Kurt Vonnegut on the socialists who fought for workers

It was sad to read of the news of Kurt Vonnegut's death. It probably sounds daft, but I thought he would always be with us.
Reproduced below is something from Vonnegut that I found on the net, where, in accepting the Carl Sandburg Literary Award, he speaks of Sandburg's - and others - commitment to the radical transformation of society. In other circumstances, I'm sure there would be much that I could find to quibble about politically in the piece, but that's not the point. It captures the playfulness, wit and insight of Vonnegut at his best. The piece is reproduced from Socialist Worker, the paper of the International Socialist Organization.

From Socialist Worker November 2, 2001 | Page 8

KURT VONNEGUT is one of America's best-known novelists, with half a century of writings and close to 20 books to his name.

He's also earned a reputation as an opponent of war and injustice, both in his literature and as a public speaker who has participated in movements for change.

In October, Vonnegut was given the Carl Sandburg Literary Award from the Friends of the Chicago Public Library - and used the opportunity of his speech to discuss Sandburg's commitment to socialism.

Sandburg's poetry and essays can be found in many grade-school literary anthologies, but few people learn that he got his start as a writer as a labor and socialist journalist.

For example, in the early decades of the 20th century, Sandburg wrote regularly for the International Socialist Review, an ancestor of Socialist Worker's sister magazine of the same name.

His fiery articles took on the greed and corruption of big business, government repression and - in his commentaries on the famous evangelist Billy Sunday, for example - the way that religion was used by the powers that be to prop up their rule.

Here, with permission, Socialist Worker prints Vonnegut's acceptance speech.

WE ARE America's Great Lakes people, her freshwater people, not an oceanic but a continental people. Whenever I swim in an ocean, I feel as though I am swimming in chicken soup.

I thank you for this honor, although it is a reminder that I am not nearly the passionate and effective artist Carl Sandburg was. And we are surely grateful for his fog, which came in on little cat feet.

But tonight seems an apt occasion as well for celebrating what he and other American socialists did during the first half of the past century, with art, with eloquence, with organizing skills, to elevate the self-respect, the dignity and political acumen of American wage earners, of our working class.

That wage earners, without social position or higher education or wealth, are of inferior intellect is surely belied by the fact that two of the most splendid writers and speakers on the deepest subjects in American history were self-taught workmen. I speak, of course, of Carl Sandburg of Illinois and Abraham Lincoln, of Kentucky, then Indiana, and finally Illinois. Both, may I say, were continental, freshwater people like ourselves.

Hooray for our team!

I know upper-class graduates of Yale University who can't talk or write worth a nickel.

"Socialism" is no more an evil word than "Christianity." Socialism no more prescribed Joseph Stalin and his secret police and shuttered churches than Christianity prescribed the Spanish Inquisition. Christianity and socialism alike, in fact, prescribe a society dedicated to the proposition that all men, women and children are created equal, and shalt not starve.

Adolf Hitler, incidentally, was a two-fer. He named his party the National Socialists, the Nazis. Hitler also had crosses painted on his tanks and airplanes. The swastika wasn't a pagan symbol, as so many people believe. It was a working person's Christian cross, made of axes, of tools.

About Stalin's shuttered churches, and those in China today: Such suppression of religion was supposedly justified by Karl Marx's statement that that "religion is the opium of the people." Marx said back in 1844, when opium and opium derivatives were the only effective painkillers anyone could take. Marx himself had taken them. He was grateful for the temporary relief they had given him. He was simply noticing, and surely not condemning, the fact that religion could also be comforting to those in economic or social distress. It was a casual truism, not a dictum.

When Marx wrote those words, by the way, we hadn't even freed our slaves yet. Whom do you imagine was more pleasing in the eyes of a merciful God back then: Karl Marx or the United States of America?

Stalin was happy to take Marx's truism as a decree, and Chinese tyrants as well, since it seemingly empowered them to put preachers out of business who might speak ill of them or their goals.The statement has also entitled many in this country to say that socialists are anti-religion, are anti-God, and therefore absolutely loathsome.

I never met Carl Sandburg, and wish I had. I would have been tongue-tied in the presence of such a national treasure. I did get to know one socialist of his generation, who was Powers Hapgood of Indianapolis. After graduating from Harvard he went to work as a coal miner, urging his working-class brothers to organize, in order to get better pay and safer working conditions. He also led protesters at the execution of the anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti in Massachusetts in 1927.

We met in Indianapolis after the end of World War Two, and he had become an official in the CIO. There had been some sort of dust-up on a picket line, and he had just testified about it in court. The judge had interrupted the proceedings to ask Powers Hapgood why, with all his social and economic and educational advantages, he had chosen to lead such a life. And Powers Hapgood replied, "Why, because of the Sermon on the Mount, sir."

Another of our freshwater ancestors was Eugene Victor Debs, of Terre Haute, Indiana. A former locomotive fireman, Eugene Debs ran for president of the United States four times, the fourth time in 1920, when he was in prison. He said, "As long as there is a lower class, I'm in it. As long as there is a criminal element, I'm of it. As long as there's a soul in prison, I am not free."

Some platform. A paraphrase of the beatitudes.

And again: Hooray for our team.

And our own beloved Carl Sandburg had this to say about the fire-belching evangelist Bill Sunday:

"You come along-tearing your shirt-yelling about Jesus. I want to know what the hell you know about Jesus? Jesus had a way of talking soft, and everybody except a few bankers and higher ups among the con men of Jerusalem like to have Jesus around because he never made any fake passes, and he helped the sick and gave people hope.
"You come along calling us all damn fools - so fierce the froth of your own spit slobbers over your lips - always blabbering we're all going to hell straight off, and you know all about it. I've read Jesus' words. I know what he said. You don't throw any scare into me. I've got your number. I know how much you know about Jesus.
"You tell people living in shanties Jesus is going to fix it up all right with them by giving them mansions in the skies after they're dead and the worms have eaten 'em. You tell $6 a week department store girls all they need is Jesus. You take a steel trust wop, dead without having lived, gray and shrunken at 40 years of age, and you tell him to look at Jesus on the cross and he'll be all right.
"You tell poor people they don't need any more money on pay day. And even if it's fierce to be out of a job, Jesus'll fix that all right, all right. All they gotta do is take Jesus the way you say.
"Jesus played it different. The bankers and corporation lawyers of Jerusalem got their murderers to go after Jesus because Jesus wouldn't play their game. I don't want a lot of gab from a bunkshooter in my religion."

Hooray for our team.

And I now take advantage of your hospitality by declaring myself a child of the Chicago Renaissance, powerfully humanized not only by Carl Sandburg, but by Edgar Lee Masters and Jane Addams and Louis Sullivan and Lake Michigan, and on and on.

And I propose a toast to an individual who wasn't an artist or working stiff of any description. She wasn't even a human being. Ladies and gentlemen of Chicago, I give you Mrs. O'Leary's cow.

And I thank you for your attention.

Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)

Canvassing For Christ

I think they might have been canvassing in Larchmont in Westchester

don't click on this if you are easily offended.

