Classic Reprint: Gus has a shock (1985)

A Classic Reprint from the Spring 1985 issue of the World Socialist

The lies, distortions and omissions which characterise the bosses' press are hallmarks of a system which can only survive by ensuring the political slumber of the majority class. Anyone who thinks that capitalism is a genuinely democratic social system has only to look at the minority ownership and control of the means of communication to understand just how unfree present-day society is. In a socialist society the technology of social communication will be at the disposal of all members of society, and there will be neither owners (private or state) nor advertisers to determine what may be published. Indeed, any opponents of socialism will have free access to the press and other media, for the socialist majority will have nothing to fear from the open expression of the ridiculous case for capitalism. (Indeed, party political broadcasts might be shown on television as comedy entertainment.) 

The following classic reprint was written by F. C. Watts, one of the finest writers of the early years of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, and was published in the Socialist Standard in January 1907.

GUS: You socialists ought to be grateful for the glorious institution of the free press instead of criticising the great newspapers as you do.

WILL: Grateful to whom? The so-called freedom of the press is, in reality, painfully limited; but such as it is, it was granted because absolutely necessary to commercial development. Material interests dictated it; not any love of the people. The capitalist class give us nothing but what it is to their interest to give, either to increase their profits or stave off their defeat, and we know from bitter experience that we have most to fear when our enemies profess a regard for us. 

GUS: But can you deny that the great daily newspapers are glorious and beneficient institutions, fearlessly standing out for truth and purity in public life? 

WILL: I emphatically and entirely deny every word of it!

GUS: Do you mean to say that the modern press is not free, or that it suppresses or perverts the truth?

WILL: I mean to say that the modern newspaper, by its very nature as a commercial venture, cannot exist except by perverting the truth; and that it is absolutely the slave of capitalist interests.

GUS: You surprise me. Explain yourself.

WILL: With pleasure. Now, newspapers are run by limited liability companies to obtain a profit, are they not?

GUS: That is so.

WILL: To get a profit they must sell; to sell they must please, to please they must suit themselves to the prejudices, ignorance or interests of their supporters.

     (Gus opens his eyes)

WILL: They cannot, then, afford to continue any line of policy when it does not pay, or when it is unpopular with the public or with that section of which they have constituted themselves the mouthpiece. To get the largest circulation and the greatest percentage of profit they must say what their readers or supporters want them to say, or else go under.

     (Gus looks startled)

WILL: Nor is that all; they have an even more important person to cater for — the advertiser. He is partly satisfied if the journal panders successfully to a large number of the public; but as a manufacturer he has important capitalist interests, and therefore would not support, by his advertisement, any journal that, through a love of truth, attacked his interests in any way.

    (Gus looks frightened)

WILL: Further, the various sections of the capitalist party have enormous campaign funds, and the newspapers, being run for profit, must slavishly support their capitalist party interest or forgo their reward. And the journalists who run the papers are the wage-slaves of the proprietors, compelled to utter, not what they think, but what their employers consider will sell best, and will please most the capitalist interest.

   (Gus tries to hide himself, Will holds him back)

WILL: Don’t run away, I’ve not done yet. The modern newspaper is thus, in the main, the reflection of the commonest, most superficial and most servile opinions of the public, and at the same time the advocate of the interests of its capitalist owners and advertisers. It is, therefore, against the financial policy of the modern newspaper to enlighten the working class; particularly in any direction that runs counter to capitalist interests. To satisfy its principal clients, the great advertisers and the political leaders, it must expound the views of the ruling class (or of a section thereof) and so doctor these views that the people may easily swallow them. It must, whenever the workers show a tendency to think clearly, carefully draw the wool over their eyes in order to keep them at the tail of the capitalist party and ignorant of the things that should concern them. For the rest, in order to earn its profits, the newspaper must batten on the ignorance and folly of its public.

GUS (who feels that the scales have fallen from his eyes): Well, but how can we alter it?

WILL: Only by abolishing the profit system. But we can help this on by doing all in our power to spread enlightenment among the workers and so show them the utter worthlessness of capitalist journalism; we can help by organising the workers for the overthrow of capitalist domination, and by pointing out that it is their duty to support a press of their own, not run by an individual or company (or profit, but owned and controlled by a genuine working-class organisation for the propagation of definite working-class principles. Thus alone can the education and emancipation of the working class be accomplished, and the freedom of the press from the curse of profit and capitalist domination become a fact.

F. C. Watts

Socialism: A free cooperative commonwealth (1985)

From the Spring 1985 issue of the World Socialist

Many people pose questions about the state of human existence. It is obvious that we live in a deadly dangerous world in which survival is by no means certain. We are bound then to consider an alternative to this. The practical option is to establish a society in which useful work ceases to be a saleable commodity. This would be a world in which the means of production and distribution are used in common by the whole world community. A world in which the useful work of the individual would be given freely to the community, where the welfare of the individual becomes the responsibility of the community, and where the welfare of the community, in its turn, becomes the responsibility of the individual. Only with the end of private property and where human energy ceases to function as a commodity can the mutual interest of the individual and the community be made to serve each other.

The land, factories, mines, railways and other productive resources would belong to no one. They would exist for the purpose of producing and distributing the things that people need in order to live, it would mean no shareholders in companies and no working for money wages or salaries. It means production and distribution solely for needs. This would be a society operated through cooperation. There would be no exchange of goods and no need for a medium of exchange—money. It would mean the end of competition and war. It would mean the coming of age of mankind.

Free Society geared to needs

These simple and practical ideas are contrary to the values we are taught at the moment. We learn the values of private property and that the means of life must be owned by some and therefore not owned by others. We are taught the relationships of ownership and non-ownership. These are the relationships which determine the quality of social life. In socialism the fact that no one will own "the means by which I live" will be the basis for a free society. On this basis, the means of production will be used solely for the purpose of satisfying human needs. Apart from such needs as food, clothing and shelter the needs of one person may vary from that of another. In a free society this would be determined by the individual as part of social co-operation.

The essential need in order to survive in our present society is to have money. In socialism all that we will need is to be human—and to co-operate as humans.

Some people might say that such a society is eventually inevitable, an ultimate stage of social evolution. They might argue that just as the taming of animals and the cultivation of land made it possible for organised society to emerge from hunting communities, and as the use of steam and electrical power gave rise to modern industrial capitalism, so automation and computerisation will give rise to socialism. But this change will not happen automatically; it requires the conscious action of political organisation. The main barrier which stands against this is that ideas are not in tune with the need to change society. In many counties democratic rights are not established.

Many people are still conditioned by tradition, religion and superstition. However, there can be no halfway house. Present society can be abolished and replaced by a new world system which is organised for needs, but it cannot be reformed to make it serve needs. So long as capitalism exists, and human energy remains a commodity and goods are produced for profit, society will remain dominated by the economic forces of the market and social divisions and strife will remain. The idea of socialism must be understood and acted upon by a majority of the world's people. Therefore this change must be the result of education, communication of socialist ideas and democratic political action on the part of people who must work for it. A better world is not "just around the corner", it has to be brought about by the conscious efforts of those who stand to benefit by it.

Competition not healthy

The problems caused by present world society extend to every country, even though they are at various stages of industrial development. Whereas in underdeveloped countries the vast majority are forcerd to endure abject poverty, with many starving to death, even in the so-called developed countries deprivation still persists. Poverty in industrialised countries is evident in several different forms. Many people are compelled through stress, tension and insecurity to indulge in drugs and alcohol to excess. The drug companies are making huge profits from the sale of drugs which people consider necessary in a stressful society. The threat of war, insecurity about employment, loss of health, and the social isolation of individuals are just some aspects of our lives which give rise to the need for drugs, and such "tranquillisers" as valium are amongst the best sellers in "developed" societies.

