Editorial: The European Social Forum (2004)

Editorial from the October 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the middle of this month several tens of thousands of people will assemble in London for the 3rd European Social Forum (ESF). They will come from all over Europe, and perhaps further afield, to discuss how to make the world a better place and how to achieve “global social justice for all”. In a series of workshops and seminars they will talk about a different world and how to bring it about. With the help of hundreds of volunteer translators and interpreters it will be a truly multilingual and multinational gathering. But will it really be a success and will it accomplish what the organisers and participants want?

   

Previous forums have been held in Florence and Paris, growing out of the World Social Forum held originally in Porto Alegre, Brazil. In 2001 the WSF adopted a Charter of Principles, parts of which are not bad. The first principle, for instance, states that the WSF is for organisations which “are opposed to neoliberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism, and are committed to building a global society of fruitful relationships among human beings and between humans and the Earth”. Much of the rest, however, is couched in very general terms – a kind of ‘all things to all people’ approach. The ESF has adopted a similar stand, and describes itself “a giant gathering for everyone opposed to war, racism and corporate power, everyone who wants to see global justice, workers’ rights and a sustainable society”.

   

No doubt many, perhaps most, of those who attend the ESF see themselves as coming within this so-called anti-capitalist framework, opposing globalisation, the power of the US and the WTO, and wars whether for oil or other reasons. Of course there is nothing wrong with discussing such issues with people from different countries and varying political backgrounds. But there will also be participants who have a particular party line to sell. As at the WSF, political parties are excluded from participation (as are military organisations). But this will not stop the usual lefty crowd from attending, under the cover of various ‘front’ groups. Another controversial issue has been the role of the Greater London Authority, which is partially funding the event, and of London mayor Ken Livingstone – some of the left think he has had far too much influence on the arrangements.

   

Opposition to capitalist oppression and the inequalities and brutalities of the present world set-up is fine, but that it needs to be combined with understanding in two further ways. Firstly, an appreciation that the root cause is the capitalist system of production and the ownership of the world’s resources by a small class of parasites. That is to say, it is not free trade or the neo-liberal Washington consensus or the spread of privatisation or the inequalities among nations that are the underlying problem and that therefore need to be addressed. Rather it is the system within which such nasty manifestations can arise. Linked to this is the second point, that the solution is not a fairer or nicer or less malevolent form of capitalism, and certainly not a state-run form of capitalism, but a revolutionary change to an entirely different social system. One that is not built around money, wages and trade and exchange but relies instead on co-operation, democracy and equality – a society without classes, nations or governments, where production is for use not profit.

   

Among the broad principles of the ESF are ideas that can be built on in showing that a socialist society is not only possible but is also the answer to the problems people experience under capitalism. The volunteer interpreters are just one small example of how people will undertake work because they feel it makes a useful contribution rather than because they will get paid for it. The general rejection of leadership and the insistence on participatory democracy are in keeping with the idea of a society where humans are in charge of their own lives, and with the view that such a society can only be brought about by the deliberate and conscious action of ordinary people, not by some self-appointed vanguard or elite. Ideas of decentralisation and local production are also important. But without an overreaching concept of a new society, these ideas lead nowhere, since capitalism cannot deliver them. The slogan ‘another world is possible’ needs to be complemented by some real ideas about this other world if it is to be anything more than an empty catchphrase.

How anti-capitalist? (2004)

Book Review from the October 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anti-Capitalist Britain edited by John Carter and Dave Morland (New Clarion Press £12.95)

This is a collection of articles on the anti-capitalist/anti-globalisation movement as it exists in Britain. The quality and relevance vary, and one paper in particular (on the consequences of 9/11 for British Muslims) belongs in a different book.

   

Two main themes can be picked out. One is that the anti-capitalist movement (ACM) did not grow out of thin air but represents a continuation of earlier activities, such as 1970s free festivals, road protest camps and various environmental groups. All these movements supposedly share a propensity for direct action and a general hostility to leadership. Linked with this is the second theme, that of the predominant role of anarchism within the ACM. There are definitely positive aspects to this, including opposition to the tactics of vanguard groups like the SWP and rejection of leadership. The particular variant of anarchism that is singled out in a chapter by the editors is saddled with the name ‘post-structuralist anarchism’, a viewpoint which they do not explain at all clearly (but see, for instance, http://perspectives.anarchist-studies.org/8may.htm ). This claims that power and oppression are not confined to just the state and the workings of capitalism but can be found elsewhere too (as in misogyny or anti-gay prejudice). But it downplays the crucial role of capitalism as the underlying cause of oppression.

   

The anarchist influence is seen as partly a reflection of the decline of the traditional Bolshevik left. As Carter and Moreland say, “The death of the old authoritarian Soviet anti-capitalism has cleared the way for more radical and vibrant ways of fighting money and all of its works.” This perspective is partly balanced by Derek Wall’s chapter, which refers to the Social Democratic Federation and William Morris, and notes that at the end of the 19th century, “Marxism looked pretty green”.

   

But along with the anarchism are some ‘fair trade’ and ‘deep green’ ideas which are hardly radical at all. For instance, one chapter advocates, as the opposite of globalisation, localisation, which means a country should produce as much as possible of what it needs within its own borders. Now, it is quite likely that in socialism there will be far less transport of goods from their place of production to place of consumption, as there will be no need to seek out the cheapest and most profitable place to make things. But national borders, which won’t exist in socialism, are an irrelevance here, and the argument assumes the continuance of trade (and hence of money, wages, etc.).

   

A chapter by Green Party member Molly Scott Cato argues that greens are anti-capitalist, even if many deny this. Rather than a revolution, she advocates a gradual green undermining of capitalism, by means of Local Exchange Trading Schemes (LETS) and co-operatives. Her ways to challenge capitalism include such gems as ‘Switch all your bank accounts to the Nationwide or another mutual building society.’

   

Actually it would be unfair to let trivia like this condemn the volume as a whole. It certainly offers a different perspective on aspects of the ACM. And if the book lacks a clear single view of the movement or of what should replace capitalism, then it merely reflects the anti-capitalist movement, after all.

Paul Bennett

Feeble attack (2001)

From the June 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Attac France is another group who think they can tackle poverty. Is their answer any better to the World Development Movement’s?

The vice-president of Attac France, Susan George, addressed a public meeting on 27 March in my hometown of Aarhus, Denmark, attended by several hundred people. Attac was founded just under three years ago in France and professes to be an anti-capitalist movement. The acronym “Attac” stands for “Association pour une Taxation des transactions financières pour l’Aide aux Citoyens". Today it has some twenty sections around the world. An Aarhus branch was formed after the meeting was finished.

Attac has entered the popular vocabulary, especially after one of their very peaceful demonstrations, outside the Danish medicine firm Novo Nordisk. Novo was one of the companies involved in the legal action against South Africa. Novo produce AIDS medicine; due to its cost – South Africa has an HIV/AIDS epidemic – the SA government decided to import a copy medicine for medical aid. Novo were against this policy. The demonstration has the slogan: “People before profit”.

The flyer advertising the meeting already revealed that Attac is not anti-capitalist but rather anti-big business. It mentioned some of their aims: a redistribution of goods via taxation of currency speculation (the Tobin Tax) and the abolition of tax havens; better conditions for the Third World, necessarily involving the writing-off of debt; and democratic control of the market and the multinationals. None of these aims is strikingly original. There are a number of Social Democrats who share these views – and who believes those parties can be described as anti-capitalist?

The market cannot be controlled. Both inflationary policies of Keynes and the old, Eastern bloc command economics ought to be proof positive; the market simply cannot be regulated. Taking due consideration of the fact that a capitalist who has sold does not have to buy (i.e. reinvest), the market is nothing but the sum total of businesses buying and selling products, with a view to profit. Capitalist production is anarchic; this is never more obvious than at times of economic slow-turn and recession (slump). At the time of writing the Asian tech market has nigh-on crashed; America is facing a downturn; and Marks & Spencer have suspended their European operations. Capitalism runs through periodic cycles of boom-bust and back, despite Blair and Brown’s off-heard: “We will not return to the days of boom and bust.”