The military are not that unintelligent

From the SPGB blog, Socialism Or Your Money Back:

Everyone has heard the one about "military intelligence" being a contradiction in terms. But military planners can't afford to be stupid - and aren't, as a recent Ministry of Defence publication shows.

The Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC) of the Ministry of Defence has just published a document on Strategic Trends which sets out their view on the context for the activity of Britain's armed forces over the next thirty years. The man in charge, Rear Admiral Chris Parry, explains in the introduction that the trends identified in the document are "probability-based rather than predictions". The degrees of probability being will, likely, may, possible.

What emerges from the document is that the military thinkers behind it share the socialist analysis that conflicts in the modern (capitalist) world arise out of competition between states over sources of raw materials, markets, investment outlets, trade routes and strategic points to control and protect these.

Against the sub-heading "securing natural resources", the document says:

"Key natural resources, especially oil, gas and minerals of strategic value, will continue to be sourced from unstable areas and unreliable regions. Maintaining access and containing instability risks in these areas is therefore likely to increase in importance, alongside wider developmental and stabilization roles. Where oil and gas sources are located in areas of doubtful security, military intervention may be used to protect the integrity of sites and to secure investments" ( p. 29).

In fact, the document regards "competition for energy" as one of the "hot topics" of the period. "Competition for energy supplies", it says, "will dominate the economic landscape during the next 30 years" and that "requirements to access sources of supply in unstable regions or countries could lead to intervention to protect assets and investments" (p. 31).

"Overheating of energy markets may lead more countries to follow the example of China in establishing bilateral arrangements that seek to dominate or control the global market in their favour, possibly fuelling tension among those who are excluded or who cannot or will not compete in a market environment. This may lead to political and even military interventions in order to protect access and safeguard supply" (p. 26).

Then, there's the trade routes:

"Most of the world's trade by bulk, particularly energy, will continue to transit by sea and through maritime choke points such as the Straits of Hormuz, the Suez Canal and the Straits of Malacca, in areas which will remain highly unstable. This will demand high levels of international cooperation and a continuing dependence on the deployment of maritime power." (p. 54).

And the strategic points:

"There is likely to be more emphasis on the active containment of aggressors, symptoms of crisis and irregular elements, to deter and defeat military threats to partners and the international system. In these circumstances, the ability to secure and maintain free access to areas of strategic and operational interest will remain vital" (p. 54).

The MoD strategists don't think that these tensions will lead to war in the sense of "state-on-state" conflicts ("Major interstate wars will be unlikely", p. 67), at least not until after 2020:

"Although large-scale interstate warfare is unlikely, competition for finite resources and intolerance at market forces may lead to tensions and greater potential for confrontation and conflict between 2020 and 2035" (p. 43).

"Global economic and financial interdependency is likely to reduce, but not eliminate, the risk of major interstate warfare before 2020. However, increasing pressures on resources, particularly energy, and the growing assertiveness of emerging powers such as India, China and Iran, beyond this date may result in the return of great power rivalries as the defining characteristic of geopolitics, with a consequent increase in the risk of interstate and inter-bloc conflict" (p. 48).

"Conflict and crisis will become increasingly complex and unpredictable, both in their incidence and character, during the period to 2035, with serious interstate rivalry probably expressing itself through proxy actions by hostile groups who may or may not have issues of their own" (p.67).

Even before 2020, however, the strategists think that conflict between states will take place through proxies (as already happened during the Cold War period):

"In the absence of direct, open state-on-state conflict, there will be a marked increase in the prevalence of irregular activity . . . There will also be increased sponsorship of irregular activity and groups by states, seeking to utilize and exploit, through proxy, gaps in the international system, either to assert themselves or secure advantage without exposing themselves to state-on-state risks" (p. 52).

The document is not confined to narrow trends that concern the military directly but also mentions economic, political and other issues, singling out as climate change, globalization and global inequality as the three "areas of change" which "will touch the lives of everyone on the planet" and underpin all the other trends.

On the world scale, the strategists think that:

"while life for most people is likely to improve materially, a significant number will continue to experience hardship, and unevenness and fluctuations within a globalized market-based economy will still mean that life will be uncertain for most" (p. 1).

"While material conditions for most people are likely to improve over the next 30 years, the gap between rich and poor will probably increase and absolute poverty will remain a global challenge. . . Absolute poverty and comparative disadvantage will fuel perceptions of injustice among those whose expectations are not met, increasing tension and instability, both within and between societies and resulting in expressions of violence such as disorder, criminality, terrorism and insurgency. They may also lead to the resurgence of not only anti-capitalist ideologies, possibly linked to religious, anarchist or nihilist movements, but also to populism and the revival of Marxism" (p. 3).

Let's hope that on this very last point they are right.

The full report can be read here.

Adam Buick

Mark Twain's 'The War Prayer' (1904/05)

Found via the website of the North East Branch of the Socialist Party

Mark Twain submitted this piece to Harper's Bazaar. It was rejected as being unsuitable. It was first published after his death in 1923.

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclone of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked God of Battles, beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpouring of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came - next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams - visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, and surrender! - then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation

- "God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest,
Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!"

Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory.

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness, With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there, waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside - which the startled minister did - and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

"I come from the Throne-bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import - that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of - except he pause and think.

"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two - one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this - keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! Lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray from the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

"You have heard your servants prayer - the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it - that part which the pastor - and also you in your hearts - fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ' Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory - must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle - be Thou near them! With them - in spirit - we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hears of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it - for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen."

(After a pause) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits."

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

Mark Twain

From the wikipedia entry on Mark Twain:

"During the Philippine-American War, Twain wrote an anti-war article entitled The War Prayer. Through this internal struggle, Twain expresses his opinions of the absurdity of slavery and the importance of following one's personal conscience before the laws of society. It was submitted to Harper's Bazaar for publication, but on March 22, 1905, the magazine rejected the story as "not quite suited to a woman's magazine." Eight days later, Twain wrote to his friend Dan Beard, to whom he had read the story, "I don't think the prayer will be published in my time. None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth." Because he had an exclusive contract with Harper & Brothers, Mark Twain could not publish The War Prayer elsewhere; it remained unpublished until 1923."

The Falklands War Remembered

From the SPGB blog, Socialism Or Your Money Back (See also 'Doing The Bulldog Thing')

Twenty five years ago today Argentina and the United Kingdom went to war over control of the Falkland Islands/Los Islas Malvinas. That war along with others during the last century and start of this one resulted in the meaningless mass murder of millions. What we said at the time - not to mention 1914, 1939, etc., etc - is worth recalling as it shows the validity of the Socialist Party's consistent opposition to all wars and that none justify 'the shedding of a single drop of working-class blood'.

