New Pamphlet Out Soon (1968)

Party News from the April 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Labour Government or Socialism (1s. 3d (post free) Details below)

Labour fails again

Why are so many Labour voters disappointed? Why is there a swing to the other parties at by-elections? Why do more and more people not trouble to vote?

Why do so many people become cynical about politics and say that nothing makes any difference? Why have some trade unions that are affiliated to the Labour Party threatened to withhold contributions and to form an independent ‘trade union party'?

This new 36-page Socialist Party pamphlet, out soon, answers these questions and exposes the uselessness of this and previous Labour governments. It shows too how Labour’s avowed aim of ‘making capitalism work' leads them to support wage restraint, unemployment and profit-making.

"Experience proves beyond question", says the pamphlet, “that the position of wage and salary earners is the same whether capitalism is administered by a Conservative or by a Labour government. Some workers believe that this need not have happened if the Labour government had chosen to follow a different course. The Socialist Party of Great Britain does not take that view. What we have experienced has been the inevitable consequence of perpetuating capitalism. Within capitalism there is no escape from its economic laws".

You can order copies of this topical pamphlet by writing to the Socialist Party (Dept. SLG), 52 Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4.

What Labour is Really Worth (2014)

From the October 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it. What every thing is really worth to the man who has acquired it, and who wants to dispose of it or exchange it for something else, is the toil and trouble which it can save to himself, and which it can impose upon other people.”

“Labour alone, therefore, never varying in its own value, is alone the ultimate and real standard by which the value of all commodities can at all times and places be estimated and compared. It is their real price; money is their nominal price only."

These are the words of Adam Smith about the system we inhabit currently but what would they mean if anything in the alternative system we may choose for the future?

Take money for instance, what does it mean to most people? Simply a means of acquiring the things they need and want, in fact most things throughout life and for the majority that isn't easily attained. And in many cases there is never enough, however hard they try. How much one needs for an average life for an average lifetime who knows? On an average wage, wherever you live on the planet, who can imagine what it means to be a millionaire or a billionaire (the numbers of which are rising fast)?

Counting at the rate of one dollar, pound or euro per second it will take twelve days to count a million and thirty one years to count a billion. Longer if you stop for the necessities of life. And as for a trillion, a number bandied about more frequently of late, with the expectation that within a few short years the first trillionaire will hit the headlines, simple maths shows us that 31,000 years would be required. That's an awful lot of toil and trouble, potentially an awful lot of labour.

It is the predatory nature of capitalism that has, in recent years, awakened increasing numbers to question what it is that is happening around the world and to feel aggrieved enough to protest in their thousands. From believing they lived in functioning democracies we are now aware that that belief has been overturned as demonstration after demonstration reveals the deeper awareness of masses of people. It is now commonly recognised that governments are running countries for the benefit of business and that business is extremely friendly to compliant governments. Revolving doors, hefty donations, lecture tours for ex-politicians, seats on boards, fees for access, you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. We know how the system works and for whom it works best, so the question for the great majority for whom it doesn't work becomes 'what are we going to do about it?'

Who can have failed to notice how the sphere of things that used to be freely available has shrunk, has been taken away by force for the benefit of capitalists and corporations? Here cost comes into play. The cost to the public in general of the loss of the commons is impossible to put a price tag on. Water, land and hitherto public spaces have been acquired from the public sphere as money-making ventures: factories, mines, building projects, dams, monocrops for feed or biofuel; town centres, former public land and playing fields, even the ground underneath housing is vulnerable to takeover. The air we breathe is highly susceptible to pollution as an externality of the market system we endure. The polluters are also the beneficiaries of the profits from their businesses but they readily pass on the costs of that pollution to workers as externalities. The costs are borne by people living locally as air, water, ground and food is contaminated – and by those living far away as poisoned waste is shipped thousands of miles to be dealt with at a fraction of the cost it would be in the producing country. Huge health costs to be borne by those in the recipient neighbourhoods.

Accumulatively there are costs from loss of space, loss of freedom to use such spaces, health costs, loss of individual privacy and freedom of speech, loss of choice in all manner of areas signifying both personal and collective costs - all whilst the capitalist minority continues to steal more and more of the common wealth and influence law making. Current politics is far from inclusive and certainly not democratic in many eyes.

Those with money are the ones with influence. They are free to buy whatever it is they want – material goods and the time and labour of others. However, in the grand scheme of things, they are the minority. Those with little – and we are many – are the labour.

Giving value to labour, in the broadest sense – those of us who work for our living, whether manual in farming, fishing, factory or mine, on road, rail or the high seas, or indoors in health, education, administration or any other kind of service industry – when we recognise the value of giving value to labour, to our labour and the labour of all the others like us, we will be on the path to answering the earlier question – 'what are we going to do about it?'

