What we call socialism

The alternative to the present capitalist system of profit-seeking and monetary accumulation involves:

1. the absence of any property rights, private or state, over natural and industrial resources needed for production;
2. the existence of a non-coercive democratic decision-making structure;
3. the guaranteed access for all to what they need to satisfy their needs;
4. the orientation of production towards the direct satisfaction of real needs in a flexible and self-regulating way without the intervention of money and buying and selling;
5. the organisation of work as a voluntary service under the democratic control of those working in the various productive units.

We call this system “socialism”, but it is the content, not the name, that is important. It obviously has nothing in common with the previous existing state capitalist regime of the Soviet Union nor of China or proposals for state control (nationalisation) by the Left which is often erroneously called “socialist”. The means by which this new society can be achieved are determined by its nature as a society involving voluntary co-operation and democratic participation. It cannot be imposed from above by some self-appointed liberators nor by some well-meaning state bureaucracy but can only come into existence as a result of being the expressed wish of a majority—an overwhelming majority—of the population. In other words, the new society can only be established by democratic political action and the movement to establish it can only employ democratic forms of struggle.

Because the present system is an inter-related whole it cannot be abolished piecemeal. It can only be abolished in its entirety or not at all. This fact determines the choice as to what we must do: work towards a complete break with the present system as opposed to trying to gradually transform it. Gradual reform cannot lead to a democratic, ecological society because capitalism is an economic system governed by blind, uncontrollable, economic laws which always triumph in the end over political intervention, however well-meaning or determined this might be. Any attempt on the part of a government to impose other priorities than profit-making risks either provoking an economic crisis or the government ends up administering the system in the only way it can be—as a profit-oriented system in which profit-making has to be given priority over meeting needs or respecting the balance of nature. This is not to say that measures to palliate the bad effects of the present economic system on nature should not be taken but these should be seen for what they are: mere palliatives and not steps towards an ecological society.

The only effective strategy for achieving a free democratic society in harmony with nature is to build up a movement which has the achievement of such a society as its sole aim. The Socialist Party is a political party, separate from all others, Left, Right or Centre. It stands for the sole aim of establishing a world social system based upon human need instead of private or state profit. 

Socialism does not yet exist. When it is established it must be on a worldwide basis, as an alternative to the outdated system of world capitalism. In a socialist society, there will be common ownership and democratic control of the earth by its inhabitants. No minority class will be in a position to dictate to the majority that production must be geared to profit. There will be no owners: everything will belong to everyone. Production will be solely for use, not for sale. The only questions society will need to ask about wealth production will be: what do people require, and can the needs be met? These questions will be answered on the basis of the resources available to meet such needs. Then, unlike now, modern technology and communications will be able to be used to their fullest extent. The basic socialist principle will be that people give according to their abilities and take according to their self- defined needs. Work will be on the basis of voluntary co-operation: the coercion of waged work will be abolished. There will be no buying or selling and money will not be necessary, in a society of common ownership and free access. For the first time ever the people of the world will have common possession of the planet earth.

Most workers feel insecure about their future; many families live below the official government poverty line; many old people live in dangerously cold conditions each winter and thousands die; millions of our fellow men and women are dying of starvation — tens of thousands of them each day. A society based on production for use will end those problems because the priority of socialist society will be the fullest possible satisfaction of needs. At the moment food is destroyed and farmers are subsidised not to produce more: yet many millions are malnourished. At the moment hospital queues are growing longer and people are dying of curable illnesses, yet it is not "economically viable" to provide decent health treatment for all. In a socialist society, nothing short of the best will be good enough for any human being. The capitalist jungle produces vicious, competitive ways of thinking and acting. But we humans are able to adapt our behaviour and there is no reason why our rational desire for comfort and human welfare should not allow us to co-operate. Even under capitalism people often obtain pleasure from doing a good turn for others; few people enjoy participating in the "civilised" warfare of the daily rat-race. Think how much better it would be if society was based on co-operation.

The Socialist Party has no leaders. It is a democratic organisation controlled by its members. It understands that socialism can only be established by a conscious majority of workers — that workers must liberate themselves and will not be liberated by leaders or parties. Socialism will not be brought about by a dedicated minority "smashing the state", as some left-wingers would have it. Nor do the activities of paid, professional politicians have anything to do with socialism — the experience of seven Labour governments has shown this. Once a majority of the working class understand and want socialism, they will take the necessary step to organise consciously for the democratic conquest of political power. There will be no socialism without a socialist majority. Many workers know that there is something wrong and want to change society. Some join reform campaigning groups in the hope that capitalism can be patched up, but such efforts are futile because you cannot run a system of class exploitation in the interests of the exploited majority. There are countless dedicated campaigns and good causes which many sincere people are caught up in, but there is only one solution to the problems of capitalism and that is to get rid of it and establish socialism. Before we can do that we need socialists; winning workers to that cause requires knowledge, principles and an enthusiasm for change. These qualities can be developed by anyone — and are essential for anyone who is serious about changing society. Capitalism is a system of waste, deprivation and frightening insecurity. You owe it to yourself to find out about the one movement which stands for the alternative.

Socialism - The Solidarity Economy

The class division of the capitalism we live under is not a supposition but a fact; and the Labour Party is not going to abolish the class system, its class division, and class privilege. What they offer instead to any who do not see through the subterfuge, is to blur the class lines by stopping labelling employers and investors as the capitalist class, and justify privilege by saying that it is committed to social mobility. This will be satisfactory to the capitalists and their hangers-on, political and managerial, but what is there in it for the workers?