It is said that "healthy competition" is a desirable feature of human behaviour. Socialists deny this. We maintain that competition is a destructive feature of a society based on property. The quest for profit and the accumulation of wealth involves competition and not co-operation. Cooperation is a constructive force associated with the creative abilities of people which could provide for needs. Competition is part of the market system, it is a destructive force and ultimately results in war or the waste of preparations for war. Competition is entirely related to the acquisition of property on the part of some at the expense of others. The material security of the whole community in an assured future requires co-operation, not competition.

The most satisfying social activity is useful work carried on in co-operation. Work, however, is not to be confused with employment, or the sale of human energy in the labour market for wages. Such employment is carried on around the competition for jobs, it is motivated not by needs but by profit, and many employment occupations reduce workers to mere mechanical functions, and many are useless, or destructive of the welfare of the community.

Voluntary co-operation and free access

It is argued that people will only participate in social production if they are paid with money, yet this does not correspond with actual behaviour. The fact is that even in a world motivated and geared to the sale of goods, many groups of people successfully operate and manage projects which bring them no more reward than the satisfaction of being able to participate. For example, within the northern boundaries of Sydney is a radio station, which, except for two full-time paid people, and a further three who are paid on a part-time basis, is maintained twenty-four hours a day throughout the year by volunteer workers. Not only do they work for no money but it is also necessary for them to donate part of their earnings from their employment in order to pay the expenses involved in running the venture. Hundreds of people, electricians, engineers, electronic experts, carpenters, you name them and they are there, giving their time freely, in spite of the pressures on their time imposed by their employment.

In 1976, the year the station began, there were great problems such as building studios, erecting antennae, etc. The amount of required work was enormous. Today, nine years later, in spite of all the problems caused by the money system, the station, 2MBS FM, is working smoothly and reliably in the Sydney area, day and night, constructed and run overwhelmingly by voluntary co-operation.

Even now, under the present capitalist society there are many examples of such voluntary co-operation which provide the utmost satisfactions to those who participate in them. At the present time this can only operate at the margins of society because it is excluded from the means by which we live and from the natural resources of the world. In socialism, voluntary co-operation will come to its full fruition because it will operate with free access to all the productive means which could be at the disposal of the whole community.

It is a fact that in the common experience of ordinary people, in the main they behave decently to each other, and for the most part the spontaneous responses of one person to another are those of mutual concern and care. It is these responses which find their expression in the many examples of voluntary co-operation, without which no human society, not even capitalism, would be either practical or tolerable. For example, no family could function in a practical, day-to-day manner without co-operation, and the life situations of people would not be viable if they were governed at every point by ruthless competition.

Anti-social behaviour has to be prepared by definite programmes of social conditioning. We are taught that commercial competition and social inequalities are "normal". The justification for war is given by the attitudes of nationalism and prejudice which have to be learned. Against this background of conditioning people are inclined to regard the possibility of a society based on voluntary co-operation with scepticism even though such voluntary cooperation is within their everyday experience.

Prejudiced ideas about human nature

In 1978, the Australian Broadcasting Commission published a book entitled It's Only Human Nature. It was based on a series of broadcast discussions between people who had spent a great deal of time studying human behaviour in varied social and geographical environments throughout the world. In speaking of prejudiced ideas about "human nature", Dr Anthony Barnett from Canberra, stated:

I think it is just a casual mode of speech that sometimes is used as a weapon in argument, I think, illegitimately. Suppose you are supporting a particular kind of political system and someone else comes up with another idea, you describe this other fellow as an "idealist"; you can't change human nature, you say, you'll never achieve these "ideals". That kind of argument is one of the most commonly used on occasions when people talk about "human nature", but they are talking about their own particular "nature" produced by their own particular environment.

Margaret Mead also participated in this discussion:

The way English-speakers use the term "human nature" has very little to do with anything; I mean they invoke "human nature" to support any prejudice they happen to have at the moment. So people say, well, you believe in heredity don't you? Identical twins are alike, aren't they? And doesn't that prove whatever they want to prove, that white people are superior to black people, or that black people are superior to white, or that people will always fight, will always have aggression, or any of these things? Now what one can safely say, scientifically, is that human beings are capable of an incredible range of behaviour, and we haven't tapped a tenth of it. All we need is a greater understanding of the interaction between individuals (in society) and innate abilities. We are now in an entirely new ball game where we can use everything we have learned to date about the potentialities of human beings to build the kind of society that will make this planet safe. If we don't—we won't be here. Societies are built by men and women and they can rapidly adjust to living in totally different societies.

The establishment of a new world socialist society in which people throughout the world will have free access to all the means of living and natural resources which exist, and in which they will therefore be applied solely for human need through voluntary co-operation, will not require any "new" forms of human behaviour. The establishment of socialism would eliminate from daily life the present destructive economic forces which engender competition, violence, and all forms of civil strife. This will enable the better sides of human behaviour which already exist, such as co-operation, creative individuality, and mutual care, to find their fullest expression. In a society which would be united in the common purpose of providing solely for needs, and which would operate on the basis of free access to the means of living, what place could there possibly be for the divisive attitudes of competition, nationalism, race prejudice and class antagonisms? On the contrary, co-operation will mean that individuals would see each other differently, as fellow human beings, expanding the diversity of skills and talents which would enrich the quality of life of all people.

Chas Lawrence

(Australia)

Political shadow-boxing in Canada (1985)

From the Spring 1985 issue of the World Socialist 

The following article is based on the leaflet issued by the Socialist Party of Canada for last year's federal elections.

The material needs of every individual on earth can be met with only a few hours of work each week from all able-bodied people. This situation is not only practical now without man-made pollution, but has been for years, if existing industrial capacity with some enlargement, in conjunction with available natural resources and current technological knowledge, is used solely for satisfying the needs of humanity. There is no physical barrier to a world virtually as full of the good things of life and as free as air and water is now.

A democratic world community without frontiers must be established, in which the natural and industrial resources of the earth have to become the common heritage of all humankind, and used to provide a cornucopia of material wealth which people can take and use freely according to their own self-defined needs.

Such a moneyless, stateless world commonwealth is the only framework within which current social problems can be permanently solved, since it is exclusively on this basis that production can be oriented towards satisfying human needs. Such a basic social change can only be carried out when a majority of wage and salary workers in the industrialized parts of the globe is aware that the means of production and distribution under world capitalism are not used for social purposes, because they are privately or state-owned by a minority. They are restricted, wasted in the profit interests of that minority. The awakened majority will want this social change, fully understand its implications, and organize democratically and politically to achieve it.

The global village is here now, technologically, not socially.

When a sane society has been organized, so that people are free to voluntarily co-operate according to their ability, death by starvation can be stopped immediately with present food supplies. Food consumption in third world countries can be brought up to European standards in ten years. Rewarding, meaningful work will replace wage-slavery. The working population will be expanded through the addition of people now engaged in socially harmful occupations. For instance, production for sale-profit will be finished. This means that international competition and armed conflict over markets, materials and trade routes will cease. Members of armed forces, arms industry workers, scientists will disband, and together with that equipment, these techniques and materials, will make themselves available for socially useful production.

This basic social change will involve the abolition of the state and the conversion of any useful government functions for the democratic administration of needs, operating through a decentralized system of decision-making on world, regional and local levels. The wages system will be replaced by the voluntary co-operation between people.

As astounding as this solution may seem to be, it is based upon the following analysis of present-day society.

