Computers in a socialist world (1987)

From the November 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are in the middle of an industrial revolution. Once, the craftsman had to give way to the factory worker. Now, the factory worker has to give way to the computer worker. In the future, the computer worker will have to give way to a worker with another skill. This is necessary because capitalists, the men and women who own and control the things needed to produce wealth, compete with each other. They need to employ (exploit) workers to run the most efficient production methods available.

Since most computers are owned by capitalists, they reap the benefits of computer technology. Computers are used in "defence" (Star Wars, controlling guided missiles). finance (calculating bills, cash vending machines) and industry (controlling robots, designing products). There are other uses but these are the main ones. There are some workers who own computers, but these are toys. If you disagree, try borrowing a factory from a capitalist and running it with your computer.

Eventually, the penny will drop for the wage and salary earners of the world and then the means of producing and distributing wealth will belong to everyone. This will mean that computers will be used to satisfy the needs of everyone. It is not possible to predict exactly the uses to which computers will be put, because it all depends on the will of the majority of people at the time and none of us is a mind reader. But it is useful to think about what computers could be used for, because this gives us an insight to what socialism could be like. The possible uses are:

• matching production to needs;
• “electronic democracy”
• automation of dangerous or unpleasant work;
• others that you can think of.

Matching production to needs:
If you want to know what people need, you ask them, or better still, arrange for a computer to ask them for you. It saves you travelling all over the world, asking monotonous questions such as: "Do you use aftershave?" — useful information for someone who does his/her bit by brewing aftershave. In turn, the aftershave brewer could enter into the computer the raw materials that are needed and in what amounts. The computer would transmit this information to the suppliers. And so on. Of course, you could use the Post Office. A computer does the same thing, only quicker (for a more detailed account of such a system, see Socialist Standard, July 1984. p.131).

“Electronic democracy”
No, this is not a souped-up version of the BBC's Election Battleground. If a computer can count aftershave users, it can also count votes cast for and against any proposal presented by any person, such as "Should we continue making aftershave?" Cash vending machines and telephones could be voting machines. In the evening, the aftershave brewer could turn on the TV and see the result. This system can also be used to elect and instruct delegates. It is likely that the system will be hierarchical, a local computer counting votes for local proposals, a regional computer counting votes for regional proposals and a world computer counting votes for world proposals. Bigger decisions affect more people and so would be decided on higher up the hierarchy. A TV channel could be dedicated to listing the "decisions of the day” in the morning and reporting on the results of the poll in the evening. This system could be implemented today. Ask yourself why governments which spend millions on supposedly defending democracy are not willing to spend even thousands implementing it.

Automation of dangerous or unpleasant work:
There will always be dangerous or unpleasant work that needs to be done. It will be possible to automate work that produces essential goods and services. The technology to do this has existed for several years. Robots can now assemble cars, manufacture computers. make furniture and so on. More recently, computers can mimic workers that make decisions according to rules, such as quality control inspectors, lawyers and doctors. The reason some work is not automated yet is because it is still unprofitable to do so. But the technology is there, waiting to be used should society decide to use it. For example, if our aftershave brewer decides to grow bananas for a change and no replacement was immediately available, he/she could see an expert systems programmer. This programmer would write a programme that would instruct the computer to operate the aftershave brewery. Should the ex-aftershave brewer get nostalgic, he/she could always return and pull the plug on the computer.

Others that you can think of . . .
The building blocks for constructing the computer systems described above have been available from up to ten years ago. What you have read is not science fiction. It is fact. World-wide computer networks exist today. They are used by companies, especially multi-nationals, in order to co-ordinate their activities and to communicate with each other. The hardware is already in place. All that is necessary is for programmers to reprogramme the computers to perform the tasks described in this article, should that be the wish of the majority of the people at the time.

Defenders of the capitalist status quo tell people that socialism is not workable. They think that workers are not intelligent enough to run a system of production for use, one where there are no followers and leaders but a system where everyone co-operates in decision making. They forget that workers are intelligent enough to perform the tasks necessary to run capitalist society. It is workers who design, build and operate computer systems. When the wage and salary earners of the world, the working class, want socialism they will have it.

