The architecture of autistic order (2026)

From the September 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

When I first got involved in left politics in the early nineties, an older comrade asked me how I thought we’d get to socialism.

I drew a straight line with an arrow.

Socialism was at the end. That was the goal. The arrow might have to move around obstacles but it always pointed in the same direction. Simple. Logical. Honest.

He looked at me and said it wasn’t as easy as that.

I never said it was easy. I just answered the question as clearly as I could. But I knew in that moment I was speaking a different language. So I started adapting. Fitting in. Saying things the way people expected them to be said.

It always felt contrived. It always felt illogical.

The arrow is still pointing in the same direction.

For decades the clinical establishment has looked at the autistic mind and seen deficit. Restricted interests. Social dysfunction. A fragmented internal life.

That is not my experience.

My experience is order. Sometimes relentless order. A mind that looks for the underlying machinery of things, the patterns, the systems, the internal logic that holds everything together or exposes where it’s broken.

What gets called disorder is usually just a different kind of order. One that doesn’t fit the world capitalism built.

In a capitalist world, order is social and hierarchical. It runs on unwritten rules, reading the room, knowing your place. The rules shift depending on who’s speaking, one standard for the CEO, another for the worker on the floor.

For an autistic mind, that’s not order. That’s chaos with a dress code.

My internal logic doesn’t work like that. A rule is a rule. If a standard is valid it applies universally, not selectively, not based on status, not depending on who’s watching.

When I point out a double standard I’m not being difficult. I’m identifying a structural fault. Hypocrisy is a mechanical failure of the truth.

This is why dialectical materialism made immediate sense to me when I encountered it.

Not because it confirmed what I already believed. Because it gave me a framework that actually followed its own logic. It explained injustice through material conditions and power rather than vague appeals to human nature. It replaced the baffling question of why people behave the way they do with a structured analysis of how the system is weighted.

For a mind that struggles with the unspoken and the inconsistent, socialist theory functions as a decoder ring.

It doesn’t ask you to read between the lines. It puts the lines on the table.

The friction is real though.

Capitalism produces chaos, economic, social, psychological. And an autistic mind trying to find logical consistency in a system built on contradiction will burn out. The disability doesn’t come from inside. It comes from the collision between a systematic mind and a society that runs on inconsistency and calls it normal.

That collision is exhausting. I know that from forty years of trying to adapt to it.

What I’m arguing for isn’t a world that accommodates autistic people as a minority group with special needs.

I’m arguing for a world built on consistent principles. Where the rules mean what they say. Where resources are distributed according to logic rather than power. Where the architecture of society actually follows its own blueprints.

That’s not a neurodivergent fantasy. That’s socialism.

The arrow is still pointing in the same direction it always was.

I still think the diagram was right.

Pablo.

One tweak needed (2026)

From the September 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Societies in every part of the world are currently organised around the same, single feature – a system of production driven by the search for profit.

 

In other words, capitalist production, where most people work for wages while just a few scoop up the profit that the majority produces.

 

This system was progressive in the past – it promoted such a huge increase in industrial and agricultural productivity that every person in the world could now have access to all the goods and services needed for a reasonable life.

 

But a reasonable life for all is denied precisely because the system is driven by the profit motive. If there is no prospect of a profit, there is no question about it, there will be no production.   

 

At the same time, it’s a competitive system that inevitably forces individual capitals to expand or lose out to other capitals. But the competition is not (nor can be) subject to any overall planning, which results in the boom/bust pattern that has become a fact of life in the last 200 years, in which time capitalist production has come to predominate.

 

The need for expansion also results in war. Forget the rubbish about sovereignty and fighting for freedom. Modern war is all about markets, raw materials and transport routes.

 

And that inevitable expansion is becoming a major environmental threat too.

 

But hey! Don’t despair. That ‘one tweak’ in the headline? Take the world’s productive resources away from the minority and use those resources to produce for human need, not profit.

 

We know this sounds like a big ask, but remember, the world’s workers already run production from top to bottom. It makes sense for them to run it in their own interest.

The Vital Question. (1913)

From the August 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

All men and women, whether they happen to be rich or poor, capitalist or worker, whether they are of much intellectual, physical, and social merit or are but poor fools devoid of all the graces, at some time or other come face to face with what is, did they but know it, the greatest and most important crisis of their lives. I mean that moment when they are forced to ask themselves the questions : “What am I doing ? what am I ? where am I going ?”

This moment of self-interrogation comes to everyone, brought about, it may be, by something they read, but however coming, compelling them to “take stock” of themselves. The majority of people burk the question—cannot or dare not attempt to answer. Especially at the present time, when social conditions are tending to breed a class (the working class) whose whole outlook on life is one of physical and mental supineness, and, on the other hand, a class (the capitalist class) which looks on life as a period of gross and violent pleasures, of brutal indifference to anything but its own well-being, this supremely important question is put on one side by almost everybody.

It is an inconvenient question, an ugly question—the kind of thing that keeps one awake at night, that creeps between us and the pleasure we are taking or the work we are doing; and so it is easier to endeavour to forget it than to answer it, to shelve it until we have time from our pleasures or rest from our work to think about it. We are, most of us, cowards—the worker as well as the capitalist—frightened of life, drifting downward to destruction on the current of present-day degeneration.

There are, however, some—we at least who are Socialists—who, having been brought up against this dead wall of self ignorance, realise how imperative it is that it should be stormed and broken down. We realise that this question of our present position and future activities must be answered, and answered correctly, for on the answer we give rests not only our existence as individuals, but the existence of the human race.

The capitalist class is hopeless. The uselessness of expecting help from such a class becomes every day more and more apparent. (Not that Socialists ever expected or wanted help from the capitalists.) If society is ever to be established on a basis whereon the great potentialities of life may have a chance of fruition, then it is, and can only be, the working class who will thus establish it.

To expect the capitalist class, with their narrow vision, their lack of imagination, their callous indifference and their unctuous self-satisfaction ever to engage in any task other than the conservation of themselves as a class, would be absurd. The absurdity becomes even plainer when it is remembered that the inception of the Socialist basis of society implies the total elimination of the capitalist class.

The future of mankind depends upon the strength and wisdom of the workers. But the pity of it is that the workers, who are strong enough and wise enough to produce all the world’s wealth, are still so ignorant of their position in society, of their position as wage-slaves, as to render nugatory the energy they expend on the economic and political fields. They will run after every will-o’the-wisp, will flounder in every economic and political quagmire, before discovering the only road that will lead them to their emancipation from their present slave-position.

Liberal and Tory politicians, labour leaders, priests, and pressmen, social reformers, Anarchists and Syndicalists, cranks and charlatans of every description, dangle before the eyes of the workers the false lights of their particular nostrum, in their endeavour to beguile the unwary. Bewildered by the multitudinous clamour arising from the army of misleaders, can we wonder that the average working man (or working woman) is unable to think out for himself the problems that confront him, such as his relation to his fellows and to society as a whole ?