Exploitation

The only way a wealthy minority class can live without having to work is to exploit another class which is forced to work to try to "make ends meet". Exploitation simply means that wages are less than the value of what workers produce. Workers are legally robbed of an unpaid-for surplus where their jobs are. Employees produce all the luxury goods and services that the rich enjoy, but are denied consumption of these things themselves because they are confined to what wages and salaries will buy. This is the cause of the relative poverty, insecurity of the mass of "ordinary" people. It is a losing proposition. Leftists, religious crusaders and social workers who try to alleviate poverty and destitution while ignoring the cause of deprivation, that is the working class's subservient position in society, are not friends of the workers. They are aiding the employing class.

Normally any member of the working class found in any factory, mill or other parts of the boss's property who is not busy working, that is, being robbed by his employers, is trespassing.

To protect its privileged social position the owning class is obliged to spread confusion about the source of its opulence. Its media spread ideas such as, the rich are more ambitious, smarter or harder working than "ordinary" people; or that they stay rich by evading taxes, making the rest of society shoulder the burden; or that corrupt or naive politicians make unnecessary expenditures, adding to the government deficit that keeps workers poor through over-taxation. Confusion is accentuated by the fiction of a common interest within each nation. The national interest is really a mask for the bosses' interest.

Unemployment

Every party in the political spectrum, large or small, is promising that it can do something substantial about unemployment. Alas, as much as they would like to, or as sincere as some of them may be, this is a pipe dream. Governments have no more control over fluctuations in supply and demand on world markets than grain farmers have over hail storms. It ought to be obvious that if governments had the ability to end recessions, they would also have the capability of preventing them from occurring in the first place.

Unemployment helps to show what governments really are, guardians of the existing state of things of private property in the means of production. Governments are at the mercy of capital. No investments are ever made by that small minority which owns capital unless there is a potential of profit. No profit and industries shut down; no production.

A form of cruel and unusual punishment awaits the workers who swallow the vote-gathering promises about recovery. Even if the dreamers could do it, the promised land of low unemployment with rising wages and doles would be merely a matter of getting out of the fire into the frying pan. The ordinary people's degree of insecurity would become elevated to the level of the last boom. For instance, after 40 years of the "prosperity" of the last business crest, Canadian workers had sunk into a consumer debt of $44 billion more than the value of their steady job wages. (Weekend, 6/1/79) And this was way below their needs. Naturally unemployment is high in Russia and China too, since their state capitalist economies are integrated with the rest of the world.

Reforms

Contrary to what many "leftists" have thought, capitalism cannot be reformed out of existence. On the contrary, reforms to the superstructure of the system are necessary to preserve the base. The system has been reformed since 1849 when Robert Owen's Factory Act in the British House of Commons limited the hours of work for children, allowing them to get some education to increase their profitability in the factories.

Some reforms alleviate problems, often while other problems are being created by the system. Where the disadvantaged majority are concerned, reforms deal with effects, leaving causes untouched. Workers are encouraged to think that revolutionary change is impossible, the failure of "Communism" in Russia/China being cited as proof, when the change in those countries was really from feudalism to state capitalism. This tied in with the deception that nationalization was socialism.

Reforms are wonderful for the owning class (1) They give false hope to the workers that something can be done, without basic change. (2) They lower wages and increase productivity which equals increased profits.

Those 1,500.00 dollar bottles of wine would not be for sale in Calgary if there were no idle recipients of profits of the upper class there to buy them.

Even before this recession, some workers were agitating to reform existing reforms so that they would work according to the ideals involved in their establishment. Some are now being eliminated, after years of struggle to get them.

Perhaps it can now be seen that "social services" were never for the people, now that these crumbs are being cut back at the same time as the needs of the poor have increased. Medicare cutbacks for instance, where elderly workers die after months or years of waiting for treatment. Reforms are back-to-work measures, subsidies that lower wages and raise the productivity of labor. More of these services for the rich are required when more producers are required, in periods of business booms.

Voting for reforms is something like voting for a bed of thorns, then spending a lifetime trying to dull the thorns.

Left Wing Parties 

No one thought it unusual, during the time the NDP governed B.C., when "prosperity" was still with us, that some elderly people had to eat pet food. Some eyebrows were raised when Dave Barrett ordered 50,000 striking workers back to servitude, helping to push wages down. There was some union objection, as there was in Saskatchewan and Manitoba when CCF/NDP governments broke strikes.

Generally leftists and rightists parties advocate and bring in the same reforms. For instance the first Socred government of B.C. brought in some nationalization and extensive welfare measures. If the NDP had done this, the bosses' media would have called it socialism, to help induce working class voters think there is some basic difference between the organizations of what can be called the capitalist party.        .

About half of all the world's governments are "left wing" all presiding over capitalism. Mother Theresa has recently been asked to send nuns from third world countries to the slums of Winnipeg to fight destitution a few city blocks from an NDP administration.

The "Political Spectrum" 

The shadow boxers of the so-called left-centre-right are only arguing about rearranging the worm-eaten social furniture. From the "Communist" party to the Western Concept Party, they are not much more than wings of the national capitalist party. There are some differences but they are united in their support of the present world social division of society into "haves" and "have-nots".

They steal each other's policies, hop from party to party with no ideological effort.

Some people are Socreds provincially and Conservatives federally. "Leftwing" and "rightwing" parties have formed coalition governments. Some individual candidates have run for office on a combined "leftist" and "rightist" ticket.

Their reaction upon hearing the ideas of the Socialist Party of Canada is open hostility, ridicule or taunts about utopianism. Whenever they are in office, they administer the profit system in the only way it can be, by assaulting the living standards of the majority who voted for them.

Human Nature

Is the voluntarily co-operative world of socialism impossible because of innate human aggressiveness and greed? If the world's rulers believed this fairy tale they feed to their victims, they would immediately stop funding their arms race from their own abundant coffers and start financing potential destruction through voluntary, door-to-door donations from the humble, mortgaged homes of their underlings. Conversely, they would abandon the crusade to encourage the majority to help others who are worse off than they are through huge charity programs.

Society can only be operated in the interest of all when the downtrodden majority becomes conscious of its inferior social position and wins elections to end the imbalance.

Leadership

When workers accept the ideas of leaders, that is, follow them, they have no real say. They are leaving their lives in the hands of politicians and governments, who are preserving the profit interests of the masters who live off the workers. They are mis-using the ballot to hand power back to a parasitical minority.

Political leaders need no special talents except how to deceive ordinary people. When the NDP's John Schreyer began his final election bid as the Premier of Manitoba, he wore his "lucky shoes". When Pierre Trudeau was trying to decide for the last time to step down, he walked into a nocturnal Ottawa blizzard to consult the stars.

It mattered not that a millionaire, university graduate playboy, holding a flower and spouting philosophy took over the helm in 1968. Nor does it matter that a possible new messiah is a corporate board member and lawyer. The idol of 1968 is the scoundrel of the '80s. The search is on for a new shepherd to become tomorrow's scoundrel.

The world's rulers, in one-party police states, as well as civil rights countries, take the class war of ideas very seriously and spend millions on presenting their side. Generally, the workers' only retaliation so far has been to reject some of those ideas. The owning class fervently hopes the world's workers won't carry the struggle any further than the defensive one on the economic field, over wages and working conditions, merely involving the terms of their exploitation.

Therefore, no government on earth can afford to care about the majority who are wage and salary earners. They are running a system where share and bondholders live parasitically off workers.

It doesn't matter who takes on the job of running the wages-prices-profits system. Or how it is done. No party, including the Socialist Party of Canada, could humanize the system or make it run in the interest of the class it exploits.

By voting for reforms and promises in the last election what did wage workers actually vote for? What has been happening to workers since then? This election is the same. The parties and issues spotlighted by the bosses' media are irrelevant to the interests of the ordinary people. To deal effectively with their problems they must win elections so that they can control, and change society.

