Letter From Europe: Racism and anti-racism in France (1985)

The Letter From Europe Column from the August 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

They seem to be everywhere. Posters in blue, white and red proclaiming "France and the French First". "Three million immigrants. Three million unemployed". “Halt to anti-French racism" and other such slogans and signed "le Front National".

The Front National is almost the exact equivalent on the French political scene of the National Front in Britain. Like the British organisation, its original members were a mixture of traditional conservatives and neo-Nazi lunatics. But, unlike the National Front, the Front National has, thanks to proportional representation, been able to overcome the credibility gap. Ten of the 81 French members of the European Parliament sit for the National Front and a solid phalanx of National Fronters are expected to be elected to the French National Assembly in next March’s general elections — ironically, thanks to the change over to proportional representation which the outgoing "socialist" government has decided to introduce as its only chance of avoiding utter defeat. Already the Front’s leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, is regularly interviewed on news and current affairs programmes as an established national political leader.

Le Pen, an ex-Poujadist MP and paratroop officer, founded the National Front in 1972. For the first ten years his party was just one of a number of small competing extreme right-wing grouplets and in fact was unable to get enough signatures to present Le Pen as a candidate in the 1981 presidential elections. The breakthrough came in 1983 in the municipal elections when Le Pen himself was elected a municipal councillor for the 10th arrondissement of Paris, in the past a "communist" party stronghold, while in Dreux. an industrial town west of Paris with a high immigrant population, the National Front's list obtained 17 per cent of the votes, enough to go through to the second round. In the event the National Front and the traditional conservative opposition parties did a deal which resulted not only in the election of a number of National Front councillors but also in some of them being given municipal responsibilities.

Although the National Front claims to be a proper political party with a full range of policies on defence, Europe, law and order and so on. it is basically a one-issue organisation with a single crude political message: Arabs Go Home! Over the years there has been a considerable migration across the Mediterranean of workers from France’s ex-colonies in North Africa — Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia — to fill labouring and other lowly jobs in France. The figures show, however, that most migrants to France since the war have come from Southern Europe, from Portugal, Spain and Italy. But it remains true that the North Africans are the most conspicuous and, as Muslims, the most "alien” of recent migrants and as such the perfect scapegoats for an anti-immigrant party like the National Front.

Although the evidence seems to be that the National Front has expanded at the expense of the traditional conservative parties, the Gaullist RPR and ex-President Giscard’s UDF, it is clear that its rise has been a direct result of the failure of the reformist PS-PCF government that came to power in 1981. These parties had promised to end the economic crisis, to reduce unemployment and to improve the living standards of ordinary people. They did none of these things, basically because they are not within the government’s power to do: the capitalist economy works according to certain economic laws which demand in particular that priority be given to profit-making over popular consumption and governments, whatever their political colour, are in the end forced to comply with them. The PS-PCF government had learned this when, after only a year in office, they were compelled to impose a wage freeze. So not only were their promises not honoured but the crisis got worse, unemployment continued to rise steadily and living standards were reduced. This failure earned them the resentment, even the hatred, of large numbers of ordinary people which the National Front was able cleverly to exploit, blaming immigration and immigrants rather than the workings of capitalism for their continuing problems and worsened conditions. But since immigrant workers generally perform the most ill-paid jobs and live in the worst housing conditions it should be clear that they are fellow victims of capitalism rather than the cause of other workers' problems.

The government's reaction to the rise of the National Front has been to proclaim that it has been just as firm on immigration as the previous government and that it too is just as keen on tracking down "illegal immigrants''. In other words, to give in to anti-immigrant sentiment as a means of preserving votes which could make the difference between victory and defeat, especially at local level.

Mitterrand, who with his repeated wordy declarations on “human rights" must be a front-runner for the Nobel prize for hypocrisy. expressed the following sentiments in 1983 (at the time of the Dreux municipal election):

   Illegal immigrants must be sent back to their countries (Républicain Lorrain, 1 September 1983).
   I must protect the employment of French people . . . Illegal immigrant workers must therefore leave France (Le Monde, 17 September 1983).

Of course at the same time Mitterrand preaches that all human beings are equal, and that discrimination and racism are bad. but this does not alter the fact that the line between being "anti-immigration" (like him) and "anti-immigrant" (like Le Pen) is a thin one easily crossed in the minds of the politically ignorant electors who vote for one or other of the parties of capitalism, including his own PS and the PCF.

The French "Communist" Party, of course, is a past-master in this hypocritical game of behaving in a racist way without actually having to utter racist or anti-immigrant sentiments (the incident of the bulldozer sent by one of its mayors to demolish a hostel for African workers at Bitry in the South of Paris in December 1980 is not likely to be forgotten for a long while). There is also a very real sense in which the PCF helped to pave the way for the National Front. A widely-used PCF poster proclaimed "Produisons français" ("Produce French"), which the National Front capped with another reading "Produisons français. d'accord, mais avec des travailleurs français" ("Produce French, yes, but with French workers").

A more interesting reaction to the rise of the National Front than this, or the traditional Trotskyite policy of "Smash the Fascists" (which provided wonderful free publicity for the Front during the 1983 municipal and 1984 European elections), has been the campaign SOS Racism with its badge in the form of a hand proclaiming "Touche pas à mon pote" ("Hands Off My Mate"). Here the appeal has been not to violence but to people's common humanity.

This naive approach runs the risk of being exploited politically (and in fact the government has already begun to do so), but it has had a remarkable success. In schools in the big towns in particular, children whose parents came from various parts of Europe. Asia and Africa study and play together and therefore tend to know that racism is a load of nonsense. But then so is nationalism, and the logic of the argument "we're all human beings" should lead to the conclusion "and we have only one country: the world”. There is no automatic guarantee that this conclusion will in fact be drawn, but appealing to people as members of the same human race is a much more fruitful response to racism than shrill calls to use violence against misguided workers, who have imbibed racist nonsense. It at least allows a reasoned dialogue to take place, the only logical conclusion of which can be a recognition that world socialism is the only way to end racism and all other forms of oppression and discrimination.

Adam Buick,

Paris

The Silliest Story! (1990)

A Short Story from August/September 1990 issue of the Socialist View

Stephen was born the year The Revolution started, the year Two Thousand and Three. I was not very much involved at the beginning and, indeed, the changes, by the time I did get involved, were so great and so rapid that my part in The Revolution was largely confined to the fateful election when an overwhelming majority of people formally established Socialism.

