—none of
these will exist. People will decide for themselves. Who but humans ourselves
are able to decide what we need?
There will be no "socialist market". Contrary to
the economic babble of certain "theorists" on the Left, it is quite
obvious that the market, which is a mechanism for buying and selling
commodities and realising a profit for the sellers, will have absolutely no
function in a community where nobody is buying or seiling or making profits. In
a society where production is solely for use people will have free and equal
access to take what they need from the common store.
Are people capable of living in a society of free access
without making a mess of it? Will they take too much? Will they all refuse ever
to work? Will they go to sleep for a thousand years and refuse to move a
muscle? These are the fears about the nature of human beings that we in this
money-mad society are urged to have. Socialists do not share such fears. We
know just how co-operative and sharing and intelligent workers are capable of
being. After all, we are a party of workers.
Given a society of moneyless, free access men, women and
children will co-operate together to make and to take what they commonly need
and desire. They will do so democratically. And we could do so tomorrow if the
vision of a moneyless society grabs hold of enough imaginations and penetrates
the consciousness of enough of those millions of workers who are currently
crying out, openly or quietly to themselves, under the strain of the enormous
and often unbearable pressures of the money system. Without money, humans will
be free to relate in ways which we have forgotten or only half-remember. The
banks can close down, the cash machines put in museums and the children who cry
because their parents have too little money to pay for them to grow up can
stop.
Steve Coleman
From the November
1990 issue of the Socialist Standard
It's Everything Change
Workers are not yet class conscious, they have not yet
developed even the concept of independent political action, and, on the whole,
are permeated through and through with the ideas of capitalism. These
incontestable facts are the starting point of our fundamental task: to struggle
for the development of class consciousness. The working class can open up the
way to a new world. They are the majority. They have the power. All that is
necessary is for the working class to understand it—and to use it.
The capitalist system, the system which puts profits above
all other considerations, has long outlived its usefulness. Capitalism has
exhausted its progressive role; now it must leave the stage to a higher system.
Capitalism has done its work. Capitalism now offers no future to the people but
depressions, wars, dictatorships, violence and a final plunge into barbarism. To
avoid such a fate, the workers must go into politics on their own account,
independent of all capitalist politics. They must take power and reorganise the
economy on a socialist basis, eliminating capitalist wars, profits and waste.
It will be so productive as to ensure a rich living for all who are willing and
able to work, and provide security and ample means for the aged and infirm. The
economy of the entire world will be united and planned on a socialist basis.
This will bring universal peace—and undreamed of abundance for all people
everywhere. The real upward march of humanity will begin. Socialists want no
part of this current nightmare world. It is true that humanity is confronted
with a problem of survival on this planet. But the human species will survive.
And in order to survive, it will do away with the social system which threatens
its survival. Socialism will win the world and change the world.
Reformism is a blind
alley which diverts the workers from a class advancement and even from any real
struggle for their immediate needs. The capitalists, bent on loading the burden
of the recent crisis onto the backs of the workers, are preparing thereby the
necessary conditions for a labour revolt. In this way they will convince the
workers, as propaganda has been unable to convince them, that there is no way
out but to fight. Under such conditions the prospect of a series of stormy
battles, of which workers have many times shown themselves capable, is by no
means unreasonable. The defensive struggle of the workers is gaining momentum,
although slowly and in a tentative fashion, although, there is nothing in the
facts to sustain those blockheads who describe the situation as a “workers’
offensive”. The theory that the workers are not inclined to strike during
periods of wide unemployment receives a certain confirmation from economic
history but it is quite false to construct a law to the effect that the workers
will not strike during the crisis. They may well do when push becomes shove as
in the proposed new Tory anti-union regulations. In the course of these
struggles the workers will learn the most necessary lessons from their own
experiences. In that event the socialist movement would get a hearing the like
of which has not been granted before.
