No War But The Class War! (2003)

Book Review from the October 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

No War But The Class War! Libertarian Anti-Militarism Then and Now. Edited by Anna Key. Kate Sharpley Library. 2003.

Some purchasers of this short, 20-page pamphlet might find it a bit of a con since, though it opposes militarism, it does not oppose violence. Far from it. It praises violence and advocates this as the way to confront the State. We ourselves are not pacifists, but we always make it clear that we think that Socialists should only contemplate resorting to violence reluctantly and as a last resort should an anti-socialist minority attempt to prevent by violent means the implementation of the democratically-expressed will of a majority for socialism. So you will find no glorification of violence—such as the talk of “armed joy” by the sick individual who wrote this pamphlet's last contribution—in our literature

The items in this collection of anti-militarist leaflets and articles start from an appeal to conscript soldiers in Spain in 1896 not to go and fight in Cuba to a leaflet against the recent war in Afghanistan. The contrast between the early and the later ones is striking, with the early ones coming from the heart in contrast to the more intellectual later ones. Not that the message in the earlier ones is that coherent or, frankly, sensible.

There are two contributions from the pre-WWI French anti-militarist militant, Gustave Hervé, who wrote a book called Leur Patrie (in English “Their Country”, but whose English version is called My Country Right or Wrong). One starts off well enough, excellently in fact:

  “For anybody who is not satisfied with words, or anybody who wants to forget for a moment the fantastic definitions of the Country which have been taught him at school, a Country is a group of men living under the same laws; because they themselves or their ancestors have been brought willingly or by force, more often by force, to obey the same sovereign, the same government. Patriotism groups men according to their land of origin, as decided by the vicissitudes of history; within every country, thanks to the patriotic link, rich and poor unite against the foreigner. Socialism groups men, poor against rich, class against class, without taking into account the differences of race and language, and over and above the frontiers traced by history”.

But it then goes on to advocate, as the working-class response to the outbreak of war, an armed uprising to attempt to overthrow capitalist rule: “Insurrection rather than War!”

The early SPGB (since we were founded in 1904) was aware of Hervé views and commented on this particular slogan in the July 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard:

“Certainly no one country's exploiters are so superior to the rest that the workers should sacrifice themselves in defending them; but it is equally certain that if the proletarians were to rise in armed revolt against their rulers immediately on the outbreak of war, while the master class controlled the armed forces of the nation, and while the workers were yet unable and unready to assume control of Society, they would be courting a shambles that would make war peace by contrast.” 

“Since, therefore, Hervé's statement implies that the workers even though they are not in a position to successfully emancipate themselves should nevertheless sacrifice themselves in a fruitless and bloody attempt to do so on the outbreak of war, it is necessary to dissent from that position of his declaration.” 

“The particularly anti-militarist propaganda of Hervé has undeniably an educational value, and to that extent it is to be welcomed.”

It has to be added that, when the first world slaughter did break out in August 1914, Hervé rushed to join the French army to defend “their Country”, a fact referred to (but without naming him) in the next following article in the pamphlet: “the same man who had once proclaimed 'insurrection rather than war' now exhorts his comrades to defend the 'civilization' of the exploiters”.

Hervé later became a fascist. He wasn't the only pre-WWI anti-militarist militant to take this road, the most notorious being Mussolini. The publishers of this pamphlet, with its talk of “armed joy” and “transforming life arm in hand”, might like to ponder whether the glorification of non-state violence is not in the fascist rather than the “libertarian” tradition.

There's not much wrong with the slogan “No War but the Class War”. But there's a lot wrong with “No War but Civil War” which is how this pamphlet interprets it.

Adam Buick

150 Years of The Communist Manifesto (1998)

From the February 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Communist Manifesto remains a good introduction in their own words to the ideas of Marx and Engels. Here we summarise its contents and put it in its historical context.

It was not until the 1870s, when Marx gained some notoriety, that interest began to be expressed in his earlier works, including the Manifesto. It was first republished in German in 1872, then several other languages before the 1888 English edition. Marx refused to re-write it for the changed circumstances because, reasonably enough, he claimed that it had become a historical document which nobody had a right to alter. However, for the reader lacking an understanding of the context in which it was issued, it is all too easy to suppose that it was entirely a communist Manifesto. Yet if we are careful to distinguish the historically specific from the universal we can then see the communism (socialism) in the Manifesto.

It was translated into English by Samuel Moore (who had translated volume 1 of Capital) and "revised in common" with Engels for the "authorised" 1888 edition. However, this "authorised" version contains a large number of small but important alterations to Marx's original text. Compare the published version with translations of the original wording reproduced here, especially in section two. (See The Communist Manifesto, a Norton Critical Edition edited by Frederic L. Bender, 1988. Contains Prefaces, annotated text, sources and background information.)

The original title, Manifesto of the Communist Party, indicates that it was written for a particular organisation with particular purposes, at a particular time and place. Karl Marx (but not Engels) was commissioned to write the Manifesto by the Central Committee of the Communist League, a small London-based organisation of German refugees, in November 1847. The Manifesto was published in late February 1848, at about the same time as the revolutions of 1848 began-first in Paris, then in Berlin and many other European cities. The occurrence of widespread uprisings throughout Europe owed nothing to theManifesto, though members of the League were not alone in anticipating such an event. The contributory factors were food shortages and starvation brought about by the spread of potato blight, chronic unemployment and falling wages caused by recession, frustration at the feudal bastions of reaction in government, and revolutionary nationalism. In most cases it fell to members of the "petty bourgeoisie" (shopkeepers, artisans, small farmers) to organise revolution. They had suffered economic hardship in the previous few years, had the most to gain from a more progressive regime and potentially had the political clout to bring it about. The big capitalists had not as much incentive, having done well in the industrialisation sweeping Europe, and so often tended to ally themselves instead with the forces of conservative reaction. It was in this context that Marx and the League issued their Manifesto.

The famous opening declaration, "A spectre is haunting Europe-the spectre of Communism", was something of an exaggeration. Marx borrowed this already well-known imagery from Lorenz von Stein's book on communism in France, published in 1842. After the opening the Manifesto is then divided into four sections:

Bourgeois and Proletarians; Proletarians and Communists; Socialist and Communist Literature; Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing Opposition Parties.

