World View: Workers have no country (1995)

From the December 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

On 30 October 1995 the Quebec Sovereignty Referendum failed by the slimmest of margins— 50.6 percent NO, 49.4 percent YES. Nothing has been resolved, the sovereigntists say that they'll keep trying, and the federalists hardly got a resounding show of support. The issue remains, and it's an issue that spans the globe. Everywhere, it seems, people want 'their own’ sovereign country.

There are two ways to look at Quebec sovereignty.The first is an emotional, irrational approach that considers ideas of power as opposed to the reality of power, and uses claims (long proved false) of how the economy functions.

The other is to consider what will really change if Quebec, some day, decides in favour of sovereignty.

Both sides, YES and NO, chose the emotional and irrational approach.

The Yes side argues that Quebecois will be inherently better off in a nation governed by Quebecois. They have not shown any real benefits to the Quebecois working class. Nor has the history of "independence” around the world been supportive of the Yes claim.

The No side predicts the most dire results for Quebec, ignoring the fact that Canada would suffer if it did not trade with Quebec. The No side lined up an impressive list of company owners, directors and such. Some sovereigntists responded, without justification, that if the rich oppose “independence" then "independence" must be good for those who aren’t rich.

The necessities of life

Most sane people are more worried about the necessities of life: putting food on the table, a roof over their head, and other such mundane—and ultimately far more important—considerations, than the name of the state they happen to live in.

History has shown, without doubt, that the Yes or No choice is a choice of which politicians get to sit next to the steering wheel as the ship of state careers back and forth in the winds of economic reality.

“Independence" is a word used to stir up emotions. An "independent" Quebec will be no more independent than it is today. It will still have to conform to global economic pressures which govern how much food will be on the table of the average person. The current economic system doesn’t play favourites based upon national, ethnic, or cultural sovereignty.

Capital investment and migration is based upon the likelihood of making better profits, not upon which of the largely irrelevant politicians form the government.

Nationalist, quasi-racist"issues" such as Quebec "independence" are not the issues that will solve the problems that working class people in Quebec, Canada, and the rest of the world face every day. The fundamental differences are far greater between rich Canadians and working class Canadians, than between working class Canadians and working class Quebecois or working class Peruvians, or any member of the working class anywhere.

Different languages, skin tones, sexes, and customs pale next to the economic differences in a single country or ethnic grouping. The working class will never be served by nationalism or its bed-mate, racism. Since the referendum failed, several prominent sovereigntists including the, now resigned, Premier of Quebec, have blamed the “ethnics” for the defeat of the referendum. Their racist undercurrent for the white descendants of the original French conquerors of Quebec has come out.

It is no surprise that the “International Socialists" (same as SWP in the UK) supported Quebec "independence" just as they support most such inherently racist "independence” movements, while claiming to oppose racism.

If Quebecois, in the future, decide to separate, they should not expect it to improve their lives. Capitalist economics has a very forceful way of ensuring that the world remains class-divided, and that the working class is at the bottom of that division.

Quebecois, and the rest of the world's working class don’t need a change in politicians. we need an end to class division. 

Steve Szalai (Socialist Party of Canada)

Why not socialism now? (1998)

From the May 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why does the World Socialist Movement not get involved in social activism, in trying to do something now under capitalism?

There is an endless stream of issues under capitalism and a myriad of organizations are involved in them. These issues are clearly attractive to people and generate a huge amount of donations. For example, Greenpeace International has 2.9 million members, six ships and a $153-million budget (as of September 1996). So why don't Socialists get involved too?

Every organization has to decide what it is working for, and whether that aim is important. When the first of the parties in the World Socialist Movement was founded in 1904, it decided it was going to work for socialism.

The socialist analysis of society shows that capitalism itself is the underlying cause of most of the problems which the social activists want to solve. The social activists attack the symptoms but ignore the cause. Social activists work to reform capitalism, socialists work to eliminate capitalism: the cause of the problems.

If people eliminate the cause of the problems, the problems won't keep cropping up. Instead of trying to fix the symptoms, year in and year out, forever, people can eliminate the cause, once. Then we can all get on with living our lives in a world where solutions actually solve problems, instead of just covering up symptoms.

Emotionally difficult

This approach can be emotionally difficult. It may even mean that someone dies today, who might have been saved by social activism. A simple analogy to explain the socialist perspective.

If a pipe bursts and the water is rising on the floor, one can start bailing the water out while it continues to flow in, or one can turn the water off, and then start bailing. It may take a while to find the tap, and some valuables might be destroyed while searching, but unless the water is turned off, the water will continue to rise and bailing is rather pointless.