Today industry operates blindly, without a general plan. The
sole incentive for the operation of each and every factory in this country is
the private profit of the owners. There’s no general coordination. There’s no
concern about what’s going on in other industries or in other parts of the same
industry. There’s no concern about whether the people need this or that, or
don’t need it. The sole driving motive for the operation of each and every
individual corporation is the private profit of the owners. The decisions on
production are made, not by consumers, what the people need and want; not by
the workers, what the workers would like to make; not by scientists and
technicians who know best of all, perhaps. The main decisions on production
under capitalism—what shall be produced, how, where, and when—are made by
financial magnates remote from the factories, remote from the people, whose
sole motive is profit in each case.
What are the results of this system, which can be rightly
called call the anarchy of capitalist production? One result is wasteful
competition. Another result is the preservation of obsolete machinery and
methods and the suppression of new technological innovation.
Consider the waste represented by the conspicuous
consumption of the capitalist social parasites. That is absolute waste. The
huge share of the product of labour that goes to these non-producers furnishing
them with luxuries is all pure waste. That’s not all. Consider the waste of
militarism and war. Just think of it! Billions of dollars every year wasted on
the military budget at the present time, under the present system, which they
say is the best in the world and the best that can ever be, wasted on military
equipment and preparation for war.
There is the waste of advertising. Only 10% of advertising
is useful—that 10% which comprises announcements, explanations of new processes
and so on, which will be used under the new society. The other 90% of
advertising is devoted to lying, fakery and conning the people, and trying to
get them to favour one identical product over another, or to buy something they
don’t need and that won’t do them any good, and then buy something else to
overcome the effects. That is pure waste. And then, there’s another waste
connected with advertising, as with so many other non-productive
occupations—the waste of human material, which really shouldn’t be squandered.
Just think of all the people prostituting their talents in the advertising
racket to deceive and to promote misleading advertising campaigns. There are millions of such people, engaged in
all kinds of useless, non-productive occupations in this present society.
Advertising is only one of them. Look at all the lawyers in this country. What
are they good for? Look at all the landlords, lobbyists, salespeople,
promoters—hordes of non-productive people in all kinds of rackets, legitimate and
illegitimate. What are they good for? What do they produce? All that is
economic waste, inseparable from the present system.
Costliest of all the results of the anarchy of capitalist
production is the waste of economic crises—the periodic shutting down of
production because the market has been saturated and products cannot be sold at
a profit. This is what they euphemistically call a “depression”—an unavoidable
cyclical occurrence under capitalism.
What will a really civilised person in the future think when
reading history books that there was once a society, long ago, where the people
might be hungry and that workers were eager to produce food but because the
hungry people couldn’t afford to buy food, the workers weren’t allowed to feed
them? What will the people of the future think of a
society where the workers lived in constant fear of unemployment? He or she can
work all his or her life and never be free from that fear. Having a job
depends, not on the willingness to work, nor on the need of the people for the
products of labour; it depends on whether the owners of the factories can find
a market for the products and make a profit at a given time. If they can’t,
they shut down the factory, and that’s all there is to it.
Socialists do not conceive of socialism as an arbitrary
scheme of society to be constructed from a preconceived plan, but as the next
stage of social evolution. Our view of the future socialist society, therefore,
is not a blueprint for implementation, but just a broad forecast of the lines
of future development already indicated in the present. The architects and
builders of the socialist society of the future will be the socialist
generations themselves. The Socialist Party refrains from offering these future
generations instructions. Auguste Blanqui, the French revolutionist, said:
“Tomorrow does not belong to us.” We ought to admit that, and recognise at the
same time that it is better so. The people in the future society will be wiser
than we are. We must assume that they will be superior to us, in every way, and
that they will know what to do far better than we can tell them. We can only
anticipate and point out the general direction of development, and we should
not try to do more. But that much we are duty bound to do; for the prospect of
socialism—what the future socialist society will look like—is a question of
fascinating interest and has a great importance in modern propaganda. We are
quite justified, therefore, in tracing some of the broad outlines of probable
future development; all the more so since the general direction, if not the
details, can already be foreseen.