That was nine years ago. For just over a year before that, the word Socialism was on everyone's lips; there were nightly arguments on the T.V. and the radio and all sorts of people were arguing, pro and con, in the papers. 'Free Access!' became a cliche and, as the clarion grew, so the governments of the countries where the demand was most urgent, responded by widening the area of free public access to various goods, and services. Indeed, the form of capitalism that was eventually swept away by the democratic action of a majority of socialists was dramatically different to capitalism before the turn of the century-

Nine years on, I can't even recall the first place, I think it was Germany, where the people opted for Socialism. Britain was next, though just two days ahead of the United States and Bulgaria, but Britain probably provided the biggest human interest story. The TV cameras were out in the London parks – there was several million people gathered, celebrating, in Hyde Park alone – when the 'News Flash' came through. The ex-king, Charles something-or-other, a very rich parasite and an eccentric recluse who had abdicated the previous year, had committed suicide by jumping off a parapet at the Buckingham Apartments, which up to the time of his abdication had been one of his palace homes.

When I think about that, the suicide of the old king, I have suddenly realised that that was probably the last great item of 'news' to occur on these islands. The word, news, is rarely used now, except by some very old people – almost as though it had unpleasant associations with the terrible things that used to happen before Two Thousand and Three. Then of course, 'news' was about wars, about the terrible realities of the old world: poverty, insecurity, world hunger, unemployment, slums, vandalism and all the other things that simply don't happen anymore.

The word 'information' is now generally in vogue. In the participative democracy in which we live, it is important that people are provided with accurate information to enable them to register their opinions which, since last year, can be done through a system of buttons on the television set.

Many words have fallen into misuse. Even the word 'socialism' itself is seldom heard. That's why I wanted to tell you about Stephen. He had gone with some other young people on a trip to the museum and returned with a facsimile of one of the old 50p pieces that people exchanged for goods before the advent of Socialism. The fact sheet that he had been given with the coin contained information about how money was used in capitalist society. Stephen was intrigued.

I never knew much about the old economics but I explained to Stephen as best I could how the old money system worked. A small minority of people owned the resources of the earth and the factories, etc. where these resources were transformed into all the things that people needed. The great majority of people owned little or nothing and were employed to carry out the work of creating all the wealth and performing all the services in society. The minority of owners, the capitalist class, had laws (regulations enforced by violence, if necessary) that required the majority class of producers, the working class, to give up the things they produced in exchange for money, called wages. These wages allowed the workers to exchange their money for food, clothing, etc., just enough to live and ensure they remained in need so they would continue to create wealth for the capitalists. That is why the Socialists always referred to the working class as wage slaves.

I had lots more to tell the boy but when I looked at him he had his head raised slightly and a smile hovered on his lips. Slowly he moved his head from side to side; 'Dad,' he said, his voice elongating the word to allow him to raise his tone as he spoke, 'Your telling silly stories again – and that must be the silliest yet!'

Richard Montague

"Human behaviour is plastic" (1986)

Quote from the August 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

  Changes in social organisation involve drastic changes in human behaviour, and they in turn, depend on the fact that human behaviour is plastic and not genetically fixed. We see once again the absurdity of the notion that human nature cannot change. This commonly made assertion implies that human behaviour is essentially fixed; it is therefore the exact opposite of the truth.

(The Human Species Professor Anthony Barnett)

Observations: Special needs? (1986)

The Observations Column from the August 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Special needs?

In capitalism it is money that determines whether or not people's needs are met. This principle applies to the "welfare state" as much as it does to the market for goods. But in the case of the welfare state it is the government which has the power to decide whose needs are to be met (through the allocation of resources) and at what level.

Take, for instance, draft regulations recently drawn up by the DHSS which will restrict the availability of single, or "special", needs payments to supplementary benefit claimants. At present single payments are intended to cover the cost of such essential household items as beds, cookers, heaters, basic items of furniture, and bedding. It is already extremely difficult to obtain this assistance. But the government now intends to make it even more difficult, through the new regulations which will exclude payments for such things as hot water bottles for the elderly and infirm, curtains, cleaning implements. light fittings and other basic household equipment. Certain claimants, such as squatters, will not be eligible for any such payments at all.

The reason given for the new restrictions is contained in a DHSS memorandum (Guardian, 10 June 1986) which states that "there has been since 1981 a rapid and continuous growth in single payments" and "in these circumstances the Government now proposes to bring expenditure back to around the 1984 level . . . and to ensure an orderly administration of the single payment system in the two years before the Government reform proposals take place". (The "reform" referred to is the abolition of single payments and their replacement with a "Social Fund" which will apply even more restrictive criteria to applicants).

So more people are clearly in need and are seeking extra assistance from the DHSS. What is the government’s response? Those needs are first defined as "special needs” and met on a highly selective basis, and later redefined out of existence. And this is called "social security” — part of the "welfare state".


Diagnosis

There is a man in Broadmoor, sent there for killing his wife, who is a brilliant scientist. At the time he was working in the development of guidance systems for inter-continental missiles. An obsessive man, he was liable to bouts of morbid jealousy. One day his wife could stand no more and left him. After a while he gave up his job and walked, brooding, the hundred or so miles to where she was living and there he killed her. The missiles he had been working on are each capable of wiping out hundreds of thousands of people. At his trial the judge listened to social workers, police officers and psychiatrists and it was decided that killing his wife proved that the brilliant scientist was ill and must be locked away in a hospital until he is better.


Fair cops

There is enough for the people of Greater Manchester to worry about in the colourful menace of their Chief Constable, James Anderton, without all this shock-horror-probe stuff about his deputy John Stalker.

Like most of these sordid affairs, the Stalker scandal becomes more outrageous and ruthless with the dragging out of one piece of evidence after another, which hint at corruption and intrigue at what is called A Very High Level.

It all began when Stalker was given the job of looking into the shoot-to-kill policy of the Ulster police, under which some embarrassingly innocent victims had been mown down. If Stalker took this seriously he is at variance with most of the people who have any experience of these matters, who expect as a matter of course that such enquiries are really designed to sweep a scandal under the carpet.

Whatever the truth of this, there is evidence of a campaign to undermine Stalker's standing as a high ranking policeman by showing him up as an associate of criminals and of other people with a reputation for sailing rather too close to the legal winds.

There are many people who have been arrested and harassed by Anderton's and Stalker's police who coknow what it means to be subjected to a sustained persecution. They will probably appreciate the irony in the fact that the same sinister techniques are said to be now applied to Stalker.

How outrageous a scandal is it? A social system based on the interests of a small but powerful minority cannot be open about much of what goes on in the cause of protecting the standing of that minority. Secretiveness (and the British government is noted for its obsessive concern with secrecy and an elegantly worded suppression of the truth) is endemic to capitalism. When it is demanded, the welfare — even the life — of an individual is of no account; even the most devoted servants of capitalism are expendable.

There was, to put it another way, never the slightest chance that Stalker would be allowed to lift the lid off the RUC.

Meanwhile, the workers of Manchester and of the rest of capitalist society should concern themselves with such events only to take what lessons they can from them. The police are employed as a part of capitalism's coercive, privilege protecting machinery. Their role is repression, of people and of the truth when they need to. They do this to sustain a social system which, even were it morally immaculate, without a taint of evasion or corruption, would still be unsupportable for its impoverishment, degradation and murder of millions of human beings.

