SPGB Meetings (1994)

Party News from the August 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialist Party Summer School: Whatever happened to the working class? (2003)

Party News from the July 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialist Party Summer School: Whatever happened to the working class?

Fircroft College, Birmingham 11th-13th July 2003

A weekend of talks, discussion and more on the theme of class politics, class identity and changes in the working class here and abroad.

Friday evening: "The working class in the West"

We begin the weekend by looking at the changes in the way we work.

Saturday morning: "The new working class"

Matt Vaughan-Wilson examines the growth of the 'new' working class.

Saturday afternoon: "Is socialism really a class position."

Considers whether we should increase the strength of the movement by putting forward a humanitarian case for socialism.

Saturday evening: "  . . . because you're worth it"

Mike Foster discusses the ingredients and effects of capitalist myth making, and considers what we can do to counter it.

Sunday morning: "Whatever happened to class politics?"

Until recently it was generally accepted that there was such a thing as the working class, Now, though class is rarely mentioned Vince Otter asks, has class politics gone for good?

£105 for the whole weekend, including meals and accommodation

(Concessionary rates available)

Time for a change ! (1977)

From the September 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

No member of the working class needs to wade through the press or listen to television and radio to realize that living standards have taken a sharp plunge over the last four years.

A reading of Labour’s two manifestos issued for the elections of 1974 shows what has happened to Labour’s attempt to make capitalism work for the benefit of the majority of the people.

Remember how the slogan “Back to Work with Labour” was used as a piece of propaganda against the three-day week, which large sections of industry were working under the Tories prior to the election. The one-and-a-half million unemployed, and thousands of other workers whose jobs are threatened, know that the alternative slogan “Out of Work with Labour” would be far more accurate. In both manifestos there was the inevitable electioneering talk about the need for “social justice.” The Labour Party claimed that this could be achieved under capitalism. It talked of the “need to tackle rising prices”, “to strike at the roots of the worst poverty” and “to make the country demonstrably a much fairer place to live in”.

In the February 1974 Manifesto, Labour pledged itself to “introduce strict PRICE CONTROL on key services and commodities”. Efforts were to be made to stabilize food prices and the use of subsidies was proposed. Significantly, these promises were dropped from the October 1974 Manifesto.

The result of Labour’s attempt to control inflation has of course been an annual inflation rate rising to 26.9 per cent, at its height. At present it is 17.6 per cent. The Labour government has misled some people into believing that it can control rising prices. A Government White Paper issued in July 1975 declared: “By the end of 1976 price increases will be down to less than ten pence in the pound”. However, prices were rising by fifteen pence in the pound at the end of 1976.

What of the Labour Party’s talk of “social justice’ when Lady Beaverbrook can spend £8,000 to charter a special plane to take her two poodles to New York? According to a report published in December 1976 by the Child Poverty Action Group, thirteen million people in this country alone are living close to the Supplementary Benefit level which the government officially recognizes as being a state of poverty.

But the working class will be making a great mistake if they believe that the Tories can do any better. In April 1972, under the Heath government, unemployment passed the one million mark for the first time since 1940. Under the Tories, workers had to put up with wage restraint and rising prices just as under Labour.

The present economic crisis shows that capitalism cannot be controlled. During the boom period of the 1950s, all the major parties, Labour, Conservative, Liberal and “Communist,” were under the illusion that it would be possible for governments to “spend their way out of trouble”. The Socialist Party of Great Britain said at the time that this Keynesian solution to economic and social problems would be doomed to failure because capitalism is an anarchic system which repeatedly passes through boom and slump periods. The history of capitalism over the last two hundred years makes this abundantly clear.

The leading politicians with all their talk of “national unity”, “increasing productivity” and everyone tightening their belts, are bankrupt of ideas. None of them can offer anything to the working class.

It is possible to say that capitalism was once a revolutionizing system which expanded the machinery of wealth creation. However, the twentieth century has shown that capitalism has outlived its usefulness. It is in many cases destroying wealth, and constantly prevents wealth being produced. Fruit and vegetables are regularly ploughed into the ground, factories are closed down with machinery left idle, while millions of workers are unemployed. Privilege continues while there is worldwide poverty. All this for the sake of the great capitalist god, profit, which benefits only a small minority of the population.

What is the alternative to this madness? The case put forward by the Socialist Party of Great Britain is clear and concise. The alternative is Socialism. It involves the democratic ownership and control of the factories, agriculture and wealth-producing and distributing agents by the whole community. Socialism will be a truly worldwide system.

Vincent Otter

Visit to Ukraine (2002)

Party News from the February 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

In December comrades Danny Lambert and Vincent Otter travelled to Kiev in Ukraine, as mandated delegates of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, to meet a group who had expressed a desire to become a companion party of the World Socialist Movement. After expressing gratitude for the hospitality offered, they reported:

“The organisation in Kiev carries the name of International Young Workers and was established in 1993. Since its initial contact with the WSM in September 2000 it has accepted the socialist case. By meeting the comrades and having detailed discussions with them involving many questions and answers, both of us were able to see that the IYW is firmly opposed to all aspects of reformism and, at the same time, opposes vanguardism in all its various forms, such as Leninism, Stalinism and Trotskyism.

"In addition, they fully support the concept of socialism as a society of common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution. They recognise that it must be established on a worldwide basis with the understanding and support of a majority of the world’s population”.

The report has been sent to the other parties in the World Socialist Movement for a decision on accepting the group into the WSM under the name of The World Socialist Party (Ukraine).

Blogger's Note:

Please see this previous post for the background on this duplicitous event.

Two leaflets from the Ukraine (2001)

Blogger's Note:

Blogger's Notes, as a rule, are usually appended to the bottom of an article or a review but unfortunately this is a special case where they have to be pinned to the top of the page.

A wee bit awkward this one, but as the blog is primarily concerned with ensuring that all of the Socialist Standard is online, this has to be included. To cut a long story short the International Young Workers was a fictitious organisation that was set up by members of the Ukrainian and Russian sections of the Committee for a Workers' International (the Militant Tendency's International) to scam political organisations in the West out of funds — and maybe also for their own personal amusement. (Hoodwinking supposedly arrogant Westerners who thought to throw their political nets eastwards to gather up groups under the umbrella of various Internationals.)

Posing as a small group sympathetic to our politics they put out feelers via email and it eventually led to a couple of SPGBers (Danny Lambert and Vincent Otter) visiting the Ukraine, with a return trip being organised in which a 'Semyon Shevchenko' visited Britain, addressing the SPGB's Annual Conference, and formally establishing the  IYW as the World Socialist Party of the Ukraine, a section of the World Socialist Movement. 

In the summer of 2003 we got wind of this being an elaborate scam perpetrated against ourselves and about 10 other political groups, and we took steps to expose the fraud. It turned out that 'Semyon Shevchenko' was in fact a political operator by the name of Oleg Vernyk and he was one of the main leaders of this group and its schemes. It was an embarrassment all round — including for the Committee for the Workers' International — who promptly expelled their Ukrainian and Russian sections. Vernyk's still around, still politicking, and if you search his name on the internet, you'll will find a greyer and older version of the man I met in the early 2000s.

This is just a brief and truncated version of events. There are copious documents online where all the groups scammed have their say, and where the revelation of the scam is played out in real time. (Just type in 'Ukrainian scam + SPGB' into your search engine of choice and fill your boots.) 

I can laugh at it now looking back but it was punch to the guts at the time. We dealt with the Ukrainian group in good faith — as I'm sure did the other groups scammed — and that good faith was taken advantage of.  It happens in life, political or otherwise. (Barltrop mentions similar type attempted political scams in The Monument.) 

I heard on the grapevine that Alexander Payne has bought the film rights to the story, and as long as Paul Giamatti isn't cast to play me — he's too tall — I'm fine with that. (Disregard this last line. Total bullshit.)

Party News from the January 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

We publish below the English translation (by them from Ukrainian) of two leaflets distributed recently in Kiev, the first to coincide with the anti-IMF demonstrations in Prague in September and the second in November on the 83rd anniversary of the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia.