Workers can and must put a stop to this monstrous
squandering of the people’s energies and resources. Just by cutting out all
this colossal waste—to say nothing of a stepped-up rate of productivity which
would soon follow—the socialist reorganisation of the economy will bring about
a startling improvement of the people’s living standards. The first condition
will be to stop production for sale and profit and organise planned production
for use, to eliminate the profit motive; to eliminate all conflicting interests
of private owners of separate industries. All science will be pooled and
directed to a single aim: production for the benefit of all. There will be a
revolution in the production of food when the economic side of it is lifted out
of this terrible backwardness of private ownership and operation for profit. One
thing is absolutely certain, from a reading of the scientific literature and
all the experiments already in progress: The productivity of the farms, of the
land, can be increased many times and there can be food in abundance for all.
“If we’re all doing
well and living good, producing more than we really need in an eight-hour
day—then why the hell should we work so long?” will be the first and most
natural reaction of the workers. This question will arise in the councils of
the workers in the shops at the bottom, and will be carried up via their
delegates throughout their industries. And the logical answer will go along
with the question: “Let’s shorten the working day. Why should we work eight
hours when we can produce all we need in four?” That may appear to be a simple
answer to a complicated question, but many things will be simplified when the
anarchy of capitalist production for profit is replaced by planned production
for use. That will be a very simple and natural and easy thing to do, because
socialism will have the means, the abundance, the productivity—and all this
will be produced for use, for the benefit of all. The system of planned economy
will provide the people with abundance, and what is no less important, the time
to enjoy it and get the full good out of it. I have spoken of the four-hour
day, but that would be only the beginning, the first step, which is more than
possible with the productive machinery as it is today. But the productivity of
labour under the new, more efficient system will be expanded all the time.
And since there will be no need to pile up profits for the
benefit of non-producers; since there will be no need to find ways of wasting
the surplus—the natural, logical, and inevitable conclusion will simply be to
cut down the hours of labour to the time actually needed to produce what is
needed. The greatest boon, and the precondition for changing the way of life
into a truly humane, cultured, and civilised way of life, will accrue from the
progressive shortening of the working day. That’s only the beginning. You can
count on a shorter work day, and there will still be abundance and super-abundance.
When people get accustomed to leisure, they soon learn what to do with it.
Workers will also decide, freely and voluntarily out of the
generosity of solidarity and a world outlook which the vision of socialism has
given to them, to work, say, an extra hour or two a day, for a certain period,
to produce the tools and machinery and other things to raise the living
standards of the undeveloped countries. And this will not be a loan or foreign aid
with strings attached. They will simply say to their kinfolk in less-favoured
lands: “This is a donation from other workers to help you catch up with us and
firm up the foundations of world socialist cooperative commonwealth.
When there is plenty for all, there is no material basis for
a privileged bureaucracy and the danger, therefore, is eliminated. From the
very beginning, we will go in for real workers’ economic democracy. Democracy
is not only better for ourselves, for our minds, and for our souls, but is also
better for production. Democracy will call out the creative energy of the
masses. When all the workers participate eagerly in the decisions, and bring
together their criticisms and proposals based upon their experience in the
shops, higher production will result. Faults in the plans will be corrected
right away by the experience of the workers; misfits and incompetents in the
leading bodies will be recalled by the democratic process; officious administrators
will be given the boot. An educated and conscious working class will insist on
democracy. And not the narrowly limited and largely fictitious democracy of
voting every four years for some big-mouthed political faker picked for you by
a political machine, but democracy in your work. That’s where it really counts.
