Are you a capitalist? (1986)

From the July 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

- Have you got a bank account?
- Yes.- Do you draw interest on it?
- Yes.- Then you must be a capitalist.

The above exchange is typical of the confusion arising from the complexities of modern capitalism, its highly sophisticated credit system of banks, building societies, unit trusts, charge-cards and mortgage brokers. The number of cheque book holders runs into many millions and if mere possession of one made its owner a capitalist, there would not be enough people left to be workers.

Nevertheless, the question of cheque books and bank interest does mislead lots of workers. In the "good old days" when wages were around one pound a week it was instantly obvious that unemployment, sickness or another baby were major disasters - except for wealthy people. Nowadays, the "Welfare State" ropes us all into compulsory insurance, PAYE, housing benefits. Family Income Supplement - covering us from the "womb to the tomb." The government spends 40 per cent of its budget on social welfare; in 1890 it spent just 7 per cent. This 40 per cent goes to keep the workers quiet - and still does not succeed.

As a result, many workers are desperately concerned about the fate of British Leyland. or British Rail or British Gas. They think these are "our" industries because they voted for the government which runs it. They squabble about high or low taxes. The reformist parties vie in promising tax reductions Many workers quite sincerely believe it is our country and our industry and are in favour of low wages to help British products compete abroad.

It is not the possession of a cheque book, which these days can be obtained by banking just a few pounds, but how much the cheque book represents which counts (literally). To be a capitalist, one must be able to live without working for someone else - be free from the necessity of paid employment

Dictionary definitions of a capitalist are fair enough:

OXFORD: A possessor of capital or funds used in production.

NUTTALL: One who possesses capital, one of large means.

ODHAMS: One who possesses capital on which he may live.

PENGUIN: One who has accumulated wealth and makes it available for business.

As always, nobody has put it better than Karl Marx, who defined capital as "Wealth used to create more wealth with a view to profit " Being a capitalist allows a life-style with all the appurtenances of wealth: a country house and an apartment in town, a couple of cars, a fashionable social life, children at public school, travel abroad.

The workers' money is income — the capitalists' is transferable wealth. This also applies to corporate funds. A member of SOGAT or the NUM cannot claim a personal share of the funds but only membership benefits under rule. Supposing SOGAT to have £10 million funds and 10,000 members. A member retiring or resigning cannot withdraw £1.000. A trade union is not a limited liability company or a bank The funds are vested in the organisation, not in individual members.

All trade union investments in shares, stocks, banks, building societies, unit trusts and the Co-op Bank have to be reported to the Inland Revenue and inspected by the Registrar. Interest and dividends paid into union funds and all accounts must be audited and passed by professional accountants. Legislation was introduced when it transpired that some union accounts were badly run.

Redundancy payments will not set many workers on the high road to capitalist opulence. It is possible, after a life time of employment, to receive something like £20,000. One of the highest safe interest rates available is 10 per cent in a building society, producing less than £40 a week not much compensation for the loss of a wage of say £150 a week.

While it is true that exceptionally talented or fortunate individual workers do sometimes manage to claw their way out of the working class the prospect of many doing so is non-existent. The notion that the problems of capitalism can be solved by the workers becoming capitalists, even "small" ones, through Thatcher’s "caring capitalism", is like telling mice to start chasing cats.

Horatio

Russia re-defines socialism (1985)

From the June 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

With the aid of the Oxford Student's Dictionary of Current English, Russia has officially re-defined socialism (Daily Telegraph, 8 April 1985). Why they felt it necessary to do so is another matter. Russian capitalism, controlled by the state, is beginning to lose favour with that section who regard state interference in the growing black market economy as a fetter on their activities. However, the old ideology of revolution weights heavily like an incubus on the mind and, for the time-being, politics and not economics dictates the pace at which this change is taking place.

Socialism is not an issue because the Russian working class are not socialists. After nearly 70 years of state capitalism even the state-salaried spokespeople are finding it difficult to explain the difference between the Russian system and Western capitalism. Now they have secured the services of the highly respected Oxford University Press, who have recently sold over 100,000 copies of the new dictionary to the Russian government. It appears that one of the conditions of the sale was the re-definition of certain words, including socialism, specifically to meet the needs and desires of their Russian clients. The OUP were unable to explain how it happened, but it's really quite simple: their commercial interests overwhelmed their literary integrity.

The new definition describes socialism as a "social and economic system which is replacing capitalism". We do not know where this is taking place but certainly it is not in Russia. The definition does not define anything; that was the whole point of the exercise. The Russian working class does not understand socialism and if they were provided with an accurate definition they would at least be able to compare the existing conditions with the terms of the definition and have a target to aim for. It is in the interests of the Russian capitalist class to conceal the target. References to socialism will be left vague and obscure.

It is worth noting that the Russian dictatorship. even with all its powers of propaganda and censorship, unencumbered by free speech and democratic practice, has to move some way towards providing excuses for the social conditions and the antagonism of the Russian workers to them. Like many a government in the past, it is finding out that the class struggle cannot be censored or, to use Marx's phrase, got rid of by "bold leaps or legal enactments". Certainly, there is no shortage of the latter.

Some clue as to the Russian government's intentions may be gleaned from the existing definition of socialism in the Oxford Dictionary, which was previously accepted but is now discarded. This describes socialism as "a theory or policy of social organisation, which advocates the ownership of the means of production, capital. land and property by the community as a whole". This is a contradiction. Capital is an integral part of the private property system and cannot be separated from that system. Common ownership and capital are diametrically opposed as capital is the very essence of private ownership, including state ownership. The point is. why is this definition no longer acceptable? Contradictions and impossible propositions have never worried or embarrassed the Russian dictators before. Their whole regime is a grotesque travesty of socialism yet they persist in calling it socialism.

The reason may be that within that definition, capital and socialism are not incompatible. Both can exist alongside each other. When such an unworkable and nonsensical definition is given official backing, it is liable to all sorts of interpretation. Individuals will have their own ideas of what it is supposed to mean and how to implement it. Some of the individuals will naturally include those groups who wish to promote private enterprise. The use of capital and its accumulation would be regarded as a desirable "socialist" objective.

At the moment, the Russian government is apprehensive about encouraging, or even allowing, the development of private capitalist enterprise. To begin with this could mean an increase in the production of consumer goods leading eventually to an increase in consumption. The workers' aspirations would expand and there would be pressure for a general rise in wages to meet the cost of a growing standard of living. The present policy of the Russian government is to restrict consumption and to keep wages down.

Any definition of socialism, however absurd, which allows for the independent development of private capital, apart from upsetting the existing state monopoly, is not likely to get a warm welcome in the Kremlin. Far better to change the definition so that socialism is a social and economic system which is replacing capitalism.

The socialist movement has always been plagued by ignorant definitions and descriptions of socialism and dictionaries have played no small part in this deception. An objective test of socialism is contained within its two cardinal principles: first, abolition of the system of private ownership of the means of production and distribution and its replacement by a system of production based on common ownership; and, arising from this, the abolition of the wages system and capitalist exploitation. This is the revolutionary approach to politics which workers, including those in Russia, will have to think about rather than allow themselves to be misled by definitions written by commercially-minded academics.

Jim D'Arcy