Our future can only be a socialist one

The planet is dying, or more accurately, it is being killed and we all know it. Massive extinctions threaten to destroy the complex system of interactions and mutual support that maintains all life on the planet, humans included.  People don't seem to be able to do much about it. Perhaps we choose one issue and work to correct it—the "single-issue approach"—while inevitably leaving the other problems for other people. Many of us understand that the real, underlying problem is a much larger one and that all the forms and types of environmental destruction are related, that they are caused by how we humans live on the earth. Few people are talking about the basic problem or the basic solution.

The Socialist Party is devoted to shining a light upon the realities of capitalism. Capitalism—the pursuit of profit—is a global system; the entire world is under its control. This relatively recent and unnatural system of social relationships, which pits capitalists against the rest of humanity, is lurching towards the destruction of civilization, destroying the ecological fabric of the planet. Capitalism cannot be reformed and must be replaced. It is impossible to humanize it; one must dismantle it, instead. We would like to see an institution of genuine socialism, run perhaps via organs of direct social power such as workplace and neighborhood councils. The Socialist Party opposes capitalism and strives for its total abolition, be it ‘corporate’ capitalism, ‘free market’ capitalism, ‘crony’ capitalism, ‘Keynesian’ or ‘state’ capitalism with government “planning” and a more “fair” wealth re-distribution, ‘green' capitalism with its worker-owned co-ops making..... or any other version.

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Join the Union

Beyond the rising number of the unemployed and underemployed, the conditions of many of those employed have been deteriorating as well. Globally, informal employment and short-term contracts, which give workers few entitlements and little security in their jobs, are becoming the norm for far too many. Outsourcing and subcontracting have become more common, causing more insecurity for workers, now dubbed the “precariat.” Such worsening employment conditions have been taking place in many countries, especially for workers with low education and low skills. In their desire to remain or become competitive, governments and employers around the world have taken many steps to increase labour market ‘flexibility’, thus increasing insecurity among most workers. Such labour market ‘flexibility’ has exacerbated economic insecurity and inequality. For decades now, the world has seen employment increasingly dominated by the service sector, in which many jobs are low-paying and precarious, and not covered by formal social security provisions. Thus, entitlement to unemployment benefits has ceased to be a social right for many in the developed world.

A new study from the International Monetary Fund, not usually considered as a hot-bed of leftism, concludes that unions reduce inequality and foster a healthier economy for everyone, mainly by preventing the wealthiest among us from keeping the fruits of a collaboratively created prosperity for themselves. The IMF study shows that a reinvigorated labor movement is essential to both a just economy and a well-functioning democracy.

IMF’s research economists Florence Jaumotte and Carolina Osorio Buitron are clear. As they explained in a summary of their work, they found that “the decline in union density has been strongly associated with the rise of top income inequality” and that “unionization matters for income distribution.” In other words, the IMF authors found that the very wealthy capture a larger share of an economy’s overall income when fewer people belong to unions. They found this to be true even after controlling for other forces that can affect inequality, including technology, globalization, and financial deregulation. The IMF authors also conclude (reasonably enough) that decline in union membership has led to unions having less influence on public policy. That has led to a lower real minimum wage, weaker unemployment benefits, and weaker employment protection laws.

The Economic Policy Institute observes that, “If the hourly pay of typical American workers had kept pace with productivity growth since the 1970s, then there would have been no rise in income inequality during that period.” Union membership began declining in the country at roughly the same time as wages began to lag behind productivity.

Despite the mythology, the wealthy are not “job creators.” As economist J. Bradford DeLong says, “save for those in the top 0.01 percent who are going to use their money for useful purposes” – that is, by leaving it to charity – “the contribution they make to any reasonable utilitarian measure of societal welfare is zero.” In other words, an economy for the rich is an economy where society as a whole suffers.

The IMF’s Jaumotte and Osorio Buitron cite Nobel Prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz’s work, which shows that highly concentrated wealth allows top earners to (in their words) “manipulate the economic and political system in their favor.” To put it more plainly: The rules are rigged. The very wealthiest have captured a much larger share of the U.S. national income in recent decades. They have also, as a Princeton study shows, been able to dictate our national political agenda with little or no regard for what the majority wants. 

American unions introduced many of the reforms we take for granted today. They gave us weekends off, workplace safety laws, the 40-hour work week, and dozens of other innovations. But these reforms are endangered, while others are needed – including guaranteed sick leave, vacation time, and caregiver leave. The union movement has been politically demonized for decades. Union membership has plummeted, for a number of reasons. The labor movement needs to be revitalized and renewed, and that effort needs to be one of the major undertakings of our time. Pro-capitalists would have us believe that our economic woes are irreversible, that we are the victims of unstoppable, God-like forces like globalization and technology. But, while these forces are powerful, we now know that much of our destiny remains within our control.

The union movement is one of our democracy’s most potent economic tools. Its benefits flow not only to its members, but to society as a whole. The IMF paper is a research study, but it can also be taken as a call to arms.

Adapted from here

CONFUCIUS HE SAY… (weekly poem)

CONFUCIUS HE SAY… 

A light-hearted look at Chinese President Xi Jinping’s

October 2015 visit to Britain to sign a new trade deal.

Confucius he say human rights,

Are secondary to trade;

Especially when the money men,

See profit to be made.

Confucius he say China’s boss,

(A Tai-pan through and through) (1)

Is modern-day’s equivalent,

Of Dr Fu Manchu! (2)

Confucius he say Cameron,

And new chum Xi Jinping;

See their respective cash machines,

Ring ting-a-ling-a-ling!

