Sting in the Tail: By-election Fever (1992)

The Sting in the Tail column from the January 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

By-election Fever

The Scorpion has just suffered three by-elections on one night, it was a TV extravaganza where a load of toadies tried to get their snouts Into the Westminster trough.

"Its a good result for us", says Nigel Preservative. "It proves what we always said", says Hamish McSporran. "Another nail in the government's coffin” says Trevor Lickspittle. "Its the turn of the tide", says Walter Camera-Angle.

"Its the turning of my stomach", complains Scorpion, crawling off to bed suffering from an over-dose of cliches.

A Slap Up Meal

Should you happen to be in the London area on the night of February 13 and find yourself a bit peckish here is a bit of good news for you.

Instead of going to Joe's Greasy Eats Cafe for a salmonella sandwich, go a bit up-market and visit the Park Lane Hotel. It will be a splendid affair. You will be rubbing shoulders with famous politicians, writers and the odd film director.

This dazzling nlght-out can be yours for only £500-a-head. The organisers of this gala night out? None other than those champions of the proletariat — the Labour Party!

The Mad Professor

In the May issue we reported that Professor David Marsland had won the Margaret Thatcher Foundation annual award. This genius had won this great honour for such progressive ideas as abolishing social workers, ending unemployment benefit and recruiting 11 year old kids for defence training corps in schools.

Continuing the good work the Professor has turned his cool analytical mind to solving the civil war in Yugoslavia. Writing In the New Statesman (1 November 1991) the good professor proposes that Britain should go to war with Serbia!

"British aircraft flying from Cyprus and Austria could destroy the Serbian airforce and fleet in one day. Tanks and military formation could then be wiped out at leisure from the air without much difficulty. Within a week, Croatia and freedom could be saved."

This modern day Napoleon has a day job; he is a professor of social science at the West London Institute of Higher Education. Higher Education? Scorpion is just thankful he left school at 15!

Dry Eyed Farewell

The gloom of 1991 was lifted a little by the news that Marxism Today had ceased publication. Over the years it's Marxist content was probably slightly less than the Dandy or the Beano, so it was good to see another voice of confusion silenced.

BBC2 (5 December 1991) decided to mark the death of Martin Jacques' rag in The Late Show with a slot entitled the ABC of Marxism.

Naturally it was up to the usual high standard of The Late Show. C Is for Castro ... L is for Lenin ... the usual junk.

At P is for periodicals we saw flashes of various obscure left wing journals. Of course we did not see the Socialist Standard. This journal has been consistently putting a Marxist view for only 87 years, and we don't expect the terribly well informed BBC types to have a programme about Marxism that actually deals with Marxism.

Dim Stars

Hollywood is well described as "the dream factory" but it surpassed itself recently when Oxfam America staged the "Hollywood Hunger Banquet" to promote the plight of the world's hungry.

Movie stars Mel Gibson, Cybill Shepherd, Dustin Hoffman, Whoopi Goldberg, etc., drew lots for the privilege of sitting on the floor to eat just rice and water. The luckless losers had to make do with salad, chicken, dessert and wine.

One observer of this farce said:

It's a typical manifestation of these people's blind obsession with themselves —- as If they could actually make any real difference.

The Guardian 18 November

The banquet organiser hoped the event would show . . . "that there's totally unequal distribution of food In the world and capitalism isn't working". Well stated, but pulling stunts like this does nothing to reduce world hunger and leaves intact the loathsome system which spawns It.

Lenin — Some Guy

Bonfire night on the village common, families parading with Chinese lanterns behind a Guy destined for the flames, but what's this? The Guy is wearing a fur hat and brandishing a red flag!

Organisers of the village club's fireworks party had decided to give this year's celebrations a political theme and mark the fall of Communism In Eastern Europe by burning an old-style party leader.

