Sociology or socialism? (1978)

From the June 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

This is the era of the social worker. Over the last twenty years in Britain the number of welfare workers, probation officers, and social workers has quadrupled. In addition to these 20,000 fieldworkers there are now about 87,000 home helps and a similar number of residential workers in homes for old people, children, the disabled and the mentally disordered. All of these are employed by the state and local authorities.

In industry too, there has been a steady growth in personnel departments, while in the voluntary field there has been the growth of what might be called the new charities. Organisations like Shelter, The Samaritans, Child Poverty Action Group, Help the Aged, British Pregnancy Advisory Service, refuges for battered wives, groups to help alcoholics and drug addicts agoraphobics, organisations to give advice on marriage problems, legal problems, sexual problems. They have all grown up to try to deal with the casualties of capitalism.

When the post-war economic boom finished and the amount of money available for social work began to dry up, social workers in particular found themselves in a very different position. While the needs, as they saw them, were increasing on every side, their numbers and the funds at their disposal were cut or held ruthlessly in check. For those who had entered social work full of idealism it was a considerable shock. They were sandwiched between pressure from their bosses above and the clamour from their 'clients' below. In addition, they found that there was still a pressure from outside: a large number of people with idealism like their own, wanted to do social work and get paid for it.

Like the craft unions of the past, like doctors and teachers and psychologists, social workers have begun to defend their position with qualifications. With these they have started to set themselves above and apart from those people forced to go to them for help. and to warn amateurs like friends and neighbours and relations against offering 'inexpert' help. They are the experts because they have studied the social sciences especially psychology and sociology, and they think they know how society works and how people should be treated.

When we look at the social sciences, however, it becomes clear that they are unscientific in a number of ways. As mental training for social workers, modern sociology and psychology serve the purpose very well, because they provide an ideology which persuades a large number of idealists to work hard at the interminable task of patching up and supporting capitalism. But as objective studies of what goes on in modern society they are in many senses worse than nothing because they promulgate fictions and obscure the facts.

Social scientists have responded to the criticism that they are unscientific over the years in two ways. Some have striven to make their work as similar to the natural sciences as possible in trying to construct experiments in which every factor is controlled and only the variable being studied is altered. The trouble with this approach is that it too often confines itself to the trivial. In the first volume of the European Journal of Behavioural Analysis and Modification, April, 1975, is a seven page article which gives an account of an experiment in which twenty homosexual men were shown slides of erotic pictures while the changes in volume of their penises were measured with a "mercury-in-rubber strain gauge'. In following pages, a critic observes that the five researchers were really measuring the change in the diameter of the penis, not the volume, and so their results were not very reliable. He also goes into detail about the experimental methods he used with 'unco-operative subjects'. The silliness of it all does not obscure the sinister implications in the title of the journal.

The other stance taken up by social scientists (notably sociologists) is to admit that a human study like theirs cannot be scientific in the same way as physics and chemistry because of the complexity of the phenomena. But there is a very strong tendency for sociologists to use this as an excuse for being less scientific than they could be. What really causes them to be unscientific is something quite different, something not related to the inherent difficulties of the study at all. And this is simply that they avoid studying any aspect of capitalism that would bring out radical criticism of it. Superficial criticism occurs in abundance. They discuss crime, job dissatisfaction, aspects of poverty, aspects of alienation, and many of the pointless ways in which workers try to make their lives tolerable and meaningful in this society.

Such sociologists only ever examine the working class and various groupings and strata within it. When they talk of class they mean sub-divisions of the working class. What they never study is the capitalist, the member of this society who, because he owns and invests wealth employing workers, has no need to work, and can be unconcerned about all the sociologists' fetishes of role and status because his wealth ensures these things. The capitalist class form roughly 10 per cent of the population. Their interests lie in direct opposition to the people the sociologist studies. And yet it is their ideas and attitudes that are the dominant ones in this society and are fed down to the workers, including the sociologists. It is even a capitalist idea that there is no such thing as a capitalist, that we are all workers: some of us work hard in factory machine shops or offices or mines; others work hard at fox-hunting or polo or yacht racing. And sociologists behave as though capitalists do not exist. The consequence of this is that, if we have a grouse about our own living standards, or if we make a more calculated criticism of the pollution, repression or destruction that are part and parcel of the modern capitalist world, the social scientist will explain that we are simply reacting against 'society', an aggregation of individuals like ourselves. Under the guise of an objective science, sociology, together with its related disciplines, is really a system of apologetics for capitalism. From Auguste Comte down to Talcott Parsons, sociologists and social psychologists have obscured the irreconcilable conflict of interests between the working class and the capitalist class. They have diverted attention away from what really makes like boring, stressful, frustrating and dangerous for the majority of the population. Even 'left wing' sociologists, who dimly perceive that they serve this purpose, and criticise the superficialities of life in capitalist society even more bitterly, serve capitalism all the more faithfully. Their function is to sound the warning bells about its weak points.

It is perhaps a sweeping generalisation to say that all sociology is a reaction against Marxism, but the number of times that Marx is mentioned and then 'brought up to date' or 'corrected' is uncountable. Talcott Parsons, in his essay "Social Classes and Class Conflict in the Light of Recent Sociological Theory" (Essays in Sociological Theory, Free Press, 1964) puts it like this:

Thus class conflict and its structural bases are seen in a somewhat different perspective. Conflict does not have same order of inevitability, but is led back to the interrelations of a series of more particular factors, the combinations of which may vary. Exactly how serious the element of conflict is becomes a matter of empirical investigation. Similarly, the Marxian utopianism about the classlessness of communist society is brought into serious question. There is a sense in which the Marxian view of the inevitability of class conflict is the obverse of the utopian factor in Marxian thought.
It should, however, be clearly noted how important Marx was in the development of modern sociological thought. All three of the writers who may be regarded as its most important theoretical founders—Vifredo Pareto, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber—were profoundly concerned with the problems raised by Marx. Each of them took the Marxian view with great seriousness as compared with its utilitarian background, but none of them ended up as a Marxian. Each pushed on to a further development in a distinctive direction which in spite of the diversity of their backgrounds contains a striking common element. 

That common element, of course, is support for capitalism to which Parsons also devotes himself. And when Parsons talks of 'empirical investigation' to see 'exactly how serious the element of conflict is' it is plain that he is indulging in pseudoscientific talk, or else he has never properly understood what Marx was saying.

It is quite true that Marxism, the approach of the revolutionary socialist, looks at societies, past, present and future in all their aspects from the point of view of one class — 90 per cent of the population of the industrialised world. The Marxist declares: 'These are facts; deny them if you can: the privations and frustrations and dangers suffered by so many thousands of people — all of the working class — cannot be talked away. They are necessary features of a class dominated, exploiting society'.

But the socialist goes further and says it is not enough merely to study capitalist society. Any member of the working class (and that includes most sociologists these days) should want to replace it with a better society as soon as possible, and so should be politically active towards this end. It is not enough, either, to be a social worker, because the task of trying to care for the casualties is hopeless in the long run. Capitalism will continue to cripple far more than can ever be coped with.

