Letter: Socialism's Economics (1977)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism's Economics

The article on socialism in September’s SS (p. 166-7) went beyond the evidence on human desires in the hypothetical new society. But it clearly declared that many wants may have to go unsatisfied. It did not indicate how such decisions would be reached. It pointed out that Socialism would be similar to capitalism in being a system of co-operation and social production, but it did not show what we could put in place of the price system as a means of economic communication. People would have to work, but how would they know when enough is enough? In short, where is the socialist economics that will make an economy based on common ownership viable?

“RAW" tells us (1) that it must be technically possible to keep people free of deprivation and (2) people need to have socialist understanding. He tells us that the first requirement has been met even though people like the Hyde Park questioner may feel deprived. The second is a different matter. Capitalism did not have to solve this, RAW says. Perhaps he thinks the knowledge that even children have mastered to buy sweets should not count as knowledge. On this I do not agree. However, what about the knowledge we will use to economize our wants in the new society? This seems to have been ignored by RAW.

Workers are only “forced” to work in capitalism because they want to live. The same “force" would exist in any society that depended upon effort to supply needs. The two obstacles facing the SPGB are different from the ones RAW mentioned. They are: (1) A viable socialist economics that would theoretically expound the new society as modern economics expounds capitalism. (2) A political theory of how to manage law and order in the new society. I think it is fair to say that while they remain unsolved Socialism remains a half-baked idea.

David McDonagh 

Birmingham

Reply:

We are afraid that the trouble is that like many people, you feel that a harmonious system like Socialism is really too good to be true and therefore spend your time looking for all possible faults (which is fine) but find problems which won’t exist (which is unnecessary). You bring up the old difficulty: "What if everyone wants a Rolls Royce etc? Chaos must reign!” Under capitalism though, most people know they will never even ride in a Rolls, let alone own one, so that’s fine! The rich who rule the earth, can drive the Rolls Royces, and the people who build them can wait for the bus, and so that's fine! What you don’t grasp is that we will only have Socialism when the majority of people are socialists; that is people who know what Socialism is, and are determined to get it. Such people will not wreck Socialism because society may not be able to afford to produce Rolls Royces. The “economics” that you seem to require is in part a result of looking at the future. Socialism, with the conditioned eyes of the present, capitalism. Socialists who go through the revolutionary process of establishing Socialism will work in their own interests sorting out their material requirements. It may sound simple, but it is not only the SPGB that says it is possible to solve all the material problems i.e. it is technically possible to do so. It is only socialists though who have suggested the practical way of doing so. Why not spend your time thinking about the real problems that afflict us now, and not the imagined ones of the future? And join with us in getting rid of the cause of these problems?

So far as your question of law and order is concerned, there is not space to go into that here. We would refer you in particular to The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Engels, which shows that law is a product (and therefore a problem) of property society, and will be of no relevance to property less society, i.e. Socialism.

Editors.