Socialists are not immune to the human tragedies which occur daily, by the millions, and which generate thousands of social activist groups trying to stem the tide. Socialists suffer those tragedies as severely as anyone else, but work to encourage people to find the tap and turn it off.

If the reform actions of the social activists saved everyone who might have died today, it would be harder to question their approach. But the fact is they don't even come close. After the Holocaust in the 1940s, people said "Never Again". In the 1990s, genocide was on people's minds again, for a few hours, when the atrocities in Srebrenica, Bosnia hit the front pages. Genocide didn't stop for 50 years. It continued all along in places such as East Timor, but wasn't, apparently, important enough to make the front pages. The environment promoting genocide didn't go away, and so neither did genocide.

If the social activists had solved the myriad of problems, or were even to be able to say that things were steadily improving, that would argue in favour of their approach to social activism.

But that is not the case. The reality is that the reforms which the social activists promote do not work. The social activists are not gaining much, if any, ground, and the same problems continue to appear. It is often one step forward, several steps back.

That is the reality of capitalism. Social activism cannot change that.

Or rather what most people call "social activism" can't change it. Socialists are social activists, and suggest that working to eliminate the cause of the problems is the most valuable type of social activism.

Socialists make a choice. We choose to use our time and limited funds to work to eliminate the cause of the problems. One can pick any problem and often one can find that real improvements have taken place, usually after a very long period of agitation. Rarely, if ever, has the problem disappeared, and usually other related problems have cropped up to fill the vacuum of destruction or suffering left by the "solution".

After hundreds of years of social activism, both the problems of war and poverty, which most people consider to be rather important, are still major problems and are nowhere near solution. War didn't stop in 1918 or 1945, it continues every day, somewhere in the world. The anti-war movement seems to be fading out without ending war.

The anti-poverty movement is now marginal. Eliminating war and poverty are no longer even in the realm of discussion for reformists. The reformists have failed.

Reformism has failed

Some environmentalists tell us that if the environment is destroyed all the rest won't matter. That is true enough, but there is little indication that the huge, well-funded environmental movement is making much real headway. For example, since the Rio Earth Summit, the forests of Brazil, sometimes called "the lungs of the planet", are being destroyed faster than before.

Worldwatch Institute tells us that millions of hectares of tropical and deciduous forest still disappear each year, and carbon dioxide emissions are at record highs.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently reported that major air pollutants have decreased by nearly 30 percent over the last 25 years, while the economy grew. That's good. But does anyone think that the fight for breathable air is over? It isn't, and if industry moves out of a country to get less strict (cheaper) regulations, the fight will get a lot harder.

Maurice Strong, who was Secretary General of the Rio Earth Summit, and now heads the Earth Council, says "far too few countries, companies, institutions, communities and citizens have made the choices and changes needed to advance the goals of sustainable development." Strong also tells us that 100 countries are worse off today than 15 years ago, with 1.3 billion people earning less than $1 a day.

Socialists have been saying for over 90 years that reforming capitalism won't solve the problems and we have been proven correct so far. People who say that it is too early to accept that verdict seem willing to wait another 90 years to see what has, by then, transpired.

If socialists are correct, that would mean another 90 years of war, of poverty, of economic crises, of environmental destruction. It means that and more, as the destructive capability of society increases daily. There is no even moderately compelling evidence that socialists are wrong. There is compelling evidence that socialists are right.

Socialism is what socialists want, so socialism is what they work for, not the reforms of the "social activists".

The Companion Parties of Socialism, in the World Socialist Movement, are socialist parties. They promote socialism because that is all a socialist party can promote.

If you find a "socialist" party promoting "social activism", you'll have found a non-socialist party ignoring socialism and working for reforms, not solutions.

A tiny group of socialists can't solve the world's problems; only a huge, socialist majority can do that. It is up to every individual to create that majority, and to use it to turn off the tap of capitalism, so that the problems can be solved.

Steve Szalai

The need for socialism (2004)

From the April 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx states: “No social order ever perishes before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself” (Preface to A Critique of Political Economy).

It is difficult to show that this claim is correct, but that does not make it irrelevant. It provides us with a starting point to consider whether the material conditions for a socialist society exist today. It also suggests we look at whether capitalism has outlived its role as a progressive economic force in history. For if there is a solution to the problems we face today, certainly it is desirable to implement that solution. And if capitalism is not that solution, and has outlived its usefulness, then surely we are obliged, for our own sakes, to abandon the only economic system any of us has ever known. That is obviously a serious undertaking, and perhaps a frightening one, but one which has been successfully undertaken before, for example, to establish capitalism.