Ron Cook

Cooking the Books: Has Money Gone? (2012)

The Cooking the Books column from the May 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

In an article “The decline of money” (Weekly Worker, 9 March) Hillel Ticktin argues that money did not exist in the USSR, does not exist in China and that fiat money issued by governments even in the West isn’t really money.

Marx saw money as having two basic functions: (1) a medium of exchange or circulation, i.e. the means through which articles produced for sale get bought and sold; and (2) a measure of value, i.e. a common unit in which the value of articles produced for sale can be expressed as a price, and is thus a standard by which they can be compared.

“The natural form of money”, Ticktin writes, “would be a commodity that could itself be produced with labour-power and would therefore have its own value.” This was certainly the typical form of money in Marx’s day and the form he discussed the most. This money-commodity (usually gold or silver) does not have to circulate itself and be used for payments. It can be replaced in circulation by tokens, including paper ones issued by the government.

Marx identified two kinds of paper token money: tokens that were convertible on demand into a fixed amount of the money-commodity and tokens which were not. The former created no problem. The latter, however, could create a problem if they were issued in a greater amount than the amount of the money-commodity that would otherwise circulate. In this case, if they circulated alongside gold or silver, the value of the tokens would depreciate, i.e. they would buy less than their face-value. If they were the only currency (as is the case today) this would result in a rise in the general price level, i.e. in a change in the standard of price.

An inconvertible paper currency has to be managed by the government or some state institution such as a central bank which, to avoid depreciation or inflation, has to calculate the correct amount to issue. In Marx’s day the case where the only currency was paper token money was a hypothetical one which he only discussed in passing. He was rather sceptical that it would work, on the grounds that it would not be possible in practice for a government to get the amount right and so there would be no stable standard of price.

Marx scepticism proved to be misplaced. He was right that there was likely to be a changing standard of price, but not that capitalism would be unable to cope with this. It has, and in fact this has become the norm, with most governments aiming at a price level rising at 2-3 percent a year.

The difference between a money-commodity and paper money, says Ticktin, is “that paper money is issued by governments and controlled by governments. It is effectively a nationalised form of money. It is not a spontaneous form, as with gold.” That is so, but Ticktin goes on to claim that “this nationalised form means that money is not really money as we understood it. One cannot say that £1 is equal to so much abstract labour. It is decided by governments and whomsoever is actually dealing with the money supply.”

It may not be the form of money Marx knew, but it is still money. It is still the medium of exchange and still a measure of value and standard of price even if a changing one. Ticktin is concerned that this “nationalised money” is controlled by ruling class technocrats instead of democratically in the interests of the working class. As if it could be.

We want, like Marx, a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of productive resources and production directly to meet people’s needs instead of for sale and profit and where money would therefore be redundant.

Capitalism — No Magic Slipper (2005)

Film Review from the October 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Make no mistake, “Cinderella Man” is a crackerjack movie which thoroughly justifies the praise lavished on it. The true story of Depression Era boxer James J. Braddock, who rose from the welfare rolls to winning the World Heavyweight Championship, thereby earning his nickname, “Cinderella Man”, is totally absorbing and powerfully directed by Ron Howard.

Braddock’s story was representative of his time. The movie begins in the late 1920s, when he lived in a nice suburban house and was a leading contender for a world title. It resumes when the Depression was at its worse in the early 30s and Braddock’s career was at its lowest ebb, hence his standard of living too. As the Depression gradually recedes, we follow his rise to a shot at the title (at odds of 10-1) and victory over the seemingly unbeatable Max Baer, who was (dis)credited with two ring deaths.

“Cinderella Man” clearly depicts how tough times were in the early 30s, which doesn’t mean it’s a happy-go-lucky romp in Elysian Fields today. When Braddock’s daughter asks for an extra slice of baloney, Braddock, who hasn’t eaten that day, pretends he isn’t hungry. When a guy comes to their tenement apartment to switch off the hydro, Mae Braddock (who is unable to pay the gas or milk bills either) attempts to dissuade him. He tells her, “I’ve got kids too. If I don’t switch it off I’ll lose my job.” Mae and her three children tear the slats off a billboard, for fuel, risking trouble with the authorities.

Though his pride has sustained some fierce body blows, his spirit is unbroken. Braddock’s strength comes from his closely-knit family and the belief in his capabilities by Joe Gould, who (unbeknownst to Braddock) sells his own furniture to pay Braddock’s training expenses.

As we follow Braddock’s new-found success it becomes clear this movie is about the indomitable human spirit. As Ron Howard said recently, “It’s a film about people finding the strength to carry on and do the things they have to do.” Most of us like to see the underdog triumph, most of us like to see a comeback, and here we have both, therefore, we can enjoy this film. Although it’s perfectly OK to enjoy “Cinderella Man”, it’s not OK to be taken in by it. Sure it’s a paean to the never-say-die, gotta give it my best shot feeling that exists in all of us. In that sense it’s uplifting and a film in tune with the times we are living in, let alone the 1930s.

But on a deeper level the message of the movie is, “Hey, take it easy buddy, capitalism ain’t so bad. Sure there are times when it’s tough all over, but if you hang in tough and keep struggling like Jim and Mae Braddock did you’ll find things’ll work out just fine.” This viewpoint was echoed by Russell Crowe on the David Letterman Show on June 8 and has become the main mantra of the media.

On the docks, Braddock befriends an ex-stockbroker who lost his job, mortgage and belief in politicians the day the market crashed. When Braddock suggests things might improve now Roosevelt is president, his friend replies, “FDR hasn’t got me my mortgage back.”

In implying that we shouldn’t trust politicians, they are saying the right thing for the wrong reason. Politicians of all kinds stand for a continuation of capitalism, a system that causes the conditions within which the Braddock family, like most families, struggled.

The pity of it all is that Braddock, like most members of the working class, didn’t learn much, but continued to believe society didn’t need changing. In 1928, a year before the Wall Street Crash, he lost $20,000 when the Bank of the United States went belly-up. This was the year Herbert Hoover was elected president on the promise of continued prosperity. According to Mr. Hoover, “We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land.”

Braddock, who was paid $32,000 for beating Max Baer, eventually gained greater prosperity by a deal that was thoroughly in keeping with boxing’s, hence capitalism’s, shoddy ethics. When Joe Louis had emerged as the outstanding challenger, Joe Gould informed him he could sign ten percent of his earnings over the following ten years to Gould and Braddock, should he win, or forget about a title fight. Knowing he could be denied a title shot for years because he was black, Louis signed.

Braddock died in his sleep on November 30, 1974 at the age of 69. The next day in the New York Times, Red Smith wrote, “If death came easily, it was the only thing in his life that did.”

Steve Shannon

Bert Ramelson buries Lenin (1976)

From the March 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

What happened when the BBC's "Newsday" interviewed the industrial organiser of the Communist Party would have been more suitable for the Goon Show, or Monty Python. Bert Ramelson, keeping a perfectly straight face, point-blank denied everything that the Communist Party was founded on and peddled for over thirty years!

True it is, as he said in the interview, that he only joined the CP in 1936; whereas some of us knew it intimately since 1920. However, that should not prevent him (or anybody else) knowing the facts. The interviewer did not know a great deal about the subject, and questioned from a prepared brief.