We must get on with working towards the abolition of this sordid mess, leaving that odious bunch of thugs and twisters to grass each other up.

Mediaopoly (1987)

From the August 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Imagine a business where the less that is produced and the fewer customers there are, the more money is made. Impossible, you might say, even within a system like capitalism. But this is precisely what is happening in some regional ITV Companies.

Unlike any other business. ITV companies make one thing (programmes) but sell another — advertising. So it is in their financial interests to cut costs (programme making) and expand revenue (advertising).

So as the quality/quantity of programmes are reduced, audiences have dropped and advertising revenues have soared because advertisers have to spend more to try and attract their target audience. A regional TV station has the monopoly on TV advertising in its area. Advertisers have no option but to go to it. As there is only a finite amount of airtime available, its price gets driven up.

In the case of TVS, for example, which has viewer ratings forty per cent lower than average for an ITV network, this has meant that its share price has been boosted from 25 pence in 1981 to the current 380 pence. Profits have exceeded forecasts in each year of operation, rising to 14 million on a turnover of 140 million pounds last year.

Even the IBA felt moved to say of TVS:

   . . . [it] has undoubtedly enjoyed considerable success in expanding the business side of its operation and attaining high levels of profitability; but the same energy and purpose have not always been fully matched on the programme side. . . .

The mechanism by which this form of decay operates is one of commercial television's best kept secrets — the Network Agreement. The five largest ITV Companies (Central. Granada. Thames. LWT and Yorkshire) dominate the system. They produce programmes for the entire network. The remaining ten regional companies — for example. TVS — have no such commitment. This assures the big five of a market, while at the same time reducing the outlay of the smaller regional companies on programme making. This cartel has made the ITV Companies very profitable indeed.

It is all the more ludicrous that this situation is administered by the IBA. the very body charged with the statutory duty (sic) under the 1981 Broadcasting Act to secure "Adequate Competition".

Legal opinion on the Network Agreement varies, but it is probably illegal under UK law. and certainly illegal under EEC law, which would mean that the 15 ITV Companies would be liable to fines of between four and ten per cent of last year's turnover (£4-10 million). It remains to be seen if the IBA will take such action.

But then, as Margaret Thatcher has assured us, private enterprise means freedom of choice. You have been given an On/ Off switch and you are free to use it. What more choice could you possibly want?

Harvey Harwood

Official Secrets (1988)

From the August 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

The present Official Secrets Act. with its notorious "catch-all" Section 2, went through all its parliamentary stages in 1911 in just 30 minutes. As a result section 2 has been variously described as "a mess”, "a blunderbuss" and now. in the present White Paper on secrecy laws, as "unsatisfactory" and "in need of reform". The proposed new legislation is likely to be much more carefully drafted and. as a consequence, potentially more of a threat to those who want to find out what the state is up to.

As the Official Secrets Act (amended in 1920) stands, it is a criminal offence to disclose or receive any official information without prior authorisation. The White Paper proposes to legislate more precisely on which kinds of information cannot be disclosed without being subject to criminal sanction. Broadly speaking those areas are defence, security and intelligence; international relations; information obtained in confidence from other governments or international organisations; information useful to criminals; and information relating to telephone tapping and the interception of mail and other communications.

Despite this narrowing down of the categories of information to be covered by the new law, no-one should be under any illusion that this will be a "freedom of information" measure. Leaks of other "less serious" material will be dealt with by means of internal civil service disciplinary measures. In other words civil servants who leak information are likely to be quietly sacked without even having the chance to defend their actions in public. Furthermore, disclosure of certain kinds of information will be subject to an absolute ban — significantly some of those areas which have caused the government embarrassment in recent years. These are telephone tapping (details of which were revealed by former MI5 officer. Cathy Massiter) and the activities of GCHQ; disclosure of any information by serving or former members of the security and intelligence services (such as Peter Wright, author of Spycatcher); and confidential information from foreign governments.

It is also worth remembering that, despite the concentration on the Official Secrets Act, there exist approximately 100 other pieces of legislation that prevent certain categories of information from being disclosed. These range from price-sensitive material to information relating to the nuclear industry and also include information on health and safety matters.

What quickly becomes apparent from a close look at the White Paper is that very little (if any) information not disclosed today is likely to be available as a result of the proposed new legislation. So, far from being the "liberalising" measure that Douglas Hurd, the Home Secretary, has claimed it to be, by tightening up the existing law the current proposals will ensure that successful prosecutions for unauthorised disclosures can be bought more easily. And after the embarrassment caused by Clive Ponting's acquittal and the interminable fiasco over Spycatcher, that is precisely what the government wants to achieve.

For, in addition to the more precise specification of what kinds of information cannot be disclosed, the legislation will seek to outlaw the defence that disclosure is "in the public interest" — successfully used by Ponting in 1985. In other words, no civil servant will, in the future, be able to speak out about official negligence, malpractice or dishonesty without risking imprisonment.

The ending of the "public interest" defence and the abolition of the "prior publication" clause (that is. that a piece of information is already in the public domain) will particularly affect newspapers. They will no longer be able to make such disclosures as those by The Observer in 1984 that MI5 was secretly black-listing certain BBC employees who were deemed subversive, nor would it be able to publish details about the recent Stalker case, on the grounds that it was "in the public interest" to do so.

Furthermore there are other new laws in the pipeline which will require senior civil servants and employees of the security services to sign contracts of employment obliging them to maintain a life-long silence about their activities. Any breach of contract would lead to loss of pension rights and the possibility that they would be sued for damages by the government.

At the same time as official information is becoming more difficult for "us" to obtain, information about individuals' private lives is becoming easier for "them" to get their hands on. partly due to the potential created by new information technology. Currently Home Office. DHSS, Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise computers are being linked together to form the "government data network", which will allow information to be exchanged between government departments' own data banks. This will allow a huge amount of information on all of us to be networked together, enabling the possible construction of comprehensive “personal profiles". Once this happens it is unlikely to be very long before a national system of identity cards is introduced.

Why is this issue of information and access to it of importance to the working class? Increasingly we are subject to a diet of information that is distorted, manipulated and censored. That affects not only what we know about the world but also how we view and understand it. For example, we are frequently told that “we" are all better off now, and yet statistics about the distribution of wealth in this country are no longer available and so we have no means of assessing such statements. Information presented to us as "news" is frequently taken directly from government press releases or “leaked" officially. In other words we are hearing the news that the government wants us to hear.

Information and control over it are about power. Attempts to deprive us of information while at the same time building up data banks on our private lives, constitute a consolidation of class power.

Janie Percy-Smith

Socialism means one world (1989)

From the August 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Just as capitalism is a world system of society, so too must socialism be. There never has been, and never can be, socialism in just one country because its material basis is the world-wide and interdependent means of production that capitalism has built up. The bulk of the wealth produced in the world today is produced by the co-operative labour of the millions employed to operate these means of production. What is needed now, to establish socialism, is a conscious political decision on the part of these millions across the world to run society in their own interests.