Bourgeois and Proletarians

The bourgeoisie (capitalist class) "historically, has played a most revolutionary part". They have pursued their class interest by gaining political control of the state, which "is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie." The bourgeoisie, by pursuing its own self interest, has brought about great advances in technology and production. "The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe." But the bourgeoisie has also created the proletariat (working class) and this class will in turn become the "gravedigger" for the bourgeoisie by recreating society in the proletariat's interests. "All previous movements were movements of minorities, or in the interests of minorities. The proletarian movement is the independent movement of the immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority" (original wording).

Proletarians and Communists

The Communists (meaning members of the Communist League) are distinguished from the other working class parties by the way "they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality."

The Communists are "the most resolute section of the working-class parties of every country" (original wording). Theoretically, "they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement".

The Communist League wants to eventually abolish "bourgeois property" (private ownership of the means of production) and this also entails "the abolition of buying and selling." The bourgeois family must also be abolished ("prostitution both public and private") and nationality ("working men have no country"). The first step in the revolution by the working class is "to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, which is the struggle of democracy" (original wording). The proletariat will use its political power to take, "by degrees", all capital from the bourgeoisie, "centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the state" and "increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible".

The practical measures for achieving this "will of course be different in different countries." Nevertheless, "in the most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable." There then follows ten measures, including the "Expropriation of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes" (original wording), "a heavy progressive or graduated taxation" (original wording), "abolition of all right of inheritance", "centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly", "centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State", "extension of factories and instruments owned by the State", and "free education for all children in public schools".

When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and "all production has been concentrated in the hands of the associated individuals, the public power will lose its political character" (original wording). Political power is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. When the proletariat, organised as the ruling class, "abolishes the old conditions of production" (original wording) it "will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class."

In its place we will have communism: "an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all."

This second section of the Manifesto is controversial, with the measures at the end being mistakenly interpreted by some as communist (socialist) measures in themselves when clearly they are not. Two points should be made by way of clarification. First, the Manifesto was written with Germany in mind (though not exclusively). This was made explicit when the Central Committee of the Communist League issued its "Demands of the Communist Party in Germany" in late March 1848. This seventeen-point programme expands on the Manifesto's ten-point programme to the changed German conditions. It starts: "All of Germany shall be declared to be a single and indivisible republic." It adds at the end, above the signatories (which included Marx and Engels): "It is to the German proletariat, the petit bourgeoisie, and the small peasantry to support these demands with all possible energy." In short, Marx, the League and the ten measures in the Manifesto were encouraging a bourgeois-democratic revolution.

In the circumstances of the time it seemed logical to Marx and the League that they should accept that for the moment their interests coincided with those of the bourgeois democrats, until such time as the absolutist regimes had been overthrown, and should then continue their struggle against the new bourgeois regimes. It was assumed that "the bourgeois democratic governments" could be placed in the situation of immediately losing "all backing among workers" (Marx's address to the Communist League, 1850). Second, when the Manifesto was reprinted for the first time in 1872, Marx and Engels stated in the Preface that "no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today." For instance Germany had become a unified bourgeois state the year before. In fact, many of the measures have since been implemented within capitalism.

Socialist and Communist Literature

In this section Marx discusses various other contemporary types of "socialism" and "communism". The Critical-Utopian Socialists (St. Simon, Fourier, Owen) are praised for revealing the class division in society, but are utopian because they refuse to advocate a class politics. This is understandable, given the level of development at the time the utopians wrote in the early nineteenth century. Nevertheless, their practical measures point to the abolition of class antagonisms: "the abolition of the distinction between town and country, of the family, of the carrying on of industries for the account of private individuals, and of the wage system, the proclamation of social harmony, the conversion of the functions of the state into a mere superintendence of production". The reference to the abolition of the distinction between town and country, and family, in the former case is evidence of an ecological critique of the way capitalism centralises and concentrates living space, in the latter case it is evidence of a critique of the gender roles imposed on women and men in a class society.

Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing Opposition Parties

The Communist League fights for "the attainment of the immediate aims, interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent the future of the movement" (original wording). The Communist League "turn their attention chiefly to Germany, because that country is on the eve of a bourgeois revolution." The Communist League "openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all social orders up to now. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose in this but their chains. They have a world to win.Working men of all countries, unite!" (original wording).

The final injunction to forcibly overthrow the old social orders was framed within the context of absolutist regimes with little or nothing in the way of a franchise. In such circumstances it did seem that force was the only way of bringing about change. Later in life Marx argued that the universal franchise meant that the working class might be able to bring about change peacefully by force of numbers.

The Manifesto was also written before Marx had sufficiently worked out his theory of value. A reference to wages tending to the bare physical subsistence level should not be taken as a theoretical proposition, but rather as a rhetorical flourish. The latter applies to some other phrases, such as the inevitability of workers' power.

Setting to one side the capitalist measures at the end of section 2, we can extract Marx's ideas on communism (or socialism, since Marx made no distinction between the terms as systems of society) which remain valid as a Manifesto for the twenty-first century:

• Communists (Socialists) want to abolish private ownership of the means of production, buying and selling, the wages system, the economic enforcement of the family unit, the concentration and centralisation of living space and the state.
• Communists (Socialists) want to replace this with democracy and a free association in which the self-development of each individual is the condition for the development of everybody.
• Communism (Socialism) must be world-wide, because it is replacing a system which is world-wide.
• It must be brought about by the revolutionary political action of the working class.
• It must be brought about by the majority of the working class, not minorities.
• Communists (Socialists) are the most determined and politically organised section of the working class, but they are not a vanguard leading the working class.

Lew Higgins

Cooking the Books: Comic Capitalism (2014)

The Cooking the Books Column from the December 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

The word ‘capitalism’ is well and truly back in circulation. At one time if you used it you were taken for a Communist. Not any more. Even stand-up comedians have incorporated it into their routines. One is Liam Williams who was given a page in Time Out (October 7-13) to tell jokes about capitalism. Actually, they were largely at the expense of those who defend capitalism.

Defining capitalism as being where ‘the means of production and trade are privately owned and operated for profit’, he has somebody called Mo%^&$fucker! object

‘The only alternative is a primitive economic system involving trading with stones or shits.’

Socialists have often heard this objection as ‘so you want to go back to barter?’ No, we don’t. Socialism will involve the disappearance of money but also the disappearance of all ‘trading’, all buying and selling. As the means for producing wealth (useful things) will be commonly owned so will the wealth produced.

