Cooking the Books: A false dilemma exposed (2025)

The Cooking the Books Column from the February 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some people say that, to save the planet, humanity is faced with a terrible dilemma: as the world cannot support 8 billion humans and more all with the same living standard as in the West, either a quarter of the world’s population is going to have to remain living in dire poverty or those in the West are going to have to have their living standard cut drastically.

This is to assume that the standard of living that a lot of people in the West have can only be met in a capitalist way, that is, as a byproduct of the accumulation of more and more capital out of profits, or ‘growth’ as it is often called. But this is not the only way in which such a standard of living could be sustained, as Jason Hickel and Dylan Sullivan explain in an article ‘How much growth is required to achieve good lives for all? Insights from needs-based analysis’ published last September.

They start from what a ‘decent living standard’ might be:

‘Recent empirical studies have established the minimum set of specific goods and services that are necessary for people to achieve decent-living standards (DLS), including nutritious food, modern housing, healthcare, education, electricity, clean-cooking stoves, sanitation systems, clothing, washing machines, refrigeration, heating/cooling, computers, mobile phones, internet, transit, etc’.

Then they work out how much resources would be required if production were to be geared to meeting these needs of everyone on the planet, and conclude:

‘Provisioning decent-living standards (DLS) for 8.5 billion people would require only 30% of current global resource and energy use, leaving a substantial surplus for additional consumption, public luxury, scientific advancement, and other social investments’.

What they are calling for is the redirection of the aim of production from seeking profits to be accumulated as more capital towards meeting people’s needs. They are aware that this goes against the logic of capitalism:

‘This is challenging within a capitalist market economy, however, because capital generally requires increasing aggregate output (GDP) to stabilize accumulation and because in capitalist economies any reduction of aggregate output triggers social crises characterized by mass layoffs and unemployment. Furthermore, under capitalism, decisions about production are made by wealthy investors with the primary goal of maximizing private profits, rather than meeting social and ecological goals. Necessary goods and services that are not profitable are often underproduced’.

However, although they talk in terms of ‘post-capitalist’ approaches, they still envisage production aimed at giving people a decent living standard being introduced while retaining finance (even though ‘public’) and money income (even if at or above a guaranteed minimum). To be fair, they do envisage many of the services and amenities being provided free of charge.

This is to be achieved through the state intervening in the capitalist economy and overcoming its economic laws. This in effect is global economy reformism. But, experience of the many reformist governments at national level in many different countries has shown that governments cannot overcome the economic laws of capitalism and that, if they go too far in trying to do this, this ‘triggers social crises characterized by mass layoffs and unemployment’. Which leads either to the government doing a U-turn or to it being voted out of office.

The plain fact is that production under capitalism cannot be redirected from profit-seeking to meeting people’s needs. That can only be done after capitalism has been abolished and society reorganised on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of the world’s natural and industrial resources.

Despite not realising this, Hickel and Sullivan are to be commended for having shown that the world can support all its current population (and more) without exacerbating ecological breakdown.

Polycrisis (2025)

Book Review from the February 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Insecurity Trap. A Short Guide to Transformation. By Paul Rogers, with Judith Large. Hawthorn Press, 2024. 92pp.

The main author of this book, Paul Rogers, Professor Emeritus of Peace Studies, sees the world as being in a ‘polycrisis’, whose principal features are wars, right-wing populism, poverty and environmental breakdown. He refers to it as an ‘insecurity trap’, in that the disruption caused by these factors makes everyone’s life prone to uncertainty and instability. Viewing the factors in question as planetary and often interdependent, his declared purpose is to suggest ways in which we can set about ‘navigating’ them on that same planetary level. In her Foreword, the book’s co-author sees humanity as having the technology and productive capacity to achieve world-wide security for all as long as these are not perverted in the service of, for example, fomenting hatred between peoples or producing increasingly sophisticated weapons of war.

One of the major obstacles to this, according to this book, is the free market, or ‘neoliberalism’ as it is referred to, which it sees as beginning seriously in the 1980s, in the era of Thatcher and Reagan, and having intensified since (though it is also recognised as a way of running capitalism that dates back to the 19th century). It is a way of organising things, the authors tell us, that focuses on ‘the prioritisation of private enterprise in place of state ownership’. It also, they go on, eschews ‘cooperative intergovernmental action’ and turns its back on the environmental and military drivers of migration, pushing ‘the richer states to close the castle gates and concentrate even more than at present on looking after themselves’. This in turn makes them ‘terribly ill-suited to responding to global challenges’, such as pandemics and climate breakdown and much more suited to encouraging the arms industry to supply weapons for use in the wars easily prone to breaking out. ‘Now thrive the armourers’, as they put it.

So, what is the solution Professor Rogers and his co-author have to offer to these ongoing and interlocking problems which affect the whole of humanity? First and foremost, they see ‘the need for cooperation at every level from neighbourhoods right through to intergovernmental level’, especially in view of increasing climate breakdown which ‘an economic model rooted in competition cannot cope with’. In support of this they provide a long list of ‘small steps’ people could take to ‘cooperate’ with one another on a daily basis (eg, use of cloth or paper bags rather than plastic ones, conserving water, using chemical-free products, car sharing, volunteering to help in food banks). They also suggest involvement in support of production of local food, sustainable energy, ‘ethical’ banking and campaigns such as against the arms trade and against fossil fuels, and in favour of, for example, Amnesty International. They advocate all of this, and much more – and this is where the problems arise – within the framework of the existing system of buying and selling and dependence on money and the market. In addition, they want to skew the system as it currently exists by having a much larger degree of state ownership of industry and services, arguing that, if governments have more control, they can control ‘market fundamentalism’, introduce more regulation and reform that will make things less unequal, and can also, for example, tax the wealthy, bring in carbon reduction programmes, invest in electrification, and adopt ‘green’ policies generally.

But what all of this fails to reckon with is that, with all such change – if it were possible – we would still be left with capitalism with its market and its money system. Nor would anything of what is proposed change the profit imperative that drives it. At best it would amount to a tinkering at the edges of that system and would certainly not have the effect of mending the inequality that characterises it. Above all, it would do nothing to create the more ‘sharing’ system the authors wish for, nor to remove the ‘insecurity trap’ which the authors’ well-meaning aim is to do away with. Above all, whatever individuals or individual governments may do to attempt to ease the burden on the most deprived, what cannot happen in a world of competing national economic interests is the ‘intergovernmental cooperation’ that this book advocates for. That is an illusion, because all governments are an expression of the interests of the owners or controllers of wealth in their country – whether that wealth is state managed or privately owned – and will only cooperate with other governments to the extent that those interests are not unduly affected. They cannot act against the profit motive and they do not possess the power to regulate the profit system as they wish. That is the bleak truth of the world we live in and the kind of ‘small steps’ advocated by these authors are destined to remain just that and not to lead to any larger change or a different kind of society.