It therefore becomes the task of the Socialist—who has realised his class position as a wage-slave, who clearly understands what is necessary to alter that degrading position, and whose whole activities are focussed upon the change in society necessary if freedom from wage-slavery is to be accomplished—to try by any and every means to concentrate the minds of the members of the working class on the things that matter. We, as Socialists, understand too well what we are ! We realise—and we want every other of our fellows to realise—that we are units in a vast multitude of men and women, working day after day, often far into the night, for what is the bare necessary amount of food, clothing, and shelter to keep us fit to continue this unending round of toil. We are the products of a system that gives us the worst food, the shoddiest clothing, the most meagre shelter. We live in an atmosphere of physical and mental squalor. Art and literature are to us practically non existent. The greatest work of art gives forth no message; the noblest literature is so many empty words. The natural beauties of the world are not for us. We have not the time nor the opportunity, not even the inclination in many cases, to study them. We are the workers ; our life’s business is to work so that our masters may enjoy (!) life. We are the slaves of a class composed of men and women who are, in a sense, themselves the slaves of the present social system of capitalism. Can there be a greater degradation than to be the slave of slaves ?

But the difference between us and the working men and women who do not yet understand their class position is that we are not content to remain as we are. To be free, as far as freedom is possible in a social sense, is the goal towards which we are striving. And we know that only by the complete overthrow of capitalism, the destruction of the present system of private ownership in the means of life and the establishment of the common ownership by the whole people in the means of life, can the slaves of capitalism throw off their shackles and be free men and women.

We know, moreover, that only by the co-operation of the working class in its entirety can this be accomplished. The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself. We, for our part, believe and hope that that co-operation and help we ask for will be forthcoming, and to obtain this help and co-operation is the object of our propaganda.

Every day it is becoming more evident to the workers that they are slaves and nothing more. However objectionable the term may be to many the facts of everyday experience are proving this to be the case. The question as to what the position of the worker is in society needs little answering. But the question which every member of the working class will sooner or later be compelled to answer, the question as to whether he or she is going backward or forward, onward to a time when life shall be free and full and joyous, or to an atavistic period when the chains that bind the slave shall gall even more than now, when freedom shall be a forgotten dream, when life itself shall be a hell darker than any Dantesque vision—this question still awaits a reply.

It would seem, indeed, that the wheel is come almost to full circle. Men and women of the working class, it is for you to answer your own question ! Whither goest thou ?

F. J. Webb

Surviving capitalism (2006)

From Issue 20 of the World Socialist Review

If you and your family, friends and neighbors were the last people left on Earth, would you be able to survive, assuming access to fresh water, plants and animal life? As humans we have come a long way, but if we are to go much further we must reassess the direction we are taking in terms of survival and the quality of our lives. Few of us are unaware of the AIDS crisis in Africa, famines and wars worldwide, melting ice caps and ozone holes, yet we continue to follow the same well-trodden path which brought us these disasters.

Millennia ago, our ancestors lived crude and superstitious lives, but they were cooperative and self-sufficient. Over time a few learned to make implements out of metal rather than wood or bone and became highly respected for their skills. Indeed, they were sometimes regarded as magicians and treated like demigods. When some took their show on the road and traded with distant communities, they became the prototypes for the international capitalist. For the first time, farmers became dependent for their livelihood on implements made from materials from faraway places not accessible to them and by techniques of which they were totally ignorant.

Nowadays, we are all expected to hang by our individual own tails and have become entirely dependent on the finite resource which lies beneath the sands of Iraq. The farmers rely on it to grow and harvest our food; the shippers to transport it great distances; we use it to power our heat, light and entertainment sources and to provide the energy for the manufacture of our consumer goods; it illuminates our supermarkets, takes us to and from work and keeps us on-line. Now that it is about to be depleted, we are threatened with the increased use of nuclear power and even coal! Meanwhile, we are all subjected to the degradation of our air, the privatization of urban water supplies and the genetic modification of food without our permission.

Why do we continue to worship the pantheon of thieves and profiteers which is responsible for this mess when we can all share the Earth’s considerable resources without creating waste and pollution in the process? After all these eons, isn’t it about time we chose a more equitable and practical alternative — socialism? Clean energy is a realistic possibility and conspicuous consumption a worthless exercise in a society of free access for all. Such a society will not come without cooperation and encouragement, but if we work together and avoid exploitation, we may yet survive capitalism.

— Betty Pagnani

Alternatives (2026)

From the February 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Meet the New Year, same as the Old Year’ to paraphrase Pete Townshend. Which begs the question, will we be fooled again?

Certainly January 2026 seemed to be serving up familiar news items. Putin continuing to pound Ukraine, Trump similarly enhancing his country’s democratic credentials through a military adventure in Venezuela to kidnap their president and his wife. Xi Jinping in Beijing must surely be casting covetous glances at Taiwan while feeling on-trend with his fellow presidents.

Israel continues air strikes on Gaza while, no doubt, Hamas quietly bide their time plotting another blow for liberation, perhaps by killing more kids at a pop festival. Meanwhile Iranian state forces have been slaughtering protesters who are sick of the repressive theocratic regime.

Meanwhile in good old Blighty, the Labour government continues to demonstrate that inequality cannot be taxed away. The Prime Minister, posturing on the international stage, pursues his partial morality by speaking out in condemnation of Russia’s assault on Ukraine while remaining silent over USA’s incursion into Venezuela.

Rather than New Year resolutions, what is required is New Year revolution, initially in people’s thinking. As long as nationalist concepts continue to be entertained to a greater or lesser extent around the world, nothing fundamentally can change.

Wars and armed conflicts will continue to kill, almost without discrimination, huge numbers of men, women and children. Each death utterly preventable. To continue to support, actively or passively, maintaining the present system is to support the killing.

New Year’s resolutions are largely wishful thinking, largely forgotten halfway through the month. However, to make a telling change in the world in favour of the vast majority does require resolution. A resolve that will be challenging and will be challenged. It’s either passive acceptance of the status quo or the active and conscious pursuit of an alternative society.

Early alternatives

Emerging capitalism spawned attempts to bring about political change and establish ideal, cooperative communities. The seventeenth century, during the upheavals of the English Civil War, saw the rise of two such movements.

The Levellers were concerned with political and legal changes via extended suffrage, annual parliaments, religious freedom and equal justice for all. Printed manifestos were the main campaigning device, allied to public debates such as those in Putney. Influential for a while within the New Model Army.

The Diggers focused on economic change through the abolition of private property, common ownership of land, communal farming and the ending of wage labour. Themes that continue to resonate with socialist thinking of the present day.

The difference between the two groups also continues to persist, agitators for political change on one hand, direct action communalists on the other. Little recognition at the time that the two elements are intimately connected.

The political establishment of the day, the Commonwealth under Cromwell, produced its own Agreement of the People marginalising the Levellers. Meanwhile the Diggers were subjected to legal action and violence for their occupation of land.

So the new governing force did what subsequent governments continue to do to the present day, that is defuse radical aspirations through short-term measures that really changed nothing significant in the political and economic relations as experienced by the vast majority. However, the way had been opened for the rising capitalist class to usurp the fading power of feudalism that eventually re-divided the people into two classes, capitalist and workers, a situation that still persists today.

Brutal conditions

The brutal conditions workers had to endure when industrial capitalism was enacting its steam-powered revolution produced an inevitable reaction. Combinations, early trade unions, met with an outright ban initially, while the Luddites faced deployments of soldiers and the hangman’s noose as governments did little to mask their sympathies.

There were capitalist employers who did take a more enlightened view, seeing no benefit in overworked employees living in squalor. Famously, Robert Owen ran the New Lanark manufacturing community on the banks of the Clyde. Reasonable living and working conditions, at least by the standards of the times, along with health and education services were undoubtedly an improvement. The fundamental aim of that community still remained the creation of profit.

