Running Commentary: Up, up and away (1987)

The Running Commentary column from the June 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Up, up and away

June is bursting out all over. And one of the biggest balloons fit to bust is that of Richard Branson, who is putting all his ego into one basket to fly in a hot air balloon across the Atlantic.

It's a strange thing for anyone to do. least of all him — surely he can afford a seat on one of the Virgin Atlantic flights. Of course it's being presented as a challenge. The media loves dramatic pictures of the rich wasting their money in ever more extravagant ways. The same reasons, the same "get up and go" mentality that is supposed to drive Richard Branson as a high-flying capitalist, breaking new markets, also apparently force him to break daft records (“Mr Branson, why do you exploit the working-class?" "Because it's there.").

The real basis behind the Atlantic crossing is as one part of the publicity for Virgin and Branson's plans to turn his £260 million business into a billion pound concern and from there make Virgin the biggest entertainments multinational in the world. That's all you'll be seeing on TV this month when the cameras cover the ocean crossing — one big advert.

Richard Branson is one of Margaret Thatcher's favourites. She originally wanted him to lead a campaign to encourage more adventurous entrepreneurial activity among British business, but he preferred the national litter brigade that is UK 2000.

As far as Thatcher is concerned never mind fly across the Atlantic, he could walk across it. His life reads like one of her speeches: he set up a small business running a record shop at the age of twenty and after fifteen years he had amassed a personal fortune worth £160 million (the average owner of a record shop would have to save their wages for ten thousand years to get that). What is not so widely known, glossed over in the life story, is that Branson found himself in a pickle early on when he tried to defraud Customs and Excise of £60,000 and was only saved from prison by his youth; and that his climb started with the help of £10,000 from a friend. Obviously the lesson for us all is that the only way to get on inside capitalism is to have the right friends and the right lawyer.

In fact, while Richard Branson is cooped up in his pressurised aluminium capsule 35.000 feet above the Atlantic for a week or so (it's his companion I feel sorry for), the profits from Virgin record company won't suddenly dry up. The money will keep rolling in — he may break records but you can be sure he plays absolutely no part in making any records. Richard Branson is not needed, he's redundant, like anyone who lives off ownership, off the work of others. It's bad enough having these parasites, but to have them parading themselves on TV . . .

Ministering to women

The Labour Party has promised that if it is elected to government it will establish a Ministry for Women with Cabinet status. A party policy document, Labour's Ministry for Women, refers scathingly to male domination within society:

With few exceptions, men make the laws, administer the laws, carry out ministerial decisions. control our industries, run our public services and negotiate pay and working conditions. Women are not in positions to articulate their demands or to ensure their needs are considered.

To overcome this male domination, Labour proposes that the Minister for Women should sit on key cabinet committees and have regular access to the Prime Minister. A House of Commons Select Committee would be set up to monitor the Women's Ministry which would be directly responsible for sex equality legislation and the updating of the Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay Acts.

For many women workers, dissatisfied with the double burden of (low) paid work outside the home and unpaid housework and childcare inside the home, fed up with the lack of good child-care facilities and concerned about health issues that particularly affect them, Labour's proposal may seem attractive.

And if Labour's analysis of the problem (as quoted above) were actually correct there might be a certain logic to setting up a Ministry for Women. But, while it is true that most (though by no means all) positions of power and influence are occupied by men, to say, as Labour does, that "men make the laws, administer the laws . . .", gives a highly misleading impression. It would be more accurate to say that a small handful of men and one or two women make the laws, and control industry and society while all the rest of us - men and women - never get a look in.

And while it is also true that in many areas of life women workers do get a worse deal than men workers and a Ministry for Women just might ensure a higher degree of equality with working men, that equality will be worth very little if it still means, as it will, that a handful of people own and control wealth and monopolise power while the rest of us are excluded from a share in either.

Persuasion

The look of scepticism takes a moment to register. You sense the turmoil going on in the mind. There is a short embarrassed laugh. "Well, of course, it's feasible, but unlikely ever to happen". Have you suggested something outrageously shocking? No, you have just presented the case for socialism. This initial acquaintance with socialism can cause severe shock to those who derive their attitudes toward life from daily helpings of the Express, or Telegraph.

Your interlocutor, still confused at having their illusions about society shattered, fixes you with a glittering eye and proceeds to catalogue reasons why socialism will remain a Utopian ideal. "We need leaders" . . . "Human beings are inherently aggressive" . . . "You will never convince the majority" . . . "The task is too daunting". A look of triumph replaces the previous incredulity as they bathe in the self-congratulatory assumption that your argument has been totally refuted.

Why should the concept of socialism prove such a difficult one to handle? For socialists the case is self-evident. The benefits of socialism are as obvious as the solution to yesterday's crossword.