But even the political department of the BBC had heard that the Communist Parties were founded on "Leninism". That is, seizure of power by an intrepid, resolute minority of "professional revolutionists", leading the working class — who would then lead the "toiling masses" (meaning peasants) to socialist victory. For thirty years a vast mass of pamphlets, books and newspapers flogged the Leninist dogma of the "dictatorship of the proletariat", meaning minority action.

Many able writes waded patiently  through Marx's work to show that, from The Communist Manifesto onward, Marx never used this then-popular French slogan to mean anything else than majority democratic methods. For instance, Lucien Laurat, who in Marxism and Democracy quotes The Communist Manifesto:

The first stage in the working class revolution is the constitution of the proletariats as the ruling class, the conquest of democracy.

No use! For thirty years CP writers and speakers denounced democracy and exhorted the workers to follow "Marx's best disciple" Nikolai Lenin. Parliament was a useless "gasworks", elections a waste of time (although they regularly took part in them, but "only for propaganda, comrade"). The state would be smashed and "bourgeois" parliaments replaced by Soviets, "the workers' democracy".

The theses of the Communist International, Third Congress, prescribed the basis of Communist Parties. They must be organized with strict military discipline, based on "democratic Centralism", meaning complete obedience to the edicts of the Central Committee, or E.C., and prepared for "heavy civil war". The Programme of the Third International included armed insurrection.

For many a long and weary year the speakers of the Socialist Party strove manfully against an avalanche of Communist falsification of Marxism and distortion of Socialism. Exploiting every possible grievance of the workers — "the Leninist tactic": especially the mass unemployment of the 'thirties. Communist-inspired Hunger Marchers were batoned by the police after the General Strike ended in disaster; to be followed by yet another "change of tactics" by the CP.

When the war broke out poor old Pollitt, not realizing that Stalin had signed a pact with Hitler, proclaimed it a "just war", wrote a pamphlet "How to Win the War, One Penny" — and was promptly sacked by Moscow. After Hitler invaded Russia, the "imperialist war" of the western imperialist powers became "a war of liberation against German Fascism" and Pollitt was reinstated, although not as General Secretary of the Party.

Stalin had wiped the "Communist International" out of existence once he had the prospect of nuclear weapons. Understandably, the interviewer politely raised the question of the CP's present policy, and its past. "Was it not the case that the CP had advocated 'the dictatorship of the proletariat' in the past?"

"Not any more", replied Bert. Not any more! And do you know why, dear reader? Let Bert tell you. Because there has been "so much misunderstanding of what Marx really meant". He actually said this. "Marx meant the action of the vast overwhelming majority", said Bert; the CP has not used the phrase in any document since 1950, to avoid any more misunderstanding.

He was then asked if the British CP is a constitutional party, now willing to obey the majority vote. Yes! said Bert. But, said the question-master, didn't the CP try to take control of the trade unions? No, said our industrial organizer, not any more — we only organize our members in trade unions to help the unions, whose job is not political but economic. He would up by saying that the CP hoped to be able to join in a Coalition Government of Left-wing Labourites, like the Communists in France or Italy.

When one considers that Stalin systematically exterminated everyone within reach, and certainly everu one of those prominent in the Russian CP prior to Lenin's death . . .  when we recall Trotsky's extravagant calls for ruthless terrorism and the wiping-out of all opponents, and that many were shot by Stalin for daring to doubt his infallibility — we can only describe Bert as the best thing since electronic ignition.

Funnily enough, in the same week that Bert did his comic turn (19th January) the BBC was running a series involving Russia, called "Fall of Eagles". It was not expertly informed, but at least tried to achieve some resemblance to the facts. It showed the famous 1903 Congress, where Lenin founded the Bolshevik faction. Bert Ramelson did not even mention Lenin's name. Poor old "Ilyitch" is dead and buried, along with the thirty-eight volumes of his Collected Works.

And yet, up to and after 1950, famous scientists in Russia did not dare try to publish reputable work without the customary sickening adulation of Comrade Stalin — "Lenin's greatest disciple". How fortunate for Bert that he wasn't the industrial organizer then. He'd have got twenty years in a labour camp — if he was lucky!

Horatio

Scottish? English? Who Cares? (2014)

From the June 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the run-up to the referendum in Scotland in September we begin a three-part series exposing the myths surrounding events in Scottish history.

‘Reive’ is an early English word for ‘to rob’, from the Northumbrian Scots verb reifen, related to the modern English word ‘ruffian’. The reivers also added the words ‘blackmail’ and ‘bereaved’ to the English language.

During the wars between Scotland and England, the lives and livelihood of the people on the borders would be devastated by the contending armies. Crops were destroyed, homesteads burnt and the people murdered or dispersed. Those living in places known as Liddesdale, Redesdale and Tynedale were the most affected as, for reasons of geography, the invaders regularly used these routes. Families on either side of the Border had a lot in common regardless of whether they were Scots or English. It is no coincidence that these people, having their crops regularly destroyed and their livestock stolen, looked for other means of sustaining themselves and their families. They took to reiving.

Royal authority in either kingdom was often weak and there was little loyalty to a feeble or distant monarch. The uncertainty of existence meant that communities or people kindred to each other would seek security through their own strength and improve their existence at the expense of their rivals.

Bishop John Leslie of Ross wrote of the Border Reivers:

‘In time of war they were readily reduced to extreme poverty by the almost daily inroads of the enemy, so, on the restoration of peace, they entirely neglect to cultivate their lands, though fertile, from the fear of the fruits of their labour being immediately destroyed by a new war whence it happens they seek their substances by robberies or plunder and rapine (for they are particularly averse to the shedding of blood) nor do they much concern themselves whether it be from Scots or English that they rob...They have a persuasion that all property is common by law of nature and is therefore liable to be appropriated by them in their necessity.’ (our emphasis)

The Border reivers, nick-named the ‘steel bonnets’, raided along the border from the late 13th century to the beginning of the 17th century. Their ranks consisted of both Scottish and English families, and they raided the entire border country without regard to nationality. Border families practised customs similar to those of the Highland Gaels and although feudalism existed, loyalty to kin was much more important and this is what distinguished the Borderers from other Lowland Scots. Relationships between the Border clans varied from uneasy alliance to open deadly feud. There being much cross-border migration, families that were once Scots now identify themselves as English and vice versa.

The reivers were both English and Scottish and raided both sides of the border impartially, so long as the people they raided had no powerful protectors and no connection to their own kin. When fighting as part of larger English or Scottish armies, Borderers were difficult to control as many had relatives on both sides of the border, despite laws forbidding international marriage by punishment of death. They could claim to be of either nationality, describing themselves as Scottish or English at will. At battles such as Ancrum Moor in Scotland in 1545, Borderers changed sides in mid-battle, to curry favour with the likely victors, and at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh in 1547, an observer (William Patten) noticed that the Scottish and English borderers were talking to each other in the midst of battle, and on being spotted put on a show of fighting. Indeed the Borderers had a much closer allegiance to their family than to their country. Raids were made, not in the name of Scotland or England, but in the name of their family or clan. A Border official, Thomas Musgrave said:  ‘They are people that will be Scottishe when they will and English at their pleasure.’

