Letters: Divided society (2013)

Letters to the Editors from the August 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

Divided society

Dear Editors

It's not surprising that so many of the promises on poverty and inequality made by politicians have been broken ('Empty Rhetoric', Voice from the Back, July). The so-called elite who run society don't really care about the rest of us.

Yet, it doesn't have to be like this. There is masses of research to support the idea that we can choose the kind of society we want to live in, and that includes a more equal society free of poverty.

Researchers like Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson published evidence a few years ago. It showed that a very divided society makes our physical and mental health much worse. Inequality makes us ill. There is also less trust between people too. Their book The Spirit Level pointed out that everyone suffers in that kind of cruel society.

More recently, David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu published The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills. Once again, the savage decisions made by many governments damaged people's health and well-being. Cutting back on health and welfare increases diseases and creates unhappiness.

We need to create a different future for ourselves.

Graeme Kemp. 

Wellington, Shropshire

Reply: 

Entirely agree. It’s good to know that there are others out there who agree with us.

Editors.

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Childish?

Dear Editors

I thought your article Resistanbul in the July Socialist Standard was one of the best, most informative and helpful I have read in a very long time. But did you really have to spoil it on the front cover with a trite and infantile reference to turkeys and stuffing?

Your article was extremely respectful and sensitive to the issues and challenges facing Turkish society and the Turkish people. Your cover was cheap and childish.

Andrew Northall. 

Kettering

Letters: Bargain basement nationalism (2014)

Letters to the Editors from the June 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bargain basement nationalism

Dear Editors

The UK Independence Party is clearly being sold to ordinary voters as a movement to liberate us all. And sadly many workers will back it. Yet as the article ‘People Not Profits’ mentions, UKIP is no alternative at all (Editorial, May Socialist Standard).

UKIP sells a kind of bargain-basement nationalism that seeks to blame workers outside the UK for our problems. It wants to close the borders, and substitute ‘patriotism’ for compassion. And its policies are designed to transfer even more wealth and income into the pockets of the rich.

It’s the economic system that oppresses people, not those who move to the U.K. We need to reject the false ideology of nationalism UKIP promotes, as well as its economic ideas.

Graeme Kemp, 

Wellington, Shropshire.

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Blatant contrast

Dear Editors
Regarding the article on 15 Central Park West (‘Voice from the Back’, April Socialist Standard), some years ago I took a stroll of some of the streets where the buildings look out on to Central Park. The buildings, a mixture of mansions, hotels and apartment blocks, were beautiful and were obviously occupied by the wealthy. The streets which intersected with the prosperous-looking avenue contained some atrocious slums, many of which were right next to the above buildings. Here one saw a blatant and obvious contrast between wealth and poverty. It should have been enough to have the least perceptive onlooker wonder if perhaps there wasn’t something wrong in a society that could create such extremes.

Steve Shannon, 

Mississauga, Canada.

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Compelling Case

Dear Editors

I just wanted to write and say I really enjoyed reading the three election manifestos and supporting article carried on pages 10 to 12 of the May Socialist Standard.

In clear, modern and accessible language, they all set out a powerful and compelling case for a world socialist society, and certainly inspired me to do something positive to bring this about!

Andrew Northall (by email)

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Middle Eastern Marxists?

Dear Editors

Perhaps the most striking part of the International Workers’ Day demonstration on May Day 2014 was the large contingents of Turkish and Iranian ‘communists’ in London. Tens of attendees turned up parading plain red flags in co-ordinated outfits from organisations such as Alevi Federation, Day-Mer (ostensibly, the Turkish community centre in North London) , RedHack, Worker Communist Parties of Iraq and Iran. Perhaps the most prominent figure inspiring some of these groups is the late Mansoor Hekmat (who died in 2002), who rejected both ‘Stalinism’ and Islamism and urged communists to ‘go back to Marx’. Not in itself sufficient for a socialist, but if ‘Marxist-Hekmatism’ is popular enough for a ‘Marx-Hekmat’ society in London or in the large populations of Turkey or Iran, then perhaps it is worthy of further critique by the true socialists in London.