Fellow workers, when will you realise that you need not go short of anything that you, collectively, are capable of producing? Between the present extremes of wage-slaves, who can afford little more than the bare necessities of a working life, and capitalists, whose wealth finds expression in idle and extravagant luxury, lies the possibility of all people having their reasonable needs satisfied. This entails the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of a system of production solely for use, needing no money and therefore producing no money problems of any sort. It is within your power to bring such a society into being if you will only think and act in your own class interest, instead of in that of a class of parasites. Your wages will not buy the things you need, and you ask for more in vain because your masters also want more at your expense. It will remain so while they have the whip hand of ownership of the means of living and until you decide to relieve them of it by establishing socialism. In politics, the division is between those who want the capitalist system and those who want a socialist society.

The  Socialist Party is an independent political organisation that has neither allegiance to nor sympathy with, any other political party or group in this country. Socialism is a wage-free, money-free, class-free society of production for use in which each member of society would contribute to the wealth of society in accordance with mental or physical abilities and take from the wealth of society in accordance to needs. It is a system of social organisation where the basic problems that we live with today under capitalism—problems like poverty, insecurity, slums, crime, and war - that arise naturally and inevitably out of the capitalist scheme of production for profit would cease to exist. Socialism offers us an escape from the evils that afflict our society. Capitalism has fulfilled its historic mission: it has opened the womb of social labour and developed the resources of society to a point where social distribution is possible now.

In order that  a change to socialism, may be brought about it is necessary that a majority of the working class, armed with the knowledge of what Socialism involves and entails, should use the means at their disposal, the power of the vote—which they now dissipate in trying to make capitalism work—to consciously institute the change. Socialism, by its very nature, requires the conscious and knowledgeable participation of the majority from the outset. It cannot be brought about by minorities or "action groups" leading the way, no more than it can be introduced gradually by tinkering with reforms of capitalism. It is too easy to achieve a following in crises. In the heat of class struggle immediate and fickle political alliances may be achieved but, in the long run, such a struggle allows for few real conversions and when the crisis recedes the real casualties will be the working class,  splintered and fraught with bitterness. Capitalism is discrimination both political and economic.

 Even when its full range of “civil rights” have been achieved by the working class its problems remain—each finding its victims mainly among the working class. Indeed those sincere and idealistic people who carry on the struggle for “civil rights” do a disservice to freedom when they channel the discontent of the working class into the safe stream of political reformism and assert, if only by implication, that working-class problems will be either solved or basically eased by this or that reform. Why should members of the working class involve themselves in a campaign against some of capitalism’s lesser evils, a campaign rendered more difficult by capitalism’s built-in bias for the creation of sectional interests?

We hold enough power now in the votes of the working class to banish capitalism and all its problems and establish a free society of production for use. What the working class lacks is an understanding of the alternative to capitalism, Socialism. This can only be achieved by a sustained campaign among our fellow members of the working class. The present social and economic system stands self-condemned. It is our sincere belief that a world without money, a WORLD COMMONWEALTH, will make this planet a better place for us to live on. There will be many of our fellow-workers who will refuse to accept it because of its very simplicity. "It's all very well" they will say, "but--." Others will say "It's a lovely dream, although--." Still, others will say "There are so many snags, the unforeseen, the unexpected--it's just impossible." To these and other critics we pose the simple question, "Is there any practical alternative solution to the world's problems which offers so much for so little for all humanity?" That there will be snags is not in dispute, but have there not been difficulties in the way of every human achievement, and of every inhuman achievement as well? And were not those problems overcome? Could we not by our combined efforts, and with this goal in view, overcome those difficulties that might arise in the development of the WORLD COMMONWEALTH?

Why struggle for the apple when the same effort can bring us the orchard?

No Christmas Joy

Action for Children said a decade of austerity “has caused almost unrecognisable levels of poverty” in Scotland’s communities and a shocking number of children will be deprived of basics such as warm winter clothing, fresh food or celebrations this Christmas.

The charity cited official government figures suggesting 100,000 Scottish children aged 10 or below are in families with low incomes and material deprivation.

Paul Carberry, Action for Children’s director for Scotland, revealed the charity’s frontline services have seen a 30% rise in families seeking financial advice in the last three years.

He said: “Every day our staff see first-hand the impossible choices that families living in practically Dickensian levels of poverty have to make. Our services are helping thousands of families keep their heads above water through budgeting, providing a meal or making sure they get help from foodbanks.”

Carberry said, “Inequalities in health and life-expectancy remain as prevalent and after a decade of Tory austerity, the dramatic rise in the use of foodbanks tells its own sad story,” he said. “While the Conservative government claims that the era of austerity is over, it is impossible to see the evidence of this. Their policy agenda has caused almost unrecognisable levels of poverty in communities the length and breadth of Scotland.”

http://thirdforcenews.org.uk/tfn-news/children-to-miss-out-on-basics-at-christmas

The Future Belongs to the People

Capitalism is not an abstraction, it is a concrete force. To understand socialism, one must necessarily understand that under capitalism, society is divided into hostile classes: an owning capitalist class, whose members have ownership of the various parts of the instruments of wealth production. A working class, whose members possess nothing but their labour power, which is useless to the worker unless he can have access to the raw material and the machinery of production, which is owned by the capitalist class. This being so, the worker, in order to live, must sell his or her labour power to the capitalist.

 Our immediate demand is not to tinker and dicker about with the capitalist system. The social revolution is no longer an aspiration of the future; it is a fact our immediate demand. Through revolutionary parliamentary action the working class meets the capitalists in a  political class struggle, and parliamentary action actively promotes the general revolutionary struggle organising into one unified revolutionary movement all the latent powers of the proletariat for the conquest of power. The unity of all is an indispensable condition for the social revolution. Until the workers consciously and directly carry on their industrial and political struggles, confusion and compromise will persist. No dependence upon “leaders” nor concessions to employers; the workers must act independently, free from any taint of opportunism. State capitalism is not socialism and never can become socialism. State capitalism cannot substituted for the industrial self-management of the workers. 