Maidenhead Advertiser 8 November 

When Lenin scathingly earmarked capitalism for "the dustbin of history" he little dreamt that the mighty organisation which so slavishly worshipped him would itself become history to the extent that it could be burned In effigy as a stand-in for Guy Fawkes.

Vive La Difference

Many people insist that socialism means we would all have to conform while capitalism opposes this and encourages individuality.

The visit to Britain by Jean-Marie Le Pen gave us some examples of how capitalism opposes individuality.

The Guardian (6 December) quoted some Britons who share Le Pen's desire to repatriate coloured immigrants. One said 'The point is, they don't behave the way we behave”, while another deplored ” . . . the failure of immigrants to Integrate Into the customs of the host society”.

And look at the disapproval most people show when they see youngsters with purple hair or wearing "outlandish" clothes. What chance would someone have if he / she turned up for a job Interview dressed as a Punk-Rocker? Nor does the public exactly welcome the different sexual preferences of homosexuals.

The truth is that capitalism dislikes individuality and loves conformity.

Letters: Professor rebuked (1992)

Letters to the Editors from the January 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

Professor rebuked

Dear Editors,

Congratulations on the discussion and debate section in the December Socialist Standard, in which Steve Coleman repudiates the defence of capitalism by Professor David Marsland of the West London Institute.

It really is quite incredible that anyone with professorial status can say that property, wage-labour. competition, economic inequalities and money are part of the human psyche, and imply that any alternative to the capitalist mode of organising society is not consistent with human nature. The sad thing is that many are easily swayed by such arguments, spurious as they are. We live in a society in which those concepts and values are paramount, and we are, therefore, conditioned to act and think in a manner which make those values seem to be part of our nature.

Of course, jobs and wages are a natural consideration in our lives—we can’t live without them; of course we are competitive—we are taught to be so as soon as we leave the cradle; of course we regard economic inequality as inevitable because that’s the way things must be in capitalist society; of course money is important—we can’t do without it. and thinking in monetary terms becomes second nature to us. But. to say that these things are part of our natural make-up; that inherent in our genealogy is a crying need for money, wages, or social inequality, is to talk utter nonsense.

The status of professor implies the role of educator, leader of rational thinking. I think that Professor Marsland should be ashamed of himself for trying to lead us down a path of such false reasoning.

During the second world war I served in the Royal Army Medical Corps with the Middle East Forces. I was stationed in the desert in a base hospital about 60 miles from Cairo for 5 years. Thinking back on those days I am moved by the wonderful spirit of comradeship and co-operation that grow up in those circumstances. We all had a job to do. We all depended on each other. At the same time when off duty, we were free, and when circumstances permitted we were given generous leave to travel wherever we wished—it proved a wonderful opportunity to understand something of earlier civilizations. Travelling was no problem and quite free—all one had to do was go to the main road and thumb a lift. Money was of little importance and most members of the unit voluntarily chose not to draw full pay, saving it for spending on leave. Clothing, food, accommodation were, of course, freely provided. We became a close-knit community. Individual talents emerged and were used to develop educational and cultural activities for the benefit of patients and unit personnel.

Why do I tell you all this? Well, certainly not because I believe in wars, or want to suggest that society should be organised on army lines: no, simply because I think it helps to belie Marsland’s assertion of the implausibility of an elastic human nature. I think it shows that given a common objective we can strive for a better way of life, and work in harmony without monetary considerations.

There is one simple truth that the professor cannot deny and that is that capitalism's mode of production and dissipation of wealth is not designed to meet the needs of the people—all the people. That is why the socialist alternative is imperative.

George Pearson 

London SW20

BOB POTTER. Hove: We will reply to your letter on IQ tests in the next issue.

South-East slump

Dear Editors,

An item in the Observer (24 November) vividly demonstrates the tragic situation in which many workers now find themselves.