DJW (by email)

Letter: The SPGB and War (2014)

Letter to the Editors from the November 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors

I was very surprised indeed that the SPGB and the Socialist Standard did not use the opportunity of the centenary of the start of the First World War to re-publish, and in full, one of what must be one of the most powerful anti-war messages produced by revolutionary socialists, that of the SPGB, published in the September 1914 Socialist Standard.

You quite rightly re-published part of it in the October 1939 Socialist Standard in response to the start of the Second World War, and I understood the Party was extremely proud of the prose and the revolutionary socialist anti-war message it expressed.

As you have chosen for whatever reason not to re-publish your original anti First World War manifesto, may I have at least part of it re-published in your letters column?

  Placing on record our abhorrence of this latest manifestation of the callous, sordid and mercenary nature of the international capitalist class, and declaring that no interests are at stake justifying the shedding of a single drop of working class blood, we protest the brutal and bloody butchery of our brothers of this and other lands, who are being used as food for cannon abroad while suffering and starvation are the lot of their fellows at home. We have no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to the workers of all lands the expression of our goodwill and socialist fraternity, and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of socialism, The World for the Workers!

I note the one good thing the SPGB ever said about the Bolsheviks and the Russian Revolution was that they took Russia out of the war. The workers and peasants revolution in Russia in November 1917 was surely the single most powerful and most effective anti war action ever taken in modern history.

Does not the fact that the Bolshevik Revolution so clearly and unambiguously pulled Russia out of the First World Slaughter, and published and exposed all the secret treaties and pacts, showing all the dirty connections and inter relationships between apparently hostile imperialist powers, indicate that, perhaps, there was more of a proletarian content to that Revolution than the SPGB has ever felt able to acknowledge?

With very best wishes

Andrew Northall (by email)

Reply:

There’s no doubt the Bolshevik Revolution (in reality more of a coup d’état) was carried out by proletarians in the main and it did have the positive effect of taking Russia out of the First World War, as we indeed acknowledged at the time. Set against that though is the legacy of the decades of totalitarian dictatorship that followed, and the mistaken association of this brutal state capitalist regime with ‘socialism’ and ‘communism’. – Editors.

Letters: Redirecting production to meeting needs (2006)

Letters to the Editors from the June 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Redirecting production to meeting needs

Dear Editors,

An important part of the Socialist Party’s case for socialism as a world wide system where production takes place on the basis of need and for social use with free access to goods and services, is that there is sufficient productive capacity to produce such an abundance of socially needed and useful goods and services so as to enable free access, thus eliminating scarcity and the need for money. At the present time there is self-evidently no such abundance in the actual production of socially needed and useful goods and services and it would appear on the surface that the gap between current reality and your aspiration is enormous.

I would be interested to know if there has been any work to try and prove that the required capacity to generate such abundance is in fact already in existence and that all that is required – as you imply – is that the existing means of production and distribution be simply redirected to socially useful ends, once a socialist majority takes power out of the hands of the capitalist class? It ought to be relatively  straightforward to – in albeit speculative and approximate terms – quantify the sort of total productive capacity, presumably in terms of required labour hours, required to generate an abundance of essential goods and services, to meet the basic needs of every human being in the world.

Then compare that with total productive capacity at the present time. Then show how much of existing productive capacity would be released upon the cessation of wasteful, non essential and dangerous activities e.g. military production, state bureaucracy, finance related activities, shoddy consumer goods etc and therefore potentially able to be redirected to socially useful and needed production. Then build in an assumption about much existing productive capacity could then be increased through the  employment of labour saving technologies and at the same time show how massive reductions in  working lives, working weeks and days – which must be one of the prime outcomes of the successful establishment of socialism and the true liberation of the working class – would be delivered, and still leave sufficient labour power to generate abundance.