Your living conditions are extremely hard and become worse and worse. Average month wage of Kiev worker is $US30 and student scholarship is $US4. At the same time minimal level for live is $US120. Even in accordance with official data unemployment level amounts now about 40 percent amongst people with ages up to 30 years. The level of infant mortality increased in 3.4 times only during last 6 years. This list of disasters may be endlessly continued. From the other hand, bourgeoisie has extremely rich houses, cars, goods etc on the expense of your exploitation for receiving more surplus value. Undoubtedly, IMF/WTO is terrible fruit of capitalism. But we are opposite such methods of struggle. Why? Where is alternative? Why different strikes, pickets and other actions are always unsuccessful? Bourgeois class doesn’t give us even small concessions without a fight. It’s impossible to solve separate problems without solving the main problem. Capitalists are interested in receiving the most possible used value of your labour power, so they’ve never help us, on the contrary, exploitation under capitalism will only increase. It’s economical law of capitalism. So, the capitalism is cause of all our problems, not his separate institutions like IMF/WTO. Only system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of society as a whole—the SOCIALISM, not reform of capitalism, which is impossible, is the solution of all our problems. So, our common task is consistent and resolute struggle for establish the socialism. If you want to know more about socialism—contact us. International Young Workers.

Workers!

Different kinds of “leftists” say to you that Russian “Revolution” in 1917 was socialist and proletarian, that it opened the road to real Socialism or even Communism. But is it true? Let’s see. Bolshevik minority declared that the policy of Marx and Engels is out of date. Lenin and Trotsky are worshipped as the pathfinders of a shorter and easier road to Communism. By this way they refused from democracy, socialist education of working masses, support of socialist-thinking workers, both Russian and all-world etc. These denunciations by the Bolshevik leaders are quite understandable if we realise that only the minority in Russia are Communists. In February 1917 party included only 40,000 members on the society of 180 million members. In this way Bolshevik’s rule was the rule of overwhelming minority, which with the help of violence and authoritarian dictatorship conducted their power over the people.

We state that because of a large anti-Socialist peasantry and vast untrained population, Russia was a long way from Socialism. Lenin admitted this by saying: “Reality says that State Capitalism would be a step forward for us; if we were able to bring about State Capitalism in a short time it would be a victory for us”. But if we are to copy Bolshevist policy in other countries we should have to demand State Capitalism, which is not a step to Socialism in advanced capitalist countries. All of us know how much disasters State Capitalism in USSR brought to workers. Therefore Leninist, Stalinist, Trotskyist etc. slogans like “back to USSR”, “Long live the proletarian revolution 1917”, “Lenin is always alive” etc. are not the socialist and have nothing common with tasks of socialist movement of Ukraine and the entire world.

So, we consider that the 83rd anniversary of Russian “Revolution” in 1917 is the serious cause to think about the experience, that workers class received during these years. Only system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of society as a whole—the SOCIALISM is the solution of all our problems. Capitalism does not operate in the interest of the majority, and can never be reformed so that it does. Until we finally abolish wage labor, we workers will never be free. So, our common task is consistent and resolute struggle for establish the socialism.

If you want to know more about socialism–contact us.

International Young Workers

How much longer is the Working Class going to accept this? (1976)

From the April 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Most people are aware that something called “Inequality” exists in society, but have only vague ideas about how great it is and about how it has been caused. Socialists know that enormous inequalities are unavoidable symptoms of capitalism which can only be eradicated in one way: that is by the abolition of capitalism and by replacing it with Socialism, under which the wealth produced by industry and agriculture, as well as the means for producing that wealth, will belong to all the people.

Why is the need for the establishment of Socialism urgent? As an answer, let us look briefly at some of the recognized social problems: the uneven distribution of wealth, housing and homelessness, unemployment, industrial injuries and diseases, old age and retirement. The Welfare State and its reforms have been with us for thirty years and yet these social problems remain as serious as before its introduction. Just read a few items in the book Unequal Britain by Frank Field (1974). It is worth while to look at the following figures and think about what they mean.

In this country more than 25 per cent. of the wealth is in the hands of the top 1 per cent. of the population (Unequal Shares by Tony Atkinson, 1960). The top 10 per cent. own approximately 75 per cent of the wealth while, at the other extreme, more than 90 per cent, of the population have total wealth holdings of below £5,000 (each).

In terms of absolute wealth, some of the richest industrialists are Lord Thomson of the Thomson Organization, with a personal shareholding of £59.5 million, Sir Jules Thorn and Sir Charles Forte with £29.6 million and £28.9 million respectively. As a worker, whatever your employment is, how about comparing your annual income (or, perhaps, your life’s income) with the incomes of these privileged individuals:

F. S. MacFadzean (Shell)                       £75,900
Val Duncan (Rio-Tinto Zinc)                 £63,000
Sir John Davis (Rank Organization) £55,000

It is a fact that today two million families (not individuals, but families) live in homes which possess no hot water, no bath and no inside toilet.

Meanwhile, in the Daily Mirror series on injustices and privilege (1st October 1974), John Pilger reveals that Hugh Denis Charles Fitzroy, the Duke of Grafton, lives in a house with twenty bedrooms. Of course, he owns additional property and houses.

7.7 per cent. of households have no fixed bath, 7.4 per cent. have no inside toilet, while 6.1 per cent. have no hot water supply. 5 per cent. are living in officially classified “overcrowded conditions” (Labour Research Department, 1973).

On the other hand, Harry Hyams, the property speculator, owns a six-hundred-acre Wiltshire estate. In April 1973, Ravi Tikkoo, the shipping magnate, paid £500,000 for a house on Hampstead Heath (Daily Mirror, 19th April 1973).

The social problem of unemployment is striking hard at the working class, with 1,430,000 (white- collar workers and professionals, as well as blue- collar workers) out of work in December 1975.

Two-fifths of all pensioners are living on means which arc below the official Supplementary Benefit levels. From October 1973, the standard old-age pension was worth just 20 per cent. of the average male take-home pay. On the question of redundancy payments, workers who devote sizeable parts of their lives to industry receive an average redundancy payment of £328 (1972). Meanwhile, Aubrey Jones received a golden handshake of £63,000 from Laporte Ltd. and Duncan Sandys MP was given £130,000 from the Lonhro company (source: Labour Research Department).

It is these inequalities which are the symptoms of capitalism. Socialists recognize these inequalities as inevitable reflections of class ownership. This is the situation after thirty years of the Welfare State and more than a hundred years of social reform. The same inequality and the same social problems remain. We can reject completely that reformers’ red-herring of trying to redistribute wealth. Therefore, the working class (all working and employed people) must, for its own sake, reject tinkerings and tamperings with capitalism.

No, capitalism cannot be reformed in the interests of the working class. It can never be made to benefit the working class. Just looking at the history of capitalism and at capitalism today proves this point over and over again. Given that capitalism cannot be reformed to suit the interests of the workers, who are the overwhelming majority of the population, and, remembering all the misery, poverty, destruction, wastage and violence which are an inevitable consequence of capitalism, there remains the urgent task for the workers to say that they have had enough and to abolish capitalism.

Capitalism must be ended by the conscious, democratic action not merely of workers in Britain, but of workers throughout the world. When this happens, it can be guaranteed that the full potential of mankind will be released for the first time in history. The forces of nature have endowed each individual human being with a brain capable of immense creativity in innumerable different forms. For the very first time, Socialism will enable Man to use these faculties and energies to the full.

Vincent Otter

The 'Right to Work' campaign (1976)

From the December 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anyone on the dole will probably not take long to come across the Right to Work Campaign which, during the past year or so, has been particularly vociferous in its condemnation of unemployment. Under the guidance of the National Rank-and-File Organizing Committee marches, public meetings and petitions against unemployment have been arranged by this campaign. Back in March there was a special protest walk between Manchester and London. In September many of the leftists who support the campaign marched down to Brighton to picket the TUC.

The obvious feature of these demonstrations is that they are dominated by organizations such as International Socialists, the Workers’ Revolutionary Party and the Communist Party, together with groups of members from the Labour Party and trade unions. Like the women’s liberation groups, CND. Shelter, the squatting campaigns and the “Troops Out of Northern Ireland” movement, the Right to Work Campaign is not concerned with fundamental social change. A survey of their demands as printed in their literature and stated in speeches at their public meetings reveals that this campaign is concerned with trying to secure the creation of jobs. Along with this, the campaign makes reformist demands which might be expected: equal rights for women, a thirty-five-hour week, stopping cuts in government expenditure, etc.

Methods advocated include the nationalization of private industries, the occupation of factories, and overtime bans. All these methods have been tried before. A “Right to Work” campaign is nothing new, nor are ideas of direct action by workers to try to preserve jobs. Similar campaigns have been launched in the past in various countries. In Italy shortly after the end of World War One workers by the thousand occupied factories in an attempt to keep their jobs secure; and, of course, in Britain during the nineteen-thirties there were marches and demonstrations against unemployment and the creation of the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement. The fact is that whenever capitalism is in a depression the “left” seeks to increase its following by urging workers to resist unemployment.