THE FALKLANDS CRISIS

In the face of the imminent threat of war over the potential wealth of the Falkland Islands the Socialist Party of Great Britain affirms:
1. That despite the wave of jingoistic hysteria in the press and its endorsement by Labour and Tory politicians alike, no working class interests in Britain, Argentina or the Falklands themselves can be served by war.
2. That neither the military junta in Buenos Aires nor the elected representatives of British capitalism, least of all the business interests of the Coalite-Charringtons, can justify the shedding of a single drop of working class blood.
3. That the new-found outrage at the undemocratic and oppressive nature of the Argentine regime rings false coming from a government which was arming that regime until the eve of hostilities.
4. That the crucial role of Argentine capitalism in profitably making up the notorious shortfall of agricultural production within the Russian Empire goes far to explain the support given to the junta by the local "Communist Party" and the muted criticism of it by the same circles who so vociferously denounce the similar dictatorship in Chile and its parallel suppression of trade unionism and free speech.

We therefore reiterate that having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow-workers of all lands the expression of goodwill and socialist fraternity and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of capitalism in all its guises and the establishment of socialism throughout the world, the only way to end war.

The Executive Committee, 13 April 1982

The statement above appeared in the May 1982 Socialist Standard, which had the provocative image of a "No. 10 Falklands Thatcher's Navy Cut" and "Warning: Jingoism Can Seriously Damage Your Health".

The Socialist Party holds that nations compete over mineral resources, trade routes and areas of domination. The potential wealth referred to by the Executive Committee includes today what is estimated at up to sixty billion barrels of crude.

Such competition manifests itself as diplomatic disputes (for current examples see 'Who owns the North Pole?') to wholesale death and destruction, as in strategically important, oil rich Iraq.

The concluding paragraph to 'Doing the bulldog thing' is just as valid today as when in was written in 1982:

"So British and Argentinian service men went across across the ocean to do battle with each other in their masters' cause. It was another doleful example of ignorant workers being easily duped by the empty jingoism of desperate politicians. Animals do it better; at least they don't take themselves willingly to the slaughterhouse."

Post Falklands War fact: More British soldiers have committed suicide since returning from then Falklands than were killed in the conflict.

Rob Stafford

Bogdanov, Technocracy and Socialism (2007)

From the April 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

The terms "Bolshevism" and "Leninism" are usually treated as synonyms. In view of Lenin's enormous influence over the Bolshevik party, that might seem fair enough. But in fact Lenin did have political and intellectual rivals inside his own party. The most important of these non-Leninist Bolsheviks was Alexander Bogdanov (1873—1928).

Bogdanov was a man of many talents and interests. His formal training was in medicine and psychiatry. He invented an original philosophy that he called "tectology" and is now regarded as a precursor of systems theory (synergetics). He was also a Marxian economist, a theorist of culture, a popular science fiction writer, and of course a political activist. Even today most of his work is not available in English. The only book devoted to him is Zenovia Sochor's study of his ideas about culture (Revolution and Culture: The Bogdanov-Lenin Controversy, Cornell University Press 1988).

A volume of Bogdanov's science fiction has, however, appeared in English (Red Star: The First Bolshevik Utopia, translated by Charles Rougle and edited by Loren R. Graham and Richard Stites, Indiana University Press 1984). Here we have two novels set on Mars (Red Star and Engineer Menni), a poem "A Martian Stranded on Earth," and interpretative essays by each of the editors. Red Star recounts how Martians take the Russian Bolshevik Leonid to their home planet to learn about the communist society there and act as a link between earth and Mars.

Engineer Menni is also set on Mars, but at an earlier stage, shortly before the transition from capitalism to communism. Menni's mission in life is to design Mars' great canals - it was widely believed at the time that there are canals on Mars - and organize and manage their construction.

Cult of the engineer?
Both Russian and Western commentators have called Bogdanov an advocate of "technocracy" and the promoter of a "cult of the engineer."

Thus Richard Stites speaks of his "celebration of technocratic power [and] the technical intelligentsia." On the surface this assessment seems justified. Engineer Menni was popular among Soviet planners at the time of the first Five Year Plan, and Menni is certainly a heroic figure with whom any aspiring technocrat might readily identify.

But you do not have to search very hard to find evidence that suggests a different assessment. In Red Star Bogdanov presents communist Mars as a society beset by serious problems - by no means a utopia. Technology is a major source of these problems. Leonid discovers, for instance, that some workers are so mesmerized by the machinery they operate that they refuse to stop working and have to be forced to rest. And Nella, Menni's abandoned lover, sings a song in which she complains that for all his virtues Menni is lacking in compassion:

"His heart is of ice, no pain does it feel
For the creatures brought low by Fate . . .
The tears of the wretches cast into the fray
Warm not his heart of stone."

The Martian political system portrayed in Red Star - little explicit detail is provided - does indeed seem to be technocratic rather than democratic. Thus, the speakers at a conference convened to consider Martian colonization of earth are an astronautical engineer, a physician, and a mathematician (who argues in favour of annihilating all earthlings and is later killed by a distraught Leonid). Martians in managerial positions move around in flying "gondolas" that do not seem to be available to ordinary Martians. (If they were, air traffic control would be a nightmare.) This is not a society that I would wish to call socialist or communist even though the exchange of commodities has been abolished and production is for use.

In Engineer Menni we find a clue as to why the revolution has given birth to a technocratic society. A workers' delegate at a trade union congress bemoans the fact that the workers' ignorance prevents them from judging matters for themselves and puts them at the mercy of experts, whom they have no choice but to believe.

Technocracy or socialism?
Both Bogdanov's fiction and his political writings as presented by Sochor suggest that he expected the coming revolution against capitalism to lead to a technocratic society. This was because the workers lacked the knowledge and initiative to seize control of social affairs for themselves. One reason fort his situation was the hierarchical and authoritarian nature of the capitalist production process. Another was the hierarchical and authoritarian mode of organization of the Bolshevik party, although Bogdanov considered such organization necessary and inevitable - he was a Bolshevik, after all.

This, however, was not a prospect that Bogdanov welcomed or idealized. He knew that real socialism (or communism) could only be a fully democratic society. And he knew that only a highly cultured and knowledgeable working class could achieve real socialism. That is why questions of culture and education were so central to his thought and work. The emphasis on knowledge and understanding as prerequisites for real socialism (as opposed to technocratic pseudo-socialism) is common ground that he shares with us in the world socialist movement.

While Bogdanov remained loyal to the Bolshevik regime in Russia until the end of his life, his ideas were deeply subversive of the society over which that regime presided. Bogdanov's ideas were the inspiration for a dissident group called "Workers' Truth" that was active for a time in the early 1920s (although it appears that Bogdanov did not have personal ties with them). In their manifesto, "Workers' Truth" declared that the old bourgeoisie had been replaced as masters of production by "the technical intelligentsia under state capitalism"; the Communist Party had become the party of this intelligentsia, which was the nucleus of a rising new bourgeoisie.

Stefan

Sound Bites and Soldiers (2007)

From the April 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Recently there have been a number of sound bites, profiles and coverage of NATO soldiers in Afghanistan and US soldiers in Iraq on CNN and BBC. Rank and file at 19/20, sergeants at 23/24 and officers in their late 20s /early 30s. My first response is generally emotional and angry - look at them, boys, just boys and young men.

What are they doing? Who are they doing it for? And then, simmering, I turn to the same old questions, trying to rationalise, to find the answers to stop the terrible slaughter going on around the world in the non-stop battles for resources and/or control.