George Marcelo

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

Finding a solution to crime (1987)

From the November 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Never a day goes by without politicians, policemen and the press calling for measures that will make "law and order" enforcement more effective. Many of these schemes are suggested by fully-fledged crackpots like James "off with their goolies" Anderton and are viewed as ridiculous by most people. Heart of the Matter (BBC1. 10.40pm. 4 October) offered us an insight into the latest schemes for detecting and solving crime. We were given a glimpse of the pilot scheme known as "Crimestoppers Anonymous" which is currently in operation in Great Yarmouth where you stand to gain a reward for information that leads to the apprehension and conviction of someone who has committed a serious crime. The local media are used as a means of advertising the specific crime that the police want solved, and of course the reward money. Who are the sponsors of this reward money? Well, guess what, they just happen to be local businessmen who of course want to retain their anonymity. No doubt they just couldn't stand being congratulated for their humanitarian service to the community!

Some expert saw it as an extension of the neighbourhood-watch schemes and the high-profile TV programme Crimewatch UK. A holy bloke from the Church of England Board of Social Responsibility came on and was sad that "Merrie England" seemed to be losing its sense of "civic duty". A lefty came mumbling in with remarks like it was a scheme for Thatcher's '80s. ie the privatisation of criminal information.

The most sensible statement about Crimestoppers Anonymous was that it resembled game shows —simply phone in and get your reward. Think of the possibilities and the TV ratings. You could grass on your grandparents, finger your father, nark on your neighbours, or simply find the felon in The Price is Right. None of the experts and civil libertarians on this show had anything to say about why people commit crime, they simply talked about the morality of paying for information and wondered why people didn't come forward with information to help the police solve crimes. No one seemed aware that the porkers have been paying for information (unofficially) since they were set up. No one accepted that many people may well be justified in their suspicion of the police, and of course nobody phoned in with information about the cops having assaulted demonstrators, black youths, passers-by. or men and women on picket-lines. And. incidentally, no one asked why local businessmen were putting up the reward money!

Derek Devine

Economics Exposed: The causes of mass unemployment (1987)

The Economics Exposed column from the November 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Millions of people in Britain and throughout the world are suffering the poverty and indignity of unemployment. It has become a cliche in the 1980s to say that we are in the depths of a recession. That is a simple phrase which contains a massive range of suffering, bringing with it increases in racist violence, alcoholism, illness and even suicide.

There are many myths and false theories about the cause of this mass unemployment. Perhaps one of the most popular is that with the least academic pretensions. It is widely stated that this vast waste of productive resources, the large-scale redundancies and resulting downward pressure on the wages of those still in work has all arisen because "British industry" has become less competitive. Workers, it is claimed, have been both lazy and greedy, with high wage demands and low productivity, and that therefore sales have fallen.

First, let it be said that the politicians and press millionaires who are particularly fond of promoting this myth are not to be seen for dust when any really useful productive work might be going on. However, there are several other reasons why this claim should be rejected.

In almost all of the most industrially advanced nations of the world, unemployment has gone up significantly in the last 10 to 20 years. It is true that the increase in Britain has been particularly rapid, but the problem is quite obviously world-wide and cannot therefore sensibly be seen as a "British" problem.

Second, is it the case that during the 1970s. for no reason, workers in their millions suddenly became more "greedy" and “lazy" than they had been in the 1960s? Such explanations for crisis are clearly fantastical. Moreover, it is a gross insult and distortion to refer to the productive majority in society in this way. Some of the most tragic victims of the recession are people who have worked themselves towards an early grave, building up their employers' fortunes, only to be told in middle age that they are "redundant" to their company's future plans for profit-making.

Thirdly, let us take this popular myth about the cause of recession to its logical conclusion. If it is our high consumption relative to productivity which is the cause of our problems, then the answer would be to work even harder, produce even more, and consume even less. Well, if that formula is the "answer", you might wish you had never asked the question! The fact is, with a full use of modern technology and all of the resources available to us, it would be possible to meet needs far more adequately than at present.