It is in fact a failure of the imagination not to look beyond ‘small steps’ and to a completely different kind of world (a moneyless, stateless, leaderless one with free access for all to all goods and services) – one which is eminently realisable once majority consciousness of the need for it spreads and leads to democratic political action to bring it about. It will be a society of planned cooperation which takes advantage of existing technologies in a sustainable way and in which everyone can develop their interests and abilities with full social support and live without the ever-present threat of the pervasive material insecurity the authors of this book rightly perceive and are so keen to see removed.

Howard Moss

Taylor Swift, food banks and insecurity (2025)

From the February 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

When Taylor Swift gave substantial donations to food banks in each UK venue she played at during her 2024 UK tour, she was widely praised for her generosity. One of the effects, according to charities, was that it allowed them ‘breathing space’ as they struggled to keep up with demand. Another effect was to highlight the fact, often hidden from the wider gaze, that food banks are as widespread as they are. And it led some people at least to question the reasons why they are so necessary for so many.

Increasing hunger

To put some figures on their use, according to recently published figures by the Trussell Trust, the UK’s largest food bank charity, Trussell is currently making around 3 million deliveries to food banks annually, while accepting that this figure represents a significant underestimate of actual demand. Nor does it include networks such as Independent Food Aid (IFAN), which supports around 550 food banks, or Food Bank Aid which supplies around 20,000 people a week at 32 food banks. And, of course, there are myriad other food banks organised locally and independently by charities, churches and volunteer community groups. IFAN has reported a 25-50 percent rise in supplies needed over the last year, while the Trussell Trust shows well over half a million new people using their food banks for the first time in 2023/24, with over a third of the recipients being children, of whom the number receiving food packages has doubled over the last five years. And given the well-known fact that many struggling families, especially those with children, do not turn to food banks but suffer in silence cutting back on food or skipping meals, campaigners have raised the issue of potential life-long risks to physical and cognitive growth for children who may suffer from malnutrition.

Increasing homelessness

The growth in the number of people struggling to feed themselves, therefore, seems exponential, driven, according to a recent IFAN survey, by such factors as cost-of-living increases, Universal Credit waiting times, low wages, insecure work, and disability costs. And of course none of this takes fully into account homeless people who may not be using food banks to survive. In London, for example, the most recent figures showed a 29 percent increase in rough sleepers compared to the previous year with over 4,000 people seen sleeping rough between April and June 2024, close to 2,000 of these ‘new’ to the experience. A spokesperson for the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who has pledged to ‘eliminate’ the problem, said: ‘No one should have to sleep rough on our country’s streets, so it’s shameful that numbers are rising in London and across the country.’ Recent reports have shown that the increasing homelessness feeding this has a number of triggers, one of which is people’s inability to pay rising rents, even when in regular employment or in receipt of all available benefits. A recent case that garnered much publicity was that of a 75-year old woman, Susan Curtis, made homeless in Romford, East London, when the landlady of the home she had lived in for 13 years sold up and evicted her, and she found all other accommodation well beyond her means. A report on this on the BBC news website told us that she was now living in poor health in a small hotel room without proper cooking or other facilities. She said she felt ‘on the edge’ and ‘hopeless’, scared that things would get even worse and she would end up on the streets. She added that ‘it’s a brutal system and I feel ill-equipped to deal with it’, thus summing up the plight of the 100,000+ households (including around 130,000 children) in the UK living in hotels, B&Bs and other temporary accommodation.

The charity Shelter was founded in 1966 with the promise to get rid of homelessness in Britain within 10 years. Today, close to 60 years later, its aim of ‘a safe, secure, affordable home for everyone’ seems further away than ever. In a special debate in the House of Lords on 29 April last year, anti-poverty campaigner and founder of the Big Issue magazine, John Bird (now Lord John Bird) said that millions of children are ‘inheriting poverty’ and called for an ‘enormous mind shift in tackling destitution’. He called upon the government not to try and ameliorate or accommodate poverty by on-off emergency measures but to eradicate it by tackling the causes. Worthy and well-meaning words of course, and when, several months after, in November 2024, he perceived government lack of interest in this, he walked out in exasperation on a session of the parliamentary select committee on homelessness and rough sleeping, proclaiming it a farce.

Lord Bird’s Ministry of Poverty

The farce is to imagine that an end to homelessness, food banks and poverty is even feasible within the framework of the system we live in. It is of course not, since at the end of the day, profit based on ‘growth’ must always trump need and this is what those in government who oversee that system will always give priority to. The best they can ever do is provide band-aids to put over the sore of poverty rather than end its domination over so many lives. A prime example of this is the very latest solution suggested by Lord Bird. As co-chair of a new All-Parliamentary Group Business Responses to Social Crises, he is calling for a ‘Ministry of Poverty’, yet at the same time, he is quoted as saying that its purpose would be ‘to tackle issues such as poverty and the housing crisis through entrepreneurship’. The idea that ‘entrepreneurship’, a mainstay of the system of which poverty and insecurity are inevitable features, could actually solve such problems is nothing short of baffling, especially as at the same time he also seems to accept that the worst poverty is largely down to the fortunate or unfortunate circumstances of your birth and early existence, something that the statistician, David Spiegelhalter, has labelled ‘constitutive luck’.

The machinery of abundance

As is widely accepted, we live in an era where there exist adequate resources and the technology to make beneficial use of them which could provide a decent life for all. As far back as 2009, Tristram Stuart’s book, Waste, worked out that ‘farmers worldwide currently provide the daily equivalent of 2,800 calories of food per person – more than enough to go round’, and estimated that, if food were produced and distributed rationally (meaning for need rather than for profit), there could be enough to feed those going hungry 23 times over. Yet, while there are patently enough resources to feed and house everyone on the planet, large numbers continue to go hungry and homeless. And, even in countries such as the UK, where food is manifestly plentiful, many people, as we have seen, are still forced to have recourse to food banks. So why should it be that the machinery that could give abundance leaves so many people in want and forces them to live hopeless, fragmented lives which both waste their natural potential and make them unhappy?

Comfort and dignity

Pensioner Susan Curtis’s final word was that she would like to be living ‘a comfortable and dignified life’. Who wouldn’t? That is what everyone would want for themselves and for others. Yet we live under a system where very few can be sure of having that – at least for all of their lives. Even those who are not among the 16 million living in poverty in the UK and who have employment that allows them and their families to live with reasonable comfort, can never be fully secure. They can never know quite how long that will last, living as we do in a system which is inherently unstable and prone to crisis and where very quickly insecurity may loom. And this will always be the case until we get together democratically to establish a different social order, a moneyless, marketless society of free access to all goods and services, one in which the rule of the market and the coercion of paid employment are replaced by planned cooperation and democratic association, one in which every single person is able to develop their interests and abilities with full social support and without the gun of material insecurity to their heads.

