About Socialism (1987)

From the December 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

1. What is the Socialist Party of Great Britain?
It is a political party, separate from all others, Left, Right or Centre. It stands for the sole aim of establishing a world social system based upon human need instead of private or state profit. The Object and Declaration of Principles printed in this introductory leaflet were adopted by the Socialist Party in 1904 and have been maintained without compromise since then. In other countries there are companion parties sharing the same object and principles, and they too remain independent from all other political parties.

2. What is capitalism?
Capitalism is the social system which now exists in all countries of the world. Under this system, the means of production and distribution (land, factories, offices, transport, media, etc.) are monopolised by a minority, the capitalist class. All wealth is produced by us, the majority working class, who sell our mental and physical energies to the capitalists in return for a price called a wage or salary. The object of wealth production is to create goods and services which can be sold on the market at a profit. Not only do the capitalists live off the profits they obtain from exploiting the working class, but, as a class, they go on accumulating wealth extracted from each generation of workers.

3. Can capitalism be reformed in our interests?
No: as long as capitalism exists, profits will come before needs. Some reforms are welcomed by some workers, but no reform can abolish the fundamental contradiction between profit and need which is built into the present system. No matter whether promises to make capitalism run in the interests of the workers are made sincerely or by opportunist politicians they are bound to fail, for such a promise is like offering to run the slaughter house in the interests of the cattle.

4. Is nationalisation an alternative to capitalism?
No: nationalised industries simply mean that workers are exploited by the state, acting on behalf of the capitalists of one country, rather than by an individual capitalist or company. The workers in nationalised British Leyland are no less the servants of profit than workers in privately-owned Ford. The mines no more belong to "the public" or the miners now than they did before 1947 when they were nationalised. Nationalisation is state capitalism.

5. Are there any “socialist countries”?
No: the so-called socialist countries are systems of state capitalism. In Russia and its empire, in China, Cuba, Albania, Yugoslavia and the other countries which call themselves socialist, social power is monopolised by privileged Party bureaucrats. The features of capitalism, as outlined above, are all present. An examination of international commerce shows that the bogus socialist states are part of the world capitalist market and cannot detach themselves from the requirements of profit.

6. What Is the meaning of socialism?
Socialism does not yet exist. When it is established it must be on a worldwide basis, as an alternative to the outdated system of world capitalism. In a socialist society there will be common ownership and democratic control of the earth by its inhabitants. No minority class will be in a position to dictate to the majority that production must be geared to profit. There will be no owners: everything will belong to everyone. Production will be solely for use, not for sale. The only questions society will need to ask about wealth production will be: what do people require, and can the needs be met? These questions will be answered on the basis of the resources available to meet such needs. Then, unlike now, modern technology and communications will be able to be used to their fullest extent. The basic socialist principle will be that people give according to their abilities and take according to their self- defined needs. Work will be on the basis of voluntary co-operation: the coercion of wage and salary work will be abolished. There will be no buying or selling and money will not be necessary, in a society of common ownership and free access. For the first time ever the people of the world will have common possession of the planet earth.

7. How will socialism solve the problems of society?
Capitalism, with its constant drive to serve profit before need, throws up an endless stream of problems. Most workers in Britain feel insecure about their future; almost one in four families with children living below the official government poverty line; many old people live in dangerously cold conditions each winter and thousands die; millions of our fellow men and women are dying of starvation — tens of thousands of them each day. A society based on production for use will end those problems because the priority of socialist society will be the fullest possible satisfaction of needs. At the moment food is destroyed and farmers are subsidised not to produce more: yet many millions are malnourished. At the moment hospital queues are growing longer and people are dying of curable illnesses; yet it is not "economically viable" to provide decent health treatment for all. In a socialist society nothing short of the best will be good enough for any human being.

8. What about human nature?
Human behaviour is not fixed, but determined by the kind of society people are conditioned to live in. The capitalist jungle produces vicious, competitive ways of thinking and acting. But we humans are able to adapt our behaviour and there is no reason why our rational desire for comfort and human welfare should not allow us to co-operate. Even under capitalism people often obtain pleasure from doing a good turn for others; few people enjoy participating in the "civilised" warfare of the daily rat-race. Think how much better it would be if society was based on co-operation.

9. Are socialists democrats?
Yes: the Socialist Party has no leaders. It is a democratic organisation controlled by its members. It understands that Socialism can only be established by a conscious majority of workers — that workers must liberate themselves and will not be liberated by leaders or parties. Socialism will not be brought about by a dedicated minority "smashing the state", as some left-wingers would have it. Nor do the activities of paid, professional politicians have anything to do with Socialism — the experience of seven Labour governments has shown this. Once a majority of the working class understand and want Socialism, they will take the necessary step to organise consciously for the democratic conquest of political power. There will be no Socialism without a socialist majority.

10. What is the next step?
Many workers know that there is something wrong and want to change society. Some join reform groups in the hope that capitalism can be patched up, but such efforts are futile because you cannot run a system of class exploitation in the interests of the exploited majority. People who fear a nuclear war may join CND. but as long as nation states exist, economic rivalry means that the world will never be safe from the threat of war. There are countless dedicated campaigns and good causes which many sincere people are caught up in, but there is only one solution to the problems of capitalism and that is to get rid of it, and establish Socialism. Before we can do that we need socialists; winning workers to that cause requires knowledge, principles and an enthusiasm for change. These qualities can be developed by anyone — and are essential for anyone who is serious about changing society. Capitalism in the 1980s is still a system of waste, deprivation and frightening insecurity. You owe it to yourself to find out about the one movement which stands for the alternative.


If you have read this set of principles and agree with some or all of them, contact the Socialist Party with your questions and ideas about what you can do to help speed the progress towards Socialism.

Running Commentary: It's the council (1987)

The Running Commentary Column from the December 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Most people are almost totally disinterested in local politics. Many people don't bother to vote in local elections; most probably couldn't tell you who their councillor is. or which tier of local government is responsible for which services, or which political party runs their local council.

The only exceptions are the London boroughs which attract sensational and distorted media coverage because of their so- called "loony left" policies. The tabloid newspapers are, in general, not the slightest bit interested in what councils do or don't do about council housing or social services, but let any council give a few pounds to a gay or lesbian group and it becomes front page news. It is little wonder, therefore, that Kin- nock is doing all that he can to dissociate himself from them since his overriding concern is the achievement of political power no matter what policies he has to ditch on the way to Number Ten.

In fact local authorities do affect our lives in important ways. They are responsible for providing education, social services, housing, home helps and day centres. They maintain the roads and remove the rubbish. They provide leisure and recreational facilities — parks, swimming pools, libraries and community centres. They regulate the environment in which we live by granting planning permission to builders.

But local authorities are important for another reason: they are the only other elected authority besides central government. This does not mean that they are especially democratic however. Most councils are out of touch with the needs of workers; they are dominated by representatives of the business community and operate in their interests. It is little wonder that most people are not interested in local politics, since it makes very little difference which party controls the council — life will go on pretty much as before.

In recent years local authorities have seen their powers diminished: a number of areas of responsibility have been removed from council control and have been given instead to non-elected, unaccountable administrative bodies. Councils have also been constrained by the financial limitations imposed on them by successive governments beginning with the cash limits instituted by the last Labour government in the 1970s. and continued by the Tories by means of rate-capping. The Tories carried the attack on local government a stage further when they abolished the GLC and the metropolitan authorities.

The Socialist Party has no illusions about local politics. Unlike the Labour Left or the Town Hall Trots, we do not believe that it is possible to bring about "municipal socialism". Council housing, day nurseries and non-sexist, non-racist educational policies are not socialism. Local authorities are a part of the state structure for administering capitalism, and must necessarily operate within the constraints laid down, not only by central government, but by the capitalist system itself. Any council which attempts to challenge the priorities of capitalism will find itself under attack.

But political participation, however limited and democracy, however flawed, are important. The attack, not just on the policies of certain councils, but on the very existence of elected bodies, is also an attack on our already very limited opportunities for political participation.