George was adamant “that public services are not for sale”. We might also ask what Attac’s redistribution of goods amounts to. It would seem that Attac want healthcare, etc to be state owned and funded by greater taxation of the (already taxed) capitalists. This is merely “Old Labour” policy.

Writing off Third World debt is already governments’ policy. The World Bank has a strings-attached policy on debt relief. What this reveals is that the (short-term) loss of money involved is not nearly so important as creating politically and economically stable areas for trade and investment, with future profit gains in mind. (“Debt prevents economic growth” – George.)

George’s lecture confirmed that the so-called anti-capitalist movements don’t attack capitalism as a system. George and the others single out multinationals as the baddies, as the root cause of the problems facing the workers of the world. We certainly can agree on what multinationals have done – that need not detain us. Attac, like others, base their critique of multinationals, however, on a caricature. Multinationals cannot act willy-nilly. They do have to abide by the laws in the countries where they are established as well as by international agreements. (The ultimate power in society is political power and not economic power.) Furthermore, multinationals are not immune to the economic laws of capitalism as expounded by Karl Marx in Capital. Whilst their size mean they only get a buffeting when others go to the wall, recessions do affect the Multis.

Whilst businesses are interested in shifting taxation burdens to others and do try to reduce wage claims – all of which eat into profits – it is not entirely true to state these are all they worry about. High taxation and wages are related to more developed capitalist countries, where the workers are educated and well trained. Such a workforce is more productive. Inefficient techniques and workers do not interest multinationals too much, when they have an adverse effect on profits. Capitalists seek high profits with security.

Capitalist realities

George revealed an ignorance of capitalist realities. She thought it strange that remuneration comes to capital from goods. Her explanation for financial crises was that anyone is allowed to invest anywhere in the world. Scathing remarks were saved for the WTO because “it wants to make everything a commodity”. (Fancy that! George ought to read the opening paragraph of Capital.) The word “capitalism” was hardly used; she talked of “globalisation” incessantly, and her definition of it was pretty flimsy. No mention was made of the unending rivalries between capitalists.

Attac’s ignorance of capitalism, both in the domains of economics and history is fundamentally crucial. Any political programme takes its starting point in axioms. In judging the Attac movement, and anything else, those axioms are the first things to be looked at. Attac clearly believe in the continued existence of capitalism.

Like all reformers, Attac limit themselves to attacking features which they do not like; they fail to realise that those features are due to capitalism. The Multies’ growth is a mere reflection of the growth of the global capitalist system – they aren’t anomalies. Because they fail to recognise this, Attac will not be able to eradicate inequality and poverty. Two features are at the core of capitalism – a minority own the wealth of the world, which forces the majority to sell their ability to work for a wage (and millions don’t even have jobs) and production is carried out for profit. It is true: “Capital is rewarded to the detriment of labour”, but she has drawn the wrong conclusions and ought to think about doing away with the capital-wage labour relationship altogether. Does she not know why the system is called capitalism?

How does Attac view changes occurring? They do not denigrate parliament. George stressed the need for laws, “new rules” and “political procedures”; broad coalitions should be formed; trade unions have an important rôle to play; and Attac are for “popular education towards action”. George is utterly mistaken if she thinks governments can ever work in the interests of the workers, since their policies are formed by the dictates of capitalism.

George described Attac. It was founded by people from a variety of backgrounds; the only organisation named was the French Small Farmers’ Union – Attac. She said Attac has internal democracy and that they work to get a consensus of opinions. She sent a message to those who would use Attac for their own ends: it is not permissible to use Attac as a front. This was fine, although it will do little good, since the local Trotskyist vanguard have been licking their chops and been busily promoting Attac. (These days, the Leninists are more reformist than they used to be.)

In the questions and answers session, I addressed some of Attac’s weaknesses. When I noted the Soviet Union was a state capitalist dictatorship some of the audience laughed; George, however, agreed with me – let us hope others in Attac share this view. I sold some Socialist Standards, received praise for my comments from my fellow workers, and was interviewed by national TV.

In conclusion, then Attac does not differ from other left-wing reformist groups. All they want is some nebulously-defined humane, egalitarian capitalism where business is accountable to the workers. And people call socialists utopian!

Graham C. Taylor

Endgame? (2024)

Book Review from the September 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Endgame. Economic Nationalism and Global Decline. By Jamie Merchant. Reaktion Books. 2004.

Is globalisation coming to an end and capitalism returning to a period like that between the two world wars of the last century when economic nationalism and beggar-thy-neighbour policies were the norm? Merchant makes out a case for this, starting from basically Marxian premises.

He describes how, from the point of view of actual production, the world is one system involving workers everywhere:

‘Pick a typical product of contemporary globalization — say a laptop computer. The laptop is sold for money by the company that owns it only as the end result of a transnational sequence of extraction, processing, manufacturing, assembly, transportation, and distribution, involving thousands of laborers doing different kinds of work for a range of contractors across dozens of countries’ (pp. 125-6).

In the course of such ‘planetary assemblages’ the world working class, as a class, produce a pool of surplus value from which firms and states compete to draw a share as profits. The profits of capitalist firms do not depend on how much surplus value its workers might be said to produce; in fact some firms, as those in the inflated financial sector, don’t produce any but are very successful in capturing some. The profits a firm makes depends on how well it is organised to draw profits from the world pool of surplus. In this, firms are helped by states.

‘National competition,’ Merchant writes, ‘is competition over the global surplus product. Monetary policies, tax laws, corporate subsidies and trade agreements are some of the measures states take to assist their national corporations in raising profitability, that is, in capturing more of this global surplus’ (p. 98).

He defines ‘globalisation’ as the period when global production, and so the pool of global surplus value, was expanding. The governments of the leading capitalist states favoured the liberalisation of world trade by abolishing or lowering tariff barriers as they believed that this would lead to world trade expanding even more.

Merchant’s basic thesis is that this period is coming to an end because the continuing mechanisation imposed by competition has led to a fall in the rate of profit, resulting in ‘the global pool of surplus value available for redistribution as profits shrink[ing] relative to total capital invested worldwide’ (pp. 153-4).

Competition to capture profits has become more intense — more of a zero-sum game — and states are being compelled to intervene more actively to try to steer profits to enterprises within their boundaries. ‘Global productivity growth’, he writes, ‘appears to be over for the foreseeable future. The result is likely to be a kind of stasis state in which national governments must take ever more extreme measures to compensate for the paralysis of private capitalism’ (p.134). Hence the rise of economic nationalism and of parties advocating ‘national sovereignty’.

Slow productivity growth and slower expansion of world production are plausible explanations for the observable move away from globalisation, as so-called ‘neo-liberalism’ on a world scale, and towards economic nationalism (from governments subsidising selected enterprises as supposed engines of growth to the rise of nationalist and nativist political parties). Whether this is the endgame for capitalism is another matter.

In the final chapter Merchant seems to envisage capitalism being overthrown and the wages system abolished by spontaneous mass rioting. That’s another matter too.

Adam Buick

Another World (2003)

From the November 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists have always known that another world is possible. The world doesn’t have to be capitalist. If, on the other hand, capitalism remains, then a world other than we’ve got now – with global problems of inequality, wars and environmental destruction – is not possible. The only other world possible today is a socialist world, in the original sense of the word of course, as a system of common ownership and democratic control of productive resources, not the travesties that passed for socialism in the 20th century.

Many in the alternative-world movement are prepared to call themselves “anti-capitalists”, but only a few are prepared to argue for a world society of common ownership and democratic control with production directly to meet human needs without passing through money and the market. Most are literally what they say they are – anti-capitalists, i.e. opposed to the actions of capitalist corporations, and the governments that protect them and promote their interests, rather than against capitalism as a total, global system.