However, as the prevalent ideas in society are those of the ruling-class, then the socialist propagandist has to contend with a lifetime's brainwashing. To many people, fed on a diet of carefully controlled misinformation by the media, the word socialism evokes a Pavlovian response — Reds under the bed. shortages and dull conformity — not forgetting the ultimate threat to civilisation, the replacement of Eastenders with an endless re-run of Politburo speeches. Socialism, of course, stands for none of these absurdities.

Socialists do not pretend that the transition to socialism will be perfect. However, when the world belongs to everyone and decisions are arrived at democratically by all involved in those decisions, who needs leaders? There are violent — sick — individuals in society, it is true, but contrast that with the massive, legalised, institutionalised violence committed by the state on behalf of its capitalist rulers.

The task of persuading the majority of the working class that wage slavery is not in their interests and that the means of creating a better society lie in their power, may appear daunting but to paraphrase Marx (Groucho); socialism is one club that should have us all as members.

Dave Coggan

Voice From The Back: Outdated Marxism? (2002)

The Voice From The Back Column from the January 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Outdated Marxism?

A gap of over a 150 years separates the following two quotations, but they surely give the lie to the notion that Marxism is now outdated. “Paris: Junior doctors in France went on an indefinite partial strike in protest at their long working hours. Members of the ISNTH union, which represents 8,000 junior doctors, said they will refuse night shifts or be on call at home until demands are met.” The Times (20 November, 2001) “The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage-labourers.” Communist Manifesto 1848

The wasteful society

Socialists are always arguing against supporters of capitalism that it is a wasteful and destructive society. A recent item from the Herald (26 November) illustrates our point very well. “Every time a single B2 Spirit stealth bomber makes the gruelling 34 hour round trip from its base in rural Missouri to unload its precision-guided payload over rural Afghanistan half a world away, it costs the American taxpayer more than £2.5m in fuel for the mission. Each laser-guided bomb dropped adds another £50,000 to the bill.”

The fearful society

It is often said by sociologists that social trends that first surface in the USA eventually appear in the UK. If such were to prove true about crime and punishment then the future is very gloomy indeed. According to the journalist Simon Jenkins writing in the Times (28 November) the US have a real problem. “What is known is that America now imprisons a staggering 700 people per 100,000, against 124 in Britain and 89 in France. One in three young black males in American inner cities is in prison or on parole . . . Meanwhile, half a million Californians feel they must live in armed and gated estates.”

Progressing backwards

Amidst the phoney euphoria of the Labour Party’s electoral victory of 1997 the British working class were promised an end to poverty or “social exclusion” as Labour prefer to call it. But what is the reality today? David Plachaud of the London School of Economics in the current issue of the Political Review is quoted in the Guardian (26 November) as remarking: “Child poverty remains higher than it was in 1979.” and “Britain still has the highest child poverty rate of any major industrialised country apart from the United States.”

The unhealthy society

In a revealing article in the Observer (2 December) it was shown that so pathetic is Labour’s running of the NHS that one in eight of the population now have private medical insurance, and that even those without private insurance won’t use the NHS. “Even those without medical insurance boycott the NHS in record numbers. Last year, more than 200,000 people jumped NHS waiting lists by paying for private operations – double when Labour came to power.” The most revealing aspect was the reason put forward for many employers providing health cover. Surprise, surprise it wasn’t the bosses concern for the workers they exploit; it was a commercial one. “Fergus Kee, managing director of BUPA’s UK insurance business, said: “Companies are increasingly recognising the value of medical insurance to get sick employees back to work faster.”

For my next trick

The Rev. Andrew Thompson is concerned about falling Church of England attendances, so he has come up with a super wheeze. He has written a booklet “Gospel Magic” that advocates flaming torches, trick guillotines and disappearing handkerchiefs to get the punters back to church. This has aroused a lot of opposition from more conservative elements in the church but it is difficult to sympathise with them. After all, their main man the Cunning Carpenter was reputed to have been a dab hand at conjuring tricks like water into wine and fish teas for the five thousand.

Bought it fair and square

In last month’s issue we reported that Michael Bloomberg had bought the office of Mayor of New York for $60 million; we were wrong. The official figures are now out and reported in the Times (5 December) – he spent $68,968,185! Even by American standards this is a phenomenal election expenditure for such an office. President Bush spent $193 million on his presidential campaign against Al Gore’s $133 million and Hillary Clinton spent $29.9 million, a record in New York, to become a Senator. Bloomberg spent more than five times his Democratic Party opponent Mark Green, in fact it is reckoned that he spent $92.60 for each of his 744,757 votes. The really staggering aspect of this corruption of democracy is that the Times can report it boldly, under the headline” $69m buys election as Mayor of New York” and that Mr Green’s campaign manager Richard Schrader could say: “He bought it fair and square. By spending a historic amount on television ads, he controlled the airwaves and altered people’s perception of reality.” Capitalism has reduced everything to the cash nexus. Why don’t they just dispense with voting altogether and have an auction for all the offices of power between the capitalists and their puppets? The whole thing has become a farce and has no claim to the term “democracy”.

