Nature, production and system change (2021)

From the November 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

System change not climate change. Yes, but how and why do social systems change? What is behind this?

What do we mean when we say we ‘produce’ something? What are we doing? Basically, we are changing the form of something that originally came from nature (or, rather, the rest of nature, since of course we are part of it ourselves). We are changing nature, with the ultimate aim of surviving better within it. All animals, in fact all living things, do. Nature is not something static. Like everything else, it is changing all the time – not just through physical forces like the weather, volcanic activity, solar activity, but also through the activity of living things, both plants and animals.

All living things work, in the sense of expending energy, to extract from the rest of nature what they need to survive. Humans are no exception. We have to as well.

Although other animals are better at doing many things with their bodies than humans are (better eyesight, hearing, sense of smell, but also other abilities we don’t possess), our particular nature as an animal (symbolic thought, vocalisation, writing, prolonged maturation and passing on knowledge) gives us one advantage over all other animals. We are not dependent just on our own bodies – our hands, arms, legs, etc – to extract what we need from the rest of nature. We can make instruments (from materials found in nature) to help us do this:

‘The use and construction of instruments of labour, although present in germ among certain species of animals, is characteristic of the specifically human labour process, and Franklin therefore defines man as ‘a tool-making animal’ (Marx, Capital, Vol 1, ch 7).

Benjamin Franklin’s definition is a good one. We are tool-making animals, i.e, we are animals, but specifically animals which make and use tools. These tools have evolved and developed over time:

‘Darwin has directed attention to the history of natural technology, i.e, the formation of the organs of plants and animals, which serve as instruments of production for sustaining their life. Does not the history of the productive organs of man in society, of organs that are the material basis of every particular organisation of society, deserve equal attention?’ (Marx, ch 15, section 1).

It does, because:

‘Technology reveals the active relation of man to nature, the direct process of the production of his life, and thereby it also lays bare the process of the production of the social relations of his life, and of the mental conceptions that flow from those relations.’

This is the ‘materialist conception of history’. Today, all serious theories of history are ‘materialist’ in the sense that they analyse history in terms of material causes. The idea that history is the working out of some god’s plan or that some god intervenes in history – what might be called ‘the creationist conception of history’ – is as absurd as creationism is in biology.

The ‘matter’ of the materialist conception of history is how humans are organised to meet their material needs, how they are organised to produce these from the rest of nature. The different technologies used by human societies to obtain from nature what they need give rise to different forms of society and as technology changes so does society; in fact as technology develops and progresses so does human society.

But how exactly do changes in technology – changes in the way humans interact with nature to live – lead to a change in the structure of society?

Chapter 1 of the Communist Manifesto of 1848 famously opens with: ‘The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.’ How, then, are class struggles related to changes in technology?

‘It is the development of tools, of these technical aids which men direct, which is the main cause, the propelling force of all social development. It is self-understood that the people are ever trying to improve these tools so that their labour be easier and more productive, and the practice they acquire in using these tools, leads their thoughts upon further improvements. Owing to this development, a slow or quick progress of technique takes place, which at the same time changes the social forms of labour. This leads to new class relations, new social institutions and new classes. At the same time social, ie, political struggles arise. Those classes predominating under the old process of production try to preserve artificially their institutions, while the rising classes try to promote the new process of production; and by waging the class struggles against the ruling class and by conquering them they pave the way for the further unhindered development of technique’ (Anton Pannekoek, Marxism and Darwinism, 1909, Chapter II).

The materialist conception of history explains the change from one system of society to another, not just in terms of slow technological changes, but in terms also of a class struggle, with one class championing a new technology against an entrenched class benefiting from institutions relevant to an outdated technology. Such a disconnect exists today, and has done for some 150 years, between already ‘socialised’ methods of production, a vast cooperative effort linking people working in different parts of the world, and property institutions dating from a time when production was still local and individual. Before humanity can organise its current relationship with the rest of nature in a rational and sustainable way this contradiction has to be ended.

Adam Buick

Words and Men. — Part 2 (1933)

From the November 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1

Here it is necessary to deviate from the path of literature proper to recall certain landmarks of this revolutionary epoch.

In England the feudal barons were engaged in the internecine squabbles called Wars of the Roses (1455-1485), which represent the death agony of the feudal aristocracy and ended by exterminating or impoverishing all the leading barons and establishing, with the Tudor Henry VII, a dynasty embodying the alliance between the central monarchy and the burgher guilds.

Gutenberg in 1445 had perfected his printing press, a copy of which was introduced into England by Caxton in 1477. This invention was of inestimable value to literature; it meant that books became comparatively cheap and ceased to be an aristocratic or priestly monopoly; the spread of knowledge to all classes was now possible.

Following a period of keen competition among the various Mediterranean traders came the siege and capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453. This finally blocked the most important route to India and the Far East, whence came not merely luxury silks and ornaments, but the gold and silver required by commercial society and the condiments and spices vitally necessary at a time when there was no efficient means of preserving meat. Supreme incentive was thus given to the attempts at finding a new route to the East; Prince Henry in 1460, Diaz in 1486 and Da Gama in 1498 coasted round Africa until the way to India lay open; Columbus in 1492 and the Cabots in 1497 attempted a westward passage and came across America; Amerigo Vespucci crossed the South Atlantic in 1500 and in 1520 Magellan followed him, rounded Cape Horn and ended by circumnavigating the globe. Gold and silver were at first obtained by robbing or taxing the natives; later rich deposits were discovered in Bolivia and Mexico in the first quarter of the sixteenth century. The increase in navigation led to far-reaching astronomical investigation, and soon all ideas of the nature of the universe had been entirely revolutionised.

This vigorous stir and bustle of adventuring after new worlds immeasurably extended the bounds of literature, enriching its vocabulary and multiplying its subjects. Moreover, Constantinople had for centuries been the cultural descendant of classical antiquity, the centre of European learning. The invasion of their city by the “infidel” Turks sent hundreds of scholars with their scientific instruments' and ancient manuscripts into Western Europe, particularly Italy and France, where their command of philosophy, literature, art and science received unstinted appreciation from an expanding society athirst for every aspect of knowledge.

In England the Renaissance was assisted by the closing of the monasteries, which left numbers of men with no ideas of living but the sale of their ability to read and write.

By the opening of the sixteenth century merchant capitalism had taken root all over Western Europe ; it brought a period of strong monarchies, increased leisure, comparative peace, and enormous intellectual activity of every kind, and notably a rapid growth of diverse and elaborate forms of art: painting, engraving, sculpture, gold and silver work, wood-carving, architecture, poetry, philosophical works, satire, essays, “Utopias," stories of adventure real and imagined. This time of prolific expression is called the Re-Birth or Renaissance. In it we see the enterprise, vitality and optimism of the new and lively ruling class finding an immediate and abundant echo in every art form as yet known to man.

The Renaissance in literature is represented in England by poets like Thomas Wyatt and, later, Spenser and Philip Sidney, essayists or philosophers like Thomas More, Bacon and Thomas Browne, and playwrights like Marlowe, Jonson and Shakespeare. In France it early found complete and peerless expression in Francois Rabelais, who more than any other one man is the prototype of the fresh order of society. His first work, Gargantua, appeared in 1532, twelve years after the first journey round the world; he produced three others before his death in 1552. The key-note of them all is an ardent devotion to “universal science” and a boundless love of life. Life is good; the world is good; mankind must have every freedom to develop fully in all directions; original sin is absurd, metaphysical speculation of any kind is absurd; let us collect concrete facts about this amazing universe and approach its most diverse aspects with unquenchable curiosity. The bourgeois class, as it gathered its strength to throw off the shackles of feudalism, was grasping at the whole world, not at mere abstractions and forms, but at life itself; and that is what Rabelais offers. He cares nothing for beauty or morality, and hardship and suffering are but further manifestations of the abundant variety of life. This was, of course, a highly convenient philosophy for a society engaged in establishing a new form of the slave trade. His terrific command of words reflects the fertility of his brain, his gigantic optimism the vision of a new world both physical and intellectual.