The question will then be, not how to sell it (how can owners sell what they own to themselves?), but how to distribute it, how to share it out. Socialism doesn’t mean going back to barter. It means going forward, now that the technology and skills exist to produce enough for all, to distribution in accordance with the principle of ‘from each their ability, to each their need.’ People co-operate to produce what they need and then have free access to it. Money becomes redundant and does need to be replaced by anything.

Williams then deals with a more subtle defence of capitalism:

‘Capitalism is now the dominant economic model. It’s actually a product of nature, like maths and human song.’

This is the familiar ‘human nature’ objection to socialism. If socialism is unnatural, then capitalism is natural. Actually, capitalism is neither natural nor eternal. It has not always existed but is a product of social and historical evolution. It came into being, in western Europe, in the course of the 15th to 16th century when countries began producing for sale on an outside market that none of them were able to dominate or control but, on the contrary, had to adapt to in order to survive economically. This set in motion a process which led to one group of people (a small minority) acquiring money seeking profitable investment and another group (the vast majority) of landless people seeking to sell their ability to work to get money to buy what they needed to survive.

Capitalism has now spread all over the world.  It  is still a system of production by workers employed for a wage or salary by those who own means of production and working to produce wealth for sale with a view to their profit.

He mentions Thomas Piketty’s book Capital in the Twenty-First Century which, he says, ‘shows how the gap between rich and poor is widening dangerously’ and adds ‘but even he thinks outright anti-capitalism is nonsense’. He goes on:

‘Most figures of political and intellectual influence agree that his proposals (including a global confiscation tax on the absurdly rich) are unfeasibly idealistic.’

It is not clear whether or not this is another joke at the expense of defenders of capitalism. In any event, it is true that Piketty’s proposals are ‘unfeasible’ as capitalism can’t be reformed to stop the rich getting richer.  That’s a by-product of the accumulation of capital out of profits which is what capitalism is all about.

Action Replay: Your Name’s in the Book (2014)

The Action Replay Column from the December 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

What do you do if you are a top sportsperson and age or fitness lead you to retire? You could extend your career a little by moving to a country with a lower standard of play, or you could try to become a coach or manager or pundit. Alternatively, or perhaps in addition, you could write a book, or rather have one ghost-written for you (rather like the many memoirs by actors, musicians or TV ‘celebrities’). You could give your side of various arguments and settle some old scores, as well as making a few bob. There have been a couple of prominent examples in recent weeks.

Cricketer Kevin Pietersen has ‘written’ KP: My Autobiography: to a large extent it is built around his annoyance at being blamed for the fiasco of England’s Ashes tour to Australia in 2013–14, which the team lost 5-0. It accuses the team’s coach, Andy Flower, of being basically useless, and hints that captain Alastair Cook was too weak for the job. But in particular it singles out divisions in the dressing room and an alleged clique of three top bowlers and a wicket-keeper who could be very nasty to other players. Pietersen was England’s most prolific run-scorer of all time, but that is not the book’s focus.

Then there’s footballer Roy Keane’s The Second Half (ghosted by novelist Roddy Doyle). By the time the book was written, Keane had already had a bit of a dodgy post-playing career, as manager and then as pundit. Despite his success as a player with Manchester United (including seven Premier League titles), the book has a great negative deal to say about United manager Alex Ferguson, and in particular about the way Keane left the club. In a TV interview Keane criticised his teammates, and Ferguson basically tore up his contract (costing him a sizeable sum of money). There’s also material on his arguments with some of the other United players.

Many workers who aren’t top athletes will be accustomed to some form of office politics, with cliques and rivalry and people getting at each other. It seems that even at the top of the sporting tree, where the pay is beyond what most people dream of, similar things take place.

Paul Bennett

The Parade (1987)

From the Winter 1987-88 issue of the World Socialist

Swaying kilts and swinging arms,

Skirling bagpipes, Beating drums,

We're marching on parade.

With measured beat

Of soldiers feet,

Spit and polish and tunics neat,

We give the passers-by a treat

When we are on parade.

Swaying kilts and swinging arms,

We're marching on parade.

Our sweethearts wave,

The know we're brave,

We are the sons our mothers gave,

We do not think of soldiers graves,

When we are on parade.

Skirling bagpipes, beating drums,

At last we reach the church.

Thou shalt not kill,

Least not until,

The priest has blessed the guns.

Skirling bagpipes, beating drums, 

Mud and blood and battles won. 

It was kill him Jack - Bayonet or gun, 

We wondered what we've all become, 

The world's no different - just the same, 

So was the killing all in vain?

Sid Catt

Pathfinders: Watch This Space . . . (2014)

The Pathfinders Column from the December 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

Space flight dominated last month’s science reporting, with the embarrassment of an exploding Antares rocket and a crashed Virgin Galactic plane being rapidly pushed off the front page by the media hoo-ha over the Philae probe, which bounced around on a comet, sent back half a dozen pictures, drilled a hole then expired.

The Philae landing was undoubtedly quite a feat, like pinging a peanut across a continent and having it land in an eggcup. A tweet immediately went viral inviting cynics everywhere to complete the phrase ‘they can land on a comet but they can’t… (e.g. stop war, solve world hunger etc) but such cynics are missing the big picture. Drilling into a comet could tell us whether our water came from outer space, and even more importantly, whether life could have come from outer space, and even more importantly than that, whether humans can feasibly strip-mine speeding space rocks so that fat future profits can also come from outer space.

Now UK news services are abuzz with a new crowd-sourced bid to send a British probe to, er, the moon and drill a hole in that too (BBC Online, 19 November). The enthusiasm seems quite out of proportion to the aim, but it’s a chance to put one over on the Chinese and besides, space travel is a good deal more sexy than fixing Earth’s problems. Indeed it tends to bring out the silly or downright suicidal in some people, as witness last year’s Mars One project. Not a space probe but a Dutch company, Mars One sought volunteers for a one-way manned trip to Mars, the costs being recouped through TV coverage and sponsorship deals. Not one person in their right mind would go for this, you would think, especially as you had to pay a €30 deposit. Over 200,000 people signed up. Socialists might be desperate to escape the capitalist prison, but we’re not that desperate. The only red planet we want to live on is this one.

