Socialist Standard December 2009

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1 Socialist Standard December 2009

December Standard BDH.indd 1 23/11/09 16:35:00


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SubScription orderS should be sent to The Socialist Party, 52Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN.rateS One year subscription (normal rate) 15One year subscription (low/unwaged) 10Europe rate 20 (Air mail)Rest of world 25 (Air mail)

Voluntary supporters subscription 20 or more.Cheques payable to t S s p G b .

the SocialiSt party ofGreat britainThe next meeting of the Executive Committeewill be on S 5 d at the addressbelow. Correspondence should be sent tothe General Secretary. All articles, lettersand notices should be sent to the editorialcommittee at: The Socialist Party, 52 Clapham

High street, London SW4 7UN.: 020 7622 3811- : s g @w s s . g

december 2009

3 e

4 Pathf sCrystal balls-ups and cosmiccoppers

6 m WThe advance of capitalism

7 cIre of the Irate Itinerant

8 p s t g

8 c d s

9 c k g b ks 1Nobel Prize for economics

9 t t s

18 c k g b ks 2Free is good

20 r v wsWhy not socialism?; Wherethe Other Half Lives; Plebs; and more

22 m gs

22 50 y s agSecond Thoughts

23 G s pBNP

24 V b k

24 f l

contents

website: www.worldsocialism.org

reGularSfeatureS

d w m We still live in a society that if you dont have the ability to pay you goeswithout.

c s s xFood security for all the people of the world will only be possible whenthe pro t motive is taken out of food supply.

t w Someone employs you, and you work for them, and they control a bigpart of your waking hours.

t g We are conditioned to accept the absurdities and contradictions thatcapitalism throws up.

d g S-W Is any word more over-used and misunderstood today thansocialism?

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The Socialist Party is like no other political party in Britain. It is made upof people who have joined together because we want to get rid of the pro tsystem and establish real socialism. Our aim is to persuade others to becomesocialist and act for themselves,organising democratically and withoutleaders, to bring about the kind of society that we are advocating in this

journal. We are solely concerned withbuilding a movement of socialists for socialism. We are not a reformist partywith a programme of policies to patchup capitalism.

We use every possible opportunityto make new socialists. We publishpamphlets and books, as well as CDs,DVDs and various other informativematerial. We also give talks and take partin debates; attend rallies, meetings anddemos; run educational conferences;host internet discussion forums, makelms presenting our ideas, and contestelections when practical. Socialistliterature is available in Arabic, Bengali,Dutch, Esperanto, French, German,Italian, Polish, Spanish, Swedish andTurkish as well as English.

The more of you who join the SocialistParty the more we will be able to getour ideas across, the more experienceswe will be able to draw on and greater will be the new ideas for building themovement which you will be able tobring us.

The Socialist Party is an organisationof equals. There is no leader and there

are no followers. So, if you are goingto join we want you to be sure that youagree fully with what we stand for andthat we are satis ed that you understandthe case for socialism.

i gThe Socialist Party

EditorialCopenhagen: another predictable failure The mosT r c nt IPCC (Int rg v rn-mental Panel on Climate Change) n -ings say that rich, in ustrial countriesmust cut emissions from 1990 levelsby 25-40 percent by 2020 if the worlis to have a fair chance of avoi ingangerous climate change.

In July the G-8 lea ers agree tolimit the global temperature rise to2 egrees C above the pre-in ustriallevel at which human civilisation e -velope . Pre-Copenhagen the EU hasple ge 20 percent cuts by 2020, but

will increase this to 30 percent if oth -ers like the US o likewise. Japanhas ple ge 25 percent re uctionsby 2020 if others will o the same.Chinese presi ent Hu ple ge to cuti i n by a n tabl argin by

2020. The US has given no assurancesbut a bill Obama has sai he sup -

ports (the Waxman-Markey bill) woulgive less than 5 percent re uctions by2020.

Also in July, the n ings of a newlycomplete stu y by WBGU (a Germanacronym) the chairman of which,Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, is chief climate a viser to the German govern -ment were given for the rst time toan invitation-only conference in theSanta Fe Institute, New Mexico. Thestu y has since been publishe . ThisWBGU stu y says the US must stopall Co 2 emissions by 2020; Germany,Italy an other in ustrial nations by2025-30 an China by 2035, with the

whole worl nee ing to be carbon-emissions-free by 2050. The stu y

woul allow the big polluters to elay

their slow own by buying emissionsrights from eveloping countries,enabling possible extension times of aroun a eca e for some. A fun a -mental principle of the stu y is theper capita principle, meaning thatthe right to emit greenhouse gasesis share equally by all people onEarth. Applie to a worl populationof seven billion, each person on earth

woul have a quota of 2.7 tons of CO 2 , whereas currently US citizens emit 20tons per capita.

Schellnhuber claims that meetingthese criteria will give humanity a two-in-three chance of staying within that2 egrees C limit although there isno guarantee. To increase the o s infavour carbon emissions woul haveto en sooner; elaying another ec -a e or so before halting all emissions

woul re uce the o s to fty- fty. O s are that whatever is promoteat Copenhagen there will be much

jockeying an positioning, manyne wor s an ifs an buts by self-important worl lea ers an anothereca e own the ever-more pollutean climate change-affecte roa

well look back an see another abjectfailure just like Rio, Kyoto, Johan -nesburg, etc. a in nitum. What morecan we expect from a system whichmakes a habit of fouling its own aneverybo y elses backyar as long asits making money by blin pursuit of growth? Come 2020 the King Canutesof capitalism will still be trying to holback the waves with empty gestures.



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c s s s

Hail the season of goo capitalist cheer which will soonbe upon you, while youre on holi ay from your lack of

job an looking forwar to the Christmas repossessionan cre it collection letters. Since youre not likely to bemerry an you cant affor to buy presents or rink, letPath n ers at least assure you that you can eat crap foobecause the scientists have got all their calorie intakelevels wrong by about 16 per cent (Rethink forcal ri ating l v l , BBC Online , 14 November).

But please stop fee ing the leftovers to the amnog, whos probably clinically obese. One in threehousehol pets in the UK, about 7m animals, isoverweight (http://www.vetpulse.tv/blog/385_

pfma-con rms- extent-of-obesity-epidemic- in-british-pets) while in USA its 50 per cent(http://www.petobesityprevention.com/facts.htm ).

The fact that pooch has got a paunch in a og-eat-og worl where 750m people eat nearly nothing is no

surprise to socialists, however Fi o an Ti les-lovers

in the top 10 cat an og-owning countries might besurprise to learn that it takes six an a half times thelan area of New Zealan to provi e the petfoo . Anin a elicious knife-twist to any self-righteous organicog-owning vegan climate-protestors at Copenhagenthis month, it turns out that for the eco-pawprint of anaverage size og you coul instea rive not one but

two SUVs 10,000 kilometres over a year ( New Scientist ,24 October an Guardian , 13 November). In fact, for theprice of an overweight small Scottie og you couleven run an Ethiopian or a Vietnamese human.

Once youve eaten the ogfoo an theog you can always resort to rugs, nowthat the ebate has been satisfactorilyresolve an we can reliably tell how toassess the relative safety of any rug. Oh, you i nt know? Well its simple. If the

government says nothing at all about it,it will most probably kill you, whereas

if they swear blin its angerousan whats more o their Nutt an

sack any scienti c a visor who ares toisagree with them, you know you can party!

c s sIf you interrogate your 140 character memory you will recall

that Path nders attempted, back in September, to raise thelevel of debate on Twitter by holding a competition to nd thebest SMS-length rendition of the socialist case. To say thatthere was a tsunami of enthusiastic responses might be aslight exaggeration (ask a socialist whatever you like, but dontask them to be brief) however some notable entries deservehonourable mention (the prize is that we keep your name outof it).

Most rallying: Society marches on its belly; give us theland, farms and the bakery not the crumbs! 4 1 world socialistcommunity! (FA)

Most exact: From each according to ability, to eachaccording to need. Free labour, free access. Thats Socialism.(SJW)

Most poetic: The essence of capitalism is the stenchof cordite and blood.