He was followed in France by the sceptical individualist Montaigne, whose use of the essay-form was coincident with the growth of the physical sciences, especially astronomy, mechanics and hydrostatics, whose insistence on personal liberty was typical of a society desirous of unlimited free competition, but whose pessimism showed that the high hopes of limitless expansion for mankind held at the time of Rabelais were not being fulfilled. This streak of pessimism is to run through all French literature so long as the anachronisms of feudal organisation remain to dam the tide of social change.

Some seventy years after Rabelais comes Shakespeare (1564-1616). The bourgeois class in England had been able to develop fairly freely, and English buccaneers were supreme on the high seas; the landowners and merchants had achieved a temporary compromise, and society as a whole presented a stable aspect. Individualism by now was taken for granted, and literature was becoming more and more subjective. Moreover, the anti-Catholic feeling had its effect on literature; men studied languages in order to criticise Church texts, and history in order to score off Church legends. Shakespeare is always subjective, even in natural description; his vocabulary is much influenced by foreign words and his histories formed part of a complete cycle of English and ancient history; Marlowe’s Edward II belonged to the same cycle. Shakespeare’s subject matter is generally trivial or melodramatic; he is invariably concerned with emotion rather than thought; such moralising as he offers is complacent, never stimulating. But he is the most brilliant master of language yet seen: and there lies his chief importance. His fluent, supple, incisive metaphors and startlingly virile similes rendered an incalculable service to English speech.

Contemporary with Shakespeare were a number of lyric poets such as Fletcher, Drummond, Campion and Drayton, most of whose verse celebrates the ups and downs of romantic love. This form of literature is frequent in leisured society. But the Elizabethan lyrics are distinguished by their diversity of form and metaphor, their elegant language. At this time also began the steady intrusion of introspective religion into poetry. The merchant capitalists were not altogether satisfied with the Elizabethan compromise, and their dissatisfaction found some outlet, prior to open revolt under Cromwell, in an ever sterner and more uncompromising Protestantism. The current interest in the problem of religion and the State was bound to influence poetry as well as philosophy; some of John Donne’s and all George Herbert’s work exemplified the tendency, but its political aspect is most greatly voiced by Milton. His deep impatience of authority and vast self- confidence (“to justify the ways of God to man”), together with his bold experiments in metre and rhythm (Lycidas is written in free-verse) are all clearly symptomatic of a rebellious and arrogant movement in society. It is impossible to read Paradise Lost or Samson Agonistes without envisaging the old rebel, undaunted in spite of defeat and difficulty.

Stella Stewart.

Link to Part 3

Pedalling in Ever-decreasing Circles (2011)

From the July 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Cycling is popular again but what happened to the old Clarion Cycling Club?

The metamorphosis of the precarious Ordinary – “Penny Farthing” – into its essentially present-day “Safety” format in the 1880s and a steady reduction in manufacturing costs, saw the bicycle by the following decade fast-becoming the main means of personal working class transport. Villagers and townies, hitherto isolated, could now venture healthily afield, widening geographical and social horizons, seeking erudition and enlightenment, diversifying and enriching the gene pool.

Devastating as it undoubtedly was for “High Wheeling” aristocrats and toffs to find their pastime suddenly infested with hoi polloi, salvation, at least for the seriously affluent, was nigh: the internal combustion engine was already spluttering into life.

The latter decades of the century had seen also a renewed interest in the radical ideas that had faded somewhat in the wake of the Chartist Movement of the 1850s. In particular, Hyndman’s Democratic Federation, established in 1881, swiftly proclaimed its socialist tendency, renaming itself Social Democratic Federation by 1883. Ever an uneasy coalition, it suffered breakaway the following year when a revolutionary group that included Eleanor Marx, Belford Bax and William Morris left a fundamentally reformist organisation to found the Socialist League.

Around this same time, Sunday Chronicle journalist, Robert Blatchford – “Nunquam” – was winning acclaim with an impassioned weekly exposé of conditions in the slums of Manchester. Openly declaring for socialism however, proved just too much for a nervous proprietor and following an enforced resignation in 1891, he set up his own penny weekly, The Clarion. On relocating south to Fleet Street some four years later, circulation rose steadily eventually, by 1908, doubling to 80,000.

The Clarion’s ideals were indeed lofty: to “make socialists” by writing fearlessly and honestly about injustice and inequality, to do so unpretentiously and humorously avoiding dogma and theory and to provide a forum for divergent viewpoints. This was its mission statement and – as time would ultimately prove – its suicide note.

Perhaps inevitably, cycling men and women, enthused by these ideas, would see the obvious advantages of the bicycle in spreading the message and at an 1894 meeting convened by young Brummie Tom Groom, a “socialist Cycling Club” was created; its name promptly amended to “Clarion” in honour of the journal. Reports of the club’s early activities – joyful, propagandising excursions requiring “boozometers rather than speedometers” – led swiftly to the formation of Clarion clubs elsewhere and an Easter Meet was arranged at Ashbourne in Derbyshire the following year to organise a national body.

The inaugural conference held there was an unpromising, damp, outdoor affair and the accompanying public rally fared little better; speakers harangued throughout by a “beery person”: “Aw don’t know nowt and Aw don’t want to know nowt.” Conference duly obliged by delivering…er, nowt. Notwithstanding agreement on a set of rules and adoption of a national badge and slogan – “Fellowship is Life; Lack of Fellowship is Death” from Morris’s A Dream of John Ball – no attempt was made to actually define socialism other than in the vaguest of “caring-sharing”, “happy-clappy”, “ethical” terms. Contentiously too, membership was opened to professed non-socialists, Groom strongly maintaining that “Clarion reasoning and comradeship” coupled with “physical exercise and glorious countryside” would effect speedy conversion.

The rest, as they say, is history. Whilst number-wise at least, the Club blossomed – membership nudging 7,000 in 1913 – and did despite Blatchford’s hankerings for informality, bring some order to its administrative procedures, this collective failure to achieve understanding and consensus over the actual meaning of the term “socialism” and how it might be implemented, rendered it politically impotent; tyres well and truly punctured at the bikeshed door. Ironic indeed since by 1914, the Club badge now also incorporated a proud “Socialism the Hope of the World”.

And as for the redoubtable Blatchford, it was terminal decline; his initial demand for “common ownership” and boast of “converting England to Socialism in seven years”, soon becoming a plea for “brotherly love and respect”, before plummeting to an outrageous exhortation for young Clarionettes to both shed and spill their working class blood in the Imperialist Cause, firstly in Transvaal and subsequently Flanders. In later life, embittered and disillusioned – “The Working Class is not yet ready for Socialism” – he embraced Conservatism, supporting Stanley Baldwin, “the finest British politician”, in the 1924 General Election.

The Clarion remained popular until 1914 but its jingoistic stance, abhorrent to so many, saw circulation collapse from sixty to ten thousand. Hostilities ended, it emerged as a smaller threepenny weekly but readership continued to haemorrhage in the wake of the 1917 Russian Revolution and the seductive pull of the new-born Communist Party of Great Britain. Repackaged in 1927 as a sixpenny monthly, life became increasingly difficult for a self-styled “independent Socialist review” supporting a Labour movement “as opposed to Bolshevism as it is to Fascism” and after a last brief tango as The New Clarion, it disappeared in 1934.