Two thousand would-be wage slaves queued for up to twelve hours, for just 127 jobs as packers and maintenance workers for around £300 to £400 a week, at Courages brewery, in Reading. Many of them, before becoming unemployed, had been company directors, former tradesmen and even university lecturers. Few, no doubt, would have considered themselves to be members of the working class, dependent on their abilities to sell their mental and physical energies in order to live.

“Welcome to Reading, Boom Town of the Eighties, Gloom Town of 1991", commented the Observer. Unemployment in Reading has more than doubled in the last year; more than 5,000 have lost their jobs. The picture is repeated across the south-east. It is the same in Crawley, Milton Keynes and even Tunbridge Wells. Here in Colchester, the so-called prosperous First Recorded Town in England, the position is much the same. Over the last few years, hundreds of workers have been made redundant from Paxman’s, Colchester’s largest factory. Only this week, the Essex County Standard reported that the Eastern National Bus company is to cut another 35 jobs. The redundancies will affect staff across the board.

As I write this (1 December), the same paper reports that "recession-hit traders in Colchester said yesterday they were seeing the first tentative signs of the much hoped-for Christmas rush". And the Co-op said there have been the first “nibbles". Nevertheless, as one walks around the Town, large numbers of shops, big and small, can be seen empty and deserted. The owners have gone “bust”, bankrupt.

Colchester Youth Enquiry Service says that they will be collecting warm clean bedding for the many young homeless people in Colchester. They cannot actually find homes for these people (although, as elsewhere, there are many empty properties in the area), but the homeless can go and "ask for advice, help and a blanket".

The situation is not, however, just local or regional, or even national. Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are in dead trouble; and the United States has been in recession for some considerable time. And France too. A woman friend of mine in Paris has been unemployed, except for two short periods, for just over twelve months. Indeed, three million workers are officially unemployed in France. And it’s getting worse.

Will it ever end? Is massive unemployment here to stay?

Tragic as it is for those who lose their jobs or, if young, are unable to get a job in the first place, booms and slumps and unemployment, are a "normal” consequence of our present production-for-profit, capitalist, system. The owners of wealth-production will only invest, and employ us, if they think there is a good prospect of making a profit. And at the present moment, most capitalists prefer not (or are unable) to invest. Sooner or later, business will pick up. People will be taken on again, although in my view I think that large numbers of unemployed workers (a “reserve army of labour") will continue to exist, possibly well into the next century.

So, is there a way out? A solution?

Socialists say that workers, employed or unemployed, in Colchester or Reading, in Britain or Russia, or the United States, or France and elsewhere throughout the world, can solve the problems of not just periodic unemployment. but also poverty in a world of potential plenty, by organising to establish a new and completely different form of society of production of wealth solely for use and the satisfaction of needs. Such a society would not be Heaven on Earth, or Utopia; but it would soon tackle, and solve, the basic problems thrown up by capitalism. And that is more than enough.

Peter E. Newell

Colchester, Essex 

Dear Editors,

On the article in the December issue 'What Do We Mean By Class'. I would like to say that you can’t always leave your job if you don’t like it because of low wages, boring work. etc. Unemployment is so high that many people, if they are in their 40s or 50s, feel they will not get another job if they leave their employment. I have been in my job for 3 years. It is a job I hate. The first month that I worked there I wanted to leave, so any available time off I have looked for another job. I’ve had various interviews, but no luck.

Leslie Everard 

Borehamwood, Herts

Sting in the Tail: The Herd Instinct (1991)

The Sting in the Tail column from the May 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Herd Instinct

Suddenly for no apparent reason, the herd was off in a panic-stricken stampede. Possibly it had heard something but nobody really knows.

A scene from a Hollywood cowboy movie? No, only the London stock market last month when “panic buying" by investors sent share values soaring by over £11 billion in one day.

And the cause? Various pundits thought that the equally mysterious rise in share values on Wall Street was responsible; others put it down to the “feel good" factor following victory in the Gulf war, while some suggested that falling interest rates had fuelled hopes that the recession was ending — the Director General of the CBI had “anecdotal evidence" of an upturn, and so on.