The record of these movements is not only that they have achieved nothing, but the capitalist class has ignored them. In several cases instead of the condition of the working class being improved, more authoritarian governments have emerged. In 1921-22 in Italy, the efforts of workers to overcome unemployment by occupying factories were rapidly succeeded by Mussolini’s right-wing government which established fascism. More recently, in France attempts at syndicalism in the spring of 1968 were followed by the French electorate giving a stronger mandate to the Gaullist government. The earliest “Right to Work” campaign took place during an economic recession in France in 1848. Groups of workers in Paris were encouraged to take more militant and violent action. Troops were sent against them and a “government of order” was eventually established under Louis Napoleon.

Under the capitalist system the right to employment does not and cannot exist. Those who have sympathy with the Right to Work Campaign should ask themselves whose duty it is to provide this work. Production under capitalism does not take place to satisfy people’s needs but to produce goods to be sold at a profit. The nature of a trade recession is that for the time being goods cannot be sold as they are in boom periods: production therefore has to slow down or cease. The Right-to-Work campaigners do not say how a right to produce and distribute unmarketable commodities can be given effect. The situation is underlined by unemployment figures from all over the world, both in the past and at present.

But that’s not all! Not only is the Right to Work Campaign by its very existence dooming its supporters to disillusionment. If a quick recovery from the depression gave the appearance that it had partly succeeded, this would only confirm the working class in an acceptance of capitalism. After all, what is so wonderful about employment — being exploited? No, hasten the day when the majority of workers will reject syndicalism and reformism in all their guises including campaigns like this. Hasten the day when the majority will realize that the only wav out from a world of unemployment and generally meaningless employment under capitalism is by democratically abolishing that system and establishing Socialism. In such a system unemployment would not only be a feature of the past, but there would be an abundance of purposeful and interesting work.

Vincent Otter

Capitalism's Scapegoats (1978)

From the April 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

In order to keep the workers acquiescing in the system of lunacy that is capitalism, its supporters continually have to invent scapegoats and to point to them as the cause of the hardship experienced by the working class.

During the last four years capitalism has so very predictably been going through yet another period of slump. All the Keynsians, Labourites, Conservatives and other supporters of capitalism who believed and, indeed today mostly still believe, that capitalism can be made to work in the interests of all by the government pumping more money into the economy, have been proved utterly wrong.

Defenders of Capitalism

Naturally no defenders of capitalism such as Enoch Powell, Margaret Thatcher and Iain Sproat MP are going to tell the workers the real reason for this current recession, even if they did know it themselves. So, by means of a well conducted campaign in the media, every so often scapegoats are offered as causes of social problems and the misery of the working class. Students, trade unionists, muggers, immigrants and the unemployed. One by one these groups are singled out by the hack journalists and blamed for the present social malaise.

At the moment immigrants and the unemployed are the groups which are most subject to attack. The supporters of capitalism, regardless of whatever political party they adhere to, ask us to believe that this country is becoming overcrowded with immigrants and that they are aggravating unemployment. The reality is something quite different. Far from increasing, the actual population of Britain is declining due to the falling birth rate and more people are leaving the country than coming into it. Perhaps those who believe that immigration is in some way connected with high levels of unemployment, bad housing and poor social services, would care to explain why all these conditions existed in the 1930s and yet there were hardly any coloured people and very few immigrants as a whole living in Britain. If immigrants really do provide the real cause of unemployment, why is it that in the areas worst affected by high levels of unemployment, such as Northern Ireland, Clydeside and Tyneside, the immigrant population is negligible?

Ignorant distortions

The unemployed, particularly those in receipt of Supplementary Benefit, are frequently abused and declared the cause of many social problems. Few people will forget the vicious campaign of ignorant distortions directed by Iain Sproat MP and his supporters against the unemployed. Many of those out of work are slandered by being called lazy and unwilling to look for work. As any worker should know, employment as such is usually a miserable prospect anyway. But apart from that, the fact is that over the past few years reports have repeatedly shown that for every ten people registered as unemployed, only one job vacancy has been reported to the Department of Employment. Of course, those who believe that unemployment is largely due to laziness and unwillingness to work, never bother to explain to us why in the 1950s and early 60s relatively few people were “lazy” (unemployed), while in the 1930s and today many more have suddenly become so.

The reality is that social problems, such as unemployment, high densities of population in large cities, homelessness, and bad social services, are not caused by immigrants to this country or by any supposed reluctance of the unemployed to find work. When people complain about these social problems they are really protesting about the inevitable consequences of the capitalist system. Under capitalism profits for the owners of industry and the increased wealth of a small minority of the population are of prime importance. Social questions and the human need of the immense majority are pushed into the background time and time again, as is the case today. Cuts are made in education, medical services and transport, etc., and workers are thrown onto the dole queue. All of this is part of a vain attempt to solve capitalism’s insoluble problems.

The urgent need of the day is for workers to realise that all of these social problems are caused by capitalism and that the present system cannot be made to run in their interests, whether the Labour, Liberal or Conservative parties are in power.

Vincent Otter

Education as tainted by capitalism (2010)

From the December 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

State schools have always turned out various grades of worker. Now universities are to be allowed to charge the going market rate for their courses.

The Browne review of higher education in England proposes the abolition of the £3,290 cap on tuition fees and declares that there should be no limit on what universities can charge their students. It plans for typical fees of up to £12,000 per year for a degree course, with a continuation of the system of loans. In addition to a loan for the tuition fees, most students would have a further loan (for maintenance) of £3,750 and would have interest to pay on that, as well.

Once in employment, former students would begin to repay the cost of their loans (together with interest) from a salary level of up- to over £9000 per annum, upwards. This is not a high income to have to start paying back the loan, particularly for workers living in cities, where the cost of living is higher. Therefore, huge numbers of young people, on modest salaries will face these loan repayments, on top of either having to pay high rents for accommodation or taking out large mortgages. Economists have been advising people not to get further into debt but the Browne Report will undoubtedly contribute to the level of debt rising significantly for many.

The university guide, Push, estimated in August 2010 that student indebtedness could rise to £25,000 for a degree course. Clearly, for many with the extra expenses of accommodation, books, other course materials, etc, the figure would be substantially higher, quite likely, in access of £30,000.

So, the result of this is that most working class students will have an unenviable choice: either (1) to enter higher education and to be burdened with enormous amounts of debt, especially when accommodation and maintenance are considered, or (2) having to give up higher education altogether, with the probable consequence of stunted intellectual growth, temporarily, at the very least.

This is all capitalism can offer the vast majority of people: a huge burden of debt which induces a form of enslavement or missing important opportunities in life in order to reduce the debt.

As regards schools, dubious methods are being resorted to by more affluent parents in an attempt to get their children into schools which occupy a higher position in the league tables of the exam treadmill. Many of these better off parents often try to segregate their children from those of poorer backgrounds, through the use of tutors, private schools and faith schools. Desperate efforts are made by some parents in an attempt to get their children into the desired schools. The measures employed include moving house into the catchment area of the targeted school or allowing their children to move temporarily into the homes of relatives or friends who live in the sought after catchment area. All of this, in an attempt to deceive the LEA (Local Education Authority).

Then, there are the exams themselves: GCSEs, AS-levels and A2-Levels, with the perennially critical claim that “standards are dropping” in comparison with the past. Lesson time is largely devoted to the demands of passing these exams, rather than giving students a real understanding and appreciation of the subjects which they are supposed to be studying. In fact, many believe that lessons are much more about how to pass the exams rather than learning about the subjects for their own sake. Numerous teachers complain about the rigidity of the syllabus and about how their lesson plans are being constantly supervised, something which previously only applied to those who were in their first six months probationary period.

Aims of the Education System
Political leaders and mainstream educationalists usually claim that the purpose of education is along the following lines:

(1) Acquisition of knowledge, development of mental and physical skills and personality to enhance the life of an individual.

(2) The achievement of the above, it is then declared, will enable individuals to make a contribution towards the overall economic, social and cultural wealth of society.

To a limited extent, in the developed countries at least, much of this has been partially achieved. However, in a class-based society such as capitalism education, like much else, is subordinated to the interests of the ruling class. Those interests fundamentally involve the creation of profit which is a vital source of the wealth of the capitalists.