… Oddity

A cover version of David Bowie’s famous song Space Oddity, done by a Canadian astronaut in a very odd accent aboard the International Space Station, has been reposted to YouTube after having been taken down due to licensing restrictions (BBC Online, 4 November). Bowie himself had no objection to the cover, describing it as ‘poignant’. What stood in its way were the rules of terrestrial capitalism. As the singer, Chris Hadfield, explained: ‘The Space Station was built by 15 countries, and depending on where I floated while singing and playing, whose copyright laws applied? Which Space Agency owned the recording? Whose jurisdiction was I in?’

If aliens ever visit and like any of our pop music, let them beware. It’s a minefield down here.

Toys R Us(eless)

Continuing the space theme, the Telegraph was recently keen to report the apparently astounding fact that ‘There is more computer power in some of this year's top Christmas toys than the first moon mission’ (5 November). Big deal. There’s more computer power in your washing machine too, and your phone, and if you’re a true early adopter, your glasses.

At the risk of resorting to Christmas grumpy mode, what is all this computer power doing? Making crappy dolls to emulate babylike simpering tones while talking to your iPad, and plastic dayglo smart watches that store 900 photographs an inch wide. How cool, how awesome! What a load of utter rubbish, all designed to last two weeks and all designed to cost a fortune, paid out by overworked parents who can’t afford it but are trying to make up for ignoring the kids all the rest of the year.

What would children really want for Christmas, if they had the knowledge and imagination to ask for it, and any expectation whatsoever of getting it?

They might want their two front teeth, like the old song. More likely, they might want parents who aren’t permanently stressed out with bills, debts, overwork and each other. They might want siblings who can be friends instead of rivals. They might want to live in a house that it’s affordable to heat properly in winter, in an area where they won’t get beaten up by local gangs if they go to the shop. They might want a say about whether they have to go to school, about where they go, and what they do when they get there. They might want to feel safe, and secure, and understood, and cared about. They might want to feel that they have a future worth looking forward to, that strangers are just friends they haven’t met yet, that they are not too fat or too thin or too stupid but just right, that alive is a good thing to be.

But this year, if they’re lucky, they’ll just get capitalism rammed in their stocking, just like every other year. Ho ho ho.

The only way is ethics?

The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges recently produced a report arguing that doctors have an ethical duty to prevent waste in the NHS (BBC Online, 6 November). It’s not hard to understand the argument. Billions are wasted every year that could pay nurses more or buy extra equipment. Doctors of course being no strangers to ethical codes but frequently being utter strangers to budgets, the AMRC naturally thought a spot of moral arm-twisting was in order.

The idea of waste being ‘unethical’ is a fairly novel one, considering how profligate nature itself is. But it’s not the first thing to be morally stigmatised by a civil society anxious to change our behaviour – two recent examples being smoking and drink/driving.

Since socialists are anxious to change the behaviour of civil society, perhaps we ought to use ethical arguments more. The trouble is, the whole subject makes us slightly nervous, because of the problem of moral relativism.

What’s ethical to you isn’t necessarily ethical to him or her. And while ethics can be based on empirical reasoning, as with the doctors, it doesn’t have to be. It could be based on mystical dreams, or God’s word, or a Hollywood film script. Building a case primarily out of ethics is like building a shed primarily out of blancmange.

Some scientists think that moral relativism is a myth and that we are hard-wired to be moral, pointing to the activities of mirror neurons in the brain’s motor cortex, which fire off in sympathy at certain observed behaviours in others and trigger similar responses in us. The strongest of these effects is seen in yawning, however, an activity not normally related to questions of morality unless you’re intensely bored with the subject.

Still, there’s not much doubt that people are only motivated to act when they perceive that something is ethically ‘wrong’, not just scientifically ‘incorrect’.  The Proto-Indo-European root steig (prick or pointed) gives us stick, stigma and instigate. What other behaviours can we expect to see stigmatised in the future, with a view to changing behaviour? Using fossil fuels, probably. Eating fat or meat or sugar or being a couch potato, possibly. One key social norm which we would be in a hurry to see stigmatised is the ‘right’ of a small group of people to exist as a parasitical social elite at the expense of everyone else and the environment. It’s about time people realised that’s not just incorrect, it’s damn well wrong.

PJS

The People You Meet—Gilbert (1949)

From the November 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

Gilbert is a very bright young man. Religiously he studies the columns of the Times and the Guardian and shocked his father by ordering the Daily Worker. Regularly he subscribes to the Tribune and the Statesman, and of course was one of the first to buy "Orwell's 1984."

He had been a subaltern in some minor county regiment—though he is very much opposed to any future war. His check shirt, brown corduroys and meerschaum pipe can be seen at every so-called "peace rally" in Trafalgar Square and other places. For a short time he wore a big white badge—"Britain's Youth for Peace." Someone once suggested that on the reverse side it read "Strike Now in the West," but that's by the way.

Yes, Gilbert considered himself a progressive! When the dockers were on strike he organised (such a brilliant organiser, my dear!) a fête and jumble sale in aid of their funds. When the city recruiting campaign was at its peak he showered leaflets at a well-known general. He even scowled at the commissionaires outside the American Embassy.

But in spite of this bravado, Gilbert was really a sensitive lad. Lured into the East End one Saturday night by some of his venturesome comrades, he was really shocked at what he saw. Every pub was crowded with coarse, loud animals, singing, drinking and loudly laughing at crude jokes and indelicate gestures. On the pavements pommaded youths and powdered lasses jostled for each other's attentions. Thousands poured out of the dog tracks.

Thank God for people like Gilbert, thought Gilbert. "These people—wh'why, th'they're—er—indescribable—more like beasts." Then he was consoled. Once he and his friends had achieved the revolution they would soon straighten their ideas out. They would teach them culture and respect for the intellectuals.

Poor Gilbert—for he is more to be pitied than blamed. He, with his empty intellectual snobbery, is just as much a child of his environment as the workers he deplores.

But they are the workers. What if they are in a pub or at the dogs on a Saturday night? What if the pavement is their marriage market? On Monday mornings they are the dockers, the turners, the mechanics; they are the laundry workers, the factory hands, the shop assistants; in short they are the folk who run this system of society from top to bottom. True they are not fully class conscious; true they still vote for the Labour Party, but let any employer attempt to molest their individual wages or conditions and you'll seem fight like tigers.

These are the people who will achieve the social revolution. Each day brings fresh evidence of the anomalies of Capitalism: each day opens some worker's eyes. As the wheel of Capitalism with its  ever increasing slumps and wars accelerates, so their realisation grows. One day it will reach its crescendo and the revolution will take place—not because of or for Gilbert—but in spite of him.