How is it that year after year, war after war, the military establishments around the world are able to either conscript or (even worse?) persuade volunteers to join up? Young, impressionable, mostly male, suckered in by the projected macho image of recruiting videos and sophisticated video games. You've mastered the game, now how wonderful to be part of a non-virtual, real-life, grown up skirmish, battle, war! Are they really appealing to the sense of excitement, adrenalin rush, the biggest rush of your life? Even at risk of your life? And then, how is it, whatever you stand for, there's always an enemy ready to fight you? An enemy with recruits just as passionate about their cause as you are about yours? Can you always be in the right and your various and varied enemies always in the wrong? It's not statistically possible, is it?

Being a volunteer, i.e. choosing to join up, presents several other questions. Is it for the pay? To learn a trade? Because father and grandfather did it before you? Because there's nothing else on offer? As a show of patriotism? Or is it support for a particular cause? If the latter, then what if you agree with the current engagement but are opposed to the next? The main business of the leaders of the armed forces of all sides is that of instilling a sense of morality, justice, rightness about the fight, of invoking patriotism, nationalism and a whole lot of image building and supporting myths.

Aside from numerous combatants, willing or not, civilians, innocents, young, old, male, female continue to be killed both deliberately and accidentally as collateral damage on most continents of the world on a daily basis and there is absolutely no indication that this can ever change under the capitalist system.

The sound bites are part of the business of convincing the general public to support or have sympathy for the troops in achieving the capitalists' goals. For me the sound bites succeed in reinforcing the socialist principle that all warfare is destructive of human values, simply pitting one section of the working class against another with the sole aim of furthering the capitalist cause. The young men of the world are worth more than that, much more.

They are part of a world society which collectively could choose to work for peace, justice and prosperity for all in our time, putting aside the divisive issues of capitalism and recognising at last that with socialism unity is strength.

Janet Surman

The Rebel Sell (2007)

Book Review from the April 2007 Socialist Standard

Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter: The Rebel Sell: How the Counterculture Became Consumer Culture.

I finished this book wondering just what I'd been reading. It's largely aimed at the 'counterculture', a notion which seems to encompass everything from anarchism and the Sex Pistols to Naomi Klein's No Logo and the Situationists.

The countercultural critique of capitalism, so Heath and Potter argue, is far more wide-ranging than that of Marxism, which is concerned with abolishing exploitation and establishing common ownership. In contrast, the counterculture aims at a society without institutions and regulations, though it's usually very vague as to what a free society would actually be like.

But, the authors continue, countercultural rebellion is in practice counterproductive: it distracts attention from initiatives to bring about real improvements in people's lives and even encourages contempt for such changes.

To the extent that attacking such an ill-defined set of ideas makes sense, there is a fair amount here that Socialists could agree with. The whole notion of 'fair trade', for instance, has become itself part of the competitive selling industry, as has other merchandise produced by various countercultural organisations. If you buy from the Body Shop because it makes you feel morally superior, then you're just being driven by a desire not to conform.

However, it's in their positive prescriptions that Heath and Potter go wrong. You might interpret their critique of countercultural rebellion as applying also to the Socialist insistence on advocating revolution and opposing reformism. Their case for this rests on two pillars. The first is that it's better to 'plug the loopholes, not abolish the system', i.e. they advocate reforms of capitalism. But the measures they advocate are pointless, such as introducing a progressive income tax on the grounds that lowering income would lower consumption.

The second pillar is, in effect, the impossibility of a socialist society. Of course, the authors never actually deal with the idea of a society based on production for use, since they consider that the only alternative to a market system is centralised production of the type formerly seen in Russia. But they regard a market system as inevitable, and advocate the kind of ideal market described in economic textbooks (presumably because these only exist in books, not in the real world).

Writers like Murray Bookchin (author of Post-Scarcity Anarchism) are criticised on the grounds that 'in our society, scarcity is a social, not a material, phenomenon'. Scarcity therefore cannot be overcome through increasing production: fast cars and 'cool' clothes, for instance, are necessarily scarce because their value depends on providing a distinguishing feature to those who consume them. But a society of free access will work on a very different value system and so won't involve people trying to look or live differently from their friends and neighbours.

So perhaps the answer to my wondering about what the book is would be that, though the authors never use the terms directly, it offers an unconvincing defence of reformism and criticism of socialism.

Paul Bennett

Pathfinders: The Great Global Warming Swindle' Swindle (2007)

A Pathfinders TV Review from the April 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

'The Great Global Warming Swindle' Swindle, Thurs, March 8, Channel 4

Increases in atmospheric carbon don't cause global warming, global warming causes increases in atmospheric carbon. So what is heating up the Earth? The sun. So why are the vast majority of climate scientists claiming it's carbon, not the sun? Because they're on a $4bn gravy train of funding and they aim to ride that sucker until the end of the line, even though their phoney Carbon Crusade is killing the poor little children in the Third World who are not allowed to have electricity like the rest of us.

This, in case you missed it, was the argument behind 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' broadcast on UK's Channel 4 on March 8. An impressive array of paleoclimatologists, oceanographers and other assorted professors was wheeled on to assure us that everything we thought we knew about global warming was upside down and back to front, and that the present warming phenomenon was entirely natural, and no different from previous warm spells in Earth's history. What was really going on was a gigantic conspiracy to pervert science, distort the facts and condemn developing countries to perpetual misery by creating an entirely bogus panic about atmospheric carbon. They gave us the figures, they showed us the charts, they answered the questions, and it was all utterly convincing.

And nonsense, unfortunately, as a stroll through various online blogs and articles soon revealed. The experts on the programme, with one exception, turn out not to be quite the scions of honesty they appear to be, but rather well-known Denial Monkeys who have agendas of their own and whose theories have already been falsified repeatedly. The exception, oceanographer Carl Wunsch, after seeing the show, sent an apoplectic letter to C4 saying he'd been conned into appearing, thinking he was taking part in a balanced and critical analysis. This is almost certainly true, and he wouldn't be the only one. The producer, Martin Durkin, has a history of making contentious programmes accusing environmentalists of being 'proto-nazis', and from which his researchers have walked out in disgust and his interviewees have wailed afterwards that they've been had. In Durkin's experience, when the BBC reject his programme synopses as junk science, he can always rely on Channel 4 to produce them instead.

Just why Channel 4 thinks bad science makes good TV is a total mystery. Pathfinders does not often stoop to sending whingeing letters, but the memory of C4's disgraceful championing of the charlatan Graham Hancock is still raw and rancid, so a quick blister to the C4 complaints department seemed appropriate for once, to whit: "I appreciate that C4's brief is in part to be 'controversial' but to extend this brief to making programmes that are based on deliberate and easily verifiable lies is not only immoral and indecent, I'm surprised it's not illegal as well. I just don't see how you can justify the dissemination of nonsense in any programme but especially one in which the issues at stake - the future of the planet - could hardly be more important. Judging from the resulting blog discussions there are any number of gullible people who are now completely convinced by your programme that global warming is not a problem, and who will never see any rebuttal unless another channel takes responsibility. There are people out there who claim (with lots of evidence, naturally) that Jews cause AIDS, that blacks are racially inferior, that rape and violence are genetically-based, and that the CIA is putting nanoscale monitoring devices in our drinking water. No doubt these people would do anything for the oxygen of a Channel 4 publicity hype, so I'm bound to wonder just how far your lust for controversy takes you and where you draw the line." A pre-transmission statement from Channel 4 gives you some idea of their probable response to this:
"It is essentially a polemic and we are expecting it to cause trouble, but this is the controversial programming that Channel 4 is renowned for." (LSE UKNews, March 4)

They will doubtless not be worried, even though in the past they have had to broadcast an unreserved apology for one of Durkin's other documentaries.