Does the current mode of production ─ capitalism ─ act as a fetter upon production? Are the material conditions which currently exist, sufficiently mature to support new, higher relations of production: socialism?

In 1992, Professor Vulimiri Ramalingaswami, Chair of the World Health Organization medical research committee, told the world that we have the ability to produce enough food for everyone. The ability and technology currently exists to feed, clothe, and house every human being on the planet. However, that ability and technology cannot be used to feed, clothe, and house billions of human beings. Even in supposedly wealthy countries such as Canada, about eight percent of the population had difficulty putting food on the table at least once in 1998-99, according to Statistics Canada. Yet Canada is a net exporter of food. And people freeze to death in the streets because they have no home. Yet Canada is a net exporter of lumber. Something is wrong with this picture: capitalism.

According to the World Health Organization, one child dies, and another is disabled, every twelve seconds, day and night, because they cannot afford vaccines costing about $10 (£5.25). The World Health Organization also tells us that in the United States, tuberculosis, an easily-cured disease of the poor, is increasing. Something is wrong with this picture: capitalism.

Although capitalism cannot provide necessary food and medication for our children, it  spends more than $350,000 (£184,000) every twelve seconds on arms (guns, bombs, jet fighters, aircraft carriers, landmines, etcetera). Socialists do not suggest that the arms budget should be used to feed and care for children and the rest of us. As desirable as such diversion may sound, we know that capitalism must spend that money to protect capitalists from other capitalists, and from the working class. Military spending under capitalism is not optional, it is an absolute necessity. Redirecting the money from war, to help the starving, the homeless, and the sick, is impossible. Something is wrong with this picture: capitalism.

The current material productive forces are in conflict with the relations of production. We should clarify these terms. “Material productive forces” refers to the things actually involved in production, such as workers, land, factories, mines, and transportation. The “relations of production” is somewhat more difficult to explain. It involves such things as whether production occurs, who owns the material productive forces, and who owns the results of production. Currently, the relationship between people and land, factories, mines, and transportation, divides people into two groups. One group owns those things. The other group must use its physical and mental labour to turn raw materials into finished products. Workers produce everything from food to education, from automobiles to hammers, from houses to hospitals, and from shopping malls to factories. We even produce the weapons used to kill each other in capital’s wars.

Those who own the means of production (basically the material productive forces excluding workers), control when, where, and how production takes place. If a factory owner decides to shut down a factory, the workers have no say in the matter. If the owners of an automobile manufacturing company decide to move their factories to Canada, or Mexico, or the United States, or Japan, or Taiwan, it is their choice. They own the means of production. If the owners of a food processing plant believe that they cannot sell their product for a profit, they have the right to shut down the plant. That right is theirs even if the processing plant produced all of the food in the world.

The products of the factories are owned by those who own the factories. The owners may have never been on the same continent as the factory, but they nonetheless own everything produced in the factory. Those who do the actual work have no legal right to the products they have produced. Those who own the means and the products of production, and who control production, are capitalists. The rest of us are the working class. With that understanding of material productive forces and relations of production, we can continue our examination.

We have developed our ability to produce to a level which easily enables us to meet everyone’s needs. But the relations of production-capitalism-disable us. Capitalism cannot accommodate that necessary production. By and large people do not go hungry because there is no food, but because they are, from the unalterable perspective of capitalism, unworthy: they cannot afford to eat. They cannot afford to eat because from capitalism’s perspective there is no reason to employ them and pay them. We have developed the material productive forces to such an extent that fewer and fewer workers can produce more and more of the things we need to live. But still, people cannot get the necessities of life.

Those of us who haven’t been hungry, who’ve always managed to scrape together enough money to purchase clothing and housing and medical care, may think that they are somehow excluded from these negative effects of capitalism. Don’t be so sure. Some of those people in Canada who had difficulty putting food on the table where members of what Statistics Canada euphemistically calls the “middle-class.” Canadian workers used to wonder why Japanese workers would not take all of their holidays. Now Canadian workers are doing the same thing, for the same reason. They are afraid for their jobs. More and more, workers are working an extra half-hour or an hour or more, before they leave work for the day, or they take work home. They are producing extra profit for the capitalists, but no extra pay for themselves. Even though fewer workers produce more, it isn’t enough for the capitalists.

For years we have been told that improvements in production should mean reduced working hours. Instead it means that many of us work longer hours for the same pay. Many others are not permitted to work because capital does not require their labour. This is more evidence that our productive ability has outstripped the ability of capitalism to accommodate our ability to produce.

