Silly Moo (1977)

From the May 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mrs Thatcher made some remarks on Socialism that were reported in The Guardian on March 15th. While we realize that she has a vested interest in obscuring the realities of Socialism as much as possible, her address (to the Zurich Economic Society) shows either an appalling lack of understanding of our economic problems or an equally appalling wish to distort the causes of those problems.

Socialism is a system of common ownership, free access, production for use and not profit, without a wages system, and of necessity world-wide. Capitalism, however, is a system in which a minority own and control wealth and its production, whilst the vast majority of the people are forced to sell their labour-power for a wage in order to live. Thus there cannot be any doubt that Socialism has not failed; it has never even been tried! In Britain the Labour Party seeks not to implement Socialism but merely tinkers about with the capitalist system to try to make it run as efficiently as possible, whilst in the USSR that abomination called Russian Communism is nothing but capitalism run by the state.

No, Mrs Thatcher, we are not “facing the crisis of socialism — economic failure, . . . tensions . . . decline etc”. We are facing yet another crisis of capitalism, and will go on doing so as it staggers from crisis to crisis until people wake up to the fact that the only solution is to end this pathetic system.

And to say that “the economic results of free enterprise were better because of the superiority of its underlying moral philosophy . . . from its emphasis on the individual and his capacity to choose”. Good grief! Tell that to the world’s starving millions, tell that to the poor and homeless in this country, tell that to the unemployed, tell that to the people who have seen two depressions and two word wars in their lifetime, and tell that to the people who will die in the next war for capitalism’s resources, markets and trade routes! In short you have precisely as much choice as you have money, which for the vast majority means no damn choice at all.

“The ordinary Briton has no clearly articulated theory to tell him why free enterprise is superior” because no such theory is possible. But he has “felt the shortcomings of” capitalism, private and state, and must soon see that Socialism is the key to the future.

D. W. Roberts

Letters: Ploughing Back? (1974)

Letters to the Editors from the May 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ploughing Back?

I gather from your literature that out of a man’s productive labour his wage is not commensurate with this. In other words his wage is less than the actual value of his labour, the difference going to the capitalist as unearned income. But surely not all of this difference or “profit” goes to the capitalist or shareholder. No doubt some of it does so. Some of it must also go to pay for new capital such as machines, factories etc. and to account for fixed charges such as rent, maintenance costs, electricity bills etc.

To me your argument implies that there is only one factor of production, namely labour. But there are in fact three, namely land, labour and capital. Each of these three must be utilized in the manufacture of the final product. And the cost of the final product must account for each of these three, not just labour. Rent accounts for land, wages account for labour, and profit accounts for capital. No doubt some of this profit goes to the shareholder and thus it can be argued that he is exploiting the worker. True, but not all of it.

Why not create a system whereby the shareholder, or capitalist if you like, is eliminated and all the profit is ploughed back into the industry? The profit margin would be so devised as to form a fixed percentage of the total revenue of the firm and wages would be kept on par with it. So a rise in price of the final product would inevitably mean an equivalent rise in wages. In such a system would the workers still say they were being exploited?

P. C. Green, 

Burnley.

Reply

A capitalist reckons his profit by deducting all his costs of production from the sum which his commodity has realized in the market. The reader suggests that this profit which derives from the unpaid labour of workers, could be divided among those workers minus an agreed amount for re-investment in machinery etc. (and presumbably minus taxation for the maintenance of health services, educational institutions and armed forces etc.).

However, such a system would be no more capable than present-day capitalism of producing goods and services to meet social requirements. Although the capitalist as an individual might be eliminated, the accumulation of capital would continue. In each particular factory or industry production would be dominated by market forces, expanding and contracting in times of greater or lesser economic advantage: in turn bringing periodic unemployment. The ownership and control of the means of production would rest in the hands of innumerable groups of workers, each of which would be a social minority in competition with others, and each making decisions in accordance with its individual economic interests. Propositions regarding the improvement of local working conditions, or of broader social improvements would be considered in the same limited way as they are today — “Is it economic?”

Socialists hold the view that with the natural resources, the labour-power and knowledge available to mankind in the world, human beings are capable of democratically organizing production without anyone being exploited.

Editorial Committee

Labour Vouchers

Surely the answer to S. Gamzu about “Labour Vouchers” (Socialist Standard March 1974) is that they were a measure of TIME and could not have had any meaning as anything else.

Of course they would not distinguish between a miner or Shakespeare and would NOT be “according to need” but TIME worked. In other words a time rationing system.

They would not become money. They would be personal, and probably dated like pension vouchers. Volume I of Capital (Kerr Edn. p.106) points out that Owen’s “labour-money” was no more “money” than a ticket for the theatre.

Horatio.

Work and Socialism

I am amazed by questions put by P. W. Ralphs (letter March 1974) who seems to have completely missed the whole concept of a truly Socialist society as put forward by the Socialist Party.

In a Socialist world there will surely be no “jobs” as such, no employment as exists under capitalism, when one occupation may capture and slowly strangle the individuality and personality of a worker and his family.