And what of the programme-makers themselves? Several of the interviewees are known to have right-wing free-market sympathies with links to the anti-environmentalist Foresight Institute, and their attack on human-derived global warming is seen by many to be a response to their fear that political action to prevent climate change will entail greater government intervention in the capitalist marketplace. So, a free-marketeer plot to loosen the grip of state governments and let the corporations take control? But wait, the plot thickens. The producer, Durkin, and some of his colleagues, are associated with the Revolutionary Communist Party, aka Living Marxism, aka the Institute of Ideas, aka Spiked Online, aka Sense About Science. So, a left-wing plot by a sect of multiple identity, media-cuddly Bolsheviks? Are the right and left-wings of capitalism now climbing into bed together to breed Son of Denial Monkey? What for? According to SwindleWatch.org, the RCP's master plan could be to foment total environmental complacency in an effort to bring capitalism to early disaster, thus inciting a revolt by the proletariat, if any of us are still left alive to revolt, that is. Either that, or they are just plain bonkers. Nobody knows.

In the wake of the Stern report, Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth, and the recent International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, it's easy to see that the small minority who deny human responsibility for global warming are feeling somewhat ganged-up on. It's just not like the good old days, when natural scientific caution by researchers allowed gainsayers all sorts of loopholes to exploit. Even with the reservations among scientists about the IPCC pulling its punches (New Scientist, last week), their report is damning enough to be conclusive as far as most policy-makers are concerned. Whether this programme has damaged the climate debate or merely Channel 4's already shaky reputation on factual reporting remains to be seen. What is worrying is that there is an extraordinary enthusiasm on the part of many people to believe that the world of science is as corrupt and dishonest as the world of politics, and that the 'brave' heroes who stand up against it are to be admired and believed implicitly. It's not just those who inhabit the twilight world of paranoia who believe this. Even realists can succumb to cynicism. This is a world, after all, where money doesn't just talk, it smooth-talks, and nobody can really trust anything anybody says when there's a dollar behind every answer. Are people wrong to distrust the scientific community, and therefore believe every nutjob with a theory that same community has loudly disowned? Generally yes, but when it is well known that science chases the money and that money doesn't chase the science it doesn't like, it is not hard to see how these conspiracy theories get started.

Interestingly, the only real attack on the global warming lobby which has had any real merit is the report (BBC Online, Feb 27), that the Oscar-winning Al Gore has a 20-room house and swimming pool which uses twenty times the national energy average. Gore's spokesperson shamefacedly admitted this, and responded rather lamely that the family were looking at low-wattage light-bulbs and solar panels to reduce their consumption. Hooray for the press. Nobody likes a smart-alec.

Paddy Shannon

The Only Means Necessary

From the World Socialist Party of the United States MySpace Page:

Many revolutionary groups and tendencies are convinced that any overthrow of capitalism will involve war. This is usually based on the premise that the ruling class will violently oppose any attempts to usurp it and therefore must be defeated militarily. Also personal acts of resistance are advocated, up to and including deadly force. "By any means necessary" has become a catchphrase for the advocating of violent revolution. Socialists have a different point of view, based on reason and practicality.

First of all, socialists are no good to the revolution dead. We don't see the sense in squandering lives in a senseless violent attack on the ruling class, when those people and the skills they possess will be needed for the worldwide implementation of socialism. Quite frankly, the sheer amount of deadly force in the possession of the entire ruling class, and the willingness to use it, will never be matched by any revolutionary movement. This is evident around the world, where misguided, violent rebellions and insurrections are either put down or held at bay with shocking brutality. Nothing would suit the defensive strategy of the world's armed forces than an easily identifiable enemy engaging them on a battlefield. Furthermore, guerrilla warfare, sabotage, and other non-traditional methods of resistance are not very effective as offensive actions, which is what a supposed violent socialist revolution would boil down to. In the past, so-called socialist armed revolutions have temporarily succeeded in individual countries. Unfortunately, those revolutions, no matter how well intentioned, quickly descended into totalitarian state capitalism. Not one ever succeeded in actually bringing about socialism, since it cannot exist as isolated outposts in the larger context of a capitalist world. Our Movement is not seduced by the temptation of socialism in this or that country, and seeks to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.

We hold that a successful socialist revolution cannot take place until the majority of the world's population desires it. Only then will the ruling class be at a true disadvantage and the time to act arrive. We have identified the legal existence of private property (as opposed to personal property), protected by government, as the Achilles Heel of capitalism. Instead of trying to eliminate individual capitalists, the people of the world will vote to abolish property law by legal means - in one definitive democratic action. Deprived of their source of power, the ruling class can no longer resist. They will truly be in the minority, and those that attempt to react will find themselves without a leg to stand on: when money becomes worthless they can no longer buy weapons or pay soldiers, and violent defense of private property now held in common becomes murder. Support structures for the existence and maintenance of police and armies will quickly wither when the people no longer need to make weapons, or use them, for a paycheck. Hopefully, most defenders of private property will see that it is pointless to commit murder in the defense of a dead idea and lay down their arms. Ultimately, the ruling class themselves will see the personal and moral danger of trying to defend property they no longer own and cease resistance quickly.

In sum, the democratic seizure of power, and subsequent immediate abolishment of property law along with the government structure that protect it, will be accomplished by a worldwide referendum - but only when the time is right. This is the only means necessary. With adequate prior preparation and education, the entire world will know when and how the revolution will be accomplished; not only should this make the transition to a moneyless, stateless society a lot smoother, it should erode any hope of the ruling class to make a violent, and in the end self-destructive, last stand.

Poverty (2007)

The following text is part of a series of leaflets/flyers written by a member of the World Socialist Party of the United States.

Poverty, starvation, and want do not exist because of scarcity, as the central teachings of capitalist economics would lead you to believe.

It has been shown many times over that present agricultural and manufacturing technology can produce enough food and goods for a human population actually larger than the one that exists right now. Stores in western nations are constantly fully stocked, and food is thrown away because it spoils before it is sold. Houses sit empty and cars fill sales lots. However, the fruits of the planet and human labor are only available to those who have the money to buy them. Since the capitalism tends to deny access to far more people than it allows, it is therefore the restriction of access to the means of survival, such as food, water clothing and shelter that creates poverty!