The Socialist Solution

The socialist solution to the problems of the non-owning majority can be achieved with only a fraction of the heroism that is required to cope with the present social arrangement.

Since the formulas of the past have been proven wrong, why opt for more of the same? It is not necessary to vote for any wing of the capitalist party in acquiescence because there seems to be nothing better, or in a vain hope that it will do something right, or that someday it might conform to a fond ideal.

The "ordinary" people should become somebodies. They have a potential power at their disposal, brains, logic and the vote. They should assume control of their minds, and claim the world for themselves. They are the class that produces everything in it. There is no third option. Some of the 20 to 30 per cent eligible voters who consistently abstain are undoubtedly knowledgeable enough to not want to vote for any wing of the Capitalist Party. Canada's electoral system is not democratic enough to allow 20 per cent space for a write-in ballot.

But the word "socialism" can be written over the names of the capitalist wing candidates wherever an SPC candidate is not running.

Those who wish to hear more, or wish to join write to: Socialist Party of Canada, Box 4280 A, Victoria, B. C. V8X 3X8 or phone 382-5927 or 479-26-26

Read "The World Socialist" — International journal produced by parties, groups and individuals of The World Socialist Movement. Printed in London. Available (in Victoria) at Griffin Books, 587 Johnson St. $1.00 or postage free $1.50.

In Duncan at Don's Book Store, Sun Valley Mall.

Socialist Party of Canada

Editorial: For A Democratic World (1985)

Editorial from the Spring 1985 issue of the World Socialist

The world today is divided into 140 or so states, each with its own flag, its own Head of State, its own government, its own nationalism and above all, since institutionalised violence is the essence of the state, its own armed forces. Only a minority of these states even pretend to be democratic. The rest are dictatorships of one kind or another in which the ruling minority uses the most vile means, including torture and murder (as documented by organisations such as Amnesty International), to preserve its power and privileges. We refer here not only to the host of military dictatorships in Asia, Africa and Latin America but also to the state capitalist countries like Russia and China where the privileged ruling classes have reached the depths of cynicism with their claim to have established a classless socialist society.

Even the “democratic” states are only democratic in the limited sense of allowing their subjects a say from time to time in the choice of the personnel to fill certain important posts on the administrative side of the state. This is not to say that universal suffrage, the right to express and propagate dissenting views from the ruling ideology, the right to organise and to go on strike are not of vital importance. They are and nobody needs to tell us that they had to be achieved by years of struggle against the direct ancestors of the present ruling class, but in themselves they do not amount to anything like democracy in its full sense of a society run by and in the interest of the whole people.

Freedom to cry ''exploitation” from the roof tops does not in itself abolish exploitation; indeed it can be used to give the impression that exploitation no longer exists, as is done by defenders of capitalism in countries like the United States, Britain and Canada. According to them the populations of these and other countries with the same kind of political regime form national communities with a common interest and elections there are about choosing the men and women to administer the common affairs of these communities in the interest of the whole population. This claim is as false as that of the ruling class in Russia to be the mere servants of the community in a classless society of equals. It ignores the fact that society, even in the so-called democratic countries, is divided into antagonistic classes.

Throughout the world, in all countries irrespective of their political regime, the means for producing and distributing wealth are monopolised, either privately as individuals and companies or collectively through the state, by a minority class. As a result the rest of the population of any country are economically dependent on the monopolising minority, being obliged to sell their mental and physical energies to them for a wage or salary far below the value of the wealth they produce and which the minority appropriate. Wherever a class is deprived of the fruits of its labour exploitation exists, and it exists just as much in the United States, Britain and Canada as it does in Chile, Russia or South Africa.

As they take place in class-divided societies, elections in the 'democratic countries” are not about choosing delegates to run social affairs in the common interest; they are about choosing the men and women who are to run affairs in the interest of the minority class which monopolises the means of life. The task of those elected is to use the powers of the state machine to further the interests at home and abroad of the capitalist class of the country concerned. At home this involves maintaining "law and order”, upholding the established social order where the law grants the members of the minority capitalist class property rights in the means of production; the interests of the capitalist minority must be protected against the "enemy within", i.e. against the majority class of wage and salary earners wherever they take action to defend their living standards, by strikes and other forms of industrial action, against the ever present downward pressures exerted by capital. Abroad it involves protecting and furthering the commercial interests of the capitalist minority over markets, sources of raw materials, trade routes and investment outlets by the threatened and if need be the actual use of armed force. To this end each state has to arm its forces with the most destructive and most devastating weapons it can afford. Hence the arms race, continual local wars and the ever present threat of another world war.

Elections, such as those which took place last year in the United States, Canada and Australia, are thus about who shall fill the top posts in the state and run affairs in the interest of the established capitalist class. The choice that is offered is not really a choice at all since the main parties involved all stand for the same system. This is obvious in the case of America where the Republican and Democratic parties are openly mere rival gangs of political place-hunters, but is also the case in countries like Britain, Australia and New Zealand where one of the contending parties claims to represent the interests of the working class. Experience over the years of “Labour" governments shows that in practice they are just as anti-working class as any government formed by openly pro-capitalist parties. This is inevitable since the capitalist system can only function in one way: as a profit-making system in the interest of the profit-taking class. No government could change this economic law of present-day class society. On the contrary, all governments are obliged to abide by it and apply it whatever their original intentions might have been.

Politics in these countries is a game of ins and outs remote from the lives of ordinary people who, even though they participate in this game by exercising a “choice” when given the opportunity, generally do so without illusions since they know by experience that it makes very little difference to their everyday lives which party—which particular gang of place-hunters—wins. Politics is seen, and presented, as a sort of never-ending TV serial in which various media-puffed personalities vie with each other for power and place. No wonder most people don’t want too much to do with “politics". This is how it is today, but it need not always be so. When socialist understanding has spread sufficiently amongst the majority wage and salary earning class in these countries elections can be turned against the minority capitalist class. But until this happens the spectacle will go on and the use to which democratic forms are put will remain a farce that is an insult to the intelligence of thinking men and women.

So throughout the world, state power is exercised for the benefit of minorities, even if this power is sometimes exercised by people who have been chosen by the exploited majority class living in the country concerned. It could not be otherwise since state power and minority rule are inextricably linked: states exist precisely to uphold and protect minority rule and privilege, To create a truly democratic world the people of the world must take democratic political action to abolish all the states into which the world is currently divided, along with all the privileged classes whose interests they serve, and establish in their place a global classless community with a democratic unarmed world administration. Only then will we be able to talk of democracy. Only then will have been created the framework within which can be solved once and for all manifestly world problems such as disarmament and the threat of war, pollution and the plundering of non-renewable resources, and mass hunger, disease and ignorance,

What about human nature? (1985)

From the Spring 1985 issue of the World Socialist

Although not very much to their liking, it was the Victorians who made the discovery that the human being was not an example of an act of special creation on the part of the Almighty, but instead, another animal that had evolved. Since Victorian limes many have claimed that humans could not be regarded as being unique; homo sapiens was nothing but another animal species.

The word "unique" means the only one of its kind and, although this tends to connote a concept of the absolute, the term can only be used relatively. For example, somewhere in North London is a building which the architects claim to be the first of all concrete-constructed buildings in the world. Let us assume that this claim is authentic. As a building it is like others; it was not the first building ever to be constructed. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that it was the first in the world to be constructed throughout with concrete.

This kind of reasoning is applicable to the human condition. Homo sapiens is not just another animal species. Animal species it most certainly is, with phylogenetic links with the rest of the animal world, and indeed with the whole organic world. But it is a very special kind of animal species with a unique combination of complementary biological attributes which enable it to have a potentiality for qualitative behaviour of almost unlimited variability.

