Election countdown: What governments can and cannot do (1987)

From the June 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Social problems are not caused by governments: they cannot be solved by governments of Left, Right or Centre. The buying and selling system is the cause of social problems. The Socialist Party is the only party in Britain standing in the next election for the end of the buying and selling system, and its replacement with a new social system — socialism: a world of free access to wealth based on co-operation.

It is an old dodge of politicians to blame the cause of social problems on the government of the day and then, if those whingeing politicians become the government themselves to switch the blame (correctly) on the uncontrollable forces of the market. So, we find the Tory politicians in 1979 blaming the Labour government for social problems in Britain:

Their favourite but totally false excuse is that their appalling record is all due to the oil crisis and the world-wide economic depression.

After a few years they were themselves using exactly the same excuse that they had found unacceptable when it came from Labour: 

There has been a world recession, not our fault. Germany, France, Europe are suffering as well. Some are suffering even worse . . . there are other countries that have even worse unemployment than we have, some less, all are struck by world recession.

(Guardian 7 March 1983)

Governments are virtually powerless to control the capitalist economic system. We have to submit to the dynamics of capitalist economics in the same way as we do to natural forces like the weather and the tides.

Why are these forces out of control? Firms need to sell goods on the market but they do not know with enough certainty how big the market is. Also businesses compete with each other for sales and profits. Countries also compete for sales of their products and so there can be no agreement about the amount each produces. This can lead to "overproduction" for some firms — production of more items than can be absorbed by the market — and prices may fall to sell off excess stock. This can have a knock-on effect so other industries are also affected. If the combined effect is big enough this results in depression, with consequent heavy unemployment.

Of course there are some things that governments can do to give the illusion of control. They can pass laws, control the money supply, cut or increase taxes and so on. But governments cannot:

• control the fluctuation of supply and demand on world markets any more than farmers can control the weather.
• control recessions. If they could they would also have the means of preventing them.
• produce wealth. All resources have to come from taxes etc. on profits made in the productive sector of the economy. This is why Labour governments like any other must maintain profitability and have in the past adopted income policies to hold down wages and cut public spending.=, introduced prescription charges and so on.

Socialists want a world without markets, without buying and selling and without money. A society where wealth is owned in common and we, as the wealth-producing workers, have direct control over how that wealth is distributed. In a socialist society things would be more orderly and secure and we would be able to control production in a way that is not possible now. As a result the community would be able to pass on information about what it needed directly to the producers. The only questions which would need to be asked would be:

• what are the needs of the population?
• have we the raw materials?
• have we the labour skills?
• have we the technology to meet these needs?

In socialist society both "overproduction" and shortages will be things of the past. In a rationally organised society enough of the best could be produced for everyone.

Unemployment, job insecurity, crime and poverty as well as housing difficulties have all increased under the Tories in spite of promises to alleviate these problems. There is no evidence that Labour or the Alliance will do any better. Think hard before you cast your valuable vote. Which do you want? A system which cannot be controlled or socialism?

Cliff Begley

Most parties going into the next election stand for:

1. A system in which a few people own the vast majority of the wealth and the majority own little save their ability to work.
2. A commitment to running the buying and selling system where goods are produced not to satisfy people’s need but only when there is profit in it for the owning minority.
3. A system of coercion by the state to protect the interests of the capitalist class.
4. The keeping in readiness of armed forces for use against powers who might threaten the markets, trade routes and sources of raw materials essential to the owning minority's wealth.
5. A system of employment whereby the majority of people have to work in exchange for money from the minority who own the land, factories and so on or rely on state benefits.

The Socialist Party stands for:

1. Common (not state) ownership of what is in and on our world. Everyone will own everything or nobody will own anything.
2. Democratic control of what is produced, using information technology. When wealth has been produced all will freely take what they need to live and enjoy life. Wealth can be produced in abundance and people would soon adjust to taking only what they need as they now do with tap water.
3. The abolition of the state and the end of coercion.
4. Ending international competition over markets, trade routes and raw materials. Establishing world co-operation. All the resources pumped into the war machine could then be diverted to socially useful purposes.
5. Ending the wages system. Work will be co-operatively organised on a voluntary basis. The incentive to work will be the maintenance of socialist society, with its material wellbeing for everyone.