The essence of communism is the avour of ful lment. (JN)Most McGonagall: The essence of capitalism is

wages and pro t.The essence of socialism is how to get off it. (ALB)

Most conversational: Think outside the box of capitalism and make the world a pleasurable place to inhabit.Work for the bene t of society, not your masters. (JV)

Most economical: I vote to end capitalism X (PM)Most toddler-friendly: world socialism - for a world

without war, want, wages and the Fat Controller.Most street-hip: Banish the gods from the sky, the

capitalists from the earth and the chuggers from the highstreet. (DON)

Thanks to all those who contributed. Due to postal dif cultiesthe prize Seychelles tickets regrettably cannot be mailed out.Path nders will return in January. With a tan.

t gs g p gModern detective work is a serious

and scienti c business, apparently.Only not in Wales, whose police forceembarked on a 20,000 investigationinto a suicide after being told thatthe mans ghost had visited psychicsand told them he had been poisoned(Guardian , 7 November). Learning thatthe words lion, horse and fox weresigni cant, the cosmic coppers set off to visit every pub with one of thosenames in its title, and one with a statueof a horse outside. The case wasclosed only after a second post-mortemrevealed no trace of any poison. Weare a laughing stock, complainedone police source. True, but no doubtenquiries in these pubs resulted invarious spirits being apprehended as aconsolation.

c s s- s

No doubt many readers have come to regard Path nders as their infallible technical andscienti c guru, and one is of course reluctant to disabuse them of such notions, however inpositively the last anniversary item of 2009 it might be fun to re ect on the fate of pundit pre -dictions from 20 years ago. The following comes from the book Towards 2001 A consum-ers guide to the 21 st century , by Malcolm Abrams and Harriet Bernstein (Angus, London,1989). Quite what quali ed these two journalists to write this book is unclear, however theyprobably did about as well as Path nders would have done.

Correct (if late): Flat screens, pocket computer, CDRs, digital cameras and hearingaids, impotence pills, sat-nav, supermarket self-checkout.

Wrong (or not heard of): walking TV, self-weeding gardens, bark-stopper dog collar,ying car, potato ice-cream.

Not predicted (stand by for a shock): pen-drives, DVDs, small mobile phones, textmessaging, World Wide Web, PDAs, lithium-ion batteries (making small portable electronicspossible).

What do we learn from this? Not much, apart from never believe what gurus tell you. Thelist of things they signally failed to predict accords eerily with the most revolutionary changesin our culture, which is a kind of reverse trick-shot. Hope for socialists, perhaps, since peopleare always telling us socialism will never happen. But Path nders can hardly stand by andlaugh without entering the fray, so here are a few modest offerings for the next ten years:

They wont nd a graviton or a Higgs boson; they wont understand what they do get;the LHC will break down anyway because somebody sneezed; somebody will announce theoverthrow of Einstein (again); most of the heat from the Caderache nuclear fusion plant willbe generated by rows over money; Dawkins will get baptised a Catholic.



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Socialist Standard

Bound volumes (2005-2007) for 25 pluspostage, each, order from HO, chequespayable The Socialist Party of Great Britain

CapitalistiC soCiety b d n h r nc f cfr d m n h n h nd, nd f h m rk h r gu r f c n m c, h nc c , r n , n h h r. th c mm dm rk d rm n h c nd n und r wh ch c mm d rxch ng d, h b ur m rk r gu h cqu n nd f b ur. B h u fu h ng nd u fu n rg nd k r r n f rm dn c mm d wh ch r xch ng d w h u h u f f rc ndw h u fr ud und r h c nd n f h m rk .

Modern capitalism needs men who cooperate smoothly and in large numbers;who want to consume more and more; and whose tastes are standardizedand can be easily in uenced and anticipated. It needs men who feel free andindependent, not subject to any authority or principle or conscienceyet willingto be commanded, to do what is expected of them, to t into the social machinewithout friction; who can be guided without force, led without leaders, promptedwithout aimexcept the one to make good, to be on the move, to function, to goahead.

Wh h u c m ? M d rn m n n d fr m h m f, fr mh f w m n, nd fr m n ur . H h b n r n f rm d n c mm d , x r nc h f f rc n nv m n wh ch mubr ng h m h m x mum r f b n b und r x ng m rkc nd n . Hum n r n r n h f n du m n , ch b ng h cur n ng c h h rd,nd n b ng d ff r n n h ugh , f ng r c n.

Man becomes a nine to ver, he is part of the labour force, or the bureaucraticforce of clerks and managers. He has little initiative, his tasks are prescribed bythe organization of the work; there is even little difference between those high upon the ladder and those on the bottom. They all perform tasks prescribed by the

whole structure of the organization, at a prescribed speed, and in a prescribedmanner. Even the feelings are prescribed: cheerfulness, tolerance, reliability,ambition, and an ability to get along with everybody without friction.

Fr m b r h d h, fr m M nd M nd , fr m m rn ng v n ng c v r r u d nd r f br c d. H w h u d m n c ugh n h n f r u n n f rg h h m n, un qu nd v du , n wh g v n n h n ch nc f v ng,w h h nd d n m n , w h rr w nd f r, w h h ngf r v nd h dr d f h n h ng nd f r n ?

In the modern work process of a clerk, the worker on the endless belt, littleis left of this uniting quality of work. The worker becomes an appendix to themachine or to the bureaucratic organization.

(from The Art of Loving , 1956)

S s pm sTeeshirts:b with polar bear and If you werea polar bear, youd be a socialist plusparty website address. y w , withblue and green globe The world is atreasury for all plus party web site ad-

dress on.Sizes: S, M, L, XL, XXL.muGS :One style: Duet - Red and white withOnly sheep need leaders and website,with Famine? War? Pollution? Capital-ism is the Problem. World Socialisms the Solution and party telephonenumber.penS :Blue and white, with blue ink Onlysheep need leaders and a sheep plusparty website. Red and white, withblue ink Workers of the world unite

plus party website Black with blackink. Only sheep need leaders! and asheep plus party website.baSeball capS: navy blue, with embroidered WorldSocialist Movement on.balloonS :different colours, with World SocialistMovement.

p s :Tee shirts 7.00 each ( s s z w

g ). Mugs 5.00 each. Pens0.50 each. Baseball caps 5.00 each.Balloons15p each.p s g k g g 2.50 for the rst 10 and then 1.50for subsequent 10 worths or partthereof. Please send cheque or postalorder (no cash) made payable to SPGBSW Regional Branch, c/o VeronicaClanchy, FAO: South West RegionalBranch, 42 Winifred Road, Poole, Dor -set. BH15 3PU. Any queries, pleasephone 01202 569826. Please includeown phone number or other contactdetails.

EricFromm

onmodernlife



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The advance

of capitalism

THE AdVANCE of capitalism throughout Europe proveto be a isaster to all the ol institutions of feu alism.

The feu al lan lor was isplace by a capitalist one.

The once all-powerful lan owners were now to be rivallefor power by the merchants an in ustrialists of mo erncapitalism. In a series of epoch making changes in Britain

we ha the Enclosure Acts an the Highlan Clearances.In many places centuries ol villages were replace bysheep enclosures as agricultural labourers were forceinto the growing towns an cities of capitalism to seek apitiful existence. Its what Marx escribe in Capital in1867 as the so-calle primitive accumulation. As he soaptly put it: The expropriation of the agricultural pro uc -er, of the peasant, from the soil, is the basis of the wholeprocess. It is still going on in parts of the worl .

pr m v ccumu nA recent Channel 4 programme entitle Unreported

World, Peru: Blood and Oil epicte the bloo she anmilitary violence that has accompanie the Peruviangovernments ecision to auction off large parts of theAmazon countrysi e that has been use for thousan s of

years by the in igenous people. For the rst time isolatein igenous groups are uniting to ght the governmentsplans to auction off 75% of the Amazon - which accountsfor nearly two thir s of the countrys territory - to oil, gasan mining companies. ... These woul allow companiesto bypass in igenous communities to obtain permits forexploration an extraction of natural resources, loggingan the buil ing of hy roelectric ams. ( Times , 9 Octo -ber).