QUALITATIVE LEAP FROM APE TO HUMAN

Superficially, there does not seem to be very much difference between the human species and its nearest animal relative, the chimpanzee, with regard to genetic distance. Anatomically and physiologically there are great similarities, but bearing in mind the adage that it is the last straw that breaks the camel's back it does not require very much in genetic distance to transform quantity into a tremendous difference in quality. So that if ramapithecus of about 9-12 million years ago can be said to be the common ancestor of all future hominid evolution, it may well be that australopithecus of about 3 million years ago represents the first great qualitative leap towards homo sapiens. The emergence of homo erectus of about 800,000 to one million years ago represents a type of homo very near indeed to the Cro-Magnon of Combe Capelle type, the homo sapiens of about 40-50 thousand years ago, of which all men and women living today are examples.

The available evidence suggests that this species has not undergone any significant biological, evolutionary changes during the 50,000 years of its existence. Homo sapiens is the sole surviving hominid species. What exists at present is a single human species which is genetically unified and which populates the earth, whose basic biological attributes are the same in every case.

It is at this point that we need to deal with the term "race" as applied to human beings. In the context of biology the most basic fact in defining a species is its genetic and reproductive isolation from other species. During the course of evolution by natural selection, different species have developed through the agency of adaptation of favourable mutant variations to a restricted environment brought about by geographical isolation. A race, on the other hand, is made up of the members of a same species which, through geographical isolation, have developed physical differences which are non-basic in the sense that reproduction with the other members of the species still remains possible. A race is therefore a sub-species, or subdivision of a species which could, with continued geographical isolation and further adaptation through natural selection, eventually develop into a new species. In most cases the formation of a new species took a very long time, far longer than the 50,000 years that homo sapiens has peopled the earth.

The non-basic physical variations which now exist between groups of human beings (skin colour, hair, facial characteristics, etc), and which are considered by some ethnologists as defining "race", are mistakenly interpreted by popular wisdom to mean species. In fact all existing human beings are members of the same species, and even the term "race" is inappropriate in the human context since those sharing non-basic physical variations do not live in geographical isolation. On the contrary, there is, and always has been, constant and increasing intermarrying between the various groups. As far as the human species is concerned the factors which operate in the formation of new species have largely ceased to exist.

Although humankind is the highest form of organic existence (the supreme achievement of evolution by natural selection, as it were) it is also the end-product of biological evolution in the sense that its coming into being gave rise to a new direction which is determined by cultural development in which the ability of humans to adapt, to learn and to transmit knowledge by non-biological means is the most important single factor. With homo sapiens, evolution is no longer biological but cultural and social.

HUMAN NATURE: BASIC BIOLOGICAL EQUIPMENT

Is human nature a barrier to socialism?

In order to come to any conclusion with any degree of objectivity, it is first necessary to define what we mean by the term socialism, and also what we mean by the term "human nature".

The World Socialist Movement has a clearly stated objective which is the establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interests of the whole community. The establishment of world socialism will result in a transformation in human relationships and social behaviour. All the manifestations and paraphernalia necessary for a market economy will be discontinued and only those things under capitalism which would be useful to the new society will be retained and the rest discarded. The concept of exchange will fall into disuse together with the use of money. The production of wealth will be carried on throughout the world with the sole purpose of satisfying needs. Socialism will be a system in which the spontaneous and voluntary code of social behaviour will be from each according to ability to each according to self-determined need.

The factors which determine human nature are the same as those which apply to other animal species. The nature of a particular species is the sum total of the basic biological attributes common to all its members. It is these biological characteristics which impose behavioural limitations on all the individuals belonging to a species, irrespective of individual variations.

Chimpanzee behaviour refers to the chimpanzee on a species basis. All chimpanzees have the biological equipment enabling them to climb trees when necessary, although they are also adapted to movement on the ground. Elephants cannot climb trees, but there is no reason for them to do so. When a tree comes into their path, their nature determines that they go around it or uproot it. Neither chimpanzees nor elephants can modify to any great extent these biologically-determined and genetically-inherited behaviour patterns; they are not only the products but also the prisoners of natural selection.

The lower animals spend the greater part of their time engaging in functional behaviour, foraging for and consuming food, excreting waste, and mating and producing young, for example. The higher primates are also subject to this functional behaviour, including homo sapiens, but in human society, with its highly complex learned and non-biologically transmitted social activity on a collective basis, this reflex and functional behaviour has become of secondary importance as an individual survival factor.

There is no evidence to suggest that the nearest animal relatives of the human species, the anthropoid apes, are evolving towards the emergence of a higher form of ape. On the contrary, they are on the way to extinction. Homo sapiens on the other hand, has no evolutionary necessity to evolve biologically. The biological equipment it already has is sufficient to ensure the possibility of millions of years of cultural development to come. Human nature is the sum total or combination of the anatomical and physiological attributes applicable to all members of the human species on a species basis. This is to say that all groups of members of homo sapiens have, apart from minor variations, the same basic biological characteristics, which are, upright stance with bipedal locomotion, prehensile hands with opposable thumbs, stereoscopic, binocular, colour vision, vocal tract anatomy, and above all, the relatively largest and most complex brain of any species or organism living, or long since extinct.

HUMAN BEHAVIOUR: FLEXIBLE AND SOCIALLY CONDITIONED

Human behaviour on the other hand is what the human being does individually and on a social basis within the limits set by human nature as it has now been defined. But unlike other animals whose behaviour is not only very limited but stereotyped by specialised biological attributes for a simpler lifestyle, the complementary character of human beings' biological nature enables the species to possess what is virtually unlimited plasticity and adaptability of thought and action. A glance at our history over the past 40,000 years will show that human behaviour has changed considerably over time, and on occasions very drastically. Over tens of thousands of years human nature has remained more or less constant. But what is there in bipedal locomotion with upright stance etc., which makes it absolutely certain that human beings in society will behave in a preconceived way? The answer to that question is—nothing.

The human animal is a conceptually-thinking animal. It has the biological ability, not only to react in its behaviour to environmental changes going on around it, but to condition and determine changes in that environment for its own purposes. Human nature is not therefore a barrier to socialism. But this does not mean that human beings will automatically use their potentiality for finding rational solutions to social problems, so that socialism will come about without any effort from individual members of society. Socialism can only happen if people the world over want it to happen. It can only be operated by socialists.

It only remains to add on this whole question of human nature/human behaviour that they are both parts of a single whole. But this is not to say that they are the same, any more than each end of a walking stick is the same because they are part of a whole stick. When considering the anatomy and physiology of the human body, although the feet and the head are joined together as parts of the whole body, this is not to say that an assessment of the particular function of each is the same.

NO PLACE FOR CREATIONISM

All of the investigations of modern science tend to become more specialised (more and more becoming known about less and less). But in those sciences pertaining to the human species, the reverse seems to have taken place, each specialist presenting the same kind of eclectic explanation.

It is the kind of reasoning which enables a person like Richard Leakey, who is eminent in the study of pre-history, to at the same time hold religious ideas, and Sir Frederick Hoyle, world-renowned astro-physicist and mathematician not only to hold creationist ideas of the origin of the universe but to suggest a theory of biological evolution to accommodate this belief which claims that, although evolution has proceeded through the agency and mechanism of the genes, it has not been by the process of natural selection. According to his theory, mutations are not generated through the cell structure and the genetic pool but occur from outside; apparently outer space is full of organic particles, genes, which are directed by a mysterious force and float down to the surface of the earth and in some miraculous way are incorporated into the mechanism of reproduction.