This will be done by taking the means of production throughout the world into common ownership, with their democratic control by the whole community, and with production solely for use.

Common ownership will be a social relationship of equality between all people with regard to the use of the means of production. No longer will there be classes, governments and their state machinery, or national frontiers.

Democratic control will involve the whole community in making decisions about the use of the means of production. Instead of government over people there would be various levels of democratic administration. from the local up to regional and world levels, with responsibility being delegated if necessary to groups and individuals.

Production for use will bring production into direct line with human needs. Without money, wages, buying and selling there will be a world of free access. Everyone will be able to contribute to society by working voluntarily, according to ability. Everyone will be able to take freely from whatever is readily available, according to self-defined needs.

Global Problems

The motivation for this new world comes from the common class interest of those who produce but do not possess. An important part of this motivation comes from the global problems thrown up by capitalism. Ecological problems make a nonsense of the efforts of governments. War and the continuing threat of nuclear war affect us all. The problem of uneven development means that many producers in the underdeveloped countries suffer starvation, disease and absolute poverty. All of these problems of capitalism can only be solved within the framework of a socialist world. Ecological problems require the sort of long-term planning and development of which competitive, international capitalism is incapable. Converting the armaments industry (capitalism's biggest industry) from producing weapons of destruction to producing useful things to satisfy human needs will take time. Ending world hunger and poverty, above all, makes the worldwide co-operation of socialism an urgent necessity.

But this does not rule out local democracy. In fact a democratic system of decision-making would require that the basic unit of social organisation would be the local community. However, the nature of some of the problems we face and the many goods and services presently produced. such as raw materials, energy sources, agricultural products, world transport and communications, need production and distribution to be organised at a world level. Corresponding to this, of course, there would be a need for a democratic world administration, controlled by delegates from the regional and local levels of organisation throughout the world.

Development of Ideas

The world socialist movement, of which the Socialist Party is a constituent part, expresses the common class interest of the producers. Because political power in capitalism is organised on a territorial basis each socialist party has the task of seeking democratically to gain political power in the country where it operates. If it is suggested that socialist ideas might develop unevenly across the world, and that socialists of only a part of the world were in a position to get political control, then the decision about the action to be taken would be one for the whole of the socialist movement in the light of all the circumstances at the time. It would certainly be a folly, however, to base a programme of political action on the assumption that socialist ideas will develop unevenly and that we must therefore be prepared to establish “socialism” in one country or even a group of countries like the European Community.

For a start, it is an unreasonable assumption that socialist ideas will develop unevenly. Given the world-wide nature of capitalism and its social relationships, the vast majority of people live under basically similar conditions: and because of the world-wide system of communications and media, there is no reason for socialist ideas to be restricted to one part of the world. Any attempt to establish “socialism” in one country would be bound to fail owing to the pressures exerted by the world market on that country's means of production. Recent experience in Russia, China and elsewhere shows conclusively that even capitalist states cannot detach themselves from the requirements of an integrated system of production operated through the world market.

Faced with this explanation of how the world could be organised, many would reject it in favour of something more “realistic", including some who call themselves socialist. They seek to solve social problems within the framework of government policies, the state machine, national frontiers, money, wages, buying and selling. But if our analysis of capitalism as a world system is correct—and we've yet to be shown how it’s wrong—then state politics are irrelevant as a way of solving social problems. Viewed globally, state politics only make sense when seen as a means for capturing political power in order to introduce a world of free access.

Lew Higgins

50 Years Ago: Federal Europe or Internationalism (1990)

The 50 Years Ago column from the August 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

One direction in which change is likely after the war is in the relationship of the small and big Powers in Europe—indeed in the whole world. While the American Federal Union propagandists are urging the immediate Union of USA and the British Empire, another group favour the idea of Anglo-French Union (already offered to France by the British Government just before the French collapse), and still a third group are attracted by the old idea of a United States of Europe. Last of all it is stated by the Manchester Guardian (July 19th) that Nazi propaganda in France is popularising the idea of a Continental Union under German domination on the plea that "Europe is too small to be divided into small nations" . . . 

The true line of development is the international one. on a Socialist basis. Then there would no longer be the choice, blandly placed before us by Mussolini's mouthpiece in a recent article, of the vanquished being "reduced to the state of Chinese coolies compelled to toil for others" (Observer, July 21st). Socialists intend to build a world in which there will be neither exploiters nor exploited. Like Signor Ansaldo, we are interested in the "resources of the whole world”, but unlike him. we want them to be used for the benefit of all mankind “without distinction of race".

[From an editorial, Socialist Standard, August 1940]

Myth of the leisure society (1991)

Cartoon by Peter Rigg.

From the August 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are all obsessed with technology, from the Walkman on our heads to the trainers on our feet. “State of the Art". “High-Tech”, bits of glossy phrases; pieces of intellectual titillation. Technology is also presented as the cornucopia of unbounded plenty; the key to onward and upward progress, leading to a society in which work will get less and less, leisure more and more. This, of course, is no concern to the leisured class; they know not work and to them leisure is not news.

But the working class can be fair game. We it was who created the legend of Cockaigne; the imaginary land of idleness and luxury, so different from our life experience; who are only too ready to note any hint of leisure, in preference to working as employees. People believe what they take as their interest to believe. If you are given euphemisms for the otherwise unpalatable, you will come to accept the sugar-coating for the pill.

The essence of the growing emphasis on leisure is to be found in the greatly increased and increasing capacity of the productive forces, resulting from the now extensive use of sophisticated equipment. All. we may add, from the hands and brains of the working class. When Henry Ford said “History is Bunk”, he was expressing the naked capitalist principle that only tomorrow's production and profits have any meaning, and that what you told people yesterday only subverts what you are going to tell them tomorrow.

Job losses
Once upon a time, as all fairy tales begin, the working class was considered so lazy and indolent that they could only be made to work through threats of unemployment and starvation; a piece of moral turpitude given a suitable ironic twist when they were laid off: for working hard and swamping the market. Now we are even better at it; so much so, that we’re told the virtues of idleness. There is nothing new in capitalism using and constantly developing its technology of production; but it too is getting better at it.The Sunday Telegraph in 1979 (20 March) had a director of ICI stating:

   No matter what the growth rate is in this country there is no way we are going to employ more people. The difference between a successful and unsuccessful business strategy in the modern world is the rate at which numbers of people come down.

Competition between capitalists for a bigger share of the market is the driving power to seek advantage in lower costs of production and distribution, through the use of machinery, or more effective machinery, and less labour. It is the nature of competition to allow no-one an advantage permanently, because in the race to keep the competitive edge, one capitalist organisation leap-frogs another. And so on, ad infinitum.There is nothing new to the working class in leisure. Traditionally though, it has been known as unemployment.