Howard Moss

Socialist Sonnet No. 181: Commercial Property (2025)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Commercial Property

Commercial bids, sealed of course, are invited

For this intractable tract of land, freed

By eviction, coming with guaranteed

Vacant possession. We are delighted,

As appointed agents of the present

Administrators, this prime real estate

Is offered to those who negotiate,

On their own behalf, with the sole intent

Of maximising profit potential.

Partial demolition, but site clearance

Requires completion. Such a golden chance

Rarely comes to market. Need for quick sale!

While there’s unquestioned viability,

Vendors can’t accept liability.

 D. A.

London By-election' Write In'

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Below is the text from leaflets that The Socialist Party will be distributing in three London local by-elections.

On this occasion The Socialist Party will not be putting up candidates but is encouraging voters to cast a ‘write in’ vote.

What matters – profits or people?

All the parties standing in this by-election support capitalism (the profit system) and are squabbling over which of them should run the administrative side of it here at local level. So, there’s no real choice.

They think the profit system can be made to work in the interests of the majority. But it can’t, and they end up having to do the system’s dirty work of saving money on public services so that taxes on profits can be kept down.

Profits first, people second, that’s the way the profit system works. It’s the only way it can work. Which is why Socialists say it must go. Support for any of the parties that want to run the profit system is a vote for more of the same: more insecurity, hardship and cuts, while the rich can afford the best of everything.

What’s the alternative?

If we are going to put an end to this we must act for ourselves, without professional politicians or leaders. We’re going to have to organise ourselves to bring about a society geared to meeting people’s needs – without a price tag – not profits.

But the only basis on which this can be done is common ownership and democratic co-operation. In a word, socialism.

The Socialist Party is not contesting this by-election but you can still say NO to a system based on profit, privilege and competition and YES to one based on equality, co-operation and meeting needs by writing “I vote for socialism” on your ballot paper.

How We Live and How We Might Live - Part 6 (2025)

From the February 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Continued from last month)

'Socialism will never work. They [socialists] always forget about human nature!’

Playing the ‘human nature’ card is one of the most common attempts to short-circuit discussion about the viability of socialism. Those who lay it are generally coy about saying what exactly they mean by this phrase. How does ‘human nature’ function? How is it expressed? What – if anything – triggers it? When challenged on these issues, critics generally become vague or inarticulate or wave their hands about a good deal. If pressed further, many of them come up with a vision of human beings as pre-programmed automatons. Others, less reductive, picture us as biological pressure cookers that periodically overheat. Others still, shake their heads and speak of moral degeneracy or believe in something akin to magic or original sin. When, however, they are asked to describe what they believe to be the concrete manifestations of ‘human nature’ they perk up. They become suddenly explicit – and very much more concise. Human beings, they say, are greedy, lazy and violent. And that pretty much settles the matter. ‘Next question.’

Human beings are not born as blank slates. We do have a specific ‘nature’, unique to us, and this has consequences when we interact with the environment. We are a social species, so we have a biological need for human contact and association. It is why we live in communities and have economies. We have autonomic reflexes which protect us from harm. We involuntarily fixate our attention on perceived threats, for instance. Similarly, our nervous systems will remove our bodies pretty sharpish from accidental contact with extreme heat – all without consulting our brains or waiting for us to decide how to act. These reactions seem hard-wired into us, yet even they can be overcome by our conscious awareness or social learning.

Biological mechanisms are complex and subject to ongoing debate among scientists, so few of us are qualified to pronounce upon them. What we can do, however, is to leave ‘human nature’ to one side and turn our attention to something much more graspable: human behaviour. When discussing socialist society, it is human behaviour and the external conditions that influence it that tell us what we need to know. We know, for instance, that, in the scientific jargon, our human behaviour is ‘plastic’: that is, it is extremely variable and adapts itself to different environments, physical and social.

The primary goals of humanity: obtaining food, clothing, and shelter; and finding ways to relax or engage socially with others, are necessary to our survival. They do not change with place or time. The way we organise ourselves to obtain these goals, however, varies considerably from society to society. So, while these goals remain the same, the way we have to act to meet them changes according to the nature of our social environment. The organisation of society is like a maze, and different mazes require us to take different routes to arrive at the same goal. Yet not all of our goals are universal. Some arise out of the particular way a society is organised and are specific to it. The need to accumulate capital, for instance, is an essential goal of capitalism, though one not found in other societies.

Apart from autonomic reflexes and a few other neurological mechanisms, human actions are always purposeful. If a certain course of action fails to deliver our goals, then it will cease to motivate us and lose its value. In this way, changes in forms of social organisation bring with them changes in attitude and values. So, when socialists argue that human beings would think and act differently in a socialist society, they are not imagining humanity has undergone a mysterious change of heart or that some unlikely alteration has taken place in ‘human nature’, but only that people have made a practical adaptation to changed circumstances.

Capitalist apologists who claim that human beings are intrinsically greedy, lazy and violent rarely make much effort to justify their assertions. These claims though are useful. By turning them on their heads, we can use them to explore how a socialist society of common ownership and free access would function and, by comparing it with capitalism, throw light on the functioning of both societies. Last month we made a start by looking at greed. We can now take that forward.

What about the greedy person?

Human lives are mutually dependent. We live in dwellings, eat food, walk pavements, wear clothes, use tools made by hands other than our own. Almost everything we do is made possible by other people’s labour. Yet our direct awareness of this social dependence is obscured by the way capitalism reduces our relationships to the impersonal and seemingly objective business of monetary exchange. In capitalist society the effects of the employer/employee property system ripple out among us, influencing everything we experience and everything we do. Individuals, families and groups locked into their property bubbles are economically isolated from one another and forced to compete on multiple levels. Capitalism’s system of economic isolation divides us, breaks our sense of connection and removes the safety net of communal support. It leaves us insecure. Economic isolation and insecurity together lead us to prioritise our own needs in ways that are careless of the needs of others. The system makes us greedy.

For businesses to survive in a competitive capitalist marketplace they must constantly outguess and outperform one another. Market competition demands ruthlessness, and it ‘rewards’ greed. Competition between businesses for the money in consumers’ pockets results in psychologically sophisticated marketing and advertising campaigns which impose a relentless pressure upon us to buy and consume. As communities break up and human connection dissolves further into the market scrum, an insatiable inner emptiness opens up inside us which we try helplessly to fill with more and more purchases. Greed becomes social, a way of life.

When we think of greedy people, it is often those with an abundance of wealth that we call to mind. And research in social psychology confirms the validity of this perception. Despite all the pressures of capitalism, people with little wealth often find ways of being remarkably generous, a quality rarely included in the list of attributes drawn up by those who promote the idea of ‘human nature’.