When a man was killed his whole family became involved in a feud with the family who had done the killing. Reprisals were not just against the killer's immediate family but against anyone with the same surname. Mostly feuds were English against English and Scot against Scot. These feuds could last for generations and families could be engaged in several feuds with several other families. The authorities were reluctant to get involved in feuds because it was their thinking that they could stand back and watch troublesome families kill each other and rid the authorities of problems with these families.

The Debatable Lands lay between Scotland and England, extending from the Solway Firth near Carlisle to Langholm in Dumfries and Galloway, the largest population centre being Canonbie, and which country's sovereignty it lay under was a matter of dispute. Some twelve miles long and three to four miles wide, the boundaries were marked by the rivers Liddel and Esk in the east and the River Sark in the west. For over three hundred years they were effectively controlled by local clans, such as the Armstrongs, who successfully resisted any attempt by the Scottish or English governments to impose their authority and who could alone put 3,000 men in the field. They launched frequent raids on farms and settlements outside the Debatable Lands and the profits enabled them to become major landowners.

In 1530, King James V broke the strength of the Armstrongs by hanging Johnnie Armstrong of Gilnockie and 31 others. In 1551 the Crown officers of England and Wales, in an attempt to clear out the trouble makers, declared that ‘All Englishmen and Scottishmen, after this proclamation made, are and shall be free to rob, burn, spoil, slay, murder and destroy all and every such persons, their bodies, buildings, goods and cattle as do remain or shall inhabit upon any part of the said Debatable Land without any redress to be made for the same.’

Upon his accession to the English throne, James VI of Scotland (who became James I of England) moved hard against the reivers, abolishing Border Law and the very term ‘Borders’ in favour of ‘Middle Shires’, and dealing out stern justice to reivers. He embarked on the so-called ‘Pacification of the Borders’.

James was determined to have a United Kingdom. He proclaimed that ‘if any Englishman steal in Scotland or any Scotsman steal in England any goods or cattle which amount to 12 pence, he shall be punished by death.’ The most blatant offenders were rounded up and served with what was known as ‘Jeddert Justice’ - summary execution. Some families abandoned their reiver connections and found favour with the king and joined in the subjugation of the old reiving families to be rewarded with the lands of their former friends and allies. All Borderers were forbidden to carry weapons and fortified tower houses destroyed. Reiving families were dispossessed of their lands, the people scattered or deported, and many families rounded up and banished to Ireland where they partly made up those who became known as the Ulster-Scots. And there lies another tragic tale of blood-soaked nationalism and unionism!

ALJO

War, Weapons and Water (2012)

From the December 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Whisky is for drinking; water is for fighting over.’ (Mark Twain)

The BBC in November 1999 reported on a UN Development Programme which argued that potential ‘water wars are likely in areas where rivers and lakes are shared by more than one country’. Speaking in New Delhi in March 2001 the then Secretary General of the UN, Kofi Annan, predicted that: ‘if we are not careful, future wars are going to be about water and not about oil.’ John Reid, Minister for Defence warned in 2006 that: ‘climate change may spark conflict between nations – and … British armed forces must be ready to tackle the violence,’ Independent (28/02/06).  And in March of this year in the Guardian Energy Secretary, Ed Davies stated that: ‘I have a fear for the world that climate instability drives political instability,’ and continued by saying: ‘The pressure of that makes conflict more likely.’ Mark Twain may have got it right then.

The Pacific Institute (worldwater.org) underline Twain’s words through their chronology of 225 entries from 3000 BC to 2010 of violent conflicts relating to water. Water and air are the two necessities of human life. Fortunately, only water has evolved into private property and only recently as a commodity for sale on the market. Fortune magazine extols its virtues as a commodity: ‘One of the world's great business opportunities. It promises to be to the 21^st century what oil was to the 20^th’ (CBC News, 02/03). Which might give Kofi Annan something to brood over.

The origins of conflicts over water developed with the ownership of domestic livestock and the growth of agriculture several thousand years ago. Water had gradually taken on an economic character. Thus, when grazing pasture and natural watering holes dry up, and farmers seem to be flourishing, then peaceful cooperation inevitably stops working. Latterly, under capitalism, the procuring, extracting, treating, storing and delivery of water has a cost and, as Fortune magazine points out, a profit is expected in return. If supplies of any commodity become short, it can be expected that the price will rise.

Growth is as important to capitalism as water is to a human being. And water is a crucial element in any future growth of capitalism. Global capitalists compete to harness and control water because it is an indispensable component for commercial fisheries, agriculture, manufacturing and tourism, and most importantly it is a source of energy through hydroelectric power, which at present supplies around 6 per cent of the world’s commercial energy. But this commodity is becoming scarce. A CIA report in 2000 predicted that ‘By 2015 nearly half the world's population –more than 3 billion people –will live in countries that are 'water-stressed' –- have less than 1,700 cubic meters of water per capita per year –mostly in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and northern China’ (sourcewatch.org).

In Africa, The Okavango Basin is a source of tension between Botswana and Namibia. Both countries are victims of drought and Namibia has already built a water canal and has proposed building a pipeline to divert water from the river back into Namibia. At stake for Botswana is its only source of water and an expanding income from tourism. Namibia argues that it is entitled to any water that flows through its country. Egypt’s economy is highly dependent on agriculture and thus the distribution of the waters of the Nile. Egypt claims to have a historical right to the Nile, but upstream, Ethiopia and Sudan see matters differently. The former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak threatened in 1989 to send demolition squads to destroy a projected dam in Ethiopia, and ‘The Egyptian army still has jungle warfare brigades, even though they have no jungle’ (aljazeera.com/).

In the Middle East just one per cent of the world’s water is competed for by five per cent of its population. Thus, the former Israeli Prime Minister, General Ariel Sharon, could state that, ‘People generally regard 5 June 1967 as the day the six-day war began. That is the official date. But, in reality, it started two- and-a-half years earlier, on the day Israel decided to act against the diversion of the Jordan.’ And in 1979 following the signing of the peace treaty with Israel, President Anwar Sadat said that ‘Egypt will never go to war again, except to protect its water resources’. Likewise King Hussein of Jordan stated that ‘he will never go to war with Israel again except over water’ (mideastnews.com). Israel maintains control over the River Jordan and has restricted supplies during times of scarcity as the people of the Palestinian Territories will validate.

The Euphrates River has been a regional flashpoint for a number of years. Minor skirmishes had been fought between Syria and Iraq over water rights. In May 1975 tensions were ratcheted up when both sides massed troops on their borders following Syria’s claim that Iraq had reduced the flow of water by 50%. In January 1990 Turkey shut off the flow of the Euphrates for 30 days by closing the gates of the Ataturk Dam. And in 1998 distrust, which some observers believed could lead to hostilities, arose because of Turkish plans to build dams that could be used to control supplies to downstream Syria. The escalating scarcity of water in the region has done nothing to improve this situation.

China and India’s economic growth is jealously eyed by other capitalist states. With the predicted consequences of climate change and faster glacial melt factored into the thinking of state planners, alternative methods for power, such as hydroelectricity, have been a strategic dynamic in their efforts to maintain future levels of growth. Power shortages are acting as a constraint on India’s factory output. Outages are frequent and for an economy that is already slowing a serious handicap. And, of course, the damming of rivers brings with it control: a useful adjunct to cheap power.