The real problem is that within the present world-wide economic system, production takes place only if it will financially benefit the minority who own and control capital. You could work twice as hard for half as much, and yet still if the market system is passing through one of its periods of recession, your job will be at risk.

The market system which exists throughout the world today is rooted in competition rather than co-operation. Production levels are decided on the basis of guesswork, as companies estimate the activities of their rivals and the level of profitable sales they might expect. The vast network of production is balanced on this fragile foundation.

As the level of investment and production builds up by fits and starts, it is only a matter of time before one industrial sector or other overestimates sales potential and then has to make dramatic reductions in its level of investment. The market becomes "glutted", profits start to decline and redundancies follow, leading to recession in other markets. This happened, for example, in the British steel industry in 1973-4, with 70,000 resulting job losses.

This then produces a knock-on effect on other industries (in the case of steel, these included shipbuilding, car production, metals and heavy engineering). With an imbalance or dislocation between these different industrial sectors, and the spreading problem of overproduction relative to the market, the recession becomes general.

This is part of the trade cycle of capitalism, which has passed inevitably through periods of boom and slump since it began. The recessions of the 1890s and 1930s, like the present recession, were part of this cycle. In future months we will be looking at how recession is caused in more detail. But our starting point, in dealing with the popular myths of the gutter press, is that British workers. like other workers across the world, are the victims of this process, not its cause.

Clifford Slapper

After Spywatcher — What? (1987)

From the November 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Will anything of lasting value come out of the Spycatcher affair? That was a question I asked myself on a hot evening in August. Along with many others I was packed into Bristol's Watershed centre to listen to readings from the great forbidden book. One well-thumbed copy was to be raffled at a pound a ticket. Another was to be given away by a local magazine, to the winner of a competition in which you had to image yourself a loony right-wing security agent bent on destabilising the Thatcher government: what rumour would you circulate? The Chair of the meeting reported apologies from a host of celebrities who were on holiday. It didn't matter that the TV cameras weren't here, he said (with only a hint of disappointment in his voice). We still roasted under the spotlights because a trade union camera was recording the proceedings.

The event itself had been preceded early in the morning by a warm-up bout between local MP William Waldegrave and a representative of the National Council for Civil Liberties on Radio Bristol. The NCCL representative had spoken in indignant and stirring tones about censorship and freedom of speech, but without any qualifications. This enabled Waldegrave to complain that the NCCL itself believes in censorship (because it supports the Race Relations Act's embargo on incitement to racial hatred). That point went unanswered, as did the counter-accusation against Waldegrave, that he ignored the seriousness of the charges made in Wright's book by echoing the government line about secret service officers' lifetime obligation of confidentiality. Never mind, a discussion was promised after the readings that evening. That might be worthwhile even if the Waldegrave view was almost certain to go unrepresented.

The readings themselves were entertaining if unremarkable. We can be fairly sure that all the interesting charges made in the book are now already in the public domain, and all that remain are the trimmings. So we heard about the familiar alleged plot to subvert the Wilson government. Khrushchev's vanity, the madness of the alleged plots against Nasser, and the dangers posed for secret service infiltrators of left-wing groups by the promiscuity of their members. The book was well-written and clearly very funny, usually unintentionally. I checked on the safety of my raffle ticket and kept my fingers crossed.

Came the discussion. The Chair suggested, at inordinate length given the tight time schedule, that we confine our attention to four main areas. Alas, he spoke with more insistence than clarity, and when I compared notes with a friend after the meeting we could still only discern three. The first person to emerge from the darkness and brave the spotlight and microphone said he was an ordinary person who belonged to no groups and had never spoken to more than half a dozen people in public. He was just upset to be told he couldn't read the book. A number of journalists spoke with convincing passion on a matter which affects them to a greater degree than, and in a different way from other people. There was the inevitable contribution from a member of the Smash The State Tendency, prompting early departures from the hall. "Thank you. comrade", said the Chair icily. But mainly it was "Thank you, Brian", 'Thank you. Dawn", as a succession of figures, doubtless familiar with one another, made their points

A CND representative reminded us of the extent of surveillance over members and conveyed successfully how upsetting it could be to be on the receiving end. A pleasant man from the Green Party said they were entitled to their paranoia too, and told of delayed mail and phones which didn't work around election time. Well, yes, problems suffered by tens of thousands at other times too. But then, as we all know by now, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. A lawyer pointed out cases where the public interest had been held to outweigh any duty of confidentiality. We were urged to support NCCL and the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom.