Confucius he say Chinese state,

Is ‘Communist’ right through;

That’s why the many have few rights,

Unlike the Party few.

Confucius he say many things,

But finally he say;

That for the ‘Yuan Percent’ it is,

A Chinese takeaway!

(1) Tai-pan is Chinese for top boss.

(2) Dr Fu Manchu was a criminal mastermind

created by British writer, Sax Rohmer, using his

knowledge of London’s Limehouse Chinatown.

© Richard Layton   

Socialism - the ecological solution

FOR WORLD SOCIALISM

Once it was science fiction. Now, it’s scientific fact. Planet Earth is fast approaching irreversible environmental damage of a catastrophic level, described as “tipping points”. It’s time to start thinking in terms of civilizational survival. If we don’t achieve socialism in the very near future it won’t be the end of the world — the planet will carry on with or without us. But it may mean the end of the human species if we do not oppose the profit-based economic and social system that wages war on our climate. If you aren’t worried about climate change, you are ignoring what is going on around you. The impact of global climate change concerns nothing less than the future of humanity’s existence. The mass of humanity is threatened by the results of its own economic activity over which, however, it has no control, under the present social system. If the current situation is not rapidly reversed, then the peoples of the world faces a catastrophe.  It is now too late to stop global warming. If emissions continue at today’s levels, catastrophic climate change is inevitable. At the very least, large parts of the world will be inhabitable, and conditions in the rest will be harsher than humans have ever experienced. It is becoming abundantly clear today, the Earth cannot sustain this system’s plundering and poisoning without humanity sooner or later experiencing a complete ecological catastrophe. The survival of our species, and of the millions of animal and plant species we share this world with, is at stake. The problem is global and no national solution is possible. The world economy must be brought under the democratic control of the associated producers.

Our critics in the green capitalist movement tell us socialism may be desirable, as a general and ultimate aim, but climate change has to be tackled immediately. Such is the arguments of “realism". Indeed, we too agree something must be done as soon as possible, perhaps another scientific fact-finding conference, another policy discussion summit, yet one more agreement in principle to do something...sometime in the future...and as long as it isn’t obligatory.  For sure the overthrow of capitalism and the socialist transformation of society will not be easy but just how realistic to expect the capitalist system can be reformed in such a way as to provide a future for the next generation and whatever generations still to come any hope of survival. Any serious proposal to remedy the effects of climate change and halt and reverse global warming runs up against two insurmountable problems: private ownership of the means of production by a handful of capitalists and the division of the world into rival capitalist nation-states. Many well-intentioned environmental activists argue that with the right mix of taxes, incentives and regulations, everybody would be winners. Big Business will have cheaper, more efficient production, and therefore be more profitable, and consumers will have more environment-friendly products and energy sources. In a rational society, such innovations would lower the overall environmental impact in terms of materials and energy used per unit of output, when substituted for more harmful technology. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a rational society. Tax rates, charges or fines are set well below the level that would impact seriously on profits; so more often than not it is cheaper for big business to go on polluting. Capitalism, an economic and political system based on the never-ending expansion of production of commodities for sale, is incompatible with the basic ecological cycles of the planet.

In socialist society, on the other hand, the means of production would be held in common  by majority. Humanity would no longer be at the mercy of market forces; a world-wide plan of production could redirect  resources to those regions worst damaged by climate change, and a democratically planned economy would allow the needs of the environment to be taken into account as a serious matter, so that climate change could finally be stopped. Green environmentalists need to be socialists. Just imagine the vast amounts of wasteful production of pointless commodities produced solely for sale that could be eliminated. Without the cynical manipulation of people’s insecurities and vanities by the billion-dollar advertising and marketing industries. As we build the new society, wants and needs will inevitable alter, and so too will consumption habits. Capitalism as a system thrives on the cultivation and celebration of the worst aspects of human behaviour; selfishness and self-interest; greed and hoarding; the dog-eat-dog mentality. Built-in obsolescence would end as products would be built to last, designed to be repairable and when they eventually are due for replacement they would be recyclable. Such basic practices would save massive amounts of materials and energy, all along the production chain. Right now, the technology is available to theoretically generate all the clean electricity we need.

 We do not need any more research or studies. We need action. If you want to eliminate a problem or an evil, you must get to the root of it. You cannot get rid of a poisonous plant and create something healthy in its place just by pulling off the top of the plant. You have to pull it up from the roots and then grow something completely different. That is what a radical solution is. Radical means having to do with the root. And this is why a real revolution is needed and this is what it’s all about. In a society that is organised first and foremost to work together to produce enough to comfortably ensure people’s physical and mental well-being and social security — abundant food, clothing, housing, furniture and appliances, cultural pursuits, and lifelong education and training, and health-care — and in which technological advances benefit everybody without costing the environment, a new social definition of wealth will evolve. It won’t be measured by personal wealth, or by how much “stuff” you’ve got.

Meeting for socialism

Discussion on the war in Syria (Chiswick - 8pm)

Tuesday, 3 November - 8:00pm

Venue: Chiswick Town Hall (Committee Room),

 Heathfield Terrace, London W4 4JN

Wood Green Street Stall (from 11am)

Saturday, 7 November  - 11:00am - 1:00pm

 Venue:  near Wood Green Library, 

187 High Road, London N22 6XD

“Anthropocene” v "Capitalocene.”

“When industry wins, they win forever. The most we can usually hope for is a stay of execution.” David Brower, ex-Sierra Club official.