Capitalism’s facelift?

“All companies must strive to give capitalism a name that doesn’t result in riots. Capitalism is good. But benevolent capitalism is better!” Sir Richard Branson. Yorkshire Post (1 December).

Press Exposure: Taking care of English (1995)

The Press Exposure column from the December 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

It’s not what you say . . . 

The entire nation will have rejoiced at the news that Education Minister Gillian Shephard had set up a steering group to lead "a campaign for better English”. Shephard had declared herself fed up with "estuary English" and "communication by grunt" and felt the threat to our native tongue was so dire that only someone famous for their immaculate pronunciation would be good enough to head the steering group. So step forward—as they are fond of putting it in the newspapers which are not famous for their perfect English—Trevor MacDonald, newscaster at ITN. Of course a few obstinate people may have failed to rejoice, remembering that other famous person—Richard Branson, of the toothy grin, tousled hair, baggy pullovers and baggier bank balance—who was once appointed head of a similar steering group to get rid of street litter. Ministers were getting fed up with having to wade through discarded fast-food packages, old newspapers and homeless beggars on their way to their clubs. Whatever became of Richard Branson and his scavengers.7 We all know what became of the rubbish and the beggars—they’re still there.

But the really good news about MacDonald and his steering group was that he would be helped by Sir David English, who is chairman of Associated Newspapers which owns the Daily Mail and the Mail On Sunday. He reached these dizzy heights after a spell as editor of the Daily Mail and he is now editor-in-chief of both newspapers. His ‘wage’ is £440.000 a year, which will have been hiked up through a generous, secret share option scheme, while his newspapers lambaste "bonus bonanzas” for "fat cat" company chiefs and screams "Time’s Up For Greedy Bosses".

. . . It’s the way that you say it

English’s time as editor of the Daily Mail saw a great renewal in its fortunes as well as a consolidation of its reputation as one of the less reliable newspapers (not that there is much competition for the reputation as the most reliable). Consider these episodes in the newspaper’s recent life.

In May 1977 the Daily Mail claimed to have exposed "the amazing truth about Britain’s State owned car makers British Leyland". This "truth" was based on a letter from the chairman of the National Enterprise Board which discussed "Special Accounting Arrangements"— accountant-speak for a secret fund to finance bribes and undercover commission. Only the very naive would regard the “exposure" of such a fund as “amazing" but the problem for the Mail was that the letter was a hoax—a forgery. English had to apologise but did so grudgingly.

After Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, had been sentenced various newspapers were so desperate to get intimate stories about him that they competed to shower money like snowflakes on his relatives. The Daily Mail took a lofty stance above all this hysteria, piously insisting that as a staunch upholder of journalistic rectitude it would never stoop so low as to boost its circulation by paying Sutcliffe's family to tell all about him. But in 1983 the Press Council gave a different story—the Mail had negotiated £5,000 for Sutcliffe’s father, it had entertained other members of the family and had offered large sums of money to Sutcliffe's wife.

Later in 1983 (clearly, this was not a good year for English’s empire) the newspaper started up Millionaire’s Mail—a transparently specious title for what was actually just another version of newspaper bingo. Like most of the bingo on offer in the other papers, the Mail promised that some lucky people could win a million pounds. The paper did not mention that the odds were such that statistically a Mail millionaire could be expected to emerge once every 400 years (which was about three times more often than with some of the other papers).

Loyalty’s reward

We don’t have to worry about whether rich people give each other backhanders, or about workers expressing their delusions about capitalism in fatuous “games" run by newspapers, or about the reputations of government ministers. The point is if a newspaper can so consistently dabble in falsehood should anything it prints be regarded with anything but contempt? For example what about the slavish devotion to the Thatcher government by English’s papers, which earned him his knighthood? What have the working class in this country to thank Thatcher for? Under her government their poverty had sunk even deeper into the levels of despair.

Consider a recent development—the employment, sometimes re-employment after being sacked, of workers part-time with a consequent lower wage. Consider that more and more companies are operating with a small band of core workers who are supplemented at need with agency workers or those on short-term contracts. This technique has been seen at its finest in the Burger King fast-food chain, which clocked on its workers as the customers arrived, which meant paying them for only the time they actually worked, calculated by the minute. These developments make our poverty sharper as they benefit the employers by practically destroying any statutory employment safeguards.

In the face of this, what does it matter whether we express our disgust and anger at this social system in the kind of immaculate language to please a newscaster or a knighted purveyor of falsehoods like English. However we say it, let's make it clear that we’ve had enough of capitalism and its defenders.

Ivan

What's best for British capitalism . . . (2009)

Book Review from the September 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

Globalisation Laid Bare. Lessons in International Business. Industry and Parliament Trust. 2009. £11.99.