Oddly, the journal’s demise coincided with an upturn in Club numbers. Despite serious economic recession, bicycle ownership was increasing and on the back of the 1930s “outdoors/fitness” craze, membership soared to an all-time high of 8,300. To what extent the Club’s politics contributed is, of course, debatable: other pastimes, rambling and hiking for example also flourished and besides, activism within the ranks, by no means universal from inception, had continued to diminish. For that minority who remained otherwise, there was little evidence of improvement in the calibre of that activism.

Discord reigned between the pro- and anti-war camps, whilst both the Workers’ Sports Movement and Esperanto language were lauded as the keys to “developing solidarity”, “dismantling international prejudices” and “eradicating misunderstanding”. Never, throughout decades of fresh air, camaraderie and carousing, did there ever appear to have entered into the broad Clarion psyche, a recognition of the single global root cause of Humanity’s multiple socio-economic problems and therefore of the single global remedy required. It really was, and is, that straightforward.

Post-war, a brief membership boom was followed by serious decline as growing affluence brought with it mass car-ownership and in the prevailing Cold War environment, there began an inexorable process of airbrushing out its political roots. The Constitutional “propagation of the principles of Socialism” clause became “support for…” and office bearers, once required to actually belong to “an approved Socialist organisation”, could now be simply avowed socialists. And so it continued.

These days, the Clarion Cycling Club survives as a 600-strong rump and – lest it deter potential sponsors – presents itself as “The Club for Wise Cyclists”. May it prosper: pro-Human sentiments are, after all, preferable to none. It is tragic, nevertheless, that so much benevolence, enthusiasm and integrity should, for want of a bit of clarity and direction, have gone to waste; doubly so because in terms of its sloganeering at least, the Club had it pretty-well nailed all along.

And since the Socialist Party remains – on several levels – untroubled by commercial considerations, we are pleased on behalf of countless long-departed and intrepid wayfarers to brandish the muddied Clarion banner one final time: “Fellowship is Life” and “Socialism” – properly defined and understood, is indeed – “the Hope of the World”.

Andrew Armitage

The Technology Exists (1990)

From the July 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

"What is most surprising is that solutions which, used in tandem, could reduce every air pollutant by 60 to 99 per cent—or better—are already here but are simply rejected, unknown or unsold. Technologies and practices which could produce pollution-free cars, clean power plants, energy-efficient houses and a dramatically more benign environment are trapped in an obstacle course of institutional inertia, money and special interests".

— Curtis A. Moore in International Wildlife, Canada, May-June 1989.

Why the shortage of medical supplies? (2020)

From the WSPUS website

Introduction

One key feature of the coronavirus crisis is the grave shortages of medical supplies. Respiratory and surgical masks, gloves, gowns, and other personal protective equipment (PPE); ventilators, X-ray machines, and other medical devices; the various components of testing kits; even sedatives. The list goes on and on. And many things not yet in short supply will be soon. 

Anyone at all familiar with capitalist dogma regarding the wonders of the ‘free market’ must surely find these shortages surprising. After all, it is a much-celebrated virtue of this market that it balances supply and demand and satisfies consumer demand (true, only within the limits of what consumers can afford). Shortages are associated not with capitalism but with the sole recognized alternative of the pseudo-socialist Soviet-type ‘command economy.’

The shortages of medical supplies have many causes. Some are intrinsic to the capitalist system. Others are not. Examples of causes that do not flow from the nature of capitalism as a system are the corruption and/or ignorance of specific politicians such as US president Donald Trump and British prime minister Boris Johnson. A country may have honest and well-informed public officials while still being part of world capitalism. This investigation focuses mainly on causes that are closely connected with the nature of capitalism.

Admittedly, it is sometimes difficult to draw a firm line between what is intrinsic to capitalism and what is not. For instance, whether governments maintain and replenish national and subnational stockpiles of medical goods for use in emergencies is a matter of policy. As such it is not fully predetermined by the nature of capitalism. However, spending lots of money for a purpose as unprofitable as preparing for future contingencies does go against the spirit of capitalism, so neglect of stockpiling requirements does have some connection with the nature of capitalism. This helps explain why the federal government of the United States has failed to replenish the national stockpile while the State of California abandoned its own stockpile.  

I begin with a discussion of the main systemic causes that underlie shortages of existing medical goods or impede the creation and wide use of new products to assist in the fight against COVID-19 (Section 1). Then I present three case studies, focusing on specific products as follows:

Section 2.  Respiratory face masks (respirators) – the single most essential item of PPE
Section 3.  Ventilators – ‘breathing machines’ to intubate patients at risk of suffocation
Section 4.  Vaccines 

Section 1.  Systemic causes

In organizing future output of a product, the capitalist faces a degree of uncertainty. He has some knowledge of current demand for the product, but cannot be sure how much demand there will be for it at the time when it reaches the market. He may find himself saddled with a surplus that he cannot sell at a profit. In deciding whether to fund development of a new product, he faces even more uncertainty: he does not know when it will be ready for sale or even whether a usable product will emerge at all.

During the initial stage of a newly emerging epidemic (not yet a pandemic) uncertainty about future demand for medical supplies is especially great. Perhaps the epidemic will remain localized and gradually fizzle out. Perhaps it will spread rapidly, only to dissipate equally rapidly with the arrival of spring. Then demand will rise sharply but disappear before he can produce, distribute, and sell the products to satisfy it.  

Besides fear of ending up with a surplus that cannot be sold at a profit, the capitalist may have other reasons to be concerned about possible costs of trying to satisfy rising demand. As we shall see in the next section, a company that specializes in the production of face masks for use by workers in industry and construction may fear that it will be sued by new medical customers who are dissatisfied with its product. It may be willing to sell to such customers only if it is freed from legal liability.    

Note that the capitalist does not consider how he can best contribute to the treatment of patients or to the fight against the epidemic. As a capitalist he has to operate by the rules of the capitalist system. He cannot behave as a socially responsible human being. However devastating the epidemic may become, it cannot alter that. What he cares about is his ‘bottom line.’    

That said, there is still the matter of the capitalist’s attitude toward risk. Is he more concerned about capturing possible gains if higher demand is sustained or about avoiding possible losses if higher demand proves short-lived? Recent decades have seen a shift in business practice toward giving priority to the avoidance of possible losses. This shift has been associated with adoption of the so-called ‘just-in-time’ principle.

Just-in-time

The shift toward more cautious decision making began in Japan in the 1970s, when the Toyota company adopted at its manufacturing plants the practice that came to be known as ‘just-in-time’ or ‘lean’ manufacturing or the Toyota Production System. Since then this practice has spread throughout the world. The basic idea is to save on space, labor, and other costs associated with storage by producing only to satisfy demand definitely known to exist, or even only to meet orders already in hand. Maintaining production capacity or inventory to cope with possible rises in demand above this level is considered wasteful.  

Charles Johnson, president of the International Safety Equipment Association, has been quoted as saying: 

Manufacturers don’t carry inventory. If you do, you are less competitive. They produce what they need to satisfy orders. That’s what has happened to global manufacturing.

‘Just in time’ now prevails at all links of the supply chain. Retail outlets place orders with their suppliers ‘just in time.’ So do hospitals. As a result, reserves no longer exist anywhere in the system. 

When demand suddenly leaps upward, as it does for medical supplies during a pandemic, ‘just-in-time’ ensures that there will be no spare production capacity or inventory to help satisfy the increased demand. With sufficient investment it is still possible greatly to expand output, but this inevitably takes time – and in an emergency, by definition, time is short. 