RONALD.

Material World: Money – a waste of resources (2011)

The Material World Column from the July 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Perhaps you think that the money system is a necessary means of allocating scarce resources. In that case, you won’t regard the resources that society devotes to operating the money system as waste. But have you tried to assess the sheer scale of these resources? 

One approach is to see how many people are kept busy at tasks that would not exist in a society without money. I focus on the United States, but I don’t think the overall picture is much different in other countries. My figures come from the May 2010 National Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor (Link). 

The occupational classification used in US government statistics divides the employed workforce into 22 broad occupational groups, which are subdivided into specific occupations. When we search these groups for money-related occupations, here is what we find.

Group 11. Management occupations

There are 516,000 sales, marketing and advertising managers, plus 479,000 financial managers. At least a fifth of all managers manage monetary flows rather than material processes.

Group 13. Business and financial operations occupations

This group includes:

• 1,072,000 accountants and auditors
• 221,000 financial analysts
• 272,000 purchasing agents
• 63,000 claims adjusters, examiners and investigators
• 262,000 market research analysts and marketing specialists
• 184,000 cost estimators, etc.

Some of the market research analysts might still be needed in a socialist society for the non-manipulative analysis of consumer preferences.

Group 33. Protective service occupations

This group includes:

• 1,007,000 security guards
• 644,000 police officers
• 111,000 detectives and criminal investigators
• 458,000 jailers and correctional officers

As most crime consists of offences against property, few of the functions performed by these two million people will exist in a socialist society.

Group 41. Sales and related occupations

All of the 13,438,000 people in this group directly service the money system. Here we find: 4,155,000 retail sales workers; 1,172,000 supervisors of retail sales workers; 3,354,000 cashiers; 1,748,000 sales representatives; 415,000 counter and rental clerks; 319,000 insurance sales agents; 289,000 telemarketers, etc.

Group 43. Office and administrative support occupations

This group includes:

• 1,675,000 bookkeeping, accounting and auditing clerks
• 556,000 tellers
• 883,000 clerks processing and collecting bills
• 232,000 clerks processing insurance claims and policies
• 40,000 meter readers, etc.

Other money-related occupations lie scattered among various other groups. Actuaries, tax inspectors, teachers of business studies – the list goes on and on. Then, combining related occupations assigned to various groups, we discover 145,000 people working at casinos and other gambling joints and 519,000 people who do nothing but handle loans (interviewing and checking out loan applicants, processing repayments, pursuing defaulters, etc.).

There are many money-related jobs that the occupational classification does not allow us to count separately. Thus, Computer science occupations must include many people working with computer systems for storing and processing financial information, while Legal occupations includes many people working in areas like commercial law and inheritance.

Next there are all the people who design, manufacture, transport, install and repair money-related machinery and equipment, such as ATM machines, cash registers (for all those cashiers!), safes, slot machines, credit card verifiers, gambling machines, and those contraptions which prevent you from getting into the underground without a ticket. Not to mention the people who actually make coins, banknotes and gold bars!  

Then there are the workers who build, maintain and clean the premises used by banks, insurance companies and other money-handling offices, those who transport money handlers to and from work, and so on.

My best estimate is that about one fourth of employed Americans are engaged in tasks that would not exist in a moneyless society. To these people we must add members of the armed forces, workers in military industry, most non-working prisoners, the unemployed as usually understood, and the unemployed as unusually understood (otherwise known as the idle rich). All these people could be making a useful and productive contribution to society.

Let’s return now to the question of waste. The money system is commonly justified as a rational way of coping with scarcity of resources. And yet, as we see, the operation of the money system consumes enormous human and material resources. We should also take into account the resource costs of such capitalist practices as built-in obsolescence, the use of patents to suppress innovation (Socialist Standard, February 2007) and luxury production for the wealthy (Socialist Standard, June 2011).

So how serious would the problem of scarcity be if all these costs were eliminated together with capitalism and the money system? Can any reasonable person avoid concluding that money is itself largely responsible for the problem to which it is supposedly the solution?

Stefan

How Capitalist Dumb-ocracy Deals with Vital Questions (2014)

From the December 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Japanese government is keen to restart the country’s nuclear reactors without real public debate

The 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, like any great crisis in society, laid bare the half-hidden—or ‘half-forgotten’—truths of capitalism. People in Japan and around the world were reminded of how companies sacrifice safety in pursuit of profit; how politicians are bought off by those companies; and how capitalists treat the victims of disasters as so much collateral damage.

The aftermath of the disaster has also revealed just how narrow democracy is under capitalism. This has become clear in the way decisions are being made on whether to restart some of Japan’s 48 nuclear reactors. The question of whether the reactors are safe enough to be restarted is of great concern to people living in Japan, but, as is so often the case under capitalism, the decision is not really in their hands.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority, a new administrative body formed in 2012 by merging the Nuclear Safety Commission and Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, is tasked with the approval of the applications submitted by energy companies to restart reactors. The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is quite happy to have the NRA take direct responsibility for the decision, not only to avoid blame in the case of another disaster but also to foster the impression that the decision is being made on a strictly scientific basis, in line with the stricter safety regulations introduced in June 2013.

The new rules call for the construction of sea walls to protect plants from the largest tsunami anticipated and the installation of filters to remove radioactive substances vented from reactor cores during an emergency. The rules also require the installation of a separate control room to operate the reactor in the event of a disaster. But certain ‘grace periods’ are allowed for companies to operate reactors before meeting some of these requirements.

In July, the NRA issued its preliminary approval for restarting the two reactors at the Sendai Nuclear Plant in the southern prefecture of Kagoshima, operated by Kyushu Electric Power Co. The final decision will be made by the NRA after verifying the required design changes at the plant and its operating structure.

The government recognizes, however, that a decision made by the NRA alone would lack credibility in the eyes of many, so the approval process also calls for a certain degree of consent among those living near the nuclear plant But that local approval (or disapproval) is not legally binding in any way—and it is limited to the city where the plant is located (Satsumasendai) and the Kagoshima prefectural assembly.

In essence, this ‘informal approval’ is just a fig leaf to cover the fact that the decision has been reached by the NRA commissioners (appointed by the Prime Minister) that the Sendai plant should be restarted.

