“While there is money, there is scarcity”. “. . . Work itself becomes voluntary. The new incentives will be pleasure, pride and social responsibility”
These are among the ideas expressed in the final chapter of the book Play-power by Richard Neville, one of the editors of OZ convicted of producing what the Law regards as an obscene publication.
Quite true; men could use modern technology to design and construct machines to do the boring and repetitive jobs involved in the production of wealth, thus freeing human beings to engage in interesting, creative work of their choice. Employment could be abolished and work become voluntary.
But before this could be done the machines and the other means of production must have ceased to be the property of a privileged minority and have come instead under the democratic control of all the people. Only then could they be used to turn out an abundance of good-quality consumer goods and services which people could use to satisfy their needs. Money would become redundant.
There is no doubt at all that in writing about “a moneyless society” Neville was directly influenced by the ideas of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. For he was quoting with approval from one of a number of articles that have appeared in OZ written by a Socialist (‘The Food Explosion” OZ 19 and 26. See also “Smash Cash” OZ 17).
The only trouble is that Neville isn’t consistent and so gives the impression of having used our arguments merely to justify shoplifting and fare-dodging. People who do this, he says “are training themselves for a moneyless society”. There is of course nothing “immoral” in these practices but they have nothing to do with a moneyless, socialist society, and are practised by many others besides Socialists and those Neville calls “drop-outs”.
Neville’s inconsistency comes out on the very next page where he uses a quite different argument to justify the practice of non-employment (what is sometimes called “refusing to work”). He conjures up the vision of a society where, in order to maintain consumer demand in the face of growing unemployment caused by automation, the State pays everybody a guaranteed income. This would presumably be paid in money, so what became of the moneyless society Neville was supposed to be training for?
We can only say that, if Neville really does believe in a State guaranteed income, he is way behind the times. In this age of potential abundance nothing short of free access to wealth will do. He was right the first time: future society will have no need for money. Today’s notes and coins—dollars and cents, pounds and pence, roubles and kopecks—can be relegated to the museums alongside the Romans’ coins and the South Sea Islanders' cowrie shells.
1 comment:
A couple of things which are annoying about this article:
1) Does it qualify as a book review? There is no indication in the original Standard that it's review of Neville's Play-power. More just the case of an article which takes issue with aspects of Neville's book.
2) There's no indication who the author of the article is. There was a brief period in the late 60s and early 70s where the Socialist Standard would sometimes carry multiple unsigned articles each month. I don't know if it was a new editorial committee bringing in a new broom or it was just the fashion for a time. As someone who always likes to know who has penned a piece, I find it annoying.
All of the three articles in the Oz magazine which were penned by a socialist were by the same writer, David Ramsay Steele.
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