In another part of the Amazon region capitalisms lust

for pro t was carrie to an even more awful extreme thecomplete estruction of the Akuntsu people. A once prougroup of several hun re now have only ve survivors.Much of the Akuntsus story is for obvious reasons un ocumente . For millennia, they live in obscurity,eep in the rainforest of Ron onia state, a remote regionof western Brazil near the Bolivian bor er. They hunte

wil pig, agoutis an tapir, an ha small gar ens in theirvillages, where they woul grow manioc (or cassava) ancorn. Then, in the 1980s, their eath warrant was ef -fectively signe : farmers an loggers were invite to beginexploring the region, cutting roa s eep into the forest,an turning the once ver ant

wil erness into lucrative soyael s an cattle

ranches. ... The only way to prevent the government n -ing out about this in igenous community was to wipethem off the map. At some point, believe to be aroun

1990, scores of Akuntsu were massacre at a site roughlyve hours rive from the town of Vilhena. Only sevenmembers of the tribe escape , retreating eeper into the

wil erness to survive. ( Independent , 13 October)

Ru h m The recent spee -up of the evelopment of capitalism

insi e China has also le to even more misery for the working population of that part of the worl . In an effortto compete with more establishe in ustrial nations theChinese owning class have ruthlessly swept asi e smallpeasant-like pro uction for the mass pro uction of mo -ern capitalism. The resultant isplacing of labourers anthe mammoth increase in water an air pollution has leto a near catastrophe of unimaginable proportions

The Worl Bank recently estimate that China has ex -perience an annual in ustrial growth of 10 percent overthe last 25 years, an reckone the number of eathsfrom pollution alone in 2007 as 760,000. To grasp aninkling of this social isaster it is probably better to lookat two local horror stories than quote mere statistics.

The resi ents of Shuangqiao village say that theirhomes are now nothing but places in which to wait foreath. In the pa y el s surroun ing this small com -munity in Hunan province, southern China, the rice isneglecte an strewn with wee s. The vegetable plotsstan empty, strippe of the green beans an cabbagesthat were grown as cash crops. Un erfoot, the earth hasbeen poisone to a epth of 20cm (8in). The water in the

wells is un rinkable. Trage ies like this the legacy of Chinas rush to get rich are all too common. Yester aymore than 600 chil ren in Shaanxi province were founto be suffering from lea poisoning cause by a nearbylea an zinc smelter. The plight of Shuangqiao, how -ever where three people have ie an 509 are sick frompoisoning by the heavy metals ca mium an in ium,pro uce by a nearby factory, has rawn wi e-spreaattention since resi ents took to the internet to air theirgrievances. ( Times , 15 August)

What lies behin this seemingly callous action by theowning class on their own national working population? It

cannot be mere coinci ence that the price of in iumsoare from $600 (360) a kilogram in 2003 to

$1,000 by 2006. China now meets 30 per cent of worl eman an at its peak the Xianghe fac -

tory pro uce 300 kg of in ium a month. Capi -talism is an insatiable monster as far as pro tsare concerne . Human misery is of no concern

where the pro t motive reigns supreme.One farmers plight summe up the hopeless -ness of the situation when he was tol by

of cials that his lan woul be unusablefor 60 years but that he coul grow

non-e ible crops such as cotton ortrees to clean the soil. Farmer Yang

has aban one hope, Its the chil -ren, the chil ren, he lamente .We want our chil ren to have a

future. We have to leave.RD

Socialist Standard December 20096



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Contact Details

capitaliSt paradoXScientists and development experts across the globe are racing to increasefood production by 50 percent over the next two decades to feed the worldsgrowing population, yet many doubt their chances despite a broad consensusthat enough land, water and expertise exist. The number of hungry peoplein the world rose to 1.02 billion this year, or nearly one in seven people,

according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, despite a12-year concentrated effort to cut the number. The global nancial recessionadded at least 100 million people by depriving them of the means to buyenough food, but the numbers were inching up even before the crisis, theUnited Nations noted in a report last week. The way we manage the globalagriculture and food security system doesnt work, said Kostas G. Stamoulis,a senior economist at the organization. There is this paradox of increasingglobal food production, even in developing countries, yet there is hunger.(New York Times , 22 October)

all riGht for Some As workers up and down the UK sat at home last week worrying aboutwhether they would still have a job in a months time, a raucous crowd of hedge fund managers and investment bankers at the Whisky Mist nightclubin Mayfair pulled yet more vodka out of their huge ice bucket and called for the waiter to bring another bottle of Dom Perignon, served with a sparkler....In London nightspots last week, the Citys nest were spending with aswagger. ...As City workers once again prepare for corporate excess, andinvestment banks such as Goldman Sachs get ready to pay record bonuses,new bars, restaurants and nightclubs are springing up around the of cetower blocks in the City and Canary Wharf to feed demand. ( Observer , 1November)

druG puSherS pay off Could you imagine how much moneyyou would have to have to be able tospend $609,000 a day? What wouldyou expect to receive for that amount of money? Who has that kind of money tospend, especially during a recession?According to the latest issue of Timemagazine, in the rst 6 months of thisyear, the pharmaceutical industry spentabout $609,000 a day to in uencelawmakers. Can you imagine thenancial payoff they must expect to getto be able to spend that kind of money.This does not include all the money theyspend on advertising as well. The drugindustry has 1,228 registered lobbyists.This equals 2.3 lobbyists for everymember of congress. Obviously, the

pharmaceutical industry does not wantto be left out of the current healthcarereform debate and are willing to payhandsomely to make sure they arent.The return on that investment hasalready been considerable. As druglobbyist Jim Greenwood says, wevedone very well. ( Dr Brians Blog , 26October)



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In the wake of the horri c events of the day, his captainis cool. He walks up to Massey and asks; Are youdoing all right, Staff Sergeant? Massey responds: No,sir. I am not doing O.K. Today was a bad day. We killed

a lot of innocent civilians.Fully aware of the civilian carnage, his captain asserts:No, today was a good day. Relatives wailing,cars destroyed, blood all over the ground, Marinescelebrating, civilians dead, and it was good day!:

:// . /58j2 g

Even as the nancial system collapsed last year, andmillions of investors lost billions of dollars, one unlikelyinvestor was racking up historic pro ts: John Paulson,a hedge-fund manager in New York. His rm made$20 billion between 2007 and early 2009 by bettingagainst the housing market and big nancial companies.Mr. Paulsons personal cut would amount to nearly $4billion, or more than $10 million a day. That was morethan the 2007 earnings of J.K. Rowling, Oprah Winfreyand Tiger Woods combined:

:// . / s w 2

Sixteen workers are killed a day in the United Statesbecause of reckless negligence on the part of their employers. Under existing laws, these employers geta slap on the wrist, or walk away scot-free. Meanwhile,workers who blow the whistle face threats andretaliation at the workplace:

:// . / 3 q

Its ruler re-named the days of the week after himself and his mother. Opera, ballet and the circus are

banned. To get a driving licence, citizens must sit anexam on the dead leaders autobiography. Welcome toTurkmenistan:

:// . / x 6 v

When veterans die -- from lack of health insurance Morethan 1.5 million vets dont have it, and 2,200 vets dieevery year because of it :

:// . / 3 g

..We suggest that it will be pretty much like thisin socialist society. Although it will be global asopposed to tribal, people will still live in small localisedcommunities.. But some people I imagine will choose a

clean, green high-rise city lifestyle instead::// . / gg6

Why are so many Americans now toying with socialism,in a country that created the most successful freemarket economic system in history and spent half of thelast century ghting the heresy of Marxs socialism?

:// . / 76

Americans are saying that with their planes they cansee an egg 18 kilometers away, so why cant they seethe Taliban? ABDULLAH WASAY, an Afghan pharma -cist:

:// . / 46 q8

t s s n p z e sEvery year the Bank of Swe en awar s a prize to some

economist, often calle the Nobel Prize for Economicseven though it wasnt establishe by the ol merchant of eath himself. It has in fact only been going since 1968.Usually the prize goes to some obscure economist for

work on some obscure aspect of the market economy.Sometimes it goes to a big name such as the KeynesianPaul Samuelson (1970) or the Monetarist MiltonFrie man (1976). Even the ma marketeer Baron vonHayek got one, in 1974.

Very occasionally it goes to someone who has onesome interesting work, as when in 1998 it went toAmartya Sen who ha shown that famines were causeby a collapse in legal access to foo (via money or irectpro uction) an not by any actual shortage of foo oroverpopulation. This year, too, it has gone to someone

whose work soun s interesting Elinor Ostrom whose

1990 book Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action refute the so-calleTrage y of the Commons parable that is often use totry to show that socialism woul nt work.

In 1968 an American biologist Garrett Har in conceiveof a parable to explain why, in his view, commonownership was no solution to the environmental crisisan why in fact it woul only make matters worse. CalleThe Trage y of the Commons, his parable went likethis: assume a pasture to which all her smen have freeaccess to graze their cattle; in these circumstances eachher sman woul try to keep as many cattle as possible onthe commons an , in the en , its carrying capacity woulbe excee e , resulting in environmental egra ation.

