Pin-stripe power (1983)

From the April 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

Civil servants have always had many detractors and few defenders. Among the latter was Bernard Shaw, with his back- handed tribute that “even those public departments that were bywords for incompetence and red tape were far more efficient than the commercial adventurers who derided them”, and Sir Leo Chiozza Money who, with experience to guide him, presented an argued case on the same lines of comparison with private industry. Among the criticisms may be listed that the numbers of civil servants needlessly keep on increasing and that they enjoy a privileged position in respect of pay, holidays and pensions and finally, that it is they and not the government who run the country. The criticisms are mostly based on ignorance of the facts and disregard of the purposes for which capitalism needs a civil service and the interest capitalists have in running the service as cheaply as possibly.

The numbers of civil servants have indeed increased enormously, from 21,300 in 1832 to 521,000 in 1982. As the population is now four times what it was in 1832 this means that, relative to population, the civil service has been multiplied by six. (These figures all exclude the postal and telecom services whose staff were, until 1969, civil servants, and the industrial civil servants employed in government dockyards and the Ordnance factories.) But the increases have all been the result of the government taking on additional functions called for by capitalism as, for example, in the fields of Income Tax. Customs & Excise, Education, Factory Acts and latterly the social services.

Governments have always been aware of their need to overhaul and reorganise the civil service periodically, to bring it into line with new functions and to keep the cost down. This began with a Report on the Civil Service in 1853 and a corresponding report in 1854 on the Post Office staff, and has been followed by several other enquiries including three Royal Commissions in this century, 1912, 1931 and 1955. Further enquiries and reorganisations have been undertaken under the present government. Some of the recommendations of the 1854 Report have a modern ring. It proposed paid holidays for lower grade Post Office staff—not in their interest, but in that of efficiency. The principle was laid down that it is possible to recruit suitable staff at low rates of pay by holding out the inducement that some of them may get promotion to a more highly paid grade. It observed that “subsistence allowances" to meet necessary out-of-pocket expenditure arising out of the job were not intended to be an undercover method of getting more pay.

The idea that civil servants are privileged appears to be based on the suspicion that this half-million strong army is a self-governing body which fixes its own pay and conditions in defiance of efforts of Parliament and government to control them. There was some justification for this in respect of the smaller body of civil servants before 1853. Each department had its own arrangements, appointment was by patronage or influence or the actual sale of jobs, and there were no qualifying examinations. This was progressively altered between 1853 and 1870, by which time most features of the modern system had been established. Successive governments and committees of enquiry have considered all sorts of methods for fixing pay and conditions, including leaving them to market forces, so that pay need only be enough to attract a sufficient number of applicants

Of course the civil service would, if it could, be "privileged" but no government or committee has accepted the claim made by civil service unions that the government should be “a model employer" in the sense of setting a "good" example to all other employers.

The idea of fixing civil service pay in relation to movements of outside pay, which had long been operated in the Post Office, was recommended by the Tomlin Commission in 1931 and in a much more elaborate form by the Priestley Commission in 1955. Under the latter comparison is made grade by grade with outside comparable work, taking into account not only pay but hours, annual leave, pensions and so on. Two particular points of criticism have been that full account in making the comparisons has not been given to the fact that civil service pensions are kept in line with the rise in prices ("index-linking”), and that in the depression little or no weight has been given to the civil servant's security of employment. Both have been under review.

Have governments then been unable to control the size and pay of the civil service? Actual events show otherwise. All awards of the arbitration tribunals have been subject to what is called "the overriding authority of Parliament", meaning that the government reserved the right to disregard an award. When the Thatcher government, at the end of the abortive strikes of civil servants in 1981, promised arbitration it was "on the understanding that the government reserves the right . . .  to ask the House of Commons to approve setting aside the Tribunal's award on grounds of overriding national policy". On occasion awards have been disregarded, arbitration itself has been suspended, as also the agreed application of the "fair comparison" operatives. Civil service pay was subjected to the "economy" cuts in 1931 and the present government has fixed overall limits on expenditure. From time to time the numbers have been drastically reduced as between 1945 and 1960 with the loss of 80,000 jobs and again under the Thatcher government with a reduction from 571,000 in 1977 to 521,000 in 1982. More cuts are threatened.

If Sir Chiozza Money were alive today and making his comparison between the size and efficiency of the civil service and the position in industry he would certainly want to look into what happened in the fourteen years 1953-1967. For those years the government Statistical Office published figures showing the changes that had taken place in respect of the staff employed in manufacturing industry as a whole. The staff were divided for this purpose into "wage-earners" and “salary-earners" and presumably a large proportion of the latter were doing jobs similar to those of the clerical civil service.

While during those fourteen years there was hardly any increase in the number of civil servants, manufacturing industry showed a fall in the number of wage earners from 6,160,000 to 5,780,000 but the number of salary earners in manufacture went up from 837,000 to 2,040,000, an increase of 1,203,000.

No doubt the employers would say that the increase resulted largely from the masses of paper work thrust on industry through legislation on taxation, factory acts, and the provision of information to government departments; but it is factors like these which have explained the increase in the number of civil servants in those periods when the civil service was growing.

All of the above relates to the civil service as a whole. A different interpretation of civil servants "running the country" concerns only the permanent officials at the top of each department who are in direct contact with the political heads, the Ministers. Professor Brian Chapman has defined their role as being "To advise, warn, and assist those responsible for State policy and when desired, to provide the organisation for its implementation. The responsibility for policy decisions lies with the political members of the executive, and customarily civil servants are protected from public blame or censure for their advice". In the modern British civil service it has been accepted that, whatever their own political views may be, those permanent officials will give their advice objectively, irrespective of the politics and policy of the government. (In America the "spoils" system has operated, under which the incoming administration appoints its own political supporters in place of the old lot.)

In practice governments have not always been satisfied to rely on the permanent officials either to carry out their internal administrative responsibilities or their work of advising Ministers, as when Thatcher appointed Derek Rayner from Marks and Spencer to secure economies of staffing and Professor Walters as adviser on economic matters.

Ministers in charge of departments are there to see that the permanent officials carry out cabinet policy. They work under considerable disadvantage. They are not, and are not intended to be, expert in the work of the Department, and may be shifted, at the will of the Prime Minister, from one Department to another. That they immediately make speeches about the work of their new department is possible only because the permanent officials provide them with informed briefs.

Opinions on how the system works vary greatly. Some politicians have said that they have had the fullest co-operation. Others (the late Richard Crossman is one) have complained of greater or less degrees of obstruction. The Times, (20 December 1982) pin-pointed the problem in relation to the Defence Department when John Nott resigned and a successor had to be chosen: “There is undoubtedly a mammoth administrative challenge if the Secretary of State is to run the three services, rather than the three services running the Secretary of State". In the Defence Department and all other departments the government has its remedies. It can change the Minister, choose the men it wants to be the top permanent officials and of course it controls the finance.