The first day of November and the Met Office has said that the UK  recorded its warmest November day ever, with temperatures higher than in Barcelona and the Algarve.

The use of fossil fuels has accelerated the depletion of resources and left us with the legacy of runaway global warming toxic to life as we know it on the planet and it might seal our fate as a viable human species. Some in the environmentalist movement can rightly be called “gloom and doomers” because they see the coming climate change crisis, yet they don’t have much to say about what we can do about it. They correctly deduce that the present system is unsustainable yet offer few real basic alternatives to the system. They see our descent into some form of inevitable collapse of civilization and there are enough post- apocalyptic depictions in modern literature and movies to reinforce such a vision of our future. When sufficient numbers of doctors tell you that you have a terminal illness, you tend to believe it and forget any cure except some palliative treatments to minimise the discomfort of the disease. But sometimes comes along research suggesting a different remedy and you’d be a fool not to investigate its worth and perhaps give it a try. It should be a no-brainer. This is what the World Socialist Movement offers. We aren’t snake-oil salesmen offering quack cures. We simply propose that a new sort of society will produce a new type of world for the planet’s ills that has at its heart, unhealthy practices that must cease for a recovery to full fitness. As long as we have the capitalist system, the demands of for endless economic growth will undermine the creation of steady-state society based upon reciprocity.

The term “sustainable” has been used by so many people in so many different contexts that it has lost much of its meaning. But it is not the excessive use of the word that has ultimately rendered it largely meaningless but the fact that too many efforts to achieve sustainable development do not seriously attempt to actually achieve sustainable development. Capitalism requires a constantly expanding production and consumption of goods, which can only be achieved through the increased exploitation of the planet’s natural resources at an unsustainable rate. Capitalism is not only causing massive human suffering and death for millions around the world today, it is destroying the planet for future generations. Capitalism is dependent on exploiting the planet’s resources at an unsustainable rate in order to constantly increase production and maximize profits. Unless we acknowledge the ecological destructiveness inherent in the capitalist system, our efforts to achieve sustainable development will amount to little more than window dressing. The inevitable outcome is ecological Armageddon. It’s time we recognized this for the sake of our children and grandchildren.

Much is made of in environmentalist circles of the expression “ánthropocene”,  an era in which, human impacts upon the world have become so pervasive and profound that they rival the great forces of Nature and thanks to homo sapiens a sixth great extinction event is underway with growing losses of both terrestrial and marine ecosystems. However, Jason Moore and other left-wing environmentalists argue that it is more historically appropriate to understand humanity’s effects upon ecology as “the capitalocene.” After all, it is only during the relatively brief period of history when capitalism has existed and ruled the world system (since 1600 or thereabouts by some academic calculations, earlier and later by others) that human social organisation has developed the capacity and inner, accumulation- and commodification-mad compulsion to transform Earth systems. Moore maintains that human destruction of livable ecology is best explained by changes that capitalism’s endless pursuit of profit, accumulation, and empire have wreaked on the environment – changes he dates broadly from “the long sixteen century” starting in 1450). His critique of bourgeois climate thought’s historically unspecific and class-blind use of anthropocene as an undifferentiated entity is important and powerful. In fact, evidence suggests that, while capitalism may be many centuries old, it was during the post-WWII era of U.S.-led global monopoly-corporate and emergent multinational capitalism that humanity forever and dramatically impacted Earth systems in ways that pose grave and fundamental threats to life on the planet.

This is a great reminder that the greatest threat to life on Earth isn’t just the neoliberal and “de-regulated,” so-called free market capitalism of the last four decades. The catastrophe cannot be averted under capitalism. Sam Gindin noted in a critical of Naomi Klein’s tendency to focus on “neoliberal” and “free market” capitalism more than on:

“Klein…seems clear enough in the analysis that pervades the book that it is capitalism, yet she repeatedly qualifies this position by decrying ‘the kind of capitalism we now have,’ ‘neoliberal’ capitalism, ‘deregulated’ capitalism, ‘unfettered’ capitalism, ‘predatory’ capitalism, ‘extractive’ capitalism, and so on. These adjectives undermine the powerful logic of Klein’s more convincing arguments elsewhere that the issue isn’t creating a better capitalism but confronting capitalism as a social system. Capitalism does of course vary across time and place, and some of the differences are far from trivial. But in terms of substantive change, we should not overstate the importance of these disparate forms. Moreover, such differences have not increased but contracted over time, leaving us with a more or less monolithic capitalism across the globe….It is not just that any capitalism is inseparable from the compulsion to indiscriminate growth, but that capitalism’s commodification of labor power and nature drives an individualized consumerism inimical to collective values (consumption is the compensation for what we lose in being commodified and is the incentive to work) and insensitive to the environment (nature is an input, and the full costs of how it is exploited by any corporation are for someone else to worry about)….A social system based on private ownership of production can’t support the kind of planning that could avert environmental catastrophe. The owners of capital are fragmented and compelled by competition to look after their own interests first, and any serious planning would have to override property rights — an action that would be aggressively resisted.”

The protection of our environment is part of our class war against capitalism. Chomsky reminded us that if the global environmental catastrophe being created by climate change “isn’t going to be averted” soon, then “in a generation or two, everything else we’re talking about won’t matter.”

An over-crowded island? Not really

The Guardian columnist informs us of what this blog has highlighted before – we can accommodated many, many more people in the UK.