Every day you will have something to say about the work you’re doing, how it
should be done and who should be in charge of it, and whether he or she is
directing it properly or not. Democracy in all spheres of communal life from A
to Z. A self-conscious working class that has made a revolution will not
tolerate bureaucratic tyrants of any kind. Counterrevolution will not be
tolerated but outside that society will keep its nose out of people’s private
affairs. Counterrevolution can hardly be a serious threat because the workers
are an overwhelming majority, and their strength is multiplied by their
strategic position in the centres of production everywhere. How is there going
to be any kind of a counterrevolution with such a broad and solid social base?
The Socialist Party doesn’t think the capitalists will try it. The real
exploiters are a very small minority. They couldn’t get enough fools to do
their fighting for them, and they are opposed in principle to doing their own
fighting. The little handful of recalcitrant capitalists who don’t like what is
happening could easily be given an island or two, for their exclusive
habitation. Let them take their bonds and stock certificates with them—as
mementos of bygone days—and give them enough caviar and champagne to finish out
their useless lives while the workers get on with their work of constructing a
new and better social order.
When socialists propose a future along these lines, there is
always someone who will say: “Utopia! It can’t be done!”
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
The Class Struggle (1975)
The Class Struggle (1975)
From the July 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard
The major problem that most people face today can be summed up in one word — poverty. They are denied access to the wealth of society which would enable them to develop and enjoy themselves to the full. They have to make ends meet and make the best of it. The result is a life-style of frustration and boredom — getting up in the morning, the buses, the trains, the traffic, the shop, the office, the factory, the boss, the canteen and so on ad nauseam.
Not everybody has the life of a battery human. There are a small minority who have a life of wealth, ease and luxury. In a recent divorce case, the counsel for a textile magnate's wife who was claiming maintenance, explained to an incredulous judge: "The wife of a millionaire is liable to go to Paris at any time and spend £1,000 on a dress." (Glasgow Daily Record, 19th March 1975) Doubtless, she would leave dinner in the oven and do the washing-up when she got back.
There is no natural reason for this division between rich and poor. Both classes include every biological and psychological facet of humanity — you find the black and the white, the jew and the gentile, the lazy and the industrious, the aggressive and the timid, the intelligent and the dull, and the philanthropist and the skinflint. The only difference between them is one of ownership.
The vast majority of people own practically nothing but their ability to work and the little that they do own — some clothes, some furniture, perhaps a house and a car — is dependent on their continuing to possess and exercise that ability to work. Unable to do so through sickness, old age or unemployment, they will quickly be reduced to the level of pauperism. They are the working class because they have to sell their working power to live and to such an extent that they are virtually living to work.
This lack of ownership among the many is paralleled by the immense wealth of the few. In fact, they own practically all the means by which the wealth of society is enabled to be produced and distributed. They are the capitalist class because they live on the income from their capital which, as well as the means of production and distribution, includes the labour-power, the mental and physical energies, of those workers hired to operate them.
The capitalist class do not give workers jobs out of charity. If they did not make a profit out of the deal, they would soon be left in the same position as the workers. They only employ you if your abilities can be exploited to provide some of the wealth which secures their life of ease and luxury. If not, your much vaunted "right to provide for home and family" becomes your right to whistle for it. This is what is happening in many industries just now. All over the world, there are large stockpiles of unsold goods with many either wholly or partly unemployed.
These situations give the lie to the false notion that Hard Work will solve all the worker's problems. If the people in these industries worked any harder they would just be out of a job so much the sooner. The market that they produce for is on the downturn, their masters cannot profitably sell all they are capable of producing, and so there is no work for the wage-slaves.
This is all happening despite the fact that the commodities they produce — cars, houses, electrical appliances, etc. — are still needed by many workers. This is because, in capitalist society production does not take place for the purpose of satisfying the community's needs but for the purpose of satisfying the needs of the capitalist class at the expense of the rest of us.
The working class produce all the wealth of capitalist society but they only get back a part of it. The rest goes to the capitalist class — first, to provide for the continuation of production and the maintenance of the conditions by which the working class are exploited, and second, to keep them in the manner they are accustomed to. This is the basis of the class struggle in capitalism. It is the real Socialist struggle which has hardly started due to the lack of class consciousness on the part of the working class. They are divided against each other and can only dimly react to the actions of their class enemies.