A rational system of production for use would enable society to maintain reserve production capacity and inventory of essential goods adequate for foreseeable contingencies. Of course, not everything that can happen is foreseeable and mistakes of judgement will always be possible. 

Globalization

Globalization is a significant cause of the current shortages. It has led to extreme geographical concentration in the production of many goods. Specialized products especially are often available only from a single producer in a single country – and that country is rarely the United States. Thus the coronavirus test initially recommended by the Centers for Disease Control required the use of a genetic analysis kit available only from the diagnostic firm Qiagen in Germany and nasopharyngeal swabs (inserted into a nasal passage to get a sample for testing) available only from Copan, a company whose manufacturing plant is in northern Italy – a region itself hard hit by the pandemic. Unsurprisingly, clinics in the United States have been able to obtain supplies from these companies only after long delay, if at all.

However, the United States is dependent for medical supplies mainly on imports from China. Factories in China, even if owned by American corporations, suspended exports in order to meet rising domestic demand as the epidemic spread within the country. Later exports of some goods resumed, though at much higher prices. A commentator in the congressional magazine The Hill writes:

  Right now, only China has the potential production scale to meet the soaring demand in the United States and elsewhere for such vital products as medical-protective equipment, pharmaceuticals, electronics, and household essentials. It is imperative for our country and the world that we encourage the rapid recovery of Chinese production capacity. Particularly, we need China to ramp up output quickly in areas of most-critical need, such as sophisticated protective gear for doctors and nurses and pharmaceuticals/medicines for patients and households. 

Stockpiles

The Strategic National Stockpile (SNS), originally called the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile, was established in 1998 on the initiative of President Clinton. Its contents are stored at 12 secret locations in different parts of the country. A stock of protective equipment was added to the stockpile in 2006 but it was depleted during the influenza epidemic of 2009 and has not been replenished to any significant extent. Much of the equipment released from the stockpile during the current pandemic was found to be in disrepair.

The SNS has been exhausted since about April 8. Its contents were not distributed with a view to maximizing their impact. States with relatively mild outbreaks received disproportionately large amounts at the expense of ‘hotspots’ like New York and Chicago (here). Requests from states with Republican governors – Florida, for instance – were met more fully and more promptly than requests from states with Democratic governors. 

Some states had stockpiles of their own. They too are now exhausted. California used to have a very substantial stockpile, established in 2006 under Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at a cost of $200 million and containing 51 million N95 respirators, 2,400 portable ventilators, 3,700,000 courses of anti-viral medications, and three 200-bed well-equipped mobile hospitals. It was scrapped in 2011 by Governor Jerry Brown as part of cuts to reduce the state’s deficit (here). 

Patents

Especially important are new products, like an effective drug or vaccine, that might radically change the situation for the better, but only if made widely available as soon as technically possible. Unfortunately, this is not in the interest of the producing company. The way for it to maximize its profit is to take out a patent on any new product and exploit to the full the monopoly position that the patent gives it for a certain number of years. That means delaying the start of large-scale production and then charging an exorbitant price. [1] 

As we shall see in Section 4, considerations of likely profitability have a negative impact even at the stage of research and development of a new drug or vaccine, especially when funds are sought for the conduct of clinical trials. 

Patents also impede independent attempts to replicate or repair ventilators and other medical equipment.

Section 2.  Respiratory face masks

Here is how two hospital workers describe the current shortage of the protective face masks known as ‘N95 respirators’ (so called because they supposedly filter at least 95% of airborne particles):

Dr. Michael Pappas, resident physician at a hospital in New York City:

  Under normal circumstances you could be fired for re-using a single N95 mask throughout the day. You are supposed to dispose of your mask after dealing with one patient and use another for the next patient, to ensure that you do not contaminate that patient or yourself. But currently our hospital is asking healthcare workers to use only one N95 mask each day. And that’s actually a better situation than in most New York City hospitals, which give staff one N95 mask that they’re supposed to carry around in a paper bag and use for an entire week. [2] 

Maria Louviaux, RN, of the California Nurses Association:

  At our hospital nurses and all frontline staff are not allowed to wear our N95 respirators. Respirators are actually under lock and key. In some cases, security needs to be called up to release our personal protective equipment. In other cases, a respirator needs to be signed out. But we do not have easy access to N95 respirators or to surgical masks. We’re not allowed to wear masks of any kind unless certain criteria are met throughout the hospital.  

  Once we are finally issued an N95 respirator, it has to be used continuously as we go from one patient to another. We have to re-use it repeatedly until it is compromised by soiling, wetting, or loss of integrity. And that violates the rules set by the FDA for its use. [3]

In South Korea, by contrast, even ordinary citizens walk about wearing KF94 masks, which are almost the same as the N95 respirators that are in such short supply even for hospital staff in the United States. [4]  

The April 2 issue of The Washington Post featured an investigation of why production of protective respiratory masks has not increased early enough and fast enough to meet the need generated by the pandemic. The main manufacturer of such masks in the United States is 3M, a company with headquarters in Minnesota and factories in South Dakota and Nebraska. 

Under normal circumstances, however, the bulk of the face masks produced by 3M are of a type intended for use by workers in industry and construction, not by medical personnel. Most production of masks for medical use had been relocated to China in order to reduce costs, but in mid-February China stopped exporting the masks, reserving them for domestic use. So globalization has played an important part in creating the shortage.  

Industrial and medical masks are designed differently. Medical masks contain more material, providing added protection against splashes. Industrial masks are not tested for fluid penetration. The two types are also subject to different regulations set by different agencies. 3M has been reluctant to switch its production line from industrial to medical masks, as this would require retooling – and then a second retooling to switch back again after the pandemic. But the company was also reluctant to supply its industrial masks to medical customers, fearing that it might be sued. 

What to do? It was at this point that Arthur Caplan, Professor of Bioethics at New York University School of Medicine, offered 3M and other manufacturers of medical supplies some unsolicited advice:

  Don’t talk to your lawyers if you’re making masks or gowns or ventilators. See where the need is and get moving as fast as you can.

But 3M paid the good professor no heed. Why hire lawyers if you can’t consult them? Not until March 22, after the FDA had approved medical use of industrial masks and legislation had passed waiving legal liability, did 3M finally conclude that its continued profitability was no longer in doubt and announce a rapid expansion of output. 

Will socialism be any better than capitalism in this respect? Will people in a socialist society be able to ‘see where the need is and get moving as fast as they can’? True, they won’t have to worry about lawsuits, but they will face other obstacles to prompt action if they have saddled themselves with a complicated, unwieldy, and overcentralized decision-making system. That is why it is so important not just to abolish capitalism but to design a flexible and sufficiently decentralized system of democratic decision-making for socialism.           

Another major factor underlying the dire shortage of face masks is the ‘just in time’ principle, followed not only by manufacturers producing only to satisfy orders but also by hospitals with a policy of not buying supplies in advance. To quote Dr. Pappas again:

  Instead of buying supplies in advance, many hospitals … waited to see if the pandemic actually hit or not, because buying supplies in advance would be an extra cost for hospitals if the pandemic never hit. So they didn’t buy supplies, they didn’t prepare, and now we’re seeing what we’re seeing.

Finally, what of the Strategic National Stockpile? 

This emergency stock of masks was depleted during the influenza epidemic of 2009, when 85 million N95 respirators were distributed. It was never replenished to any significant extent despite repeated warnings and requests from healthcare groups. 