The apologists for capital would have us believe that Karl Marx was wrong about (almost?) everything he said and wrote. But it is clear that “the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production.” Marx was right.

Most workers do not believe that capitalism itself is the problem. The media, which is a propaganda outlet owned and controlled by capitalists, encourages us to blame anything but capitalism. Most of us do not see through the propaganda, but most of us complain of capitalism’s effects. We attempt to subvert its actions for our own good, and we direct our dissatisfaction in a million directions. We grumble and complain about our lot in life. We busy ourselves with hobbies so that we don’t have time to think about our problems, or solve them. We try to change the laws; we see beauty in things which are not; and we philosophize that humanity is incapable of solving the problems of production. We invent religions which denigrate our humanity, and which offer a solution in the mythical, never-never land of the future. And sometimes we change religions, hoping for better.

We are encouraged to do all of these things because it blinds us to the source of our problems. But even with all the diversions, there are strikes and riots in the streets. As Marx wrote, all of these things are how we “fight it out.” Even the riots are used by capitalism. People are so frustrated by capitalism’s obvious failure that they lash out blindly with riots and terrorism. Rioting workers and terrorist workers make it easy to justify further repression of dissent. The rioters and terrorists are easy to attack, because they really have no solution, only rage.

Workers have good reason to be angry. Workers have no good reason to destroy useful things produced by other workers, or to hurt other workers. But in desperate anger, can one be surprised that some occasionally do? However, rage and desperation rarely clarify the facts. To solve the problems we need to understand why society does not work for us. We need to understand the structure of society, and the real enemy. Workers are boxing with shadows, and paying for the “privilege.”

Socialists are accused of ignoring the obvious improvements capitalism has wrought since it defeated feudalism. Our accusers are wrong. Socialists have clearly stated that capitalism was a necessary stage in human development. At its outset capitalism was progressive: it freed the burgeoning productive forces from the restraints of feudalism, and forced workers to produce wealth which would have been unimaginable before capitalism. Capitalism has evolved from an agent for development of the productive forces, into a roadblock. It is time to remove the roadblock.

The material conditions for new, higher relations of production have been carried in the womb of capitalism for too long. It is time for a birthing. It is time to release our ability to produce and to solve our problems, by providing the appropriate relations of production: socialism.

Steve Szalai

Cutbacks

From the Capitalism's Gravediggers website

Everyone, it seems, recognizes the need for cutbacks in both the private and government sectors during the current economic downturn. Some argue for increased government spending to stimulate the economy. Many argue about which government programmes should be cut. Few argue against all cuts.

Recession is one of capitalism's self-regulatory processes. Few enjoy them, but as everyone knows, that is just the way it is.

There are still enough workers — skilled, unskilled, white collar, blue collar — to do all the work needed to continue every government programme, and to make every product and staff every service, just as before the recession. The raw resources still exist.

The need for the programmes, products, and services has not disappeared.

But people are losing their jobs and their homes.

Capitalism cannot be concerned about people's jobs and homes. Capitalism does not have a conscience. Capitalism does not have malevolent intent. Capitalism is not a conspiracy and it is not sick. Capitalism is an economic system with its own rules and regulations. They are inherent in capitalism, just as gravity is inherent in mass. Capitalism's rules cannot be changed.

Capitalism's Gravediggers wants people to understand that capitalism is working as it must. No tinkering, no ‘revolutionary’ or evolutionary changes can make capitalism something else, or change its rules.

But people can free themselves from capitalism's rules by replacing capitalism with socialism.

Socialism will be no more and no less moral than capitalism. Socialism will have inherent rules which govern how it must function. But socialism's rules will not be capitalism's rules.

Instead of rules which demand production be dependent upon the expectation of profit, socialism will demand that if people's needs can be met, they will be met.

Instead of rules which generate unemployment and its attendant hardship when workers produce more than can be sold at a profit, the leisure long promised by technology will be delivered.

Instead of rules which force people from their homes, or into unsatisfactory housing, everyone will have a home.

Instead of rules which govern society based upon arcane money economics, socialism will be based upon our ability to provide for each other’s needs. That ability has existed for a long time, but capitalism cannot turn our ability into sufficient goods and services of the kind and quality required to satisfy our needs.

We can accept the hardships of recession, or we can build socialism.

Steve Szalai

The making of “killing machines” (1996)

Book Review from the May 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Killing. By Lt. Col. Dave Grossman. (Little-Brown.)