Har ins parable was completely unhistorical. Wherevercommons have existe there also existe rules governingtheir use, sometimes in the form of tra itions, sometimesin the form of arrangements for ecision-making incommon, which preclu e such overgrazing an otherthreats to the long-term sustainability of the system.

One of the conclusions that governments rew fromHar ins armchair theorising was that in existing cases

where pro ucers ha rights of access to a common-pool resource the solution was either to privatise theresource or to subject the pro ucers to outsi e controlvia quotas, nes an other restrictions. Ostrom took thetrouble to stu y various common property arrangementssome of which ha laste for centuries, inclu ing grazingpastures in Switzerlan , forests in Japan, an irrigationsystems in Spain an the Philippines.

Accor ing to The Times (13 October),Base on numerous stu ies of user-manage sh

stocks, pastures, woo s, lakes an groun water basins,she asserts that resource users frequently evelopsophisticate mechanisms for ecision-making an ruleenforcement to han le con icts of interest.

In other wor s, common ownership i not necessarilyhave to lea to resource epletion as pre icte byHar in an trumpete by opponents of socialism. Thecases Ostrom examine were not socialism as thecommon owners were private pro ucers. In socialism thepro ucers, the imme iate users of the common resources,

woul not be trying to make an in epen ent livingfor themselves but woul be carrying out a particularfunction on behalf of the community in a social context

where the aim of pro uction woul be to satisfy nee s ona sustainable basis. But the rules they woul raw upfor the use of the grazing lan , forests, shing groun san the like woul be similar to those in the cases shestu ie .



10/24


p aying fuel bills can be har at the best of timesbut you are twice as likely to fall into fuel povertyif youve recently been treate for cancer, accor -ing to new research from Macmillan Cancer Support.Following iagnosis, three-quarters of cancer patients

in active treatment nee to use their heating more, yetthose un er 60 o not qualify for any help to pay for it.Fuel poverty having to spen more than 10 percent of

your income on heating is a relatively new phenomenonthat is beginning to grip Britain faster than the sprea of swine u an serves as the col remin er that we still livein a society that if you ont have the ability to pay you go

without. The true extent of such har ship an poverty in Britain

an its impact is conveniently bypasse an generallyignore by mainstream politicians who have more topeevishly whinge about when it comes to their ownexpenses. As we come to almost the en of this the rsteca e of the 21 t century its as if the han s on the clockof time have been turne backwar s. If it wasnt for theconstant sight of all manner of technologys a vancementfrom transport to the smallest iPo s, cyberspace an theinternet you woul not be wrong to conclu e that some

things change but much, very much just stays the same,as Im constantly remin e when I visit an spen time

with my many frien s who live their lives out an on thestreets of Lon on, the capital city in this the fth richestnation in the worl .

H m The people that I speak of are the visible homeless that

no one seems to see. Their numbers are har to placea nger on, they live in hostels, squats an a growingnumber sleep rough on our streets. Keeping warm in

winter is a battle wage every year by the rough sleeperin his or her skip, but truth is every season brings itsproblems when youre force to share the out oor life

with the bir s, urban foxes an city rats.A great many of my frien s on the street live an rely

solely upon street han outs an ay centres for foo ,laun ry an bathing facilities. Many refuse to claimentitle bene ts, preferring not to be a part of a welfaresystem that incessantly strong-arms the unemploye intotaking low pai employment with the use of sanctionsan penalties. This is in complete contrast to whatRichar Bacon, a Tory MP on the committee which acts

Down andout

inMayfair We still live in a society that

if you dont have the ability to pay you goes without.



11/24


as a watch og over public spen ing, sai :The department for Work an Pensions oes not know

how many people are out of work by choice, rather thanby chance. Properly targete help must be put in place forthose who want to work. Only then will the Governmentbe able to ush out the shirkers who are sticking up twongers at har -working families an treating the bene tsystem like a cash machine. (www. ailymail.co.uk/news/article-512754/Britains-bene ts-generation-State-han outs-way-life-million.html)

How can anyone not be move by the spectacle anlines of men an women who gather every night inLon ons Lincoln Inn Feli s for a meal provi e by theHari Khrisnas r a Ja aicanChristian Church. On someoccasions Ive counte up tothree hun re people whoarrive hours in a vance withall their worl ly possessionsramme in to rucksacks ancarrier bags, sleeping bags antheir win -up ra io. This is no easy life. The streets arefraught with anger for many homeless people; over the

last few years people living on the streets have becomemore vulnerable to violence an attack; this threatcan be from other street users an from those who areintoxicate through alcohol an /or rugs.

Rough sleepers are 13 times more likely to experiencecrime an 47 times likely to be the victim of theft. Crime,an the perception of crime, can play a major role in theecisions of rough sleepers in not only where they sleepbut also where they take part in aytime activities. Manyrough sleepers avoi anger an stay clear of violence byusing the Lon on night bus service to get some rest, asone frien tol me: Youtake the longest route sayto Heathrow Airport anback that kills 4 hoursan before you know it itsmorning. Female roughsleepers are particularlyvulnerable to physicalattack an abuse, an toprotect themselves theyten to be amongst themost hi en.

Rough sleepers aremet with a mixture of emotions from the generalpublic ranging from pityan support to anger anistrust. But one thing

almost goes unaske anthats why are people,fellow human beings living,existing on our rich streets; streets that are not pave

with gol .Lon on has seen a big increase in the number of

migrant workers left homeless an estitute in the city, without access to bene ts or housing help. The effectsof the economic ownturn, as well as a legal blockpreventing migrants from certain countries claimingbene ts, has meant increase numbers of rough sleepersin the city from eastern European countries.

Every year an of cial hea count of rough sleepers within Westminster is carrie out an recor e forof cial purposes. In recent years allegations of tacticsesigne to re uce the gure have been ma e. TheSimon Community, an organisation that works anlives with the homeless on the streets, un ertook its

own street hea count at the en of October, an foun247 people sleeping rough in the City of Westminster,almost 100 more than of cial gures now state. TheSimon Community along with some rough sleepers haveclaime that iversionary tactics were put in place aysbefore the street count took place. A number of knownrough sleepers were offere travel warrants by Policean community of cers, in an attempt to transfer themout of the area. In a BBC report on the issue of travel

warrants being han e out, the Metropolitan Policeenie the allegation that they were shifting people out of the area, saying that they regularly issue travel warrantsfor homeless people, particularly uring the winter

months. Allegationshave also been ma ethat local authoritiesexerte harsh measuresagainst homeless people,accor ing to the SimonCommunity. Theyreceive information

about a group of homeless people being physically moveout of the Victoria Street area by Police. Similarly, there

are accusations of oorways use to be own in werehose by cleaners to make them unusable. There are claims that charities were also instructe to

make be s available in their hostels ahea of the count,an emergency accommo ation was opene up on the

week the count took place.

R n r nm nduring the summer the BBC screene a very ifferent

type of reality television; this involve celebrities who were aske to partake in the programme Famous, Rich

& Homeless. This TVocumentary, escribeas thought-provoking,recruite ve famousvolunteers who wereaske to experiencethe life of a homelessperson on the streets of Lon on for a few ays(ten) uring the winterof 2008. When I sayfamous, what I meanby that is householnames rawn from theentertainment an me iain ustry. The Marquessof Blan for , the One

Show s Har eep Singh

Kholi, journalist RosieBoycott, former CoronationStreet actor Bruce Jones

an tennis commentator Annabel Croft all swappe theirlavish privilege lifestyles, their fame an fortune for atime; for a worl of soup runs an hostels.