To do this would be to surely produce an extremely decisive and compelling case for immediate social change, instead of having to rely on rather glib and optimistic assumptions, which to most people at the moment seem completely unreal.

Andrew Northall, 

Northampton

Reply: 

It is true that the growth and expansion of capitalism has developed a structure of global production that could be a basis for a socialist system. However, this is very different to saying that it is currently adequate to provide for needs. The main reason is that under capitalism production is determined by market capacity for sales and taking the system as a whole, market capacity is always much less than would be required to satisfy needs. It follows that people in socialism would need to expand useful production and practicality means that it would take time. However, the freedoms that would be enjoyed which would make this straightforward.

The bringing in of new means of production would be free from the constraints of  capital investment; the abolition of the market would mean that it could no longer determine what could be produced; with voluntary cooperation replacing the wage-labour relationship communities would decide what should be done and would be free to organised their resources to achieve those aims.

This would be democratic control of the organisation of production directly for needs. Some work has been done on the question of how existing useful production should be increased to be able to meet needs. For example, it has been suggested that world food production would have to increased by at least 60 per cent to get to a position of sufficiency for everybody on the planet. In general this is a complex question; a growing socialist movement would no doubt develop its plans for what should be the  priorities action following the establishment of common ownership. What we can say is that a socialist system would release huge powers of production with perhaps the only constraint being that they would have to be used in ways that safeguard the environment

– Editors.

S is for Socialism

Dear Editors,

In an article in The Nation (17 April) entitled “The Left Needs More Socialism”, Ronald Aronson states clearly that it is time for the ‘left,’ ‘progressives’, etc to stop being afraid of using the ‘s’ word, recognise what they stand for and call a spade a spade. He doesn’t actually promote socialism per se but does promote what it stands for and says that progressives are failing to offer a real alternative (specifically in US politics but, by implication, in other parts of the world too). “… the real Marxism, although no longer embodied in movements or governments, has never been truer or more relevant.

Most of the world’s main problems today are inseparable from the dynamics of the capitalist system itself.” He stresses the inevitable dichotomies of the capitalist system and gives examples of socialism’s values “nourishing community life”, e.g. “The socialist standards of fairness, democracy, equality and justice are as much a part of daily life as are capitalism’s values of privilege, unequal rewards and power.” He states that “…social movements for environmental protection, women’s rights, racial equality sooner or later run up against institutional constraints imposed by capitalism.

Then they discover they can’t achieve their goals without becoming anti-capitalists” and goes on to suggest that as such individuals and groups “try to coalesce around increasingly global alternatives” they should not be timid in naming this ‘socialism’. I read the article with a growing feeling of warmth towards him for putting the case so convincingly to readers, most of whom will call themselves leftists, progressives, democrats or liberals, but most of whom, also, are wary of associating themselves with the ‘s’ word and need to be pushed out of their comfort zone. If they really do want a different world, a different way of living they first have to face up to the facts and see that a little reform here and there will not give them what they’re seeking, and complaining about ‘the others’ won’t do it either.

Janet Surman 

Turkey

Letters: Carmageddon? (1992)

Letters to the Editors from the March 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

Carmageddon?

Dear Editors,

In the introductory piece in your January article reference was made in passing to the “modest” economic requirements of a typical worker including a car and an annual holiday. The question is could these be provided under socialism (or any system) for the population of the entire world, currently over 5 billion and likely to double in a few decades?

The latest figures I have seen for the world car “population" are 450 million, or slightly less than one car for every 10 people. These are said to produce directly and indirectly 30-40 percent of the worlds greenhouse gas emissions. In Britain the car population is roughly two to every five people. If the world's population of motor vehicles were raised to the same level this would come to 2 billion vehicles, over four times the present level.

My contention is that even if it were possible to produce the vehicles (and the roads, etc to go with them) the Earth's environment could never stand it.