She writes: 

“There is no shortage of space on this island. It may be tiny, especially when you place it atop Sweden, and it may seem improbable, trying to visually conceive its geographical limits, that 74 million people could squash themselves on to it. But there’s really no need for that bogus exercise, when perfectly good data exists on how much of the UK is urbanised – 10.6% of England, 1.9% of Scotland, 3.6% of Northern Ireland and 4.1% of Wales. When you add in parks, gardens and other open spaces within the built environment, the proportion of “developed” England drops to 2.3%. There may be too many of us for the things we can be bothered to build – houses, schools, hospitals – but there are not too many of us for the space that we have, nor will there be in 2025.”

She continues:

“…the potential here is vast – were productive industry nurtured, developed but underpopulated areas would have jobs for people to move for. Were development undertaken systematically and with a social purpose, rather than up-against-a-wall and on the cheap, population growth could be welcomed rather than dreaded.”

Socialism is a state of mind, neither madness, nor wisdom, nor irony

We should be finding ways to encourage people to think differently, away from the perceived comfort of relying on how the ways things have always been. We know that if we are to have any hope of making the transition to a different system of society people need to be able to genuinely understand the things that go on around them, but now in a different way to what they are used to.

"Cease to place your confidence in economic legislation, vice-crusades & uniform education - you are glossing over Reality.

Professional and commercial careers are opening up for you - Is that all you want?"

-Mina Loy, 1914

We need to help people understand that moving from capitalism to genuine socialism isn't a step back in time but that it is actual, real progress. People should be able to recognise the idea that a world organised through socialism is a world that is progressing beyond any moral, economic or lawful measure available today. If we achieve in helping others to change how they think, this is arguably a significant step in helping them to change what they think. For if, as a party, our aim is to get the Majority to want to have revolutionary social change then they will, after all, need to start acknowledging their own function within this system. They need to want to take the green pill rather than the blue, to want to know how far the rabbit-hole goes and to recognise that their fear can be extinguished.

How do we do this? How do we get people to want to begin to think differently with their minds outside of the confines of the anxiety driven, trauma inducing and needlessly competitive way of living? Most of us are all brought-up with the fear of doing the unacceptable, of being cast-out or of being isolated. If we don't work enough to get enough money to have enough things, or to go on as many holidays as our friends, we're slowly eroded into a dark corner of an even darker room where no-one wants to look. This is a place so marginalised that those who even dare skirt it-for whatever reason- are demonised as being dysfunctional, parasitic failures. This is a demonisation that can be exploited by different political, social and economic groups for a variety of ends, usually resulting in the promotion of the idea of the Other: alienating and dehumanising individuals and groups of people to bolster and promote a more privileged (perhaps a smaller) group to profit. Think slavery, think nationalism, think any type of hierarchy.

"Surrealism is the 'invisible ray' which will one day enable us to win out over our opponents."

-Andre Breton, 1924

How do people begin to accept that something else can be considered true or accept that their own assumptions could be in error? I'm not sure if there is the answer, but there's lots of opportunities. One of which is to provide a message that is clear and accessible to all. A message that can be easily recognised and digested by anyone with their intellect or their emotions. We're all born with a natural curiosity, an imagination and creativity that, for most, is gradually forgotten until we are finally too busy to care any more. But, what if those of us who have managed to keep these skills, or who have re-discovered them, are able to put them to use? We need to be different, to be creatively open.

Being a socialist we ask ourselves to successfully fail to conform and flow out of the mould that is given to us with expectation. We must show others how to do the same. To be revolutionary is to be like Andre Breton's "invisible ray". Wherever we look we see differently. We must transform appearances for others and reveal the full nature of our environment. Our minds work differently and they act with glee to an opportunity of showing another how the shadows dance. Others don't, they may see the wheels turning but they are stuck working beneath them, for if they admit to themselves the alternative they know they will come tumbling down. When we find others who use a similar ray to ours, we need to hold on to them and ask them to re-consider what they see when they're guided in a new direction.

The world must reaffirm its humanity

“Rarely before have we witnessed so many people on the move, so much instability, so much suffering," said Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). "In armed conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, South Sudan, Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere, combatants are defying humanity’s most fundamental norms. Every day, we hear of civilians being killed and wounded in violation of the basic rules of international humanitarian law, and with total impunity. Instability is spreading. Suffering is growing. No country can remain untouched."

In a rare joint call, heads of both UN and International Red Cross say human conflict is reaching unprecedented proportions. Citing figures that are the highest they've been since the Second World War, the two agencies said that sixty million people around the world have now been displaced from their homes because of conflict and violence. What's more, they say, today's conflicts have become more protracted, meaning that many displaced people face years away from their homes, communities and livelihoods.

Humanity must free itself from the shackles of slavery - both wage slavery and mental slavery.

Collective Self-Liberation

To-day prominent figures warn of the possibility of human extinction as a result of man-made climate change. How could it come about that a species so intelligent, flexible and well-equipped could potentially destroy itself?

Capitalism can sell everything; but it can’t sell “less.” Capitalism knows no limits, it only knows how to expand, creating while destroying. Right now there are hundreds of campaigns globally for fossil fuel divestment as a strategy in the fight against climate change. Many are proposing that when institutions divest from fossil fuels, they should then "reinvest" in clean energy and low-income communities. The debate about divestment raises important questions about how we bring about social and economic change and how much we should engage with capitalist enterprises and government.