Politically, the capitalist class are supreme but, economically, they need the working class. Much is made of the wealth of the capitalists "providing" jobs for the workers. The only way that they can put their wealth to effect is by hiring the labour-power of those with no wealth.
In terms of playing a social role in production, the capitalist class are redundant. At the dawn of their epoch, they were instrumental in razing to the ground the anachronistic restrictions of feudalism and developing the means of production and distribution on an enormous scale in their drive for bigger and better profits. Today, they only take part on a small, individual basis and have been replaced by paid managers and various other hired hands. The only role left to them is that of consuming the finest fruits of a society run by the working class.
The workers in capitalism are in a similar position to that of the bourgeoisie in feudalism. Economically, they are the most important class but their efforts on their own behalf can only reach fruition by taking political power from the class who seek to maintain an order built to work in theirown particular interests. To achieve their ends, the bourgeoisie had to become revolutionary and set out for the complete overthrow of the whole structure of feudal society. In order to do this they had to gain political power — control of the bureaucratic, military and legal apparatus of the state. The working class, to achieve their ends, will have to follow the path of the bourgeoisie and declare for revolution. But there the similarity ends.
The Socialist Revolution will be fundamentally different from all previous revolutions. What was at stake before was the freedom of one class to exploit the rest of society. Today, working class emancipation from the bonds of capital will mean the emancipation of all mankind. The production of wealth is the cooperative effort of untold millions and the potential capacity of that production is unprecedented. No person need go short of anything. Under capitalism, productivity has increased dramatically but the fruits for the producers have only been slow and grudging: for this is a capitalist world and the ruling class can only be expected to look after their own interests. We must look after ours, by working for Socialism.
Con Friel
Glasgow Branch
Do you Live in Poverty? (1974)
Do you Live in Poverty? (1974)
From the February 1974 issue of the SocialistStandard
Poverty is an emotive word which must be carefully defined. It cannot be defined by any given quantity or quality, whether of possessions or things freely available. Truly, it can only be defined as a relationship between the actual state of things and the potentiality. The native of a primitive tribal society who is free to help himself to the simple food, clothing and shelter of his environment does not live in poverty. As far as he is concerned he could not be richer because everything that he knows is there to be taken. The moment he becomes poor and dissatisfied is when he develops a greater knowledge of the world and discovers things previously unknown to him. He would develop new needs in response to his changed environment as he found new ways and means to satisfy his physical and social desires. If they were not satisfied he would consider himself deprived and living in poverty.
The above process would occur if our primitive tribesman were suddenly transported to modern-day New York, London or Belgrade. Once he had found an employer (a euphemism for "user") he would now have a vastly greater standard of living but would be living in poverty. He would be denied access to most of the immense mountain of wealth which would be displayed, advertized, and given the hard-sell wherever he went. Despite the motorcars, colour TV, holidays abroad, etc., which provide the illusion of increasing social status, the various forms in which these and all other commodities are marketed shatter that illusion. They range from the cheap imitations and bare utility models (or futility if you expect them to work) and then gradually upwards to the top-class de-luxe models made for jet-set oneupmanship rather than use. This fact shows clearly the poverty that exists in capitalist society. The production lines of capitalism are geared not to producing good quality but to producing the poor quality that workers can afford.
The popular theory of why workers live in poverty (i.e. the capitalists, Tory government, shopkeepers etc., putting up prices). is an indication of support for capitalism rather than opposition to it. It implies that if we only had such things as "fair" prices and "fair" wages we could all live in splendid affluence. Without inflation the working class would still live in poverty as they did before inflation "became" the cause of all our economic woes. The poverty of the working class is caused by the exploitation that takes place at the point of production and not by any robbery at the point of distribution, and Marx's Labour Theory of Value explains clearly how the exploitation occurs.