They were helpe an manoeuvre throughout byBig Issue foun er John A Bir an Craig Last, a former

youth worker for the charity Centrepoint. Having watchethe show myself, I came away thinking that this typeof reality entertainment achieves nothing more thanaccepting an approving that the aily struggle for lifesexistence at the bottom of the pile is a normal part of thestructure of society. But the best response to the showcame from a homeless person writing in the letters pageof Pavement, the free monthly magazine pro uce forLon ons homeless. They sai :

I foun it quite ironic that Famous, Rich an

s s v s v s s w s w s

k

New gures show there was a 15% rise in the overall number of rough sleepers in London in the last year - and the equivalent of ve

new rough sleepers on Londons streets every day (www.mungos.org)



12/24


Homeless was shown on the BBC.I spent seven months living roughon Lon ons streets, often at AllSouls Church in Portlan Place.Having crashe there for severalmonths, rough sleeping with thefull knowle ge an permissionof the church authorities, I was

woken one night an move onby a couple of Westminster policeof cers. When I enquire about theinci ent at the church reception thefollowing morning, I was informe bya staffer that the allege complaintha not been lo ge by the churchauthorities but by BBC securitystaff at Broa casting House, irectlyacross the roa , no oubt becausethey were irritate by having toconstantly step over car boar boxes

whilst lming fearless, har -hittingocumentaries about the plight of Lon ons homeless.

em h mAbout the same time as these

programmes were broa cast,The Wall Street Journal (15 July)reporte that in the Lon on Boroughof Westminster, where Mayfair islocate , homes can cost up to 50million. Yet Westminster is fthamong Lon ons 33 boroughs in thenumber of unoccupie properties. In2008, 1,737 homes ha been vacantfor six months or more, the thirhighest number among all Lon onboroughs, accor ing to the EmptyHomes Agency, a non-pro t groupthat seeks to put empty homes backinto use.

Westminster Council have placeaccor ing to its website (at the timeof writing) 3,000 homeless familiesinto temporary accommo ation.Many have been exporte to thepoorer boroughs of East Lon onbecause they claim there are notenough temporary in Westminster.

The high concentration of run own, empty homes is strikingfor a posh Mayfair, with its ornately

gate manses. The hub of aristocraticsociety before Worl War II, Mayfairsmo ern- ay image is emonstrateby its prominent place on the BritishMonopoly boar .

Mayfairs homeowners arent ownon their luck, far from it . Rather,their properties serve as investmentsfor owners who pay the bills tokeep them empty something theneighbours an council object to

when the homes fall into isrepair.Many owners ecline to rent thehomes ue to local council tax rules,

with tax on properties at a lower rateif they are empty an unfurnishe ,

which is a loophole that helps thelthy rich. As the number of homes

now price at more than 1m hasfallen by a thir uring the past two

years the problems surroun ing theaban onment of posh homes may get

worse.

The whole business of emptyhomes came to light last winter whena group of young squatters occupie

two 20 million homes on Park Laneoverlooking Hy e Park. Before thesquatters settle in, the homes habeen empty for seven years. duringthat time, the Council ha trie threetimes to contact their British VirginIslan s-base property owners: ReLine Lt . an Perfectil Lt . Followingtwo years of silence, the property

owners surface once newspaperreports oute the squatters. Theresult of such me ia reports hasmeant that wealthy homeownershave turne to private securityrms to protect their empty Lon onproperties from squatters at a cost of up 2,600 a week while accor ing tothe Empty Homes Agency there aremore than 80,000 empty propertiesin Lon on ( Evening Standard, 11November). In the recession this isone business that may prove to bevery lucrative as a growing number

of homes are bought by foreigninvestors who want a secure assetbut continue to live elsewhere.

In our aily press we rea muchabout the housing problem, aboutlost homes repossesse by thebanks an the so-calle housingshortage, with thousan s stran ean languishing for years on thecouncil housing waiting list or simplyhel hostage to the private lan lor ,the cry goes out for more affor ablehomes or a propose programme of public works that embraces housebuil ing as the esire solution,pe le by those who still offer therie -out ol g leaf of faile reform.Over a hun re years ago Fre erickEngels wrote in the Housing Question : This shortage is notsomething peculiar to the present;it is not even one of the sufferingspeculiar to the mo ern proletariatin contra istinction to all earlieroppresse classes. On the contrary,all oppresse classes in all perio ssuffere more or less uniformly fromit.

An then Engels gave an answer to

this age ol problem. He sai , an Irepeat, to en the housing shortagethere is only one means: to abolishaltogether the exploitation anoppression of the working class bythe ruling class.Nl

A female rough sleeper - particularly vulnerable to physical attack and abuse

l J 2010Standard

Because of the Christmas and NewYear holiday, the Socialist Standard for

January, 2010, will be later than usual.

London mayor Boris Johnson examinesthe housing problem



13/24


its of cial! Now more than onebillion people are hungry an inesperate nee of foo ai accor -ing to the Worl Foo Programme.

To meet this nee $6.7 billion willbe require this year alone (of whichless than half has been raise so far).$6.7 billion equates to less than 0.01percent of that heape on the nee ybanks an corporations uring therecent an ongoing nancial crisis. But help is at han , at least forAfricas hungry millions, in the formof a New Green Revolution courtesyof the Bill an Melin a Gates Foun -ation. Or is it? Accor ing to RajPatel, Eric Holt-Gimenez an AnnieShattuck in En ing Africas Hun -g r ( The Nation , September 21), theconventional wis om is wrong. Foooutput per person is as high as it hasever been, suggesting that hungerisnt a problem of pro uction somuch as one of istribution. Aleake internal strategy ocu -ment statement from the Gates

Foun ation state , over timethis (strategy) will require someegree of mobility an a lowerpercentage of total employmentinvolve in irect agriculturalpro uction. The foun ationclaims that peasants willhea for the citiesbecause thereare a lot of them

who ont wantto be farmersan peoplemake their ownchoices. Thetranslation fromNewspeak rea slike this: agribusi -ness will expanan rive morepeasant farmersfrom the lan , is -enfranchising theman forcing themto seek employ -ment elsewherefor economicreasons.

Outlining proposals whichare largely in opposition to theevelopment strategies of the Gatesfoun ation is the InternationalAssessment of Agricultural Sciencean Technology for development(IAASTd) whose 2500 page report

was complete after 400 scientistsspent four years researching thesubject. They conclu e that thepresent system of foo pro uctionan the way foo is tra e roun the

worl has le to a highly unequalistribution of bene ts an seriousa verse ecological effects an wasnow contributing to climate change.Science an technology shoul betargete towar s raising yiel s butalso protecting soils, waters an

forests. Robert Watson,irector of the IAASTd

an chief scientist atthe UK departmentfor Environment,Foo an RuralAffairs sai ,

Business as usual will hurt the poor. It will not work. Moreof their conclusionsfoun that there

was little role for GMfoo s as it is practise

now, that theshort answer

to whethertran g niccrops canfee the

worl is noan thatt gl bal

rush tobiofuels was

not sustainable. One response tothis report from a group of eightinternational environmental anconsumer groups was, this is asobering account of the failure of in ustrial farming. Small-scalefarmers an ecological metho sprovi e the way forwar to avertthe current foo crisis an meet thenee s of communities.

Some of the negative aspects anresults of current farming practices

wi ely available in the public omainan cite in this internationalgroups response inclu e bio-energy,bio-technology, climate change antra e an markets. One argumentcoul be that some uses of bio-energy an some applications of bio-technology may be useful, howevertra e an markets only take intoconsi eration pro t an , therefore,climate change will continueunabate .

The big question is how to movefrom a mo el in which everyone

recognises the pro t imperative whether they love it or hate it;pro t on a large scale or small,pro t from agribusiness or marketstall, from pure accumulation tosimple survival, from the gree yto the nee y, pro t which favoursminority over majority in all areas.Everyone recognises it but far fewerquestion the possibility, the sense,the imperative of implementing aifferent mo el, not a few reformshere an there to give temporary helpto this sector or that, but one whichtakes into consi eration the nee s,aspirations, i eas an i eals of themany rather than the few.

Who pro uces the foo anyway?Farmers o. An what are farmerssaying about their position, as

mi lemen between consumersan pro teers? La Via Campesinais a peasants internationalmovement, politically pluralistan non-aligne , in 56 countriesacross 5 continents which came

about in response to the globaloffensive against the countrysi e.

Farmers from North an South

unite to confront agribusiness whose in ustrialisation remove thelink of consumer to farmer. More

Socialist Standard December 200 9

Food security for all the people of the world will only be possiblewhen the pro t motive is taken out of food supply.



14/24


than simply trying to efen their economic intereststhey a vocate the right of people to e ne their ownagricultural an foo policy. Their list of eman sinclu es safe, nutritious foo in suf cient quantity forall, opposition to WTO, Worl Bank an IMF policies,opposition to isplacement an urbanisation of small farmers an guarantee input into formulatingagricultural policies.