Although on occasions, mainstream education may refer to isolated ideas which criticise some of the policies of ruling elites (generally policies which took place in the distant past, such as Britain’s involvement in the slave trade from the 16th to the 19th century), the reality is that the education system has rarely radicalised students, apart from a brief period in the 1960s and 1970s. Usually it has taught them to accept the status quo and to fit into it. This lack of radicalisation of students has been maintained through the following factors:

The very limited nature of the education received by many students. Most of that education is geared to the demands of industry and commerce.

Capitalism has so far at least, managed to pressure most students into thinking more about getting employment at the end of their course, rather than to consider becoming radical.

The prevalence of status quo ideas in the education system: the values of religious organisations in feudal times and, since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the values of the capitalist class.

In more recent times most people’s understanding of the society in which they live has been influenced hugely by an expanding media, much of which is controlled by wealthy corporate owners and other commercial interests.

In the present society the main aim of education is to provide the knowledge and skills base necessary for employment in capitalism. A workforce educated according to the demands of the profit system will then maintain and, in favourable trade cycle periods, boost the wealth of the owners of the means of production.

An obvious consequence of these objectives of education has been a strong emphasis on subjects considered to be relevant to employment: maths, English, science, computer and business studies. The Education Reform Act of 1988 set up the National Curriculum which was designed to standardise what was taught in schools. The intention of this was to facilitate assessment and led to the creation of “league tables” showing the academic performance of schools in exams. Most significantly, maths, English, science and information technology were established as compulsory subjects up to the minimum school leaving age of 16. In contrast, under the 2002 Education Act, subjects such as history, geography, foreign languages, art and music could be dropped at the age of 14 since most of them were thought to be less relevant to the employment process.

Education and Income Group
Under capitalism, there has always been a very strong income factor determining educational achievement. Children from better off homes overwhelmingly do better than those from poorer families. The children from deprived backgrounds are frequently and erroneously labelled as being “less able” by those educationalists who are entirely ignorant of the vital socio-economic factors influencing educational development and the gaining of qualifications.

A useful book which refutes the claims of the “less able” educationalists is Education and Working Class by Jackson and Marsden, written in 1962 and which has been on the reading lists of many teacher training courses. The authors concentrate mainly on differing levels of educational achievement within the working class itself (as mainstream sociologists frequently do). They show by statistics and surveys, how children of unskilled manual workers are far more likely to leave school early, with few qualifications. In contrast to this, those with white collar, managerial parents, were more likely to pass a greater number of school exams and then to go on to university. Aspects of the book may be criticised by socialists for its emphasis on the material, social and economic divisions within the working class itself, rather than including a comparison with the children of the capitalist class. Nevertheless, it is still of significant value since it illustrates clearly how a lack of material resources and encouragement can seriously affect a child’s progress in education.

In 2007 a report entitled Chicken and Egg: Child Poverty and Educational Inequalities by Donald Hirsch, shows how little has changed, after another 45 years of capitalism. By the age of three, Hirsch concludes that “being in poverty makes a difference equivalent to nine months’ development in school readiness.” He continues: “At each stage of compulsory schooling, the poverty gap grows. In particular, there is a big jump early in secondary school, with poor children nearly two years behind by the age of 14.”

Hirsch adds: “Children who do badly at primary school are less likely to improve at secondary school, if they are poor. Children who are only slightly below average at primary school are more likely to be among the worst performers at secondary school, if they are poor.

Young people with parents in manual occupations remain far less likely than others to go to university. Even though their prospects have improved, they have not been the main beneficiaries of university expansion. Children of non-manual workers are over two and a half times as likely to go to university than children of manual workers.”

Like Jackson and Marsden, Hirsch is mainly looking here at different layers of the working class. All the same, it is a clear demonstration of how material circumstances in capitalism affect outcomes in education.

In February 2010 the Sutton Trust supported research which showed that “the vocabulary of children from the poorest backgrounds lags more than a year behind that of their classmates from richer homes by the time they start school.”

“Those from the poorest 20 percent of homes, where household annual incomes averaged £10,300 before tax, had an average developmental age of 53.6 months…Children from families in the richest 20 percent, on around £80,000 reached a development age of 69.8 months.”

In other words, children from the more affluent homes had a developmental age more than 16 months ahead of those from poorer homes. This is clearly a result of material circumstances.

Certainly, the demands of the capitalist education system, to restrain monetary expenditure and investment, cause highly significant barriers, particularly for children from more deprived backgrounds. Additionally, these cutbacks create real problems for many other working class children from less deprived backgrounds. The wealthy can purchase places for their children in private schools and universities, usually without any fear of indebtedness. For the rest of the population (the working class), the situation is very different and in recent years these inequalities have been increasing rather than diminishing.

Education in Socialist Society
So, what would education be like in a socialist society? A detailed description obviously cannot be given since it will be up to the people at the time to decide upon exactly which forms education would take. However, it is very clear that, in complete contrast to capitalism, socialism will put human need first. The welfare and needs of people, both as individuals and as a community will be treated as a priority.

The importance of developing to the full, the mental, physical and social abilities and talents of everyone, as individuals, will undoubtedly be recognised. Most significantly, education will inevitably be considered a lifelong process and certainly not something to be compartmentalised into time slots, like happens under the present system. As a result of this, people will be able to lead far more satisfying lives than could ever be even remotely achieved under capitalism. This satisfaction would derive from the contributions to the overall material, intellectual social and cultural wealth of society which people would be able to make and, of course, from the fact that, as individuals, they would be able to enjoy the fruits of the common store.

A quotation from Chapter 2 of the Communist Manifesto sums up the situation well:

“In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”

Here, the term “free development” can be taken to include education. In socialist society, there would be no financial constraints since the monetary system will have been abolished and production will be carried out solely for human need. The stresses and strains of cutbacks and needless austerity measures will finally have been abolished forever and at last, humanity will be able to move forward, considerably through genuine and effective education, towards real progress, both as individuals and as a community.

Vincent Otter

A Socialist visits capitalist China (2010)

From the September 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

One evening in early July, the Air China plane took off from London on an eleven hour flight to Beijing, through seven time zones. This was to be my first visit to China.

With a knowledge of Russian, one fact about the flight which particularly interested me was that a very large part of the journey would be across the Russian Federation.

Over Russia
After some snoozing in a window seat, I awoke to see the lights of St. Petersburg, 38,000 feet below, with the Gulf of Finland, to the left and the immensity of Lake Ladoga, stretching north-eastwards, to the right. When covered with ice during World War 2, that lake had played a very important role in providing the inhabitants of Leningrad with a lifeline, during the siege of the city by the German Wehrmacht.

I snoozed a little more, occasionally waking up to see the enormity of the Russian taiga (forest), stretching for hundreds of miles, past the Urals and into Siberia. When I awoke again, it was daylight and a vast lake emerged below – Lake Baikal – the world’s largest freshwater lake by volume, looking quite different, from when I had visited it at ground level in 1989. A flight to Beijing really does give an idea about the size of Russia.

After crossing Mongolia with its mountains and the wilderness of the Gobi Desert, the plane gradually descended into Beijing.

Arrival in China
Thirty-nine degrees Centigrade, with very high humidity. Almost like a wall of heat! Those were the conditions on my arrival in Beijing. The taxi ride along the highway to my hotel was rather reminiscent of urban scenery in New York or Chicago, except that the advertising hoardings were overwhelmingly, but not exclusively, written in Mandarin Chinese characters. Just this one hour journey conveyed an immediate impression of China’s very significant capitalist economic development and modernisation, at least in the eastern part of the country.

Like in Russia and other developing countries, many young Chinese are keen to meet foreigners and to practise their English. All the same, as I had realised before my arrival, the proportion of the population with a significant knowledge of English was not large. Hardly surprising really, because of China’s only relatively recent increased communications with the West. Nevertheless, around the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, there was no shortage of young guides willing to accompany foreigners around, describing the sights. This was very worthwhile and an opportunity to find out more about the way of life.

Impressions of Beijing
Attractive, neatly kept parks such as Zhongshan, with ornate, colourfully painted pagodas, gates and red Chinese lanterns. Tiananmen Square, despite its sinister connection with the events of 1989, is very impressive, particularly when the buildings are floodlit at night.

Pollution. Traffic jams in much of the city, where there are many more cars than 25 years ago. However, a large number of people still commute by pedal cycle, together with many of the young on motor scooters and bikes. Metal fencing, segregating the slower lanes for local traffic, provides some limited protection for cyclists from larger, faster vehicles. In spite of this, travelling by road in Chinese cities is stressful, like in other Asian cities, such as Bangkok and Kolkata.