With what sort of logic, one wonders, can people look in wide-eyed admiration on something (made by their own hands!) that reduces their opportunity for access to the necessities of life.

Work-sharing
To take one example of a "solution", let us look at “work-sharing” proposed by Roger Clarke in Work in Crisis:

  The general aim of work sharing as a social instrument is to so organise the volume of work available within the economy that all those wishing to work can at least find partial employment.
  Work sharing can be achieved through some of those currently employed giving up their jobs to other groups of individuals or through a new arrangement of working time which allows the existing work to be shared by more workers (e.g. twinning and trebling arrangements).

Further on in his book, Roger Clarke notes that “work sharing does involve costs”. In other words, where is the money coming from to make up for the unworked, or “leisure”, time? His solution is that:

   Those parties who are fortunate enough to have high earnings and security of employment . . . must expect to have to bear a considerably higher level of taxation which . . may be used to subsidise . work sharing . . .

It is not the fact (income tax is a book-keeping ruse to create the illusion that we have, as the saying goes, a stake in the country), but the thought behind this statement that is so outrageous. That the working class should always suffer in order to provide palliatives, protection and assistance for those who are responsible for our predicament in the first place.

So much for the cornucopia of unbounded plenty and progress. not forgetting “leisure”, of course.

The introduction of new technology will always create problems for those who produce the wealth of society until the means for producing wealth are owned in common and used to satisfy needs not make profits for capitalists. An impossible dream? Consider the following quotation which, with a nice touch of irony, Roger Clarke took from a book entitled God on Monday by Simon Phipps:

  Politics may be the art of the possible, but what is possible greatly depends upon what people want. Small minorities with conviction and a good understanding of the way power operates, can create a new public opinion. When a new public opinion comes to want a change, the range of what is ‘possible’ changes too.

That is precisely what we Socialists are engaged in doing.

Ian Jones

Young Karl Marx (2018)

Film Review from the August 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Young Karl Marx. Director: Raoul Peck.

This is a German film by a Haitian director. The timing of the film – 200 years after the birth of Marx – will be intended to piggyback the publicity around this anniversary. It will also benefit from the recent general upsurge in interest in Marx and socialism after almost 30 years in the wilderness following the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

The film, mainly spoken in German with English sub-titles, focuses upon Marx (August Diehl) and Engels (Stefan Konarske) during the years of the formation of their friendship from 1843 through to their collaboration in the drafting of the Communist Manifesto in 1847; thus dealing with a short but vital period in their lives and stopping short of depicting the revolutions in Europe in 1848. Marx’s wife Jenny (Vicky Krieps) and Engels’ wife Mary Burns (Hannah Steele) have significant supplementary roles, predominantly supporting their men.

The film opens in Germany when Marx is arrested for his criticism of new laws which take away the traditional right of peasants to gather firewood on a landowner’s property. He is exiled to Paris where he meets Engels and then to Brussels and finally London. The film captures their personal and political development as they wrestle to articulate their ideology.

Whilst Marx battles with the authorities and contends with poverty Engels clashes over his father’s treatment of the workers at his mill; the conditions of which are vividly captured in the cinematography. The film illustrates how the two young men develop their economic theory of the social relations of production through personal contemplation and in debates with such figures as Proudhon, Bakunin, and the Young Hegelians. In the process Marx moves away from philosophy - which he increasingly regards as a sterile discipline pre-occupied with interpreting the world – towards his theory of political economy, in order to act upon the world to change it.

The film has the feel of a biopic period piece which would be more at home as a BBC drama than an epic of the big screen. The volume of historical events seems to be turned down, effectively muffling these momentous times. Raoul Peck said that he made the film for young people. Perhaps this is why it has the feel of a soap opera. It was interesting to see these historical figures brought to life on the big screen and humanised through a window onto their private lives, rather than either lionised or demonised for their political beliefs; but overall the film was enjoyable, rather than spectacularly informative or stimulating.

It ends with a montage of video clips from the twentieth century depicting momentous events of social upheaval, to the musical accompaniment of Bob Dylan’s: ‘Like A Rolling Stone.’ Perhaps this is a further nod to the Millennials, although a more twenty-first century resonance for this audience might have been provided by Marx’s quote from the nineteenth century: ‘There must be something rotten in the very core of a social system which increases its wealth without diminishing its misery.’

Given that it is a rare event for the film industry to grasp such a difficult and controversial topic it feels like a missed opportunity. Perhaps there will be a sequel; in celluloid and in real life.

Tim Hart

Is human nature a barrier to socialism? (1992)

From the August 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

The “human-nature" argument is widely used against those who claim that it is possible for the human species to live harmoniously in a system of relationships based on co-operation, instead of the system of competition (capitalism) that exists at present. When human-nature is mentioned it is assumed that what is meant is an ineradicable factor of aggression, violence, competition and acquisitiveness contained in the human make-up, sometimes also regarded as a manifestation of the Christian doctrine of original sin. Why is the term human-nature used in the way it is in our society? 

With the break-up of the Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, chattel slavery came to an end and was superseded in Europe by the serfdom of the feudal system. For some historians a period of relative stagnation descended upon Europe they call "the Dark Ages", lasting until the 13th century. During this time feudal Europe became dependent upon the importation of large quantities of spices, there being no winter root vegetables to feed the cattle most of which had to be killed every autumn and preserved in salt and spices. This trade came from the Far East via the Red Sea, over the isthmus of Suez and into the Mediterranean, thus ensuring the pre-eminence of the Italian and French mediterranean ports.

However, the increasing domination of the Ottoman Turks over the Middle East from the 11th century culminated in the virtual closing of the trade routes to the East. The consequent desire to find a new trade route to the spice islands via the sea determined the so-called "discoveries" (the American continent was of course populated with homo sapiens long before Europeans arrived on the scene) of the West Indies and the American continent by Columbus and Cabot and the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope by Vasco Da Gama in the late 15th century.

Slave trade

Unlike Columbus who pursued a course straight across the open Atlantic Ocean, the Portuguese explorers tried to find a route around the African continent. They made many voyages and slowly worked their way around the coast, taking more than fifty years to reach the most southern point, the Portuguese navigator Diaz accomplishing this in 1487. This brought them into contact with the West African slave kingdoms of Dahomey, Ashanti and Benin, the rulers of which were quite prepared to sell black slaves to the "white" European traders who followed behind the explorers. By 1517 the Portuguese and Spanish were carrying slaves to work in the colonies in the Caribbean.

There were however moral reactions in Europe and the American colonies against the slave trade. The Catholic Church at that time granted legal possession of any new territory discovered to the country financing the expedition on condition that those natives embracing Christianity were not enslaved. As the slave trade became more lucrative the practice of freeing slaves who professed Christianity gradually died out, with the agreement and help of the Church. A new theory of superiority and inferiority developed and Europeans began to talk of black and brown-skinned native populations as sub-human and related to apes rather than humans. Doctrines of intellectualized pseudo-science arose to justify this.