So what remains of the charge that government policies are determined by the permanent officials in the Civil Service? The case with which different governments adopt different policies, and the same government goes in for U-turns, shows it to be baseless. The same, or the same kind of. permanent officials were there when steel was nationalised by the Labour Government. de-nationalised by the Tories and re-nationalised by the next Labour government. The same applies to the “privatisation" policies introduced by the Thatcher government. The permanent officials went along with Labour and Tory Keynesian policies for thirty years after 1945 and then fell in with monetarist policies when the Thatcher government came to power.

If there are Labour Party members who complain that the old Keynesian rubbish did not solve the unemployment problem, and Tory Party members who complain that the Thatcher government's old monetarist rubbish has likewise failed, they really cannot blame the Civil Service permanent officials. They brought it all on themselves, as the determination of both parties to perpetuate capitalism.

Edgar Hardcastle 

Commodity production and its abolition (1985)

From the April 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

In July 1979 we published extracts from a pamphlet published in France Un monde sans argent: le communisme ("A World Without Money. Communism") — as evidence that the spread of socialist ideas does not depend exclusively on our own efforts since capitalism itself generates the idea of socialism as a classless, stateless, moneyless society. We publish below a chapter from another pamphlet published in France last year, entitled Communisme: éléments de reflexion, as a further confirmation of this view (though in this case, as certain references in the text show, the authors were clearly aware of our existence). As in 1979, we are once again compelled to record our difference with the views expressed elsewhere in the pamphlet as to how communism (or socialism, the same thing) should be achieved.

In traditional societies, whatever the status of their members, the hierarchy, rules and norms which divided human beings into rulers and ruled were counterbalanced by a whole collection of rights and duties and were regularly transgressed by social practices (festivals, etc.). Further, the relationships of dependence and authority which bound people together were essentially personal relationships. Oppression was real but it was transparent. On the other hand, from the moment that commodity relations became widespread and extended to the buying and selling of labour power through the wages system (an extension which both allowed and accompanied the establishment of capitalist relations of production) it was no longer the relationships between persons that was decisive but the production of commodities.

With the domination of capitalism, human relationships seem no longer to depend on men and women, but are realised and determined by a symbol: money. As all human activities can be represented and transformed by money they become a collection of objects subject to laws independent of the human will. Relationships between people take place through produced things and through the relations between these commodities.

In capitalist society all goods are produced for sale, for profit. They can therefore only exist as commodities, defined by their value. Thus the millions of different kinds of objects produced by human activity are reduced to a common denominator — their commercial value — measured by a common standard: money. This allows them to be compared and exchanged, to be entirely dominated by the market.

Money becomes the universal abstraction through which everything must pass so that people are most often led to see themselves as potential competitors whose absence of relationships finds compensation in the fetishism they have towards commodities. By a proliferation of objects which have no other use than to bring in money, and which are at the same time substitutes replacing human activity, the commodity and the desire to own present themselves as expressions of a person s individuality. Capital responds to human needs by a profusion of artificial satisfactions: to individuals who want to "rediscover" nature capital offers it to them functional and mechanised; to individuals stifling under the weight of constraints capital provides leisure; the individuals seeking love as a refuge for their emptiness are submerged by capital under a cheap eroticism. Never has any society so united, so linked human beings to each other, to the extent of making their activities depend on those of others; yet never has any society made people so indifferent to other people, and more hostile to them too since the links which join them the market. competition — also divide them.

The logic of commodity domination is also a system of widespread waste and destruction: goods are made not to last and to lead to other sales, natural resources are plundered, food is no longer natural, the "surplus" agricultural products of one part of the globe are destroyed while the other part is kept in a state of shortage, the war economy becomes general, etc.

The internal logic of capitalism is such that the goods it produces cannot be considered independently of the commodity process. Commodities are not "neutral" goods (use value) which it suffices to rid of their subjection to money (exchange value). Commodity exchange and use are only two aspects of the same social relation. Capitalism has fused production, sale and use into a coherent whole. People prefer to deprive themselves of what might logically appear to be essential rather than deprive themselves of the latest gadget which makes them be "in fashion". Through consumption a process of distinction takes place with regard to those who do not buy such and such a product, and a process of identification with the group of those who have bought the same product, whose use is supposed to let us live the moments we don’t live and to allow us the relationships we don’t have. The important thing is that the advantage should be apparent and it matters little that it is only apparent.

The point has been reached where the necessary degradation of objects is calculated and decided. The market must not be clogged with products that last too long. These represent money that is tied up. The faster capital turns over — the faster it resumes the form of money to lose it once again in becoming a concrete commodity again — the more it brings in. It is reinvested increased by a profit. Everything must circulate quickly.

For this, the commodities offered on the market form an extremely hierarchised whole. There is not one or several commodities for a given need but a whole multitude of them of the same or of competing marks. This diversity claims to respond to the variety of people's needs: "the customer must have a choice!" In fact, customers only have the choice allowed by their financial means and social roles. Many commodities respond to the same need but are differentiated by their quality and price. Different products may correspond to different uses, but these different uses are not available to the same individuals. Like production these uses are socially determined.

In order to disguise the alienation of the human being, reduced to the role of producer and then of consumer, capitalism has to maintain the illusion of a separation between production and consumption. The separation between production and consumption thus appears as a natural division between two quite distinct spheres of social life. Nothing is less true. First, the frontier between what is called production time and what is called consumption time is moving. Into which category come cooking and a number of other activities? Secondly, every act of production is also necessarily an act of consumption. It is only matter that is being transformed in a certain way and for a certain purpose. In destroying, or if you want in consuming certain things, other things are at the same time obtained, or if you want produced. Consumption involves production; production involves consumption.

The concepts of production and consumption are not neutral. The capitalist use of the concept of production obscures the fact that the human being is a part of his milieu and of the whole of nature. A chicken becomes an egg-making factory. Everything is then interpreted in terms of domination and use. Man the producer—supposedly conscious and master of himself—sets out to conquer nature: he wishes to be his own master just as he is the master of the object he fashions, but in fact he does not cease to be an object himself, his own object.

As communism is the creation of new social relationships between people which would bring about a quite different human activity, it must be understood that production would not be what it is today without money. If we can, for want of a better term, still speak of production to express the process by which a part of human activity would be devoted to reproducing existence and in which would be expressed the human ability to create, to innovate and to transform, the disappearance of exploitation and the abolition of money would mean that this production would not involve the subjection of people to it since it would be they who would decide its aims, its means and its conditions. It would therefore be an expression of their humanity and would not strip them of their other dimensions (love, play, dreaming, etc.). Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers would not exchange their products, just as little would the labour employed on the products appear as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them. These goods, not having the quality of value, would not be able to be hoarded nor exchanged (in accordance with this value, whatever its method of measurement), nor, even less so, sold. They would have no other role than to satisfy human needs and desires as these would be felt in a given period.