Section 3.  Ventilators

Over the coming months, hundreds of thousands of people in the United States are going to come down with severe forms of COVID-19 infection. How many will pull through and how many will die of ‘respiratory failure’ – that is, suffocation – will depend crucially on the availability of ventilators in the intensive care units of hospitals. There are only 62,000 ventilators in service across the country, many of which are being used for non-coronavirus patients. A recent survey found that even acute-care hospitals have on average only eleven ‘full-feature’ ventilators. Unless they very soon acquire many tens of thousands more of the machines, hospitals will be overwhelmed as the pandemic spreads. By the time you read this article, some may already be overwhelmed.

In a desperate attempt to mitigate the disaster, hospital staff are preparing to link up each of their ventilators to four patients. A video posted on YouTube shows them how to do it. As the instructor admits, this is an ‘off-label use’ of machines designed to serve one patient at a time. I cannot help wondering how well it will work. 

Go for it auto execs!

Initially Trump took the orthodox ‘neo-liberal’ view that there was no reason for government to get involved. ‘Unfettered free enterprise’ could be trusted to rise to the occasion. However, he ended up brokering a deal for a joint venture between General Motors and Ventec Life Systems. General Motors would retool a car parts plant in Kokomo, Indiana as a ventilator production facility using Ventec’s technology. A government order for 80,000 ventilators was to be fulfilled in just two months. Trump’s enthusiasm was unbounded. ‘Go for it auto execs,’ he tweeted excitedly on March 22, ‘let’s see how good you are?’ 

Then suddenly it was announced that the deal was off. Officials in the Administration were unhappy about the cost – over a billion dollars, a large part of which had to be paid upfront to cover the cost of retooling. True, it worked out at only $13,000 per ventilator, which would seem good value for money, considering that these machines usually sell within the range $25–50,000. ‘But for Chrissake’, lamented officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, ‘for that money we could buy eighteen F-35 fighter jets!’ And if you think I made that up for ironic effect then you are wrong. They really find it distasteful to spend large sums of government money for the benefit of ordinary people. 

An interdepartmental working group was set up to investigate the matter under the wise guidance of Clown Prince Jared Kushner (who was admitted to college only after his dad paid a hefty bribe – I mean ‘donation’). The GM-Ventec project remains on the table, but another dozen or so other proposals are also under consideration. The target of 80,000 ventilators was whittled down to 20,000 and then to 7,500 – so a plan to more than double the number of machines was transformed into a scheme to increase that number by just 12%. 

You see, some officials are worried that too many ventilators may be ordered. What are they to do with the surplus? 

Exclamation points

Give the guy credit where it is due. Trump must have started to get impatient, because on March 27 he issued the following statement:

  Today, I signed a Presidential Memorandum directing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to use any and all authority available under the Defense Production Act to require General Motors to accept, perform, and prioritize Federal contracts for ventilators. Our negotiations with General Motors regarding its ability to supply ventilators have been productive, but our fight against the virus is too urgent to allow the give-and-take of the contracting process to continue to run its normal course. General Motors was wasting time. Today’s action will help ensure the quick production of ventilators that will save American lives.

The Defense Production Act of 1950 authorizes the President to require businesses to sign contracts and fulfill orders deemed necessary for defense, but it has also been invoked occasionally in non-military emergencies. Democrats in Congress were urging him to invoke it in the current crisis. Trump was under pressure from corporate CEOs and the Chamber of Commerce not to do so.  

Trump then fired off tweets to General Motors and Ford, which was working on its own plan to adapt car parts for ventilators, declaring that they ‘MUST START MAKING VENTILATORS NOW!!!!!!’ (yes, in capital letters and followed by six exclamation points).  

It seems that this ‘very stable genius’ – as Trump has described himself – momentarily forgot how capitalism works, even though most of the time he understands this very well. How else could he fondly imagine that a few presidential exclamation points might induce a corporation to set aside considerations of profitability in order to satisfy a human need, however urgent? 

As of this writing (April 10), no new facility for the production of ventilators is yet in operation in the United States. 

An even harsher light

But there is another aspect to this problem – one that casts the functioning of capitalism in an even harsher light.

While American hospitals have only 62,000 ventilators in service, they have in storage a very large number – estimates run as high as 100,000 – of ventilators that might be brought back into use if repaired. It is true that older models may not be reliable, but repairs could bring enough machines back into use to save many people. Hospitals, however, are unable to have ventilators repaired due to restrictions imposed by the manufacturers (Siemens, Philips, General Electric Healthcare, Medtronic, Ventec Life Systems, Hamilton Medical), who also fight legislative challenges to their repair monopoly. [5] 

First of all, purchasers of ventilators and independent technicians are denied access to the documentation and software required for repairs. Second, unauthorized attempts to repair a ventilator are blocked by special ‘anti-repair software.’ Third, a hospital that hires a technician who manages to overcome these obstacles and repair a ventilator may be sued by the manufacturer. 

In Brescia, a city in the north Italian region of Lombardy, a technical expert used a 3D printer to produce 110 special valves needed to repair ventilators at a local hospital. It cost him just 1 euro for each valve, as compared with the price of 10,000 euros charged by the manufacturer of the ventilators, Intersurgical. He gave his valves to the hospital for free, thereby saving at least ten lives. However, he faced a threat of legal action for infringing Intersurgical’s patent and therefore decided not to provide the same service to other hospitals (here). 

Of course, it is not only medical equipment manufacturers who deliberately try to prevent repair of their products. Manufacturers of computers, tractors, and many other devices do exactly the same thing. It is one of the ways by which they artificially shorten the service life of their products with a view to ‘persuading’ consumers to buy new ones. The phenomenon is known as built-in obsolescence. It is a normal feature of capitalism and a major source of the enormous waste generated by that system.

A waste of labor, a waste of resources, and – as in this case – a waste of human life.

Oases and hotspots

The prospects of the pandemic in the United States vary widely from one place to another, depending on the timing and strength of the response from city and state governments. At one extreme are places like Seattle and the San Francisco – Bay Area where strong measures were adopted at an early stage and have shown good results, comparable with those achieved by South Korea and Hong Kong. Here the pandemic is already on the wane; numbers infected are relatively low; hospitals have coped well. 

However, such ‘oases’ are few and far between. More typical are the many areas where measures, though in effect by late March, began only after significant delay. These include such cities as New York, Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, Miami, and New Orleans. In quite a few of these ‘hotspots’ hospitals are already in crisis. 

Even worse are likely outcomes in areas where adequate measures had still not been taken in early April. Most but not all such areas are in the Southern ‘bible belt.’ Here, for instance, religious services are still being held – sometimes for the explicit purpose of vanquishing the virus by prayer or exorcism. 

For the time being, however, media attention has focused on the plight of New York City. 

New York appeals for help

At a press conference on March 28, Andrew M. Cuomo, governor of New York State, stated that according to projections New York State was going to need 30,000–40,000 more ventilators by May  1. The Clown Prince responded that according to his projections New York did not need so many, though Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, MD, the immunologist who serves on the White House Coronavirus Task Force, said that he saw no reason to doubt Cuomo’s estimate. The Clown Prince urged Trump to ‘push back’ against Cuomo. 

Where were the additional ventilators to come from?

Can they be purchased? The trouble is that high demand and short supply have created a seller’s market with sky-high prices. The situation is exacerbated by the lack of coordination at the national level, which forces state governments to bid against one another and against the Federal Emergency Management Agency (here).

The Strategic National Stockpile is supposed to supplement local medical supplies during a public health emergency. And federal authorities have sent New York State 400 ventilators from this source – 200 earmarked for New York City and 200 for the rest of the state. ‘What am I going to do with 400 ventilators when I need 30,000?’ asked Cuomo. Not to mention that many have parts missing and do not work. It is unfortunate that New York State has a Democratic governor, as only Republican governors like Florida’s Ron DeSantis get their requests met quickly and in full by the Trump Administration (here). 