Janie Percy-Smith

Facing facts (1987

From the December 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

When certain words and phrases are used by politicians, they must be received with the greatest caution and suspicion, not to say alarm. For example the favourite phrase "every right-thinking person", which often precedes a statement of outrageous bigotry, actually means "everyone who agrees with me". Then there is "the national interest", which is used to describe some policy operating in the interests of a small but socially superior minority and against the interests of what might more properly be called "the nation" — the majority. And then there is the word "realism" which is at present being worked to death by Kinnock and Gould and their supporters in the Labour Party. Nobody should be deceived by this use of the word "reality"; it does not mean that Labour Party leaders, after all those years of dealing in the fallacies that they can control this social system, are suddenly facing up to the fact of their impotence. Neither does it mean they are about to tell the voters about the futility of trying to reform capitalism into amiability.

In fact the word has been in fashion for some time now-, workers should have taken fright before this. A few years ago Len Murray, before he was ennobled and was General Secretary of the TUC, warned the unions about something which he called the "new realism". His message was that these are hard times for the unions — that high unemployment tends to reduce union membership as it undermines their bargaining power. This is not an original insight into capitalism — socialists have been pointing this out for a very long time. Capitalism’s economy moves in cycles of boom and recession, good times and bad times for workers' ability to extract better wages and conditions from their employers. Murray's realism did not extend to this type of analysis, nor did he go on to the conclusion that this marks the limitations of trade union effectiveness, confined to the uphill task of defending workers' living standards under capitalism as distinct from the permanent solution to their problems resulting from the revolutionary social change from capitalism to socialism. He didn't say that — perhaps he didn't even realise it — because apart from being Britain's number one trade unionist he was — and is — a supporter of the Labour Party whose existence depends on the workers failing to grasp such vital realities.

Kinnock's concern for what he calls reality was expressed in his leader's speech at this year's conference, when he said that any serious party which did not, after three consecutive defeats, conduct a rigorous review of its policies would be betraying itself and its principles. This was yet another unoriginal thought, for Labour have been in this state before and have reacted in the same way, almost with the same words. At their 1959 conference, smarting from the widely unforeseen defeat which Macmillan's Tories inflicted on them, Labour delegates heard their leader Gaitskell tell them that

  . . . this is the third successive general election we have lost and the fourth in which we have lost seats. This is a grave development and we must take it seriously.

Gaitskell's response to this — like Kinnock's today — was that Labour should take a critical look at the programmes they put forward when they sustained their defeat, with a view to purging them of all vote-losing content. Another way of saying this is that what was realistic only a few months ago —what was claimed to be a policy to revive British industry. raise the people from poverty to prosperity, bring about a world safe for peace — is now unrealistic. What this says for Labour's manifesto writers hardly bears thinking about. When they wrote in the 1987 election pledge, guarded and veiled as it was, about British nuclear weapons, did they foresee that it would be so quickly transformed into something even more obscure, into the promise to ". . . work to ensure that we have policies that are capable of dealing with the changed conditions of the 1990s in a way that will enhance the prospects of removing reliance on nuclear weapons"? There are enough conditions and asides in that sentence of Kinnock's to satisfy the most hardened manifesto writer and to smokescreen the ardent eyes of any CND member who still believes that a Labour government would actually take any notice of conference decisions for a unilateral abandonment of the British bomb. Reality, for Kinnock, does not extend to clarity.

Kinnock denies now that he is trying to build a party in the image of the yuppie. In 1959 that word had not been coined, the big bang was not so much as an embryonic whimper and the London docklands were full of ships and cranes and warehouses. But Gaitskell was calling for new Labour policies because of

  . . . the changing character of labour, full employment, new housing, the new way of living based on the telly, the fridge, the car and the glossy magazines. All these have had their effect on our political strength.

Kinnock’s version of this same plea, sprinkled with references to poverty and homelessness. highlighted increasing home ownership, workers buying shares and the shift from large scale heavy industry towards high technology labour extensive manufacturing. Both these leaders might have put their case more simply, not to say more honestly. They might both have said that Labour will rearrange its policies to suit the prejudices and misconceptions of the voters. Whatever delusions the dockers of the 1950s lived and worked by, election promises had to be found to fit in with them. However misguidedly workers today view their lives, their employment, their prospects, must also dominate the content of Labour's future appeal for votes. Workers who think that buying a few shares and taking on a mortgage changes their class position are not concerned with reality but with a monstrous delusion and if the Labour Party courts their votes rather than tell them that they are deluded they are pandering to an insidious ignorance in the cause of winning power.

For the Labour Party reality is no constant thing; it is nothing to do with any political principles. It changes from one election to another, almost from one month to another. Their reality is fashioned by their need to grab votes; what attracts votes is realistic, what repels them is unrealistic, the produce of minds barred with a "Do Not Disturb" notice. This was expressed in Kinnock's ringing call for a discipline "ensuring that every word, every deed, every statement and action is related completely to the attaining of victory". Many Labour supporters will see nothing wrong in this — after all, what is the party in business for? And isn't a Labour government different from, more humane than, a Tory one? Well, what is the actual effect of this unprincipled scramble for votes? If the means are to be justified by the ends, what do the ends mean to us? History records that the differences between Labour governments and Tory ones were negligible to the point of being almost indistinguishable. For example, in October 1964 Harold Wilson announced the first of his government's many assaults on working-class conditions:

  We cannot afford attitudes anywhere, on either side of industry, which stand in the way of higher production or lower costs. The old fashioned restrictive practices have no place.

This dose of Labour Party 1960s realism was not unwelcome to the previous Tory Chancellor, Reginald Maudling, who, that very same day, rushed to reassure everyone that nothing was changed:

  Given a national determination to sweep away restrictions and accept change and an effective incomes policy the prospects are good. It is true the Labour Government have inherited our problems. They seem also to have inherited our solutions!

As the reality of that government became more and more apparent, there was dissatisfaction throughout the Labour Party. Some members seemed to believe that it should somehow be different from a Tory government. Some of the party leaders — like George Brown and Ray Gunter — had other reasons for their disillusionment. It all amounted to an inability to accept that any party which sets out to run capitalism cannot but disappoint those who regarded it as an organisation based on political principles. This was also the story with the next Labour administration, which went down in defeat in 1979 having laid the foundations of much of what has become known as Thatcherism. For the overwhelming, enduring reality is that there is nothing to choose between the parties which stand for capitalism and particularly between the two big parties, who are in immediate rivalry for power. Playing for votes from workers who do not accept the need to end capitalism and replace it with socialism means that an election-winning party has to run the capitalist system, whatever promises they have made on the road to power. This means that they must do a great many things which, in line with what they have claimed to be their principles, they should not do. It would be more accurate to say that capitalism runs its leaders rather than the other way round. And it is all justified in the name of reality, while those who point out the uselessness of it are derided as dreamers, subversives and worse.

This results in the continuation of the society which is essentially based on the interests of the minority who own the means of life — on the unequal, exploitative relationship between the owning class and those who need to be employed by them in order to live. This is the root of mass poverty and all that it means in terms of bad housing, sickness. repression and so on. Politicians make speeches which not only ignore these facts but often set out deliberately to obscure them. There is nothing of reality in this; it is all deception and distortion. But things do not have to be like this; we do not have to live in a society where political parties compete for support from the uninformed, the apathetic, the confused, the cynical. Facing reality would be a great step forward for the people of the world, which would mean we were about to see some important changes.

Ivan

Arguments about abortion (1987)

From the December 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

"A woman s right to choose; a child's right to life; pro-choice; pro-life” — the debate about abortion is too often conducted using slogans that set one group's "rights" against those of another. No doubt we will hear the same old arguments for and against abortion as David Alton's private member's Bill passes through Parliament. Alton, a devout Roman Catholic opposed to all abortion, wants to amend existing laws so that the time limit for legal abortions is reduced from 28 weeks to 18 weeks. Those in favour of the new time limit argue that recent advances in medical technology now mean it is possible, in some cases, for doctors to keep a baby alive that is born after just 23 weeks gestation. In other words at the moment abortions are permitted beyond the time at which a foetus could be said to be "viable".

