SPGB Meetings (1977)

Party News from the December 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1978)

Party News from the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1978)

Party News from the October 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1978)

Party News from the August 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Your labour - their profits (1978)

From the July 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

In spite of the continuing world recession many companies are managing to maintain and even increase their profits. Statistics prepared by the Government Statistical Service show that the gross trading profits for industrial and commercial companies increased by 38 per cent. in 1977 compared with 1976. Over the same period payment of dividends on ordinary shares increased by 17 per cent.

But where do profits come from?

Let us first consider the explanation of profits that is provided by orthodox economics. Orthodox economic theory takes for granted a world of private property where some people mysteriously own capital and earn a revenue from that, and where the rest of the population own only their ability to labour and so are forced to work for a wage or a salary. It assumes private property and the existence of profit to start off with. Its theory, therefore, can in no way provide an explanation of profit, but is merely a description of the way that capital can secure an income for its owners.

The ideological implications of such a theory are clear (although not to the economists, who would deny them). By focussing on a description of the way payments to capital are made, rather than examining WHY such payments are made — which would necessitate an analysis of the foundations of property society — orthodox economics sweeps under the carpet the potentially revolutionary issues and makes profits seem normal, right and inevitable.

Orthodox Theory

Marx was highly critical of this aspect of orthodox theory and regarded it as a complete mystification of the real situation. For example in The 1844 Manuscripts Marx says,

Political economy starts with the fact of private property; it does not explain it to us . . . Political economy throws no light on the cause of the division between labour and capital, and between capital and land. When, for example, it defines the relationship of wages to profit, it takes the interest of the capitalists to be the ultimate cause, i.e., it takes for granted what it is supposed to explain.

Marx’s analysis of profit starts off by investigating the underlying property relations of society. As profit is a general characteristic of capitalist society only its explanation is to be found in its specific features. The features that Marx took to be specific to capitalism were the following:-

1. The means of production take the form of capital. This means not only that the means of production are put into operation only if a profit can be expected from the sale of the commodities so produced, but that the function of these means of production is the production of profit for accumulation, and not the production of useful articles as such.
2. These means of production are owned by a minority class who are forced by their position as capitalists to use these means of production as capital, to use them only for making profit.
3. The non-owning class, the working class, are unable to undertake productive activity unless hired by an employer in return for a money wage with which the means of subsistence can be purchased.
4. The economic relations between economic agents (including those between capitalists and workers) have the appearance of freely contracted relations.
5. Money transactions are the norm.

Surplus Product 

Marx argued that it is a feature of all property societies that a surplus product is appropriated by a minority class. In his economic writings on capitalism, he explained how this appropriation takes place in capitalist society; in an economy where economic relations take the form of exchange relations, the appropriation of the surplus product is also effected on the basis of exchange.

Firstly, Marx considered whether the surplus could be appropriated by means of unfair exchanges amongst sellers where commodities are bought cheap and sold dear. If this were so then the surplus would actually be created within the sphere of exchange. This can be discounted as an explanation of the source of the surplus because as capitalists are both buyers and sellers, it would be impossible for them as a class to make profits by cheating themselves all the time, although some individual capitalists may sometimes make profits on this basis by defrauding others. Consequently Marx concluded that an explanation would have to be based on the assumption of ‘fair’ exchanges between buyers and sellers.

As Marx saw exchange itself to be a purely social act, he argued that when commodities are exchanged, what is really happening is that people’s labour is being exchanged. Exchange-value is determined by the value of the commodity, by the amount of socially-necessary labour-time that has been expended on it. By this he meant that the value of a commodity is determined by the amount of labour needed on average, given the prevailing level of technical development and efficiency, to produce it, including the labour needed to produce the machinery and raw materials. If all commodities exchange according to their values, then what is the source of the surplus product, the surplus value? (We assume here for the sake of simplicity that exchange-values are determined solely and directly by values. In fact, Marx showed in Capital volume 3 that this is not generally the case. The analysis of the source of profit is, however, unaffected by this simplifying assumption).

Marx’s answer to this question is that surplus value is produced by the working class in the ordinary course of their working activity in that the value newly produced by a worker is invariably more than the value that he or she receives in the form of wages. But  how could this happen if all commodities are exchanged at their value? Surely the worker is exchanging labour for less than its value if the worker receives less value than his/her labour produces? Marx’s answer to this was that what the worker actually sells to the capitalist is not labour, but the ability to labour, labour-power. And the value of the labour-power is what it costs the worker on average to maintain himself/herself and dependants. By and large, the wages received by the working class are sufficient to maintain them from one generation to the next, but clearly this is a smaller value than is produced by the working class. The difference between the value newly produced by the working class and the wages received by them is the source of surplus value.