Global capitalism has shown more and more clearly and obviously that it can reap its profits only while increasingly ruining the entire world while imposing on the people mounting hardship, and sweated wage-slavery. The capitalist world stands on the edge of the abyss of environmental destruction. What they really fear is that climate change will drive the masses once and for all to revolution,  the final uprising of the world proletariat. The efforts by world summits to create some kind of order amid growing climate chaos results, not in solutions but growing discontent and anger. World governments are incapable of guaranteeing that workers receive satisfying jobs, nutritious food, decent housing, and healthy surroundings but they display great capacity in organising war against the world.

We are revolutionists, not bomb throwers. We want to destroy the whole edifice of capitalist society, not the offices of some government ministry or corporation. We are not after the life of this banker or that industrialist. The road to revolution lies in the mass movement of the organised workers. We openly proclaim that the workers, who, being the vast majority of the population, have a right to establish their own rule. It plain and self-evident that it would be ridiculous and stupid for us even to attempt to achieve all of these in a secret, concealed manner without the knowledge and behind the backs of the millions of workers. Our aim, the enhancement of class-consciousness, can only be achieved openly. 

The executive of the capitalist class — the Government - grasp what the working class has not yet grasped, namely, that every large economic struggle between capital and labor becomes a political struggle — that is, a struggle for political power. It is, therefore, necessary to wage a political struggle against the whole system of capitalist state power, independent of the capitalist political parties. The workers must have their own class party representing the interests of the whole working class - a socialist party. Our aim, the liberation of the workers, the abolition of wage slavery, working-class control of industry, can only be accomplished if the great masses of the workers understand and agree with us. 

The essence of the Socialist Party’s case is to convince the majority of the workers of the truth of the ideas of socialism and a unified struggle against our common enemy, the capitalists. We appeal to all workers. Are you sufficiently blind to your class interests as to be able to ignore the call to action? With the increased determination of the ruling class to grind the workers down, we must offer more resistance. It is no longer possible to remain outside of the struggle. All are concerned and all must prepare to participate. We cannot sit back and wait for capitalism to collapse of its own accord. While the capitalist class dominates we will suffer more bitterly. Rally to the call for total emancipation! Let our battle cry be:
“Workers of the World, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains; you have a world to gain."

A Clarion Call

The time has come for revolutionists to make a statement of their principles in order to interest their fellow-workers in the class struggle which is the fight for economic and social emancipation and the abolition of class rule. The idea of class-conscious resistance against capitalist exploitation has recently been gaining ground. The quickened industrial strife, the rise in the cost of living and the worsening of working conditions have fanned the discontent always existing within the masses.  Help raise the banner of the social revolution and to free ourselves from capitalism.

There is a need for angry denunciations of capitalism. But there is also a need for inspiration, for a vision of the socialist goal. With capitalism, the class war is never calm for very long. We are always being told by politicians and the media that the capitalist class are the “Captains of Industry” without whom none of us could survive for long. However, they always remain silent on the embarrassing question that if the working class who produce ALL the wealth are not entitled to it, how is the Capitalist Class which produces NOTHING, entitled to any? The persuasive powers of the capitalist media will always try to divide the workers; this is an old game. The strength of the workers lies in their solidarity and, looking to the time when they really wake up and organise politically with us for socialism, a solid, world-wide, socialist working class would hold every trump in the pack. Any improvements or gains the workers can obtain under capitalism they, as the sole producers, are more than entitled to. The Socialist Party maintain that the hardships of capitalism arise, directly out of the fact that the means of living are owned by the few, the many are therefore a propertyless-class who must work for wages in order to live. The antagonism between employers and workers will know no end while the wealth of the one is derived from the exploitation of the other.  THE VERY EXISTENCE OF WAGES-SYSTEM AT ALL shows the economic enslavement of the working class to be a fact.

There are two delusions that cloud the minds and paralyse the hands of those who mistakenly believe that capitalism is evolving into Socialism. One is that the so-called Welfare State has changed the old order at home. The second is that global capitalism has been humanised into giving up the naked struggle for raw materials, strategic bases, and markets. This is supposed to have been brought about by the United Nations an many other international organisations. A glance at the world should blow away this dangerous self-deception. Capitalism without tears is the reformist version of socialism. 

Nothing so much arouses the hatred of the capitalist apologists, nothing so much enrages them and exposes their deep-seated chauvinism, is the socialist denunciation of  "patriotism," and the "the national interest". Any lie, any falsification will do to corrupt, and distort the real meaning and significance of the defense of one’s country. As industrial and technological development grows by leaps and bounds, monopoly capitalism, rather than narrowing national differences and ameliorating oppression, exacerbates them both. It is no wonder that the world is literally divided into rival competing nations. It imparts a great urgency for the revolutionary cooperation and solidarity of all workers. Only socialism, which is based on democratic planning and the common ownership of the means of production, can purge the world of capitalist chaos, its unpredictable crises, and the reign of the arbitrary based on markets, profits and share prices.

We have to refute the idea that socialism can be established before the understanding and acceptance of it by the majority of the workers. Despite all the defeats, hardship and bloodshed experienced by workers in trying to oppose the powers of the State machine by force, groups advocating such methods which, if put in effect, could only lead to further defeats. Despite all the experience they have to draw upon, they appear to have learned nothing. The Socialist Party has since its foundation stressed the need for the working class to organise consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government in order that the machinery of government, including the armed forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation.  Gaining control of Parliament to introduce socialism is not parliamentary expediency. When we of the Socialist Party have contested an election we have always put the socialist case. We have always requested the working class not to vote for the socialist candidate unless they understand and accept socialism. Up to the present the mass of the workers have lacked political knowledge and have voted for personalities instead of principles. When things go wrong they blame the party leaders. Unfortunately, the workers have not a clear consciousness of their position as a class. The only possible hope of the working class is common ownership of the means of production.  Socialism is the economic security for the human family.