The arguments for and against abortion should be re-examined in the light of the facts, not only about abortion but also about the circumstances in which women seek abortion.

Abortion on demand
Despite the anti-abortion lobby's propaganda and the pro-abortion lobby's demand, there is no "free abortion on demand" in this country. In order to obtain a legal abortion on the NHS a woman must first convince two doctors that there are good reasons why her pregnancy should be terminated. The most common reason given by doctors is that to continue with the pregnancy would be a "risk to the woman's physical or mental health". Some doctors who are anyway predisposed to be guided by the woman's wishes, use this as a convenient catch-all reason for agreeing to an abortion. But this is by no means the case in all parts of the country. There are huge disparities between regions in the proportion of abortions carried out by the NHS which is evidence of the extent of consultant gynaecologists' discretionary powers. Around 50 per cent of all abortions in Britain are carried out privately. Money can buy a way round NHS doctors' objections providing a substantial profit for those practitioners who are more enlightened or less principled depending on your point of view.

But to all intents and purposes the arguments this time around are not about whether abortion is ever justified but about whether abortion after 18 weeks pregnancy is justified. Given that "late" abortions are undoubtedly traumatic for both the pregnant woman and medical staff carrying out the operation — they often involve inducing labour and the "delivery" of the foetus — we need to ask why any woman would seek an abortion this far into the pregnancy.

“Late" abortions
Some "late" terminations occur precisely because abortion is not available "on demand". It may take some time to get an appointment with a consultant, to get him or her to agree to the abortion and then to be allocated a NHS bed. One survey discovered that as many as one in five women seeking "late" abortions had first sought medical advice before they were 12 weeks into the pregnancy. As a result, some who oppose the Alton amendment argue that if he is serious about eliminating "late" abortions then the way to do it is not to make them illegal but to make it then easier to obtain by removing delays in the NHS. This strategy would, no doubt, reduce the number of "late" abortions but would not eliminate the need for them altogether.

Of the 5,865 abortions carried out last year after 18 weeks, 550 were because tests had shown that the baby was likely to be born handicapped. If Alton's bill becomes law then there will be more handicapped children born because many of the tests for foetal abnormality cannot be carried out until after 18 weeks. For example, most pregnant women cannot be tested for Down's Syndrome until 17 weeks at the earliest. They then have to wait several weeks for the results of the test and if the decision is to terminate the pregnancy, they must wait again for a hospital bed to become available. There is a new test for Down's Syndrome which can be carried out earlier in the pregnancy but it is only available in a few well-equipped hospitals.

Most women seeking late abortion are from countries outside England and Wales where abortion is illegal. This figure is beginning to decrease as other countries liberalise their abortion laws, but there are still significant numbers of women arriving from Ireland, Spain and Portugal to seek abortions. Again there is an irony in the fact that the number of late abortions performed in this country which Alton is so anxious to reduce is largely made up of women from countries which impose the same Catholic morality that Alton believes in.

The final group of women likely to seek late abortions are very young or older women. In the latter case women who think they are past child-bearing age may not discover they are pregnant until they are more than 18 weeks into the pregnancy, having mistaken physiological changes for the menopause.

But perhaps the group most likely to be adversely affected by the proposed change are teenage girls. Again, they may not at first realise they are pregnant or if they do they may be too scared to tell anyone until they can no longer conceal the fact.

Teenagers reach sexual maturity at a young age and are encouraged by the persuasive glamorisation of sex by the media to engage in sexual activity. Unfortunately this glossy portrayal of sex tends to leave out (or at least did so prior to AIDS) the considerably less glamorous issue of contraception. A DHSS survey of pregnant schoolgirls in 1986 revealed that although 65 per cent of them had their first sexual experience before they were 16, 51 per cent had never been given any information about contraception. In 1985 the result of this ignorance was 38,000 babies born to single girls aged between 13 and 19 and 1.500 babies born to girls under the age of 14.

If the Alton bill becomes law then those people who. on any assessment are likely to be considered most in need of an abortion — very young girls, older women and those carrying an impaired foetus — are also the people most likely to be adversely affected.

Unwanted pregnancies

The arguments for and against abortion so often take on a high moral tone that they frequently fail to answer the most important question: why are there unwanted pregnancies?

As we have already seen, ignorance must be to blame in some cases. It is estimated that one in ten teenagers who reach the age of 15 this year will have an abortion before they are 20. Many of these unwanted pregnancies will be the result of an appalling lack of knowledge about sex and contraception among sexually active teenagers. So why is it that young people are not given the information they need to enable them to take responsibility for their own actions? Once again we are confronted with the fact that it is the morality of Alton and others like him who ignore the fact that teenagers do engage in sexual activity at a young age and insist instead that they should not. It is doubly perverse for the same moralists to then condemn abortion — an inevitable consequence of their own moralism. Clearly the first practical step that needs to be taken to reduce the number of abortions is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies by providing proper sex education and information about contraception and encouraging free discussion among teenagers in an atmosphere free from repressive moralism.

Unwanted pregnancies may also result from "accidents" — no method of contraception is 100 per cent effective. While in some cases an unplanned pregnancy will be accepted and the child welcomed, this is by no means always so. For some women another child will be a burden that they and their families cannot cope with for financial, social or psychological reasons. To go ahead with the pregnancy in such circumstances could cause tremendous damage to all concerned. In a society which is not concerned about meeting human needs such situations will continually arise.

Doubts about whether human needs will be met must be even greater in cases involving a handicapped child. No woman who is already 18 weeks or more into a pregnancy is going to take lightly the decision to go through the trauma of a late abortion even where there is evidence that the baby will be born handicapped. The fact that many women in such a situation do opt for abortion is evidence of the difficulties faced by parents trying to care for a handicapped child. Similarly in a 1983 survey conducted by the Journal of Medical Ethics, parents of Down's Syndrome children were asked what they would do if they knew that they were expecting a severely mentally handicapped child. 78 per cent said they would request a termination. No doubt these parents loved and cared for their own handicapped children but the difficulties they face are such that the majority would not willingly take on such a responsibility again. David Alton argues that the certainty of a baby being born handicapped should not be grounds for abortion and that if parents themselves do not want to keep the handicapped child then they should arrange for it to be adopted. This completely ignores the difficulties not only of finding adoptive parents for handicapped children but also of providing for their needs in a society that does not give any human needs priority let alone special needs.

David Alton's bill offers no answers to any of these questions and the arguments of most of his opponents also fail to address the most fundamental issues. Because until we face up to the fact that we live in a society which routinely fails to provide for the needs of a majority of its members — parents and children, handicapped or not — then there will continue to be a demand for abortion. Anyone who is seriously concerned to reduce or eliminate abortion might do well to consider what kind of society would first have to be created in order to achieve that objective. For pious sentiment about the sanctity of human life has a hollow ring when each and every day brings fresh evidence of the lack of respect for human life. And moralistic cant about “rights'' will do nothing to change the material circumstances that cause women to seek abortions. Only in a society in which human needs are paramount — the needs of women to control their own fertility, the needs of parents to have creative work besides looking after their children, the needs of children to grow up in a secure, loving environment free from want and deprivation. the needs of the handicapped to be respected and useful members of the community — is it possible to imagine a situation where all babies are wanted and abortion redundant.

Janie Percy-Smith

Season of Goodwill (1987)

From the December 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

It’s that time of year again. The colour supplements are full of advice on how to avoid making a fool of yourself at the office party, while at the office party insecure, immature males attempt to take advantage of female colleagues whose only encouragement to these would-be Lotharios is being in the same building.