The Industry and Parliament Trust is a body set up to promote “mutual understanding between the UK Parliament and the worlds of business, industry and commerce” and this is their take on globalisation. Introduced by Sir Richard Branson, it is a collection of short articles by various other capitalists and their academic and political supporters.

The contributors main concerns seem to be how to avoid protectionism re-emerging in the current crisis and how to accommodate to China as an emerging industrial and commercial power. The contributors from the three main parties (Vince Cable, Alan Duncan and Baron Mandelson) all say the same thing – “down with protectionism” and “keep liberalising world trade” – reflecting their common perception of what is in the best interest of British capitalism.

The only dissenters are “Indian ecofeminist” Vandana Shiva and Clare Short.

Adam Buick

Pathfinders: Sky high and ocean deep (2023)

The Pathfinders Column from the February 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Do we really need this? Is it sustainable? Two questions that capitalism never seriously asks. At present the only question that matters is, can we make money out of this? All other considerations currently fall outside the projected calculation matrix, as an average CEO might blandly put it. And two recent news stories offer an illustration of this.

British news media were cock-a-hoop last month to report a home-grown ‘space industry’ story with the planned horizontal launch from Newquay in Cornwall of a suite of satellites via a rocket attached to one of Mad Dick Branson’s old Virgin jumbo jets (bbc.in/3VXUmON). ‘What people have seen is a small team deliver something quite incredible’ puffed the breathless CEO of Spaceport Cornwall, speaking live from the Mission Control shed just before the mission pancaked.

What they were planning on delivering was nine shoebox-sized satellites whose various space-based functions were such that their owners were willing to shell out hefty launch fees. It’s a burgeoning market, and other space freight companies in Shetland and Sutherland in Scotland are also keen to get in on the action. If Elon Musk can send mega-rockets to the moon, they ought to be able to manage a shoebox or two. Sadly the mission to hurl yet more space junk into orbit failed on this occasion, but the heroic British pioneers won’t be deterred from making future attempts.

As of January 2022, there were an estimated 8,261 satellites orbiting the Earth, of which 42 percent are already defunct (bit.ly/3irc1kv). But that’s small potatoes compared to the ‘mega-constellations’ of miniature CubeSats being planned by firms like SpaceX and OneWeb, which intend to upchuck around 65,000 in the next few years. Space tech is ‘dual use’, i,e, civilian and military, and the key military advantages of CubeSats are cheapness (especially when launched via reusable SpaceX rockets), small size, replaceability and proliferation, making them nearly impossible for an adversary to knock out. Elon Musk’s own Starlink system is being relied on by Ukrainian forces, meaning the Tesla, Twitter and SpaceX boss is now also in the war business and with such influence that he has personally vetoed Starlink operations over Crimea (bit.ly/3ZCiPw5).

Being nearer the ground, low-orbit off-the-peg CubeSats mean lower-latency (i.e, faster) connections than high-orbit heavy-duty satellites, while the swarm numbers mean near-comprehensive global internet coverage. A comparatively minor consideration is the predicted increase in visual ‘noise’ for astronomers (bit.ly/3W1baEQ ). But what’s sickening from a socialist perspective is that it’s not just one constellation to be shared by everyone, as would be the case in socialism, it’s multiple duplicate systems, because each competing state wants its own GPS and communications networks in space and does not want to rely on another’s satellites any more than on another’s energy supplies. One of socialism’s medium-term goals will probably be the challenge of hoovering up all this redundant and dangerous space scrap.

Meanwhile, you may be aware that the sea floors of the world are carpeted with small, potato-like polymetallic objects known as manganese nodules, first discovered in the 19th century and in July this year set to become a red-hot-button topic.

Imagine you are out for a walk in the wilds, on a break from your capitalist employment, and you happen across a huge wishing pond that is magically packed with a treasure trove of ancient gold denarii, duckets and dubloons. There is no sign saying Private Property – Keep Out. A quick check on your smartphone reveals not only that this pond doesn’t belong to anybody, but also that there is no mention of it in any statutes or local by-laws. Understandably, you’re keen to fill your boots with as much plunder as you can carry away. In fact, seeing as there are no rules, you might as well hire a mechanical digger to plough the entire pond right up, and make yourself a fortune. But as you start dialling the machine hire number, strong hands grab you by the arms and a voice says ‘Alright matey, not so fast, we were here first’.

Such is the situation with manganese nodules, found in gigantic quantities on sea beds in international waters. They are a potential bonanza for capitalist manufacturing, containing not just manganese, but also nickel, copper, iron, cobalt, titanium, silicon and aluminium among others, elements of immense importance in steel production, EV car batteries and other green tech. Average metallic content varies (15 – 30 percent), and a ballpark valuation for this content is given as $484/tonne (bit.ly/3IOHcAG). The potential global supply of nodules was estimated in the 1980s at roughly 500bn tonnes. At a minimum 15 percent average metal content, one could be talking about an industry worth upwards of $36tn.