Owen demonstrated that the profit motive could be well served, perhaps better served, through a more-or-less contented workforce. This was an early example of welfare capitalism, what would become social democracy on a national scale. As an alternative to the miserable slums in which so many urban workers then existed, New Lanark would have been acceptable. It was not, though, any sort of alternative to capitalism, but an indication of how it would develop as a functioning society.

Owen would go on to become involved with the New Harmony utopian community in Indiana. 20,000 acres along the banks of the river Wabash. He is often credited with being the founder of utopian socialism and the co-operative movement. Perhaps he was also an early syndicalist through his involvement with the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union, the attempt to have a national trade union for all workers. An aim of the GNCTU was to use the combined power of all workers to assume control over industry to be operated on their own behalf. A general strike was envisaged as a means to this end. New Harmony, the GNCTU and the co-operative movement patently failed to bring about an alternative society as the whole world continues to be capitalist.

Modern failures

There have, of course, been many subsequent political movements and parties expressing their intention of overthrowing capitalism in favour of socialism. One strand of this has been social democratic gradualist organisations proposing to reform away capitalism. Despite at times succeeding to enact reforms that have achieved significant – usually short-term – beneficial changes, these parties have failed to maintain those improvements and, instead, have largely become managers of society on behalf of capitalism.

A variety of Leninist parties continue to advocate their own revolutionary model. However, wherever their designs have been realised subsequent to the Russian Revolution of 1917, they have only produced state capitalism in one form or another. None have at any time been socialist societies.

A truly socialist society means common ownership of the means of wealth production meeting everyone’s self-defined needs, with people freely contributing their talents and abilities, a society without money, democratically achieved worldwide through the conscious action of the vast majority, the workers.

Capitalism for ever?

Absolutely a huge task, but one that must be undertaken if there is to be an alternative to economic hardship, rationing of resources by ability to pay, and an almost continuous waste of life and resources through war. Otherwise these features of capitalism will simply continue ad infinitum.

The task of motivating a vast majority of the world’s population of 8 billion or so to embrace the concept of socialism and act in concert to realise this concept precludes there being any ready formula concocted by a minority. Those who would be vanguards to act on behalf of that majority are bound to fail. Only by common consent and commitment can the majority identify what needs to be done and institute those organisations required to deal with the process, overcoming obstacles already known and those that will undoubtedly arise.

This requires individual resolution to bring such change about, acceptance of responsibility as there is not, and cannot be, a leader or party who can do it on people’s behalf. Looking beyond those from left, right and centre claiming they have the way forwards.

It is for socialists, however few in number at present, to maintain the broad principles of socialism in the public domain and advance where and when possible. There can be no short cuts whatever others might claim to the contrary. On hearing any such claim, recall the title of The Who song alluded to at the start: ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’. Take it to heart.

D.A.

What We Are After. (1908)

From the December 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain has for its OBJECT:

The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.

Obviously the present social system is not so based. Its characteristics, class division and antagonism, riches and poverty, overwork and idleness, its law, public institutions and mentality, arise from and have their basis in the ownership and control of these means and instruments by a small part of society—the members of the capitalist class. Our wealthy mentors and their Press and platform hirelings admit as much when they tell us that if we abolish the “sacred rights of property” the whole social fabric will totter to the ground, even though, they conclude with the gratuitous assumption that “anarchy and chaos” will follow.

So that there may be no mistake, let us at once state which are the means and instruments of wealth production and distribution that Socialism demands shall be owned in common and controlled democratically. They are those winch are essential to the community’s well-being—those which it is worth the people’s while to acquire, hold and administer ; which, as private property, enable their owners to get rent, profit or interest—those things, in short, which enable their possessors to exploit the workers. Thus the carpenter’s favourite plane, the wife’s knitting needles and a host of other odds and ends that deluded opponents of Socialism love to quibble over are excluded. The means of production and distribution that count, that are indispensible and worth going after, are, broadly speaking, the land, factories, warehouses, machinery, ships and railways.

Given, then, such a fundamental change in the basis of society as will be the social control of industry, in place of the existing private control, and tremendous changes must inevitably follow in the whole social superstructure. The capitalist-landlord class, deprived of its unearned incomes, will either have to come and do its quota of necessary labour like the rest of us, or accept the alternative it offers us workers—starvation. The census of 1901 shows that there were then 663,656 adult men who did not even profess to have any occupation. These “gentlemen” together with their numerous female dependents, and the myriads of domestic servants who pander to their luxury, constitute a potential supply of labour power which, when applied, will help to vastly increase the supply of goods and services available to the community. The thousands of clerks to-day employed in booking profits will, with the abolition of the profits system, be set free for work of social utility. The same applies to the innumarable agents, commercial travellers, advertisers, printers, redundant shopkeepers and assistants.

There being no longer an enslaved class to keep in subjection and no longer any need to forcibly hold markets or protect capitalist investments abroad, the stupendous amount of energy now wasted in the maintenance of arnies and navies will become available for the satisfaction of society’s needs.

Thus at a stroke tho establishment of the Socialist Republic involves an immense increase in the productive powers of the community, and consequently of the possibilities of enjoyment and of leisure ; and further, the abolition of war and vice-breeding, parasitic idleness. The security of well-rewarded, brief labour would spread over the land a happy and bony people.

The condition that necessarily follows from the attainment of the OBJECT of the S.P.G.B. is then, seen to be infinitely preferable to the conditions at present obtaining, at least from the workers’ standpoint.

The product of industry now divided into a small part wages and a large part profits will then remain entirely with and at the disposal of the industrious. Then invention and more economical methods will not, as now, spell unemployment and misery, but greater comfort and leisure, giving opportunities for such, physical and mental development as but few of the working class even hope for to-day.

Many poor, half-fed workers, carefully gulled by the political and journalistic organs of the beneficiaries of the present system, will bring forward this and that (as they think) awkward question and objection ; but if they will reason out logically the consequences that flow from the S.P.G.B. Object applied to each case they have in mind, and compare the results as they affect themselves and those they love, with the results of the present capitalist system, they will realise, indeed, that the workers have nothing to lose but their chains, and a world to win.

By reasoning out for themselves and finding out the correct answer to the often trilling difficulties and objections brought against Socialism, instead of asking someone to think them out for them, our fellow working men and women will the sooner enjoy the novel satisfaction of being less often tricked and misled. Then, indeed, we shall be making headway toward our goal, realising that in Socialism, understood and fought for by a wide-awake and ever vigilant democracy, lies our only hope.

J. H. Halls

Material World: Life without money (2025)

The Material World column from the December 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

It’s an ambiguous phrase. It can mean trying to survive without using money within or at the margins of existing money-dominated society. Or it can mean a change of society to one in which money would be redundant.

Then there is the question of what is meant by ‘money’. There are those who want to replace notes and coins, cheques and electronic transfers by labour credits or consumption vouchers. Others though might regard them as only wanting a different form of money. But then, Karl Marx, a critic and opponent of money, envisaged using ‘labour-time vouchers’ instead of money in the early stages of socialism before it became possible to go over to full free distribution and full free access.