Normally friendly colleagues can be observed watching each other closely each time a visiting representative brings in his company’s bribes. Hell hath no fury like a recipient of a bottle of scotch last year who receives only a bottle of sherry this year.
Speaking of drink, the result of alcoholic over-indulgence can be induced without recourse to the spirit bottle. This state may be attained on December 25 by using your gift-wrapped calculator to add up the amount of money that the ’celebration" of some Palestinian's birthday has cost.

Another method of inducing nausea is to tune in to the annual broadcast by a London pensioner named Betty. Betty's recipe for a happy life is to have millions of pounds in the bank and to take lots of holidays during the year.

There is a 16th century saying that "Christmas comes but once a year but when it comes it brings good cheer". Christmas certainly brings good cheer to those capitalists who make those commodities considered so necessary for this time of year; plastic Christmas trees, artificial snow, inflatable reindeer and all the baubles that a gullible public buys in the mistaken belief that possession of these "festive" goods will in some way bring a little happiness into their lives. It’s all a bigger con trick than the virgin birth.

"Of course", s/he says, "I'm not bothered about Christmas myself, but it's so nice for the children". Take a walk around a toyshop and see children's confusion at all the attractive objects that they so badly want but are forbidden to them unless their parents can afford them. It might be Christmas but we're still living in a capitalist world.

Christmas is great for reinforcing sexual stereotypes. Do you want your daughter to be just like mummy? Wouldn't your little girl just love to wake up on Christmas Day and find her Wendy House fully fitted with a kitchen, microwave and ironing board? Let's not forget to strengthen her maternal instincts. There is a wide range of dolls to choose from. For the doll who wants everything there are prams, push-chairs, layettes and baby doll care sets. But who would want to buy their child that obnoxious capitalist product, a talking Cabbage Patch Kid?

Do you want your son to become an aggressive, competitive, insensitive person? The sort who sexually harasses women at office parties? If so, the shops have the ideal Christmas presents for him. There is the Laser Tank — "blow the tank into bits and pieces"! The Phaser Force Gun Set; practise shooting a friend. How about the "good and evil" Masters of the Universe type action figures — recommended for instilling respect for leaders, especially those with more brawn than brain.

Letters: Green debate (1987)

Letters to the Editors from the December 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Green debate

Dear Comrades,

I think the Socialist Standard production committee and the other members concerned are to be congratulated on the interview with Jonathon Porritt which appeared in the August Socialist Standard. It was topical, interesting and, above all, reasonable in tone.

I agree entirely with the member of the Green Party who wrote to you the following month to say he was impressed by it for its lack of any "we have an answer to everything" boast. I have sometimes heard members boast that a Party speaker has "wiped the floor" with an opponent in debate. It doesn't seem to occur to them that if you want people to join you in a difficult task of creating revolutionary consciousness you probably won't have much success if you first wipe with the floor with them.

Socialist propaganda can be put without aggression, arrogance, condescension or abuse. The contents of most copies of the Socialist Standard these days prove that. More power to your (our) elbow.

Yours for socialism,

Keith Graham

Bristol

Does human nature exist?

Dear Editors.

I particularly enjoyed the September issue of the Socialist Standard but was astounded to read, in the very last column, the emphatic assertion "Human nature does not exist". Unquestionably it does exist, in both physical and psychological terms. To assume otherwise would surely imply that, uniquely in the animal kingdom, no human activity could ever be deemed natural. Including, of course, "our rational desire for comfort and welfare"

Obviously however, the way that human nature manifests itself through our behaviour is significantly affected by environmental, social and cultural conditioning. The relative influence of nature or nurture in this process remains a matter for legitimate debate but I have great respect for what I always considered to be the socialist position. Succinctly stated on the first page of the same issue.

Does Steve Colborn really believe that it is as unnatural to make love as it is to make war? And do other socialists agree with him?

Yours sincerely,

Richard Headicar

London, NW5

Reply
It is nice to know that Richard Headicar enjoyed the September Socialist Standard; we hope he will go along to his local branch of The Socialist Party to discuss his opinions about socialism.

As Richard Headicar points out, our behaviour varies under the influence of our conditions, yet human behaviour is what our opponents are really referring to when they say that "human nature" would make socialism unworkable The problem is in deciding what is natural to human beings; to begin with, whatever is natural must be fixed, which counts out human behaviour which changes with its conditioning.

This leaves us with very little which can be properly called human nature. As far as the case for socialism goes, it is so insignificant as to justify the phrase that it does not exist

Editors

Material needs

Dear Sir.

After reading your journal for a few months now, I find myself in broad agreement with most of your aims. However, there are one or two points.

In particular, you advocate a socialist society mainly for material reasons: for houses and general consumer goods. The criticisms you make of our present society are normally only ones of material deprivation. You do not seem to consider the point that man has inner, non-material, needs. I do not mean religious or spiritual needs, but man as a social animal needs to feel at one with his surroundings. his work and his fellow human beings. These yearnings come from inside man and need a harmonious society externally to be satisfied. By often ignoring these inner and social needs of men you seem to be denying that there is a psychological and emotional basis for socialism as well as a material basis. Or perhaps the SPGB claims that our present society has no effect on our inner stability?

One other point of criticism. The language of your paper is surely dated. Whether we like it or not. people today do not generally use terminology such as "capitalist class", "class struggles" and "surplus value". Instead of using language that you talk to yourselves in, shouldn't you choose words and terms that ordinary non-socialists use. They are, after all, the people whom you have to convince. Your Declaration of Principles uses terms that it needs a dictionary to make sense of

Yours for a non-market world,

Simon Pearson

Reply
The Socialist Party is most certainly a "materialist" party in the sense that we argue that to understand society fully we must look first at the ways in which people are organised to meet their material needs, how the goods and services that are necessary for life are produced. In capitalist society that production takes place only for profit and people are divided into two classes — the capitalist class which owns the means of producing and distributing goods and services, and the working class which owns nothing except their ability to work. These two classes have opposing interests which cannot be reconciled within the capitalist system. The effects of this class division — and the conflict which it entails — are both material, in the sense that workers never receive the full benefit of their labour, and non-material in the sense that capitalism also engenders insecurity, conflict and division.

We do indeed recognise that people have what Simon Pearson refers to as "inner needs" — to live in harmony and cooperation with each other — but would argue that the material conditions created by capitalism frustrate the meeting of those needs. Socialism, by contrast, will ensure not only that people's needs for a decent standard of material life are met. but will also create a society in which people can live in peace with each other.

On the question of the language used in the Socialist Standard, we accept that the language of the Declaration of Principles is dated — they were after all drawn up in 1904. Nevertheless, as a statement of what the Socialist Party stands for they are as relevant today as when they were drafted. The language may have changed but the basic features of capitalism still exist. And it is the ideas contained within the Declaration of Principles which are the basis for the analysis of society and contemporary events presented in the Standard. Although we do at all times try to use ordinary language in the articles we print, it is not always easy to find words and expressions which carry the same meaning as "capitalist class" and "class struggles".

Editors

Socialism and democracy

Comrades,

Let me commence by saying that I'm in broad agreement with your analysis of socialism; what it is. how it can be achieved and the absoluteness of its necessity.

However I do have one query. One of your prerequisites for socialism is that it must be on a worldwide basis. Does this infer that the development of a universal socialist consciousness will arise uniformly? If so, is this not an unrealistic assertion?

My point is that it is quite possible and even probable that a realisation of the need for socialism will gain uneven support between the various nations of the world. For instance how is it possible for socialist thought to take seed in the state capitalist regimes where dissension is not tolerated and a parliamentary process is non-existent. Ditto for right wing dictatorships. Thus it would seem inevitable that socialist thought is more likely to advance in the partially democratic nations of the West, over the aforementioned totalitarian regimes.

If a socialist majority should arise in these Western nations whilst socialist awareness remained hindered in other countries, what route then for socialism? Would such a problem be irretractable? I should hope not!

I await with interest your reply

Yours sincerely,

James Ryan 

London SW16

Reply
This is a vital question, which often bothers people who are in "broad agreement" with our case.