As expected, the Kagoshima prefectural assembly approved the restarting of the reactors on 7 November (by a vote of 38 to 9). The same day, the governor of the prefecture, Yuichiro Ito, backed the decision—although he tried to sidestep his own responsibility by calling the decision ‘unavoidable’ and claiming that the central government would assume final responsibility in the case of an emergency.

Prior to that approval, the municipal assembly and the mayor of Satsumasendai approved the decision to restart the plant, on 27 October. It was a foregone conclusion that the city would approve the decision since it receives a massive annual subsidy of roughly \1.2 billion (£6.6m) a year, as well as another \400 million (£2.2m) for a nuclear fuel tax.

Of course, in the case of a disaster, the fallout would certainly not be limited to Satsumasendai. There are in fact eight other municipalities located within a 30km radius of the plant. But, unlike the host city, they receive few subsidies related to the nuclear plant.

The town of Ichikikushikino, with a population of 30,000, is as close as just 5km from the plant in some places, yet only receives a subsidy of \90 million a year (£495,000 - less than 1 percent of its annual income). Given the risks it faces, the town’s residents had asked to be included in the informal approval process. The request was turned down for fear of opposition; and in fact half of the residents later signed a petition opposing the restarting of the Sendai plant.

Along with the bogus ‘approval’ process at the local level, the NRA held a series of ‘town hall meetings’ in October to reassure residents in Kagoshima of the safety of the Sendai plant. But the number of participants at those meetings was limited and they were not allowed to record the proceedings or ask questions regarding evacuation plans.

The way the government has sought to limit public input and evade criticism extends to the choice of the Sendai nuclear plant to begin the safety screening process. The plant’s location in Kagoshima made it an obvious choice for a number of reasons, despite the fact that its reactors are 30 years old.

First of all, the prefecture is a long-standing stronghold of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Currently, 70 percent of the assembly members are LDP-affiliated. From a simple geographic perspective, the decision also made sense to the Abe administration, since Kagoshima is far removed from Fukushima and from Tokyo, which is the centre of a powerful anti-nuclear movement.

Another factor is that Kyushu Electric is one of the regional utility companies that is still in the red, with losses of \36.5 billion (£200m) in the first quarter of fiscal 2014 (compared to the \52.5 billion profit of Tokyo Electric posted for that same period). This means that the company plausibly can make the argument that the restarting of its nuclear plants is vital to its business.

Other utility companies had been making that argument in trying to get their reactors back online, while also threatening consumers with higher rates and their own workers with lower wages (and making good on both threats), but now that these companies are profitable again despite the nuclear shutdown, their ‘good-for-business’ argument has become a bit harder to swallow.

Prime Minister Abe seems to hope that once the Sendai plant is approved, the decision can serve as the template for approving reactors in other prefectures, including those where the conditions are less favourable to his administration. In other words, the approval process is proceeding according to a political—not a scientific—logic, with more attention paid to massaging public opinion than ensuring public safety.

The basic argument of the government on the need for nuclear power comes down to profit- or ‘economic growth’, to use the favoured expression. The problem, though, is that the Japanese public is aware that even in the heyday of nuclear power, when most of the reactors were up and running, providing around 30 percent of Japan’s overall energy supplies, the economy was not exactly booming. And those who have reflected a bit more on their own life experiences, if they have lived long enough, would know that economic growth is no guarantee of better living conditions for workers.

It is true that Japan is a country that lacks energy resources, forcing it to import more oil and gas in the absence of nuclear power. This is a situation that would be faced even in a post-capitalist world. But under capitalism the objective or scientific aspect of the problem is intertwined with the question of profitability, so that the debate is always limited by that reality. This makes it hard to distinguish between the technically and the economically feasible.

Today, the debate over what safety measures are possible or whether more renewable energy can be generated come down to a question of money, not pure science. In a socialist world, people living in Japan could finally have a rational debate on how to generate enough energy for their own needs. The conclusion might be reached that the benefits of nuclear energy to Japan outweigh its obvious risks. But that would be a decision the community could reach democratically, weighing all of the evidence. No such democratic process exists in Japan or anywhere else today, nor could it exist under a system that revolves around profit.

Michael Schauerte

The Titanic Disaster 100 Years On (2012)

From the April 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

This April will witness the 100^th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Many words will be written in the capitalist media about the disaster, but what of the class aspects of the tragedy and has anything really changed in the last century?

The Titanic came into being purely for the speedy conveyance of the rich and wealthy classes between Britain and the US. Opulence and luxury were the watchwords of her design and construction, rather than safety. Designed around class division and reflecting the extremes of wealth and poverty in Edwardian Britain, the vessel featured Turkish baths, gymnasiums, electric lifts, ballrooms, dining rooms, a swimming pool and a library for the first class passengers – all designed to attract the wealthiest clients and secure the biggest returns for the investors in White Star Lines.

The now famous story of the Titanic's maiden voyage and her striking an iceberg off Newfoundland is too familiar to need repeating.  Also familiar is the often quoted lack of adequate lifeboat provision, although according to the maritime laws at the time, Titanic surprisingly carried more than she was legally required to. What is more interesting from a socialist's perspective is how the class divide, evident in the design of the vessel, continued to make itself felt throughout its operation and right on to the end of the disaster.

The ship carried a total of 2,224 people including crew, and 1,554 of these died on that fateful night, mostly from drowning and hypothermia in the near freezing waters. For the survivors, it is more than apparent that class was a survival factor. At the time, the standard procedure was for women and children to go first into the lifeboats, but significantly, aboard the Titanic, this meant first and second class women and children and not those in steerage. No second-class children and only one from first class died, but 52 children from steerage perished. Of the first-class female passengers, 97% survived, some with their lap-dogs, as did 86% of second-class women. By comparison, only 46% of third-class women made it off the ship. Men of all classes bore the brunt of the death toll, but again, significantly, 84% of third-class men died against 33% in first class. Overall, the third-class passengers and crew amounted to 80% of the total lives lost that night.

Various enquiries into the disaster inevitably focused the blame on members of the dead crew and the poor safety provisions. Whilst the latter criticism may be valid, no enquiry ever took into account the significance of a vessel such as Titanic in the first place, nor touched on the inherent class divisions on board which resulted in such tragedy for the 'lower orders'. To do so would have been to call into question capitalism itself. Titanic, for example,had sufficient lifeboats for first-class passengers only, not for third. Further, hardly any mention was made of the US immigration laws which required complete physical isolation of the third-class passengers from the rest of the ship. This alone meant that many steerage passengers never even knew of the existence of lifeboats, let alone where they might be found. Many were physically prevented from escaping from the vessel until it was too late.