Some beggars on the streets, hustlers peddling their wares. Many of the “hutongs”, or alleyways, with their old houses are being demolished in favour in modern buildings. Visit the shopping mall and street of Wangfujing, near the centre of Beijing, and you could be in almost any western shopping area, apart from the predominance of advertising in Chinese language characters. However, many signs, such as those indicating street names are transliterated into Pinyin, a form of Chinese using the Latin alphabet. In numerous places, promotion of the products of Sony, Panasonic and Samsung, etc., is visible.

Capitalism in China
Without doubt, capitalism dominates China, just as it does the rest of the world. Of course, the form of capitalism is somewhat different from the West. For many years, from 1949 onwards, state capitalism was very much in evidence. Now, the Chinese so-called “Communist” Party is still the only permitted political party. The inverted commas are certainly needed, since the ruling party is no more communist or socialist than Marks and Spencer in the UK.

A huge wave of privatisation has taken place, with commercialism nearly everywhere: on the streets, in the media, etc. Pretty much the same as you would see in the West.

Journeys on the Beijing metro turned out to be of interest. Well air-conditioned! Yes, the underground in London could learn something from this. As I stood in the carriage, I noticed that many of the passengers were looking at the walls of the passing tunnel, much more closely than would be the case in London. I soon realised why. As the train rushed between stations, electronically projected still and movie images, primarily in the form of advertising, were visible, like on a TV screen, – more of capitalism’s propaganda. As in other world cities, many commuters look fixatedly at the screens of their mobile phones and other electronic devices.

The Great Wall
A visit to the Great Wall gives an impression of how far the Chinese tourist industry has developed in recent years. The Wall is one of the world’s most memorable sights, as it winds its way across rugged mountain ranges. Reading the guidebooks had prepared me for the large number of tourists that would be there, and also for the fact that a northerly direction was the best way to go, to get away from the crowds.

All the same, as I did so, it was strange to look back and to see throngs of humanity slowly moving along the tops of the Wall, snaking in the distance, over the rising and falling slopes of the mountains.
Capitalism packages most of the world’s sights, with coach and car parks, entry fees, souvenir shops, cafes, restaurants, etc. Despite this, with a little planning, it is still possible for a person to ignore most of the commercialised tat and to marvel at what one has come to see.

Yunnan
From Beijing, I travelled to Kunming in Yunnan province. This city lies in the south-western part of the country, about 2,000 meters above sea-level. Here I met up with an English language teacher from Canada and her husband, who were spending nearly a year in China, before returning to North America.

I had talks with local Chinese students in the Yunnan University tea-room and found that they were very interested to hear about ideas from the West, since far fewer Westerners are to be found in Kunming than in Beijing.

During my stay in Yunnan, I made journeys into rural areas. Much of the province is very scenic because of its mountainous nature. In the valleys and flatter areas, much of the land is used for agriculture. Little mechanisation is used in farming, with most of the labour in the fields and orchards being done by hand. The work is very arduous, involves long hours and the income is low. That is why many younger people are migrating into the towns and cities. In some parts of the countryside factories are being constructed where the terrain is favourable.

Similarities Between China and Russia
Because of my interest in Russia, I could not help but notice certain similarities between the two countries. The governments of both have used Leninist slogans in their propaganda. The two have presented themselves, in the past as “ideological adversaries” of the Western powers. Now, they still have authoritarian regimes, with a strong emphasis on nationalism, and are frequently portrayed as political rivals to the West.

State capitalism is no longer so dominant in China and Russia, and, like other parts of world, both have significantly embraced privatisation. Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times (8 January 2008) says:

“The new Russo-Chinese model is authoritarian rather than democratic. It attempts to marry capitalism with a large state role in the economy. It holds out the promise of western consumerism for a rising middle class, while rejecting western political liberalism. Rather than relying on democracy or communist ideology to create loyalty to the political system, the Russian and Chinese elites increasingly stress a combination of economic growth and nationalism.”

At the United Nations, China and Russia often oppose the Western policies of exerting pressure on repressive governments – in Sudan, Iraq, Iran, or Serbia. It should be added though, that in the past, a Sino-Soviet split revealed rivalries between Mao’s China and the Soviet Union. In addition, there is still a strong element of mutual suspicion and strategic rivalry, with the Russians wary of the potential expansion of China into sparsely-populated, mineral-rich Siberia.

Officials of the two countries are often ambiguous in their statements about democracy. They declare that liberal democracy remains a long-term goal – but that their countries “must be given time“. They maintain that they will be “democratic” – but they will not allow that idea to be defined for them by outsiders and foreigners.

Gideon Rachman says: “President Hu Jintao of China has called democracy ‘the common pursuit of mankind’. However, the official Chinese line tends to be that small steps are being taken towards a more democratic system – through village-level elections or contested elections within the Communist party – but that it is vital to avoid the ‘chaos’ that could be unleashed by a naive rush towards democracy”.

China and Global Capitalism
Very clearly, capitalism is a global system. More recent developments in China have shown how much that country is a part of the system. Increased privatisation is an example of this.
The Zhongshan or Mao suit, as it is known in the West, which was widely worn in the sixties and seventies has overwhelmingly been replaced by Western style clothing. Most younger people dress very much like their counterparts in the West.

One amusing instance of how things have changed was when I visited a lake land area on the edge of Kunming. Sitting on some benches was a group of elderly men. One appeared to be in his eighties and was holding an ancient Chinese stringed musical instrument. An example of the older part of Chinese culture, to be sure and yet, as I looked at him, I noticed that he was wearing on his head an American style baseball cap, with the word “Sexy” in English, emblazoned across the top.

Capitalism in China
The form which capitalism takes can vary in different parts of the world. In China, the state still has a more important role to play than in the West. Although the ruling party is the only permitted political organisation, how much longer this continues to be the case, remains to be seen.

According to Forbes Magazine (8 October 2007), in 2007 China, with 108, ranked second behind the US, in the number of dollar billionaires. Yang Huiyan, ($16.02 billion) came top of the Chinese list, while Xu Rongmao ($7.03 billion) came second. During the reform period, inequality has clearly risen terms of wealth ownership and, additionally in such areas as household income, consumption of consumer goods, and social outcomes in education and health. On the other hand, economic growth during the past 25 years has brought about a reduction in absolute material poverty. This, of course happened under capitalism earlier in history, in Europe, for example.

During recent times, many workers have lost their previous job security and subsidised housing. According to Amnesty International (Western Australian, 2 March 2007), millions of Chinese workers who have migrated from the countryside to the urban areas are “overworked, underpaid, denied access to health care, education for their children, and even the right to live permanently in the cities which use their labour, and are treated as an underclass”.

The Amnesty report continues: “They are forced to work long stretches of overtime, often denied time off when sick, and labour under hazardous conditions for paltry wages. As well as being exploited by employers, migrant families face discriminatory government regulations in almost every area of daily life.”

Conclusion
China has its own social cultures, such as “guanxi”, a system of favours, services and obligations between individuals. Nevertheless, as it develops, it has become increasingly a part of the world capitalist system.

For me, the visit to China was both memorable and instructive. Memorable, because of the sights, different culture and helpful, friendly people, whom I met. Instructive in the political sense.

In the West, much of the population has been deceived by mainstream propaganda into mistakenly believing that capitalism can only be accompanied by “political democracy”. Nothing could be further from the truth. During the Industrial Revolution, when capitalism developed in Britain and parts of western Europe, for a long time the right to vote was completely absent for the large majority of people, and trade unions were threatened by governments and employers. Privatised capitalism has co-existed and does co-exist quite comfortably, with authoritarian regimes in South America and Africa, as well as with past dictatorships in Europe, such as those of General Franco, Hitler and Mussolini. The state controlled version of capitalism emerged in the Soviet Russia and later in China. Now, Russia and China persist with authoritarian regimes, with which a more privatised version of capitalism has made a convenient accommodation.

Certainly, China never was even remotely “socialist” or “communist” in 1949 or afterwards.

Vincent Otter

They Say: “We Can’t Afford it.” (2010)

From the July 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

The aspirations of the majority of the world’s population are being frustrated by capitalism’s economic constraints.

In May 2010, the Coalition government in the UK announced cuts of £6.2 billion in an attempt to begin to reduce the budget deficit of £156 billion for 2009/2010. These cuts will very noticeably affect people’s lives. For example, it was reported that £780 million would be cut on transport, £836 million on communities and local government and £325 million on education. Devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will have to cut back £704 million. Local authorities will be expected to reduce expenditure by £1.165 billion. Many more expenditure reductions were announced in the June emergency budget.