For sure, to address climate change, we clearly need massive development of solar, wind and other clean energy. And we need improved and expanded public transit, energy-efficient housing. A "divest and reinvest" strategy is being advocated of universities and other institutions to use their endowment money to support environmental initiatives. Selling fossil fuel stocks will not significantly hurt fossil fuel companies financially. Buying solar company stocks may lead to small increases in the price of those stocks but that’s all. A divest-reinvest strategy is not likely to lead to the clean energy economy we need. We have evidence. Ethical investors have failed to end the arms trade or the tobacco and alcohol industries.  Such campaign gives a legitimacy to the capitalist system by focusing on money rather than politics undermine the rationale for capitalism’s existence.

There exists two rival conceptions of socialism. What is known as “state socialism” and what is called “market socialism”. One advocates a system of state-ownership, where there exists no private enterprise of individual capitalists. The economy is run by a series of plans under the centralized command of the State. Wage labour still exists but the employer is the government and the bosses are the officials of the various ministries and departments. The other model promoted is where the economy is operated by a mixture of co-operatives and nationalized industries that will no longer possess the imperative to accumulate capital or compete with other nation states. Wage labour remains but because enterprises are worker-owned or, at least managed, the worker pay themselves (profit-sharing), they are their own employers. The Socialist Party rejects both types and even challenge them to legitimately call themselves versions of socialism as they both involve buying and selling, the continuance of private property (albeit collectively owned) and the retention of the prices system as an expression of value.

Advocates of either “state socialism” or “market socialism” describe the socialist vision held by the Socialist Party as utopian. The idea of overthrowing existing “corporate” capitalism and replacing it with a nicer sort of capitalism is a political project that the Socialist Party would ascribe as the fantasy. The Left strangely enough share the same criticism of socialism as the Right.  “It sounds good on paper, but socialism will never work, because if everybody gets everything they need whether they work or not, then there is no incentive to work at all!” So the old argument goes, you need wages and you need money to force people to work. “No money, no honey.” This is the case against socialism shared by those avowedly pro-capitalist and some who declare themselves to be some sort of “socialist.” They ten present a picture of a society where there will be no pressure among competing enterprises to undersell one another by allotting some workers a smaller share in income, working some harder than others, laying some off, hiring the poor from other regions. Workplace democracy within the market is supposed to minimize such exploitative tendencies. It should be obvious by now that neither “state” nor “market” socialism are “realistic” proposals that provide a solution. We might as well revert back to Henry George or Major Douglas plans for a “post-capitalist” society.

Workers sell their labour power as a commodity.  That is why we concentrate efforts on the price of our labour power (wages) and the terms and conditions at which it is sold. Certain workers’ cooperatives anticipate a new society growing within the womb of the old.  It reunites workers with the means of production and removes the capitalist from the workplace.  It gives ownership to the workers and elevates their power, confidence and consciousness.  It can prepare the workers involved and other workers for the task of making the whole economy the property of the working class, which is socialism. Some co-ops provide the services that are currently provided by the state and which leaves them at the mercy of the state and the politicians who preside on top of it.  Such services include education, health, welfare and pensions. Thousands of cooperatives already exist; they are not purely idealistic mental constructions.  What’s more they can be, and many are, very successful; providing hundreds of thousands of jobs.  Living proof that workers can do without capitalists to tell them what to do.  Workers can take control, can make decisions and can be successful. When critics say – “where is your socialist alternative after over a 150 years of your movement?” we might be ventured to point to the cooperative movement as a simple promise for the future. Of course, cooperatives are not a solution to everything. An objection is made that cooperatives will simply teach workers to exploit themselves within a market economy based on competition.  They will simply become their own capitalists. Co-ops aren’t anti-capitalist because they do not provide an alternative to capitalism, except in the legal sense of ownership. In capitalist society ownership entitles control and capitalist ownership entails capitalist control. Markets do not disappear and therefore capitalism does not disappear.

We must urge the start of a new period of major struggle against capitalism, after a long time of relative inaction. The Socialist Party can be thought of as representing, in embryo, the democratic participatory socialism of the future, in which popular groups will make economic decisions.  In this way, socialism can be made real, although socialism cannot fully be installed without making a radical break with current property relations and the current allocation of political power. There is a need for mass education about the ways in which capitalism lies at the root of the problems afflicting ordinary people around the world. The belief that nothing beyond capitalism is possible can be countered by a vision of a workable socialism, based on democratic participation in the economic as well as the political institutions of society. The socialist movement can be rebuilt, and socialism can become a real possibility again, only when millions of people become convinced, not only that capitalism does not meet their needs, but that a better alternative system is possible. If the resistance to reformism can prevail, a vision of a socialist future for humankind may again be placed on the world’s political agenda.

We cannot be effective socialists if we work alone. We cannot inspire socialism without embracing self-education. Revolution is not a product, but a process. We don’t ever “finish” our training. Class struggle remain a perpetual work-in-progress. It’s tempting to write off all those so-called comrades who don’t share your epic vision or your one-of-a-kind discipline or your... whatever. You’ll start the damn revolution all alone. Who needs them, right? You need them. We all need “them.” For many reasons. For example: it is collective efforts that create the checks and balances. Unless we work as a team, we might aim our rage and anger at the wrong targets. A socialist party needs commitment. It doesn’t need loners. It needs teammates and solidarity support for all who join the struggle. Our shared personal visions help lay the groundwork for political action. Let’s join together to work towards collective liberation.