The Socialist Standard of the time drew more incisive conclusions and made the comparison with other disasters to befall the working classes.  The May 1912 edition reported:

It must not be forgotten, however, that capitalist companies invariably choose for responsible positions those men to do what they are paid to do. It is all moonshine to talk of the captain being in command. They command who hold his livelihood in their hands. If he will not take risks and get the speed they want, then he must give place to one who will.

So at the bottom it is the greed for profit and the insatiable desire for speed on the part of the rich that is responsible for the disaster, whatever conclusion the Committee of Enquiry may come to.

“The actual details of the wreck afford a further opportunity of pressing home a lesson. The evidence of the survivors and the evidence of the official figures of the saved, show that even on the decks of the sinking liner, and to the very end, the class struggle was on. Those who had clamoured for speed were the first to monopolise the boats, and the way was kept open for them by the officers' revolvers. Even the capitalist newspapers are compelled to admit the significance of the figures. Of the first class men 34 per cent were saved: of the steerage men only 12 per cent. Figures like those are eloquent enough without the evidence of the officer who admitted that he kept steerage passengers from a half-filled boat with shots from his revolver.

Much has been made of the fact that the cry "Women and children first" was raised, and it is not necessary to cast aspersions on the courage of any man who survives. The salient fact is that it was not a question of courage but of class. "Women and children" meant women and children of the wealthy class. Of first class women and children practically all were saved, some even with their pet dogs. Of the steerage women and children more than half perished. The "chivalry" of the ruling class does not, save in very rare instances, extend itself to the class beneath them.

The awful loss of life has not prevented the Titanic from becoming a commodity along with everything else in capitalism. Apart from the massive profits made from two major films (A Night To Remember, 1958; andTitanic, 1997, which grossed $1.8 billion) and dozens of minor ones, the discovery of the wreck by Dr Robert Ballard in 1985 has spawned even more interest and bickering over the profits to be made from the disaster.

In 1994, RMS Titanic Inc., a subsidiary of Premier Exhibitions Inc., was awarded ownership and salvaging rights by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. On 24 March, 2009, it was revealed that the fate of 5,900 artefacts retrieved from the wreck would rest with a U.S. District Judge's decision. On 12 August, 2010, Judge Rebecca Beach Smith granted RMS Titanic Inc. fair market value for the artefacts but deferred ruling on their ownership, and the conditions for their preservation, possible disposition and exhibition until a further decision could be reached. On 15 August, 2011, under a French court decision, Judge Smith granted RMS Titanic Inc. title to thousands of artefacts from the Titanic that it did not already own. The grant of title was subject to a lengthy list of conditions relating to the preservation and disposition of the items. The artefacts can be sold only to a company that will abide by the conditions and restrictions as set out. RMS Titanic Inc. can profit from the artefacts through exhibiting them.

In addition, the current anniversary will see the re-release of the 1997 movie Titanic in 3D, at least two new mini-TV series and a £77million exhibition at the former Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast. One can expect a rake off from other merchandise.  But more macabre (and indicative of the profiteering nature of capitalism), is the offer by a UK travel company of a full transatlantic cruise which will follow the exact route of the Titanic.   The cruise will keep the exact timings and pause over the spot of the sinking. This dubious event also offers its patrons the opportunity to dress up in period costume and 'enjoy' themed entertainment and food from the era.

The sinking of the Titanic and the interest in it will continue for some time yet, but it is sad that the same conditions which brought about her very existence 100 years ago are still prevalent today. The widening wealth gap; the vastly different treatment of people based purely on their income; and the poor treatment of workers in the rush for speed and profit are all hallmarks of the system that was in place in 1912 and is still with us today. Disasters on the same scale as the Titanic are still happening and for the same basic reasons.  Despite the massive loss of lives throughout the past century, the working classes are still not learning from the lessons once experienced by their forefathers. The class divide apparent in Edwardian Britain and reflected in the Titanic disaster, still exists in modern-day Britain and the answers offered by socialists then apply just as clearly today. As the Socialist Standard concluded at the time:

We are not of those who expect any great results from this ocean tragedy. Working-class lives are very cheap, and the age that abolishes the Plimsoll Line at the demand of those greedy for profit is hardly likely to insist upon the provision of proper means of life-saving or the careful navigation of passenger vessels. Murder by wholesale may be committed without doing violence to "law and order," so long as it is committed by the capitalist class in the "legitimate" scramble for profits.

David Humphries

An Open Letter to Russell Brand (2014)

From the December 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

On his book, “Revolution”, Century, 2014

First, how do I come to be reading your book, Revolution? I have spent the past thirty years arguing the point whenever and however I could, that world capitalism has to be ended. Not just in its most excessive manifestations, not just when it is run for private corporations and shareholders as opposed to state bureaucracies, but in every conceivable form it might take. How can you tell if the system in operation is capitalism? With a simple check-list. Employment – the exploitation of employees (French for the ‘used’) by employers (users) via the legalised robbery of the wages system. The market; in other words, the buying and selling of things which could instead now be created in such abundance that they could be taken freely by anyone in the global population, without the need for any system of money, vouchers, tokens, barter or trade of any kind whatsoever. Also, state power: governments, armies, police, who enforce the class rule by a tiny fraction of the population who own and control all productive resources.

Your book is disarmingly honest about your past, your faults, your flaws, thought processes, previous ambitions and resulting disillusion, the sources of your unhappiness, your latest hopes and desires, your continuing self-doubt, your determination to continue speaking and writing uncompromisingly and unashamedly what you believe to be true, and your refusal to give in to the pressure from snobs and hypocrites. These are people who have often attempted to silence your expression by mocking almost everything about you from your accent to your origins, your supposed lack of education, your poverty, your wealth, your hair, your profession – and, when all else fails, by misquoting, misrepresenting and distorting the ideas you express.