They are engaged in a never-ending, uphill struggle to try to contain and restrain capitalist corporations and governments from pursuing profits without regard for the consequences. Some of their less radical colleagues – those running the Non-Governmental Organisations – have made a virtue of necessity and see this as their institutionalised role within capitalism, warning those responsible for running it of the long-term dangers for the system of allowing policies to be dictated by short-term profit considerations. They are not really anti-capitalist at all, just advocates of a “regulated” capitalism. It’s a message capitalist governments are prepared to listen to and even welcome (which is why they subsidize some NGOs, which are therefore not as “non-governmental” as all that). The administrators of capitalism are not as stupid as some of its “free-market” ideologues.

These are the same people who see the solution to the world’s problems as “fair trade” and who danced in the hall at the failure of the recent WTO talks in Cancun. If further proof was required that they stand for an “alternative capitalism” rather than an “alternative to capitalism” this is it. Trade – as the exchange of goods for money (an exchange of ownership title as opposed to the physical transfer of products from one part of the world to another that will of course continue in socialism) – is a key feature of capitalism which is in fact a system of universal buying and selling, i.e. trading, on a world scale. “Fair” trade is a capitalist concept according to which producers, or rather producer-countries, would get the full value of what they sell instead of less than this due to more powerful countries distorting the market in their own favour.

Disputes such as took place in Cancun are essentially an argument amongst capitalist countries, with the less powerful trying to regulate the world market so that it does not operate to the undue – in capitalist terms – benefit of the big boys. In this internal squabble amongst capitalist states, the NGOs take the side of the underdogs and offer this as “another world”.

The unequal distribution of the benefits of production is indeed, to continue with their language for a moment, “unfair” and “unjust”. In a sense, socialists start from the same premise as them that every human being, just because they are human beings, should be able to enjoy a life free from material deprivation and insecurity no matter where they live in the world. But we don’t agree that this can be achieved by a regulated capitalism which would put all capitalist states on an equal footing so far as realising the surplus value created by their workers is concerned. This might benefit – enrich – the capitalists of India, Brazil, China and Indonesia and put more money into the pockets of the rulers of African states, but it would not eliminate inequality between humans in the distribution of material goods.

Even in countries such as the United States and those of Western Europe which benefit from current world trading arrangements, there is still inequality: there is still a wealthy property-owning class whose income as rent, interest and profit gives them a privileged consumption and the rest of us, while nowhere near as worse off as those in the shanty towns and villages of Africa, India and Latin America, still suffer from problems of material insecurity. In any event, the division in the world is not between all the people living in North America and Western Europe and those living in the rest of the world. There are plenty of rich people – some of them filthy rich – living in the so-called Third World.

The only way to ensure that every single human being on the planet has an equal chance to enjoy a life free from material deprivation is a world where all the resources of the planet have become the common heritage of all humanity. On this basis, these can be used to provide enough for all, without conflict (between ruling classes) over access to key raw materials and without plundering the Earth’s resources or polluting the biosphere. We are not claiming that this would be an easy task – there will be problems of co-ordination and co-operation to solve, not to speak of having to clear up the mess left by the profit system – but it is technologically possible as well as socially desirable.

Yes, another world is possible but it has to be a non-capitalist – a socialist – world.

Adam Buick

Turning Left – or going round in circles? (2003)

From the November 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

We in the World Socialist Movement are very much a different breed from all those others who like to use the term “Socialist”. We have a highly original proposition among the political organisations world-wide seeking to bring sensible arrangements to human society, and, when we say we want to “change the world”, we really mean just that. We are not in any way attached to any in the huge array of lefty groups which together can produce a recipe book to remedy all society’s ills the size of which would put Culpeper’s Herbal in the shade. In reality, though, many of these are as suspiciously comparable to each other in content as Tesco and Sainsbury products and as BBC and ITN news bulletins. Moreover, all have a success rate as to make the practitioners of mountebankery honest and respectable professors.

It is unfortunately a fact that among the opinions of the various bourgeois media there too is confusion in the area of social studies and of the true identity of the particular players engaged in their respective activities. This confusion extends to including us in with groups such as Anti-Nazi League, the Anti-Capitalists or Anti-Globalisation movements, etc. The Anti-Globalisation groups may know what they are against, but regrettably they know not why nor what to replace world capitalism with and still call for modifications in existing society, reforms. In addition, they cannot yet distinguish between globalisation and capitalism. Many thus end up either supporting the deadbeats who only want to tinker with the capitalist economy, reformers, and who have all in the past failed miserably even with their limited demands – Benn, Scargill, Gorbachev, Fidel Castro, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and Mao, to name just a few. While others, quite remarkably, take on a Luddite mentality and start smashing up the world.

However the latest publications from some Anti-Globalisation members look encouraging as the analysis of society worked out by Karl Marx is beginning to creep into the discussion within this movement and hopefully will bring some grounding to this confusing diversity of protesters. The conscious recognition in this movement of the international nature of the adversary; the awareness of the necessity of a global action against it; the extensive and intense use of the new means of global communication and the Internet developed by capitalist globalisation but in a spirit of digital counter-culture is itself a very significant development.

Now we have another lefty following the path of Benn etc who must now be regarded as a clown among clowns – Tommy Sheridan. This, not only because in the light of the failures of others he still presses on, but because of the laugh he raised among all political persuasions during the recent election when he raised the possibility that, in his little Scottish republic his government (and I mean “his”) could take over one Motorola plant and compete with Motorola and others world-wide to sell phones or components for phones. What a howler!

The left, despite referring to themselves as “socialists” have no confidence in Socialism, no confidence in the workers to win through. They tell us, your Socialism will come eventually someday – presumably, when we are all dead and gone. By this, they mean the job falls not to them but to others sometime in the future. There is no logic to this whatsoever. For the world is ready now and painfully waiting – how is Socialism to ever come in the future when we are never to explain it to people here now, for it takes a while? What will happen that might cause this future embrace of Socialism, we are not told. The truth for Benn and co is “do what you want after my career, my shot at being the leader, my time in the limelight is over”. The left like to act themselves as though they are Jesus or Moses, and lay down the commandments in stone for ignorant followers to obey. Some of us however, are not so easily taken in.

How sum up the differences between us and the lefty heroes above?

Where these leftwingers call for more wages, we socialists call for no wages; where they call for the right to work, we call for the right not to work; where they call for the Rights of Nations, we say Nations should have no Rights to exist; where they call for Leadership, we call for no Leadership. And though we both agree that money is a problem, they call for a more “fair” distribution of it; we say if it’s a problem let’s live our lives without it; they call for the exchange in the means of life with other exactly or at least comparably valued means of life; we say no to exchange, except for in the free exchange of ideas and the exchange of raw Nature into the means of life.

William Dunn

The Truth about Globalisation? (2003)

Book Review from the October 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Open World: the Truth about Globalisation. By Philippe Legrain. (Abacus £7.99.)

This book has been touted as the definitive response to the ‘anti-globalisation’ movement and writers such as George Monbiot and Naomi Klein (author of No Logo). Essentially, Legrain argues that globalisation is A Good Thing, delivering jobs and a better standard of living to poor countries and cheaper goods to the developed world. Coupled with free trade, and appropriate government action to prevent any unwanted side effects, it can benefit everyone.

Legrain begins by arguing that globalisation has not proceeded as far as many people may feel. For instance, three-quarters of the goods in British shops are made in the UK, and most people work for British companies; in the US, the corresponding figures are around 90 percent in both cases. He also has a genuinely useful chapter on the history of globalisation, suggesting that it was already well under way when the Industrial Revolution started.