In Socialism time now spent “working” will be spent to the benefit of us all, doing things constructive to the maintenance and improvement of society as the Socialist majority sees it.

As a now highly specialized and, in employment terms, narrowly confined medical worker, I recognise the need for many unpleasant tasks in the running of society. I would gladly sweep roads or empty dustbins to maintain a Socialist community, but I would not wish to mine coal or trawl for fish in the Icelandic seas. And if the majority of people thought as I on these last points then society would have to think of alternative power sources (or mining methods) and an alternative food. If the majority disagreed with me, however, then there would logically be enough willing Socialists to maintain these services to the community.

The answer to P. W. Ralphs is simple: in a Socialist world as envisaged by the Socialist Party, the problems he put forward cannot possibly exist. They will be precluded by the social consciousness of the workers of the world, and the problems of capitalism will no longer beset them.

David W. Roberts

Ely.

'Vote For Them But . . . ' (1974)

From the November 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

The publicity organizers of the International Socialists certainly know how to produce an election poster to catch everyone’s eyes. Their technique is so simple too, even the most politically apathetic passer-by cannot fail to notice a poster designed to produce a laugh. ‘Defeat the Tories’ it cries, ‘Vote Labour, but no to social contract’. ‘Vote Labour, but’ indeed! It’s a bit different from the usual IS rubbish of ‘Vote Labour, then . . .’ (and then kick them out and put us in their place.)

Unfortunately it has a slight flaw. No-one seems to have told the IS that there is no provision on a voting slips for ‘buts’. How convenient it would be if there was, but there is not, there are no if’s, and’s or but’s about it at all. If you vote Labour you get Labour, you get continued uncontrollable capitalism, you get futile reformism, you get nothing for the future of the working class, and you get nowhere towards Socialism. And whether you get social contract or not is totally irrelevant.

No matter how sincerely a Labour government wishes to protect the interests of the workers, no matter how benignly they impose their unwanted ‘leadership’ upon us, they can do nothing other than be puppets of the economic forces of capitalism. It makes no difference whether Tory or Labour govern, the real power is that of the capitalist system and only its replacement by a genuine Socialist society will do.

When will International Socialists realise the futility of ‘Vote Labour’, and when will they realise that Socialism will only be achieved when we have awakened the social consciousness of the working class throughout the world? Socialism will be won by struggling to free the minds of the workers from their capitalist bonds, and never by putting in a Labour government and then trying to overthrow it by violently accentuating the evils of capitalism.

David Roberts

One swallow doesn't make a profit (1977)

From the June 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

The current issue of Birds, the magazine of the RSPB, carries the following editorial about Seal Sands on the Tees, an internationally important wintering place for shelduck and migrating shore birds. It is worth reproducing in full.

“For years we have fought to save this last vital remnant of Seal Sands from reclamation for port development. The last round in this battle was about the draft County structure plan, which had zoned the whole area for development. The special panel appointed by the Secretary of State for the Environment to hear objections to the plan found in our favour, concluding that the case for industrial development was weak and that there were positive reasons on nature conservation grounds against reclamation of any but a small sector of the site. However, the Secretary of State has said that he is proposing to reject his panel’s recommendation and to give priority to expansion of the port and port-related industry. If he does not change his mind (and we have submitted a further strong objection), this will permit the Tees and Hartlepool Port Authority to complete their destruction of the estuary.
“It will also be the third recent occasion on which a Secretary of State has rejected the findings of an enquiry and approved the despoliation of a site of international or national importance on the grounds of regional or local economic advantage—grounds which furthermore were not proved at the enquiries in question. Both the other consents were for oil refineries —one at Cliffe on the North Kent Marshes and the other in Nigg Bay in the Cromarty Firth—and they come at a time when Britain and Europe already have excess refinery capacity.
“A public enquiry is intended to provide an arena where all information and facts for and against development of a site can be properly tested. It becomes a pointless expenditure of time and money if a Secretary of State is going to throw overboard conclusions every time they do not suit his views or, as one must inevitably suspect, when they run contrary to the political expediency of the moment.”

Would it be churlish to say to the RSPB: “We told you so”? What they are experiencing confirms yet again two major points in the case of the Socialist Party. First, that the so-called democracy under capitalism, here expressing itself as the grand-sounding “public enquiry”, is allowed to go just as far as capitalism wants it to—to attempt to mollify the working class—until it starts to conflict with industry, profits etc. Then bang! up goes the brick wall and out comes the dictator (on this occasion a Labour Party one).

Second, it illustrates that power is political, in the Government’s hands. Even a wealthy pressure-group with a full-time staff and nearly a quarter of a million members to sign petitions cannot alter the Secretary of State’s decision. If they cannot save even a mud-flat in this situation, how can the working class hope to change society without first capturing political power through Parliament?

A final comment on the RSPB. They currently run an appeal called “Save a place for birds”. Perhaps this experience will demonstrate to them that nothing can be safeguarded within the capitalist system — only by abolishing it and building a sane society. Capitalism is not even concerned with saving a place for people. What hope have birds got?

D. W. Roberts