Taken for Granted (1987)

From the November 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

For most people, much of what we do in our daily lives is routine. Decisions are made without being taken, because we live for much of the time in "taken for granted" worlds. Behaviour is habitual and takes place in an environment which seems to be unchanging. What changes there are don't alter the substance of daily life, only the surface.

Try to think of some of the "unconsidered" activities that we take for granted. In our communication, for example, we adopt a language; to survive, we live in shelters and eat a standard diet. To earn money we journey to work; and to spend it. we go to shops.

In none of these activities do we act as programmed machines because we "choose" our words, our homes, our diets, our routes, the goods we buy and which shops we patronise. But those choices are very predictable — we are constrained by what choices are put before us. We cannot travel to work unless a workplace exists and a transport system is provided; we can only choose from the shops which exist and the goods that they provide, hence constraining our diet. In other words, the vast majority of us must simply accept the choices that are offered — we don't decide what the choices are to be.

The choices we face reflect the interests of a small minority of people who hold power in the form of ownership of the world's resources. In the taken for granted world goods and services are not produced if they do not make a profit for that small minority; and it is taken for granted that the living standards of the vast majority of people should be set according to whether and for how much they can sell their labour power or ability to work. In this way, the vast majority of us simply accept the choices we are given. But human beings are not machines and we could, if we wanted to, choose to change the way we live completely. Instead of choosing from the limited menu we face today, we could invent new recipes and set the menu ourselves.

In the world today the potential exists to satisfy everybody's needs. People would not need to eat sub-standard food, live in unfit housing and have to make do with what they can afford. Everybody would have free access to all the world's goodies. In this type of society there would be the widest possible choice. People would be free to travel anywhere they fancy. They would be free to choose what work to do and what methods they use to do it.

Socialists do not live in the "taken for granted" world. We do not take for granted that there will always be wars, starving millions and homeless people. We recognise that these problems result from the way society is organised at present and they are not inevitable. When the vast majority of the world's people decide that enough is enough, a new society can be built. Socialists are simply people who have a clear understanding of how such a society can be built and the Socialist Party exists to persuade people that a society where the world's resources are used to satisfy human need is sensible — now.

John Morgan

Man and the Natural World (1987)

Book Review from the October 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Keith Thomas: Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England 1500-1800 (Penguin, 1984)

In his book Keith Thomas surveys the changing view of nature in England between 1500 and 1800. He uses a wide variety of contemporary sources to show what people thought about the landscape and its flora and fauna. He makes the point that whereas:

Nowadays one cannot open a newspaper without encountering some impassioned debate about culling grey seals or cutting down trees in Hampton Court or saving an endangered species of wild animal.

Only a few hundred years ago the idea that human cultivation was something to be resisted rather than encouraged would have been unintelligible.

What was it that altered the way people view the natural world? The author's answer is that although the intellectual potential for concern for the natural world had always existed, the attitude only flourished with changes in the way society organised its production. Talking about the emergence of the animal rights movement, Thomas says:

the triumph of the new attitude was closely linked to the growth of towns and the emergence of an industrial order in which animals became increasingly marginal to the processes of production.

Similarly, the growth of towns led to a new longing for the countryside and the progress of cultivation fostered a taste for weeds, mountains and unsubdued nature. Even then, the concern did not extend to the point where actual human well-being was threatened (for example, butchers whose livelihood depended on slaughtering animals did not share the new compassion) which goes a long way towards explaining why even today when many people are concerned about animal welfare, river pollution and rainforest depletion and so, the problems still persist.

The world's resources are not owned by everybody. They are owned by a small minority who use nature to produce goods to be sold in order to make profits. Production for profit means that costs must be kept as low as possible. In this atmosphere the cheapest methods of production must be used and the cheapest methods are rarely those which have a minimal impact on nature. (Take battery farming for instance, which is a direct outcome of the search for higher profits).

As long as production is carried on for making profits and not for needs the same problems of pollution, resource depletion and species extinction will remain. But the message of Keith Thomas' book is that peoples' ideas and outlooks can and do change and the fact that more and more people are becoming concerned about the way the environment is abused is encouraging. But campaigning for new laws and more conservation areas is not the answer. We need to get rid of a society where a small minority can manipulate nature for their own ends and replace it with one where we all have a real say in how nature is used.

John Morgan