It would be nice if everyone could obtain or produce the things they need to live a comfortable and healthy life from their nearby environment. However, the wide range of planetary conditions prevent it. Due to property law and the money system, the two most important features of capitalism, people living in areas of the world where the essentials of life cannot be produced as needed are forced to buy it from those who can. Most often, if they cannot buy what they need, they go without it. The existence of national borders and other political divisions also provide barriers to the flow of food and goods to where they are needed, further preventing millions from enjoying a healthy living standard both inside and outside these borders.

Unfortunately, the lure of capitalism has always been the supposed ability for any given person to gain wealth beyond the value of their individual labor. We see rags-to-riches stories on television and are constantly updated on the lives and activities of the rich and powerful, many of whom got that way through hard work and sacrifice. What is never glorified, however, is the ability of capitalism to create poverty for billions of people.

Think about it, poor people did not invent capitalism. For every millionaire, dozens must necessarily be doomed to squalor and destitution. So why should anyone expect anything different than the continued existence of poverty when that was exactly what the capitalism is supposed to accomplish?

Strangely, many well-meaning individuals believe they can make governments force capitalism to take care of the poor, or that vast networks of charities can help to eliminate poverty. These folks engage in reform politics or join "humanitarian" organizations, hoping to somehow force the system to work exactly opposite of the way it is designed to work. Attempts to reform the present system (no matter how well intentioned) to eliminate poverty are doomed to fail because the core structure of capitalism creates the problem. Capitalism can never be reformed to work against it's own operating principles!

Our Movement thinks that providing for a world of billions requires a revolutionary change from the way things are done right now. That is why we demand nothing short of the complete replacement of the property and money systems - the "heart and soul" of capitalism. Socialism, a system based on free access and administered by the democratic action of the entire world's population, can accomplish the elimination of poverty, because that is what it is designed to do! Socialism does not exist to create rich or poor people, but to make available a sustainable and healthy standard of living for every human being. Future advances in technology and agriculture should be enjoyed by the entire world, not just a privileged minority. Given that, the ability of socialism to succeed in providing for every human being will lie in creating fair and efficient distribution and accounting methods to ensure that both the resources of the earth and human labor are applied when and where it is needed most.

Tony Pink

Paying For Air - Why Not?

Introductory note. As a researcher, I am swamped by a constant stream of Working Papers, Discussion Papers, Position Papers, Occasional Papers and Miscellaneous Papers that all sorts of schools, networks, institutes, foundations, and centres are kind enough to send my way. Most of them go straight on a pile for later transfer to the green recycle bin, but now and then one catches my eye. I was so impressed by the sheer brilliance of this "Thought Paper" by a junior economist at the Centre for Research, Analysis and Policy (CRAP) that I decided to share it with readers of The Socialist Standard. The author wishes to remain anonymous. -- Stefan

PAYING FOR AIR – WHY NOT?

Optimal efficiency in the use of any resource requires the functioning of an effective market in that resource. Everyone (that is, everyone who matters) accepts this thesis in principle, but proposals to put the principle into practice still run up against irrational fears and prejudices, hidebound attitudes, and vague moral reservations. This applies especially to the still controversial issue of establishing and regulating a market in air. That no doubt explains why the published literature on air marketization and privatization is so scanty, although these topics have been the object of lively discussion among economic policy specialists, and not only at our centre.

And yet, as people are beginning to realize, the air in the earth's atmosphere is a limited resource like any other. If its use is to be rationalized, the consumption of air must be subject to the discipline of the market. As in the case of wood, water or any other resource, free access to air is a flagrant invitation to profligacy and waste. Studies by physiologists in several countries have revealed that surprisingly large proportions of individuals breathe more deeply and/or at more frequent intervals than strictly necessary for adequate body maintenance. Many of these irresponsible "free riders" encourage their children to follow their own bad example. Indeed, there are even misguided physicians who in deference to the latest health fad promote "deep breathing" practices among their patients.

In the past, the purely technical difficulties of controlling air consumption confined discussion of air markets to the realm of futurological speculation. H. G. Wells imagined a future in which the majority of the population live and work underground and, in addition to rent, pay private companies to ventilate their quarters. If they fall into arrears with their air payments the air supply is turned off until the next tenant resumes payment.*

Recent developments in pharmacology give reason to hope that in the not too distant future it will be feasible to control air consumption above as well as below ground. In the most plausible scenario, a legally mandated annual dose of a paralytic agent makes respiration impossible without subsequent weekly injection of an antidote, the market in which serves as a proxy air market. Of course, the first dose of the paralytic agent has to be combined with the first dose of the antidote; it is only from the second dose that the consumer starts to pay for the antidote - that is, for air access. The right to sell the antidote to different sections of the population could be sold at auction to the highest bidders.

Those who feel that such an arrangement is morally repugnant usually justify their stance in terms of the naive idea that a person's access to a vital necessity like air should not depend on how much money he or she has. Presumably it is acceptable to regulate access to luxuries by means of money, but not access to the necessities of life. But this idea makes no sense in the real world. Consider what absurd conclusions would follow if we applied it consistently.

It would mean that there should be free access to food just because we have moral qualms about people starving to death. It would mean that there should be free access to housing, heating, and warm clothing just because we shrink from the sight of people freezing to death in the winter cold. It would mean that there should be free access to medical care just because we feel people should not die for lack of the money to get treated. After all, besides breathing people need to eat and drink, keep warm, and so on. To be sure, asphyxiation is a quicker way to die than most. But that makes it more humane, not less.

What has this sort of fuzzy thinking got to do with economic rationality?

*The reference appears to be to Wells' novel When the Sleeper Wakes (1899). The people who are forced to live and work underground are, of course, the working class. From The Time Machine (1895) we learn that they eventually evolve into a separate species, the Morlocks, who feed on the overground descendants of the privileged, the Eloi. –Stefan

What Socialism Means (2005)

From the April 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Although the word socialism is itself more or less modern, its meaning can be said to go back to early religious sects of the ancient world and was taken up by religious dissidents in mediaeval times. Words attributed to John Ball during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 capture its meaning very well:

"My friends, things cannot go well in England, nor ever, until everything shall be held in common, when there shall be neither vassal nor lord and all distinctions levelled, when lords shall be no more masters than ourselves."

But it was not until the 19th Century that the concept of socialism (or communism) was developed by utopian socialists and then more systematically by Marx and Engels. Since the early 19th Century socialism has meant an alternative, classless society which can be set out under three main headings as follows:-

1. Common Ownership.
2. Democratic Control.
3. Production solely for use.

These features of socialist society would be dependent on each other and could only operate together as basic parts of an integrated social system. In combination, these define a way of organising society that in every important aspect of production, distribution, decision making and social administration, is clearly distinguished from the operation of capitalist society.

1. Common ownership means that the entire structure of production and all natural resources be held in common by all people. This means that every person will stand in equal relationship with every other person with respect to the means of producing the things we need to live, that is, mines, industrial plants, manufacturing units, all land and farms, and all means of transport and distribution. This also means the common ownership of all natural resources. Perhaps "common ownership" is partly a misnomer because what is meant is that means of production and resources would not be owned by anyone. In place of the property relationships of owners and non-owners, means of production will simply be available to the whole community to be used and developed solely for the needs of all people.