Xmas Fact of the Day

Almost 13,000 Scottish children were homeless on Christmas Day last year – and the numbers have soared in recent times. The situation has been branded “disgraceful”. 

A History of the Dispossessed

An interesting review in the Guardian of Tom Devine’s history of the Highland Clearances.

“...Clan chiefs in the Highlands were happy enough to have large populations at various points, especially during the Napoleonic wars. Devine demolishes the idea that Highlanders were by nature more martial than people in other parts of the UK. It was simple economics: the clan chiefs behaved as military entrepreneurs, providing recruits at a price. When the war ended and demand for soldiers fell, they looked for alternative sources of income. Sheep farming was one, and that meant clearing the land. Devine is fair-minded, acknowledging landlords and chiefs who tried to devise ways to keep people, but they were in a small minority. ‘Coercion was employed widely and systematically,’ he concludes.”

What The Socialist Party Stands For

Most people believe that things would be better and life would be easier if only prices were reduced. This is a complete illusion, a failure to understand how capitalism works. To start with nobody actually wants all prices to be reduced: what they all want is that the prices of the things they buy should be reduced and the prices of the things they sell kept as they are or increased. This includes the workers, none of whom want to see a reduction of their wages —which also are prices, the prices at which they sell their mental and physical energies (their labour power) to the employers. 

The workers also want “full employment”. Here they come up against the cruel truth about capitalism. The employers have paid off hundreds of thousands of workers because at present selling prices and costs of production (including wages) they cannot make a profit. If they saw the prospect of a profit they would re-engage them to-morrow. From the employers’ point of view, the solution lies in raising their selling prices, or reducing costs, including wages, or cutting their total costs by getting the same amount of work out of fewer workers. All of this is subject to the overriding condition that the goods produced can be sold, and at the present time world markets are shrinking and competitors abroad are also trying to cut their costs.

Would any of the various forms of controls of prices and wages avoid depressions? The answer is that every possible variety has been tried and failed. It may be hard to accept but is nevertheless true that there are no ways to prevent capitalism from behaving in accordance with its own economic laws. 

Capitalism drives and presses us all to buy to the limits of our means, and offers devices by which those limits may be apparently stretched. But the pressure must never be yielded-to by an inch beyond the limits. The point of marketing, after all, is not that goods shall be distributed but that they are paid for. He who, lured and compelled by deferred terms or slashed deposits or simple needs, fails to meet his money commitment is as far as possible prevented for the future from buying on those terms again. Morally condemned as well, for violating the golden capitalist rule that everything has its price. Most people under capitalism exist in desperation, hair-breadths away from financial calamity. 

There is a socialist alternative to capitalism. The Socialist Party is not Utopian. We know that such a system is possible. Everything necessary is present save one thing: a desire on your part to have such a system.

The Socialist Party does not exist to campaign for petty reforms within the capitalist system. We are a tool by which the working class can use to gain control of the machinery of government. Once in control, the workers can use this machine to dispossess the capitalist class by declaring all the means of life the common property of all society. This will allow the workers to take over the industries and to keep production going in the ways they will have worked out beforehand.  As soon as the last capitalist has been dispossessed then classes will have ceased to exist. It will no longer make sense to speak of a working class and a capitalist class. Everybody, including the ex-capitalists, will have the same status as free producers. Not that things will immediately be startlingly different from what they were before. Production will have to be kept going. Although such jobs as checkout cashiers would disappear, engineers would remain engineers and, perhaps, railway workers, railway workers and so on.  The conversion of the means of life from the private property of an exploiting class to the common property of society will establish the framework within which can be solved once and for all the problems which the working class face today precisely because they are the working class. Even today we can see that the world is quite capable of producing enough for everybody if only production were arranged with this object in mind. Socialism will allow this to happen. Mankind will have control over the means of production to use them as society think fit. Under capitalism there can be no genuine planning as the market is the real king. Firms turn out goods and hope the market will absorb them. Socialist society will estimate what will be needed in advance and then produce it. Allowances for changes in taste and natural disasters can be made by producing more than is needed as a kind of guarantee. The abolition of private property and the conversion of the means of life into the common property of mankind will allow society to set about tackling questions of economic organisation in a scientific way. As soon as the capitalist system has been abolished money become redundant as soon as common ownership has been established.

A Wonderful Life

Hundreds of workers at a West Lothian computer factory were told they would not receive their Christmas wages. Staff at optical manufacturer Kaiam were informed they had not been paid because of cash flow problems. Workers were also told to stay away from the Livingston plant until 3 January.

About 300 people work at Kaiam, which has its headquarters in California, USA. In 2014 the firm was given a £850,000 Scottish Enterprise grant to relocate some of its production from a site in China to Livingston.

Kaiam worker Joanne Baxter said she was "absolutely gutted" at the news.

She added: "It is bad enough any time of the year being in this situation but it is Christmas and people are relying on this wage to just start their Christmas shopping today.There's  people in there with just one breadwinner in the family, they've got kids and they've not even got a selection box for them - I mean how devastating can it be?"

Another employee said: "My rent is due in the next few days and I don't know what I am going to do."

The CEO, Bardia Pezeshki, had seen staff the day before the announcement.

Livingston MP Hannah Bardell said, “He said nothing, then in an unspeakable act of cowardice flew home to the US as staff were being told they wouldn’t paid before Xmas.”