At a press conference on April 4, Governor Cuomo announced that 1,000 ventilators would be arriving by air later that day – a donation ‘facilitated’ by the Chinese government. The State of Oregon, now itself over the hump of the pandemic, is giving New York another 140 ventilators. [6]

China, Oregon, and the federal authorities, taken together, are sending New York 1,540 ventilators, just 4—5% of the number needed. 

According to recent reports, New York was going to run out of ventilators on April 8 (and Louisiana on April 9).         

Who will be left to die?

So it seems that hospitals in New York – and other places – are going to be overwhelmed – meaning, in particular, that they are going to run out of ventilators. What happens then? Who will be hooked up to a ventilator? Who will be left to die? 

According to a TV talk show broadcast from New York on April 3, these life-and-death decisions will be based on ratings that combine three factors:

• age of the patient (younger people have priority)
• the patient’s state of health prior to infection (people otherwise in good health have priority)
• health insurance status (people with ‘good’ insurance or able to pay for themselves; people with less ‘good’ insurance; people who are uninsured)

Those with the highest ratings get a ventilator all to themselves; those with the lowest ratings are left to die; those in the middle share a ventilator with other patients. 

In other words, a class system has been devised – as befits a class society.

In production at last?

Meanwhile, what progress is there with new production projects like those described above?

On April 5 Tesla posted the first YouTube video about their ventilator prototype, made using electric car parts – a project reportedly initiated at the request of New York City mayor Bill de Blasio. [7] However, the design is new and untested.

Parallel to the General Motors—Ventec project, Ford is working with General Electric and plans to start production on April 20 at its Rawsonville Assembly Plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Ford promises to deliver 50,000 ventilators within three months. I don’t know how realistic this timetable is. Time will tell. But even if the promise is fulfilled these ventilators will arrive too late for many. With a prompter response to the start of the pandemic, many if not all of them would already be saving lives.                                                                 

Section 4.  Vaccines

There would seem to be good prospects for a safe and effective vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.

First, numerous teams of scientists are working in parallel, applying diverse approaches to the problem. According to an interview on March 21 with Dr. Stanley Plotkin, inventor of the rubella vaccine, at least forty possible vaccines were already under development at that date (here). By April 8 the number had risen to 115 (surveyed here). Besides European and North American biotech companies, Chinese, Indian, and Japanese companies are now in the race. China alone is developing nine potential vaccines.

In addition, the Oslo-based Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations is funding several research efforts by non-commercial organizations. [8] Non-commercial projects are of special value, because they are not bound by the commercial secrecy that impedes cooperation among scientists working for different companies.

The Boston-based company Moderna has already begun a first-phase clinical trial of an RNA vaccine – a new type – on human subjects (here).

Second, the evidence so far indicates that the virus is slow to mutate. Genetic differences among the strains that have emerged in different countries are slight. This greatly simplifies the task. Any vaccines developed to protect against the virus in its current forms will probably remain potent for a considerable period.  

Third, the SARS-CoV-2 virus is new but by no means completely new. It bears some similarity to other coronaviruses and especially – as the label given it indicates – to the SARS-CoV-1 coronavirus of 2002—2003, and also to the MERS coronavirus of 2012—2014. This family resemblance to viruses that have already been studied facilitates the search for a vaccine. [9]  

Squandered advantage

However, much of the advantage that this family resemblance could have given was squandered when research into SARS-CoV-1 and MERS was discontinued after the corresponding epidemics ended. In particular, Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi and her team at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development developed early vaccines against SARS-CoV-1 and MERS but in 2016 were unable to obtain funding to conduct clinical trials. Such trials that would have given a head start to current work on a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Researchers would already have some idea of how humans react to one class of possible vaccines against members of the SARS family of coronaviruses. [10]

Why then was ‘no one interested’ in funding trials of these vaccines? Here is what virologist Dr. Hakim Djaballah, head of the Pasteur Institute Korea, has to say about it:

  There is no more threat, so everybody forgets about it… The best comparison is with the Ebola virus in Africa. The only reason we got a vaccine for Ebola is because Ebola decided to leave the continent of Africa and started infecting people in Europe and America. So those people started getting worried about the spread of Ebola on their own soil. And that was the push for government funding to get those vaccines made. Companies will not make vaccines if there is no one to buy them. They make them only when governments are in crisis. So those governments write and sign the checks and hand over the money. But those governments have not seen a vaccine for SARS-CoV-1 yet. And there hasn’t been a push for it. Now perhaps they will try something, but I’m not holding my breath. [11]

No money for research to guard against future contingencies like reappearance of an old pathogen or emergence of a new one belonging to the same family as an old one. No money to fight even a current epidemic so long as only poor countries are affected. No money to preserve and strengthen research capacities in order to be in the best possible position to meet future challenges. There is no commercial justification for any of these things. 

This is the narrow focus of capitalist society. Profit-oriented decision makers see no palpable advantage in contributing to a broadly conceived and future-oriented research program, although it is precisely such a program that humanity needs in its present predicament. To quote another scientist:   

  We need coordinated research, worldwide, on virus illnesses, to be prepared for the next mutation. It will be impossible to cover all possible variants, but we would be much closer to a new mutation than we are now. [12]

This makes good sense. A socialist world community would surely do it that way. But is such a high degree of global coordination feasible in a world of competing producers and rival nation-states?

Delay, delay

The time needed from the start of research on a new vaccine until it is marketed is commonly estimated as 12—18 months, although many commentators say that it could easily take two years and some give an upper limit of three years or even longer. Dr. Plotkin recalls that ‘it took at least five years before a vaccine [for rubella] was on the market’ and adds: ‘We cannot afford to have that kind of delay in an emergency like this one.’ He urges companies to ‘go into superaction’ immediately, with a view to having a vaccine available in the event of a second wave of the pandemic next winter – that is, within about 8 months. 

One major reason why the process takes so long is the number and duration of the clinical trials required to get a vaccine licensed by regulatory agencies like the US Food and Drug Administration. The official purpose of licensing is to ensure the safety and efficacy of drugs and vaccines. In practice, the FDA was long ago ‘captured’ by the companies it is supposed to regulate, with most of the scientists who sit on its advisory committees dependent on those companies. [13] FDA decisions therefore tend to reflect the interests of the companies that have the most political clout at the time.  

Monopolization and extortion

Another recommendation made by Dr. Plotkin is that the FDA should license not one but several vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, ‘because if we need millions of doses a single manufacturer will not be able to make enough for the world.’ This too makes good sense. Or at least it would if production were carried on to satisfy human needs. However, we live under a global system in which production is for profit. 

How then does a company that develops and produces vaccines act in order to maximize its profit? It seeks to monopolize the market for a vaccine against a specific disease by ensuring that its vaccine – and its vaccine alone! – is licensed. Then it applies for a patent on its vaccine – another significant cause of delay. Monopolization sets the scene for extortion. The company sells its vaccine at an exorbitant price that makes it unaffordable to most of those who need it.  

How many times this has happened in the past! A few years ago, for instance, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization, one of the committees that advises the British National Health Service, recommended that a new vaccine against Meningitis B manufactured by Novartis NOT be made available to all children in the UK, even though this terrible disease afflicts 1,870 people per year. It was ‘highly unlikely to be cost effective’ – in other words, it was too expensive. [14] And this in a country that for over seven decades now has had what “progressive” Americans politicians call ‘Medicare for All’! Vaccines against the scourge of viral hepatitis are likewise too expensive for large-scale use. [15] 

Indeed, there has already been an attempt to monopolize a future SARS-CoV-2 vaccine – one that does not yet even exist. In mid-March, the German press reported that the Trump Administration was trying to secure exclusive rights to any vaccine created by the German pharmaceutical company CureVac. Research and development would then be moved to the United States and the vaccine made available only in the United States (here).