A good place to find a capitalist (or wannabe capitalist) in all his unabashed glory is in the world of neoliberal or so-called ‘libertarian’ ideologues. These folk (predominantly male) can be found hovering around the websites of capitalist think tanks like The Mises or Cato Institutes in the US or the Adam Smith Institute in the UK. They will tell you unapologetically that what they want out of life is a 20-bedroom mansion and a luxury ocean-going yacht. (It is nearly always a mansion and a yacht – visible capitalist icons of wealth and status.) They like to ask, mirthfully, how in a society without private property or money anyone would prevent them from simply taking these things for themselves? We could tell them that nobody needs to and that the social relations of a socialist society would do the job for us. We could tell them, but they would be unlikely to listen.

A capitalist society puts no obstacles in the way of anyone who wishes to live in a 20-room mansion – on the sole condition, of course, that they have sufficient wealth to pay for it. In capitalism a poor person can be greedy, just like a rich person, but they have no chance of being greedy on quite such a grand scale. So, let’s for now grant some wealth to our wannabe advocate of greed. And let’s watch as, in a capitalist society and in the full expression of his ambition, he occupies his 20-bedroom mansion. Once installed he immediately uses his wealth to employ others who, lacking any other means of support, must sell their labour power wherever they can. In return for a wage they will work under his orders and act in his interests, maintaining his property, cooking, cleaning, shopping for him, and attending to his every whim in satisfaction of his desire for luxury living.

Who will clean the 20-bedroom mansion?

Now change the social scenery and consider the same individual acting with the same greedy intent in a society of common ownership and free access. In this scenario the capitalist employer/employee property system is now only a historical memory. Our greedy person requires no exclusive wealth to obtain their property, and indeed, they have none. Their aim, though, as before, is to live a luxurious lifestyle in a 20-bedroom mansion. As promised, we will not apply any force to try to stop them.

Almost immediately they notice a difficulty. Their 20-bedroom mansion is rather large with high ceilings and elaborate mouldings and with corners where dust can settle. It requires a great deal of cleaning and tidying and maintenance. So who will do this for them? With all those around them now having open access to what they need, they are genuinely free to contribute their labour only as they choose. ‘Self-interest’ has now given way to personal autonomy. If others are to tend to the greedy person’s needs, they must do so voluntarily. Yet who will volunteer their labour to pander to his or her whims and desires? They no longer possess personal wealth, neither the power, nor the mystique of power, nor the status that goes with it. Without any of these things, they are now a free person with a 20-bedroom-sized headache.

If they cling to their desire for their mansion, it seems that they now have two options. They must spend inordinate amounts of their time performing housework, doing shopping and maintaining their property, or they must live in squalor. Neither of these options we can assume add up to their conception of luxurious living. Nor will their occupancy of a large property bring them new power or status or admiration. Quite the reverse. They may well find that their greedy, and now frankly eccentric, behaviour will win them nothing but laughter and social opprobrium. The same can be said of any other exceptional or ‘greedy’ demands they might wish to make, like wanting to possess several private residences. Perhaps they will still dream of possessing a Jeff Bezos-style ocean-going yacht. Or maybe they will begin to realise that no-one is going to donate their labour to build, crew, maintain and fuel it. Will such a society even build yachts of this kind?

Not an expression of biological programming

Greedy behaviour is not simply a direct expression of biological programming called ‘human nature’. It emerges when the satisfaction of fundamental human needs is thwarted by external conditions. In capitalism, those conditions take the form of economic isolation imposed by the employer/employee property system. When that economic isolation and the insecurity it creates are eliminated and replaced by a system of common ownership, free association and free access the motivation for the kind of greedy behaviour that could endanger the stability of the system, vanishes into thin air.

‘Human nature’-type objections to socialism are almost always based on a poorly conceived notion of what socialism is. More often than not the confusion arises because the critic is projecting onto a socialist society many of the limiting features of capitalism. This may tell us something about our current world, but it tells us nothing about its socialist replacement.

Next month we will continue to explore the nature of socialist relations and address a number of questions that they inevitably throw up.

Hud.

Cooking the Books: A good question (2025)

The Cooking the Books Column from the February 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

On 8 December the Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, did the rounds of the television studios to publicise the Labour government’s plan to get 1.5 million new homes built over the next five years. The next day the press gave her a hard time with such headlines as ‘Rayner contradicts herself saying there “is plenty of housing” then admits there’s a “housing crisis”’ (tinyurl.com/3vjw84v4).

One of the things she said was: ‘There is plenty of housing already, but there’s not enough for the people that desperately need it.’

This is saying that there is enough housing available but that it’s too expensive for a lot of people. Which would indeed be a paradox. It would also mean that what is called the ‘housing crisis’ is not a crisis arising from there not being enough homes but from people not having enough money to be able to buy the homes that are for sale. In other words, a crisis due to people being too poor to pay for what they need.

So, strictly speaking, we should be talking about an ‘affordability crisis’. In which case, building more houses won’t solve the problem. As the headline of an article in the Times (11 December) by columnist Alice Thompson asked, ‘Building homes is fine but who will buy them?’

Good question, as Rayner would have had to prevaricate had this been put to her. Houses today are not built to provide accommodation for people, however desperately they might need it. They are built to be sold with a view to making a profit. As the Home Builders Federation explained to Thompson, ‘bluntly’ as she put it, ‘Builders can only build if buyers can buy’. The problem is that not enough buyers can buy.

In fact, not only is the affordability crisis preventing people using existing housing; it is also preventing more houses being built:

‘Big commercial housebuilders already have stockpiles of land where planning permission has been granted … yet more than 40 per cent of homes granted planning permission are paused.’

Thompson went on to explain why:

‘This is because housebuilders only build at the rate they can sell. Taylor Wimpey’s chief executive, Jennie Daly, defends the strategy thus: “We are not delivering more homes than the market can absorb”’.

Since the population of Britain is expanding there may well be a paying demand for more houses to be built and the profit-seeking housebuilding firms will meet this spontaneously. Whether this will lead them to build another 1.5 million over the next five years is another matter. They will certainly try not to build ‘more than the market can absorb’. The 1.5 million target will only be met if the market expands enough. But this would require dealing with the ‘affordability crisis’ by giving more money, one way or the other, to those who currently ‘desperately need’ better housing but can’t afford it because it’s too expensive.

That’s not going to happen, if only because the present government is actually cutting back on housing benefit by not increasing the rate in line with rising prices. Besides, if subsidising people to buy a house or flat became the norm then employers would not need to pay the same amount of wages. It would be back to square one.

Irish General Election: same old, same old (2025)

From the February 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

A general election was held in Ireland at the end of November 2024 and the outcome seems to be that the two main parties of the outgoing coalition will be set to form the next government. As such, the electorate voted for continuity rather than change; clearly without much enthusiasm as evidenced by a particularly lacklustre campaign and with a low turnout of below 60 percent. Housing (lack of) and the cost of living were the two top issues. While there was nothing surprising about the result, the outcome has confirmed the solidity of a number of trends in the Irish political scene that have been apparent for some time.