The collapse of the Grameen Bank

Back in 2012 Socialist Courier blogged about the Grameen Bank, here   and here. 

Our message back then challenged the promise of microfinance to bring about a reduction in poverty.

 Grameen Foundation Scotland has now folded. It provided loans to about 1,000 people. Its debts became "insurmountable" when the foundation's cash flow was hit after some of its customers fell into arrears.

Ahhh, well...

Green Energy?

Compensation payments of more than £500 million have been made to wind farms to switch off turbines over the past eight years, the latest figures show. 

A new monthly record was set in September this year, when £28,434,560 was paid out by National Grid to stop electricity generation. 

Most cash was paid to Scottish wind farms, with some earning more than £1m a month for not supplying power. 

Whitelee and its extension on the outskirts of Glasgow, the biggest onshore wind farm in the UK, has received almost a fifth of the entire pot since 2010, with payments totalling more than £96m to date. Meanwhile, the 350MW Clyde scheme, near Abington in South Lanarkshire, has raked in more than £64m and the Griffin, near Aberfeldy in Perthshire, nearly £32m. The amount paid out has been rising annually,

https://www.scotsman.com/news/environment/scottish-wind-farm-paid-96m-to-switch-off-1-4846602

Understanding what a socialist society will be

Socialist society, as the Socialist Party repeatedly makes clear, will be a non-market society, with all that that implied: no money, no buying and selling, no prices, no wages. The Communist Manifesto specifically speaks of “the Communistic abolition of buying and selling”  and of the abolition not only of capital (wealth used to produce other wealth with a view to profit) but of wage labour too. In Volume I Marx speaks of “directly associated labour, a form of production that is entirely inconsistent with the production of commodities . . .”  and in Volume II of things being different “if production were collective and no longer possessed the form of commodity production . . .”. Also, in Volume II, Marx in comparing how Socialism and capitalism would deal with a particular problem twice says there would be no money to complicate matters in socialist society: “If we conceive society as being not capitalistic but communistic, there will be no money-capital at all in the first place . . .”  and “in the case of socialized production the money-capital is eliminated”.

In other words, in socialism, it is solely a question of planning and organisation. Marx also advised trade unionists to adopt the revolutionary watchword “Abolition of the Wages System” and, in his Critique of the Gotha Programme, stated “within the co-operative society based on the common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products”  for the simple reason that their work would then be social, not individual and applied as part of a definite plan. What they produce belongs to them collectively, i.e. to society, as soon as it is produced; socialist society then allocates, again in accordance with a plan, the social product to various previously-agreed uses.

Karl Marx used five words to describe future society: communist, associated, socialised, collective and co-operative. All these words convey a similar meaning and bring out the contrast with the capitalist society where not only the ownership and control of production but life generally is private, isolated and atomized. Of these the word Marx used most frequently — almost more frequently than communist — was association. Marx wrote of future society as “an association which will exclude classes and their antagonism”  and as “an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all”. In Volume III of Capital Marx writes three or four times of production in future society being controlled by the “associated producers”. Association was a word used in working-class circles in England to mean a voluntary union of workers to overcome the effects of competition. This was Marx’s sense too: in a future society, the producers would voluntarily co-operate to further their own common interest; they would cease to be “the working class” and become a classless community.

In these circumstances, the State as an instrument of political rule over people would have no place. The State as a social organ of coercion is in the Socialist Party view, only needed in class-divided societies as an instrument of class rule and to contain class struggles. As Marx put it, in a socialist society “there will be no more political power properly so-called since political power is precisely the official expression of antagonism in civil society”  and “the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another”. Socialist society would indeed need a central administration but this would not be a “State” or “government” in that it would not have at its disposal any means of coercing people, but would be concerned purely with administering social affairs under democratic control. As Marx explained it would be “the conversion of the functions of the State into a mere superintendence of production”, and he also declared that “freedom consists in converting the state from an organ superimposed upon society into one completely subordinate to it”. In other words, once socialism had been established and classes abolished, the coercive and undemocratic features of the State machine would have been removed, leaving only purely administrative functions mainly in the field of the planning and organization of production. It is significant that Marx never defined communist society in terms of the ownership and control of the means of production by the State, but rather in terms of ownership and control by a voluntary association of the producers themselves. He did not equate what is now called “nationalisation” with socialism. The feature of communist society, in Marx’s view, would be consciously planned production. He writes of a society “in which producers regulate their production according to a preconceived plan”  and of “production by freely associated men . . . consciously regulated by them in accordance with a settled plan”. Socialism would allow mankind to consciously regulate their relationship with Nature; only such a consciously planned society was truly human society, a society compatible with human nature.

The Socialist Party holds that the future communist society would be a class-free community, without any coercive State machine, based on the common ownership of the means of production, with planning to serve human welfare completely replacing production for profit, the market economy, money, and the wages system — even in the early stages when it might not prove possible to implement the principle “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

We must learn for ourselves

" If a worker wants to take part in the self-emancipation of his class, the basic requirement is that he should cease allowing others to teach him and should set about teaching himself." - Joseph Dietzgen 


The goal of the Socialist Party is a revolution – the abolition of capitalist private property, the abolition of all exploitation of man by man, the common ownership of the means of production and their planned use for the benefit of the whole of society, leading to abundance and the Brotherhood of Man. Socialism means a society without class antagonisms, in which the people themselves control their means of life and use them for their own happiness. The Socialist Party does not put forward this goal as a utopia, as a mere vision of what would ideally satisfy people’s needs and make them all happy, but as a  practical aim to be achieved by the actual conditions of modern society. Socialism will only be gained by waging the class struggle. And to achieve the conquest of power, the working class must have its own independent political party. Socialism is not inevitable. What has been termed its ‘inevitability’ consists in this, that only through socialism can human progress continue? But there is not and cannot be any absolute deterministic inevitability in human affairs since man makes his own history and chooses what to do. What is determined is not his choice, but the conditions under which it is made, and the consequences when it is made. The meaning of socialism is not that it tells us that socialism will come regardless, but that it explains to us where we stand, what course lies open to us, what is the road to class emancipation.