Nobody is arguing that all that needs to be done is to abolish money and leave everything else unchanged. That would be madness and would lead to a breakdown of production and distribution. If you’ve got a system based on producing goods and services for profit, you’ve got to have money. So, no, we don’t want to go back to barter.

Socialists want to replace the present capitalist system with a new system based on common ownership instead of ownership by the few and with production directly to meet people’s needs instead of production for sale on a market with a view to profits. In such a socialist (or communist society – the two words mean the same) money would be redundant. So we don’t want to ‘abolish money’ full-stop. We want a change to a society with a system of production and distribution in which money would be redundant and so would disappear.

For us, the case against money is the case against capitalism. Capitalism is the system which now dominates the world. No country escapes or can escape from its influence and effects. It is essentially an economic system where the means for producing useful goods and services take the form of ‘capital’, or wealth used to produce more wealth with a view to profit, where the goods and services produced take the form of ‘exchange value’; they all have a price and have to be exchanged for money.

The farms, factories, offices and other places where wealth is produced are owned and controlled by rich individuals, capitalist corporations and states. Under the pressure of competition, those in charge of these ‘units of capital’ are driven to seek as much profit as they can, not so much for the personal benefit of the owners (though this does come into it) as to get funds to reinvest in cost-cutting innovations so as to be able to compete with, and outcompete, their rivals. One consequence of this is that more and more capital is accumulated. This in fact is what capitalism is all about: the accumulation of more capital out of profits.

One consequence of this is that over time the means of production and their productive power have built up and society has now become able, in theory, to produce enough useful goods and services to meet people’s needs. But the economic mechanism of capitalism does not let this happen. Making profits and re-investing them as more capital always comes first.

It’s an irrational system of ‘production for production’s sake’, of ‘growth for growth’s sake’. There are other anti-social results of capitalism. Such as the recurring economic crises and slumps. Such as the wars and preparation for war that occur as capitalist states compete over sources of raw material, trade routes, markets and investment outlets. Such as putting short-term cost considerations before protecting the environment and respecting a balance of nature. And it does not allow production to be geared to meeting the needs of people for food, clothes, housing, healthcare, education and the other amenities for an enjoyable life.

People’s needs are met but only to an extent – to the extent that they have money to pay for them. There are various ways an individual can get money. They can inherit it (be born with it). They can steal it. They can beg for it. Or they can work for it – which is what most people do. We don’t criticise those who try to avoid this by establishing rural communes or by living off what they find in skips. That’s a lifestyle choice but not an attractive one for most people. We don’t even criticise those who choose to steal money as long as they steal from the rich.

But what sort of society is it where most people have to fend for themselves to get money so they can access what they need to live – and where, even in a developed country like Britain, 10-15 percent can’t keep up and are forced to rely on more or less meagre handouts from the state? This when society has the technology to produce enough for all, especially if we get rid of capitalism’s artificial scarcity (the need to make a profit holds back producing enough to meet people’s needs) and its organised scarcity (not just of wars and preparation for war, but also all of the resources devoted to the counting and transfer of money).

As socialists, we say capitalism must go if we’re going to be able to provide a decent living for every man, woman and child on the planet.

What is needed in place of capitalism is for the Earth’s resources to become the common heritage of all. Then, they could be geared to satisfying people’s needs. If productive resources were commonly owned, then so would what they produced. The issue to be dealt with would be, not how to sell to people what had been produced (how could they buy when they’re already the joint owners?). It’s how to share out what’s been produced. In other words, exchange (buying and selling) is replaced by distribution (sharing out and receiving). For this, money is not needed.

It’s possible – right at the beginning or as a result of some major natural disaster – that some useful things might be temporarily unavailable in sufficient quantities. In which case there would have to be a temporary rationing of them till supplies were increased or restored. But, given modern technology and capacity to produce, the general rule (and certainly the aim to be reached as rapidly as possible) would be free distribution and free access, the implementation of the old communist principle of ‘from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs’. With free public transport, healthcare, education, gas, water, electricity, telephone, internet access, and other public services and amenities. And people free to take from the stores and distribution centres according to their needs. There would be no need for money. It would be redundant. The notes, coins and cards we now use would find their proper place in museums.

Adam Buick

Letter: A realist writes (1986)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

A realist writes

The Editor.

Socialist Standard.

Being a realist rather than an optimist. I have to state the obvious fact that there are very few good points about being unemployed. Not because I feel particularly depressed, ashamed, useless, or guilty about not performing some type of so-called productive task, and thereby helping to maintain the coffers of our profit-orientated society. No, my reasons for finding my situation unpleasant, uncomfortable, and unenviable are purely financial, for I still recognise the truth that I am no less a person as a result of my lack of paid employment.

But there is one advantage to being unemployed it gives you plenty of time to think And during the past 14 months or so of serious mental application to matters political, social, and religious. I have definitely concluded that the only solid hope for this overcrowded and sadly exploited little planet is to be found in socialism. There can surely be no doubt any more that virtually every crime, either individual or international, originates from the obsession with profit and the motivation of material greed. I have finally come to understand just what my venerable, white-haired granny meant when she used to tell me that "money is the root of all evil"; although 1 would qualify that by saying that it is not money as such  — for it is merely a shorthand mode of exchange, being slightly more convenient than conventional barter — but it is rather the hunger for money that causes the problems. Hunger for money, hunger for power, and obsession for the temporal and temporary superiority which money and its power confer upon their holders, those are the evils which must be beaten before our species can begin, as a race, to become truly mature, social, human beings.

But all I have done so far is state the obvious, and repeat in my words some of the things which 1 could read in your magazine any time. The thing is. what do we do about it? Sure, we can write letters like this, we can hold meetings, we can even talk to our friends about our creed of world socialism. But this letter will only be read by people who are already convinced of our truths, and our meetings will usually only be attended by others with our interests, and friends have a tendency to become alienated by heavy political statements. So the question remains, what positive action can we take to throw the outmoded and genocidal politics of the present into the trash-can where they belong, so that they may be replaced with the only remaining logical system in which we believe?

The voting public of this (and most other) countries are very conservative in their attitudes. They are conditioned to the apparently comfortable limitations of party politics. They vote only for "acceptable" parties and candidates, in this country meaning Conservative. Labour or Liberal/ SDP. and they do not even consider voting for someone who, as far as they are concerned, does not stand a chance of success in an election.

Worse than that, our public image is not good. It is not yet viable The average person simply translates "Socialist" as "extreme left" or "Communist", and consequently we are doomed before we start. Of course, in order to promote our replacement social system, we must to some extent compromise our position by fitting into the existing system. Before we can become viable, we must have a public platform of some sort, which means finding public representatives of sufficient conviction and of strong enough image to become feasible candidates in public elections. The system will not change by itself, and we will not change it until we can get inside it. People form that system, and they will not change either their social attitudes or their political affiliations unless they are given a very sound and convincing alternative to their present ones.

So instead of wittering to each other from somewhere on the sidelines, let's work to build ourselves into a solid group — I try to avoid the term "party" because of its old connotations and then maybe we can really begin to change this world into something we can live in with humanity, justice and peace.

Yours fraternally, 

R K Chalmers

(Newton Abbot)

Reply:

We have some minor differences with Mr Chalmers but we think his letter is an interesting comment.

Editors.