The fact is that big investors, especially the Institutions, all have vast amounts of cash seeking ways of earning rent, interest and profit The cash HAS to go somewhere so any hopeful sign, real or imagined, was enough to send those investors stampeding to buy, buy, buy, because, as one report put it, "they were afraid of being left behind".

£11 billion on nothing more substantial than rumour, hope and follow-my-leader. Who says capitalism isn’t a crazy old system?


A Happy Thought

Back in the 1960s and 1970s Labour leaders like Gaitskell, Wilson, Callaghan, etc., were forever being attacked by the grossly misnamed "Young Socialists" for being "right wing".

Top Tories used to laugh at this and give thanks that the Young Conservatives were more interested in ping-pong than politics. This situation changed in the last decade when the YCs became "radical" and their actions and utterances more and more embarrassing to the party leadership.

Now Murdo Fraser, National Chairman of the YCs, has denounced none other than John Major for scrapping the poll tax, being indecisive and having no sense of direction (ITV's Oracle 6 April).

Tory leaders were outraged at this attack but they're not the only ones feeling angry, for Major was the very one the "radicals" happily claimed was the man to "carry through the Thatcher revolution" when he became PM!

The fact is that it doesn't matter that Major is a dithering wimp, even if he was Rambo he wouldn't be able to make capitalism work except as a system that puts profits before needs.


Marx's Raw Deal

The Guardian has really got it in for Karl Marx. An article on 10 April outlining Albania's new draft-constitution appears below the headline "Tirana abandons Marxism". The article then reveals that what has been abandoned is "Marxism-Leninism" which is the Leninist distortion of Marxism.

This is typical of the Guardian. No opportunity to misrepresent Marx and his ideas is missed with every Eastern European or banana-republic dictatorship dubbed "Marxist" and without even a shred of evidence to support this.


Hard Times

Many workers are experiencing the full blast of the recession. Some are having to settle for less than the inflation rate in their annual wage negotiations. Some are even being told they will get NO increase at all this year.

Pickford's Travel have gone one worse by proposing that their employees take a 7.5% wage cut. This is bad enough but spare a thought for Gene Lockhart, the highest-paid director of Midland Bank. He has suffered a 41% reduction in his salary. Mind you that still leaves him £429,216 per annum to keep the wolf from the door.

Lockhart's salary is performance-related and the Midland Bank has experienced a particularly bad year only making £11 million profit in 1990. All is not gloom In banking circles however, because Sir John Quinton, chairman of Barclays bank managed to get a rise of 21% to £404,000.

This must be a great consolation to the bank clerks at Barclays who are being asked to accept a 6% increase. Hard times indeed — but only for some it seems.


The Military Mind

The splendid insanities of the military mind are a constant source of astonishment to socialists, but we have recently been sent a newspaper clipping that had even your old battle-scarred Scorpion gasping.

It seems at least one facet of capitalism's inglorious military paraphernalia may be due for the dustbin of history — The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

  On future battlefields unknown soldiers may well be identified by the genetic structure of cells found in the blood which vary with each Individual. The technology is so precise that the Pentagon plans to develop a kind of "DNA Dog Tag" for all military personnel. Major V. Weedn, Chief of the Armed Forces DNA Identification Lab. says, "In the future there should not be any more unknown soldiers.”

(Herald Tribune 11 March)

We suggest that the best way to ensure that we have no more Tombs to the Unknown Soldier is to get rid of the cause of war — world capitalism!


A Familiar Tale

"Fame is the Spur", shown on Channel 4 on 5 April, is the film based on Howard Spring's novel about Hamer Radshaw, a product of the Manchester slums in late Victorian England.

Radshaw used his talent as a spell-binding orator first for the rising Labour movement and then to become a cabinet minister in both Labour and National governments.