Removing the money element from our labour will remove the money from all of our transactions. It will also remove the profit seekers and corporations from any further equations. No more banks, investment companies, mortgage, rent and insurances creating endless headaches and the anxiety of indebtedness. No more middlemen and consumer ideology warping our minds and persuading us against our better judgment to consume, consume, consume. Labour, working together across the world, retaking and rebuilding the commons in the best interests of the common good. Labour, recognising its individual and collective value, working together to secure a democratic world community.

Janet Surman

How Capitalism Works (3) (1979)

From the March 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

How Capitalism Works (3): Work and Waste

To stick to the word's original meaning only work which plays a direct part in producing wealth can be described as "productive". Any other work would be "non-productive". This is not to make a judgement as to its usefulness, but merely to record the fact that it does not result in any wealth being produced.

The productive non-productive distinction is not the same as that often made between manual and non-manual work. (The latter is an unreal distinction anyway, since all human work involves a person using both brain and hands). A craftsman working on his own must himself do all the work connected with production, planning and organising his work as well as fashioning the raw materials. In the modern workplace these productive tasks are divided among specialist workers, some of whom may wear white collars, work in offices and never see or handle the raw materials. This work — planning, organising, and design — is just as much productive as that done at the coal face or the factory bench. Similarly, an architect's office is as much a productive workplace as an engineering factory. The distinction here is between productive and non-productive work rather than between productive and non-productive workers, since in practice many jobs involve both kinds of work.

Since work is the expending of energy it includes a whole range of human activities which, though very necessary, do not result in wealth being produced. Eating, drinking. washing, walking, playing and other activities a person must do in order to stay alive do not produce wealth. Nor does the work involved in education, health and entertainment which is equally vital to human survival. These non-productive activities are all personal or communal services which are necessary to keep people alive and healthy. Insofar as they also keep people in a fit state to work they do, it is true, make a very real contribution to production. But this is only an indirect contribution, since the act of carrying out these services does not in itself result in any wealth being produced. To call these services "non-productive" is a useful reminder that those who perform them, and the equipment and materials they use, have to be supplied out of the surplus wealth created by productive work.

The non-productive work just discussed is essential whatever form human society takes. But there is other non-productive work which only arises in certain kinds of human society. In class-divided societies, for instance, the ruling minority has to maintain an apparatus of coercion. The armed men who perform this coercive function do work, but they do not produce wealth. And in societies where wealth must be exchanged before it can be used part of the workforce has to be engaged in activities connected with the exchange, as opposed to the production, of wealth. The extra work of an exclusively exchange or profit-making character which has to be performed today is really quite extensive.

Each enterprise employs, in addition to its productive workforce, people to buy the raw materials, people to hire and fire workers, people to sell the end-products and people to record and check all these exchange transactions. Certain enterprises have come to specialise in exchange activities. Shops are the obvious example. But so do banks, building societies, insurance companies, pension schemes, estate agents, accountants, employment agencies and so on.

A large proportion of the employees of the State, at local as well as national level, are engaged directly in exchange activities, from those who collect taxes, pay benefits and allocate government money to those who advise on the government's finance, tax, trade and economic policies. Also, the State itself functions as an exchange institution when it takes part in the competitive struggle for profits. So the members of the diplomatic services and of the armed forces can also be regarded as doing exchange work (to the extent that the armed forces are involved in maintaining law and order at home, their non-productive work is a coercive rather than an exchange activity).

Exchange workers, like those who perform essential services, have to be maintained out of the surplus which productive work creates. So do the buildings, materials and equipment they use, from bank premises to military airfields, from notepaper to uniforms, and from cash registers to nuclear missiles. All this plant and equipment is wealth in the sense of being the result of human beings applying energy to change Nature. The workers who produce it are, therefore, engaged in productive work. It may seem contrary to common sense to describe the work of those who make guns and bombs and tanks as "productive" but remember that the productive /non-productive distinction is not meant to be a judgement of social usefulness.

Exchange work is essential in an exchange economy and does contribute indirectly to production since without it wealth could not be produced. But it is not absolutely essential to human society in the sense that education is, and it would be superfluous in a society whose wealth was allocated directly for use without first having to be exchanged.

But if bank employees are non-productive and are maintained out of surplus wealth, where do the profits of banks (and other exchange enterprises) come from? Enterprises are best thought of as competing to draw profits from a pool formed by converting into money all the surplus wealth produced. Exchange enterprises (and, for that matter, other "non-productive" enterprises such as profit-making schools and hospitals) take part alongside "productive" enterprises in this struggle for profits and also tend to obtain the average rate of profit on their capital which, in their case, will be the money-value of the buildings and equipment they use together with their cash and their fund for paying wages. The profits they make are a kind of payment from the productive enterprises for arranging for wealth to be exchanged (or for workers to be trained or kept healthy, as the case may be). Productive enterprises are forced to share their profits with non-productive enterprises as an alternative to having to employ more non-productive staff themselves to do the work. This hiving-off of non-productive tasks to specialist enterprises has proved to be the cheapest way of getting them done.