The point is, of course, that under a world socialist system, anything that could not be produced for everyone would not be produced at all, so I think we can rule out mass car ownership and for that matter annual holidays involving jet flights for everyone.

In the advanced capitalist countries most workers aspire to and, to a large extent, have these things, which means they are unlikely ever to vote for socialism. True, capitalism probably cannot sustain its present level of luxury production without causing ecological catastrophe and the workers of the “advanced" nations may then change their attitude. But socialism, capitalism or any other system will be irrelevant on a ruined, possibly dying planet.

J. Wood 

London E1

Reply:
It is capitalism, not overpopulation as you state, that is the cause of present-day pollution, resource depletion and environmental degradation, and, even if population growth were to become a problem in terms of putting pressure on the Earth's resources, it would only be within the framework of a world of common ownership and democratic control that such a problem could be tackled.

Similiarly, if your pessimism were to be confirmed and capitalism really did bring ecological catastrophe, then socialism would still be relevant as only a global approach treating the Earth's resources as the common heritage of all humanity would provide any chance of minimising the damage and saving what could be saved.

With regard to cars, you overlook two things. First, it is technically possible to produce cars that don't pollute the atmosphere. Secondly, that access for all to means of individual transport could be provided without this having to involve everyone having their own car. Non-polluting cars, such as electric ones, are not produced on a mass scale today because of the profit considerations and vested interests that exist under capitalism.

Access to a car offers house-to-house flexibility that no other form of transport can provide. So it is a reasonable demand, and we can envisage it being met in a socialist society by free taxis and mini-cabs as well as by individuals having access to a pool of cars kept available in their neighbourhood for use without charge as and when needed for specific journeys. Also, the situation would be transformed in that the need for car usage would be reduced by the existence of a comprehensive and efficient public transport system.

Capitalism is constitutionally incapable of tackling the transport question in a rational way since under it production is carried on by profit-seeking enterprises all competing to maximise their profits. Individual car ownership is encouraged because there is more profit in this than in providing an adequate transport system. Cars run on petrol because for the time being, and by the short-term perspective that capitalism takes, this is the cheapest fuel available. Competition forces manufacturers to produce as cheaply as possible, so the best anti-pollution devices are not installed in cars. None of these anti-social considerations would apply in socialism.

Editors.

Socialists and partial struggles

Dear Editors.

I would like to enquire as to your party's attitude to struggle and participation in broad campaigning movements.

I think I understand your view that the only effective and proper way to remedy the ills giving rise to such movements is the abolition of capitalism and its replacement by socialism. The argument being that such movements merely respond to the effects of capitalism, expressed in various forms of injustice and oppression, and ignore the basic underlying cause, the class exploitation inherent in capitalism.

Given this, I wonder what is expected of members of the Socialist Party. Do they participate in such movements as Anti-Apartheid and CND but argue from within that fighting for their limited objectives at best diverts from the important task of winning workers for socialism and at worst sustains capitalism by generating illusions about improving it? Or should they stand well apart from such reformist diversions and rely solely on the platforms offered by Socialist Party meetings and publications like the Socialist Standard?

I can see how the latter option has the advantage of principle and avoids possible confusion about the role of party members should they be active in broad movements. But it could be argued that by adopting this purist approach, the Socialist Party is unnecessarily isolated from important arenas of struggle and depriving itself of access to those who, through their own experience of struggle against the effects of capitalism, should prove more susceptible to the case for replacing it completely with socialism.

If you do not expect Socialist Party members to participate or support these broad movements, does the same apply to the relevant trade unions at their place of work? Although trade unions are wholly limited and defensive, they do have a definite class basis in the sense they seek to organise workers selling their labour power to a common employer or group of employers. If party members are expected to join trade unions, how do you summarise their role within them and how does this differ, if at all, from playing an active part in the broad movements mentioned above?

By joining a trade union, one is implicitly endorsing the struggle to defend wages rather than seeking the abolition of the wages system itself. How docs the Socialist Party resolve this contradiction? I find it difficult to imagine how a party advancing the interests of the working class can stand aside from such key mass working class organisations and yet I do not see how any alternative position could be consistent with your approach to other broad movements.