But he then goes on to claim that workers in poor countries benefit from globalisation. In Vietnam, for instance, foreign-run factories pay around double the average local wage, and technology and management skills are transferred inwards. Yet sometimes he is astonishingly naive: he visits a Nike contract factory there, and describes it as “bright, airy, clean and safe”, but says nothing about the many other reports of low wages and appalling working conditions in sweatshops. He justifies the vast difference between what the workers earn per shoe ($2) and what the shoes sell for ($72) by noting all the other costs and the need for Nike to make a profit. In fact, this is his general argument: though he hardly uses the word “capitalism”, he is really defending globalisation as part of capitalism, and on the same grounds that capitalist supporters defend the profit system.

Nor, he claims, do brands really rule the world, as Naomi Klein implies. Rather, consumers hold the whip hand, as the brands have to cater to their whims. We still have a choice: if we don’t like Nike, we can buy Adidas (some choice!). Klein is described as virtually fascist for suggesting that ordinary people are manipulated into buying things they don’t really want, while she of course is intelligent enough to see through it all. It is true that people cannot be manipulated in any simplistic way, but they can certainly be influenced, which is why the global brands spend millions on advertising. Legrain also blithely ignores advertising to children, who are clearly far more manipulable than adults.

Equally, companies are supposedly not all-powerful, being at the beck and call of those who buy their products and call the shots. Some of Legrain’s arguments here are just plain silly. For instance, he states that Margaret Thatcher’s privatisation programme was introduced because she thought it made economic sense, “not because she was taking handouts from big business”. But capitalist politicians do what seems to be good for capitalism, and to suggest that such actions would only be taken if they were corrupt is missing the point completely.

Basically, Legrain’s book is a hymn to capitalism and to profit-making. If you think that capitalism is basically a nice, friendly system—though it may need a bit of adjustment from time to time—then it may well be logical to support its globalising aspect. After all, it means more customers, more profits. But the anti-capitalist or anti-globalisation movement, for all its confusions, is a sign that increasing numbers of people are rejecting the idea that profit is good for everyone and that a small number of parasites should control the Earth’s resources. Open World may make the capitalists and their supporters happy about what their system is doing to the world, but in truth it is no more convincing than any other attempt to defend the profit system.

Paul Bennett

One (capitalist) world (2004)

From the March 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Globalisation - the increased integration of the world economy — reveals itself in various ways. One is the prominence of multinational companies, with goods being produced in various parts of the world, often by companies mainly based in Europe or the US. Supra-national organisations such as the World Trade Organisation and the North American Free Trade Association are other reflections of these developments.

Jobs being switched to other countries, where labour is cheaper and/or more pliant, is a further aspect. One result is a world where a few obscenely rich individuals are wealthier than the poorest countries. Along with all this, though not necessarily an intrinsic part of it, are extensions of privatisation and the undermining of state welfare, both part of what is often referred to as the neo-liberal or Washington consensus.

Improvements in transport and communications are sometimes seen as the driving force behind these changes. Clearly, if contact with another country implies time-consuming travel, expensive phone calls and use of an unreliable postal service, then it will be difficult for a multinational company to function. But faster plane travel, e-mail and faxes make it all so much easier. Such factors, though, are best seen as facilitating globalisation rather than causing it. For the simple fact is that capitalism has always looked for markets, materials and cheap labour wherever it can find them. When the Korean company Samsung decides, as it did recently, to transfer a factory making microwave ovens and computer monitors from Teesside to Slovakia, it is motivated by the prospects of lower wages (£1 an hour, compared to the princely £5.70 paid in Billingham). And many ready meals sold in UK supermarkets contain chicken from Thailand or Brazil, where intensive factory farming has driven costs down (but has greatly increased the problems of controlling disease).

The spread of global products and brands is sometimes summarised by the term “McWorld” - a world built on the model of McDonalds, with bland goods, poorly-paid jobs and big profits for a favoured few. Multinational companies often rely on sweatshops, with child labour, temporary jobs, dangerous working conditions and no trade unions but massive profits. At the Formosa factory in El Salvador, for instance, workers have reported how they slaved for twelve hours a day on backless wooden benches, with only one daily visit to the toilet allowed, making clothes for Nike and Adidas. The biggest corporations can dictate to governments and other organisations: for example, the World Health Organisation has been blocked from taking action on obesity because of lobbying from American sugar

producers. But again, there is nothing new about governments and other world bodies doing what capitalists want. Backed up by the threat or reality of US armed force, Western capitalism can usually dictate its own terms for access to oil, cheap labour and so on.

The extension of the cash nexus to practically every aspect of life is a further instance - what Naomi Klein calls the loss of “unmarketed space”. In Bolivia the municipal water supply was privatised, and the new owners ever made it illegal to collect rainwater in roof tanks! In this case, mass protests were able to reverse the privatisation with its drastic increase in costs. When even prisons are run for a profit, it seems that nothing is beyond the evil embrace of capitalism.

World trade came into existence with capitalism, bringing products such as cotton and tobacco to Europe. But the growth of industrial capitalism led to an enormous increase in connections between different parts of the planet as raw materials were sourced from every direction and wars were fought to open up markets in places like China and Korea. Yet companies remained primarily nationally-oriented. Perhaps the first multinational appeared when the US company Singer set up a sewing-machine factory in Glasgow in 1867. By 1914, only 12,000 people in Britain were employed by US companies. So it was the 20th century that was the true era of globalisation, as expansion abroad revealed itself as the best option for companies that had difficulty in increasing their domestic market share.

There had previously been plenty of investment by individuals and institutions in overseas companies, known as foreign portfolio investment (FPI). But the 20th century saw this largely displaced by foreign direct investment (FDI), whereby a company based in one country owner and controlled factories and subsidiaries in another. FDI implies a far greater impact on the economy and population of the “receiving” country, with decisions being taken by people beyond the influence of that country's government.The last couple of decades, though, have seen a comeback of FPI, but this time with a bigger influence given the emphasis on short-term profits and on switching production from one country to another as wage levels and other production costs rise and fall. FPI is often driven by mergers and takeovers, which are designed to cut cost: and have no relation to the needs of workers or consumers.

Some people are wholly in favour of globalisation, Jack Straw for one:

“Since the collapse of the Soviet bloc, there is no longer a coherent alternative ideology on offer. We could take the advice of the Stop the World campaigners, retreat into our national economies and close our markets. But this would put at risk the real benefits that globalisation, and global capitalism, have brought to millions.” (Guardian, 10 September 2001)

(No doubt the workers of El Salvador could enlighten Straw on the "benefits” of global capitalism.) Even most supporters of globalisation agree that some changes need to be made in global governance, though they accept the general idea. Ranged against them is the world-wide anti-globalisation movement, or "movement of movements". It is common, and not just among socialists, to complain that it is clearer what this movement is against than what it is for.This is sometimes seen as a good thing, on the grounds that it prevents too early a consensus on one single solution when so many are in the air. But in fact this movement has many incompatible goals.

For instance. Walden Bello, of the group Focus on the Global South, advocates deglobalisation (probably the kind of thing Straw was opposing above):

"We are not talking about withdrawing from the international economy. We are speaking about reorienting our economies away from the emphasis on production for export and towards production for the local market."

But production for the local market is still production for profit, and what Bello is suggesting is just a less-centralised verslon of capitalism.

The World Social Forum or WSF (recently held in Mumbai) has become one of the main meeting points of the anti-globalisation protesters. A record of the discussions at the 2002 gathering in Brazil has been published as Another World is Possible, edited by William Fisher and Thomas Ponniah (the above passage from Bello is taken from this source).The editors present one of the poles of disagreement as being revolution vs. reform, with the revolutionaries wanting to do away with organisations like the International Monetary Fund and the reformers wanting to negotiate with them and transform them. But. as this example suggests, all that is really involved here is different versions of reforming capitalism, with nothing revolutionary at stake at all.

However. Another World is Possible should not be simply dismissed. It is free of any nonsense about the USSR or “national liberation movements", which might have disfigured such a collection not so long ago. More positively, there is an emphasis on democracy and on rejecting leaders, and many references to putting people before profit. For instance, a summary of one strand of the discussions in Brazil states:

“The Utopians point out the necessity of understanding that society can no longer be founded on profit and competition, but should be based on the values of equality, equity and social justice.The desired globalization is a human one: profit can no longer be prioritized over human needs.”