China and India boast two of the world’s mightiest armies who fought a brief border war in 1962. Both stand poised over tensions concerning upstream Chinese proposals to divert water from the Brahmaputra River. The Brahmaputra flows from its source in the Himalayas into Eastern India where it unites with the Ganges. To the east The Kishanganga River thunders down through Northern Kashmir to The Kishanganga Hydroelectric Plant, which was constructed to divert water from the river to a power plant in the Jhelum River basin. The Kishanganga flows on down past one of the world’s most heavily defended borders into Pakistan. The Pakistan state is concerned that the dam will have a detrimental effect on the flow of the river. Water has long been a source of strain between India and Pakistan.

Meanwhile China is also busy in Southeast Asia, along with Laos, in constructing dams over the Mekong River to the alarm of downstream states. Moreover China has built almost 20 dams, and around 40 more are planned, on the eight Tibetan rivers. It is believed that hydropower alone is not the only motive for China’s increasing control over the sources of rivers.

In a society that is awash with weapons that come in various guises, water might appear to be less menacing than many. However, water is now talked of as a ‘Political Weapon’, which is synonymous with the deceptive language conjured up by the school of wordsmiths who gave birth to the snappy idiom, ‘The Nuclear Deterrent’. Brahma Chellaney, the author of the book ‘Water: Asia's New Battlefield’ has asserted, ‘Whether China intends to use water as a political weapon or not, it is acquiring the capability to turn off the tap if it wants to – a leverage it can use to keep any riparian neighbours on good behaviour.’

Problems globally will be exacerbated with the expected rise in grain and oilseed prices as US crops suffer from the country's worst drought since 1936 and the farming regions of South America and Russia suffer similar water shortages (Daily Telegraph, 5 September). According to Rabobanks’ commodities analysts, ‘By June 2013, the basket of food prices tracked by the United Nations could climb 15pc from current levels.’ Rising food prices are always a source of social discontent and thus political instability.

A growing number of environmental writers and strategic analysts view water as a potential trigger for future wars. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2007 stated that: ‘The consequences for humanity are grave. Water scarcity threatens economic and social gains and is a potent fuel for wars and conflict.’

Socialists view war as the last resort for states. Scarcity of any resource that is vital for the production of profits could be, and has been, seen by states as a reason to go to war.

Andy Matthews

Irish Trot (2011)

Book Review from the October 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx and the Alternative to Capitalism. By Keiran Allen. Pluto Press. 233 pages.

Professor Keiran Allen is a senior lecturer in Sociology at University College Dublin and his book purports to offer Marxism as an alternative form of social organisation to a sick and increasingly socially vile capitalism.

Marx delineated the social mores and behavioural culture that dominated and dominates our lives in capitalism, debunking the myths and superstitions originating in a class-structured society. Allen begins his work with a brief history of Marx’s life and times followed by an examination and, in some ways, clarification of his key theories, his theory of value and his Materialist Conception of History.

I found Allen’s exposition of Marx’s concept of alienation engagingly relevant to life in contemporary capitalism where the obscenities of extreme riches and poverty represent ubiquitous fare in the media. This is an increasingly relevant and often neglected area of Marxism in a world where the old traditional ‘moral’ values and the idea of a harsh Universal Policeman are disintegrating and where the vision of real social reform has been replaced by the visible political effluence of wealth-corrupted politicians.

Unfortunately what Allen offers as a Marxian antidote to the ongoing crisis of capitalism is all his own work.

In the Leninist tradition (he is a leading member of the Irish section of the SWP) he sees the working class, the vital element in the revolutionary transformation of capitalism, as being unfit for purpose; unable to rise to a full comprehension of social freedom and capable only of reacting to the leadership of an informed revolutionary elite. And, like Lenin, he thinks socialism is an indefinite condition, a form of political sticking plaster that may be applied by state regulation to the harsher sores of capitalism to make it less painful. Given his insubstantial perception of socialism it is not so surprising that he has discovered little islands of it out there existing among the turbulent oceans of world capitalism.

So what is this Marx being offered by Professor Allen as an alternative to capitalism?

Well, first we will have the Revolution – internecine warfare and those nasties that normally engender hatred and division but, guided by the revolutionary elite will, according to Allen, create working-class solidarity and a new (but, it transpires, not very new) social order.

The farmer will still own his field (p.180) and you’ll still be able to spend your money in the cafes and local shops but if you work for some of the big companies your new boss will be the state There will still be a need for wages’ departments and banks but if you are on the minimum wage you will have the satisfaction of knowing that the pay of those above you in the pecking order be restricted to a maximum of, say, four or five times what you get (p.192)

So, just as after the last Bolshevik Revolution, we will be a society of equals – but some will be more equal than others.

Richard Montague

Is There Anybody Out There? (2000)

TV Review from the April 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

The question of whether we are entirely alone in the universe is one that has perplexed philosophers, scientists and daytime talk-show hosts across the aeons of time. BBC2's Horizon addressed itself to that very issue last month enquiring whether somewhere out in the vast expanses of the universe there is a planet (or planets) just like Earth. If there is, do they know about our existence and have they monitored our activities in any way? Are they aware of all our social and cultural developments? And if so, did they understand 3-2-1?

To be fair, Horizon restricted itself to discussing the strictly scientific advances surrounding the various recent attempts to discover the existence of hitherto unknown planets, particularly the efforts of the successful team based in Scotland. This was entirely worthy from the point of view of a respected science programme like Horizon, but it did unfortunately entail prolonged discussions about seemingly randomly-spaced dots on endless pieces of graph paper. All in all, it was quite possibly not what a lot of viewers had in mind when they switched on.

It did, however, beg questions which will no doubt be returned to time after time. Foremost among these of course is if—as seems to be the case—other planets exist elsewhere in the universe, how likely is it that some of them can support life? Is it the case, as some scientists have recently maintained, that Earth coalesces such an entirely unique combination of properties to sustain life that it is highly unlikely that life will exist on any other planet?

Socialists are naturally in no better a position to judge this than anyone else, though it is worth mentioning that the view that We Are Alone has always seemed a particularly unscientific one given the vastness of the universe and the multiplicity of its star systems—moreover, it smacks somewhat of a search for a scientific justification for the creationist sympathies of some scientists, sympathies that are often lurking at a deeper ideological level.

To go boldly

If intelligent life does exist elsewhere then it is quite possible that some of this life will be aware of our existence, and if so, then they will surely look at us with a little pity. How could it be otherwise with a planet populated by an intelligent and technologically-developing group of mammals who are to all intents and purposes a slave species, under the parasitic domination and control of a tiny group from their own number? As Gene Rodenberry, the founder of Star Trek, tried to tell the waiting world before William Shatner got in the way, sophisticated and technologically advanced life-forms are unlikely to be living in conditions of self-imposed artificial scarcity elsewhere, in societies based on slavery and exploitation like we have on Earth.