Socialism must be a worldwide social system because a stateless, moneyless, classless set-up could not exist, as a separate enclave, amid a capitalist world of nations, wars, class division, commodity production and so on. It follows that socialism must be established at pretty well the same time throughout the world but this does not imply that workers develop socialist consciousness at exactly the same rate everywhere. Inevitably, there is some unevenness but in terms of social movement this is so slight as to be insignificant.

Ideas mirror material conditions. At present workers all over the world support capitalism and this support takes just about the same form wherever we look. The same false ideas help to keep capitalism in being on both sides of the Atlantic, on both sides of the Iron Curtain . . .

The development of socialist ideas faces many problems and political dictatorship is one of them. An absence of democracy reflects a low state of development of workers' consciousness; its presence is one of the fruits of a flourishing consciousness. That is the direction in which society is moving, as workers' ideas react to capitalism's contradictions.

We hope James Ryan will feel able to assert his own political awareness by joining in the work for socialism.

Editors

Who runs the world?

Dear Editors.

I am not a member of the SPGB but I must say that the letter from Reg Otter in the October issue annoyed me immensely. Obviously he has contempt for the great mass of people forgetting that they run the world.

I have no doubt that when Mr Otter is in trouble he sends for the plumber or the doctor or seeks the attention of a dentist; when he travels he may well fly in an aircraft made, serviced and flown by working people. Every day "miracles" are happening throughout the world carried out by working people. These people are not socialists neither are they dumb or stupid, were Reg Otter not so cynical and bigoted he would see that there is a tremendous amount of goodwill and sacrifice in the community in spite of the pressures of capitalism.

I have lived for nearly 65 years and know that the main political parties have nothing to offer but division and delusion. Socialism appears to be the answer when people are prepared to listen and act.

Yours fraternally.

W. Cozens

London NW8

50 Years Ago: Russia was never socialist (1987)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the Russian Revolution took place in 1917, the Socialist Party of Great Britain pointed out that it would not result in Socialism, but in a development of capitalism. We laid great emphasis on the fact that Russia, being still very backward, was not ripe for Socialism. The population of Russia was composed chiefly of peasants. How could they, illiterate and individualistic in outlook, have any understanding of Socialism, or any desire for it?

Whilst we were urging these views, other parties, claiming to represent the working class, asserted that the Bolsheviks had discovered a short cut to Socialism. They ignored the lessons of history, which show that there are no short cuts, that society passes through various phases and that none of these phases can be "jumped" in the course of society's evolution. They ignored the past failures of workers to establish Socialism by intelligent minorities. After claiming to be "Marxists", they paid little real attention to the theories of Marx and Engels.

Alas, thanks to these parties (chiefly the Communist Party and the Independent Labour Party) a legend was created, a legend that Russia was Socialist.

[From an article "Aspects of Russia" published in the Socialist Standard December 1937 ]

Soft Drink, Hard Labour (1987)

Book Review from the December 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Soft Drink Hard Labour: Guatemalan Workers Take on Coca Cola. Mike Gatehouse and Miguel Angel Reyes (Latin American Bureau London. 1987).

Guatemala is a country of violent repression. According to a British Parliamentary Delegation who visited the country in 1984 as many as 100,000 people had been killed and 38,000 had disappeared in the previous thirty years. Guatemala is also a country of poverty in which 63 per cent of the population live below the official poverty line and in which 2 per cent of the population own 65 per cent of the land. Against this background the study examines the industrial dispute that took place over a nine-year period involving Coca Cola workers and their union STEGAC and the owners of the Coca Cola bottling plant in Guatemala City.

Coca Cola does not directly own or manage local companies but allows franchise contracts to bottlers. In this particular case it was Embotelladora Guatemalteca SA (EGSA), owned originally by a Texan family, the Flemings of Houston. In 1975 the workers in the company attempted to re-establish a trade union which had been crushed after the military coup of 1954. The process is complex and involves legal registration of a union followed by recognition and granting of bargaining rights by an employer The factory manager, John C. Trotter, attempted various tactics to stop the union, including physical violence and intimidation. He hired members of the Mobile Military Police to act as armed guards, based on a fixed charge per day per guard payable to the army:

EGSA managers began to make explicit threats to Coke workers active in the union. On 10 February 1977 the personnel manager threatened Angel Villeda and Oscar Humberto Sarti. On 1 March, both were shot and wounded. The following day. the Coke workers' lawyers, the Torres, were seriously injured when their car was deliberately bumped and forced off the road by a jeep driven by a government employee, (p.8)

Worse was to follow. Manual López Balam, STEGAC General Secretary, was killed by a group armed with knives and iron bars while he was delivering crates of Coca Cola. The 16-year-old daughter of a union lawyer was arrested, beaten, raped, tortured and temporarily blinded. Further workers and union officials were killed or disappeared or were violently assaulted, as in the case of Amulfo Gómez Segura whose lips were slashed with a razor, his tongue cut out and placed in his shirt pocket.

Pressure was put on Coca Cola including that by the Interfaith Centre for Corporate Responsibility, a group of shareholders from churches and religious orders. They were responsible for bringing Israel Márquez, a STEGAC General Secretary, to Coca Cola's AGM in 1979. It was Márquez who coined the phrase "in Guatemala, Coca Cola is a name for murder". There was also pressure from the Geneva based International Union of Food and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF). Coca Cola denied responsibility, maintaining that franchisees were independent operators. Nonetheless cooperation between Coca Cola and the licence holders was seen to constitute complicity. The IUF called on its affiliates to put pressure on Coca Cola which controls 44 per cent of the world's soft drinks sales. The effect of that pressure was to give bad publicity to the image of Coca Cola and it was this to which the company responded. The EGSA franchise was transferred to new owners and a new management team was brought in. The backlash for Coca Cola was that they were increasingly criticised by the business world for allowing "the dangerous precedent of multinational trade union intervention (the IUF) in multinational corporation affairs".

Meanwhile the new management at EGSA were gradually undermining the company, a policy which could not have gone unnoticed by Coca Cola as they held overall financial control. Under threatened closure the workers occupied the factory in February 1984. A new policy was adopted to deal with the dispute. Further bloodshed would have looked bad for Coca Cola who were that year major sponsors of the Olympic Games. The Government of General Mejia Victores was looking for foreign aid and loans and was promising elections for a Constituent Assembly so again bad publicity was not desired. The occupation of EGSA is a testimony to working-class self-organisation. There were some unusual elements. There is the ironic detail, quoted from Jim Wilson of the IUF. that "every day a sympathetic priest comes in from the outside to say mass before a makeshift altar surrounded by high stacks of Coca Cola crates". Yet the ability to maintain that occupation for a year in a land of poverty and violent repression cannot be underestimated. Nor should the ability to withstand the economic pressure brought to bear by EGSA/Coca Cola. Again there was multinational trade union support for the Guatemalan workers and finally Coca Cola re-negotiated with STEGAC, although insisting that the IUF must not be involved in any settlement.

There are lessons to be learned from this study. A multinational corporation was pressurised into allowing a victory, although limited, to the Guatemalan workers. The occupation testified to the resilience and persistence of a group of workers in establishing and maintaining a trade union against awesome odds. The discipline of those workers during the occupation ensured a majority support and a willingness to sustain the daily routine of maintenance, cleaning, guard duty, assemblies and education and leisure activity. Yet we ought not to forget that no victory guarantees the future while capitalism is maintained. Guatemala may have an elected government but the military bureaucracy still exists. With more than 50 per cent of Guatemala's workforce without permanent employment many fear that contact with a trade union can only take place at the expense of employment. It may be that the security forces are also biding their time. In the struggle for reforms it is the effects that are tackled and not their causes.

Philip Bentley

Party News (1987)

From the December 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dundee election campaign

In May, Dundee Branch of The Socialist Party will contest three district wards around the city in the local elections.

We are planning a wide range of activities, including:

• Public Meetings
• Leaflet distribution
• Selling literature
• Debates and Forums
• Canvassing
• Distributing a free sheet
• Literature stall in town centre.