The story charts his unprincipled progress from street-corner agitator to "statesman" and finally to the House of Lords. Who was he based on? There's a bit of Victor Grayson there and Ramsay MacDonald too, but the Labour Party has spawned dozens of Radshaws, men and women who used the working class in their single-minded climb to power and privilege.

Eventually, workers will discard the naive notion that their fate can be left to labour politicians, but in the meantime there are many more Hamer Radshaws patiently awaiting their opportunity.


Prize Specimen

After the Oscars and the Tonys comes the Maggies. This is a prize that the Thatcher Foundation will award annually to the person whose work has best "identified free enterprise with freedom".

The first recipient is Professor David Marsland and he is a worthy winner of this Creep of the Year award. He recently declared "We must get rid of the social worker". He also wants to abolish unemployment benefit and he has great plans for our kids:

  He has also called for lessons in patriotism and civil defence to be put on Britain's academic timetables, with encouragement for children from the age of 11 to join "voluntary defence training corps in schools"

(The Observer 21 April)

Give him the Maggie — give us a bucket to be sick in!

A Professor Defends Capitalism (1991)

A Capitalism versus Socialism debate from the December 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Serious consideration of alternatives to capitalism needs to address: the nature of capitalism; its validity as an instrument of progress; the threat from existing alternatives; and the plausibility and cost/benefit ratio of socialist alternatives.

The nature of capitalism

The real nature of capitalism is widely misunderstood, especially by intellectuals. Over and above ignorance, there is widespread prejudice.This serves to confuse description with evaluation, and fosters naive wish-fulfillment.

Capitalism is not inherently or by definition exploitative, cruel and arbitrary, or unjust. These are empirical issues, to be judged as part of the objective evaluation of capitalism in terms of relevant evidence and reasoned argument.

Capitalism is a specific mode of organising society, and in particular the economy. It is a recent and rare phenomenon in human social development. It should not be confused with other completely distinct forms of social organisation.

Capitalism is characterised by: cultural individualism; private property; private ownership and control of capital; effective laws of contract; competitive markets shaped by the pursuit of profit; the key role of entrepreneurs; real prices; free labour; liberal political democracy; and limited government.

The benefits of capitalism

By comparison with other systems, capitalism has one major built-in advantage. The freedom which it structurally requires, permits it to learn from its mistakes, and to adapt flexibly and rapidly. In addition, analysis of the historical record demonstrates, quite contrary to socialist allegations, that capitalism has powerfully beneficial effects.

It creates massive wealth, dissipates it widely, and destroys poverty. The "poverty" celebrated so noisily by the Poverty Lobby is "relative poverty" for the most part. This is inequality rather than genuine poverty.

Capitalism requires some—modest and changing—economic inequalities, to provide incentive and aspiration. But capitalism eliminates destructive social in¬equalities. It keeps even economic in¬equalities modest by comparison with all save primitive societies.

Socialists' moral castigation of capitalism is as unjustified as their economic critique. Empirical research reveals — despite recessions and the risk of unemployment — extraordinarily high levels of work and life satisfaction, widespread positive commitment to opportunity and social mobility, and remarkable achievements in self-expression and spiritual development. Moral denunciations of capitalism, such as Erich Fromm's The Sane Society, are invariably emotional, hysterical, and contradicted by the evidence.

Immigrants flood out of all sorts of evil systems into capitalist societies. They are pursuing, first, an escape from poverty, secondly freedom, and third, the dream — which is no mere fantasy — of a good life for themselves and their families in the truest sense of the concept of good so far available. Ironically, it is the supposedly destructive features of capitalism — property, profit, competition, and the market — which are the sources and causes of its economic and moral success and its magnetic attraction for outsiders.

Real alternatives

There are existing alternatives to capitalism which challenge its pre-eminence. They do this either as rivals' for control of humanity's destiny — for example Islamic theocracy, and the decaying remains of "actually existing socialism"; or as exemplars of the conditions into which we might fall if we lose faith in capitalism — for example the barbarous despotisms of much of the third world.