The master class, being but a mere tenth of the population, can only keep possession of the means of production by their control through the political machinery of the State) of the armed forces. While the master class has that control it is hopeless for the workers to attempt to seize capitalist property. It is sheer madness, therefore, to expect that the capitalist class would, because the workers demand it, either abolish the armed forces or hand their control over to the working class. That would be to abolish themselves as a ruling class. Further, the interests of the capitalists of one country clash with those of the capitalists of other lands, especially in the matter of obtaining markets, and so long as capitalism lasts there will be this clash of interests, necessitating ever-increasing armaments and the inevitable appeal to arms. It is then absurd to waste time and energy in an endeavour to convince the capitalists that wars are superfluous and a curse under capitalism.

Let the workers learn their position in society and unite to obtain control of the machinery of government, including the armed forces. Such action will make it possible for them to take possession of the means of production and use them for the benefit of all. In that way alone will they be able to usher in a system of society wherein universal unity of interests will abolish all war, be it between classes or nations. Only the establishment of socialism can give us a world of peace and plenty. 

“A rat race is for rats. We’re not rats. We’re human beings.” Jimmy Reid

Understanding Reformism

It is a popular fallacy that, since capitalists are obviously rich, all socialists opposed to the capitalist system must be poor. Many people have a hazy notion that all poor people are socialists and all rich ones anti-socialists.  Nothing can be farther from the truth. The poorer people are, frequently, the more devoted to capitalism. Who has not met the destitute wretch, subsisting by cadging hand-outs, who runs round shrieking nationalistic nonsense? Conversely, nothing is more fallacious than the notion that all rich people are anti-socialists. Many rich men and women have been most creditable socialist thinkers and writers — some outstandingly so. Frederick Engels immediately springs to mind: a successful manager of his father’s cotton mill.

What makes a person a capitalist is not what he thinks, but what he has: his bank balance, not his mental balance. This is the crux of the question. A capitalist is a possessor of capital. And what is capital? It is wealth invested to produce profit.

Classes are defined by their respective connections to the productive forces within a certain type of production relation and arise as soon as it is no longer necessary for everyone to work in order to sustain society. A social division of labour has been transformed into a relation of oppression and exploitation.

Most members of the working class find it difficult to imagine a society without wages. Born into a world where the majority of people depend on wages to survive, they imagine that there is something inevitable about this arrangement and perhaps forget that it was not always so. In primitive societies, there were no wage-workers; in slave-owning and feudal societies, very few. The preponderance of wage-workers in modern societies is the result of the development of capitalism as a mode of wealth production.

Wages are the price paid by the capitalist employer for the physical and mental energies of the worker for an agreed period of time – typically in this country for a forty-hour week – although the period of time may be much greater, especially among what are known as “salaried employees” or the “executive class” who are nonetheless wage workers like the rest. However, during whatever period of time is customary for the type of work, the employee must accept that any wealth produced, whether in the form of commodities or services, belongs to the employer to dispose of at whatever price the market will bear.

Profit is not something added on by the employer when the product is marketed. A moment’s thought will show that this cannot be so. If it were, then we would need to ask ourselves why profit margins vary so much, why occasionally some employers make a loss, and why they are so concerned about wage levels when all they would need to do is add to the costs of production, including wages, a percentage profit

At a time when there is a shrinking and therefore highly competitive market, employers are under greater pressure to reduce wages in order to survive. This downward pressure on wages takes many forms, some of which may not be immediately evident.

 
In a period of high unemployment, employers may present workers with the alternative of a direct cut in wages or redundancy.

  
Employers may search the labour market for workers who will accept the lowest pay, compatible with efficient work, for example by employing women instead of men, younger workers with smaller financial commitments or immigrant workers accustomed to a lower standard of living. They may even transfer their activities abroad to take advantage of a cheaper labour market. 

 
The introduction of machinery, or the updating of existing machinery, may reduce a company’s wage bill by making it possible to employ unskilled instead of skilled workers or simply by reducing the numbers of workers required for a given volume of production.

By changing the organisation of the productive process, for example by division of labour, the actual numbers employed may be reduced or production may be increased without adding to the labour force. The stress put on “increased productivity” should sound a clear note of warning for the working class in spite of the fact that many so-called representatives of the workers go along with the idea. Just as the capitalist class considers their interests as a class, so should the working class view their collective interests.

In the road transport industry, the increase in the size of lorries is designed to reduce the number of drivers and therefore the total wage bill. Thus we see on the roads today lorries of a capacity many times those used a decade ago – yet still under the control of one driver. A similar development is seen in the size of aircraft, which results in a more intensive use of airfields.

In the retail trade self-service has been introduced wherever practical. For some products, for example, groceries, people may welcome the saving in time. Some may deplore the lack of personal service. These considerations do not, however, enter into the calculations of the capitalist, who will weigh in the balance the cost of installing the self-service system against the saving in wages which may result. This is often a two-fold saving: in numbers of staff relative to the volume of sales and the level of wages required to operate the system.

To maximise profits wages should ideally be just adequate to maintain the worker’s efficiency and to rear children as replacements. When during World War II reformers were advocating a system of family allowances – in this case, payment to those with large families – Sir William Beveridge put the matter quite clearly from the employers’ point of view. In a letter to The Times (12 January 1940) he wrote:

“We cannot in this war afford luxuries of any kind, and it is a luxury to provide people with incomes for non-existent children.”