Wartime killing, what can be and has been learned from it, and how that affects society as a whole, is the subject of Grossman's book On Killing. It is a must read for any who believe that humans are killing machines, only restrained from killing by fear of punishment. Grossman also tangentially addresses both social and anti-social behaviour. Grossman accepts war as a requirement of human society, and provides little insight into solutions, but the value of the book is its presentation of an important facet of human behaviour with a generally scientific approach.

Grossman seems to have had three major points to make when writing this book. The first, and the focus of the first half of the book, is that soldiers have a very strong revulsion for killing. He presents compelling historical evidence from military historians, and their interviews with veterans, to support this claim. Grossman says that some of the evidence is open to question, but overall it offers little room for doubt.

The second point is that US Vietnam veterans have not had the necessary and traditional processes to facilitate the rationalization and acceptance of their killing experiences.

This has left them with a significant rate of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, manifesting itself as "recurrent and intrusive dreams and recollections", "emotional blunting, social withdrawal, exceptional difficulty or reluctance in initiating or maintaining intimate relationships, and sleep disturbances. These symptoms can in turn lead to . . . alcoholism, divorce and unemployment."

The third is that the techniques which have been used successfully by the military to bypass the human revulsion for killing are now in widespread use on youth.

Grossman explains the factors he believes most influence whether a soldier will kill, and finds predisposition to killing in only about 2 percent of soldiers.

The most startling evidence to many will be that in WW I and II, most soldiers (80-85 percent) did not even fire their guns, because they could not bring themselves to kill even when they were being fired at by the "enemy".

Grossman tells us that the military then developed conditioning techniques, based on the "operant conditioning" pioneered by B.F. Skinner. In the U.S.-Vietnam war, only 5% of US soldiers failed to fire. This evidences the degree to which human beings can be conditioned to do almost anything, and Grossman provides evidence from other studies showing similar results.

Perhaps most frightening is his discussion of using the same conditioning on society in general, and on youths in particular. Grossman argues that this conditioning is now the heart of many violent films and video arcade games. He does not fall into the trap of seeing every killing in film as creating sociopathic viewers. He relates that the U.S. military incorporates (the enemy is bad), and control in its conditioning, so that the soldier has a "justice" (the enemy is bad), and control in its conditioning, so that the soldier has a "reason", and must be told to kill. In the films and video arcade games he criticizes, "justice" is often absent: killing is done for the sake of killing, and there is no control.

Grossman provides evidence to support his contention that this conditioning towards violence is actually having substantial results in U.S. society. Although a correlation between violence on TV, in film, and in video games, and violence in society does not prove causation, Grossman notes: "there comes a point when, in spite of this type of reasoning, we must accept . . . the verdict of 217 correlation studies".

He suggests that the solution to this societal conditioning may be "to censure (not censor) those who exploit violence for profit".

He's pointed to the real problem, but doesn't see it.

Steve Szalai

US Vacations?

From the Capitalism's Gravediggers Website

Long ago, technology promised that it would free us from the mundane tasks of life and work so we would have more free time to enjoy ourselves.

According to the Conference Board, which is a private research organization in the United States, that promise appears to have been broken. 40 percent of American workers will not be taking summer holidays in 2006. That is the lowest recorded percentage in 28 years. The Bureau of Labour Statistics in the U.S. gives us the fact that almost a quarter of American workers get no paid holidays. A third take only one week-long holiday per year.

The promise was not fulfilled because it was a trick. If society worked for workers we would have the free time to enjoy. But society works for the employers, so we are expected to produce more, and more, and more. And notably lately, with less, and less, and less. Workers now produce much more as a result of the technology we have developed. But the pressure is still constantly upon us to produce even more. When the paid hours run out, all that are left are the unpaid hours.

So workers work unpaid overtime, unpaid through their lunch "breaks," and through their "holidays." Perhaps some get paid for the hours they work instead of taking holidays, but it is a benefit due them from their employment contracts, and they are giving it back to the employer.

Do workers in the United States love their jobs and employers so much? Are they no longer interested in a break away from work?

Worker productivity is supposedly calculated based upon hours worked. Capitalism's Gravediggers suspects that those calculations do not include the unpaid hours and the worked holidays of workers in the United States. That would inflate their supposed productivity. If so, it still might be that American workers would show high productivity rates if those unpaid hours were included, but distortion is distortion.

Workers are played off against other workers, within a country and around the world. The need to be competitive is a feature of capitalist production, and is not inherent in production. When we replace production for profit with production for use, the promise of technology will finally be realized.

Steve Szalai