Socialist Standard No. 1335 November 2015

• Editorial: Climate Change and Capitalism
• Pathfinders: After the Sugar Rush
• Letter: If Robots Take Over
• Music Review: 'Thee Faction - Reading Writing Revolution'
• Halo Halo! Do the Gods Ever Change Their Mind?
• Cooking the Books: Moore on Marx
• Material World: Rising Sea Levels
• Greasy Pole: Tessa Fails To Make It
• Economics, Politics and Climate Change
• Neither Westminster Nor Brussels But World Socialism
• Peter Watkins: A Revolutionary Film-Maker pt.2
• Growing Old, Growing Old
• Consumerism
• Cooking the Books: A Classic Reformist
• Mixed Media: Pier Paolo Pasolini
• Book Reviews: 'How Voters Feel', & 'Sapiens - A Brief History of Humankind'
• Proper Gander: Soldiering On
• 50 Years Ago: Indian A-Bomb
• Action Replay: Online Gambling - Getting the Punters Hooked
• Voice From the Back
• Cartoon: Free Lunch

Quote of the Day

"People of Aida refugee camp, we are the occupation forces. You throw stones, and we will hit you with gas until you all die. The children, the youth, the old people - you will all die. We won't leave any of you alive. "We have arrested one of you. He is with us now. We took him from his home, and we will slaughter and kill him while you watch if you keep throwing stones. [referring to a 25-year-old Palestinian who was arrested on Thursday and subsequently released.] Go home or we will gas you until you die. Your families, your children, everyone - we will kill you." – Israeli Border Police 

Will Hutton: Back to the Future, part 3/3

Hutton’s prescription for the global economy is a Keynesian one with a ‘credit creationist’ twist, attempting to iron out the boom and bust inherent in capitalist production.  J.M. Keynes (writing in the slump of the 1930s) saw the instability of capitalist production, its tendency to boom and bust, as due to the fact that investment tends to stall because not every seller in a market becomes a buyer as there is a tendency for businesses to hoard a portion of profits rather than to reinvest it all in new production, which creates a deficit in market demand.  For Keynes, the state needed to step in order to provide the demand that was missing through direct investment and through redistributive taxation. 

To overcome the crises such as that of 2008 and the current crisis in China and other ‘emerging market economies’, Hutton urges international banking reform and demand stimulation in western economies.  He argues that global banking needs to be regulated by a ‘reinvigorated IMF’, reconfigured so as not to be dominated by western political right (those marauding Anglo-Saxons) in order to ensure ‘proper surveillance of global finance’.  This would involve restrictions on capital flows between countries and ensure that central banks regulate banks reserves to prevent banks ‘creating money’ by lending multiples of what they hold as fractional reserves.  This assumes that global banking has not arisen hand in glove with global trade and that banks can lend what they don’t have (which they can’t). 

 In order to divert ‘excess credit’ from flooding ‘emerging market economies’ Hutton also calls for western governments to ‘launch massive economic stimuli, centred on infrastructure’ and ‘new smart monetary policies that allow negative interest rates.’  This is Keynesian economics designed to stimulate demand by direct government investment and kick-starting investment by making it expensive for banks not to lend.  The problem with the first suggestion is that Quantitative Easing inflated the value of asset prices (stock-market prices) without stimulating inflation (because the new money created – by the Bank of England which can create money - did not enter general circulation as notes and coins).  The ‘economic stimuli’ mentioned by Hutton (what has been called ‘People’s QE’ by Jeremy Corbyn), on the other hand, would involve the creation of new money that would enter circulation as notes and money and therefore run the risk of creating high inflation (a rapid rise in the general price level).  The problem with the second proposal of negative interest rates (which is happening in several European countries) is that in the absence of the opportunities for profitable investment (i.e., in a recession) banks may not lend more but simply hoard, accentuating the fall in investment.

Keynesian economists often point to the post World War 2 period as evidence of the success of their policies of state intervention in the economy to increase demand.  However, sustained post war growth was due to the recovery of the global economy following the slump of the 1930s and reconstruction following the World War 2.  When this growth stalled in the 1970s Keynesian attempts to stimulate demand created double digit inflation.  This and high rates of taxation tended to stall investment even further and state borrowing came with conditions to reduce the policies that necessitated the borrowing.  These problems were faced by all governments following Keynesian strategies once the post war boom was over.  It was not Thatcher but Dennis Healey who started the process of spending cuts in the late 1970s.  In France Mitterand was elected in 1981 on a platform of increasing consumption through state intervention.  The higher taxation, government borrowing and inflation led not to stimulation of the economy but to lower growth - by 1983 the Mitterand government had taken the ‘austerity turn’ in an attempt to restore favourable conditions for profitable investment.  Bang up to date the failure of the Syriza government in Greece to reverse austerity in Greece by renegotiating the terms of its borrowing failed ignominiously, the government backing down rather than face even more uncertain prospects outside of the EU.  Austerity is not being imposed by the political right as Hutton would have it.  It is being enforced by the need to create conditions favourable to profitable investment.  Trying to go back to a time before Thatcher and Reagan to get to a non-austerity future is going back in time to face the same problems, pursuing policies that will require the same policy reversals enacted by Healey and Mitterand.  Hutton’s Keynesian and currency proposals to calm global economic turbulence could not be enacted (say by a Corbyn Labour government) without worsening the prospects for productive investment, requiring a return to the very policies blamed by the left for causing current economic stagnation.   A real end to austerity requires the success of the socialist campaign to abolish capitalism itself not repeating the disillusion of past attempts to save capitalism from itself.

 CSK

'Some Ideological Obstacles to Social Change to Socialism' (a talk by guest speaker)

A talk by Yehudi Webster (Guest speaker from the U.S.)

Sunday, 1 November at 3pm

The Socialist Party's premises,

52 Clapham High Street,

London SW4 7UN

A talk by Yehudi Webster  (Guest speaker)

Political movement and organisation to change the socio-economic order, to de-commodify goods and end class conflict, are stalled by particular beliefs.