2. Democratic control means that social policy would be decided by communities. In place of rule by governments, public decisions would be made by people themselves. One great advantage of democratic practice in socialism would be not only the organisation of decision making but also the freedom to carry out those decisions. This freedom of action would arise from direct control of community affairs following the enactment of common ownership and removal of the economic constraints of the capitalist system. Without powers of action decision-making is meaningless.

3. Production solely for use means just what it says. People in socialism would be free to co-operate voluntarily with each other in producing goods directly for the needs of the community. This would be useful labour co-operating to produce useful goods solely for consumption. Production solely for use would replace production for sale at a profit. Things produced for sale under the capitalist system are of course intended to supply a need of one kind or another but as commodities they are produced primarily with a view to money gain and the increase of money capital. As a general rule the market system is a system of 'no profit no production'. In socialism this profit motive would be entirely removed. In a moneyless socialist society the factors of production would operate only in a useful form and not as economic categories with a price. Labour would not be wage labour serving the interests of an employer but would be free labour. People at work would be creating only useful things and not economic values from which profit is derived.

There should be no doubt that these basic features that define socialism clearly distinguished it from the capitalist system. Common ownership of means of production would be in direct opposition to private, corporate or state ownership; democratic control would be fundamentally different from rule by governments; production for needs would be in direct opposition to production for sale at a profit. These contrasting features of the two systems cannot be operated together; they are mutually exclusive. The mistaken idea that they can be operated together has been a major cause of political confusion about what socialism means.

Production solely for needs
What is meant by needs should not be understood as mere personal consumption. It should not suggest a rampant consumerist culture. Production for needs would include a wide range of considerations such as the need to protect and conserve the environment. In defining socialism we should emphasise that it will provide for one vital need in a way that is impossible under the capitalist system. This is the need of peoples throughout the world to bring the organisation of their community affairs under their own democratic control and to develop them in the interests of the whole community.

It was with the emergence of the capitalist system that society lost its direct control of its productive resources. In previous societies, accepting that they were ruled by privileged classes in their own interests, it was often the case that production was at near maximum capacity given the technology and resources available and this determined what could be distributed. In times of good harvests the whole community could benefit in some shape or form. But with the development of the capitalist system this was eroded as what is produced depends crucially on what can be sold. This means that distribution through sale in the markets determines production and this is always less than what could be produced.

Market capacity is inherently unpredictable. If too many goods are produced for a market and they remain unsold, a crisis and recession may occur with reduced production, increased unemployment, bankruptcies, and large scale writing-off of capital values. Despite the many attempts that have been made, no theory of economic management has ever been able to predict or control the anarchic conditions of the market system. This is rule by market forces which serve minority interests and which generate the insecurities, crises and conflicts that shape the way we live. The fact that we have great powers of production that cannot be organised and fully used for the benefit of all people has devastating consequences and is at the root of most social problems.

In this way, the capitalist system places the production of goods and services, on which the quality of all our lives depends, outside the direct control of society. Contrary to this, a socialist system would bring the entire organisation of production and distribution under democratic social control.

Social class
A further basic distinction between the two systems is that whereas the capitalist system is inherently class ridden, in socialism, social relationships of common ownership and equality will end class divisions. Much discussion of class centres on various sociological differences between groups which may be useful for some purposes. However, sociological differences can tell us little when seeking to explain how production is organised.

Some evidence may suggest, superficially, that we live in a society of greater equality. For example, we can accept that not so long ago "toffs" were people who played golf and went on motoring holidays, touring the Continent. Now, many people from all walks of life do these things. This shows that these pursuits have become relatively cheaper and that some working people are now able to enjoy them, but this in no way alters the economic relationships of production. It does not alter the economic, class relationship between capital and labour which dominates the way we live. At the point of production, the workers and their employers who may be sharing a golf course in their leisure time remain in a relationship of conflicting economic interests which, whilst it continues, must always condemn our society to the class divisions of strife and to the many ugly comparisons that we see of poverty amidst luxury. Class is a social relationship that invades and has a corrupting influence on every part of our lives.

An economic definition of class based on the categories of capital and labour in a system of commodity production is basic to our explanation of how we produce and distribute wealth and the economic motives that are involved. Social class defined as economic relationships is a key to how the operation of the market puts profit before needs and places constraints on all our activities. Our lives and the quality of our society depend upon our relationships of production and on the services we can provide. An analysis using economic/class categories tells us who gets what from the pool of wealth that is made available and how a privileged class has accumulated great wealth and property; it therefore explains the great social differences that we see about us.

In addition, we find that increasingly, giant global corporations own and control the world production of goods and services together with the natural resources of the planet. The sole object is to amass greater concentrations of capital and to increase their economic and political powers.

We live in a society of deep class divisions with a conflict of economic interests between those who work the productive system and those who own it. This economic conflict can only be reconciled by the relationships of equality and cooperation that would integrate the community in socialism.

Whilst it is right to feel outrage at the great class divisions that exist socialists do not come to this question in a negative spirit of class hostility. The aim is to end it. Class conflict has gone on for too long; there has been too much strife and we have to heal the wounds of history through entirely democratic means.

Class society is both morally and materially indefensible. It need not linger on and on as part of an outdated system. An ethical society would be one in which all people would live their lives, free from the disadvantages of under privilege and class injustice. To live in a classless society would be in the interests of all its members. Freedom for every person to develop their skills and talents on equal terms could benefit everyone. Equality has the potential to enrich all our lives and would be a basis for a true community of shared interests.

Socialism - a human-centred way of life
Having set out what socialism means, and having set out features that distinguish it clearly from capitalism, these can be summarised as one all important difference. Whereas the capitalist system works for sectional economic ends that are alien to the interests of the whole community, a socialist system would be wholly dedicated to the interests of all people. There would also be a difference of complexity and simplicity. Whereas, working within the complex economic limitations of the market system, our endeavours are frustrated and often blocked by the barriers of costs, in a socialist society, communities would be free to set up their goals and then organise their resources of labour, materials and technology to achieve them in a straightforward way. People in socialism would need only to work with the material factors of production and not any economic factors.

Given the control of human affairs that a socialist system would bring, people in socialism would be able to take charge of their destiny. What is undeniable is that we are a species with great talents. In science, technology, in art, crafts and design we can call upon a wide range of great skills. The point now is to release these for the benefit of humanity.

Pieter Lawrence

What Socialism Means (2005)

From the April 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Although the word socialism is itself more or less modern, its meaning can be said to go back to early religious sects of the ancient world and was taken up by religious dissidents in mediaeval times. Words attributed to John Ball during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 capture its meaning very well:

"My friends, things cannot go well in England, nor ever, until everything shall be held in common, when there shall be neither vassal nor lord and all distinctions levelled, when lords shall be no more masters than ourselves."

But it was not until the 19th Century that the concept of socialism (or communism) was developed by utopian socialists and then more systematically by Marx and Engels. Since the early 19th Century socialism has meant an alternative, classless society which can be set out under three main headings as follows:-

1. Common Ownership.
2. Democratic Control.
3. Production solely for use.

These features of socialist society would be dependent on each other and could only operate together as basic parts of an integrated social system. In combination, these define a way of organising society that in every important aspect of production, distribution, decision making and social administration, is clearly distinguished from the operation of capitalist society.