I hope it will make a refreshing change to have it suggested that, far from advocating the impossible or going beyond the thinkable, rather that you need to go one step further by demanding the so-called ‘impossible’. Your book is a brave step in promoting discussion of revolution to end the capitalist system we have throughout the world today. You make several cogent and absolutely essential points which are not only true, they cry out to be endorsed and adopted by the thousands who have already read your book – and the millions of others who would relate to so much of it. Points such as:

1. Do not vote – IF there is nothing worth voting for. Do not feel obliged to give moral and practical consent to the status quo by endorsing it, through voting into power one of several parties, each of which are openly pledged to defending, running and upholding that status quo in one form or another. Most of your opponents in the wake of that Paxman interview conveniently ignored the second half of this proposition, pretending that you had some kind of bizarre antipathy to the concept of voting, under any circumstances. More heinous still was their subtle exclusion of even the possibility of allowing a different way of running society: ‘you have Labour, Tory, Liberals. Lots of ways of running Capitalism. What more do you want? Now get out there and vote for one of those! And be damn grateful for having this wonderful choice once every five years!’ runs their mantra.

2.  Global society is currently organised in a way which is designed purely to benefit a tiny (even less than one percent) minority, who have unfathomable wealth and power, who own and control the Earth and its resources – and who in doing so are depriving the 99 percent of access to the riches and comforts those resources have to offer us all. This is an insane, anti-social, irrational, illogical, unacceptable premise and starting point on which to found our global society. It is therefore urgently in our interests as that majority to end that regime completely and utterly, now. Another word for such a huge and urgent change in the way society is run is revolution, so clearly the fact that this is needed is beyond dispute.

3. There are many ways in which the present organisation of society like a vast prison camp (disguised as a holiday camp) causes unhappiness, suffering and distress – way beyond the crudely economic aspects of poverty, crucial and painful though those are too. Terms like alienation, epidemics like addiction are easy to dismiss as in the first case abstract waffle and in the second a poor choice made by (millions of) individuals. However, these are in fact very real, almost universal side-effects of the global social system we have. Indeed, for many people in the huge cities of the more ’developed’ parts of the world – like London or New York – these are some of the most powerful prompts which drive many of us to question the way society is currently structured. The one percent are devoted to maximising the surplus they extract from the work of the rest of us, and this in turn depends on them maintaining a certain social landscape, the consumer culture, the stifling of true dissent, the separation of people from one another and from themselves.

As your book progresses, you draw on input from a variety of activists and social thinkers. Some are more credible than others. One of the more compelling is Naomi Klein, with her brilliant expose of the stark choice now forced on us, between saving capitalism and saving the planet as a viable ecosystem or human habitat, and she shows incontrovertibly how incompatible the two are.

In eventually sketching a plurality of ‘alternatives’ , however, you may be unwittingly over-complicating the situation. There are not ‘loads’ of alternatives; the one key issue causing all significant social problems is the way we organise society – the system of minority ownership and production for profit. The solution, the one solution, to this is therefore common ownership and production for use. That means no money, banks, finance  – and no ‘co-operatives’ selling goods in the market. Free access to all, for all! From each according to ability, to each according to need  – one worldwide co-operative society, no buying and selling.

Some notes you quote about the virtues of co-ops mention ‘raising capital’, ‘job opportunities’ and making agreements with governments. But the revolution to get rid of capitalism has to mean getting rid of capital, government, finance, money, ‘jobs’ – all parts of the capitalist way of running world society. Of course, on paper, the idea of having thousands of autonomous co-operatives, each run democratically within itself, and engaging fairly with all the other units sounds a lot more just and pleasant than the current control of the world, its resources and its population by a tiny, powerful minority of less than one percent of the population. But if we are talking about ending that, then let’s end it. All these models and reforms are variations on the market system which, if ever pursued, would inevitably lead us eventually back to where we started. The solution is for us to withdraw our consent from capitalism, as you say – but to create instead a society without ownership, in which the whole world and all its resources becomes the common heritage of all humanity.

Of course, this necessitates all of the democratic aspects of administration which you touch on, local, regional and continental, but the key point is that these are ways for the world’s population to run a planet no longer divided into owners and non-owners. In the model of separate co-ops which you settle on at the end of the journey in your book, you do not go far enough – after all, if each co-op autonomously owns its resources then those outside that co-op are still alienated from the resources in it. You still then have money, trade, competition, separation  – and the certainty of corruption, accumulation and minority power again flourishing.

You emphasise your belief in God. Connecting with our true selves and connecting with one another are positive parts of the revolutionary ending of property-based society. Belief in an all-powerful, all-knowing, benevolent force outside of ourselves is significantly less helpful in creating the freedom from oppression to which we aspire. On this I would be more inclined toward the healthy cynicism of the late, great American comedian George Carlin:

‘I've begun worshipping the Sun for a number of reasons. First of all, unlike some other gods I could mention, I can see the Sun. It's there for me every day. And the things it brings me are quite apparent all the time: heat, light, food, a lovely day. There's no mystery, no one asks for money, I don't have to dress up, and there's no boring pageantry. And interestingly enough, I have found that the prayers I offer to the sun and the prayers I formerly offered to God are all answered at about the same 50-percent rate.’

You rightly describe as mere ‘pipsqueak reformism’ the Swedish workers’ shares schemes (which in fact are a means of co-opting the impoverished majority into supervising our own exploitation). In one of your final chapters, you then make a list of demands which includes, for example, ‘State power to dissolve wherever possible to empower autonomous, democratic communities.’ Wherever possible? Although I have no doubt of your sincerity in sketching possibilities for what we construct in place of the wretched system we currently have, I would strongly urge you to reconsider the wisdom of listing multiple ‘realistic’ steps as the culmination of a book so rich in its often poetic damning of current social relations. The biggest tragedy in history, already played out myriad times, is this lowering of expectations as the first slippery slope back to cynicism and misery.

I recognise the courage and honesty with which you have put yourself on the line, derided your own celebrity status, taken on Paxman and others and often left them in gibbering defensiveness. Your regular podcasts, “The Trews” are a welcome window into reality without the twisting and obfuscation, the bullshit mediation of the media. In many ways it has been a breath of fresh air to see those hilarious and perceptive insights into the madness of capitalism viewed regularly by hundreds of thousands of people.

Let’s now take the next logical step and build a majority movement committed to the complete ending of capitalism, in all of its forms, with all of its trappings, and nothing less. On page 297 of your book you slightly misquote Marx in a way which could be significant. You say ‘From each according to his means, to each according to his needs’. On Twitter last year, however, you correctly quoted it as ‘from each according to ability, to each according to needs’. It was never about redistributing money, but abolishing it – and Marx’s slogan is even more relevant today than it was 150 years ago.

Clifford Slapper