The Government

The two centre-right parties of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have continued to maintain their hegemony over government in the Republic. Both parties achieved approximately 20 percent of the votes cast with the former winning 48 seats and the latter 38 seats in the 174 member parliament. Both parties have been around in some form since the formation of the state in 1921 and there has never been a government since that did not include either or both of them as the dominant component. In fact, for the first 60 years of the state’s existence, general elections were primarily a contest between them with Fianna Fail having the edge and being capable of forming a single party government with over 50 percent of TDs (MPs). By contrast, Fine Gael always needed some additional support from smaller parties to form a government.

Originally Fianna Fail were more interventionist in terms of the state and the economy (erroneously and opportunistically labelled as ‘socialist’ by some commentators of the time) while Fine Gael were a little more socially liberal and also had more of a classical free enterprise philosophy which supposedly favoured the wealthier end of society. But both parties were never dogmatic in their approach to managing the Irish economy and over the years the economic differences between them have narrowed. One other point of divergence between them was that Fianna Fail was more stridently nationalistic in terms of the constitutional position of Northern Ireland and Ireland’s relationship with the UK while Fine Gael adopted a more conciliatory position. However, since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, these differences too have diminished and now there remains relatively little antagonism between the supporters of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael. So much so, that their voters now transfer votes to each other, reflecting their similar approach to politics, and this transfer of voter preference is crucial to a party’s success in the version of proportional representation that Ireland uses in its elections. Inevitably since they are now generally seen as two sides of the same coin by the electorate, their combined share of the vote has progressively fallen, so together they can expect to receive just over 40 percent of votes cast, whereas less than 40 years ago they would achieve over 80 percent of the vote between them. However, because the opposition is fragmented, they still dominate government formation.

Although they were the incumbent parties of government, they both had a reasonably good election by recent standards. The economic background to the election is that currently Ireland has a strong economy, tax revenue to the government is high and there’s quite an amount of money to be distributed to the electorate. With capitalism in a boom phase, governments without much difficulty can plausibly claim to be excellent managers of the economy and reap the electoral rewards. The two parties produced very similar manifestos and campaigned on a ‘more of the same’ ticket. Much of this largesse is due to corporation tax from the many US multinationals in the pharmaceutical, biomedical and financial technology fields that take advantage of Ireland’s low corporate tax regime. Whether Trump’s return and his protectionist statements will threaten this, remains to be seen. He made similar noises about American multinationals avoiding tax through their Irish operations when he was first elected in 2016 but never followed through on his rhetoric.

The Opposition

For the opposition parties, the outcome of the election was mixed. Sinn Fein retains its position as the main party of opposition having about as many TDs as Fine Gael on 19 percent of the vote and giving it 39 Dail seats. However, the party was at over 35 percent in the opinion polls just two years ago and could then confidently have expected to form the next government. It proved unable to even replicate its performance at the last general election of five years ago. Its relentless upward trend has certainly stalled but has not been reversed. The party stood on a centre-left platform: more government spending on affordable housing, cheaper childcare, reducing taxes on the low paid, more help for carers and of course advancing a united Ireland. While the optimism that they were on course to form the next government has diminished, they still remain poised to take electoral advantage of any future downturn in the economy.

Also in this centre-left political space are the Irish Labour Party and the Social Democrats (the latter essentially a breakaway group from the former). These parties are equal with 11 TDs and five percent of the vote each and stood on almost identical platforms: greater effort to meet Ireland’s climate change targets, more spending on disability support, a stronger stance against Israel with regard to the Gaza war, building more affordable homes and increased funding of the health service. Compared to its recent fortunes this was a ‘good election’ for Labour but overall it has been in a long-term steady decline. Sinn Fein and the more recent Social Democrats have usurped its claim to be the standard bearer of left-wing opinion in Ireland. One other centre-left party, the Green Party, did very poorly, lost nearly all its seats and its votes seemed to have moved over to the Social Democrats. It was the small, third leg of the outgoing government and seems to have paid the price for resentments about the costs associated with dealing with climate change; by contrast Fianna Fail and Fine Gael were more adroit on this issue and cynically managed to project the unpopularity of some green policies implemented by the whole government solely onto the Greens.

Away from the centre-ground there is another small party, technically an alliance between two parties, People Before Profit-Solidarity that in the usual terminology is described as ‘hard’ left. They are descended in part from various Trotskyist groups that have entered mainstream politics allied with popular protest movements and want to see much more substantial and direct state involvement in the provision of housing, energy and healthcare; a type of state-socialism. After the election they have three TDs, down from five previously.

At the other end of the spectrum, the ragbag of far-right, anti-immigrant micro-parties had a very poor outing with their self-proclaimed imminent breakthrough not materialising. The last remaining group that can be considered are the Independents who can be more accurately termed non-party TDs. They are almost 20 in number, some of them former mainstream party members, preferring to stand as independents for the freedom of manoeuvre it gives them without the constraint of having to stick to a party line on any issue. Generally these politicians never reveal any explicit ideology apart from a nebulous populism and focus on selling their parliamentary votes to the main parties to ‘deliver’ for their particular constituencies. While a few are seen as left, most of their vote is conservative in nature and they share the same views as Fianna Fail and Fine Gael on most matters.

Government formation

In summary then, the general election delivered a fragmented outcome with the three largest parties each receiving about 20 percent in the polls and roughly obtaining 40 seats each. The era of single-party government shows no sign of coming back. Clearly the electorate is more fickle with traditional party loyalties continuing to decline. The combined Fianna Fail / Fine Gael vote is decreasing but the opposition is fragmented; there was no left surge and the electorate has so far proved resistant to right-wing, nationalistic populism. As for the previous 40 years, the general election is followed by a prolonged session of horse trading where the parties initially speed date each other to ascertain whether any compatibility exists and then the serious negotiation ensues between like-minded partners. With pre-election polling a reasonably accurate predictor of the broad levels of support for each party, even before the results are known, the parties were posturing about the demands they would make of other groups before considering entering government. Sinn Fein went through the motions of exploring a ‘government of the left’ although even at the outset this seemed highly unlikely and right now it seems the next government will be a Fianna Fail and Fine Gael coalition augmented with eight, mostly rural, like-minded Independent TDs. With government coffers in a healthy financial state, their straightforward pork barrel demands should be deliverable without too much difficulty.

In fact a noticeable feature of this election is how similar in content were the manifestos of all the six larger political parties; Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Sinn Fein, Labour, Social Democrats and the Greens, with the differences being more to do with presentation and style. They would all like to be in government (especially as times are good) and they don’t want to be constrained by awkward manifesto commitments that could rule out any potential coalition partners. All six parties made promises about providing more affordable housing (the only difference being the precise number of houses to be built each year) and greater funding of healthcare and disability services. The two centre-right parties talked more about support for business and farmers while the four leftish parties made a case for devoting more resources to the low paid.