1. Common ownership means that the entire structure of production and all natural resources be held in common by all people. This means that every person will stand in equal relationship with every other person with respect to the means of producing the things we need to live, that is, mines, industrial plants, manufacturing units, all land and farms, and all means of transport and distribution. This also means the common ownership of all natural resources. Perhaps "common ownership" is partly a misnomer because what is meant is that means of production and resources would not be owned by anyone. In place of the property relationships of owners and non-owners, means of production will simply be available to the whole community to be used and developed solely for the needs of all people.

2. Democratic control means that social policy would be decided by communities. In place of rule by governments, public decisions would be made by people themselves. One great advantage of democratic practice in socialism would be not only the organisation of decision making but also the freedom to carry out those decisions. This freedom of action would arise from direct control of community affairs following the enactment of common ownership and removal of the economic constraints of the capitalist system. Without powers of action decision-making is meaningless.

3. Production solely for use means just what it says. People in socialism would be free to co-operate voluntarily with each other in producing goods directly for the needs of the community. This would be useful labour co-operating to produce useful goods solely for consumption. Production solely for use would replace production for sale at a profit. Things produced for sale under the capitalist system are of course intended to supply a need of one kind or another but as commodities they are produced primarily with a view to money gain and the increase of money capital. As a general rule the market system is a system of 'no profit no production'. In socialism this profit motive would be entirely removed. In a moneyless socialist society the factors of production would operate only in a useful form and not as economic categories with a price. Labour would not be wage labour serving the interests of an employer but would be free labour. People at work would be creating only useful things and not economic values from which profit is derived.

There should be no doubt that these basic features that define socialism clearly distinguished it from the capitalist system. Common ownership of means of production would be in direct opposition to private, corporate or state ownership; democratic control would be fundamentally different from rule by governments; production for needs would be in direct opposition to production for sale at a profit. These contrasting features of the two systems cannot be operated together; they are mutually exclusive. The mistaken idea that they can be operated together has been a major cause of political confusion about what socialism means.

Production solely for needs
What is meant by needs should not be understood as mere personal consumption. It should not suggest a rampant consumerist culture. Production for needs would include a wide range of considerations such as the need to protect and conserve the environment. In defining socialism we should emphasise that it will provide for one vital need in a way that is impossible under the capitalist system. This is the need of peoples throughout the world to bring the organisation of their community affairs under their own democratic control and to develop them in the interests of the whole community.

It was with the emergence of the capitalist system that society lost its direct control of its productive resources. In previous societies, accepting that they were ruled by privileged classes in their own interests, it was often the case that production was at near maximum capacity given the technology and resources available and this determined what could be distributed. In times of good harvests the whole community could benefit in some shape or form. But with the development of the capitalist system this was eroded as what is produced depends crucially on what can be sold. This means that distribution through sale in the markets determines production and this is always less than what could be produced.

Market capacity is inherently unpredictable. If too many goods are produced for a market and they remain unsold, a crisis and recession may occur with reduced production, increased unemployment, bankruptcies, and large scale writing-off of capital values. Despite the many attempts that have been made, no theory of economic management has ever been able to predict or control the anarchic conditions of the market system. This is rule by market forces which serve minority interests and which generate the insecurities, crises and conflicts that shape the way we live. The fact that we have great powers of production that cannot be organised and fully used for the benefit of all people has devastating consequences and is at the root of most social problems.

In this way, the capitalist system places the production of goods and services, on which the quality of all our lives depends, outside the direct control of society. Contrary to this, a socialist system would bring the entire organisation of production and distribution under democratic social control.

Social class
A further basic distinction between the two systems is that whereas the capitalist system is inherently class ridden, in socialism, social relationships of common ownership and equality will end class divisions. Much discussion of class centres on various sociological differences between groups which may be useful for some purposes. However, sociological differences can tell us little when seeking to explain how production is organised.

Some evidence may suggest, superficially, that we live in a society of greater equality. For example, we can accept that not so long ago "toffs" were people who played golf and went on motoring holidays, touring the Continent. Now, many people from all walks of life do these things. This shows that these pursuits have become relatively cheaper and that some working people are now able to enjoy them, but this in no way alters the economic relationships of production. It does not alter the economic, class relationship between capital and labour which dominates the way we live. At the point of production, the workers and their employers who may be sharing a golf course in their leisure time remain in a relationship of conflicting economic interests which, whilst it continues, must always condemn our society to the class divisions of strife and to the many ugly comparisons that we see of poverty amidst luxury. Class is a social relationship that invades and has a corrupting influence on every part of our lives.

An economic definition of class based on the categories of capital and labour in a system of commodity production is basic to our explanation of how we produce and distribute wealth and the economic motives that are involved. Social class defined as economic relationships is a key to how the operation of the market puts profit before needs and places constraints on all our activities. Our lives and the quality of our society depend upon our relationships of production and on the services we can provide. An analysis using economic/class categories tells us who gets what from the pool of wealth that is made available and how a privileged class has accumulated great wealth and property; it therefore explains the great social differences that we see about us.

In addition, we find that increasingly, giant global corporations own and control the world production of goods and services together with the natural resources of the planet. The sole object is to amass greater concentrations of capital and to increase their economic and political powers.

We live in a society of deep class divisions with a conflict of economic interests between those who work the productive system and those who own it. This economic conflict can only be reconciled by the relationships of equality and cooperation that would integrate the community in socialism.

Whilst it is right to feel outrage at the great class divisions that exist socialists do not come to this question in a negative spirit of class hostility. The aim is to end it. Class conflict has gone on for too long; there has been too much strife and we have to heal the wounds of history through entirely democratic means.

Class society is both morally and materially indefensible. It need not linger on and on as part of an outdated system. An ethical society would be one in which all people would live their lives, free from the disadvantages of under privilege and class injustice. To live in a classless society would be in the interests of all its members. Freedom for every person to develop their skills and talents on equal terms could benefit everyone. Equality has the potential to enrich all our lives and would be a basis for a true community of shared interests.

Socialism - a human-centred way of life
Having set out what socialism means, and having set out features that distinguish it clearly from capitalism, these can be summarised as one all important difference. Whereas the capitalist system works for sectional economic ends that are alien to the interests of the whole community, a socialist system would be wholly dedicated to the interests of all people. There would also be a difference of complexity and simplicity. Whereas, working within the complex economic limitations of the market system, our endeavours are frustrated and often blocked by the barriers of costs, in a socialist society, communities would be free to set up their goals and then organise their resources of labour, materials and technology to achieve them in a straightforward way. People in socialism would need only to work with the material factors of production and not any economic factors.

Given the control of human affairs that a socialist system would bring, people in socialism would be able to take charge of their destiny. What is undeniable is that we are a species with great talents. In science, technology, in art, crafts and design we can call upon a wide range of great skills. The point now is to release these for the benefit of humanity.

Pieter Lawrence