Farmers aroun the worl tell of plummeting incomes

an higher overhea s in both rich an poor worl , of farm closures, bankruptcies an suici es whilst nancialpages boast of bigger an better pro ts for the in ustrialagricultural corporations. Farmers seek a solution whichallows them to continue farming with input an policiesemanating from them, the pro ucers, not to the ictatesof large corporations. This aim is un erstan able but,generally what they eman is increase subsi ies ora watering- own of aggressive policies an tra e eals,

a re ressing of their situationint n

which is moreeconomically

viable anfavourable tothem.

Who oesthe consumingan what arethey saying?dave Murphy,foun er of Foodemocracy Now!speaks for many

when he writesthat people arer ali ing v r tlast 60 years thatthe ownership of our foo supply

has been consoli ate into the han s of a few powerfulmultinational corporations, that the abun ance of cheap foo comes at a high cost to society, to in ivi ualrights an to our collective future. The in ustrialisationof foo in America has ha fun amental health,environmental an economic consequences that canno longer be ignore . By placing a high value on cheapfoo Americans have unwittingly allowe corporateagribusiness to outsource the true cost of pro uctiononto society. The result has been the pollution of our nations rivers an streams, amage to citizens health an a severe break own in our nations rural

communities where small farmers have been pushe off the lan .Foo pro uction shoul be about meeting the self-

e ne nee s of people, not a pro t-motivate venturefor corporations, agribusinesses an their boar s ansharehol ers. Foo security is about meeting the ietarynee s of all people, at all times, enabling them to livea healthy life an not to be constantly in fear of thevagaries of the market. Only by a ressing the monetaryelement, by coming to terms with the absolute necessityof removing it an any pro t motive from the foo supply

will farmers, consumers an all the peoples of the worlhave the security of knowing that suf cient foo isavailable to all, at all t imes an in all situations. Foosecurity for all the worl s citizens is just not possible ina capitalist system. Prove me otherwise. JaNet sURMaN

How I got to bea socialist I came to know about mine and thine but always preferred our.

AT THE age of 5 I had never heard the word socialist, butsomething happened on my rst day at school that suggestedI was one. My mother sent me off with a packed lunch. Howwas your lunch? she asked. I liked the sandwich but I have thebanana to Greta. Why on earth did you do that? It was your banana. Puzzled, I said that she had asked for it, so her needmust have been greater than mine. After that episode I came toknow about mine and thine, but always preferred our.

I rst met the Socialist Party at its platform at SpeakersCorner, Hyde Park. The socialist message was powerful stuff,erudite but put across in a controversial way. It was 1945, theyear the war ended and Labour won the election. It did so ona programme of reforms, and because of a widespread feeling

that it was time for a change, of administration but not of thesystem.I remember questioning a Labour candidate at the 1950

election about his attitude to socialism. Anticipating Sir Humphrey waf e by a couple of decades, the candidate saidsomething like: Socialism? Yes, in the fullness of time, whenconditions are ripe, at the appropriate moment, all thingsconsideredbut rst we must elect a Labour government.

There were two main things that attracted me to what theSocialist Partyor the SPGB as it was then widely knownwassaying. One was that it presented incontrovertible evidencethat the Labour Party, in or out of power, supported capitalismin more or less the same way that the Conservative Party did.The other was that capitalism, with all its problems of inequality,boom and bust, war, the priority of pro t over need is notinevitable. It can be replaced by a better systemsocialismwhen a majority of people decide to do so.

Revolution isnt just a matter of destroying capitalismthenew system has to be put in its place. This poses a problemfor the Socialist Party. Socialism isnt something that can bepromised to be introduced after the next election. All the other parties dont want electors to understand and want revolutionarychangethey offer only minor revisions of the same basicsystem and insist that if you dont choose one of them youare wasting your vote. You are not. You dont have to choosethe least of two or more evils. You can take the long view andchoose to help build the kind of world you really want.

My introduction to socialist ideas included trying to get to gripswith the writings of classic socialists. Frankly, I found much of

Marx hard going, though I liked his inspirational From eachaccording to his ability, to each according to his needs (despiteits sexist language).

For me the outstanding socialist book was and is WilliamMorriss News from Nowhere . I dont agree with everything in it.Im no fan of 14th-century costume, and I certainly dont think hisforecast of How the change came is remotely likely (a Trafalgar Square massacre, a Committee of Public Safety, general strike,etc.).

However, Nowhere is of great value in painting a picture of what the future can be in terms of how people treat and relateto each other. Today there is giving and taking, but only withinour economic and political system based on buying and selling.Morris shows how changing that system to socialism will extendthe scope of giving and taking from family and small-group life tosociety as a whole.Stan parKer



15/24


L ook aroun you at the worl you live in. You maylive in a scenic but esperately ull village, or in a

lively but overcrow e city. You travel to your work, which is a mixture of routine an interest, an you enjoya rink an a laugh with your work colleagues. Or youstay at home, concentrating on housework an chil care.Or you wish you coul n a job but there are far morepeople searching for work than there are jobs. Most of thetime you have enough money to keep your hea above

water an take a holi ay once a year. But you knowthat your job is not all that secure, an a couple of yourneighbours have been sacke in the last few months, as aresult of the recession, an you realise that the same fatemight await you or your partner.

You rea the paper an watch the TV news, so youare well aware of the problems in the outsi e worl . Infact, there seems to be little other than problems, fromcompanies going bust an workers being lai off, to warsan riots an oo s an electoral chicanery. At least,

you think to yourself, its not as ba here as it is there

(where there might be any number of countries). Youknow that things are ba , but youre too busy with work

an family to o much about it, an in any case you ontreally have much i ea as to what can be one. Putting aifferent political party in power oesnt appear to makemuch ifference, an maybe none at all. Some of thepeople you work with blame immigrants, or Muslims, orscroungers, or the unions, but you appreciate that theseare just scapegoats, latche on to by those who want asimple x but have no real clue whats going on.

One weeken you have the chance to re ect a bit on your life, an to consi er whats wrong with the worl . There are many goo things in your life, especially yourpartner an the rest of your family, an you value yourfrien s. Yet youre worrie about your future: will you stillhave a job in ve or ten years time, will you still be ableto affor a holi ay an new clothes an furniture, might

you even lose your home if things really take a turn forthe worse? The internet, cheap ights, high- e nition TV,these are all very well, but they arent really what make

t W a y

Someone employs you, and you work for them, and they control a big part of your waking hours.



16/24


someone happy, because you just ont feel in control of your life an your future.

Then you start to look at things in a wi er perspective.You come to realise that most people manage to battlethrough the ay, to get through their ull jobs an accept

what their boss says while silently telling him or her toget lost. They look forwar to their two weeks holi ayan their time off at Christmas, in the knowle ge that jobcuts an a pay freeze may be roun the corner. You soonaccept that most people are unhappy with a great ealabout their lives, an you start to won er why this mightbe.

First you think about work an employment, an youiscover that these arent quite the same. You enjoy thevoluntary work you o at a local sports club, an get alot of satisfaction from it, yet you ont feel the same wayabout the job that brings in your wages. Thats basically

what it is, a job to earn money. Once you ha visions of a worthwhile career, but now you see that it just means

working ever har er an accepting more responsibilityan never truly being in charge of your work time. Othersmay have it worse in jobs that are physically unpleasantan even angerous but yours is unrewar ing except

in nancial terms, an even the pay isnt as goo as you were promise . Someone employs you, an you work for them, an they control so much of your waking hours.Its not so much your manager as the big boss an othersharehol ers who own the company an take the pro ts.

They, you eci e, are the people who bene t from yourlabours.

Then you start thinking about your time outsi ethe hours of work, where you spen the money youve

worke so har for. Youre still paying off your mortgagean it takes a big chunk of your monthly cheque, but atleast you arent in negative equity or about to have yourhome repossesse . It woul only take a month or two of unemployment, though, to leave you an your family ina very if cult situation. You become aware, too, thatmany people have real housing problems: their placeis overcrow e or unsanitary, or they are homeless orsleeping on a frien s sofa. But on your journey into work

you see buil ing sites that have close own, as there isno way the houses an ats will be sol in the recession.An you realise that there is something rastically wrong

when people are homeless or living in slums yet others who coul be buil ing homes for them are on the ole. The i ea of pro t rears its hea again, an you see thathouses an ats are built to make a pro t for someone,rather than to provi e places to live.

An pro ts seem to govern many other areas of lifetoo. Cheap foo at the supermarket is there not because

anyone wants to buy it but because thats all some canaffor to buy an cheap stuff is the only way that a pro tcan be ma e by selling to the poorest. A light begins togo on in your hea , an you can see that much of whatis pro uce is poor quality, inten e to be sol cheaplyan still bring in a pro t, so its often angerous as wellas sho y.