Andrew Northall

Kettering

Reply:

The Socialist Party exists to encourage the working class to establish socialism by democratic political action. We are a political party which advocates socialism and nothing else. Members join on this basis and we are in effect a body dedicated exclusively to spreading socialist ideas by all available means—meetings, pamphlets, leaflets, phone-ins. personal conversations.

As a political party our field of operation is the political arena. Here we oppose all other political parties since they all seek to reform or manage capitalism in one way or another while the only form of political action we support is political action for socialism. This is why we also do not support or join what you call “broad campaigning movements” which, without aiming at winning political power themselves, aim to bring pressure on governments to adopt certain policies or enact certain reforms. In this sense they too are reformist, and the argument we put against them is the one you outline in the second paragraph of your letter.

This does not mean, however, that we "stand well apart" from such organisations in the physical sense and rely solely on our own meetings and publications. We attend their meetings and demonstrations to make contact and discuss with those involved in them, with a view to pointing out that only in a socialist society will the problems they are rightly concerned about be able to be solved. Indeed, many of our own members first came into contact with socialist ideas in this way.

Trade unions, on the other hand, are not political organisations but organisations formed by groups of workers to negotiate their wages and conditions with employers. Workers in employment have to bargain over the sale of their productive skills and it is clearly better that they do this collectively rather than individually (“unity is strength"). Members of the Socialist Party do participate in trade unions (and similar bodies such as tenants associations, student unions, parents associations, claimants unions), but as individual workers directly affected not as party members carrying out some "Party line". We do not practise "entryism" like the Trotskyists who infiltrate organisations with the aim of taking them over. On the contrary in fact; our members always insist that such organisations should be run on a fully democratic basis and on the need to avoid being manipulated by politicians and politically-motivated groups. We are, for instance, opposed to unions being affiliated to the Labour Party.

Editors.

Marx's Wage Labour and Capital (2004)

From the February 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party can be described as a Marxist party, in that it recognises the immense contribution made by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in the 19th century in developing a scientific understanding of capitalism as a distinct and transient society, one which was historically progressive in its time, but which is now outdated and needing to be replaced.

This is not to say that we think Marx and Engels were correct on every subject then, still less now. The whole point of a scientific approach to politics and economics is that it is based on facts, evidence and objective testing and reassessment. Marxism itself has been defined as the distillation of all the lessons and understandings gained from working class struggles against capitalism, expressed in a scientific manner.

Nonetheless, there is enormous value to be gained from studying the classical works of Marx and Engels. Writing during the earlier phases of capitalism’s development and working to get a handle on the whole phenomenon, their writings provide a clarity and a perspective on capitalism and the need for workers to replace it by socialism, rarely achieved since. In fact, some hold that the development of capitalism has accorded even more closely with their basic analysis than was perhaps the case at the time.

Their works may not be particularly easy reading - but newcomers may be pleasantly surprised how easy they can get into them - but they were written by people who were active participants - as well as commentators - in 19th century working class struggle and who were passionate and eloquent in their commitment and analysis. Their power to slice through the fog of mystique, confusion and distortion which passes for contemporary news and commentary can be both astonishing and inspiring.

Wage Labour and Capital is one excellent example of just such a classic. Written by Marx towards the end of 1847, it was aimed to be a popular exposition of the basics of how capitalism functioned and the subjugation of wage labour. Engels re-issued it in 1891 but with certain changes to take into account Marx’s advances in economic theory after 1847, in particular the distinction between “labour” and “labour-power” which was not made in the original version. Engels, however, did not point out - and change - the different sense in which Marx employed the term “cost of production” in 1847 compared with later. In Capital Marx used the term to mean what it costs the capitalist to produce a commodity, i.e. what they have to pay for raw materials, labour-power, energy, wear and tear, etc. In other words, not including profit. In Wage-Labour and Capital Marx uses it to mean cost in terms of the total amount of labour required to produce it, including the part the capitalist did not need to pay for, i.e. including profit. It was thus the same as he later meant by value.