There is no doubt that Hoyle would have been well advised to have confined his writing of science fiction to the field of astronomical physics and to have left the field of biology (in this regard) well alone. However this is not to say that there are no eminent biologists who are, or were, creationists at the same time. Which might explain Hoyle's admiration of Alfred Russel Wallace, who has been described as the co-founder, with Darwin, of the theory of evolution by natural selection, and regarded by Hoyle as the greater of the two. Wallace, who became a spiritualist, in spite of his undoubted great knowledge of natural science, was hoodwinked by the most outrageous charlatanism and trickery of fake mediums.

CONSCIOUS CHANGE OF SOCIETY

The human behaviour of property societies is, taken as a whole, a corrupt and degenerate behaviour compared with that of peoples who lived in the so-called primitive societies that preceded them. In spite of this, however, there are many instances of people living in modern "civilised" society performing acts of heroism and self-sacrifice for the benefit of the common interest. These two factors alone—the superior social behaviour of primitive society and the many instances of self-sacrifice of people living in property society—illustrate the enormous range and flexibility of human social behaviour.

Although it is true that "it is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness" (Marx), it is also true that the forms that this consciousness takes can become instruments that determine social existence. It is the social contradictions engendered by capitalist society that give rise to socialist ideas. The antagonistic productive forces which have developed in the modern capitalist system have created also the material conditions for its abolition. But it is only people, or rather a majority of people, who have become conscious of this possibility who can bring about the required change in social existence. All previous social revolutions have been a transition from one kind of property society to another. The socialist revolution will abolish the last antagonistic form of the social process of production. By its very nature the introduction of socialism demands the participation of the world's population on the basis of majority understanding.

It is not human nature (which is relatively unchanging) that is a barrier to socialism, but human social behaviour which at present is determined by the social conditions of capitalism, reinforced with capitalist ideology. When this ideology is dissipated then human social behaviour, under the impact of the socialist revolution, will change dramatically, and the introduction of socialist society will become a reality.

Harry Walters (Britain)

The State and its abolition (Part 4) (1985)

From the Spring 1985 issue of the World Socialist

3. Notes on the State

Central to socialist thinking on the nature of the capitalist state is the concept of class. Drawing on the writings of Marx, socialists argue that we live in a class-based society, in which a small minority own and control the means of producing wealth to the exclusion of the rest of the population.

Specifically, we live in a society which is divided on class lines: the owners of capital, the capitalist class, and the sellers of labour power, the working class. This relationship between buyer and seller of labour power is necessarily antagonistic and this antagonism expresses itself from time to time in struggle over the distribution of the social product. Because of this socialists argue that the state cannot remain neutral — a passive observer of the class struggle. Rather we say that the state must intervene on the side of the economically dominant or owning class, because the state is controlled directly or indirectly by this class. This puts us at odds with the views of the "pluralists" who argue that power is diffused throughout a plurality of institutions in society and that the state is neutral in relation to the class struggle. But although it is possible to demonstrate the unequal division of power and wealth in society, and hence show up the crucial weaknesses of this theory, we still do not arrive at an answer to the central question of what makes the modern state capitalist.

DISSATISFACTION WITH CLASSICAL TEXTS

Ralph Miliband's study, The State in Capitalist Society, that came out in 1969 signalled a general dissatisfaction in academic circles with the original Marxist writings on the state and this was reinforced in subsequent studies. It was concluded that Marx had not developed a coherent account of the nature of the capitalist state, particularly in regard to its role in the process of capital accumulation and the reproduction of capitalist social relations; indeed, that many of the references Marx makes to the capitalist state were contradictory and theoretically confused: at times he referred to the state as an instrument of class rule; and then, more subtly, as a social regulator moderating and channelling social conflict; again, he talked of the state as parasitic, that is, the private property of individuals; and, finally, as epiphenomenon (simple surface reflection) of a system of property relations and resulting economic class struggle.

The claim that the state is simply an instrument of class power used by the economically dominant class to dominate subordinate classes is highly problematical and (possibly) ahistorical. Although the ruling class owns and controls the material and mental means of production, one cannot automatically assume that it thereby controls, runs, dictates to, or is predominant in the state as well. The ruling class is not a monolithic power bloc; it is fragmented, with differing and, at times, conflicting interests. Moreover, in certain historical circumstances, the economically dominant class has not held state power, for example, in nineteenth century Prussia where the aristocracy (the junkers) controlled the state although it was a declining economic force.

Numerous problems also arise with the view of the state as a factor of cohesion in society, regulating the struggle between the classes, either by repression or concession. The main difficulty with this approach is that it suggests that the conflict over the social product is resolvable, and if taken to its logical conclusion it precludes the possibility of revolution as the state, in its role as class mediator, can act to defuse crises arising out of the contradictions within the capitalist mode of production. It is also very much akin to the liberal view of the state as "nightwatchman". Likewise, the parasitic approach can only lead to demands for a democratisation rather than the abolition of government and, perhaps, this is why Marx dropped references to it in his later writings.

The ephiphenomenon aspect of Marx's views on the state is rooted in the metaphor of base and superstructure, that is, that the state in its legal and political forms is simply a reflection of the economic base of society. This implies that the state is a passive instrument in the class struggle or, at best, is a tool of the ruling class. To adopt such a position leads one either to the reductionism of the equation that class power equals state power, or, to ignore the role the state has played, and is playing, in organising the labour process and in creating the conditions for further capital accumulation. The epiphenomenon view thus places a straightjacket on the activities of the state, divesting it of any autonomy or freedom of action, something which is at odds with the historical development of capitalism.

Dissatisfaction with the classical Marxist texts on the nature of the state led to a reformulation of theoretical perspectives by a new generation of Marx students. The outcome has been by no means theoretically homogenous, in fact, a variety of perspectives have emerged which we will now attempt to synthesise.

RELATIONSHIP OF THE RULING CLASS TO THE STATE

In Marxism and Politics, Miliband offers three possible, but not necessarily interrelated, explanations concerning the relationship of the ruling class to the state. The first of these concentrates on the personnel of the state. Miliband argues that those who control the state share a similar or common social background and are linked together by economic and cultural ties. These links result in a cluster of common ideological and political attitudes, as well as common perspectives and values. Thus those who run the state apparatus are by virtue of their circumstances favourably disposed to those who own and control the economic means of life. Empirical evidence would tend to bear out some of Miliband's assumptions. In The State in Capitalist Society, he provides an impressive array of detailed information which chronicles the interconnections between the elite groupings in society. The state is largely run by people from similar social backgrounds and educational establishments, in spite of numerous Labour governments and so-called working class occupational mobility. But this approach inevitably leads to the reductionism mentioned earlier as it does not explain how the state is capitalist. Crucially it does not amount to a Marxist theory of the state as it discusses the state in isolation from socio-economic forces. Miliband's work serves only as a rebuttal to pluralist assumptions about political democracy.

To buttress the obvious shortcomings of this approach Miliband introduces an economic dimension to his analysis. This centres on the role of capital as a pressure group. Here capital, particularly "monopoly capital", uses its position as the major controller of wealth and, hence, of investment to demand the ear of government. The fear in governing circles of multinationals redirecting investment and causing large numbers of job losses ensures that they listen sympathetically to them. In some accounts of this process, particularly that of Baran and Sweezey and the "Communist" Party, the state and monopoly capital become fused; the former acting as a pliant tool of the latter. These views ignore the fact that the state often acts against the interests of certain sections of the capitalist class. The state passes reforms in the social and economic fields which capital dislikes, for example, high levels of unemployment benefit and spending on welfare services in general. Moreover this approach reduces the state to an epiphenomenal position, that is, the nature of the state is drawn from the immanent tendencies of capital accumulation. It also disregards the role of class struggle in shaping the way the state responds to certain issues and problems.