Stephen Shenfield

Notes

[1] For a discussion of patents, with other examples of the harm done by them in the medical field, see here.

[2] Interviewed on April 7 by The Real News.

[3] Interviewed on April 6 by The Real News.

[4] Professor Kim Woo-joo of Korea University Guro Hospital, interviewed on March 27 by The Korea Times. 

[5] They do this both directly and through their lobbying group, AdvaMed. See Jason Koebler, ‘Hospitals Need to Repair Ventilators. Manufacturers Are Making That Impossible,’ Vice, March 18. 

[6] See here. It is not clear who in China is actually footing the bill. 

[7] See here. There were soon several videos on YouTube about Tesla’s ventilator.

[8] Seven projects as of April 10. See here.

[9] See the article by researchers at La Jolla Institute for Immunology in the March 16 online issue of Cell, Host and Microbe. 

[10] See here. For a detailed assessment and references to articles by members of the Bottazzi team, see comments by pharmaceutical engineer Christopher C. VanLang on the question-and-answer website quora.com.  

[11] In an interview with The Korea Times.

[12] Physicist Cees J.M. Lanting on the question-and-answer website quora.com.

[13] This includes scientists directly employed by companies, scientists working for them on contract, and the many university scientists who depend on corporate money to fund their research. In fact, there are so few genuinely independent scientists that the FDA would be unable to rely mainly on them even if its leading officials wished to do so. 

[14] 10% of victims die, while many survivors become deaf or blind or have to have limbs amputated (The Independent, July 24, 2013; Daily Mail, August 24, 2013). 

[15] Vaccines exist for types A and B of this disease: see here. For a discussion of the availability of vaccines in underdeveloped countries, see here.

The Socialist Party's Summer School 2020 (2020)

Party News from the February 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party’s 2020 Summer School on 7th-9th August, looks at technological progress and its application in the past, present and future. This weekend of talks and discussion is an exciting opportunity to share and explore revolutionary ideas, in the relaxing setting of Fircroft College in Birmingham.

From the development of the first tools and the wheel through to the invention of the printing press, the steam engine, the microprocessor and beyond, technology has always shaped how we live. Scientific developments take place in the context of the social and economic conditions of the time. In capitalism, technological progress and how technology is used are driven by what is profitable and cost effective more than by what is really needed and wanted. This means that technology is often used in ways which go against our best interests, whether through environmental damage, the development of ever-more destructive weapons or the misuse of data gathered online and through social media. In a future socialist society based on common ownership and democratic organisation of industries and services, technology could really be used to benefit us, in harmony with the environment.

Full residential cost (including accommodation and meals Friday evening to Sunday afternoon) is £100, and the concessionary rate is £50. Day visitors are welcome, but please book in advance.

E-mail enquiries should be sent to spgbschool@yahoo.co.uk. 

To book a place online, go to spgb.net/summer-school-2020 or send a cheque (payable to the Socialist Party of Great Britain) with your contact details to Summer School, The Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High Street, London, SW4 7UN.

The World in your hand (1995)

CD-Rom Review from the February 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Encarta '95 CD-ROM - The Complete Interactive Multimedia Encyclopedia (Microsoft £85.)

Technology — don't you just love it? Whatever, this is the baby that’s currently putting thousands of encyclopedia salesmen out of a job. A compact disc packed with 26,000 articles, it may not look as glorious as those bound volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica, but it’s a damn sight easier to use — providing. that is, that you have access to a CD-ROM facility on a PC. It also has the advantage of colour pictures, video film and stereo sound. It will talk and sing to you if provoked.

Without doubt, it is a quite excellent reference guide with some stunning features, and even gives you the facility to print out text and pictures. The sections on social science, history and philosophy are voluminous, although the quality of the information varies according to the contributors. Even so. it is nice to see a reference under the term “socialism" to the fact that this word was initially used as a synonym for communism, a society of social or common ownership of wealth. This may be considered surprising as the entry was partly written by the late Norman Thomas, former leader of the reformist US Socialist Party.

The entries on Marx. Engels, Kautsky, Luxemburg et al are generally well written and informative and there is relatively little to complain about. As befits a US publication, the references to Daniel De Leon and Eugene Debs are also good, although the statement that De Leon was an “authoritarian socialist" will annoy some.

Much of the usual mumbo-jumbo is regurgitated in the economics section, though not more so than in other encyclopedias. In fact there is a reasonable outline of most bourgeois economic theories, and there is also a small section on Marxian economics, which is a definite advance.

Microsoft originally designed this product mainly for the US market, and this often shows, with truly huge sections on American history, politics and geography, but for 1996 a version specifically for use in Britain is promised. If such a tiny, insignificant groups as the American Labor Party can rate an entry in the US version, we can hopefully assume that a distinctive organisation like the Socialist Party of Great Britain should be assured a place on merit for the version over here.

Dave Perrin

Automation Under Capitalism (1970)

Pamphlet Review from the September 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

Automation and Technical Chance. T.U.C. 2s.

THE trades union congress published its first statement on automation in 1956. This was followed in 1965 by Automation and Technological Change, of which a revised edition has recently been published.

Within its limits it is a useful discussion of the problems and prospects of automation in its various shades of meaning and of other forms of technological change. It dismisses the wild assumptions that automation would quickly revolutionise workers’ lives under capitalism by providing abundance or alternatively by putting vast millions out of work.

It reaches the conclusion that the hitherto slow rate of introduction of automation is likely to quicken in coming years and increasingly affect clerical and managerial workers, not by reducing the total number of jobs but by destroying particular jobs and calling for new types of work and in this way causing great hardship to large numbers of workers forced to change their jobs, move to different areas and undergo new training, often late in life.

While generally favourable to technological change and emphasising the likelihood of higher wages in some industries it admits that conditions of work may be worsened by the introduction of more shift work and, in some fields, by Saturday and Sunday work, excessive overtime and by the replacement of men by women. It records that in offices it sometimes means an increase of tiring and boring jobs such as punch card work, with associated greater noise in the work rooms.

Its great defect is that it tacitly accepts the continuation of capitalism and assumes that the system is now capable of being planned and controlled on a “full employment” basis—the typical Labour Party attitude.

It tells us:

  Maintenance of full employment is chiefly the responsibility of the government. All political parties, the Confederation of British Industry and the TUC accept that this should be the case. There is agreement that the necessary techniques are available to sustain full employment, although not everybody agrees as to when and how they should be used, or whether full employment is a principal responsibility of government or merely one responsibility.

It also tells us that “a high level of employment has been maintained in the post-war period”, a claim that reads rather oddly in face of the fact that unemployment in the past two years has been running at levels which are a record for post-war years and that the TUC has just told the government that they must bring unemployment down to 400,000 by the end of this year.

The statement barely mentions foreign competition and ignores the fact that a decline of world markets which are outside the control of the government, the CBI and the TUC, could drastically increase the amount of unemployment and undermine the safeguards the TUC proposes.

The obligations placed on the TUC by the trade unions exclude consideration of the possibility that capitalism could be replaced by Socialism, with the consequent abolition of production for the market and the wages system. So nowhere does the statement even look at the completely different standards from which automation and technological change would be regarded in a socialist system of society, when for the first time the wellbeing of all would be the only consideration. 