Then you start to won er about who bene ts from thepro ts ma e as a result of all this labour an pro uction.

You alrea y know about millionaires an heiresses anthe lan e aristocracy, an now you see that they arethe ones who bene t. With their multi-room mansions,private jets an luxury yachts, they ont suffer from thesame problems that you an your frien s an relationso. You havent quite worke out how they got rich, but

youre sure that it i nt happen through their own har work: nobo y can work that har , an your own parents worke har all their lives an en e up with very little.

An other countries are no ifferent, not in importantrespects anyway. Things vary a bit of course, but thereare still problems of poverty an homelessness, while afew live very nicely, thank you. On your holi ays abroa

youve seen that the same problems as here exist more

or less everywhere. An some parts of the worl are far worse off, with famines an wars an heaven knows what. You arent sure of all the facts, but youve hearthat even famine-stricken countries usually pro uceplenty of foo , its just that the poor cant affor to buy it,so its mostly exporte . An wars often seem to be foughtin areas with rich or potentially rich natural resources,an you won er if thats the real reason for them takingplace.

All in all, you have come to see that the worl isominate by pro t, an that a relatively small number of people, the owners, bene t in terms of wealth an power.

The way things are run, you eci e, nee s to be change .You think about it a bit an , while you ont haveanything like a full-scale plan in your min , you o havesome general i eas about how things shoul be arrange .

There shoul nt be this ivision into the rich aneveryone else, an people shoul not have to be employeby others. It might even be like the sports club where youhelp out: everybo y mucks in an contributes in theirown way, without there being a boss or wages. You stillont have a proper notion of what shoul replace whatexists now, but the more you think about it, the more youbecome convince that some new way of organising the

worl woul be a big step forwar . Then one ay, outsi e your local library, you see

n lling t Socialist Standard paUl BeNNett

t g

We are conditioned toaccept the absurditiesand contradictions that capitalism throws up.

It is possible now to build a world whereevery single human being is adequatelyprovided with the material means of afull and happy life in a truly meaningfuldemocratic society; where there is no suchthing as world hunger; where wars andarmaments no longer exist; where all haveaccess to the knowledge and informationthey desire and where the system of richand poor, the brutal class system thatalienates human beings from one another,is a historical memory.

Actually that statement is not correct.

It is not possible to create such a worldnow because one feature essential inits creation does not exist. In order to

discern the missing element in a worldof such promise it would be useful toexamine the components that would berequired to make a reality of what, fromour present perspective, must seem likea dream world.

First we might look at the physicalrequirements of the world we areconsidering; is there the means, realor potential, to create the enormousquantities of food and other materialsto provide suf ciency for all? To answer that question we must look at how wealth

is produced now and how it would beproduced in the world we are considering.One thing is common to the



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production of wealth in whatever formof society we live in: it is produced fromthe resources of nature by human labour power whether, as in the past, by ahuman hand or, as now or in the future,by the most advanced technologicalmeans. However, the factors thatcurrently determine what is producedand how it is distributed would differ fundamentally in the society we areconsidering from those that obtain today.

c s sWe could not make this point more

graphically than by referring to the currentchapter in the cyclic crisis which our present mode of production has thrownup.

These crises, which cause anintensi cation of poverty throughunemployment and most often therestricting or slashing of vital publicservices, are an inevitable result of thenormal capitalist way of organising theproduction and distribution of wealth. Theterrible effects of these breakdowns inthe productive and distributive process of what is increasingly a globally integratedsystem are usually, as now, world-wide

and, given that the countries affectedare governed by parties right acrossthe political spectrum, from Right to Leftclearly shows that neither national identityor political labelling offers protection fromglobal capitalisms trade cycles.

By looking brie y at the Credit

Crunch the medias sobriquet for thelatest in slumps we can discern whymillions of people have lost their jobs,why political parties are making policiesout of which set of politicians will be leastsavage in cutting social welfare bene tsincluding health care and education.The wealth-producing equation (theprovidence of nature plus human labour power) is the same now as it was three or four years ago when, in capitalist terms,the economy was ourishing. As then,both the human factor and the materialpotential of nature remain available;there is no physical bar to full productionnot only to its previous levels but to thelevels required to provideadequately for everyhuman being on theplanet within the systemwe are contemplatingWhy then is there sucha dramatic slowdownin the production of human needs which,in turn is expressedin massive increasesof unemployment andpoverty within the working class?

l g gThe answer clearly is the motive

currently underpinning the productionof goods and services and that motivearises from the fact of ownership.Legally the great majority of the worlds

population have no right to the food,clothing and shelter they need in order to continue to exist as human beings.That sounds an utterly outrageousstatement to make but it is quite clearlydemonstrated by the fact that the meansof life, the resources of nature, andthe tools of production and distributionare legally owned by a relatively smallminority class of people who generallyenjoy rich lives of wealth and privilegebased on the pro ts they extract fromtheir ownership.

If you lived in an area of the worldwhere death frequently occurs frommalnutrition of lack of necessary

medication you wouldknow that what is saidin the foregoing is true.You would know that thevictims of hunger andpreventable disease arepeople who are unable toget the food or medicinethey desperately needto sustain their lives notbecause the means tosatisfy these needs are

not available but because they do nothave the money to buy them.

In more politically and economicallysophisticated countries such evidenceis less evident. Nevertheless, the thingsthat people need are directly or indirectlythe property of the capitalist class andare released by way of sale with a view topro t. In other words, goods and servicesare produced in the form of commoditiesfor the market and, generally, will notbe produced if a viable market does notexist.

Obviously minority ownership of our means of life, either directly or throughthe state, could not form the basis of the

politically and economically free societymooted at the beginning of this article.To achieve that it is necessary to abolishthe legal framework on which minorityownership of our means of life is based;which means we need to bring about ademocratic social revolution to get controlof the law-making process vested ingovernment.

Achieving control of governmentthroughout the world for the purposeof establishing a system of commonownership in which everyone has thefreedom to contribute their physical andmental skills to the production of the

needs of their society and all have theright to freely avail of their individualneeds will be a monumental task of

t s k w s v s v ss s w g s g s s

s.

l g gj

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Capitalism and wealth for all - the real castle in the air



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political and social organisation. Itsachievement will require a vast andwilling effort in social co-operation onthe part of humanity and yet looked atagainst our collective skills and wisdomit is a relatively simply job alwaysprovided that we have the collective willto bring it about.

That collective will is the single factor we referred to at the commencement of this article; the single prevailing conditionthat stands between us and a worldwhere civilised historywill begin. A worldwithout the greed andsavage competitionthat breeds con ict,alienation and war;a world where our collective energies aredirected to the nurtureof ourselves and our planet. That collectivewill is the politicalconsciousness that willbring about what weclearly de ne as Socialism.

t Most people today do not question

the organisation and value systemsbehind the way we live. From an earlyage we learn that when we needsomething we have to pay for it either directly or indirectlyor else, however

essential it is to our health or happiness,we have to do without it. At an early agewe commence our education, a processorientated towards inculcating the beliefsand values of the world we live in; itsmorality, its in exible system of socialorganisation and how to compete for aplace in the pecking order.

Effectively we are conditioned toaccept the absurdities and contradictionsthat capitalism throws up. In our dailyrelations with one another we can identify

and condemn thosecontradictions but when,as we are now doing, it issuggested that we shouldconsider another way of organising the affairs of humanity the armour of rejection too often comesinto play; the belief thatwe who run the worldfor the capitalists cannotrun a considerably lesscomplicated and rationalalternative world society for

ourselves.The really hard bit is the beginning:

simply considering that it might not be toogood to be true.richard montaGue

f s g Journalist, broa caster an author Libby Purves chosethe ay that the Lon on Evening Standard b ca afree, give-away paper to launch an attack on the wholei ea of people having free access to things. Un er thehea line If the futures worth having, it wont be free,she lai into the internet generation which has grownup believing it can enjoy other peoples har work fornothing. This has got to stop ( Times , 12 October).

We socialists woul say that, on the contrary, if were going to have to pay for everything, the futureis not worth having. The resources exist to ay topro uce enough foo , clothes, housing, transportan health care so that no one on the planet nee s to

starve or be malnourishe , or go without clean water,or live in slums, or not have access to the me icinesan treatment they nee . Society coul go over to theprinciple of from each accor ing to their abilities, toeach accor ing to their nee s, with everybo y havingaccess to what they nee without having to pay inreturn for contributing what they can to the work of pro ucing what is nee e .