With the elimination of commodity production would disappear the domination of the product over the producer. People would rediscover the links with what they make. With the disappearance of money goods would be freely available and free of charge. It would no longer be a question of having to have a certain amount of money in order to have the right to obtain such and such a thing. But communist society would not be an extension of our "consumer" society. It would not be an immense supermarket in which passive human beings would only have to help themselves. There would no longer be a scramble for exploitable resources without concern for the future, nor a rush for useless gadgets which give the illusion of inventiveness and newness. If it was decided to save one or two well-made articles from this pile of rubbish, human activity would be both simpler and richer. Thus would be eliminated a number of the consequences of production linked to the "necessity" of profitability and competitiveness: the decrease in the importance of human activity in the production of things, waste, pollution, the international division of labour, etc.

Communism is not an appropriation of value by the producers but its negation. The fact that a product had been produced by such and such a person would not at all imply the persistence of the principle of property, not even "decentralised ”. Productive activity would no longer be linked to the idea of ownership, but to individual and collective creativity, to the consciousness that human needs, individual and communal, have to be provided for.

With the substitution of common ownership for exchange, goods would cease to have an economic value and would simply become physical objects which human beings would be able to use to satisfy some need or other. In this respect these objects would be fundamentally different from those (even those of the same appearance) which capitalism has created and developed. It would not be a question of simply taking over the goods of the past, but of rethinking them, sometimes replacing them, according to the criterion of enjoyment rather than that of profit. To this change of aim would correspond just as profound a change in the productive process and thus a rethinking of technology involving in addition to the use of the "achievements" left by capitalism, the rediscovery of technologies previously abandoned as unprofitable, and innovation which does not subject human beings to machines.

This new organisation of productive activity would not eliminate the need to estimate the needs and possibilities of the community at a given time. But these would no longer be reduced to a common denominator measured by a common unit. It would be as physical quantities that they would be counted and would interest people. But once again communism must not be reduced to problems of calculation. If this were to be done, this would be to substitute a technocratic ideal for the perspective of a human community, to perpetuate work as a social activity external to men and women.

In the past communists have put forward the idea that the distribution of products could be settled by the introduction of labour vouchers corresponding, after making certain deductions for the common funds, to the average social labour-time undertaken by the individual. In fact, the existence of a common standard to measure products and work cannot amount to a real abolition of the wages system and exchange. and so not of value. Further — to be "fair" — variations (which, besides, would be quite arbitrary) would have to be introduced in respect of the difficulty of the work, its degree of interest, etc. So there would be a return to an "economic calculation", requiring a “unit of value" whether this was expressed in money or directly in labour-time. Communism, as a moneyless society, would, on the contrary, not need any universal unit of measurement but would be able to calculate in kind. The attraction of such and such an object would then come from the object itself and no longer from a value attributed to it more or less arbitrarily. Its production and use would be determined according to what they implied for human beings and nature.

Along with the disappearance of commercial value would disappear the division of the human being into a producer and a consumer. In communist society, consumption would not be opposed to production since there would be no contradiction between being concerned with oneself and concerning oneself with someone else. The group or the individual would express themselves through what they did. Unless this was imposed by the very nature of a product, people would no longer need to hurry all the time as they would no longer be constrained by the necessity to produce commodities. The "consumer'’ would not be able to blame the "producer" for what he or she did by invoking the money that had been paid since none would be given in exchange, but simply to criticise from the inside. not from the outside. What would be at issue would be their common effort.

Poverty in the USA (1963)

From the September 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

From time to time the London Times draws attention to admissions of poverty in America. One such article from their correspondent in Washington appeared in the issue of April 19.

It starts off with the statement: ‘‘Every fifth American lives in poverty, and many more in deprivation, according to official statistics. Altogether 77 million are either poor or are denied an adequate standard of living.”

Criticising Professor Galbraith for his over optimistic assumptions about iminishing inequality, the Times article goes on:--

  The starting point could well be the figures of the United States Bureau of Labour Statistics which draw the line between poverty and deprivation at $4,000 a year (£1,428) for a family of four and $2,000 (£714) for an individual living alone. These figures do not necessarily mean cash income, but include the price of food grown by small farmers, and in 1960 nearly 10,500,000 families received less.
  The line drawn between deprivation and a modest but adequate standard of living was drawn at a family income level of about $6,000 a year (£2,142). Again according to the Labour Department, in 1960 an urban family of four required between $5.036 and $7,678 a year to live adequately. More than two-fifths of the population do not earn $6000 a year.
  The areas of poverty and deprivation are easily defined. Studies of the Conference of Economic Progress showed that 37.2 per cent. lived in the south; 18.3 were unemployed; 16.2 per cent. were elderly; 16.2 per cent, were non-white; and 12.1 per cent. lived on farms.
    Circumstances have changed little since 1959 when two-thirds of all farm workers earned less than $1,000 (£357) and some migratory workers earned less than $500. Nearly 80 per cent. of all non-white families lived in poverty or deprivation, and about 32 per cent, earned less than $2.000. Retired couples received social security pensions of $1.500 a year but many poor people do not contribute to the scheme.

Among other interesting details it is stated that in the years since 1929 inequality of income has in one respect increased: “If the poor did not become poorer the rich became richer.”

It is hardly necessary to remind readers that Socialists do not think that poverty is a peculiarity of any one part of the world. All countries are good to live in for the rich and all countries have the poor for the rich to shed tears over.

Edgar Hardcastle

Cooking the Books: Bill Gates on Robots (2017)

The Cooking the Books column from the April 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

The online magazine Quartz (17 February) put up a video interview with Bill Gates under the headline 'The robot that takes your job should pay taxes, says Bill Gates'.

Gates didn't say anything particularly profound. The point he made was that robotisation would release workers for other kinds of work, but that this would have to be paid for, one source of money for this being a tax on robots, i. e., on capitalist firms installing them. The other kind of work he had in mind was catering better for some particular human needs:

'what the world wants is to take this opportunity to make all the goods and services we have today, and free up labor, let us do a better job of reaching out to the elderly, having smaller class sizes, helping kids with special needs. You know, all of those are things where human empathy and understanding are still very, very unique. And we still deal with an immense shortage of people to help out there.'

It does make sense to use work resources freed up by robotisation to meet these, and other, needs. This is what would happen in socialist society since it would a society directly geared to meeting human needs. But we are not living in socialist society, only under capitalism where this is not the case. So it's not that simple.

Robotisation is no different in principle from the mechanisation that has gone on since the beginning of capitalism. It is, in fact, the latest application of machines to production. Machines have always displaced living labour but, despite dire predictions by some, this has not led to steadily increasing unemployment. Capital accumulation has continued, with the displaced labour (though not necessarily individual displaced workers) being transferred to other industries (making the machines as well as in new industries) and also in the 'service sector'.