The Socialist Case — Part 2 (1960)

From the November 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1

The superstructure of society today, after many years of development, has reached a high stage of efficiency. It is the direct outcome of the economic foundation of society, the capitalist mode of production, and functions almost exclusively in its interests. This does not appear to be self-evident unless one examines the basic factors of the organisation of society.

We are constantly being told that our “great and good” men are earnestly striving to bring about changes in which all will benefit considerably. Social morality, legality in its civil and criminal aspects, and politics, are features of this superstructure and are held to be eternally good and true. The machinery of government, the armed forces and police are allegedly neutral and impartial and are claimed to regulate the affairs of society on the highest principles of “justice.”

We Socialists do not accept that point of view. We see in this whole structure the capitalist class organised as the ruling class. This state machinery with its attachments does not stand on the sidelines. The maintaining of law and order, the advocacy of this morality, the dispensing of “justice," and the politics pursued, are all definitely capitalistic in character and are intended to enhance, preserve and maintain the system in the interests of the class who own. The channels of education are controlled and the class of. education is designed to maintain the fallacy that this is the best of all possible forms of social organisation. Add to this the general propaganda of the press, radio and pulpit and we have a formidable array. This deception has been carried on for a long, long time, but Socialists are not taken in by it.

Furthermore, a constantly growing and larger number of people are also realising the truth that social systems must also change. The so-called virtues, in workers only, of meekness, humility and servility, are receding to a greater extent. The surface appearance of capitalist society seems to indicate that the commercial transactions of men are. in all cases, strictly honest. No one apparently takes advantage of another. People go to their bakers, butchers, tailors, etc., select their merchandise, pay and depart, each in most cases pleased with the transaction. Money, which is the universal or social form of value, is paid in exchange for an equal quantity value in some commodity. It appears that in all cases everyone has had a fair exchange and generally speaking this is true. The error arises in the claim that the worker who sells his labour power gets the full value of his labour. To repeat—he does not and cannot get the value of his labour. Labour power is a unique commodity, the sole commodity which can produce more than it itself consumes. The worker in fact gets the value of this labour power, but produces probably twice that amount, one-half of which total is profit to the capitalist.

Profit is the keystone of capitalism. The capitalist mode of production, commodity production, creates the basic social relationships of capital and value. These relationships arise directly out of man's productive circumstances. They are social phenomena particular to the present mode of productive activity. In the industrial field the capitalist—an owner, but non-producer—meets the worker, a non-owner who has only his labour power to sell. Here the sale of labour power takes place. The worker, having received his wages, becomes a buyer of the goods required, but which are owned by and in possession of the capitalist. This cycle keeps on repeating itself and is exclusive to commodity production.

Buying and selling, or, in other words, value relationships, are social relationships concerning the sale or exchange of commodities or things. Money is the social, or material form of value and. whatever the need may be. this need is almost certain to be provided for cash. This capital relationship — employer and employee, and value relationship—buyer and seller, are specially evolved to wring rent, profit and interest out of the sweat and toil of the working-class. From our Socialist point of view they can never do anything else and should be abolished forthwith. The State machinery with its armed forces and police functions mainly to protect the private property institution and secure its continuity.

Man has travelled a long, long way since his simian ancestors, but there is one aspect which it is relevant and important to mention. It has taken him countless thousands of years to learn and train his brain to think. But he has succeeded and the highest product of nature, the mind, has been developed from his lowly and comparatively speaking, non-thinking ancestors. In this regard man stands unique in the field of intellectual attainment. He alone among all the animals is capable of thinking abstractly. A fundamental distinction is his ability to accumulate and organise knowledge and utilise it to change and improve his living conditions and his environments.

This basic distinction has created an unbridgeable gulf between him and the other animals. The problems arising from the material conditions of his life in the past were eventually understood and solved. We are certain that he is capable of understanding and eventually solving the social and other problems of the present and future. Because of this we are firmly convinced that a majority of the working-class will eventually consciously deal with the social re-organisation of society.

The social solution is in itself very simple. Much of our time is devoted to argument arising expressly from the complexities of aspects of capitalism we have already mentioned—money, banking, etc. The major question is—can mankind produce sufficient food, clothing, houses, cultural and recreational requirements to meet its needs? The answer is “ Yes’’—positively an abundance. Society’s capacity to produce is limited only by the extent of the productive equipment, raw materials and available labour.. At today’s stage of development it is more than sufficient. Once freed from the restrictions of private property, society can solve its problems in an amazingly short time. When this structure of private property is removed there is nothing to prevent the available productive machinery from being used to the fullest extent for the sole purpose of satisfying human needs.

The overwhelming majority of each generation are doomed from birth. They are condemned to a life of hard work, drudgery, poverty and slums. At any given period in the life of society only a definite amount of unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled jobs are available. In this great industrial organisation this number may vary slightly from time to time. But it does mean that approximately 85 per cent. of the total population are unable to radically improve their lot. The grandiose schemes and plans of youthful ambition are doomed from birth. In addition, at the moment we stand in constant fear of the outbreak of a third World War with its devastating atomic weapons. The future is indeed, “prosperous, happy and bright.”

The abolition of capitalism is therefore, a proposal which merits your determined and serious immediate attention. The reorganisation of society on a Socialist basis is the only solution and, as the S.P.G.B. is the only Socialist Party, it demands your active support in our task of Socialist propaganda. This task of abolishing capitalism is the historic mission of the working class. It requires the conscious and determined action of a majority of workers and for practical purposes is their exclusive job. Capitalism presents the best of all worlds to the ruling class and their hirelings. They are not therefore likely to approve or assist in effecting any social change which involves its abolition.

In order to transform existing society into a Socialist society, the working class must organise themselves politically on the basis of a majority who understand and desire to bring about Socialism. When they reach this stage of social consciousness they, the workers, will establish their political supremacy, take control of the machinery of government and effect the social re-organisation of society. To develop this class-consciousness is the immediate job of the S.P.G.B. Our propaganda activities in this direction are very limited both physically and financially.

If you believe that a system of society wherein human need and not profit should be the object of production; that the economic and social equality of man should prevail; and that from each according to his ability and to each according to needs should be a first principle: then let’s have your support. The measure of your sincerity and determination is your physical and financial aid to us.

John Higgins

[Concluded]

The Class Struggle. (1908)

From the October 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Dividing Line.

It has been urged against our position that it is impossible to draw a clear line of demarcation between the classes, and, therefore, any theory that starts out with the assumption that society is composed of two classes, must necessarily be wrong in its application to the problems of society. Even if it were true, however, that it is impossible to sharply divide society into two opposing classes, that would not invalidate the theory, as I shall endeavour to show.

The biological world is divided into two kingdoms : the animal kingdom and the vegetable kingdom. That division is true and scientifically sound, nowithstanding the fact that there exist organisms which present difficuly in classification. The mere fact that they possess the characteristics, or some of the characteristics, of one, does not prevent them belonging to the other if they possess its distinguishing feature. The decisive factor biologically, is whether the organism consumes ready-made protoplasm, in which case it is unmistakably animal; or whether it lives by the consumption of those inorganic chemical elements which it changes into protoplasm, in which case it is clearly vegetable. Organisms which, like the hydra, have all the appearance of vegetables, but which, living by the absorption of matter already transformed by the true vegetables, are classed, therefore, as animals. Other creatures, again, seen under the microscope, appear, by their ceaseless movement, to be animals; yet, measured by the acknowledged test, prove to be vegetables. Nevertheless, the existence of “borderland,” where the two kingdoms mingle into what is to the outsider hopeless confusion, does not invalidate the division. So in society. The existence of a “middle” class will not invalidate the division the Socialist draws, if a test can be made that will differentiate the constituent elements of that section into one or other of the classes. If, then, we define a capitalist as one living on the labour of others through his control of the means of production (that is, the possession of capital); and a workman as one living by the sale of his labour-power to the possessor of the means of production, we shall be able to decide whether any of the individuals in the “borderland” belong to one class or the other.