The capitalist class is able to appropriate this unpaid labour by virtue of its monopoly of the means of production which enables it to dictate the terms on which the working class are forced to exchange their labour for wages. This coercion may be softened a little by trade union activity, but essentially is unchanged by it.

Marx then went on to show how this surplus value is distributed among the different sections of the capitalist class in the form of rent, interest, and profit. Thus all unearned income ultimately flows from the unpaid labour of the working class, this being the direct result of the monopoly of the means of production by the capitalist class.

What does all this mean for the worker?

It means that although the world’s wealth is produced by the working class acting on nature-given raw materials, a certain proportion of this wealth is siphoned off for a small parasite class. That enables this class to enjoy a standard of living far in excess of that of the working class. It also provides the capitalist class with the funds for further accumulation on an extended scale which serves to reproduce the existing class relations of society.

It also means that the aim of production is not the satisfaction of people’s needs, but the amassing of surplus value and accumulation on an ever larger scale. Instead of useful articles — food, clothing, shelter, being produced for people, people are subordinated to the production of commodities; instead of people controlling the productive forces of society, people are controlled by them. Consequently, in a world which has a productive potential hitherto unknown, we are faced with mass poverty, mass starvation, mass pollution.

It means that the time is long overdue for the working class to take political action to put an end to a system that works against their interests.

It means therefore that the time is long overdue for the establishment of Socialism where all society’s productive forces are owned and democratically controlled by the entire community. In such a society the means of production will not function as capital but as aids to the production of the useful articles that we need to live. Production will not be for profit but will be directed towards satisfying our needs. Together with other relics of capitalism such as money, insurance policies and price tags, profits will have no rôle in Socialism.

V. W. Brown

Turgid post-modernist analysis (1996)

Book Review from the August 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Adam Smith's Discourse by Vivienne Brown (Routledge, London).

The publishers really took a risk when they agreed to publish this book. It has obviously been written by someone out to get a better academic job, for it is aimed at that specific section of the academic hierarchy obsessed with turgid post-modernist analysis, when it could have commanded a wider audience. Its main contention is that Adam Smith’s writings had a far greater moral imperative than is generally supposed, especially by the free market zealots who claim him as the forefather of laissez-faire economics. To the extent that this case is made it is lost in a welter of post-modernist verbiage of which the following is

  "It was emphasised in the introduction to this chapter that the monologic style of WN does not mean that it can be viewed as a didactic text in the sense that excludes a rhetorical dimension. The theoretical structure presented in section 2 above constitutes the analytical frame that supports the large and leisurely discourse of WN. This discourse includes historical, comparative, empirical and conjectural material interspersed with juridical claims and a sustained criticism of the mercantile system."

Any author who chooses to write in such a way does not, frankly, deserve to be read. In some ways this is a shame, because the more economically orientated sections of this book are not without interest, especially the chapter on Smith’s magnum opus, The Wealth of Nations. Even this partial commendation must be heavily qualified, however, as equally pertinent analysis of Smith’s political economy—especially his deployment of a labour theory of value later developed upon by Ricardo and Marx—have previously been made elsewhere and more intelligibly too. All in all, it is difficult to see what this book contributes to the sum of knowledge of humankind and specifically of the way society should be ordered. This is ironic, because these were clearly Smith’s own main intentions, horrendously wrong though he generally was.

Dave Perrin

Ear'ole sociology (1978)

Book Review from the September 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Learning to labour: How working class kids get working class jobs, by Paul E. Willis, Saxon House, 1977, price £3.95, pp 199.

The title of this book is misleading. Its aim is not so much to examine why working class kids get working class jobs, but why certain working class kids go in for jobs involving manual labour. The paradox as seen by the author is that some working class kids (in this study male, white kids), actually choose manual labour as an occupation.

There is no obvious physical coercion and a degree of self direction. This is despite the inferior rewards for, undesirable social definition, and increasing intrinsic meaninglessness, of manual work: in a word its location at the bottom of a class society.

This “paradox” is explained by Willis in terms of a cultural rejection of the conventional views of the worth of education by a group of school-boys, the 'lads’, who together participate in and create a counter-school culture which decisively affects their attitude to school and to work.