This sector includes providers of personal services to workers (and capitalists) for profit, but, also, in large part, services provided by the government and paid for from taxes. Apart from its own administration, national and local, the government provides for health care and education, for the benefit of the capitalist class by providing and maintaining an educated and healthy workforce to produce their profits.

These are part of the necessary expenses of running the capitalist system which capitalists are prepared to pay for out of taxation, which in the end is a burden on their profits. But there are limits. They want these expenses kept to the minimum necessary to benefit them, not to provide an adequate service for workers and their dependants.

Gates favours some of the benefits of the increased productivity that robots bring being used to 'do a better job of reaching out to the elderly, having smaller class sizes, helping kids with special needs.' He should ask himself why this has not happened already. Why are services for the elderly and those with special needs not adequate? Why are there not smaller classes in schools? After all, sixty years ago automation was said to hold out the same promise.

The answer is that capitalism is not a system geared to meeting human needs, certainly not the needs of worker's dependants who don't contribute to production. As a profit-making system, its priority is profits and conditions for profit-making.

Robotisation under capitalism will not benefit people in the way Gates said he would like. The service sector may well expand but mainly for those who can pay. The needs of those who can't will still be neglected and grossly inadequate.

Riding for a fall (2017)

Book Review from the April 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

'Corbyn. The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics'.  By Richard Seymour. (Verso. 2016. 248 pages)

Although written early last year and so missing developments since – Corbyn's re-election, the Brexit vote, Labour's victory in London mayor elections – this book still has some relevant things to say.

Seymour explains Corbyn's election as Labour Leader as a reaction to Tony Blair's New Labour project of turning the Labour Party into an openly pro-capitalist party with no other ambition than to win elections to run capitalism more or less as it is. This uninspiring project had no appeal to young people outside the party who wanted change, and who were able to join under new rules for electing the Leader, but neither to many existing Labour Party members.

Despite the almost unanimous and merciless opposition from the media, Corbyn and his supporters were able to use instead social media to rally support for meetings. So, his election was one in the eye for the mainstream media as well as for the unprincipled career politicians that most Labour MPs are. Seymour refutes the idea that Corbyn won because of Trotskyist infiltration (if only because there are not that many of them), seeing most as the sort of people who would otherwise support the Green Party. In fact, the Labour Party bureaucracy excluded many on the grounds that they had previously openly supported the Greens.

Seymour, a former SWP member, has no illusions about the Labour Party which he sees as having always been a non-socialist party out to manage capitalism – his dissection of the Labour Party is the best part of the book – and so doesn't hold out much hope of Corbyn being able to achieve much. He doesn't think he will be able to democratise the Labour Party or is likely to win the 2020 general election or, if he did, that he would be able to change capitalism.

He is not unsympathetic to Corbyn, seeing him as a socialist (even though he admits that Corbyn's programme is no more radical than Harold Wilson's) leading a non-socialist party and for that reason doomed to fail. If true, that would be what the classical continental Social Democratic parties were and why they failed. Reverting to his Trotskyist roots, Seymour sees this predictable failure as positive in that Corbyn's supporters will thereby come to see the Labour Party as useless as a vehicle for socialism and so turn elsewhere but, now as an ex-Trotskyist, not to a vanguard party but to some grass-roots extra-parliamentary anti-capitalist social movement.

Adam Buick

A Short Guide to Capitalism (2017)

From the April 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism can be defined as a world-wide economic system involving commodity-production by wage-labour, driven by the imperative to make profits and to accumulate them as more and more capital.

Generalised commodity-production, nearly all wealth being produced for sale on a market: '

Commodity' is a term inherited by Marx from the Classical Political Economists Adam Smith and David Ricardo who used it to mean an item of wealth produced for sale on an 'anonymous' market, that is without knowing in advance who the buyer will be. This existed before capitalism, but only on the margins. With capitalism, the production of commodities becomes general with nearly all items of wealth produced for sale. As such they have an 'exchange value', or, in money terms, a price, which is ultimately related to the amount of labour that needs to be spent to produce them from start to finish.

The investment of capital in production with a view to obtaining a monetary profit: 

Capital, as a sum of money used to make more money also existed before capitalism but, once again, only marginally, as with moneylenders and long-distance merchants who bought cheap and sold dear. In neither case, however, was the money invested in production. This only began when certain conditions arose, such as productive techniques involving large-scale operations, the accumulation by a few of wealth in the form of money, but above all, the creation of a landless proletariat. Then, money-capital seeking a profit came to be invested in the production of commodities by hired wage workers. So, capital is a sum of money invested in production with a view to profit, or a sum of exchange values used to produce a greater amount of exchange values. Marx described it as 'self-expanding value.'

The exploitation of wage labour, the source of profit being the unpaid labour of the producers: 

That most production of wealth today is carried out by people paid a wage or salary is not controversial. It's obvious, an everyday experience. This reflects the division of society into a minority who, together, own/control all the means of wealth production, and the rest who, excluded from such ownership, are forced by economic necessity to try to sell their working skills for a living. What is perhaps not so obvious is that this involves 'exploitation'. The word is associated with low wages and bullying overseers, but this is not the sense used here. Here, it refers to the fact that, as wealth can only be produced through work, a non-work income derived from production, such as profits are, can only come out of what those who work have produced. In more technical terms, productive workers produce new wealth with a value greater than that of their working skills, the difference being 'surplus value.'

The regulation of production by the market via a competitive struggle for profits: 

There is not much controversy over this either, but two questions arise. First, what are the units of competition? They are capitals – sums of money invested in production with a view to profit – but embodied in 'enterprises'. An enterprise can be an individual owner, a joint-stock company or corporation, a nationalised industry, even a workers' co-operative; the institutional form of the enterprise is not important as far as competition is concerned. The second question is: who are enterprises competing with? It might be thought that competition is only between enterprises in the same line of business, but in fact it is much wider than this. All enterprises are ultimately competing against each other to draw as much profit as they can from the pool of new surplus value produced in all lines of business. Due to the tendency of all capitals to make the same rate of profit, while surplus value is created in production it is won on the market. This gives rise to the illusion shared by those in charge of enterprises that this is where profits originate and that they are 'the wealth producers'. In fact, business acumen in the competitive struggle for profits affects only how much profit a particular enterprise gets, not where it comes from.