Plus ça change

The general election of 2024 in Ireland is unlikely to be remembered for its exciting political campaign, vigorous and inspiring debates or momentous outcome. In spite of the strenuous efforts of the rival parties to fabricate a sense amongst the electorate of there being substantial difference between their offerings, people could see that all that was really on offer was more or variants of the same. The only question was which particular set of politicians would implement it. The process was a vindication of the socialist position that under capitalism, elections involve rival parties, all who want to administer capitalism, engaging in a manufactured popularity contest with the winners chosen by the electorate. The incumbent parties stress their proven competence in government which is not difficult if the economy is going well. Equally the opposition parties have a greater challenge to replace the government in good times. So the main factor in all this tends to be the state of the economy. Simply if the economy remains strong, the government should be able to deliver some of what was promised; the promises themselves were not too extravagant. If the economy worsens, they will not be able to do so. However, the state of the economy, particularly in Ireland, really depends on external factors and is set by the international operation or health of capitalism and no party can control this.

The best illustration of why the system itself is at fault and cannot be fixed by the electoral scheming of conventional party politics is that even though the economy has been buoyant for over 10 consecutive years, on such a basic need as housing, many Irish workers have had to live continuously with the insecurity of short term accommodation and rents that swallow up most of their disposable income. Unfortunately, there is no sign this will end any time soon.

Kevin Cronin

Left currency crankism (2025)

Book Review from the February 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Time to Get Rid of Money. It’s just not worth it. By Phillip Sutton. Old Moles Collective. 60 pages.

This booklet is a classic example of being right for the wrong reason. It starts off well enough by saying that ‘it has been said that money is the root of all evil but this is wrong; it is class society’ and that ‘getting rid of money can only happen when the working class takes power and gets rid of capitalism’. After that, it’s downhill all the way as the author, strangely from someone who has emerged from the Left Communist milieu, embraces a currency crank theory of banking and money.

We are told that:

‘It is a total myth that banks need or use savings in order to lend out money. This monetary system is what Aaron Sahr has called “Keystroke Capitalism” ie, money is quite simply a product of using a keyboard as the banks create money by making and recording loans on their computer!!’ (his emphasis).

and that:

‘… the whole financial system is based on creating money out of thin air … The whole financial industry really is just based on creating electronic assets (ie, virtual money) that are loans on which interest can be charged. What a system — an electronic data entry costs virtually nothing but earns interest for the bank!’

To back up this incredible view Sutton cites a 2014 article from the Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin. Although this does state that banks create money when they make a loan, this is just a definition and does not imply that they do this from thin air. This said, the article’s authors have only themselves to blame when ignorant or naive people take their words literally.

Sutton writes that:

‘In modern capitalism it appears that in the money creation process, it is the borrowers that determine the money supply, and the only restriction on this credit is the ability, or perhaps the willingness, of borrowers to put forward existing assets as collateral against a loan’.

If you think that banks can simply create money to lend at interest by a few keyboard strokes, this is a logical deduction — the only limit to what banks could lend would be the amount requested by credit-worthy borrowers.

In an appendix Sutton reproduces a long section from that Bank of England article which includes this passage which contradicts his claim above:

‘Although commercial banks create money through lending, they cannot do so freely without limit. Banks are limited in how much they can lend if they are to remain profitable in a competitive banking system’.

If he read, beyond the introductory summary, the part where the authors expand on this he would find it is not ‘a total myth’ that banks need funds to back up a loan. The article explains what happens after a bank has used its keyboard to record a loan when the borrower then begins to spend the money.

When the borrower does this, most of it is likely to go to people who bank with other banks; so the lending bank will have to transfer money to another bank (if some of the recipients bank with the same bank that will go towards reducing its outgoings). What happens is that at the end of the day (literally) banks clear what they owe each other. If a bank has more money going out than coming in it covers this by drawing on its reserves. But this cannot continue indefinitely as at some point its reserves would be exhausted. The article goes on:

‘Banks therefore try to attract or retain additional liabilities to accompany their new loans. In practice other banks would also be making new loans and creating new deposits, so one way they can do this is to try and attract some of these newly created deposits. In a competitive banking sector, that may involve increasing the rate they offer to households on their savings accounts. By attracting new deposits, the bank can increase its lending without running down its reserves. Alternatively, a bank can borrow from other banks or attract other forms of liabilities, at least temporarily. But whether through deposits or other liabilities, the bank would need to make sure it was attracting and retaining some kind of funds in order to keep expanding lending’ (their emphasis ).

So much, then, for the idea that banks don’t need to fund the loans they make. The article then explains what does limit bank lending:

‘And the cost of that [attracting funds] needs to be measured against the interest the bank expects to earn on the loans it is making, which in turn depends on the level of Bank Rate set by the Bank of England. For example, if a bank continued to attract new borrowers and increase lending by reducing mortgage rates, and sought to attract some new deposits by increasing the rates it was paying its customers on their deposits, it might soon find it unprofitable to keep expanding its lending. Competition for loans and deposits, and the desire to make a profit, therefore limit money creation by banks’.

Sutton’s misunderstanding of the nature of money and banking leads him down the same road as other adherents of the Thin Air School of Banking — that debt is the problem.

‘… it is the super-rich which owns the majority of debt in the world whereas the working class, which suffers most from the burden of debt, actually owns very little of that debt … Given the level of debt today, it would have to be one of the first tasks of the working class to cancel all debts even if it cannot completely eliminate money quite so easily’.

This makes the booklet a curious combination of Left Communism and currency crankism. But, to be fair, the author does want to see the working class eventually establish ‘a society of abundance in which people are rewarded for their contributions by the free provision of their personal needs’.

Adam Buick

Assassinations or class struggle? (2025)

Street art in San Francisco

From the February 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Luigi Mangione allegedly assassinated the capitalist Brian Thompson, CEO of a health insurance company, after seeing his own mother’s prolonged suffering after being denied health insurance coverage in North America, where healthcare is unsocialised by design. The shot was heard around the world and ignited the long dormant class consciousness of North America. The outpouring of support for Mangione’s alleged act has been politically surprising for many of the lapdogs of capital. The media especially has been caught on the back foot, seeing political pundits booed by their own audience as the public celebrate the alleged act.

Capitalism and political violence go hand in hand. As Malcolm X said, ‘violence is American as cherry pie.’ It’s just not usually cutting in this direction. We will see this same political opera play out again and again as capitalism tumbles from one crisis to the next, economic and environmental, and as society becomes more individualistic and fragmented from both wings of the political spectrum, as well as an increase in violence inspired by conspiracy theorists. Examples abound from ‘pizzagate’ or the ‘MAGA bomber’ Cesar Sayoc.

Western society’s morals advocate for people to only use peaceful means of achieving social change, but capitalism is anything but peaceful. The inherent tensions between classes in a capitalist society lead to situations where violence is inevitable when the oppressed are spoken to everyday in the language of violence by capital.