Given this, you may wonder how come the gold rush has not already started. In effect, the lack of rules has resulted in a default Hands-Off stalemate as governments and UN regulator the International Seabed Authority have stalled for 20 years over a common regulatory framework, even though a clause in the existing 2000 treaty gave them just two years to create one. Mining companies are slavering to have at the prize, and equally keen to stop each other getting a head start. Now one company, in league with the Pacific island of Nauru, has announced that, if no regulation is in place by the end of the two-year period in July, they are technically entitled to send in the submarine bulldozers, and devil take the hindmost (bit.ly/3X5e7p0). A strip-mine frenzy will then ensue as the sea floors of the world, whose species, habitats and bio-environments are barely known at all, face a holocaust. The effects of this on global oceanic ecosystems together with the irrevocable loss of species and new science cannot even be guessed at. Governments, who have failed to do anything to fix climate change since the first COP in 1995, have until July to fix this. Don’t hold your breath.

This is not to say that a socialist society would never mine seabed nodules under any circumstances, any more than saying it would never launch a satellite. Humans use the resources of nature all the time, and this is an abundant source of extremely useful metals. But first it would ask the two questions we started with. It may be that in socialism we can devise green tech that does not require so much mining, or even devise acceptable social arrangements that don’t require so much green tech. But in capitalism, nobody even asks. If it’s not about the profit, it’s not part of the equation.

Paddy Shannon

It’s a rich man’s world (2022)

From the January 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

Frequently described in the press and TV media as a ‘self-made billionaire’, Richard Branson is anything but self-made. While he may not have inherited his fortune like some of the other super-rich parasites of the capitalist class, it is nonetheless a complete fallacy that he somehow made all of his money through only his individual hard work and efforts. The reality is that Branson and so many of his ilk would not be anything like as wealthy as they are, were it not for the sweat and brains of those workers he has employed and exploited, and who in reality produced the surplus value and profit he has enjoyed in order to make him one of the world’s richest people.

So just how did he manage to become so wealthy? Richard Branson is the founder of the Virgin Group, one of the world’s most recognisable brands, with business interests in everything from travel to telecommunications, health to banking, and music to leisure, and perhaps best known for having started Virgin Records as a mail-order record retailer in 1970. After the first Virgin artist, Mike Oldfield, released Tubular Bells, Virgin Records also went on to sign other household names such as the Sex Pistols and The Rolling Stones.

Nowadays there are more than 40 Virgin companies worldwide in over 35 countries, with a workforce of over 60,000 – so much for being a self-made billionaire. The Virgin Group is made up of Virgin Group Holdings Limited (VGHL) and its subsidiaries, with Branson (BVI) as the sole shareholder.

Call us cynical, but it’s a fair stretch of the imagination to suggest that old Goldilocks amassed his fortune through some sort of magical Midas touch – as is often implied by his arse-licking admirers. Instead, he is just like capitalists the world over, who have to employ the knowledge, skills and physical labour of you and every other member of the working class in order to produce and create their wealth for them. A point not lost on Branson who was quoted as saying: ‘Your employees are your company’s real competitive advantage. They’re the ones making the magic happen – so long as their needs are being met’.

More’s the pity then, that they’re also the first to be dropped when your needs for more and more profit are not being met. Remember these headlines when he furloughed his staff at government expense? ‘FLOG YOUR PRIVATE ISLAND AND PAY YOUR STAFF: Richard Branson among billionaire business owners and shareholders facing furious demand to open their OWN wallets to help staff survive as the coronavirus epidemic batters the economy’.

Zoomed out

Now far be it from us to single out cuddly Richie Rich for special criticism of the capitalist class and the system they thrive on. Just before the ghost of Christmas past becomes a distant memory, who could fail to be incensed by the actions of another big-time capitalist by the name of Vishal Garg, CEO of US online mortgage company Better.com. Just weeks before his staff were preparing for a much-needed festive break from the pressures of meeting profit targets dictated to them by Garg, 900 of them were asked to attend a hastily arranged Zoom meeting. Many of them were under the impression that they were about to receive news of this year’s Christmas bonus pay-out. Instead they were told by Garg that ‘If you’re on this call you’re part of the unlucky group being laid off,’ and ‘Last time I did [this] I cried’. Then just for good measure and to add insult to injury, he went on to blame them for their poor productivity, claiming that ‘staff efficiency and performance’ lay behind the mass-firing of 15 percent of Better.com’s workforce. It seems however the one thing he forgot to mention was the $750m cash infusion Better.com received from Softbank, a Japanese firm and key investor. Which no doubt will have demanded a reduction in the company’s wage bill in order to maximise their profits.