Four such beliefs, systematically disseminated in educational institutions and media, may be cited, as follows:

1. Human nature is innately flawed, that human beings are evil, sinful, irrational and not in control of their fate. 

2. There is an indomitable scarcity of natural resources that necessitate markets for labour, goods and capital.

3. Violence is ineradicable, and a natural feature of governance.

4. The Soviet experience proves that capitalist commodity production cannot be eradicated.

These beliefs populate, indeed, dominate, the intellectual world and thereby freeze the social order. They are ideological obstacles to the change into a classless, stateless, wageless, moneyless society based on the common ownership of the means of life.

Yehudi Webster holds degrees from British and Polish universities; he has also published on critical thinking and social problems. His works are easily accessed on the internet.

Only Socialism Can Save The World

For many, climate change is too far removed from the present context to be of immediate concern. People say, 'It’ll be a problem 20, 30 years down the road, but I’ve got bigger problems today’. It’s not the immediacy of now. Climate change is already upon us, and it’s hitting fragile countries the hardest with changing drought and flood patterns. We can’t ignore it. Drought used to hit Somalia, for example, once a decade. Now about every three years, families are forced to abandon arid lands and move their sheep and goats – or camels for those better off – to areas with more water and forage, or where they can grow crops, experts say.

“The more that these cyclical shocks prevent people from having sustainable livelihoods, the more we’re seeing migration of people, which is leading to a lot of inter-clan violence” said Dustin Caniglia, who works in Nairobi for Concern Worldwide, a humanitarian organisation. “That’s where the peace building starts to break down,” he said. The struggle for scarce water resources along the Kenya-Ethiopia border, for example, led to clan violence spanning both countries in 2012. A new dam being built at Lake Turkana, which stretches into both countries, is predicted to trigger more clashes, according to Human Rights Watch.

In Mali, rainfall has dropped by 30 percent since 1998, leaving almost two million people in need of food aid according to a 2013 report by the U.S. Army’s Strategic Studies Institute. Furthermore, the vast Sahara desert is expanding southwards at a rate of 48 kilometers a year, according to a 2011 study by the University of Ohio. “Mali has good environmental laws, but the country does not implement them as it lacks the means to do so,” said Ravier, chief of the Environment and Culture Unit at the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Unit in Mali (MINUSMA)

 In a few weeks, the world’s leaders will meet in Paris to discuss global climate change. Some countries could be devastated. “If the sea level rises by 1 meter (about 3.3 feet), the whole Mekong Delta will be underwater,” said Pham Quang Vinh, Vietnam’s ambassador to the United States. “That’s the rice basin of Vietnam.” 

It’s particularly upsetting because these are the poorer, smaller countries that have contributed little in the way of global carbon emissions. Experts anticipate that food and water shortages could trigger not only enormous suffering, but also mass migrations. Citizens of devastated warmer countries will try to move — legally or illegally — to places where they have a chance to survive.

Climate change shows capitalism's short-term, irresponsible attitude towards the environment.  Already the world is getting warmer; sea level is rising; extreme weather events are increasing. We all depend on Nature for food and water and for all the goods we use which originate from the natural resources around us. Capitalism avoids the responsibility for the damage it does to the environment by pushing the costs onto others, now and into the future. Capitalism is a system that by its very essence must expand. The capitalist system requires continuous accumulation of capital and operates in a circuit of constantly expanding production. There is no political will to respond to the climate and ecological crisis we face. A real solution would require profound social and economic transformations. And we have seen, clearly, there is no will to carry them out so false solutions to climate change arise such as techno-fixes – geo-engineering. The idea that capitalism can be is fairly typical of the environmentalist movement. The destruction of the planet is rooted in the capitalist system of production and cannot be solved without a break with capitalism.

Socialist analysis has a great potential not only to explain the economic processes leading to environmental destruction, but to change them. Socialism is a necessary condition for optimising harmony between society and nature. The entire system of production based on wage labour and capital needs to be replaced with a system which produces for human needs. A serious critique of capitalism is essential to adequately address the current world environmental crisis. The environmental movement can no longer afford to adopt green capitalism. Businessmen know that to maximise profits environmental concerns are best kept on the product label and out of the production process. While it is perhaps theoretically possible that capitalism can reform itself to redress some of the problem of global environmental crisis, it cannot do so without some serious in-fighting between opposing vested interests and internecine sabotage of policies. Presenting solutions to save capitalism from its own ill effects would fall upon deaf ears. Capitalists will plead “If I don't do it someone else will' and if they do choose to act upon their ecological convictions, they will be quickly replaced by someone less willing to go green.

Many mainstream environmentalist organisations promote public events such as Earth Day and advocate lifestyle changes under the slogans like ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ yet individuals and household contribute a relatively miniscule amount to either waste or pollution. Global warming is, as the phrase denotes, a global phenomenon. As global temperatures rise and the frequency and severity of extreme weather events increases, more of the world’s population is at risk. Nearly 40 percent of the global population lives near the ocean and climate change will increase the risks associated with hurricanes and flooding. Likening the planet to a human body afflicted by illness, Nobel laureate Professor Anthony Chen has prescribed urgency in treatment. "Planet Earth is very sick. If we do not start treatment as soon as possible, it may never recover to its former self," he warned. 