The Conflict of Interests.

Actually, however, this clear line of demarcation is not necessary, as for all ordinary purposes the division is plain enough, and the exactness will only be needed by those who have developed what might be called the outlook of the microscopist; for he, intent upon the tiny details of minute organisms, does not so readily take the more general view. So the individual, himself probably belonging to the “middle” class, is more intent upon the exact classification of doubtful cases than in the broader outlook which would make the division palpable.

And when we have satisfied ourselves that society is composed of two classes, we have to look further into the differences between them. The capitalist lives by the purchase of labour-power, which he employs in the production of certain commodities. The wealth then produced is divided into two parts : wages, and surplus-value. Contained in that, surplus-value is the profit on which the capitalist lives. Any increase, therefore, in the quantity of profit means inevitably a like decrease in the quantity remaining for wages, and vice-versa. The object of the worker is to get the highest price possible for his labour-power ; the object of the capitalist is to realise as much profit as possible. In this fundamental economic relationship lies the main-spring of the class struggle. That struggle is being waged unremittingly irrespective of whether the combatants are fully conscious of it or not. That struggle is, to the Socialist, the moving force in history. It arises, as we have seen, from the fact that the means of production, which are the means of life, are in the possession of those who do not use them, except as a means for the exploitation of those who do not possess them.

Class Consciousness.

“The emancipation of the working class from the domination of the capitalist class” can be effected only by the “conversion into common property of society of the means of production and distribution, and their democratic control by the whole people.” So reads the “Declaration of Principles.” The conversion will not conceivably be made by the capitalist class, because their interest lies in the direction of retaining their privileges, which they may safely be relied upon to uphold to the last ditch. The interest of the workers lies in the direction of stripping privilege from the capitalist class: therefore in a direction opposed to that of the capitalist class. From this antagonism of interests arises the class struggle. The efforts of the workers to gain an improvement in their conditions, whether it be in the direction of higher wages or shorter hours, or in opposition to any of the disabilities imposed by the capitalist system, and the resistence of the masters to any such demand, manifest the struggle between the classes. When the workers’ efforts are directed towards the ending, rather than the mending, of capitalist conditions of industry, we see manifested a consciousness by the workers of their position, and the struggle takes on a new phase—a phase altered by the introduction of “class-consciousness.”

The Conditions of Successful Conflict.

For generations the working-class have battled class-unconsciously for improvements, but despite the heroism occasionally shown, despite the effort that have been devoted to the endeavour times without number, the working-class position has not improved, but has steadily worsened with the development of capitalism, for it cannot he denied that employment is more precarious than it has ever been ; unemployment is more prevalent and more lasting than formerly. Money wages may have increased in some cases over those paid at some former period, but measured by the increase in the productivity of labour, the greater frequency of unemployment, the increased expenditure necessitated by living at a distance from the factory, and the increasing cost of house-rent, it may safely be stated that the worker lives no fuller life than formerly, and enjoys life no more. Hours may, too, in some cases have been reduced, but measured again by the intensity of daily labour, and the rail journey between factory and home, the reduction in hours has by no means kept pace with capitalist development. The struggles of our forebears, then, have not solved our problems, however much they may have prevented us from sinking to a lower level, and mitigated the evil effects of capitalism. For the workers to fight on the old lines is impossible. They are no longer opposed to a competing mass of small capitalists, but to a highly organised and powerful class. The endeavours of the workers to meet that class in the old way on the economic field by means of the strike and the boycott meet with defeat, and must do so because, when the capitalist class is not sufficiently powerful to meet it successfully by its power as employers, it is always ready to call in the assistance of the political arm which it has long since controlled. In the political control by the capitalist class lies the centre of its power; yet the fact remains that political power is derived from the votes of the working class. With the working class rests ultimately the character of the government, because the workers control a majority of the votes cast at any General Election. For all these reasons, therefore, the struggle of the workers must take on a political character.

The Work of the Socialist Party.

This truth has been imperfectly recognised already as is shown by the development of what is called “Independent” Labour Representation. That this movement has been and is being manipulated by a set of job-hunters must not blind us to its real significance, which lies in the fact that a political movement is growing which is becoming independent of the two historic parties under capitalism. Therein lies what may be taken as the first glimmering of class-consciousness. The shortcomings of that movement have been frequently dilated upon in THE SOCIALIST STANDARD, so that it less necessary for me to go into it now. As the constituent elements of that movement, and of the working class generally, become really class-conscious, and therefore Socialist, they will realise that the political independence of labour must rest upon the hostility of labour to all the forces of capitalism, and will either leave the present movement or bring it into line with their convictions by bringing themselves or it into The Socialist Party.

During the remainder of the life of capitalism the work of the Socialists is particularly to develop class-consciousness by explaining the class position of the workers in its relation to capitalism, by prosecuting, without intermission, the class-struggle ; while the nearer the Party keeps to the line of the class-struggle the greater will he its efficiency as a Socialist propagandist organisation, and the more effective will it be in generating class-consciousness. Because the Labour Party is in effect merely a wing of the Liberal Party, notwithstanding its protestations of independence, it does not answer the purpose of a working-class party either in encouraging the understanding of the working-class position, or in politically prosecuting the class-struggle. The Socialist Party must at all times, therefore, be opposed to it, and must spare no effort in pointing out to the workers that Socialism must be the goal of their organisation, and the class-struggle the guiding principle in its immediate work.

R. H. Kent

Election Special: Introducing the Socialist Party of Great Britain (1964)

From the October 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain was founded in 1904. Our object is the establishment of Socialism; a world-wide social system in which the means of wealth production and distribution (factories, mines, the land, railways, steamships, etc.) will be owned by the entire population of the world.

We are associated with our Companion Socialist parties in the U.S.A., Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia. We have no connection whatever with any other political party or organisation.

WE OPPOSE every organisation which stands for capitalism, which includes the Labour, Conservative, Liberal, Communist, Independent Labour parties and many others. We oppose the wars which capitalism persistently throws up. We oppose political campaigns which appeal for votes on programmes of reforms (better housing, higher wages, etc.), which in fact do little or nothing to alleviate working class problems. We oppose Nationalisation, which is just another way of organising capitalism.

WE SUPPORT Socialism. Nothing less will do.

WE WORK for Socialism. We spread among the working class the knowledge without which Socialism cannot be established. Our leader does not exist. Leaders are for the politically ignorant. The worker who has Socialist knowledge does not need a leader to interpret political affairs for him and to tell him what to do. There are, therefore, no leaders in the Socialist Party of Great Britain and we do not set out to become leaders of the working class.

WE RECRUIT Socialists and nobody else. We examine all applicants for membership to ensure that they understand what is entailed by being a Socialist.

WE APPEAL to the working class to examine the case for Socialism and to vote for our candidate only if they understand, and want, Socialism.