Using online technology to make the house-buying process ‘faster and more efficient’, Garg also announced earlier this year that he planned to float the company on the stock market. A deal which estimated the value of the business – which Mr Garg founded in 2015 – at between $6.9 and $7.7 billion. Soon after the mass firing hit the news, Fortune magazine revealed that Mr Garg was also the author of a previously written anonymous blog post in which he accused sacked staff at his firm of ‘stealing’ from their colleagues and customers by being unproductive and only working two hours a day, while claiming for eight or more. A classic tactic used by his type to divide and conquer the workforce. Garg’s management style has been criticised before, after an email he sent to staff was obtained by Forbes last year. In the email, Garg wrote: ‘You are TOO DAMN SLOW. You are a bunch of DUMB DOLPHINS… SO STOP IT. STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE EMBARRASSING ME’.

Meanwhile former employee, Christian Chapman, described his experience of receiving the news of his lay-off via Zoom in a BBC News interview as ‘excruciatingly painful’ (bbc.in/3pQpceq).

Selling our skills

None of this will come as any great surprise to regular readers of this journal. Most will recognise the cold-hearted reality of life under capitalism and the misery that it all too often causes. For the average person, the best we can do in order to survive, is the selling of our acquired skills in return for a wage in the ever-competitive world of jobs and employment. Very occasionally, if market conditions happen to favour workers, then there’s a chance of wages being driven up, as has recently been the case due to the shortage of HGV drivers in the UK. Noticeably pretending to be in favour of a high-wage economy recently, it wasn’t long before buffoon Boris Johnson showed his true blue colours, making a quick U-turn in immigration policy in order to offset the sudden need to increase wages in that particular sector of industry, by opening the UK borders to experienced HGV workers in an effort to help stabilise the wage bill of companies unable to fill vacancies in the UK. That’s the basic capitalist law of supply and demand, which applies not just to goods but also to human labour. If there is an over-supply of something, its price goes down, if a shortage, the price goes up.

Is there a solution?

Indeed there is. Here in the UK and all other advanced countries of the world, there already exits ample technology, raw materials and skilled labour for us to create a more sustainable and productive society for the benefit of all life on earth. All that is needed is the widespread knowledge, understanding and will to make it happen. Workers of the world don’t need to depend on Richard Bransons or Vishal Gargs to create the conditions for a meaningful and satisfying quality of life. If we do, we’ll have a very long wait. What we need to do is come together to share our skills and knowledge cooperatively for the good of all and without the unnecessary burden and barriers created by money and markets. A truly civilised society would bring an end to the current climate of fear and insecurity caused by hiring and firing, an endemic feature of capitalism.

How to?

It’s all well and good thinking, theorising, discussing and debating the rights and wrongs of the system. However what is needed more than anything right now is engagement with our fellow workers, to spell out at every opportunity, be it online, in person, on the street, in the pub, at our places of work and leisure, the brutal reality and lack of opportunity and fulfilment that exists with life under capitalism. We need to explain and present a positive case for socialism, to work towards a better future for all human and other animal life on earth, while at the same time protecting the environment. Let’s stop procrastinating. Let’s do it now!

Paul Edwards

Editorial: Competition Rules? (2007)

Editorial from the September 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

It used to be that business news concentrated on the performance of the economy and the pearls of wisdom of business leaders. In recent years however the business pages of newspapers have slowly become filled with allegations and investigations of price-fixing, cartels, insider dealing and corruption.

Last month, in headlines which made front pages round the world, British Airways was fined over £300 million for price-fixing – agreeing with their competitor to fix the price of fuel surcharges at an artificially high level. “The world’s favourite airline”, that old advertising slogan for BA, will perhaps not be making a re-appearance anytime soon.

In the dock alongside them of course should have stood one of the UK’s favourite capitalists, Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines, except he turned Queens’ evidence and snitched just in time. According to the bizarre rules which usually seem to affect businesses differently from every one else, by blowing the whistle on the dirty dealings of BA (and themselves) they are automatically free from prosecution no matter how dirty their hands.

The very idea that these two bastions of free enterprise should have been colluding to effectively “defraud” their valued customers might have shocked some. After all here is what British Airways customer policy states: “The well being of our customers is extremely important to us”. Virgin’s customer charter is the same although it seems a little prescient “We put customer service and commitment to our passengers at the heart of what we do. We strive to get it right, first time, every time. But occasionally things don’t go as planned”.

Remember of course that Branson and Virgin for many years played the part of the plucky little David complaining against BA’s Goliath abusing its monopoly position with airports to try and keep Virgin out of the Atlantic market.

The news headlines related primarily to the size of the fine rather than any surprise that these business practices actually go on. These are not exceptions, occasional one-off incidents worthy of a news item. Corruption is an inherent part of capitalism. And what is known about is obviously only the tip of the iceberg.

And we maybe should not even pay much attention to those states trying to regulate their own capitalists – they are just as guilty. US Democrats have recently been trying to legislate (“Nopec”) against OPEC, the oil-producing and exporting countries, on the basis that these countries, instead of competing for market share on the basis of price, agree production rates with each other in order to keep the price high for all. In capitalism maintaining production takes second place to maintaining profit.