The state, as argued by Max Weber, is defined by its monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force. In this regard, the 1 percent wields power through the apparatus of the state, enforcing laws and maintaining order to protect its property. So, when the working class resorts to violence, it is typically a reaction to an unyielding system that allows no channels and permits no voice.

Consider the words of Marxist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg, who once stated, ‘Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.’ Where the state fails to provide avenues for dissent, the working class feels compelled to take matters into their own hands, an act not of frivolity but of desperation. To condemn such an act will serve the oppressive structure of the status quo that continues to render peaceful protests ineffectual.

The job of a socialist party in this context is not to support the wild actions of rugged individualists but to provide paths of mass action with a coherent philosophy, uniting disparate efforts into a collective strategy. Antonio Gramsci emphasised the importance of a ‘war of position’ in establishing hegemony, advocating for a broad ideological struggle that counters individualistic acts of defiance with systemic solutions. The party must provide structure to the movement, demonstrating that the fight against oppression is not one of isolated and ultimately futile gestures but part of a large revolutionary struggle.

The late historian Eric Hobsbawm pointed out the ‘social bursts’ of violence that erupt during times of severe inequity. The working class mobilisation amidst such strife, far from being vilified, should be understood within the broader narrative of class conflict.

The state’s response to dissent is a reflection of its inherent class interests. The role of a socialist party is not only to channel individual acts into a collective aim but also to recognise and respond to the realities of revolutionary action, acknowledging that, while peaceful revolution is its aim, understanding the circumstances that lead to violence is crucial in the pursuit of a free society. It is through this synthesis of theory and practice that the socialist movement can articulate its vision for the future, one where productive resources are held in common, and where the state, and its monopoly of violence, will be a thing of the past.

A. T.

Obituary: Binay Sarkar (2025)

Obituary from the February 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Binay Sarkar (24 January 1941 – 23 July 2024)

Binay Sarkar passed away 23 July 2024 in IRIS Hospital, Baghajatin, leaving behind a void that can never be filled. Born in Betalan, Bankura, West Bengal, to Dharmadas and Tarasundari Sarkar, he rose from humble beginnings to become a torch-bearer of knowledge, compassion, and courage.

He started his education at Kotulpur High School and later studied at Ramananda College, Bishnupur, where he eventually served as a Professor of Economics. His students remember him as not just a teacher but a guide who nurtured minds and inspired them to question the world.

Binay Sarkar had been a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) but left in the 1980s and was one of the founding members of the World Socialist Party of India (WSPI) in 1995. This dream was not born out of ambition but from his deep desire to awaken people. He wanted them to see a world where equality and justice could thrive. He spent his life spreading awareness about socialism. He urged everyone to understand the differences between Marxism and Leninism. He believed change was possible, even when only a handful stood with him.

He was a man of simple habits and profound thoughts. He loved books (and wrote a number as well as many articles) and spent his days trying to awaken people’s conscience. He wanted the world to understand that wealth and power were illusions, while kindness and fairness were the real treasures. Those who stood with him saw a man who never gave up on humanity, no matter how many times it disappointed him.

Binay Sarkar’s passing leaves behind more than memories. It leaves behind a mission. Those who stood with him, though few, carry his ideals in their hearts. His vision of a better world will not end with his death. Those who knew him will walk the path he showed and hold on to the hope he believed in.

To us, your fight is not over. We will carry it forward. You are not just missed; you are irreplaceable.

Abhishek Choudhury

Blogger's Note:

The accompanying picture is from when Binay Sarkar spoke at the SPGB's 1996 Summer School.

‘Socialism’ more popular than ‘Capitalism’ (2025)

From the February 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Opinion polls are worth what they are worth. In many cases the answers depend on how the question is framed. And they can’t distinguish between a passing off-the-cuff reply and a deeply-held opinion. Still, within these limitations, they are not entirely useless. Selecting a representative sample to question, if done properly, has been shown to be broadly valid.

In December YouGov published the result of a poll carried out in August to find out what people thought of what it called ‘political ideologies’. A representative sample of 2,127 adults in Great Britain (ie excluding Northern Ireland) were asked ‘Do you have a favourable or unfavourable opinion of the following’ — Liberalism, Conservatism, Socialism, Communism, Fascism, Nationalism, Feminism, Capitalism, Populism, Anarchism, Environmentalism, and Libertarianism. Those polled could answer ‘very favourable’, ‘somewhat favourable’, ‘somewhat unfavourable’, ‘very unfavourable’, as well as ‘don’t know’.

Since none of the twelve isms was defined, those questioned were in effect being asked to give their reaction just to the word. On average about a quarter replied ‘don’t know’, rising to nearly a half for ‘populism’ and ‘libertarianism’ (not surprising in this case as it is not a commonly used word). Amongst those who did express an opinion, the most favoured were Environmentalism and Feminism. The only others with a positive net favourable opinion (more favourable than unfavourable) were Liberalism and Socialism. The remaining eight all had a net unfavourable opinion, the most unfavoured, by far, being Communism, Anarchism and Fascism.

The word Socialism was more favoured, by quite a margin, than the word Capitalism. 38 percent were very or somewhat favourable to Socialism and 36 very or somewhat unfavourable. For Capitalism the figures were 30 and 45 percent. 10 percent expressed a very favourable opinion of Socialism compared with only 5 percent for Capitalism. For very unfavourable, the figures were 17 and 18 percent.

This echoes the result of other polls, even in the United States, but what does it mean? Obviously those questioned weren’t understanding ‘Socialism’ in our sense (otherwise we’d be well on our way there). So in what sense was the word being understood?

Commenting on the result, the US website, UnHerd, pointed out:

‘Each of the 12 -isms needs to be understood on at least two levels. There’s the academic meaning of the words, of primary interest to political scientists and ideological obsessives, and then there’s how normal people react to them as labels’.

And

‘As for socialism, the public perceptions focus on the social part rather than the -ism. Tony Blair was well aware of that and famously redefined Labour’s creed as (note the hyphen) “social-ism”, by which he meant the “moral assertion that individuals are interdependent”. Actual socialists who believe in a centrally planned economy still exist, of course, but for most people it just means security, solidarity and clapping for the NHS’.

Of course ‘actual socialists’ don’t believe in a centrally planned state-capitalist economy such as used to exist in the USSR, but we do exist. But that those who have a favourable opinion of socialism are really expressing a preference for social-reformism seems reasonable. It is understandable that many should prefer this to letting the market rip.

In any event, it can’t be bad for us ‘actual socialists’ that some 45 percent of those questioned had an unfavourable opinion of capitalism (however understood). That gives us a foot in the door.

One interesting result concerned who had a ‘very favourable’ opinion of the word socialism. The top ones were 28 percent of Green Party voters, 19 percent of those aged 18-24, 18 percent of Labour voters, 18 percent of Remain voters and 18 percent of those in Scotland. Even 7 percent of those who voted for the Liberal Democrats. Since there were over four times as many Labour voters questioned as Green Party ones, in absolute terms most of those who had a favourable opinion of the word socialism were Labour voters.

