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What will it be like ?
Bred in close capitalist captivity and held there for 45 years, intermittently chafing in my confinement, a curiosity as to other possible ways of being sometimes stirs within me. So I look at the Socialist Standard. I’m impressed, but I don’t quite understand. In fact, I feel lost.
If I tell you my present circumstances, perhaps you will be good enough to tell me how I might fare under SPGB Socialism, so I can assess my chances of survival. As things are, I drive my two older children to comprehensive school on the way to the office, where I attend from 9 to 5. After driving home, I “guard" all three children till I collect my wife from her job at 8.30. Then, we all have toast and tea, chat, look at the newspaper and “box", and go to bed.
Tonight, say, capitalism miraculously ends and Socialism comes to stay. Please outline how the British family Bula will now spend its future—especially me, as I’m meant to be “running the show” (as things are at present), and I’ve taken the trouble to write this letter. Kindly give some detail, as I keep getting a suspicion I’d be comparable to many South Vietnamese today— still just growing rice, but under different management.
Incidentally, your rejection of “religious thought as an obstacle to understanding” (June SS) seems complacent and sweeping. What kind of religious thought? And understanding of what? The frontier with the not-understood has been so vastly extended since Marx’s time that we’ve hardly an inkling of things we now definitely don’t know.
Alan Bula
Guildford
Reply
What must be grasped about Socialism is that it means not a “different management” but a totally different kind of society; classless, moneyless, giving free access to everything produced and freedom of choice by people as to how they want to live. It will not happen "miraculously” but by the action of the majority of people understanding and wanting it.
The captivity you describe is the situation of the working class. Why do you and your wife work all day every day? Not for pleasure or the common good, but to get wages because that is the condition of living for the great majority. Why not vary hours so that you can all do other things? ’Tisn’t allowed. What are you doing anyway? Possibly adding up capitalists’ figures, or some other occupation which would have no place in a sane society.
On the establishment of Socialism a very large number of jobs would cease to exist at once. Everything connected with money—banking, insurance, accountancy, ticket-collecting, salesmanship, wage-clerking, standing behind shop counters and countless other things. Working hours generally would fall dramatically. We say "fall”, not "be reduced”. You have to visualize being able to make your own choice, either individually or in agreement with the people working with you: no need for all of us to be here, or I think I’ll go fishing. Marx envisaged people changing their occupations all the time. On the other hand, many people long to have an occupation in which they could absorb themselves.
Nobody would be stuck in one place any more than in one job. Why not move when you want or need to? But there is also the question of what you do when not working. Money circumscribes it at present. Without that painful restriction, and able to make your own time anyway, it is possible to live. We are not necessarily invoking things like round-the-world cruises; the satisfactions now denied to lots of people can be creative pursuits, or spending time with the children, or a good read without being too tired to concentrate. Obviously the productive work of society has got to be done, but production will be arranged round people’s needs (instead of the opposite, as at present). Possibly some will want a simple life of plain living and high thinking; that is for them to decide in Socialism.
On your question about religion and understanding, see the reply to G. J. Rajakarier. Why not get in touch with the group of SPGB members in your area? They will be pleased to go into these matters fully with you.
Editors.
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