The physicist said a course of treatment that includes adaptation to the impacts is essential. However, he cautioned that adaptation is "treating symptoms, not the cause". What is critical then, he said, is mitigation, which is about "removing greenhouse gases caused by fossil fuels", such as oil and coal, from the atmosphere and which is equivalent to "treating the cause and curing the illness". It is, therefore, past time, Chen said, that the world listen to the scientists. "We should accept their verdict as we accept the second opinions of our doctors," he said.

And does his recommended remedies go to the cause of the illness and cure it? Of course not. As a non-socialist he cannot perceive a future beyond what we already have – capitalism. Chen choice of therapy for our sick planet is not to remove the cause but to apply palliatives. He suggests: Carbon dioxide capture and storage, nuclear energy; and renewable energy. He prescribes that “governments of the world form consortiums and establish research centres to bring the price of renewables and storage down quickly." He concludes that these “may be our last chance to save the planet Earth as we know it." 

If that is his solution, then the prognosis for the planet is inevitably terminal because these options simply do not possess curative powers.    

Will Hutton: Back to the Future, part 2/3

Hutton’s view is that lax regulation around the cash reserves that banks are required by law to hold (the fractional reserve) and the abandonment of other controls on capital flows between countries (previously part of the responsibilities of central banks) are responsible for an excess of credit being ‘created’ in the global economy.  Hutton argues that the ‘emergence of a global banking system’ means that ‘central banks are much less able to monitor and control what is going on’.  Because ‘few countries now limit capital flows’ the result, says Hutton, is that ‘cash generated out of nothing can be lent in countries where the economic prospects look superficially good.’  This leads to a ‘false boom’:

‘Property prices rise. Companies and households grow overconfident about their prospects and borrow freely… all seems well until something – a collapse in property or commodity prices – unravels the whole process.  The money floods out as quickly as it flooded in, leaving bust banks and governments desperately picking up the pieces.’ 

Hutton argues that the current problems in China follow on from the financially induced crisis in 2008 and that crises in other ‘emerging market economies’ are a knock on of the same process of ‘sky-high commodity prices… fuelled by wild lending’ that create ‘super-high but illusory growth rates.’

But the crash of 2008 was not a ‘false boom’ caused by finance but a particularly far-reaching crisis in the history of the business cycle that is inherent in capitalist production.   This cycle has played out numerous times in the past couple of centuries in capitalist economies, a process of capitalist production that Marx described as moving ‘through periodical cycles. It moves through a state of quiescence, growing animation, prosperity, overtrade, crisis and stagnation.’  In an expanding economy banks see a plethora of opportunities to lend at relatively low risk.  This lending greases the wheels of the productive economy which continues to expand at an even faster rate.  At some point in the process of expansion a sector of the economy overproduces relative to the demand.  Production slows in this sector, questions are asked and glances are exchanged.  Production slowing in one sector knocks on to another and then another, doubts begin to grow and confidence is dented.  Before long what seemed like a never-ending process of expansion turns into economic contraction as panic sets in and investment slows or stops.  This is what happened in 2008 as house building in the US outstripped demand leading to a collapse in prices.  This knocked on to the global financial system because the risks of default for US mortgages were bundled up in financial institutions around the world, a contagion that caused panic to ripple around financial markets and confidence to collapse.  Lending contracted, investment stalled.  It wasn’t caused by banks and credit but the global nature of banking did allow the results of overproduction to spread widely and rapidly (just as global banking facilitates investment and economic expansion widely and rapidly). 

The cause of the crisis then is not banks or even overproduction as such but production as it is carried on in capitalism.  Goods are produced not for direct use but for exchange, for sale on the market, rather than being consciously planned in the light of social need.  Inevitably, at some point, more goods will be produced than can be sold at a profitable price causing a dislocation in the expansion of production, the consequences of which (depending on its magnitude and inter-connections) may remain only local or may ripple out to affect regional, national or even the global economy. Frederick Engels referred to this process of production in capitalism as the ‘anarchy of social production’.   The situation is not caused by banks ‘creating credit’ but rather the opposite, an increase in investment in the productive economy causes a rise in lending, which facilitates and accelerates this growth by lending to apparently relatively risk-free borrowers.  Conversely the restriction of credit does not cause an economic downturn but is a reflection of it as borrowing for investment declines and lending is relatively more risky.  Credit accentuates the business cycle by inflating bubbles in times of growth and deepening downturns by restricting credit but it does not cause it. 

So too, the Chinese financial downturn is a tale many times told of rapid growth followed by a crisis and a recession (establishing the conditions for renewed growth).  In an attempt to reverse a slow-down in the productive economy the Chinese government cut interest rates in an effort to stimulate the economy.  Borrowing increased and the Chinese stock-market boomed for a while.  All that happened was that the gap between the reality of a slowing productive economy and stock-market prices grew larger.  At some point the two had to come together again and so they have. Banks did not cause the crisis by creating credit they only delayed and accentuated it.  More regulation of banks will not solve the problem of the cycle of boom and bust inherent in capitalist production.  Banking regulations of the sort that Hutton want aim to reinstate, it is argued, prevented crises in the past and will iron out the instability caused by the psychological flaws of bankers who ‘create money’.  It did not work before and it attributes to banking a power of the economy that it does not have.  Like many on the left Hutton wants to return to a time before Keynesian interventionism was ousted by free market ideologues.  Socialists argue that capitalism, not the form that it takes, that is the problem.  The future lies not in going back in time to a world of more regulated banking but forward to a world where the anarchy of production (indirect social production where goods and services are for sale and realised only when exchanged for money) is replaced by consciously planned production for meeting human needs (directly social production where goods and services are consumed without exchange) and where the conditions of production that give rise to banks will have been abolished.