Towards the end of the meeting the Chair remarked on the unanimity of the opposition which had been expressed to the banning of the book and invited anyone to speak in favour. No one did. The MI5 man (for he was surely there, and surely a man?) kept silent.

My own feeling was that the set pieces we had heard did little to advance understanding or to place the Wright Affair in a wide enough context. To be sure, more than one speaker reminded us that the dirty tricks of secret service agents go on under Labour as well as Conservative governments, that it was a Labour government which pushed through the Prevention of Terrorism Act in ten days, that it was under a Labour government that the ABC trial took place. And we had been urged to look at the broader political issues, and agitate for more accountability. But accountability in what form, and to whom?

Justified feelings of outrage had been expressed, but it was outrage of a very limited kind. Something had been done which was unfair by the rules of the game, but no one questioned the nature of the game. Did the speakers think there should be a secret service at all? If so, how far did they think it would be compatible with its effective functioning to demand that it be publicly accountable? If not, did they recognise that paranoia notwithstanding, other foreign powers had agents who got up to dirty tricks which might affect us? Were they all, as they seemed to be, content with the minimal degree of genuine accountability which elected representatives are subject to? If so, how much control could that possibly leave us, the ordinary members of the public, over "our” security services? If not, what ideas might they have for moulding a more adequate set of democratic institutions than those associated with twelve crosses in a lifetime? Without the raising of fundamental questions like these, there will be many more Peter Wrights and many more undetected dirty tricks.

Keith Graham

Sleuth (1987)

A Short Story from the November 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Grind's the name. Gary Grind. Special Investigator. Department of Health and Social Security. I hunt down the scroungers and moonlighters. Make the claimants sick, anti-social and insecure. Geddit? Sometimes this job means dark and lonely watches, staking out some dame's home to see if she's got a boyfriend supplying her champagne, caviar and designer clothes. Know what I mean? It's hard in the small hours with only a pack of Rothmans and your conscience to keep you company. Brings a man up against himself. Makes him ask - what's it all about?

I catch a lot of moonlighters through their hands. Hands tell a lot to a hardnosed, streetwise, keen eyed operator like yours truly. Clean hands, I reckon they're moonlighting - office cleaning maybe. Dirty hands, they must be moonlighting - doing up cars most likely. Hard hands, they're moonlighting - on the building site. Soft hands, bet they're moonlighting - window cleaning probably. The world's full of moonlighters and scroungers, getting benefit when they shouldn't, ruining the state, undermining civilised values. If it wasn't for dedicated public servants like yours truly they'd swamp the place.

The latest bit of moonlighting we're on to is these motor bike couriers. Means a lot of cold waits on street corners and roundabouts. It's not easy checking faces under those crash helmets and visor things. But you won't hear any complaints from yours truly. It's my job.

I suss out a lot in the pub. My local's just across the street from the betting shop. I can keep watch, see if any punter known to me is in there squandering the giro. Course, if he wins any money he's for it  -  undeclared income. The other day, got talking to this weirdo about my job. He reckoned the real scroungers will never need to apply for the social because they live off profit. Said I'm propping up the system of exploitation. Ever investigated that, he asked. Didn't like his face -  I can smell a trouble-maker a mile off. When I got up to go, I shook his hand. He looked surprised but I was only checking if he was moonlighting. Must always be on the watch.

Am I right or am I right?