A system of family allowances is not the only way in which wages can be made to fit more closely the minimum needs of the working class. Any form of government subsidy must be viewed with suspicion from this point of view. We may take for example on the need to subsidise public transport. Its advocates present such measures as a benefit for those workers who travel to work each day by train or bus. In fact, it is only a benefit to employers who would otherwise have to include in the wages of all their employees enough to pay the “economic fare” – whether or not they all make use of public transport. To paraphrase Sir William Beveridge’s comment: “We cannot afford the luxury of providing people with incomes for non-existent journeys”.

We leave to last the most general assault on wages, an assault which has occurred in all those countries which have departed from a currency linked to gold – in other words, those countries using inconvertible paper money. Where paper money is issued, unrelated to the wealth production of a country, then the purchasing power of that money falls. The massive increase in prices which we have seen in this country over the last ten years has been almost entirely due to the excessive printing of paper money; that is, currency inflation which successive governments have employed to meet part of their public spending requirement.

Any government, whether it be Conservative or Labour, is forced to assist in the downward pressure on wages in face of the fierce competition for the sale of commodities and services at a profit.

Replying to our critics

The Socialist Party isn’t just another political party. It opposes the capitalist system that is based on inequality and exploitation and which is threatening the future of the planet. A world based on cooperation and social democracy as advocated by the Socialist Party would not risk environmental destruction and unsustainable consumption. The present global economic system is based entirely on a system for the benefit of the rich. It’s interested only in profits for the rich. The costs of those profits in terms of human misery  and environmental catastrophe, are entirely irrelevant. Under capitalism there are two classes: the capitalists who rob and the workers who are robbed. The socialist vision  involves a fundamental restructuring of the global economy to end the primary goal of maximising profit. Both the left and the right wings of capitalism are sure that capitalism as described by  the Socialist Party is no longer valid. We do not seek to trim our message to suit the prejudices of people. We direct what we have to say at the working class – all workers.

 Defenders of capitalism love to attack  the idea of abolishing markets, prices, money and all other aspects of buying and selling. This they say would be impossible, as demonstrated by  Ludwig von Mises in “Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth”.  Von Mises, they claim, showed that a socialist society was impossible because it would be unable to calculate rationally which productive methods to adopt. This they call “the economic calculation argument”. According to von Mises, rational economic calculation is only possible on the basis of prices fixed by the free play of market forces. In other words, the only form of rational calculation that can be applied to the production of wealth is monetary calculation.

Although money, and so monetary calculation, will disappear in socialism this does not mean that there will no longer be any need to make choices, evaluations and calculations in the allocation of resources. Our argument is that these , including those concerning the non-monetary “cost” of objects in terms of the effort and materials used to produce them, will be done directly in kind, without any general unit of account or measurement, neither money nor labour-time. This follows from the very nature of socialism as a society geared to producing wealth directly to satisfy human needs. Wealth will be produced and distributed in its natural form of useful things, of objects that can serve to satisfy some human need or other. Not being produced for sale on a market, items of wealth will not acquire an exchange-value in addition to their use-value. In socialism their value, in the normal non-economic sense of the word, will not be their selling price nor the time needed to produce them but their usefulness. It is for this that they will be appreciated, evaluated, wanted . . . and produced. So estimates of what is likely to be needed over a given period will be expressed as physical quantities of definite types and sorts of objects.

 Nobody, not even von Mises, has denied that this could be done without problems:
  "...calculation in natura, in an economy without exchange, can embrace consumption-goods only..."
Von Mises’ argument was that the next step—working out which productive methods to employ—would not be possible, or at least would not be able to be done “rationally” avoiding waste and inefficiency, without “economic calculation”—monetary calculation based on market prices. Our answer is that the choice of which productive methods to employ will, like working out what consumer goods are needed, be based on estimations and calculations in kind.

A monetary economy gives rise to the illusion that the “cost” of producing something is merely financial; indeed so associated is the word cost with financial and monetary calculation that we are obliged to put it in inverted commas when we want to talk about it in a non-monetary sense. But the real cost of the pen I’m using to write this article is not 10p, but the amount of wood, slate, labour, electricity, wear and tear of machines, used up in producing it. This will continue to be the case in socialism. Goods will not grow on trees, but will still require expenditure of effort and materials to produce them. The point is that in socialism this expenditure of effort and materials will be estimated and calculated exclusively in kind, directly in terms of wood, slate, machinery wear and tear, electricity, and so on (including working time, but as this will be a special case we’ll come back to it later). Since socialism will be concerned with conserving resources it will want to adopt those productive methods which, other things being equal, use less rather than more materials and energy and this will be one, but only one, of the factors to be taken into account in deciding which technical method of production to adopt.

Monetary calculation, whether to discover which productive method is the most profitable (as imposed by capitalism and praised by the followers of von Mises) or for any other purpose (as proposed by various partisans of state capitalism and other unrealistic would-be reformers of capitalism), is a very peculiar sort of calculation since it involves reducing all use-values to an abstract common denominator. Use-values can indeed be compared but only in concrete situations since the same object can have a different use-value at different times and under different circumstances. Monetary calculation, however, seeks to compare all objects in terms of an objective standard applicable in all circumstances; to do this it needs to identify a feature common to all objects. Such a common feature can indeed be found: that a certain “cost” in terms of materials, energy and labour expended has had to be incurred to produce them (ultimately the labour-time required to produce them from start to finish, and—this is the basis of the labour theory of value—the materials and energy expended, being produced by labour, can also be reduced to given amounts of necessary labour-time). It is this cost that is supposed to be measured by money. Money, then, is the universal unit of measurement, the “general equivalent”, that allows everything to be compared with everything else under an circumstances—but, and this is what the partisans of monetary calculation forget, only in terms of their labour-time cost or the total time needed on average to produce them from start to finish.