It is much more likely that we may decay into one or other of these regressive models, than that any of the apparently more positive alternatives on offer will be established. Should that happen, as it easily might if we fail to treasure freedom, democracy, and capitalism, and to protect them from their critics, the future is bleak indeed. It was ill-founded socialist criticism of capitalist democracy in pre-war Germany which sowed the seeds of Fascism.

Socialist alternatives

The major alternative to capitalism proffered throughout this century by self-styled socialists has now been exposed once and for all as a moral and economic disaster, and as infinitely worse in every respect than capitalism. "Actually existing socialism" is and always was objectively regressive.

Anti-Stalinist socialists who nonetheless acclaim 1917 remain influential. But the mistakes were as much Lenin's as Stalin's. There is no real threat to capitalism from this quarter.

This leaves the minority of Marxist socialists who have always condemned Lenin and dictatorship, and the idealistic, allegedly non-Marxist, socialists whose anti-capitalist utopianism permeates intellectual life in the free world. Socialism in this sense is a permanently retreating mirage of empirical analysis and defensively resistant to rational critique:

• Its postulate of an infinitely elastic human nature is wholly implausible.

• Its concept of democratic planning as a replacement for the market would impoverish us all.

• Its objections to property, wage labour, competition, economic inequalities, and in the last resort money are grounded in a gross misreading of history and the human psyche.

• Its dream of a "peaceful socialist world" is a major threat to the natural and gradual evolution of a community of co-operatively competing nations, each and all of them prosperous, capitalist, and democratic.

In short, to quote a respected authority, "there is no alternative".

Professor David Marsland, West London Institute.

Key References

P. Berger, The Capitalist Revolution (Gower, 1987). F. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit (Routledge, 1988). D. Marsland, Seeds of Bankruptcy (Claridge Press, 1988). A. Seldon, Capitalism (Blackwell, 1990).

Marsland's magical capitalism repudiated

Those who seek to defend the capitalist system and prove the case against the socialist alternative are usually disappointing, often pitifully so. Too often they exhibit little understanding of what the system of capitalism is and no serious awareness of what the socialist alternative is. Added to this are archaic notions about "human nature" and "the human psyche" which are the last resorts of the confused thinker. Scratch a pro-capitalist sociologist and you will find a priest, his mind packed full of ridiculous ideas about the immutability of existing human behaviour and social organisation.

Exploitation

Professor Marsland's attempt at defining capitalism is inadequate. He correctly states that "competitive markets shaped by the pursuit of profit" characterise capitalism, but also speaks of "free labour". In fact, the pursuit of profit is only achievable on the basis of exploited labour.

Unless labour power is legally exploited, unless, that is, wealth producers are paid wages and salaries which are less than the value of what they produce, not a penny, cent, rouble or yen of profit could even be produced. But for Marsland it is simple enough to state that "capitalism is not inherently or by definition exploitative". Without the exploitation of wage labour, how on earth does he think capital could ever be accumulated?

Socialists are urged by the professor to evaluate capitalism empirically and objectively. This is good scientific advice and we take it seriously. Alas, the educator needs to be educated, for, as well as his failure to explain how profits can arise other than through exploitation of wage labour, our opponent makes several wildly unjustifiable observations about capitalism which are empirically false. We shall deal with just three of them.

Wealth, waste and want

Firstly, we are told that capitalism "creates massive wealth, disseminates it widely, and destroys poverty". Capitalism creates massive wealth — and is faced with periodic crises of overproduction, which means that too much wealth has been produced for the market. So, food is dumped or locked in warehouses and farm owners are paid subsidies to take land out of cultivation while in other parts of the capitalist world (capitalism dominates the whole planet) every single year 15 million children under five die of starvation and malnutrition-caused diseases. Society is capable of producing the "massive wealth" of which Marsland boasts, but the profit priority dictates that such potential abundance be constrained or destroyed.