The legalized, and in that sense perfectly "fair", robbery takes place when the worker, having sold his labour-power (ability to work) to some member or section of the capitalist class, gets to work with the machinery and raw materials already purchased by his employer and produces a new commodity. This new commodity has a greater value than the sum-total of its original components—the raw materials, the machinery, and the labour-power that produced it. This surplus value which is created comes solely from the unique character of labour-power which creates new value in the course of its use by the purchaser, the capitalist. The basis of exploitation lies in the fact that the value of all commodities is determined by the quantity and quality of labour required in their production.
Surplus value is created because the capitalist does not pay for the workers' labour but for his ability to labour. Once the worker starts to labour, the work that he does no longer belongs to him; the capitalist has already bought his labour-power for a contracted period of time, and everything produced in that time is the capitalist's property. The value of the worker's labour-power is, like all other commodities, determined by the quantity and quality of labour needed for its production. This, simply stated, is the food, clothing, shelter, etc., that allows the worker to keep himself reasonably fit in mind and body for his work and also allows for the raising of children to eventually be fit for this purpose. The result of this is that:
The worker receives means of subsistence in exchange for his labour power, but the capitalist receives in exchange for his means of subsistence labour, the productive activity of the worker, the creative power whereby the worker not only replaces what he consumes but gives to . . . [the capital laid out, on men, machinery, and materials] . . . a greater value than it previously possessed, (Wage Labour and Capital. 1970 Moscow ed. Page 30).
This means that the working class must always live in poverty. Having no access to any means of production of their own, in order to live they must sell their ability to work to the owning class and produce a surplus. The increasing of this surplus is the inexorable motive-force of all capitalist production. It determines which sections of the capitalist class will best be able to expand and crush their competitors, and inevitably leads to the constantly increasing rate at which this surplus is extracted from the working class. No matter how high their living standards may increase, the workers' relative poverty only increases (profits, which give a deceptively low indication of the true rate of exploitation, increased at approximately double the rate of wages during the past year).
To end this exploitation, whereby the working class gets ever poorer and the idle class ever richer, a revolutionary transformation in the whole basis of society is needed. The present class ownership of the means of life and the relations resulting from it must be completely abolished. Everything in the earth and on it must become the common property of the people of the world to be used to satisfy their needs and wants. Only by this can poverty be ended.
The resources, the organizational ability, and the technology to do this exist today. What is lacking is the social organization that could control and utilize the productive forces in the most effective way. In capitalism a large proportion of these forces are used in the negative capacity of maintaining the divisions in society. The money system, which regulates exchange between owners and non-owners, would be totally unnecessary in a society where all the means and instruments of production and distribution would be commonly owned. The police forces, armies, navies, air forces, and all their expensive ironmongery which is used to maintain the ruling class's supremacy at home and abroad, would have no place in a society without classes or borders.
Finally, the profit motive of capitalist production ensures that many of society's productive forces are never even used. All production is geared to what economists call "effective demand" which is not what people want but what they can afford to buy. This is why factories are closed, men made redundant, and automation plans shelved while people are still obviously still in need. In fact, one of the greatest problems of capitalist production is to avoid producing so much that prices will fall to unprofitable levels and warehouses and stores start to fill with unsaleable goods,
The popular conception of Socialism (or Communism) is of sharing-out poverty by retaining the present social organization but dividing up the existing wealth equally among everybody. This idea is a moralistic fantasy that would probably end up in more vicious divisions than before. The poverty that exists today can only be ended by a real revolutionary transformation — the establishment of a world-wide community of free men and women in total control of the productive forces of society. This is what Socialism means, and it can only be established by your active participation in a world Socialist movement that accepts no compromise with poverty.
Con Friel
Glasgow Branch
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.
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
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.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
-
Right now there are hundreds of campaigns globally for fossil fuel divestment as a strategy in the fight against climate change. Many are pr...