Marx starts by making a few things clear. Workers sell the capitalist their labour power for an amount of money. That money could have been used to buy a certain amount of commodities. So labour power is as much a commodity as (say) sugar. The workers’ labour power has been exchanged for an amount of commodities measured by money. The exchange value of labour power as measured by money is its price. Wages are just a special name “for the price of this peculiar commodity which has no other repository than human flesh and blood.”

But why does the worker sell labour power to the capitalist? In order to live of course! Marx then exposes the reality of work under capitalism in a way which has great resonance today:

“The exercise of labour [should be] the worker’s own life activity, manifestation of their own life. But they have to sell it to another person to obtain means of subsistence. Life activity is just a means to enable existence. They work in order to live. Labour is not even reckoned as part of normal life, it is rather a sacrifice of their life. Work has no meaning other than as earnings.
“What he produces for himself is not the silk he weaves, not the gold he draws from the mine, not the palace he builds. What he produces for himself is wages, and silk, gold, palace resolve themselves for him into a definite quantity of means of subsistence, perhaps a cotton jacket, some copper coins and a lodging in a cellar.”

Marx points out labour was not always a commodity and that under capitalism labour takes the form of wage labour, or “free” labour. That is workers are free to sell their labour-power to any capitalist who wishes to buy it and the capitalist is free to get rid of the worker as soon as there is no profit to be made. But there is a limit to such “freedom”:

“The worker whose sole source of livelihood is the sale of his labour power cannot leave the whole class of purchasers (the capitalist class) without renouncing his existence. He belongs not to this or that capitalist, but to the capitalist class.”

Marx then carefully explores how prices of commodities are determined. Slicing through the metaphysics of supply and demand and free competition, Marx identifies that the benchmark is the labour cost of production. This is also the centre of gravity for a price, around which prices will fluctuate. If a particular branch of industry is profitable, capital is put in to that industry until the price of that product falls below the labour cost of production, and vice versa.

“We see how capital continually migrates in and out, out of one domain of industry into another. High prices bring too great an immigration and low prices too great an emigration. The fluctuations of supply and demand continually bring the price of a commodity back to the cost of production.”

The corollary is that “the current price of a commodity is always either below or above its cost of production.”

One of Marx’s specific contributions to political economy was to regard these continual fluctuations in prices not as chance but as fundamental to how the capitalist economy ensures that prices are determined by the cost of production. That is: “These fluctuations which bring with them the most fearful devastations and like earthquakes shake bourgeois society to tremble at its foundations - this industrial anarchy” is fundamental and basic to capitalism, rather than something which can be smoothed or ironed out.

The same general laws determine the price of labour power, or wages. Whilst wages do fluctuate through supply and demand, in essence:

“The cost of production of labour power is the cost required for maintaining the worker as a worker and developing him into a worker. The price of his labour is therefore determined by the price of the necessary means of subsistence.”

Just as the cost of replacing machines needs to be factored into prices:

“The cost of reproduction must also be included, whereby the race of workers is enabled to multiply and replace worn out workers by new ones. Wages, the cost of production of labour power for the working class as a whole - as opposed to individual workers - amounts to the costs of existence and reproduction of the whole working class.”

Marx then dissects the reality and truth of capital. Yes, capital consists of “raw materials, instruments of labour and means of subsistence which are utilised to produce new raw materials, new instruments of labour and new means of subsistence”. They are also nothing more than:

“Creations of labour, products of labour, accumulated labour. Accumulated labour which serves as a means of new production is capital.”

These products of labour are however no longer owned by the working class. They have been appropriated by the capitalist class. The existence of the capitalist class and its wealth is based on robbery. But capital is a product and part of capitalism. As well as being all these different components of production, “all the products of which it consists are commodities, sums of exchange values, as well as material products.”