The accumulation of capital out of profits, leading to the expansion and development of the means of production: 

Capitalism is a profit system. Profit is what makes it go round. But it is not a system of profits for the consumption of the owning class. Certainly, they get a share of profits to enjoy themselves and lead a life of luxury, but to maintain their privileged lifestyle is not what capitalism as an economic system is about. It is not driven by their greed. The system works in such a way as to compel the re-investment of most profits as more capital, as more money invested in production. Marx remarked that the battle of competition is fought by the cheapening of commodities. The way enterprises do this is by improving productivity so that the unit cost of their commodity falls (more of them produced in the same period of time), so improving their competitiveness. The main way they do this is by installing new, more efficient machines, paid for out of profits. So, capital comes to be accumulated as more and more means of production, which also leads to enterprises becoming larger and larger. Growth of both productive capacity and production, under pressure of the competitive struggle for profits, is built-in to the system and imposes itself as an external force on those in charge of enterprises.  This is what drives capitalism. If an enterprise didn't re-invest its profits but disbursed them all for the personal consumption of its shareholders, then eventually it would lose out in the battle of competition and go bust. Capitalism is a system of profit for capital accumulation, not simply a system of production for profit.

A single world economy: 

You often hear talk about 'the British economy', 'the German economy', 'the American economy' and so on, which can suggest that capitalism is a collection of national capitalist economies. But it's not. It's a single economic system that now dominates the whole world. So-called national economies are merely parts of its domain that fall under the political jurisdiction of one or other of the 190 or so states into which the world is divided. Capitalism in one country is just as impossible as socialism in one country. Quite apart from when they run their own enterprises (nationalised industries), states, along side enterprises, are actors in the world capitalist system in their own right. They act to try to ensure that as much of world surplus value finds its way as profits to enterprises operating from within its borders, by helping to procure and protect overseas markets, investment outlets and sources of raw materials. But what they can do here is limited by the need to avoid undermining the competitiveness of enterprises operating from within their borders. States, too, have to submit to the economic imperatives of capitalism.

Short Story: The Armchair (1987)

A Short Story from the April 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

It was a very beautiful chair. People did not believe that he had made it himself. They asked how much it cost. Only their children understood. They always asked to sit in it and he always let them. Parents stood aside and smiled wryly, as if apologising. But the children knew what Karel's chair was for.

His hands were old. He could not make things any more. People knew that he was poor, and that he could not afford to eat well or keep his house warm. They offered to buy the armchair at a low price. Karel smiled and shook his head. They did not ask again. They knew it was Karel's chair. But they let their children visit him.

He had a strange accent. The children asked if he was a Russian spy. He nodded gravely and they shrieked. He showed them his woodworking tools and told them the names. Some of them tried to make things. On his mantelpiece was a collection of animals with the children's names cut on them. Terry said: "It's s'posed to be a horse. It's for if I ever go away". He put it into Karel's hands. It was the first thing he had ever made.

One day Rosie cut her hand badly, and had to go to hospital. After that the children did not come any more. Karel sat in his armchair and smoked his pipe and waited. They did not come. Only the ticking of the carriage clock disturbed the silence.

He stroked the arm of his chair. It was old and darkened walnut. His fingers ran idly along the engravings, feeling the wood twist and writhe under his skin. It could be a blind man's chair. The leather upholstery was scented and soft as vintage port, the back smooth and caressing. But for the sighted there was the inlay. The swirling flows and florets of mother-of-pearl had a luminous rainbow sheen which danced and flickered in the firelight and gave life and power to the grain. Slowly the fire died. The room grew darker. In the gloom Karel dozed.

He had come to England in 1926, the year of the General Strike. He was young and excited, anxious to start work, eager to use his hands to carve and chisel and polish, ready to pass on his dead father's skills. First he found work on the docks, later on a building site. For three years he did only heavy labouring, and made enough to live. Then he was made apprentice to a cabinet-maker. It was what he had waited for. He soon earned respect for his craftsmanship and his pay was raised. He began to receive commissions to make furniture for the wealthy families of the area. Although there was a slump and very little work, these families had more money to spend than ever, and he often praised his good fortune in having a skill he could sell at such a time. With time he became well-known. His furniture appeared at auctions and fetched high prices among the rich. But he never became wealthy himself. The market was very small. Most people could not afford such luxury, and he made only small profits on what he could sell. The wealthy knew his situation and often wrangled with him over his price. Sometimes he even had to sell at a loss.

In 1953 he gave up and went back into paid employment as a joiner. He was obliged to use pine and cedar, and thin veneer, and to work to deadlines. The furniture he made was mediocre. He did not bother to initial it. The owners of the firm came round for inspections. They knew nothing about wood. They asked instead how long he was taking, how much material he wasted, how many he could produce in a week. Karel worked on. disheartened.

He calculated that he earned approximately fifteen per cent of the final price of each table, and twelve per cent of each chair that he made. He did not have the energy or the heart to make things at home, and so when it became necessary to have a table of his own, to replace one which was worm-rotted, he was obliged to save for five weeks in order to buy one of those which he made at work in four hours. The humour of this did not escape him. One day, after work, he passed in front of an antiques shop and saw one of his own chairs for sale. It was one he had made at the request of a writer in 1938. He remembered it. The writer had asked grandly for a work of art. Karel had taken six weeks over it, and then the writer had been furious at the expense, demanding a lower price or no sale. In the end Karel had sold it for cost. Yet it was a magnificent piece for all that. It was priced at seventy pounds. Karel stared at it for a long time. Then he went into the shop and gave the owner a deposit of thirty shillings. Every month he returned with another thirty shillings. It took him four years to pay. In those four years something went out of him. He never made anything of his own again.

When he came to retire the firm were very nice to him and the manager made a little speech. All the employees had an extended tea-break and he was presented with a carriage clock and a solid silver wine goblet. They shook his hand and wished him luck and hoped he would not forget them and would come back for visits. He said he would like that. Then he was on the street and alone. He clutched the goblet and the clock tightly all the way home, and then he locked the front door and drew the curtains and sat in his armchair and wept quietly.

The chair creaked a little under him. He woke up. The fire was nearly out. The children had not come. He stared into the darkness. He sighed and stood up wearily, his hand went up to stroke the wooden figures on the mantelpiece. Pain seized him momentarily, in the silence he could almost hear their shouts and laughter. The children understood. They knew what things were made for. He breathed hard. There was life in the crude cut of their figures, life and vitality and perhaps even joy. And there was a kind of beauty and truth in the creation of things for their own sake, to be used and loved and perhaps abused but still loved. Karel's chair had been sold for the last time. It should not have been made for sale, but for love. And it was. His heart jumped. He went to the light and switched it on. He was dazzled. He caught at his breath. The first thing he saw was the table he had made and bought from work.