It is not clear how widely supported such sentiments are within the WSF. or how many dismiss them as "utopian”. But as a vision of the future this is far more encouraging and inspiring than the blinkered view of Jack Straw.

Socialism will also be a world system, but this does not mean it will involve gigantic centralised organisations. Production will no doubt involve both locally- and remotely-sourced materials, as appropriate, but there will be no incentive to go for the “cheapest" option. Putting the bottom line at the top of priorities is not the way to a healthy and happy world. 

Paul Bennett

Editorial: Against capitalism? (2000)

Editorial from the May 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Let’s assume you’re not just here for the crack, and you’re worried about the state of the planet and what capitalism is doing to it. So what do you want to do about it?

– Burn down a bank, maybe? 

You could do, but there’re a lot of banks, and even if you burned them all, they’d just build them again.

– Kick a copper, perhaps? 

Maybe, but they can kick harder than you can, every time.

– Start a revolution then?

Well, now you’re talking. But what kind of revolution? That is the question . . .

For a revolution to be any good, you have to be for something, besides being against big capitalism (WTO, IMF, World Bank, GATT etc) as if somehow “small” national capitalism is a completely different thing, and perfectly nice. It’s not. They’re the same. Let’s have a definition.

Capitalism is: commodity production for sale on a market.

Instead of that you could have: co-operative production for use and free distribution on the basis of need. this would involve: no markets, no money, no commodities, no private property, no rich class and poor class. No Third World and First World, no profit-led profligacy of any description, and amazingly, no ecological destruction, no famine, virtually no crime, and no war.

Think that’s unlikely? It isn’t. Capitalism has taken us as far as it can go, but there’s a lot further we can go without it. It doesn’t matter whether you call it. It is feasible and desirable. And given that ten Nobel scientists have recently cited 2012 as the point of no-return for environmental destruction, the word “urgent” springs to mind too.

Interested? Then contact us at spgb@worldsocialism.org

Reflections on “Reflections on June 18” (2000)

From the May 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

The events in London and in many other places around the world on 18 June 1999 were significant and, in many ways, encouraging. Here we had “an action which attacks capitalism itself”. An action which claimed to attack capitalism itself, rather than a particular aspect of it. What’s more, let’s not forget this was global: actions and demonstrations were undertaken from Bangladesh to Nigeria to Germany to Uruguay. Since then there has been the “Battle in Seattle” accompanying the World Trade Organisation meeting and there’s more to come with events planned for 1 May no less (M1Y2K).

So, plenty of interest for those of us trying to organise for world socialism—and we in the Socialist Party are serious in wanting to talk with anyone who shares our aim of abolishing capitalism, with its destruction and wage slavery, and replacing it with common ownership and a united, classless human society.

One of the interesting things to come out of J18 has been a collection of articles written mainly by people involved in the events, called Reflections on June 18. What is most heartening is that these contributions show a critical and thoughtful attitude. Without exception they are written with a view to progressing from what they see J18 to have been towards a deeper understanding of how capitalism really dominates us, and of how we can get rid of it. They are particularly aware of the dodgier political perspectives of some of those involved. Specifically, they pre-empt what may become a major ruling class tactic to stifle any coming movement against capitalism—i.e. that of presenting “capitalism” purely in terms of finance capital (stock market wheeler dealing) and “multinational corporations”. And in a way, by concentrating in the UK on “the City” J18 has shown the dangers of this. All the Square Mile is is one of those places where the thieving bosses gamble with the wealth they extract from us. The profits and power of the ruling class comes though from the wider capitalist mode and process of production and exploitation. As one article puts it:

“Capitalism is not a place (‘financial centres’) or a thing (‘multinational corporations’), it is a social relationship dependent upon wage labour and commodity exchange where profit is derived from capital’s theft of unpaid labour” (our emphasis).

Concentrating on “nasty” finance capital and multinationals and defining “capitalism” in those terms can only end up as a massive diversion from the goal of abolishing the capitalist system. In fact it is potentially disastrous. As more than one contributor in Reflections on June 18th notes, targeting “finance” and “big business” (or the WTO) is something a lot of disparate groups can agree on—including those of the extreme nationalist right. The idea of “bad” multinationals as the “undemocratic” enemies of government and the nation state is bound to be seized on enthusiastically by both nationalists and smaller, local capitalists. Equally with the notion of “globalisation” being the real problem—as though capitalism as a system hasn’t always been a globalising one. It is the nature of capitalism as a system to seek to expand remorselessly—until, that is, we end the whole system of class ownership of the means of production, of wage labour and of production with a view to profit.

Which sort of leads to the issue of the “activist mentality” raised by one article. This makes an important point about what social revolution is all about:

“[T]he identification of some cause separate from one’s own life . . . is fundamentally mistaken—the real power of capital is right here in our everyday lives—we re-create its power every day because capital is not a thing but a social relation between people (and hence classes) mediated by things.”

Until, of course, we decide as a majority to take the political action necessary to change our lives.

Ben Malcolm

Voice From The Back: Free (?) Trade (2000)

The Voice From The Back Column from the January 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Free (?) Trade 

The embattled head of the World Trade Organisation, Mike Moore, is pledging to use next week’s global trade talks in Seattle to open up the rich markets of the west to poor countries in an attempt to defuse the biggest demonstration in America since the Vietnam war. With the FBI fearful that the arrival of up to 150,000 protesters against the start of a new round of trade liberalisation talks may result in widespread disruption and violence, Mr Moore said in an interview with the Guardian that he was seeking to put right the “great injustices” of the world’s trading system . . . However, attempts by trade diplomats to produce an agreed text in advance have foundered and the WTO has come under attack from non-governmental organisations for being undemocratic, indifferent to the environment and dominated by multinational companies. Guardian, 25 November.

The death trade 

Britain last year continued to sell weapons to countries with poor human rights records despite the government’s pledge to bring an “ethical dimension” to foreign policy, the annual report on arms sales published yesterday shows. The government approved export licences for a wide range of military equipment to Indonesia, Turkey, China, Bahrain, and Algeria, as well as Saudi Arabia, Britain’s main arms customer. The report shows nearly £2bn worth of weapons were exported by Britain last year, including 38 armoured combat vehicles to Indonesia, 18 Tornado aircraft, 100 air-to-ground missiles to Saudi Arabia, and over 400 air-launched missiles to the United Arab Emirates. Guardian, 4 November.

Saving lives or profits 

The Boeing Corp. failed to disclose key findings from a 1980 report about fuel-tank problems in its jumbo jets that could have assisted federal safety investigators probing the crash off Long Island in 1996 . . . Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the subcommittee that oversees airline-disaster probes, told the Post that Flight 800’s crash could have been prevented had Boeing disclosed the report earlier. In 1990, a fuel-tank explosion on a different model jet, a Philippines Airline 737, killed eight people. New York Post, 29 October.

Couldn’t care less 

Old people are dying after operations because of hospital staff shortages and poor training, according to an independent investigation. Delays and dangerous negligence lay at the heart of a “poor” standard of care for the elderly after surgery, the enquiry concluded. Times, 18 November.

Define “professional”, please 

Headhunters are “unprofessional, unethical, money-mad, short-term chancers who would shaft anyone for a quick buck”. It’s official. A headhunter says so. The recruitment industry has been shaken by an e-mail sent by one of its oldest members to staff at a number of rivals in an attempt to poach them. Yes, really. Is there no honour among thieves? Claiming to be “the truth about recruitment agencies”, the message included the above description and suggested that, since they are treated so badly, staff owe their employers no loyalty and might as well switch sides. It came from a director of Lorien, a quoted company specialising in IT staff, and found its way to Computer Weekly.

Free market madness 

Free coal, the traditional perk for retired miners, may soon be shipped from China. The pensioners are being urged by the government to take the cheaper, subsidised Oriental fuel to cut the cost to the taxpayer. Financial Mail on Sunday, 28 November.