But how do certain sets of commodities become capital? The following evocative description tells us:

“By maintaining and multiplying itself as an independent social power, that is, as the power of a portion of society, by means of its exchange for direct, living labour power. “

This is the reality of the god worshipped by modern society. Entirely made by labour. Old, past, historic, parasitical, but because we accept the rules of capitalism, we allow this god to subvert and rule modern society in its own peculiar and reactionary interests. Living labour subordinate to dead labour. The reality of the exchange between wage worker and capitalist is that:

“The worker receives means of subsistence, but the capitalist receives the productive activity of the worker, the creative power which not only replaces that which is consumed (through wages) but gives to the accumulated labour a greater value than it previously possessed. The worker surrenders to the capitalist this noble reproductive power in return for subsistence which is consumed for ever.”

The relationship and dependency is that:

“Capital presupposes wage labour; wage labour presupposes capital. They reciprocally condition the existence of each other; they reciprocally bring forth each other.”

So wage labour and capital have a common interest? Well, yes and no. Yes, in that capital only thrives by exchanging itself for wage labour. The more capital increases, so does wage labour. No, in that the increase and profitability of capital is simply to increase the power of the master over the slave, the increased domination of the capitalist class over the working class.

The most tolerable situation for workers under capitalism may well be for the fastest growth in productive forces, of capital. But the respective gains for the capitalist class and the working class are hardly equal. The capitalist class already has power over the working class. The strengthening of capital increases further the power of the capitalist class to appropriate an even greater relative share of wealth than before. Whilst money or even real wages may grow in times of prosperity of capital, the stupendous growth in the wealth appropriated by capital may mean that in society as a whole, the position of wage labour is relatively worse off than before.

And why should the capitalist class be entitled to any of the wealth created by the working class? All the wealth is created by workers using means of production which were created by previous workers. The capitalist class adds precisely nothing to the process. Any wealth appropriated by the capitalists is at the direct expense of the working class. Profit and wages are shares in the same product of the worker. One gains, one loses.

In the final section, Marx sets out the basic futility and effect of the competition between the capitalists. Capitalists try and drive each other out of business by raising the productivity of labour and cheapening their products. But all that happens is that other capitalists adopt the same mechanisms and processes, resulting in the prices in the once profitable line falling below the labour cost of production. They are all in exactly the same position as before.

“The same game begins again. More division of labour, more machinery, enlarged scale of exploitation of machinery and division of labour. And again competition brings the same counteraction against this result. This is the law which again and again throws bourgeois production out of its old course and which compels capital to intensify the productive forces of labour, the law which gives capital no rest and continually whispers in its ear: ‘Go on! Go on!’ Whatever the power of the means of production employed, competition seeks to rob capital of the golden fruits of this power by bringing the price of commodities back to the cost of production.
If we now picture to ourselves this feverish simultaneous agitation on the whole world market, it will be comprehensible how the growth, accumulation and concentration of capital results in an uninterrupted division of labour, and in the application of new and the perfecting of old machinery precipitately and on an ever greater scale.
Finally, as the capitalists are compelled to exploit the already gigantic means of production on a larger scale, there is a corresponding increase in industrial earthquakes, in which the trading world can only maintain itself by sacrificing a part of wealth, or products and even of productive forces to the gods of the nether world - in a word, crises increase. The world market becomes more and more contracted, fewer and fewer new markets remain available for exploitation, since every preceding crisis has subjected to world trade a market hitherto unconquered or only superficially exploited.”

This is still the crazy system we live and work in. Destructive of wealth, people and the planet we occupy. Is it not time for the producers of wealth - the world working class - to cast aside the capitalist class and their crippling, destructive, distorting system, and replace it by a more sensible and satisfying approach whereby we produce wealth to meet people’s needs and we work because we enjoy it and want to contribute to the good and well-being of world humanity?

Andrew Northall