It is interesting to socialists how often science fiction writers—those most typically granted licence in such matters in modern society—return to this theme despite the ideological hegemony of the ruling capitalist class and the mindset associated with it, dominated by everything consequent on private property and competition. Some scientists have shown an ability to explore this theme too. These have included an American called Fred Steckling, who wrote a seemingly kooky book some years ago which was among a number at the time attempting to argue from official NASA sources and photographs that alien life-forms of some kind had a base on the moon. The fixed constructions and vehicles Steckling claimed to identify in the photographs included in his book were of such a colossal magnitude that he contended that:

". . . whoever they are, living on the Moon, or using it as a base, must have solved the economic aspects in the construction of such vehicles long ago. This in turn suggests great co-operation and consolidation of people, talents and experts into one genuinely co-operating labor force . . . This no doubt suggests that whoever they are up there, they are more advanced than us. One could speculate further, that with such great co-operation, there would result a common language and economy with perhaps the elimination of the monetary system entirely. It is logical to assert, pursuing this same line of thought, that this seems to be the reason why the officials [NASA and US Intelligence] have chosen to ignore these inexorable truths" (Alien Bases On the Moon, p.28).

If Steckling was arguing logically from an unfortunately flawed premiss in writing this, he was at least more advanced in his application of the materialist conception of history than the bizarre Leninist outfit the Revolutionary Workers Party, whose periodical can still be found occasionally in the darkest recesses of Housman's bookshop. For those who don't remember, this was the Trotskyist sect which claimed that if socialism is impossible in one country (true enough) then it must be impossible on one planet as well (“that is illogical, captain”).

Of course, the underlying point about all this speculation over the existence of other life forms (and it is, at the moment, only that) is that it should not get in the way of attempts to solve the very real problems of humanity down here on planet Earth. For that is a large part of the problem with searches for extra-terrestrial intelligence and all the rest of it—whether done throughHorizon's conventional scientific methods or not. If all the well-meaning individuals out there who have spent their time looking for some sort of salvation or rescue by extra-terrestrials had concentrated on the real and concrete task of struggling to free humankind from our self-imposed chains, then we may well have dispensed with the need for alien assistance quite some time ago—whether any was forthcoming or not.

DAP

Reformism - or socialism? (2002)

From the March 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are two kinds of reformism. One has no intention of bringing about revolutionary change – indeed it may use reforms to oppose such change. The other kind cherishes the mistaken belief that successful reforms will somehow prepare the ground for revolution. Reforms are seen as necessary first steps on the long road to eventual revolution.

Reformism has some attractions over revolution – especially if you lack imagination, don't like confrontation. prefer to think only in the short term, and don't want to be accused of not living in the real world. You are also assured of being in good company because large numbers of people think (or fail to think) as you do.

Reformism is a most excellent strategy if you want only small changes in society, and are satisfied with what you get (which is usually substantially less than what you were promised). However, reformism is futile for two other groups of people: those who expect that capitalism can be reformed to operate in the interests of the majority, and those who believe that a programme of reforms will “win the workers for the revolution” and hence make a contribution to the achievement of socialism.

The idea that capitalism can be humanised and changed by a series of reforms is almost as old as the capitalist system itself. But reforms are implemented by political parties that seek and get a mandate to run capitalism. The motives for reforms may include anxiety to relieve suffering and keenness to promote well-being, but the measures have the effect of serving the system rather than meeting the needs of individuals or groups.

Examples of reforms serving capitalism over the last two centuries are not hard to find. The Poor Law of 1834 was a response to mass destitution as peasants were driven off the land – crime and the poor health of workers were expensive to the ruling class (incidentally, minimal “relief” pacified workers by removing their pauper status). The post-1945 Welfare State introduced measures of health and social security intended to raise workers' efficiency and thus make them more productive of profit for the capitalist class – poverty was re-organised, not abolished.

The role of hegemony – a powerful combination of ruling ideas filtered through conventional education, the mass media, and a culture of consumption – is important in understanding how reformism, like all policies designed to sustain capitalism, is actually carried out by members of the working class (the roughly 98 percent of the population who are not capitalists). Concerned as they are to maintain the profit system, they persuade themselves to do what is best for “the economy”. Furthermore, one person's advocated reform is sometimes another person's preferred status quo. To Old Labour, nationalisation was a reform; to New Labour, at least some privatisations are a reform.

The kind of reformers who believe they are taking the first practical steps on the long road to eventual revolution are looking for quick results, which means they want as many people as possible to support their proposed reforms. Reformers often say to revolutionaries “Don't split the Left. We are all working for the same goal, so why don't you join us? We can get strength through unity.”

Revolutionaries must reject this appeal if they are to remain revolutionaries. Reformism is never a contribution to the achievement of socialism – it is a diversion of energies working for that goal. The offer of unity proposed by the reformer to the revolutionary is always a poisoned chalice: “Join us today to promote . . . .[small but achievable reform] and tomorrow we'll start the revolution together.” But of course tomorrow never comes.

Another line of thinking that presents itself as friendly to revolution but is really calculated to frustrate it is “the time is not yet ripe” argument. Consider this statement by R.Biel in his recent book The New Imperialism:

  “The organised left has itself opted for a mode of action which downplays (without completely rejecting) the idea of directly challenging the system… The left has had to retreat for a time from organising an alternative political economy, and is working instead on the terrain of capitalism” (emphasis added).

“Working on the terrain of capitalism” is a euphemism for reformism. There are two implications in what Biel is saying. One is that there was a time when the left – or at least part of it – was working for socialism. The other is that, since the retreat was only “for a time”, there will be a time in the future when working for socialism will come to the top of the agenda instead of being downplayed.

A further interesting question is why the left supposedly “has had to retreat” from something it never really did anyway, that is, work wholeheartedly for socialism. Were the arguments for capitalism so strong that its opponents were forced into retreat? More likely those of the reformers who claimed to be willing to become revolutionaries in the long run succumbed to the status-quo-preserving goodies that they saw within their grasp in the short run.

The New Statesman journal offers general support to New Labour's reforms, but to describe that support as lukewarm would be to exaggerate the heat. Its editorial of 25 September 1998 is worth quoting at length:

“The arguments for electing Labour governments have never been based wholly, or even mainly, on the likelihood of their bringing about equality or the abolition of poverty or any of the other traditional aims of social democracy. Within two or three years of taking office, Labour, more often than not, is blown off course and forced to introduce policies quite at variance with its original intentions, slashing, for example, the public services on which the poor depend. But Labour governments have usually nudged things in the right direction. The economic gains for the poor folk of Barnsley, Blackburn or Bootle may be scarcely measurable at the end of a period of Labour government but at least, for a year or two, their voices have counted in Whitehall and Westminster and, with luck, their children will be taught in slightly smaller classes or their local bus services will run a bit more frequently or their hospitals will be a bit less dilapidated.”

But, looking at New Labour's achievements so far in its second term of office, don't bank on even those small mercies. Such are the “benefits” offered by a reforming party, proud not to be revolutionary. Thank goodness a party was not elected that nudged things in the wrong direction!

Capitalism, like an old car, has developed many faults and always seems to be needing costly repairs and new parts. Isn't it about time we scrapped it and got something new? The analogy isn't a particularly good one – for one thing, replacing a car costs only money, while replacing a social system takes much thought and organisation – but at least it reminds us that things (whether cars or social systems) don't have to be patched up for ever.