Not ethnic conflict—plunder 

The war in the Congo perpetuates a conflict that affects nearly every country in Africa; Congo, located in the centre of the continent, has borders with nine other countries . . . It is, in reality, one giant war against all of Africa, as a detailed analysis of any one of these wars readily shows. The real belligerents were not even at the peace talk in Lusaka: the British Commonwealth and allied French interests who, operating with complicity channels in the United States, are seeking to destroy the nation states of Africa in a domino chain of wars, and to ensure the full domination of Africa’s vast resources for themselves. The People Newspaper, Uganda, 4-18 August.

How helpful! 

“REMAIN WEALTHY. Money is fickle. And self-centred. It couldn’t care less about you and the people who depend on you. Protecting your wealth is up to you. For over 80 years we’ve helped manage the assets of some of America’s wealthiest families. Growing and protecting their money. Giving them the financial security to enjoy life to the fullest. Over the years our customers have come to expect the unprecedented level of attention and service we provide. We can do the same for you and your family. For more information, call or stop by our office at 520 Madison Avenue, 33rd floor. And find out how you can keep your money yours. WILMINGTON TRUST.” Stagebill, October.

An Open Letter to ‘Reclaim the Streets’ (2000)

From the January 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Friends,

There has been a radical shift, in radical politics, from single issue campaigns within capitalism to attacks on capitalism as a system. As one focus for this shift “Reclaim the Streets” is to be commended. However, whilst J18 attacked capitalism as a whole, using the City as a focus, there was a worrying trend during N30 to make Seattle and the WTO—”fair trade not free trade”—the focus, thus leaving capitalism as a whole unscathed.

There are no nice capitalists. Capitalists in the Third World are just as ruthless and just as exploitative as their First World brethren. The debate over globalisation is a ruling class debate over how they divide the spoils from their collective exploitation of us. A peasant gets peanuts for growing peanuts because that is the going rate for peanuts in the world economy. If the price of peanuts is raised, the local exploiter will gain at the expense of the First World importer, and the peasant still gets peanuts. Anyone still unsure of the rapacity of Third World rulers should take a quick look at Burma/Myanmar, Indonesia, etc. As revolutionaries we should fight the collective war between us and the ruling class, not play the hostage game at their bargaining table.

We have nothing to say to our rulers on how to run capitalism, we should not be drawn into fighting their battles, and we should certainly not be drawn into rolling history back instead of forwards, as a global revolution must be made globally.

Thankfully the Left-wing is dying. Good riddance! It was always the campaign for “real” i.e. manufacturing capitalism against finance and landed interests, and its demise is only a sign of capitalism’s maturity, not its triumph. We must return to the working class agenda, subverted by the Left, of calling for the abolition of capitalism rather than its “fair” administration. In a world where we are the slaves of many masters rather than one, and are told that the choice of masters is our freedom, the only action of any meaning to us is the abolition of the wages system, and thus of work as we understand it. A world which we own, and create, has no place in it for ruining men and women’s minds and bodies with employment, enslavement, or any other constraint on their mutual enjoyment of their creations. But be warned—the Left is trying to subvert your movement! The SWP, in particular, has been seen trying to recruit young and eager minds with their state capitalist poison, even at regular RTS co-ordination meetings when you and others are not represented.

The use of violence is counterproductive, as many in RTS realise. The state is strongest in its use of force, and weakest in its legitimisation of that force. Virtually all of the state’s hired thugs and hired killers are working class, from working class homes, and only function within mass organisations of repression because the state explains their actions to them as being in society’s interests. Ten years ago, Eastern Europe learned how impotent these forces are against a working class which has destroyed state legitimacy by peaceful action. As a class we run society from top to bottom, and revolutionary action lies in effectively communicating that message to each other: once legitimacy falls, the state falls. This is precisely why these forces provoke violence, with snatch squads, baton charges and horses, so that we will respond with violence and justify their repression. You don’t need to keep it fluffy—sullen resentment will do fine.

As members of the World Socialist Movement, we are glad to see the emergence of organisations attacking capitalism as a system rather than merely its particular evils. In Britain, we in the Socialist Party have stood since 1904 for the abolition of capitalism, and the establishment of socialism, i.e. the abolition of money, private property and the state. For most of that time the working class agenda has been dominated by those who said that socialism was about running capitalism better, be it Russia, China, Cuba, Labour, Sweden, etc. Now that this presence is lifting we find that many thousands have arrived at the same conclusions as ourselves, but have organised along the lines of the anarchist tradition. Whilst its diversity has allowed revolutionary ideas to flourish (as well as several reactionary ones!) it has the opposite problem to the Left. They are monolithic, but anarchism is fragmented.

We can only hope that RTS develops beyond its teething troubles, by shedding particular campaigns for the improvement of capitalism, into a general and radical attack on capitalism itself. You already have that programme in ideal, via the Situationists who seem to inspire much of your propaganda. We ourselves have spent nearly a century struggling for an authentic socialist movement, and understand the difficulties. We have a history, theory and organisation designed precisely for that revolutionary project towards which RTS is hopefully heading. We would urge all those in RTS who back the project for abolishing capitalism to meet and discuss with our organisation. We both have things to learn.

Contact us. Our branches are listed on a link from our home page, or email our Head Office, again from our home page. We look forward to hearing from you.

Yours for world socialism,

Simon Wigley

An open letter to the workers of the world (2004)

From the May 2004 issue of the World Socialist newsletter

The world we live in is one that is fraught with contradictions. Some 800 million of our fellow humans are chronically malnourished and at least 1.2 billion will, on any one day, go without food.

At the same time, the governments of the world destroy of vast amounts of food to keep prices high. They stockpile food until it rots and pay farmers to take land out of production. Why? Because the laws of supply and demand insist that you cannot eat unless they can make money from it.

600 million people are homeless, many sleeping on the streets, yet there is no shortage of vacant buildings and certainly no shortage of building materials. Again, we find that the market not only dictates who does and does not eat, but who does and does not have a home.

Over one billion have no access to clean water, while its growing scarcity will cause many wars this coming century. Meanwhile, the technology exists to desalinate millions of gallons each day and to set up treatment plants capable of cleaning the dirtiest water. However, there is not much profit in selling something which covers five-sixth’s of the planet, so the investment never comes.

Millions of children die each year of curable diseases, we still await breakthroughs in medical science. But there are literally thousands of scientists around the world employed in weapons programs – paid by their respective governments to devise new methods of murder, including germ warfare.

The list is as endless as it is insane. At every turn we see how capitalism destroys us physically and emotionally. At every turn we come smack up against the law of our age – “can’t pay, can’t have”. At every turn we find capitalism infecting all it comes into contact with.

Capitalism has enabled some fantastic technological feats. Demands of war sparked a race for rocket technology that has explored the furthest limits of the solar system. The search for oil and other resources has plumbed the deepest oceans and map out the ocean beds. We can split the atom, map the human genome, and perform amazing organ transplants. Nothing, it seems, is beyond us. Our capabilities are awe-inspiring. Sadly, in spite of the technology at our disposal, the never-ending demand for profits means that we have entered the 21st century with us every social ill that plagued the previous century. War, hunger, poverty, disease, and homelessness are still with us, and are rooted in the way we continue to organize our society. The irony is we are already capable of solving the major problems that face us. And we have been capable of solving them for quite some time – just not within capitalism.

Over 20 years ago, the World Health Organization announced that the ability existed to feed a world population twelve times its (then) size. However, the requirements of profit everywhere act as a stumbling block not only to the full use of the productive forces, but also to the full and unhindered use of science and technology in the service of humanity.

Socialists long ago realized that the problems we face are in fact social problems, because they have their roots in the way our world is organized for the production of profit, not need.

When you think about it,you’ll be hard pressed to find any aspect of our lives that is not subordinated to the requirements of profit. And this is the case the world over.