“Survival of the fittest”

Although Charles Darwin already knew in 1837 that evolution was an inescapable conclusion to be drawn from the evidence he had accumulated, he did not allow himself to proceed any further with his discovery until he had found an explanation for the fact of adaptation. The solution had occurred to him and was re-inforced after he had read Malthus's Essay on Population. So, curiously, Malthus’s theory of population, which was to become the tenuous foundation for Social Darwinism, helped to lay the basis for the theory of evolution by natural selection some time before the Darwinian theory was declared in 1859 with the publication of The Origin of Species.

Natural selection is a process of adaptation in response to the environment, or changes in the environment, at a very slow quantitative process of modification over a great number of generations, so that in the course of time an entire species could change qualitatively, forming a new species. Conflict is not involved in such a struggle for survival. It is a struggle for existence (as Darwin termed it) only in the sense that every organism strives to maintain itself and does so willy-nilly in relation to other organisms. Darwin himself stated that he used the term in a large and metaphorical sense which included dependence of one being upon another (symbiosis) and embraced not only the life of the individual but, more importantly, success in leaving progency. Therefore, although the mechanism of natural selection takes place in the life process of an individual organism, the end result of survival manifests itself in the evolutionary emergence and maintenance of a new species.

However, because of the attitudes of some of Darwin’s most devoted followers (foremost among them being Thomas Henry Huxley) his theories were mis-stated and misrepresented, and these misrepresentations were seized upon by supporters of capitalism and negro chattel slavery to justify exploitation. It was Herbert Spencer who first spoke, in his theory of sociology, of "the survival of the fittest". Darwin’s theories were also used to defend Friedrich Nietzsche’s doctrine of the superman with whom fittest was equated.e

Racism

Even before the appearance of in 1859, a disgruntled French aristocrat, Count Joseph Arthur de Gobineau had published a book in 1853-57, An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races, in which he attempted to justify the subordinate economic and social position of the peasantry and the working class on the grounds of their alleged biological inferiority. This nonsense of de Gobineau’s was given new apparent validity with the advent of Social Darwinism and was used by Houston Stewart Chamberlain and his father-in-law Richard Wagner to justify the false idea of German racial superiority, later taken up by Hitler and the Nazis and used by them to treat as subhuman large groups of people on false biological, ethnological and religious grounds.

After the war of 1939-45 ideas of inherent class superiority and inferiority became less popular. UNESCO published a scries of pamphlets dealing with the racial question and written by the foremost members of every branch of natural science, all of which, on the basis of scientific assessment, condemned all acts of discrimination based upon alleged biological inferiority as erroneous.

For a time capitalism went through a period of economic boom in which industrial Europe invited in millions of immigrants from what are now called the Third World countries to relieve the relative shortage of labour-power caused by the war. However, with the decline of world trade resulting in rising unemployment from the late 50s onwards, together with worsening conditions and standards of living for the working class, conflict arose with violence and discrimination directed against immigrant groups in Britain and the rest of Europe. It was during this period that Neo-Social Darwinism made its appearance; prominent among its advocates were Konrad Lorenz, Anthony Storr, Robert Ardrey and Desmond Morris.

The ideas of the new Social Darwinists are a rehash of some of those of the old (Nature red in tooth and claw) and involve the use of erroneous and unscientific methods to justify them. The most favoured way of doing this was, first, to take the behaviour of some people in capitalist society (described as aggressive, territorial and acquisitive) as being the natural norm for all, and then plant it upon our unsuspecting lower animal ancestors as innate or instinctual, and finally, having done that, to claim that this alleged instinct for aggression and the rest is what we humans have inherited genetically from our animal forebears.

Unfortunately for the validity of this assertion of theirs, painstaking work in the field and scientific analyses by George B. Schaller, Jane Van Lawick-Goodall and Dian Fossey on the nature and behaviour of our nearest primate relatives, the anthropoid Apes (chimpanzee, gorilla and orangutan), has shown unequivocally that these animals do not fundamentally possess any of the characteristics of aggression and the rest that have been attributed to them (see their books The Mountain Gorilla, In the Shadow of Man, and Gorillas in the Mist).

However, in spite of the efforts of UNESCO and the debunking of Social Darwinism, old and new, there still remains widespread belief in many erroneous conceptions about the nature and behaviour of the human species, an amalgam of Social Darwinism and upper-class prejudice. It is assumed that those in society who are "successful" (that is to say, have more than enough capital to make it possible for them to live without having to be employed) are biologically superior (solely because of that "success") in comparison to those others in society who are economically forced to earn a living by selling their ability to work.

Cartoon by Peter Rigg.

Human adaptability

The term nature when used in the context of describing a plant or animal organism can only mean the sum total of biological attributes which a particular organism possesses, so that when the word nature is used in conjunction with the word chimpanzee it refers to the sum total of physiological attributes which a chimpanzee has, and this applies not only to the individual chimpanzee but also to chimpanzees as a species.

In like manner the term human-nature refers to the sum total of biological attributes which is general for the human species, the principal characteristics being upright stance, with bipedal locomotion, prehensile hands with opposable thumbs, stereoscopic binocular colour vision, audio and vocal tract anatomy and, most importantly, the relatively largest and most complex brain of any species of organism living or extinct. According to the available scientific evidence, this unique combination of biological attributes which in fact is the nature of the organism (or human-nature) has not changed significantly over the last 40,000-50,000 years and it enables the human species to condition to a large extent its own behaviour which, in contrast, has changed considerably during that period.

When an opponent of socialism says "What about human nature?", the question that arises is: What is human-nature in contrast to human behaviour? Social Darwinists apparently make no distinction between human-nature and human behaviour and say that human behaviour will only change when human-nature changes, but that this will never happen because, they claim, the nature of the human species has been fixed for all time— the often re-iterated cliche that "you can’t change human nature!" Needless to say that when they talk of human-nature they mean human behaviour. . . . 

Unfortunately, a large number of anthropologists and others in related disciplines use these terms in the same slipshod manner. It is therefore imperative that we use them in a precise way, and not just as a matter of semantic exactitude but so as to convey the real situation. What has to be taken special note of is the fact that the flexibility and adaptability of human behaviour is because of human biological nature and not in spite of it. We must also bear in mind that since the total biological inheritance of the organism is contained in the single-celled zygote (fertilized ovum) behaviour as such cannot be inherited.

So when a supporter of capitalism says "you can’t change human nature", the reply should be: "who wants to? Human nature is alright as it is!" Human nature as it is makes it possible to exist in all kinds of manifestations, not just support for capitalism but also the potentiality of the change from the behaviour of capitalism to that of socialism.

—The above is an edited version of a report of a Socialist Party committee set up to investigate the possibility of producing a pamphlet on the subject of Human Nature.