World socialists aren’t much bothered which activities of capitalists actually comply with its own laws or not, except perhaps to draw attention to the inconsistencies of the system and to show how it doesn’t even live up to its own ideology: the “free” market just doesn’t do what it says on the tin.

World socialists don’t want the “free” market system. But neither do we have any confidence in a supposedly regulated market system. There will never be enough consumer rights ombudsmen, Offices of Fair Trading or anti-trust legislation to police capitalism. The buying and selling system provides just too much reward. Instead a cosmetic pretence is maintained that the market system is dynamic and competitive. A veneer of fairness is maintained to encourage us all to carry on participating in the game, on the basis that there is some sort of level playing field in capitalism. But the real battle has never been one fought between capitalists, but rather, against them and their system.  So which side are you on ?

Pieces Together: A Grateful Nation? (2009)

The Pieces Together column from the June 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Grateful Nation?

“It is only when darkness falls on the streets of London that the plight of many veterans of the Armed Forces becomes fully apparent. More than 1,000 of them are homeless. Until a couple of months ago Ray (not his real name) was one of them living on the streets. He had enlisted in the Royal Green Jackets (Light Division) in 1993 and saw service in Northern Ireland. He left the Army in November 2001 but found civvy street a harsh place. … “You think after serving your time in the Army society will accept you,” he says, “but they don’t and no one helps.” (Times, 25 April)

Hard Times?

“Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson is reported to have lost 56% of his wealth, shedding £1.5bn and is now worth £1.2bn. Meanwhile, Formula 1 motor racing chief Bernie Ecclestone lost £934m, leaving him at £1.46bn, the list reported. The richest British-born billionaire is the land and property owning Duke of Westminster, who has seen his wealth shrink to £6.5bn from £7bn. In fourth spot are Ernesto and Kirsty Bertarelli: the former Miss UK winner and her husband have a £5.6bn fortune based on pharmaceuticals. Their fortune has shrunk by a relatively modest 12% over the year. But it is not all gloom – the former boss of supermarket chain Morrisons, Sir Ken Morrison, has seen his fortune increase by 11%, making him worth £1.6bn. The wealth of Peter and Denise Coates, owners of Stoke-based online sports betting website Bet365, has gone up by 33%, to £400m. And Harrods boss Mohammed al-Fayed has benefited from a cheap pound – his fortune stands at £650m, up 17% on last year.” (BBC Times, 25 April)

American Poverty

“An estimated 3.5 million children younger than 5 are at risk of hunger in the United States, according to government numbers provided by an anti-hunger group. That’s more than 17 percent of children who could suffer cognitive and developmental damage if they are not properly fed. The not-for-profit advocacy group Feeding America based its findings on 2005-2007 data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Agriculture Department. The study, released Thursday, is the first to look at these numbers for children under the age of 5, according to the group. Feeding America runs food banks and feeding centers around the country. The study also shows that in 11 states, more than 20 percent of children under 5 are at risk of going hungry. Louisiana has the highest rate, with just under a quarter of children at risk, followed by North Carolina, Ohio, Kentucky, Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Idaho and Arkansas.” (Yahoo News, 7 May)

Free Money for All (2017)

From the December 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

It will never happen

“Free Money for All” was the headline of a review in the Evening Standard (9 March) of a book advocating a universal, unconditional basic income (UBI) paid by the state to every citizen as a matter of right. The writer’s not the only one of course. There’s an international organisation advocating it, the Basic Income Earth Network or BIEN (basicincome.org).

It’s also the official policy of the Green Party. Richard Branson is the latest billionaire to lend his support to the proposal (LINK). However, the scheme is impracticable under capitalism and would be unnecessary – in fact, meaningless – in a socialist society.

It is not the state handing out ‘free money’ that is impracticable but handing it out to everyone unconditionally. The state has long given ‘free money’ to the ‘poor’ but this has not been unconditional – you have to be poor to get it and have to prove that you are poor. In Britain up to 1948 this was paid out locally and administered by Poor Law Guardians. In 1948 these payments were nationalised and called ‘National Assistance’, later ‘Social Security’, and now ‘Income Support’. It’s still basically the Poor Law, though, with the government as the stingy Poor Law Guardians.

What the state is doing is making up the income of the poor to a set minimum – the poverty line – by giving them ‘free money’. It’s a very basic Basic Income.

It is conceivable that this could be made conditional only on proving that you are poor, as is the case now for old age pensioners. So if you are of working age there would be no need for you to prove that you are unfit for work or have been actively seeking employment. As long as you were poor, you would get ‘income support’ unconditionally. Some UBI proponents argue that this might even be cheaper as it would remove the need for so much form-filling, checking and snooping. That’s a language governments understand and pilot schemes are already underway in Finland, Canada and the Netherlands to see if this is true. In the general election the Green Party promised one in Britain. It’s what Richard Branson wants too. Although this would be unconditional (apart of course from having to be poor in the sense of having an income, if any, below a given level), it is not universal. It might even be introduced but it would merely be a cost-saving reform of the so-called Welfare State. So, yes, such a ‘partial basic income’ is something possible under capitalism.