This, surely, is a better future than the continueapplication of the opposite principle of cant pay, canthave ? Which means that in some parts of the worlpeople ie from starvation or easily preventable isease,or exist in shanty towns on the outskirts of big cities.An that, all over the worl , most people are epriveof something which woul improve their lives an

which coul easily be provi e . Where we cant buila equate public infrastructures or install anti-pollutiontechnologies because it woul cost too much.

An what is wrong with the internet generationtaking for grante that music, lms, news,photographs, cartoons an carefully researche orcreative prose shoul be available for free? Isnt thisa sign that the money-wages-pro t system that iscapitalism has outlive its usefulness an perhaps alsoa sign of the beginning of a consciousness that it nee sto be replace by a system in which people have freeaccess to what they nee ?

Purves is efen ing her veste interest as a royalty-reaping author. Thats un erstan able as, un ercapitalism, people nee money to live an thats howshe gets hers. It might be thought, though, that as apublic intellectual she be more broa -min e than to

ju ge an economic system by whether or not it ensuresher her chosen source of income.

In plea ing her cause she goes back to the labourtheory of property rst put forwar by John Locke in the17 t century:

Content is not cost free. Writing is work.Musicianship involves cost an labour, art is notinnately free, nor the infrastructure of news reporting.Until foo , clothes, housing an transport are ole outfree, content-makers nee to be pai .

An , accor ing to her, the way to ensure this isthrough intellectual property rights, even if these areif cult, not to say impossible, to enforce in some cases.

But she oes at least conce e that if foo , clothes,housing an transport were free - which will be thecase in socialism - so shoul watching lms or listeningto music or rea ing a book, on the internet. As these

will be too in socialism. The future is free.

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d g S-

W Is any word moreover-used and misunderstood today than socialism?

In the United States, the S-wordappears in almost every other sentence uttered by Republicans,who depict the Democratic Party as

marching or at least creeping towardssocialism.Socialist has replaced liberal in their

vocabulary as an insult to hurl at politicalopponents, while the meaning remainsunchanged as a term to indicate anadvocate of government interventionin production and the socialinfrastructure.

Everything from Keynsianism toCommunism (= state capitalism)falls under this blanket de nition,which means that Republicansmust feel terribly outnumbered bytheir socialist foes. If Republicansdidnt seem to relish that paranoidfeeling, which certainly helps torally the Party faithful, we couldpoint out to them that socialists arein fact a rather rare breed at thispoint in time. Although that wouldalso require explaining how our concept of socialism has nothing incommon with their understandingof the term.

Of course, if the distortion of socialism were limited to the worldof Republican ideologues it wouldhardly matter as their ideas arenot taken all that seriously, evenby themselves. But the fact is thatmany of the supposed proponentsof socialism share that samemistaken view of what socialismmeans.

The controversy between thepro- and anti-socialists is just asterile debate over the extent towhich the government should

intervene in the capitalist economy with neither side advocating or even fathoming a post-capitalist society.

One recent example of how both

sides share a common misassumptionwas a debate on the website of the New York Times regarding the topic: What

is Socialism in 2009? This mouthpiece of the capitalist classsolicited the opinions of a small number of supposed experts,for the most part university professors.

Without exception, these reputable gures shared the notionthat socialism fundamentally concerns an economic system inwhich the government plays a key role in production. Followingthis line of thought, any aspect of society involving governmentintervention, regulation or management can be described associalistic. This allowed those experts to attach that adjective

to everything from public health care and education to highwaysand the armed forces. Stretched to this point, the concept of socialism loses all meaning it is used to describe too muchand ends up elucidating nothing.

Some participants in the on-line debate did try to offer amore essential de nition of socialism as public ownershipand/or control of the major means of production (mines, mills,factories, etc.) for the bene t of the public at large or centraleconomic planning and public ownership of the means of production. But even those more precise de nitions arebasically descriptions of state capitalist systems not any sortof post-capitalist society that exists beyond production for pro t.

None of the debate participants describe socialism asa money-free society where production is democraticallyorganised to meet human needs, displacing todays productionfor the market. Nor did anyone even suggest that the statewould have no room to exist in that class-free society of thefuture.

There are simply no points in common between our conception of socialism and the view of socialism that currentlyprevails and with regard to the role of the state the views arein fact polar opposites.

Some might argue, then, that we should let the reformistsand reactionaries twist around the word socialism to their hearts content, while choosing a different term to describe thenew society we are aiming to realise some word less markedby confusion.

Karl Marx used the word Association to indicate the societyhe envisaged as replacing capitalism. And this term is usefulin terms of emphasizing how the members of that society willfreely enter into production relations with each other to producesocial wealth. One obvious drawback, not to be overlooked,is that it would be rather awkward to describe oneself asAssociator or Associatist.

But even if the World Socialist Movement comes up with theperfect word to replace socialism it would not necessarily bringus any closer to our ultimate goal, for our task as socialists is toconvince our fellow workers that capitalism has got to go andthat there is in fact an alternative. One word alone, no matter how well chosen, cannot accomplish all of that. The key point isthe concept or content of the future society as the solution to thesocial problems we face under capitalism, not the word used toindicate that new mode of production.

It may very well happen that a word other than socialism

emerges out of the movement for the new money-free society.And it would be absurd in that situation to be a word-fetishistwho clings to the word socialism as if it were the principle or concept itself.

But it is also quite possible that the growth of therevolutionary movement will breathe new life into the wordsocialism, freeing it from the connotations it has been burdenedwith by those who cannot see beyond capitalism.

The task is the same in either case: revealing the limits andcontradictions of capitalism and explaining how socialism (or whatever it may one day be called) resolves the problems thatare irresolvable as long as that capitalist system prevails.

It is certainly annoying that the word socialism is almostinvariably misused today, but the current over-use of the termmay bring unexpected results, even encouraging the curious to

begin pondering what a truly post-capitalist society could looklike.michael Schauerte



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Book Reviews

M rk n

Why not socialism? B G. a.C h n. pr nc n Un v r pr ,2009.

This pocket-size

83-page book iseasy to rea anit a y t agr

with some of what the author writes. But itshar to see him ashe no oubt sawhimself (he ie inAugust just before

the book came out): someone whoun erstan s the ifferent betweencapitalism an socialism.

First the positive things in thebook. These mostly centre arounCohens critical remarks aboutsome aspects of capitalism: I giveas little service as I can in exchangefor as much service as I can get: I

want to buy cheap an sell ear.An although he favours marketsocialism he oes recognise howsimilar it is to market capitalism:exchange un er market socialismis no less market exchange than it isun er capitalism.

Now the longer list of thingsto isagree with: it is a familiarsocialist policy to insist on equality

of both income an hours of work.No, that isnt a socialist policy. Insocialism there wont be (money)incomes or insistence that we all

work the same hours.C n clai t at ciali i

infeasible even if people are, orcoul become, in the right culture,suf ciently generous, we o notknow how to harness that generosity:

we o not know how, throughappropriate rules an stimuli, tomake generosity turn the wheels of the economy. In socialism we shalltreat each other as fellow humansnot as commo ities. It has nothingto o with harnessing generosity orturning the wheels of the economy.

Market socialism oes notfully satisfy socialist stan ar s of istributive justice, but it scoresfar better by those stan ar s thanmarket capitalism oes, an istherefore an eminently worthwhileproject, from a socialist point of view. No, it isnt.

To sum up, Cohen writes of Wesocialists. But he shoul really sayWe market socialists who mu y

the water about what socialismmeanssRp

Fu H u

Where the Other Half Lives: Lower Income Housing in a Neoliberal World. s r h G nn, d. p upr 16.99.

Social housing(also knownby varioust r na ,especiallycouncilhousing) hasg n rallybeen aimeat workers onbelow-averageinc ,though its

extent has varie from countryto country. This book stu ies theeffects on social housing of theimplementation of neoliberal policies, which involve the partialismantling of the welfare state anof Keynesian government initiatives.Its particular strength is its coverageof evelopments in a number of countries.

In the UK the 1890 Housing Actma e it easier for local authorities tobuil an manage houses, thoughthese were still expecte to make apro t. A further act of 1919 allowefor governme

Documents

Socialist Standard December 2009