Going directly for revolution, refusing to settle for anything less than the full monty of socialism, is a policy that will take time to bring results. Many people will have to be weaned off the superficial attractions of “achievable” reforms. But going for revolution isn't just a long-term policy – it is also a good short-term one. Faced with an electorate who refuse to vote for capitalism-supporting candidates, confronted by a majority who no longer believe “there is no alternative”, challenged by a growing socialist movement that says revolution is possible and shows how life and society could be so much better, what else can those who wish to support capitalism do than concede as much as possible, in effect to narrow the gap between the old and new systems?

Stan Parker

Greasy Pole: Attack Dog? Or Barking Mad? (2014)

The Greasy Pole column from the June 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

Any Honourable member who came into the House through inheriting a seat left vacant by the retirement of an independent, blue-blooded Old Etonian will have devoted some thought to the best way of Making A Name For Themselves. Epsom and Ewell in the lushly arboreal county of Surrey has been palaeocrystic in its loyalty to the Conservative Party. Between 1978 and 2001 it was represented by Archibald Gavin Hamilton Kt PC who was knighted in 1994 and then eventually made a life peer in 2005 as Lord Hamilton of Epsom, of West Anstey in the County of Devon. At 6 feet 6 inches he was the tallest MP, an early recruit of the Conservative Monday Club and chairman of the 1922 Committee. Among his other junior posts was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. And oh yes; he now plays bridge for the House of Lords team.

Grayling

Hamilton's resignation left the Tories of Epsom and Ewell seeking a replacement. Among the hopefuls there was Chris Grayling – if they were prepared to overlook the embarrassing fact that he had once been a member of that chaotic spasm the Social Democratic Party. He had trodden the well-worn path of Cambridge, TV journalism, management consultancy and the obligatory candidacy in some impregnable fortress of the provincial Labour Party. He was chosen as the candidate and in the 2001 election he had a majority some way above 10,000. In the Commons he soon attracted attention with junior jobs in Transport, Work and Pensions and the Home office. Whatever else this experience offered him it was a valuable opportunity to establish a reputation – which the Tories badly needed then - for determined aggression.

That was a time when the Blair governments were persistently vulnerable to hostility from any ambitious predator and Grayling fitted this role well enough to earn himself the title of 'attack dog', undeterred by the fact that he would be subjected to the same treatment if the Tories were to get back into power. In 2005 he attacked Cherie and Tony Blair, and in 2007 Gordon Brown, for breaches of the ministerial code in their foreign travel. And among the most dramatically newsworthy, in 2005: 'I am astonished that Mr. Blunkett has broken the Ministerial Code on yet another occasion. This is getting beyond a joke' – which persuaded Blunkett to resign from a governmental post for the second time in a year. It all went a long way to solidify Grayling's standing as the Tories' attack dog, helping them back to their rightful place in power.

Benefits

Grayling's appointment after the 2010 election as Minister of State for Employment encouraged him to turn his attention to other targets. For example those hordes of idle, manipulating layabouts who, rather than submit themselves to compliant exploitation, lived by dishonest claims for state benefits and so almost bled the City of London to extinction.

In 2007, during his time in opposition, Grayling had said that a problem for the next – presumably Tory – government was that the benefits system was causing 'billions of pounds' to be lost to fraudulent claims but in fact most of this was due to departmental errors so that less than £1 billion was in question. In another field there was the award of a lucrative contract to administer some 'Welfare-To-Work' schemes to Grayling's preference the firm Deloitte Ingeus after they had made a donation of nearly ￡28,000 to Grayling. And there was the matter of his expense claims, in which he spread the cost of extensive improvements in his flat in Pimlico over two years so that he could claim the full amount in total. As a whole these matters, together with many others of similar style, do not support any image of Grayling as a minister conforming to the same style of living and contributing as he seeks to impose on the rest of us.

Baltimore

In September 2012 Grayling was promoted in a reshuffle to join the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor. This change was not universally welcome; in March 2010 he had almost brought about his own disappearance from the gaggle of aspiring promotion prospects by the protests greeting his approval of landlords choosing to discriminate against gay and lesbian couples. In what is known as the Criminal Justice System there were similar reservations for in August 2009 he had upset the police and local councillors when he likened the crime in Moss Side, Manchester to what was depicted in Baltimore by the American TV series The Wire as'urban war'. In fact there was little similarity between the two cities; the police said that gang-related shootings were down by 82 percent and the Manchester Evening News reported that there had been no such murders during the previous year –a pretty awful situation but nothing like as bad as Grayling alleged. There was also a distinct, strongly expressed, opposition to his appointment from the lawyers, still smarting from the cuts in legal aid payments, because they interpreted the fact that Grayling was the first Lord Chancellor without any legal qualifications as a message that the law was now 'negotiable'.

Books

So there could be no surprise that Grayling turned his attention to the prison system and what goes on in it and what is expected of it. His policy was summed up by one of his staff as 'Offenders can't expect something for nothing any more'. And it turned out that 'something' included books mailed to prisoners by their family, which are now banned. One of the objectors to this restriction was Eric Allison, prison correspondent of The Guardian, who some years ago was released on licence from a life sentence. Allison ascribes his turning point to the opportunity to read, which separated him from the nearly 50 percent of prisoners who struggle with a reading age of or below that of an 11 year old: 'I suddenly thought where have you been all my life? I just devoured books'. It went on from there, over the years until he came out a changed man.

Can we expect anything as dramatic and impressive from our Lord Chancellor Chris Grayling? The attack dog . . ? Perhaps just one more thing of note: he is now known among his staff as Failing Grayling.

Ivan

World Socialism—the only way to end war

From the April 1984 issue of the World Socialist

The Parties within the World Socialist Movement stand uniquely against capitalism. We reject that system utterly and completely in whatever guise it appears: State capitalism, run by "communists", "mixed-economy" capitalism, run by "socialists", social-democrats or centrists; or the more openly vicious variety of unfettered "free" capitalism run by the less pretentious political gangsters.

We reject capitalism utterly precisely because there are no solutions to its abundant miseries, like war and unemployment. War, like poverty, slums, unemployment, crime and the rest are not really problems of capitalism; they are integral parts of that system; they exist everywhere the system exists and for as long as the system has existed. They will continue to last as long as capitalism itself lasts.

CAPITALISM

Capitalism divides the human family into two parts: one, a small minority, monopolises all the resources of the earth and that monopoly is effectively written into the laws and protected by the armed forces of the various states into which the world is divided including state capitalist Russia and China. The other class in our society, the working class, form the overwhelming majority of the population in the developed states of capitalism. By and large, the members of the latter class own nothing but their ability to work, their mental or physical labour-power and this they are obliged to offer on the labour market for a wage or salary in order to buy the necessities of life.

All wealth is produced by the labour-power of the working class applied to the materials provided by nature. The capitalists own and control not only these materials but, also, the accumulated wealth that constitutes the machinery of production and distribution.