Why we are contesting

Whenever there is an election the ordinary person, the man in the street—the working class voter—becomes suddenly very popular. Any number of political parties are anxious to please him and to make him all manner of tempting promises, if he in his turn will agree to vote for their candidate. Election time, in other words, is the time when there is an enormous hunt for votes—for your vote.

The bait which is used in this hunt is largely made up by promises. All the other parties offer this bait, and the generosity of their promises is usually in inverse proportion to the likelihood of their getting power. The Labour and Conservative Parties cannot be too extravagant; the Liberals can be a little more wild; the Communists can promise almost anything. And so on.

Most of the promises in this election are about things like modernisation, housing, education, pensions, wages and prices, war and peace. To read the literature of the other parties, it seems that all that has to be done to solve overnight all the problems connected with these issues is to vote for their candidate. They will all, it seems, bring British industry up to date, replace all the slums with new houses, give everyone a fair chance of the best education, increase pensions, keep prices stable while wages increase, banish war from the earth.

These promises sound very fine and in one election after another millions of working people vote for them. And presumably, when they do so, they think that they are contributing to the solution of our problems.

But let us stop and think about it.

Firstly, it is obvious that election promises are not a new thing. Political parties have been making them for as long as anyone can remember—and always about the same sort of problems.

Now what has been the result of all this?

The housing problem remains with us; despite repeated promises to deal with it, slums are developing faster than new houses are being built For the workers, who depend on their wage to live, housing is still an aspect of their general poverty.

The sort of education we get is governed by the financial standing of our parents. Even if a working class lad wins his way to university he is only studying to become a different type of worker—one with a degree behind him.

Millions of old age pensioners are living on the tightrope of destitution—and it only needs something like a severe winter for many of them to loosen their precarious hold on life.

Prices continue to rise, as they have done steadily since the war. No government has yet given a free rein to the level of wages—they have all tried to restrain them. And whatever the respective level of prices and wages, we always find that our wage packet only just covers our food, clothing, entertainment and whatever else goes to keep us ticking over.

War is just as much a universal problem as ever. At the moment there are only comparatively minor incidents, punctuated by more serious clashes such as Cuba and Berlin. But over it all hangs the threat of another world conflict, this time fought out with nuclear weapons.

It is not accidental that the politicians make so many promises and that they have so little effect upon the ailments they are supposed to cure. The world is full of chronic problems, but this is not because political parties have not thought up reforms which are supposed to deal with them nor because their leaders are not clever or knowledgeable enough.

The fact is that the problems persist whichever party is in power and this suggests that their roots go deep into the very nature of modern society.

We live today in a social system which is called capitalism. 
The basis of this system is the ownership by a section of the 
population of the means of producing and distributing wealth—
of factories, mines, steamships, and so on. It follows from 
this that all the wealth which we produce today is turned out 
with the intention of realising a profit for the owning class. It is from this basis that the problems of modern society spring.

The class which does not own the means of wealth production—the working class—are condemned to a life of impoverished dependence upon their wages. This poverty expresses itself in inferior housing, clothes, education, and the like. In the end, it expresses itself in the pathetic destitution of the old age pensioner—a fate which no old capitalist ever faces.

The basis of capitalism throws up the continual battle over wages and working conditions with attendant industrial disputes. It gives rise, with its international economic rivalries, to the wars which have disfigured man’s recent history.

Every other party in this election stands for capitalism, whatever they may call themselves. And whatever their protestations, they stand for a world of poverty, hunger, unrest and war. They stand for a world in which no human being is secure.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain, alone, stands for Socialism. We stand for a world in which everything which goes to make and distribute wealth will be owned by the people of the world. Because Socialism is the direct opposite of capitalism, it follows that when it is established the basic problems of capitalism will disappear. There will be no more war, no more poverty. Man will live a full, abundant life; we shall be free.

But Socialism cannot be brought about by promises. It needs a knowledgeable working class who understand and desire it. They alone can establish the new world order.

We recognise that the road to power lies through Parliament. At the moment, the number of Socialists is small and our resources are therefore limited; unfortunately, we can afford to run only a few candidates. But as the conscious desire for Socialism spreads among the working class we shall contest more and more constituencies, giving more and more workers the chance to vote for a world of abundance, peace and freedom.

What is Socialism?

Socialism will be a social system based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, by and in the interest of the whole community. This definition was composed by the Socialist Party of Great Britain when it was formed in 1904. We have never altered it; not because we are stubborn and blind to changing conditions but because the word Socialism means the same today as it did in 1904—and as it will mean when Socialism becomes a reality.

Common ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution means that the things which are needed to make and distribute wealth will be owned by the whole human race. At present these things are the land, factories, mines, railways, steamships, etc. But common ownership does not mean that everybody in the world will own an equal share of every factory, mine, railway train and the rest.

What common ownership does mean, is that there is one way in which all human beings will be equal. Everybody will have an equal right to take however much wealth they need and to consume it as they require. Because the means of production will be commonly owned the things which are produced will go into a common pool from which all human beings will be able to satisfy their needs.

Now if there is unrestricted access to wealth for everybody it must follow that nobody, in the sense of an individual or a class, owns wealth. This means that wealth will not be exchanged under Socialism; it will not be bartered nor will it be bought and sold. As a rough parallel we can consider the air we breathe. Everybody has free access to the air and we can all take in as much of it as we need to live. In other words, nobody owns the air; nobody tries to exchange air for anything else, nobody tries to sell or buy it. Similarly there will be no buying and selling under Socialism; no need for the complicated and widespread organisations which deal in commerce and banking in capitalist society. Socialism will have no merchant houses, no banks, no stock exchanges, no tax inspectors, or any of the paraphernalia of capitalism.

In a Socialist society wealth will be produced solely to satisfy people’s needs and not for sale as it is today. Because of this there will be no deliberate variations in quality of wealth. Socialism will have only one quality. Whatever is produced will be the best that human beings are capable of. Homes, for example, will be designed and built with the only motive of housing human beings in the best possible style. The materials of which they are made, their facilities and location will all conform to this. They will be the best homes that society knows how to build.

Nobody will be employed by another person—nobody will sell his labour-power or work for wages. Everybody, in fact, will work for the whole of society. Work will be a co-operative effort, freely given because men will realise that wealth can only be produced by working—unless wealth is produced society will die. Yet it will not only be a reluctance to commit social suicide that will keep us working under Socialism. Men will be free—free from the fetters of wage slavery, free from the fears of unemployment, free from economic servitude and insecurity. Nobody will be found doing a job which he hates but tolerates because it pays him well. Healthy young men will not grow pigeon-chested over fusty ledgers. Nobody will waste his time learning how to kill scientifically. We shall be free to do useful work, making things which will add to society’s welfare, things which will make human life a little better, a little happier.

There will be no war—the cause of war will no longer exist. This means that there will be no armed forces with their dreadfully destructive weapons. It means that the people who are in the armed forces, together with the rest of the enormous social effort which is channelled into them, will be able to serve useful, humane purposes instead of destroying and terrorising.

When production is only for human use we shall see a great development of society’s productivity. First of all, an enormous number of jobs which are vital to capitalism will become redundant. Socialism will have no use for such jobs because its wealth will not be produced for sale. There will probably be statisticians to collect information about society’s productive resources and to relate this to our needs. A lot of people will work at transporting wealth all over the world. These are useful occupations, just as all work will be.