Edgar Hardcastle

Broadcatching the Working Class. (1923)

From the May 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are thousands of people who to-day have adopted the habit of what has become generally known as “Listening-In.” Everybody seems to have a desire to study this particular science, and we would be the last to suggest that scientific knowledge' should not be acquired, especially amongst members of the working class. "Wireless Telegraphy,” no doubt, is a very interesting subject, in view of its rapid development in recent years.

The conquest of the ethereal waves, possibly provide a very important landmark of progress in scientific research; but if we go a little further into the question, we shall find that whilst there are some sciences which are encouraged, there are others which are fettered and not allowed that freedom to develop which one might expect.

In these days, living as we do under Capitalism, there is one thing necessary before any progress can be made in scientific research—it must have the capitalist “Hall Mark” of profits, after which it may emerge forth into the daylight. That in itself, explains the present “ Wireless ” boom which is producing a rich harvest for the groups of capitalists like Godfrey Isaacs and others of the “Macaroni” type, derived, of course, from the sale of the instruments, accessories, etc.

Suppose for a moment we divert our attention to another phase of science— Social Science—that which deals with the various problems, faced of day by day by the working class. We shall find that no such inducement is being given to the working class to investigate problems of this character in a scientific manner. Why? Because once the working class become afflicted with the desire to understand the cause of their poverty, even in numbers half as great as those studying “Wireless” at the present time, the position of the capitalist class would not be quite secure, hence we find them directing the minds of the working class into other channels.

This state of affairs provides the necessity for an organisation like the Socialist Party of Great Britain to come to the rescue, and thus provide the working class with the necessary scientific education, in the shape of Economics, History, Politics and Sociology, etc.

By the correct understanding of these subjects they will equip themselves with necessary knowledge for accomplishing the social revolution, by wresting from the capitalist class that power which they the workers have hitherto presented to their masters, i.e., Political Power.

Therefore, we say to the working class, study the Social Sciences first, and thereby qualify to take your stand for the emancipation of your class. By doing so you will not only benefit yourself, but the community as a whole. For the first time in the history of the world, mankind will be able to enjoy the best that nature, aided by science, can provide

A. S. C.

The Shoulders of Giants (2017)

From the March 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

Where and how do scientific and technological ideas and developments originate? Is it just a matter of individual geniuses, or of responses to economic needs, or is it a combination of various factors?

Clearly there are individuals who make startling contributions to science. Galileo would be one; also Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace, who in Victorian times laid the basis for computers and programs, and who have been described as ‘time travellers’ (Steven Johnson: How We Got to Now).

On the other hand, economic issues can definitely propel a science forward. Down to the end of the eighteenth century, it was generally accepted that god had created the world in 4004 BCE, and fossils were completely mysterious. The science of geology gradually evolved, the Geological Society was founded in London in 1807, and the first comprehensive geological map, of England, Wales and part of Scotland, was completed in 1815 by William Smith (see Simon Winchester: The Map that Changed the World). The motivation for this was in part Smith’s own determination and intellectual curiosity, but also there were social and economic changes taking place that spurred the study of the country’s geological structure. Canals had already had a major impact on trade and the transport of goods, and Smith had himself been the surveyor for the Somerset Coal Canal in the 1790s. The landowners and nobility sponsored him to survey their lands, which had become private property in the various Enclosure Acts, to see if they contained deposits of coal and other minerals. Though he eventually won recognition as the ‘Father of English Geology’, Smith also spent a period in a debtors’ prison, so grateful were those who supported and benefited from his labours.

One argument against the crucial role of individual geniuses is the existence of ‘simultaneous inventions’, when new discoveries are made by several people within a relatively short space of time. For instance, in Frankfurt, Germany is a statue to Johann Philipp Reis, the inventor of the telephone. But what about Alexander Graham Bell, you may ask? There is a big controversy here. In 1860, Reis demonstrated a rather primitive telephone that could transmit over a hundred meters, but failed to interest anyone else in his invention. It was not until 1875 that Bell developed his phone, but even then there was a dispute as to whether he or Elisha Gray got there first; and of course the dispute really centred on who registered the first patent. But even Reis was not really the first, as Johnson refers to a French printer named Scott who in 1857 was awarded a patent for a machine that recorded sound but did not play it back; so this was not truly transmitting sound. But details aside, it is clear that the idea of telephony was, well, in the air, and it was not purely down to Bell (or even to Bell and his assistant Thomas Watson).

Another example is that of the electric lightbulb, usually described as invented by Thomas Edison in 1879. But from the 1840s onwards a couple of dozen people had partially invented the bulb, many of them using the same solution as Edison, of a carbon filament suspended in a vacuum. As Johnson writes, ‘The lightbulb was the kind of innovation that comes together over decades, in pieces. There was no lightbulb moment in the story of the lightbulb.’ Moreover, Edison had assembled a team of knowledgeable people around him, who could make small but crucial improvements to his design.

One of the claims in Johnson’s book is what he calls the hummingbird effect: ‘An innovation, or cluster of innovations, in one field ends up triggering changes that seem to belong to a different domain altogether.’ For instance, the development of the printing press led to a surge in demand for spectacles, as books became more widely available, literacy rates rose and people needed help with reading. This in turn led to further experiments with lenses and hence to the invention of the microscope.

The technology of glass merits further illustration. Glass formed naturally in the Libyan desert millions of years ago, as a result of some very intense heat. In Roman times, glass-makers discovered how to make glass clearer and sturdier, resulting in the installation of glass windows and the manufacture of wine glasses and bottles. Following the sacking of Constantinople in 1204, some glass-makers sailed from Turkey to Venice, where they set up an industry producing luxury vessels for local traders to sell elsewhere. Glass-makers became concentrated on the Venetian island of Murano, where further technical improvements took place. Monks used curved glass as a reading aid in the 12th and 13th centuries, and around this time proper spectacles were developed. As noted earlier, the development of the printing press in the 1440s resulted in increased demand for spectacles.

Various people tried different uses of lenses, leading to the invention of the microscope and so to Robert Hooke’s discovery of cells. Then came telescopes, and Galileo’s discovery of the moons of Jupiter; later, glass fibres, fibreglass and fibre-optic cables, the material basis of the Internet. Mirrors enabled people to see what they themselves looked like, and may have been responsible for the rise in self-portraiture from around 1400. All in all, writes Johnson, ‘it is impossible to imagine the last millennium without transparent glass.’

He goes on to discuss similar examples of technological innovations and their far-reaching social effects in fields such as: artificial cold, frozen food and air-conditioning; developments in hygiene and cleanliness that led to a big reduction in infant mortality and to people washing regularly; accurate time-keeping and its implications for factory discipline and working-class life. He only mentions in passing another example of the importance of economic considerations: the Longitude Prize offered by the British government in 1714 for discovering an accurate chronometer that enabled the determination of longitude at sea, which was essential for navigation and so for exploration and colonisation.

An argument against the overbearing importance of individuals is the celebrated remark of Isaac Newton, ‘If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants’, though he was by no means the first person to say something along these lines. Moreover, most research nowadays is carried out by large teams of workers; over 1100 researchers at Google, for instance, while Microsoft Research is a similar size. Apple is currently building a $45m research centre in Beijing. Dyson employ over two thousand engineers in their research and development department, so it is not just a matter of the owner’s talent for inventing things.

The human struggle to understand and influence the natural world is closely related to efforts to expand production and improve living conditions. Under capitalism, profit is a major motivating force, but under all social systems human ingenuity and co-operation contribute to discoveries and inventions, and people build on what has gone before. Progress is cumulative and often results in unexpected consequences.

Paul Bennett