HOW CONSTRAINING ARE THE CONSTRAINTS?

The problematic nature of the above approach and its corollary that small and medium size capitals should unite with the working class in a struggle to overthrow monopoly capitalism has been severely criticised by "structural Marxists" such as Althusser and Poulantzas, and this leads us to the third explanation offered by Miliband. Structuralists argue that "the state is an instrument of the ruling class because given its insertion in the capitalist mode of production (CMP) it cannot be anything else". Thus it matters little who constitutes the personnel of the state, or what pressure is exerted by capitalists, as the actions of the state are determined by the "nature and requirements of the CMP". In other words, a capitalist economy has its own logic or rationality to which any government or state must sooner or later submit, regardless of its ideological or political preferences; the existence of the capitalist mode of production constrains the state to act in ways favourable to the expansion and preservation of the economic system and against the interests of the working class.

The structuralist view has been further refined by the work of the "capital logic" school of Berlin. This approach derives the character of the capitalist state from the categories of the capitalist economy, the process of production and accumulation. The state is seen as a political force which is required to secure the reproduction of wage labour—to the extent that this cannot be done through market forces—and to ensure the subordination of labour to capital. This requires the state to intervene in areas such as factory legislation, supervision of trade union activities and social welfare. In this role the state is prepared to act not only against the working class, but also against individual capitals or fractions of capital which threaten the interests of capital in general.

Although it has a persuasive logic to it the structuralist view has a number of crucial weaknesses. Firstly, how constraining are the constraints? If total, then the outcome of that totality is economic determinism, as it would lead to a situation where human beings are deprived of any freedom of action or choice. Man however is not simply the product of economic forces, but a complex organism, whose actions are determined by many competing factors such as tradition, religion (where appropriate), altruism, nationalism, and so on. Secondly, and this follows from the first point, if we accept the structuralist position on the state, then we preclude consideration of how workers in struggle have affected the nature of the state and how it reacts to working class demands. In short, we could dismiss the last 150 years or so of the class struggle.

Similarly, the capital logic approach not only fails to account for the origins of the capitalist state, but fails to show convincingly how it can operate as the ideal collective capitalist. In short, how does it determine, and by what means, what are the "best" interests of capital? Moreover, in this scheme everything that occurs in a capitalist society apparently corresponds to the needs of capital accumulation, and even where modified by class struggle the interests of capital are always realised. The whole theory is deterministic, and can only provide a partial analysis to the central issue of what makes the state capitalist.

WHAT MAKES THE STATE A CLASS STATE

These explanations, although more systematic and coherent than some earlier Marxists' writings on the state, fail to explain the central issue of what makes the modern state a class state: the state of the capitalist class. The main reason behind this is the reductionism of the approaches. This means that a more adequate theoretical approach is necessary; one which takes account of the actual historical development of the state and how this development has been influenced by the balance of class forces at specific historical moments, and appreciates that the state can and does enjoy a fairly high degree of autonomy and independence in the manner of its operation as a class state. After all if the state is to act in the interests of the capitalist class it must be free to come to a decision as to what actually constitutes those interests. In doing so it may have to favour one fraction of capital against another in order to preserve or promote the long or short term interests of the sum total of the system's parts. This explains why particular social and economic policies are possible even though powerful economic groups are opposed to them.

This approach also allows for an account to be taken of the way the working class, through trade unions and other defence mechanisms, have affected the development of the state. For, given the nature of competitive capitalism, workers are forced to resist the encroachments of capital. The state must react in some positive way to workers' (reformist) demands. Failure to do so would lead to civil strife and political instability. Thus state forms and institutions, without this in any way threatening underlying capitalist social relations, are partly the outcome of working class struggle and cannot simply be attributed to the interests of the ruling class or a mere reflection of the changing needs of the capitalist mode of production.

Socialists, then, do not accept the pluralist view that the state is the property of no single class and that because of this it responds to the demands of all sections of society. We recognise that the modern state is comprised of a flexible set of institutions which operate subtly and is, ultimately, the executive committee for the capitalist class.

Bill Knox (Britain)

The State and its abolition (Part 3) (1985)

From the Spring 1985 issue of the World Socialist

2. A classless, stateless world

Running global human society without the machinery of states is regarded by some as being as unachievable as radio and hi-fi systems were to some people before their invention. Socialists observe that the coercive governmental machinery of the state has not always been a feature of human society but was created necessarily in a phase in our history and will, with equal necessity, be abolished with the establishment of socialism.

For the greater part of the history of human society social affairs have not been regulated by governments. The state arose from the need to keep class antagonisms in check. The economically most powerful social class becomes the politically dominant class through the state and uses its machinery as a means of holding down and exploiting the oppressed class. "The ancient state was, above all, the state of the slave owners for holding down the slaves, just as the feudal state was the organ of the nobility for holding down the peasant serfs and bondsmen, and the modern representative state is an instrument for exploiting wage labour by capital." (Engels, Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State)

When the majority of men and women —the wealth producers — democratically act to put the means of life into the hands of the whole community there will no longer be a social need for the coercive machinery of the state. The majority of people will no longer have to suffer government by a minority. The government of people will be replaced by the administration of things. This will mean that the institutions now used by the state to keep the working class in check — the judiciary, laws, police forces and prisons — will become socially redundant. Similarly, the organised force used by the state to protect the interests of territories and markets of its wealth owners—armies, navies and air forces — will also become socially unnecessary. "The society that organises production anew on the basis of the free and equal association of the producers will put the whole state machine where it will then belong: in the museum of antiquities side by side with the spinning wheel and the bronze axe." (Engels, Anti-Duhring)

Organising the world on the basis of a society in which people will contribute according to their skills and inclinations and take according to their self-determined needs is an attractive idea. A world society undivided by national boundaries and free from war and famine. A world society unfettered by the rationing system of money. Is it possible? Socialists contend that not only is the establishment of socialism immediately possible, but that it is an urgent necessity if we are to avoid the potentially horrific sorts of destruction which the continuation of capitalism would render probable.

There are several ways in which the practicability of socialism can be doubted but basically these doubts arise in three areas of inquiry. First, will "human nature" permit a classless world without government? Second, will the resources of the planet be sufficient to support a society based on producing goods and services simply to meet all human needs and third, do we have sufficiently advanced systems of communication, organisation and distribution to cater for running the world for all humanity?

MINORITY RULE NOT NATURAL

Does "human nature" stand as a barrier to a world without governments? In answering this question, socialists would draw a distinction between human nature and human behaviour. There are a few characteristics of humans which could be described as "natural" in the sense that they are anatomical or physiological features of all people irrespective of the social system that they live in. Reflex actions, like blinking to water the eyes, stereoscopical colour vision, bi-pedal locomotion, prehensile manipulation and so forth are examples of this sort of feature and they are relatively fixed characteristics. Also, of course, the needs for food, drink, clothes and shelter. Contrasted with this are a great variety of behaviour patterns which are socially learnt. Behaviour traits instilled in young people by families, the indoctrination of education systems and the aggression and murderous techniques taught by military forces are all examples of this sort of socially conditioned behaviour. In commercial society we are steeped in a competitive mentality from a tender age but this learnt behaviour conflicts with an essential characteristic of human society: that of co¬operation. As a society we are a highly integrated body of entities and we all rely upon one another. Our very advanced division of labour means that we are all, to some degree, mutually dependent and require each other's co-operation even in capitalism. Because socialism will abolish classes — the relationship of employer and employee — and create a social equality of human beings, it will harmonise our social relationships with the way that we need to work in order to survive. It is worth observing that even in today's competitive world we are all co-existing in an intricate network of co-operation. Picture the seething mass of work going on in one of today's big cities — it would grind to a halt in one second without the continued and very complex co-operation amongst millions of people.