In part one of the book Willis looks at the behaviour and views of the ‘lads’ both inside and outside their secondary modern school in the adult working class world the 'lads’ can hardly wait to enter. Interspread in this section of the book are fairly lengthy transcripts from group discussions and individual interviews with the author. We learn that the ‘lads’ deny the value of mental work, regarding it as ‘cissy’ and fit only for the ‘ear’oles’ (the conformists) and for girls; they reject the ideology of individualism, of working hard now to get certificates to make their way in the labour market, and they refuse to co-operate in the formal teaching of the school and flagrantly break its rules on every conceivable occasion. Resentful of the authority of the teachers, school has become for them a battle of wits against authority, where they do as little work as possible and entertain themselves at the expense of the teachers, the ‘ear’oles’ and sometimes, also at the expense of members of their own group. The ‘lads’ regard themselves as superior to the ‘ear’oles’ — sharper, more mature, more sexually experienced and generally more aware of the adult world outside where, they argue, wits count for more than certificates. The counter-school culture also includes a strong cult of machismo reflecting itself in a pride in physical toughness and ‘masculinity’, and a virulent sexism (women are inferior, women are to be sexually exploited although their ‘own’ women should be domesticated and motherly). Along with ‘ear’oles’ and women, immigrants are also regarded as inferior in some way. Their machismo includes racism as well as sexism.

Whereas the transcripts of the ‘lads” views make part one interesting to read, part two tries to present a theoretical analysis of the ‘lads’’ counterculture and here there is nothing to lighten the turgidity of the academic sociologist’s prose. Basically Willis argues in this section that the counterculture resolves his ‘paradox’ by providing a cultural explanation of why the ‘lads’ choose manual work. The counter-culture focuses on toughness and ‘masculinity’ and on immediate gratification. Manual work appears to possess these attributes and so the ‘lads’ choose manual work as an act of self-affirmation and in no way see it as socially or economically inferior.

Willis argues further that much of the counter-culture is more insightful than the official school culture into real working conditions under capitalism (for example that work is not intrinsically interesting — the point is to be tough and cheat the boss as much as possible, and that it provides a better preparation for working life than the school culture. Willis also tries to argue that its insightfulness (called penetrations) is potentially radical in some respects (he argues that their insistence that all work is the same and that the worker should yield as little to the boss as possible, is suggestive of an intuitive understanding of abstract labour under capitalism). Against this Willis also recognises the reactionary elements of their culture — its sexist and racist prejudices, and its acceptance of the authoritarian structure of society (their response to authority at work is to cheat the boss or beat up the boss’s son at a dance, rather than challenge authority itself). Thus Willis presents the counter-school culture as a mixture of “progressive” and “reactionary” elements, largely mirroring, in a creative process of self-affirmation, the wider culture of the manual section of the working class.

The main thesis that the acceptance of the counter-school culture constitutes the explanation for boys going into manual occupations is, however, not borne out by the material presented in the book. In addition, the work as a whole is shot through with the muddled thinking and prejudices of a ‘middle class’ sociology .What is the paradox anyway? Why does our sociologist consider manual work to be more ‘intrinsically meaningless’ than the so-called middle class work of pen-pushing or salesmanship? Certainly some non-manual occupations offer greater economic rewards and security, and these differences within the working class should not be overlooked, but the assumption that all forms of manual work are not intrinsically interesting reveals a degree of cultural snobbery on Willis’ part.

As a work of analysis on the cultural reaction of the working class to employment under capitalism, it is a pity that the work is marred by a misunderstanding of class relations. We are told on page 123 that the middle class is dominant. This is not correct. The capitalist class is dominant — the ‘middle class’ represents a group within the working class. The more interesting question than why some working class boys choose manual work, is why does the working class choose its domination by capitalist society?

Viv Brown

Without distinction of sex (1979)

From the December 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

If women's bodies are used to sell everything from mustard to motor cars, this is an expression of their peculiar oppression under capitalism. Whether we examine the family, women's sexuality or women's employment opportunities, we find the same kind of story.

Young girls are systematically trained for the role of wife and mother, with dolls and toy Hoovers as playthings. Throughout their school years too they are conditioned to accept that the highest - indeed only - calling for a woman is the servicing of a man's needs and the bearing of "his" children. By the time such girls enter the employment market as young women, they are less qualified than their male peers and are taken less seriously by their employers, who see them as a pool of cheap and docile labour. Their comparatively low wages and even lower prospects at work then serve as yet another inducement to leave the labour force and take up the role they have in fact been prepared for from birth.

And so, under capitalism, a woman has become the biggest-bargain-ever package-deal to hit the market. With an attractive wrapper to please its owner, this package-deal includes sexual services, baby production line, household servant and general comforter-cum-ego-booster for a bargain price of board and lodging only, with the occasional lipstick thrown in to smarten up the weary wrapping paper.