When workers sell their labour power to an employer—an individual capitalist, a limited company or the state—they are concerned with the price they get for the commodity they sell and the conditions attending the sale. The capitalists, on the other hand, or their agents, who employ workers are interested solely in the maximum amount of profit that can be extracted out of the commodity they buy, the worker's labour-power.

So the motive force behind the production of wealth in capitalist society is, and must be, profit and the priorities of that motive must take precedence over human considerations.

SCRAMBLE FOR PROFITS

In order to realise profit, those commodities produced by the workers have to be sold on the market. They have to find buyers who are not only in need of the commodities but who have, as well, the money to buy them. As long as market conditions can absorb commodities, production expands and manufacturers actively compete with each other to produce and sell still more products and improve their market share.

Given the nature of capitalism and its insatiable need for more and more profit, there is a compulsion for ever greater levels of production; new investment is attracted into areas of the market that promise a good return; new factories are built, new jobs created. Capitalism is in an expansive phase and its possessors are in a mad, unplanned and unplannable, scramble to reap maximum profits.

Even if the capitalists, as a national group within a given nation, tried to plan their system of commodity production to conform with the economic demands of the market, they could not succeed. Capitalism is a world system with an intricate and complex means of marketing and competition involving the importation and exporting of commodities, the transfer of capital and the multi-national interests of the capitalist class.

Within the national economy, capitalist enterprises compete vigorously and, sometimes, viciously, against one another. The rules of the game—wholly unconnected with the social needs of the community—are to achieve the most dominant position in the market. The drill is to knock out the competition and, especially as market conditions become more difficult in face of an increasing volume of commodities, there is no lamenting the casualties. The factory that closes because its owners cannot achieve sufficient return on investment, the workers who are dumped into misery, even, it must be said, the shareholders who may lose their unearned incomes, are a source of triumph for the competitor or competitors whose activities have contributed to the shut-down.

WAR

It is this inevitable competition for markets, this necessary built-in compulsion of each capitalist enterprise to improve its profitability by enlarging its market share, that creates the material conditions for friction between the nations of capitalism.

Within the nation state conflict is resolved by legal process and, while the friction created by competitive interests are frequently vicious, it would not, for obvious reasons, suit the national capitalist interest if naked force became the arbiter in disputes between individual capitalist enterprises.

On the international scene the situation is different. Some attempts are made to create institutions, like the old League of Nations and the present United Nations, to resolve conflicts of interest between nations. But such institutions themselves necessarily reflect the conflicting economic interests of their members and, anyway, it is impossible to resolve amicably conflicts between national interests when the sense of "justice" of the parties involved are conditioned by the requirements of economic gain and, sometimes, even economic survival.

So each nation state must maintain its own armed forces to protect the wealth of its national capitalist class from the predatory aspirations of its trade rivals. Sources of raw materials, markets, trade routes and strategic areas for their protection or acquisition have got to be defended by force of arms if necessary or to be gained by force of arms. They represent the vital life's blood of capitalism and no price in human lives or materials can be too high to achieve them or to keep them.

Within the national state this means the creation of conditions that make capitalism acceptable to the great majority of the people it exploits. This requires a system of education that underpins the "reasonableness" and inevitability of capitalism and the promotion of "moral" concepts by benign propaganda; it requires a press, radio and television that may be allowed the "democratic right" of criticism but ultimately promotes the notion that, while things might be done better, the capitalist way-of-life is as natural as the seasons. The needs of the capitalist class are nurtured and protected and the fiction created that there is a common "national interest" which is, above all, good and which must be preserved and protected—if necessary by the public power of coercion.

Outside the state, the competing interests of the various national groups of capitalists are promoted by diplomacy and, ultimately, by the capacity of their armed forces to inflict death and destruction on the peoples of any other national state that threatens their economic interest.

The whole, obscene set-up, with its appalling waste, is even more dangerous because it not only threatens devastating wars and arms buildups over the marketing needs of capitalism, but creates hatreds and divisions which acquire and independent propensity for violence and war.

LASTING SOLUTION

Only in socialism is a lasting solution to war to be found. Socialism is a form of social organisation wherein the sole criterion governing the production of all wealth will be the satisfaction of human needs.

All the resources of the earth, including the tools of production and the means of distribution, will be the property of humanity as a whole and people will apply their skills and energies to these resources in order to produce the things needed by the whole of society.

Under such circumstances, an abundance of all the things we need could be produced and it will not be necessary to find markets in which goods can be sold. As all will have freely cooperated in the work of production, so all will be free to take from the abundant wealth available.

Money, a measurement of wealth and means of exchanging commodities within capitalism, will, thus, be rendered superfluous in a socialist society; hence, the humiliation of the wages system will disappear with all the other ugly features of class slavery and the simple principle of "From each in accordance with ability; to each in accordance with need" will universally obtain.

It will be readily seen that in such a society there could be no problem of unemployment. The human-family will produce more than sufficient to satisfy the needs of its every member and the fact that too much of a particular thing was being produced would simply mean that we would re-direct our activities or enjoy more leisure.

ORGANISED WASTE

Is such a society economically possible? Of course it is! When you consider the organised waste that the ending of the money system alone will bring you begin to appreciate the great possibilities that lie before us.

Think of all the useless functions and functionaries connected with capitalism and essential to that system: there are the capitalists themselves, and their lackeys and flunkeys . . . armies of salesmen, advertising touts, tickmen and agents of all descriptions . . . brokers, bankers, clerks . . . policemen, jailers, judges and criminals and all the rest who are connected with giving point to the observance of capitalism's commandments . . .  soldiers, sailors and airmen to fight capitalism's wars—and, of course, the vast array of civilian brains and brawn required to sustain and equip these forces. The list of those required purely to keep capitalism operating is endless.

With socialism, all these utterly useless functions will come to an end. Think of the material equivalent for humanity of the £500,000,000,000 spent this year alone on armaments. All the people connected with these useless functions can, in socialism, begin to make a real contribution to the happiness of themselves and all humankind.

HOW WILL IT BE ACHIEVED?

There can be no doubt that, freed from the restrictions and organised waste of capitalism, the people of the world have it within their power to produce their needs, thus opening the door to a full and happy life for everyone. The question remains, how can the change to socialism be accomplished?

Capitalism could not exist without the willingness and co-operation of the great majority of people—people whose role in capitalism is that of wage-slaves. Even more so will socialism require the willing participation of its people but, the very nature of socialism requires that support and participation must be conscious. Only the unqualified and conscious support and participation of the majority of the world's workers can bring about socialism.

The achievement of socialism will mean freedom, freedom of the sort that human beings have never before experienced; hence, it demands of those who achieve it a full knowledge of what it is and how it will function. Accordingly, the political task of each and all the Parties within the World Socialist Movement is to use all the means at our disposal to bring about a general understanding of the nature of socialism, what it means for humanity and how it will be achieved.

Simply stated, socialism will come about when the majority of the workers of the world realise that they are the people who run capitalism from top to bottom for the capitalists and that, by the exercise of their democratic right, they can carry out the revolutionary act of changing the economic foundations of society.

They can establish a classless, wageless, moneyless society where everyone will be free to avail themselves of the material basis of a full and happy life. A world where definitions of "unemployment" and "war" will have to be sought for in history books.

Richard Montague (Ireland)