Capitalism has veined the world with frontiers and has fostered patriotism and race hatred, none of which has any scientific basis. Frontiers are purely artificial and are often altered at international conferences. Many workers are proud of their nationality although in logic they cannot take pride in something over which they had no control. Socialism will have none of this. No frontiers, no racial barriers or prejudices. The world will be one with only human beings working together for their mutual benefit.

Socialism will end the wasteful, fearsome, insecure world we know today. It will remove poverty and replace it with plenty. It will abolish war and bring us a world of peace. It will end fear and hatred and give us security and brotherhood.

Capitalism v. Socialism (1986)

From the October 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism is not a practical way of organising society. It gets in the way between humans and our needs. The theory of capitalist economics is that the market is a means of satisfying demand as people buy what they want. In reality, the converse is true: the market stands as a barrier between the worker and his or her needs being satisfied.

The basis of capitalism is commodity production. Goods and services are produced primarily with a view to sale and profit. For example, the owner of land producing grain has the main objective of the sale of grain for profit. If a profit cannot be expected, the landowner is discouraged from allowing grain to be produced because if there is more of it in the market than can be sold profitably prices will fall and the sale will not make a profit.

That is why now. in what is called by capitalist economists a crisis of grain overproduction. landowners are either taking land out of cultivation or storing or destroying their grain. This is all very logical in terms of the capitalist system where profit comes first.

A naive person might observe that grain is being consciously destroyed while workers are starving in parts of the world for lack of grain and conclude that there is something perverse about talk of food over-production. How can food be surplus to requirements while millions of human beings — yes millions — are dying of starvation? The wise defender of capitalism will explain to the naive observer that requirements under capitalism are invisible unless they can be paid for: the starving worker who has no money has no hunger as far as the market is concerned. That is the logic of the present system, sometimes known as "the magic of the market".

Other examples of this social perversion which our leaders call economic rationality are abundant. In Britain there are tens of thousands of homeless families. Indeed, in London every night you can see plenty of men and women sleeping on the pavements within the vicinity of luxury hotels. Many thousands more live in squalid homes. It cannot be disputed that new and better housing is not needed. But far from building new homes for the homeless and the slum-dwellers. there is currently a virtual absence of house construction and half a million building workers are on the dole. Why? Because there is a crisis of "over-production" — no market requirement for new homes. Of course, luxury homes are being built for those with plenty of money, but for those without it the misery of homelessness or slum living is the only option.

It is not that we are unable to produce to satisfy human needs. On the contrary, society has never before been so technologically capable of doing so. In comparison with earlier centuries, when men and women were still engaged in the battle to conquer nature, we are now well able to feed, clothe and house the world population of over four billion. We live in an age of potential material abundance.

The problem is not of management or government. Some workers say that if only we got rid of Thatcher or Reagan or Gorbachev or Mitterrand (different enemies depending where they live) all would be well. But would things be any better if the American CPers got their Gorbachev and the Russian Westernisers got their Reagan and the British Labourites got their Mitterrand and the French Conservatives got their Thatcher? All that would happen is that the same unworkable system would be administered by different leaders with different slogans but with the same need to keep in line with the laws of the market. Under capitalism governments do not control the market — it dominates them. The history of sincere politicians doing nasty things is proof enough of that.

Take unemployment. It doubled under the last Labour government. They blamed if on the world market. The Tories proclaimed that "Labour Isn't Working" and promised to deal with the problem. Unemployment doubled again under the Tories. They blame the world market. Now the Labour Party, relying on the short memories of the working class. complain that the Tories have brought about unemployment and they will deal with the problem. The fact is that both sides were liars and both sides were telling the truth: they were liars in opposition when they claimed that they could solve unemployment and they were telling the truth when they were on the spot and they admitted that they were not in control. World capitalism causes unemployment because labour power, being a commodity to be bought and sold, is not needed as much during a period of depression (over-production for the market) as it is when the market is booming.

According to capitalist economics, money is necessary for the satisfaction of needs. Give people money and they will be happy. Most workers would agree with that. Most workers lack money to the extent that they can properly satisfy their needs. Socialists argue that it is only when nobody has any money that they will be happy. This odd statement needs to be explained. Where money exists there is property. Money is used so that those who do not own can buy from those who do. Under capitalism a minority of the population own and control the major resources of the earth. Even though it is the working class who produce the goods and services, we must buy them from the owning capitalist class. So you might work all day at Dagenham building Ford cars, but unless you can afford the money you will not drive one. In short, money allows those who produce everything to buy a little piece of it back from those who produce nothing. Socialists advocate a new system of society in which everyone owns the world in common. In such a social order there will be no owners to buy things from because everything which is produced will belong to all of us. Production will no longer be for profit, but for use. In a socialist society there will be nobody to buy anything from, so money will be useless — it will be abolished, just as the tram lines were when trams went out of existence.

Let us take the example of the homeless person. Under capitalism the homeless worker does not exist in the eyes of the market. only coming to life as a paying tenant. In a socialist society two questions will need to be asked. Firstly, who needs to be housed? Secondly, what is the best way to satisfy these needs? Obviously, production is a material process which calls for labour, resources and planning. Nobody need sit in an office with a calculator working out whether it is profitable to provide shelter for people. The world will belong to everyone and everyone will have an equal right to decent shelter. Socialism will not solve the housing problem by stuffing money into a cement mixer. Money creates nothing — except problems for the majority of people who have too little of it. In a moneyless society people will have free access to goods and services.

Adherents to capitalism's market dogma say that socialism is not practical. It is the common error of an unscientific mind to think that what has never been tried could not work. People used to say that about aeroplanes. In fact, a society based on the common ownership and democratic control of all social resources would be far more practical than the capitalist system. In a world where production is solely for use there will be no need to ignore human desires simply because there is no profit to be made out of them. Is it not practical to have a society which is solely concerned with achieving what is technically possible, rather than tying itself up with the artificial constraints of the market? When we enjoy free access to the goods and services of the earth no child will cry with hunger and no old person will freeze because food or heating cost more than they can afford. They will be freely available to all. Only when they are can we speak of ourselves as living in a free society.

Defenders of capitalism, worried by how reasonable and workable the case for socialism appears, tell us that there is some invisible but immutable characteristic called human nature which will stop socialism from being practical. According to them, human beings are too unco-operative and unintelligent to live in a socialist society. Socialists deny this, but if we are wrong then socialism will never come about, because inherently unco-operative people will forever put up with the ruthless competition of capitalism and naturally unintelligent workers will permanently endure the poverty which the system offers them. Our experience is that workers do not like the consequences of capitalism: they are less stupid than capitalism's defenders hope, but not yet wise enough to see how easy it would be to create a fundamentally different way of running society. Socialists do not believe for one minute that workers enjoy poverty and homelessness and hypothermia and long hospital waiting lists and mass starvation. Nor will workers ever be brainwashed to do so. In fact, our experience tells us that our fellow workers are capable of thinking reasonably. of acting wisely, of organising co-operatively. So far such behaviour has been donated to those who benefit from capitalism: it is the millionaires who live in privilege thanks to the workers' strength and knowledge. Once those weapons are used in the cause of real human co-operation, socialism will be more than a practical proposal — it will be seen as the only sane way to live.

Steve Coleman