Editorial: Socialism — the efficient society (1978)

Editorial from the July 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Much of the propaganda work of the Socialist Party of Great Britain is spent, before we are able to talk about the better world of socialism, in debunking the host of fallacies which support capitalism.

One of these is the idea that the profit motive in production makes for efficiency, that profit ensures we make goods which are needed (otherwise no one would buy them) and that those goods are turned out to the highest standards (otherwise they would not sell).

This fallacy sees the profit motive acting as a kind of agent of natural selection, in which anything unable to adapt to the demands of commodity production simply does not survive. And the logical development of this argument is that we are surrounded with the very best of goods, produced in just the quantities we need them and carried to wherever there is a demand for them.

It takes very little thought, or experience, to see that this is not true. To begin at the basis, capitalism produces wealth in the form of commodities — wealth which is turned out with the motive of selling it to realise a profit and to amass further wealth in the form of capital.

The first consequence of this is that, if there is no chance of a profit being realised, there is no production. In this situation it is of absolutely no consequence, that there may be a need for the wealth — people may be starving or homeless, but if the production of food or houses is not profitable they will not be made.

One result of this is unemployment, in which the normal everyday poverty of workers descends into outright destitution. Again, when this happens capitalism takes no account of people’s needs; there may be millions desperate for the little extra income which a job would bring them but if it is not profitable to employ them they will stand — and perhaps starve — on the dole queue.

The drive to produce for profit means that capitalism is always under pressure to turn out goods as cheaply as possible, since the lower a commodity’s cost of production the more scope there is for undercutting a rival’s commodities on the market and, if the market allows, the higher the profit which can be realised.

But producing things cheaply usually means that they are shoddy, sub-standard, jerry-built or even dangerous. It also means that human beings, who may be highly trained and knowledgeable, have used their skills and knowledge in ways which have demanded of them less than they are capable of; they have been forced to prostitute themselves in the cause of commodity production.

There have been many cases of this, which have been spectacular enough in their consequences to make them classic scandals of capitalism — buildings which have collapsed beneath their inhabitants or people needlessly diseased or killed, like the workers in the asbestos industry or the tragic victims of thalidomide.

In a world in which we can solve so many technological problems, and achieve to an extent which would have been regarded as miraculous only a short time ago, there is waste of wealth, restriction of production, unused working capacity and sub-standard production. And this mess is sold to us by what is called an industry — an army of advertising men whose job is to tell lies about things which they need know nothing about. And the whole thing is costed and accounted for by a further army — of accountants, bank clerks, invoice checkers — millions and millions of people simply wasting their lives away doing something which does not produce an ounce of wealth. By no standards of acceptable judgement can capitalism be described, then, as an efficient system of society. But we have not yet mentioned its supreme waste — the poverty to which it condemns its people. Commodity production means the vast majority are deprived of access to the means of producing wealth; left with nothing else, they have to sell their working ability in order to live.

But this labour power is itself a commodity and it is sold, overall, at its value — at what it takes to produce and reproduce the worker in terms of food, clothing, housing, recreation and so on. The effect of this is that the working class always live at the level of subsistence — sometimes, perhaps, rising a little above it while at other times they will fall below. But overall they exist at a level of existence which can only be called poverty.

At the same time, the other class in society — the capitalist class — because of their monopoly ownership of the means of production and distribution are able to live, if they wish, in idle luxury. Beside the poverty — and sometimes destitution — of the workers exists the opulence of the capitalists.

There is, then, a division of interests in society today, a class division which means that every social issue has two sides and that there can be no unity or co-operation. A divided society is not efficient — it is restrictive, hampered, stumbling along at a fraction of its real ability.

Socialists oppose capitalism because it is inefficient. We want a society in which human ability is given full reign, in which people can co-operate to use their abilities and knowledge to the full to produce wealth in abundance and to build a world of freedom and security. That is socialism — the efficient society.