But it is not only capitalism that has oppressed women; the history of women's oppression is also the history of property society in all its forms. In property society a woman's sexuality and child-bearing are not under her control or subject to the widest interests of the community, but must be subordinated to the needs of the patriarchal family and ensure "legitimate" heirs. The nature and extent of women's oppression in different phases of property society can vary a great deal, but can be understood only when seen as part of the development of the system of social relations of production, together with the ideological forms of that society, such as religion. So, for example, to understand the position of women in Iran today, we have to look both at the development of the social relations of production of that country and the religious teachings of the established Muslim church.

In linking women's oppression to property society, we differ from those who argue that women's enemies are men. This view has led some sections within the Women's Liberation Movement to dissociate themselves from men both in personal life style (for example women's communes and political lesbianism) and, in political activities (women-only demonstrations and "consciousness-raising" meetings.)

But the force behind women's oppression is given ultimately by the property basis of society. Under capitalism, women's oppression can be understood in terms in the needs of capital and the amassing of profits. And where profits are made by selling commodities on the market, there will be a tendency to also put a price on all those goods and services traditionally located outside the market. Consequently, sex itself has become a marketable commodity on an enormous scale.

Sometimes it is in capitalism's interest to bring about reforms which are also in women's short-term interests. In periods of labour shortage, for example in times of war, positive steps are taken to encourage women to enter the labour force through provision of child care facilities. When capitalist planners feel that the population is growing too swiftly, contraception is more readily available and may even be provided free of charge. As industry requires a more skilled workforce, so women too may have greater access to increased educational facilities. However, there are other ways in which the interests of capital run counter to women's interests. Commercial exploitation of women's sexuality has been increasing over a number of years and it is difficult to conceive of personal relations not being exploited in some way as a result. Access to the employment market and the economic need for married women to take a job outside the home has resulted in double shift working for many, who effectively have two jobs to run.

Hence we come to the question of whether it is possible to put an end to women's oppression within the framework of property society and whether the aims of the WLM can be achieved within a capitalist framework. On the one hand, women are being drawn increasingly into the labour force and some women (and some men) are questioning the validity of gender-based roles. But on the other hand, more subtle forces of sexual exploitation are resulting from the increased commercialisation of all aspects of our lives.

But there is one aspect of women's position under capitalism that we have not yet considered. So far, only women's oppression as women has been discussed; but the majority of women are also members of the working class and are therefore dependent on the sale of labour-power, their own and their husband's, in order to buy food, clothing, housing - the things they need to live. And, as workers under capitalism, there is no way that women's (or men's) problems can be solved within a capitalist framework. Even with adequate childcare facilities (are any facilities adequate under capitalism?) and abortion on demand (what standard of care under a creaking National Health Service even without harsh Tory cuts?), women would still be subject to all the pressures and material deprivations of working or housekeeping under capitalism. This is the reason why it is in all our interests—as women and as men and as workers—to struggle for socialism where human needs will be put first.

This may seem an attitude similar to the "socialist feminist" within the Women's Liberation Movement. However, the "socialist feminists", in spite of their recognition of the role of capitalist and property society in the oppression of women, focus their energies on trying to secure improvements for women within capitalism, rather than struggling to achieve a socialist consciousness among the entire working class in order to overthrow capitalism now. In this they are representative of the left-wing generally who, in spite of their revolutionary rhetoric, dissipate their energies in pursuing ameliorative measures within capitalism, and, in so doing, reinforce both capitalist ideology and capitalism itself.

Instead of equal or "fair" pay, socialists emphasise the necessity to abolish exchange relations altogether. Socialism will institute free access to the goods we need, in the complete absence of commodity or property relations. This is the only guarantee that every individual, as part of a caring community and irrespective of gender, age or colour, will have the  means to live freely and fully. Thus the answer to the charge that women are still oppressed in countries such as Russia and China is that, yes, women are oppressed there, but this is because these countries are state capitalist.

Socialists share the WLM's distrust of leaders and rejection of hierarchical political structures, but for quite different reasons. While their objection to hierarchical structures is based on their perception of them as patriarchal forms of oppression, we argue that they are the result of the power relations deriving from the property basis of society, and as such are antithetical to a socialist organisation and a socialist society.

But if capitalism is to be overthrown then the working class must be united. Women and men, whatever their age or colour, have to work together in the fight for socialism. This is where we cannot agree with the Women's Liberation Movement; they are struggling for the liberation of women only, whereas the socialist struggle is aiming at the liberation of all, regardless of gender , age or colour.

Viv Brown