Capitalism is not a practical way of organising society. It gets in the way between humans and our needs. The theory of capitalist economics is that the market is a means of satisfying demand as people buy what they want. In reality, the converse is true: the market stands as a barrier between the worker and his or her needs being satisfied.
The basis of capitalism is commodity production. Goods and services are produced primarily with a view to sale and profit. For example, the owner of land producing grain has the main objective of the sale of grain for profit. If a profit cannot be expected, the landowner is discouraged from allowing grain to be produced because if there is more of it in the market than can be sold profitably prices will fall and the sale will not make a profit.
That is why now. in what is called by capitalist economists a crisis of grain overproduction. landowners are either taking land out of cultivation or storing or destroying their grain. This is all very logical in terms of the capitalist system where profit comes first.
A naive person might observe that grain is being consciously destroyed while workers are starving in parts of the world for lack of grain and conclude that there is something perverse about talk of food over-production. How can food be surplus to requirements while millions of human beings — yes millions — are dying of starvation? The wise defender of capitalism will explain to the naive observer that requirements under capitalism are invisible unless they can be paid for: the starving worker who has no money has no hunger as far as the market is concerned. That is the logic of the present system, sometimes known as "the magic of the market".
Other examples of this social perversion which our leaders call economic rationality are abundant. In Britain there are tens of thousands of homeless families. Indeed, in London every night you can see plenty of men and women sleeping on the pavements within the vicinity of luxury hotels. Many thousands more live in squalid homes. It cannot be disputed that new and better housing is not needed. But far from building new homes for the homeless and the slum-dwellers. there is currently a virtual absence of house construction and half a million building workers are on the dole. Why? Because there is a crisis of "over-production" — no market requirement for new homes. Of course, luxury homes are being built for those with plenty of money, but for those without it the misery of homelessness or slum living is the only option.
It is not that we are unable to produce to satisfy human needs. On the contrary, society has never before been so technologically capable of doing so. In comparison with earlier centuries, when men and women were still engaged in the battle to conquer nature, we are now well able to feed, clothe and house the world population of over four billion. We live in an age of potential material abundance.
The problem is not of management or government. Some workers say that if only we got rid of Thatcher or Reagan or Gorbachev or Mitterrand (different enemies depending where they live) all would be well. But would things be any better if the American CPers got their Gorbachev and the Russian Westernisers got their Reagan and the British Labourites got their Mitterrand and the French Conservatives got their Thatcher? All that would happen is that the same unworkable system would be administered by different leaders with different slogans but with the same need to keep in line with the laws of the market. Under capitalism governments do not control the market — it dominates them. The history of sincere politicians doing nasty things is proof enough of that.
Take unemployment. It doubled under the last Labour government. They blamed if on the world market. The Tories proclaimed that "Labour Isn't Working" and promised to deal with the problem. Unemployment doubled again under the Tories. They blame the world market. Now the Labour Party, relying on the short memories of the working class. complain that the Tories have brought about unemployment and they will deal with the problem. The fact is that both sides were liars and both sides were telling the truth: they were liars in opposition when they claimed that they could solve unemployment and they were telling the truth when they were on the spot and they admitted that they were not in control. World capitalism causes unemployment because labour power, being a commodity to be bought and sold, is not needed as much during a period of depression (over-production for the market) as it is when the market is booming.
According to capitalist economics, money is necessary for the satisfaction of needs. Give people money and they will be happy. Most workers would agree with that. Most workers lack money to the extent that they can properly satisfy their needs. Socialists argue that it is only when nobody has any money that they will be happy. This odd statement needs to be explained. Where money exists there is property. Money is used so that those who do not own can buy from those who do. Under capitalism a minority of the population own and control the major resources of the earth. Even though it is the working class who produce the goods and services, we must buy them from the owning capitalist class. So you might work all day at Dagenham building Ford cars, but unless you can afford the money you will not drive one. In short, money allows those who produce everything to buy a little piece of it back from those who produce nothing. Socialists advocate a new system of society in which everyone owns the world in common. In such a social order there will be no owners to buy things from because everything which is produced will belong to all of us. Production will no longer be for profit, but for use. In a socialist society there will be nobody to buy anything from, so money will be useless — it will be abolished, just as the tram lines were when trams went out of existence.
Let us take the example of the homeless person. Under capitalism the homeless worker does not exist in the eyes of the market. only coming to life as a paying tenant. In a socialist society two questions will need to be asked. Firstly, who needs to be housed? Secondly, what is the best way to satisfy these needs? Obviously, production is a material process which calls for labour, resources and planning. Nobody need sit in an office with a calculator working out whether it is profitable to provide shelter for people. The world will belong to everyone and everyone will have an equal right to decent shelter. Socialism will not solve the housing problem by stuffing money into a cement mixer. Money creates nothing — except problems for the majority of people who have too little of it. In a moneyless society people will have free access to goods and services.
Adherents to capitalism's market dogma say that socialism is not practical. It is the common error of an unscientific mind to think that what has never been tried could not work. People used to say that about aeroplanes. In fact, a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of all social resources would be far more practical than the capitalist system. In a world where production is solely for use there will be no need to ignore human desires simply because there is no profit to be made out of them. Is it not practical to have a society which is solely concerned with achieving what is technically possible, rather than tying itself up with the artificial constraints of the market? When we enjoy free access to the goods and services of the earth no child will cry with hunger and no old person will freeze because food or heating cost more than they can afford. They will be freely available to all. Only when they are can we speak of ourselves as living in a free society.
Defenders of capitalism, worried by how reasonable and workable the case for socialism appears, tell us that there is some invisible but immutable characteristic called human nature which will stop socialism from being practical. According to them, human beings are too unco-operative and unintelligent to live in a socialist society. Socialists deny this, but if we are wrong then socialism will never come about, because inherently unco-operative people will forever put up with the ruthless competition of capitalism and naturally unintelligent workers will permanently endure the poverty which the system offers them. Our experience is that workers do not like the consequences of capitalism: they are less stupid than capitalism's defenders hope, but not yet wise enough to see how easy it would be to create a fundamentally different way of running society. Socialists do not believe for one minute that workers enjoy poverty and homelessness and hypothermia and long hospital waiting lists and mass starvation. Nor will workers ever be brainwashed to do so. In fact, our experience tells us that our fellow workers are capable of thinking reasonably. of acting wisely, of organising co-operatively. So far such behaviour has been donated to those who benefit from capitalism: it is the millionaires who live in privilege thanks to the workers' strength and knowledge. Once those weapons are used in the cause of real human co-operation, socialism will be more than a practical proposal — it will be seen as the only sane way to live.
Steve Coleman
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