Letter: Alternative to market (1993)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

In your review of David Ramsay Steele's book From Marx to Mises (June issue), you mention his citation of a non-market, anti-centralist model of society, that is “anarcho-communism". You seem to accept his view that lack of central planning leads to local autarky and that anarchist communists advocate this. This is certainly not the case. We believe that much can be decided on a local level through a system of neighbourhood and workplace councils, but that there is a need for coordination of areas on a regional basis, right on up to a global level—to determine what is produced and how much, for example, to satisfy the needs of the population of the whole world.

In the same issue you ask if “anarcho-communists feel comfortable being grouped with these people” (that is people like Ayn Rand etc). Well, the answer is, we do not. We in the Anarchist Communist Federation have consistently argued that anarchism is based on class-struggle, and as a movement had its origins in the First International, a working class organisation. We have always dismissed descriptions of Ayn Rand. Tolstoy. Stirner and so on as “anarchist” (descriptions which they never used themselves) as inaccurate and misleading.

Ron Allen

London E1

Reply:

Glad to see you agree with us that the alternative to the market is not some impossible return to local self-sufficiency but common ownership with real democracy local to global. Not that we did any more than record, without discussing its accuracy, Steele's claim that Kropotkin stood for “local autarky”—Editors.

Big Sister is watching you — official (1994)

From the August 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Stella Rimington, who is the Director-General of what is laughably called The Security Service (in short, the spying game) has spilt the beans regarding the dirty work of these government-funded low-lives who earn their salaries by spying on workers considered to be dangerous to the ruling class.

In her 1994 Dimbleby Lecture Rimington provides a definition of subversion which is most instructive: "activities intended to overthrow or undermine parliamentary democracy by political, industrial or violent means". Now, socialists intend to overthrow so-called parliamentary democracy. Our aim is the democratic establishment of full economic democracy. And we intend to achieve this through democratic political means. This, according to Rimington’s definition, is subversive.

So, what do the spies have in mind for subversives? Rimington’s lecture was chillingly candid:

   "The Service set out to identify all the members of these subversive groups and to investigate their activities . . . With the proper legal authority, we may need to tap their telephones, open their letters or eavesdrop on their conversations to find out their intentions. We may have to observe their movements secretly, or recruit members of those organisation as agents to tell us from the inside what is being planned."

Feeling paranoid? Not as much as they are. According to BOSS agent, Robin Ramsay (in an interview cut from a 1981 Panorama programme, but printed verbatim elsewhere), "British intelligence has a saying that if there is a left-wing movement in Britain bigger than a football team our man is the captain or vice-captain, and if not, he is the referee and can send any man off the field and call our man on any time he likes" (Perspectives, issue 8). Who is to know how many of the leaders of the leftist sects are paid confusionists appointed by the state? We have often said that certain left-wing parties have done so much discredit to the cause of socialism that the ruling class could not have done a better job. Perhaps the ruling class have sometimes been doing the job.

Incidentally, these spies are not totally stupid. At one point Rimington mentions that it was "state capitalism" which many of the leftists were on about. And is it quite right that for most of this century many of those calling themselves "socialists" or "communists" (with the unqualified exception of the Socialist Party) were not actually opposing capitalism, but supporting a different version of capitalism, often identified with overseas dictatorships.

As far as this party is concerned. Big Sister and her spies are welcome to observe us. Indeed, we hope that they will learn something about the nature of society in the process. We are a party without leaders. So, they can infiltrate who they like into our ranks (as long as they convince us that they are socialists) and preferably send their spies out to sell this journal for us because somebody has to do it. Unlike the conspiratorial Leninist would-be vanguards, we have no secrets from the working class, so there is nothing worth bugging in the Socialist Party. In fact, in return for a generous donation, we can post our conference minutes and other fascinating documents directly to MI5, with free leaflets explaining the case for socialism to spies looking for a way out of a lousy job.

Down with justice!
The new Criminal Justice Bill is a piece of vicious legislation enacted by legalised criminals in the interest of injustice. The basis of property ownership is nothing less than the legally enforceable right of a small class of thieves (less than five percent of the population) to monopolise the earth and its resources at the expense of the wealth-producing majority. Any laws passed to solidify this freedom of thievery is deemed by them to be Justice; offenders against the holy law of property power are called Criminals. Hence the Criminal Justice Bill.

The Bill, which will give sweeping new powers to the police against workers in conflict with the rights of property, is another in a long line of attacks upon the ever-limited freedoms of the working- class majority in society. The powers given to uniformed boot-boys (themselves working-class mercenaries, of course) against homeless people who squat in unused properties or occupy available land will result in more misery and poverty for wage-slaves who have refused to knuckle under the conventional property code of the system. In truth, the idea of beating capitalism by squatting in empty houses (usually slums) or retreating into some ill-defined and rather uncomfortable "New Age" has always been a non-starter; but now the state is out to teach these workers just how unfree they are.

The new law contains fresh powers to control and suppress free assembly, including the rights of police to close down public gatherings of workers. Our rulers have never liked the idea of workers meeting together; our collective intelligence has always been a threat to them. In the last century they passed the infamous Gag Acts, laws forbidding more than six workers to meet in one place without the permission of a magistrate, and Sedition Acts which made it a conspiracy to advocate workers’ freedom. In 1819 they showed their democratic credentials when they massacred a peaceful crowd gathered to defend free speech in Manchester: the British Tiananmen Square. The new law being introduced now, which is partly the opportunist creation of a desperate Thatcherite Home Secretary who is anxious to keep his job by appealing to the class-spite of his party supporters, is no more than a continuation of the British state’s long-standing antagonism towards democratic freedoms for workers.

Capitalist democracy is something of a joke. Their justice is a sick joke. And when a class which has stolen the wealth of the world and spat on the liberties of the wealth-producing majority lectures us about threats to democracy and justice we are determined to be more openly subversive to their system than ever.

Steve Coleman

Life on the Dole (1995)

From the August 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a society where an individual's worth is measured not by personal qualities but their occupation, to lose your job is to lose your status in society and your personal identity. Even your best friends and relatives will distance themselves from you, on the assumption that you are a scrounger.

On a regular basis, the employment office will insist that you are "available for and actively seeking work” before you begin receiving the pittance known as dole money. Many unemployed people are compelled or coerced to take unattractive training and courses in order not to lose their dole money.

The present social system is wasteful because it erects barriers against useful work by millions of able people. Because we are living under the system of "no profit, no production", the number of workers out of work will always rise and fall as the industrial cycle goes through its normal phases of crisis, slump and boom.

In the competitive struggle which gives markets to the cheaper producer, each capitalist is trying to accumulate capital and expand their scale of operation, not to meet a known demand but as an end in itself, inevitably, “overproduction" develops in some big markets and crisis occurs, sales decline, investment ceases to be profitable, production is cut and workers are laid off on the scrapheap.