What BIEN, the Green Party and others want is universal ‘free money’, a payment by the state to everyone as a step towards a different kind of society or at least a different kind of capitalism. The big difference is that the ‘free money’ would be paid, not just to the poor, but to every wage and salary worker too, in fact to everyone, even capitalists (‘Green Party unveils manifesto plans to . . . give cash handouts to millionaires by introducing a universal basic income, as the Daily Mail (24 May) put it, typically). One major objection to this can be summed up in a single word –  Speenhamland.

Wage subsidy for employers

In 1795 the magistrates in this Berkshire village decided to pay some ‘free money’ out of the Poor Law rate to poor but working farm labourers so as to bring their income up to a subsistence level. This amounted to a subsidy to their employers who were thereby able to continue to pay below subsistence, i.e. starvation wages. The practice later spread to other counties in the South of England. Marx mentions this in passing in Volume I of Capital:

  ‘At the end of the eighteenth century and during the first decade of the nineteenth, the English farmers and landlords enforced the absolute minimum of wages by paying the agricultural workers less than the minimum as actual wages and making up the balance in the form of parish relief.’

In fact, all state payments to workers are a wage subsidy to employers. The tax credits that Gordon Brown introduced are widely recognised as being this, but so are family allowances (which have relieved employers of the need to include an element or so much an element for maintaining a family in the wages they pay).

When in June last year there was a referendum in Switzerland on the principle of introducing UBI its advocates didn’t disguise the fact that its introduction would reduce wages. In fact they openly admitted, even proposed it:

  ‘Wages are going to adapt themselves to become a complement to Basic Income. For example with an Unconditional Basic Income of 2,500 Swiss Francs, someone who at present gets 8000 Swiss francs from their employer will not get more than about 5,500 or so wages which will come to be added to their Basic Income’ (LINK).

Beyond the wages system?

So, everybody would be given ‘free money’ by the state up to the poverty line and this would be topped up by wages paid by their employer. Some, such as the advocates of ‘Fully Automated Luxury Communism’, see this as a  first step towards breaking the link between work and consumption. They envisage the part coming from the state in people’s income gradually increasing until this is where their most of their income comes from – a gradual dying out of the wages system.

That’s not going to happen. If the wages system is going to be abolished (as it should be) it won’t and can’t be done gradually, but what about the state paying everyone a povertyline basic income? Could this happen? Capitalism is based on the wages system, on most people being forced by economic necessity to work for an employer to get money to buy the things that they need. A universal basic income paid to everyone would undermine this. While it would not remove the pressure to work for an employer it would put workers in a better bargaining position with their employers over wages. This wouldn’t be a bad thing of course, but it would have economic consequences. The higher wages would be at the expense of profits, but profits are what make the capitalist economy go round.

But more, where is the money to come from? Since the state produces nothing it would have to come from taxation but in the end taxation falls on profits (taxes on wages, as both Adam Smith and David Ricardo recognised, are passed on to employers). So, unless wages fall as the Swiss basic-incomers advocate, UBI would represent a massive redistribution of income from profits, the source of investment, to popular consumption. This would severely disrupt the capitalist economic system which is driven by investment for profit.

If, on the other hand, wages did fall, it would represent a redistribution of income within the capitalist class from those employing fewer workers to those employing many; which would cause other problems and disputes. So, as far as capitalism is concerned, it does not make sense and wouldn’t work. It’s just not going to happen. Even so, there is quite a bit of common ground in the arguments advanced in favour of UBI and those in favour of socialism. Both start from the same realisation that we are living in an age of potential abundance but that this abundance is not realised as resources are wasted in mere wealth-shifting activities such as investment banking, advertising, and legal services (our list is longer since socialism would render money and the whole financial system redundant). If these, and other forms of waste, were eliminated then society could produce enough to eliminate poverty, improve education and health care, and provide everybody with a comfortable   retirement. This is undoubtedly true. This redirecting of resources currently wasted, together with the removal of the profit barrier, would mean that more useful goods and services could be provided and an abundance – a sustainable abundance – achieved.

Socialism would also decouple consumption from work. In other words, what you consumed would no longer be tied to how much you obtained from the sale of your working skills or even to how much work you did (or were deemed to have done). After all, this is precisely what the slogan “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs” means. But this of course is not going to be possible under capitalism.

So, to sum up: while an unconditional income for the poor is possible under capitalism as a reform of the welfare state, a universal unconditional basic income for everyone is not. The objectives which those who favour it want – a sustainable abundance and breaking the link between consumption and work – can only be achieved on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production.

Adam Buick