Editorial: Cost-effective Schooling (1987)

Editorial from the November 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

The "new realism of the enterprise culture", that fashionable phrase from capitalism's shabby intellectual boutique, has been fairly slow to catch on among the nation's professional educators, who are presently suffering a collective hangover from the excessively optimistic and surreal Sixties, when comprehensive schooling, egalitarianism and "letting it all hang out" were in vogue. The incompatibility of these ideals with the needs of modern capitalism has ensured that it has all been stuffed firmly back in again with a vengeance. Not content with cutting educational budgets to the bone, or amputating whole limbs infected with pink irritants like sociology, the government is now adroitly laying at the teacher's door some of society's uglier manifestations, from glue sniffing to granny bashing. And since the natural remedy for such ills is an injection of healthy competition, that nice Mr Baker stayed behind after school one day and wrote a curriculum designed to produce an endless chain of midget entrepreneurs, all constantly tested for quality and equally at hone with isosceles triangles, mating habits of sticklebacks, Shakespeare's sonnets . . . For good measure, parental "choice" is to be extended by fostering greater competition between schools that no self-respecting member of the ruling class would let his char ladies near, let alone any offspring.

The liberal intelligentsia has responded to these measures with indignant shouts of "philistine". Backs against the wall and hands on heads, they argue that the disinterested pursuit of knowledge has long-term economic as well as social benefits for capitalism, that the withdrawal of funds from non-vocational courses is a short-sighted policy and an attack on the traditional values for which higher education, in particular, has always stood. It is a variant on the defence employed by what is called the "arts community", who complain vehemently about cuts in their funding and maintain that investment in "culture" is good for Britain and a boon to the Exchequer, as well as the stamp of a civilised society. Pleading their case in capitalism's terms is unlikely to move those who hold the purse-strings, however, since adjectives such as lean, utilitarian and cheap represent the quintessence of realism in what we are daily reminded is a fiercely competitive world.

In one sense, then, logic is on the side of those who now wield the knife. The main and self-evident function of schooling ("education" is a blatant misnomer) is the sorting out of the young into the social slots they will occupy in adult life. The schooling system is required to become more and more a super-streaming system, constantly shifting its students into channels where their past performance suggests they belong, treating people and knowledge in the way capitalism's technological world treats everything: as if it could be processed. The big lie is that opportunities are equal, that everyone gets on by dependence on their own abilities and will to succeed. If the products of public schools brush shoulders in the City with sons of East End lorry drivers, it is still likely to be as one opens a car door for the other. The best that's wanted for little Johnny or Tracy is a world and class away from the privileged life of the elite who, when they hear the word "culture", simply reach for their cheque books.

What we are not suggesting is that changes in the organisation of schooling in a class society can bring no benefits for the majority, or that the dominant ideology is consciously imposed from above on all social institutions. The ethos and values of capitalism permeate all aspects of our waking lives and a complex network of factors determine whether they are digested whole, chewed over or rejected altogether. An individual teacher may well be concerned with what children learn, but he or she is one face in a world of "right-thinking" people and school systems record only the marks children get. Individuals will differ in their ability, talent and determination in any society, but it is equally obvious that social background and schooling determine whether and how much they will be paid for the sale of their physical or intellectual powers, which in turn will largely determine where they can live, with whom they associate, and the rest of their life style. Exceptions merely confirm the rule.

The selective function of schools implies losers as well as winners and, increasingly, selection is for life; attempts to disguise this reality are destined to failure (comprehensive schools did their poor best and need not try harder). What employers are demanding are precisely the qualities that today's public schools are inculcating - a more technically qualified and disciplined workforce; which is why we are seeing attempts to force state schools to follow in their footsteps, to remove the distinction between education and training, and accept that schooling needs to operate on a more cost-effective basis. All this may not be new, but the difference this time is that the government appears willing to give them more of what they want.

What is not new and cannot change is the essential nature of capitalism. Schools take into compulsory custody millions of innocent children, dull their imaginations as best they can, force them to suck up quantities of secondhand information, qualify some for entry into other institutions, and commit the rest to a lifetime of servitude and hard labour. In a conveyor belt world dominated by competition  they can operate in no other way.