All readers and sympathisers in the area should take this opportunity to get involved in the vital, rewarding work of putting socialism firmly on the political agenda.

Come to our informal weekly meetings in the lounge bar of the Tay Bridge pub (Perth Road) on Mondays at 8pm or see address in the Branch Directory (inside back page) under Dundee.

Socialist activity in Aberdeen

A wide range of activities will spread the ideas of world socialism in the Aberdeen area in the near future.

Sympathisers, readers of the Socialist Standard and anyone interested in the case for a sane socialist alternative should get in touch with The Socialist Party:

lan Ratcliffe 

5 Ellon Road.

Bridge of Don

Aberdeen

(Tel. 0224 822XXX)

We want your help in developing the growing interest in the ideas of socialism in North East Scotland.

Members of Eccles Branch manned a literature stall in Wythenshaw Park during the annual fair, organised by the Manchester City Council in September. Literature sales, and the useful contacts made, proved this event to be a worthwhile party activity.

Wally Preston sitting down. Andy Pitts in the foreground.

Socialism and Calculation (1987)

From the December 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

In recent years, with the revival of the ideological Right as a reaction to the failure of the wishy-washy middle-of-the-road social reformism that had been in vogue since the war, we in the Socialist Party have been singled out for special attention by those partisans of unbridled capitalism who call themselves “libertarians” and “anarcho-capitalists”. This is probably because we are the only group calling itself socialist to put forward a coherent definition of what socialism is and prepared to go into the details of how we think a classless, stateless and in particular moneyless society might work.

The point these ideological defenders of capitalism love to attack us on is the idea of abolishing markets, prices, money and all other aspects of buying and selling. This they say would be impossible, as demonstrated by a certain Ludwig von Mises in an article on “Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth” published in German in 1920 (and first published in English in 1935 in Collectivist Economic Planning edited by Hayek). Von Mises, they claim, showed that a socialist society was impossible because it would be unable to calculate rationally which productive methods to adopt. This they call “the economic calculation argument”. According to von Mises, rational economic calculation is only possible on the basis of prices fixed by the free play of market forces. In other words, the only form of rational calculation that can be applied to the production of wealth is monetary calculation.

Although money, and so monetary calculation, will disappear in socialism this does not mean that there will no longer be any need to make choices, evaluations and calculations. Our argument is that these evaluations and calculations, including those concerning the non-monetary “cost” of objects in terms of the effort and materials used to produce them, will be done directly in kind, without any general unit of account or measurement, neither money nor labour-time.

This follows from the very nature of socialism as a society geared to producing wealth directly to satisfy human needs. Wealth will be produced and distributed in its natural form of useful things, of objects that can serve to satisfy some human need or other. Not being produced for sale on a market, items of wealth will not acquire an exchange-value in addition to their use-value. In socialism their value, in the normal non-economic sense of the word, will not be their selling price nor the time needed to produce them but their usefulness. It is for this that they will be appreciated, evaluated, wanted . . . and produced. So estimates of what is likely to be needed over a given period will be expressed as physical quantities of definite types and sorts of objects. Nobody, not even von Mises, has denied that this could be done without problems:

  calculation in natura, in an economy without exchange, can embrace consumption-goods only (Von Mises, p. 104).

Von Mises’ argument was that the next step—working out which productive methods to employ—would not be possible, or at least would not be able to be done “rationally” avoiding waste and inefficiency, without “economic calculation”—monetary calculation based on market prices. Our answer is that the choice of which productive methods to employ will, like working out what consumer goods are needed, be based on estimations and calculations in kind.

A monetary economy gives rise to the illusion that the “cost” of producing something is merely financial; indeed so associated is the word cost with financial and monetary calculation that we are obliged to put it in inverted commas when we want to talk about it in a non-monetary sense. But the real cost of the pen I’m using to write this article is not 10p, but the amount of wood, slate, labour, electricity, wear and tear of machines, used up in producing it. This will continue to be the case in socialism. Goods will not grow on trees, but will still require expenditure of effort and materials to produce them. The point is that in socialism this expenditure of effort and materials will be estimated and calculated exclusively in kind, directly in terms of wood, slate, machinery wear and tear, electricity, and so on (including working time, but as this will be a special case we’ll come back to it later). Since socialism will be concerned with conserving resources it will want to adopt those productive methods which, other things being equal, use less rather than more materials and energy and this will be one, but only one, of the factors to be taken into account in deciding which technical method of production to adopt.

Monetary calculation, whether to discover which productive method is the most profitable (as imposed by capitalism and praised by the followers of von Mises) or for any other purpose (as proposed by various partisans of state capitalism and other unrealistic would-be reformers of capitalism), is a very peculiar sort of calculation since it involves reducing all use-values to an abstract common denominator. Use-values can indeed be compared but only in concrete situations since the same object can have a different use-value at different times and under different circumstances. Monetary calculation, however, seeks to compare all objects in terms of an objective standard applicable in all circumstances; to do this it needs to identify a feature common to all objects. Such a common feature can indeed be found: that a certain “cost” in terms of materials, energy and labour expended has had to be incurred to produce them (ultimately the labour-time required to produce them from start to finish, and—this is the basis of the labour theory of value—the materials and energy expended, being produced by labour, can also be reduced to given amounts of necessary labour-time). It is this cost that is supposed to be measured by money. Money, then, is the universal unit of measurement, the “general equivalent”, that allows everything to be compared with everything else under an circumstances—but, and this is what the partisans of monetary calculation forget, only in terms of their labour-time cost or the total time needed on average to produce them from start to finish.

To make this the only consideration that counts (as is imposed by the economic laws of capitalism) is an absurd aberration. It is like making volume the most important thing about bottles containing different liquids and then concluding that a litre bottle of water has the same significance as a litre bottle of wine or of oil or of sulphuric acid or whatever. But we are doing exactly the same if we say, or if we believe, that different goods selling at the same price have the same “value”, or are “worth” the same, in terms of their real usefulness to people.

Market Values or Human Values?

So the argument between monetary calculation and calculation in kind is much broader than it first seems. It is not merely a technical argument about how to calculate and what units to use for this, but is an argument about the real meaning of words like “value” and “worth”. Socialists, as opponents of monetary calculation, say that it is not monetary or market values, in the end total average production time, that is the most important thing about a good but its usefulness in satisfying some human need; that the real values are use-values, human values. We are saying that these are the factors that should be taken into account when making choices and calculations about production. not simply production time.

This presupposes that calculations concerning production can be carried out without money or without some money-substitutes, some other general unit such as labour-time. Such non-monetary calculation of course already happens. on the technical level, under capitalism. Once the choice of productive method has been made (according to expected profitability as revealed by monetary calculation) then the real calculations in kind of what is needed to produce a specific good commence: so much raw materials, so much energy, so much labour, etc. In socialism it is not the case that the choice of productive method will become a technical choice that can be left to engineers, as is sometimes misunderstood by our critics, but that this choice too will be made in real terms, in terms of the real advantages and disadvantages of alternative methods and in terms of, on the one hand, the utility of some good or some project in a particular circumstance at a particular time and, on the other hand, of the real “costs” in the same circumstances and at the same time of the required materials, energy and productive effort.

To advocate monetary calculation, then, is to advocate that only one consideration—the total average production time needed to produce goods—should be taken into account when making decisions about which productive methods to employ. This is patently absurd but it is what is imposed by capitalism. Naturally, it leads to all sorts of aberrations from the point of view of human interests. In particular it rules out a rational, long-term attitude towards conserving resources and it imposes intolerable conditions on the actual producers (speed-up, pain, stress, boredom, long hours, nightwork, shiftwork, accidents).