It is vital to realise that this economic crisis is just the latest in a series of slumps which are quite natural to the capitalist system. In the past, supporters of this system have quite mistakenly believed that politicians would be able to rid society of the detrimental effects of the trade cycle. Gordon Brown is particularly infamous for his claims to have “abolished boom and bust”. Past slumps have, of course included the Great Depression of the early 1930s, and recessions of the mid 1970s, the early 1980s and 1990s.

Reforms = Continuation of Capitalism
When confronted with the case for genuine socialism, many apologists for the capitalist monstrosity have maintained that through the introduction of reforms, political leaders would be able to establish a “fairer” and “better” society.

Let’s look at aspects of this reform movement. In 1942, the Social Insurance and Allied Services were created by Beveridge in order to aid those who were in need of help, and/or in poverty. The benefits were designed to aid the sick, unemployed, retired or widowed. When state welfare reforms were introduced after the Second World War, they did produce some improvement in working class living conditions in the UK, for example in the areas of education, housing, child employment, work conditions and social security. No doubt, one motive for these reforms was an attempt to distract workers attention way from more radical, left-wing ideas, which claimed to offer an alternative to capitalism. Such motives had been employed in Germany during the 1890s by Bismarck.

The benefits from reforms have, in reality done little more than to keep workers and their families in an efficient condition for employment. In economically developed countries, such as those in Europe and North America, whilst the worst excesses of poverty have been partially alleviated, most of the social problems of inequality, unemployment (or the threat of it), sub-standard housing etc., remain.

The reforms which are made in capitalist society, have to be reconciled with the profit-making needs of the system. These reforms will often be turned to the benefit of the capitalist class at the expense of any working class gain. This explains the limited nature of reformism as far as the workers (the majority of people) are concerned, and how many of the supposed benefits can be eroded. Take for example social security, housing and education.

Underlying the whole system of the provision of “benefit” to those unable, for various reasons, to take part in the employment process, is the suspicion, encouraged by the ruling class, that many of those in receipt of these benefits “may not deserve them”. The value of the benefits, such as Job Seekers’ Allowance, Income Support and state pensions frequently declines over periods of time, since the government insists that the previous levels “cannot be afforded”. Pressure is put upon claimants to “justify” their claims.

As regards social housing, council house building is a minute fraction of what it was 50 or 60 years ago and the cost of having a roof over one’s head has become much greater, causing through mortgages, huge levels of indebtedness.

In the sphere of education, tuition fees and student loans have put enormous pressure on the young who are seeking to increase their knowledge and skills, in most cases, in order to make themselves “more employable on the job market”. According to the online student magazine Push, in 2009 students faced an average debt of £5,000 for each year of study. Some students in London have debts of around £30,000 by the time they finished their courses. When these students do finish their studies, they will most likely have to find a place to live, on a more permanent basis. Hence, the need for majority to take out a mortgage and build up even more debt for themselves. How much of this was foreseen by the reformist proponents of large-scale higher education and home “ownership” under capitalism?

It’s the Working Class who make the sacrifices
Most economists and political commentators are saying that the UK’s budget deficit and indebtedness will usher in a period of significant austerity. This problem is a global one, as is the economic crisis. To take just one example, the problems of Greece have been well publicised. In order to receive loans from the Euro-zone countries and the International Monetary Fund, wage freezes, pension cuts and tax rises are being introduced.

David Cameron and other apologists for the status quo claim that the whole population will have to make “sacrifices”. What these defenders of capitalism utterly and deliberately fail to tell us is that the overwhelming burden of the sacrifice will have to be made by the working class. The rich will, for the most part, as usual keep their privileges and luxurious lifestyles. Perhaps, the average multi-millionaire or billionaire will only be able to “afford” two yachts in the Caribbean, instead of the more normal, three. Perhaps, some of the wealthy will have to delay refurbishment of their opulent gated homes, for a few months etc. The reality is that capitalism can never be made to work in any other way. It always works in the interests of the rich minority and against the interests of the majority of the population, no matter how many reforms are introduced.

The socialist answer to all this is firstly to point to the absurd contradictions which capitalism presents. We are being told that many reforms and much social expenditure cannot be afforded. Yet, huge sums of money are squandered on the destructiveness of the armed forces and on the wastefulness of financial services. The society in which we live, possesses immense wealth, on a global scale. Just think of the power of modern technology, compared with the technology of only 40 years ago. Just think of how greatly the processes of automation in industry have been developed in recent decades. Also, bear in mind the huge potential of the world’s labour force which could contribute towards expanding society’s wealth still further. However, under capitalism many of these productive resources are being and will be underused or abandoned since they cannot be “afforded” (in reality, it is not profitable to employ them). All the reforming of the capitalist monstrosity is not going to make any significant difference. The problem will still be there, unless…, unless people finally realise that there most certainly is an alternative to this austerity madness.

The Socialist Alternative
That alternative consists firstly of people becoming aware that conditions most certainly do not have to be as they are at present. The majority needs to come together and to realise that instead of a small, profiteering minority owning nearly all of the planet and its resources, we, as the overwhelming majority must take possession of those resources, manage and use them in the interests of the whole of humanity, with production of goods and services for human need and, not for profit making which benefits only a small minority.

In such a society where the resources of the world are owned and controlled by the people of the world, there will be absolutely no need for the money system and its inherent enormously wasteful financial apparatus. With the democratic introduction of common ownership, will come the abolition of money and all forms of exchange. In their place, each individual will be able to make their own voluntary contribution to the production of society’s wealth and in turn, will be able to draw from the common store, according to their own self-defined needs.

In such a world, notions of “indebtedness” and not “being able to afford” things in monetary terms, will be considered completely archaic and utterly out of place.

Through the pages of this journal and of other socialist literature, and by communicating with socialists, people can become aware of this alternative. So, the next time you hear a politician supporting policies of austerity and talking about there not being enough money to do something worthwhile, think of the socialist alternative where we will not need money in the first place. Instead, the world’s people will be empowered to contribute their knowledge and skills to the common good (that of society as a whole, including themselves, as individuals). In such a system, humanity will also have, at its disposal, technology designed and frequently refined to benefit all of the world’s people.

Vincent Otter

How would you like your capitalism served? (2010)

From the April 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

That’s the “choice” the main and minor parties are offering at the general election.

The basic global political, social and economic problems, such as inequality, poverty, homelessness, hunger, wars, and pollution have, as their root cause, capitalism. This system is founded upon production for profit to benefit only a very small, rich minority of the planet’s population, at the expense of the majority.

In order to solve these problems, in the interests of the majority and in fact, ultimately in those of all the people, we need collectively and democratically to abolish capitalism and to replace it with the positive alternative of genuine socialism. That is to say, production for human need, with ownership and democratic control of the productive forces in the hands of the whole community.

At the General Election, the electorate will be confronted by a large number of political organisations seeking votes. Almost all of them will be the parties of capitalism’s centre, right and left wings. These include the following: Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, UKIP, the Greens, BNP, Plaid Cymru, Scottish Nationalists, the Trade Union & so-called “Socialist“ Coalition (TUSC).

Many other organisations will be fielding candidates, but this sample is large enough for our purposes here. The range of views of these parties is wide, but although they mostly do not realise it, more unites them than separates them. They all support the capitalist system. Some openly admit this while others, on the Left, usually deny this reality. Upon closer inspection, we see that all their policies amount to is a list of reforms, generally in a vain attempt to make the existing system function “more efficiently” and in a more socially responsible way.

Labour: At its inception, many of its members believed that they were working for a quite different type of society which some would have described as being “socialist”. Even now, despite the experience of past Labour governments and, especially this present one, there are still members who advocate what they describe as “socialism”, but which, in reality amounts to a form of nationalisation, government intervention, in other words, state capitalism. The people who matter within the Labour Party, the leadership, want nothing to do with this. Their desire is to continue to run capitalism, under the utterly false notion that it can be controlled and made to work in the interests of the majority. The experiences of the recent Credit Crunch and recession are the latest in a long list of examples of the falseness of Labour’s position.

What is Labour now offering? It proposes: "investing now so we are best placed to take advantage of the upturn." This overlooks the deficit problem which the government faces. Private investment will only take place if a significant profit can be made. Like many apologists for the status quo, Labour talks of the “upturn”. What they never mention is the next downturn. The reality of the market system is a natural trade cycle of booms and slumps, which cannot be effectively controlled by governments of any political colour.