Primitive humankind co-operated for tens of thousands of years without government, but apart from this evidence that we are not organically predisposed to be ruled by a minority, there are many examples to corroborate the versatility of our nature. Anthropological examinations of Red Indian, Aboriginal and Eskimo societies all testify to the fact that we can and have organised society on a democratic basis. Many modern societies which organised themselves on a communistic, democratic principle (like the Kalahari Bushmen, or Kung people, of southern Africa) are now being sucked into the commercial, competitive world. They are being driven from the lands that they inhabit as it is "purchased" by developers, and are forced to seek a living by wage-slavery. Another example of this, occurring now, concerns the Panare Indians who live in the Orinoco basin in Venezuela. They have enjoyed life, until recently, in 38 communities living on the basis of "from each according to ability, to each according to need". They have no divisions of class and no status discrimination on the grounds of age or gender. Ideas of competition and violence are entirely antithetical to them. Their stress-free lifestyle is now being shaken by an American airborne evangelical group, the New Tribes Mission. Their lives are being smitten with religious indoctrination and all sorts of sinister devices are being used to make them docile, ashamed of their lifestyles, and to go in search of employment in the local mines.

In a rat-race we do acquire rat-like propensities but even now they do not dominate us and more importantly, they are subject to change if and when we decide to abolish the sort of social environment which causes them.

SUFFICIENT MATERIAL AND HUMAN RESOURCES.

The latest United Nations estimate of the world population is 4.7 billion. Are the resources of the world enough to support everyone? Today there is a massive unmet social need as a result of a social system which only produces goods if there is the prospect of selling them on the market for a profit. These unmet needs range from the horrors of mass starvation (according to Oxfam 500 million men, women and children go hungry every day) and homelessness to the relative impoverishment of all the wealth-producers. Alongside these needs capitalism presents in all countries the conspicuous over-consumption of a small elite, lakes of wine and milk and mountains of food (the European Common Market has a current butter stockpile of approaching 600,000 tonnes) and gigantic resources being pumped into socially useless or destructive ends.

Military spending now totals close to the equivalent of £1,000,000,000 across the world every 24 hours. This greatly exceeds the resources needed to meet the United Nations targets (idealistic as they are under the profit system) of providing everyone with adequate food, sanitary water, health care and education. UNICEF, working in 112 countries, had a total income of £171 million in 1981. This is the equivalent of the expenditure the world makes on the military forces every 4 hours and ten minutes (World Military and Social Expenditures 1982). It is an unchangeable priority of states in capitalism to put the needs of the Death Industry before basic human requirements. In a socialist society all of the ingenuity, human effort and resources which are now pumped into militarism will be donated instead to producing goods and services which are useful and enjoyable. On a similar point, consider all of the materials and human resources which are spent today on the necessary workings of the commercial system which would be liberated in socialism to be devoted to more rewarding sorts of work. The millions of men and women who are today engaged in running the system that exploits them in banking, insurance, commerce, tax revenue, everything connected with the production and running of prisons and the police forces, would be freed to help take part in the task of providing the sort of things that people really want.

Julian Simon and Herman Kahn in their book The Resourceful Earth produce carefully researched evidence to demonstrate that the planet enjoys much greater resources than are currently being tapped. Their writing is, ironically, aimed at advocating a free market economy with minimal economic controls — the very principles which produce such great hardship now — but their evidence is nevertheless useful. As they observe, the scaremongery about dwindling resources is not new. People have always been predicting that one or other natural resource will be exhausted. It was once a respected view that oil reserves would dry up in the 1880s. In practice these predictions encourage discoveries of new reserves or the development of new substitutes for the threatened material.

Capitalism only ever aims to produce on a scale matching what people can afford to buy, not what they actually need. For this reason many agricultural techniques are underdeveloped compared with our technological abilities.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) still sees great scope for expanded production. It reported this year that, using current Western farming methods, the world could produce enough food for up to 33,000,000,000 people, seven times the world population. Using somewhat less sophisticated farming methods, 15,000,000 people could be fed and, even if the whole world relied on primitive farming methods, using no fertilizers or pesticides, traditional seeds and no soil conservation methods, the present world population could still be comfortably fed. ("In Defence of Population Growth", New Scientist 4 August 1984)

ORGANISING A GLOBAL CLASSLESS SOCIETY

Do we have adequate systems of communication, organisation and distribution to operate a global classless society? As with the questions of "human nature" and the earth's resources, the answer to this question is partly apparent now. Because it is necessary for capitalism's international trade, the world is already a highly integrated network of communications, travel and distribution. In this sense, capitalism is pregnant with socialistic organisation. With its booms and slumps, shortages and gluts, disruptive wars and embittered industrial disputes, capitalism is a chaotic, anarchic social system. In socialism production and distribution will be democratically planned. Society will not be told by a minority that food cannot be produced because there is no market for it. We shall harness all of the technology that capitalism has produced, discover exactly what our needs are, and where, and then plan production to meet them. Computer systems, current electronic stocktaking devices used in supermarkets and the astonishing technology of communications and travel used today by military forces and banks will all play their part. And think how much easier it will be to simply find out how many people in what places need what goods, than the task of market researchers of discovering who might buy what in the uncertainties of the market.

Without nations and governments, how will this production be planned? The world administration for production for use will need to satisfy the requirements of historical continuity, practical necessity and democracy. That is, it will need to adapt existing social organisations, develop them in a way to deal with the practical problems which need to be solved and to permit democracy in all decision-making. Socialists are currently in a minority and it will be for a majority to make the final decisions about how socialism will work. We can however still make some practical suggestions today. Decision-making could operate on three sorts of geographical level: the local level (corresponding to current local government areas), the regional level and the global level. Decisions about social policy and planning, whatever the scale of their intended effect, would need to originate in a locality. They could be raised by individuals, groups or local representatives of a specialist global group, connected with, for instance, health or the ecology. A policy proposal intended to affect society generally would need to pass successfully through all three levels of decision-making and then be implemented at local levels across the world.

The decision-making process in socialism will be such that everyone will have access to any information they need to make the decision and the opportunity to express views on the issue to everyone else. In the age of advanced telecommunications and the teletext this will not present any significant problems. Decisions only affecting a locality will probably be participated in by people living or working in that locality and similarly with regional decisions. We could make great use of the various information-gathering systems and expert organisations which have been developed by capitalism. Take one example, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. It is organised in 147 countries and has 4,000 planners and technicians all over the globe. It produces scientific papers which collate research material from all over the world and maintains a library of knowledge on food, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, nutrition and conservation. It keeps a census of world agricultural resources. In 1978 it completed a soil map of the entire world using a variety of techniques from aerial photography to satellite surveillance. This combines details of climates and soils and builds up a picture of potential world food production.

Socialists propose the immediate establishment of a classless, global society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of living by the whole community. This sort of society can only be created by a majority of people consciously and democratically acting together to take on the responsibility of running the world for ourselves. Today's reality is, very often, yesterday's vision:

It is a dream, you may say, of what has never been and will never be; true it has never been, and therefore, since the world is alive and moving yet, my hope is the greater that it one day will be: true it is a dream; but dreams have before now come about of things so good and necessary to us that we scarcely think of them more than of the daylight, though once people had to live without them, without even the hope of them. (William Morris, The Lesser Arts, 1877)

Imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for and no religion too

Imagine all the people living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope some day you'll join us

And the world will be one.

(John Lennon, Imagine, 1972)

Gary Jay (Britain)