Socialism, because it will calculate directly in kind, will be able to take these other, more important, factors than production time into account. This will naturally lead to different, in many cases quite different, productive methods being adopted than now under capitalism. If the health, comfort and enjoyment of those who actually manipulate the materials, or who supervise the machines which do this, to transform them into useful objects is to be paramount, certain methods are going to be ruled out altogether. The fast-moving production lines associated with the manufacture of cars would be stopped for ever (except perhaps in a museum of the horrors of capitalism); nightwork would be reduced to the strict minimum; particularly dangerous or unhealthy jobs would be automated (or completely abandoned).

Work can, in fact must, become enjoyable. But to the extent that work becomes enjoyable, measurement by minimum average working time would be completely meaningless, since people would not be seeking to minimise or rush such work.

However there will still be some kinds of work that socialist society will want to minimise. For instance, dangerous or repetitive work. Once again, this would be one of the real factors that will have to be taken into account when decisions are made as to what productive methods to adopt. Other factors would be conserving resources (so out would go “planned obsolescence” and in would come solid goods made to last), saving energy, avoiding pollution and generally maintaining a sustainable ecological balance with the rest of nature.

As a matter of fact, even under capitalism, enterprise managers do not just base their decisions on market prices, long-term or short-term. They are obliged by law (and also by trade union pressure) to take into account a whole series of other factors such as safety, anti-pollution and planning permission. The overriding consideration remains of course expected profits (the difference between anticipated sales receipts and monetary cost of production). This means that these factors are of minor importance and only reflect the minimum standards that are not incompatible with profit-making and, being imposed from outside against the logic of short-term profit-making are always being broken. But they do, however marginally, enter into productive decisions, thus showing that it is possible to take into account other considerations than minimum production time.

The Priorities in Socialism

In socialism the situation will be quite different: these factors will be automatically taken into account in the decision-making process and will not have to be imposed from outside as a sort of after-thought, since among the highest priorities of production will be the health and welfare of the producers. We can imagine the decisions as to choice of productive methods being made by a council elected by the workforce, or by a technical subcommittee of such a democratically-elected council. In making their choice they will first take into account, not minimising average total production time as the economic laws of capitalism enforce today, but the health, comfort and enjoyment of the workforce, the protection of the environment and the conservation of materials and energy. Since materials and energy, and work to the extent that it is not interesting and creative but only routine, are real “costs” the aim will be to minimise them. As there will be these clearly defined objectives and constraints, mathematical aids to decision-making such as operational research and linear programming, at present prostituted to the end of maximising profits, can be used to find the optimum productive methods.

Another point that must be understood is that socialism will not have to start from scratch. It will inherit from capitalism a going technical system of production which it will be able to adapt to production for use. Some methods will have to be stopped straight away or as soon as possible but others will only need modifying to a greater or lesser extent. Again, when socialism will have cleared up the mess inherited from capitalism, it will become a society in which methods of production too will only change slowly. This will make decision-making about production much simpler.

We add straight away to avoid any misunderstanding that, even in the period at the beginning of socialism when production will be clearing up the mess in terms of deprivation and poverty left by capitalism, monetary calculation won’t be necessary. The necessary expansion of production can be planned and executed in real terms.

So, the so-called “economic calculation argument” against socialism collapses in the face of detailed analysis. The alternative to monetary calculation in terms of exchange-value is calculation in kind in terms of use-values, of the real advantages and real costs of particular real alternatives in particular real circumstances.

Adam Buick

All Yuppies Now? (1987)

From the December 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Are you young — upwardly mobile — professional? Are you the sort of person who buys downtown slums and fits them out with designer furniture and hand-painted blinds? Do you drive the sort of car which people who work in car factories can never afford to drive, listen to Suzanne Vega albums on compact discs, and check the share index in both the FT and The Independent to make sure that your highly ethical investments are looking as healthy as you do after you’ve been for your six-monthly BUPA check-up? If the answer is yes – sorry, yah – to those questions it is probable that you are a member of The Class of ‘87 – the yuppies.

Under capitalism there are two classes: the capitalists who rob and the workers who are robbed. But of course, as all trendy-minded readers will know, capitalism is not what it used to be. The working class – those cloth-capped fossils who dig coal and drive trains and have dirt under their fingernails and say things like “gawd blimey, mister” and “You can’t beat ‘er Majesty and ‘arold Wilson” – has apparently vanished. The corpse has been buried by a team of sociologists-cum-undertakers who write for Marxism Today who have conducted a thorough search of the wine bars of Covent Garden and can find no trace of any horny-handed sons of toil. Even the holy trinity of the new left – Eric Hobsbawm, Ralph Miliband and Jeremy Seabrook – have announced in the columns of that robust proletarian journal, the Guardian, that the proletariat (they who work in factories and vote Labour) are missing, feared dead – or, worse still, “up North”.

Both the left and the right wings of capitalism (not to mention the centre, which constitutes the Liberals and the SDP and David Owen who singularly represents the real centre) are sure that capitalism as described by Marx and the Socialist Party is old hat. Now we all live under Thatcherism. No longer are there masters and wage slaves; these are disgusting remnants of the past, entertained only in the deranged minds of people like the present writer who, in revolutionary obstinacy, insists that everyone he ever meets is either one of the bosses or one of the bossed. But if you accept the new line – as propagated by Thatcher and swallowed by her enemies in their own haste to sound indignant about it – we now live in the age of popular capitalism. And under popular capitalism you are all in one of three classes (unless, of course, you are the Queen or one of the other aristocratic parasites, in which case you are where you always were: rich, idle and useless). But the rest of us are either in class A – people who’ve made it, or class B – people who are making it (yuppies), or class C – people who can’t make it because they are too stupid or won’t make it because they like living in squalor.

Now the object of this so-called Thatcherism is to “make it”. Needless to say, “making it” bears no relation to making anything. If you go around producing goods and services you’ll never get on in the City. “Making it” means making money. You get other people to produce goods and services and you exploit them. If you are a yuppie you are not yet in the exploiting class. (In fact – don’t tell the yuppies, now – you never will be). But you act like you are heading in that direction. You do the dirty work for the capitalists. The so-called yuppie class are simply the errand boys and girls for the capitalists. They are paid extra for taking on themselves the problems of the exploiting class.

According to the Thatcher propaganda, we are all becoming capitalists now. This is a load of old twaddle. Firstly, only 19 percent of the British population owned any shares in the week before the BP share sell-off. So even if you define all shareholders as capitalists (which is a daft definition), that means that over 80 per cent of British people are outside this new capitalist class. But it is not the case that workers who buy a few shares are capitalists. The test of whether you are a capitalist is easy: give up selling yourself for a wage or salary and see how long you can live on your share dividends – if you’re on the last can of baked beans within a fortnight you have proved that whatever you are you are not a capitalist. The capitalist class are those people who can live without having to work: they invest in the labour of others.

Secondly, if Thatcher’s policies meant that we did all become capitalists there would be no wage slaves left to produce our profits for us. If we all became the Queen, who would we have to wave at, who would there be to bring us our dinner on a silver tray? It is a necessity of class society that superiority for some can only logically exist at the expense of inferiority for most. Thirdly, there has in fact been a record number of bankruptcies under the present Conservative government. The capitalist recession is not creating vast numbers of new capitalists, as the government liars state, but squeezing out large numbers of cockroach capitalists who land with a bump into the growing ranks of the wage and salary earning class. The notion that the workers are enjoying greater prosperity than ever and that poverty is an obsolete conception is not only a myth but an unforgivable insult. Go to the Docklands area of East London – the showpiece of resplendent yuppiedom – and you will find thousands of workers without jobs or much money who are being driven out of their area because the gamblers of the City have decided to redevelop it for their own purpose.