This suggests an alternative definition of "productive" which might have some relevance in analysing the way the world exchange economy works: productive-of-profit as opposed to productive-of-wealth. On this definition any workers whose work helps to produce profits for the enterprise which employs them would be productive, whether or not they actually produce any material wealth. This means that services would under some circumstances be regarded as productive. Non-productive work would be work which does not result in profits being made, as for instance the work of domestic servants and of some State officials.

This definition did have some relevance in the struggle waged by the individual employers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries against the "waste" of the aristocrat-controlled State machine. They wanted what they regarded as non-productive work reduced to a minimum so that they could retain a larger share of the surplus wealth for investment as capital. Reducing non-productive-of-profit work to a minimum so as to increase the pool of profits is still favoured by the enterprises who have now taken over from the individual owners as the main employers.

Earlier, we classified arms production as productive (of wealth) even though this seemed to conflict with common sense. This classification, though quite justified, seems odd because arms clearly do not serve to increase human welfare. This suggests the need for another distinction besides the productive, non-productive one, between work which furthers human welfare and work which does not. This would be a distinction between "useful" work and non-useful or "wasteful" work.

How would the various kinds of productive and non-productive work discussed above fit into this classification? Obviously, the productive work of producing the food, clothing and shelter and the other things human beings need to live and enjoy life is useful. So is the non-productive work involved in carrying out essential services like health and education, and the productive work associated with it. Obviously too, the non-productive work of the armed forces and the productive work of manufacturing arms for them is wasteful.

But what about non-productive exchange work? This is a more difficult question. This work is not absolutely essential to human life as it would be superfluous in a society where wealth was not produced for exchange but was directly allocated for use. So the question can be re-phrased: is an exchange economy in the interest of mankind? This is an easier question because, as we have shown, wars, pollution, social unrest, anarchy in production, restricted output, destruction of wealth, and recurring mass unemployment are the inevitable consequences of the world exchange economy. Further, the kind of world commonwealth which alone could provide the framework for abolishing material want while at the same time conserving world resources would of necessity also be a non-exchange and direct-allocation society.

For, in a society in which the resources of the Earth, natural and man-made, had become the common heritage of all humanity there would be no place for the transfer of property between property-owners, which is essentially what exchange is. Exchange work, then, must be classified as wasteful and with it the work of producing the equipment and materials exchange workers use.

This shows a considerable proportion of the workforce to be wastefully employed and a smaller, but still significant, proportion of the gross social product waste. So another major charge against the world exchange economy must be that it misuses the resources of the world. It means also that the diversion of labour and materials from wasteful to useful work could play a major part in abolishing material want throughout the world

Adam Buick

Labour embraces militarism

From the Socialist Party of Great Britain blog, Socialism Or Your Money Back:

At one time - a long, long time ago now - the Labour Party used to project itself, and was even seen as, the party of peace. The present series of Labour government, having committed British troops to two unpopular wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) is now seen by many as the party of war. Far from being ashamed of this, the Labour Party is revelling in it. According to a report in the London Times (20 May):

"A Bank Holiday to celebrate the work of the Armed Forces is under consideration by the Government as part of a drive to improve relations between the military and the public. Legislation is also to be introduced to make it a criminal offence to discriminate against military personnel in Service dress or combat fatigues. This is an attempt to encourage members of the Armed Forces to wear their uniforms in public as often as possible. Anyone who physically attacks a serviceman or servicewoman in uniform will also be charged with an "aggravated offence", to underline the seriousness now attached to the well-being and security of Armed Forces personnel when in the public eye.

The recommendations are in an official report, National Recognition of Our Armed Forces, drawn up by Quentin Davies, the MP and former Tory defence spokesman, who switched to Labour in June last year. He was asked by Gordon Brown to investigate ways of improving the relationship between the military and the civilian public ( . . .)
Bob Ainsworth, the Armed Forces Minister, confirmed that the government had accepted all the recommendations in the report."
This is a logical enough position for any government of capitalism to take. The armed forces don't exist just for decorative purposes. They exist to allow a country to have some credibility and clout in the rivalry built-in to capitalism between all capitalist states over sources of raw materials, trade routes, markets, investment outlets and strategic points and areas to protect these. Normally this involves peaceful diplomatic negotiations but always against a background of threats, direct or understood. Sometimes it involves sabre-rattling. But sometimes it involves war, the organised use of force to kill and destroy. In any event, an effective fighting force is a valuable thing to have in a world where might is right.
Although governments can ignore "public opinion" over going to war (as the Blair government did over Iraq), hoping to win people over once it's started, they'd like to have this support from the start. One way to achieve this is to glorify the armed forces and present them as heroes doing their duty to defend the rest of us.
But it is equally logical for Socialists to reject and combat such militarist propaganda because we don't want workers to kill workers from other countries in pursuit of capitalist interests. We want the members of the armed forces to be seen for what they really are: trained hired killers for the ruling, capitalist class.
It is not clear whether the Labour government's planned Bill to encourage militarism will mean that in future it will be a crime to make this point.

Adam Buick