Now the government is urging unemployed workers to take “That Job", irrespective of wages and conditions. According to Portillo (Independent, 15 September 1994), “it is better for people to have low-paid part-time jobs than no job at all". But pricing yourself back into “that job" means accepting work less stimulating and only marginally more rewarding than wasting your time in the jobclub. Working for less wages is not a living but what has to be done to live.

The employment office is always asking why it is very difficult for you to find work. By the types of questions you have been asked, you will have sensed that the blame for your predicament is being put on you. This idea presupposes that employment is available if only the unemployed would look for it. This is an idea propagated by Portillo and his predecessors.

Every unemployed person is desperate to find a suitable job, and will take one if offered it. But forcing a job on someone regardless of the wages and conditions can only have a damaging effect.

We live in a world in which it is now possible to satisfy everybody’s needs, but the present system of production prevents this potential super-abundance being realised. Unemployment is therefore an unavoidable waste created by capitalism. The wealth that could be produced by the unemployed would be very useful and would benefit the whole community. But the present system of society does not, and cannot, work that way.

Michael Ghebre

Capitalism is Obsolete (1996)

From the August 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

The historically progressive nature of capitalism came to an end a long time ago. Now the system represents nothing more than organised scarcity where there is the potential for abundance

It would be foolish to deny that at one time the capitalist system was a progressive development of society. It is doubtful if even a dedicated admirer of privilege would want to go back to feudalism. Who would want to be ruled by an absolute monarch in the shape of King Charles III, either with or without Queen Diana? If we were so ruled more than a few of us would be plotting a fate for him similar to the one that befell his unfortunate predecessor King Charles I. However, although capitalism once moved us forward, it has long since outlived its usefulness. We come here to bury the capitalist system, not to praise it.

In deciding whether capitalism, like feudalism, should be consigned to history we should apply one simple test. Is the capitalist system organised directly for the needs of all people? If it is not, that would be the best reason for getting rid of it, and replacing it with one that would. This is a choice between capitalism or socialism.

Capitalism is organised for private gain, for profit and the accumulation of capital. It works through class ownership and economic exploitation. It sets up economic antagonisms within communities and divides the world into rival capitalist states. It breeds the ideologies of hate which are expressed in many forms of religion, nationalism and racism. It is enforced through the power structures of the state. It creates vast amounts of waste and destruction. It turns all the useful things of life, including our labour, skills and talents into commodities to be bought and sold on the markets. Capitalism makes a god of money and puts this above the real needs of people, so how could anyone seriously argue that it is organised for the benefit of the community?

Some obvious examples can be given. Surely, the first thing that any decent society would do is make sure that everyone ate enough quality food to sustain good health, yet there are more people starving or seriously undernourished than ever before. In the 1980s UNICEF stated that 40,000 children die every day from malnutrition or malnutrition-related disease, and this has not improved. We were all shocked and sickened by the slaughter of 16 children and their teacher in Dunblane. We should also remember that throughout the world thousands of children are dying needlessly every day.

We are not only talking about undeveloped countries. In the so-called advanced countries there is widespread poverty. In Europe 30 million people live below the poverty line (less than half average national income). In America the number is 32 million. According to a report issued by the Department of Social Security Report: Households below average income 1994, one third of all children, that is 4.1 million, live in poverty.

Appalling neglect of needs
How has capitalism responded to this appalling picture of starvation and poverty? It cut food production because it was said there was “over-supply”. To understand this we have to understand that in the twisted language of the market system “over-supply” does not mean “more than we need”. It means that too much food was produced for the purpose of selling it at a profit. As a result food prices fell and profits were threatened. To increase prices and profits, production was cut.

In America in 1983, 82 million acres were taken out of cereal production. This was equivalent to the combined states of Iowa, Illinois and half of Indiana. Europe did a similar thing under a different name, “set aside”. Under the latest, 1992, reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, European farmers have had to take 15 percent of croplands out of production.

The Independent (18 March 1994) carried a picture of a Major Lloyd and his wife who are being paid £19,000 per year for growing nothing on their 215 acres of high quality arable land in Oxfordshire. Major Lloyd is an ex-life guards officer, a group who are not normally noted for their humanitarian sentiments but even he can’t help saying, “something is wrong when there are so many people starving in the world and we’re being paid not to grow food”.

A further example of how the priorities of profit and capital accumulation come before the needs of people is unemployment. In the 25 countries of the so-called Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) 35 million are unemployed. In Germany it is over 4 million. Since 1980 in Britain there has never been less than two million unemployed using the old accounting methods.

In view of all the things that need to be done would a sane society keep millions of its work-force in a state of idleness? What has been the “opportunity cost”? Two million unemployed means 10 million work-days lost every week or 500 million every year. Since 1980, in Britain alone, more than eight billion work-days have been lost because of unemployment. Think of all the useful things that could have been done with these eight billion work-days, the houses and hospitals that could have been built, the production of food, better education, a decent public transport system and a clean-up of the environment. These are all examples of how the capitalist system prevents our use of resources whilst needs are denied.

We are not only talking about material things, we are also talking about dehumanised relationships in which producers are used as objects for private gain. Profit and capital accumulation can only be achieved through the economic exploitation of one class by another. The function of workers is to create values over and above what their wages or salaries will buy. This surplus is the source of the obscene disparities in the ownership of wealth which we see all around us.

The Independent (29 February') reported that in America “Just weeks after AT&T announced plans to shed 40,000 workers, it has emerged that its chief executive, Robert Allen, received a pay package in 1995 valued at just over $16 million, compared with $6.7 million a year earlier.” In this country, Barclays Bank has announced the loss of a further 1,000 jobs, just after posting $2 billion profits for 1995. This comes on top of its 21,000 workers sacked since 1991. Many such examples could be given and what they add up to is the fact that capitalism is ruthless in its treatment of people when  pursuing its aims. By no stretch of the imagination could the capitalist system be said to be organised for the benefit of the whole community, and this is the test as to whether it has outlived its usefulness, now that a world of abundance is possible.

Practical alternative

The practical alternative which would be organised directly for the needs of all people is socialism. The challenge of working with others round the world to set up a new system is not so great as it might appear. Already we have people doing useful work in every field. In farming, mining, industry, manufacture, building and transport, and in the running of services like education, health, communications, radio and television, and the like, we have people of every skill and talent doing the useful things of life. The challenge is to free these resources from the constraints and the anti-social aims of the capitalist system. If workers around the world can run society in the interests of profit-mongers then they can surely run it in their own interests.

This would have to be based on common ownership where all resources and all means of producing and distributing goods would be held in common by all people. Then through democratic control and voluntary co-operation every aspect of society would be organised solely for the benefit of the whole community.

What can be the justification for wanting to retain a system such as capitalism, which is only distinguished by its ability to generate failure and disillusion and all its various ways of thwarting the best hopes that we have for our future? The day is long overdue for getting rid of it.

Pieter Lawrence