It is not only the Tories who preach the virtues of the new yuppie vision. Nor is it confined to the Alliance (alliance?) whose dream of the new Jerusalem is everyone sending their kids to progressive “independent” (exclusive, private, fee-paying) schools and driving Volvos with push-button windows. The silly old Labour Party has decided to fall in love with the yuppies too. Bryan Gould, the genius who masterminded the Labour Party’s spectacular defeat earlier this year (next time they’re hiring a computer linked up to an opinion poll teleprinter to organise it for them), has decided that Labour needs to speak to a wider constituency. What this means is that Labour needs to work harder at convincing Tories that their shares are safe in Labour’s hand. Gould wants Labour to go for the yuppie vote. After all, Ben Elton has made a packet posing as a socialist appealing to just such an audience. As ever, the Labour Party’s tactical astuteness bears a strong relationship to a wino negotiating his way to the bus shelter. Just when the Labourites decided that there’s nothing wrong with what Thatcher says about workers getting in on the Stock Exchange, what does the old Stock Exchange do? It crashes. The opportunism of the Labour Party is boundless, as they merrily proceed to urge workers to buy council houses and invest in private medical insurance and shares – as long as they’re ethical. (Marxism Today – the theoretical organ of the Lefty Yuppie Party – is now advertising a company which will advise pseudo-Marxists with a conscience which shares they should buy if they don’t want to exploit people.)

The yuppie left has become one of the more grotesque eyesores of 1980s politics. In the good old days lefties would waste our time discussing whether Russia was a deformed workers’ state or a degenerate workers’ state or a workers’ state with minor deformities; they would quote (and often misquote) bits from Marx and insist that we Socialist Party members had failed to study our Trotsky. No longer is such rhetoric prevalent (except in Chesterfield, of course, where the whole population is currently undergoing a Collected Works of Trotsky reading course). These days the yuppie left are into “feeling Green”. If you don’t know what it is to feel Green and put yourselves in the position of a baby seal you have no right to call yourself a socialist. Coffee-picking in Nicaragua is all the rage now (even Jimmy Carter’s at it) and singing South African liberation songs at book stalls displaying pamphlets about the need for armed struggle in the Third World written by Paul Foot who lives in Hampstead. If you are a male you must become what the yuppie left calls a new man, which means that you are extremely patronising to women (who are all your sisters) and must endure the rest of your life on a permanent guilt trip for the crime of being a potential rapist. It is little wonder that most wage slaves prefer the down-to-earth callousness of Norman Tebbit and his fellow gangsters to the phony, self-righteous, condescending, half-baked outlook of the trendy yuppies who constitute the left-wing of capitalist politics.

The Socialist Party is not out to win over the yuppies. We do not appeal to the “middle class” any more than we appeal to the Wizard of Oz or the residents of Albert Square, Walford. We do not seek to trim our message to suit the prejudices of fictitious classes of people. We direct what we have to say at the working class – all workers, be they paid in wages or salaries, whether they wear overalls or carry filofaxes. Socialists do not make the leftist error of imagining that the true workers are these who live in council flats and stand on the terraces at football matches. Nor do we believe that so-called yuppies, most of whom are simply entertaining the self-delusion of privilege, are anything but workers. We have no grudge against workers who are making an extra crust out of capitalism. But they would be fools to be bought off by crusts and crumbs. The yuppies of the right who imagine that they are part of Thatcher’s new elite will find out the hard way which class they are in and yuppies of the left who feel guilty for being “privileged” people like teachers and social workers should stop boring the rest of us with the needless guilt.

Steve Coleman

Your Money or Your Life (1987)

From the December 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

The NHS was set up shortly after the Second World War, after years of reformist pressure and pledges by the wartime coalition government of a better standard of care for workers as a reward for their wartime sacrifices. It was meant to be a health service that would be free at the point of use. Since then, it has been run down. Charges for some services have been introduced, and the NHS budget reduced.

Waiting lists for treatment are getting longer all the time. The simple explanation for this — insufficient funding by government — needs to be qualified. Recently, there has been an increase in overall NHS spending but this was not enough to meet the ever-increasing demand for health care. Hospitals have also been closed before new ones are ready to replace them. This has resulted in an increase in the number of people waiting for treatment and fewer hospital beds for them (fig.1). Hospitals in the cities have suffered particularly in this, because there has been a transfer of funds from urban to rural areas.

One way out for the government might be to lower the demand for health care, by taking steps to prevent disease. This is very expensive. The NHS has never been designed to prevent disease on a large scale — it is mainly a disease-curing service. It cannot give every person a check-up every six months. It cannot afford to repair dwellings that are poorly heated and ventilated, or dangerous to live in. It cannot afford to clean up the environment. It cannot ensure that everyone is provided with a balanced diet and a stress-free lifestyle. All these, and more, are necessary to prevent disease and therefore lower the demand on the health service.

Another way is to increase the supply of health care, by building hospitals and employing more health workers. In recent years this has been implemented to some extent but the queues are still getting longer Why? It is essential to cure disease when it happens; a failure to prevent disease adequately means that the health service will be swamped. Many people treated in hospitals only get ill again because the cause of their illness — poverty, stress and pollution — was not dealt with.

The government's plan to promote private health care will not solve the problem. It may lower the demand on the NHS by transferring some of the health care for some illnesses to the private sector but, because the private medical services use some NHS facilities, those who cannot afford private treatment will be moved further back in the queue. Tories argue that the NHS can be run down in order to give people a tax cut so that they will be able to afford private medical insurance. Ignoring the fallacies about workers paying taxes which this argument rests on, even if it were correct the result would be chaotic. A person who really needs to be insured, because s/he gets sick rather easily, would find it very difficult to insure him/herself at a price that s/he can afford. There is also a limit to how much treatment one can be insured for at a given price. Most people would not be able to insure themselves so that they would get the same range of services from the private sector that they would get from the NHS.
Increasing efficiency through a tough management for the NHS will not solve the problem either. The NHS is already very efficient. It had to be because it was swamped from the moment it was set up. The savings made will not amount to very much. The most likely result of this policy will be to prepare the NHS for privatisation.

The NHS functions the way it does because it exists to provide employers with as healthy a workforce as possible to recruit from. At a time when the number of people waiting for work is greater than the number of jobs for them, preventing disease on a large scale is not cost-effective, because if a worker gets ill a person without a job can replace the sick worker. However, it is not in the interest of employers to have disease run uncontrolled; exerting control is what the NHS does, so that the number of workers available for work does not fall too low. This role may not have been envisaged by some of the reformers who wanted the NHS set up. But the system we live under forces everything to conform to the needs of profit. The reformers promised a health service that would satisfy the health needs of everyone. Instead, we got a health service designed to serve the need of the employer class for a healthy workforce.

However, for employers a healthy employee is one that is able to work as hard as s/he is told to. It does not matter to them if managers die of heart disease, caused by the stress of meeting deadlines. A fresh manager can take her/his desk. It does not matter if factory workers die of cancer, caused by pollutants that are unprofitable to remove. There are plenty of people without jobs to replace them. It does not matter if unemployed workers feel hopeless and kill themselves. They are not needed.

The health services, public or private, are owned and controlled by the employer class and so it is their interests that are served. When the wealth of the world is owned and democratically controlled by everyone, the wealth of the world will be used to serve everyone's interests. The health service will be able to offer the best care, because medical supplies will be produced for use. and not for exchange at a profit. When food is produced to feed people, then infant mortality will fall, because mothers will have enough to eat. When life is no longer a stressful obstacle-course but a daily satisfaction of needs to create and consume, the number of people dying of heart disease and suicide will fall. When we look after our environment properly. because unprofitability will no longer have any meaning, cancers caused by pollution will fall.

We had an election not long ago. Promises were made. The Conservatives promised us the freedom to pay for our own treatment. Labour promised to spend a bit more on the NHS (they did not dare to insult us by printing the percentage figure in their manifesto). The Alliance promised to increase the NHS budget by £1 billion per annum higher than that planned by the Conservatives. (The Conservatives promised to spend £21 billion, and so the increase amounts to about 5 per cent).

If we want a problem to be solved, we must not leave it to leaders to put things right. The wage and salary earners of the world are the most powerful class. Without them, not a single hospital can be built, staffed, maintained or supplied. The time is long overdue for this class to democratically take control of the world's resources, and to use them for everyone's benefit.

George Marcelo