He stared at it, a sense of distaste growing inside him. It did not belong here, in the same room with the armchair and the animals. His chest felt constricted. Pain stabbed at him. It did not belong here! He went over to it, grasped the edge in both hands, and began to lift it up. The table weighed very little. He dragged it to the doorway and manoeuvred it through. His breath came in short gasps. He wanted to sit down. The table stuck fast in the doorway. His strength seemed to ebb away. He realised that something was happening to him. He became frightened. His chest tightened as if in a vice. He could not move the table. He walked unsteadily through the other door into the workroom and found a small hatchet. His legs shook. There was a ringing sound in his ears. He stumbled over to the table, swung the hatchet down. The shock ran up his arm and made him gasp as the wood splintered and flew. He struck again, and then again. His eyes clouded over. He could not breathe. He dropped the hatchet and staggered over to the armchair. He fell sprawling into it. The blood pounded in his temple and behind his eyes. He did not have the breath to cry out. His hands went down to the arms of the chair, gripped them hard. His back arched in pain and then his body doubled over, fingers searching in the carvings and grooves of the chair-arms, groping in panic for help. Hideous laughter seemed to burst all around him. Toneless music deafened him. The room turned grey and dull. He tried to look round at his animals, at his chair. They had become empty and lifeless. All the colour had fled. He could scarcely see them. There was nothing left. His mind began to race. He knew what he had done, what they had all done. There was no escaping it. Only the children understood. But money would teach them not to understand. It would make them forget. It would stop them listening. It would stop them looking. It would stop them loving anything for its own sake because it had the power to beat them and trample them and starve them until they they learned to care more for cost than for life itself. And he had not understood that. He was like the children. Only the grown-ups understand the world they have made. He did not fit. His chair did not fit. That was the real truth.

The room seemed to tilt away from him. His hands froze on the edges of the chair. His head rushed as though in a strong wind. He knew that his heart had stopped. His face was a white mask, but somewhere in his whirling brain a smile flashed momentarily. He did not belong. His animals and his armchair and his love, they did not belong. It was all alright now.

Paddy Shannon

Obituary: Bill Kerr (1994)

Obituary from the April 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have to report the death of Bill Kerr at the age of 85. Bill joined the West Ham Branch in January 1941, and immediately busied himself attending lectures and after a few weeks joined a Speakers class. Opportunities for speaking outdoors at that time were somewhat limited owing to war-time conditions, although he did manage to get the opportunity to open up on a few occasions at Hyde Park.

However he and his brother George felt the need for propaganda in their own area. The Branch members agreed to give it a try and they opened up at an old venue, the ’Cock Hotel" which was just off High Street North. East Ham. The meetings at the “Cock" were an immediate success and this inspired us to extend further and we settled finally for Station Road. Ilford.

These venues were run very successfully in both attendances and literature sales. However all this came to an end towards the end of the 1950s. Outdoor meetings became impossible except in places like Hyde Park owing to the tremendous growth of motor traffic.

In that period of time from early 1940s to 1955/6 the branch membership had increased from about 30 members to about 70. Bill was elected onto the EC about this time and sat for three years or so.

In the 1950 General Election, the Party fought the East Ham South constituency. It was an excellent effort by the Party with much help from outside. Bill gave all he had in speaking and canvassing most evenings during the preceding weeks.

Bill had the misfortune to severely injure himself when he was blown off the platform at Hyde Park in a gale-force wind and fractured his skull. However he recovered in about a month although his hearing was permanently impaired.

After undergoing major surgery for lung cancer in 1958. Bill transferred his membership to Central Branch. He gave an occasional lecture around the London Branches. From the mid-1970s, apart front an occasional visit to a branch, he was not in evidence, although he kept a keen interest in the Party to the end.

Obituary: William Isherwood (1994)

Obituary from the April 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

We arc saddened to have to report the death of our Comrade William Isherwood at the age of 90 in the Isle of Man.

Bill Isherwood first came into contact with the Party in Manchester in 1928, joining the local branch there in 1933. He worked as a commercial traveller and the poverty he saw made a great impression on him and turned him into a lifelong socialist. On retirement he went to live on the Isle of Man, where he continued to put the Socialist case, particularly in the local press.

Leading up the wrong path (1995)

Book Review from the April 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Radical Theories: Paths Beyond Marxism and Social Democracy by Darrow Schecter. (Manchester University Press, 1994.)

Exactly why we should want to follow a path “beyond Marxism” is not altogether clear from this book, and it is to be suspected that the title is the publisher’s and not the author’s. In it, Marxism is often equated with the "state socialism" of the former USSR and its satellites, but here and there are intriguing signs that Schecter thinks there is more to it than this. Unfortunately, he doesn't proceed too far beyond the signposts.

Schecter writes at one point that the “verdict on Social Democracy is still open”, following up this remark with the comment that “it remains to be seen whether Keynesian techniques will continue to be effective in terms of minimising unemployment and ensuring economic growth". We would have thought that by now the inefficacy of Keynesian techniques had been demonstrated beyond any shadow of doubt.

Schecter argues that, with the collapse of what he misleadingly insists on calling "state socialism", the task of socialists today is "to define the contours of a non-authoritarian socialist alternative to capitalism”. In approaching this task, Schecter examines six different strands of anti-authoritarian thinking: anarchism, such as that propounded by Proudhon and Kropotkin; syndicalism, especially that associated with Georges Sorel (who paradoxically also did much to influence Italian fascism); council communism, principally the ideas of Pannekoek; G.D.H. Cole's guild socialism; market socialism together with the co-operative and self-management movements; and finally green socialism. Schecter concludes that all these strands of thinking have their strengths and weaknesses, though it is clear that his preference is for a form of "Communitarian Anarchism" as the others suffer from problems as to how to regulate and organise production in a non-authoritarian manner.

Given his preference for non-market and decentralised systems of democracy and planning, it is curious that Schecter should have restricted himself to analysis of these six particular theories. Conspicuous by their absence are socialist industrial unionism and another branch of what is sometimes called "impossibilism” - the type of politics advanced by the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Schecter's book cries out for an analysis of the non-market socialism promoted by so-called “impossibilist” groups together with the rigorous approach to definition and argumentation which this political sector brings.

That his book ignores the contributions to the development of political thought on democratic organisation and socialist production by the Socialist Party's political sector, with its conceptions of non-authoritarian socialist democracy and planning, is not just our loss - Schecter's book is all the poorer without it.

Dave Perrin

Er . . . come again Jessica (1996)

Book Review from the April 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Soundings: A journal of politics and culture. Issue I. Autumn 1995, Lawrence & Wishart.