To make this the only consideration that counts (as is imposed by the economic laws of capitalism) is an absurd aberration. It is like making volume the most important thing about bottles containing different liquids and then concluding that a litre bottle of water has the same significance as a litre bottle of wine or of oil or of sulphuric acid or whatever. But we are doing exactly the same if we say, or if we believe, that different goods selling at the same price have the same “value”, or are “worth” the same, in terms of their real usefulness to people.

Market Values or Human Values?
So the argument between monetary calculation and calculation in kind is much broader than it first seems. It is not merely a technical argument about how to calculate and what units to use for this, but is an argument about the real meaning of words like “value” and “worth”. The Socialist Party, as opponents of monetary calculation, say that it is not monetary or market values, in the end total average production time, that is the most important thing about a good but its usefulness in satisfying some human need; that the real values are use-values, human values. We are saying that these are the factors that should be taken into account when making choices and calculations about production. not simply production time.

This presupposes that calculations concerning production can be carried out without money or without some money-substitutes, some other general unit such as labour-time. Such non-monetary calculation of course already happens. on the technical level, under capitalism. Once the choice of productive method has been made (according to expected profitability as revealed by monetary calculation) then the real calculations in kind of what is needed to produce a specific good commence: so much raw materials, so much energy, so much labour, etc. In socialism it is not the case that the choice of productive method will become a technical choice that can be left to engineers, as is sometimes misunderstood by our critics, but that this choice too will be made in real terms, in terms of the real advantages and disadvantages of alternative methods and in terms of, on the one hand, the utility of some good or some project in a particular circumstance at a particular time and, on the other hand, of the real “costs” in the same circumstances and at the same time of the required materials, energy and productive effort.

To advocate monetary calculation, then, is to advocate that only one consideration—the total average production time needed to produce goods—should be taken into account when making decisions about which productive methods to employ. This is patently absurd but it is what is imposed by capitalism. Naturally, it leads to all sorts of aberrations from the point of view of human interests. In particular it rules out a rational, long-term attitude towards conserving resources and it imposes intolerable conditions on the actual producers (speed-up, pain, stress, boredom, long hours, nightwork, shiftwork, accidents).

Socialism, because it will calculate directly in kind, will be able to take these other, more important, factors than production time into account. This will naturally lead to different, in many cases quite different, productive methods being adopted than now under capitalism. If the health, comfort and enjoyment of those who actually manipulate the materials, or who supervise the machines which do this, to transform them into useful objects is to be paramount, certain methods are going to be ruled out altogether. The fast-moving production lines associated with the manufacture of cars would be stopped for ever (except perhaps in a museum of the horrors of capitalism); nightwork would be reduced to the strict minimum; particularly dangerous or unhealthy jobs would be automated (or completely abandoned).

Work can, in fact must, become enjoyable. But to the extent that work becomes enjoyable, measurement by minimum average working time would be completely meaningless, since people would not be seeking to minimise or rush such work.

However there will still be some kinds of work that socialist society will want to minimise. For instance, dangerous or repetitive work. Once again, this would be one of the real factors that will have to be taken into account when decisions are made as to what productive methods to adopt. Other factors would be conserving resources (so out would go “planned obsolescence” and in would come solid goods made to last), saving energy, avoiding pollution and generally maintaining a sustainable ecological balance with the rest of nature.

As a matter of fact, even under capitalism, enterprise managers do not just base their decisions on market prices, long-term or short-term. They are obliged by law (and also by trade union pressure) to take into account a whole series of other factors such as safety, anti-pollution and planning permission. The overriding consideration remains of course expected profits (the difference between anticipated sales receipts and monetary cost of production). This means that these factors are of minor importance and only reflect the minimum standards that are not incompatible with profit-making and, being imposed from outside against the logic of short-term profit-making are always being broken. But they do, however marginally, enter into productive decisions, thus showing that it is possible to take into account other considerations than minimum production time.

The Priorities in Socialism
In socialism, the situation will be quite different: these factors will be automatically taken into account in the decision-making process and will not have to be imposed from outside as a sort of after-thought, since among the highest priorities of production will be the health and welfare of the producers. We can imagine the decisions as to choice of productive methods being made by a council elected by the workforce, or by a technical subcommittee of such a democratically-elected council. In making their choice they will first take into account, not minimising average total production time as the economic laws of capitalism enforce today, but the health, comfort and enjoyment of the workforce, the protection of the environment and the conservation of materials and energy. Since materials and energy, and work to the extent that it is not interesting and creative but only routine, are real “costs” the aim will be to minimise them. As there will be these clearly defined objectives and constraints, mathematical aids to decision-making such as operational research and linear programming, at present prostituted to the end of maximising profits, can be used to find the optimum productive methods.

Another point that must be understood is that socialism will not have to start from scratch. It will inherit from capitalism a going technical system of production which it will be able to adapt to production for use. Some methods will have to be stopped straight away or as soon as possible but others will only need modifying to a greater or lesser extent. Again, when socialism will have cleared up the mess inherited from capitalism, it will become a society in which methods of production too will only change slowly. This will make decision-making about production much simpler.

We add straight away to avoid any misunderstanding that, even in the period at the beginning of socialism when production will be clearing up the mess in terms of deprivation and poverty left by capitalism, monetary calculation won’t be necessary. The necessary expansion of production can be planned and executed in real terms.

So, the so-called “economic calculation argument” against socialism collapses in the face of detailed analysis. The alternative to monetary calculation in terms of exchange-value is calculation in kind in terms of use-values, of the real advantages and real costs of particular real alternatives in particular real circumstances.