As regards the military, Labour wishes to “ensure that forces personnel receive state of the art medical care when they are injured on operations” and to “proceed with the construction of two new aircraft carriers”. Not surprisingly, Labour wishes to continue with its war mongering policies. Nearly a century ago, the Coalition government (mainly composed of Tories and Liberals) in Britain during the first World War, erroneously claimed that the war would be a “war to end all wars”. Now, in the 21st century, Labour which sometimes pretends to be “radical” to its own supporters, can offer nothing more than capitalism’s familiar cycle of warfare.

Liberal “Democrats”: The Liberal “Democrats” are rival warmongers to Labour and the Tories since they wish at least to “maintain the size of the UK's armed forces”. They claim that they would "put British values of decency and the rule of law back at the heart of our foreign policy". Where were the British values of “decency” during the days of the British Empire and its slave trade, the bombing of thousands of civilians in Hamburg and Dresden in the second World War and, where was the “decency” in numerous other wars in which the U.K. has been involved, such as Suez, the Falklands, the Gulf War, as well as Afghanistan and Iraq? Such is the naivety of the Liberal “Democrats” that they do not recognise that “decency” on the one hand and “maintaining armed forces” (inevitably involving preparedness for war), on the other, are incompatibles.

Conservative Party:The Conservatives have never made any secret of their support for the market system. More recently, they have been adopting slogans emphasising “change”, such as “vote for change” and “year for change”. The fact that being conservative and wanting change is a contradiction in terms, appears lost on them. That is until you realise that the only significant change that they really want is the opportunity to take over the running of capitalism, to their own advantage and that of their business friends. They advocate familiar policies of cutbacks in social expenditure, which will inevitably hit the working class hardest. All in the cause of reducing the economic deficit, much of which was caused by bailing out the banks, which will continue to profiteer out the demand for credit, fuelled by the relative poverty of the working class.

The Left: The TUSC has the following policy: “Bringing privatised public services and utilities back into public ownership under democratic control.”.

This is a typical illusion of the left-wing of capitalism that services or industries owned and run by the government or local councils are supposedly “owned by the public”. The reality is that this is state and municipal capitalism. Pricing policies in order to raise revenue, and expenditure cutbacks, restrict access to these services, particularly for the poor. The people do not own these services, as they find out when they have not got enough money to pay for them. They also discover this when the employees in them, face reductions in the real value of their wages/salaries, a deterioration in their employment conditions and/or are made redundant, just as in private industry.

“Affordable housing” is a familiar slogan of the Left. However, it does not appear to realise that housing, just like other products under the market system, is produced for profit. Since demand for housing is high in many parts of the U.K., the idea of low priced housing on any significant scale is a pipe dream. For example, in a fairly ordinary London suburb, like Palmers Green, the average price of a modest two bedroom property is now around £273,000, nearly ten times the average annual wage/salary in outer London of about £29,000, (bearing in mind the fact that many people, who are employed, receive a lot less). Incidentally, by way of comparison, in the early 1960’s, a similar type of property would have cost £3,250, with an average annual wage/salary of around £1,000. Capitalism has brought people even further away from “affordable housing” than 50 years ago.

The TUSC defines “socialism” in the following way: “A society run in the interests of the people not the millionaires. For democratic public ownership of the major companies and banks that dominate the economy”.

For them apparently, there would still be millionaires and banks in their so-called “socialist” society. This is not socialism at all, it is state capitalism, which has been tried on many occasions before by governments of differing political colours, and adopted on a larger scale in the former Soviet Union. In the end, it failed. Thus, the re-emergence of widespread privatisation.

The Left should remind themselves of the thousands of workers in the past, in the nationalised coal, steel and railway industries who had to go on strike in an attempt to protect their living standards, and indeed of the thousands of these workers who were eventually sacked, just as would have happened under private ownership. That is the way capitalism works, whether it is run privately or by the state.

UKIP: UKIP stands on the right wing of capitalism and advocates a form of British nationalism. Like all the nationalist parties, such as the BNP, Plaid Cymru, the Scottish Nationalists, Ulster Unionists and Sinn Féin, it is out of touch with the trends in modern, globalised capitalism, which has spread way beyond the boundaries of nation states into much larger political and economic power blocs.

According to UKIP, Britishness can be defined by “belief in fair play, as well as traits such as politeness.” So, if we are to believe these clowns, “fair play and politeness” begin at Dover and end in Calais. What nonsense! UKIP asserts that it believes in democracy and yet goes on to say that also supports the monarchy. The reality is that any type of genuine democracy is totally incompatible with monarchy.

Green Party: As regards the Green Party, it supports a market economy and would continue with the military, if the Greens ever participated in government. Their naivety is exposed by advocacy of a British military “only to be used in self defence”, and by their support of “binding global agreements against all weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons.” This cannot be achieved under the present system which engenders political, economic and military rivalries.

The Greens fail to recognise that since the economy is based primarily on profit making, then the needs of the environment, just as those of the majority of people, always come in a very poor second place.

Abolish Capitalism

Capitalism, with its anti-environmental and anti-social policies, is what needs to be replaced. None of the mainstream parties is aware of this very basic fact. Limited sections of the Left have a partial awareness of it but are thoroughly committed to the idea of reforming the system and not to creating a genuine alternative. All the Left can offer are the old failed policies of state capitalism.

There are the three options facing the people at all political elections.

1). To continue to vote for one of the numerous parties whose policies are limited by the narrow parameters of capitalism, the very system responsible for the vast majority of society’s problems.

2). Not to vote at all and to become politically apathetic, which contributes to the continuation of capitalism.

3). In complete contrast to the above two, to support the World Socialist Movement which proposes the genuine, democratic sharing of resources amongst all the people, with production of goods and services for human need. In such a society, each individual would be of equal value and status, and would be able to make their own contribution, voluntarily towards producing the wealth of the new society. The people would then have free access to goods and services. In real socialism, since profit making and money will be abolished, it is all the people and the environment which will come first.

Vincent Otter

What is Real Democracy and How Do We Get It? (2010)

From the March 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a month or so the people of Britain will be asked once again to decide which representatives of the ruling class will rule over them for the next four or five years.

It is well known that the word ‘democracy’ originates from Ancient Greece and means ‘power of the people’. Such an idea, in its literal sense, encompassing economic, political and social democracy does not exist anywhere in the world. This is primarily because the planet’s resources, many of which human beings need in order to live, do not belong to the people as a whole. Instead, they are in the hands of a small, privileged, rich minority. Such extremely limited political ‘democracy’ as does exist in parts of the modern world, is scarcely even a shadow of what genuine democracy will be like when it is finally put into practice.

For real democracy: imagine a society where all the people would be of equal status, with equal, free access to resources owned by the community, as a whole (e.g. food, shelter, healthcare, education, transportation, etc.). Imagine a world with no leaders and no elite to lord it over the rest of the population. A society where everyone can have an equal say in the issues that concern them. Above all, a world, in which all the people own and share the wealth that we need in order to live.

People and Politics
Not just socialists, but large numbers of people sense the lack of democracy in present society. Huge and ever increasing sections of the electorate, not only in Britain, but globally, feel, and by now know, that with the prevailing political ideas, the outcome of elections is not going to make any real difference to their way of life.

People have not always felt this way. Those who struggled to gain the franchise in the 19th and early 20th centuries, earnestly believed that this would empower them sufficiently to provide a means of solving many of the social, political and economic problems around them. Even fifty years or so ago, many thought that their vote could bring about genuine, significant change.

Now, experience has led people to think otherwise and, although most of them will still be casting their votes, few will have any great expectations, whether they vote for Tweedledum (Conservative) or Tweedledee (Labour) or, for Tweedledum-dee-dum (Liberal-“Democrat”). In mainstream politics, apathy has grown. Although this is disconcerting for the activists of the dominant parties, the general forces of capitalism are not overworried by it.

Those who administer capitalism want the electorate to vote for the main parties, which are all thoroughly committed to the capitalist status quo. However, capitalism’s leaders have no interest in public involvement in politics, outside of election time. Of course, there are radio phone-ins, programmes such as ‘Question Time’, ‘Any Questions’, etc., but these are tightly controlled and the participation of individual members of the audience in studio discussion is very limited, to say the least. Forums on the Internet have allowed more expression of dissent, but generally in practice to smaller, well-scattered audiences, in spite of the huge potential of this medium. Capitalism’s ideology and indoctrination dominates the thinking of the vast majority of participants. If large sections of the electorate, through apathy, do not vote, capitalism remains firmly entrenched, by default.