What is to be done?

If this is the case, then what can we do about it? Real socialists believe the only way forward lies in abolishing the money/wages/profit system that we know as capitalism and establishing a world of free access to the benefits of human knowledge. Then can we assert control over our own destiny, where we can enjoy a world in which there is no waste, pollution, want or war.

Since 1904, the World Socialist Movement has been advocating the establishment of such a system: a global society based upon the common and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing the things people need to live.

We advocate a world without borders, social classes, leaders, governments and armies. A world without money or wages, exchange, buying and selling. Where people can give freely of their abilities and take according to their own self-defined needs. A global system in which each person has a free and democratic say in how their world is run.

Human nature no barrier

Many people agree that such a world should be a beautiful place to live in. But they believe that “human nature” will always be a barrier, because humans are “by nature” greedy, selfish and aggressive. It is apparent what they are describing is not innate human nature, but behavior exhibited under particular circumstances. A human behavior shaped by the kind of system people are brought up in. Nobody is born as a racist or a patriot, as a bigot or with a belief in gods. Nobody is born a murderer, a robber or a rapist, and our alleged greed for money is no more a function of the natural human thought process than were slavery or witch burning.

The ideas of working people have been usually been acquired secondhand, passed down from the ruling class above us. Because the class which owns and controls the productive process, they also control the society’s intellectual life. Anti-social behavior is influenced by social circumstances at any given time, i.e., when we are poor, depressed, lonely, angry and frustrated.

Those who produce the world’s wealth are given educations which makes free-thought difficult. Our upbringings conditions us to accept without question the ideas of our “leaders”, bosses and superiors. The education system is geared to perpetuate the rule of an elite, insofar as it never encourages children to question and take issue with the status quo.

We believe that humans are by nature cooperative. For example look when communities are faced with the disasters, our humanity shines through and we “pull together” and cooperate to get through. There are millions of cases of people donating their blood and organs to complete strangers, sacrificing their lives for others, of people giving countless hours of their free time to charitable work – all of this without financial incentive.

Today, world capitalism threatens the human race with extinction. The reason this obnoxious system survives is because we accept it. Rest assured, no gene inclines us to defend the profit system.

Socialism hasn’t been tried

Many tell us that socialism has been tried and has failed. They then point to the former Soviet Union, to China, Cuba, etc., etc. But what was passed off as socialism was in fact state capitalism. A glance at these countries reveals they never abolished the wage system. Workers were exploited to support ruling classes and and those rulers outlawed dissent. They produced only profitable to do so, traded according to the dictates of international capital and were prepared to go to war to defend their economic interests.

Moreover it was believed that socialism could be established by force and that socialism could exist in one country. The Bolsheviks maintained that the revolution could only be carried out by a minority vanguard party and that workers were unable to understand the case for change.

Since 1904, our movement has maintained that socialism, like capitalism, can only exist on a global scale. Socialism will only come about when a majority of the world’s people want it and are prepared to organize for it peacefully and democratically. No vanguard can establish socialism – as Marx said: “the

emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself”.

We can do it

Agreeing with Marx, the WSM believes that there are two classes in society – the working class and the capitalist class, each determined by its relationship to the means of living. The capitalist class own and control the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, and live as parasites off profits, rent and interest. The working class, own little more than our ability to sell our physical and mental abilities to the highest bidder.

The working class runs the world and it is important to grasp this fact. It is we who fish the oceans and tend the forests and till the land and plantations. It is we who build the cities and railroads, the bridges and roads, the docks and airports. It is we who staff the hospitals and schools,who empty the bins and go down the sewers. It is workers who produce everything society needs and provides all of its services.

The capitalists and their governments have no monopoly on our skills and abilities. These belong to us. Most inventions and improvements are the result of those who do the actual work thinking up easier ways of completing a task. The result of ideas being passed down, each one improving the techniques of the previous generations. If those who work so much in a world hobbled by the profit motive, then how much more are we capable of providing in a world free from profits?

Capitalism must go

We must admit that capitalism has raised some potentials of humanity. It is now quite possible to provide a comfortable living for every human on the planet. But if we follow the capitalist trajectory, we’re in for some pretty troublesome times.

But capitalism is a barrier to the fair and needed use of the world’s productive forces. In a world of potential abundance, profit imposes widespread artificial scarcity. Billions of humans are consigned to a life of abject poverty, whilst millions more live lives filled with uncertainty.

Our ability to imagine has brought us from the days when our ancestors chipped away at the first tools. Is it really such a huge leap of the imagination to envision a social system that can take over from the capitalist order?

Do we really need leaders deciding our lives for us? Do we need governments administering our lives when what is needed is the administration of the things? Must every decision be decided by what is the most profitable? Many don’t think so and have mobilized to confront what they perceive as major problems with capitalism.

There has been a worldwide backlash against globalization, corporate power and other iniquities of capitalism. Everywhere where the world’s elite have assembled, they have been met with protests that have attracted hundreds of thousands. Demonstrations in Seattle, etc. have fueled ongoing debate on the nature of capitalism. And thousands of articles have been published that explore the alternatives offered by the anti-globalisation movement.

It is now clear is that the anti-globalisation movement cannot replace capitalism with any real alternative social system. It simply is a loose coalition of different groups, each pursuing their own agenda. Some the reform of international institutions. Others call for fairer trading conditions. All, however, fail to address the root cause of the problems of capitalism.

Capitalism cannot be reformed in the interests of the world’s billions, because reform does not address the basic contradiction between profit and need. Governments cannot be depended upon because they only act as an executive of capitalism. An expansion of democracy, while welcome, makes little difference if candidates can only offer variations on the same policies.

Capitalism must be abolished if we as a species are to thrive. No amount of reform, however great, will work. Change must be global and irreversible. It must involve all of us. We need to erase borders and frontiers; to abolish states and governments and false concepts of nationalism. We need to abolish our money systems, and with it buying, selling and exchange. And in place of this we need to establish a different global social system – a society in which there is common ownership and true democratic control of the Earth’s natural and industrial resources. A society where the everyday things we need to live in comfort are produced and distributed freely and for no other reason than that they are needed. Socialism.

It is not an utopian fantasy to suggest we can live in such a world. We certainly have the know-how. All that is missing is the will – the desire for change that can make that advance possible; a belief in ourselves as masters of our own destiny; a belief that it is possible to fashion a world in our own interests.

Socialists build that new world, by building the understanding of what Socialism will be like. And we need your help. Socialism needs your writing, organizing and artistic skills. Please join us.

JB/FNB

Blogger's Note:

A version of this article also appeared in the May 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard. I'm not altogether sure which is the original version.

Who are the anti-capitalists? (2005)

From the July 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Does the anti-capitalist movement really want "another world" as it claims, or just another form of capitalism?

In December 1999 a meeting of the World Trade Organisation took place in America, in Seattle. Delegates were met by a large demonstration which ended in a riot both by some of the demonstrators and by the police. So was born an international protest movement that has come to be known as the “anti-capitalist” or “anti-globalisation” movement.

“Anti-globalisation” was not a very good choice of name since you can’t be against globalisation. Well you can, but it doesn’t make sense. Globalisation – in the sense of the world becoming more integrated, of the emergence of “one world” – is basically a good thing, part of the preparation of the material basis for a world socialist society. In the end, most in the movement itself came to realise this and adopted the slogan “Another World is Possible”, i.e. another sort of globalisation is possible. It is actually quite a good slogan, which we socialists can endorse – and use – too.

But what do they envisage by “another world”? We know what we mean: a world without frontiers in which all the resources of the planet, both natural and industrial, have become the common heritage of all humanity and are used, under democratic control, to turn out what is needed by people to live and to enjoy life. As far as we are concerned, that is the only framework within which can be solved the problems facing humanity, not only obviously world problems such as global warming, wars and the threat of war, but also more “local” problems such as in the fields of healthcare, education, transport and the like but which are basically the same in all countries.