We already knew this from our own experience of doing better on average in elections when we contest safe Labour constituencies and wards.

Adam Buick

Crisis and scandal – Happy New Year? (2025)

From the February 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

The first few days of 2025 has seen the news dominated by two features, neither of which are anything new. That there is a housing crisis is a frequently covered issue, while, unfortunately, reports of sexual exploitation are all too common.

Friedrich Engels, accounting for the many privations he documents in his 1845 book, The Condition of the Working Class in England, draws what would have been a controversial conclusion. Despite laissez-faire being the dominant economic attitude he voiced the necessity of the state playing a much more active mitigating role.

Subsequent history bore this out. The slums and overcrowded tenements of the new industrial towns Engels saw had, just 45 years later, resulted in government action. The 1890 Housing of the Working Classes Act enabled London councils to begin building houses, with Bethnal Green seeing the first of these in 1896. This initiative was extended to councils outside London by the 1900 Housing of the Working Class Act.

The poor physical health of so many working men revealed by First World War recruitment led to such state intervention being further extended in 1919 by the Housing Act. Also known as the Addison Act, it made housing a national responsibility, requiring local authorities to build 500,000 new homes over three years. The rationale was that healthy homes would furnish a healthy population. How ironic and tragic that over a century later, during a time when health services are being overwhelmed, there is currently a housing crisis.

The present government, echoing the one of 1919, has done what it seems all governments do when facing a serious social problem, it has set a target. 1.5 million homes to be constructed by 2029, around 370,000 a year. That is 140,000 more than the quota set by the previous administration. All well and good, to an extent, if building on that scale actually happens. The real problem ultimately is not housing but wealth, or the lack of it.

A recent radio interview with a woman in Liverpool illustrates the difficulties. She has two young children and presently is having to live with her own mother in her two bedroom home. This means the younger mother and her daughters are required to share a bed. Her local authority has a duty to house this woman and her children. Its failure to do so is due not to malfeasance, but to not having the physical property to supply. Nor does it have the resources to build houses.

Affordable housing, whether to buy or rent, is supposed to be an obligation on builders. However, builders do not build to meet need, they do so to make profit. They are driven by the same ethos as all of capitalism. More modest, cheaper properties do not cost substantially less, pro rata, to build than larger, premium properties that can command higher-end prices. A house, just like a single brick, is a commodity that must return the best possible profit for its maker.

Around Barnsley, for example, there are a number of brownfield sites for which planning permission has been granted. Many of these permissions have subsequently lapsed without a brick being laid. Whatever potential for profit exists or existed on these sites it seems insufficient for the market to act. The local authority has not been unwilling or obstructive, nor is there an absence of housing need. No matter whether targets are set locally or nationally, that need will not be met if there is a more pressing need for money.

No matter how sympathetic the radio interviewer, the listeners, politicians and pressure groups, that Liverpudlian woman and her children are, in brutal capitalist terms, not economically viable. It is quite possible that those children, and all too many like them, are or will become vulnerable. The scandal dominating the news at the moment is the seemingly huge sexual exploitation of children, dating back over decades.

Like the housing crisis this is by no means a new phenomenon. The age of consent to marry, in England in 1700, was 12 for a girl, 14 for boys. The Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885, raised the age to 16 for girls, with more severe punishments for those procuring those under 13.

Just as housing need is addressed by politicians setting targets, so they deal with this exploitation through establishing, or calls to establish, enquiries. These meet, gather evidence, propose action and then the story drops from the headlines until it re-emerges years later when little has changed.

How such things are legally considered reflects the prevailing economic structure of society. The 12-year-old requirement referred to the minimum age a girl could marry and was first established in the 13th century. Then the feudal system based on land ownership led to marriages via which estates could be secured and expanded through marriage. The Crown, then being the arbiter of law, determined that minimum age by which a female could wed.

By the time Engels was writing his book capitalism had become, and still is, the system through which social relations are produced. Virtually anything can be turned into a commodity for sale. It is a system based on the exploitation of individuals’ labour.

That labour might be employed in making widgets or supplying a service. Child labour in the UK is mainly prohibited except for a few exceptions that are highly regulated. When it is sex work that’s the issue, and there are children involved, legal and moral disapprobation is invoked.

However, for those so steeped in capitalism’s overriding ethos they are willing to risk repercussions, legislation is an inconvenience to be circumvented. If there’s a demand there will be suppliers. The worldwide trade in illegal drugs is a more visible example.

These crises and scandals are undoubtedly connected. At the root of both is money and the power it confers, or nullifies, depending on a person’s financial circumstances. Houses will be built, young persons traded, if there is profit to be made.

For as long as capitalism is allowed to continue, both legal and illegal pursuit of profit will be the ultimate determinant of whether people’s needs, in all respects, will be met. Political posturing and moral handwringing will not make a fundamental difference. Crises and scandals will remain distressing and recurrent features of headlines.

Dave Alton

Exhibition Review: Being here (2025)

'Private Face'

Exhibition Review from the February 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Black people may be said to have been excluded from art in two ways. Firstly, there have until fairly recently been few black artists, and secondly, black people have been rarely depicted in works of art and, where shown, are often placed in a subordinate role. These and other issues are addressed in an exhibition of the work of Barbara Walker, ‘Being Here’, at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester. The Whitworth display closed in late January, but it will move to the Arnolfini in Bristol from March.

Walker (barbarawalker.co.uk) was born in Birmingham in 1964, and only in 1996 did she obtain a BA in Art and Design. Since then she has been a prolific artist, in both painting and drawing, and one aspect of her oeuvre is that she usually works in series, producing not just individual works but linked pieces.

Between 1998 and 2005, for instance, she painted a series of portraits of black people under the heading of ‘Private Face’: friends and neighbours shown undertaking everyday tasks such as playing cards or having their hair arranged. ‘Louder than Words’ (2006–9) focuses on her son Solomon, who was frequently subject to stop and search by West Midlands Police. The report forms from the searches have portraits of Solomon or local scenes added to them. Also included is a reference to the police killing of Jean Charles de Menezes in London in 2005, a newspaper report with a drawing of Solomon on it.

Perhaps the most original and striking is the series Shock and Awe (2015–20). Walker scoured archives for photos of black soldiers in the two world wars, such as a South African general inspecting members of the South African Native Labour Corps in France in 1917. Her drawing based on this photo, ‘Parade II’, emphasises the soldiers, and the general is an almost blank outline. A similar approach is taken in other drawings from the same series, and again in Vanishing Point (since 2018), where classical paintings are re-presented in a new way, with the black individuals drawn more precisely and the white people (the focus of the original paintings) again shown as outlines.

All in all, an unexpected and thought-provoking exhibition.

Paul Bennett