One can imagine the discussion in the editorial office of Lawrence and Wishart, the old Communist Party publishing house. "What we need is a brand new journal that will really put the old left-wing ideas back on the map." says Jessica to Justin. "That’s right." he enthuses, "a real journal of ideas—like Marxism Today used to be, only this time we won’t turn out so respectable that we become Tories and end up writing for the Sunday Times." Jessica dribbles with delight. "So, we'll get Stuart Hall to write a thirteen-page editorial about nothing in particular, which will show that we’re not Leninists like we used to be. but we’re still full of the old reformist tripe.’’ Stuart Hall’s editorial is undoubtedly a masterpiece in saying nothing eloquently, a must for all English as a Foreign Language students. "Then we'll get Barbara Castle to write a twelve-page article on the lessons which the Blair government must learn. Of course, she’ll support Blair, but she'll offer some penetrating warnings about moving too far to the right." Yawn! "Then Beatrix Campbell, the leading theorist of femino-Leninist-Channel-Fourism, will write an eighteen-page critique of communitarianism." They speak of little else in Hackney. “And that much-loved leftist interpreter of international affairs will write a twelve-page article on .. ." Pass the smelling salts; by now anyone with the slightest interest in original thought will be passing out. “Oh, and just to keep the kids happy, we'll have this utterly incomprehensible eighteen-page whopper on "Music in Post-modern East End"— just to show the yoof and the sociology lecturers that we’re still in touch with the cutting edge of ideas." And then—wait for it—they have the bloody nerve to charge £10.99 for the launch issue. They’ll be queuing up to buy this one at the local dole offices—we think not. What will be a safer bet Prescott for a future seat in the House of Lords or Soundings to go out of existence before the year 2000? If there’s any justice in the publishing world issue two of this dull, confused, confusing and pretentious journal should never see the light of day. It is sad proof that old CPers refuse to publish a short, dignified classified ad in the Guardian saying "We were wrong", but insist on their right to continue inventing new and more long-winded ways of offering the world their wrong ideas. Like the rather more accessible, but almost equally boring magazine, Red Pepper, this reviewer’s advice is that rather than buy a copy you might as well give the money to a beggar in the street— you’ll certainly be doing as much to change the world.

Steve Coleman

Contemporary European Paradox (1996)

Book Review from the April 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Yugoslavia Dismembered by Catherine Samary, translated from French by Peter Drucker (Monthly Review Press, New York. I99S. £11.95.)

If you are one of the countless people who are baffled by the events in what used to be called Yugoslavia this book is the simplest and most readable account published so far. It is packed with very useful chronological tables and easy to comprehend statistical information. It is analytically rooted in a Marxist approach, although this must be distinguished from dogmatic economic determinism which is not present.

Samary successfully connects this war with the contemporary European paradox of an economic supra-nationalism combined with re-emerging ideological nationalisms. The case for the extreme fragility of what is over-optimistically called European unity, and the possibility of regarding the Yugoslav war as a precursor of national rivalries yet to break out in Europe is well argued. The author could be accused of having too rosy a retrospective view of the successes of Titoist federalism, but she makes well the point that national cultures cannot be created in test tubes, even though many of the allegedly deep roots of distinct Serbian and Croatian national cultures were largely the monstrous inventions of dangerous Frankenstein-like intellectuals. As a study of the problem this book is good; as for the root of the problem and the solution to it, readers will be better looking at this journal’s coverage of the subject.

Steve Coleman

Worldwide is the only way (1999)

Editorial from the April 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Tommy Sheridan surely put his finger on it when he said, in a letter to the Glasgow Herald (10 February), that the "the problem is that wealth is owned and controlled by a tiny minority of society in an undemocratic and unaccountable fashion".

This obscene concentration of wealth in a few hands lies at the heart of all major social problems which confront us today. Far from being irrelevant, as some argue, the property question is the most important social question of the modern age. It cries out for a solution.

What, then, is Sheridan's solution? By his own account, it is "the collective ownership and democratic control of the means of production throughout Scotland".

This won't work. Scotland is only a small part of an economic system which embraces the whole world. It could never enjoy any real autonomy or self-sufficiency in the face of the world market. From day one it will be buffeted by hostile economic forces entirely beyond its control.

In no time at all, Scotland will be faced with two choices—either total ruin, or the complete restoration of capitalist economics. Councillor Sheridan's "independent socialist Scotland" would be neither independent nor socialist.

We completely share Tommy Sheridan's disgust at what capitalism does to people. We can readily understand his impatience for an end to poverty in all its hideous guises. But we think he has allowed his impatience to get the better of him, to lead him down short-cuts that go nowhere.

There is no sense in dodging the issue. Since the property problem is in its essence worldwide, the solution to that problem must also be worldwide. That is why the Socialist Party insists that the socialist transformation of society must be carried out on a worldwide basis. Quite simply, nothing less will do.

"Socialism in one country" is an illusion. That is the lesson of history. If the Soviets could not manage it, we fail to see how the Scots could.

Life of Marx (2000)

Book Review from the April 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Karl Marx by Francis Wheen. Fourth Estate, London.

Journalist Wheen has performed a staggering feat. In just over 400 pages, he has traced the action-packed life of Karl Marx from childhood in Triers in the Moselle valley to university life in Bonn and Berlin and political exile in France, Belgium and finally London.

In the hands of Wheen the story is one of almost cinematic action. The heady student days of feverish philosophical debate fuelled by too much wine and beer are vividly portrayed. His foray into political journalism, his jousts with state censors and his eventual political banishment, leading to the life of a stateless person trekking through the capitals of Europe in poverty and constant harassment by state authorities and police spies are dealt with in a lively and readable fashion.

The real strength of this book, however, does not rest on the colourful biographical detail, but on its depiction of Marx as a human being, rather than (as has been too often the case in the past) as a god or a devil. Interestingly enough Wheen mentions in his introduction a book, written by an American evangelical preacher, entitled "Was Karl Marx a Satanist?" The other side of the coin, of course, are the books that are nothing less than hagiographies. As the jacket cover says, "Karl Marx emerges as a flamboyantly unmistakable individual, not the stony head of a monolithic, faceless organisation."

Socialists might have wished for more emphasis on Marx's ideas, but when Wheen does this he does an excellent job. Considering that his intention was to deal with Marx more as an individual rather than as an economist, historian, philosopher or revolutionary, the author's discussion of the works of Marx is generally speaking difficult to quarrel with and easy to admire. He distances the writings and actions of Marx from his so-called supporters like Lenin, Stalin and Mao. He has a pop at Karl Popper's criticism and absolutely devastates the attacks on Marx by the likes of Paul Samuelson. The role of Marx in the International Working Men's Association is particularly well documented and his jousts with Michael Bakunin and the anarchists are vividly drawn.

A lot of people are going to hate this book. Left-wingers who see every industrial dispute or petty social unrest as the harbinger of a transformation of society will be reminded (if they ever knew) that Marx's view was that a long period of education and organisation was necessary before the working class could establish socialism. Anarchists with their 19th-century romanticism about conspiracy and direct action will be less than pleased at the reporting of the antics of their anarchist heroes in the International. The academics who have dismissed Marx's views as outdated are not going to like Wheen's view that Marx's criticisms of capitalism are still valid today.

Even if a lot of people are going to hate this book, this socialist loved it and advises readers to get down to their local library immediately. If you are going to buy only one book this year, then this is it.