That’s what we mean by “another world” but what do they mean by it? Some (a handful) may agree with us. But most don’t. Most would, however, be prepared to accept being described as “anti-capitalist”.

But what is capitalism? To most people, capitalism is associated, rightly or wrongly, with three things: private ownership, production for profit, and laissez-faire economics.

Corporate capitalism

Private ownership originally meant the ownership of industry by private individuals. But, while this may have been the case in the days of Adam Smith (in the 1770s), this hasn’t been the predominant form of ownership since the introduction and rapid spread in the second half of the 19th century of what in England was called a “limited company” and in America a “corporation”. A limited company is a separate legal entity in its own right. It is the company, the corporation, that owns the assets, the shareholders owning as a collective group not as individuals. This means that they are only personally liable, if the company goes bankrupt, for the amount of their shareholding, not their total wealth. Hence the name “limited liability company”.

So, as well as private ownership it would be more accurate to speak of capitalism as nowadays involving company or corporate ownership. And, indeed, some in the anti-capitalist movement take this into account by talking of “corporate capitalism”. Which is OK as far as it goes. Only it doesn’t go far enough – because it doesn’t take into account state ownership.  State ownership is still a form of “private” ownership in the broader sense in that it is still a form of ownership (by those who benefit from it) that excludes  – deprives – other people; it is not at all the same as common ownership, which is ownership by everybody – or nobody, since with common ownership no individual or group of individuals can say “this is my property, you can’t use it”. With state ownership, those who control the state can, and do, say this.

So, we would say that capitalism is based on the individual, corporative or state ownership of the means of production whereas, for most in the anti-capitalist movement, it means only individual or corporative ownership. Which makes a difference of course,  as to what you are going to regard as “anti” or “non” capitalism.

Production for profit

But there is no dispute, not even with avowed supporters of capitalism, that one of the key features of capitalism is production for profit. The motive for producing things under capitalism is to make a profit, as the difference in money terms between the cost of producing them and the money received when they’re sold. Differences arise of course over the origin and justification of profits, but all are agreed that seeking to make a monetary profit is what motivates production under capitalism. In fact, the “Profit System” is another – very good – name for capitalism, which we often use ourselves.

From another angle, capitalism could also be called the Wages System since most people under it get a living by working for a wage or salary. But employers are not philanthropists. They don’t employ people simply to provide them with an income to buy what they need to live. They only employ people when they calculate that they can get something out of it – profit, which is the difference between the value of what employees produce compared with what they are paid as wages and salaries. But profits are not all used up in riotous living by employers and their hangers-on. Some is of course but any employer or company that consumed all its profits in this way wouldn’t last too long. Under the pressure of competition on the market, firms are compelled to re-invest most of the profits they make in keeping the productive apparatus they control as up-to-date as possible, so that they can produce as cheaply as possible and sell their products at a price equal to or below that of their rivals. Failure to do this will lead to falling sales and lower profits and eventually either to bankruptcy or to being taken over by some rival.

So, capitalism is an economic system where, under pressure from the market, profits are accumulated as further capital, i.e. as money invested in production with a view to making further profits. This is not a matter of the individual choice of those in control of capitalist production – it’s not due to their personal greed or inhumanity – it’s something forced on them by the operation of the system. And which operates irrespective of whether a particular economic unit is the property of an individual, a limited company, the state or even of a workers’ cooperative.

Neo-liberalism

The third popular idea of capitalism – laissez-faire economics – is more controversial as a defining feature of capitalism. Laissez-faire – from the French for “let it take place” or “leave it alone” – is basically a call for governments not to interfere in the operation of the market, to let market forces operate unhindered. It was first coined by some 18th century French economists opposed to the restrictions on trade and industry inherited from feudal times that then still existed. And was taken up by Adam Smith and in the 19th century by the mill-owners of Lancashire – hence its one-time other name of “Manchesterism”. It has also been called “liberalism”, associated as it was with the policy of Free Trade advocated and defended by the British Liberal Party in its hey-day. But it has never really existed in anything like a pure form.

For as long as capitalism has existed (and Marx and others date the beginning of capitalism to the middle of the 16th century) state “interference”, or to use a neutral word state “intervention”, in the economy has always existed. So laissez-faire is more a policy, advocated by certain interest groups within capitalism at certain times and in certain places. As such it can’t be said to be a defining feature of capitalism.

With the Great Slump of the 1930s, state intervention grew continuously. Economic teachings were changed to take this into account and to justify it – the so-called Keynesian Revolution. In fact state intervention was growing to such an extent that, in the 1940s, many thought that the trend was towards a completely statized economy. Witness books such as James Burnham’s The Managerial Revolution and George Orwell’s 1984. There were also optimists who thought that the gradual extension of nationalisation and the Welfare State would eventually end in socialism. But this was not to be: neither full state capitalism nor socialism resulted. Except in places like Russia (and later China) and its satellites where there already existed more or less full state capitalism, this process stopped at a so-called mixed economy of individual, corporate and state enterprises.

Then came the crisis that broke out in the early 1970s, from which the world economy has still not fully recovered (growth rates are nothing like they were in the 40s, 50s and 60s). But the political reaction to this prolonged period of relative stagnation was the opposite to what it had been in the 1930s. Unproductive state spending had to be cut back in order for a country’s industries to remain competitive on world markets. It resulted in a retreat, not an extension of state intervention. In the 80s under Reagan in America and Thatcher in Britain and others in other countries, privatisation, deregulation, cuts in the Welfare State, were the order of the day. Keynesian economics was dethroned and replaced by Monetarism. Opponents called these policies “neo-liberalism”, by which they mean a return to the laissez-faire policies advocated by Adam Smith, the Manchester cotton-lords and the 19th century British Liberal Party.

In the literature of the anti-capitalist movement this word “neo-liberalism” occurs again and again. In fact, so often that it gives a very strong hint that this is what the movement is really opposed to, that this is what it means by “anti-capitalism”. Not opposition to capitalism as such (as we would understand it: the economic mechanism of production for sale with a view to profit) but opposition only to the policies currently pursued by nearly every country in the world and imposed by the IMF and the WTO on those who might be tempted not to.

Another policy

The alternative they offer to neo-liberalism is not anti-capitalism, at least only insofar as capitalism is identified with liberalism (which as we saw is wrong). It is basically a return to the State interventionism of the 1950s and 1960s. The argument is that the State could, if it so chose (or if enough popular pressure was brought to bear on it), abandon neo-liberal, laissez-faire policies and again adopt interventionist ones (import controls, currency controls, restore and extend the Welfare State, regulate corporations, even re-nationalise industries). More that “Another Policy” than “Another World” is possible. But there’s nothing anti-capitalist about import controls, currency controls, etc. In fact they were practised before the 1980s by openly pro-capitalist governments just as much as by pseudo-socialist Labour governments.

There is some parallel between the old Labour movement and the new anti-capitalist movement. For the old Labour movement too, capitalism was essentially private capitalism. In its declarations it was “private profit” and “profiteering” (i.e. making too much profit) rather than profit as such that was denounced; the alternative promised was state capitalism (nationalisation and state control). It, too, set out to tame and humanise capitalism – and failed utterly, so utterly in fact that Labour and similar parties now openly embrace the market, competition and profit-making, the whole “enterprise culture” package. Instead of them changing capitalism, capitalism has changed them into a mere alternative team of managers of the capitalist system. The anti-capitalist movement is not likely to be any more successful in taming capitalism. In fact, following this road, it is doomed to failure.

The economic mechanism that is capitalism is just too strong and can’t be overcome either by government action or by lobbying or by political pressure in the streets. Capitalism just cannot be reformed to work in any other way than it does and always has done. An effective anti-capitalist movement will have to be one that works for ending the impersonal economic mechanism that is capitalism by restoring control of production to society; which can only be done on the basis of the Earth’s natural and industrial resources having become the common heritage of all Humanity.

Adam Buick