Why people are powerless
Almost everyone would like at least some degree of control over what shapes their lives. Many know they have not got that now, and probably most of those, if they thought about it, would realise that in the past, they didn’t have that degree of control either. Simplistic, misleading explanations are concocted as to why people are powerless. These include: ‘greedy bankers’, ‘corrupt politicians who don’t listen to the people’, ‘fat cats’, the ‘nanny state’ etc.

Capitalism, on the one hand, and genuine democracy, on the other, are completely incompatible with one another. The reason for this is that under capitalism, wealth is concentrated in the hands of a very small minority of the population. This wealth brings its owners huge power, influence and lifestyle opportunities, completely unavailable to the majority.

According to the United Nations Development Programme, more than 1.2 billion people – nearly one in every five people on Earth – survive on less than $1 a day. More than one billion people in developing countries lack access to clean, safe drinking water. Contrast that with the fact that the net wealth of the 10 richest billionaires is $133billion, more than 1.5 times the total national income of the least developed countries.

A study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research at the United Nations University reports that the richest 1 percent of adults owned 40 percent of global assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10 percent of adults accounted for 85 percent of the world’s assets. In contrast to this, the bottom half of the world adult population owned barely 1 percent of global wealth.
If we look at the U.K, it is well known that since Labour has been in power, inequality has grown even greater than it was under the Conservatives. In fact, in January 2010 a government commissioned report by the ‘National Equality Panel’ revealed that the gap between the rich and the poor was greater than it was 40 years earlier.

In 2004, the top 1,000 people on the Sunday Times Rich List were worth a total of £202.4 billion. That’s an average of about £200 million each. On the average UK wage in 2004 of £21,000 a year, it would take nearly ten thousand years to earn that much. It should by now be crystal clear that such enormous disparities in wealth ownership which capitalism generates, make any meaningful democracy unattainable, within the present setup. The only effective solution is to get rid of capitalism, the root cause of this problem and replace it by a society, in which the world’s resources are shared by the world’s population.

Boardroom dictatorship
We are told by the apologists for the status quo that we live in a ‘free’ society. However, just ask people how ‘free’ they really feel on their daily commute (slog) to their places of employment (exploitation), as they are crammed together in buses or trains, or face the predictable monotony of the traffic jam. Employment is accurately described as being exploitation since the value of what the workers produce in the form of goods and services is much greater than the value of the wages/salaries which they receive. The surplus value is pocketed by the capitalist class and is a very important source of the wealth of the ruling class.

How ‘free’ do the working class (vast majority of the population) feel when they arrive at work, where they spend a significant amount of their waking hours. Few dare to criticise their line-managers or conditions of employment. They are only too well aware of the consequences of doing so: loss of promotion prospects and/or, quite likely, the sack. Trade unions do not and cannot give the protection which left-wing reformers once hoped they could. The trade cycle of booms and slumps is a natural part of capitalism. Particularly in a slump, most workers have to keep their mouths shut about their grievances and, even when the economy is stronger, workers still have to be very wary about what they say openly.

The basic reason why the working class majority feel powerless and not really ‘free’ is because they do not own any significant amount of the means for producing and distributing wealth, which people need in order to live. According to Social Trends 2003 published by the Office of National Statistics in the UK, the top 5 percent of population own 58 percent of this wealth, while the bottom 95 percent owns only 42 percent. This is a very important statistic since it means that out of every 20 people in Britain, the wealthiest one owns more than all the other 19 put together.

Such enormous inequality, although variable in degree in different parts of the world, is very typical of the global situation. It means that the vast majority are forced by their circumstances, to become economic slaves to the rich minority. The term ‘wage slavery’ is still very apposite. When people think of slavery, a picture of Ancient Rome and Greece with their slave drivers bearing whips, usually comes to mind. Modern wage slavery is very obviously quite different from this. The whip is no longer required. Capitalism has something far more subtle and far more productively effective at its disposal. In the Ancient World, slaves were quite often brutally treated by their masters. However, because the slave was the property of the owner, it was in the interests of the owner to keep him or her in a reasonable condition, in order to work.

In contrast to this, when capitalism began to develop further, in Europe in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries and, spread to other parts of the world, the industrial working class (wage slaves) themselves were clearly not the property of the capitalist class. This meant that the capitalists had no economic interest in maintaining those, who worked for them. After all, these workers could always be replaced by others in the queue, looking for work. This was the thinking of the employers in the earlier period of capitalism and, still is today in the less developed parts of the planet. Hence, the grinding poverty of early industrial capitalism in Europe and, still today, in many undeveloped countries.
Modern capitalism, in the more economically advanced countries has been adapted subtly to suit the self-interest of the ruling class. Welfare systems have removed the worst excesses of poverty in such countries and, most importantly from the point of view of the capitalists, have to a considerable extent, removed the threats of instability for the owners of industry, caused by any organised discontent amongst workers. Such is the sophistication of modern wage slavery that, workers can often be persuaded (indoctrinated) into exercising self-discipline at the workplace, which means that line managers (more highly paid workers) often need to spend less time in supervising their subordinates.

Revolution from below
In view of the overall situation of poverty, wars, inequality, pollution etc., how do we get from the dictatorship of capital and the boardroom, to the system of real democracy described earlier? The means to reach such a society must surely reflect the composition of the new society itself.

Since the emergence of agriculture, about 10,000 years ago, private ownership of the means of production has developed, with a ruling class at each stage. Many changes have taken place since then but the key element has been private ownership of resources, by a small minority, right from slave owning societies through to feudalism and then, to capitalism. Significant political changes have been led by minorities, who have successfully imposed their will and rule on a population, very often by means of violence.

Capitalism, with its ruling class was established and developed by a minority, that is to say by leaders. In complete contrast to this, genuine democracy or real socialism, the two are synonymous, will be a society run by the whole of the people. Since it will be without leaders, this democracy will be set up by a majority of the people, consciously and politically organising themselves for a change, which they both understand and desire.

Even now, many people realise that there is something seriously wrong with the present system (wars, poverty, pollution, inequality etc.). However, it is the awareness of an alternative to this which is missing. The task of socialists is to get people to think for themselves, without the need for leaders. When more people consider the genuine socialist, democratic alternative to capitalism, those who give it support, will swell the size of the already existing world socialist movement. As the number of socialists grows, the ideas will spread among the people they come into contact with, particularly in a world where those ideas can be communicated so much more quickly than in the past. A series of political, democratic acts will be needed to establish the truly democratic society of socialism. People with a socialist consciousness will unite and upon achieving a majority, measured by voting, will be in a position to establish the new society.

World Socialism
At last, democracy will have real meaning: a society of production of goods and services for human need, with ownership and control of the means of production and distribution by all the people. Since the division into rich and poor will have been abolished, it will be a classless society. The precise, day-to-day details of the running of this future society will be up to the people at the time, but what we can be sure of is that just as there will be free access to goods and services for everyone, without any need for money, so there will be open access to the administration of society for those interested in particular issues, such as food production, health, education, building of houses, the environment and local matters.

Probably, there will be local administrations, perhaps in the form of councils, which will be reflected at wider levels, such as regional and global. The new democratic society will most likely involve participation of delegates in these councils. The consequence of this is that certain delegates could be subject to recall, if the electorate were dissatisfied with their activities. These factors would emphasise the genuine democracy and choice available to everyone.

Such a society will clearly face challenges in the need to clean up the mess created by capitalism. Swift measures will be required to undo as much as possible of the damage which has already been done to the environment by the previously existing profit system. Adequate food supplies, housing, health services and education will need to be expanded to areas of the planet previously deprived of them under capitalism. The tasks involved will obviously be considerable. However, the numbers of people available to do such work will be much greater than could ever be the case in a market economy since unemployment and the vagaries of the trade cycle will have been abolished. There will be increased automation of some tasks, and further technological development, with consideration for the environment. The scale of human energy available, accompanied by a social concern for creating the best possible working conditions, will make work a far more individually and socially satisfying affair than could ever be the case under capitalist wage slavery.

These will be enormously exciting times because at long last, human society will have evolved to the position of being able to tackle effectively the challenges facing the modern world. Immense satisfaction will be experienced by huge numbers of individuals as, on the one hand they will be able to contribute their mental and physical energies into increasing the commonly held wealth of society, whilst on the other hand, they will satisfy their own self defined needs from the common store.
The new era for humanity will have begun.

Vincent Otter