Richard Donnelly

Another world is possible (2002)

From the April 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last year the New Internationalist asked its readers for “their own vision of a better world”. Under the titles of “Give Us Your Dreams” and “Another World Is Possible” shortened versions of twelve of the replies were published in the January-February issue of the magazine which supports the broad “anti-globalisation/anti-capitalist” movement. Three of these came from members of the World Socialist Movement.

Since the proportion of socialists amongst the “anti-capitalists” is nowhere near 25 percent (if only it were) this can be interpreted as a sign of a lack of vision, or interest in “grand schemes” for a better world, amongst those who are involved in the movement. They have yet to take on board our view that it is not enough just to be “anti”, but that to get anywhere you have to have a clear idea of where you want to go.

Having said this, two of the other replies chosen for publication also envisaged a world without money. One, from Minneapolis in the US, wrote: “I can imagine a global community with no private property beyond immediate possessions, no need for money, no racism or sexism, no enslavement of children, no profit motive to drive the oppression of working people, no battles over personal interpretations of spirituality, and no disrespect for the 'other'“. The other, from Canada, envisaged “a society where the concept of exchange is non-existent” but then went on to propose a system of consumer vouchers which would be issued to everybody in equal amounts and be cancelled on use.

Reformist

Of the other seven, one represented the reformist wing of the movement and proposed a list of “reforms that would be necessary as preliminary measures before more radical programs could be considered”. These included renegotiating trade agreements, a Tobin tax, changing company law, tax incentives to encourage co-operatives, ending nuclear power, etc, etc, etc.

This is the approach of the campaigning charities and non-governmental organisations such as OXFAM, Christian Aid and the others who are the most vocal section of the “anti-globalisation” movement, probably reflecting the views of most of those active in it. Not only does such a reformist approach lead to compromise with capitalism but the reforms proposed are piddling compared with what is needed to end world poverty, protect the biosphere and stop the waste of armaments. That it leads to compromise with capitalism can be seen by the number of activists who have switched sides and gone to work for government bodies and private corporations, believing that you can do more to get piddling mini-reforms from within the system than by pressure group politics from outside. No doubt such individuals are for the most part entirely sincere since they never really did think that there is any practical alternative to the profit-motivated market system. The history of Green Parties everywhere is another illustration of this point, where they have either joined capitalist governments or would if they got the chance.

As to the effectiveness of the reforms proposed, does anyone really think that tax reforms and legislative charges are going to be enough to bring about the massive increase in the production of food and other basic goods and services needed if there are not going to be more people, in absolute numbers, living without basic amenities in 2030 than there are today? Clearly “radical programs” not “preliminary measures” need to be considered right now, today. That makes trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon – or even a tablespoon – a waste of valuable time.

Pathetic

The other replies were, frankly, pathetic, indeed disheartening because they suggest that more people in the anti-globalisation movement entertain these kinds of views than envisage a global change in society, even by reformist means. Three advocated a return to the “simple life”. One looked forward to oil running out forcing people to “return to the land, working side by side with nature, in blissful harmony”. Another urged people to “buy locally and buy certified organic” and to “grow some of your own food” (why not, but as a solution to world problems?). A third wanted a “culture based on cottage industry and gardening”.

But the worst, and most disturbing, came from people expressing religious views. One claimed that “over history our collective subconscious has invented a basic code for humanity to live by, in the form of religion” and that this meant that humans had a “predisposition to co-operation, love, non-violence and selflessness”. This could be seen as harmless mysticism – there is no “collective subconscious”, how could there be, given what we know about biology and inheritance? – but at least this person's heart was in the right place. The same, however, cannot be said of the other two.

One put the more traditional religious view (which explains why these people put our backs up so much) that “no human system, no matter how carefully and idealistically crafted, will create a better world. All in the end are corrupted by self-interest or greed. Eliminating poverty is impossible . . . Only one thing works – the inner change for the better in individuals who have had some kind of illumination from a supernatural entity”. This view was echoed by the other, who wrote that “the ideal world, as it stands in our current understanding of the term, is simply unreachable” and proposed that “the alternative state of global perfection, and an eminently achievable one, consists of not having everything we want, but being totally satisfied with everything we have”.

Clearly, such views are quite incompatible with those of socialists – and not just of socialists but of reformists too. In fact the New Internationalist itself must have been disappointed to have had such replies, presumably more than the two they published. “Eliminating poverty is impossible” and “be totally satisfied with what you have” are what the rich, through the religious ideology that reflected their interests, have always told the poor throughout the ages. We have no choice but to be implacably opposed to such views and to combat them whenever we hear them.

No, eliminating poverty is not impossible and, no, the millions of people who go to bed hungry every night or who lack clean running water or who have no health care or education should not be happy with what they have (not) got. They should be bloody annoyed and upset about it and get together with the rest of us to work for a better world, here and now, down here.

Practical

Not that it is a question anyway of dreaming up a “perfect” or an “ideal” world. What is at issue is establishing a better world, where those problems that people face because of the way society is currently organised can be tackled with some hope of success. The starting point for this is not some idea of a perfect society but the world as it is today. It is rather a question of finding a practical solution to actually existing problems that have arisen at this particular moment in the history of humanity.

Over the past hundred or so years the world has developed the capacity to adequately feed, clothe and shelter every single man, woman and child on the planet. The resources, the technical knowledge and the skilled personnel exist to do this – the information on what to do is lying gathering dust in the archives of the Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome and the World Health Organisation in Geneva – but it is not done because the world is currently organised on the basis of the minority class ownership of productive resources and the production of wealth with a view to profit.

It is this profit system that stands in the way of satisfying human needs. It only allows production to take place in response to needs that can be paid for and then only if a big enough profit can be made from doing so. It diverts resources into maintaining a whole superstructure of finance and commerce – banks, insurance, accounting, advertising, etc – that is only needed because there is production for the market. And it diverts yet more resources into armed forces and their weapons which every state is compelled to have in view of the competitive struggle for profits – which as a last resort involves war – that is built-in to the system.

Once this artificial scarcity and this built-in waste is eliminated, as it would be in a world where the Earth's resources had ceased to be the private property of states, national and multinational corporations and rich individuals, then these resources could be directed to turning out wealth to meet human needs. It may take some time to completely clear up the mess left by the capitalist profit system, but people dying of hunger could be stopped immediately. So could all problems arising from money worries.

This is the practical solution to the practical problems facing humanity at this particular stage of its historical development. Unless this basic change from class ownership to common ownership, permitting the change from production for profit to production to satisfy human needs, is made, then unnecessary human suffering and a generally unsatisfactory life for everybody except a privileged few will continue.

Yes, another world is possible, but it doesn't involve going back to basic agriculture, even less embracing pessimistic and do-nothing mysticism, but accepting that we already live in one world and going on from there. The solution is global in both senses of the word. Global in that it has to be world-wide, and global in the sense that the change-over has to be all-embracing and not piecemeal reform.

Adam Buick