The claim that capitalism disseminates wealth widely is absurd. In fact, in Britain the richest 10 percent own half of all marketable wealth and the poorest 75 percent of the British population, i. e., the vast majority, own less accumulated wealth than the richest 5 percent (Economic Trends, October 1990). This extreme wealth concentration in the hands of the privileged few is the basis of capitalism.

More crazy still is the claim that capitalism "destroys poverty". Poverty is defined by socialists as the gap between wealth (goods and services) which is produced and what workers have access to. But even on the Conservative government's own empirical data, "official poverty" (the number of people forced to live on less than half the average income) has increased from just under 5 million in 1979 to just under 12 million in 1988 (Daily Telegraph, 23 October 1991). So, according to sociologists working on data supplied by the government which Marsland has faith in, poverty has increased, not been destroyed. Professor Marsland should go and tell the homeless beggars on the streets of London, whose numbers grow by the week, or the starving millions in the world whose kids scream with hunger pains, that capitalism "destroys poverty".

Insoluble problems

Secondly, we are informed that capitalism "learns from its mistakes" and adapts "flexibly and rapidly". This is a justification for the futile policy of reformism, of patching up capitalism. We challenge Professor Marsland to tell us of one basic problem of capitalism, from homelessness to unemployment to racism to pollution, which any government running capitalism has ever remedied. All of these problems have been presented as "mistakes" to be rectified by government reform. In fact, these problems are endemic to the system of production for profit.

Increasing misery

Thirdly, capitalism is said to offer "extraordinary levels of work and life satisfaction" and critiques of capitalism by writers such as Fromm are dismissed as being "invariably emotional" and "hysterical". Such abuse is easy, but it is less easy for pro-capitalist sociologists to explain away the escalation of a massive, escapist drug culture, the rise of frustrated urban violence, the existence of mass tranquiliser addiction caused by anxieties generated by ruthless competition and dull frustration, or the fact that millions of workers fear the indignities of old age or the living hell which characterises numerous boring jobs. It is not "hysterical" to recognise the widespread sense that the quality of life is worsening under the strain of the profit system, but to ignore the increase of working class misery is to display an insensitive unwillingness to face the facts.

What "socialism"?

Professor Marsland misunderstands capitalism, but is totally in the dark about the meaning of socialism. He seems to think that it exists somewhere, but does not tell us where. He rightly observes that Leninism-Stalinism offered "no real threat to capitalism", but then repeats the foolish remarks of those who refer to Leninist state capitalism as "actually existing socialism". With confused definitions of this kind, what hope is there for our opponent to have anything sensible to say about socialism? He opposes "democratic planning as a replacement for the market", but this is probably an attack on centralised, state planning which is a left-wing capitalist policy for regulating the market. We doubt whether Professor Marsland has ever seriously thought about the possibility of real democracy where all resources belong to everyone, production is for use and there is free access for all. If he had, he would not conclude that this would "impoverish us all".

Human nature again

The bottom line of Marsland's attack upon what he dismisses as "anti-capitalist utopianism" is that socialists' idea of "an infinitely elastic human nature" is unrealistic because "property, wage labour, competition, economic inequalities and . . . money" are grounded in "the human psyche". This is unhistorical. All of the above are part of social relationships which did not once exist and need not exist in the future. Money is no more a function of the natural human thought process than were witch burning or slavery. Our opponent is a poor sociologist, but no historian at all. The lesson of history is that society changes. Alas, Professor Marsland does not comprehend the structure of the capitalist present (which he thinks will last forever) nor the nature of the materially-based socialist alternative (which he thinks is not for humans) and therefore, like priests of old, he falls back upon unscientific, morally dubious, metaphysical nonsense about the evil nature of human beings. We pity the wage slaves who are convinced by such pessimistic lack of social vision.

Steve Coleman